# Grammar pains.



## Bob Loblaw (Mar 9, 2006)

This thread is in no way meant to imply my grammar and writing is above reproach. I only feel the need to point out some all too common grammatical errors found in the AAAC fora due to a medical condition which causes me to experience pain in my left side when exposed to certain forms of bad grammar. So here we go:

Compliment/complement: "My gloves complEment my overcoat so I received several complIments."

Begs the question
"You said you own no black shoes. This BEGS THE QUESTION which shoes do you wear with a dinner jacket?" is just wrong. Begging the question is a logical fallicy in which the conclusion of an argument is implicitly or explicitly assumed in one of the premises. "Jack's Slack Shack is the best men's clothing store because it is!"

Perhaps others might add some that I missed. Please help me experience AAAC pain free.


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

loose vs. lose
apostrophe errors
I could care less
than and then


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## yachtie (May 11, 2006)

Laxplayer said:


> I could care less


One of my personal pet peeves ( gee! how alliterative!)


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## Bob Loblaw (Mar 9, 2006)

Laxplayer said:


> loose vs. lose
> apostrophe errors
> I could care less
> than and then


Good catch! I have prepared the following for reference:

https://imageshack.us


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## MisterPaul (Jun 18, 2007)

To add to the above, I have always found, without exception, that too many commas, idly and incorrectly sprinkled within a sentence, can give me a raging case of utter, exhaustive, and even complete, head pain.


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## Spence (Feb 28, 2006)

What ever happened to -ly? I rarely hear it anymore. 

-spence


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

Bob Loblaw said:


> fallicy


Fallacy.

Gotcha!

Actually, I agree with every one of your points.

For a site that pokes fun at a particular form of punctuation error, look here: https://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Spence said:


> What ever happened to -ly? I rarely hear it anymore.
> 
> -spence


This is particularly true in the United States.

We should all read and take note of:

https://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/

No excuses!


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

MisterPaul said:


> To add to the above, I have always found, without exception, that too many commas, idly and incorrectly sprinkled within a sentence, can give me a raging case of utter, exhaustive, and even complete, head pain.


:icon_smile_big: Yes, I find I am guilty of this sometimes.

A copy of "_*Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation*_" by Lynne Truss should be rushed to anyone who does this and, for that matter, to everyone else too.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

I make mistakes. I make spelling mistakes and I make grammar mistakes, usually when I am talking on the phone and hammering out a post here, so I try not to get too grammar police on people.

However, two, to, and too. Figure it out people.

Their = possession, they're = they are.

Please get "your" and "you're" worked out in your mind too!

Lastly, points are not silent. They are not "mute". 

Okay, thanks for the forum to vent.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Just in case you're not familiar with the tale of said Panda, and how it illustrates the importance of punctuation, here's Wikipedia's version:

_A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"Well, I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."_


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

Spence said:


> What ever happened to -ly? I rarely hear it anymore.
> 
> -spence


It's called "collapsing". It happens in language all the time, and is one of the mechanisms that caused ancient Anglo-Saxon to become modern English; Classical Latin to become Vulgar Latin to become Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

Case endings of nouns, adjectives and adverbs, and verbs collapse to make new forms. The Latin _cantabo_: _I will sing_ is a collapsing of "habeo cantare".

It's not a grammatical mistake; there technically are no grammatical mistakes, only changes to language. These changes or mistakes become "correct by common usage" as an English professor of mine called it, and the language changes.

There is much much more about language change arising from "mistakes" at The Linguist List site

Btw, grammarians do not take into acount historical lingusitics (language change). Grammarians prescribe what the set of rules for a language should be based on one dialect, usually the "standard" or most prestigious one. Therefore anything that deviates from that, though perfectly functional a a language/dialect is wrong by their standards.

Yes, one should use the dialect and forms of the audience being addressed or communicated with. But to use ones "home dialect" is not wrong.


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## Rocker (Oct 29, 2004)

The one that seems to have popped up in the last ten years, on a very wide-spread basis, is "I feel badly for him/her" instead of the proper "I feel bad for him/her" - the first usage seems to imply some kind of nerve damage.....

There also seems to be increasing confusion on when to use well v. good.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Well, yes and no, Rocker and Frank.

Rocker you are right - "I feel bad" is a case where bad is an adjective that describes the noun before the verb. It's not an adverb so doesn't have -ly at the end. So, as you correctly say, you shouldn't use the adverb "badly". But it's a different scenario altogether. The inverse, in fact. And it causes confusion: "The dog smells bad" vs "The dog smells badly". The latter infers that the dog isn't good at smelling.

The "collapsing" phenomenon, as Frank calls it, is where people don't know how to use adverbs...

-ly, in the context where it is incorrectly left out, often distinguishes a word as an "Adverb", i.e. something that describes a verb.

"The site is working normal/proper again" is wrong. "The site is working normally/properly again" is right. 

Not knowing how to use adverbs, like all grammar and spelling mistakes, shows you up as being lazy and sloppy and this impression will colour how people view you personally and professionally.


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

Rossini said:


> Not knowing how to use adverbs, like all grammar and spelling mistakes, shows you up as being lazy and sloppy and this impression will colour how people view you personally and professionally.


Then English losing its noun case endings in the Early Middle Ages came about because people didn't know how to use them? 
Did all these changes come about by people not knowing how to speak? (may take a while to load). I think there is more to it than that.

Grammar mistakes are determined by how the language _should_ work... decisions made by some body of people as opposed to how it _does_ work. When "The site is working normal/proper again" is used by the vast majority of English speakers, will it then be wrong? Or will the rules of grammar be changed?

There are already examples of what was once considered wrong being accepted. This is just one: https://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/098.html

In 200, 500, 1,000, 10,000 years do you think the English of 2007 will be intelligible?

And as I said, there _are_ times when you use the grammar or dialect of the people you are dealing with.


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## wnh (Nov 4, 2006)

Laxplayer said:


> apostrophe errors


It kill's me when people do this.


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

wnh said:


> It kill's me when people do this.


:icon_smile_big:


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## The Wife (Feb 4, 2006)

*"Grammar pains."*

It _pains_ me to write this, but titles do not take periods* (full stops). And, the notion that a title can be displayed without capitals on everything but the prepositions (words such as "of", "to", and "and" must remain lower-case) is a _*fallacy*_.:icon_smile_big:

Seriously, I applaud your bravery in posting this topic, Mr. Loblaw--and I heartily agree with you! 

*The fact that a left-wing publication, "The Nation. " uses a period after its title is irrelevant, and doesn't mean that it is correct. It _does _mean _something_, but it wouldn't be polite to say it here.:icon_smile_wink:


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

The Wife said:


> It _pains_ me to write this, but titles do not take periods* (full stops). *And, the notion that a title can be displayed without capitals on everything but the prepositions (words such as "of", "to", and "and" must remain lower-case) is a fallacy.:icon_smile_big:*
> 
> Seriously, I applaud your bravery in posting this topic, Mr. Loblaw--and I heartily agree with you!
> 
> *The fact that a left-wing publication, "The Nation. " uses a period after its title is irrelevant, and doesn't mean that it is correct. It _does _mean _something_, but it wouldn't be polite to say it here.:icon_smile_wink:


That's interesting. I thought that was the correct way to write titles, but I see the articles written in lower-case so often that I thought I must be wrong. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Anyone else feel they need to double check everything they post in this thread? :icon_smile_big:


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

Does anyone think certain people or groups have an agenda in the language morphing?


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Frank aka The Minotaur said:


> Grammar mistakes are determined by how the language _should_ work... decisions made by some body of people as opposed to how it _does_ work. When "The site is working normal/proper again" is used by the vast majority of English speakers, will it then be wrong? Or will the rules of grammar be changed?
> 
> In 200, 500, 1,000, 10,000 years do you think the English of 2007 will be intelligible?.


It may or may not be used by the vast majority in the future. But, for now, the received wisdom is not to use it, the vast majority don't, and so it isn't acceptable and doesn't help us all communicate properly with eachother.

Of course language changes over time. But that's not an excuse to ignore the framework of the day so you and your fellow humans can communicate effectively, without ambiguity (see panda story et al.), and with some semblance of standards. Also we need to be aware that, if we all just did what the herd/the majority wanted, we'd be all the poorer for it (sartorially, linguistically, culturally, fiscally....). Just because something happens in language, it doesn't mean it happens for the better. It's up to us all to decide whether we feel it makes things better or clearer and act/teach/speak/write accordingly. Where do you draw the line? If the vast majority spell things incorrectly and differently, if people start introducing mistakes because of educational issues, do we just accept it as evolution? I don't think so!


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## tabasco (Jul 17, 2006)

*linguistics and lanquage differences*

Standing in line at Best Buy last week, I noticed the large Customer Service terms posted in Spanish beside the English. I counted words in paragraphs (I waited a LONG time), and noticed Spanish verbosity and English more succint (word count).

I'm not fluent in language other than English, but I wondered if English was able to convey more information in a shorter word count. I think I heard English has more words than anyother language (I am right?), and perhaps that is one reason it's harder to get grammatically correct: it's complicated.

Comments ?

-sign lanquage wanna-be


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

The Wife said:


> It _pains_ me to write this, but titles do not take periods* (full stops). And, the notion that a title can be displayed without capitals on everything but the prepositions (words such as "of", "to", and "and" must remain lower-case) is a _*fallacy*_.:icon_smile_big:


I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that every word in a title except prepositions and conjunctions must be capitalized? I don't think that's accurate. The rule from Warriner's English Grammar and Composition has it that all words in a title are capitalized except conjunctions, articles (unless the first word in the title) and prepositions of fewer than five letters. This comports with my practice.

I'd be interested if you have an authority to the contrary.


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## Bob Loblaw (Mar 9, 2006)

The problem that I have with common usage arguments and language collapse is that it allows for our vocabulary to be erroded to the point that different words which once meant different things now are synonyms and language loses some of its meaning and expression. I think the distinctions between _imply_ and _infer_ as well as _composed_ and _comprised_ are important.


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## The Wife (Feb 4, 2006)

> I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that every word in a title except prepositions and conjunctions must be capitalized? I don't think that's accurate. The rule from Warriner's English Grammar and Composition has it that all words in a title are capitalized except conjunctions, articles (unless the first word in the title) and prepositions of fewer than five letters. This comports with my practice.


That's what I was trying to say, in fewer words--but _you've_ done an excellent job of explaining it. I reckoned that I was tedious enough already.
Just like the Big Lebowski's rug, I was trying to tie it all together by using a sentence that included "fallacy"


> Begging the question is a logical fallicy in which the conclusion of an argument is...


--which, when misspelled as seen in the first post of this thread, begs a correction, and at the same time pointing out that a title's _not_ a title if it is in the form of an incomplete sentence, as in "Grammar pains."

*And, how about the post on this forum a few months ago wherein a fellow was looking for "hangars" for his clothing? Those must have been awfully large clothes!*


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Bob Loblaw said:


> The problem that I have with common usage arguments and language collapse is that it allows for our vocabulary to be erroded to the point that different words which once meant different things now are synonyms and language loses some of its meaning and expression. I think the distinctions between _imply_ and _infer_ as well as _composed_ and _comprised_ are important.


I agree, Bob. And there are so many other examples. Good grammar and spelling is all about having the tools, standards, and ability to communicate effectively and exactly. Ambiguity and lack of clarity caused by poor usage can't just be blindly apologised for as evolution.


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

*If two people can understand each other the language works, regardless of the "rules"*

If two people can understand each other, the language works, regardless of the "rules". I invite you (pl.; I wish English had not collapsed 2nd pers. s. and pl. into one pronoun: bad English! bad bad English!) to delve into historical linguistics, and the changes taking place even now. It's been happening for 6,000 years to Indoeuropean languages (at least since Proto-Indoeuropean that is reconstructed), and at least as long for every other language family: Afroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Amerindian and on and on. Change in language is inexorable, whether you agree with the changes or not; whether you like it or not. To think that it's OK for historical persons or future generations to be responsible for the changes is the height of naivete'. It's happening now. It is what it is.


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

Rossini said:


> ...having the tools, standards, and ability to communicate effectively and exactly.


You use the right tools for the right job. You don't use a rip saw for cross-cutting; you don't use a sledghammer to drive a nail. No tool is inappropriate; just used at an inappropriate time.

There is nothing wrong with saying to my buds, "hey guys! what happened? You shoulda came last night". I've communicated to them effectively enough. However, I wouldn't say that in a business letter or to my bosses.

The furor that Bill Cosby caused with his diatribe is only partly correct. There don't be nothin' wrong with using BVE (Black Vernacular English) at home or in the 'hood. You just don't use it applying for a job or in business.

Use the tools for the job.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Wayfarer said:


> Does anyone think certain people or groups have an agenda in the language morphing?


I think some people need speech therapy to help them improve the way they speak.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

Howard said:


> I think some people need speech therapy to help them improve the way they speak.


Does SSI for OCD cover that?


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Wayfarer said:


> Does SSI for OCD cover that?


Yes I think they do.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Frank aka The Minotaur said:


> Use the tools for the job.


Yes, albeit a different point. Now we're on to spoken English and "tools for jobs". Your argument is valid if the people in question are actually able to use the right tools for the job. Without knowledge of the rules of grammar and so on, they won't be able to. For the people who can't use the right tools, help is required so that they can become able to use the those tools as appropriate in every circumstance they might face in their life.


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## Rossini (Oct 7, 2007)

Frank aka The Minotaur said:


> You use the right tools for the right job. You don't use a rip saw for cross-cutting; you don't use a sledghammer to drive a nail. No tool is inappropriate; just used at an inappropriate time.


Ok, so think of bad grammar (as opposed to vernacular, slang, or colloquialisms) as a nail made of sponge. Or a wind-powered rip saw. Or a rusty surgical knife. There's never a truly _appropriate_ time to use them. There might be a time you can use them to "fit in" or not do any damage, but not always. Inappropriate grammatical tools can lead to confusion, misunderstanding, errors, and negatively influence people's impression of the person using them.


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## 16128 (Feb 8, 2005)

Frank aka The Minotaur said:


> You use the right tools for the right job. You don't use a rip saw for cross-cutting; you don't use a sledghammer to drive a nail. No tool is inappropriate; just used at an inappropriate time.
> 
> There is nothing wrong with saying to my buds, "hey guys! what happened? You shoulda came last night". I've communicated to them effectively enough. However, I wouldn't say that in a business letter or to my bosses.
> 
> ...


True, but some people who use nonstandard dialects have difficulty turning it off or do not know the correct constructions. This is why it's important to correct children who use poor English, even at home.


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## jamgood (Feb 8, 2006)

*Floccinaucinihilipilification, or naye...*

o;Bouy, 1's gettin, eruidited, two! Eye suffered a split infantatyve asa Tyelanese Twen an steel hav a danglin part o cycle. Gona get a colin-eskopeny. Kneed all the correctin 1 can get. Mos a tine eyes mor sutle. Thankyew.

Theese her feller a heep a corectin inglis hep > www.townhall.com/columnists/JamesJKilpatrick

: or ; ?
' or " ?
; or , ?
> or < ?
, , , & the last one. Or, not?
What, wayfar sed!?
Brian herts, Makes ma hed wanna bus open
Kaint keeep up wifit

Ware whate sox!!

syntactically Yourn,
jG:


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## xcubbies (Jul 31, 2005)

I find that, generally, the better the grammar, the more thought went into a post. Good grammar is a courtesy and an indication of seriousness.


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## 44XT (Aug 2, 2005)

I really like, "....for all intensive purposes"


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

VS said:


> True, but some people who use nonstandard dialects have difficulty turning it off or do not know the correct constructions. This is why it's important to correct children who use poor English, even at home.


OK, that's true. I was fortunate that my schools _taught_ it. Now students are just pushed through.


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## Frank aka The Minotaur (Nov 12, 2004)

44XT said:


> I really like, "....for all intensive purposes"


Even I admit that's just plain wrong! :devil:


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