Page 1 2
Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| Member |
Have y’all noticed that all of a sudden (in the media at least) people in America are starting to fall ill or fall pregnant instead of getting sick or getting pregnant? | |||
|
| 7.62mm Crusader |
I read this in a lot of posts here. Should of or could of. Yes, should or could have. Never point it out due to having my own issues spelling..  . Kinda red necky. | |||
|
| Gracie Allen is my personal savior! |
I blame the English. Just enough Britishisms creep into popular culture to occasionally throw people out of whack. In the UK, you stand on line (or are queuing or whatever). In the US, you stand in line unless you're in prison or the military, in which case you stand on the line. In the UK, Metallica are coming (it's a group of individuals, right?). In the US, Metallica is coming (it's a single, particular group of people). | |||
|
| 186,000 miles per second. It's the law. |
I wonder if the Brits would say "The Herd are coming"? Or, "The Who are coming to town"? I would say the herd is coming, and The Who is coming, but The Rolling Stones are coming. Spitting hairs. | |||
|
Web Clavin Extraordinaire |
Indeed. As a Germanic language, prepositions at the end of English sentences is entirely expected. By way of comparison, German has "separable-prefix verbs" wherein the prepositional prefix of a verb is broken off and stood at the end of a sentence (unless the whole verb is moved to the end because of a modal). For example: "Kommst du mit?" rather than "Mitkommst du?" We can do the exact same thing in English: "You coming with?" That's a very colloquial English example, of course. The whole idea of the incorrectness of ending a sentence with a prefix is a product of style manuals, not actual descriptive grammar. Same thing with split infinitives, which are 100% fine in English. The stylists (e.g. Strunk and White) were working off a Latinate model where, indeed, an infinitive can't be split, since it's a bound morpheme attached to a verbal lexeme, rather than a collocation of a preposition and a verbal lexeme. Of course, English isn't a Latin language, so many of these style choices are moot. The "don't end a sentence with a preposition" also comes from incorrect comparison to Latin. ---------------------------- Chuck Norris put the laughter in "manslaughter" Educating the youth of America, one declension at a time. | |||
|
| The Main Thing Is Not To Get Excited  |
 Thank you, I think._______________________ | |||
|
Member |
So few ppl know how to use whom correctly that it's safer to stick to who. Instead, when I see whom used incorrectly, it comes off as pretentious. E.g., "You may hand them out to whomever asks for one." Sorry, no, it should be whoever in that case. No one will ever criticize you for using who in place of whom, unless you work for the Oxford University Press. Good grammar instruction has fallen by the wayside in grade schools. Most people don't understand the difference between direct & indirect objects. It gets tricky when using am/are/is. "Tell Cersei I want her to know it was me," should be, "...I want her to know it was I." Yes, it sounds stilted & awkward, but I is the correct pronoun in that case. "Whom are you going to call? Ghostbusters!" is also grammatically correct but painful to hear. | |||
|
| Vote the BASTIDS OUT!  |
Throw me down the stairs my hat. John "Building a wall will violate the rights of millions of illegals." [Nancy Pelosi] | |||
|
Optimistic Cynic |
From approximately Altoona to approximately Youngstown, you'll find no "to be" before a past participle. I'm sure including it sounds peculiar to them, like the speaker is putting on airs. Of course some will use the gerund rather than the past participle, e.g. "the house needs painting." That sounds vaguely wrong to me as well, but not nearly as bad as the Western PA formulation. Ha! Freshman year at U. of Mich., sitting around the TV room at the dorm., One guy says to another "hey, I gotta split, throw me over my coat." The second guy, sure enough, picks up the first guy, and throws him over the couch on which his coat rested. He landed quite hard square on his butt. Most of the guys didn't get why until it was explained to them. | |||
|
| Victim of Life's Circumstances  |
Is this grammatically correct? 6 cities that nearly landed an MLB team https://www.mlb.com/news/citie...most-had-an-mlb-team ________________________ God spelled backwards is dog | |||
|
| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
I'm fairly certain that came out of the large majority of the original settlers there being from Ireland and Scotland, I recall reading how "yinz" (another western PA oddity) came from the Irish and Scots:
Link | |||
|
Member |
Here in the intermountain west, many people use past-perfect verbs when past-simple is appropriate. "I seen it, I seen the whole thing." Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
|
אַרְיֵה |
Visitor on his first business trip to Boston, wanting to taste some of the fish that the area is known for, gets into a cab and asks the driver to take him someplace to get scrod. Cab driver, a Harvard drop-out, says, "I have had that request numerous times, but never before in the past pluperfect subjunctive." הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
|
Member |
I say yes. It's the title of an article so I think it's ok to be a fragment. My English teacher in high school said you shouldn't start a sentence with a numeral--that the number should be written out. Seems right, but again, in the title of an article, it seems ok. Year V | |||
|
Lost |
Strictly speaking, as mentioned, "6" should have been written out "Six", and most of the remaining words should have been capitalized as the title of an article. However, I think this is also an example of faulty parallelism. 6 cities (plural) are mentioned, but only one team (singular). Were all cities trying to get the exact same team? Maybe the author meant "Six Cities that Nearly Landed MLB Teams"? | |||
|
His Royal Hiney |
i've heard that joke before but it's still funny, it brought a smile to my face. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
|
| אַרְיֵה |
Joke? Darn, I thought it was a true story. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
|
Member |
I believe that distinct people-groups, which exist within and across every nation, choose to mimic each other with distinct and "improper" words and grammar to ensure inclusion within the group. ------- Trying to simplify my life... | |||
|
| Powered by Social Strata | Page 1 2 |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
© SIGforum 2024