I was listening the radio the other day and heard a commercial for a local alternate to the Yellow Pages.
The woman was telling us how much her business increased by advertising in said directory:
“Since my ad appeared in (whatever the heck the name was) my phone has been ringing consistantly.”
This just doesn’t sound right somehow. Shouldn’t that be “constantly”?
I wouldn’t say it’s “incorrect”. Unique choice maybe, but not incorrect. A ringing phone is an occurrence. Occurrences can occur “consistantly”.
I would prefer “persistently.”
Actually, now that I think about it, “Constantly” would be MORE inacurate than “consistantly”.
Constantly would mean that as soon as one hangs the phone up, it would ring again, and then repeat again and again. Highly improbable.
But, if it rang “shortly thereafter” hanging up (or, consistantly), that’s more accurate.
Yes, I think it should be constantly. Unless she means the phone has had the same ring tone everytime it rings or something 
I’d agree that persistently is the best cjoice. “Consistently” in this context really means that however her phone rings, it doesn’t waver from that particular way. It could ring unfailingly every eight hours and forty-seven minutes. That would be pretty infrequent, to be sure, but it would still be consistent.
“Constantly” would be the term people normally use. Like “ringing off the hook,” it is an exaggeration. Technically it’s not accurate unless the phone never stops ringing, but it’s common hyperbole, and generally understood by listeners. Methinks an advertising copywriter thought about it a little too hard.
Disagree with all of you - “consistently,” while somewhat unusual, makes perfect sense as a word choice. To me, it seems the speaker means that the phone is ringing on a consistent basis, whereas before it rang only inconsistently - occasionally, or seasonally.
Ahem,
Since we’re splitting lexical hairs here, might I point out that the title of the OP asks if the sentence is grammatically correct. Meanwhile, we bicker over consistently vs. constantly and never once address the broader issue of overall semantic sloppiness.
[/senseless pedantic nitpick]
Hah! I’ll see your nitpick and raise you a nitpick. The thread title asks if it’s grammatically correct. The OP asks if it should be “consistently” rather than “constantly.”
Uh, just like you said. :smack:
Friends, take warning from me, it doesn’t pay to nitpick if you misread the post. 
constant
consistent
persistent
“ringing consistently” is simply wrong. As Oxymoron points out, ‘consistenly’ means ‘in the same way.’ And so to say that the phone is ringing consistently means that it rings at the same rate (every five minutes) or with the same tone (always, brinnnng, brinnnng).
Constantly can mean ‘always’ as in non-stop, but it can also mean recurringly, even though in not a non-stop or consistent manner. Thus, ‘constantly’ would be a better word.
Steadily would also work in place of constantly.
Frequently would not mean as often as constantly.
Continuously would mean non-stop without interruption.
Persistently would mean as much as constantly, but with a negative connotation that it won’t let up even if you’d want it to.
Yes, I actually looked up the definitions.
This could be merely a mistaken presumption on the part of the endorser, who perhaps has little or no technical knowledge pertaining to telephone electronics, and has concluded that the appearance of the advertisement has somehow magically caused her phone’s ringing to become more regular and euphonic.
Radio endorser: " … my phone has been ringing constantly."
Radio listeners: “So, get off yer ass and answer it already!”
Probably, though, it’s just the result of a body-copy writer with a poor grasp of vocabulary.
In the vernacular of folks from my neck of the woods, people would say,
“Since my ad appeared in (whatever the heck the name was) my phone has been ringing off the hook.”
Maybe the advertiser frowns on that kind of hyberbole, though.
Uh, nope - not sure if you were confusing my post with someone else’s, but my argument is that this particular usage is not wrong. And just to be clear, we’re talking about usage, not grammar. Grammar concerns itself with inflection and syntax, which are both entirely correct in this sentence. What we’re discussing is word choice–usage. I argue that the usage is also correct, if unusual.
I’m not one for relying too heavily on dictionary definitions to answer usage questions, because the whole exercises betrays a belief that I consider entirely misbegotten: that language may be reduced to an exercise in logic. It can’t. It’s fundamentally illogical and (q.v.) inconsistent, and in most contexts we’re all better off just accepting that. Where no great precision is required (and this a yellow pages ad, mind you), the standard should be: do we understand what she’s getting at? And the answer is, of course, yes. We all know what she means. That’s the beginning, middle, and end of the question.
But even if we’re to resort to dictionary definitions, she’s still right. From www.webster.com:
con·sis·tent […] 2 a : marked by harmony, regularity, or steady continuity : free from variation or contradiction.
The key is regularity, which is what I was getting at when I contrasted “consistent” ringing from ringing that is occasional or seasonal. If my phone is now ringing about ten times every day of the week, that’s consistent. Previously, I might’ve had weeks on end with no calls at all, and then 25 a day at Valentine’s, Mother’s day and Christmas.
Since it was a commercial or ad, the language used should have been “catchy.” Remember “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” We all know that this is bad grammar, but it’s a lot more catchier than using “as.” In view thereof, I submit “off the hook,” which will put all of us off the hook. Now I’m hanging up on this thread.