Grammar Nazis - I need a ruling NYTs
POSTED BY: pizmobeach
UPDATED: Monday, November 8, 2010 02:40
VIEWED: 4194
PAGE 2 of 2
I think the source of the confusion may be a primarily British use of a collective noun (e.g. "family") followed by a plural formation, as in "my family are coming for a visit" or even, with reference to a company, "GE are developing a new reactor."
Add to that the deterioration of American English by which agreement in number is ignored, often with comic results. From an ad I hear often on all-night radio: "Millions of men suffer from an enlarged prostate..." I hate to think of the size of that prostate, and hope it never reaches the Left Coast. It's the kind of thing which would discourage one from traveling if it couldn't be found on Google Earth and avoided!
A couple of my friends were put into Remedial English classes when we were in high school. Nobody knew they were merely early adopters of what will soon be Standard English. My friend Lee announced that he had a bad case of the "lays and lies" but look what happened!
bun
I fought the lays and the lays won.
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All Languages have dialectal differences and English is no exception. I used to be a grammar nazi and would visibly cringe when others used English "inappropriately" however the combination of working with people who have communication difficulty and living in a part of Australia where ungrammatic English is spoken regularly by a large number of locals (e.g. saying "I come over and got it" and "I gone over it") I realise it doesn't really matter how people use the language as long as they get their required message across.
Rose S
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It's a living language, so it changes with use. I had some special problems with ESL clientele and co-workers long ago but the more Spanglish permeates the American Southwest the more one can deal with it. Just please may we have the same understanding of what is an "emergency?" (LOL in retrospect.)
bun
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