The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Thomas Shey]

On an unrelated note, the anesthetic always seems to wear off right in the middle of the procedure whenever I'm having dental work done.

People's reactions to anesthesia can be notoriously idiosyncratic. My wife has a tendency to have it wear off early in a lot of things.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Now I'm trying not to imagine how awful "baited breath" would smell. If I ever write fiction I will have to work that in.

Coincidentally, I just read a Ngaio Marsh mystery called "Scales of Justice" in which an enormous trout and the scent of fish on a cat's breath was a somewhat important clue. Does that count as baited breath, or would that be something more along the lines of the kid from the "How To Eat Fried Worms" kids' book?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Some days it feels like I'm more of an interpreter than a project manager.

When I was doing tech writing I often felt that way, trying to convey what the engineers or coders were saying to most people.

 

[overgeeked]

A few more common ones.

They’re. Short for they are.
Their. Possessive, they own it.
There. Location or distance.

You’re. Short for you are.
Your. Possessive, you own it.

Y’all. Short for you all.

Ah. Years of being an editor.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thinking about examples of this bring to mind two truths:

1. I can feel rightful indignation over seeing such mistakes only to type "there" instead of "their" in my next post.

I've been prone to homonym substitutions my whole life. Its a fun flaw to have as someone who used to make a living as an editor.

2. It is hard growing old enough to see language drift, drift right past you.

That's where viewing linguistics as descriptive rathe than prescriptive comes in handy.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve mentioned this before, but for some reason I get irritated at how often people say “less” when they mean “fewer”.

 

[Cadence]

A few more common ones.

They’re. Short for they are.
Their. Possessive, they own it.
There. Location or distance.

You’re. Short for you are.
Your. Possessive, you own it.

Y’all. Short for you all.

Ah. Years of being an editor.

I type phonetically. So I will usually get the first they're/their/there correct in a paragraph (or whatever I'm typing), but then the rest of them will end up being that one. Luckily I always go back to edit things, even on social media.

 

[MarkB]

I type phonetically. So I will usually get the first they're/their/there correct in a paragraph (or whatever I'm typing), but then the rest of them will end up being that one. Luckily I always go back to edit things, even on social media.

It annoys me every time that autocorrect will always change "its" to "it's", despite both being valid spellings.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yep. English has stolen so much from so many languages without changing spelling for so long that you can find examples of just about any sound spelled just about any way.

And that doesn't even get into the hit or miss way we've often chosen to port over words from languages that don't use Roman characters. Peking/Peiping/Beijing anyone?

 

[MarkB]

And that doesn't even get into the hit or miss way we've often chosen to port over words from languages that don't use Roman characters. Peking/Peiping/Beijing anyone?

And even words that do seem to have similar roots seem to drift in all directions. "Ough" is the one I always think of.

Bough
Cough
Though
Thought
Through
Enough
Thorough