Topic

Grammar Pedants' Corner

"You've already shook your elemental bag today." (Or something like that.) Should be "You've already shaken your elemental bag today." Or, if you want to keep the verb as "shook," you could just take out that pesky helping verb: "You already shook your elemental bag today."

Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • +1
    Posted 7 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 (hug-free) for Sirentist. And maybe also for her grammarlicious pedantry.
    Posted 7 months ago by Voluptua Sneezelips Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1! \o/
    Posted 7 months ago by Moi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1
    Posted 7 months ago by Lila Clemenceau Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you for posting about this. It grated on me too.
    Posted 7 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There's quite a few throughout the game. Maybe we should have a thread entirely for grammar?
    Posted 7 months ago by arcturus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally agree with the idea of keeping the grammar stuff in one thread. That's why I titled this "Grammar Pedant's Corner" instead of "The Elemental Bag Pop-Up Text Is Grammatically Incorrect." Heh.

    So arcturus, please feel free to add your observations here! 

    Edited to add:

    I just realized I need to change the title to "Grammar Pedants' Corner" if anyone besides me is going to use it as a special place to demonstrate pedantry. I think this realization means I just got totally pedantic with my own self. Now I'm pedantic AND meta. I don't know whether I should feel proud or sheepish.

    .
    .
    .

    Annnnnd, I was so busy with being pedantic about my own pedantry I forgot to do what I came here to do in the first place. Which was say whenever I use a Reshuffle Card to reshuffle my upgrade options, the local chat growl says: "You reshuffleed a Reshuffle Card."  

    I kind of like this error, though, because in my mind it ends up being a combination of shuffling and fleeing at the same time. Like I'm a card shark on the lam or something.
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But fleeing is still fled?

    I noticed that too, haha.
    Posted 7 months ago by Moi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 ;p;
    Posted 7 months ago by daniel5457 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A card shark getting ... de-fleaed? Getting the opposite of de-fleaed? Okay. That doesn't sound as cool. I don't want to have fleas. 
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Most of the recipe titles are oddly worded too. 
    'You want to stir with a beaker?'
    'You want to use with a cauldron?'
    'You want to use with an awesome pot?'
    Posted 7 months ago by arcturus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the "use with", etc., were intended as jokes. That's always how I've taken 'em. Though mebbe I jus' crazy.
    Posted 7 months ago by Voluptua Sneezelips Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Spelling issue with Bubble-licioius upgrade:

    Some might argue that tuning Bubbles is a frivolous pass time. But what do they know? With this upgrade, you'll occasionally earn extra Imagination when using your Bubble Tuner... and show them who's boss!

    "pass time" should be "pastime".

    ==============

    "Beenier Harvest" should be "Beanier Harvest".
    Posted 7 months ago by TomC Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In the description for the Gassier Harvest upgrade ("Etherial inclinations regarding Gas Trees, which increases your chance of a 4X harvest."), "Etherial" should be "Ethereal," "Gas Trees" should be "Gas Plants," and the verb "increases" should be "increase." 

    (Also the "which" is a little confusing there; might make more sense to say it "Ethereal inclinations regarding Gas Plants that will increase your chance of getting a 4X harvest.
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just found this one on an upgrade card (Better Blockmaker):

    "Study the intricacies of Urth, such that your blockmaker to use 20% less fuel"

    ... should be something like "...such that your blockmaker uses 20% less fuel"
    Posted 7 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Card" needs to be plural here (local chat text):

    You gave *person* 3 Get Out of Hell Free Card
    Posted 7 months ago by Voluptua Sneezelips Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Land sakes- so meny of them!

    thanks!

    (Don't expect the 'use with' types to change anytime soon though. And some of the unusual verb structure in some places may not change soon either. ;)
    Posted 7 months ago by kevbob Subscriber! | Permalink
  • typo report on a card upgrade: Fuel Effiency
    Posted 7 months ago by Guided by Foxes Subscriber! | Permalink
  • On a person's home/house page, the text sometimes suffers from an overabundance of Os: "[person's name] has not choosen to share anything about their home yet."  
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So, after dealing with the "overabundance of Os" problem (gotta love it!),, whatcha gonna do about the use of "their" with a single person as referent: "[person's name has not choosen to share anything about their home yet."     {Oh, okay, and now I'm stuck wondering where the heck to put the question mark that I would like to stick at the end of the previous sentence!!}

    Where are the grammar fairies when you need them? I CLEARLY do not qualify as one.
    Posted 7 months ago by gilbert whisper Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oy! Sorry about the missing AND extraneous punctuation I managed to include in that last message...
    Posted 7 months ago by gilbert whisper Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've had to sort of let go of the they/them/their as singular thing. I don't use that construction except when I'm specifically trying to protect anonymity, but I don't object to it. And it looks like glum pudding just now pointed out the choosen typo over in the forum thread, so it's probably all taken care of by now, yay!
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I still point out the "they/their" thing occasionally. I figured if the sentence was going to get fixed, maybe that fix could go in too. But perhaps I should go with the changin' o' the times...
    Posted 7 months ago by gilbert whisper Subscriber! | Permalink
  • And about those butterflies!!!
    Posted 7 months ago by Koftun Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, if we're going to be pedantic, "they" has been used in the singular since Chaucer at an absolute minimum. (Here's a list of the OED citations for it.)  If you haven't managed to change with the times since the 14th century, I'm really not sure what to tell you. =)  Suffice it to say, it's not an error unless English manages to evolve something else for a gender-neutral third person singular.  For the curious, the best linguistic guess right now is that they/their took over when English dropped the last vestiges of grammatical gender sometime in the 13th century.  It didn't fall out of favor until the late 17th century.  I haven't seen any documentation that indicates that the campaigns against it in the last 300 or so years have had any impact on the frequency of use, either formally or informally.

    Oh, and where you put the question mark depends on whether you're using the American or British standards.
    Posted 7 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • An unrelated-to-the-above note -- I had always assumed the use of "etherial" was a subtle pun rather than a typo.  It pulls it back to the original meaning of "ethereal" (which, at the time, was often spelled "etherial") and gives it a greater connotation of "characterized by/belonging to ether".  Thus, ephemeral and specifically gassy at the same time.

    ETA: I realize that this explanation isn't all that likely, but I really want it to be true.
    Posted 7 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Okay, I guess I stand corrected then, sort of, maybe! I'm not sure most people would get the subtle pun, but that's probably only because I didn't get it. One's personal experience is never a strong place to argue from, so even though I thought (and still think) it was a simple typo, I concede the point. Thanks for showing me another way to look at it!
    Posted 7 months ago by Sirentist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The scientist pedant in me wants to point out that the picture of the object called a beaker is actually of a flask. Beakers are more cylindrical (like the vessel used in the tincturing kit).
    Posted 7 months ago by Trixie Leitz Subscriber! | Permalink