Does spelling still count?

[novella]

A more trustworthy rule of thumb--moreso than the natural pause, say--is: if the phrase can stand on its own as a clear sentence, then it should not have a comma: don't separate the subject from the predicate. (This summarizes many of the actual grammatical rules.) Also, there's a lot of leeway in deciding whether to use certain kinds of commas. There are comma-heavy writers and comma-light ones. The Brits are naturally comma-light I find. So if you're not sure, chances are there is more than one correct way to do it.

 

[Kookamoor]

A more trustworthy rule of thumb--moreso than the natural pause, say--is: if the phrase can stand on its own as a clear sentence, then it should not have a comma: don't separate the subject from the predicate. (This summarizes many of the actual grammatical rules.) Also, there's a lot of leeway in deciding whether to use certain kinds of commas. There are comma-heavy writers and comma-light ones. The Brits are naturally comma-light I find. So if you're not sure, chances are there is more than one correct way to do it.

Well, way to ruin my 'picking on Shade' moment, novella! I scoured his post for errors and that was the best I could come up with - damn diligent bastard.

 

[Halo]

Oh and as far as apostrophes go, comedian Stewart Lee proposed that anyone found guilty of committing the greengrocer's apostrophe ("Carrot's 30p? What does that mean? The carrot owns 30p? This carrot has developed sufficient socio-economic skills to acquire its own wealth? Or could you possibly mean that carrots cost 30p, in which case why didn't you say that??") should be made to hang a sign around their neck reading I DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION IN SCHOOL AND THAT'S WHY I HAVE TO WORK ON A MARKET STALL.

In Pratchett's Going Postal, the grocer characters actually speak using the greengrocer's apostrophe: "I s'ent tho'se letter's to him year's ago."

 

[Jemima Aslana]

In Pratchett's Going Postal, the grocer characters actually speak using the greengrocer's apostrophe: "I s'ent tho'se letter's to him year's ago."

LMAO, Oh that's the sort of humour I like - I should read some Terry Pratchett one of these days.

 

[novella]

Well, way to ruin my 'picking on Shade' moment, novella! I scoured his post for errors and that was the best I could come up with - damn diligent bastard.

Oh, but there was a lovely glaring error. 'pedantically-minded thread' should not be hyphenated. The adverb in this form of adjectival modifier never takes a hyphen. Anyway, why not just say 'pedantic thread'?

 

[abecedarian]

Just this past Sunday at church we all got to witness a glaring spelling error, for the whole sermon. We had a pastoral candidate and were wanting to make a good impression. Anyway, the powerpoint presentation wound up being done by three people. The lady who typed in the song lyrics had everything written correctly, but then a teen girl came in a offered to finish up "because she knew what she was doing" (!) She added a few lines, then a teen boy walked in and took it over from her..So I don't know which one was responsible for the sermon title: The High Cost of Dicplship. My dh was leading worship from across the room, and was just aghast. He kept hoping the kid running powerpoint would notice and just close it out, but Nope, there it stayed for the whole sermon.
We voted to call the new pastor and he accepted, but I bet he types his own powerpoint

 

[Kookamoor]

Oh, but there was a lovely glaring error. 'pedantically-minded thread' should not be hyphenated. The adverb in this form of adjectival modifier never takes a hyphen. Anyway, why not just say 'pedantic thread'?

I'll just leave the snide remarks to the experts in future... experts in grammar and language, that is, not in making snide remarks... oh, I just landed in a hole with that one.

 

[Halo]

Now you're in a hole you'd better stop digging, Kook.

 

[lies]

I was wondering: does the English spelling ever get changed? Cause the Dutch spelling got changed again recently (they do it every 10 years or so) and I was wondering if maybe we were the only ones really doing that. It's hard to write correctly this way.

 

[G4G]

I was wondering: does the English spelling ever get changed? Cause the Dutch spelling got changed again recently (they do it every 10 years or so) and I was wondering if maybe we were the only ones really doing that. It's hard to write correctly this way.

What do you mean? They change how you spell certain words? why?

 

[lies]

I honestly don't know why. Wikipedia says In order to keep the system relevant to changing usage, Dutch orthography is modernised at regular intervals. In cross-border co-operation between the Netherlands and Flanders, the "Nederlandse Taalunie" regulates orthography on an official basis. The official system is known as the "De Vries en Te Winkel" spelling. It was established in 1863 in Belgium, implemented in the Netherlands from 1883, and reformed in 1946 (Belgium) and 1947 (Netherlands) and in 1996 (Belgium and Netherlands). For every-day purposes, the authority on orthography is the Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal, known unofficially as het Groene Boekje, "the little green book".

Starting from 9 October there was a new version of the green book, with some reformed rules, not everybody was happy with it

And here's a link if you're really interested.

 

[Stewart]

And here's a link if you're really interested.

Thank you for your link; I shall waste no time in clicking it.

 

[novella]

I was wondering: does the English spelling ever get changed? Cause the Dutch spelling got changed again recently (they do it every 10 years or so) and I was wondering if maybe we were the only ones really doing that. It's hard to write correctly this way.

Yes, it does, but much more slowly and with much more resistance. For instance, it used to be generally acceptable to use different spelling to convey past tense (I spilt the milk, rather than I spilled the milk; he leapt out the window, rather than he leaped out the window).

While the short spelling is still technically okay and correct (especially in England), it is going out of fashion and will probably disappear and be 'incorrect' some day.

 

[Ice]

Yes, it does, but much more slowly and with much more resistance. For instance, it used to be generally acceptable to use different spelling to convey past tense (I spilt the milk, rather than I spilled the milk; he leapt out the window, rather than he leaped out the window).

While the short spelling is still technically okay and correct (especially in England), it is going out of fashion and will probably disappear and be 'incorrect' some day.

Are you being serious? If I heard someone say 'I spilled the milk' then I would consider that to be incredibly poor English. No one I know would accept spilled and leaped as being correct

 

[novella]

Are you being serious? If I heard someone say 'I spilled the milk' then I would consider that to be incredibly poor English. No one I know would accept spilled and leaped as being correct

Yeah, I'm serious. Of course my first frame of reference is American English, but my UK Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (the official dictionary of the Times UK crossword) gives the first, preferred past tense of spill as spilled and of leap as leaped.

 

[G4G]

Yeah, I'm serious. Of course my first frame of reference is American English, but my UK Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (the official dictionary of the Times UK crossword) gives the first, preferred past tense of spill as spilled and of leap as leaped.

Blimey.

 

[Shade]

my UK Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (the official dictionary of the Times UK crossword) gives the first, preferred past tense of spill as spilled and of leap as leaped

'Interestingly,' my Collins Concise reverses them: "spilt or spilled."

Do you do the Times crossword novella? I've never been very good at cryptics but friends tell me the Times is the easy one! The Guardian's, apparently, being the gold standard. Sadly if you want to do them online you have to pay.

 

[novella]

My mother-in-law mails me the Times Sunday crossword (cryptic, but not the concise one) every week and sends my kid the Funday Times comics and my hub selected obits (the Times' are the best).

I would say the difficulty level of the Times Sunday main cryptic crossword is variable, but once you get to know the compilers' styles, it's easier. I wouldn't say it's 'easy' though. When I'm in England, I do it every day.

I've done the Guardian, too, which used to appear weekly in New York magazine (not The New Yorker), but I haven't seen it in a while.

I really like the Times crossword because they are very strict about following cryptic rules. I hate crosswords (American-style) that are nothing more than trivia quizzes. The cryptic ones loosen up the brain muscle.

 

[Shade]

I keep trying - or meaning - to 'learn' how to do cryptic crosswords but I know the only way to learn them is to do them, and the last time I tried that I sat gazing silently at the grid for half an hour before giving up. I suppose theoretically one would check yesterday's clues against today's solution but that seems rather clinical and not much fun. Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse novels (whose eponymous character could supposedly do The Times in 3 minutes), is currently running a How to Do Crosswords column in the Guardian, though it's a bad sign that I gave up, baffled, even on that after the first couple of weeks, when he moved on from anagram signifiers...

Nonetheless my friends do sometimes pass on their favourite clues which occasionally stick in the memory. One is the title of a book by Sandy Balfour about his obsession with the Guardian crossword, which is extracted here .

Pretty girl in crimson rose (8)
Doge voms (3, 5, 2, 10, 4)

Answers below.

Spoiler

Rebelled
God moves in mysterious ways

 

[novella]

Yeah, there are many 'signal' words that you have to get familiar with, and these can vary according to the compiler. Also, some compilers are less strict about what they'll allow in. I like the Times because they stay away from trivia and proper names, like names of cricket players I would never know.

There is some degree of English trivia needed, like names of rivers, country abbreviations, abbreviations of royal honours, silly old songs, etc.

Typical would be something like "very sad newspaper in nervous reaction" = tragic ('rag' inside 'tic'). Not difficult, you just have to know what they're asking for.