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you sound completely reasonable. not surprised people probably try to beat your ass every time you open your smug mouth. seriously, you sound like the type of incel that hates women too. good luck in life buddy.

Nobody tries to "beat my ass" when I open my mouth, because I don't associate with lowlifes like yourself, Mr. Anonymous Coward.

I understand that it might be a bit of an eye-opener for you to discover that the broskis with their brewskis aren't actually considered kings among men by the rest of civil society. Happy to educate you.

While we're at it, here are some relevant tips on the correct use of capital letters when writing in the English language.

Hope that helps!

Anyone know how operating a cashless business is legal by refusing Legal Tender?

Isn't the entire point to have a common / ubiquitous currency that is available to ALL citizens?

This was covered on the Legal Lad podcast (he's a lawyer) a few years back. Copying/pasting the relevant bit from the online article at Quick and Dirty Tips:

If you look at a dollar bill -- er, Federal Reserve Note -- in your wallet, you’ll see that it says “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

“Legal tender” is what makes an official currency official. It means that a creditor must accept federal reserve notes in satisfaction of a debt. If you get to the checkout line at the local Piggly Wiggly and the cashier demands payment in rubles or pesos you have every right to say “Sorry buddy, but I’ve got some Federal Reserve notes burning a hole in my pocket.”

You have that right under the "legal tender" statute which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

This means that US notes and coins are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. However, although businesses must accept dollars, that doesn’t mean they literally have to take your big wad of bill,s which is bulky, difficult to make change for, and, frankly, a breeding ground for germs. A vendor can usually put reasonable conditions on the manner in which they will accept dollars, and one of those conditions can be that they’ll only accept dollars electronically, via credit card. Or, as the US Treasury explains on their website, “Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.”

See, with creimer, it's never his fault.

http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

"How to Use Quotation Marks" by Mignon Fogarty states: "in British English periods and commas can go inside or outside (kind of like the American rules for question marks and exclamation points)." I write in American English with two exceptions that I can think of: periods and commas interact with quotation marks in the British manner, and dates are in international form (yyyy-mm-dd). I've chosen to mix select aspects of one national style into another where I find it justifiable, and if that's inherently wrong, Oxford University Press must also be wrong for using -ize in otherwise British English publications.

Youre probably a peasant too. It would explain why you don't know the difference between a dictionary and a usage guide.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/...

http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserv...

Typo in title, it's "rein in".
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/reign-rein-and-rain

fewer guns. not less guns.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

Anybody who has moved property between family members (without incurring income tax, or, in the US, gift tax) has been aware of "gifting" as a verb for a very long time.

This source cites Seinfeld as the cause of it becoming more common in non-tax conversations: http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

Seinfeld is not exactly a millenial.

They can very easily find and prosecute drivers who flaunt the local law.

Hello, this is the Anonymous Pedant bot (build 0.0.4.0.2). I think the word you're looking for is flout.

To flaunt the law is to parade it around like a new pair of bosoms. To flout the law is to disregard it like an artificially intelligent grammar bot whose programmer left it for some vapid neural netwich named Sheila42. :(

Interestingly, prosecutors are prohibited from lying in court but defense attorneys are not.

Sure, they are. I think this story is an obvious counterexample for the prosecutor side. The burden of proof is too high. And since when have defense attorneys been able to lie in court? I see that they can be disbarred for doing so and there are other consequences.

Since it seems that you're not very familiar with the English language, I offer you a helpful reference.

That link doesn't seem to work for me.

Mignon Fogarty ("Grammar Girl") is in favor of moving to singular "they", and it is perfectly acceptable in British English.

it seems as valid as irrigardless. search the internet for "comprised of grammar" and you'll get some good insights. Here's a specific link:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

I did say "after this." However (heh), as you have now made a more recent mistake, now we do have to reset the timer....

http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Lets add some fuel to this fire. The "correct" phrase is "I couldn't care less", which started as a British saying. Somehow stateside the abbreviated "not" portion got stripped. Once it became "I could care less" it became nonsensicle, sense it implies that there is some small amount of caring there.

Source:
dictionary.com
Grammar Girl

I believe the exception is if the first letter is something that is a *silent* consonant, leave it with "a." For example, honorable or university*. A lot of people (native speakers) seem to not get this as you'll see "an historic" a lot of the time but the 'h' isn't silent so it should still be 'a.'

I'll admit that the "if it's separated by another word, use that word instead" seems maddeningly inconsistent. I consider it a bonus that we don't conjugate every god damn part of speech, though. After taking a few years of German, it seems like in German you have to conjugate 6 or 7 out of 10 parts of speech, while in English it's only really 3 (pronouns, verbs, and articles). And of course the genders for 90% of nouns are completely random. My favorite is "das Mädchen." Argh!

* Do I remember correctly that Universität is begun with an "oo" pronunciation? In English it's a "yoo" pronunciation.

The first 2 results for "a vs an" on Google agree with me, anyway. I wouldn't be surprised at a dissenting opinion.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu...
http://www.quickanddirtytips.c...

When your market share in the consumer market is approximately 0% "saving" is not good, what you need to do is grow market share.

The key to any business succeeding is to "suck less" [than your competition].

They can do it with service and with hardware, if they want.

They will have a hell of a time doing it with developer tools and such. Why should I write apps for a 0% market share device? If I write an app for Android and IOS, I have something like 85% of the market, which is FAR MORE than the 60% I need to succeed.

Same thing here - no problem. Compared to "cleaner" languages like Latin, German, Spanish or even French, English grammar is pure voodoo. According to the grammar sites I googled up, the subtle difference between "which" and "that" (which I didn't explain very well above) is a very common source of confusion:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/which-versus-that-0
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/which-vs-that

Raises the question, maybe, but it certainly does not beg the question.

In any case, the speed of light in fiber optics is dominated by the glass or plastic, not any air that might be somehow still be in the fiber. So far as I know, that quantity is zero or close enough at least. For fiber optics to work, you need total internal reflection. To get total internal reflection over a decent range of angles (so that you can actually bend your fiber optic cable), you needs a sufficiently high index of refraction. It turns out that the higher the index of refraction, the slower the speed of light in the medium.

We want to know how not to be a mosquito magnet. Like using a fan or eating garlic.

" this begs the question, does it have to have its own specialized store? And the answer, for those who know what they are talking about, is no."

Your doing it wrong: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/begs-the-question.aspx

If I take a picture in a hot air balloon of a sunset and happen to capture an empty field that I do not own, am I guilty?

What about drones require special treatment v.s. existing peeping tom laws? http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/peeping-tom.aspx

If by "empty," you mean "not containing people or 'man made' objects," then you'd be jake. Or form an LLC and employ yourself to watch from your balloon for some regulatory violation of your -- well, your company's -- choice.

"Comprise" Versus "Compose".

Mod parent up! And here are some good sources: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/455549?uid=3739656&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101147761451 http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/needs-washed.aspx http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3161

Let's ask Grammar Girl:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/than-I-versus-than-me.aspx

I think this is probably one of better explanations for why "could care less" is generally wrong. In short, all the fancy claims of sarcasm/irony are likely post hoc justifications, what's more important is looking at actual intent. In this case, I don't think tyrione was sarcastically saying anything, he was intending to very directly say Woz didn't give a damn about the aesthetics of the ICs. Also, just for fun, this post has a google ngrams graph for the two phrases showing how couldn't care less looks to have the earlier origin and greater historical weight, current usage notwithstanding.

Or perhaps it is a word, just not accepted as a proper part of the English language at this time.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/irregardless.aspx

In other words it's accepted that people are using the word and as such is in most dictionaries but it isn't considered a proper part of the English language at this time. That may change at some point in the future. Though it likely won't be any time soon.

I am not a lawyer, but IMHO no private entity that is not a creditor is "required by law" to accept dollars as payment, either physically as actual notes or as the unit of a promissory note (check). It would be business suicide for a US store to _not_ accept them, but there's plenty of precedent for businesses not accepting physical notes, and pure barter is still quite legal.

Note that I said creditor - the rule of 'all DEBTS public and private' comes in to play when there's a debt owed. Attempting to buy something does not create a debt, so that rule does not apply. Eating in a restaurant that collects payment after the meal DOES create a debt, therefore they must accept currency as payment.

This article has a good discussion.

This guy gets it close, but confuses creditor with seller.

Seems you are correct that there is no logic behind it, but that it's just a very commonly used and well-tolerated error: grammar girl's analysis.

Umm... with computers it does, as they were named by their creators. IBM called them hard disks, so everyone uses that terminology, including the British. Similarly, Philips (Dutch) and Sony (Japanese) called their products compact discs. Before that, the BBC used the different spellings to refer to different types of audio media, so it appears the two terms were always subtly different words rather than just a difference in the spelling of the same word.

First four hits on Google:
What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk?"
Grammar Girl : Disc or Disk? :: Quick and Dirty Tips
Spelling of disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
disc/disk (From the book: Common Errors in English Usage)

And if that isn't enough, skim the article comments. It seems ~90% of slashdotters are using the spellings in this manner.

So if you’re in marketing or PR, you can just use “use”; it’s probably not a good idea to utilize “utilize.” In a similar vein, please avoid the word “utilization.” It does your sentence no good.

Surprisingly, “utilize,” a 19th-century loanword from French (8), does have very specific and valid uses, mostly in the scientific world. The word “utilize” often appears “in contexts in which a strategy is put to practical advantage...

from sounding like the kind of person who would you a longer word for no reason

Well, anyway, please understand that different words can be synonymous in some cases and have specific differentiation in others.

Signed,

Da Boss.

no, and you deserve to be put in your place for attempting to do the same with the parent.

http://thesaurus.com/browse/less

the 7th synonym offered for "less" is "fewer."

less vs fewer

fewer = things you can count. less = things that are too many to count. it is pretty easy to win this argument by stating that these ads cannot be counted, despite there being a finite number of ad space in the web page mentioned. refreshing said page will show you a different ad in the same space. at any given time there may be a finite number of ads in rotation, but throughout the course of time overall, the number of unique ads being displayed in that space is unknowable. less ads. fewer ad spaces.

anyone can be a detail-oriented asshole if they really try, see? you're not that special. don't bother critiquing my response for grammar or spelling. i give not a fuck.

Either usage is acceptable.

You sure?

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx

Wouldn't viewers be a mass noun? Whatever. Off topic anyway. Fairly certain no one was confused by the term "less".

Are you sure that this use of which is wrong? It is not a restrictive clause.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/which-versus-that.aspx

Protip: Use whom where you would use him and who where you would use he.

Oh, p.s. if, considering my argument below, you really prefer standards bodies above the consensus route, "The Chicago Manual of Style (1), the AP Stylebook (2), and the Modern Language Association (3) all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. ", as noted by "Grammar Girl" at:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/spaces-period-end-of-sentence.aspx

(she provides references to back up that assertion).

I should note that I'm more of a "rough consensus" guy myself and that this is a matter where I don't think there's a right answer between one and two -- I think reasonable people may disagree and that it comes down to style.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx

http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/the-legality-of-recording-conversations.aspx

Since you don't believe in the authority of Jesus, why do you worry about sin?

Your question is therefore a trap.

It is not relevant because California law has nothing to do with Jesus.

Thank you for answering whether you believe in Jesus.

And finally, regarding unlawful vs illegal: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unlawful-versus-illegal.aspx

And again, if you want the freedom from 'Christendom' trying to coerce you through law, use John 17:15, 16 and John 18:36. Any who do that are not actually following the example or teaching of Jesus.

There's no need for the (n?). The word starts with a consonant, and just because Americans seemingly can't pronounce the letter H, doesn't mean you have to lower yourself also.

The "h" in "homage" is silent in the preferred pronunciation. So if you're using the preferred pronunciation it's "an homage", just like "an hour"; but if you're using some dialect where the h is pronounced, "a homage" would be correct.

So either could be ok here, but I have a strong urge to punch people who say "an historic occasion" or "an hallucination". These are just wrong, unless you are a Cockney aitch-dropper. Such bad grammar does not leave me an happy camper.

It's a simple rule: "an" before vowel sounds, "a" before consonants. The "n" in "an" is exactly there to hold vowels apart; if you don't have adjacent vowels (sounds, not symbols) in your phrase, it's redundant.

I am currently the instructor in a high school Chemistry course (at least for the day).

I'm curious as to why you capitalized chemistry above. As far as I can tell, it shouldn't be.

There is a subtle difference in a court of law but they are synonymous in the context we are using them in this thread. You can learn more here.

The horrible lag I get when using address completion in Firefox 3 makes me wish fewer people thought that way!

fixed that for ya.

Fixed that for ya!

Dear lord, my links keep eating up parts of my sentences.

Ah my friend. But it depends on the authority referred to.

Ah my friend. But it depends on the referred to.

In a list like this the writer upgrades the commas in the names to semicolons. You do respect the comma and use them in their more important role as list separators. It's not pretty, but it's right. It's not easy being an English Major.

I call shenanigans. Yeah, I have a writing degree too, and what you're saying contradicts Strunk and White, and just about every other style guide I've ever read. And it contradicts every English textbook I've ever read. I can't find a decent copy of The Elements of Style online -- the only versions I can find are the original written by William Strunk, before E. B. White jumped in and expanded the book. However, I found plenty of other grammar-related sites online that agree with me:

• Wikipedia (yes, I know, but bear with me): Use a semicolon between items in a series containing internal punctuation: "There are several Waffle Houses in Atlanta, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Gainesville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama."
• From Grammar Monster's English Grammar Lessons: "Items in lists are usually separated with commas (as in the first example below). However, if the list items themselves contain commas, then semicolons can be used as separators."
  Interestingly enough, this article does discuss "promoting" commas to semicolons, but indicates clearly that the commas being promoted are the ones in between the list items and not the ones inside the list items themselves.
• Grammar Girl's blog: "I don't want to confuse you, but there is one situation where you use semicolons with coordinating conjunctions, and that's when you are writing a list of items and commas just don't do the job of separating them all. Here's an example: 'This week's book winners are Herbie in Milligan College, Tennessee; Matt in Irvine, California; and Jan in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.' Those are the real winners in this week's special Scott Sigler book giveaway, and they've each won a copy of his novel Earthcore, but the list also provides a great example of using semicolons in a list. Because each item in the list requires a comma to separate the city from the state, you have to use a semicolon to separate the items themselves."
• How to use the semicolon properly: "When you have a series of three or more items that normally would be separated by commas except that each individual item already has a comma in it, you use the semicolon between items."
• The University Writing Center at UCF: "Semicolons also separate elements of a list, if those elements contain internal commas. Semicolons replace commas in a list if using commas would make the list more ambiguous."
• And finally, this terse guide from LEO at St. Cloud State University.

So since you're hiding behind Anonymous Coward, either (a) you're not really an English Major, or (b) you are one, but apparently lack the conviction of certitude in your answer to sign your "name" to it. And that list I gave above isn't even comprehensive, it's just what I managed to find after a few minutes of searching with Google. I will, however, point out that at least two of the citations I gave are from respected educational institutions.

You, on the other hand, indirectly claim to be an authority when it's not at all clear whether you're truly an expert or not.

McCain was born on a naval base which is considered soverign US soil for the purposes of birth, and has been since the 1790s by an act of Congress. (It's true the wording isn't as clear as it could be, but it's clear what the intent is of the bill.)

(This thread is decidedly OT from e-voting.)

As I understand it, the topic of "natural born" is untested, and is certainly not clear here. However, no one is likely to contest John McCain in his candidacy based on his birth, so this is probably moot.

The topic of "natural born" was a topic on the Legal Lad podcast back in March. The key points:

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This gives rise to the notion that there are two kinds of citizens: born and naturalized. So, the question becomes, was John McCain effectively born in the U.S., or did some law make him a citizen, rendering him naturalized?

The reason this is important is that John McCain was born on U.S. military base Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone to U.S. parents. Does that make him a "natural born Citizen?"

First, it is important to note that John McCain is definitely a "Citizen" of the United States. [...]

Proponents of McCain's eligibility argue that McCain must be a natural born citizen because he was born a citizen by virtue of his parents being citizens and the birth occurring on a military base. [...] Opponents of McCain's eligibility would point to the dichotomy between being born a citizen, and being declared a citizen. If, under the language of the Fourteenth Amendment and Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, a person is "declared" to be a citizen, then the person was not a citizen at the moment of birth. The law "declared" him to be a citizen, and so the person was naturalized, not naturally born. [...] Last, current State Department policy reads: "Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. [...]

In the end, a group challenging McCain on this ground might face a backlash. McCain was a prisoner of war, and was born outside the physical boundaries of the U.S. only because the government ordered his parents there. He does not seem to be the problem that the original framers envisioned: a foreigner without current allegiance to the newly-founded United States. McCain, a longtime senator, does not seem to really fit this problem.

Here is a simple legal analysis on why this "unconstitutional" claim is incorrect regardless of how loud it gets in the echo chamber.

The prohibition on "ex post facto" laws is based on the fact that it's unjust to pass a law saying that the thing you in the past was a criminal act (even though it was legal at the time) and then arresting you for it. That argument doesn't apply to decriminalizing things.

For example, a law could be passed repealing all the drug laws against marijuana possession and use -- and it could set free all the people in jail those particular crimes. The people here would have to say that such an act is an "ex post facto" law if they want to also say that retroactive telecom immunity is "ex post facto".

(Also, the telecom cases are really civil cases and the rules are actually much looser still. But the point is made.)

Saying this immunity is unconstitutional is more of an emotional or political opinion than a legal one.