THE DERAILING ROOM

A place to relax and socialize - to muse, think aloud and suggest
hoi.polloi
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Re: Reviewing Hollywood snakery

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Fine, then, perhaps we can remove offending posts to that section as well? It's a careful balance. It doesn't take that much time to click 'next page' or 'previous page' of a thread. It does take time to do grammar/spell check on a post, but it's worth it.

But for the sake of an example for lux, and for keeping that thread clear of all this, I'm moving it all to the derailing room. Here we are.
lux
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Re: Reviewing Hollywood snakery

Unread post by lux »

hoi.polloi wrote:
But for the sake of an example for lux, and for keeping that thread clear of all this, I'm moving it all to the derailing room. Here we are.
Thank you. That works for me. :)

BTW, that grapheme you called a "little hat" in another thread is called a caret or circumflex. :P
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

I didn't know the term 'circumflex' but I am familiar with the term 'carat'. I just wanted to know his personal explanation and see where his knowledge was at. He is apparently taking the position of ignorance. I find that unsettling.
iCONOCLAST
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by iCONOCLAST »

A Ŝ S
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

iCONOCLAST wrote:A Ŝ S
That is an excellent example of a very non-accidental carat.

So what particular keyboard layout does one have to use to allow an easily accessible, easily mistakenly typed carat on a character when one is simply going for the "y"? Is it a standard layout? Is it a "Spanish" layout? This should be easy to find.

I guess that it is not very conventional.
lux
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by lux »

The correct term for the ^ symbol is caret.

The term "carat" refers to something else entirely.
hoi.polloi wrote: So what particular keyboard layout does one have to use to allow an easily accessible, easily mistakenly typed carat on a character when one is simply going for the "y"? Is it a standard layout? Is it a "Spanish" layout? This should be easy to find.
Welsh, I think.

See:
http://www.200words-a-day.com/typing-we ... cters.html
fbenario
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Re: Reviewing Hollywood snakery

Unread post by fbenario »

lux wrote:Remedium morbo gravius ​​sit

Perhaps if we had a “grammar, spelling and punctuation” thread we could move discussions of this sort there and thus preserve the topics of our main threads? Then people who are interested in such things could read all about them and those who are not interested could skip them? Just a suggestion.
No!!!!!!!!!!

The people who wouldn't be interested in reading comments on writing clear, understandable posts are likely the ones most in need of instruction and reminding to edit their work!
brianv
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by brianv »

hoi.polloi wrote:
iCONOCLAST wrote:A Ŝ S
That is an excellent example of a very non-accidental carat.

So what particular keyboard layout does one have to use to allow an easily accessible, easily mistakenly typed carat on a character when one is simply going for the "y"? Is it a standard layout? Is it a "Spanish" layout? This should be easy to find.

I guess that it is not very conventional.
o☺☻╝Ü §

Extended ASCII Set Alt + Shift + Numeric Keypad to the right of keyboard then let go. Alt + Shift + 237 = Ý. Latin Keyboard

http://www.ascii-code.com/

Oh hang on, wasn't it was a carrot... Alt + Shift + ?
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Woops. My bad on the misspelling of caret; accidentally following suit I guess. Here, I thought I was correcting you, lux! Sorry about that. (Perhaps, I've been misspelling it for longer than I care to think. Thank you for correcting me, and I'll make sure to be more careful about spelling it from now on, if I ever even use it again.)

So, a Welsh keyboard setup! Interesting. So when omaxsteve says "English/Spanish", might they be lying?
lux
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Re: Reviewing Hollywood snakery

Unread post by lux »

fbenario wrote:
lux wrote:Remedium morbo gravius ​​sit

Perhaps if we had a “grammar, spelling and punctuation” thread we could move discussions of this sort there and thus preserve the topics of our main threads? Then people who are interested in such things could read all about them and those who are not interested could skip them? Just a suggestion.
No!!!!!!!!!!

The people who wouldn't be interested in reading comments on writing clear, understandable posts are likely the ones most in need of instruction and reminding to edit their work!
I'm skeptical of that reasoning since I myself am not interested in reading those comments while mid thread. For me it's like watching the party host spank their child in front of the guests.

If they must, can't they at least do it out in the tool shed?

But, that's me. Maybe I'm alone with that view.
hoi.polloi
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

I know you are not alone, but there is no real shed here and the people posting are (hopefully) grown adults that do not need either coddling or spanking. It's such a struggle to constantly remind people who are otherwise good posters that we should have standards of readability. It's another inconvenient truth — to borrow the tiresome turn of speech that Al Gore has turned against us, and I will henceforth not apologize for owning and using that phrase as much as I want — that the particularly bad jumbles might indicate a desire to deliberately destroy the readability. They might also indicate nothing more than a unique use of letters, and uniqueness is something that each of us is guilty of.

So it's really difficult. We are not in an easy position. Please appreciate that we don't want to distract from good posts with innocent mistakes, but we must also try to hunt down mistakes that might not be so innocent.
brianv
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by brianv »

hoi.polloi wrote:I know you are not alone, but there is no real shed here and the people posting are (hopefully) grown adults that do not need either coddling or spanking. It's such a struggle to constantly remind people who are otherwise good posters that we should have standards of readability. It's another inconvenient truth — to borrow the tiresome turn of speech that Al Gore has turned against us, and I will henceforth not apologize for owning and using that phrase as much as I want — that the particularly bad jumbles might indicate a desire to deliberately destroy the readability. They might also indicate nothing more than a unique use of letters, and uniqueness is something that each of us is guilty of.

So it's really difficult. We are not in an easy position. Please appreciate that we don't want to distract from good posts with innocent mistakes, but we must also try to hunt down mistakes that might not be so innocent.
If i [posted] in

a peculiar (fashion), wóuldn't the users of this board find it "out of character", to say the least?

I still would like to know why pov's post was all askew. It looks like it was copied and pasted from somewhere and the format carried over.

Happy Hoax Day to all!
pov603
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by pov603 »

I can't see on my computer that my post was askew.
It was typed up yesterday and I was going to post on a different topic, didn't, saved a draft, then later copied the draft and posted.
With regard to comments about indentation, which I take to mean the use of inverted commas [please correct me if I have misunderstood] my use of inverted commas is purely to try and highlight that when I say 'events' or other such, I don't necessarily believe that that is actually true or is as we are told ie as found on this website:
One is to give a warning against over-indulgence in the trick of encasing words or phrases in inverted commas to indicate that they are being used in a slang or technical or facetious or some other unusual sense. This is a useful occasional device; instances may be found in this book. But it is a dangerous habit. It may develop into a craving for inverted commas, leading to the use of them in the same promiscuous way as Victorian letter-writers used underlinings. "I know this is not quite the right word", the inverted commas seem to say, "but I can't be bothered to think of a better" ; or, "please note that I am using this word facetiously"; or, "don't think I don't know that this is a cliché". If the word is the right one, do not be ashamed of it: if it is the wrong one, do not use it. It is unnecessary, for instance; to put catchment in inverted commas when writing of the catchment area of a hospital; the metaphor is a useful and obvious one.
Emphasis bold/italic added.
Nevertheless, I appreciate that there can be an overindulgence, as the author points out, which should be avoided.
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboa ... verted.htm
lux
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by lux »

hoi.polloi wrote:I know you are not alone, but there is no real shed here and the people posting are (hopefully) grown adults that do not need either coddling or spanking. It's such a struggle to constantly remind people who are otherwise good posters that we should have standards of readability. It's another inconvenient truth — to borrow the tiresome turn of speech that Al Gore has turned against us, and I will henceforth not apologize for owning and using that phrase as much as I want — that the particularly bad jumbles might indicate a desire to deliberately destroy the readability. They might also indicate nothing more than a unique use of letters, and uniqueness is something that each of us is guilty of.

So it's really difficult. We are not in an easy position. Please appreciate that we don't want to distract from good posts with innocent mistakes, but we must also try to hunt down mistakes that might not be so innocent.
OK, I understand. It just gets a little over-the-top sometimes. I mean, even Simon commented to that effect on this one.
brianv
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Re: THE DERAILING ROOM

Unread post by brianv »

pov603 wrote:I can't see on my computer that my post was askew.
It was typed up yesterday and I was going to post on a different topic, didn't, saved a draft, then later copied the draft and posted.
Thanks for the reply pov, and accepted.
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