Linguistic pedantry

[HighPeakFox]

13 minutes ago, murphy said:

Pedantry membership revoked.

 

I will need your badge and your gun.

Please don't misunderstand - I've learnt to tolerate it because otherwise my blood pressure would suffer.

[David Guiza]

I'm sure I may have posted this before. This used to be our local chip shop. 

 

 

Edited 14 September 2021 by David Guiza

[murphy]

3 minutes ago, thursday_next said:

What, all portmanteau words? I don't like phablet, webinar, podcast, netiquette, frenemy and chillax, but it's difficult to know how we'd get on without email, breathalyzer, Bollywood, smog, pixel or malware. Maybe there is a substitute for malware, but it would be twice as long and probably not as effective.

 

I personally don't like spanking when it's used as anything other than spanking. 'Spanking new' is simply beyond the pale for me. I don't know what 'beyond the pale' means, but it's definitely tha

 

 

 

I take your point.  I never really thought of email as a portmanteau word.

 

I will adapt my position to 'most' portmanteau words are an abomination.  It seems to be an ever more common phenomenon.  Most portmanteau words are jarring and ugly to me and there is also an element of smugness about them that I can't quite put my finger on.

 

Anyway, I had to look it up but...

 

to be 'beyond the pale' was to be outside the area accepted as 'home'. Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement in Russia in 1791. This was the name given to the western border region of the country

[thursday_next]

3 minutes ago, murphy said:

an element of smugness about them that I can't quite put my finger on.

Yes, you're exactly right. Maybe it's just that I'm getting old, but most of the inventors of these words are just dying for a slap.

 

I used to know that about Catherine the Great, but as so often happens these days, I've forgotten. Wasn't it something to do with the Jews? Thanks for the heads up 

[Buce]

43 minutes ago, murphy said:

I take your point.  I never really thought of email as a portmanteau word.

 

I will adapt my position to 'most' portmanteau words are an abomination.  It seems to be an ever more common phenomenon.  Most portmanteau words are jarring and ugly to me and there is also an element of smugness about them that I can't quite put my finger on.

 

Anyway, I had to look it up but...

 

to be 'beyond the pale' was to be outside the area accepted as 'home'. Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement in Russia in 1791. This was the name given to the western border region of the country

 

28 minutes ago, thursday_next said:

Yes, you're exactly right. Maybe it's just that I'm getting old, but most of the inventors of these words are just dying for a slap.

 

I used to know that about Catherine the Great, but as so often happens these days, I've forgotten. Wasn't it something to do with the Jews? Thanks for the heads up 

 

I'm afraid I have to dispute this etymology:

 

By the 14th century, the Norman invasion of Ireland was struggling. Too many Normans had "gone native" like Colonel Kurtz and assimilated into Irish life. The remaining settlers had retreated to just four eastern counties: Louth, Meath, Dublin, and Kildare. These four "obedient shires" were the only part of Ireland still under the control of the English crown. The king's perimeter was marked with wooden fence posts pounded into the Irish turf. These were called "pales," from the Latin palus, meaning "stake."

 

Over the following centuries, the English settlement fortified its boundaries by turning the fenceline into an impressive barrier: a ten-foot-deep ditch surrounded by eight-foot banks on each side and ringed by a thorny hedge. These ramparts were never meant to be an impregnable wall, but they did provide a daunting obstacle to raiders stealing across the borders for English cattle. Within the Pale ditch, settlers lived under the protection of the crown. But once you passed "the Pale," you were outside the authority and safety of English law, and subject to all the savageries of rural Ireland. "Beyond the pale" then became a colloquial phrase meaning "outside the limits of acceptable behavior or judgment."

 

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-beyond-the-pale-actually-means

 

...the first printed reference of the phrase "beyond the pale" (rather than just the word pale in its figurative sense) comes "from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella."

 

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6305/what-is-the-origin-of-the-phrase-beyond-the-pale

 

 

 

 

Edited 14 September 2021 by Buce

[shen]

1 hour ago, David Guiza said:

I'm sure I may have posted this before. This used to be our local chip shop. 

 

 

What do you have against poor Mr Chip and Mrs Fishe?

[thursday_next]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

 

I'm afraid I have to dispute this etymology:

 

By the 14th century, the Norman invasion of Ireland was struggling. Too many Normans had "gone native" like Colonel Kurtz and assimilated into Irish life. The remaining settlers had retreated to just four eastern counties: Louth, Meath, Dublin, and Kildare. These four "obedient shires" were the only part of Ireland still under the control of the English crown. The king's perimeter was marked with wooden fence posts pounded into the Irish turf. These were called "pales," from the Latin palus, meaning "stake."

 

Over the following centuries, the English settlement fortified its boundaries by turning the fenceline into an impressive barrier: a ten-foot-deep ditch surrounded by eight-foot banks on each side and ringed by a thorny hedge. These ramparts were never meant to be an impregnable wall, but they did provide a daunting obstacle to raiders stealing across the borders for English cattle. Within the Pale ditch, settlers lived under the protection of the crown. But once you passed "the Pale," you were outside the authority and safety of English law, and subject to all the savageries of rural Ireland. "Beyond the pale" then became a colloquial phrase meaning "outside the limits of acceptable behavior or judgment."

 

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-beyond-the-pale-actually-means

 

...the first printed reference of the phrase "beyond the pale" (rather than just the word pale in its figurative sense) comes "from 1657 in John Harington's lyric poem The History of Polindor and Flostella."

 

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6305/what-is-the-origin-of-the-phrase-beyond-the-pale

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't know that, so thanks. It may be the lack of books from that era, or at least none that I have read. I have no excuse for forgetting the Catherine the Great stuff, because I read Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov, Pushkin and the rest of them. I am something of a fanboy for 19th century Russian literature, just as long as I don't have to go there, because it is very cold.

 

Too many Normans had "gone native" like Colonel Kurtz and assimilated into Irish life.

 

The mind would have to wander off a bit here, and not just at Colonel Kurtz. 'Is it yourself begob?' 

 

[davieG]

I find this thread educational and entertaining although I'm hesitant in writing anything in case it's grammatically felonious.

[thursday_next]

The Leicester habit of saying the word 'pacific' when they mean 'specific'. I'm not entirely opposed to this because I think the word 'pacific' is used far too seldom these days, but it has to be in the right context. It's been swallowed up by the Pacific Ocean (you can't miss it if you go round the world), but it has it's own meaning e.g. 'Thank God we've reached California, and we can stop slaughtering the Indians. Let's call this ocean The Non-Belligerent Ocean. On second thoughts, let's call it The Pacific Ocean.'   

[Blarmy]

I keep up with this thread but have no idea why. 

[Suzie the Fox]

23 minutes ago, Blarmy said:

I keep up with this thread but have no idea why. 

Ditto as i'm thick af 

[HighPeakFox]

3 hours ago, Suzie the Fox said:

Ditto as i'm thick af 

Official x

[HighPeakFox]

17 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Official x

Oh come on, if you're going to chip it across like that... Hugs.

[RumbleFox]

22 hours ago, murphy said:

I haven't visited this thread for a while but I'd like to address this post.  

 

I think you have missed the spirit of this thread.  It's a place where we can don our jackboots and pedant around to our heart's content without bothering the rest of the forum, but I think it is more than that.  Far from the back-slapping self-aggrandisement that you imagine, I think that we are here to mock ourselves and our affliction to an extent.  The word pedant is after all, something of a prejorative term.

 

I am a pedant.  When it comes to the written word, I have the mind of the kind of hi-viz wearing, clipboard wielding swine that lays his underpants out Monday to Friday, which is a bit odd because in many other aspects of life I am a slovenly sod.  Every car I have ever owned looks like a skip on the inside, but I digress.  It's not about self-importance, cruelty or belittling, it's a curse.  Imagine having your day ruined by a rogue apostrophe.  Well, I exaggerate but that's an insight into the mind of this particular pedant. 

 

It's also not about feeling superior.  I have met several people, far more capable or intelligent than I, that can't spell their way out of a paper bag.  The reason, I believe, is just a different type of mind.  Correct grammar and spelling is not important to them.  They have a cavalier, laissez-faire attitude.   That missing capital can go hang!  Meanwhile, I have a little librarian devil on my shoulder prodding and poking me at every grammatical faux pas.  So pity the pedant Rumble.  It is an affliction.

Och if there’s one thing I can do it’s hold my hands up when I’m wrong. I probably over reacted. I did get a slight sense of what I was talking about when I first read the thread but it may have been clouded by my own viewpoint. My grandad never learned to read and write properly and spent his whole life feeling terrible for it and was often made to feel stupid so maybe I have a slight trigger in this area. I’ll leave you pedants to mutually tickle each others special glands without passing judgement. X 

[FoxyPV]

Incorrect use of apostrophes.

 

It kills me inside

 

(Language is fluid and correcting grammar is dick move because of educational background blah blah blah but **** me, it's not hard)

 

 

[HighPeakFox]

3 hours ago, FoxyPV said:

Incorrect use of apostrophes.

 

It kills me inside

 

(Language is fluid and correcting grammar is dick move because of educational background blah blah blah but **** me, it's not hard)

 

 

Enough people don't care. 

[murphy]

On 14/09/2021 at 21:15, RumbleFox said:

Och if there’s one thing I can do it’s hold my hands up when I’m wrong. I probably over reacted. I did get a slight sense of what I was talking about when I first read the thread but it may have been clouded by my own viewpoint. My grandad never learned to read and write properly and spent his whole life feeling terrible for it and was often made to feel stupid so maybe I have a slight trigger in this area. I’ll leave you pedants to mutually tickle each others special glands without passing judgement. X 

I think that a pedant, by definition, is a person that is overly concerned with very minor transgressions that the non-pedant community would overlook or consider unworthy of their time.

 

A person that belittles somebody that can't read or write is just a bellend.  I'm a completely different kind of bellend.

[Buce]

52 minutes ago, murphy said:

I think that a pedant, by definition, is a person that is overly concerned with very minor transgressions that the non-pedant community would overlook or consider unworthy of their time.

 

A person that belittles somebody that can't read or write is just a bellend.  I'm a completely different kind of bellend.

 

One should pity the poor pedant, for it is a curse.

 

I even proof-read (and correct) my shopping lists, ffs, and I'm on first-name terms with the Grauniad corrections editor.

 

Edit:

 

There is a barber shop at the top end of Evington Rd. that has a sign outside proclaiming it to be the premiere (sic) barber shop in Leicester. You have no idea how much self-control I have to apply to not go in and say something.

Edited 16 September 2021 by Buce

[Phil Bowman]

32 minutes ago, murphy said:

A person that belittles somebody that can't read or write is just a bellend.  I'm a completely different kind of bellend.

I’ve found my new slogan!

 

Phil Bowman. Not just a bellend.

[Buce]

 

Spotted by the A6 in Oadby:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 17 September 2021 by Buce

[Jattdogg]

On 14/09/2021 at 10:24, davieG said:

I find this thread educational and entertaining although I'm hesitant in writing anything in case it's grammatically felonious.

100%. I don't give a fook though as I know what my brain sucks at doing. Haha

 

 

On 14/09/2021 at 11:34, Suzie the Fox said:

Ditto as i'm thick af 

Ditto x 2.

[HighPeakFox]

....... can anyone explain to me why EVERY entry by a certain contributor looks something like this !!!!!!!!!!!

[FoxesDeb]

16 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

....... can anyone explain to me why EVERY entry by a certain contributor looks something like this !!!!!!!!!!!

I can't explain it sadly, but it drives me insane. I'm just surprised nobody has picked up on it until now. Sometimes it's really inappropriate, too, depending on the content, but mostly it just doesn't make any sense. 

[1972 Fox]

38 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

....... can anyone explain to me why EVERY entry by a certain contributor looks something like this !!!!!!!!!!!

 

18 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

I can't explain it sadly, but it drives me insane. I'm just surprised nobody has picked up on it until now. Sometimes it's really inappropriate, too, depending on the content, but mostly it just doesn't make any sense. 

I shouldn't let it bother me but it drives me up the wall so much that I just skip over any of his posts without reading them.

 

Edited 20 September 2021 by Blue Fox 72

[FoxesDeb]

Just now, Blue Fox 72 said:

 

I shouldn't let it bother me but it drives me up the wall so much that I just skip over any if his posts without reading them.

...... Same!!!!!