Board "Style book" and Grammar

StevieJ

nearlynew wrote: »

How do you spell n0bhead?

knob head

Jonbvn

Generali wrote: »

A long time after leaving school I took the effort to learn a little about English, mostly as a result of learning French and so discussing language a lot with Europeans thus realising that I really didn't understand the underpinnings of my own mother tongue.

So are you the proverbial cunning linguist?;)







Sorry, but I couldn't help myself......:cool:

andykn

tomterm8 wrote: »

Usage is always correct. That is, if enough people use any phrase it is correct, whatever those linguists’ amongst us think.

I love proper, Dickensian sentences, these new style short sentences are OK for Americans; the intrepid breed of humans who read Strunk & White, but with a little effort, and a lot of comma's, I really think we can make appropriately lengthy sentences into an art form.

Usage isn't correct if it's ambiguous.

nicko33

tomterm8 wrote: »

Usage is always correct. That is, if enough people use any phrase it is correct, whatever those linguists’ amongst us think.

I love proper, Dickensian sentences, these new style short sentences are OK for Americans; the intrepid breed of humans who read Strunk & White, but with a little effort, and a lot of comma's, I really think we can make appropriately lengthy sentences into an art form.

Two too many apostrophes...

tomterm8

andykn wrote: »

Usage isn't correct if it's ambiguous.

Usage is always correct, even if it is ambiguous. If enough people use any phrase, that phrase is correct.

nicko33 wrote: »

Two too many apostrophes...

Two errors found, another ten to go.

Chris2685

phil_b wrote: »

I think the bought/brought mix up is the worst, and it plagues every forum I've seen. That's less of a grammatical error and more of a stupidity thing though.

Agreed. This drives me mad, and I hear it all the time. Only since I moved darn sarf though, no one up north EVER mixed them up!

nicko33

LydiaJ wrote: »

The only use I can think of is the rather stilted "used a crow-bar to effect an entrance to the house".

I serendipitously came across this in the book "GCHQ", in a passage about a rescue at sea.
"Commander Benitez was the last man to make the treacherous crossing - effected by a swaying plank - between the two vessels"

Generali

For those interested in improving their writing:

http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/

I think it's great and I try to use their suggestions when I write reports.

Generali

BTW, 'sheeple' is possibly the only word that really annoys me. It's arrogant and dismissive and is usually used without any obvious evidence that the poster has any reasonable right to take either position.

EG, The sheeple of course can't realise that [insert asset class] will fall/rise by [insert large percentage preferably less than 100 if talking about a fall] because the Daily Mail/Government/people fixing the [asset class] market lie to those suckers.

michaels

I always think I write in this style and then read back what I have written and even I can not understand the point I was trying to make

Generali wrote: »

For those interested in improving their writing:

http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/

I think it's great and I try to use their suggestions when I write reports.