How to annoy pedants
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Let's start from
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@admiral_p - So many words where the current meaning has little (if anything) to do with the original.... Taking them literally [according to first definition) can be fun.
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@admiral_p said in How to annoy pedants:
Let's start
fromwith
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Obviously "orders of magnitude"
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@kazitor said in How to annoy pedants:
orders of magnitude
Ie. what a trainer says to a ground-type pokemon.
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@Gąska said in How to annoy pedants:
I.e.
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@kazitor said in How to annoy pedants:
Obviously "orders of magnitude"
Not if used correctly, of course. It's not annoying if the things being compared actually differ by a factor of 100 or more — or even close to it; I'd give credit for one-and-a-fraction orders being called "orders," at least if the fraction is reasonably large — 1.01 doesn't cut it for me.
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@TheCPUWizard said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p - So many words where the current meaning has little (if anything) to do with the original.... Taking them literally [according to first definition) can be fun.
It has some sinister implications for left-handed people.
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@HardwareGeek said in How to annoy pedants:
@kazitor said in How to annoy pedants:
Obviously "orders of magnitude"
Not if used correctly, of course. It's not annoying if the things being compared actually differ by a factor of 100 or more — or even close to it; I'd give credit for one-and-a-fraction orders being called "orders," at least if the fraction is reasonably large — 1.01 doesn't cut it for me.
Of course, you could always plead that you were referring to binary orders of magnitude, not decimal.
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@Groaner said in How to annoy pedants:
It has some sinister implications for left-handed people.
Discrimination! The emoji only have right hands waving.
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@Applied-Mediocrity bloody prepositions.
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Be slightly wrong, but make a point that is correct and irrefutable.
They never get the point, and then accuse you of not reading their non-responsive "responses".
It cracks me the hell up.
You can really trigger them by being off by a single decimal point.
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=TPLaMuHAr1U
Cc: @Polygeekery for the video's reference to burning something down.
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@Groaner said in How to annoy pedants:
@TheCPUWizard said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p - So many words where the current meaning has little (if anything) to do with the original.... Taking them literally [according to first definition) can be fun.
It has some sinister implications for left-handed people.
Dexterously put
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@Jaloopa said in How to annoy pedants:
@Groaner said in How to annoy pedants:
@TheCPUWizard said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p - So many words where the current meaning has little (if anything) to do with the original.... Taking them literally [according to first definition) can be fun.
It has some sinister implications for left-handed people.
Dexterously put
Dextrosely so, even.
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@TheCPUWizard said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p - So many words where the current meaning has little (if anything) to do with the original.... Taking them literally [according to first definition) can be fun.
This doesn't annoy just pedants, but people in general. The latter mostly because people often don’t actually say what they and their listeners think they’re saying, but everyone understands anyway.
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@Gurth This reminds me of a comment early in Good Omens about the versatility of a wink, with the receiver attaching a completely opposite meaning from the intention of the sender (combined with some other misunderstandings between the characters at the time).
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@PleegWat in fact there was some confusion as for a wink by Chelsea's Spanish goalkeeper who, after refusing to be subbed in an important match, winked at the camera. In the UK (and the US) a wink is often perceived as signalling mischief. In Latin countries it's often a display of confidence.
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@admiral_p said in How to annoy pedants:
In the UK (and the US) a wink is often perceived as signalling mischief. In Latin countries it's often a display of confidence.
It's often that here, too. I can't speak for the UK.
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@boomzilla said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p said in How to annoy pedants:
In the UK (and the US) a wink is often perceived as signalling mischief. In Latin countries it's often a display of confidence.
It's often that here, too. I can't speak for the UK.
I'd say in the US it can be either. Although it does seem to have the same meaning whenever a particular person does it.
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@mikehurley
Well, in this case, apparently, the intention was
Where the hell have you been? Baby B has been born, we're ready to make the switch, and here's you in the wrong room with the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, drinking tea. Do you realize I've nearly been shot?
And the answer was interpreted as
Here's the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, and I can't talk now because there's this outsider here.
But Sister Mary misinterpreted the initial wink as:
Well done, Sister Mary — switched over the babies all by herself. Now indicate to me the superfluous child and I shall remove it and let you get on with your tea with his Royal Excellency the American Culture.
And the response meant
There you go, dearie; that's Baby B, now take him away and leave me to chat to his Excellency. I've always wanted to ask him why they have those tall buildings with all the mirrors on them.
Page 36 of my corgi paperback.
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@boomzilla said in How to annoy pedants:
@admiral_p said in How to annoy pedants:
In the UK (and the US) a wink is often perceived as signalling mischief. In Latin countries it's often a display of confidence.
It's often that here, too. I can't speak for the UK.
Really? I have never been aware of it being used as a signal of confidence. If I saw a wink, it would never occur to me that it was a signal of confidence. Mostly a signal of, "I'm letting you know that I'm fooling this other guy."
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One word I really dislike is "anti-pattern". It is usually used to say "bad stuff forming a pattern" (it is consistently bad) while the word itself suggests either lack of a pattern or, more correctly, something which destroys a pattern. I get that ultimately it might even be technically correct, but it's an annoying contortion.
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@Applied-Mediocrity quoted @admiral_p in How to annoy pedants:
Let's start
fromwithfrom
As long as we continue with:
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@admiral_p said in How to annoy pedants:
One word I really dislike is "anti-pattern". It is usually used to say "bad stuff forming a pattern" (it is consistently bad) while the word itself suggests either lack of a pattern or, more correctly, something which destroys a pattern. I get that ultimately it might even be technically correct, but it's an annoying contortion.
QFT. I keep reading that word as, more or less, “Situation that could or should follow a standard pattern, but that has been deliberately avoided.”
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@admiral_p In fact TDWTF is referenced from the Wikipedia page.
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@pie_flavor Thanks for linking to a page that adds advertisement and "social media" buttons to Wikipedia.
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@HardwareGeek said in How to annoy pedants:
It's not annoying if the things being compared actually differ by a factor of 100 or more
I'd be happy if it was by a factor of 4, but then I work in binary a lot of the time…
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@topspin Not having uBlock Origin is
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@pie_flavor tbf on mobile you either install a different browser or you're fucked.
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@admiral_p But you can't get the Wikiwand extension on mobile and mobile Wikipedia is already pretty good.
Also, nope - just install DNS66.
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@pie_flavor I use mobile Wikipedia in fact. Great app. Lean and functional.
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As long as we're complaining about common terms that mean something orthogonal to their etymology, I do not like how stages of stellar fusion are termed "burning".
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@topspin said in How to annoy pedants:
@pie_flavor Thanks for linking to a page that adds advertisement and "social media" buttons to Wikipedia.
But at least you won't have any "Contribute now to save Wikipedia, or this bag of kittens gets it" spam, right?
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@JBert I'll take that over watching
MelaniaJennifer Aniston eat banana soup in the Temple of Doom, or whatever is going on here.
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@topspin
The bananasoup gives Jennifer a bad case of projectil vomiting. She's not cute when ill.
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@topspin Nothing wrong with Jennifer Aniston, though I admit that it's somewhat unexpected to see it at the bottom of an unrelated article.
What bothers me more then is the ad box on the right following you around. Wikipedia also has something similar (for its donations), but at least its contents aren't as colorful and distracting:
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@JBert said in How to annoy pedants:
Wikipedia also has something similar its donations, but at least its contents aren't as colorful and distracting
Ahem.
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@JBert said in How to annoy pedants:
Nothing wrong with Jennifer Aniston, though I admit that it's somewhat unexpected to see it
Did you just assume Ms. Aniston's pronoun?
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To a very specific subset of pedants, this:
What's wrong with "ORNITHODIRAAAN!"?
And wow, the wiktionary page for "ornithodiran" is so astoundingly wrong, given they still get "Ornithodira" correct:
Any birdlike dinosaur of the clade Ornithodira.
I guess "bird metatarsals" is equivalent to "birdlike"? Aside from the fact that they aren't all dinosaurs in the first place… Presumably some wikidrone saw a page was needed on "ornithodiran" and couldn't be bothered to do like five seconds of actual research and comprehension. Oddly, it seems that page was created about a year before the one on Ornithodira as a clade.
Well this became a rant. Whatever.
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@kazitor PRs welcome.
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@Gąska Somewhere, somehow, you have completely missed the purpose of pedantry.
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@kazitor but I have succeeded at annoying a pedant, which is the point of this topic
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Not really funny but it fits the thread title:
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@Gąska said in How to annoy pedants:
@kazitor but I have succeeded at annoying a pedant, which is the point of this topic
Indeed. There should be far more complaints in this thread about posts that do not annoy pedants.
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@jinpa said in How to annoy pedants:
There should be far more complaints in this thread about posts that do not annoy pedants.
But that would be annoying.
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@boomzilla said in How to annoy pedants:
I'm not a military geek, so the only thing I can see is that Abe Lincoln is referred to as a strike group in the paragraph, but a single ship in the description. Is that it? Or does it have something to do with "nuclear-capable"?
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@jinpa said in How to annoy pedants:
I'm not a military geek, so the only thing I can see is that Abe Lincoln is referred to as a strike group in the paragraph, but a single ship in the description. Is that it? Or does it have something to do with "nuclear-capable"?
The carrier is the Abe Lincoln and the carrier and all of its escort ships are the Carrier Strike Group.
But there is no way you're going to fly B-52s off of it.
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@boomzilla said in How to annoy pedants:
there is no way you're going to fly B-52s off of it.
According to some random website Google found, a B-52 has a takeoff distance of 4000 meters. The USS Abraham Lincoln is about 330 meters long. The best-case outcome of trying to fly a B-52 off of an aircraft carrier would be to turn a good airplane into a very bad boat. A not-best-case outcome will include significant damage to the aircraft carrier in the process.