http://jtgibson.livejournal.com/2007/05/14/
I've posted three topics, but the most recent one, the third one under that link above, is the one that is the most important topic. The others are just the cutesy-wutesy bits of pop culture or other miscellany that I tend to stick into my blog. (The first is copied from Moleboy's post. The second is just a rant about my use of split infinitives.)
I don't think Stephen Cole was being that unreasonable, to be honest. If I was in his position I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care which was the correct spelling. Less pedantry, more game mechanics please. ;-)
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Meh, spouting unverified statements of facts is always dodgy. In this case, historical evidence indicates dead reckoning is the proper term and deduced reckoning come in later due to linguistic similarity. Nothing wrong with acknowledging that.
I also agree that splitting infinitives isn't the club many garammarians try to assert. It is a good guide, however. | |
Yeah, Jmurph has my point of view pretty down pat. I wouldn't care about it if he simply thought that it was "ded reckoning" because of whatever military background he had... but the problem was that if anyone wrote fan-fic for SFB, any use of "dead reckoning" would be supposedly "corrected" to "ded reckoning", which is completely wrong. I respect soldiers -- it takes guts -- but book-learning wins any day.
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there is no Sparta!
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Sources:
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive
Oxford
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/ splitinfinitives
Or if you read:
Bill Bryson
_Dictionary of Troublesome Words_
Also, ending a sentence with a preposition is not bad grammar.
Rules in English are guides not laws. They can be broken if it allows for a more natural flow of the language. This does not mean you should throw the rules out the window; the rules are effective in most cases.