nouns and verbs

[The Bard Rocks]

Like a few of you, I get needlessly annoyed at the incorrect use of our language. Today's peeve is "affect" and "effect". "Affect" is a verb, "effect" a noun. An effect can affect you, but the opposite makes no sense.

Yes, English is a living language but it is sure not taught in school like it was back when... Nor is geography or spelling. Arithmetic may be next on the hit list. Our children can only learn so much in the allotted time, so as needs grow, subjects go.

[Dru Edwards]

I don't have pet peeves like that. I do question why people use "your" vs "you're" but this is a Forum and people type fast.

I do find that I need to google "affect" and "effect" often to get it correct. I'm usually good with those types of words but that one has eluded me. I'm glad you mentioned the verb vs. noun aspect ... I bet that will help me.

[Jim Owen]

But “effect” can in one instance be a verb meaning “to bring about.”

The English language can be confusing. But most of the time “effect” is a noun. So is impact. So is access. “Enter your PIN to access your account” still bugs me.

I’m in the Bard’s camp. I served time as an editor long ago. Dru, the folks who type “your” for “you’re” often don’t know the difference.

[Dru Edwards]

Good thing we don't have posts in French - nouns have gender and are either masculine or feminine. Could you imagine someone referring to "guitar" as masculine instead of feminine?

[David Eastwood]

Apostrophe abuse drives me nuts. Here's a classic example of both that, and sheer grammatical ineptitude, from my local Target store, about 18 months ago.

[Mbroady]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

Yes, English is a living language but it is sure not taught in school like it was back when... Nor is geography or spelling. Arithmetic may be next on the hit list. Our children can only learn so much in the alloted time, so as needs grow, subjects go.

Yep, We are in serious intellectual trouble.

“The more you read the more things you will know”
Dr Seuss

[Jim Owen]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

Apostrophe abuse drives me nuts. Here's a classic example of both that, and sheer grammatical ineptitude, from my local Target store, about 18 months ago.

Egads. Folks in these parts regularly try to make “it’s” a possessive pronoun. “The dog dropped it’s bone.”

[fazool]

My pet peeve is "should of".....

That's not even English! The phrase is "should have" and it is contracted to "should've" but the illiterati spell it phonetically so frequently that it is now common.

Another pet peeve, of mine is "insure" versus "ensure".

[Bob Womack]

I know how you feel. I was mercilessly hacked on my my teachers and professors if I made mistakes. I thakn them for that as it aids in reliably communicating with others. And then there are those who absolutely must communicate accurately: philosophers, lawyers, judges, etc. A slip of the pen can completely banjax the point you are attempting to communicate.

What really bothers me when people who are supposed to be wordsmiths, writers, news writers, ad writers, etc. abuse the language. Their work influence others and causes decay in the populace's use of language. Go back and look at the language of America's Founders. They were both poetic and extremely specific in their communication. All the loosening up of meanings and usages makes communication less accurate and reliable.

I wonder if it contributes to all the unhappiness with Reverb and eBay descriptions?

Bob

[lowrider]

I did see the posts with ''affect'' and ''effect''. It's like fingernails on the blackboard. It's really not that hard to write correctly.

[nitram]

Where to start? A lot of people don't know the difference between "to" and "too". Some of the errors result from what I think is an effort to get one's opinion on the web before being scooped. Hence- no pause to edit.
Before you hit "send", read what it is you're sending. If that doesn't work-you are in a grammatical league above your ability.
I know that this isn't an English class but, boy, it can make one wonder how we got to this point.

[ManyMartinMan]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

...English is a living language but it is sure not taught in school like it was back when... Nor is geography or spelling. Arithmetic may be next on the hit list. Our children can only learn so much in the alloted time, so as needs grow, subjects go.

Or, allotted time...... I don't believe it's the educational system. I believe the issue is now those who never bothered to learn to write correctly and differentiate between synonyms, homonyms, apply punctuation and spell correctly have immediate access to millions of people reading their output. One of the chronically abused words for me is the incorrect use of "anyways" instead of anyway. Likewise, allot instead of a lot and many, many others (allot is to apportion or allocate while a lot is ... more than one). Capitalization of proper nouns is another violently abused part of speech. I'm not bothered by the misuse of words. It's the complete lack of trying. The computer actually tells you when many of these problems arise and people don't even try to correct the issue.

[Mr. Jelly]

I read allot of historical American journals. So I don't buy into the real rules. Whatever they have been deemed to be at some point in time. It's obvious the belief that language rules are set in stone is incorrect.

There's what should be
And there's what is

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

I read allot of historical American journals.

'Allot' in that context is simply wrong. I think that matters.

[fretfile100]

I have heard it said that " the patient's affect might effect change in the type of psychotropic prescribed. " English can indeed be confusing.