talkmagic.co.uk

I was waiting in line at a store the other day and the woman ahead of me was having a discussion with the cashier, (yes there was a line and she was having a discussion, which in and of itself pi**ed me off) but the discussion was amusing. The woman was an English teacher and she was upset because on the final paper students were using B4, LOL, U, rather than spelling the words out. She failed all who wrote in text speak.

bmat wrote:The woman was an English teacher and she was upset because on the final paper students were using B4, LOL, U, rather than spelling the words out. She failed all who wrote in text speak.

In more ways than one.

.robb. wrote:

bmat wrote:The woman was an English teacher and she was upset because on the final paper students were using B4, LOL, U, rather than spelling the words out. She failed all who wrote in text speak.

In more ways than one.

That's a very good point!

Ted wrote:

.robb. wrote:

bmat wrote:The woman was an English teacher and she was upset because on the final paper students were using B4, LOL, U, rather than spelling the words out. She failed all who wrote in text speak.

In more ways than one.

That's a very good point!

I wish I had of thought of that, because I certainly would have said something.

Lawrence wrote:I didn't say she was wrong... just that I question it.


We could restart the "grammar police" thread so that we can point and laugh at anyone who uses things like "should of"; or people who end a sentence with a preposition, it's what it was all about.

Oh my God (Or should that be OMG??), if there is one thing that is guaranteed to boil my blood, it's the use of the word 'of' instead of 'have'...

I need to have a lie down now.

Klangster1971 wrote:

Lawrence wrote:I didn't say she was wrong... just that I question it.


We could restart the "grammar police" thread so that we can point and laugh at anyone who uses things like "should of"; or people who end a sentence with a preposition, it's what it was all about.

Oh my God (Or should that be OMG??), if there is one thing that is guaranteed to boil my blood, it's the use of the word 'of' instead of 'have'...

I need to have a lie down now.

Well done, I should of done that a while back ....

Runs and hides...

What really grinds my gears is lyrics written in the second person...

http://www.11points.com/Books/11_Little ... orrify_You

I try not to get bothered too much by incorrect grammar, but I must admit that #1 on this list bothers me since nearly everyone makes the mistake.

My favourite is the use of the apostrophe. So many people use it with plural words e.g. DVD's, 1990's, website's. It's especially funny when a magician is posting on a forum about being professional... then goes ahead and makes basic grammatical errors.

Some people may not think it matters that much. However, if you make spelling and grammatical mistakes on your website, what is to stop a potential booker thinking you won't make basic mistakes in other areas if they book you?

I got this from a friend some time ago:

Reasons Why the English Language is Hard to Learn:

* The bandage was wound around the wound.
* The farm was used to produce produce.
* The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
* He could lead if he would get the lead out.
* The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
* Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
* A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
* When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
* I did not object to the object.
* There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
* They were too close to the door to close it.
* The buck does funny things when the does are present.
* A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
* To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
* The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
* After a number of injections my jaw got number.
* Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
* I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
* How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

... and this poem, which is brilliant:

TEST YOUR SKILL

Once you've learned to correctly pronounce every word in the following poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. If you find it tough going, do not despair, you are not alone.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Here is a poem taught to junior school children to identify the nouns, adjectives and verbs....
(no doubt many of you will recognise)

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


...Seriously. Though from a language point of view it makes a lot of sense to do it this way. My wife actually used this as a lesson when teaching english to Spanish children.

See what I did there? I put a capital letter in 'Spanish'
s***, I didn't finish that sentence with any punctuation.

Well, coming from Bristol my grammar and actually my English as well as my diction are gert rubbish....

BUT... As I am not proficient at the above does this make my contents any less interesting ?

Well this is my Bristol Sayings to you all....

U can buy I a drink but U can't F**k I mind..

Get your hand out of me skirt....T*ts first!!

Thank you and goodbye....

gunnarkt, those are great! I've seen the first, but the second is new to me. I teach ESL and enjoy sharing these kind of English conundrums.

Another is William Ollier's ghoti = fish.

gh pronounced like f in tough
o pronounced like i in women
ti pronounced like sh in nation

Lawrence wrote:
See what I did there? I put a capital letter in 'Spanish'
s***, I didn't finish that sentence with any punctuation.

Should Spanish have a capital letter if it's an adjective?

Jon Allen wrote:My favourite is the use of the apostrophe. So many people use it with plural words e.g. DVD's, 1990's, website's.

With numbers and individual letters, the apostrophe isn't exactly 100% wrong. It used to be fairly common (and I mean among educated writers and editors), and is one of the few grammatical points becoming more and more frowned upon over time. It's certainly wrong almost all the time, and always wrong with numbers, but there are a few instances such as mind your p's and q's or do's and don'ts where leaving out the apostrophe -- although technically correct -- would be confusing. And for a good editor, courtesy to the reader always comes first.

Jon Allen wrote:It's especially funny when a magician is posting on a forum about being professional... then goes ahead and makes basic grammatical errors.

Some people may not think it matters that much. However, if you make spelling and grammatical mistakes on your website, what is to stop a potential booker thinking you won't make basic mistakes in other areas if they book you?

That's something so many people don't seem to grasp. "I'm not a writer," they say, "so what does it matter?"

Forum postings can be allowed some leeway, as long as they're at least understandable. Postings are supposed to be the equivalent of speech, after all, so they can be quick and informal, and nobody expects perfect typo-free writing or schoolbook grammar.

But if you can't be bothered to check through your own advertising or website -- or publications! -- (or have someone else check for you, if you can't), then all it shows is you're the sort who can't be bothered. It's as unprofessional as turning up for work in last night's curry-stained sweatshirt.