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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
7.   Much vs. Many
8.   We're vs. Were
9.   Your vs. You're
10. Definitely vs. Defiantly
11. Manner vs. Manor
12. Exasperate vs. Exacerbate
13. Gorilla vs. Guerilla
14. Idle / Idol / Idyll
15. Precede vs. Proceed
16. Rouge vs. Rogue
17. Independence vs. Indpendents
18. Ordinance vs. Ordnance
19. Weather vs. Whether

  • 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 SSLPhD on September 24, 2024, 03:32:05 PM »

Author Topic: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101  (Read 69420 times)

Offline aygart

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #220 on: November 01, 2021, 02:02:42 PM »
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline srap

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #221 on: November 01, 2021, 02:36:57 PM »
Sports team names or even sport team's name(s) might work better than sports teams' names, depending on the context.
These two choices may roll off the tongue better, but they both mean that there is only one team.  "Sports team" is one team that plays a number of sports (or possibly only one designated sport from a choice of many sports) and "sport team's" refers to a name belonging to one team of a designated sport.

The only way way to refer to more than one team of sport is to say "teams".
Our choices are sport teams, sports teams, sport teams' or sports teams' depending what we want to convey.

Offline Yehuda57

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #222 on: November 01, 2021, 03:06:39 PM »
These two choices may roll off the tongue better, but they both mean that there is only one team.  "Sports team" is one team that plays a number of sports (or possibly only one designated sport from a choice of many sports) and "sport team's" refers to a name belonging to one team of a designated sport.

The only way way to refer to more than one team of sport is to say "teams".
Our choices are sport teams, sports teams, sport teams' or sports teams' depending what we want to convey.
IMHO, you got a bunch of things wrong here.

"In recent years there have been controversies regarding sport team names." This rolls off the tongue better because it is correct. The subject is the names, not the sports or the teams.

"In recent years there have been changes to numerous sports teams' names." The subject here is teams.

Sport vs sports is a matter of common usage, which differs in the UK and USA.

Offline CountValentine

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #223 on: November 01, 2021, 04:38:23 PM »
Here is the context. All three are plural.
I will live with the annoyance as long as we get to keep our sports team names!!!  :P
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Offline aygart

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #224 on: November 26, 2021, 10:09:10 AM »
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline Euclid

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Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #226 on: February 24, 2022, 04:46:10 PM »
Gorilla vs guerilla

Gorilla: an animal in the ape family

Guerilla: a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage (m-w.com)
45/50, 46/63

Offline srap

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #227 on: February 24, 2022, 05:38:40 PM »

Gorilla vs guerilla

Gorilla: an animal in the ape family

Guerilla: a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage (m-w.com)
Yes.  If it helps any, guerra means 'war' in Spanish.

Offline Yehuda57

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #228 on: February 24, 2022, 06:54:03 PM »
Gorilla vs guerilla

Gorilla: an animal in the ape family

Guerilla: a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage (m-w.com)

Guerilla warfare:a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage (m-w.com)

Gorilla warfare: politicians or pundits who engages in conflict by pounding furiously on their chests in the manner of an animal in the ape family.

Offline Yehuda57

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #229 on: February 24, 2022, 07:06:11 PM »
Guerilla warfare:a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage (m-w.com)

Gorilla warfare: politicians or pundits who engages in conflict by pounding furiously on their chests in the manner of an animal in the ape family.

Then there's the gorilla cart

https://www.dansdeals.com/shopping-deals/amazon/gorilla-carts-poly-garden-dump-cart-steel-frame-10-pneumatic-tires-73-amazon/


Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #230 on: March 23, 2022, 01:27:08 PM »
idle vs. idol vs. idyll

idle (adj): not occupied or employed/lacking worth or basis

Example: There has been a lot of idle speculation about what might happen, but no one really knows.

ALSO

idle (verb): to run at low power

Example: She left the engine idling for a few seconds before she turned it off.

idol (noun): a representation or symbol of an object of worship

Example: Avraham Avinu's father sold idols.

idyll (noun): a simple descriptive work in poetry or prose that deals with rustic life or pastoral scenes or suggests a mood of peace and contentment

Example: Her year as a vineyard worker in the south of France was not the idyll that she had expected it to be.

(All text from m-w.com except the obvious.)
45/50, 46/63

Offline SSLPhD

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #231 on: March 23, 2022, 01:45:55 PM »
I've been meaning to post this for a while:
https://medscicommunications.com/2020/09/23/regime-vs-regimen/
45/50, 46/63

Offline Euclid

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #232 on: March 23, 2022, 01:51:20 PM »
How much is the quantity of "couple"?
"I had a couple pieces of fruit."

Offline etech0

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #233 on: March 23, 2022, 01:52:11 PM »
How much is the quantity of "couple"?
"I had a couple pieces of fruit."
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Offline CountValentine

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #234 on: March 23, 2022, 02:03:18 PM »
How much is the quantity of "couple"?
"I had a couple pieces of fruit."
2 unless they don't know the meaning.  :)
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Offline Yehuda57

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #235 on: March 23, 2022, 03:16:48 PM »
How much is the quantity of "couple"?
"I had a couple pieces of fruit."

Pet Peeve

2 unless they don't know the meaning.  :)

Argh, you three are just a couple of pedants

Offline etech0

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #236 on: March 23, 2022, 04:42:24 PM »
Argh, you three are just a couple of pedants
At least my post got me a couple of likes!

ETA: ruined :(
« Last Edit: March 23, 2022, 06:23:34 PM by etech0 »
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Offline etech0

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #237 on: March 23, 2022, 07:07:30 PM »
Does the title of this thread bother anyone else?
https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=123024.0
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Offline S209

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #238 on: March 23, 2022, 07:14:56 PM »
How much is the quantity of "couple"?
"I had a couple pieces of fruit."
2 unless they don't know the meaning.  :)
In the common vernacular, it means two or three or possibly more. From Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Quote
Couple first entered English as a noun in the 13th century, where it referred to two people linked in a romantic relationship. The word is from the Latin copula, which means "bond."

The word was quickly applied to pairs, but by the 1500s, it was also being used in the phrase a couple of to refer to an indefinite but still small number of people or things:

Point you out a Scholemaster, who by your order, shall teache my sonne and yours, and for all the rest, I will provide, yea though they three do cost me a couple of hundred poundes by yeare...
— Roger Ascham, The scholemaster ca. 1586

I shall here communicate to the World a couple of letters.
— Richard Steele, in The Spectator, 1711

We can verify that there were more than two letters that followed Steele's assertion.

Once this broadening of couple began, there was no holding it back. Couple is now understood primarily to refer to two when used as a bare noun ("they make a nice couple"), but is often used to refer to a small indeterminate of two or more when used in the phrase a couple of ("I had a couple of cups of coffee and now I can't sleep."). Its smallness seems to be relative: a quick check of our citation files reveals that the phrase a couple of years ago has been used to refer to everything from one year and change to eight years, though most of the time the phrase seems to be used of three or four years (when we can verify dates).

Verdict: couple is used of small numbers most of the time, but usually at least two or more.
Quote from: YitzyS
Quotes in a signature is annoying, as it comes across as an independent post.

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Re: Grammar and Spelling Lessons 101
« Reply #239 on: March 24, 2022, 12:35:40 AM »
In the common vernacular, it means two or three or possibly more. From Merriam-Webster dictionary:
noun
two of the same sort considered together; pair.
two persons considered as joined together, as a married or engaged pair, lovers, or dance partners:
They make a handsome couple.
any two persons considered together.
Mechanics. a pair of equal, parallel forces acting in opposite directions and tending to produce rotation.
Also called couple-close. Carpentry. a pair of rafters connected by a tie beam or collar beam.
a leash for holding two hounds together.
Fox Hunting. two hounds:
25 hounds or 12˝ couple.

Lets put this off until next Sunday!  :P
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