The English Language

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

I hate the fairly recent expression, that is creeping into our language, "My bad". What a stupid expression...! I will never utter this riduculous expression. Though it is a couple words longer, I would prefer, "Sorry, it's my fault." It is a whole lot better.

I'm not a big fan of "ebonics" either. :lol:

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

Cloudy wrote:

I hate the fairly recent expression, that is creeping into our language, "My bad". What a stupid expression...! I will never utter this riduculous expression. Though it is a couple words longer, I would prefer, "Sorry, it's my fault." It is a whole lot better.

Hells bells, CLOUDY, that phrase has been around for more than a lil while already. :roll:

"My fault" seems to work for me.

Cloudy wrote:

I'm not a big fan of "ebonics" either. :lol:

Make that two of us.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

liljol wrote:

Cloudy wrote:

I hate the fairly recent expression, that is creeping into our language, "My bad". What a stupid expression...! I will never utter this riduculous expression. Though it is a couple words longer, I would prefer, "Sorry, it's my fault." It is a whole lot better.

Hells bells, CLOUDY, that phrase has been around for more than a lil while already. :roll:

"My fault" seems to work for me.

Cloudy wrote:

I'm not a big fan of "ebonics" either. :lol:

Make that two of us.

"Fairly recent" for me is anything that cropped up in the last 20 years. I'm guessing that you are much younger than I am, and "fairly recent" to you probably only goes back a few months. :lol:

Dante · **Posted:** Sun Sep 18, 2011 12:43 am

Cloudy wrote:

I hate the fairly recent expression, that is creeping into our language, "My bad". What a stupid expression...! I will never utter this riduculous expression. Though it is a couple words longer, I would prefer, "Sorry, it's my fault." It is a whole lot better.

I'm not a big fan of "ebonics" either. :lol:

Alas, you will eventually hear me say, "My bad." Also, "Whoops!" and "MOTHERF($#)) I DID IT AGAIN!"

Anyway, if I do say that in your presence, my bad.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

Dante wrote:

Cloudy wrote:

I hate the fairly recent expression, that is creeping into our language, "My bad". What a stupid expression...! I will never utter this riduculous expression. Though it is a couple words longer, I would prefer, "Sorry, it's my fault." It is a whole lot better.

I'm not a big fan of "ebonics" either. :lol:

Alas, you will eventually hear me say, "My bad." Also, "Whoops!" and "MOTHERF($#)) I DID IT AGAIN!"

Anyway, if I do say that in your presence, my bad.

DANTE, you really need to have tattoos to be able to say "My bad" with a straight face.

.............................. My bad...

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

Please excuse me for drifting over to quotes, but this is something that I have wondered about for many years.

One of the best quotes that I have ever read was written on a bathroom wall.

"You can never buy beer, you just rent it."

I read this as I was relieving myself in some bar. I thought, "How profound, and how true."

Though it will proably be impossible to ever find out, does anyone know, who first uttered these words of wisdom...?

(Some say that it was Archie Bunker, but I wonder if that is right.)

....................

FrankC · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:11 am

Is this unlocked now? I can post again?

Dante · **Posted:** Sat Oct 15, 2011 9:40 am

That's bizarre. Pretty sure this was locked, but I'll leave it open. Let's avoid politics. The rest of the discussion was fine.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

I was in the fourth grade, when Miss Hawks tought us how to diagram sentences at Fort Stanwix elementary. Did anybody else learn how to do this?

Dante · **Posted:** Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:04 am

Cloudy wrote:

I was in the fourth grade, when Miss Hawks tought us how to diagram sentences at Fort Stanwix elementary. Did anybody else learn how to do this?

Yep. I learned how to do it back in elementary school. In high school, my teacher was unhappy that none of us had been taught it. Which shows the average memory of most of my peers.

FrankC · **Posted:** Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:14 am

Cloudy wrote:

I was in the fourth grade, when Miss Hawks tought us how to diagram sentences at Fort Stanwix elementary. Did anybody else learn how to do this?

Yes. I enjoyed it. I do not think it is taught anymore. I know my kids never did it.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

"The whole nine yards"...?

The English language has so many of these expressions, that we hear ever so often. However, very few, who use them, have a clue as to where they came from. I think I came up with the answer to the origin of "The whole nine yards" back in the early 1970's. My now deceased ex-father-in-law made a comment about how many yards of concrete the cement mixer truck poured into the drainage system in front of his house.. I thought, WOW, this could be the answer...! I asked him, "Adam, how many yards of concrete does a cement mixer carry?" Mr. Jeroszko said, "Nine yards." Guys, I think that is the answer.

Anyone got a better answer...?

p.s. Adam changed his first name from Adolf, when he went into the army in World War II. He was a second generation immigrant from Poland.

FrankC · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:02 am

Cloudy wrote:

"The whole nine yards"...?

The English language has so many of these expressions, that we hear ever so often. However, very few, who use them, have a clue as to where they came from. I think I came up with the answer to the origin of "The whole nine yards" back in the early 1970's. My now deceased ex-father-in-law made a comment about how many yards of concrete the cement mixer truck poured into the drainage system in front of his house.. I thought, WOW, this could be the answer...! I asked him, "Adam, how many yards of concrete does a cement mixer carry?" Mr. Jeroszko said, "Nine yards." Guys, I think that is the answer.

Anyone got a better answer...?

p.s. Adam changed his first name from Adolf, when he went into the army in World War II. He was a second generation immigrant from Poland.

Well I won't go for broke coming up with a guess on the whole nine yards.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

I don't remember exactly when, but it was sometime between 1955 and 1960 that one of my teachers told the class that grammarians had decided that it was no longer required that you put a comma before the word "and" in a series of three or more words . She said that it wouldn't be wrong, if you did, but it wasn't necessary, because the comma could be assumed. As some of you might know, I love commas, so I continued to use them.

Here's a link to some more on this:

http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive ... aBfAnd.htm

"When to Use a Comma before "And"

Two specific situations call for the use of a comma before "and." The first is created when we have three or more items in a series. This mark of punctuation is called the serial comma. For a full explanation of why we use the serial comma, please read our previous tip on the subject. (See "Serial Comma" on p. 49 in our book of writing tips or find the link to the "Serial Comma" tip in our online tip archive.)

The second situation occurs when "and" is being used to coordinate two independent clauses. An independent clause—also known as a main clause—is a group of words that has a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a sentence. In the following example, the independent clauses are in brackets:

[Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years], and [today he is an accomplished performer].
The use of the comma would also apply when any of the seven coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) join two independent clauses.

Notice in the next example that we do not use a comma before "and" because it does not join two independent clauses but merely joins two verbs:

Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years and today is an accomplished performer.
Here we have only one independent clause—two verbs ("took" and "is") but one subject ("Miguel")."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hell, I love using commas wherever I can sneak one in. I use them, whenever I think they will help the reader understand my run-on sentences. They tell you to pause for a second, before reading what comes next.

FrankC · **Posted:** Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:22 am

Cloudy wrote:

I don't remember exactly when, but it was sometime between 1955 and 1960 that one of my teachers told the class that grammarians had decided that it was no longer required that you put a comma before the word "and" in a series of three or more words . She said that it wouldn't be wrong, if you did, but it wasn't necessary, because the comma could be assumed. As some of you might know, I love commas, so I continued to use them.

Here's a link to some more on this:

http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive ... aBfAnd.htm

"When to Use a Comma before "And"

Two specific situations call for the use of a comma before "and." The first is created when we have three or more items in a series. This mark of punctuation is called the serial comma. For a full explanation of why we use the serial comma, please read our previous tip on the subject. (See "Serial Comma" on p. 49 in our book of writing tips or find the link to the "Serial Comma" tip in our online tip archive.)

The second situation occurs when "and" is being used to coordinate two independent clauses. An independent clause—also known as a main clause—is a group of words that has a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a sentence. In the following example, the independent clauses are in brackets:

[Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years], and [today he is an accomplished performer].
The use of the comma would also apply when any of the seven coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) join two independent clauses.

Notice in the next example that we do not use a comma before "and" because it does not join two independent clauses but merely joins two verbs:

Miguel took piano lessons for sixteen years and today is an accomplished performer.
Here we have only one independent clause—two verbs ("took" and "is") but one subject ("Miguel")."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hell, I love using commas wherever I can sneak one in. I use them, whenever I think they will help the reader understand my run-on sentences. They tell you to pause for a second, before reading what comes next.

I am a comma lover, also.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

FrankC wrote:

I am a comma lover, also.

Frank, I knew there was a reason why I loved you. You might like to know that DANTE is another comma lover.

Sadly, I have gone beyond commas, and now use all sorts of punctuation where I think it looks neat. I think that sentences, and the thoughts they convey, often need some excitement, and creative punctuation, capitalization, bold print, large print, italics, and underlining to get the message across.

Dante · **Posted:** Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:01 pm

Cloudy wrote:

FrankC wrote:

I am a comma lover, also.

Frank, I knew there was a reason why I loved you. You might like to know that DANTE is another comma lover.

Sadly, I have gone beyond commas, and now use all sorts of punctuation where I think it looks neat. I think that sentences, and the thoughts they convey, often need some excitement, and creative punctuation, capitalization, bold print, large print, italics, and underlining to get the message across.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13- ... ew-existed

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

Dante wrote:

Cloudy wrote:

FrankC wrote:

I am a comma lover, also.

Frank, I knew there was a reason why I loved you. You might like to know that DANTE is another comma lover.

Sadly, I have gone beyond commas, and now use all sorts of punctuation where I think it looks neat. I think that sentences, and the thoughts they convey, often need some excitement, and creative punctuation, capitalization, bold print, large print, italics, and underlining to get the message across.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13- ... ew-existed

WOW...! There are more... I love it, but I have a problem. I don't think my keyboard has the ability to allow me to type these neat new punctuations out. Where can I ever find a button to hit that will give me a Hedera...?

p.s. It already pisses me off that there are no keys on my keyboard for percent, cents, degrees, and a lot of other things that I can't think of right now. (Yep, I know they aren't punctuations, but I think the keyboard should give us keys for them anyway,)

FrankC · **Posted:** Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:43 am

Cloudy yo can do it.
%, ¢, 32°; % is actually a key on my keyboard. Do a google search and you will find the codes for special characters.
¾, ½, ♪, ♫, ♥. It is easy and fun.

http://tools.oratory.com/altcodes.html

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

FrankC wrote:

Cloudy yo can do it.
%, ¢, 32°; % is actually a key on my keyboard. Do a google search and you will find the codes for special characters.
¾, ½, ♪, ♫, ♥. It is easy and fun.

http://tools.oratory.com/altcodes.html

Frank, I tried the link you gave us. Most of them were no problem, and I didn't need any fancy stuff to get them up here, because they were on my keyboard already. I tried to get one of them that my keyboard does not have, the percent symbol. It told me to get the percent symbol to hit "Alt 37", but it didn't work. I know that you must be right. What am I missing here?

Thanks for trying to help me. I am sure that my ignorance is the why I am unable to get what you told me about to work.

FrankC · **Posted:** Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:26 pm

Cloudy wrote:

FrankC wrote:

Cloudy yo can do it.
%, ¢, 32°; % is actually a key on my keyboard. Do a google search and you will find the codes for special characters.
¾, ½, ♪, ♫, ♥. It is easy and fun.

http://tools.oratory.com/altcodes.html

Frank, I tried the link you gave us. Most of them were no problem, and I didn't need any fancy stuff to get them up here, because they were on my keyboard already. I tried to get one of them that my keyboard does not have, the percent symbol. It told me to get the percent symbol to hit "Alt 37", but it didn't work. I know that you must be right. What am I missing here?

Thanks for trying to help me. I am sure that my ignorance is the why I am unable to get what you told me about to work.

Alt 37 works for me: %. NUMLOCK must be on and you need to use the numeric keypad. Also my OS is System 7.
The % should be above your number 5 key on a standard keyboard. Hope this helps. Now when I put my 2¢ in I won't have to type 2 cents or $.02 any more. Thanks Cloudy, I would have never have looked up special characters if it wasn't for you.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

Thanks Frank, I'll give it another try tomorrow. Yep, tomorrow has been the story of my life...

p.s. After some thinking, I just deleted a long post of Cloudy's tomorrows.

Cloudy · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:30 am **Posts:** 5277

Tonight at our live trivia game at Saint's in St. Matthews, we got this question:

True or false, "irregardless" is a legitimate word.

We knew that dictionaries had added "irregardless" as a word fairly recently, and so we answered "true". We got it wrong. :cry:

We challenged Bob and Marty, who run the game, and they said, "Yes, it is in the dictionary, but that does not make it a legitimate word." I need some help here, what makes a word legitimate?

Dante · **Posted:** Tue Nov 08, 2011 3:10 pm

Cloudy wrote:

Tonight at our live trivia game at Saint's in St. Matthews, we got this question:

True or false, "irregardless" is a legitimate word.

We knew that dictionaries had added "irregardless" as a word fairly recently, and so we answered "true". We got it wrong. :cry:

We challenged Bob and Marty, who run the game, and they said, "Yes, it is in the dictionary, but that does not make it a legitimate word." I need some help here, what makes a word legitimate?

There is no good answer to that question.

In general, a word is legitimate if it is used to communicate by a multitude of people. This, does not, make it a "correct" word -- but we use many "correct" words which were not legitimate words for a long time.

spotes · **Joined:** Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:27 pm **Posts:** 1558

Cloudy wrote:

Tonight at our live trivia game at Saint's in St. Matthews, we got this question:

True or false, "irregardless" is a legitimate word.

We knew that dictionaries had added "irregardless" as a word fairly recently, and so we answered "true". We got it wrong. :cry:

We challenged Bob and Marty, who run the game, and they said, "Yes, it is in the dictionary, but that does not make it a legitimate word." I need some help here, what makes a word legitimate?

SHMEKL mentioned many years ago that "irregardless" was a word invented by H.L. Mencken in order to win a bet with one of his editors or publishers or someone of that ilk.
Supposedly, his word had to be in regular usage within a certain amount of time. I believe he won that bet.
If it's good enough for Mencken, it's good enough for me.

At least you came away from that game learning something.
You learned that Bob and Marty don't know how to construct a quality live trivia game.

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