Please Note (word choice crankiness division):

[gnomi]

(And, please further note, none of this is directed toward anyone reading here...I've just gotten fed up.)

Word confusion is everywhere. Here are some quick pointers:

Rein and reign: You reign over a land. You give someone free rein.

(also? People are never, never given "free rain." Well, I guess one does not have to pay for weather events. But... no. Never.)

Phase and faze: You can be going through a phase. Characters on certain science fiction television shows can be out of phase. They may or may not be fazed by this turn of events.

Thank you.

Comments

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

But how do you feel about a well-turned fraze?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Pbpbpbpbpbth! :-P

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Well, you could rain over a land. That would be like pouring over a book, but on a regal scale. Sweatin' up a storm, so to speak.

And you could give someone free reign. All the power and none of the responsibility. Certain presidents (or at least their caricatures) may come to mind.

Phase and faze, you've got me there. I can't think of any ambiguities with those two. Well, someone could be so fazed by a dilemma that he phases between the available options. Like the proverbial donkey that starves to death between two bales of hay. In fact, the dilemma could be so fundamental, and the person so fazed by it, that they actually experience quantum phasing, like Schrödinger's cat, if you see what I mean. OK, I'm out.

[madfilkentist]

If you were shot with a phaser, you'd be both fazed and phased.

[dpolicar]

If a Scottish lycanthrope comic-book character became queen of some desert tribe and called in some favors from a former teammate to end the local drought, traditionalists objecting to the artificial precipitation might seek to rein in Rahne's rainy reign.

[gingicat]

Thank you, I needed that giggle. :D

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

Discrete and discreet, taut and taught - I've seen both of those today.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good ones. Yeah. Frequent offenders, those are.

And I adore your icon.

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

You may share the icon if you like - just credit elfgirl. She made it for me.

I have a past entry somewhere with a huge list. I'll see if I can find it.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see your list.

And thanks so much for allowing me to share the icon!

::yoinks::

[tober.livejournal.com]

Failing to use discrete and discreet correctly bugs me nearly as much as failing to use less and fewer correctly.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Less and fewer is one of my pet peeves (along as that vs. which). Our local grocery store (Stop & Shop) has signs that say "10 items or fewer," which pleases me greatly.

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

I frequently go insane staring at the express lane in the grocery store, proudly marked "10 items or LESS". *rage*

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I know folks who have specifically chosen grocery stores based on whether they use "less" or "fewer" on their express lane signs.

And I'm always pleased to find folks for whom differences like this matter.

[gingicat]

I love this icon too!

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

Shareable if you like - just credit elfgirl. I love it - it makes me so happy.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

People are never, never given "free rain." Well, I guess one does not have to pay for weather events.

Not in money terms, but in light of the 2nd paragraph of the sh'ma (Deut. 11:13-21), I'd say the rain comes at a price. At least in Israel and possibly only when a Jewish king reigns there. Other countries may be given free rein without concern for their crops.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Rein and reign

I make that mistake ALL the time. Guilty as charged, ma'am. ;-)

Phase and faze

Oh, man. I've prbably done that, too... *cringes*

Wonton? ;-)

LOL

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Heh. Honestly, I wasn't talking about your or anyone else's manuscript.

And I have a yellow sticky about the wonton, in case I miss it on my original editing pass.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

oh I know, I was just saying I am quite sure I have been guilty of those things. :D

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Well, recognizing that you have a grammar problem is the first step in overcoming it. :-)

[samcdermott65.livejournal.com]

There's "your" and "you're".

I make an effort to be careful of words that sound the same but are spelled and mean very different things. So easy to mess up in the heat of a typing moment. :)

shari

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It's an easy thing to screw up when you're typing. I totally agree. But there are ones -- like the two I list here -- that I see in professionally published materials, and that just makes me twitch like a great twitching thing. Somewhere along the line, that should've been caught and fixed.

[samcdermott65.livejournal.com]

I get twitchy too when I see typos in published works. Makes you wonder if the piece ever got read. These types of errors aren't caught in spell check. They require the human eye. Many publishers have gotten sloppy.

shari

[samcdermott65.livejournal.com]

Shit I did it again! Grrrr! Sorry Nomi!

shari

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

S'okay. :-)

And I agree with you -- publishers should be having actual people look at the manuscripts closely. The general metric is that every editorial pass catches 50% of the remaining errors. So the more passes you have, the more likely you are to catch errors. And it's the obvious ones -- the mixed-up words, the out-and-out typos -- that really bug me.

[half-double.livejournal.com]

publishers should be having actual people look at the manuscripts closely

If only. The most recent anthology I'm in? About which I have already kvetched? In one of the essays there is a reference to that classic Disney ditty, "Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

I'm willing to wager quite a lot of money that that error was not in the essay as originally submitted.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oh, yikes. Editing introducing errors is my worst nightmare, editorialwise.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Not to mention plural vs. possessive...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yup. That's a biggie. Its/it's is the scary one.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

We also run into a lot of people who want to put "The Goldberg's" on their stationery. Argh!

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate that one and I see it all the time! It's right up there with the bomb squad diffusing explosives, in my opinion.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It's right up there with the bomb squad diffusing explosives, in my opinion.

Yup. I've seen that. And it makes me twitch.

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Free Rain.*



*$6.95 Shipping and Handling.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::snerk::