Posts by Sam F
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My two cents on grammatical pedantry: I try to adhere to the rules as much as possible, as long as the rules make sense for the situation I'm in. Even within PAS there are places where I'd be happy to let my writing go out largely unedited, and others where I'm very conscious of my language when commenting on complex issues. (For instance, my internal grammar Nazi is peering with a steely gaze over my shoulder right now, lest I slip up and provide further fodder for this thread...)
When people are commenting on errors in writing, it's usually quite easy with a moment's reflection to tell who is trying to understand your message and having trouble, and who is merely trying to divert attention from a real argument or get the satisfaction of pedantry. I tend to listen even to the pedants though, as occasionally they will pinpoint a mistake that might stop well-intentioned readers from making sense of what's on the page/screen.
The rule of thumb as I have heard it is that anything which causes the reader to focus on the writing rather than the message weakens the writing. This could be typos, spelling mistakes, or even bad word choice, inappropriate or changing tone, tense changes et cetera. All you can really do is read what you're writing, try to remove anything that might confuse/distract a reader from your core ideas - and be ready to suck it up when a typo gets through anyway, because life's like that. :)
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Auckland City Libraries:
21 of 21 holds
I raged.
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That bright idea is sitting in the mad scientist box next to the power generator on White Island, which is powered by liquid hot magma.
One step better: generate Auckland's electricity from its own volcanic field. Geothermal-powered subways!
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Great Blend
At which I fell to his knees and beat his fists upon the ground, for I'll be out of town that weekend. Oh the humanity!
Sure it'll be wicked.
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Random news-related oddity: this modest piece on the Auckland Lantern Festival, by Lincoln Tan, seems to be so loved at the Herald that they've run it twice today - once on Page A3 and slightly expanded with about two more sentences on A8.
Run out of adverts or something? :)
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Mark Taslov wrote, with regards to APRA:
ah yes, Joseph Goebbels, he had some other brilliant quotes too regarding force for the idea of national culture.
This doesn't just fail to advance your point, it actually salts the entire terrain of the discussion to the point where nothing worthwhile will ever grow out of it. What are we seriously supposed to draw from a comparison between APRA and the Nazis?
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Onya, Craig - reminds me I have reviews to hurry up and get in to Jeremy...
And now, the moment just the other day when I realised I was definitely a massive nerd: a co-worker told me that the theme for her friend's engagement party was going to be "Cannes" - and the first thing that popped into my head was Star Trek.
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MC Hawking:
I explode like a bomb
No one is spared
My power is my mass times the speed of light squaredKnowledge: it's power, bro.
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your witty one liners do it for me mate, even if they are sometimes at my expense, a sense of humour is always welcome.
Oh, I only wish I knew enough about the issue to actually contribute, but my lack of relevant work experience and the prevailing tone of discussion means I usually stick to 'snarky voice from the rafters'.
I used to wonder whether PAS' great minds would somehow cut through the civil warfare and progress the copyright debate, but that was about three of these threads ago.
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To which I say bullshit. And that's all.
Every time I land on this thread I'm presented with a good reason to never engage with it seriously, ever.