Comments on: Answering Your Burning Grammar Questions

By: Suzette Wallace

Suzette Wallace — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:02:01 +0000

Please tell me whether you should use “then” or “than” in the following sentence: I am more serious than (or then?) you think.

By: lala

lala — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:11:35 +0000

Aha! Vindication! I mentioned that biblical/classical possessive rule to someone recently and they thought I was nuts. I wasn’t aware of the “for goodness’ sake” rule, but I find it awesome enough so that I’ll heretofore be looking for excuses to inject it into my emails.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:44:05 +0000

I have loved this grammar series. The personable and easy-to-understand style of Patricia has been a delight to read, and I’ve looked forward to each new installment each day. I love languages, writing, and linguistics, but I’m far from a grammar nazi. In my opinion, they sap all of the fun out of words and enjoying the living language we speak. Still, I don’t want words to go extinct because we use other words inappropriately in their place nor do I want the grammar that polices our language and keeps it mutually intellegible to disappear. So, I appreciate a measured, good humored, and helpful approach to grammar, and I’d love to see more series like this.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:22:12 +0000

I cant believe you responded to my comment about the English and their view of teams, etc being singular. Very cool. Thanks for the answer. BTW after I read this last week I spend WAY too much time on your blog haha.

And I just want to point out that Michael Scott didnt even have enough guts to use his real name!

By: Pointy-Hatted Geek

Pointy-Hatted Geek — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:34:42 +0000

Michael-

Remind me…
Who’s the one refusing to use the shift key?

By: blue_j

blue_j — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:13:55 +0000

@Leslie: I think of that old children’s nighttime prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep…”

“I lay me down,” works, but “I lie me down,” doesn’t.

That’s because “lay” takes an object. You can “lay” things (in this case: “me”), but you can’t “lie” them. If you wanted use “lie”, you’d take the object out: “I lie down”

Want a less.. polite way to remember this? Get laid.

You can get “laid”, but you can’t get “lied”. Again, this is because “lay” takes an object (whoever’s getting laid) and “lie” doesn’t.

So yeah, basically: If you wanna lay something, go ahead and lay.. but if you wanna lie, you’re on your own.

By: blue_j

blue_j — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:04:08 +0000

Q1: I’ll agree that it’s less standard, but the question “Where’s my car at?” sounds fine in my English. The bigger problem I see with “Where you at?” is that missing verb.

“Where’re you at?” Seems fine. It’s just the 2nd person version of “Where’s he at?”, contracting “where are” instead of “where is”. And I can easily see someone reducing that extra bit of [r] and getting “Where you at?”… but the only time I’ve seen or heard that phrase has been in ads for Boost Mobile, so it feels odd and artificial and irks me just like it irks Fruppi.

Q2: I don’t know what person told you singular they is a no-no, but frankly: They’re wrong.

Rather than go on and on about singular they, I’ll just refer any interested parties to Language Log, which has covered this topic many, many times.

(Seems the commenting system here is so strict against links, I won’t even allow a raw URL. Best I can tell you is Google it.)

Q8: I view these plural apostrophes as something pretty arbitrary. You can use them if you want and omit them if you don’t. But I prefer their use as it helps kill ambiguity with technical terms that mix letters in with numbers.

Case in point: When someone in a cell phone forum posts “I hate the nokia 6500s!” I’m not sure if they’re talking about the 6500S (a specific model) or all versions of the 6500. If I was sure everyone subscribed to the “plural apostrophe” method, I’d know this guy has a beef with the slider-styled 6500, not 6500’s in general.

By: Michael Scott

Michael Scott — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:25:15 +0000

Woe is right. The answer for singular “they” is contrary to all the evidence–it’s one of those thick-headed responses that self-appointed grammar mavens pull out of the worst sort of reference books written by other self-appointed mavens only marginally smarter than they are and then trot around as if Moses brought it down from the mountain. Really, O’Conner, give it up. You’re tired here, you’re tired on the air, and you’ve only got the barest idea of what you’re talking about. Try doing some original research for once instead of accepting as gospel that which has already been disproven time and time again by people who are looking at evidence and not pandering to the peeving, peevish masses who want only to be placated and not to learn. Ugh.

By: mri

mri — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:49:05 +0000

what about naseous vs. nauseated? that’s another one that drives me batty…

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:17:38 +0000

Thanks for the numbers clarification. I’ve been using no apostrophe for the 80s but wasn’t sure if that was best. Now, what about an apostrophe before the decade? Is it better to say ’80s, with the apostrophe indicating the missing 19? Or is it OK to just say 80s?