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

Chris B

Member Since

March 22, 2011

Total number of comments

53

Total number of votes received

161

Bio

Latest Comments

tailorable

  • March 10, 2012, 11:43pm

Yeah if I heard "tailorable" in a business meeting it would register a 9 on my BS-o-meter.

Resume, resumé, or résumé?

  • December 5, 2011, 12:10pm

Guy: "So put me in the apparently non-existant third camp, the middle."
You've got quite a few supporters I think.

For me it's pretty simple. If you borrow an accented word from another language, it just seems common sense to either keep all the accents or drop them all. Take "déjà vu" for instance. I'd think "deja vu" was OK, but I'd consider both "déja vu" and "dejà vu" to be wrong. I don't see how résumé is any different. There is of course the added complication that "resume" looks like another English word, so I'd tend to go with "résumé".

Pronunciation: aunt

  • November 23, 2011, 1:05pm

Jason,

I pronounce both "aren't" and "aunt" like you do (I'm in NZ but am from the UK originally). There's a play on the homophony of "aren't" and "aunt" in the Two Ronnies' "answering the question before last" sketch which you can find on Youtube.

“I’ve got” vs. “I have”

  • November 16, 2011, 2:20pm

New Reader:
Porsche's comments on the English language are normally exceptionally good, but unfortunately I have to agree with you here.

In the UK (where I was brought up) and NZ (where I live now), "I have" and "I have got" mean precisely the same thing. It's no more complicated than that. You can say "I've got ten toes" even though you've always had them.

Perhaps in America the situation is different.

Texted

  • November 15, 2011, 12:49pm

Stee: Every time you say it as "texted" (2 syllables) you sound like an idiot!!!

Says who?

I dove my hat

  • November 13, 2011, 7:27pm

I hang-glid off the mountain, dove into the lake, and dove my hat to the sweet old lady.

eg, e.g., or eg.

  • November 13, 2011, 1:13pm

I much prefer "e.g." The dotless version makes me want to pronounce it as "egg".

Porsche - what you say about US also seems to be true here in NZ. I hardly ever see the dots any more. For capital abbreviations in general, the dots died quite suddenly in (I would say) the early nineties, and unlike in lower-case abbreviations like e.g., I can't say I miss them.

Focuses. As for the plural of Lexus, I can't imagine I'll ever be in that financial league.

Texted

  • September 8, 2011, 4:17pm

Seriously Tim, the verb "to text" has been in existence little more than a decade; who are you to prescribe the correct form of the past tense? Especially when you're saying that adding the regular -ed ending to a newly-created verb is incorrect! Forming an irregular past tense from a new verb, which you're saying is the ONLY correct way, would be highly unusual. But who knows, "I text you last night" might win in the end.

I'm guessing this depends on where you're from. I was brought up in the UK. I only heard Lego used as a mass noun; I never heard anyone talk about "a Lego" or "five red Legos". Then again I can't see anything wrong with it.

Another point: I don't see why anyone needs to write LEGO in all caps, regardless of what they use in their branding. I think Lego looks much better on the page.