Pedants Corner

[Technically Fundamental]

re: thread titled "Optimists less likely to suffer heart attacks or die"

Surely he means optimists less likely to die "early"?

The opening sentence implies optimists are "less likely to die".

My critique of the above.

1) I think your subject should read thread entitled rather than thread "titled".
2) IMO the usage of quotation marks on the words "early" (second sentence) should be replaced by the use of italics.
3) I don't think the quotation marks are needed in the third sentence.


Thank you

 

[Lord Sneery]

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[montmorencyt2w]

Guilty as charged, m'lud...

Split infinitives are fine. Read David Crystal. The rule against split infinitives was invented by people who erroneously thought that the rules of Latin grammar should apply to English. In Latin you can't split an infinitive because it is a single word (e.g. "amare" to love). In English, it is two words, e.g. "to go", so you can split it if you want to, e.g. "to boldly go". Try it. The world won't end.


However, one grammatical error (I think it is an error, but it may just be a style thing) that I see all the time, is people using "that" when they mean "who" (or sometimes "whom").

e.g. "Traders that move their stops to break-even at the first opportunity", instead of "traders who move their stops to break-even ....".

"who" for people, "that" or sometimes "which", for things (and animals, I think). There may be exceptions and variations of course.