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Me: X or not X?There was one guy I worked with who I used to do this to a lot. It wasn't deliberate it was just the exhausting way he would ask questions so if it was the latter I would just say yes to get him to shut up.
Pedant: Yes
Me: Close the light, please.
Well, that's just plain fucked up. May as well ask someone to bounce up and down on the light, or hyperventilate the light.
: Um, I think I am sometimes that person.Heh. Sometimes, as I recall. There was a correction of my pronunciation of Camille Paglia, if memory serves, but it's not as if it bugged me enough to be able to recall it eight or so years later. [/gently teasing remark which I hope is taken in the spirit in which it is intended]
At last, I had gained entry to the Annual General Meeting of the Society of Pedants. I had spotted an empty chair towards the front.Read more here - you might want to use BugMeNot
"Is there anyone sitting here?" I asked the man in a polo-neck who was sitting next to it. He peered long and hard at the chair.
"No," he replied. So I sat down on it. "However," he continued, "My wife is expecting to sit there in just over two minutes' time, at the commencement of the meeting".
I apologised and moved on. Three rows back, I spotted another empty chair. I re-phrased my question.
"Has this chair been taken?" I said, "I mean, is it free? Or - to put it another way - has it been reserved?" "To answer your three questions in the order in which they were asked," replied the woman next to it. "The chair in question has not been taken, otherwise it would not be here; there is no extra charge for it, so, to that extent, it is free; and, no, it is facing the right way."
"I know it is facing the right way," I said.
"I'm sorry," replied the woman, "I have mild dyslexia. I thought you asked if it had been reversed."
Oh, yeah, nauseous/nauseated is a good one for the insufferable pedant in your life.I prefer nauseated but I don't correct others. The synomymous use of nauseous is very old and accepted.
You imply, I infer. Thsi misuse of those two drives me bats, but I gave up long ago.One way that I more subtly correct people is to very casually use the correct pronunciation/usage almost immediately after their misuse. There are also some underused words that are extremely useful and I'll conspicuously (though hopefully not ostentatiously) use them to serve as an example. Infer is a perfect example.
Another word that's constantly abused is literally.
"Glass is a liquid and old windows show that it flows" is a "fact" commonly taught in high school and even college classrooms. People are extremely reluctant to accept that they were misled.I'm extremely reluctant to accept the truth about glass because the idea of it being a very slow flowing liquid is just so darn poetic. It should be true, even if it isn't.