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 Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:33 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Molly wrote: | | Thing is, Mr P, you have no proof that it is a typo, just as I have no proof it isn't. So... |
That's right. Some people judge things as if with concrete proofs. Last time, MrP judged another one with "complicate" as two typos in one sentence and Jamie's judgement was "as actual morphological errors".
Now I wonder, why should all the typos or whatever other errors in the world constantely come upon this gaddamned single word when it comes to "complicate"? |
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Haihao
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:30 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Haihao wrote: | | Now I wonder, why should all the typos or whatever other errors in the world constantely come upon this gaddamned single word when it comes to "complicate"? |
Typos aren't limited to that word OR that particular misspelling, Haihao. Lots of words end up misspelled, and you can't really predict exactly what the misspelling or typo will be. Typos and misspellings are not limited to the word 'complicated'. However it is reasonable to assume that accidentally omitting the final D is one of the possible typos for the word 'complicated'.
Usage of the word 'complicated' is extremely abundant (i.e. including the D at the end). A Google search for the word 'complicated' results in 93 million hits! Such a search is admittedly not particularly scientific, however it is pretty good indication of how very often the word 'complicated' is used. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that a word that is used extremely often is likely to have more instances of typographical errors than a word that is used less often. Heck, the tests on this site have typos in them. Your last post appears to have two typos. Molly himself seems quite fond of pointing out typos. Why should it be so difficult to accept the fact that word 'complicated' will occasionally be mistyped as 'complicate'?
If you do a search for 'complcated' (i.e. without the letter I), Google will tell you that there are 16 thousand hits for that spelling. Should we start believing that to be an good alternative spelling for the word 'complicated'?
Googling 'complecated' gets even more hits (almost 60 thousand). Should we consider that to be an acceptable and common alternate spelling? Or is it reasonable to assume that all 60 thousand are typos (and/or written by bad spellers)? In my opinion, it's quite reasonable to assume that those 60 thousand hits for 'complecated' are nothing more than misspellings of the word 'complicated'.
Finding lots of examples of 'complicated' mistyped as 'complicate' does not surprise me.
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Yankee
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:13 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Quote: | | However it is reasonable to assume that accidentally omitting the final D is one of the possible typos for the word 'complicated'. |
What's the difference between saying "they are typos" and "they could be" typos. You and Mr P seem not to know too much about modality and categorical statements.
| Quote: | | "Why should it be so difficult to accept the fact that word 'complicated' will occasionally be mistyped as 'complicate'?" |
It's not hard to accept. Categorical -un-modalised - native-speaker arrogance is hard to accept.
Mr P's statement from another forum:
| Quote: | MollyB's examples of "complicate" are all typos.
MrP |
He's been asked to offer proof of such, but has so far declined the request. |
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Molly
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:22 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Quote: | | If you do a search for 'complcated' (i.e. without the letter I), Google will tell you that there are 16 thousand hits for that spelling. Should we start believing that to be an good alternative spelling for the word 'complicated'? |
LOL! Your arguments get even more desperate. "Complicate (adj.)" is an English word, but complcated, complecated, cumplcated, complcited, are not. Apples and oranges. Nice try!
| Quote: | | In my opinion, it's quite reasonable to assume... |
Assuming is fine, but insisting is not. |
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Molly
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 14:07 pm complicate vs. complicated |
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It warms the heart to know that you're able to recognize at least some typos, Molly old boy.
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Amy
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Yankee
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 14:16 pm complicate vs. complicated |
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| Yankee wrote: | .
It warms the heart to know that you're able to recognize at least some typos, Molly old boy.
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Old boy? Do I hear a "Baa-baa!" in the air? Go follow your leader, Amy. |
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Molly
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 0:22 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Molly wrote: | | Quote: | | No; there's an uninteresting typo for "complicated", in a chapter called A Simple Pricing Scheme. |
Thing is, Mr P, you have no proof that it is a typo, just as I have no proof it isn't. So... |
I have no proof that the writer didn't intend to write "A Sample Pricing Scheme". But the context tells me he did indeed mean "Simple". Similarly, context tells me he meant "complicated"; especially as his text contains other typos, e.g. "it's" for "its".
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 0:27 am complicate vs. complicated |
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Do we have a budding Holmes in our midst?
Shame he didn't treat us to the other "typos" he found in that text. |
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Molly
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 0:39 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Molly wrote: | Do we have a budding Holmes in our midst?
Shame he didn't treat us to the other "typos" he found in that text. |
In other words, you're unable to address the point again.
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 0:42 am complicate vs. complicated |
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He wants me to address a point that has no substance?
He's basically saying 'In that text, I think "complicate" is a typo because "it's" is a typo.' A non-starter? |
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Molly
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:10 am complicate vs. complicated |
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| Molly wrote: | He wants me to address a point that has no substance?
He's basically saying 'In that text, I think "complicate" is a typo because "it's" is a typo.' A non-starter? |
No; I'm saying:
Context tells me he meant "complicated"; especially as his text contains other typos, e.g. "it's" for "its".
MrP |
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MrPedantic
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:15 am complicate vs. complicated |
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Still waiting for the other typos, folks?
And what on earth does he mean by "Context tells me..."? A mystery, until he tells us just what it is about the context that leads him to that conclusion. |
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Molly
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 6:20 am complicate vs. complicated |
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Yes, old boy.
| Quote: | | You and Mr P seem not to know too much about modality and categorical statements. |
I see.
| Molly wrote: | | It's not hard to accept. |
Thank goodness for small favors. | Molly wrote: | | Categorical -un-modalised - native-speaker arrogance is hard to accept. |
Does that mean that you prefer modalised native-speaker arrogance?
| Quote: | | And what on earth does he mean by "Context tells me..."? |
My goodness! Admittedly, you can't find "context tells me" in the corpora, but surely you know what context is. Is this your way of ignoring MrP? You did categorically state that MrP was "now on ignore", did you not? Context tells me that you might be having some trouble doing that.
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Yankee
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| Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:16 am complicate vs. complicated |
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You think I want to be a man?
That's useful.
| Quote: | | Does that mean that you prefer modalised native-speaker arrogance? |
Nope.
| Quote: | | My goodness! Admittedly, you can't find "context tells me" in the corpora, but surely you know what context is. Is this your way of ignoring MrP? |
Did you notice the pronoun "he"? The question was not 'what does "context tells me" mean', it was "what does he/Mr Papa mean by...". And, you "missed" this:
"A mystery, until he tells us just what it is about the context that leads him to that conclusion."
Or maybe you can tell us what it is about the context that makes Mr Pee conclude that "complicate" is a typo there? Do tell us. |
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Molly
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| "Walking on the footpath" vs "Walking along the footpath" | I've drunk two cups of tea this morning. vs I drank two cups of tea this morning. |
