In [thread=387426]this thread[/thread] about 9/11 , I posted a minor aside (post #21), wondering why we haven’t come up with a better,more original name for such a historic event.(as opposed to just the numerical date.)
I pointed out that:
now, I admit there are a couple errors here, which other Dopers corrected as good nitpicks: Kennedy’s assasination was the 22nd, not the 23rd of November, and D-day was June 6, not June 4.
So far, so good–after all, I displayed an unforgivable, yea, verily abysmal level of ignorance, which needed to be fought. On points number 2 and 3, I stand corrected and will forever remain grateful to those whose minds are greater than mine.
But then somebody posted this comment about point 1. :
Ahem,… was this really necessary?
This has to be the, well, nittiest nitpick ever posted on the SDMB!
A genuine nitpick is when you add a little bit more information to somebody’s minor mistake, thus correcting mis-information and making the world a better place and improving the condition of the human race.
But,gee whiz, this is not a “nitpick”!
This is more like screaming “get off my lawn”.
If a nitpick annoys you, then it’s probably wrong. “Pearl Harbor” is originally the name of a place – a naval base in Hawaii – but now it stands for an event, the Japanese attack on the US fleet stationed there. Since most of those who know of the event don’t remember the actual date – the day, month and year – it is wrong to say that the “date” is infamous, when it is just the day that in infamous.
By contrast, with 9/11 the actual date is part of what is generally rembered, because it’s part of the general name of the event. So in that case it is the actual date which is infamous. But, with Pearl Harborm your initial instinct was right: the day, not the date is infamous.
I would agree with you if you weren’t directly quoting something somebody actually said. President Roosevelt used the words “a date that will live in infamy”, so it makes sense that somebody would correct you when you quote him.
Nitpick, based on FDR’s notes: FDR referred to “December 7, 1941” as “a date which live in infamy”. He did not say that “Pearl Harbor” was “a date which will live in infamy”.
And a second nitpick: as originallly given, it’s not given as a quote from FDR: it just says:
i.e., that’s what it’s now known ass, not how FDR referred to it in 1941.
I’m not really understanding what your argument is here. I didn’t mean to imply that Roosevelt said Pearl Harbor itself was a date that would live in infamy because… well, because that would be silly. But whether the OP starts his sentence with “Pearl Harbor” or he starts it with “December 7, 1941”, IMO if he uses the quote “a day [or date] which will live in infamy” then he is in fact quoting Roosevelt, and as such should be corrected if he quotes it wrong. In the name of fighting ignorance and all.
Your second nitpick makes even less sense to me than the first one. See my reply to number 1.
I don’t have a dog in this fight (I wasn’t even aware of the other thread until I read this one) but it seems to me that based on the OP’s definition of a nitpick (“when you add a little bit more information to somebody’s minor mistake, thus correcting mis-information…[rambles on into hyperbole]”), it was a valid one.
A truly useless nitpick would be pointing out that for the country on the other side of the attack, December 7th is not Pearl Harbor Day (or the date formerly known as whatever and so on…)
Or that in Britain we’d call it Pearl Harbour, even though that’s not it’s actual name, as the name is ascribed by the place it resides, which is Pearl Harbor.