Grammar and style

[James]

Another of my pet hates is poor spelling, grammar and style.

A well-designed site can lose all its credibility if the actual text is littered with schoolboy grammatical mistakes.

My favourite is apostrophe abuse - putting apostrophes on plurals, using "it's" when you mean "its" and so on.

Spelling errors are inexcusable - use a spell checker!

I will post links to sites that suffer from poor prose as and when I come across them.

Have a look at this site for some examples of good / bad grammar (http://www.eng-lang.co.uk/apostrophes.htm).

I am as anal about grammar as Francis is about standards (or should that be standard's)? :)

[David]

I agree with you completely and look forward to seeing your list of offenders (not offender's).

Good link - are there any other grammar related sites out there?

[David]

James, here is a real treat for you...

The Apostrophe Protection Society (http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/)

:) :) :)

[James]

This isn't from the Web, it's from some junk mail my girlfriend got from Next (or "Direct Mail" as she puts it - she works in Marketing!).

http://www.vinylminer.co.uk/next.jpg

"Win a Months' worth of pampering" - complete rubbish:

1. The apostrophe should be between the "h" and the "s" - "Win a month's worth of pampering".

If the prize was for more than one month it would be "Win two months' worth of pampering".

2. The word "month" should not start with a capital letter either.

[James]

Here's a spelling mistake on The Times Fantasy Football site (http://www.timesfantasyfootball.co.uk)

You are invited to make "TRANFERS" not "TRANSFERS". I e-mailed the site months ago to notify them and although I got an auto responder saying it was being forwarded to the appropriate department, they never changed it.

http://www.vinylminer.co.uk/fantasy.gif

[James Glasheen]

On the subject of apostrophes, how's your secret santa James?

Also in terms of capitalisation david, why is the A of Architecture capitalised?

Cheers

[francis]

Is that an ironic spelling of David? ;)

[David]

Originally posted by: James Glasheen
...in terms of capitalisation david, why is the A of Architecture capitalised?

Well, the capital "A" is used in Website Architecture because it is the title of this programme. In general use, architecture should not be capitalised. I guess you could be pedantic and claim that the capital "W" is all that Website architecture really needs but there are no hard-and-fast rules about this as far as I am aware.

[David]

My wife obviously thinks I'm a punctuation pedant; she gave me a copy of Lynne Truss's book, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" for Christmas. It's a highly amusing read and very informative. Here is a taster:

'To those who care about punctuation, a sentance such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler. The rule is: the word "it's" (with apostrophe) stands for "it is" or "it has". If the word does not stand for "it is" or "it has" then what you require is "its". This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.'

Couldn't have said it better myself :D

[James]

David, I got Eats, Shoots and Leaves as well - it was the "secret santa" present JG referred to above. Although it remains unopened as I plough through Tom's reading list ;)

I believe "Website Architecture" is written correctly - it is a title and the name of a website.

I got a Karcher pressure washer for Christmas (exciting huh?!) - I was delighted to read that it can be used for cleaning "patio's". Patio's what? I wondered. They don't specify! :)

http://www.vinylminer.co.uk/karcher.jpg

Note to other students - please don't get paranoid about spelling and grammar on this forum - I'm not scrutinising you (I notice Francis goes back and edits loads of his posts!)

[James]

Actually, adding an apostrophe for plurals seems to be most abused when the word ends with a vowel - patio's, area's, video's etc.

I think this is because people think that without the apostrophe the pronounciation would change - e.g. patioss, ariass, videoss. Some words ending in a vowel DO look odd when plural, e.g. menus, but it's still correct.

Incidentally, does anyone know when you should add an extra "e" to plurals - as in tomatoes, heroes etc - what are the rules on that one?

[francis]

I got myself a Penguin book on punctuation a couple of weeks ago in an effort to try and understand things like apostrophes. I'll have a look and see what it says about plurals with e's in them.

Incidentally, with multiple edits on this forum, if you've edited a post once and go back for a re-edit, the text input box will include the "message edited..." text which you can delete to avoid JB's three "edited" messages at the top of this post.

[David]

All this talk of apostrophes is good stuff but did I mention my own pet hate? I'd just like to get it in before this thread fades. What really gets me going is when the word "less" is used instead of "fewer". That drives me crazy and you hear it all the time on TV and radio from people who ought to know better.

Example:
You can have less sugar but you must have fewer bags of sugar.

Those signs in supermarkets that say "5 items or less" at the checkout are simply designed to annoy. Of course, it should be "5 items or fewer".

[James]

Good one David.

And of course there's when folk simply add "r" to a descriptive word to mean "more" - e.g. "James is horribler than Francis" should be "James is more horrible than Francis".

So Francis, does your book say why is it PATIOS and not PATIOES?

[francis]

Oh, so you think I've got nothing better to do on new year's eve (should that be capitalised?) than look up punctuation? Well, you're correct. Discounting the sharing of a jolly evening in pubs that are full of rowdy, violent 13 year olds, there's not much else to do (http://brucespringsteen.net/songs/57Channels.html).

Anyway, the book that wot I dun got (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140513663/qid=1072907235/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3_3/202-4236794-0362205) has a section on plurals in its possessive apostrophes section. So far there isn't anything I've come across on the use of E's. Maybe I should have got a better book.

The title of Eats Shoots And Leaves is quoted as coming from a joke about a Panda in a restaurant. The joke I remember with that punchline is somewhat smuttier; I wonder if that explains the book's current popularity (is that apostrophe correct)?

But while we're on subject of language, a saw a couple of things tonight that really got my goat:

1: "I had a sudden urge"

Really? So, it wasn't urge that had building slowly over time? Something that you'd be mulling over quietly?

2: "It split apart"

Wow - it didn't split together?

[David]

:D You should add:

3: "It's very unique."

Not just slightly unique but very unique.

[francis]

"This"

My dad kept on about this subject when I was younger (he used to teach Latin and spent his entire career in education, so language is a strong point). You can always hear people say things such as:

"I was reading this book on..."
"I was talking to this guy in the pub..."
"I was watching this programme on TV last night..."

Which book? Which guy? Which programme? Do you have the book with you to show me? Is the guy from the pub standing behind you? Are we watching a recording of said TV programme? Chances are that we aren't. It's not something that occurs so much in writing, but it can be heard in everyday conversation.

[James]

True.

Another common one is "should of" instead of "should have", it simply doesn't make sense. I think it comes from the spoken "should've" which is correct as a shortened version of "should have" but sounds like "should of".

[francis]

I was watching Channel 5 news this afternoon:

"A team of Americans've..."

Technically correct, but appalling. News readers should have the highest form of spoken English and not descend into using Cockney, Mockney or Estuary English. Still, maybe it's my fault for watching that channel.

[Tom]

You lot must be glad the world is getting back to work! I am hoping there will be soon be less of me but not fewer of me. [Text corrected 3.1.2004]

[David]

Originally posted by: Tom Turner
You lot must be glad the world is getting back to work! I am hoping there will be soon be less or me but not fewer.

???! Incomprehensible!

[David]

It has occurred to me that this thread is starting to look like an episode of "Grumpy Old Men". Maybe, having got it off our collective chests, we should let it rest...

...or do you think we need an additional course on the Website Architecture programme - "Correct English Usage", perhaps ;)

[francis]

Grumpy old men - what a great program. I was going to make the same analogy yesterday. But didn't. Anyway, here's a picture courtesy of Private Eye:

http://www.websitearchitecture.co.uk/storr/forumimgs/pvteyeroadsign.jpg

Hmm - URL linking to images has changed since the forum moved. Absolute links to images stored on this server don't work. Just link relative to the site root.

[James]

Grumpy Old Men and Room 101 are my favourite TV shows!

[francis]

More fuel for the fire. Every year the Lake Superior State University publishes a list of "banished words". These are words and phrases that should be banished because of over-use or because they just don't make sense.

This year's list (http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/2004.php) contains such phrases as "bling bling", "LOL", "in harm's way", "captured alive" and more. The lists go back to 1976 (http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archived_lists.php). 2002's list (http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/2002.php) mentions David's "unique" example (above) as well as the rather fine "delay due to an earlier accident".

[James]

Check out The Spa Hotel's website (http://www.spahotel.co.uk/sparkle.html) (URLed to from http://www.barkermackie.co.uk).

The health club is "locate din" a bright, modern ...

But funnily, "Few health clubs have "sub convenient" and attractive surroundings."

Reasonable site ruined by poor typing.

[francis]

I don't get the "sub convenient thing". What's it meant to say?

I'd also like to nominate myself for the use of "cursory glance" in the magazines thread. As opposed to what other type of glance - a really long one?

So, gents, know anyone who is metrosexual (http://www.wordspy.com/words/metrosexual.asp)?

[James]

"such convenience" I think

[francis]

Common errors in English (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html). It's something of a link-dump, but an excellent resource

[francis]

Where to stick the grocer's apostrophe (http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1256469,00.html). People getting muddled between pouring and poring and, amazingily, toe and tow.

Dictionary search (http://dictionarysearch.mozdev.org/installation.html) is a handy extension for Moz and Firefox. It adds a contextual "search dictionary.com" (or up to three more dictionaries of your choosing) right-click menu item when you highlight a word.

[francis]

Interesting, IMHO, discussion on the phrasing of apologies (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/13998).