The Grammar, Spelling and Pronunciation Thread!

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#3308414 13-Nov-2024 09:41

Nah, they’re two different things in that a ‘series’ can have multiple ‘seasons’ - as Google’s AI so simply explains:

In television, a season is a year of a series, while a series is a show that runs for one or more years.

(Don’t agree with the term’ year’, as obviously many series release more than a single season in one year; but it makes the distinction clear.)

jonathan18

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#3308415 13-Nov-2024 09:45

elpenguino:

As well as the more fruity 'I helped my uncle Jack / jack off a horse'.

Love it! May stick to ‘eats shoots and leaves’ for the workplace but this is far more memorable! (Lynne Truss should have used that for the title of her book…)

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#3308459 13-Nov-2024 11:28

jonathan18:

elpenguino:

As well as the more fruity 'I helped my uncle Jack / jack off a horse'.

Love it! May stick to ‘eats shoots and leaves’ for the workplace but this is far more memorable! (Lynne Truss should have used that for the title of her book…)

Ahh, shoots !

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#3308463 13-Nov-2024 11:36

jonathan18:

elpenguino:

As well as the more fruity 'I helped my uncle Jack / jack off a horse'.

Love it! May stick to ‘eats shoots and leaves’ for the workplace but this is far more memorable! (Lynne Truss should have used that for the title of her book…)

I think that’s: Eats roots shoots and leaves. 😀

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#3308479 13-Nov-2024 12:04

jonathan18:

Nah, they’re two different things in that a ‘series’ can have multiple ‘seasons’ - as Google’s AI so simply explains:

In television, a season is a year of a series, while a series is a show that runs for one or more years.

(Don’t agree with the term’ year’, as obviously many series release more than a single season in one year; but it makes the distinction clear.)

In the American sense you are correct.

In the English sense, you are not.

In the UK sense, a "series" can have can have a first, second and third series etc.

(The Americans terms are probably neater).

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#3308481 13-Nov-2024 12:13

robjg63:

(The Americans terms are probably neater).

(Something about whether to eat chips, or chips).

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#3308489 13-Nov-2024 12:35

DMWellington:

Personally I think this thread comes off as rather elitist and "look how much more intelligent I am then someone else".

I think you mean ".....look how much more intelligent I am than someone else".

🙂

[EDIT: PS I don't think that - I just spent the best part of 10 minutes trying to work out how to do strike-through text on my post before giving up, so I'm probably not smarter than a 5th grader....]

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#3308492 13-Nov-2024 12:35

floydbloke:

Then, of course, there's the ever increasing use of te reo Māori in both formal and informal written communications. I fully appreciate it's part of New Zealand culture (albeit with a hint of tokenism every now and then) and absolutely has its place but, not being an expert, I do find it can disrupt my reading flow.

I am so happy that Te Reo is taking off in everyday life, and that I actually hear it spoken in the real world.

However, the language purist in me cringes when I hear random Māori words injected into English sentences when there is a 100% identical English word that would suffice. It almost feels like tokenism. I feel less awkward if the word in question is one that does not have a 100% equivalence in English (for example rangatiratanga).

Having spent a good chunk of my life getting good at another language, I know that just substituting words from another language is not a way to learn it. Learning vocabulary is easy, whereas learning the structures of a language, and how it is put together is way harder (Chinese may well the opposite to this though). This is why learning (most) European languages is so easy compared to those from outside the larger language group - we already have a good understanding of many of the underlying patterns.

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jonathan18

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#3308519 13-Nov-2024 14:09

Gurezaemon: Having spent a good chunk of my life getting good at another language, I know that just substituting words from another language is not a way to learn it.

I really feel the opposite to you, in that I love that bits of Te Reo are now smattered through our every-day dialogue, whether it’s in the workplace, chatting to friends or family, or via the media.

I’m not doubting the accuracy of what you say re it not being a good way to learn language, but it’s so clearly not just about that. Just think of what it’s done for normalisation of the language… That Te Reo is (or, at least, many words are) becoming part of everyday vernacular is a great thing…

Edit: to add, that there are still parts of our society pushing back against this (eg my good friends in Hobson’s Pledge) - for very different reasons than you, I hasten to add! - shows we still have a long way to go, but also highlights the need for it to be happening.

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#3308527 13-Nov-2024 14:37

I was taught that "an" precedes a word starting with a vowel, "a" when it starts with a consonant.
So I don't understand why "an" is used for "historical". I still say "a historical" even if it's deemed to be incorrect.
The English language must be one of the harder ones to learn with all the exceptions to certain rules.

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#3308529 13-Nov-2024 14:39

Per OED:

"In the 18th and 19th centuries people often did not pronounce the initial h for these words [historical, hotel], and so an was commonly used. Today the h is pronounced, and so it is logical to use a rather than an. However, the indefinite article an is still encountered before the h in both British and American English, particularly with historical."

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floydbloke

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#3308532 13-Nov-2024 14:54

Behodar:

Per OED:

"In the 18th and 19th centuries people often did not pronounce the initial h for these words [historical, hotel], and so an was commonly used. Today the h is pronounced, and so it is logical to use a rather than an. However, the indefinite article an is still encountered before the h in both British and American English, particularly with historical."

So when I'm discussing my Geekzone correspondence with Mrs Floyd for instance, telling her "I wrote an hilarious post" and "I wrote a hilarious post" would be grammatically correct, correct?

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

Behodar

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#3308535 13-Nov-2024 15:00

Depends on how your internal monologue pronounces it! 😁

k1w1k1d

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#3308538 13-Nov-2024 15:17

About sixty years ago when I was at primary school, I was told that there were exceptions for every rule in the English language. (My version)

Roughly sixty years ago, during my primary school days, I learned that in the English language, there are exceptions to every rule. (Copilot #1)

About sixty years ago, in my primary school days, I was taught that in the English language, every rule has its exceptions. (Copilot #2)

Roughly sixty years ago, during my primary school years, I learned that in the English language, every rule is accompanied by its exceptions. (Copilot #3)

Behodar

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#3308543 13-Nov-2024 15:22

The first general-use spell checker was released more than half a century ago. I'm amazed by the number of publishers that have yet to discover this technology.

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