There in lies the problem. To many bending rules. make the friken rules and stick to 'em , otherwise don't ask me to stick to them.
The rule is "an apostrophe indicates a contraction". The exception is "an apostrophe can also indicate possession".
On the specific subject of "it":
We have three words; "he", "she" and "it".
We use the words "his", "hers" and "its" to indicate things that "he", "she" or "it" has.
We abbreviate "he is", "she is" and "it is" to "he's", "she's" and "it's"
When we're talking about specific things, by name, we use the apostrophe to indicate possession - "Jack's arm", "The cow's leg"
So, the rule boils down to simply this: When dealing with something by name, use 's to indicate possession. When not dealing with by name use the words "his", "hers" or "its".
Obviously, I'm simplifying, but hopefully this clears it all up.
who is nominative case. of who simply does not work in the English language.
Bah, I know this - whom is ojective case and who should be used in cases where I or he would be appropriate. Therefore, "the man who cleaned my drains was at the house" (who is the subject of cleaned) and "of whom your English teacher was" (whom is the subject of was). Typo.
People who are proud of their horrible spelling and grammar sound to me like people who are proud about their time in prison, or the fact they ran over a cat in their car. They sound juvenile and arrogant.
In most settings, if you want the content of your writing to be taken seriously, you don't want to sound juvenile and arrogant.
(Notice that I'm only talking about people that act proud of their ineptitude, a few spelling mistakes here and there, and a few grammatical errors are perfectly alright in most situations. You wouldn't want them in your resume, but they don't matter on a forum like this.)
The mistake is to not realizing that in bad writing, the understanding part is not effortless. You waste your readers' time. If it costs each of your readers just two seconds more to read your badly written prose, how many readers do you need before the waste of their time outweighs what you see as a waste of yours.
I'm of the mind that, if the writer didn't care enough about his subject matter to take the seconds to communicate effectively, I shouldn't care about his subject either. If he seems proud of the fact that he doesn't waste his seconds communicating to me, I see him as even more arrogant then your average spelling/grammar nazi.
The assumption that your reader should have to 'translate' your prose is the assumption that your time is more valuable then his. I don't think I need to say that such assumptions are just plain rude.
The "loose/lose" and "should of" instead of "should have" are probably the only two that really irk me, for some reason.
I also irrationally hate this exact thing. I think it's because it's a misspelling that changes a verb to an adjective (lose/loose) or a verb to a preposition (have/of). This sort of syntax error is glaring because if taken at face value, the sentence makes no sense whatsoever, and worse, if spoken out loud the sentence doesn't even sound meaningful.
With 'their/they're/there', they look sort of similar of the page and, when sounded out, the sentence works. With 'definitately' I'm often inclined to just think 'typo' and move on.
Poor spelling might simply be poor typing (though if I see 'loosing' for 'losing' one more time, I will become upset...). Poor grammar is more fundamental I feel, as it implies a lack of comprehension.
Bravo. Typos are common and can happen to the best of us. The order and syntax of your language, though, is deliberate, and if you get it wrong, it's a pretty true indication that you don't know how to use it.
Now I'm not talking about specific, obscure rules of grammar; I'm talking about the simple stuff. Think about the sentence "Students who seek their instructors' advice often can improve their grades". This seems pretty straightforward, but does it mean that "Student who often seek their instructors' advice can improve their grades" (i.e. the students who see the instuctor regularly can improve their grades) or does it mean "Students who seek their instructors' advice can often improve their grades" (i.e. the students who see their instructor at least once are usually able to improve their grades). There's no way to tell from the sentence, and it's a very definite case of bad grammar hindering comprehension.
This sort of problem is common. If it takes a reader a minute or two to figure out what you're trying to say, then that reader will think less of your writing ability; and if a reader only knows you by your ability to write and the content of your writing, they may be led to assume less of you.
Just to clear this up, the general rule is actually "When you leave a letter out, put in an apostrophe".
Yes, sorry, this is true.
Where I said 'It does seem to break the general rule of "an apostrophe indicates possession"', I should have written 'It does seem to break the general rule where possession is indicated with an apostrophe'.
I agree. I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that spelling and grammar matter only insofar as they don't get in the way.
As an extreme example, "I helped my uncle Jack off his horse" is a sentence that requires correct spelling (in this case, a single capital letter). If you mess this up, you've thrown your credibility out the window, and imparted the wrong information. And it's subtle, if I didn't know the writer had an uncle Jack then I'd never realise the problem.
So, while spelling and grammar aren't important when they don't impact on the message, they are very important when they do. The submitter may have used bad examples, but he does have a very valid point.
If the mean is 12 minutes, then 50% are infected before then. If this is the case, the standard deviation must be pretty high. I hope.
I would hope that this means that the 50% of users not infected have secured their machine adequetely. If we're lucky, it means that in 12 minutes all vulnerable machines are infected and the rest are immune.
Of course, 50% of machines being vulnerable is very high, but from these figures, the above is the best we can hope for.
By the same token, "for all intensive purposes" will not replace "for all intents and purposes", it's a symptom of our increasing move away from written language, not of our language evolving in any meaningful way.
I think you'll find that "should've" is common, and correct, usage. If you are saying "should of" then you have probably picked it up from hearing someone saying "should've" and you mistakenly thought the "'ve" was "of". This is an error, not an evolution of language.
The easy way to think about it is to consider "his, hers, its". When using "it's" you should be able to replace it with "it is", "it has" or similar and the sentence should still make sense.
its == 1 word it's == 2 words
If you're unsure about which to use, see if "it is" works in the same place. If it doesn't, you should probably be using "its".It's a fairly simple construct, but I've seen English teachers get it wrong, and worse, teach the exact opposite.
It does seem to break the general rule of "an apostrophe indicates possession", but it's easy to think of "its" as a more specific rule that should supersede the use of "it's", if you're so inclined.
On a completely different note, does anyone find themselves previewing maybe a dozen times when posting about spelling or grammar? (And probably missing a half-dozen errors?)
I can vouch for the fact that many foreign speakers do find non-regional (RP) American accents (common in the midwest and California) easier to understand than most British accents they have heard.
Strange. I can vouch for the opposite. I have travelled most of Europe and a fair bit of Asia, as well as to the Mid East. I think it's just a case of who your English teacher was.
In the UAE and Saudi, however, English speakers tend to speak with an American accent and I have been asked to repeat myself quite a few times (I have an Australian accent somewhat tainted by English parents).
Refer to the allegory of the scorpion and the frog for further illustration.
You're going to have to explain this to me - are you saying that Microsoft is going to pull down it's userbase deliberately because it hasn't or won't consider it's own future?
Look, as far as I'm concerned, there isn't enough evidence of a danger to justify putting a giant ring in space.
And you're talking danger as in 'exposure or vulnerability to harm or risk' not danger as in 'a source or an instance of risk or peril' (definition). That there is a 'danger' of it happening does not mean that it is a 'danger' in itself.
Specifically, we don't have enough evidence to know of a danger posed by global warming and therefore we don't have enough evidence to put a giant ring into space.
Yes. I'm sure. You're linking to news articles about studies that support your views, I linked to one that supported mine. Considering that there are are least two, well argued views on the matter, I don't think you can claim to know that there is a clear and present danger.
Yes this space ring thing is a bit drastic, so how about signing up to Kyoto and beyond instead?
Sure. That would be a good idea; reducing emissions can't do any harm. But I'm arguing about a space ring, and if you think it's a bit drastic then you are arguing my side of things.
...he stated very few people believe in chi. I put forth an example of a relatively popular form of alternative medicine as a counter arguement.
I wasn't very clear, my apologies. What I meant was more along the lines of 'you didn't address his point, you made a sweeping statement that doesn't really hold water'. My tone probably wasn't very helpful either.
I would guess that you meant 'a lot of people believe in reikki and so the quote fery [sic] few people believe in chi these days is incorrect', but you said something different.
However, your belief does not explain reikki. Maybe reikki doesn't work, but to those who believe it does, and there are a lot of them, your personal belief doesn't hold water.
Not commenting on Reikki, but this is a non-argument.
'Maybe the sky is blue, but to those who believe it's green, and there are a lot of them, your personal belief doesn't hold water.'
You're effectively saying that since one person thinks one thing is true and one person thinks it's false, the second person doesn't think the thing is true. To say it another way, you're claiming that if one person, anywhere, disagrees with you, to them, you're wrong.
I'm not saying this patent is a good idea. Not at all. I'm saying you didn't read the article, made an incorrect claim and are now trying to cover by telling 'us people' to 'fuckin' wake up'.
It's about recording users moving through the site and using that usage data to suggest products.
It is not about 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer', as you claimed.
It is about making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing and browsing habits of the customer and prior purchasing and browsing habits of other customers. It weights these recommendations and displays them to the user.
This still may not be 'original', but a case could be made that it's unique if the weighting system is sufficiently complex.
So implementing something with a computer cannot be original if it exits in the real world? Wouldn't that make AI un-patentable because people are prior art?
You asked for someone to 'Please explain to me how the process of "making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer" is not covered by prior art'. I answered that 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer' is not what this patent is about, so your point is irrelevant.
Please, come up with an argument that addresses the topic, and don't attack me just because you made a mistake in your first post. Or do you lack the brainpower for that?
Please explain to me how the process of "making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer" is not covered by prior art.
This patent is much more detailed then simply 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer'. It covers things the user looked at, things other users looked at after looking at the thing the user is currently looking at, and a few other things. From the summary, "relationships can be determined between items for which little or no purchase history data exists". And "In a third implementation, the recommendations are generated by monitoring the products viewed by the user during the current browsing session, and using these as the "items of known interest." The resulting list of recommended items (products) is presented to the user during the same browsing session".
So, while I still don't think the patent is a good idea, it does seem to be specific enough to be called unique.
There is no stronger evidence that we have trouble than exponentials appearing in the temperature curves, CO2 levels etc, and is just as good an indication of clear and present danger as a gun.
Yes, this is evidence. If you ignore all other evidence, it's pretty compelling. I linked to this page above, and I'm linking it again because it addresses exactly this - even though the linked article is arguing for the existance of global warming, they point out that "some of the topics focused on by the skeptics are recognized as legitimate research questions". Therefore, you're presenting evidence before the research is complete. We know we don't have all the facts.
If we cut back on our CO2 emissions, we may slow the warming effect if it exists. I'm not against this. I'm against flying a big ring into space for trillions of dollars without knowing all the facts.
If there isn't any global warming, can you predict the effects of a big ring that'll cool down the earth? Couldn't those effects be far more devestating then, say, the damage done while we wait to be sure? Wouldn't it be much worse to reverse a giant space ring then it would be to wait until we know the facts?
I would say so. Largely because the topic is about putting something between us and the sun to cool it down.
We just need to reduce the amount of CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere so that temperatures don't rise AS MUCH as they are now.
This isn't relevant, this is an alternate solution. I'm arguing that we shouldn't put things up into space to cool down the earth until we know for sure. This could have drastic consequences.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't cut back CO2 emisions - this will probably slow the problem (if it exists) long enough for a consensus to be reached on the giant space ring or whatever other 'start reversing the problem' solution we come up with.
Slashdot Mirror
There in lies the problem. To many bending rules. make the friken rules and stick to 'em , otherwise don't ask me to stick to them.
The rule is "an apostrophe indicates a contraction". The exception is "an apostrophe can also indicate possession".
On the specific subject of "it":
So, the rule boils down to simply this: When dealing with something by name, use 's to indicate possession. When not dealing with by name use the words "his", "hers" or "its".
Obviously, I'm simplifying, but hopefully this clears it all up.
who is nominative case. of who simply does not work in the English language.
Bah, I know this - whom is ojective case and who should be used in cases where I or he would be appropriate. Therefore, "the man who cleaned my drains was at the house" (who is the subject of cleaned) and "of whom your English teacher was" (whom is the subject of was). Typo.
People who are proud of their horrible spelling and grammar sound to me like people who are proud about their time in prison, or the fact they ran over a cat in their car. They sound juvenile and arrogant.
In most settings, if you want the content of your writing to be taken seriously, you don't want to sound juvenile and arrogant.
(Notice that I'm only talking about people that act proud of their ineptitude, a few spelling mistakes here and there, and a few grammatical errors are perfectly alright in most situations. You wouldn't want them in your resume, but they don't matter on a forum like this.)
The mistake is to not realizing that in bad writing, the understanding part is not effortless. You waste your readers' time. If it costs each of your readers just two seconds more to read your badly written prose, how many readers do you need before the waste of their time outweighs what you see as a waste of yours.
I'm of the mind that, if the writer didn't care enough about his subject matter to take the seconds to communicate effectively, I shouldn't care about his subject either. If he seems proud of the fact that he doesn't waste his seconds communicating to me, I see him as even more arrogant then your average spelling/grammar nazi.
The assumption that your reader should have to 'translate' your prose is the assumption that your time is more valuable then his. I don't think I need to say that such assumptions are just plain rude.
The "loose/lose" and "should of" instead of "should have" are probably the only two that really irk me, for some reason.
I also irrationally hate this exact thing. I think it's because it's a misspelling that changes a verb to an adjective (lose/loose) or a verb to a preposition (have/of). This sort of syntax error is glaring because if taken at face value, the sentence makes no sense whatsoever, and worse, if spoken out loud the sentence doesn't even sound meaningful.
With 'their/they're/there', they look sort of similar of the page and, when sounded out, the sentence works. With 'definitately' I'm often inclined to just think 'typo' and move on.
Poor spelling might simply be poor typing (though if I see 'loosing' for 'losing' one more time, I will become upset...). Poor grammar is more fundamental I feel, as it implies a lack of comprehension.
Bravo. Typos are common and can happen to the best of us. The order and syntax of your language, though, is deliberate, and if you get it wrong, it's a pretty true indication that you don't know how to use it.
Now I'm not talking about specific, obscure rules of grammar; I'm talking about the simple stuff. Think about the sentence "Students who seek their instructors' advice often can improve their grades". This seems pretty straightforward, but does it mean that "Student who often seek their instructors' advice can improve their grades" (i.e. the students who see the instuctor regularly can improve their grades) or does it mean "Students who seek their instructors' advice can often improve their grades" (i.e. the students who see their instructor at least once are usually able to improve their grades). There's no way to tell from the sentence, and it's a very definite case of bad grammar hindering comprehension.
This sort of problem is common. If it takes a reader a minute or two to figure out what you're trying to say, then that reader will think less of your writing ability; and if a reader only knows you by your ability to write and the content of your writing, they may be led to assume less of you.
Just to clear this up, the general rule is actually "When you leave a letter out, put in an apostrophe".
Yes, sorry, this is true.
Where I said 'It does seem to break the general rule of "an apostrophe indicates possession"', I should have written 'It does seem to break the general rule where possession is indicated with an apostrophe'.
ee cummings? Is that you?
I agree. I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that spelling and grammar matter only insofar as they don't get in the way.
As an extreme example, "I helped my uncle Jack off his horse" is a sentence that requires correct spelling (in this case, a single capital letter). If you mess this up, you've thrown your credibility out the window, and imparted the wrong information. And it's subtle, if I didn't know the writer had an uncle Jack then I'd never realise the problem.
So, while spelling and grammar aren't important when they don't impact on the message, they are very important when they do. The submitter may have used bad examples, but he does have a very valid point.
If the mean is 12 minutes, then 50% are infected before then. If this is the case, the standard deviation must be pretty high. I hope.
I would hope that this means that the 50% of users not infected have secured their machine adequetely. If we're lucky, it means that in 12 minutes all vulnerable machines are infected and the rest are immune.
Of course, 50% of machines being vulnerable is very high, but from these figures, the above is the best we can hope for.
By the same token, "for all intensive purposes" will not replace "for all intents and purposes", it's a symptom of our increasing move away from written language, not of our language evolving in any meaningful way.
See this site for a discussion of the phenomena.
"should of" is common usage
I think you'll find that "should've" is common, and correct, usage. If you are saying "should of" then you have probably picked it up from hearing someone saying "should've" and you mistakenly thought the "'ve" was "of". This is an error, not an evolution of language.
The easy way to think about it is to consider "his, hers, its". When using "it's" you should be able to replace it with "it is", "it has" or similar and the sentence should still make sense.
its == 1 word
it's == 2 words
If you're unsure about which to use, see if "it is" works in the same place. If it doesn't, you should probably be using "its".It's a fairly simple construct, but I've seen English teachers get it wrong, and worse, teach the exact opposite.
It does seem to break the general rule of "an apostrophe indicates possession", but it's easy to think of "its" as a more specific rule that should supersede the use of "it's", if you're so inclined.
On a completely different note, does anyone find themselves previewing maybe a dozen times when posting about spelling or grammar? (And probably missing a half-dozen errors?)
I can vouch for the fact that many foreign speakers do find non-regional (RP) American accents (common in the midwest and California) easier to understand than most British accents they have heard.
Strange. I can vouch for the opposite. I have travelled most of Europe and a fair bit of Asia, as well as to the Mid East. I think it's just a case of who your English teacher was.
In the UAE and Saudi, however, English speakers tend to speak with an American accent and I have been asked to repeat myself quite a few times (I have an Australian accent somewhat tainted by English parents).
Refer to the allegory of the scorpion and the frog for further illustration.
You're going to have to explain this to me - are you saying that Microsoft is going to pull down it's userbase deliberately because it hasn't or won't consider it's own future?
Look, as far as I'm concerned, there isn't enough evidence of a danger to justify putting a giant ring in space.
And you're talking danger as in 'exposure or vulnerability to harm or risk' not danger as in 'a source or an instance of risk or peril' (definition). That there is a 'danger' of it happening does not mean that it is a 'danger' in itself.
Specifically, we don't have enough evidence to know of a danger posed by global warming and therefore we don't have enough evidence to put a giant ring into space.
Really sure?
Yes. I'm sure. You're linking to news articles about studies that support your views, I linked to one that supported mine. Considering that there are are least two, well argued views on the matter, I don't think you can claim to know that there is a clear and present danger.
Yes this space ring thing is a bit drastic, so how about signing up to Kyoto and beyond instead?
Sure. That would be a good idea; reducing emissions can't do any harm. But I'm arguing about a space ring, and if you think it's a bit drastic then you are arguing my side of things.
...he stated very few people believe in chi. I put forth an example of a relatively popular form of alternative medicine as a counter arguement.
I wasn't very clear, my apologies. What I meant was more along the lines of 'you didn't address his point, you made a sweeping statement that doesn't really hold water'. My tone probably wasn't very helpful either.
I would guess that you meant 'a lot of people believe in reikki and so the quote fery [sic] few people believe in chi these days is incorrect', but you said something different.
However, your belief does not explain reikki. Maybe reikki doesn't work, but to those who believe it does, and there are a lot of them, your personal belief doesn't hold water.
Not commenting on Reikki, but this is a non-argument.
You're effectively saying that since one person thinks one thing is true and one person thinks it's false, the second person doesn't think the thing is true. To say it another way, you're claiming that if one person, anywhere, disagrees with you, to them, you're wrong.
I'm not saying this patent is a good idea. Not at all. I'm saying you didn't read the article, made an incorrect claim and are now trying to cover by telling 'us people' to 'fuckin' wake up'.
Grow up.
It's about recording users moving through the site and using that usage data to suggest products.
It is not about 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer', as you claimed.
It is about making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing and browsing habits of the customer and prior purchasing and browsing habits of other customers. It weights these recommendations and displays them to the user.
This still may not be 'original', but a case could be made that it's unique if the weighting system is sufficiently complex.
So implementing something with a computer cannot be original if it exits in the real world? Wouldn't that make AI un-patentable because people are prior art?
You asked for someone to 'Please explain to me how the process of "making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer" is not covered by prior art'. I answered that 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer' is not what this patent is about, so your point is irrelevant.
Please, come up with an argument that addresses the topic, and don't attack me just because you made a mistake in your first post. Or do you lack the brainpower for that?
Please explain to me how the process of "making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer" is not covered by prior art.
This patent is much more detailed then simply 'making product suggestions based on the prior purchasing habits of the customer'. It covers things the user looked at, things other users looked at after looking at the thing the user is currently looking at, and a few other things. From the summary, "relationships can be determined between items for which little or no purchase history data exists". And "In a third implementation, the recommendations are generated by monitoring the products viewed by the user during the current browsing session, and using these as the "items of known interest." The resulting list of recommended items (products) is presented to the user during the same browsing session".
So, while I still don't think the patent is a good idea, it does seem to be specific enough to be called unique.
There is no stronger evidence that we have trouble than exponentials appearing in the temperature curves, CO2 levels etc, and is just as good an indication of clear and present danger as a gun.
Yes, this is evidence. If you ignore all other evidence, it's pretty compelling. I linked to this page above, and I'm linking it again because it addresses exactly this - even though the linked article is arguing for the existance of global warming, they point out that "some of the topics focused on by the skeptics are recognized as legitimate research questions". Therefore, you're presenting evidence before the research is complete. We know we don't have all the facts.
If we cut back on our CO2 emissions, we may slow the warming effect if it exists. I'm not against this. I'm against flying a big ring into space for trillions of dollars without knowing all the facts.
If there isn't any global warming, can you predict the effects of a big ring that'll cool down the earth? Couldn't those effects be far more devestating then, say, the damage done while we wait to be sure? Wouldn't it be much worse to reverse a giant space ring then it would be to wait until we know the facts?
Bit of a strawman arugment, eh?
I would say so. Largely because the topic is about putting something between us and the sun to cool it down.
We just need to reduce the amount of CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere so that temperatures don't rise AS MUCH as they are now.
This isn't relevant, this is an alternate solution. I'm arguing that we shouldn't put things up into space to cool down the earth until we know for sure. This could have drastic consequences.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't cut back CO2 emisions - this will probably slow the problem (if it exists) long enough for a consensus to be reached on the giant space ring or whatever other 'start reversing the problem' solution we come up with.