The Truth About Grammar - Latest Comments

Re: Mister Rall, Mister Patrick Rall: please report immediately for a spanking and confiscation of your writing privileges

Truth About Grammar — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:13:58 -0000

Cementing the reputation of Examiner.com "staff" one passive-voiced, subject/verb/modifier-jumbled sentence at a time.

Re: Nugget Fugget

jputhuff — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:53:20 -0000

Which month is Maroh?

Re: Nugget Fugget

Robert — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:03:07 -0000

I don't get it. Where is the error?

Re: I Give Up. It’s Hopeless.

4ndyman — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:44:12 -0000

Oh the irony of the apostrophe that is misplaced in the phrase "everything in its place."

Re: I Give Up. It’s Hopeless.

Annie — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 02:32:24 -0000

Why give up? Is not there a place for everything in it is place?

Re: Sink, Sank, Has Sunk

Jan — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 02:10:32 -0000

I've seen a lot of these the last couple of months in even semi-respectable venues, folks using "sunk" where I would use "sank." lead/led and loose/lose are two of the others that a spell-checker won't help. Why sunk/sank, though? shrink/shrank/shrunk, swim/swam/swum.... it is not a unique pattern. What's up?

Re: Stay Smart, Georgia

Daniel Stern — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:43:05 -0000

Also: "…between the dates of October 1st, 2011 *to* March 6th, 2012…"? No. A date range can be between start *and* end dates, or it can be from a start date *to* an end date, but it cannot be *between* a start *to* an end date.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about Grammar

Daniel Stern — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:36:49 -0000

Okeh, Bob, fair enough; I'll edit the entry to specify that "unique" does not take _quantifying_ adverbs. That, however, is as far as I will concede. "Truly unique" doesn't mean anything. Uniqueness is a binary condition; either a thing is or isn't unique. We have other words—such as "similar"—for things which are neither wholly like nor wholly unlike other things Your second paragraph is, as you note, inapposite.

Re: Stay Smart, Georgia

Jim — Sun, 20 May 2012 20:13:37 -0000

My mistake. I read only the sentence with the highlights. Apologies.

Re: Stay Smart, Georgia

Jeff Puthuff — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:33:39 -0000

The State is not asking the company what list it shipped. Read it again. The company ships computers to customers. The State wants a list of customers to which the company sent products.

Therefore, it wants to know the details of orders that were shipped. Unfortunately, it asked for details of orders that was shipped.

Re: Stay Smart, Georgia

Zaphod — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:27:06 -0000

It's a list. It was shipped. Where is the error? Certainly no one would want the verb to agree with the object of a proposition.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about Grammar

Bob — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:51:38 -0000

Your last entry is mistaken. "Unique," though perhaps not a word for a quality that admits of degrees, can certainly "take modifiers." Examples: "This purportedly unique diamond is in fact a mass-produced chunk of cubic zirconia"; "A truly unique particular substance is a metaphysical impossibility"; "One's own death is bound to be an uncomfortably unique experience." I share your annoyance at the use of "unique" to mean "special," "unusual," and the like, but the word does not resist all adverbs.

Nor, I think, is it wholly beyond question whether something could be more or less unique. After all, one thing can be more or less similar to another, and if a thing is unique by virtue of being in no way similar to anything else, then it begins to look like uniqueness admits of degrees. In any case, answering that question is more a philosophical or logical than a grammatical task, but it is not already answered for us by the grammar of the word "unique."

Re: Many Fathers Celebrate Father’s Day

Jeff Puthuff — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:55:05 -0000

And why not make Juke Joint a different color in addition to bolding, italicizing, and placing in single quotation marks?

Re: Many Fathers Celebrate Father’s Day

4ndyman — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:46:04 -0000

I find it odd, too, how the hot dog cart seems to be a big selling point, considering the relative sizes of the fonts used in the ad.

Re: Want to Appear Illiterate?

Jeff Puthuff — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:52:59 -0000

No, you don&#039t get it.

Which of the following sound(s) correct?

A) Eating 100 lollipops will rot your teeth.
B) Eating a 100 lollipops will rot your teeth.
C) Eating a hundred lollipops will rot your teeth.

and

I) 1001 Nights
II) A 1001 Nights
III) One Thousand and One Nights

Review the rules of indefinite articles, numerals, and numbers.

-Jeff

Re: Want to Appear Illiterate?

Bob L — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:39:45 -0000

I don't get it. The "a" goes with 100, not megawatts. I guess you could complain that he didn't write out "hundred", but that would just be peevish.

"A hundred" followed by a plural noun is standard and common, and has been for centuries. A quick text search on a single novel by Jane Austen, Emma, pulls back several such instances: "Smith has not much above a hundred acres...", "where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times", "I suppose there may be a hundred different ways", etc. A hundred years earlier (ha!) I found it in Swift: "a hundred yards distant from the city." Drop another century, and in the 1611 authorized edition: ""What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep..." Go back two more centuries and in Chaucer you get things like "an hundred knights".

Someone does appear illiterate, but it's not the guy with the news post about Apple.

Re: Right from the gecko?

jputhuff — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:19:13 -0000

I think we all have those kinds of moments. Some of the confusions are just more bizarre than others. For years I kept pronouncing magenta as mag-net-a. Weird.

Re: Right from the gecko?

thomas wiliams — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:10:33 -0000

I thougt the same thing for years. I guess owr ears fool us.

Re: So Much Wrong

4ndyman — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:03:04 -0000

you see that "Flag As Inappropriate" link in the upper-right? How hard would it be to add a "Flag As Badly Written" link right under that?

Re: From the George W. Bush School of Grammar

Jeff Puthuff — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 03:07:00 -0000

Companies are people. Supreme Court ruled so.

Re: http://thetruthaboutgrammar.com/2012/03/26/1544/

4ndyman — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:55:58 -0000

You don't know what "apititamy" is? Why, it's the opposite of "pititamy" of course!

Re: From the George W. Bush School of Grammar

Dave — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 05:38:02 -0000

>> pretends that they are not threatened

You're making the same mistake. Pretends that it is not threatened. Etc. etc.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about Grammar

Daniel_Stern — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:09:21 -0000

You're right. I'll add that straightaway. (update: done!)

Regrettably, some people are bounden determined* to make it a point of pride that they could care less** about the difference between "its" and "it's".

* In this phrase peculiar to the Southern United States, bounden serves as an adjective which, translated into English, is more or less equivalent to "extremely" or "doggedly". The etymology of the phrase is self evident.

** People who say this are just dumb.

Re: “Bailout” versus “bail out”

Zaphod — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:45:49 -0000

How have you missed the constant misuse of "it's," when as often as not the writer should have used "its?" You should go slap wrists at TTAC for that.

Re: Everything You Need to Know about Grammar

Zaphod — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:37:12 -0000

You forgot to mention the pervasive misuse of "unique," which too many people think can accept a modifier. It can't.

And please make an effort to see that everyone who writes in either The Truth About Cars and Jalopnik learns the difference between "its" and it's." Everyone. No one on either site does.