Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Today I'm going to play two listener comments. No Me grammar What happened to "me"? My biggest pet peeve is when people use I when it should be me. "This is a picture of my girlfriend and I." Yuck! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=15165#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=15165#Comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:33:41 GMT TM grammar Regarding wordiness... How about the use of "I'd like to..." to start a sentence, as in "I'd like to welcome you to Chicago", which is generally the first thing the flight attendant says after the plane lands. Why not just "Welcome to Chicago!". Why do they say they'd "like to" welcome me? Are they unsure? Would they like to welcome me but really just can't do it? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=15151#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=15151#Comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:13:09 GMT Paul grammar Grammar Girl: I enjoyed your podcast on wordiness. Concise speaking (or writing) is not easy to do but is well worth the effort. During the podcast, you mentioned that you thought the phrase "I just wanted to ..." was perhaps not grammatical. I believe that it is. The tense (or more properly, the mood) of the verb is not the simple past but rather the imperfect. Paul http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14853#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14853#Comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:37:56 GMT Simone grammar Editing verbiage in the written word proves necessary, however in conversation, phrases like, "I'm going to go ahead and..." express so much! The beautiful of spoken language lies in these phrases because it reveals so much about the psyche of the person and culture of the people. With the swiftness granted in emails, a new blended conversational and professional language emerges. Language evolves! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14810#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14810#Comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:59:18 GMT Sue Hordos grammar 2008 Pet Peeve: "alot" is 2 words!! Use the space bar and keep it that way! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14802#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14802#Comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:07:00 GMT Carolyn grammar Hi GG! re: wordiness pet-peeves. Mine are when people preface a statement by saying either "basically" or "actually". It seems as if many people just say them to sound smart, and not because their ensuing statements are pared down versions of a more complex issue (basically) or contradictions to a previous statement (actually). Thanks for letting me vent! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14786#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14786#Comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:30:42 GMT aardvark grammar Hi Bill, The question mark goes inside of the quotation marks. Carol said,"Can you help me?" is correct. aardvark http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14776#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14776#Comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:22:10 GMT anonymous grammar a very helpful site it helped in understanding double words http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14773#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14773#Comments Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:24:02 GMT Dave Wilton grammar I disagree that these two examples are unnecessarily wordy. In both cases, the "redundant" verbiage carries important information. In the case of "go ahead and..." the extra words, depending on the context, emphasize intentionality, emphasize futurity, and the imply that the action is going to be taken without further notice or permission. In the case of "I just wanted to let you know that..." the extra words announce that this is the entire purpose of the message and that there are no additional or ulterior motives. Also, simply saying something like "I love your podcast!" can be construed as abrupt and a tad impolite. The additional words are social lubrication. I probably wouldn't use either of these formulations in formal writing, but in speech and informal writing they are perfectly appropriate. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14771#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=14771#Comments Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:51:29 GMT Julius grammar Augustus seems to confuse restrain with refrain, or might he have meant to say restrain myself? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=4751#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx?commentid=4751#Comments Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:33:26 GMT Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:33:41 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/wordiness-and-idioms.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us