The Guardian's grammar test

akr said:
:) I was tempted to continue but it's late and I want the mootists to be able to sleep tonight :)
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Tempted. I bet you were :LOL:
 
or lens's
 
or 'raised to the ground' as ive frequently read in the granuiad

a) its 'razed' and
b) razed to the ground is redundancy - it's not practical to raze something in any otherway than to the ground.
 
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big soft moose said:
or 'raised to the ground' as ive frequently read in the granuiad

a) its 'razed' and
b) razed to the ground is redundancy - its not practical to raze something in any otherway than to the ground.
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Its it's
 
big soft moose said:
or 'raised to the ground' as ive frequently read in the granuiad

a) its 'razed' and
b) razed to the ground is redundancy - its not practical to raze something in any otherway than to the ground.
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Stop it now! :D
 
reporting on the 2011 riots the granuiad wrote " the building was raised to the ground with only the walls left standing"

so it wasn't razed at all then , **** me gently
 
big soft moose said:
reporting on the 2011 riots the granuiad wrote " the building was raised to the ground with only the walls left standing"

so it wasn't razed at all then , **** me gently
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No requests :D:
 
My two favourite examples of apostrophe misuse:

A local café had a breakfast menu sign. As well as the usual EGG'S, SAUSAGE'S and BEAN'S, they were also offering TOAS'T.

And a house near me had a list of items for sale. One of them was a GA'S BARBECUE.


Steve.
 
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Steve Smith said:
My two favourite examples of apostrophe misuse:

A local café had a breakfast menu sign. As well as the usual EGG'S, SAUSAGE'S and BEAN'S, they were also offering TOAS'T.

And a house near my had a list of items for sale. One of them was a GA'S BARBECUE.


Steve.
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Even funnier with your spelling errors, although I suspect it is predictive text of some description.
 
tiler65 said:
Even funnier with your spelling errors, although I suspect it is predictive text of some description.
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No. I don't do that. It was unpredictable fingers instead (the same fingers I use to play guitar).

I corrected the errors straight away but I knew someone would beat me to it!


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
No. I don't do that. It was unpredictable fingers instead (the same fingers I use to play guitar).

I corrected the errors straight away but I knew someone would beat me to it!


Steve.
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I am surprised you have plucked up the courage to admit it!
 
It asked me why I even bothered taking the test :thinking:
 
It's OK Ruth, it's not, it is purely an example of how Pete's "lens's" could be used correctly!
 
Nod said:
It's OK Ruth, it's not, it is purely an example of how Pete's "lens's" could be used correctly!
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Would that not need to be 'elements' though for it to be correct as there is more than one element? And have instead of has?
 
Not if I was referring to a single element in a single lens. It's not easy to scratch any element other than the front one in the case I had in mind (non interchangeable lens!)...
 
Nod said:
Not if I was referring to a single element in a single lens. It's not easy to scratch any element other than the front one in the case I had in mind (non interchangeable lens!)...
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true
 
Steve Smith said:
My two favourite examples of apostrophe misuse:

A local café had a breakfast menu sign. As well as the usual EGG'S, SAUSAGE'S and BEAN'S, they were also offering TOAS'T.

And a house near me had a list of items for sale. One of them was a GA'S BARBECUE.

Steve.
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There's one I see all the time on here, which is "photo's".
I guess the reasoning is that it's a contraction of "photographs", but it's not! That's a hypercorrection. Abbreviations (leaving aside initialisms or acronyms) like "photo", "tele", "pro", etc are supposed to behave like words in their own right. So "photos" is the plural of "photo" not a contraction of "photographs". Contraction rules only apply to a root word so you should no more write "photo's" than you would write "photo'".
I know I'm dreadfully sad to get annoyed about this but for some reason it really boils my urine. Even more than the ubiquitous grocers' apostrophe. I think it's because the latter is an earnest mistake, but the former is an attempt to a shoehorn in a rule where it doesn't belong.
You'll never find a style guide or grammar manual recommending you add an apostrophe to the plural of an abbreviation. It's just bad written English.
I've even seen bloody English teachers do it. Drives me mental.

/saddo rant
 
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you could say "that photo's out of focus" though where the abreviation is of 'is'

or that photo's coulours seem a little muted where the apostrophe is possesive

[/pedant]
 
big soft moose said:
you could say "that photo's out of focus" though where the abreviation is of 'is'

or that photo's coulours seem a little muted where the apostrophe is possesive

[/pedant]
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Yeah, of course you could. That's just standard English (although the first example is a true contraction, not an abbreviation). But the plural of photo is photos, not photo's. Cos abbreviations operate like normal words, innit bruv.

In fact, can you imagine if "photo's" as a plural was correct (i.e. treating it like a contraction). It would mean that the singular would be photo'. Which would mean the possessive form you use above would have to become photo''s. It would get very silly very quickly.

Thankfully we avoid all of this silliness because "photo" is an abbreviation, not a contraction. Yet some people still insist on hypercorrecting their grammar by treating it like the latter.
 
8 for me too, after 59 years not really worth losing sleep over. I still write letters and own several fountain pens.

How many even know how to use margins, paragraphs and how to properly start and sign a letter?
 
10 for me, more than I expected from the rather poor education I had, turns out I was taught how to guess well and use common sense.

Firing up the dictionary app to find what gerund means now
 
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