Now, grammar has never been a strong suit of mine, but I thought of several such combinations that have either given me fits or are famous bugaboos.

I grew up in the deep south and we used to say, "Hey", instead of "Hello." I had a traditionalist, die-hard, next door, elderly neighbor who, every time I greeted her, would come back at me with, "Hay is for horses."

As for the "lie/lay" issue, I think Americans have lost that war. More often than not, I hear the inappropriate usage in public, from all classes. I would not be surprised to see dictionaries changed over this one.

I no longer worry about can/may or shall/will. Life is too short....

My best hint for lie/lay and sit/set (from my mother) is that lay and set mean to place something, while lie and sit mean to be at rest; i.e., you lay something down and it lies there or set something down and it sits there. On the travel forum I frequent, practically everyone writes that they like to "lay" on the beach. Eggs, anyone?

One other hint is a way not to misuse the subjective case following prepositions such as "for Tom, Dick, Harry, and I" or "with him and I." The trick is to leave out all the other names and use what you would use naturally, which, of course, would be "for me" or "with me."

You all probably know all this; but I spent 45 years as a secretary, and I can tell you I have quietly corrected multitudes of grammar errors over the years (and no doubt missed several, too).

I could make a case that to lie on a beach is not restful. In fact I'd say that one lays oneself just so and moves at regular intervals to either maximize or minimize the sun.

Infer/Imply
Ensure/Insure/Assure

I hear and read increasing the past participle being used on its own.
"He sung my favourtie song'.
Also brang as a past participle of brought.

Interestingly, 'set' is rarely used as a verb in Australia (and I suspect Vee will agree with me). I would use 'put' instead.
"I put the book on the table'.

Of course there is the greengrocer's apostrophe, which seems to have migrated into all shops and lots of advertising in general.

I particularly dislike 'these ones' and 'those ones' as being tautological, but I don't know that either is grammatically incorrect.

Prefixes can be a minefield too. Someone said 'unorganised' to me yesterday; I would always say 'disorganised'.

Woodnymph, I got into the "Hey" habit in the south. One person, though, told me that the reason it is objectionable is it sounds abrupt, lazy, and rude. I never thought so; I thought it sounded friendly if said cheerily. Shouted "Hey, you!" would sound rude to me, but it's the matter of tone not the word itself that offends me. The 'hay is for horses' expression never made sense to me because hey/hay aren't spelled alike.

Kath, how do Australians prepare a table for a meal? Americans 'set the table' and most Britons I've known 'lay the table'.

In American broadcasting journalism there's a famous dictum: Only Peter Jennings could say "shall" as a news anchor on American television. That's because he was Canadian. American broadcasters are advised to avoid 'shall' altogether.

He was the one who did the dirty deed.
He was the one that did the dirty deed.

I was taught that "who" is used when referring to a person and "that" is used for inanimate things, living things other than people and collective nouns, even when the latter are made up of people. My impression is that this distinction is dying out. Most people say and write "that" for all.

Another ubiquitous usage is impact as a verb, e.g., ". . . impacted the bottom line."

I just noticed that I used that dratted 'between' again! Well, it sounds right to me. I mean, the action is not shared among the animals and me, but between each of them and me. Oh, pffft!

I have always liked this saying:

Know the rules of grammar so you can break them whenever you wish.

My trouble is the rules change faster than I do. :-)

Kath, I think Australian grammar is the same as that of the UK (although both a little frayed round the edges).
We 'lay' the table. I hate the use of haitch for the letter 'h', especially when it is NOT followed by the 'h'!
"'arry went to 'ampstead, 'arry lost is 'at"
Other noticeable Irish 'English' pronunciations are alar-rum for alarm, col-yoom for column.
Over here the saying is "between you, me and the gate post".

I can't give any useful wrinkles to help keep grammar in place but I wonder if the incorrect use/placing of words is still a them and us issue?
But, as I live in an area where the 'natives' say " 'im d' do" meaning "He did" or "'er should say" for "She said" and my own children (adults now) still say "Me and him . . ." It is a wonder that I am able to string a sentence together. :-)

Your example of "between you, me, and the fencepost" is correct (your editor was wrong) because all of the action involves two people - the fencepost cannot interact. Besides, it is an old saying meant to be humorous and should not be changed even if it is grammatically questionable. The editor was being too serious!

Veer-auxiliary verbs are the so-called "helping verbs" and there are many of them. The helping verbs do express person, number, mood or tense. I just checked Merriam-Webster. Maybe the term "auxiliary verb" differs outside the U.S. and if so we could be talking at cross purposes.

And here's the scary part- If enough people make the same mistake long enough, the language changes and the error bcomes correct!

Depressing thought.

So true that if enough people change it, it will become the preferred erroneous usage, as in lie/lay. I fear that has occurred already with "orient" and "orientate" (which I hate).

Vee, it's my fault regarding the misunderstanding about auxiliary verbs. I should have given the American meaning of the term and given examples. I didn't realize (or forgot, as I am wont to do), though, that it is possibly different or has a more specific definition in the UK. Lydia is right that auxiliary verbs will indicate tense. Using may/might as I cited in my first post:

He may do something now. - present
He may have to do something later. - future
He might have done something an hour, a year, or an aeon ago. - past

Woodnymph, it could very well be true that the 'these ones' and 'those ones' construction is common in the south, but curiously I have seldom run across it myself in South Carolina, south Alabama, south Mississippi, south Louisiana, and southeast Texas. Perhaps I haven't known enough southerners of Irish extraction -- just African, Anglo, Cajun, Creole, Czech, German, Italian, Mexican, Native American, Norwegian, Polish, Scots, and Swedish, among others. :-) Southerners have never been a homogeneous group, as you well know but contrary to outside popular perception. But you're right: I should have said that in my experience I haven't found the phrasing to be common.

Ha! Are we all sounding a wee bit set in our ways? Language changes, inexorably. If it didn't, it would lose its usefulness, stagnate, and wind up a dead pool.

Frankly, I'm happy to see some grammar constraints that were artificial to begin with eliminated. Examples:

"Set in (my) ways" - yes, I am afraid so. Language change does depress me sometimes, but only when I feel left behind. I do not like many of the new shortened words, e.g. apps, vacay for vacation. The lengthening of words is a baffling trend, isn't it, woodnymph 2? I also dislike orientate and provocate.

friedag, did I hear correctly that fear of the split infinitive is what caused Chief Justice Roberts' flub at the swearing in of President Obama?

vacay for vacation Good grief! That and Kath's "brang" have me groaning. I've heard for years the saying "Dance with him who brung ya," which is a witticism, I think, that's twice as tickling to me now that I notice the correct! use of the relative pronoun.

Bring/brang/brung is just the sort of logical trap that ESL speakers/writers could fall into -- and it's entirely forgivable for them...and native speakers under about the age of four. But if it's the newest of the regularization attempts, it makes me huffy. I learned the irregular forms, so I would appreciate the courtesy of them remaining irregular!

Ex.: Her and I went to the store.

Check: Her went to the store.
I went to the store.

Correction: She and I went to the store.

It seems that many make the mistake of the wrong prounouns together and this easy check really makes it simple.

Another:

He and me went to the store.

Check: He went to the store.
Me went to the store.

Correction: He and I went to the store.

I would say: "I don't wish to travel any farther down that road," if I intend it to mean an actual physical distance, such as a few yards or a few miles.

However, I would say: "I don't wish to travel any further down that road," if I mean I will not continue to pursue the goal or endpoint to which that road is leading. I think of farther as tangible (in measurement), further as abstract.

I'm not sure if I made up my own rule or someone actually told me how to distinguish farther/further. I've noticed, though, that many people don't always distinguish them, though perhaps they do more in writing than in speaking. Come to think of it, I am more apt to say "further," even when I mean farther. I think it is easier to pronounce -- to say "farther" can interrupt the flow of my words -- so perhaps that is what is going on with many people. :-)

Good one, Woodnymph!

I've been reading more about farther/further. It seems they have always been pretty much interchangeable -- now why were two so similar words used to mean essentially the same thing? It has only been within the past one hundred years that they have begun to diverge, and it's that divergence that I (and others) have apparently picked up. The dictionaries validate the way I understand it (as I described above): farther is taking over the meaning of 'distance' while further remains the choice when there is "no notion of distance" (according to Merriam-Webster which gives this example: Our techniques can be further refined) or when the meaning is 'addition'. Further is also a sentence modifier: Further, the customers were not satisfied with the new style of service.

Something else I notice about farther/further is the pronunciations. Speakers who do not pronounce internal and ultimate /r/s sound to me as if they are saying for farther "FAH thuh," same as they pronounce father, and "FUH thuh" for further.

What an interesting pair of words!! Thanks again, Woodnymph, for bringing them up.

As to the pronunciation, to me farther and Father sound just the same. Are they said differently in the US?

Frieda, I am waiting for you to have a go at the 'Classics Quiz'.

By the way, most Americans do not pronounce "rather" to rhyme with "father". (Our "rather" is instead "wrath-er.")

For myself, I pronounce "Father" to rhyme with "water."

Kath, is it the same with you?

I definitely don't rhyme rather with father. Neither do I rhyme father with water. My "water" rhymes with cotter (the closest real word that I can think of at the moment).

Vee, I doubt any transcription will give you the proper idea of how Americans pronounce farther, so I suggest you visit a site with audio of American pronunciations. I can attempt it but I doubt it will do any good. However, here goes:

Think of the letter R and how Americans say it (the letter itself) -- It is "Ar" with the tongue curled. Pirates supposedly say "Argh!" an awful lot -- the beginning of their word is the same as the American pronunciation of the letter R (not to be confused with the sound of every R, though -- initial, internal, or ultimate).

The English I know tend to pronounce the letter R as "Ah" without curling the tongue. This is important because it is one of the primary reasons American English sounds different from English English. This one letter causes more problems and misunderstandings, I think, than any other. The English (and some American-English speakers) who cannot curl their tongues for R, or even imagine that sound, will not comprehend this, I'm afraid.

Okay, here's how I would transcribe farther, keeping in mind that many (most) Americans definitely pronounce the R in the position of the way it is spelled.

FAR-thur -- the AR sound is the same as in the pirate's "argh!" The /th/ is hard as in thou, and the /ur/ sounds just about identical to the Cockney pronunciation of her: 'er.

You say you pronounce them alike:

Is it because you insert the extra R into father before the /th/ (the so-called 'intrusive R')? Just this morning I heard a young woman from near London refer to her father as her "farther" -- she actually mentioned him twice, the second time it sounded more to me like "FAR-ver."

Or do you very lightly pronounce the first R in farther (without curling the tongue), or omit it altogether? My friend from Keene, New Hampshire very kindly obliged me by pronouncing the duo and that's what she does with farther (she omits the first R), making her farther/father sound the same.

The other pronunciation of farther/father that I mentioned above -- FAH-thuh, for both -- comes from speakers I've heard in south Louisiana. I'm not expecting your pronunciations, Kath and Vee, to sound like this -- but what do I know? Maybe yours are the same. :-)

So the first syllable of 'fa' sounds like Julie Andrews sings it in Do Re Mi (far, a long long way to run). There isn't any 'r' sound as you would hear it. More 'fah' probably.
The second syllable is very much like 'the' but not pronounced 'thee'. I put my tongue just behind my teeth and just puff out a bit of air and it comes out 'the'.
The intrusive 'r' confuses me as I think we have less of an 'r' sound that most Americans - as you said Frieda, the rolled tongue gives the pirate argh.

Vee, there's a definite West Country influence on some American dialects, and I've heard it's the reason the 'R' has such a widespread manifestation in the American-English accent. Just as the East Anglians and Londoners influenced New England and parts of the Eastern Seaboard of the US, the broadened vowels and the 'R' of the West Country had great influence west of the Appalachians, particularly in the American Midwest, in parts of Texas, and in the Rocky Mountain region -- "The Heart Land" as it is called, lovingly, or "Flyover Land," disparagingly.

Woodnymph, I'm not sure if your question is directed to me because I didn't use the word rolled for the physical action of the tongue in the usual American pronunciation of 'R'. I used curled instead, because, although Americans do roll the 'R' in 'exaggeration', it is normally not that extreme. The curled tongue will make a very distinct R-sound as compared to that of the no-curled tongue 'R' (Kath illustrated this last very well with her example: Fah, a long, long way to run. The old pirate who utters just one "Argh" would probably only curl his tongue, but he will roll his tongue to emphasize: "Arrrrgh!"

I am not, in this instance, equating the "rolled tongue" of the /ar/ part of argh with that of the guttural, throat-clearing /gh/ sound which is a sound made in French but probably is more commonly associated with German -- the Ach! You are right: Americans have great difficulty pronouncing this and other gutturals. I am amused that "Ack!" is the spelling and pronunciation that most Americans use. I'm a relic, I guess, because I still gutturalize my Ach! and the name of Bach. :-)

FFIW, not everyone in the South pronounces water to rhyme with father. There is a particular school that says "water " rather like "waw-ter." Some folk here in Dixie say "dawg" for "dog." I just realized that I don't say "Daw-ter" for "daughter", but more like "dottir."

WÄ-ter/FÄ-ter (simpler transcription would render "wotter/fotter")
WÄ-der/FÄ-der (father, in this case, would be a homophone of fodder thus the rhyme would be "wodder/fodder")
WÄ-ther/FÄ-ther (in this case the /th/ is soft as in thorn, think, thespian...)
WÄ-THer/FÄ-THer (the /TH/ would be hard as in this, that, there...)
There are a few other ways but they are rather unusual for Americans.

My pronunciation of father is FÄ-THer, definitely with just the ultimate /r/.

I usually say "daw-ter" for daughter but sometimes "dotter or dodder" will creep in. Many Americans, of all regions, say the internal /t/ as /d/, although many won't admit it. :-) I do not say "dawg" unless I'm in Texas or with my Alabama cousins.

Two that have been slipping for a long time:

Among / between
One another / each other

In both cases, the former is for groups of three or more and the latter is for exactly two. For example:

The bachelorette was asked to choose among her many suitors.
After narrowing them down, she chose between Adam and Steve.

All of the suitors detested one another.
Adam and Steve arm-wrestled each other.

Even in novels (such as The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is the book that brought me to this forum), I often see "each other" and "one another" used incorrectly. Often, it seems a writer will use "one another" to sound more sophisticated. To the trained eye, they seem anything but.

Others I can't stand include "assure" when it should be "ensure" (but the battle is so lost on this one that reputable dictionaries accept either); and "entitled" to mean "titled" -- but again, even The New Yorker used "entitled," so this battle is practically over, too.

ronalawn, I had forgotten all about the comparative degree (as well as the superlative). Thanks for the reminder. It certainly makes sense in distinguishing farther and further. I think that I usually use the degree rule correctly; but it's from force of habit, not because I actually recall it. Comparative is usually the -er suffix; superlative is -est. Is that right?

Ha! I've had situations where I wished I had a comeback as good as the southern belle's.

cohenpeart, one another/each other -- Ach! I don't know if I ever understood that there is a difference. Probably not, because I think I use them interchangeably. It may be obvious to the trained eye, as you say, but I rather doubt that it worries most folk. Still, it's good to know if there's a need to be absolutely proper in sophisticated company. :-)

I think that I reserve assure for a guarantee or an affirmation, so I usually don't confuse it with ensure. However, I thought for the longest time that ensure was the British spelling and meant the same thing as what I took for the American spelling: insure.

cohenpeart, pronunciation is a favorite topic among RPers. I meant this thread to be about grammar, but give me the opportunity and I will get "around" to pronunciations every time. I put the quote marks around around because we had a recent discussion whether around and round have the same meanings to most Britons as they do to most Americans. Our conclusion: Evidently not! :-)

I have never even considered one another/each other, so will have to take some note of that.

Shouldn't it be "grammatical minefields" or "minefields in grammar"? What do you think?

Your examples are correct, of course. They are more formal than my subject title (ha! there's another: subject is a noun modifying title); but for brevity's sake I will stick to Grammar Minefields in this not-so-formal setting. :-)

It's true that these phrases' original constructions were such as: map of the wall, cushion of the sofa, clot of blood, etc., but some are cumbersome or sound stilted so it didn't take long for speakers to shorten them. The English language adapts so wonderfully, sometimes!

But I think it's still a rule and I guess it depends on the phrase in question as to whether it sounds right. We all say "English teachers" but their professional organization is the "National Council of Teachers of English". Go figure.

Don't ever stop posting! Where would this forum be without your interesting, informed and creative posts? Besides, you would miss all the mistakes I make!

Annpan, your bit/drop distinction seems logical to me in regard to dry and liquid ingredients. However, I probably don't always use the dry/liquid consideration for bit; e.g., I would say: He's had a bit too much to drink. Obviously I'm talking about liquids there, but "bit" is what I use for an unmeasured small quantity, so the wetness or dryness is immaterial, in this case.

I also use the technical term "glug," sometimes I even call for a "glug, glug" of liquid.

She occasionally uses the word imbursement when she means 'payment'. Because I found this word awkward-sounding at best, I checked my copy of The Oxford Concise English Dictionary only to find that this word was not listed at all. When I suggested that she stop using this "word" in official communications, she replied tartly that since reimbursement meant to "pay back", then it was perfectly reasonable to use a imbursement to mean the opposite. She was not convinced by the fact that the offending word has so dropped from usage as to not even be listed in reputable dictionaries.

There, I've finished venting. It's just nice to get that off my chest.

Here's the current usage that drives me crazy: "throwing" a party. It is everywhere, for every event, in speech and in print. It is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

Whatever happened to "giving" a dinner, luncheon, shower? Anyone else notice this?

This thread has been interesting to follow, though I am well aware that my own grasp of grammar isn't always blameless.

One bad habit which never fails to annoy me is the current tendency to use nouns as verbs. The most common (and therefore most obnoxious) example is to party.

Btw, I did find 'imbursement' in a dictionary:

n. 1. The act of imbursing, or the state of being imbursed.

2. Money laid up in stock.
-- from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 Edition

Both meanings are now considered obsolete. So, at one time 'imbursement' was not considered a usage of only ignorant people...actually, it was probably quite the opposite. I suspect it fell out of use because it was obscure to most people.

I am prone to mental blips. I will be typing merrily along, often spelling words or constructing phrases as I mentally 'hear' them, knowing sometimes that they are wrong but having the intention of correcting them when I proofread. Then I forget to proof!

I am often accused of using obscure words, though I would dispute this charge. I am unwilling to relinquish certain words if they precisely express my meaning. In the imbursement example, however, I don't think either definition fits what she was trying to say.

The best written English, in my opinion, is that which is straightforward, precise but not without some originality or grace. The highest compliment I ever received in university was from a professor who said that I had a "nice turn of phrase".

Colleenoz, your story really made me laugh. The use of incursion has a certain amount of weird logic. But still, there are so many common, everyday words which would have better expressed her meaning.

I agree that neither definition seems to fit what your co-worker was trying to say, but I find her idea amusing because it is peculiarly logical. I feel the same about the teacher's misuse of incursion, perhaps because it seems the sort of logic I might apply. :-)

I wonder if this lack of grammar education is common. I went to a good school system, but they evidently felt grammar was not all that important.

When I was in school in NYC (many moons ago), grammar was important & we diagrammed sentences, learned the parts of speech, as well as punctuation. We even learned Latin & Greek suffixes & prefixes in third grade.