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The Radio 3 Boards > General Chat > The Coffee Bar > The Pedantry Thread
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Author Topic: The Pedantry Thread  (Read 14586 times)
richard barrett
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« Reply #525 on: 01:24:12, 24-02-2008 »
Quote from: oliver sudden on 01:20:55, 24-02-2008
Quote from: richard barrett on 01:03:53, 24-02-2008
I hope messieurs les moderateurs and madame la moderatrice will allow me this one comment.

That's modérateurs and modératrice as any fule kno.  Wink
You making fun of my accent?
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #526 on: 01:32:28, 24-02-2008 »
Eizer zat or you ave been making fun of our fashion senses...  Wink
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #527 on: 00:40:55, 26-02-2008 »
Quote from: Ron Dough on 10:14:31, 25-02-2008
Vale!
Hang on! He's only just got here!
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'is this all we can do?'
anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965)
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Turfan Fragment
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Formerly known as Chafing Dish
« Reply #528 on: 02:09:03, 23-03-2008 »
Quote from: time_is_now on 01:41:54, 23-03-2008
HWAET!
I think it's pronounced HWÆT!
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George Garnett
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« Reply #529 on: 21:59:55, 28-03-2008 »
Quote

I think you mean 'discomfiting', by the way.

Only hh will be able to confirm this of course but it could be that he was very carefully distinguishing between the two words 'discomfort' and 'discomfit' as they were known, for example, to Mr W*ll**m Sh*k*s*e*re among others.
A time there was when to 'discomfit' meant to defeat or overthrow as in
 
"The Earl of Douglas is discomfited" (Henry IV Part 1)
 
whereas 'discomfort' was used to mean mildly distressed or unsettled as in

"His funerals shall not be in our camp, lest it discomfort us" (Troilus and Cressida). 

It is only more recently that the two have become conflated and, oddly, 'discomfited' has come to be accepted as the correct spelling for what used to be 'discomforted'.

For some reason I thought it was important to mention that.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #530 on: 22:04:39, 28-03-2008 »
Thank you for that fascinating piece of linguistic diachrony, George. It seems my perspective on the issue was excessively synchronic. Smiley
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
George Garnett
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« Reply #531 on: 22:15:03, 28-03-2008 »
An alternative view is that to 'discomfit' means to take someone's sweets away. Most authorities however regard that as linguistically chronic.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #532 on: 22:18:04, 28-03-2008 »
Quote from: George Garnett on 22:15:03, 28-03-2008
An alternative view is that to 'discomfit' means to take someone's sweets away. Most authorities however regard that as linguistically chronic.
I've always found their arguments hard to swallow. It's blindingly obvious to me that it's chronically linguistic.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
Sydney Grew
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« Reply #533 on: 10:52:28, 03-04-2008 »
Mr. Griffiths the fashionable Welsh writer about modern music writes we find such poor prose that it is often difficult to determine his meaning and his thrust. At almost every sentence one is forced to stop and wrestle with some infelicity. Here is one example among thousands:

"His [Schönberg's] works of his last years, while retasting the freedom and edge of the Erwartung period, by no means betray his lifelong commitment to orderly development and integrity of voice."

At first reading we understood the author to be saying that Schönberg's final works do not reveal disclose evince or exhibit that thing. That is our understanding of "betray" - as in "his face betrayed his feeling." But in fact our difficult Welshman must we now realise have been attempting to say the precise opposite, namely that Schönberg's final works are faithful to that thing or quality and do exhibit it, namely "his lifelong commitment to" whatever.

Even in this one sentence there are other words we do not like. "Last years" does not seem quite right, nor does the "retasting" of a "freedom and edge." Furthermore the whole premiss seems mistaken: since a "commitment to integrity of voice" means less than nothing we remain unconvinced that Schönberg ever had one, "lifelong" or not.

What a sad contrast it all makes to the limpid prose of the admirable Mr. Lebrecht.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #534 on: 12:01:54, 03-04-2008 »
A plague on both their houses.
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George Garnett
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« Reply #535 on: 12:36:38, 03-04-2008 »
No sooner wished than done.      

                  

                     
« Last Edit: 12:43:23, 03-04-2008 by George Garnett » Logged
ahinton
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« Reply #536 on: 13:06:10, 03-04-2008 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 12:01:54, 03-04-2008
A plague on both their houses.
Oh, come now, Lord Barrett of Mumbles! You surely wouldn't categorise Messrs Griffiths and Lebrecht similarly, would you? Whatever anyone may think of either, the former principally draws attention to music whereas the latter does so mainly to himself. One might, I suppose,  nonetheless be forgiven for looking a tad askance at the former's skills as a librettist (and I have to say that a momentary smirk crept across my face when I first thumbed through the booklet accompanying my CD of What Next? and saw a photo of composer and librettist sitting together in a - er - car...)
« Last Edit: 17:56:39, 03-04-2008 by ahinton » Logged
George Garnett
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« Reply #537 on: 23:48:47, 06-04-2008 »
When did "wintery" turn into "wintry"?

Did I miss an announcement?
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #538 on: 23:55:08, 06-04-2008 »
Quote from: George Garnett on 23:48:47, 06-04-2008
When did "wintery" turn into "wintry"?

Did I miss an announcement?

Gosh, I've always used 'wintry', which is how the Oxford refers to it, although it does give wintery as an alternative spelling online at www.askoxford.com

wintry
(also wintery)

  • adjective (wintrier, wintriest) characteristic of winter, especially in being very cold or bleak.
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John W
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« Reply #539 on: 09:37:09, 07-04-2008 »
This was my reference to 'wintry Narnia?  Shocked

I refer to my faithful Cassell's 4th Ed. (I'm sure everyone has a favourite dictionary, like they grab it during scrabble rows!)

and there is an addition:

winterly, wintery, wintry a.

Winterly! Now that does look like an adverb, maybe I'll make it into one.

The wind and sleet blew winterly across the fields. No, eh.

The first movement starts winterly.....
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