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A gripe about the changing English language
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I was taught (long ago) that singular pronouns take singular verbs, that none means not ONE, and that anyONE and everyONE are singular pronouns. Nowadays, the New York Times editorial staff, among too many others, disagrees with me. What do readers think?
About this poster:
Senior male
Posted by:
YankeeNovice
(male, senior)
(Posted 7/28/05)
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Responses (0)
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Responses (8)
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janedel
(7/29):
I agree. Also hate use of "issues" to mean "problems," the use of "quality" as an adjective, the use of "out of" for "from," eg. He works outof his house. I hate "home" used to mean "house" AND the expression "to go missing." I'll stop here but could continue ad infinitum.
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Writer_B
(7/29):
I agree. Please realize, though, that you're posting this on the Internet, where many don't seem to know the difference between such completely different words as "where," "were" and "wear." Those who commit such atrocities don't realize how stupid they sound.
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YankeeNovice
(7/29):
While we're protesting misuse of our language, is it permissible to correct each other? Writer B: when you have three different words confused, shouldn't you say "differences among"?
Some other irritants: "convince" is not equivalent to "persuade"; "simultaneous" differs from "concurrent"; and "realize" is not a substute for "recognize" (sorry to bug Writer B so much). Janedel, clearly I have much to learn from you.
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Anonymous
(7/29):
Here's one. I've noticed for the past several years Bush, as well as many well-known tv news personalities, use "A" instead of "AN before a wording beginning with a vowel, i.e., "a effort", "a element", etc. I was beginning to think the rules had changed.
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Clemantine
(7/29):
I agree. Also, my ears are numb from hearing "Me and her was hangin' out..." and "...between She and I." Ouch!
And, since when is the bad guy called gentleman while the actual gentleman is called man or dude or something? "Dude was just standing there when this gentleman slugged him."
Ouch, I say!
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YankeeNovice
(7/30):
Is anyone else bothered by being represented by a president who insists on saying "nucular"?
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janedel
(8/10):
Yes. Also the use of "momento" for "memento," "criteria" for "criterion." Language is being mangled!!
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Jimbo
(9/29):
I'm personally not to happy about the fact that when I was a kid we had another word for happy and joyful, and now that word means something completely different. The word is "gay".
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