# I pit people who have to constantly correct your grammar **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 29, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372 "2007-08-29T15:55:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/141 "2007-09-02T18:25:27Z")
[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan] Excerpts taken from “College English, Volume 11, Number 4, Page 215”. [/QUOTE] Beautiful. Let me just note that the journal article cited dates to January, 1950; one can draw their own conclusions about which direction things have moved in since then. (Of course, further, more modern cites would be nice, too, if anyone should happen to find some) Let me also note, with some amusement, the line from the article “Every educated person retains some memory of how a teacher inflicted some small humiliation upon him in his efforts to eradicate the use of _can I?_ in favor of _may I?_.” right after its discussion of the expression “Can I be excused from this class?” (no doubt to use the bathroom…). Some things never change, eh? [But they should: more than six decades of this charade? Sheesh…] > [@](#): > > I think that should adequately settle the matter. I was also sure that the “Language Log” had covered this matter, although the words “can” and “may” are too common to perform any decent search of their site. I had tried looking around there too; I didn’t have any direct memory of such a discussion, but it seemed like the sort of thing that could easily have come up at some point. However, the best I got was some slightly related discussion of “may” and “might” ([here](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002016.html) and [here](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002126.html), if anyone is interested). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/142 "2007-09-03T05:18:53Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] I haven’t read all through here, but I trust that someone in these three pages has pointed out the split infinitive in the OP’s thread title. [/QUOTE] Yes, except there is no infinitive that is split in the title. The “to” belongs to “have” in the verbal phrase “have to”, and not to the “correct,” which is a bare infinitive. Add to that the fact that split infinitives are not grammatically incorrect anyway, and you’re up to speed. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/143 "2007-09-03T08:56:03Z")
Don’t like split infinitives. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/144 "2007-09-03T18:57:12Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Don’t like split infinitives. [/QUOTE] Good for you. Don’t you have somewhere to be, like the 18th century? ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/145 "2007-09-03T19:28:19Z")
Christ on a pogo stick, who knew my post would cause such a fit. In my Midwest-for-generations family, “Can I” denotes ability and “May I” denotes permission. It’s that simple. I don’t give a rat ass whether it’s antiquated, passe, idiotic or whatever. As with the little / liddle and library / liberry, while it is common and acceptable to say liddle and liberry, they grate on my ears. Way back in the dark ages (college) my linguistics professor would cover her ears when we mispronounced words. Those are the two that stayed with me. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/146 "2007-09-03T19:38:56Z")
[QUOTE=MissTake] As with the little / liddle and library / liberry, while it is common and acceptable to say liddle and liberry, they grate on my ears. Way back in the dark ages (college) my linguistics professor would cover her ears when we mispronounced words. Those are the two that stayed with me. [/QUOTE] Dark ages indeed. A linguistics professor shouldn’t correct pronounciation, they should go “Huh, you pronounce it that way? Interesting…” A linguist studies how people talk, they do not dictate how people talk. And, I’m sorry, but in the US you’re just wrong to call the “liddle” pronunciation wrong. From [Merriam-Webster’s Pronunciation Guide](http://www.m-w.com/help/pronguide.htm): > [@](#): > > In some contexts, as when a stressed or unstressed vowel precedes and an unstressed vowel or &l\ follows, the sound represented by t or tt is pronounced in most American speech as a voiced flap produced by the tongue tip tapping the teethridge. In similar contexts the sound represented by d or dd has the same pronunciation. Thus, the pairs ladder and latter, leader and liter, parody and parity are often homophones. If you’re going to correct people, be correct yourself. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/147 "2007-09-03T23:44:04Z")
> [@](#): > > …produced by the tongue tip tapping the teethridge Echoes of the first paragraph of Lolita there… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/148 "2007-09-03T23:46:28Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] And, I’m sorry, but in the US you’re just wrong to call the “liddle” pronunciation wrong. [/QUOTE] I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my part of the Midwest pronounce “little” with a clear “t,” unless they’re trying to mimic some faux-posh British accent. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/149 "2007-09-03T23:54:39Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my part of the Midwest pronounce “little” with a clear “t,” unless they’re trying to mimic some faux-posh British accent. [/QUOTE] Precisely. It’s one of the sounds that distinguishes American speech from British, and even then I’m not sure all British accents exhibit it. I did misread **MissTake** ’s post and missed that she notes it’s common and acceptable, just not to her. I think that’s odd, but everyone’s got their quirks. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/150 "2007-09-04T01:19:32Z")
I gather that the voicing/flapping-induced merger of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ occurs in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand accents too, though perhaps more categorically in North American accents than others. At any rate, you’d really have to go out of your way to find someone distinguishing “little” and “liddle” in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/151 "2007-09-04T02:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] Good for you. Don’t you have somewhere to be, like the 18th century? [/QUOTE] Forsooth! What a comeuppance I hath suffered. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/152 "2007-09-04T02:03:44Z")
“hath” is third-person; you’d have been best off with “have”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/153 "2007-09-04T02:05:02Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my part of the Midwest pronounce “little” with a clear “t,” unless they’re trying to mimic some faux-posh British accent. [/QUOTE] I grew up in West Texas, but I think now I do pronounce the hard T. Having so many Brit and Aussie friends has affected my pronunciation to some extent, but even back then, I knew someone from Denton, and she found it interesting that I pronounced the T as a hard T. She said people from there did not. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/154 "2007-09-04T02:08:56Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] “hath” is third-person; you’d have been best off with “have”. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Bad grammar day. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/155 "2007-09-04T02:15:05Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Forsooth! What a comeuppance I hath suffered. [/QUOTE] Actually, it wasn’t until the 19th and early 20th centuries that some grammarians got a bee in their bonnet about split infinitives. Even the Fowlers and Strunk & White, some of the most influential forces of late 19th century and early 20th century grammar texts, both dismissed the idea of stigmatizing all split infinitives. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/156 "2007-09-04T02:43:37Z")
And, just to make it clear: as opposed to, say, permissive “can” as discussed before, split infinitives have been part of English since time immemorial. From long before the start of the grumbling about the construction and continuously up to today, they have been perfectly grammatical. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/157 "2007-09-04T06:25:41Z")
[QUOTE=MissTake] As with the little / liddle and library / liberry, while it is common and acceptable to say liddle and liberry, they grate on my ears. Way back in the dark ages (college) my linguistics professor would cover her ears when we mispronounced words. Those are the two that stayed with me. [/QUOTE] I’m sorry that your linguistics professor rudely tried to make you replace your correct pronunciation (in the case of ‘liddle’), with one that is not used by any US dialect (‘little’ with a hard ‘t’). Please note that just because it is spelled with a ‘t’, doesn’t make other pronunciations “mispronunciations.” If I really need to point out that many English words aren’t pronounced as they are spelled, then you need to take a real linguistics class. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/158 "2007-09-04T06:40:11Z")
It may be illustrative to note that just about no American actor playing a contemporary American role on TV or in the movies will be heard pronouncing “little” in a way which contrasts with “liddle”, regardless of whether they’re playing an average Joe or a highly educated person or anything else. (Perhaps we should use examples which are made purely out of real words, like “metal” and “medal” (and “mettle” and “meddle”), or, “petal” and “pedal”. Are those not homophonous pairs for you, **MissTake**?) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/159 "2007-09-04T15:59:47Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Perhaps we should use examples which are made purely out of real words, like “metal” and “medal” (and “mettle” and “meddle”), or, “petal” and “pedal”. Are those not homophonous pairs for you, **MissTake**?) [/QUOTE] Just to throw another voice in here, I don’t mind being sloppy with pronouncing “little” as “liddle.” I do it all the time, because there’s nothing to confuse it with. I do, however, pronounce “metal” and “medal” differently. To respond directly to the OP, it really doesn’t bother me much when people correct me, as long as they don’t do it in a condescending manner. What really bothers me is when people (may I coin a phrase here?) “incorrect” me–telling me that something is wrong when it isn’t. Example. I wrote a primer some years back, and a number of people told me that I was pronouncing it wrong when I said “PRIM-mer” instead of “PRY-mer.” My pronunciation is not only acceptable, it’s the preferred pronunciation according to every American dictionary I own. I’ve been corrected when I’ve said pronounced “err” as it’s spelled (most Americans–if they know the word at all–pronounce it like “air” or the first syllable of “error”). You may speak as you wish. If you want to go with pronunciations or spellings that are used by a variety of the folks you hang out with, do it. Even if they disagree with dictionaries. _But don’t try to tell me I have to speak like you do_. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372/160 "2007-09-04T16:17:38Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] What really bothers me is when people (may I coin a phrase here?) “incorrect” me [/QUOTE] **Don’t verb words!** :mad: I’mma get hurt, aren’t I? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-people-who-have-to-constantly-correct-your-grammar/417372.md?page=9)