Think about it, when someone says "nazi" you think holocaust.

Actually, I don't.

I think the real problems the word Nazi has is its association with Hitler the man more than anything else.

One thing I don't always follow about current catchphrases, is how sometimes different words are used as descriptive of similar behavior. Why isn't it fashion police instead of fashion nazi? And why is it grammar nazi instead of grammar police?

* sorry, double post. seems you have to wait a few minutes before edit button appears *

And I see in my haste I messed up the comparison, I meant to say "Why is it fashion police instead of..."

Why isn't it fashion police instead of fashion nazi? And why is it grammar nazi instead of grammar police?

An even more perplexing question:

What do you do in the wintertime when the sun gets cold?

What do you do in the wintertime when the sun gets cold?

*blink blink*
ouch, brain hurt

i tend to notice errors in grammar, spelling, etc. (i don't capitalize because i think it lends an air of subtlety), but i haven't mentioned it in a post in quite some time. i was 16 or 17. i'd say i changed simply by maturing. i make mistakes often enough, and i think forums feel more like conversation (rife with errors that are as much convention) than it does professional discourse. finally, i simply don't care. it's a video game. i could spend my time criticizing others for grammar, or i could spend my time doing something fun. and in the long run, a single maniacal post on a video game website isn't going to cause a revolution in the usage of english.

What do you do in the wintertime when the sun gets cold?

That's when all those who live in Minnesota come down here to Arizona.

i would be too embarrassed and ashamed to be a grammer nazi. Because the english language frankly, is an insult to the concept of an 'alphabet'.

why have an alphabet in the first place if 'official' spelling dissregards it. You may as well forget about teaching children the alphabet in the first place, just tell them that these things are no more than symbols which can represent any old thing at all.

And please don't tell me it is because of all the foreign words incorporated into english... A true and proper translation of a foreign word should result in the correct vocalisation using our own alphabet, not their's!! The fact that this is not done, is pure laziness on the part of the dictionary heads who controll spelling.

What do you do in the wintertime when the sun gets cold?

Actually the Earth is closer to the Sun in northern hemisphere winter than in northern hemisphere summer. This would imply to me that in the southern hemisphere, summers would tend to be warmer and winters would tend to be colder than in the northern hemisphere. I don't know if this is true or not, perhaps this effect is mitigated by the fact that there's more water in the southern hemisphere and hence more thermal mass. In any case, I can't imagine that anyone cares, certainly I don't.

By the way English (this should more accurately be called American) *is* the de facto language of the planet, at least until the Chinese have enough US Treasury Bonds to buy the planet. At the current US Sino trade deficit rates, that shouldn't be very long. It will be funny when Americans (myself included) are required to learn Chinese and are ridiculed for our poor spelling and grammar.

Actually the Earth is closer to the Sun in northern hemisphere winter than in northern hemisphere summer. This would imply to me that in the southern hemisphere, summers would tend to be warmer and winters would tend to be colder than in the northern hemisphere. I don't know if this is true or not, perhaps this effect is mitigated by the fact that there's more water in the southern hemisphere and hence more thermal mass. In any case, I can't imagine that anyone cares, certainly I don't.

Seasons have more to do with the angle that sunlight strikes the planet than they have to do to with distance from the sun. We're already seven light minutes away, after all. A few thousand miles won't have much effect.

On the subject of Grammar Nazis - well, you have to strike a balance. Obviously somebody making really big mistakes like typing all in caps, ignoring punctuation completely, or, god forbid, using leetspeek deserve a right thrashing. But there's no reason to get overzealous over minor typos are infringements on pedantic grammar rules that nobody cares about anyways.

Would you really find the word "nazi" so evil and frightning if they hadn't killed all those jewish people?

The about seven million others who died in the concentration camps (that includes detention-,,labour- and death camps btw) alone should take care of that part.
If not,,the systematic atrocities commited behind the frontlines might suffice as well.

However,,my theory is that the case of Nazi-Germany was the first to be laid open for the world to see,,much like the Vietnam war was the first to be shown in the public's living rooms.
The horrors in the colonization of the west USA as well as those done in the name of the people of USSR were somewhat known,,but no where near the complete awareness of what had been going on in the name of the Führer.

A true and proper translation of a foreign word should result in the correct vocalisation using our own alphabet, not their's!!

The problem is that we are not talking about translations at all.

For instance Husband,,brought by the Vikings meaning the head of a self owning farm.
(Org. "husbonde". Hus = House. Bonde = farmer.)
Before the Vikings took Brittain,,it was the Romans,,after them the French.

If you start looking at the roots,,there are (comperativly) very few words left that are "original" to the English language.

Now,,spelling them consistently with rules common to the alphabetic ones (shouldn't that be 'alfabet' in that case? would solve the argument whether it's spelled "cheque" or "check".

However,,the knights riding in the night would still be in an ankward position since people just cannot be bothered to prenounce the "k" nowadays

Hm... it might solve the puzzle of why "blood" and "hood" only rhymes in print though.

However, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits might argue with you.

Since he still havn't recived any milk,,I doubt it.
Regardless,,Noone is a name,,not a word.

If you start looking at the roots,,there are (comperativly) very few words left that are "original" to the English language. Now,,spelling them consistently with rules common to the alphabetic ones (shouldn't that be 'alfabet' in that case? would solve the argument whether it's spelled "cheque" or "check".

I have noticed that American spelling does go some way to repairing the carnage and destruction done to the alphabet with so called 'english' spelling. An example is the word colour, or in America - color, much better and more efficient.

What a shame they didn't take it further... it wouldn't take all that much more effort to eliminate the need for children to learn spelling. All you would need to teach children is the alphabet and the job is done! But no, instead society insists on wasting childrens valuable learning time to fill their heads with useless corrections that work against the alphabet, how utterly stupid.

Last man to liv turns off qe lajt!

Seasons have more to do with the angle that sunlight strikes the planet than they have to do to with distance from the sun. We're already seven light minutes away, after all. A few thousand miles won't have much effect.

Certainly seasons have more to do with the angle of the sun than distance, however, the Earth to Sun distance is about 91.0 million miles at perihelion and 94.5 million miles at aphelion. This 3.5 million mile difference is a minor effect but not totally inconsequential, particularly since the energy output from the sun received by the Earth is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance. What is inconsequential is what this has to do with the topic. To quote the immortal Foghorn Leghorn, It's a joke son, a joke.

What was more germane to the topic was the point that the international language is far more "American" than "English" and that it will be easily usurped once someone else more powerful (i.e. the Chinese) comes along. When that happens the Grammar Nazi's will be far too busy learning how to eat with a pair of sticks to correct anyone's "English" or perhaps I should say Szechwan. Yes, I know that's a style of cooking and not a language (or perhaps it is). In this case I'm only partially joking.

Isn't Mandarin both?

And even more.
A style of cooking.
A Chinese dialect.
A grade of public official.
A type of orange.

That word sure gets around.

Um, well, I have to admit to being a very demanding reader and, um, this thread is, well, frakkin' rewardin'

I'm especially glad to see both awareness that the real Nazis targeted more than Jews for mass murder and an awareness that US English is the imperial language du jour. (Apologies if I sound like your civics teacher, but I was one)

This 3.5 million mile difference is a minor effect but not totally inconsequential, particularly since the energy output from the sun received by the Earth is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance. What is inconsequential is what this has to do with the topic.

Mumble, should we digress to another thread? Your remarks here make me wonder if you could help lead a campaign to get Stardock to build a Spore-like game that did not assume you owned a video card with more processing power than the average mainframe data center in the '70s had.

Mumble, should we digress to another thread?

The problem with explaining a joke is that it becomes instantly not funny. It also doesn't help that it wasn't particularly funny to begin with.

BTW. GW check out the Using 2 monitors thread. There was a grammatical question that came up that could use your expertise.   

Grammar nazis, do you really believe the map is the territory?

Well, I am not a Grammar Nazi, or even much of an enforcer except within my own posts; that said, however, I have to point out that the map cannot be the territory. The map is only a scaled-down representation of the territory. If the map were the territory, it would have to be a relief map at 1:1 scale. Whether that's grammar or semantics I will leave others to judge.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system I do have a couple of things to add about the real topic under discussion.

I look at a forum as a very casual form of conversation. Your spoken, colloquial grammar is far more relaxed than your formal writing style. If it's not, then you are either a very sloppy writer or an incredible bore in social situations.

I tend to be relatively precise in writing because the Compiler is a harsh mistress and also because I spend part of my time editing other peoples' stuff. I know that's not true of everyone, though, and there are only a few situations where I even consider going into corrective mode.

The main thing that sets me off is misspelling of key terms that prevents other users from finding a post in a search result. If you spell "farm" as "fram" or "miniaturization" as "minturziration", nobody doing a search for those topics later will see those posts.

Otherwise, if a post is just so poorly put together that I can't figure out what the person is saying, I would request clarification. If you can understand what someone is trying to say, you're only sidetracking the entire discussion and diminishing its value by starting a grammar Inquisition.

The only other type of post that gets to me is when people misspell or use poor grammar when making a post about spelling or grammar mistakes in the game or in other users' posts. It just triggers my inner snarkiness and sometimes I just can't help it.

BTW. GW check out the Using 2 monitors thread. There was a grammatical question that came up that could use your expertise.

Yes...

ahem

Whether that's grammar or semantics I will leave others to judge.

Quixotic, I judge.

The only other type of post that gets to me is when people misspell or use poor grammar when making a post about spelling or grammar mistakes in the game or in other users' posts. It just triggers my inner snarkiness and sometimes I just can't help it.

As in hoisted by their own petard.

What was more germane to the topic was the point that the international language is far more "American" than "English" and that it will be easily usurped once someone else more powerful (i.e. the Chinese) comes along.

US English is the imperial language du jour.

Actually,,it's more of an inter-lingua.
Latin was the common language for men of science for a very long time (still is when it comes to medicine),,just as French has been the language for the Corps Diplomatique.
The saying "Talk to commoners in the commoner way,,and with the schoolars in Latin" (freely translated from Swedish) still holds true.
English,,be it American,,Brittish or pidgin,,allows people to make themselves understood with those of an other native tongue and hence is a very convinent way to break the language barrier without having to learn all other languages that exist.
The main difference between now and the past is that the education level around the world is much higher,,and thus a much larger percentage of the population qualify as schoolars in this context.

awareness that the real Nazis targeted more than Jews for mass murder

I guess you wouldn't be too surprised to learn that I once knew the name of every general in service at division level or higher
WWII is something I've taken a genuine interest in,,and thus forgotten more about it than most people ever bother to learn in the first place lol

The about seven million others who died in the concentration camps (that includes detention-,,labour- and death camps btw) alone should take care of that part.

Just remember one thing about the deaths... they were mainly brought on because of the Allied bombing of CIVILIAN TARGETS, a.k.a. cities. Effectively cutting off supply routes can be more devastating that a nuke in certain cases.

And why is it grammar nazi instead of grammar police? [Ensign] [Human] [Neutral] [Normal]

I don't know what it's called elsewhere, but I believe it is called such in here because of the attitude the "non Nazi's" got with us "Nazi's". You guys don't always have as thick a hide as you ought to.

the attitude the "non Nazi's" got with us "Nazi's".

Stormbringer, if you're going to identify with the grammar enforcers, you probably shouldn't apostrophize a plural, such as "Nazis"...   

Am I reading you correctly in the post above that one where it sounds like you're blaming the death of seven-plus million people to allied bombing and supply interdiction? So are you saying that the poor, hardworking SS boys were really just trying desperately hard to get those trains full of bread and nutritious veggies to the camps, but since the tracks were damaged they could only deliver cannisters of Zyklon-B as a humanitarian gesture?   

Just remember one thing about the deaths... they were mainly brought on because of the Allied bombing of CIVILIAN TARGETS, a.k.a. cities.

Not at all. The terror bombings were an atrocity in their own right,,but are in no way related to the deaths of the people in the various camps.
One thing you have to admit about the National Socialists: when it comes to effective and thourough administration they were still are second to none.
According to their own records,,which unfortunatly were damage during the end of the war,,the total numbur of deaths (IN THE CAMPS ALONE mind you) lays somewhere between 12- and 14,5 million,,of which approx. 6M were jews.
The rest were sovjet PoWs,,homosexuals,,gipsies,,Jehova's Witnesses and other categories deemed "subhuman" by the race theories prevailing at the time.

Effectively cutting off supply routes can be more devastating that a nuke in certain cases.

Indeed they can,,which were shown over Normandie when all Axis movement had to be done at night since any daylight movement were inviting disaster.
However,,when it comes to strategic bombing (the Dambuster Sqd not included),,the ONLY bombings proven to have any effect whatsoever on the German war efforts was the destruction of Peenemünde where most of the German rocket development had been concentrated.

While the firestorm over Dresden certainly costed valuble lives and required resources to deal with,,it didn't result in even one less tank being produced.
Keep in mind that Germany did not shift to wartime production until late 1943,,which means that bombing the factories merely ment that the population got a less comfortable life as for instance soap factories were turned into manufacturing explosives.