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I just ordered Paul Brians' "Common Errors in English Usage" (Franklin Beedle & Assoc., 2003, ISBN: 1887902899) after reading a review of it in the Washington State University alumni magazine. Anybody read it? I ordered it because (1) I remember Paul from when I taught at Wazzu and (2) I love books about our language.
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Nope, haven't read it - look forward to hearing your judgement (as probably few others have)!
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old hand
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He has a webpage, in which he's quite mean and sarcastic about anyone who makes innocent mistakes. He was a total snob when I wrote him about the spelling of "mic" for microphone. He prefers "mike" on the argument that no other words ending in "ic" have the "ike" sound, forget the origins of the word or common usage! Ah well, in the end, the usage of the masses wins, so tough luck for him. Anyway, I don't think I like his style. Maybe he just comes across wrong in his writing. The url is: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/index.html
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Wow--what a link, Bean! I'm not even through it and already I have a bunch of stuff. First, though, I'd like to say that I personally wouldn't categorize his comments as mean; they strike me as simply announcing practicalities, no frills added. For ex., But isn't one person's mistake another's standard usage?
Often enough, but if your standard usage causes other people to consider you stupid or ignorant, you may want to consider changing it. You have the right to express yourself in any manner you please, but if you wish to communicate effectively, you should use nonstandard English only when you intend to rather than fall into it because you don't know any better. Well--he's right. You're not likely to be hired for a prestigious PR job if you say 'ain't got no'.
A "wow" moment for me: If you think a common error is missing from my list, check by searching with the "Find" command in your Web browser. A surprising number of people don't know that they can search the text of any Web page with their browsers, but it's a trick worth learning. What the eye misses, the browser may catch. I had no clue about this, so I went to my Help button, and found out this capability is found on the Edit function. And it works!
I found his comments here relevant: Americans have it all wrong, the correct usage is English (Canadian, Australian, etc.).
Read my page called "The President's English."
Lastly--what do you all think about this? The primary job of a dictionary is to track how people actually use language. I thought the primary purpose of a dictionary was to define words.
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OK, here are some opinion things from his page that are pretty judgemental (only a few because it would take all day to look at every entry):
"Occasionally computer programs encourage you to write "AM" and "PM" without a space before them, but others will misread your data if you omit the space. The ugly habit of omitting the space is spreading rapidly, and should be discouraged." [AM/PM]
"Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don't read much." [for all intensive purposes]
In particular he is inconsistent in his non-errors section, listing a bunch of things as "non-errors" or "now currently accepted usage" which don't seem very different from other changes he rails against in the other section. For example, what causes him to accept "momentarily" as a non-error, but says for "dove/dived" that "a few authorities consider "dived" preferable in formal writing". His statement on dove/dived is so vague that maybe it should be under the "non-errors" section. And the non-errors section is where I perceive most of the meanness:
"Pedants have labored to enforce..."
"Some people claim that..."
"Some people insist that..."
It IS a useful list but I have some problems with the presentation, that's all.
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Professor Kingsfield: "You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer." ~Paper Chase (1973).
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He comes across as an arch-prescriptivist who like to think that he's a descriptivist. I'm with Bean on this one.
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Re:You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer
yeah, but..
Thomas Canton (Historian), claims, that if you time travel, and drag a lawyer from 14C. england, and bring him back to the US, Canada, or any other country that has english common law (civil law, not criminal) his ability to practice would only be limited by language, not the knowledge of law.
So, in the past 500 years, most of english common law, has remained largely unchanged, even moving it thousand of miles, has had little impact, but language is a much more living thing than the law.
Language changes, new words get created, old words drop from use. We needed new words in the americas for new things that we came across, and english was enriched by hundreds of native american words. (and some, like possumn, moved from US east coast, to south america, to austrailia- for similar (and genitically related animals). and austrailian aboriginal words for things are known to me; i know what a walk about is, and a diggerydoo, or a wallaby.
and there are words, like amok, that we took (from one of the indonesian languages) because we had no single word for the concept-- but common law in US didn't incorpate american indian practices for settling disputes over land or chattle, or wills. (and 'goverments' existed in the Northeast, Northwest, and in Mexico, Mezo and South Americas--they collected taxes, had 'kings' or elected rulers, laws, courts, and penalties. None of these customs are part of common law anywhere in US (Louisina still has remants of French common law (Napolionic code), but there are no remants of any indian laws in our civil law.)
but common law didn't need to change in the american frontier, or in the penal colonies of australia, it worked just fine.
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There are, in the State of Washington, many tribal courts which hear cases arising on reservation lands. I am privileged to be part of the same state judges organization as are many of the fine judges who sit in these tribal courts. Few, if any, of them are legally trained, in the Western sense of going to law school. The principles and practices they employ are a remarkable mixture of tribal law and English Common Law.
Now that forward-thinking courts in the non-Indian systems are investigating concepts like restorative justice, judges and lawyers are turning more and more to Native American judges to show them how it works ... 'cause they've been practicing it for a long while.
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...A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Themby Bill Walsh, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0809225352 ~~~~ I like this guy a lot. He's chief business/economy copy editor for the Washington Post, and while he describes himself as a curmudgeon, he's really just practical. And he's funny, as well. I always go to him when Strunk and White, bless their hearts, don't serve. Couple of quotes: "A finely tuned ear is at least as important as formal grammar, and that's not something you can acquire by memorizing a stylebook." "Remember--Roommate: Two m's, unless you ate a room or mated with a roo." All seriousness aside, the book is well organized and extremely useful. Here's the amazon.com link: http://makeashorterlink.com/?T29253FC5
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I've had a small change of heart about his page, and am including it in my list of links. The catalyst was discovering that, according to one Web bio., Anthony Blunt "was a discrete homosexual." Having spent the last twenty years of my life assuming that he was a conjoined heterosexual, the revelation came as quite a surprise, and nearly caused me to loose nmy sense of perspective. Since both these issues are discussed in Brian's list of errors, the closet prescriptivist in me has won this round.
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addict
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When I started shopping on E**y I was flabbergasted to see how many people were genuinely unaware of the difference between loose and lose. It just seems obvious to me. I find it really difficult to get my head round people making spelling mistakes that aren't due to typos or dyslexia, especially those that make the same mistake again and again, having been corrected. Clearly, I am in the freakish minority. I think the thing that I find most weird about it is that they can't see that they have made a mistake, which I always can, even if I don't know the right spelling. I have no real point here, just chuntering.
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From my web experience, the word "definitely" has been abused so often ("definately")that I expect some authority on high eventually will declare the "...ately" ending a legitimate alternative spelling.
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journeyman
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Well, then, the authority on high will have to recognize "here" for "hear" (or else vice-versa)and "there" for "their" and "your" for "you're"...and a whole bunch of others.
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
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I am French but was educated in English. There are some words in French that mean the same thing in English but have a very minor spelling difference, i.e négociation/negotiation.
Though my French is excellent, I realize that I have trouble with that word so I have to pause and spell the word as I type. If my French wasn’t as good, I wouldn’t notice the error.
For people whose first language is not English, the difference between lose and loose is not apparent. Are you sure these EBay loose/lose people are English?
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>For people whose first language is not English, the difference between lose and loose is not apparent. Are you sure these EBay loose/lose people are English?
BelM, the us of "loose" for "lose" is endemic in cyberspace, and is most common among native English speakers. I have seen it on government websites, in NZ specific newsgroups, and in glossy, professionally-produced spam from reputable software companies.
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enthusiast
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Howye fokes
I meself thinks that that Paul Brains fella is a fierce pendant alltagather - a proper milstone round me wordy little neck.
Be seein ya
GT
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I loved the image of a fierce pendant, teddy bear!
So what's the judgement, Father Steve - is it five to ten, or gimme the body?
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five to ten, or gimme the body
I have absolutely no idea what this means.
But, I have now read Brians' book and I think it is rather good. Of course, I am deeply fond of fierce pedants.
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>I have absolutely no idea what this means. thank you for that, FS. I've been harboring this feeling that we should respond often in this way to maverick. 
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veteran
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You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.
I've sometimes wondered whether the first part was a prerequisite for the second part.
k
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five to ten, or gimme the body
Something to do with sentencing (not in the grammatical sense, of course, you'd never catch *me verbifying a noun)?
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I've sometimes wondered whether the first part was a prerequisite for the second part.
"I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character."
--Woodrow Wilson
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five to ten, or gimme the body
I have absolutely no idea what this means.
oh, sure, let Ron~"I know seven thousand words that hardly exist outside of my website"~Obvious stomp all over me too, Judge! ;)
Well, as mah delightful friend said it was all to do with sentencing, asking (evidentally too) elliptically whether you were going to release the prisoner on a writ of Habeas Corpus or lock him up for a 5 to 10 stretch for contempt of court. I'm glad you find him not guilty - it suggests the book may be worthy of our grey cells. Pedantry should be no bar.
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I am abject in my ignorance but ebullient at being edified. [No stomping intended.]
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New acronym! New acronym! "a-b-e" -- I like that, Father Steve!
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"a-b-e"1. "at being edified" 2. "abject but ebullient" I'm guessing 2? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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the use of "loose" for "lose" is endemic in cyberspace, and is most common among native English speakers.
And so easy to distinguish if one simply remembers the rhyming mnemonic.
"The moose is loose."
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> "The moose is loose."
Just be glad the cat's not upset...
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Just be glad the cat's not upset...
Why? Let me see...
The cat is...flat?
The lion is...flyin'?
The leopard is...peppered?
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enthusiast
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Howye fokes
Re the moose is loose
Fer them of ye what have lost yer wordiness, have this knemonick on me: the muse is lose.
Jackie, how bout - the ted is well red.
Be seein ya
GT
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the ted is well red
Well, after a day in the Aran sun, you were.
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