Wikipedia talk:Lists of common misspellings/Grammar and miscellaneous

use to > used to

From an enormous list of 11,000 articles I made only 500 or so fixes. The words "use to" are valid in many, many articles, both when "use" is a noun:

• ...in regular use to this day.
• ...promoted condom use to prevent...
• ...converted from military use to...

and as a verb:

• ...a tool which geologists use to...
• ...which he would later use to...

In addition, many editors seem to write "use to" to mean "regularly" or "often", with no implication that the action has ceased. It is not correct to change those to "used to". Typical examples can be found in Ganeshthan Temple, Jaidevi, Karmiya, Basti, Khatav, Mongupethanpatty, Ponte Milvio.

I have added some of the "easy cases" such as "is use to" to the main list; these shouldn't have many false positives. I don't recommend that anyone work on "use to" unless they have an efficient way to skip false positives with clever regexps. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple Meanings of "Been Awhile"

I've been gnoming various misuses of awhile vs a while, and referring back to this page as authoritative as necessary.

I have a concern with this page listing been a while as incorrect, giving been awhile as the correct form. I believe it's more complicated than that and both have correct, but different, uses. In fact, "been a while" is often correct in the way it is commonly used.

"A while" is a noun phrase meaning "a brief period of time", which can be used as the object of a verb, alone or with a preposition such as for. Awhile is an adverb and has the meaning for a brief period of time, i.e. for a while.

So, it has been awhile would have the meaning it has been for a while - i.e. it has existed for a brief time. It could be used when there is an implied or explicit adjective, such as

The car is rusty, and it has been awhile.

which would mean

The car is rusty and it has been [rusty] for a while.

However, writers often use this phrase to indicate how long it has been since some other phrase applied, such as

It has been a while since I met my sister.

In this usage, a while is the object of the verb been, not an adverb modifier. A while is correct in this case, while

It has been awhile since I met my sister.

would have the same meaning as

It has been for a while since I met my sister.

and is incorrect.

I'd like to modify this with a footnote indicating that there are two different meanings, and that correct usage depends on context. Or, of course, have my incorrect understanding corrected. Since there are multiple uses of "awhile", maybe it warrants a page of its own?

Took Awhile Too

I think the same also applies to the listing of took a while as incorrect, with took awhile being given as the correct form. In common usage, took requires an object.

Took what? Took a while.

Using the adverb awhile with took would be correct only when the taking was for a brief period of time.

He took the book awhile, then returned it.

Comments?

OttRider (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

This appears to have been a copy-paste error on my part, so I have changed it. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 08:45, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Strange phrases -- an underserved method of finding errors?

I'm not sure these belong on the accompanying article page, but maybe somewhere. I've been finding many, many errors by searching for phrases like:

• "the have" (often should be "they have" or a noun is missing)
• "a have" (often transposed from "have a", but also other errs)
• "the with" (often transposed)
• " the to " (finds "to the to the")
• ... and many similar others.

Often I have to weed through many valid occurrences to find the errors, but those with more skill may be able to exclude the valid ones more easily. My wish is that this method is somehow brought to the attention of newbie gnomes and others. --LilHelpa (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Comprised of

In the list, there appears a large number of expressions "comprised [...] of". Merriam-Webster at Comprise vs. Compose: Usage Guide says this is "disputed", but not utterly wrong. Should we delete these expressions from the list? What do the native speakers think? --Cyfal (talk) 09:52, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

We keep entries that an editor might want to use to make changes to Wikipedia. As there are lots of editors who find it an improvement to remove disputed usages from Wikipedia, these entries are valuable. I use them a lot myself; I strive for a higher standard than "not utterly wrong" in copy-editing Wikipedia. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, that sounds convincing for me. I just detected "User:Giraffedata/comprised of": impressive! I don't agree with Why Wikipedia's grammar vigilante is wrong, especially with the "waste of time" — it's our own decision how we spend our spare time. --Cyfal (talk) 21:30, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the support, Cyfal, particularly your view on people declaring other people's hobbies to be a waste of time!

It's important to understand the context of the article you cite: It was published several days after several laudatory articles in competing publications. The only angle left to cover was the "maybe it's not great after all" one. That article, like most disapproving articles about this work, goes into detail proving that people have been writing "comprised of" for hundreds of years (a conclusion which really isn't disputed as far as I know), and conveniently omits the fact that people have also been correcting it for hundreds of years. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:43, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

try to [verb]

There are a lot of entries of the form "try to [verb]" in this list. Recently, a user reverted my corresponding change with the remark "rv to UK usage". Is "try to [verb]" indeed correct UK English? What do the native speakers think? If so, then all these entries should be removed from the list. --Cyfal (talk) 10:49, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

The point at issue here is that the UK expression "try and" was deleted, whereas it is a perfectly good alternative for "try to". Sweetpool50 (talk) 12:17, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

If that's all it is, then the entries are good. Everything in the list is there because many people accept it. It's also there because many people don't. It would be interesting to know whether "try and" is more accepted in the UK than elsewhere (and I know it is widely used by speakers of US English), but not really relevant.

The question of whether it is appropriate to revert something just because the original text was perfectly good is a separate issue. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with "try and" being a perfectly good alternative. With "try to [verb]", "try" and the verb are closely coupled (it is "verb" that is attempted), whereas with "try and [verb]", they are decoupled; i.e., there is an unspecific attempt, then the action of the verb is invoked. BMJ-pdx (talk) 03:31, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

If you're not from or resident in the UK, you're not qualified to comment. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:24, 25 June 2024 (UTC)