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We hear, read, and see, examples of the "new" "english"
daily. I'm afraid the first time I opened my mouth
"Down Under" I'd stick out like a sore thumb with my
Southern Accent.
Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

heck I'd be happy just to have the kids remember to capitalize the first letter in a sentence, proper nouns (names), and some sort of punctuation at the endoh and can someone tell in exactly what society the phrase "nunya" is considered the polite way of telling someone none of your business?

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Since when was politeness required in grammar?

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

Language, like everything else, evolves and changes with the times. If we had computers a few hundred years ago we would be writing posts about going to ye olde fish shoppe to purchase a bushel of bloodwyrms. I'm sure somebody back then got upset about dropping the e in old Shakespeare wrote in English, should we return to talking like that ?

Anyway it's funny listening to Americans and Australians tease one another over the english language Everyone knows that nobody outside of Ireland can use the language properly. As we say back home "the English gave us a language and we taught them how to use it"

Last edited by bensaf at 26-Apr-2005 20:55

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Agreed - it's too bad it's sometimes misused but, to reference Shakespeare again, most people had very little idea what people were saying in his plays even at the time he was writing them.


Anyway, one of the reasons English is such a wonderful language is its flexibility and just plain SIZE. An old English prof of mine (fluent in French and married to a Frenchwoman, so this isn't a dig) used to say that in terms of the vocabulary size and the general possibilities, English is like a computer and French (or Italian, or Spanish, etc) is like a hammer - but they create beautiful poetry and literature with their hammer, and we can't get online.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

Hey! I'm one of those checkout dudes! I think the sign was deliberately worded that way, as management probably thought it would be more *appealing* to customers.

Also, I think you will find that the majority of the kids working at these jobs are only there casual/part time and are actually studying - but need the job for extra cash! I know at my work place most of us are

Sometimes I do think slang words are used far too much and it gets a bit old. Other than that I don't really have a problem with slang/shortcuts used in appropriate situations.

Yep. "I want an allergy eater" is unfortunately a common utterance in fish stores. And, worse transgressions abound. English professors, run for your life!!!

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I seem to remember speaking with an FP member over the phone who told me that she was eating "an ahrange"...

BILLY! ]

*hides*

I SAY IT CORRECTLY!!! YOU are the one who says it WRONG!

]:|



I'm okay. Really.

*runs*




[hr width='40%'][font color="#000080"]
Sometimes it feels like the worlds on my shoulder&#8230;
Everyones leanin' on me&#8230;
Sometimes it feels like the worlds almost over&#8230;
[/font]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

I'm not too bothered about spelling or grammar and I know I make my own mistakes. This is the best I can do, I've tried to do better and failed. I at least try to check my spelling.

However, what really annoys me is when some big corporation makes the silliest mistake where they could have hired someone (me?) to do proofreading for them.

I found one such mistake in Microsofta's Antispyware programme once when it told me that Kazaa installed some spyware on my computer, but also warned me that removing those might cause the programme (Kazaa) to seize working.

Moreover, in the hebrew edition of Word my sister got a message saying that word can be used as a mail editor that which can also be used for automatic speel checking. I hope it was a joke...

If you do find any mistakes in this post you will have to forgive me as English is not my first langauge.

Its happening AGAIN!

Anyone want to help out the designer here?





Last edited by Callatya at 05-May-2005 21:01[/font]

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

The thing that bothers me the most is when people say "you did really good" or "I don't feel good" That just bugs me to no end. It sounds so much better to say "I don't feel well"

Apologises to all I admit to being an Eng Lit graduate but my excuse for poor grammer etc is that I did a joint honours with Sport Science and I come from Essex!!!

were you at the University of Essex????

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

I think my favorite bit about destroying the language is how accents can throw people off...

I seem to remember speaking with an FP member over the phone who told me that she was eating "an ahrange"...

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

We moved to the Black Country from the SE. All I can say is I do not know what language they speak but it is not English!!!

Bostin = Good
Saf = Stupid

Cannot argue with them as apparantly the Black Country dialect is the oldest and truest / closest to Shakespearian.

Apologises to all I admit to being an Eng Lit graduate but my excuse for poor grammer etc is that I did a joint honours with Sport Science and I come from Essex!!!

Which reminds get rid of Chavs!!!

Yeah, I know. I haven't met anyone to date who consciously avoids that one. It's usually understandable even when someone ends a sentence in a preposition, and it's fallen into such common use that using the "proper" structure leaves the impression that one is just a little pompous.

><>

The first one was in a sidebar summarizing the article it was juxtaposed with.

Heehee, I just have to point out that you ended a sentence with a preposition (I'll let you off the z in summarising just because you're American!) - almost as bad in my books as splitting an infinitive (e.g. I have decided to not check my grammar)!

The one that gets me the most is when people try to sound clever and say 'you and I' when it should be 'you and me' - e.g. 'it annoys you and I' - aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! The other one is 'to which I am accustomed to'. Please, either get it wrong, or get it right, trying to get it right and still getting it wrong just makes you look like an idiot!

No doubt I've made a mistake somewhere here and someone will point out that I've just made myself look like the idiot


P.S. Sign in Asda the other day:
'Deals so good their flying out'
Ouch

Edit - Spelled Asda wrong

Last edited by skinny (ish) at 04-May-2005 07:19

I saw something else today that I remembered REALLY irks me...

If you want to say the price of something is 5 cents, you write $0.05 OR 5&#162;. You DO NOT write .05&#162;!!! That's saying it costs one twentieth of a cent! ] :%) ]

&gt;&lt;&gt;Dani&lt;&gt;&lt;

Last edited by gartenzwerfe at 02-May-2005 15:10

Okay my mistake if I said 26+ languages earlier. This is what I found on the official Indian languages:

"Sir George Grierson's twelve-volume Linguistic Survey of India , published between 1903 and 1923, identified 179 languages and 544 dialects. The 1921 census listed 188 languages and forty-nine dialects. The 1961 census listed 184 "mother tongues," including those with fewer than 10,000 speakers. This census also gave a list of all the names of mother tongues provided by the respondents themselves; the list totals 1,652 names. The 1981 census--the last census to tabulate languages--reported 112 mother tongues with more than 10,000 speakers and almost 1 million people speaking other languages. The encyclopedic People of India series, published by the government's Anthropological Survey of India in the 1980s and early 1990s, identified seventy-five "major languages" within a total of 325 languages used in Indian households. In the early 1990s, there were thirty-two languages with 1 million or more speakers"

Yeah, crazy me, I &nbsp;ounce the 'O'...

And according to Dictionary.com, the 'o' in orange is &nbsp;ounced the same as it it is in the word "hoarse". So, how do you correctly &nbsp;ounce "hoarse"?

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

Here's another one of those double letter thingies.

One of the programs I watch is called "Kosmic Chat" and if you write to them, and ur lucky, you will be picked to join the "Kosmic Klub"

BLAH!

Last edited by Clownygirl at 09-May-2005 14:15

Funny thing is, Cally, the originator of this thread, hit on my pet peeve.

Today at the supermarket, i spotted signs behind the register

"do you want a Enviro bag"

A Envirobag?

IT'S "AN" ENVIROBAG!!!! not a enviro bag, but an, an, an, an, an

SHEEEeeesh!!!! A little proper English here, lol

Now Cally, grab the edge of your desk, with your knuckles over the edge, and let's see, where did I place my ruler????????


Edited for spelling

Last edited by Koi Keeper at 09-May-2005 20:20

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

You, Marcus, need, to, learn, to, control, your, comma, usage,

&gt;&lt;&gt;Dani&lt;&gt;&lt;

The worst example of bad english that just happens to be spreading is: "this train will be next stop &lt;insert train station name here&gt;".

HUH?! WHAT?! THIS TRAIN WILL BE THE NEXT STOP? What is worse is that it is becoming a habbit for all the train guards. Pathetic.

That sounds to me as if the sign was written by a Japanese person who had experienced difficulty mastering English as a second language. Missing words and unusual juxtapositions of this kind are a common feature of bad translations from Japanese to English, as anyone who has had the misfortune to read a printer manual for a Japanese printer produced in the mid to late 1980s will recognise on sight.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Cali, you've just opened up a new can of worms! Engrish, as it is called. The whole site is devoted to labels, signs, etc that were translated to English and, well, a few things got lost in translation. Funny stuff

[link=http://www.engrish.com]http://www.engrish.com" style="COLOR: #FFFFFF[/link] &lt;~ disclaimer, this site is not always family friendly

&gt;&lt;&gt;Dani&lt;&gt;&lt;

I was waiting for that site to get mentioned.

Where I come from we say "Git Er Doooneee". Down here is Nawleans.

Thats funny I dont care who you are..


FreeBlaze

is that the cable dudes catch phrase? I have a tape of that guy somewhere....

ACID!

What exactly did you think I was grouchy about??

AN AN AN AN AN! Not A!

THAT was what got me grumpy in the first place!
Go get your ruler and find the writer of that original sign!

Its almost as irksome as "an herbal beverage"

H is *shock horror* NOT a vowel, and is not &nbsp;ounced as a vowel in most of the English-speaking language. If you MUST &nbsp;ounce herb without the H, fine, you can use an, but it really grates that it is now common to write it as 'an herb' AND I get CORRECTED by some people who obviously think that I missed my primary english classes.

I might be of convict decent, but I do know my language dammit!

(Yes yes, I know that both ways are considered correct, but let me have my gripe )

I just wish that at some stage we could make a larger distiction between American and English than English (US) and English (UK), as there is quite often a very large gap there. Thankyou Mr Webster! *pulls hair out*

I also wish that my MS Word would stay on the language setting *I* choose. Stinking patriotic piece of software ]:|

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Don't even get me started on this subject
It drives me nuts sometimes and I know it shouldn't.
People who genuinely can't spell because of difficulty at school or whatever are fine, it's good that they even try to write, it's the people that should and do know better like the people responsible for the Edward Scissorhands poster that really tick me off

It's funny you mention that.. i have a t shirt from a fast food chain here that says " Tried A Arby's Sandwich Yet? "

I wear it just to tick people off

Haha... That reminds me of a poster I have hanging in here.

[/font]

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

What amuses me are the people who have certain accents which cause them to add an "r" onto the end of words. I use as an example, the phrase "I have a banana and....." They would say instead, "I have a bananner and..." I am not knocking your accents. I love them.

My husband employs a man who is dyslexic, and he has quite a unique way of speaking. His name is Larry, and we call his language "Lar-bonics". Around here we have a saying used to describe a winding road, or a tree that is very crooked, which is, "Crookeder than a dog's hind leg". Larry says, "Crookeder than a dog's hind's door." If you were giving a number of items, you might say,"Two or three," whereas Larry would say, "Three or two."

I don't get annoyed, I just laugh. There is no point to it. I have an extensive vocabulary, and didn't need to look up any of them big ol' words calli....(dude, yer name is too long) typed out, but I grew up in Idaho, and if I were to speak in such a manner, I would be stared at, and likely burned as a witch Just kiddin'....they hang witches out here.

I think our butchery of the language is by force of habit, environs, laziness, and the company we keep. Let's face it, if you were co-habitating with a big, burly logger, you would get very tired of translating your speech(I know I did), therefore you simplify it a bit.

As a final note, modern-day English is such a total mish-mash and bastardization of most other languages that to be truly technical there are VERY few hard and fast rules to it. I am rather proud of the fact that I speak one of the most difficult languages to master, fluently. Oh yeah, and I can cuss like a pirate in it, also

Whatcha mean bucherin' tha language? Y'all so fooly! Never done spendt no time down south have ya?

When I moved to Arizona several years ago I swore I would never say "y'all". Guess I shouldn't swear.

If we had computers a few hundred years ago we would be writing posts about going to ye olde fish shoppe...

Not at all...."olde" and "shoppe" are modern....and bloody irritating. I always wanted to open up "Ye Olde Booke Shoppe" just to drive my collegues insane, but I would only be able to tolerate it for a few days.

today I heard the principle/headmaster thingy say

the students "was" in the parade...

shouldnt it have been,

the students "were" in the parade...

??

thought you ought (ought ) to know

Maybe. Context is an important thing. Maybe he said, "The float made by the students was in the parade today."

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

In the school newspaper the other day (both in one day, and yes, this is a university, but admittedly more famed for engineering than English)

"it's" as a possessive &nbsp;oun (should be its)

"letter's" for the plural form (letters)

If these were found in letters submitted to the editor I really wouldn't care, nor would I care that much if they were found in articles or columns. These were editorial mistakes! The first one was in a sidebar summarizing the article it was juxtaposed with. The second was in a note telling readers of the deadline for submitting letters to the editor before the end of the semester.

Considering I can banter this much about the grammatical errors in the school paper, you can imagine what some other topics might be. Let's just say the paper is a chief source of entertainment for my friends and me. I think I'm the only one who notices grammar though.

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Funny you should mention that Superlion. I just got into a big flurry of teenage drama when the I wrote a letter to the school newspaper. They had asked for opinions, so I gave mine. It basically said how I was disappointed in the work, and it was pretty harsh. Well-written, and not personally attacking anyone, but harsh. Needless to say, some of the girls in the class freaked out. One of the confronted me at lunch and started a fight, and I was forced to apologize. I had to apologize for my opinion! ]:|. It still bugs the hell out of me.

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They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

I had to apologize for my opinion!

As I said earlier, those are the joys of living in the modern world.

Joe Potato

heh... there this one girl who wrote a satire piece in last week... people didn't get it and there was this flame war amongst the letters about it. Apparently she even got death threats for it, it was so bad. It was fairly obvious except that she didn't really have a clear purpose for what she said. No one in their right mind would write something like what she wrote for any reason other than satire. But people really didn't get it. Sad to see people's analytical skills these days... but that's another topic.

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