This is incorrect. You set the book on the shelf where it now sits.
Read your own example.
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There, their, they're.
- Thread starter Michael B
- Start date
Read your own example.
That there is one ah them runyan cintacents.View attachment 816047 Personally? I try to do my best, grammatically. Also, I'm one of those people who, when I come across something written so badly it's hard to understand, have to wonder if the person who wrote it has anything to say that's worth reading. However, I usually just remind myself that I'm old; the education system in this country isn't what it used to be; and recite what's in the picture to myself - over, and over, and over...
No, it would be The book "sets" on the shelf. It can't "sit" because it is placed there.
Not all languages see a double negative as a reversal. Some, Russian for example, see multiple negatives as just more negative. What is interesting is no language sees double positives as a negative.
(yeah, right)
It seems you are talking past each other. There is nothing in the original sentence to indicate that the book is (being) placed on the shelf. However it came there, it is now sitting on the shelf. You set down a cup. The cup was set down, and now the cup sits on the table.
If, on the other hand, "the book is setting" - well, what is the book setting, and how is it able to actively do that?
The book was placed on the table. You set it there. Set requires an object. Sit does not. The book is sitting on the table. Set is a transitive verb. Sit is an intransitive verb.
There is not object in the book is sitting on the table. Book is the subject.
Thanks for the link. That looks good. There's a book called Mind the Gaffe, by RL Trask, that's also prone to giving one a shove in the right direction. I can't locate my copy at the moment - I recently lost my perspective on the difference between pleonasms and neoplasms - could've been a fatal malapropism - but I'm determined again to track that book down and re-read it. This stuff does help. Here's a brief review from the Guardian.
I'm with you 100%. Unfortunately the dumbing down of America has created a society where people rarely even care anymore whether people around them use good grammar or not. They will even go so far as to insult you for pointing it out.
An observation which is accurate but regrettable in its accuracy.
im prolly gonna take a brake and eat a stake purty so on.
I think "prolly" is my favorite newspeak word!
Me too. I use it all of the time. I know it's wrong but I cannot help myself.
BTW, some people are not unintentionally using poor grammar, but are writing idiomatically.
Is now the time to bring up the use of the Oxford comma?
Is now the time to bring up the use of the Oxford comma?
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It is: sing, sang, sung.
It is not: bring, brang, brung.
Yep! I always thought it was funny when Neil Diamond sang "Songs she brang to me" in the song "Play Me".
That is a strange song. Why was she "lying beside my bed" instead of in the bed?
Oh, lordy. How long and acrimonious do you want this thread to be??
Here is one that people misuse often
Sit vs. Set
The easiest way to remember is to use "sit" for people or animals and "set" for things or objects.
Examples:
He is "sitting" in the chair.
The book is "setting" on the shelf.
The waiter "sat" down and "set" the dishes on the table.
I need to set a while and think this over.
But you could say, "The book was set on the table." Passive construction. Because we don't say "setted."
