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Original poster

Pedants' safe-house

423 replies

oldbutgold · 09/06/2010 07:39

In view of the strong feeling expressed towards inveterate error-spotters (aka passive-aggressive bullies/pedants/twats etc) what about a thread for all the spelling errors/grammatical mistakes seen stricly outside MN in RL?
Like journalist Keith Waterhouse who was president of the AAA - campaigned throughout his career for the Abolition of the Abhorrent Apostrophe.
Spotted by self recently:

Ladie's hairdressers (in town)
Childrens' Society (on BBC)
10 items or less (everywhere)

OP posts:
Bucharest · 10/06/2010 10:55

Here's a little something I tease my students with when they tell me punctuation doesn't matter.

Perfectly correct English sentence, if the punctuation is in the right place:

John where James had had had had had had had had had had had a better result from the teacher

or

He said that that that that that man said was correct.

chaostrulyreigns · 10/06/2010 11:16

It's beyond me Bucharest.

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:18

you can split come up, though - you can say "up came the sun"

that's perfectly correct.

Bucharest, please do the punctuation in those sentences- i think i can grasp the that one, but can't work out the had one.

Psammead · 10/06/2010 11:23

Had had had me reaching for the paracetamol too.

I think I cracked it, but with use of a semi-colon, which is terra incognita to me.

John, where James had 'had', had had 'had had'; 'had had' had had a better result from the teacher.

Am prepared for my semi-colon to be shot down in flames. It was the only way I could make it one sentence though.

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:24

one of my bugbears is the colon and semi-colon thing - so many people these days don't bother at all with a colon (they prefer to use - all the time: that looks weird), and semi-colons sparingly. So much so, that i think most people really don't know what they're for.

there's a fantastic series of books by Kingfisher that spell all this stuff out. they started with The Periodic Table, but they're just releasing one on punctuation.

Punctuation: The Write Stuff

it's very clever because they make the various punctuation marks into little characters.
I've got a sample here and they've got the Comma twins, who separate the clauses in the sentence where a piece of information is useful but not essential.
"Nobody, but nobody, tells us not to interrupt!" etc
and the question Mark is a wily dectective, and the Semi-Colon, whos usage is "to divide and conquer"

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:24

that's not split up though!

John, where James had "had", had "had had"; "had had" "had had" had had a better result from the teacher

stuck on the second bit - one too many "had had"s

or

He said that that that that that man said was correct.
completely can't do this one

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:24

i missed the bloody e off the end of whose!!!
aaarrrggghhh!

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:24

ahhhh

Psammead · 10/06/2010 11:25

Oh no, nickelbabe's going to eat me. Sorry if I used it incorrectly.

I have a degree in English Language but cannot for the life of me tell you what to do with a colon, semi or otherwise.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:25

John, where James had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better result from the teacher

done it!

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:25

yeah, Psammed - that ; should be a :

It acts as a "however", or a "but" or an "and" etc - basically it's the clause that explains or qualifies the clause before.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:27

no, I think it's a semi colon in that sentence. Colons are for direct sequiturs (??) semi colons for loosely related clauses.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:27

Psammead beat me to it

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:29

John where James had had had had had had had had had had had a better result from the teacher

or

He said that that that that that man said was correct.

let me have a go now Psammed's helped me!

John, where James had "had", had had "had had": "had had" had had a better result from the teacher.

and

He said that "that" that, that man had said was correct.

he said tht "THAT" tht that man had said...

yes, there are surely too many thats in that sentence.

i can only make 4 thats make sense.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:30

yes, definitely can't do the that one
There's a sentence a pedant should never type!

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:31

Psammead - sorry for keep spelling your name wrongly!

SPB: i stand defeated; you are correct: the semi-colon connected the two closely-linked sentences.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:31

nb, you did the same as me,
it's had had "had"

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:32

what is that tense, it's not the pluperfect?

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:33

ooh, SPB - just realised you were talking to me re: the sun came up.

no, you're right again - it's not split up, it's just swapped round.

blimey, I bow down to your superior pedantry.

Psammead · 10/06/2010 11:34

The that one makes sense. Could be described in other words as

He said that that particular that that that particular man said was correct.

So, 'He said that that that, that that man said was correct.'

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:35

yes, i think it is the pluperfect.

unfortunately, where I was taught how to use grammar and punctuation correctly, i was never told what any of the bloody things were called!!

let me work it out.

perfect : has had
imperfect: was having
pluperfect: had had

Psammead · 10/06/2010 11:35

I do understand that bold is not an acceptable punctuation mark in English! I wasn't sure how else to emphasise those thats.

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:36

wow

You do realise I can never post again don't you? As I'm bound to make a mistake very soon, probably in this post

What is the tense called - "he had had his dinner by 5pm"?
I've just googled pluperfect, it's not that, that's where you are comparing two events where one is more "past" than the other I think...

nickelbabe · 10/06/2010 11:36

oh! of course, Psammead, i was missing out the third that!!

he said that that "that", that that man had said...

can't see any more punctuation to use though...

StealthPolarBear · 10/06/2010 11:37

Psa that still makes no sense to me
please explain what the sentence is trying to say