WORDS THAT BUG ME

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pelmut
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by pelmut »

dillon wrote:My pet peeve is when a government official or politician uses the word "preconditions."
Thinking this through logically: what would be the meaning of the word "postconditions", if it existed?  It would mean that the conditions you thought had applied to a negotiation, had been changed after it had taken place - could that explain why a government official or politician might want to invent the word "preconditions" to prevent the other side employing such a tactic?
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Charlie
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by Charlie »

Ray wrote: "Like" thrown into the middle of a sentence ("he was, like, really tall")
I usually stop listening to what is being said and just count the 'likes'.

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denimini
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by denimini »

So I had better like watch my P's and Q's whilst on this thread.

It is a pointless exercise fighting against a changing language although one gets some satisfaction trying. Language is like a democracy; the majority wins even if they are totally wrong. (Self censored)
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moonshadow
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by moonshadow »

What is a "P" and "Q" anyway? Aside from being letters in the alphabet...
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by crfriend »

moonshadow wrote:What is a "P" and "Q" anyway?
The history of the term is uncertain, but it's a form of shorthand meaning, "Mind your manners."

There are more than a handful of these obscure idioms in the vernacular, including the ubiquitous "OK".

So, indeed, do mind your ps and qs. OK?
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trainspotter48
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by trainspotter48 »

Regarding 'Ps and Qs', my understanding was that the 'P' stood for 'please' and the 'Q' for 'thank you'. Hence, one was being polite.
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by pelmut »

I understood it came from the early printing industry: it was easy to mistake a 'p' for a 'q' when reading the type in mirror-image.
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Sinned
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by Sinned »

dillon, the use you gave, "One could call those jeans "preconditioned,"" the "preconditioned" here would have an intermediate hyphen as in "pre-conditioned". In its normal or original context it is something that must be fulfilled before other things can happen. This is the meaning that it has for me in programming when considering the "if-then-else" constructs.
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denimini
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by denimini »

moonshadow wrote:What is a "P" and "Q" anyway? Aside from being letters in the alphabet...
It is taking extra care, like dotting your "i"s and crossing your "t"s :)
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by crfriend »

denimini wrote:[...]dotting your "i"s and crossing your "t"s :)
Aka, "dotting your 't's and crossing your 'i's."
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On words, dialects, and languages

Post by crfriend »

It's astonishing what one can find when one isn't looking.

I was casting about on the Intartubes to see whether the current administration of the US of A is actually going to shut down its terrestrial radio broadcasts of time and frequency information (as far as I know, still up in the air) and stumbled on this featuring two folks who would later on become Pythons (of the Monty variety, not serpents), another Brit comic whom I didn't know, and a pre-Young Frankenstein Marty Feldman in a sketch entitled "The Four Yorkshiremen". If I wasn't at work I would have been howling with laughter (Now, we'll have none of that here -- this is serious business. No more fun of any kind!).
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by moonshadow »

https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc

:lol: :D

For the gramma-nazis...
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pelmut
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by pelmut »

Nobody expects perfect English all the time (if we could even agree on what was 'perfect English'), but good grammar and punctuation help to make messages easier for the recipient to read and understand.  

The point which is often overlooked is that a forum is a "write-once read-many" situation; a few moments spent checking the grammar and punctuation before pressing the 'send' button is more than repaid by the total time saved by dozens of others who don't have to waste ages puzzling over what the sender intended to convey.  We all make mistakes, but it is a point of courtesy towards others to try to minimise the time it takes them to decode the message.
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Fred in Skirts
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by Fred in Skirts »

Alright minding your P's and Q's is one thing but doing it on the PDQ is totally another. How many of you know what PDQ stands for :?: :lol:
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Re: WORDS THAT BUG ME

Post by Kilted Musician »

Fred in Skirts wrote:Alright minding your P's and Q's is one thing but doing it on the PDQ is totally another. How many of you know what PDQ stands for :?: :lol:
Hi Fred,
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