July 11, 2007

• It's one of my biggest pet peeves. It's even worse than affect/effect. Right nowe I'm editing a series of lesson plans written by a veteran teacher with an MA, and two PhD candidates, and none of them can tell the difference. I wasnt to make them all T-shirts with "LOOSE IS NOT A VERB" emblazoned in Day-Glo letters across the front, and then shove them down their throats.
• Well, although "loose" IS actually a verb. But it's not the verb they're looking for.
• Alright, everybody just calm down.
• Worse post ever.
• I hope Ralph doesn't write anymore massages about calming down.
• English is a living language. If niggaz wanna spell shi' diff'rent, who you gonna tell 'em uh uh? lus ur inhibishuns plz kthx
• Yeah, I see loose for lose quite a bit. My personal peeve of late is: "definately" ...
• This is impacting all of us in a myriad of ways.
• *Monkey to Filter, we've got a clam down.*
• *dies*
• But see, I understand "definately", and I certainly understand "affect/effect"; these are simple mistakes regarding words/letters that sound alike and are easily confused. But say "loose" and then say "lose". Totally different sound! And they don't look alike at all!
• EVERYBODY FREAK OUT
• I'm freaking out, or maybe just loosing my mind.
• I hate it too, & it's one of the few spelling mistakes that I correct people on, on the internets. But as time goes by, the more I see it, the more I begin to be confused as to which is the right spelling in the right context. This, to me, is the epitome of evil. I am becoming that which I despise. And yet, ironically, on another board, some guy just snarked at me for spelling through as 'thru'. So.. /shrug
• Congradulations.
• I used to confuse the spelling of loose with lose all the time, because it seemed to me that the double-o in "loose" would be the "u" sound. I finally looked it up, and don't make the mistake anymore. Please don't hurt me!
• Nickdanger has loosed a barrel of monkeys on those who misuse 'loose.' They're bound to lose.
• I, myself, am a big fan of "alright", which has garnered me some scorn from those who care too much. But I'll defend that "nonstandard" word until the day I think better of it. Oh, minda25... I can't believe I used to think you were resounding.
• This is impacting all of us in a myriad of ways.<\i>. Yeah, I notice sometimes I write loose/luze and then can't figure out which one I want. I thought it was me just getting older and luzing my mind, but it could be confuzion from reading the mistakes of others. Hey, English is a living language, and languages change over generations. You Proscriptions just gedoveryerselves already! I wud have written this in Old Anglo-Saxon, but hey, things have changed, and nobody's around to whine about it anymore!
• Yeah, yeah, I know it's a living language and constantly changing... and I know San Francisco is on a fault line, but the tremors still freak me out. Or they would, if I lived in San Francisco.
• Wow, I should get some Terrible Metaphor Award for that one. Oh, and minda25, I can't stay mad at you, you'll always be resounding in my book.
• But Nickdanger, I corrected my mistake. I do not any longer misuse the loose and the lose! Does this not make me even more resounding than I was before? Yes, I say, it does! Minda25 DOES resound, with the resoundiness of a thousand, nay a million, resounders! *collapses*
• Oops, I forgot to hide my prescience again. minda25, I direct you to the post above yours.
• Phew! Now that my resoundiness is no longer in question, I'll get back to work.
• As an editor of a horror magazine, I'm always changing authors' spellings. "Alright" never sees print on my watch. No more than I'd allow "Stop it all ready!" thru. I remember laughing very loudly at a Laugh-In skit where one of the guys who didn't go on to become really famous (or perhaps had been a generation earlier) was sitting there with a tattoo artist working on his arm. When the artist pulled away, we saw a big heart with the words "Born Too Loose" inside. The guy looked down at it, then looked up at the camera with this amazing sad-sack expression, as much as to say, "Well, that's just TYPICAL." I thought it was the funniest thing ever. Of course nobody would get it, now, apparently. Other pet peeves--"Lie" and "Lay," but then almost no one gets that right; treating indefinite pronouns as plural, when they are in fact singular ("Everybody loves their food" instead of "Everybody loves his or her food," or better, "All the attendees love their food"), though that is also becoming a nonstandard standard; "who/whom", especially when writers hypercorrect and use "whom" when it should be "who" in hopes of sounding smarter (a la the old incorrect "Between you and I" construction); and split infinitives (Fuck you, Captain Kirk). I also maintain that anybody who cares enough to think about it a minute should be able to differentiate between "its" and "it's," and if a person doesn't, he's either sloppy and careless, or he's an idiot. At least when he hopes to publish the writing in which it appears. Really, this shouldn't even be an issue.
• Yeah, that "lie/lay" thing keeps me awake at night. Because I don't know which one I'm doing.
• Split infinitives aren't a rule, really. Generally it's better not to, but this so-called "rule" has only been around since the mid-nineteenth century because a bunch of grammarians were weeing themselves over Latin and wanted to see English match its structure as closely as possible. See also dangling prepositions.
• Ok I hate the loose. But here's a question. I rode my bicycle past your window last night. Really? Or should it be "passed"?
• Over-correcting irritates the hell out of me too. Using "he and I" when it should be "him and me"... KILL KILL KILL. And I'm all for letting the language breathe, but breaking the rules is so much more satisfying if you actually know what they are. "Born Too Loose." Heh.
• No. 'I' is the subject, 'rode' the verb, bicycle the object. The bicycle is not doing anything.
• How the fuck do you know where I live?!
• One of my Dad's favourite jokes was something off tv, where some guy was getting fitted for a pair of pants. The tailor, in this heavily accented English, asked him "too tight, too loose", which also sounded like "too tight to lose?" He never tired of that joke. Would repeat it at the slightest of prompts.
• I don't but my little bicycle does.
• argh. *runs over Capt R with bicycle*
• this is not going to go good!
• HuronBob won't pass the mustard.
• I know it's now one of those incorrect things that's now correct because pretty much everyone does it, but I feel like punching anyone who uses the phrase "vicious cycle."
• As an English major this has always been a peeve of mine. That and "to" instead of "too." But what can you do? I've learned to grit my teeth in silence. It's the interwebs, for the most part, I thankfully don't see it other places.
• My peeve is when people use 'literally' as a form of emphasis. If the metaphor is true in fact as well as in expression, then it may be 'literally' (as in "Sopinka literally wrote the book on Evidence"). If not, STFU.
• Speaking of emphasis, it drives me nuts when people use quotation marks for such purposes. This is a "brand new" shirt! Yeah? Who said so?
• MonkeyFilter: [just] a bunch of grammarians ... weeing themselves I'm always changing authors' spellings. ... never sees print on my watch. Yes, please do clean things up. Printed matter is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. But emails, people! These are damn emails. Transient, evanescent, typed in a hurry between visits from the boss. Who has time to red pencil these? Get a life. GET A DELETE BUTTON!! Will those among us who have NEVER, EVER, EVAR made a typo or grammor errer in an email please raise your hand? And quit throwing stones wrapped in printed emails? Sit down and shuddup, Nick! But I do like to point and laugh at the affect/effect people. And I love to feel so smart when I find an error in a book. And I love to start non-sentences with But and And, especially when it PISSES. NITPICKERS. OFF. So phhhhhuttt!
• Hey, this was official company correspondence I'm talking about, here! Like I said, I realize no one can spell on the internet, it's the RL leakage that's got me in a snit!
• What's wrong with "vicious cycle"? Also, what's the deal with apostrophes and possessiveness? When does an apostrophe apply, and when does it not? (Yes, I know my contractions. I had a baby, after all.) kidding, kidding. Maybe I'm not as observant as I should be, but I don't think I've seen you around lately, f8xmulder. So, welcome back! Good to see you!
• 1. “Thru” for “through” at least makes sense; it’s an abbreviation. “Loose” has more letters than “lose.” 2. The “it’s a living, changing language” thing is true, but that means that words are changed, created, and dropped when there’s an organic need for them to be, not just when people get lazy. 3. Clare Booth was loose, but Lautrec was too loose. 4. Typos are a completely different bird from thinking a word is spelled differently than it is. (Or is that “spelt?” Isn’t that some kind of grain?) 5. “With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, rounding by thee in One—one common orbic language.”
• Apostrophes are used to form possessives and contractions. The only time an apostrophie + "s" is used to create a plural is in the case of an abbreviation ("PhD's," for example.) When a plural noun ends in "s," adding an apostrophe to the right of the "s" makes it a possessive ("The boys use the boys' room"). In a contraction, the apostrophe replaces the omitted letters. I had a cat with a spot shaped like an apostrophe on her forehead.
• What's wrong with "vicious cycle"? The phrase should be "vicious circle."
• Does anyone else think "Hank Mabuse" sounds too much like "Yank Machaine"?
• Sentence fragments are sort of what I was talking about, GramMa. I love me a good sentence fragment when it's used to add punch or liven up the rhythm of a passage. And I'll cop to having to stop and think about affect/effect -- I know which is which, but sometimes I have to remind myself that "effect" starts with "e," and "verb" has an "e" in it, so "effect" is not the verb. Except when it is. Yes.
• I've had more than one British person on the internet tell me, when I corrected him on the use of "loose" for "lose", that "loose" is correct in British english. To which I say ballocks! I believe I may have posted my language pet peeve here before. completely ludacris
• The fact that the whole grammar thing keeps coming up again and again makes it a viscous cycle. TUM: People get lazy--with pronouncation, spelling--whatever, and language changes. official company correspondence Still Nick, again, it's an email, be gentle. Use the delete button, and take a Tums. Unless the boss is an absoloot idjut, in which case, feel free to fume and cause ulcers--yours and his. Printing the email, circling the errors, and sending via the interoffice mail always works a treat! And I still maintain that then/than it's/its where/wear can be more spelling (via sound) than grammar, unless some won really doesn't know it, but I'm willing to give anyjuan the benefit of the doubt(ful) I am becoming that which I despise. I just start to wonder how much I'm loosing it. And whether I ever had it to begin with. And at this stage, who cares? Ye will either become more of a pedant as ye gets older, or ye'll get all like "meh, whatever."
• My peeve is when people use 'literally' as a form of emphasis. I, on the other hand, love this. It literally blows my mind. In a good way.
• I'm going to like, literally, puke up on my keyboard. Literally.
• Tum: "With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, rounding by thee in One—one common orbic language.” Kewl! Who said that? Hey, TUM, my kitty has/was an Umlaut, and the Monkeys devoted a thread to naming her. We picked Sidy's offering. However: if that's not her name it won't stick. Or surround her like an aura. PatB was right. We call her Quotes instead. if she'd have had a colon, she would have had paws at the end of her clause...
• MCT: I thought "vicious cycle" looked odd, but couldn't figure out why. Thanks for the clarification! TUM: So, all possessives get an apostrophe, whether to the left or the right of the "s"? So, is "The museum's soothing aura" incorrect, while "The museum's spider collection" is correct?
• So, is "The museum's soothing aura" incorrect, while "The museum's spider collection" is correct? Both of those are possessive (and correct). Incorrect: "The museum's in Chicago are literally out of this world."
• *earsteams*
• Okay, just one last question. Or maybe two: - CD's. DVD's. That's correct? I thought it wasn't, and have have had my own persnickedyness about that one. Oops! - I was just going to say something about "people's grammar". Is that apostrophe correct? That's all, I promise.
• Still Nick, again, it's an email, NO! It wasn't an email! It was a typed and printed memo! And then, to make matters worse, the same mistake was repeated on a sheet of instructions we were giving to guests!!!! I WILL NOT STAND DOWN THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS OUT OF ORDER YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH Oh, and minda25, that DVD's/DVDs thing is not a cut-and-dried issue. I think DVD's is falling out of favor, but some still consider it perfectly acceptable. and people's grammar is correct, because people is the plural and the 's is showing possesiveness. possessiveness. posssesssivenesss.
• possssessssivenessss's
• Excellent! Your rant, Nickdanger, has turned into a great grammar lesson for me. I've been confused about correct apostrophe usage for a long time, and it sure is nice to have that confusion cleared up.
• The quote's from Walt Whitman's "Song of the Exposition." And yay for the umlaut kitty! At one point there was a cat in the neighborhood with a fermata on his side. Chicago Manual of Style leans toward yes on the CD's/DVD's question.
• So is my house "Jeff Jones' house", or "Jeff Jones's house", or what? When said aloud I really want to add the s at the end. Plus, now I get panic attacks before posting in forums, so thanks for that!
• I still find "CD's" and "DVD's" annoying and I suspect that one of the reasons that construction finds favor is because MS Word will automatically correct CDs to Cds, but will leave CD's alone.

• 2. The “it’s a living, changing language” thing is true, but that means that words are changed, created, and dropped when there’s an organic need for them to be, not just when people get lazy.

  Claiming that the spelling 'loose' is a result of laziness is begging the question. Your comment does, in fact, display a general misunderestimation of the force of sloth in effecting change in a language. I wonder if the profundity you clearly wished to inject into your comment was literally an affectation.
• Here's another thought: How often do we write a word meaning "lose" (as traditionally defined) vs. a word meaning "loose" (as traditionally defined)? I know I write the word "lose" a lot ("alot" demands my inner laze), and the word "loose" hardly at all. How is it that the more commonly used one is becoming subsumed by the less commonly used one? Shouldn't it be the other way around? "Britney Spears is a lose lady" instead of "I can't stand loosing Monopoly"?
• Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Grammar Girl.

• How is it that the more commonly used one is becoming subsumed by the less commonly used one?

  Is it really that hard to imagine the reasons? Choose, chose. Noose, nose. Hoose, hose.
• So then, the next logical step would be: "I can't believe I loze Monopoly the other night. He sure did pwn me!" It's like looking into the grammatic future!
• "Loze" being an attempt to transliterate "lose" with a long 'o' sound.
• Is that the historical present? Cuz otherwise that sentence has got major problems besides spelling.
• Choose, chose; loose, loze. You know.
• It appears, then, that you entirely missed the point of my comment. C'est la vie.
• Ok, "awesome" as a way of describing something good. For fuck's sake, awesome should describe something awe inspiring, the grand canyon, a vision of god, giving birth, not the latest hamburger or Japanese truck. A coworker described getting off an hour early the other day as "awesome". It was nice, or cool, plesant, or great, but awesome?
• > - CD's. DVD's. That's correct? I thought it wasn't, H.w. Fowler agrees.
• I enjoy the works of Hubert Selby, Jr., Jake Kake (mos specially the term "pomes"), Jay-Z, Irvine Welsh, Twisted Sister and George Dubya, but even Picasso new howda pant a flour before he pantd a stik flour. Emails and memos should be written as professionally as a formal letter when sent for professional reasons. Conments on the itermet don't seem to mater to pepal bt I acktually end up geting werse at spelin even tho my tiping is getink qwicker thanx to what seems to be an over-saturation of publishing at an early grade school level. This was my personal favorite: I applied for a job as an editor where the person hiring (another "editor") replied to me with an email filled with typos, spelling mistakes, improper use of grammar among a complete inability to communicate answers to my questions. I didn't pursue it.
• Have you considered that it was actually a disguised job interview? That he wanted you to spot the mistakes in his e-mail?
• ...but awesome? You like your work; your co-worker likes everything but his/her work. While we're on this, should "rules" should be left for the Queen or the band Queen? Why don't we save "Cool" for ice-cubes and cucumbers. The witches and hairy palmed gnomes will be the only "wicked" things in all the land! "Cheers" shall never be spoken as an familiar form of Cheerio but only in dark brooding meetings where alcohol swishes from cup to cup - and even then, only in reference to times once had where we "cheered" for that sweeter time. "Sweet", now that I mention it, is a flavor, not a double gainer! "Tubular" will refer to things which are not tubes but are sort of similar. "Factoid" shall never be substituted for fact! "Crazy" is for the mad! "Insane", as well. If you say "Super" you must refer to a thing that surpasses all other things of its kind or you will be whipped by the three eyed toad. "Neat" will only refer to things which are orderly, however concessions will be made for Wednesday where everyone has a chance to use it facetiously, once. On the other hand "that's messed up" should refer only to disorderly things, no matter how "neat" they are (check the calendar and adjust for Pacific time).
• What drive me bnuts is the captioning on CBC Newsworld where they misspell words continually. Thank you for letting me say that.
• I applied to a magazine as a potential editor by way of sending with my cv coupled with a severely marked up editorial; never heard from them again, and still can't read the magazine. A good way to remember the difference between it's and its is to remember that his and hers have no apostrophes.
• Have you considered that it was actually a disguised job interview? That he wanted you to spot the mistakes in his e-mail? I dismissed that thought fairly quickly; the guy was an idiot. He wouldn't name his company (turns out it was a home based essay "editing" service) or reassure me that he was on the level. He avoided direct meeting after three emails (and the span of a week), and kept responding with typos after I addressed my suspicions of him of perpetrating a scam due to his use of craigslist.org for hiring when coupled with terrible grammar, an incredible sliding wage scale and ignoring the important questions that I asked repeatedly. On top of that (I know this may sound a little judgmental but...) his name was Jack - just Jack. But hey, he may have been legitimate but lacking in know how. My bet is that some third year undergrad is now writing papers for him to hand in to his prof. I was looking for some part time coin and some paid experience in editing - turns out neither were to be had there.
• I'm glad Nick mentioned this. I find it extraordinarily annoying. "to" and "too" is grating, but understandable because they're homonyms. Actually, this had been an altogether annoying day. I think I'm going to go have to cause virtual mayhem somewhere. Let loose my wrath before I lose it, you might say.
• It appears, then, that you entirely missed the point of my comment. C'est la vie. Well, I doubt I'm the only one. Let's hear your point, then.
• annasbrew, there's actually disagreement on that one too. In elementary school they taught us that Jones' is correct, but there are books/authorities that go by the rule that if the word is singular, you add 's, even if the word ends in s. Jesus's. Our state legislature actually passed a resolution this past spring declaring that the correct possessive of Arkansas is Arkansas's, not Arkansas' -- because the final s is silent. That's been the style of the newspaper where I work, but the dominant daily paper clings to Arkansas'. They, however, are wrong on many points. :) As for CDs/CD's, that depends on which style manual you're consulting. AP style leaves out the apostrophe -- unless it's something like "he got all A's on his report card," where you need the apostrophe for clarity.
• Mr. Jones lives in Mr. Jones's house. The Jones family lives in the Joneses' house. My guess on the loose/lose thing is that people assume that you need two "o's" to make a long "u" sound. And anything MS Word's spellchecker doesn't catch is spelled correctly, right?
• Oh, right, which is totally what fuyugare was saying. Forgive my over-thinking.
• Only if you'll forgive my not noticing fuyugare's much more succinct comment.
• It's LUZE. LUZ-R's!
• Only if you'll forgive my not noticing fuyugare's much more succinct comment. Yeah, but I was too dense for it, so thanks. fuyugare, what the hell is a "hoose"?
• Maybe it has something to do with Hoosiers.
• Or the hoosegow.
• It's the apostrophe that bugs me! Apostrophe in right place, damn you! +++Shoots advertising signs with extreme prejudice!+++
• OK, I'm rewriting my resume and I've got one for the collective: what is the past tense form of "oversee"? Used in a sentence: "In my capacity as Chief Rainmaker and Flibbertygibbet, I [past tense of oversee] all corporate operations rlated to both flibberty and gibbbeting." This fucking new resume shit is driving me up a wall. The old rules are gone! It's all about keywords, summaries and getting past the filters. Bleh. All I want is a decent corporate master to whom to pledge my sword in the feudal manner. I turn 40 this year, and the ronin life is starting to suck just a bit.
• also, apropos of nothing, I'm conjunctionally watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH does Hugh Grant moon over that horse-faced skulltoothed Andi McDowell when KRISTEN SCOTT THOMAS is standing right there IN PLAIN SIGHT? Some shit just beggars rational explanation.
• > what is the past tense form of "oversee"? "oversaw" is acceptable. It's not pretty, but it works. I'm somewhat bemused by the almost contradictory meanings of "oversight". And I couldn't agree more with the irrationality of Grant's character. Makes no sense whatsoever.
• hoose
• That's always kind of bothered me, too, Fes. And why didn't she work to make her dialog sound more American?
• If you don't like 'oversaw', you could say 'had oversight of' or 'was responsible for overseeing' if you don't mind a bit of passive circumlocution. 'Loose' is definitely not a British English variant of 'lose', Lara, so you're right to mind the bollocks. There's a moose loose aboot this hoose. Speaking of contradictory meanings, how about 'quite'? 'It was quite dreadful. Well, maybe not, but quite dreadful." Her dialogue didn't sound American?
• It didn't to me. Drat my senile brain for not remembering any examples, but the last time I watched it (just a few nights ago, coincidentally) I remember thinking, "Could she sound any more like her lines were written by an Englishman?" I mean, she didn't say "Ta-ta, I'm taking the lift to the loo, then I'm off in my lorry" or anything, but she just sounded a bit off throughout.
• Quite.
• What about funny pronunciations? Who wants in!? I find it amusing when a friend of mine lectures using the word facet pronounced as if it was spelled facette (fah-SET). Considering he lectures on bones this word ends up being used ad nauseum.
• Why would she sound like an American? She's an Englishwoman portraying an Englishwoman. I have a bit of a thing for Englishwomen. Ms. Thomas, Minnie Driver, Alex Kingston...
• Okay, since we're airing our peeves here, I've got one. EVACUATE. Means, "to empty out." If you say "the citizens were evacuated" it means basically that you've given them all purgatives and I for one don't want to be anywhere in the vicinity. HOWEVER if you say "the city was evacuated" you're more likely to be accurate. I hear this word misused far, far too often. Not grammar, I know. But still.
• Okay, since we're airing our peeves here, I've got one. EVACUATE. Means, "to empty out." If you say "the citizens were evacuated" it means basically that you've given them all purgatives and I for one don't want to be anywhere in the vicinity. HOWEVER if you say "the city was evacuated" you're more likely to be accurate. I hear this word misused far, far too often. Not grammar, I know. But still.
• So then, the kids should be writing "noose" for "news", "hoose" for "whose", "shoose for shoes", and "gloose" for "glues", not to mention "shoos" for "shoes" and "joose" for "jews". Nah, I liked my misbegotten conjugation idea better. Well, I like the idea of 'lose' correlated to the past tense of choose, and pronounced to rhyme with chose. When I write my dystopian sci-fi novel, all verbs will be modelled on the 'choose/chose' conjugation, and will be all symbolic and shit.
• I am quite please to have Minnie Driver on my tv each and every week on The Riches. Incredible acting, even better writing. I must admit, though, that Eddie Izzard's accent can use a little work. Minnie's is spot-on, though. Here I was thinking that nothing could fill the hole in my heart left by the Sopranos...
• Andie MacDowall, an Englishwoman? Or am I missing a joke?
• I thought we were talking about KS Thomas. Never mind, my mistake. I didn't notice the British phrasing in MacDowall's lines, but honestly, when Ms. Thomas wasn't langorously gliding through a scene, cigarette in hand and musical laugh dancing on my ear, I was only half watching at best.
• There's a moose loose aboot me hoose! Gooey Goo for Chewy Chewing! That's what that Goo-Goose is doing! Blue goo, new goo. Gooey gooey. New goo, blue goo. Bluey Bluey. If sir, you sir, choose to chew, sir, with the Goo-goose, chew sir! Do, sir! Going back to quotation marks for emphasis, it always makes me laugh, because actually the quotation marks have the opposite of the intended effect: for instance, in Come see our "new" swimsuits!, the implication is that you're saying they're new, but actually thy aren't. Think of it as being spoken with "finger quotes," and it's funny. When I was a graduate teaching assistant at my state university, we got student evaluations at the end of every semester, which we could only see after we had turned in our grades. I had a rep for being pretty tough, but most of my students gave me good reviews. My favorite review ever was a bad review, though, in which my student (I recognized which one, of course) wrote this damning comment: Mr. Pettle grade to harshful. It's a catch-phrase I still use today. And I never got the chance to thank her.
• The archaic English in the previous comment is intentional. As in, "Thy swimsuits are not new. Get thee to a Fun n'Sun."
• *madly reading comments since last night* Oooh! The whole "sentences can't start with a conjunction" thing: I really believe this is not a rule, but a suggestion that got canonized because, especially early on (in grade school) whenever students write sentences starting with "And" or "But," it's a sentence fragment, i.e. a no-no. But the sentence is fine if you have a subject and verb along with the conjunction, as this sentence illustrates.
• HOWEVER if you say "the city was evacuated" you're more likely to be accurate. If you say, "The citizens were evacuated from the city." You'd be proper as well. Much like the turds were evacuated from my gut strings. Proper. ...quotation marks for emphasis, it always makes me laugh... Likewise; there's a great sign on some awning along Fraser street which says, "free" Pepsi with every meal. I really believe this is not a rule, but a suggestion that got canonized because, especially early on (in grade school) whenever students write sentences starting with "And" or "But," it's a sentence fragment, i.e. a no-no. You're absolutely right. And the reason this is taught in grade schools is simply because kids haven't achieved that level of writing where they can properly implement a conjunction starting a phrase in the context of a written work. Kids tend to overuse sentences beginning with "and" because they emulate the way they talk when writing fiction or journal items. Basically, they end up writing a list without being able to give it proper flow.
• It's like reading a paragraph consisting of fifteen semi-colons, if that makes sense to you.
• I love the semi-colon in all its super-liminal grandeur. Revel in its grammatic alchemy.
• It's like a grammaphone: connecting sentential romance with one quick call.
• People who don't like semi-colons should be killed. That is all.
• That doesn't sound like something the Buddha would say.
• People who don't like semi-colons should be killed. That is all. YOU KILLED KURT VONNEGUT YOU BASTARD.
• I'm not a very good Buddhist.
• I also like hyphens. Although I use them in-appropriately.
• Wait, wait, I want to do that again: Ahem... I also like hyphens. Although I use them in-appropriate-ly. There we go.
• Ain't nothin' but a G thang, uh, G. *Monkey to Filter, we've got a clam down.* posted by flongj at 05:13PM UTC on July 11, 2007 best.comment.evar.
• And just where the fuck have you been?
• I'm not a very good nudist. Hard to do with a semicolon.
• And just where the fuck have you been? Did you get loost?
• I'm an excellent nudist. But not a good flutist.
• NO! It wasn't an email! It was a typed and printed memo! And then, to make matters worse, the same mistake was repeated on a sheet of instructions we were giving to guests!!!! I WILL NOT STAND DOWN THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS OUT OF ORDER YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH OK, Nick, OK Easy, boy. I completely, agree if it goes out of office, paperwork should be well proofed; this is no time to play fast and lose with the reputation of a good firm. This is literally a case where fingers should be pointed and derisive hooting should commence. I just don't like seeing you upset, my dear. *hides syringe of calming drugs behind back, edges closer Semi just for you, Hank. Hee!
• I don't see why other people haven't taken my proactive stance: carry a bottle of correction fluid. Sure, it can't fix all the greengroc'er's apostrophe's, but it does work on memos. I have also covered offending words with labels.
• Actually, I have considered fixing grocers's's sign's. Today, I also saw one of those marquee signs where you slip in letters. This one was in front of a convenience store. And it was advertising cappacino. I had to stop myself, truly, from stealing the second "a". I actually had the thought that a missing letter would be better than the wrong one. I think I need help.
• You could have rearranged the letters, Fawlty Towers-style. But the best you'd be able to do is "A Panic Cop" or something like that.
• My favorite re-arranged sign, in a kind of black humor way, was one for a restaurant that had been destroyed by fire. The sign had originally said "NOW HIRING," but seeing the blackened husk, somebody had stolen letters and changed it to "NO WIRING". Was I wrong to laugh?
• Yes. Yes, you were.
• When I was in 6th grade, I was on the Spelling Team. We correctly spelled our way to the State Championship. The final two teams were Braintree Elementary and my team, Lincoln Elementary. The final contestants were myself and some other kid. I lost the Spelling Bee becasue I spelled "martyr" with an "i". Should the period come before or after the parenthesis?
• A period precedes the closing parenthesis if the entire sentence is in parentheses; otherwise it follows. The scientists tests his hypothesis (educated guess). The scientists tests his hypothesis. (A hypothesis is an educated guess.)
• YES! Thanks, TUM! My boss and I play ping pong with the parenthetical period - I put it after, she puts it in (as in, she'd put the period in this parenthesis). I'm RIGHT! For once.
• An entire sentence should never be parenthetical.
• A period precedes the closing parenthesis if the entire sentence is in parentheses; otherwise it follows. Am I right that this is also open to debate?
• Not that I know of. TUM's got it right.
• The scientists tests his hypothesis (educated guess). (Dele third or fifth "s".). Period.
• Am I right that this is also open to debate? You may be thinking of punctuation and quote marks, which I believe does vary from country to country.
• You know the weird thing is that this is a summer time thread and no-one's yet mentioned ice cream. Because we should all have some.
• I'm all for ice cream! Because I'm getting tired of this thread--period I can have LOL grammar, plez?
• I'm having it right now. French Vanilla wid strawberries, kiwi and lichee nuts. Basically all the fruit in my fridge jumped into the bowl wid the ice cream.
• Bah. All I've got are some celery sticks. *crunch*
• Well, if i can figure out how to upload some of mine, I'd do it....oops it's all gone.
• Oh, well. I'm leaving here in a short, and when I get home I'm skipping the ice cream and heading straight for the rum & coke.
• I had Haagen-Dazs Pineapple-Coconut ice cream last night. /Homer Simpson drool
• Eww HD. All their ice-cream flavors seem a bit off. I am kept up by the noise of firecrackers that are ringing in the fête fationale. I found half a (stale) baguette which I am unenthusiastically chewing right now. Later I shall be overthrowing imperialism.
• Make that national. Ugh. Why is it suddenly hot and stuffy tonight?
• I'm eating a tamale. It's hot. But it's only 75 degrees here, so I'm happy. Ice cream sounds good, but a trip to the store sounds like an inconvenience. My wife won't go and my dogs aren't trained to make the trip, so ice creamless I shall remain.
• I just had a peach. No ice cream, didn't even cut it up, just leaned over the sink and sucked it down. Like God intended. Damn it was good.
• The boy bought the last container of ice cream and it kind of sucks. I don't really like bands of flavor - I want it all homogenized and easy to deal with. Soft serve this weekend, so help me Satan.
• One word. Jamoca! But all I have is oranges. Not bad, but not Jamoca!
• So, what have we learned?
• Other than that nudist doesn't rhyme with flutist. And that loose isn't the same as lose, and that disinterested is not the same of uninterested. Other than all that. Were strawberries mentioned?
• No, but they should have been. Because prime picking season is almost over and I went for the first time ever only a week ago. It was not the mud-spattered, sun-baking tribulation I was expecting. No, they had straw laid down between the rows of plants and there you can pick and secretly eat the most delicious of berries.
• I like the round orange ones. Did I mention that before? Of course, the red, funny-seeded ones aren't bad, either.
• Come on, people! This thread is for bitching about grammar and spelling, not taking about your crazy fruit!
• Ahem, I am certain that you meant "talking," Lara.
• Dude, she was talking about taking your crazy fruit around to meet the other people! Like, here's my jackfruit, Nick, now watch while it pretends to be a pirate.
• Everybody knows that oranges are not pirates. Now seriously, I've had too many gin-and-tonics, and I think I'm going to be sick. This is the first time yer GramMa's posted whilst drunk. And I don't advise doing it.
• Shit. ONLY
• I found this great quote, and it will probably languish here with no one to come and read it, because sometime I'm the last poster, and it kills the post. "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." -- Author Unknown -- RIP for the looser post
• Not dead yet! I'm seriously thinking of a mad career as a sign-rearranger. Will post results here.
• That's fucking beautiful, GramMa. And some of my favorite MoFi comments have been made in a state of inebreationatedness.
• BlueHorse: The author of that quote is James Nicoll.
• *bows low in the general direction of hattifattener Thank you. Where I copied it from said author unknown, but lawzy me, we truly should give the boy his due. The whole quote deserves to be copied here in it's original form: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary. Although, I have to admit I like the "loose grammar" since it works into our theme here.
• I don;t think anyone's making a case for English as a "pure" language; the issue is keeping a standard enough usage that it doesn't impede understanding in any way. Yes, I eventually figure out that the author of a sentence means "lose" when he writes "loose," but if he uses the standard word in the first place, I don't have to waste even a nonosecond wondering.
• Or even a nanosecond.
• Is a nonosecond a non-existant nanosecond?
• nonosecond: that instant you realize the word should be "lose" not "loose" and say to yourself, "no, nos that's not it."
• I heard there's going to be a bloetry reading at the cribhouse.
• Okay editor-type Monkeys, on a letter, does enc. go before or after cc? I thought cc went last, but my boss thinks enc. goes last.
• Nevermind, we found a grammar book and figured it out (cc goes last).