The Globe and Mail has put out a grammar quiz. Apparently it’s the third annual, but this is the first time I can recall having seen it. I did ok. I scored 12 out of 16 which according to them is a well done, but I’m going to go ahead and be mad at myself …
Category Archives: wording and grammar
If English Were Phonetically Consistent
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said that English is a frustrating, nonsensical language where rules matter until they don’t and that it could seriously due with some consistency. But what if we actually had some of that consistency? English would sound like it, German and Swedish had a drunken, baby makin’ 3-way, …
The English Language Used To Be Even More Complicated
Did you know that the alphabet used to contain at least ten more letters than it does now? Me neither. I knew about the long S although my brain started to short circuit a bit when he got into explaining its usage rules, but the rest of these were new to me. And try as …
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Lost In Translation
Gill is really firing out the posts this week! It’s kind of funny. I’ve been on both sides of this scenario. There’s my old post about people who don’t speak the language but say “yes” anyway. I had a more recent experience with that. I was in Nashville a few years ago for my awesome …
Regardless Of How Much Influence We Leverage, The Nature Of The Discourse Will Be Irreversibly Impacted
A couple of takeaways from this video: 1. Language is going to evolve whether we want it to or not and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. 2. By the time they’re my age now I won’t be able to talk to my nephews because they’re all going to sound like 2017 business …
We Sure Do Have A Lot Of Words Because We Can’t Hear Properly. What? I SAID WE SURE DO HAVE A LOT OF WORDS BECAUSE WE CAN’T HEAR PROPERLY!
I know there are all kinds of ways that language has evolved, but I had no idea how much of English resulted from so many of us needing hearing aids. Next I want to see one of these detailing single words that came from the accidental mashing together of two different ones, like the time …
Why The English Alphabet Is Stupid
This is basically what my brain has sounded like from the day I started learning to read and spell right up until…now, actually. Carin (or maybe I should say Karin), how many times have we had the letter C or the PH conversation?
11 Old New Ways To Call Someone An Idiot
Sometimes I’m pretty sure the internet is reading my mind. Not NSA style, but rather in a good way that causes helpful things to appear not long after I have a thought. For instance, I was thinking yesterday about how with all of the master criminals stories we publish I could really use a few …
People Actually Say Some Of These Wrong?
Here is a video about 79 words everyone gets wrong. I was feeling pretty good…but then along came officially, mauve and crepe, and maybe lava and pasta. I knew about forte but if I said it like “fort”, everyone would look at me funny. And there’s no friggin way I would say Wikipedia like wee-kee-pedia. …
I Know He Said I Had The Right To Remain Silent, But You’re Just So Good!
I could have sworn I posted this one, but a decent enough look around tells me otherwise. So yeah, let’s be fixing that because this takes some serious balls…and wieners…and baby makers…and beer…and possibly drugs but we’re not really sure…and…absolutely no damn sense whatsoever. I mean, holy shit! Husnik, who was on probation, was handcuffed …
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