So..

Wears you're rant?

I love the time bug.

How many posts can I fit in before the first?

Speaking of rants

Last one, I swear.

The English language - rants welcome, be warned
 

Every so often, a little steam builds up on this subject. Seems harmless enough to blow it off in a well-marked little thread that doesn't need to bother anyone who isn't interested.

If your not innerested, then you should of stayed away from hear cuz of it's title.

Its an outrage.

A quick primer:

rain - this is water falling from the sky
rein - this is the harness or straps used to control an animal
reign - this is the rulership of a leader

If you are assuming control of something, you are "taking the reins" -- just like you would if you were becoming the driver of a horse-drawn carriage. See the reference?

If you are trying to get control of something that is getting out of control, you seek to "rein in" the situation. Once again - it's metaphorically just like grabbing the leather straps that keep the horses from running away from the carriage.



(We'll leave the FBCB author out of this)

Theres a problem with the machine, FOFC will self destruct in 1 minute.


I love you all, goodbye.






Loren, holla at me sometime.

Good for you, you located one of the several deliberate errors in the sentence. You're a shining star.

Suicane -

What he meant to say was:

If your knot innerested, than ewe should of stayed aweigh from hear cuz of it's title.

QS I remember reading a while back that you were a college professor (economics I think?). If so I'm curious, do you ever correct your student's grammar on their assignments? Would you return a paper ungraded if the the grammar is too terrible?

Here's a sneaky little one that bothers me:

Capitol: The building where the federal or state legislatures meet or the name of an old record label
Capital: All other uses of the word including referring to city that is home to a Capitol.

If you are meeting in the state capitol, then you are meeting in the state legislature building. If you are in the state capital, you can be any where in that particular city. The White House is in the capital but it is not part of the Capitol.

Excellent use of italicization, by the way.

What is the opposite of more?

It depends.

If the things you are describing is measured in countable, discrete (not to be confused with discreet) units, then the word you want is fewer. If the noun is plural, then you almost always should use fewer. Fewer calories. Fewer touchdowns. Fewer problems. Fewer dollars. And so forth.

If the thing you are describing is not countable, but rather quantifiable as a masurement or just as a comparison -- then the word you want is less. If the noun is singular, then you almost always should use less. Less fat. Less scoring. Less trouble. Less money. And so forth.


This is a very widely made mistake (specifically using "less" all the time, rather than deliniating as above) -- and if you don't have a buzzer that goes off in your head when you say, write, or hear phrases like "less dollars" then it may be tough to learn, i'm guessing.

Yep. In Tallahassee, we have a fairly large street/highway called Capital Circle - which doesn't run near the Capitol, incidentally, but runs around the Capital City.

My guess, as a many of these mistakes are, it results from quick typing and rarely looking too deep to correct errors. I know personally I try to go back and at least try to pick out the bigger errors, but if it is not a direct misspelling, I'll probably miss it.

Shouldn't that just be "italics"? :p

Lose/loose...

why do so many on the web get this screwed up and mistake "lose" for "loose"?

I make it very clear to my students that I value clear, accurate, and professional presentation. I tell them an ominous (and mostly true) story about throwing resumes into the trash when the cover letter has a grammatical error... and they tend to respond to that. I then explain how I will ruthlessly deduct points for any writing errors in the papers they submit to me.

By and large, I receive structurally excellent work. Frequently they don't understand economics worth a damn, but they sure manage to get all the its and it's straightened out. Funny how proper motivation can clear up this sort of thing pretty effectively.

Then/than is one of the most annoying and most common screwups.

Was/were confuses a lot of people too:

If I was taller I could reach it.

I believe that's even grammatically correct!

Don't you think it's time to let a new bug live up your ass for a while? This one could use a little fresh air...

My top three:

1. "should of" instead of should've
It's not used for brevity and obviously isn't a typo. Unless it's some sort of l33t speak that I don't know about, it shows a lack of education.

2. one / won
They're homynyms, but their meanings are not even close to each other's.

3. lose / loose
They share four letters but are not homynyms.

A major problem is that if anyone points out a grammatical mistake, they are the ones who are villified. English was always my weakest subject, and I'm still unsure of when to use who/whom and effect/affect. If someone would point out a mistake, I wouldn't lash out at them, I'd look at it as a learning experience.

I generally don't take things too seriously on message boards, and realize that everyone makes mistakes from time to time (especially myself). However, if a poster constantly butchers the language, I'll tend to ignore him or think less of his opinion.

edit: can't spell homynyms :)

Good example. This one bugs the hell out of me, particularly because my daughter has a Winnie the Pooh book she likes to read, and this is repeatedly screwed up. And every time my daughter reads it, I cringe, but I figure 5 years old is probably too young to explain why the book is wrong.

The book is about Roo deciding whether Kanga is the "very best momma," and he goes through each of the Pooh characters in the same fashion:

If Rabbit were my momma...
If Owl were my momma...
If Piglet were my momma...

It drives me abso-frickin-lutely crazy!

Isn't that correct, though? If I'm reading this right, that is.

I saw your momma the other day at the airport. She was sniffing luggage.

I think this is a mistake.

Seeing a grocery store with a sign over its express lane that boldly reads "8 ITEMS OR LESS" drives me nuts. I've thought often about complaining about it, but I generally resign myself to it being a fruitless exercise.

"Towards", "irregardless", and "I have got..." (or "I've got...") pretty much round out my list of errors that are akin to scraping fingernails on a chalkboard.

It is. And it's my biggest language pet peeve. This trend to misuse myself and occasionally yourself drives me crazy. Usually the improper use of a reflexive pronoun shows up when someone is trying to sound more intelligent (not necessarily the case here) in a business or formal setting.

Little do they know that they're actually screwing it up. If "I" or "me" would work, then don't use "myself" instead. Simple rule.

Why'd you link to the same thing I did? Or did you not see I linked it and it's a coincidence? Either way, weird.

The myself one bugs me a lot. I think bosses are required to use it to sound like they know more than their subordinates who shouldn't even correct them.

Yes.

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html

I'm very bad about that... :o

This is mainly a regional dialect issue, but as someone born and raised in Washington, I hate...

...when people pronounce it WARSHington

...when people ask, "The state?"

Well I'll be. I guess that's probably the best reason for not having mentioned this to my daughter!

The funny thing is, the rules are so specific that there is really no practical reason for them:

if clauses—the traditional rules. According to traditional rules, you use the subjunctive to describe an occurrence that you have presupposed to be contrary to fact: if I were ten years younger, if America were still a British Colony. The verb in the main clause of these sentences must then contain the verb would or (less frequently) should: If I were ten years younger, I would consider entering the marathon. If America were still a British colony, we would all be drinking tea in the afternoon. When the situation described by the if clause is not presupposed to be false, however, that clause must contain an indicative verb. The form of verb in the main clause will depend on your intended meaning: If Hamlet was really written by Marlowe, as many have argued, then we have underestimated Marlowe’s genius. If Kevin was out all day, then it makes sense that he couldn’t answer the phone.


I don't believe the traditional rules are closely followed to these specifications. Although, I wiill admit the book appears to be technically correct.

But it sounds bad, because "I were" just doesn't make sense like "I was" does.

That's definitely a dialect thing - my mother-in-law is from Jersey, and talks about doing the warsh (laundry) and I make fun of her for it. And my 5 year old picked up on it and now corrects here every time she says it. I lost a few points with her for that, I think.

I guess that demonstrates another problem: When mistakes become common, proper usage is more difficult.

So "including myself" should have been "including me"?

Edit: "Everyone, including me, ..." would probably be better.

Is it close to Chicargo?

I dislike when people say "vice-uh versa". That's all.

dola...


ooh! and when people say, "all intensive purposes."

That being said, I will seriously feel slighted if you don't correct any such errors I make in my FOFC writings. These are the things I feel I do well at but ultimately want to be better at. I want to communicate more accurately.

I feel like such a looser if I don't. ;)

Oh, and I am fully comfortable with the less vs fewer thing but my fellow FOFC'ers have made sure I can spell definite, which was a hard one for me to learn. :)

I still think funner should be a word though. I know it's not but it darned well should be. :)

More fun sounds like a certain schedule II drug that we shouldn't relate to such innocent thoughts such as fun. Funner is the safer though less accurate choice for me. :)

i'm pretty much the most articulate person in the world

I think he meant...

This trend to misuse 'myself' and occasionally 'yourself'

Certainly "Warshington" is on the list of things I hate to hear. It is just not near, as high on the annoyance list as "nucular".

The whole Subjunctive form thing is apparently over my head, because I don't even have a vague recollection of those rules, and I had a pretty good English education.

"Should of" causes me to cringe a bit.

I often catch myself saying or about to say myself instead of me. The above complainer is correct, that I seem to want to do it in more formal situation. Most commonly is heading up a conference call. "Here on this end we have Yada Yada, and myslef". I have gotten to the point where if I don't stop myself from saying it, I'll correct myself.

I am a reformed possessive it'ser. I sometimes, now have to force myself to use an apostrophe when abbreviating "it is".

I am an unabashed abuser of commas. I have no earthy clue when it is proper to use a semi-colon or a colon, yet I use them both.

Oh another pet-peeve is the use of sight when referring to a web site.

Some of these don't bother me.

I understand the whole less versus fewer thing, but I don't think I'd ever have a problem with "X items or less". Probably because it is in a different form, because "8 or less items" would bother me.

I have gotten to the point where people misusing homynyms, because while the there, they're, and their situation is quite clear to me, and annoys me as well. I have reread message board posts and seen myself misuse them. Apparently I type by ear.

I honestly don't understand the "I have got", "I've got" thing. I don't think it is common for folks to mixup have got and have, so I must be missing something.


Most annoying of all, and we have actually argued about it here, but is the spoken use of "an historic". Actually it bothers me to see it used even in writing, but at least in writing there is a reason for it, albeit an archaic one.

Would someone please educate me again on the proper use of who versus whom?

"Who" is used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence or clause (nominative case).
Who is at the door? Give the ball to the player who will score.
(Who is the subject of the verb "is." Who is the subject of the verb "will score.")

"Whom" is used when the pronoun is an object in a sentence (objective case).
To whom am I talking? Montana is the quarterback whom I drafted first.
(Whom is the object of the preposition "to." Whom is the object of the verb "drafted.")

Basically, you need to know how to tell the word is functioning as a subject of object in a sentence.

You should break in at night and spray paint FEWER over the LESS. Maybe start a guerilla organization.

Your interest is not peaked.

Your interest is piqued.

Nothing wrong with wheels's post above.

I usually explain it:
Use who like you use I, and use whom like you use me.

Terms like nominative and objective tend to make many people shudder and give up on grammar altogether. But most everyone grasps the often-used pronouns, and how to use them (implicitly the exact same deliniation).

Very true... but there aren't all that many people who misuse this in writing, I don't find. I think many/most of the people who lack the command to properly spell it also lack the command to think of using such a phrase in the first place.

Not to embarrass anyone but I did see this error here today. It seems to me that this mistake occurs fairly often but YMMV of course.

annoying: She went to the concert with Joe and I.

I can't stand that I always write in the passice voice. Active voice, active voice, dammit! *punches himself*

Some of you need help. Alot of it...

I don't see much of it any more, but here's another one:

Something or someone that dominates should be described as dominant, not dominate.

Very common, and yet annoying because they are so simple to remember:

there is a location, i.e. "Let's go over there.;
their is a possessive, i.e. "The Seahawks released their fastest LB today;
they're is a contraction of they are, i.e. "My friends are in town today, and they're going to see the Mariners game.

As well as:

too is in addition to something, i.e. "I want to see that movie too.;
two is the number, i.e. "One plus one equals two.;
to is used in every other circumstance

I know there's another one I've seen a lot of recently that bugs me, but I'm blanking on it at the moment.

I do this as well. This is, by far, the biggest thing that Word corrects me on, including spelling. I think it is because we often use the passive voice in every day speech.

Oh alot instead of A lot.

Thanks for pointing that out Noop.

Dola,
Regarding piqued/peaked. My boss the other day mentioned that something had PEE-KAYED his interest. He didn't take it very well when I told him, but it did get me a free lunch.

In casual conversation, I don't mind it so much...it's generally quite prevalent, but it's said so fast, you almost don't notice it.

In business correspondence (or any kind of formal writing), however, it's sloppy and redundant. "I have..." is perfectly sufficient. :)

It could have been. In this case I wanted to compliment (not complement) the action of using italics, not merely just the italics themselves.

Rulership?

of and off.

It's a valid word according to the dictionary I have...

This reminds me of the annoying use of "off of" in place of "off".

"I got the ball off of my friend."
"He took the wrapping off of the present."

In each case, the "of" is redundant.

My other annoyance is with the word "secretary" pronounced as "seck-etary" as if the first "r" is silent. Up there with "library" and "liberry".

[ Runs eye over rant before hitting Submit Reply to ensure no errors in post ]

This is absolutely rampant in the political realm, where someone discovered some time ago that the passive voice seems to absolve blame for things. (The all-time classic case of this is "mistakes were made." Apparently nobody made the mistakes, it's nobody's fault, and lord knows nobody should be punished ... the mistakes were just made, it seems)

My toes curl almost every time I see things in writing that read "It is recommended that..." or "The result of the legislation would be..." or "The State is desirous of..."

Yes. Either the time period during which the ruler actually served, or alternatively the geographic domain over which the ruler presided. More often the first, but also colloquially the second. Sorry if I was unclear - didn't want to use the usually-preferable word "rule," which has another plain meaning, creating an avenue for more ambiguity.

Hi. My name is Huck, and I write in the passive voice. It coincides with an apparent affinity for prepositional phrases. I am engaged in a continual battle against my passive voice demons.

Oh, news flash: An apostrophe is not necessary for every word that becomes a plural.



I know it's well-worm territory, but just incase someone is actually reading this thread with an open mind -- perhaps this can help.

Rant:

Websites and other media that list the possessive form of names as follows:
Brock Sheriff's, Michael Jordan's, Curly Culp's, Chicago Tribune's. They treat the 's as a separate typographic element.

The possessive forms ('s) of these proper nouns are inflections; they are part of the words, not to be treated as typographically different. It is the same as if they published dog's or boy's.


Sadly, most publishing software has keywords, such as proper nouns, in a dictionary that automatically trigger a certain typographic style treatment. These keywords typically do not cover inflections of the words.

If publishers would stop using spell check and other software in lieu of actual editors, perhaps this wouldn't be so rampant.

I think that Have got might be redundant, but I it's pretty well accepted. I'd say that "off of" falls into the same category. Maybe these were a problem at one time, but at least Have Got seems to have become acceptable.

there/their/they're comes so easily with me that i don't even have to think about it in usage, so that is probably my biggest peeve when it comes to english.

i revise my roomies' english papers because they write horribly.


filling job applications, my roomie goes "hey how do you spell joseph?", i ask why, he replies "Oh it's my middle name"

sigh

Now that you mention it, I saw it come up twice. Once incorrectly, and later in the same thread used correctly. I suspect the latter was inspired by the former.

fill me in.

your interest gets piqued, not peaked?

i don't think i've ever used that in a sentence.

also, it was brought up in a game i was playing where you had to rhyme with a word: here... someone said "mirror" and i was the only out of 8 people to object. people thought i was crazy but mirror and here have absolutely no rhyme, unless you are pronouncing it god awfully like "meer", but even in that case the real word is still not rhyming with the original, here. my argument was that if that was acceptable, you could rhyme any word with here as long as you put an accent on it..

i got really into that argument. especially when a fellow english major was trying to tell me they rhymed, wow.

Unless you're talking about the rapper, the word is spelled ludicrous, not ludacris.

Please, please, please, shorty. Tell me this "English Major" was WAY deep in the drink count. Honestly...I was a (for those of you that care...and I'm one of them...AN) History major, please, please, PLEASE tell me that this "english major" was really just joking with you? Mirror and here?

Is this the "Lil' John" school of rhyme?

I don't pretend to know everything about the english language -- lord knows that it's crazy enough without me trying to put my mark on it. Either way...the english language sucks. And I know that there are plenty more rules than I know about to make it worthy of keeping track of. But seriously -- mirror and here? Last time I checked, words that rhymed with each other had a similar last syllable. Here and mirror do not rhyme, have never rhymed, and will never rhyme, according to my count. Please tell me when this count fails, because at that point, I will fail to be a fan of music.


EDIT -- The point I'm trying to make is that they aren't even close. Mi-ROR, and HERE are quite different words. I'm in no shape to illustrate something different, but I will do so to the best of my ability, because there is no one else to do so. Well, there is probably someone else to do so, but I feel that somehow this is my responsibility, so I will do so.

I really think this might be my personal favorite post of yours. And there are an awful lot to choose from. I can't really even describe why this is my favorite of yours...it just really strikes me as apporpriate in this case.

I've been seeing a lot of spelling errors recently where an "e" is being used in place of "i", for example rediculous instead of ridiculous, and enquiry instead of inquiry.

Seems to me to be a classic case of a common (though not precisely correct) pronunciation of a word causing someone to misspell it, i.e. phonetic spelling.

Here's one that drives me crazy, and the bump of SD's thread about the current Tucker RB's college choice prompted me to bring it up...

The word notorious has a limited meaning; specifically, it relates to something that is well-known but also unfavorable. It refers to a bad reputation for some undesirable feature, quality, or act.

A criminal may be fairly described as notorious. A high school that places a large number of football players with Division I-A programs is not notorious for that. It might be well-known, but it is not an undesirable quality. A rock band could be notorious for trashing hotel rooms, but not for having a string of #1 hits.

This one bothers me greatly because it appears that professional writers have completely destroyed the meaning of the word by using it in any situation for which someone is well-known for some act or quality. That's not the case.

I vaguely recall being taught that 'notorious' and 'infamous' had similar meanings but one referred to people and the other referred to events/things. But bugger me if I can remember which one was which.

This reminds of writers, and in particular sports writers, who use the word 'tragedy' in the wrong context. By one definition, it is "a disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life". A team losing a game is not a tragedy!