Pedants' Therapy Centre

[MrsThierryHenry]

It has been drawn to my attention that some of the MN pedants are afflicted with what may be diagnosed as a mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when encountering loathed grammatical errors, abominable cliches and other linguistic misdemeanours.

In an effort to rehabilitate said sufferers I would like to announce the opening of the world's first Pedants' Therapy Centre.

Pedants are encouraged to open up about the emotional challenges they experience when exposed to linguistic anomalies, whilst other contributors may offer support and advice on how said pedants may relieve the anxiety and bring themselves to a place of psychological wholeness.

The Centre is now...open. First pedant?

Brangie and Spongebob - ±±!!!**??gnnnnnnaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!

Spend the next three days having three squares of the finest (oh, but the finest) Montezuma's choccy, my dears. That is, three squares per day.

Blardy blardy cursing cursing crap grammar

This therapy lark is taking it out of me. I need some chocolate .

Who's next?!

Oh, and JRocks, my brain is hurting too. Owing to the frequency of your exposure to said linguistic horrors, I prescribe 2 squares of G&B's every time you pass the salon. There, that should put your mental health to rights.

Mrs TH - it grieves me to do this, and I probably shouldn't, but given that this is Pedants' corner and you are the pedant therapist, I think this is probably a case of "therapist, heal thyself"

In this quote from page 1: "Not only will it distract, soothe the tongue and ease your anxiety, but the (I love this word) flavonoids will also assist with combatting those wretched antioxidants that we all know and dread, if glossy magazines are to be believed."
I believe you have made definitely 1 error, and possibly 2 -

1. flavonoids ARE antioxidants, antioxidants are GOOD things and fight bad things like free radicals
2. surely 'combating' only has 1 't'? like targeting - having said that, I have found this lovely discussion of exactly this point so either could be right.

Please accept my apologies in advance for my presumption. I have just re-read the thread as I find it so entertaining!

G&B therapy helping, thanks MrsTH

There is a car parked near my house that has a sign in its window:

"OPEN GARDEN'S JULY 20TH"

What is worse is that I know that this car belongs to dd2's nursery school teacher.

I know that nursery aren't teaching her to spell, but...

Thumbwitch, please don't feel anguish over pointing out my shortcomings - it just goes to show that even with my twelve Master's Degrees in Diptholinguistic Chocology and my four Ph.Ds (apostrophe or no?) in Monothonganalytical Brain Cocoahypnosis, I am still a flawed human being.

So to address your well-made points:

1. Yes, you're absolutely right. I shan't confuse them again.
2. Hmm...I am clapping both my left and right brains together in sync with the Flight of the Bumblebee in order to try and squeeze out an old relic of a rule of English grammar from my long-gone teaching days. There's something about doubling consonants after one vowel + one consonant...does that ring a bell with anyone? I think it's the same rule that turns 'grin' into 'grinned' and 'big' into 'bigger' (though 'big' is not a verb). So (can you see me fumbling my way through this one?!) 'combat' should follow the same rule, as it ends with 1 vowel + 1 consonant. I think. Weirdly, both spellings look okay to me.

I need some chocolate.

Made some FAB choc ice-cream the other day, using bars of 85% cocoa. Yum.

JRocks - awww, thanks! It's all those self-important degrees that help me pinpoint exactly what my patients need.

Squonk. Have you already worked out your anger by hurling bricks at the car windows and scratching 'Please justify your use of the apostrophe in this context!' on the paintwork? It would be perfectly reasonable if you had. However it would also mean that you'd qualify for only one square of chocolate today, since your car vandalism does, in this case, count as a valid therapeutic prescription.

If, on the other hand, you held back from trashing said vehicle, I'd prescribe you three squares of the very best. Well done for bringing it to my attention.

Next?

Just in case it didn't sound paternalistic enough; 'big is not a verb'(!)

(Just laughing at myself in the background, don't mind me...)

I have a major issue. People on MN constantly spell 'counselling' incorrectly. Counsilling, counselling, councilling, councelling etc. It drives me insane. The problem is, that it often feels insensitive to jump in and say " learn to spell" when people are spilling out their hearts ! HELP ME PLEASE !!

MTH - it isn't the pedants that need the therapy..it's the indisciplined rabble that needs some very basic social skills assistances. IMVHAPO!!!

I need to bring my special guest too

full stop above ^

What pisses me off is the way some people think correct spelling, punctuation, etc. are somehow elitist and snobbish, when they are actually democratising and a tool to good communication.

Yes, I do agree with UnquietDad. The other day I couldn't understand an OP because there was no punctuation and the grammar was sloppy, so I said, "Please rewrite", and was absolutely slated by many other posters for being "rude" about spelling, grammar and punctuation.

I, on the other hand, think it's rude to write so badly that one cannot be understood.

What's a pedant to do, eh?

Santa - the pedant's road can be a lonely one. That's why pedants' corner is so wonderful.

For me, receiving badly worded and grammatically incorrect letters from school (an "Outstanding" secondary school) is probably what depresses me most. I don't really expect greengrocers to have perfect grammar; I do expect teachers to be able to work out when an apostrophe is required.

My DS2 went on a school trip to Germany and was given a little card to keep in his pocket. It said a few words in German, something like "Ich bit mit ein Enlishen schule" - the point being that they had spelt it "Enlishen".

How the Germans would laugh...

Laidback - yes, I know what you mean. You altruist. By holding back from correcting such linguistic shockers you've clearly absorbed a great deal of stress, which needs an outlet. I prescribe three squares of the finest of finest, twice an hour for the first day and then two squares for the second and third days. Wash them down with a glass or two of brandy and you'll be well on your way to steadying your mind.

Pan - I think you may well be right there. Have a whole bar on me. Go on. You deserve it.

UD - as ever you've hit the nail on the head. We pedants are not above mocking ourselves but at the end of the day the rules of English developed for very good reason. Of course, rules are often broken creatively and very entertainingly, but usually you have to know what the rule is before your rule-breaking can be entertaining! It's like intonation - crucial in spoken English. If someone described you as a 'peDANT' you wouldn't understand it as well as if they got the stress right.

For cutting through the crap and making a profound point I think you deserve a whole bar of G&B's plus a bottle of Bolly. No, really. No, don't, you're embarassing me now. Just take it.

Everyone - a round of applause for Unquiet, please?

Marge - welcome! Even my poor German is good enough to have correct that sentence! Es ist schrecklich! One square a day for the next seven days.

Mrs TH.
You are a woman of substance.

Awww, shucks. I'm blushing.

Next!

MrsTH - plesae would you share the recipe for your fab choc ice cream? Puhleeese? So far I have found nothing, and I mean nothing, that comes even close to G&B chocolate icecream but DH is getting a bit arsey about how much I buy (something about muffin-tops, lack of exercise, not made of money, that kind of thing! )

Laidback - I completely agree with your feelings about counselling and the many permutations of the spelling on these threads - tragic. Those poor people - they need help. No, really. They do. But not chocolate - oh no, they need a good dictionary.

And SantaB - I think you were being very kind really - you clearly wanted to help, which is why you made the effort to understand the OP, and having failed, wanted it clarified so you could help - I am not that patient and would have just moved on

P.S. Before anyone else mentions it, I know that I have one major punctuational failing - I use dashes far too often and frequently incorrectly. A bad habit I picked up when writing my diary for many years and one I have failed to correct.

sorry, meant 'please' of course - dyslexic fingers.

thumbwitch - my last copy-editor took me to task over use of en-dashes and em-dashes. All is not lost. You can still be a pedant.

I was called the most fabulous of words ["Pedantic", of course!] by the orchestra conductor tonight.
Am I a Musical Pedant

Thumbs - I'm just off to bed but will paste an adapted recipe for cherry ice cream (from an earlier thread - apols if I forget to remove all cherry references!):

Here's the basic recipe (for proper, deep, dark, seriously creamy chocolate ice cream):

250g strong plain chocolate
100g unsalted butter
500ml db cream
250ml whole milk
4 egg yolks
125g caster sugar

You'll need a cake mixer. No need for a poncey ice-cream maker.

1. Break up the chocolate and place with the unsalted butter in a warm-ish oven for about 15 minutes. Remove and stir until melted and blended together.

2) Pour half the cream into a pan. Add all the milk. Cook it on high until it starts to bubble (if it forms a skin, don't worry - I usually just mix this in and you never notice). Turn the heat off. 3) Blend the eggs with the sugar. Pour the hot milk over the eggs, whisking all the time. Pour back into the pan and cook gently until it starts to thicken. Turn the heat off, leave it to thicken while you get on with the next steps. 4) Lightly whisk the remaining cream until it's just firm. 5) Fold in the whisked cream. 6) Mix the chocolate into the warm custard. Taste it - it should be a bit too sweet as the freezing process mollifies the sweetness. 7) Now for the bit that makes you say: 'Why spend oodles of money on an ice-cream maker?' 8) Pour the lot into a tupperware pot. Freeze for 1.5 hrs. Take it out, whisk it gently (making sure all the frozen ice cream around the edges gets mixed in). Put it back in the freezer. 9) Wait an hour. Take it out and repeat the whisking exercise above. 10) Wait about 3 more hours. Take it out. Eat, eat and eat some more! It will be FABULOUS!! 11) Send me some in the post

I like to finely grate the zest of half an orange into it for a subtley orangey flavour, and also you can make butterscotch and pour it around after the second 'frozen mixing' - it will sink into the cream and form lovely, crunchy ripples.

Can I just credit the yummy Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall here, as it's really his recipe?

Can I also add that despite my apparent obsession with chocolate I am at last almost as svelte as I was pre-preg?!

MrsTH, this is where all True Pedants comb the recipe for spelling and grammatical errors
before looking around to ensure that nobody can see and hurrying to make the delicious sounding ice cream
true?? c'mon, admit.

Hahahahaha! You are true to your name, gigglychops! I also wrote that posting more carefully than usual, but I bet I've still messed up somewhere!

Nighty night xx

Can't find any I haven't looked

nighty night all.

ooh, thanks MrsTH, I'll be giving that one a go in the next few days, I'm sure! I'm drooling now just thinking about it... [where's the drooling emoticon?]

I keep thinking we need a few more smileys/ emoticons to play with on Mumsnet, although not entirely sure how they should all be portrayed!

Thanks UnquietDad!