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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:35 am
by jingle_jangle
Dean, your suggestion stretches the rules, and creates some confusion. There was only one "model", although there were three variations in door cuts and paint colors. Also, the word "models" could be interpreted to mean "model cars", when these were full-scale automobiles.

Sheena, nice solution. 8/10 because strictly speaking, it isn't a pluralization.

Mark, technically 100%. But confusing to the average reader. I think what I'm really getting at is, "How do we pluralize the word, 'Indy'?"

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:36 am
by beatlefreak
John wrote:
"How about affect and effect. I see that misused a lot."

Also insure and ensure.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:40 am
by charlyg
By the rules Indys, I just don't like it. There are times when the apostrophe can help separate letters that can run together, or beg for a different pronunciation than what is warranted.

Here's one then. Is it the 70s, or 70's? Each year within the decade belongs to the group of years expressed by the decade, thus showing "ownership" by the decade? I know, picking nits again..........

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:47 am
by jingle_jangle
By the rules, you have it 100%, Charlie, along with the solution I had in mind. And I do agree, this is a clumsy situation.

Your observation on the decade nomenclature is not nitpicking, because it's entirely without merit. It's simply specious. LOL, BTW.

Source of the term, "nitpicking", anyone? No fair using Google.

I should start giving out prizes.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:01 am
by lyle_from_minneapolis
That's easy, Paul--I've had to do it to my daughters several times, and it's a slow, agonizing process picking out the nits that lice leave in one's hair.

But a great solution is to douse your hair with olive oil under a shower cap for 24 hours. Suffocates the lice...but you still need to pick the nits.

Wait a minute...did I say "your" hair? Sorry.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:07 am
by jingle_jangle
Har! In Brasil, lice were a real kid problem and made no class distinction. But in my daughter's private school, NOBODY talked about it--it was considered a huge family shame, so though there were regular lice checks (Portuguese word is "piolio"), anytime they were found, there was a weird social interaction whenever parent notification was to happen--it was spoken about indirectly, but the parents got the message.

Here in No Cal, it still goes on, but at least it's upfront with no social stigma.

Anyone want to come up with two Portuguese words that have made it into English unchanged? Hint: both entered the English lexicon in the 17th century in colonial days.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:10 am
by charlyg
Spacious? Oh specious!

nevermind.

If Gilda could say it as one word, so can I.......

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:12 am
by paologregorio
Mark, you actually did use the correct "your":

Your-belonging to you
you're-you are

Here are a couple:

"Between you and I" instead of the correct "between you and me"

Oh, while we're on correct, how about the phrase "more correct"?!

Any plural that's mistakenly written with an apostrophe, which makes it a possessive.

Finally, the ever increasing confusion by some regarding the use of "there, their and they're".

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:34 am
by elysrand
The accepted (mis?)spelling for Independent media producers as a group, and in slang the movies they produce, has become in recent decades "indies" - a contractional abbreviation of "independents". That begs the question of whether a singular form of "independent" is "indy", or is it "indie"? I have heard the former most often...

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:39 am
by wayang
How about the works of that linguistic genius, Jim Morisson?

"...'til the stars fall from the sky
for you and I..."


It just doen't get much 'less correct' than that...

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:40 am
by jingle_jangle
Youse guys are all pretty sharp.

And what's this I hear about Soviet jewelry?

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:45 am
by charlyg
My BIGGEST peeve, the misuse of "myself"!

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:49 am
by wayang
Don't worry, Charlie, it won't make you go blind...that's just a myth.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:55 am
by lyle_from_minneapolis
You and me agree!

Paolo, I was joking about Paul's hair. He used to have it, but he was tragically unlocked.

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:25 am
by sowhat
Ehm... what about Soviet jewelry?