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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Pedantic Follies
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Interesting idea, Jonah, to cryogenically freeze yourself to see how the language develops. This would probably be one of the rarer reasons for doing that!
Reminds me of a wonderful obscure book I read as a teenager: Brother Petroc's Return by one S.M.C (Sister Mary Catherine, apparently).
Good grief! I've just found out other people have actually heard of it, mention it on Goodreads, and are selling it on Amazon!
His abscense was a longer than 200 years, though, and no freezing was involved.
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Pondering.
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Absence, I think,dear one. but generally speaking, I find it quite a challenge to limit myself to one mistake. Proof reading was never one of my talents. Sorry, hosts. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Yes, I see that you have blessed us with multiple punctuation errors. I don't suppose this means you lack punctuality though.
Generally speaking commas are followed by spaces and full stops (periods If you prefer) are followed by an initial capital.
I can't really complain about about multiple errors myself though, since I seem to be more prone to them than most. I just noticed that the extra e in develope seems to have deleted itself from th further down my previous post. I had another error in my last post which I am surprised that cara, of all people, did not pick me up on (or should that be "up on which cara did not pick me?).
Now that I have the attention of a plethora of pedants (I believe that is the correct collective noun), can I ask whether you say "I leapt" (rhyming with slept) or I leaped? Dreamt or dreamed? Learnt or learned, burnt or burned. I'm trying to determine if there is a pond or antipodean factor involved, or maybe it was simply a local version I grew up with without realising at the time.
OK, this post is long enough to have plenty of unforced errors. I was going to add a grocer's apostrophe in "commas" but decided I didn't need to.
JtW
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Ah jacobsen chérie, how nice of you to make such a charming allusion on my name!
I too have been making unintentional errors as well as the intentional ones, while trying hard not to do so! Preview post is my friend...
Jonah, do you refer to my having missed your misspelling of context? I hope that's what you meant, not the split infinitive in "to cryogenically freeze". I thought we'd more or less agreed that split infinitives didn't count as errors?
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Pondering.
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Jonah me deario, I think that learnt, learned, etc are all acceptable uses, though one may possible have started life as a verb e.g. I leaped, and the other as a past participle e.g. I have leapt. Learned could be a verb and an adjective. The joys of our common language....
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Cara, cariad, yes indeed, "conext" was a mere typo. And I am in full agreement on the spilt infinitives being only a matter of style - just like starting a sentence with a conjunction really. I had another error in mind. This is starting to go a long way back now, but maybe this will be a clue:
quote:
(Cara wrote)
Nobody has yet mentioned an intentional spelling mistake in my post of November 25 at 19:06.
I am struggling to find a mistake in your latest post. Maybe it should have been allusion to. Or maybe you should have had commas round "too" in "I too have been...", though I consider that a question of style rather than correctness. Avatars may be deceptive, and jacobsen is a gender-neutral sounding name, but I think you are right in using chérie.
Jacobsen, I agree that those forms are acceptable, I just wondered where, geographically speaking, they were used - and I mean as a simple past tense rather than a past participal. I leapt up high. I dreamt a strange dream. He burnt his finger.
Speaking of acceptable, it is not usually acceptable to use "etc" without putting a full stop after it is it? It is possible to make adverbs from most adjectives by making them end in -ly, like possibly. And an ellipsis, we seem to have agreed, has three dots. Maybe yours was followed by a fullstop though.
I just previewed my post and edited out a typo in "typo", believe it or not.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Aha, Jonah! This:
" It has happened ocasionally that I, or someone else, has asked"....
I'm afraid, though, that before following up on your clue (because I'd forgotten myself what it refered to) I went back and read your post again. And though I went right past "ocasionally", I thought your subtle, sneaky mistake was "I, or someone else, has asked...." Because of course it would be "I have asked," but someone else "has asked," yet you were making "has" do double duty....
I think "leapt", "learnt", etc are more common in the USA.
Yes, in my latest post it should have been allusion to. And in jacobsen's (I did feel chéri e was right) it should be one may possibly , methinks.
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Pondering.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Aha, Jonah! This:
" It has happened ocasionally that I, or someone else, has asked"....
I'm afraid, though, that before following up on your clue (because I'd forgotten myself what it refered to) I went back and read your post again. And though I went right past "ocasionally", I thought your subtle, sneaky mistake was "I, or someone else, has asked...." Because of course it would be "I have asked," but someone else "has asked," yet you were making "has" do double duty....
I think "leapt", "learnt", etc are more common in the UK than in the USA.
Yes, in my latest post it should have been allusion to. And in jacobsen's (I did feel chéri e was right) it should be one may possibly , methinks.
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Pondering.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
[oops, coding problem, sorry. Unintentional error!]
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Pondering.
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Pia
Shipmate
# 17277
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
And congratulations to Pia on making shipmate status! Woohoo! You'd still be an apprentice this time next year if it weren't for this thread.
Yay! I feel like I've really made it! ![[Cool]](cool.gif) And, as you say, Jonah, largely thanks to this thread!
No-one has yet picked up the intentional error in my last post (28/11/12, at 16.00), which was now so long ago that I may as well point it out. We may talk about something that happened during the twenty-first century, but when used as an adjective (this twenty-first-century world) the number and 'century' should be hyphenated.
Cara, carissima, additional spaces before punctuation marks are really unecessary.
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Well I don't think I would ever have spotted that missing hyphen there Pia. I do know, however, that you need a double n in unnecessary. Unless you really are talking about something which isn't ecessary. Then again, since ecessary is'nt a word I suppose nothing is ecessary, which means everything is unecessary. I think I need more coffee, this is too confusing for this time of day.
JtW
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Well, Pia, Im afraid my putting the spaces around the punctuation marks, if a mistake, was not an intentional one.
The intentional one was another spelling error.
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Pondering.
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Pia
Shipmate
# 17277
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Posted
Aha! Referred, not refered, of course!
And I'm, not Im in your last post.
JtW... thanks for making me ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
How do we feel about a full-stop or not after 'etc' (spotted without in a post further upstream). I was taught that you need the full-stop if the abbreviation doesn't end with the same letter as the full word, but that no full-stop is needed if the abbreviation does end with the same letter. Hence: etc. (with full-stop, because et cetera ends with an 'a' not a 'c'), but Mr (without full-stop, because Mister ends with an 'r'). The instance in which I most often use this is with the abbreviation for 'volume(s)': hence 'vol. I', but 'vols II & III'.
I should really get a life, shouldn't I?
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
Well I don't think I would ever have spotted that missing hyphen there Pia. I do know, however, that you need a double n in unnecessary. Unless you really are talking about something which isn't ecessary. Then again, since ecessary is'nt a word I suppose nothing is ecessary, which means everything is unecessary. I think I need more coffee, this is too confusing for this time of day.
JtW
Putting the apostrophe in the right place is however necessary, isn't it?
Coffee, meanwhile is a good idea.
[ 30. November 2012, 08:54: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Karl, shouldn't there be commas on either side of "however" in your last post?
Coffee is often a good idea; scientists have recently affermed its health-giving properties.
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Pondering.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Oh, and also a comma after meanwhile?
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Pondering.
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
Cara
I agree that a comma after "meanwhile" in KlBs post would be good. And perhaps on each side of "however" too.
Spelling of "affirmed" in your post is awry. And I think it should be "confirmed" too.
I count 4 intentional errors in this post.
[ 01. December 2012, 16:53: Message edited by: Morlader ]
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.. to utmost west.
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
Morlader, scientists may well have confirmed something, but that is no reason why they shouldn't affirm it as well. Failing that,where was your error? I know - the error was that there wasn't one!
Sneaky, eh?
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Thanks, jacobsen! I too think that, while my spelling of "affirmed" was wrong, my usage wasn't. So one error I see in Morlader's post was surely to say it was?
And Morlader, shouldn't it be Klb's post, with an apostrophe?
Moreover, shouldn't Karl Liberal Backslider be abbreviated in all capitals, thus:KLB
That makes three errors. Was the fourth error to claim four errors when there are only three? Sneaky indeed!
But jacobsen, the only error I see in yours is that there should be a space after the comma after "failing that". Seems a bit feeble. Am I missing? Ideally, perhaps, there should be a comma between "sneaky" and "eh".
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Pondering.
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Morlader:
Cara
I agree that a comma after "meanwhile" in KlBs post would be good.
<There is no possessive apostrophy. - error1> <KLB would've been better. - error2>
And perhaps on each side of "however" too.
<This sentence has no active verb. - error3> <There should be a comma before 'too'. - error4>
Spelling of "affirmed" in your post is awry. And I think it should be "confirmed" too.
<IMO 'affirming' is what someone does in court etc. instead swearing an oath. Scientists declaring results are confirming other scientists work or a theory. They are not taking an oath. - not an error.>
I count 4 intentional errors in this post.
The missing space after a comma is the only error I see in jacobsen's post, too.
[ 02. December 2012, 16:02: Message edited by: Morlader ]
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.. to utmost west.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Ah OK Morlader, so I got two of your errors. But I missed the incomplete sentence (only I don't consider this an error per se but rather a stylistic issue) and the missing comma before "too." This latter didn't seem much of an error to me, either, but I guess a comma is slightly preferable.
At least you weren't as sneaky as jacobsen and I thought you might be!
There's no (intentional!) error in this post, because there's one as yet unmentioned in my last.
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Pondering.
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
Cara
2 Dec 0715 Yes, you are missing something.
To a pedant, such as you and me, differing styles are no excuse. A point is either right or it is wrong.
[ 03. December 2012, 20:58: Message edited by: Morlader ]
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.. to utmost west.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
I know what you mean, Morlader, and I bow to nobody in pedantry; yet I feel some things are style choices that can be forgiven because they work, and others are just plane wrong.
it's hard to explain the difference!
If there's an error in your last, it escapes me.
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Pondering.
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
and others are just plane wrong.
it's hard to explain the difference!
If there's an error in your last, it escapes me.
A plain error if ever I saw one. But I won't jump on the lack of capitalization of "it's" because I assume that was inadvertant.
On Morlader's post, I would quibble about the placement of "either" in the phrase: "A point is either right or it is wrong." For the parallel to work properly it should read:
(1) "Either a point is right or it is wrong."
(2) "A point either is right or is wrong." or
(3) "A point is either right or wrong."
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Pia
Shipmate
# 17277
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Posted
Ooh, I don't like number 2, Hedgehog. Surely it should be 'A point either is right, or isn't'. I can't articulate why it sounds wrong to me, though, so this may not have been your intentional mistake.
Misuse of correlative pronouns does rather get my goat too though.
Posts: 151 | Registered: Aug 2012
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
I put in two deliberate errors in my post--but I will admit that one of them is highly debatable and, if nobody catches it, I will understand. But one is pretty blatant. And is not in my 1-2-3 list.
[No deliberate errors in this message--so if I am writing true to form the total number of actual errors should be less than three...]
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Well, o erinaceous one, your problematic post is so long ago that I think you are going to have to come clean about it, since nobody else can work out what to do about it. For those who dont know, erinaceous has nothing to do with Erin of the Ship, but just means "hedgehog-like".
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Perhaps hedgehog means the more recent post of December 5, where we find inadvertant .
Which was correctly describing my previous lack of a capital on a word at the begining of a sentence.
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Pondering.
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Sorry to double post, but I now see that hedgehog is certainly referring to the recent post of 5 December 20:24, and is claiming that it contains two errors, neither of them in the 1-2-3 list appearing there.
As I said, one of the errors is inadvertant , that's the "blatant" one. The other is said to be debatable.
All I can think of is that it may not be quite right to say " On Morlader's post...." "In re" or "regarding" or "as far as Morlader's post goes..."
??
[no intentional errors in this post.]
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Pondering.
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Sorry to double post, but I now see that hedgehog is certainly referring to the recent post of 5 December 20:24, and is claiming that it contains two errors, neither of them in the 1-2-3 list appearing there.
As I said, one of the errors is inadvertant , that's the "blatant" one. The other is said to be debatable.
All I can think of is that it may not be quite right to say " On Morlader's post...." "In re" or "regarding" or "as far as Morlader's post goes..."
??
[no intentional errors in this post.]
Yes, I was referring to the 5 December post (20:24 for Cara, 15:24 for me...). And, yes, inadvertant was intentional. The irony amused me.
The other one really is highly arguable. I wrote:
quote:
On Morlader's post, I would quibble about the placement of "either" in the phrase: "A point is either right or it is wrong."
I was thinking that it was incorrect to describe as a "phrase" what is clearly a sentence.
[No intentional errors in this post. Doesn't mean that there are none...]
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
Hedgehog on 05 Dec
Well done; the placing of 'either' was indeed wrong. I intended your (3). Like Cara, I can't see another error before your 1, 2, 3, though I tend to think "On Morlader's post" is a bit clumsy.
JtW
''O" making a vocative should be capitalised and "don't" in your line three should have an apostrophe. [Incidentally, no-one commented on my misspelling 'apostrophy' in an earlier post.]
Also no-one commented on my 03 Dec post concerning To a pedant, such as you and me, differing styles are no excuse. There is a mistake in the number. It should be EITHER
(1) To pedants, such as you and me, OR
(2) To a pedant, such as you or me,
I confess I was hoping someone would 'correct' "me" to "I", but no takers ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Cara 0856 today
Your alleged sentence/paragraph starting "Which" is a dependent clause which seemingly has nothing and nobody to depend on.
I must've made at least one error in this long post.
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.. to utmost west.
Posts: 858 | From: Not England | Registered: Nov 2010
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
This is getting more and more complex and nested-Russian-dolls-ish!
Hedgehog, I think you're right, it was incorrect to call a full sentence "a phrase"; but hardly noticeable, and very sneaky!
O subtle Morlader, yes, I see now why that "To a pedant" bit sounded strange.
You're right that my "sentence" starting "Which..." (in that post of 6 December 8:56) is, strictly speaking, an example of bad syntax.....but my intentional error was in misspelling
beginning .
Speaking of misspelling, I don't know how we let you get away with "apostrophy".
JtW, I agree with Morlader's asessment of your errors.
Finally, the only error I see in Morader's latest "long post" is in the sentence beginning "incidentally": shouldn't the full stop be AFTER the closed bracket, because the whole sentence contains only the material inside the brackets?
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Pondering.
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
Here ya go, Hull. The ultimate in "burn your eyes out" awful pedantry. The nuclear bomb of threads.
Wait. There's one more . . .
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
With this title, this one can stay.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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