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  • Showing only topics in ~humanities with the tag "english". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Learning English from the ground up

      There was a recent thread on ~talk about which linguistics habits people find annoying, and much to my horror, I have most of those which were mentioned. After thinking about it a little more, I...

      There was a recent thread on ~talk about which linguistics habits people find annoying, and much to my horror, I have most of those which were mentioned. After thinking about it a little more, I realized that a lot of these habits were picked up from the media I consume and the people I interact with. I also feel that this problem is exacerbated by my poor knowledge of English grammar.

      While I was taught grammar at an elementary level in school, I didn't quite grok it back then, and mostly relied on my instinct, as to what "sounded" right. I have since forgotten most of what I had learnt, and my instinct is failing me - my grammar is atrocious, my punctuation is terrible and I only have auto-correct to thank for my spelling.

      I understand that English, like other languages, is constantly evolving. What is wrong now might be right tomorrow. However, I believe that this is no excuse for my shortcomings as there is merit speaking and writing in accordance with what is considered correct in the present day.

      I would like to learn English from "first principles", and would greatly appreciate if some users could suggest some books/resources which could help me (bonus points for resources pertaining to British English). Any other suggestions would also be great.

      Thanks, and have a nice day.

      24 votes
    2. Do you use gender-neutral pronouns? Which one do you prefer?

      A series of gender neutral alternatives for the third person singular pronouns (he/she/it) have been proposed throughout the recent years (and maybe decades). I wonder the preferences of fellow...

      A series of gender neutral alternatives for the third person singular pronouns (he/she/it) have been proposed throughout the recent years (and maybe decades). I wonder the preferences of fellow users here in that regard. So I'd be glad if you could answer the questions in the title, and maybe elaborate a bit on the reasons of your preference. I'm both interested in this generally, and it could be useful as a means to help me practice quantitative linguistic variation (obviously this would hardly be scientifically usable source of data for actual real research so I'm not asking this for that purposes). I'll add my preference as a comment.

      31 votes
    3. I for one...

      A long time ago I had noticed a trend developing on reddit where people were starting to preface their comments with: "I for one". It's pretty insignificant, which is why I never made a post about...

      A long time ago I had noticed a trend developing on reddit where people were starting to preface their comments with: "I for one". It's pretty insignificant, which is why I never made a post about it at the time. Since then, its use seems to have spread significantly on the site and I've seen it a bit here as well.

      It makes sense to use the phrase when talking about or quoting another person to help separate their opinions from your own. The weird thing is many people now seem to use it when its not ambiguous that the comment is their own opinion. I was under the assumption that the default position should be that the comment is the opinion of the person that posted it.

      For example:

      "I for one, prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate."

      Is the same as:

      "I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate."

      There's nothing wrong with using the phrase, it just reads like someone trying to pad out an essay for school.

      Have you noticed people using the phrase on other sites? Is it a phenomenon more specific to reddit?
      Do you use the phrase yourself? If you do, what is your thought process when typing it out?

      14 votes