Grammar that makes you cringe

[CrinklyLion]

Early doors is a reasonably common saying in and around York still. Always with the pub connotation though never heard it used about football.

Indeed - there were three distinct shifts at the John Bull when I worked there - lunchtime, early doors and the evening shift.

[HTFB]

First time I ever heard it was in the 1990s, in rugby. The game, not the town.

Talking of rugby, the reason I was never really cut out for that game can be summarised in one line of verse:
     "... And when the ball was over, there were four-and-twenty fewer."

[Guy]

This was forwarded by a piss-taking Major down at HQLF this morning. It's a bit long, but worth a read.

Dear Colleagues,

MOD TRANSFORMATION – HEADLINE UPDATE BRIEF

1.   Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF).  Left of centre, right of arc, flash to bang, the deep dive into the kinetic degradation of ground-based facilities has been conducted.  Despite reports that when the adversary smells flowers, he looks for the funeral, in actual fact there’s a lot of air in the sky and there’s been more heat than light crossing the impasse across the strategy landscape.  The paradigm shift of the glide path’s trajectory has been mitigated, socialised, dovetailed and is gaining traction into a functional decomposition of the problem.

2.   Background.

a.   Playing with a straight bat.  Checks and balances from the slop chit have been tossed into the sea to see if they float and both hot threads and major strands have been tied up with belts and braces leading to some seriously nutritional and protein-rich blue water downstream in the basin of priority.  Going forward to derisk our germane posture in the oxygenated vector, there are a number of generic worry beads and stray volts nested and couched in the backwash, but if you keep your powder dry and lean into the issue there’s no need to set the hares running or waste any heartbeats.

b.   Hub of the problem.  Ground truthing, force sensing and heavy lifting have provided some positive dynamics attenuating energy projectile on this buoyant lily pad, leading into a space where we have covered off some other people’s sandwiches.  En passant, the calculus of the non-viable mission capability is something for Town to scope with 5, albeit we can wait that out until we’ve run the opening salvo to ground, got our ducks in a row, harvested the low hanging fruit, squared the circle, fitted a round peg in a round hole, and taken the crocodiles closest to the canoe off message.  It’s all about the dead cat bounce opportunity.

c.   Showing a bit of leg.  Entre nous, the cognisant wolves nearest to the sledge are providing buckets of sub-optimal friction in the shifting sands of their swim lane, but with some thoughts and ideas they can be handed off to prevent the stovepipes going nuclear – and everyone knows that in a game of prep school football there’s no traction without friction anyway.  In this Spinal Tap scenario we can continue to ride these two horses at the same time, and not asking a question to which you won’t get an answer is always better than a custard pie.

3.   Lines To Take (LTTs).

a.   Dogs.  Given that the political atmosphere is so febrile, in our locale it is important not to step outside the policy box and into the generic media space across the piece, especially as most of these fundaments remain in the small box space of enhanced sensitivity.  On the subject of force projection and airframe generation, we must be reticent about releasing this excarnation of effects-based targeting more widely to wider Whitehall, and instead break out and excel in the area of augmentation and dimension management.  After all, everyone knows that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

b.   Stray dogs.  In changing the dialogue’s pH balance, we must remain alive to a streamlined, zero sum battle rhythm and take stock at the stocktake by brigading our niche upticks of activity to ensure that the theory of change remains explicit from the outset.  The staccato mood music in the minimalist camp provides putative granularity, while a weather eye warrants a situating of the estimate in order to get greater fidelity and more bang for our buck.  The ambiguity of our posture and stance is quite constructive, but only if the nascent sidebar is segued and the blue sky thinking is expedited once the dust has settled.

c.   Stray dogs with fleas.  This clique is clearly apposite to the clarity of communications, so long as the conditionality chimes and users appreciate that this is not a cost-cutting exercise: it is about delivering improved value for money within the same resource envelope.  There are a number of evolving and interconnected strands of activity echoing and resonating, seeking to relife discipline in the contingent space – but we must remain concise, relevant, focussed and to the point while ensuring the rigour is there.

4.   Recommendations.

a.   Carry the can.  We don't want anyone to throw their toys out of the pram completely on the grounds that this is a self-licking lolly pop, about as much use as a chocolate fireguard or tits on a fish.  We must ensure that this reaches the lights-out parts of the organisation which are otherwise below the radar screen, because if we are going to hoot with the owls we have to be able to soar with the eagles, all the while remaining within our C2 – ensuring that everyone is singing from the same song sheet and kicking in the same chorus line (although not concurrently) in order to have an impactive approach.

b.   Take one for the team.  There are tunes to be played here, and definite memories of the future.  We must look out for burning platforms and vapourware.  Don’t be a trouble magnet; be a shock absorber, not a lightning conductor.  Despite being on a sticky wicket, we must ensure we aren’t bowled a googly; instead we must throw them a spin pass to see if they catch it.

c.   Roll over and take it.  Remember: pain heals; chicks dig scars; glory lasts forever.  There’s a bit of spaghetti to be done here, and if that fails don’t forget that bad things happen to bad people, unless they’re built like Japanese racing snakes in which case our OODA loop will be pounded and we’ll have to swallow our own smoke.  We may be on a piece of string here, but it’s simply a case of Press to Test.

d.   Bend over and invite them to ‘Please Park Your Bicycle Here’.  As a heads up, this will be managed with a long screwdriver, so the wave of chaos will need to be surfed.  It may not be our train set, but we need to get the engine straight before we can get the carriages on track.  Hope is not a plan of action, but we should be able to leverage synergies and clean fatigue it nonetheless.  The bête noire of working with OGDs doesn’t need to be like being handcuffed to a toddler with ADD.  Don't lose the will to live – suck it up, and don't piss in your chips.

5.   Summary.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul may seem a little Janet and John, but it could go Pete Tong (and let’s not forget that he’s an expeditionary plenipotentiary of considerable sand) – so be sure to put pedal to the metal when the rubber hits the road.  It is literally a Clapham omnibus test and 100% of the plan is subject to refinement: the market is open for bright ideas to be bottomed out.  Not wishing to cartoon it, this Question Four moment is high-octane stuff, and flying a kite is pretty aerodynamic: these are principles, not articles of faith.  We’ve all got skin in this game, so buoy rounding will be an important caveat to the strawman on whether we are to solutionise or soultioneer, but the two mission critical questions that most need to be tracked are: Who is holding the pen on this?; and Is the juice worth the squeeze?  In sum, that’s me climbing out of the pulpit for now, d’accord?

{Signed electronically on Dii}

J Argon MBE MSc BA FRAeS DiiF ASAP JPA RAF
Wg Cdr
SO1 Transformation Projection Taxonomy

[Wowbagger]

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=77392.0;topicseen

The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

[Bledlow]

Oh, yes! I hate it.

[Gareth Rees]

The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.

[Wowbagger]

The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

[drossall]

Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".

[clarion]

Exactly.  Not pronounced the same at all.

[red marley]

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

I am not sure that it's an understanding of grammar that distinguishes those who get these things right from those who don't. Much of it is about recalling and applying rules and conventions rather than a true understanding of the underlying linguistics.

I think we use internal verbalisation to help recall those conventions, so it is understandable that words that sound similar or identical become confused. A two-year old will understand the difference between to and too but may go though adult life confusing them in written form. See also (evident in this forum), past and passed; worse and worst; er and err. People understand the difference between those pairs but may select the wrong (near) homophone.

[Ian H]

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

I am not sure that it's an understanding of grammar that distinguishes those who get these things right from those who don't. Much of it is about recalling and applying rules and conventions rather than a true understanding of the underlying linguistics.

I think we use internal verbalisation to help recall those conventions, so it is understandable that words that sound similar or identical become confused. A two-year old will understand the difference between to and too but may go though adult life confusing them in written form. See also (evident in this forum), past and passed; worse and worst; er and err. People understand the difference between those pairs but may select the wrong (near) homophone.

Though, in this case, it seems to be a simple case of failing to connect 'I have' with 'I could have'. No-one writes 'I of done it'.

[red marley]

True, but I think we frequently use heuristics to recall phrases rather than construct them from first principles, even for "simple cases". People tend not to say "I could at done..." even though "at" is just as incorrect as "of" and as easy to say. It's its similarity of sound to "have" that leads to their mixing. I sometimes find myself using the wrong too/to/two when writing, even though I know the difference between them. There's something going on in our brains other than grammar neurones sorting out which word to pick from the pile. 

I think the subject of how much of our grammar is learned, copied, constructed or just made up is an interesting one. I haven't read it yet, but this book looks like a good read.

[citoyen]

I reckon the difficulty is following formal grammar rules - not grammar itself, which is mostly learned by example or comes naturally. Which I would guess is the premise of that book.

[Gareth Rees]

Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".

If that's true for you (and count me skeptical) then you have an unusual accent. For most English speakers in the UK, of is pronounced /ʌv/ (/ʌ/ as in mud or dull). Listen to this BBC video, where at 0:38 the reporter says "much of it". Or to this one, where at 0:42 Dave Brailsford says, "bunch of schoolfriends".

[red marley]

I reckon the difficulty is following formal grammar rules - not grammar itself, which is mostly learned by example or comes naturally. Which I would guess is the premise of that book.

Yes it would appear so. The author was on R4 the other week talking about it, and one of the interesting things he briefly brought up was young children's capacity to adopt grammar rules without formally understanding them. I remember going for a walk with a two year old who pointed at some sheep declaring "Sheeps!". She probably had never heard that word uttered before yet had unconsciously constructed a plural form.

[Bledlow]

Completely normal.

First stage - everything specific, no generalisation. Very quickly followed by rules & over-generalisation.

Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.

[citoyen]

Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.

Indeed. And then we go and beat the enthusiasm out of them with apostrophes.

[Nuncio]

Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".

If that's true for you (and count me skeptical) then you have an unusual accent. For most English speakers in the UK, of is pronounced /ʌv/ (/ʌ/ as in mud or dull). Listen to this BBC video, where at 0:38 the reporter says "much of it". Or to this one, where at 0:42 Dave Brailsford says, "bunch of schoolfriends".

It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].  There are certainly times where many people will have wanted to correct a spoken "could of" to "could have" so I don't think it's true to say the two are (always) pronounced identically.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

True, but I think we frequently use heuristics to recall phrases rather than construct them from first principles, even for "simple cases". People tend not to say "I could at done..." even though "at" is just as incorrect as "of" and as easy to say. It's its similarity of sound to "have" that leads to their mixing. I sometimes find myself using the wrong too/to/two when writing, even though I know the difference between them. There's something going on in our brains other than grammar neurones sorting out which word to pick from the pile.

I think you're not right about this. All the people I know who use of instead of have/'ve genuinely don't know they're doing anything wrong. They've never been taught grammar properly and they don't know they're saying "could have/would have/should have." They've never been taught how to form it and therefore how to write it, so they're going by what they've heard and they genuinely believe it's could of/would of/should of.

[Biggsy]

It's rather unexcellent to criticise the grammar of a particular YACF member, or to use their posts as examples.

[drossall]

It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].

I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

When he finally confesses, we will know that he had done it, not that he of done it.

[Gareth Rees]

I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

Yes, have (or 've) is the correct spelling. But the point is that the pronunciation of 've is the same as the pronunciation of of, which makes it easy to get the spelling wrong. (Like its versus it's, or their versus they're.)

[Kim]

The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

Why not?  Most people learn both vocabulary and grammar by osmosis, and I correctly used the verb 'of' as I heard those around me doing until some years after I learned to write.  It wasn't for a couple of years after that that my hearing improved to a point where I could notice the difference reliably in speech (at which point I noticed how many others made the same error).

My generation were taught almost no formal grammar at school, until foreign languages appeared on the syllabus at age 11 or so.  Of/have was treated as a spelling mistake.  Which, with hindsight, makes me cringe.

[Cudzoziemiec]

When I was about 8 or 9, I went through a phase of wanting to spell "our" as "are" because with the accent I had at the time, they sounded the same, and completely unlike "hour". I certainly knew they were different words and remember asking grown ups which way it should be written, but because they didn't say it the same way, they always told me a-r-e.

[Bledlow]

Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.

Indeed. And then we go and beat the enthusiasm out of them with apostrophes.

I refused to use the possessive apostrophe from when I was about 12, & discovered its origins. None of my English teachers ever objected, though some other teachers did.