Agreed with both of you.<div><br></div><div>When Terry said that he feels the English language is deteriorating rapidly, I thought of one thing. Well, two things really. The first is the incorrect use of "feel." Should be "I believe" or "I think" rather than "I feel." OK, that out of the way.... ;-)</div>
<div><br></div><div>The second thing is this. I think the English language is borderline psychotic. I'm trying to teach my two younger sons how to spell. English spelling just doesn't make much sense, and it's impossible to spell well unless one has a really good memory. We have spelling "rules" that are always broken and don't apply equally in every case. Here is just one frustrating example below. (I posted this recently to my Twitter account.) Talk about homonyms. Ugh! </div>
<div><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:18px;background-color:rgb(245,245,245)">I rode on the road; the hero rowed. Knowing the owing & sewing, we were going. Dear, we see the deer here. They're there w/ their fawns.</span><br>
</div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:18px;background-color:rgb(245,245,245)"><br></span></div><div>I could go on and talk about why we sew. But when we hew trees, it isn't said like hoe. Crazy stuff like that. I can see why my kids get so frustrated. I mean, we have goose and geese, but not moose and meese. Mouse and mice, but not house and hice. We can have steer and steers, but not deer and deers. Doesn't make a lick of sense.<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:18px;background-color:rgb(245,245,245)"><br>
</span></div><div><br></div><div>OK. Bak to the reel wirld.... ;-)</div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:11 AM, paul bruesch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:paul@bruesch.net" target="_blank">paul@bruesch.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Terry, We could sit and pick nits all day!! e.g.<div>"She went to the store with Jim and I." <div>"Please talk to Bob or myself for more information."</div>
<div>"Definitely" this or that. (Tech support/billing support)</div>
<div>"Absolutely." (Radio/TV interviews)</div><div>(The last two aren't incorrect, just abusively overused.) </div><div><br></div><div>My kids (19 and 16) are both enabled with quite good grammar skills, but when they talk to their friends they sometimes lapse into the casual "I seen" construct. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I do know that schools do still teach grammar. The friend I mentioned at the beginning of my original post is a Kindergarten teacher who teaches non-native-English-speaking kids... she has to attend a three-day grammar conference this month. She has to teach about nouns, verbs, adjectives, paragraphs. Yes, to non-native-English-speaking kindergarten kids. I suppose the future preservation of English grammar may be in the hands of such kids.</div>
<div class="im">
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Terry Beckingham <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:t46xd8jb@xplornet.com" target="_blank">t46xd8jb@xplornet.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Since you brought it up...<br>
<br>
Two of my pet peeves are:<br>
<br>
People who say "I seen" when they should have said "I have seen" or "I saw"<br>
<br>
Many people now say "Me and him" when they should have said "He and I".<br>
<br>
Do schools no longer teach grammar??? I feel that the English language is deteriorating rapidly.<span><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Terry Beckingham<br>
(just nit picking)</font></span><div><div><br><br>
At 09:35 AM 12/4/2012 -0600, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I've just been musing with a friend about grammar when I made a rather humorous (to me, anyhow) discovery...<br></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>John Formsma, RPT<br></div><div>Blue Mountain, MS</div><br>
</div>