ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

I remember asking somewhere else about the expression fair dos/fair does/fair do's and being told the former and latter were both acceptable as a pluralisation of do. Don't like it much though.

ooh can you do former/latter with a triple option? is the 2nd a... middler?

Probably not, heh, I am keeping this thread on its toes and reminding you all that I am just an amateur pedant so my advice is not to be taken seriously.

google tells me it shouldn't be used formally, but is used conversationally as it still conveys what is meant fairly clearly.

Re the plural of BBS:

An article just landed on my desk that uses the abbreviation SNS (social networking site) and its plural SNSs. I'm going to query it.

Do's appears in many dictionaries as an independent word, because dos and don'ts may look suspiciously like Spanglish for "two and don'ts."

Thus: do's and don'ts

(You can trust me, because I got totally burned on trying to "correct" that a couple years back.)

sort of a follow-up on my question about outsourcing copyediting.

I thought it was "do's and don't's"? Looks kind of retarded, sure.

it would never, ever, ever be "do's and don't's". ever. in any possible universe.

I thought whatsherface from the shoots and leaves book had said it was? But my copy is at home. Anyway, I was checking b/c we publish a book by that title and it gets done all different ways in the systems.

I thought whatsherface from the shoots and leaves book had said it was?

if she did (and i doubt it), she's an even bigger cock-end than i think she is.

I think the apostrophe in do's is a special case, for clarity/disambiguation -- there is no reason to do the same for don'ts, which perfectly clear in its natural no-apostrophe plural.

it would never, ever, ever be "do's and don't's". ever. in any possible universe.

What about that universe of yours where 2+2 != 4?

hah, i was discussing that with F on saturday, believe it or not.

but no, not even in that one.

Dunkin Don't's

DOS is definitely a don't these days. C:/suck

dos and windon'ts ... no, that doesn't work. forget i said it.

How about does and doesn'ts?

and dozy dotes and little lamsy divey

Do-si-dos.

eyes to the right noses to the left

what do you like better:

on-site
or
onsite

like, onsite repair vs on-site repair

both are "correct"

On-site.

Yeah, I would hyphenate that, too. It's not quite at the level of "online."

yeah that was my reasoning too - also it has more impact i find
cool
thanks guys

The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger. Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.

http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html

has the word "waiter" lost its gender? y'know, like "actor" supposedly has now come to encompass the male and the female.

i'm writing in the singular so can't use the term "waiting staff" and would rather not write "waiter/waitress".

chars

no it still has a gender

waitron

server

order-jockey

not Daylight SavingS Time

who in the NAME OF SORRY FUCK would say "daylight savings time"?

Oh fuck you, Grimly. Only everyone in the US, that's who.

It's still early enough here for ME to be cranky, what's YOUR excuse?

He's a knob.

I rationalise this phenomenon on the basis that I can imagine Ned Flanders saying: "Okie-diddley-okie, it's time for some of them daylight savings!"

Do the British even say Daylight Saving Time, with or without the 's'? It's British Summer Time isn't it?

Yeah, though it seems to be creeping in, especially when we talk about the practice in a non-parochial, abstract context.

Also, computer OSes have popularised the phrase.

It's a bit of a confusing name, to be honest. Because the clock-shifting thing is sold to us on the clocks-going-back, October end of things, it being deemed important for farmers and schoolchildren to have more daylight in the morning. But that's when we come off daylight saving time (aka BST). So the daylight we want to save comes in the GMT section of the year.

Laurel OTM. In New York we still "stand on line," too, and everyone else can fuck off.

If "actor" has become gender-neutral (except for awards season), why can't waiter?

xpost Farmers - ha, reminds me of this Straight Dope gem:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_052.html

If "actor" has become gender-neutral (except for awards season), why can't waiter?

It can, it just hasn't.

He's a knob

no, a twat. get it right!

Also, computer OSes have popularised the phrase

YES, WITHOUT THE EXTRA S!

It's still early enough here for ME to be cranky, what's YOUR excuse?

an entire nation's grammatical idiocy, if what you say is right ... and i really, really don't want to believe you are, but i fear the worst :(

a cursory google reveals the odd occurrence of this particular craziness, but ... really, WTF? there's no logic there at all.

wow.

(fucking hell: to think that for all this time i've argued that the UK should adopt american english, too. this could change everything in a heartbeat :)

In New York we still "stand on line," too

that could almost -- almost -- have a grain of logic behind it. just about. i mean, you could sorta imagine a line.

but daylight savings time? jesus wept, america.

xxp Sure there is. You have savingS banks, money put away every month is called your savingS, and Daylight SavingS Time is a standard that allows you to accrue a bit more savings every day.

YOU WHAT?

10/10 for trying, though :)

if what you say is right

Hi, have we met?

heheheheh :)

I like "savings" time. It's nice for words to be just an edge away from their literal workmanlike meanings.

Alba: I always thought it was because you got extra hours of sunlight in the summer evening, when it matters. fuk one farmer.

dude. don't you fucking start. mind: from a sub who admits he takes a descriptive approach to grammar, i guess i should expect no better. pah.