Pedants' Paradise

[teamsaint]

And mine was about SEX UP (or DOWN), either of which ff speculated might be attractive to headline writers because of their low letter count.

(Honestly, the short attention span round these parts...)

some interesting thoughts here.

https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-ideal-length-of-everything-online-according-to-science

I was particularly interested in the ideal length for a Tweet.....

but it does tend to confirm FFs theory, although it concerns specifically online content.

[teamsaint]

And mine was about SEX UP (or DOWN), either of which ff speculated might be attractive to headline writers because of their low letter count.

(Honestly, the short attention span round these parts...)

I know what you mean,I also occasionally forget to post the whole message at once.....

[french frank]

but it does tend to confirm FFs theory, although it concerns specifically online content.

Not theory but practice. I have been a news sub - you try getting the gist of a news story, comprehensibly, into a two column width headline when you're being asked to use 42pt Helvetica Black.

[Richard Tarleton]

Not theory but practice. I have been a news sub - you try getting the gist of a news story, comprehensibly, into a two column width headline when you're being asked to use 42pt Helvetica Black.

Alan Watkins, writing in the Observer in the 1980s, said a group of them came up with "Gym slip nun in mercy dash to Palace" as an example of the perfect headline. In some versions it reads "Sex-change vicar".

[teamsaint]

Alan Watkins, writing in the Observer in the 1980s, said a group of them came up with "Gym slip nun in mercy dash to Palace" as an example of the perfect headline. In some versions it reads "Sex-change vicar".

nice.

Here's many peoples favourite sports headlines,after Inverness Caledonian thistle beat Celtic.

SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS (The Sun).

One of FF's, perhaps?

[french frank]

One of FF's, perhaps?

'Fraid not. I did manage 'Pub rents rocket' which caused some confusion in places. There was the famous 'Queen in brawl at Palace', another that wasn't mine :-).

But we're deviating from the topic again ...

[JFLL]

... There was the famous 'Queen in brawl at Palace', another that wasn't mine :-).
.

And do I mis-remember, or wasn't there a 'Palace sack Queen' one at the end of his tenure? When I saw it on the placards I felt rather like Barbirolli's father, when he first came to England, seeing 'England Collapse' (He must have got to used to that one pretty quickly.)

But there's a nice pedantic point here -- note for English-learners: not 'Palace sacks Queen' or 'England Collapses'.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Sorry if I'm interrupting the current discussion, but do others here find their hackles rising when 'from whence' is said, as it often is by one particular In Tune presenter, who perhaps believes it's the height of linguistic sophistication?

I can't recall if I was taught this but I've believed since schooldays that 'whence' means (is identically equal to) 'from where', so 'from whence' is a tautology. Am I wrong? Is this a once-dodgy usage that has now passed, by frequent repetition, into the 'correct'?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The redundant preposition has an illustrious exemplar in the Apostles' Creed ("from thence He shall judge") - but strictly speaking it is ... well ... err ... redundant.

[mercia]

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help

[teamsaint]

The redundant preposition has an illustrious exemplar in the Apostles' Creed ("from thence He shall judge") - but strictly speaking it is ... well ... err ... redundant.

If anybody ever opens a pub for Pedants Paradise members, " The Reduntant Preposition" must surely be in the running for its name?

Incidentally, do other board members get a strange unwanted voyeuristic feeling when accidentally clicking on board members names, and getting their profile up, instead of a post or page number?

[french frank]

Incidentally, do other board members get a strange unwanted voyeuristic feeling when accidentally clicking on board members names, and getting their profile up, instead of a post or page number?

Yup ...

[french frank]

As for 'whence' - the OED says, under Etymology: 'In all senses often preceded by redundant from'. Very usual in the Bard.

[Don Petter]

If anybody ever opens a pub for Pedants Paradise members, " The Redundant Preposition" must surely be in the running for its name?

Or maybe 'The Recumbent Post-position'?

[visualnickmos]

nice.

Here's many peoples favourite sports headlines,after Inverness Caledonian thistle beat Celtic.

SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS (The Sun).

One of FF's, perhaps?

One that I've heard of that I like is from a newspaper during the war: "Americans thrust bottles up Italians"

and of course the ubiquitous Sun's "Stick it up yer junta"

OK - I'm just a saddo.....