Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language
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@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
a colon would clear up confusion about pegging
and pegging your colon could possibly clear up all confusions here
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Assuming you mean the punctuation
I didnt mean punctuation in this case. endo got the double entendre it seems
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@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
endo got the double entendre
and not even native speaker, such a badass
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I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we find it very hard not to include the serial comma in corresponding speech: try saying “lock, stock, and two smoking barrels” (which, btw, is not how the fools wrote the title) without corresponding pauses for the commas. You’ll find it difficult and it will sound odd.
That proves my point beyond the unassailable logic offered already—not only does the Oxford comma remove ambiguity, it reflects how the sentence is spoken, which is the ultimate aim of grammatical syntax.
Similarly, “my parents, Alice, and Bob” is spoken differently than “my parents: Alice and Bob” (no pause at the semicolon here) and the syntax should reflect that difference. “My parents, Alice and Bob” doesn’t reflect it and I think that’s why it just looks off to me.
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I have no idea what an Oxford Comma is, Paule will know, but if I ask her I will get a long-winded answer, my eyes will glaze over and I won't remember a thing she said.
I write like I speak. If I would do a short pause when speaking, I will put a comma there. A long pause gets a full stop. Those are my personal rules, and I am happy with them...(3 or more full stops equals even longer pause of total pause)
Sorry if it makes reading my shite even more shite.
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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Yep agreed and that’s the random thought I just added above that sprung uninvited in my insomniac head.
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How about “would of” where “would’ve” is the intent? Fingernails on a chalkboard
Think it, be it.
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I live in Texas and we have the city of Houston, pronounced “Hews-ton”
In New York City they have a “Houston Street”, pronounced “House-ton”.I don’t know why
New England’s also tend to say “standing on line” vs “standing in line”.
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@tody I think perhaps being a native speaker you fall prey to phonetics, and “would’ve” sounds somewhat like a lazy “would of.”
That and a lot of Americans are really, really dumb, so it never occurs to them that “would of” doesn’t make any kind of sense. You’re taking about people who forced the language to have the word “literally “ indicate its polar opposite, which rendered the word meaningless but unfortunately fell short of creating a species-ending rift in the space time continuum.
Another common one is “I could care less.” Oh? How much less could you care? (The turn of phrase is supposed to be “I couldn’t care less”).
Think it, be it.
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Irregardless of people being really dumb, for all intensive purposes, they just don't care.
And yes, I'm using the above sentence to share two other words/phrases that make me cringe when I hear them.
In some respects, I'm fine with the lexicon evolving, even if it breaks rules that were once considered standard like not breaking infinitives or ending phrases with prepositions; both of which seem to be fully accepted practice today.
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
I couldn’t care less
Which is all we know in UK
although I think “doofer” could be any kind of object you are trying to think of the name of and have momentarily forgot.. if that makes sense 
