No, you should not think about them - unless you are speaking Latin. And of course you cannot do so in Latin because of the nature of the language. They are both constructs carried over from Latin when people tried to enforce a Latin grammar on the English language a few hundred years ago. The constructs are acceptable and correct in English.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Which of the following is best (in terms of grammar and style) and which did you mean?
I work for a company who use email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company who uses email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company who use email and writes a lot of letters.
I work for a company that use email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company that uses email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company that uses email and writes a lot of letters.
I work for a company which use email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company which uses email and write a lot of letters.
I work for a company which uses email and writes a lot of letters.
I work for a company that uses email and I write a lot of letters.
I work for a company which uses email and I write a lot of letters.
I work for a company; I use email and write a lot of letters.

Could you elaborate on this. (I am being sincere. I'm not being sarcastic.) Could you explain this more without using the word "restrictive". Thanks.

I think Americans would be more likely to use "shortly" instead of "presently".

If you really want to be stuffy, replace it with "forthwith".

I'll take a shot at explaining the difference.


"Which" should normally only be used in a clause that is separated from the rest of the sentence by commas, and only when the clause is not essential to the meaning of the sentence (because the sentence would still have the same basic meaning if the clause had been omitted). (I.e., so-called nonrestrictive clauses.)

Example: The Life In 19x19 Forum, which only recently started up, has replaced the previously popular GoDiscussions Forum. (The interior clause is not essential to the meaning of this sentence, which would be essentially the same without the interior clause, and therefore does not "restrict" that meaning.)


"That" should be used in all other cases. (I.e., so-called restrictive clauses.)

Example: The hand that fed him was the hand he bit. (The clause "that fed him" is restrictive in the sense that it is fundamental to the meaning of the sentence because it further identifies "the hand.")

There may be some rare exceptions to the above rules of thumb but they will usually work.

Thanks very much.

At conferences, my girlfriend always cringed at the abuse, by native Dutch speakers, of the word "shortly". Many of them invariably used it when they meant "briefly", e.g:

"I will now shortly explain the difference between..."

Why not advocate spelling reform instead?

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So you've got an eye?
That don't impress me much

Let me diselaborate.

In my youth I had an interest in grammar, and I had never heard of this usage until a few years ago. I thought that perhaps it was a question of dialect, but tonight I found this site about it: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 02124.html

And I was reminded of this line from "In the Heat of the Night": "I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead."

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

- It is should have or should've not should of

probably not a grammar error, because people who write should of are hearing "should've".

- Not for all intensive purposes but for all intents and purposes

likewise above. Which is another argument against "American phonics"; the word 'and' must be spoken with a final d. It's not taught so people learn to screw it up.

- Momentarily means "for a moment" not "in a moment." I thank the airline industry for deforming this one. Yes, the meaning is widely used, but careful readers will spot it as an error.
- While studying, you may pore over the material (though a group of people may pour into a room.
- a lot not alot
- Irregardless. No. You mean irrespective or regardless.
- Normalcy. Yes, I know it has gained acceptance, but it should be normality.

Aren't the above words with the possible exception of irregardless, now standard? Words are created, come into fashion, die ugly deaths (and so forth) all the time. The fact there may be a previously existing word with the same meaning doesn't seem to matter. Normalcy is the best example of this. It's been in dictionaries since at least 1857. Therefore, I don't see much sense in complaining that it "should be" normality. Similarly 'irregardless' dates form about the same period (mid 19th century) -- but is different because it violates rules of grammar. So it's not proper English, but nearly standard now. It's in the Oxford English dictionary.

For the same reason I would say 'cannot' is acceptable, 'alot' (and so on) are probably acceptable too. The real problem here is if we don't allow these "new words", where do we draw the line? 1856? At middle English? 16th century usage? No loan words/foreign words (latin, french, german, etc)? It's unfortunate but unless there's a clear violation of rules (irregardless) I don't see how a choice but to accept the new words. The best we can do is use what we regard as proper English and hope it stands.

-

Thanks, Bill.

I don't see what's wrong with "I'll be with you momentarily." What is momentary in this sentence? My absence. It's an example of paronymy. We refer to food as healthy (it causes health) and to someone's complexion as healthy (it is caused by health); in the same way, the momentary quality of my absence causes my being with you.

Follow out the logic of the position that we should exclusively use "momentarily" to mean "for a very short time." In that case, "I can't be with you momentarily" would be an acceptable substitute for "I'll be with you very soon". Not even the most arch prescriptivists would understand you if you tried to use the former interchangeably with the later.

LOL, this threat is sooo useles!!1!1 wocares if u dont write proprly - cant people read? or r they not smart enough? grammr is 4 n00bs ! OMG i cant bilieve im even resp[onding to this, this forum is so st00pid!!

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

I quite agree. I tend more towards the "prescriptive" end of this debate, although I certainly do recognise that language does change - I just think that shouldn't stop me fighting against changes that make the language less useful

However, I strongly resist people who insist that split infinitives are some kind of crime against language, and even more so those that say the same about beginning and ending sentences with prepositions. The latter, in particular, is simply normal language, and you'll find lots of examples in virtually any book or article you pick up. Split infinitives, as far as I am aware, were only ever regarded as somehow "bad" simply because it wasn't done in Latin (or various modern European languages based on Latin, notably French) - but this is for no more profound reason than that the infinitive is a single word in all these languages! (EDIT: I now see Dr Straw has already made this point - apologies, I managed to miss a whole page of posts before starting my reply.) So I am more than happy to naturally split infinitives. And to choose prepositions to start and finish sentences with.

But most of those on judicata's list I do have problems with. Some of them seem to be particular to America - one other that particularly bugs me is Americans saying "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less". The latter is universally used in British English, and it actually makes sense - the former seems to me to only have arisen because some Americans (although I am sure not any readers of this forum, of any nationality) are too stupid to actually know what they are saying.

And a final grammar-specific one to add to the list - people who say "less" when they mean "fewer". (The former only applies to continuous quantities, but the latter to discrete ones.) This has sadly become almost universal - I am forever correcting even my own wife about this one, but the more I do so the more she delights in using it incorrectly and implying that I am some kind of dinosaur

This just emphasizes (emphasises?) the difference between American and British. Having spent approximately half of my live in each country I sometimes get confused as to which is the British usage and which is the American usage. This is an example. One country's reporting will refer to a team or a company in the singular, the other in the plural. And, for the life of me, I cannot remember which is which right now. Another example is the doubling of final consonanats before adding -ed. One country does, the other does, and I can never remember which is which.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

This sort of elitist attitude makes you wonder who the stupid are. Those who allow that language changes, and expressions evolve, or those who call "stupid" the people who accept the change...?

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

"The team are" is British; "the team is" is American.

This said, I've started seeing the former appear in American publications recently, so I think there's a shift occurring with this usage.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

"Should of" doesn't really belong here, I think, the use of such spelled out spoken English can be used just fine in eg conversations in a novel or on a chat server.
Or even in semi formal emails, for stylistic reasons.
The problem is when people start mixing formal and casual language without any reason.

I'll contribute with a really common mistake by us Swedish noob wannabe English masters:
Loose is the oposite of tight while lose is the oposite of win.
"Stones placed far apart form a loose framework that can be invaded."
"If you don't win a game of Go you lose."

/Mats

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mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

Well, because, as you say next, the momentarily strictly refers to the length of time you will be with the person - not the length of time until you are with them. I don't know which is historically the correct usage, but I don't like it anyway, since I do read it as meaning 'not with you for very long'.



I don't entirely understand what you mean here, but it does seem like a false argument. There is no rule or convention that sentences meaning the same thing must be equally usable.

I thoroughly deprecate this gratuitous slur on Americans, as if they are the only ones to make mistakes, and for it to come from a country where we have people forever saying "innit" just makes it twice as bad.

As to the actual usage, since even Americans discuss it as a possible mistake, I suppose we have to deprecate it too, although I have always tried to treat the American usage as meaning "I could care less if I really, really tried, but..." In other words, irony. But as many Brits grow up with a peculiar and almost pathological belief that Americans are incapable of understanding irony, I suppose I can see how there may be an unwillingness to accept that interpretation. A further irony is that the Americans apparently adopted the expression from Brits.

You can have a more reasonable and potentially useful discussion about American vs. British English if you discuss the obnoxious language of political correctness, or the popularity of deformed language such as the US "at this moment in time" for "now" or the Brit penchant for intellectually camp phrases such as "terminological inexactitudes". These may usefully tell us something about national attitudes. Grammar rants tend only to tell us something about individuals such as "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells". (What is the US equivalent of that?)

Alternatively, of more interest to me, could we discuss whether other languages have Knock Knock jokes. One that went down well at my grandsons' pantomime yesterday was:

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Who?
Who who
Sorry, I don't speak to owls.

But the joke that really had hundreds of kids rolling in the aisles was:

What do you call two robbers? A pair of knickers.

I realised with a start that appreciating that joke shows amazing linguistic sophistication for six and seven year olds. Since little ones can have such intricate mastery of language so young, I must admit I'm inclined to be in the judicata camp of being a bit impatient with grown-ups who show they could [not] care less about their language.