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Post by acttwo on Dec 31, 2017 0:10:38 GMT -5
And more importantly, why did, " Thank you!" take over as the response to "Thank you?" The response to "Thank you for being here," really should be, "You are welcome." Or, if it is a mutually beneficial appearance, the response could be, "You are certainly welcome; thank you for having me." Just a pet peeve I hear multiple times daily on NPR. Pixie Trending on dangerous ground here, but I wonder if some of the loss of the old and proper style came from a desire to appear egalitarian or as a person not "hung up" on rules? It's nice to try to put people at ease, but rules of grammar are there to help people understand what is being said. Sometimes sticking to the rules is kinder than than being lax. |
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Post by redsox1 on Dec 31, 2017 7:16:38 GMT -5
I claim no expertise in grammar but my pet peeve is using past tense and present tense in the same RFC. I see this all the time.
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Post by pumpkin on Dec 31, 2017 8:17:12 GMT -5
Or do you mean "he" when it should have been "she?"
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Yes. I also often find both “he” and “she” used to refer to a cis-gender claimant in the same draft decision.
How can a claimant be left with any opinion except, “this judge didn’t even know enough about me to know I was a man/woman? Did the Judge even bother to read my my medical records or listen to my testimony?”
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Post by Pixie on Dec 31, 2017 8:49:06 GMT -5
Or do you mean "he" when it should have been "she?" ———————— Yes. I also often find both “he” and “she” used to refer to a cis-gender claimant in the same draft decision. How can a claimant be left with any opinion except, “this judge didn’t even know enough about me to know I was a man/woman? Did the Judge even bother to read my my medical records or listen to my testimony?” Yes, this is a frequent error in the decisions due to the use of templates and cut and paste. Requires close proofing by the judge. |
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Post by dshawn on Dec 31, 2017 9:04:11 GMT -5
I don't want to divert this thread from the start, so I'll say this and ask that nobody respond so I'm not responsible for hijacking the thread. Once this thread runs its course, we need a thread to discuss why we have rules, whether the rules are still relevant and whether blind adherence to the rules has a stifling effect on the growth of language. Would we even have our language if our ancestors had blindly and stubbornly adhered to an arbitrary set of rules? My pet peeves: 1. Mute points. 2. When a sports announcer says "he has a knee" of a player with a knee injury. 3. Irregardless. Not to split hairs because I don’t like it either, but “irregardless” is a word in MW Dictionary. It is disfavored (or disfavoured), but it is a word. What about those who use “favoured, coloured, programme,” etc.? I say unless you are a Brit, stop. Just stop. |
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Post by ok1956 on Dec 31, 2017 9:10:48 GMT -5
Repeated and often (usually?) incorrect or inappropriate use of “filler” words in decisions such as “thus” and “moreover.” As someone who has written innumerable trial and appellate briefs, as well as decisions as a trial judge or arbitrator, it saddens and frustrates me that the art of persuasive writing is lost on many who are drafting my decisions. And, yes, I realize these may be separate issues. 😉
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Post by bayou on Dec 31, 2017 10:49:37 GMT -5
I don't want to divert this thread from the start, so I'll say this and ask that nobody respond so I'm not responsible for hijacking the thread. Once this thread runs its course, we need a thread to discuss why we have rules, whether the rules are still relevant and whether blind adherence to the rules has a stifling effect on the growth of language. Would we even have our language if our ancestors had blindly and stubbornly adhered to an arbitrary set of rules? My pet peeves: 1. Mute points. 2. When a sports announcer says "he has a knee" of a player with a knee injury. 3. Irregardless. Not to split hairs because I don’t like it either, but “irregardless” is a word in MW Dictionary. It is disfavored (or disfavoured), but it is a word. What about those who uses “favoured, coloured, programme,” etc.? I say unless you are a Brit, stop. Just stop. Almost always, irregardless is used as a replacement for regardless, which is incorrect. |
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Post by gary on Dec 31, 2017 11:13:43 GMT -5
“Unique” with any comparative modifier, e.g., “more unique,” “most unique,” “somewhat unique”, “less unique.”
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Post by Pixie on Dec 31, 2017 11:20:23 GMT -5
“Unique” with any comparative modifier, e.g., “more unique,” “most unique,” “somewhat unique”, “less unique. This was to be my next pet peeve: "A most unique story." You beat me to it. This may have been addressed* on the Grammar Queen's appearance on NPR. ________________ *The appropriate, and more specific word here would be "discussed," but unfortunately that isn't the direction our language is headed. Remember, clarity of thought leads to specificity of speech which leads to a clear understanding of the spoken or written word. |
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Post by JudgeKnot on Dec 31, 2017 11:48:20 GMT -5
How about "unthawed?" Or when people pronounce "height" with a hard "t" and then the "th" sound? I can see how people think that way, what with the way we pronounce "length", "width", "depth", but no one puts a "th" sound on the end of "weight" or "eight", so let's stop the foolishness.
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Post by gary on Dec 31, 2017 12:12:26 GMT -5
How about "unthawed?" Or when people pronounce "height" with a hard "t" and then the "th" sound? I can see how people think that way, what with the way we pronounce "length", "width", "depth", but no one puts a "th" sound on the end of "weight" or "eight", so let's stop the foolishness. I put the peas back in the freezer and unthawed them? |
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Post by dshawn on Dec 31, 2017 12:21:21 GMT -5
“For all intensive purposes.” Huh? “Mute” as noted above. I know at least two lawyers that use both on a regular basis.
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Post by gary on Dec 31, 2017 14:10:56 GMT -5
“Assuming for the sake of arguendo.”
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Post by foghorn on Dec 31, 2017 15:27:32 GMT -5
And then there's laid back. One could attack it--or it may suggest a useful maxim:
True maturity is to be able to recognize good grammar--and when to correct another's use or misuse of the langauge,and when not to.
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Post by maquereau on Dec 31, 2017 15:53:21 GMT -5
Repeated and often (usually?) incorrect or inappropriate use of “filler” words in decisions such as “thus” and “moreover.” As someone who has written innumerable trial and appellate briefs, as well as decisions as a trial judge or arbitrator, it saddens and frustrates me that the art of persuasive writing is lost on many who are drafting my decisions. And, yes, I realize these may be separate issues. 😉 I do not see the issues as necessarily separate. The thread concerns pet peeves; inability to use these transition words, generally considered adverbs, is an appropriate peeve - one that I share. I see this all the time. I suppose the writers must think that the sprinkling of such words in a draft lends an aura of legal prestige to their work. We know, of course, that it does not. Most of the writers whose work I now receive are completely clueless as to the meaning of the words and as to their function. Most of the time, such word or phrase is meant to signal an amplification of an immediately antecedent point. Instead, I will see that they use the word to introduce totally separate topics, things of no relation to the point being made. It never ceases to amaze and infuriate me that management would select people so ignorant of basic principles of expression to write PROFESSIONALLY for the Agency. Please don't get me started about the inability to organize a paragraph - why there are natural starting and stopping points rather than (as I often see) apparently arbitrary line spacings after X number of sentences. Heck, they wouldn't know a topic sentence if it hit them in the face. Ultimately, my biggest peeve is correcting all this non-standard usage, since the writers can't be expected to understand how to write. I've always got loads of time for correcting the crap. |
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Post by Pixie on Jan 1, 2018 9:15:48 GMT -5
“Assuming for the sake of arguendo.” I use this whenever I want to sound important. It's more official sounding than the simple word "argument." This thread could easily get off into the weeds of decision writing complaints. Let's not let that happen. |
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Post by gary on Jan 1, 2018 10:56:50 GMT -5
Arguendo means for the sake of argument.
“Assuming arguendo” is OK.
“Assuming for the sake of arguendo,” which is my pet peeve, and which I have seen more than once in legal briefs, means “assuming for the sake of for the sake of argument.“
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Post by acttwo on Jan 1, 2018 12:17:15 GMT -5
And then there's laid back. One could attack it--or it may suggest a useful maxim: True maturity is to be able to recognize good grammar--and when to correct another's use or misuse of the langauge,and when not to. Very true, foghorn! Lately I fear I assume even a gentle correction will simply stir up a spat, so I move on. Now, if the error was in something my name is on, that is different. More a function of the general angry attitude I see out there. Not worth getting punched because of a "mute point", no matter how it grates. |
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Post by Pixie on Jan 1, 2018 13:19:03 GMT -5
Gary: Agreed. I was joking about using "for the sake of arguendo."
One I'm afraid the battle has already been lost on is Price vs. Price Point. The online dictionaries are already giving interchangeable uses for both
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Post by maquereau on Jan 2, 2018 8:58:19 GMT -5
Gary: Agreed. I was joking about using "for the sake of arguendo." One I'm afraid the battle has already been lost on is Price vs. Price Point. The online dictionaries are already giving interchangeable uses for both It sucks to hear that they have reached this decision point. |
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