Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Re: Linn LM-1 With A.M.S.
By: Gamgee to The Millionaire on Fri Sep 04 2020 05:04 pm

Has anyone ever used this drum machine before?

Before *what*?

Seriously? It's fairly common to use "before" this way. As in,
at any time in the past.

I'd have to disagree in this particular example. The "Has anyone
ever used" part of the sentence makes the "before" redundant and
unnecessary.


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No argument with any of that. I guess it's just the way that "TM"
makes his posts. Almost all of them are like that - redundant and ridiculous. Yes, there are plenty of things worse... don't even
get me started on the to/too, their/there/they're, your/you're,
etc... :-)

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Funny because that's what ppl say about you too.

$ The Millionaire $

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The Millionaire wrote to Gamgee <=-

No argument with any of that. I guess it's just the way that "TM"
makes his posts. Almost all of them are like that - redundant and ridiculous. Yes, there are plenty of things worse... don't even
get me started on the to/too, their/there/they're, your/you're,
etc... :-)

Funny because that's what ppl say about you too.

Really? What ppl say that about me? Be specific, please.

Are you 12 years old?



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Re: Re: Linn LM-1 With A.M.S.
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Thu Sep 10 2020 06:42 am

While, Ga is right in saying it's redundant, our utilization of the English language isn't perfect. As such, like Nightfox said, it's common parlance to use
the word 'before' in this context. You could probably remove the redundancy by removing the word 'ever.' If I were writing a paper to be graded in a college class or a memo for work, it would read like this:

Has anyone used this drum machine?

My college comp professor would always beat the drum about removing excess words
from sentences that don't carry extra meaning but are simply filler to meet a word-count requirement.

This is a BBS echo and hardly an environment to be intensely nitpicky with grammar. May as well criticize every thread if you're going to go there.

Yep. Also, in the above example, I don't think it really even sounds bad to have "ever" or "before" in there. I think it's still grammatically correct to have "ever" (as in "Has anyone ever used this drum machine?"). I'm not sure if having "before" at the end is grammatically correct, but I still think the meaning is fairly clear. I don't think it's of much use to nitpick over that.

Nightfox

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Nightfox wrote to calcmandan <=-

Re: Re: Linn LM-1 With A.M.S.
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Thu Sep 10 2020 06:42 am

While, Ga is right in saying it's redundant, our utilization of the English language isn't perfect. As such, like Nightfox said, it's common parlance to use
the word 'before' in this context. You could probably remove the redundancy by removing the word 'ever.' If I were writing a paper to be graded in a college class or a memo for work, it would read like this:

Has anyone used this drum machine?

My college comp professor would always beat the drum about removing excess words
from sentences that don't carry extra meaning but are simply filler to meet a word-count requirement.

This is a BBS echo and hardly an environment to be intensely nitpicky with grammar. May as well criticize every thread if you're going to go there.

Yep. Also, in the above example, I don't think it really even sounds
bad to have "ever" or "before" in there. I think it's still
grammatically correct to have "ever" (as in "Has anyone ever used this drum machine?"). I'm not sure if having "before" at the end is grammatically correct, but I still think the meaning is fairly clear.
I don't think it's of much use to nitpick over that.

You hit on a meaningful point regarding clarity. If an extra word alters a sentence's meaning in a way that leads to confusion over context, then it should
be removed. But, if the word's presence does nothing to change the meaning, but reinforces the weight of redundant word in the phrase, then the word can stay or
be removed. I guess it just makes the sentence a bit wordy.

Your version of the phrase 'has anyone ever used this drum machine'
lends a tinge of urgency without altering the meaning. 'Has anyone used this drum machine?' drops the word, implies the same exact meaning, but drops the urgency. Both appear to be grammatically correct in my view.

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