Grammar Nazi reporting in

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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
If you want me to complain about your grammar, then I could say that you failed to properly capitalize your title. :p Usually, you capitalize everything but articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
 

Charmonium

Lifer
May 15, 2015
10,547
3,543
136
I think a lot of people are getting the wrong idea about this thread. I didn't start it to be a douche bag but to try to help people improve their writing. If you write in a professional capacity, which includes things like interoffice memos, how you write says a lot about you. If you don't care about that, that's fine. But for most people, 9/10ths of reality is perception.

How many times have you read some spam email where it's obvious that the person can't speak English? Do you take the writer seriously once you see that? Most people don't. This is a little like that. If you expect people to take what you write seriously, it helps if your usage is correct. Does that mean that no one is going to take you seriously otherwise? Of course not. That's especially true online. Online people read for content not form. But there are plenty of other situations where form matters. So all I'm trying to do is help with a particular "error" that I see all of the time. Not just here but everywhere.

And if you get in the habit of using the correct form, you won't ever have to think about it. If you can't be bothered, that's fine. There are plenty of grammatical rules I choose to ignore too. For example, I'm not going to dissect a sentence to try to figure out if I should use who or whom. And even if I did want to do that, I probably wouldn't because using 'whom' always sounds forced and pretentious. I'd try to use the correct form in professional or formal writing, but I'm not going to bother with it in an informal setting.

The beauty of using correct form with gerunds though is that it's easy to remember and most of the time sounds more natural. It's just a side bonus that it happens to be grammatically correct.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
3,067
121
I'll just say up front that this isn't one of the more egregious errors I see but it's something you run across all of the time and it's really easy to get in the habit of using the correct form. So if you want to come off a little better in your writing, it's a good thing to get used to.

So what am I talking about? Gerunds. These are verb forms that are used like nouns. An example is something like 'I appreciated she taking the time to read my article.' Here 'taking' is the gerund and 'she' is the modifier. In this case, using 'she' feels awkward. But this isn't a usual case. For example if the pronoun had been 'them' instead, it would sound quite as off.

However gerunds take possessive pronouns. So it should be 'her taking' or 'their taking.' Not only does it sound more natural but it's also grammatically correct.

You can read some more examples here - http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/022205posscasegerunds.htm

Or just search something like 'gerunds possessive nouns.'

That's our lesson for today. Feel free to pelt me with sarcasm and abuse. Just try not to throw anything hard or pointy.

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Send in the Russians.

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