Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Pree-fissing? Or pree-faycing? OED only gives Brit.ˈprɛfᵻs, U.S. ˈprɛfəs (in fact Brit. and US sounded the same to me.) What about the noun - PREE-fiss or PREE-fayce?

Is preference all? Or should it be preeference?

To preface - a verbalisation of "preface", i.e. to stick something on the front end of what one is saying, was what I was thinking of.

[Pulcinella]

Extracts (redacted as necessary to avoid identification) from emails my partner got yesterday.

This from an art gallery we have bought from:

Good Afternoon,
I hope you are keeping well.
We have just had two stunning and quite scarce ... come into the gallery that I thought you might like to see.
Both of these we have only had a few times over the years and they never fail to disappoint.

We've decided not to buy, as we don't want to be disappointed.


Then this from his accountant (a new person is taking over his affairs):

I believe you should have received our letter explaining that myself and ... will be taking over responsibility for your affairs.
...
We look forward to supporting you moving forwards.

[Serial_Apologist]

Extracts (redacted as necessary to avoid identification) from emails my partner got yesterday.

This from an art gallery we have bought from:



We've decided not to buy, as we don't want to be disappointed.


Then this from his accountant (a new person is taking over his affairs):

That second one is a classic!

[french frank]

"This controversial unit of the Ukrainian armed forces is a bête noir of the Russians"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61461805

Bête is feminine, so bête noire. Or is bête noir now English for bête noire?

"noun pet hate, horror, nightmare, devil, curse, dread, bogey, scourge, aversion, nemesis, anathema, bane, abomination, bogeyman, bugbear, bugaboo, thorn in the flesh or side Our real bête noire is the car-boot sale."

[Serial_Apologist]

"This controversial unit of the Ukrainian armed forces is a bête noir of the Russians"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61461805

Bête is feminine, so bête noire. Or is bête noir now English for bête noire?

It often strikes me that the French have apparently not chosen to question the gender attached to inanimate objects or concepts. It might be thought sexist to think of beasts as having to be female!

"noun pet hate, horror, nightmare, devil, curse, dread, bogey, scourge, aversion, nemesis, anathema, bane, abomination, bogeyman, bugbear, bugaboo, thorn in the flesh or side Our real bête noire is the car-boot sale."

Or the trunk calling card!

[french frank]

It often strikes me that the French have apparently not chosen to question the gender attached to inanimate objects or concepts. It might be thought sexist to think of beasts as having to be female!

From a grammatical point of view, there is nothing specifically 'male' or 'female' about the ways of declining nouns. In Latin, most nouns denoting females decline in one way, so that declension is designated 'feminine' (but there exceptions like poeta, nauta which denote males but are declined like feminine nouns, and trees which are feminine but declined like masculine nouns - fraxinus, alnus). The terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' shouldn't be taken too literally. So to call 'bête' feminine simply indicates which form of the adjective is to be used. Why should a table be considered feminine and a cupboard masculine?

[oddoneout]

We look forward to supporting you moving forwards.

Do they do a sideline in mobility aids?

[crb11]

Today's Guardian includes the following from a report of the St Paul's Jubilee service: "It would have taken a heart of stone not to feel some genuine empathy for William, Kate, Charles and Camilla, walking down the aisle to John Ritter, a piece so rousing, so powerfully devotional, that anyone would feel unequal to it." Probably we can excuse the typo which meant it was attributed to a late US sitcom actor, but you'd have hoped someone would have been sufficiently musically aware to know it was Parry's "I was Glad", Rutter merely being the arranger.

[Serial_Apologist]

Today's Guardian includes the following from a report of the St Paul's Jubilee service: "It would have taken a heart of stone not to feel some genuine empathy for William, Kate, Charles and Camilla, walking down the aisle to John Ritter, a piece so rousing, so powerfully devotional, that anyone would feel unequal to it." Probably we can excuse the typo which meant it was attributed to a late US sitcom actor, but you'd have hoped someone would have been sufficiently musically aware to know it was Parry's "I was Glad", Rutter merely being the arranger.

Have you Ritter knoff to complain?

[french frank]

Today's Guardian includes the following from a report of the St Paul's Jubilee service: "It would have taken a heart of stone not to feel some genuine empathy for William, Kate, Charles and Camilla, walking down the aisle to John Ritter, a piece so rousing, so powerfully devotional, that anyone would feel unequal to it." Probably we can excuse the typo which meant it was attributed to a late US sitcom actor, but you'd have hoped someone would have been sufficiently musically aware to know it was Parry's "I was Glad", Rutter merely being the arranger.

I wonder about the phrase 'feel genuine empathy for'. It doesn't sound quite right to me. 'Show empathy towards'? 'Have empathy with'? Perhaps 'feel empathy with'? Sympathy for, yes. Like hatred for, love for. I'm not sure about 'empathy for'.

[crb11]

Have you Ritter knoff to complain?

Groan! Yes, I did. They've corrected it to Rutter, despite my suggestion that Parry is more deserving of credit.

[oddoneout]

Today's Guardian includes the following from a report of the St Paul's Jubilee service: "It would have taken a heart of stone not to feel some genuine empathy for William, Kate, Charles and Camilla, walking down the aisle to John Ritter, a piece so rousing, so powerfully devotional, that anyone would feel unequal to it." Probably we can excuse the typo which meant it was attributed to a late US sitcom actor, but you'd have hoped someone would have been sufficiently musically aware to know it was Parry's "I was Glad", Rutter merely being the arranger.

I saw that online yesterday and assumed she'd meant Rutter, but didn't have the time to try and find out more. Perhaps she'd been eating a chocolate bar (https://shop.ritter-sport.co.uk/) when writing the article?
FF, like you I would have gone for 'sympathy for' or 'empathy with', rather than what was written.

[french frank]

A sort of grocer's apostrophe in the Indy today with its mention of "black lamb’s wool hats". I doubt it was the wool hats of a particular black lamb (nor even the wool hats of several black lambs). Lambswool normally written as one word.

Not a very happy example to choose to be trivially pedantic about, but this BBC sentence did give me pause just now: "Weeks of heavy Russian shelling have reduced the city mostly to ruins." 'Shelling' is surely the logical subject, not 'weeks'?

[LeMartinPecheur]

A sort of grocer's apostrophe in the Indy today with its mention of "black lamb’s wool hats". I doubt it was the wool hats of a particular black lamb (nor even the wool hats of several black lambs). Lambswool normally written as one word.

Not a very happy example to choose to be trivially pedantic about, but this BBC sentence did give me pause just now: "Weeks of heavy Russian shelling have reduced the city mostly to ruins." 'Shelling' is surely the logical subject, not 'weeks'?

Sorry ff, can't see at all how a subject can be in the genitive!

It would of course be simple to rewrite the sentence with 'shelling' as the subject, but I can't see it would necessarily be better.

[kernelbogey]

Sorry ff, can't see at all how a subject can be in the genitive!

It would of course be simple to rewrite the sentence with 'shelling' as the subject, but I can't see it would necessarily be better.

Isn't what is being explained the length and persistence of the shelling? So the subject is, as it were, Weeks-of-heavy-Russian-shelling.