English Language Pet Peeves

J

JonesNikka

It annoys me to no end when I read posts using the words lead and follow to refer to leaders and followers.
I know it is part of the general laissez-faire trend in web forums of trying to save keystrokes, but it is really bad grammar, it looks wrong in the text and makes it more difficult for us whose mother tongue is not english to learn properly. Confusing!
I mean two more keystrokes... how lazy can people get!
 
Jones said:
It annoys me to no end when I read posts using the words lead and follow to refer to leaders and followers.
I know it is part of the general laissez-faire trend in web forums of trying to save keystrokes, but it is really bad grammar, it looks wrong in the text and makes it more difficult for us whose mother tongue is not english to learn properly. Confusing!
I mean two more keystrokes... how lazy can people get!
Click to expand...

It's English. Upper case E ;)
 
Jones said:
It annoys me to no end when I read posts using the words lead and follow to refer to leaders and followers.
I know it is part of the general laissez-faire trend in web forums of trying to save keystrokes, but it is really bad grammar, it looks wrong in the text and makes it more difficult for us whose mother tongue is not english to learn properly. Confusing!
I mean two more keystrokes... how lazy can people get!
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out, I thought it was kind of correct since I've seen lead/follow so often. But what about "hi" for high and "nite" for night. Or people confusing then/than or its/it's. It happens a lot, so the answer is that people can get very very lazy.
 
quixotedlm said:
Jones said:
It annoys me to no end when I read posts using the words lead and follow to refer to leaders and followers.
I know it is part of the general laissez-faire trend in web forums of trying to save keystrokes, but it is really bad grammar, it looks wrong in the text and makes it more difficult for us whose mother tongue is not english to learn properly. Confusing!
I mean two more keystrokes... how lazy can people get!
Click to expand...

It's English. Upper case E ;)
Click to expand...

:lol: :lol:
 
Ron Obvious said:
Jones said:
It annoys me to no end when I read posts using the words lead and follow to refer to leaders and followers.
I know it is part of the general laissez-faire trend in web forums of trying to save keystrokes, but it is really bad grammar, it looks wrong in the text and makes it more difficult for us whose mother tongue is not english to learn properly. Confusing!
I mean two more keystrokes... how lazy can people get!
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out, I thought it was kind of correct since I've seen lead/follow so often.
Click to expand...

It's not incorrect. It just has a slightly different connotation.

'Lead' and 'follow' do refer to the action itself, but if someone has a nice lead, by extension he can be referred to as 'a good lead.' It's a frequently used literary device known as metonymy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

I am sorry if it is confusing to non-native speakers - English is a complex and confusing language - but it is not poor grammar and it does not look wrong (at least not to my eyes, and I am a native speaker as well as a bit of a grammar nazi).
 
noobster said:
It's not incorrect. It just has a slightly different connotation.

'Lead' and 'follow' do refer to the action itself, but if someone has a nice lead, by extension he can be referred to as 'a good lead.' It's a frequently used literary device known as metonymy.
Click to expand...

Ok, but what about those other examples: lite for light, lo for low etc... are they also metonomies?

noobster said:
... as well as a bit of a grammar nazi).
Click to expand...

Well, I never would have guessed that (takes one to know one).
 
Ron Obvious said:
noobster said:
It's not incorrect. It just has a slightly different connotation.

'Lead' and 'follow' do refer to the action itself, but if someone has a nice lead, by extension he can be referred to as 'a good lead.' It's a frequently used literary device known as metonymy.
Click to expand...

Ok, but what about those other examples: lite for light, lo for low etc... are they also metonomies?

noobster said:
... as well as a bit of a grammar nazi).
Click to expand...

Well, I never would have guessed that (takes one to know one).
Click to expand...

I thought "lite" and "hi" were just American spelling variations?
Agree with noobster about lead and follow though. Doesn't sound at all wrong to me.

I had to learn English grammar when I learnt German. I can still remember the silence in the class followed by random guessing when our teacher said "name some irregular English verbs". You'd think people would know their own language at 16 :shock:
 
I'm not a native English speaker. I've been learning English all my life though...

to me, the use of 'lead' and 'follow' is intuitively correct grammar. I didn't know the idea of metonymy before, but it never occured to me that the grammar was bad there. If I'd had to bet money on it, I'd have bet that it was grammatically correct.
 
I don't feel of it being wrong as well. The rest of the sentence just makes clear what is meant and when I feel it doesn't then I would use leader/follower.
On the other hand, the words I notice that are misused mostly are : there, they're, their.
 
Ron Obvious said:
noobster said:
It's not incorrect. It just has a slightly different connotation.

'Lead' and 'follow' do refer to the action itself, but if someone has a nice lead, by extension he can be referred to as 'a good lead.' It's a frequently used literary device known as metonymy.
Click to expand...

Ok, but what about those other examples: lite for light, lo for low etc... are they also metonomies?
Click to expand...
No, of course not. Those are intentional misspellings.
Metonymy doesn't involve misspellings. It just involves the use of a representative symbol to stand for the whole. Read the Wiki link.

noobster said:
... as well as a bit of a grammar nazi).
Click to expand...
Well, I never would have guessed that (takes one to know one).
Click to expand...
I avoid correcting people on public fora because I find it petty; but I'm quite tuned into usage errors. I'm more clever than I look, sugar. :P Keep an eye on my posts. ;)
 
Bat if won is mirly beeing troo two they're locul dialekt, then iz it reelly rong? I mean - who decides? Sum stuffd shert sitting in Hoxfud or Caimbrij?

Three those north eest Engilish tipes, the fraise "Wi ei man" actually meens something (apparently). Hoo our wee too tell 'em there mistaken?

Hoo is Shugger and wai our the nazi's afer hymn? :roll:
 
Ey up.
Just noticed my number of posts is three sixes :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: which bodeth not well unless I be thus marked, in which case it bodeth worse for the rest of you. Here's another to push me over the boundary...
 
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