All Apropos of Nothing
- Thread starter Big Unc
- Start date
I too would expect the correct spelling to be "Smiley", but I have been corrupted by those vBulletin bods that persist in using smilie!
What can I say? Nothing about YOUR auto correct surprises me.
But I note in this that my spellchecker is querying 'Smilie'.
You mean mines different to everyone elses? I have the only dyslexic spellcheck in the world?
Cool
:respect:
barmpot
LOTSW Fanatic
I would be careful, some of us are secret pedants and hardly need encouraging! Do we Big Unc?
Marianna
Dedicated Member
And you know who my suggestion was for, don't you?! :me:
Is there a suitable emoticon for a pedant?
Could we create one - I could use this!!
:
I need the assembly of smileys explained. Goes right over my head.
And what is an 'emoticon'?
Whilst not enamoured of the epithet 'pedant' I am not averse to being described as pedantic. Here are a few synonyms to which I can have no objection:
scrupulous, precise, exact, perfectionist, precisionist, punctilious, meticulous, fastidious, purist, scholastic.
I admit to a love of the English language and hate to see it mangled in any way, or standards in its usage degraded. Interestingly, I was involved in a discussion last evening concerning the use of the possessive pronoun with the gerund of a verb (which is, of course, itself a noun). I maintained that the following is bad grammar. 'Failing it doing so, its business shall be regulated in terms of the Standing Orders.' As far as I am concerned, it should read, 'Failing its doing so, ....'
In support, I would point out that the following sentences have totally different meanings:
'Whitaker did not like the woman standing in front of him at the parade.'
'Whitaker did not like the woman’s standing in front of him at the parade.'
Now, dear friends, hasn't all that really made your day!
:me: :me: :me:
I need the assembly of smileys explained. Goes right over my head.
And what is an 'emoticon'?
Whilst not enamoured of the epithet 'pedant' I am not averse to being described as pedantic. Here are a few synonyms to which I can have no objection:
scrupulous, precise, exact, perfectionist, precisionist, punctilious, meticulous, fastidious, purist, scholastic.
I admit to a love of the English language and hate to see it mangled in any way, or standards in its usage degraded. Interestingly, I was involved in a discussion last evening concerning the use of the possessive pronoun with the gerund of a verb (which is, of course, itself a noun). I maintained that the following is bad grammar. 'Failing it doing so, its business shall be regulated in terms of the Standing Orders.' As far as I am concerned, it should read, 'Failing its doing so, ....'
In support, I would point out that the following sentences have totally different meanings:
'Whitaker did not like the woman standing in front of him at the parade.'
'Whitaker did not like the woman’s standing in front of him at the parade.'
Now, dear friends, hasn't all that really made your day!
I must drive you round the twist!
cciaffone
Dedicated Member
OK, the first says he does not like the woman who is standing
in front, while the second says he does not like the fact that this
woman is standing in front of him. Right?? If she was standing in
front of someone else, all is well.
Marianna
Dedicated Member
barmpot
LOTSW Fanatic
I need the assembly of smileys explained. Goes right over my head.
And what is an 'emoticon'?
Whilst not enamoured of the epithet 'pedant' I am not averse to being described as pedantic. Here are a few synonyms to which I can have no objection:
scrupulous, precise, exact, perfectionist, precisionist, punctilious, meticulous, fastidious, purist, scholastic.
I admit to a love of the English language and hate to see it mangled in any way, or standards in its usage degraded. Interestingly, I was involved in a discussion last evening concerning the use of the possessive pronoun with the gerund of a verb (which is, of course, itself a noun). I maintained that the following is bad grammar. 'Failing it doing so, its business shall be regulated in terms of the Standing Orders.' As far as I am concerned, it should read, 'Failing its doing so, ....'
In support, I would point out that the following sentences have totally different meanings:
'Whitaker did not like the woman standing in front of him at the parade.'
'Whitaker did not like the woman’s standing in front of him at the parade.'
Now, dear friends, hasn't all that really made your day!
Yes!!!
Actually I was thinking of some one else who has a tendency that way - myself!:yawn::yawn::yawn:
I did study the psychology of language one year in one of my courses back in the early 1980s which is where my interest started as well as grappling with the Yorkshire dialects I cam across and being told Bradford dialect was quite different to Leeds dialect (including vocabulary) and different again from West Riding ...... :yawn: :yawn: :yawn: :yawn: :yawn:
An emoticon
An emoticon (/ɨˈmoʊtɨkɒn/) is a metacommunicative pictorial representation of a facial expression which in the absence of body language and prosody serves to draw a receiver's attention to the tenor or temper of a sender's nominal verbal communication, changing and improving its interpretation.
taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon
so now we all know!
Or more simply an emotion icon - an image which tells something about the way you are feeling!
Any way I agree a degree of precision and correctness does aid communication.
barmpot
LOTSW Fanatic
http://www.webiconset.com/emoticons-smilies-icon-set/
gives a good range to be going on with ...:me::me::me:
gives a good range to be going on with ...:me::me::me:
When I posted:
I now realise I really should have added a few :wink:s and :me:s.
I need to get ready to go out for an appointment. But when I get a chance later we can go into the complexities of either '-ise' or '-ize' endings to words. I realise or realize you will all be waiting with bated breath.
I now realise I really should have added a few :wink:s and :me:s.
I need to get ready to go out for an appointment. But when I get a chance later we can go into the complexities of either '-ise' or '-ize' endings to words. I realise or realize you will all be waiting with bated breath.
:yawn: :yawn: :yawn: :yawn:
Well done be long or I'll turn blue.
I always thought it was our American friends that used the Z! That being Zed and zeeeee
Correct - to give the full analysis:
In the first sentence, "standing" is an adjective (a participle, to be specific) modifying "woman." We call "standing in front of him at the parade" a participial phrase. The sentence says that Whitaker did not like the woman who was standing in front of him at the parade. The participial phrase answers the question "which woman?" It identifies her as "the standing woman" and states that she is the person whom Whitaker did not like. In the second sentence, "standing" is a noun--a gerund. This sentence says that Whitaker did not like the fact that someone (the "woman") was standing in front of him at the parade. Whitaker probably did not know the woman at all. The notion of his liking or disliking her has nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that the sentence intends to convey. It was the *standing in front of him* that Whitaker did not like--the *woman’s* standing. The true meaning of the sentence--the fact that Whitaker did not like having someone stand in front of him at the parade--hinges entirely on the use of the possessive case of the word "woman."
I suppose to be totally PC in both instances 'woman' should have read 'person' or we get accused of sexism.