I kept making mental notes of this as I read the Future thread yesterday, so I'm glad you bumped this. You should include your/you're, as there were a number of those mistakes too.

Honestly - as long as some of you write like this, some of us are going to discount what you say regardless of the content of what you said. Perhaps that's not fair. But we're going to make assumptions about your education and/or intelligence, and sometimes those assumptions are hard to overcome and will influence how we interact with you.

That's exactly what prompted me to do it.


There's actually a thread about that somewhere as well. vBulletin search sucks, though, and I can't seem to find it.

If you have a misplaced piece of punctuation, call these guys. They're the grammar police. Their job is to find where the correct placement of said punctuation is, then put it there.

Of course I would say more then 1/2 of the punctuation issues are caused by people not proofreading what they write (I mean this is just a message board, not the WSJ). I know when I write things, I sometimes have issues with typing a word twice or using the wrong tense of a word, but it's not because of a lack of intelligence, it has more to do with my mind and hands not being on the same page while I'm typing.

"More then", yy.

True, and I struggle with the same assumptions while reading.

My problem is that I know some really intelligent people who do this and then I don't know what the fuck to think.

Exactly. Maybe I did that on purpose...

Anyway. You just have elite grammar status cuervo72 and that makes you superior. Sorry for my mistakes, I'll try harder next time. I'm sure your perfect... And yes I wrote your on purpose.

We'll be rooting for you!

It takes all of 10 secs to proofread what you have written. In any case, "they're" versus "there" versus "their" is neither a typo nor the wrong tense of a word. They are completely different words.

Sure if I write only a couple sentences it takes 10 seconds.

I think that depends on the person. I know the proper use of the words, but I still catch myself typing the wrong word because my mind is thinking faster than my fingers. Not all "grammar" errors are strictly grammar, at least in my opinion.

Regardless, whether you like it or not, what cuervo said is true.

I should have proofread my last message... DOH!

Yes, the issue really is that cut and dried.

"Julio Lugo was dfa'd today, which means the Red Sox have 10 days to release him, trade him or send him down to AAA. Either way, he's not our problem anymore."

Can either be used when multiple options are on the table, or only when there are two choices? If the latter, what is the correct term? Whichever seems ungainly.

You know, I agree with most of this. I often write and post very quickly here. By contrast, if I am writing for a blog or something more formal, I'll take my time and write more carefully.

Any way. I'm pretty sure either is a choice between two (as is between).

I still need to improve my proofreading on my blogs, I'm getting better, but I was never interested in writing till I got older (was always much more of a math person then an vocab/grammar person). I'm contemplating taking some journalism classes or something to improve my blog writing.

Hey, I got the intentional joke this time!!

What's your blog?

<-----------signatures off guy

PM.

This one is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I think we've discussed it here before. I even believe the QS and I were on opposite sides of the issue.

My take is that an historical is incorrect. People who use it are trying to sound smart, and maybe even imitate English types who cling to an archaic usage. Simply put if a word starts with a vowel you should use "an". The exception being words that start with a consonant that isn't pronounced, and result in a word that phonetically starts with a vowel. So words like hour, honor, and history are addressed clearly.

The "an historic" camp defend this because for a time the H in history was commonly not pronounced. So rather than History you have 'istory, or 'istoric instead of historic. I have no trouble with preceding either of those variations with "an", especially when speaking. The dictionary pretty clearly calls for pronouncing the "H" in History and historic, so I believe the "an historic" camp are "wannabe smart folk". I will admit that if QS is in that camp, then he is a smart albeit imperfect being rather than a wannabe.

I distinctly know the difference in the above words, but I still type them wrong from time to time. I know I'm talking about someone's possession, yet I'll type they're. I can't explain it, but I've caught myself a dozen or more times. I know some of them have slipped through. I've said before that I apparently type phonetically.

You're just wannabe dumb folk.

That's an wannabe to you.

Honestly, if someone can't clear the bar when it comes to simple things like their/there/they're and then/than, they really are in the wrong thread.

A lot of people definitely type what they hear in their head as they are thinking. I don't think there is another explanation for the number of times I've seen "are" in place of "our." There is just zero chance they don't know the difference between the two words.

Yes, but because someone does it makes them an idiot that should be ignored...

to/too/two
are/our
they're/there/their
then/than
idea/ideal

Of course we all have our faults, I'm sure a number of people that post on this board would make stereotypes of others the moment they opened their mouths as well... It's just human nature.

Fixed.

I don't recall staking out a position on this, but perhaps I have. I find your argument pretty compelling.

I could be mistaken, but I remember disagreeing with someone whose opinion I respected on this. I can't imagine who else around here would fall into that category.:D

edit: I think I may have ratcheted it up a notch further by stating that writing or typing an historic was clearly wrong as well.

It looks like dictionary.com is not on my side on this one, but use of the word generally has often bugged me. Maybe it's because I've had to do a lot of work with proofs, but to me, generally means that something is true in all cases, but it's more commonly used to mean 'usually' instead.

WELL THAT'S YOUR FAULT ISN'T IT

guess i'm done here

I hate it when people use "which" to move a preposition forward in a sentence, but end up doubling the preposition at the end of the sentence.

"This world in which we live in..."

"There are no issues of which I'm aware of."

This is so frustrating because it's a conscious change in word order that is made completely unnecessary--especially in spoken language--by the final preposition. It only serves to make speech sound awkward and overly formal.

I'm not sure how many of you have worked in the software field and are familiar with source control software, but for those that have, here's one of my pet-peeves: using "sunk" as the past tense for "synch". Look people, there's already a past-tense form of synch - it's "synched". You don't need to make up a new version.

Today's work project made me think of this thread.

9 times out of 10, the passive voice is a bad and/or lazy thing.

But, when you have to write a very . . . careful letter in which lots of easily bruised egos are at stake, it can be a wonderful and powerful tool.

"Mistakes were made" indeed.

A good place for posting this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...41&sc=fb&cc=fp

Quik, you been on any cross-country road trips recently? Maybe to write a book?

;)

Heh, I heard the interview with that guy.

I struggle with the passive voice. I just didn't learn about that in school, or I ignored the lessons, or wrote them off as meaningless. Most likely because the lessons were over my head at the time. At any rate MS Word has picked up my tutelage on this matter.

On another note. It is a tool, as you described above.

Passive/aggressive voice is a valuable tool for lawyers.

I agree completely. The passive voice is sometimes necessary to add nuance and convey the correct tone. I argued this both in high school and college with various English teachers to no avail.

SI

Once again, it appears the correct is just going to lose out to the convenient.

Using "impact" as a transitive verb, essentially as a synonym for a perfectly acceptable and understandable verb, "affect." For some reason, this has run amok recently (like the last couple of decades) and seems lost.

I don't know why people feel smarter or more buzzy or whatever when using that verb... but it gets to me. And I know, I'm on the losing end of this -- you don't need to drop web citations that say it's now standard, I know that's what many sources now concede. I still don't like it, and I still downgrade people making that usage.

So what kind of impact do you think this will have? ;)

If more people online were as impressive as you and a few others than it would have a bigger impact on me and how I acted at times.

Come on, you obviously mean what kind of affect do you think this will have.

Yes, most definitely, the impacts affect should be considered.

Just for the record, "impact" is a perfectly acceptable noun. It's just miscast as a verb, in nearly all cases.

Acceptable:
The budget cuts will cause an impact on tuition rates.
The budget cuts will affect tuition rates.

Improper, but becoming acceptable anyway:
The budget cuts will impact tuition rates.

Deep Impact sounds like it should be the title of a porno.