# A gentle grammar nudge from your friend Podkayne: "Intensive Purposes" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 6, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635 "2004-08-06T15:53:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/81 "2004-08-10T15:46:16Z")
Arrr! The reflexive “myself!” (and: Arrr! The sentence fragment! ;)). I was in a meeting last week about our uni’s charity golf outing. The guy in charge of organising it (meeting with the country club) repeatedly said things like (and I’m serious) “Myself will meet with the manager and discuss that.” I don’t think they saw me quietly seizuring from hearing that, though. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/82 "2004-08-10T18:56:21Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > One of my former co-workers used to write directions: “Go _passed_ the old oak tree…” I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/83 "2004-08-10T19:05:38Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that? 😕 The correct word is “past”. In the sentence “go past the old oak tree”, _past_ is an adverb. _Passed_, however, is the past (ha!) tense of the verb “to pass”. You might say “he _passed_ the old oak tree”, but the two usages are not interchangeable. In the first sentence _past_ is telling you how to go (you go _past_), but in the second, _passed_ is telling us what he did. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/84 "2004-08-10T19:12:40Z")
> [@](#): > > P.S. Not to flog a dead horse, but how can the people who grow up with “another thing coming” (an understandable mistake) not have a huge moment when they first hear the correct “think” form, which is listed in all major English dictionaries and which makes so much more sense? I have tried and failed to comprehend this… I didn’t have a huge :smack: moment when I first heard this because “think” sounds improbable. I’m prejudiced in favor of “thing”, having grown up with it, and, despite what you may think, “think” in place of “thing” does not sound obviously correct. In fact, it sounds as if the person using “think” is trying to make a detestable little joke, and not succeeding. As I’ve said, it doesn’t make more sense to me, and I’m not in the habit of reading dictionaries for phrase usage. Boy, is this horse dead! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/85 "2004-08-10T19:23:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah. let’s just allow anythng to fly in the language, no matter what. Since you are not speaking in Elizabethan English then you think that either the language should stop evolving _now_ or you are selective in how you try to police the language. Not that I have a problem with that. If we don’t keep fighting irregardless will become a word. We just have different pet peeves. Beat that dead horse some more. You are defending an ungrammatical saying. The proper form would be “If you think that you have another thought coming”. A thought is a thing so it can be replaced by it in the saying. I personally have never had a think in my life, have you? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/86 "2004-08-10T19:35:52Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I personally have never had a think in my life, have you? 😉 Unless you don’t think at all, you have, according to [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=think): > [@](#): > > n. > The act or an instance of deliberate or extended thinking; a meditation. So there! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/87 "2004-08-10T21:17:59Z")
Using a dictionary to prove your argument is not fair 😉 . I don’t know where [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) got that but the version of Webster’s that I have on my desk has 8 definitions but does not have that one. The only noun form is _thinker_. Maybe its that way in English but not American. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/88 "2004-08-10T22:08:29Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > 1. “I could care less,” clearly indicating that the speaker couldn’t > > ! I have a theory about why this one is so persistent. It persists because it really winds up with the same meaning either way: _I couldn’t care less._ The meaning is obvious here. _I could care less_, to me, has a more sarcastic spin which more than makes up for the missing negative. It does so because the speaker implying that, by great effort, has managed to muster up a smidgen of caring, but the meaning is still obviously that s/he doesn’t. Don’t know if that makes it right, though. “Narcotic” != “any illegal, exotic, or addictive drug”, though that’s another lost battle. Meth and LSD are not narcotics. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/89 "2004-08-10T23:10:45Z")
Grrrrr . . . Another one, courtesy of All Things Freakin’ Considered, of all places . . . “Choosing between the lesser of two evils.” You can choose between two evils. You can choose the lesser of two evils. You cannot choose _between_ the _lesser of_ two evils. Cripes! ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/90 "2004-08-11T00:16:01Z")
There’s one that you see a lot on these very forums - ‘As far as…’ without the accompanying ‘…is concerned’. Maybe it’s an American idiom, but it looks dead wrong to me. As far as _what_? Then there’s ‘begs the question’ which is so routinely misused that I can’t even remember what it the correct meaning is. It doesn’t, or didn’t originally, mean ‘raises the question’. Something to do with circular arguments, I think. I’m also unaccountably annoyed by ‘here, here’ (it’s ‘hear’, you fools) and ‘by far and away’ (‘by far’ or ‘far and away’, make your mind up). ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/91 "2004-08-11T01:52:38Z")
Here’s another one that I heard today on NPR. It seems that fewer and fewer people know that _phenomena_ is the **plural** of _phenomenon_. It was a guest on ATC, and not one of the paid, “I should know how to speak the damned language, it’s my job” hosts. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/92 "2004-08-11T03:03:21Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Using a dictionary to prove your argument is not fair 😉 . > > I don’t know where [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) got that but the version of Webster’s that I have on my desk has 8 definitions but does not have that one. The only noun form is _thinker_. Maybe its that way in English but not American. Except that the quote there is from Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. I’m betting it’s American. It is however unabridged, so that might explain why the noun form is missing in your dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/93 "2004-08-11T04:01:20Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Probably is Probly (though I’m guilty of this one in speech sometimes, at least I don’t spell it like that; a lot of people do.) And now people who are too lazy to say (or write) “probly” are using “prolly.” ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/94 "2004-08-11T05:57:34Z")
The distinction between \*loose \*and \*lose \*is disappearing, as it is between \*site \*and _sight_. And we had a judge use \*disinterested \*when he meant _uninterested_, in an article in the paper the other day. A judge. Jeez. Oh, and a decent coffee is _espresso_, not _expresso_. ---
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/95 "2004-08-11T07:07:19Z")
> [@Geobabe](#): > > I think this is related to my current pet peeve, using “I” when “me” is correct; e.g. “John gave some apples to Joe and I.” I have a number of otherwise good writers on my LiveJournal friends list who do this, and I cringe every time I see it. I can only guess that people who use this think that “I” sounds more correct, or perhaps that “me” is too casual. Wondering which to use? Take the other person out of the sentence: Would you say, “John gave some apples to I?” I certainly hope not, because that would be WRONG. THANK you. I agree wholeheartedly. Even worse is when people say this aloud. A good number of my friends say “I seen” instead of “I saw” in sentences. “I seen a blue bird today!” It’s common where I’m from to say “seen” instead of “saw”, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Extra bonus section! Now you can help me fight some of my own ignorance. No matter what, I get terribly confused with lie and lay. When do you lie down and when do you lay down? Are you laying down or lying down? Do you say “I laid down” or is it “I lay down” for past tense? “I lied down” sounds totally wrong. I tend to just avoid saying these things and just go with “I was sleeping”, but I want to know this once and for all! Help! _brain explodey_ ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/96 "2004-08-11T10:46:49Z")
> [@rinni](#): > > No matter what, I get terribly confused with lie and lay. When do you lie down and when do you lay down? Are you laying down or lying down? Do you say “I laid down” or is it “I lay down” for past tense? “I lied down” sounds totally wrong. I tend to just avoid saying these things and just go with “I was sleeping”, but I want to know this once and for all! Help! _brain explodey_ You “lay down” only when you are laying something down, because **lay** is a transitive verb. **Lie** is intransitive. So you would be “lying down” on a bed, but “laying down” paving stones, say. The confusion perhaps comes from the fact that the past tense form of ‘lie’ is 'lay. **Laid** is the past tense, and past participle, of ‘lay’. So it’s “I lay down”, but “the chicken laid an egg”. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/97 "2004-08-11T11:24:17Z")
> [@Usram](#): > > Then there’s ‘begs the question’ which is so routinely misused that I can’t even remember what it the correct meaning is. It doesn’t, or didn’t originally, mean ‘raises the question’. Something to do with circular arguments, I think. [“to improperly take for granted”](http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html) He’s got a nice list of stuff. I only fail on a few. ---
**Author:** ![KarlWinslow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@KarlWinslow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlWinslow)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/98 "2004-08-11T12:51:36Z")
> [@fishbicycle](#): > > Here’s another one that I heard today on NPR. > > It seems that fewer and fewer people know that _phenomena_ is the **plural** of _phenomenon_. > > It was a guest on ATC, and not one of the paid, “I should know how to speak the damned language, it’s my job” hosts. Speaking of Greek singulars vs. plurals, I had a boss who used to say “parenthese” (pronounced pa-REN-thuh-see.) I guess he figured that if more than one of the things are called parentheses, one must be a parenthese. ---
**Author:** ![KarlWinslow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@KarlWinslow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlWinslow)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/99 "2004-08-11T12:58:34Z")
> [@AndrewT](#): > > The distinction between \*loose \*and \*lose \*is disappearing, as it is between \*site \*and _sight_. But loose and lose are both pronounced differently and spelled differently, whereas at least sight and site are homophones. Irregardless ;), they both drive me crazy. Though sight and site are both real words, the loss of an understanding of their difference reminds me of another disturbing trend: the “simplification” of the spelling of words that contain “gh.” I suspect that 100 years from now, “through” will look positively Chaucerian, “thru” having become universal. “Night” may even suffer the same fate. “Doughnut” is already a lost cause. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635/100 "2004-08-11T20:49:29Z")
> [@](#): > > No matter what, I get terribly confused with lie and lay. When do you lie down and when do you lay down? Are you laying down or lying down? Do you say “I laid down” or is it “I lay down” for past tense? “I lied down” sounds totally wrong. I tend to just avoid saying these things and just go with “I was sleeping”, but I want to know this once and for all! Help! _brain explodey_ When I was tutoring the SAT II Writing test, I told kids that “lie” is “to recline”, and “lay” is “to set down”. I’m going to lie down. Lay that anywhere. Don’t let the dog lie in the mud! I’m helping to lay some carpet. The real confusion comes in using the other tenses. Conjugation of LIE: I lie down today. (present tense) The money **lay** there yesterday. (past tense) Sarah will lie down there tomorrow. (future tense) The book has lain here many times before. (use perfect tense with have, had, has) Conjugation of LAY: I lay the book down. (present tense) I laid it down yesterday. (past tense) I will lay it down again tomorrow. (future tense) I have laid it here many times before. (use perfect tense with have, had, has) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-gentle-grammar-nudge-from-your-friend-podkayne-intensive-purposes/258635.md?page=6)