Linguistic pedantry

[HighPeakFox]

Just now, davieG said:

I'm no English language expert having failed my GCE many moons ago but when I first read that my mind just read it as biased without thinking about it.

Now that is actually a very interesting observation. I knew what the guy meant, but isn't it amazing how the mind fills the blanks in, or if someone struggles to spell, we generally manage to work out what they were saying? I'm sure you're familiar with jumbled spelling of words whilst the brain unscrambles them.

[davieG]

1 minute ago, HighPeakFox said:

Now that is actually a very interesting observation. I knew what the guy meant, but isn't it amazing how the mind fills the blanks in, or if someone struggles to spell, we generally manage to work out what they were saying? I'm sure you're familiar with jumbled spelling of words whilst the brain unscrambles them.

Since my hearing got messed up and is now missing certain tones/pitches when I hear songs I know I can't make them out but when I know what the song is called my brain fills in the missing bits and it almost sounds normal. Even in conversations with people if I'm familiar with the subject I can make out more of what people are saying. 

[HighPeakFox]

9 minutes ago, davieG said:

Since my hearing got messed up and is now missing certain tones/pitches when I hear songs I know I can't make them out but when I know what the song is called my brain fills in the missing bits and it almost sounds normal. Even in conversations with people if I'm familiar with the subject I can make out more of what people are saying. 

In a similar vein, I've never noticed bad production on records for long - my ears always adjust and just listen to the music.

[Izzy]

1 hour ago, HighPeakFox said:

Now that is actually a very interesting observation. I knew what the guy meant, but isn't it amazing how the mind fills the blanks in, or if someone struggles to spell, we generally manage to work out what they were saying? I'm sure you're familiar with jumbled spelling of words whilst the brain unscrambles them.

Here's a serious question.

 

I was one told that you shouldn't put a comma before the word 'but' in a sentence.

 

I assume that's bollocks seeing as you just did it (and you never make mistakes)

 

 

 

Edited 18 May 2021 by Izzy

[HighPeakFox]

2 minutes ago, Izzy said:

Here's a serious question.

 

I was once told that you shouldn't put a comma before the word 'but' in a sentence.

 

I assume that's bollocks seeing as you just did it (and you never make mistakes)

I certainly do make mistakes, and often have to go back and edit. If you're right, it is certainly not something I remember being taught - which isn't the same as saying I'm right at all.

 

Just looked it up - it's do to with the independence of the two parts of the sentence.

 

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-but/

[String fellow]

46 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Now that is niche pedantry...

Borderline OCD? I plead guilty!

 

42 minutes ago, davieG said:

Perhaps it means "Mums I like f....ing" 

Checking a few references, they all seem to include the word 'to' as part of the original phrase. However, this site has a definition of 'gilf' that surprised me.

https://www.enkiverywell.com/what-is-milf.html

[bovril]

I absolutely love Matt Piper but don't read his tweets if you suffer from linguistic pedantry. I sometimes struggle to understand them. 

[SpacedX]

Always amusing when the conspiracy theory believers that I battle with online almost invariably respond with "your an idiot". 

[bovril]

Just now, Line-X said:

Always amusing when the conspiracy theory believers that I battle with online almost invariably respond with "your an idiot". 

There's a whole PhD waiting to be written about extreme political views online and the misuse of "your" and "you're". 

[String fellow]

The word zoology. At school, our biology teacher told us that it's pronounced zo-ology not zoo-ology. Why? Because if it were the second of these two, then the word would require three successive o letters, which is verboten in English, even with a diaeresis over the third letter. In Dutch, such a construction is allowed. Another example is Inverness-shire, which cheats by using a hyphen. Imo, proper nouns such as this should be allowed to have three successive letters the same, without requiring a hyphen.  

Edited 18 May 2021 by String fellow

[Kopic]

My girlfriend's dad likes to write paragraphs of guff on his Facebook page every day. Every single time, without fail, he writes too instead of to. I really don't understand how or why. It winds me up so much I've blocked all of his posts.

[Jon the Hat]

2 hours ago, String fellow said:

The word zoology. At school, our biology teacher told us that it's pronounced zo-ology not zoo-ology. Why? Because if it were the second of these two, then the word would require three successive o letters, which is verboten in English, even with a diaeresis over the third letter. In Dutch, such a construction is allowed. Another example is Inverness-shire, which cheats by using a hyphen. Imo, a proper nouns such as this should be allowed to have three successive letters the same, without requiring a hyphen.  

Nah its Zoo-logy innit.

 

My pet hate is been for being.  Seems to be my South African colleagues mostly.

[Daggers]

"Marquee" instead of "marque".

 

Makes me shudder each and every time.

 

 

[String fellow]

Actresses being referred to as actors, and 'of' instead of 'have' as in 'I should of gone home'.

[Milo]

13 minutes ago, String fellow said:

Actresses being referred to as actors, and 'of' instead of 'have' as in 'I should of gone home'.

Surely an actor is someone who acts...I didn’t think the word had a designated gender. 
 

I would say many female actors refer to themselves as actors. 
 

A bit like a female doctor isn’t a doctress?!

[boots60]

TV's Spitting Image has a lot to answer for.

[String fellow]

35 minutes ago, Milo said:

Surely an actor is someone who acts...I didn’t think the word had a designated gender. 
 

I would say many female actors refer to themselves as actors. 
 

A bit like a female doctor isn’t a doctress?!

'Doctress' is an example of a word that has fallen into disuse over time, just as 'actress' appears to be going the same way, I regret to say.

Two words that my boss often used to say. Firstly, 'heighth' for 'height'. Secondly, 'tube' pronounced without the y sound immediately after the plosive t, so it sounded like 'toob'. 

 

[Beliall]

INNYATCHO

[FoxesDeb]

Been when people mean being, and seen when they mean seeing really seems to becoming more widespread. 

[FoxesDeb]

Also, people who use the word "what" instead of "that". As in people what use the word "what" instead of "that". 

[Milo]

Comprises of...is a bugbear of mine.

 

Composed of. Comprises.

Both fine.

'Comprises of', not so much.

[String fellow]

'Restaurateur' often gets a dubious n inserted before the second t, as in 'restauranteur'.  

[Milo]

1 minute ago, String fellow said:

'Restaurateur' often gets a dubious n inserted before the second t, as in 'restauranteur'.  

Agree.

 

But dubious n's are ok when added to 'passenger' and 'messenger' where they don't exist in passage and message.

 

Weird, innit!  

[Duquesne Whistle]

8 hours ago, RoboFox said:

Baffles me how many seem to get "lose" and "loose" confused. 

Agreed. It's the one that drives me to the verge of insanity on a regular basis. Not sure how the confoostion started either.

[Steven]

Them instead of those.