Pedants United

Contender for the Donald-Rumsfeld Award

2007-05-16T14:46:00.000Z

Here is a contender for the Donald-Rumsfeld Award for Things that Seem Stupid But Actually Make Sense:
Beijing is the birthplace of Maoism and it's where Chairman Mao comes from as well
(Giles Wemmbley-Hogg)

'The military'

2006-06-29T10:21:00.000Z

Has anybody else noticed how the American phrase 'the military' has now almost completely replaced the British phrases 'the forces' and 'the services'? I prefer the British phrases, since 'military' is an adjective, not a noun, and so when people use the phrase 'the military' I want to ask 'the military what?'.

Trial by Combat

2006-06-27T15:52:00.000Z

You can read here an interesting story from 2002:

A court has rejected a 60-year-old man’s attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.
Leon Humphreys remained adamant yesterday that his right to fight a champion nominated by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) was still valid under European human rights legislation. He said it would have been a “reasonable” way to settle the matter.
Magistrates sitting at Bury St Edmunds on Friday had disagreed and instead of accepting his offer to take on a clerk from Swansea with “samurai swords, Ghurka knives or heavy hammers”, fined him £200 with £100 costs.
Humphreys, an unemployed mechanic, was taken to court after refusing to pay the original £25 fixed penalty for failing to notify the DVLA that his Suzuki motorcycle was off the road.
After entering a not guilty plea, he threw down his unconventional challenge. Humphreys, from Bury St Edmunds, said: “I was willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA, but it would have been a fight to the death.”

Nouns used as Adjectives

2006-06-27T15:36:00.000Z

If one uses a noun as an adjective preceding another noun the noun used as an adjective must always be in the singular. So we have:

lady driver

and

lady drivers.

This basic rule is frequently infringed today in the phrase:

women priests.

This should be:

woman priests.

Well, actually, it should in most of its occurrences be:

woman presbyters.

One often has a choice between a noun used as an adjective and a noun in the possessive case. Thus one may say either:

a 30-minute drive

30 minutes' drive

but not

a 30-minutes drive.

Inverted Commas and Names

2006-06-27T15:23:00.000Z

I am Daniel Hill. I am a person. I have a name. A name is a linguistic item. I am not a linguistic item. It is therefore false for me to say:

My name is Daniel Hill

The reason why this would be false is that we could then conclude that I was my name, which is false. Instead, we (well, I) should say:

My name is 'Daniel Hill'.

Here the inverted commas ensure that the name is quoted rather than merely use d.

One word with opposite meanings

2006-06-18T14:31:00.000Z

This is inspired by a post from CG. Can anyone think of a word with two opposite meanings? I have posted the standard answer as a comment, but can anyone come up with any others?

'behest' vs 'bequest'

2006-06-18T13:20:00.000Z

I heard somebody say on the radio recently that something was done at someone's 'bequest'. A bequest is a legacy. To do something at someone's behest is to do it when that person asks one to do it. To do something on someone's behalf is to do it for that person whether or not that person has asked for it.

`that' and `who'

2006-06-18T13:01:00.000Z

Fowler advises in his first edition the use of:

`that' for all defining clauses whether qualifying persons or things, & `who' for persons but `which' for things in all non-defining.

I try to follow this advice, but I haven't found anyone else other than Fowler that [sic] does.

Nautical Expressions

2006-06-05T09:11:00.000Z

My colleague Dr Michael McGhee has pointed out to me that there are many expressions in English that come from the nautical world, but don't obviously do so. Examples include 'taken aback' and 'windfall'. See here for more examples. 'Under way' is another such, but note that this is nothing to do with weighing anchor, and so it is wrong to write 'under weigh', as this excellent site tells us.

misuse of 'claim'

2006-05-21T11:48:00.000Z

A lot of philosophers misuse the word 'claim' of any proposition as if to claim something was just the same as to say that it was true . In fact, 'claim' means to demand or assert a right.

If you have any other examples of misused words please feel free to post them as comments.

Daniel Hill