More annoying grammatical sins: I'm a person THAT...

[BurtWorm]

It's "I'm a person WHO..." Most people get that one, but then way too many don't make the connection that this holds for every instance in which the noun describes a human being: She's a doctor who cares for people. They're students who don't like to study.

And while I'm at it, I have a confession to make: I committed a sin in a thread title yesterday, switching from a singular subject to a plural pronoun to weasel out of using sexist language: If a person is x, then they are not y. I don't know why I unconsciously made that error--maybe to save space rather than type "he or she." I can't stand "he/she" except on forms. I must type out "he or she." I even type out "himself or herself."

[wtmusic]

1. How 'bout a link to your dirty sin?

I do that all the time. Drive myself nuts.

[BurtWorm]

3. I'm too ashamed.

:evilfrown:

PS: Oh, all right!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1479708&mesg_id=1479708

[wtmusic]

8. Don't feel bad

there ARE A LOT of people who make that mistake :evilgrin:

[Patiod]

2. Or "the company says that"...

No, companies don't talk.

Less vs. fewer also gets under my skin

[BurtWorm]

5. "Less dollars"

:grr:

Like teeth on tinfoil!

[Liberal Veteran]

30. I'm a person that don't care.

And if I was you, I would't neither.

[RebelOne]

4. Or you could say: "If some people are X, then they are not y."

[BurtWorm]

7. True

That's usually the most elegant solution, but not always. For example, sometimes you might be talking about something that is clearly a solitary activity, and crowding up the hypothetical subject with "they" doesn't work. I can't think of an example now.

[arwalden]

6. Oh, That Must Be THEM At The Door Now...

"May I speak with Mrs. Smith..."
"Yes... this is HER."

[BurtWorm]

9. Some very intelligent person I was speaking with recently

made that mistake and I nearly had a heart attack. "It's usually US morans who always make that mistake."

[ProfessorGAC]

25. I Avoid That Trap

When i answer the phone and someone says, "I'd like to speak with ProfessorGAC" (obviously nobody calls and says that, they use my full name), i always answer "You are." No grammatical problems that way.
The Professor

[donsu]

10. my misuse of then and than must drive you up the wall :)

nt

[RebelOne]

11. The misuse of it's and its drives me up a wall.

Along with making possessives out of plural nouns. Example: The boy's and girl's are in school. Arrrgggg, makes me want to scream.

[BurtWorm]

15. Spelling errors don't bother me as much as grammatical ones

for some reason. :shrug:

[tjwmason]

24. No such thing as spelling rules

They are a horrible modern invention, having been around for a mere couple of hundred years; get rid of them say I.

My view is that language is essentially vocal, most of grammar still exists when speaking. Other grammatical consturctions are communicated through tones of voice - these need to be replicated in written language by the use of various stops &c.

Spelling, on the other hand, is not present in spoken English, and as a rigid system is not needed in written English. Conventional spellings do assist us, but variations from these for purposes such as variety, humour, or emphasis should never be considered to be errant.

That said, both my grammar and spelling are bloody awful.

[BurtWorm]

27. That was pretty damn perfectly spelled for such an argument.

:thumbsup:

And you're right that orthography is useful to make reading easier. It is true that we read by recognizing patterns. We don't read words letter-by-letter once they have been imprinted on our neurons sufficient times. From an editor's perspective, anything that makes something easier to read and comprehend is a positive thing in my book. I like consistency in spelling. But I'm not a fanatic about it. One of the very best writers and editors I've ever known was also one of the most atrocious spellers.

[johnnie]

12. You guys are going to make some of us too gun shy to post

My grammar sucks and I know it. Oh well, I'll post anyway. :)

[BurtWorm]

19. "You guys"?!?! How gauche!

;)

[Demit]

13. The recent trend to put apostrophes in plural nouns. "Hero's", e.g.

And of course, the perennial "it's" misused as a possessive. "The dog wagged it's tail".

It's so easy! "It's" is a contraction for "it is". That's all!

[kick-ass-bob]

14. Your such a looser.

I'm gonna go have desert now, apple pie!

:7

[RebelOne]

31. That's another one that makes me cringe.

The misuse of lose and loose.

[Dufaeth]

16. Use "e" instead of he or she

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpivakPronouns

[kick-ass-bob]

17. why not (s)he? n/t

[Dufaeth]

18. There is a whole set

E - subjective
Em - objective
Eir - possessive (adjective)
Eirs - possessive (noun)
Emself - reflexive

[BurtWorm]

20. You'll sound REALLLL intelligent using those!

;)

Just kidding. I doubt those will catch on, though. Except for "em." I hear people saying "Give it to em" all the time.

[LynzM]

21. Hey BurtWorm

Have you read Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct? It's really fascinating, and there is a part where he talks about the singular subject/plural pronoun issue, and he makes a very good case for it not actually being an error. If you're curious, I'll find it tonight and post some of it for you :)

Along the lines of the 'that' vs. 'who' issue is the 'that' vs. 'which' issue, which also drove me crazy when I was editing!

[BurtWorm]

22. Interesting.

I'd like to see a case made for that "mistake's" grammatical acceptability. Not that it would make me change my ways.

[LynzM]

23. LOL, ok

I will find that section of it tonight!

[LynzM]

32. Ok, you asked for it :)

(This may be my longest DU post ever... sad)

From Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct

Sometimes an alleged grammatical "error" is logical not only in the sense of "rational" but in the sense of respecting distinctions made by the formal logician. Consider this alleged barbarism, brought up by nearly every language maven:

Everyone returned to their seats.
Anyone who thinks a Yonex raquet has improved their game, raise your hand.
If anyone calls, tell them I can't come to the phone.
Someone dropped by but they didn't say what they wanted.
No one should have to sell their home to pay for medical care.
He's one of those guys who's always patting themself on the back. (an actual quote from Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye)

They explain: everyone means every one, a singular subject, which may not serve as the antecedent of a plural pronoun like them later in the sentence. "Everyone returned to his seat," they insist. "If anyone calls, tell him I can't come to the phone."

If you were the target of these lessons, at this point you might be getting a bit uncomfortable. Everyone returned to his seat makes it sound like Bruce Springsteen was discovered during intermission to be in the audience, and everyone rushed back and converged on his seat to await an autograph. If there is a good chance that a caller may be female, it is odd to ask one's roommate to tell him anything (even if you are not among the people who are concerned about "sexist language"). Such feelings of disquiet- a red flag to any serious linguist- are well founded in this case. The next time you get corrected for this sin, ask Mr. Smartypants how you should fix the following:

Mary saw everyone before John noticed them.

Now watch him squirm as he mulls over the downright unintelligible "improvement," Mary saw everyone before John noticed him.

The logical point that you, Holden Caulfield, and everyone but the language mavens intuitively grasp is that everyone and they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound variable," a different logical relationship. Everyone returned to their seats means "For all X, X returned to X's seat." The "X" does not refer to any particular person or group of people; it is simply a placeholder that keeps track of the roles that players play across different relationships. In this case, the X that comes back to a seat is the same X that owns the seat that X comes back to. The their there does not, in fact, have plural number, because it refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all. THe same goes for the hypothetical caller: there may be one, there may be none, or the phone might ring off the hook with would-be suitors; all that matters is that every time there is a caller, if there is a caller, that caller, and not someone else, should be put off.

On logical grounds, then, variables are not the same thing as the more familiar "referential" pronouns that trigger number agreement (he meaning some particular guy, they meaning some particular bunch of guys). Some languages are considerate and offer their speakers different words for referential pronouns and for variables. But English is stingy; a referential pronoun must be drafted into service to lend its name when a speaker needs to use a variable. Since these are not real referential pronouns but only homonyms of them, there is no reason that the vernacular decision to borrow they, their, them for the task is any worse than the prescriptivists' recommendation of he, him, his. Indeed, they has the advantage of embracing both sexes and feeling right in a wider variety of sentences.

--------------------------------------------------

:) It's a really neat book. This is only one tidbit in a discussion that embraces derivations of words, language itself, the function of the brain, our usage of language, the development of language families, creoles, sign language, and tons of other neat stuff. It's a cool book, you might check it out if you get a chance!

[BurtWorm]

40. Interesting.

I have to confess, I'm prejudiced against Pinker because his last book, The Blank Slate, had a reputation similar to The Bell Curve, for reasons I can't recall exactly. There was some racist implication in it.

[LynzM]

44. Hrm, hadn't heard that

But then, it's not a field I'm terribly familiar with, though I find it interesting. I picked the book up in a bookstore one time, read a few pages, and added it to my 'books to read eventually' list. I finally got it for Christmas this year. Nothing in the book struck me as racist, but maybe he was really watching what he said this time, or something. He definitely defends cultural slang in this book as a valid grammar, so... who knows.

[Mrs. Overall]

26. "If I WAS president" instead of "If I WERE president"

The subjunctive mood--people forget to use it!

"Some writers seem to think that the subjunctive mood is disappearing from English, but that's probably not true. We use the subjunctive all the time to accommodate this human urge to express possibility, the hypothetical, the imagined.

Examples:

If my brother were my boss, I wouldn't have a job today.

If I were to lose my job, I wouldn't be able to pay my bills.

If I were eight feet tall, I'd be one heck of a basketball player.

If I should grow to be eight feet tall, I'd be a great basketball player. "

[BurtWorm]

28. Oddly enough, the Brits are less prone to using subjunctive than

we Americans are. I don't know why.

[barackmyworld]

29. I use "they" as a gender neutral pronoun

I think it's accepted as gramatically correct now.

[rug]

33. Does this rule apply to animals?

[BurtWorm]

34. That's a very good question.

Technically, animals are not treated like humans when it comes to grammar. Most people think of their pets as "persons," so it seems unnatural to treat them as neuter objects when speaking about them. But saying "The horse WHO ran in the third race," for example, seems kind of odd to me.

[RebelOne]

47. From "Woe Is I," a grammar book

If the animal is anonymous, or we don't use its name, it's a that: "There's the dog that won the Frisbee competition."

If the animal has a name, he or she is a who: "Morris is a cat who knows what he likes."

[DrZeeLit]

35. Oh my god (sorry cliche)... that's one of my BIG pet peeves!

But... I gave up my grammar nazi hat after the election.

However... that's just here. In the "real world," where I read freshman essays for a living, I circle the heck out of that error with bright green (or purple, depends on mood) ink!


And YES, the #1 error is... singular/plural pronoun swaps. Arrrrrgh!

[Taxloss]

36. The which/that rule.

People who use "which" when they mean "that". "The Treasury, the part of the government which handles finances ..." AAARGHH! It's "that handles", you fools! It's a defining element!

[BurtWorm]

38. Good catch!

The grates on me too.

[RebelOne]

50. Two rules for which and that

If you can drop the clause and not lose the point of the sentence, use which. If you can't, use that.

A which clause goes inside commas. A that clause doesn't.

A little poem:

Commas, which cut out the fat,
Go with which, never with that.

[Floogeldy]

37. Where does "I'm a person WHOM" come in?

[BurtWorm]

39. "Whom" is always used in an object phrase; it replaces "him" or "her"

whereas "who" replaces "he" or "she." In the phrase "I'm a person WHOM," "whom" would replace "me."

Compare and contrast:
"She gave it to whom?" "Me."
"Who took it from her?" "I did."
"I'm the person who took it from her."
"I'm the person whom she gave it to."

Notice that in declaratives (as opposed to questions), "whom" can often be omitted, but "who" cannot.

[Floogeldy]

42. Thanks

I always had problems with that.

[RebelOne]

48. More on who and whom (from "Woe Is I)

If you want to be absolutely correct, the most important thing to know is that who does something (it's a subject, like he), and whom has something done to it (it's an object, like him). You might even try mentally substgituting he or him where who or whom should go: If him fits, you want whom (both end in m). If he fits, you want who (both end in a vowell). Who does it to (at, by, for, from, in, toward, upon with, etc.) whom. A better way to decide between who and whom is to ask yourself who is doing what to whom.

[AllyCat]

41. Plural of an acronym with 's

Drives me bleedin' mad! It is SUVs, not SUV's or more commonly SUV'S (upper case). My favorite is all the hospital websites advertising for nurses "RN's!! LPN's!!" Gads.

[RebelOne]

49. I know, I know. It makes me wanna scream.

[Undercover Owl]

43. well....

he don't do nothin'!

[nuxvomica]

45. "That" is perfectly correct when referring to humans

As in Mark Twain's "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg". "That" is preferable for introducing restrictive clauses and "who" for nonrestrictive clauses.

[BurtWorm]

51. Preferable by whom?

Youm and whomelse? ;)

[nuxvomica]

53. See my reply to my own post

That was supposed to be a reply to yours. :dunce:

[nuxvomica]

52. Me, Mark Twain and most of the AHD usage panel c. 1978

And that's about it. The AHD has eliminated the usage note from more recent editions, apparently, so it's probably a losing battle for me. That's ok as long as I win the battle on single-syllable possessive forms requiring both an apostrophe and the letter "s" when they end in a sibilant "s". That one drives me nuts.

[BurtWorm]

55. In Jesus' name, I agree with you there.

;)

[GOPBasher]

46. Mine grammar is goodlier than you's. nt

[GOPNotForMe]

54. A person can be either a "that" or a "who"

While a thing is ALWAYS a "that." That's the rule now.

[Dedalus]

56. The "by/it" thing...

...people adding "by" and "it" to a sentence & thereby making it into 2 clauses for no reason. I see this in papers all the time and it drives me crazy. As in:

"They think that by banning violent video games, it will make kids less violent."

as opposed to:

"They think banning violent video games will make kids less violent."

P.S. I allow "they" as a neuter singular in my class.

[AllyCat]

57. Ugh...I recently edited a group paper

in which the number of grammatical errors exceeded my ability to deal with it. 80 hours of editing on a 52 page paper left me fighting mad. The "by/it" thing was a consistent error by the other two writers, only they liked to put a semi-colon instead of a comma!!!

After editing their verbose treatise on how to induce sleep in your major professor, I cut the paper down to 42 pages. That included deleting entire paragraphs with no source material cited.