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20 common grammar mistakes
Topic Started: Feb 11 2012, 02:35 AM (799 Views)
jon-nyc
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http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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apple
one of the angels
i found that interesting..

i don't really give a hoot about proper grammar usually. i am far more interested in conveying nuance by writing as if i were speaking out loud.

I have worked as a proofreader, in editing and re- wrote a year's worth of patent applications. not fun at all.

my dad taught Latin, Greek and other courses like psychology 401. we always talked about word usage, etymology and such around the dinner table. English is fascinating.
it behooves me to behold
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
If everyone makes the mistake, sooner or later it stops being considered a mistake. The 'affect' and 'effect' one irritates me, admittedly. I get that one a lot in technical reports I review.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
apple
Feb 11 2012, 04:15 AM
i found that interesting..

i don't really give a hoot about proper grammar usually. i am far more interested in conveying nuance by writing as if i were speaking out loud.
Yeah I can understand that, but that's just one particular style of writing. I don't have many new school ideals about writing but one of them is that style can be chosen and deliberate, and I want to be able to do everything. Literally everything. Poetry, prose, non-fiction, epistolaries, you name it.

I often (actually, very often) break rules and standard conventions with my own writing, but in terms of understanding the rules I'm a complete and total insufferable pedant. Because acknowledgement of the "made up and agreed upon" nature of language does not give you a golden ticket to just do whatever the hell you want.

Language was developed out of a need to communicate ideas. Downing a mammoth with the help of a couple of guys and spears is not an easy endeavor, it requires cooperation and the ability to quickly communicate using verbal signals the whole group can understand. When your hunting buddy tells you to tighten up your angle to corner the mammoth by the nearby escarpment, you don't start farting about with the definitions of those words or else you could get stomped to death. The entire point of language is that we all agree on meaning, or else what's the point?

So I think that the rules exist as a basis for understanding, through which we should make informed decisions about whether or not to adhere to those rules. But how can you know if a language rule is arbitrary if you don't even know why we have it? T3h Bruce had a saying for this, as did many of his predecessors: you have to put the chains on first before you're able to take them off.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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George K
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Quote:
 
“Since” refers to time. “Because” refers to causation. e.g., Since I quit drinking I’ve married and had two children. e.g., Because I quit drinking I no longer wake up in my own vomit.


Perfect.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
George K
Feb 11 2012, 06:22 AM
Quote:
 
“Since” refers to time. “Because” refers to causation. e.g., Since I quit drinking I’ve married and had two children. e.g., Because I quit drinking I no longer wake up in my own vomit.


Perfect.
You should see my writing notebooks.

An excerpt:
"Dan went to his cousin's place to get his porno stash.
Whose porno stash is it? ---Avoid ambiguity due to lazy pronoun usage, sentence construction."

And then there's the one I've already mentioned here many times:
"Punctuation is not a frivolous thing!
'Let's eat out, Grandma!' "
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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George K
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Aqua Letifer
Feb 11 2012, 06:33 AM
And then there's the one I've already mentioned here many times:
"Punctuation is not a frivolous thing!
'Let's eat out, Grandma!' "
"Let's help my uncle Jack, off the donkey."
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Well with that one I'd consider capitalization to be just as crucial. :lol:
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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musicasacra
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HOLY CARP!!!
Reminds me of Inspector Morse.
"Do you have a temperature?"
"Everyone has a temperature. I have a fever."
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George K
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Finally
musicasacra
Feb 11 2012, 06:42 AM
Reminds me of Inspector Morse.
"Do you have a temperature?"
"Everyone has a temperature. I have a fever."
Reminds me of one of my teachers in medical school admonishing us to be thorough:

"If you never take a temperature, you'll never find a fever."
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
George K
Feb 11 2012, 06:22 AM
Quote:
 
“Since” refers to time. “Because” refers to causation. e.g., Since I quit drinking I’ve married and had two children. e.g., Because I quit drinking I no longer wake up in my own vomit.


Perfect.
Buy this book. You will love it!

Posted Image
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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George K
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Finally
Klaus
Feb 11 2012, 07:49 AM
Buy this book. You will love it!

Posted Image
Just bought it for my iPad.

I'd better f*cking love it, is all I can say!
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
musicasacra
Feb 11 2012, 06:42 AM
Reminds me of Inspector Morse.
"Do you have a temperature?"
"Everyone has a temperature. I have a fever."
That's a good one. Much like my pet peeve, dealing with 'weather'

"we'll be getting some real weather this weekend", "we've got some weather coming our way", etc.
Really? Really? Unlike this state of nothingness we've been suffering with lately, thank goodness.

I've often wondered if perhaps this usage is just a local thing, where our weather is normally mild and predictable, and tv weather people (sorry, meteoroligists) get all excited when there's something different to talk about.
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jon-nyc
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John D'Oh
Feb 11 2012, 05:42 AM
If everyone makes the mistake, sooner or later it stops being considered a mistake.
IOW, grammar is made up and agreed upon.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
John D'Oh
Feb 11 2012, 05:42 AM
If everyone makes the mistake, sooner or later it stops being considered a mistake.
Without looking, I bet that article is wrong about "moot", based on the definitions that appear in standard dictionaries.

Quote:
 
Moot
Contrary to common misuse, “moot” doesn’t imply something is superfluous. It means a subject is disputable or open to discussion. e.g., The idea that commercial zoning should be allowed in the residential neighborhood was a moot point for the council.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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jon-nyc
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Horace - I'd say that the usage one hears in the US legal system has gained sufficient currency here to be called an 'Americanism' rather than 'incorrect'.


However in British publications the word is always used as the article states. (such is my experience anyway)
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jon-nyc
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I'd be curious what the entire OED entry is - IT?
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jon-nyc
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jon-nyc
Feb 11 2012, 11:09 AM
Horace - I'd say that the usage one hears in the US legal system has gained sufficient currency here to be called an 'Americanism' rather than 'incorrect'.


However in British publications the word is always used as the article states. (such is my experience anyway)
We're having the same discussion next door, where I posted this:



The most recent use in the FT:

"...contact between Glencore and Xstrata is sending a frisson of excitement through the global mining sector. But their $90bn mooted merger hardly heralds a wave of mining deals."


The most recent usage in the Economist:

"The mooted new airport is to the east of the capital."

Americans might misunderstand both of those sentences.
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jon-nyc
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My bad, the most recent usage in the Economist was this, re Eqypt:

"That could become even harder if America responds to the prosecution of 44 pro-democracy activists, including 19 Americans, by cutting $1.3 billion in military aid, as has been mooted."


Still, same usage.
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Horace
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"Mooted" is a sufficiently unique use of that word that I doubt it'd cause too many problems. But I bet both magazines are careful not to write something like this, which would be misunderstood:

"The new airport, to the east of the capital, is moot."
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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jon-nyc
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Most recent usage of 'moot' in the Economist (i have to quote the preceding para, but its the same as typical British usage)

Quote:
 
The latest attempt to calculate whether such scenarios ring true comes from Thomas Hair and Andrew Hedman, of Florida Gulf Coast University. In a paper presented recently to the meeting of the Amercian Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, they reckon the odds are rather long. To arrive at their conclusion Dr Hair and Mr Hedman assumed that outer space is dotted with solar systems, about five light years apart. They then asked how quickly a single civilisation armed with the requisite technology would spread its tentacles, depending on the degree of colonising zeal, expressed as the probability that intelligent beings decide to hop from one planet to the next in 1,000 years (500 years for the trip, at a modest one-tenth of the speed of light, and another 500 years to prepare for the next hop).

All these numbers are necessarily moot. If the vast majority of planets is not suitable, for instance, the average distance for a successful expedition might be much more than five light years.



Next two are also that usage, not going to bother quoting though.
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jon-nyc
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Interestingly, I can find the american usage in the FT - but only in op-eds written by Americans.
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
I would consider that to be a poor word choice and unnecessarily ambiguous considering standard dictionaries do list the "incorrect" definition of moot. At least, dictionary.com does.

Quote:
 
If the vast majority of planets is not suitable, for instance, the average distance for a successful expedition might be much more than five light years.


Anybody else have a visceral reaction to that use of the word "is"? Pedantically correct in that "the vast majority" is singular, but it doesn't read as smoothly as "are" to me.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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jon-nyc
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Horace
Feb 11 2012, 11:33 AM
I would consider that to be a poor word choice and unnecessarily ambiguous considering standard dictionaries do list the "incorrect" definition of moot. At least, dictionary.com does.
Again, I think its more an Americanism rather than 'incorrect'. But I wouldn't agree that just because the US usage has evolved differently than the British means the word shouldn't be used.
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jon-nyc
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Horace
Feb 11 2012, 11:33 AM
Anybody else have a visceral reaction to that use of the word "is"?
Just the people with sh1t grammar. :lol2: :whome:
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