[title]Family quotes[/title] [description]Welcome to our family quotes section! Here you'll find some of the funniest (and wisest) quotes on the subject of family life![/description]
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Guest, 5 yr 98 days ago
What about this..............."I seen a dog." proper or not? Thanks!!
Mister Micawber  +  42975 Fri, 20 Aug 04 05:48 AM

Substandard English.

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004
Yokohama
Veteran Member 30,822
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'
mask, 5 yr 98 days ago
Uh-uh. Non-standard.
Anonymous, 4 yr 123 days ago

Is it brother-in-laws or brothers-in-law?

easyway, 4 yr 123 days ago

hi ,

 "I seen a dog " had better " I saw a dog"

          

Nyarlathotep  +  121470 Tue, 26 Jul 05 12:15 PM
I'd say 'brothers-in-law' but I'm sure there are arguments to support both.
 
When people say sentences like "I seen that", it must really confuse non-native speakers. I had a friend from Puerto Rico who lived in England for a while, and he learned a lot from listening to our lazy, substandard-English conversations (although I'd never say "I seen that" myself). I'm not sure whether this was good or bad, but I suppose it broadened his knowledge of the language. The 'Queen's English', after all, is not the only way to speak the language.
 
There are a lot of occurances of this in English (as, I'm sure, in most other languages). It wouldn't, for example, be strange, where I live, to hear someone speak like this when telling a story:
 
'I went to the shop, and asked if they sold cheese. He says, "cheese? Yeah, we've got lot's of different types of cheese." And I'm like "well, what's your most popular type of cheese?" And he goes, "well, that'd be the white stilton with blueberries."'
 
This mixture of the past and present tenses is very common in colloquial English, especially when telling an anecdote. Furthermore, no one is 'like' an utterance, and we don't 'go', we 'say'. In spite of these inaccuracies, most people will be polite enough to speak properly when in the company of a non-native speaker. Unless they're a nationalist racist, of course, the chances of which are about one in ten.
 
-Nyarlathotep
Joined on Fri, Jun 24 2005
England
New Member 45
"Don't screw with my disco Nadine!!"
Anonymous, 4 yr 110 days ago

Hyphens can be tricky.  I hope the following helps...

Hyphenated nouns -- In the case of nouns formed from two or more words joined by hyphens, usually only the last word forms a plural. However, there are a few cases in which only the first word forms a plural. For example: the plural form of brother-in-law is brothers-in-law; the plural form of daughter-in-law is daughters-in-law; the plural form of father-in-law is fathers-in-law; the plural form of mother-in-law is mothers-in-law; the plural form of runner-up is runners-up; the plural form of sister-in-law is sisters-in-law; the plural form of son-in-law is sons-in-law.

Anonymous, 4 yr 16 days ago
Have you eaten?
Anonymous, 3 yr 362 days ago

Is there one or two spaces after a period in a sentence? i.e.

We went to the store.  Then we went home. 

Or

We went to the store. Then we went home.

?

 

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