My name is CurlewKate and I am a recovering pedant….

[CurlewKate]

After 30 years as an active pedant, I am now trying VERY hard always to look at what people obviously mean, and not the way they express it. Not everyone has been taught about apostrophes.

But for the love of GOD- please stop saying “stag doo” “birthday doo”. Any other “doo”! Where did that come from?

I would have pronounced it as shire with a d at the end. As in Lord of the Rings shire. I'm off to google what a shirred dress is and see do I need one.

I was wondering if anyone else started singing this as I read the thread. 🤣🤣

The emphasised vowel in "to" and "do" is the same. "Are you going TO or FROM work?" "I DO want to go to town".
The non emphasised ones are also the same "Are you going to WALK or DRIVE?" "Do you want TEA or COFFEE?"
Slight differences are individual pronunciation rather than actually phonological i.e. they don't alter the meaning.

Definitely rhymes with bird. (Sewist here although that's another can of worms).

Hmm. They could potentially work on me. I need to start practicing the pronunciation now.

The UK ran a three-year trial from 1968 to 1971 called British Standard Time, where clocks were put forward in spring 1968 and not put back until October 1971. The test kept the UK on GMT+1 all year, resulting in longer summer-like evenings but very dark winter mornings.

I'm not doubting it at all. It's just a term I had never heard before. If asked I would have referred to the dresses with the elasticy stuff in the bodice (I do know that word).

I know you didn’t ask me but I would like to respond if that’s okay?
There is a woman on Instagram who advocates for children’s literacy. She compared an original copy of ‘Elmer’ to a modern day version. The original copy has a lot more text, they have removed large quantities of writing in favour of more pictures. She was saying that this isn’t uncommon, some publishers are deliberately dumbing down our children’s books. But why? I can’t understand it. Why would spelling tests now be too obscure? Why have we now decided this? I cannot fathom why we are simplifying language to the point of loss. Not good for our upcoming generations, surely? All so bizarre. I appreciate that we have different levels of learning and ability but surely then you work with that.

Edit: typo issues. I have chubby digits
and I don’t catch every mistake. Why would my phone think I want to write cooper instead of copy?

Thankyou for providing a change in earworm. I'm going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, you can come come too" (except I'm not really)!

Happy Friday 😁

He sounds great.

That’s the strategy I use for spelling too, I don’t ’sound it out’. If it’s one I’m not sure about, I close my eyes so I can ‘see’ it better. This is why reading can be so important for spelling!

I have a great tip for recovering pedants: learn another language and you’ll then be more lenient. That’s what happened to me anyway. For full effect something like Mandarin or Hindi with a different script is best!

I find this the easy bit. The word spring makes me think of sunshine, cute baby animals and happy looking trees. So my head just knows spring = lighter. Autumn is the opposite, that makes me think of cold and dark.

Knowing what day of the week it is today is where I fall apart 😂

Same.

What's the cure for pedantry please?
Not only did I marry a pedant but I've raised two of them as well. Adult DC are even worse pendants than their parents.

Pendants?

He is the child who when I said “That’s not what I said!!” replied “Well, that’s what I inferred!!”
It’s genetic.

i read that as ‘hen-doe’ because around Sheffield ‘hendo’, or more commonly ’Hendo’s’ refers to Henderson’s Relish. And yes, it does have the apostrophe on the label.

Yes, I said that upthread.
I also commented on the irritating sign!

I still have to write ei/ie (like grief/ chief/ conceit) words down to see which way looks right. (I got two of them wrong first time then!)

I too was at primary school in the 70's and never had a spelling test. However I've always been an avid reader and enjoy writing, so I think my SPAG excellence (if I do say so myself!) probably comes from that.

Where I’m from, “doo”
is sometimes a synonym for poo. Dog doo, bird doo, etc.

Same to me too! BTW, Dr. Seuss has a book titled: THE TOUGH COUGHS AS HE PLOUGHS THE DOUGH.

Arg. I went back and corrected it twice!

Spelling tests were routine in the 1950s when I was at school. Useful in the days when working in an office necessitated using pen and paper and manual typewriters.

Yes - hendough😊