Grammar Discussions

[whatmeworry]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

umm like woteva

l8r

ur da sickes!

 

[anat0l]

I'll tell you all one I always get wrong is affect/effect.

Affect and effect gets me too.

That's one of the pairs I actually get quite well. I even know the verb usage of 'effect' (thanks to my grade 9 English teacher).

 

[anat0l]

Or "gunna". As in "I'm gunna do this and I'm gunna do that"

Usually spelt "gonna", but anyway.....

"Ain't" was getting popular-ish, particularly in mistaken double-negatives, e.g. "I ain't goin' to no rally tomorrow" (intending, 'I am not going to a (or the) rally tomorrow').

 

[kelvedon]

As our "National Airline" you'd think Qantas would spell Travelled correctly, and not the American (Traveled).

 

[serfty]

Usually spelt "gonna", but anyway.....

"Ain't" was getting popular-ish, particularly in mistaken double-negatives, e.g. "I ain't goin' to no rally tomorrow" (intending, 'I am not going to a (or the) rally tomorrow').

Nup, Gunna is Gunna, not gonna - just listen to it being said in 'Strine ...

.. have not come across aint in a long time, either verbally or in contemporary writings ...

 

[kelvedon]

As our "National Airline" you'd think Qantas would spell Travelled correctly, and not the American (Traveled).

But I guess Jetconnect is technically New Zealand

 

[Shelf]

Nup, Gunna is Gunna, not gonna - just listen to it being said in 'Strine ...

.. have not come across aint in a long time, either verbally or in contemporary writings ...

I have the urge to listen to an Angels song

 

[kelvedon]

I have the urge to listen to an Angels song

NO way get............

 

[Homer]

I am also a grammar pedant, though I am trying to relax my standards for the sake of my mental health. I think subject and verb disagreement annoys me the most and it seems so very common these days.

For example, I cringe when I read things such as "Qantas are going to...". Qantas is a company; a singular entity. It should be "Qantas is going to...". Similarly it should be "the team is going to lunch" and not "the team are going to lunch". Now, you could write "the members of the team are going to lunch" because "members" is plural. Interestingly two working journalist friends of mine have told me that this is no longer corrected by many sub-editors as it is regarded as "modern language" (my term, not theirs) and is thus deemed acceptable. But I still don't like it.

Having said all that, I quite like breaking some grammar rules if it makes the sentence or paragraph structure seem more appealing to me. And starting a sentence with "and" is one of my favourite things.

 

[anat0l]

As our "National Airline" you'd think Qantas would spell Travelled correctly, and not the American (Traveled).

I'm guessing off-the-shelf software? Hasn't been reconfigured for an Australian / UK English language "translation"...

Other than those theories, no idea.

It's interesting going through programming and actually having to use American spelling for most commands and what not, because the APIs are, of course, written by those using American English. For example - for those who know Java - classes Color and StringTokenizer....

Interestingly two working journalist friends of mine have told me that this is no longer corrected by many sub-editors as it is regarded as "modern language" (my term, not theirs) and is thus deemed acceptable. But I still don't like it.

I'm guessing that it's not necessarily "acceptable" from a definitional point of view, but more rather that, for whatever reason it may be - increased work pressure, laziness, being economical with time, etc. - some of those kinds of errors are simply glossed over, because it is more critical that, in order, (a) the story is told, then (b) it is told correctly (i.e. with the correct intent).

Of course, remember that journalists* have many "get out of jail free cards":

• Who is really going to complain? or Anyone who complains is a loser or "Big deal!"
• Sorry... well, pobody's nerfect...
• Just write a retraction or correction message and put it in small type on page 54
• Pen out a really quick correction article
• So they'll sue my employer... as if I'll get the sack for it; besides, my editor will take the heat first...

* Before anyone gets uptight, let me clarify that there are some journos out there who are trying to be right and ethical, some who may be caught up in an unfair and unethical environment.

 

[codash1099]

Oh look. We got our own thread.

Now we are up there with cats and moggies!

Let the rants continue...

Oh, recently saw a green-grocer selling onoins and refused to be corrected. You would think they would know how to spell them!

Or the butcher selling "lamp"

 

[codash1099]

I have the urge to listen to an Angels song

Could that be an angel's song?

 

[JessicaTam]

Could that be an angel's song?

Or even an Angel's song?

 

[JohnK]

Usually spelt "gonna", but anyway.....

Not when you are a migrant. Principal used to love saying at Monday morning assembly "the Greek gunnas and their Kiwi ringleader...."

Miss those days. Life was much simpler....

 

[medhead]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

ur da sickes!

Use 2 R doin my head in

 

[medhead]

.. have not come across aint in a long time, either verbally or in contemporary writings ...

Stopped reading my posts? I use ain't every so often.

 

[anat0l]

Stopped reading my posts? I use ain't every so often.

He ain't paying attention :mrgreen:

That's the weird thing - ain't is not a "vanilla" contraction by many measures and can stand for "am not", "are not" or "is not", amongst others still! I think there's at least a few spell checkers who refuse to recognise "ain't" as a word, requiring manual override / addition to the dictionary.

 

[AdMEL]

I have the urge to listen to an Angels song

Could that be an angel's song?

Or even an Angel's song?

Given the name of the band is 'The Angels', I.e. Plural, isn't the correct form an Angels' song?

 

[Borisdog]

One that I see a lot of in forums is his/he's.

As in : Nugget had some pretty poor form last year but I think his in for a better time of it this year.

Your and you're is another that really can't be that hard.

 

[medhead]

He ain't paying attention :mrgreen:

That's the weird thing - ain't is not a "vanilla" contraction by many measures and can stand for "am not", "are not" or "is not", amongst others still! I think there's at least a few spell checkers who refuse to recognise "ain't" as a word, requiring manual override / addition to the dictionary.

I use it enough that it ain't corrected by autocorrect. Or autocorrect ain't bothered by it.