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This reminds me of the malapropism/ poor English quips from Dr.Jeppiyar, who started many prestigious educational Institutions and was noted as a strict disciplinarian. He is arguably one of the main educationalists who brought quality professional education to all in Tamil Nadu. In his time, there were fewer incidents of campus hooliganism or ragging in his colleges. He used to say often - " Here there is only one Dada (Roudy) and that is me ".



I am not sure about the veracity or the lack of it in any of these following attributions:



Some examples:

Open the windows. Let the atmosphere come in.
Open the doors of the window. Let the Air Force come in.
girl girl talk : ok ; boy boy talk: ok, but no boy girl talk
Shhh…Quiet, boys…the principal JUST PASSED AWAY in the corridor
I bath room going why no water coming.

Deleted because multiple people posted the exact same example I posted.

I'd be stumped by that!

I am used to it now, but this one stumped me: "my father is late." I wondered how late and when he would arrive!

Here is my confusion of the day. to flag off: Indian usage or British/American too? I seem to recall knowing that it was Indian, and a quick Google seems to confirm. But it makes sense, as races, etc, may be started with a flag.

Two pet peeves of mine:

1. Learning curves:

A steep learning curve means it is very easy and quick to learn; and a shallow learning curve means it is difficult to learn quickly. It's the very opposite of what people think it means.

It is basically a graph with the X-axis denoting "Time to learn" and the Y-axis denoting "Level of knowledge". So, a steep curve would be one of an extreme slope where the "Time-to-learn" is short and the "Level of knowledge" is very high. So, a shallow curve would indicate a much longer Time and much lower Knowledge.

Most people seem to think it's the opposite of what I just said.

2. Talking the talk and walking the ????:

It is NOT walking the talk, it's walking the walk. The saying is "OK, you can talk the talk (meaning, you say the right things and claim a lot of things and promise a lot of things); but can you walk the walk? (meaning, can you actually DO what you SAY you can do?)". Or "you talk about walking the path, but can you actually walk the path?"

The "Learning curve" does not bother me too much, but I literally cringe every time I hear "Walk the talk".

Cheers

I think that a steep learning curve implies a lot to learn in a very short time. Anyone who has had a steep learning curve can be equated to another idiom - being thrown in the deep end. What you are saying is the technical interpretation. In that regard, one thinks that a lot of learning happens in a short amount of time. However, the usage in language implies that there is an expectation of a lot of learning in a short amount of time.

Walk the walk, and talk the talk, and walking the talk both have generally accepted usage, isn't it? Best exemplified by a Limp Bizkit lyric "Your mouth's writing checks that you *** cant cash". Essentially, not waling the talk.

In this instance (I'm used to tilt being right!) I think that mayankk has it.

I doubt that I'll ever find the link again, but a semi-humerous article on editor wars showed a series of learning curves. I think the steepest was for Emacs, reflecting "just try doing anything much at all without learning a lot first." This contrasted with a flat line for notepad, as it doesn't require much more ability than being able to use a keyboard. One can be up to full speed almost immediately.

Tangential point: of course, full speed in notepad means being able to insert, delete, move, and not much more, whereas any serious text editor has vast capabilities by comparison. So, really, do learning curves, in this and other areas of life need a third axis?

Walking the talk (do people still use this one?) is fairly horrible management jargon, but I don't have a problem with it meaning do, don't just talk. Putting your money where your mouth is!

You have a funny bone, Thad! or maybe only half of it, since its semi. ;)

Originally, I typed that word with two spelling errors. Thanks for drawing my attention to the other one!

stupid:

Sadly, current colloquial use of "Learning Curve" have turned the original meaning completely backwards. I agree with Mayankk's interpretation (and the logic) of how current usage came to be, but the original meaning of Learning Curve is that it is not a hill to be climbed (as is implied by current usage and Mayankk's explanation) but rather a graphical representation of the relationship between mastery of something and the time spent in mastering it. So, there's a difference between the popular meaning and the technical meaning.

Re. "Walk the talk", that too, sadly, has been so widely and incorrectly used for such a long time that it has become the de facto correct usage. See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dic...-walk-the-walk for reference.

I accept that today's world has completely changed these expressions, but it does not mean I have to be happy about it - I can still be the "old man shakes fist at cloud" ;)

Thanks Mayankk, and cheers

Let's see if I can manage this post without a spelling mistack!

Here's another pet (and probably petty) peeve from the media, who know longer know anything about typography or the rules of typesetting. What does 2-3 mean? I suppose it means minus one! It does not mean two to three, at least not in print or its online equivalent. That requires a dash, not a hyphen. 2–3. More precisely, an en dash.

Whilst I had to google to find out how to type that here, it should be trivially easy, and every-day, stuff to a typesetter, who should also know where any why to use hyphens and dashes.

We used to have to learn this stuff and use references to check (eg Hart's Rules). Since everybody can "use" a word processor, everybody assumes they can produce stuff that is visually fit for publication.

/grumpy.

Just learned something from an old man's rant.:D Thank you Thad.

I had forgotten the difference between a hyphen and an en dash. I thought MS word was wrong when I found these extra long hyphens and I always replaced them with hyphens (without deleting the spaces though). Now I know I was wrong. Reading up further on the topic also reminded me of the em dash.

I also realised that I have forgotten all the theory behind the grammar. I can use and identify good grammar but I cannot recollect any of the rules. Time to get the old Wren and Martin off the book shelf.

PS: I am from the media and publishing field.

If you have used TeX or LaTeX, you'll know that there are 5 styles of dashes:

1. Unary minus sign to indicate negative numbers.
2. Binary operator for subtraction.
3. Hyphen (within a word; eg: father-in-law)
4. En dash (range; eg: Articles 14-32 of the constitution)
5. Em dash (punctuation; "He is a little queer in his ideas - an enthusiast in some branches of science")

This is exactly how I have been using the hypen, but it contradicts Thad's post and what's written in this article:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/hyphens-and-dashes/

The difference is in the width of the dash.

I think that article is a little confused about some things. I'd have consult a higher (is, preferred by me!) authority. For instance, I would use a hyphen in dangerous, highly-addictive drug. it looks as if they wouldn't. Will have to look into that!

I too am mostly ignorant of English grammar. Because of my age, I did learn at school, which informed my English usage, but one then forgets and relies on feel. I think people learn the grammar of foreign languages more thoroughly, because they have to. The languages (s) we grow up with we learn by different means.

Back in the days when I did work with text, and actually did phototypesetting (the precursor to my career in computing), Hart's rules was the little bible. You can buy it. You can also find The Oxford Style Guide online, and get a PDF for free. Informative and interesting. Although knowing how things should be done can make life more frustrating!

I don't expect the same standard of care that I used to put into typesetting a children's book, or even a greeting-card blurb, in a daily newspaper. There isn't time. But the basics should simply be part of the profession, and subeditors should correct the inevitable barely-literate contributions from freelancers.

It isn't going to happen. We have to live with that!

Too late to Edit: my mistake. They are talking about adverbs and I didn't use one. I don't think I'd hyphenate randomly selected pebble.. Not quite sure on this one.