Didactic Thumbs (Pedantry Corner)

[Ninety-Three]

[eot]

It bothers me too because it's a real feeling and I guess there's just no word for it in English now. I mean, you even see it in pets.

[James]

I've never heard "jealous" used in that way, interesting that it used to mean that.

Pretty much the only time people use it correctly (including myself) is in a romantic context: jealous partners are (implicitly overly) afraid of losing their love.

[Ben X]

 

My uncle drops nigger a lot and I've talked to him about, no go. I had the same conversation with my Mom and Dad; although, they have stopped saying it and moved to The Blacks to having a tolerance to them. So, a pyrrhic victory, I think, but I'll take it.

 

A pyrrhic victory is one that takes a heavy toll on the victor (to the point where it almost may not be worth it) so I think it's misused here.

[Ben X]

Also, I've been thinking about jealous, and I now realise that I've read in Tolkien or Shakespeare or whatevs something like "jealously guarding" and I've subconsciously understood the usage from context without ever consciously wondering whether the word used to only have that meaning and had now changed.

[Claire Hosking]

Another bit of pedantry: I hate the expression "the master's tools will never demolish the master's house". It's a terrible metaphor. Many building tools, for instance hammers, are explicitly designed to also demolish things.

[namman siggins]

A pyrrhic victory is one that takes a heavy toll on the victor (to the point where it almost may not be worth it) so I think it's misused here.

EDIT: Ehh, fuck it

[sclpls]

Saying "simplistic" when someone meant to say "simple" will always bother me. The latest example where this has cropped up has been in the rush for games journalists to write yet another op-ed piece about how Rocket League should be an e-sport (see here: http://kotaku.com/rocket-league-needs-to-be-the-next-big-esport-1729176343 ). I don't know why, but the gaming community frequently makes this error (but it is a relatively common error in general).

[Badfinger]

It bothers me how many people who are ostensibly professional wordspersons end their sentences with "at". Ending a sentence with a preposition in general doesn't bother me nearly as much as this one specific instance.

[eot]

I'm very picky about some grammar points, but sentence ending prepositions and split infinitives don't bother all that much. In a lot of cases sentence ending prepositions make for more natural sounding language and don't cause problems with ambiguity. I haven't seen a good argument against them in the general case. No, Churchill disliking them isn't a good argument. In some cases they're redundant, like "where are you at?". That sounds like slang, but in other cases it sounds fine "what were you looking at?".

Actually, split infinitives don't bother me at all, I think they're useful. People pointing them out is what bothers me, because they're just doing it in slavish obedience to a prescriptivist rule they can't argue in favour of. Caring about grammar doesn't mean finding as many things to nitpick as possible. (Yes they do sound awful in some constructions, but you don't actually see that very often.)

"I really want to like this"

"I want to really like this"

Those two sentences mean slightly different things.

[Bjorn]

It bothers me how many people who are ostensibly professional wordspersons end their sentences with "at". Ending a sentence with a preposition in general doesn't bother me nearly as much as this one specific instance.

 

As someone who was educated to be a professional wordsperson, I'm endlessly bothered by people trying to claim that ending a sentence with any preposition is somehow bad grammar. 

[Badfinger]

I will refine my statement (and double down on my stubborn assholish pedantry) then to say my annoyance is in ending with the redundant "at", because even after reading that link I'm still convinced it's wrong and it bugs me.

[eot]

(and double down on my stubborn assholish pedantry)

That's what the thread is for

[Twig]

but then i couldn't say "where you at" which i say all the time

 

and also suffers actual real grammatical issues and i ain't even give a!

[Bjorn]

Triple down assholery incoming

 

It's occasionally redundant, but there are multiple times when it isn't.  The times when it isn't are plentiful enough to say that claiming it is wrong, as in breaking a rule, would be incorrect and confusing. In addition to eot's example, there's also, "What are you laughing at?"
And the English language is full of redundancies, most of which people don't even recognize. 

 

Even still, given that it's only inelegant in print, and takes up only 3 characters, I'd call it pretty low on the totem poll of redundancies that occur with the written word.

 

Take this sentence for example:
 

"I will refine my statement then to say my annoyance is in ending with the redundant "at", because even after reading that link I'm still convinced it's wrong and it bugs me."

 

Then is redundant.   Also, it is a much harder writing rule to always place punctuation within quotes, which is why in a sentence like that it would be more elegant and space saving to opt for something like italics to separate out the "at" instead of quotations, or just not accentuate it at all and trust the reader will understand that in this usage it is serving as a noun referencing itself and not a preposition.  The quotation marks are redundant because of context.

 

"I will refine my statement to say my annoyance is in ending with the redundant at, because even after reading that link I'm still convinced it's wrong and it bugs me."

 

As illustrated, your sentence was not wrong, but it was not as concise, free of redundancies or elegant as it could have been written.  Much like ending a sentence with at.  I could have actually dissected the hell out of that sentence to eliminate multiple other redundancies or oddities, and you can do this with almost every single published piece online, from the most prestigious journals to games writers just starting out.  I just think it's mostly really nitpickery stuff that's a waste of time. 

[Twig]

i guess i could just say "where you" and sound like a cartoon caveman

[Badfinger]

Triple down assholery incoming

 

It's occasionally redundant, but there are multiple times when it isn't.  The times when it isn't are plentiful enough to say that claiming it is wrong, as in breaking a rule, would be incorrect and confusing. In addition to eot's example, there's also, "What are you laughing at?"

And the English language is full of redundancies, most of which people don't even recognize. 

 

Even still, given that it's only inelegant in print, and takes up only 3 characters, I'd call it pretty low on the totem poll of redundancies that occur with the written word.

 

Take this sentence for example:

 

"I will refine my statement then to say my annoyance is in ending with the redundant "at", because even after reading that link I'm still convinced it's wrong and it bugs me."

 

Then is redundant.   Also, it is a much harder writing rule to always place punctuation within quotes, which is why in a sentence like that it would be more elegant and space saving to opt for something like italics to separate out the "at" instead of quotations, or just not accentuate it at all and trust the reader will understand that in this usage it is serving as a noun referencing itself and not a preposition.  The quotation marks are redundant because of context.

 

"I will refine my statement to say my annoyance is in ending with the redundant at, because even after reading that link I'm still convinced it's wrong and it bugs me."

 

As illustrated, your sentence was not wrong, but it was not as concise, free of redundancies or elegant as it could have been written.  Much like ending a sentence with at.  I could have actually dissected the hell out of that sentence to eliminate multiple other redundancies or oddities, and you can do this with almost every single published piece online, from the most prestigious journals to games writers just starting out.  I just think it's mostly really nitpickery stuff that's a waste of time. 

 

Bravo, bravissimo!   

 

I am constantly annoyed by my own shortcomings with language. I also realize that I didn't specify that it annoys me when it's spoken. I almost never see "where we're at" in print.

[Professor Video Games]

I'm not sure if it belongs in here, but what do people think about putting two spaces after a period? What's the point? It's not like it makes it more readable. In conclusion, two spaces is bad and people that do it should feel bad.

[Zeusthecat]

I'm not sure if it belongs in here, but what do people think about putting two spaces after a period? What's the point? It's not like it makes it more readable. In conclusion, two spaces is bad and people that do it should feel bad.

Absolutely. I hate editing a shared document and finding out the previous person used freakish double spaces after every period. Your sentences don't need that much room to breathe.

[Twig]

Two spaces is hot garbage. The only time you do it is to appease some shitty teacher.

[sclpls]

Weird, I have never heard of this two spaces thing.

[Bjorn]

Bravo, bravissimo!   

 

I am constantly annoyed by my own shortcomings with language. I also realize that I didn't specify that it annoys me when it's spoken. I almost never see "where we're at" in print.

 

  I think I needed to be a bit of an asshole, hadn't scratched that itch in awhile.  Thanks for the opportunity!

 

 

Weird, I have never heard of this two spaces thing.

 

I want to say it was a typewriter thing for some reason. Journalism did away with it years ago, and as far as I know it has pretty much completely passed out of all styles now. 

 

However, I do it almost all the time.  It's how I was trained to type, and I just double tap after every sentence unless I think real hard about it (like this post). I've got at least one program that automatically strips them out.  Microsoft Word used to automatically add a double space even if you just entered one. 

[Gormongous]

I want to say it was a typewriter thing for some reason. Journalism did away with it years ago, and as far as I know it has pretty much completely passed out of all styles now. 

 

However, I do it almost all the time.  It's how I was trained to type, and I just double tap after every sentence unless I think real hard about it (like this post). I've got at least one program that automatically strips them out.  Microsoft Word used to automatically add a double space even if you just entered one. 

 

You're right, it's a legacy from typewriters, which naturally had monospaced fonts. Except for Courier and the like, almost all fonts on modern computers are variable-width, meaning that periods and other punctuation have all have custom spacings that don't require a double-space to account for their roles in sentence structure. These days, it's definitely just old people teaching bad typography because it's easier than changing themselves.

[syntheticgerbil]

A type teacher I had said that 80s Macs had spacing issues as well, and that a lot of the standard fonts were typographers trying to get stuff set up for automatic kerning and such to fix those issues. I can't seem to find any evidence of that searching Google though, so maybe? Maybe not?

[Badfinger]

I learned to type with two spaces after a sentence in my word processing course.

 

I think today may actually have indicted my education more than anything.