Grammar quirks

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

If we're going for spoken-word, there's a habit among some British people of turning "th" into "f." It makes me INSANE. The word is "anything," not "anyfing."

And in parts of the country, 'anyfink', occasionally with a glottal stop. 

Where I come from, there were some interesting attitudes to verbs, along the lines of 'I seen' for 'I saw' and 'you done' for 'you did'. It didn't happen with all verbs though, and I was never able to work out which ones were vulnerable.

On the 'alot' line, I'll vote against 'moreso'. Two words, please. 'More so', meaning 'to a greater extent'. I know that some authorities are beginning to accept it, but I'll man the barricades against.

[Harriet]

On the 'alot' line, I'll vote against 'moreso'. Two words, please. 'More so', meaning 'to a greater extent'. I know that some authorities are beginning to accept it, but I'll man the barricades against.

Oh gosh, I'll man with you!

I see this one on ehell a lot -- diffuse / defuse

You don't "diffuse" a tense situation, you defuse it.

[Giggity]

Oh Lord above, "comprise." I wish it would go away, because every single person I've heard it from in the past year at least has said "comprised of" instead of "composed of" and they are NOT THE SAME WORD.

[Thipu1]

When did the word 'much' cease to be associated with the word 'fun'?

'That was so fun!' makes me want to hit.  It's especially bad when it's used on the news and I hear it more and more frequently. 

[Mental Magpie]

Changing tact makes perfect sense to me.  I am changing the tact I used to approach something.  For example, being sensitive to one aspect may have not worked, so I become sensitive to something else and have thus changed my tact. 

But 'tact' isn't defined as having different kinds or qualities.  I've never seen it as having any sort of qualifier or adjective that would suggest you get different kinds.  It is, simply, being sensitive to what's appropriate in dealing with other people or situations.  So if your approach, being sensitive to one aspect, hasn't worked and you change the way you deal with the situation, you aren't changing by being sensitive to something else or changing tact, you are just **changing your approach** to how you deal with the person or the situation by using the same sensitivity, the same tact.  You're just trying a new way of doing it.

You have changed my mind on the matter 

[cabbageweevil]

There's a poster on here who overkills with hyphens. He would write something like "I need to back-up my data every night. My personal-computer, which I got at a bright-blue store, is a piece-of-work."

Are you by any chance referring to me?  I realise that my ways with the English language annoy some on this board, and I tend to get rebuked for same -- am trying to do better.

At least I don't say "anyfing" ...

[cabbageweevil]

This isn't grammar, but spelling.  On book forums, so many people type "heroin" instead of "heroine."  That one little "e" makes a world of difference so please spell correctly!

Might someone with an obsessive passion for chick-lit -- spending so much time reading it, as to threaten their everyday life's becoming unmanageable -- be appropriately called a "heroine addict"?


I don't know how to multi-quote on this board; so rather than making a zillion separate posts, will henceforth resort to "manual quoting".

Will confess that I tend toward tolerance as regards these matters; there are ways in which I too, abuse the language, and I feel that essentially there are worse evils in the world than this stuff.

Harriet, post #30, mentions the "it's / its" thing. While understanding this one, and using it rightly; I can see why people (some of them very intelligent in most respects) get it wrong. Their thoughts: apostrophe plus s is used to denote possession -- so, drat it, "it's" SHOULD mean "of it" !

SoCalVal (post #42), starry diadem (post #45) and Mikayla (post #51), discuss "their" as the gender-neutral single possessive. I use "their" for the purpose -- being male, not wishing to risk slighting the opposite sex by universal use of the male form; and (JMO) "his / her" or "his or her" sound and look infuriatingly cumbersome and stilted, in comparison with "their".

[Bexx27]

Changing tact makes perfect sense to me.  I am changing the tact I used to approach something.  For example, being sensitive to one aspect may have not worked, so I become sensitive to something else and have thus changed my tact. 

But 'tact' isn't defined as having different kinds or qualities.  I've never seen it as having any sort of qualifier or adjective that would suggest you get different kinds.  It is, simply, being sensitive to what's appropriate in dealing with other people or situations.  So if your approach, being sensitive to one aspect, hasn't worked and you change the way you deal with the situation, you aren't changing by being sensitive to something else or changing tact, you are just **changing your approach** to how you deal with the person or the situation by using the same sensitivity, the same tact.  You're just trying a new way of doing it.

You have changed my mind on the matter 

I think what you're going for is "changing tactics."

I'm more annoyed by apostrophe abuse than anything else because I see it all the time from people who should really know better.

Also, "advise" used as a noun; you can ask us to advise you or to give you advice, but please don't ask for advise.

And "diffuse" means to spread out -- it's a completely different word from "defuse." If your goal is to reduce tension, you want to defuse the situation, as you'd de-fuze a bomb.

My worst habits are overusing commas and parentheses. 

[Jones]

The one I've noticed lately is 'sell' in place of sale. Signs on the weekend advertising "Yard Sell" or "we're having a sell to raise money for _______."

But don't get me started on the local dialect. Crick instead of creek, ruf instead of roof, mount'n instead of mountain... I'm sure I missed some.

This one is horrible right now!

I am part of a local yard SALE site on which people will post "I have XYZ for sell" and "I'd like to sale my QRS".

Update: The owners of the local yard sale site decided that animals (puppies, chickens, rabbits, fish, kittens etc) that people were giving or selling didn't fall under the "yard sale" title. They have set up a sister page named:

Townname area Farm animal's & Pet's of all types

I copied the capitalization and punctuation exactly. I am seriously disappointed.

[Kaora]

"Moot" which used to mean debatable but now is used to mean no longer debatable vs. "mute". http://languagerules.wordpress.com/2006/09/25/moot-point-not-mute-point/

I think this is because moot is a lost word which survives only in English phrases that use it, also known as "moot point."  This makes it similar to "For kith and kin," or the word bequeath.  When I was growing up, I always thought moot point meant a point that was no longer viable, or no longer discussed.  It was only a couple years ago I learned moot was the term for a convention or meeting in Old English, and that's when it made sense.

How many people can tell you kith and kin means, "For homeland and family," or bequeath comes from an Old English word meaning, "Too will," from be + cwedan?  Tolkien's my idol.

Come to think of it, the same afflicts English praytell.  It's from an older formation that is no longer viable, with the first part being from a word of distinct German origin, versus the later pray/prayer, like church prayer.  It was to put an emphasis on the verb, like "Praytell, why did you break that vase?"

On subject...

Misplaced commas.  I have a hard enough time parsing sentences, let's not make me think there is, indeed, a head in the road.  (What's that in the road, a head? vs. What's that in the road ahead?)

[Mental Magpie]

Me again - off of. Just no. I got off the horse, I did not get off of it. After all, I didn't get on of it so why would I get off of it?

Can you please explain to me why that is wrong?

[kckgirl]

Most of my major annoyances have already been mentioned, but I didn't see the spelling error that routinely drives me up the wall. Many people use defiantly when they mean definitely.

[Giggity]

There's a poster on here who overkills with hyphens. He would write something like "I need to back-up my data every night. My personal-computer, which I got at a bright-blue store, is a piece-of-work."

Are you by any chance referring to me?  I realise that my ways with the English language annoy some on this board, and I tend to get rebuked for same -- am trying to do better.

At least I don't say "anyfing" ...

Nope! Not you. (Frankly I can't remember the name right off, but I do know it's not you.)

[Giggity]

Me again - off of. Just no. I got off the horse, I did not get off of it. After all, I didn't get on of it so why would I get off of it?

Can you please explain to me why that is wrong?

You get on and off things, not on of them and then off of them.

I'm not sure what the rule is, if it has a name like "No Of" or something.

Actually, now that I think, I am not sure there *is* a rule, beyond me disliking extra words.

[Harriet]

Me again - off of. Just no. I got off the horse, I did not get off of it. After all, I didn't get on of it so why would I get off of it?

Can you please explain to me why that is wrong?

You get on and off things, not on of them and then off of them.

I'm not sure what the rule is, if it has a name like "No Of" or something.

Actually, now that I think, I am not sure there *is* a rule, beyond me disliking extra words.

I am seeing advice on both sides...
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/probPrep.asp

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/nonerrors.html
This site says "Off of" is the opposite of "Onto."

Get onto the horse
Get off of the horse

It does also say that it is less accepted in UK English, if that's where you happen to be.