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Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

candall

By candall
in Everything Else

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Browncoat
Browncoat

I just had a contractor reschedule an appointment for the second time.  They apologized for any "incontinence" that the rescheduling might cause.  🤣🤣

nokat
nokat

I thought this belonged here. We need the occasional laugh.  

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Mondrianyone

Mondrianyone

  On 3/3/2025 at 12:28 AM, StatisticalOutlier said:

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

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

  On 3/2/2025 at 9:25 PM, ABay said:

But that doesn't make them any less irritating.

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

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Anela

Anela

  On 2/28/2025 at 1:52 AM, 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"!

 

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

  On 3/1/2025 at 7:12 PM, nokat said:

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

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So do I. I do that a lot, too. 

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fastiller

fastiller

(edited)
  On 3/3/2025 at 8:52 AM, 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. 

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@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 by fastiller
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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)

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 by Milburn Stone
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Lugal

Lugal

  On 3/2/2025 at 6:24 PM, nokat said:

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

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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.

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Absolom

Absolom

  On 3/3/2025 at 6:59 PM, fastiller said:

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

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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. 

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Ancaster

Ancaster

  On 3/2/2025 at 4:04 PM, Mondrianyone said:

Per Merriam-Webster's Unabridged, it's a legitimate word:

pe·des·tri·an·ize verb \ -ˌnīz \

inflected form(s): -ed/-ing/-s

intransitive verb

: to do some walking : go afoot

transitive verb

: to convert (as a street) into a walkway or mall

pe·des·tri·an·iza·tion \ pə̇ˌdestrēənə̇ˈzāshən , -ˌnīˈz- \ noun, plural -s

 

 

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I have no problem with any of this.

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annzeepark914

annzeepark914

IMNSHO, the now popular word "so" at the beginning of a sentence first came from stand-up comedians a few decades ago. It was their way to set up another joke. I'm not sure when I began to hear/read regular folks using this word to start a sentence (I'm excluding someone asking mom, "So what's for dinner?" 😊)

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Ancaster

Ancaster

(edited)

"I pried the crumpet out with a fork and shoved the mangled thing into my mouth while standing over the sink, full of unwashed dishes."

It's a wonder our hero had room for a crumpet, mangled or otherwise.

(From page 2 of a book I was already struggling to read.  Thank goodness for libraries.)

Edited by Ancaster
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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

  On 3/19/2025 at 5:19 AM, Ancaster said:

"I pried the crumpet out with a fork and shoved the mangled thing into my mouth while standing over the sink, full of unwashed dishes."

It's a wonder our hero had room for a crumpet, mangled or otherwise.

(From page 2 of a book I was already struggling to read.  Thank goodness for libraries.)

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So close! Change "the sink" to "a sink," remove the comma after "sink," and the sentence would be unimpeachable.

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)
  On 3/20/2025 at 1:06 PM, shapeshifter said:

By a well-known opinion writer in a respected publication:

  •  A new [///] Party wouldn’t work for the [//////]s the way it worked for [//////]s, and more important, it would be terrible for the country. 

Shouldn't "important" be "importantly"?

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No, because it's really being used as an adjective there-- as it's really saying "and, what is more important. . ."

But I think importantly has become one of those acceptable usages.

Edited by EtheltoTillie
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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

  On 3/24/2025 at 1:38 PM, Ancaster said:

I do.  Am I the only one?

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You are not the only one. I would say "standing over a kitchen sink." (I guess that might be obvious since the correction I made to the wrong sentence involved changing a phrase in it to "standing over a kitchen sink," but I thought I'd go on the record here that this was intentional on my part.) I say or write it all the time when the context is appropriate. Here's an example I can imagine. A sentence in a book of best cooking practices. "One peels potatoes over a kitchen sink, as peeling them over a countertop will cause unnecessary mess."

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

  On 3/24/2025 at 4:29 PM, Milburn Stone said:

You are not the only one. I would say "standing over a kitchen sink." (I guess that might be obvious since the correction I made to the wrong sentence involved changing a phrase in it to "standing over a kitchen sink," but I thought I'd go on the record here that this was intentional on my part.) I say or write it all the time when the context is appropriate. Here's an example I can imagine. A sentence in a book of best cooking practices. "One peels potatoes over a kitchen sink, as peeling them over a countertop will cause unnecessary mess."

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Ah. Yes. Sorry I didn't catch that "kitchen" was part of the phrase. 
In that case, "a" kitchen sink could indicate that it is not just a custom in your own home, or perhaps that it's not dependent upon the layout of a particular kitchen.

I've lived with about 35 kitchens in my life, some shared, but mostly in my "own" home. 
Maybe the article-use discrepancy is in-part related to people living in larger cities where kitchens may have been more commonly shared in the past?

Or maybe the use of "the" or "a" in this case is just a geographic difference regarding article usage in general.

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

(edited)
  On 3/24/2025 at 4:39 PM, shapeshifter said:

Ah. Yes. Sorry I didn't catch that "kitchen" was part of the phrase. 
In that case, "a" kitchen sink could indicate that it is not just a custom in your own home, or perhaps that it's not dependent upon the layout of a particular kitchen.

I've lived with about 35 kitchens in my life, some shared, but mostly in my "own" home. 
Maybe the article-use discrepancy is in-part related to people living in larger cities where kitchens may have been more commonly shared in the past?

Or maybe the use of "the" or "a" in this case is just a geographic difference regarding article usage in general.

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  On 3/24/2025 at 4:29 PM, Milburn Stone said:

You are not the only one. I would say "standing over a kitchen sink." (I guess that might be obvious since the correction I made to the wrong sentence involved changing a phrase in it to "standing over a kitchen sink," but I thought I'd go on the record here that this was intentional on my part.) I say or write it all the time when the context is appropriate. Here's an example I can imagine. A sentence in a book of best cooking practices. "One peels potatoes over a kitchen sink, as peeling them over a countertop will cause unnecessary mess."

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Well, this discussion is really going off the rails LOL.  We are talking about eating over the sink.  As in I am so lazy I didn't even sit down at the table, I ate my dinner over the kitchen sink (or the sink).  In this common locution, everyone says "the," I believe. 

Who is watching Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage?  This trope is a weekly joke.  The brother eats over the sink while the rest of the family sits at the table.

In the original example, the person was standing over "the" sink, as he/she was talking about a specific sink.

Edited by EtheltoTillie
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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

  On 3/24/2025 at 7:30 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

 

Well, this discussion is really going off the rails LOL.  We are talking about eating over the sink.  As in I am so lazy I didn't even sit down at the table, I ate my dinner over the kitchen sink (or the sink).  In this common locution, everyone says "the," I believe. 

Who is watching Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage?  This trope is a weekly joke.  The brother eats over the sink while the rest of the family sits at the table.

In the original example, the person was standing over "the" sink, as he/she was talking about a specific sink.

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Thanks for the clarification? LOL
FWIW, I cannot ever recall eating while standing over a kitchen sink, but I am now recalling those signs that were popular in the 80s and 90s that read: "If it's messy, eat it over the sink" (emphasis added).
I'm sure I always took the article "the" to denote this was about the kitchen sink in the home where the sign was hung. 
And now I'm realizing that it never occured to me that someone would actually do that — and yet I could picture it, but just as a joke.

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nokat

nokat

  On 3/24/2025 at 4:28 PM, shapeshifter said:

I can't think of my ever having occasion to say I was standing over "a" or "the" sink, but wouldn't "a sink" leave open the possibility that it was a bathroom sink?

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If I'm eating over "a" sink, why are my neighbors grumpy when I do it? Eating over "the" sink implies your kitchen sink. Yes, English is weird.

 

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

  On 3/27/2025 at 2:09 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

wsj.com/lifestyle/ford-motor-mike-obrien-malaprops-6e560520?st=rqJHye&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
This article is so funny.  I think you all will enjoy (gifted link). 

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Thank you!! 😆😅🤣😂
If anyone finds the complete list, please share!
A few from the article:

  • “The spreadsheet is the more-detailed repository of the data (not ‘suppository’ of the data, a particularly unfortunate case of word-misuse that made the board. Twice).”
  • “We need to talk about the elephant in the closet”
  • “He’s going to be so happy, he’ll be like a canary in a coal mine!” 
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SweetieDarling

SweetieDarling

(edited)

This probably shouldn't count because it's a Google Translate issue, but it struck me as funny. Translated from Italian, the description of the Trevi Fountain:

  Quote

This incredible Bernini's fountain depicts Ocean upon a chariot driven by two winged horses and led by two mermen, striking tourists from all over the world

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eta: I don't think the comma saves it because there's no preceding comma to offset the description. I could be wrong, but I still think it's funny

Edited by SweetieDarling
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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)

Not a grammar issue exactly, but...I just heard a Yale professor being interviewed on MSNBC about why he's leaving the country. In his very first sentence he used the word "stochastic" when "random" would have served perfectly well. Thereby branding himself for every viewer--even those who know the word--as an egghead without the common sense God gave a goose. Because it destroyed the point he was trying to make, which is that we should all, not just head-in-the-clouds intellectual snobs with their fancy words, be afraid.

Why do people do these things?

Edited by Milburn Stone
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fastiller

fastiller

  6 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Not a grammar issue exactly, but...I just heard a Yale professor being interviewed on MSNBC about why he's leaving the country. In his very first sentence he used the word "stochastic" when "random" would have served perfectly well. Thereby branding himself for every viewer--even those who know the word--as an egghead without the common sense God gave a goose. Because it destroyed the point he was trying to make, which is that we should all, not just head-in-the-clouds intellectual snobs with their fancy words, be afraid.

Why do people do these things?

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  3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

If you work in and write for academia long enough, it becomes your dialect, so to speak.

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I suspect -didn't watch the interview- the professor was speaking about Stochastic Terrorism.  If that's the case, I think the word stochastic there is very similar to but not 100% interchangeable with the word random.

I also suspect that many viewers of MSNBC are quite familiar with the word. 

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