When people mess with the English language...

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iyar

Thu, Feb 24 2022, 3:20 pm

penguin wrote:

One of the best I've seen (sorry if I said this already : )
in Chaim Potok's book, I believe My Name is Asher Lev

for all intensive purposes

there was another one there too in the papers his mother was grading, I believe.

That one made me laugh.
But I must get off this thread. I'm getting nervous trying to converse with bona fide grammar experts.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Feb 24 2022, 4:36 pm

Come on guys, it's not like it's rocket surgery. You're making a hill of beans out of nothing.

Besides, it's the principal of the thing.

PS: For all in tents and porpoises. 🐬

vanillatwilight

Thu, Feb 24 2022, 9:27 pm

youngishbear wrote:

I used to get worked up about these, and I had quite a collection of pet peeves, too.

I've since decided that most people have a story why their English is less than perfect - whether English is their second or third language, they received a less-than-stellar education, they have a learning disability of some sort, or they simply don't have a knack for it and struggle to remember the difference between lie vs. lay the way I was hopeless with the quadratic formula.

And of course, there's nothing quite as humbling as committing some major errors of my own.

The only thing that still gets my goat is when professional communicators mess up.

Our magazines and book publishers need to do better. Advertising agencies should require their work to go through multiple layer of quality control - editing, proofreading - and no, they're not the same thing!

A random person using words weirdly is okay, but not when it's their job to get it right. Of course, mistakes can slip through even after multiple reviews.

https://twitter.com/nycgov/sta.....31648

But if professional communicators would do their jobs right, people would be exposed to better "mentor texts," to borrow an educational term, and hopefully learn by observation. Otherwise, if people continue to get paid to mangle language, there really is no hope.

You are so right, this thread is so judgmental and pretentious. There are many reasons why someone would have less than perfect grammar. In addition the the ones you mentioned I would like to add a child suffering from abuse or neglect cannot concentrate and learn properly in school.

Choirmistress

Fri, Feb 25 2022, 1:33 am

Hi, Iyar.
I found only one error and it was not in grammar but just in punctuation:
There needs to be more of a separation than a comma after BrisketBoss: either a semicolon or a new sentence.
Hope you take that in the light way it is intended.
Seriously, though, folks: The comma and the apostrophe are the two most abused punctuation marks in English.
For more on punctuation, look up the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". Sorry, forget the author's name, and I don't have the book in front of me as I type this.

Choirmistress

Fri, Feb 25 2022, 1:38 am

pause wrote:

Not quite. AFAIK, a malapropism is the usage of a wrong, often similar-sounding, word. There's no rhyme or reason for the mess-up although the malapropism can turn out funny.

Messed up idioms are actually pretty clever wherein both original parts of the new creation actually mean the same thing!

For example, a student who is lively can be described as a live wire, but the messed-up idiom is "lively wire." A coat can cost a bomb, or it can cost an arm and a leg, hence "bomb and leg." And so on.

Aren't they called "mixed metaphors"?

Iymnok

Fri, Feb 25 2022, 2:49 am

For those English fans, please read “Crazy English“, by Richard Lederer.

Choirmistress

Fri, Feb 25 2022, 1:09 pm

Lymnok wrote:

"For those English fans, please read 'Crazy English', by Richard Lederer."

I have a copy somewhere, probably gathering dust in storage. I think he may have authored at least one other similar volume, probably in the same box as above. Could be entitled "Lost Words" or "Lost English". Something along those lines.

Choirmistress

Sun, Feb 27 2022, 5:42 pm

youngishbear is right: professional language users need to do better: those in charge of publications, and especially those in the advertising business. Today's teenagers have learned too many sloppy habits, not only from advertisers who use such abominations as "lite" for "light" or "nite" for "night", but because of cell phone texting and its plethora of space-saving abbreviations: Wr RU? (Ouch.)

Anyway, I have just a few more Loathed Linguistic Lapses to share, and then I will probably leave all of you alone for a while.

Dangling participles: On the bus on the way to school this morning, a cyclist nearly got hit by a car. (Really? How did he manage such a feat if he was on the bus?)
Affect vs. effect: the first can never be used as a noun; the second, as either a noun or a verb. Just be careful how it's used as a verb: to effect something means to put into practice or operation, e.g., such as a change. Easy way to remember: To affect is to have an effect on...
Principal vs. principle: easy rule of thumb for choosing: "principal" has an "a" in it; so does "main", an acceptable synonym; "principle" contains "le", as does a synonym "rule"; hence, "principal principle" means a main rule.
Licence vs. license: there may be regional differences in spelling, but as a Canadian, I have always recognized the "ce" ending to denote a noun, the "se" ending a verb.
Practice vs. practise: See above.
Impact as a supposed verb: NEVER! One can have an impacted wisdom tooth, but what tells you that it is a form of a verb is the stress on the middle syllable. If you mean "affect", "influence", or "have an impact", then use one of those.
Well, that's about all for this round of rants. I may come up with some more in future, but I am done for now.

kenz

Sun, Feb 27 2022, 5:57 pm

hodeez wrote:

My kids say "lottest" instead of "most" and I'm Pretty sure it's just to tick me off.

My kids all went through an “amen’t” phase, as in, “I amen’t going to do that” and simply couldn’t understand why it wasn’t supposed to be “amen’t” for singular use, similar to “aren’t.”Although I did still correct them each time, they kinda had a point.
Edited for clarification.

Choirmistress

Thu, Apr 07 2022, 1:15 pm

Here is the promised handy guide to the proper placement of "only" within a sentence. Hope this works:

It’s “Only” Logical!

Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia University is credited with inventing a sentence to illustrate how a statement can have different meanings depending on the position within the sentence of the word “only”:

“I hit him in the eye yesterday.”

1. “Only I hit him in the eye yesterday.” = “Xavier, Yolanda, and Zoe had nothing to do with it.”

2. “I only hit him in the eye yesterday.” = “I did not slap, sock, punch, or bop him in the eye.”

3. “I hit only him in the eye yesterday.” = “I did not hit Abe, Bob, or Carla.”

4. “I hit him only in the eye yesterday.” = “I did not hit him above, beside, around, or below the eye.”

5. “I hit him in only the eye yesterday.” = “I did not hit him in the jaw, the stomach, the shin, or the knee.”

6. “I hit him in the only eye yesterday.” = “The poor fellow has just the one eye.”

7. “I hit him in the eye only yesterday.” = “It happened within the past 24 hours.”

8. “I hit him in the eye yesterday only.” = “I did not hit him today or two days ago.”

The basic grammatical principle is this: The word “only” must immediately precede the word describing what is being restricted, confined, or limited.

Last edited by Choirmistress on Wed, May 04 2022, 12:34 am; edited 1 time in total

sequoia

Thu, Apr 07 2022, 1:21 pm

John only eats meat in restaurants.

bluebird

Thu, Apr 07 2022, 1:31 pm

This was shared at my work today.

Choirmistress

Thu, Apr 07 2022, 1:34 pm

Good one. Glad he doesn't tenderize it, cook it, or serve it.

chanatron1000

Thu, Apr 07 2022, 1:37 pm

kenz wrote:

Prescriptivists killed "ain't," which was a perfectly good word.

Hadasah

Fri, Apr 08 2022, 4:02 am

Oh, don't get me started...

Your/you're
Then/than
Who's/whose
Loose/lose
Were/we're
Their/they're

And all common misspellings...

Obviously we're all human, and yknow...spellcheck...but sometimes it's like CMON

Hadasah

Fri, Apr 08 2022, 4:09 am

Oh, and how can I forget??
My PET PEEVE:

Mines!!!
How is that even a word?

Do you mean gold/coal/diamond mines??

singleagain

Fri, Apr 08 2022, 6:22 am

Choirmistress

Wed, May 04 2022, 1:20 am

A few more pet peeves:
"Being that/Seeing as (how)..." to mean "In view of [something happening]" or "In view of the fact that..." The first two are NOT proper English and are unacceptable in formal prose.
Excuse the repetition if I mentioned this one earlier, but "practice" and "practise" have the same noun vs. verb rule as "licence" vs. "license".
"If yes" and "If no" beside squares to be checked off on documents. Proper terms are "If so" and "If not".
Absence of "that" in a multiclause sentence. "That" should immediately precede a clause that could stand on its own as a complete thought and thus a grammatically correct sentence: "If I used a sentence this long, I would make sure that the second clause followed the word 'that'."
Misplacement of "that" in a compound sentence: "Are you trying to tell me just because he disagrees with you that he has no right to express his alternate opinion?" is totally incorrect. The "that" should obviously appear only before the word "just".
A comma instead of semicolon or end of sentence before the "however" that means "despite/notwithstanding this", unless it interrupts the two halves of a grammatically complete sentence, as in "Those remaining later will, however, have to make their own way back to campus." The other "however" means "whichever way" or "to whatever extent", and can sometimes correctly appear in the middle of a sentence with no semicolon or ended sentence: "Heroes will persevere, however difficult the challenge."
"dependent" confused with "dependant". The first is an adjective, the second is a noun describing, usually, a family member.
"I could care less" as an expression of apathy. The proper expression is "I couldn't care less."
"criteria" or "phenomena" as a supposed singular. They are the PLURALS of "criterion" and "phenomenon".
"drop" to mean "go on sale". Where did this one even come from?
"different than" to mean "different from". Here's a simple test: "is different" is an exact synonym for "differs", right? So would you tell your teacher: "Your view of my mark on this exam simply differs than mine"?
Excuse this one if repetitive, too, but it is used so often that its correction bears repeating: "I really appreciate you doing this for me." OUCH! Possessive case before a gerund, people! Extreme example of the incorrect version: "Why does me pointing out this rule bother you?" Uh-huh. Now you see how ridiculous it is. Proper wording: "I really appreciate your doing this for me."
"be comprised of" to mean "comprise". "Comprise" means "be composed of". So does "be comprised of" mean "be being composed of of"?!
And finally, one to do with proper typography/orthography rather than grammar: I HATE it when people print or draw an UPPER CASE "I" but give it a dot! This is why I hate fonts that I call "case challenged": containing a dotted upper case "I". I think the best example may be the one called Peignot.
Thank you all for your time and attention in reading the above. Now let's see if we can't spread a few good grammatical habits.
Regards, Choirmistress.

Last edited by Choirmistress on Wed, May 11 2022, 1:38 am; edited 1 time in total

happytobemom

Wed, May 04 2022, 5:25 pm

singleagain wrote:

This is great!

Amelia Bedelia

Wed, May 04 2022, 5:54 pm

Choirmistress wrote:

A few more pet peeves:
"Being that/Seeing as (how)..." to mean "In view of [something happening]" or "In view of the fact that..." The first two are NOT proper English and are unacceptable in formal prose.
Excuse the repetition if I mentioned this one earlier, but "practice" and "practise" have the same noun vs. verb rule as "licence" vs. "license".
"If yes" and "If no" beside squares to be checked off on documents. Proper terms are "If so" and "If not".
Absence of "that" in a multiclause sentence. "That" should immediately precede a clause that could stand on its own as a complete thought and thus a grammatically correct sentence: "If I used a sentence this long, I would make sure that the second clause followed the word 'that'."
Misplacement of "that" in a compound sentence: "Are you trying to tell me just because he disagrees with you that he has no right to express his alternate opinion?" is totally incorrect. The "that" should obviously appear only before the word "just".
A comma instead of semicolon or end of sentence before the "however" that means "despite/notwithstanding this". The other "however" means "whichever way" and can sometimes correctly appear in the middle of a sentence with no semicolon or ended sentence.
"dependent" confused with "dependant". The first is an adjective, the second is a noun describing, usually, a family member.
"I could care less" as an expression of apathy. The proper expression is "I couldn't care less."
"criteria" or "phenomena" as a supposed singular. They are the PLURALS of "criterion" and "phenomenon".
"drop" to mean "go on sale". Where did this one even come from?
"different than" to mean "different from". Here's a simple test: "is different" is an exact synonym for "differs", right? So would you tell your teacher: "Your view of my mark on this exam simply differs than mine"?
Excuse this one if repetitive, too, but it is used so often that its correction bears repeating: "I really appreciate you doing this for me." OUCH! Possessive case before a gerund, people! Extreme example of the incorrect version: "Why does me pointing out this rule bother you?" Uh-huh. Now you see how ridiculous it is. Proper wording: "I really appreciate your doing this for me."
"be comprised of" to mean "comprise". "Comprise" means "be composed of". So does "be comprised of" mean "be being composed of of"?!
And finally, one to do with proper typography/orthography rather than grammar: I HATE it when people print or draw an UPPER CASE "I" but give it a dot! This is why I hate fonts that I call "case challenged": containing a dotted upper case "I". I think the best example is called Broadway or similar. (You can look it up. I think I shall do so myself and then edit this post if it needs it.)
Thank you all for your time and attention in reading the above. Now let's see if we can't spread a few good grammatical habits.
Regards, Choirmistress.

We Americans have no reason to confuse license, practice, and dependent. The other spellings are not used in American English.

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