Grammar that makes you cringe

[clarion]

You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook

You're all lightweights.  My colleagues and I spent a whole staff meeting discussing how we should teach comma use this week.  We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).

It's simple.  If you, your colleagues and management agree, then you should use it with care, precision, and consistency.

[jane]

You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook

You're all lightweights.  My colleagues and I spent a whole staff meeting discussing how we should teach comma use this week.  We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).

It's simple.  If you, your colleagues and management agree, then you should use it with care, precision, and consistency.

You might think it would be that simple, wouldn't you?  But a wealth of angst and frustration is generated by those  words highlighted above.

[clarion]

[jane]

To be fair to me and my colleagues, I am exaggerating a bit. The meeting was actually discussing the introduction of an explicit grammar component into the English curriculum which will be tested separately, which one would expect to generate a serious amount of discussion amongst a group of primary school teachers.  The Oxford comma debate was just part of it.

[contango]

[Auntie Helen]

Boxted Village Hall's sign:



Third time's the charm!

[Nuncio]

From the polar bear programme on BBC.  "I couldn't do it without polar bear and Arctic expert Jason Roberts". 

[Arch]

Boxted Village Hall's sign:



Third time's the charm!

That's what always puzzles me about the Greengrocer's apostrophe, the inconsistency. In a list, you'll often find it in some plurals and not in others.  Hedging their bets perhaps.

[mattc]

It's perfectly consistent!

Quiz's is a shortening of Quizes
Prizes is OK without an apostrophe
Cash Pot's .... er sorry, can't help you there ...

[citoyen]

You have to understand a rule to be able to apply it consistently.

[mattc]

Quiz's is a shortening of Quizes

It's probably a shortening of quizzes. Quiz'es would still require an apostrophe.

Thanks. I'll probably shorten Quizzes to Quizz's in future.

[Andrij]

[clarion]

So two abuse's means two puppy's die?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Awww! Who's puppie's died?

[citoyen]

"Since 1992, Nad's has been developing and selling unwanted hair removal products."

Does this mean what they want it to mean?

[Nuncio]

Yay.  Go Nads.

Grammar not irritating, given that it's a classified ad on a works intranet, but I didn't know where else to put it.  I can't help but think that there's a word missing.

One long haired boy really small type and short haired little girl born on 30-09-2012. Looking for kind, loving homes only. Wormed from two weeks old, flea’d with frontline.  Reduced to £400 due to need new homes.

[Littlesox]

I detest "innit".

I hear it more and more, and it makes me shudder.

Generally the younger "yoof" type I have to say, but in conversation with a 55 year old colleague yesterday, it made two cringeworthy apearances.

I was talking to a mid-twenties lad last week, who appeared to have replaced all of his full-stops with "innits" to the point where I thought it was a new form of puntuation. It went something along these lines.

Got an appointment.
I'm sorry?
Got an an appointment, innit.
What time for?
8 o'clock, innit
It's twenty past
Traffic, innit. Accident, stuck for ages, innit.
Can you go to reception at the front of the building, and they will help you.
Parking here innit.
No, you need to be in the bays at the front out of the way of the trucks.
Leave it here, then get appointment innit
No, take your car, drive round to the bays and report to reception, they will help you there.
Just walk across there, innit.
No, they will need your car. Get in it (Oh, blimey, I've started now) and go to reception.

Anyway, you get the picture.

[LEE]

Why do I think, like many other people of my generation, that "dilemma" should be spelled "dilemna" (with an "n")?

I have always thought this.

Many people think this.

There is very little to back me up that I have ever been correct.

[citoyen]

http://www.dilemna.info/index.php

I remember this came up on Mark Kermode's R5 programme when the film The Dilemma came out because he's another one who has always spelt it with an N. I've always been a double-M man myself so I have no idea where the N spelling comes from. But at least it has some provenance.

d.

[Wowbagger]

I have never seen the spelling "dilemna" before now. I think it is, quite simply, just wrong.

[L CC]

You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.

[Mr Larrington]

Great cars, them dilemmas...

Taxi!

[Bledlow]

I have never seen the spelling "dilemna" before now. I think it is, quite simply, just wrong.

Ditto.

[ian]

You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.

I'd always thought that was just me. If I actually look at any written word, the amount of time I spend looking at it is inversely proportional to how correct it appears to be. In very short periods of time I've convinced myself it must be wrong.

I've never seen 'dilemma' written as 'dilemna'. Even Apple thinks it's wrong and has applied the underline of shame. It likes 'reflexion' though and so do I.

[citoyen]

You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.

I'd always thought that was just me.

No, it's me too.

I'd never heard of the "dilemna" spelling until Mark Kermode brought it up, but the phenomenon appears to be widespread enough, and to have been around long enough, that it can't be dismissed as "simply just wrong". I don't have my Chambers dictionary to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if it's listed in there.

According to Wikipedia, "The incorrect spelling dilemna is often seen in common usage." The problem I have with that statement is that it's a contradiction - "correct" spelling is defined by common usage. It doesn't matter that it comes from the Greek word "lemma" - there are plenty of English words from foreign roots that don't exactly follow the original spelling - and in any case, "lemma" is a transliteration, so who's to say that lemna isn't correct?.

d.