[HPFGU-OTChatter] Correct Grammar (was Open Email to Yahoo Feedback/Try Yahoo Investor Relations

Kathryn kcawte at ntlworld.com
Tue Mar 29 23:21:17 UTC 2005


 

 Dina
Heh, I believe JKR uses the 'me and Name' somewhere in the books.
Anyway, I believe there's actually somewhere online where they cite
certain qualification for 'me and Name' being correct.
 
{dig, dig, dig, finds one example}
 
http://www.geocities.com/widremann/language/pronouns.html
 

K

I actually think the guy (? or is it gal, I didn't check the author's name,
bad me!) is talking well rubbish to be honest. His/her knowledge of Latin
seems fairly sound, but I think that the bit where he/she says 'I have come
to the conclusion' that this isn't how english works is a bit worrying. This
isn't really a point most grammarians seem to think there's any controvosy
about, certainly not in my experience anyway. I could *say* that I have come
to the conclusion it is daylight outside - but I'd still be wrong.

And as for JKR's usage I believe (but feel free to prove me wrong) that she
uses it in speech and it's generally accepted that making all your
characters speak perfectly grammatical English isn't very realistic
(especially I would imagine when your characters are mainly kids) - it makes
them sound terribly stilted and unrealistic - although there are exceptions
obviously. Personally my kid characters when I write use slang and
ungrammatical English quite often, my adults are *usually* grammatical
(especially since most of them are well educated) and Snape is *always*
correct in everything he says, I have no idea if he actually is in the books
but it's the impression I get from him. I'm just looking for an excuse to
have him use the Chruchill quote "This is the kind of English, up with which
I will not put!".

And on a slightly related note does anyone know why my spell checker in word
occasionally reverts back to American instead of English (which is what I
have it set as)? I get really irritated with it when it suddenly decides to
tell me to replace my s with z (in -ise) and get rid of the u (colour etc).

K

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