Comments on: It’s not its, is it? Oh, it is.

By: jump around

jump around — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:08:17 +0000

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By: runasim

runasim — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:25:43 +0000

I've been fighting a losing battle against the vanishing objective case in pronoun usage.

> This is good for both John and he. (instead of: for John and him)
> Mary hosted a party for Mike and I. (instead of: for Mike and me)
> To she and I, it looked fishy. (instead of: to her and me)

News announcers and prominent public figures are never called to task on this.
This is amazing, since you'd think they would be the first to brush up on pronouns.

It always seems to happen when the reference is to more than one person.
If you wouldn't say 'about I,' then you shouldn't say 'about Mary and I.'.
If you wouldn't say 'Dick wallked around I', then you shouldn'g say : Dick walked around my dog and I"

It's child's play to check the acuracy,.

By: DLS

DLS — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:52:48 +0000

“That’s why I would like to take a moment this morning for us to visit with some old friends”

This is long overdue.

Next we need to address general dumbing-down of English, such as the routine misuse of “impact” in place of “affect” and “effect.”

By: GreenDreams

GreenDreams — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:51:59 +0000

Good catch Chaos. If we can effect a change that affects the quality of the content here, the effect will be impressive, except for those who have an affect.

If I may offer an English language peculiarity, "I'm sure it is" is only used when we're not.

Example: Does John McCain know what he's talking about? "I'm sure he does" means I'm NOT sure. Otherwise I'd say, "yes" or "absolutely". Except actually, I'd say "absolutely not" on most issues

By: Ms_ChaosNG

Ms_ChaosNG — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:09:36 +0000

(Figures my first post would be about grammar.) Another common one: effect vs. affect. I see this one on signs ALL the time. It should be, “When your insurance benefits take effect then that will affect how much you have to pay.” Instead we have all these people lost and confused thinking that they are going to summon their insurance benefits into being instead of losing them because they don't know how to read fine print.

By: Jazz

Jazz — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:54:50 +0000

It's in the Gregg Reference Manual, 9th edition.

By: yetanothermoderatevoice

yetanothermoderatevoice — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:22:47 +0000

English_teacher, Jazz: what is your source for the rule? I seem to recall that, for example, the will/shall rule originated in some twentieth century grammar book, even though it had been used interchangeably for two centuries before that. Ditto for the use of he as a third person singular pronoun for a person of unspecified gender.

By: Jazz

Jazz — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:57:17 +0000

Grrrrrr, Amanda. I just spent five minutes going over my draft looking for the word “definitely” before finally concluding you were making a general observation.

English_teacher, you're correct, of course, though the proper use of “which” vs. “that” has become so blurred over the years that it's just too easy to gloss over. Not a proper excuse, of course, but one that I'll pretty much always let slide when I see others using it. incorrectly. What got me started on this today was the result of reading three blog entries and one SF Gate op-ed where they used “its” incorrectly. Grrrrrrrr again.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:47:03 +0000

You've warmed the very cockles of my cold, grammarian heart. The only one I would add is that you should definitely spell 'definitely' definitely. So many people screw that one up.

By: English_teacher

English_teacher — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:33:40 +0000

"the bugaboos of English which torpedo so many of our efforts ....."

should read:

"the bugaboos of English that torpedo so many of our efforts ....."

"Which" is used only when the when the phrase is set off by a comma, and the phrase is descriptive but unnecessary to the sense of the sentence. "That" is used when there is no comma and the limitation that follows is absolutely necessary to the sense of the sentence.

Obviously, I would never make such a comment about a post, except for the irony of the error appearing so prominently in your first paragraph of a post about usage errors! Just too delicious!