"ice", or "ise", as in advice/advise and practice/practise, or another commonly confused one - licence/license...the way I was told to remember is iCe is a NOUN, thus if the word is a noun (an object, place or thing) then use "C". If it's a verb, it's "S".
But how many kids these days are taught basic English grammar sufficiently well enough to have it stick?

Some of the posts we read here basically asking, "how come theirs' not now one out their that seams to want to imploy me with hunreds of ours of mutli time! probly cause i dosent have a father thats a airline pilot to!"
Fairly self-explanatory, unfortunately - and "No" it isn't because your Dad's not a pilot.

A bit like "sew" and "sow", isn't it Lusim! :D

Wiley

Re your erudite post on it/its/it's on page 2 of this thread ...

It is singular, they is the plural.

Therefore the singular possessive is, as you have said, its. The plural possessive is their.

I think.

I haven't yet heard of your reported its' as a plural possessive - thank heavens. But now I am prepared.

AA

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: Ausatco ]

The only Grammar I ever knew was the pink, wrinkly thing that hangs out Grannads Y-fronts.


"That is the kind of grammar up with which I will not put." (Winston Churchill, I think)

Okay, here's something I want to get off my chest!

To the Yanks. The last letter of the alphabet is ZED! The R comes before E in centre. It's tom-AH-to, not tom-AY-to, & ZEbra, not ZEEbra.

Ahhhh, that's better. :D

I think 'neither' is one of the very few exceptions to usually safe "i before e except after c" rool – sorry – rule. I think that's because the word is a contraction of 'not either'. (Another is 'weird', which is weird, isn't it?) After laboriously writing all that down, I see that Gaunty has beaten me to it.

(I wrote this before I saw Buster's post.) I know the Americans use the 'zee' (not our 'zed') in many places where we would use the 's' in an '-ise/-ize' word. They also have a seemingly overwhelming need to turn verbs into nouns. One that comes immediately to mind is the truly awful 'outage', as in "We regret we have a power outage." But can someone set me straight on the following? With 'licence/license', I know they use the '-ise' as the noun, but do they go further in reversing our convention by making the –'ice' a verb?

And while I'm checking out my newly delivered (and very handsome) Spelling/Grammar Police uniform in front of the mirror, Far Canard, I'll have to take you to task over your 00:40 post of 26 Nov. Whilst agreeing wholeheartedly with your sentiments, the closet pedant in me has to point out that your comment "The level of education a person has should not be confused with their intelligence." might be considered more correct by the Spelling/Grammar Police if you had said "The level of education a person has should not be confused with his (or her) intelligence."

(I'll make Senior Constable by the end of the week if I keep this up.)

Austatco,

That article was brilliant. I had skimmed the SMH this morning but not read it.

As a forcibly retired, ex-AN pilot, I have been hearing so many such talkback callers. I've never managed to listen to Macca any longer than it has taken me to reach the tuning dial, and yet - for some inexplicable reason - my mother likes his program.

The solution is simple: either listen to ABC FM, News Radio, or turn the bl**dy thing off.

Wiley
This is why weird doesn't follow the rules.

And you do look dazzlingly splendid in your oberstgruppenfuhrerspellenpolizei uniform. :D

Originally, Weird meant destiny. It was the name of the eldest Fate ÑEnglish Wyrd, Norse Urth, German Wurt. Medieval sources describe her as weaving fate, knotting, causing, arousing, ordaining, dissolving, and transforming.

An Anglo-Saxon proverb circa 900 CE declares that "Wyrd is mightiest."
(Wyrd byth swithost.)
Her craft encompassed foreknowledge, prophecy and all the shamanic arts.

The British sometimes called witches weird-woman or weird-wife. Old references to weirding peas hark back to the casting of lots. The Scots spoke of something magical and uncanny as being weirdfu'.

So the English language propensity to pick up bit and pieces continues.

Isn't this internet thingy great. :cool:

Gaunty wrote While Gaunty's example, taken by itself, might be viewed as trivial, I think it (the example, not Gaunty :D) is indicative of a bigger problem in our language/culture. It seems to me that most of this "fairly arbitrary common usage" comes from the mangling of the language or blurring of differentiations within it by US influences which seem to pervade our media and entertainment.

They (USA) have a national program whereby they try to rationalis(z)e spelling and, I think, grammar. (It doesn't work very well because there are many exceptions.) We don't have such a program.

As I said, the American culture is all pervading in our society and our young people pick it up, including the engineered mangling of the language, whether we traditionalists like it or not.

For the last fifteen years in our education system there has been little emphasis on English grammar and spelling, the theory being "get the thought across; the end is more important than the means." At least, that has been the case in NSW.

Some of the products of that system go on to become teachers ... well, you can see where I'm heading. How can the teachers teach if they themselves have never been taught, or are told not to?

Now print media and big business tells us that we have a near crisis in our universities because tertiary students - adults - are unable to adequately express themselves in writing beyond the most basic terms and concepts of English Expression. This is not because of the American influence I mentioned above: rather it happens because of our own apathy and mis-direction. Our educators from the top down no longer take pride in our linguistic heritage and there is no imperative from within the educational system to preserve it. The basics are not taught and without them the impressionable adopt what they are exposed to - the commonality of "street English" (my term).

"Street English" - you can get your point across albeit with poor spelling, poor punctuation, poor grammar. In the spoken word the deficiencies are compensated for with profanity. Add to that the American influence caused by continual exposure to American entertainment and what is the result? Basically, it's what we're talking about in this thread, only worse in many cases. Go to any public primary school or high school playground or high school classroom and you will hear the evidence. The educational system has given up trying to stop the profanity in both playground and classroom - it's the norm now. Fortunately it is not yet the norm in the written word. Long before the profanity they gave up on spelling, structure and syntax.

It's fun to make light of the quirks of English spelling and grammar as some have done here. How can you not, especially with inconsistencies such as the "ough" sound in plough, trough, through, thorough, thought and though and Wiley's moving apostrophes in the "it" word and countless other examples. But the fact of the matter is that our language, with all its oddities, is our most powerful communication tool and a huge part of our culture - as are other languages in other cultures.

Through educational neglect and the acceptance, even promotion, of ignorance and mediocrity in the education system, we are gradually letting it go, excusing ourselves with the argument that the language is a living thing.

To paraphrase today's Heckler in the Sydney Morning Herald, if the language is indeed a living thing, that is not reason to kill it.

Phew, I feel better now. If you got this far, thanks for staying with me :D.

AA

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: Ausatco ]

[ 26 November 2001: Message edited by: Ausatco ]

Zoon5,

Don't know of anyone in my outfit that doesn't wish your company a speedy recovery, whatever form it takes. 'Sides, it's boring having all the conflictions up one end of the aerodrome :D.

As far as the radio is concerned, we are on the same wavelength. You could add 2MBS to the list, perhaps.

Cheers

AA

"The British sometimes called witches weird-woman or weird-wife.

Neither women nor wives have changed much in the past 1,100 years, eh Gaunty? So much for evolution!

(neither - nor; either - or; did I get that "neither" correct?)

:D :D

Austaco, re your 12:01 post: was I married to you at some stage?

(But) seriously, you echo sentiments I have expressed, ( if not nearly so eruditely), on very many occasions. Our State 'edukasun' systems, particularly in Victoria and NSW, have let our young people down badly over the last thirty years to the point where the damage is irreparable.

The young people of today are in no way any less clever than the older generation(s). In many ways, they're quite possibly smarter. But they have been robbed of that vital, all-important skill – the ability to demonstrate that cleverness by the full and proper use of their language.

You'll have to excuse me now, I have to press my jodhpurs and polish my jackboots for tomorrow's S/GP morning inspection. (Still sweating on that promotion to uberkunstbl.)

Ausatco & Wiley
Me three on that.
My chidren have had the "benefit" :rolleyes: of both the Vic and WA education systems.
I used, to my childrens absolute mortification, correct and mark their teachers written comments on their test results.
The note "if you are unable to spell and write English correctly, then how how are you going to teach my children......." appended, was met with some very interesting, but mostly unsatisfactory responses. One, amazingly from a principal, gently chided me about my lack of understanding of 'modern' teaching methods. His speling and gramar wasn't any better, despite being a B.A., M.A., Dip ED and M.A.C.E.
My local Uni runs pre entry remedial English courses and requires a pass in it's own English test. And this from those who are supposed to be the cream of the crop :mad: :rolleyes: :eek:

WA is slowly getting to rating individuals schools and teachers performance, but with a Labour Govt now in power, this is not going to happen any time soon.

The problem started with the dismantling of the old paid but bonded Teachers Training College as a valid and respected alternative Tertiary career path.

The tragedy is that I now have three children who are well educated by contemporary standards all with or completing degree studies but beyond the language they need for their studies are illiterate.
Reading their papers and their lecturers comments would and does make you weep. But then what would I know. :(

edited for the usual

[ 27 November 2001: Message edited by: gaunty ]

My neice, who has just completed VCE, when in Primary school was taught to guess how to spell rather than sound it out & learn how to spell...methinks caveman grunting sounds will ensue in 100 years time! :(

Another one of my pet hates is so-called professional television or radio journalists, even senior anchor men or supposed financial experts, quoting stock prices or bank interest rates as "six point twenty-five percent" for 6.25%.

You can say "sixty-three point two five", but you can't have "point twenty-five". It's "point two five", as in two tenths and five hundredths, which can't be said (correctly) as 'twenty-five". I recall this being pointed out to me on day one of high school, back in the days when that occurred in Grade 9.

Picky, maybe, but it always brings me up short to be reminded that the person who's been postulating so seriously on the state of the world five minutes earlier, and is now giving me the news on the state of the world economy, quite obviously hasn't heard of the word 'physics' except in passing and probably dropped Maths at Grade Eight to take up a really important subject like Pop Journalism 101.