Pedants' Paradise

[ahinton]

I have just heard the sports correspondent on the R4 news say that for the first time the women's boat race is to receive "the same parity" as the men's.

What said commentator means is is that - er - oh, never mind!...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Many will be aware of my pedantry in insisting that Europe as a continent does not exist, being merely the western edge of Asia (sometimes called Eurasia). It is one of many misconceptions brought about by the limited knowledge of the world in the "cradle of civilisation" when the first reasonably accurate maps of the world were being drawn.

Another assumption that has gained acceptance, but has no scientific justification, is that the North Pole is at the top of the world, and the South Pole is at the bottom. But who says it is? It could just as easily be the other way round.

I'm not alone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34

[ahinton]

I'm not alone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34

Instructive and amusing though this is, it might just encourage a simpleton like me to prefer to try to define continents as the second piano concerto by Ronald Stevenson...

[french frank]

We may then, confident of its illegitimacy, surrender the combination "octothorp(e)" to the outer darkness.

So you use 'hash sign' in all contexts, will you? Oh, but wait: the earliest example in the OED seems to be from the Chicago Civil Service.

However, I'm sure Mr Grew would recommend sticking to the first edition of Fowler. In fact, there are many entries in 'Butterfield' which refer to N. American usage: I find them interesting to know and compare with British English (if that is not considered tautologous).

[jean]

(Btw, 'hapax legomenon' is a term of literary/textual criticism, not classics; and he pronounced it wrongly: he said 'hapax legonmenon')

I noticed that, and I didn't go to a public school.

(I'd probably have said 'wrong', though. I see the -ly as hypercorrection.)

[french frank]

(I'd probably have said 'wrong', though. I see the -ly as hypercorrection.)

Really? I know 'wrong' can be an adverb, though I would normally use 'wrongly'. Perfectly standard: OED says 'inaccurately; incorrectly'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

(I'd probably have said 'wrong', though. I see the -ly as hypercorrection.)

I thought a hypercorrection was trying to correct something that is correct already, with the result that it isn't correct. Do you think it's OK when those Driffield horse riders wear a notice: "Please pass slow"?

[jean]

I thought a hypercorrection was trying to correct something that is correct already, with the result that it isn't correct.

Or no more correct than it was before.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Or no more correct than it was before.

I think turning an adjective into an adverb is more correct.

[jean]

Wrong is an adverb as well as an adjective. Oddly, people don't seem to have the same problem with right, which is also both adjective and adverb.

[Pabmusic]

Wrong is an adverb as well as an adjective. Oddly, people don't seem to have the same problem with right, which is also both adjective and adverb.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wro2.htm

[jean]

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wro2.htm

Michael Quinion does it again!

[french frank]

Wrong is an adverb as well as an adjective. Oddly, people don't seem to have the same problem with right, which is also both adjective and adverb.

As I said in my #101. It doesn't follow that 'wrongly' is a 'hypercorrection'. We say 'rightly or wrongly', and 'wrongly', for me is a common adverb, not a hypercorrection of 'wrong'. As the OED attests.

It may be a Liverpudlian expression to say 'You pronounced that wrong', but to me that is ambiguous: it doesn't necessarily imply wrong pronunciation, since 'pronounce' has more than one meaning ('To make a formal, considered, or authoritative statement or assertion; to declare a ruling, judgement, or opinion (on or upon a matter); to pass judgement), so it could mean 'you declared that to be a wrong/bad thing'; whereas 'wrong pronunciation' = to pronounce wrongly. In my opinion.

[PS Quinion uses the example 'to spell wrong', not 'to pronounce wrong', which doesn't carry the same ambiguity. I would still use wrongly, and I don't think that is unidiomatic. Or even formal. At least not in Bristol ]

[jean]

It may be a Liverpudlian expression...

Oh what a put-down!

[french frank]

Oh what a put-down!

No more so, surely, than admitting mine might be a Bristolian expression?