Grammar Issues

[BIGBULL29]

failure to use "whom"

misusing mass nouns -- "five people" instead of "five persons"

I don't think that most prescriptive grammarians deem "five people" as incorrect, although I see why it could be construed as such.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

When should one use "toward" and when "towards".

Taking the question seriously, there's no real difference.
Both are correct, Americans tending more toward the simple form, "toward,' and Brits leaning a bit more towards "towards."

 

[B_Nick4444]

I don't think that most prescriptive grammarians deem "five people" as incorrect, although I see why it could be construed as such.

yup

equivalent to saying three water or six air

person would be the unit of people, such as three glasses of water, or six cubic feet of air

 

[HazelGod]

My two peeves were already mentioned within the first five responses: homophones and ignorance of the apostrophe.

Nothing makes me wanna slap a bitch like seeing superfluous apostrophe's.

:tongue:

 

[transformer_99]

Ever think, some don't punctuate properly just to drive those that are that high strung, crazy ? Let it go, it's not the end of the world. Often times I'll wind up editing a post just to clean up misspellings from a keyboard issue or just "fat fingering" keys as I type.

 

[B_Monster]

Yep :biggrin1:

Ever think, some don't punctuate properly just to drive those that are that high strung, crazy ? Let it go, it's not the end of the world. Often times I'll wind up editing a post just to clean up misspellings from a keyboard issue or just "fat fingering" keys as I type.

 

[simcha]

its vs. it's

to, two, and too

I add these to others mentioned above. It makes me shudder to see how badly schools have prepared people for communicating in written form. Something is wrong with education. All you have to do is read throughout this place and others like it.

 

[vince]

Can someone explain to me when to use a semi-colon? I think they are generally underused and I'm not always sure about when to use them.

 

[simcha]

I don't think that most prescriptive grammarians deem "five people" as incorrect, although I see why it could be construed as such.

Yes and here's an illustration of the issue of current grammar versus grammar of even 10 years ago.

Words change. Language changes. Once most speakers of a language adopt a change, it becomes the norm and part of the "correct grammar" of a language. At least that's the way English has been formed since we've never really had anything like an Académie Française that actually dictates what proper grammar is for English.

English seems to have been much more democratic in its development. Majority rules the rules in English.

 

[simcha]

Can someone explain to me when to use a semi-colon? I think they are generally underused and I'm not always sure about when to use them.

Vince,

Honestly, I had to look this one up. I used to know when I was in college writing my thesis, because I had do know. And this is a thorny issue combined with comma usage and semi-colon usage. Then you have to figure out when to use a semi-colon versus when to use a colon.

 

[Gillette]

Can someone explain to me when to use a semi-colon? I think they are generally underused and I'm not always sure about when to use them.

Crass but memorable distinction; a colon is used when taking a dump.
(dumping a list into a sentence, that is)

Wanna bet I just misused the semi colon?

 

[D_Chaumbrelayne_Copprehead]

What are the most common English Grammar issues you see on websites such as these?

Also, if you have any questions about English Grammar, feel free to ask here or send me a message

-A Grammar Enthusiast

Hey, schwulboy, you must find it frustrating to care about grammar and see how a lot of people write ... ESPECIALLY online, in email ... and let's not even get into texting!

I pay a lot of attention to what I write IRL, especially about work or home stuff or something else that's of great importance to me. However, I've noticed that I make a lot more mistakes online, just to get the thoughts out ... which shows sloppy thinking on my part.

 

[Lex]

Can someone explain to me when to use a semi-colon? I think they are generally underused and I'm not always sure about when to use them.

There are three main reasons to use a semi-colon, Vince:

1. When you are connecting two complete and related sentences/thoughts.

Ex1: Jorge never liked it when Shana called him; they had been in an on-again, off-again relationship for years and he dreaded the drama.

2. If you are connecting complete sentences with a transitional word, precede the word with a semi-colon and follow it with a comma:

Ex2: Shana would not hesitate to call Jorge when she needed someone to punish; on the contrary, she enjoyed pulling in his heartstrings in various intermittent ways.

and

3. When you are separating items in a list (usually separated by commas) and one of the items contains commas as it contains many things/components.

Ex3: The following methods were used in gather public input: mailings to parents, guardians, and community members; posters placed at public libraries; emails to constituents; and advertisements via the company web site.

Hope this helps.

 

[Pecker Check]

I gave up trying to teach English (university level) the year I received tenure - a long-term license to preach. That was thirty years ago, and I haven't noticed much improvement in the use of the apostrophe since. International sites like this one, though, seem to prove that the general British population doesn't do any better with such aspects of written English than do we poor Yanks. (It's a puzzlement.)

Remember this great line from MF Lady? "And although she may have studied with an expert dialectitian and grammarian, I can tell that she was born - Hungarian!" (Substitute 'he' for 'she' and be amused by the, well sorta, reference to HUNG.)

 

[Calboner]

failure to use "whom"

The use of "who" as an object pronoun is not nearly as annoying as the use of "whom" as a subject pronoun -- like when someone says, "Whomever it may be." I would rather hear people not use "whom" at all than hear them use it where it does not belong.

misusing mass nouns -- "five people" instead of "five persons"

equivalent to saying three water or six air

person would be the unit of people, such as three glasses of water, or six cubic feet of air

You are wrong on both counts. First, that use of "people" is not a misuse. The noun "people" has been used as a plural in English since the 15th century, according to the OED. Second, "people" is not and has never been a mass noun. Even when it is used as a collective noun -- e.g., in a phrase like "the American people" -- it is still a count noun, as in the title of Churchill's book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.

 

[dong20]

I try to be grammatically correct, but like most I sometimes fail. I know I've looked back at posts and thought ... 'did I really type that?’

I suppose part of the problem is the informality and immediate nature of the interweb. Couple this with a haste to post in order to keep up with a flow of conversation and the dangers of proof reading one's own work. Not an ideal combination if one is seeking grammatical nirvana.

I do think there's a distinction between posters making occasional slips, those who are simply lazy and those who clearly have fundamental, systemic misunderstandings of the basics. Of course for many here English isn't their first language. For the most part though, I find it easy enough to work out which posters fit into which category, and for the most part I pay little attention - beyond the subconcious.

In the end, in such an informal, international venue such as LPSG, perhaps being understood is more important than achieving linguistic 'perfection'. No one here will be considering their posts as practice for a thesis, or so I'd imagine.

 

[B_Nick4444]

I don't think that most prescriptive grammarians deem "five people" as incorrect, although I see why it could be construed as such.

Yes and here's an illustration of the issue of current grammar versus grammar of even 10 years ago.

Words change. Language changes. Once most speakers of a language adopt a change, it becomes the norm and part of the "correct grammar" of a language. At least that's the way English has been formed since we've never really had anything like an Académie Française that actually dictates what proper grammar is for English.

You are wrong on both counts. First, that use of "people" is not a misuse. The noun "people" has been used as a plural in English since the 15th century, according to the OED. Second, "people" is not and has never been a mass noun. Even when it is used as a collective noun -- e.g., in a phrase like "the American people" -- it is still a count noun, as in the title of Churchill's book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.

I expected these responses (having heard them all my life), and I'm sticking to my guns.

What I stated is what I learnt both in the lower forms and prep school, and I'll be going to the grave maintaining this position.

These are the rules they'll have to pry from cold, dead fingers!:fight:

 

[Deno]

I know how to make good use of a colon. I find the topic interesting but frivolous. If you can make sense of most the garbage posted on this site a misspelled word or a misplaced contraction should be a walk in the park.

 

[Pecker Check]

Cal’s right: who’s to disagree with the OED that ‘people’ has been used for centuries (by good writers too) as a count noun? But I’m like Nick in not intending to abandon some lessons of my youth. I’ll let some count noun vs. mass noun quibbles go. But I can’t easily accept what is happening (on both sides of the pond) to ‘fewer’ vs. ‘less’. Every time I wait in the grocery store with my “ten items or less” I hear old lessons in my head. Linguistic change gets really perplexing, though, when political correctness gets involved. Long ago, I cringed to hear a teacher (not an English teacher) announce it was time for everybody to take THEIR SEATS. I knew that each student had exactly one seat to take and that the pronoun should be singular as well. I knew also that English had used masculine singular forms for centuries as gender-neutral forms. Kids like me were routinely corrected to say it was time for every little body (not just the boy bodies) to take HIS SEAT. Now third person plural forms have all but taken over as singular forms in the interest of negating the importance of penises (whether large or small). I understand and respect the social importance of this issue. As a linguist, I even understand that a pronoun like ‘they’ can evolve to take on singular as well as plural meanings. [After English doesn’t need two separate forms of ‘they’ to do what, for example, ‘ellos’ and ‘ellas’ still do in Spanish. Old grammatical distinctions can disappear without destroying society.] But I still resist seeing (and hearing) a distinction that I learned so well just disappear. It’s enough to make a school kid who actually stayed awake for English class shake its (that was the only third-person, singular, neuter form we used to have) head in dismay.

 

[vince]

Crass but memorable distinction; a colon is used when taking a dump.
(dumping a list into a sentence, that is)

Wanna bet I just misused the semi colon?

I don't think so. :smile: I knew some wag would work the 'other' colon into it.

Thanks to Simcha and Lex for answering the question. I have started using semi-colons in my posts. Feel free to correct my usage; I'm always looking to improve.

It's been my understanding that some nouns can be either mass or count nouns: Grain has become very scarce. Several grains are grown in this region.


Nick is, in the strict sense correct; five people, when referring to five individuals, is incorrect. It is better to say "five persons". "Five persons were arrested last night".

The word "people" can be a mass or a count noun: People can be nasty. There are many peoples inhabiting the Earth.

The plural of person is persons. The noun people is a mass noun like fish and moose; its plural is identical with its singular in most contexts, except when it becomes a count noun in an expression like "the peoples of the world."

When you are talking about individual persons, you generally choose the plural persons, for dictionaries define person as "a living human being." But when you are talking about groups of individual human beings, you generally choose people.