CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
I'm not immune, I type faster than my brain can keep up, but let's keep this initially bike related.
Peddle instead of pedal, and break instead of brake. Argh. I mean, just, Argh! Winds me up more than an RLJing white van man on his mobile phone.
(and while we're about it, Espresso!!!!)
Need a lie down.
None.
I've got somewhat zen about this after reading a bunch of books that a) reinforced how little I really know about the English language and b) suggested that if the meaning is clear, then it's not worth getting worked up about.
I'll try and keep my own writing 'correct', but everyone else can do what they want :)
Are you getting grammar confused with spelling ;)
You are just being a bit of a pendant, wc.
Do I have to submit this to Bad Linguistics?
Well spotted amir ;)
There their
Innit
And apostrophes.
Pedant I may be, but I fear we all have something we're pedantic, or irrationally exercised, about, and certainly plenty things read here and other places I wonder why people are getting so worked up about them.
At that point I adopt Darkerside's zen approach. Grammar (and spelling) I just can't manage to do it (in the same way I can't stop myself getting worked up watching Newcastle United play, and believe me, with our performances I've tried).
@WC:
I think you mean apostrophe's.
Anyway, not cycling related but a pendant should be hung. A pedant, on the other hand, should be hanged.
When you work with a global organisation and are talking to people from France, Italy, Singapore, India, you quickly learn not to fuss about grammatical or spelling errors (or even the introduction of the odd word that is not English).
Poor writing does make it hard to read, but I think of it that foreigners have already put a lot of effort into the writing (even if it is not good), so it is my job to figure it out.
http://shop.theoatmeal.com/products/grammar-pack
Pacific.
Should of.
The misapplication of yourself, which seems to be dying off a bit.
"I've got somewhat zen about this after reading a bunch of books that a) reinforced how little I really know about the English language and b) suggested that if the meaning is clear, then it's not worth getting worked up about."
It's fair enough that sub-professional-linguist-level everyday-quality correct-language-usage probably uses many forms and arrangements that people from Yore would be horrifed to witness (if they were able to get over the initial shock of realising that they were seeing images from the future), but wrong-word misusages could have knock-on effects when the misused words are used in contexts other than those in which their misuse is currently most prevalent.
Ah now that I can agree with edd1e... Used to work at an energy consultancy, and we had consultants all over the world. I had to calm down a potential diplomatic incident when a local project manager in the Middle East sent a load of documentation to the international (British) project manager. Int. thanks Local for the 'bumf'. Local didn't know what that meant, so Googled, and found the original meaning, being toilet paper, or items of little value. Not at all what the Int. meant, but you can see where the confusion would arise.
And I know when I studied in France that my French grammar in essays and exams will most likely have been riddled with errors (the French students actually lost a mark for each grammatical error, in essays on French law, I think the international students got a grace of ten errors before being marked down). The one Finnish guy I met there had a better grasp of English than any of the British students.
Hold tight whilst I spin up the thread-drift-o-matic...
Whee!
I highly recommend Steven Poole's Unspeak: Words are Weapons. Picks apart political and media spin in a way that seems really obvious afterwards. One of those books that makes you exceptionally angry.
For Who The Bell Tolls is a fine grammar book too. To the point that I've actually read it again recently for pleasure...
Cheers Darkerside, will have a gander. Does the first one cover the type of thing I come across in tenders, all business-speak nonsense that wordily avoids saying anything of any real meaning?
What sort of pedantry is required to correct pedent to pedant?
Boyfriend of Fimm is quite bad for homophone mistakes (he's particularly partial to a sausage role). He produced a spectacular one recently - "... the warden was weighting for us..."
I wonder if this is partially because he's bilingual and was educated in his other language (German). He's also a very slow reader of English.
Back to bicycle words: I'm tired of reading tire instead of tyre in terms of the tyring of bicycles as opposed to the tiring of riders.
"The one Finnish guy I met there had a better grasp of English than any of the British students."
Now we're moving very close to scientifically refutable statements.
"Now we're moving very close to scientifically refutable statements."
I'd be interested in how you could scientifically refute a statement about an unknown group of students in Lyon in 1996... (and oh my word, if you'd seen/heard some of the British students there).
You'd have to agree on the definition of "grasp". Finland's education system used a different grasp-rating system to the UK up until the early nineties.
It's not a bike part but I find people who use the wrong verb really great (sic).
I gone for a ride yesterday, etc.
Trying to read a sentence with any combination of bad spelling, punctuation or grammar takes my much longer as I try to work out what the author meant.
acsimpson gets the award for spotting the second deliberate mistake!
I should probably blame my father. A great Aberdonian mis-use is 'how' instead of 'why'.
"I'm going into town."
"How?"
"To get the messages."
And my dad was determined when we moved there (and I was 4) that I wouldn't take on those phrases (instead retaining some Geordie ones like instead of getting into trouble I was "given wrong").
Then, in the summer between the end of my standard grades and the start of highers, he made me do an Open University grammar course, believing this is what would make for a good grade in English, when in fact what you were supposed to do was just repeat what the teacher told you to write (I got failed in my prelim because I answered a question on a book I'd read on my own and not as part of the class - the teacher admitted she hadn't even read the answer because how could she determine I'd done well if she didn't know the book...)
Anyway, take a chill pill and listen to this song all about spelling and grammar:
getting into trouble I was "given wrong").
My OH is from Glasgow and will say that she's been "given into trouble". I would say I was "gotten into trouble".
We have various people at work who are generally more senior and less Scottish who get angry when us lowly natives use the term "outwith".
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/outwith
"outwith"
"(mainly Scottish)"
Well I never realised that.
Assumed it was 'a bit Edinbru' - maybe to do with all the lawyers - so 'old fashioned' (in a good way) rather than 'not English'.
Fine word.
My father-in-law is Ayrish and uses "how?" when he remembers to. My mother-in-law prefers the application of West-coast constructions like "...neither it is" or "...neither I have" appended to the ends of sentences, presumably emphatically.
When I was small I lived amongst people who used "us" to refer to theirselves in the singular, in addition to its common plural application. I sort of half picked it up, but not permanently.
"The train has went"
Is that acceptable Scots, or just wrong?
I can't see why anyone would object to "outwith" though, even though I'm English. After all, we're expected to understand American English, so why not Scottish English?
"I'd be interested in how you could scientifically refute a statement about an unknown group of students in Lyon in 1996... (and oh my word, if you'd seen/heard some of the British students there)."
That's easy, you already said they were native speakers. So unless they were in some way developmentally impaired (doing international law, you draw your own conclusions) it's fair to say that competence is defined by how they use the language.
Any ability exhibited by foreign language speakers can only model itself on what the native language speakers do. If all the native speakers say it one way and the foreign speaker says it a different way it cannot be argued that the natives are wrong.
Outwith always interested me (as a non-Scot). Archaic use of "without" as the opposite of "within" is where I assume it came from.
I like outwith. It is pretty clear in its meaning.
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