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

Well, you *could* always tell him to p*ss off, Teasswill!

I think I am a bit of an anti-pedant myself. I love the English language and it is my job to teach it. Really I think what I enjoy most is having as much fun with it as I can.

az

Oi! Mi joke were a funny. why 'as you not bin laffing at it?!!

*Miss uzing inglish outta pro test*

Everyone is pedantic about something, surely - we shouldn't limit this thread to the grammar pedants.

As a mother, I of course support the school of thought whereby "Because" is a sentence in itself.

As a pedant, I cringe at that thought.

Why amn't I subscribed to this thread already?

RF

Am I being pedantic in stacking the dishwasher just so?

In a way, yes. With me it's the way you hang out the washing and take it down again. It's like lots of things - really, you're right, but most people just can't be bothered to do it that way.

However, with grammar, it's difficult to explain why things are wrong because not only the will to comply is missing, but also the very basic knowledge seems to have got lost, too. Simple things like the verb agreeing with the noun, for example.

(as in Spinks' error:post 28)Grammatical pedantry dictates that "None of us IS perfect."
'Everyone' also needs a singular verb, even if it refers to the whole population of the world.

Thanks wandrin. I was beginning to wonder if that was every gonna get noticed.

OH, and I chucked in a possessive "it's" too.

Allowing for "gonna" as a colloquialism, I believe you should have used "ever" rather than "every" in post 48.

In post 49 a true pedant would suggest that a comma is not required before the word 'and'.

F

A slightly less pedantic pedant would also point out that the second letter of 'oh' is rarely capitalised.

B

An even more pedantic peasant than that might point out that Wandrin' should have had an intial capital since it is a proper noun.

I suspect you meant 'initial' there Orcus.

I notice that Wand'rin is spelt as shown here and not as shown in any of the previous posts. I am not sure, however, if I should have used 'previous' in that context or if, perhaps, I should have used 'earlier'.

F

What is wrong with the comma after the OH?

A comma designates a short pause in a sentence, a breathing space if you like, or to separate a sub-clause as I have just done. There is such a pause after the 'OH' but it is considered bad practice to place a comma before 'and' except where the 'and' follows a sub-clause. There's no reason for this though; it's just being pedantic.



F

So it's not so much that it is undesirable to place a comma after the 'OH' as before the 'and'?

For instance Spinks could have said "OH, I chucked in a possessive "it's" too".

(I'm not sure where that last fullstop should have gond btw).

*subscribes*

Hell, no, I am going to post.

If it one has different pedantries for written and spoken English, (which is a fairly major assumption in the first place), is there a new kind of English arising which is 'Internet English' with different standards of pedantry? If so, wouldn't it include smileys?

Ben

The problem with positing an incipient internet pedantry is that it possibly fallaciously presupposes the existence of an agreed standard about which to be pedantic.

While there are certain elements of netiquette on which almost all agree - pretty much everyone frowns on PEOPLE WHO SHOUT EVERYTHING THEY SAY, for instance - there would appear to be very little agreement over anything more... structural, shall we say.

I mean, for heaven's sake, there's not even agreement over what constitutes the most basic, fundamental element of internet communications, the smiley. Do you use two characters? Or three?

This is of course due to loose, paradoxically DISconnected way the internet evolved as a medium for mass communication. There is no single, central, overarching authority like Johnson's dictionary, Fowler's Abusage, or the Academie Francaise. And there never, ever will be. As a result, one can no more be pedantic about "correct" usage of Internet English than one could be pedantic about the "correct" style of trouser or length of skirt. You can only correct your friends, because what's right among your own circle could be the most appalling faux pas outside it.

En't English brilliant?

H.

The fullstop is correctly placed, as the words within the quotation marks are not a complete sentence. If they were the fullstop would go inside the quotation marks.

Noggin

Isn't the correct length of skirt 'as short as possible'?

B