Just had this turn up on my Facebook feed

Synchronicity

Mmmm, there's something about a woman in uniform....

Down boy, bad KAT

Quote from: d_Guy on 08 November 2018, 01:15:04 AM
Kitty, these are questions asked out of ignorance with NO malice intent. My grammatical knowledge is poor and punctuation usage even weaker. Some of this is due to simple sloth but some also to lack of comprehension (yes, I know, it's simply a matter of voltage).
Even with these limitations I still, like you, find our shared language endlessly fascinating.

I don't know what "abused lexis" means. Does it mean the improper addition of a word to a language or the misuse of a word within a language or something else entirely?

Could they also be Grocers' and Wargamers' apostrophes? I once learned one was to use the definite article, "the",  when one was indicating a singular thing (but this is likely now archaic).

I read your phrase as "...and (there)for(e) an abomination..."? (This a question and not a got'cha.)

Of the several exhaustive guides to English which do you consider most authoritative?

Do you consider spelling variations to be within the scope of accents? (Asking for a friend.)

N.B. I edited this post twice to correct spelling and grammar.  :-)   O.K. - three times!

The bizarre quote is a bit of willfully archaic King James-speak.

Under "abused lexis" I'd go for perversions like "lacks behind", as used by a colleague who didn't know the word "lags", and then tried to pretend that this was a standard American variant (which it isn't, I am assured by many literate Americans, who are more numerous than some would believe). This isn't legitimate evolving dialect, it's illiteracy (which in itself is not culpable, but cannot be excused in a teacher, and becomes blameworthy when one tries to lie and bluster one's way out of trouble). Adding words, however, seems to me to be an essential part of keeping a language and its literature alive; those who decry such trends are the sort of conservative fogeys who get a bad reputation for the rest of us.

I have a vested interest in not being rigid about spelling; my own is hopeless! Since English spelling is arbitrary, irrational, inconsistent, and the spine-chilling result of French vocabulary grafted onto a Germanic language with Latin influence by Dutch printers paid by the letter, I don't feel too concerned about this.

The most rewarding books on the tangled subject are, imffho, Modern English Usage by Fowler (the unrevised version), and Usage and Abusage by Partridge. The one I refer my students to is English Grammar in Use by Murphy, despite the sinister Hibernian name, but it's not a book for grown-ups.

Nice one, Mike !

It USED to bother me that folk couldn't differentiate words like 'There'.....'They're'....'Their'.....'Two'....'Too'.....'To'.....etc.

I truly can't be bothered now.

Kitty....FFS.....

How many of us could go 'back in time'.....Three....Four.....Five ?.......Hundred years ago....and make ourselves understood.........

When did the 'English language' "Start" ??

Cheers - Phil

Honestly, the problem we lingo police are concerned about is the way people sometimes speak and write so messily that their contemporaries can't understand them.

This isn't aimed at any of my brothers-in-arms at this forum.

Two things I do find infuriating, because no matter how you look at them they are just wrong, are substituting of for either have or 've and substituting lead for led. Been there before with these beefs but they still keep crossing my screen. Why does it bother me? I spent a working lifetime trying to enable people to write correctly, seemingly to no avail.

I remember being in the first year in secondary school and being given exercises in the English lessons such as: write out the following sentence correctly -

Their they where just we're weed expected to find them.

I'm not sure these methods are used in schools any more. It did however mean that come the second year onwards most of us could write essays correctly without too much bother.

An English colleague a few years ago illustrated his take on the way these distinctions are not idle nit-picking by inviting suitable punctuation of the sentence i helped my friend jack off his horse.

He was fired shortly afterwards.

 

 

Thanks for the serious reply to my questions, Kitty.
Leman has already posted the most frequent "abused lexis" I see, the "of" for "have" substitution.
Another favorite is "president" for "precedent".
Many lawyers make a very good living thanks to omitted or misplaced commas.
A headline I saw sometime ago: "Rachael Ray finds comfort in cooking her family and her dog".
When I was a boy I actually enjoyed diagraming sentences. I would climb down from daydreaming to parse a complex sentence.
Because I liked the title I just ordered a used copy of the Partridge book.
If I EVER sort out affect/effect I'll feel I have arrived.

I like THOSE grammar police!

to affect = to influence

to effect = to cause to happen

The shaky British morale affected their shooting, and the Zulus closed to melee range.

Thereafter their superior logistics allowed the redcoats to effect a rapid retaliation.

Rachel sounds like a true artist in the kitchen!

Yes, it looks so simple when you see it expressed but it falls back into the memory swamp fifteen minutes later.
Need a memory device, a rhyme perhaps, like:
"I" before "E" except after "C" (and a couple dozen exceptions you have to memorize).

It is very common, especially in America. I have read articles where the only word used is affect, even when effect is needed. Try this: the effect of their shooting was to affect their morale; their shooting affected their morale; their shooting had a terrible effect on their morale. You can see why people just pack in and use one or the other all the time.

Quote from: Techno on 08 November 2018, 10:30:38 AM
How many of us could go 'back in time'.....Three....Four.....Five ?.......Hundred years ago....and make ourselves understood.........
Cheers - Phil

As FK says (more or less), being able to communicate effectively with our contemporaries is the point. I mean, when are we likely to be speaking to someone who was around 500 years ago ............ oh ......... er ............. hi, Phil.   

Thanks, Leman.
Have put a note where I (and everybody else) can see it for reference.