Pedants' Paradise

[Sir Velo]

Optics? Ain't they the spirit bottles hanging upside down in pubs?

[LMcD]

Optics? Ain't they the spirit bottles hanging upside down in pubs?

That's what I call a measured response.

[Serial_Apologist]

Optics? Ain't they the spirit bottles hanging upside down in pubs?

That's my thought.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's what I call a measured response.

[oddoneout]

I've noticed 'optically' emerging as a fashion-word. 'How's that going to look optically?' asks a presenter commenting on a government proposal.

As opposed to, for instance, economically?

[oddoneout]

From the Guardian (no surprise there!).
Presumably they aren't stationary/stationery either.


A food company has won a sweet-tasting victory against the UK tax authorities after a court decided that it did not have to pay VAT on its marshmallows because they were not confectionary.

They are culinary.

[Serial_Apologist]

They are culinary.

And that is not English for backside!

[Old Grumpy]

TV advert recently heard: "We exchange currency ten times cheaper than other high street banks"...

...should this not read "more cheaply than"?

[Serial_Apologist]

TV advert recently heard: "We exchange currency ten times cheaper than other high street banks"...

...should this not read "more cheaply than"?

Yep. That changes the meaning entirely.

[LMcD]

The political editor of our local rag informs us that Dan Poulter's resignation takes us into unchartered waters - no maps, ships lying idle ...

[oddoneout]

The political editor of our local rag informs us that Dan Poulter's resignation takes us into unchartered waters, which is an even more frightening prospect if, as he seems to suggest, we have no maps.

A common mistake, but to be fair it's all up s*** creek without a paddle isn't it?

[french frank]

The political editor of our local rag informs us that Dan Poulter's resignation takes us into unchartered waters - no maps, ships lying idle ...

Surely, it doesn't mean 'no maps, ships lying idle'. It doesn't mean anything. You can't charter waters.

[vinteuil]

It doesn't mean anything.

Wordsworth - "untrodden ways" . They wouldn't have been ways had they not been trodden...

.

[french frank]

Wordsworth - "untrodden ways" . They wouldn't have been ways had they not been trodden...

True. You can tread ways: "Tread vb To step or walk upon or along; to follow, pursue (a path, track, or road)." So a way can be trodden. I suppose a particular way, or ways, can be untrodden by me. Or untrodden for many years. Or untrodden since the council installed benches and litter bins. Or ...

[oliver sudden]

A lovely reawakened metaphor the other day: “Aquatics GB believes that every athlete is entitled to compete on a level playing field”.

I think you have physics very much on your side there.