The English language does evolve over time. We don\u2019t speak like a Shakespearean play or even as people did 100 years ago. Language also ends up different throughout the world or even within a country. For example, in the US, there have been many words to describe a sweet, fizzy drink depending on geography and time: pop, soda, sody pop, tonic, or coke (not necessarily the brand Coke).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rules can change, but how do we know when it\u2019s happening? Take the use of \u201cI\u201d vs. \u201cme.\u201d People are in the habit of using \u201cI\u201d after the word \u201cand\u201d regardless of where it ends up in a sentence. You could say \u201cJohn and I are going to the movies\u201d and be correct since \u201cI\u201d is part of the subject, but \u201cBuy the popcorn for John and I\u201d is wrong because it\u2019s part of the object. The use of \u201cI\u201d after the word \u201cand\u201d in the object of the sentence is so common that I wonder if the rule is changing. It\u2019s easy to use the wrong word when speaking, but I\u2019d expect articles, books, and movies to get it right, which is no longer the case. Now it doesn\u2019t look right to me in the rare situation when I see it used correctly.<\/p>\n
Using the correct word is difficult, but spelling in English is even more challenging. Without the electronic tools available today, I would need to carry a heavy dictionary around with me. I\u2019ve never been great at spelling because it requires so much memorization. I\u2019d much rather figure things out than memorize, but there is no figuring out when spelling English words.<\/p>\n
The English language frequently doesn\u2019t make sense, so I enjoy writing T-SQL and other programming and scripting languages with dependable features and rules.<\/p>\n
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The technology books I\u2019ve written go through a couple of edits, first by someone knowledgeable in the subject area and then by a copy editor. The copy editor will fix misspellings, awkward sentence structure, and grammar. The occasional modification alters the meaning of a sentence, but overall, I\u2019m happy with the updates. I\u2019ve worked on……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47125,53],"tags":[5134],"coauthors":[11292],"class_list":["post-93127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials","category-featured","tag-sql-prompt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93129,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127\/revisions\/93129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93127"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=93127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}