Poor Grammar Coach, the weakling who hides behind his (or her) Internet shield of anonymity. Show your face, he who casts this perpetual prose stone! I dare thee.
Grammatica
Calling all NOBOs, SOBOs and HOBOs- for yearbook entries
system
#22
Well this has been fun.
Grammatica, you’ve issued the challenge, and quite appropriate for the intent of this thread, which was after all to collect pictures of AT hikers in a single place.
Grammar Coach, will you post your AT picture on the Flickr site? How about the rest of the contributors? My picture is already up there, despite the shame I felt over my “cat-apostrophic” error.
I’m the only one without a shot at Mother K.
There’s a few pictures up there already; I would love to see this take off.
Editor
system
#23
wts with the eNGLISH LESSSN?smn peple cant spell,so wat? We tri but cant get it rite.squse us.lve everbudy hop u lv me.
old&in the way
system
#24
Many of you are smarting from having your bad writing exposed, so you attack the messenger. Try learning to write instead.
“You’re right, there’s a typo in my post” is a perfectly good compound sentence. Check the Chicago Manual of Style.
“Even the best of us make a typo every now and then” assumes the plural of “best” and thus is proper. Superlatives may be singular or plural.
You didn’t care to parse the remainder of my post because you are afraid of going mano a mano with the learned Grammar Coach. My writing – albeit sometimes prone to a rare typo – is damned good and free of stupid errors like using an apostrophe to pluralize a word.
I hike mostly on the West Coast and in the Rockies and have not done the AT. When I do, I’ll post my pic on Flickr so you can pick at it to divert your attention from the shame of your poor education as revealed by your bad writing.
And I will not shut up!
Grammar Coach
system
#25
When fiction becomes fact, it’s senseless to keep debating. (Likewise when someone says “Bite me!” why bother to continue? Your civility is even worse than your writing.) A compound sentence needs a conjuction. Without the conjuction, and with 2 different subjects and predicates, it’s just two sentences. If you’d like to differ, i’d be interested in the exact reference from the Chicago manual that supports your claim.
The reasons why i choose a single example at a time are simple: clarity and brevity. If i were somehow fearing your online writing, i wouldn’t bother to address you at all, let alone expose myself to criticism for my own writing. Nice projecting though.
Unless anyone else is interested, i suggest we not clog the forum with this anymore. Feel free to contact me via email.
markv
system
#27
I like the idea of a photo site for AT hikers, thru hikers or not. Oh dear, i just mis spelled “through”.
The beauty of the English language is it’s ability to change and be as fluid as culture dictates. One day the use of the apostrophe may change, our written language will be written history. There are more important things to be concerned about in this life than trying to change other people, try changing yourself grammar coach, find peace, try hiking!
Cheers
Cheers
system
#28
There is a difference between evolution and devolution. The way many people use English today is vulgar, similar in quality (or lack thereof) to the “vulgar Latin” that appeared in the late Roman Empire. Shortly thereafter, the Vandals invaded Rome and society went to the dogs. A long Dark Age followed.
If you don’t mind devolving, you are in tune with the dominant political and sociological forces of today which are in a race to the bottom.
Grammar Coach
system
#29
Grammar Coach, markv forgot to point out the truly major error of your first sentence: a lack of reading comprehension. Especially considering I used your own words, it should have been abundantly clear I was stating that your misplaced en WAS NOT a typo. What is your excuse for this blatant demonstration of stupidity? Did you have a mental typo? Or perhaps you were merely too flustered by my superiority, seeing as how
I am,
The Man.
The Man
system
#30
…now that we’ve been taught that fall of the Roman Empire was due to informal usages of language. It had nothing to do with the one-time wealth of an empire being stretched too thinly on vain military conquests until the empire was weak from within and unable to control its vast borders. (what we really should be paying attention to these days.)
Now that we’ve been set straight on that, let’s go hiking.
markv
system
#31
Grammar Coach states the following: “My writing – albeit sometimes prone to a rare typo – is damned good and free of stupid errors like using an apostrophe to pluralize a word.”
I find that “damned good writing” has more to do with picking a storyline than it does with picking others apart. Grammar Coach, you are at odds with the English-speaking world (and perhaps the world at large) and you will always have your work cut out for you by trying to change everyone else. One would imagine you might be better off directing your energies into teaching everyone in this country to drive better, or perhaps eat healthier. And I’m sure there are things you could do to improve on on a personal level.
This is an Internet forum and yes, e-mail and Internet and text-messaging are changing the way people communicate. Hell, we Americans have changed the way the English communicate, so why are you immune from such suggestion? Even the French, who have created laws to protect their language and heritage, are losing to evolution. With each generation life, and language, changes. Whether you know it or not, YOU too are employing words in this forum that weren’t always around…“typo”, “devolving” “stupid”. You draw a fuzzy line of what is acceptable and what is not.
I understand and appreciate your concern—I really do—but I fear you are more critical than you need to be. Teaching is not for you my friend! Particularly here.
Grammatica
system
#32
Hey Grammaw Coach
While yer on yer grammaticaly crusade thing, might’n’t you try to eliminate improper usage of the word ‘decimate’
Decimate means ‘to reduce by one tenth’
BAD USAGE: Hiroshima was decimated by the atomic bomb.
Hiroshima was reduced by ten percent? Oh really! The folks in Hiroshima might have a different take on that.
And yes, I do read Dan Simmons.
And I’m betting no one here will ever understand why I make that statement. Too bad.
P.S. Grammaw, try reading ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk/White. It’s a true masterpeice of grammar. Better than anything you come up with.
Kineo Kid
system
#33
Yo, or is that wrong? I fully argree with markv on the sin text of our present empire, which has very little to do with language and everything to do with communication…or as ol’ Jack Kerouac might mutter, “and not even that.”
fishnGaMe
system
#34
Why don’t you folks go find a nerdy, seff-absorbed, intellectually snobbish site (I have no idea whether snobbish has one b or two, but does that make me a bad person?)where your stupid arguments might be appreciated - or critiqued for what they are - the rantings of room-bound pseudo-intellects with way to much time on their hands.
Booger
system
#35
…whenever an online discussion involves a topic people aren’t interested in, they attack the people posting? Booger, if you’re not interested, skip the topic. There’s nothing nerdy or self-absorbed about standing up against someone who is being an *******. (Which is what 90% of people posting are doing.) If you find it too intellectually snobbish, there are surely other threads that use language you like better. And if you are any less room-bound with no time on your hands, you wouldn’t post either. This post took me 30 seconds while downloading a file. I promise i’ll go hiking this weekend.
:cheers
markv
system
#36
Wow! I thought this was a hiking web site, not a gammer site, perhaps I’ll find hiking posts on “grammerjuornals.com” or something like it. So grab your pack, put on your boots, fill your water bottles and hit the trail, any trail!!
Al Bishop
system
#37
What I read, part of it was Blah bla bla blah blah
I am so glad I dropped out of High school at an early age so I would not end up as pompous fools as most of you sound like.
I am glad I am humble as a grain of sand, so I won’t have to worry what people think.
I am mortified when I see intelligent people bicker. It means that the education they received was weak and pitiful.
I am sad when Grammar coach spouts off. It means that he really has no life at all.
I know, we should all blame George Bush for everything and then we can move on. most of these “educated” people figure that he is to blame anyway ( snarf snarf snort giggle hee hee)
If you want great literature try reading some Koontz and open your mind. Oh wait you guys would not be interested in his writings. You guys are the educated ones -ooooh ha ha har har
Oh, I can not wait to see " The Grammar Coach’s" picture in the Flickr album.
jack bailey
system
#38
Idiots, get a life, talk hiking, not this grammer stuff, get a life, anyways, I think the year book would be great - and yea, this is a run on and has lots of other problems, I just wanted to give you something to sit up all night and type another 20 paragraph thingy about how bad a speller I is, thats right, I is!
So whats the deal with the year book idea? Keep it to THs only. Should have to have a start and finish photo.
wrongway
system
#39
Ok, here’s the deal, I tried, quite unsucessfully to get T.H.'s to post their pictures- but then again I am not a marketing person (or a grammarian :tongue ) so I had a paltry 4 or 5 responses (from some great hikers).
I figured this time, why not open it up to any hikers. Since Flickr allows data tags, pictures can be tagged with the year of hike and direction; that would allow me to creat TH specific collections and by year or direction collections. Oh the possibilities.
So… again, the offer stands. The Flickr site is up and running and there are 1/2 dozen pictures there now. Feel free to join, I’d love to see this get off the ground this time.
Courtney