| Grex > Agora46 > #22: Grammar Games and Gaffes |
| Grammar Games and Gaffes | 
Jun 24 03:23 UTC 2003 |
Grammar. We all use it, and we all have seen things that just don't sit right. Sometimes, the things expound rules; other times, they flout rules. What set you off today?
| response 1 of 111: |
Jun 24 03:27 UTC 2003 |
ogjohn: sounds like you're plunging you're boy soup to me
| response 2 of 111: |
Jun 24 03:28 UTC 2003 |
Grammar. We all use it..."
| response 3 of 111: |
Jun 24 04:02 UTC 2003 |
I'm reading the book, _Wines: Their Sensory Evaluation_, by Maynard
A. Amerine and Edward B. Roessler (1976, W. H. Freeman and Company),
where I found this gem:
The truth in this statement may be that we like
food combinations that we are familar with better
than those with which we are not familiar (p 16).
Quite obviously, the authors (and their editor) have heard the dictum,
"Thou shalt not use a preposition to end a sentence with." Equally
obviously, they have failed to understand the commandment. Fortunately,
they therefore prove it false.
| response 4 of 111: |
Jun 24 15:04 UTC 2003 |
"I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is
underestimating."
--U.S. News & World Report, April 3, 2000
"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning"
--Florence, SC, Jan. 11, 2000
"Actually, I -- this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it.
When I'm talking about -- when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking
about myself, all of us are talking about me."
--Hardball, MSNBC, May 31, 2000
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
--Reuters, May 5, 2000
"I think we agree, the past is over."
--On his meeting with John McCain, Dallas Morning News, May 10, 2000
"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometime
until we get an objective analysis."
--Meet the Press, April 15, 2000
"I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to
California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California."
--Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000
"We want our teachers to be trained so they can meet the obligations;
their obligations as teachers. We want them to know how to teach the science
of reading. In order to make sure there's not this kind of federal cufflink."
--Fritsche Middle School, Milwaukee, March 30, 2000
"The fact that he relies on facts -- says things that are not factual --
are going to undermine his campaign."
--New York Times, March 4, 2000
"It is not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in nature."
--Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 2000
"I understand small business growth. I was one."
--New York Daily News, Feb. 19, 2000
"How do you know if you don't measure if you have a system that simply
suckles kids through?"
--Explaining the need for educational accountability, Beaufort,
S.C.,Feb.16, 2000
"The senator has got to understand if he's going to have he can't have
it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road."
--To reporters in Florence, S.C., Feb. 17, 2000
"If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and
principles, come and join this campaign."
--Hilton Head, S.C., Feb. 16, 2000
"We ought to make the pie higher."
-South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb. 15, 2000
"I've changed my style somewhat, as you know. I'm less, I pontificate
less, although it may be hard to tell it from this show. And I'm more
interacting with people."
--Meet The Press, Feb. 13, 2000
"I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth to the middle class,
I think we should knock down the tollbooth."
--Nashua, N.H., as quoted by Gail Collins, New York Times, Feb. 1, 2000
"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
--Pella, Iowa, as quoted in the San Antonio Express News, Jan. 30, 2000"
"This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do
when you run for president. You gotta preserve."
--Speaking during Perseverance Month at Fairgrounds Elementary School in
Nashua, N.H.
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
--Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses."
--At a South Carolina oyster roast; quoted in the Financial Times, Jan.14,
2000
"There needs to be debates, like we're going through. There needs to be
townhall meetings. There needs to be travel. This is a huge country."
--Larry King Live, Dec. 16, 1999
"The important question is, How many hands have I shaked?"
--Answering a question about why he hasn't spent more time in New
Hampshire; quoted in the New York Times, Oct. 23, 1999
| response 5 of 111: |
Jun 24 15:12 UTC 2003 |
No wonder he is the most tightly stagemanaged president in history.
| response 6 of 111: |
Jun 24 20:10 UTC 2003 |
I thought that title went to Ronald Reagan.
| response 7 of 111: |
Jun 25 00:11 UTC 2003 |
I think I'm going to start a band called "Federal Cufflink."
| response 8 of 111: |
Jun 25 13:44 UTC 2003 |
My favorites: "They want the federal government to control Social Security, like it's some kind of federal program." This one may be apocryphal: "The problem with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur."
| response 9 of 111: |
Jun 27 05:19 UTC 2003 |
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is".
| response 10 of 111: |
Jun 27 16:44 UTC 2003 |
My gripe has always been how much English--and in particular--spelling has been butchered by online folk. Typos I expect, but how many times can you misspell the word "the?" For some reason, there's people who seem to insist on using the form "teh." Come on, it's three lousy letters! Get it right! I speculate that people, in their haste to respond, don't pay enough attention to what they're typing; The brain moving faster than their fingers, as it were.
| response 11 of 111: |
Jun 27 17:27 UTC 2003 |
(Either that semicolon should be a period or the word "The" which follows should not be capitalized.)
| response 12 of 111: |
Jun 27 17:29 UTC 2003 |
That's it. I type teh too many times to count. And I don't mind typos like that. What I do mind are words like "u", "r", "c". And excessive "lol"s and "omg"s and "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Annoying.
| response 13 of 111: |
Jun 27 21:00 UTC 2003 |
An admin and I used to program, for security reasons, the bits of
various internet services to respond in badly written half-nonsense like that
when asked for their version numbers. Most of 'em ran on "Teh Lunix."
| response 14 of 111: |
Jun 27 21:13 UTC 2003 |
LOL. I like it. "How come I don't feel all l33t and condescending like the other Lunix users?" -- JEFFK
| response 15 of 111: |
Jun 28 01:01 UTC 2003 |
The other day some coworkers were trying to punctuate "Dos and Don'ts." One of them wanted to use "Do's and Don'ts" and the other wanted to use "Do-s and Don't-s." When I explained that there shouldn't be an apostrophe since it's not possessive, the "Do-s" voter said it looked funny. I said sure it did- it's not a real word. That sort of thing is a bit irritating in general. What's more irritating is that there are two websites I read pretty regularly that bill themselves as "writing" sorts of sites. Both have essays, satires, humor and so on. One has few typos (other than "mail he get's" but the other is always riddled with misspelled words, incorrect punctuation and horrible grammar. It seems a little inaccurate to tout your writing skills when you have a lack of basic, well... writing skills. (And now I'll step off my soapbox)
| response 16 of 111: |
Jun 28 04:16 UTC 2003 |
I use "Do's and Don'ts" knowing full well that the apostrophe in "Do's" is ungrammatical, because I *don't* want it to be confused with DOS as in MSDOS.