Topic: Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Cato]

Today I had an apostrophe apocalypse PLUS hit mine eyes!   

One of my best 8th Grade girls wrote the following as a translation from a Latin original:

"You's are getting surrounded by the enemy."

 

Outside of New Jersey and the Bronx*, "youse" or "yous" or even "you's" is unknown in America.  To be sure, the original used Latin's "You-Plural" form, and so she was trying to get that idea across.   


* e.g. "All right, youse guys, toim t'  put Vinny t' bed wid da fishes."   

[JBS]

Good grief! A news outlet headline: Arctic Blast Is at IT'S Peak...

Perhaps they were simply noting that the IT department was busiest during the cold spell?

[JBS]

Today I had an apostrophe apocalypse PLUS hit mine eyes!   

One of my best 8th Grade girls wrote the following as a translation from a Latin original:

 

Outside of New Jersey and the Bronx*, "youse" or "yous" or even "you's" is unknown in America.  To be sure, the original used Latin's "You-Plural" form, and so she was trying to get that idea across.   


* e.g. "All right, youse guys, toim t'  put Vinny t' bed wid da fishes."   

Getting surrounded...I trust you pointed out a more felicitious phrasing for that.

But I'm Southern enough to know that y'all is the plural form of you.

[Mandryka]

The apostrophe is just ridiculous and should be banned, life's   lifes too short, especially the apostrophe of possession, with all the nonsense proper names ending in s.

Yous is just the plural of you. It is, I think, Irish -- I think you can spell it youze.

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

The apostrophe is just ridiculous and should be banned, life's   lifes too short, especially the apostrophe of possession, with all the nonsense proper names ending in s.

Yous is just the plural of you. It is, I think, Irish -- I think you can spell it youze.

You're likely right, and the Irish immigration bright it to the Bronx, Brooklyn & "greater Joisey City."

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

Viz. the apostrophe, one of many fascinating things I find, as I study Dutch, is that they employ it to pluralize borrowed nouns: de baby's, de menu's, e.g.

[Cato]

Getting surrounded...I trust you pointed out a more felicitous phrasing for that.

But I'm Southern enough to know that y'all is the plural form of you.

Oh yes!

And not too far south of the Ohio River, one can find a suburb of Cincinnati in Kentucky with the name of Florence, whose water tower proudly proclaims:

"It's Florence, Y'all!"   

[Mandryka]

I think it was the policeman in Top Cat who would say yous cats.

Didn’t some cat say “I’ll smash yous meecies to pieces!”?

And who used to say “yous twos”?

[Ken B]

I think it was the policeman in Top Cat who would say yous cats.

Didn’t some cat say “I’ll smash yous meecies to pieces!”?

And who used to say “yous twos”?

Mieces to pieces for sure, I remember that.

[Ken B]

Viz. the apostrophe, one of many fascinating things I find, as I study Dutch, is that they employ it to pluralize borrowed nouns: de baby's, de menu's, e.g.

de bugger's

[mc ukrneal]

de bugger's

Good one.

[dissily Mordentroge]

Today I had an apostrophe apocalypse PLUS hit mine eyes!   

One of my best 8th Grade girls wrote the following as a translation from a Latin original:

 

Outside of New Jersey and the Bronx*, "youse" or "yous" or even "you's" is unknown in America.  To be sure, the original used Latin's "You-Plural" form, and so she was trying to get that idea across.   


* e.g. "All right, youse guys, toim t'  put Vinny t' bed wid da fishes."   

Youse guys should know youse is alive and well in Australia.

[Mandryka]

Should there be a question mark at the end of this ode or has Dickens made a punctuation mistake!    mistake?    mistake!?

  Can I view thee panting, lying
    On thy stomach, without sighing;
    Can I unmoved see thee dying
    On a log,
    Expiring frog!

[(: premont :)]

Should there be a question mark at the end of this ode or has Dickens made a punctuation mistake!    mistake?    mistake!?

Yes, that's the question.

In a way the ode is a long rhetoric question with implied answer, so the question mark is more a matter of formal correctness.

[Cato]

Greetings!

I have a few spare moments for once, and would like to share a remarkable sentence written by an American high-school student 18 years of age.  Grammar is not the particular problem, but the essay's content is...rather disturbing!

The student was supposed to compose an essay on the topic: Capital Punishment and The Bible.

To be sure, the student has assorted learning problems with memory, and an inability to do basic arithmetic.  ("Which two whole numbers multiplied together give you 3?"  Long pause: "I really have no idea."  "Which number times 4 gives you 36?"  Long pause:  "I really have no idea." 

He says that last sentence quite often in a poor-pitiful-me drone.  The problem is that he does know the answer, if guided a la Socrates, but simply will not make any effort to start the cogitating.


Anyway, the opening sentence to this essay Capital Punishment and The Bible  was startling:

The bible (sic) is the oldest capital punishment in the world.

               

I do know a good number of people who would agree with that.

The second sentence went like this:

"There were three kinds: beheadings, hangings, stonings, and burnings."

 

Well, I said that arithmetic was a problem for him!     And I thought the three kinds of Biblical capital punishment were: Leviticus, Numbers, and Chronicles!   

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

Mercy!

[steve ridgway]

A survey found 31% of 1100 UK school children aged 10-16 thought Jesus spoke English (rather than could have spoken English if He had wanted to).

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13098197.31-of-children-think-jesus-spoke-english/

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

Does the adjective nude have a comparative form?

[JBS]

Does the adjective nude have a comparative form?

Does not the word already connote a maximal state of nakedness?

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

Does not the word already connote a maximal state of nakedness?

That was my thought. I am playing a word game which for some reason accepted the comparative . . . .