Author Topic: Grammar questions  (Read 6390 times)

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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2014, 12:40:04 AM »

Offline Beat LA

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You have to allow for a lot of lenience in something as informal as a forum, IMO. People post on their phones, post while intoxicated, post before coffee, etc.

Either that, or they've fallen pray to Charmin's marketing campaign to, "Tweet from the Seat."  Yuck.

Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #16 on: September 12, 2014, 12:40:57 AM »

Offline Kevin OConnor

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About the only grammar error that annoys me is when they're, their, and there are mixed up.

Other than that, whatever...do as you please. The message is what counts.
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #17 on: September 12, 2014, 01:52:10 AM »

Offline Emmette Bryant

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What ires me is that the new generation of our workforce do not practice good grammar. Communications coming from them usually tend to be full of grammatical errors. I am not a grammar nazi, but it is painful to read emails and correspondences which are barely readable to say the least.

What drives me crazy is that people don't understand what is "ironic".  People don't know what "reactionary" means.  And they don't know the difference between too and to!  It's just 2 much!

Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #18 on: September 12, 2014, 02:30:39 AM »

Offline Mazingerz

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What ires me is that the new generation of our workforce do not practice good grammar. Communications coming from them usually tend to be full of grammatical errors. I am not a grammar nazi, but it is painful to read emails and correspondences which are barely readable to say the least.

While I'm not a grammar Nazi, either, I do fit the demographic of, as you put it, "the new generation of our workforce," so allow me to ask these two questions - 1).  Did you mean irks instead of ires, and 2).  Shouldn't you have written, "What particularly/really irks me is that the new generation of our workforce does not practice good grammar?"  I'm just wondering.

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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #19 on: September 12, 2014, 08:16:30 AM »

Offline pearljammer10

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woulda coulda shoulda

Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #20 on: September 12, 2014, 10:34:40 AM »

Offline Nerf DPOY

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You have to allow for a lot of lenience in something as informal as a forum, IMO. People post on their phones, post while intoxicated, post before coffee, etc.

Either that, or they've fallen pray to Charmin's marketing campaign to, "Tweet from the Seat."  Yuck.

*prey*. Consider yourself burned!

Poor grammar more amuses me than annoys me, and I generally don't give people a hard time about it being aware that I make dumb mistakes constantly,in all walks of life. That said, I get a kick out of people grossly misinterpreting everyday phrases and then confidently using them. For instance, I've read and also heard people say " for all intensive purposes" more than once in my life. That's not what the phrase is, buddy. That's just the tip of the ice berg. I've seen written "mine as well", as in " Solid white tuna's only a buck this week? Mine as well stock up." There are countless other examples of this. I think there must be a lot more people than I realize who simply never read outside of Facebook and Meme Generator.

With all that said, nobody gets to make fun of me for all the mistakes I surely made in the previous paragraph, because that would be mean.

Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #21 on: September 12, 2014, 10:41:52 AM »

Offline Donoghus

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Can someone tell me when to use a colon v. a semi-colon?

I honestly never know if I'm using those things right!  :P


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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #22 on: September 12, 2014, 10:55:18 AM »

Offline D.o.s.

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Can someone tell me when to use a colon v. a semi-colon?

I honestly never know if I'm using those things right!  :P

Use an m-dash instead.
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #23 on: September 12, 2014, 10:56:13 AM »

Offline mgent

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What ires me is that the new generation of our workforce do not practice good grammar. Communications coming from them usually tend to be full of grammatical errors. I am not a grammar nazi, but it is painful to read emails and correspondences which are barely readable to say the least.

While I'm not a grammar Nazi, either, I do fit the demographic of, as you put it, "the new generation of our workforce," so allow me to ask these two questions - 1).  Did you mean irks instead of ires, and 2).  Shouldn't you have written, "What particularly/really irks me is that the new generation of our workforce does not practice good grammar?"  I'm just wondering.
It is an English derivative from the Latin word "ire" ("to anger").  It comes from the same root as "irate."
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #24 on: September 12, 2014, 11:04:06 AM »

Offline D.o.s.

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Doesn't change the fact that 'ire', in English, is a noun. There are some places that label it a transitive verb, but for all intents and purposes that don't involve an end-of-the-week crossword puzzle or a tightly contested game of scrabble, "irks" or "irritates" would make more sense if you wished to use a verb.


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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #25 on: September 12, 2014, 11:21:30 AM »

Offline mgent

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Doesn't change the fact that 'ire', in English, is a noun. There are some places that label it a transitive verb, but for all intents and purposes that don't involve an end-of-the-week crossword puzzle or a tightly contested game of scrabble, "irks" or "irritates" would make more sense if you wished to use a verb.


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I agree, though people changing around nouns/verbs/adjectives doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as straight-up grammatical errors.  I'd guess that's just from years of watching hot chicks do it brilliantly on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (sometimes the writing for that show was too awesome).
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #26 on: September 12, 2014, 11:25:27 AM »

Offline D.o.s.

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Exactly. What you could call 'phonetic informalism' is always informing how we write, and it's silly to get too hung up about specifics unless you have to.
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #27 on: September 12, 2014, 11:49:10 AM »

Offline Emmette Bryant

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Doesn't change the fact that 'ire', in English, is a noun. There are some places that label it a transitive verb, but for all intents and purposes that don't involve an end-of-the-week crossword puzzle or a tightly contested game of scrabble, "irks" or "irritates" would make more sense if you wished to use a verb.


*pushes non existent glasses up nose, puts library card into pocket protector*

I used to know what a "transitive verb" was but that was a long time ago.  I googled it and it's all coming back.  It's an action verb and it has to have a direct object.  I think I need to diagram a few sentences.

Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #28 on: September 12, 2014, 12:30:44 PM »

Offline Lucky17

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Can someone tell me when to use a colon v. a semi-colon?

I honestly never know if I'm using those things right!  :P

As I understand it, the main reason to use a semi-colon is to link two complete sentences (not clauses or phrases) that are related.

Quote
He seems to know what he's talking about; I remain unconvinced.

You can also use the semi-colon like the Oxford or serial comma when your series also requires use of a comma. The use of the semi-colon provides clarity. Like so:

Quote
Each child was seated at a separate station and given the following plush toy or toys: an elephant, which all children saw in the previous experiment; a kangaroo, which only half of the children saw in the previous experiment; or both the elephant and the kangaroo.

Note the use of the colon in the example above. As I understand them, colons are most commonly used to signal an appositive clause, where you are describing in detail whatever comes before the colon: in the example above, the colon sets off a description of what toy or toys were given.

As D.O.S. mentions, an m-dash can often serve the same purpose as a colon. I also like using m-dashes to set off clauses or phrases that are intended to be read as parenthetical interjections.

Quote
I know we were out far too late last night--and believe me, I had a great time--but I'm definitely regretting it this morning.

Note that in the above example, the m-dash isn't rendered correctly; it should be a single, longer dash the length of a capital M (hence, its name).
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Re: Grammar questions
« Reply #29 on: September 12, 2014, 12:59:14 PM »

Offline Donoghus

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Can someone tell me when to use a colon v. a semi-colon?

I honestly never know if I'm using those things right!  :P

As I understand it, the main reason to use a semi-colon is to link two complete sentences (not clauses or phrases) that are related.

Quote
He seems to know what he's talking about; I remain unconvinced.

You can also use the semi-colon like the Oxford or serial comma when your series also requires use of a comma. The use of the semi-colon provides clarity. Like so:

Quote
Each child was seated at a separate station and given the following plush toy or toys: an elephant, which all children saw in the previous experiment; a kangaroo, which only half of the children saw in the previous experiment; or both the elephant and the kangaroo.

Note the use of the colon in the example above. As I understand them, colons are most commonly used to signal an appositive clause, where you are describing in detail whatever comes before the colon: in the example above, the colon sets off a description of what toy or toys were given.

As D.O.S. mentions, an m-dash can often serve the same purpose as a colon. I also like using m-dashes to set off clauses or phrases that are intended to be read as parenthetical interjections.

Quote
I know we were out far too late last night--and believe me, I had a great time--but I'm definitely regretting it this morning.

Note that in the above example, the m-dash isn't rendered correctly; it should be a single, longer dash the length of a capital M (hence, its name).

Ha...this is awesome stuff! Thanks Lucky.


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