Grammar annoyance from the past couple of days: worse vs. worst.

Worse [the comparative form of bad] is used to compare two things that are both bad/low quality.

“This event is worse than the last one.”

Worst [the superlative form of bad] is used to describe something that’s of the lowest possible quality.

“That was the worst event I’ve ever attended!”

Read recently: “It only got worst when the event was over.” 😖

Correct: “It only got worse when the event was over.”

#Grammar

Is it just me or is there like no research in #LFG on disjunct #adverbials? I found an MPhil thesis on the typology and placement possibilities of #adverbs in English (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d808caba-2c2c-4b84-8ec3-f62d78c67ab3), but that explicitly excludes comma-intonated adverbials like sentence adverbials and other disjuncts. A subsequent paper on disjuncts specifically is referenced (Cobb 2006), but it was apparently never published.

#syntax #grammar #linguistics

YouTube playlist on Bryan Garner's guide to writing. Absolute treasure, like all his books.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd96oPdFukf41fh4Is1U5gEjxIz7i8GuE

#writing #writer #style #playlist #language #grammar #usage #edit

V-는 통에 grammar = due to, because ~express the cause of a complex and distressing situation

아이들이 떠드는 통에 집중할 수 없어요.
(I can't focus because the kids are noisy.)

버스를 잘못 타는 통에 반대 방향으로 갔어요.
(I went the wrong way due to taking the incorrect bus.)

전쟁 통에 가족을 잃었어요.
(I lost my family due to the war.)

For details: https://www.koreantopik.com/2022/03/v-grammar-due-to-because-express-cause.html

#topik #grammar #korean

After the boat race, one of my rowing coaches was saying on our WhatsApp how much he hates Oxford, but doesn’t know why. People started listing things:
“Marmalade”
“Brogues”
“Bags”

We should make a list, I said. “Marmalade, brogues, and bags”

Nothing. Not a single reaction.

Pearls before bloody swine. I ask you.

#grammar

This piece makes the good point that "suspicion of the em dash also speaks to our mounting paranoia over automated communication" — we know there are people passing off AI crap as their own writing, and we want to be able to spot it. But the em dash "cannot be a reliable metric of AI reliance for the simple reason that it is a case of the software mimicking *human* writing patterns."

h/t @raganwald

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/chatgpt-hypen-em-dash-ai-writing-1235314945/

#writing #grammar #EmDash #EmDashes #AI #AICrap