triggereing wmp to open

[dorayme]

Bu Bu But, the OP specified *Windows* media player.

You damn mac people, always insisting on something completely different ;-)

I was just supporting Sherm in saying that this user, me, used QT... I
was just trying to fit in, honest, I don't want to be different...

 

[dorayme]

LOL! Isn't it a law of usenet or something, that anyone who criticizes
someone else's grammar will invariably make at least one mistake of
his or her own?

sherm--

I'm pretty sure that is a usenet law, Sherm. Hell, I've done it
myself more than once.[/QUOTE]

Has anyone noticed the deeper law? That those who correct the correctors
often err too?

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Ari Heino wrote:
richard kirjoitti seuraavasti:
I thought the question was plain and simple enough even for an idiot
to understand.
Even idiots know there's no two e's in 'triggering'.
Hmm. Grammatically I believe your sentence should read:

"Even idiots know there are not two "e's" in "triggering."

LOL! Isn't it a law of usenet or something, that anyone who criticizes
someone else's grammar will invariably make at least one mistake of
his or her own?

sherm--

I'm pretty sure that is a usenet law, Sherm. Hell, I've done it
myself more than once.

Has anyone noticed the deeper law? That those who correct the correctors
often err too?[/QUOTE]

It's turtles, all the way down...

sherm--

 

[dorayme]

Has anyone noticed the deeper law? That those who correct the correctors
often err too?

Sure. But, umm, did I err?[/QUOTE]

Either you did not see my posts on the subject or I guess you did not
understand them. And you did not understand my posts because maybe ... I
speak Martian? <g>

You originally said:

Grammatically I believe your sentence should read:
"Even idiots know there are not two "e's" in "triggering."

and I objected that this is mistaken too in respect to your singular use
of ""e's""

Here is a different way of pointing it out, in case you did not
understand my former explanations.

When you enclose a word in "", you are usually referring to the word or
linguistic object itself. In this case, the word is the word for the
small fifth letter of the alphabet. In the last sentence before this
one, there was an "e" in the last word ("alphabet").

If you are still not following this point, think of the name "Ed
Mullen". Now Ed Mullen, I understand, is a fine upstanding US citizen.
But the name "Ed Mullen" is not the sort of thing that can be a citizen,
it is not over five feet tall like you, it has no money in the bank and
it does not write posts to usenet groups. On the other hand Ed Mullen is
not the sort of thing that is eight characters wide with a space as
ninth.

Now, there are two issues about "e's". One issue is the proprietary of
using an apostrophe to indicate plurality.

"I shot five rabbit's yesterday" is wrong on this point. And the use of
the ' between "e" and "s" in "e's" is arguably mistaken.

But there is another issue and here your mistake is even plainer and the
only one I suggest you concentrate on for now. If I say "I shot five
rabbit yesterday", I would be speaking ungrammatically because I should
have used a plural form of "rabbit". In your suggestion of how some
sentence should read you had the form of "There are ---" where the ---
should be replaced by a plural form. But you had a singular form.

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On 2008-11-14, dorayme wrote:
....

Now, there are two issues about "e's". One issue is the proprietary of
using an apostrophe to indicate plurality.

First, I think you mean "propriety" not "proprietary".

Second, the apostrophe doesn't indicate plurality, it separates
the noun from the pluralizer.

Third, the use of such an apostrophe for clarity is an accepted
practice. (See Fowler's _Modern English Usage_, "Possessive
Puzzles".)

 

[dorayme]

On 2008-11-14, dorayme wrote:
...

First, I think you mean "propriety" not "proprietary".

I should have typed "propriety" and not "proprietary". This is a nice
example of my former suggestion that once an exchange starts about
someone's grammar and use of English, the first corrector, as well as
the subsequent correctors of the correctors, are more than likely to
make mistakes themselves.

Second, the apostrophe doesn't indicate plurality, it separates
the noun from the pluralizer.

No, this is mistaken. If it is not clear that something is a plural
without using the apostrophe (see your third point), then the use of the
apostrophe is a major contributor to the indication. The expression "to
indicate plurality" is not a formal expression about English, it is an
informal phrase.

Third, the use of such an apostrophe for clarity is an accepted
practice. (See Fowler's _Modern English Usage_, "Possessive
Puzzles".)

It is certainly a common practice. And it certainly helps to confuse
people into particularly bad uses of the apostrophe. I agree it is an
open question and all uses of it are not to be condemned. Perhaps a good
practice is to use it where one cannot easily avoid it. In the case of
referring to a number of instances of the fifth letter of the alphabet,
it is not that hard to get into the practice of:

'e's

as distinct from

e's

One difference is simply that the first could never be confused with a
possessive. Still, I accept that a context can make matters clear enough.

(btw, my main point about the grammatical mistake of the corrector of
the first corrector was not about the above.)