(GEN) Reviewers Please Read...

SPEW!

RobG (the Aussie one)

Ron, Go fish.....

As for teaching English spelling, pronunciation and grammar - it don't happen here no more. Teachers are too busy teaching 5 year olds how to use a computer.... and also how to dress, attend to personal hygiene and interact with the other kids, *without* bashing the crap out them in lieu of discussing the problem. Me? I blame the silly buggers who gave women the vote..... never should have let them out of the house! Children need their mums! :-)

RobG (the Aussie one) and I'm only 1/2 kidding about that last bit...

This has actually been one of the most refreshing threads I've read here in a long while. Some valid points have been raised, some funny puns and jokes have been shared and *no-one* seems to have lost their temper with anyone else - that must be some sort of record, surely? Although I am prepared to be proven wrong...

RobG (the Aussie one)

Mark - very funny!

Don't know. I remember learning phonetics in elementary school, but a friend my age (43) claims he never had phonetics in school. He's one of the fellows who read a lot, knew what the words meant, but couldn't pronounce a lot of them correctly because his social skills weren't well developed and he'd never heard a lot of the words spoken.

FISH. That's an old one, I remember that one from 1972 or so.

[cue Monty Python:]

My pet peeve... no, wait. Two of my pet peeves... Among my MANY pet peeves...

... are people who write like they speak, putting EMPHASIS every OTHER word OR SO and long pauses *so that* >>>they think> READ

In article , Bill Banaszak wrote: And condoleezzas have two Zs. :)

I thought you Americans called them "johns". I am still grappling with the subtleties of toilet/bathroom/en suite! :)

Having two "zees" is just plain greedy. (Sounds like a whimsical 60's song)

N

If his qualification was validated by the Royal Academy, presumably he would ba a (wait for it)...

PUCARA!!!!!!!!!!!!

OT!!!!!!!

N

Ah yes; here in UK we tend to call it "Microsoft English". N

Which reminds me of the joke - "How do you catch a unique rabbit? - Unique up on it"!

For those who can't figure it out: "You 'neek up on it - you sneak up on it".

Let the groans begin!

BB in Canada

Yes, I hate that too. Unfortunately, it's becoming more common on my side of the Atlantic.

My personal pet peeve is the use of "loose" instead of "lose". That really makes me "loose it".

I've enjoyed this thread too. Among my many pet peeves I haven't seen mentioned is the misuse of " 's ". Holy cow, don't people know even that any more? If they need a plural to a word, just add an " 's " to the end, whether it ends in "y", (ies), "x", (es) or needs just an "s". I read an eBay description recently, (well, I've seen several over the years) that had nearly EVERY WORD that had an "s" at the end had an " 's "! And what's with using an " 's " to make a proper name plural? Seems some folks can't keep an exclamation point & question mark in their proper places either. Or they ask a question ending with a period. Or make a statement ending with a question mark. Recently I've noticed two-syllable words are becoming two seperate words. "Everyone" is becoming "every one", etc. What's happened to the word "alright"? Seems it's gone away & nobody uses anything but "all right". As for "Ax" me a question, down here in Miss., I think that has to do with Ebonics. Goes along with "zink" (sink) & "screet" or would it be "skreet"(?) (street). Other words I see misused are "than/then", "who's/whose", or using "use" & "suppose" in the present tense when it should be past tense. Also, "should of" or "would of" instead of "should have" or "woud have". Where'd that come from? Another big pet peeve is the gross misuse of "there's" or "there is" or "here's" or "here is" when pointing out to something in the plural, seems that nobody uses "there are" or "here are" either. As for misuse of "myself", I've noticed that police officers use that most of the time around here. I used to listen to my scanner all the time & they ALWAYS said " 'so & so' & myself are enroute", etc. Over the years I've come to recognize the regular posters who can't spell &/or butcher grammar in groups that I read regularly & so I just skip their posts, regardess of the subject. A couple of years ago, I glanced at the "Letters to Santa" about this time of the year in our local paper. The oldest students were about 12 or so. Now, I usually don't read them because the paper prints them word for word, with no corrections to spelling. Santa must be awfully smart to be able to figure out what those kids want! Anyway, I could have been reading postings in any number of groups or eBay descriptions! At best, I figure there are lots & lots of folks my age (early 40s) or so who write at a

12 year old level. So it as nothing to do with how kids are taught "today". I got out of high school back in '79, so most of these other folks had to get out about then too. It's gotten to the point too, that you can't tell an abbreviation from an acronym, either. People don't know when to use or not use all caps. Any group of less than 4 letters is fair game. Whew! Did I write all this??

Actually I hear people pronounce it "shtrength," or perhaps I should phonetically spell it "shchtrength." That's one of MY pet peeves, putting an H in words with the STR sequence.

The other ones are visual: the ubiquitous apostrophe in signs and the unnecessary decimal point: "Apple's .50 cents/lb." Gee, I thought we stopped minting half-cents around 1856...

M. J. Rudy snipped-for-privacy@localnet.com OR snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Mine is "myriad." Even the talking heads on the various news shows tend to use it incorrectly, i.e. "A myriad of scale models..." instead of the correct, "Myriad scales models..."

Sean

It has been in SW GA since before I was born thirty years ago this April, it unfortunately has migrate to Albany State University professors, of course PC is the only reason that college exists but...

Back to my original thought, we have a couple of public access channels used by ASU and a local two year junior college. I watch them from time to time, it's not like there is much on TV anyway and it provides interesting (if your a natural born debater and crank like myself) background noise when I'm at the work bench or on the computer. These Doctors of education speak so poorly it isn't a wonder that the students are getting dumber and dumber. Good examples of this are "Let me AX you a question about Faulkner's use of TYME (phonetically spelled as pronounced) and "URNGE (also a type of citrus) you glad". It goes on but... These are Doctors of Education and their grammar is worse than you'd actually believe without hearing it yourself.

Scott J

Even more sad to me, is that my community can't keep a hobby shop going. We've had three really good shops open up in the last ten years, I was a regular patron myself. Each one closed inside of a year including Hobby Town USA which was a chain store. Our little backwards (in many many ways) town just happens to be the 13th largest city in GA and the closest hobby store is 3 hours away. Prior to great online hobby stores and ebay this was an extreme irritation, and still is to a large degree, thank God Hobby Lobby open a store here several months ago, at least they keep a small selection of good kits on hand with some variety.

As a side note we have the Marine Corps Logistical Base, one of only two in the US like it, here and a lot of retirees from the former Naval Air Station that later became a SAC air base, decommissioned now. You'd think with that varied military presence we could do a little better.

Scott J

As Bill Engel, the comedian, says, "What would be awesome would be for me to go back to my hotel room, have Shania Twain greet me at the door wearing a hat [cowboy] boots and noting else, holding a note from my wife that reads 'Have a good time'. Now that would be awesome!".

I'd agree.

Scott J

Perhaps he's referring to Model Cars magazine? It's our other auto modeling magazine and it certainly reminds me of our >old< Scale Auto Enthusiast. Of course, it may not yet be available in Australia.

Dean

David,

You raise an interesting point. Jimmy Carter received an engineering degree after having attended Georgia Tech and the U.S. Naval Academy. He served on Admiral Rickover's staff that developed the first nuclear submarine. As President he held responsibility for our nuclear arms. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not pronounce n-u-c-l-e-a-r. It always came out "nookier" (sounds as though its an adjective that should be applied to a sexually talented woman). It has nothing to do with his being from Plains, GA. As a southerner, I've never heard the same pronunciation of the word.

Art

I have one for you. While is Horseshoeing school a gentleman from Middlesburg England attended, taking advantage of changes in English law that accepted certification of Farriers from outside of the UK. We became fast friends and gave each other a pretty hard time, typical Yank vs. Limey stuff. After all the obvious jokes etc an interesting point came up.

I was making a pitcher of Ice Tea, much to his annoyance. "Crazy yankees" was a commonly muttered around the bunkhouse although I'd put a little cream in it just to appease him. We got started again, giving each other a hard time and I told him I spoke "The King's English quite well, thank you very much". It floored him. After he got over his laughing fit he explained it was "The Queen's English" since it wasn't King Elizabeth the second after all. I quipped "Well the last time you guys were here you had a King". A long story now coming to the point. Many Americans use the phrase The King's English, if they use any such phrase, not thinking about the true meaning. The phrase quit evolving when we separated from England. It was good for some stories with his mates when he got back home from what he told me.

Interesting side note. We attended school together in North Georgia, as in back in the deep woods and up in the mountains. He got all the girls, they loved that accent, especially after a few when he started sounding like a pikey or used jive (some English variant I can't remember what he termed it). Then he'd forget to use US currency and would attempt to pay, or tip with pound notes. You've never seen so many confused red necks in your life. Of course we did almost get arrested when one manager called the police claiming counterfeiting, another long story. Surprisingly enough we never once had a problem exchanging his pound notes at any bank despite the little towns we were in. Don't get me started on his frightened obsession of the movie Deliverance either...

Scott J