Pedantry III

I mentioned here that I have found a copy of Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay, recommended about nine months ago by "T".  Recently I referred too to my pedantic nature (Link and link) which seemed to please her, so she said.

It was rather piquant, to say the least, to read the following in the novel:

"What a delicious pedant you are!  She turned away from the window, put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him. "Too exquisitely ridiculous!"  And she kissed him.

The greater the height, the worse the fall I suppose.

Until the next time.

More Pedantry

[24/23]

Not once have I felt inclined to abandon pedantry; the passing years inevitably engender the feeling that everything is going to/has gone to, the dogs.

When I suggested to my erstwhile girlfriend that pedantry is the route to insanity, she replied "it's the route to my heart"  So much for that.

Exasperated by constant media references to "cooler temperatures", "fastest time", grinding my teeth when I hear the word "controversy" mispronounced and so on; the fact is that the "going to the dogs" provides endless entertainment or at least stimulation, for the pedant.

As no doubt many did during the past fortnight, I watched some of the coverage of the Tennis Championships from Wimbledon.  The commentators (John McEnroe is the best) appear to have finally abandoned the appalling expression "trails" as e.g. "He is trailing by two sets to love"  grrr, but now they have the appalling habit of saying for example "He is love-forty down" or even worse, "he was fifteen-forty down on his service"

What's the matter with these people?

1)  The server's score is always given first

2) If the first number is smaller than the second then obviously the server is "down."

3) "On his service" is therefore superfluous and profoundly irritating as indeed is the word "down."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Until the next time.