Re: BBC3 don't give a toss for views complacent about DOG

"Glyn" <gkennington@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1125963318.57569.0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I was hanging out with the cool kids in rec.arts.drwho when
> Ronnie Clark got out a spraycan and scrawled the following:
>> "Sean Huxter" <sean.huxter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:5n1Te.8879$rh.6030@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> > http://sean.adventureteam.com/pages/rant/rant.htm#pedantry
>
> Thank you, the voice of reason. The old "...attack my grammer"
> complaint gets on my tits nearly as much as when people say "same
> difference" [1], though the latter is obviously *meant* to piss me off.
> I remember someone making that exact complaint when I was actually
> agreeing with their argument.
>
>> You post a link to an article about pedantry by... TOP POSTING?! Thou
>> art
>> going directly to hell, Huxter!
>
> ...and another voice of reason. I've read groups where such minor (to
> me) things as failure to attribute quoted text are enough to get a
> poster's queries ignored in favour of flaming him for poor netiquette -
> compared to that, a slap for top-posting is perfectly justified.
>
>> To whom it might concern, actually, there are two errors in that
>> article -
>> both near the bottom. "There's plenty of ways of saying the same thing,"
>> should be "There're plenty of ways of saying the same thing." Rather
>> obviously, there is a redundant word in the sentence: "Language accuracy
>> should be no treated no differently."
>
> Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but I have some more:
> "quite" has been mis-spelled as "qiute". There's a fullstop inside the
> brackets in "(or type.)" when it is required outside them. And there's
> a sentence that starts with "and". Oh, bugger it.
>
>> </pedantry>
>>
>> Now, someone go find the errors in this posting.
>
> [Sucks in air through teeth.] Tricky, but I'll give it a go. ;-)
>
> My memory of the correct use of the comma leads me to believe that we
> should all use them a lot more sparsely than we currently do, so I could
> probably shout "superfluous punctuation" at some part of your post.
>
> Glyn
>
> [1] - I will accept this if it's an answer to a question such as "what
> do the two pairs of numbers '3 and 5' and '6 and 8'" have in common? ;-)
>
> --
> Glyn Kennington - remove caps from email address to reply
>
> it's: abbreviation for "it is"; its: belonging to it (cf. his, hers)
> Plurals don't need apostrophes, except to indicate possession.

My problem is that I often type so fast I transpose letters. So "quite" and
"qiuet" are easy mistakes for me to make, but let's be clear. Those are
typos. And I didn't proof the article sufficiently.

My article was not talking about typos. It was talking about people who
don't know the difference, and thinking it's perfectly acceptable to use bad
grammar and pretend it doesn't matter.

Starting a sentence with "And" to me is natural, and I don't see it as a
problem. It has its place. It's one of those rules that should only be
broken, though, if you know the rules well enough to break them properly. Or
so a great writing teacher once told me. These days it's not really an
issue.

People differ greatly on the abundance of commas. I tend to over-use them,
but in reality they are used correctly, but my over-use is a little
out-dated. These days sparse use of commmas is more acceptable, but I prefer
to use them at most normal conversational pauses. It's not incorrect, just a
little old-fashioned.

But thanks for pointing out the errors. In such a rant, I certainly should
fix those.

I'm not so sure about the period after or before a close-bracket, though. I
believe that's cultural, and differs from the US and the UK. But I'll look
into it. I think I'll go with this set of rules:

1) If the entire sentence is enclosed, such as: (Wow, that was special.)
I'll put the period inside with the rest of the sentence. If, however, I use
the parentheses inside of a sentence, such as: He drove rather speedily (as
if the world was ending). I will put it outside.

But the main reason I'm replying here, is this: I've been posting on usenet
since 1985, and I don't know this one apparently basic fact. What the hell
is TOP POSTING? Why is it shunned?

And don't get me started on things like "same difference", because it'll
only lead me to bring up "I could care less" and then all hell will break
loose, and I'll have to check myself into the psych ward again.

Sean.


.

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