Let's start a blitz on bad grammar - nationwide

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'sorry that should read uNNece's'sary, 'shouldn't it?

Joan - thank you for broaching the subject of the dreaded apostrophes (again). In certain posts they seem to breed in a most illogical way. However, I have resisted the temptation to point it out for fear of rocking the boat - as I did once before. Must say though, I don't think the culprit(s) are likely to pick up on this post and I have to remind myself that I would never willingly inhibit the free and enthusiastic expression of an opinion. So I try to 'smile and read post's I find intere'sting de'spite the unece's'sary apostrophe's.

Yes, and "those Italians" make 'ch' hard as in Chianti. Just to confuse us, obviously!

Baggy Mr Thompson sounds like a good teacher - taught you things you remember and had a sense of humour.

When my father was doing his teaching practice (1936 ish) he walked into the classroom to find that the boys had turned all the desks round to face the back of the room. Instead of getting annoyed he picked up the chalk, walked to the back wall and started the lesson (maths) from there. After a bit he needed to write something on the board so he turned to the wall and said, "Oh dear, someone has moved the blackboard. Sorry boys, you'll all have to turn round to face the other one" and walked to the front. General laughter, desks moved back in double quick time, got on with the lesson and they all ate out of his hand from then on.

So much so that when his supervisor came to test him and he said "turn to page 48" they said, "Oh no, sir, we should be on page 47" - which they had done already, so were able to answer smartly and give the supervisor a good impression of his teaching.

baggy A single c could also sound ch as in cello (but that is Italian so doesn't count).

Bang on, joan — about the apostrophes, not the predictability! At least we know who to ask when we've a German or French query.

DD2, who speaks Swedish, told me a lovely word — slickapot (spelling's probably wrong, but I'm trying to emphasise that it's a three syllable word, emphasis on the first syllable). It's one of those silicon spoons that help you clean the very last bits of sauce out of your pan.

Elegran, if it were a double c, the pronunciation would be hard as in kick. Also, a double s is hissier than a single s, which helps me remember that that is the double letter.

My teacher was called Mr Thompson and he taught me a few other useful things that I've never forgotten, helped me with my 'breaking the rules' handwriting so that I won a prize, and encouraged my recorder-playing. He also laughed when I was sharing an orange with the kid next to me, Tom nudged me because 'sir' was coming, and I shut the desk too quickly, making the orange squirt 'sir' in the face! He also confiscated the orange.

Oh dear - I've become predictable.

I just have to mention a favourite German word: Die Durchbrecherin. It literally means Breaker-through-the -crowd and it came from the Nazi era, when a small girl carrying a bouquet was stage-managed to 'spontaneously' break through the crowd to give Hitler the flowers.

For some reason, that word encapsulates the sometimes farcical horror of that era.

And back to bad grammar. I have noticed the mad, bad, and completely inappropriate apostrophes are multiplying. We must not use apostrophes for normal plurals, not even if the word ends in a vowel. Only the possessive form gets an apostrophe, or words with missing bits. I know this has been mentioned before, but it is time to mention it again, even though we are probably preaching to the converted in this thread.

Taking photos
Growing Tomatoes
BUT
The photo's size.
The tomato's colour.

Baggiy Do tell us why there is only one c in necessary, so that we can remember it too.

Thanks, joan. I knew it would be you who answered that!

No, I don't think so, Baggy. - the long German words are there instead of phrases. For instance, you have Massenvernichtungswaffen, for which we have a phrase weapons of mass destruction.

There are a good number of people of German descent in the US, are there not? Might that have an influence on the (unnecessary) lengthening of words?

(every time I write the word necessary, my mind goes back to the time when I was nine or ten and I learned why there is only one 'c', and how to remember this fact .)

Not only does the trend to use more words than needed come from US English, such as 'at this point in time' meaning 'now' , so does making little words big, as we can see in the above two posts.

Stansgran asked"
........ agree where has criminality suddenly beamed in from?

It came from the same place as burglarize

this morning on the radio describing a film "elegiac" when he meant elegaic(pronounced it elegeeac)
hate di-ssecting it's dis secting
and agree where has criminality suddenly beamed in from?

I know what you mean, AmeliaAnne They talk about "yourself" when they just mean "you" without previously talking about someone else, which would make sense as a change of subject..

There is Scottisism/Irishism of talking about the man of the house or the boss-man as "himself" as in "And how is himself today?" so maybe it is analogous to that, but if so I think it is recent.

Hello everyone,

I obviously didn't explain myself properly on page 10. Not to do with "youse". It was about using "myself " all the time instead of "me". And "yourself" instead of "you". Example - I'll give it to yourself in a minute. Not too good an example I'm afraid. I'm beginning to wonder if it's only me who has noticed this trend.....

Clearly the Scots and the North-easterners are onto this already.

'Youse' is about as grammatically correct as 'childrens' or 'mices' ie it is a plural of a plural. Nevertheless, the word was made up and is used because we need it. It can be deeply inconvenient not knowing if 'you' is singular or plural.

The only other way round it all it to revert to thee and thou, and that isn't going to happen outside of certain Northern circles. In any case, 'thou' is like the French 'tu' or the German 'du' in that you only use it with people you know and are familiar with.

So, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I think youse (or yous) should become a real word, and be accepted in linguistically correct circles, because we need it.

PS Which means it's not incorrect, just different.

ameliaanne, 'yous' and 'mes' are used all the time oop north, especially in the north-east, I believe, and in Scotland. We're not going to apologise. Once upon a time everyone used plurals like that. Some languages still do.

Have just noticed my edit to the post above was not a good one - changed the wording - should read "I hear" not "I am hear". Whoops!

When did the words "myself", "yourself" and the plural of the latter replace the use of me and you??? And where did the word "criminality" come from so suddenly? I am hear it twenty times a day on the News Channel.

P.S. How lovely it is to have a rant on here.............

P.P.S. Do hope I haven't made any grammatical errors......

I think that might be a 'northern' expression. I had never heard this until I moved to East Anglia, not really north I know, but certainly north from Dorset where I grew up. I absolutely refuse to use 'mine' and 'yours'!