Spelling and Grammar

So, to recap: 1) get rid of the present progressive tense, 2) get rid of the letter "Q", 3) make "y'all" a grammatically acceptable word, or come up with another way to distinguish between the singular and plural second person.

Discuss.

"Y'all" is not a grammatically acceptable word? You are clearly not from Georgia, where we work linguistic magic with sentences like "Whose dog is that? Is it just his, or is it all of y'all's?"

I have lost the ability to differentiate between homophones when typing rapidly, and this disturbs me greatly. The other day, I caught myself typing "oneder" and "frasebook." Do y'all think I drank away an important brain cell? I'm fine when writing in longhand, but when I type, it's like there isn't a phonetic-to-English filter anymore. Very sad.

The other day I was trying to type "right", and I typed "wright" and "rite" b/f getting it...right.

I just want people to standardize the spelling of "y'all" as "y'all." None of this "ya'll" business. I'm not keen on "yall" either, even though it's got some historical support from the OED.

I am doing this all the time now! Is it the internet, or me getting older/stupid? I gave someone "beet" for "beat" the other day.

"Ya'll" is absolutely wrong. Completely, totally, absolutely wrong. It's "y'all."

I will back away while the southerners in the group argue about whether the second person pronouns are "you" and "y'all" or "y'all" and "all y'all."

Is there a difference between "toward" and "towards", and if so, what is it?

Anyone who addresses one person as "y'all" should be struck on the head with a large mallet.

Singular: You. Plural: Y'all.

Or, we could go back to the good old days of 500 years ago or so:

Singular: Thou. Plural: You.

I'm flexible.

I am doing this all the time now! Is it the internet, or me getting older/stupid? I gave someone "beet" for "beat" the other day.

Me, three. I blame it on typing too quickly. It makes me feel literate.

Cybrarian is a real word?

Sure. That's what you get when cynara and bookworm hook up and have a snarkbaby. A little cybrarian.

According to Garner, "toward" is preferred in American English, and "towards" is prevalent in British English.

Is that how it goes? I thought it was a formal/informal distinction (like tu/usted in Spanish). I'm actually asking--I don't know this for sure.

It is informal/formal, but, like tu/usted, it's also singular/plural. Although you use "usted" when talking formally to one person, "tu" is the second person singular personal pronoun and "usted" is the second person plural personal pronoun.

Quite. A remant of the old plural "you" is the conjugation "you ARE", which we use when referring to one person.

There's a bit of overlap in the second person plural and the formal second singular. See how the Queen of England refers to herself as "we".

Here's an example of the formal/familiar second person usage from Act I, Scene ii of "Romeo and Juliet". Romeo and Benvolio, friends, are familiar with each other, while the servant speaks with respect.

Not to mention "all y'all". Here in NJ, "youse" fills that void and I vote that it never gets into common practice. Thank God that's one thing I haven't picked up from living here 20 years.

In French, it's "vous" for formal or multiple use and "tu" for less formal and individual use.

Heh.

I've been listening to the Grammar Girl podcast located on qdnow.com. A nice quick & dirty (qd) overview.

FWIT, I've been spelling "of" "ov" even though I wasn't taught using phonetics.

"Of" in place of "have" is the thing that drives me most insane. As in: "I could of been a contender! Instead of chump with bad grammar, which is what I am."

See, I always thought that line was "I could've been a contender." It comes out more like "coulda" but I think of that as a bastardization of the contraction.

It is, I was just abusing it to make my point. It is some form of "could have", as it should be. But most people would write it out as "could of".

Yeah, that drives me nuts too. It's one of my biggest grammatical pet peeves.

Okay, what are you guys' opinion about comma usage in lists? Which is correct?
1. I went to the zoo and saw lions, elephants, and tigers.
2. I went to the zoo and saw lions, elephants and tigers.

I got a remark about using too many commas when I wrote something similar to the first example, (nothing felt so lowering as seeing a report coming back quoting you as "blah, blah, and blah" [sic]). The first is what I was always taught as correct. Am I insane? Checking the internet is no help, as different entries say different things. I know I'm prone to massive comma abuse, but I didn't think that was one of the ways.

#2 is how I was always taught.

I learned it as #1 and I've never been called out on it. Do different disciplines have different rules for comma usage?

#1 is called the Oxford comma; it's the way I was taught, and, in my opinion, it's the clearer of the two examples. If you are mixing single and plural items in a list, it can be very confusing without that last comma: "The bar's specials include martinis, gin and tonics, rum and cokes and screwdrivers."

Without that last comma to set apart "screwdrivers," you have to stop and parse the sentence; the meaning may be clear enough once you think about it, but the point of punctuation is to keep you from having to puzzle (much) over the meaning of a sentence, isn't it? I've never understood why people don't always use the last comma.

ETA: More on the comma wars.

I was taught the second one in first grade and #1 in a technical writing class in college. I think I remember the reason for the difference being something about British usage, technical manuals, and/or saving space in newspapers. As you can see, I'm a fan of the first one. I think it's really up to the writer to determine if the extra comma will clarify or confuse.