Comments on: The Great Typo Hunt

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:37:59 +0000

Ha ha ha. Yes, Jane I like, LOLed. It was like, amazing, and like, excellent, and even like, hilarious. ;)

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 05:49:41 +0000

Diana, you, like, lolled?

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:23:46 +0000

Jane, I loved your comment about young people going through life these days little better in verbal expression than “grunting stone-age cave dwellers”. Good one! You made me laugh out loud.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:45:45 +0000

Susannah, the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss ought to be recommended study material in English teaching.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:37:16 +0000

Will, with the limited vocabulary kids now acquire in school, they are unfortunately very handicapped in expressing anything. To express their liking or approval of something, the gamut seems to be limited to “amazing”, “brilliant”, “fantastic” and “fabulous”, without any understanding of the actual meanings of those words. However, it is sometimes even worse when even those adjectives are beyond the individual concerned and they come out with, “…..it has the wow factor”! I cringe but can only feel sadness that these young people have to go through life little better in verbal expression than grunting stone-age cave dwellers.

By: Susannah

Susannah — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:23:34 +0000

I can’t wait to read this book. The thing that drives me absolutely crazy is the incorrect use of apostrophes, and I see it EVERYWHERE. I want to just scream “apostrophes indicate possession, not what is plural” and I even see it with words that just end in ‘s’ like Jones. It is sadly true that the knowledge of proper English is gone in this country, including spelling and oral/written sentence structure. It is a great loss.

By: Diana

Diana — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:58:53 +0000

Split an infinitive!? Just to have people be able to use “was/
were” correctly would be a relief to me. No need to blame it on the teachers. It’s how their families speak. Oh, and how about “don’t/doesn’t”? “He don’t. She don’t.” I’ve even heard TV newsmen use that one incorrectly. Makes me cringe.

By: Joan

Joan — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 19:49:15 +0000

I am forwarding this interview to at least three of my friends who feel as I do about the cavalier attitude these days toward the English language. I consider English as the most important, inclusive and international gift ever given, and I respect it with all my heart. I am not so concerned about generational slang or bad habits as I am about the misuse of basic proper grammar. People not only don’t know the rules, for which I blame the teachers, but they really don’t care. Lay and lie, I or me and him or he, who and whom, on and on it goes. I have at least learned not to correct perfect strangers (and relatives) for fear of my life, but when I heard that some self-appointed guru decided that it’s okay to split an infinitive, something inside me turned belly up. I shall buy the book, and likely send a copy to others who really need it. Maybe it will teach us that we need to be more forgiving, although I do hate the thought of surrendering Thanks for the tip.

By: Grant

Grant — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:41:10 +0000

Yeah, that and when someone says “I mean”..before they’ve even said anything! (the list unfortunately goes on and on) Or..you ask where the screwdriver is (for example)..”it’s one over there”. It’s not It’s, it’s “there’s”…or “there is”. I know this is grammar and not spelling, but I had to get that off of my chest! I HATE lazy grammar/english! (I thankfully blame my mother for this pet peeve)

By: Will

Will — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 14:10:09 +0000

In addition to today’s growing grammatical disasters, we seem to be getting stuck on favorite words and habits, such as stuttering on the word “I” at the beginning of a sentence, as if to add more drama to a topic, and overly-using the word “amazing” to describe everything from someone’s appearance to a personal opinion of everything on Earth.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:15:35 +0000

It is great that these guys undertook this quest! Now can we please have teachers teach kids not to use the word “LIKE” in every other word when speaking!!! I certainly hope so!