Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Pull the other one - it's got wheels on!

[jean]

Surely?

No, because the point is that the fish doesn't need the bicycle.

[jean]

And how are your semicolons?

...According to the teachers tweeting, 10- and 11-year-olds were asked to put punctuation in a pre-written sentence and - even though they got the right answer - did not get a mark because their commas were not curved the right way or their semi-colon was too large or not in precisely the right place.

They also complained about marking guidance which they claimed only markers, not teachers, had access to.

Primary head teacher Cathryn Throup tweeted some of the issued guidance which gave details of the "origin, height, depth and orientation" of semi-colons - or where pupils should write their answers.

In particular it said:

- Neither element of the semi-colon should start higher than the letter 'l'
- The dot of the semi-colon must not be lower than the bottom of the letter 'w' in the word 'tomorrow'
- The orientation of the comma element of the semi-colon must be inclined to the left or straight down. It cannot incline to the right...

[ahinton]

Ockam's Razor

Occam's Razor, surely?

[ahinton]

It cannot incline to the right...

Shouldn't that post be among the ones elsewhere about whether lack of overt political interest alone is what constitutes purported apoliticality or whether perceived absence of involvement in politics is an additional requirement to qualify as identifying this phenomenon?

[ahinton]

And how are your semicolons?

Some might regard that question as an intrusive example of semi-colonic irritation...

[jean]

Occam's Razor, surely?

It's not polite to correct a previous poster.

[ahinton]

It's not polite to correct a previous poster.

So you've never done any such thing, then?

[french frank]

Occam's Razor, surely?

Or Ockham's Razor. Names didn't have fixed forms in the 14th century.

[jean]

Ockam is probably not standard. But (as I explained to ahinton) I followed your spelling out of the extreme politeness for which I am a byword.

[jean]

Shouldn't that post be among the ones elsewhere about whether lack of overt political interest alone is what constitutes purported apoliticality or whether perceived absence of involvement in politics is an additional requirement to qualify as identifying this phenomenon?

It could be, but I'd rather hoped the whole post would be of interest for itself.

What are we inflicting on children still at primary school?

And people who are so super-pedantic about the size and position of apostrophes should have taken more more care than to write cannot when other super-pedants might pounce on them and demand may not instead.

[ahinton]

What are we inflicting on children still at primary school?

I don't know; I'm not inflicting anything on them personally.

And people who are so super-pedantic about the size and position of apostrophes should have taken more more care than to write cannot when other super-pedants might pounce on them and demand may not instead.

Better not say "may"; politics an' all that...

[french frank]

Ockam is probably not standard. But (as I explained to ahinton) I followed your spelling out of the extreme politeness for which I am a byword.

And spell it how you will (Ockham would outrank Ockam, since that is the name of the village William is supposed to have come from; Occam is the most usual for his razor), Bryn's explanation:

The book is a allegorical, no? The lower orders in it have limitation imposed on their education and use of language. That the phrase has been taken up in the form used in the book and used on jewellery and in tattoos without questioning its linguistic validity tends to confirm the book's subtext re. the state of play in American society at the time of its writing, a state of play which apparently obtains still.

fails William's principle, "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"; and, earlier, Ptolemy's, "We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible" (sorry, do not have the Greek original to hand).

As jean had already pointed out: "I’ll tell you the weird thing about it,” Atwood told Time magazine about the quote this spring. “It was a joke in our Latin classes. So this thing from my childhood is permanently on people’s bodies.”

All that is required under the razor is that her adult memory got it wrong. Simplex optimus. Or optimum.

[Bryn]

All that is required under the razor is that her adult memory got it wrong. Simplex optimus. Or optimum.

So your own comment re. the history of the alternative/original version and its lack of favour among feminists does not come into your application of Occam's razor in relation to a work of feminist credentials, eh. No scientist would be so slipshod in the application of this fallible test of hypotheses.

[french frank]

So your own comment re. the history of the alternative/original version and its lack of favour among feminists does not come into your application of Occam's razor in relation to a work of feminist credentials, eh. No scientist would be so slipshod in the application of this fallible test of hypotheses.

Eh? Where did I say anything about the lack of favour among feminists &c? Not my sphere of knowledge.

My whole intention in the mention of Occam's razor was to dismiss any explanations that involved any unneccessary complcations, including my linguistic pedantries which were responses to others