I thought it might be useful to have a thread where everyone who has concerns about the use of the
Queens King's English on CharltonLife can gather with those less educated, to elucidate them on points of grammar, syntax and what the hell, semantics.
Rather than interrupting the flow of other threads to point out transgressions, perhaps one might post here?
I am all for the evolution of language and am broadly of the view that if meaning is transmitted, and critically, understood then no harm no foul... sometimes it might just be an honest typo FFS.
But, you know, I mean, it's barely worth mentioning, but when
@MuttleyCAFC wrote...
"Say he wants £5m for the club. If he sold in a years time, he would have lost it and some. Best surely to let it go for £1 now. If somebody is willing to take us on."...
What he should have written was "year's time". The year possesses the time hence it has to be "apostrophe s" otherwise Muttley is talking about a plural of years. For that to make sense he'd have to have written
"in some years time"I'd like to think that in
a year's time (wink) this thread will have come to be known as a safe space for the discerning logophile, to share their observations of various language failings across CharltonLife or further afield.
Perhaps it could also become a general advice thread covering of things like how to sustain a conversation with a women and how to maximise the amount of things people can learn from you in a post office queue.
Comments
Not far behind is the use of "less" when "fewer" is more appropriate.
I can live with the occasional missing or errant apostrophe.
The city is named after Wulfrun, who founded the town in 985, from the Anglo-Saxon Wulfrūnehēantūn ("Wulfrūn's high or principal enclosure or farm").[5][6][7] Before the Norman Conquest, the area's name appears only as variants of Heantune or Hamtun, the prefix Wulfrun or similar appearing in 1070 and thereafter.[6] Alternatively, the city may have earned its original name from Wulfereēantūn ("Wulfhere's high or principal enclosure or farm") after the Mercian King,[8] who according to tradition established an abbey in 659, though no evidence of an abbey has been found.[9] The variation Wolveren Hampton is seen in medieval records, e.g. in 1381.[10]
...and i note your generous use of capital letters which is reminiscent of times past see : https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/10/capital-letters.html
His = belonging to him.
He's having a bit of a mare today = He is having a bit of a mare today.
The car belongs to John. It is his car.
I also dislike BBC news presenters for not knowing the difference between "to" and "from". As in "different to" rather than the correct "different from". They wouldn't say "similar from" would they?
Meanwhile there is the solecism that is "going forward": apart from being horrendous English, it is often entirely superfluous.
But what has really shocked me is the recent statement from our new King: "...countless people who have been such a support and comfort to my family and myself in this time of grief". "Myself" rather than "me" - really?
Joan Armour Plating.
And the rules of grammar, like not starting a sentence with “And”, were inventions of those scholars; the first self appointed grammar police.
Knowledge of the rules defined your superior status and set you apart from the uneducated unwashed majority.
If printing and books were developed by Geordies we might be following the Steve Bruce oral style who thought “we’re team played well today and you’s can see it on MOTD later”