{"id":1190,"date":"2008-12-05T10:43:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T17:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2008-12-26T09:44:05","modified_gmt":"2008-12-26T16:44:05","slug":"poor-grammar-poor-impression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1190","title":{"rendered":"Poor Grammar, Poor Impression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently posted to a Hash House Harrier<\/a> board:<\/p>\n

Do to popular request, this Fridays hashy hour will be at the Old Chicago<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unremarkable, save for the fact that the guy who wrote this earned post-graduate degrees in marine biology and optical engineering.\u00a0 I judge people by the way they speak and write.\u00a0 C’mon, you do too; we all do.\u00a0 My regard for this man is now diminished.<\/p>\n

“Do to” is what they call an eggcorn<\/a>.\u00a0 That’s when you hear a word or phrase and supply words you know to spell out what you heard.\u00a0 Thus, eggcorn for acorn, do to for due to, all tolled for all told, and so on.\u00a0 Everyone does this to some degree.<\/p>\n

How to prevent eggcorns?\u00a0 Read.\u00a0 You hear someone say “beck and call,” but you think you heard “beckon call.”\u00a0 If you read . . . even if it’s just the newspaper . . . you’ll eventually see “beck and call” in print, and then you’re straight: you’ll never make that particular mistake again.<\/p>\n

Okay, you’re all grown up, you don’t like to read, you’re not likely to take it up just because I say you should . . . how can you keep from coming across as a mouth-breather when you have to write something?\u00a0 I mean, you can’t look up everything<\/em> in the dictionary.\u00a0 And even if you try, the dictionary isn’t going to help you if you think the “pique” in my “pique my interest” is “peak.”<\/p>\n

Here’s what I do: if I think something I’m about to write is suspect, I Google it.\u00a0 Try it.\u00a0 Go to Google and type “peak my interest” in the search box.\u00a0 You’ll get close to a million references<\/a>, but glancing at the first few will teach you that it’s “pique,” not “peak.”\u00a0 And now you won’t look like an idiot when you use the phrase in an email or letter.<\/p>\n

Well, that takes care of eggcorns.\u00a0 Now, how about possessives and apostrophes<\/a>?\u00a0 Nothing puts the trailer trash stink on you quicker than a missing or misused apostrophe.\u00a0 There’s no excuse.\u00a0 Same cure: read.\u00a0 Same preventive medicine: Google.<\/p>\n

No, you don’t have to thank me.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 It’s all in a day’s work.<\/p>\n

Comments welcome.\u00a0 They will be graded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently posted to a Hash House Harrier board: Do to popular request, this Fridays hashy hour will be at the Old Chicago Unremarkable, save for the fact that the guy who wrote this earned post-graduate degrees in marine biology and optical engineering.\u00a0 I judge people by the way they speak and write.\u00a0 C’mon, you do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}