Pedants’ Corner

When we were young and foolish Sheamus Murphy and I meant an awful lot to each other.  
The following facebook conversation illutrates one of the reasons why I still have a soft spot in my heart for him.

20 March at 07:55 ·

I've blogged - bentonbag.blogspot.com - Clapham Junction?

From my journal Tuesday 3 rd March It was like Clapham Junction here this morning. We woke up later than normal and I was ...

Sheamus Murphy Trying not to be pedantic; simply seeking clarification.
"It was like Clapham Junction here this morning."
On last night's news a BBC journalist described how empty London train stations were. 

So are you using this simile to describe how empty your house was or were you using it in the early March 2020 sense (which the date implies) to say how crowded your house was?!
Note a future historian, looking into early writings of the famous Bentonbag, could be confused if using the date of the Facebook post! · 

Bentonbag The simile was in reference to the continuous comings and goings rather than the crowds. This imagery of train arrivals and departures and alighting and boarding passengers (or customers in modern parlance) is such an old established one, having been used in many situational comedy and other scripts, that I doubt any reader, current or in the far future, could be confused.

 

Sheamus Murphy Now you mention it, you did make me dimly aware of Anna Karenina's meeting with Vronsky.
It's amazing how you and Tolstoy both use similes which will resonate into the far distant future :-)

Bentonbag Is "Trying not to be" a split infinitive? Should it be "Trying to not be pedantic" or "Trying to be not pedantic"? Asking for a friend.

Sheamus Murphy Although those educated at public schools way have argued that "In Latin, an infinitive is a single word, like ire, and it can’t be split. Ergo, since you can’t split infinitives in Latin, you shouldn’t be able to split them in English either" this working class lad points out that there is no logical reason why this should apply in the English language.
If your friend is Fester tell him it's bollocks!

Bentonbag Fester has only just got up. I have a feeling he's swinging the lead apropos being poorly. Fortunately with Ferretfingers still downstairs the back bedroom bed is available. So far two nights decent sleep. Not sure how long it will continue.

Bentonbag If we are going to follow Latin sentence structure, with the verb at the end of the sentence, then waybe it should be "Pedantic trying not to be" which is just Yoda.
Actually we did Latin at Llandeilo Grammar School and Tre - Gib Comprehensive School with Miss Richards. Much to my surprise I got a GCE O'level in it.

McChurch I`ve translate that as "No` bein` a twat". Followed by "But"?