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I was never a great speller or one that was grammatically correct in every way, but the use of "your" instead of "you're" was drilled into me at school. There seems to be more and more stories in the media and even here that get the two mixed up, another phrase being "then" when it should be "than".
Is the problem brought about by voice recognition software and the various accents where words sound the same and stories are not being grammar checked? By the way, (BTW) I just wanted to say that I love being part of this community even if being in Western Australia is a long way away.
Kerry Brown - being released day by day
Bad grammer. Bad grammer, bad
I think that we as a society have become far too casual and lazy to the point where few care any more. And we rely too much on spell checkers that happily show correctly spelled incorrect words. And texting is murdering the language.
Melanie
Sorry
Hey Kerry,
I'm one of those insane people who only sees other people's errors not my own.
with love,
Hope
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
You leave my Grammar out of
You leave my Grammar out of this, she is a nice lady.
Unfortunately both bad grammar, and poor spelling are becoming more the norm. My grammar isn't the best, and I know it. When I write, I want people to tell what's wrong, the same with the spelling. Unfortunately on some sites, if you say something about someones poor spelling or grammar, you are treated as if you nasty cruel person that wants to rule the universe or something.
Spelling and grammer
There may be more, but I counted at least 3 errors in your comment. You left "me" out between "to tell" and "what's wrong", you left the apostrophe off of "someone's" and you left "are a" between "as if you" and "nasty cruel"
You said you wanted people to let you know...
Melanie
Grammer.
Also needs a comma between "nasty" and "cruel". lol ;)
The biggest problem I have come across, not just on this site, but many others, is that it is visited internationaly, and with that comes different rules for the use of the English language. I highly doubt that it is going to change back any-time soon. Also, I agree that the use of texting is destroying our language. My school, when I was there, had to actually ban the use of texting in essays and exams, it had gotten that bad. Anyone who did, recieved an automatic fail. I thought it was realy funny that it had gone that far, still do, realy.
Different Rules
A good point to make here is that many people, especially of the younger generation (Hark at her! Get off my lawn!), simply aren't aware that spoken English, whatever the variant/dialect, is not structured the same as written English. This, I believe, is true of most languages, in fact.
There are many, many differences in the way we speak, especially to friends and family. In a more formal context we may choose other ways of expressing ourselves whereas with those we know the context is usually understood so we can chop out half the unwanted words. Now, unless you're writing a letter to your nearest and dearest, you are likely to be more formal on paper. Similarly, if you are giving a lecture you'll choose different words.
With story writing the situation becomes more complex. I tend to be a little more formal in the descriptive passages of my text but I know I can't, and shouldn't, do that in my characters' speech.
Makes life interesting, dunnit?
Penny
Exactly
Typos permitting, I do my best to stay grammatical, and I have a stalker ( :-) ) who does their best to pick up errors of continuity and misfingergni on my kyeboard. What I do aim for is to get dialogue down that matches what I hear my characters say, lahk. Exposition is different.
Yes I do, and thank you.
Yes I do, and thank you. Fortunately when I write stories, instead of replies, I reread them multiple times before posting. I've never really understood the whole apostrophe rule, except for contractions.
Poor spelling, bad grammar
I fear in many cases, the poor spelling and bad grammar of which you speak, may well be down to ignorance.
I have noticed that there are several areas where mistakes are frequently made:
In addition to the above, which could be put down to typos, there are other phases and expressions I have noticed are misspelled due to the people using them not actually knowing what's said and writing what they think they heard. Now this is alright in speech - people often get these wrong, like our next door neighbours who had 'compensation' running down the windows or drank to 'clench' their thirst, but in this age of the internet, it wouldn't be hard for writers to check and make sure what they write is actually what's said. For the person who wrote 'I went a little over bored', well that's just what I'm talking about.
Having so said, I'd rather see people writing their stories than not, but would say, there is a definite need for proofreading/editing prior to posting.
I don't just look it, I'm totally into editors
Cupertinos, omniliteracy, and language change
Some of the spelling errors one sees these days are actually created by spell checkers. If one types comdensation for condensation, a simple typo, many spell checkers will suggest that you meant compensation as a first choice. And on mobile devices, the first choice is often the default that you get just by continuing to type. This manufactured error is called a "Cupertino" after the city in Silicon Valley where Apple is headquartered.
Other homophonic type errors like there, their and they're have been around for a long time, it's just that more people are typing things these days and more things typed by ordinary people and not professionals are achieving a wide audience, leading to the impression that more errors are being made. Everyone is literate now in the sense of creating works of literature or at least twitterature.
Add to that the fastest rate of language change in a century and you get even more apparent errors piling up. Yes, English is changing, in part due to the growth of the internet making it a truly global language and exposing all of English to all of its regional variation and distortions by less than perfect practitioners. All languages are now under a sort of pressure not felt at such a level since the invention of radio or possibly since the invention of the printing press.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Homophones etc....
Well, we can't have a thread mentioning the inadequacies of spell checkers without mentioning Jerrold H. Zar's Candidate for a Pullet Surprise :)
Remember that 'scrambled words' meme (the allegation that if the first and letters are in the right place, you can read it regardless of where the others are)?
Matt Davis from Cambridge Brain Sciences has examined the real science behind it.
Then of course there's the complexities of the language itself. Richard Lederer's "Looking at Language Archives (Crazy English)" is a witty guide.
How about new words? Oxford University Press update their dictionary (the OED) four times a year. Here are the updates from June (gender reassignment is among the new terms added), March (including initialisms such as LOL, FYI and OMG, plus wag as an acronym and 'heart' as a verb), December (including "dictionary attack" - which doesn't refer to clunking someone with the twenty volumes of OED2!) and all previous updates over the past eleven years (all of which include full lists of new words / senses added).
So, is the language too complicated? Alongside genuine advocacy groups for spelling reform, there have been several suspiciously similar accounts of a proposed system - evidently the original source has been lost in time...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Or see Mark Twain...
On the Futility of Spelling Reform
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Homophones
Now that is acceptance, when companies start producing phones just for gay users.
Will we be seeing Transphones next?
Think about it, and don't take me too seriously.
Kerry
Transphones
That might be a little awkward as they would have to produce phones for those who are only part-time trans as well as full-time trans.
Then of course there's the issue of whether the trans person is trans from male to female or vice versa.
That's potentially an awful lot of trans...
I've probably left one or two trans types out here too, which is rather embarrassing for me, but could provide grounds for lawsuits under discrimination for the manufacturing companies.
I don't just look it, I'm totally boggled
Replacement covers
Surely the answer is different covers for each 'Mood' or persona we want to express.
Transitioning would mean having some of the features removed or apps added depending on which direction you are going.
Imagine logging into the App Store to get the latest "SRS application" Change at the click of an icon. There could be a story line here?
Sorry just getting silly, the weather is cold and rainy while I have no desire to work.
Kerry
English is a Living Language
Lingual shift is something that occurs in any dialect of any language that is used for a long enough period of time as an active form of communication (implying two-way transfer, not just acquisition of data and knowledge).
your
yore
to
too
they're
there
But then there are the people who have the pleasure of learning the vast majority of vocabulary from reading (like me, Melanie Ezell, etc.) and don't necessarily KNOW how a word is pronounced. Thus, homographs are as bad as homophones:
wind (turning the crank on a watch or tinkertoy)
buffet (to knock about)
project (to cast forth with strength)
Another example of issues from gaining vocabulary through reading alone is simply... mispronouncing. About three years ago, a fried of mine a few years older than I am was driving with me riding along to do something or other, and we came across a word in the conversation that really... neither of us knew the proper way to say it. We were both familiar with it. But neither of us had ever heard anyone say it aloud -- and neither of us had before that moment, either.
The word, meaning, "water that is safe to drink," is POTABLE in case anyone is interested. My thought was that the 'o' in the word was a "long 'o'" and thus I had always said it in my head as POH-tuh-bull. He always used a "short 'o'" for it in his head, and it was PAH-tuh-bull to him. We agreed it was hilarious that two people as obsessed with properly pronouncing words as the two of us were had no clue which was correct, and agreed when we arrived at our destination (which I believe was a library), we would look it up.
I was right. Yay!
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
The Infamous Intersex Transgender Asian Lesbian Atheist Chick of the Ozarks
Potable
I'd disagree: potable water is water you can put in a pot, ie drinkable or able to be used for cooking.
Therefore the o in potable is pronounced like the o in pot. QED!
Penny :)
I defer to Alex Trebeck who
I defer to Alex Trebeck who says POE-ta-ble as in "potent potables for 500..."
Melanie
Poetable, pahtable, let's call the whole thing off
My sources say POE'table preferred. It's not based on pot but on Latin potare, meaning to drink. Plenty of water out there, like mountain creeks that are safe enough to cook with but not to drink.
But don't mind me, I'm from Arkansas and still say put and putt, and pin and pen exactly the same unless I think about it. And root rhymes with foot, and route with boot, don't they? :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
No...
Root rhymes with route.... :-)
Here in CA...
Californians, and most Westerners, rhyme root with boot and route with about (or rout), except in the sole case of Route 66 when route is pronounce to rhyme with boot. Because of the song, I guess. :)
Southerners tend to rhyme root with foot and route can be all over the place. Easterners tend to rhyme both with boot. The Midwest is all mixed up. :) These actually reflect pretty well where the regional American accents came from in the English dialect map, except for Westerners who have the leveled American accent. (Not Texans, Texas is part South and part West and all Texas.)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Routing for the home team...
Many westerners distinguish "route" (the verb) from "Route" the noun by that very "out" / "root" vowel difference, in the form of an ablaut. So we have Internet "routers," airplanes being "routed" through Chicago O'Hare Airport, both rhyming with "shouters", but with "enroute" and my back-roads "route" to Yosemite rhyming with "hoot."
As an aside, it's been my impression that the "California" accent shares quite a few sound patterns with some limited regions of Wales and Cornwall (or at least I've heard speakers from those regions who sound a lot like Californians)
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Listen closely to someone from the West Midlands
It's a large part of what went into the accents of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and points west. Shakespeare, who came from near the center of that area would probably feel more at home in much of the Midwest than he would in London, as far as accent goes. The London area accents have changed more in the last four hundred years than any other English accents. Old Will made fun of his own buzzy accent in several of his plays. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Obligatory video...
Just spotted a new comment further down this thread and started reading everything submitted since I posted my earlier comment.
But reading your title there, I couldn't resist...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdi6V6dsTKk
--B
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
Originally, spelling was ad hoc, and depended entirely upon how the writer *thought* that the word ought to be pronounced, and might vary day by day, even for a single writer. William Shakespeare -- one of the better writers of his day -- was notorious for not bothering to spell his own name the "same" from one occasion to the next.
Lucky thing, too, or we'd all be speaking proto-Indo-European, or some other language which doubtless had rules for constructing understandable discourse.
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
no authority
by any means but I try to get stuff write..err right. Sometimes it's typos but mostly I get it more or less.. I hope. All that boring stuff has gone out of favour in schools certainly since I was there 20 years ago. I was taught trad English, so that's what I do pretty much, but there's diffs to Aussie English and certainly American as she is spoke now. Plus I think I missed a few lessons... Shrug, ya does ya best. Besides English is weird.
Oh and West Oz is a bloody long way away, even if at only a few thousand k it's relatively close to me. Been a few since I wandered about over there. I expect Perth has changed some, maybe not so much South and East.
Say hi to Gramma for me. *grin*
Kristina
We Aussies,
ALISON
Kerry from the West,Kristina from the East and myself from the North.I see so often the word 'defiantly'
when they obviously mean 'definitely'. Spell checkers perhaps?
ALISON
My personal gripes
"Your/you're"
"Its/it's"
"Would of" instead of "would have"
"Use to" instead of "used to"
There is a comment above this one, by Erin if I remember correctly, which talks about changes in language over time. There is a difference in a linguistic shift and a misheard word. "Would of" is not a change, it is just a lack of understanding of what the right word is and why. Spelling words the American way is largely a result of deliberate changes, but differing use of words such as "momentarily" or "homely" are linguistic drift. Both can be seen as different from errors.
I'm also
from the east.
About the grammar: I do my best to ignore the mistakes and just enjoy the story. I must say though that a lot of the stories do irritate me just because of slap-dash grammar and spelling. Yesterday I finished reading one that had actually been edited by an different person and the spelling mistakes remained.
There were 16 chapters and in each one the word finally was written as finely - THAT REALLY GOT MY GOAT!!!
Anyway welcome to BCTS.
Is it just me or is bad grammar becoming acceptable?
Some authors don't use editors.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Some authors don't use editors
Is that supposed to be an excuse?
I don't just look it, I'm totally in need of an editor
Rod for my back
I think I have just created plenty of extra work for myself, spelling and grammar checks based on rules that I never got right at school back in Nottingham, UK. That said, I do enjoy reading stories that use local phrases or colloquialisms it helps me to read it in the same accent that the writer wrote it in.
Know what I mean do ya?
Kerry
Hadda put muh 2 cents in!
I just think summa y'all just talk funny. Me, I jist say live 'n let live. Even those a'y'all that ain't got no roos.
Wren
(Okay, okay, it's a joke! Yeesh! Heck, 5000 comedians outa work...)
an extra 2 cents I guess it makes 4
RAMI
I admit to making mistaks when I post comments and replies there to. I will make the excuse that it happens because, I am generally doing a rush job, and doing two or three things at the same time. Also, there is no spell check or grammer check in the comment section, so I often just post the comment without too (not to or two) complete a review.
Heck it was posinted out last week that I even messed up spelling my name at the end.
RAMI
P.S I did not proof this.
RAMI
Would you believe
that what you wrote is pretty much a perfect representation of the way people in my area talk? (Or, as my roomie likes to point out I say it, 'tawlk.')
Melanie E.
And then...
I also write in Welsh and French. And Geordie. Ish. My spell checker goes on melt down every so often.
What I find amusing is when said spell checker starts telling me things that are actually completely wrong. It appears to have problems with subordinate clauses.
Punctuation's Even Worse
Queensland's biggest peanut farmer, Jo Bjelke-Petersen
Queensland's biggest peanut, farmer Jo Bjelke-Petersen
Eats roots,shoots and leaves
Eats, roots, shoots and leaves
Some,people,don't,know,when,to,use,commas,
J,o,a,n,n,e
Run-on sentences
My biggest pet-peeve is authors that write run-on sentences.
You know, it'll usually be about someone who did something with someone else who had biscuits for breakfast that were baked by a baker who had marital problems and wanted to divorce his wife because his wife's sister loved monkeys instead of horses and so decided to go on a homicidal rampage through the middle of downtown killing 18 kittens before being arrested by a policeman who sister recently married a Hindu and moved to India and raised chickens to feed the poor who...
... and so on and so on.
Bad Grammer?
Have to throw my thoughts into this thread.
English is a very dynamic language, constantly changing with times and locations. As such, I often run into new or different words, phrases and usage. No one can ever be absolutely perfect when writing, especially the mostly non-professional writers who post their works here.
Often, while reading a story my senses are jangled by some apparent error in spelling, grammar or punctuation. I sometimes find myself mentally (or even physically) correcting the text as I proceed. However that rarely distracts me from enjoying the author's efforts to offer their ideas of entertainment or sharing their personal feelings with the many diverse readers on this site.
I would rather read a poorly written piece with an interesting or relevant message than not have that message at all.
Rosie
Rose
Re: Is it just me or is bad grammar becoming acceptable?
I'm inclined to think that it is getting worse. For me, spelling and grammatical mistakes interrupt the flow of a story, which I find very distracting.
One mistake I'm seeing more frequently these days, is the use of 'alot' instead of 'a lot'. When the phrase 'from 3 through 10' (with whatever numbers may be used) is used, I think that should be 'from 3 through to 10' and 'is all' should be 'that is all'.
Another common mistake I see, is 'one in the same', which should be 'one and the same'. Also, the use of 'if worse comes to worse' instead of 'if worse comes to worst'. I've seen 'throw' used instead of 'through', 'truely' instead of 'truly', 'an' instead of 'and', 'ect.' instead of 'etc.' and 'lie' instead of 'lay'!
Regards,
Dave.
what burns my ass
is a flame about yay high!
Words have sylables and I have noticed that more and more it is acceptable to put the accent on the first sylable specially in american english.
This bothers me only when people are getting paid to speak as professionals (e.g. journalists, politicians, etc.)
I have become rather sensitive and when I hear it... it annoys the piss out of me, but like a good little information overloaded person I get annoyed in general and let it go as quickly as I can knowing I'll never fix it.
Another thing that bothers me about grammar is the unwillingness of educated people to edit what we say as we think it. Most know the rules but choose to ignore them and worse defend their choice of words under 'free speech' instead of 'proper speech'. Case in point: A friend of the family has lived on the streets for 50 years. Recently he attended 'street school' a program to reduce crime by educating 'street people' in the basics of language and math therefore improving their ability to get and keep a job. After 3 years of intensive english training where he achieved very high grades, he still speaks like he is as uneducated as the day he ran away from home even though he KNOWS better. Double negatives, bad word usage and more flow like water.
My mother drilled into me from a very early age that peoples perceptions of your ability to perform a task is based on your vocabulary and grammar. If you speak like a peasant you will be treated as such. So I worked very hard on my ability to speak intelligently. Interestingly enough... she now calls me an elitist snob because I use 'big words'. "Go figger!" I say.
Dayna.
ps. Language creep is a natural part of a language... we notice it because we are exposed to it many many times more than we would have 100 years ago. Regionalisms have become nationalisms and in cases where languages are shared across international boundaries it becomes globalisms... It will only get more noticable (worse? I think so) as the internet blends our cultures together.
For Freedom of Spelling by H.G. Wells
For Freedom of Spelling by H.G. Wells
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Quotes
Keep in mind that the language between quotes may NOT need to obey the rules... as a matter of fact it really should not follow the rules if the speaker is using 'local language', slang, etcetera.
I at least have a good
I at least have a good excuse for my maybe sometimes bad grammar. I'm not a native speaker. ;)
------------
"Die Gedanken sind frei / Sie fliegen vorbei
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen / kein Jäger sie schiessen
Mit Kugeln und Blei / Die Gedanken sind frei"
------------
"Die Gedanken sind frei / Sie fliegen vorbei
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen / Kein Jäger sie schießen
Mit Kugeln und Blei / Die Gedanken sind frei"
A plug for the experts...
... of the National Centre for Language and Literacy at the University of Reading (Berkshire, UK), known to many teachers as the "Reading Reading Centre".
(I went there once as as part of a comprehensibility trial for the proposed revision of a reference manual, and I was rather impressed with them.)
Xi
Reading Reading Centre
I bet the grammar checker in MS Word has a field day with that one...
I have issues with spelling and grammar, and I admit to both. You are more likely to see a grammatical mistake of mine than a spelling mistake (even though they've been known to slip through.) Inside the quotes, I don't pay as much attention as we speak differently than we write, but outside, I at least *try* to get it right.
Often times, I write a chapter, do a quick proofread for any glaring errors and then post. Some times I'll catch something down the road and I'll fix it on the site as well as in my writing software...
Samantha (Who has been known to mistype her own name before...)
I sometimes find myself
I sometimes find myself making mistakes that amuse, amaze, and disappoint me when I start typing. I think as I have learned to type more competently and look less at what I am typing and more at other things (reference material, TV, the dog tipping over the garbage can.) I have started to have my mind do funny things with homonyms even though I know better. As I am writing and thinking ahead to where I am going I will miss words or get ahead of myself resulting in some "interesting" sentences.
I love to read a story with perfect grammar and poor grammar can definitely detract from the overall story. I still would rather have people submit great stories with poor grammar than no story at all.
Grammar
I would just like to add that this is nothing new. The English language has been in a state of constant evolution since it's induction, and not for the better. The language is constantly being shortened, hyphenated or abbreviated. What was once "Greetings" is now simply "Hi" or in worst cases "sup".
I don't know if anyone else
I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I don't like to use 'Greetings' at the beginning of letters because that's how the Draft board began letters. I'm barely old enough to have had to register for the draft. Silly of me, I know.
Yours,
JohnBobMead
Yours,
John Robert Mead
If you want to know about
If you want to know about spelling Nazi's... check out this link:
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/forum/28978/inspiration
Wholeman
Yes, the weird author with the boob fetish.
Yes, the weird author with the boob fetish.