• seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM@feddit.de
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    5 months ago

    If he only said “I cleaned my shoes”, they could be dirty again. Now you know the difference between present perfect and simple past. English grammar, it’s weird (but every language’s is, to be fair).

    • stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Don’t even get me started on whoever decided that through, trough, and though, don’t rhyme, but pony and Bologna do. I bet he was a colonel who kept a journal… Asshole…

      • seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        To be pedantic that’s not grammar but orthography (which in English is even weirder). English is just a mutant amalgamation of Germanic, Romance and Celtic languages and man, it shows.

    • stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      You’re clearly a bit of a fellow word nerd. Do you have any feelings about the fact that none of that matters anymore if we all just agree that it doesn’t, which one could have an easy time arguing that we have? Sometimes, after spending a rousing five minutes explaining the MOST correct pluralization of ‘octopus’, the only answer I can give to the inevitable question of “why does it matter?” Is “it doesn’t”.

      • Cort@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If you were trying to describe a mess of cables how would you use octopus in an adjective form?