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Re: [GWL]: grammar police report

Title: Re: [GWL]: grammar police report
Hullo,
I have only recently joined GWL and was interested to see the grammar police report. I am a botanical editor and writer -- my first book, just published by Prentice Hall, is called The Holistic Garden: Creating Spaces for Health and Healing. Tom Ogren had some very kind words about it on GWL not long ago (many thanks, Tom). Might I add that it's available in the U.S. through http://www.gardenscapetools.com in the Books section.

Anyway, here are two of my pet grammatical peeves (admittedly, two of many. I am after all someone who rather likes wandering through taxonomical thickets!):

First is the inappropriate and often incorrect use of "of" ‹
€ The worst offender is "off of" as in "She took the cushion off of the couch." Ouch, I say.
€ It is also attached willy-nilly to "outside" when just "outside" will do, as in "The suburbs extend for miles outside of the city." Ignored is the actual meaning of "outside of", i.e., "besides" or "except," as in "Outside of some pines and oaks, few trees survived the fire."
Ditto "inside" though perhaps less frequently.

Second: why do we easily say (and write) "A history of the universe" but declare something "AN historic occasion"????  The "h" is sounded exactly the same in both cases, it seems to me (unlike "herb" which some people pronounce with a silent "h").

Karen 





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