ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

made it through afternoon with eyes intact but ugh
nothing to contribute to grammar debates tho

Ailsa, 'their' is a possessive adjective which (like any adjective) tells you something about the noun that it goes with. So "it's their house" tells you that the house belongs to them, in the same way that "it's a big house" tells you that the house is big, but you can't use those adjectives without the nouns (i.e. you can't say "it's their" or "it's a big"). 'Theirs' is a possessive prounoun, i.e. it's a noun which means 'the one which belongs to them', so it can be used on its own, but it would have to be clear from context what kind of thing you were talking about anyway. It sounds more natural to use the possessive pronoun when you're answering a question so that you can avoid repeating the noun that was in the question.

i.e.
"Whose house is it?" -- "It's theirs/mine/his/hers/ours/yours"
(sounds more natural than "It's their house/my house/his house/her house/our house/your house")

Which one is correct?

“Clearly, the smart thing would be to give him a portfolio of his own rather than let him play hopscotch.”

“Clearly, the smart thing would be to give him a portfolio of his own rather than letting him play hopscotch.”

letting

The first one might momentarily look right, because the mind will make parallels between "give him" and "let him." But it's not "give him," it's "to give him." They should both be nouns: "to give" uses the infinitive, "letting" uses a gerund.

Ah, thanks, that’s exactly what I suspected. I got it from a reputable writer, which is why I was confused.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/20/AR2007122001864.html

Nabisco would appear to be correct in that the two items offered as "the smart thing" would also need to be things, aka nouns, from which it would follow that the gerund forms "giving" and "letting" are the proper constructions.

The original could also be read as "the smart thing to do", where the infinitive "to do" is implied, and this implication is made more explicit by subsequently using the infinitives "to give" and "to let".

In short, the only indefensible construction would be to mix the infinitive "to give" with the gerund "letting", or vice versa.

I'm not sure I follow why the mixing is indefensible, grammatically -- unless you just mean stylistically?

Stylistically. The correct meaning can be derived from any of the mix-and-match possibilites without any genuine ambiguity being dragged in.

how come 'the media' has become a singular noun?

It's a funny old game, son.

meanwhile...miami herald not outsourcing copyediting to india. yet.

from my friend kenneth

god agh wtf i've come to the end of tolerating use of the word 'grow' as 'we will grow our business' etc business talk i hate you and can do nothing

i do not want to grow this bad mood

how can i grow bottle of beer into my hand is what i want to know

not permanently

^^^^^^^^^^^those four posts^^^^^^^^^^^

I used to have this great full-page mutual fund ad on my fridge with an old man saying something like, "Finally a mutual fund that focuses on what it's supposed to do - GROW MY MONEY"

"value proposition" is also a good one
what does this even mean

ok i know what it means

but fuck it

I have a bad feeling that "grow" is going to end up like "access" until no one knows the difference anymore and people say things like "YOU ARE STANDNG IN THE WAY OF LANGUAGE, MAAAN, GET OUT THE WAY OF CHANGE YOU OLD BORING FOGEY" and I slink away and cry by self in a corner.

Right before I access that new spreadsheet.

How to play Edward Forty-Hands:

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2000853/40hands_Full.jpg

well i do have a pair of lovers rock socks
so i guess i'm qualified to just electrical tape 375ml bottles to my hands

wow i was kind of not in a good mood earlier
i just ate some cookies
but i still don't think that MBAs should be allowed to change the language i mean srsly it's like the most unimaginative people in the world trying to force their language on us when i don't know i'll take language change via 14-yr-olds talkikng on the internet anyday over that

the new guy at the office, who is younger than me and has an MBA and w/o a doubt makes at least double what i make, freely admitted in conversation a couple weeks ago that he didn't really have a 'real' masters degree and i did. i laughed. on so many levels.
honestly though, and i mean it, i don't feel any bitterness! the world is so weird and effed up but dwelling on that stuff doesn't exactly help me. also i would die if i had to do his job all day ugh. xpost to rich people thread.

of course i will be back soon enough to grammar grumble again

I have a question about a crossword I'm working on, so those of you who do my crosswords may want to avert your eyes:

How would you define the phrase "wallow away"? I'm becoming paranoid that it's not a legitimate expression but rather a needless variant of "wallow."

But it sort of suggests wallowing over time, as in this sentence: "Phils take high school pitcher Blake Beavan, because even though there's better college prospects out there that could be up in maybe 2 years, they'd rather have him wallow away in the minors for 5 years and completely screw the kid up."

The technical correct way to use that in the sentence is to do away with the word "away".

And according to my dictionary, the two definitions of the word is to roll around in mud or "take luxurious pleasure", none of which seems to go along with what the sports quote is trying to say.

By definition, "to wallow" sounds like fun. Making a kid play in the minors to "screw the kid up" doesn't really fit "luxurious pleasure".

The technical correct way to use that in the sentence is to do away with the word "away".

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of.

I'm wondering if people who use "wallow away" mean either "while away" or "wither away."

OK, "winnow away" works, right? I have no perspective on this anymore. Everything looks weird.

I think "willow away" is more elegant.

Are you serious? That's not an actual expression, is it?

wank away

I don't know that I've ever noticed "wallow away," except in the sense of, I dunno ... "you want to wallow? Fine, wallow away, but don't call me when etc. etc."

Away often gets used to mean something like "to your heart's content," or "as best you're able."

"Hey, you feel like doodling in class? Doodle away! What do I care?"

Maybe trace it back to "fire away."

Same thing Nabisco is saying, I guess. Anyway, I think that's how "wallow away" is being used up there. Doesn't suggest to me that it's a distinct phrase you could reference in a crossword puzzle. No more than "a blue car."

Winnow away is nice.

Not only is it nice, it means I don't have to redo half the puzzle, just a few small tweaks.

Across
1. "Fine, take luxurious pleasure to your heart's content"

I'm having one of those moments when nothing sounds right and I seem to have lost my native tongue.

Is it correct to say "then the mandrel is slid into the tube" or "is slided"? The product is then shrunk in a furnace or "shrunken"? I don't have much freedom to completely reword it because I'm supposed to be using the same terminology as a previous translator.

Help!

In fact, they’re very close friends who regularly pop round each other’s houses for cups of tea.

OR

in fact, they’re very close friends who regularly pop round each others' houses for cups of tea.

my brane hurts.

a) the houses of each other

that's what i thought - there's no such thing as "each others", i reasoned, so there's also no such thing as "each others'".

right.

"In fact, they’re very close friends who regularly pop round the houses of each other for cups of tea."

does this really look right to you?? for starters it's awkward but the big problem is that it implies the friends each have a number of houses. "each" is singular and "each other" IS a thing, so:

"In fact, they’re very close friends who regularly pop round each other’s houses for cups of tea."

it's a bit idiomatic but that looks right to me. anybody want to say i'm wrong?

(that's supposed to be a strike-thru on the "s", i.e. "each other's house" )

I was perhaps overly brief... I wasn't suggesting "the houses of each other" as a readable construction, just an easy way of indicating where the apos should go.

As for singular house... it's idiomatic either way so perhaps it's just personal preference. Trying it with some other objects - "they drank each other's milkshake" vs "they drank each other's milkshakes" - ah they both seem fine to me!

I see what you mean about more than one house each though.

Help!

Our house style is to italicise any foreign words and define them in brackets afterwords. Our standard gloss for salafi is "a puritanical strain of Sunni Islam", but in a sentence like this:

Previous militant attacks in Morocco have been blamed on Sunni salafi groups.

I can't just stick a big noun phrase in brackets after an adjective. Any ideas?

(I think fundamentalist might be better than puritanical as well, but I suppose it has connotations that we don't always want to convey.)

Are Salafis not an ethnic group in this context, and thus also capitalised?

Previous militant attacks in Morocco have been blamed on Salafi groups, who follow a puritanical strain of Sunni Islam.

?