Bad Grammar - Page 6

No, The real word is "Phonetics"

Wouldn't it make more sense to spell it "fonetik"?

I think you missed the joke. :)

[Ancient Dragon]

Technically me can be correct as well :

Here are the rules, which are pretty much the same as you stated.

[Reverend Jim]

Technically me can be correct as well :

The gift was for him and me.

He and I were given a gift.

If you want to get technical then you must use formal English. In that case, use me when the pronoun is the object of a sentence or a phrase and I when it is the subject. Examples:

Correct usage

1 The gift was for him and me.
2 He and I were given a gift.

Incorrect usage

3 My brother is taller than me.
4 Me and George went to the movie.
5 There is tension between my boss and I.

Example 3 is incorrect (in formal English) because there is an implied "am" at the end of the sentence making the ending "me" the subject of a verb phrase. In conversational English "me" is considered acceptable here.

Example 4 is incorrect in both formal and conversational English because both "Me" and "George" are subjects of the verb "went".

Example 5 is incorrect in both formal and conversational English because both "boss" and "I" are objects of the prepositional phrase starting with "between".

[Ancient Dragon]

Where are examples 4 and 5???

[woooee]

Your allowed to split infinities now and I do it the odd time. If the reader doesn't understand, he still won't understand if you switch the words around

But you are not allowed to subsitute "your" for the contraction of you are=you're

Your cat ran away
You're looking for it

[Reverend Jim]

Where are examples 4 and 5???

Autonumber got me. It's fixed now.

But you are not allowed to subsitute "your" for the contraction of you are=you're

How far back woulds't thou go??

[Reverend Jim]

Here is a mistake I see sporadically. Normally you need consistency between the subject and the verb. For example, you would never write "George and Fred is going to the movies". Rather you would use "are". But then you get sentences like

If I were president I'd...

which seems to fly in the face of consistency. For statements of this type the general rule is to use "were" when the statement goes against fact and "was" when it does not. So in the preceding statement you would use "were" (unless you actually were the president). However, the following statement:

If I was to take carpentry training I'd...

"was" is correct because there is no contradiction between the statement and fact.

Hmmm.

If I was to take carpentry training I'd...

Makes sense, but for those of us who worked hard in school...

If I were to take carpentry training I'd...

...would be correct too?

[Reverend Jim]

Well, I'm not so picky that I'd be likely to even notice. I was just wondering about the rule (if there was/were one) while I was reading a news article so I decided to look it up. I suppose that strictly speaking you should say

1. If I was to take carpentry...
2. If I were a carpenter (and you were a lady)...

But then again, in the parenthesized phrase, "were" matches with "you" so it would even be correct to say

1. If you were to take carpentry...

My brain hurts.

[vmanes]

There's your problem, reading a news article. With all the downsizing, proofreaders were the first to go.

My grammar gripe lately is the improper use of apostrophes - people want to put them everywhere, needed or not. Most egregious misuse is in plurals. I see it so often, it's inadvertantly creeping into my writing.

[mike_2000_17]

I always use "were" in that context. It just sounds more "right" to me (but then again, I'm not a native). I was always curious about this, and whether it was acceptable.

The following is just speculation, but I think it might explain some of the discomfort with this form ("If I were .."). English used to be structured like German, even as late as Old English. It got simplified due to Scandinavian and Norman influences, and lost most of its annoying Germanic inversions and inflections as a result. But there are still traces of Germanic structures, and it still remains kind of acceptable sometimes (it doesn't sound completely wrong). Just think Yoda and the way he speaks (fun-fact: in dubbed-German, Yoda speaks normally). And, under those structural rules, it should be "If I a carpenter was,..." or "If I carpentry to take was,...". The point is, under those rules, the verb does not belong at the third position, after "If" (conjunction), and "I" (subject), as it naturally belongs in the second position, and is thus thrown back to the end of the clause. So, maybe, just maybe, the discomfort is due some innate sense that that verb doesn't belong there (at third position, which comes from the French structural rules, i.e., the "normal" rules).

Does that make me crazy? Possibly... but maybe we're crazy, probably...

@RJ

RE: The carpentry quote

I was referring to 'for those of use who worked hard in school' as meaning 'we who worked hard, would not study carpentry' - therefore the implausible 'were' should be used, as opposed to the 'was'. I guess I wasn't clear.

I'm not a native speaker either, so wtf do i know?

[G_Waddell]

Here is one I know causes confusion with non natives and youngsters learning to write:

Did I read the book? or have I just read the book?

My son wrote "I have red the book" last night - or maybe he was saying he has a book called Red....

[Learner010]

My son wrote "I have red the book" last night - or maybe he was saying he has a book called Red....

i think that he was saying that he had read the book.Because past participle of read of pronounced as red but spelt as read. so probably he wrote exactly what he spoke without considering the spelling and pronunciation rules.

[Agilemind]

Well, I'm not so picky that I'd be likely to even notice. I was just wondering about the rule (if there was/were one) while I was reading a news article so I decided to look it up. I suppose that strictly speaking you should say

If I was to take carpentry...
If I were a carpenter (and you were a lady)...

But then again, in the parenthesized phrase, "were" matches with "you" so it would even be correct to say

If you were to take carpentry...

My brain hurts.

Isn't this something to do with verb tenses? I hate English verb tenses because they tend to reuse the same word a lot. So "were" is past-tense second person:
You were confused yesterday.

But "were" can also be past-subjunctive:
If I were a linguist, I would be able to clarify.

(read and read is another example of this which is quite problematic if you think about it, for instance "you read many books" can be pronounced & interpretted in two different ways.)

But I think grammatically "If I were to take carpentry" is also acceptable as is "If I was a carpenter" they just express different degrees of hypothetical-ness:

"If I were a carpenter" to me suggests the speaker thinks there is/was absolutely no possibility of them ever being a carpenter.
whereas,
"If I was a carpenter" to me suggests the it was/is plausible for the speaker to be a carpenter but it is not the case at present.

But then again I'm terribly inconsistent with my verb tenses so what do I know.

[Reverend Jim]

I had to post the link to this

[G_Waddell]

@Learner010 - I know he was trying to write that he had read the book, but I was jokingly pointing out that due to him misspelling read as red, he could have also been saying he owned a book called Red as opposed to say the film version of Red... Given that he is only seven and is learning to write in two languages at the same time, (he goes to Gael Scoil so is learning primarily in Irish,) I think I'll forgive him this little slip up... :)

[Stuugie]

Phor the love ov Bob I really don't believe we need the letter "f-F" anymore. Phrankly speaking, it is a silly letter that always and dephinitely phalls into the category of phishy. Any phriends here agree with my phree idea? I know, it's a goophy idea but the English language is so diphpherent than others and why no throw a little phlash into it? Ok, I'm phailing at this and will phorget it all together.

[ddanbe]

@Stuugie: Did you read this post from 2 weeks ago?

[Stuugie]

Hah, I missed that but thanks for pointing it out.

[Ancient Dragon]

You might like this from Victor Borge's standup skit about phonitic pronunciation.

But it ain't grammar. My bugbear is the use of who/whom and their derivatives. Whom seems to be disappearing from common usage over here (UK).

[Reverend Jim]

I won't miss it when it's finally gone. Maybe it's more common in the UK, but I find the use of "whilst" somewhat pretentious. I don't mind "amongst" and "amidst" as much though. The use of "-st" dropped off awhilst ago but seems to have made a bit of a comeback recently.

Not a grammar matter but language related...

There are certain phrases I would love to see banned from usage. My top three hated phrases are

1. At the end of the day...
2. It is what it is.
3. "x" is the new "y"

The last one I especially hate when people say "50 is the new 40". No, it isn't. You're getting older. Don't try to deny it; just deal with it.

[Ancient Dragon]

"The vast majority" is another such phrase I dislike, although its more common today than it was 20 years ago.

[mike_2000_17]

Whom seems to be disappearing from common usage over here (UK).

I don't understand.. Who seems to be disappearing? I'm asking you, who is disappearing? ... just kidding.

English lost almost all its inflecions except for some sporadic words like "Who / Whom ..." or "while / whilst", and things like that. It really doesn't make sense to keep only a few archaic inflections. They should just be gone, all gone. Are people supposed to learn about grammatical functional cases just so that they can understand these few inflections and disregard it everywhere else where the inflections have disappeared? Seems like a waste and an irritant.

I hate English verb tenses because they tend to reuse the same word a lot.

Really?!? Try learning French, and then, tell me if you still hate English verbs for being too much the same all the time. French has different transformations (inflections) of the verbs for pretty much every single combination of persons, tenses (present, past, future), moods (indicative, conditional, subjunctive, imperative, participle, infinitive), and voices (active, passive, pronominal), plus a ton of irregular verbs (just a few hundred!). So, don't complain about English conjugations being "too simple". The mandatory 13 years of French grammar in school was no joke... more like torture. Part of the reason I like English grammar is that it's so simple, like child-play, easy to grasp and easy to play with and appreciate.

[Reverend Jim]

I heard recently that there is a big kerfuffle about "vous" and "tu". Some people want to get rid of one of them completely ("tu", I think) and others go into a tizzy when someone uses "tu" with someone who is not a close friend ("tu" being far too presumptious).

When it comes to French I admit that I struggled with it all through school. Among other things, I could never understand why it made a distinction between masculine and feminine nouns (or even how it was decided that a table or window was masculine or feminine).

@RJ - the elements that you describe for French hold equally for many other languages - informal/formal/singular/plural forms for "you" and gender. "Gendering" of objects seems natural to many of us who do not have English as a first language. From what I remember reading somewhere, didn't English used to have masc/fem nouns? I may be mistaken though.

Why shouldn't our languages be poetic and imaginative and ascribe personality to inanimate objects? :)

[Ancient Dragon]

"vous" and "tu"

Never heard of either -- are those English words??

"while / whilst"

I don't recall ever using or hearing the word whilst. And "whom" is rarly, if ever, used today.

[Reverend Jim]

"vous" and "tu" are French words. Both translate as "you" but "vous" is formal and "tu" is casual and implies familiarity. Mike - please correct me if I am mistaken.