It's time to out yourselves Punctuation Nazis

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go on, 'fess up!

― Chris Radford (Chris Radford), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

this is my work so fuck it every time else,

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 13:48 (twenty-two years ago)

punktuation uber alles
|-- | | |-+-| | | --|

― punctuation goebbels, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

h,eh

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)

HTML is naturally anti-fascist, who knew!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:01 (twenty-two years ago)

btw Chris, is the title of this thread some kind of blas&233; provocation to us congenital marker-uppers or what? It is as a blight upon the eye and mind. Certainly you meant "It's time to out yourselves, Punctuation Nazis"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

behold my anti-fascist accent-ague

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

thats' the spirit

― Chris Radford (Chris Radford), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm getting disoriented reading this thread; I must be a PN.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

that's disorientated

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:34 (twenty-two years ago)

i am paid to be one.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

do you, like Hitler?

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I always have to fight down the urge, to use German punctuation in English sentences, because if I do that, it looks as if I've got the hiccups, or something.

― Sommermute (Wintermute), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

It's my job to be one. Amateurist and Mark are OTM.

Seriously, inappropriate apostrophes are one of the things I hate the most. Especially people who write "it's" when "its" would be correct.

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

It's not my job now but I keep my uniform pressed and my luger pipe-cleaned. However I am bad Nazi.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

fuCK uR pUnCtuATIon

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:16 (twenty-two years ago)

No point being a Punctuation Nazi. As has already been demonstrated, picking up on someone else's errors just about guarantees you'll fuck something up yourself in the process...

― ChristineSH (chrissie1068), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't tell ME how to grammar, you bastards.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Christine, there's actually a law about that!

McKean's Law:
"Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error."

It's named after lexicographer Erin McKean, who edits the magazine Verbatim and who (judging by this photo) I'd immediately propose to if she wasn't already married:

http://www.verbatimmag.com/emckean.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

There's already a Lisa Loeb thread on ILM, jaymc.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

exclamation point!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Ich bin der Hauptinterpunktionkommandant hier in Berlin, Bestrafung und Tod ganzem zu disobedient!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow JayMC do you have any other pictures of Hott Editorz?

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Erin McKean's physical appearance = Kate Hudson - blonde hair + brown hair (guessing here) + 35 IQ points + glasses + a college education.

So basically, she's the Kate Hudson for brunette-loving males with discriminating tastes. And she looks way young. A prodigy? (Not the "Firestarter" Prodigy, nor the old Internet ISP Prodigy. Wiseacres.)

― Dee the Lurker (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I have worked with a girl who has a terrible command of punctuation and grammar. If I ever come across anything she has dealt with of mine in any of my account files, I will correct them, even though they have already been sent out to clients incorrectly punctuated or with horrible spelling mistakes, and she will never see my corrections. Just because looking at mistakes in my work annoys me, even if I didn't make them myself.

She has also been known to mis-spell, mis-apostrophise or just generally make a mess of things and then put my name to them! I have been known to try and explain to the recipient at a later date (if the opportunity arises, and believe me, I can find ways that it does) that I didn't actually write the letter myself because I don't want people to think that I don't take pride in what I do.

Obviously here in interweb land it is all different, but when it's something I am being paid for...

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Re: Erin McKean: I think she's like 32. No idea when the pic was taken, though. She also does a fun feature on NPR's The Next Big Thing where people call in to suggest new words, and she analyzes the chances of them taking off. I listened to all of these online one day.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

that sounds really cool, actually--provide a link, jaymc?

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

is this the same sort of thing as the column in the back of harper's or the atlantic or whatever it is?

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 00:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Spelling Nazi also:

I work for a pretty big company (OK, one of the biggest), and they issued new letterhead paper after a bit of re-branding. I was the first person in the company to notice (about three weeks after we'd been using it, and several hundred boxes had been distributed) that the small print of the letterhead said that "calls may be monitored to maintain qulaity (sic)".

The irony...

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

That reminds me of my library-assistant days. The cash register at the checkout desk had a little scrolling welcome message which had been unchanged since it was first installed. It said: "Welcome to Edinburgh Univeristy [sic] Library".

When I noticed, I called over all the staff that weren't doing much and pointed it out.

"It looks fine to me," they all said. Nearly all of them had to stare at it for a minute or two before suddenly going "Oh! It's wrong!"

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Amateurist: Yeah, I suppose it's kinda similar to Word Court (or some similar features) in The Atlantic.

Matos: Unfortunately, I don't think there's a place on the Next Big Thing website that lists McKean's segments only. The main site is here. I'd recommend doing a search for "McKean" or "What's Your Word" (the name of her segment). There's probably about a dozen of them.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

What about pronunciation nazis?

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't actually berate people over grammatical errors, I just tend to subconsciously note them down as being a Bad Grammar Person and resolve to associate with them less, which is probably worse.

― Ferg (Ferg), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

She has also been known to mis-spell

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT HYPHEN DOING THERE?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 23:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Proving the theory that "Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error."

Pedant. Anyway I gave myself a disclaimer by saying I don't take quite so much care when I am not being paid to be correct.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 5 June 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

("Do you, like Hitler?" is the best question ever, takes a moment to kick in).

― Cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 June 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Eva Braun to thread!

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 June 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

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