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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Ren on September 02, 2010, 06:13:35 PM

Title: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Ren on September 02, 2010, 06:13:35 PM
<rant>
I am so sick of seeing "waiting with BAITed breath". What, are you putting worms in your mouth and waiting for fish?
NO! It's "waiting with BATED breath" as in "Abated" or to Hold a Breath...
...sigh...sad how much the english language has declined...8P
</rant>

Apologies to anyone whose been getting it wrong all along, but now you can get it right!
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Kali on September 02, 2010, 06:17:31 PM
I have much the same reaction to people asserting that they could care less about something. 

Or people who "could of" done things.  It's COULD HAVE, you intellectually bankrupt couchmonkey.  Just because you pronounce "could've" 'could of' does NOT mean you get to spell it that way.

I fret that I am not legally permitted to shoot these people.  Fret, I say!
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: snowbank on September 02, 2010, 06:41:11 PM
reign is what monarchs do

rein is steering a horse
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 03, 2010, 03:16:53 AM
I am really unfeasibly annoyed about "despatch" and "dispatch" both being usable to mean both a) to send a message and b) to kill someone rather than one meaning one and the other the other, as any sensible language would sort out.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Shecky on September 03, 2010, 03:24:36 AM
I am really unfeasibly annoyed about "despatch" and "dispatch" both being usable to mean both a) to send a message and b) to kill someone rather than one meaning one and the other the other, as any sensible language would sort out.

Archaisms. That's the problem. The term and its spellings have shifted over time, and we haven't been left with a clear winner.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: LizW65 on September 03, 2010, 01:25:58 PM
"Alright" seems to have become acceptable through use, especially in British works, but it was drummed into our little heads in elementary school that it was definitely not all right.  The number of editors who overlook this one disturbs me.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Aludra on September 03, 2010, 04:21:44 PM
I really couldn't of cared less about these grammar fopaws.

And now I wait with baited breath to read your despatches on this comment.

It's alright though, I'm pretty sure you'll figure out I'm just pulling chains.

I hope it doesn't reign anymore today, though.  I'm sick and tired of it.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Kali on September 03, 2010, 04:23:10 PM
For all intensive purposes, that post was just a troll.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Ren on September 03, 2010, 04:24:23 PM
I am so glad I am not alone in this complaint...I have a T-shirt that reads; "English doesn't so much borrow from languages as it follows them down an alley, knocks them down and goes through their pockets for loose grammar"
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Aludra on September 03, 2010, 04:25:24 PM
For all intensive purposes, that post was just a troll.

Aww the 'intensive' purpose was to at least get a smirk out of you.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Kali on September 03, 2010, 05:05:20 PM
Aww the 'intensive' purpose was to at least get a smirk out of you.


*grin* It did.  I was just continuing the troll.  Well, it's a mute point now, I suppose.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Shecky on September 03, 2010, 06:28:25 PM
I am so glad I am not alone in this complaint...I have a T-shirt that reads; "English doesn't so much borrow from languages as it follows them down an alley, knocks them down and goes through their pockets for loose grammar"

That has long been one of my favorite comments of all time. But then, I'm a linguigeek.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Aludra on September 03, 2010, 06:29:00 PM
In the spirit of lite-hearted discussion on the failings of literacy lately I present unto ya'll

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-to-sell-books (http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-to-sell-books)
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: jeno on September 03, 2010, 11:52:05 PM
...I think I want to shop at that bookstore.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: snowbank on September 04, 2010, 12:06:39 AM
I hope it doesn't reign anymore today, though.  I'm sick and tired of it.


I bet you think your funny.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 04, 2010, 04:09:40 AM
That has long been one of my favorite comments of all time. But then, I'm a linguigeek.

So long as you remember to credit it to James D. Nicoll, who actually said it, rather than to the Star Trek novel where Diane Duane had Kirk say it. (Purely by accident of forgetting where she heard it, all is amiable, but the source error still propagates, so.)
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 04, 2010, 04:11:57 AM
In the spirit of lite-hearted discussion on the failings of literacy lately I present unto ya'll

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-to-sell-books (http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/how-to-sell-books)

One wonders how aware the bookstore people are that at least one of the books with a spaceship on the cover contains large quantities of swords within (the WJW) and vce versa (the Wolfe).
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Snowleopard on September 04, 2010, 07:30:08 AM
I am so glad I am not alone in this complaint...I have a T-shirt that reads; "English doesn't so much borrow from languages as it follows them down an alley, knocks them down and goes through their pockets for loose grammar"

I LIKE that T-Shirt, Renfield.  I don't always use the language the way it should be used but I do appreciate its nuances and those who use it well.
Have you ever read - Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words.  by Josefa Heifetz Byrne.  You'll love it.

ghoom - (anglo-Indian) means to hunt in the dark
dzo - a hybrid between a Yak and a domestic cow

There are many, many more words - some even weirder and wilder.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Shecky on September 04, 2010, 09:46:23 AM
So long as you remember to credit it to James D. Nicoll, who actually said it, rather than to the Star Trek novel where Diane Duane had Kirk say it. (Purely by accident of forgetting where she heard it, all is amiable, but the source error still propagates, so.)

I don't read Star Trek novels, so I couldn't have misattributed it. For that matter, I had no idea Nicoll said it, so I couldn't even have attributed it. :D
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: LizW65 on September 04, 2010, 01:53:12 PM
I don't read Star Trek novels, so I couldn't have misattributed it. For that matter, I had no idea Nicoll said it, so I couldn't even have attributed it. :D

I would have guessed Terry Pratchett, myself.  It bears a certain similarity to his "town where curiousity not only kills the cat, it drops it off the pier with lead weights tied around its feet" quote.
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Snowleopard on September 04, 2010, 03:36:23 PM
I would have guessed Terry Pratchett, myself.  It bears a certain similarity to his "town where curiousity not only kills the cat, it drops it off the pier with lead weights tied around its feet" quote.

Lemme guess - Ankh-Morpork???
Title: Re: Get it Right!!!
Post by: Enjorous on September 05, 2010, 05:35:33 PM
...I think I want to shop at that bookstore.

I do too!