Grammar Gripes and Other Psycholinguistic Squawkings

I'd rather just say, "Fuck you."

 

Oh the ol' "please and thank you".... I've hated that for years. It screams of entitlement and/or ingratitude.

 

The word you're looking for isn't "learnings," it's lessons.

 

I'm-a gonna teach you a learnin'.

 

I'm sure you have many learnings to teach.

 

After several visits to fast food joints, an acquaintance of mine, recently arrived from Latvia, thinks that the phrase "THANK YOU" means "place trash here."

 

That one's more common than it should be.

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put!

We may have covered this in this thread already, but....

Grammar myths #1: is it wrong to end a sentence with a preposition? | OxfordWords blog

 

I'm amazed at how often I see the word university capitalized when applied in a general sense, e.g., "I graduated University," or, "I'll meet you at the University," or "I'm in my final year of University."

It's like people capitalize it to suggest how lofty it is. University is the height of formal education, right? I mean, one goes to college, but one goes to University.

It's like when people say they utilize something instead of use it. It sounds more important with the fancier word, right?

 

I think the U.S. confuses much of the world with their post-secondary system.

In this part of Canada (at least), colleges are distinct from universities. This is why you also have "university colleges," institutions that grant university degrees or are college-level institutions of a university. Many of them are simply colleges that don't have full university status, whether or not they are a part of a larger university.

Maybe it's just me, by when I hear "diploma," I think college or a certificate program through a university. When I hear "degree," I think university.

 

For the record, I earned a three-year diploma from a community college and applied transfer credits to get about one year's worth towards a four-year (honours) university degree.

 

Where I was raised, in provincial Kansas, you went away to college, or went away to "the university," but "the university" could mean any university, not a particular one. In my case it was Emporia State University, and I felt that I got a good, if not prestigious, education and degree. To this day phrases like "going to university" or "graduating university" just sound kind of awkward without the definite article. And I'm aware that this is probably just a provincial usage.

When I hear diploma, I think of high school, a trade school, or a community college. A four year program is a "degree," in American usage. But a degree from a "prestigious" COLLEGE (like CCNY, Dartmouth College, or Boston College would trump one from a "podunk" university, like Emporia State, Dakota Wesleyan, and hundreds more.
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Should it not be "I still haven't found that for which I have been looking?"