Little Grammar Nitpicks That Make You Want To Kill

[Lanya Caliope]

Wa's wrong, ye cannae stand th' speech o' common folks?

[Devon]

pfft your southern drawl magic wont work on one also from the south.

[Dorcas Tansy]

So, I got this advanced degree in linguistics. I studied linguistics and stuff. The thing with theoretical and some applied linguistics (as opposed to say, speech therapy) is, we observe and explain rather than tell people how to talk. It's a good ice-breaker; when people find out I am a linguistics person, they sometimes say "I guess I better watch my grammar around you, right?" but it's the exact opposite. We thrive on things like the merging of the "lie/lay" distinction. Basically, linguists generally see the act of correcting someone's grammar the same way a cultural anthropologist would see correcting someone's etiquette--it defeats the purpose of studying. Now of course there are times when we want to prescribe apostrophes, like in the written word, especially in formal documents. But the rules are all, in essence, arbitrary. An awareness of them DOES show attention to detail the same way a strict knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure reflects well on a delegate's dedication to protocol, but it's important to remember that language is a tool. We use grammar as prescribed by Strunk and White as a way to communicate that we are of an intellectual class.

A word on ebonics: linguistics don't generally use the term "ebonics." We call this "Black American English," or a few other accepted terms. It is a dialect (dialects can class-based, gender-based, age-based, not JUST regional). Whether or not you think it should be taught in schools places you about twelve years ago in California, because it's not exactly a high-profile subject anymore, and when it was, it was purely political. The term "ebonics" is a political one, not a linguistic one. But yes, BAE is a dialect that people speak and use as a tool, and most speakers of Black American English are also entirely versed in Standard American English as well and can choose when they want to use which dialect. As a linguist, I see the ability to use more than one dialect as a desirable trait. These people simply have more tools at their disposal. Being able to conjugate verbs in Black American English as well as Standard American English gives you an in for communities of either dialect. The same as highfalutin types might be unwilling to accept someone speaking BAE into certain types of conversation, people speaking BAE might be closed to someone speaking without BAE conjugations because that person has identified as a non-member of their linguistic community.

Same as I said before: language is a tool. This thread is mostly about written language, and it's useful to be good at remembering the prescriptive rules because it makes a good impression in general. I obviously didn't get through college writing in marginalized dialects . . . just about them. Oh, and I DO have a pet peeve: failure to use the past-participle in compound words, as in "whipped cream" and "iced tea." But I also enjoy analyzing the crap out of why this failure occurs and why it doesn't make the speaker dumb.

Oh, and no, I'm not a hippie who's all "Man, everything everyone says is beautiful because, like, everybody's human and we're all equals." I just have a piece of paper saying I know a whole lot about language, and I like Black American English. And I know now that language is a tool.

[Frug]

I don't know if I've seen anyone here do this, but the one that bugs me the most is writing "should of" as in "I should of used better grammar"

Should've is the contraction. Should've. It's short for "should have". It sounds like "should of" but it's not should of. I don't know what "should of" means.

Should've could've would've.

[Devon]

Oooh, I seriously think that's one I'm guilty of.
For Dorcas, I work with military linguists all day long. They seem to take pride in the fact they speak multiple languages and know what a conjugated future tense to a pretense noun with a prepositionatory interjection. is...But I don't.

[Xyon_of_Calhoun]

This one, my ex girlfriend does all the time.

The word is "have", not "of". In terms of a sentence like "should of" which has been covered masterfully by the kermitty one, she consistently uses "of" where "have" is the correct word, for instance:

"You of got a new phone number." - ... erm, that made no sense when she said it and even LESS sense in the text message, but it was honestly said.

Another thing. "Specific". Not "Pacific", which is an ocean, but "specific". As in "You didn't do anything pacifically wrong." OK. It's good to know I wasn't as bad as the pacific ocean. Grr.

I admit the its it's gets me quite a bit. I always use it's for the possessive because I believe that it should always have an apostrophe. I've seen its used quite a lot but it always made me scream for an apostrophe. Hmm.

Text speak gets to me quite a bit. The ONLY place I will condone use of the abhorration to language is inside of a text message. Example from my own board, before it sadly died:

"yeh m8 bt i gt it th nite b4 so it wz gd n i dint evn hav 2pay 4it fkin supa m8"

Erm... this is not language. This is the death of language. We have not spent years crafting and scultping the English language, stealing a few words from the French and a staggering amount from Latin for people to maim it quite so comprehensively. It took me five minutes to decipher what that said.

After that I banned it on my board. Gr8 indeed.

[Devon]

Lol, well I hate to tell ya this m8, but with the technological age we current live in when everyone is all about going faster, it IS becoming a lanugauge. Now granted, I seriously hope that there will never be a day when my great great grandchildren will be reading " C Spt Rn ".

C Spt rn, C Spt jmp, C Spt dmnsh r prfct n grwng lngwge.

Wow, after typing that abomination, I realized we're slowly using our vowels.

CTR2 Brock, USN
Founder of the "Save the Vowels" Foundation.

All donations and praise can be forwarded to myself.

[Dorcas Tansy]

For Devon, I should clarify the difference between linguists and linguisticians. "Linguist" refers to people who can speak a lot of languages, and "linguistician" refers to one who studies linguistics (as opposed to language). I usually just say I'm a linguist, followed up by the fact that I study linguistics. I worked with a handful of military linguists for a research project last spring, and when it comes to their target languages, they sure do know their shit. When it came to theoretical linguistics, though, that's where our small talk options diverged. So yeah, a difference between linguists and linguisticians. Like the difference between someone who is a master of Japanese etiquette and an anthropologist who studies varying etiquette patterns around the world and doesn't subscribe to one particular system.

Xyon, I would probably find your ex-girlfriend's speech habits fascinating. The "should of" phenomenon is interesting because it seems to penetrate into the higher academic echelons than things like apostrophe errors. The fact that I have actually seen it in printed advertisements once or twice indicates it might be merging, and "should of" may become an accepted variation in fifty years or so. Just like how "nauseous" used to only mean "capable of producing nausea." Some people will still try to correct you on it: "I'm nauseous." "You mean nauseated." But "nauseous" and "nauseated" are accepted as synonyms now.

Now check it out--the very fact that in this thread, people seem to have very different opinions on where different uses of language are appropriate just goes to show how language IS in fact a contextual tool. There are references like MLA or Chicago style formatting guides and Strunk and White to explain the conventions of very formal context, but it's up to individual taste to determine when one wishes to dally outside of formal context. It's a two-way street--you might not get the reaction you want--and that's also important to remember. With language, you might not get the reaction you want if you use your tools in a way that doesn't jive with your partner's context.

LANGUAGE IS SO COOL GUYZ.

[Frug]

I don't think you have that much to worry about Devon. There will always be people who appreciate the practice of (what Dorcas is calling prescriptive language) word crafting. There will also always be people who don't get it.

I encounter people who look like pea-brains on the net who just don't give a damn at all about language. Most of them are kids, some of them are smart but just don't care, some of them only use English as a second language.

Anyway sometimes lazy is good. Plus it's fun to talk like that.

Wut? u kno u want 2.

[Metarie]

Oooh! I've got one!

When people use "wander" instead of "wonder."

*nods* yeah, that one gets me.

[Ryalyn Kylana]

well lets see, there is the common misspelling of 'a lot' most people just spell it as 'alot' which is not a word.

then there are many examples of people using the spelling for a word that sounds the same as the word they want to use but isn't. For example, using the word 'root' in place of 'route' or wile and while, or site, sight, cite, etc

let's see, there's also the whole "Kate and I" versus the "me and Kate" thing. That bugs me but even I slip up sometimes.

Oh by the way, about the period inside the quote thing that was mentioned earlier, that only applies if you are not citing something like:

"blah blah blah" (citation).

some people really nitpick about the whole 'good' versus 'well'
"This drink tastes good" and "I did well on my exam"
or 'can' versus 'may' I'm sure most of us have been corrected of this at one time or another when asking an adult permission to do something.

Personally, it drives me nuts to see someone posting for a story or an RPG and have an incomplete sentence. Like this. Ick! Everyday conversation and stuff like here is fine but if you're going to write something that is letter- or story-like or in any way professional, you need complete sentences!!

While i was writing that i realized that your and you're are common mistakes too but someone might have already mentioned that (?).

One thing that drives me nuts though: does anyone actually know how to use semicolons properly??! I don't and my old roommate is the only person I know that actually does.

[Julen]

Personally, it drives me nuts to see someone posting for a story or an RPG and have an incomplete sentence. Like this. Ick! Everyday conversation and stuff like here is fine but if you're going to write something that is letter- or story-like or in any way professional, you need complete sentences!!

It's a matter of taste, so if you don't like incomplete sentences you don't like them. I'm certainly not going to argue that they're grammatically correct. But I deliberately use sentence fragments in my posts. When I write, it's like I hear this rhythm in my head, and sentence fragments are short, sharp beats. They can be used to emphasize something, to make an action seem abrupt, or to show the state of mind of a character who's too confused to think clearly. And sometimes, a sentence fragment is the perfect punch line. Frankly, I love 'em. But to each to their own.

[Jenica Sabiny]

What Julen said

Wonder vs. Wander is one that I only recently saw. My gawd did it make my head hurt.

[Devon]

To comment on what Julen said about the internal rhythm, I do the same thing with commas...That's why you will tend to see alot in what I write. But not on posts, cuz I know it will bug y'all. A teacher once told me a comma is used to give pause between ideas, or to signify a pause to the reader. Devon tends to pause alot I guess.

[Daq Bekkar]

I really love the '...'

It's kinda my signature punctuation. I know I use it incorrectly, but I don't care.

Also, about the semicolons:

Semicolons are used to join two complete sentences without using a conjunction, but those two sentences must/should be related to one another.

I used to know examples.

I can't remember them anymore; it's been a long time.

(^that was a freestyle on my part and probably incorrect...)


BTW, I really enjoy dialects. It was especially interesting to learn a dialect of a foreign language (one of the best ways of tricking native speakers into thinking you're also a native if you lay it on real thick)

/really thickly.. I guess.. would be.. uhh.. the correct way of saying that.