Spelling and Grammar Q&A

[DesDownunder]

Neil, unlike many forums we generally enjoy, the thread diversifying off topic.

I do see what you mean in the most recent posts and I will take a look at the possibility of creating a new topic with them.

[Tanuki Racoon]

Neil, unlike many forums we generally enjoy, the thread diversifying off topic.

What he MEANS to say is that our threads take WILD and UNPREDICTABLE turns to the left (never the right).

PS: Never listen to the orangutan -- he's a senile old pervert.

PPS: That's why we like him

[Cole Parker]

That's funny! Senile Old Pervert has the acronym SOP, which in Des' case seems so appropriate.

C

[DesDownunder]

I'm right here you know!

This is what they do Neil, they talk about you as if you aren't in the same room, insult you, and then try to patronize you as they leave. (Note: I have used the American spelling of patronise, so it can be more easily understood by them.)

But I wouldn't ban them like some Admins would, no no. I like watching them play with each other, butt that doesn't make me a pervert does it? Does it? I mean I do think of other things beside the glory-hole days of free-love and the missed opportunities of my youthful obsexsions and hormone stimulated desires to please any man that looks vaguely attractive when naked, or even, just when they wear clothing that accentuates the baskets of endowment.

This tread has now gone totally off topic, in case you hadn't noticed, whether that is to the left or the right is really dependant on the way you adjust the aforementioned basket.

[Camy]

baskets of endowment?

Methinks you talketh bollocks.

[Cole Parker]

SOP

C

[Paul Schroder]

Is spleinlg and garmmar all taht imorptnat? My eitodr semes to tihnk so. At laset he mkaes me look inllteniget.

[Trab]

Is spleinlg and garmmar all taht imorptnat? My eitodr semes to tihnk so. At laset he mkaes me look inllteniget.

Is spelling and grammar all that important? My editor seems to think so. At least, he makes me look intelligent.

:wav:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Cole Parker]

In the same vein:

Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but

interesting!

fi yuo cna

raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe

out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht

I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch

at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod

are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit

pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the

wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Damn that was hard to spell check!

C

[Trab]

uddtelouyl a frbctaoiian. There is more to it than the first and last letter being in place.

[Neil]

I read about that research cited by Cole. Of course, this is not just limited to words, a similar

One thing that I am aware I do quite a lot, becauset I type slower than what comes to mind, quite often, there are words "missing" from what I had in mind and what I wrote. Many good authors always credit their copy editor(s) who may pick up on what had been missed, or improperly constructed.

What then is the use of correct spelling and grammar, especially in a world where we have automated spell checkers?

Unless the errors are attempts to provide authenticity -- character's age, background, level of education, the cultural environment, etc. -- frequent errors (especially repeated spelling error of the same word) provide the reader an insight about the author.

Neil

In the same vein:

Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but

interesting!

fi yuo cna

raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe

out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht

I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch

at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod

are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit

pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the

wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Damn that was hard to spell check!

C

[Neil]

To go back to what I suggested earlier, maybe there should be a separate forum section that will allow us to have more in-depth and thoughtful discussions about the issues raised in response to my original respose here. The points raised by The Pecman may warrant further discussion that may interest others.

There may be other issues that we may want to raise and discuss. For example, I read glbt stories or columns, there are quite a few activists in our community who were so outraged that there were so many in the glbt community who voted for Bush or could be Republicans. I may not be a Republican nor have I voted for Bush, but I would understand why many in our community are Republicans and voted for Bush, in spite of the the policies of the Bush Administration affecting the glbt community.

More recently, after the defeat of the Proposition 8 in California, there were massive and concerted protests all over the US. What I found troubling though is the desired goal of this site:

http://www.eightmaps.com/

Many groups have weighed in about the controversy, and quite a few blogs and articles were written about it. Here are some from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/business...ream.html?fta=y

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19pro...e&st=Search

I tried to find the group that might be behind the effort but a "Whois" search did not provide an answer.

There are more issues that I think we should discuss as a community. I wonder if the group is interested to explore them.

I looked at the other forum sections but did not find an appropriate forum section.

Neil

[colinian]

Neil, California state law requires that the names of individual and corporate donors to any referendum to be published and be publicly available. All of the names of all donors are on the State of California website. The Yes on 8 campaign used this information to initiate boycotts of companies that donated to the No on 8 campaign -- including when their top management personnel made individual donations. The No on 8 campaign began using the same information and published the names of major donors to the Yes on 8 campaign online and in press releases.

The Yes on 8 campaign could design the same kind of website as eightmaps.com, showing those who donated to the No on 8 campaign, the kind of website that Equality California created.

I see nothing wrong or sinister with this. It is the law in California, part of the Open Campaigning provisions passed by the California Senate and Assembly several years ago. The Yes on 8 campaign attempted to prevent this law from applying to their donors, based on claims of harassment of some donors. However, many of the No on 8 donors were likewise harassed by the other side. The court turned down their request. They have said they are taking it to the California Supreme Court, but this information has been available to be downloaded for months, and has been downloaded many thousands of times, so it's unlikely they would spend money on such an effort.

Colin

[Graeme]

By the way, there's an existing thread where this discussion can take place:

CA Proposition 8 Donations

[blue]

In a valiant attempt to revive an old thread and get it back on topic, here's a little reference with a few in-jokes that I've updated and re-posted:

Common Grammar Problems

The in-jokes will probably only make sense to the in-jokers....

[Cole Parker]

I wasn't sure where to put this. Spelling and Grammar certainly isn't exactly on the nosey, but is closer to identifying my purpose in writing this than anything else here I could see.

Anyway . . .

Chris gave us a very nice story about finding and adopting and raising a baby in the Opinionator. At the bottom of that story were some suggested other stories, and I read them. OK, I read a lot. One of the ones I read was titled The Lecturer Had No Clothes. And in that story was a sentence I wanted to discuss here. The sentence, pertaining to older men's proclivity to stand around in locker rooms orating naked, was this:

Or maybe they’re too mature: past the age of sexual relevance and therefore needing to assert their masculinity in semipublic areas.

It wasn't an interest in public nudity in the aged that caught my attention. It was instead the English language and its foibles. I love our language and probably spend too much time playing games with it in my head. But it can frustrate, too, and here's a perfect example.

Can anyone tell me what this sentence means? For sure? Because I can, and do, read it to mean two things, things that are opposites. I don't know if the writer means to tell us that the men are past the ages of sexual relevance and so don't need to assert their masculitity, or, that the men are past the age of sexual relevance and so do need to assert their masculinity. The sentence can be read either way; the language itself and common usage allow for this uncertainty.

So, what do people here think is the intent of the sentence? Or am I the only one confused.

C

[Merkin]

You aren't the only one confused. I am, and I think the writer of the sentence may have been. I believe the problem with that sentence is 'and therefore.' As it stands, 'and therefore' means that the men are past the ages of sexual relevance and so (and therefore) are past the need to assert their masculinity. However, I believe the writer may have meant to say that the men are past the age of sexual relevance and so do need to assert their masculinity. He could have said that if he had written ...past the age of sexual relevance, therefore they need to assert their masculinity in semipublic areas.

By the way, I don't agree that mature men ever get past the age of sexual relevance ('hem).

[DesDownunder]

hmm

"Or maybe they’re too mature:" seems to be a way to refer to the men as aged, or past having the 'exuberance of youth'.

"past the age of sexual relevance" Here the inference seems to be to the men being past any sexual ability, "and therefore needing to assert their masculinity in semipublic areas."

This seems to be where the difficulty arises in interpreting the meaning, as the need to "assert their masculinity" clearly indicates that the men at least have a need to assert an image of their masculinity, which establishes they are not beyond "sexual relevance" at least, in their own mind. However, beyond this psychological self-assessment is the reality of being physically, "past the age of sexual relevance."

Discussion:

The question is one of whether there is a need to sustain our masculine self image beyond the production of our testosterone...past our age-related handicap of being sexually inadequate, in both the libidinal and physical senses, whilst still subject to the psychological manifestation of our masculine self- image. Moreover, is that need fabricated mentally, or biologically? Evolutionary biology points to the reproductive urge as being a genetic primary directive, if not, The Primary Directive, in the male of the species.

In the setting described for the statement, I can then only guess that it is meant to convey the idea that the failed libido due to aging has been replaced by a need for the men to display their genitals in "semipublic areas," in order to sustain their life-long held, masculine self-image.

This makes sense as it is a mirror of youth where desire to display oneself is often an early function of pubertal experience, and is a common feature of males to attract sex partners or to intimidate lesser equipped males. Of course, our cultural customs have 'civilised' us to refrain from such exhibition. It is obvious that senility (mental infirmity as a consequence of old age) often rebels against civilised customs.

I think the sentence suffers from almost euphemistic use of the words 'maturity' and 'sexual relevance'. This might suit the style of the piece but I think it may have benefited from being more direct.

[Camy]

's bleedin' obvious: Past it. Too old. Can't get any where you'd really like to, and thus have to loiter with intent in, umm ... public conveniences - though why they're called public conveniences beats me.

[Cole Parker]

Bleeding obvious? I'll give you bleeding obvious! Maybe you haven't been in any gyms lately and haven't gazed upon any cadaverous oldsters letting it all hanging out, what there is of it, but I'll tell you, it ain't pretty. So doing that, standing in the sunshine with all their nasty bits exposed in their august, drooping wonder, they are decidedly NOT revealing anything close to masculinity. So it's not bloody obvious what he meant!

And Des, I thought I made it clear: it's language and meaning conveyed thereby we are discussing, not psychological reasons for getting naked and strutting. Jeez! Give some guys a crack, and they'll wade thought it like a herd of elephants, waving their banner of the day!

C

[Camy]

...tiptoes away.

[Cole Parker]

You know I was teasing, right?

C

[Merkin]

...also tiptoes away, whilst holding a towel over my sexual relevance...

[Cole Parker]

I love that, James!

:lol:

C

[DesDownunder]

Bleeding obvious? I'll give you bleeding obvious! Maybe you haven't been in any gyms lately and haven't gazed upon any cadaverous oldsters letting it all hanging out, what there is of it, but I'll tell you, it ain't pretty. So doing that, standing in the sunshine with all their nasty bits exposed in their august, drooping wonder, they are decidedly NOT revealing anything close to masculinity. So it's not bloody obvious what he meant!

And Des, I thought I made it clear: it's language and meaning conveyed thereby we are discussing, not psychological reasons for getting naked and strutting. Jeez! Give some guys a crack, and they'll wade thought it like a herd of elephants, waving their banner of the day!

C

I don't see how you can discuss the " language and meaning conveyed" without understanding, or at least being aware of, the underlying psychophysical influences.

Again, I think it is obvious that what makes the sentence difficult is that the underlying reason for the men displaying themselves is, not how others see them, but how they see themselves in their own minds, and how they imagine, others see them.

I don't see it as a sentence construction problem as much as one which needs to look deeper into the what the author intended, some of which I conjectured above.

The moment we add 'meaning' to 'language' we are logically bound to examine the psychology behind the words. Perhaps the author was trying to convey that as a foggy concept for us old fogeys.