Was having a random thought this morning...
Why do we say were IN a car or taxi ... but ON a bus, train etc...
Surely were IN all of them and not ON it lol
Snowy
English Grammar: Was having a random... - Asthma Community ...
English Grammar
47 Replies
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Love this one Snowy,
My hubby always contradicts me when go out to other towns.
I say ,going down town,Going down stoke ,he says up Stoke and so on hahahaha
This is genius!
I don't know why we're IN a car but ON a bus or train - maybe it's a contraction of 'on board' as with a ship?
I always go down to London because it's lower down the map than St. Albans, and I go up to Birmingham because it's higher up the map. I also go up to the town because it's up a hill but once I'm there I go down to the other end of the main street, no matter which end of the street I start from.
Short for 'on board' sounds possible. I could see how a plane might be considered closer to a boat/train than a car to any of them (maybe just me?) Am sure I read about this somewhere - English sounds mad but is apparently more logical than it seems.
On a slightly related topic, I hate the way train companies seem to say more and more often 'We will shortly be arriving into Oxford' (or wherever, it's not just FGW/Cross-Country). No, we won't. We may however be arriving AT or IN Oxford at some point, whenever we've stopped sitting outside the station for 10 mins for no apparent reason.
Sorry, I'm a grammar geek, these things annoy me. 
Ohhh, Philomena, you are SO right! It's infuriating! So is the queue in the supermarket marked '8 itmes or less'. Don't these people understand that the word they need is 'fewer'?
Could it be that we climb ON to a train/bus, but get IN to a car/taxi?
Haha Annista that annoys me too! The supermarket is bad enough without bad grammar. I also hate it when people get 'amount' and 'number' wrong.
I'm the kind of person who loves picking this sort of thing apart, but to be fair I work in publishing and have done quite a lot of copy-editing and proof-reading so being geeky about this sort of thing comes in useful. I'm the same with facts in books I read, it drives me nuts when people get simple stuff wrong and I think 'how hard would it be to check that?'
I still have no solution to the 'on/in' conundrum though. I think we need a linguist, is there an emergency number you can call for one?
I've just googled the question, and my earlier suggestion was mentioned by several people. But someone else says there is no definitive answer and it's down to the peculiarites of the English language plus convention (ie we've just got used to saying it that way).
One of my bugbears is the misuse of apostrophes!
I think we've struck a rich seam here - thank you so much for the thought Snowy.
Angievere, you're right about the apostrophe. It is an evil creature that inserts itself into places where it doesn't belong in order to annoy people like me.
Like Philomena I get incredibly geeky about it all because my job involves sending information to our top clients and it has to be right. For a start, I don't let my boss use 'yourself' or myself' when he means 'you' or 'me', but in reality the list is endless.
Endless possibilities here! English seems to love scattering prepositions here, there and everywhere.
I too hate apostrophe misuse. Like Lynne Truss, I get itchy fingers when I see it misapplied/lacking and can't do anything about it - very satisfying though when I see mistakes in something I can correct! I once had a very long half hour in an even longer phone call trying to explain to someone I was working with why there was no possible way that 'which' could be used in the way that he'd used it, and why it had to be rephrased (on another occasion had to explain, again at length, to the same guy that the sentence he'd written was not the only way of saying what he wanted to say because, in fact, it didn't make sense. He had an English degree too...)
I have just realised that it's Saturday night and I'm sitting here posting about grammar on a forum. You know, I'm sure I used to have some semblance of a social life, but I'm going to blame it on the breathing (handy culprit, though in fact it luckily doesn't stop me socialising, I've just been slow about finding people to hang out with after moving).
Philomena. Your post about explaining to a colleague that he couldn't use the word which reminds me that I have guilt - lots and lots of guilt. Some time ago I spent some time explaining to one of our directors that the phrase 'thank you for getting the tickets for Freddie and I' was wrong, and it should be 'Freddie and me'. She grasped that totally and now uses it all the time 'Freddie and me will meet you at the gate' 'my husband and me will be on holiday' etc.
I haven't got the strength to explain it all again.
Annista - you echoed exactly my thoughts. Husband and I can't stand it when people get the 'I/Me' mixed up - why oh why is this so common?? We have even heard Tony Blair and Bill Clinton getting it wrong. Our teenage son is also becoming sensitised to spelling and grammar mistakes and he points out mistakes on work sheets/photocopies he brings home from school.
Angievere, I'm so impressed that your setting your children on the right path!
I've just thought of another one that drives me nuts - people who can't count! You hear it all the time, even on the BBC news e.g. 'the government are ....' NO. The government IS. There's only one. I get truly bent out of shape over this one.
Another irritating one - the increasing use of 'sat' instead of 'sitting' eg' 'he was sat down' & 'they were sat down'.
And what about 'I have no clue' instead of 'I do not have a clue'? Even my usually particular husband thinks I am being a bit fussy on this one, but it still grates.
I nit pick too. Two of my pet dislikes are pacific instead of specific and haitch instead of aitch. I think they both annoy me so much because they are mistakes easily made by children which nobody has bothered to correct.
I/me
Hehe, this is fun, my not-so-inner grammar geek is getting very excited.
The way I want to tell people to get 'I/me' right is to remove the 'extra' element, because very few people get it wrong in the singular. You don't hear people saying 'Me went to the cinema' (unless they're about 3) but they will say 'Jane and me went to the cinema.' So I'd have thought the best way to get it across is tell people to remove the extra person, think of what they'd say if it were just them, and then add the other person back in. If that makes sense - I've never actually tried it, not having had much excuse to, but it seems the simplest way of looking at it.
I'm much more tolerant about speech mistakes than written mistakes. I'm sure I use annoying tics (yes, I do say 'like' when I'm with some people - I imagine most people modify their speech depending on who they're with). I have a lot less patience with mistakes in writing, and I also think (going to sound like 'Outraged of Godalming' here) that anyone who could be considered a 'professional' writer - journalists, writers, copywriters etc - really ought to get it right. If you are paid for your ability to use words, you ought to know the basic rules of spelling and grammar. If you're just commenting on something, I do get twitchy about mistakes but think it's more understandable.
Sorry - long post there!
I freely admit that my spelling and grammar are not what they once were, I'm a victim of US English spelling and grammar checking software. I don't think schools teach grammar properly anymore, I know I learnt far more about English grammar studying Latin than I ever did in an English classroom.
Does anyone else get annoyed by people using lend and borrow interchangeably?
I just wanted to add that I find haitch rather than aitch extremely irritating. When I was little my mum would always correct me but the kids at school would laugh at me because they thought I was dropping my ""haitches""
I don't know if it's more spelling than grammar but i find the confusion of words that sound similar but have different meanings like where/were/wear, are/our, there/their/they're and your/you're.
Philomela - I couldn't agree more! Eg it's very irritating to get letters from school which have incorrect spelling/grammar.
Nimeuh, you are entirely right about grammar not being taught in schools any more. I too got most of my grammar from my latin lessons, and the rest from reading.
I think my main objection to most of the things that drive me nuts is that a teacher should have corrected them at school, but didn't!
The best bit of advice I ever got from a teacher was 'if you aren't sure where the apostrophe should go, leave it out'. On the other hand, if more people took that advice I wouldn't have the pleasure of seeing the sign on the market stall that says 'Cherry's £1.00' . One of these days I'll figure out what it is that Cherry is selling so cheaply lol.
Angievere - yes, teachers really should know the basics at least!
Nimueh/Annista - Definitely agree re the Latin! I did a classics degree, which involved way more grammar than I ever did in English at school - you really had to learn how things were put together. I wish more people got to do it - not just because of that, but because my experience doing outreach suggests that actually a lot of people who never get the chance to study classics would enjoy it, and are being prevented from at least trying it out by idiotic gvt thinking and this ridiculous idea that it's inherently 'posh' and 'irrelevant'. If you don't teach it in state schools then yes, it will remain only for a privileged few.
Sorry, off the soapbox now.
Nimueh, I know what you mean about their/they're/there etc - I sometimes type the wrong one even when I know which it shouid be, then have to correct. Also about the spelling/grammar - US spelling not wrong in itself, of course, if you actually are American but not useful over here, and don't get me started on MS Word's 'grammar' checker! That %^&* little paperclip comes up and patronisingly 'corrects' things which it has no clue about, like 'which' vs 'that' and 'passive voice' (just a hint here, Word - it's not actually incorrect, and don't try to lecture me on style, you're a computer and have no ability to grasp even the concept. And put my bullet points back!).
Sorry, another long one, think I got overly excited by people talking about Latin. My job now is so much more boring.
Way to go Philomena - put the boot into that self righteous little paperclip(BIG round of applause).
Haha, bit of venting there! But the paperclip deserves it, even if it's not what's annoying me most right now and even though it already has a Facebook hate group (not kidding...).
Oooh, I've never bothered with Facebook but I'm almost persuaded by the thought of joining that group!
I've just been listening to this morning's 'Start the Week' discussion, which was very interesting and featured no fewer than 3 well known and well educated people, who feel that 'different to' is correct. I guess it's a bit late to tell them it should be 'different from' and 'Identical to'.
Oh dear. Pick pick pick ...........
What about at the fruit & veg shop with their 'Potatoe', 'Tomatoe' and 'Collies'
Hehe, greengroce'rs apostrophe' - or not. I think that's practically an institution - the world would probably stop spinning if greengrocer's spelt and punctuated all their sign's correctly.
Annista, there are also many grammar geek groups on Facebook. There is in fact a group for almost everything you can think of, not to mention that a fair few people you think would be a bit too old for it because they've been dead for several hundred (or thousand) years are on there. I think I lost count of how many profiles Julius Caesar has, and was impressed by the number of universities he's managed to attend.
Philomena, Facebook is sounding more attractive by the minute!
It's just as well we're not all spelling/grammar geeks 'cos I have to confess that I get lots of fun spotting the more outrageous ones. Some of the deliberate ones are brilliant too - I saw a red delivery van a while ago, full of cases of wine. The name on the side - Van Rouge. Love it!
I like 'Van Rouge'. Not quite so sure about the tanning salon I've seen in Oxford called 'Sun of a Beach' though it does make me smile...
Not quite the same, but every time I see a van advertising shopfitting/shopfitters' services, I read it as 'shoplifting services'!
As a self confessing grammar Nazi, I was under the impression that the difference between in and on as far as transport is concerned, is the fact that you walk onto bus, train, ship, plane etc, but have to sit in a car and taxi. I could be wrong, but it always made sense to me.
Sad old bird that I am, I happen to love the English language and wish that people would stop messing with it... lol
However, being educated means that I have to understand and appreciate that language evolves, I just hope that i am not still around when correspondence is received in 'txtspk'.
Do you find that you get annoyed when people mispronounce words? I get very irritated by harrASSed because everybody knows it should be HARRassed (Frank Spencer has an awful lot to answer for lol) and nucular instead of nuclear.
Yet again pick pick pick .........
EDIT - I got it wrong. Clearly everybody DOESN'T know it should be HARRassed because if they did they wouldn't say harrASSed
Irritated to hear on BBC1 Breakfast News this morning 'We've had LOADS of emails on the subject'. How COULD a highly paid journalist/presenter say that??
Annista
Yes I do get very irritated, and I am sometimes VERY irritated by the BBC, we pay a fortune to these people, the least they can do is keep up standards ... he he he
Just for Annista..... the word is 'harassed', and it has nothing to do with bottoms ... lol
Love it Cubi!
I've just received an email that I really feel I ought to share with everybody who likes this thread - it's full of what my hero Terry Pratchett calls 'a Pune, or play on words'. However it's far too long so I'll put a couple of tasters on and if anybody wants them all I'll either message them direct or risk the wrath of non-Pune lovers and put them all on here - you decide.
* Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'
* In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
* Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
Well, I think they're funny anyway!
Well, I want the rest! Those are great. Though I am admittedly someone who thinks physics jokes are hilarious so I have a very questionable sense of humour. I'm not even a physicist either so I have no excuse (my housemate is though so perhaps it's by association ;))
On that note: A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much a pint costs. The barman says 'For you sir, no charge.'
OK, you asked for it!
1. The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Circumference.He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'
13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
17. A backward poet writes inverse.
18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris , you'd be in Seine .
21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'
22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'
23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.
One or two very old /fairly week but .....
hi - just thought i'd add my moan to this- why do people say '3 week' rather than 3 weeks, also getting borrowing and lending mixed up. when im on the pc i must admit my spelling goes out of the window as well as grammar and punctuation, but when its formal it has to be correct - is it actually taught in school these days?
oh also off and of - why don't people know the difference? not a huge moan in the grand scheme of things mind!
I know people who tell me they've just GOT to itch their back. Don't they know that it itches and they scratch?
Pick pick pick
I think HARassed is less common than harASSed these days.
I admit harASSed is certainly easier to say!
According to the dictionary they're both acceptable.
English language classes in school always consisted of story writing and reading comprehensions.
So no grammar was taught really. I don't know if it has changed since.
I think I only started learning grammar properly when I started my TESOL degree.
I did some grammar and comprehension in primary school - Haydn Richards' Junior English - but none after that, it was all reading stuff (sometimes good stuff and sometimes really not) and random other things I've forgotten. They did make us do 'reading records' as well which I loathed because I read ALL the time and didn't like having to stop and write down what had happened and what I thought would come next and how much I liked the book. I just wanted to read! Plus I could never remember what I'd read half the time because I just picked up anything, and sometimes it was random stuff like books about the heart and circulation (for children, I wasn't reading Gray's Anatomy or anything).
We also did 'creative writing' which I never really enjoyed that much (neither did my mother and now she does it for a living lol).
I very much doubt english grammar is taught in school now.
I can remember being made to write a sentence a hundred times if I had not punctuated properly, or if I had made a spelling error.
Now I think the teachers are happy to overlook many things & feel they've done well if they don't get stabbed.
Go on, I bet I've cocked up somewhere in this post.
I'm not rewriting it a hundred times though, even if I have.
Besides, I am using my phone
Howie
Howie, I think you're right about Englis grammar not being taught now, but I'm pretty sure that foreigh languages still start with the grammar. I don't get how children are supposed to understand foreign grammar when they haven't been taught how their own language is put together. I can (only just, because it's a long time ago) remember my very first latin lession when we were given lists of verbs to learn (amo, amas amat ......) and at least half of the class didn't know what a verb was. And this was in a very good grammar school where everybody had passed their 11+ exam and also had to pass a formal interview process.
Annista, as of about 10 years ago when I did my GCSEs you did a bare minimum of grammar in modern foreign languages (French, for me). There was some, yes, but at my school it was treated more like an added extra for 'really bright' pupils, and when I asked about constructions we were learning as a matter of course in Latin GCSE, my French teacher would say 'no, that's far too difficult to grasp'. (This was a small girls' private school so the teachers were not dealing with 30+ pupils at once and trying not to get stabbed. Chemistry may have been a different story, we got a little carried away sometimes ;))
There was certainly very little attempt to really deconstruct sentences, and no chunks of translation such as we had in Latin. A lot of the time you could get the answers from context and guessing rather than from having to know the grammar, and in any case we were allowed to take a dictionary, even one with a grammar section, into the exam with us so not much incentive to learn it! (They did stop that the year after I took them though).
Thanks for the update Philomena, I'm obviously way behind the times!
My 13yr old son says he hasnt been taught any grammar in English, but does a lot of grammar in Latin, German and French. Maybe it varies from school to school?
Hmm maybe, I almost said that actually. That school wasn't great for modern languages (and except for one very good Latin teacher, not for ancient ones either); maybe they do it better elsewhere. I just got the impression grammar wasn't really in the curriculum, but then neither was a lot of the stuff I did in A level Greek and Latin at a different school! They (and I) were just extremely lucky in having the time and resources to teach beyond the syllabus in that instance.
Do you think we're failing our children by not giving them a better foundation in the use of their own language, or do you think that it isn't as important as it used to be?
I think good English is still important, especially formal written English. It amounts to communicating with each other and in the fields of medicine, law, engineering, education etc good communication is vital. For example, a poorly written letter from one doctor to another could result in mistakes being made.
I have to share my latest irritation - Professor Brian Cox said on his Wonders of the Universe (BBC2) last night 'thousands of years ago one of the last Pharoahs WAS STOOD here' - it really set my teeth on edge. Husband agrees it grates, but thinks 'was stood' is slipping into common usage.
I think we are, yes. Of course you can get by without, and language changes, but it can be such an effective communication tool if you know how to use it properly - there are so many subtle ways of distinguishing different shades of meaning and tones and saying precisely what you mean so that it's not ambiguous and everyone can understand it. I think it takes a lot of skill to write something that says exactly what the writer intended and can be understood by anyone.
I also think you can't use a language properly unless you understand how it's put together - then you can work out the possibilities and how to do what you want with it, and also use that to approach other languages.
Not to mention that the analytical skills you acquire while doing so are useful for many things. Learning grammar isn't just useful for its own sake - having to break something down logically and infer rules from what you have is useful for all sorts of things - science springs to mind immediately, also law (ok, not everyone is going to become a lawyer but good drafting and understanding how to break things down and put them in clear language should benefit everyone, and everyone ought to know how to read a contract).
Sorry, gone on a bit there but I feel quite strongly about this (can you guess? :-P) I've had to develop the arguments, because when you're a classicist you're always being accused of studying something totally irrelevant and have to explain why it's actually very useful.
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