Grammar

No matter how it was conjugated, the word bored was never allowed when I were a lass.Nor were my kids allowed to use it.

I've just downloaded to my Kindle "My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English" from Amazon. It's in their special 12 days of Christmas sale at 99p. Looks fascinating reading for tonight.

www.amazon.co.uk/Grammar-Should-That-Old-School-ebook/dp/B004GNFPU2/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1325013892&sr=8-1

Up to at least less than 50% off... the shops have a lot of trouble explaining their reductions at this time of year... bless em.

'Laying down' instead of 'lying down'. The boat ' sunk' instead of 'sank'
and 'mitigate against' instead of 'militate against'. All found in newspapers recently - surely journalists, proof-readers and sub-editors should be the very people to use English correctly.
And most annoying at the moment 'going forward' - is there any politician who can string a sentence together without using this meaningless phrase? If they mean, 'in the future', why not say that?
I know English is a vibrant language and usage can change - but why should the past tense of a perfectly ordinary verb be changed?

It must drive you mad living here in France then, Greatnan. I can't believe how many English words are now used and misused in the French language. The news programmes seem to be the worst offenders. It doesn't say much for the efforts of the Academie in trying to keep the language pure, does it?

Thanks Yogagran I have downloaded that.

French youngsters seem to think anything English is 'cool'. They all talk about 'le weekend' and 'le football' but few will venture as far as speaking in English,

Not just youngsters. I think le business world is worse. Here are a few more:
un gentleman
un hamburger
un briefing
un hot dog
un job
un leader (political context)
un lifting (facelift)
light (fewer calories)
le look
le making of
le marketing
non-stop
overbooké/overbouqué
un parking
une party girl
les people or pipole (celebrities)
un planning (schedule)
le pressing (dry cleaners)
un pull/un pullover
un relax (lounge chair)
And my own favourite - le bag in box (winebox).

Love the "pipole", Mamie

Just given my 2GS a babyfoot(pronounced babbyfut) the french do make me laugh.
And I still hate"sat sitting"

And people wonder why I gave up being a Languages teacher - quite unnecessary with all the franglais and gerglish ( ein Computer, eine Email, etc) Absolutely redundant!

I never realised till I did my TESOL course, that the Americans have different verb forms. Where we would say 'If I had known that, I would have done something else' Americans would say 'If I would have known that , I would have done something else. They do seem to use more words that us, such as 'listen up' instead of just 'listen'.

As for the French using English words, I have to laugh at the Academie Francais (sp?) getting all upset, trying to keep the language pure, while the French people cheerfully ignore them, using as many English words as they want. Well, it's poetic justice I suppose, seeing that their language infiltrated ours via the Normans after 1066.

Mind you, I do love our hybrid language, with all the different words for the same thing. We can be really subtle (well, some can, but I'm from Yorkshire where we do more Anglo Saxon than subtle. I'm afraid!)

Also, where we would use the perfect tense - 'See what I've just done' - the Americans would say 'See what I just did'.

And kids in school would say "See what I just done"!!
My particular bete noire is "laying" for "lying "(I think "laying eggs" or "laying what?" when I hear it) and "sat" for "sitting" - will we all have "sat rooms" in our houses in future?
And when did "going forward" start? It has crept in and is a TOTALLY MEANINGLESS phrase. I am all for linguistic development and love dialect usage, but sloppy speech is neither.

I used to love it when I taught in Yorkshire and the children who were late said "I overlaid".

We were always fussy about our children's grammar and I'm glad to say they and their OHs are the same with theirs. It would be good if teachers in schools were equally keen on precision.

PS. GS, aged 7, is showing promising signs of being a pedant. He was very indignant with 'bad spelling' in the Beano. They spelt 'what' as 'wot'... Hope all my GC are as particular.

Pacific rather than specific! Amazing how many peole say that.

Ever since Dubya said it, nucular has been creeping into the media.

You can lay eggs, lay the table, lay the maid, lay down your life or anything else you are carrying, but if it is yourself you just lie.

Unless you're doing it in the past tense elegran.