Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

[fairffaxx]

If Lugal is British, they use which where Americans would (or should) use that, & without a comma before.

Edited Yest. at 12:39 AM by fairffaxx
error

[Mondrianyone]

26 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

But keep in mind that the writer doesn't know the difference between "that" and "which."

Except that UK usage is different from ours. Heaney was an Irishman, so for him "which" in that context is perfectly correct.

3 hours ago, ABay said:

But that doesn't make them any less irritating.

I would never want to deprive anyone of the right to crankiness.

[Lugal]

40 minutes ago, fairffaxx said:

If Lugal is British, they use which where Americans would (or should) use that, & without a comma before.

I'm not British, but as Mondrianyone pointed out Seamus Heaney was Irish.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Leaving aside the impenetrable, to me, issue of British vs. Irish vs. English and then adding in the United Kingdom and don't forget Scotland and Wales, does anybody over in that general vicinity ever use "that," or is always "which" no matter what?

[Anela]

On 2/27/2025 at 8:52 PM, fairffaxx said:

This is very far from my biggest grammatical pet peeve, but I find myself noticing it lately (perhaps due to its constant repetition, which is equally annoying):   "I feel like ...".

Not only should it be "I feel as if" or "I feel as though", but this phrase seems to be applied to pretty much everything, whereas most of the objects cited are not properly subject to feelings.  I'm reminded of my law school teacher in Contracts 101 lecturing that we should never refer to our feelings:  No one cares about how you feel, only your legal analysis matters -- never say "I feel" when you could say "I think"!

 

I'm reminded of why I usually avoid this thread. I'm sure that I say this a lot. 

On 3/1/2025 at 2:12 PM, nokat said:

There is the "So" at the start of a sentence. I use it myself.

So do I. I do that a lot, too. 

[fastiller]

7 hours ago, Anela said:

I'm reminded of why I usually avoid this thread. I'm sure that I say this a lot. 

So do I. I do that a lot, too. 

@Anela - So, I feel like I do these things too (😁).

I wouldn't worry about it (I certainly don't), as long as your meaning is clear.  I, too, used to be a real language stickler; as I've grown I've held less onto the rules.  I've always written poetry and when I was a teen/young adult, I'd allow deviation from the rules in my poems, but never in my prose.  As I've aged, I've allowed deviation to appear in my prose as well.  As long as my meaning was clear, I decided it was okay.  I'm still very much a stickler in my business writings/emails.  I've got employees who are very loose with verb tense and I'm frequently correcting them. 

I think much of the "MUST ADHERE TO THE OLD RULES" is a bit of gatekeeping (not quite the correct word, but can't think of a better one ATM) and not truly recognizing that language evolves.  Especially a language like English which is so orthographically deep (I mean it has something like 200 irregular verbs(!), as opposed to Irish, f'rex, with only 11).

The gatekeeping aspect is very well illustrated by Melissa Lozada-Oliva's "Like Totally Whatever"

 

Edited 10 hours ago by fastiller

[Milburn Stone]

I do find interesting--and correct!--that person's observation that "So" at the beginning of a sentence obliterates all discourse that happened before it. I never thought of it that way, but now I do.

When you begin your answer to a question with "So," you're saying "I'm going to change the premise of your question at least a little. I'll give you an answer, and it may include an answer to the question you asked, but it's also going to include answers to questions you didn't ask, because those answers are at least as germane to the matter at hand as the answer to the question you asked."

Edited 9 hours ago by Milburn Stone

[Lugal]

On 3/2/2025 at 11:24 AM, nokat said:

Can someone explain the use of "woah" instead of "whoa?" For some reason it bothers me every time I see it.

I'll take a crack at it.  I think it's due to the wine-whine merger where in most (but not all) dialects of English, /w/ and /wh/ are pronounced the same. And like Browncoat said, people know there's an H in there, but they aren't sure where.

[fastiller]

I always thought "whoa" was for horses and "woah" was Joey Lawrence/Keanu Reeves.

[EtheltoTillie]

https://www.rebelwithaclause.com/

 

Attention, grammar buffs:  I just saw a promo for this movie about the street grammarian from my neighborhood--the NYC Upper West Side.  Should be interesting.

[Absolom]

2 hours ago, fastiller said:

I always thought "whoa" was for horses and "woah" was Joey Lawrence/Keanu Reeves.

The current teens and tweens in our area pronounce it WO-uh.  They add an uh to the end of a lot of words.  I think it's a progression of valley girl speak.  It is more like a different word and I think that leads to spelling issues.  One dictionary site says woah is an alternative spelling that is still non-standard. I won't be surprised if it becomes accepted as standard or a new word especially since it's being pronounced differently with two syllables and not used related to stopping horses at all.

I removed a so when rereading the post.  Now I'll be conscious of that for awhile. 

[Zella]

1 hour ago, EtheltoTillie said:

https://www.rebelwithaclause.com/

 

Attention, grammar buffs:  I just saw a promo for this movie about the street grammarian from my neighborhood--the NYC Upper West Side.  Should be interesting.

I follow her on social media--she's a lot of fun!