[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Now, if we can only find that panda who eats, shoots and leaves…[/quote]
I loan my copy to various friends. It’s my way of making the world a better place one person at a time.
[quote]Soldierslim wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Oh, and guys? The “three dots” thing you have been mentioning is called an ellipsis and it means:
1)a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding.
b. An example of such omission.
- A mark or series of marks (… or * * *, for example) used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words.
Structurally, the ellipsis should be treated like a period, with the next sentence having two spaces seperating it from the last dot, and begining with a capital letter.
Question: When I use an ellipsis I usually add the period at the end… Like that. Is that wrong?[/quote]
Yes, it is wrong. See above; the ellipsis is treated as a period, meaning it is substituted for it. The presence of an ellipsis means you are intentionally leaving the sentence incomplete, a period indicates the sentence is completed.
HEIL GRAMMAR!
I think most people who say “I could care less” think of it as “I care less (than anyone who cares)” with “could” added in as a filler word because it is part of the standard phrase. The “not” confuses them because they do not reason the phrase to its logical conclusion using “could” as a meaningful word. To put it another way: “I blabbedy-blah-filler-word care less” seems more logical to them than “I blabbedy-blah-filler-word not care less”.
Most of the people who use the phrase without the “not” know what “could” means, and are capable of figuring out which version is really more logical if they made the effort. But bear in mind that the original phrase is a clever play on words, with no sexual innuendo, and no money for getting it right. The kind of thing that amused people in a bygone era, but bores the hell out of them today.
I would bet that “take a s–t” originated as an analogy to “take a bath” or “take a nap”. The “s–t” in the phrase is not the fecal matter, but the action or process of expelling the fecal matter.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
helga wrote:
One that shits me big time, and this is only from what I see on the TV, is the Americans pronouncing aluminium as ALOO-MIN-UM. There is an extra fucking I in there people!
Really? “Aluminium”? Never seen that spelling in my life, even on periodic charts or in science texts.[/quote]
Neither have I, but I have never seen a periodic chart or a science text published outside of North America.
I thought “aluminium” was a parody of British pronunciation.
[quote]TONEdef wrote:
You know I really didn’t think I’d get a response, but I did. Bigaroo and KBCThird could sense my bullshit in the air (hats off to those men), but I’m glad you went for it m0dd3r, you made my day. And it only took a couple of sentences to bait the hook. I hoped it wouldn’t be long until some know-it-all, with Wikipedia in their favourites, would bite. Ah what sport! Oh BTW:
;-D[/quote]
Oh it was bullshit, how silly of me not to notice. Perhaps this link would be more appropriate then:
Glad to have made your day anyway. I’m not sure how I became a know-it-all. Is wikipedia not a satisfactory reference? I simply figured it’s an easy, well known, and reasonably reputable source for information and didn’t feel like writing a dissertation on the differences between Commonwealth English and American English.
Plus you already seemed to “know” that Scots comes from Gaelic so I figured it wouldn’t do much good for me to simply tell you it didn’t. Sorry, next time I’ll be sure to just make broad general statements of fact and wait until someone says “prove it” before citing outside information. Or maybe I should just stick with the classic “cus I said so” argument.
Now then, are you through baiting us silly Americans into arguing with you? Have you satisfied yourself that you Brits hold a vastly superior intellect and vocabulary? Or are there any other discrepencies between our cultures or linguistics over which you’d care to debate? I’ll gladly leave wikipedia out of it if you feel it’s an unfair advantage, what with me having all the right answers and whatnot.
All in good fun,
Jay
[quote]TONEdef wrote:
What tends to annoy me is the American bastardisation of English that’s being accepted worldwide. For instance dreamed instead of dreamt, color/colour, encylopedia/encyclopaedia, theater/theatre. B— illiterates.
Tone[/quote]
You people on that little island over there need to learn that it’s not your language anymore; it’s our language. Thanks for inventing it. We’ll take it from here.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Soldierslim wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Oh, and guys? The “three dots” thing you have been mentioning is called an ellipsis and it means:
1)a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding.
b. An example of such omission.
- A mark or series of marks (… or * * *, for example) used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words.
Structurally, the ellipsis should be treated like a period, with the next sentence having two spaces seperating it from the last dot, and begining with a capital letter.
Question: When I use an ellipsis I usually add the period at the end… Like that. Is that wrong?
Yes, it is wrong. See above; the ellipsis is treated as a period, meaning it is substituted for it. The presence of an ellipsis means you are intentionally leaving the sentence incomplete, a period indicates the sentence is completed.
HEIL GRAMMAR!
[/quote]
I am not sure if it is standard and proper; but there is no doubt in my mind that leaving one space before and one space after an ellipsis is logical when the ellipsis is used to show that words were left out of the middle of a sentence.
“I am not sure if it is standard … but … leaving one space before and one space after an ellipsis is logical when the ellipsis is used to show that words were left out of the middle of a sentence.”
[quote]danweltmann wrote:
Don’t hate me but…
While I get annoyed at spelling mistakes (I teach English), and while the spelling on this thread is far better than normal (for this site), I still had a good laugh at all the spelling errors I saw from people righteously bitching about other people’s errors. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” (Did I mention I’m an atheist?) 
Peace,
Dan
[/quote]
You did notice those errors with both intentional or typos as opposed to someone truly believing the wrong spelling to be correct, right?
[quote]NealRaymond2 wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
helga wrote:
One that shits me big time, and this is only from what I see on the TV, is the Americans pronouncing aluminium as ALOO-MIN-UM. There is an extra fucking I in there people!
Really? “Aluminium”? Never seen that spelling in my life, even on periodic charts or in science texts.
Neither have I, but I have never seen a periodic chart of a science text published outside of North America.
I thought “aluminium” was a parody of British pronunciation.
[/quote]
Apparently it started out as Alumium then went to Aluminum but some (British) tight arse thought that Aluminium sounded better:
'In 1808, Humphry Davy originally proposed the name alumium while trying to isolate the new metal electrolytically from the mineral alumina. In 1812, he changed the name to aluminum to match its Latin root. The same year, an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium.
Aluminium, for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound. (Q. Review VIII. 72, 1812)’
I have done a quick search of periodic tables and some list it as Aluminum and some list as Aluminium.
Am I the only person that remembers this cool tip?
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=756166
and the corresponding thread:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=756947
Apparently although that tip was posted for millions to see almost a year ago, nothing has changed. I still cringe every time.
Also, is it just me, or does anyone else hate it when people end their sentences with prepositions? Ex: “Where are the beers AT?”
I truly hope I did not make any mistakes in typing this, for I am sure it will be scrutinized in depth.
[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
I am not fond of the “T” being pronounced in often.
[/quote]
Amen. What’s worse, those who mispronounce it will smugly correct you for saying it right.
A professor of mine pronounces the T in “often” and says “relevant” when he means “relative” or “relativist.”
I should have typed “correctly” instead of “right” in previous post. “[R]ight” is not an adverb.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Soldierslim wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Oh, and guys? The “three dots” thing you have been mentioning is called an ellipsis and it means:
1)a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding.
b. An example of such omission.
- A mark or series of marks (… or * * *, for example) used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words.
Structurally, the ellipsis should be treated like a period, with the next sentence having two spaces seperating it from the last dot, and begining with a capital letter.
Question: When I use an ellipsis I usually add the period at the end… Like that. Is that wrong?
Yes, it is wrong. See above; the ellipsis is treated as a period, meaning it is substituted for it. The presence of an ellipsis means you are intentionally leaving the sentence incomplete, a period indicates the sentence is completed.
HEIL GRAMMAR!
[/quote]
Thanks!
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
A well thought out argument that made sense and I appreciate. Something I wish more people here would do.
[/quote]
You made a lot of sense and I can definitely see where you’re coming from, but I still disagree that that the phrase is “wrong.”
You talk about saying the opposite of what you mean, which in this case, I believe is sarcasm. I didn’t mention sarcasm here, but have in the past, and I really believe what this phrase is all about. I don’t know how the phrase originated, but I think sarcasm alone keeps it from being “incorrect.”
Also, another poster described a nice explanation on where “taking a shit” may have come from. Shit – as in the acion, not the fecal matter. Much like taking a bath, or taking a break. I can see that.
Finally, fosbury flop is a term for a way of jumping over the bar in the sport of high jumping. It was named after Dick Fosbury when he tried an unconventional way of high jumping.
[quote]FFJeff wrote:
Also, is it just me, or does anyone else hate it when people end their sentences with prepositions? Ex: “Where are the beers AT?”
[/quote]
EASY to correct. Where are the beers at, jackass?
See, no preposition at the end. I agree with you. That is something, up with which I will not put!
their they’re… its not so bad dont get you’re self worked up to much your going too get sick is your not carefull there just dumasses… you shuld just, laf at there stupity in stead of letting it get too you stay strong peice!
[quote]m0dd3r wrote:
Oh it was bullshit, how silly of me not to notice. Perhaps this link would be more appropriate then:
[/quote]
No bait on the hook and they just keep biting packs away fishing rod
[quote]Kuz wrote:
Maybe I’m the only one who is noticing this of late (whether on these very forums or elsewhere on-line), but has the general population taken up a vote to stop spelling the words “lose” or “losing” properly? I keep seeing people write about how they need to “loose 10 lbs” or they need to be “loosing some weight”.[/quote] Funny you’re just noticing this now. People have been spelling “lose” as “loose” since Al Gore invented the internet. There is no word misspelled more often.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
helga wrote:
One that shits me big time, and this is only from what I see on the TV, is the Americans pronouncing aluminium as ALOO-MIN-UM. There is an extra fucking I in there people!
Really? “Aluminium”? Never seen that spelling in my life, even on periodic charts or in science texts.[/quote]
Exactly. That’s the british trying to better their image as the smarter, LOL
this is the nerdiest thread too date, please go lift some waits.