Pedants sign here.

[lionheart]

Is this new topic an attempt to contain the rampant pedantry that exists on MN?

Discuss.

Nobody puts pedants in a corner.

We were getting petrol the other day and ds1 said "that sign's wrong" - there was a hand-written sign on the air machine that read "OUT OFF ORDER". I was so proud

I'm too scared to be a real pedant. Every time I post on a Pedants' thread I check and double-check what I've written before clicking on "Post Message". And invariably I'll read something and think "what's wrong with that then?" or "eek, I didn't know that."

I'll be a LRTP (Lurking and Rather Timid Pedant)

I have been thinking of changing my nickname for some time - this new topic is the perfect opportunity (you will not know who I am was; I am a lurker who occasionally drops in with points of information).

Ha Sciolist!-do you by any chance subscibe to a dictionary website??????

Love the new name!

WendyW - I'm not at all offended by the expletive!
A friend of mine wrote 'shinning' rather than 'shining' earlier today. I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from correcting him, he had written '[my DD] is a shinning star' which was very sweet and I didn't want to p**s on his bonfire. A pedant with a heart, perhaps

Neverenough - No. I came across it years ago. "The Sciolists" would be a good name for a pub quiz team. Anyone who knows what it means is likely to be a sciolist or a pedant.

Just heard someone on an American programme (that Judge Judy thing) say "So how much money did you gift her over the years" Presumably saying "gift" instead of "give" is the reason they always say "loan" instead of "lend". They don't like verbs unless they used to be nouns and only got turned into verbs by some process of natural extension.

Another thing they talk about is peoples' houses being "burglarized". Because "burgled" is a pure verb and didn't become one via a noun.

I'm not satisfactioned that their employmenting of this kind of English is justificationed.

I love this thread. I recently complained about a T-shirt in Asda with a spelling mistake, 'flys' instead of 'flies'. Got an apology and free clothes!

How has it taken me so long to find this topic and this thread?

I love this verbal trick-picture (can't remember where I first saw it).

Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana

At our local Tesco petrol station today:"No Diesil"

If I complain, perhaps they'll give me free fuel!!!

They'll give you free fuil.

A local shop yesterday:

"Christmas orders now been taken"

:wince:

CSB - I tutor a girl who is doing her GCSEs so I bought a book that is designed to help with basic grammar and language difficulties. I couldn't believe it when I saw being/been highlighted as being confused! I can sort of understand to/too/two as they all sound the same but been and being are said differently!

Can I just have a little rant about capital letters?
Why have so many places/people decided that they aren't necessary? I mean where is the 2012 Olympics being held? Iondon? Never heard of it! I know that there are people on MN who miss them out for expediency and, well, that is their choice, but in professionally designed and produced literature of any kind it is inexcusable, IMVHO.
Thank you. Rant over, for now

That should read 'confused with eachother'.
Sorry.

u r like £ing yr fist abt no caps who do u think u r rchbishop desmond 22 get real i c no caps in tigerschick so y u think u so gr8...

Rofl!

Is that better? I have to confess that took me quite a while to read!

aargh! foxy That sounded just like a girl who bought something off me on e-bay last month. Don't do it again, I'm getting flashbacks!

oops, meant roxy

Can I ask what is the difference between farther and further.

Many thanks .

That wasn't me back there. Or not the real me.It was the me that likes to frepple on the mobile and get down with the sisters at the WI... We do stuff. Then we chill. Then we do more stuff. It's exemplary. Yeah.

"i" before "e" except after "c".

Grrr!

Too cross to rant!

StrawberryMartini - I'm not sure about this one so I Googled and found this definition of further and this definition of farther

I think that the important points are in this paragraph:
"Usage Note: Since the Middle English period many writers have used farther and further interchangeably. According to a relatively recent rule, however, farther should be reserved for physical distance and further for nonphysical, metaphorical advancement. Thus 74 percent of the Usage Panel prefers farther in the sentence If you are planning to drive any farther than Ukiah, you'd better carry chains, and 64 percent prefers further in the sentence We won't be able to answer these questions until we are further along in our research. In many cases, however, the distinction is not easy to draw. If we speak of a statement that is far from the truth, for example, we should also allow the use of farther in a sentence such as Nothing could be farther from the truth. But Nothing could be further from the truth is so well established as to seem a fixed expression."

So, in conclusion, I don't think it matters!

Did someone mention double-negatives? Here's a whole collection from a sentence written in the 1930s:

"I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate."

In "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell analyses that sentence: "Professor Laski uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage."

That's the problem with piling up your double-negatives. You have to keep count otherwise you end up with the opposite meaning from the one you intended.

Urk! I should have said "opposite meaning to the one you intended".

I probably should know this , but when should I use 'learnt' and when should I use 'learned' etc?