Don't Loose your Breaks!

What about "higher the volume" instead of "raise the volume" - I always ask people how much they intend to pay the volume....

Oh yes, and "Stop itching that" when they mean "Stop scratching that", although a purist might point out that scratching something typically leads to increased itching...

And the one that seems to be very localized to my area of the country: "Ax me a question"

 

The one that makes me mad every time I hear it is people who dutifully go around saying "___ and I" regardless of context, and seem to be making a point of how "correct" their grammar is while saying it.

e.g. "Joe went out to get some food for Sue and I."

An easy rule of thumb is to imagine the sentence with only you involved, not two people. You pretty much never hear someone say "Joe went out to get some food for I," so why should it be so hard to get it right?

And don't get me started on the subjunctive case!!


BUT... the one thing people in this thread have failed to mention is that this is exactly how language is formed. It never has been and never will be static. After all, who here hasn't typed, or maybe even spoken the word "Prii" with a straight face.

Compare American English to the language spoken in Britain. Compare any English to the language spoken there 400 years ago. So let's all try to be tolerant of the evolution of our language, while still policing grammar enough to hopefully prevent it from devolving back to just monosyllabic grunts.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Aug 13 2006, 06:24 AM) [snapback]302508[/snapback]</div>

The "___ and I" makes me wanna slap people... "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss should be required reading for ANYONE who wishes to speak and/or write in English (or even in American)!

As to "Prii," well, I would call it more of a "colloquialism," and an "in" joke rather than a grammatical (grammatic?) issue. I am all for liquidity of language. I ain't one to throw stones...but if you are going to mis-use (or ab-use) the language, its sure good to know that you be doing it on purpose but really DO know better. See? B)