What are your pet peeves re English usage?

ok

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Double negatives are common in informal English; they are standard in nonstandard English. Think about these:

"That don't make no sense to me."

"I ain't had no lovin' since January ... ."

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I've thought about them. Theye are not standard in my neck of the woods.

But Sir Mick sang

"I can't get no
Satisfaction"

aping American usage no doubt. He comes from Richmond, where they don't talk like that.

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They don't hardly talk English, as an English teacher I met said about her students...

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hah!
that one is cool- i like it

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My least favorite English rule is Who vs Whom

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Then and than

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I live in an area where I'm rarely able to hear SAE without turning to a major news network. Worst of all, perhaps, is listening to "African American Vernacular English". It makes my ears burn. You don't "ax" someone something; you "ask" them. I can't even understand AAVE half of the time, and I've been surrounded by it for about five years now.

It also really bothers me to read papers that have been written in the vernacular (which, around here, includes every mutilation of grammar ever known to man). I understand writing in the vernacular for something more 'artistic', but doing it for any other reason makes me want to jump off a bridge.

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Excellent 1st post. Welcome

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shoelace_510 wrote:

My least favorite English rule is Who vs Whom

That's always an easy one . . . when in doubt, substitute the third person singular male or female--if you would say he or she, use who; if you would say him or her, use whom . . .

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Bibliothekarin wrote:

I live in an area where I'm rarely able to hear SAE without turning to a major news network. Worst of all, perhaps, is listening to "African American Vernacular English". It makes my ears burn. You don't "ax" someone something; you "ask" them.

You've got this badly mixed up, BtheK. The pronunciation you use for your dialect of English is not the be-all and the end-all, it's just one of many. English has many many different sets of pronunciation.

Have a read here. It may help you to better understand.

Quote:

I can't even understand AAVE half of the time, and I've been surrounded by it for about five years now.

Surrounded by is much different than immersed in. People often erroneously think that after a wee bit of study, they know a language. Without being immersed in a language [AAVE is as full a language as SAE in a grammatical sense], you have no hope whatsoever of understanding AAVE or any other language for that matter.

It also really bothers me to read papers that have been written in the vernacular (which, around here, includes every mutilation of grammar ever known to man). I understand writing in the vernacular for something more 'artistic', but doing it for any other reason makes me want to jump off a bridge.

This thread is replete with folks who have whined about the standard "mutilation[s] of grammar". The vast majority of these, [likely many of the ones you're concerned about] are canards, old wives tales, simplistic fictions that inaccurately describe the English language.

The next posting will highlight one such canard.

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Setanta wrote:

shoelace_510 wrote:
My least favorite English rule is Who vs Whom

That's always an easy one . . . when in doubt, substitute the third person singular male or female--if you would say he or she, use who; if you would say him or her, use whom . . .

Great little 'rule', Set, except it simply doesn't work for modern English.

Quote:

CGEL

[1]

i a. It is clear whom they had in mind.

i b. It is clear who they had in mind.

In both versions belong to Standard English, with [a] somewhat formal, and neutral or slightly informal. There is no difference in grammaticality.

Quote:

Practical English Usage - Michael Swan

4 who(m) in questions

'whom' is not often used in informal English. We prefer to use 'who' as an object, especially in questions.

Who did they arrest?
Who did you go with?

We use 'whom' in a more formal style; and we must use 'whom' after a preposition.

Whom did they arrest? (formal)
With whom did you go? (very formal)

A 'rule' that fails to adequately describe how language is actually used is really not a rule. This is one of those old canards.

Results 1 - 10 of about 11,200 English pages for "who did you go with?".

Results 1 - 10 of about 414 English pages for "whom did you go with?".

Results 1 - 3 of 3 English pages for "whom did they arrest?".

Results 1 - 10 of about 98 English pages for "who did they arrest?".

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You crack me up--Google results again . . . that's about the size of your authority on the subject of language--a completely unreliable sample.

First, putz, i did not say that i was providing a rule, i simply offered a guide for someone on how one might proceed when in doubt. But you've got such a big hard-on for being the "expert" (x, an unknown quantity, and spurt, a drip under pressure), that you had to jump in and show the idiocy of your method.

If i were to say something is a rule, time enough then for you to have your rant. When i offer someone good advice, just sit there with your linguistic dick in your hand and don't bother the nice folks in this thread, 'k?

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Setanta wrote:

You crack me up--Google results again . . . that's about the size of your authority on the subject of language--a completely unreliable sample.

A typical setanta trick. Ignore all the facts, full in front of your face and come back with both barrels loaded with bullshit. You seem to figure that if you shovel fast enough, that's all you need.

Sorry Set, that doesn't fly anywhere except in the schoolyard at grade school. You've graduated grade school, haven't you?

I especially enjoyed your extensive comments as to why the googled results represent an unreliable sample. I guess that you must be typing those up as we speak.

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What's worse, Set, is that you try to pass off this "advice" as something that you thought up. Is it still plagiarism even if you just steal someone's bad ideas?

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What I really find utterly disgraceful is that the most glaring of incorrect grammar has for decades now been quietly tolerated and tacitly indulged as correct speech by teachers in thousands of public schools because for them to correct such poor grammar is deemed by the Politically Correct bureaucrats in the educations system to be a middle class elitist abuse of working class sensitivities.

"It wasn't me who done it".

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Good one Herbie.

We mustn't stifle the little darlings' creativity nor free expression.

Ir warrn't me neither.

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Leftwing-liberal social engineering from our politicians, our bureaucrats, our university academics and policy-makers of the past 40-years has bred a whole generation of illiterate retards who at the age of 18 have the spelling, the sentence construction, the grammar, the hand-writing and the verbal skills which are equivalent to that of the 10-year olds of the previous generation.

And for much the same reason this generation's social behaviour is characterised by gross impertinence and displays of arrogant contempt for the comfort and convenience of those around them.

The socialist experiment has been a dismal failure in our public schools.

And it's time we all got up out of our seats and went to the window and stuck our head out and screamed "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!!"

http://www.rivelazioni.com/immagini_animate/business/boss_beating_fist_on_his_desk_sm_nwm.gif

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One thing's fer sure, Herbie ain't no lovebug. Smile

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When them neighbours of mine...

When I seen them digging up my front lawn...

They was digging into the flower beds....

Every time they come to one of them flower-pots of mine they would...

When I seen what they done I was appalled...

They lied and said they didn't have nothing to do with it...

All I'm saying is that during the years that children from illiterate backgrounds are in public schools these sort of grammatical errors in their speech should be corrected in the classroom - they should not be tolerated as acceptable usage in poor workin-class neighbourhoods.

How the children want to speak outside of the classroom is their own affair - but in the classroom situation poor grammar should be corrected in every instance that it is uttered.

We even have the woeful situation now in which incorrect spelling is totally ignored by teachers as irrelevant to the subject and content of submitted essays. No red pencil. No marks deducted. No lowering of the Poor Little Darlings' self-esteem.

Time and again I hear of universities pleading with educators that during the final year of public schooling they should please pay better attention to the matter of instilling in their students a more acceptable standard of grammar, spelling, and even handwriting.

University staff are forever being appalled by the scrawled illiteracy and poor standards of those entering universities from the public school sector.

I think standards should be returned to how they were in the '50's - with the reintroduction of corporal punishment - and the teaching of good manners and courtesy once again becoming a priority in the school environment.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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