Tiki Spelling & Grammar Police

On 2010-05-05 21:42, RevBambooBen wrote:

wada'ya call cinco demayo in China?

chinko demayo!

(sp??)

FYI, the term "Chink" is considered a racial slur and is offensive to those in the Asian American community.

In the future, please use the more politically correct terms, "Oriental" or "Chinamen".

Thank You.

Weather - the temperature, wind, rain, etc.
Whether - 2 or more alternatives
Wither - to shrivel
Wether - a castrated goat or sheep

Ooooo. I thought this was about Tori Spelling....

Fenster Wood Go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na9XnZfZjDU

In the future, please use the more politically correct terms, "Oriental" or "Chinamen".

Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.

Websight instead of website

On 2010-05-06 16:11, Professor Pineapple wrote:

In the future, please use the more politically correct terms, "Oriental" or "Chinamen".

Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.

Yes, everybody knows "slant" is the proper term.

Wierd.

It's weird.

Weird, huh?

That 'i before e excpet after c" nonsense has screwed up many people. Mainly cuz we only learn the first bit of the poem. And we only learn the first bit because the rest of the poem becomes clunky and forgettable.

My grandmother knew the whole poem and could rattle it off in her sing-songy slightly snide school teacher voice. I didn't pay attention as she was always telling people how to do things correctly. (Thank God I didn't inherit that family trait.)

There are more weird exceptions to "i before e" and you can find books about it at your local library. (CUE: rainbow and stars)

Or you can just give up and go with the no caps spell-it-how-you-feel-it flow. It's the way of the future. It'll be the one bright spot of the machines becoming our overlords, hearing a computer voice say Teh gay! when it disapproves of an action. Then, as it shocks you with a cattle prod a sad face emoticon will cross its visual display screen and it'll say "w00t! EPIC FAIL!!! EPIC FAIL!!!"

On 2010-05-09 10:56, GROG wrote:

On 2010-05-06 16:11, Professor Pineapple wrote:

In the future, please use the more politically correct terms, "Oriental" or "Chinamen".

Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.

Yes, everybody knows "slant" is the proper term.

We're not talkin' about a guy that built the railroads here, Walter. He peed on my rug!

One of my Craigslist faves is rot iron :)

"One of my Craigslist faves is rot iron"

That's hilarious. I've never seen that one, but iron furniture is off my radar.

Technically most "wrought iron" is not in fact wrought iron. But that's one more little factoid I won't argue with people. I know when they say "wrought iron" they mean decorative metal furniture.

One of my pet peeves:
Effect and Affect, used indiscriminately and interchangeably.
Heaven help me, I've got a lot of peeves in our kennel.

On 2010-05-13 21:40, Limbo Lizard wrote:
One of my pet peeves:
Effect and Affect, used indiscriminately and interchangeably.
Heaven help me, I've got a lot of peeves in our kennel.

That is an especially tough one sometimes - even I have to pause to think about the correct usage at times.

On 2010-05-12 06:59, woofmutt wrote:
"One of my Craigslist faves is rot iron"

That's hilarious. I've never seen that one, but iron furniture is off my radar.

Technically most "wrought iron" is not in fact wrought iron. But that's one more little factoid I won't argue with people. I know when they say "wrought iron" they mean decorative metal furniture.

Woof - the other version of "rot" iron is "rod" iron - which makes a LITTLE more sense, but...!

On 2010-05-14 08:14, Mongoloid wrote:

Writer of Princess Ka'iulani' movie takes pop shot at Tiki Bars:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100514/LIFE/5140330/+Ka+iulani++film+a+regal+portrayal

He writes: "The single most important thing this film is going to accomplish is to show the world that the Hawaiian people had a real culture, real history, and undo a lot of damage this tiki-bar culture has done over the years."

I think you meant "Potshot" not "Pop shot". See definitions below:

Potshot: A critical remark made in a random or sporadic manner.

Pop Shot:

1. A quickly aimed or haphazard shot with a firearm.

2. A slang term used to describe a person ejaculating (in film or video, or image in a pornographic magazine), usually onto a person or object.

The latter is pretty funny to visualize in the context of the original post. :)

Number two also means "Money shot"......!!!

Don't ask me why I know that!

On 2010-05-16 19:22, JOHN-O wrote:

On 2010-05-14 08:14, Mongoloid wrote:

Writer of Princess Ka'iulani' movie takes pop shot at Tiki Bars:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100514/LIFE/5140330/+Ka+iulani++film+a+regal+portrayal

He writes: "The single most important thing this film is going to accomplish is to show the world that the Hawaiian people had a real culture, real history, and undo a lot of damage this tiki-bar culture has done over the years."

I think you meant "Potshot" not "Pop shot". See definitions below:

Potshot: A critical remark made in a random or sporadic manner.

Pop Shot:

1. A quickly aimed or haphazard shot with a firearm.

2. A slang term used to describe a person ejaculating (in film or video, or image in a pornographic magazine), usually onto a person or object.

The latter is pretty funny to visualize in the context of the original post. :)

I hope your not going to bust me for chewing gum in class too!!! :)
In a way he was kind of ejaculating on the tiki bar culture with his half cocked insult.
Popshot wasnt really in my vernacular or on my radar i must have phonetically spelled that one out.
Good thing you were on top of that popshot (or somewhere in the vicinity)
Thanks for policeing TC keeping everyone safe from dangerous grammatical offenders like myself. :)

In this end of the world, there is someone who will say on TV during a interview, "I don't seen him." or, "I don't see no car."
It hurts my ears.
Also, I hate hearing, "Me and Bob went to the store."
I always thought it was correct to put the other persons name first; "Bob and I went to the store."

Ifin I makes a spellin misteak bye axident or on porpoise...WHATEVER...I dont kare. :)

On 2010-05-19 21:26, bananabobs wrote:
Also, I hate hearing, "Me and Bob went to the store."
I always thought it was correct to put the other persons name first; "Bob and I went to the store."

I agree. Why the inverse of this is more acceptable, I'll never know. Here's an example:

Cocktail waitress: "So who ordered the round of Mai Tais?"

Bar customer: "Oh that would be for my friend and I".

It sounds classy but it's grammatically incorrect. The correct response should be "Oh that would be for my friend and me."

:)

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2010-05-19 22:20 ]

OK, how about this one? Why is "Tiki" always capitalized? I can understand it if we use the word in the context of overall Tiki culture. Example: "Exotica is the music of Tiki."

If however we're just referring to a Polynesian-style carving, shouldn't it just be "tiki"? I'm not 100% sure about this though. In his books, Bigbro always capitalizes the word.

I capitalize Tiki when referring to the Tiki style...Tiki bars, Tiki peoples, Tiki music, etc. I regard it as the style's proper name. When I'm talking about a mug or carving it's tiki.

It's a minor difference but something of a compromise. I could rant that if something is referred to as tiki it must have a tiki or I could do something else with my time and assume the object referred to as tiki is Tiki.

Whether or not this is correct writing I kinda don't give a damn, and I give less of a damn if my definition isn't the same as someone else's.

"So don't I" instead of "so do I" always seems to irritate me for some reason.

Decided to add "Beijing" as well, which really drives me nuts.

You'd think that after the US returned from the Beijing Olympics, they would begin pronouncing the name of that city with some semblance of correctness.

"Bei" means North and is pronounced "bay" (more or less). "Jing" means capital and is pronounced "jing" (more or less). Granted, this completely ignores the tonal specifications of the vowel sounds (flat, rising, dipping down and up, descending).

"Beijing" (North Capital) is roughly pronounced "bay-jing."

Somehow, broadcasters are compelled to call the place "bay-zhing," which would require that the city be spelled "Beizhing," which it isn't. I'll have to check, but to my knowledge there is no such Chinese word, "zhing" nor "zhin." Whenever I hear someone pronouce Beijing, "bay-zhing" (the "J" is there for a reason), especially, if they've freakin' visited the place, it gives me comfort knowing that "the Ugly American" is alive and well.

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2010-05-20 09:25 ]

The trick with the "me" vs. "I" is to take the other person out of the sentence and see how it sounds. So "Billy and I went to the store" becomes "I went to the store" and "The drinks are for Billy and me." Becomes "The drinks are for me." And just to confuse things, "myself" is just as correct. The use of "me" instead of "myself" is an American usage.

And as I was reminded many times growing up by my English teacher mother, it's not "Can Billy and I go to the store?", it's "May Billy and I go to the store?" We know you're capable of going to the store, you're asking for permission.

I would also like to complain about bad editing - especially in newspapers (I don't care so much when I'm on TC or other web sites) - but newspapers, whether on-line or on my front porch are supposedly paying large sums of money to have someone read and re-read articles for spelling and grammar - not just let the "spell check" do it - and MAN are there some BAAAAAD "editing" jobs out there! I counted 7 mistakes in an article not too long ago! 7! I'm one of those people that just can't let that go when I come across it - I feel like I'm running along a trail and suddenly there's a root in the middle of the path and I trip on it! Takes me a bit to collect myself and figure out what the author was trying to convey and then move on. Good thing I never took the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course - these days I'd be flat on my face on that trail!

My favorite newspaper trick is that they abruptly end the story when they run out of space - the story was 20 lines long but we've only got 17 lines of space, no one will notice. I think they know that most people read the headlines and the first few paragraphs, the rest is just filler - might as well be lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.

On 2010-05-20 16:25, MadDogMike wrote:
My favorite newspaper trick is that they abruptly end the story when they run out of space -

What I hate about newspapers; when the use someone's full name in the beginning of the story and half a page later, they will refer to this person again, simply by their last name. No reference to bring you back up to speed, just the last name. You then have to rescan the article to try and remember who it was.

I used to be a terrible speller and my grammar was sketchy at best but using Microsoft Word has help me 100%, I try to not make errors that it will correct.

What words do you misspell the most?
Restaurant
Appreciate
Equipment (I always want to throw a extra t in there)
Maintenance (Missed it)
Refrigerator (Missed it)
Yacht
Having grown up on Phonics, I try to spell as I hear it and when you mispronounce a word...

One last rant,
Foyer.
Pronunciation: \ˈfȯi(-ə)r, ˈfȯi-ˌ(y)ā also ˈfwä-ˌyā\ I think you are from the backwoods if you say Foy ur I say fȯi-ˌ(y)ā
(Frag geely, must be French!)
And Valance is not pronounced Va Lance

On 2010-05-16 20:10, lucas vigor wrote:
Number two also means "Money shot"......!!!

Don't ask me why I know that!

LOL!
Once that phrase was used in a business meeting, which immediately started a sided conversation unbeknowst to the woman who initially uttered the phrase.

On 2010-05-16 18:53, beadtiki wrote:

On 2010-05-13 21:40, Limbo Lizard wrote:
One of my pet peeves:
Effect and Affect, used indiscriminately and interchangeably.
Heaven help me, I've got a lot of peeves in our kennel.

That is an especially tough one sometimes - even I have to pause to think about the correct usage at times.

Agreed.

Here's an old standard I thought I'd rewarm just for this performance...

It's weird.

Weird. Weird. Weird.

w-e-i-r-d

I generally don't give a crap about other people's spelling, pronunciation, grammar, typos, or malapropisms (look it up*****) as long as intended meaning is communicated. I ain't no good a speller much myself, nor are my hands light on the fingertips when dancing across the keyboard. (OK, I do scratch me head a little when someone who is involved with words or language for a living constantly makes spelling mistakes or typos.)

But weird is one of those words yuh'd figure everyone would have got the memo on by now.

It's the fault of that damned i before e rhyme again.

If only there were some easy way to remember that weird has a weird spelling when it comes to the i before e rule...

*****Bonus points if you don't need to look it up. Extra special Woofmutt Is Impressed, Partner Points [WIPPs] if you know, without research, the seventeen-seventy-something origin of the word.

Something to do with a Mrs. Malaprop?

Everything to do with her. If you knew that off the top of your head: Well done! You possess almost completely useless knowledge that will bore your family and irritate your friends!