This takes me back to my first visit to the north east (in fact, Northumberland), aged about 11.

The little girl who lived at the guest house where we stayed came out with something that sounded like --

"willya geeza gaw"

Yes - I am an Eats, Shoots and Leaves supporter!

Like me !

Regional stuff is quite nice actually, and I'm guilty messen Up here there is often a colloquial 'us' instead of 'our' (as in 'Shall we have us tea') - But written down English should be correct.

I'm busy marking some Post Grad assignments right now (well should be, just popped here for some light relief) and some of these are really poor grammar-wise. These are folks with management positions in industry and should be much better.

I think the 'of' instead of 'have' is relatively recent.

And I can only quake at the thought of what text speak will do long term.

Anyway - sign me up too.

GAH.

I agree with all the horrible instances quoted on the past few pages..I too think that 'I aren't' and 'I was sat' are just ghastly and I cringe whenever I read them (or hear them).

Wow, this club is growing apace!

Here's an updated list of members, to save people looking back to the first page.

Cyrilla (Founder)
HelenVJ (Red Pencils Monitor)
briantrumpet
maggiemay
AnnC
AmandaL
primrose
Miss Ross
skylark
Edwardo
pushpull
lucky045
Car Expert
Crotchetymum
sujamo
jm-hamilton
Misterioso
janexxx
BerkshireMum

There are others who have contributed to this thread but who haven't made a request to join (eg fsharpminor). Please let me know if you want to be added to the list, f#m and others!

I hope you realise that The Sticklers' Club is an offshoot of the Grumpy Old Women Club (don't think we have a Grumpy Old Men club on the forums...YET... ).

This reminds me of an earlier post where someone was bemoaning the fact that a Leblanc clarinet wasn't attracting bids on e-Bay. Someone replied, "That's because you've spelt the make wrong - it should be spelt B _U_F_F_E_T."



Yes please, I'd like to join too!




Evidently not, from all the posts! This is one which I find very annoying.

'Tis done!

Good gracious no! It was very common when I was at primary school in Somerset the 1960s.

Please may I join too?

My husband and I are both known as sticklers (actually "pedants" would probably be more accurate) at work and we were very pleased to see our daughter (then in year 1) following in our footsteps when she came home from school one day to report that her (supply) teacher had spelled "shepherd" without the 2nd "h" and that she had pointed out the mistake. Not so pleased, obviously, that the teacher made the mistake in the first place...

Bag would like to join please, sister dearest. Let us not forget that sign we saw in a shop window claiming to sell potatoe's...................



Bag The Disgruntled (WHY was my Spelling Police thread ditched???? WHY??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) x

I didn't realise that, actually. Am I ineligible? (or even illegible?)

ad me 2 da liszt!


Ill be eraser monitor!

'I dont play cello anymore'...?

Sorry!

Yes please Cyrilla, I would like to join.

I sometimes suffer from bilingual contortions - for example "rhythm" in English is "rythme" in French,
"address" becomes "adresse" and 'marriage" becomes "mariage" - shoot me down if I've got any of it wrong but it can be very confusing!!

I love the "Eats, shoots and leaves" / "Eats shoots and leaves" book !!!

Actually 'accompanyist' is perfectly legitimate (although for some reason it seems to sound less educated).

I trust this gets me automatic membership??

My pet hate is phrases such as "Give it to Fred and I" or - worse - "Please return the enclosed to ourselves".

Yes, I often get emails at work along the lines of, "Myself and Fred will be visiting ..."


Cyrilla, can I join? Evidently I was not expressing myself very clearly in post 37!!

It is an offshoot in that members of both clubs are very good at saying 'BAH' and 'HUMBUG' and 'GAH' a lot.



Updated members' list - with many apologies to Halka - thought I'd added you but clearly not - sorry!

Cyrilla (Founder)
HelenVJ (Red Pencils Monitor)
briantrumpet
maggiemay
AnnC
AmandaL
primrose
Miss Ross
skylark
Edwardo
pushpull
lucky045
Car Expert
Crotchetymum
sujamo
jm-hamilton
Misterioso
janexxx
BerkshireMum
soccermom
Bagpuss (founder of The Spelling Police)
Aquarelle
Czerny
Halka
SueHM
Claire21
singerpianist
Suepea
The Old Lady
A.U.K.

Er - hello_cello, how can someone who says 'ad me 2 da liszt' possibly qualify for this club ??

I get embarrassed by my spelling easily now, I used to such a good speller and somehow it just slips my mind haha...
Therefore I am not even going to ask to join, I can't even say "accompanist" let alone spell it

Someone please tell me how to get my grammer and spelling back up to scratch again?
Thanks PSL

I used to BE***

Ooops! It's spelt "grammar". There are various books on the market to help with spelling and grammar, I believe - try Amazon.

My grandmother used to say, "Why cassn't thee talk proper, like I?"

She did, however, teach me the difference between to, two and too, their and there, whether and weather, and to say the alphabet backwards before I went to school. The latter comes in really handy when counting notes down the stave!

'Thanking you' - Gah!


Pedantic pedagogist would like to join, please.

You've been added to the list, SueHM (AND you get a gold star for saying 'Gah' ).

PSL, your 'accompanist' was perfect!

'Anymore' is one of my three pet hates. (And the Guardian does it these days!! Argh! I met a subeditor of said newspaper at a party a few months ago, and he tried to tell me it was legitimate - I'm sure it's not, unless you're American.)

Pet hate no.2: it's/its, of course.

Pet hate no.3: 'less than' when it should be 'fewer than'. The BBC are doing that one now too. I regularly find myself shouting at the radio....

Count me into the club too, please!

The word 'unique' with a qualifying word in front of it,

eg fairly unique, quite unique

There are no degrees of uniqueness, surely ?

I once e-mailed a bbc radio 3 presenter with this one - to her credit I had a reply while the programme was still on the air.


Yes, I dislike 'anymore' (gah!) and even more 'everyday' (when it's not an adjective and it should be two words).


All the usual it's and there's mixups.

Our local paper had a headline yesterday ' businesses left counting cost too their buildings'

Suppose we should be glad they got 'their' right.

Oh, and one more real aaaaargh - interviewers who start a question with 'So ...'!

Hmm Does anyone else feel it's time for our first detention? (Sorry: Lunch Time Spelling Booster Club, as it's called at our school.)

Pedagogue, no?

Apparently 'fairly unique' is acceptable - if, for example, there are only two or three of something in existance. See Between You and I [sic] by James Cochrane.

Could someone please enlighten me as to the, presumably subtle, difference between 'bah' and 'gah'? Thanks.

Oooh may I join the club too?! I'm not a perfect speller, but since studying English Language at AS level (A2 this year yay!), I'm noticing more spelling and grammatical mistakes which can be a little annoying!!!

Two things I'm always confused about, so hoping for some help actually:

What are the differenced between effect and affect, practise and practice?

Thank you!

Laura

Effect is a noun. Having the effect of...

Affect is a verb. It will affect the....

I guess you could say that something will affect the effect of something

Practise is a verb. I am going to practise my violin (wishful thinking there possibly )

Practice is a noun. I am going to do my violin practice.

On the subject of unique, I too hate 'clarifiers' here. Either something is unique or it isn't. If there are two of them then it isn't unique.

And another thing I dislike is the addition of 'back' after reverse or revert. You can't reverse forward can you? It is superfluous. So I reverse into a parking space, I don't reverse back into a parking space (unless of course I was in the parking space previously and have returned to it later. However I am actually more likely to drive into a parking space in reality)

Is it time to discuss disinterested and uninterested yet?

Can I ask what is wrong with anymore?

I've just shouted at the TV for an advert saying less instead instead of fewer.

I am quite careful with my spelling and grammar and try to make it as accurate as possible. What gets me the most are misplaced apostrophes!

Edited so it actually makes sense

Effect is a verb as well as a noun. "To effect" is to cause to occur, or to bring about.

Try Here for an argument about it.

Ohh, it's about the spelling rather than the meaning. I was getting confused.

I don't know what I usually put...though I've just commented on a status and put any more...so..

If you can say 'any longer' and it makes sense then 'anymore' would be right (though American, better to say any longer) if 'any longer' does not make sense, then it should be 'any more'

(I think? Any one else like to comment?)

Whilst I am cautious to question anyones spoken English I did have to shout at the television the other day when it was reported "That a bus had collided with a wall" You cannot collide with an inanimate object i.e a wall, you simply hit it...There has to be two parties involved to have a collision hence the CO part of CO--llision...

I know thats fickle and most people would happily say that they collided with a wall or bank but I am sure it has to be two animated/moving objects to have a collision...

Andrew

Oh yes I must add...People who say "Can I get" and not " May I have" really irritates me...this is an American overspill and not correct...

Are you sure...the wall may have jumped out in front of the bus... at least that's what the driver will probably claim

Shouting at the television/radio is a prerequisite of being a member of GOW.

Welcome!!!

In the case of A.U.K then, we should welcome him to GOM (Grumpy Old Men).

And while on the subject of GOW and GOM, I'm finding myself using the expression of "I don't believe it", when I see something that simply defies the logic of where, when or why. Currently though, I don't always put an exclamation mark on the end of the phrase, so I'm quite a Victor Meldrew just yet

Gah is a sort of mixture of and .

Bah is .

To confuse things even more, not only can 'effect' be a verb, but 'affect' can be a noun. The baroque and rococo composers studied affect - the art of [i]affecting[i] the audience with emotional 'gestures' in the music.

Erm, right. Think I've got that.

Thanks!

Can someone enlighten me about "recognise" .. is it with an S or Z? Same with "sanitise".. etc.

My friend constantly says "where" instead of "were" and it reeeeally gets on my nerves! So do apostrophes being in the wrong place...

Oh yeah, and when people have DIED their hair. Omg, have you just killed your hair?

I wish to protest. Czerny says "fairly unique" is acceptable. I cannot understand how something of which there is one and only one example (ie unique) can be "fairly unique". Either there are more or there are not.
I am open to correction if any one can provide an example of the correct use of "fairly unique."

Oh, that makes perfect sense, thank you!!

Right, I'm off to practise what you've just taught me - and hopefully it will affect the way I think about these words in the future! (haha was that right?! )

Laura

You may well be right, but this is what Mr Cochrane says:

"Something is unique if it is the sole existing example of its type. The word derives from the Latin unicus, meaning 'one and only'. A thing can therefore be quite unique or perhaps even almost unique ('This 1932 limousine version is almost unique; only three were ever made'), but it is to misuse a valuable word to say very unique, more unique, remarkably unique etc."

To be honest, I'm not so sure he doesn't contradict himself: after all if something can be 'almost' or 'quite' unique, as he says it can, then it is surely 'less unique' than something which is utterly unique. Ergo, if you can have 'less unique', you can presumably also have 'more unique'.

Also, something could - in my opinion - be remarkably unique if it is, in itself, remarkable that it is unique (and not, in fact, more numerous).

Anyone still with me??

I think the S spelling is English, and the Z spelling is American.

How many E's are there in the name of this thread?
The Beijing Olympics took place in the 2000's.



Car Expert

Yes, still with you! "Almost unique" seems fine to me. "utterly unique" I think is tautology (hope I've got the correct term!) but I suppose the adjective is for emphasis. "Less unique' - I can't make sense of that one. However I would accept "remarkably unique" as it might be a remarkable fact that the object was unique. I have a problem with "quite unique".
If "quite" has the sense of "absolutely" I think it's acceptable but if it has the sense of "fairly" then it can't be correct.

I am beginning to sound like the hulla hulla bird who flew up his own ........

I had better give up and go to bed!


































;

Almost unique" seems fine to me. "utterly unique" I think is tautology (hope I've got the correct term!) but I suppose the adjective is for emphasis. "Less unique' - I can't make sense of that one. However I would accept "remarkably unique" as it might be a remarkable fact that the object was unique. I have a problem with "quite unique".
If "quite" has the sense of "absolutely" I think it's acceptable but if it has the sense of "fairly" then it can't be correct.

Yes, agree ! I should have qualified my qualifiers

It's fairly and very I don't get on with.

Add to that "thankyou" and, following on from the "unique" discussion, "one of the only". I also hate the all too common "me and my friend" instead of "my friend and I" - I was always taught that it was polite to put the othe person first. My friend and me is not acceptable either.

Please add me to the list, Cyrilla.

I've heard that, but I remember an episode of Inspector Morse where quite the reverse was stated by Morse!

Any English experts care to confirm?