Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Sit down before reading this

I am indebted to Thersites for bringing this to my attention. I feel that the customary "hat tip" does not do justice. A full-bottomed bowing and curly doffing of peacock feather hat performance is more the ticket.

!%$**@&$£!!

:-[

If one takes the more pedantic interpretation of the split infinitive (and I think you can guess where this is going...), I counted no less than 5 (FIVE!) instances in the section "Newspapers of (broken) record".

Methods for correctly inserting curly quotes in web pages are not well understood.
.

Two in one sentence!

As for the rest of the article, whilst one cannot fault the author's intentions, it is beyond contempt and possibly the pale:

  • Failure to insert spaces between "em" dashes and the words on either side

  • This:
    Open-Source—based browser



To cap it all, he then has the effrontery to chastise his readers:
If you are one of these people, put out your hand so I can slap it with a ruler.



Slap it with a ruler, eh? Well, Sonny-Jim, I think you will find that it is the Pedant-General who is charged with dispensing summary justice in this field.

All together now:

STRING HIM UP!

4 comments:

berenike said...

mmm, the em/en dash business was perhaps a wee joke.

Anonymous said...

With apologies to Jonathan Swift:

So, naturalists observe, a pedant
Hath smaller pedants that on him prey;
And these have smaller pedants to bite ’em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every blogger, in his kind,
Is bit by him that comes behind.

The Pedant-General said...

Berenike:

A joke? You think this is a laughing matter?

Thersites:

With apologies to Dryden:
"Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide"

berenike said...

It is not my opinion that is in question, but that of the author of the article. Indeed, as I thought about it, perhaps also the inquisitor (oops, personal pre-occupations slipping out there) pedant-general's. Perhaps the comment on the apparent em/en dash slip was also a joke. All so difficult.