<p>As my empty mailbox waits to be filled with news, I chuckle at this thread!! All of you are great! Dr. John, once again offering some relief ("i before e except after c", right?) during an anxious time!! Thank you!</p>
<p>Y'all are 2, to, two, TOO funny. :D</p>
<p>As a wise woman once told me, "language is usage". It is a living breathing entitiy that is subject to change. I try not to make errors in spelling, (and yes, I mispelled MahattAn on an ealier post), but as far as prom or The prom goes, I think we may have to accept the vernacular and move on.</p>
<p>On the other hand, one thing I like to look at when we have done college tours is the school newspaper. It gives a snapshot of the students at a particular college. The content gives part of the picture- what do students care about, but poor grammar and spelling sends up red flags for me. One MT school that we visited had a particularly "bad" newspaper, full of typos and misspellings. It left a bad taste in my mouth.</p>
<p>My pet peeve.....the over used word "stuff". What is stuff? Is it singular or plural? A word that just drives me batty.</p>
<p>SUE aka 5pants</p>
<p>This thread is too funny! I have to say, though, that as is evidenced by at least a couple of posts above, no matter how knowledgeable one is on spelling and grammar, honest-to-goodness typos sometimes till prevail. Here's to spell-checkers, although even they have THERE issues. :-)</p>
<p>Oh, man, Sue! I love stuff! When used as a noun, it generally implies multiple objects, so its plural. Its also a verb. I hope everybodys mailbox is stuffed full of all kinds of good stuff, soon! I wonder when my financial aid/scholarship stuff is gonna come? At least its not the other "S word" I hear used all the time as follows </p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #1
Im gonna go downtown and stuff. </p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #2
No "stuff?"</p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #1
Theres a new vintage clothing store Ive heard has all kindsa cool stuff. Wanna come?</p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #2
Oh, stuff yeah!</p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #1
Okay, then get your stuff together and lets go.</p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #2
Oh, hold yer stuff. Ill be ready in a minute.</p>
<p>15 minutes later in the car </p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #2
Oh, stuff! I forgot my credit card and stuff!</p>
<p>COLLEGE STUDENT #1
(Under breath) Stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff
</p>
<p>Here on the west coast when they say that they are "going out" I always ask, "So, where are you going?" No, Mom, that means that we are boyfriend/girlfriend!</p>
<p>I thought of another error that annoys me! </p>
<p>"ALOT" is not a word. </p>
<p>Use two words! A lot of people mess that up!</p>
<p>I started this thread with a gentle nudge for folks to spell the most important word in their lives this week- "ACCEPTED "--correctly!!!
but I wonder......</p>
<p>perhaps b/c so many of these kids are musical i.e. they have an auditory giftedness), perhaps some are not as equally gifted in being visual thinkers--which goes a long way toward someone being a good speller-- It either looks like it is spelled right or it doesn't!!!!</p>
<p>on a side note, my son who has never done a lot of reading is a very verbal writer. He writes essays etc that are very conversational. Obviously is auditory and has internalised the patterns and rhythms of speech ,and his writing sounds like someone talking;instead of the more detached style needed in say an essay of historical analysis.</p>
<p>So, all you misspellers have an out now!!!</p>
<p>It is one thing to misspell a word- we all do it!</p>
<p>It is another to use the WRONG word (accept/except)</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with you, Lynnm. Back in the dark ages, when I was a teenager, we would say something such as "Who is taking you to the prom?" Now they say "Who is taking you to prom?" What happened to the "the?" It's a mystery to me, and yes, it annoys me.</p>
<p>My other grammatical pet peeve is using "impact" as a verb. What's up with that? We used to say "Education has an impact on the rest of a person's life." Now, they say "Education impacts the rest of your life." It bugs me to no end. </p>
<p>Though this is not a grammar complaint, I also despise the term "networking." Back in the old days, we used to just talk to people and get to know them. Now we "network."</p>
<p>L</p>
<p>Hey NotMamaRose (love that screen name!)</p>
<p>Actually, "impact" is both a noun and a verb!</p>
<p>And about "the prom" versus "prom" - in England they say "go to hospital" not "go to the hospital" - so maybe some British kid started this "prom" thing!</p>
<p>Okay - here's another one: just read a post about a college's "adverage GPA" - ouch.....</p>
<p>fishbowl,</p>
<p>Too funny!! BUT you are welcome to my stuff...it's just one of those words that doesn't sit well with my eardrums. To each his own...it's a great world, isn't it?</p>
<p>Hey, how about those people who say for example, "Them people over there." <strong>Roll the eyes</strong> There is a person who works in our office, who btw has her Masters degree and teaching certificate, and you guessed it...speaks like that quite frequently.</p>
<p>Have to get back to my stuff! ;)</p>
<p>SUE aka 5pants</p>
<p>anothermom-w-q:</p>
<p>I agree with your comments about the school newspaper. When doing college visists I happened upon one and found it very revealing about student issues (concerns), political leanings, etc. After that I made it a point to seek out the newspapers of every school we visited.</p>
<p>NotMamaRose, I'm 49 years old and I've always thought of impact as an acceptable verb, so I had to look it up. Websters.com had it listed as both, but there's a really interesting note at the bottom of the page -- <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=impact%5B/url%5D">http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=impact</a></p>
<p>edmondsg, it's good to know that I am not alone in my distaste for things "impacting on" other things, even if good old Webster's (and dictionary.com!:)) states that "impact" is, indeed, properly used as a verb as well as as a noun!</p>
<p>When I was a young newspaper reporter (back in the middle 80s), a sentence such as "Poverty impacts on the inner city community" would never have gotten past a good editor and copyeditor! Never. Now it's par for the course, I guess, though I still don't see it used regularly in our local metro daily paper. (Thank goodness.)</p>
<p>I still think it sounds bizarre. But then again, I am old. :)</p>
<p>anothermom-w-q: great idea to pick up -- and read -- newspapers are various campuses when you visit. You can learn a lot about the school and its students that way, including what's going on on campus (crime, concerns, etc.) And few things make a worse impression than do bad grammar and poor spelling in printed materials.</p>
<p>L</p>
<p>My Philosophy professor has a real issue with using the word "issue" as such even though the name of the class is "Contemporary Moral Issues." If you say you have an issue with something in class discussion, he'll stop you and remind you to use "problem" and dock you a point if you use it again. Interestingly, he can't spell ... for "stuff." ;) When he misspells a word on the board and everyone starts laughing, he reminds us that "spelling is a very, very low-level intellectual activity." Methinks the man has issues.</p>
<p>NotMamaRose... speaking of being old... I realized I'm going to turn 50 the same week my son goes away to college. Yep, that's going to be a GREAT week. :-(</p>
<p>lets get serius peepul! bad speling, grammer, and punctuashun reflex bad on students. its definately a prolem. i have never been excepted or regected by a MT progrom, but I no that the auditioners (U no, those peepul that lisen to kids sing and act) reed there essays. using apostrofees incurrect (it drives me crazy to see kids right things such as: Its kool i got into Otterbine, its program is the best) doesnt look goodly. furgetting to use LY to form adverbs, or using them incurrect looks badly. anuther thing to watch is using the rong name for a skool. my pursonle favrit is CCM Cincinatti Conservatory of Music. (how do youse guys spel Cincinatti and Manhatten?) it wood be a shame if a kid wuz regected becuz s/he looked ignurnt. anyways, brake a leg and congradulations to all the students whove gotten there exceptences this year. alrighty!!!!</p>
<p>Dancersmom, as someone who has been a primary grade teacher and has read countless pieces of writing using inventive spelling, I had no problem reading your post! :D
When my college students wrote like that, then it was an "issue" (bowing to Fishbowl on that one).</p>