yorkshiregel I love that poster! It's like the Eats shoots and leaves book! I hated my children and friends saying, "oh I would of....." instead of 'have' but they didn't even understand what was wrong!

Oh dear - off I go with a rant!
The 'Senior Political Correspondent' for Sky News - Beth Rigby - who never pronounces the'g'at the end of 'ing' words. How can anyone who has clearly trained to be a tv journalist fail to understand the importance of correct articulation? My problem is that I cannot listen to the content of her report because I'm waiting for her to say doin' or goin'.
A very old friend always used to end his sentences with "and so forth"...now that was quite charming!

Defiantly comes up with the predictive text if you type incorrectly. A lot shortening of words is also due to trying to cut down on text.
Presenters with written text in front of them should be able to speak correctly though.

What is going on nationally on tv and radio and spoken English everywhere with the Pronunciation of H ? it is Aitch not Haitch as everyone says these days. Even the employees of HSBC call it Haitch and they should knowbetter!! Schools should be correcting bad grammar. "myself" instead of "me " by a head teacher is unforgivable!!
Apostrophe S is another one - Brahms Lullaby is what it is - Not Brahms's!!

Or is it Brahms' Lullaby?

Haitch is a regional thing - midlands mainly.

From one pedant to another (M0nica, 29 Oct.) - did you notice that the use of apostrophes in your post was incorrect?
You used isolating commas, ('....I used to feel censorious about those, who in my opinion, debased the language.......'), to cordon off information that was not essential to your sentence.
Isolating commas around a clause, a phrase, or a single word, should be used so that the words between the isolating commas can be removed and the sentence still makes sense.
It should read, '.....I used to feel censorious about those who, in my opinion, debased the language.....'.
I notice this a lot in the written language these days, almost as bad as the 'grocer's apostrophe'.

Your post doesn't make sense to me with regard to M0nica's post of 29th October, piscarii.

Perhaps you could explain which isolating commas in the post you were referring to.

Oh, as you were - I was getting confused with quotation marks...sorry!

I am aggressively related about all grammar, except misuse of I and Me.
" He told Michael and I about the meeting" instantly makes everything that person says not worthy of consideration!
It just sounds so wrong.

allule while I could not agree more about "I" when it should be "me", I don't understand aggressively related in your post
I suspect predictive text might be to blame?

Indeed...meant relaxed

I think either is now officially acceptable as regional difference.
However, whichever one you are brought up with, it seems impossible to change.

"You know what I mean" being constantly used at the end of every sentence, drives me mad, also the use of "embrace", these days, one has to "embrace" things.

I was speechless on Sunday when DS1 told me in no uncertain terms that it was not necessary for young children (GD1 is 2 years old) to be made aware of tenses. For example, if she says she drinked her drink I wasn't to tell her that I had drunk mine as well because I would confuse her. DS1 said that it was more important for her to communicate ideas and that grammar could come later. My DIL1 was nodding sagely in agreement with DS1. How am I supposed to speak to my GD1? DIL2, also present, couldn't help saying that she would not be following this advice with DG2. The delicious irony of it all was that, just before we left them, my DIL1 called out to tell my DS1 that DG1 had just said that she had caught her ball! Out of the mouths of babes......

Such nonsense. Children learn the language from the conversation of adults. My DS1, seemed to take to correct tenses very early, he never 'runned' - always 'ran'. Younger brother took a bit longer but soon spoke excellent English and makes sure his two sons do too. Anyway, what about the books that are read to them? They use tenses correctly, so the kids will hear and copy those.

I couldn't agree more annodomini, I nearly told my DS1 what I thought. However, I held my tongue because I don't want to antagonise DS1 and DIL. Although I love my DS1, he can be pompous. I don't believe in baby talk either - I hardly used it with my lot although some words they invented as children remain in the family vocabulary. All my children have grown up to be eloquent. I just hope that, at some time, my DS1 will use his not inconsiderable brain to work out that his mother may also have some useful ideas about speech development in young children.

The ads with products 'for free' get me seething. I know it isn't incorrect, but it is unnecessary. 'Free' means exactly the same thing.

The reason people my age were taught not to start sentences with but is due to two different rules of grammar. "But" introduces a subordinate clause as in:
" I would like to help, but I am in a hurry."
"I would like to help," is a main clause, although the listener probably already knows what will follow on, "but I am in a hurry" is a subordinate clause. It doesn't really make sense on its own, or if you swing the two clauses round: "But I am in a hurry, I would like to help" - sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

The other reason is that Latin has a rule that "but" which in Latin is "enim" must always be the second word in the sentence, never the first. As all language teachers, irrespective of whether they were teaching English, French, German or whatever had learnt Latin, and as Latin teachers insisted that Latin was a far superior language to anything spoken in our own times, this rule was brought into play in English, or whatever, your first language happens to be.

Reviving a very old thread with extremely nit-picking and supercilious comments. Many of us fully understand your points but have not felt it necessary to offer academic lectures on the subject - largely because many on this forum don't particularly enjoy this degree of pedantry (even those of us who are self-confessed pedants).
It's a thread about the frustrations of everday language!

Having grown up in Scotland in the 1950s-1960, it was drummed into us that the word "got" is superfluous in most sentences: I have a cold./ I have got a cold. We were even corrected for saying I got a doll for Christmas, and told that the correct form was I was given a doll, or I received a doll. Even at the age of 6 I found the thought of a child solemnly stating " I received a doll for Christmas" ridiculous, but I do still tend to avoid "I have got a cold" (or anything else for that matter.)
An American colleague, likewise and English teacher, shared my dislike of "got" or "get" as an extra auxiliary verb and told her classes "Got is on vacation and won't be back until the end of term."
Like most Scots I also object to "draw" being pronounced "drawr" which seems to becoming prevalent. In my childhood it was most certainly regarded as a mistake to be corrected.

I have as an adult learned two foreign languages and I can assure you that the greatest stumbling-block to learning to speak and write a new language grammatically correctly is that no-one corrects you if you say something wrong. At least not if you are over the age of 11 or 12.
Thinking about this and teaching English to foreigners, I have realised that we automatically correct small children if they make mistakes and that this is why we finish up speaking a reasonably correct form of our first language. So please, go on correcting your grandchildren, at least when their parents are out of earshot.

I can be as pedantic as the next person, but still can't help feeling that some of the 'hates' regularly mentioned on threads like this show a slightly limited understanding of languages in general and how they naturally evolve, along with an intolerence towards / unwarranted sense of superiority over those whose pronunciation of a word doesn't match their own preference.
Language has always changed and always will. I don't like 'train station', and will continue to say '(railway ) station', but i'm aware that it probably sounds as outdated to many people as 'wireless' did to me as a child!
But (yes, I am starting with 'but', because it reflects how I might say this in ordinary speech) I reserve the right to continue screaming at the TV when any of my own pet hates are used by people who should know better!

I'm with you, after all the rules aren't all that difficult, are they?

Happy to supply them, if anyone is in doubt about how to use the apostrophe correctly.

This is quite common usage in Lowland Scots, which I suspect is where the Americans got it from, like Halloween which they think is an American tradition.

For goodness sake! Who put you in charge of language tuition on GN?
Get off your high horse and stop assuming this superior position!

Most of the above don't bother me. But what gets on my nerves is in written messages.
eg We sent one grand-daughter a generous cheque for her 18th.
She emailed later, "thanx 4 the check." No more.
At least she thanked us.