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
July–October. 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 British — or rather the Scottish, who make the best whisky."
"Nobody — not even his wife, suspected he was the murderer." "You can separate a
phrase — just 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, people — some 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