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ASF spelling and grammar lessons

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numbercruncher said:
Egnislh is a fnaastic lnaauge as you olny need the fsrit and lsat ltteer in pcale to be ustdnerood.



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That's its bloody German heritage for you. By the bye, in respect of apostrophes, if you have a given name such as James and you wish to refer to something that James may own then it is James', eg James' share portfolio.

And it is a fantastic and fascinating language. Simply read some Jon Donne, Milton or any other poet and just revel in how it can soar to the heights.
 
Judd, perhaps you can clarify. Is it referred to as 'The People's Republic of China' because 'people' in that context is considered singular?

i.e. The Chinese people are one 'people'.
 
Which explains exactly why people's grammar is so bad! Or, should that be are so bad or peoples' grammar :
 
Prospector said:
Which explains exactly why people's grammar is so bad! Or, should that be are so bad or peoples' grammar :
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I don't actually think its that hard. My view is that the education system has let people down and it seems to be getting worse. The spelling and grammar of those on ASF who are under 30 is noticably worse than that of those who are over 30. I also put some of the blame on mobile phone texting which has largely destroyed the spelling of many of those in Generation Y.

Effective communication is absolutely vital to getting your point across. I read some posts and can't quite figure out what it is that they are saying. In which case it's a wasted post. How you say something is just as important as what you say. The point of this thread is that we can all improve and learn to communicate more effectively. Sometimes we just need a reminder.

Of course, I'm a pedant.
 
Joe Blow said:
Judd, perhaps you can clarify. Is it referred to as 'The People's Republic of China' because 'people' in that context is considered singular?

i.e. The Chinese people are one 'people'.
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The word People is a collective so it takes the form of the singular. Very much the same as the words children or women. You cannot have one children or one women. Same applies to people. So, "The People's Republic of China" is correct.

However, as always, there are rules within rules. The simple example is committee. That is a collective but when you are discussing, say, a decision of a single committee it is the "P&C Committee's decision" whereas, if you were discussing decisions of a group of them it would be "P&C Committees decisions."

Easy as, don't you think?
 

A common mistake that I have noticed amongst many of the more senior posters is the misspelling of the word definitely. Thay are misled by the schwa, the sound coming at the unstressed portion of the word and spell it definately, which as Mark Twain would have said "It definitely a'int". Thus perhaps in future they could spell it correctly as many of their posts convey that they are otherwise full of schwa.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Definately

Garpal
 
I do agree with you Joe, that people are losing (or is that loosing the art of the language. And texting will further encourage loss of grammatical skills.

I shudder at spelling mistakes on television, even on the ABC! And in books - the errors jump out from the text almost to the detriment of reading the story.

But the idiosyncracies of the English language has (some might say have?) contributed to the process.
 

Garpal,

I have a trick that has worked very well for me over the years with regard to the word 'definitely'. I just ensure that the word 'finite' is in the middle and 'de' and 'ly' on either side.
 
Guilty

Only recently have I realized the error there... and Joe's "finite" trick is how I cured myself of that one.
 

Agreed Prospector.

I was lucky. As soon as I was old enough to hold a book up one was shoved into my hands by my mother and compulsive reading as a child and a teenager followed naturally. When you read a lot, words that are spelled incorrectly just 'look' wrong. You see the word as a whole rather than just a sequence of letters. I owe my level of literacy solely to a love of reading. I don't believe language and literacy is taught effectively in schools.

If I ever have a child I will be doing the same. There is no greater gift you can give a child than a love of reading.
 
Another trick for the word vehicle.

Think of a drunk driver. Ve 'hic' le.

That one's served me well for over 20 years.
 
People's versus Peoples'

People's represents ownership a group has over something.

Peoples' represents ownership [a group x (times) a group] has over something. It essentially 'doubles' a noun that is already a collective.

Adding an apostrophe after the 's' at the end generally performs the role of transposing singular ownership into plural ownership. There is no need to do this when the word is already plural (as is the case with the word 'people').
 

You were lucky. I was taught spelling by a sadistic teacher who would go around the class asking students to spell a word. If you got it wrong you got the cane. Spelling was not my best subject but it certainly made me try hard. Late on my elder sister became a teacher and, as people did in those days, we used to write to one another. She used to often return my letters with the spelling corrected in red ink. I always read a lot but that didn't seem to help me with spelling. Anyway feel free to correct my posts if the spelling is not correct.
You are right. The spelling in some posts leaves a lot to be desired. I hope I am not the worst there is.
 
Will all members please note that due to the overwhelmingly positive response to the screening of the film My Fair Lady, by Joe Blow & Assoc., which was run for the benefit of those wishing to brush up on their English, the Administrators are anxious to announce, that next week they are screening The Sound of Music for those members who believe their singing is not quite up to scratch!

Some members may remember back this far but unfortunately I can’t think of any current movie equivalents.
 
Judd
A possessive apostrophe may be used before or after an "s" depending on the nature of the noun.
If a group of committees meet, and make a decision that they collectively own, then it becomes the committees' decision.
Beware of correcting others if you are prone to err.
Or stop being human.
 

Hey Joe,

Did you do a search before posting a new thread?

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1597

 
My favorite the other day (and I can't remember the member who posted) was that an ASF member amended their post and the reason given was "grammer". HAHAHAHAHA...... I meant to point it out previously, the irony was truly hilarious.

Joe, I would agree that our English language is quickly becoming corrupted by lazy mobile text style shortcuts - although, I would submit that I would have been guilty of this when posting quickly!!!!

Cheers
Reece
 
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