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This is not a Hall of Shame thread.  Please do not copy posts with people's names.

This is a condensed thread to teach specific lessons to those who want to learn correct grammar and spelling.
We have many members whose mother tongue is not English.

Please title your post if you choose to add a lesson.  A font size of 12 pt in capitals will make that post easy to find.  The lesson posts will also be referenced in the wiki.

LESSONS

1.  there / their / they're
2.  a vs. an
3.  went vs. have gone
4. It's vs. Its
5. Affect vs. Effect
6.  Capital vs Capitol

  • Commas go before the space, like this, not like ,this.
  • Commas/periods go after the close parenthesis (like this), not before (like this.)   (Unless the entire sentence is enclosed.)
  • All punctuation goes inside the quotation, like "this." not like "this".

« Last edited by YitzyS on July 23, 2020, 12:12:43 PM »

Author Topic: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101  (Read 54239 times)

Offline davidrotts63

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #180 on: April 30, 2019, 10:07:12 PM »
Requested ticketing
Costed just $39.50 I assume the original quote I was given had a booking fee included.
Costed? Really?
Absolutely.
Well you're wrong
Am I?

Please only reply if you think I'm right, thanks
(Quit) pulling out the flowers, and watering the weeds. -Peter Lynch

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #181 on: April 30, 2019, 10:47:33 PM »
Am I?

Please only reply if you think I'm right, thanks
You are right that you need this thread. That belongs in the grammar hall of shame thread.
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline Yammer

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #182 on: June 20, 2019, 02:46:23 AM »
When quoting something ( not a sentence ), does the first letter need to be capitalized?

Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #183 on: June 20, 2019, 04:09:46 AM »
When quoting something ( not a sentence ), does the first letter need to be capitalized?
Quotes should be copied exactly, capitalization included.  Any changes should be indicated with square brackets.  E.g., "[N]ew capitalization for use at the beginning of a sentence..."
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Offline Yammer

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #184 on: June 21, 2019, 01:20:41 AM »
Quotes should be copied exactly, capitalization included.  Any changes should be indicated with square brackets.  E.g., "[N]ew capitalization for use at the beginning of a sentence..."
So if it's a partial quote and it's not capitalized, then I don't add capitalization, correct?
« Last Edit: June 21, 2019, 01:24:12 AM by Yammer »

Offline ckmk47

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #185 on: June 21, 2019, 10:14:20 AM »
So if it's a partial quote and it's not capitalized, then I don't add capitalization, correct?
correct
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Online Yehuda57

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #186 on: July 22, 2019, 01:25:01 PM »
https://youtu.be/G-HvhT8OPs0

Shouldn't it be, "If I am me"?

Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #187 on: July 22, 2019, 09:39:09 PM »
https://youtu.be/G-HvhT8OPs0

Shouldn't it be, "If I am me"?
Syntactically, I think yes.

Similar structure, pronoun verb pronoun:
[If] she married me...
not
[If] she married I...
44/50, 46/63

Offline Ekay

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #188 on: August 05, 2019, 02:38:31 PM »
Don’t know if this was mentioned but I came across Grammarly which is great. They have an app and an extension for chrome. It works wonders.

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #189 on: August 05, 2019, 02:43:07 PM »
Don’t know if this was mentioned but I came across Grammarly which is great. They have an app and an extension for chrome. It works wonders.

Didn't even need to page @TimT to find

Grammarly is supposed to be a great and very advanced tool to help you out with all your needs in this area. Hope this helps someone.

I've been using it for a while and it's great. Catches lots of typos even before I see them :)
I've been waiting over 5 years with bated breath for someone to say that!
-- Dan

Offline myi

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #190 on: April 14, 2020, 01:04:00 AM »
Can some explain this to me? When to use "took or taken"?


Q -What is the difference between took and taken?

As an example assume a monkey is in a well, and someone is trying to say they would have taken the money out. Are both of these sentences grammatically correct?

I would have jumped in there and took the monkey out

or

I would have jumped in there and taken the monkey out.
 

A- There are some dialects where the simple past tense and the past participle are not distinguished (except in a few verbs). In those dialects, “I have took”, “I have gave”, “I have saw”, etc. are acceptable. These dialects are a minority, however. In the vast majority of dialects, the past tense is took/gave/saw, the past participle is taken/given/seen, and only the second of your examples is grammatical.

In reference to this post.
https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=42812.msg2227929#msg2227929
 @Iz
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Offline srap

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #191 on: April 14, 2020, 01:38:31 AM »
Can some explain this to me? When to use "took or taken"?


Q -What is the difference between took and taken?

As an example assume a monkey is in a well, and someone is trying to say they would have taken the money out. Are both of these sentences grammatically correct?

I would have jumped in there and took the monkey out

or

I would have jumped in there and taken the monkey out.
 

A- There are some dialects where the simple past tense and the past participle are not distinguished (except in a few verbs). In those dialects, “I have took”, “I have gave”, “I have saw”, etc. are acceptable. These dialects are a minority, however. In the vast majority of dialects, the past tense is took/gave/saw, the past participle is taken/given/seen, and only the second of your examples is grammatical.
My skin is crawling to read "I have took" etc. 
1.  I jumped in there and took out the monkey OR
2.  I would have jumped in there and taken out the monkey. [You don't split up the prepositional verb (take + out).]

"1" is real, a simple past tense.  This is what I did.
"2" is unreal, a conditional form of an improbable scenario.  If....I would have...but it didn't happen so I didn't do it.



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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #192 on: April 14, 2020, 02:04:36 AM »
Taken is also used in 3rd person, eg: the money was taken before I got a chance to spend it.
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Offline good sam

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #193 on: April 14, 2020, 02:17:27 AM »
Taken is also used in 3rd person, eg: the money was taken before I got a chance to spend it.
In other (more correct) words, in the passive voice. I took the money vs. the money was taken by me.
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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #194 on: April 14, 2020, 02:31:05 AM »
In other (more correct) words, in the passive voice. I took the money vs. the money was taken by me.
Right. So "I took the money" (1st person) or "he took the money" (2nd person) is active since we're discussing who did it. But "the money was taken by the robber" is passive since the subject of the sentence is the money, not the robber.
Workflowy. You won't know what you're missing until you try it.

Offline myi

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #195 on: April 14, 2020, 06:34:08 PM »
My skin is crawling to read "I have took" etc. 
1.  I jumped in there and took out the monkey OR
2.  I would have jumped in there and taken out the monkey. [You don't split up the prepositional verb (take + out).]

"1" is real, a simple past tense.  This is what I did.
"2" is unreal, a conditional form of an improbable scenario.  If....I would have...but it didn't happen so I didn't do it.
Taken is also used in 3rd person, eg: the money was taken before I got a chance to spend it.
In other (more correct) words, in the passive voice. I took the money vs. the money was taken by me.
I hear! Thanks guy's.
  Sometimes it gets quite tricky when you can technically use either or.
 Yes, the above example wasn't exactly the best example.
Just to bring out my question.

   My grammar is not something to write home about.
  Any books out there not to complicated that you guys would recommend for some improvement?
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Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #196 on: April 17, 2020, 03:24:48 AM »
  Any books out there not to complicated that you guys would recommend for some improvement?
The St. Martin's Handbook (or just the internet).
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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #197 on: April 28, 2020, 12:35:54 PM »
1. There is equipment in the building. The equipment is mine.

2. There are equipment in the building. The equipment are mine.

Which is correct? I can't explain why 2 would be correct but for some reason 1 doesn't sound right.
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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #198 on: April 28, 2020, 12:39:03 PM »
1. There is equipment in the building. The equipment is mine.

2. There are equipment in the building. The equipment are mine.

Which is correct? I can't explain why 2 would be correct but for some reason 1 doesn't sound right.
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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #199 on: April 28, 2020, 12:57:01 PM »
1. There is equipment in the building. The equipment is mine.

2. There are equipment in the building. The equipment are mine.

Which is correct? I can't explain why 2 would be correct but for some reason 1 doesn't sound right.
Weird as I have no idea which is correct but 1 sounds right. Especially "The equipment is mine".
Only on DDF does 24/6 mean 24/5/half/half