DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Grammar in today's world

It's rather scary what passes for proper grammar in today's world, especially in business communication.

As 1 example: I received an email at work warning of a telephone hoax going around that targetted young managers. The messege ended "All management personel iis to be made aware of this situation immediately. They spelled "personnel" incorrectly, and misused "is" for "are". This email came from someone who probably makes 6 figures, and this is merely the 1 sentence that was the most painful to read. There were probably 6 or 7 other spelling mistakes in the email. Quite an accomplishment in a world with spell checkers on damn near every email client.

Then, on my way home, I passed a sign for a business offering tutoring. It posed the question: "Your child, Who's future?"

I said to myself ..... "Your child, who is futuire?" ... what the hell does that mean?

I sincerely hope that they aren't offering tutoring in English and/or grammar. That one scared me a great deal ..... because they probably are ..... and God only knows what else they will teach incorrectly to the kids they are paid to tutor.

It just boggles my mind that people will not take the time to present themselves professionally in business communication. It further appals me that someone offering a teaching service didn;t even bother to check their own advertisement for proper usage of the English language. Unfortunately, this seems to be, more and more, the norm in business today. There is a show on TV, "Who's smarter than a 5th grader?". I sometimes have to wonder .........

I read things almost daily that I can't believe an editor missed. Then again, maybe the editor didn't miss the mistake, but didn't know any better.

I also can't believe what I hear people say at times. What bothers me even more is that we weren't corrected by our teachers or parents. They let us grow up sounding like fools.

The word wash is one of the things that bothers me most. Down here, a lot of people say "worsh". I moved to Michigan and my friends called me out on it, thank God. Otherwise, I would still be one of the dolts that says "I need to worsh my clothes".

LOL, my mom and some of her siblings say 'worsh'.

Many around here say...wush.

Most people just don't take about grammar anymore. With the internet and online chat rooms, most people just shorthand every other word and most don't even know how a word such as definitely is spelled. Most will just text/type "def." when using it. I think it's a shame and shows how bad our educational system has gotten because I doubt if they even do vocabulary tests these days.

Maybe someone that's still in grade school or has kids in school could tell me otherwise?

I can't believe how often I hear big money athletes say "aks".

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I said to myself ..... "Your child, who is futuire?" ... what the hell does that mean?

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I find this ironic.

That's not as bad as a fundraiser event that I work last night though. It was a variety show and each act had a sponsor. Someone was sponsored by the Missoula Federal Credit Unioin. I'm sure MFCU wasn't happy to see their company name misspelled.

You see it right here on the board ...

lose / loose
hear / here
they're / there / their
to / too / two
dominant / dominate
affect / effect
drivel / dribble

But if you mention it, you get flamed for resorting to spelling-smack or grammar-smack. So you let it slide, but it still makes you cringe when you read it.

Yeah ... it's bad on discussion boards ....... but when people do it in a business capacity, it's disgusting.

Between texting, shorthand, firefox spellchecker, and then MSFT Word correcting everything for you, it's tough to use proper English and grammar IMO. I was a great speller and grammar checker in school but ever since I just turned it over to Word and then texting, I find myself making these grammar errors more often when I don't have Word of FF doing it for me.

I can't believe how many people in this country can't understand English, and the we as Americans are actually asked to push one for English

Soon it will say "pulse dos para Inglés".

About one week before I blow up their answering centers

My personal favorite is "for all intensive purposes".

For all intesive purposes if are team continues to loose there games it's going too affect my desire to watch them hear on the west coast.

Change it's with its and affect with effect.

Fresh from the gameday forum:

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Btw can you hunt bore with a knife or play tennis with a boat ore ?

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Ouch.

You should read what I read on a daily basis.

It's not just grammar. It's not knowing proper punctuation. Managers I work with that make well over six figures put together some of the most embarrassing emails I've ever read.

I don't want to make a blanket statement, but I believe there is a positive correlation between poor grammar and intelligence. Not always. But I would say the trend is more positively correlated than negatively correlated.

The ones I despise are the new noun/verb mismatches that you hear all the time on sportstalk radio,....

"The Tribe go to Boston this weekend,..."

"The Avalanche slide over to Toronto tomorrow nite,..."

I bet you love the announcers that call runs batted in "R'sBI". That never fails to annoy the bleep out of me.

Agreed,...they are "runs" -- they're not "R"'s,...say so if that's what you mean.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttt Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmm.

Ooorah:

An argument can be made in favor of such usage. Since the Avalanche are a team (group of people), it's acceptable to refer to them with the noun in singular and the verb/adverb in the plural. The Brits do this all the time, as do announcers from Canada. At the same time, a group of individuals under the banner of a single unit can be referred to in the singular:

"Aston Villa are enjoying a bit of a run at 3 consecutive wins."
"It's been 3 games since Toronto have enjoyed a win."

I think that grammatically, both are accepted- although it always sounds a bit odd (and maybe a little pretentious) when I hear it.


It works for teams like the Colorado Avalanche, Detriot Shock, etc. Not so, if the team's name is in the plural (Jets, Sharks.) BUT, if they refer to the team using the name of their city of origin, it's ok:

"The Patriots have scored 3 consecutive touchdowns here at Wembley. New England are enjoying a 24-point lead."

Confusing, huh?

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I bet you love the announcers who call runs batted in "R'sBI". That never fails to annoy the bleep out of me.

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there.... fixed it forya.

*wink, wink*


Sorry, Dave. This would be one of my "pets"...

I dare you to tell my English teacher that.

I have a boss that substitutes the word know for no, never uses spell check, inserts the wrong punctuation at the end of sentences--which, by the way, are not only grammatically incorrect but ambiguous.

He makes life/work hell because we all laugh at him, don't understand him yet are subjected to his yearly performance reviews of us.

That's what I say,...if you can't write it down correctly on an English paper then it is improper, I don't care what Canadiens and Brits do with it,....

Yes, the argument is the word represents a group or plural entity, but the word itself is singular and requires a singular verb. Period.

...don't you mean your "American" teacher?


Mark Twain: "England and the United States: two countries separated by a common language."

We've been taught that a group such as the Browns represents many people, but it is in fact one singular unit.

Truth be told, I'm with the two of you. When you read my posts, you'll note that I proscribe to the rule you just outlined. It's the way I was taught, and it just sounds better to me.

The other way sounds funky to me, but I don't think it's a breech of grammar.

Again, the dynamic is well-accepted, but the word Browns is a plural word, spoken or written,....

"The Browns is sucking this year."

I ready British books, so I'm very aware of the difference. So many weird words in their language...