Comments for Language Rules

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by as

as — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:16:21 +0000

totally wrong in my opinion.. just looks stupid if you write “should of”.. like a 3 years old talking…

Comment on “Moot point,” not “mute point” by James

James — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:52:42 +0000

“Moot point”

Moot -
1. open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful: a moot point.
2. of little or no practical value or meaning; purely academic.
3. Chiefly Law. not actual; theoretical; hypothetical.

Makes perfect sense, way more sense than “mute point”…

1. silent; refraining from speech or utterance.
2. not emitting or having sound of any kind.
3. incapable of speech; dumb.

Something “becoming a moot point” means that it is no longer of value, any further discussion is purely academic because the result either way is meaningless.

Something “becoming a mute point” makes no sense whatsoever, to say that the point is silent is too huge of a stretch. A “point” is not a sound, it’s an idea, so how can you silence it unless you metaphorically stretch the definition of sound. I could see saying “they muted the point” if someone suppressed speaking about an idea, but that’s not the general usage and you still wouldn’t say, “they turned it into a mute point” even in that case.

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by Mister X

Mister X — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:58:53 +0000

Strawmanning isn’t your forte, ‘madbandril’. This is, *have* course, nothing to do with mixing up words – it is a question *have* not *of*ing recognised that the “‘ve” on the truncated forms *have* “Would have, could have, should have.” sounds more like “of” than a shortened “have”.

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by Mister X

Mister X — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:53:32 +0000

The “would of course say” is itself standard but incorrect, it should *technically* have a comma before and after it; “would, of course, say”

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by Mister X

Mister X — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:50:20 +0000

It shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a shambles.

Comment on Language Problems: ‘4 Years(‘) Experience’ by SuperNessa

SuperNessa — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:46:14 +0000

If ‘worth of’ is left out between ‘years’ and ‘experience’, I would have thought that the phrase has been contracted (whether of one year’s or multiple years’ worth of experience), so therefore an apostrophe would be required.

I agree Joanna, the price of good punctuation is eternal vigilance :-)

Comment on Fewer vs. Less by googcho420

googcho420 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:51:43 +0000

go cho your my how i love you and yes you are corret :):):)

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by ken

ken — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:12:31 +0000

the verb phrase ‘could have stolen’ is not ‘in the past’ either in a syntactical sense, nor semantically, does it have a temporal reference of the past only. it is present perfect with the modal auxiliary ‘could’. the point being, it is saying ‘there is a present possibility that in the past someone stole the ring’ the possibility exists only in the present. if the auxiliary verb ‘have’ or its contraction ‘…’ve’ are jettisoned in favour of a meaningless ‘of’, then it is quite possible this distinction could have disappeared from the mind of the producer but (i think more likely) the meaning is understood to be subsumed within the phrase ‘could of’. however, it’s an embarrassing error which shouldn’t be tolerated in my view. it’s nasty.

i find the contention that learning a new language is simply a matter of filling in a big grammar chart and learning the rules rather amusing.

Comment on Could of, should of, would of by Erik

Erik — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:37:57 +0000

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate this… “Should of” is nowhere near acceptable. It’s a disgrace. If I had to choose, I’d go with shoulda and woulda any day.

Erik, Sweden.

Comment on “Moot point,” not “mute point” by Charles G. Verkist

Charles G. Verkist — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:20:53 +0000

We Love you, Son