I read that as them being purposefully archaic and not noting it clearly enough. My reading might be me explaining away contrary examples, trying to prove my own point, though.
Vice versa? So send the north pole to the north half? That's either going to be an interesting achievement, or slightly redundant if we've already sent the north half to the north pole.
Though I agree that when in doubt, throw in an apostrophe is a bad rule (anyway, 'when in doubt, throw it out' actually rhymes, so it's the better choice), I will point out that there's no authority that defines English writing (in general---some specific words (sulfur, litre) might have spellings given by the organisations in charge of those things).
You've got altogether too carried away. If there is a correlation between 'correct' spelling and intelligence, intelligence certainly doesn't cause it. Calm down. Incorrect use of apostrophes hasn't caused anyone to die yet that I'm aware of. If it is a problem to you, it's only because you let it be. Try finding something else to be annoyed at, something slightly more productive.
Also, I will point out:
That the rule that 'its' is spelt with no apostrophe is relatively recent. Many acclaimed authors of the past put in an apostrophe. The -s in 'its' is (historically speaking) the same as the -'s in 'father's' (that is to say, the possessive of 'it' was formed using the productive morpheme for possession presumably because it was felt that using 'his' for both he and it was wrong). The rule that no apostrophe is used here is also grossly inconsistant with the usual rule that an apostrophe is used in possessives and probably goes some way to explaining the cause of your apostrophetic dillemas.
As for its use in plurals especially after vowels, since the abandonment of using -es as the pluraliser for words ending in vowels (most people and dictionaries would consider 'pizzaes' to be wrong!), an alternative has needed to be found. 'Pizzas' looks wrong, the s appears to bind too closely to the preceeding vowel. 'Pizza's' is meant simply as an assistance to the reader---which is precisely why apostrophes were invented in the first place.
I'll agree that 'its'' is a wankerism in the extreme. Whenever I see it (and in general, most incorrect apostrophes after s's), it looks like the author had something to prove.
BTW: You don't need to use 'sic' after every example. After all, you're talking about the errors. Of course they're meant to be there!
So, in summary: (1) don't use apostrophes if you aren't sure, because the mnemonic rhymes; (2) calm down; (3) don't use sic so much; (4) there is nothing about anything except flexible conventions that means some uses of punctuation and spelling are correct and others aren't.
Don't worry, when I become Indisputable Overlord of the World, these problems will be fixed. At the end of a gun, of course. It's a very useful problem-solving technique. I proppose we use it lots.
BIPM prefers/requires kilogram. The countries that only speak English and only use metric (e.g. Au, NZ, Ca) spell them kilogram. Spelling them 'kilogramme' is the aberrant spelling.
titles of larger works (novels, for instance, but not songs).
(On the subject, bolding is for keywords, headings &c. more than emphasis; whereas italicisation is only really noticeable when you're in the vicinity, bolding is visible pretty much anywhere on the page, drawing your attention to it. Avoid bold for emphasis.)
((Even more tangentially, anyone who has the capacity to use italics but still uses underlining for anything except for links will be hung, drawn and quartered when I'm ruler of the world.))
Only good scientists do that, I'm afraid. Evil and mad scientists are very likely to make sure that there is an intentional malfunction. For instance, my one will fail if an explosion behind me causes me to drop to my knees (in fact, the cause-and-effect is not necessary, so using the explosion as a cover is sufficient).
(For the record, I'm a mad scientist bent on world domination, as are all good mad scientists. I am, however, insufficiently evil to achieve this without assistance from artificial intelligences. I haven't yet worked out a reasonable explanation for connecting myself up to this artificial intelligence, though; any suggestions would be welcome.)
I once wanted to clear out my/tmp folder (which I was in), so I did an 'rm -rf *'. This was all well and good, except it didn't get rid of the dotfiles, so I tried 'rm -rf.*', which was bloody stupid of me---'.*' apparently matches '..'. Fortunately no data lost, I realised what I'd done while it was going through/bin.
I think XFS does; at least, some versions of ROX-Filer are capable of writing additional metadata about the filetype on XFS drives. My understanding was that ReiserFS v 3.x can, but I've never seen anything that uses it. Of course, Reiser4 will be able to, but I think it and Longhorn have joined Duke Nukem Forever in a race to the bottom...
[Most of the rest is your opinion, or not worth responding to for other reasons, or hell, it might even be correct. But on this one issue...]
I like having my programs and commands have names that actually make sense, not things like "grep", "GIMP", "X".
Yeah, because md,* Outlook Express, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, GDI are all so descriptive, aren't they? I mean, we all know what Excel means. It means to do well. So Excel does well. What the hell does it do well? And those are all made by the same combany.
On the other hand, I look at the Applications menu on my Gnome Panel and I see 'Office/Word Processor' or 'Image/Image & Photo Editor'. I don't even need to give a damn about who made a piece of software. Is the GIMP a piece of GNU Software? Maybe (Yes). It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway. Is Abiword a piece of GNU software? Maybe (No. It's made by Abisoft.) It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway.
Now, by this, I don't mean to pretend---not by a long shot---that GNU+X is the most usable environment (even though my evaluation of its pros and cons---including that it's Free---convinced me that it's better, at least for me). Just that the next time you claim Windows' superiority, you don't add this to the mix.
* Giving console programs is stupid. If I'm typing at a console, I want to be able to quickly type in the name, not find-within-files or find-files or edit-a-plain-text-file or make-a-new-directory. That's just silly.
Why should anyone limit what anyone else sees? I don't care whether it's parents 'protecting' children, governments 'protecting' citizens, or anything else. By the time they're old enough to care about looking at porn (etc. etc.), they're old enough to make their own informed decisions.
I would still be interested in hearing contrary points of view. The sources of information on which I've based my opinion may have been biased...
I'm not American. It's a part of the English orthography, and part of learning a foreign language. You wouldn't use Chinese numbers when writing English if you were Chinese, would you?
I thought I was being funny at first, too, but by the end of it, I realised I wasn't. This 'exploit' actually works and if using Internet Explorer is such a huge security whole, then it is dangerous. Do you know how many people I know that use Mozilla or Firefox actually do use Internet Explorer when a site doesn't work in anything but? (This applies both to people who I've convinced and people who use the web enough to know better.)
If you're going to use Firefox because Internet Explorer is a security risk, don't succumb to this 'exploit'.
(Now I suppose I have to wait to be modded funny.)
Have you not heard of the exploit in Firefox that causes the launch of Internet Explorer? If you, like me, run a Linuxbox, you won't have a problem with it because no matter how hard it tries, there's simply no IE to launch. Once IE is launched, the system is just as vulnerable as if IE was used in the first place!
I read about the exploit here on Slashdot a few days ago, so obviously it's reliable. It doesn't use Javascript so disabling that won't help. IIRC, the code that causes it is something along the lines of:
<b>This page is designed for Internet Explorer, and will not work on other browsers. Please use Internet Explorer.</b>
There is no known fix for this exploit! (Other than removing Windows from your system.)
I, and no doubt others, have been really confused about where Sun is going for some time now. They haven't made their minds up, I don't think: Are they in league with the devil or saint IGNUtius(sp)?
I only maximise windows occasionally. Rhythmbox generally lives on its own desktop, sometimes maximised. Galeon is only maximised when I'm looking at large images and when inconsiderate webpage designers didn't use some sort of a liquid design so that the text is slightly wider than my browser window (about as wide as a maximised 800x600 window), but much wider than that and I can't read the text (I get distracted, I randomly jump lines, etc. etc).
(PDF/PS viewer windows are typically at least the full height of my desktop, if not more, but rarely the full width. If my screen were portrait instead of landscape, then I would probably maximise those windows.)
My lecturers and tutors at uni can't explain it so that I still don't understand it, even though I think I was able to pretend I had a pretty good working knowledge of it on my DB exam last week.
No-one said Pac-Man existed 30 or 40 years ago, they just said that it was still as compelling today as it was 30 or 40 years ago. Thirty or forty years ago, I'm sure Pac-Man would've been pretty compelling, had it existed. Though Pac-Man as it is predates me, so I couldn't say.
Slashdot Mirror
I read that as them being purposefully archaic and not noting it clearly enough. My reading might be me explaining away contrary examples, trying to prove my own point, though.
Sorry, I appear to have confused BIPM with the Australian laws defining weights and measurements.
But BIPM does use 'kilogram' but 'litre'/'metre' on their webpage, so that suggests they prefer the -m spelling even when using -re.
Vice versa? So send the north pole to the north half? That's either going to be an interesting achievement, or slightly redundant if we've already sent the north half to the north pole.
You've got altogether too carried away. If there is a correlation between 'correct' spelling and intelligence, intelligence certainly doesn't cause it. Calm down. Incorrect use of apostrophes hasn't caused anyone to die yet that I'm aware of. If it is a problem to you, it's only because you let it be. Try finding something else to be annoyed at, something slightly more productive.
Also, I will point out:
BTW: You don't need to use 'sic' after every example. After all, you're talking about the errors. Of course they're meant to be there!
So, in summary: (1) don't use apostrophes if you aren't sure, because the mnemonic rhymes; (2) calm down; (3) don't use sic so much; (4) there is nothing about anything except flexible conventions that means some uses of punctuation and spelling are correct and others aren't.
Don't worry, when I become Indisputable Overlord of the World, these problems will be fixed. At the end of a gun, of course. It's a very useful problem-solving technique. I proppose we use it lots.
BIPM prefers/requires kilogram. The countries that only speak English and only use metric (e.g. Au, NZ, Ca) spell them kilogram. Spelling them 'kilogramme' is the aberrant spelling.
Aptly enough, /.'s fortune atm is:
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. -- Aristotle
Thankyou, I try my hardest. If there are any more ways I can frighten you through my use of language, please don't hesitate to inform me.
(On the subject, bolding is for keywords, headings &c. more than emphasis; whereas italicisation is only really noticeable when you're in the vicinity, bolding is visible pretty much anywhere on the page, drawing your attention to it. Avoid bold for emphasis.)
((Even more tangentially, anyone who has the capacity to use italics but still uses underlining for anything except for links will be hung, drawn and quartered when I'm ruler of the world.))
Only good scientists do that, I'm afraid. Evil and mad scientists are very likely to make sure that there is an intentional malfunction. For instance, my one will fail if an explosion behind me causes me to drop to my knees (in fact, the cause-and-effect is not necessary, so using the explosion as a cover is sufficient).
(For the record, I'm a mad scientist bent on world domination, as are all good mad scientists. I am, however, insufficiently evil to achieve this without assistance from artificial intelligences. I haven't yet worked out a reasonable explanation for connecting myself up to this artificial intelligence, though; any suggestions would be welcome.)
And I do, when there's taps and cups available (unless they're drinking fountains, of course). But there aren't always.
Actually, my reason is that I'm ethically opposed to purchasing water, but it's damn hard to find someone who'll give you water for free.
I once wanted to clear out my /tmp folder (which I was in), so I did an 'rm -rf *'. This was all well and good, except it didn't get rid of the dotfiles, so I tried 'rm -rf .*', which was bloody stupid of me---'.*' apparently matches '..'. Fortunately no data lost, I realised what I'd done while it was going through /bin.
/tmp'...
Next time I think I'll just try 'rm -rf
I think XFS does; at least, some versions of ROX-Filer are capable of writing additional metadata about the filetype on XFS drives. My understanding was that ReiserFS v 3.x can, but I've never seen anything that uses it. Of course, Reiser4 will be able to, but I think it and Longhorn have joined Duke Nukem Forever in a race to the bottom...
[Most of the rest is your opinion, or not worth responding to for other reasons, or hell, it might even be correct. But on this one issue...]
I like having my programs and commands have names that actually make sense, not things like "grep", "GIMP", "X".
Yeah, because md,* Outlook Express, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, GDI are all so descriptive, aren't they? I mean, we all know what Excel means. It means to do well. So Excel does well. What the hell does it do well? And those are all made by the same combany.
On the other hand, I look at the Applications menu on my Gnome Panel and I see 'Office/Word Processor' or 'Image/Image & Photo Editor'. I don't even need to give a damn about who made a piece of software. Is the GIMP a piece of GNU Software? Maybe (Yes). It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway. Is Abiword a piece of GNU software? Maybe (No. It's made by Abisoft.) It doesn't matter, I can find it anyway.
Now, by this, I don't mean to pretend---not by a long shot---that GNU+X is the most usable environment (even though my evaluation of its pros and cons---including that it's Free---convinced me that it's better, at least for me). Just that the next time you claim Windows' superiority, you don't add this to the mix.
* Giving console programs is stupid. If I'm typing at a console, I want to be able to quickly type in the name, not find-within-files or find-files or edit-a-plain-text-file or make-a-new-directory. That's just silly.
Why should anyone limit what anyone else sees? I don't care whether it's parents 'protecting' children, governments 'protecting' citizens, or anything else. By the time they're old enough to care about looking at porn (etc. etc.), they're old enough to make their own informed decisions.
I would still be interested in hearing contrary points of view. The sources of information on which I've based my opinion may have been biased...
I'm not American. It's a part of the English orthography, and part of learning a foreign language. You wouldn't use Chinese numbers when writing English if you were Chinese, would you?
How is 0.297 people supposed to use something?
I thought I was being funny at first, too, but by the end of it, I realised I wasn't. This 'exploit' actually works and if using Internet Explorer is such a huge security whole, then it is dangerous. Do you know how many people I know that use Mozilla or Firefox actually do use Internet Explorer when a site doesn't work in anything but? (This applies both to people who I've convinced and people who use the web enough to know better.)
If you're going to use Firefox because Internet Explorer is a security risk, don't succumb to this 'exploit'.
(Now I suppose I have to wait to be modded funny.)
I read about the exploit here on Slashdot a few days ago, so obviously it's reliable. It doesn't use Javascript so disabling that won't help. IIRC, the code that causes it is something along the lines of: There is no known fix for this exploit! (Other than removing Windows from your system.)
I, and no doubt others, have been really confused about where Sun is going for some time now. They haven't made their minds up, I don't think: Are they in league with the devil or saint IGNUtius(sp)?
I only maximise windows occasionally. Rhythmbox generally lives on its own desktop, sometimes maximised. Galeon is only maximised when I'm looking at large images and when inconsiderate webpage designers didn't use some sort of a liquid design so that the text is slightly wider than my browser window (about as wide as a maximised 800x600 window), but much wider than that and I can't read the text (I get distracted, I randomly jump lines, etc. etc).
(PDF/PS viewer windows are typically at least the full height of my desktop, if not more, but rarely the full width. If my screen were portrait instead of landscape, then I would probably maximise those windows.)
What exactly is the problem with SQL?
My lecturers and tutors at uni can't explain it so that I still don't understand it, even though I think I was able to pretend I had a pretty good working knowledge of it on my DB exam last week.
No-one said Pac-Man existed 30 or 40 years ago, they just said that it was still as compelling today as it was 30 or 40 years ago. Thirty or forty years ago, I'm sure Pac-Man would've been pretty compelling, had it existed. Though Pac-Man as it is predates me, so I couldn't say.
Lesbians lusting after someone with a penis? How odd.