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Pedants' corner

The New Sylva

(6 Posts)
thatbags Mon 31-Aug-15 07:03:36

I am reading a tome. It is The New Sylva by Gabriel Hemery and Sarah Simblet. It's a tome worth looking at if only for Simblet's wonderful drawings.

I got to page 24 and then growled. Not one but two mistakes on the same page which, in such an erudite book, should not occur I feel!

Mistake the first: affect is used where it should be effect.
Mistake the second: a plural is used where it should be a singular. It is a common mistake, these days, for people to use the plural of fungus (i.e. fungi) where they should use the singular. No-one talks about a wildflowers or trees guide; they talk about a wildflower guide or a tree guide. Why not fungus guide, then?

Snarl.

Pedantry aside, it's a lovely book.

MaizieD Mon 31-Aug-15 11:32:59

I think we're suffering from a generation who weren't taught any grammar because what you were saying was held to be more important than how you said it.

BBbevan Thu 25-Feb-16 13:04:15

I was taught correct grammar both at primary school and grammar school and it has served me well.
Where can you get those badges that say " I am silently correcting your grammar" ?

ninathenana Thu 25-Feb-16 13:36:27

I have a friend who always types throught when she means thought and cum instead come.
I want to tell her, would you?
I'm sure I read that proof reading no longer takes place.

wot Thu 25-Feb-16 13:51:20

Some of the books on Kindle are horrendous in their spelling and grammar! I left school a week before my fifth tenth birthday but my parents were always strict with our grammar. I annoyed me at the time, but I'm glad now.!
I once left a comment to the authors on a Kindle review about the spelling and grammar.
My

wot Thu 25-Feb-16 13:52:38

Fifteenth not fifth!