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graywyvern
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14 Jun 2012, 6:29 pm

it used to bother me a lot that schools weren't doing a better job of turning out literate adults, since i believe that to be the best defense a democratic society has against demagoguery, but after seeing the rise of a host of pipsqueak prescriptivists, who base their repetitious punditry not upon any deep acquaintance with the literary tradition, but upon a small set of gotchas they use to express their inordinate contempt for the masses, i have to say: our language is not served by such self-appointed guardians; & even though one of my two jobs is helping students (often ESOL) master mid-twentieth century formal English (--which i say: most of our books are written in), i also know that there existed a form of English before that, & another before that, which were equally good tools of communication for their speakers. so will there be another, when these (high-acid) books are dust.

but like every other public debate, this gets reduced to a comicbook battle between antagonists, each with their half-truth.


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Declension
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14 Jun 2012, 6:35 pm

If any of you are interested in some expert opinion on which "rules" of English are actually rules and which are just modern inventions enforced by unthinking cultists, I highly recommend the blog Language Log. It's written by linguists who specialise in English, and every now and then there is a really good post which carefully analyses a commonly-cited "rule" of English grammar and shows that it is unfounded.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/



Bloodheart
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14 Jun 2012, 7:05 pm

Now yours truly didn't learn English until the age of 7 and even then it was slow going, so in my teens when I first started going online my English was poor and it drove me absolutely round-the-bend that people used to get so fussy over spelling and grammar, that they seemed to think 'OMG you can't even spell!' was somehow a winning argument in a discussion.

BUT years of writing professionally mean that my spelling and grammar has improved greatly...and now I find myself getting VERY annoyed at poor spelling and grammar, online it is particularly irritating given how many browsers etc. have spell-check built-in, I think not checking spelling is a little lazy. I'm not a grammar nazi, but it does bug me.


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Cash__
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14 Jun 2012, 7:45 pm

My spelling and grammar are very bad. Whenever the spelling nazi's come after me I just say "There, their, they're, it'll be OK"



Who_Am_I
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15 Jun 2012, 2:28 am

Cash__ wrote:
My spelling and grammar are very bad. Whenever the spelling nazi's come after me I just say "There, their, they're, it'll be OK"


:lol:


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Authentic cadence: V-I
Plagal cadence: IV-I
Deceptive cadence: V- ANYTHING BUT I ! !! !
Beethoven cadence: V-I-V-I-V-V-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I! I! I! I I I


Who_Am_I
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15 Jun 2012, 2:29 am

Cash__ wrote:
My spelling and grammar are very bad. Whenever the spelling nazi's come after me I just say "There, their, they're, it'll be OK"


:lol:


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Music Theory 101: Cadences.
Authentic cadence: V-I
Plagal cadence: IV-I
Deceptive cadence: V- ANYTHING BUT I ! !! !
Beethoven cadence: V-I-V-I-V-V-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I! I! I! I I I


AnnettaMarie
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15 Jun 2012, 2:39 am

i don see alot of ppl speling thigs that r hard 2 understand but i suppose that it wult b anooying if they did so thank godness that i don spell thigs like that becuas then ppl wuldent understand me and it wuld get very frustrating.


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Blownmind
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15 Jun 2012, 2:48 am

AnnettaMarie wrote:
i don see alot of ppl speling thigs that r hard 2 understand but i suppose that it wult b anooying if they did so thank godness that i don spell thigs like that becuas then ppl wuldent understand me and it wuld get very frustrating.

My head hurts now..


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AnnettaMarie
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15 Jun 2012, 10:23 pm

Blownmind wrote:
AnnettaMarie wrote:
i don see alot of ppl speling thigs that r hard 2 understand but i suppose that it wult b anooying if they did so thank godness that i don spell thigs like that becuas then ppl wuldent understand me and it wuld get very frustrating.

My head hurts now..


I blew your mind.


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