Comments on: Updated: Conjugate The Verb, Dammit!

By: Stephen W. Browne

Stephen W. Browne — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 07:04:24 +0000

My pet peeve is the confusion between “fewer” and “less”. But as for lay, lie etc – there may be a dialect difference operating here. “An’ for bonnie Annie Laurie, I wad lay me doon and dee.”

http://rantsand.blogspot.com/

By: Pam Maltzman

Pam Maltzman — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:26:59 +0000

I had no idea that you would *like* it if your readers corrected your spelling. I usually refrain from doing so except with the worst mistakes, because on a lot of websites one can expect abuse because the people don’t want to be corrected.

As a medical transcriptionist, I have met other MTs who don’t know “to” from “two” from “too,” or “heroin” from “heroine,” or “their” from “they’re” or “there,” etc., though they are employed full-time in this field.

Worse yet, a lot of the doctors don’t seem very literate, nor are very many of them well-spoken (even if born here). Whenever a doctor spells something for me, I laugh and look it up if it’s a new-to-me term.

Medical vocabulary also has a lot of sound-alike words. If I didn’t know “peroneal” from “perineal,” I might be unemployed.

Correct usage of the English language, even in written form, isn’t in style in our times. I can’t claim to be without error, but at least I try.

[Very sharp; and do correct me. It’s the incompetent who fear improvement]

By: james huggins

james huggins — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:29:46 +0000

How about dangling prepositions? They’ve become part of the language of the airwaves because most people don’t know the difference. I was abused by enough English teachers about them that when I hear one I think of finger nails on a black board.

“A dangling preposition is something up with which I will not put.” (Winston Churchill)

By: John Danforth

John Danforth — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:55:27 +0000

That ‘lay’ and ‘lie’ issue used to drive my father nuts when I was young. Thankfully, we were always corrected at the dinner table so that we would not be crippled by it later in life.

But I think I’ve figured out part of it, anyway. Or maybe not. It’s all so confusing. To Bill Clinton, the “lay” could lead to a “lie”, and a woman’s name could thereafter be used as a verb by high school kids after being defined as not what it is by a political party and the lapdog press. I’m going to need help to understand it all.

–John Danforth–

By: Stephen Bernier

Stephen Bernier — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:02:08 +0000

How about: you’ve got; he’s got; she’s got; they’ve got? What is wrong with you have, he has, she has, they have? It drives me insane!

Steve