The Good Days of English Has Went

Lately, my pet peeve is people starting a sentence with the word "so" where it does not belong.

Brits and some other commonwealthers say Z as "zed".

Ok, I could have just Googled it (in my case DuckDuckGo-ed it). This is what I found:

why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed

Radio Amateurs here pronounce it as Zed in call signs to distinguish it from similar sounds such as P or T if in the middle of the call sign. If at the end they normally use the ARRL phonetic alphabet and call it Zulu. I'm not sure why they just don't say Zulu all the time.

Spot on the mark. It's been driving me up the wall thinking it was just me getting annoyed about 'so'. A few years back people (mostly young University graduates) began every reply with "basically...". I have no idea why this happens, it doesn't even seem that they are buying time to think.

I've never met anyone who takes offence at the word 'Brit', and I've not seen anybody bat an eyelid at the American pronounciation of 'zee'. For some reason, my spelling of pronounciation is being highlighted as wrong.

Another peeve of mine is Farcebook. It's always been bad, but the use of a full-stop is now widely seen as 'wrong'.

It's pronunciation (no o after the first n).

I think you are correct within the context I used the word, but both spellings seem to be OK (albeit with a subtle difference in meaning).

What difference--or is it too subtle to explain?

Kris,

How do YOU pronounce pronunciation?

As far as I'm concerned "pronounciation" is the only one word joke I've ever heard: I nearly crashed my car when I heard someone on the radio say it.

I'm going to have great fun running this on a few friends .

We used to score our senior high school science teacher (1969 &70) Nigel Bishop, on the number of times he used the word "basically" and "fundamentally" in class. To his surprise, we presented him with the results at the end of the course. Funny how we concentrated on English in Science, while I didn't concentrate at all in English.

Cheers

Interesting. It was the word "subsequently" here.

Do they pronounce the letter T, ted?

Languages evolve. If they don't they become irrelevant. Or Latin.

While some of the 38 are idioms, part of the 'color' of the language, or sloppy usage. Some the 38 pet peeves are just pedantic complaints because the author didn't want only 24 things to complain about.

No complaint about the use of trunk, hood, truck, flashlight, and so on. What about putting on a pair of underwear?

Someone famously said the Britons and the Americans are people separated by a common language.

Up here in this commonwealth country we would write "colour" of the language (in my opinion an altogether finer, more complete looking word than "color") No we don't say "ted" for T, but we do say "zed" for Z. Also, how we pronounce "out" and "about" always gives us away. I think Americans hear them as "oot" and "aboot" (but that's not quite accurate). Once, in a Galveston bar I ordered a brand of beer and said, "But if you are out of them I'll have a..." A guy a few stools down heard the word "out" and gave a friendly greeting, "Hey man, what part of Canada are you from?"

I guess I've lived in a multicultural environment my whole life, where it's been enough of a struggle just to understand what people are saying, without worrying about proper English usage...and more focused on learning how to say "I'm sorry could you repeat that", politely several times if necessary....Many people down here have accents so heavy it's nearly impossible to understand what they're saying, and many others speak no English at all and must use their children who have been attending school here as interpreters...usually just grade school level...So all in all I tend to be quite forgiving in day to day verbal communication, however I expect when writing to a forum or speaking to a group, that some care has been taken to get things right...

This is OT probably, but your title reminded me of something I read recently.

Why is "went" the past tense of "go"?

There used to be two verbs, "go" and "wend" that sort of meant the same thing. The past tenses were "goed" and "went". "Goed" has disappeared and "wend" almost has, so we're stuck with "went" as the past tense of "go".

https://laughingsquid.com/etymological-history-irregular-verbs/

It's just an example of how languages evolve, and language diverges when groups of people are geographically separated. Today, thanks to global communications, language is merging once again, to the chagrin of the author of the "38 Americanisms".

Not at all OT, in fact I gave you a GA for the video. Actually the past tense of go is gone.

I go to the store. (present tense)

I went to the store. (past tense)

I have gone to the store. (past participle)

I'm going to say I don't say I go.

Even worse is "I'm like..."

Valley girl drivel.

Quite.

You are correct. I was thinking of the correct word in the title of this thread.

I went to the shop!
My pet hate is "Gifted" a gift is a noun, I don't see how it gets turned into a verb...
The "gift" was "given" to the recipient.
Oddly and much to my annoyance, when I check up on some American usage it is actually closer to the original English than the UK usage...
Del

I don't have a problem with your first sentence as long as that shop has a saw or sander in it. But if your wife used it for going shopping then it's wrong.

One of my annoyances on this forum is improper punctuation. Your second sentence is an example. It should have been 3 sentences. Gifted is an adjective. I don't recall seeing it used wrong. Can you give an example?

This is a shop:

This is a workshop:

See the difference?

Yip Yep. Oh, so you want the word store replaced with the word shop.

This is a store:

<...replace...>? There's no need for that here.

"Oh, so you want the word store replaced with the word shop."

No: the distinction is in the size: a small retail outlet is a shop; a large multi department retail outlet is a store.

It's a bit like the difference between trucks and lories that you guys also struggle with:-

Or, in the fire apparatus game, the difference between an "engine" and a "truck," which distinction the general public doesn't comprehend.

Further, this:

is a "saloon", not a "sedan", and this:

is an "estate", not a "station wagon".

This:

is still a "limousine".

All clear now?

OK. I still use an elevator when I want a lift.

You could run with 'I gave something' as a substitute for 'I gifted something'

'I am gifted with an ability to annoy' ? Plenty of substitute phrases, but none quite convey the meaning. "Gifted child" is bloody annoying

The space before '?' is just a personal foible. Not correct, but it just seems more readable.

I've wasted a few minutes trawling the Inland Revenue website and couldn't find "gifted". On that basis alone, 'gifted' could go in the bin.

Not so. The past tense of go is went; the past participle is gone.

--Editor Crankshaft may be about to ride again.

(SE beat me to it.)

Gone is the perfect tense - "He has gone". The simple past is went. "He went"

"has gone" is the present perfect tense;
"had gone" is the past perfect tense;
"will have gone" is the future perfect tense.

I doubt that "gone" by itself is any particular tense.

How about "Man,that dude is gone!"

Unless other punctuation immediately follows, commas and periods are supposed to be followed by a space.

"That dude is gone" is still present perfect, with "is" substituted for "has"; another example is in Christmas carols in which "the Lord is come."

It has been almost two thousand years, and Mary Magdalene et alia are still waiting for that to happen.

In this sentence, "gone" is used as a noun and commas require no space afterwards.

Unless the rules have changed in the past 70 years or so,and I suspect they have.Language is a living organism and adapts and changes over time.

The original Old English would not be understandable to us anymore.Languages are also very colloquial,varying from region to region.

As the old saying goes: "When in Rome...".

In that sentence, "gone" is used as an adjective, not a noun.

And yes, commas and periods do require spaces afterward. Just observe carefully any literary material other than your own. Good grief.

I think you'd really struggle to justify the use of no spaces after commas and full stops. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not full stops should be followed by one or two spaces.

I suspect that you just had a maverick teacher.

The question of one or two spaces after certain punctuation is context-dependent, complex, contentious, and possibly evolving.

The context part involves manuscript versus finished writing. In manuscript format, tradition has been for double spaces after periods and colons, but only single spaces after commas and semicolons. This is useful in cases where the typed image may be unclear, because it clarifies the author's intention.

In final editing and finished correspondence, the double spaces are reduced to single. This is easily done by a global search-and-replace, which is not reversible, and thus must be nearly the last editing step.

This was in the days of manual typewriters,and every letter or space mattered,and every error had to be manually corrected.

Typewriter keys had to be pressed hard,and finger travel was around 3/4 inch(19 MM) per keystroke.

Text rules evolve with the language and on computers,it is a small matter for corrections,and spell check can prevent spelling errors.

There are even grammar assistants.

It was not just one single teacher that taught this,it was the rule at the time.

People had enough common sense to mentally pause when appropriate in a sentence without getting confused.

Look at how many words have changed meaning over the years.

Baloney. All of that.

I'll see your baloney and raise you two slices of bologna.

I don't see that as OT, so I'm going to negate that in a minute.

If a person were to design a keyboard now, unencumbered by knowledge of how/why mechanical keyboards were set out, what would they come up with ? I'm sure such a thing exists, but I'm being lazy (actually it's because I trust answers here more than sifting the web) and I'm sure somebody knows offhand the what/where.

Possibly worth mentioning, but all newspapers (I can only say for UK) have a 'style guide'. It goes beyond subject content, and covers issues being discussed here. Needless to say they all have differing takes on the topic.

I spotted the superfluous 'but' above. It can remain as an example of how we all can make a gamma mistake. Maybe I should have written 'can all', rather than 'all can'. My grammar is no longer around to tick me off.

Dvorak.

Incidentally: what's the longest word you can write using only the top row of a qwerty keyboard?

.

. "typewriter"

Though I suppose if you were referring to me you might get away with "tripewriter".

englishclub.com/writing/punctuation-comma

A space after a comma was always taught where I grew up. More importantly it is the rule now. Leaving out the space is one of my pet peeves.

I could cite much about rules, but at this time of night I like this.

This article seems to be saying exactly the opposite:-

Have you gone to Rome?

YUP!Been to Rome,but never been to Italy.

OK, if you want to add more detail!

When I was at school ~ 60 years back "had gone" was known as the pluperfect tense

Why not mention the imperfect "was going" and the future "will go" while we're at it (if somebody hasn't already).

Is there a future imperfect tense "will have been going"?

What you are calling "imperfect" is also known as "progressive"; I think either term is acceptable.

Your "future imperfect" (or "future progressive") is quite sensible, but I don't know if there is a standard terminology about it.

Scrod is a type of fish (or, more correctly a way of preparing white fish like cod and haddock) which is a speciality in Boston Mass.

So (sorry) a business man is visiting Boston and wants to try the local delicacy: he jumps into a taxi, and, says

"Can you take me somewhere I can get scrod?"

The taxi driver replies "Mister, I've heard that question a hundred times, but, never in the future pluperfect subjunctive before."

I can't stand the use of the word "literally", when "figuratively" is what is meant. As in: It was so cold, we literally froze our asses off.

Also, overuse of clichés. I wouldn't touch a cliché with a ten foot pole, but recently I read a travel story so chock full of clichés that it literally took the cake. A typical passage: I was dog tired so I hit the hay, and was dead to the world in a heartbeat. The next morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I looked out the tent door. I was gob smacked. The view was picture perfect. It was like the dawn of creation.

In that case, literally means actually:

They actually froze their asses off:they fell off and landed in the snow.

If I was in the Arctic and read a joke so good that I had to sit down laughing, resulting in frostbite, it would literally be possible to LMAO. Methinks I need to spend some time with a dictionary, my brain is getting most confused.

was were

"Incorrect use of the indicative where the subjunctive is required. Incorrect use of a comma to join two main clauses where a sub-clause is required. 4/10. See me."

No, my a**e was lost in the arctic. It were the best of times, it were the worst of times....

John, 11:35.

Oh no, an "ass" vs "arse" debate has been triggered!

"Ass" in this context and so often used by a large chunk of the "English" speaking world is such a sad and disappointing gentrification of the word "arse". Why, when the "F..." word is ubiquitous? North Americans - come over to the dark side and embrace "arse".

Is a donkey, an Arse?

The American, version ,of the word, is referring to, a stubborn,braying, big mouth.

However,"kiss my arse", is a different ,matter.

Pardon the extra commas,I just threw them in to make up for some may have missed earlier,just for S+G.

I didn't know it was a real word.

"The American, version ,of the word, is referring to, a stubborn,braying, big mouth."

Wow, I'll give you an (e) for effort, dude.

Almost anything over here can be an arse - even an ass I suppose.

We would kick an ass in the arse to motivate it rather than kicking an ass in the ass, which would just confuse all concerned.

I'd much rather kiss an ass than an arse any day, thereby giving arse so much more relevance.

BTW, the spell checker is getting irate at my many arses and I'm taking great pleasure in taunting it.

Maybe, you could substitute a few semi-colons for commas just to keep the commas on their toes.

Now that I've introduced the subject of semi-colons, I'm reminded of the way we used to hear Colin Powell's name pronounced "Colon" - where's that come from!?

Cheers

Better than Colin Bowel....

There are no rules when it comes to proper nouns

Take Duke's basketball coach,Mike Krzyzewski. Not pronuonced anything close to the spelling,but that is the way he pronounces it so it is ok.

I knew an Italian whose name was pronounced "rotchacockoff" no joke.He insisted it be pronounced that way.No idea how it was spelled.Had trouble getting him paged at the airport,they thought is was a joke.

If Colin wants it pronounced COLON,then that is proper.

Same with Basil...long or short A is ok if it is a person's name.

And the list goes on.....

Rules for the proper use of ass and arse are subtle. For example: It would be entirely appropriate to say, "I don't give a rat's ass if you kick an ass in the arse", but it is incorrect to say, "I don't give a rat's arse...". An ass must have a certain size and heft before it can assume the elevated title of arse.

The subject of "Colon" Powell reminds me of the lyrics of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds'. We used to sing, "...Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile. The girl with colitis walks by...". But CCR in their song 'Bad Moon on the Rise', was sensitive to the poor girl's condition. They sang, "So don't go out tonight, It's bound to take your life, There's a bathroom on the right."

Size is an important consideration. One cannot have an <...arse...> bigger than the <...ass...> to which it is attached, for example.

First post today because I have been busier than a one-legged man in an arse kicking contest.

By Jove! I think he's got it!

Cheers

Redneck Latin:

Q: "Et tu, Brutus?"

A: "Nope, I only et one."

Brute (pronounced Brootay). It's a vocative case.

"Grammar is the difference between knowing your sh*t and knowing you're sh*t." _{- Anon.}

The thread title contains a misplaced modifier. It is supposed to be "The days of good English...."

BTW, it is also someone's avatar motto.

A third grade English teacher said that two negatives make a positive,but two positives don't make a negative,to which one student replied "Yeah,Right!"

Reminds me of the guy who named his company, Yeah Inc. He said it saved time when he answered the phone because he could just say, "Yeah. What can I do for you?"

But 3 negatives makes a positive? "Don't never use no double negatives"

My current and persistent peeve seemed to start in Australia in the late '80's. It seems that a senior teacher of teachers overemphasised the "g" on the end of words ending in "ing" to the hard "G" sound that to us is more like a "K".

Those teachers then spread across the country affirming that pronunciation onto the community.

So now we hear everythink, somethink, nuffink, and so on even though they still spell it with the "g".

How are things surviving on your side of the world?

People are using an uplifting ending to every sentence,like it is a question instead of a statement,but I accept it as a natural evolution of language.Variations in language do not bother me as long as I can figure out what was meant.

That's another one! Mostly ozzies and kiwis do it I've found. It seems to carry an implication that the person being addressed is a bit dim and needs something to be explained.

What about the Cilla Black effect that started on Blind Date - people raising the tone on TV gameshows when stating when they are from. For those lucky enough to have never seen it, 'My name is Kris, and I'm from ANNOYINGVILLE ! (big cheesy grin essential to encourage clapping)' sort of explains it. The phenomena has spread to all sorts of gameshows where people introduce themselves. I'd guess producers got people to do that and build audiance excitement, but people even seem to do it on current shows with no audience (eg The Chase UK). Their occupation/background is of mild interest because it sometimes gives a hint about who they are as a person, but I have zero interest in proud exclamations of where they come from.

No need to tell me folks, I've probably committed a mass of sins in that paragraph. Getting the message across is the most important thing. I agree with those who would like 'proper English', but it's a loosing battle. Smartphones and the text generation are here, written language will reflect that. My own view is that Schools should have one techno-free day each week, but the snowball has probably got to critical roll point on the hill.

On consideration, I'm fine with anybody pointing out faults. It would give an indication of what annoys the most. Lack of structure ? Incorrect spacing ? A use of sentences beginning with 'A'? Use of the personal pronoun on a public forum ? And another one that people find irksome is starting a sentence with 'And'. I can't think of anything else right now that annoys !!!

And how about those who say haitch for aitch? It's particularly irritating as guys who are usually not fussy about sounding their aitches - 'ouse, 'orse, 'andicap etc, put a big effort into sounding an aitch that isn't there.

Just gimme 'enry 'iggins' 'ead!

--Eliza Doolittle

As Van Gogh's love interest said when she opened the package, "What's this 'ere?"

'An Hotel' causes myriad problems. I drop the 'n', but have heard either/both the 'n' 'h' dropped. 'haitch' gets funnier every time I read and say it aloud. It's annoying me right now because I can't recall the TV character who said it a lot. It may have been 'arold Steptoe.

Was it Windsor Davies in "It ain't 'alf 'ot Mum"?

The 'h' was skipped by some of them, but I recall it as more like 'arf'. Possibly even 'ahf'. I'm no fan of the game, but cricket would collapse if anybody shouted 'How's that!'.

I "fink" it started well before vat, as it was rife in the 60's and 70's too but.

(Boganisms intentional)

Cheers

Another pet peeve is people who form plurals using " 's" as in 1980's when it should be 1980s. The apostrophe is used only for possession and contractions.

That's called a "grocer's apostrophe".

...and it's an epidemic.

I thought it was greengrocer's apostrophe (as in potato's) but I suppose either will do

So.. You can't enjoy reading this..

Because like.. Grammar.

(Grammar said in oprah voice)

"I am about to, or, I am going to, die. Either expression is correct." - last words of a grammarian.

I am out of time,I think I will do something more interesting,like playing tiddlywinks

if I can find my favorite squidger..(note underlined comma).