A Graphical Guide for the Homonym Challenged:

[ddeclue]

I'm so tired of seeing people confuse to,two and too or principle and principal or peak and peek or their and there so I'm offering the following graphical guide to explain the differences in these words:

PEEK:



PEAK:


PRINCIPLE:


PRINCIPAL:


THEIR: (As in "their car")


THERE:


TWO:


TO: (As in "to the moon")


TOO: (As in "too tired")

[NV Whino]

1. You forgot "they're"

[ddeclue]

2. True.. but that's technically a contraction not a word

and it might be hard to find a useful picture since it is an existential property you are trying to depict as in THEY ARE. How do you show THEM BEING?

:shrug:

[roguevalley]

170. too another word for also.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Your so write! Kick and wreck! n/t

[zagging]

97. Jeez. Don't you mean, "Yore sew rite"?

Get a spell checker.

[ColbertWatcher]

156. Opps! n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Oh, and ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4990491&mesg_id=4990491

[ddeclue]

9. Technically I'm a Grammar Nazi not a Spelling Nazi...

and I frankly don't care if you don't like it.

Doug D.

[ColbertWatcher]

72. I'm not overly concerned with ...

... which self-identified "Nazi" you are, but that was obviously a joke.

[Bobbie Jo]

79. Well I thought it was funny.

:rofl:

[ColbertWatcher]

148. Thank you Bobbie Jo! n/t

[leftstreet]

5. I took a peak at you're thread, but their are no LOLcats

Y knot?

[underpants]

6. I just had to take a peak at this

thanks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5010804&mesg_id=5010804

[BlooInBloo]

7. Left out "pique".

[ddeclue]

12. I forgot that one.

Go ahead and suggest an image please.

[BlooInBloo]

21. Yah.... I had nuthin for that one. LOL!

[Vanje]

24. Pique

http://www.alpheratz.net/images/uploads/bush-finger+2.jpg

[BlooInBloo]

32. HAH!

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Nazi!

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

10. I frankly don't care if you don't like it - if you can't write a grammatically correct sentence

that's your mistake not mine and I don't feel bad correcting you about it.

Part of being able to persuade others is being able to write in grammatically correct form.

Signed,
The Grammar Nazi

[leftstreet]

14. Isn't it, 'I don't feel badly correcting you about it?'

mebbe not

[fifthoffive]

37. No.

Badly is an adverb modifying feel. If you feel badly, there's something wrong with your sense of touch. Bad is a predicate adjective modifying the subject.

[leftstreet]

43. Now you're just talking dirty

People 'feeling' and 'touch' and stuff.
Modifying their predicates.

Well.

:rofl:

:hi:

[fifthoffive]

48. Ha!

Stimulating conversation indeed!

[Shanti Mama]

86. THANK YOU!!!!!! nt

[ashling]

56. You are correct

and, technially (misspelled, but we're talking grammar here, not spelling) shouldn't there be a comma after the original clause in the subject line, or does the subject/comment break handle that??

[janx]

15. It's (not its) driving me crazy.

Online spelling, grammar, and syntax is so bad online that I'm considering limiting my online time, if only because I understand less and less of what I see. And it doesn't just happen on the part of the average poster. News sources do it too. I saw the there/their in an AP article just today.

[NutmegYankee]

27. Language is a funny thing.

English (American here in the states) was once so loose on rules that words could be spelled multiple ways in just one letter or printing. You read letters from the 1500s and it's astounding how badly people spelled the language. It makes the internet look great by comparison.

[Vanje]

34. How in the world .....

did they manage to play Scrabble?

[janx]

39. Yes, I know--I teach writing to college students.

;-)

What I see online is just laziness though. In the 1500s, many people didn't know how to spell and didn't exactly have Webster's to find out how. Today, we have online spell checkers and online dictionaries.

I don't see this as a case of language evolving; most of it is laziness.

In any case, I know that my writing has suffered as a result of reading more online opinion and less offline novels.

[ddeclue]

42. DU has its (NO apostrophe) own spell checker

that underlines misspelled words in red.

Unfortunately it still underlines Barack Obama for some inexplicable reason.

:rofl:

[NutmegYankee]

54. I was musing more on the standardization of language.

Look at all the dialects of German and French that died by standardization from the printing press and radio. Perhaps the Internet is fighting back against that trend.;-)

[janx]

64. Dialects will survive,

I assure you! I love the dialects I see online.

[BlooInBloo]

69. The issue is NOT "standardization". The issue is the acknowledgement of the mere existence...

of right and wrong wrt the use of language.

It is a part of American anti-intellectualism that Americans commonly refuse to acknowledge any such distinction.

And note that admitting such a distinction does not in any way preclude current dialects, nor the creation of new ones (internetese, for example, doesn't suxxors).

[NutmegYankee]

70. The concept of right and wrong grammar came from standardization.

Prior to that, the only standard was whether you understood the other person or not. I concede that for many, spoken language was all they knew.

EDIT: Let your friends know that you're an ass. You know that prior to mass communication, the rules could not be enforced like they are now. Take German for instance, which prior to unification consisted of many unique dialects, which were standardized to ensure that everyone could communicate.

[BlooInBloo]

74. BWAHAAHAHAH!!!!!

Holy cart before the horse, batman!

EDIT: Thanks! Gonna show that one to some of my buddies.

[NutmegYankee]

76. Why is that Robin?

Before you set a standard spelling and a standard grammar, any that could be understood was acceptable. English itself was changing quite rapidly over just a period of a few hundred years. Modern practices like the printed word forced us to standardize the rules and apply them to everyone.

[Igel]

65. In the 1500s there was no norm.

The prescriptivists hadn't come along yet to tell English-speakers that they had been messing up their language for centuries and needed to get with the program. It was especially bad because of dialectal variation: Caxton did a lot to standardize spelling, but didn't nail it.

They "didn't know how to spell" because nobody had made up the rules that everybody was supposed to learn. Spelling's entirely conventional, whatever the social judgments (or is that "judgements"?) that accompany spelling. Just look at Russian--there were a series of spelling reforms in the 1910s and '20s that removed certain letters from the alphabet; it's confusing in that the reforms were judged "Soviet," so non-Soviet printers continued to use the old orthography for a while. Belorusian had a spelling reform just before Soviet times, IIRC, and another after the Soviet revolution--anti-Soviet, anti-Lukashenko publications use the older orthography, which was unfortunate: Stalin imposed a law punishing use of the pre-Revolution orthography, a law Lukashenko avidly used for his own anti-democratic purposes. In 1993 the Czech Academy produced a new "pravopis," a dictionary listing the spelling of words, that mandated new spellings for a number of words in official Czech publications. The 1993 pravopis (which, unfortunately, is the only one I have) was controversial and many "good" writers rejected some of the new norms it imposed. One was published shortly thereafter eliminating a lot of the controversial new spellings. Spelling's entirely by convention.

Even in the 1700s there was a still bit of latitude in spelling. Johnson helped stop that, but not entirely. Webster both diminished and increased the variation by providing a standard for Americans that was at odds with the Commonwealth norm. While I like having a standard orthography, I find that it's often misused and that moral judgments are associated with correct and incorrect spelling. Orthography has a purpose, IMHO, and that purpose includes neither moral nor social judgments. A standard orthography is to facilitate communication ... not shut it down.

BTW, "less" and "fewer" aren't synonyms. One goes with mass nouns or nouns that are taken to be non-individuated; "fewer" is for individuated nouns, count nouns. "Fewer online novels" is what you undoubtedly would have written ... had you not succumbed to sloth, one must assume.

[janx]

73. Regarding "less" and "fewer":

You're right, but the nouns themselves weren't contiguous either, and I wasn't referring to online novels. I don't read them. I'm not going to get into a political or moral discussion about orthography--let alone what "one must assume." ;-)

I do appreciate your knowledge of linguistics, and I'm glad you posted.

[ferrous wheel]

82. "less" and "fewer" is way easier to grasp nowadays in the computer age:

less is analog,
fewer is digital.


See? :D

(I'm serious...think about it)

[BlooInBloo]

94. Sorta. Continuous vs. discrete is really what you're looking for....

And it has every virtue expect for being correct.

Water, for example, is certainly NOT continuous (at either the macro or micro levels), and has been known for a looooooong time. But it's still a "stuff" as far as stuff-nouns and count-nouns are concerned.

(Please don't bother with spurious (and false) counterexamples like "but what about this CUP of water?")

[ddeclue]

99. On a scientific basis we could count molecules of H20 (in terms of moles)

and then refer to "fewer water molecules" but in ordinary use lay persons do not consider water, air or other gases or fluids as a collection of discrete molecules to be counted and normally refer to "less water".

Doug D.
Aerospace Engineer

[BlooInBloo]

101. Even when I *specifically* ask for the goalposts to not be moved....

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

105. How is THAT "moving the goal posts"?

:shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

109. Sigh. Water -> Molecules of water....

Exactly the goalpost shift I asked not be made (because it's so fucking stupid).

And in any case... ah screw it - this is going nowhere.

[ddeclue]

112. You are the one insisting that we count water molecules and use fewer

not I.

I on the other hand am arguing (although as an engineer I am well aware of the particle nature of matter) that people do not refer to gases or liquids as collections of countable molecules in ordinary usage.

:shrug:

[ferrous wheel]

143. He probably goes into a bar and orders a Scotch with a bit fewer water than usual.

Or milk.

[ddeclue]

145. NITPICK: Shouldn't it be "fewer waters"?

since we are counting them?

:rofl:

[ferrous wheel]

147. "Easy on the dihydrogen monoxide, bartender!"

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

150. Can I get 2.4 x10E23 molecules of C2H5OH in a clean beaker please?

I would prefer it to be served at 275.13 degrees Kelvin!

:rofl:

[ferrous wheel]

153. I guess you know they have thrown Avogadro under the bus

and a mole ain't what it used to be. :grr: I was pissed when cycles per second got changed to Hertz, the old fart who already had an antenna named for him...why do these science guys keep changing shit around without notifying me immediately???
Your aperitif ain't worth a shit unless it's combined (not dissolved) with 250 ml of Tj2Cj3. (That's Clamato)
:rofl:

[ddeclue]

155. At latest report a mole was : 6.02214179(30)E23 entities NOT:

this fellow:



:rofl:

[ferrous wheel]

157. The funny thing (?) is that I was always taught it was 6.023 x 10^23.

I guess that was as close as they could count way back when. :-)

I'm no fan of Wikipedia usually but the entry on this is actually well done, succinct and accurate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant

[ddeclue]

158. My circonflex (hat) ended up as an asterisk so I switched to E notation.

How did you get it to show up properly in the title line?

[ferrous wheel]

137. Not sure what point you're trying to make. Water is -perceived- as "continuous"

(your word) regardless of it's composition of discrete molecules. I can't imagine anybody saying "please give me fewer water, I'm not that thirsty"....:shrug:

If you want to be ultra-technical, and it appears you do, everything that exists in a quantum state above pure energy can be described in terms and numbers of subatomic particles... Not holding my breath until someone tells me "no more blue up left strange quarks of beer, thanks"..

[ddeclue]

141. DUZY AWARD!

:rofl:

[leftstreet]

159. "no more blue up left strange quarks of beer, thanks"

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

87. My understanding of less vs. fewer:

Fewer implies something which is discrete and may be counted 1,2,3,4...

Less implies something that may be measured but not discretely countable.

e.g.: There were fewer people at this rally because there was less interest in ballot measure.

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

77. The less/fewer thing has always bugged me. I think the difference...

between count-nouns and stuff-nouns is far too involved to be worth explaining at a venue like DU, however.

(i.e., it's 8th grade level.)


Maybe I shouldn't give up on everybody, though.

[janx]

83. I don't think DU is eighth-grade level.

People are just posting too fast and not paying attention. On top of that, people like me are spending too much time online, where many people are making sloppy mistakes. People just need to slow down.

My students go so fast at spell checks! This can result in some very funny mistakes. One of the best was when one student, writing about a cat in a poem, referred to him as being GENTILE instead of GENTLE. I told her that in her next draft, she should probably roll (or role) with it!

[BlooInBloo]

88. I was being polite. They're really more like 6th grade level.

[ddeclue]

89. Is that as opposed to a Hebrew Cat?

:rofl:

[janx]

95. YES.

;-)

[ddeclue]

100. pardon me while I have a little fun - would it be a "Kosher Kat"?

:rofl:

or does that only apply to preparing and eating "Sea Kittens"?

:rofl:

[NutmegYankee]

103. So that's why Jews eat at Chinese Restaurants!

There's a Kosher cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon!


Edit: link to the song. Cat fans are hereby warned.
http://www.guzer.com/animations/chowmein.php

[ddeclue]

106. Yikes! Your response has taken a turn for the offensive!

Offending BOTH Jews AND the Chinese!

:hide:

[NutmegYankee]

114. Hey, It's still not George Carlin level yet!

Sorry if I offended anyone. I can have a twisted sense of humor occasionally.

[janx]

118. Expletive Deleted!

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

[NutmegYankee]

96. Some of it is just being tired when I post.

I'm an engineer, and many of us work from O'dark hundred to mid afternoon. So for me, it's 0630 to 1600 (yeah long days), and then I get home, take care of tasks, make dinner, and when I finally get to the PC, I'm tired. The only other time to post is early in the morning when I can't see straight yet. God Bless Coffee.


Then again, it's a running joke that engineers can't spell worth a damn. But unlike many, we can do differential equations without a calculator! Sadly, that's of no use on a website like this. ;-)


I'm already falling asleep.

[ddeclue]

104. They learnt me to cipher at engineerin' skool too...

:rofl:

Seriously though, I earned a Certificate in American Literature while at Georgia Tech getting my engineering degree.

I primarily write software these days so perhaps I've become overly sensitive to syntax and grammar.

Software compilers have ZERO sympathy for misspelled words and/or incorrect syntax - at best your mistake compiles but misbehaves when executed - at worst it won't even compile.

Doug D.

[NutmegYankee]

113. I crunch numbers, and review systems...

But I can understand the importance of spelling in programming. I chose to focus on history as a side study (why the hell not) while pursuing my Mechanical Engineering degree. I design piping systems with some Wicked calculations.

[ddeclue]

116. A P&ID guy? Interesting...

I write ATE code in LabVIEW and/or C/C++ to control hardware most of the time.

I was one course shy of earning a History Certificate as well but at the time was ready to be out of school so I didn't bother. I also earned a certificate and lettered in music from the Music Department for being in the concert and marching bands but that seems less pertinent to this discussion.

Beyond the standard American History I and II that everyone studies, I also studied Colonial history and the Revolution and Constitution in a few other classes.

Doug D.

[NutmegYankee]

122. I wish a Constitution class was required.

Another great class was European history WWII to 1990, which was a detailed study of the Cold War and WWII. Imagine studying a period of 50 years for an entire semester.

[ddeclue]

That is roughly what the Revolution and Constitution class covered - perhaps less. NT

[NutmegYankee]

127. Ah, l thought the Colonial period class also did the Revolution.

Anyhow. It has been swell chatting with you, but I'm dozing off. Later.

[janx]

115. If that's a running joke, then the joke is B.S.

I teach at a "tech" university. Engineers and other scientists are masters of many languages. :hug:

[NutmegYankee]

119. May just be a joke for my office.

I think it has less to do with education, and more to do with poor typing from the old timers. They used to have secretaries type for them till the corporate cutbacks forced them to do it themselves.

By the way, is it too much to just laugh a little here on DU? Everybody is so uptight these days about everything.

[janx]

134. I love to laugh as much as anybody on DU--probably more so.

Your thought about the old-timers is probably right. I worked for an engineering company once. The tech university where I teach now is adamant about its students being well rounded in their education.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. Way too sensitive

The name was a joke and I was agreeing with you.

Unflare your nostrils.

And clam down or you'll have an aneurysm.

[janx]

19. CLAM DOWN!

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

33. I'm with you. It started with bonafide typos... Now it's just plain Stupid Expo 2009...

Today I saw what might be my all-time fav:

"... half his college fund disappeared into the either".

HAHAHAHAH!!!!

It's funny in a way, just WATCHING people get stupider and stupider.



EDIT: Dammit - I really can't fit it all into the subject line this time. lol!

[ddeclue]

41. Is that the same "either" as in the famous Michelson-Morley "either" experiment?

:rofl:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/mmhist.html

[BlooInBloo]

44. Yup.

[JerseygirlCT]

131. I never understand those who don't feel it's important

We all make mistakes, of course. But the people who truly think it doesn't matter how they communicate? Puzzles me.

[TahitiNut]

11. What have you got against a "living language"??

:evilgrin:

... except those who're trying to kill it?

[ddeclue]

13. My main objection is to torturing the language.

:evilgrin:

[janx]

17. I'm also seeing more and more incomplete sentences online.

These are sentences with whole words left out.

[ddeclue]

31. My standard response to incomplete incomprehensible sentences is:

"Pat I'd like to buy a verb please."

:rofl:

[janx]

47. ...

:rofl:

But these aren't just sentence fragments, with a noun or a verb missing. Sometimes pronouns, articles, etc. are missing, and so-called sentences that make no sense are strung together! I saw one post today that made me wonder whether or not I was losing (not loosing) my mind!

[sniffa]

45. Fragments are

[ddeclue]

51. Actually "Fragments are" is a complete sentence.

:rofl:

It is an existential statement.

"Shit happens" is likewise a complete sentence.

:rofl:

[ferrous wheel]

85. Back in 7th grade, a hundred or so years ago, I had a fundy English teacher

who made us memorize Bible verses. One day she said "The shortest sentence in the English language is 'God is.'" I raised my hand and said, "Mrs. Knack, you're mistaken." "Oh, she said, how is that?" I said "I know a shorter one: I am."

The old biddy was highly pissed, as we used to say. :D

[ddeclue]

93. Be!

"Be!" would actually be the shortest sentence in the English language (although you could also use Do!)

It's an imperative sentence - i.e. it gives a command to an implied object (in this case "you").

There are several three letter verb forms such as "Die!" or "Win!" that would tie with "I am." provided we aren't counting spaces.

That said, your story is funny!

It reminds me of the story of the coach who says "there is no 'I' in team" and the player who responds "Coach there is no 'we' in team either".

Doug D.

[ferrous wheel]

125. Very good, "Be" most assuredly is a complete sentence with the implied subject "you"!

Nicely done! :D

I don't suppose "C" would be an acceptable substitute for "See"...? Naw... :-)
edit: It just occured to me, a lot of folks would 'get' my one-letter sentence: F

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

128. Nicely done except that I said object when I meant subject!

:argh:

:(

[ferrous wheel]

139. Heh, I was yoost being snotty. I do dat a lot.

:D

It's a diversion from the boring world of FL350.

[ddeclue]

144. Want to trade lives?

I'd much rather spend all day drilling holes in the sky than writing software.

I guess when you do it for a living and you've been doing it for 30 years it gets old but I'm just a lowly private pilot with 200 hours and I've had to pay exorbitantly for the privilege for every one.

:rofl:

[ferrous wheel]

149. At the risk of sounding jaded, I'll just say A stitch in time saves nine.

I've wondered for decades what the hell that means...do you happen to know?

:rofl: :silly:

[ddeclue]

152. Take preventative action rather than remediate after an accident.

but of course that is not so much fun to say.

[ferrous wheel]

160. Well, yeah, no shit, but what kind of stitch?..running?, zigzag, loop?

and nine What??? inches? - minutes? - eggs? - entrances to hell? How does a regular person know what to do with arcane directions like that??? What the hell are we, automatons???

I hear
I see
I do


AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[ddeclue]

162. That's nine STITCHES - no FEWER!

:rofl:

[janx]

53. That's actually a sentence, or could be in the right context.

:hi: Hi, sniffa!

All I ask for is a noun and a verb--and other components, if necessary, to put them together. Articles like "the" and "a" would be nice.

Some headlines in LBN blow my mind. Some of them are so bad that I can't tell what they're about to determine whether or not I want to read them.

[sniffa]

68. Don't use no double negatives

:hi: back.

[janx]

81. I ain't going to use no double negatives,

but some of my characters do, and I love doing it then. :rofl: Double negatives are common in some European languages, and that's how they got into some regional lexicons in the U.S..

You remind me now of a funny thing my mother used to do sometimes when she came home from work and found her dog Jessie's water bowl dry. She used to say, "Jessie ain't got no water, Mom!" (My mother did like a cocktail or two after work...)

[NutmegYankee]

23. It's not torture, just enhanced interrogation...

:silly:

[ddeclue]

28. DUZY AWARD! nt

[RC]

49. Is that like water bording?

It hurts to read some posts on DU. I even saw a 'two' in place of 'to' once.
Then there are the idiots that abbreviate everything. You have a full keyboard and a supplied spell checker. Use them. The audience is very diverse here, please don't type in code and assume the rest of us has a decoder ring like yours.

[janx]

60. Abbreviations and acronyms are a problem, yeah,

on top of everything else.

[BlooInBloo]

35. Yup.

[immoderate]

18. My pet peeve is something that I see A LOT.

--imm

[Vanje]

20. More

Loose


Lose

[ddeclue]

29. If this were an earlier era "lose" would need the Buffalo Bills logo

:rofl:

The Atlanta Falcons used to be great losers also but not "world class" losers.

The Braves moved from merely being great losers in the 1980's to being "world class" losers in the 1990's.

:rofl:

[Vanje]

30. You must forgive me

I've only ever watched 2 football games in my life.
One of them was last weekend.

[ddeclue]

38. That is OK.

I'm not much of a pro-footbal fan myself. I do watch college ball though.

I just remember when the Bills went to four Superbowls in a very short period and lost every time.

:)

[NutmegYankee]

22. Why, you got something against the Heteronym challenged?

:evilgrin:

[Sal Minella]

25. "Rein in" (control, as a horse) and "reign" (govern) should never be confused

but the wrong homonym homophone is used on this board about half the time.

Edit for inexcusable lapse in identifying linguistic unit. :blush:

[Vanje]

26. Rainin

[wildflower]

36. Um...

Wouldn't those technically be homophones? :P :hide:

That baby is adorable!

[janx]

40. Only if you're (not your)

"hooked on phonics."

:rofl:

[CJCRANE]

46. Eye no what ewe mean nt

[ddeclue]

50. Wiki says that there is some confusion on this issue.

Yes these are homophones in that they "sound alike" but there is confusion on whether they are also homonyms and many consider them to be "homonyms".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins. Some sources only require that homonyms share the same spelling or pronunciation (in addition to having different meanings), but these are the definitions most other sources give for homographs and homophones respectively. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are stalk (which as a noun can mean part of a plant, and as a verb to follow/harass a person), bear (animal) and bear (carry), left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of leave). Some sources also consider the following trio of words to be homonyms, but others designate them as "only" homophones: to, too and two (actually, to, to, too, too and two, being "for the purpose of" as in "to make it easier", the opposite of "from", also, excessively, and "2", respectively). Some sources state that homonym meanings must be unrelated in origin (rather than just different). Thus right (correct) and right (opposed to left) would be polysemous (see below) and not homonyms.

http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html

[leftstreet]

52. "polysemous" I KNEW this would end up being a sex thread

!!

[wildflower]

55. Technically, homonyms comprise a subset of homophones

But in modern colloquial usage, some use "homonym" to refer to homophones.

The strict meaning of "homonym" is a word that sounds the same and is spelled the same as another word but has a different meaning.

Editing with an example: "dive" (as in "dive into the water") and "dive" (as in a bar) are homonyms.

[freeplessinseattle]

57. "phase" for "faze" always cracks me up for some reason

but I suck at math so I shouldn't laugh (but can't help it, damn you!;)

[Vanje]

58. Yet more

Poll


Pole


Pole

[ddeclue]

62. ......

:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:
:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:
:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:
:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:
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:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:
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[ferrous wheel]

59. Nice! Improper apostrophe's (sic!) are my bete' noirs.

:D
Some people think one is required before every s.
:eyes:

[gula]

78. Do you mean bêtes noirs? nt

[ferrous wheel]

80. Yes, I'm just too lazy to look up HTML for carets, umlauts and zircons.

:evilgrin:

[ddeclue]

135. Mon Dieu! Umlauts are German not French!

French has three accents that I remember: accent grave, accent aigu, and accent circonflex - I may have forgotten something from two years of high school French classes though.

[ferrous wheel]

140. One diacritical is as obtuse as the next one.

:D

[ddeclue]

132. This is a discussion of English grammar not French spelling.

:rofl:

[DavidDvorkin]

61. "Here, here" mistakenly used instead of "hear, hear"

That's a common mistake on DU.

[Vanje]

66. Hear Here!

[Deja Q]

63. You forgot this one:

LOSE:



LOOSE:



LOSE:



LOOSE:





LOSE someone that's LOOSE:

[Vanje]

67. Nice try

[Deja Q]

107. "Try"? One does. Or does not. There is no "try".

Man, I want some of what Yoda(tm) was snorting... :silly:

[Cleita]

71. Nice pitchers there.

:rofl:

[inna]

75. what really gets me is contractions...

your vs you're, its vs it's, etc.

...

i wish there was a graphic way to depict the differences...

[janx]

91. There is,

but not in the excellent way the original post does it. This is simple.

Possessive pronouns--no apostrophes

my
your
his
hers
our
its

Nobody writes "hi's," correct? Nobody writes "her's," yeah? So why should anyone write "it's" in the same context?

This is the best way I've found to get the difference across. It seems to work.

[MasonJar]

84. Delightful and thank you because I too get tired of it. Hear/here are

also sometimes a problem...many others. One of my favorites is "it's" (it is) and "its" (possessive) There is some excuse for confusing contractions and possessive pronouns since nouns form the possessive with 's. Just read the sentence to see if there is a verb being shortened. (your/you're) ETC.

[Maru Kitteh]

90. Dude. That's a car? It looks more like a speed bump.

Thanks for the thread.

[ddeclue]

110. Actually on second thought I believe it is a recumbent bicycle.

I had originally believed it to be a contest car for one of the ubiquitous gas mileage or solar powered car contests they have at engineering schools. I now believe it is a recumbent bicycle for a similar competition for bicycles. This is what happens when I use "the Googles" carelessly.

:rofl:

[Shanti Mama]

92. And then there's "hopefully"

Hopefully I'll get some support on this one. I am hopeful that I will get some support.

Obama will hopefully follow up on his commitments. He, full of hope, will follow up on them.

YES?

[fishwax]

124. actually, there's nothing wrong with hopefully

It's a sentence adverb (like "thankfully" or "fortunately"), and has been used as such for hundreds of years. For some reason people started complaining about hopefully (though rarely, if ever, about other sentence adverbs) in the 1960s, but their arguments don't really make much sense.

[ddeclue]

126. It is commonly accepted usage but I would agree with him that hopefully

makes less sense than the alternate he suggests.

"It is hoped THAT X" makes more sense grammatically than "Hopefully, X" - at least to my own ear.

Doug D.

[fishwax]

151. I don't like the passive voice there

For one thing, it obscures the identity of the one who is hopeful, and so isn't quite equivalent, imo. But that's just a matter of taste, I suppose--either one could be grammatically correct.

Admittedly (er, it is admitted that ;)) there are some cases where hopefully can cause confusion, as in the second example the poster provided (changing "Obama will hopefully follow up on his commitments" to "He, full of hope, will follow up on them"). But in most cases there's no cause for confusion, and his first example ("Hopefully I'll get some support on this one") is neither confusing nor grammatically incorrect.

[ddeclue]

154. That is intentional.

I intended to obscure the party doing the hoping to imply the general public.

There is nothing wrong with the passive voice if it was used intentionally.

:rofl:

[Shanti Mama]

98. and now for something lite harted

On his 74th birthday, this man got a gift certificate from his wife. The certificate paid for a visit to this medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction. After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man and wondered what he was in for.

The old man slowly, methodically produced a potion,handed it to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned, "This is powerful medicine and it must be respected. You take only a teaspoonful and then say '1-2-3.'When you do that, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life and you can perform as long as you
want."

The man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?"
"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,' he responded. "But when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

He was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, He took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!"
Immediately, he was the manliest of men. His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes. And then she asked,"What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never
end our sentences with a preposition.
OR ONE COULD END UP WITH A DANGLING PARTICIPLE!

[Catherine Vincent]

108. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[ddeclue]

117. DUZY AWARD! nt

[Shanti Mama]

169. WOW -- a DUZY! Thanks.

What do I get?

[tavalon]

102. That last picture is too cute for words.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm not homonym challenged since most people with ADD are. I'm also a really good speller, which is also unusual for someone with ADD. One thing I did inherit from my mental difference is that I reverse letters (I don't think that's dyslexia since I can see the mistake when I do it) but that has become so much easier now that I type most of what I do. I catch the reversals in the read through. It's when I forget to do the read through that I get caught. I'm also comma challenged. I put 'em where they ought not be and I forget 'em far too often.

If I screwed up on a homonym in the letter, it will be so embarrassing.

[mia]

111. bear/bare

[ddeclue]

120. Whew! I was afraid this one was going to get the thead deleted!

:rofl:

[ogneopasno]

121. Those are homophones.

[ddeclue]

123. Read my previous post on homophones vs. homonyms.

As they would say in the courtroom "objection - asked and answered."

:)

[ogneopasno]

130. Any judge would throw you out for using wikipedia as a source.

Objection; sustained.

[JerseygirlCT]

129. That last picture is so cute!

And all that makes me crazy, too. (Not to or two)

[Bluebear]

133. Thanks for the ANTECDOTE!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5010884#5010935

[ddeclue]

136. So! What's your point Bluebear?

:shrug:

Doug D.

[Bluebear]

138. If you're going to be a spelling professor, don't make booboos like that :)

[ddeclue]

146. But I'm NOT a spelling professor, I'm a grammar Nazi...

didn't you read the rest of the thread yet?

:P

If there were two different words with different meanings, one being anecdote and the other being antecdote then I would have made a grammar error in choosing the incorrect word. In the cited case it is a simple spelling error not a homonym error.

Doug D.

[Wiley50]

142. Think you could ADD a HOMYNYM or two? Or isn't that against DU rules? n/t

[readmoreoften]

161. Woa, two confusing their. I don't think I grasp the principal of what your trying too point out.

I should read the post more carefully, tho. I only took a quick peak.

[Liberal_in_LA]

163. What about affect and effect?

[ddeclue]

164. OK since you brought it up please suggest a picture pair.

:rofl:

[Liberal_in_LA]

165. I can't think of any! Thought you might. lol. n/t

[Vanje]

166. A thousand words worth

[ddeclue]

167. Oh CRAP!!! - DUZY AWARD!!!

Tattoo lawsuit time!!! - and that shit is PERMANENT - DAMN!

:rofl:

[thesquanderer]

168. cute. My pet peeve: compliment and complement (n/t)

[MnFats]

171. tell 'em the proper use of the apostrophe, too!

incorrect use just drives me NUTS!