ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

You'd agree that the cliffs of Dover might be more level than the cliffs of Moher?

in this case - and i want to put the grammatical element to one side - let us imagine two football pitches. Pitch A has an incline running west to east of 2 degrees. Pitch B has an incline running east to west of 9 degrees. Pitch A is clearly "more level" than Pitch B, even tho neither of them are absolutely level.

Pitch A is also "more level" in the advantage it offers to the team playing from the higher end, altho most team sports try to minimize that advantage by changing ends at some point.

imagine two carpenters' apprentices having their work judged by their master

'closer to level' > 'more level'

And home team might water according to preferred style of play obv

Ok i think thats that cleared up now

This merry bandiment around what is better than 'more level' seems to me to be ignoring that 'more level' appears as part of a whole that simply is not to be fucked with in the ways suggested

mookie i can see how that construction might be logically preferable, sort of, but it's clumsier-sounding than "more level" imo

Pitch A definitely closer to being level than Pitch B, that's for sure.

xp before mookie's

"...levels the playing field somewhat"

I don't know if this is exactly the right thread, but I am confused by the use of "vintage" to seemingly mean "classic" (as in "this US Open performance has been vintage Nadal" or "this essay is vintage Didion") Is this a slangy usage that became mainstream or does the word "vintage" have a shade of meaning I'm missing? I know the word originally comes from wine ("vin" as in "vinyard"), so the "vintage" was the harvest, which in turn came to mean the year. Then I guess from this it somehow got bastardized to just mean "old."

get a dictionary homie

I don't know where else to put this:

http://www.elezea.com/2014/02/lorem-ipsum-gone-wrong/

here here herey herey herey

♥

blah blah blah blah blah blahb
albvh alvhbahv albvha blah,
says Lungani Zama

i would have lay
vs
i would have lain

"to lie" being the infinitive

THIRD CONDITIONAL LAIN

lain

lain--lay is a transitive verb

c1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 286 Þei han so longe leyen in so gret cursinge.

Apparently "have lay" is attested up to the 17th century or so.

yes, third conditional, thanks

Larger Q is why you would use a verb w/so many frikken rules

look

i understand that this isnt going to stop now.

but 'speak to' is horrific. it's fucking horrific.

prepositions often get warped when describing abstract relationships. nature of the beast.

A Utah language-school employee was reported to have been fired for blogging about homophones.

is there a recognized supplement to the apa manual on questions of style? i am way more used to chicago and i keep finding that every time i have a question i can expect chicago to answer, the apa manual is a useless piece of garbage

what's a good word for "approachability" -- i.e. referring to someone who is accomplished but not intimidating

In what sort of a sentence would this good word be employed?

Would modest or humble work in the context?

i went with "affable". "modest" seemed insufficiently...reverent for someone so accomplished

approachable

You can be affable without being accomplished

I can at least! Haha.

you may be asking one word to do too much work

You can be affable without being accomplished

― groundless round (La Lechera), Thursday, February 26, 2015 4:30 PM (9 minutes ago)

no i know, the word wasn't supposed to cover both

new verb in a medical research context: "trialing"

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus

this is new?

hadn't seen it

that is terrible

the relentless drive to save syllables will eventually lead to American English becoming a tonal language of monosyllables, hums and clicks

do any grammatical authorities still condemn the singular they?

Chicago says it's still unacceptable in formal writing.

if Chicago said you should jump off a cliff

Tangential question: could anything written expressly for the internet be considered formal writing?

Absolutely!

I mean, journalists need to follow the same rules as their print counterparts. I would assume that any online professors out there would also tote the academic line of their on-campus colleagues.

presumably they would toe the line

OK vs o.k. vs O.K. vs ok

i say the first one