Handy grammar guide
POSTED BY: PhoenixRose
UPDATED: Friday, August 17, 2007 18:08
VIEWED: 25478
PAGE 5 of 11
You know, it's embarassing but I think I may have asserted the inverse of the it's/its rule the other day.
I'm so used to seeing that poor apostrophe abused around town I am starting to forget everything I have learned since third grade.
Knowing the difference between affect and effect helped me in anatomy and physiology class. I had no trouble differentiating between afferent and efferent paths of the nervous system.
Yay vocabulary wonks!
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It can be hard to remember that kind of thing (especially with it's and its) and that's what this thread is all about!
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. - Gautama Siddharta
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Nice thread, PR. I've got one to add to the mix because strange as it may be, I've actually run across it when reading fic.
Bare: without clothing or covering. This includes:
a.) being physically naked, (example: Kaylee touched Simon's bare back.)
b.) having an object devoid of any usual components, (example: The cockpit control panel was bare of dinosaurs.)
c.)not concealing the view (example: At the start of the movie, you could see Mal through the bare glass of the cockpit.)
Bear: Large furry animals that are usually quite dangerous and still hunted for sport. (Example: Kaylee's favorite book as an old Earth book titled "Goldilocks and the Three Bears.")
Barred: to be excluded from. (Example: Due to having been caught cheating, Tracey was barred from the card tables.)
Yeah, I won't throw stones about punctuation. I know mine's not the best.
But I will have fun and make a confusing sentence with all three.
The entire crew voted that Jayne should be barred from lying bare on the bearskin rug while cleaning Vera.
*******
RMMC
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I was debating whether to put that one in, RMMC. Good to have it on here. I'll add something for "bare" though, because it's often used in sentences such as "She bared it all" or something like that. This of course just means to get naked, but it's important to remember, when using this sentence, that you don't add an 'r'. As RMMC pointed out, 'barred' means something totally different from 'bared'. Same with 'barring' and 'baring'.
Also, 'bear' can also be a verb. "To bear a burden" or "Bear in mind". This is the same verb as would be used in the past tense as "bore" as in "She bore herself well under pressure." Bore, of course also has another meaning, as in "It bored her" or "It was boring".
Oh dear, you don't think about how confusing English can be until you start talking about these little points, do ya? Well, I never did, anyway...
"Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also often conform to a rough grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively unexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. A language that also has a grammar can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them."
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Thanks, PR. I wouldn't have mentioned it, but I've run across it more than once (bear where it should be bare) due to many folks thinking that spell and grammar check in MS Word is comparable to having a beta or an editor. It's not.
Heck, I've seen these sorts of mistakes (lack of knowledgable editing) in professionally marketed books and big city newspapers.
Thanks for making such a nice guide for folks. 
******
RMMC
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There are so many definitions of "bear" that I'm not sure I summed it all up, but 'bear' 'bare' 'bore' and 'boar' have been added to the top main post. Whew!
I've also seen it in professional books and newspapers in particular. Bothers me. I hope to make the quality of this site just a little higher than some newspaper 
"Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also often conform to a rough grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively unexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. A language that also has a grammar can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them."
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Looks good!!!! But it also looks like we both forgot reproduction (bearing young) and that's it's a compass direction of one thing to another [a ship to move at a bearing of "x". (I have no idea other than it usually has decimalized numbers going with it.)] Plus the furry bears. GAHHH! Too much fur! AAIIEE!!!!
*whimper*
So them's the bear facts, folks.
♪Look for the bear necessities
The simple bear necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife.♪
******
RMMC
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*hums along*
Okay, I fixed it. The bearing of children could said to be carrying, so I just snuck it in there.
"Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also often conform to a rough grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively unexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. A language that also has a grammar can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them."
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Looks great, PR! You did a very shiny job!
And now we can really blow some minds with the following nature tidbit: polar bears aren't bears; they're more closely related to the weasel family.
*******
RMMC
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Phoenixrose, I'd be grateful if you'd amend the top post to clear up some confusion over the definition of "quite".
I had a discussion about this yesterday with an Australian and an American (I am British). In US English, "quite" always means "very". In Australian English, "quite" almost always means "slightly". In UK English, "quite" normally means "slightly" except when used for dramatic irony. The difference in the UK - annoyingly enough, when posting on the internet - is often conveyed solely in tone of voice. I might say, "I'm quite OK" when I had a slight headache but apart from that was fine. I might also say, "I'm quite OK!" when I was on top of the world. In the same way, the interjection "Quite" as a one-word sentence would mean "maybe you're right" if said with a down-tone at the end or "extremely so" if said in a stronger voice.
This confusion aside, it would help international relations on this site if you mentioned this problem in the first post. I'm likely to use "quite" in fanfic with its full range of meaning, even if I haven't yet, and I know I've read some other authors who've seemed to use it in a UK "slightly" context. UK readers would be able to decode the US meaning by a US author due to context, but the reverse is not true.
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