7 INSANE Grammar Rules from the DARK SIDE of the ENGLISH Language

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What was I gonna say. I know what I'm doing I know I'm doing. You think I don't have a plan you

think I don't have a plan you're wrong I do you're wrong. So English is an easy

language is it? Some people tell me that. Anyone who says English grammar is easy

show them this video. Now I teach English. I've been doing it for a long time and

most of the time what I need to explain is the standard grammar that you get

asked every day. "What's the difference between the present perfect and the past

simple." How do you use MUCH and MANY how do you pronounce the word MISCHIEVOUS?

It's MISCHIEVOUS by the way. How do you spell chrysanthemum? Now this is the

bread and butter for every English teacher but sometimes in my research I

came across some English grammar rules that make you go Woooaahh!!! or nooooo!! and this is

what we are going to look at today the top seven ridiculous or obscure grammar

rules in the English language that will make you want to pull your hair out. Let

me tell you that even most native English speakers won't be able to

explain these rules. Most teachers won't know these rules so watch this video

then ask your teacher if they know the answer. OK that would be mischievous

wouldn't it? This video is not for everyone but if

you are a little bit of a geek, like me, or you just want to know all the rules

of the English language even the strangest then join me in these tales

from the dark side of the English language. ah ha ha ha ha

Hello and welcome to LetThemTalk so let's get straight into this the strangest and

most obscure English grammar rules and we'll start with the plurals of fish now

the word FISH is singular and plural but the plural can also be FISHES both are

correct I'm sure you know that but did you know that some species of fish take

an S plural and some don't so for example one salmon, two salmon... that's

right no S but one sardine two sardines with an S one cod two Cod no S one tilapia

to tilapias S one herring two herring no S it's crazy.

seafood usually takes an S one lobster two lobsters although krill that doesn't one

krill many krill. Some animals which are also food, such as sheep, do not have an S

one sheep two sheep the rules seem to be pretty vague and I'm not sure I quite

understand when you use the S and when you don't use the S myself and just to

add something even more crazy into the mix CANNON the word CANNON boom now one

cannon two cannon. For the battle we had five thousand cannon.

so for number two we're going to stick with the subject of plurals now the

English language has always been something of a sponge soaking up words

from different languages especially French, which makes up about 40% of the

origin of English words. French or Norman French so there is the utmost

respect for foreign languages and foreign words that enter English we

don't have an Academy of the English language so when a foreign word enters

the language it kind of just sits there and if it's a noun do we respect the

origin of the word and give it the same plural as in the source language or do

we use an English plural the S? Nobody seems to agree and so in some cases

there are two correct plurals that of the original language and the English

one. So for example STADIUM is the plural STADIUMS (the English plural) or STADIA

from Latin. OCTOPUS is the plural OCTOPUSES the English one or OCTOPUDES from

Greek. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that correct.

in other cases only the foreign plural is considered correct.

OASES is the plural of OASIS and NOT "OASISES" the plural of CRISIS is CRISES NOT

"CRISISES" sometimes the plural word is more common than the singular so the

question is what's the singular? Look at these Italian words GRAFFITI is a plural

now what's a singular is it GRAFFITO? oh look it's a lovely graffito on the wall

there by Banksy. what about SPAGHETTI? I've got one SPAGHETTO.

PAPARAZZI is the singular PAPARAZZO? although yes I have seen that one.

so if possible respect the original plural or singular but be careful

because you can sound very pretentious so you could try to use the foreign plural

if you know it but if not just use the S. don't worry about it. Anyway so over to

you what's the plural of these English words of foreign origin BONSAI

SERAPH, VIRTUOSO, FLAMINGO, CHATEAU, WUNDERKIND answers in the comments. the

wunderkind stole a bonsai from the Chateau.

Punctuation god I hated

punctuation at school and even as a teacher I still get headaches with

punctuation but I guess it's important EM-dashes EN-dashes and hyphens. Now you

might think that all lines between words are the same but let me tell you that

they are not. There are three different lines with varying degrees of length and

believe or not this is pretty important when writing. So let's start with the hyphen

The most common use of the hyphen is to separate compound words and

phrases and names so for example well no mass-produced a five-year-old child

jean-paul some names are hyphenated is your name hyphenated now the En-dash is

slightly longer than the hyphen and this separates numbers or dates in a range

so for example pages 117–123, 1925–1985

JulyOctober. The em-dash is slightly longer still and this separates words a

bit like a comma and it's used to add some new information to a sentence so

for example. "It's the Britishor rather the Scottish, who make the best whisky."

"Nobodynot even his wife, suspected he was the murderer." "You can separate a

phrasejust like this if you really want"

Now the next one is about collective nouns in English. One cow, two cows

many cows, you say "a herd of cows" you might know that, that's quite common. Sheep,

"A flock of sheep". Also "a flock of birds." "A swarm of bees" but some

animals have really bizarre collective nouns "A parliament of owls." "A mischief of

rats." "An ambush of tigers." "An unkindness of Ravens" an unkindness of Ravens? it's not

only animals, peoplesome collective nouns of people include "a pound of

pianists." "A pratfall of clowns." "A shuffle of bureaucrats." oh no there's an

unkindness of Ravens flying around in the sky above my apartment.

Now this next rule is a minefield even the scholars of the English language

can't agree and I've been teaching it one way for years and I find out that

maybe that's not correct anymore so this is about possessives with S when you

have a noun that ends in an S how do you make it possessive? Sounds simple

but it's not. Let me give an example the witnesses statements okay the witnesses

does it have ...S'S at the end or just s' now for years I've been

teaching that both are correct you just need to be consistent but after doing

some research many don't agree. Some style books insist

that you add an S if it's a singular noun "the boss's birthday"

"Dennis's signature" but but some style books say that for biblical and

classical names you do not add a second s so "Jesus' sandle"

No second S. "Moses' stick" s no apostrophe. Now it seems crazy

that biblical and classical names should have its own rule but I know that

Achilles' heel is written S apostrophe and there's no second apostrophe that

seems wrong so maybe some some truth to that.

Are we agreed? No because the New York style manual says that all singular names

should have one S followed by an apostrophe and no second S

for example "Dickens' book". "Paris' best restaurant" but if the S at the end

of the word is not pronounced then you add a second S. "Arkansas's governor" it's

a minefield and nobody seems to agree in the end so the best rule is probably the

one that I started off with choose the one you like and stick with it.

This is maybe the most obscure piece of grammar that I found in English we use

apostrophe S to mark a possessive don't we "Bob's book" not "the book of Bob"

so apostrophe s or s apostrophe that's how it is that is for a possessive case.

sometimes refered to as the Saxon genitive harking back a thousand years when

English had a much more complex grammar with lots of different cases all of

which died out except the Saxon genitive. we use it for names we use it for times

as well. "Monday's lesson", "yesterday's breakfast." i'm sure you know that but did

you know did you know that in one case in english we do

not use the Saxon genitive. in Astronomy when we are talking about stars in a

constellation we use the Latin genitive. so for example the star far far away

called Alpha Centauri up there somewhere it's name of the constellation is Centaurus

and it's the first star belonging to this constellation so we use the latin

possessive Alpha centauri and not the saxon genitive which would be

Centaurus's Alpha so in English we usually use a saxon genitive except in

astronomy where we use that Latin genitive. remember that it's

important actually probably not.

Did you know there are about a thousand

French expressions that we use in the English language some of them are very

common some of them less so some examples of common French

expressions that we use in English déjà vu, crème de la crème, faux pas Bon

Appetit bon voyage, au contraire but the

question is how are you supposed to pronounce these words in English? Now

let's have a look at the Bible of style guides for British English

fowler's English usage who says "to say a French word in the middle of an English

sentence exactly as it would be said by a Frenchman in a French sentence is a

feat demanding an acrobatic mouth. The muscles have to be suddenly adjusted to

a performance of a different nature and after it has to suddenly recoil to the

normal state. It is a feat that should not be attempted. All that is necessary is a

polite acknowledgement of indebtedness to the French language indicated by some

approach. in some part, of the words to the foreign sound" So if I understand

that correctly you are not supposed to sound French

when you use a French expression in English that's wrong sorry French people

you're getting it wrong. You mustn't sound too English either you have to

occupy that middle ground where people know you are using a foreign word but

not so much as it sounds like you are a foreigner so for example you say

so the bottom line is if using French words in English don't sound too French

So if you know any weird grammar rules that I haven't mentioned then put

them in the comments or if you know any strange, bizarre grammar rules from your

own language then we'd love to hear them so put them in the comments thank you

for watching see you soon