Comments on: It’s time to consider its versus it’s (again)

By: Richard+Aubrey

Richard+Aubrey — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 18:18:58 +0000

Kipling has a line in the voice of a young Norman knight shortly after the Conquest.
“…my schoolmates Hugh his health.”
So I wondered if the possessive was indicated by a separate (generally indicating possession) word and ordinarily pronounced, except in diction class, as “hyoose” with the apostrophe used to signal the shortcut for possession when written.

By: Tom+Grey

Tom+Grey — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 11:41:45 +0000

My fav dance style was a wild abandon type, including being able to dance alone, as was common in the 80s. A fun song was Safety Dance, but I wouldn’t call it The 80’s dance. I also don’t always point out how both gray & grey are the same word spelled differently, with both spellings accepted in both the US and the UK. That’s not a homonym but I don’t know what it is.

I’d like to replace ough with o, when it fits. Like tho and altho.

In Slovakia, there are different verb words for cut, depending on what is being cut: food, wood, paper, hair; drugs, cards, money. Similar to the 40+ different words Eskimos have for snow. Yet English has far more words. And will continue to get more words as edge cases, since English has the most of that certain je ne sais quoi
(w/ multi wrong autocorrects, like quoi to quote)

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 05:51:46 +0000

I haven’t seen any answer yet for why “goes” was retained.

Not sure why that’s even a question. Regular English verbs add an ‘s’ for the 3rd person singular. You might ask why it isn’t “gos,” but then you’d have to figure out why “go” is pronounced “goh,” do “doo,” goes “gohs” and does “duz.”

And on another point, I love that English retains all those silent (usually) ‘gh’s. They reveal the history of the word and the connection to cognates in other languages.

By: R2L

R2L — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 03:53:06 +0000

Tom Gray, so you are saying that your favorite dance during the 80s was the 80’s dance, right?

Cavendish: ” lackadaisical approach to communication precision.”
Or “to communication accuracy”? And upon reading to the end of your comment I found an example!! “Sisyphus had it much easier than the average 2nd grade Child Herder.” Then again, I suspect that the task of herding, even by a 2nd grade child, would be easier than the one set for Sisyphus.
Yes, English is an amazingly rich and powerful language, but it does seem to depend a great deal on context to fully understand it. Another example of precision vs. accuracy, I suppose.

Abraxas: “Maybe a century from now they will be.” Or maybe next year they could be! 🙂

JFM: “In talking about this with my wife, she said when English meets a new language it mugs the new language and goes through its pockets for loose change.” LOL! I suppose it is also looking for context?
I recall learning somewhere that English has around 200,000 words! That most communication can be handled with only 2000 words or so. Plus even a well read and learned person probably used fewer than 20,000 of them (George Will excepted?).

Kate, I would certainly be loath to disagree with you about any spelling or grammatically related issue.

By: richf

richf — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 02:55:50 +0000

My personal favorite is words with “ough” in them, such as bough, tough, though, through, thought, etc.

By: Philip+Sells

Philip+Sells — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 02:44:19 +0000

JFM, does ‘does’ do double duty?

Aesop, that excursion into Old English was gneiss!

Since this is a recycled post, according to the Hostess, I wonder if it might be interesting to track trends in the various grammatical miscarriages and abominations about which we complain in the corresponding comments across its iterations over time. I don’t know how long ago it last appeared.

By: JFM

JFM — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:26:44 +0000

When I was in my mid-20s I watched the Story of English with Robert MacNeal(not the correct spelling ?). I remember him saying that English has more words than any other language. And it lends itself to pidgins so readily because the structure of a sentence doesn’t really matter. In talking about this with my wife, she said when English meets a new language it mugs the new language and goes through its pockets for loose change. It seems to be a quote from somewhere, but?

I now understand all that, but my biggest problem with English is if it has more words than any other why do we use so many that are spelled the same but have different meanings? The easiest is can/can and read/read. And then there is red which sounds the same as read. With a wealth of words, why does (does female deer) this happen?

By: Jack Archer

Jack Archer — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 22:33:48 +0000

Thanks for this, Neo. Yes, it is the most frequent and most aggravating error in written English. And it’s so simple! There is just no reason — other than simple illiteracy, and goodness knows we have that in abundance — to get this wrong. Is it not symptomatic of the culture that the auto-correct function on my phone continually “corrects” a correctly used, possessive pronoun “its” to the contraction “it’s”? I always have to proofread my texts to make sure that the intended reader doesn’t think I failed to learn the language in elementary school. Ugh!

By: Marlene

Marlene — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 21:50:12 +0000

I’ve been surprised by how often people use “loses” instead of “losses”.
Along with Marisa’s comment on use of “loose”, et al. (Yesterday, 4:56.)
.
English is entertaining, isn’t it?
Is it not??
Or … Is not it?
And ain’t it?! … LoL!

By: Jordan Rivers

Jordan Rivers — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 21:28:14 +0000

A new error I’m seeing a lot is “into” or “onto” when it should be “in to” or “on to.”

Do you catch onto what I’m saying? Don’t give into me if you don’t agree! 🙂

Another common error is “to” instead of “too.” I used to work with a guy who said this usage is correct.

My fifth grade English teacher would be rolling in her grave!