Audio Banter - View Single Post - Can this ignoramus really be an engineer?

**Andre Jute**

Jenn wrote:
In article ,
(Don Pearce) wrote:

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:59:01 +0000, Eeyore
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:36:20 +0000, Eiron wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

The word "grammatic" isn't even in Merriam-Webster online. In
Dictionary Online it is given the meaning "of or pertaining to
grammar", which is not the usage we had here, which was of the correct
use of grammar - the word for which is grammatical.

The OED has no entry for grammatic.

Mine does, and that's just the Shorter OED.
When I'm feeling really pedantic I cycle seven miles to the public
library to consult the full 24 volume edition.

Quite so. But grammatic and grammatical mean two quite different
things. You can talk about the grammatic structure of a sentence, but
if you are discussing the correctness of that structure, the word is
grammatical.

Americans often have trouble with different meanings. See alternate and
alternative for example.

Graham

Momentarily and soon seem to give them trouble too. And of course
American English is now a language essentially without adverbs.

d

You speak truthfully.

Now, now, Jenn, it is most unladylike to leave such hairy footprints on
dear old Don. He has gone up in my estimation recently for the quality
of his jokes, if not for his anti-Americanism. -- Andre Jute