Well, according to Perry Bible Fellowship, the Orca thinks not…
Unless the cartoonist is suggesting that reality is more important than spelling. On closer examination I see the Orca got the whole group of penguins, not just the lecturer. Hmm.
Two comics about spelling in one day! How can I resist???
By the way, don’t trust your spell checker a whole lot.
English has a type of word called a coordinating conjunction. Coordinating conjunctions go between two parts of a sentence, and they imply that the two parts are more or less equivalent, at least grammatically. You know coordinating conjunctions as “and” and “but.”
“But” is interesting because it connects the two things and implies some kind of opposition between the two things. For example,
I am sick, but I don’t think I’m contagious.
We think of contagiousness as going with sickness, so the sentence uses “but” to contradict this usual circumstance.
If I may digress a bit, I attended a sales class once in which the instructor said to avoid using but, because it’s negative.
It’s a fine encyclopedia, but it’s inexpensive.
should be
It’s a fine encyclopedia, and it’s inexpensive.
Hmm. Try getting rid of some buts and see how it feels. (It feels funny, but/and interesting.)
And that leads to my intended object lesson for this post, compliments of Curtis, which hinges on the kid ignoring the implied contradiction between corniness and the feeling of love in his dad’s statement, which definitely needs the but.
The lesson: Pay attention to your buts.
I see this goof often enough that I think we’re going to lose this battle, (but if you write anything the least bit expository (you know—when you explain something (which this blog is about, after all))) you should use the correct word, regardless of what everybody else does. (Okay, I could have written a less convoluted sentence there, but I thought it would be fun to nest a couple parentheses.)
Anyway, the bad word is nauseous. At least it is when you mean nauseated.
The rule: nauseous means you (or something) makes people want to throw up. Nauseated means you (or someone) feels like throwing up.
Don’t be nauseous to us who know better! We don’t like to feel nauseated!
The most common type of persons who make this mistake are ones who want to be formal, but don’t know how to do it right, so they do it wrong, and end up being pretentious instead of formal.
Don’t write “as per”!!! It’s wrong! It’s a pretentiousism. Harrumpf.
Here’s the comic. Comics are a good place for this poor grammar, and it fits rather well into this guy’s persona.
He had so many ways to say this correctly: according to, in line with, as we traditionally do, as usual; even just end the sentence after “Thanksgiving.”
‘Nuff said. It’s the holidays.
Barney and Clyde for Dec 23.
I am kind of a party pooper, so I googled “derivation of curmudgeon.” Here’s what I got:
curmudgeon. 1570s, of unknown origin; the suggestion, based on a misreading of a garbled note from Johnson, that it is from French coeur mechant “evil heart” is not taken seriously; the first syllable may be cur “dog.”
You can pretty easily find grammar posts that tell you to use “whom” when your instinct tells you to use “who.” These mainly contain dire warnings about direct objects and objects of prepositions.
Well, sometimes the word in question isn’t an object, it’s a subject! Take a look at this Hi and Lois, last panel:
Does that sixth grade English teacher in you tell you it should be “whom”? I hope not, because “who” is correct!
Let’s analyze the sentence. First, look at the verbs:
Wow! Four verbs! Not bad for a sentence in a comic. Now, figure out which words are the subjects of those verbs:
The only possible candidate is who, so don’t be afraid to use “who” when it’s a subject.
Some words imply two of something. “Pair,” and “second,” for example. And we say “lesser of two evils.” You can be between two things, but if you you have more than two, you are among them.
A few other words imply two-ness and sometimes we get them wrong. Here’s an example:
Some puzzles require a mind for math, others a keen eye. Then there are brainteasers that are so nonsensical the biggest challenge is saying them with a straight face. The “cows and chickens” riddle falls into the latter group.
That next-to-last word should be “last.” “Latter” means “second of two,” and he’s got three types of riddle here.
The rule: count both your blessings only if you have two of them, and use the right word when you do have exactly two of something.
PS—”nonsensical” should have a comma after it.
You might find this post boring. It’s a straight-out grammar lesson.
Here are the rules:
Okay, take a look at this:
However, the Coppersmith’s algorithm allows quite a lot of flexibility. Tom, you can’t do that!
Easy enough. Now how about this one:
To speed up the prime number generation, smart card manufacturers implement various optimisations.
(British spelling. Ignore that). The sentence starts with “to.” Prepositional phrase, right? Well, no. It’s actually an infinitive. Infinitives are verbs. If it has a verb, it’s a clause. So I could rewrite this as:
To speed things up, smart card manufacturers implement various optimisations.
Fewer than five words, still gets the comma. If fact, look at a sentence I just wrote:
If it has a verb, it’s a clause.
“Has” is a verb, so you have a clause. A lot of introductory clauses start with words like “if” and “when.” We call them introductory adverbs. In fact, if you got rid of that introductory adverb, you’d have a complete sentence, which requires a period, not a comma. If you write:
It has a verb, it’s a clause.
Get rid of that comma! Use a period! Two independent sentences separated by a comma is called a comma splice, and that’s a no-no.
Sorry—it’s pretty hard to find a comic about commas.
PS—Wouldn’t you know! I ran into one at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
We use the subjunctive when we want to express something contrary to reality. (Greek has a mood called the optative, which is a step farther back than the subjunctive; it expresses a wish. In English we would say something like “would that I were dead”—but I digress.) Okay, this being contrary to reality poses a problem for this guy, in a way, and therein lies the humor.
(This is Scary Gary (the vampire on the left) for May 2, 2017.)
Owen the ghost feels alive, so for him, being dead is contrary to reality, hence the subjunctive. The humor, of course, is in his misinterpretation of Gary’s question. But his grammar is perfect.
What I’d like to know is how Gary can balance a full coffee cup on the arm of an overstuffed sofa.
Well, sort of. Really it’s about Latin plurals.
I’m learning that people prefer these posts to be short and (heh) sweet. Grammar does tend to get complicated at times, so I’ll try not to put so much, um, content into my posts.
Here’s a really short one about quantum mechanics, that should be doable, right?
Here’s the quote, from an article in This Day in History:
Planck’s theory held that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components, known as “quantum.”
Alas, the writer got his Latin plural wrong. The sentence should end with “quanta.” “Quanta” is like “data” and “criteria.” Those are plurals, and their singulars are “quantum,” “datum,” and “criterion.”
How’s that for short—only quantum mechanics and Latin plurals.
