Dr. Shades's Grammar Lesson of the Day

[_Mister Scratch]

I cannot help but jump in here. One of the grammatical/usage flaws that has always bugged me is the insertion of an apostrophe into some place where it doesn't belong. This is especially prevalent with dates, e.g., "1950's". There is no logical reason for that to be there, unless one is ascribing possession to the date, e.g., "This was the year 1950's most interesting event." One also sees this errant apostrophe in poorly written signs at the grocery store, e.g., "Banana's---.50 lb."

[_Dr. Shades]

One also sees this errant apostrophe in poorly written signs at the grocery store, e.g., "Banana's---.50 lb."

I wholeheartedly agree. This drives me crazy whenever I see it.

[_Dr. Shades]

GRAMMAR LESSON #6:

"Who" vs. "That"

Examine the following sentence, emphasis added and spelling errors ignored:

Religion makes so many rediculous claims and irrational leaps of reasoning that those that subscribe to that non-sense need a serious reality check. Especially the fundimentalists that ignore clear evidence when it's staring them in the face.

When talking about how A does or is B, use the word "that" if the subject is a non-human or group of non-humans, and use the word "who" if the subject is a human or group of humans. So the above example should read ". . . fundamentalists who ignore clear evidence . . .", since fundamentalists are humans.

OTHER EXAMPLES: "Hand me the plate that's sitting on the shelf." "She's the one who had her bike stolen." "MA&D is the message board that has all those inane arguments." "The MA&D moderators are the ones who ban people for no good reason."

Subject-verb agreement

Here's another sentence with emphasis added and spelling errors ignored:

Anyone that actually believe that the "wisdom" of cattle sacreficing primitives Trump's centuries of empherical evidence and scientific advance deserve to be ridiculed.

(Ignoring for now that it should've been "anyone who,") whenever the subject is singular (the "one" in "anyone" serves notice that it's a singular noun), the verb will end with an "s" as a strong rule of thumb. So the above should read, "anyone that actually believes . . ." CONVERSELY, the opposite holds sway. In other words, when the subject is plural, the verb is not followed by an "s." For example, if the quoted sentence had began with the (plural) word "people," the verb would be "believe," as written.

To accurately gauge the correct verb form, momentarily ignore any material between the subject and the verb and say the two words (subject and verb) out loud. As above, "anyone believe" sounds funny, but "anyone believes" is perfect. On the flip side, "people believes" sounds funny, but "people believe" sounds perfect.

EXAMPLES: "The students ride their bikes after school." "The student rides his bike after school." "The MA&D moderators ban people who embarrass them." "Juliann bans people who embarrass her."

"A" vs. "An"

It almost always takes a F bomb to get moved down (or in the case of my masturbation thread, dirty pics.....funny as hell, but dirty.).

If the word directly after the "a" or "an" begins with a consonant sound, use "a." However, if the word directly after the "a" or "an" begins with a vowel sound, use "an."

In the above sentence, the abbreviation "F" begins with a short "e" sound (making the sound "eff,") so should've read, "it almost always takes an F bomb . . ."

To easily figure out which should be used when, simply say the sentence out loud. If it sounds funny, then you know you're using the wrong one ("a" or "an"). For example, read the sentence I quoted above. Doesn't the first half sound a bit weird when said out loud?

EXAMPLES: "Juliann is a miserable excuse for a moderator." "Juliann and her crew of harpies are an imbecilic bunch." "MormonDiscussions is a great board." "Mister Scratch's guide to Mopologetics is an excellent read."

[_asbestosman]

Something I vaguely remember hearing about while learning my mission language was the difference between passive and active voice. Can we have a lesson on it? I think it's useful because I find that passive voice is more polite when you wish to communicate with somebody, but aren't trying to accuse them of anything.

Something like
"Does anyone know how the window was broken?"
vs
"Who broke the window?"

[_Mister Scratch]

Something I vaguely remember hearing about while learning my mission language was the difference between passive and active voice. Can we have a lesson on it? I think it's useful because I find that passive voice is more polite when you wish to communicate with somebody, but aren't trying to accuse them of anything.

Something like
"Does anyone know how the window was broken?"
vs
"Who broke the window?"

I'm not entirely sure how the passive voice works in the form of questions, but can easily rephrase the gist of your Qs as statements:

"Somebody broke the window." (Active)
"The window was broken by somebody." (Passive)

Actually, thinking this over a bit more, I think you might fix your questions as follows:

"Did somebody break the window?" (Active)
"Was the window broken by somebody?" (Passive)

In your above example, you are changing the nature of the subject of the sentence. In the first example, it could be anything: the Will of God, a loose tree branch, an errant baseball, or a person's fist. In the second example, the breaking is presumed to be the result of human action.... Thus, the subjects are quite different.

[_Dr. Shades]

GRAMMAR LESSON #7: "HERE" vs. "HEAR"

HERE: A temporo-spatial location, specifically the place that the speaker currently occupies. EXAMPLES: "I live here." "I was here just yesterday." "They told me to wait here."

HEAR: A verb, the act of receiving auditory stimulation. Often used to indicate recognition of information received, especially auditorially. EXAMPLES: "I hear the birds singing." "She might hear that song on YouTube." "We hear that you're leaving town."

Therefore, the following sentence:

I here your a swell guy in person, and I'm certainly less of an arrogant jerk in person than in cyber space.

. . . should have opened with, "I hear you're a swell guy in person . . ." If nothing else, notice that the word after "I" is a verb, not a noun, so it has to be the word "hear," since "hear" is a verb whereas "here" is another noun.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Can you just start shadowing me and fixing all my errors? No need to alert me to this.

:)

[_silentkid]

One of my favorite posters on this board often concludes his comments with the phrase, "To each their own." I think the correct form of this phrase should be, "To each his own" or "To each her own" because the word each is singular. Am I correct in this assessment, Dr. Shades?

[_Dr. Shades]

One of my favorite posters on this board often concludes his comments with the phrase, "To each their own."

Wade Englund is one of your favorite posters on this board?

I think the correct form of this phrase should be, "To each his own" or "To each her own" because the word each is singular.

You're half right. The correct form should be the third option you left unmentioned: "To each his or her own."

Am I correct in this assessment, Dr. Shades?

Yes (but with the usual qualifier: As I've rhetorically asked before, what is language? It's nothing more than a form of communication mutually intelligible between two or more individuals. Language inevitably evolves over time, so what is or isn't "correct" today will differ from what is or isn't "correct" a century from now.

So, although the phrase "to each their own" isn't standard or "correct" English, our ever-increasing sensitivity to gender bias issues have placed a stressor on the language to avoid male-bias constructs. So, although "his or her" is the proper replacement for "his," their is another alternative that's mutually recognizable to all. Incidentally, it appears to me that the language is moving in the direction of "their" becoming the accepted singular gender-neutral possessive pronoun anyhow).

Does that answer your question? :-)

[_silentkid]

Wade Englund is one of your favorite posters on this board?

Am I alone in this regard? Jenn Kamp...I was being facetious with that statement. I should have put the ";)".

You're half right. The correct form should be the third option you left unmentioned: "To each his or her own."

I was going to provide the "To each his/her own" option, but I'm a lazy typist.

Incidentally, it appears to me that the language is moving in the direction of "their" becoming the accepted singular gender-neutral possessive pronoun anyhow.

I don't know what it is...maybe I'm a traditionalist (actually I'm not, I'm pretty liberal in regards to language)...but the trend of using "their" as a singular gender-neutral possessive pronoun doesn't sit well with me yet. It probably won't sit well with me until people can figure out how to distinguish between "their", "there", and "they're" in the simple sense (which you already covered previously in this thread). Could you imagine having to read the phrase "To each there own" or "To each they're own"? Oh...the pain. :)

Does that answer your question? :-)

Yes, it does. Thanks for responding. Apologies to Wade.