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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
About a week back, A. received an official memorandum written by one of those oafs who only think they know what i.e. means, as if "imbecile's example".
You can always show your obvious superiority by perversely understanding what was meant even though it wasn't properly expressed
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Pooh-Bah
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One of my father's former students is an avid reader who also enjoys corresponding with his favorite writers. Apparently on more than one occasion he has written letters to authors, getting their attention by pointing out typos he has found in their novels. Thus some will write back. He often ends up with autographed copies of their books for his efforts. He was visiting our house once and noticed a copy of a John Updike book I was reading. He mentioned that he exchanged letters occasionally with Updike, and would I be interested in an autographed copy of one of his books? I gave an enthusiastic yes, and sure enough a few weeks later a package arrived from him containing an autographed hardcover of "Rabbit at Rest," which had the added benefit of containing a brief mention of my hometown in the novel itself!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Humph. I've never gotten an autographed book, though I have gotten nice notes and letters. I once wrote Andrew Greeley about a serious error in time in one of his books, and got a very nice note saying, in effect, why bother having editors?
Another time I pointed out to the younger Shaara that the US VP who became a Confederate general was Breckinridge, not Breckenridge. Interesting story, there. I was wandering through the Confederate White House some years back and saw Breckinridge. Since I lived not too far from Breckenridge, CO, knew that the town was named after the general, and assumed they had spelled it properly, I made a fool out of myself by telling a docent they had misspelled the guy's name.
Actually, the town had been Breckinridge, but in anger at his perfidy they changed the spelling to Breckenridge after their namesake went South (literally).
The other error I noted in the book was that he had the Shenandoah river flowing south, rather than north.
In his letter to me, Shaara thanked me for finding the errors, promised they'd be fixed in future editions, and related to me that in one other major error in the book he had moved Newport News across Chesapeake Bay and that he had referred to John Brown's having been hung. (I had noted the latter error and decided not to mention it when I wrote to him.)
But a friend of mine struck real paydirt many years back. He wrote to John Dos Passos to point out some error in USA, and got back a full page holographic letter defending the error (signed of course.) Charlie has this framed and hanging in his law office.
TEd
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The polar opposite of an example is a specific citing, like videlicet (viz. for Dafoe fans) or id est.
While I agree that i.e. and e.g. are quite different things, my point was that (IMO) saying they are "polar opposites" is almost as bad a misuse. They are both ways of further explaining or clarifying.
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While I agree that i.e. and e.g. are quite different things, my point was that (IMO) saying they are "polar opposites" is almost as bad a misuse. They are both ways of further explaining or clarifying.
Agreed that this polar opposite characterization is not as obvious as 'night and day', but the idea is of narrowing the subject to a single thing rather than presenting a model of many variations. 'Whole' and 'partial' are also both ways of further clarifying, but arguably opposites. The Britts never seem to botch standard Latin abbreviations, e.g., i.e.
ĹΓŞ╥┐↕§
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You can always show your obvious superiority by perversely understanding what was meant even though it wasn't properly expressed
Tolerance is a virtue, as clearly shown by the shining example of Faldage. But sometimes the battle against illiteracy must be fought, lest its bacteria-colony nature prevail and overcome all the dictionary-lazy. If not now, when? If not AWAD readers, who? 
ĹΓŞ╥┐↕§
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
The Britts never seem to botch standard Latin abbreviations, e.g., i.e.
we all seem to make mistakes; i.e. and e.g. the usual spelling is Brits, not Britts.
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Is it? Actually wondered at it prior to posting. Will have to suggest the 'double-tea' spelling as a Kafka-esque stylized form. [Still snickering over that post.] 
ĹΓŞ╥┐↕§
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
If not AWAD readers, who?
Well, there's always the messianic Robert Hartwell Fiske and his fellow travelers  :
http://www.vocabula.com/forum/
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
Tolerance is a virtue, as clearly shown by the shining example of Faldage. But sometimes the battle against illiteracy must be fought, lest its bacteria-colony nature prevail and overcome all the dictionary-lazy. If not now, when? If not AWAD readers, who?
Really. Next thing you know people will start using nice to mean something other than "ignorant" or egregious to be something other than a compliment, e.g.
Last edited by Faldage; 05/24/06 09:37 PM.
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