[quote]Hill Top Man wrote:
kung_fu_king wrote:
The internet and cell phone texting and blackberries and the like have really lent themselves to bastardising the way we write.
I try not to get too worked up about it, but people just don’t seem to realise how important it is to be able to communicate effectively and accurately.
Typos and other innocent mistakes aside, people need to sharpen up.
Mart.
Yes, you need to sharpen up also, since your not allowed to use a preposition at the end of a sentence.
If you can’t figure out which word you used incorrectly, it is up, up is one a preposition. So, it is really ironic that you talk about him not using his grammar correctly, when you don’t either.[/quote]
“Sharpen up” is technically what’s called a phrasal verb – a multi-word phrase that syntactically functions as a single verb. And it is grammatically correct.
Were he to follow your suggestion, his sentence would have been, “People need to sharpen.” This would not have conveyed his intended meaning, much less any meaning.
Your post is ironic.