ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

"men and women" does the job

itt grammarian intersex discrimination

Employees of T*******r seem to have their mental faculties fully intact, yet the company etc.

Is there a San Francisco equivalent of 'Londoner' or 'Glaswegian'?

Like San Francisco-ite or something?

As in, "The project of Wooden Shjips guitarist/vocalist Erik “Ripley” Johnson and fellow San Francisco resident Sanae Yamada, Moon Duo..."

Just wondering...

san fransciscan?

I'd say "San Franciscan" and Wikipedia also says "Demonym: San Franciscan", thus teaching me a new word (which it concedes is not in any dictionaries)

but as a pasty Britisher I'd defer to a real American on this, just thought I'd reply while we're still at a PDT-unfriendly time of day

(xp)

Thanks very much.

I also like 'demonym', that's a new word for me too, and was the word I was wanting when trying to phrase the original question more elegantly.

I think you're good to go:

"san franciscan" site:sfgate.com*
About 11,000 results (0.25 seconds)

*Website of the San Francisco Chronicle

Dark and Stormy (the drink) – is the plural:
Dark & Stormies
or
Dark & Stormys
?

Abbott! Have you been surreptitiously reading the Chicago thread?

I just pluralized this drink in a post YESTERDAY. I went with Dark and Stormies. BUT I did briefly hesitate about it, not just the pluralization but whether cocktails should even be capitalized.

I have been so thrown on uncommon pluralization after I heard people on "Coast to Coast AM" call a number of Bigfoot organisms "Bigfoots," not "Bigfeet."

haha i'd probably lean toward the former myself - surely "bigfoot" is an individual lil dude, not a species?

"In Canada, for every Rush, there are at least three Gordon Lightfeet."

Someone please spot-check my numerical logic here, because something is making me feel crazy. I'm going to change the content, but I'm looking at a stat being used in the following way:

43% of teenage boys are more likely than the average person to drink Teenage Boy Soda!

This strikes me as a terrible statistic -- doesn't it actually mean that a majority (57%) of teenage boys are LESS (or just equally) likely than the average person to enjoy the soda? That fewer than half of them are on the above-average side of the distribution? And yet the stat is presented with such confidence and glee that it's making me question myself: am I missing some trick of medians or deviations that somehow makes this stat a good thing?

pretty sure that's just a terrible statistic. sounds like it's derived from some sort of iffy "how likely are you to do x in the next week" survey results.

Always sad to see the NY Times screw it up:

"Growing up in rural Montana, Jere was drawn to the paintings in seed catalogs the way other kids poured over Mad magazine."

It may not have been evident from the context, but the other kids were pouring imitation maple syrup over those Mad magazines.

"nearly one in five americans believe" or "nearly one in five americans believes"

The former.

"nearly one in five americans believe" = 16,800 google hits
"nearly one in five americans believes" = googlewhack

"the same number of people have had a ghostly experience" or "the same number of people has had a ghostly experience"

Although singular is more logical, it looks odd, therefore I would go with plural.

both are acceptable go with the more widely used one

Is it true to say that an indeterminate number is always plural, even if there's a strong implication that the number is one?

happy enough with that, yeah, though context would help

i use this trick all the time when talking about previous lovers for instance

redknapp apparently willing to listen to offers for

wilson palacios.

now, he's not had a great few months but that's absolute madness.

can someone give me a percentages refresher? if someone says "we're 50% more popular now than we were last year" then that means that if, say, 8 people voted for them last year, 12 did this year? because 4 is 50% of 8 and then you add it to the total? so they're 50% MORE popular than they were last year but equally you could say their popularity is 150% of what it was last year? now that i'm saying it everything makes sense but i swear this stuff confuses the hell out of me sometimes

that all makes sense, unlike me posting spurs transfer rumours

your first reading is right I think ? 150% to me would mean 20 ppl voted

20 is 150% of 13.3

i think both tracer's readings are the same?

yep

50% more = 150% of

oh i remember now the confusing thing: when someone says "there's been a 50% increase in our support since last year". that means they had 8 last year and 12 this year. ok cool. but when someone says "there's been a 50% increase in our support for the last five years".... well that just doesn't mean anything, does it? it could mean 5 years ago they had 8 and now they have 12, or it could mean that each year there's been a 50% increase over the year before...

would mean taking the five years ago figure as the starting point i'd say

so yeah 5 years ago 8, now 12

oh i remember now the confusing thing: when someone says "there's been a 50% increase in our support since last year". that means they had 8 last year and 12 this year. ok cool. but when someone says "there's been a 50% increase in our support for the last five years".... well that just doesn't mean anything, does it? it could mean 5 years ago they had 8 and now they have 12, or it could mean that each year there's been a 50% increase over the year before...

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, August 19, 2010 8:10 AM Bookmark Suggest

With the latter I would assume 50% total, not 50% per year, because it would be weird to talk about support in average increase per year.

your first reading is right I think ? 150% to me would mean 20 ppl voted

― ? (dyao), Thursday, August 19, 2010 7:05 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

oh doh I thought he was asking about what the difference between "50% more" and "150% more was" not "150% of"

fukken preps

it would be weird to talk about support in average increase per year.

would it though? in finance you get this kind of talk, like in a company's annual reports - "50% year on year growth" always confuses fukkk out of me

year on year is the compound growth, which is different, tbf

what's our growth going forward wrt marginal incomes on that though?

"Mel Gibson directed the movies The Man Without a Face and Braveheart, in both of which he starred."

^^sounds hella awkward, but is it wrong?

Haha maybe not in a technical sense but jeez.

"Mel Gibson directed the movies The Man Without a Face and Braveheart and starred in both."

"Mel Gibson directed and starred in The Man Without a Face and Braveheart."

Oh yeah, for sure those work better. The actual example I was dealing with, though -- not about Mel Gibson! -- was syntactically a little more complex. I ended up turning it into two sentences.

Cutting awkward sentences in two is my most valuable contribution to any editorial project in which I participate.

Q:

"Plaintiffs hereby request that defendant PRODUCE the following documents..." or "Plaintiffs hereby request that defendant PRODUCES the following documents..."

I think the former is correct but want to make sure.

Yeah - subjunctive, right?

"high quality standards" -- no hyphen, because you can speak of "high standards" OR "quality standards"? As opposed to a "high-quality car."