Literotica has improved my grasp of language.

[Que]

There are still a lot of holes in my comprehension of the grammatical rules that govern the proper use of the English language.

I am starting to pick up idioms for the actual Queen's English from my many friends that live in countries that haven't delightfully bastardized the tongue in the inimitable American haphazard way.

I thought it might be nice to have a place to jot down what I learn as I grow. Maybe with links to some of the posts on the subject.

Today I realized "Ass-Hat" being a compound word formed from two nouns and should be hyphenated. Not sure about capitalization. I suspect if we are talking about the venerable "Ass-hat Awards" only the first of the compounded nouns is capitalized. I like the look of Ass-Hat better though. I realize the risk of writing anything regarding grammar among more learned souls such as lurk about here. I welcome correction and education. I like that we have few 'grammar Nazi's' though.

I have always used intuition and the "sound" of a phrase as my guide. It would be nice to learn why some phrases are cringe-worthy and why others flow.

 

[emap]

Bad rain you are confusing the poor boy. Arse is a word in use in England and Australia for the same meaning as ass.

So while you say arsehole we say asshole. Don't even get me started on fag.

 

[Que]

Well technically it's arse if it's a hat made of bottom's not a donkey. Though, I guess both are fitting.

You see? It's clarifications like that that help. How would you feel about "Bum-Hat"?

Etymology interests me..(and confuses me with the creepier entymology)...

I've heard "arse" used by Aussies, Cannuk's Irish, Scotts, and of course the English. I always thought it some more polite way of saying "ass" like change the phonics, change the vulgarity? Like when we say shoot meaning shit...or your shit vs shite?

Is arse an actual word rather than a dialectic pronunciation?

Curious.

 

[NippleMuncher]

You see? It's clarifications like that that help. How would you feel about "Bum-Hat"?

Etymology interests me..(and confuses me with the creepier entymology)...

With forums and language filters, people are forever looking for ways to express common vulgarities to get past the filters. Asshat, I believe, came as a replacement for asshole. It not only will get around most filters, it isn't as vulgar as the original, so you can be rude without being quite so "rude" about it.

My experience with grammar Nazis is that they nitpick at the misuse and spelling of common words and basic punctuation, they don't tend to be overly sensitive about hyphens, or word forms. Common gripes are the misuse of "your" or "you're" and "there", "they're", or "their".

One of my personal pet peeves is the use of non-words, such as ginormous (recently added to the MW dictionary ), flusterated, or rememberized. We've had a few conversations whether these non-words are simply the evolution of language or ignorance of the user.

 

[unregistered]

 

[bobsgirl]

Yes to all of the above. My personal pet peeves, in addition to the homonyms already mentioned, are lose/loose and definitely/defiantly. The frequency with which I read "defiantly" on FB when the person clearly intended to type "definitely" drives me bonkers. As much as I hate lose/loose, at least it's phonetic.

Emphatic yes to lose/loose. The one that makes me grind my teeth is the use of "prolly" instead of "probably". Had a disagreement with someone who uses it who told me it was just another way to spell it.

 

[NippleMuncher]

Emphatic yes to lose/loose. The one that makes me grind my teeth is the use of "prolly" instead of "probably". Had a disagreement with someone who uses it who told me it was just another way to spell it.

Well, there prolly write, butt I unnerstand you're ginormous flustrations aboot it.

<NM ducking for cover!!>

You will never know just how hard it was to write that!

 

[silverwhisper]

bg: that same idiot probably thinks "nucular" is an acceptable pronunciation.

ed

 

[Eilan]

I have always used intuition and the "sound" of a phrase as my guide.

One interesting phenomenon that I've noticed is that some of my students use phonetic spellings on phrases/expressions that they're mishearing, e.g. "hammy-downs" for "hand-me-downs" or "doggy-dog world" for "dog-eat-dog world." Unfortunately, they don't read enough to have actually seen these expressions in print.

 

[NippleMuncher]

Unfortunately, they don't read enough to have actually seen these expressions in print.

Even if they did, they wouldn't likely make the connection.

Cute story, A friend of mine had a young daughter who was learning her ABC's. He was holding her as we chatted, and told the little girl to say her ABC's to me. It was absolutely adorable when she got to the middle. I started chuckling, she and daddy got a confused look on their faces. She wasn't saying L, M, N, O, P . . . She was saying L-Oh, Men-Oh, P. Nobody else in the family was hearing it, apparently I was the only one. Once corrected, she was fine and carried on.

 

[bobsgirl]

Well, there prolly write, butt I unnerstand you're ginormous flustrations aboot it.

<NM ducking for cover!!>

You will never know just how hard it was to write that!

Nip, you'll never know how hard it was for me to read that!

 

[bobsgirl]

bg: that same idiot probably thinks "nucular" is an acceptable pronunciation.

ed

Well, he's from the same state as the one particular former president who is famous for his nucular pronunciation.

Maybe it's a Southern thing. All I know is it looks sloppy and uneducated, and drives me crazy.

Yes, I'm pretty anal when it comes to spelling and grammar.

(And no wise cracks about the anal thing, young man... )

 

[Que]

One interesting phenomenon that I've noticed is that some of my students use phonetic spellings on phrases/expressions that they're mishearing, e.g. "hammy-downs" for "hand-me-downs" or "doggy-dog world" for "dog-eat-dog world." Unfortunately, they don't read enough to have actually seen these expressions in print.

I can't think of any examples of hand but I've seen the exact same thing And concluded the same causation... slightly interesting technological side note because voice to text uses Google on Android to run it ....it uses what people tend to text so it actually misspells a lot of words because it's the way people text them.. apologies for this mess because I am using voice to text at the moment.

I have the opposite problem I read so much that my writing a slightly better than with my speaking because there a lot of words that I wish to use in a particular situation but I don't know the pronunciation since I've never heard them used but I use them in my writing.

Even if they did, they wouldn't likely make the connection.

Cute story, A friend of mine had a young daughter who was learning her ABC's. He was holding her as we chatted, and told the little girl to say her ABC's to me. It was absolutely adorable when she got to the middle. I started chuckling, she and daddy got a confused look on their faces. She wasn't saying L, M, N, O, P . . . She was saying L-Oh, Men-Oh, P. Nobody else in the family was hearing it, apparently I was the only one. Once corrected, she was fine and carried on.

I sorta late in life baby that is now mostly being raised by her teenage siblings... they believe in a fairly rigid parenting style which I keep trying to get them to lay off of.

The baby fall somewhere in the mildly autistic spectrum. As a result she was having some developmental delays including some speech therapy issues. Those issues have for the most part been resolved once I realized that she was definitely coming out of it I was less concerned with correcting pronunciations and so forth.

She had this really cute way of saying lem-uh-lade.... I kept trying to discourage the older siblings from removing this last vestige of speech "deficiency" on grounds that it was cute as hell.

We were out to eat somewhere and she was wanting to order lemonade and she pronounce it correctly I tried to convince her that lemUHlade was the correct pronunciation and she basically looked at each of us and since I was out voted by two teenagers to me she went with lemonade.

Well, he's from the same state as the one particular former president who is famous for his nucular pronunciation.

Maybe it's a Southern thing. All I know is it looks sloppy and uneducated, and drives me crazy.

Yes, I'm pretty anal when it comes to spelling and grammar.

(And no wise cracks about the anal thing, young man... )

The thing that iPhone fascinating by James Earl Carters pronunciation of new kewler was he himself was actually the nuclear science officer on I believe a submarine in the Navy. Hey job I would have followed in the footsteps thereof had a accepted the Navy's rather generous offer in my youth prayer to Ba coming in eligible in the prophetic words of the irritated Navy recruiter said you could go out and break your leg in be eligible an event that happened within 6 weeks.

 

[Emerson40]

 

[silverwhisper]

bg quoth:
maybe it's a southern thing.

nope. i know other southerners who sounds just as educated as anyone north of the mason-dixon line. it's just plain being stupid.

bg quoth:
all i know is it looks sloppy and uneducated, and drives me crazy.

well, so long as something is.

bg quoth:
yes, i'm pretty anal when it comes to spelling and grammar.

i'll confess, i've definitely noticed this...

bg quoth:
(and no wise cracks about the anal thing, young man... )

why heaven forfend!

 

[Violette_Elan]

I like AssWipe better.

 

[Que]

I like AssWipe better.

I am a big fan of good hygiene in that area.

 

[davro]

Etymology interests me..(and confuses me with the creepier entymology)...

I've heard "arse" used by Aussies, Cannuk's Irish, Scotts, and of course the English. I always thought it some more polite way of saying "ass" like change the phonics, change the vulgarity? Like when we say shoot meaning shit...or your shit vs shite?

Is arse an actual word rather than a dialectic pronunciation?

Curious.

Ass is used in the South West of England,they also roll their R's like Americans do.Possible connection is that in the early days of America Plymouth was Britain's main port and a lot of settlers,explorers,the Pilgrim Fathers etc either left from there or passed through and their ships were often crewed by locals,voluntarily or otherwise.
I'm not sure whether the rest of England spoke with a similar accent back then or if it was just the South Western version that made it overseas but even today any Westcountry accent is close to "American English" with words like bastard,class,glass and the like pronounced the American way.
Whether Ass or Arse is the original I have no idea.