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Pedants' corner

For discussions related to education and educational institutions.
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Dave B
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Pedants' corner

#1 Post by Dave B » November 9th, 2012, 1:49 pm

Just had an ad from Virgin for a new mobile contract.

The top line:

"Our new Premiere tariff [just for heads of government then?]. Made up for the B----- household and now half price[for 6 months it says later]."

Now, "made up" for me used to imply either the getting together of formerly estranged people or, more applicable in this context, something that is less than the truth.

Where do they get their copywriters these days I wonder?
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
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jaywhat
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Re: Pedants' corner

#2 Post by jaywhat » November 9th, 2012, 1:57 pm

I feel that 'premiere' refers normally to the first performance of a play etc. not that I would want to appear pedantic! :hilarity:

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#3 Post by Dave B » November 9th, 2012, 2:06 pm

jaywhat wrote:I feel that 'premiere' refers normally to the first performance of a play etc. not that I would want to appear pedantic! :hilarity:
You, just clocked that I had made that error! :redface:


:laughter:
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animist
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Re: Pedants' corner

#4 Post by animist » November 10th, 2012, 12:55 pm

what is annoying about being pedantic is that you are often wrong yourself - there's always someone who knows more. I love quirky features of language, one of which is zeugma - which I've thought was a kind of bathos or anticlimax (an example is "She buried her hurt feelings and her old red nose in her pocket handkerchief"). But lo and behold, Alexander McCall Smith now tells me (on page 237 of his book which I mentioned in the Books enjoyed thread) that this sort of thing is not zeugma but syllepsis - thanks Sandy

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Alan C.
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Re: Pedants' corner

#5 Post by Alan C. » January 15th, 2013, 6:14 pm

I don't think a comma would have gone amiss in the second sentence here.
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Lord Muck oGentry
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Re: Pedants' corner

#6 Post by Lord Muck oGentry » January 16th, 2013, 1:42 am

A few days ago Lady Muck and I saw on a hoarding a job advert: " Dreamed of a career in media sales?"

" Dreamt, possibly; dreamed, no ", said I in jest. Since then, however, I have found that not everyone uses both forms, and those who do use both do not draw the distinction where I do.
What is a conscientious pedant to do?
What we can't say, we can't say and we can't whistle it either. — Frank Ramsey

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jaywhat
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Re: Pedants' corner

#7 Post by jaywhat » January 16th, 2013, 6:05 am

Dreamed and dreamt are perfectly interchangeable - and I am not sure, but think I have heard people pronounce the first one sounding like the second - but I may have dreamted it.

thundril
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Re: Pedants' corner

#8 Post by thundril » January 16th, 2013, 2:19 pm

Aspiring pedants would do well to read Henry Watson Fowler's 'Dictionary of Modern English Usage'. Written in 1926, it is a good antidote to grammatic conservatism.

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#9 Post by Dave B » January 16th, 2013, 2:33 pm

thundril wrote:Aspiring pedants would do well to read Henry Watson Fowler's 'Dictionary of Modern English Usage'. Written in 1926, it is a good antidote to grammatic conservatism.
I had forgotten Fowler (Oxford 1999 version), and it sits on a shelf only three feet away!

I was unsure of "dreamt/dreamed", jaywhat, but you are dead right!

And, er, thundril, should that not be "grammatical"?
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thundril
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Re: Pedants' corner

#10 Post by thundril » January 16th, 2013, 2:41 pm

Dave B wrote:
thundril wrote:Aspiring pedants would do well to read Henry Watson Fowler's 'Dictionary of Modern English Usage'. Written in 1926, it is a good antidote to grammatic conservatism.
I had forgotten Fowler (Oxford 1999 version), and it sits on a shelf only three feet away!

I was unsure of "dreamt/dreamed", jaywhat, but you are dead right!

And, er, thundril, should that not be "grammatical"?
A few years ago, that would have been correct, Dave; but usage evolves :wink: .

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#11 Post by Dave B » January 16th, 2013, 2:50 pm

Have to grant you that, the 1875 Ogilvie dictionary has:
Grammatic - pertaining to grammar
Grammatical - belonging to grammar, according to the rules of grammar

The first does seem to have been dropped at some time, can't find my 1st edition Concise Oxford (think I loaned it to someone - foolish me!) to check which is in that.
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animist
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Re: Pedants' corner

#12 Post by animist » January 16th, 2013, 7:28 pm

Lord Muck oGentry wrote:A few days ago Lady Muck and I saw on a hoarding a job advert: " Dreamed of a career in media sales?"

" Dreamt, possibly; dreamed, no ", said I in jest. Since then, however, I have found that not everyone uses both forms, and those who do use both do not draw the distinction where I do.
What is a conscientious pedant to do?
strange that the ad said "dreamed" and not "dreaming". Anyway, "dreamt" is apparently the only English word which ends in "mt" (this came up in a quiz, I think - I trust I've not dreamed it up)

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#13 Post by Dave B » January 16th, 2013, 7:46 pm

I looked up "dreamt" in the Penguin Rhyming Dict., just to see if it had any other "-mt" words but it was not there. Initially that surprised me but then I thought, "Why include a word that has no rhymes in a rhyming dict.?"

Strangely though "dreamed" was also missing, lots of rhymes to that!
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Altfish
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Re: Pedants' corner

#14 Post by Altfish » January 16th, 2013, 7:50 pm

Dave B wrote:I looked up "dreamt" in the Penguin Rhyming Dict., just to see if it had any other "-mt" words but it was not there. Initially that surprised me but then I thought, "Why include a word that has no rhymes in a rhyming dict.?"

Strangely though "dreamed" was also missing, lots of rhymes to that!
I would say a few words ending in "...empt" would rhyme with dreamt; e.g. pre-empt

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#15 Post by Dave B » January 16th, 2013, 7:59 pm

Altfish wrote:
Dave B wrote:I looked up "dreamt" in the Penguin Rhyming Dict., just to see if it had any other "-mt" words but it was not there. Initially that surprised me but then I thought, "Why include a word that has no rhymes in a rhyming dict.?"

Strangely though "dreamed" was also missing, lots of rhymes to that!
I would say a few words ending in "...empt" would rhyme with dreamt; e.g. pre-empt
Not quite a rhyme if you pronounce the words correctly, but I usually misspell "dreamt" as "dreampt"!

But you could get away with it - seen worse rhymes.

And when he slept he dreamt,
That a beauty did him tempt,
But then found him exempt,
For he was too unkempt.
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Tetenterre
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Re: Pedants' corner

#16 Post by Tetenterre » January 17th, 2013, 11:41 am

Dave B wrote:Grammatic - pertaining to grammar
Grammatical - belonging to grammar, according to the rules of grammar

The first does seem to have been dropped at some time, can't find my 1st edition Concise Oxford (think I loaned it to someone - foolish me!) to check which is in that.
SOED: "grammatic <entomology(*) snipped> = GRAMMATICAL"


* :laughter: (Cunningly disguised reference to Malapropism thread)
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imaginaryfriend
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Re: Pedants' corner

#17 Post by imaginaryfriend » February 5th, 2013, 1:43 am

This has been annoying me for years and I often think that I'm the only one, but does anyone else get irritated by the use of "there's" instead of "there are"? It seems to be very common these days and seemingly has become so acceptable that when I recently watched a news report on ITV a respected news reporter who was live from that tragic helicopter crash in London was relating the number of deaths (only 2 fortunately) ended his report: "it's remarkable that there's no more deaths".

It makes me really frustrated and borderline violent that verb conjugation has been abandoned so wantonly. I hear it constantly, "there's more than five...", "there's loads of them..." etc.

Am I overreacting? And what's with "I was/we were sat" rather than "sitting"? I've even seen that one in The Guardian. I'm a fan of the car crash conflict resolution TV that is Judge Judy and often revel in the "shattered English" (the good judge's words) emitting from the desperate and often downright greedy plaintiffs and defendants with their "I had went" and "I seen", but I accept these digressions as the speech of ill-educated people, I don't expect to see or hear it in respectable media!

OK, rant over! :angry:

Having said all that, one of the best things I ever overheard (on a London bus) which really played with the rules of sentence construction was: "Let's go Wembley Tanisha! Wembley have buff shoe!" On relating this to a radio presenter in a rant on the poor use of English, her response was "And Peckham have buff bag!" which diffused my anger as I respected her fast thinking.
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Tetenterre
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Re: Pedants' corner

#18 Post by Tetenterre » February 5th, 2013, 6:02 am

Was listening to BBC local radio while driving home from an astronomy gig at a school in deepest Daaaarset yesterday evening, feeling increasingly frustrated by my inability to do anything about repeated references to "people who do their own DIY".


On the batphone, so expect typos...
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jaywhat
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Re: Pedants' corner

#19 Post by jaywhat » February 5th, 2013, 9:14 am

Why do pedants only get a corner?

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#20 Post by Alan H » February 5th, 2013, 10:05 am

jaywhat wrote:Why do pedants only get a corner?
'Cos if we gave them a room, someone would want to lock them in and throw away the key... :D
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