Pedants Of The World, Revolt!

Originally posted by Maurice@Jun 21 2005, 07:38 AM
My Latin teacher once challenged us to write a sentence using the word 'had' nine times in succession.

When he told us the answer, we reckoned it could have been ten.
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The teacher's answer:
The student, because where he should have had “had had” had had “had had had”, had marks deducted.


We replied by saying the final 'had' could be made pluperfect to reach ten:
The student, because where he should have had “had had” had had “had had had”, had had marks deducted.

(NB - no broken sentence :P )

Obviously the sequence of three in quotation marks is grammatically incorrect but it was being quoted as written and therefore acceptable in the sentence.
 
I need to warn you, Mo: when you're on this stringent diet, you'll find a huge mental energy burst after a few days. You'll find yourself bright and alert at all hours. You will spend that time sproinging about until 3.00 a.m. on the forum, devising more and more intricate word games, and becoming more and more unhinged. Eventually, Mrs Mo and Moette will go to live with relatives, the dog will go mad, and your head teacher will refer you to a very sympathetic psychiatrist, who, you will note, does nonagrams and cryptic crosswords, but is slow, and ill-educated in the Classics. During one visit, to address your obsession with teaching by rebuses and pictograms only, you attack him violently with a copy of 'The Right Word at the Right Time', screaming abuse in a wild mix of Gaelic, Spanish (Mod.) and Latin.

You won't be able to say, "Had I had had the information I have now, I would have had a happier life." You won't be able to say it, because you'll be blissfully sedated in a cosy little room with soft, padded walls.

I hope that helps?
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jun 22 2005, 08:22 PM
Must I edit every post on this topic? :angy:

That's 'plebians' objections', Brian, and 'pedant's rant', PDJ. If there is any more apostrophe abuse by either of you, you'll be blackballed from every racecourse except Wolverhampton, and that just for Banded meetings. Now, stop mucking up those apostrophes, or else...
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If we must go this far, could I respectfully ask people to correctly spell plebeian??! :P

Yes, if you do a search on plebian, it comes up (mainly on American sites :angy: ) - but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, plebeian is the correct spelling, plebian does not exist as a word.

I thank you!!! :P :D
 
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Whoops, I know I'm guilty as charged on that one, Jules! :shy:

Having said that, I'm pretty sure that although I was originally taught not to put 'and' after a comma (when I was at primary school), that as I progressed through comprehensive school I was taught that it was now an acceptable practice. Could anyone enlighten me further?
 
If it introduces a new clause (as opposed to its normal conjunctive function, it's acceptable, and is in common use, if you see what I mean.
 
I was taught that as long as the sentence made sense if you removed the bit in between, such as Maurice's "it's acceptable," it was all right. (The same with 'but'.) And please note, that's all right, and not alright! :lol:

Dom, sadly, I am unable to wrestle with you until one of us lies panting and exhausted upon the floor (in my condition, it'll be me, anyway!): my Collins has let me down, and not given me an alternative to 'plebeian'. I bow deep and low to your fine knowledge of Roman origins. :)

(Stomps off in fury, tearing the Collins into bite-size pieces...) :teeth:
 
:lol: :lol: I'm just a boring soul, Jon - one who knows a little about Roman history!!

As for making mistakes, I thought the following was a little disappointing for a multi-million pound company (taken from the Coolmore website):

Footstepsinthesand is substituting for Giant's Causeway, who is to be rested following unprecedented demand for his services in Kentucky this year, at a fee of US$200,000.
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Is it just me, or does the siting of a superfluous comma make that statement initially read that it is Footstepisinthesand who will stand at US$200,000? :confused: :D
 
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

Today I returned yet more reports for correction. I had them returned to me unaltered as it is now also acceptable to spell a subject with a small letter instead of a capital. Why do I bother??
 
As stated before my grammer isn't up to the standard of many on here but why do we use many ? or ! after a particular question or point. I know it emphasizes the point but is it correct.
 
As in: NO!!!!!! tetley? It's not correct, strictly speaking. It's done for what you might call dramatic effect. Since we haven't got facial expressions and gestures on here (and it's probably just as well), the overuse of exclamation and question marks just shows it's eye-boggling, eyebrow-raising stuff, a bit more than :o or :brows: although these emoticons do just as well.

So, anything else you'd like to know????????????????????? :lol:
 
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