Hanged by a comma
Do you know the difference between their and there and between its and it's? Do you know when you should say fewer rather than less? Do you care?
The English language has more than its share of rules and conventions so people can be excused for making occasional mistakes. I think it's great that children who might be reluctant to do their English homework will get themselves on to the internet and begin written conversations, post on forums, or write their blogs on MySpace.
But this means that teachers need to get in these spaces too where they can make a difference . Take the teaching out of the classroom and follow the kids. I spend a little time now and again on a forum where I try to correct grammatical mistakes posted by others, some of them teenagers, but many of them adults. Yes, some call me a pedant, but I think, at the same time, they learn something.
Some of the most common mistakes are those I mention above. The best way to think about using their is to think of the possessive. Are you talking about their property, their car, their brother? You don't need to know that their is a possessive pronoun. You just need to know how to use it properly.
The best way to think about there is to think about geography. Are you going there? Is it over there?
When you write its try to lengthen the phrase to "it is" or"it has". If you can do that, then it needs an apostrophe. If not, then it doesn't. It can't get any easier than that. The other form of "its" appears when it is used in the possessive form as I did in my second sentence.
In her book Eats Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss writes that if you can't learn this simple lesson
"you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave." She is too forgiving.
Some people will think my final point about the difference between less and fewer is antiquated. What's the point of labouring these distinctions, you might ask, when young people are writing sentences on the internet without using capital letters? But these smaller points matter.
If you say you noticed that there were less dogs in the park today, people will know what you mean and some of those people will note your grammatical failings. The basic rule here is the separation of things. If particles of sand, say, are lumped together in a pile and some of that pile was removed you would say there was less sand remaining. But you would talk about fewer grains of sand. So you would have fewer friends than you had last week, not less friends. As a rule of thumb you should use fewer with plurals, less with quantities.
If you don't think that grammar matters, read up on the trial of Roger Casement, the Irish revolutionary, executed in 1916 for treason. British legal experts had been concerned that since the activities for which he was being tried had been carried out in Germany and not the UK, it would be difficult to bring a prosecution. That appeared to be the thinking behind the original medieval law. But the law makers had failed to punctuate the sentences properly so that the letter of the law prevailed, leading to the conclusion that Casement was "hanged by a comma".
Some other so-called fatal commas
Postscript: I notice that the spellchecker always throws up the word internet if it's not capped up. Should the internet be a proper noun?
PPS. I'm posting this here on March 6 to make it easier to link from the comment below. This is the site referenced.
The English language has more than its share of rules and conventions so people can be excused for making occasional mistakes. I think it's great that children who might be reluctant to do their English homework will get themselves on to the internet and begin written conversations, post on forums, or write their blogs on MySpace.
But this means that teachers need to get in these spaces too where they can make a difference . Take the teaching out of the classroom and follow the kids. I spend a little time now and again on a forum where I try to correct grammatical mistakes posted by others, some of them teenagers, but many of them adults. Yes, some call me a pedant, but I think, at the same time, they learn something.
Some of the most common mistakes are those I mention above. The best way to think about using their is to think of the possessive. Are you talking about their property, their car, their brother? You don't need to know that their is a possessive pronoun. You just need to know how to use it properly.
The best way to think about there is to think about geography. Are you going there? Is it over there?
When you write its try to lengthen the phrase to "it is" or"it has". If you can do that, then it needs an apostrophe. If not, then it doesn't. It can't get any easier than that. The other form of "its" appears when it is used in the possessive form as I did in my second sentence.
In her book Eats Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss writes that if you can't learn this simple lesson
"you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave." She is too forgiving.
Some people will think my final point about the difference between less and fewer is antiquated. What's the point of labouring these distinctions, you might ask, when young people are writing sentences on the internet without using capital letters? But these smaller points matter.
If you say you noticed that there were less dogs in the park today, people will know what you mean and some of those people will note your grammatical failings. The basic rule here is the separation of things. If particles of sand, say, are lumped together in a pile and some of that pile was removed you would say there was less sand remaining. But you would talk about fewer grains of sand. So you would have fewer friends than you had last week, not less friends. As a rule of thumb you should use fewer with plurals, less with quantities.
If you don't think that grammar matters, read up on the trial of Roger Casement, the Irish revolutionary, executed in 1916 for treason. British legal experts had been concerned that since the activities for which he was being tried had been carried out in Germany and not the UK, it would be difficult to bring a prosecution. That appeared to be the thinking behind the original medieval law. But the law makers had failed to punctuate the sentences properly so that the letter of the law prevailed, leading to the conclusion that Casement was "hanged by a comma".
Some other so-called fatal commas
Postscript: I notice that the spellchecker always throws up the word internet if it's not capped up. Should the internet be a proper noun?
PPS. I'm posting this here on March 6 to make it easier to link from the comment below. This is the site referenced.
Labels: Commas, Eats Shoots and Leaves, fewer, grammar, it's, its, less, Lynne Truss, plurals, their, there
posted by Richard Donkin at
10:32 AM
9 Comments:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html
I'm sorry the above doesn't link straight through to the site but it's well worth cutting and pasting the link. The piece speaks for itself. Some interesting points.
As the Language Log article says, "less" has been used with count nouns ("plurals") for 1000 years. It is mistaken to insist that you have to use "fewer" with count nouns instead.
That's the gist of the piece you linked to. I have repaired the link. I accept the points in that piece on count nouns and I'm happy with the points as I made them in the blog. Fewer blogs, not less blogs.
I'm confused... your post says "As a rule of thumb you should use fewer with plurals, less with quantities." But the point of the Language Log article is that there's nothing wrong with using "less" with plurals.
I don't think you're at all confused. You have made your point and now you're labouring it. You do just as you wish. If you want to use less with everything I won't stand in your way.Less words mean less argument? I don't think so.
One is struck by LIGHTNING, not lightening.
One is hoisted by one's own petard and suitably embarrassed but nevertheless grateful that you pointed out the error,now corrected.
Bravo, excellent idea and is duly
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