Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
Even those say it could go both ways:
"In line with the basic rule, before words with an initial consonant sound, "a" is the usual application in speech and writing.
Before "h" in an unstressed or weakly stressed syllable, "a" and "an" are both used in writing (an historic, a historic) but an is more usual in speech, whether the "h" is pronounced or not. This variation exists as a result of historical development; in unstressed and weakly stressed syllables, "h" was formerly not pronounced in many words as it is currently pronounced by many people. A few words; such as, historic and (especially in England) hotel, are in transition, and may be found with either a or an."
This is in respect to the letter "h." The author is not talking about the other vowel-sounding consonants out there. This also plays into the British English vs American English phenomena. The British tend to use "an historic" because they don't stres the h as much as we do here in America. That's why so many Americans tend to say "a historic." To the Brits, it sounds like "an 'istoric," which would be correct as you're putting the indefinite article with the vowel
sound, not the letter itself.
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
I would say academic writing is more strict than Journalism. But again, who knows? It is constantly changing. There is no debate that strict rules of grammar are becoming washed away. The teacher in question went to an Ivy League school probably in the late '40s or early '50s. So, I trust what I was taught.
Who's to say that your academic writing is stricter than my journalistic writing? I know quite a few QC'ers who would disagree with that. We take our jobs seriously when it comes to proper grammar, and our level of grammar easily rivals those who have majored in a purely English major. Not all of us are trying to cater to the casual reader with our writing. Quite a few of us take a strong academic view when we write our articles, assuming it does not take away from the point we're trying to make.
I'll trust common sources that state the same thing over what a teacher said.
I've experienced too many incorrect statements. My favorite is still the mythical, "You cannot end a sentence with a preposition."
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
How long will "ly' adverbs be around? Hardly anyone uses them anymore. "He does that different than you" is much more common today than saying "He does that differently than you." I've graded and edited many papers and there are so many things common place now that never would have been accepted 30 years ago.
The "ly" adverbs have been overused back during the mid 1900s. Check out this link:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/ ... verb_does/
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
I didn't memorize anything wrong - I might have simply had a teacher who adhered to a different standard. It was definitely what I was taught and how I write papers.
So it's impossible that your teacher taught you something incorrect?
I'm not sure how what I'm trying to explain can be that hard to grasp?
Here's another link:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ ... m#acronyms
One of the most often asked questions about grammar has to do with the choice of articles — a, an, the — to precede an abbreviation or acronym. Do we say an FBI agent or a FBI agent? Although "F" is obviously a consonant and we would precede any word that begins with "F" with "a," we precede FBI with "an" because the first sound we make when we say FBI is not an "f-sound," it is an "eff-sound." Thus we say we're going to a PTO meeting where an NCO will address us. We say we saw a UFO because, although the abbreviation begins with a 'U," we pronounce the "U" as if it were spelled "yoo." Whether we say an URL or a URL depends on whether we pronounce it as "earl" or as "u*r*l."
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
I would never say, "I have an Super Lead Overdrive." I was taught just because you drop it to SLO doesn't change the grammar.
What you were taught was, and still is, incorrect.
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
Inconsistencies combined with colloquialism... Here's a link:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm
Some abbreviations have embedded plural forms, and there are often inconsistencies in creating the plurals of these words. The speed of an internal combustion engine is measured in "revolutions per minute" or rpm (lower case) and the efficiency of an automobile is reported in "miles per gallon" or mpg (no "-s" endings). On the other hand, baseball players love to accumulate "runs batted in," a statistic that is usually reported as RBIs (although it would not be terribly unusual to hear that someone got 100 RBI last year — and some baseball commentators will talk about "ribbies," too). Also, the U.S. military provides "meals ready to eat" and those rations are usually described as MREs (not MRE). When an abbreviation can be used to refer to a singular thing — a run batted in, a meal ready-to-eat, a prisoner of war — it's surely a good idea to form the plural by adding "s" to the abbreviation: RBIs, MREs, POWs. (Notice that no apostrophe is involved in the formation of these plurals. Whether abbreviations like these are formed with upper- or lower-case letters is a matter of great mystery; only your dictionary editor knows for sure.)
Shark Diver":1azo5xfz said:
Were the papers being graded for grammar alone? It's pretty rare that people are super anal about academic writing, assuming you're not making some obvious error. It's the contents that matter more, after all. I don't recall people complaining to the CDC about a missing comma when they submitted information on the H1N1 outbreak back in 2009. BTW, my job is just a job I do on the side. I don't make a living doing this. However, I take it as seriously as I would take any job. It's my job to constantly look up grammar rules and make sure there aren't any blatant mistakes. I QC when the guys are backed up, which is why my grammar needs to be just as good as theirs.
