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You smell badly.
You smell bad.
Big dif.
Felix, to expand on what Ruth said, removing the "ly" makes them adjectives which cannot modify verbs, thus this dropping of the "-ly" is incorrect. "Nicely" is modifying "was done"; badly is modifying "treat."Thanks everyone for your suggestions for my question. I completely agree it's awful and I would never write that way myself. But I'm copy editing someone else's manuscript and I need to keep it as close to her voice as possible. I want to steer away from rewriting paragraphs as much as possible. So I think I'll either do Newengland's first suggestion or do it something like Doug's example, depending on the paragraph. As I said, there are many of them.
As an aside, now that I'm copy editing for pay, I am hyper-sensitive about how I word everything thinking everyone is second guessing me. Do any of you have that problem or am I just paranoid?
Paranoid? Perhaps conscientious. Don't waste your time on those who seek to blame or defame you.Doug
Kelly - Maybedog wrote: "...As an aside, now that I'm copy editing for pay, I am hyper-sensitive about how I word everything thinking everyone is second guessing me. Do any of you have that problem or am I just paranoid?"It's not paranoid to think someone will read what you've written and notice if there are grammar errors.
I'm an aspiring writer and have posted some of my early chapters for a book I'm working on in the Writing section of my profile. http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/9...
I've recently re-read some of it and I can see that some things were not worded well the first time around. I plan to go back and clean that up in my next revamp.
If you can stand to listen to it, you should check out the Twilight audio book. Since the book spawned three sequals and five popular movies I'd say that the storytelling aspect is great (at least according to fans) However the prose is very amateurish in spots and the audio book really highlights that. There's one place in the first chapter where the word "door" is used four times in four contiguous sentences and it just made me want to scream "EDITOR! when I heard it. Course it's writing like that convinces me that even I can write a book.
Oh, Steven, don't use that as a standard. Be strong and say something like, "Course it's writing like that convinces me that even I can write a book." I'm sure you can write a book much better than that rubbish. I've written better notes to my kids than that book.Seriously, I tried to read it three times, once right when it came out, before the hype, and it was so awful. I just couldn't do it. I am positive the audiobook would be worse. :)
OK: I'm not being paranoid, but shouldn't stress about it. Got it. Thank you as always!
Hi I hope I can ask this question here. I was wondering if this sentence is correct. I saw this in a novel and it sounds so awkward to me, but I googled "needed fed" and apparently it's used."Animals needed fed, their stalls and yards needed cleaned, even on Christmas day."
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"Ani..."
It's like my husband when he reports that when he was out in the car he "filled gas." A weird peccadillo.
Yes, very non-standard, but it's a common regionalism in parts of the US. If you Google ["needs washed" grammar] you'll find lots of articles on this form (for some reason "washed" is the more common example). I don't think I've ever heard in here in the UK.Here's a Grammar Girl post to get you started, which even includes a map: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/...
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Yep, it's a regionalism. I grew up in southern Michigan and heard it all the time. But then out there we drank "pop" instead of soda and sometimes walked "kitty corner" rather than "catty corner" and we didn't have any frying pans for things to fall out of (except metaphorically), we had to use skillets....course my only question is whether the speaker when using the expression "needs washed" prounced the "r" or not. Where I grew up it always sounded more like "needs warshed."
Ah I see I see. That's very interesting. Thanks for the link. The author of the book is from Ohio so it makes sense. I asked mostly because I found numerous other basic grammatical mistakes in the novel (like no commas between independent clauses, a character calling another character the wrong name, "it's" rather than "its", missing spaces, misspelled words, etc etc).@Stephen: I dunno. I never noticed any slang or dialect other than the ones the author put in to try to make the character sound more like a teenager.
So I have one more question. Another sentence I thought to be incorrect was this one:
"He looked like he could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty years old, but still built like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun."
The main problem I have is the ", but still" part. If you remove [looked like he could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty years old, but] from the sentence it becomes "He still built like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun." when I think the author means "He [was] still built...", not that he actually 'built' things like he swung around dangerous weapons (man I wouldn't hire him to build my house, too much collateral damage).
Is this actual incorrect grammar or is this another regional thing?
These are just some of the things I was thinking of mentioning in my review. I was so surprised that with nine 4-5 (mostly 5) star ratings, not a single person noticed any of these mistakes (at least the most blatant ones). Someone even noted it had excellent writing when all I found were the same descriptors appearing over and over again (like being told the uniforms were khaki 15 times or that some guy's eyes were silver 4 times for no specific reason). Gah sorry I'm heading into rant mode. I just hate it when an author charges money for a book that hasn't even been properly proofread you know?
Min wrote: "Hi I hope I can ask this question here. I was wondering if this sentence is correct. I saw this in a novel and it sounds so awkward to me, but I googled "needed fed" and apparently it's used."Ani..."
I've heard this kind of phrasing used in Arkansas when I was growing up. It's a southernism, I think.
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Now this sentence looks fine to me. I'm a "but still..." guy from way back.
Yeah I use "but still" as well, it just doesn't quite work with this sentence. For example, "She lived in Canada for most of her life but still spoke with an Irish accent." If you take out [lived in Canada for most of her life but] you get "She still spoke with an Irish accent."In this case, "He looked like he could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty years old, but still built like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun." But with the middle part gone it's "He still built like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun." Essentially speaking he builds things (as in building a tree house or building a Lego construction) like he handles weapons, not that he is built (as in he is very muscular). I think there's a missing verb because "built" is being used as a descriptor. Plus there's an unnecessary comma before the "but" as the second part isn't an independent clause (though I think there's some leeway with 1st person POV).
XP Man I'm becoming a grammar nazi.
Ah ha ! So it would work better with, but is still built, instead of but still built. When you delete certain parts of the sentence and it still flows, it's good to go. I learned something today.
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Dear grammar experts,When you write a letter or email starting with "Hi" or "Hello" and the person's name, do you use a comma after it, that is, which of these is correct:
Hi, John,
or
Hi John,
thanks
S the first Hi might need a period instead of a comma, or an exclaimation point, depending upon how excited you are to be conversing with John. That is my opinion, but I am no expert.
If you use "Dear" first it is not a greeting but similar to a title and there is no comma. If you use Hello or the such it is a sentence preceding a personal address and needs a comma. If you do use a period after the salutation it is a sentence and then it can be followed like this "John, concerning your letter of..." on the same line or begin a new paragraph. That's my logic and I'm sticking to it though I never saw any etiquette concerning it in school other than the standard business letter form.
Laugh. Love your reply, Ruth. I agree. And Carol, yes, if I just throw an exclamation point there, I won't have a problem. Doug, I've never done it that way -with a comma- but see the comma used increasingly. Thus my perplexity.
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My solution, anyway.
Commas I ne'er fearedWords oozing on like tree sap
Muck up my poet's ear
"Commas I ne'er feared ...Who said that? Some famous person?
Clif, Thanks, but only me. I have pages of 'em. Some day a Book may come out of it.NE, How did you know?
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Who are You? --
Are you Omniscient,
Too?
Is that a cheer made up by the Harvard University Cheerleaders? Course it sounds a bit more like MIT...
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Newengland wrote: "I'm omniscient --Who are You? --
Are you Omniscient,
Too?"
If you are omniscient you would not ask. If I knew all, I would not tell.
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I guess so. If a tree falls in the forest............
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Newengland wrote: "I'm omniscient --Who are You? --
Are you Omniscient,
Too?"
Hi, Omnisicient,
How are you?
OK... somewhat germane question here...What is the antonym of Irony? I've checked a number of on-line dictionaries and they don't offer any.
I recently opened a DVD package for the movie The Notebook and found a $1 off coupon for Kleenex tissues in the space where inserts go. While this is genius packaging, it's sort of the opposite of irony.
And any grammarian worth their salt should know of a word that means the opposite of irony. (Only one that is not mettlesome would reply Antimony)
Opposite of irony: sincerity, earnestness, seriousness, candor, etcETA: which all go so well with "marketing"
Thanks for that! And thanks NE for yours as well. At least you didn't go with wrinkly
Interesting. Antonym of irony: Some personal ideas:To surely know of something unsure would be "election(s)". Nothing in the future is ironic. It's a current or past belief that is/was mistaken as fact.
So antonyms of irony could be "know, believe, correct, etc".
If I am wrong, it won't be ironic for someone to say so. :-) :-) :-)
Newengland wrote: ""He looked like he could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty years old, but still built like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun."Now this sentence looks fi..."
What if you dropped the "still"? You could even drop the whole "built" confusion and make it "but still had a body that looked like he wielded broadswords and battle-axes in his spare time just for fun."
I know this is not a question for english speakers but might anyone know anything about the Slavic/Eastern-European case system? It's giving me a rather hard time because I don't know how to approach it.
Try Wikipedia "Romanian Language". You will find references to other languages and the academies and listing for "Case" under some of them like Slavic.
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Language & Grammar
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I have noticed, among my peers, a moving away from LY adjectives. For example, people seem to be using sentences like "That was done very nice." As appose to "That was done very nicely." or "You can't treat people bad." as appose to "You can't treat people badly." etc. Is it still grammatically correct if you drop the LY? It sounds wrong, but I'm just not sure.