What is an apostrophe?

[MarPar]

I can understand most of the abbreviations, misplaced or incorrectly used punctuation marks, misspelled words, etc., as discussed in this thread, but the one that really has me confused is the newer spoken language of Ebonics.
Lets think about that for a minute. This is a language that is relatively new and from what I've observed is commonly used in lower income, African American communities, but how it became a new language or how it initially started and became as common as it is today, is unknown.
I stumbled on a website that lets you translate Ebonics.
For kicks, I entered a simple sentence in the website's translation tool as: My Imperial is a big car.
The Ebonics translation of this simple sentence is: Yo! My Imperahal ahs a bahg rahzza. Sheeeiit.
Would anyone here be able to decipher that phrase?

Texting and cell phones are responsible for the improvement. It ain't much better, but it is a whole different problem. One person, a guy in his mid 50's, still refuses to go near a computer. By all appearances, he seemed to be functionally illiterate, but now texts all day long... he has discovered pornographic internet memes with his phone and abused the discovery enough I had to block his number. He has no concept about how connected he already is via his phone, and thinks he'd need to take a class to turn on a desktop.

Hey, Im in my 40's and I thought you got rid of your phone

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

Can anyone explain why some Americans pronounce "roof", "ruf"? I believe it's a north eastern American thing, when I hear it, it's typically in a Bostonian accent and it drives me up the wall! What gives?

I'm amused how many people pronounce "turbine" like "turban". The silent E is supposed to make the preceding I long. Or pronouncing "nuclear" as "nuke-yew-lar" instead of "nu-clear".

Do the schools teach grammar today? I'm not sure if it's politically correct to use proper grammar. You make the dumb kids feel bad. Oh wait, I'm probably not supposed to use the word dumb.

My wife gets on my case if I use the words "old folks home" or "retard".

One thing that bugs me and I see it so often is "could of" and "would of". Yet, the same people know to say "I have done that" or "I have been there". For some reason unknown to me, when they use the word "could" or "would" in front of have, the word "have" suddenly becomes "of".

"I would of done that." and " I could of been there." What's with that?

If I had to guess, it would be that it started out as the contraction "would've", "could've", etc. but when spoken could be misinterpreted as "would of". Like a game of Telephone, it just goes downhill from there. It's like people who mean to write "Voila!", which is a borrowed French word (and yes I realize it's supposed to have an accented letter), but many times I've seen it written "Wallah!" or similar.

There's a downside to being anal about this stuff. I am continuously in trouble with the Mrs 1F1 for correcting her spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. It's at the point where she won't type or write anything in front of me anymore. She makes me write out all the birthday cards because I don't make spelling mistakes, and that sucks.

I try to just bite my tongue when my wife uses bad grammar to not rock the boat, but it makes it tough trying to correct the kids. She is always using "me" when she should use "I", and uses the phrase "The problem is is...".

 

[MarPar]

I try to just bite my tongue when my wife uses bad grammar

Discretion is the better part of valor

 

[commando1]

 

[300rag]

Meh...

Until you wrote that, I hadn't seen it in a couple of years.

 

[detmatt]

Until you wrote that, I hadn't seen it in a couple of years.

I see it on this forum every once in a while and I feel the perpetrator just does it because he knows it gets under my skin.

 

[commando1]

I see it on this forum every once in a while and I feel the perpetrator just does it because he knows it gets under my skin.

Ever since you first stated a looooong time ago that "meh" got on your nerves, I have purposely avoided it here ever since.

 

[GJS]

I see it on this forum every once in a while and I feel the perpetrator just does it because he knows it gets under my skin.

I hate to have to cop to this but I have used it. Not many times, but a few. I hate myself for that.

 

[Big_John]

Heard one just this morning... "on accident".

Mrs. Big John had a big discussion with her youngest son's girlfriend. She (the girlfriend) says it's perfectly proper to say "Needs painted" and saying "needs to be painted" sounds like you are stuck up.

 

[GJS]

Heard one just this morning... "on accident".

Mrs. Big John had a big discussion with her youngest son's girlfriend. She (the girlfriend) says it's perfectly proper to say "Needs painted" and saying "needs to be painted" sounds like you are stuck up.

I had a childhood friend who's mother was born and raised in RI. She insisted that he said "on accident" rather than by accident and that he pronounce the word 'ask' ahhsk.
I don't know if we actually have RI to thank for any of these annoyances but being from New England, I can definitely say that it's a breeding ground for problematic speech.

 

[300rag]

Heard one just this morning... "on accident".

Mrs. Big John had a big discussion with her youngest son's girlfriend. She (the girlfriend) says it's perfectly proper to say "Needs painted" and saying "needs to be painted" sounds like you are stuck up.

Call me stuck up, but I think it makes more sense to say "needs paint", rather than "painted", if you insist on shortening it.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

Heard one just this morning... "on accident".

Mrs. Big John had a big discussion with her youngest son's girlfriend. She (the girlfriend) says it's perfectly proper to say "Needs painted" and saying "needs to be painted" sounds like you are stuck up.

In my experience, "needs painted", "needs washed" and similar forms of speech where the words "to be" are removed are a colloquialism from the prairie provinces. In university I had a roommate and a girlfriend who both talked like that. They were both from Saskatchewan. That was 20+ years ago now, so not a new occurrence.

My kids say "on accident" instead of "by accident". I have no idea where that came from. Sounds weird to me.

 

[Dobalovr]

better part of valor

You meant to write VALOUR.....

 

[MarPar]

You meant to write VALOUR.....

 

[stubs300]

Actually, comma neglect is far bigger problem and contributes immensely to the decline of civilization.

Fuckin A bubba, that and the lack of use of the shift key at the start of a new sentence!!

In don't know whonwas the dricing force behind it, but we learned our granddaughter in the 2nd grade, will have a spelling list custom twilored to her level of spelling, each kid will hqve a different list of words, no standardizations anymore. I just shook my head.

And it's **** like this that makes you look like a uneducated fool, because you can't proof read and make corrections. And this includes others like you that do this crap and not care! WTF is your major malfunction? Are you stupid or what?

 

[commando1]

You meant to write VALOUR.....

Do me a favour, please stop.

 

[Mid70's Chrysler Fanatic]

Phillips 66 stations have, above the pumps, signs with a new tag line:

"LIVE TO THE FULL"​

What's next? "Full your tank with the best."?

Good thing several other brands are readily available, because I'd almost rather drive a Prius (egad) if that's what it took to see the above crap less often!

And it's **** like this that makes you look like a uneducated fool, because you can't proof read and make corrections....

I thought the errors were on purpose - for satire.

 

[Mid70's Chrysler Fanatic]

Sometimes the auto-correct feature on my iPhone fucks up what I'm trying to write. If it's only a letter or two off, I might not notice. Other times, it's really goofy, especially if I'm attempting a trade name, foreign word, or something else non-standard.

 

[commando1]

I thought the errors were on purpose - for satire.

I didn't know how to take it and said nothing.

 

[cm23uoc]

The capital letters within sentences turn up randomly due to spellcheck or something like that, just saying to avoid similarly devestating judgements or judgments. My original English teacher by the way used to have a strong antipathy towards American English spelling and pronunciation. ;)

While I take good care of my own wording, I never mind that much about others to be honest as I experienced similar Problems in other fields when I had, for a short time, the idea to become an engineer, which I almost instantly found impossible to master with a nearly complete Absence of three dimensional thinking.