ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/medias/sys_master/root/h99/h34/8837336432670.jpg

(Aimless ticks 'laxative' off his list.)

lol

It’s also, of course, the place you pregame before moving on to the breakfast club

unlike others itt i have a bit of a prejudice against nu classical or inflected endings. often seem to originate from a position of wanting to be more academically *correct* than the next person so

The ECB today announced that it has appointed temporary administrators at Banca Carige, the most current Italian banking conundrum in a long and growing list of Italian banking conundra.

immediate response:NO
next response: is conundrum even latin?
action: go to OED:
Etymology: Origin lost: in 1645 (sense 3) referred to as an Oxford term; possibly originating in some university joke, or as a parody of some Latin term of the schools, which would agree with its unfixed form in 17–18th cent. It is doubtful whether Nash's use (sense 1) is the original.

...


†1. Applied abusively to a person. (? Pedant, crotchet-monger, or ninny.) Obsolete.

1596 T. Nashe Haue with you to Saffron-Walden sig. V4v So will I..driue him [sc. Gabriel Harvey] to confesse himselfe a Conundrum, who now thinks he hath learning inough to proue the saluation of Lucifer.

...

†3. A pun or word-play depending on similarity of sound in words of different meaning. Obsolete.

1645 Kingdom's Weekly Post 16 Dec. 76 This is the man who would have his device alwayes in his sermons, which in Oxford they then called conundrums. For an instance..Now all House is turned into an Alehouse, and a pair of dice is made a Paradice, was it thus in the days of Noah? Ah no!


all in various ways amusing or ironic considering the context.

final response: actually if this is a joke or parody latin word it is *far more legit* to use “conundra” as in the spirit of the original thing

final final response: still absurd.

so many conundrae in those etymologia

FP

the original meaning is clearly describing the median ilx poster

we pompous panjandrums

crotchet-mongers all.

often seem to originate from a position of wanting to be more academically *correct* than the next person
please don’t describe my life without my permission

So will I..driue u to confesse urselfe a Conundrum, who now thinks he hath learning inough to proue the saluation of Lucifer.

oh leaue av

ap style guide . . . welcome to the resistance

SPLIT FORMS: In many cases, splitting the infinitive or compound forms of a verb is necessary to convey meaning and make a sentence easy to read. Such constructions are acceptable. For example: Those who lie are often found out. How has your health been? The budget was tentatively approved. Let readability and comprehension be your guide.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

i've begun leaving off full stops in my work emails sometimes, even to important people. i do capitalise though. what does this mean??

it means my work is done here

do you replace them with,,,, ? if so,,,, I have the facebook group for you!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5GscCfWkAA_Ybc.jpg:small

subtle commentary on the inconsistency of americans

Probably not the right thread to ask this, but oh well: what's the term for words that are principally known for some characteristic other than their meaning (e.g. antidisestablishmentarianism)?

examples

Well, antidisestablishmentarianism is known for being long rather than whatever it's supposed to refer to.

yes it's an example of a very long word

i mean, i know that's probably not what you're getting at -- but is this other word one that definitely exists (but you forgot it) or are you just asking *if* it exists (in which case what is it)

I'm pretty sure the term exists, as I saw a listicle about it. Can't remember any of the other words on it, though.

ah ok

this sent me off on a 20-minute puzzle trying to remember the word that we now use in a different sense, that used to mean -- in classical pedagogy -- types of example, viz of grammatical usage

(where the point of the example is not the meaning of the sentence or sentence fragment but the grammatical rule it demonstrates and exemplifies)

anyway i just remembered what this word is: it's paradeigma, or paradigm… which we now almost entirely associate with thomas kuhn and changing models of knowledge

Found the listicle, and I was wrong, apparently, there is no term for what I was looking for: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/internets-favorite-words/antidisestablishmentarianism

A debate in the office just now - how would you write out the expression 'Catch some Zees'?

catch some z's

That apostrophe is contentious

Catch some Zzzs

Yes, that's how I had it - I think I got it from comic strips

http://www.comicbookfx.com/images/12-1.jpg

I'm guessing the entire shorthand started with comic strips

it just occurred to me that non-Americans might pronounce it "catch some zeds"?????

that's fucked up, nigel

yup, that's what we say

(i mean if we say it at all, which is like nearly never)

"in Japanese manga… the usual symbol for sleep is a large bubble coming out of the character's nose"

apparently it's the centenary of the earliest recognised ref for zzz as snoring = the 1919 boy scouts handbook, as the cross-hed to a poor gag about sleeping

a possible source is an earlier symbol for snoring = a little pic of a log being sawn, and "zzz" beside the log bvz it's the sound of sawing (and snoring)

source: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/27045/how-did-the-letter-z-come-to-be-associated-with-sleeping-snoring

when yr editing a transcription and the interviewee says "there's tons of examples" and the transcriber writes this up as "there's tonnes of examples"

but technically a tonne = 1 x metric fvckton

so which is correct

I think you need to get in touch with the interviewee again to clarify what the examples weighed.

I suppose it's only an issue if there are between 1.81437 and 2 tonnes of them. Otherwise, it's fine either way.

https://grammarist.com/spelling/ton-tonne/

"British, Canadian, and Australian publications generally reserve tonne for very narrow uses (i.e., in reference to the metric ton) ... All use ton (or tons) in contexts unrelated to measurement"

seems fair.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5d-Xp-MJumg/TI5l3x6dA2I/AAAAAAAAAhI/ugKIlcvVY8M/s1600/Mash+Tun+MA.JPG

Let us learn to call people by their name, as the Lord does with us, and to give up using adjectives.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) September 24, 2019

Good Lord

Not using adjectives is very difficultly.

pontifex otm, adverbs can also eff off

Seriously I think this may be my favourite ever papal statement about anything, not just because of its high bathos but because HE'S RIGHT

I think you mean HE IS

i do