Just now noticed this Yahoo! Shine article that seems to have been built around thread topics here over the years:
What’s you’re favorite? 
No “Gotcha Ya!”?
This, Lord, yes, this. Is there a “Send to All” button on the the SDMB?
Makes me want to tear my hair out to see people use this, hoping to indicate how sophisticated their rhetorical skills are and demonstrate just the opposite.
Or “Penis ensues”
What’s the ultimate annoyance with it is when some erudite and smarmy host of an otherwise intellectual forum or talk show will drop that in with a canny smile as if the smooth is just bursting to get out. Their credibility drops to zero in a flash.
A lot of those alleged rules are pretty questionable. There’s really no good reason to say “runners-up” instead of “runner-ups.” In fact, I can make a pretty solid argument that “runner-ups” is more logical.
It’s surprising how many rules people are picky about that on examination have no logical justification and quite often are of very recent invention and are based on silly and arbitrary decisions made by the rule-inventor.
I did nt know this:
farther: for physical distance
further: for metaphorical distance or time
“supposably” makes me stabby.
Er, isn’t obvious to you guys when a writer starts a thread looking for article ideas?
It sounds like a grown-up homework thread.
Yes there is. In compound words, the noun takes the plural. See passersby, brothers-in-law, etc. I’m sure you can come up with a logical reason not to do this, but you also have to contend with why runner-up is special.
In fact, this is the problem with further and farther–what other word has a different form depending on whether it is literal or metaphorical?
[quote=“BigT, post:9, topic:551688”]
But in a compound word, there is only one word. If it’s a noun it’s all noun.
What is the purpose of insisting on the S at the end?
Your use of the term “passersby” is especially telling, since of course the singular is “passerby.” Why insert an S into the middle of that compound word when you obviously would not do so in any number of other compound words? Do you speak of budget cutsback? Enjoying all the daysbreak when you spent a week at the cottage? Get angry when a politician took some paysoff? Some people use “handsful,” but most use “handfuls.” A lot of this stuff is just arbitrary and there’s no rhyme or reason for it*; it’s just a matter of preference.
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- My favourite example is that a pea used to be called a pease, pronounced “peaz,” and more than one pea were called peases. But because pease sounded plural people started using it as a plural and backformed “pea” as the new singular.
They missed “pacific” for “specific” and “exspecially” for “especially.”
So in baseball, is it really R’sBI?
Language isn’t supposed to be logically. Learn to follow the rules and don’t be a troublemaker
I’ve never heard “pacific” for “specific,” but that’s hilarious.
Also absolutely true:
You know how in some dialects, notable African-American, people say “aks” instead of “Ask”? And some people make fun of them for doing that?
Actually, “Aks” was the original pronunciation. Really.
MHO:
“Budget cutbacks” is itself an inelegantly and unnecessarily glommed word. Just say “budget cuts,” unless you specifically intend to describe cuts back to a prior level–in which case say that, with separate words.
“Daybreak” is a time which occurs each day, just like noon. Nobody says “noons,” right? So both “daybreaks” and “daysbreak” are silly non-words.
“Payoffs” is correct. It’s not just the pay which is happening more than once, it’s the payoff.
Rather esoterically, I’ll call both “handsful” and “handfuls” correct, but with different meanings. The former is two hands, filled together (and possibly repeated)–for many materials, two hands together holds more than two hands separately. The latter means one handful at a time, more than once.
“Passersby” of course is correct.
No. Both Run and Runs are abbreviated to just R.
That was a joke, yes?
What?
I’ve never thought of that before. People…using us? :eek:
Yeah, don’t really care.
The National Association of State Attorneys General agrees with you. 