What are your pet peeves re English usage?

@McTag,

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because you picked up a throwaway remark, not even directed to you

Are you suggesting that your remark was in no way addressing my remark and the spelling for 'miniscule' that I included?

JTT: Not even a miniscule error, LOL.

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We went "through it all again", my little burr, because you picked up a throwaway remark, not even directed to you, and decided to make an issue of it.

Of course I asked about it, McTag. You presented as fact an error. An error, it now seems that you admit to knowing full well was an error [We went "through it all again"].

Why would you do that? Is there any justifiable reason when you knew what you were writing was the same silly prescription that had been dealt with long ago in a distant thread?

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And if you check back, (I know you like doing research) you will find that I didn't labour the issue, or react to your sarcastic correction.

Really? You "didn't labour the issue, or react to [my] sarcastic correction".
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Always refreshing to see minuscule spelled correctly. Little things mean a lot.

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A variant, you say? One lives and learns. Round here, if you write miniscule, the children laugh and point at you in the street.

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I bet MW stands for Merriam-Webster. Figures.

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I hope you come soon to realise that your reality is not other people's reality, and that you can stick your reality up your arse.

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Spendy, what does your dictionary say about that spelling? Make sure it's a modern one, mind.

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I'll stay on the side of the angels, with the more elegant and original version.

I blame the ignorant.

Even after your admission that you were mistaken, that you were the ignorant one, you tried to further disparage a use that's completely natural.

And note that you haven't bothered to address the questions I raised about your parting shots that you, astoundingly, make a claim to not making at all.

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@McTag,

Hi McTag, tool is used in the US just as your example from the UK. I heard a comedian refer to Phil McGraw in her routine thusly "ahhgggg, Dr. Phil, what a tool!!". He really is a tool, don't understand how that windbag has lasted this long. I wonder way windbags always manage to last a long time? Maybe it just feels like a long time.

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@glitterbag,

The lily livered, pusillanimous, chickenhearted, yellow, spineless glitterbag makes her appearance.

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@glitterbag,

I think Taggers was referring to "tool" as a word often used in low company in England for the male organ of reproduction in its non flaccid condition.

It might be a verb as well.

It has connotations of admiration. Awe possibly.

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@spendius,

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It might be a verb as well.

I don't believe that's possible in this case, Spendi. At the moment, I can't think of any way to use it as a verb with the same connotation.

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@JTT,

Would an analogy with "miniskirt--minuskurt" help?

From my cursory glance at the etymology I imagine "minuscule" was originally a quillo.

There you are JT. Inventive language. I bet you never saw that before. It never existed before I thought of it.

An error, like a typo, made with a quill pen which is a writing tool popular when most of the best **** was written.

Once a well known journalist uses it correctly it will go into the language pretty fast I should think on the basis of what a perfect word it is for that industry which deciphers antique writings so that we don't have the difficult task of doing it ourselves.

Had Mr Joyce submitted the Finnegans Wake original to a publisher written in longhand I very much doubt we would ever have discovered what it was about.

I suppose it would be anachronistic to refer to his ambiguous writing with a pen as a quillo because he likely used a fountain pen rather that a goose feather. A nibo.

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@spendius,

That's all very interesting, Spendi, but about the verb use for 'tool' in the meaning intended by McTag and gb.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

From my cursory glance at the etymology I imagine "minuscule" was originally a quillo.

I love the word but disagree with your conclusion re: etymology. First, quillos are rare when compared to typos which are quite common. Secondly, I strongly suspect the word "minus" might have something to do with the choice of "minus--" over "minis--" by the prescriptionist language mavens. (I threw in that word "prescriptionist" just to give JTT a warm glow. Be happy, JTT.)

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@Lustig Andrei,

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I love the word but disagree with your conclusion re: etymology. First, quillos are rare when compared to typos which are quite common.

Actually, I must admit that I don't have the foggiest notion what you and Spendi are on about here, Merry.

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Secondly, I strongly suspect the word "minus" might have something to do with the choice of "minus--" over "minis--"

Yes, that would be a given.

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by the prescriptionist language mavens. (I threw in that word "prescriptionist" just to give JTT a warm glow. Be happy, JTT.)

I'd happily forgo your kindness, were it not too late, over your attack on McTag.

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I need to revise an earlier statement of mine: little things mean a lot, but not THAT much.

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@spendius,

Interestingly, the German word for a fountain pen is Feder, which means a feather.

I wonder what Roger Federer's ancestors did. Make quilts (!) and down pillows, maybe.

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@JTT,

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Are you suggesting that your remark was in no way addressing my remark and the spelling for 'miniscule' that I included?

Yes. It wasn't. I was patting the previous guy on the back, and making a harmless little joke. At least, I thought at the time it was harmless. Had I known WWIII was going to break out, I would have consulted my lawyers first.

JTT, you have achieved the dubious distinction of being classified with OSD and Oralloy and that other clown whose name I forget. Carpet-chewing nutters to a man.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Interestingly, the German word for a fountain pen is Feder, which means a feather.

I wonder what Roger Federer's ancestors did. Make quilts (!) and down pillows, maybe.

"Fountain pen" actually would be "Füllfederhalter", commonly known as "Füller".
A "Feder" to write with is called a "Federkiel", a 'quill pen".

"Federer" is a (southern) German, Swiss and Jewish family name ("Feder" plus suffix) - the ancestors had been traders in feathers or quill pens or upholsterers.

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@JTT,

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Actually, I must admit that I don't have the foggiest notion what you and Spendi are on about here, Merry.

I can only speak for myself and the idea that this is a first for you in not having the foggiest notion what I'm on about is a fantasy of your own self-complacency. I don't think you will ever have a notion of what I'm on about while ever you look at language through the wrong end of the telescope. Which could have been a telecule I suppose.

It's a tool for you. A hammer. To beat people up with based on your smattering of disconnected ideas on language being on a slightly higher level than the smattering of disconnected ideas your victims have managed to acquire due to you have dipped into one or two more books on the subject than they have.

You're a fundamentalist presciptivist.

I've solved the dispute over minuscule and miniscule. A quillo. Remember Occam. They have all been wasting their time for the same reason you have. Climbing the status hierarchy and stamping on the ones beneath.

I admire Chomsky for being an expert at it.

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@Walter Hinteler,

So I was half right? That brings my average way up. Wink

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@McTag,

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Yes. It wasn't. I was patting the previous guy on the back, and making a harmless little joke.

If that actually was the case, then why didn't you explain that at the outset?

Why did you "labour the issue" and react in a manner that was the equal of my sarcasm?

And then you do it again, all the while primping in front of A2Kers that it's you that occupies the high ground.

I pointed up that your claims that you "didn't labour the issue, or react to your sarcastic correction" were false and, once again, knowing you are wrong, you ignore it, heading off on yet another tangent.

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@McTag,

They might have been pheasant pluckers.

Are there pheasants in Germany?

I used to help the gamekeeper when I was at a loose end and pheasant chicks are the cutest little creatures I ever did see. Although water hen chicks were pretty cute as well.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Are there pheasants in Germany?

I believe that the English word 'pheasant' is a direct derivation from a similar Germanic word.

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@JTT,

This is exactly the kind of post I cannot reply to without using profane language. I don't have Spendy's skill. But I commend his last post to you, and the words of Robert Burns, the stanza which ends "To see ourselves as ithers see us."

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@spendius,

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I can only speak for myself and the idea that this is a first for you in not having the foggiest notion what I'm on about is a fantasy of your own self-complacency.

Well, certainly, Spendi, don't think for a moment that you should explain your incessant maundering.

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It's a tool for you. A hammer. To beat people up with based on your smattering of disconnected ideas on language being on a slightly higher level than the smattering of disconnected ideas your victims have managed to acquire due to you have dipped into one or two more books on the subject than they have.

You've got this so incredibly ass backwards due, I'm sure, to your dismal understanding. [see below] It was McTag that was trying to beat up on people. It was McTag's ignorance, either in the pejorative sense of the word or not, that caused this problem.

You just don't like it because you've gotten your ignorance mixed up in it.

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You're a fundamentalist presciptivist.

Again, highly illustrative of just how dismal is your understanding. I didn't prescribe anything. McTag did. I described how language works wrt the variant spellings of miniscule/minuscule.

What is it that makes it so difficult for you to understand those two words - prescriptive/descriptive?

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I've solved the dispute over minuscule and miniscule. A quillo.

We're right back where we started, Spendi. I still must admit that I don't have the foggiest notion what you are on about here.

But I'll make a guess. I hesitate to do this to you but ... .

You are advancing this as the etymological reason for where we stand today with miniscule/minuscule.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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