The weird & wonderful world of English grammar...

Elegant Point · Satellite level

RE: The weird & wonderful world of English grammar...

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Transfer from the Loughborough M25 thread Part 3

KK:

I teach on a law conversion course and after complaints from firms of solicitors that the law trainees we were sending them could not write good English we introduced grammar into our introduction module. An expert from the English department produced appropriate rules and I had to give a lectures on them. These were so boring that people walked out before the end and we quickly decided to record the lectures so they could be listened to online. I remember telling them that knowing the correct rules wouldn't make them happy, it would just make them incredibly irritated when others, e.g. on the BBC news, get it wrong.

*****

Christine wrote:
SuperT wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
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However, I love the people who use 'whom' randomly, thinking it makes them sound posh

I love this discussion and totally agree with CD. Another of my pet hates is when people incorrectly use "myself" when it's not a reflexive pronoun, again presumably because they think it sounds posh.
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I LOVE ME!!!!!

KK's response yesterday to SuperT's comment:

So agree with inappropriate use of 'myself'. People use is as a subject too - as in -'Jack and myself are going to... ' when they would never say ''Myself is going to .. '

Nix's response earlier today to SuperT:

Oh yes! Loathe this. It often goes hand in hand with the phrase not a problem in lieu of yes, e.g. please can I have a menu? Not a problem. arrggghhh!!!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Don't get me started on that ghastly, utterly insincere & grammatically meaningless Yank import, "sorry for your loss"...

christ · Futures qualifying

Stircrazy wrote:
Don't get me started on that ghastly, utterly insincere & grammatically meaningless Yank import, "sorry for your loss"...

... or "thoughts and prayers".

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

christ wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Don't get me started on that ghastly, utterly insincere & grammatically meaningless Yank import, "sorry for your loss"...
... or "thoughts and prayers".

Tanaqui · Intermediate Club Player

christ wrote:

... or "thoughts and prayers".

For me, that one's now eternally associated with hypocritical US politicians doing performative grief after yet another mass shooting, while doing absolutely nothing to challenge or change US gun laws.

christ · Futures qualifying

"Mr Bates verse the Post Office"

It's versus, TV presenter - versus

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Some real Bobby Dazzlers from readers of Times Online articles this week: "Parkistani descent", "iotolahs", "elicit affair" & "short sited" (not even hyphenated!). disbelief I refuse to accept that those are simple typos or even symptomatic of dyslexia (which I accept is a genuine handicap). I'm more inclined to see them as a reflection of widespread ignorance of correct English spelling, i.e. people are simply typing what they hear & are too lazy to check whether they've got it right. I give up!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
Some real Bobby Dazzlers from readers of Times Online articles this week: "Parkistani descent", "iotolahs", "elicit affair" & "short sited" (not even hyphenated!). I refuse to accept that those are simple typos or even symptomatic of dyslexia (which I accept is a genuine handicap). I'm more inclined to see them as a reflection of widespread ignorance of correct English spelling, i.e. people are simply typing what they hear & are too lazy to check whether they've got it right. I give up!

Ever since this thread has been started, whenever I have a 'brain fade' and forget how to spell something, I am now googling it as I'm terrified of making a mistake biggrin biggrin

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Some real Bobby Dazzlers from readers of Times Online articles this week: "Parkistani descent", "iotolahs", "elicit affair" & "short sited" (not even hyphenated!). I refuse to accept that those are simple typos or even symptomatic of dyslexia (which I accept is a genuine handicap). I'm more inclined to see them as a reflection of widespread ignorance of correct English spelling, i.e. people are simply typing what they hear & are too lazy to check whether they've got it right. I give up!
Ever since this thread has been started, whenever I have a 'brain fade' and forget how to spell something, I am now googling it as I'm terrified of making a mistake

Well done, you!

goldfish · Futures qualifying

My father always corrected people who said different to instead of different from and this has continued with my family ever since. However different to is now used all the time, especially on the BBC. I am interested to know if this change is now considered grammatically correct. Who changes the official rules and does it just happen when alternative usage reaches a certain level?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Some real Bobby Dazzlers from readers of Times Online articles this week: "Parkistani descent", "iotolahs", "elicit affair" & "short sited" (not even hyphenated!). I refuse to accept that those are simple typos or even symptomatic of dyslexia (which I accept is a genuine handicap). I'm more inclined to see them as a reflection of widespread ignorance of correct English spelling, i.e. people are simply typing what they hear & are too lazy to check whether they've got it right. I give up!
Ever since this thread has been started, whenever I have a 'brain fade' and forget how to spell something, I am now googling it as I'm terrified of making a mistake

Nah, Bob - just type it and be done smile

If it's right, then you're fine

And if it's wrong, then you'll give someone something to get excited about - it's a win win

In answer to goldfish, my grandma would also chant, as though it were a god-given rule, "compared TO, different FROM"

(do you note the subjunctive there, SC? smile )

And, yes, I found this rule in all the grammar books (this was, say, 40 years ago)

But then I was reading a 19th century novel which used 'different to' smile

So, obviously, what was right in the 1800s, became wrong in the 1900s, and then is now fine again in the 2000s.

(and note the lack of apostrophe in 1800s etc biggrin )

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

goldfish wrote:
My father always corrected people who said different to instead of different from and this has continued with my family ever since. However different to is now used all the time, especially on the BBC. I am interested to know if this change is now considered grammatically correct. Who changes the official rules and does it just happen when alternative usage reaches a certain level?

And don't forget the ghastly Americanism "different than"! I may very well be wrong (& I've never actually bothered to check), but I attribute the genesis of that particular variant to the influence of early German immigrants on American English. "Different from" (it will come as no surprise to anyone that I'm very firmly in the "from" camp! wink ) in German is anders als, while als on its own frequently translates as "than" (in comparatives, for example - er ist grösser (*) als sein Bruder = he's taller than his brother). As they learned English, they would have thought in their native tongue & translated from that when they spoke in English & the more the existing locals heard it used, the more it would have rubbed off on them & bingo! It became standard usage/accepted.

(*) that should have been an Eszett or "sharp s" as used in the Nussloch thread, but for some reason, it ain't working this evening! cry

As a rule of thumb, think about the verb from which "different" is derived: would you say "my daily routine differs to my neighbour's"? That said, while "different from" has been around for a very long time & is the more common version, "different to" has passed into common/accepted usage, so neither is incorrect & which you use is a matter of personal choice.

We in the UK are not blessed, if that's the right word, with the equivalent of the Académie française or the Real Academia Española to act as the supreme authority, as it were, on the usage, vocabulary & grammar of the English language, which is governed by convention rather than formal rules, so there are none to change. Arguably the closest we come to formal rules is in the writings of people like Henry Fowler, Ernest Gowers (both published early in the 20th century) & those who have come after them (e.g. Eric Partridge), some to greater acclaim than others. Even I can't ignore the fact that language evolves, often to the personal dislike of those of us who take an interest in such matters, & we aren't going to stop it, however much we may complain. Linguistic change just happens, often without many of us noticing, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with it! wink

CD: I always thought it was "similar to" & "different from"... "Compared" with or to is another can of worms. I'm more comfortable with"compare with", as I was always told that the preposition following the adjective should reflect the prefix & as "com" is from the Latin com, an archaic form of the classical Latin cum...

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Thank you SC for this explanation - very interesting. I shall continue to wince and correct every time I hear different to or different than - it is inbuilt.

So how do you get apostrophes and inverted commas to appear on here - Ive tried a couple of times on my posts but they disappear.

-- Edited by goldfish on Sunday 28th of January 2024 11:03:30 PM

-- Edited by goldfish on Sunday 28th of January 2024 11:06:24 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

goldfish wrote:
Thank you SC for this explanation - very interesting. I shall continue to wince and correct every time I hear different to or different than - it is inbuilt.

So how do you get apostrophes and inverted commas to appear on here - Ive tried a couple of times on my posts but they disappear.

-- Edited by goldfish on Sunday 28th of January 2024 11:03:30 PM

-- Edited by goldfish on Sunday 28th of January 2024 11:06:24 PM

Same thought ! How?! They always drop off mine also, from phone or laptop!