Re: WOWA!
- From: "PJ" <authoressss@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 10:01:57 -0500
"Ray Haddad" <rhaddad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8l49l31cn0p74tmkt8a763t8a54s89pegm@xxxxxxxxxx
PJ wrote
"Ray Haddad" <rhaddad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
and "PJ" <authoressss@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
"Ray Haddad" <rhaddad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:29:19 +0100, I said, "Pick a card, any card"
and Alan Hope <usenet.identity@xxxxxxxxx> instead replied:
Ray Haddad goes:
On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:58:51 +0100, I said, "Pick a card, any card"
and Alan Hope <usenet.identity@xxxxxxxxx> instead replied:
Ray Haddad goes:
Perth is due west of you and south.
It can't be both.
Oh, dear. A flat earth guy.
Fool. Don't you know what "due west" means?
Fool? Did you really miss the conjunction there? Please tell me it
isn't so!
"Due west" means "straight west."
"due west, westward, W (the cardinal compass point that is a 270
degrees)"
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=due%20west
You meant southwest, Shirley.
Which of course is exactly the same thing I wrote.
Well, not quite. You said "due west of you and south." You expressed it a
bit clumsily by using the word "due." If someone were to be completely
technical about it, it is either due west or it is due south. But I
understand what you were trying to say: "If you want to go from your house
to Perth, first you go due west, and then you turn south."
Remember, he was to be swimming the way over here. I'd suggest a plane or
boat for normal folk but an alpha male with extra digital testosterone
would swim. It's a guy thing.
So I get your meaning, southwest, which is what really matters.
I find it amusing that so many take such glaring exception to a properly
worded phrasing
Um -- it's a writers' newsgroup?
while completely ignoring the absurd notion that Skippy would swim the
entire way to Australia from Los Angeles.
Apparently no one cares about that.
It seems that picking nits has boundaries in MW. Crazy boundaries, but
limits none the less.
It's not limited to misc.writing, nor is it exclusively about you.
Nitpicking writing is what writers do.
If I described Alan's eyes by saying "Alan's eyes are exactly brown and
blue," I suspect more than one person here would jump on my poor word usage.
To clarify, I would write, "What I meant was, Alan's eyes are brown with
specks of blue." I wouldn't keep making the inane argument, "Which of course
is the same thing I wrote." Because that wouldn't be true, as everyone could
see.
Your use of the word "due" was confusing and inaccurate. I wish you would
just admit that.
~ ~ ~
PJ
.
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