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Post by Geoff on Jan 10, 2011 7:05:49 GMT
I need a safety valve. This forum will have to be it for now. Does anyone else get as frustrated and annoyed as I do at the apparent misuse of certain words used singly or in combination? I'm prompted to ask as I have just encountered another example of what I believe is the incorrect use of on site/onsite in a brochure I received in the mail: Last Summer [YVW] responded to over 1000 leaks in the water pipes and was onsite to repair larger bursts within 45 minutes on average. I believe onsite/on-site is an adjective and in the above passage on site, rather than onsite, would be correct. Similarly, in store is adverbial while instore/in-store is adjectival, and store wide is adverbial while storewide/store-wide is adjectival. I cannot find instore defined anywhere, but it is widely used in advertising catalogues and shop signage as follows: More bargains to be found instore or See instore for specials In both cases I believe that in store should have been used. Dictionary.com defines storewide/store-wide only as an adjective: –adjective applying to all the merchandise or all the departments within a store: the annual storewide clearance sale. and should not be used, as is often done, as follows: ... on sale storewide Comments anyone?
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 10, 2011 8:57:17 GMT
Geoff:
I've just this moment arrived home from 10 hours of proofreading, during which I emended numerous onsite / online / instore instances (we get them in adverts all the time).
IMO, you are correct to differentiate between the adjectival and adverbial.
A shop may have instore (adj.) specials. but those specials are to be found in store (adv.). Likewise, I may be participating in an online forum, but whilst doing so I am on line. When I log off, I go off line and perhaps participate an another forum off line -- an offline forum.
When it comes to storewide, I reckon it can be both adj. and adv. (but not simultaneously): a storewide (adj.) sale is a sale that is storewide (adv. -- i.e. that's where it is -- everywhere across the store). When it comes to its being set solid, hyphenated, or separate words, though, I believe it has evolved (as compounds are wont to do) into a set-solid state much as has worldwide. I have no problem with that.
It's conceivable that those other compounds (above and others) will eventually evolve, through the usual route, from separate to hyphened to set solid, but I'm not going to be the one to push them along in that direction.
The Macquarie has online set solid (with optional hypehnation) for both adj. and adv. forms; for on-site it gives only the hyphened version and doesn't acknowledge an adverbial usage; instore / in-store gets no mention at all; ditto storewide / store-wide.
At least today I had the satisfaction of not only emending the above terms, but three instances of impact without an accompanying on: e.g. x was impacted by y. No way, Hosé, not in "my" newspaper or other publications I'm responsible for.
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Post by Pete on Jan 10, 2011 23:06:44 GMT
No way, Hosé, not in "my" newspaper or other publications I'm responsible for. Hosé?!
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Post by Pete on Jan 10, 2011 23:09:20 GMT
Does anyone else get as frustrated and annoyed as I do at the apparent misuse of certain words used singly or in combination? The one that I irritates me is some time vs sometime. And the culprit is the spellchucker on MS Word. I believe that it is correct to suggest to someone that we should met up some time. And spellchucker keeps trying to persuade me to use sometime. I say, no, no and thrice no to such a thing!
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 10, 2011 23:11:14 GMT
Hosé?! Ah yes -- must be all that water getting to my brain! ;D Now I'll go out and jose my paths.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 10, 2011 23:12:26 GMT
The one that I irritates me is some time vs sometime. And the culprit is the spellchucker on MS Word. I believe that it is correct to suggest to someone that we should met up some time. And spellchucker keeps trying to persuade me to use sometime. I say, no, no and thrice no to such a thing! That is, no doubt, a sometime annoyance.
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Post by jjg1 on Jan 10, 2011 23:37:55 GMT
Hosé?! Ah yes -- must be all that water getting to my brain! ;D Now I'll go out and jose my paths. Reminds me of the joke (?) about the two Spanish firemen, Hose A and Hose B jjg1
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Post by Dave on Jan 11, 2011 3:57:28 GMT
Hosé?! Ah yes -- must be all that water getting to my brain! ;D Now I'll go out and jose my paths. We have on occasion gotten mail addressed to us in San Hosay!
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Post by Alan Palmer on Jan 12, 2011 8:59:33 GMT
At least that gives an idea of the pronunciation. To an English-only speaker, San José could be pronounced San Djoze!
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Post by Tone on Jan 16, 2011 21:15:13 GMT
>To an English-only speaker, San José could be pronounced San Djoze! <
Likewize problem with Jesus?
Tone
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Post by Tone on Jan 16, 2011 21:19:24 GMT
Ithink that the runningtogether of pairsofwords (oreven triplewords) is something that will continue increasingly to assailus. And Idon't think there is away of stoppingit. (Sad ly)
Tone
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Post by Geoff on Jan 16, 2011 21:59:40 GMT
That might be so, Tone, but please let's use the new words correctly.
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Post by Sue M-V on Feb 4, 2011 13:12:05 GMT
Wandering in a bit late here ... I am extremely annoyed by "anytime"! I really shouldn't be, but I can't get used to it!
I'm afraid that Tone is right - you only have to read Jane Austen to see that she always wrote "any" words separately: "any body", "any where" and so on. That looks rather strange now, so perhaps I'll become accustomed even to the above-mentioned word in time.
Interestingly, in Swedish, the opposite is happening. They have a system of noun-coinages in which almost anything can be joined to almost anything (I exaggerate, of course!) to make a compound noun. Young people, probably under the influence of English, which does this to a far lesser degree, are beginning to separate words that need to be together. Instead of writing "leverpastej" (liver pâté), for example, they write "lever pastej" (roughly: "the pâté is alive"). There are whole websites devoted to such droll examples! The less they read books, the more they do it.
Sue
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Post by Tone on Feb 4, 2011 20:31:59 GMT
Although I said quite the opposite above, I have also noticed the increase of annoyingly separated words. (I think I mentioned this some months ago.) I think that it is an effect of "too-clever-but-not-clever-enough-by-half" WP programs that split up that which is presented to them. A currently annoying example is "whole sale outlet" (from "wholesale", of course).
It seems that both the running-together and the splitting-apart phenomena are occurring together for different things (or reasons).
(By the by, don't you just hate the so-common use of "phenomenas" as a plural!)
Tone
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Post by Dave on Feb 5, 2011 5:56:45 GMT
(By the by, don't you just hate the so-common use of "phenomenas" as a plural!) Tone Several groups of phenomena. ;D
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