Lee Valley optical center punch

[nospambob]

[Charlie Self]

You got that right.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Charlie Self]

Tom Watson responds:

Good luck. My granddaughter is now 14, and the impediment has gotten worse each year...day?

It isn't being bilingual, though: I think these kids talk to each other like that to fill up time, because they have nothing to say that is important enough for clear speech and don't know enough to STFU.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Swingman]

I saw were I did it mysef the other day. I no better, butt my typing fingers just takeoff on there own sometime's.

[Rob Lee]

The most frequently used teenager verb (conjugated below):

"I was like..." "He was like...." "She was like...." "They were like...." "We were like..."

Lasts well into the twenties......

Cheers -

Rob

[Swingman]

Except in those cases where "were", "was" and "be" are used interchangeably.

Generally followed by the most important punctuation device in the modern lexicon: "... you know."

[Specter]

Tom. I went through that with my youngest daughter. I've made headway, but now have to work on her "upspeak" (finishing each statement with a rising tone, as though asking a question). Perhaps kids need to become multilingual, with varying pronunciation : )

Rob

---------------------

"Tom Wats> I'm fighting this fight with my eleven year old daughter. I've told

[Silvan]

You know, it's really, like, you know, endemic in today's, you know, society.

I hear people, you know, on the radio being interviewed, and they like, you know say "you know" every other word, you know?

Even, you know, relatively scholarly people.

One explanation I heard was that, you know, it's not acceptable to say, you know, "uh," so people, you know, say "you know" instead of "uh" now, you know?

OK, I'll stop it, and I promise to, you know, NEVER do this again, you know?

I'm ready to slap mySELF.

[Silvan]

That's the battle I'm fighting with my daughter. She can't really help it, because it's the local vernacular. However, I grew up here too, dammit, and I can conjugate the verb "to be" correctly.

I've been trying to find a programmable shock collar that will give her a jolt every time she says "you was" or "we was." :)

(No, no, no, settle down everybody, I'M JUST KIDDING!!!)

I know. :(

[Bob Haar]

I would add to the list the people who don't recognize that 'sight', 'site' and 'cite' are different words with quite different meanings.

I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my timing. Mainly, I hit keys out of order so that letters are transposed. Because of this, I am seeing the results of stupid spell check software more frequently. My wife, who teaches writing at college, laments the era of spell checkers with the corresponding lazy proof reading. The excuse is too often "The computer said it was OK so it has to be the right word." They don't understand that the spell checker does not understand the semantics, and can only look up correct spellings, not whether the word is used appropriately.

[Swingman]

She be watching too much pro sports?

[Michael Daly]

For me, it's less/fewer. Not even the journalists and editors bother to get it right anymore.

I met one of those once - a university English Literature professor! She submitted an article to our club's newsletter and, after reading it, I advised the editor to send it back to her for a rewrite. Imagine what the students are learning from her!

Mike

[Kevin P. Fleming]

And here's another one (seen mostly on TV DIY shows lately): use of the word "my" in place of "the"...

"I'm going to use my table saw now to cut this..." "I'll add my turkey now to the pot..." "I'll go over to my oven now and check the temperature..."

In the first place, in exactly ZERO of these occurrences are the objects in question actually owned by the speaker, so the use of "my" is actually incorrect. In spite of that, did we really think they were going to add "someone else's" turkey to the pot? Or they were going to use "someone else's" table saw?

This has unfortunately spread into common usage as well; my sister (over

30 years old) frequently says things like:

"I like to have my orange juice with breakfast" "I'm going to Starbucks to get my drink"

Well, like, you know, DUH, of course it's YOUR orange juice, it came out of YOUR refrigerator :-)

[Mark]

My God, Charlie, sounds like Wife and I.

Part of it is that Man/ Woman communication thing and part of it is her not learning 'English' until she was about 15 when she came to the U.S.

[Jim Wilson]

Me, too. Just remember:

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

Jim

[Kevin P. Fleming]

As Dave Barry wrote in a column a couple of years back, in common usage an apostrophe is now a warning that "an S is coming". I have actually seen them in the _middle_ of words where there is just no possible way a rational person could think they belonged there. It's very sad.

What makes me even more sad is seeing signs, posters and advertisements with these gross grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors. In nearly every case, these items were reviewed by at least one person other than the writer, if not many more than one. If I owned a sign shop, I would refuse to make signs for people with these obvious errors; my policy would be that I'd fix them for free (if possible), and if they don't like it they can go elsewhere!

[Jim Wilson]

A memorable quote after a Hagler-Hearns (IIRC) bout was stopped by the referee: "He didn't hurt me! I hurted *him*!"

Jim

[Jim Wilson]

Did you do that on purpose? (G)

Jim

[Steve]

----------------8 This has unfortunately spread into common usage as well; my sister (over

I would not argue with your sister on that one, maybe she likes to have OJ once a day, she is saying she likes to have hers(sp?) with breakfast. If she said "I like to have OJ with breakfast", that doesn't preclude her from having it with lunch too. Example conversation below:

Kevin = K Kevins(sp? I think there's supposed to be an apostrophe?) Sister = S

K--Good morning sis', I just stopped by to install these fabulous mahogany floor to ceiling bookcases for your new library. I'm sorry it's so early, but I wanted to get an early start because there are seven of them and I'll have to make a couple of trips, and then try to get the rolling ladder on this afternoon. (now wiping slobber/drool off keyboard) I brought some breakfast burritos for us.

S--Morning Kev', I can't wait to fill up the new cases. What, no OJ?

K--Sorry, I forgot, I don't drink it at breakfast, I have MINE (not shouting, just emphasizing) in the afternoon, in the warm, dappled (sp?) sunlight under the big tree in the backyard, tossing a ball or stick for Buster The Beast at Tenagra-good boy. (Sorry, that's me)

S-"I like to have my OJ with breakfast."

K-I won't forget next time, just make the check out to "Kevin Fleming", since you're my sister I'll give you a break, make it for $10,000 even.

End of story. See how nice that works.

Steve

[Kevin P. Fleming]

OK, I'll use a better example:

"I always have a glass of my orange juice with breakfast"

This is closer to what she says... but I don't really record it all for fear it will corrupt my own language skills :-)

ROFL! Nice job.