grammar rant

dragonmom · July 2, 2010, 5:18pm

I don’t remember ever being taught grammar. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention. I know my high school English teachers were all more interested in talking about meanings and feelings than about rules.
I keep this shortcut on my work desktop, so I can check myself:
[Common</a> Errors in English Usage](<a href=“http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html]Common”>Common Errors in English Usage | Common Errors in English Usage and More | Washington State University)

anonymityyy · July 2, 2010, 5:30pm

younghoss - Uh, not really? I wouldn’t call that “poorly written,” just a little informal. Nobody loves grammar more than I do. I have a passion for copy editing. Grammar does matter, but it actually makes people sound quite unintelligent when they try to be hyper-correct on an everyday basis.

nightchef - Yeah, me too. My point exactly - it’s nice to know that “they” is technically incorrect, according to most sources anyway…but honestly, who uses he/she when they’re talking on the phone with a friend?

Well yes. Exactly. So is “between you and I.” Both were examples of incorrectness.

If I spoke as pretentiously as that, I’d probably feel the need to disguise it as well… =)

silverturtle · July 2, 2010, 5:32pm

^ Ouch. I don’t think that that paragraph is reflective of the tone of my typical writing and certainly not my speech.

blueiguana · July 2, 2010, 5:45pm

^ Huge pet-peeve of my parents. If I used this form of speech improperly they would refuse to speak to me until I had restated myself “and I are going to…“. Because it was such a big deal in my house I do correct my children, but only to remind them of the proper way to say it.
My older two were taught grammar properly in elementary school. My youngest son had little instruction past the third grade. A new principal felt if they had not learned it by then they were not going to. My second son actually did diagram sentences in high school. I loved that teacher!
My pet peeves include:
“I’m going to get me .” (I’m going to get myself .”)
Or the one that just makes me cringe:
"That right there____.” I can’t even begin to correct it unless I know the context. I generally leave the room whenever possible.

ksarmand · July 2, 2010, 5:52pm

Well, that is certainly a relief. :)

I prefer using the “fo’ shizzle” mode of speech when communicating with others my age; it’s not worth the effort to use proper grammar.

Let us commiserate.

vballmom · July 2, 2010, 5:54pm

Oh dear, I must have missed that memo. It’s one of my pet peeves, and I always write and say “he or she” rather than “they” when referring to an indefinite person. You mean I have to get over this and just relax?

The apostrophe abuse I see most often here on CC is confusing its and it’s. Some posters consistently get this wrong, so it’s clearly not a matter of typing too fast. How to point this out nicely?

ksarmand · July 2, 2010, 5:58pm

Give them the truth and skip the sugarcoating.

An example:

“You’re wrong, dumbass.”

That, in my opinion, is one of the greatest favors you can do for the individuals that persist in making such errors: tell them the bad news directly.

laffter · July 2, 2010, 6:01pm

Here’s the one rule that every English-speaking person should be taught. I learned it from Eats, Shoots and Leaves:

“It’s” only ever means “it is” or “it has.” Ever. Not "I love it’s little soft belly."Drives me nuts, although the rule makes no logical sense.

Logical sense – is that an oxymoron?

hahalolk · July 2, 2010, 6:05pm

This is a win comic about the usage of the word they: [xkcd:</a> Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/145/]xkcd:”>xkcd: Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics)

Schools generally do not teach grammar these days. Even at a school where the students test at the seventy fifth percentile, I have had only four grammar lessons since my freshman. I was only taught that in the honors class; regular classes don’t learn grammar. I wish my school would focus more on grammar than some inconsequential tree in Native Son, but we don’t. Silverturtle, I would basically have to agree with you on everything regarding what you said about schools teaching grammar.

nightchef · July 2, 2010, 6:15pm

More like a redundancy, but not quite–there are other kinds of sense (even in the sense we’re using here, LOL) than logical.

The reason why “its” makes sense is that the use of apostrophe-S for a possessive was originally a contraction of a genitive inflected ending -es, as in Chaucer: “Alas, now cometh Noweles flood!” (=Nowel’s flood) “Its” didn’t need contraction because it didn’t include the extending “e.” In that sense it’s analogous to “his.”

Peachy267 · July 2, 2010, 6:31pm

When my 21 year-old daughter was in 11th grade, she had an English teacher who taught grammar, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary, in addition to the regular curriculum. I remember the astounded reaction of the parents at Meet the Teacher Night, but he was not deterred. He basically told us it was his mission to make sure our kids could write a decent paragraph, complete with proper punctuation and correct spelling. I don’t know how, but he actually made these subjects fun for the kids. My daughter would routinely look for signs with incorrect wording or punctuation and take a picture of the offending sign to bring to class. English was her favorite class that year and this young teacher was the favorite of many of the students that year. As a result, my daughter had a relatively easy time in college writing essays and papers and was the first choice of all her friends when they needed someone to proofread a paper. After witnessing four years of awful grammar and punctuation, my daughter actually sent this teacher an email and thanked him for teaching her “how to write and punctuate a decent essay!” Lesson well learned!

dmd77 · July 2, 2010, 8:03pm

DonnaL: while I agree that “I could care less” doesn’t actually mean (in colloquial usage) what it’s intended to mean, I’ve always used it with a sarcastic inflection, emphasizing the “could” heavily. To me, it’s shorthand for “I suppose I could care less, but it would be hard to imagine that circumstance.”

mathmom · July 2, 2010, 8:37pm

I type extraneous apostrophes surprisingly often and am always shocked when I notice them after the fact. I blame it on seeing it done wrong so often that it no longer seems wrong enough. I absolutely positively know the rules and don’t think I do it writing longhand, but I rarely write longhand these days.

anonymityyy · July 2, 2010, 9:14pm

Oh phew…just thought I’d check, LOL!

notrichenough · July 2, 2010, 9:22pm

You don’t, because a grammar nazi is at best annoying, and at worst totally obnoxious.

Don’t be this person.

Print this out for a handy guide:

;)

laffter · July 2, 2010, 9:33pm

lol! I know just who to give this handy guide to. Oops, dangling participle!

sryrstress · July 2, 2010, 11:36pm

Oh, no one cares about dangling partiiples anymore or lots of other things such as beginning sentences with “and” or “but”. Split infinitives–huh? I could go on and on. My kids don’t even know what I mean. How can the teachers correct? The writing they send home sends shivers down my spine. I think schools have done a real disservice regarding not teaching grammar.

I don’t even have to look that far to be annoyed. In my locale, I’m uppity because I don’t say “I seen”, “they was” and “he done”. I agree with the earlier teenage poster. The most common offense in high schools is “Me and Johnny…”. I correct my 19 and 21 yo constantly. If they don’t want to hear me complain, they can learn the proper pronoun for a subject.

MD_Mom_1 · July 2, 2010, 11:37pm

One of my dearest friends taught English for more than forty years. She always said that adults should not correct adults. That little piece of advice has stayed with me.

I do, however, get to correct plenty of college freshmen.

coureur · July 2, 2010, 11:47pm

A couple of my peeves:

<ol>
<li>Saying “went” when you should have said “gone.” As in “This was before we had went to California.”</li>
<li>Using an ellipsis as an all-purpose punctuation…to indicate a pause…or to connect two clauses…instead of the proper comma…or semicolon</li>
</ol>

coureur · July 2, 2010, 11:55pm

I don’t normally correct adults in front of other people, but sometimes if I see someone making some flagrant mistake that might cause other people to laugh behind their backs, I’ll try to get a private word or e-mail to them in an attempt to save them unwitting embarrassment.

grammar rant

CONNECT WITH US