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"Steal Pendulum Clock"
Sorry he's still using frames, so click in the left frame on "Modern Clocks." So, if the message is to "steal pendulum clocks," it really should say clocks, not clock. On the other hand, welders [oops, artists] may not need to be proficient in English if their works sell [or get stolen often enough to demonstrate their value in the market...]. Can you spell "Steel" if that's what you meant?
Here will live the goofs from Neil George, KCI Communications, Inc. [editorial@kci-com.com]
It isn't that hard to push a sharp metal point through a piece of thin cardboard or to read the ballot and make sure I'm voting for the correct fellows (and against some hair-brained new tax initiative).
Neil, the term you really were looking for was hare-brained. i.e., with the intellectual power of a bunny.
Another from ...John Mauldin's Weekly E-Letter
When I suggest that things will not be all that bad, that we are not headed for a depression or worse and that gold is merely a neutral currency I am met with blank stairs [sic].
While I love John's writings on finance and investing, I think I'm going to need to add a section here just for him.... (stares, John, not stairs; I won't even bother to explain why).... just remember, a spell-checker will not catch this kind of error. Is it a "typo" or a "think-o." At the very least, it's a "spell-o."
From another [financial] newsletter...John Mauldin's Weekly E-Letter
"This is not my usual gentile style, as I take the gloves off."
Ah, "Gentile" is a term used to describe "Non-Jewish People." They usually leave their gloves on???
The content of the e-letter is much better than some grammar and usage, though... :) and he is generally a very genteel writer!
June 21, 2003
from a newsletter I used to receive...
[Reproductions. If you would like to reproduce any of Gary Halbert's E-Letters or commentary, you must include the source of your quote and the following email address: GaryHalbert@InvestorsInsight.com. Please write to Reproductions@InvestorsInsight.com and inform us of any reproductions including where and when the copy will be reproduced.]
Well, you did insist...
"The public will be waiting with baited breath...."
ah, well, let's check the ol' dictionary....
"USAGE NOTES: The word baited is sometimes incorrectly substituted for the etymologically correct but unfamiliar word bated ("abated; suspended") in the expression bated breath."
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Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Guarenteed Mastercard with a minimum $250.00 credit line. [and]
Guarenteed Credit Card!!!, Travel Discounts Plus MUCH more........
Thenks, custserv@beer.com, but no thenks....
"The statistics bare out what we should all realize intuitively:"
Well, that should uncover the facts and get them out in the open....
..but didn't you really mean, "bear"? I think so.
Heck, what could be worse? A bare market? [sorry...]
"Your a few clicks away from $20.00 in FREE CASH."
Yes, you are [you're] !
March, 1999.... Now, this isn't a real Verbal Vigilante issue, but doesn't literacy count?
Parking Lot Scene at the Spouting Horn, Kauai, Hawaii. Can you read the words on the parking lot pavement, "Buses Only"?
"THEIR HERE!"
July 7, 1997.... I'm standing in front of a shelf at Sears, in the Paint section.
Just above the "Olympic Stain" products is a label, "All Olympic Stane Save $3.00"
A cash bargain; a spelling deficit....
Making Diffusion safer for us all... by pulling the plug on it?
From Popular Science Magazine, May 1997, page 48: caption on the photo in the lower left corner of the page:
"The lighter gases defused more rapidly into the rock...."
Did they really mean de-fuse: tr.v. 1. To remove the fuse from (an explosive device). 2. To make less dangerous? How about....
dif-fuse: v. 1. To pour out and cause to spread freely. 2. To spread about or scatter; disseminate.
Instead?
Maybe they just got back from the Martian Lander site (see below)
Back to basics.... We're still having trouble splitting those phrases apart, aren't we? Would you say, "...our friends are tired of hearing I rave about....."??? Hopefully, not likely!
Try it with the second one, too: "If you're anything like I,....." Well, I can't get any further than that before I know that I is not the right word to use there! For $2.50 US per page, the Verbal Vigilante will proofread your work: advertising copy, resumes, etc.!
However, you'll hear lots of people pronounce it like this: Ho-Mah"-juh-niss'.
Are they confusing:
Homogeneous (Uniform in structure or composition throughout) with
Homogenize (To make uniform in consistency, as in milk), which is pronounced Ho-Mah"-juh-nize' ? That's the Verbal Vigilante's bet.
Whether it's your nuclear family or your (your?!) nuclear reactor, the pronunciation is:
NOO"-Klee-Ur'.
Just look at the spelling: nu cle ar. The clues are right there.
"Wall brackets to hang verticle or horizontal"
Well, you might think they'd have gotten a clue from horizontal?
The way you can hang it is vertical, team!
And special thanks on 8/1/00 to Matt M. for catching the Verbal Vigilante getting too excited about "verticle" versus "vertical" and missing the grammatical point that the brackets hang vertically or horizontally ! Thanks, Matt!
Congratulations to Gallerie De Bautte! Many of the typos and spelling and grammatical errors have been corrected!
The metalwork is quite attractive, too!
+af
The word is "Lose" [looz], not "Loose" [loos], and it puzzles the heck out of me how this mistake can occur. You may set something loose, but only if it doesn't come back, can you say that you really did lose it!
And again, 5/14/97 in...
"Luann" comic by Greg Evans, San Jose Mercury News...
Bernice says to Luann, "Stealing?! I didn't steal Gunther from you, Luann. You cut him lose so you could be with Aaron!"
"Chuck suddenly wonders if ringing [sic] one's hands has the same sanitary effects as washing one's hands --- thus worrying himself out of a flu shot"
How about "wringing" those hands, Jerry?
Well RING my chimes, Weight Watchers® ? but that word isn't apPEALing to me! You should have used the word peel"!
Gasp, choke! You're asking me to "give the report to Joe... or to give the report to myself?"
Break items like this in two:
Give the report to Joe. ... and ...
Give the report to .... myself?!
Much better to say: "Give the report to me" !
Check some dictionary examples.....
a. Used reflexively: I bought myself a new car. b. Used for emphasis: I myself was certain of the facts. c. Used in an absolute construction: In office myself, I helped her get a job.
© The American Heritage Dictionary
A site is a location; the intended meaning was "within view of".
Do you think that's what the writer had their sights set on? ....And missed? ....
Do you think that the author might have meant to say, "Growth Path Superior to the Competition's"?
They really didn't mean that our product was a better way to get to to the competitors' products!
I thought it might have been a typo, but the article's text continued...
"No matter what you did, you were always behind and peddling your bicycle faster and faster trying to keep up...." and "....as long as you were able to keep peddling along...." !
Yes, you'd better "peddle" [sell] hard, or your sales may fall, but with the references to bicycles, the author really should have used the word "pedal" !
The word may look like it's pronounced seperate, but it's spelled separate.
Hint: a "paring" knife separates the peel from the apple.
There are quite a few words with ei in them. Remember "i before e, except after c, or when sounded like a, as in neighbor and weigh"?
There are more exceptions. Here are some of them. Can you find more?
The American Heritage Dictionary puts it this way:
kludge or kluge ("klooj") n. Slang. A system, especially a computer system, that is constituted of poorly matched elements or of elements originally intended for other applications. [Origin unknown.] --kludge v. --kludgy adj.
People spell it "kludge". Heck, even the dictionary spells it "kludge"! But what's wrong here?
It's pronounced "klooj", right? You pronounce it that way, right? Rhymes with Scrooge, right? Sooooo....
Where did the "d" come from?!!
If it's named after someone called "Kludge", and that's how he/she pronounced their name, that's all well and good. On the other hand, I offer you the following fairly common English words and I ask you to say them out loud with me....
I'll bet the original spelling came from a spelling-challenged individual...
Spell it kluge, starting today!
On 07.15.2004, I was corrected by Roedy Green, Canadian, who emphatically informed me that:
"The word is pronounced in my part of the world to rhyme with fudge, and rarely as kloodge. But almost never klooge. So kludge is the natural spelling as well."
Thanks, Roedy! I sit, corrected.
But if they pronounce it "klooj" where you live, you still might want to reconsider the spelling... :)
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