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BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh!
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Orac Date: 10 Oct 01 - 05:56 AM I think that the reason Americans pronounce so many words wrongly is because in the early days many non-English speaking settlers learnt (or at least "improved" their English) by reading books or dictionaries. This meant that they learnt many new words by pronouncing them how they were spelled with no one to correct them. Words like Squirrel which is Squi-rrel not Squir-rel. As for the T thing ... well thats just lazy speech. To say things like wader or innernational is just appalling. Is there an outernational too? How on earth call you tell the difference between inner city and inter city if you cant speak properly? ... clean up yout act over there!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: wysiwyg Date: 10 Oct 01 - 12:44 AM This thread takes a LONG time to load--
PLEASE, CONTINUE IN PART TWO.
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Oct 01 - 12:13 AM You= yew, yu = yoo? I was raised in an area with a large Hispanic population and I still can't remember to pronounce "u" consistently; it often ends up oo when it shouldn't. The BBC newscaster heard on BBCCanada TV says tewsday and it makes me jump because I say Toosday. This thread has wandered far from improper letter S endings. There was the thread about the difficulty of learning English, the pedant thread, and others in the past, all worried about pronunciation (which I generally spell as pronounc... unless I proof read later) spelling and grammar (always pronounced grammer). It shows that we are interested in the language, regardless or irregardless of how well we handle it. It wasn't all our schoolmasters fault that we differ- may we never lose all the regionalisms, dialects, vernacular, vulgar usage that make English the most interesting of languages. On a Schoolmaster Here lie Willie Michie's banes; O Satan, when ye tak him, Gie him the schoolin' of your weans, For clever deils he'll mak them! Robert Burns
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: AliUK Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:40 PM is the army countable or uncountable...it depends on your point of view. It took me a long time to get rid of my regional accent when I first began teaching. This was embarassingly brought to my attention when one of my students said at the end of the lesson ..."teacher why are people always dying when you speak?" "Huh?"sez I..."yester-die, mon-die" . Yu cuduh knocked me doun wiv a feather, as my old gran used to say. I originally come from bedfordshire in the south east of england and we have some perculiar ways of saying things down there. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: wysiwyg Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:08 PM PART TWO I took the liberty of titling part two in such a fashion that the folks in the "Pedants" thread might consider it for their continuing discussion as well. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:05 PM AliUK. True, a number of words are pronounced differently in the USA and Canada. We often accuse French-Canadians of saying "wader" for water, and these comes out "dese," but you are right, T IS less distinct overall among the general public. Another noticable difference is in words like Military, pronounced with two strong syllables in American (mil' i tar' y) while the English (at least on BBC) put greatest emphasis on the first syllable and rush over the "tar" part of the word. I think someone has already mentioned American fu'tul and English (and Canadian) fu-tile. And of course my mother's sister is an ant, the u lost. Why don't the English say shool for school if they say shedule rather than skedule? I once had an English-born teacher for freshman (1st year Univ.) Mod. Lit. in Texas; he became quite frustrated when we would read passages from one of the English writers. Army is vs. army are, etc., etc. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: ddw Date: 09 Oct 01 - 08:49 PM Duh... That should be "learn to say schedule"
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: ddw Date: 09 Oct 01 - 08:37 PM Hey AliUK, Where did you learn to schedule? In the school? Oh well, you Brits will hang onto your minority linguistic foibles, won't you? *BG* david |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: AliUK Date: 09 Oct 01 - 08:14 PM Pronunciation has a lot to do with it. I am a british English teacher currently teaching at an American Bi-National centre. I'm having to drop my Ts ( wader instead of WaTer. Beudiful instead of Beautiful etc.) and learn how to spell again ( neighbor, color) and say Skedule instead of the correct schedule) *G* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: GUEST,Eclipse Date: 09 Oct 01 - 06:40 PM my favorite to use to bug people... I de-thawed the freezer (meaning I thawed the freezer) -Eclipse |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Steve Latimer Date: 09 Oct 01 - 05:52 PM My grade ten English teacher overheard one of my classmates say youse guys. He very loudly said "you use a hammer, you use a saw, you don't youse guys". I doubt that the student ever said it again. I despise spelling mistakes, especially public ones. I once told a boss of mine to send a plaque back to the engraver because "they" had made a mistake on a piece that we were presenting to the owner at a grand opening of a new building. It said something like "To Mr. John Smith. Congradulations on your Grand Opening". I was horrified and told the boss he should jump all over the engraver for making such a glaring mistake. I then noticed the instructions from the boss to the engraver. They were identical. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Oct 01 - 05:38 PM 12 of the 15 most pointless non sequitors on the top-running 10 threads are by GUEST. And people wonder, "what has happened to the DT/MC?" What indeed? - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: SharonA Date: 09 Oct 01 - 05:31 PM Dicho (re "No capital letters? No apostrophes?"): It can be done; it has been done; it is done. It is accepted as a way of getting one's words noticed, but as KitKat says, it's damned irritating to read and, therefore, often has the opposite effect: the words are often ignored. BTW, in the case of "archie and mehitabel", the story was that archie didn't use capital letters because he was too small to hold down the shift key and type a letter key at the same time! Sorry, Dicho, if you got the impression that I was dueling with you earlier; it was intended as a friendly debate. No gauntlets. I'm one of those people in the graphics field that Allan C. mentioned, and my avocation is songwriting and performing my songs, so communication is my life's work. I'm a stickler for clarity and structure (I receive comments all the time concerning the highly structured nature of my songwriting, and at work I'm referred to as the "style guru" because of my insistence on consistency of punctuation, etc., throughout our publications). So if I seem a little too passionate about sticking to the rules, at least you now know why! (Actually, I do bend and even break the rules in my songwriting once in a very great while... but it is never my intention to sacrifice substance for style!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Oct 01 - 04:42 PM No capital letters? No apostrophes? It can be done. read "archie and mehitable," by don marquis, one of our great classics: mehitable the alley cat and archie the cockroach who chronicles her adventures by jumping off the top of the typewriter to hit the keys a brief quote pity the poor spiders i have just been reading an advertisement of a certain roach exterminator the human race little knows all the sadness it causes in the insect world i remember some weeks ago meeting a middle aged spider she was weeping what is the trouble i asked her it is these cursed fly swatters she replied they kill off all the flies and my family and i are starving to death it struck me as so pathetic that i made a little song about it as follows to wit twas an elderly mother spider grown gaunt and fierce and gray with her little ones crouched beside her who wept as she sang this lay curses on these here swatters what kills off all the flies for me and my little daughters unless we eats we dies and we ll soon be dead and forgotten with the cost of living so dear my husband he up and left me lured off by a centipede and he says as he bereft me tis wrong but i ll get a feed and me a working and working scouring the streets for food faithful and never shirking doing the best i could curss on these here swatters what kills off all the flies me and my poor little daughters unless we eats we dies only a withered spider feeble and worn and old and this is what you do when you swat you swatters cruel and cold i will admit that some of the insects do not lead noble lives but is every man s hand against them yours for less justice and more charity. Copyright 1917 et seq. i m toujour gai wotthehell wotthehell |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Genie Date: 09 Oct 01 - 01:03 PM Allan, I sympathize with the printers, word processors, etc.--as well as with news anchors who are given badly written copy to read. Ideally, there would be two-way communication, so that errors can be corrected. When time prevents this, there is a real problem. Maybe the problem is that no one knows whose responsibility it is to edit the document. When I was doing my doctoral dissertation, there was a key, word-- "predication" (or "predicating," "predicated")--which recurred throughout the document. My typist took it upon herself to change every instance to "prediction" (or the comparable form of that verb), without asking me. She had to do the document over (back in the dark ages when people still used typewriters and white-out) and resented my not wanting to pay extra for that. I also frequently find that my real name (which can be spelled several ways) gets "corrected" in the records of credit card companies, utilities, banks, etc., after it has been spelled correctly for years! As I said above, I think the deterioration of language reflects our society's failure to value correct language usage. In an age when we Americans brag about "excellence," we don't require anything close to it for getting a job writing news copy for major networks, ad agencies, newspapers, etc!
A tangential rant: "We want to warn you, these pictures are graphic..." Back, sort of, to the original topic of the thread. I know it is considered correct to make a possessive of a name ending in "s,""sh," or "z," by just adding an apostrophe--e.g., "Chris' Steak House." But in spoken language it sounds really weird to me ("President Bush' speech ...", for example). More importantly, it seems quite silly and unnecessary. Our language is full of words like "Mrs.," "kisses," "consensus," "bushes," "hisses," etc. Why, then, should it be hard to pronounce "Joneses," or "Jones's, "Bliss's," "Chris's," etc? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: KitKat Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:18 AM I'm with you Orac. ee cummings may be a genius but I gave up on his work as just being too damned irritating to read. That goes for James Joyce too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Orac Date: 09 Oct 01 - 08:48 AM Another slight variation from the topic at hand is the current "trendy" idea of not capitalizing names either on TV or film credits. What do mudcatter's think of this? I find it very difficult when credits are passing along the bottom of the TV screen to pick out names, especially as some names are also words in common use. I thought it was a recent thing but a while back I saw an old pre-war American film that did just this. Would anyone here write their own name without capitals?...or even anyone elses.. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Mr Red Date: 09 Oct 01 - 08:30 AM sheeps? vortexes? apexes? and otctopii (octopussies and octopodes are correct). Language is all about COMMUNICATION. If we muck about too much we have a Tower of Bable (or babble) and a rich judiciary and maybe it is too late for the latter. In the UK eventually means sometime, in Europespeak it means maybe. Try putting that into a contract and keep the lawyers from getting rich - go on - I dare you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Allan C. Date: 09 Oct 01 - 07:50 AM Steve, here is one place I found "grodie". Yes, I am fairly sure it is an Americanization. Perhaps it should be noted that we pronounce it with a long O as found in it's root word. "Grotty" would appear to have a short O. Does it?
Begin rant
This issue, I know, is something of a spin-off from the original topic. However, I have been confronted with this problem over and over - as have most others who have worked in the graphics field. It shows to us how prevalent poor spelling, poor usage, etc., are and that there seems to be little distinction as to the level of education of the people who demonstrate such poor command of the language. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Steve Parkes Date: 09 Oct 01 - 03:23 AM Alan C: "grodie"? I never heard of it till now. A quick Google says it means mauch the same as "grotty", as you say, (but this is how we've always spelled it. I seem to remember it was George who said it, but that's memory for you.) Is it an Americanisation of "grotty"? I had to teacj my daughter to ask for a glass of "warder" ("ar" as in "arm") instead of "wor'a" (' is a glottal stop) when we were in Canada. Talk about "separated by a common language"! Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Genie Date: 09 Oct 01 - 03:08 AM What Sharon said.
I think a great deal of the problem today is that mass communication is so rapid that a mispronunciation (e.g., "nucular"), misspelled word (e.g., "alright"), misused word (e.g., "enormity" for "magnitude") or faddish word (e.g, "impact" used as a verb to substitute for "touch," "influence," "affect," "bear upon," etc.) becomes nearly standard usage almost overnight! Genie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Oct 01 - 12:41 AM ddw, people worked at McLaughlin's long ago (building wagons and cars before it was taken over and became Buick's (later the impersonal GM). Why not work at Ford's or Chrysler's?. The men are dead, but their efforts live on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: GUEST Date: 08 Oct 01 - 10:41 PM Six of the current eight top threads are B.S.
And people wonder, "what has happened to the DT/MC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Allan C. Date: 08 Oct 01 - 10:18 PM The sad fact is that our dictionaries are not, nor were they ever actually intended to be used as the deciding sources for definitions and pronunciations. They are unfortunately designed to show current usage, citing previous usage only for historical reference. An example of this is that many of the American English dictionaries released this year show that in current usage, "infer" is, indeed, used interchangeably with "imply". No matter how much it might tighten your jaws to read this, the horrible truth is that what was formerly regarded as uncommon usage (or by some, "misusage",) is now considered to be a part of the language as it is commonly used. There are many other examples that would bring most of my English teachers to tears. English, as well as any other language, is in a constant state of flux. New words and new usages are created every moment. Some of them are adopted and others fall by the wayside. Old words and usages are often discarded or altered as well. Here's an example of a now commonly used word that probably didn't exist before 1964: GRODIE. It's first documented usage was by none other than Ringo Starr in the movie, "Hard Day's Night". (I personally believe that he said, "grotie", though, [with a T] as a contraction of "grotesque". Lazy tongues changed it to a D.) The day he said it, it was largely, if not entirely unknown in the world. Some dictionaries list it now without necessarily indicating it to be a slang word. The unfortunate plight of the dictionary is that it is not actually the place for finding "wrong" or "right" definitions, spellings and usage. By its very nature, it can never be more than merely a guideline to what was currently and predominantly in use as the volume went to print. If you think about this long enough, it will give you a headache. If you really understand it, you can have a lot of fun at your next game of Scrabble. The whole concept is truly a kerflunction. *G* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: AliUK Date: 08 Oct 01 - 10:18 PM hahahaha I'd like to meet Mr. Chrysler. Maybe Monseuir Citroen and Signor Fiat will be there. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: ddw Date: 08 Oct 01 - 10:13 PM Here in the automotive capital of Canada, a lot of people work for GM, but even more work for Chrysler's and Ford's.... I've given up.... david |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: AliUK Date: 08 Oct 01 - 09:48 PM Sharon A: if it is customarily used then it often passes into the common idiom. Just ask the people at the Collins Co-Build foundation, where they look at all language in its common usage ( corpora). Words and phrases that are used often usually pass from the vernacular into the official. A few years ago the word "like" was officially recognised as a conjunction as well as a verb. i.e: "I was walking down the road,like. When I saw this bloke,like". The possessive 's is another story altogether and is down to incorrect teaching ( or no teaching whatsoever). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Snuffy Date: 08 Oct 01 - 08:11 PM It may be age-d to you, but every month I print out an Aged Debtors List, not an Age-d Debtors List. And in many parts of England it is customary to use the singular form of a noun after a numeral - forty pound, fiteen mile, four foot etc - the number tells you it's plural anyway, so pluralising the noun is redundant. (Doesn't Russian use the genitive singular after numbers bigger than 4?) WassaiL! V |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Ebbie Date: 08 Oct 01 - 08:09 PM When did people start saying "purposely" instead of "purposefully? Genie, the difference to me is that 'purposely' is done 'on purpose' or not by accident, as in saying something like "ain't", for instance. 'Purposefully 'to me means 'with purpose', as in something like "I told him that I had seen his wife with a stranger at the hotel". I haven't looked it up, so this is just my working grasp of it... I'm curious as to whether others make that distinction. Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: brid widder Date: 08 Oct 01 - 07:22 PM £5 is five pounds not five pound, 'monies'or 'moneys' money is money a little or a lot! obligated rather than obliged and 'to be pacific'...NO specific!!is being an ocean more precise? aghhhhhh!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Oct 01 - 06:24 PM In an earlier post I put "I be ready to go," old Black vernacular which has become synonymous with inner city Black speech. I thought someone might comment because it is a source of worry to teachers in areas where it is prevalent. Some have quit trying to fight it and accept it in classroom speech. Is it correct? No. Can it be stopped? No. Some of the students who manage to go on to higher education eventually conquer it because they have become associated with people who heard somewhat correct language at home. Sharon A, I am not trying to throw down the gantlet (just needle a bit). In another thread a couple of months ago a teacher in California said thankfully that grammar no longer was taught. I must confess that I tend to agree with you since I was schooled at a time when two years of Latin was compulsory and much time was spent on grammar and the parts of speech. In the 60 or so years since that time, I have seen changes that have led me to become more tolerant; now I only become upset over Microsoft grammarians (an oxymoron?) who impose their basic English in Word, the move toward(s) political correctness in every form of communication, and words like proactive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: mousethief Date: 08 Oct 01 - 06:02 PM Well said, Noreen, except it's "Cringing" not "Cringeing". Alex |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Bill D Date: 08 Oct 01 - 05:58 PM about 20 minutes ago, on NPR, I heard an interview with a New York official who wanted us to realize that, because of the recent events and higher security, we might well see large 'contingencies' of police officers if there were a perceived threat. I worry that he meant exactly what he said... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: SharonA Date: 08 Oct 01 - 05:32 PM Dicho says: "It is usage which determines correctness or incorrectness". If that were entirely true, then every single grammatical misusage noted in this thread, the "For pedants only" thread and any other thread that deals with the subject would be correct, since they are all in use. However, they are of course incorrect in the PRESENT state of the language. It is true that language does evolve. Common grammatical and pronunciational mistakes often gain acceptance with time (in that sense, the language devolves rather than evolves!) but it seems that the people who use the correct versions must die out before the versions themselves do; it took many generations (150 years?) for the definition of "chomp" to change to include "alternate of 'champ' ", and even so "champing at the bit" is still acceptable and perhaps preferred (in your dictionary, Dicho, is "champ" defined as an alternate of "chomp"? If not, I venture to say that the writers still don't consider "chomping at the bit" to be on equal footing with "champing at the bit"). Even when a word or phrase becomes "tolerably respectable", it still isn't necessarily "proper" (appropriate or suitable). For instance, we still teach our children that "isn't" is correct and "ain't" isn't! Correctness certainly determines usage to a great extent; otherwise, how would we have learned to read? We need the correctness of rules and definitions to keep the language from devolving to the point at which no one can make himself understood to anyone else who supposedly speaks the same dialect! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: John MacKenzie Date: 08 Oct 01 - 04:09 PM Umbarella- Febuary- totally unique- ex Dutch politician etc. etc. Jock |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Bill D Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:25 PM gantlet-gauntlet! old story...a student was talking to his English professor about a late assignment, and promised "I'll get it done quick." "No", said the teacher, "You'll get it done 'quickly'" "Aww," grumped the boy,"What difference does an 'ly' make? You know what I mean." "Well," replies the professor, "it can make a lot of difference....see that pretty girl over there? Now do think it makes a difference whether you look at her 'sternly'...ot at her stern?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:11 PM Webster's Collegiate USA, 10ed, 1996, cites chomp as "alter. of champ." This change from a to o also occurs with strop (leather strap for stropping a razor) (See Mencken, The American Language). Some words have been incorrect in the eye of the beholder ever since Johnson and others tried unsuccessfully to pin English down, but they will never die. Ain't is an example. By the 1920s, Mencken reported that ain't "is already tolerably respectable in the first person, where English countenances the even more clumsy aren't" (the Appalachian am't I for am I not has now disappeared). The word shit (shite) goes back to Old English but currently is not accepted in "polite society," except in parts of Wales, etc. It is usage which determines correctness or incorrectness, and usage is constantly shifting (only slightly more stable than popularity polls). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Chicken Charlie Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:02 PM Towards, perhaps. It's thread creep, but by anti-fave is "The point being is that..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Jim Dixon Date: 08 Oct 01 - 02:54 PM Here are some weird things I've noticed recently: People needlessly repeat the word "is" as in, "The problem is, is that nobody listens." Or "The stupid thing is, is that we've done this before." The plural of "process" pronounced as if it were a Latin word: "process-ease." "They will have to build confidence in the normal political process-ease." "Antibiotics" pronounced "anti-bee-otics." Nonsense! It should be consistent with biology, biography, etc. "Centimeter" (or "Centimetre" if you prefer) pronounced the French way: "Sawntimeter." Doctors and nurses seem fond of this pronunciation. (They're nearly the only ones who use the metric system in the US.) Baloney! It's an English word now, so pronounce it consistently with century, cent, and centennial. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Wyrd Sister Date: 08 Oct 01 - 02:15 PM And to throw a Spaniard into the works (or should that be spammer these days?), although a self-confessed pedant where written English is concerned (for heaven's sake(heavens' sakes for the multiversed), I have to stop myself correcting graffiti) I value true dialect forms in speech. "He were" and "they was" are everyday terms in my home city. Makes teaching them to read interesting..."They was this man in' garden, an' he were messin wi' us shed!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: SharonA Date: 08 Oct 01 - 01:53 PM Noreen: A myriad? I thought it was just "myriad" (a kaleidoscope displays myriad patterns). According to the dictionary I have at hand, "myriad" has several meanings: 1) "ten thousand"; and 2a) "innumerable, multitudinous", 2b) "having innumerable aspects or elements". Now, for definition 2b, it gives this example: "the myriad activity of the new land" –Meridel Le Sueur. So I guess that "a myriad" would be proper if one is referring to something that can't be counted (such as "activity"), but is it proper in all cases (such as counting stars)? Dicho: Again according to the dictionary I have here (Webster's New Collegiate, Springfield, Massachusetts [USA!!! Not England!], 1973), of the two words "chomp" and "champ", only "champ" is defined as "to show impatience of delay or restraint – usually used in the phrase 'champing at the bit' ". Perhaps people have been saying "chomping" for the last 150 years but that doesn't make it proper. I'm sure that people have been saying "youse" (and any number of the other grammatical misuses complained about in this thread) for longer than that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Genie Date: 08 Oct 01 - 01:45 PM Grab, I used to think it was pronounced "coo-doze," and I thought it was plural, like "tacos" or "winos" or "rhinos" (one person deserves one kudo, but someone else deserves two kudos). Then I heard (or read) a discussion of it, in which it was pointed out that it was a Greek word comparable to "ethos" or "pathos," and pronounced "coo-doss" or maybe "coo-dose." You can give "some kudos," just like a play can contain "some pathos," or you can refer to someone deserving "kudos," without the adjective, but there is no such thing as giving someone "a kudo or two," anymore than one can "put on a clo or two," instead of just putting on "some clothes." Even though you may deserve "more kudos" than Bert does, it is not correct to say that "more kudos are due you." It would be "more kudos is due you... " Genie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Oct 01 - 01:30 PM A few notes. Furring is preferred, but the OED accepts the variant firring (these strips are often made of fir). Hateful phrases like "Drive decent." I can't resist saying "ly," which produces a blank stare. In the USA, alleged now is dominantly two-syllable; the-ed syllable is disappearing (Webster's Collegiate now places that pronounciation second. The same is happening to other -ed words, but I have difficulty in pronouncing learned without the second syllable. Kit Kat, a person lies on the bed but what about a dead body? Noreen, there are millions of stars, not a million stars (Your example is one that gives immigrants trouble). Gee, all (of) these folks jiving each other about grammar, chomping at the bit to add their pet peeves (chomping at the bit is at least 150 years old, why go back to the English champing unless you are English? To the guillotine with all who say co-vert rather than cov-ert! In a few short years, the correct cov-ert has all but disappeared, even the dictionaries have given it first place. But after all, it is usage that eventually determines what forms are correct. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Grab Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:40 AM Genie, it's interesting that Webster's quote "kudos" as being from Greek. I always believed it was from French, "coup d'os" meaning "pat on the back". Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: GUEST,Noreen Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:30 AM Snuffy, LOL! Been there... (Sharon- it was intentional, and compulsory in Li'pool.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: GUEST,Noreen in the library Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:26 AM Crazy Eddie, A is different from B is correct. Who will join me in cringeing at a myriad of apostrophes? Myriad is more often than not used wrongly, it should be a myriad apostrophes. You wouldn't say a million of stars, would you? Noreen |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: SharonA Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:20 AM "could of" instead of the proper "could've" or "could have" (sorry, Snuffy!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: mousethief Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:19 AM Bravo, pavane! As for sticking S's on the ends of words: here in the Other Washington, we like to pretend any and every public establishment is named after somebody, with the apostrophe of ownership. Thus we have grocery stores like Safeway's and Alberson's and Fred Meyer's, and the warehouse club Costco's, and so forth. What I hate are people who can't tell the difference between a regionalism and an error in grammar. :) Alex |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Gypsy Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:16 AM How about the in-laws? As in "My daughter in laws"? Always wondered what laws were being discussed. DAUGHTERS IN LAW, damnit! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Improper letter S endings! Arghhh! From: Orac Date: 08 Oct 01 - 11:07 AM Another one that gets to me is the way "alleged" is getting pronounced these days. If it is used as an adjective "an alleged crime" it should be "alleg-ed" ... in "It was alleged" it is a verb and is a different pronunciation. There are many similar words eg, aged (it was aged but an ag-ed person), (It was learned but a learn-ed person) So the rule is quite simple... so why can't even the bods on the BBC get it right these days. |