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469

What's the most petty/pointless/pedantic hill you're willing to die on? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 months ago by notnotmike to c/[email protected]

1251 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Syllabuses, not syllabi
Matrixes, not matrices
Indexes, not indices
Cactuses, not cacti

Standardize plurals!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Also, the plural of "octopus" is "assholes." Trust me, I'm a squid.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Okay Imma pick a fight here. Your suggestion is the opposite of pedantic. It advocates for a "vulgarisation" of Latin loanwords (in the sense of "making them more like common words").

I want to go back to pluralising more words in line with their Greek or Latin roots. I want to reverse the perfectly natural and reasonable linguistic shift you're proposing and instead restore or retain that piece of linguistic anachronism as long as possible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think you mean "Greek or Latin rootices".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I got out-pedanted? Impossibile!

Bene factum

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

This is the way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

As someone who regularly works with matrices, please, no. I'm kinda ok with the indexes though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Better idea: Make them superplurals.

E.g. fish (singular), fish (plural), fishes (superplural)