[barmar]

Zelandakh, on 2016-February-01, 19:15, said:

Oh the irony...

Variously known as Gauder's Law, McKean's Law, or sarcastically as Muphry's Law: If you post a message pointing out someone else's spelling or grammar error, it will invariably contain one of its own.

[Vampyr]

gwnn, on 2016-February-02, 03:47, said:

Oh uh Vampyr, wasn't this "If I would have..." one of your pet peeves too?

LOL sorry, I wasn't aware that I was repeating myself so much! At my age, the memory starts to fail...

But with the lead/led error (the only one in the OP) becoming ever more prevalent, is the only acceptable response mentioning it once and then enduring it for years on end?

kenberg, on 2016-February-02, 05:59, said:

Well, I was also taught that it is "between you and me" rather than "between you and I" since the preposition "between" takes the objective case. But we discussed this a few years back and apparently there is some modern version of grammar that makes "between you and I" acceptable. Growing up, I never heard anyone say "between you and I".

No, I didn't either. A variant of this is "he convinced Melanie and I to..." I was taught that you just remove the proper name to see what is correct. Would we say "between we"? "He convinced I"?

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2016-February-02, 10:58, said:

Variously known as Gauder's Law, McKean's Law, or sarcastically as Muphry's Law: If you post a message pointing out someone else's spelling or grammar error, it will invariably contain one of its own.

Ummm, did you suppose that my three errors in that post were unintentional? ROFLMAO!

[kenberg]

Vampyr, on 2016-February-02, 11:08, said:

Ummm, did you suppose that my three errors in that post were unintentional? ROFLMAO!

This crossed my mind! Very good, I like it.

Added: Somewhere I think I sill have my senior year high school yearbook with a note from a friend: To Ken, the kid to who I owe my English credit to.

[Vampyr]

I think he was kidding.

[gwnn]

I thought about this a bit and I think the misspellings that most annoy me are "beautifull" "wonderfull" etc etc. Just another reason to hate the Quiverfull movement (of course I don't think that's where people got it from).

[barmar]

The fact that "full" loses an "l" when it gets turned into a suffix is just totally weird. I have sympathy for the poor spellers who have trouble remembering this.

I'm a very good speller, but the thing that occasionally forces me to check a dictionary is whether a particular word ends in "-ize" or "-ise". I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it, they're just arbitrary choices. Webster did a fairly good job of normalizing American English spelling when he wrote his dictionary (he's also responsible for dropping the "u" in "-our" endings), but somehow this slipped through (unless the variants postdate his work).

[gwnn]

I sympathise with them too but I still get annoyed. I don't know why. About the ize/ise issue, are there any words which are exclusively written with either of them? I always just use ise (to pretend to be British).

[Vampyr]

gwnn, on 2016-February-04, 10:44, said:

I thought about this a bit and I think the misspellings that most annoy me are "beautifull" "wonderfull" etc etc. Just another reason to hate the Quiverfull movement (of course I don't think that's where people got it from).

These are annoying for sure, but I think that they are less annoying than the ones I mentioned originally, because at least the meaning is clear.

[gwnn]

Usually the lead/led distinction is also clear (I would venture to guess 99% of the time it's either clear or immaterial), cf. "read/read."

[StevenG]

gwnn, on 2016-February-04, 11:43, said:

I sympathise with them too but I still get annoyed. I don't know why. About the ize/ise issue, are there any words which are exclusively written with either of them? I always just use ise (to pretend to be British).

Although -ise is modern British usage, it is fairly recent. I transcribe 19th century parish registers and almost invariably see the -ize spellings used, especially "baptize".

Although we British tend to get annoyed about Americanisms, most of us are not aware of how recently spelling and grammar became standardised. I've occasionally come across forms I consider "American" (like "gotten") in old documents; I'm probably a bit more tolerant as a result.

[kenberg]

StevenG, on 2016-February-04, 12:53, said:

Although -ise is modern British usage, it is fairly recent. I transcribe 19th century parish registers and almost invariably see the -ize spellings used, especially "baptize".

Although we British tend to get annoyed about Americanisms, most of us are not aware of how recently spelling and grammar became standardised. I've occasionally come across forms I consider "American" (like "gotten") in old documents; I'm probably a bit more tolerant as a result.

I would be interested in hearing about "gotten". I find it a confusing word. Consider

A: This has gotten very confusing

B: This has got to be the most confusing thing I have seen in a long time.

In A, a situation might get confusing, after which it has gotten confusing. "has gotten" means "has become".

In B, that is not what is meant. "has got to be" is being used to mean "surely is".

I suppose that in B it also has become very confusing, but the passage of time is not really intended as part of the meaning. For all we care, it might always have been equally confusing.

It seems strange. In A, "has gotten" is a tense (past perfect as I was taught) of "to get", but in B "has got" is not intended to be a form of "to get".

This used to bother me a lot, but I have gotten over it.

[blackshoe]

English is weird.

[Zelandakh]

blackshoe, on 2016-February-05, 15:45, said:

English is weird.

English is just fine; it's American that is weird.

[mycroft]

Mr. Nicoll? Mr. James Nicoll, to the white courtesy phone, please?

Warning: quote not suitable for Puritans.

[Vampyr]

I enjoy watching animal programmes on TV, and many of the commentators refuse to pronounce "the" as "thee" when it precedes a vowel sound. It is super-annoying.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2016-February-05, 22:18, said:

I enjoy watching animal programmes on TV, and many of the commentators refuse to pronounce "the" as "thee" when it precedes a vowel sound. It is super-annoying.

It's a good job you aren't easily annoyed by unimportant matters, Stefanie!

[gordontd]

kenberg, on 2016-February-05, 14:46, said:

I would be interested in hearing about "gotten". I find it a confusing word. Consider

A: This has gotten very confusing

B: This has got to be the most confusing thing I have seen in a long time.

In A, a situation might get confusing, after which it has gotten confusing. "has gotten" means "has become".

In B, that is not what is meant. "has got to be" is being used to mean "surely is".

I suppose that in B it also has become very confusing, but the passage of time is not really intended as part of the meaning. For all we care, it might always have been equally confusing.

It seems strange. In A, "has gotten" is a tense (past perfect as I was taught) of "to get", but in B "has got" is not intended to be a form of "to get".

This used to bother me a lot, but I have gotten over it.

It's easy in British English - "gotten" doesn't exist.

[gordontd]

StevenG, on 2016-February-04, 12:53, said:

Although -ise is modern British usage, it is fairly recent. I transcribe 19th century parish registers and almost invariably see the -ize spellings used, especially "baptize".

Although we British tend to get annoyed about Americanisms, most of us are not aware of how recently spelling and grammar became standardised. I've occasionally come across forms I consider "American" (like "gotten") in old documents; I'm probably a bit more tolerant as a result.

And of course "Fall" and "casket" were used in English before "Autumn" and "coffin".

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2016-February-05, 14:46, said:

I would be interested in hearing about "gotten". I find it a confusing word. Consider

A: This has gotten very confusing

B: This has got to be the most confusing thing I have seen in a long time.

In A, a situation might get confusing, after which it has gotten confusing. "has gotten" means "has become".

In B, that is not what is meant. "has got to be" is being used to mean "surely is".

I suppose that in B it also has become very confusing, but the passage of time is not really intended as part of the meaning. For all we care, it might always have been equally confusing.

It seems strange. In A, "has gotten" is a tense (past perfect as I was taught) of "to get", but in B "has got" is not intended to be a form of "to get".

This used to bother me a lot, but I have gotten over it.

In B, "got" is just being used to add emphasis -- you can also say "This has to be".

People who are interested in curious language issues like this should go to english.stackexchange.com.