The Truth About Grammar » Language

Come on, BBCHD!

jputhuff — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:01:59 +0000

No one noticed it’s is used twice but with two very different meanings?

From Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman

From the George W. Bush School of Grammar

jputhuff — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:47:16 +0000

CourseSmart, a purveyor of overpriced digital textbooks that aren’t worth the electrons they’re printed on, pretends that they are not threatened by Apple’s recent iPad-based textbooks initiative. CS should be scared if their press release is any indication of their competence. Snipped from GigaOM.

Dey Toke Our Gramar

jputhuff — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:09:25 +0000

A new one: Toke as the past tense of take. Not a typo since Louie does this twice.

English Teacher Needs to Learn English

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:52:29 +0000

Lightening means to make light or lighter. Lightning is the quick discharge of electrons. The inclusion of “is a” in the first sentence is unnecessary.

Feint is a deceptive action. You can’t deceive a heart. The idiom is “faint of heart.”

Fly-by-night is describing term, so it should be hyphenated as an adjective phrase, but, really, stop with the clichés. You wouldn’t let your students turn in papers filled with clichés, would you? Wait . . . please don’t answer that.

How this “university” remains accredited is beyond me.

I’m Speechless

jputhuff — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:40:43 +0000

Brought to you by Facebook, of course.

What a mom <<**eyeroll**>>

Speaking of Stupid …

jputhuff — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:51:31 +0000

Listen, I dislike Fox News as much as the next guy, but when you use the wrong “its” when you’re excoriating someone for being stupid . . .

Thanks to Bart for the tip!

Can’t Spell “On Crack” Without KCRA

jputhuff — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:04:39 +0000

Stick to TV news, folks…

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Install

Daniel Stern — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:02:00 +0000

I got my Bh.P. many long years ago; I’ve been repeatedly, dogmatically, arbitrarily, and serially guilty of Buttheaded Prescriptivism. Only relatively recently have I worked at sanding down the sharp edges and rounding off the pointy corners with some goodly ~~hyphens~~ dashes of descriptivism. Just yesterday I was scrubbing my bathtub when it occurred to me how capricious, inconsistent, and silly is my objection to the use of the nouned verb ‘In·stall’, with the accent on the first syllable, rather than ‘In·stal·la·tion’. My own Stern Style Guide right here on this very site is full of equal and opposite objections to morbidly obese redundancies like ‘Trans·por·ta·tion’ instead of ‘Trans·port’ and ‘Im·por·ta·tion’ instead of ‘Im·port’. By the same dint, if I’m to be consistent I have to deprecate ‘Installation’ and favour ‘Install’. There’s nothing structurally the matter with it; we noun verbs—and vice-versa!—all the time in English: ‘Pro·ject’ (noun), ‘Pro·ject’ (verb); ‘De·tail’ (noun), ‘De·tail’ (verb); ‘Ad·dress’ (noun), ‘Ad·dress’ (verb); ‘Re·ject’ (noun), ‘Re·ject’ (verb); ‘Re·tard’ (not-very-nice noun), ‘Re·tard’ (verb). Sometimes we don’t—witness ‘Ex·haust’, noun and verb alike—but that’s probably because a needlessly-lettery nouned verb like ‘Ex·haus·ta·tion’ would be silly and needless. Just about as silly and needless as ‘Installation’, as it seems.

Sexist Styleowner.com’s Grammar Style Sucks

jputhuff — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:22:53 +0000

This site, that bills itself as a collection of virtual boutiques owned only by women (where’s the love for gay men who have better style than women?), doesn’t know the difference between “they’re” and “their.” I’m not surprised as their copywriter writes at about the same level as a high school sophomore.

Café Vinoteca One Among Thousands, Millions

jputhuff — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:05:50 +0000

Google reports about 232,000 results for “peacons” (pecans) and about 2,210,000 results for “cassarole” (casserole). If nothing else, it’s good for a laugh. Hi, Lenny!