Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: IanC Date: 18 Sep 02 - 10:55 AM Call yourselves pedant ... any half-decent self respecting pedant would NEVER sink so low as to even read a BS thread. ;-) |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: kendall Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:27 AM HAW HAW HAW, I do love a heated discussion. Nigel, you pegged me. There will be no such display of humility! Wolfgang, My copy of the Illiad begins; Sing, oh Goddess etc. I did get sloppy, the Christmas Carol does begin; Jacob Marley... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Wolfgang Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:36 AM I was wrong. Wolfgang |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: SharonA Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:19 PM Kendall: Nope, the first chapter of "A Christmas Carol" ("Marley's Ghost") begins: "Marley was dead: to begin with." Marley's first name is not mentioned until his ghost says, "In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: DonD Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:22 PM WARNING! Continued displays of pedantophilia may initiate Intercyberpol action, culminating in midnight raids on suspected pedantophiles. |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: SharonA Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:26 PM Pedanty raids? |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: kendall Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:01 PM When you tire of this thread, I will disclose the answers which none of you got. |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Willa Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:01 PM Nigel "And it it considered poor use of English "? Oh dear! |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: weerover Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:25 PM The way I heard it a (Dublin) man had a bet that he could invent a word which would be in common use within days. He then chalked the word "quiz" up on walls all over the city and the rest,as they say... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:54 PM He obviously had too much time on his hands! Not a picohelen in a carload!! :>) Alright, Mr Kendall, let's see yer hand! A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: SharonA Date: 18 Sep 02 - 03:07 PM Hmmm... Everything was answered on this thread except question #5 and the bonus question, after which Kendall said Noreen was "closest so far". Presumably, then, Noreen answered one of those two remaining questions in her PM. Yet Kendall now says there are answers (plural) that none of us "got". How can this be??? |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mr Red Date: 18 Sep 02 - 03:24 PM weerover Dunno about Dublin but it sounds OK (I had it occuring in Brighton or England at least. However I do know he was a Lord of some echelon and he didn't "have a bet" he "made a wager" argue the toss if you wish but he said it was a wager! I thought he painted it on one wall but my precision is only up to the "ped" level on that. Now if Helen had launched a thousand horses we would be knee deep in that rare commodity wooden horse manure and we would all be rich! **BG*** |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: weerover Date: 18 Sep 02 - 03:51 PM A really pedantic point Mr Red, but would that be wooden manure produced by horses or manure produced by wooden horses - or are they the same since horses made entirely of wood could only produce...well, you get the idea |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mudlark Date: 18 Sep 02 - 04:14 PM Oh my, I DO love the Mudcat.... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 18 Sep 02 - 04:50 PM I think "wooden horse manure" is just one of those lame circumlocutions to avoid harsh terms like "sawdust". A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Schantieman Date: 18 Sep 02 - 04:54 PM And, while we're on the subject, is the activity engaged in by pedants called 'pedantry' or 'pedantism'?
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Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: kendall Date: 18 Sep 02 - 05:02 PM Ok, Amos. The two you all missed, SILVERLOCK by John Myers Myers.This is my all time favorite novel. The bonus question, STORIES TOLD IN THE KITCHEN by Kendall Morse. Someone thought it was something by Hemingway. I'm honored. |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Sep 02 - 05:11 PM Oxford gives "quiz" as late as 19 C. and "of unknown origin". Regards p.s. mind you, some of our pedants are really older quizzes, regardless of age! |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 18 Sep 02 - 06:32 PM And the unladen swallow? I reckon it as about 13 picohelens... A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mark Cohen Date: 19 Sep 02 - 04:45 AM (A) "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." (B) "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." Question: which of these quotations is actually found in Pedante's Inferno? Aloha, Mark Hint: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. (And if I got that right, I'll eat my coconut frond papale.) |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Murray MacLeod Date: 19 Sep 02 - 04:53 AM Answer to Mark's question can be found in this Great Misquotations thread. Murray |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 19 Sep 02 - 07:47 AM IanC --- "any half-decent self respecting pedant would NEVER sink so low as to even read a BS thread." Tsk,tsk. Split infinitive! BJ |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: HuwG Date: 19 Sep 02 - 08:29 AM Amos and weerover, don't know about wooden horse droppings but ... About twenty (or more) years ago, the powers that be recognised that living in the new town of Milton Keynes wasn't as popular as it should have been; it was too stark, square and plastic, and was surrounded by acres of what counts in the UK as "prairie" fields i.e. a couple of hundred acres of uniform crop, with no hedges or woods to relieve the monotonous view. So, they hit on the brilliant idea of putting concrete models of cows in the fields just outside the town. Within days, local builders merchants had painted all their spare lumps of concrete brown, and deposited them behind the concrete cows. Citizens Band radio users at first named the place, "The City of the concrete Cows". The cows were soon seen as a laughable, if not pathetic measure, and were removed. The lumps of concrete waste matter were left for combine harvesters to remove in due course (expensively). CB's as quickly renamed the place, "The City of the concrete Cowsh*t". |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: DMcG Date: 19 Sep 02 - 08:45 AM Lewis Carroll, by the way, used "ca'n't" in the Alice books and, in I think the Silvie and Bruno books, had a great long pedant's rant why he was right and the rest of the world, using "can't", was wrong. |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Wincing Devil Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:00 AM About the Dante Quote: (A) "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." vs. Boy, talk about losing something in the translation! Inferno is the most translated Italian work, and the vesion vary widely... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:57 AM It's "Abandon all hope...". A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River Date: 19 Sep 02 - 11:22 AM If I like find any klike flippin pedants around here I will flippin WASTE 'em!!! There anit no sexcuse for pervershuns like that eh? We don't allow no pedeants in Blind River!!! - BDiBR |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 19 Sep 02 - 11:26 AM What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Well? Well? Mr SCI-ence?? A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Little Hawk Date: 19 Sep 02 - 11:40 AM How does one distinguish an unladen swallow from a laden one? - LH |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 19 Sep 02 - 12:34 PM Well, first you find a girl who'll swallow... BJ |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mark Cohen Date: 19 Sep 02 - 01:09 PM Tsk, tsk, gotcha! The answer is neither one is correct. Aloha, Mark (There ain't no such thing as Pedante's Inferno.) |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: The Walrus at work Date: 19 Sep 02 - 01:42 PM Of wooden horse droppings: Many years ago, I was in the habit of using a gun shop [1] in "New Row" (behind St Martin in the Fields", London). Just along the street was a shop (it may still be there) which had a beautiful wooden rocking horse outside as an advertisement. One day, while walking past, I noticed that someone had glued a number of conkers (Horse Chestnuts) to a board and had left said board behind the horse. I just wish I'd had a camera. Walrus [1] "Thos. Bland and Son" -alas now defunct- the only place I knew that could buy full size musket flints in central London |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: SharonA Date: 19 Sep 02 - 03:20 PM Walrus: I'm a bit surprised that the conker-gluer didn't glue two of the horse chestnuts to the nether regions of the horse! |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mr Red Date: 19 Sep 02 - 05:49 PM Amos That sawdust - I would have said it was diorhea - I would have if I could spell it and my SOED CR ROM could give me a clue even via a rhyme for "rhea" I am expecting a pedavalanche of spellings for what I will just refer to as "the squits"......... over to the pedants. Walrus - penny to a pound it was done by a female goldsmith - "She Stoops to Conker" I'll get my coat..... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mr Red Date: 19 Sep 02 - 06:15 PM diarrhoea new challenge- what's the term for a person who pedantically corrects themself? |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Amos Date: 19 Sep 02 - 07:18 PM An autopedestrian? A |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Mr Red Date: 19 Sep 02 - 07:41 PM Amos - No that is a guy who has lost (as in legally revoked) his driving licence (or license in the US). QUIZ time Declan - Brewers gives the date of the appearance of the word as 'about 1780'. Your 18th C Dub was no lord he was the manager of a Dublin theatre who laid a wager that he could introduce, into the language, a word with no meaning within 24 hours. He won. By chalking on every wall around town the four letters. All Dublin were enquiring what they meant but of course that only served to give it a meaning. As Brewers puts it fable accounts this story of Mr Daly. now for your homework, kiddies, the name of that theatre please........... |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: polaitaly Date: 20 Sep 02 - 11:05 AM Mark, I think the quotation from peDante is "Lasciate ogni speranza, O voi ch'entrate" . PEdante is the poet of my hometown, so if I'm wrong they will kick me out of town with shame. And what is a "coconut frond papale"?? |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Nigel Parsons Date: 20 Sep 02 - 11:09 AM Wincing Devil: It seems to read better as "All hope abandon, ye who enter here" Nigel |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Little Hawk Date: 20 Sep 02 - 11:42 AM We should get Yoda's word on this.... - LH |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: katlaughing Date: 30 Aug 11 - 02:09 PM We have so many words which have been turned into verbs..I spotted a new one on me, today. Viewing a collection of amateur pictures and accounts of the flooding in Vermont, the byline read "storified by CNN!" |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Kit Griffiths Date: 30 Aug 11 - 02:44 PM There isn't a noun in the language that can't be verbed! |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: Bill D Date: 30 Aug 11 - 05:50 PM Just to clarify the 9 year old post from Nigel... My copy of Dante's Inferno, translated by The Rev. Henry Francis Cary, M.A., with illustrations by Gustave Doré, does say "All hope abandon, ye who enter here" |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Aug 11 - 06:01 PM "Quis?" is what a boy would call out, holding up something they felt like giving away. And the first boy to shout"Ego" would get it. |
Subject: RE: BS: Pedants alert! From: GUEST,kendall Date: 31 Aug 11 - 01:20 PM Did I drop a clod in the churn or what? :-) |