Grammar Nazi

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Walter Oobleck

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
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blunthead said:
I'm still trying to learn how and when to use "may" versus "might". I found myself writing that I may do this or that, then decided it's should have been might all along.
may - have permission to <you may go now>: be free to <a rug on which children may sprawl — C. E. Silberman> —used nearly interchangeably with can

might —used in auxiliary function to express permission, liberty, probability, possibility in the past <the president might do nothing without the board's consent> or a present condition contrary to fact <if you were older you might understand> or less probability or possibility than may<might get there before it rains> or as a polite alternative to may<might I ask who is calling> or to ought or should<you might at least apologize>
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I rely on that cartoon...the Looney Tunes? Dog there at night, looking up, "A wish I may, a wish I might...aw shucks! it's a satellite!" You can learn a lot (ummm, alot?) from cartoons. Bugs never covered that one. A-one and A-two, Conjunction Junction! What's your function!
 
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danie

danie

I am whatever you say I am.
Feb 26, 2008
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Grandpa said:
As tightly wound on rules as I must seem to be now, this particular transgression doesn't bother me because, even though it's incorrect, it's easier on the ear.

It's sort of like saying, "I wish that someone would take this corpse away, and they could keep it in their freezer for all I care." "Someone" is singular. "They" is plural. (You see the talent I have for stating the obvious?) They don't agree. But since we don't have a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun that works (other than the abominable "(s)he" or "she/he," which I translate to "she/he/it," which I then abbreviate to "sh/it"), we blend the number disagreement.

When I see a contraction like "there're," I start to think of sentences like, "There're rarer horrors than Aurora," and both my ears and tongue start to hurt. Although it would be a good (if painful) sentence for Japanese students to practice their English phonetics on.
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Easier on your ear maybe! Not mine. I cringe when I hear it and start twitching like Ms. Mod!
I agree that "There're" is cumbersome in writing; I usually stick with writing "There are."
But when I hear it--ouch!
Love that "corpse" sentence, BTW. Sounds like a lead-in sentence for a good novel.
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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Aug 2, 2006
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mustangclaire said:
I'm not a brilliant speller. I have to "write" using my finger on the table if I come across a word I can't remember how to spell. And have been known to rewrite a sentence to not include a word i'm not sure about. :wink2:
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Me too! I'll also change a singular noun to a plural so I can safely proceed. Sometimes if something sounds incorrect I can't tell if it is.:apologetic: (BTW, thank God and Jordan for the Message Board Edit feature.)
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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blunthead said:
Players of the SKMB game The Person Below Me (TPBM) are forced to do this - to use their or they even though in reference to a single individual - since no player necessarily knows the gender of the next person to play, and since we universally refuse to be forced into a disruptive-sounding rule. To use the plural with the singular, though technically incorrect, simply sounds more acceptable, and so is.

What frightens me in modern English usage is that certain mistakes seem to be have come to sound better to most than the correct ones. The word "less" is chronically used when "fewer" should be, for example. It bothers me no end.
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And I spend too much time at Facebook, where there are a plethora of postings of what look like posters with grammatically incorrect statements. Most of these mistakes are of the plural subject/singular verb or vice versa variety. I often Comment with a correction.
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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Atlanta GA
One of my sisters, who married a southerner, insists on pronouncing the word salmon "sal-mon". I can't recall hearing her hubby's use of the word one way or the other, so I don't know if she continues saying it on her own or in order not to embarrass him. Maybe she says it because she's always been terminally rebellious, or maybe in order to best annoy her siblings who really were raised grammar Nazis like her parents. I don't know, but it sure pisses me off.
 
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Spideyman

Spideyman

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Jul 10, 2006
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Moderator said:
I don't think this one has been mentioned yet. It should be should have, not should of.
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Happens with would of/ could of/ should of....

This is one of those errors typically made by a person more familiar with the spoken than the written form of English. A sentence like “I would have gone if anyone had given me free tickets” is normally spoken in a slurred way so that the two words “would have” are not distinctly separated, but blended together into what is properly rendered “would’ve.” Seeing that “V” tips you off right away that “would’ve” is a contraction of “would have.” But many people hear “would of” and that’s how they write it. Wrong.

Also many Northerners add an "r" at the end of "idea" thus pronouncing it as "idear". I have seen students spelling it with the "r".
 
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