PSA: English Grammar MEGA THREAD (All Your Grammar Are Belong To Us)

IgnoreThisBarrel

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I'm not sure if this has been posted already as the search didn't help much; it's "would have" rather than "would of." Somewhat similar are "sure" and "fissure" rather than "shure" and "fishure," or the dreaded "fisher."
 

Xyon

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We've covered "should of, would of" etc. and I think "Pacific" instead of "specific".

Perhaps I should knock up one huge list of what we've covered and add it to the first post.
 

Linguofreak

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Don't know if this was posted, but why not?

Amount vs Number
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/amount.html

I make that error quite frequently but quickly catch it, like I did a few minutes ago. :p

Using "number" for "amount" sounds really bad to me, but not so much "amount" for "number", though I don't say it much myself.

I'm not sure if this has been posted already as the search didn't help much; it's "would have" rather than "would of." Somewhat similar are "sure" and "fissure" rather than "shure" and "fishure," or the dreaded "fisher."

The pronunciation of "fissure" with the sound in "fish" rather than that in "Asia" really grates on my ears, though I understand that its very much standard on the other side of the pond...
 

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Saying it like "Fizzure" just sounds wrong to me, the correct sound to me is as "fishure".
 

Hielor

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The pronunciation of "fissure" with the sound in "fish" rather than that in "Asia" really grates on my ears, though I understand that its very much standard on the other side of the pond...
There's a difference between the "sh" sound in Fish and Asia?
 

orb

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There's a difference between the "sh" sound in Fish and Asia?
I pronounce them /ˈeɪʒə/, /ˈfɪʃ/, but it seems they can be pronounced similarly:
  • Asia - IPA: /ˈeɪʒə/, /ˈeɪʃə/, SAMPA: /"eIZ@/, /"eIS@/
  • fish - IPA: /ˈfɪʃ/, SAMPA: /fIS/
 

Xyon

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Thus establishing that you are likely from the other side of the pond. :)

My location is set to England, as the country flag in my postbit indicates. In actual fact I'm from the North West of the country, and my accent in no way reflects the conventional "British" accent as seen on American TV - it always makes me wonder, do we mangle USian accents as badly as you mangle ours?
 

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Well I am from Southern California, and I have to agree with Xyon on this one. Fissure is pronounced (at least in this region) as FISH-er. FIZZ-er just sounds odd.
 

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Indeed. In this vein, I would point out that "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse" are entirely different sentences. Watch those capital letters.

Amazingly, nobody caught this. You said the same thing twice: I helped my uncle jack off a horse. The word "Jack" in the first sentence is just improperly capitalized (yes, you read that correctly).

Now, here's what you meant to say in the first sentence:

I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse.

Those little red marks are called parenthetical commas. Parenthetical commas are commas that separate the extra, optional information in the sentence. You could removed the information inside the commas and the sentence would still say the same thing.

Never underestimate the power of the comma. :tiphat:
 

IgnoreThisBarrel

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Amazingly, nobody caught this. You said the same thing twice: I helped my uncle jack off a horse. The word "Jack" in the first sentence is just improperly capitalized (yes, you read that correctly).

Now, here's what you meant to say in the first sentence:

I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse.

Those little red marks are called parenthetical commas. Parenthetical commas are commas that separate the extra, optional information in the sentence. You could removed the information inside the commas and the sentence would still say the same thing.

Never underestimate the power of the comma. :tiphat:
I regularly abuse parenthetical commas.
 

Hielor

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Amazingly, nobody caught this. You said the same thing twice: I helped my uncle jack off a horse. The word "Jack" in the first sentence is just improperly capitalized (yes, you read that correctly).

Now, here's what you meant to say in the first sentence:

I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse.

Those little red marks are called parenthetical commas. Parenthetical commas are commas that separate the extra, optional information in the sentence. You could removed the information inside the commas and the sentence would still say the same thing.

Never underestimate the power of the comma. :tiphat:
The parenthetical commas are not necessary here. The name "Jack" is not necessarily optional information--if the speaker has ten uncles, the name is necessary to distinguish which. "Uncle Jack" is the person being referred to.

As an example:
"My friend Bill went to the park."
Parenthetical commas (ie, "My friend, Bill, went to the park") are also possible here, but they are not required.
 

Dr Pepper

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The parenthetical commas are not necessary here. The name "Jack" is not necessarily optional information--if the speaker has ten uncles, the name is necessary to distinguish which. "Uncle Jack" is the person being referred to.

As an example:
"My friend Bill went to the park."
Parenthetical commas (ie, "My friend, Bill, went to the park") are also possible here, but they are not required.


:facepalm: Thought I was on to something here. My English professor would be ashamed, after having spent an entire semester bashing that into our heads.

My mistake. :tiphat:


P.S. I really like that hat guy. This place has changed quite a bit since I was last here.
 

Linguofreak

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There's a difference between the "sh" sound in Fish and Asia?

It's the difference between:
"Aleutian" and "Allusion"
"Confucian" and "Confusion"
"Mesher" and "Measure",

and, depending on how you pronounce these, can also be the difference between "Asher" (the biblical name) and "azure", and between "dilution" and "delusion".
 

Notebook

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Intersting stuff.
For me, there is little difference in the first three examples in the "Shh" sound. Quite a lot for me in the last two, espechhially dilution/delusion. Could be the accent of course.

N.
 

Linguofreak

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My location is set to England, as the country flag in my postbit indicates.

Thus the smiley in my previous post. :)

In actual fact I'm from the North West of the country, and my accent in no way reflects the conventional "British" accent as seen on American TV - it always makes me wonder, do we mangle USian accents as badly as you mangle ours?

I've not actually heard alot of British folk trying to imitate US accents. Part of the problem for Americans, of course, is that we lump everything from Cockney to Yorkshire to (sometimes) Scottish in as "British"
 
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