BS: World's best grammatical howlers

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Anne Lister
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:27 AM

The one that gets me shouting at the radio is otherwise intelligent-sounding people who confuse "mitigate" and "militate", giving odd notions of "mitigating against" something.

That's when I'm not muttering darkly about the misuse of apostrophes.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Janie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:34 AM

I drove by a restaurant once once with this signage - "Now Excepting Reservations for New Year's Eve."

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: GUEST,Lara
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:06 AM

I remember a few years ago watching a television programme about this - the presenters went out on the street urging people to sign their petition to "Stop women's suffrage". They had people flocking to sign it.... oh dear!

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:14 AM

I wonder if the sign was right? New Year is singular, therefore New Year's would be the genitive singular as the day is the Eve OF the New Year. I'm not sure what case Eve is, whether it is a simple direct object, which it would be in Czech ... for = pro which takes accusative.

Hmm just seen the wrong word.......

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:36 AM

There is a large body of newsreaders who insist on using the adjective "decayed" in the place of the noun "decade". I'm alwasy left wanting to know what the decayed object that they are talking about is.

Also very few people realise that if there is 90% of the population left after a natural disaster that it is correct to say that they have been decimated. The assumption seems to be that there would only be 10% left.

As a general rule where a noun and verb have the same spelling the noun has the stress on the first sylable and the verb on the second, eg. "I'm working on a project." "The upper floors project."

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:38 AM

syllable

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: julian morbihan
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:09 AM

In a local pub I read a poster advertising "small steaks poker". I just wonder if they use chips when they play?

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Fiolar
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:22 AM

In my local town there is a shop which carries a sign on one of it's windows - "childrenswear". I pointed it out to a friend and he said - "Naughty little things. Their parents should control them."
Also in a history book I read some time ago, there was an item on "The Boar War". Sadly I couldn't find any reference to said war in any area. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 11:01 AM

SPB-Cooperator, I got a smile out of your post at 7:14 am. I'm hoping that your eyes glossed over 'except' and went straight to New Year's (which, by the way, I think is correct).

I remember when I first heard 'I could care less'. This was in the very early 60s; my husband brought it home. When I questioned the logic of it, he said in his defense, That's what they are saying nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:14 PM

Like Janie's "Now Excepting" instead of "Accepting", the majority of the typos I see are not misspellings, but legitimate words -- just the WRONG word, often a homonym or a word that sounds similar.

I was shocked to see "track house" instead of "tract house" in Smithsonian magazine.

I've seen "anecdote" used instead of "antidote" , sight/site/cite confusion, and, of course, two/to/too confusion. One of my favorites was in Milwaukee Magazine in an article about a crowd of rowdies driving around a block and yelling "epitaphs" out the car window at people in front of a house. Spellcheck doesn't catch that sort of thing (or misspellings that are legitimate words).

My favorite AUDIO use of the wrong word was when Boston's "Dapper" O'Neil was being interviewed on WBZ radio. When asked how he got his nickname, he replied that even as a child in a poor family, his mother always made sure he looked "articulate" ... uh huh.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:37 PM

An aunt of mine went through an entire conversation using "erotic" instead of "erudite". (at some sort of social function, not amongst close friends)

I wasn't there, unfortunately. It must have been hilarious.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:01 PM

"After all, we all start out as faeces", a Senator whose name I forget.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Becca72
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:02 PM

"America's Most Smartest Model" was named that way on purpose as the contestants were models and not very bright...

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Micca
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:06 PM

BG re your 18 Feb 5.04 post Maybe the Draw the keys were in was the same one as the "cloudy draw "in "Ghost Riders in the sky" that the cattle were ascending?
Saw a sign in a liquor store here in the UK advertising " Superior Vin Ordinaire"!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:20 PM

Perhaps, Micca, but I don't think it's the same draw. In the west a draw is related to a holler in the South. It is a side section to where one is, for instance, a secluded place where more cattle may be lurking.

(A holler, of course, is a dip, a hollow, often fairly large where there may be a number of homes. It is separate from the mainstream highways.)

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:22 PM

Speaking of draw and its derivatives, why does anyone say that they are 'drawring'? I think it is a Massachusetts affliction. In the West we see skething as 'drawing'.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:51 PM

It's a carryover from the English accent to say "drawring". The English mostly also say "sawr" instead of "saw". Example: "I sawr a large black raven yesterday, and at once sat down and sketched a drawring of it."

You can hear Al Stewart say "sawr" in a couple of lines in his songs, although his diction is normally impeccable. I always find it a bit disturbing to my North American ears when he does that.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM

Well, without even reading this thread. I know full well that I will have been guilty of most of them.

I still don't know what to do with a semi-colon. It's like one of those gifts you are given by a well meaning relative, but never know what to do with, so it gets left redundant in the spare room...

I suffer from greengrocer's apostrophe, even though I have no excuse. I know what an apostrophe is for but I still place them inaproppriately without thinking, as a consequence of rattled off pieces of writing - especiallly on the interenet!

Aggh! And the one that's really bugging me right now, isn't grammatical. But spelling based. My spelling is poor in general, but in particular I never know where the double consonants come in words like:
reccomend/recommend. And of course now I can't think of any other examples, but they seem to cause me confusion every time I post to Mudcat.

Now on the one hand, I have a love of the English language, which could make me inclined to learn to correct these errors.. Of course within an academic context I would correct as appropriate. Because in my mind, that context renders such details, highly important.

And yet I also have a dislike of literary smugness, where a person is corrected for superficial errors in writing and punctuation rather than the otherwise clear content and meaning of their posting - in casual conversational contexts such as interner fora.

So I prefer to rattle off my posts on here - without spellchekcig, knowing quite full well, as I do, that they will annoy, infuriate or otherwise attract the pompous disdain of the most pedanticaly anally retentive members immensely. Just one very mild expression (and amused) of my anarchic disdain for ANY form of empty and inflated self-asserted "authority".

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:10 PM

Oh, and by the way people here, my last post was in no way intended as a criticism of anyone who may have seen/heard an amusing incident involving clumsy or wrong wording/spelling/punctuation.

I was just posting some thoughts I've had for a good while - specifically in context to my own rather poor grammar and spelling, in context of this board and other informal contexts.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:36 PM

"knowing quite full well, as I do, that they will annoy, infuriate or otherwise attract the pompous disdain of the most pedanticaly anally retentive members immensely"

LOL! I love it. I have trouble with some of those double-consonant words too.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 04:07 PM

Quoth Sleepy Rosie: "pedanticaly"

Pedantically.


Pedantically yours,
Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Tangledwood
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 04:15 PM

" I read some time ago, there was an item on "The Boar War". Sadly I couldn't find any reference to said war in any area."


The Bay of Pigs?

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 04:50 PM

In an e-mail of formal direction received today at the office:

"All returns to myself by 1600 hr on Friday."

If I were [note subjunctive] Queen of the World, I would restrict the use of reflexive pronouns to those who own a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style (or, for those in Britain, an early edition of Fowler's English Usage) and bloody well use it!

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 05:37 PM

Every now & then I post this for those with spelling problems...or, folks like me who are decent spellers, but bad typists.. (I do LOTS of dyslexic stuff and confuse T & Y)

**If** you use a PC, This program will check your spelling as you type!.

Here is the message I get when I type pedanticly

And here is the area where I can keep a little spelling window, with the offending word in red. (It is not necessary to open the little window...if you don't, it is in your tray.)

The program is free, works as YOU wish, using spelling as you choose. (I have told it *I* wish to spell through as 'thru' without being beeped at)

It simply works...I have used it for 6-7 years, and it starts when Windows starts. I would not type without it.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:23 PM

Bill D, I don't understand. I checked on your 'pedanticaly' and it went to a box - but with no instructions or caution, even though I'm sure you know it's misspelled.

So, whut's da use of it?

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:28 PM

Before ,oving back to the Sabta Cruz Nountains I used to live in the quaint island town of Alameda. I had a favorite realtor there who fancied herself an artiste of proseody. Her descriptions of homes were hilarious in the extreme.

Linn, this one's for you: she once described a Craftsman home as having "built-in chesterdrawers with acorn escutcheon."

I was just prowling the Web for one of her descriptions; unfortunately they've been toned down over the years, but here's one:

"Meticulously Maintained custom carpentry features of built-in dinning alcove hutch living room bookcase & window bench beneath soaring ceilings & clerestory windows creating bright natural light at the lagoon edge & views of swaying mast"

Can't you just picture it (especially that dinning alcove)?

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:54 PM

Ebbie...that's just a screen capture image of what I see. If the program doesn't like the spelling, I get a beep and the word appears in red.... the other window (which I see simultaneously) is the list I get to choose from. I click the one I 'meant', and the program erases the bad one and puts in the good one in about .4 sec.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Micca
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:20 PM

Sleepy Rosie, I suspect a semi-colon maybe somewhere I suggest they can stick a semi-enema

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:41 PM

Someone (namely me) didn't get enough sleep last night.

That should have been "Before moving back to the Santa Cruz Mountains" in my previous entry.

Did I mention that I often used, inadvertently, to write journal entries about my "boyfiend"?

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 09:17 PM

If I had a nickel for every time I corrected "dinning room" ...

I used to typeset a particular Portsmouth area auctioneer's flyers -- besides "dinning" room tables, he tried to sell "liar-back" chairs. "Dinning" was also pretty popular with the realtors who advertised in the Real Estate Guide. I successfully kept it at bay for 3 years.

More will come to me. I really HAVE tried to put that experience behind me.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 03:28 AM

Actually I aughta say, that I don't personally mind people offering corrections *politely*, but what I find most disagreably pompous, is where a posters otherwise *very clear content* is ridiculed or dismissed, because they incorrectly spelled a word or used an apostrophe where it wasn't required.

Having observed this phenomena on Mudcat, it pleases me to rebel very slightly against the self-appointed 'written word police' who are to my mind about as important and interesting as the neighbourhood watch ;-) This is somewhat ridiculous I'm sure, but it represents a symbolic statement on my part (to myself if no-one else) of a matter of principle which is of some importance to me. For there are those out there without a great education, my father is one. He is mildly dyslexic, yet he makes complete sense - with many errors I might add.

If people with either a poor education (someone like a gypsy perhaps, who may possibly have had very little formal education whatever) or some form of dyslexia wish to contribute to boards such as this (and there are no rules specified by *owners* or *moderators* concerning the correct use of English) then they aught to feel comfortable doing so, without having to go through their posts thoroughly before submitting in order to prevent self-appointed 'moderators' running through their posts with a sarcastic virtual 'red pen'.

No-one here is my boss, and no-one here is my tutor. Although, there are indeed some excellent individuals who I respect for their highly intelligent, informed, and interesting posts. Ironically and most tellingly (to my mind) those same posters who I personally esteem most highly for their intellectually stimulating and genuinely authoritative postings, do not seem to indulge in such petty literary pedantry. Perhaps they have more interesting things to be thinking about... ;-)

Now all that aside. I too enjoy funny errors in the written word, and in speech. One of the classics that I've heard several times, has no doubt already been thrown up: 'Organism' without the 'ni'?

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 05:13 AM

Anyone who wishes / needs to know more about the correct use of semi-colons and other useful punctuation should get a copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss.

It's hilarious, and very informative as well. Now I know why I spent hours agonising over the desirability of commas in some text. It's called an "Oxford comma", and has grammarians disagreeing violently over their port.

(For those who don't know, the phrase "sausage, egg, and chips" may have one or two commas according to taste. The second one is the optional "Oxford" comma)

Grammarians should obviously get out more - but punctuation is very useful to try and and indicate the phrasing of what one is trying to say when using the written word.

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 07:07 AM

I absolutely agree with Rosie when she says "what I find most disagreably pompous, is where a posters otherwise *very clear content* is ridiculed or dismissed, because they incorrectly spelled a word or used an apostrophe where it wasn't required."

If the only way you can attack someone is picking holes in their spelling or grammar rather than tackling their genuine and well argued case, it is tantamount to admitting that you have lost the argument. It is unfogivable. It is beneath contempt.

I hardly ever do it.

In the case mentioned by Insane Beard above, the usage I took exception to was "I could of added...". Passing over the true horror of that blunder, the point is that it was made by someone who worships Englishness, albeit a totally fictional Englishness largely of his own invention. If he couldn't even get the bloody language right, 'e 'ad it cumin'.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 09:17 AM

Wolfhound Person: "(For those who don't know, the phrase "sausage, egg, and chips" may have one or two commas according to taste. The second one is the optional "Oxford" comma)"

I didn't know that about the 'Oxford comma'. And despite what may have come over as something of a rant in my last two postings on this thread, I also find it jolly interesting! ;-)

One of the things I never used to do - as I believed it to be bad English, was begin a sentence with 'And'. Well, now it appears to be acceptable. So I use it in instances where it functions pragmatically to prevent otherwise potentially lengthy sentences becoming unweildly for the reader.

A beautifully constructed piece of English prose is of course a genuine delight to read. And I rather wish that I hadn't myself, missed out such great chunks of fundamental early learning in the basics of how to form good written English.

So, as said, while I take absolutely no issue with those who find the details of the English language fascinating, and nor do I take issue with the real value of having at ones disposal the skills of accurately expressing oneself via the written word. The only thing I personally object to is where academic rigour is uneccesarily applied by self-appointed 'authorities', to informal conversational contexts such as internet fora. For this I fear, can be genuinely intimidating and alienating to those who do not have a particularly good background in written English at their disposal. And of course the somewhat sad irony of this, is that Mudcat of all places is a 'folk' forum... And without wanting to engage into the details of 'what is folk', and without having to resort to my OED I obviously already know that 'folk' refers to "the common people". Now while I don't know what "common people" means to most others, but I am fairly sure that "the common people" (in my neck of the woods at least), don't genereally go around correcting each others minor grammatical errors...

Many Catters come from well educated backgrounds, many of them are involved in academia at one level or another. And while this in itself makes Mudcat a highly interesting and erudite place for the most part, it could also be intimidating to those who don't come from similar backgrounds or have the same degree of mastery over written English as the majority here may do.

Otherwise, it's all great stuff. And in fact I see examples of delightfully formed prose on Mudcat, most days. I like it when I find someone using an interesting word that I don't understand. I look it up, and hey presto, I now have another word at my own disposal.

So on the 'pro' side of correct English useage, I object *strongly* to the media (and *especially* the Beeb "British Broadcasting Service") taking lax liberties with our language. I disagree strongly with the adoption of American pronounciation amongst 'British information services'. Not because I dislike American pronounciation. But we have standard English pronounciation which works perfectly well as it stands and it requires no alteration that would serve any useful purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 09:24 AM

Blast, I submitted that before finishing it! But then, I think I've probably stood on my personal soapbox rather enough already here! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 10:00 AM

Dozy Rosie (sorry, couldn't resist!)
Starting sentences with 'And' is nothing new, I used to annoy my teachers by doing so. Being in a church school I just quoted the example of the first line of the second book of Luke: "And it came to pass in those days,that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus,that all the world should be taxed."

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 03:31 PM

Nigel Parsons: "Dozy Rosie (sorry, couldn't resist!)"

Well Nigel Parsons I object strongly to your use of my Mudcat ID in such a clearly ridiculing fashion.

But primarily because - I can't find *anything* even mildly amusing, to rhyme with 'Parsons'...

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 03:46 PM

Oh, and a LOL! @ Micca below...

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Anne Lister
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 05:59 PM

Someone on the radio this evening talked of "crawling out of the wormwood", which I quite like as an image even if it is a little confused.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 06:30 PM

Sign in the window of a pharmacy....."WE DISPENSE WITH ACCURACY".


Article from well known British newspaper (well known for misprints).

"The case was handed over to John Standish, a defective in the Greater Manchester Police Force".

This was then followed by an apology and retraction in the next issue, as follows:-

"We apologise for the misprint in relation to Mr. Standish. The sentence should, of course have read ""John Standish, a detective in the Greater Manchester Police Farce"".

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: World's best grammatical howlers
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 08:17 PM

On a related note, I did a double take a few years back (well, about 15) when a customer came into the print and copy shop I worked in to photocopy a campaign pamphlet from the 1970s entitled, " The Principles and Convictions of Spiro T. Agnew"...

Uh huh. We now know all about the CONVICTIONS!

Linn