grammar

We don't use it much here, but it's become quite prevalent in other social media discussion formats, and it just occurred to me how it meets many reasonable definitions of a pronoun. What I'm talking about is "OP." Literally standing for "original poster" and meaning "the person who started the...

I've noticed this usage a lot lately. Usually used in the context of "a woman politician", "a woman athlete", etc, or as below in the picture. It just sounds really odd to me. The dictionary entries I checked still list it solely as a noun. Is "female" as an adjective now considered gauche...

I know it's bad form to complain to much about punctuation, spelling etc. on an Internet message board, but it seems to me there has been a drop-off lately on some pretty basic conventions on ISF. There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying. Some of it is...

The sad event outside the White House the other day provoked a question from an aquaintance on seeing a headline which began "Man shoots himself..." He argues it ought to be "Man shot himself". I said either were perfectly correct, though unable to explain the difference in tenses, and my...

So what is the general consensus in 2016. Assume you are writing not just on an internet forum, but something for a client or for your company and it needs to be professional. I am currently editing a document and the term "user" comes up a lot, and I don't like "he or she", "himself or...

Take the phrase " roses grew on each side of the path". Should that be "roses grew on either side of the path"? I've always written it the as "each" but I hear more people saying "either"

Hi grammarians, grammar nazis and plain old pedants. :D So I came across this usage in a Gizmodo article about high-speed trains, and it just rubbed me the wrong way. Am I right? Here's the sentence: Why not just plain 'serve'? Why use 'service' as a verb here? I mean, I understand that one...

This is probably a really easy question to answer, but I have almost no 'formal' knowledge of English and when I looked online I couldn't find a good answer. Do all verbs in English have opposites? There seem to be plenty of 'obvious' pairs, but do they even count as opposites? Is this only for...

A brief back-and-forth between my sister-in-law and myself on Facebook, I wrote this sentence (in support of gay and transgender rights.) "whenever I see someone make a comment about gays marrying, or transgenders using the "wrong" bathroom" She then got snippy, and stated that "it's...

Its been a long time since I studied Grammar but I'm sure there are people here who will know if I am right or not. I keep hearing what sounds like an overuse of the 2d person and I expression. For example one of the guys on Dual Survival must say the "Cody and I" dozens of time each show and...

I see a tendency for miswriting the possessive form of the neuter pronoun "it", even among native, otherwise quite capable English writers. How annoyed are you English speaking types over it's's abundance?

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/english-has-a-new-preposition-because-internet/281601/ So do you like this trend in language evolution? I do.

Chomsky has long advocated that language is innate with a core universal structure. At the root of this structure is the concept of recursion: that sentences can be made longer and longer with the addition of concepts joined with specialized words sort of like what I am doing with this sentence...

I recently learned something interesting about the grammatical history of the English language: "You" used to be plural (it still is grammatically plural: we say "you are" not "you is"). The singular form of "you" was "ye" or "thou." But nowadays nobody uses "ye" or "thou" anymore, and "you" is...

The misuse of the words whom and whomever is becoming more commonplace, and more frustrating to an officer of the Grammar Gestapo such as myself. Here is my pitiful attempt to forestall the inevitable crumbling of the fabric of society which will ensue if the abuse is allowed to continue. :D...

Some of this topic has been covered elsewhere, so forgive me if I’m repetitive, but I feel the need to explain my love for grammar. If my fellow moderators want to merge this anywhere, please feel free. It’s not that I find grammar useful, although I do, but that I actually love the subject...

This is probably a stupid gripe, but is the use of "data" as a singular (e.g. "the data is incorrect") incorrect? Somewhere I was told that it is always "the data are incorrect", but this doesn't always work, esp. when dealing with data on computers. Is it _always_ "the data are" and "the...

How often do you hear the word 'only' mis-placed in a sentence? It should always be placed near the word it refers to. If only people would learn how to place it properly. :cool: BillyJoe (edited to correct grammar :D )

:D I don't mind factual errors which he corrects when they are pointed out to him. But GRAMMATICAL ERRORS! Now, that is beyond the pale... Argentina is now located in Galway? That tiny white spot is male? NOW WE REALLY DO HAVE REASON TO COMPLAIN! :D BillyJoe

I guess this qualifies as "language history"..... Why do we write "its" instead of "it's"?

Over the years I have been annoyed on a few occasions while reading. My problem is that, while capitalization (and spacing, of course) is used to indicate the beginning of a sentence, I find that I sometimes still get confused as to when a declarative sentence actually ends. The decimal point I...

"Everyone has lost their sanity." This is bad English. "Everyone" is singular. It means "every person". That it is singular is evident from the meaning of "every" and "one", and also from the use of "has" instead of "have". "Their" therefore has no place here. What should have been said...