Outburst Of Pedantry

[Norman_E]

[ QUOTE ]
Last winter there was an ad in one of the yachting mags "Winter births available" /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Hardly surprising, as the marina had been shafting people all summer. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Twister_Ken]

"How long before all this grammar business is obsolete?"

Grammar itself will never be obsolete, it will just evolve.

Even 'street speak' or whatever it should be called has its own rules of grammar.

 

[MASH]

Re: Ought to be - correct spellings sort.

How can grammar ever become obsolete? As long as we need accuracy in speech we need correct grammar. "The cabin boy was detailed to clean the sailor's head" and "The cabin boy was detailed to clean the sailors' head" are two totally different statements. Get that one wrong and you'll be one unhappy cabin boy...

"My Aunt, who lives in Brighton" and "My Aunt who lives in Brighton" convey utterly different messages. In the first I state that I only have one Aunt, and that she lives in Brighton, in the second it is clear that I have more than one Aunt but one of them lives in...

Worst, and most inexcusable are the awful "Greengrocer's Apostrophes".

"Two ship's were at anchor, their lights shining". The worst thing about these is they are seldom, if ever, consistant, being randomly scattered in the text. If you don't understand apostrophe's for Gods dake do'nt use them at all, its very annoying.

And for those who ridicule accuracy like this as excessively pedantic I suggest you consider a voyage in which you calculate you'll use 25.5 litres of fuel but got the point (apostrophe) in the wrong place and actually needed 255...And we all know what happens as soon as pedantry is forgotten in programming a GPS!

"Where is the enemy of the machine" or "Wear is the enemy of the machine". It is all very well to say you can tell by the context but don't rely on that!

 

[MASH]

Re: Ought to be - correct spellings sort.

How can grammar ever become obsolete? As long as we need accuracy in speech we need correct grammar. "The cabin boy was detailed to inspect the sailor's passage" and "The cabin boy was detailed to inspect the sailors' passage" are two totally different statements. Get that one wrong and you'll be one unhappy cabin boy...

"My Aunt, who lives in Brighton" and "My Aunt who lives in Brighton" convey utterly different messages. In the first I state that I only have one Aunt, and that she lives in Brighton, in the second it is clear that I have more than one Aunt but one of them lives in...Punctuation can be even more important than the words themselves.

Worst, and most inexcusable are the awful "Greengrocer's Apostrophes".

"Two ship's were at anchor, their lights shining". The worst thing about these is they are seldom, if ever, consistant, being randomly scattered in the text. If you don't understand apostrophe's for Gods dake do'nt use them at all, its very annoying.

And for those who ridicule accuracy like this as excessively pedantic I suggest you consider a voyage in which you calculate you'll use 25.5 litres of fuel but got the point (apostrophe) in the wrong place and actually needed 255...And we all know what happens as soon as pedantry is forgotten in programming a GPS!

 

[Twister_Ken]

Re: Ought to be - correct spellings sort.

"they are seldom, if ever, consistant,"

Or even consistent.

 

[Tamarisk1]

Re: Ought to be - correct spellings sort.

Don't you just hate it when that happens!

 

[DanTribe]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

I used to think that I got "fed up with" things, but I've got so used to hearing "fed up of" that I'm not sure which is correct anymore.
Even BBC newsreaders sometimes use "of". Can anyone give a ruling?

 

[tazzle]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

Hmm -

If you accept that the original saying was 'Fed up to the back teeth....' then 'with' is the only word that makes sense.

 

[jhr]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

Undoubtedly "with". I don't care what the BBC say; "fed up of..." is an abomination.

 

[Lakesailor]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

Or the usual "........was injured after an accident"

Poor sod, they got away without any injuries during the accident and then broke their neck walking to the Police car.

 

[jhr]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

....or "falling down the steps" at the Police Station...................... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[tazzle]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

"... was fatally injured and died" is my favourite

 

[Lakesailor]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

and there is that strange condition, without symptoms, that lots of reporters suffer from.
"Ben Doon has the details"

 

[thefatlady]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

“instantaneous” instead of “instant”
“temporally” instead of “temporarily”
“Homogenous” instead of “homogeneous”
plurals: “the crowd are...” instead of “the crowd is....” and likewise for government, team, couple, etc. and plural verbs applied to adjectival phrases describing a singlular subject
“Decimated” used incorrectly
“Fairly unique” and similar

I could go on for pages.

God, I have a sad life!

 

[Lakesailor]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

[ QUOTE ]


God, I have a sad life!

[/ QUOTE ] Apparently, he already knows.

 

[suse]

Please use 'fewer' instead of 'less', for plural words.

 

[Metabarca]

To boldly split infinitives is another teeth-grinder.

 

[thefatlady]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

Maybe, but the detail is in the Devil.

 

[PCUK]

Not to mention apostophies!

 

[Sailfree]

Re: I\'m fed up of it.

First - hands up - my education was technical and I did well in things scientific and mathmatical and was crap at English and languages.

I have probably subconciously learnt more grammer listening to the BBC than I ever did at an inner London school. I find it a concern though when even I can find fault with the BBC.

I found the announcement that suicide bombers had struck again thought provoking!

As a person who stuggles with spelling I would welcome tha addition of a spell check when posting rather than having to type various word in MS word to do a spell check!