I bet Neil can add a lot to that list - which is pretty darn good imo.
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HAHAHA - I'd be stretching it to say I can't.
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My experience as an English tutor taught me something in the "hard knocks" school, namely, that there is a growing contingent of foreigners who actually have an abiding
contempt for proper English, and even if they have the requisite intelligence to learn proper grammar (syntax, spelling, punctuation, semantics, whatever) they have no
desire to improve their language use. I had students who stared me in the face and repeated their erroneous habits with utter defiance.
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The list is all good. My only regret is it doesn't offer enough
examples to make the point clear. Someone who is prone to making these mistakes AND has a modicuм of inclination toward improvement could use a few "e.g.'s" to drive the point home.
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13. Piece of mind
If you want to share what you're thinking with someone, this could work if you add "my" before "mind." But if you're trying to indicate tranquility, then spell it "peace."
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For example, the author is giving the reader in this list "a piece of his mind" and providing for readers who already know these proper usages "peace of mind." Saying, "...then spell it 'peace'," doesn't make the point as clear as it could with one practical application.
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Most of the errors are amusing! Here are several more I've encountered.
From the days when I was still on Facebook;
"...your husband 'puts you up on a pedi-stool.'"
"..it's a 'foreground conclusion'..."
"He sent me on a 'wild Jєωs chase'..."
A few more common mistakes;
mixing up "then" and "than" "whose" and "who's" "your" and "you're" "there" and "they're" and "their"
Misplaced modifiers:--
From a Church Bulletin, circa 2009
"The villagers watch as Fr. Thomas attempts to mount an elephant in his cassock."
Ignorance of subject matter:-
From a major city newspaper article about the arrival of Spring; caption beneath a photo,
"A dairy cow looks longingly from his stall at the lush meadow."
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I had to look twice for these. I've never seen an elephant wearing a cassock, but if I were Fr. Thomas, I wouldn't want any elephant to be wearing MY cassock!! And a dairy cow in "his stall" must be a transɛҳuąƖ bovine. No discrimination there!!
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A foreground conclusion? Really? A pedi-stool? Cute. A wild Jєωs chase? This is getting interesting.
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BTW it ought to be "a wild Jєω's chase," or "a wild Jєωs' chase," depending on how many Jєωs are involved. ;D
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To be fair, I ought to explain that the proper phrase is "a wild goose chase," since I recently had the experience of having to explain to a foreign exchange student with little experience in American culture that "conspiracy theory" draws down a whole world of implication. The student had never heard the term.
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These errors go way back. I can recall 50 years ago when I heard
grammar school teachers (yes, multiple teachers) telling the class, that so-and-so
"could - care - less." (Emphasis and separation between the words, as if they really
mean what they're saying.) This was especially tragic since it is the duty and purpose of such instructors to lead their students into proper diction and education. Any teacher who merely re-enforces such bad habits is doing nothing for the students and their edification for which he is responsible.
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Some members here have flattered me with their posts...
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Neil hasn't found this thread yet? Really?
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Gosh. I'm embarrassed! :-[
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But seriously, we should keep our chin up, and gently encourage proper English whenever possible.
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Unfortunately, when we let mistakes accrue and say nothing about them, we end up encouraging them in the future. The long time CI members might recall when I first started posting I was much more critical of poor grammar and such, but I quickly found that some CI members who are prone to these errors are a lot like my students who really had no respect for how they OUGHT to be sounding. So when someone doesn't WANT to learn, it's a waste of your time to try to change their outlook by persistently correcting them. They don't want to hear it. And our current (non-)education system has devolved into a system of re-affirmation of bad habits.
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Not to go off-topic, but "Common Core" and such like agendas are devoted not to raising the level of education in the students, but rather to form them into cookie-cutter socialist robots who act according to their irrational feelings, instead of a well-formed intellect and conscience. They are deliberately causing the next generation of Americans to be dedicated left-wing practitioners of liberalism (which is a sin), who think that the only sin there is, is to be environmentally insensitive or to fail to put the so-called rights of animals ahead of any human endeavor. And they use "inventive spelling" and improper grammar as a means of luring innocent children into their ideology when they feel good about having their bad grammar acceptable and even celebrated.
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