grammar question

"Bored of" seems to be quite an English thing. I haven't heard it used here in NZ..........yet! it'll happen though, I'm sure. Bad grammar trends seem to be very infectious.

It's the substitution of "of" instead of "with" which really gets my goat. As for pronunciation of a word, I still do what my mother did - look it up in the Pitman's shorthand dictionary - her bible! This gives the vowel placings as well as the firmness or lightness of the vowel - against the consonants and thus tells you how it was pronounced in the Queen's English in days gone by - which is good enough for me. Many changes have taken place I should say. I realise that this is only useful for those of us who pursued a secretarial career back in the day but hey ho - somebody had to do it!

My bugbear is the increasing popularity of ashume and conshume. I'm waiting to hear conshumpshun or ashumpshun!

Nfk = love it!!

I know it's not "correct" (politically or otherwise) but I do find it hard to listen to people in the public domain who cannot pronounce their "R's". I manage because it's not their fault etc. but it still grates. On the other hand the episode in Only fools and horses with Raquel singing with (whoever) the Gween gween gwass of home was absolutely hilarious. I'm sure I will be pilloried for this post by all the righteous minded persons on here and I apologise absolutely, but it still makes me smile even thinking about it!!!!

TriciaF - That's great - a neat way out of this is to say "we've been swimming."

I get irritated also by "we were sat" and "we were stood."

Sat and stood implies that someone sat you there or stood you there.

Another cause of raised blood pressure is the way everyone puts themselves first in a conversation! 'Me and ?' It seems almost universal now, when I grew up I was taught to always put the other person before myself. Ah me!!!!!!

As well as 'bored of', another particular bugbear of mine is the use of appraised (estimating value of something / someone) instead of apprised (informing). I've just come across an example of this in a highly rated book I'm reading - presumably the proofreader didn't notice!

Watched an American court case on TV and the accused 'pled' not guilty.
Is this an Americanism? Wouldn't we say he pleaded not guilty?
Pled sounded completely wrong to me.

I think Scottish GNs would disagree with you, mrsmopp!

I use pled and I'm not even Scottish - is it allowed?

I would like guidance on when to use 'different from' and 'different to'. I tend to use from, but it that wrong in some cases?

From, every time for me, but as far as I am aware there is nothing wrong with 'to', it's just considered a bit clumsy.

Oh good. I'd always thought it was 'from' but 'to' seems to be everywhere.

I hate, when I hear English people, saying "us house" instead of "our house" or similar, when they are being interviewed on TV.

And I hate it when people say drawring.

Shysal, it is different from and similar to.
Hope that helps.

What about different than? As in, 'it was different than I had imagined it would be'?

Should that be 'it was different to what I had imagined it would be' or 'it was different from what I had imagined it would be'?

Or how about 'it was different from how I had imagined it would be'?

'Different than' certainly has a place somewhere though!

I know it looks a bit dodgy written down, but it's just a part of our language, as are all the other 'wrong' ways of saying things...

'Different than' is standard American English. UK English uses 'different from' and (less elegantly) 'different to'.

A pet hatred of mine is the non-reflexive use of such as 'myself' or 'yourself'. An example from a letter I received - "Feel free to call myself for more information". I gently pointed out that only you can call yourself, and only I can call myself... but there was no answer! Of course, what is usually meant is 'me'. but people are suspicious of short simple words!

Myself is over used, as in, Myself and my partner enjoyed the theatre last night. Nearly as bad as Me and my partner enjoyed the theatre last night, which is very commonly used.

'I should of' rather than 'I should have'

I remember my mother complaining about me using 'different than' when I was a kid. This'd be fifty years ago. I won't have heard Americans using it. I lived in Hull at the time so maybe people there used it.