All-new grammar rant! First time on DU!

[Oeditpus Rex]

"I had my car stolen yesterday..."

"I had my knee go out this morning..."



Why would people do such things willingly? :shrug:

[Lyric]

1. *sporfle*

Ya know, the funny thing is that when I'm typing/writing, I'd never make that mistake. But I do all of the time when I'm talking. Strange, huh?

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. Yeah, it's more of a spoken thing

But I've seen it written here quite a few times, and it looks... funny. Like, "I called this fella to come over and steal my car."

[trof]

3. Very. Good.

My hat's off to ya.

[ZombieNixon]

4. Maybe they do it for the insurance money.

:shrug: :P

[Inchworm]

5. You had better go now.

:hide:










:hi:

[pagerbear]

6. On a related note, far too many people use past perfect tense (or something like it)

...instead of simple past. I don't understand why. Do they think saying "I had gone to the store." actually sounds better than "I went to the store."? (And don't get me started on "I had went to the store."!)

[Xipe Totec]

7. I done did went off to the store

:popcorn:

[pagerbear]

8. Much better!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. The newscasters don't know about past perfect. They put -ed on all verbs.

And they invent new ones, like if it rains they say "ponding". :grr:

Don't forget the folks that said that Libby's sentence was "too excessive".

That's a redundancy. :banghead:

[Lionel Mandrake]

43. That's plenty redundant enough for me.

[piesRsquare]

48. In addition, I'm also redundant as well!

:spray:

[Oeditpus Rex]

44. I once asked one of the local teevee sports idiots

about something like that. It might've been their annoying habit of saying "The Giants would score in the third" over a highlight tape, when a simple, past-tense "The Giants scored in the third" would be proper and less stupid-sounding.

His response was a rather cowed, "Well, in broadcast school, they teach us to use 'action verbs'."

Oh.

[Lionel Mandrake]

42. Do you prefer "I shouldn't of gone to the store"

or "You can lay down on the couch"?
A spell check program won't notice anything wrong with these sentences.

[begin_within]

9. I had the shit kicked out of me once.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. Why would you do such a thing willingly?

Did you run out of ExLax?

[begin_within]

11. Well, you know,

I've had shit happen

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. That's perfectly understandable...

Doesn't everybody want shit to happen?

[pagerbear]

51. Ask anyone who HASN"T had shit happen

It's much better when one does have shit happen regularly.

[question everything]

34. You can't do this to me!!

I am laughing so hard.. trying not to wake anyone..

[Writer]

13. I had my face chewed off.

Yeah, I had it done.

Oh well.

;)

[begin_within]

17. Luxury.

I once had the riot act read to me.

[TheBaldyMan]

14. All new isn't hyphenated and your use of the exclamation mark is excessive ....

and the ellipses could do with more work.

grammar nazi signing off.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Inchworm]

16. hehe...

I really love to use ellipses... ya know what I mean?

:P

[Zomby Woof]

18. I use them too

But not with EVERY sentence, in EVERY post. :D

[jus_the_facts]

23. I DO...

...and always have...you gotta problem with it all of a sudden?! :P

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. My dear ZombyWoof

Please be kind........................

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. 'All-new' most certainly requires a hyphen

as do most compound modifiers.

I shall take your opinion on my use of exclamation points under advisement. Okay, that's enough.

The ellipses were intended to indicate that there would be more to the example sentences. Granted, I should've used a comma and "and" before them.



Grammar Überhauptsturmbannführer, maintaining his post.

:patriot:

[grasswire]

25. I vote with you on "all-new"

:hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

26. Tank yew

:hi:

Hey, you find out about that Dolly Dip chick? Was she real or what?

[grasswire]

30. nothing else

I'm inclined to believe it was true.

[Nevernose]

39. I don't think you needed to use "a comma and 'and'."

Now, MY grammar Nazi English professor would have said, "The ellipses are unnecessary if you're not leaving out part of a direct quotation," but usage has changed since she went to grammar-nazi school during the 18th century, and we know what you meant. And that's what's ultimately important: that it looks good, sounds good, and is intelligible.

Too many exclamation points, though...

[TheBaldyMan]

46. Impostor, call yourself a grammer nazi,

you missed both of the deliberate grammatical errors in my post.

* rips badges of rank from tunic *

Let that be a lesson to you Grammar Unteroffizier.

"Ich war nie immer ein gramatische nazi, ich war bei die Preutzische Pedogogische Korps" - Buchstabiertfuhrer Kahlemann

[RebelOne]

49. All new is correctly hyphenated when used as an adjective, which it was. n/t

[Connonym]

19. "We do water damage" sign at the local carpet cleaners

they have since changed it to "we fix water damage" but for months that cracked me up every time I drove past.

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. Perhaps they were creating a market

:shrug:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. "Do it to me one more time"??????

[Maraya1969]

22. "I wanted to fix it first but"

Seriously.

[RevCheesehead]

29. picky, picky, picky.

Around here, many say "my car was stole yesterday..."

:hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

31. I'm gonna stole YOU

So I can KEEP you here.



:hug: :loveya:

[RevCheesehead]

33. Aww....

:loveya::hug::loveya:

I'll still be scarce for a while. My dad's moving (to a smaller apartment), and most of my free time will be spent there. Oh, and we gave Grandma's computer to my niece, so I can no longer keep track of your shenanigans... so behave!

[Oeditpus Rex]

35. Shenanigans?

Moi? :shrug:

[RevCheesehead]

36. Uh-huh.

Yew. :P

[Oeditpus Rex]

38. I do NOT shenanigate!

I may induce others to do so...

[fishwax]

32. but "have" means to experience or undergo; it doesn't indicate willingness

So it isn't really a grammar mistake, so much as something which could, on occasion, be interpreted in humorous ways as a result of other meanings of "to have." (Your "I called someone up to steal my car" example is funny :) )

[Oeditpus Rex]

37. 'To cause to do something,

as by persuasion or compulsion: had my assistant run the errand."

—American Heritage Dictionary



I had him kick me in the cubes.


Well... if you're into that... :shrug:

[hfojvt]

40. "had my car stolen" is used as an example

in my Oxford Desk dictionary. a) experience - has a headache, b) be subjected to a specified state, or c) cause

As Rumsfeld might say - you have your haves and you have your have nots, and you have had your haves and you have not had your have nots, but sometimes you have not had your haves and you have had your have nots.



But I have had my head bitten off for writing better jokes than that.

[fishwax]

41. to be subject to the experience of

I'll see your definition #1i and raise you a definition #1h :)

I had a fight with a co-worker, but it was all his fault. I had cancer, but I sure wasn't willing.

I think your example in this post is more likely to be confused, since a person immediately follows the verb, suggesting that the "him" might be the object of "to have," rather than the entire phrase being the object. The difference between:

"I had him steal my car" and "I had my car stolen."

[Oeditpus Rex]

45. I don't see a difference

Both imply that the victim engineered the theft. :shrug:

And I'll call your raise; in those senses, "had" indicates possession. One could have a stolen car, but not a car stolen.

[fishwax]

47. but one could endure [having] a car stolen

I don't think that "I had my car stolen" necessarily implies that the victim engineered the theft, anymore than "I had a bad year last year" implies that I engineered my own bad year, though I acknowledge it could be read that way because of the multiple meanings of have.

I also don't think the examples I used indicate possession--when someone has a heart attack, they don't possess the heart attack, nor do they engineer the heart attack (unless, perhaps, they just had a big mac). And while still unconscious from the heart attack, they could have had someone perform CPR on them, even though they neither possessed CPR nor engineered it, but rather experienced/endured it.

[Burma Jones]

50. Too many people reading Junie B. Jones books to the kids

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/fashion/26junie.html?8dpc=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1185451834-fjzeZGo41h3MLHuSBGzCyQ

[dropkickpa]

52. Stop.

Grammar time!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I kill me!!!



Hey, if I have to live with these things in my head, why shouldn't I share them?