Topic: Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Dr. Dread]

Maybe losing that martini will brighten up your writing!   

I never drink before putting fingers to keyboard, sir!

Well, almost never. 

[karlhenning]

Well, hardly ever . . . .

[DavidRoss]

People trying to sound smart by using "I" all the time, even when it means it makes them wrong.  Yes, misusing the subjective case in place of the objective in an attempt to sound educated is painfully commonplace these days.  How people so ill-educated that they can't even get something as simple (and telling!) as this right can presume to know better than the rest of us about anything is beyond my ken.

East Coasters and people on PBS using "Absolutely" instead of "Yes" drive me to the brink of pantocide! Trivial--doesn't raise my blood pressure at all.

People pronouncing the indefinite article "a" as if they were Canadians saying "eh?" make me want to throw bricks at nuns!     "That is eh very good book."  "This is eh book you must read."  Completely impossible pronunciation!     False.  The long "a" is a perfectly acceptable pronunciation.

It is the counterpart to "the = thee" being used in front of everything: "thee" for "the" is permissible only before vowels.  False.  See above.

Why are such things happening?  One can blame schools with hemidemisemiliterate teachers leading the ignorant into a perpetual wilderness of pseudo-educated ignorance.  Yes.  If good grammar were the only casualty, that might be acceptable.  Unfortunately it is only the tip of the iceberg and this situation has put our nation into dire peril.  Even higher education these days is churning out graduates too ignorant to know that they're ignorant!

My own pet peeves about rapidly declining standards of usage symptomatic of cultural decay include the objective/subjective confusion mentioned above and the now epidemic insertion of apostrophes when forming plurals.  Those incapable of distinguishing among possessives, contractions, and plurals can hardly be qualified to hold an opinion about anything.

[Florestan]

Florestan: to think that Romanian, a descendant of Latin, should be abused by mass media!  O tempora, o mores!

For many Romanian journalists, Romanian grammar is as exotic an animal as Latin grammar (they're actually very similar)...

[Cato]

People pronouncing the indefinite article "a" as if they were Canadians saying "eh?" make me want to throw bricks at nuns!     "That is eh very good book."  "This is eh book you must read."  Completely impossible pronunciation!     False.  The long "a" is a perfectly acceptable pronunciation.

It is the counterpart to "the = thee" being used in front of everything: "thee" for "the" is permissible only before vowels.  False.  See above.

Sorry, I will not and cannot agree.  Sister Mary Claude was not wrong about this!  You can use "eh" to talk about the first letter of the alphabet, otherwise not as a pronunciation for the indefinite article. 

And I don't care if you can find dictionaries which accept it!   
Editors of newer dictionaries who have acquiesced to this monstrosity should be drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, and smeared with peanut butter from Georgia factories.   

The = thee only before vowels: for its use before consonants, N.B. the penalty above for using "eh."   

Florestan: Our joke in schools has been that the English teachers should be members of the Foreign Language Department!

[Cato]

My own pet peeves about rapidly declining standards of usage symptomatic of cultural decay include the objective/subjective confusion mentioned above and the now epidemic insertion of apostrophes when forming plurals.  Those incapable of distinguishing among possessives, contractions, and plurals can hardly be qualified to hold an opinion about anything.

Amen!   

[Florestan]

Florestan: Our joke in schools has been that the English teachers should be members of the Foreign Language Department!

Nice one!

[Cato]

I was just reminded of some more monstrosities plaguing the English-speaking world: gangrenous ogres, usually produced by Bureaucrats in either government or business or (the worst) education to "importantize" their ultimately annoying "work" (i.e. paper-pushing).

I speak of monsters such as "prioritize" (how about "order" or "rank" ?) "incentify" (how about "enthuse"?) and "contextualize",  the latter word meaning "Please bonk the user's casaba with a ball-peen hammer!"

[karlhenning]

"pro-active"

[Cato]

"pro-active"

I hate "pro-active"!

The Catholic clergy and assorted fuzzy religious types have been using "gift" in recent years as a verb!

e.g.

"We have been gifted by the Lord with so many things!"   

How about: "The Lord gives us so many gifts!" 

Gifts like rubber mallets to bonk some sense into fuzzy religious types!   

[Jay F]

Like, I think like the worst like problem currently facing, like the English language, is like the ungrammatical, nonsensical use of like the word "like". Try listening to any female under the age of 40, and you'll like see like what I'm like talking about. Like, I guess Frank Zappa's "Valley Girl" phenomenon is like to blame. Like. Like. And furthermore, like, like--like like like; like like. 

The worst use of "like" is when someone's, like, "Oh, I was like, 'I hate that song,'" and she was, like, "Oh, I hate it, too." I admit to talking this way myself. I decided it was acceptable when I heard Meryl Streep be, all, "And I was, like..." on TV one morning. I try not to use it, but, I'm, like, "There's a certain on-the-tongue elegance to it," and then I'm, like, "If Meryl Streep can do it..."

And now, I'm all, "I'm not going to go back to see if I need to correct my grammar in that mess I just wrote."

God bless "She said..." and "She thought..."

[Jay F]

East Coasters and people on PBS using "Absolutely" instead of "Yes" drive me to the brink of pantocide! Trivial--doesn't raise my blood pressure at all.

I absolutely say "absolutely" a lot. Absolutely.

[Dr. Dread]

What about "indeed"? Everywhere on GMG: indeed!

[karlhenning]

I absolutely say "absolutely" a lot. Absolutely.

The President used it recently.

Last Monday, Obama declined to take questions during a photo op with Vermont's governor as the controversy over Tom Daschle, his nominee for health czar, was heating up. Obama brushed off an Associated Press reporter who shouted a question on whether he still supported Daschle with one word: "Absolutely."

[Jay F]

I hate "pro-active"!

The Catholic clergy and assorted fuzzy religious types have been using "gift" in recent years as a verb!

e.g.

"We have been gifted by the Lord with so many things!"   

How about: "The Lord gives us so many gifts!" 

Gifts like rubber mallets to bonk some sense into fuzzy religious types!   

Yeah. I'm like, "Did 'give' die, or what?" when I hear "gift" being used as a verb. It may come from the word "regift," with which we were gifted by Seinfeld.

I have come to hate "disconnect" used as a noun. It started in the DC chattering class (every time I hear the word, I think of Cokie Roberts), and now it's everywhere. I heard three people use it in a meeting on Saturday. It impacts me the way the verb "impact" made me have a disconnect 25 years ago.

[Florestan]

One of the worst atrocities plaguing Romanian is starting a non-conclusive sentence with "deci" (pronounced approximately detch) which means "therefore", as in I think, therefore I am.

For instance:

- What's your name?
- Therefore my name is ...

- What's your stance on this subject?
- Therefore I think that ...

- How old are you?
- Therefore I am 40.

[Dr. Dread]

One of the worst atrocities plaguing Romanian is starting a non-conclusive sentence with "deci" (pronounced approximately detch) which means "therefore", as in I think, therefore I am.

For instance:

- What's your name?
- Therefore my name is ...

- What's your stance on this subject?
- Therefore I think that ...

- How old are you?
- Therefore I am 40.

Romania? WTF?

[Jay F]

What about "indeed"? Everywhere on GMG: indeed!

I say "indeed" all the time. It makes me feel so gay inside.

[Dr. Dread]

I say "indeed" all the time. It makes me feel so gay inside.

That must be it. 

[Florestan]

Romania? WTF?

Just wanted to show English is not alone in being abused by native speakers.