TheFamilyBiz
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posted on April 3, 2006 02:37:55 PM
Just checking to see the preferences of fellow eBayers.
I've seen many people refer to their "eBay Sells" and others refer to their "eBay Sales."
I've seen the mention of "a sell is a sell," etc. and I'd like to know which you prefer.
Wayne
Never explain -- Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
~ Elbert Hubbard
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otteropp
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posted on April 3, 2006 02:47:57 PM
"Sales" makes more sense to me.
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tOMWiii
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posted on April 3, 2006 02:58:05 PM
Have never, ever heard the term..."sells", in that context...
Let me check real quick with Ralphie......
"Yo! Lardass!"
Nope! He concurs...
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."
—Philadelphia, Dec. 12, 2005, on the reception of American forces in Iraq
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fenix03
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posted on April 3, 2006 02:59:15 PM
Sale.
The person I see use the term most frequently is Irked and if I remember correctly, english is not his first language. i know my spanish speaking friends have certain idiosyncrasies in their english (most common - "For Why" ) I just figured that was once of Irks.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
Never ask what sort if computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If he's not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy
[ edited by fenix03 on Apr 3, 2006 03:06 PM ]
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sciclone2000
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posted on April 3, 2006 03:13:11 PM
I prefer sales. I've also wondered the same thing about bot and bought. I always see people say they bot something.
Tony.
In a world without walls or fences who needs Windows and Gates?
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sparkz
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posted on April 3, 2006 03:27:59 PM
Sale is a noun. Sell is a verb. Big difference between the two.
If Murphy's law is correct, everything East of the San Andreas Fault will slide into the Atlantic
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TheFamilyBiz
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posted on April 3, 2006 03:28:33 PM
Maybe it is just irked who uses it. It just seemed to stand out and I must have seen it once too often recently.
It's something that rubs a nerve the wrong way for me, I guess. I have to admit, I do have pet peeves like that - including the misuse of the apostrophe. I've taken a pen to signs in grocery stores to make corrections. I think kids are destined to make those mistakes if they continuously see it used incorrectly in signage everywhere. [sigh]
Tony - I've seen the same thing. I wonder if 20-30 years from now, the language will be something we'd recognize. With the slang and acronyms and abbreviations used to communicate via computer...?
[ edited by TheFamilyBiz on Apr 3, 2006 03:31 PM ]
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on April 3, 2006 04:02:33 PM
FamilyBiz,
If you haven't already, you might want to read an amusing and interesting book about the "Grocer's Apostrophe" and other misuse of punctuation: "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" (can't remember the author's name just now). The title, by the way, is a play on a mangled sentence fragment about pandas (who eat shoots and leaves).
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mikes4x4andtruckrepair
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posted on April 3, 2006 04:09:03 PM
Well, I sell stuff on ebay and I consider what I sell as a sale.
 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein
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photosensitive
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posted on April 3, 2006 04:23:37 PM
The eBay term that makes me smile (and I have seen it on eBay Outlook is "bidded" as in "I bidded really high on it!" 
-----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
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profe51
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posted on April 3, 2006 05:12:31 PM
It's not a question of preference. Sell is a verb, sale is a noun, "my sells" is incorrect, even if it's used and understood all the time by a jillion people. It's still incorrect.
____________________________________________
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neglus
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posted on April 3, 2006 05:16:49 PM
Maybe it comes from "hard sell" (a noun):
From dictionary.com:
hard sell
n. Informal
1. Aggressive, high-pressure selling or promotion.
2. A person or organization that resists pressure from salespeople; a difficult sales prospect.
[Download Now or Buy the Book]
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
hard sell
1.
An aggressive, high-pressure sales practice or promotion, as in Used-car salesmen tend to give you a hard sell. This expression gave rise to the antonym soft sell, a low-key sales approach that relies on gentle persuasion. [Colloquial; c. 1950]
2.
A difficult sales prospect, one who resists sales pressure. For example, Those brokers who call us at dinnertime find me a hard sellI usually just hang up on them. [Late 1900s]
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
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jackswebb
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posted on April 3, 2006 05:39:00 PM
I Vendioed it,,,,Or I vendio it.
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jackswebb
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posted on April 3, 2006 05:41:58 PM
Sells is a Southern term...I sells mah peanuts cheap.
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jackswebb
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posted on April 3, 2006 05:48:20 PM
Which is your preference? Axe me any question or Ask me any Question. I watch them daytime Courtroom shows too.
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jtomp
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posted on April 3, 2006 06:05:40 PM
I love "Wide Width" (seen in a shoe store)
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KarenMx
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posted on April 3, 2006 06:52:34 PM
I prefer "sale" because it's the correct use of the word. I also prefer plurals constructed without apostrophes because I paid attention in the first grade and remember that plurals aren't supposed to be constructed with apostrophes.
Lynne Truss is the author of "Eats, Shoots & Leaves".
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pixiamom
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:05:11 PM
I thought plurals had those flying commas after the 's'; i.e., the boys' coats
[ edited by pixiamom on Apr 3, 2006 07:05 PM ]
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roadsmith
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:05:25 PM
We SELL an item. We've made a SALE. We make SALES on Ebay. This has bugged me for a long time and I'm glad someone finally said something about it.
My friends in Utah also used "sell" when they meant "sale." It stemmed from the way they pronounced it. However, when writing the word, they wrote it wrong, too. Very weird.
Long vowels are disappearing from our language; we have a lot of lazy speakers out there.
Forgive this old English teacher/proofreader for sounding harsh, please.
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neglus
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:07:48 PM
FLYING COMMAS? LOL Jane! Mrs Kathman and Miss Diehm are rolling over in their graves! (oops I mean there grave's )
I love the folks who use "boughten" (I have boughten from you before....).
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http://stores.ebay.com/Moody-Mommys-Marvelous-Postcards?refid=store
[ edited by neglus on Apr 3, 2006 07:10 PM ]
[ edited by neglus on Apr 3, 2006 07:13 PM ]
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:36:07 PM
My biggest pet peeve is the word "myself", which I think is misused 99% of the time. While its use as in "I did it myself" is very handy, the damage it does to my ears when someone says "Bob and myself are in charge of grammar lessons" makes me wish that the word would just be abolished.
The only redeeming virtue of the word is that it is usually used by someone who is trying to sound "better than they are," and it is poetic justice that their airs brand them.
My favorite misuse was when someone once asked a colleague (whose office location was known to the questioner) where Bob's office was, and the reply was "he sits over there by myself." You just can't make this s##t up! Try to diagram that sentence; it requires a Mobius strip.
Anyway, back on topic: SALES.
Claude
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KarenMx
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:39:29 PM
The apostrophe in "the boys' coats" exists because it's a plural possessive. It could be "the boys's coats", but somewhere along the line some grammarian decided that the second 's' was redundant. Ditto for making a plural possessive with a word that ends in 'x'.
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otteropp
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posted on April 3, 2006 07:44:23 PM
This is becoming very interesting. I have seen a couple more here that people have mentioned that are hard on my ears...."bidded" and "boughten".
Does anyone else feel that they can almost tell the age of a Buyer when they receive a question? If they do not use upper case letters at all then they must be under 25 and spend all their time using Instant Messaging! It just puts my hackles up when I see it.
Having said all of that I have probably made some severe grammatical errors in this posting!
Penny
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pixiamom
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posted on April 3, 2006 08:05:33 PM
When I lived in Minnesota, it was not uncommon to hear a phrase such as "Borrow me a scissor". It struck me as very peculiar until I lived in Sweden where loan and borrow are the same word and scissor is never plural.
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irked
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posted on April 3, 2006 08:49:28 PM
I do think people are picking on me. I am going to the garden to dig worms. LOL don't remember using sells that much but probably did. I will change it to I solded my item. LOL kidding. Haven't thought much of it guess I have seen the word sells more than sales but you all is correct. (Another sounthern ebonics for you) This southern boy will try and mind his Ps&Qs. I know that isn't right either - probably. Kiss my grits. I plead guilty to Texas southern slang. I will sell you a bill of goods and it will be the sale of the century.
sell
v. sold, (sld) sell·ing, sells
v. tr.
To exchange or deliver for money or its equivalent.
To offer for sale, as for one's business or livelihood: The partners sell textiles.
To give up or surrender in exchange for a price or reward: sell one's soul to the devil.
To be purchased in (a certain quantity); achieve sales of: a book that sold a million copies.
To bring about or encourage sales of; promote: Good publicity sold the product.
To cause to be accepted; advocate successfully: We sold the proposal to the school committee.
To persuade (another) to recognize the worth or desirability of something: They sold me on the idea.
v. intr.
To exchange ownership for money or its equivalent; engage in selling.
To be sold or be on sale: Grapes are selling high this season.
To attract prospective buyers; be popular on the market: an item that sells well.
To be approved of; gain acceptance.
n.
The activity or method of selling.
Something that sells or gains acceptance in a particular way: Their program to raise taxes will be a difficult sell.
Slang. A deception; a hoax.
n : the activity of persuading someone to buy; "it was a hard sell" v 1: exchange or deliver for money or its equivalent; "He sold his house in January"; "She sells her body to survive and support her drug habit" [ant: buy] 2: be sold at a certain price or in a certain way; "These books sell like hot cakes" 3: do business; offer for sale as for one's livelihood; "She deals in gold"; "The brothers sell shoes" [syn: deal, trade] 4: persuade somebody to accept something; "The French try to sell us their image as great lovers" 5: give up for a price or reward; "She sold her principles for a successful career" 6: deliver to an enemy by treachery; "Judas sold Jesus"; "The spy betrayed his country" [syn: betray] 7: be approved of or gain acceptance; "The new idea sold well in certain circles" 8: be responsible for the sale of; "All her publicity sold the products"
sale ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sl)
n.
The exchange of goods or services for an amount of money or its equivalent; the act of selling.
An instance of selling.
An opportunity for selling or being sold; demand.
Availability for purchase: a store where pets are for sale.
A selling of property to the highest bidder; an auction.
A special disposal of goods at lowered prices: coats on sale this week.
sales
Activities involved in selling goods or services.
Gross receipts.
**************
Some minds are like concrete,
thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.
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stonecold613
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posted on April 3, 2006 09:31:02 PM
Sells is a Southern term
Yes, where they purchase those Burger King Burgers and chew them with their tooth.
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[ edited by stonecold613 on Apr 3, 2006 09:32 PM ]
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mikes4x4andtruckrepair
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posted on April 4, 2006 02:39:55 AM
Yooo G, what's all dis talking bot the ways me and my homies speeks. Sounds like yous peoples needs some Ebonics grammer schooling.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein
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roadsmith
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posted on April 4, 2006 11:59:24 AM
Fun thread!
Our daughter reported when attending college in Minnesota that girls would say "your hairs look good today." A colloquialism from the Northern European languages, I'm sure.
"Myself" has been a real bone for my husband's extended family and for "myself"! We used to sit around the dinner table laughing about some of the boners we heard people pull. Bob's mother was especially taken with "myself" and used to use it with us just to get a laugh. She'd say "Myself and Graeme went to the beach today," etc. I think students have taken to heart that they should say "me" or "I" very often so instead throw in the more precious "myself."
And I agree some a poster here commenting on people under 25. The thing I notice most is their inability to space after a period at the end of a sentence.Like this. Ditto for after a comma,like this. All of us who took typing in school know better. Makes for much easier reading.
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otteropp
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posted on April 4, 2006 12:03:27 PM
Re: MYSELF
Seems to me (myself) that I remember a bit of an old saying that we used to teach us how to use the word correctly.
It started "Me, myself & I"
Does anyone recall the rest of the story?
Penny
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photosensitive
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posted on April 4, 2006 01:25:37 PM
I cring at "myself" instead of "me" and also notice that some people use "I" when "me" would be appropriate and vice versa. It seems to happen most often when talking about themselves and someone else. "Come with he and I." or "Me and him are going." I remember an English teacher telling us to take out the other person and see how it sounds. I don't think most people would say "Come with I" or "Him is going" ... well maybe some would.
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“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
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