Merged spelling/grammar threads
- Thread starter Wisdom Penalty
- Start date
G'day,
Inappropriate use of the apostrophe irritates me, s'eriou'sly... And omitting "u" from, for example, flavour, colour, humour... and we need to bring the USA and Canada back into line by sending them to gaol for all of the above offences. (That's easy for me to say, residing in another former English penal colony...)
Cheers,
Crass.
Inappropriate use of the apostrophe irritates me, s'eriou'sly... And omitting "u" from, for example, flavour, colour, humour... and we need to bring the USA and Canada back into line by sending them to gaol for all of the above offences. (That's easy for me to say, residing in another former English penal colony...)
Cheers,
Crass.
Terath Ninir
Yog Sothoth loves you
LightPhoenix said:My only big peeve is people who spell Pheonix and not the correct Phoenix. I wonder why?
I used to do the accounting on a mutual fund that was called the Pheonix Fund. Yes, you saw that right: the Pheonix Fund. I could never spell the f'in' name right. I managed to somehow *not* tell the guy who started it that he was a moron. How, I don't know.
hellbender
First Post
I have given up on the subject of spelling and grammar online. As a former English teacher and tutor (to English as a second language students), there are so many gross mistakes from people in the United States (most of whom I assume were taught how to spell here) that I have begun to question the entire education system. I know of many, many foreign people who can spell better than a lot of people who I know were born and raised in the States.
To me, it is also bad enough that people feel the need to write nonsense like 'Um' all the time, what is 'Um'? Is it thinking you are correcting someone else, or trying to sound dumb? I don't need to know every little sound reverberating around a person's head at any given time. And all the 'leetspeak' that is very second generation faux hacker talk, and if anything, not very elite at all. I consider myself a latecomer to the internet (first logged on in 1994 when I returned from overseas) and people never wrote like they sniffed too much glue then. If you want to be elite, spell like you have had an education.
hellbender
To me, it is also bad enough that people feel the need to write nonsense like 'Um' all the time, what is 'Um'? Is it thinking you are correcting someone else, or trying to sound dumb? I don't need to know every little sound reverberating around a person's head at any given time. And all the 'leetspeak' that is very second generation faux hacker talk, and if anything, not very elite at all. I consider myself a latecomer to the internet (first logged on in 1994 when I returned from overseas) and people never wrote like they sniffed too much glue then. If you want to be elite, spell like you have had an education.
hellbender
PowerWordDumb
First Post
Crass said:
Hey hey hey! I'm canadian and I know perfectly well how flavour, armour, colour, humour, and the like are spelled. It's generally the endless arguments with pedantic americans who insist their mangled spelling is correct that can beat us poor canucks into submission over time - those of us smart enough to care in the first place, that is. I mean come on - we have to live with them right next door, while the brits get a whole ocean to buffer themselves with. We love them, but it gets tiring after a while, just like explaining to them that yes, what they're drinking is in fact beer, unlike what they're used to at home.
PowerWordDumb
First Post
Ooooh, I remembered another one... how about people who don't know that when using the possessive apostrophe (john's) on a noun which alread ends in "s", that you drop the trailing "s"?
e.g. my buddy Bass has a guitar. I could say either:
Bass's guitar = WRONG!
or
Bass' guitar = Correct
That one always bothers me.
Granted, I've probably buggered up the i.e. vs. e.g. usage, which someone else will correct me on. I never said I was perfect, just pedantic!
e.g. my buddy Bass has a guitar. I could say either:
Bass's guitar = WRONG!
or
Bass' guitar = Correct
That one always bothers me.
Granted, I've probably buggered up the i.e. vs. e.g. usage, which someone else will correct me on.
I never said I was perfect, just pedantic!
Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
reapersaurus said:
That's accurate the way I do things, for, you see, my temper is like a great body of water held behind a dam. At will I can open the floodgates and loose my temper in a deluge of fury.
PowerWordDumb said:
You've got those reversed. From The Elements of Style:
Form the possessive of singular nouns by adding 's.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
Charles's friend
Burns's poems
the witch's malice
Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is, the possessive Jesus', and such form as for conscience' sake, for righteousness' sake.
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PowerWordDumb
First Post
Hmmm, now I'm wondering whether that's a regional thing where we Canadians have messed up the convention from the original.
Because as I live and breathe, what I wrote is the rule exactly how we were taught it repeatedly throughout school. I used to have lots of fun being a bastard and pointing out other students' errors in class.
Interesting... I suppose it's always possible it was my english teachers who were glitching.
Because as I live and breathe, what I wrote is the rule exactly how we were taught it repeatedly throughout school. I used to have lots of fun being a bastard and pointing out other students' errors in class.
Interesting... I suppose it's always possible it was my english teachers who were glitching.
LightPhoenix
First Post
Cyberzombie said:
I used to do the accounting on a mutual fund that was called the Pheonix Fund. Yes, you saw that right: the Pheonix Fund. I could never spell the f'in' name right. I managed to somehow *not* tell the guy who started it that he was a moron. How, I don't know.
Heh heh heh
Spelling and grammar in this country are atrocious. I usually blame it on less kids reading nowadays, on the internet, and on spell checking.
You better believe I'm making sure my kids are reading and not just sitting in front of the TV or computer. Now, when I start them out on George R.R. Martin....
Actually, I've always had this sort of fatherly fantasy where I read my children The Iliad and the Odyssey growing up, making sure to alter some of the more suggestive and gory parts to PG versions. They're just great stories.
