i use this trick all the time when talking about previous lovers for instance
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 10:59 (thirteen years ago) link
redknapp apparently willing to listen to offers for
wilson palacios.
now, he's not had a great few months but that's absolute madness.
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:01 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:02 (thirteen years ago) link
that all makes sense, unlike me posting spurs transfer rumours
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:03 (thirteen years ago) link
your first reading is right I think ? 150% to me would mean 20 ppl voted
― ? (dyao), Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:05 (thirteen years ago) link
20 is 150% of 13.3
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:08 (thirteen years ago) link
i think both tracer's readings are the same?
yep
― just sayin, Thursday, 19 August 2010 11:14 (thirteen years ago) link
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...
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:10 (thirteen years ago) link
would mean taking the five years ago figure as the starting point i'd say
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:11 (thirteen years ago) link
so yeah 5 years ago 8, now 12
― 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.
― Theodore "Thee Diddy" Roosevelt (Hurting 2), Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:14 (thirteen years ago) link
― ? (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
― ? (dyao), Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:15 (thirteen years ago) link
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
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 19 August 2010 12:45 (thirteen years ago) link
year on year is the compound growth, which is different, tbf
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 13:15 (thirteen years ago) link
what's our growth going forward wrt marginal incomes on that though?
― k¸ (darraghmac), Thursday, 19 August 2010 13:16 (thirteen years ago) link
"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?
― jaymc, Thursday, 19 August 2010 16:06 (thirteen years ago) link
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."
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 19 August 2010 16:10 (thirteen years ago) link
"Mel Gibson directed and starred in The Man Without a Face and Braveheart."
― quincie, Thursday, 19 August 2010 17:08 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― jaymc, Thursday, 19 August 2010 17:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Cutting awkward sentences in two is my most valuable contribution to any editorial project in which I participate.
― quincie, Thursday, 19 August 2010 17:42 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 20 August 2010 17:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah - subjunctive, right?
― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Friday, 20 August 2010 18:39 (thirteen years ago) link
"high quality standards" -- no hyphen, because you can speak of "high standards" OR "quality standards"? As opposed to a "high-quality car."
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:23 (thirteen years ago) link
I wd say: correct, no hyphen.
― Q: What's small, clumsy, and slow? A: A toddler. (Laurel), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
New question: Just overheard someone at work being informed that the phrase "run the gauntlet" needs to be corrected to "run the gantlet". Now, I would have expected confusion between "gauntlet" and "gamut", along the lines of "stanch" and "staunch". But I have ever in all my life heard "run the gantlet".
Have you?
― Q: What's small, clumsy, and slow? A: A toddler. (Laurel), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:29 (thirteen years ago) link
*never in all my life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_the_gauntlet
I have learned something new today. Thank you, this thread!
― ailsa, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:31 (thirteen years ago) link
I knew I'd read "gantlet."
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:32 (thirteen years ago) link
New = that gantlet is an acceptable alternative. I'm well aware of the phrase, but have always believed it to be gauntlet.
― ailsa, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, apparently the original mis-translation of Swedish "gantlopp" into "gauntlet" via mishearing was around 400 years ago, during the Thirty Years' War. I don't feel too bad about a mistake with four centuries of precedent.
― Q: What's small, clumsy, and slow? A: A toddler. (Laurel), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
I might start using "run the gantelope" from now on.
― ailsa, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh please do.
― Q: What's small, clumsy, and slow? A: A toddler. (Laurel), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Next time the phrase is called for, I promise I will.
― ailsa, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
"high quality standards" and "high-quality standards" mean different things to me. The former seems more likely to be the intended one.
― seandalai, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 22:38 (thirteen years ago) link
That's an excellent Wikipedia entry. I'm going to try to work "running the gantelope" into a conversation tomorrow.
― seandalai, Wednesday, 8 September 2010 22:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Me too
― Running the Gantelope (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 22:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Off the top of my head:
IIRC, running the gantlet is an ordeal, where the victim passes between two lines of their peers, who wallop him as he attempts to run through.
IIRC, throwing down the gauntlet is a challenge to a joust or similar duel, where the challenger removes his heavy, protective glove with long cuffs and hurls it at the feet of the one being challenged.
Running the gamut is to display a nearly-universal variety within some specific category, as in the fabled gamut of soup to nuts.
Running the gantelope is a rowdy, drunken, impromptu sporting event similar to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, except, of course,with gantelopes serving the place of the bulls.
― Aimless, Thursday, 9 September 2010 00:42 (thirteen years ago) link
ok, hyphens and modifiers again. "body-weight regulation" WITH a hyphen, right? compound modifier?
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:18 (thirteen years ago) link
hmm, i'd say no - unless the the thing being regulated is some hybridized metric of "body" and "weight"
put another way, body weight is a thing - you're regulating the weight of the body. right?
― max skim (k3vin k.), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:24 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah
every other editor here deletes and re-inserts
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:26 (thirteen years ago) link
xxp Yeah, that's what I would do. There's a school of thought that says to use a hyphen in a situation like that only when it's necessary to distinguish from a misreading, but my philosophy tends to be why try to predict what people will or won't misread. Ain't no harm in using it.
― jaymc, Friday, 10 September 2010 20:27 (thirteen years ago) link
the rule I read Wednesday says you don't need a hyphen if both adjeectives make sense alone. But in this case "body regulation" isn't really what's being done, "weight" has more...weight.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
See, to me, "body-weight regulation" makes it clear that [body weight] modifies [regulation].
I guess I see Kevin's point, that it could suggest regulating a balance of body and weight, but I'd have to see the context to know whether that would be a plausible misreading.
― jaymc, Friday, 10 September 2010 20:31 (thirteen years ago) link
the rule I read Wednesday says you don't need a hyphen if both adjeectives make sense alone
That's an interesting way of thinking about it; I'll have to remember that.
― jaymc, Friday, 10 September 2010 20:32 (thirteen years ago) link
regulation of body weight
BOOYAH
― max skim (k3vin k.), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
it could suggest regulating a balance of body and weight
See, this is where we'd use an EN-dash!
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link
that probably wd sound awkward though
xp
― max skim (k3vin k.), Friday, 10 September 2010 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link
Last night, I found a document by the printer from an editor here, demanding that the hyphen be omitted from the phrase "church sexual-abuse scandal." He argued that the hyphen totally changed the meaning of the phrase, though I stared at it for a minute and couldn't figure out how.
― jaymc, Friday, 10 September 2010 20:35 (thirteen years ago) link