Dear Mikech:

Kindly use that dictionary of yours to look up "your", You're", and "moran".

Never open yourself up like that, you will get criticized.

What a ludicrous whiner. (That "Stan" fellow with the blathering blog.)

"Whom is on the way out." His support, at the article (of his) to which he linked: He thinks it sounds funny. Well then.

Ooh, prescriptivism. How horrible; I guess Weird Al really is wrong, because clearly it is incorrect to say someone is incorrect.


Edit to add: Lol, I just noticed that he sells his services as a proofreader. One wonders whether he's considered the irony.

Someone is unfamiliar with the moran meme, obviously.

and the general concept of a joke

Familiar just fine. Just being super picky.

this has to be a level, right?

no i followed his advice to use dat dictionary of you'res & under the word 'moran" is a picture of WindigoBob!

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...t-Was-Inartful

Is "inartful" a word? Didn't see it in any dictionaries.

I use it regularly; I'd be surprised to hear that it's not well documented.

artless sounds better to my ears -- inartful sounds a bit, well, inartful

I think that's the point maybe. I've also heard "unartful" but I like "inartful" better.

Google Ngram viewer shows "inartful" and "unartful" as very rare compared to "artless." (Interestingly, "artless" itself shows a steady downturn after peaking in the early 1800s. It appears that the very concept has become less important. )

"Unartful" (which peaks around 1760) is, though infrequent, much more common than "inartful" -- until the middle of the twentieth century, when it becomes as rare as, and sometimes more rare than, "inartful."

As well, "artful" has always been more common that "artless," but it peaks in the later eighteenth century (at which point it appears about seven times more often than "artless"), and has now declined to the point that it is only a little more frequent that "artless."

While I can't in good conscience consider myself a "duck", I do indeed consider myself rare. Therefore, inartful it is.

I thought this was kind of odd until I remembered that which would probably account for the spike as the term came to be used in the vernacular.

This blurb amused me when I saw it earlier today: "Tiger Woods withdraws from [whatever tournament is being played this weekend] with an apparent injury." I'm not sure if it's bad journalism or bad word usage, but I'm leaning toward the latter.

What do you think is wrong with it?

He either has an injury or he hasn't. He can't have an apparent injury. You can't be a bit pregnant.

It probably means the injury is unconfirmed or unverified. I have no problem with the sentence.

What are you talking about? I don't understand why issues of grammar make ignorant people so sententious. It's not like this stuff is hard to verify. Whatever wannabe pedant tricked you into thinking apparent only applies to indubitable conditions isn't the arbiter of the language, and neither are you.

Let me check a dictionary:

3. according to appearances, initial evidence, incomplete results, etc.; ostensible rather than actual: He was the apparent winner of the election.

"Durr, he either won or he didn't. He can't be an apparent winner. You can't be a bit pregnant."

Let me check another dictionary:

2. seeming, as opposed to real: his apparent innocence belied his complicity in the crime

"Durr, he was either innocent or not. He can't be apparently innocent. You can't be a bit pregnant."

Try thinking before you post. It makes the forums better.

Oooh, let's check that dictionary again:

ap·par·ent adjective \ə-ˈper-ənt, -ˈpa-rənt\

: easy to see or understand

: seeming to be true but possibly not true

His injury was obvious. The dude fell down, ferksissakes.

While not trying to be overly pedantic, wouldn't "It's not as if this is hard to verify" be more fitting here?

If the injury is apparent, tell us what it is. If it's unclear what the injury is but it's clear that he's injured, say that he withdrew because of an injury. If you don't know whether he withdrew because of an injury, say that.

"Tiger Woods withdraws from WCG-Bridgestone Invitational with what is probably an injury, judging from how we saw him moving, but we don't know with certainty that it's an injury" Is that what you want? There's a much more elegant way to say this, and it's the title they went with.