Grammatical NIGHTMARES

[MoonWater]

Well I was a teenager during the internet boom so I mastered netspeak and have recently learned textspeak. I type 80 wpm so when it comes to message boards I definitely put less effort into grammar and spelling (as in, I don''t frequently review before posting). Academically and professionally, I''m much better. It bothers me when in those arenas, people don''t care. My old boss was the absolute worse speller I had ever met. He not only had issues with their/there/they''re but he had issues with STAIRS vs STARES. It made no sense to me. He would write recommendation letters for his students and they would be filled with errors. He even managed to misspell the student''s names. I could never figure out why he wouldn''t ask for someone to proofread for him. I could have been nice and volunteered, but he was a jerk so bleh.

 

[Nicrez]

The destruction of English by the people who have lived here all their life, annoys me to NO END.

For example, when I call a company and am greeted with this gem, “yeah?” Or “I don’t know, let me AXE my supervisor what he think(s).” *twitches* “Whachumean?” “What up?” to me is the ugliest phrase in the modern language. I HATE it. What I mostly dislike is that the way you speak is often considered a classist thing (and hence it’s a very touchy, sensitive subject for many). As such, many people intentionally speak incorrectly to fit into a vernacular. I once knew a very bright little boy who spoke English very well, but if he spoke it correctly at home his mother yelled at him for being “too good for his family”. I was disgusted by that mentality, and yet it’s so pervasive.

However, for my foreign friends, the slip ups are adorable...They always try to fix them, but somehow the French and Italian ones are my favorites. Based on their grammatical structure, they set up their sentences to be similar, even if they are wrong. The mispronunciations are so charming! Cursing to me is not cute, except when done by a foreigner. My French friend says the S word as “sheet”, I never fail to giggle.

My Italian friend has taken to the American phrase “you suck” as in “way to go and ruin the moment” type of usage. Instead it comes out as “you sock!”, which now has become the catch phrase in our subgroup. You sock is our most trite phrase lately.

Another one I hate are the long, flowy sentences that just go into four hundred different directions, but never become another complete sentence although they should be, but end up in one long runny line or paragraph of writing just to me sort of denotes that the person can not stop talking and that their mental organization is nill and somehow the thought of being concise and stopping is just not even a consideration and somehow the words “and” and a comma can actually make sense of their million thoughts all thrown in a jumble into one sentence which is completely wrong and wholly inaccurate, considering I worked in the legal field where the world’s longest sentences still exist, but at least they are connected by the proper punctuation and can be more concisely written, but are long and winding in an effort to obfuscate their real meaning which is another reason why I like business writing which is it’s simple and easy to understand.

I like business writing because you get to the meat of the actual intended meaning.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/14/2007 9:50:37 PM
Author: Elmorton
I started to post on this thread earlier this afternoon...when it was a page. I can't believe there are 4 now (well, actually, I can...my mentor once posed this question to a classroom of MA/PhD candidates in Writing/English Comp, and we spent roughly 3 hours discussing our pet peeves and why we hate them so much). I teach college writing, and to be honest, this thread both makes me laugh and also disturbs me a bit. It's amazing how many shibboleths we have for our language, considering that language is something that, by its nature, is highly unstable and relies on evolution. I can't imagine how many qualified candidates have been overlooked because they have broken the rule (out of thousands) that their potential superior just happens to find irksome. As this thread indicates, the 'mistakes' that are ultimate no-nos for one person are very slight for another.

By the time most of our children are adults, some linguists say that punctuation as whole will be on the fast track to extinction (if you don't believe me, check out the recent change to MLA style, where a comma is no longer needed before 'and' when listing items). Linguists will also tell you that there is no such thing as 'Standard English Grammar' because no one in the U.S. is void of dialectal influence, therefore no one speaks 'Standard English.' I love getting a rise out of people when I say that. Some people want so desperately to believe that there is a clear set of rules and everyone follows (or should follow) them. Nevermind the fact that there are something like 300 grammatical mistakes in Warriner's (the Bible of most secondary English teachers). 'Perfect usage' in English simply doesn't exist. We use different dialects for different situations and audiences.

Honestly, it's strange to me how grammar is such an issue and how wrapped up we are in the idea that grammar denotes education and class status. I hate that many of my students come to me saying that they're 'bad writers' because past teachers have taken it upon themselves to correct every little grammatical mistake in a student's paper, leaving it bleeding with editing marks that are incomprehensible to the average person. To me, that's abuse and laziness. It takes more time and more intellectual work to discuss the strength of ideas and arguments than it does to simply read for grammar OR look for grammatical patterns in a student's writing and address these patterns with her or him individually. And, while I'm ranting, I am so glad no one has posted about split infinitives or ending a sentence with a preposition. Those rules that are based on Latin languages and English is Germanic. I want to SCREAM when I see other teachers mark those as errors. Rrrrg!

But - even with all that said about grammar/writing, mispellings and misusages just crack me up. The other day I went to breakfast with DH, and there was a sign on a trashcan that was labeled

'FOR TOOTHPICK RAPPERS.'

P.S. 'I graduated college' or 'I attend university' is absolutely correct in British dialects of English.

Great post! This reminds me of my Anthropology course where the main focus was language. God, it is completely escaping my brain right now, but it was a form of English that African-American's (frankly I tend to just say black people, as I am one, but hey, political correctness here), used and it was still considered proper because, well, it just was. It was simply another form of English. Langauge is constantly evolving and people are going to have to accept that. Getting overly freaked out about it is insane (especially on a message board). But again, great post and great points.

ETA: Found it, duh...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

 

[Mara]

lol on the AXE thing...when i was a 17 i was a tutor for a teenage math program during the summers. one of the students in my algebra class was a bright kid, but had the worst speaking grammar. one day he said something about me going to axe the teacher a question, and i said, no but i can go ASK the teacher...with serious emphasis on the ask. he turned bright red and got really upset with me, but i just stared him down and told him to use proper grammar in the classroom. he never did it again!

 

[Mara]

Date: 11/14/2007 9:23:09 PM
Author: hlmr

Oh yeah, and alot is two words not one!!! I like it A LOT!!!! Heehee, thought I would throw that one in there for the old timers!!! HA!

Heather, you use alot of caps.

 

[luckystar112]

Date: 11/15/2007 2:28:40 PM
Author: Nicrez

Another one I hate are the long, flowy sentences that just go into four hundred different directions, but never become another complete sentence although they should be, but end up in one long runny line or paragraph of writing just to me sort of denotes that the person can not stop talking and that their mental organization is nill and somehow the thought of being concise and stopping is just not even a consideration and somehow the words “and” and a comma can actually make sense of their million thoughts all thrown in a jumble into one sentence which is completely wrong and wholly inaccurate, considering I worked in the legal field where the world’s longest sentences still exist, but at least they are connected by the proper punctuation and can be more concisely written, but are long and winding in an effort to obfuscate their real meaning which is another reason why I like business writing which is it’s simple and easy to understand.

I like business writing because you get to the meat of the actual intended meaning.

Reminds me of a recent LIW thread. BOY was that painful to read. I''m still trying to process the information.



Moonwater, I believe you are referring to "ebonics", no?

I''d be lying if I said I didn''t judge people who speak in ebonics...no matter WHAT the race. It''s a double-negative, "axe" nightmare! Even the fact that there is a TERM for that form of speaking makes me boil.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/15/2007 2:35:39 PM
Author: Mara
lol on the AXE thing...when i was a 17 i was a tutor for a teenage math program during the summers. one of the students in my algebra class was a bright kid, but had the worst speaking grammar. one day he said something about me going to axe the teacher a question, and i said, no but i can go ASK the teacher...with serious emphasis on the ask. he turned bright red and got really upset with me, but i just stared him down and told him to use proper grammar in the classroom. he never did it again!

Actually AXE is, i believe, Old English, and was actually proper once. So the kid wasn''t wrong, just wrong for the present. Google it. Can''t wait to see how language will change in another hundred years...oh crap, I won''t be here.

 

[luckystar112]

Okay, I went to the wikipedia link that moonwater posted, and I laughed so hard at the table they formed about halfway down the page. Does that make me a bad person??

 

[Mara]

MoonWater I did Google it and didn''t find anything quickly that identified it as proper English grammar.

Did find this:
http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-11134.html

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/15/2007 2:37:55 PM
Author: luckystar112

Date: 11/15/2007 2:28:40 PM
Author: Nicrez

Another one I hate are the long, flowy sentences that just go into four hundred different directions, but never become another complete sentence although they should be, but end up in one long runny line or paragraph of writing just to me sort of denotes that the person can not stop talking and that their mental organization is nill and somehow the thought of being concise and stopping is just not even a consideration and somehow the words “and” and a comma can actually make sense of their million thoughts all thrown in a jumble into one sentence which is completely wrong and wholly inaccurate, considering I worked in the legal field where the world’s longest sentences still exist, but at least they are connected by the proper punctuation and can be more concisely written, but are long and winding in an effort to obfuscate their real meaning which is another reason why I like business writing which is it’s simple and easy to understand.

I like business writing because you get to the meat of the actual intended meaning.

Reminds me of a recent LIW thread. BOY was that painful to read. I''m still trying to process the information.



Moonwater, I believe you are referring to ''ebonics'', no?

I''d be lying if I said I didn''t judge people who speak in ebonics...no matter WHAT the race. It''s a double-negative, ''axe'' nightmare! Even the fact that there is a TERM for that form of speaking makes me boil.

Ha, yeah, but it would never be called that in an Anthropology book. It was considered BEV. We all have our peeves, I guess it''s more important to not be self righteous about them. They are all valid ways of communicating. Obviously, in order to better yourself in the world, people must learn to assimilate, but that''s not always a good thing.

Frankly I am tired of people saying ANT for the word AUNT.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/15/2007 2:47:17 PM
Author: Mara
MoonWater I did Google it and didn''t find anything quickly that identified it as proper English grammar.

Did find this:
http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-11134.html

Sucks, because I can''t find the link that I read months ago when I decided to research this. In the end it is proper English, just a different dialect. England English is different from American English. Southern America English is different from Northern American English. Not sure why people flip out about it. But when people change the word all together (not the pronounciation, the written word which has a completely different meaning...and a Professor of Johns Hopkins no less), that''s where I have a problem. Though I tend to laugh and move on with my life.

 

[luckystar112]

Here''s a fun quiz that will tell you where you''re from just by how you pronounce your words/what words you say.
(Reminded of it because of the "Ant" "Aunt" thing. I say "Ant" because I''m from the northeast. Actually, growing up I used to say ma''tante for "my aunt" in french. I may have horribly hacked that word.

Anyway, here''s the quiz


http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/15/2007 3:05:10 PM
Author: luckystar112
Here's a fun quiz that will tell you where you're from just by how you pronounce your words/what words you say.
(Reminded of it because of the 'Ant' 'Aunt' thing. I say 'Ant' because I'm from the northeast. Actually, growing up I used to say ma'tante for 'my aunt' in french. I may have horribly hacked that word.

Anyway, here's the quiz


http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/

That's odd, I'm going to take that quiz. My boyfriend (who is white) says Ant, as does his family. But he is from only a few miles north of where I'm from, and I, along with the rest of my family, say Aunt. It's definitely a black/white thing going on with that word. We tease each other all the time.

 

[MoonWater]

Grr, I hate when I can't find old reference points. The closest I could come was this (regarding axe v. ask): http://www.painintheenglish.com/post.php?id=585 where a poster says this:

"A person from Worcester, Mass., once saw a cartoon with a couple on a picnic blanket and a bunch of old ladies walking by and the caption, "What would a picnic be without aunts!" AND DIDN'T GET IT because he pronounced the word aunt as ont. He remembered the cartoon DURING a discussion of the ant/ont pronunciation. My father was English, and both sets of grandparents were from England (Yorkshire), and we pronounced the word ahnt.

The Oxford English notes that Chaucer spelled ask as ax, and that most of England did, too, up until the time of Shakespeare. Post-Shakespeare the word became ask. So the African-American pronunciations of ax and ahnt probably both came from older English pronunciations.

The Brits use autumn rather than fall, but our term fall originated with a Brit phrase "the fall of the leaves" which disappeared there."

Looking up Chaucer it says it's an archaic pronounciation but the links take you to only to an abstract of a book, grr!

 

[luckystar112]

I just realized that I mixed up "Ant" and "Aunt". I say "Aunt" not "Ant"!

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/15/2007 3:30:55 PM
Author: luckystar112
I just realized that I mixed up ''Ant'' and ''Aunt''. I say ''Aunt'' not ''Ant''!

Don''t the English say Aunt?

 

[Sparkster]

Date: 11/15/2007 3:43:01 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 11/15/2007 3:30:55 PM
Author: luckystar112
I just realized that I mixed up 'Ant' and 'Aunt'. I say 'Aunt' not 'Ant'!

Don't the English say Aunt?

Us Australians also pronounce it as Aunt. With the word "can't" - we pronounce it like Aunt and not like 'can' with a 't' on the end of it.

Also, a lot of people write and pronounce "pronounciation" and "restauranteur".

Another poster mentioned would/could/should of. I hate that.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 11/15/2007 2:33:23 PM
Author: MoonWater


Great post! This reminds me of my Anthropology course where the main focus was language. God, it is completely escaping my brain right now, but it was a form of English that African-American''s (frankly I tend to just say black people, as I am one, but hey, political correctness here), used and it was still considered proper because, well, it just was. It was simply another form of English.

This was a great post, too. You have now arrived at the area where I become ambivalent. The truth is that I have a love/hate relationship with colloquial black (or African-American) speech. On the one hand, hearing "axe" for "ask" grates on my nerves. When I taught English last year I heard that a lot. On the other hand, I have a great respect for dialects, and I was introduced to some in the children''s literature I used in teaching last year. (Some of these books were new to me. I am not usually an English teacher.)

I used Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, To Kill A Mockingbird, and also As I Lay Dying as a result of being at the school where I was. All three books were set in the American South and all made use of dialect beautifully. The books would have been nothing without the dialect! Not all the dialect was black, either. Dialect is dialect. It is charming when one reads it in a well-written book. So why can''t one bear to hear it spoken by the Dean of Students at one''s child''s school? The answer, for me, is that the charming characters of the book have a place in my heart, like Goldilocks, but I do not want to see her in a position of power and authority. I think. I like MoonWater''s attitude a lot: don''t take it all too seriously and try to keep an open mind.

Deborah

 

[somethingshiny]

That quiz cracked me up. I had a hard time choosing an answer to some questions. I lived in the South during my childhood, I live in the Midwest now with a healthy dose of Yankee. SO, I am apparently unbiased in my verbage.

The "soda" question reminded me of one of my first trips to my current home state. (which was where I was born and where my family returned for holidays.)

My dad took us to a tavern (do you say tavern, bar, pub??). Anyway, he asked us if we wanted a coke. We said, "yes." The waitress came back with three coca-colas. None of us drank ACTUAL Coke. She really didn''t get it when we started requesting Dr. Pepper.


My DH decided he wanted to get in on this, too.

It bugs him when "deers" is used. (multiple deer) It bothers me, too, but apparently not like it bothers him!! Also, he wants it on record that I say, "winda" instead of "window." And, I say, "fixin'' to" instead of "going to" or "about to." And, I say "What up?" (But, I just do it to irritate him.)

 

[Lynn B]

Haha, great thread!

So did I miss it or has no one mentioned "NUCULAR" (for "nuclear")???!

That one sends me right up the flagpole! (George W Bush, are you there???!!!

)

I, too, have a friend that insists on pronouncing "library" as "LIBERRY". ???! "Chimney" is "CHIMLEY". Ack! Where DOES that come from?!! Appalachia???!

My MIL used to pronounce "Velcro" as "Velcore" and "Anorexia" as "Anoroxia" -- and you could NOT tell her any different. She was also famous for calling an "epidural" an"epiDERMAL" and when I tried to gently correct her

she actually snapped at me, and speaking very slooooowly, like I'm a dolt (!), said, "NOOOOO, it's EPIDERMAL -- 'dermal' meaning SKIN!" Alrighty then!!!

And OK, what about the misuse of the word "myself"?! I see that in so many business letters/memos and hear it in so many VIP presentations (as in, "Call Jim or myself...") *Boing, boing* -- that's my head off the wall.

And oh yeah, I always crack up when I see people write "per say" for "per se" -- and what about "WALLA!" for "voilà!" I don't care who you are, that's FUNNY right there!

Although I will be the first to admit that I am HUGE offender of lie/lay/laid/lain, etc., and I should KNOW better!!!

Therefore I usually just reword the sentence to avoid it altogether!

 

[Gypsy]

60% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

That quiz was fun! Except: it only adds up to 95%!

 

[HollyS]

Date: 11/15/2007 12:28:39 PM
Author: HollyS
My hands down favorite AAARRRGGGHHHH must be when someone uses ''axe'' for ''ask''.

2nd choice would be ''irregardless''.

Confusing ''lay'' and ''lie'' .......you lay something down or you lie down.

And when I moved to Texas many years ago, I was floored by this phrase .... say it with me Texans: ''I''m fixing to do _________.'' What?! You''re getting ready to do __________? Is that what you mean? I must confess, I''ve been here more than half my life, and I can actually talk like a yayhoo myself without thinking twice. Y''all come down and visit now, ya hear?

I find I must edit my own post because, well, "fixing" should really be "fixin". My apologies to all native Texans.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 11/15/2007 3:09:04 PM
Author: MoonWater

Anyway, here''s the quiz

http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofamericanenglishdoyouspeakquiz/

Do you all remember the quiz we took about pronunciation? It was very specific. I remember it asked questions about many words that had alternate, acceptable pronunciations in English. I found it very satisfying because I felt that at last someone (someone making up the quiz) understood me, that someone knew that there was a group of people who pronounced words exactly as I did! We need to post a link to that quiz, too!

Deb, going off to take this quiz

 

[CrownJewel]

When I lived in Connecticut, I said "aunt" and "let''s go to the beach." Then we moved to New Jersey and they said "ant" and "let''s go down the shore." I was so confused when we first moved to NJ! It took a while to understand where "down the shore" was.

50% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

 

[AGBF]

Date: 11/15/2007 5:53:29 PM
Author: Gypsy

60% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern


That quiz was fun! Except: it only adds up to 95%!

I can beat that. Mine adds up to 90%!!!

45% Yankee
35% General American English
5% Dixie (that must be from three years of living in Virginia now)
5% Upper Midwestern (a clear error)
0% Midwestern
_________________
90% Total


Deb

 

[AGBF]

Date: 11/15/2007 6:09:49 PM
Author: CrownJewel
When I lived in Connecticut, I said ''aunt'' and ''let''s go to the beach.'' Then we moved to New Jersey and they said ''ant'' and ''let''s go down the shore.'' I was so confused when we first moved to NJ! It took a while to understand where ''down the shore'' was.


50% General American English

35% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

You total only 95%, too!

Deb

 

[Petunia]

Interesting......

I''ve lived in only two states all my life: New York (21 years) and Connecticut (25 years). Where did the Dixie lingo come from?

40% Yankee

35% General American English

10% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

Oh and 90% total! I answered all the questions

 

[Haven]

My quiz results:

75% General American English

15% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Dixie

0% Midwestern

It appears that I have a non-existent dialect, how boring!

 

[Kaleigh]

Here are my results:

55% Yankee
25% General American English
15% Dixie
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern

 

[zoebartlett]

Here are my linguistic profile results:

50% General American English

40% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern


It''s funny, I could have answered a couple of ways on some of the questions. Like the "rotary" question. Sometimes I call it a rotary and other times I call it a traffic circle. I also say aunt differently at times. Sometimes it rhymes with taunt and sometimes it rhymes with ant.