Archive for Peeves
Pet peeve: The phrase up to [some number] or more. I see this now and then in ads, in lines like (made-up example) “The battery lasts up to 8 hours or more!” If you take that phrase literally, it’s meaningless—the battery might last less than 8 hours, or it might last more, who knows? Vaguely […]
The language I have learnt these forty years, my native English, now I must forgo; and now my tongue’s use is to me no more than an unstringèd viol or a harp, or like a cunning instrument cased up, or, being open, put into his hands that knows no touch to tune the harmony. Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue, doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips, and dull unfeeling barren ignorance is made my jailor to attend on me.
I feel like I see this kind of thing a lot in sf stories. Made-up example: “Feh!” she said, in perfect unaccented fluent Old High Garzingian. I feel like a single interjection, or any other single word, or even a brief phrase, isn’t really enough of a sample for an observer to be able to […]
I keep seeing articles and blog entries that introduce a term or the name of a company or service or product, and then they say that the thing named “does...