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Pedants' corner

I do wish Facebook would stop talking about 'mutual friends' when...

14 replies

SethStarkaddersMum · 21/04/2010 08:50

...they just mean someone who is a friend of a friend!
So-and-so Whatsisface is not a mutual friend, I have never heard of him in my entire life!
Stop it Facebook! Just stop it!

OP posts:
horsemadgal · 24/04/2010 10:27

I thought you both had to be friends with that person before they showed in the mutual friends list?

SethStarkaddersMum · 24/04/2010 11:10

It's in the 'suggestions' box on the right.

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fortyplus · 24/04/2010 11:13

I'm a pedant but I think you've got it wrong! It states '1 mutual friend' if you and the suggested person have errr... a mutual friend!

Hassled · 24/04/2010 11:15

All sorts of bizarre people I've never heard of pop up in my suggestions. But I think technically (pedantically?) "mutual" is correct:
Nick is friends with Gordon.
Gordon is friends with Dave.
So Gordon is a mutual friend of both Nick and Dave, no? Even though Nick and Dave hate each other? Does that work?

SethStarkaddersMum · 24/04/2010 11:32

hmm, you may be right

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fortyplus · 24/04/2010 11:33

Hassled - exactly!

The worrying thing is that people I can't stand are sending me friend requests - presumably because I've popped up as a 'suggestion'.

Now I don't know about you but most of my fb friends are real friends and family.

One woman has sent me a friend request four times... she obviously thinks I'm making a mistake by deliberately clicking 'ignore'!

SethStarkaddersMum · 24/04/2010 11:40
Blush
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bruxeur · 24/04/2010 11:50

Its literally vital that you insure that your exactly right before you post on hear.

SethStarkaddersMum · 24/04/2010 11:53

I don't dare respond Bruxeur. I have lost all faith in myself as a pedant . For all I know your post may be impeccable.

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liamsdaddy · 24/04/2010 12:09

if someone keeps trying to add you as a friend and won't take the hint when you ignore, I believe you can permanently block (or you could last time i had to which was a while back) and abuse report them.

TrillianAstra · 24/04/2010 12:13

The suggestion doesn't say this person is a mutual friend, it says you and this person have a mutual friend.

I get absolute randoms adding me sometimes, guys from brazil with whom I have no mutual friends. I have no idea what they think they will achieve. They can't even see much about me: just a tiny thumbnail picture adn my name.

fortyplus · 25/04/2010 17:48

liamsdaddy - thanks... I did know that but didn't want to be rude to the woman - I just don't want her as a friend!

She had daughters 2 or 3 years younger than my boys at primary school and would do things like ask me what I was up to at half term and could she tag along... errrr... sorry but no!

One day recently she stopped and offered me a lift and to be polite I said yes thanks (I'd left my car at home on purpose so silly of me really). I got in her car and she asked me could I hold her cup of tea... she was driving holding a china mug of tea... bizarre!

lolaclare · 06/08/2010 09:27

Interesting to note that the phrase 'mutual friend' was originally considered very incorrect. And still is technically incorrect but people use it so much it doesn't seem to matter and it has taken on the meaning that people mistakenly thought it had, if that makes sense...

I studied Dickens' book 'Our Mutual Friend' at University and the title is a bit of a joke at a character in the book who uses that phrase which was considered at the time to be incorrect and a sign of someone trying to sound clever but showing their ignorance.

The phrase should of course be our common friend.

Here's Fowler on this phrase:
"Every one knows by now that our mutual friend is a solecism. Mutual implies an action or relation between two or more persons or things, A doing or standing to B as B does or stands to A. Let A and B be the persons indicated by our, C the friend. No such reciprocal relation is here implied between A and B (who for all we know may be enemies), but only a separate, though similar relation between each of them and C. There is no such thing as a mutual friend in the singular; but the phrase mutual friends may without nonsense be used to describe either A and C, B and C, or, if A and B happen to be also friends, A and B and C. Our mutual friend is nonsense; mutual friends, though not nonsense, is bad English, because it is tautological. It takes two to make a friendship, as to make a quarrel; and therefore all friends are mutual friends, and friends alone means as much as mutual friends. Mutual wellwishers on the other hand is good English as well as good sense, because it is possible for me to be a man's wellwisher though he hates me. Mutual love, understanding, insurance, benefits, dislike, mutual benefactors, backbiters, abettors, may all be correct, though they are also sometimes used incorrectly, like our mutual friend, where the right word would be common."

Sorry for being extra pedantic. I suspect that boycotting using this phrase is pointless.

Lynli · 06/08/2010 09:33

Bruxeur Ensure

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