Prompted by some discussion about Chris Finlayson’s style guide. See: Finlayson embarks on jargon jihad .
Thanks to @philiplyth for reminding me of this most excellent Stephen Fry clip.
Obviously, as an editor and publisher, I’m all for the use of ‘house’ stylesheets & style guides — mainly for consistency, and also, I admit, in pursuit of ‘correct’ usage (because infractions can reduce an author’s credibility — deal with it.)
But there are limits.
– P
Hilarious that Chris F. is against using intense words and over the top rhetoric and then finishes with “I’m on a jargon jihad”.
Does he get irony?
Heh. “Focusing on the things that matter…”
I nominate Bob Jones to sort Finlayson and his department out.
This wonderful article by Kathryn Schulz: The 5 Best Punctuation Marks in Literature introduced (to me) a term which could apply with equanimity to Mr Finlayson.
“…destined to foment insanity in the grammatically prissy.”
Nice. – P
Last night on TV, I watched a short interview with Bill Gates on the BBC. Bill Gates used the word “Less” instead of “Fewer,” (when it should have been “Fewer”) and of course, his interviewer caught it and began to grin as if to correct him. He did not thank goodness. But it does prove a point: bad grammar does not necessarily equate to ones wealth.