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

[MNblockhead]

Some people need to learn when to stop digging. I've got the red-text treatment once or twice. And the proper reaction is to go "oops" and move on, maybe stop following that thread. But some people seem compelled to sea lion about it or treat a situation involving social etiquette like a point of justice. Even if you think your getting called out on something is unfair or weird, like why dig your feet in? Just accept it and move on, or leave the site if it isn't allowing you to engage in topics, or behave in ways, that you want.

Like, let's say a friend invites me to a party at a friend's of his home. And I'm there and am enjoying the party. I find myself in a conversation in a group and I say something about platypuses. The group gets a little awkwardly quiet and my friend says "we don't talk about platypuses" here. "Why?" "We just don't, just drop it." "But I don't get it, what harm is there in talking about platypuses?"

Then the owner of the home comes over and says, "I'm sorry, but if you insist on talking about platypuses, you'll have to leave."

"That's crazy. And it is unfair. What is the harm of talking about platypuses!? You're stifling my free speech!"

"I'm not the government and this is my home, if you want to talk about platypuses, go somewhere else and talk about them. I'm not telling you again."

"But..."

Silly example, but that's kinda how I feel about seeing a lot of this play out on the forum. I'm not even talking about people arguing over cultural war issue. I see this over opinions on game systems and mechanics, or in a recent example over the software limitations of a platform feature.

 

[payn]

Too shay

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm fascinated by phrases that get mangled like this. "Another think coming" and "bated breath" are favorites.


I write/rewrite/delete soooo many posts. My phone has posts in draft almost every time I open the boards on it.

"All intensive purposes"
"less items"
"supposably"
"email"
typing two spaces after a period on computer using a variable-width font
"he made a gaff" (Really? Is he in the SCA?)
and on...

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.

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

 

[MNblockhead]

The one that always gets me is “peaked my curiosity.”

Nah, man. Just nah.

Try to give folks the benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps the writer means that you made him the most curious he can possibly be?

"When Alice saw a rabbit with a pocket watch it piqued her curiosity. When she heard it talk, it peaked her curiosity."

 

[Old Fezziwig]

"email"
typing two spaces after a period on computer using a variable-width font

I used to write "e-mail" religiously, but I've come around on "email." For whatever reason, the hyphen started looking fussy to me. That said, I'm deeply committed to two spaces after a full stop. One spaces looks odd to me. I am large. I contain multitudes.

 

[Autumnal]

Too shay

“per say” is one of my bêtes noire.

 

[MNblockhead]

I used to write "e-mail" religiously, but I've come around on "email." For whatever reason, the hyphen started looking fussy to me. That said, I'm deeply committed to two spaces after a full stop. One spaces looks odd to me. I am large. I contain multitudes.

It breaks English spelling and pronunciation conventions. Should we now pronounce it em-ale. We don't say ee-masculate. It is also inconsistent. Why not write "xray" then?

But the battle was lost for me when one of the last holdouts, the Chicago Manual of Style, embraced "email" in the 17th edition. In the recently released 18th edition, "ebook" and "esports" joins the list of acceptable non-hyphenated e-words. Why not just remove the hyphen for all e-words in the 17th edition?

I find "eDiscovery" an especially annoying spelling. But now I'm coming around to thinking that we just replace all hyphenated words, or at least those starting with single-letter abbreviations, with camel case: eMail, eCommerce, xRay, gMan, etc. It gets rid of common annoyances with hyphenated words (e.g., it isn't convenient for most people to type a non-breaking hyphen, leading to "e-mail" breaking at the end of a line). Yet it is much more clear than just removing the hyphen.

EDIT: regarding two space, with proportionally-spaced fonts, you really are not adding two spaces. I figured for most people it was because for people who started typing with typewriters, it just became a habit, or muscle memory. I know I had to unlearn typing two spaces after punctuation because I learned to type in school on a typewriter and that is what we were instructed to do. At the same time, there really is no harm--other than upsetting an editor if you are submitting work for publishing.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

It is also inconsistent. Why not write "xray" then?

You're not wrong, and I could argue that we're better equipped to pronounce a leading vowel than a leading x, but I don't feel strongly about that -- do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. (Whitman on the brain tonight.)

But now I'm coming around to thinking that we just replace all hyphenated words, or at least those starting with single-letter abbreviations, with camel case: eMail, eCommerce, xRay, gMan, etc.

I think this is an interesting idea that I'd absolutely hate it practice. It took me nine months to get used to camel case in my programming classes. Seeing it and using it in regular text would just about break me.

 

[MNblockhead]

You're not wrong, and I could argue that we're better equipped to pronounce a leading vowel than a leading x, but I don't feel strongly about that -- do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. (Whitman on the brain tonight.)


I think this is an interesting idea that I'd absolutely hate it practice. It took me nine months to get used to camel case in my programming classes. Seeing it and using it in regular text would just about break me.

I worked on a project once with some British colleagues. Part of it involved publishing a white paper on a short deadline. The style manual we had to follow said that we had to use the online Oxford Dictionary set to British English. If more than one spelling is given in the dictionary, we were to use the form listed first. There were a number of words that, when spelled by Americans, end in -ize, but which British writers spell with -ise. But for a surprisingly large number of these words, both are considered correct in British spelling and for many of them, the Oxford Dictionary listed the -ize form first. One British lawyer in particular kept correcting my "American" spelling and I had to keep correcting it back to conform to the style manual. Drove me nuts.

Speaking of retraining yourself, reversing your retraining is even more tough. I've gotten so used to putting punctuation after the quotation mark while working abroad that now that I'm back in the U.S., I have to constantly go back and correct this. Luckily, grammar/style settings in Office 365 products help me catch this for most writing. But I'm not allowed to install AutoHotKey or similar universal macro/autocorrect software on my work computer, so I don't have the benefit of the computer checking for me in all contexts.

 

[Gradine]