Is anyone else completely bound to prescriptive grammar?

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And "fish" could be spelled "ghoti".

"gh" from "enough"
"o" from "women"
"ti" from "natiion"

That should be "'Less' vs. 'fewer'" unless you were alluding to a Supreme Court case in which less sued fewer.

Yes, No, and No; I'm just made of fail.

You can't use the passive voice with intransitive verbs in English, Silly. You can in German though.

"Er ging in die Stadt." (He went into the city.)
Es wurde von ihm in die Stadt gefahren. (Technically: It was gone by him into the city.)

Wow. Translating just doesn't seem to work sometimes.

I meant to imply that there is more to the list than I had originally written. So it wasn't last on the hypothetical list that exists in my mind.

I moderate another forum, and I'm the biggest stickler for correct grammar. People get warnings if they TyP LyK dIs or use 'txt lnguge', and if they keep using it they get booted. The primary age group of users is 12-20, and if their spelling is any indication of the future of this language.... ugh.

Lynne Truss is my hero. Or heroine, if you prefer.

Of all the prescriptivist imperatives, this one and the prohibition against split infinitives are the least sensible from a historical perspective. Bishop Robert Lowth and other prescriptivist grammarians wished to model English on the influence of the Latin they were so fond of. They lacked the linguistic knowledge that English derives from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language tree and has evolved a different set of grammar rules from those of Latin. Moving the object of a preposition to the beginning of a dependent clause or an interrogative sentence comes from a long-standing aspect of Germanic syntax. Grafting a Latinate syntax rule on top of this is just plain unwieldy.

I recommend you read up on historical linguistics (Middle English, Old English, proto-Germanic, and the Indo-European language family), dialectology (the comparison of various dialects, where standard literary English is just one of many variants and registers of the English language), and grammar (from the descriptivist perspective). You might be surprised to learn that even Ebonics (or African-American English Vernacular) has regular syntax rules of its own!

No offense intended (truly), but you sound like a jackass. Messages should be judged by the ideas that they convey instead of the form their spelling takes. I'm not implying the profoundest wisdom will be found in the typical txt message, but it's not doing any harm either.

"alot" bugs me... and typing LyK dIs hurts my eyes... but, i can't really say much about using proper grammer.. after all, everywhere but here i spell everything ending in an S that has a Z sound with a Z and other stuff... for example, if i were to write this like i would anywhere else, it would be...

"alot" bugz me... and typing LyK dIs hurtz my eyez... but, i can't really say much abt using proper grammer...

i also use "u" instead of you, "ur" instead of your, and "u'r" instead of you're.

but, i thought it might bug people, so i don't type like that here... still don't use capitals as much as i should, though...

another thing that bugs me is when people say "axe" instead of "ask" but a few years ago, in english class, we all got a good laugh when one girl said, "just axe him!!" and then the guy pretended to chop another guy up with an imaginary axe and she was all confused.. lol.

"Your" instead of "you're" drives me nuts.

I'm not familiar with the less/fewer issue. Can someone give an example?

I like contrived words such as irregardless, methodology and conversate. Talk about trying to sound smart (and falling short).

Using a standard language means using definitions and forms that are widely accepted and understood. It allows efficient communication. The fact that there are thousands of words in the English language means there is plenty of room for creative expression. A few misspelled words won't hurt anyone, but massive misspellings, texting forms, lack of punctuation and incorrect grammar make it difficult to understand what the writer is trying to say. On some forums, I have seen posts that were so badly written that I couldn't undestand them.

One thing people forget: if you write a document of any kind with correct form, spelling and style you will earn more respect than if you carelessly slop words together. If you want people to listen, use the language properly. No one can read your mind for the great ideas you have.

I think they're talking about fewer mustard or less books.

I need proper grammar too. Improper grammar is a contradiction in terms; just chaotic sounds.

The NT's call this adherence to our mother tongue being "pedantic". Apparently, we speak in too "formal a register."

I say we retaliate by inventing Slang Arithmetic. You can always transpose two digits if it's, yanno, groovy. Feel free to leave off trailing 0's, they're a drag.

This could come in real handy come tax time.

i used to be a language pedant, but i've become sloppy with age and decrepitude, sigh.

still, it reminds me of when i was young

Yes, I have some issues with grammar and spelling. Proper capitalization and punctuation are also preferred. Years of internet use have warped my brain, however, and I'm slightly less picky now. Newspaper errors drive me nuts for days.

Real Estate ads too.