Grammar Peeves

[Michael OLeary]

They are both valid words in their correct usage. From Dictionary.com:

tentage   -   n. A group or supply of tents.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

tentage  -  n. [From Tent a pavilion.] A collection of tents; an encampment. [Obs.] --Drayton.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


signage    -  n.   Signs considered as a group; The design or use of signs and symbols.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

 

[mclipper]

Guess my dictionary is too old.  What was wrong with using signs and tents though?

 

[LeeYang]

Please excuse any bad grammer from me. English is my fourth language after Manderin, Japanese, and German.

 

[bossi]

Don't worry, Lee Yang!

I only speak English, French, German and know a little bit of Latin, Spanish, Italian and Japanese.

When I recently had to learn Pashto and Farsi, it was really difficult.

And so, your English is much, much better than my Chinese!!!

 

[Lexi]

MY B1GG3ST P33V3 15 WH3N P30PL3 M1X C4P1T4L L3TT3R5 W1TH NUMB3R5.
Letters are letters, and numbers are numbers, they're not to be mixed.
And to think, poeple believe they're COOL when they use that crap! 

 

[commando_wolf63]

Ummmm Yikes   Grammer was never one of my strong points, I have worked on my spelling only to enter chat rooms and see how people have short handed what they are trying to say. If we look back to Literature lets use Shakesphere for example, It was confusing to figure out what he was saying as it was so muddled up Nostradamus is another writer who's works are baffling.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I thought this was different.

Another Interesting Thing About The Human Mind

Believe it or not you can read it.


I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg.  The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.  The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.  Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?  Yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

This should put our good Major into a spin. ;D[thought I forgot the tea thing, did you?]

 

[Scratch_043]

Wow, I can't believe it, I had no problem reading that Bruce.

I do remember doing experiments with that exact situation in my english classes.
weird, huh?

 

[Burrows]

I concur with lexi..How hard is it really to spell words like elite as E-L-I-T-E not l337...Although at my cadet corps and am the most l337 desk commando (fancy name for filing bit**)

Cheerio,

 

[Goober]

Heh, thats pretty cool there Bruce, I could read it as easy as if the letters were in the right order. Must have taken some time to type that post out though

 

[NMPeters]

<shudders uncontrollably> I'll get you for that  :rage: MOST human brains don't read each letter individually. MINE does. Hmmmm am I implying that I'm not human?  >

Although that is pretty amazing. I actually read right through it without a problem. Now I have to find something else to make you snort tea through your nose Bruce  ;D

 

[GonzoScribe]

Hi all, I've been reading other ppl's experience with recruiting and I can't get over how unprofessional the recruiting end of the CF can seem, although I figured there must be some good stories out there as well and we just never hear about them.

Then I got an email from recruiting yesterday.  Although it only responded to a couple of my questions, it at least sent me in the right direction.  But what hammered home this sense of unprofessionalism was that the email was full of typos.  See below:
---------
You are Qulaifeied for a veriety of trades in the Canadian Forces.
Unfortunatly Intellegence is a trade that only takes people with prior
SVC. As for your Medical condition you should call our medical branch at
992-5194. Or come and see us at the undersigned address.

Thank you for your interst in the Canadian Forces
--------
I count five errors.

Are things so wonky now that they don't even care how they present themselves?  Or better, do we not care that some of our CF members who deal with the public might be illiterate?

By reading forums and emails lately, I can't help but notice more typos than ever.  Many, I'm sure, are just keyboard accidents, but the others tell me that there is a serious problem with basic spelling amongst many my age (39) and younger.  Even when I went to journalism school in college, more than half of my classmates were university journalism grads who were finding out that without the hands-on experience of college, their degrees were less valuable than they expected.  Several of these graduates had serious problems spelling and putting coherent sentences together.

It got so bad that both colleges and universities were having to put in place non-credit remedial English for those who had trouble with the English entrance exam.

I thought by now things would have improved.  Apparently not.  How is this sneaking past the "system?"


GonzoScribe

 

[Glorified Ape]

Too - another word for also

So "too much" means "also much"?