Posted on 08/08/2015 1:59:35 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Borges and sitetest run the Classical Ping List. I’m just a frequent “pinger” to them. :)
Yes, English does change, and not always for the better. The usage that I hate most is to use “they” as a first-person neuter pronoun, but I’m afraid it’s now established. I’ll hold out against it, though.
Poor education has a lot to do with poor English, but lack of reading is even more to blame. Older literature has correct English, though newer books often don’t. I think nobody proofreads anything now.
Yes, I know what you mean. I suspect that people use “their” or “they” to avoid using the grammatical default of masculine pronouns. Dopey!
One that really sends me over the edge, though, is the changing of the suffix “-man” in compound words such as “spokesman”. Now, we have ridiculous constructions such as “chairperson”. I always want to ask people who butcher a word this way if they also say “huperson” for “human”.
You did not remark on the last paragraph of my comment. :)
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