Words/phrases I wish would go away

[GreenSheep]

Pivot.  It's the new catch word.  Everyone is pivoting their business.  I think of basketball every time.

I think of that episode of "Friends" when they're trying to move a couch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n67RYI_0sc0

[Chaplin]

Maths.

That's my new most hated word.

Awkward.... I'm on board with replacing "math" with "maths."

[solon]

Maths.

That's my new most hated word.

Awkward.... I'm on board with replacing "math" with "maths."

"Maths" is British for "math".
It's no different than gaol/jail.

[Chaplin]

"out of an abundance of caution"

[Miss Piggy]

Maths.

That's my new most hated word.

Awkward.... I'm on board with replacing "math" with "maths."

"Maths" is British for "math".
It's no different than gaol/jail.

Well, I've learned something new today.

(I'm still going to hate it, though.)

[Dicey]

@Miss Piggy, I love that you started this thread twenty seven pages ago and you're still here, fighting the good fight. Thank you!

[Miss Piggy]

@Miss Piggy, I love that you started this thread twenty seven pages ago and you're still here, fighting the good fight. Thank you!

Yeah...I had no idea words bugged so many people! Nice to see I'm not alone in this.

[Vashy]

To "sunset" a project...

[Dicey]

@Miss Piggy, I love that you started this thread twenty seven pages ago and you're still here, fighting the good fight. Thank you!

Yeah...I had no idea words bugged so many people! Nice to see I'm not alone in this.

Yeah, well, I'm going to be the asshole on this one. Someone has started a thread about "co-vid". Head --> Desk

[BlueHouse]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh. 

[GreenSheep]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh.

Similar to this... "AF" in place of "as fuck." In terms of syllables, the letters are no shorter than the words. I don't think it's just a way to shield children's ears, as I often hear it in groups of only adults. I think someone once thought it was cute, and now that it's been repeated millions of times, it's just dumb.

Maybe this has been said here before, but... I think four-letter words should be reserved for times when very forceful emphasis is required, or they just lose their power.

[HPstache]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh.

Similar to this... "AF" in place of "as fuck." In terms of syllables, the letters are no shorter than the words. I don't think it's just a way to shield children's ears, as I often hear it in groups of only adults. I think someone once thought it was cute, and now that it's been repeated millions of times, it's just dumb.

Maybe this has been said here before, but... I think four-letter words should be reserved for times when very forceful emphasis is required, or they just lose their power.

I have no problems with censoring one's speech with acronyms... I hear people say "BS" a lot with no kids around as well.

[BlueHouse]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh.

Similar to this... "AF" in place of "as fuck." In terms of syllables, the letters are no shorter than the words. I don't think it's just a way to shield children's ears, as I often hear it in groups of only adults. I think someone once thought it was cute, and now that it's been repeated millions of times, it's just dumb.

Maybe this has been said here before, but... I think four-letter words should be reserved for times when very forceful emphasis is required, or they just lose their power.

Do you mean they verbalize this "AF" ?  I definitely don't mind it in writing.  But I guess it's no different than saying LOL out loud and that's become kind of mainstream.

[Adventine]

"I hope this email finds you well."

"As per"

"Furnitures"

[GreenSheep]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh.

Similar to this... "AF" in place of "as fuck." In terms of syllables, the letters are no shorter than the words. I don't think it's just a way to shield children's ears, as I often hear it in groups of only adults. I think someone once thought it was cute, and now that it's been repeated millions of times, it's just dumb.

Maybe this has been said here before, but... I think four-letter words should be reserved for times when very forceful emphasis is required, or they just lose their power.

Do you mean they verbalize this "AF" ?  I definitely don't mind it in writing.  But I guess it's no different than saying LOL out loud and that's become kind of mainstream.

Yes, "AF" spoken out loud. I find it annoying when written, too, but I think you have a good point... it's especially irritating when spoken. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "LOL" out loud. That just seems completely ridiculous. If something is funny, LAUGH!! Saying "LOL" instead of laughing seems kind of... robotic.

[GuitarStv]

New normal is really getting old.

[nessness]

"Fixed that for you", or its abbreviation "FTFY", accompanied by an often snarky "correction" of someone else's post. It usually just comes off as rude and obnoxious.

[Dicey]

"Fixed that for you", or its abbreviation "FTFY", accompanied by an often snarky "correction" of someone else's post. It usually just comes off as rude and obnoxious.

Dunno, oftentimes the "fix" is something funny. Sometimes it's freaking hilarious. If someone does it to me, my response is usually palm to forehead, "I wish I'd thought of that."

I've also used it when I think someone is being too hard on themselves.

[BlueHouse]

"Fixed that for you", or its abbreviation "FTFY", accompanied by an often snarky "correction" of someone else's post. It usually just comes off as rude and obnoxious.

I agree with everything in this statement. I just find it rude. I know people think they’re being funny, but it starts with the expression that the OP is wrong. And whether as a joke or not, it comes off as rude more often a than people want to believe.

[slackmax]

TV or radio personalities who refer to a press conference as a 'presser'. 

'Press conference' is  just fine, no need to clue me in to the 'in crowd' verbiage, thanks.   

[okisok]

Prolly

I can't even describe the emotions that "word" evokes in my soul.

Is this a regional contraction?  I've seen it multiple times on forums, but I've never ever heard it said.  In my area probably is commonly shortened to prob'ly.

Reading through past posts, and I agree it's regional. Here in my part of the southern Midwest, we use 'prolly' in texts because we say 'prolly' in conversation. As in, "I prolly better git goin', my momanem're fixin' a big supper and my granny'll tan my hide if I'm late." 
Not saying it's right, just saying it's real here.

[MilesTeg]

"Fixed it for you", or its abbreviation "FIFY", accompanied by an often snarky "correction" of someone else's post. It usually just comes off as rude and obnoxious.

Fixed It For You

[dividendman]

"The Fuck"?  As a question. 

Are we now so lazy that we cannot include "What"?  Ugh.

Similar to this... "AF" in place of "as fuck." In terms of syllables, the letters are no shorter than the words. I don't think it's just a way to shield children's ears, as I often hear it in groups of only adults. I think someone once thought it was cute, and now that it's been repeated millions of times, it's just dumb.

Maybe this has been said here before, but... I think four-letter words should be reserved for times when very forceful emphasis is required, or they just lose their power.

Do you mean they verbalize this "AF" ?  I definitely don't mind it in writing.  But I guess it's no different than saying LOL out loud and that's become kind of mainstream.

Yes, "AF" spoken out loud. I find it annoying when written, too, but I think you have a good point... it's especially irritating when spoken. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "LOL" out loud. That just seems completely ridiculous. If something is funny, LAUGH!! Saying "LOL" instead of laughing seems kind of... robotic.

If you say "LOL" out loud to someone.... isn't that lying? You don't can't say LOL in person without lying because, you know, you'd be LOL.

[lazycow]

Maths.

That's my new most hated word.

Awkward.... I'm on board with replacing "math" with "maths."

"Maths" is British for "math".
It's no different than gaol/jail.

Well, I've learned something new today.

(I'm still going to hate it, though.)

In Australia it is Maths. I cringe when anyone calls it Math.

I used to be a member of a forum where people referred to theselves as 'norti', as in "I was norti today and ate too much ice cream. Arghhhh. No, it is *not*  cute.

I also cannot abide seeing divine written as devine. Like fingernails down a blackboard.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

It really annoys me when people confuse subject/verb agreement

eg "The tin of scones were put away in the cupboard" - subject is tin - scones is the object of the prepositional phrase

it just jars

Also - use of comprise to mean composed of - "the team was comprised of..."

also - while i'm at it - incorrect use of apostrophes

esp leaving out the final s

"Marcus' hat took a beating"

In real life would you pronounce that without the double ess on the end? No. So add it in. Marcus's

These are all typos i see in the paper every day

I assume journalists are just stupid or they are paid 50c per word and the subeditor got sacked

[John Galt incarnate!]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.




Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

[Dicey]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.

Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

I completely agree! There is a forumite who brags they have deliberately never voted and never intend to. It seems so incredibly arrogant. The least I can do as thanks for those who came before me is to exercise the right to vote for which they fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

I worked several local campaigns so I was paying extra close attention to the results throughout the region. In the Bay Area, a number of candidates won/lost by razor thin margins.

[BlueHouse]

It really annoys me when people confuse subject/verb agreement

eg "The tin of scones were put away in the cupboard" - subject is tin - scones is the object of the prepositional phrase

it just jars

Also - use of comprise to mean composed of - "the team was comprised of..."

also - while i'm at it - incorrect use of apostrophes

esp leaving out the final s

"Marcus' hat took a beating"

In real life would you pronounce that without the double ess on the end? No. So add it in. Marcus's

These are all typos i see in the paper every day

I assume journalists are just stupid or they are paid 50c per word and the subeditor got sacked

There's a twitter account @nyttypos that corrects typos found in the NY Times.  I followed for about 2 days and then wanted to reach through my screen and throttle the guy.  I believe I may be cured from being so persnickety myself. 

[BlueHouse]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.

Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

I completely agree! There is a forumite who brags they have deliberately never voted and never intend to. It seems so incredibly arrogant. The least I can do as thanks for those who came before me is to exercise the right to vote for which they fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

I worked several local campaigns so I was paying extra close attention to the results throughout the region. In the Bay Area, a number of candidates won/lost by razor thin margins.

@Dicey I think I've seen that same person.  I always assumed that forum member was not a US citizen or resident, but I can no longer remember why I assumed that.  I could be completely wrong.    I agree that any US citizen that doesn't vote has no reason to be proud of it, but I can't say the same for other countries. 

[SunnyDays]

Grammar that bugs me:

- Me and her/him as subjects of a sentence.

- I seen

- My wife and I's house.

- youse

As soon as I hear any of the above, I assume the person has no high school education.  And then I find out they have a university degree.  Head smack.

[RetiredAt63]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.

Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

I completely agree! There is a forumite who brags they have deliberately never voted and never intend to. It seems so incredibly arrogant. The least I can do as thanks for those who came before me is to exercise the right to vote for which they fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

I worked several local campaigns so I was paying extra close attention to the results throughout the region. In the Bay Area, a number of candidates won/lost by razor thin margins.

@Dicey I think I've seen that same person.  I always assumed that forum member was not a US citizen or resident, but I can no longer remember why I assumed that.  I could be completely wrong.    I agree that any US citizen that doesn't vote has no reason to be proud of it, but I can't say the same for other countries.

When I think of what women went through to get the vote, I hate it when they voluntarily disenfranchise themselves.

[simonsez]

I also cannot abide seeing divine written as devine. Like fingernails down a blackboard.

Definately agree with that one

[GreenToTheCore]

also - while i'm at it - incorrect use of apostrophes

esp leaving out the final s

"Marcus' hat took a beating"

In real life would you pronounce that without the double ess on the end? No. So add it in. Marcus's

These are all typos i see in the paper every day

I assume journalists are just stupid or they are paid 50c per word and the subeditor got sacked

This one gave me pause. It seems like it depends on what style guide you're using: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/apostrophe_introduction.html#:~:text=NOTE%3A%20the%20generally%20accepted%20convention,check%20the%20style%20guide%20of

Thoughts?

[shelivesthedream]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.

Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

I completely agree! There is a forumite who brags they have deliberately never voted and never intend to. It seems so incredibly arrogant. The least I can do as thanks for those who came before me is to exercise the right to vote for which they fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

I worked several local campaigns so I was paying extra close attention to the results throughout the region. In the Bay Area, a number of candidates won/lost by razor thin margins.

@Dicey I think I've seen that same person.  I always assumed that forum member was not a US citizen or resident, but I can no longer remember why I assumed that.  I could be completely wrong.    I agree that any US citizen that doesn't vote has no reason to be proud of it, but I can't say the same for other countries.

When I think of what women went through to get the vote, I hate it when they voluntarily disenfranchise themselves.

I don't know if this is possible in other countries, but in the UK if you think they're all crap (the usual reason given for not voting, in my experience), you can go and spoil your ballot. Because they're all paper ballots, you can write whatever you want on it and post it into the box. At the count, spoiled and ambiguous ballots are collected together and all the candidates stand round and examine them and agree together which ones count as a vote and which ones are spoiled and don't count as having expressed a preference. So you could write "You're all losers" and they would have to stand round and soberly nod their heads and agree that this voter doesn't seem to have expressed a clear preference.

[zolotiyeruki]

...
- My wife and I's house.
...

I'll admit that even with my college education and general careful grammar, I still get regularly flummoxed by this one.  <runs off to look it up>  Ok, so when mixing nouns with pronouns, both owners require their own possessive form.

I really feel sorry for people who have to learn English as a second language.

[SunnyDays]

...
- My wife and I's house.
...

I'll admit that even with my college education and general careful grammar, I still get regularly flummoxed by this one.  <runs off to look it up>  Ok, so when mixing nouns with pronouns, both owners require their own possessive form.

I really feel sorry for people who have to learn English as a second language.

An easy way to remember this kind of combination of possessives is “how would I say each one separately?”  “My wife’s house” and “my house,” right?  So then it’s  “My wife’s and my house.”  It’s easy, you just have to think a little ahead.  This also works for pronouns.  If you wouldn’t say “Her went to the store,” then you don’t say “Her and I went to the store.”  However you would say each person individually is how you say them together.

[MilesTeg]

Improper use of the word 'data'. Data is the plural of 'datum'.

This datum is inconsistent with that other datum, but these data are consistent.

Similarly with strategy/stratagem.

[Kris]

Improper use of the word 'data'. Data is the plural of 'datum'.

This datum is inconsistent with that other datum, but these data are consistent.

Similarly with strategy/stratagem.

And criterion/criteria.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

also - while i'm at it - incorrect use of apostrophes

esp leaving out the final s

"Marcus' hat took a beating"

In real life would you pronounce that without the double ess on the end? No. So add it in. Marcus's

These are all typos i see in the paper every day

I assume journalists are just stupid or they are paid 50c per word and the subeditor got sacked

This one gave me pause. It seems like it depends on what style guide you're using: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/apostrophe_introduction.html#:~:text=NOTE%3A%20the%20generally%20accepted%20convention,check%20the%20style%20guide%20of

Thoughts?

It makes no sense to me to not add an S to the end of a singular proper noun (except for certain historical names). If I were to say James's hat or Marcus's hat in real life I would pronounce the double S and most people would too. I suspect the main reason journos now try to put away the S after the apostrophe is that it makes it easier to not make mistakes since it parallels the situation with plural nouns.

[MilesTeg]

Improper use of the word 'data'. Data is the plural of 'datum'.

This datum is inconsistent with that other datum, but these data are consistent.

Similarly with strategy/stratagem.

And criterion/criteria.

ahh yes another good example

[Kris]

Improper use of the word 'data'. Data is the plural of 'datum'.

This datum is inconsistent with that other datum, but these data are consistent.

Similarly with strategy/stratagem.

And criterion/criteria.

ahh yes another good example

That one drives me crazy because nine times out of ten, it’s used incorrectly.

[Travis]

...
- My wife and I's house.
...

I'll admit that even with my college education and general careful grammar, I still get regularly flummoxed by this one.  <runs off to look it up>  Ok, so when mixing nouns with pronouns, both owners require their own possessive form.

I really feel sorry for people who have to learn English as a second language.

An easy way to remember this kind of combination of possessives is “how would I say each one separately?”  “My wife’s house” and “my house,” right?  So then it’s  “My wife’s and my house.”  It’s easy, you just have to think a little ahead.  This also works for pronouns.  If you wouldn’t say “Her went to the store,” then you don’t say “Her and I went to the store.”  However you would say each person individually is how you say them together.

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

The textbook pointed out specifically that the rule is as you described - use pronouns in such a way that if you turned each into its own sentence it would still make sense.  I became a certified grammar nazi after those lessons.  It's disturbing when you consider we should have received these lessons as kids and never did.

[Miss Piggy]

I really hate the new trend (especially at universities) of specifying multiple gender pronouns in email signatures, like this:

Miss Piggy
She, Her, Hers
1-888-867-5309
misspiggy@whateverdomain.com

It's not the addition of the pronouns themselves that bothers me. Rather, it's the redundancy of adding multiple pronouns that basically all make the same "announcement" of the gender you prefer. If they all indicate the same gender, wouldn't one of them be enough? And recently, I saw a signature with a 4th "pronoun," but I can't recall what that 4th one was. I just remember thinking, "Wait...three wasn't enough?" Seriously, why not use just one?

[Dollar Slice]

It's not the addition of the pronouns themselves that bothers me. Rather, it's the redundancy of adding multiple pronouns that basically all make the same "announcement" of the gender you prefer. If they all indicate the same gender, wouldn't one of them be enough? And recently, I saw a signature with a 4th "pronoun," but I can't recall what that 4th one was. I just remember thinking, "Wait...three wasn't enough?" Seriously, why not use just one?

There is some logic behind this one! People who are cisgender who put she/her/hers or he/him/his are usually doing it to be an ally to people who don't have a conventional gender identity. You don't need a lesson in conjugating cisgender pronouns because you already know them. But if a person is, say, nonbinary, and uses other pronouns, like singular "they" or "ze", a lot of people will not know how to conjugate those pronouns (how many people know the possessive of "ze"?). So the convention is to list the full set, so that everyone (regardless of gender identity) can use the same template without having to answer extra questions or be called the wrong thing by accident.

[RetiredAt63]

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

So much of my grading (CEGEP and University) was grammar.  In my university department we did one session on basic grammar, and the students complained bitterly on the teacher evaluation.  They were all honours students and they all needed it, some were so-so and some were terrible.  They also had no conception of the need for editing.  Edit for grammar, edit for content, edit for clarity, edit for flow, edit for redundancy.  That part of teaching I do not miss.

[SunnyDays]

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

So much of my grading (CEGEP and University) was grammar.  In my university department we did one session on basic grammar, and the students complained bitterly on the teacher evaluation.  They were all honours students and they all needed it, some were so-so and some were terrible.  They also had no conception of the need for editing.  Edit for grammar, edit for content, edit for clarity, edit for flow, edit for redundancy.  That part of teaching I do not miss.

So what is being taught in high school English?  Basic grammar was part of about a grade 7 or 8 curriculum when I went to school.  By grade 10, we were studying Shakespeare and God help you if you couldn’t write a grammatical sentence by that point!

[Travis]

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

So much of my grading (CEGEP and University) was grammar.  In my university department we did one session on basic grammar, and the students complained bitterly on the teacher evaluation.  They were all honours students and they all needed it, some were so-so and some were terrible.  They also had no conception of the need for editing.  Edit for grammar, edit for content, edit for clarity, edit for flow, edit for redundancy.  That part of teaching I do not miss.

So what is being taught in high school English?  Basic grammar was part of about a grade 7 or 8 curriculum when I went to school.  By grade 10, we were studying Shakespear and God help you if you couldn’t write a grammatical sentence by that point!

High school English is a bit of a blur for me. I remember covering a lot of Shakespeare in 12th grade, but I don't remember any specific grammar classes. I had to peer-evaluate an essay in grad school where the student used a bunch of bulletized lists rather than paragraphs. Yeah, that was a head-scratcher.

[Dicey]

I want "My vote doesn't count" to go away.

Sausalito City Council candidates separated by single vote

marinij

Nov 20, 2020 — Incumbent Joan Cox, who lost her seat by one vote, requested the recount. Marin election office performs recount in Sausalito council race.

I completely agree! There is a forumite who brags they have deliberately never voted and never intend to. It seems so incredibly arrogant. The least I can do as thanks for those who came before me is to exercise the right to vote for which they fought so hard and sacrificed so much.

I worked several local campaigns so I was paying extra close attention to the results throughout the region. In the Bay Area, a number of candidates won/lost by razor thin margins.

@Dicey I think I've seen that same person.  I always assumed that forum member was not a US citizen or resident, but I can no longer remember why I assumed that.  I could be completely wrong.    I agree that any US citizen that doesn't vote has no reason to be proud of it, but I can't say the same for other countries.

When I think of what women went through to get the vote, I hate it when they voluntarily disenfranchise themselves.

I don't know if this is possible in other countries, but in the UK if you think they're all crap (the usual reason given for not voting, in my experience), you can go and spoil your ballot. Because they're all paper ballots, you can write whatever you want on it and post it into the box. At the count, spoiled and ambiguous ballots are collected together and all the candidates stand round and examine them and agree together which ones count as a vote and which ones are spoiled and don't count as having expressed a preference. So you could write "You're all losers" and they would have to stand round and soberly nod their heads and agree that this voter doesn't seem to have expressed a clear preference.

What a great word picture. Thanks for this explanation @shelivesthedream.

[Morning Glory]

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

So much of my grading (CEGEP and University) was grammar.  In my university department we did one session on basic grammar, and the students complained bitterly on the teacher evaluation.  They were all honours students and they all needed it, some were so-so and some were terrible.  They also had no conception of the need for editing.  Edit for grammar, edit for content, edit for clarity, edit for flow, edit for redundancy.  That part of teaching I do not miss.

So what is being taught in high school English?  Basic grammar was part of about a grade 7 or 8 curriculum when I went to school.  By grade 10, we were studying Shakespear and God help you if you couldn’t write a grammatical sentence by that point!

Me too. I remember diagramming sentences in eighth grade. I wonder if they still do that? I also had Latin, which helped a lot.

My stepdad was a printer back in the day and had to copy edit upside down and backwards!! He used to show me mistakes in the newspaper all the time.  Now every mistake just jumps out at me.

I teach nursing and about half of my students are decent writers when they come in. Occasionally I'll get one that's really good.

I've done peer review for a professional journal and seen some pretty horrible papers come through.  There have been a couple that I turned down because I couldn't even tell what they were saying.

[chaskavitch]

At the tender age of 30 I was put through a writing class while attending one of my military professional education courses.  Every morning for an hour for six months we received what we learned to be 12th grade English curriculum taught by GWU professors and most of it was brand new material to most of us. We submitted writing samples before showing up to the course and I was graded as being one of the better writers; however, objectively I still sucked. The timing was perfect since a year later I would start grad school.

So much of my grading (CEGEP and University) was grammar.  In my university department we did one session on basic grammar, and the students complained bitterly on the teacher evaluation.  They were all honours students and they all needed it, some were so-so and some were terrible.  They also had no conception of the need for editing.  Edit for grammar, edit for content, edit for clarity, edit for flow, edit for redundancy.  That part of teaching I do not miss.

So what is being taught in high school English?  Basic grammar was part of about a grade 7 or 8 curriculum when I went to school.  By grade 10, we were studying Shakespear and God help you if you couldn’t write a grammatical sentence by that point!

Me too. I remember diagramming sentences in eighth grade. I wonder if they still do that? I also had Latin, which helped a lot.

My stepdad was a printer back in the day and had to copy edit upside down and backwards!! He used to show me mistakes in the newspaper all the time.  Now every mistake just jumps out at me.

I teach nursing and about half of my students are decent writers when they come in. Occasionally I'll get one that's really good.

I've done peer review for a professional journal and seen some pretty horrible papers come through.  There have been a couple that I turned down because I couldn't even tell what they were saying.

Ohhhh, no.  No, they don't do that in a lot of schools anymore. 

I was homeschooled through elementary, and I could diagram and label every word in a compound complex sentence in 5th grade. 

I went to public school in 1998 for 8th grade - we did DOL (Daily Oral Language) on the whiteboard every day before English.  It was such simple exercises.  Finding all of the verbs in a 3-sentence paragraph one day, nouns and adjectives another, etc.  I actually remember complaining to my mom that it was too easy and I didn't understand why we were even doing it.

I'm not saying my grammar is as good as it should be, just that I know there is a lot missing from our public education curriculum. 

In that vein, am I supposed to put two periods after "etc.", since it is an abbreviation and the end of a sentence?  It just looks weird.