Out your closeted pedantry

OK so there are things about which I am pedantic, but I know it's futile or pathetic to pull people up about, so I have just decided to bottle my rage and let the world be wrong. Anyone else?
A few of my many examples:
- "methodology" is the study of methods, NOT a fancy word for "method" when you want to sound clever.
- "phenomena" is plural FFS
- "fewer" v "less" (this one hurts most I think)
- "within" is not a fancy word for "in" when you want to sound learned
AARGH

The 21st century began on January 1 2001

The plural of "vinyl" is "vinyl"

Do u say learn'd or learn-ed

its oph-thal-mology not op-tha-mology

still struggling to accept singular "they" for "he" or "she" in gender-neutral contexts

F-sharp I say "learn-ed" when it's an adjective, because I am.

Nice

rein not reign, had to restrain myself on ILX recently w/r/t this

still struggling to accept singular "they" for "he" or "she" in gender-neutral contexts

― Brad C., Monday, 20 March 2017 19:45 (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not to be pedantic but this is not a valid entry itt

dictionary would appear to differ wrt "methodology":

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/methodology

"a particular procedure or set of procedures"

xp I'm glad the controversy is over; to each the pronoun of their choice

Re dictionary suggestion, it seems like a usage-defined out. Much like "hopefully" is being redefined. If you're describing a procedure, the word is "method" - what does using "methodology" add, which isn't covered by the correct word?

Hyphens. No-one uses them properly.
Enjoy your locally-sourced gluten free meal in your pet free smoke free home *has aneurysm*

free-smoke

I've honestly never heard someone use "methodology" to mean "the study of methods". Is that a discipline-specific usage (philosophy??)?

i don't like when people say "doobage"

Huh, OED:

Originally: the branch of knowledge that deals with method generally or with the methods of a particular discipline or field of study; (arch.) a treatise or dissertation on method; (Bot.) †systematic classification (obs. rare). Subsequently also: the study of the direction and implications of empirical research, or of the suitability of the techniques employed in it; (more generally) a method or body of methods used in a particular field of study or activity.

Hm:

Originally: the branch of knowledge that deals with method generally or with the methods of a particular discipline or field of study; (arch.) a treatise or dissertation on method; (Bot.) †systematic classification (obs. rare). Subsequently also: the study of the direction and implications of empirical research, or of the suitability of the techniques employed in it; (more generally) a method or body of methods used in a particular field of study or activity.

Whoops:

The system of terms belonging to any science or subject; technical terms collectively; nomenclature. Also: the scientific study of the proper use of terms.

https://janiceheck.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/ped-xing.jpg

thing is theres more to words than lexicogaphy

yall just purists yo

but

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/methodology

yes, but the view of a true pedant, the corruption of perfect usage only becomes that much more intolerable when sanctioned by traitorous descriptivists

engineers I work w regularly incentivize the use of methodologies so in your face, everybody

not utilization?

for a long time I've wanted to call my memoir The Pedantry of the Closet.

not utilization?

deployment would also be acceptable

It just shits me when people think "oh there is a version of this word with three extra syllables, imma use that one to IMPRESS."
And no not a philosopher, neuroscientist / lecturer.

"Amount" vs "number", "that" vs "which". Really hate "you and I" in the objective case.

V niche but in Canadian politics, I have a hard time when people use "Red Tory" to mean "economic conservative, social liberal" (unless it's just my sister who does this), even though it is true that Red Tories in the historical sense barely exist in most of the country.

"economic conservative, social liberal"

(esp since this describes the Liberal government of 1993-2005 better than most members of the Conservative Party)

Also: "nasally" is an adverb, not a synonym for "nasal". (Even the author of the recording textbook I use does this!) For some reason, it seems to be becoming more common to use "however" as a mid-sentence conjunction, e.g. "The winter was cold, however, the landlord paid for our heating bill".

I'm not sure anyone should be described as a "socialist" unless they'd at least consider collectivizing the banks.

people calling every little cold they catch "the flu"

What about...Yknow...The flu we get and ye dont

Jeez you guys are like Cnut, the king who believed he could command the tides

my main one, remarkable mainly for its pettiness and for how doomed its cause is: you do not actually mean "deconstruct" when you say that. you mean "analyze" or some similar word. just because you're talking about something doesn't mean you're doing deconstruction and you probably don't know what deconstruction is/was.

this battle is lost of course (IRONY KALXON) , but cnut did NOT believe he could command the tides, he knew he couldn't -- he staged a demonstration to oily courtiers who insisted he could do anything, to show them he could not

I believe that was wins' point, if I can deconstruct his meaning for a moment.

agree with JCLC about that one too

IRONY KALXON (it tolls for thee)

I sometimes get pedantic about those hilarious Captain Pugwash characters who didn't in fact exist

I don't talk about "deconstruction" because I don't know what it is, and am ready and willing to continue not knowing, but I do have an idea of what "begging the question" is, unlike many people who use the phrase.

"was" in the subjunctive mood

The plural of "vinyl" is "vinyl"

"vinyl" is not a synonym for "record"

don't call them AnCo, ever

"phenomena" is plural FFS

see also: criteria

the belief that -ise is an acceptable British variant of -ize in verbs like "utilize"

yeah I am v pro -ize

can solve utilise vs utilize by using use, which is generally preferable to either

I don't talk about "deconstruction" because I don't know what it is, and am ready and willing to continue not knowing

it is important to use deconstruction to speak of mere disassembly (for instance, the way your mouth deconstructs the food you put in it), because it helps bury the other kind

Yeah or like what you should do to Frankenstein, the monster comprised of corpse parts

As the decades have passed, I've shed most of my pedantry as it expends energy and has proved to be incapable of enhancing my life. But I still like to use exact words when I speak and write because achieving exactitude is fun.

I don't care what the authorities say- I will never accept the phrase "a myriad of".

"articulate" when you mean "talk"
"reiterate" when you mean "repeat"

"Not only but" when you mean "and."

"utilize" as a fancy pants way of saying "use."

I get the difference between "talk" and "articulate" but does "reiterate" mean something different from "repeat"? Is it just that it seems unnecessary and pretentious?

the belief that -ise is an acceptable British variant of -ize in verbs like "utilize"

― heaven parker (anagram), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 13:35 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Look son

When ye invent a language as opposed to fucking one up, presume to lecture

"Fraught", the new favorite word to use incorrectly of the NYT and every other American news publication, meaning as it does "freighted" or "loaded", is nonsensical to use without immediately putting "with..." after it.

e.g. Fraught with freight

that's wrong

that is one meaning of fraught and the main one but it also means showing or producing anxiety

Just try ordering a "fraught hot dog" from a NYC street vendor and see what you get handed.

i consider calling artists "creatives" a slur

"Creatives" is more of a recent euphemism for advertising copywriters, product designers and similar salaried employees. A concert violinist is not a "creative", nor is an author or sculptor. Architects occupy a grey area imo.

There are two forms of Elvish, Quenya and Sindarin.

xp that's legitimate, but i've heard a distressing amount of people refer to artists - musicians, writers, filmmakers, etc. - as "creatives." was talking to someone at a wedding recently and she used it. blechh!!!

Creative is just know anyone without a job

hate the term creatives, but also hate the term artist. this is more IA thread than pedantry thread

Look son

When ye invent a language as opposed to fucking one up, presume to lecture

Huh? I'm British.

Shit i thought it was amateurist at a glance!

So wait what's your excuse

"phenomena" is plural FFS

see also: criteria

― heaven parker (anagram), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 13:32 (five hours ago) Permalink

See also data

Datum is good Latin, but it never made the leap to become a word in English in the way phenomenon or criterion did. Maybe English speakers like ens better than ems.

Of interest mainly to fellow Torontonians, but the fact that our biggest sports club is called the Toronto Maple Leafs makes me actively hate them.

xp Also media, though saying "datum" and "medium" does make you sound like a pedantic twit.

'Datum' rarely arises though does it?
We are nearly always dealing with more than one piece of the given. What bothers me is 'the data shows....' Rather than 'the data show'

We now have a "data point" to substitute for "datum".

But we have forums, rather than fora.

This is a good list of people you don't want to invite to a party

No the pedantry is closeted. On the surface we are reasonable people.

hash tags, "woke" vs. enlightened. using "fam" excessively, inaccurately. also, when you show somebody information (in this case, on a monitor) for approval, and they say "sounds good"

'Says' to describe non-verbal (usually written) expression.

rather, using hashtags to elaborate on status updates, statements, or anything where it's not actually useful for search or categorisation. it's more of a gripe

yeah that belongs on "hating things that are good"

a real one: I feel like I see someone on this website ilxor.com misuse "cf" like once a week

though saying "datum" and "medium" does make you sound like a pedantic twit

this is the thread for proudly owning that twitness

40% of this thread has turned into "irrationally angry" thread part deux

no that's whenever a Drake thread gets revived

40% of this thread has turned into "irrationally angry" thread part deux

that part is horrid and needs lanced asap. non-pedants gtfo.

40% of this thread has turned into "irrationally angry" thread part deux

― i am also Tombot (Neanderthal), Tuesday, March 21, 2017 4:23 PM (three minutes ago)

part quatre, actually (/pedant)

If only pedantry ended there

xpost lol well played

it is of upmost importance.

many XPs; otm re 'begging the question' but I think that has its own thread.

I soooooo so so so hate the word "tweet" uses to refer to posting or a post on a particular social media network.

i get really really mad when people conflate "dissociative identity disorder" with "schizophrenia"

Yeah that's harmful - neither pedantry nor should it be closeted.

I agree with most of the pedantries above, ie: I share the instincts of the pedants, in most cases.

A bad fact is that errors made very often by others can lead one to lose one's own sense, however long-standing, of what is correct.

Thus: I have now seen 'hear, hear' written 'here, here' so many times that I really struggle to remember that the first is correct.

This corrosion.

hey now, hey now now

Don't dreammmm it's over

fp

Idk how I forgot this one since it is closer to my heart than any other:
A song is a short musical composition with words, a setting of text that someone can sing. You can't just call any piece of music a song, iTunes be damned. Even Naxos Music Library is betraying me on this.

See also font vs. typeface

you're a regular typeface of information

typoface

fewer vs less is fake btw

also of general interest: "sophomoric" originally meant pretentious, not moronic, and "sophisticated" originally meant "tainted"

things change

"Reactionary" does not mean "impulsive" or anything like that, look it up bitch

xp prefer the original meaning in both cases

See also font vs. typeface

...vs lettering. drives me bonkers when people refer to hand-lettering as "type" or "a font".

"utilize"

big ones for me are when people use "bathetic" to mean "pathetic" and "variegated" to mean "varied"

on "nonplussed" to mean "not nonplussed at all"

fewer vs less is fake btw

no, it's true. if i drink your milkshake, there will be fewer in your glass.

wikipedia sez:

Less has always been used in English with counting nouns. Indeed, the application of the distinction between less and fewer as a rule is a phenomenon originating in the 18th century. On this, Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes:[2]

As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on 'less': This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. "No Fewer than a Hundred" appears to me, not only more elegant than "No less than a Hundred," but more strictly proper. (Baker 1770). Baker's remarks about 'fewer' express clearly and modestly – 'I should think,' 'appears to me' – his own taste and preference....Notice how Baker's preference has been generalized and elevated to an absolute status and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted."

if you're not sure, ask yourself why "6 < 7" scans correctly as "6 is less than 7", not "6 is fewer than 7"

or why you can say "one less thing to worry about" and not make a grammatical error

it's really impossible to be a pedant about language use, since pedantry implies excessive adherence to rules and prescriptivist rules are in fact bullshit

Well now you're just being pedantic

yep :)

OK well - how about small-caps typesetting done as two different point sizes rather than a proper small caps face?

Actually is it worth asking what proportion of closeted pedants are type-hypersensitive? Maybe a poll?

And, o my god, the difference between a desktop wallpaper picture and a screensaver.

people that call any photo of a single person a "selfie" regardless of who took it

it's really impossible to be a pedant about language use, since pedantry implies excessive adherence to rules and prescriptivist rules are in fact bullshit

I think this is actually why I find intense descriptivists grating/bullying sometimes. I'm not going to defeat iTunes; at least let me try to stress a useful conceptual distinction when talking about music.

I think that actually gets at a basic problem I have with descriptivist arguments, though, in that they seem to assume that changes in popular linguistic usage arise completely organically. If whoever decided iTunes labels had chosen "piece" or "composition" or "track" instead, we might well see some difference in popular usage. The generic "he" didn't fade out without prescriptivist efforts. I'm not even sure that anyone would use "you and I" in the objective case if not for years of teachers telling people they were wrong when they said "you and me".

And with some languages, there are official bodies concerned with being pedantic about language use!

i think it's fine and useful to try to make conceptual distinctions, but if our focus is on defining concepts we can acknowledge that we're using words in a restricted or technical sense and that a particular word might have a more nebulous - more unsatisfactory if you like - meaning in popular use. once enough people attach a particular meaning to a word or phrase it's silly, at best, to call them "wrong".

i keep reading this thread title as "out your closeted pederasty"

Bad linguistic pedantry: bothering to go around correcting joe mushmouth for saying "an alumni" LIKE A TOTAL IDIOT (or even secretly giving a fuck)

Good linguistic pedantry: using precise, correct terms as often and as conspicuously as possible, for shits

also if you are like an actual subeditor

once enough people attach a particular meaning to a word or phrase it's silly, at best, to call them "wrong".

― millwallreptile (Noodle Vague), Saturday, March 25, 2017 6:11 AM (three minutes ago)

pedantic, too. hence thread.

so really Sund4r i agree with you about what a "song" is but if you need to indicate that you're specifically talking about music with a sung component it's easy enough to do that while accepting that it has a broader usage in 2017

i don't think descriptivist arguments necessarily argue for "organic" change - language is material, of course the processes that change it are material, whether that be a labelling decision by Apple, a government agency working to preserve/atrophy (point of view imo) a "threatened" language, or the simple act of publication of new usages either in print or through other media

i guess i dislike prescriptivism because it seems entangled in class/culture antagonism and is on the reactionary side of same but i think i also dislike it because it's fundamentally wrong about what language is and what it's for

in this sense obviously descriptivism can be hella pedantic

Everyone in my (UK) office says 'skedule' instead of 'shedule' and I just gave to sit there and take it. There is a lot of scheduling at my work

i totally say skedule

i make up for it by asking my daughter what she did at shool today

she's a promising sholar

I say skedule, shedule sounds weird for some reason.

I also pronounce mum "mom" but that seems to be a West Midlands thing.

totally a West Midlands thing, even if i write "mum" i'm reading it as "mom" in my head

Hyphens. No-one uses them properly.
Enjoy your locally-sourced gluten free meal in your pet free smoke free home *has aneurysm*

― kinder, Monday, March 20, 2017 8:53 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This this this!

So very recently I got in hot water with one of our suppliers at work. They built a website for one of our clients, and granted they didn't have an enormous amount of time to complete it, but it came back with a number of grammar and style issues which I 'helpfully' red-penned and sent back to them. Lots of little things like dangling prepositions and missing hyphens and full stops at the ends of page headers etc... It's easy to do if you're trying to work quickly.

But my god, the backlash I got for this was extraordinary. I was berated by the supplier for 'moaning' and 'being negative'. I was told that these style issues weren't errors but down to my own personal preference. They even went so far as to say that the things I'd pointed out would have no impact whatsoever on the client''s business. it was a very strange, surreal and butthurt response.
Watch what you say - pedantry is not always welcome

i guess i dislike prescriptivism because it seems entangled in class/culture antagonism and is on the reactionary side of same but i think i also dislike it because it's fundamentally wrong about what language is and what it's for.

― millwallreptile (Noodle Vague), Saturday, March 25, 2017 6:21 AM (seven minutes ago)

i half agree. but this seems the wrong thread for arguments about prescriptivism. i mean, i'm half tempted to write some long screed abt "what language is and what it's for" (simple subject, right?), but am managing for the moment to control myself...

yeah this isn't the thread for rehashing this one, my only excuse is the aforementioned pedantic descriptivism

we had one client whose name ends in an "s" who we will call Gargamels in order to protect the innocent. our account manager wrote a sentence like "Gargamels's first quarter results" and the client chastised her saying "Gargamels does NOT have two s's!". and demanded she write it in the incorrect form "Gargamels'" whenever it was used as a possessive noun.

tbh I thought either form was correct? although I usually use "s's" myself

Pretty sure both are correct, I prefer s' meself tho.

APA style is what I'm going by.

either way though - the client getting butthurt over a perfectly legitimate usage was kind of stupid, but that is the way they were.

I thought s' was for plurals only (with the excepting of Jesus and Moses???)

just letting everyone know right now that I prefer "wins's" to "wins'" thanks

plural or if the 's' is unpronounced like "Descartes": https://twitter.com/apa_style/status/513032580183379970

I really don't like the construction 'Those are James' shoes' because there is only one James in the story. James's looks how it sounds, so you're not having to look at the sentence and think 'now what's going on here?'

One thing that read strangely on the aforementioned website was something like this:

"We will cater for your business' needs". I can't for the life of me work out if that possessive apostrophe is right or wrong. There's only one business, so wouldn't it be "business's"? There are ways around it of course, "the needs of your business" etc, but English has a horrible way of dealing with words ending in 's'.

while we're debating that, to take a detour, though I'm not one of those genre purists by any means, I get real annoyed w/ one of my friends who insists on being revisionist about metal genre labels, ie calling stuff like Megadeth "hard rock and not metal" or saying a band isn't grindcore "cos it doesn't sound like Napalm Death". he's one of my best friends though so I let him live.

The "s's" thing is funny because any style guide I refer to supports it, and it's what I use, but I almost always see people write "s'", which is far less intuitive.

It's not just APA. Chicago Manual:

7.16Possessive of proper nouns, letters, and numbers

The general rule extends to proper nouns, including names ending in s, x, or z, in both their singular and plural forms, as well as letters and numbers.

SINGULAR FORMS
Kansas’s legislature
Chicago’s lakefront
Marx’s theories
Jesus’s adherents
Berlioz’s works
Tacitus’s Histories
Borges’s library
Dickens’s novels
Malraux’s masterpiece
Josquin des Prez’s motets
PLURAL FORMS
the Lincolns’ marriage
the Williamses’ new house
the Martinezes’ daughter
dinner at the Browns’ (that is, at the Browns’ place)

Canadian Press style guides:

Singular nouns and names ending in s (or an s sound) normally take an 's.

Chris's sandwich, Burgess's novel, ...

while we're debating that, to take a detour, though I'm not one of those genre purists by any means, I get real annoyed w/ one of my friends who insists on being revisionist about metal genre labels, ie calling stuff like Megadeth "hard rock and not metal" or saying a band isn't grindcore "cos it doesn't sound like Napalm Death". he's one of my best friends though so I let him live.

This is sort of an interesting one and we're getting into ILM territory: would you call Deep Purple a heavy metal band, for instance? Bon Jovi? (Casey Kasem called them heavy metal in 1986.) Current bands who sound like those bands?

I was berated by the supplier for 'moaning' and 'being negative'. I was told that these style issues weren't errors but down to my own personal preference. They even went so far as to say that the things I'd pointed out would have no impact whatsoever on the client''s business. it was a very strange, surreal and butthurt response.

This is definitely a thing. 'I don't understand the importance of this, therefore no-one else does'.
I'm very lucky in my job in that pedantry (to a certain point) is definitely welcomed and encouraged. A large part of it is making sure things are communicated correctly and clearly. (Which you'd think would be a priority for most businesses/orgs but clearly aren't).

I get that there's a difference, in that 99% of the music-listening population would say that Megadeth sounds like heavy metal even today.
xp

I sympathize with dog latin but dangling prepositions really are a bullshit rule tbf.

Back to pedantry: also "immigrate" vs "emigrate"! These are not synonyms.

I always use the "s's" possessive construction for singular nouns and it always looks wrong enough that I doubt my correctness so thank u for the AP ruling.

I guess I'm pedantic about a lot of things but I'm down with keeping most of it closeted unless the subject is truly trivial. 'No, that was Steve Perry solo, not Journey. Well, look it up then. I'll wait.'

"We will cater for your business' needs". I can't for the life of me work out if that possessive apostrophe is right or wrong. There's only one business, so wouldn't it be "business's"? There are ways around it of course, "the needs of your business" etc, but English has a horrible way of dealing with words ending in 's'.

― Lennon, Elvis, Hendrix etc (dog latin), Saturday, March 25, 2017 6:53 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

it's "business's", as sun4r suggests. not sure what the problem is. it's pronounced like the plural form of "business", with which (ha) no one seems to struggle.

I am soarly tempted to fill this thread with mispellings and incorrect constructions what I know will drive closet pedants out of they're minds.

OHHHH, I know one. Incorrect and completely "random" usage of quotation "marks". I always feel like I'm bearing witness to someone's mind unraveling.

Xxp

Thing is sometimes people nominalize it

"business needs"

So business's needs sounds like businesses needs and there is a clause (at least in the Canadian Press style guide) to avoid this

Back to pedantry: also "immigrate" vs "emigrate"! These are not synonyms.

I'd hardly class that one as pedantry.

Even though the Transcontinental Railroad extends to Oakland, the western terminus was Sacramento in terms of the building project and competition between UP and CP.

BUT FUCKING HELL PEOPLE CALLING THEIR DESKTOP IMAGE THEIR "SCREENSAVER". I thought there would be a storm of assent for that one.

most people who would do something like that are blissfully ignorant of computers and that's cute, not annoying

I loved it when my mum told me a cousin's funeral notice wouldn't be in the local newspaper because "they all put them on that e-bay page on the internet these days".

Heh. Is that really a thing in the UK though? Obits and funeral notices are single handedly keeping newspaper on their dying feet in the Netherlands. I know those get replaced online, too, but it's like the last thing people seem to want to get rid of. I think it's nice.

Maybe this is the thread where I realise I'm just actually a jerk, rather than pedantic?

it depends! if you were doing customer support and having to deal all day with people who didn't understand basic terminology i can see it getting painful, but mostly i just think people who don't know the lingo because they hardly use a computer are adorable/admirable

ruh roh

xxxp
I'd imagine it is a practice that is on the way out, well it is at my local rag at least. But the print edition is a dying entity (no pun intended) and I can't see the new Editor Wayne Ankers turning things around! I can't speak for the rest of the UK, but maybe that is something peculiar to the culture of The Netherlands or maybe just older folk?

Print's dying here, too, but local is the last one out I think, and because it's still very community driven (well the paper I run is, but I imagine other (hyper)locals to be the same), it's still very 'de rigeur' to place these ads. It's engrained in the system: an undertaker will always at least bring it up with family when arranging the funeral. And in a lot of cases it will be covered by insurance iirc.

https://twitter.com/g0m/status/845684339505541121

do we care about who vs whom

who vs whom? it's nice to have them properly used, but not critical or anything. there are a few convoluted cases where it isn't easy to get it right, but mostly it's just knowing the rule and applying it correctly, so it isn't like people who know should get all that confused.

srs lols at anyone itt ever being closeted about their pedantry on this here message board

i make up for it by asking my daughter what she did at shool today

― millwallreptile (Noodle Vague)

your daughter is jewish?

lol i thought it sounded like yiddish when i wrote it

It doesn't make sense to say that people are arguing about semantics when what you mean is that they are only arguing about word choice. Semantics is about meaning, so to argue about semantics should be to argue over meaning, not over choice of semantically equivalent words or phrases.

I saw a t-shirt today that said 'Seas the Day' and which had no accompanying illustration or anything that might have explained/excused what I assume was meant to be a play on words. It made me inordinately exasperated but I'm not sure that qualifies as pedantry.

Unless it existed solely to exasperate pedants, in which case I perversely support its existence.

"seas the day"
About 461,000 results (0.75 seconds)

Seas the Day

slang -

A term commonly used by those tied to the luxury cruise industry, expressing a desire to follow their compass and conquer the ocean seas with wanderlust and enthusiasm.
As the Captain of the ship pulled away from the port, he exclaimed to his crew, "Let's Seas the Day!"

xxp JRN taking it to the next level.

"Incredibly" is not a synonym for "very" FFS.

^^^ this

the regularity in which i see apostrophes for certain plural words -- CD's, DVD's, 80's, 90's, and so on -- will sometimes give me pause. but then, 3's and 4's or p's and q's seem just fine.

i hate all such. even the B-52's. tho i love the B-52's.

Yeah or like what you should do to Frankenstein, the monster comprised of corpse parts

This bait did not snare anyone, I am disappoint.

Aw man i missed that post...

They should just officially switch the definitions for disinterested and uninterested. I'm done fighting this fight.

Take a breather, champ. Not sure who you're fighting on this one.

Hillary voters iirc

/Yeah or like what you should do to Frankenstein, the monster comprised of corpse parts/

This bait did not snare anyone, I am disappoint.

Frankenstein was a feint, I was sure I would get someone with comprised

I don't care to find out what the deal with comprises/comprised is and will never use either probably

That is safe and wise.

Basically you can say "composed of" or "comprised," and they mean the same thing. "Comprised of" is seen as Very Wrong by many people.

I never use "comprised of." Not because I think it's a moral choice, or because it offends my delicate ears, but because I write for audiences and wish to accommodate the preferences of those audience members.

Well, that's what I say. Really, the only audience that matters is the person who signs my paycheck. And she doesn't want to see "comprised of," so it does not appear in my documentation.

I was going to type this:

Wait, "compriseS" would mean the same as "is composed of", surely? "Comprised of" just sounds like gibberish to me. No one really says that, do they?

But then I checked Apple's Oxford dictionary (both American and British) and it's right there:

comprise |kəmˈprʌɪz|
verb [ with obj. ]
consist of; be made up of: the country comprises twenty states.
• make up or constitute (a whole): this single breed comprises 50 per cent of the Swiss cattle population | (be comprised of) : documents are comprised of words.

I think 'is comprised of' is more forgivable than 'comprises of'

Here it's an estate agent thing, they all do it

Oh, well, that's just dumb. No one even says "composes of".

"Reactionary" does not mean "impulsive" or anything like that, look it up bitch

I sometimes hear people use this to mean "provoking a strong reaction", which is very reactionary for me.

OH. It's pronounced 'car-a-mel'. I can mostly deal wrt lay people, but when I hear folks on cooking shows say 'carmel' and 'carmelize' I plotz.

Definitely a regional thing for the noun, for the verb, "car-a-mel-ize" actually strikes me as a bit more unusual

Oh, yeah, the incorrect version is definitely more commonly used. This is apparently only a problem for my pedantic ears.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IR9khqut2x4/VwRlQEzwNTI/AAAAAAABLDY/sKz9ZntZUsYSkaFoH6UKm3QJfV1DmTXSg/s1600/12512358_758438437625938_6466270805309255795_n.jpg

This is sort of an interesting one and we're getting into ILM territory: would you call Deep Purple a heavy metal band, for instance? Bon Jovi? (Casey Kasem called them heavy metal in 1986.) Current bands who sound like those bands?

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Saturday, March 25, 2017 10:02 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought about this one. with hair bands, I feel like many "hair metal" bands weren't actually metal, though it was possible to be a hair band and be metal (like early Crue and all W.A.S.P.). I also don't think that Bon Jovi being more pop-oriented would inherently make it not metal either. I think I don't consider Bon Jovi metal not for that reason but that I just feel they're more in line with hard rock, though they teetered on the edge naturally.

Deep Purple I personally wouldn't but I don't object to those who do.

I wouldn't know how to start defining metal vs. hard rock. I am currently trying to make sense of a landscape where Americana, countrypolitan, Ameripolitan, rockabilly, honky-tonk, jive, jump, and psychobilly are all distinct and zealously defended categories. Lots of it sounds to my ear like what we used to call "alt-country" (or even "country rock") but for some reason that isn't the term preferred by the twangnoscenti.

Accents is another one. Drives me mad when people write Brotzmann rather than Brötzmann, for example.

Dude. Diacriticals.

Diacritic is primarily an adjective, though sometimes used as a noun, whereas diacritical is only ever an adjective.

OUCH

Now come on, who's got time for diacritics when they're trying to keep up with a huge rolling countdown thread. Fucked if I'm gonna remember the shortkey for all those off the top of my head. Brotzmann is is.

The panic I went through on the Talking Heads poll images to use "naïve" or - as it's used on the actual record label - "naive".

Went with the latter because I didn't know what my stupid postcard font would do with a command like that.

I recall a fun exchange here about The New Yorker's infamous dedication to a certain diacritical mark. Dr. Morb wondered why the New Yorker doesn't think we can understand the word "reelect" without an umlaut, and jaymc retorted, "It's a diaeresis, fool."

O wait I found it

the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

Sigh,, o for the days when I felt like Mitt Romney was a dangerous political enemy.

Fucked if I'm gonna remember the shortkey for all those off the top of my head. Brotzmann is is.

― Lennon, Elvis, Hendrix etc (dog latin), Thursday, April 6, 2017 9:26 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

anagram u crazy

itt http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/58e345dc1500002100c7dc2b.jpeg?cache=ct2yeuuynn

ö is alt+0246 on a windows keyboard. It takes a second and once you're used to it, it comes as second nature. Besides which, ö is actually a different letter from o, so not to use it is actually spelling the name wrong, which is kind of disrespectful imo.

ñ / Ñ is also very much its own letter (and you will see it that way on Spanish alphabet-related materials for children).

I'm on a laptop mostly so the alt-xxxx combinations are less instinctive, but I agree that Señor is a different case than "reëlect."

ö is alt+0246 on a windows keyboard. It takes a second and once you're used to it, it comes as second nature.

When I email with Mexican relatives in Spanish, they rarely use any accent marks. (And pretty much never use upside down exclamation or question marks at the beginning of sentences.)

Must be confusing when they mention your niece has 16 anos.

How does Broetzmann grab you?

Must be confusing when they mention your niece has 16 anos.

While examples of this type of thing abound, people in any language are able to understand homonyms and homophones from context. If someone says "good night," I don't wonder whether they're talking about Sir Paul McCartney.

They're not talking about Jimmy Savile.

I regularly read notes charted about my daughter that say she slept "threw out the night" and similar stuff. Doesn't really bother me that much.

Y'all are pretty easygoing about these things for some pedants.

They do use ñ, probably b/c it's a single keystroke. I try to avoid the word año any way I can.

When I email with Mexican relatives in Spanish, they rarely use any accent marks. (And pretty much never use upside down exclamation or question marks at the beginning of sentences.)

Surely they wouldn't have to use Alt codes on Spanish keyboards and OS?

my uncle has definitely wished me a happy new anus

Actually, I'm trying to learn how to closet my autist pedantry, when appropriate. I wonder what's left of me without it.

fwiw, in Office apps, Insert > Symbol works without requiring one to memorize alt codes or keep a table of them at hand. If you need them a lot, a reasonably savvy person can define a keyboard shortcut, or get fancy and create a macro.

(And not to flagellate a deceased equine, "left" as in the direction and "left" as in "gone" is possibly a better example than "night"/"knight")

for a long time I've wanted to call my memoir The Pedantry of the Closet.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 20, 2017 4:38 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

by Eve Kosofsky Soto

Or résumé and resume.

Recently, I'd been procrastinating starting a work project. The client sent me an email that read:

"Puffin, Jesus,

What are the next steps for this project? It’s been 3 working days and I haven’t seen any progress yet."

I was a little flustered by the brusque tone. But nevertheless I scrambled into frenzied action, doing as much as I could in half an hour or so, and sent out the resulting draft.

Then I looked a little closer at the e-mail.

It wasn't sent only to me; it was also sent to a subject-matter resource, Jesus Garcia Lopez.

So it wasn't "Puffin: Jesus Christ, man! What the fuck will it take for you to get this thing started?", as I had taken it.

It was more like "Puffin (and) Jesus: What are the next steps?"

better get with Jesus

haha

I've said this a thousand times on here, but I'll say it again. My IRL name is Tre. Not Tré, like the guy from Green Day, but simply Tre - the Italian word for "three". And I get very irrationally angry when someone tries to add that accent mark to my name. Would rather be called Trey than that.

But with or without the accent, at least my name doesn't change context and pronunciation like poor Jesús'.

guy at work is called jesus

i call him jesus christ superstar

yeah there was a time where I got an email that said "Neanderthal, Asshole, when am I going to see the assignment I gave you three weeks ago" and then I spent two hours searching the company directory for Asshole before I realized he was insulting me

<3 that jesus story