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The Forum > Article Comments > The grammar detective > Comments

The grammar detective : Comments

By Margaret Ann Williams, published 5/1/2006

Margaret Ann Williams finds the use of bad grammar gives away a dubious university scholarship program.

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Congratulations Margaret on your detective work and on uncovering yet another scam. I have had experience with a similar scam which targeted primary school students. The front was a writing competition in which the best entries would have the opportunity to have their work published. Lots of children from our local school entered and suspicions were only aroused when each of them received a letter advising that theirs was one of the one hundred best entries and had been selected to appear in a book. Statistically it just didn't seem possible that each of those children could have been in the top one hundred entries. Their entries were also of widely different abilities. 'Winners'were requested to send money for their copy of the book.
Posted by Marnie Lee, Friday, 6 January 2006 7:07:41 AM
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Gee how did I get in this room? we or at least I think we do, get a bit carried away about this.
No uni for me in fact I left school after only being a part time visitor at 12 years and ten months of age.
passed burning rubbish and handing out and collecting milk bottles top marks and nothing else, kids had to eat.
Learnt to read in a north coast construction camp, that was the reality of big bush familys.
In a forum like this does it matter? really?oh ps havent learnt to spell yet.
Posted by Belly, Friday, 6 January 2006 7:11:27 AM
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I suspected that somebody would mention Truss's book in the forum. I recommend taking a look at "The Cambridge Guide to English Usage", by Pam Peters. Also, have a look at Future Perfect: www.future-perfect.co.uk .

Eugene
Posted by Eugene, Friday, 6 January 2006 9:00:42 AM
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I agree with Kay et al. but it seems only our dear intellectuals and advertising types actually like all these words and constructions that everyone's mentioned.

Casual writing is one thing but supposedly authoritative commentary is another. Good luck learning any language without learning grammar. You'll be one of those annoying people we hear on the radio or tv from time to time who claim to have been here for 20 years but for some inexplicable reason can't speak intelligible English to save themselves.

Academics are by definition out of touch with society, that goes without saying, but to suggest as one person said above that advert execs are "uni-trained" has to be a joke - surely they're lucky if they completed a correspondence course off the back of their cornflakes packet. As we say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and a very little knowledge is about all our print media has.

No, copy is written too rapidly by ambitious kids lacking expertise and tired old hacks who could only ever claim a slim connection with their own language and who both spend much more time checking to see if their own names are in print. Spelt correctly of course.

Some words that give me the sh1ts are..

"butt" instead of "arse" - since when did we ever kick butt? What is a butt? If I sit on my butt, for example, I will only burn my arse.

"gifted"... now really, why bother with such a stupid sounding and superfluous word?

"panties" ? What's this crap anyway? It sounds weird and coy or something - they're underpants for god's sake. Whatever happened to undies, to grundies (or to dick-dacks in the case of men?). Panties are definitely pure advertising copy.

biscuits, biscuits, biscuits ... we don't see any anzac cookies anywhere sorry ..

"oversight" - you want the verb instead? Well use the bloody verb.

etcetera etcetera
Posted by Ro, Sunday, 8 January 2006 2:00:18 PM
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I never went to university nor do I have great grammar, however I do know that the English went to the US a few hundred years before they ambled up to these shores. So the American english is quite often as english as ours, just from a different time. In those few hundred years french seemed to creep into english spelling. We are confused ourselves with the older english version of "labor" as in Labor party and the newer more elaborate "labour"

I mean like, who really cares? Or should I say "ya know what I mean, like!"

Whatever!

ps

Had to edit due to the following warning.

Error
There is no need for that many exclamation marks. Remove them to continue.

roflmao, I was just making a point relevant to this subject !!
Posted by Verdant, Sunday, 8 January 2006 3:32:38 PM
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I despair that most of the grievances expressed in this thread are (close to) a lost cause. However I would like to mention the one which grinds my teeth - the confusion between fewer and less. The misuse is now routine in both spoken and written discourse.
Posted by PeterF, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 8:08:08 PM
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