I implore you to stand corrected otnemem. Is anyone else scared to post in this thread in case they make a grammatical error of some kind?

I'm American, so those are the rules I refer to.

Could care less: I think the overwhelming majority of society makes this mistake now and has no idea they're doing it. You might say they couldn't care less about it...

Since all the big offenders have been mentioned: arc/arch. Doesn't really bother me too much but I hear this from time to time related to baseball or golf. An arch is an object, an arc is a shape. "He had a lot of arch on that shot." Argh.

I've posted some of these before but I used to work with this really dumb completely self-unaware woman who botched the hell out of simple things. We all make fun of her to this day, years later. Here are some of the simple mistakes she made, the worst part being that she honestly thought these were correct:

- "cudos" instead of "kudos"
- once wrote "your the women" when referring to one person
- once wrote "where heals" when she meant "wear heels"
- regularly used "formally" when she meant "formerly"
- often used "mythology" when she meant "methodology"
- her favorite phrase was "you're so funny", and when put into print she wrote, you guessed it, "your so funny" 100% of the time

The good news is that her endless transgressions have proven to be far more entertaining than aggravating.

I really REALLY hate it when people use "jew" instead of "joo" when trying to mimick inner city rap lingo:

"I'm gonna get jew you little rascal"
instead of what they meant to say
"I'm gonna get joo you little rascal"

"RBIs" as "RsBI."

I don't remember who, but there's a baseball announcer that does this, and while I'm sometimes a stickler about grammar and punctuation, that level of nittiness tilts me nearly to the point of murder.

Ken Tremendous does (did, I guess) this, but I'm pretty sure it was done ironically, which makes it okay.

If anyone ever said "times-out" in my presence I would mock them mercilessly.

Wait, how have we gotten this far and not mentioned:

ATM Machine
PIN Number
MLB Baseball
MLS Soccer


etc.

Ambivalent = feelings both ways
Indifferent = no feelings whatsoever

I this thread so much.

^ Does this bother anyone else? I was taught that a "so" should always be followed by a "that," as in, "I this thread so much that I want to print it out and staple it to certain offenders' heads."

Also, this sign is periodically posted in the ladies' room where I work:

"Hello Ladies!!!!!!

And for the new Ladies (Welcome to XXXXXX!!!!!!!!!)

It's that time once more to ask for your contributing,

Most of you have contributed more than once and it seems to be going very well,

However, it would be nice if I can continue to supply the Hand Soap, and the Air Freshener

but I need your help. The cost for each is $1.00: if you wish to

Contributed to this effort please stop by my desk, your contribution

Will most be Appreciated

Thanks XXXXXX"

Did I mention this particular ladies' room is located directly across the hall from the editorial department?

The "so" thing is just a colloquialism imo, and doesn't really bother me.

That sign, otoh, is a total abortion and would tilt the **** out of me. I'm so (haha) glad I don't work in an office (yet).

Emphasis mine.

On the so subject, it is an oft noted verbal tic among physicists and math types that they'll start an awful lot of their sentences with so. The usual conjecture for this is a lot of the time when we're talking we're trying to explain something with a series of clearly logically connected sentences. So, we use so to make the connection explicit, like so.

Does anyone on the internet know what "infer" means? I can't remember ever seeing it used correctly.

Ppl that mix up infer and imply annoy me.

Bastard, you beat me by 7 posts. Also VIN number. For my architect's license I had to take 9 exams which were called Architectural Registration Exams, or AREs. Most people called them "ARE Exams" while I called them "AREs".

A couple words people misuse:

Decimated - which I believe means wiped out 1 in 10 (root word "dec", this has commonly become interchangeable with "obliterated".

Also, earlier in this thread someone spelled asterisks as asteriks. WTF!?!?

Also, people have no idea what "begging the question" means.

They use it thusly: "Gary showed up late again, which is begging the question: 'Is he gonna get fired?'"

What begging the question really means is when someone leads with a fallacy as part of their argument. Like this: "Because cars are so much better than trucks, we suggest you get a car." Whoa, whoa, you're begging the question...where the question is: "are cars really better than trucks?"

I'm with Bobman -- I think the (as I just learned from him the British rule) for periods outside of quotes based on logical sentence structure placement makes more sense.

Otnemem - do you just reflexively stick to rules without thinking through whether it's better or worse? If not, why do you think the American version is superior?

All -- I make mistakes noted in this thread all the time. I think though, when I make mistakes, it rarely hampers my communication or changes the meaning of what I'm trying to say. Also, I'm an efficient writer, so basically I don't really care about making these mistakes.

I can't stand when people "over-write" (see Anacardo, Blarg etc.) -- this annoys me much more than the occasional grammatical lapse.

Corporate-Business Types -- have you noticed the further up the chain you get, in general, the more informal / horrible the punctuation and grammar is on e-mails? I find it amusing.

-Al

EDIT: Easier to say that someone may imply that you're a moron, but you may infer that you're a genius. You're basically misinterpreting what their intentions are.

I never said it was superior, but don't you usually tend to write in a style that's customary for your native country? I suppose I could also start writing 'colour' and 'neighbourhood,' but I can't imagine why I would. Plus, like I said, I was an editor for three years and now a copywriter. Not exactly optimal to start mixing it up with language and grammar rules.

I see.

I think the "colour vs. color" is not the same as "period inside vs. outside quotes". I guess I'm just of the belief that sentences should close with the full stop signified by the period. I do it pretty reflexively, and I'm not British. Maybe one of my grammar teachers in elementary school was British, maybe I read FT and the Economist too much, who knows.

My overall point is... is there a logical reason for ending a sentence with the period instead of the quote? Does the period outside of the quote confuse you at all? Does it make the sentence less efficient?

If your answers are 'Yes', 'No', 'No', I don't see why you should care.

-Al

Wait, I'm confused. I never said I cared. I made an inaccurate statement – that the period never goes outside the quotation marks – and then realized I was wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that by American English rules of grammar and punctuation, the period should be inside the quotes 99% of the time.

I don't care if someone else chooses to use a different standard. But when you're writing for a book or magazine with strict standards and guidelines, there's only one way to punctuate.

Only a nit would be able to answer this question. (Oh wait, it wasn't a question!)

Not hating on CMAR, specifically...


...but I always like when someone goes for the less-frequently used word and then uses the wrong word.

Someone please feel free to red-pen my post.

I hate when people say this. This might have been true 500 years ago but it has long since entered the lexicon as a word meaning "to destroy a large portion of." It is in no way grammatically incorrect to use it this way.

This is some sophisticated OOT in-joke, right? The first person to say but my head didn't literally explode loses, right?

Otnemem -- oh, ok, from your posts in this thread I thought you cared (I was perplexed).

I mean, it's pretty easy to defend the idea that a complete thought should end with a punctuation mark that signifies an end to that complete thought.

oT:

At first, I lol'ed, then I realized, couldn't really think of another example of that. Lil help? Also 'demur' is a solid verb imo.

-Al