English Language...STOP!!!! - Page 5

febe1 · ‎01-22-2012

It's sometimes as high as 40% of students entering college who must take both remedial English and math.

CLEM · ‎03-09-2010

I don't think it's quite as bad to hear bad English on a shopping network as on the news channels.

For example talking about "a big amount of people" instead of "a large number of people".

When I hear this, I always visualize measuring people with a cup.

gmkb · ‎07-29-2012

@suzyQ3 wrote:
@gmkb wrote:
@suzyQ3 wrote:
@gmkb wrote:
I watch Judge Judy each day and she is constantly correcting people's word choices.
Examples: I borrowed him $100 (loaned). He takened my car (took). He and me conversated ( he and I had a conversation). Most common is starting every sentence with 'like'. Like, he and me conversated, then I borrowed him $10 and he takened my car without permission.
It just goes to show you that when one becomes a critic, one had better be prepared for nitpicking. The standard and traditional word usage here is not "loaned" but "lent."

"Loan" is a noun, as in "I need a loan," not a verb; "lend" is the verb, as in "I lent him my car."

@suzyQ3 I'm not sure I understood your post, but I don't think Judge Judy was nitpicking. She has little patience with young people, in particular, using incorrect wording or making up words. I would guess Judge Judy knows the difference between loan, lent, loaned and lend; but maybe not.
@gmkb, I agree that "nitpicking" was not the best choice of words. Change it to "correcting" or "judging."

If in fact Judge Judy corrected a person by saying that it should have been "I loaned him $100," then she was incorrect.

And that's my point. When you start in on correcting people, you set yourself up for being corrected. She may be an attorney and a judge, but that doesn't necessarily make her an expert on the English language in all its quirks.

And frankly, I'm not that fond of shaming people. There are better ways to prompt them to learn language skills.

@suzyQ3 Your post prompted my curiousity to investigate the use of loaned and lent. What I found is that the British use lent almost exclusively and North Americans use both words, but lent is the first choice and loaned second. Neither is incorrect. Loaned is used more for physical transactions - money, cars, books. Lent is used more for the non-physical. Anyway it was something I had never given much thought, so it was interesting to me. Thanks for calling this to our attention.

suzyQ3 · ‎03-09-2010

@gmkb, yes, that is the reason that I used the words "standard" and "traditional" regarding this particular word usage.

Some diehards will always hew to what they see as its correct usage. I had to be one of those diehards when I taught grammar, punctuation, word usage, vocabulary, and spelling to court reporting students in my state who had to pass a very rigorous written portion of the State licensing exam, which included traditional word usage.

Thank you for your response. :-)

~Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

@chickenbutt wrote:
@sandraskates wrote:
We just got a new version of MS Office at work. When writing up an e-mail and "you're" is the correct verbiage, Outlook flags it and wants to replace it with "your."
It simply cannot tell the grammar difference (which it used to be able to do).

I am pretty much convinced that will the advent of texting and participants making quick comments on websites, that the contraction "you're" is going to eventually go by the wayside and "your" will be accepted in it's place.

Oh dear, that's awful!

Hey, once they put 'aint' in the dictionary, I gave up. Some may say that the language is evolving. I would beg to differ. It is DEvolving.

@chickenbutt, I have had to re-think lately. Always in the past when I used "ain't" I assumed people understood I was speaking in a joking manner. I now live amongst some who say it for real, and I've stopped using it jokingly because I don't want anyone to think it's a genuine part of my speech 🙀

Life without Mexican food is no life at all

millieshops · ‎03-09-2010

@sandraskatesYou are probably right. You've hit on one of the tenets of language change - at least of the English language which always moves toward simplification.

My candidates for the two contractions most likely to disappear are you're and it's. It used to take a hundred years to effect changes, but I have no idea what the Internet and texting will do to the timeline now.

Ane1Care · ‎05-16-2010

@Qshopper1991 Tszuj, it's Yiddish.

I think it really took off on here with Lisa R. (I'm not hating, that's just where I first starting hearing it), now Shawn says it quite often (Again, not hating. I like them both.). It's become the "it" word for fiddling or scrunching up....stuff.

blankette · ‎03-12-2010

I am going to chime in and agree. This is something that is simply not acceptable. It sends the message, nothing matters, make your own rules, who cares what definitions our society has in place. In general the people doing are pathetically going about trying to be cool. It is much more challenging learning to master our language and speaking with eloquence. That is not so easy, I have spent a life trying and still have much to learn. Our language is really a precious jewel, we need to protect it.