Grammatical mistakes

[Matthew E. Feeney]

You are right. These forms are not easy: ''lie,'' ''lay,'' ''lain,'' and ''lay,'' ''laid,'' ''laid,'' and ''who,'' ''whom,'' and it is fascinating that these forms have early origins in the history of the language and are still widely used. Here a man working at the desk at a tire store said though on the phone to someone ''but if this person is so highly educated why does he say 'doing good' and not 'doing well'?'' Russia. North: a man who worked on the bay told me ''asfal't konchaetsia, i rossiia nachinaetsia.'' ---------- Sent from AT&T Wireless using Windows Live Hotmail


-----Original Message-----
From: William Derbyshire
Sent: 10/17/2011 9:40:26 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Grammatical mistakes
In a message dated 10/17/2011 2:09:54 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET writes:

The  mistakes that grate on me the most here in Alaska are "I'm going to
lay
down"
I don't think that the average  college-educated speaker of English could
produce and
use correctly the various forms of  "to lie"  and "to lay", and this
pertains to Americans
and British equally - not just youse / ya'll /  younse Alaskans!

 "You did good".
This might be  grammatically correct if the speaker means to say what the
sentence says.
How about "I don't feel good" vs. "I don't feel well" (is the latter an
adjective or an
adverb, if the latter, then you better learn how to do it well!)?

Also English speakers have horrible problems with apostrophes. So  many
people find it hard
to grasp that "it's" means "it is", while "its" is possessive. But  seeing
an apostrophe in a plural
is the most depressing.
Now you've really  hit upon my pet peeve. Take a drive on a Saturday and
count the number
of signs which  state:   "free kitten's"
At our local  farmers market It is quite normal to see signs in one and the
same  booth. such as:
            "cucumbers  $ xxx"
            "turnip's        $ xxx"
            "We  also have tomato's and potatoes too."
Sheeesh!!
I was amazed when I noticed the same mistakes  being made by British
speakers of English.
But, far worse, I have found similar examples of the misspelling of
plurals in my local newspaper.
Finally, I have a friend whose child's teacher  "corrected" the proper
spelling of the plural noun
"books"  to "book's" in the child's composition. The teacher was furious
when the parent  pointed
out the  mistake and subsequently became revengeful towards the child.

And yes,  Virginia, I've heard many a Russian speak about "Mojo
den'rozhdenie". and  use,
inter alia, incorrect genitive plural endings ("sosedov"), not to mention
incorrect stress on
numerous verb forms ("prinjAl"). When I was still actively teaching I used
to keep notes
on mistakes which I heard educated Russians make. I regret that I did not
keep that list.
It would have made a good article.

*************************************************
William W. Derbyshire
Professor Emeritus - Rutgers  University
freelance translator - Slavic  languages

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