A friend sent me a link to this blog post with a very clever rant on the use of "alot" rather than "a lot".

Your thoughts?

Yes, she's very funny in general. I think I first found her site through that post, too.

Now if she'll only write about "alright".

"instead of getting angry, you can be like 'You're right!'" How can one be like "you're right?" I've used up my alot-ment of auto-comprehension, so I'll need some to explain it to me.

She'd really hate my "kinda."

All that energy squandered. Also, technically it's not a grammar rant; it's a spelling rant.

"instead of getting angry, you can be like 'You're right!'" How can one be like "you're right?"

It's an example of verbum dicendi (aka quotative like, link). I've seen similar things in other languages. For example, Sanskrit uses iti to set off a quotation. The reason it develops is because you cannot see the quotation marks when somebody is speaking.

None of this stuff bothers me anymore. I have observed that not too many people are good at standard orthography, punctuation, or usage. When somebody comes apart in my presence fuming over something like "Got milk?" or Think different", I chuckle to myself and murmur "whatever" (using air quotes) and wander off. They usually leave me alone at that point.

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
Now if she'll only write about "alright".

Unlike alot, alright has a long, somewhat respectable history.

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All that energy squandered.

Judging by her other posts as well, the author seems to have definite manic tendencies. There are also some long gaps in postings, and I suspect she might be a sufferer from bipolar disorder (manic depression). Here is one of her posts about depression.

Yes, I agree, arnie. And the subsequent comments weren't that uplifting either.

Yes, it's sad. Allie doesn't seem to be having a good 2011. She's only made five posts this year and the one I linked to (made in October) was the first since May. By contrast she made 80 posts in 2010 and 81 in 2009. I obviously have no medical knowledge, but she does seem in a bad way. I just hope she is receiving good treatment.

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Originally posted by arnie:
... I suspect she might be a sufferer from bipolar disorder (manic depression).

I'd be awful careful about labeling her as such on the Internet where all the world can see.

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Yes, it's sad. Allie doesn't seem to be having a good 2011. She's only made five posts this year and the one I linked to (made in October) was the first since May. By contrast she made 80 posts in 2010 and 81 in 2009. I obviously have no medical knowledge, but she does seem in a bad way. I just hope she is receiving good treatment.

Hmmm, maybe I am in the same boat. My blog entries have hugely decreased, too.

The fact is, I've just gotten too busy. Wordcraft is lucky I am still here! My Blog, my Facebook, My LinkedIn, OEDILF, etc. are all suffering these days.

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I'd be awful careful about labeling her as such on the Internet where all the world can see.

Not to worry. It's just conjecture. After all, when people open their lives to Blogs, they take that chance. As a WC friend once told me, don't post anything on the Internet that you'd not want to see in the newspaper headlines. The Blogger needed to be more careful.

I didn't want to start another "grammar rant" thread, but I recently came across this Huffington Post list of "grammar rants." I note they call "irregardless" wrong. Good for them!

They're (or should that be their?) careful to disassociate themselves (HuffPost) from the list, in fact, by blaming it on their (they're?) readers.

I just discovered Grammarly on Facebook (link), and while I disagree with most of their [sic] peeves, it is a rather funny ragbag of rants. It's a company that sells grammar products.

Interesting facebook page, z. Did you see the poll about whether English is being degraded by instant communication? I voted "No. Languages evolve and we should accept it." It got 191 votes. "Yes. Textspeak is destroying the language!" got 1440 votes, and "Neither. Textspeak and proper English differ and don't affect one another." got 440 votes.

I suppose one could develop a plausible sentence where "they're" and "their" could both be used (or is it "each?"). However, were someone to use its in the possessive, it could confuse people because there is not a possessive its on our language. So there are a few times grammar must be attended to. However, my last sentence would be decimated (current definition) by my editors. They think the worst possible thing you can do is to end a sentence with a preposition.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
However, were someone to use its in the possessive, it could confuse people because there is not a possessive its on our language. So there are a few times grammar must be attended to.

Except that using "its" for "it's" is a typo, not a grammar problem. And I'd like to see an instance where it causes confusion.

Agreed that it's not a grammar problem. However, it usually isn't a typo, either (sometimes maybe it is, but not often). I'd call it a punctuation error.

What is a typo, then?

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Originally posted by goofy:
What is a typo, then?

goofy, I refer you to this post where you answer that question.

You answered yourself?

I still think a typo is simply that, a one time error by misusing the keys. A spelling error is when you don't know how to spell a word. A punctuation error, I'd think, would be a misuse of an apostrophe. That is, you just didn't "mistype" it, but you wrote it how you thought it should be written.

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Originally posted by arnie:
Yes, it's sad. Allie doesn't seem to be having a good 2011. She's only made five posts this year and the one I linked to (made in October) was the first since May. By contrast she made 80 posts in 2010 and 81 in 2009. I obviously have no medical knowledge, but she does seem in a bad way. I just hope she is receiving good treatment.

After making that post in October 2011 Allie has just made another couple of posts. She has been suffering from severe depression. I am relieved; at least she's still alive. The two new posts might be a sign that she's coming out of it. Let us all hope and pray that is so. I'd hate to see another 18 months go by without another post from her.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogs...transition-post.html

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogs...ession-part-two.html

Those are quite illustrative of depression, aren't they...particularly the last one? I agree, arnie, about having an empty feeling if her posts don't continue.