This also applies to “backward” not “backwards” and a few others.
AP style is necessary in PR, so I deal with the proper use (grammar, capitalization and spelling) of many words that tend to be used incorrectly on a daily basis.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hey, use of “their” is a way to get around the his or her conundrum.
The student will bring their homework to class…
The student will bring his or her homework to class…
Isn’t it becoming pseudo-acceptable for this purpose?[/quote]
There is no connundrum. People are just too lazy and/or ignorant to switch to the plural subject:
“The students will bring their homework to class.”
There is also no grammatical connundrum with: “The student will bring his homework to class” – the only connundrum is political correctness, which can be solved by using the plural correctly.
[quote]OneEye wrote:
People don’t know how to make a singular noun plural. For instance, “Five orange’s for a dollar.” No. Oranges.
…
[/quote]
Anal thoughts of the day:
Something you wrote triggered my deep distaste for misuse of punctuation. Probably because the “orange’s” thing sounded like an advertisement.
Specifically, quotation marks are not to be used merely to highlight something, as they are in most poorly written billboards or signs I see around. For example, signs that use quotes to offset “5 for a dollar” or something like that. Or to surround the word “free” in an otherwise unquoted sentence.
Quotation marks show that a person is being quoted or that a word is being used in an unfamiliar or ironic manner.
While I’m at it, exclamation points are overused, and hyphens should be used for compound modifiers to illustrate how such modifiers are being applied, but are not necessary for adverb phrases, which are inherently compound modifiers.
The guy on the “Life Alert” commercial says, “… your chance of getting to a phone is very unlikely”. Also he’s dressed in a lab coat for no apparent reason.
On TV commercials they usually pronounce syrup as “sear-ip”. I’ve lived all over the country and never heard anyone pronounce it that way, nor is it an accepted pronounciation in any dictionary I’ve seen. So why do they do it?
[quote]larryb wrote:
The guy on the “Life Alert” commercial says, “… your chance of getting to a phone is very unlikely”. Also he’s dressed in a lab coat for no apparent reason.[/quote]
I am glad I have never seen that because I would have to pull an Elvis and shoot the TV. Again.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Argh! I knew that it wasn’t correct - I said so…
However, if something serves no real purpose, and it pisses off a large section of the population, there is no harm in avoiding doing it.
There’s PC and then there is PC. I think we have a backlash against the concept of being considerate nowadays. That’s too bad.[/quote]
It serves the purpose of being consistent with the other rules of grammar requiring agreement in number between the subject and the representative possessive pronoun.
And the only reason to not be able to make the number agree is laziness. It’s quite simple to be non-offensive and use the plural when you wish to address a group – which generally makes more sense anyway.
It’s even possible with questions, i.e. “Did anyone lose his bag?” becomes “Did any of you lose your bag?”
If you care enough to be overly obsequious to the fragile feelings of someone who wishes to be offended by correct grammar and demand compliance with his or her political perspectives, the least you can do is maintain the grammatical correctness while indulging the obsequiousness.
“ATM machine” What do you think the “M” in ATM stands for? Moron? Same goes for “PIN number” and “SSN number”.
“you” as “u” or “are” as “r” bothers me too. It’s not as if “are” is some freakishly long word that you need to cut down. It’s three goddamn letters. Text speak in general bugs the crap out of me.
Doesn’t anyone type the english language anymore? The absolute worst example ever came from a message board my wife vists. Here it is: “iono”. What the hell is that you say? It’s stupid lazy dumbass speak for “I don’t know”. Yeah. I wanted to track this girl down and stab her in the head with a screwdriver (phillips head) because seeing that much stupidity almost made my brain melt.
I have rarely seen this phrase used correctly(virutally never)on an Internet forum/group/list and I’ve been using the internet since before the WWW was invented…
[/quote]
Well spotted. Probably never used correctly.
“One FOUL swoop” also annoys more than it should. (For the record, it’s “One FELL swoop”.)
Another one that annoys me. Close proximity. They mean the same damn thing! You’re not in close proximity to something. You’re either close or you’re in the proximity.
I am convinced that “loose” is going to replace “lose” in the language. I’ve seen it used very consistently on all forms of Internet community for several years now. Also, people will say to each other, “BRB” and “LOL” even in person.
“moment in time” irritates me.
“am in the morning” as in “it was 1am in the morning”
[quote]vroom wrote:
Howabout mixing up “loose” and “lose” around here?
I can’t believe how many people talk about “loosing” fat…
[/quote]
But if you are in Canada, you may choose American or British spellings as you wish. Since this is the internet, saying one is wrong in this medium is incorrect.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
But if you are in Canada, you may choose American or British spellings as you wish. Since this is the internet, saying one is wrong in this medium is incorrect.[/quote]
Only American spelling is allowed. Remember, we Americans (Al Gore) invented the Internet.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
It serves the purpose of being consistent with the other rules of grammar requiring agreement in number between the subject and the representative possessive pronoun.
vroom wrote:
The English language changes all the damned time. Get off your soapbox and/or quite grinding your axe already.[/quote]
I’ll be “quite” happy to keep grinding my axe, thanks. =-)
Anyway, while language is definitely transitive, it serves the purposes of clear communication to keep rules that make sense – and agreement is one of those rules that has a purpose and makes sense. It makes communication more clear.
Besides, to take your position to its logical end, grammar rules don’t matter at all, because they’re just going to change anyway. And I don’t think you actually believe that.
[quote]willfull wrote:
extraordinary - i know what the dictionary says but if you break the word down…even more ordinary than everything else?[/quote]
Extra means “outside.” That widget is not included in the price, it costs “extra.” Something extraordinary is “outside of the ordinary.” Something supernatural is not natural in a cool way, it is above (super) the natural. Metaphysics are “after” physics (nature).
