ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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You can say "Island Lord said," though.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

That's important to remember.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.nuffentertainment.com/images/newreleases/PENCD2025.jpg

― jaymc, Friday, 9 March 2007 17:51 (seventeen years ago) link

i know it's water under the bridge now, but why not just, "my landlord has asked john and i..."? (assuming that people who were receiving it know who john is, which seems implied by any of the scenarios.) it's not incorrect to say "my landlord" even if there are multiple people in the apartment.

― tipsy mothra, Friday, 9 March 2007 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Information loss -- that one no longer specifies that it's John's landlord, too, making it the WMA to the rich informational overtones of the original vinyl.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Open Mike

― Beth Parker, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e391/marthasminions/chicer.jpg

From yesterday's NY Times magazine. Dumbfucks.

― Beth Parker, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Chic-er, dudes.

― Beth Parker, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I would bet anything the following conversation took place:

- "We should put an umlaut over the E, actually."
- "YOU'RE FIRED, THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING NEW YORKER."

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh my GOD, those New Yorker umlauts! Don't you hate them? They stop your forward reading-progress like a Nazi roadblock.

― Beth Parker, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha I think they should just use bad Salinger-style italics to do the same work, e.g.

... both companies pledged to cooperate in the cleanup of the polluted canal...

― nabisco, Monday, 12 March 2007 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

How do you use the word "parleying"? Someone's written "parleying their next move". I would've thought it was an intransitive verb. Should it be "parleying about their next move"? Or "on"? Something else?

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 10:54 (seventeen years ago) link

i wouldn't use it like that at all:

verb ( -leys, -leyed) [ intrans. ] hold a conference with the opposing side to discuss terms : they disagreed over whether to parley with the enemy.

do they mean ... i dunno, "considering"? :)

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 10:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, the "their" refers to a group of people who represent opposing sides. I think the word makes sense in the context; I just wondered if it should have a preposition, and which one, between it and "their next move".

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:10 (seventeen years ago) link

they might mean "parlay", but it still wouldn't be used like that

tr.v. par·layed, par·lay·ing, par·lays
1. To bet (an original wager and its winnings) on a subsequent event.
2. To maneuver (an asset) to great advantage: parlayed some small investments into a large fortune.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:12 (seventeen years ago) link

"parley before making their next move"?

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the original can work with a preposition. "Parleying on " gets 222 google hits; "parleying about" 289. Given the uselessness of google searches for settling this kind of thing, that's a pretty low statistical sample.

I'm gonna go with "about" and get finished and then think about more important things.

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:27 (seventeen years ago) link

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Have always thought that it just meant to talk to/with/about à la the french, parlez. So I think that you can use any of them, in context.

― peteR, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link

(...or parler, or whatever tense you'd like).

― peteR, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link

"in the west of Scotland" or "in the West of Scotland"? The Graun style guide has failed me. Help please ilx!

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I can see an argument for both.

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:49 (seventeen years ago) link

west of Scotland. "the West of Scotland" isn't a specific geographical entity.

eg west Ohio vs West Virginia.

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:55 (seventeen years ago) link

or north Africa/South Africa.

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:55 (seventeen years ago) link

in the US, it's "the South," or "the West Coast"; but it's also "the south part of the city" or "the west coast of the island" - it depends on if people refer to "the West" or "the West of Scotland" as an entity (or "brand"???) or not, i think, i.e. you would probably capitalise "Highlands" and "Lowlands"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

hoo, highlands and lowlands has got me thinking ... i'd cap the former but not the latter, which is AS ILLOGICAL AS HELL but works for me :)

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Ok, maybe this isn't the right thread for this, but from what point, historically, would you regard any reference in a British article to a billion to mean 10^9? Or are there still circumstances in 2007 where you would assume it was 10^12? (This is important from a translation point of view - milliard/billion, etc).

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:11 (seventeen years ago) link

See, there are all kinds of West of Scotland groups, societies, strategic/business partnerships so I wonder if it does now count as a geographic entity. Heck, when Paisley Uni and Bell College merge there'll even be a University of the West of Scotland (University of the Highlands and Islands already exists).

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually, no it doesn't, not properly - hasn't got a charter yet I think.

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:13 (seventeen years ago) link

The capitalisation of things like "West of Scotland" is a pain in the arse. I think in this case I'd use "west of Scotland" when referring to a geographical area (i.e. discussing weather or something) and possibly caps when referring to a sort of cultural entity (it's often "West of Scotland" when referring to religion etc). The best bet with this kind of thing, though, it to avoid making a decision by just relying on consistency in the piece itself (most important) and with previous usage in the publication in question (if there has been inconsistent usage then who really cares if you add to that?).

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I have bigger worries, having just noticed the claim in our magazine that King James "wrote the enduring King James Bible and even designed the Union Jack flag".

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Searching the websites of the Guardian and the Scotsman, it looks like both almost always use "west of Scotland" in all contexts.

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:36 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost haha

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:37 (seventeen years ago) link

There are some abstract geographic regions that I've always seen capitalized, like "the South" or "the West" in the U.S., but there are others, like "E/eastern Europe," or "S/southeast Asia," that are pretty much a matter of style: sometimes capitalized, sometimes not. I've never heard of "the west of Scotland" discussed as a distinct entity unified by culture or politics (which is what often leads one to capitalize), so my inclination would be to lowercase it, but I also don't live in the UK, so it's possible that people do use it in such a way.

― jaymc, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 14:58 (seventeen years ago) link

I have a feeling people in the west of Scotland regard it as an geographic entity, but those in the east of Scotland don't :)

― Madchen, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 15:30 (seventeen years ago) link

How about this?

I need to make this a possessive: "user(s)"

I need to maintain its bracketed S. The best I've come up with is to arrange the sentence so that I say something like "belonging to the user(s)." Any real way to do this?

― Will M., Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Clearly, it should be "user(')(s)(')."

― jaymc, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link

J, wouldn't that be user(s)'(s)?

― nabisco, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Or wait, same diff, except you can take the parens off your S, cause it'll be there either way.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Indeed.

― jaymc, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link

wait why would the third S be there if the second one were there?

― 69, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link

OH OH jaymc's S nvrmnd

― 69, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link

re: a billion - some time in the 1980s?

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:46 (seventeen years ago) link

semantics question:

what's the difference between a lodger and a tenant?

― CharlieNo4, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:19 (seventeen years ago) link

lodger gets a room; tenant gets the whole property (or subdivision)

― stet, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:29 (seventeen years ago) link

"lodger" implies you have a room in a house run by a doddering matron who always keeps a cut-glass bottle 1/3 full of brandy in the downstairs sitting room, as well as a breakfast table around which sit an entymologist, a bounder with a mysterious past, a fallen woman, and a retired colonel

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link

You're legally required to provide a lodger with breakfast (though most people don't bother).

― Madchen, Thursday, 29 March 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

re: fewer/less

I was taught the rule about countable nouns and non-countable nouns being qualified by the words 'fewer ' and 'less' respectively when I worked alongside grammar fiends of the grimly type. Since then I have noticed when people don't follow the 'rule'. For instance, the other day I noticed John Humphers on the radio - after some politician had said something about 'less criminals in prison' - deliberately repeating the phrase back to the politician, but corrected. 'Blah blah ...fewer criminals in prison, ' he said, all smug.

Thing is: once you start picking up on this rule, you notice its breakage everywhere. 'Less people...less cakes...less flowers.....less books....less computers....less biscuits....' ...and I'm thinking NO! fewer fewer fewer! (But more biscuits, please, if you don't mind.)

I should really stop caring about this rule, no? It is torture to care.

― Zoe Espera, Friday, 30 March 2007 10:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, it's a rubbish invented distinction that never serves to clarify, but only as a show of plumage for grammar nerds. Flout it! Do not care what they think of you!

M&S has "five items or fewer" queues and it always seems a bit like they're trying too hard.

― Alba, Friday, 30 March 2007 10:16 (seventeen years ago) link

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