English Grammar, Spelling and Vocabulary

[Fiona1986]

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone saying 'jamp', presumably it's a version of jump? My daughter came out with something last week, but I can't remember what it was. Something along the lines of 'worser'. It just shows that a child's mind is often far more logical than an adult's.

Yes, 'jamp' as in 'I jamp in that puddle' instead of 'I jumped in that puddle'. It's a very common thing for a child in Dundee to say.

[Moonraker]

I too would have thought a simpler, more modern passage would be of greater benefit.

Agreed. Maybe she could start with one of her earlier posts!

[zaidi]

I've had to explain to my 6 year old recently such points as it should be 'taught' not 'teached', 'ran' instead of 'runned' and numerous other examples.

My cousin's son who is 5, and my other cousin's son who is 3 are going through a bit of a phase where everything ending in -ed is pronounced 'ehd' rather than just 'd'. So it's "I runnehd" which is even more wrong than "I runnd" At least neither of them use the one I hate the most which is 'jamp'!!

It was by mistake that I accidentally made R capital. I am never confused with things where "est" doesn't come in the end . For say Good goes better and then best not good gooder goodest.

I had a book that was from London named " Practical English Handbook" It had an exercise in which you had to point out grammatically wrong written sentences and make it right. So that is what it was.

[Daisy]

I had a book that was from London named " Practical English Handbook" It had an exercise in which you had to point out grammatically wrong written sentences and make it right. So that is what it was.

And quite right too, but you can see from what Katharine says how confusing our language is.

[MJE]

     Here's another thing that I quite often see, although I've never heard anyone suggest that it's right. It's especially common in America, although I see it in lots of places, and it's where arbitrary nouns not at the beginning of a sentence are given a capital letter, and I just wonder why people do this. How did they start the habit, and what is the reason in their own minds why they do it?
     Sometimes you can sort of see that the nouns so capitalized are important ones in the context, although they are not proper nouns; but not all such important nouns are capitalized, and some quite unimportant ones are - there doesn't seem to be much pattern to it.
     I'm guessing anyone who did that here would be made mince-meat of - but does anyone have any idea why it's done? - and also why it seems especially common in the U.S.?

Regards, Michael.

[Daisy]

I can't say I've noticed that Michael, but in German all nouns have a capital letter (at least that was the case 50 years ago when I learned German in school - maybe that's changed?) This being so, could immigrants to the US have taken that with them? Just a thought.

[MJE]

I can't say I've noticed that Michael, but in German all nouns have a capital letter (at least that was the case 50 years ago when I learned German in school - maybe that's changed?) This being so, could immigrants to the US have taken that with them? Just a thought.

     Yes, I did think of that possibility (having learned German at school myself); but I never got the impression it was originally German-speaking people who did it, or even people necessarily of German ancestry. It just seemed to be random English-speaking people.
     I don't know if the capitals for nouns have been dropped in Germany more recently or not; I haven't heard so.

Regards, Michael.

[mynameisdumbnuts]

     Here's another thing that I quite often see, although I've never heard anyone suggest that it's right. It's especially common in America, although I see it in lots of places, and it's where arbitrary nouns not at the beginning of a sentence are given a capital letter, and I just wonder why people do this. How did they start the habit, and what is the reason in their own minds why they do it?
     Sometimes you can sort of see that the nouns so capitalized are important ones in the context, although they are not proper nouns; but not all such important nouns are capitalized, and some quite unimportant ones are - there doesn't seem to be much pattern to it.
     I'm guessing anyone who did that here would be made mince-meat of - but does anyone have any idea why it's done? - and also why it seems especially common in the U.S.?

Regards, Michael.

Can you give me some examples?

[MJE]

... it's where arbitrary nouns not at the beginning of a sentence are given a capital letter,...

Can you give me some examples?

     Oh, I don't think I know of any examples right now - but I've seen it many, many times over quite a few years.
     Needless to say, it's usually in documents that are poorly-written in a variety of ways, so it's seldom anything I keep or re-read. Various web sites, poorly-written pamphlets, reader comments appended to news story web sites (which are obviously not edited) - all sorts of less professional writing, but never published books or magazines.
     As I said, I've seen it in all English-speaking countries, but I do have the impression some Americans are especially prone to this.

Regards, Michael.

[Fiona1986]

Here's an example I've just spotted:

"Does your Storage have room??"

and

"I was lucky I just made it, but My Cousin wasn't so lucky"

and

"Brown cub and baby Penguin are the two current exceptions to that rule"

These are all from individuals on the FV forums.

[MJE]

     Curious, I looked for a bit on this, and I found a couple of web pages that discuss this, although they don't exactly explain why some people do it:

  http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-a ... takes/1018

  http://www.theslot.com/arbitrary.html

Regards, Michael.

[Fiona1986]

I can't help but notice the author in the second keeps capitalising 'web', surely that's ironic?

"most any personal Web site"
"On the Web, I came across an author's fascinating account "

[mynameisdumbnuts]

I can't help but notice the author in the second keeps capitalising 'web', surely that's ironic?

"most any personal Web site"
"On the Web, I came across an author's fascinating account "

Web is capitalized because it's short for World Wide Web, which is a proper noun. Capitalizing Web is a media industry standard.

[mynameisdumbnuts]

I hadn't noticed whether Americans are more prone to what I call random capitalization of words syndrome. I do believe that here, capitalization is linked with importance.

For example, when we refer to the American government, we capitalize Cabinet to differentiate it from the place where you store your bits and pieces. A prevailing media standard set by The Associated Press is to capitalize Founding Fathers for the men who were instrumental in founding the United States; and Army, Navy and Air Force when they refer to the U.S. branches but not those in other countries (the logic is that those are short for the full names of the branches whereas in other countries they might not be and thus are used more generally; it has nothing to do with notions of superiority).

Advertisements frequently randomly capitalize words and it drives me batty. I suppose it's to highlight the most important words -- "come to the Sale Tomorow!!" but it looks stupid and is bad grammar. But I think people pick up on that and it trickles down to everyday writing. So someone writing about her cousin reasons the cousin is important to the story and therefore should be capitalized. (I've got nothing on bears and penguins )

The rules aren't consistent, which doesn't help. You don't capitalize president or queen when they stand alone, only when they appear in front of a name as a title -- but that doesn't apply to British nobility. So the sentence "In London, President Barack Obama met with the queen and the Duchess of Cambridge" is correct according to Associated Press style although it looks wonky to have some titles capitalized and some not.

[poddys]

I definitely agree that to "clean up" or to "sterilise" the text really takes away from the style of writing of the day, and makes it just more ordinary to read.

Early last year I a page that was based on news items from 100 Years Ago that were published in the Australian Press. What I loved was not just the fact that the stories were from a time gone by, but that the language was so much more interesting to read than many articles today.

I have some of the articles on my page One Hundred Years Ago and my favourites are the stories about the Branch Line and On Safari.

None of these stories would mean anything if translated into today's language, but the embellishments used by the journalists of 1911 made them (IMHO) a fascinating read.