TENNIS PLAYERS (Off-Court Shenanigans)

[Suliso]

Didn't know he went to college. I thought he was one of those "natural" mathematical monsters, self taught.

His father, a pastor, was a friend of Bernoulli family. Young Euler started with taking classes from Jacob Bernoulli, a professor in Basel, and later was close to Johann Bernoulli who himself was one of the foremost mathematicians of the time.

[JazzNU]

This thread is getting delightfully embarrassing

And somehow, that was only the start. Becoming a geekfest around these parts.

[ponchi101]

...

And somehow, that was only the start. Becoming a geekfest around these parts.

(Don't take it personally, P, don't take it personally... )

[ptmcmahon]

Years ago I heard a tennis commentator say "Literally everyone is jumping on the Fed train." I just wanted to scream at the TV that he meant exactly the opposite of literally. (This kind of thing upsets English teachers. I know, we are no fun to be around). Well, he's now half right, so I'll eat half of my words.

Kevin

The problem is even Webster gave up and changed their definition of literally to basically say “can be used to mean figuratively.” So even when we try to correct people they can throw that in our faces

What I’ve tried to do to combat is to intentionally misuse figuratively instead

[JazzNU]

I'm really starting to get concerned about everyone in social settings. Please tell me you guys are not at parties correcting people's grammar and offering up little factoids no one asked for like Rain Man.

[Suliso]

No worries, we can talk mindless subjects too

(history of science among my many interests)

[dmforever]

I'm really starting to get concerned about everyone in social settings. Please tell me you guys are not at parties correcting people's grammar and offering up little factoids no one asked for like Rain Man.

Wow, Duly noted and super aggressive. And no, I"m not on the autism spectrum here, though if I were, I might find the Rain Man reference a little off putting. Maybe we just need to not communicate with each other for a while. I'll go first.

Kevin

[JazzNU]

Wow, Duly noted and super aggressive. And no, I"m not on the autism spectrum here, though if I were, I might find the Rain Man reference a little off putting. Maybe we just need to not communicate with each other for a while. I'll go first.

Kevin

What I wrote was a joke, something to be taken lightly the way @suliso did. Nothing remotely aggressive about it. The Rain Man reference was about the factoids, him being autistic never entered my mind.

[ptmcmahon]

I'm really starting to get concerned about everyone in social settings. Please tell me you guys are not at parties correcting people's grammar and offering up little factoids no one asked for like Rain Man.

I can confirm I am definitely not at any parties lately... correcting grammar or otherwise

If I was though, if I was with close friends I would 100% not hesitate to make fun of them for using literally, ironic, etc wrong...although many of them are like me. With people I barely know or strangers I definitely would not. In fact my friends often complain because I'm a jerk to them but nice to people I don't know.

[ponchi101]

Combining peeves: I literally could care less!!!!
I agree that this use of literally for everything that is not drives me insane: "I literally died!!" (No, you didn't. You are here telling me about it).
The other I dislike is: I could care less. Well, thanks, and please do, so you can reach the state at which YOU COULDN'T CARE LESS.
My last one is: the overuse of "unsustainable". The word is about to lose meaning because everything that is being used is being done so at a rate that is unsustainable. Randall Munroe drew up a graph in which he plotted that the rate of use of the word unsustainable is unsustainable. it was brilliant.

[atlpam]

Maybe we need a non-tennis thread to air our grammar grievances.

[meganfernandez]

Maybe we need a non-tennis thread to air our grammar grievances.

What's funny is, this apparently bothers me -- an editor who diagrams sentences for fun -- a lot less than it bothers the rest of you grammar police. (Not sure if there are other editors or writers in these ranks.) Here, I wanna end a sentence with a preposition willy-nilly.

[ponchi101]

Maybe we need a non-tennis thread to air our grammar grievances.

Well, we have never hijacked a topic, right?
Going serious. One thing that always attracted me about TAT1.0, and of course, the new site, is the quality of the writing. We have lost some people that were superb at it (Craig Hickman, Glenn Hartmann, Drop-shot, a few others) but overall, the clearness of exposition has always been, to me, above average.
You seldom see an improperly constructed sentence. The clarity of exposition may be at times convoluted, but as a group of writers, it is frequent that you find a post that is grammatically delicious.
Heck, we never say "y'awl should lurn to right best..."

[atlpam]

Maybe we need a non-tennis thread to air our grammar grievances.

What's funny is, this apparently bothers me -- an editor who diagrams sentences for fun -- a lot less than it bothers the rest of you grammar police. (Not sure if there are other editors or writers in these ranks.) Here, I wanna end a sentence with a preposition willy-nilly.

I worked as a technical writer for awhile. My HS English teacher gave us a list of comma rules and whenever we used a comma, we had to note the rule in the margin. To this day, I still subconsciously apply comma rules.

[atlpam]

Maybe we need a non-tennis thread to air our grammar grievances.

Well, we have never hijacked a topic, right?
Going serious. One thing that always attracted me about TAT1.0, and of course, the new site, is the quality of the writing. We have lost some people that were superb at it (Craig Hickman, Glenn Hartmann, Drop-shot, a few others) but overall, the clearness of exposition has always been, to me, above average.
You seldom see an improperly constructed sentence. The clarity of exposition may be at times convoluted, but as a group of writers, it is frequent that you find a post that is grammatically delicious.
Heck, we never say "y'awl should lurn to right best..."

This is one of the things I love about this forum - I always feel like I'm in a group of like-minded friends (even if we don't always agree).