grammar lesson: annoying or helpful?

[CoalTit]

Possessive pronouns don't need apostrophes.

"It's" with an apostrophe can only ever mean "it is" or "it has".
"Who's" can only ever mean "who is" or "who has".

e.g: "Who's taken my lunch?"
but "Whose lunch is this? Your lunch, its lunch, hers or theirs?"

I never correct people, but sometimes I practise explaining things concisely, and so I'm so lonely and fed up with the lockdown that I'm ready to risk a pasting on AIBU. Do you think it's a good explanation, or are you annoyed that anyone should talk about something so trivial during a crisis? Or both? Or would you do it better?

Altogether, I suppose there is a tension between fixing a language in aspic (now superseded by other gelling agents) and reflecting usage. I understand the French Academy tends towards fixing the language and English tends a little more towards fluidity. That said, I cringe whenever I hear 'Should of' and won't be buying that dictionary. My bugbear is 'beg the question' which I think is now accepting the 'ask the question' instead of the former 'beggar the question'. I struggle to recall the last time I heard 'beg the question' used correctly. I struggle to recall the last time I heard 'obviously' used for something that was demonstrably obvious. Aaargh.

I rarely correct grammar, I'm not confident enough. There was a small business start up a few buildings down from my hairdresser, it was a salon offering a range of beauty treatments and my hairdresser recommended I try it because it was a friend of a friend.

I walked along, saw the hideous treatment list and left. Luxuary manacur's and Luxuary fasial's really weren't alluring, made worse by the fact they were written on those bright coloured cardboard stars with a black sharpie.

I told my hairdresser I couldn't trust someone who couldn't spell the names of their own treatments, I didn't mention the rogue apostrophes!

Can you explain when it’s ‘xxxxx and me’ instead of ‘xxxxxxx and I’.
'I' is used as the subject of a sentence, 'me' is used as the object. e.g. He (subject) hit me (object); I (subject) hit him (object). The xxxxx makes no difference to whether the I/me is object or subject but sometimes people get confused as 'xxxxx and I' tends to sound a bit posher (because the Queen says it).
The easy way to work out which is correct is to try saying the sentence without the "xxxxx and" part - Is "Me and Jill went to the park" correct? "Me went to the park," is clearly wrong so in this instance it should be "Jill and I"
"The dog bit my husband and I" sounds OK, but "the dog bit I" doesn't work so it should be "my husband and me".

@justanotherneighinparadise

The easiest way is to take the other person out of the sentence.

If you want to say that you and Sarah went to the shops, take Sarah out of it. “I went to the shops.” So it’s “Sarah and I went to the shops”.

“Mum asked me and Sarah to go to the shops” is correct because if you take Sarah out of it, you would say “Mum asked me”.

Hope that’s helpful!

Also swooning over the sweary grammar mug. I need many. One for me, another as a spare, and then so many as gifts to dear fellow grammar-nazi friends.

Oh sorry, I didn’t notice the second page of this thread - it’s already been explained!

• and I love a grammar thread. Thank you OP.

Bad grammar changes the meaning of you sentence frequently

It's never unreasonable to correct grammar, and I really don't understand people who take offense. I would rather be corrected than look stupid.

I don't think people who make grammar mistakes are stupid. Not very well educated maybe, for a whole host of reasons.

It's the implication that people without impeccable grammar are stupid, that makes people take offense.

All over the baby names board
How many Eva’s do you know?

Thank you - I actually was googling this myself last night! So your post is very helpful.

Peachy, perhaps we should innovate with names to include punctuation though that might make using those names harder - If some is called Eva's then would they have Eva's' pushchair?

I have lots of examples of grammar which I use with students:

Let's eat Grandpa!
Let's eat, Grandpa!

A group of students were asked to punctuate the following sentence.
The male students all put:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
the female students put:
A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Please do not correct others, it really is shitty one up man-ship. I do appear to be in the minority on this one though.