Stupid forum lingo that should just die out already

binliner wrote in post #7124208
Actually you were both correct, in Britain (which is where he was reading it) the full stop should have been after the quotes... In America (where you wrote it) it goes before

Actually, I think the way the Brits do it makes more sense, but I'm not there. I do formal (legal) writing, and must adhere to the appropriate rules, whether I agree with them or not.

I follow the GPO's official grammar for American Standard English. It's full of such niceties as when to use "that" versus "which," "like" versus "as," and so forth. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Interestingly, there is no official rule against splitting infinitives pounded into students' heads by all the "Miss Thistlebottom" high-school English teachers. In this case, I have to agree. There is no historical basis for the "do not split an infinitive" rule, as with the "do not end a sentence with a preposition" rule. Both are arbitrary rules, derived from formal Latin grammar.

20droger wrote in post #7124601
Actually, I think the way the Brits do it makes more sense, but I'm not there. I do formal (legal) writing, and must adhere to the appropriate rules, whether I agree with them or not.

I follow the GPO's official grammar for American Standard English. It's full of such niceties as when to use "that" versus "which," "like" versus "as," and so forth. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Interestingly, there is no official rule against splitting infinitives pounded into students' heads by all the "Miss Thistlebottom" high-school English teachers. In this case, I have to agree. There is no historical basis for the "do not split an infinitive" rule, as with the "do not end a sentence with a preposition" rule. Both are arbitrary rules, derived from formal Latin grammar.

So can the GPO Rules tell me just how I should spell the last word of this sentence? "In the English Language there are three ways to spell the word to, too, two."

Sorry about repleting myself, but I haven't any idea of which spelling I should use unless I degrade myself to using 'textspeek' where 2 would be used.

Wayne

First off, such a construction would be highly frowned upon in formal and/or legal writing. Keeping the same basic structure, however, the sentence would better be: "In the English language, there are three ways to spell these words: 'to'; 'too'; and 'two.'"

A more correct way to express the same idea might be: "The words 'to', 'too', and 'two' are homophones." (Homophones are words that are spelled differently but pronounced alike.)

As to the last word in your sentence, the only correct spelling would be "two," meaning the whole number between "one" and "three." In proper (American) English, the numbers 0 through 10 (0 through 19 in formal writing) should always be spelled out, not represented by digits. E.g., "he has two lenses," not "he has 2 lenses."

As Gallagher used to ponder, "How come there's a whu-whuh in "two," which doesn't need a whu-whuh, but no whu-whuh in "one," which needs one?"

As for "to" and "too," "to is a preposition, used to express motion, direction, or a point: "I went to the store." "He took a punch to the chin." Whereas "too" is an adverb meaning "in addition," "also," "moreover," "excessively," etc., "She's not only good looking, but rich too!" "Don't sit too near the fire."

20droger wrote in post #5529050
I agree, but that is not proper American English usage, and I am an American who writes for a living.

Periods (full stops) and commas go inside the quotes, colons and semicolons go outside the quotes, and question marks and exclamation points go inside the quotes if a part of the quoted material and outside the quotes if not.

There is only one case in American English where periods or commas go outside the quotes, and that is when what is quoted is to be taken as specific characters, not as a word.

Also, in American English, we use double quotes as the basic quote form, with single quotes as internal quotes, alternating accordingly. I believe you Brits do the reverse in formal writing.

Of course, the majority of the posters in these forums don't use and wouldn't recognize proper English, be it American, British, or other dialect. The whole thing is therefore rather moot.

I'm just grateful when they make some attempt to use English at all. When they don't, I simply ignore them, even if I understand what they are asking and know the answer to their questions.

I don't do texting.

I do, being 15 and all I have to keep up appearances. However, I always, always text with proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

I'm also thinking about doing something that everyone in this entire thread is going to hate....

20droger Thank you, The question comes although indirectly from my High School English teacher. I think her original question was How do you spell the word two? Without a context it is a challenge to know whether the word to be spelled is a number, a preposition or an adverb. And I believe that was her point (that context was important).

Wayne

LV Moose wrote in post #7124054
I vote for the word "lingo."

Sounds like a character from a bad Asian-made Western.

It is pretty likely to be a derivation of the Spanish word 'Lengua' meaning 'Tongue'

Vascilli wrote in post #7196209
I do, being 15 and all I have to keep up appearances. However, I always, always text with proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

Weirdo.

I'm also thinking about doing something that everyone in this entire thread is going to hate....

Uh, oh. I can't wait!

Ukuleleman wrote in post #7197901
It is pretty likely to be a derivation of the Spanish word 'Lengua' meaning 'Tongue'

Uh, saying "Lingo" sounded like a character from a bad Asian-made Western (Ringo, mispronounced), was a joke.

Or at least I thought it was .

Maybe for you brits, I should have said, "Lingo... sounds like the drummer in an Asian Beatles tribute band."

20droger wrote in post #7124601
Interestingly, there is no official rule against splitting infinitives pounded into students' heads by all the "Miss Thistlebottom" high-school English teachers. In this case, I have to agree. There is no historical basis for the "do not split an infinitive" rule, as with the "do not end a sentence with a preposition" rule. Both are arbitrary rules, derived from formal Latin grammar.

Yes and no. The historical basis for the split infinitive rule is as you say the Latin. It was not however an arbitrary rule in that context, but a fundamental characteristic of the language: the Latin infinitive form is a single word, and so inherently impossible to split.

WMS wrote in post #7190031
So can the GPO Rules tell me just how I should spell the last word of this sentence?

S-E-N-T-E-N-C-E, surely.

I often replete myself.

Phil Light wrote in post #5702562
Great topic. I just found this thread.

Ok, here's mine (I don't think this has come up yet). I can't stand it when someone refers to the 24-70 f/2.8 L as the "brick." For some reason that drives me up a wall! "Just pulled the trigger on my brick," "Brown just arrived with my brick."

Makes me wish I was in close proximity to them with a friggin brick.

Agree 100%. Most lens nicknames annoy me though. Damn the bandwagon!

S7000 wrote in post #7223805
Agree 100%. Most lens nicknames annoy me though. Damn the bandwagon!

I'm currently trying to sell a Minolta 70-210 f/4. After doing some research on the web, so I'd know what to charge, I found that it's commonly referred to as the "beercan."

20droger wrote in post #7124601
Actually, I think the way the Brits do it makes more sense, but I'm not there. I do formal (legal) writing, and must adhere to the appropriate rules, whether I agree with them or not.

I follow the GPO's official grammar for American Standard English. It's full of such niceties as when to use "that" versus "which," "like" versus "as," and so forth. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Interestingly, there is no official rule against splitting infinitives pounded into students' heads by all the "Miss Thistlebottom" high-school English teachers. In this case, I have to agree. There is no historical basis for the "do not split an infinitive" rule, as with the "do not end a sentence with a preposition" rule. Both are arbitrary rules, derived from formal Latin grammar.

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

LV Moose wrote in post #7223877
I'm currently trying to sell a Minolta 70-210 f/4. After doing some research on the web, so I'd know what to charge, I found that it's commonly referred to as the "beercan."

That's SO unrefined compared to what we Cannon (MY pet peeve) followers nickname our lenses!