Grammar Police- are you guilty of any of these?

[kotori]

I see a blue light flashing. . .

Pull it over buddy, it's the grammar police.

Gone, every rule under the sun! LOL

I think as a triple negative, I'm okay. But would you prefer I add 'sic' after that.

 

[bluespoke]

Re: I see a blue light flashing. . .

Pull it over buddy, it's the grammar police.
I think as a triple negative, I'm okay. But would you prefer I add 'sic' after that.

I think I am a triple negative therefore I am a triple negative!

No need to be 'sic' in here.

 

[freescorfr]

I've a copy of Fowler's "The King's English" right beside me.
Getting hung up on grammar is a form of arrested linguistic moral development.

For me Lit people communicate, usually, very clearly. It's fun to pick people up on grammar and I expect it from others.

It's organic and as sexielexie says a throwback to another era.

 

[bluespoke]

I've a copy of Fowler's "The King's English" right beside me.
Getting hung up on grammar is a form of arrested linguistic moral development.

For me Lit people communicate, usually, very clearly. It's fun to pick people up on grammar and I expect it from others.

It's organic and as sexielexie says a throwback to another era.

As you say, it's fun. As long as you are understood, who cares how you say it.

 

[freescorfr]

As you say, it's fun. As long as you are understood, who cares how you say it.

Of course, Bluespoke, we can be smug and generous in our tolerance, given the way we was educated.

 

[bluespoke]

Nae bother big man!

 

[Vivacia]

http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_hides.gif

I love your little smiles - keep them coming!

 

[Orlanth]

LMAO!

http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_read.gif I read your post. Be kind, or... or I'm just going to have to cry!

 

[SpaceToast]

Here's a pet peeve of mine, the gender-neutral plural:

"The child can become engaged in their education."

How many children are there? (I work as a writing tutor at my college, and I see this one all the time.)

The best reference for the intermediate writer I've ever seen is Strunk and White's "Elements of Style." It's clean, economical, and keeps berating you to be the same.

Mind you, I just posted my first story in the feedback forum, and I'm sure someone's going to find a grammar error or two. I still bung up on "its" and "it's" when I'm writing fast-

-M@

 

[*bratcat*]

 

[freescorfr]

Here's a pet peeve of mine, the gender-neutral plural:

"The child can become engaged in their education."



-M@

So, SpaceToast, what do you recommend here, in this international forum? I have problems with this.

 

[SpaceToast]

So, SpaceToast, what do you recommend here, in this international forum? I have problems with this.

I tell my charges that I use "he" in one paragraph, and then "she" in the next, switching off paragraph by paragraph. Is it the best way to do it? I don't know. It seems like the only fair way, to me. Maybe the final composition will wind up with much more male than female, or vice-versa, but I really don't care. Communicate, dammit!

I've only worked with a few French students. The one recurring error I noticed was knowing whether to place the adjective before the noun or after. English and French seem to contradict each other a lot in this respect. (Here's a -- probably poor -- example: "the brown car," not "the car brown.") My French sucks, though, so there are probably better things to look out for-

-M@

 

[Sateema Lunasi]

It is interesting and annoying the way Abby says she sometimes hears "supposedly educated people" saying a particular grammar error. Supposedly educated. (yes, incomplete sentance, sue me) I suppose if you make a grammatical error while talking or speaking you must not be an educated person.

I agree with basic points of good grammar avoid run on sentances, use proper punctuation, etc.) but anal retentive grammar policing is retarded. In writing it kills the expression of things. If we all wrote with anal retentice grammar, we would all be Jane Austin, and Jane Austin is boring. I just find it annoying that this woman known as "Dear Abby" somehow has the imaginary credentials to tell everyone else how to behave, how to speak, how to write, how to eat, how to live...tiresome. She has always annoyed me.

Rant finished. (suck my incomplete sentance.)

 

[red_rose]

I believe that what "Dear Abby" was referring to was spoken language moreso than the written. While I detest finding grammatical errors in someone's school paper (I have always played copy editor for my friends!), writing for entertainment is quite different.

When writing as an art form, there are times when incomplete sentences, abnormal punctuation, etc heighten the ability for the author to communicate.

As far as the he/she debate (the pronoun use, of course! - unless there's a hemaphrodite discussion going on somewhere I don't know about!!) - I have always been taught to just use "he" when the gender is not specified. While this may sound somewhat sexist, our language is not like that of French or Spanish (and many others, I'm sure). Our nouns don't have a sex. And our language doesn't have sexless pronouns.

But the use of "their" or "they" when it should be "his/hers" or "she/he"... that is aggravating to me, too.

 

[Cheyenne]

http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_read.gif I read your post. Be kind, or... or I'm just going to have to cry!

I've never picked on you for your spelling, remember? I'm the one who defended you way back when you joined as Macbeth.

I just liked the smilie!

 

[Orlanth]

I've never picked on you for your spelling, remember? I'm the one who defended you way back when you joined as Macbeth.

I just liked the smilie!

I know, I was trying to be funny. http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif Also I had another smilie to use if you were to pick on me. That 's why I said it.

My spelling has improved, to an extant. Don't you think?

 

[Cheyenne]

My spelling has improved, to an extant. Don't you think?

To some extent, yes.

So what was the smilie you had ready for me?

 

[Orlanth]

To some extent, yes.

So what was the smilie you had ready for me?

Well, now my joke didn't go to plan, and you are also expecting it. It just won't be that funny now.

But anyways, I was waiting for you to play along, then I was going to cry. Using this: http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_crybaby.gif

Not that funny now, but that was what I was going to do. A little lame, I know.

 

[Cheyenne]

Still cute, even if I screwed up the joke for you.

 

[scylis]

ithink i hav eab salootly beoota fullg ramer!

wood ulic ka flaeower?

 

[sigh]

to a certain extent grammar police are anachronistic but without them our written words would fall quickly into chaos and misunderstanding...some things are just too important to be rendered in the vernacular and it ticks me off to no end to be sent a memo and find that i'm not at all sure what the author intended to say

in speech though, i'm as lazy as the next guy and LOVE to deliberately mispronounce and rearrange sentences in unique and odd ways...the difference is, in speech we have all the other communication tools working for us...our tone of voice, the wink of an eye, a hint of laughter, a wide grin...these help convey our meaning when sloppy word use fails

on the whole though, bad grammar means language is evolving and i like that...a static language is a dead one

 

[Orlanth]

ithink i hav eab salootly beoota fullg ramer!

wood ulic ka flaeower?

Don't worrie Scylis, help is on the way. http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_beam_me.gif

 

[Orlanth]

Still cute, even if I screwed up the joke for you.

Don't worrie about it. http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_nerd.gif

 

[rexfelis]

"Irregardless" drives me nuts. I want to smack people for saying it. And now I find out that it's in the damned dictionary?! WTF? Are there no standards anymore?

"Who/whom" vs "that" drives me nuts too, but I find myself saying it sometimes. I do correct myself, as well as others, on that one when I hear it.

 

[scylis]

Don't worrie about it. http://www.mechagames.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_nerd.gif

do'nt u lickm y flaeower?