Are you a person of information?

[prillalar]

You know those things that people get wrong and it really annoys you? I'd like to hear two of them. Preferably, one should be more specialized knowledge that you'd like to educate people about. Here are mine:

Everyone ought to already know: Bees do not bite. They sting.

I'd like you to know: There's no such thing as a "kudo". Kudos is a Greek word, right out of Homer. It's singular, not plural. It means glory or renown. So, you can say "Kudos to you" but not "I give you one kudo".

Go on, educate me!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

every fetus is initially female.

"fuck" was never an acronym for "fornication under the consent of the king".

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Everyone ought to already know: It's a lot. Not "alot".

I'd like you to know: Particulate is an adjective. Particle is a noun. Particulate matter is made up of particles.

[tripoli8.livejournal.com]

Everyone ought to already know: Woman is a noun. Female is a noun and an adjective. A "woman doctor" is not the same thing as a "female doctor". Think I'm kidding? Call AT&T asking to speak to a man operator and see how far you get.

I'd like you to know: The plural of octopus is octopodes, not octopi. Declining the singular -us to the plural -i *is* correct, in Latin, but octopus is Greek.

(Although come to think of it, Hal, you read Greek and Latin, don't you? So you probably already knew that.)


There are a lot of grammar fundamentalists on this flist :-D

[supergrover24.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

There is never an 's' at the end of anyway.

The easy way to remember the difference between principal and prinicple is that the princiPAL will be your PAL. (I learned that in a Beverly Cleary book.)

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

The Immaculate Conception refers not to the conception of Christ, but to the conception of the Virgin Mary.

Galileo didn't invent the telescope.

Ooh, cool thread!

[sherrold.livejournal.com]

Not all cool prehistoric monsters were dinosaurs -- Neither pterodactyls, sea-serpents, giant lizards, nor pelycosaurs were dinosaurs.

You can use till and until interchangeably in both writing and speech -- they mean the same thing, and both words arose at approximately the same time. Therefore, using 'til is just silly, when the word till already exists to serve that task.

[phoenixw.livejournal.com]

Everyone ought to know: Less is a unit of measure applied to indiscrete units: things you don't count individually. Fewer is the unit of measure applied to discrete units: things you do count. So it's "less money" but "fewer dollars". I wish more journalists would remember that before writing "Less People Attend College".

I'd like you to know: The current statutory rate for a US copyright is 7.1 cents per song. (http://law.freeadvice.com/intellectual_property/music_law/calculation_royalties.htm)

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

1) Gentlemen are supposed to remove their hats whenever they enter a building.

2) The term "Mrs." should never be used with a woman's first name, as "Mrs." means 'the wife of.' Therefore, Alice Longbottom would be "Mrs. Frank Longbottom," but "Mrs. Alice Longbottom" would be some unknown woman married to Alice.

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Everybody ought to know: the term "light-year" is a unit of distance, not time.

I'd like to you to know: the word moot means "a point worthy of discussion" in the British idiom, and exactly the opposite in the American idiom. Weird.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

with regard to the first one - what? Can I have more info?

[kelly-yoyo.livejournal.com]

There is no such word as "wonderment."

Baseball caps are the ugliest headwear ever invented and should be banned. Banned I say!!

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

The idea is that Mary was somehow conceived without the stain of Original Sin, and that made her pure enough to be the mother of Christ.

Here's a handy link on the subject: http://www.catholic.com/library/Immaculate_Conception_and_Assum.asp

[kelly-yoyo.livejournal.com]

My octopus friend would like to thank you for clearing that up.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is acceptable for a widow to use her first name and her late husband's last name.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Eating too much sugar does not cause diabetes.

Prince Charles' late wife was not Princess Diana. She was Diana, Princess of Wales.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

The Immaculate Conception refers not to the conception of Christ, but to the conception of the Virgin Mary.

damn. that was mine. ;)

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

well, since the immaculate conception is taken, i'll just pass along that j.s. bach did not write the famous toccata and fugue in d minor.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Ack! I'm poking around this site some more, and it just told me I'm a Catholic! *cries* I always thought one only became a Catholic at confirmation, and I never even made my First Holy Communion. Dammit. Is there any accepted way of getting rid of one's Catholicism? I somehow doubt this site has a handy guide.

Twenty years a Catholic and I never knew. I think I need a drink.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

*poking around the internet some more* Apparently even the ceremony of anathema doesn't stop one being a Catholic. This is most irritating. Especially since catholic.com defines the age of reason as seven, and I'd abjured religion before that.

I'll use my most irreligious icon in a vain attempt at deCatholicisation.

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

Ethelred was called the Unready because he was without Rede, or counsel. Not because he was late.

To be truly classed a ship, a vessel must have at least three masts and be square-rigged on each.

[meret.livejournal.com]

If you bite (ingest) something and you get sick it's poisonous. If something bites you and you get sick it's venomous.

No where in the bible does it say Mary Magdelene was a prostitute. It says she was possessed by demons, and Jesus cast them out of her. The catholic church came up with the prostitute story because she was too popular a figure. According to the gnostic gospels, she was Jesus's head disciple, and the head of the church in Jerusalum after his death.

shipping wars :-)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Heh, I think that's been superseded. In the American Navy, all vessels are "ships" except for submarines, which are "boats". Although I suppose they all have masts, of a sort, none of them are square-rigged.

Technically, a "yacht" is any vessel used exclusively for pleasure. So you could classify your kayak or rowboat as a yacht, I suppose!

Finally, a sailboat with one mast and one headsail is a sloop; a sailboat with one mast and two headsails is a cutter. A true cutter has the forestays set differently than a sloop, so when a few manufacturers came up with the idea of putting a removable forestay aft of the main one, cutter purists called these boats "slutters" instead. Almost my favorite boat type name, losing out to the "hermaphrodite brig" which is a sort of cross between a schooner and a brigantine.

Re: shipping wars :-)

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

Whoops, meant to specify a sailing vessel. You can tell I ignore anything without masts, can't you?

I wish I'd known the 'slutter' term when I had a cutter-rigged sloop. *g*

[wisdomeagle]

1. "Nauseous" does not mean sick to your stomach. It means that you cause other people to be nauseated, which is what you are when you see something icky (or nauseous).

2. Catholic != Christian. Likewise, Protestant != Christian. Both are subgroups of Christianity. I haven't heard this one so much since high school, but it still causes me stress to remember.

[wisdomeagle]

Thank you and amen! That is a continual source of annoyance.