Well, hi there.
Well, it seems as if the world is less than on fire to buy Eternal Idol. I think I'll just have to ramp it up!
Anyway, there's lots of cool stuff going on right now, and you should definitely be involved in those things instead reading a dang blog. I would, however, like to point out another growing problem, at least as long as I have your attention, that is. The problem?
The misunderstanding between "try to" and "try and."
So many people say that they will "try and do something." This is horrendously grammatically incorrect. What that sentence implies is the person speaking is actually going to perform two separate functions. He will try something, and then he will do something. I wouldn't even mention this, except that I'm reading it and hearing it from the pens and mouths of well educated people. The problem with that is that the grammatically educated must be on the front lines of the battle keep the language intact. There is a movement to simplify the spelling of the English language with official spellings being much more phonetical. "Though" becomes "tho," for example. The problem is, that for someone who is learning about the etymology of the words he speaks, this becomes confusing. What happens when prefixes become different depending on the word they modify? "Telephone" becomes "telafone," but "telepathy" becomes "tuhlepuhthy," and so on. The "tele" prefix has become meaningless and lost. For one word, it's "tela," but for another it's "tuhle." Dictionaries would be a confusing mess. I understand things like the metric system and how they can help us. Sometimes simpler is better. Advertisements, for example. If an ad tells me what the product is and why I need it, I don't need pyrotechnics and celebrities. But language is something that's supposed to unify a people, which means certain standards must be upheld. I understand removing silent u's from words like "colour," but a line has to be drawn before it gets out of control. I like being able to read books written 200 years ago because it's written with words I speak on a daily basis. What will happen to the next generation of people if we keep dumbing down the language? Our kids won't understand a single book written before... last week.
Anyway, there's lots of cool stuff going on right now, and you should definitely be involved in those things instead reading a dang blog. I would, however, like to point out another growing problem, at least as long as I have your attention, that is. The problem?
The misunderstanding between "try to" and "try and."
So many people say that they will "try and do something." This is horrendously grammatically incorrect. What that sentence implies is the person speaking is actually going to perform two separate functions. He will try something, and then he will do something. I wouldn't even mention this, except that I'm reading it and hearing it from the pens and mouths of well educated people. The problem with that is that the grammatically educated must be on the front lines of the battle keep the language intact. There is a movement to simplify the spelling of the English language with official spellings being much more phonetical. "Though" becomes "tho," for example. The problem is, that for someone who is learning about the etymology of the words he speaks, this becomes confusing. What happens when prefixes become different depending on the word they modify? "Telephone" becomes "telafone," but "telepathy" becomes "tuhlepuhthy," and so on. The "tele" prefix has become meaningless and lost. For one word, it's "tela," but for another it's "tuhle." Dictionaries would be a confusing mess. I understand things like the metric system and how they can help us. Sometimes simpler is better. Advertisements, for example. If an ad tells me what the product is and why I need it, I don't need pyrotechnics and celebrities. But language is something that's supposed to unify a people, which means certain standards must be upheld. I understand removing silent u's from words like "colour," but a line has to be drawn before it gets out of control. I like being able to read books written 200 years ago because it's written with words I speak on a daily basis. What will happen to the next generation of people if we keep dumbing down the language? Our kids won't understand a single book written before... last week.
posted by Paul Stadden | 5:47 PM
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