Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22512744

5/10 here! More practice needed I think, some of those questions were harder than I expected, and i'm pretty pedantic...

Same. Although two of them I failed for not knowing the correct grammar terminology.

Aye, I didn't know what a modal or grenoble, or spatchcock was on that question.

7/10 for me - again, knowing what things were called was what caught me out.

9/10. Might have got them all had I been paying attention, but the last one I guessed.

"is what caught you out", surely

FYI, nominating a post correcting my grammar for POTW is a quick way to a nap in the banhammock.

Shouldn't that be "ban-hammock" ?

No, no it shouldn't.

8/10. The grammar terminology questions mean nothing to me.

I am not going to do it, as I will embarrass myself.

7. I guessed one of the terminology questions, got the semi colon one wrong, and, er, something else.

I read that as banana hammock.

Terrifying.

FFS - Descriptivism won, get over it!

Prescriptive grammar is what you teach young children to give them a grounding in avoiding confusion.
Descriptive is what grown-ups actually use, often with intentional double meanings.

Anyone over the age of 16 who bangs on about prescriptive grammar is either a teacher or an asshat.

(I got 7 - due to the stupid terminology ones. Bloody BBC!)

I WAS GOING TO SAY THE SAME THING.

Except I got 5/10. Frankly, if you're writing sentences like the ones in that article whilst relying on arcane rules to disambiguate them, then stop writing plz.

lolz thickzorz

8.

I got 9.

I got 11/10, yet surprisingly failed the Maths test

7 for me - likewise not a clue about the terminology - why would I / would I want to know those silly names for rules?!

You tell us. You're the one who took the test

If a subject isn't someone's interest, why be interested? It's a non-question.

General response to the 'ooh. these rules are weird!' crew rather than just you, TFF. But there are people wondering 'why would I care about computers?'... or musical notes, or space, or anything.

We all rely on language to communicate. It's one thing to say 'well, as long as folk understand me, who cares?', but that only goes so far before we're pointing at objects and playing charades. Language is important.

Knowing the rules and knowing the nomenclature of the rules are wildly different things though. Knowing the rules is important in everyday life. Knowing what they're called is only really useful if you're writing a book about it.

Obviously all knowledge is useful. But there's a difference between testing one's grammar and testing what one knows about grammar.

Largely agreed, and in answering '10 questions on grammar'*, one must be prepared for terms as well as practical use, surely?

* As opposed to question specifically on the practical use thereof. In fact, I increasingly find that people want to know what things are. What is the 'I am sat' mistake? Oh, past participle. To exaggerate things a bit, fresh air is more important than knowing the term 'fresh air'. But I've never known people rail against it like I see them do grammatical terms. It's often (not necessarily here) an overly defensive stance.