nouns and verbs

[valleyguy]

One of the reasons English is so universally used is because it is an ever changing language. Rules change as usage changes. That is a good thing, though not for those of us in our later years that are troubled by idiom changes.

I understand France, and some other countries, have groups to make sure the language does not change. I'm not sure that is a good idea.

The important thing is that we can understand what is being said.

My daughter was schooled in the 80's in California. She was taught that spelling didn't matter, just write down what you think it is, phonetically. In later years as she went to law school spelling was difficult for her.

[Silly Moustache]

Re effect and Affect. Effects (plu) can be a noun as in "personal effects" I dunno why.
Talking (OK writing about spelling - I am increasingly typing some words wrong - I simply cannot type "gauge" right the first time, nor "friends" nor "don't".
I know a guy who runs big deal music workshops in the UK and frequently sends out virtually unintelligible emails. One of his best has now become standard usage - "sniger-snogwirters".

Can you translate?

[mdhttr]

Originally Posted by PorkPieGuy

I teach college-level English classes.

Y'all call it a pet peeve.






I call it job security.

I teach college level business classes, but often feel like I'm teaching English.

[Rodger Knox]

Originally Posted by KarenB

Language, like everything else, changes. Have you ever tried to read middle English? I recently set forth to read the Canterbury tales as it was written in the days of what we now call middle english (1100-1500 bce). I wasn't too successful. In a few hundred years, will anyone be able to understand what we've written on this forum?

I had a literature class where we had to learn enough Middle English to read the Canterbury tales as they were written. It wasn't easy.

We should just forget English and all speak engineering. There's not as many words, but every one is precisely defined.

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by mdhttr

I teach college level business classes, but often feel like I'm teaching English.

Many, many years ago the company I worked for looked at the employees as being educated or uneducated. The uneducated would never make it beyond certain levels of management. The CEO was real picky when it came to grammar. My memos and reports would come back with red marks here or there, at times. Then along came email. Yes I'm old. After some time I had to point out to him how horrible the emails were from the young educated employees. All caps no punctuation and misspellings all over. This was before spell check also. I benefited from this eventually as I moved up in management.

[Nyghthawk]

One of my peeves used to be the use of decimate to mean annihilate. I complained to anyone who would pay attention that decimate meant something else. After a couple of years "to annihilate" was added to the definition list. Chronic misuse led to acceptance. *shrugs*

Another one: "I could care less." When I couldn't care less is what they mean.

Don't even get me started on "irregardless."

[KarenB]

Spelling is another funny thing. Here's something I learned:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

amzanig huh?

[difalkner]

I was the proofreader for proposals and boiler plate templates for about 25 years while working for a couple of different technology companies. My primary role was sales and sales management but they found out I could spot errors quickly so every proposal, quote, and template generated had to go by me first. Some of these documents were north of a hundred pages long and many had dozens of errors.

On the forums in which I participate, about 8-10, grammar and spelling errors abound. One of my favorites is what I see often on woodworking forums; "I built a table for my daughter out of Cherry." Really? Do you have a son out of Walnut?

David

[KevWind]

If you want to know when, nouns become verbs, just ask Google

[Jim Owen]

Why do flammable and inflammable mean the same thing? If someone is incompetent, he’s not competent. So inflammable ought to mean the opposite of what it does mean.

How come we go down escalators?

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by Jim Owen

How come we go down escalators?

In these troubled times, shouldn't we all try using de-escalators instead?



Hello?

Anybody out there? . . . Is this thing on?

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

One of his best has now become standard usage - "sniger-snogwirters".

Exactly how my username came into being

[Mark Hatcher]

Why do we always seem to think that things are changing only for the worse?
I read the journals of Lewis and Clark from their 1804 expedition. They were both educated men. They spelled Apache 25 different ways before it was over!
In fact, the spelling seemed to change by mood, emphasis, maybe just randomly? So in terms of spelling, it seems there were no rules.
On the other hand, once I got the hang of it, I really started to enjoy this way of writting. It added another dimension to communicating with the written word while also demonstrating the current mind set of the writer.

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by valleyguy

One of the reasons English is so universally used is because it is an ever changing language. Rules change as usage changes. That is a good thing, though not for those of us in our later years that are troubled by idiom changes.

I understand France, and some other countries, have groups to make sure the language does not change. I'm not sure that is a good idea.

The important thing is that we can understand what is being said.

My daughter was schooled in the 80's in California. She was taught that spelling didn't matter, just write down what you think it is, phonetically. In later years as she went to law school spelling was difficult for her.

Aahhh yes, California. Who knew?

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Mark Hatcher

So in terms of spelling, it seems there were no rules.
On the other hand, once I got the hang of it, I really started to enjoy this way of writting.

I saw what you did there