[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by AVR

"I didn't knew that..." instead of "I didn't know that..." especially when referring to something in the past.
'. I don't know if its a pan-India thing or specific to Gujarat.

Thoughts?

I think it is mostly confined to the Hindi-speaking areas, though I am not sure. My brothers-in-law who had settled in Chattisgarh still commit the same error, and I've just got fed up correcting them. Another confusion is between yesterday and tomorrow.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Many small examples :

Your late.

Quite prevalent in Hyderabad. I've seen some Moderators using this also quite often.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Saying ok instead of yes.. big difference and happens often in corporate circles. Eg : Q o you know what to do today? Ans : Ok

LOL! We had a guy in our team who'd joined with fake experience. When he was put on a call with a US client, they were very impressed when he said 'ok, fine' to difficult changes they were seeking. But a little later, they discovered that he used the same words to answer every other question they had.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

It should be it's when you mean 'it is'.
And I did mean what I wrote; the plural form of countable objects is spelt with an apostrophe by these gents who use 'knew' for 'know'!

I knowed that

As this thread is about how to post in proper English, let me say something about "disclaimers." It is getting to be a bit of a habitual tag-it-on word.

Disclaimers are more like declarations of something you feel the reader needs to know, as for instance, when you have and interest in a business you are talking about:

This is the most wonderful hotel in India. Disclaimer: I own it.

There is absolutely no need to declare that you don't have an interest. This is not necessary:

This is the most wonderful hotel in India. Disclaimer: I don't own it.

If a person finds that, out of a hundred forum posts, 95 have been in praise of a specific business, they might want to dispel suspicion by pointing out that they are just a happy customer, but this is not a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Disclaimers are also not meant for things you just feel you want to say at the end of a post

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I knowed that ...

I also heared that!

[Samurai]

I always have this doubt:

I saw this 20 year old kid...

OR

I saw this 20 years old kid...

I use the first one, but feel it may be wrong.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I always have this doubt:

I saw this 20 year old kid...

OR

I saw this 20 years old kid...

I use the first one, but feel it may be wrong.

You are using the right expression. I think it is proper to say '20-year old kid', with a hyphen in-between. I'm not sure of the exact position of the hyphen though. Should it be '20 year-old kid'?

Any clues, Thad?

By the way, a person who is that old hardly qualifies to be called a 'kid'.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

By the way, a person who is that old hardly qualifies to be called a 'kid'.

Anybody who is less than half my age is a kid.

[nareshov]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I once read a memo that went "Bare in mind". Not that I'm super-particular about these but sometimes in formal communication it becomes sticky.

Well, at least it wasn't "please bare with us".

[Thad E Ginathom]

You are using the right expression. I think it is proper to say '20-year old kid', with a hyphen in-between. I'm not sure of the exact position of the hyphen though. Should it be '20 year-old kid'?

Any clues, Thad?

I can only tell you what, for better or for worse, I do: 20-year-old kid. The whole age-description thing then becomes one adjective, which seems right.

Do goats live that long?

[saket77]

Originally Posted by nareshov

Well, at least it wasn't "please bare with us".

The expression made my day!

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I can only tell you what, for better or for worse, I do: 20-year-old kid. The whole age-description thing then becomes one adjective, which seems right.

Do goats live that long?

Billy the kidd did.
Not by much, though.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Billy the kidd did.
Not by much, though.

You beat me to it!


@samurai---going by your explanation, even I would call a 20-year old a 'kid'.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

... even I would call a 20-year old a 'kid'.

If middle-aged prospective grooms can be called 'boy' in marriage advertisements (usually an 'innocent' divorcee at that), 20-year-old 'kid' is very much correct.

[mayankk]

I picked this off of my facebook wall.


After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I picked this off of my facebook wall.
....

Oh my Goodness! What a compilation!
Though I don't think that all of it is correct. Unless I've got my pronunciations a bit mixed up!

[Thad E Ginathom]

One of the worst things about English pronunciation is spelling it right! Yes, you guys did: I often don't!