It's Just DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

[gettinaclue]

It is not just you. Stuff like that bugs me too. I just have a way of talking about it that ends up offending someone so I try to tolerate it. I don't judge anyone by the way they type on here. Unfortunately in the past on other threads I've come across as if I do
I work in a high school where some of the stuff I hear makes me want to stick knitting needles in my ears.

I just have a way of talking about it that ends up offending someone so I try to tolerate it. Yes, I seem to have that "gift" in excessive amounts. I never realized how much I depend on voice inflection and body language until I got here.

I keep the correcting of the grammar to my family only, but I would LOVE to correct some of the kids at my daughters middle school. I went to the football game tonight with her and I almost had a stroke in the bleachers.

 

[freemotion]

OK, I took offense at the bashing of my native tongue.....How come, you might ask? Thus began my journey on Google. Here is what I found.

The phrase how come? has always bothered me. I was thinking it meant, "HOW does it COME to be?" Please help.

That's exactly what how come? means. Surprisingly, it is American in origin, at least in that form. It dates from the middle of the 19th century, and its first recorded form is in Bartlett's Dictionary of American English: "How-come? rapidly pronounced huc-cum, in Virginia. Doubtless an English phrase, brought over by the original settlers, and propagated even among the negro slaves. The meaning is, How did what you tell me happen? How came it?"

Its predecessor in England was how comes it that...? That phrase was used by Shakespeare in 1607, in his Coriolanus: "How comst that you haue holpe To make this rescue?" However, he was not the first to use it; we find it first recorded in 1548 by Hall in Chronicle: "How commeth this that there are so many Newe Testamentes abrode?"

http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowCome/llhr/post.htm

Shakespeare....cool! I'm in good company! I'm refined and educated after all!

Anyhoo, it is quite simple.

...how come is factive, while why is not...

http://ling.umd.edu/~staceyc/Conroy UMWPiL 14.pdf

Can you believe that someone spent all that time writing that paper????

 

[Lady Henevere]

Interesting discussion. I have never heard a criticism of "how come," and I hear people use it all the time. It's not wholly interchangeable with "why." "Why" asks for a reason, and "how come" is short for "how did that come to be," or "how did you come to that conclusion" -- it's asking about a process, not just a reason. JME.

 

[Laureli]

My hang up on words and phrases is... "What do you got?'' or "I got me some candy at the store"

 

[abifae]

I work on phones all day and could post up a HUUUGE list of phrases that drive me up the wall.

One that amuses me though is "you want me to mash connect?"

Yes. Mash it. Mash all the buttons on the screen, darlin'.

 

[Dreaming of Chickens]

Like when DD came home and told me her ENGLISH TEACHER says HOW COME. HOW COME?! REALLY? HOW COME!!!!! Her ENGLISH TEACHER for Pete's sake. How is she supposed to TEACH English if she can't SPEAK it?

I had an English PROFESSOR, for goodness sake, that used to say idears instead of ideas. To make it worse she would emphasize and drag out the rs. It was kind of like this: "You mush be able to clearly convey your idearrrrssss to your reader." Drove me absolutely crazy. Other than that she was a really good teacher. Usually poor grammar doesn't bother me if it's casually writing like on this board or personal emails and what not. I do sometimes fly in to grammar fits if it is an official document or maybe a companies website or a newspaper. A newspaper for goodness sake! Newspapers and magazines should never have grammatical errors. NEVER! There is no excuse for that. Spoken grammatical errors only bother me when it's a really bad mistakes like "Where you do be going for lunch?" I can't stand the misuse of be or is. Drives me nuts. I also can't stand when someone leaves out to be as in "That car needs fixed". I used to work with a woman who did this ALL. OF. THE. TIME! That is probably the one that makes me the most crazy. But in the New Orleans area we say a lot of things that would make you turn your head sideways and say "huh?". After all, we don't go grocery shopping, we go make groceries. We don't go take a nap or go to sleep we "make doe doe" (usually used when talking to children). We don't have a good time, we pass a good time. A small injury is a boo boo or a bobo. We dress our sandwiches. We never get ready to do something, we are fix'n to do it. Yep, we say lots of crazy stuff down hear.

 

[raro]

Well, I'm an English teacher, so it comes with the territory that some things will annoy me. I had a teacher once who said that he would FAIL a student if they used the word "up" in a phrase. According to him, you don't stand up, you just stand. You don't finish up, you finish. Etc. So I asked him, what about 'give up'? You just 'give'? He wasn't impressed.

What annoys me: new-kyoo-lar. As in nucular war. It's nuCLEar!!!

I had a friend who talked about spring cleaning by saying "yesterday I spring clung my house."

 

[gettinaclue]

Well, I'm an English teacher, so it comes with the territory that some things will annoy me. I had a teacher once who said that he would FAIL a student if they used the word "up" in a phrase. According to him, you don't stand up, you just stand. You don't finish up, you finish. Etc. So I asked him, what about 'give up'? You just 'give'? He wasn't impressed.

What annoys me: new-kyoo-lar. As in nucular war. It's nuCLEar!!!

I had a friend who talked about spring cleaning by saying "yesterday I spring clung my house."

So I asked him, what about 'give up'? You just 'give'? He wasn't impressed.

 

[Britesea]

When my children said they did something "on accident", it drove me crazy; but even worse was my ex-husband saying "incentivize" instead of "motivate".

 

[gettinaclue]

Interesting discussion. I have never heard a criticism of "how come," and I hear people use it all the time. It's not wholly interchangeable with "why." "Why" asks for a reason, and "how come" is short for "how did that come to be," or "how did you come to that conclusion" -- it's asking about a process, not just a reason. JME.

First let me say - NONE of what I am about to say is meant to be offensive AT ALL. I would simply like to talk about this and exchange ideas and information. Please don't think I'm being ugly.

I have never heard a criticism of "how come," Really? That is shocking to me. When I went to school, we were NEVER allowed to say it in class under penalty of ..... I dunno....some sort of medieval torture? I just know that we NEVER EVER EVER said it in the classroom. I ASSUMED ( and we all know what that does) that it was the same way in every school.

and I hear people use it all the time. Yes, me too, but I had always thought that they didn't particularly care for English class. I'm not being funny or ugly here.

It's not wholly interchangeable with "why." "Why" asks for a reason, and "how come" is short for "how did that come to be," or "how did you come to that conclusion" -- it's asking about a process, not just a reason. Why not ask "Why did that happen?" instead of "How come that happened?" I have sat and thought about this for a while and I have not thought of a single instance where you could not replace "how come" with "why".

I would really like to hear your thoughts here.