quote:
Originally posted by Lamuness:
i dont claim to be a total expert like someone ACTS to be so please enlighten me but.....should it be "they just itch me?" instead? singular/plural conflict
It depends how you look at it, I suppose. What does "it" mean? If "it" refers directly to the subject of the first portion of th sentence, then yes, there's a conflict. Proper (academic) writing should never be ambiguous in the first place. However, I personally don't have the time nor the motivation to write academically all the time. Besides, academic writing is too stuffy, repetitive, and awkward. A definite error in that sentence is that the comma should be a semicolon, since the two phrases represent two independent clauses without a conjunction between them.
The moral of the story: who cares. If grammar errors bother you that much Benoit, then I think you're the one with the problem, not the people making the mistakes. Bad grammar only becomes a problem when it obscures what you're trying to say. I appreciate when people point out my more glaring errors, but I'm not everybody, and you shouldn't automatically assume that everybody appreciates having each and every grammar error they make pointed out.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 02-18-2005).]