RANT

you should meet eri'c ...

eric swanepoel ...punctuation enforcer ... and abc member ...

hahahaha... You hit my achilles! I am forever taking the short cut and writing your instead of you're.... Oh well, I try to catch it on the second edit...

I think spelling, punctuation and grammar are very important, I find it very distracting reading a piece that's full of errors apart from the obvious problems with tone, pace or meaning caused by poor punctuation. I think my punctuation is a little off at times though...

I feel the same way jennifer. Hate when it happens. But I like English idiosyncracies. Mind you I liked shillings and farthings too. I'm such a looser.

I have a different take on punctuation and grammar. The rules aren't intrusive restrictions by the grammar police. To me, the "rules" are "instructions,"set down by the author, on how to properly read his/her piece to get the most meaning from it. Pauses, exclamation points and periods all tell us how to better appreciate and interpret what an author meant in the piece. The "rules" have to be uniform, like a commonly accepted language, or no one will know how to interpret them. Lastly, all editors are "grammar police." If you want something to be considered for commercial publication, it must be letter perfect or it goes into the "circular file." We all goof up occasionally with spelling and grammatical errors.I just try to learn from my mistakes and get better at it. J.X.M

loser!

Gotcha!

You have left out it's and its.

I agree wit d talk of gud grammers.

I thought there was no "it's"? I thought it's always " its"... see what I did there? eh? anyone?

ho ho ho

and ho and hoe

A female friend who reads this site with great interest has just whapped me upside the head for the above arbitrary and capricious remark. Apologies to any offended, it had temporarily slipped my mind that only African-American males get a pass on disrespecting women, and in real life I have probably too much respect for women. I understand this is not a homophone.

More of a haux pas then?

This comment isn't funny.

God, I am so middle-class-white: I had pictured a gardening tool!

I'm wondering which comment isn't funny.

Thank you jennifer. That crossed my mind too. This comment isn't funny either.

This comment is funny?

Depends on one's sense of humour I guess. It's certainly minimal.

It is funny what funny people we can be. Funny strange and funny ha ha hee hee. It's funny but being funny is a funny thing to be. Funny the funny feeling when they say... "He's funny isn't he."

I like this site. So far no one has told me off for spelling colour with a "u", grey with an "e" and many words with "ise" instead of "ize".

That's because we're British!

Well normally I don't hold with nations and all that, but since living in France I have discovered that if someone calls me British I just have to reply "No, I'm English." I'm not sure where it came from but it is at least as important to me as being picky about grammar.

Still, I do see your point about spelling - I like the English versions. US versions I really hate include "armor", "color" and "plow".

Come on guys, it's the World Wide Web and all are welcome, right? I liked it when we could see where the members are from (or at least where they claimed to be from)...people from all over on ABC - really wouldn't be accurate to say "we're British", Tony, because lots of us aren't.

Yup Foster, I completely agree with that, and despite having this strange mental affliction of thinking of myself as English, it really is nice to see English written in all its international diversity.

I haven't seen "plow" before. I assume it's the American version of "plough". I read quite a lot of American writing but, I suppose, never anything that's mentioned ploughing.

Didn't mean to threadjack, just making a comment that unlike on some other sites, no one has tried to correct my spelling because I use English (UK) instead of English (US). Some sites I've been on, I've had to deal with some fairly ignorant and obnoxious people who refuse to believe there are ways to spell certain words other than what THEY were taught. Although, some times I find that I've been spelling certain words the American way for years without realising. Meter instead of metre (and other metric measurements) fetid instead of foetid ...and so on.

Enjoy the diversity of the English language while you can, we'll all speak and write in text message ( SMS ) form in years to come. We'll probably be all dead though. :)

I agree with Foster - there is a diversity to the spelling world and one that we can all accept. If Americans choose to write color and we choose to write colour then that's fine - but it has to be a two way street and we all have to accept the differences. There are though still some words that stick in my throat/craw and the one that drives me irrationally crazy is 'gotten'. Each to their own pickiness I guess.

I'm with you on gotten. That's a word I sometimes do a search/find for after finishing a story, just to make sure it didn't sneak in. I'm not a big fan of 'suddenly', myself, among other words I hate.

You say Potatoe, I say potatto. Regional linguistic variences much enrich the language.They give it color, life and flavor. I forget what wag said it, but the apt phrase is "England and The USA are two great countries separated by a common language.":) We have had wonderful conversations with English, Canadian and Australian friends comparing the different names we have for things and the different spellings we use. I am always fascinated by the differences and enjoy the contrasts in how similar peoples see and perceive things. It makes life more interesting for all of us. In writing, some of the coloquial usages can hinder the appeal of a work in areas where they "don't have a clue what you are talking about." Otherwise, "vive la difference." J.X.M

What bothers me is when you hear or read "An history". should the 'h' be silent or something? Has this come from our mingling with the French?

Who stole it from Oscar Wilde.

Language evolves! There *are* no rules! pe ps oid "the progenitor" "the art of tea" "that's an odd courgette"

Language clearly does evolve but that doesn't mean there's no rules, it means rules change. If you didn't have rules you wouldn't have language, you'd just have marks on a page and noises.

Well, no it's not. It's marks on a page and noises that either mean something to people who hear them and look at them, or don't.

There's quite a few cultures still going that don't use marks on a page. Either way, though, the word I was disagreeing with was 'just'. Most languages are expressed by marks on a page and noises (or physical signs) - their is an exciting philosophical debate about whether private language is possible - but not all marks on a page and not all noises amount to a language.

"their is an exciting philosophical debate..." Are you having a joke, sir?