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by **LilMaibe** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:33 pm

Narrative doesn't have to be 100% grammatically perfect. I just saw it in the new translation of 'Moving Pictures' how that can backfire. Grammar as it isn't spoken can be a bloody, buggering tripwire.

by **deldaisy** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:25 pm

Don't care! Its fiction! Its all about the story.

If it was a scientific publication, etc it might bother me.

And I am not a lazy person when it comes to speaking or writing.... I am old enough to have gone through school when we learnt (learned.. both are correct btw) about not only nouns and verbs but prepositions, and mixed conditionals..... and that was in lower primary school.

But I don't care. I like people to speak properly. Its easier to understand them. But its not the end of the world. So many bigger things in life to step up onto a soap box about.

By the way....

Don't believe everything you read on this forum. Pooh is not in a straight jacket. (Not unless they got the refills for the tranqualizer gun back in stock)

by **Jan Van Quirm** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:15 pm

There's no room for pooh in the straitjacket - it's MINE!* MINE I tells yah!!!!!! (note the sixth exclamation point/mark :shock:

)

*unless Tina wants it back again... :roll: :lol:

by **deldaisy** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:18 pm

FINE! Fight among yourselves over the straight jacket!

ummmmmmmmmm...... can I have the tranquilizer gun then? :twisted:

by **Jan Van Quirm** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:23 pm

Oh hang on a mo' - do we have any rohypnol? :lol:

OK - pooh can have the jacket

by **unseenu** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:36 pm

poohcarrot wrote:Anyhoos, Major can't really shouldn't complain about "'ve" and "of" being pronounced the same (ie; with a schwa), just consider his name which has two schwas.

MajOR EyeswatER = Made your eyes water.

Forgive my ignorance pooh but what the heck is a schwa?

by **poohcarrot** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 10:49 pm

A schwa is the most common vowel sound in English. It's like a short [uh]. It's used in lots of words when spoken, like "would've" and "of". Here are some more words with a schwa. Say them quickly.

I wAs
They wERE
I cAn
computER
Ago
lettER
rock And roll
ten tO two (13:50)
fOR four hours

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

by **NickPretzel** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 7:27 am

So, I'm not the only one

.

First

Major Eyeswater, nice name

!

I have to say that I haven't noticed TP using "of" instead of "'ve" except in dialogue and, as has been established elsewhere, I can be a bit of a pedant when it comes to things like this. That is to say, I think I would have noticed. I could be mistaken, of course, but I can only remember Sgt Colon and Cpl Nobby using this idiom and it's quite possible that some of the characters in 'Good Omens' use it too, but all of them

? I'll keep an eye out for it (I'm going on holiday soon and hope to have a Kindle with several Discworld books that I haven't read for a while). The only major mistake I've noticed in any of the novels is the incorrect use of 'begging the question'. He used it as '... which begs the question, [question raised]'), when it actually means (quoting the 20th Century Chamber's under the entry for beg):

to beg the question, to fall into the fallacy of petitio principii, assuming what is to be proved as part of the would-be proof.

I was a little surprised that Terry made this mistake, though it's common enough, as he is such en erudite man, which only goes to show...

unseenu wrote:Forgive my ignorance pooh but what the heck is a schwa?

Further to poohcarrot's reply, you may have noticed them in dictionaries or on Wikipedia &c, in the pronunciation guide; they look like this: ə

by **ross616** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 8:56 am

I really don't understand you're problem here, every example you gave was either dialogue or was written the way that a character would talk themselves (your example of Agnes Nutter's scribblings) and this pronunciation is *much* more widespread than you seem to think, in England it is almost more common than the proper way, it's just the way they speak, just like pronouncing something as somefink.

by **pip** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:06 am

Howdy Ross. Welcome to the site. I agree with you. The characters have there own style and no one speaks in perfect grammer anyway

by **Macarona** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:51 am

I is has gud grammar i is clevaar

by **SimStars13** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 10:38 am

I haven't noticed the 'of' thingie (but I wouldn't normally...) but I did notice two misspellings of Names in the Lost Continent (the one about Leshp)! Which is odd to say the least

by **LilMaibe** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 10:45 am

SimStars13 wrote:I haven't noticed the 'of' thingie (but I wouldn't normally...) but I did notice two misspellings of Names in the Lost Continent (the one about Leshp)! Which is odd to say the least

which would be?
And the book with Leshp is Jingo.

by **psimpson** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 12:28 pm

This is one of the things that drives me absolutely mad, when I see people using the 'must of' instead of 'must have'. I guess it's a popular trend, but I just can't stand it. Everytime I feel like saying 'Are you a f****** moron!!!' lol

by **Kin Arad** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 1:04 pm

I've never heard anyone say that, or maybe i don't notice it

What annoys me, is when people say 'I could care less' instead of 'I couldn't care less' when meaning 'I don't care at all', I think it's an American phrase so maybe Americans use it differently but still...it annoys me, sorry...I'll stop now :oops:

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