In Defense of Grammar
- Thread starter katbound
- Start date
BillyBobJoeEd
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
- 774
I've also heard 'bob wire' in place of 'barbed wire.' It never fails to make me chuckle.
BillyBobJoeEd
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
- 774
Another set of misused words to consider: hopefully and momentarily. Whenever the pilot tells us we'll be landing momentarily, I picture a "touch-and-go" instead of "we'll be landing in a moment." As for hopefully, the phrase "hopefully we'll go to town" only brings up a response such as "do we have to go to town with hope in our hearts, or can we take along some dread?"
Momentarily, at least when used properly, means FOR a moment, not IN a moment. Likewise hopefully depicts doing something with a hopeful countenance. It shouldn't be used in place of "I hope." It all makes me grit my teeth. English changes as much by its misuse as it does by the addition of new words and situations, unfortunately, so these two causes of my TMJ are becoming the norm.
Momentarily, at least when used properly, means FOR a moment, not IN a moment. Likewise hopefully depicts doing something with a hopeful countenance. It shouldn't be used in place of "I hope." It all makes me grit my teeth. English changes as much by its misuse as it does by the addition of new words and situations, unfortunately, so these two causes of my TMJ are becoming the norm.
Ekserb
You really hate me.
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2002
- Posts
- 4,226
I'm only posting here because I felt like posting something today and I couldn't bring myself to write in any other thread. I was too tempted to berate earlier posts for their unfathomably poor grammar and/or spelling, and I just didn't feel like being mean.
Well, not today, anyway.
Okay, not this morning. Maybe I'll be back to normal after lunch.
Well, not today, anyway.
Okay, not this morning. Maybe I'll be back to normal after lunch.
DoctorKnotty
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2008
- Posts
- 1,192
I am coming into this thread half cocked. I love to write. I just love it. Nothing is a bigger buzz kill to me then having a grammar Nazi spilling over anything I write that I am not solely submitting for review. I never thought I could be a legitimate writer until i found this quote...
Sadly, desperately sadly, the only people who seem to bother with language in public today bother with it in quite the wrong way. They write letters to broadcasters and newspapers in which they are rude and haughty about other people’s usage and in which they show off their own superior ‘knowledge’ of how language should be. I hate that, and I particularly hate the fact that so many of these pedants assume that I’m on their side. When asked to join in a “let’s persuade this supermarket chain to get rid of their ‘five items or less’ sign” I never join in. Yes, I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language. Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering to his publishers a compliment slip in which he had scribbled the injunction: “I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches &c.” Which gives us all encouragement to feel less guilty, don’t you think?
There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.
Source
Sadly, desperately sadly, the only people who seem to bother with language in public today bother with it in quite the wrong way. They write letters to broadcasters and newspapers in which they are rude and haughty about other people’s usage and in which they show off their own superior ‘knowledge’ of how language should be. I hate that, and I particularly hate the fact that so many of these pedants assume that I’m on their side. When asked to join in a “let’s persuade this supermarket chain to get rid of their ‘five items or less’ sign” I never join in. Yes, I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language. Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering to his publishers a compliment slip in which he had scribbled the injunction: “I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches &c.” Which gives us all encouragement to feel less guilty, don’t you think?
There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.
Source
Felix_Jones
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2009
- Posts
- 1,123
Oprah
I thought this article was apropo, Oprah book club selection essay in The New Republic.
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/79875/bad-expectations-oprah-winfrey-book-club-dickens
Enjoy
I thought this article was apropo, Oprah book club selection essay in The New Republic.
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/79875/bad-expectations-oprah-winfrey-book-club-dickens
Enjoy
