Below are the most recent 11 friends' journal entries.

Monday, December 21st, 2009
grammarpolice [ scotrid ]	8:09p	Bad Example I don't mean to bring up politics here, I just wanted to point out a common error, and this quote from an editorial presented a perfect opportunity: "There are lots of reasons to oppose the Senate bill in its current form, and hope that, if the Senate does pass a bill, that the final form of the bill is closer to the House version..." (emphasis added) I hear this a lot, but I see it in writing pretty rarely. You only need to say "that" once. It covers the whole if-then part of the sentence. In fact, the protasis ("if the Senate does pass a bill") is sort of parenthetical, and so could be dropped. Then the error is more obvious: "There are lots of reasons to oppose the Senate bill in its current form, and hope that that the final form of the bill is closer to the House version..." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
grammarpolice [ astrovisionary ]	10:26a	do we 'ring' or 'bring' in the new year? So we all know we can "ring in the new year", but today I came across an article that says someone will "bring in the new year". Is this grammatically correct? I wouldn't have thought so, but a quick search pulled up quite a few uses of "bring". (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
grammarpolice [ artificialrobot ]	1:19p	Myriad? I'm moving and already packed up all of my style and usage guides, so I figured I would turn here for the answer. I saw the word "myriad" used in a gaming magazine today, and the sentence grated the hell out of me because I couldn't get past that word. Which of these choices would you folks use? a) The inventor has been hard at work creating myriad crazy gadgets for use. b) The inventor has been hard at work creating a myriad of crazy gadgets for use. Choice "a" is what the magazine (GameInformer) went with. Why does that sound wrong to me? If "a" is right, please share why. :) Thanks everyone! * EDIT * Thank you all for your insight! I appreciate it! (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
grammarpolice [ str8_edge_4ever ]	1:14p	Christmas Grammar A few weeks ago, my mother was at my house and saw one of my textbooks and marveled at its existence. Therefore, I am giving it to her for Christmas. A Student's Introduction to English Grammar I just thought I would contribute to the heartwarming side of this community, as opposed to the "how does this person even know how to put on pants?!" side. Also, I just finished my fall semester. My Grammar & Syntax final was my last. I don't think I did very well, but that was mostly because I forgot the names of types of clauses and I still don't understand what a complement is, not because I don't know where things go in a sentence. I love my sentence trees. :-) Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
grammarpolice [ mokitta ]	10:59a	Not a grammar dilemma for once.... That's right, my fellow Grammarians! I'd like to share with you something else rather than a grammar dilemma, for once. For those of you who don't remember my introductory post (don't worry, I won't take it personally), I can say I joined this community to improve my grammar knowledge in an amusing way, prior attending a four weeks TESOL course (Teaching English to Students of Other Languages).   Well my friends, that time has been and gone and yesterday I had in fact my last exam and I am proud to announce I am now a qualified TESOL teacher.   I know I still make a lot of mistakes, but I'm not a native English speaker and that's why this qualification is so important to me. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you: you have helped me in achieving this more than you'll ever know.   p.s: It looks like I might have good chances of being employed by a school in Russia!!! See how it goes, I'll keep you posted.     (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
grammarpolice [ freetraveller15 ]	1:45p	singular or plural verb? Hi there. I'm not English mother tongue, and I wonder which of these two sentences is correct. 1) This morning there was two feet of snow on the ground 2) This morning there were two feet of snow on the ground I would have thought, grammatically speaking, no. 2) to be correct, but I have come across no. 1) very frequently too. Thank you :) (34 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
grammarpolice [ seiferre ]	1:42p	Oh my, a Newbie. o.o Hey guys. I'm new here (And new to Live Journal at that), and I've just been fooling around with the search engine. I happened to find this and it looked fun, so, here I am. :3 I'm only nineteen, but at least I don't use Text Talk. I like a whole lot of music (If you have any favorite artists or songs, PLEASE let me know. I'd love to look them up) and I'm into a lot of video games, books, etc. Oh, and I'm obsessed with my roleplay. >3 Current Mood: curious (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 11th, 2009
grammarpolice [ scotrid ]	6:16p	Apostrophes How can people not know where to put apostrophes? Twice in as many days, I've seen ain't written with the apostrophe at the end, instead of where the o from not would be. I realize both could be typos, but to see one right after the other makes me worry. Lil' is another one that I see a lot (the apostrophe should go where the t's were, not where the already silent e was, because that's as dumb as Punk'd). And I've even seen a mention of the year 87'. (Apparently this is short for the year 8719, whereas '87 is short for 1987.) Also, there was a website where someone kept using ya' as a slurring of you. I could never figure out what he thought the apostrophe replaced. (25 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
grammarpolice [ ms_cucumber ]	2:56p	There's a line on Barnes & Noble's Nook site that says: "Loan e-books to friends, free of charge." M-w.com offers this usage note on "loan": The verb loan is one of the words English settlers brought to America and continued to use after it had died out in Britain. Its use was soon noticed by British visitors and somewhat later by the New England literati, who considered it a bit provincial. It was flatly declared wrong in 1870 by a popular commentator, who based his objection on etymology. A later scholar showed that the commentator was ignorant of Old English and thus unsound in his objection, but by then it was too late, as the condemnation had been picked up by many other commentators. Although a surprising number of critics still voice objections, loan is entirely standard as a verb. You should note that it is used only literally; lend is the verb used for figurative expressions, such as "lending a hand" or "lending enchantment." I think I'm one of those critics. To me, using "loan" as a verb sounds uneducated. (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
grammarpolice [ hechicera ]	7:11p	What do you call this? What's the name for the common error exemplified here: Running down the street, his breath came in short pants. Without knowing why, her eyes scanned the table. Lying on the bed, the doctor took the patient's pulse. (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
grammarpolice [ cartographique ]	11:04p	All of the radios were broken; none has been repaired. Is this correct? My instincts tell me that it should read none have been repaired, but I could be wrong. Edit for context: This showed up, ironically enough, on a post-test on MH's Connect Composition test. Yep, a grammar-test website with a grammar error. Hoo rah. Edit again: It doesn't surprise me to find out that "none" is a contraction of "no one", but it is something I didn't know! Thanks to everyone who commented to fill me in &hearts (20 Comments |Comment on this)