[quote]folly wrote:
Alot (A LOT) is one of the ones that gets me. I used to ask people if they would also say “alittle.” But then someone wrote it like that. I wept for the fate of the english language.
[/quote]
You weep easily. I bet you cry alot.
DB
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
But don’t get malone started on this.[/quote]
I’m sorry I missed this thread. I was under the weather after I took a shit and jumped in the shower. No, literally. I was standing beneath atmospheric conditions, when I grabbed some feces, and fosbury flopped into my bathtub.
Everything we say should be taken literally, right?
[quote]TONEdef wrote:
What tends to annoy me is the American bastardisation of English that’s being accepted worldwide. For instance dreamed instead of dreamt, color/colour, encylopedia/encyclopaedia, theater/theatre. Bloody illiterates.
Tone[/quote]
There is no u in color. And you misspelled theater. Oh, and there is a z in bastardization. Just clearing things up;)
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
You weep easily. I bet you cry alot.
DB[/quote]
Every night I cry myself to sleep thinking of the newly created word, “irregardless.”
-folly
The other day I read a sentence where someone talked about eating a “bowel of spagetti” written just like that.
We’re not necessarily just a bunch of geeky grammar nazis here. I read an article in “Discovery” magazine that had this to say:
Since you can be understood even when you are not well-spoken, why bother being well-spoken at all? Why is there a magazine editor being paid to improve this text? Perhaps speaking well (and I personally would add writing well) is still, in part, a form of sexual display. By being well-spoken I show that I am not only a clued-in member of the tribe but also that I am intelligent and likely to be a successful partner and helpful mate.
Now, if we can only find that panda who eats, shoots and leaves…
I assume they don’t know what they are doing, but loose can be used in these cases (to release or let go). For example, I loosed my horse from its stall. Maybe they just got back from the Renaissance festival?
[quote]Kuz wrote:
Maybe I’m the only one who is noticing this of late (whether on these very forums or elsewhere on-line), but has the general population taken up a vote to stop spelling the words “lose” or “losing” properly? I keep seeing people write about how they need to “loose 10 lbs” or they need to be “loosing some weight”.
WTF is going on? Are they desiring the fat to loosen up and roll off their bodies? And yes, like Mugatu, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Is it just so hard to use half-decent English to express yourself? Hell, spelling “losing” cannot possibly be that hard.
Can I get a witness from the congregation???[/quote]
[quote]folly wrote:
dollarbill44 wrote:
You weep easily. I bet you cry alot.
DB
Every night I cry myself to sleep thinking of the newly created word, “irregardless.”
-folly[/quote]
How about “ruthless” when there is no “ruthful”?
[quote]m0dd3r wrote:
Also, if you want another great example of bastardization, take a look at Scots. You think we spell poorly?[/quote]
Ah but that’s ‘Scottish’ language, not English. Its root language is Gaelic and not Anglo-Saxon. The two should never, EVER, EVER be confused. The Scottish lexicon is far richer than the English could ever be.
It’s not just the suffix -our. In the US you have an inability to use ll. For instance jewlery/jewellery, traveling/travelling, quarreling/quarrelling. To really confuse matters you then go and use ll when the stress is on the second syllable i.e. propelling and excelling. Philistines.
Their is something wrong with all these people who can’t read there posts after they run spell check.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
But don’t get malone started on this.
I’m sorry I missed this thread. I was under the weather after I took a shit and jumped in the shower. No, literally. I was standing beneath atmospheric conditions, when I grabbed some feces, and fosbury flopped into my bathtub.
Everything we say should be taken literally, right?[/quote]
OI! malone, malone, malone… It has nothing to do with catch phrases being literal or not. It is about saying the opposite of what you mean, whether literal or figurative. “Could care less” means the opposite of “couldn’t care less”. We can’t really measure caring in any tangible way, and no one is suggesting that we can, so I really don’t see where you get this figurative/literal thing from.
It’s like this: Left and right. Up and down. Could and couldn’t. Opposites, see? If you had said, “I’m going to crouch out of the shower” (closest I could come as an opposite to “jump in”), with your intent being that you were getting ready to get in your bathtub and clean yourself with water from your showerhead, you would be saying the opposite of what you meant, wouldn’t you? Whether the phrase is used figuratively or literally has no bearing on the fact that you said the opposite of what you meant.
Now, you are correct that “taking a shit”, when one is actually “leaving a shit” is saying the opposite of what it means, I’ll give you that. However, saying one “jumped in” when one stepped in or “ran down” to somewhere when they actually drove are figurative phrases that still convey one’s intentions without stating the contrary. Saying “I’m going to backpedal away from the market” when you intend to go shopping is analogous to saying “I could care less”, implying that you do care to some degree now, when, in fact, you are trying to get across that you do not care at all.
And don’t start in with that, “how do you know I don’t mean less than someone else?” bit, because that makes absolutely no sense. If you wanted to convey that you cared less than someone else did, you would say, “I care less”, not “I could care less”. “Could”? How could you be unsure of how much you care?
Hmmm… I still wonder how “take a shit” got worked in to our vernacular. Should make for an interesting research project.
And what the hell is fosbury and how did it flop into your tub? That went right over my head, sorry.
[quote]TONEdef wrote:
m0dd3r wrote:
Also, if you want another great example of bastardization, take a look at Scots. You think we spell poorly?
Ah but that’s ‘Scottish’ language, not English. Its root language is Gaelic and not Anglo-Saxon. The two should never, EVER, EVER be confused. The Scottish lexicon is far richer than the English could ever be.
It’s not just the suffix -our. In the US you have an inability to use ll. For instance jewlery/jewellery, traveling/travelling, quarreling/quarrelling. To really confuse matters you then go and use ll when the stress is on the second syllable i.e. propelling and excelling.
[/quote]
hmmm, I’m not sure where the difference in l vs ll stems from, I’ll (I’l) have to do some more research on that one. Out of ignorance, do you spell(spel) propelling and excelling “propeling” and “exceling” respectively?
As far as Scots goes, sorry, but it doesn’t stem from Gaelic (there is such a beast a Scots Gaelic but it’s entirely unrelated to this conversation). The Scots language has many Gaelic words and influences but it’s a germanic language of the same origins as English. Some consider it it’s own language while others consider it a dialect of English (I tend to lean towards the latter but there are no official and widely accepted grounds for distinguishing between the two) but either way, it’s in no way a descendent of Gaelic. Check out the wikipedia page if you want more information:
Here’s the wiki definition of Scots written in Scots:
http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_leidPhilistines.
Even as an American I’m able to fully understand the Scots. Although I’m Scot and Irish by blood so maybe it’s just instinctual.
Either way, my main point is that written language is a derivative of spoken language. Words are written how they sound. Over time we’ve evolved different accents and dialects than you (hell, just look at the number of different accents in England, Scotland, and Wales and you’re all on the same bloody island). We also use different words than you for the same thing, amazing how two groups of people some four and a half thousand miles apart can speak the same language differently isn’t it?
Indeed, perhaps you should do a bit of research next time and you might not look foolish when discussing the language of your own country. Climb on down off your high horse and blow it out your ass (arse, just to be clear).
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Plisskin wrote:
Very annoying.
Hopefully, it won’t be added to the language as a variation on the spelling. Much like the many bizarre pronunciations of other words. Top of the list being the word, ‘nuclear’. Pronounced as NEW-CLEAR and unfortunately, now acceptably pronounced as the maddening NEW-CUE-LER/LAR.
you’ve gotta be kidding me. this is now an accepted variant? please tell me its not recognized by webster’s[/quote]
I hope not, but it sure is recognized by the leader of the free world as an accepted variant. Great example there, GW.
Oh, and guys? The “three dots” thing you have been mentioning is called an ellipsis and it means:
1)a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding.
b. An example of such omission.
Structurally, the ellipsis should be treated like a period, with the next sentence having two spaces seperating it from the last dot, and begining with a capital letter.
[quote]Plisskin wrote:
Very annoying.
Hopefully, it won’t be added to the language as a variation on the spelling. Much like the many bizarre pronunciations of other words. Top of the list being the word, ‘nuclear’. Pronounced as NEW-CLEAR and unfortunately, now acceptably pronounced as the maddening NEW-CUE-LER/LAR. [/quote]
One that shits me big time, and this is only from what I see on the TV, is the Americans pronouncing aluminium as ALOO-MIN-UM. There is an extra fucking I in there people!
That’s because we actually spell it “aluminum”. We consider “aluminium” to be a British variant.
Don’t hate me but…
While I get annoyed at spelling mistakes (I teach English), and while the spelling on this thread is far better than normal (for this site), I still had a good laugh at all the spelling errors I saw from people righteously bitching about other people’s errors. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” (Did I mention I’m an atheist?) 
Peace,
Dan
[quote]wfifer wrote:
That’s because we actually spell it “aluminum”. We consider “aluminium” to be a British variant. [/quote]
I guess that is why then. As I said, it was only what I saw on TV.
Thanks for clearing it up.
[quote]m0dd3r wrote:
hmmm, I’m not sure where the difference in l vs ll stems from, I’ll (I’l) have to do some more research on that one. Out of ignorance, do you spell(spel) propelling and excelling “propeling” and “exceling” respectively?
As far as Scots goes, sorry, but it doesn’t stem from Gaelic (there is such a beast a Scots Gaelic but it’s entirely unrelated to this conversation). The Scots language has many Gaelic words and influences but it’s a germanic language of the same origins as English. Some consider it it’s own language while others consider it a dialect of English (I tend to lean towards the latter but there are no official and widely accepted grounds for distinguishing between the two) but either way, it’s in no way a descendent of Gaelic. Check out the wikipedia page if you want more information:
Here’s the wiki definition of Scots written in Scots:
http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_leidPhilistines.
Even as an American I’m able to fully understand the Scots. Although I’m Scot and Irish by blood so maybe it’s just instinctual.
Either way, my main point is that written language is a derivative of spoken language. Words are written how they sound. Over time we’ve evolved different accents and dialects than you (hell, just look at the number of different accents in England, Scotland, and Wales and you’re all on the same bloody island). We also use different words than you for the same thing, amazing how two groups of people some four and a half thousand miles apart can speak the same language differently isn’t it?
Philistines.
Indeed, perhaps you should do a bit of research next time and you might not look foolish when discussing the language of your own country. Climb on down off your high horse and blow it out your ass (arse, just to be clear).[/quote]
You know I really didn’t think I’d get a response, but I did. Bigaroo and KBCThird could sense my bullshit in the air (hats off to those men), but I’m glad you went for it m0dd3r, you made my day. And it only took a couple of sentences to bait the hook. I hoped it wouldn’t be long until some know-it-all, with Wikipedia in their favourites, would bite. Ah what sport! Oh BTW:
;-D
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Oh, and guys? The “three dots” thing you have been mentioning is called an ellipsis and it means:
1)a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding.
b. An example of such omission.
Structurally, the ellipsis should be treated like a period, with the next sentence having two spaces seperating it from the last dot, and begining with a capital letter.[/quote]
Question: When I use an ellipsis I usually add the period at the end… Like that. Is that wrong?
[quote]helga wrote:
One that shits me big time, and this is only from what I see on the TV, is the Americans pronouncing aluminium as ALOO-MIN-UM. There is an extra fucking I in there people![/quote]
Really? “Aluminium”? Never seen that spelling in my life, even on periodic charts or in science texts.