Is the grammar really atrocious?

Status
Not open for further replies.

lo2

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Danish
Home Country
Denmark
Current Location
Denmark
Hi there I wrote this on youtube:

"Why do Youtube comments have to be so stupid...? I am just askin'?"

Where I get told that my grammar is atrocious... I do not really see any grammatical flaws, so could you please help me?
 

konungursvia

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
I agree, it's not ungrammatical. However, there are mixed registers: formal and informal. We would write: "I'm just askin'" with the contraction in 'I am' along with the lazy "askin.'" Or, just eliminate the 'I'm":
....just askin'.
 

Barb_D

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Member Type
Other
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
The puntuation is a mess though. Why the dots before the first question mark? And "I'm just asking" is a statement so it gets a period and not a question mark. And I think it's YouTube, isn't it? I can't open it from work to confirm that, so I may be nuts.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
The puntuation is a mess though. Why the dots before the first question mark? And "I'm just asking" is a statement so it gets a period and not a question mark. And I think it's YouTube, isn't it? I can't open it from work to confirm that, so I may be nuts.

It's hard to tell whether it's YouTube or You Tube, to be honest. In the logo, "Tube" is encased in a red box but there's no clear space between it and "You".
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
Hi there I wrote this on youtube:

"Why do Youtube comments have to be so stupid...? I am just askin'?"

Where I get told that my grammar is atrocious... I do not really see any grammatical flaws, so could you please help me?
Was this a response from the person whose comment you called stupid? If so, you should feel lucky that your mother's grammar was not also disparaged.
 

TheParser

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Hi there I wrote this on youtube:

"Why do Youtube comments have to be so stupid...? I am just askin'?"

Where I get told that my grammar is atrocious... I do not really see any grammatical flaws, so could you please help me?



NOT A TEACHER


(1) I agree with the other posters. Your grammar is not "atrocious" by a far shot.

(2) I know no thing about YouTube (and I do not want to know anything about it),

but I have a suspicion that many of the people who use it are in no position to

admonish others for their "bad" grammar.

(3) As the other posters suggested, maybe your sentences just needed a little

cleaning up:

Why do YouTube comments have to be so stupid? I am just asking.
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
It's hard to tell whether it's YouTube or You Tube, to be honest. In the logo, "Tube" is encased in a red box but there's no clear space between it and "You".

They do have "© 2011 YouTube, LLC" on the bottom of their home page. I guess it's YouTube.
 

Barb_D

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Member Type
Other
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
YouTube can be useful, Parser.

I just used it to upload some videos of my daughter in a fencing competition, in a way that is not viewable by anyone other than people who have the links, and send the links to my father so he could watch his granddaughter fence. It would have been very difficult to send him such large files any other way.

You certainly don't have to spend hours and hours on it, looking at cute kitten videos (although I have) or other people acting stupid (which I have not), but it your comment "and I don't want to" was a little sad, in my opinon, because it can be a useful tool.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
They do have "© 2011 YouTube, LLC" on the bottom of their home page. I guess it's YouTube.

Well spotted. YouTube it is. That is how I would have written it without thinking, but I'd never really considered if it was correct.
 

lo2

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Danish
Home Country
Denmark
Current Location
Denmark
I was merely pointing to the fact, that the far majority of YouTube (if that is what you say!) comments are stupid, mindless and utterly irrelevant nonsense, and finally I got so fed up with it that I felt the urge to write a comment myself.

The "I am just askin'?" was an attempt to create a wordplay on "I'm just sayin'...", but I guess it did not really work out, and why I wrote "I am" instead of "I'm" is probably because I usually write out the words, as I prefer that to the other in writing. And no there should probably not be a question mark, but that was because it was kind of a question, and I usually put question marks at the end of sentences that should be perceived as a question, for the sake of the reader.

So I was just doubtfull as to whether I had missed something obvious, like not having agreement between the subject and the verb. But ok thanks a lot for the help, as always your support is superb, so keep it up!
 

AdamLive

New member
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Hi there I wrote this on youtube:

"Why do Youtube comments have to be so stupid...? I am just askin'?"

Where I get told that my grammar is atrocious... I do not really see any grammatical flaws, so could you please help me?

You've kind of 'shot yourself in the foot' with your own argument there. "Where I get told that my grammar is atrocious..."

Read it out-loud and you find it is difficult to say. Your grammar isn't great but I've seen a lot worse!

"Don't complain about the snow on your neighbour's roof when your own door step is untidy".
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top