Grammar

[Kunama]

Originally Posted by Ric

I think we all need a month of clear skies under the stars.

I skied 20 klms in a blizzard yesterday ..... what's your excuse Ric ?????

[Ric]

Originally Posted by Kunama

I skied 20 klms in a blizzard yesterday ..... what's your excuse Ric ?????

I cant sky (ski)

I meant we all need a month of clear sky and get a much needed astronomy fix.

Cheers

[bloodhound31]

Originally Posted by Ric

I think we all need a month of clear skies under the stars.

Iym wiv ewe Ric.

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

I find the preceding all very interesting, but why is there no discussion on the merits (or otherwise) of the Oxford Comma?

I think it's so unfair that this humble yet important grammatical icon is relegated to obscurity in these web forums.

In fact I'm going to start an entire thread dedicated to the Oxford Comma. It will be flooded with responses!

And then you'll all see just how important and indispensable it is!

So there.

[avandonk]

Can anyone explain to me the dangling participle?

Bert

[taminga16 (Greg)]

Grammar, like Grampa only different.
Greg.

[UniPol]

Grammar, Schmammar, whatever

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

Can anyone explain to me the dangling participle?

Flexing dramatically, Avandonk captured a distorted image with his RH200.

[OICURMT]

Originally Posted by pmrid

PITA

Bread?

[Don Pensack]

Originally Posted by Kunama

I'm innocent !!! Until proved guilty anyway !

Such a post is intriguing. As a linguistics student, many years ago at the university, the evolution of language was, and has remained, fascinating to me.
The past participle of "prove" used to be "proven". In fact, the past participle of many words had somewhat irregular constructions, e.g. "hung" for the verb "to hang". I even remember "boughten" as the past participle of "to buy" because so many of my early teachers received their educations prior to WWI (it became "bought" about WWII).
The latter half of the 20th century and certainly the first portion of the 21st has seen the "-ed" ending replacing all the older forms. "Proven" has become "proved", and "hung" has become "hanged".
Not all irregular past participles have become simplified. We still use "written" for a letter, and not "writed".
But linguistics people have noticed a very strong trend. One of the pleasures of reading posts on a forum frequented by such a large group is seeing the language evolve.

As for misspellings, who would notice "lite" or "nite"?

[Kunama]

Then again Don, you are analyzing the musings of a five year old German Shepherd.

I must agree with you Don about the evolution of the language being an interesting phenomenon. In 2004 I went back to Finland after an absence of three decades and found that the language had changed so much that I struggled to speak with anyone under the age of about 40 years. This was particularly evident in the main cities, it was only when I toured rural areas with a much older population that my familiar first language resurfaced.

The language of Helsinki and other now very cosmopolitan cities was not a pure language that finnish once was, it was a conglomeration of finnish, english, swedish, german, italian and numerous others. With many words 'finnish'ized by the customary suffixes.

[Wavytone]

Originally Posted by Don Pensack

But linguistics people have noticed a very strong trend. One of the pleasures of reading posts on a forum frequented by such a large group is seeing the language evolve.

As for misspellings, who would notice "lite" or "nite"?

It merely reveals the majority never learnt grammar properly. It's not surprising - in Australia at least, English grammar was taught until some time in the early 1970's when for some reason the education department decided it was all too tedious and dropped it from the curriculum.

I was in the last year formally taught grammar; my sister (2years behind me) and quite a few friends never learned any formal grammar unless they studied a second language such as French or German, in which case (surprise surprise) grammar features very strongly for a few years and you learn how English grammar works.

I think it's disgraceful that the only way to learn English grammar properly is to learn another language. It bloody well should be taught in English classes - it isn't hard.

As for whether it matters - it does. I happen to belong to a rather larger and much older web forum where a some social experiments were conducted by the owner of the forum, notably a period where moderation was rather light and "anything goes" was encouraged, on the basis that some were quite creative in their misuse of the language, and a few were quite witty. The majority unfortunately were simply awful. The site degenerated quickly into ugliness, personal attacks and it reached the point of legal threats.

Finally the owner had little choice if the site was to survive - members were told to shape up or leave, on the basis that membership of the forum was a privilege, not a right. Posts with poor grammar or worse are simply deleted quickly and repeat offenders are sin-binned or banned quickly. That forum is now the largest in Australia. Several other large forums now have zero tolerance.

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

It merely reveals the majority never learnt grammar properly. It's not surprising - in Australia at least, English grammar was taught until some time in the early 1970's when for some reason the education department decided it was all too tedious and dropped it from the curriculum.

I was in the last year formally taught grammar; my sister (2years later) and quite a few friends were never taught unless they studied a second language such as French or German, in which case (surprise surprise) grammar features very strongly for a few years and you elearn how he gloss grammar works for the first time.

I think it's disgraceful situatuon that the only way to learn English grammar properly is to learn another language. It bloody well should be taught - it isn't hard.

I agree, Wavy. I finished high school in 1962, and English grammar was drummed into us all through school. Our language, whatever nationality, is the means by which we communicate and we all should be taught its correct use.
I find it irritating when I read things that have grammatical errors and spelling errors.

[multiweb (Marc)]

I remember in secondary school having to learn English, German and Latin. In primary if we were naughty we were in detention after class and we all had a little red book called 'le Bescherelle'. This damn thing even made in to Wikipedia. It's the grammar/conjugation bible and god knows we have s||t loads of verbs groups, tenses and declination in French grammar. So the naughty ones got very good at conjugation. Needless to say English was a breath of fresh air to learn.

[Steffen]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

That forum is now the largest in Australia.

What's the forum? Do tell.

Cheers
Steffen.

[naskies (Dave)]

Originally Posted by shenanigans000

I find the preceding all very interesting, but why is there no discussion on the merits (or otherwise) of the Oxford Comma?

I think it's so unfair that this humble yet important grammatical icon is relegated to obscurity in these web forums.

I tend to be in favour of the Oxford comma for the following reason...

http://aeferg.tumblr.com/post/102902...t-for-original

[Octane (Humayun)]

+1 for Oxford comma.

H

[DJDD]

+ and -1 to the oxford comma

sometimes useful and sometimes not
sometimes removes ambiguity and sometimes does not

grammar changes over time or is meaningful in Latin but not English, and so on.

[naskies (Dave)]

Someone forwarded me this entertaining link today. Test your grammar discrimination skills under pressure

http://toys.usvsth3m.com/write/

[PRejto (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Don Pensack

Such a post is intriguing. As a linguistics student, many years ago at the university, the evolution of language was, and has remained, fascinating to me.
The past participle of "prove" used to be "proven". In fact, the past participle of many words had somewhat irregular constructions, e.g. "hung" for the verb "to hang". I even remember "boughten" as the past participle of "to buy" because so many of my early teachers received their educations prior to WWI (it became "bought" about WWII).
The latter half of the 20th century and certainly the first portion of the 21st has seen the "-ed" ending replacing all the older forms. "Proven" has become "proved", and "hung" has become "hanged".
Not all irregular past participles have become simplified. We still use "written" for a letter, and not "writed".
But linguistics people have noticed a very strong trend. One of the pleasures of reading posts on a forum frequented by such a large group is seeing the language evolve.

As for misspellings, who would notice "lite" or "nite"?

Don,

I suppose your tolerance for language "evolution" originates from your academic interests. I find myself somewhat intolerant and have been questioning the reason for such feelings. One trend (just as an example) I notice in Australia is the seeming inability to use the word "are" instead of "is" when the noun is plural. Such as: "There is a lot of people at the park today." Why do I want to scream when I hear this? Is this the evolutionary fate of our language? Will "are" vanish from our vocabulary? My children speak this way at school and their teachers do not correct them. I want to scream! Another favorite (perhaps British in origin?) is the "confusion" over the word "have" and "has," as in "Qantas have fired all their pilots today." While Quantas may be a company composed of many people, the word "Qantas" itself is a singular noun. This usage seems to be rampant in Australia but not in America. I've asked older Australians about this and many agree that it is singular (but not all!), but the younger generation seems oblivious. Why do I care? I think it's because, as has been stated by a few earlier in this thread, we have a desire to be understood clearly, and in turn desire to understand without ambiguity what another person is communicating.
Speaking only for myself, if I read a post filled with errors in writing I usually turn off to the content, and I lose much of my desire to communicate back. Personally, I wouldn't correct a person's grammar - especially in public. I might do so with a close friend in a joking way, but even that can be hazardous! It seems unnecessary to put anyone down in a public forum. One can simply choose not to participate.

Peter