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I know the difference between they're, their and there, but I'm a fast typist, and sometimes what comes out of my brain and out of my fingers, is the wrong spelling. Sometimes, I catch it and correct it, other times, it gets by me. It's really more about my lack of editing skills, than spelling skills.
I know the difference between they're, their and there, but I'm a fast typist, and sometimes what comes out of my brain and out of my fingers, is the wrong spelling. Sometimes, I catch it and correct it, other times, it gets by me. It's really more about my lack of editing skills, than spelling skills.
Typos can be readily distinguished from ignorance. Often, I’ll type “buy” instead of “by”, or other such silliness, from inadvertent carelessness. But if we see a sentence such as “Your gonna regret your dog needs trained and your couldn’t care less where he runs around at”, then clearly the fault isn’t with unresponsive fingers (or a maladroit canine).
Craigslist is perhaps the most amusing venue for butchering of language. An example might be:
“Up for sale is my Murcurie Grand Markeys. Good on gas, plush ride, everything works excellent. But I gotta growin familie, and got a bigger car, so it needs gone. Tranny slips, couple a dents needs pulled, ez fix – I would of done it myself, but no time. Send txt, no low-ballers or scammers, don’t waist you’re time or mine.
I used to be pretty elitist about regional dialects, 'undesirable' accents, and non-standard grammar. Then I started studying foreign languages and really enjoying and appreciating the dialectal differences in those languages, especially rural forms. I thought they really added richness and character to the languages and cultures.
Then I realized what a huge hypocrite I was.
Now, regarding English I am talking about things like a-prefixing (gone a-fishing), 'needs washed', and foreign grammar vestiges like 'come with' and 'please' in place of komm mit and bitte, and of course natural English grammar features that have been proscribed against by 19th century Latinophile grammarians like sentence ending propositions and split infinitives.
Abominations like 'chester drawers' (chest of drawers) and 'would of' (would have) do still make my ears and eyes bleed. But those are errors, not variations.
In 1962 I was transferred to Michigan as division sales manager for Michigan and Ohio, for an old well respected company. My wife and I took our 3 children there and lived north of the city in a great housing area, with top schools.
My 8 year old daughter, was one of the top students back in Silicon Valley (Cupertino), and when she went to Michigan Schools, we were told that she had to take a special class to learn to speak and write properly. She did and was soon one of the top students. We went back to the Silicon Valley (Saratoga) 16 months later, and the school put her into a special class to teach her how to speak and write properly. She was soon back to one of the top students in her class.
What we have to realize is, that in the USA we have a lot of different ways to speak and write, while all the time speaking and writing English.
Different areas of the country have language differences that are far from being the same. We have different names for different items. We pronounce words differently in different areas of the country. Good example was President Kennedy. When he was talking about cars in one of his speeches. He pronounced car, as CAW like a crow calling. I heard a lot of people in the west, complain they could hardly understand what he was talking about. The use of language was so different in these two different places in this country.
Then there are the Grammar Nazi group, that complain. They are talking about how it is perfect in their local area, and wrong for anyone in the country to do or say anything different than how they say it.
Remember, people on these threads are just typing away and will make grammar mistakes, and spelling mistakes, and heaven forbid punctuation mistakes. They are not going back to make sure there was no word usage mistakes, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, etc., etc., as they would if they were writing a thesis for an English class.
When the Grammar Nazi group start cutting down on posters on this thread, they have to realize that these people are from another part of the nation, and are trying to look intelligent, sophisticated, and believe themselves to be better than those they complain about.
I live not far from a city famous for being settled by German-Catholics (that is, persons mostly from the southern part of Germany). My command of German language is far from fluent, but I can get by. Yet I detect no consonance between the local ways of speaking English, and what would be grammatically or stylistically typical in German. Indeed, I am surprised at how little familiarity with German has remained in this region - quite the contrast, evidently, from the situation with Spanish in south Florida.
Germans aren't pouring over the border in the USA. And the Germans you're talking about were from the very early 1900s.
In 1962 I was transferred to Michigan as division sales manager for Michigan and Ohio, for an old well respected company. My wife and I took our 3 children there and lived north of the city in a great housing area, with top schools.
My 8 year old daughter, was one of the top students back in Silicon Valley (Cupertino), and when she went to Michigan Schools, we were told that she had to take a special class to learn to speak and write properly. She did and was soon one of the top students. We went back to the Silicon Valley (Saratoga) 16 months later, and the school put her into a special class to teach her how to speak and write properly. She was soon back to one of the top students in her class.
What we have to realize is, that in the USA we have a lot of different ways to speak and write, while all the time speaking and writing English.
Different areas of the country have language differences that are far from being the same. We have different names for different items. We pronounce words differently in different areas of the country. Good example was President Kennedy. When he was talking about cars in one of his speeches. He pronounced car, as CAW like a crow calling. I heard a lot of people in the west, complain they could hardly understand what he was talking about. The use of language was so different in these two different places in this country.
Then there are the Grammar Nazi group, that complain. They are talking about how it is perfect in their local area, and wrong for anyone in the country to do or say anything different than how they say it.
Remember, people on these threads are just typing away and will make grammar mistakes, and spelling mistakes, and heaven forbid punctuation mistakes. They are not going back to make sure there was no word usage mistakes, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, etc., etc., as they would if they were writing a thesis for an English class.
When the Grammar Nazi group start cutting down on posters on this thread, they have to realize that these people are from another part of the nation, and are trying to look intelligent, sophisticated, and believe themselves to be better than those they complain about.
Well, now we've graduated from the 1930s to 1962! I will grant that 50+ years ago regional differences in speech and pronunciation were much more pronounced.
As I tried to be clear in my OP, I'm not talking about regionalisms like calling a shopping cart a buggy, or a water fountain a bubbler. What I AM talking about is usage that is incorrect, everywhere.
I think, however, some of the posters in this thread think I walk around with a schoolmarm's sneer on my face anytime someone opens their mouth. That is not the case at all, nor am I trying to "look intelligent, sophisticated and believe myself to be better than those being complained about." I have a B.A. in English, and I'm hoping to teach English in a few years, so I am in "teacher mode" quite a bit.
Edited much later to add: For my entire childhood I thought "ammonia" and "pneumonia" were the same word because my mother pronounced them both the same way. I finally learned that they were two different words with two different meanings. And god help me if I was walking around still saying "Joe can't come in to work because he has ammonia," I should hope someone would correct me!
Last edited by MoonBeam33; 06-12-2017 at 07:16 PM..
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"This too shall pass. But possibly, like a kidney stone."
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Sometimes, people who misspeak (or miswrite) completely miss the beautiful clarity of the language they are using. People who say chester drawers miss that it's a chest. Of drawers. I know a woman who called "hand me downs" clothing "hammydams", and she laughed so hard when she learned it was "hand me downs". Of course. What the hell is a hammydam? Some kids I knew would say "ollie ollie umpten free" instead of "all-y all-y in come free" at the end of a game of hide and seek, meaning those who weren't found have won and can now come to home base. Spitting image. ???? I hate that one! "Spirit and image" is such a lovely thing to say. He's the spirit and image of his grandfather. How nice. Or even "spit and image", meaning looks is like his grandfather inside and out. What in the world is a spitting image? Finally, a color of poodle, cafe au lait. Perfect name for this color, coffee and cream. The dog's fur closest to the body is a deep brown, and as it gets longer, the tips are cream colored. That dog looks just like a cafe au laid. Except now they're called Cafe Ole.
What's the world coming to? ;D haha
edited to add: I thought of another one. A guy I know (very smart guy, actually) thought the saying was "don't take me for granite". Meaning, don't take me for rock solid on your side. Which actually, is the same thing as "take me for granted". So he understood the saying, he just misunderstood the words.
Wherever you live is the center of "The Worst of X" for the narrow-minded who ain't never travelled.
I done seen dis puppet show before. I needs be moving on.
Please do.
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I have a B.A. in English, and I'm hoping to teach English in a few years, so I am in "teacher mode" quite a bit.
