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Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

candall

By candall
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legaleagle53

legaleagle53

On 12/21/2021 at 11:35 AM, Irlandesa said:

Boi predates Tumblr by decades.  It's about 30 years old.  And it's specific to a certain slang pronunciation in my head. I believe it started in hip hop culture.  Then it was adopted by skater culture. 

 

Gay men under 25 would like to have a word with you. It's synonymous with "twink" in that circle, and I always thought that was where it originated.

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Dimity
nokat
nokat

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

Browncoat
Browncoat

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

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

54 minutes ago, Haleth said:

I cringed when a commentator at one of the bowl games noted "him and his girlfriend got married."  Ugh.  I'm getting used to millennials and younger people misusing pronouns but someone whose job it is to speak on camera?  Disappointing.

Yes, and I’m hearing it more and more frequently.
Perhaps it will become grammatically acceptable?  
Can that happen?

I ask this even though every time I hear him, her, or me used as the subject of a sentence, my mind reacts just as did a huge toad in the garden after I plucked a lettuce plant underneath which he had sought shade in the desert. The enormous toad’s back undulated. I think my spine may have undulated a bit too in response to seeing him there 🐸 as it probably does when I hear “Me and Jim are going to lunch now.”

I heard this spoken by someone with a Masters in English who was employed at an academic institution. Like my father, English was not her parents’ first language, but it was hers. Also like my father, she spoke without an accent and strove to be hip to the latest lingo. I never heard either of my parents use improper grammar, but maybe that is now a form of slang?

 

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Lugal

Lugal

On 12/22/2021 at 2:33 PM, Shelbie said:

I’ve seen going rouge instead of going rogue. Makes me smile to think of someone using makeup to veer off course.

I remember back in the day X-men fanfic with Wolverine, Gambit, and Rouge.

On 12/23/2021 at 11:51 PM, WendyCR72 said:
On 12/22/2021 at 3:05 PM, Ohiopirate02 said:

Another one that cracks me up is using loose for lose.  That extra O sure does change the meaning of some sentences.

OMG! That one is agonizing for former English-major me. It's everywhere!

This one I can forgive (and not just because it's a mistake I used to make a lot) and here's my theory why: it's counter-intuitive.

Both words are the same sounds except the /s/ in lose is voiced and the one in loose isn't.  Because that voiced letter it draws out the length of the preceding vowel so lose sounds more like /lūz/ while loose sounds like /lus/.

But that goes directly against everything we're taught in elementary English classes about long vowels being written twice.  So I can see why people get confused.

legaleagle53

legaleagle53

(edited)
On 12/31/2021 at 10:31 AM, Lugal said:

But that goes directly against everything we're taught in elementary English classes about long vowels being written twice.  So I can see why people get confused.

You forget that we're also taught the exception to that rule: That whenever a word or a syllable ends in silent "e," the preceding vowel in the word or syllable is automatically lengthened without doubling it: can, cane; man, mane; not, note; etc.  "Lose" follows the "silent e" exception.

Edited by legaleagle53
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SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

34 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

You forget that we're also taught the exception to that rule: That whenever a word or a syllable ends in silent "e," the preceding vowel in the word or syllable is automatically lengthened without doubling it: can, cane; man, mane; not, note; etc.  "Lose" follows the "silent e" exception.

I’m not following. In the case of the silent “e” rule, wouldn’t lose rhyme with hose?  

SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

4 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

Nobody ever said that the English language was consistent. That's one of the things about it that drives non-native speakers crazy when they try to learn it!

No argument from me on that!  Sorry, I must have misunderstood your point about long vowels. To me lose/loose is more analogous to close (the door) / close (to you). 

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

4 hours ago, Haleth said:

"Jenny's and my friend."  I's isn't a word.

That is definitely the best choice.

But I intuit that behind @Anduin's question is also some confusion about whether the subjective or objective pronoun would be correct if it were a choice between I and me. The answer is me, if the phrase were constructed like so: "The friend of Jenny and me."  In 99 cases out of 100, @Haleth's construction would be more graceful, but on those rare occasions when this other construction is required, there is no ambiguity. Me.

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Lugal

Lugal

16 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

You forget that we're also taught the exception to that rule: That whenever a word or a syllable ends in silent "e," the preceding vowel in the word or syllable is automatically lengthened without doubling it: can, cane; man, mane; not, note; etc.  "Lose" follows the "silent e" exception.

15 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

I’m not following. In the case of the silent “e” rule, wouldn’t lose rhyme with hose?  

I think I see where the confusion is here.  It comes down to the fact that modern English does not actually have phonemic long vowels.  What we call "long vowels" are actually differences of quality, not length.

can is pronounced /kæn/ while cane is pronounced /kʰeɪn/; man as /mæn/ (or something like /mɛən/ depending on your dialect) while mane is /meɪn/.

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

1 hour ago, Lugal said:

I think I see where the confusion is here.  It comes down to the fact that modern English does not actually have phonemic long vowels.  What we call "long vowels" are actually differences of quality, not length.

can is pronounced /kæn/ while cane is pronounced /kʰeɪn/; man as /mæn/ (or something like /mɛən/ depending on your dialect) while mane is /meɪn/.

And neither loose nor lose has a long O sound; they have the long oo sound, which is almost the same as the long U sound.

legaleagle53

legaleagle53

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

And neither loose nor lose has a long O sound; they have the long oo sound, which is almost the same as the long U sound.

True, but I was only responding to the idea that English spelling rules require vowels to be doubled in writing in order to show the length of the vowel in closed syllables, when English has no such spelling rule, although Dutch does with only one exception that I can recall off the top of my head.

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SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

(edited)
2 hours ago, Leeds said:

I get very irritated by the incorrect use of "anymore", as in:  "So many people are irritating anymore."

I didn't realize that was incorrect! I just thought it was colloquial.  I'll have to do some research!  Who knows what to think anymore!

Edited by SoMuchTV
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SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

2 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

How about "Quoth the raven nevermore"?
And I'm assuming you meant to type "knows" rather than "know."

Fixed. Is there anything worse than making an error on the grammar thread?

And regarding the “anymore” issue. I see that it’s sort of equivalent to “nowadays”. Unless the original peeve was “anymore” vs “any more” but that’s not how I read it. 

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

3 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

Headline on a Yahoo article, which presumably got by several editors:
"Daylight Savings debate: Winners-and losers-of biannual time changes.

Biannual: Every two years.

Semi-annual: Twice a year.

The "bi" and "semi" prefixes always trip me up because they are often used in the work place interchangeably where correcting grammar is a good thing when it's for the public, but typically not for internal memos. 

Anyway, over on the Jeopardy! thread, there has been some very lengthy discussion about how "Daylight Savings Time" is incorrect; it is "Saving Time," without making "Saving" plural. 
However, this week on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!" I heard Peter Sagal say it twice with the extra "s," and I'm sure I've always said it that way until now.

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Bastet

Bastet

(edited)

Biannual and semiannual both mean happening twice per year.  But biannual also means happening every two years (another word for that is biennial). 

Because of that, I agree it's best to use semiannual for happening twice a year, and reserve biannual for meaning every two years (the general concept of the word being familiar to a lot of people in terms of getting paid biweekly meaning they get their money every two weeks).  But using biannual for happening twice a year is not incorrect, because that is one of its two definitions.

As noted, the error in that headline is that it's Daylight Saving, not Savings, Time.  Although that is one of those errors so common it may now considered an accepted alternate spelling. 

(As a bit of trivia:  Semiannual also has a second definition, which is lasting for half a year.  But that one is less commonly used, and generally understood by context.)

Edited by Bastet
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Leeds

Leeds

10 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

Headline on a Yahoo article, which presumably got by several editors:
"Daylight Savings debate: Winners-and losers-of biannual time changes.

Biannual: Every two years.

Semi-annual: Twice a year.

I think the dream of one editor for a Yahoo article is probably just that, a dream, and several would be a nightmare.

Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

On 3/20/2022 at 2:19 PM, Bastet said:

Biannual and semiannual both mean happening twice per year.  But biannual also means happening every two years (another word for that is biennial). 

Is biannual to mean twice per year one of those things where the keepers of standards just give up?

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Bastet

Bastet

9 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Is biannual to mean twice per year one of those things where the keepers of standards just give up?

I don't think so, since that's listed as the primary, not the secondary, definition (in the Cambridge dictionary, it's the only definition), but I didn't delve into the history.

Anduin

Anduin

I just heard David Attenborough say cephalopod, except with a K sound instead of an S. While it's not a word I hear much, I've always heard it with an S. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary backs him up, either is valid. But it's strange. So, has everyone been saying it with a K, just out of my hearing? Or is anyone else surprised?

shapeshifter

shapeshifter

31 minutes ago, Anduin said:

I just heard David Attenborough say cephalopod, except with a K sound instead of an S. While it's not a word I hear much, I've always heard it with an S. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary backs him up, either is valid. But it's strange. So, has everyone been saying it with a K, just out of my hearing? Or is anyone else surprised?

Attenborough is British, and the alternate K sound is listed as the 2nd British pronunciation, so I am just relieved to know "sefələpɑːd" is correct, and that it is even the first listed for British English.

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Anduin

Anduin

7 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Attenborough is British, and the alternate K sound is listed as the 2nd British pronunciation, so I am just relieved to know "sefələpɑːd" is correct, and that it is even the first listed for British English.

Yep. There are words I suspect I'm still getting wrong, but that is apparently not one of them!

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Anduin

Anduin

2 hours ago, ABay said:

England and America, two nations divided by a common language.

(Probably Churchill)

I'm not in either country. But they do dominate the language. I'd tell people how to properly pronounce Melbourne or Brisbane properly, but I try to discourage attempts at Australian accents.

So. Kephalopod is valid. Learn something new every day.

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Haleth

Haleth

(edited)
On 5/23/2022 at 10:57 PM, Anduin said:

I just heard David Attenborough say cephalopod, except with a K sound instead of an S. While it's not a word I hear much, I've always heard it with an S. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary backs him up, either is valid. But it's strange. So, has everyone been saying it with a K, just out of my hearing? Or is anyone else surprised?

When we see words with "ce" I think we (English speakers) naturally give it an "s" sound, but in Latin a c sounds like k, so scientific words with Latin roots should probably be pronounced that way.

Edited by Haleth
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legaleagle53

legaleagle53

14 hours ago, Haleth said:

When we see words with "ce" I think we (English speakers) naturally give it an "s" sound, but in Latin a c sounds like k, so scientific words with Latin roots should probably be pronounced that way.

Actually, it comes from a Greek word meaning "head-foot." And it is spelled κεφαλόποδο in that language. So the hard "c" in the English is a natural, if uncommon, variant.

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SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

On 5/24/2022 at 7:45 PM, dargosmydaddy said:

I have a new boss who has been doing this in a string of emails lately... "Submit such-and-such to so-and-so and I"... grrr...

My theory is that an awful lot of people seem to believe the rule is: 

I/he/she=formal writing/speech,

me/him/her=familiar/informal.

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Lugal

Lugal

4 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

My theory is that an awful lot of people seem to believe the rule is: 

I/he/she=formal writing/speech,

me/him/her=familiar/informal.

I think it's probably over-correction.  How many of us remember back in elementary school when we would say things like "me and my friend went to--" only to be corrected mid-sentence by the teacher with "My friend and I".  Then we grow up thinking it's always "...and I."

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SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

10 minutes ago, Lugal said:

I think it's probably over-correction.  How many of us remember back in elementary school when we would say things like "me and my friend went to--" only to be corrected mid-sentence by the teacher with "My friend and I".  Then we grow up thinking it's always "...and I."

True in a lot of cases, but what really drives me nuts is when a speaker makes the mistake in both directions. Like, “Me and John talked to she and Mary.”  Understandable when someone is talking in an off-the-cuff interview, but annoying when it’s a journalist, author, speechwriter, someone reading from a script that should have gone past an editor. I’ll try to drop it now and go chase those kids off my lawn. 

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

(edited)
On 5/27/2022 at 12:58 PM, SoMuchTV said:

My theory is that an awful lot of people seem to believe the rule is: 

I/he/she=formal writing/speech,

me/him/her=familiar/informal.

19 hours ago, Lugal said:

I think it's probably over-correction.  How many of us remember back in elementary school when we would say things like "me and my friend went to--" only to be corrected mid-sentence by the teacher with "My friend and I".  Then we grow up thinking it's always "...and I."

Both of the above are probably contributing to this butchering of grammar. 
I can accept that it may become the norm in another 30 years when I would be 109 99 years old, but it seems to be reaching the point of no return much faster than that. 

Edited by shapeshifter
because I wouldn’t be 109 until 40 years from now, not 30
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