Laying / lying is the one I've always had trouble with for some inexplicable reason. I always got that wrong before, oddly enough, I took German. (German actually helped me solve several of my grammatical issues.) I still mix them up every now and then too--I just caught the "laying in bed" in my meme entry yesterday and went to fix it.
As for the not finishing...an especially sore point with me right now, when it comes to my own stuff. But I mean that in a more literal fashion.
This was a pet peeve of one of my teachers. She made us recite "Hens lay eggs. People lie down." quite a few times during the semester - and that stuck with me.
That's a good one because it's visual. I had trouble with it until my thirties--but once I did get it, the image bank in my brain shifted, and I couldn't not see the error any more.
The thing is, the writers weren't taught during various sea-changes in education that turned out to be disasters.
And that, I suspect, is one of those things that will force a language change. I hate it too, and it's just as distracting to me on the page, but anymore, it seems like the majority of people just don't care. Not the old "not caring too much but still feeling guilty," but truly do not see why people are so uptight about (to them) unknown and pointless codes of language.
Probably. And it's annoying, too. I'm one of those who was never taught grammar -- I learned about nouns, verbs, etc, but not how they fit together in a sentence. Instead, I read a lot and just picked things up. Some things "felt right" while others did not, but I couldn't explain why. Learning Spanish, which has a closer grammar structure to English than Hebrew does (which might not count anyway since I started learning it in kindergarten and so picked up a bunch of things instinctively there too) helped me to recognize the bits of English grammar I'd always known about, but hadn't completely recognized.
Realizing, though, that I picked up correct grammar from reading, it's scary to see that published books have an increasing amount of grammar problems -- that means other kids who pick up grammar through writing would pick it up wrong.
There are several things we aren't doing as much is schools. One is diagramming sentences*--because it's boooooooring (and ghu knows neither teacher not students must be bored) and another is studying foreign languages, because that's another way to reinforce grammatical structure, as notes.
Another is teaching to tests, and not to understanding. But I'm betting these are old, familiar pains to someone who was a teacher, so I'll shut up.
Yes on the schooling. Thank you for the wishes, and that made me laugh. I have always read about cobblers, but not actually had any; now I know what it is!
My impression was that "not finished" meant "not edited and polished." But I was skimming a lot this morning.
btw, M is turning out to be a grammar warrior. He cares deeply about the difference between lie and lay, and when to use who or whom. This pleases me mightily.
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Laying / lying is the one I've always had trouble with for some inexplicable reason. I always got that wrong before, oddly enough, I took German. (German actually helped me solve several of my grammatical issues.) I still mix them up every now and then too--I just caught the "laying in bed" in my meme entry yesterday and went to fix it.
As for the not finishing...an especially sore point with me right now, when it comes to my own stuff. But I mean that in a more literal fashion.
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This was a pet peeve of one of my teachers. She made us recite "Hens lay eggs. People lie down." quite a few times during the semester - and that stuck with me.
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And that, I suspect, is one of those things that will force a language change. I hate it too, and it's just as distracting to me on the page, but anymore, it seems like the majority of people just don't care. Not the old "not caring too much but still feeling guilty," but truly do not see why people are so uptight about (to them) unknown and pointless codes of language.
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Realizing, though, that I picked up correct grammar from reading, it's scary to see that published books have an increasing amount of grammar problems -- that means other kids who pick up grammar through writing would pick it up wrong.
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Another is teaching to tests, and not to understanding. But I'm betting these are old, familiar pains to someone who was a teacher, so I'll shut up.
Happy day-late birthday, and does cobbler involve pie crust or batter?
*Forget parsing, No one parses, unless they're working with computers.
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btw, M is turning out to be a grammar warrior. He cares deeply about the difference between lie and lay, and when to use who or whom. This pleases me mightily.
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