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Double Bass Puh-lease!

A

anonymous0726

Nov 4, 2001
3,753
16
#1
Some informal, but correct, uses of the following words.




  1. LOSE: To misplace or get rid of. Pronounced with a 'z'-ish sound like 'looz'
    Example: "Lose the roots in the left hand, would you <insert pianist/guitarist name here>?"
  2. LOOSE: Not tight. Pronounced with a soft 's' like 'goose'
    Example: "That rendition of Moment's Notice was particularly loose."
  3. LOOSING: Not a word.
  1. BRING: A request to a second party to carry along with you a particular item.

    Example: "Bring me another beer, would you?"



    -- or --



    "Hey, Ray, would you like me to bring you a beer?"
  2. TAKE: What the second party does with the item if that second party is you.
    Example: "I must take this beer to Ray."

    Improper usage: "Hey, Paul, bring this beer to Ray, would you?"
Thank you.
 
#7
Ed Fuqua said:
I AM surprised that no one has posted the proper response to

Example: "Bring me another beer, would you?"

which is, of course, "get yer own ****ing beer"
Click to expand...


Now you sound like my wife...

In my best cockney " I say, wench ! Fetch me another ale !


this doesn't usually go over very well...
 
#9
I'm 100% with Ray on this...some posts are practically unreadable, and people, usually very young posters, who refuse to complete their profiles really gets me. We're here to help Newbies and newcomers to the DB, but when you don't even supply us a location, it's pretty hard.... and to me, there seems to be a bit of "Attitude" involved. :rolleyes:
 
#12
An interesting discussion!

I'm originally from England, having moved to the United States in 1983. I'm continually dismayed at the lazy, "couldn't-care-less" attitude to grammar, spelling and writing in general which seems to be the norm nowadays (not just here in the USA, but everywhere). I realize that English is a "living language" and will change over the course of time, but the smoothing out and homogenization of what is a beautiful language is (in my opinion) a Very Bad Thing. The English language extremely powerful, in that a subtle change of words can alter the meaning entirely. The beauty of English is that there are so many different ways of saying the same thing, but with subtlety, and change of nuance depending on not only the choice of words, but their order.

So by way of warning, I will draw you attention to the enclosed missive from the European Commission...

quote:

"To all lovers of the Queen's English:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement that English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German (the other possibility). As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement, and has accepted a 5-year phase-in of new rules which would apply to the language
and reclassify it as EuroEnglish.

The agreed plan is as follows:

In year 1, the soft 'c' would be replaced by 's'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be replaced by 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan now have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' is replaced by 'f'. This will reduse 'fotograf' by 20%.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e's in the language is disgrasful and they should eliminat them.

By year 4, peopl wil be reseptiv to lingwistik korektions such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v' (saving mor keyboard spas).

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibil riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer...."

…well as they say "many a true word is spoken in jest…"

:hmm:

- Wil
 
#13
English is the only language I know and I have a difficult time being exactly understood. At work, I have to write technical papers. I find it difficult to be perfectly concise. It seems that no matter how hard I try, something is ambiguous.

I tried to explain to my third grader:

lives - He lives in the country.
lives - The cat has nine lives.

We're learning how to spell. He wanted to know why two words that mean something different are spelled the same - help, anyone?
 
#14
I ran into that alot with my kids T, and I told them the truth, that it's just one of those funny things about our language.

The biggest culprit, hands down, is IM (instant messaging). When two (or more) kids are messaging each other, they are trying to type at spoken conversation speed. So there are many shortcuts made of necessity. The web is repleat with this, for instance many people feel it's wrong to spell the word "sight" correctly.

For instance, if my daughter is leaving an "away message" on IM for her friends to know why she isn't staring at the screen, what she means to say is:

Going to karate class, followed by my book 5 Suzuki test at the high school, and I have alot of homework to do. Please leave a message.
But what she types is:

karate
book 5
hw
leave it.

IM has largely replaced the scenario of a pre-teen or teen tying up the phone all night.

As a parent, I grudgingly allowed IM in the house, and police it closely. The unanticipated side effect is that I feel the need to demand better use of the language from the kids, especially in their writing. What many young folks fail to realize is that the written language is already a poor form of communication, it lacks all the subtleties of the spoken (or sung) word. So you need to be thorough if you want to communicate well. IM and message boards are both internet fixtures, but IM-speak does not belong on message boards.

Double-plus good, yes?
 
#16
As a journalist and student of literature, I find it particularly difficult to deal with this current state of affairs.

I know I am guilty of an occasional misuse of a word, typo or even misspelling, but I really do try. I even use iespell and check my posts here at TB before I let them fly. If I see a misspelled word in one of my posts, I edit it.

In my opinion, it is common manners to communicate clearly and accurately. Considering that manners doesn't seem to be too popular in any other arena these days, I guess this should come as no surprise.

Furthermore, it has always been my opinion that the ability to write effectively is a direct reflection of your level of intellect. The fact that so many willingly butcher the language with no sense of embarrassment at all is probably the most disturbing thing of this whole matter.

We have dozens of ESL TBers who use written English with excellent command. Why can't U.S. natives do it?
 
#18
Chasarms said:
In my opinion, it is common manners to communicate clearly and accurately.
Click to expand...
I think you've nailed it. I can understand that some folks are better than others at spelling and grammar, but I've seen too many posts containing an entire paragraph with no capital letters or punctuation. Who cares if it's difficult to read, as long as the writer isn't burdened with having to depress the "shift" key once in a while?

As long as I'm ranting, I might as well point out another nearly forgotten rule. The contraction of YOU and ARE; as in YOU'RE, contains an apostrophe and ends with an E. That's different from "YOUR," which denotes ownership. For example, "You're playing your bass."

there i feel much better now i hope your all paying attention or did you loose interest
 
#19
Ray Parker said:
Social permissiveness, outcome-based education, the raising of children by institutions and Nintendo, ...
Click to expand...


I think the ultimate problem is one of reading--or perhaps I should say the lack of reading. I have spend years teaching (public high school, university, and now learning disabled adults and at-risk teenagers in a GED program). One common factor across the board is that the overwhelming majority of poor writers do not read. I am not saying they can't read-just that they do not read. Let's face it, very few of us remember much of the grammar we were taught in elementary school. But if we consistently read the printed word, it affects our writing. We may not know exactly why we do certain things, but we know what looks/sounds correct. Most of the time, I can tell if a new student reads after reading a paragraph of their writing.
 
#20
Gufenov said:
. . . As long as I'm ranting, I might as well point out another nearly forgotten rule. The contraction of YOU and ARE; as in YOU'RE, contains an apostrophe and ends with an E. That's different from "YOUR," which denotes ownership. For example, "You're playing your bass." . . .
Click to expand...


I edit people who have been on a beat for 20 years that can't get that one right. Reporters are the worst. Once they learn that someone else is going to read behind them, they don't bother to get it right in the first place.

We all have our beefs. It seems no one even bothers with the "over/more than" distinction anymore.

"Over" denotes position.

The cow jumped over the moon

"More than" denotes a quantity.

More than 5,000 viewers attended last night's performance.

Broadcasters butcher it every time.
 

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