# Editing head



## Olly Buckle (Jul 4, 2015)

Sometimes I wish it would go away. I am sat in the kitchen and on the table is a leaflet from the supermarket that says,

“Start collecting points in-store or online with your favourite brands”

My first thought is that there are three points in that; collecting points, the location, and the brands. For maximum clarity it should be ,

Start collecting points with your favourite brands, in-store or online.

because ‘with your favourite brands applies to collecting points, in store, but on line applies to both the others.

Then, ‘There is no punctuation. So is it 

Start collecting points, in-store or online, with your favourite brands

Start collecting points in-store, or online with your favourite brands?

Not only that, but why does ‘in-store’ get hyphenated when ‘online’ is one word?

Sometimes I don’t need it, so I thought I would share, and inflict it on you lot.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Jul 4, 2015)

There's a cheap brand of soup that has a few different kinds.

On one can, it says 'Dumplings and Chicken.'

WHY!? It's chicken and dumplings! The order has never changed! 

May your soup company be cursed to the ninth generation!


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## KLJo (Jul 4, 2015)

The correct one is the one that gets you to spend more, in-store or online.


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## Phil Istine (Jul 4, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Sometimes I wish it would go away. I am sat in the kitchen and on the table is a leaflet from the supermarket that says,
> 
> “Start collecting points in-store or online with your favourite brands”
> 
> ...



I do it too Olly.  I tend to pick apart marketing efforts, paying particular attention to the tiny point size allocated to the words "from" , "up to" and "terms and conditions apply."

One of the more glaring examples of an editing head though was in "The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies."  Christopher Jefferies, a retired schoolteacher, was (wrongly) suspected of murder and when he went to sign the police statement, started correcting their spelling errors.  It's well worth watching.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25625572


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## Jenwales (Jul 4, 2015)

We used to have a habit in work of reading the newsletter from the company of and  picking out all the errors in grammar etc. I still do it with emails they give me to read, it always amusing me that the people higher up in the company in charge of telling us what to do don't have as good English skills as the lowly sales assistants at the bottom. Makes us feel better about ourselves anyway.
I don't get to see the newsletters these days

What really gets on my nerves though it the overuse of the word "tragedy" or "tragic" in the media. You have to have an English degree to be a journalist but they can't be bothered to find a Thesaurus or think of a better word. Everything is a tragedy and it really (to put it nicely) WINDS ME UP! 
More recently they were talking about child poverty in the UK. My idea of poverty is children who are starving and have no access to clean water or something along those lines. Not children who are just in a low income household as they all have Sky tv and internet and tablets, gaming consoles and holidays. While also claiming help for school uniform and free school meals... Shouldn't start me off there I guess... 
So really  I am also very susceptible to the use of particular words and how they are used too often or used to mean something other than what I think they should mean - not so much slang because that's another headache. 
Sorry I might have made it worse....


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## Riis Marshall (Jul 4, 2015)

Hello Folks

Nobody has ever been able to predict advertising copy writing or pricing successfully through the years although many have tried.

A man we know had 100 high end direct response marketing packages for sale priced at £400. He sold a couple. With nothing to lose, he raised the price to £600 and sold a couple more. At £800 he sold a few more. Finally he decided to shoot the works and raised the price to £1600, Within a couple of weeks he sold the entire 100. There is no logic to this whatsoever.

If you study copy writing, you'll find examples of things like 'Get yours today!' outselling 'Get one today!' by ten to one. If you're as old as I am, you'll remember that tiny little Charles Atlas classified ad in the backs of all sorts of magazines. He made millions with that ad. And on and on and on.

Interesting stuff - this thing we call language.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## stevesh (Jul 4, 2015)

Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> There's a cheap brand of soup that has a few different kinds.
> 
> On one can, it says 'Dumplings and Chicken.'
> 
> ...



You might have to blame your government for that one. What the  manufacturer is allowed to call the product depends on the ratio of  chicken to dumplings.


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

OK, I know I'll get killed for saying this on a writing site, but this whole grammar thing is way overblown.

"Dog big me bite!" is a perfectly good sentence, unless you're going to take the position that you don't know what it means, and then I'll take a position on whether or not you're telling the truth.

"Cloud octopus run apricot" on the other hand, makes no sense at all, literally, although it may work as an image.

The point of grammar is to make language make sense. If you understand the sentence, the grammar is good enough.

I know what the standards are for formal writing, and I spend as much time as the next guy poring over semi-colons and what-not before I turn in a finished product But I know as I'm doing the editing that it adds nothing at all to the understanding of my document. It is for decorum, the verbal equivalent of folding the flag a certain way.

In my opinion, a focus on grammar is the single greatest impediment to both learning and teaching a foreign language, both of which I've done successfully. The learner is afraid to say, "Dog big me bite!", but that sentence shows an impressive command of English grammar, which can be built upon. A closed mouth, out of pride and not wanting to make a mistake, can not be built upon.


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## musichal (Jul 4, 2015)

with I you may don't know I agree but not


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

musichal said:


> with I you may don't know I agree but not



Doesn't work, therefore the grammar is faulty. 

The equivalent of my apricot sentence above.


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## musichal (Jul 4, 2015)

it works

but I do see your point


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

musichal said:


> it works



If you say so.

I don't know what it means, and I'm not saying that to be sporting, as someone might if they claim that they don't understand, "Big dog me bite!"

I suppose I could analyze the sentence, but I speak English, correctly, without having to analyze it. I'm out of practice.

EDIT: I see your point too. I'm not advocating for anarchy in grammar, but a little bit of a wider perspective.


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## musichal (Jul 4, 2015)

Dog bites man, not too exciting.
Man bites dog, there's a story.  :thumbl:


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

musichal said:


> Dog bites man, not too exciting.
> Man bites dog, there's a story.  :thumbl:



I carry a camera with me at all times, just in case I see a man biting a dog. Hasn't happened yet. I'm not discouraged.:subdued:


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 4, 2015)

But punctuation does make a difference to the meaning.

Start collecting points, in-store or online, with your favourite brands
You can collect points for your favourite brands on line or in store

Start collecting points in-store, or online with your favourite brands?
You can collect points in store, or, if you are buying your favourite brands you can collect them on line.

Not too clear? How about 'Let's eat, Walker.' as opposed to 'Let's eat Walker', an oldie but a goldie.

Spell check, by the way, does not recognise 'online' as one word, a retail assistant I know tells me 'in-store' gets hyphenated because it is 'shop speak'.


> Nobody has ever been able to predict advertising copy writing or pricing successfully through the years although many have tried.
> 
> A man we know had 100 high end direct response marketing packages for sale priced at £400. He sold a couple. With nothing to lose, he raised the price to £600 and sold a couple more. At £800 he sold a few more. Finally he decided to shoot the works and raised the price to £1600, Within a couple of weeks he sold the entire 100. There is no logic to this whatsoever.
> 
> If you study copy writing, you'll find examples of things like 'Get yours today!' outselling 'Get one today!' by ten to one. If you're as old as I am, you'll remember that tiny little Charles Atlas classified ad in the backs of all sorts of magazines. He made millions with that ad. And on and on and on.



I'll go along with that, short of work and money I upped my hourly rate, and work started coming in, 'He must be good if he charges that much' is the mentality I guess. Back in the 60's when BF Skinner started his company one of their first customers was a cake mix company. It was found women felt guilty about feeding their family fully processed food; they got the company to take out some of the dried egg and put a banner across the packet saying 'Simply add one fresh egg', sales went up eighteen hundred percent in a month.


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> But punctuation does make a difference to the meaning.



Well, of course it does. I agree with you.

But this: “Start collecting points in-store or online with your favourite brands” I immediately understand to mean "Start collecting points, either in-store or online, with your favorite brands." Maybe I'm wrong

Language changes. We don't say thou anymore. Heck, we should probably be speaking Latin, or grunting like cavemen, if arbiters of grammar had taken custody of oral communication early on in human history and allowed no changes.

Why do we follow rules of grammar, just because, or to improve understanding? If the answer is to improve understanding, then if the sentence is understandable, the grammar is good enough.

I combined my knowledge of modern life with your example sentence to come up with a certain meaning. I discarded possible interpretations that seemed unlikely to me. If I've missed the boat, then you have a point. To me, the example is a little like those humorous signs, or advertisements, that become Internet memes because they can be interpreted in ways other than what the author intended. But of course, in those memes what the author_ really_ means to say is never in doubt.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 4, 2015)

> that become Internet memes because they can be interpreted in ways other than what the author intended.


'You mean 'than that which what  the author intended' as my English teacher mother would have said  




> We don't say thou any more.


My mother was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), some of their more traditional members used to use 'thou' still when I was a little boy, and she told a story about the little girl who was very angry with her mother. Unable to express the degree of her disgust she said, 'Oh thou, thou ... thou *you* thou.'

There is also the strong possibility that becoming an 'internet meme' was exactly what the author intended.


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## walker (Jul 4, 2015)

It's a cool word. I wish I could still use it in a story, but, nah.


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## Foxee (Jul 4, 2015)

Amen. This is what makes Facebook so painful. I recently saw where a couple married for fifty years were going to renew their vowels.

*sigh*


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## dale (Jul 4, 2015)

ya see? if i would have started a thread about "head"? it would have been so much different.


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## Phil Istine (Jul 4, 2015)

dale said:


> ya see? if i would have started a thread about "head"? it would have been so much different.



Nah, you don't say?


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 4, 2015)

Foxee said:


> Amen. This is what makes Facebook so painful. I recently saw where a couple married for fifty years were going to renew their vowels.
> 
> *sigh*



So Ted became Tod and Milly Molly?


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## stevesh (Jul 5, 2015)

walker said:


> "Dog big me bite!" is a perfectly good sentence, unless you're going to take the position that you don't know what it means, and then I'll take a position on whether or not you're telling the truth.
> 
> The point of grammar is to make language make sense. If you understand the sentence, the grammar is good enough.



Not if you have to stop and read it more than once to grasp the meaning. Using proper grammar is a courtesy to your readers, almost all of whom are accustomed to reading prose properly written. That sentence may be understandable when presented alone, but in the context of its place in a paragraph, it would definitely interrupt the flow of reading, which is a cardinal sin, especially in fiction.

I usually use this analogy: you're in a very nice (and expensive) restaurant enjoying a nice meal with your wife on your anniversary, and the people at the next table are shoving their food into their mouths with both hands, while making snorting noises. No problem, right? The food is getting to their stomachs, which is the intent of eating.


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## Riis Marshall (Jul 5, 2015)

Hello Walker

Here I have to agree with Steve and ask you to think somewhat differently about this thing we call 'grammar'.

Yes, at the most fundamental level both 'I have no pencil,' and 'I ain't got no pencil.' are both gramatically correct: in both instances we understand the meaning. Even 'Me have no pencil' or 'No pencil have I,' are just fine if all you want to communicate is the absence of your pencil.

Similarly when your five-year-old says: 'He runned across the room,' he is using correct grammar (he, in fact, is doing something fascinating and rather spectacular: he has generalized the rule about creating the past tense of a regular verb to an irregular verb, something you never explained to him).

'Dog big me bite' is not standard English usage just as 'the dove white' is not standard English usage although it is in Spanish.

What we sometimes confuse is some very subtle distinctions between what we usually refer to as grammar and what we call standard usage.

And as Steve points out, if we want to communicate to our readers we care about the story we're trying to tell them, we work to a standard of both grammar and usage that is what they expect to see.

Part of the problem is the meta-language we're using to investigate our language is the same 'language' as the language we're describing, unlike mathematics, for example, where the English we use to investigate maths is our meta-language which is totally separate from the maths.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## KLJo (Jul 5, 2015)

Q. What is the purpose of the writing?
A. To market the store

Q. What are you doing when you correct their grammar?
A. Thinking about their ad, and by proxy, them

Great Success!

I get that there are literary types who believe their writing is the artistic capturing of a tiny piece of their soul. They share it with the world for the love of the art, as well as some deeply romantic, and maybe slightly self-serving, purpose.

I'm more meat and potatoes. If I'm writing fiction, I want tell you a captivating story. If I'm writing marketing, I want to sell you something. It is goal-oriented.

By that standard, this original example is completely successful.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 5, 2015)

I appreciate the difference between descriptive and prescrptive grammar, however, though 'I have no pencil', 'I aint got no pencil', and 'Me have no pencil' all say the same thing in one sense, they all tell us that the speaker has not got a pencil, they also tell us something about the speaker through the grammar they are using. 
My mother used to say I spoke two languages as a little boy, I would say my goodbyes in the recieved English that was spoken in the house, step out of the back door and say 'Wotcha Jack, where we goin' today?' ('Stepping out the door and sliding into slang', as I have it in one of my songs). Writers often find it useful to have an appreciation of these different grammars and their appropriate use.


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## KLJo (Jul 5, 2015)

Only, we aren't talking about examples as obvious as "me got no pencil." We're talking about minor errors that keep the writer well within the pack. They aren't glaring, and they don't create a strong voice. 
Apples and oranges, no?


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 5, 2015)

> Q. What is the purpose of the writing?
> A. To market the store
> 
> Q. What are you doing when you correct their grammar?
> ...



Wrong actually, the missus does the grocery shopping, not because I am lazy, but because she insists. She passed it across the table to me saying 'Put this in the rubbish, I've thrown away my nectar card, they are not worth the aggro'; and she is the supermarket cashier who pointed out the hyphenation was 'Shop speak, they shouldn't use on their customers' when I started talking about it. Complete fail.


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## Kyle R (Jul 5, 2015)

I have to point out the irony of this thread, which appears to be incorrectly titled: _Editing head_.

Unless I'm mistaken, it should be: _My Editing Head_.

As it stands, a word is missing, and another requires capitalization. Currently, the title leads me to believe that this thread is about the action of editing a head. How _do_ you edit this mysterious head? Do you erase its ears? Do you color its hair? 

As Strunk and White would say: "Think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity, and be clear!"

(My apologies, Olly. I couldn't resist!)

I found this interesting quote on the subject:
"I don't know the rules of grammar... If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular." — *David Ogilvy
*​


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## KLJo (Jul 5, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Wrong actually, the missus does the grocery shopping, not because I am lazy, but because she insists. She passed it across the table to me saying 'Put this in the rubbish, I've thrown away my nectar card, they are not worth the aggro'; and she is the supermarket cashier who pointed out the hyphenation was 'Shop speak, they shouldn't use on their customers' when I started talking about it. Complete fail.



Yeeeeah. So, there is absolutely no chance I will believe that, in any way, affected her shopping choice. However, if by some seriously dark magic I am wrong, your wife is a HUGE outlier, and thus irrelevant to my point.

Unless the store takes a pro-baby-kicking position, the decision is based on economics and proximity. The message about their bonus card is out there, and we are talking about it. 

Continuing Great Success!


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## walker (Jul 5, 2015)

Riis Marshall said:


> Hello Walker
> 
> Here I have to agree with Steve and ask you to think somewhat differently about this thing we call 'grammar'.
> 
> ...





What is missing from this discussion is the question of voice. People  use different voices in different situations, and standard usage sounds inauthentic in many situations, at best, or at worst,  contrived. Standard usage has a very narrow application--formal academic, legal, etc. writing.

The first sentence of James Joyce's The Dead is "Lily, the caretaker's  daughter, was literally run off her feet." Lily of course, was not _literally_ run off her  feet; she was standing there to answer the door. In other words, the sentence is poor standard English. Literally has a meaning, and it is was "misused" by Joyce. As  critics have pointed out, however, this sentence is meant to imitate the  _voice_ of Lily, something she would have said herself. There are millions and billions and trillions of other examples. If I read any story in the first person that pretended to use standard English as the voice of the narrator, I would be immediately suspicious, unless the narrator presented herself to me as a nit-picky English teacher, or something along those line.

Google the legal statutes where you live, and read the language, just to amuse yourself. Lawyers do not speak like that. They may write formally like that, but they don't speak like that. Lawyers have one voice for their friends at the soccer match, another for their spouses, another for their kids, another for the policeman who stops them after the match because they've been drinking too much--the list goes on and on. In each situation, the word choice, grammar, tone of voice, emphasis on words, and more is different. Each voice is revealing, and should be used in writing about that person not only inside quotation marks, but also outside them as well. I doubt that lawyers even use their formal lawyer written voice in emails to a judge. To do so would be to invite a withering stare from someone with whom they need to establish sympathy. 

To wish to squish-squash all voices up into somebody's definition of standard English is, in my opinion, perverse.  Too much of an emphasis on standard written English in writing sucks all the life out of a piece, and _detracts_ from understanding, because the element of voice has been removed.

There was a story yesterday, out of Texas, about a guy who ignored a sign that said, "NO SWIMMING ALLIGATORS". The poor fellow jumped into the water, and well, you know that rest of the story. Is anybody on this thread going to pretend that they _wouldn't_ have known what that sign meant, because of the lack of punctuation? Maybe it was a mandate to the alligators, "Don't swim, alligators!" Or maybe it was meant to inform potential swimmers that there were no swimming alligators in the vicinity, and therefore it was safe to go in the water: "No swimming alligators here, only walking or prone alligators!" I could continue on, but you get the point.


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## J Anfinson (Jul 5, 2015)

I've edited Wikipedia articles to clean up grammar and clarify meaning more than once. Could I let it go? Yes, but it would have driven me insane.


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 5, 2015)

Kyle R said:


> I have to point out the irony of this thread, which appears to be incorrectly titled: _Editing head_.
> 
> Unless I'm mistaken, it should be: _My Editing Head_.
> 
> ...


You are mistaken, my aim in the title was not clarity, but to draw people in wondering what the - Olly is going on about now


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## Riis Marshall (Jul 5, 2015)

Hello Walker



> To wish to squish-squash all voices up into somebody's definition of standard English is, in my opinion, perverse. Too much of an emphasis on standard written English in writing sucks all the life out of a piece, and _detracts from understanding, because the element of voice has been removed._



'Standard English' has to be interpreted - always - within the context of the piece. When I was writing reports of anaylses of business operations in which I worked addressed to executives and senior managers, I used one style of standard English, when I was writing operating procedures for first line managers and supervisors in these same businesses I adjusted that language - still what I describe as standard English - to communicate effectively with the people to whom these writings were addressed. When I wrote a management book fifteen years ago I used a certain style and now in my fiction work I use a different style.

The point I'm trying to make is not 'to wish to squish-squash all voices up into somebody's definition of standard English', but the style we use to communicate with our readers has to conform to what they expect to see. To use the - now - classic example: 'Eats shoots and leaves,' means something entirely different from: 'Eats, shoots and leaves,' and to my thinking there is absolutely nothing 'perverse' in my argument about the importance of the comma.

Yes, it's safe to assume everybody who read the sign warning about the alligators knew precisely what was meant and, yes, if the sign on the market stall says: 'Banana's - £1.20/kg' banana buyers will know how much bananas cost. No argument.

But what we're talking about here on these fora is how we create, draft, edit and finally publish our written prose so the readers we hope will like it not only like it but adore it and hunger for more.

I'm glad we've had this little chat.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 5, 2015)

> There was a story yesterday, out of Texas, about a guy who ignored a sign that said, "NO SWIMMING ALLIGATORS". The poor fellow jumped into the water, and well, you know that rest of the story. Is anybody on this thread going to pretend that they wouldn't have known what that sign meant, because of the lack of punctuation? Maybe it was a mandate to the alligators, "Don't swim, alligators!" Or maybe it was meant to inform potential swimmers that there were no swimming alligators in the vicinity, and therefore it was safe to go in the water: "No swimming alligators here, only walking or prone alligators!" I could continue on, but you get the point.


Love the ambiguity of statements like that, do you remember 'Beyond the fringe'? "Gentlemen lift the seat, what is that? An injunction, or a straight definition of a gentleman."


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## Olly Buckle (Jul 5, 2015)

> But what we're talking about here on these fora is how we create, draft, edit and finally publish our written prose


With the advent of self publishing we can do all of those, but those who make their living out of publishing get very picky about the last two, there are sound commercial reasons for this which are worth observing if you are concerned about readers as well as writing.


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## walker (Jul 5, 2015)

Riis Marshall said:


> 'Standard English' has to be interpreted - always - within the context of the piece.



Correct, but what some people do is interpret standard English as an inviolate code to which all writing must conform. At least, that's what I've gotten out of this thread.

I was told in this thread that what I "mean" to say is "that which" instead of "what", when what I meant to say was what, which is what we say in my neck of the woods instead of that which. I wasn't writing a formal paper. I was posting in a forum, in my voice.

Shakespeare played fast and loose with grammar, in addition to inventing words as he needed them, or at least that is the position of some academics. The following, from Henry V, contradicted standard usage of the time, which was not to apply adjectives to inanimate objects: "Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs i’th’ receiving earth" Grammar sticklers of the time would have found fault with "proud hoofs". I'm glad Bill took the chance. And I don't find his liberties disrespectful to the language.





Riis Marshall said:


> But what we're talking about here on these fora is how we create, draft,  edit and finally publish our written prose so the readers we hope will  like it not only like it but adore it and hunger for more.



Correct again. I agree with you.

What works is what's important I'm advocating for good writing along with you. I appreciate well-punctuated work. 

I think as humans we have a tendency to think in extremes, all or nothing, not only about writing, but about all subjects. Either you're with us or against us, that kind of thing. With writing, either you're a stickler for grammar, or you've let the camel's nose into the tent, and pretty soon we'll all be writing like teenage texters, with misspelled words, absent grammar, and slop everywhere. I don't see it that way. I think that any of us can make a "mistake" with grammar, and still have a profound respect for the English language. Because they're not mistakes, necessarily.

Best


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## walker (Jul 5, 2015)

Olly Buckle said:


> Love the ambiguity of statements like that, do you remember 'Beyond the fringe'? "Gentlemen lift the seat, what is that? An injunction, or a straight definition of a gentleman."



They are fun to play with, and I've played mental editing games like the one you started this thread about many times, even though I'm taking the position that I don't. My apologies.

Regarding the alligator sign, I was born in Florida, so I learned early on in life not to ignore alligator warning signs, ambiguous or not. Just last year I got charged by a female whom I got a little too close to for her liking. She didn't really mean it, it was just a warning, but my wife got a kick out of watching me fall down backwards as I tried to get away. Next time I'll bring a zoom lens, so I don't have to get so close. I don't know what the man in Texas was thinking. I wish the best to his family, who must be suffering through a difficult time right now.

Best


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