Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

John Gibson

Member Since

November 20, 2011

Total number of comments

19

Total number of votes received

22

Bio

Latest Comments

fewer / less

  • May 8, 2014, 9:20pm

Gosh, I just made a few mistakes in the last comment, didn't I? A case of "more haste, fewer speed" ....

fewer / less

  • May 8, 2014, 9:17pm

Ok, I'll try to learn not to be vary annoyed by "less lorries", "less tigers" etc., and I hope that this will be reciprocated if "fewer noise" and "fewer music" becomes similarly tolerated.

Pronunciation of “often”

  • February 1, 2014, 2:49pm

@Warsaw Will

I was merely making the point that RP was always the dialect of a minority - although one would never have guessed this, if one's listening was confined to the BBC up to the 1960s. The few RP speakers left are probably heavily weighted towards descendants of the Norman conquerors of 1066 .... which, if true, makes them pretty indigenous.

Pronunciation of “often”

  • January 31, 2014, 6:32pm

Surely this is a case where the RP pronunciation was inferior (less logical) to that of the common indigenous Britons. Are there other cases of silent 't's in British English?

tonne vs ton

  • January 31, 2014, 6:26pm

The BBC has a number of agendas that it has pushed relentlessly for a number of decades. One of the strongest is the benefits to the UK of membership of the EU. And this explains its avid support for the replacement of Imperial measures by metric ones. Thus, it even instructs its foreign correspondents to speak about metric distances, metres rather than yards. Occasionally, this breaks down as when senior corresponent, John Simpson, was walking outside Kabul on camera .... a sudden explosion ... Simpson ducked ... and burst out with "that landed only 10 feet away!"

mines

  • December 9, 2013, 7:29pm

In North-East England in my youth it was quite common to hear "yous", and it was used in constructions such as:

"yous lot, you don't know you're born" [you young people, you're living in much easier times, with far fewer hardships and much greater opportunities, than was the common experience when I was young]

"yous over there, listen to this ...."

and

"I divvent agree with yous" [I don't agree with you {two/three/four etc.} people]

Whether it is still common there, I don't know, as my visits to NE England are rare.

You good people may wish to also consider the by-no-means-uncommon use of the phrase/interjection in British English speech of "my, my" or "my-my" (there are over 5,000,000 google references to the phrase!). There is a Ringo Starr song called 'Oh, my-my" and there is one by Taylor Swift:

"Mary's Song (Oh My My My)"

She said, I was seven and you were nine
I looked at you like the stars that shined
In the sky, the pretty lights
And our daddies used to joke about the two of us
Growing up and falling in love and our mamas smiled
And rolled their eyes and said oh my my my

Take me back to the house in the backyard tree
Said you'd beat me up, you were bigger than me
You never did, you never did
Take me back when our world was one block wide
I dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried
Just two kids, you and I...
Oh my my my my

@annp

Yes, indeed. This is dubbed, if I recall, the "fused particle" construction and may be the way I would express it in speech. In fact, I might refer to "the children", rather than "our children", given that one of the children was not mine.

Team names — singular or plural

  • February 21, 2013, 3:16pm

If two or more players are attacking, "England are on the attack" seems a better verbal description of the events than "England is on the attack".

I've never liked the American tendency to use a coolective noun with a singular verb. It never seems to marry well with the idea that individuals may have different opinions and perform different roles. I always think of a team as a "they", rather than a he/she/it. Thus, I prefer "Newcastle beat Chelsea" to "Newcastle beats Chelsea".

Someone else’s

  • February 21, 2013, 2:47am

This, a big hit in the UK charts of 1960, answers your question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r1usQ221A0

Someone else's baby
Someone else's eyes are blue
Someone else's baby
Someone else's five-foot-two

Oh, who's got a hold up
Nine carat gold love
I wonder who's in the loveseat
Who's got a heartbeat, like thunder

If I acted bad
I could steal his fairy queen
I know he'll be mad
But I can't resist the thought of being kissed

By someone else's baby
Someone else's special date
Someone else's baby
Someone else is kinda late

He'd better mind out
She's gonna find out I love her
This little fellah is gonna tell her
That someone else is me

Well, if I acted bad
I could steal his fairy queen
I know he'll be mad
But I can't resist the thought of being kissed

By someone else's baby
Someone else's special date
Someone else's baby
Someone else is kinda late

Oh, he'd better mind out
She's gonna find out I love her
This little fellow is gonna tell her
That someone else is me