Common Errors in English

[rjoubert]

I happened upon this site while searching for the difference between despite and in spite of.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

It details many mistakes made in English (as the title suggests) and also provides some word/phrase origins. I found an explanation of the eg/ie question I had posted here previously. Of course, I already knew the answer thanks to the brilliant minds of this forum.

I haven't read through everything yet (you'll know why when you click on the link), but here are a few that I found interesting...

far be it for me
jerry-built/jury-rigged
butt naked

I'd be interested to see if anyone disputes any of the content of this site, or if anyone learns anything they didn't previously know.

Enjoy!

 

[Opieo]

Whoa.
Clicking on the link, there was enough to scare me off initially.
I will check it out later if I have some spare time .. or at home when not at work ^_^

~
Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.

 

[jebenson]

Nice find! I saw several of my pet peeves on there. I bookmarked the site for later perusal.

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

Arrrr, mateys! Ye needs ta be preparin' yerselves fer Talk Like a Pirate Day!

 

[dgillz]

My all time pet peeve is people saying "should/could of" instead of "should/could have". Drives me frickin' nuts.

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[Stella740pl]

And I found that I already have this page bookmarked for a while already. Since about 2004. Links to different parts of this page appeared in this forum several times in 2004, and then less frequently in 2005-2007, to support different opinions in discussions. Say, these threads (not a complete list):
thread1256-932730
thread1256-814238
thread1256-1080042
thread1256-1201508
This one, thread1256-969487, contains a link to another good part of the same site, non-errors:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/nonerrors.html

Now I feel like I am here for a really long time. Or, maybe, I just have a good memory ;-)?

 

[rjoubert]

Drives me frickin' nuts.

There's one of my all time pet peeves...just kidding...I use that word ALL OF THE TIME.

 

[ESquared]

Phrases combining “of” with a noun followed by “S” may seem redundant, since both indicate possession; nevertheless, “a friend of Karen’s” is standard English, just as “a friend of Karen” and “Karen’s friend” are.

Yikes! I don't like "a friend of Karen's.

 

[Opieo]

@e^2
How does Karen feel about that?

~
Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.

 

[Trevoke]

I was taught "A friend of Karen's" just like "a friend of mine" as opposed to "a friend of I" or "a friend of me"...

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[jebenson]

My all time pet peeve is people saying "should/could of" instead of "should/could have". Drives me frickin' nuts.

This one doesn't bother me so much in spoken usage, because the people may be saying should've/could've, which can come out sounding like "should of" or "could of". It's when these phrases are written "should/could of" that gets me.



I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

Arrrr, mateys! Ye needs ta be preparin' yerselves fer Talk Like a Pirate Day!

 

[ESquared]

I was taught "A friend of Karen's" just like "a friend of mine" as opposed to "a friend of I" or "a friend of me"...

I can see that, but we're running into a social rule about not referring to oneself in the third person. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the language "a friend of me" though "a friend of I" violates the pronoun subject/predicate rule.

I also see that the special possessives "mine" and "yours" do not always equate in every situation to simple possessives created by adding apostrophe-ess. So to use one construction to justify the other, given the following counterexample, seems not so strong:

Consider:
[ul]Karen's tastes great.
Mine tastes great, too.[/ul]

They look the same, but watch when we add the implied missing possessed thing:
[ul]Karen's [blue]ice cream cone[/blue] tastes great.
Mine My [blue]ice cream cone[/blue] tastes great, too.[/ul]

The second doesn't work with "mine" and so it is NOT a direct replacement for simple possessive in all cases, so "a friend of mine" being valid doesn't automatically make "a friend of Karen's" valid any more than "Karen's ice cream cone" validates "mine ice cream cone.

 

[SantaMufasa]

"a friend of I" violates the pronoun subject/predicate rule.

Or even the "object of the preposition" rule. <smile>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[ESquared]

Yeah, that thing. What you called it.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Phrases such as "a friend of Karen's" are examples of the double possessive, and they are normal and correct.

However, there are a couple of conditions the should exist before using a double possessive of a single entity. The general form of this construct is
"<indefinite noun> of <specific human noun>"
It's okay to say "a friend of Karen's" (both nouns meet conditions), but it's probably not a good idea to say "the friend of Karen's" (not an indefinite noun), nor "a friend of the team's" (not specific human noun).

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[gbaughma]

My wife was mentioning a few weeks ago about "Grass roots movements".

She states that the term doesn't mean what you would normally think; that it's a new movement, but instead since grass tends to pretty much strangle out many other plants, that a "Grass roots movement" would be one that would strangle out other competition.



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[AnotherHiggins]

->...since grass tends to pretty much strangle out many other plants...
My lawn wishes that were true.

But I have never thought of the phrase to mean a "new movement", either.

Rather, I've always thought of it as implying something that starts from the ground up. Something that takes hold in a community naturally rather than an organization being thrust forward by external powers.

[tt]_____
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[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[SantaMufasa]

"Grass roots movements"...doesn't mean what you would normally think; that it's a new movement, but instead...a "Grass roots movement" would be one that would strangle out other competition.

I would be interested in seeing a link that corroborates that definition, Greg.


Frankly, I don't think of either of those definitions for "grass roots". I believe that most sources suggest that "grass roots" (as an adjective) refers to activities/movements/et cetera whose driving force/power resides at the local level versus with a centralised/governing segment of a movement.

Once such reference is the Answers.com definition of "grass roots".

Let me know if I missed the mark on this.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[ESquared]

there are a couple of conditions the should exist before using a double possessive of a single entity. The general form of this construct is
"<indefinite noun> of <specific human noun>"
It's okay to say "a friend of Karen's" (both nouns meet conditions), but it's probably not a good idea to say "the friend of Karen's" (not an indefinite noun), nor "a friend of the team's" (not specific human noun).

Thank you for the clarification!

 

[SantaMufasa]

Not that this materially affects our discussion about "...a friend of Karen..." versus "...a friend of Karen's...", but if we choose the former construct ("...a friend of Karen..."), it makes it much more consistent for English-to-other language translations.

I am not aware of any other language (besides English) that uses the apostrophe to show possession. For example, the translation into Spanish of "...Karen's friend..." is "...el amigo de Karen..." (or "...la amiga de Karen..."). Literally, the Spanish reverse translates to "...the friend of Karen...".

So, "...the friend of Karen..." construct is much more translation friendly...And I vote that that construct, despite the evidence that either construct is acceptable.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[CajunCenturion]

However, there are situations where the double possessive is absolutely necessary. "A friend of Karen" maybe someone being friendly to Karen, or an advocate of Karen, without necessarily being one of Karen's friends. But it's clear when using the double possessive "a friends of Karen's" that we are talking about one of Karen's friends.

Also, consider the following:
A picture of my mother.
A picture of my mother's.
Two very different meanings.

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