Compliment VERSUS Complement

[echelon2004]

can't you add a supplement to a compliment as well?

I know I've been forced to reinforce compliments from time to time, especially when accidently having used the horrible word "nice".
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[Marwood]

I love the way that, regardless of the topic, all forums have these discussions about spelling and grammar.

And most come to the same conclusion that the odd lapse doesn't matter as long as the meaning is retained unambiguously. The problems occur when posts become so ungrammatical as to become meaningless (in which case, everyone else ignores the post), or, worse still, develop ambiguity, at which point several posters

What I thought was interesting about this thread is that nobody has mentioned the regular misspelling of the word lens.

The plural is lenses, the singular is lens, yet on a large number of posts, an extra, superfluous 'e' creeps in there.

As it is easily understood and cannot be confused with any other terms, there's no real problem, but I'm surprised no one's mentioned it.

 

[Marwood]

Er, depending on the house style of the publication.

The give-away that English varies and there is no definitive version is the existence of style guides for each publication.

Although in one paper or magazine, 'Ipod' may be the correct spelling, other may, just as correctly decide that 'iPod' is correct, as that's the way people will encounter the word beyond their own pages.

Many magazines in the UK have short guides that cover their own house style then say 'in case of exceptions, refer to the FT Style Guide'.

My favourite rule ran something like: 'For describing locations, specify the town, county and country. It is not neccessary to name the county if the town/city has a league football team.' This was because it was assumed that people would have heard of any town/city whose team was in the football league.

 

[echelon2004]

Er, depending on the house style of the publication.

We can't have simple or uniform rules, can we?

The give-away that English varies and there is no definitive
version is the existence of style guides for each publication.

Although in one paper or magazine, 'Ipod' may be the correct
spelling, other may, just as correctly decide that 'iPod' is
correct, as that's the way people will encounter the word beyond
their own pages.

Would you agree that there's a tendency towards using Ipod rather then iPod though?

Many magazines in the UK have short guides that cover their own
house style then say 'in case of exceptions, refer to the FT Style
Guide'.

My favourite rule ran something like: 'For describing locations,
specify the town, county and country. It is not neccessary to name
the county if the town/city has a league football team.' This was
because it was assumed that people would have heard of any
town/city whose team was in the football league.

Wow, I'd be totally helpless in the UK, I don't think I can name more than maybe four or five teams. In the world

--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[Tristan Cope]

Yes... that's quite right... another one I absolutely can't bear... and there seem to be quite a lot of posters who do this at the moment... I think they think they're being poetic or something... or that they are wistfully expressing some great wisdom... that others are unlikely to fully grasp...

In actual fact they are just w* s

There are also one or two people who like to smile intermittently when explaining how someone else couldn't possibly have a valid opinion... when what they really mean is... patronising smile ... Unfortunately they don't really seem to be equipped with the intellect to be genuinely patronising... smile .

Have a look around some current open talk threads and you'll see what I mean... wink, smile and other useless attempts to communicate facial expression

 

[Marwood]

To be fair it was a magazine with almost exclusively UK distribution.

The league rule was there because the thought behind it was not to name the county if most people would reasonably expect to know which county it was in. However. that doesn't give a difinitive answer, so it was a case of 'if you can't decide, here's a way of checking whether a town/city is large enough that you'd know which county it is in.' It was a proxy for something more meaninglful, rather than saying '

And yes, all the magazines I worked on would have used Ipod, mainly because if you let marketing departments decide what's capitalised and what isn't, then you leave yourself open to gettign stroppy phone calls from Qinetiq complaining that you haven't capped-up the second Q.

However, since the product will always be spelt iPod when you encounter it, there's a compelling arguement to spell it that way too. I can imagine some more advertising-focussed magazines and those aimed at a younger audience ("How out of touch are they? Don't they know it's iPod"), might use the Apple-approved capitalisation.

 

[pw-pix]

Two lenses complimenting each other.

EF-S 10-22 -> Wow your new lens hood suits you well, you look beautiful.
EF 17-40 L -> Gee you are so compact, I love your sleek design.

--
Peter
http://paw.digital-journal.com/williams/

 

[echelon2004]

I love the way that, regardless of the topic, all forums have these
discussions about spelling and grammar.

And most come to the same conclusion that the odd lapse doesn't
matter as long as the meaning is retained unambiguously. The
problems occur when posts become so ungrammatical as to become
meaningless (in which case, everyone else ignores the post), or,
worse still, develop ambiguity, at which point several posters

You did intent to write something more here, didn't you? =)

What I thought was interesting about this thread is that nobody has
mentioned the regular misspelling of the word lens.

The plural is lenses, the singular is lens, yet on a large number
of posts, an extra, superfluous 'e' creeps in there.

Come on, you english speakers add superfluous es everywhere, how are we supposed to know you guys left that one out?

As it is easily understood and cannot be confused with any other
terms, there's no real problem, but I'm surprised no one's
mentioned it.

It has actually been mentioned, even more then once.

Cheers

--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[Marwood]

Er, yes, I did intend to finish that sentense. By way of excuse, our internet connection keeps failing, so I was typing while disconnected and just clicked 'post' as soon as the connection came back up. It would seem I'd not finished what I was going to say.

And my point about the spelling 'lense', which is incorrect in both US and UK English (in as much as any spelling is correct or incorrect), is that I'd not seen it mentioned in this particular thread. I certainly didn't mean it as an attack on people whose first language is not English, as it is just as often misspelled by whose first language is English.

I was just surprised that I hadn't noticed it mentioned, since it is one of the few errors that is fairly photographic specific.

 

[Paul W UK]

Just don't let them....

 

[Paul W UK]

The only Latin motto you need

 

[Pyogenes]

Regardless of the use of full stops, individually pronounced
letters are simply an abbreviation.

It may be different on your side of the pond, but in the US my usage of acronym is considered acceptable:
http://m-w.com/dictionary/acronym

--
Joe

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

 

[Marwood]

Well you could argue all day about this one. Like so many examples of language, it originally had a specific meaning but general usage has extended and muddied that meaning.

You can infer from that definition that acronyms and abbreviations were originally distinct, hence the previous poster is technically correct. However, most people have now extended their use of the word acronym to cover all abbreviations made of initial letters.

Who is right, who is wrong and is a photographic forum really the place to settle it?

I particuarly like the (recently invented) term, 'backronym', which describes a situation in which the name has clearly been manipulated to make sure it makes a good acronym.

While on the subject of acronyms, contemplate the US word 'Lazer'.

 

[Pyogenes]

Well you could argue all day about this one. Like so many examples
of language, it originally had a specific meaning but general usage
has extended and muddied that meaning.

Agreed. Incorrect usage becomes acceptable if it is prevalent.

The various dictionaries publishers hire linguists to examine alternate usages of a words to determine if it should become officially part of the language.

You can infer from that definition that acronyms and abbreviations
were originally distinct, hence the previous poster is technically
correct. However, most people have now extended their use of the
word acronym to cover all abbreviations made of initial letters.

Who is right, who is wrong and is a photographic forum really the
place to settle it?

Right and wrong is clear. The previous poster is correct with the original meaning and possibly for usage in parts of the world outside the US (we'd have to consult the OED). I am correct in context of US usage according to M-W. Who are we to argue with linguists that determine acceptable usage for a living? ;-)

I particuarly like the (recently invented) term, 'backronym', which
describes a situation in which the name has clearly been
manipulated to make sure it makes a good acronym.

Gotta love portmanteaus. Somehow I doubt this one willl become popular enough to be recognized by one of the major dictionaries.

While on the subject of acronyms, contemplate the US word 'Lazer'.

Are you sure that is even word? It doesn't appear in any major dictionaries. That looks more like a marketing spelling.

--
Joe

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.

 

[Marwood]

Re:Lazer.

My mistake, for some reason I'd assumed it was the prevalent spelling in the US.

And yes, I suspect maketing departments have a role to play in this. While it's logical that they'd want to be able to copyright their own name or some aspect of it, it makes life really awkward for sub-editors.

 

[CharlieDIY]

Re:Lazer.

My mistake, for some reason I'd assumed it was the prevalent
spelling in the US.

And yes, I suspect maketing departments have a role to play in
this. While it's logical that they'd want to be able to copyright
their own name or some aspect of it, it makes life really awkward
for sub-editors.

The guy who did my cataract surgery a few years ago is named Brad Lazer. That's the ONLY time before that I've seen that spelling.

--
Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com

 

[Murray McCulloch]

I don't know... I don't really feel it applies to me. I mean, who are the b*stards in my case?

Hmm.. corporations and government perhaps.
--
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

 

[mac32112]

laser from 'Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation.'

 

[AgBr]

a European - there's a Y beginning sound here, a definite "start".
UH YEEooropEEan has distinct enough syllables to let you say it
cleanly. AN is not necessary here, in fact it would make it harder
to say.

general principle:
If the following word has a definite 'beginning' sound, like
"camera", use A. If it doesn't, like "eel", AN makes it easier to
say the two words together smoothly and recognisably.

Classic example: if you are old-fashioned, a French speaker or very
aristocratic, you might pronounce "Hotel" in the French way -
'otel. This needs "AN" - which is much crisper than blurting
UH...OTEL.

If you happen to say "Hotel" with an audible H, like most English
speakers, this has a definite beginning sound - so "A" is fine - UH
H'OTEL.

My recollection of the rule was use "an" for vowel sounds, except "u" - that would include european, uniform, unit, etc. - and "a" for anything else. As you mention, it's dealer's choice for "H" words.

Which brings up another issue - others have mentioned their/they're/there, and possessive apostrophes, but no one has mentioned it's/its. "It's" is short for "it is", "its" is posessive (just like his).

As for the punctuation inside/outside of the quotation marks (oooh, we could get into the differences between quotes and quotations, and uses of single and double marks), this is in a bit of transition (at least in my field). Asking a computer user to
Type "some text."
could result in a very different action from
Type "some text".

As a result, I've got used to placing the sentence punctuation period outside of any quoted text.

E.

 

[richardplondon]

can't you add a supplement to a compliment as well?

I know I've been forced to reinforce compliments from time to time,
especially when accidently having used the horrible word "nice".

If you reinforce them they become stiff and don't fit so well.

"Nice" was once a perfectly good word - it started out as "discerning in judgement", or "(possibly too) fussy about small matters". "Niceties" are the carefully considered finer details of protocol.

It's now used as a fuzzy term for generalised unobjectionableness, which is an ironic meaning twist.

RP