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Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: Poster complaining about noisy laundry machine
« on: June 04, 2009, 10:17:02 AM »
Is there ever a "wrong mistake"? For that matter, is there ever a "right mistake"?
Adding an qualifier like "wrong" to the word "mistake" is like adding a qualifer to Unique. By definition, unique simply means one of a kind. there are no others since, if there were, then they would not be "unique".
A mistake is an unintended action, something committed in error. That is fact. However, the end result of a mistake can be beneficial due to the sarendipity factor. For example, you might say "I turned left on Rojas when I should have turned right. Lying on the sidewalk in front of me I found a 500 Piso bill that I had lost a year ago."
(No, I really don't think that a 500 Piso bill would remain on the sidewalk for a year.)
Turning left instead of right was a mistake but finding the bill was good - the serandipity factor. Regardless of the outcome, you still made a mistake.
Another prime error is the use or misuse of "can" in place of "may" The difference was drummed into me by an English teacher when I was a freshman at Pocatello High School in the early 1950's. She used a 12 inch ruler smacked across your palm as a teaching tool. It worked.
Paul Garner
aka The Old Sarge
PS: Jose, have you written recently about the proper use of Can vs. May and the continuing abuse of the word "Unique"? This is something that is common in the US.
Adding an qualifier like "wrong" to the word "mistake" is like adding a qualifer to Unique. By definition, unique simply means one of a kind. there are no others since, if there were, then they would not be "unique".
A mistake is an unintended action, something committed in error. That is fact. However, the end result of a mistake can be beneficial due to the sarendipity factor. For example, you might say "I turned left on Rojas when I should have turned right. Lying on the sidewalk in front of me I found a 500 Piso bill that I had lost a year ago."
(No, I really don't think that a 500 Piso bill would remain on the sidewalk for a year.)
Turning left instead of right was a mistake but finding the bill was good - the serandipity factor. Regardless of the outcome, you still made a mistake.
Another prime error is the use or misuse of "can" in place of "may" The difference was drummed into me by an English teacher when I was a freshman at Pocatello High School in the early 1950's. She used a 12 inch ruler smacked across your palm as a teaching tool. It worked.
Paul Garner
aka The Old Sarge
PS: Jose, have you written recently about the proper use of Can vs. May and the continuing abuse of the word "Unique"? This is something that is common in the US.
Actually, this is one of two things. The first is obvious, an example of fractured English at it's worst. The other, and more subtle, example is actually an effective way of getting people to read the rules.