Free Republic

I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery. [snip] Who and Whom This one opens a big can of worms. “Who� is a subjective — or nominative — pronoun, along with "he," "she," "it," "we," and "they." It’s used when the pronoun acts as the subject of a clause. “Whom� is an...

GAFFE-OLOGYStrategery, misunderestimated, refudiate: former President George W. Bush and Sarah Palin have been chastised by journalists and academes for their inventive language and occasional grammatical gaffes for years. Now it is President Obama’s turn. Here comes “Obama Grammar: Using the President’s Bloopers to Improve Your English,� a new book that parses Mr. Obama’s command of the language, or lack thereof.“The first wordsmith is, in fact, an occasional stem-winder who is grammatically challenged,� says author and Harvard-educated historian William Proctor, who pored over 3,000 pages of the president’s official speeches and remarks. He’s convinced that Americans — particularly students — can...

Many brilliant people have some communication weak spots. Unfortunately, the reality is that written communication is a big part of business, and how you write reflects on you. Poor spelling and grammar can destroy a professional image in an instant.Even if your job doesn't require much business writing, you'll still have emails to send and notes to write. And if you're looking for a job, your cover letters and resumes will likely mean the difference between getting the interview or not.Bad grammar and spelling make a bad impression. Don't let yourself lose an opportunity over a simple spelling or grammar...

The English language is full of problems like the one presented by there, their and they're. Most native English speakers pronounce these the same way; therefore, it is difficult for some to judge in which situation to use which spelling. Each spelling means a very different thing; if you'd like to learn the difference, read on! Use there when referring to a place, whether concrete ("over there by the building") or more abstract ("it must be difficult to live there"). Also use there with the verb BE (is, am, are, was, were) to indicate the existence of something, or to...

The Obama Department of Justice has ruled that Arizona school districts may not dismiss teachers who have poor grammar skills. “In an ideal world we would hope that those teaching our children would be able to set a good example,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “In the real world we must make compromises.” Holder pointed out that “the rules of grammar are only a convention. Non-discrimination is the law. There should be no question in our minds over which takes precedence. Besides, grammar evolves through usage. Who’s to say what will be considered appropriate in the future? What the law...

If the atrocious illiteracy of the average Internet commenter has ever driven you to anger, frustration, or violent homicidal thoughts, you'll love this series of Internet CAPTCHAs, created by Matthew Baldwin. By requiring you to discern from various sets of simple but somehow commonly mistaken words just to be allowed online, these CAPTCHAs would rapidly rid the web of phrases like "Your an idiot" and "I'm definately getting Nickelback tickets." We dream of a day when this Internet entrance exam is mandatory, creating a grammatically sound, idiot-free online experience for the four of us who actually pass it. Below are...

The university hands down a new edict about punctuation -- but the world's grammar nerds will never back downGrammar lovers today were saddened, shocked, and mightily displeased at the news that the P.R. department of the University of Oxford has decided to drop the comma for which it is so justly famed. As GalleyCat reported, the university's new style guide advises writers, "As a general rule, do not use the serial/Oxford comma: so write 'a, b and c' not 'a, b, and c'." Cue the collective gasps of horror. The last time the nerd community was this cruelly betrayed, George...

I know what a noun is, and what a verb is, but when people use the word "like" in a sentence, "And he was like really mad." Is there a term for the usage of "like" in that context?

After mangling our language for years, Americans are complaining about the invasion of traditional British lingo, says Kath Hinton. New Yorkers always fall for a nice English accent: whenever my well-spoken sister-in-law visits, they trill at her flowing diction and faultless vowels. Coming from Liverpool, I have a trickier time. In fact, I stopped ordering butter after three waiters in one smart restaurant failed to grasp my pronunciation. "Bootta! Bootta!" I pleaded, while my American friends wept with joy at my embarrassment. Now, however, it is the words we Anglo-Saxons use, not how we say them, that is causing a...

The talking heads continue to yap about the source of the savagery driving Jared Lee Loughner. Many on the left have tried, and failed, to pin the blame for the Tucson massacre on the Tea Parties or, just as ridiculous, on Sarah Palin. Meanwhile, the 900-pound gorilla in the interrogation room remains unquestioned and unchallenged. Its name is "deconstructionism." Deconstructionism is historical relativism on crack cocaine. The "theory" is being freely and openly distributed to almost every college student in America. Courses in most of the humanities typically include the works of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. In fact, it...

Jared Lee Loughner’s rants about grammar and mind control track closely to the writings of a conspiracy theorist who believes that is how the government controls the populace, one leading group says – and the man tells POLITICO he agrees with some of Loughner’s statements. The far-right activist, David Wynn Miller, said in a telephone interview that he didn’t know Loughner, but agreed with his statement in a YouTube video that “the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” “Absolutely I would agree with it,” said Miller, 62, a former tool-and-die maker from Milwaukee...

Freeppers? In the sixties late century I had my first English Course which was Eletronic Teacher (one of this boondozels pseudo-cientific thing that used bone induction subliminar learning techs...) and at end sixties Thomas Gefferson House in Brazilia - Brazil for two years... I do have great difficulty with the double letters in words, as pp, ll, ss and so on... Can you help me with a rule?

A headteacher has been forced to make a grovelling apology after a bungling teacher sent a school report to a pupil littered with at least FOURTEEN grammatical errors. The short report sent by the schoolgirl's form tutor was strewn with misspellings, incorrect apostrophe use and bad sentence construction. Shockingly, the first error can be found in the subject line of the email, titled: '...... form tutor report for parents everning'. The short report, sent by a form tutor at Gleed Girls' Technology College,in Lincolnshire, was littered with misspellings and grammatical errors The teacher, from Gleed Girls' Technology College, Spalding, Lincolnshire,...

This is some of the most Biblical God honoring passionate moving language that I have ever heard from a preacher of His Word... and I catch just a glimpse of not only God's glory but our place in it... delighting in the glory of God... and working to produce that joy in others.

Forgive me for the vanity, but I have been watching a lot of TV for the first time in many years, and I can't help noticing how the grammar standards have fallen. Back in the fifties, the slogan "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" was widely criticized for helping to abet the breakdown of the like/as distinction. "Like" used to apply to nouns, and "as" to verbs. I quit worrying about that one several years ago, long after everyone else did.But I promise never to abandon the dangling modifier and the unparallel sentence. A dangling modifier does not have...

When I think about the rules of grammar I sometimes recall the story—and it’s a true one—about a lecture given in the 1950s by an eminent British philosopher of language. He remarked that in some languages two negatives make a positive, but in no language do two positives make a negative. A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, yeah.” Don’t we all sometimes feel like that voice from the back of the room? When some grammatical purist insists, for example, that the subject has to go before the verb, aren’t we tempted to reply, “Sez you!”?...

A teenager was recovering from a lightning strike that happened while he stood inside his own garage on Wednesday afternoon. Stephon Owens, 15, was just about to push a button on the garage door opener when a surge of electricity shot through the house on Bell Meade drive in Douglas County, his parents told Channel 2 Action News reporter Eric Philips. “They came in here to put the basketball hoop together and ….and that’s when it went through his arm,” said Sabrina Bryan, Owens' mother. The teenager and his father were working to assemble a basketball net when the storm...

My neighbors are thinking of homeschooling, three girls, 3rd, 5th and 6th grade. They asked my advice about online curriculum and resources, especially in math and grammar. Any suggestions, links and experiences most welcome.

I was recently reminded of how our Grammar and other, um, correcting Free Republic members - beloved as they are - are invaluable to our growth as individuals and as Free Republic posters.... (see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2485902/posts?page=5 post 3 and 4 for that latest reminder...) Anyway, Joel Schnoor of Apex, NC, has written this blockbuster book (a sleeper best selller) that I want to recommend to all Grammar "Police" here on Free Republic and those who "grow" from their corrections, um those marvelous teaching moments.

It is not my intention to raise controversy, nor is it my intention to belittle anyone, but I feel I need to speak about something that is bothering me.

I ask you if you died tonight and after you met our maker you met these three men and they asked you: "What did you do with the Republic we give you?" What would be your answer?

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Two U.S. men convicted on federal vandalism charges for fixing typos on public signs said they have landed a book deal to write about their adventures. Benjamin Herson of Oregon and Jeff Deck of Massachusetts said they were given a $150,000 advance to write "The Great Typo Hunt," which is due out Aug. 3, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday. The men were sentenced to probation and ordered to stay out of national parks for a year for correcting the grammar on a 70-year-old sign at the Grand Canyon's South Rim during their 2008 cross-country...

Please use "a lot", since those words are actually in the dictionary. </grammar rant>

Roadkill on the Information Superhighway by: Deborah Lambert, March 30, 2009 Charlotte Allen reminded readers on mindingthecampus.com that when you hear the words “for the 21st century” in conjunction with an educational topic, “you know it’s time to run for cover.” Here’s why: During a recent conference of English teachers in San Francisco, a report released by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) suggested that teachers should “quit emphasizing essays and formal papers” . . .and “bring 21st-century writing habits into the classroom.” Allen noted that as recently as five years ago, this would have meant “blogging, e-mailing,...

When President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics. Grammar junkies. Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.” The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought...

We got this photo of the woman who was viciously killed during Lil' Kim's birthday bash ... apparently just before she died. The pic shows Ingrid Rivera in an elevator with a group of girls on their way up to the VIP section of Spotlight Live, the club that hosted the party. The party was Saturday night. Last night, Rivera's body was found on the roof of the building in a shed. She died from blunt force trauma to the back of her head. The photographer who took the pic tells us it was taken around 1:00 AM Monday. Lots...

I started reading Obama's "Audacity of Hope," to discover more inconsistencies between what he wrote then and what he speaks now. Only problem is that Obama is one of the worst writers I've ever read. It is so bad that the book should be called, "The Audacity of Ghastly Grammar and Sucky Syntax." The book is a mess of run-on sentences that are chock-full of errors in grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Run-on sentences was something that my fourth-grade teacher taught our class how to avoid by breaking them into separate sentences. One would think that, by the time he finished...

Intuitive Grammar Develops By Age Six, Say Researchers ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2008) — Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that children as young as six are as adept at recognising possible verbs and their past tenses as adults. In a study conducted by the University's Child Language Study Centre, children aged between six and nine were given sentences containing made-up verbs such as 'the duck likes to spling' and were asked to judge the acceptability of possible past tense forms. The study focused on the process the children used to come to their conclusions rather than whether their...

Leaders to adorn sackcloth and ashes to fight crime At Tuesday’s Birmingham City Council meeting, Mayor Larry Langford proclaimed Friday, April 25, a “day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes” in Birmingham. Birmingham Weekly reported two weeks ago that the mayor purchased 2,000 burlap sacks for ministers and other community leaders to wear at a Plan 10/30 summit. To many Christians, sackcloth and ashes symbolize humility and repentance, but the mayor’s decree came dressed with the usual accoutrements - printed on fine, invitation-stock paper and wrapped in a bright silver folder, adorned by the magic hat logo Langford commissioned for...

"If I was President, this wouldn't have happened," John Kerry said during Hezbollah's war on Israel last summer. As 2004's Democratic presidential nominee should know, he should have said, "If I were President…" It's sad, but hardly surprising, that the subjunctive evades someone of Kerry's stature. The English language is under fire, as if it strolled into an ambush. It would be bad enough if this assault involved the slovenly grammar, syntax, and spelling of drooling boors. But America's elites -- politicians, journalists, and marketers who should know better -- constantly batter our tongue. The subjunctive, for instance, lies gravely...

For at least 150 years, people have been trying to solve the pronoun dilemma. That would be the dilemma that causes odd word formations out of fairness to both genders: "he or she," "him or her," or "s/he." Some avoid the gender question altogether by speaking in the plural, as in "If anyone asks, tell them what they need to know." Some people have taken the more extreme approach of devising entirely new pronouns that specify no gender. "Ne," "hizer," "thon," "shem" and "herm" are just a few that came along and faded quickly. They're known as gender-neutral, or epicene,...

Helping Your Child Prepare 1. Be sure your child/children get plenty of rest the night before the test and eat a good breakfast on testing days(sic) 2. The morning of the test-taking day should be calm for your child. Make sure that you and your child are not rushed and that your child has time to prepare for the day. 3. Take time to talk with your child about your confidence in him or her. Encourage your child to take the test serious, but don't cause your child to be anxious about the test. Let your child know that you...

Not allowed to post articles from the El Paso Times... All I can do is give you the link.

If there is a better losing cause than the fight against slovenly language, I am unaware of it....A man who has taken it on is Robert Hartwell Fiske, who runs an online monthly journal called the Vocabula Review (www.vocabula.com), which, as Mr. Fiske writes, "battles nonstandard, careless English and embraces clear, expressive English," and hopes to encourage its readers to do likewise. Vocabula means "words" in Latin, and words are the name of Mr. Fiske's game. Read the Vocabula Review, and you will be convinced that the battle ought to be yours, too. Mr. Fiske is the latest--and let us...

Mike Greiner teaches grammar to high school sophomores in half-hour lessons, inserted between Shakespeare and Italian sonnets. He is an old-school grammarian, one of a defiant few in the Washington region who believes in spending large blocks of class time teaching how sentences are built. For this he has earned the alliterative nickname "Grammar Greiner," along with a reputation as one of the tougher draws in the Westfield High School English department. Or, as one student opined in a sonnet he wrote, "Mr. Greiner, I think you're torturing us." Greiner, 43, teaches future Advanced Placement students at the Chantilly, Va.,...

SCOTUS has weighed in on a very controversial topic, though since it was not the issue of the case, the ruling cannot be said to be definitive. In both written and spoken English (both British and American usage) there is a growing tendency to omit the "s" after the apostrophe in the genitive form of singular nouns ending in "s". Traditionally this was the practice only in the plural, thus it would be "New Yorkers' preferences are generally for the Democrats" but "Kansas's voting record leans towards the Republicans". One of the largest parks in central London is St James's...

When are Liberals going to get it? The result of the past several elections show that the country is very nearly split 50-50 and yet liberal movie stars and musicians go out and bash Republicans. Why deliberately poke the eye of 50% of your potential market - Econ 101 anyone? As a result movie revenues are down, concert tickets aren't selling (Dixie Chicks) major contracts are not being renewed. The same with news outlets. The NY Time, LA Times, WAPO, etc. are all reporting declining revenue and profits. Gee, is there any link to the fact that they go out...

College administrators are scratching their heads trying to figure our how the straight-A students they accepted tanked on the SATs. “The University of California system, for instance, reported a 15-point drop in applicants’ scores but no corresponding dips in other measures of their quality, such as class rank and grade-point average,” Eric Hoover reports in the September 8th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “At La Salle University in Philadelphia, SAT scores fell an average of 15 points for applicants and about 10 points for admitted students even though officials had not altered their admissions strategies.” “Robert G. Voss,...

As readers of this space know, we frequently subject academics to what we view as constructive criticism. As travelers through the blogosphere may have noticed, they sometimes answer those critiques. “Someone named Candace de Russy (on the usually unbearably dreadful National Review blog on the university situation 'Phi Beta Cons') cites someone else named Laura Ventura at Accuracy in Academia to the effect that the fact that the journal Critical Inquiry has more citations of Derrida and Marx than of C. S. Lewis and Thomas Jefferson is an indication of the journal’s ‘anti-American, anti-war, and anti-Christian’ stance,” Bucknell sociologist Alexander...

The academic left has painted itself into a peculiar corner. They urge the rejection of traditional grammar as chauvinistic, or, more frequently, “hegemonic.” Unfortunately for them, they eventually have to read papers by students who have previously been taught by teachers who also share this outlook. One of the seminal texts that promotes the “grammar is dead” thesis is Preparing to Teach Writing by James Williams. “Ironically, the third edition of Williams’ book Preparing to Teach Writing appeared in 2003, the same year the National Commission on Writing made public its discovery that ‘Recent analyses indicate that more than 50...

Slang, jargon, shortcuts, vernacular, jive -- whatever you want to call the stuff, we all use improper speech at times. I used "ain't'' in my column recently. But it was with distress that I read Dwyane Wade's comment about teammate Udonis Haslem's tossing of his mouthguard at a ref in Game 2 of the Bulls-Heat series. "I don't think he would do nothing like that intentionally,'' Wade said. The sentiment's fine. I mean the grammar. The double negative, harmless as it seems -- maybe used for effect, maybe not -- connected in my mind for an instant the depressing bridge...

Between them, city councillors Howard Moscoe and Glenn De Baeremaeker have more vowels in their names than most of their colleagues. But they'd like to buy one more -- the letter U -- for the city. On Monday, they will try to sweet-talk the administration committee into a policy to buy software with a built-in Canadian spell-check. "It is our attempt to keep a little bit of Canadian culture alive and well and not to be smothered by the great elephant next door called the United States," said Mr. De Baeremaeker, who represents Scarborough Centre. "With all the rocket scientists...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Remember when a noun was defined as a person, place or thing? In a teen magazine that is becoming part of the Baltimore middle-school reading curriculum, the noun is being redefined as "stuff." That makes a verb "what stuff does." It's part of a new approach in the Baltimore school system to teaching reading and writing in middle schools. Some say the new method doesn't have much of a track record. The change is being made after a dismal performance on state standardized tests this spring. The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday that officials have spent at least...

Though copy editors and popular writers have known it for long, an experiment by a psychologist establishes the key to impressive writing - keep it plain and simple. Writers who use long words needlessly and choose complicated font styles in print are seen as less intelligent than those who employ basic vocabulary and plain text, according to new research from the Princeton University in New Jersey to be published in the next edition of Applied Cognitive Psychology. In the study titled 'Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly', Daniel Oppenheimer based his findings...

Grammar analysis reveals ancient language treeIt's not the words, it's how you use them that counts. Jennifer Wild The languages used in Papua New Guinea have few common words, making it hard to determine their origins. When it comes to working out the relationships between ancient languages, grammar is more enlightening than vocabulary, scientists say. There are some 300 language families in the world today. Researchers have long studied similarities between the words in different languages to try to work out how they are related. But the rate of change in languages means that this method really only works back...

PORTLAND, ORE. - Shortly after Katrina slammed into New Orleans, a radio announcer described the plight of residents "refugeed" to other areas. Apparently one of the lesser known effects of the storm was its impact on the noun "refugee." Then a recent article about the electoral reform commission that's been studying problems with the 2004 campaign included this sentence about voter registration: "Democratic activists also said intimidatory tactics had been used against ethnic or racial minorities ..." In his novel "1984" George Orwell depicted a police state that maintained absolute power through a variety of tactics, including the imposition of...

Missing comma sends wrong message:- NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. | July 03, 2005 5:11:34 AM IST A minor omission in anti-drug signs at bus stops in North Miami Beach make it look like local police are supplying drugs, not crusading against drug use. What was left out was a comma or dash or some sort of grammatical separator. The signs read Say NO' to Drugs from the NMB Police D.A.R.E Officers, the Miami Herald reported. I know what the message should be, but right now it means something else, Emilio Guerra, a local resident and grammar stickler, told Mayor Raymond...

All right, boys and girls, it's been twelve years since that September morning in 1993 when your mom gave you one last hug, brushed away your tears, and told you to listen to your first grade teacher. Well, you've made it. You're graduating high school. In the next couple of months, you'll be walking down that long aisle, watching your step as you climb to the stage, taking that diploma from your principal's hand — and then, afterwards, posing for photos with weepy relatives. You're ready for college . . . Not so fast, Poindexter. Here's a pop quiz (answers...

Please post your favorite ZOT threads here....Here's mine!TOm Harikins has lied to me, and them MOds DOne ZOtted my POst! Posted on 07/20/2004 9:30:08 AM PDT by amham98 Tom Harkins lied to me he said that he would call me 2 to 3 weeks after the eliction and help me get my ssi. he has never called to help he stole a vote theffs belong in jail I have tried to get ssi and disability for the last 14 years I was not working at the time that I started for it they denied me then now whty denie me...

Representatives of the popular Times Roman font recently announced a shortage of periods and have offered substitutes -- such as inverted commas, exclamation marks, and semicolons -- until the crisis is overcome by people such as yourself, who through creative management of surplus punctuation can perhaps allay the constant demand for periods, whose heavy usage in the last ten years (not only in English but in virtually every language in the world) is creating a burden on writers everywhere, thus generating a litany of comments, among them: "What the hell am I supposed to do without my periods? How am...