GC's Grammar Class 101
 

Fellow GCers:

I consider myself to be a great writer, but there are times when I get stuck with words and need help. Everyone has a problem area when it relates to grammar. So let's discuss it and learn from each other.

Here are my issues. When do you use:

Effect/affect

whose/whom/who

I also have problems with prepositions, but I can't think of an example right now.

Soror MzDiscreet, I know you can help me out with some of this stuff.

How to use effect versus affect even has a little test


From Spelling and Grammar Rules You Should Know


WHO'S/WHOSEThis is one of those cases where it is important to remember that possessive pronouns never take apostrophes, even though possessive nouns do (see it's/its). "Who's" always and forever means only "who is," as in "Who's that guy with the droopy mustache?" or " who has," as in "Who's been eating my porridge?" "Whose" is the possessive form of "who" and is used as follows: "Whose dirty socks are these on the breakfast table?"

Who/Whom Usage

I found the who/whom very helpful just now as I read over the rule.

Awww, man, I had a great message typed out with examples and everything, but I got beat to it. :(

That was timely and helpful Soror CT4. The who/whom really makes sense to me now Thanks.

I'll continue to post because I have a lot of areas of weakness.

I'll be happy to help in any way I can http://smilies.vidahost.com/otn/wink/thumb.gif

Seen vs. saw?

Saw is past tense and seen is past participle I think. I may be messing up the terminology, but seen is used with helping verbs like 'have': I saw vs. I have seen.

I wish some folks would stop throwing an apostrophe in front of every 's' that falls at the end of a word.



And some folks need a constant refresher pertaining to the difference between its and it's. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!!!

I hate it when people confuse "your" and "you're". I even corrected my daughter's hand-made Mother's Day Card for this!!!

She wrote: YOUR the best mother

I said: NO, it should read YOU'RE the best mother. You're is the contraction of

YOU ARE

Double negatives are SO unattractive. :mad: And stop saying 'the' before stuff that shouldn't have a 'the.' Your dog does NOT have "the mange" he just has mange. And your son doesn't like to go outside and play "the basketball." :rolleyes:

While I hope the poor baby's feelings weren't hurt after all her hard work, every moment is a teachable moment.

Grown, college educated folks still make that mistake....

thanks for who/whom rule. that's the first time it's been explained in a simple manner. i find i have an issue with spelling using the "i" "e" before "c" rule. example: their, friend, etc. how do you know?

"I" before "E" except after "C" and when sounding as "A" as in "neighbor" and "weigh." :D :cool:

And when that doesn't work and you stare at it for five minutes trying to decide, click the spell check button ;)

Yeah, that was implied. ;)

I'm queen of staring at a word so long that I'm no longer sure it's even real :D

No, she wasn't hurt. She's on her way to middle school and I don't want her to eventually be one of those grown folks still making that mistake. ;)

I am so glad I have company when it comes to grammer and usage.

When is it appropriate to use a semi-colon ";"?

Two sources that I use and suggest:

The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., and E.B. White


...now, where is my DVD?!? :D

Semi-colons can be used to connect two independent clauses; they should not be used with conjunctions (and, but, yet), but they can be used with transitional language (however, conversely, etc.)

EX: She wanted to join XYZ; however, her friend wanted to join BCD.

Quick hijack.

In my freshman year English course, we had to edit a classmate’s paper. This girl leaned over and asked me why there was a period over a comma. At first I didn’t get what she was asking me, once it hit me I just about died. How do you get to college without knowing that it is not a period over a comma, it’s a semicolon!!! I tried to explain it to her but she just didn’t get it. *sigh*

^^^a girl in my class would always edit my work and on almost every piece, she wrote "I question your use of semicolons." Not to be snotty, but I got an A in Advanced Grammar and you got a kick in the head, so let's question someone else's semicolons, shall we. :cool:

Thank you. For example, GLO's is not the plural of GLO.

My pet grammatical peeve is the misuse of "myself" in place of "I" or "me," as in "Redefined Diva, Drolefille and myself will be conducting grammar reviews." And lately, my wife and I have observed a distressing increase the use of "I" in place of "me": "BlueReign appropriately corrected christiangirl and I."

:rolleyes:

I just thought, "Corrected us doing what?" But I get it now. :o

It's not exactly an error, but I can't stand leaving "I" in lower case on the net. I might if I'm typing in a hurry, but normally I can't do that. It just doesn't look right.

I am taking a class via my employer about business grammar right now. We are using The Gregg Reference Manual . I am actually enjoying it. :) And I write very well (not good).

re: the use of " 's" to pluralize words. (b/c that irks the HELL out of me)
Our book actually has examples when this is ok, usually for clarity's sake.

EX: (p. 182)
dotting the i's
four c.o.d's
sending out three bcc's

But NOT "the Zeta's, Sigma's and AKA's are all probating tomorrow".

Great thread!!! I also consider myself a good writer, but the above has always been a problem for me. Thanks CT4 for the references. :)

The difference between endots and semicolons. I use both frequently and hope I'm using them properly.

Tony B. stop putting me on blast all of the time! I luvs ya though. :D

This reminds me of my father who re-discovered semicolons in his later adult life. My mother called me ready to cut him because she was typing some papers for him and the only punctuation he used was the semicolon! LOL! He also learned the word moot and used it anytime he could, appropriate or not. Ex: There's no seasoning on this. This chicken is moot! LMAO!!

See, now you gon make me send you a grammatically incorrect e-mail. :D

HIJACK!

I swear I didn't understand that rule until watching a Charlie Brown movie where Charlie Brown was in a spelling bee, and he replayed a little ditty where he repeated, "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'."

/HIJACK

I like this thread! :D Thanks for the who/whom link.

omg i hope we werent in the same class cause that is one of my grammar pet peeves. i would write that on classmates' papers all the time.

if you're not sure whether a semicolon should be used. dont use it. i mean unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure, just look at it!

;

the damn symbol is giving you a choice: end the sentence (.) or keep going (,). but if youre that fly, do the damn thang and ( ; ) that sentence like its ya birfday!

Quotations!
 

Quotations go outside of the punctuation!

Example:

Del said, "I can't believe it's not butter."

"I love to look outside," replied Del.

I know there are exceptions with question marks and exclamation points. Can someone jump in there.

Another Rule That is Often Broken:

Insure/Ensure

Insure is used to reference money.

Example: It is expensive to insure a car.

Ensure is used to secure or gurantee without referencing to money.

Example: Exercising ensures a healthy body.

This isn't a grammatical error per se, but it's one I see often on GC and every time I do it makes my toes curl:

Discreet: careful and circumspect in one's speech or actions, especially in order to avoid causing offense or to gain an advantage

Discrete: individually separate and distinct

LOL!! This had me CTFU!!

Great tool. But make sure you have the latest edition of any style book, because some of the rules we grew up with no longer apply.

For example it is now okay to start a sentence with But, And, and Because.

Ensure, insure, and assure can now be used interchangeably.

Use commas sparingly and mainly for clarity--more is not better.

The double dash, which is turned into a long dash by Word, seems to be replacing semi-colons.

The rule for using which v. that is overshadowed by the fact that if you use which, put a comma in front of it.

Business writing has become less formal, but the rules are still very much different than creative writing. Being a good writer is subjective to the type of writing you are doing. A good creative writer is not necessarily a good business writer and vice versa.

Gregg is a good manual for business writing.

can someone give me the lowdown on using parentheses inside of parentheses? i feel like it shouldnt be done... but sometimes you have a lot to say that needs to be stated and its not necessarily worth a footnote.

That's a good one.

Ladygreek, ensure/insure/assure can be used interchangeably? Amazing. I just took a class not too long ago and that's what I learned. Rules change so much. Thanks for the info.

You might use a dash instead, to set off information inside of the parentheses. You're right, too many sets of parentheses looks cluttered. Also, sometimes with that parenthetical information, which is often meant to clarify or further specify about non-parenthetical information, you might not need to say as much as you think (you might feel like you do, but it may be that what you are writing goes without saying), or it really might work better as a footnote. If it is really important, then you wouldn't want to put it in parentheses anyway.

Not to say that what you learned isn't correct, but per the U of MN style book the distinction really doesn't matter anymore, because they all end up implying the same thing--making sure something happens.