Grammar Rocks
POSTED BY: maugwai
UPDATED: Saturday, October 30, 2004 01:32
VIEWED: 19692
PAGE 2 of 8
Quote:
Originally posted by UnchartedOutlaw:
Where do I start? :) I teach high school English and I am convinced the Internet will be the death of the English language. All the various misuses of "their/there/they're". Oh yeah, and people who write "should of" instead of "should have".
Simply evil.
-Taylor
AMEN.
My peeves (being an english major and strong linguistically):
-People ending with prepositions.
-Incorrect relative pronouns (big on 'who' and 'whom')
-'should of' really gets my goat
-Every misspelled common word I see (mostly from younger, chat-room goers): blame, two, too, yours, you're, &c ad nauseam,
-and a the whole 'u r', 'ur', 'y not?', 'thnx'. I mean, for God's sake, it's only a few more letters! Is life THAT important that you must shortcut through normal dialogue and just look bad? I -can- understand to a degree of foreigners who do it (English is a pain to learn, though I think it's much more a grammar issue than spelling), but when I see a whole paragraph written on a subject using 'u' and 'u r' and 'y i cant do this' it just makes me not care about what you writing in the first place.
Now, I don't neccessarily mean to put down people, it's more a frustration with not using all that potential and brainpower we as human beings have.
And I'm not gonna totally nitpick people. A lot of stuff has worked into our vernacular and even I type with 'gonna' and 'c'mon' sometimes when I feel it fits the conversational tone. Different from seeing pages of..bad... sentences.
My biggest pain: "I am me", etc. It is "I am I," and "It was I who started the fire," respectively.
I'm done venting.
IKIYO
DRE
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ok, i'm a huge grammar freak myself, and i'm pretty damn good at it, at least in comparison to my classmates, but when i'm online after a long day of classes in which perfect grammar is neccessary, i'm not gonna use what's left of my brainpower to write in perfect english. i don't mean this as an attack on you guys so much as an apology;) oh, and i'm totally with u on the whole "should of" thing. i mean, what is that? lol! and if i ever do stuff like use the wrong form of their, there, or they're (same goes for to, two, and too), just know that it's because my brain has shut down for the day. those mistakes actually drive me INSANE because i know that i know what the correct form is, but the reader won't. argh! so ya, my head hurts. i'm done. 
~lissa, spwhore
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oh, also, i have to say i'm pretty appalled at the grammar at bu. i mean, it's not that hard to write a sentence that is gramatically correct...or maybe it's just me...
~lissa, spwhore
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A few things terribly wrong with this thread:
First, a lot of what's being mentioned here are not grammar problems, but spelling problems. There's a significant difference, which I have to point out because what I'm about to say does not apply to the perfectly valid spelling complaints that have been made here.
But, as for grammar . . . I highly recommend you all read Steven Pinker's renowned linguistics tome The Language Instinct, particularly Chapter 12, "The Language Mavens". He takes on the whole notion of prescriptive grammatical rules -- that is, rules describing how people, according to some ass who thinks he knows best, "ought" to talk, as opposed to what linguists are concerned with, descriptive rules, which describe how people do talk. To a linguist, if a certain syntax is used and understood it is grammatical. No question about it.
Pinker goes on to confront some of the very alleged "incorrect" grammar mentioned by persons here. The most obviously ridiculous of the prescriptive rules are rules invented in the 18th century by people who thought English would be better if it was more like Latin. In Latin, it is impossible to end a sentence with a preposition, even if you wanted to, and still make sense. English has no such problem, but the 18th century classicists were so convinced that Latin was the ideal language, they imposed the rule on English anyway. Through the education system, this ridiculous "rule" has been propagated throughout the centuries. Not that many people tend to obey it, and they're all the better for it. Imagine actually trying to never end an English sentence with a preposition. It would drive you right insane.
The same history applies to the split-infinitives "rule", but that hasn't actually been mentioned here. Guess because this isn't a Star Trek forum.
Pinker also address "I could care less", pointed out what English teachers everywhere have somehow failed to grasp. "I could care less" is sarcastic. Just compare the inflection used when the lines are spoken, and you can tell: I couldn't care less versus I could care less.
He also debunks the notion that a double-negative makes a positive, pointing out that double-negatives are the norm in hundreds of languages, and was even the norm in Middle English. For example, in French: Je ne sais pas -- "ne" and "pas" are both negative, "pas" simply agrees with the negated verb. The same thing is actually done in Standard English, only using supposedly positive words like "any" -- but if you take the negative out of
I didn't buy any lottery tickets.
leaving the "any" in, you don't get a positive statement, you get nonsense ("I bought any lottery tickets.") What "any" does there, "no" does in "I didn't buy no lottery tickets".
Grammar rocks, yes, but not when it's made up.
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I'm an editor by day, and I spend way too much time arguing with my fellow editors about rules of grammar. (I am, of course, always right.) The rule about never ending an English sentence with a preposition would make the construction of some sentences simply too awkward to easily understand. As Gordon pointed out, it's a result of stubbornly forcing Latin rules on English.
Me, I like to use ain't, and then defend it when people correct me. Ain't, although archaic, is the proper (and only) contraction of "am not". It's correct to say "I ain't listening to you" but not correct to say "you ain't listening to me." But I think the first-person-singular part of the usage faded away well before usage of the word mysteriously became an error all by itself. Funny how language changes.
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You guys do have valiad points. My grammar sucks, I'll be the first to admit. (What the hell is a prepasition anyway?) My spelling is worse. I'd like to apologize for this. But, in my defence, this is a dissusion board, and I write the same way that I talk, more or less, and I don't talk with pefect grammar so why should I type with it.
Sure, good grammar is definatly important, just not so much here.
Although, I'll definatly agree with you about everybody using 'u' and 'ur' and for some reason 'lol' really pisses me off, although I'm not sure why...And yeah, people need to learn the difference between your and you're and they're, their, and there.
-----------------------------------
Four out of five dentists reccomend calling Ebo a girl.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zencat:
Me, I like to use ain't, and then defend it when people correct me. Ain't, although archaic, is the proper (and only) contraction of "am not".
Not the only. "Amn't", though entirely out of use now, has cropped up from time to time.
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Hi all,
gotta love grammar.
What is it though?
A set of official prescribed rules?
A way of structuring words to effectively convey meaning in a given context?
A combination of the two?
Something else entirely?
I'm not a linguist. However, I would have to argue that the idea of a language is a social construct that is recreated in and defined in every act of communication. Grammar is a subset of generalisable rules that can be built up from individual communication acts.
In essence, what people agree is grammar, is grammar.
New languages and rules are constantly being generated to distinguish forms of speech. It's not pure laziness. Subcultures generate their own rules of speech, writing, dress, etc to distinguish themselves.
Contractions used in text messaging are both a practical outgrowth of low typing speeds, the desire to save time, *and* the imperative to create distinctive forms of communication.
How do you recognise old farts in a chat room? They refuse to use contractions and try to correct peoples' grammar.
That said. I'm with you guys!
Number one pet peeve: posessive apostrophes and their misapplication!
Btw, is the smiley face a new form of grammatical mark? ;)
jason
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Quote:
Originally posted by UnchartedOutlaw:
Where do I start? :) I teach high school English and I am convinced the Internet will be the death of the English language.
We actually had a fairly fascinating (in my mind, anyway) discussion about this in my digital rhetoric class. We were talking about how freshman writing classes now have kids look at what they consider writing, and how they never include instant messaging in their list. And yet, it has profoundly shaped the way they write.
I'd like to defend my age group here, or at least me, and point out we were victims of the 'creative spelling' movement back in second grade. I can't spell worth crap, so I do apologize for that. But I capitalize 'I,' which is my pet peeve.
Also, as now seems as good a place as any to ask, could someone please tell me when to use "talked to" vs. "spoke with?" Or when you tack on the prepositions (prepositions? the 'to' and 'with') does it not matter which one you use? It's always bugged me.
--
That summabitch deserves an emmy!
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I think part of the fun of Firefly boards is to try to write in the vernacular of the show as much as possible, as opposed to corresponding in a a forum for my professional colleagues. I suppose I have different rules for each context.
That being said, it has nothing to do with grammar, but reading things like,
Quote:
In essence, what people agree is grammar, is grammar.
is a tautology, and quickly leads to Humpty-Dumptyism, one of my own pet peeves.
I also have an adverse reaction to things like, "We'll alter the plan as needed, going forward." I call these MBAisms, as it seems to be people with advanced business degrees who spew such nonsense. Or maybe they have a method of time travel into the past of which I am unaware?
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