Then vs Than.

[samgab]

Another 2 that bug me are:

1/ Who and whom.
"You went to the shop with whom?"
"Who is walking up the driveway?"
Easy rule: He-who, him-whom.
Swap the sentence around, and if you'd use "he" it should be a "who", and if you'd use "him" it should be "whom".

2/ I and me.
"John and I are going to the shop."
"Come to the shop with John and me."
Easy rule: remove the other person, and see if the sentence still makes sense.
E.g. "I am going to the shop" rather than "Me am going to the shop" and
"Come to the shop with me" rather than "Come to the shop with I."

Oh no! Some of my crazy got out!

[Mom]

"You went to the shop with whom?"


Oh no! Some of my crazy got out!

Why not make it really easy and ask, "Who did you go to the shop with?"

You are not crazy...

obsessed a little maybe

[chasio]

Samgab - please become a teacher if you're not one already. That's the kind of craziness New Zealand needs more of.

[Edbear]

Another pet peeve is the phrase, "different to". That really grates! It should be either "different from" or "similar to", yet very few people even in the media can get it right.

[scumdog]

Another pet peeve is the phrase, "different to". That really grates! It should be either "different from" or "similar to", yet very few people even in the media can get it right.

Or: "The same difference"

WTF, how can you compare differences????

"ooh look, both bikes are not red..."

[Grahameeboy]

English is probably the most tortured language on Earth. It seems fewer and fewer people know how to read, speak or write it properly and most just don't care anyway.

English has evolved (sorry to use that word) and is vastly different to what it was even 150 years ago so it is just language evolving....I mean look at UK with it's different dialects.....

[Grahameeboy]

another pet peeve is the phrase, "different to". That really grates! It should be either "different from" or "similar to", yet very few people even in the media can get it right.

let it go mr ed

[steve_t]

Hey. Well, it is used for contractions, yes. "It is" becoming "it's".
Also to denote ownership, or possessive nouns. "That's John's bike". Not a contraction in that case, just the rule for ownership, John owns the bike.
The apostrophe coming afterward is when there is a plural, using ownership -- or if it is a name that ends in "s" anyway.
For instance: No no, it's Jesus' bike.
Or if it's a possessive plural: "Those are the bikes' attachments". There are multiple bikes, and the attachments belong to them.
"The Johns' Bar" would be correct if 2 or more people by the name of John owned the bar. If there is only one John who owns the bar, it's John's bar.
Clear as mud?

PS: I have no clue, I'm making it up as I go

You're right. "John's bar" describes the bar that belongs to John - hence ownership. Where it gets really messed up is It's means It is and Its means 'that which belongs to it' - the only time ownership doesn't have a friggin apostrophe. English is a messed up language!!

[Grahameeboy]

Why not make it really easy and ask, "Who did you go to the shop with?"

You are not crazy...

obsessed a little maybe

Why not just order it on line

[Edbear]

Or: "The same difference"

WTF, how can you compare differences????

"ooh look, both bikes are not red..."

It reminds me of that riddle, "What is the difference between a duck?" Answer, "One of its legs is both the same."

let it go mr ed

Awww! Spoilsport...

[Grahameeboy]

You're right. "John's bar" describes the bar that belongs to John - hence ownership. Where it gets really messed up is It's means It is and Its means 'that which belongs to it' - the only time ownership doesn't have a friggin apostrophe. English is a messed up language!!

Would you Adam & Even it...fancy a Robin Murray

[Grahameeboy]

[QUOTE=Edbear;1129249724]It reminds me of that riddle, "What is the difference between a duck?" Answer, "One of its legs is both the same."



Awww! Spoilsport... [QUOTE]
No that's called an "Advocate" silly billy

[samgab]

To be read (red) aloud (allowed) after a few beers:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

[Edbear]

[QUOTE=Grahameeboy;1129249731][QUOTE=Edbear;1129249724]It reminds me of that riddle, "What is the difference between a duck?" Answer, "One of its legs is both the same."



Awww! Spoilsport...

No that's called an "Advocate" silly billy

That's a drink isn't it...?

[Grahameeboy]

[QUOTE=Edbear;1129249745][QUOTE=Grahameeboy;1129249731]

It reminds me of that riddle, "What is the difference between a duck?" Answer, "One of its legs is both the same."



Awww! Spoilsport...

That's a drink isn't it...?

I wonder and now that explains a lot Mr Ed