My small, local ISP had a glitch over the weekend; I was able to
receive mail but unable to send out any. The offices are closed over
the weekend and, naturally, the glitch didn't happen till after 5PM on
Friday... *Very* frustrating to see a conversation on language going on
and being unable to participate :)
At work we have the usual notices in the toilets reminding you to wash
your hands, including a large printed and laminated poster with a
diagram of a hand showing areas between the fingers highlighted and
the words
"These are the areas that it is easy to miss".
I say it should be
"These are the areas that are easy to miss".
And I say it should be:
"These are the areas which are easy to miss", if we don't want to use
the simpler: "It's easy to miss these areas" <VBG>
The extinction of "which" and "who" as relative pronouns in today's
usage -- both spoken and written -- is my current pet peeve. It's not
that it's bad grammar but it's sloppy and it's lazy and it can be
confusing. True, "that" is a perfect substitute for either: "which" or
"who", but it had always been "plan B" solution; you used it *after*
you'd used "which" or "who", so as to avoid repetition. Now, with
"that" being used everywhere as the first choice, half of the time I
don't know what (or who) that "that" is referring to. Drives me batty.
your/you're, there/their/they're have been driving me batty for a long
time. Also the express checkouts which proclaim that you have to have
"15 items or less". Failing to distinguish between "loath" and "loathe"
and "affect"/"effect" doesn't do anything for my peace of mind either.
And I've almost given up on "he was nice to my mother and I"... The
invasion of "that" is much newer, I think; it seems to have appeared
out of nowhere only in the last year or so.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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