Wednesday, June 13, 2012

hear/here: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Wednesday, June 13, 2012

hear/here
If you find yourself writing sentences like “I know I left my wallet hear!” you should note that “hear” has the word “ear” buried in it and let that remind you that it refers only to hearing and is always a verb (except when you are giving the British cheer “Hear! Hear!”). “I left my wallet here” is the correct expression.


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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, here was the entry from Friday, June 8, which came through via e-mail as white-on-white:

isn’t it/innit 
In South Asia you often hear people end sentences with “isn’t it?” in contexts where traditional English would require “doesn’t it,” “won’t it,” “aren’t you,” and related expressions. In Britain and among American Indians, among others, this “invariant isn’t” is reduced to “innit,” and may be used even more broadly as a general emphatic exclamation at the end of almost any statement.

This interesting pattern is liable to puzzle, amuse, or annoy those who aren’t used to it, isn’t it?

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