Railing against the split infinitive "rule" at this point is almost as dusty as the rule. However, generally speaking, careful usage is an indicator of, though by no means inextricable from, careful thought. "Entering the room, it was nice to see my old friends" may not be unclear, but "Entering the room, Jessica came into my view" is -- is the speaker entering the room or Jessica? Following the usage "rule" prevents that kind of sloppiness.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 17:35 (eight years ago) link
Agreed (to both Aimless and man alive)
― forbidden fruitarian (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 17:50 (eight years ago) link
is the speaker entering the room or Jessica
wait, LOL
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 17:53 (eight years ago) link
I rest my case.
I find this bit irritating:
Any competent copy editor can turn a passage that is turgid, opaque, and filled with grammatical errors into a passage that is turgid, opaque, and free of grammatical errors.
A good copy editor can (and should) also keep it from being turgid and opaque. Or, if the passage cannot be rescued, recommend its deletion or query until the meaning is clear.
As man alive notes, these pop rule-refutations are themselves ancient. Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins is my age (we were both published in 1971). I guess this may be news to some readers out there, but no editors or writers are surprised by them in the year two thousand fifteen.
― forbidden fruitarian (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 18:02 (eight years ago) link
yeah i'm not sure who pinker is railing against. i actually find myself agreeing w/ him much of the time, but he seems to fuel his own writing by heaping a lot of straw men on the fire.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 18:18 (eight years ago) link
imo things have shifted over the last ten to fifteen years - it might be my internet bubble, but a (loosely) descriptivist or usage-driven version of advice for clarity feels on top right now. Pinker's trailing this larger shift, & it seems fine - having a noisy pop academic on side is useful because the straw-men really are out there - useless usage rules seem to be extraordinarily sticky.
btw I don't disagree in principle about dangling participles – I'll only leave them if I'm editing to a pretty informal style - but I don't think "Entering the room, Jessica came into my view" is unclear. Jessica is entering the room.
― woof, Tuesday, 6 October 2015 18:51 (eight years ago) link
& that's not because of a style-guide rule, but more because of descriptive grammar: the participle latches on to the subject of the sentence; with a dummy subject, it attaches to the implied speaker. (not a linguist, that's a rough guess at the working rule)
― woof, Tuesday, 6 October 2015 18:55 (eight years ago) link
"As she entered the room, Jessica came into the room" is 1000x as clear.
― I might like you better if we Yelped together (Phil D.), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 18:57 (eight years ago) link
otm
― woof, Tuesday, 6 October 2015 19:04 (eight years ago) link
editing non-writers in the past couple years, i saw an ENORMOUS amount of '[ me ] arriving at the location, the associate [ i.e. someone else] greeted me warmly'
― j., Tuesday, 6 October 2015 19:13 (eight years ago) link
― I might like you better if we Yelped together (Phil D.), Tuesday, October 6, 2015 2:57 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Ugh, see, everyone needs an editor.
― I might like you better if we Yelped together (Phil D.), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 19:17 (eight years ago) link
let's get back to the topic of entering Jessica
― forbidden fruitarian (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 19:21 (eight years ago) link
"Entering the room, Jessica came into my view" is 100% clear if you assume the writer is writing with proper usage. That's my point. If you don't stick to that rule, then you can wind up writing one thing when you mean the other.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 20:52 (eight years ago) link
I mean in Pinker's example it works ok because the "it" doesn't represent a specific thing or object, just an idiomatic way of saying that he felt happy. 95% of the time, it actually would be unclear to write that sentence without the subject of the sentence following the comma.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Tuesday, 6 October 2015 20:57 (eight years ago) link
After entering the room, who came into my view but Jessica!
― Aimless, Tuesday, 6 October 2015 22:16 (eight years ago) link
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/comma-queen-spelling-insurance?mbid=social_twitter
this woman regularly infuriates me
― k3vin k., Saturday, 21 November 2015 19:33 (eight years ago) link
"true, ensure and insure mean different things, but we use insure for everything, why because the style guide some says to use the 'in-' form for every 'en-/in-" prefix, well that is not counting this long list of exceptions"
― k3vin k., Saturday, 21 November 2015 20:38 (eight years ago) link
DIE
― k3vin k., Saturday, 21 November 2015 20:39 (eight years ago) link
Wait, so this person has been proofreading for the country's leading high-middlebrow rag since 1978 and still doesn't get the difference between these two words? How can this be?
― Futuristic Bow Wow (thewufs), Saturday, 21 November 2015 21:16 (eight years ago) link
i think she understands the difference, she just defers to the style guide
― k3vin k., Saturday, 21 November 2015 21:24 (eight years ago) link
Help! What the hell is the plural of Lopez? Par example: Mr. and Mrs. Lopez bought a care. The Lopezs (Lopez's?) love their new car.
I used to know this shit but then I went to grad school, which has made me dumber.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 20:53 (eight years ago) link
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/19/sports/la-sp-oly-taekwondo-lopez-20120520
lopezes?
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 1 December 2015 20:55 (eight years ago) link
Lopezes
― La Lechuza (La Lechera), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 20:55 (eight years ago) link
Los Lopez
― La Lechuza (La Lechera), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 20:56 (eight years ago) link
I would actually love to use Los Lopez, but Lopezes it shall be. Thanks! I tried writing it with the -es at first and it just looked so damn wrong. I do very muchprefer the grammarians of ILX to the ding-dongs of Google. Muchos gracias.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 21:01 (eight years ago) link
Now would anyone like to finish writing this paper about Los Lopez for me
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 21:03 (eight years ago) link
had a similar brain hurdle with the plural of "yes" today but it was for a comment on a blog spot so i wrote yesses (yeses? yes’s? yeezus?) and moved on.
― nerd shit (Will M.), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 21:19 (eight years ago) link
Along those lines, copyedited someone this morning who referred to the Peoples' Republic of China.
I mean, you could almost convince yourself that's right, even though it's not. Much like Communism.
― pplains, Tuesday, 1 December 2015 21:28 (eight years ago) link
Is there any implication of events being related if you use the word 'subsequently'? Or am I conflating it with 'consequently'? Someone's drafted something similar to the following but it seems off to me:"We wrote to you setting out your situation and explaining that we would do X. Subsequently, we did not receive any objection."
Maybe the word is in the wrong place? I've looked at it for too long now and it's become meaningless
― kinder, Saturday, 19 March 2016 15:36 (eight years ago) link
I think "subsequently" is used correctly there, in terms of its meaning, but it sounds officious and maybe a little passive-aggressive.
"Since writing, we have not received any objection" or something like that would have a more neutral tone.
― Brad C., Saturday, 19 March 2016 16:19 (eight years ago) link
I'm struggling here today with "spatula" as the name of the utensil used to flip a pancake, rather than the one used to scrape batter from a bowl
also I experienced a discernible uptick in blood pressure as a result of "step foot in" appearing in an NPR headline
― Brad C., Saturday, 19 March 2016 16:23 (eight years ago) link
I agree that 'subsequently' is used correctly in the example provided, but it is extraneous and better to leave it out.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 19 March 2016 17:50 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, I just deleted it in the end. I realised the writer had left it in from a version where 'subsequently' they had received an objection.
― kinder, Saturday, 19 March 2016 18:34 (eight years ago) link
also why tf am I doing this on a Saturday afternoon with a sick kid
― kinder, Saturday, 19 March 2016 18:35 (eight years ago) link
― Brad C., Saturday, March 19, 2016 11:23 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I think this usage of spatula arose because there is possibly no good word for the utensil used to flip a pancake, and it sounds especially dumb to call it a "pancake turner" when the thing you are flipping is not pancakes.
― human life won't become a cat (man alive), Sunday, 20 March 2016 01:11 (eight years ago) link
fish slice? even though I never slice fish with it
― kinder, Sunday, 20 March 2016 09:41 (eight years ago) link
growing up we called it an egg flip
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 20 March 2016 14:47 (eight years ago) link
I think I might use the same implement to scrape things in a bowl and to flip (more like gently turn over) a pancake. Don't really understand the difference. A spatula, for me, is a flat rectangle on the end of a stick, and some are bigger than others, some have holes, some are plastic, some are wooden etc. I have a lot of objects like this, and it doesn't bother me that they vary so much: it's my spatula collection.
― Eyeball Kicks, Sunday, 20 March 2016 22:57 (eight years ago) link
how is the thing not called a spatula have i been corrupted
― j., Sunday, 20 March 2016 23:33 (eight years ago) link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61AhXv6rOBL._SL1200_.jpg
Spatulas
― ledge, Monday, 21 March 2016 07:38 (eight years ago) link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71Q1dWUPA2L._SL1500_.jpg
Fish slice/egg flip/pancake turner/not a spatula
― ledge, Monday, 21 March 2016 07:40 (eight years ago) link
^ Precisely the opposite of what my sister's home ec teacher told her, apparently, based on a story where this teacher screamed about the taxonomy of rubber kitchen implements
(former is a 'rubber scraper' and the latter is a 'spatula' according to said teacher)
but its 2016 and who cares
― yellow despackling power (Will M.), Monday, 21 March 2016 14:30 (eight years ago) link
Is this a Commonwealth/US thing? Or is it just some modern marketing department not knowing what else to call one or the other of these things?
― pplains, Monday, 21 March 2016 14:33 (eight years ago) link
we may be veering into 'what is a hot dog' territory
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 21 March 2016 22:02 (eight years ago) link
there can be different kinds of spatulas it's ok
― j., Monday, 21 March 2016 22:06 (eight years ago) link
In the US a fish slice is regarded as a type of spatula and may be called a turner
― just sayin, Monday, 21 March 2016 22:13 (eight years ago) link
i have a different kind of question for the copyeditors and grammar fiends of ilx - is it possible to make a living (or something approaching one) from freelance proofreading/copyediting without certificates and/or a ready pool of contacts? (my one selling point being a doctorate in the humanities, which i guess proves i'm basically capable of reading and writing.)
― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Monday, 21 March 2016 22:17 (eight years ago) link
i call it a flatula
― map, Monday, 21 March 2016 22:20 (eight years ago) link
a slotted turn! That's what mine was actually called.
― kinder, Monday, 21 March 2016 22:26 (eight years ago) link