My last thread

[MandatorySuicide]

How, or why is it locked?

 

whats the deal, the skinny, the 411, did I somehow unknowingly do it.........doubtful

[Niemand]

It consisted of nonsense. Arguably, you had something you were trying to say, but your method of saying it prompted a less than serious reaction from others. As a result, Dikiyoba locked it in order to prevent the further propagation of spam.

[MandatorySuicide]

alright, so then the people who derailed my thread are the fault of this....... i'll remember that...., on a less vindictive note, thanks for the info! =D

[Enraged Slith]

 

You got something to say, punk?

[Student of Trinity]

How shall I put this? This is a sort of upscale board. We have pretensions. Specifically, we pretent to proper grammar, sometimes even to proper spelling. Some of the most uptight among us go so far as to affect fancy punctuation; you'll have to figure out for yourself which people those are, and avoid their evil blight.

 

So far nobody consistently uses footnotes*.

[Lilith]

sot don't give people ideas for new gimmicks, the old ones are bad enough

[MandatorySuicide]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

How shall I put this? This is a sort of upscale board. We have pretensions. Specifically, we pretent to proper grammar, sometimes even to proper spelling. Some of the most uptight among us go so far as to affect fancy punctuation; you'll have to figure out for yourself which people those are, and avoid their evil blight.

So far nobody consistently uses footnotes*.

yea, trolls come in all shapes in sizes, anyone who nit picks on grammar or spelling though, well, maybe they should spend a little less time on the board... lol seriously though 2 hel wif al nitpikas

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

How shall I put this? This is a sort of upscale board. We have pretensions. Specifically, we pretent to proper grammar, sometimes even to proper spelling. Some of the most uptight among us go so far as to affect fancy punctuation; you'll have to figure out for yourself which people those are, and avoid their evil blight.

So far nobody consistently uses footnotes*.

I totally would, but there isn't that funky little dagger thing you use after ** for more footnotes as a key on the keyboard.

[Alorael at Large]

I can't tell if that's brilliant troll-baiting or wandering blithely into the trolls' den.

 

—Alorael, who thinks maybe people who hate grammar shouldn't go pester a board based around grammar rather than some other common ground, like fun computer games! Yeah!

[Student of Trinity]

@OP:

Sure, but it's like this. You go to college, you write a mountain of term papers, you get a job, you have to write memos or manuals or amicus curiae briefs or whatever. None of that stuff gets far unless it's properly written. What they don't warn you about is, after a while it gets to be a habit. Soon your fingers just won't type 'lol' without shaking, and it takes real effort not to at least put periods between the letters. (Single quotes help.)

 

And it's sad and unfair, but if you see something like '2 hel wif al nitpikas', you just can't help thinking, "Ah, a twelve-year-old." So that's the reaction, I'm afraid. Pure prejudice, but you see how people get that way.

 

@Dantius:

You could try writing '^\dagger'. There's also '^\ddagger', but you might need to accumulate more strakh before you can get away with that.

 

@Lilith:

D'oh!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I totally would, but there isn't that funky little dagger thing you use after ** for more footnotes as a key on the keyboard.

alt-0134 (on the numeric keypad with Num Lock on) for a single dagger, alt-0135 for a double dagger

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Sure, but it's like this. You go to college, you write a mountain of term papers, you get a job, you have to write memos or manuals or amicus curiae briefs or whatever. None of that stuff gets far unless it's properly written. What they don't warn you about is, after a while it gets to be a habit. Soon your fingers just won't type 'lol' without shaking, and it takes real effort not to at least put periods between the letters. (Single quotes help.)

And it's sad and unfair, but if you see something like '2 hel wif al nitpikas', you just can't help thinking, "Ah, a twelve-year-old." So that's the reaction, I'm afraid. Pure prejudice, but you see how people get that way.

lol

[Student of Trinity]

I read a book on handwriting analysis once, which explained how the shape of your cursive capitals told volumes about your character and prospects. It also suggested that it could work in reverse, and that you could change your personality by changing your handwriting. It warned, however, that most attempts along these lines were dangerous, and should not be performed without expert supervision. But it did identify one harmless exercise, where you signed your name a hundred times each day, underlining each signature, and following each one with the words 'self reliant', also underlined. It was supposed to make you more self reliant.

 

I was skeptical even at the time I read the book. I think I was twelve. But maybe it's true, and if so, I guess we could all youngen up by posting lollery. Though it might be dangerous.

 

In answer to Suicide's original thread suggestion: yes, up to a point it can be fun to run amok in a Spiderweb game with a god character. I did it at the end of my aborted torment singleton game in A6, and it was great. But I can't see doing it for a whole game. It'd get boring fast.

[nikki.]

Aw man, this thread's title made me think we were getting a goodbye post.

 

I was sorely disappointed.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

it takes real effort not to at least put periods between the letters. (Single quotes help.)

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

not to at least put(Single quotes help.)

Infin/ itive

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Master1

Infin/ itive

i didn't know we were speaking latin

[Lilith]

seriously if you honestly think "to go boldly where no man has gone before" sounds better than the alternative you should probably not tell anyone how to write anything ever again

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: MandatorySuicide

nitpikas

Are those like really teeny-tiny pikas, or special pikas that make a living grooming other animals, or what?

Originally Posted By: Alorael

I can't tell if that's brilliant troll-baiting or wandering blithely into the trolls' den.

Dikiyoba thinks his PDN is well chosen.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Nikki.

Aw man, this thread's title made me think we were getting a goodbye post.

I thought the same thing at first, except for me it was the combination of the thread title and the name 'MandatorySuicide'.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

I read a book on handwriting analysis once, which explained how the shape of your cursive capitals told volumes about your character and prospects.

[...]

I was skeptical even at the time I read the book. I think I was twelve. But maybe it's true, and if so, I guess we could all youngen up by posting lollery. Though it might be dangerous.

I dunno, I think that I can tell a lot about a person by looking at their cursive. For instance, that they still write in cursive. Seriously, who writes in cursive beyond the dozenish letters required to sign your name?

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: SoT

But it did identify one harmless exercise, where you signed your name a hundred times each day, underlining each signature, and following each one with the words 'self reliant', also underlined. It was supposed to make you more self reliant.

I find this inexplicably hilarious.

[Kelandon]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

seriously if you honestly think "to go boldly where no man has gone before" sounds better than the alternative you should probably not tell anyone how to write anything ever again

Face it: you love meter. Especially iambs. Oh, sweet iambs.

[Lilith]

iamb what iamb and that's all that iamb

[Lilith]

i am bic pentameter

[MandatorySuicide]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

@OP:
Sure, but it's like this. You go to college, you write a mountain of term papers, you get a job, you have to write memos or manuals or amicus curiae briefs or whatever. None of that stuff gets far unless it's properly written. What they don't warn you about is, after a while it gets to be a habit. Soon your fingers just won't type 'lol' without shaking, and it takes real effort not to at least put periods between the letters. (Single quotes help.)

And it's sad and unfair, but if you see something like '2 hel wif al nitpikas', you just can't help thinking, "Ah, a twelve-year-old." So that's the reaction, I'm afraid. Pure prejudice, but you see how people get that way.

@Dantius:
You could try writing '^\dagger'. There's also '^\ddagger', but you might need to accumulate more strakh before you can get away with that.

@Lilith:
D'oh!

hmm, sorry dude but thats just bs. no matter how i type online or via text, when i have to put something on paper and it needs to be official i have no problem distinguishing between the two, maybe im brilliant, or maybe youre not lol.

and as to the reaction that im 12 because i said to hell with people who nit pick spelling and grammar in a way that was obviously sarcastic, well again id have to point to a lack of intelligence... just saying anyone who isnt a child shouldnt immediately assume im a child based on that, and if you do, well i guess its a good thing im not out for the approval of every person who makes an overall assumption based on a small line of text

[Aoslare]

Originally Posted By: Kelandon

Originally Posted By: Lilith

seriously if you honestly think "to go boldly where no man has gone before" sounds better than the alternative you should probably not tell anyone how to write anything ever again

Face it: you love meter. Especially iambs. Oh, sweet iambs.

Mora had a little iamb.

[Lilith]

nobody who doesn't properly capitalise and punctuate every sentence should be listened to

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

nobody who doesn't properly capitalise and punctuate every sentence should be listened to

 

and neither should people who end sentences with prepositions

[Student of Trinity]

That's a rule up with which I will not put.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

seriously if you honestly think "to go boldly where no man has gone before" sounds better than the alternative you should probably not tell anyone how to write anything ever again

I didn't say it sounds better. It is simply grammatically correct. I avoid split infinitives in formal writing, not speech. Okay, not as much in speech.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Master1

I didn't say it sounds better. It is simply grammatically correct.

what makes something grammatically correct? because some dude who wanted english to be more like latin said so a couple of hundred years ago?

the only valid measure of whether a sentence is "correct" is how easily your meaning is understood

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

the only valid measure of whether a sentence is "correct" is how easily your meaning is understood

Not is this sentence at correct all, but yet can you possibly understand it effort with. Not it's correct just comprehension due to, but obeys because laws certain grammatical.

[Lilith]

so did you just like completely skim over the word "easily" there or what

[Lilith]

i will defend the position that your post was more correct than a randomly-generated string of words would have been

 

although "correct" is probably a misleading word to use anyway

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

so did you just like completely skim over the word "easily" there or what

Originally Posted By: Lilith

i will defend the position that your post was more correct than a randomly-generated string of words would have been

although "correct" is probably a misleading word to use anyway

Abandon punctuation all Ye who enter here!

[Aoslare]

Ugh trollation.

 

Look, this is pretty simple. Language involves a very large set of complex and interrelated rules that allow us to make sense of it and hence to communicate. These rules are not static; they change, gradually, over time as different speakers do different things with the language. In addition, it is not necessary to follow every single rule in order to be understood. This has less to do with language change and more to do with the basic cognitive ability of being able to reconstruct an ordered whole from disordered and incomplete parts.

 

As a result, "correctness" in language lies on a continuum -- it is not boolean. Additionally, the true test of "correctness" is simply whether a native speaker hears an utterance as totally normal, as sounding off, or as incomprehensible -- or as something in between those poles.

[Alorael at Large]

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but in a nitpicking thread I think it's appropriate. Double posting is not an acceptable gimmick. Knock it off. You're already causing enough trouble with lack of capitalization with readers around who can't tell incompetence from ee cummings.

 

—Alorael, who rejects the argument against splitting infinitives as a matter of making English more like Latin. The argument seems to be more about a stylistic choice that became an iron-clad rule of style to some arbiters of language. There has never been a time when the rule seems to have been uncontested by equally literate luminaries, though, so go ahead and split in peace.

[Lilith]

Fine, fine, I'll quit it.

 

edit: bring back misc

[Alorael at Large]

It's called General now.

 

—Alorael, who wishes he had some record of number of topics locked due to being not General. He'd guess that there haven't been any lockings in far, far longer than the total lifetime of Misc.

[The Ratt]

nitpikas

 

nit;

–noun

1.

the egg of a parasitic insect, esp. of a louse, often attached to a hair or a fiber of clothing.

2.

the young of such an insect.

 

 

pi·ka;

–noun

any of several small, brown to gray tailless mammals of the genus Ochotona, resembling rabbits with short ears and legs and inhabiting western mountains of North America and parts of eastern Europe and Asia.

 

 

From these definitions we can deduce that a nitpika is the egg of a pika, and also that pikas are both mammals, insects, and parasitic. Hooray for math!

[Lilith]

just for the record two of my posts are better than one of anyone else's

 

wait that sounds less impressive than it did in my head

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

just for the record two of my posts are better than one of anyone else's

wait that sounds less impressive than it did in my head

That would have been more impressive if you'd split it up into two posts.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Master1

I didn't say it sounds better. It is simply grammatically correct.

what makes something grammatically correct? because some dude who wanted english to be more like latin said so a couple of hundred years ago?

the only valid measure of whether a sentence is "correct" is how easily your meaning is understood

Perhaps it should be mentioned that I'm in my junior year of high school (2 years left). I'll be taking the PSAT this year, in one week, actually. That qualifies me for the National Merit Scholarship, and the SAT that I'll be taking all too soon is an unfortunately large factor in the colleges I can get into. So grammar and usage are still important for me.

[Unplayable Playable Character]

As a fellow junior in high school having already taken the PSAT, it seemed to me that most of the grammar related questions were pretty specific in context. Any influences this forum could have on your grammar would only affect your preformance in a very general way. imo. However, it could be that the lack of variety of the grammar-related content is specific to my version of the PSAT.

 

On the other hand, I suppose it would help with writing that silly, 20 minute essay. However, you would have more luck with the essay if you practice making two pages of repetitive nonesense look meaningful as opposed to working on your grammar.

 

Then again, perhaps making nonesense into something meaningful is what grammar really is.

[A less presumptuous name.]

I've taken the PSAT twice. And how could you have already taken it, or are you referencing past years?

[Unplayable Playable Character]

Originally Posted By: Master1

I've taken the PSAT twice. And how could you have already taken it, or are you referencing past years?

How could someone about the same age as you and a comparable position in society to yours have done something you have done (twice, no less)?

Intruiging indeed.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Unknown NPC

How could someone about the same age as you and a comparable position in society to yours have done something you have done (twice, no less)?

Intruiging indeed.

This conspiracy clearly goes all the way to the top. Obama, the CIA, Mossad, the Taliban, and the reptilian overlords from the lower fifth dimension are clearly involved in the plot orchestrated and designed by Unknown NPC.

[Tirien]

I think there I have a quote that should sum up the nit-picking of the english language.

 

"Don't discuss the English language! Slam the door on it!" -Kaval

[Unplayable Playable Character]

Master1, you seem to not agree with me about my statement about the grammar section of the PSAT. What did you think of it?

[Alorael at Large]

I would be shocked if the PSAT cared about split infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions. The reading and writing sections can't go into minutiae and can't evaluate anything when there isn't an academic consensus on what's correct. And, well, high school teachers aren't always perfectly accurate and free of pedantic errors, either.

 

—Alorael, who thinks this board is a surprisingly literate and, more importantly for you, wordcrafty corner of the internet. Just look for your inspiration in other posts; this, and others by its author, are too laden with preciousness to serve as good examples.