OT How bad do we look with our grammer????greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
You can flame if you like, but we sure do look bad to the rest of the world when we make mistakes that 4th graders should be learning......your, you're there, their, they're
Here's today's English lesson.
"Your" is used as follows, ie: This is your money. This is a possessive pronoun.
"You're" is used as follows, ie: You're going to New York. This is a pronoun and a verb.
"There" is used as follows, ie: I am going there to eat lunch.
"Their" is used as follows, ie: This is their lunch. This is possessive.
"They're is used as follows, ie: They're fully looking animals.
"Their" is the possessive form of "they". "There" is ordinarily an adverb or an expletive. "They're" is a contraction of "they are".
I see many more horrible usages of the language on this forum but these are the worst!
Before you flame me, remember that I can't see you. I only can read what you write. Would you want to trust your money, life, fortunes, etc. to someone who can't express themselves?
How would you like to read the Wall Street journal with mistakes such as those above?
Please forgive me if I have made any mistakes above. I am not an English teacher. I used to hate English. I was one of these who threw desks at the English teacher in the eighth grade. (not proud).
Rant off....
-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), January 04, 2000
How bad do we look with our spelling?
-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), January 04, 2000.
It should be "your, you're, there, their, they're."Computer formatted it wrong.
-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), January 04, 2000.
Peter,Yes, spelling also!!!
-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), January 04, 2000.
Public Ed's Finest...a generation and a half who missed the drills, repetition, and memorization skills of the 50's and 60's---preempted by Big Bird and Company.
-- Jay Urban (Jayho99@aol.com), January 04, 2000.
You were one of those who threw desks????? Whew. Rough neighborhood. We always used to be content with throwing erasers and small pointed objects.
-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), January 04, 2000.
Vernon, as a licensed practitioner of the language, that is, I'm an English professor, I grant full and absolute pardon to all who have unwittingly misused and abused the language as far as mechanics and grammar go. (If you really want to get sticky, you made errors in your own post, like "Wall Street journal," but who's counting?) What makes me angry is the purposeful misuse of the language to deceive and mislead. Hey, folks are typing away fast and late at night, early in the morning, etc. They're gonna make mistakes. Fuggedaboudit! Yes, the decline in standards and in performance is appalling, but language is a living thing and, just like people deciding that 2000 is the new millennium, the practices of the people will change the language. 100 years from now "English" will be a very different thing from what we read/write/hear today. This is not to say that we give up in the presence of misspellings, grammatical mistakes, etc., but only that we pick our fights carefully and well. Some things are just a poor return on the investment of time and energy.
-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), January 04, 2000.
Grammer=Grammar.......
-- terri (lm@ao.com), January 04, 2000.
Vern..." I used to hate English. I was one of these who threw desks at the English teacher in the eighth grade."ROTFL!!
-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), January 04, 2000.
Excuse me, but it's grammAr.
-- liu (lookitup@dictionary.com), January 04, 2000.
Hey Guys,I Told you I wasn't perfect. Thanks for showing my mistakes!!
For instance here's who is watching.......
There is also another Greenspun LUSENET Forum run by the Coalition 2000 group http:// www.coalition2000.org/ and Steve Davis, et. al., and they are collecting incident reports and working on verifying Y2K glitch incidents, with a team of grassroots analysts from various organizations, such as those participants listed here... http:// www.coalition2000.org/participants.htm.
Could you please either crosspost there, with a real e-mail address (no anonymous posters accepted), or e-mail me and Ill flag the GICC analysts to work directly on the story.
BTW, I happen to know for a fact, that many business organizations and government command centers are watching both TimeBomb 2000 and the GICC for reports of glitch incidents.
-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), January 04, 2000.
Good post, Vernon, and I agree with you, but the errors in English usage pale beside some of the errors of logic encountered in this forum. Some of the postings even come perilously close to being ad hominem attacks.
-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), January 04, 2000.
Gee, my Gramma looks pretty good - for being almost 100 years old now....As chief mispeller and worst typist of all those present who has a habit of flipping letters - get over it. Edit. Proofread. But don't worry about it.
Besides, I've been told I can't speel gasses either. Tough.
-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.
Hi, Vernon:I wouldn't respond, except that I am interested in correct usage of English.
I am amazed at the typographical errors I, myself, am guilty of, (my mother would say I should re-word that so that I don't end in a preposition) and in sometimes using the spell-checker so that I don't miss such errors, I discover that I make a LOT of errors. We all do.
That's why there are editors and proofreaders, (and erasers!)
I have discovered a couple more in this post, and hope I don't offend you. You've used a singular suject with a plural verb: 'SomeONE'...'Their'..; It should be: 'Someone'...'his/her'. Or: 'many people'...'their'. Also, I don't think 'there' is an expletive, and I'm not sure what you intended there.
I do agree that a lot of incorrect usage is jarring - - including 'there', their', 'your', you're, etc., also 'its' (possessive) and 'it's', a contraction of 'it is'. I've noticed that Ed is particularly good in this regard, and rarely makes a mistake.
Respectfully,
Connie Iversen
Also, to the Georgia engineer: I agree with you, seemingly totally, concerning our present administration.
-- Connie Iversen (hive@gte.net), January 04, 2000.
Subject...Subject!!
-- Connie Iversen (hive@gte.net), January 04, 2000.
Oops! 'Someone'...'Him/herself'; and 'fuNNy'?
-- Connie Iversen (hive@gte.net), January 04, 2000.
Turn that BOLD off!With "english" as second language, I had many critics. The problem is, that wrong grammar often forces me to re- read an entire sentence so it does make sense to me. Maybe "your" better off!
In any case, recent vicious posts on this forum, presented with faulty grammar("living language": BS!, professor) show me that the author(S) had other priorities in life than to learn his/her language.
-- W (me@home.now), January 04, 2000.
Bold off.Now to the real stuff. I know I tend to spend much to much time revising my text bfore finally posting, so on this occasion I'm refraining from going back and correcting my mistakes (of which I've noticed at least two). How liberating!
-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), January 04, 2000.
Ah, Vernon, I understand what your saying. (grin) I admit to the same "Ugh" response when tripping over a 'their/they're,' 'your/you're' in a sentence. I also admit to relying heavily on editors, in my line of work, to prevent me from appearing the Village Idiot. I think the response is similar to observing ones young child pull the cat's tail. "Uh-oh, cruelty, Dahmer in the making." It's the extrapolation of an act or event. Seeing the spelling and grammar (sp) errors, might cause one to question the quality of edcuation provided the young. IMHO, it's a valid question. If such basic rules of English are not understood, then what else is not understood? Or taught. It's true that (where are the comma police when you need them? Professor?) often we dash off our missives in the wee hours, but sometimes the fundamentals just aren't there. Rant on. In my case, I please Senile Dementia.Casey
-- Casey DeFranco (caseyd@silcom.com), January 04, 2000.
Mr. Ayau:Can you educate us? I have become senile and can't remember.
I know I made the mistake of saying Vernon made an error of using a plural verb, but that's not what he did. It was a descriptive word modifying his noun - - is that an adjective? I believe an adverb modifies a verb and an adjective modifies a noun, but what is 'HIM/HERSELF' when describing 'someone'? - - as in: "Someone who can't express THEMSELVES? (sic) Is this an object? 'Who' is the subject, I think, or is 'Someone' the subject?
I should have paid more attention when I was in school!
-- Connie Iversen (hive@gte.net), January 04, 2000.
Connie, it is a reflexive pronoun and, therefore, an object.
-- Kurt Ayau (Ayau@iwinet.com), January 04, 2000.
Most of the pictures I have with my Grammer we're taken when I was very young, but trust me, I look GOOD! Grammpa died before I was born, so I don't have any pictures with him.
-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 04, 2000.
Technically, it's a "reflective politically correct" pronoun.Unless it's an amateur noun.
-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.
But himself/herself/themselves/thatshelves are multiple and redundant in the extreme - so they must be "politically correct pronouns."
-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.
to continue with today's lesson.....Axe: this is a query, as in "Why doan chu axe him"?
Axed: past tense of axe, "I alreddy did axed him."
-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), January 04, 2000.
Don't forget nuclear."Russia got a lot o'dem new-kuler bombs ya know, so we better watch out!"
-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 04, 2000.
All of your "ie"s should have been "e.g."s. The "ie" needs to be punctuated correctly, e.g., "i.e.". After reading all the other contributions, I have nothing further to add.
-- bw (home@puget.sound), January 04, 2000.
Boy - that last leafs me with e.g. on my face and tears in my e.i.'s.
-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.
Wu kers wer'nt ritin fer da noos paepa n e wun kin do dat.
-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 04, 2000.
Vern,ain't gonna happen...
cain't, dagnabbit!
-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), January 04, 2000.