Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

nigel

Member Since

February 21, 2009

Total number of comments

6

Total number of votes received

17

Bio

Latest Comments

“deal to”

  • March 28, 2013, 1:33pm

Sixteen hits on Google hardly bespeaks a well established usage. I got 34 hits for "ztghxp", which is just a random string of letters I made up.

Google indexes people's grammatical mistakes and typos just as much as their correct or intentional usages.

“no end” and “to no end”

  • March 28, 2013, 1:24pm

It does not follow from the fact that some blogger ( a self-appointed crusader against prescriptivism, no less! Be still my beating heart!) and a small minority of his correspondents are ignorant about certain English idioms, that those idioms can mean whatever you want.

"No end" (without a preposition) is a well established idiom meaning "a great deal".

"To no end" means "to no purpose" or "to no significant effect". So far as I can see, it is not an idiom at all, but entirely literal, although it may confuse some because it uses the word "end" in one of its less common senses.

Both expressions are correct English, but they mean different things. If you mix them up, you will be misunderstood by competent English speakers.

Pronouncing “mandatory”

  • July 8, 2012, 2:32pm

“Mandaytory” is not in the least pretentious, it is merely wrong. Presumably the error arises when people guess at the pronunciation by extrapolating from that of "mandate" (a homosexual assignation).

watch much stuff?

  • June 14, 2012, 3:49pm

“Benjymyn
.......
Could that work as good?
/non-native English speaker”

So it seems.

watch much stuff?

  • April 18, 2012, 8:02pm

I do not see any problem with the grammar, but using "stuff" in this sense (I am guessing it means television programs, or something like that) is both vague and slangy. Perhaps it is that which is making you uneasy. Also, it is not a very euphonious sentence.

ye, yer, yers

  • December 24, 2011, 1:22pm

"Ye" is not the plural of "you", it is the plural of "thou". Of course, "ye" (except in Ireland, so I am told) and "thou" are both obsolete in most English dialects, and have both been replaced by "you", which is both singular and plural.

If you are deliberately trying to write in an archaic form of English, using "ye" and "thou", I dare say the forms that you mention would be acceptable.