grammar

[Nanohedron]

[Doug_Tipple]

pronounced,

I took some pain pills like this (oxycodone) for three days this last week, but the scary humanoids in my dreams truly made me dread going to sleep. I know that they were not literally real, but in dreamspace reality has a different meaning.

[Dale]

Rather than, "Hopefully, this thread will go to 3 pages," doesn't it work just to say "I hope this thread will go to 3 pages"? It has been said that "It is hoped that.." is in the passive voice and, therefore, unforgivable.

[trill]

1. Start with a simple statement: We quit because nobody knew how to program the computer.

2. Put it in the passive voice, to dilute the responsibility: It was decided to quit.

3. Expand with terminology that does not add meaning: It was decided to terminate.

for the rest (up to rule 10!), see: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/Badly.html

(came across this list ~25 years ago! I literally laughed hysterically !)

[MTGuru]

doesn't it work just to say "I hope this thread will go to 3 pages"?

One would hope so, wouldn't one?

[trill]

One wonders whether the rules of grammar and style came before or were afterward influenced by Jane Austen.

"I see the similarity" is a statement made by me, about me and my vision.

"one sees a similarity" avoids the individual specificity and at least leaves open the possibility of the the sentiment being generally held or generally accepted by a group. Could be polite. Could be slippery. Could be both.

[Nanohedron]

1. Start with a simple statement: We quit because nobody knew how to program the computer.

2. Put it in the passive voice, to dilute the responsibility: It was decided to quit.

3. Expand with terminology that does not add meaning: It was decided to terminate.

for the rest (up to rule 10!), see: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/Badly.html

(came across this list ~25 years ago! I literally laughed hysterically !)

It's funny, but it also kind of forces the point into the burlesque with the very first example. Our language seems to have ways around everything. In order to render passive voice with acceptable grace and communicate the above scenario fully enough, you might go about it like this: Because the computer couldn't be programmed by anyone present, we were forced to quit.

Honestly, I was unaware of the general stylistic rule of thumb proscribing passive voice. My sins must be enormous.

[Peewit]

I try not to let all this stuff bug me... I was accused publicly on Facebook of being a Grammar Nazi. I prefer the term Grammar Geek. I don't go around correcting people, unless they are in English class and I'm their teacher. That was a fun couple of years

I like the suggestion in this article that we use the energy to learn another language. My French is pretty good. I took a course in introductory Japanese - fun but difficult - and I would like to learn Irish.

[maki]

Yall be not knowin'.

[kokopelli]

Yall be not knowin'.

I find this sentence to be quite interesting. The choice of words is specifically meant to show a lack of proper grammar but you included the apostrophe on knowin'. Yet despite that small accolade to somewhat proper grammar you left out the apostrophe in y'all. Hopefully my head will not literally burst into smoldering pieces as I contemplate that.
(I have never been as conscious of my grammar as I was whilst writing that short paragraph, and even with that I probably messed it up somewhere)

[maki]

Yall be not knowin'.

I find this sentence to be quite interesting. The choice of words is specifically meant to show a lack of proper grammar but you included the apostrophe on knowin'. Yet despite that small accolade to somewhat proper grammar you left out the apostrophe in y'all. Hopefully my head will not literally burst into smoldering pieces as I contemplate that.
(I have never been as conscious of my grammar as I was whilst writing that short paragraph, and even with that I probably messed it up somewhere)

My bad.

[MTGuru]

My bad.

Actually, not your bad at all. Unlike Simon's nuanced distinction above, the details of the writing system are definitely not grammar. That is, the organizing rules of a language are independent of its graphemic representation, though there may be mappings between the two. Writing systems (orthographies) do have rules, of course, but those are not grammar rules. A common confusion.

[s1m0n]

Them's ain't scare quotes; I was quoting.

[s1m0n]

1. Start with a simple statement: We quit because nobody knew how to program the computer.

That's a complex statement with multiple clauses and hypotaxis.

[emmline]

Honestly, I was unaware of the general stylistic rule of thumb proscribing passive voice. My sins must be enormous.

You didn't have Miss Cook for 12th grade AP English. That's all. Had you gotten every essay returned with notations such as "PV" all over it in red, you'd have a visceral response to passive voice that would last the rest of your life.