George in Rancho Cordova
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2011
- Messages
- 741
"... in the process of..." adds absolutely nothing to a statement (except for increasing the word count).
A lot of people here might not even know why this is incorrect. Please explain the proper usage of "a" and "an" when preceding a noun with a vowel or consonant.

I pertineer read this entire thread without laughing.
If you want to find a miter saw, search the following:
Mitre saw
Chop saw
Chap saw
The thing about craigslist is that there is no 3rd party to edit the listings. It's whatever the poster places the post as. Sometimes, you gotta dig deep. Example, I got my Athol vise for 36 bucks because the guy had it posted as a "table clamp vice" in the home goods section.
Women/woman is one I see A LOT. That women over there just spilled her soup. Drives me nucking futs.
As for reading? My opinion is that many, many simply do NOT read books. Ask ten random friends and if they're truthful I'd be surprised if even half have read an entire book ANY time since high school and many didn't even read one then!
Unfortunately you are correct. The old style of teaching was to drill the mechanics of grammar into a student and have them practice it and combine it with reading in order to provide a good foundation for the language. The reading really cements the proper grammar into a student. I cannot diagram a sentence to save my life anymore but I know right from wrong when forming a sentence in most cases. I read a lot of books as a child and still enjoy reading to this day, which helped me immensely. Many of the people I graduated with, however, can barely read. They write in text speak and use horrible grammar and spelling.
I'm no grammar nazi but people who do not make an honest attempt at writing or speaking correctly drive me up the damn wall. I tutored in college to earn some extra money and dealing with the insanity of college students who could not read and write in a barely acceptable manner drove me to drink. We have all seen the posts that are a giant block of text with incomprehensible spelling and sentences that make absolutely no sense...that is what I had to deal with.



Out here in Atlantic Canada everybody calls lunch hour "dinner" WTF
It's called "LUNCH" They also call supper "dinner". So when someone calls me and says they are bringing a snowblower or mower for me to fix after "Dinner" I have no clue if it will come in the afternoon or evening![]()
Told a lady one time she needed new tires. Her response: 'yeah, I been needin' to buy some new michigan radios'...After repeating it 3 times, it clicked in my head. Michelin radials
Not that I am perfect or a spelling/grammar natzi, but some I see here and other places on a daily basis:
defiantly--definitely
sale--sell
to--too
their-there-they're
your--you're
a--an
Nothing's funnier than to see someone say 'your a idiot'![]()

Cynicism aside, the English language has evolved extensively from its origins to the point where most present-day English speakers are unable to comprehend what was written as little as 1000 years ago. Try reading "Beowulf" in its original form, and you'll likely be completely bewildered:
Even Shakespeare's plays, written barely 400 years ago, are challenging for present-day readers:
And in fact, Shakespeare was considered decidedly low-brow in his time. Now we hold him up as perhaps the most important author in the entirety of English.
English is and has always been a language of continual change -- what you call butchery and bastardization, others call evolution. That's just English for you. There's no need to lament what is in fact the single defining element of English: that it is a dynamic, flexible, and malleable language.
Tangentially related: why don't they speak Latin in Italy?
Nope. It's mustard. It's been "mustard" for over 100 years -- dating back to O.Henry's use of the phrase in "Cabbages and Kings" in 1904 (and possibly earlier). His use of the phrase may (or may not -- depends on who you ask) have been related to the phrase "pass muster" (there are many theories of how it came to be) but the phrase itself -- "cut the mustard" -- is definitely, positively correct.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/11/popular-idioms-explained/

Twice in the past month someone in the media has said politicians were "going to the mattresses" instead of "going to the mats" on an issue. That there is funny, I don't care who you are.
Anyone mention the use of the word you-uns? As in "Are you-uns gunna eat the rest of them there tator tots?"
Are people this stupid or are the doing this on to be funny ?
http://buffalo.craigslist.org/tls/4240650995.html
I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE SONG WAS "MARZEE DOTES AND DOZY OTS AN LITTLE LAMSEDIZEY" instead of "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy"
I expect little and get less from the public on Craigslist and eBay; some folks search for and get bargains from yokels who can't even spell 'anvil' and 'sawsall', and miss the search engines. More power to them.
Twice in the past month someone in the media has said politicians were "going to the mattresses" instead of "going to the mats" on an issue. That there is funny, I don't care who you are.
Give me a brake.
Its time too close this tread.
Your making to big of a deal out of it.
It's SawZall. As trademarked by Milwaukee.
This raises a question for those of you in the South (I guess).
I totally get that people in different regions speak differently. I like it, I think it's mostly charming - who'd want everyone to speak exactly the same? As long as I can understand who I'm speaking with and they can understand me, great.
What I DONT GET is the need to write the accent in a forum post like these.
Why writes "Y'all"? If I were speaking to you and you said this I'd clearly "get" that you have a regional accent. I know people of many colors, ethnicities and nationalities and I can't think of any of them that WRITE their accents Into their posts. Why do this?
