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Post by Verbivore on Dec 6, 2022 19:53:47 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 8, 2023 3:25:19 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Sept 5, 2023 18:41:23 GMT
I don't often contribute to this thread but I have just had a brief conversation with a speaker who was giving a talk: Life beneath the Waves, by Coral Smith
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 22, 2023 6:40:15 GMT
The beak hearing a case of sexual harassment: Federal Court Justice Elizabeth Raper.
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 20, 2023 0:35:27 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Oct 29, 2023 3:20:40 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 24, 2023 8:11:01 GMT
Igor Judge / Lord Judge / Baron Judge, PC (19 May 1941 – 7 November 2023) was an English judge who served as the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the head of the judiciary, from 2008 to 2013.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 14, 2023 20:26:12 GMT
A dermatologist called Rash, a rheumatologist called Knee, and a psychiatrist named Couch – a podcast on nominative determinismIn the article, a Dr van der Zwan says that people who don't like their names tend to have low self-esteem. I can relate to that. I was saddled with the awkward surname of my adoptive parents; it was a constant pain in the arse because people would commonly misspell it (if first encountered aurally) or mispronounce it (if first encountered in writing). I hated it. In my mid-20s, I changed my surname (and eliminated a loathed middle name). Among the perceived results were an increase in my self-esteem and a near-elimination of spelling/pronunciation issues. PS: One motive for a name change arrived when our first child was still in the womb. My wife and I had made a list of potential names for our offspring. One of those names (a girl’s), when combined with our then-surname, sounded like a variety of drug. We couldn’t in good conscience use that name because, children being the nasty little buggers they are (or can be), would inevitably nickname that daughter Penicillin; too cruel by far, and entirely avoidable by using a different surname. Having suffered constant teasing during childhood for my own name, there was no way I was going to (knowingly) saddle my child(ren) with similar burdens.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 15, 2023 12:36:47 GMT
I can very easily recognise what you describe, Vv, but I seem to recall a posting by you some years ago ago in which you regretted your present initials for their association with criminality. Did you choose them yourself? I would have thought as a proofreader, that was something you would have noticed. Or is my memory faulty? Well, yes it is, very faulty, but I thought I had remembered that correctly.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 15, 2023 20:00:56 GMT
LJH: You do remember correctly. My initials could stand for Grievous Bodily Harm, and as such have caused the occasional snigger from just a few folk. The H was a late addition (previously just GB, which wasn’t a problem for this anglophile) to acknowledge my birth mother, whom I found at age 42, a couple of decades after the earlier name change. The association with crime was perhaps a minor misfortune, but nowhere near as bothersome as the original names. Acknowledging Mother was more important than the occasional joke at my expense.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 15, 2023 20:29:54 GMT
Here’s another set of initials, found in this morning’s news, that appear not to have been well considered: The Australian Government is establishing the Australian Centre for Disease Control, giving the operation the initials ACDC. While also being the name of a rock band that’s been around for 50 years, ACDC is an informal but well known term used to describe people of bisexual orientation. The persons who dreamed up that organisational title might be either naïve, ignorant, or jokesters.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 15, 2023 23:11:02 GMT
Where has the proofreader gone? Either...or between three choices ? ☹️
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 15, 2023 23:36:57 GMT
Where has the proofreader gone? Either...or between three choices ? ☹️ LJH: I used either, but not between. According to the SOED 2nd edn, 1973: “either – conjunction, adverb used before the first of two (or occasionally more) alternatives that are being specified”. OED 3 (published online only) maintains that definition, which has been extant for at least 50 years. For my own (and professional) purposes, I settled that argument with myself a long time ago. However, I’d never use between with more than two but rather among, and then not with either.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 16, 2023 1:22:39 GMT
Further to my preceding reply, I have checked all my grammars and style guides, which cover UK, US, and AU Englishes and spread across almost a century.
While all the older references refer to either as being used between two items, none of those referenced the use (acceptable or not) of either with more than two items.
The use of either with more than two items is first referenced (and accepted) in my Complete Plain Words (1986, Sir Ernest Gowers, revised by Greenbaum and Whitcut). There is no such mention (for or against) in my 1954 Gowers.
Either means one or other of two or more. – p 223 of the 1986 edn.
My Fowler’s Modern English Usage (revised 3rd edn, 1998, by Burchfield) declares: “In most contexts in formal English, however, it is advisable to restrict either to contexts in which there are only two possibilities. In conversational English the type ‘a narration of events, either past, present, or to come’ is often unavoidable. Cf Shakespeare’s “they say there is Divinity in odde Numbers, either in natiuity [sic], chance, or death” (1598). – pp 241–242
I accept that Shakespeare’s usages aren’t necessarily appropriate in today’s English, but that excerpt does indicate the usage’s existence more than 400 years ago.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 16, 2023 16:27:47 GMT
Interesting. Certainly, all my ideas about the English language predate the 1980s so I would prefer: "The persons who dreamed up that organisational title might be naïve, ignorant, or jokesters." And I still strive to avoid the use of split infinitives and sentences ending with prepositions. As you see, sentences beginning with conjunctions are fine.
in regard to the usage by Shakespeare, I keep reminding people that he was writing the speech of his characters and that says nothing about what he may or may not have thought was acceptable, let alone "correct", English.
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