As in, doesn’t matter at all to you.
Using if instead of whether. For example: “I will check if the window is open”. This means: “if the window is open, I will check”. What people mean to say is “I will check whether the window is open”.
Also, using was in hypotheticals instead of the correct were. For example: if I were going to check whether the window was open, I wouldn’t be standing here. Not “if I was going to check […]”.
Ah good one. Less vs fewer is another like this. IDGAF the distinction there either
“Y’all”
I will die on the hill that it’s more efficient and neutral than the alternatives.
English has to bend over backwards to make up for the fact that it doesn’t have a natural plural 2nd person form.
Ye Y’all Youse (Dublin)
For years I have said that y’all is the best thing to come out of the south.
“Y’all” and the plural “all y’all” are part of my daily vocabulary. And I’m in no way of southern origin.
I recently realized that w’all needs to be shakespeared too. Following the pattern of other languages, y’all and w’all are missing in English.
Also, I shakespeared the verb shakespeared, in reference to Shakespeare making up new words by following patterns among other words.
First we’re all like “Thou is too casual, gotta use the plural second person instead.” Then oh no, turns out number in pronouns is actually useful sometimes, but thou sounds old fashioned now, so we just gotta re-pluralize the second person. And then you get y’all.
I like y’all, but I almost wish we could just bring thou back.
I’m really sick of people treating AAVE and other dialects like grammar mistakes, is what. Grammar Nazis indeed, protecting the purity of the English language.
Anything that is used colloquially but technically isn’t correct because some loser didn’t like it 200 years ago. To boldly keep on splitting infinitives is a rejection of language prescriptivism!
abbreviations. it doesn’t save any meaningful time. it only prompts questions for clarification because people don’t define the abbreviation prior to using it throughout their post. plus since everything is being abbreviated out of laziness, the same abbreviations get used for multiple things which just adds additional confusions.
The absolute worst version of this is shit like a16z or a11y. Ironically a11y is very inaccessible.
Hahaha yep. Now Death Stranding 2 is out, Dark Souls 2 discussion has become difficult, joining DS1.
I’ve always followed a rule of which was popular first claims it. TF2 is Team Fortress 2, not Titanfall 2, DS2 is Dark Souls 2 not Death Stranding 2 etc etc.
If you gonna abbreviate, say its name in full first in the context, otherwise I’ll assume another!
say its name in full first in the context
that’s the only rule that should be followed with abbreviations
Yeah, that’s the best way, but with no context provided, I’ll fall back to the aforementioned.
Anything is acceptable if it’s for comedic effect.
Ending a sentence with a proposition is just fine. Picky people whom I’ve only seen parodies of on the Internet go “oh you ended your sentence with a preposition I have no idea what you mean by ‘He went in’ maybe you could explain what he went into? A jello mold? A ditch? What did go into?”
You asked if he went into the store and I said he went in, you know what I meant because of CONTEXT CLUES.
I’ve never met anyone who’s ever been this picky but I’m ready to bite them if I ever find one.
It’s not grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. It’s a common misconception that it is a rule, basically because one guy argued in favor of it back in the 1600s and had some support for formal writing in the 1700s. But it’s never been a broad rule, and even in formal contexts it’s not a rule in any current, reputable style or usage guides (so far as I know, at least).
Some more info on the topic: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/prepositions-ending-a-sentence-with
I only know of this “rule” because of a joke.
A new student is looking for the library and stops a passing professor to ask, “Excuse me sir, can you please tell me where the library is at?” To which the professor responds, “Here at Harvard, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions.”
The student without missing a beat says “I’m sorry, can you please tell me where the library is at, asshole?”
(Not sure if I remember exactly how it should be written it, apologies if I got it wrong)
I love to end my sentences with a proposition, you wanna fuck?
Did you mean to say, preposition instead of proposition?
I think that since you’re aware of typos and context clues you knew that was the case.
I think they are asking because many people don’t know the difference
Singular they. I’ve had this opinion since long before I even knew about non-binary people. Using “he or she” to refer to a person without specifying gender is clunky as hell.
but singular they isn’t incorrect in the least. anyone claiming otherwise has some agenda to push in spite of the facts of it’s use for a good long while
It’s not, but with… Political views as they are, it’s gotten a lot of pushback. People don’t even realize they use it regularly.
“Someone called for you”
“What did they want?”
Bam. Easy. I was stoked when magic the gathering changed card wording from “he or she” to “they” because it cleans up the wording so much.
Political views as they are, it’s gotten a lot of pushback
Yeah, the comment above mixed up grammar nazis with actual nazis I guess.
The word “muchly”
Kinda like aimee mann - deathly.
I’m of the opinion that so long as it is understandable it does not matter. English was once written as it sounded and there was no spelling consistancy. Those who were literate had little issue with it.
Some related reading: https://ctcamp.franklinresearch.uga.edu/resources/reading-middle-english https://cb45.hsites.harvard.edu/middle-english-basic-pronunciation-and-grammar
Edit: Okay my rant is more related to spelling than grammar but still interesting.
All of them, unless there’s need to be accurate.
Using commas, wherever you want.
They should be logical thought breaks, not adhere to any rules of grammar.
There’s places where a comma can cause psychic damage.
I’ve always just used them where natural breaks would be if the sentence was spoken. I know how it’s supposed to be used and I’ll do it correctly when writing papers, but it hurts inside to see it that way. I don’t understand how it improves comprehension.
This one I’m so guilty of, it just seems fine when used in moderation, even if I know it’s wrong.
I have to, take issue with this, one. The rules of commas are, pretty, easy actually: Use a, comma where you’d, pause when speaking. If, you read it out, loud and sound like Captain, Kirk then you put, a comma in the, wrong spot.
Found Christopher Walkin.
I can’t read things comfortably with too many commas. My internal monologue stops at each if them.
I mean commas can be used specifically for pauses in speech
Passive voice is completely fine to use.
Not only is it fine, but it’s the most common (and i would say most correct) way to write scientific papers.
The tone of scientific papers is usually supposed to focus on the science, not the scientist, so you have “reagent A was mixed with reagent B”, not “I mixed reagent A and reagent B”.
An added bonus is that it prevents having to assign credit to each and every step of a procedure, which would be distracting. E.G., “Alice added 200 ml water to the flask while Bob weighed out 5 g of sodium hydroxide and added it to the flask”.
Who says it’s not?
(/s)
informal contractions are simply informal just because. there’s no real reason to consider them informal or not standard other than arbitrary rules.
“You shouldn’t’ve done that.” “It couldn’t’ve been him!” “I might’ve done that if you asked.”
I consider the arbitrary rules that we call formal English to just be the set of rules that lead to the most widely understood texts, so if you want to reach a broad audience, both across the world and across time, then keeping to those formal rules makes sense.
This is the one that still ends up in my technical writing.
I think if I took it too far and said that all contractions are basically acceptable, y’all’d’n’t’ve agreed with me.
I’d’n’t’ve had a single issue with it. In fact, I quite enjoy multi-contractions
This looks aggressively welsh.
You all did not have
It would be “You all would not have” because “You all did not have agreed with me” doesn’t make sense.
I use this one unironically lol
Y’all’d’n’t’ve is one of my favorites
Isn’t formality itself a bunch of arbitrary rules? There’s rarely anything about any formality rule that makes the thing itself inherently more or less polite, the point is that choosing to follow those arbitrary rules communicates that you are (or aren’t) choosing to be formal about the thing. It’s like a giant tone marker for “respectfully”
In German there’s the saying “macht Sinn”, which is wrong since it’s just a direct translation of “makes sense”. Correct would be “ergibt Sinn”, in English “results in sense”, but I don’t care, “macht Sinn” rolls off the tongue easier.
which is wrong
Which is also just prescriptive bullshit perpetuated by grammar nazis
https://www.sprachlog.de/2009/01/12/seit-wann-machen-wir-im-deutschen-sinn/
I think if something gets said a certain way for a period of over a hundred years, maybe it’s time to accept it as a normal way to say things
A calque.
Macht sinn to me.
