Didactic Thumbs (Pedantry Corner)

[miffy495]

And totally justified, too. The argument that any cultural product of humanity is worthy of preservation, just because it is a product of humanity, begs the question in a way that really worries me.

 

It's two days after my birthday, but I think that seeing a person on the internet use "begs the question" properly is the best birthday present I've ever received. Thanks, Gormongous!

[Gormongous]

It's two days after my birthday, but I think that seeing a person on the internet use "begs the question" properly is the best birthday present I've ever received. Thanks, Gormongous!

I aim to please. Happy (belated) birthday!

[Merus]

It warms the cockles of my heart that Gormongous actually did use 'begging the question' correctly and someone tried to pull him up for it

[Ben X]

Well fuck me sideways - sorry Gormongous! In my defense, we were having an early family Christmas and I was very drunk at time of posting!

[Gormongous]

Well fuck me sideways - sorry Gormongous! In my defense, we were having an early family Christmas and I was very drunk at time of posting!

Hey, no worries! The mental image of you drunk-posting definitions of logical fallacies is worth any bruised ego on my part.

[Ben X]

My ego is now as bruised as my gin and tonics 

[Merus]

Think of it this way, Ben: you had to get quite tipsy to be sanctimonious. Many people do that even without liquor.

[tberton]

Ever since I read that article about using synonyms properly, I've been looking up words I thought I knew the connotation of, but did not. Did you know that "weird " is supposed to connotate a supernatural aspect? Also, I love that "eccentric" can literally mean "placed off center". "Paradigm" seems to have a technical connotation; I might start using "zeitgeist" when speaking about culture.

 

Alright, here's my chance to join in this thread!

 

First, to be a pedant: the verb is "connote" not "connotate."

 

Second, I find the idea that that a word is "supposed to" connote a particular meaning suspect. The whole idea about connatation is that certain words gain certain meanings aside from their denotative definitions. Connotation, it seems to me, should be a purely descriptive phenomenon - a word connotes whatever it connotes.

 

To illustrate my point, I think you'd find very few people today for whom "weird" has a specifically supernatural connotation. To me it just means "abnormal."

[toblix]

This thread is sick.

[dibs]

In vino Egotismus.

[Merus]

I think the supernatural meaning of 'weird' has retreated to 'wyrd'.

[Twig]

This thread is sick.

I dunno. I've participated, and I feel quite healthy!

[Ben X]

In vino Egotismus.

 

Ah, my family motto!

[melmer]

12/15 my grammar is the bollocks

http://en.what-character-are-you.com/d/en/927/index/4881.html

[Ben X]

I also got 12. A bit annoying that it doesn't tell you which ones it thinks you got incorrect...

 

EDIT: I did it again, only changing one question and still getting the same amount. So unless it gives a point for "the woman that works here" or "the woman who works here" then it's broken.

[melmer]

We is like totally on the same level at like the written word and language and stuff, cool huh? Word bros!

[Ben X]

All your grammar is belong to us.

[Merus]

I picked answers randomly, including several that grated to pick, and got 12/15. It's bullshit.

[tberton]

13, jerkwads. Although I really don't know how I got 2 wrong. And a bunch of them were dumb questions anyway. So I'm with Merus: it's bullshit. I'm 13/15 bullshit.

[Twig]

I got 13/15 so I'm better than all of you at this apparently bullshit test? I'm inclined to believe it's bullshit if only because it doesn't tell you what you got wrong.

 

(Confession: I did look up the term "pluperfect" because I'd literally never heard it before, but I instantly knew what "past perfect" meant, so I didn't feel too bad.)

 

It also reminds me that even though I know Well Grammar good enough, I don't really care anymore and mostly just write the worst fucking sentences when communicating... on forums for example.

 

EDIT: Nice me and tberton are the best together.
 

EDITIEDIT: SORRY I MEANT TBERTON AND I

 

 

EEDIT^3: I picked literally all wrong answers - even on the few that I wasn't 100% sure about, I could identify one answer that was obviously wrong - and got 14/15. I think the trick is the website reads your mind to grade your grammar, and answering the questions is just the tunnel through which it reaches your brainspace. And since I didn't have to look up pluperfect the second time around, it knew I was better.

[tberton]

The one that annoys me most is the "woman who works here" question. "The woman who works here" is technically the correct construction, but only the most pedantic English speaker would look at you twice if you said "The woman that works here." It makes sense, everybody knows what you're talking about, "that" is allowed to refer to all sorts nouns. What other metric of "proper grammar" can you have other than "most people think it's right"?

[Twig]

I'm not pedantic! You are!

[miffy495]

14, suckas.

[Twig]

So you got literally everything wrong? That's awkward.

[Merus]

In two days someone's going to get 16/15 and then things will get fun again