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Sunday, February 27, 2011

(11) Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English (46-50)

Ramesh Prabhu
Rant No. 46: Why do so many of us insist on spelling "definitely" as "definately"?
January 28 at 10:36am
  • Sushmita Chatterjee, Tania Sarkar, Souvik Chakraborty and 2 others like this.
    • Sanaa A'esha Really? Never seen that before.
      January 28 at 11:13am

    • Ramesh Prabhu Sanaa: When is the last time you corrected an answer sheet or a written assignment? :-)
      January 28 at 11:20am

    • Sanaa A'esha Haha! I guess copy checking isn't that bad a part of a job after all.
      January 28 at 11:22am

    • Vidya Nayak i definately dont:)
      January 28 at 1:27pm

    • Ayushman Baruah This is too obvious I thought but ya as a teacher I am sure you come across lots of people...
      January 28 at 2:32pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu Yes, Ayushman, lots of YOUNG people who think "definitely" is spelt "definately".
      January 28 at 2:36pm

    • Catherine Dequadros Lol! I was confused for a very long time till Ron Ma'am drilled it into my head :P
      January 28 at 2:54pm

    • Ayesha Tabassum I haven't come across this one Sir... most people spell it as 'definitely'
      January 28 at 3:00pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu Ayesha: See Catherine's comment above. And re-read my reply to Sanaa's comment.
      January 28 at 3:01pm

    • Ayesha Tabassum Ok Sir... agreed with you... but I was DEFINITELY not confused :)
      January 28 at 3:06pm
       
    • Samarpita Samaddar Catherine: REALLY? Like really? :O
      January 28 at 3:50pm
       
    • Tania Sarkar similar goes for 'definition'... they spell it as 'defination'!
      January 28 at 7:48pm
       
      ***
      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 47: Why do so many of us insist on spelling "interested" as "intrested" and "interesting" as "intresting"?
      January 31 at 10:21am
       
      • Samarpita Samaddar likes this.
        • Samarpita Samaddar And that makes me flinch every time. How can people not know the difference?
          January 31 at 11:28am

          ***
          Ramesh Prabhu
          Rant No. 48: It's "hold on to (something)", NOT "hold onto (something). It's "he is up to (something)", NOT "he is upto (something).
          February 1 at 10:15am
           
          • Divya Bhandarkar and Anagha Gunjal like this.
            • Ramesh Prabhu
              Handy Hint: On to vs. Onto
              It's easy to pass over this one in conversation, but when editing, you may find yourself coming to a complete halt to decide between the two. According to Merriam-Webster, "onto" is a preposition meaning "to a position on" (he hopped onto the bike). Separately, "on" is an adverb and "to" is a preposition, which refer to position and movement respectively (he hung on to the handlebars).

              For me, those definitions are too similar to quickly make a distinction. It helps to determine whether "on" is part of the verb it's modifying (hopped on), but fortunately, The Chicago Manual of Style offers a more useful trick: mentally say "up" before "on." If the sentence still makes sense, then "onto" is probably the right choice (he hopped up onto the bike).

              http://bluepencilediting.blogspot.com/2008/12/handy-hint-on-to-vs-onto.html
              February 2 at 10:27am
           
          ***
          Ramesh Prabhu
          Rant No. 49: Why do some (many?) of us use two spaces after a punctuation mark when only one space is necessary? (Thank you for the tip-off, Atri Mukerjee.)
          February 2 at 10:28am

        • Nida Merchant likes this.
           
        • Ramesh Prabhu Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. -- http://www.slate.com/id/2281146/
          February 2 at 4:48pm
           
          ***
          Ramesh Prabhu
          Rant No. 50: Why do we insist on spelling "privilege" as "priviledge"? (This one is dedicated to Shanika Bhowmick. She knows why.)
          February 3 at 10:19am
           
        • Dipankar Paul The same reason why 'seperate', 'pronounciation', 'reccommend', 'embarass' (and others) exist in the lexicon of the doomed...
          February 3 at 11:26am
           
        • Samarpita Samaddar Good one.
          February 3 at 2:18pm
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