Do you guys suppose Uncle Stevie's seen this?
- Thread starter Erudite Scholar
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Where for a while wouldn’t work in its place, it is probably not an adverb, so it should be two words: a while.
I quit reading after the above incomplete sentence. What does someone who can't write a complete sentence have to say about proper grammar?
Differences in the acceptability of different grammatical forms happens over time. 'Awhile' and 'alright' will always grate me, because I learned that they are incorrect forms of those words (or pairs of words), but both have become acceptable. I still don't use them (lol), but I can't ding another author for going with the grammatical flow.
I've always had a problem with the difference between persuade and convince. You may persuade someone, who is then convinced.
John
John
I have a problem putting my socks on straight every morning.But do you think I care?
OMG is in the dictionary.
That's all I'm gonna say.
That's all I'm gonna say.
I have my own problem with acronyms. Namely, that many of the people who like to use them do so without any context and assume the reader knows what they mean.
Well, this is the problem as I see it:
We're going to reach a point where the balance is going to tip, and the people who communicate with emojees (or however you spell that) are going to outnumber those who actually understand language and they're going to start coming for us the way the gorillas came for Charlton Heston.
As someone recently pointed out to me, language evolves. We may have been taught to write (or spell) one way, but social insistence and acceptance of other alternatives are now becoming mainstream - and thus find their way into the OED.
It's times like those that make me feel like a dinosaur.
It's times like those that make me feel like a dinosaur.
Dammit, what's "OED"?!?
Oxford English Dictionary, I would imagine.
"A while" is a time, a noun. The article "a" before "while" is a sure sign that you're dealing with a noun. Notice in the following sentence that you could replace "a while" with another article-noun combination such as "a year":
It's been a while since Squiggly tried marmite.
"Awhile" means "for a time" and it's an adverb. Notice in the following sentence that you could replace "awhile" with another adverb such as "quietly":
Go play awhile.
Finally, just to make it confusing, if you rephrase the previous sentence and replace the adverb with a prepositional phrase, you need the noun again because an adverb can't be the object of the preposition.
Go play for a while.
- See more at: Grammar Girl : "A While" Versus "Awhile" :: Quick and Dirty Tips ™
It's been a while since Squiggly tried marmite.
"Awhile" means "for a time" and it's an adverb. Notice in the following sentence that you could replace "awhile" with another adverb such as "quietly":
Go play awhile.
Finally, just to make it confusing, if you rephrase the previous sentence and replace the adverb with a prepositional phrase, you need the noun again because an adverb can't be the object of the preposition.
Go play for a while.
- See more at: Grammar Girl : "A While" Versus "Awhile" :: Quick and Dirty Tips ™
There is not one way in writing/spelling English, if considered worldwide. American English differs from British English. Center/centre, color/colour, etcetera.
I had to use Google Translate to help me here, because I can't entirely agree with you, but couldn't put it into words myself. Google explains it as follows, and that's exactly how I felt about it:
Definition of 'persuade': cause (someone) to do something through reasoning or argument.
Definition of 'convince': cause (someone) to believe firmly in the truth of something.
Using these definitions doesn't necessarily mean someone is convinced when he's persuaded.
Then again, you're American, these definitions might be derived from British English and might therefore be different from American English.
The Nameless
M-O-O-N - That spells Nameless
I'll be honest, I didn't even know "awhile" was a word, I can't recall seeing it written, or I have and just subconsciously processed it as "a while", which is weird because I use "alright" instead of "all right" (sorry skimom2).
As has been said, language does evolve, and it must do whether we like it or not. If it didn't we would still be talking in thou's and doth's and ye olde's. If a saxon were to here us speaking today's English - British or American, he would be aghast at what we've done to his language, but it's absolutely necessary.
As has been said, language does evolve, and it must do whether we like it or not. If it didn't we would still be talking in thou's and doth's and ye olde's. If a saxon were to here us speaking today's English - British or American, he would be aghast at what we've done to his language, but it's absolutely necessary.
Well, that's the thing. Language exists so we can communicate ideas and exchange information. To that end it has to be mutually intelligible based on what we learn through use (the way we learn our mother tongue(s)) and informal teaching, as well as what we are taught in formal lessons (usually, but not always, as kids in school).
Using 'here' instead of 'hear' changes the context. As a fellow native speaker, the 'glitch' in understanding is temporary - I recognize it as a typo within a second or two of reading it. Someone with English as a second or foreign language would probably experience a longer delay in understanding, or may find understanding eludes them completely depending upon their proficiency.
All 'living' languages do and will change. Meanings of words will also shift, depending upon sociocultural changes of use which then go on to affect our cognitive understanding of meaning and then give the word a new, or radically different, inherent meaning (which then also feeds back along and into the cognitive and sociocultural meanings and contexts). These changes are further affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces - some usages are drawn closer to the main body (in this case, the language's Standard form, be it Standard British English, Standard American English, whatever) while others have a spell in the sun and are cast aside (for example, when I was 16 or so, 'dweeb' for 'idiot, sap, thicko' was a common insult; it wasn't new then, though we thought it was, and it's not heard now - see also 'sap', which has at least two more 'truer'/non-slang meanings
. You can also look up the etymology of 'dude', which, like 'cool' goes in and out of common use...and has done for a long time).All in all, while evolution does occur and is probably inevitable (whether or not all changes are desirable or really necessary), it's not a case of 'anything goes' in terms of spelling, grammar and contextual use for any language, and especially not English in today's world where it is the/an unofficial lingua franca (even if it is increasingly defaulting to the Standard American form rather than the Standard British one).
The Nameless
M-O-O-N - That spells Nameless
That's not evolution, that's just radically changing the spelling
Well, that's the thing. Language exists so we can communicate ideas and exchange information. To that end it has to be mutually intelligible based on what we learn through use (the way we learn our mother tongue(s)) and informal teaching, as well as what we are taught in formal lessons (usually, but not always, as kids in school).
Using 'here' instead of 'hear' changes the context. As a fellow native speaker, the 'glitch' in understanding is temporary - I recognize it as a typo within a second or two of reading it. Someone with English as a second or foreign language would probably experience a longer delay in understanding, or may find understanding eludes them completely depending upon their proficiency.
All 'living' languages do and will change. Meanings of words will also shift, depending upon sociocultural changes of use which then go on to affect our cognitive understanding of meaning and then give the word a new, or radically different, inherent meaning (which then also feeds back along and into the cognitive and sociocultural meanings and contexts). These changes are further affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces - some usages are drawn closer to the main body (in this case, the language's Standard form, be it Standard British English, Standard American English, whatever) while others have a spell in the sun and are cast aside (for example, when I was 16 or so, 'dweeb' for 'idiot, sap, thicko' was a common insult; it wasn't new then, though we thought it was, and it's not heard now - see also 'sap', which has at least two more 'truer'/non-slang meanings
All in all, while evolution does occur and is probably inevitable (whether or not all changes are desirable or really necessary), it's not a case of 'anything goes' in terms of spelling, grammar and contextual use for any language, and especially not English in today's world where it is the/an unofficial lingua franca (even if it is increasingly defaulting to the Standard American form rather than the Standard British one).
Damn nitpickers, that's not evolution, that's typing on my phone with predictive text at 6am just before sleep.