Grammar Rocks
POSTED BY: maugwai
UPDATED: Saturday, October 30, 2004 01:32
VIEWED: 19692
PAGE 3 of 8
O how I love this thread!
First, no one has yet mentioned the glaring errors in the very first post, by Maugwai, under his number 4), he has, "The assault weapons band...." Should be, "The assault-weapons ban...."
Note the added hypen, and corrected spelling.
(Sorry, Maug. It's the curse of being an editor.)
================================
DRE, you said:
"...it just makes me not care about what you (are) writing in the first place."
I wholly agree. If only folks UNDERSTOOD this! So many try to make an important point, but their poor-to-nonexistent writing skills makes them look utterly foolish, at least to those who have a basic grasp of our language. And the folks who know better are often the ones the writer is trying to reach.
I suspect some of the need to speak and write precisely comes from the British class system. One didn't mess with commoners, much less "scrubbers" if one was of the higher classes there, and language quickly gave (and gives) away the person's status. Naturally this came to the U.S. at an early date. Whether or not we want it, there are classes here also, and the top classes of persons generally speak and write better than "commoners."
I think there's a musical analogy here also. A complicated piece of music may be played well or poorly on, say, a piano or classical guitar. If we wish to communicate precisely and clearly, we need to practice the instrument; and whenever we play it, we need to strive for perfection. Anything less gives results that are just too sloppy to be taken seriously.
.......Ruxton
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by NeutrinoLad:
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?
There's a brilliant book by Bill Bryson called 'Troublesome Words', which I recommend to anyone who is interested in the language and looking for a good giggle! As an example, he points out that advance planning is a pointless phrase since all planning is in advance...
I'm someone who's picky about correctness in writing, but I'm hampered by the fact that I was taught English at school by teachers who couldn't spell, and I was never actually taught grammar at all...
On a board like this, it doesn't bother me so much - for one thing, a lot of spelling mistakes can be put down to people typing their thoughts very quickly and not reviewing what they've written. I'm forever typing you're instead of your, don't know why - it's just the way my fingers hit the keys!
Outside in the real world though, it annoys the hell out of me to see professional signs created that use apostrophes in the wrong place, or official documents with spelling mistakes (trivia note: the immigration waiver form that you have to fill in to get into the US from the UK on holiday has a mistake in it). I mean, don't these people proof-read?
---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My grammar is far from perfect though I must point out yet another glaring error in the original post.
Quote:
maugwai wrote:
Tuesday, October 26, 2004 03:28
To pluralize, you add and "s" or "es" as in "dogs"
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by NeutrinoLad: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.
For anyone who, like me, needed to look these up:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Tautology
http://www.pseudodictionary.com/word.php?id=16012
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Calhoun:
My grammar is far from perfect though I must point out yet another glaring error in the original post.Quote:
maugwai wrote:
Tuesday, October 26, 2004 03:28
To pluralize, you add and "s" or "es" as in "dogs"
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
*chortle* isn't it always the way - never a typo in sight until you comment on someone else's writing. Which is why I nearly always chicken out from doing it!
---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Ruxton:
O how I love this thread!
First, no one has yet mentioned the glaring errors in the very first post, by Maugwai, under his number 4), he has, "The assault weapons band...." Should be, "The assault-weapons ban...."
.......Ruxton
Well, crap. I'm irked that I didn't catch that, or the missing period. That's actually one thing that always throws me - the use of periods in or out of quotation marks.
But that brings us to another interesting grammatical conundrum of the internet. The anonymity makes it difficult to tell gender. I am a "she".
And I'll throw as many stones as I want, thank you very much. It's my thread.
"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
maugwai wrote:
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 02:26
But that brings us to another interesting grammatical conundrum of the internet. The anonymity makes it difficult to tell gender. I am a "she".
Hehe Maugwai,
I suspected you were a female.
The nagging about trivial grammatical discrepencies...
Hehe, only kidding, i'm not really a sexist.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
I suspected you were a female.
The nagging about trivial grammatical discrepencies...
I just realized, when I look for someone to proofread my work I default to women.
Maybe I am sexist.
Or maybe the women I know are better read than the men I know.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
It's fun to point out grammatical errors. If we were pointing out spelling errors too, I'd have a little to say about your initial post, maugwai.
-------------------------------------------
Inara: Who's winning?
Simon: I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
-------------------------------------------
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I was an editor for three years--feeling your pain. What's good, though, is the fits of giggles editors get into over the dumbest things while the writers stand by and go, "to whubba who?"
Originally posted by Zencat:
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.
I wrote "for every post I reply to." in here just recently, and someone caught me. So I've been trying to come up with a better way to write that sentence and so far nothing has come to me that I can't say without hearing it in an English accent. My English accent is the queen's too, so you can understand the scary.
The one word I take exception with - that I think should be blatantly outlawed - is WHASSUP!!! Why? Because it's not a word! It's a gutteral sound not unlike a really long obnoxious burp which is disgusting, but serves a purpose, right?
I don't really care if it takes less keystrokes to put an ampersand in place of the word "and" - just stop!
Oh, and the folks who have started using the "@" symbol irreverently - "call me @ 4:30 @ my home phone" are starting to work on my last nerve too.
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am.
http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME