Discussion Forum
This is a forum to discuss the gray areas of the English language for which you would not find answers easily in dictionaries or other reference books.
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Does anyone else find it annoying that reference is being used, more and more, as a verb? When people say things like “He’s referencing our trip to the mall” it really annoys me. It seems like they simply do not know that reference already has a verb form “refer.” Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Is it correct to say “over exaggerate”? or is exaggeration by nature already over emphasizing? Surely you either exaggerate or you don’t? It just drives me mad when people say this all the time!
I find educated speakers saying the following:
“Everyone must do their duty.” or “The next player must move their piece if the move is possible.”
This is caused because people do not think ahead when speaking. To avoid this, they could start with the plural, such as:
“All of us must do our duty.” or “Players must move their piece if the move is possible”.
What will future grammar books say about the time honored rule that pronouns must agree in gender, number, and case? They must agree in gender, number, and case with the exception that in order to avoid using “he or she” or “his or hers”, the plural may be used as an exception.
I’m writing for a trivia book that will use quote marks to signify a title. Would a correct possessive be:
How tall is “Sesame Street’s” Big Bird? or How tall is “Sesame Street”’s Big Bird?
In the phrase “...ranked in the top five in PC Magazine’s top-20 list...” I know that “PC Magazine” should be italicized. But should the italic formatting carry over to the apostrophe-s or not?
Why is it that drug addiction is referred to as ‘dependency’ and not ‘dependence’? I realize it’s a synonym but it seems like an unnecessary one. No one ever uses the word ‘independency’
Genius has no ‘o’ in it and yet ingenious does. Why the difference in spelling?
“As I mentioned before” or “As I’ve mentioned before”
Which one is correct and why, or is there a different place and time to use either?
You know when people or businesses use improper spelling for effect?
eg. “Rogz for Dogz” or “Phantasy Star”
What is that called? I simply can’t find the answer anywhere.
Which of the following is correct?
It is I. It is me.
A grammar teacher mentioned to me something about the nominative case being used after the verb “to be” and not the usual objective case (”me”) that I thought it should be. He said the verb “to be” was an exception, but I can’t find anywhere that this is written down as such. Anyone any thoughts?
