New Log Cabin Quilt

My biggest pet peeve in this category is "your" when the writer really means "you're." It's everywhere!

Yes, that one's almost a completely lost issue. But they don't call me Pig Quixote for nothing. :)

--pig

Just yesterday the 11yo from next door brought me an "essay" he had written to show me his ribbon for best in class.

It was only two small pages of large writing of course, but the teacher had not corrected a single spelling or grammar mistake! I'm not talking about dangling participles here - I mean there was almost no punctuation and any word over two syllables was phonetically spelled out (and not well at that!). Now this child loves to read, and when I questioned him he said he thought some of his writing was "wrong" but that the teacher didn't care as long as it was at least two pages.

This boy goes to secondary school next year, and from what I have observed there is no effort there to correct writing standards either. One girl I tutored had her work corrected when she was right and the teacher was wrong! I wanted to write to the school but as I am not a parent there the girl asked me not to as she didn't want the teacher getting mad at her. What hope have we of producing literate students with attitudes like that, and when even school report cards come home with errors?

My pet horror story in this vein happened to the son of an old HS girlfriend.

As she's quite literate and had proofed his paper, she was somewhat baffled to see how many points had been taken off for spelling, and looked further.

His teacher had marked "air conditioning" as spelled incorrectly. She went to the teacher and asked her precisely what was wrong with the spelling, and the teacher insisted that EVERYONE knows the correct spelling is "air condishunning". Physically presenting the teacher with the dictionary entry simply got a response of "well, I admit it's hard to understand how it could happen, but obviously the dictionary's got it wrong as well."

Appeals to the principal got "We cannot override the grading of any teacher for any reason."

If that's not insanity, I don't know what is.

(The school system in question was in Florida, the grade level was circa age

10.)

--pig

--pig

A trend I have noticed lately is the way some people pronounce words that start with 's'. Instead of saying 'street' for example, they say 'shtreet'. Or 'shweet' for 'sweet'. Or 'shtring' for 'string'. Listen to Tyra Banks sometime. She speaks this way. I've noticed this more and more on TV, sometimes from reporters on national or cable news shows.

Howdy!

"I could care less" which is wrong-wrong-wrong. The expression is "I care so little I couldn't possibly care less!" or "I couldn't care less!" ;-P

Heard too often (and have read it twice so far in the latest book on my list): "They wished he would have had the time..." instead of "They wished he had had the time."

Are people afraid to use the word "me" instead of "I"? "The prize was given to my husband and I"-- Yikes! In today's newspaper: "The children she taught, like her, were poor foster children." Oy!

But it's that first one that makes me holler, "You could, too!" ;-P

Ragmop/Sandy-- too tired to quilt another minute after spending time working in the yard; set out some of my flagstones until it got too hot (86*), extending the rock garden

I volunteer teach adult literacy, and for the most part my student is a person whose native language is not English. I teach one-on-one so we are able to really get into the meaty discussions about grammar and how English is such a strange language. I usually end up teaching not only the reading but also the speaking aspect of English. Until I listened to the blunders and laughed along with my students, I couldn't appreciate how much effort they go to, to learn the language!

Ginger in CA

Okay I like correct spelling and grammar, but I know that thhat I have a lot of room for improvement.

Apostrophes I am hopeless with, but I thought that the following sentence form our local paper was wrong.

"Playing on Myle's bed with younger brother Philip......" Is that wrong and what should it be or am I wrong ?

Dee in Oz

snip

The evolution of language comes about by the very process of which you complain. Language is the medium by which we communicate meaning, if meaning is compromised then a problem occurs. If meaning is clear then it really comes down to preference,the language used has served its purpose. There is no such thing as 'speaking properly'. What may be 'proper' for you may be quite the opposite for others. Many in the UK would consider North American accents and use of the English language an affront rather than a natural development.

With respect to the subject being 'OnT', your reasoning is bizarre. What is it about rec.crafts.textiles.quilting you find difficult to comprehend?

"Edward W. Thompson" wrote

((snip)) : : With respect to the subject being 'OnT', your reasoning is bizarre. : What is it about rec.crafts.textiles.quilting you find difficult to : comprehend?

Please feel free NOT to add snide or whiney comments to your responses to clearly marked OT messages.

If you don't like seeing OT comments in a "quilting orum" - and you have constantly made it clear that you don't - then don't read them. And if you don't agree with the comments of others either don't reply to them, or at least try to remain civil (see definition below).

From M-W Dictionary - synonyms CIVIL, POLITE, COURTEOUS, GALLANT, CHIVALROUS mean observant of the forms required by good breeding. CIVIL often suggests little more than the avoidance of overt rudeness . POLITE commonly implies polish of speech and manners and sometimes suggests an absence of cordiality

DD has never had any difficulty with spelling, but when she was about 8 she had leisure corrected as leasure! She had to write it out three times at the bottom of the page, and much to her disgust it was a new book and the first page is always special. Again it was a rather vindictive teacher, the school year was coming to an end and she decided it was a lesson in keeping quiet and not rocking the boat. She can still spell leisure properly, and whenever she saw the teacher (who lived near us) you could hear "can't spell leisure" said under her breath.

Both children always had a list of spellings to learn during the week with a test on Monday morning, but DS always had to work hard on his. The family still uses his mind-joggers as 'family words' e.g. boAt, parliAment.

Will listen for those!

My pet hate is difficult to describe, but is what I call 'false gentrification' of the language. This is the inability to pronounce words like 'little' with the emphasis on the 'li', and the 't's said quickly with the 'le', so its LI tl. Instead it now seems to be liTTel, and hospital has become hospiTTal with the tongue brought really far forward behind the teeth to bet the full effect of those 'T's. Almost becomes what used to be described as 'short tongued'.

Also hate the name of the letter H being pronounced as Haitch instead of Aitch. Have even heard it in tv adverts for HMV and HSBC.

Or 'myself' instead of 'me'. Perhaps people are so full of their own importance that they choose a more important sounding name!

My favorite example of that is "off tin". T in "often" has been silent how many centuries? when these folks decide to be "cultured-er than thou" and studiously enunciate it.......

--pig

I'm assuming the child in question is named Myles, yes?

When a name ends in an s, it's now acceptable to do the classic "apostrophe s" for possession (Myles's) but more traditionally formally correct not to double the s---simply don't add the last one (Myles').

Looks odd enough to some folks---they know "Myles's" looks wrong, but they also "know" with a vengeance that it's got to end in 's somehow---that they're willing to drop the s that's part of Myles to get the 's added.

Myles never becomes Myle, nor Charles Charle, just for the sin of owning something. :)

--pig

What part of the fact that this thread has been labelled off topic from its very beginning do you not understand?

Seems silly to me to argue that a clearly marked off topic thread is off topic. Yes, thank you, I was quite aware this was water-cooler conversation when I started it, and clearly so labelled it. :)

--pig

Call me when he's cooked - I will bring the carving knife! Until then he is just a little too annoying for me in my present frame of mind. But if you guys want to bait him a little go right ahead. I will cheer from the side lines lol

Trolls - beware!

" I am eruditerer than you" rofl

But then the UK and Commonwealth countries would have a laugh over anomalies like Lieutenant

US = loo-ten-ant UK = lef-ten-ant