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

I'm amazed that no-one's noticed Toy Box's mistake in the word it, that should be it's, but let's leave that one be.
Having the cake and eating it doesn't hold a candle to 'it's doing my head (or 'ead) in'. I actually love this phrase, as I always have a mental image of the person's head disappearing into their body.

I that smiley!

It's doing my 'ead in. I like that one.

In the US you might hear, "I can't get my head around it".

An old fashioned american phrase (from Mark Twain's time) that may have a similar meaning is, "It's too various for me", which I also like.

I think my all time favorite is the Gumbyism (with phonetic spelling): "My braim hurts!"

However, back to aphorisms - my least favorite and most often misquoted is:
The proof is in the pudding.

It's in the dadgum taste of the dadgum pudding, dadgummit.

The proof is in the pudding? Herrmmm... I don't like it either. Sounds messy.
Should the smilies be included in a full sentence, i.e. before the full-stop, or shouldn't they?
Elly.

Traveller in Time drawing a smile
"Since when are smilies part of the grammar ? "

My Grama is quite smiley; so is my Granda.

I would have doubts about Della's sentence above replacing entire words with smilies, but perhaps we're moving into a whole new era. (A whole nother era?) I wouldn't do it myself (perhaps next year), but grammatically, I can't find anything wrong with it.

I have been catching up on the backlog so this is referring to something way back.

(Re Post 172) Right from the start, I wanted to comment on the "alright" as soon as I read it back at the beginning of the thread, Trig - but I think I kept getting waylaid (w**k, etc). At school, we were taught that "all right" can only be written thus because it is not an adjective such as always, but I'm not sure whether the argument holds water now, having read your explanation. If you compare it with "altogether" and "all together" it (your explanation)seems to make sense. So, as the language has probably not changed much in this regard since I was in the sixth form (1970/71) I think CD's comment in Post 189 is probably well overdue.

As for the brackets(Teaswill Post 173), I used to use them a lot, until common sense told me that what I was saying in the brackets was worth a sentence of its own and the brackets were an expression of my low self-esteem - i.e., I was feeling the need to apologise for and explain anything I was saying/writing and taking people's time with.

Now, when I look at some of the embarrassing rubbish some people talk and write (not on this thread), I reckon, I have just as much a right to my say as they do.

Elly - I'm sure the "Aintree Iron" is a train. Pedantic trainspotters please excuse my use of a lay word for something I don't know anything about. Locomotive, perhaps?

*wonders if 'pedantic trainspotters' is tautological*


All in all, reading this thread so far has been a great giggle and a genuinely liberating experience. Being allowed to pull people up on things that one normally has to force oneself to ignore for the sake of getting on with the conversation. ... And it's nice to know there are so many joining in!

Keep it up, folks. I hope I've managed to include some little boobs for the resident pedants to comment on.



Oh, and one last thing : <<(How fun this is!)>> - Byronic being.. That sounds like the sort of thing Foreigners say.

I'd just like to point out that the sentence that forms your third paragraph ends with a preposition.

RF

"Byronic being"

Interesting spelling. Perhaps I am a being of relation to Lord Byron? That could explain a lot.

"How fun this is" is probably an example of anastrophe, which I regard as a respectable linguistic device. I believe it is a relic of the Germanic origin of English.

The full proverb is "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" - the explanation is at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pro1.htm


The proverb literally says that you won’t know whether food has been cooked properly until you try it.

<> (RF)

And I am constantly teaching students that some verbs have 'dependent prepositions' that need the preposition in order for the meaning to make sense.

<>

You have a better way of saying this? Sounds perfectly fine to me.

az

"Sounds perfectly fine to me."

Well, isn't this the point of pedantry? Of course it sounds perfectly fine, but to be pedantic, it's not correct!

The correct version should be "I hope I've managed to include some little boobs on which the resident pedants can comment".

Likewise (and this was actually the fourth paragraph), "I was feeling the need to apologise for and explain anything I was saying/writing and taking people's time with" ends with a preposition.

<> (BB)

TC's original sentence, in fact, is quite grammatically correct, except for some pedants who are still living in the 19th century and have not grasped the simple fact that language is a living thing that changes with the times.

Your 'correct' example, BB, sounds very stilted and unnatural. And though it may be formally correct, it certainly is not the only 'correct' way to say it.

az

You can find Latin here: A218882, A497801, and A4103010.

Let's keep this conversation in English, please.

TRiG.

Well, there's no need to get hostile about it! It's only a bit of fun (pedantry, I mean).

Spoken language, I think, can get away with a lot more grammatical mistakes; written language is a different matter. Since h2g2 calls these things "conversations", it is acceptable to use transliterated spoken English, except that this is a pedants' conversation, isn't it? So, I *know* perfectly well that the preposition rule is being forgotten, but I'm being pedantic! I wouldn't mention it in any other topic.

And yes, I know this rule has been carried over from Latin, but English has a lot of things carried over from Latin. The French language includes this rule, and it is much stricter. There is a group that strives to uphold the French language to stop it from being Anglicised (something I don't think they can stop, given the influence of America). Similarly, I think grammatical pedantry is just a way of trying to uphold the language's roots, and I think that the way that language evolves and changes nowadays is largely shaped by the political influence of the USA, something I personally do not like to see.

(Oooh, controversy!)

<> (BB)

Me? No, never ever hostile, just sometimes stating a point that perhaps comes across without the humour intended.

Heck, I'm having fun here.

az

The thing is, though, that this rule wasn't 'carried over' from Latin. Latin, both of itself and through French, has had a large influence on the vocabulary of English and a smaller influence on its grammar, but our language remains, at its heart, Germanic. The English language never included this 'rule' that a preposition is something you cannot end a sentence with. It was invented by early pedants attempting to model our language on Latin. It never really existed. It's a fantasy. Forget it.

TRiG.

I don't believe you! Not unless you post a link to some reputable evidence, anyway. (I see what you mean, azahar; some things can sound severe even when humour is intended. This is another!)

(Thinking about it, I suppose it was in the Norman invasion that English became so Latinised. Still, if that hadn't happened, we would be without a lot of our vocabulary).

One aphorism my mother-in-law always misquotes is, "Ignorance is bliss". I have to grit my teeth when I hear her say that, 'cos she'll get upset if I correct her. Listen, Mum, the phrase is, "If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." Get it?!?

Ah yes... the misquotes.
"Money is the root of all evil." is my favourite.