Sorry EF - grammatical errors on this site (and others) make it hard to tell when someone is mickey taking or really doesn't know that they're being incorrect.
Sorry EF - grammatical errors on this site (and others) make it hard to tell when someone is mickey taking or really doesn't know that they're being incorrect.
But you didn't correct me on "borrowed it to him"!
Definately annoying when Lose and Loose are not used correctly........
definitely annoying when definAtely is misspelt
Misspelt on purpose due to the number of times I have seen it spelt incorrectly on CL. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer as I was trying to be a bit ironic!
as there's only 1 StevieG .. I guessed that was the case .. but .. a lot on here defiantly/definately/definitely didn't know that (:>)
Sorry EF - grammatical errors on this site (and others) make it hard to tell when someone is mickey taking or really doesn't know that they're being incorrect.
But you didn't correct me on "borrowed it to him"!
People who can't tell the difference between 'Bought' and 'Brought'.
I lent my neighbour my lawnmower - the next day he knocked on my door and said, "Thanks, I've bought your lawnmower back."
WTF?
This is mainly Northerners that do this in my experience. When I moved into halls my flat mate did it all the time and it just left me puzzled. They're different words with different meanings that sound similar. It would be like using "cat" and "mat" interchangeably because they sort of sound alike.
Someone said "Marquee Signing" was ridiculous - can I add "unplayable". I hate the fact that this word, which means nothing, has come into common parlance simply because Jamie Redknapp has repeatedly used it over the course of the last few years! Surely in any context it would mean that something played badly ? "The record was so scratched it was almost unplayable" - but somehow Sky have turned it into a word that means "he's so good it's almost impossible to defend against him".
Whilst we're on the subject, since when has 'ask' been pronounced 'arks'?
You might be interested to know that the original pronunciation was aks and it changed to ask in the 14th century. So it's not always as clear cut as you might think. Both are actually right depending on where you come from. See the article below.
While the pronunciation /aks/ for ask is not considered standard, it is a very common regional pronunciation with a long history. The Old English verb áscian underwent a normal linguistic process called metathesis sometime in the 14th century. Metathesis is what occurs when two sounds or syllables switch places in a word. This happens all the time in spoken language (think nuclear pronounced as /nukular/ and asterisk pronounced as /asteriks/).
Metathesis is usually a slip of the tongue, but (as in the cases of /asteriks/ and /nukular/) it can become a variant of the original word. This alternative version in Old English was axian or acsian, as in Chaucer's: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife's Prologue 1386). Ascian and axian co-existed and evolved separately in various regions of England. The ascian version gives us the modern standard English ask, but the axian variant ax can still be found in England's Midland and Southern dialects.
In American English, the /aks/ pronunciation was originally dominant in New England. The popularity of this pronunciation faded in the North early in the 19th century as it became more common in the South. Today the pronunciation is perceived in the US as either Southern or African-American. Both of these perceptions underestimate the popularity of the form.
/aks/ is still found frequently in the South, and is a characteristic of some speech communities as far North as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa. It is one of the shared characteristics between African-American English and Southern dialects of American English. The wide distribution of speakers from these two groups accounts for the presence of the /aks/ pronunciation in Northern urban communities.
So in fact, your colleague is correct in calling /aks/ a regional pronunciation, one with a distribution that covers nearly half of the territory in the United States and England.
Definately annoying when Lose and Loose are not used correctly........
definitely annoying when definAtely is misspelt
Misspelt on purpose due to the number of times I have seen it spelt incorrectly on CL. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer as I was trying to be a bit ironic!
as there's only 1 StevieG .. I guessed that was the case .. but .. a lot on here defiantly/definately/definitely didn't know that (:>)
Definately annoying when Lose and Loose are not used correctly........
definitely annoying when definAtely is misspelt
Misspelt on purpose due to the number of times I have seen it spelt incorrectly on CL. Sorry if I didn't make that clearer as I was trying to be a bit ironic!
as there's only 1 StevieG .. I guessed that was the case .. but .. a lot on here defiantly/definately/definitely didn't know that (:>)
Whilst we're on the subject, since when has 'ask' been pronounced 'arks'?
You might be interested to know that the original pronunciation was aks and it changed to ask in the 14th century. So it's not always as clear cut as you might think. Both are actually right depending on where you come from. See the article below.
While the pronunciation /aks/ for ask is not considered standard, it is a very common regional pronunciation with a long history. The Old English verb áscian underwent a normal linguistic process called metathesis sometime in the 14th century. Metathesis is what occurs when two sounds or syllables switch places in a word. This happens all the time in spoken language (think nuclear pronounced as /nukular/ and asterisk pronounced as /asteriks/).
Metathesis is usually a slip of the tongue, but (as in the cases of /asteriks/ and /nukular/) it can become a variant of the original word. This alternative version in Old English was axian or acsian, as in Chaucer's: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife's Prologue 1386). Ascian and axian co-existed and evolved separately in various regions of England. The ascian version gives us the modern standard English ask, but the axian variant ax can still be found in England's Midland and Southern dialects.
In American English, the /aks/ pronunciation was originally dominant in New England. The popularity of this pronunciation faded in the North early in the 19th century as it became more common in the South. Today the pronunciation is perceived in the US as either Southern or African-American. Both of these perceptions underestimate the popularity of the form.
/aks/ is still found frequently in the South, and is a characteristic of some speech communities as far North as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa. It is one of the shared characteristics between African-American English and Southern dialects of American English. The wide distribution of speakers from these two groups accounts for the presence of the /aks/ pronunciation in Northern urban communities.
So in fact, your colleague is correct in calling /aks/ a regional pronunciation, one with a distribution that covers nearly half of the territory in the United States and England.
That's absolutely fascinating. I had no idea. Where did that article come from?
One that gets my goat is when someone gives an opinion on something then says "I don't think" at the end of it. For example " arsenal will never win another trophy I don't think " Yeah u do think.
My boss used to b*llock me when I put that in a letter (i.e. I don't think that...). Apparently, I was being paid to think. The other one was saying "for free", if it's for something, how can it be free? Didn't bother me, so I used it mercilessly to annoy him. Same with split infinitives.
I can't help bet get annoyed at the number of idiots who seemingly have no idea of the difference between "his" and "he's". I see them mixed up so often that there's times when I honestly believe that I'm missing out on some conspiracy to deliberately get it wrong.
This thread proves just how bad is the standard of English which is taught in our schools. I don't claim to be perfect myself, as I was never taught the rules of grammar when I was at school and I am now 56.
I know someone who was a teacher of English and he frequently makes grammatical mistakes, particularly in the use of 'I' and 'me'. If a teacher doesn't know the correct rules of grammar, they cannot properly teach the subject.
We did have a discussion on the standard of English and spelling and he informed me that it was considered poor practice to point out mistakes in children's work as it might affect their confidence. What a load of rubbish - they'll be far worse off in later life if they remain uncorrected and unemployable.
Difficult though isn't it? Maybe we're at a point in time where language is just effectively changing? After all, we don't all write and speak like William Shakespeare anymore. Things change, who is to determine what is 'right' or 'wrong'?
Hanged is the past tense for hang, as in an execution, right? But in reality, hung IS an acceptable past-tense of hang in that context. Like starting a sentence with BUT, it has wrongly been considered an error.
However, usage has always been that a piece of meat will be hung whereas a convicted murderer was "hanged by the neck until dead".
Up until the 1500s the common indication of a plural in English was "en" but it was then superseded by "s".
Quick quiz. Other than those words with "men" or "women" how many "en" plurals can you list?
Whilst we're on the subject, since when has 'ask' been pronounced 'arks'?
You might be interested to know that the original pronunciation was aks and it changed to ask in the 14th century. So it's not always as clear cut as you might think. Both are actually right depending on where you come from. See the article below.
While the pronunciation /aks/ for ask is not considered standard, it is a very common regional pronunciation with a long history. The Old English verb áscian underwent a normal linguistic process called metathesis sometime in the 14th century. Metathesis is what occurs when two sounds or syllables switch places in a word. This happens all the time in spoken language (think nuclear pronounced as /nukular/ and asterisk pronounced as /asteriks/).
Metathesis is usually a slip of the tongue, but (as in the cases of /asteriks/ and /nukular/) it can become a variant of the original word. This alternative version in Old English was axian or acsian, as in Chaucer's: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife's Prologue 1386). Ascian and axian co-existed and evolved separately in various regions of England. The ascian version gives us the modern standard English ask, but the axian variant ax can still be found in England's Midland and Southern dialects.
In American English, the /aks/ pronunciation was originally dominant in New England. The popularity of this pronunciation faded in the North early in the 19th century as it became more common in the South. Today the pronunciation is perceived in the US as either Southern or African-American. Both of these perceptions underestimate the popularity of the form.
/aks/ is still found frequently in the South, and is a characteristic of some speech communities as far North as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa. It is one of the shared characteristics between African-American English and Southern dialects of American English. The wide distribution of speakers from these two groups accounts for the presence of the /aks/ pronunciation in Northern urban communities.
So in fact, your colleague is correct in calling /aks/ a regional pronunciation, one with a distribution that covers nearly half of the territory in the United States and England.
That's absolutely fascinating. I had no idea. Where did that article come from?
I can't remember - I knew this from Robert Elms show - and just googled ask or aks I think and this was one of the things that came up.
Comments
Shut up.
Someone said "Marquee Signing" was ridiculous - can I add "unplayable". I hate the fact that this word, which means nothing, has come into common parlance simply because Jamie Redknapp has repeatedly used it over the course of the last few years! Surely in any context it would mean that something played badly ? "The record was so scratched it was almost unplayable" - but somehow Sky have turned it into a word that means "he's so good it's almost impossible to defend against him".
Or should that be 'won't see nothing wrong with what you have wrote'!
While the pronunciation /aks/ for ask is not considered standard, it is a very common regional pronunciation with a long history. The Old English verb áscian underwent a normal linguistic process called metathesis sometime in the 14th century. Metathesis is what occurs when two sounds or syllables switch places in a word. This happens all the time in spoken language (think nuclear pronounced as /nukular/ and asterisk pronounced as /asteriks/).
Metathesis is usually a slip of the tongue, but (as in the cases of /asteriks/ and /nukular/) it can become a variant of the original word. This alternative version in Old English was axian or acsian, as in Chaucer's: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife's Prologue 1386). Ascian and axian co-existed and evolved separately in various regions of England. The ascian version gives us the modern standard English ask, but the axian variant ax can still be found in England's Midland and Southern dialects.
In American English, the /aks/ pronunciation was originally dominant in New England. The popularity of this pronunciation faded in the North early in the 19th century as it became more common in the South. Today the pronunciation is perceived in the US as either Southern or African-American. Both of these perceptions underestimate the popularity of the form.
/aks/ is still found frequently in the South, and is a characteristic of some speech communities as far North as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa. It is one of the shared characteristics between African-American English and Southern dialects of American English. The wide distribution of speakers from these two groups accounts for the presence of the /aks/ pronunciation in Northern urban communities.
So in fact, your colleague is correct in calling /aks/ a regional pronunciation, one with a distribution that covers nearly half of the territory in the United States and England.
I know someone who was a teacher of English and he frequently makes grammatical mistakes, particularly in the use of 'I' and 'me'. If a teacher doesn't know the correct rules of grammar, they cannot properly teach the subject.
We did have a discussion on the standard of English and spelling and he informed me that it was considered poor practice to point out mistakes in children's work as it might affect their confidence. What a load of rubbish - they'll be far worse off in later life if they remain uncorrected and unemployable.