Grammar thread

[gkelly]

Every few years, someone posts a specific grammar question in a new thread, posters discuss for a few posts, and then the thread dies and another one starts next time someone has a different question.

I thought it would be more efficient to have an ongoing thread people could resurrect each time. Although I won't be surprised if that doesn't happen.

In any case, I wanted to post something that belongs in a general grammar thread but not in any of the past specific threads. So I started one.

Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Clauses—What’s the Difference?

A restrictive clause modifies the noun that precedes it in an essential way. Restrictive clauses limit or identify such nouns…

www.grammarly.com

Kaylee, who just graduated from high school, is an accomplished figure skater.


While the nonrestrictive clause who just graduated from high school offers a good description of the subject of this sentence, Kaylee, the sentence retains its meaning without it.



Kaylee is an accomplished figure skater.

 

[Vash01]

I thought we had an ongoing grammar thread?

 

[taf2002]

Does punctuation fit into this thread? I am continually annoyed by the use of apostrophes when the noun is plural. Example: There were 3 doctor's in the clinic. I'm seeing this more & more online & in print. It's as though people have never heard of plurals, & it makes them seem uneducated. It's not like other errors. This is a deliberate addition of something that doesn't belong.

 

[watchthis!!]

Does punctuation fit into this thread? I am continually annoyed by the use of apostrophes when the noun is plural. Example: There were 3 doctor's in the clinic.

It's like they're not teaching student's basic English anymore.

 

[Cachoo]

I hear people say anyway and others say anyways. I use the former--does it matter?

 

[Susan1]

I thought we had an ongoing grammar thread?

This one -

Grammar question

6 a.m. I saw my first typo of the new year. ha ha ha The only local station with news on - the crawl said, about the weather ".........kick off out first day of the new year". I wasn't even reading the crawl. I just glanced at it and that jumped out at me.:rolleyes:

www.fsuniverse.net

So Jeopardy is still using Women instead of Female (Authors, Scientists, whatevers) in the title of the category. AARRGGHH.

And a certain female reporter on one of the local channels that I only watch when the other local channels don't have news on (noon) is still saying "whenever" when she means "when". "Whenever the cops got there............." "Whenever the storm hit.........." You mean you don't know WHEN it hapened? I want to scream. Whatever. ha ha

 

[barbk]

Everyday vs. every day. Apart vs. a part. Commas strewn randomly.

I've given up on who vs. whom argument with teens. I'm not giving up on possessives.

 

[Vash01]

This one -

Grammar question

6 a.m. I saw my first typo of the new year. ha ha ha The only local station with news on - the crawl said, about the weather ".........kick off out first day of the new year". I wasn't even reading the crawl. I just glanced at it and that jumped out at me.:rolleyes:

www.fsuniverse.net

So Jeopardy is still using Women instead of Female (Authors, Scientists, whatevers) in the title of the category. AARRGGHH.

And a certain female reporter on one of the local channels that I only watch when the other local channels don't have news on (noon) is still saying "whenever" when she means "when". "Whenever the cops got there............." "Whenever the storm hit.........." You mean you don't know WHEN it hapened? I want to scream. Whatever. ha ha

Yes, that is the one- 11 pages long. It is the one I normally go to when I want to discuss (or complain about) grammar.

 

[Susan1]

Does punctuation fit into this thread? I am continually annoyed by the use of apostrophes when the noun is plural. Example: There were 3 doctor's in the clinic. I'm seeing this more & more online & in print. It's as though people have never heard of plurals, & it makes them seem uneducated. It's not like other errors. This is a deliberate addition of something that doesn't belong.

In the original thread, I was talking about a sign I went by every day for years that said Appraisal's First. Eeeeek!!

 

[taf2002]

It's like they're not teaching student's basic English anymore.

 

[Vash01]

In the original thread, I was talking about a sign I went by every day for years that said Appraisal's First. Eeeeek!!

It really irritates me when people put the ' before s when they are simply writing a plural.

Can these two threads be merged?

 

[taf2002]

It really irritates me when people put the ' before s when they are simply writing a plural.

Can these two threads be merged?

I must be on Vash's ignore since she didn't see my post.

 

[Vash01]

I must be on Vash's ignore since she didn't see my post.

You are not.

ETA- I have not been reading every post, mainly for lack of energy. I have been sick and mostly slept for a couple of days. Couldn't even watch tv - it gave me a headache. On fsu I limited myself to only what I can handle right now. I expect to be OK by the end of the week. Appears to be a viral infection (not the flu) that I caught during travel.

 

[Aerobicidal]

Everyday vs. every day. Apart vs. a part.

May be vs. maybe.

 

[Susan1]

I must be on Vash's ignore since she didn't see my post.

Yeah, since she replied to my reply to you about apostrophe's (<apostrophe joke there!).
She explained that she's been sick and not reading every post though.

 

[Vash01]

Yeah, since she replied to my reply to you about apostrophe's (<apostrophe joke there!).
She explained that she's been sick and not reading every post though.

My brain doesn’t seem to be working,but just to clarify, she is not on my ignore list. Now I should go back to sleep (but I just got up! )

My weakness in grammar is the comma - either too many or too few.

 

[Susan1]

My brain doesn’t seem to be working,but just to clarify, she is not on my ignore list. Now I should go back to sleep (but I just got up! )

My weakness in grammar is the comma - either too many or too few.

Feel better!!

 

[Susan1]

This one -

Grammar question

6 a.m. I saw my first typo of the new year. ha ha ha The only local station with news on - the crawl said, about the weather ".........kick off out first day of the new year". I wasn't even reading the crawl. I just glanced at it and that jumped out at me.:rolleyes:

www.fsuniverse.net

So Jeopardy is still using Women instead of Female (Authors, Scientists, whatevers) in the title of the category. AARRGGHH.

Man. I was so happy to see the Final Jeopardy category "FEMALE Music Superstars". Then the clue said "...............#1 of the 200 greatest women artists of all time". I guess the category writer finally paid attention to my emails. But the "answer" person didn't. By the way, I knew it was Barbra Streisand. So did the female contestant. The two men guessed Cher.

 

[Susan1]

And a certain female reporter on one of the local channels that I only watch when the other local channels don't have news on (noon) .....

Same station - weather person today said "fall foilage" twice. It's fo-li-age. Geez.

 

[Susan1]

It just jumps out at me everywhere -
FB post "Australia's top women soccer players will now earn the same as their male counterparts." And another part referred to "Australian women footballers".
(leaving out names....)
So I wrote:
Pet peeve - should be "female" soccer players. You wouldn't say "men" soccer players, men models, men nurses..... Women is a noun not an adjective.

Then a guy replied specifically to me: female does not specify human female. The word woman does.

Then a FEMALE replied to him: Yes, because we don't want to confuse people who think we have female aardvark teams playing soccer.

I "love"d her comment.

I JUST noticed in what I copied over - they even said "...... earn the same as their MALE counterparts", not MEN counterparts. It's madness, I tell you, madness!

 

[sk8pics]

This is what drives me crazy:
“Everyone is not available next week...”
But that is not correct, because, of course, some people are available, so it should be
“Not everyone is available next week...”

I see this more and more, it seems very few people understand the correct way to say this.

 

[Susan1]

The Weathertech "cup phone". No, it's a "phone cup". Selling a "cup phone" would be selling a phone you put in a cup. Adjective before noun. Grrrrr.

 

[Susan1]

Not "grammar", but the usual sloppy local news. Same station, same half hour - Thursday's weather box "quck shower", and the banner under a story about bars closing - two "locations close unrepentantly". I figure it was supposed to read "unexpectedly", because that is what she said, but geez, how does it auto correct to that, and nobody noticed?

 

[KCC]

I am writing a grant application for a local school. This application asks several questions about "diversity" (with no further descriptors). In answering this question: "Please give a breakdown of the diversity of your leadership, staff and youth participants", should I use the words Black & White or African-American & Caucasian when referring to our racial categories? Google says both are okay, but I wondered which is more common or acceptable. Thanks!

 

[Japanfan]

I would think African American and Caucasian.

 

[KCC]

^^ That is what I used for the first draft, but I asked the school's leadership for their preferred words. This foundation serves the whole Pacific Northwest and it is not clear from their information which words they tend to use.

 

[Susan1]

I had to search back to February to find this thread. I saw the word "Academics" in the c.v. thread yesterday, and thought of something that's bugging me and I wrote -

"?? to Academics: Hijacking for a second because I always forget till I see or hear it and then I'm not on here. Or I am and have 10 pages of posts to read and forget. "Writ large". Are these people using that expression when they mean "at large" (meaning all over the place, broadly) just trying to sound smart or legalish? Which I am not. I don't even have an example at the moment. I have written them down before and then forgot. Joy Reid might say - "trump has disgusted the whole country writ large". I've looked up the definition a couple times when I thought of it, and that is not the correct usage. Just another one of those things that jumps out at me every time. People are doing better with Female VP. I don't yell it at the t.v. as much. And then there comes the League of "Women Voters" in charge of Ohio's election. I'll let that one go because it is 100 years old."

I got back a reply with a link to the definition of "writ large" that I already knew. And replied -

" "Yeah, I saw that one.
- clear and obvious.
"the unspoken question writ large upon Rose's face"
- in a stark or exaggerated form.
"bribing people by way of tax allowances is the paternalistic state writ large"

Here's the thing I saw yesterday.
"In her comments, DeVos warned that the president-elect’s plan would only hurt the American economy.
“Ultimately, nothing is ‘free.’ Somebody, somewhere pays the bill,” she said. “And the bill is coming due. What we do next in education policy — and in public policy writ large — will either break our already fragile economy, or it will unleash an age of achievement and prosperity, the likes of which we’ve never seen.”

Does that definition fit here? Seems more to me that she (and the way others use it) meant "at large" meaning "in general". " "

Any "grammarticians" (I know it's not a real word, it's just what someone used to call me) want to weight in?

 

[Vagabond]

Cambridge Dictionary

If one thing is another thing writ large, it is similar to it but larger or more obvious:
....[Example:]And it is generally hard to know which came first: trust in particular state institutions or satisfaction with the regime of democracy writ large.

DeVos' usage is correct, but her view of Biden's proposals might not be.

 

[Susan1]

Cambridge Dictionary

DeVos' usage is correct, but her view of Biden's proposals might not be.

1. o.k. Thank you,
2. duh
That was just the latest "writ large" I heard used when I think they mean "at large" like "widespread" or "everybody". You all will be noticing every time somebody says "writ large" now. You're welcome.

 

[aurobora]

Well it's better to have the thread open as I always come with new questions myself. I have so many students who don't know much about Grammar and others who come up with intriguing questions that need answers. The other day we were discussing in class about semicolons and their use and many questions were mainly due to lack of practice. I then decided to give them a bit of extra homework and see the results after they complete some semicolons worksheets that I found online and looked really well-made to not use. I'll be sharing my results next week.