[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Hey, grammar Nazis (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 11/13/2005 5:02:57 PM EDT
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My GF is a english teacher at a local middle school, and the students dont know squat about grammar. I cant spell, and I dont have the greatest grammar sense, but I was appaled when helping her grade papaers this last week. She has decided to do a huge unit on grammar to get the kids cought up. What errors do you see most often, and what are some of you pet peves regarding grammar and spelling? |
peeves |
English don't can't appalled papers caught your peeves 
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I gotta admit, killingmachine123, it took a brave man to type those paragraphs. 
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| I'd be thrilled if the people here on ar15.com knew that a "muzzle break" means your gun is unsafe, while a "muzzle brake" lessens felt recoil and that "loose" is the way that homeboys wear their pants, while "lose" means that you didn't win or misplaced something. |
Looser, loser--not the same thing. You're and your, not the same thing. There, their, they're. |
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Well - AR15.com is a treasure trove of grammar horror shows - I'm sure you will have many fine examples from which to choose. (My pet peeves include spelling errors include the words "appalled", "papers", "caught", "your" and "peeves". Seriously ~ the most repetitive problems I see here are posters that use words that sound similar but have different meanings ("break" vs. brake", "breath" vs. "breathe", "then" vs. than", "past" vs. "passed", "heel" vs. "heal", "affect" vs. "effect", "ensure" vs. "assure", "loose" vs. "lose".....the list is endless) not knowing the difference. The primary cure for spelling and grammar challenges is reading good books. CWO |
The addendum to that is "except when used to make an "A" sound, like neighbor and weigh... |
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To quote Churchill: Winston Churchill "That's the sort of pedantic nonsense up with which I shall not put!" It drives me nuts when I ask "How are you doing today?" and here "Good" Its like fingernails on the chalk board. Or cuz I want such and such..... When I homeschooled and we had kids over my kids would roll their eyes when one of their friends would say "I'm doing good or start a sentence with Cuz" Patty |
I've added a couple of corrections in blue. Commas are not to be used before "and".  EDIT: It appears that striking a comma doesn't work very well. 
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Thank you. 
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I loose my mine ever day reeding posts on this sight. The best examples are the phonetic spellings - nowhere close to the correct spelling, but get the idea across nevertheless. Documents from the early history of this country contain all sorts of mis-spelled words, and often they were spelled differently by the same person. Interestingly, I think that in those days the ability to communicate the idea was considered to be more important than conforming to some spelling standard that I'm fairly sure was mostly fictitious. As much as it pains me, I have to concede a bit. |
No excuse for all those mistakes. If you use IE, install this: www.iespell.com/ |
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It's not "for all intensive purposes," it's "for all intents and purposes." It's not "I could care less," it's "I couldn't care less." If you could care less, that means you do care, so why would you say that to mean that you don't care at all? "Your" means "the thing you have", "You're" means "you are" "Its" means "the thing's thing", "It's" means "It is" Teh isn't a word. "Loose" means the opposite of "tight", "lose" means the opposite of "win" And for when you are speaking, the word "like" does not mean whatever you want it to. It means "as" or "similar". Also, the sound "um" may feel good to say, but it is not pleasant for those to whom you are talking, and it will tend to distract them from the point of your comment. And stop saying, "You know . . . " If they know, why tell them in the first place? I read a lot, and I used to write stories in my spare time, and I was also home-schooled by parents who know correct grammar and spelling, so I am blessed with the responsibility to correct others and act like a big man. |
How exactly do you help her grade them when, as you say, you can't spell well youself? |
Sorry patty  I personally dont see why people flip out about it so much. Its natural for language to change over time. I really dont care as long as I can undersand what you are saying. |
I can pick out what is wrong, but cant put it to paper myself. Those kids made it easy for me, as they could not stick to a tense for more than half a sentance. |
Actually, I think that the period in red should go inside the quotation marks. |
You are correct, but it makes no sense to me and that is one style rule I intentionally refuse to follow. |
Well To hear [sorry] someone say "Good" isn't as bad as cuz. Cuz is just lazy. Cuz I'm too lazy. That's what I hear. |
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Spelling is not important in highschool. What is important is that you learn (at least with regards to history) that all of the world's current problems are the direct result of rich, white, racists. I kid you not. On pretty much ANY essay question I grade in freshman US history to 1865, that is the standard answer for everything. It may be barely legible, but they are absoluteley indoctrinated with a warped view of the past. |
Its amazing how teachers brain wash their ideologies onto our kids. I had a teacher in High School IF I was able to some how bring up JFK and/or homosexuals in anything I wrote [from the Salem Witch Trials to the then Cold War] it was almost guaranteed an A for the paper. Patty |
gays love to hear about themselves.......... |
I work with a guy who gets phrases like the one above horribly mixed up. If he likes something, he is "part and partial to it". If he is describing something variable, it "runs the gambit". Repeated attempts to correct him are futile. Some day I'm going to scream something really inappropriate like "SHUT YOUR IGNORANT GODDAMN MOUTH YOU STUPID SON OF A GOAT-FUCKING WHORE." |
I won't argue with that statement!
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"She and I" versus "her and me". She and I went to the gun range. The ammo was for her and me. If it wasn't for her and me, he wouldn't have had any ammo to shoot. It he hadn't said anything to her and me, he wouldn't have had any ammo to shoot. She and I gave him some ammo. He thanked her and me. She and I left the range and he watched her and me leave. GL edit = dl >ld |
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subject/verb agreement: that team is good. the guys on that team are good. when to use "I", rather than "me". its/it's eagle's/eagles' irregardless do NOT emphasize something by putting it in quotation marks. toward/towards basic etymology, like dis- vice un-. to wit, "unimpressed" means that one is passively not impressed. "dispossesed", OTOH, means that something has been actively taken away. |