'The word pedants' top 10 | It's specific, not Pacific...' blog discussion.

Flyboy152

etruscanshades wrote: »

Welcome to the world of old farts Martin! We all complain about how everything is not how it was. Its a losing battle! Otherwise we would still be talking like Beowulf.

When the OED can change the meaning of decimate from "a tenth" to "a lot" then you know you've lost!

My pet hate, in fact I yell it at the TV screen every time I hear it, is "Different to" whereas it should be "different from" - drummed into us at school. (My kids say its acceptable either way now).

And what about "prostrate" when they mean "prostate"?

"Wouldn't of" and "shouldn't of" instead of "wouldn't have" and "shouldn't have".

"Less then ten items" NO! "Fewer than ten items"

"The majority of the country" NO! "The greater part of the country"

And my sister (phd in English) says there is a prize (a copy of her first book "Ready Steady Dig!*) for the first person who can demonstrate the difference between "due to" and "owing to"

But I do love "To boldly go where no-one has gone before" (sister says this is NOT incorrect - it's a seventeenth century affectation trying to copy the latin where an infinitive cannot be split).

No one seems to know the difference between the intransitive "lie down" and the transitive "lay down"

"fine tooth-comb" is as correct as "fine-toothed comb".

*Google it to find her website

PHEW! PEDANTS ROOL OR WOT?

I think there are still many who sound just like Ray Winstone already.

While I'm here, I'll mention one more, the difference between "it's" and "its," is another little bugbear of mine.

Flyboy152

fatal1955 wrote: »

• A big ask (nouning a verb)
• She loaned him £20 (verbing a noun)
• "How are you?" "Oh, I'm good" (my question was about your health, not your morals)

:mad:

Sorry, I can't see the issue with that; in fact you have done exactly that yourself.

KimYeovil

abby1234519 wrote: »

I am just too lazy to type cannot?
It is a problem within the ranks of my fellow university students, we should be aware of "proper grammer" but we just are not! I know that when I am writing an assignment I need to write does not instead of doesn't but I always write doesn't and have to go back over my work to check where I have done this.

Its lazy English

Good grief! I'll ignore the 'grammer' and the 'Its' on the probability of both being deliberate (or just typos). But please say you do know that that first sentence should be "I am just too lazy to type can not."

Flyboy152

fatal1955 wrote: »

I think you missed the apostrophe:

for goodness' sake i.e. for the sake of goodness :rotfl:

Should that not be "goodness's sake?"

Flyboy152

KimYeovil wrote: »

Good grief! I'll ignore the 'grammer' and the 'Its' on the probability of both being deliberate (or just typos). But please say you do know that that first sentence should be "I am just too lazy to type can not."

There is nothing wrong with writing "cannot," it's perfectly acceptable and can differentiate in certain contexts, for example, notwithstanding, nonetheless and whereas etc.

KimYeovil

Flyboy152 wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with writing "cannot," it's perfectly acceptable and can differentiate in certain contexts, for example, notwithstanding, nonetheless and whereas etc.

Please reread her original post and maintain that the 'can't' could have been short for 'cannot' rather than 'can not'.

As a student I will admit (and I am an English Literature student so even more shameful) I say "It was like amazing" or "Basically..." Or "I literally laughed myself to death"

I can't help it

I wasn't questioning her use of an abbreviation.

etruscanshades

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Should that not be "goodness's sake?"

NO! "Goodness' sake" is perfectly correct.

If you want to be all modern and American and teenagey, then I suppose you can say "Goodness's sake" but it sounds horrible.

(Did you like "teenagey"? I just invented that one. It'll be in the next edition of OED.)

ViolaLass

KimYeovil wrote: »

Please reread her original post and maintain that the 'can't' could have been short for 'cannot' rather than 'can not'.

I've looked at the original post and have no idea what your point is.

flimsier

I haven't read the whole thread, but I agree with the whole post, except for 110%. You can, of course, give 110% of something, including effort. It just depends what you're measuring. I might now in writing this post be giving 200% of the effort I gave last night into writing some other post (though I'm not sure how you accurately quantify effort). Martin may have earned 750% of my salary in the last month.

Flyboy152

etruscanshades wrote: »

NO! "Goodness' sake" is perfectly correct.

If you want to be all modern and American and teenagey, then I suppose you can say "Goodness's sake" but it sounds horrible.

(Did you like "teenagey"? I just invented that one. It'll be in the next edition of OED.)

If "goodness' " was to be used, it would refer to the possessive of several items called "goodnes." Seeing as there is only one "goodness," for which the author is calling for the sake of, the singular possessive apostrophe should be used.