What's with the "off of??" The dancer fell off OF the
stage; the biker fell off OF his bike. The "of" is
totally unnecessary. And the misuse of "ITS" and "IT IS" is another error to see.

I believe that poor grammar, punctuation, and syntax are symptomatic of an intellectually lazy society. I understand that some my feel that the above statement is overreaching, but I feel strong that it is true.

Yes, but both words are spelled correctly. That they don't mean the same is immaterial. The spellchecker only checks for spelling errors, not whether it is what is correct or intended.

No, I don't think he is saying that at all. In this case, it is 'a group of men is going' because the subject of the sentence is 'group', which is considered singular and thus, the verb should also be singular (is). The prepositional phrase 'of men' just denotes who or what the group is. To make the plural 'are going,' the subject would have to be something like 'the groups of men are going' (as if there are several different groups involved). It has to do with subject/verb agreement.

Heres what bothers me, why wont the apostrophe show up in my comments, yet it will in others? As I type this I can see it plain as the wart on Hillary`s nose, but the moment I hit"add" it, unlike the witches bump, disappears.

We judge people by their appearance. We assign them into a particular class based on other factors than pure and filtered information that they give us. That class determines how much we trust and value the main information coming from the person. In written communication, we do not see the body language, we do not see their dress or other factors. The written word is all there is. The judgement, rightfully or not, is based on the only information that is available. Thus, if the person who wants to transmit a certain thought does not make the effort, or is incapable of constructing a grammatically correct sentence, why should the reader waste his time on deciphering and correcting incoherent thoughts? Perhaps, the reader may often feel, the time is better spent elsewhere. That said, in a blog environment, of course there will be occasional typos and they do not diminish the value of the information. But if the writer shows no respect for himself and the reader, why should the reader respect the writer?

Surely you mean "incongruous" words, not "incongruent"?

Love the video, so on target. This guy really pulled it all together, with humor. We have a couple millennials working at the local newspaper, and the whiney articles are not to be believed. It is always about what they want and what they don't want to do. Both liberals, of course.

While we’re doing slightly off-color jokes: Then there was the Indian who drank 50 cups of tea, and the next day they found him dead in his tea-pee.
I was quite familiar with your appropriate scrod joke from when I lived in Boston. Back then, if the cab driver drove to the noun instead of the pluperfect subjunctive, it would have been to Anthony’s Pier Four (to which I had been several times) or Jimmy’s Harborside (I had one dinner there.) Anthony’s was torn down and replaced by condos, and Jimmy’s is now Legal Harborside. That’s okay—the only seafood I eat is saltwater taffy. Only ten years to go for the bicentennial birthday of Durgin-Park restaurant (in Boston). I’ve been making their Baked Indian Pudding at least once a year for the past 40 years. I use their recipe published in Collier's Magazine many decades earlier.

It bothers me when I do it. When other people do it I just consider that they are a product of bad schools, computer error or to busy. No big deal unless the author is complaining about other peoples bad grammar/spelling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHPfg...

Generally one does not immediately catch one's own errors. When we re-read what we've written, we see what is supposed to be there, not necessarily what actually is.
That's why The Good Lord gave you all me, to be your editor.

It did not work for lieutenent, either. That was the point.
(I can't believe that you got two plusses for that. I took one away.)

I agree in the main, but I allow for the fact that we all make mistakes. Moreover, dyslexia is deep within our culture, both for bad reasons and good. Reading about the American Revolution, I came upon a letter of (forced) loyalty (written by a Tory). He misspelled many words, but used a rich vocabulary. Spelling is hard.

I do not know what word you are fishing for. If it has not come to you yet, sleep on it again, and let us know in the morning.

As for the history of thought as expressed in language etymologies, it would be helpful to look past the Indo-Europeans, certainly beyond English and Latin, though knowing Latin is extremely helpful. (I am sure that your is far superior to mine.) I grew up with Hungarian, a non-Indo-European language. I also had two semesters of Japanese in college. I do agree with your theory about tense and time. In Turkish, all of the verbs are regular, except the verb "to be." You may be on to something there...

I was punning on "Indian" to make a point about the richness of our vocabulary.

A traveling salesman who was a seafood lover finally got sent to Boston. Deplaning at Logan, he got his bags and made for the taxi stands. He jumped in the first one. "Do you know where I can get scrod in Boston?" he asked. The driver turned around and said, "Mister, I've been asked that question a million times, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive."