The Pedant Strikes

[mrissa]

I don't like correcting people's usage in realtime. It's annoying. It's obnoxious. It's just not fun. But I think it's been long enough since any of you made these usage errors that I don't feel like I'm talking to any of you in specific -- I'm certainly not thinking of any of you in specific -- and I just have to get it off my chest.

1. No one asks you to tow the line unless you are fishing. If you are being asked to behave strictly correctly, you are being asked to toe the line. That is, you are not stepping over the line; you are precisely where you ought to be for the start of a race or a piece of drill or other physical exercise.

In reverse, there are lots of little kids around here who are towheads but almost none who are toeheads, as that condition would likely suggest a surgical treatment.

2. It is not a right of passage. It is a rite of passage. A right of passage would be, say, that you are allowed to drive past your neighbor's house on the public street. A rite of passage is something one goes through as a transition between different stages of life.

3. If you are balling your eyes out, I'm happy for you, but please keep it to yourself or at least put it behind a cut tag. If, on the other hand, you are bawling your eyes out, I'm very sorry to hear it, and I hope there's something I can do or say to make you feel better.

Comments

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yoiu probably wouldn't have liked the sign in my doctor's office reminding nurses to soak the speculum in the round bowel. I didn't either.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Oof! Bleh! Etc.!

[marksiegal.livejournal.com]

Balling your eyes out makes me think of scooping them out with a melon baller. An unpleasant image, worth putting behind a cut tag for its own reasons.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Uh, yah. Kinda Tim Powers with The Eye Thing. (I'm still alarmed by Last Call in that regard.)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I must admit that the NorAm spellings of the nouns "curb" and "tire" get the same sort of reaction from me, because to my mind those two words are verbs and we have the words "kerb" and "tyre" to indicate we mean the nouns. The constant readjustment over thsoe two words irks me unreasonably much.

Also, as I just mentioned in mail, the use of "phase" where one means "faze" becoming acceptable.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Whereas to me, "kerb" initially looked like something an illiterate cousin would write: "him and me carryed it to the kerb." I had to adjust to it being a perfectly legitimate, literate spelling in a different English.

[zunger.livejournal.com]

Can we add to this that 'free reign' suggests a miniature kingdom with purchase of any large sandwich, as opposed to the free rein that most people want?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Can I have a principality? I can't eat a whole large sandwich by myself.

[zunger.livejournal.com]

But you can eat a principality?

This sounds like the start of a story about ogres at home - with the mommy ogre giving baby ogre just a principality, since he can't eat an entire kingdom.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It says something about me that my first connection for "principality" is not actually "small kingdom" but "Angels, Archangels, and Virtues; Dominions, Principalities and Powers; Thrones, Seraphim and Cherubim." Which does not lend one to thinking of them as entities to which a mere ogre is much of a threat.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Oh, you HAD to get me started...

You are not "loosing" weight, unless you are actually cutting it off and releasing it into the wild.

If you are going to agree with someone, it's "hear, hear!" Not "here, here" and not "hear, here." Thank you.

And if you are awaiting me with "baited" breath, please brush your teeth.

*grumble*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Fly free, little weight! Fly with the birds!

Ahem.

And yes, "Here, here," makes me want to pat the person and say, "There, there."

[zunger.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I can use those in a dialogue -- "Here, here! Hear here." "Hear, hear!" ("I found tonight's speaker! He was hiding in the refrigerator. Come listen to him!" "He's brilliant! Bravo!")

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Hee. I think I committed this one today. I'm not stupid, truly!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The misuse of bath/bathe and breath/breathe drive me up the wall. And I stick my fingers in my ears and start singing loudly whenever I see someone posting that they have something "for sell."

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

"Toe the line" may come from trying to get seamen to line up along a particular seam on the deck for inspection, too.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

And also (for me, anyway): if something is a total loss, it is not a rightoff *or* a riteoff.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

Also, if you "nip it in the butt," it's too late. "Nipping it in the bud" is a much better idea.

2 things:

[(Anonymous)]

1) I cracked up at your balling/bawling comment.
2) Now for a Personal Question: What is your relationship to Timprov? He's not your brother, right? Roommate? Cousin? Visiting alien specimen? Of course you don't have to answer but I'm a regular reader and I'm getting a little confused.
p.s. My mom's maiden name was Ball. She had a sister named "Connie Mae Ball" and a brother named "Will Ball." hehe.

Decimated

[adriang.livejournal.com]

I think that it's important to note that, in war, if the worst you can do is decimate your opponent, you're probably losing the war. On the other hand, if you punish your own soldiers by decimating them (killing 10% of them, at random), that is a very serious business.

Adrian

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Every time I drive by the Granite City bar in Maple Grove, their sign bothers me greatly. It says Granite City Food & Brewery. Now, are if they are stating what they sell, can I buy a beer-making establishement to go along with my meal? Or maybe they're saying what they are, and they are a brewery that is also edible? Eww!

[mkille.livejournal.com]

A place I used to eat at in college had boxes that said "Good food and pizza served here." Hmmmmm.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

From experience, I can tell you there's unlikely to be anything edible there.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing*

Well said. The only problem is, the people who most need this probably won't see it.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

And lordluvvaduck, nobody ever "cuts the mustard" unless they work in a deli.