grammar

Poststructural Pub
1

http://thetangential.com/2012/04/20/questions-to-ask-yourself-before-acting-like-a-grammar-nazi/

Ok, I’ll give up on “hopefully,” but I’m not ready to give up on “literally.”

Dale

2

Thankfully.

3

That’s literally making my head explode.

4

Really?

5

Truly

6

Yes, please never give up on literally.

7

Oh no, hopefully not! That would be a tragedy. Which begs the question: Is grammer comprised of rules? At this point in time, I’m not positive.

8

These are all style, not grammar.

9

Today is not Talk Like a Pirate Day Simon. (awe, you fixed it.) Didn’t that say, These are are style, not grammar.

I could be in error. I had minor outpatient knee surgery today. I’m whoozy.

10

Pronounced “huh-wooozy” or “fwoozy.”

11

pronounced,

12

Kind of like Wheat Thins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX8-5hU1cr8

13

As narrowly construed and categorized, sure. But both pragmatics and semantics are involved, and those are both legitimate, broadly construed. Grammar doesn’t have to mean strictly structural stuff.

14

“It is to be hoped that..” is a really ugly clause; technical correctness being its only virtue. People who split this hair forget that grammar is what people say and the rules of grammar were all observed, not decreed.

15

That’s really a Latin calque, isn’t it? Sperandum est … Da Romans R in ur mouff, messing up ur spich.

Yep!

16

17

I took some pain pills like this (oxycodone) for three days this last week, but the scary humanoids in my dreams truly made me dread going to sleep. I know that they were not literally real, but in dreamspace reality has a different meaning.

18

Rather than, “Hopefully, this thread will go to 3 pages,” doesn’t it work just to say “I hope this thread will go to 3 pages”? It has been said that “It is hoped that..” is in the passive voice and, therefore, unforgivable.

19

  1. Start with a simple statement: We quit because nobody knew how to program the computer.

  2. Put it in the passive voice, to dilute the responsibility: It was decided to quit.

  3. Expand with terminology that does not add meaning: It was decided to terminate.

for the rest (up to rule 10!), see: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/Badly.html

(came across this list ~25 years ago! I literally laughed hysterically !)

20

One would hope so, wouldn’t one?