I could care less

tacticaltal
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Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:46 pm

I think people who use irregardless mean, instead, to say irrespective. Notwithstanding is another word which could be synonymous with irrespective.

~terry


tacticaltal
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Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:58 pm

One of my peeves is people who use that as a relative pronoun to refer to people, as in All those that are here. The correct pronoun is who.

And what really irks me are people who, when describing an event, almost always use the "2nd person", as in "Oh, the storm was terrible, you seen all those trees being snapped, and you heard the roar of the tornado." No, I didn't, I wasn't there! Maybe YOU seen and heard, but I was asleep!!

EDIT: Yes, I know we aren't supposed to start a sentence with And, But, or Or - too late :(


lueders
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Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:22 am

Michele, hello there and thank you for your kind words. :) Yeah, "irregardless" is definately a double negative. I mean, you know...a person wouldn't say a word like unrelentless or something like that. Yikes!

Hi, Tony. Hi, Dennis. Yeah, I know what you fellas mean. It's probably bad form to stay on a semantics high horse for long. I hear ya.:) After all, I'm sure we are all guilty of grammatical breach of some form or another. Infact, I was recently humbled myself. Krista let me know that I pronounce "milk"..."melk" I suppose it serves me right too; because I have been known to get a little snarky about some family members mis-pronunciations. Lol.

Terry, yeah man...exactly! You hit the nail on the head! It's a double negative. So it is technically not even a word at all. Furthermore, the meaning is often bastardized and always seems to be used in the wrong context... Okay, that is probably enough ranting. Thanx for feeling my pain though, man. Lol.
And also, I know what you mean about the 2nd person thing.
I used to read "choose your own adventure" books penned with a 2nd person narrative.
I remember those books being really hard to follow.


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neverfoundthetime
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Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:01 am

Its very interesting to listen to your perspective Dennis. I'm wired very differently, literally ;-). I hope I wrote wired and not weird as for most of my young life I would not have seen the difference which I never understood until I read that it doesn't matetr as lnog as the benigning and end ltteers are in the right palce, we silt unerdtsand what is bieng siad (wtriten). So word recognition is more important than spelling in terms of understanding. And that's where my focus always is, on understanding the intent of what's being said (written). First comes the intent, then the expression of intent, the word, then hopefully, understanding. Did I need to put in another comma after then? That's the kind of worrying and thinking which would hold me back from saying what I intended. So these days I try to write as if speaking and that includes starting a sentence with the word And Terry! If there's one thing I have understood, its that languages and the use of languages is constantly expanding and changing, especially English which is being influenced by all the non-native English speakers using it more and more every day. Wait until we have these discussions in Cantonese!

Fun subject!


dennisg
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Fri Jan 11, 2013 9:19 am

Interesting posts, Cori and Chris. I appreciate your perspectives.

People who find out that I'm a writer tend to assume that I'm a stickler for the rules of English grammar, but it ain't so. I will happily split infinitives, end a sentence with a preposition, or begin one with "and" or "but" ... because that's the way people talk. And in my experience, writing that reflects the way that people talk is vastly more interesting and readable than writing that seeks to elevate the language.

The more I study foreign languages (which I continue to do), the more I appreciate how wonderful English is. It's flexible, expressive, and non-genderized.


michelew
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Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:10 am

dennisg wrote:
... I've noticed in the Taylor forum how often people pluralize the word Taylor or Martin by adding an apostrophe to it ... such as, I have three Taylor's. First, I want to ask them if they add an apostrophe to ALL words they pluralize (we own two car's), then I want to punch them for bragging about their guitar collection.
This one drives me CRAZY! Just like 'thing' and 'think' I believe it's becoming more prevalent too. :side: :blink: One of the guys in my team does it all the time. I'm constantly correcting it. Communication is one thing, but in professional documents... He giggles and looks a little bashful (and smiley) when I point it out now. Crazy! :)

M.


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