inpromissum

alphaubergeek table at magic tournaments? :( no one understands how cool we really are.

Did I say alphaubergeek? I meant the coolest-people-in-the-room table. My bad. :)

That’s not the compliment that you think it is. Remember we’re talking about a room filled with Magic players. ;)

A fine point, Steve. However, I must say that Nick's presence at the judges table raised the average coolness level significantly. And my presence at the judges table . . . well, that still goes unexplained.

Yikes... if *Nick* can raise the cool level....

If you're going to claim a love of editing and proofreading, you need to catch things like "judges table."

;)

Like I should have put "judges' table"? I saw that shortly after I posted the whole thing and it reminded me of the lament of the overlord of our English department at the fact that apostrophers, especially those that indicate possession, are going the way of "thou" and "thee". I thought about fixing it but assumed no one would notice or care. I'm significantly lazier with my own stuff than with others, but I guess I will have to be more diligent when speaking with Stanford grads. :)

other's ;)

Cheers,
Steve

p.s. I could probably do this forever.

My state school-educated brain does not comprehend! What stupid typos did I make?

I really wouldn't worry about it. I just found it funny that you had a typo in the same sentence that contained "I will have to be more diligent." It was doubly funny that it was the same type of typo.

As Nick can verify, I am, at times, anal about grammar. There are two main camps when it comes to stuff like this. People either believe that a) as long as you understood me, that's fine or b) if you're going to bother to do it, do it right. I am of the latter camp.

Don’t worry; I rarely comment on other people’s grammar.

My apologizes go out to Laura for this blatant tangent!

As for the meat of your post …

http://www.theevilempire.com/musings/archives/000277.html

That is I!

p.s. I went to Pomona College.

Okay, now I see the typo. I'm kind of infamous for stupid stuff like that. The people in our Corvallis office call them Karaisms. As the receptionist I get to send mass e-mails about random stuff like tickets and phones and remodels, and about two months ago we had a big box of mexican pastries (which are quite large) at the front desk that needed to be consumed . . . I sent out an e-mail to everyone in my office announcing "Gargantuan Mexican pasties". It was awhile before I heard the end of that.

Gargantuan Mexican pasties?! Got any left? I'm fresh out.

Steve - I'll happily attest that you're anal about just about everything. :)

As for myself, you can find out what you'd like to know about me in the 400ish prior posts. :)

--Nick

Steve: I'm still waiting for you to show me where I said there was anything wrong with tangents... Also, you meant "others'" rather than "other's." But I suppose you just said that you were anal about grammar, not that you were actually any good at it, so I can forgive you. :-)

Laura - you rock!

"I assumed Steve was using the opportunity to go off on a tangent about how silly he thinks people who don't have sex before marriage are..."

Perhaps I was wrong, but I found the tone in the above sentence to be a bit negative towards tangents (or at least those with which you didn't agree)

With respect to the other's vs. others' debate -- it's unclear which is right. At least I have the Seattle PI on my side.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/hax/167328_hax02.html

adj.
1. a) Being the remaining one of two or more: the other ear.
b) Being the remaining ones of several: His other books are still in storage.

adj 1: not the same one or ones already mentioned or implied; "today isn't any other day"- the White Queen; "the construction of highways and other public works"; "he asked for other employment"; "any other person would tell the truth"; "his other books are still in storage"; "then we looked at the other house"; "hearing was good in his other ear"; "the other sex"; "she lived on the other side of the street from me"; "went in the other direction"

n.
1. a) The remaining one of two or more: One took a taxi, and the other walked home.
b) The remaining ones of several: After her departure the others resumed the discussion.

The Seattle PI was referring to a singular other, I was referring to the "several" version of other since I have edited many dozens of papers. Hence others' instead of other's.

Like I said -- it was unclear. How am *I* suppose to know what you are trying to say. That is the whole point of it. ;) That is why we a) use the apostrophe and b) use it in two different places.

Arrggh. I hate that there is no way to edit a comment.

heheh

Steve, you're welcome to read any tones you like into what I type, but you're definitely reaching with that one. Projection, maybe? :-)

Also, really, had she meant "other's," her sentence still would have been grammatically incorrect, because she would have needed some sort of article before the singular "other." So were you assuming that meaning, your correction would have been valid, but incomplete.

That means the newspaper headline is also ungrammatical, of course, but headlines routinely are; they're essentially abbreviations of complete sentences.

I think he was assuming the other meaning and miscorrected me. It wouldn't make much sense for me to say "I'm lazy about my own stuff but not the other's" and be referring to one person, since it's unlikely that in talking about editing I'm going say "I'm lazy about mine, but not Steve's" and refer to Steve as "the other". Do you see what I mean? It would just be really awkward and a highly unlikely construction. Others', the possesive version, will almost always refer to multiple people since one is more likely to say his or hers if they are referring to something that belongs to one other person . . . or we would say "other guy's/girl's" The longer I spent thinking about that headline the more distaste I had for it.

Kara, that's not quite right. I see what you are trying to say. However, the logic is a little flawed. It would be perfectly reasonable to say, "I'm lazy about editing my own writing but I'm not lazy when I edit another person's writings." That is what *I* thought you were trying to say. I just assumed that you dropped half of the words (an, person, and writings).

Laura, I really wasn't trying to rewrite the sentence. I was just giving a quick pointer.

There is one way to avoid the whole situation...

What's that?

Grammar rodeo, a la Thunderdome. Two people with too much time on their hands enter, only one leaves.