Spelling and grammar mistakes!

pdk42 said:
Stratts said:
Should of / could of

If you don't know why that's wrong then you should have paid more attention at school :thumbsup:
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Don't you mean "should of paid more attention at school" :wink:
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No. Unless you are being sarcastic which has never done me any favours on forums.. :D

http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/should-have-vs-should-of/
 
When people say to the waitress. "Can I "get" a Big Mac.... "
No. You can "have" or "order" a Big Mac/Pizza, etc but the waitress is the one who will actually "get" it.

-You are not allowed behind the counter or in the kitchen, so NO, you cannot "get" it...

Far too American for me
 
None of it really bothers me as long as the sentence can be understood. The only thing that does annoy me intensely is, "Could of" instead of, "Could have"
 
Dewi said:
None of it really bothers me as long as the sentence can be understood. The only thing that does annoy me intensely is, "Could of" instead of, "Could have"
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now that really is the mark of a Pedant :o :thumbsup:
 
English Lesson

On his 70th birthday, Rob was given a gift certificate from his wife, Joan. The certificate was for consultation with an Indian medicine man living on a nearby reservation, who was rumoured to have a simple cure for erectile dysfunction. Rob went to the reservation and saw the medicine man.

The old Indian gave him a potion and with a grip on his shoulder warned, "This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful, and then say, ‘1 – 2 – 3’.” “And when you do, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform for as long as you want." Rob thanked the old Indian, and as he walked away, he turned and asked, “How do I stop the medicine from working?" "Your partner must say ‘1 – 2 – 3 - 4'," he responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

Rob was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited Joan to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1 – 2 – 3 !" Immediately he was the manliest of men. Joan was excited, and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked, "So - what was the 1 – 2 – 3 for ?"


And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
 
I notice things but really doesn't bother me especially when on the odd occasion I make mistakes too. I speak and understand a fair few languages and sure I make mistakes on occasion there as English is my main. Often people are just happy I can communicate in the other language when they can't speak English and will certainly forgive me errors.
 
thepits said:
Dewi said:
None of it really bothers me as long as the sentence can be understood. The only thing that does annoy me intensely is, "Could of" instead of, "Could have"
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now that really is the mark of a Pedant :o :thumbsup:
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Also, people who don't start sentences with a capital letter :rofl:
 
I can largely ignore grammatical mistakes these days because I'm pretty sure I'm not perfect either.

What gets my goat is people who say rotor instead of disc. This is the UK and unless you originate from across the Pond it is a disc not a rotor.
 
Dewi said:
English Lesson

On his 70th birthday, Rob was given a gift certificate from his wife, Joan. The certificate was for consultation with an Indian medicine man living on a nearby reservation, who was rumoured to have a simple cure for erectile dysfunction. Rob went to the reservation and saw the medicine man.

The old Indian gave him a potion and with a grip on his shoulder warned, "This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful, and then say, ‘1 – 2 – 3’.” “And when you do, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform for as long as you want." Rob thanked the old Indian, and as he walked away, he turned and asked, “How do I stop the medicine from working?" "Your partner must say ‘1 – 2 – 3 - 4'," he responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

Rob was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited Joan to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1 – 2 – 3 !" Immediately he was the manliest of men. Joan was excited, and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked, "So - what was the 1 – 2 – 3 for ?"


And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
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Nice!
 
Interlargos. Does my nut in. Lots of grammar and spelling mistakes annoy me, but the sad thing is that the world is simply learning to read around them :(

Technology is killing the English language.

Worse though, I think, is something I read recently about some US states considering removing the teaching of cursive handwriting from the school syllabus :o
 
Bing said:
Worse though, I think, is something I read recently about some US states considering removing the teaching of cursive handwriting from the school syllabus :o
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I seem to recall reading somewhere that has been done in some school districts... :(
 
You think English is easy?? wasn’t for me!!!!
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig..

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’ ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this ..

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.

And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.

People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.

In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.

It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun comes out we say it is clearingUP.When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP,

for now my time is UP,

so……..it is time to shut
 
On a serious note, I'll take a small bet that if you plotted the correct use of grammar and punctuation on this forum (or any other) against age, you'd get a pretty good correlation showing that the older people are, the more likely they are to write the language correctly. The reason of course is clear - people are no dumber than they used to be, so it must be that they're not being taught properly. It's odd really since the exam pass rate is better than ever.
 
pdk42 said:
On a serious note, I'll take a small bet that if you plotted the correct use of grammar and punctuation on this forum (or any other) against age, you'd get a pretty good correlation showing that the older people are, the more likely they are to write the language correctly. The reason of course is clear - people are no dumber than they used to be, so it must be that they're not being taught properly. It's odd really since the exam pass rate is better than ever.
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I honestly think it's technology. It started with texting. Abbreviations and incorrect spelling made its way to MySpace. Instant Messenger. Facebook. Instagram. Snapchat. Twitter. We know so many people, and interact with folk we'll never meet, and it's all self-reinforcing. People care less too. I read through a post and find an error, I correct it. Many just don't bother.

But I take your point, the educational system does not seem to have a strategy to combat this truncation of the language and lazy approach to communication. Employers have an issue with it though, hence the recent adverts on the telly about how to present yourself to someone who might give you a job, with the girl talking through her application letter in text and emoticon speak.

Trouble is, what's the solution ?
 
It's just so easy and quicker to be lazy. Especially when we are writing text messages. I often find myself submitting a post, only to read it through and realise I've mist of all the The's, from the start of sentences. :oops:

My pet hates are American Z's and commas in the wrong place. :P
 
The incorrect use of there, their or they're. It really isn't hard to learn the difference between those three similar sounding words.
 
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