Re: Improving the WHOIS format

Dwayne Henderson wrote on Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 07:48:05PM MST:
> 
>    On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 3:29 AM, David Romano
>    <[1][email protected]> wrote:
> 
>      "ought to be split apart" -- I take it you're a fan of Strunk &
>      White. It's
>      not a typographical error if it's intentional. Are you going to
>      argue that
>      everyone should write RADAR, LASER, PERL, and ARPA Net? Not everyone
>      agrees
>      with your English language prescriptions.
> 
>    Radar, Laser, Perl and Arpa are all phonetical. IRC isn't.

But that wasn't your point. You wrote:
>    Typographical errors refer to general mistakes, including errors due to
>    slips of the hand or finger, such as joining together words that ought to
>    be split apart.  Especially if one of them is an acronym.
Nothing about being phonetical. You're changing the subject.

>    Now, Strunk & White made a lot of mistakes:
>    [2]http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497/
Right, prescriptivists can make mistakes, just as descriptivists. To be honest,
it looked to me that you are prescribing whereas others are describing.

>    But I guess it was intentional, so I guess it's okay.
No, I wrote: It's not a typographical error if it's intentional. Don't take
"typographical error" to mean a rule on grammar.

>      See my previous message.
> 
>         Join X to a Y.
>         X is joined to a Y.
>         X is joined to too many Ys.
> 
>    Or how about X joins Y.
>    X joined Y.
>    X has joined too many Ys.
Red herring. Your position is that 'X is joined to too many Ys' is
*ungrammatical*, not that 'X has joined too many Ys' *is* grammatical. Those
are completely different positions and I would never argue *against* the
latter.

>      Since you seem to be handy with citing wikipedia, there's probably a
>      page
>      describing the terms "ad hominem" and "pedant": enjoy.
> 
>    This Jake already dissed me on IRC calling me a pedant the first day I
>    joined this list. Ad hominem you say?
I wasn't on IRC so I can't say if you and he were in an argument and resorted
to "ad hominem". If he calls you a pedant on the first day, it's not
necessarily "ad hominem". Stating that others are bigots because they don't
agree with you is.

- David

-- 
David Romano .:. [email protected]
----
"There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not
too well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly
which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are
/sophomores/."
    -- Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book, p. 12