Grammar and the Peeves that Pet It

PF_Flyer

With one "kid" who's a senior this year and a college basketball prospect, I get a fair amount of spam in the inbox trying to get her to go to a "prospect's clinic" here or get put on a list there... all for a fee, naturally.

Today I got one from a "production company" that will come videotape 3 of my daughter's games (for $220 per game) and get this... for just another $150 they'll put together a highlight reel and add it to their YouTube. And that's not all... for only $225 more, they'll send emails to over 250 colleges. Wowzers!!

Here's the grammar peeve kicker. Their pricing is based on the distance you happen to live from their location and in the email (in bolded larger text) it says...

WITHIN A 3 HOUR RADIOUS OF xxxxxxx PRICE IS ...
WITHIN A 2 HOUR RADIOUS OF xxxxxxx PRICE IS ...

I'm willing to forgive typos, but if you can't be bothered to spell something correctly, I'm not going to take much that you say seriously.

And I ain't buyin nuthin either :P

Kirstie_H

It's YOU, pf. It's not them. You misread.

Radio-US. It's about how far, in the US, you are from their radio station.

Kirstie_H

but this is one of my favorite t-shirts:

PF_Flyer

sillymeishuddabinabeltotranslate

fezo

I would LOVE that shirt!

I'm sure we discussed this one before but the use of the word less when fewer is the correct word drives me bonkers!

I think the stores should have a special "10 items or fewer" checkout lane just for English majors!

pat

I completely agree with you!! I hate seeing those signs in the grocery store. They bother me more than abused apostrophes (which is a lot).

I don't usually correct people when they say something wrong, but somehow when someone misuses "less", "fewer" just pops out of my mouth. I do try to say it quietly to myself if it seems like I might be asking to get punched in the nose. :shades:

PF_Flyer

Less, fewer... do you really think it matters to the folks you see going through the self-checkouts? Two come to mind. The first is the "have to find and SEE the bar code before I can try to scan the item" type. And the second is the group of college students scanning their own groceries, and after hearing the machine say "Please place the item in the bag" a few times, one of them invariably remarks, "That job stinks. Imagine having to say THAT all day." They're either the greatest actors who ever lived or they are as dead serious about it as they sound.

Sorry for the tangent. Back to the grammarificationizing! :P

Kirstie_H

to enjoy television shows. I pretty much have to leave the room when the Outback Steakhouse commerical comes on with their new tagline: Live Adventurous.
I'm still waiting for the third word. Lifestyles, maybe?

Mr_Shiftright

This is an example of one rotten apple. No doubt this is a derivative of "living large" which is probably itself a corruption of "think big", the latter probably okay, since we can't really say "think bigly".

Kirstie_H

I can accept those, because the "correct" version just sounds stupid.

However, "Live Adventurously" does NOT.

Mr_Shiftright

But they're speaking Australian, not English :P

(Laugh if you will, but you can buy American-Australian translation books at Borders).

mac24

I can accept those, because the "correct" version just sounds stupid.
However, "Live Adventurously" does NOT.

I think it's probably done to the emphasize the Australian nature of the product.
While not gramatically correct down in OZ either, it sounds a lot less wrong than it does to an educated ear here.
Maybe the following word you keep waiting for is "Mate!"

Try saying the whole thing in your mind with a strong Australian accent and hopefully it won't sound so bad; either that or it will become an 'earworm'.

Mr_Shiftright

Did anyone celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate" Day recently? These phrases might have come in handy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day

xwesx

I am not bothered by that one, either. There is a verb and an adverb there, so it seems reasonable to me. If they were going for a complete sentence, there would be something missing.

mac24

Did anyone celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate" Day recently?

Err...no.

1: I sail, and I'm often on land (intentionally) around Florida's coastline, where there many local 'characters' who talk like that all the time in the hopes that it will enhance their panhandling abilities on the streets and in local bars.
Who knows, maybe it does, but the image it leaves in my mind isn't one I care to emulate.

2: I've become very boring as the years have passed, so boring that I don't even recite Monty Python sketches any more.

3: Finally, I so enjoy being PC these days that I'd be worried about offending those Somalian immigrants whose relatives back home are earning an adventurous living on the high seas.

qbrozen

"Talk Like a Pirate" Day

Strange... its not on my calendar.

stever

Happy International Day of the Nacho.

Or Happy Apple Day for our friends across the pond.

Kirstie_H

but this, and the imaginary conversation I had with the bar's staff, made me laugh. Later in the evening, the "c" in Pockets was much less visible, making the sign read "Ide Poets." I presume that instead of a pool pub, it transformed itself into a place for would-be bards to gather, but only mid-month.

stever

Singular y'all: a "devious Yankee rumor"?

Ain't no such thing as a singular grit but I'm a native Southerner and use y'all to one person all the time.

tmart

You are correct there ain't no singular grit. Y'all can be singular or plural, but the true plural is "all y'all".

stever

I see you're in Texas. I like Texas, just went down there for a week's vacation in fact. Enjoyed some brisket and even found some passable sweet tea hear and there.

But I'm from Mississippi and Texas is so much of a western state, it may as well be part of the Rockies or California. The one serving of grits I had was lousy and true BBQ is pork shoulder.

So don't go pretending that y'all ain't a true plural 'cause we'uns wrote the book. :P

mac24

...........even found some passable sweet tea hear and there. :surprise: :surprise: :surprise:

Go on, look me straight in the eye and tell me it was deliberate! :P

Mr_Shiftright

Maybe he was writing with an old Texas fountain PIN. :P

stever

Nah, I'm doing that more and more as I age. At least that's my excuse for sloppy proofreading.

Mr_Shiftright

I used to attribute "word confusion" to rapid typing but I'm thinkin' you're right. I do find myself making occasional inadvertent word substitutions, like "revere" for "refer" or "real" when I meant to say "really". It's not misspelling, it's actually a slight mental slip I think.

There are two horrible days that await the person who ages. One is when someone refers to you as "old" for the first time and the second is when someone looks at you and says "You just said that".

(if this is a duplicate post, DON'T tell me).

stever

LOL, ain't life grand?

I want to switch to speech recognition if it ever gets good enough. But what winds up on paper may be even worse that what I manage to type....

Mr_Shiftright

I hear it's getting better....something like 95% accuracy....but that's still 5 wrong words per 100.

tmart

You can really start a BIG discussion(war) when saying whether BBQ is pork or beef. I've come to the conclusion both are valid. Being from South Carolina, we ONLY knew pork. When I was transferred to Houston, I couldn't believe Texans saying BBQ came from a cow! Well, after 34+ years, I really prefer the beef, but pork remains an extremely close second. Hell, they're both good, let's call it a tie. Grits is/are something else. Some places just don't know how to prepare it, and sometimes try to pass off Cream of Wheat as grits! :sick: And yeah, you know you're in the South when you see Sweet Tea on the menu. :shades:

stever

Yeah, the BBQ wars are lots of fun. You guys over near, say Savannah and to the north seem to use too much mustard in your sauce (a la Johnny Harris). I'm still a wet fan, but got to liking dry ribs when I did a couple of years in Memphis, but ribs really aren't my favorite. It is fun to take a newbie to a stand in some areas and order them a rib sandwich (a couple of ribs between two slices of Wonder Bread). How do you eat that?

A couple of months ago I went to a wedding in N. Alabama and the father of the bride made some outstanding shoulder and ribs in his barrel grill. He also had smoked up some BBQ ham, and that actually was pretty good.

The guys out here in Idaho tend to electric cook stuff and go a bit crazy with the Liquid Smoke. The elk sausage makes up for that lack though.

proofing once, twice...

Oh yeah, we do have a Food and Recipes discussion. btw, Cream of Rice makes a pretty ok substitute for grits.

stever

2010: 'Twenty ten' vs. 'two thousand ten' (SFGate.com)

tallman1

Finally! I've been sitting in relative silence since the year 2000. I knew it had to end sometime because we certainly weren't going to sit around and say, "two thousand, one hundred, nineteen."

I blame Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick for the whole two thousand thing. If nineteen oh one was good enough at one time, twenty oh one should have worked too.

Happy 2010 (twenty ten), everyone!!

stever

I can't wait for someone to ask me in what year I was born.

One thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two.

alltorque

Nineteen forty seven. So much neater than one thousand, nine hundred and forty seven.

As for 2010. Guess I'll just use "This year", for now, and "Last year" next year. If I make 2012 I'll figure something out. Sorry, figure out something. The former is probably poor grammar but common useage makes it sound better. Of course, it's only the body that's that old - the mind is much younger.

A Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year to one and all.

qbrozen

Funny you ask this, as all weekend my wife was getting mad at commercials that stated "2k10." What the heck is that? It certainly isn't an abbreviation.

stever

lol, haven't heard that.

Went out to run errands this morning and Terry Gross said "two thousand ten" to a guest on her radio show.

The battle may already be over.

Mr_Shiftright

It's going to be two thousand ten, so y'all better learn to accept this. :P

However, at 2020, the term "twenty-twenty" is going to be very tempting.

I wonder if the Mayans said "twenty-twelve"? Could have led to their downfall.

xwesx

I have already experienced both of those! I still feel young at 32, though even that is slipping away. :P

xwesx

I say twenty-ten as well. I think, as the millennium wears on, the typical reference will revert to that of the last (using the 2+2 technique).

xwesx

To be correct, it would be stated as "one thousand, nine hundred, forty seven." The 'and' is indicative of a decimal place, which would translate numerically to 1900.47 rather than 1947.

tallman1

The 'and' is indicative of a decimal place, which would translate numerically to 1900.47 rather than 1947.

In the U.S. anyway. Other countries use "and" in long numbers.

Of course, any mathematician will tell you that saying the word "and" would not a decimal make. To be correct in your example, one would have to say, "one thousand, nine hundred and forty-seven hundredths."

There are also a fair number of folks who suggest that we shouldn't use the word "point" when reading decimals because it doesn't help with number sense. So 4.7 should be read "four and seven tenths", rather than "four point seven."

xwesx

Ah, good point. However, we used to frustrate our math professors (who were mathematicians) when we would offer up solutions (which were transcribed to a black/white board) using 'and' before reaching the decimal.

stever

Wow, grammar and math rolled into one. Two of my best subjects.

Which way is the exit?

cdnpinhead

Ah, good point.

Excellent!

xwesx

Hahahahahaha! I sat here for a good twenty seconds rolling "Ah, good point" over my tongue like a it was a fine wine before I finally connected the dots.

alltorque

Being a Brit of the, (increasingly), old school I will continue to use "and" in long numbers and "point" in decimals.

My thanks to tallman1 for his clarification.

stever

What happens in a few hours reflects an example of the use of a present participle as an adjective.

Assuming you say it correctly.

wiki

cdnpinhead

per quarter, whether you're willing to admit that you understand it or not.

I'm willing to say I don't.

Perhpas those with superior abilities can enlighten me.

fezo

Here the heck did everyone go?

OK - This is a joke clearly meant for in here......

A guy gets into a cab in Boston and asks "Where can I get scrod?" The cabbie replies "Brother, I've heard that question asked in every way imaginable, that's the first time anyone's asked me in the subjunctive pluperfect."

stever

Heh, too esoteric for the Jokes discussion eh?

crkyolfrt

You beat me here, fezo. Great minds, and all that..

Seeing your joke was a bonus. Little did i know I was going to see a word such as pluperfect. And yes I would have guessed that one was Latin.
Just think, I've gone through two thirds of my expected lifetime and have managed without Latin...although it's had me leafing through my Dictionary often enough it doesn't collect dust.