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Forum: Chat Room
Thread: Your most frequent English language stumble |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 79
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KWSN - A Shrubbery
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 8, 2006 Post Count: 1585 Status: Offline |
no one, I don't care what Wiki says, that is not the proper usage. English grammar rules are established by the method that the majority of educated speakers employ them. One would be very hard pressed to find anywhere near a majority of educated speakers using double vowels when combining words.  Distributed computing volunteer since September 27, 2000 |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Merriam-Websters on querying Noone, gives only a No One as a response... not listing noone. Amerucanism?
----------------------------------------http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/general-lan...2784-no-one-vs-noone.html Like Shrubs, I don't care... we all understand but the writings such as '4U' does not make for easy reading and does at times question the comms, particular when all or most lines are written in small, including names and and proper nouns. See http://hotword.dictionary.com/capitals/. The spellchecker in the browser though is insistent that the only 'correct' way is 'No one' so who am I not to comply, ;P --//-- 4.3 languages btw in writing [without dictionary], 5.01 in speaking and 6-7 in reading... Italian Spanish Portuguese is akin enough to understand lots. And Danish I have no desire to work on... all Frisian to me... oops, that makes it 8 at the very least if adding dialects  (so not humble HBWLOF).. but this is truly about the English fumbles we [suffer] all the time. Have to watch the wasteline and dont want the food to go to waist ;O)[Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 29, 2012 10:22:54 AM] |
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depriens
Senior Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Jul 29, 2005 Post Count: 350 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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For me it's definitely (also a nice one by the way...) the spelling of the word "necessary". It took me quite a while to learn the right sequence and numbers of c's and s's in the word. ;)
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Not "As An Am" but "A and An"
----------------------------------------http://video.merriam-webster.com/0029-an.mp4 A unicorn An Hour It's the consonant sound in a nutshell :D enjoy --//-- edit: correct vid link (from source code) [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Apr 27, 2012 7:57:40 AM] |
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alver
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Post Count: 245 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I make plenty of mistakes myself, the most common probably being spelling 'permenant' wrong. Or 'permanent'. Permenent. Permanant. All 4 have red wiggles underneath, so I give up.
----------------------------------------But the one I see other people make that annoys me most is "program" vs. "programme". In US English, I believe it's always "program", no matter what the context. But here in the UK, it depends on the context. "Programme" is like a "programme of events", but in the computer sense it should always be "program", for both the noun and the verb. You "program" a computer, and when you do you write a "computer program". The English dictionaries agree, and big organisations like the BBC and the Times agree - but they almost always get it wrong at the first attempt, before correcting it later. Don't know why it annoys me so much, when I'm asked to "write a programme for Windows that can..." [BAH]  (previously known as 'proxima' on SETI, UD, distributed folding, FaD, and Rosetta) |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7668 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Merriam-Websters on querying Noone, gives only a No One as a response... not listing noone. Amerucanism? No, I do not believe it is an Americanism, except by the lazy and/or ignorant Americans. I am surprised however that a reference would not return Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. His Henry the Eighth song was played incessantly during its heyday. A catchy tune, but grossly overplayed for a while. Nice pun on waste/waist. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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KWSN - A Shrubbery
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 8, 2006 Post Count: 1585 Status: Offline |
The one that annoys me the most is since vs. for. It's like a mental assault on my nerves when I read incorrect usage on this one.
----------------------------------------Not being familiar with many other languages, I can only assume this is a common translation issue. Since is used when talking about a set point in time - past perfect "I have done this since Tuesday", "since I was a little child". For is a time period or ongoing activity - "for two weeks", "for as long as I can remember". Subtle, I know, but it just sounds so wrong when switched. Distributed computing volunteer since September 27, 2000 |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Not having English as my first language and a different grammar in the one that is my first: Danish,
I have difficulty(ies) remembering putting -s in third person singularum. It's even more difficult for me to make the logic test for "there" - does it cover one or more? So should the resulting verb carry a singularum -s or the plural nothing?  |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7668 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Not having English as my first language and a different grammar in the one that is my first: Danish, I have difficulty(ies) remembering putting -s in third person singularum. It's even more difficult for me to make the logic test for "there" - does it cover one or more? So should the resulting verb carry a singularum -s or the plural nothing? You are using the wrong homonym(homophone). Three separate word forms in English sound the same: there, their and they're. "There" designates a place which is "not here." "Their" is a possessive, a singular group if you will, such as "Their (the Petersen's) house is big." "They're" is a contraction of the two words "they are." Hope this helps a little bit. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
he-he Sgt. Joe, that's not where I make the mistake, I hope
- that's American/English territory  What I refer to is the - I don't know the Latin name - "temporary pronoun" there. There are many birds in the tree = there takes plural There is a squirrel in the tree = there takes singularum Sometimes it's not quite clear to me as in these examples what is hidden behind "there". There are a family called Jones (the family has several members, but the noun family is just one thing, so it has to take is) There is several Jones sisters - this is borderline to me; it should be "are". I cannot remember other and better examples right now, but ever so often I ask myself: Is this one or are these more than one so "there" must take plural? I hope I explained my predicament a little better now. |
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