h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah well, now you are one, so live with it.

az

"The Posting to which you are replying is from pocketprincess
Can I get a little pendantic rant in? I hate ppl saying "you can't have your cake and eat it"... Course I can! What else will I do with it?! I can't EAT my cake and HAVE it, fools! Irritates me every time! "

I believe it should be 'You can't have your cake and eat it too', as once it has been eaten it is gone, you don't have it any more. I don't understand the distinction you're making with having eat and have the other way around.

I couldn't find 'ppl' in my dictionary.

"i merely enquired as to it's possibility"

Spoken aloud, this would sound respectable. However, the lowercase 'i' and the use of the omission apostrophe instead of the possessive ("its possibility") is scandalous at best. You really are a fallen pedant!

Another interesting thing about spoken versus written English, is "yeah", as azahar reminds me. When spoken, "yeah" is much easier than "yes"; however, when written, "yeah" has fully one more letter than "yes" and is hence more difficult to render than the correct form of the affirmative.

Incidentally, "spoken aloud" is called a pleonasm. The word 'aloud' is unnecessary, since all speech is aloud (you can't speak silently; that's called thinking). Similarly, 'rising up' and 'falling down' are classic pleonasms. The boundary between the use of such false grammatical economy for the sake of rhetoric, and for laziness, is thin indeed.

(How fun this is!)

Given the context, it must be referring to 'Private Pilot Licence'. Evidently, eating one's cake after obtaining it is a grave violation of the rules of piloting. It sounds logical: you cannot reasonably fly a 'plane when you are eating cake, after all.

Still, the use of lowercase for an acronym is unforgivable at best.

<>

Oh yeah, HUGELY way more difficult, that one extra letter ...

az

And it really should be "you can't have your cake and have it too".

Obviously you can have your cake and eat it. And then after that - no more cake. Problem?


az

One would find it difficult to eat cake that one did not already have.

Reminds me of a text adventure:

> eat cake

But you don't have the cake!

> take cake

You now have the cake.

> eat cake

You can't have your cake and eat it too!

<<(Subordinate clauses, for example, are far more at home in a written than in a spoken language.) >>

I've been known to use them in speech, confusing my language students! (For which I felt really bad, but that's by the by..)

<>

I would say that the possibility of flying a plane whilst also eating cake depends on many things. After all, the plane may have an autopilot function, which the pilots could engage before they began to eat cake. As they would still be in the cockpit, they would still (according to international aviation rules) be in overall command of the aircraft, and hence they technically would be flying the plane while also eating cake.

Besides, how else would pilots on long haul flights eat?

Well, they could eat sandwiches.

'You can't have the cake and eat it too' - but certainly you can eat other people's cakes?

'Having your cake and eating it' depends on 'having' meaning keeping. So you can't both keep your cake and consume it. Obviously

I'd just like to point out that you missed out the last full stop.

Not that it matters anyway as 'obviously' on it's own is not a complete sentence.

" 'obviously' on it's own"

This is worth remembering:

The Oxford rule:
"It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs."

I think that should make things perfectly clear.

I know I'm suffering from post-lunch syndrome, but I had to read that twice to understand it. I'll have to print that out and then give copies to all those shopkeepers who insist on selling "potato's" and "carrot's" .

I put the apostrophe in "it's" on purpose to see if anyone would spot the mistake... honest.

I do'nt believe you

In that case I'll just have to mention your incorrectly place apostrophe *and* the lack of a full stop.

Placed. PLACED. For the love of God why am I not using the Preview button in a thread about pedantry?