OT - Just something to spark conversation

[GinaSuperCat]

I cannot help but think of this, from the inimitable Stephen Fry...I think grammar is of utmost importance, but I also just LOVE this so much:

(it takes up the "10 items of less" issue and much more...well worth the 6 and a half minutes)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 7E-aoXLZGY

[DirtyMartini]

HAHA. EQ! Sorry I'm just now seeing this and can't sufficiently play. But I think I can pedant [< verbing there] in a nutshell. And I update my avatar in your honor, sir.

Hot wax should be poured on skin (if you're into that sort of thing), not in underpants. Fire ants should have insecticide poured on them.

Agreed on the second, though on the first I believe skin is implied* to be inside the underpants.

[*Not "inferred." "Disinterested" is inherently ambiguous; people have a common understanding of the prefix and attempt to apply it logically, only to be thwarted by its multiple meanings. English is a messy language. "Imply" and "infer," on the other hand, are two distinct words. I've never quite gotten how those could get mixed up, but in verbal speech it is easy to pull out the wrong one quickly.]

If you must put bitey/stingy type things down your drawers (and who am I to judge a person on their hobbies and pastimes?) then maybe a few scorpions would be a better choice.

Scorpions would indeed provide more bang for their buck.

Do you think a stinging fish of some kind would be too floppy for the purpose?

1481?! They were still burning witches in my neighborhood back then. I'm not taking no language advice from witch-immolators (is that a word?).

Or the invention of standardized spelling. History: good; stagnation: bad; grasping at straws: silly.

Fuck, those witch-immolators sure did have some choice swear words, though.

I cannot help but think of this, from the inimitable Stephen Fry...I think grammar is of utmost importance, but I also just LOVE this so much:

(it takes up the "10 items of less" issue and much more...well worth the 6 and a half minutes)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 7E-aoXLZGY

^Yep, this. (Love that video.) Context, convention, and circumstance. And caring. And oftentimes clarity, despite Fry's protestations, as life and language are rife with ambiguity and confusion, and it is your responsibility as a speaker/writer to help your audience understand you, not the other way around. Susan and I and others edit professionally, so when, say, Strange Things Happen is published with a lot of obvious typos, it's galling and not just a little professionally insulting. That's not a question of love of language but of editorial cheapness/laziness. A surgeon may lose track of a piece of gauze now and then, but he/she should still leave you with the least ugly scar possible.

But we also run by different standards/styles, have different pet peeves and different places in the sand where we draw our linguistic lines. For me: nonprofessional confusion of "its" and "it's" I get as it is indeed a stupid, confusing distinction; swapping "infer" and "imply," however, just doesn't have an excuse to me. But, as is in evidence, I don't bother setting off my indeeds with commas in informal communications; I'm not sure I could get through a day without verbing a noun; and, no matter how formal the text may be, sometimes moving a preposition out from the end makes a sentence just plain hard to read. Language is a lovely, living thing whose ambiguity and multiple meanings are what make poetry and drama and art and ideas. We just all have to start somewhere.

That being said, the idea of caring, I think, gets too easily lost in Fry's comments. As is -- to add another C -- courtesy. Apathy is not experimentation, nor is conversation masturbation. You have every prerogative to not give enough of a crap to bother trying to make yourself understood. And I, in turn, have every prerogative to not give enough of a crap to bother trying to understand you. But conversation works a whole lot better when we both make an effort.


ETA: Thanks, EQ. That was fun. I missed my train, but fun!
And thanks for the heads-up, luddite lady.

[GinaSuperCat]

^^^ This is wonderful. You aren't pedanting, however--that involves making and enforcing distinctions that have no practical or effective function other than preserving the law and order of the universe "Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?" --Walter Sobchak

I am embarrassed to admit I haven't gotten a chance to read Strange Things yet (!!!) but as for typos, etc. not all infelicities are due to bad writing / editing. The ways galleys are produced (at least in academic publishing) notoriously introduce errors not in the original ms--sometimes this happens before the writer reviews and approves them, sometimes afterward. Ask Pat about his essay where "faith" magically appeared instead of "face" in the original. When you are working with the writings of Levinas, that one small substitution produces a difference so great as to border on the comical.

I do a fair amount of professional editing myself and I always try to be mindful about "preferences" vs "errors"--suggestions for the former, corrections for the latter.

What I love about Fry's pretentious rant against pretension is the way in which it highlights how grammar (correct speaking and writing) is only one dimension of language use--rhetoric (what language can do), the other. A document rife with typos is like to showing up to a professional interview in ripped jeans (in Fry's terms). It has a substantial effect and makes a difference. The focus on what language "is" should not eclipse what language can "do"...

[TheEqualizer]

I love the Krypton Forum

[Lord Byron]

I cannot help but think of this, from the inimitable Stephen Fry...I think grammar is of utmost importance, but I also just LOVE this so much:

(it takes up the "10 items of less" issue and much more...well worth the 6 and a half minutes)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 7E-aoXLZGY

This was a cool video, thanks for putting it up here for us to watch. Really liked it!

[DirtyMartini]

What I love about Fry's pretentious rant against pretension is the way in which it highlights how grammar (correct speaking and writing) is only one dimension of language use--rhetoric (what language can do), the other. A document rife with typos is like to showing up to a professional interview in ripped jeans (in Fry's terms). It has a substantial effect and makes a difference. The focus on what language "is" should not eclipse what language can "do"...

Amen to that, sister, and beautifully put.

[BTW, I haven't gotten to message you back (via Mo) yet in detail, but short version: Honey, she's all yours!]

[63falcon]

Wow, I should've never posted!
The literalist I am, didn't get the game.....will promise no more weather reports!
Well, unless it's about tornado survival, snowbound adventures, etc...... Sorry guys!

[empty]

What EQ said, I love this place.

Thanks ladies. I needed that.

[moonstone]

[quote="TheEqualizer"]I love the Krypton Forum[/quote]

So do I

Such a funny thread Eq. Conversation sparked and then some!

[Lord Byron]

Equalizer I thought you might like this. I've always admired Werner Herzogs style of wording things.
http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/we ... ning-lady/

[TheEqualizer]

Equalizer I thought you might like this. I've always admired Werner Herzogs style of wording things.
http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/we ... ning-lady/

I had never seen that. Brilliant. I love Herzog.

For those too lazy to click a link or bandwidth challenged:

QUOTE

Rosalina. Woman.

You constantly revile me with your singular lack of vision. Be aware, there is an essential truth and beauty in all things. From the death throes of a speared gazelle to the damaged smile of a freeway homeless. But that does not mean that the invisibility of something implies its lack of being. Though simpleton babies foolishly believe the person before them vanishes when they cover their eyes during a hateful game of peek-a-boo, this is a fallacy. And so it is that the unseen dusty build up that accumulates behind the DVD shelves in the rumpus room exists also. This is unacceptable.

I will tell you this Rosalina, not as a taunt or a threat but as an evocation of joy. The joy of nothingness, the joy of the real. I want you to be real in everything you do. If you cannot be real, then a semblance of reality must be maintained. A real semblance of the fake real, or “real”. I have conquered volcanoes and visited the bitter depths of the earth’s oceans. Nothing I have witnessed, from lava to crustacean, assailed me liked the caked debris haunting that small plastic soap hammock in the smaller of the bathrooms. Nausea is not a sufficient word. In this regard, you are not being real.

Now we must turn to the horrors of nature. I am afraid this is inevitable. Nature is not something to be coddled and accepted and held to your bosom like a wounded snake. Tell me, what was there before you were born? What do you remember? That is nature. Nature is a void. An emptiness. A vacuum. And speaking of vacuum, I am not sure you’re using the retractable nozzle correctly or applying the ‘full weft’ setting when attending to the lush carpets of the den. I found some dander there.

I have only listened to two songs in my entire life. One was an aria by Wagner that I played compulsively from the ages of 19 to 27 at least 60 times a day until the local townsfolk drove me from my dwelling using rudimentary pitchforks and blazing torches. The other was Dido. Both appalled me to the point of paralysis. Every quaver was like a brickbat against my soul. Music is futile and malicious. So please, if you require entertainment while organizing the recycling, refrain from the ‘pop radio’ I was affronted by recently. May I recommend the recitation of some sharp verse. Perhaps by Goethe. Or Schiller. Or Shel Silverstein at a push.

The situation regarding spoons remains unchanged. If I see one, I will kill it.

That is all. Do not fail to think that you are not the finest woman I have ever met. You are. And I am including on this list my mother and the wife of Brad Dourif (the second wife, not the one with the lip thing). Thank you for listening and sorry if parts of this note were smudged. I have been weeping.

Your money is under the guillotine.

Herzog.

END QUOTE

ETA Corrected for DM

[IndyGirl]

This doesn't get me as upset as when people don't know the difference between there, their or they're.

Ay carumba, I hate that!

Word! There/their/they're misuse is a pet peeve of mine along with the misuse of it's or its. Good thread, EQ!

[nancyrose]

My current language irritant is the growing number of people who write that they "could of" or "would of" done something rather than "could have" or "would have!" I swear it's an epidemic and it's driving me crazy!!

Also, a number of hgtv personalities have uniformly decided to change the pronunciation of the French word "voila" to "wah-la!" It was annoying enough when limited to one network, but last night I heard the same pronunciation used in an advertisement on another network.

Annoys the hell out of me.

[Susan]

My current language irritant is the growing number of people who write that they "could of" or "would of" done something rather than "could have" or "would have!" I swear it's an epidemic and it's driving me crazy!!

YES. I hate that. Did they not learn what "could of" actually means? HELLO...contractions, anyone?

Honestly, there are times when I cannot respond to something I see because I don't understand what the fuck the person is talking about. I can't even mentally edit it.

[sockii]

My biggest writing/grammar pet peeve is improper dialog punctuation. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO FIGURE OUT?

FFS, I think I just absorbed how to do it properly from reading a lot of fiction, right from childhood. And I see it abused so badly by so many writers today, I just cringe.