This is sort of the same idea as starting sentences out with qualifiers. It's as if people are too afraid to state something and have it be interpreted as fact. They want to make sure the listener understands that it's just their opinion, and generally, "By golly, I'm entitled to my opinion." I associate "imo" (in real life, anyway) with people who feel entitled to their opinion even when they're being idiots. It's not a good thing, imo.

no i think KUjustin almost has a point - 'well, i could care less' said sarcastically, IRL, sounds pretty convincing - it's a 'sick burn' garcia style.

Isn't the '90s from 1991-2000? A decade is ten years, the first decade was AD 1-10, then 11-20 and so on until 1991-2000.

Also when discussing historical years, AD comes before the year and BC after the year.

Lots of things wrong with this post.

No. The intrinsic definition of "'90s" is "years that are 90-something."

In other words, the 20th century was from 1901-2000, but the 1900s were from 1900-1999. If we referred to decades by ordinal numbers, then 2000 would be part of the 209th decade and not the 210th. But it would be ******ed to say 2000 was part of the 1900s or the '90s.

Triumph -- meh, I guess. I think you and I both know that isn't how that saying originated though.

You forgot to add "FWIW" Another inane qualifier.

So what was the first decade AD (the ones)? Since decade means ten years, I guess the argument is that the year AD 10 belongs to two different decades, the ones and the tens. Or that 1 BC - AD 9 is the first decade.

Who the **** cares? You're debating something ancillary to the point-at-hand.

I think "who the f&ck cares" could apply to a huge number of things in this thread, why are you picking on me?

imo and fwiw in real life are usually just being polite. Do you also consider the sentence

"can you pass the salt?"

to be inane?

I assume you're leveling but I don't get the joke/reference. Anyway, it's "nineties."

I'm having a hard time deciding if the sarcastic option holds. I see your point, but also I feel like a properly-delivered "Yeah, I could care less about that." has the potential to send the exact opposite message: "I couldn't care any less about that."

I agree that pretty much everyone who uses it now does so because of idiocy, but I really think that the phrase originated from a correct usage. Probably along the lines of the 2nd option.

Also, maybe I'm being defensive, but fwiw doesn't seem inherently inane. The idea in my initial post was essentially "this has minimal relevance to the fact that people use 'I could care less' incorrectly all the time." Therefore, people hopefully won't act as though I'm using these exceptions as a case that "I could care less" is usually used correctly, because it's obviously not.

I dug this thread when it was amusing examples of bad grammar. Now it's just high level pedantry.

Pay your respects, imo.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=16

how about a while? one word or two? i see it written both ways with abt the same frequency...

Depends.

A while ago.

Stick around awhile.

"Awhile" is considered by some to be incorrect, but if you use it, use it as an adverb, not as a noun (esp. as the object of a prepositional phrase).

"Sit down and rest awhile."

"Sit down and rest for a while."

"Sit down and rest for awhile," is incorrect.

sweet im going to use this thread every time i have a grammar question. which brings me to another one.... everytime, one word or two? lol public schools

To be honest "Can you pass the salt?" is inane because you are asking a person if they are able to physically pass the salt. Appropriate politeness would be "Would you please pass the salt"

Seriously, isn't there a certain amount of redundancy with "imo" in a post where your opinon in a given because one is reponding to some thought or idea?

I can't think of an example where every time would be one word, though I suppose it could be, maybe?

You either do things every day, or they are everyday things you do.

Every time, obv.

Well, there's a couple main uses for it.

1) Maybe it's just this board, but I usually see "imo" being used ironically.

E.g., "The basketball team from Boston is called the Celtics, imo."

2) To separate an opinion from an otherwise factual portion:
"His movies include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Godfather 2 (his best performance IMO), and Analyze That."

Lie/lay/lain/laid would be a good topic for a man-on-the-street grammar quiz. You could make it reasonably simply and probably have a 95% failure rate.

--

Another one I get annoyed by is the misuse of hyphenated terms.

Like, "Please use the sign-up sheet" -- fine.

"Please sign-up on the sheet" -- fail.

gusmahler is right on both counts.

IMO's overuse on this forum developed and spread primarily from the "brilliant, in my opinion" picture listed above. It appeared early in my time on 2+2 but people rarely/never used "imo" prior to it, IIRC. Now, gl entering "+imo" in the search engine.

Point 2 is right as well. Just declaring "The Godfather is awful" is either a troll attempt or something intended to incite forumtilt. "The Godfather is awful, imo" at least lends a little padding to your idiocy, imo.