Grammar gripes

Originally posted by QuantumPhysicist
I absolutely hate when people use "nothing" as a double negative. It's even worse when they use it along with "ain't". For example, "I ain't got nothing".

I aint got nobodyyy.

reply to post by dogstar23

Who knew that this would turn into a linguistics discussion, lol.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by GMan420

 

Yes, language is always evolving.
But for practical reasons, there needs to be some sort of drag so that it evolves at the same speed and in the same directtion for as many people as possible.
Otherwise, as I said, everybody is speaking their own private langauge and communication breaks down.
Your post illustrates my point.

I meant for my post to illustrate your point and to show that we can't just let everyone talk however they want and still expect our language to be useful.


Sadly, sarcasm is often lost on the interwebs

I know
this gripe is mine as well I should of known this would be posted. I seen it coming.

English isn't native to the whole world and language evolves. I'm sure Chaucer and Shakespear would cringe at your english.

Originally posted by signalfire
Amen, OP.

Any time I run across a more than occasional misspelling or grammatical error, I mentally discount what the poster is trying to say

And that is why you are ignorant in those situations.

Also, NOT EVERY MEMBER SPEAKS ENGLISH AS A FIRST LANGUAGE.

If one may direct your attention
To the video in this thread

Cody

reply to post by dogstar23


Sigh...just read through the first page of replies, and it seems people entirely missed the point. I made it clear I'm not looking for perfection. There are simply certain brutally mis-used terms which seem to be gaining steam to the point of overriding proper usage. These are the things I'm talking about. Those linguistic screw-ups where people aren't even thinking of the meaning (or lack thereof) in what they're saying.

One reply criticizing another who agreed because of not spelling out the acronym "OP" before using it is an example of where we do not have to nitpick - we all know here what OP means - it is perfectly sensible to go ahead and use the acronym right off the bat.

My hope was that a few commonly used (especially recently) "wrong" words/phrases could be brought to light, and maybe we can turn the tide and stop these enemies of clear communication.

As far as why this is worth being in the "rant" section...have you seen the posts in the rant section? This is the perfect place for this post. The wrong place is in the midst of a poorly-written thread, or in response to someone's on-topic post.

To add another I didn't include earlier, the recent trend of using "anymore" the opposite of how it should be used.

Example:

"Everybody uses Twitter anymore."

This is wrong. The statement should be "Everybody uses Twitter NOWADAYS." the word "anymore" would only be properly used in the negative. For example: "Nobody uses MySpace anymore."

How and why such an awkward-sounding phrase suddenly came into common use across a generation is baffling to me. It is almost as though some of these mos-uses take root online, and with many children's social interactions existing almost solely online, the mis-usage spreads like a viral video. Lacking person-to-person social interaction, and lacking parents and other adults who actually communicate with them, these viral linguistic miscues take root from keyboard to monitor and on into day-to-day life.

Originally posted by cody599
I know
this gripe is mine as well I should of known this would be posted. I seen it coming.

English isn't native to the whole world and language evolves. I'm sure Chaucer and Shakespear would cringe at your english.

edit on 18-1-2013 by cody599 because: (no reason given)

I definitely addressed that in the original post. That is why I will normally fight through even the most brutal posts. That isn't to say I'm not at least subconsciously discounting the ideas to a degree anyway. Again, this was more about these newer, common mis-uses which are so obviously wrong.

Anyhow, I shouldn't bother to argue it anymore. As I stated, I'm not one to correct grammar, and I don't care (nor am I up to standards myself) about perfect grammar. Just a few common irritations which I wish would somehow at least be in the minority, rather than the majority, of lexicons.

I know such lack of command of English affects my hiring decisions, as I know it does other business owners and managers. Consider it a PSA (ahem, Public Service Announcement) for you kids out there: pay attention in English class, and read books. If you sound like a dumb-dumb, you're going to be less likely to obtain and retain a good job.