Daydreamer Desk

Language and grammar evolve and I think deep down he's mostly upset that what he is right about now, he may be wrong about in decades to come as the rules of the English language adapt. I'm surprised he's not upset we don't speak Old English anymore.

I don't think he's particularly upset about anything, it's very tongue-in-cheek.

That said, mashing words together is part of almost every language in the world, and many Germanic languages are pretty much built on the concept. Romance languages like Spanish, when spoken in real life, also have tons of dropped syllables and are darn near unintelligible to listen to if all you know is what you learned in a high school text book.

That is how all languages evolve over time. The dictionary is supposed to change. However, lolspeak and lazy sms methods don't belong. :P

He screwed up on "feeling badly." Linking verb, dude. Unless you're talking about dating activities.

Damaging my Grammar Geek cred a bit here is the fact that I *just* got Miss Cellania's name. I got it. Only took me six months of Neatoposts. I'm awesome.

Don't feed bad (or badly), SethH. A lot of people I know took years to recognize that it's a joke.

I agree with Dev. This guy is obviously an English major type and not a Linguistics major type or he'd understand that differences register, dialect, elison, internal and external sandhi, etc. do not amount to incorrectness.

However, bad grammar is bad grammar and should be exterminated.

Er, make that "differences IN"

I have to agree with him. Maybe I'm just impartial though, being a linguistics major.

Amidala - that's right. With "or" you go with the number of the subject closest to the verb - so "child" is singular and takes "does" as a singular verb. IE -

- My mom or my dad does the dishes.

- My sister or my parents do the dishes.

I should really be grading my students' grammar hw instead of doing this.

"Don't feed bad (or badly), SethH. A lot of people I know took years to recognize that it's a joke."

Oh wow, I just realized it was a pun and I've been coming here for years!

Actually, saying "things we say wrong" is wrong, or more appropriately, incorrect. I do believe that it should be: "things we say incorrectly".

But I'm sure that's part of the joke.

Wait - you mean my daughter isn't the only one who says "tooken"?? That drives me crazy. I'm fairly certain she does it just to drive me crazy.

He forgot AX for ask. That one sends me over the edge every time.

My pet peeve is when people say "orientate". What? What the hell is that? A Chinese potato?

When you are lost, you orient yourself. That way you become oriented. Yes, you can go through orientation, but afterward you are not "orientated". (shakes head in disgust)

How about when old people pronounce huge without the 'H.'

After all that he still says "different than."

Americans do not speak English; they speak American. Hence the fuck-up's.

Sorry, you don't feel "badly" any more than you feel "happily."

Funny that no one ever corrects "sad," "angry," "ecstatic," etc.

I couldn't stand looking at him, so I stopped after ten seconds.

in a related pet peeve...i can't stand when an adult corrects another adults grammar. unless you are (truly) doing it because you care about the person and want to prevent them from an embarassing situation in, say, a business meeting or social settings. it seems to me that the majority of 'grammar correctors' seem to be doing so to show their knowledge - rather than to (truly) help the other person out. so if everyone could please stop doing that, i'd be much obliged.

ps, hopefully it goes without saying that i don't care to have my grammar errors scrutinized, analyzed and publicized. thank you.

I don't mind how the language evolves, like how "cool" also means "great", but I can't stand lazy language. My mother used to drive me nuts with "Want to go with?"

If we're so darned civilized and special, can't we at least take the time out for a complete sentence and proper spelling? Since I've begun losing my hearing I've gotten even less patient with the spoken language.

At least any mistakes I make are legitimate errors and not willful ignorance and laziness.

If I "feel badly" then I'm not very good at feeling ... and that makes me feel bad.