On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:24:07 -0700, Dingbat wrote:

> How many complaints make a litany?
>
> I'd say EPITOME. A LITANY is literally a ceremonial prayer. In the
> context of complaints, I see it used only to describe a long list of
> complaints. Is it also used for a single complaint?

A litany is a prayer broken up into a lot of separate petitions , usually
with a response after each one, such as "Lord have mercy" or "Grant it O
Lord.".

So a litany of complaints would be at please three different complaints.
And the equivalent of the response between the petitions would be
something like "And another thing..."

--
Steve Hayes http://khanya.wordpress.com

Steve Hayes:

> So a litany of complaints would be at please
> three different complaints.

A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
influence of context. If there is not term for
it, one aught to be invented.

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Le 05/08/2022 à 09:20, Anton Shepelev a écrit :
> Steve Hayes:
>>
>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>> three different complaints.
>
> A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
> an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
> influence of context. If there is not term for
> it, one aught to be invented.

Well, there's 'malapropism' - the unintentional misuse of a word by
confusion with one of similar sound (Collins) - but that doesn't seem
right here, since a malapropism worthy of Mrs Malaprop should be amusing.

Hibou:

> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
> lar sound (Collins)

And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:

obnoxious for noxious
comprise for compose
anxious for eager
nice for pleasant
sophisticated for refined

--
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On 8/5/2022 4:20 AM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Steve Hayes:

>> So a litany of complaints would be at please three different
>> complaints.

> A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but an error due to
> similarity of pronunciation under influence of context. If there is
> not term for it, one aught to be invented.

Or a spellshocker's desperate attempt to correct "leas".

On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:20:46 +0300, Anton Shepelev
<anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:

>Steve Hayes:
>
>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>> three different complaints.
>
>A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
>an error due to similarity of pronunciation under

Just a guess: it *is* a typo, he meant to type "least," but typed
"lease," and his spell checker changed it to "please."

>influence of context. If there is not term for
>it, one aught to be invented.

On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 13:31:58 +0300, Anton Shepelev
<anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:

>Hibou:
>
>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>> lar sound (Collins)
>
>And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
>What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>
> obnoxious for noxious
> comprise for compose
> anxious for eager
> nice for pleasant
> sophisticated for refined

The only one of those that *might* be considered a malapropism is
comprise for compose, but I wouldn't call that a malapropism.

Perhaps the most famous malapropism is "She's as headstrong as an
allegory on the banks of the Nile."

On 05/08/2022 4:33 pm, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:20:46 +0300, Anton Shepelev
> <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hayes:
>>
>>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>>> three different complaints.
>>
>> A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
>> an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
>
> Just a guess: it *is* a typo, he meant to type "least," but typed
> "lease," and his spell checker changed it to "please."
>
>
>> influence of context. If there is not term for
>> it, one aught to be invented.

Rather than invent a term for it, perhaps people should exercise
more control over what they allow their computers to do on their
behalf.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

On Fri, 05 Aug 2022 08:33:49 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:20:46 +0300, Anton Shepelev
><anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
>
>>Steve Hayes:
>>
>>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>>> three different complaints.
>>
>>A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
>>an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
>
>Just a guess: it *is* a typo, he meant to type "least," but typed
>"lease," and his spell checker changed it to "please."

When my fingers create a typo, it is sometimes in the form of
an unwanted letter before the start of the intended word.

"pleast" is not impossible for "least."

And I know that I click a wrong choice on rare occasions.
And may fail to proof-read every screen.

>
>
>>influence of context. If there is not term for
>>it, one aught to be invented.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Fri, 05 Aug 2022 13:23:46 -0400, Rich Ulrich
<rich.ulrich@comcast.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Aug 2022 08:33:49 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:20:46 +0300, Anton Shepelev
>><anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Steve Hayes:
>>>
>>>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>>>> three different complaints.
>>>
>>>A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
>>>an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
>>
>>Just a guess: it *is* a typo, he meant to type "least," but typed
>>"lease," and his spell checker changed it to "please."
>
>When my fingers create a typo, it is sometimes in the form of
>an unwanted letter before the start of the intended word.
>
>"pleast" is not impossible for "least."

Yes, that also could be.

>And I know that I click a wrong choice on rare occasions.

Me too.

>And may fail to proof-read every screen.

Me too,

Anton Shepelev wrote on 8/5/2022 :
> Hibou:
>
>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>> lar sound (Collins)
>
> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-

you got the syllable boundary wrong, so the hyphenation is wrong. And
it is a short enough word that hyphenation is silly.

> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.

They didn't intend to make an error, though.

> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>
> obnoxious for noxious
> comprise for compose
> anxious for eager
> nice for pleasant
> sophisticated for refined

-d

--
Let's celebrate Macaronesia

After serious thinking Anton Shepelev wrote :
> Steve Hayes:
>
>> So a litany of complaints would be at please
>> three different complaints.
>
> A well mispleased `please'. It is not a typo but
> an error due to similarity of pronunciation under
> influence of context. If there is not term for
> it, one aught to be invented.

^^^^^ there seems to be exactly that many invented so far.

-d

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013

On 05/08/22 20:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hibou:
>
>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>> lar sound (Collins)
>
> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.

Here I have to back Jerry's comment. Intentional language errors are
made by those who are aware that the use is an error. It's usually only
done for the sake of comedy.

The people who commit malapropisms do so through ignorance; they don't
realise that they're making an error. That's unintentional misuse.

> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>
> obnoxious for noxious
> comprise for compose
> anxious for eager
> nice for pleasant
> sophisticated for refined

It depends. Are you talking about 21st-century English, or 19th-century
English?

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

On 2022-08-05 09:38, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 13:31:58 +0300, Anton Shepelev
> <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hibou:
>>
>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>
>> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
>> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>
>> obnoxious for noxious
>> comprise for compose
>> anxious for eager
>> nice for pleasant
>> sophisticated for refined
>
> The only one of those that *might* be considered a malapropism is
> comprise for compose, but I wouldn't call that a malapropism.
>
> Perhaps the most famous malapropism is "She's as headstrong as an
> allegory on the banks of the Nile."

A couple of cow-orkers once visited the Aquarium in Buffalo.
We asked them how it was.
They said it was very nice, as well as educational.

"You know there were some beautiful things that looked like flowers.
They were called Sea Enemas, and they fed by catching various orgasms
that floated by,"

--
Another month ends. All targets met. All systems working.
All customers satisfied. All staff eagerly enthusiastic.
All pigs fed and ready to fly.

On 2022-08-05 10:23, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 05/08/2022 4:33 pm, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:20:46 +0300, Anton Shepelev
>> <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes:
>>>
>>>> So  a  litany  of  complaints would be at please
>>>> three different complaints.
>>>
>>> A well mispleased `please'.  It is not a typo  but
>>> an  error due to similarity of pronunciation under
>>
>> Just a guess: it *is* a typo, he meant to type "least," but typed
>> "lease," and his spell checker changed it to "please."
>>
>>
>>> influence of context.  If there is  not  term  for
>>> it, one aught to be invented.
>
> Rather than invent a term for it, perhaps people should exercise more
> control over what they allow their computers to do on their behalf.

Well said.
I disable autocorrect on everything that allows me to do so.
The closest I allow myself to get is to make use of the 'suggestions'
supplied by my phone, and that, only to let me enter stuff faster by
typing a few letters and watching for the suggestion I was looking for.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list.

Rich Ulrich:

> When my fingers create a typo, it is sometimes in the
> form of an unwanted letter before the start of the in-
> tended word.

Since I learned to touch-type, certain easy and frequent
letter sequences have become so imprinted in my muscle
memory that they will sometimes misfire for different
yet simmilar sequences, e.g. with the same beginning.
To use a programming metaphore -- it like perfect hash
gone bad. When I corresponded with a guy named Norman
selling and servicing fountain pens, I began several of
my e-mails with "Hello, Normal." I stopped when he found
it necessary to reassure me of his complete normalcy.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Ken Blake to Anton Shepelev:

> The only one of those that *might* be considered a
> malapropism is comprise for compose, but I wouldn't
> call that a malapropism.

What not? The word is inappropriate in the intended
meaning.

> Perhaps the most famous malapropism is "She's as head-
> strong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."

This is wrong on so many levels.

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Richard Heathfield:

> Rather than invent a term for it, perhaps people
> should exercise more control over what they allow
> their computers to do on their behalf.

I am of the same opinion, but find resistance futile.
The realisation of the natural right to control one's
life, inclusing one's computers/devices, rather than be
controlled by them, requires and a minimal personal dig-
nity that objects to being treated as meek and mute cat-
tle. Yet powers that be -- call them globalists, mega-
corporations, international capital, or what will
you -- are interested in supperssing or supplanting that
dignity with vanity: has not Apple made their products
items of cult?

The infra-low entry level to most consumer computers/de-
vices/software increases sales and encourages computer
illiteracy, which in turn serves in some instances to
conceal, and in others to justify this inversion of con-
trol when the user becomes an appendage of his device
without ever noticing the transformation. To complete a
vicious circle, they plead computer illiteracy as the
justification for the taking of control out of the us-
er's hands for the sake of his own safety so that the
followers of the cult willingly forego their freedom.

Through Overton windows, society has been gradually con-
ditioned to tolerate, and then to take for granted:

1. Adverticement in websites, computer games and,
programs,

2. The vampirical model of paying for software in
regular installments as long as you use it, in-
stead of buying it once and any article of mer-
chadise.

3. The decline of free and heterarchic comminication
madia based on stable protocols, such as Fidonet,
Usenet, and then of free and centralised ones,
such as mailing lists, and IRC, in favour of hier-
archical and commercial ones: social networks and
messengers, whose owners inevitably exercise con-
trol over their audience to their or their pa-
tron's benefit. Now Twitter can block the account
the acting president.

This PC of mine has Widows XP and supports e-mail,
Usenet, BBS, IRC, most free websites and forums,
but fewer and fewer bloated corporate websites and
internet shops.

4. Tolerance to insolent software that will, for ex-
ample, ask you whether to update now or later, but
will not offer an option not to bother you ever-
more.

5. Telemetry, or spying upon the user, even if only
to collect impersonal statistics. I was shocked to
find that Chromium browser no longer lets the user
to select the desired character encoding of the
page. The developers explained to me that its re-
moval had been prompted by their telemetry, which
showed this function was very rarely used because
modern websites declare their encoding, in default
of which Chormium uses its "intelligent" auto-de-
tection algorithm, which, however, fails for spe-
cific sites with ANSI-art, bilinigual sites, old
sites from the 1990s, or bare text files that one
finds, for example, on textfiles.com .

6. Tolerance to slow software. The personal comput-
ers of the past were hudreds and thousands times
less efficient that modern ones, yet performed the
basic UI operations much faster than their modern
analogs. Wirth's law in action.

7. The pressure frequently to update (commercial)
software to keep it working and/or useful, with OS
updaes and hardware updates in tow. Planned obso-
lescense is here in action.

All these kinds of tolerance are but kinds of the digi-
tal diabetes of the 21st century.

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On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hibou:
>
>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>> lar sound (Collins)
>
> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>
> obnoxious for noxious
> comprise for compose
> anxious for eager
> nice for pleasant
> sophisticated for refined
>

The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
He wasn't ignorant, and it was intentional.

On 07/08/2022 12:53 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>> Hibou:
>>
>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of  simi-
>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>
>> And  I  though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>> thor's  ignorance,  and   therefore   intentional.
>> What,  then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>
>>              obnoxious     for noxious
>>              comprise      for compose
>>              anxious       for eager
>>              nice          for pleasant
>>              sophisticated for refined
>>
>
> The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
> He wasn't ignorant, and it was intentional.

You don't think Richard Sheridan might have had something to do
with it?

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

On Sun, 7 Aug 2022 00:53:53 +0100, Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:

>On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>> Hibou:
>>
>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>
>> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
>> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>
>> obnoxious for noxious
>> comprise for compose
>> anxious for eager
>> nice for pleasant
>> sophisticated for refined
>>
>
>The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.

??? Did you mean Richard Brinsley Sheridan?

>He wasn't ignorant, and it was intentional.

On Sun, 07 Aug 2022 08:34:28 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
wrote:

>On Sun, 7 Aug 2022 00:53:53 +0100, Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>
>>On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>> Hibou:
>>>
>>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>>
>>> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>>> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
>>> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>>
>>> obnoxious for noxious
>>> comprise for compose
>>> anxious for eager
>>> nice for pleasant
>>> sophisticated for refined
>>>
>>
>>The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
>
>
>??? Did you mean Richard Brinsley Sheridan?

Sheridan did not write "Malapropisms", but he did write "The Rivals"
where he introduced Mrs Malaprop.

Dickens was an author who included malapropisms in his writing, but by
characters like Mrs Bloss.
>
https://www.proquest.com/openview/dc6cdb1baf58cca7a706c00dacdb880f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1818261

I don't try to decide what someone *meant* when posting here, but it's
possible that the intent was to make the point that Dickens is the
more recognizable author with characters whose speech included
malapropisms.
--

Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida

I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.

On Sun, 07 Aug 2022 11:57:07 -0400, Tony Cooper
<tonycooper214@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 07 Aug 2022 08:34:28 -0700, Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 7 Aug 2022 00:53:53 +0100, Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>>> Hibou:
>>>>
>>>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of simi-
>>>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>>>
>>>> And I though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>>>> thor's ignorance, and therefore intentional.
>>>> What, then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>>>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>>>
>>>> obnoxious for noxious
>>>> comprise for compose
>>>> anxious for eager
>>>> nice for pleasant
>>>> sophisticated for refined
>>>>
>>>
>>>The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
>>
>>
>>??? Did you mean Richard Brinsley Sheridan?
>
>Sheridan did not write "Malapropisms",

Yes I know.

Note that Sam Plusnet did not enclose "Malapropisms" in quotation
marks, so I didn't take it as a title.

>but he did write "The Rivals"
>where he introduced Mrs Malaprop.

Yes. My point exactly. That's where the word "malapropisms" comes
from.

>Dickens was an author who included malapropisms in his writing, but by

Many authors have included malapropisms in their writing. Dickens
wasn't the first nor the last.

>characters like Mrs Bloss.
>>
>https://www.proquest.com/openview/dc6cdb1baf58cca7a706c00dacdb880f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1818261
>
>I don't try to decide what someone *meant* when posting here, but it's
>possible that the intent was to make the point that Dickens is the
>more recognizable author with characters whose speech included
>malapropisms.

On 07-Aug-22 1:59, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 07/08/2022 12:53 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:
>> On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>> Hibou:
>>>
>>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of  simi-
>>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>>
>>> And  I  though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>>> thor's  ignorance,  and   therefore   intentional.
>>> What,  then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>>
>>>              obnoxious     for noxious
>>>              comprise      for compose
>>>              anxious       for eager
>>>              nice          for pleasant
>>>              sophisticated for refined
>>>
>>
>> The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
>> He wasn't ignorant, and it was intentional.
>
> You don't think Richard Sheridan might have had something to do with it?
>
Yes. I checked around 5 minutes after I posted.
She _ought_ to have been a Dickens character. He was pre-plagiarised.

--
Sam Plusnet

On Sun, 7 Aug 2022, at 21:34:58, Sam Plusnet posted:
>On 07-Aug-22 1:59, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> On 07/08/2022 12:53 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:
>>> On 05/08/2022 11:31, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>>>> Hibou:
>>>>
>>>>> Well, there's 'malapropism' -- the unintentional
>>>>> misuse of a word by confusion with one of  simi-
>>>>> lar sound (Collins)
>>>>
>>>> And  I  though malapropisms were caused by the au-
>>>> thor's  ignorance,  and   therefore   intentional.
>>>> What,  then, are those conscious errors that I er-
>>>> roneously thought to be malapropisms, such as:
>>>>
>>>>              obnoxious     for noxious
>>>>              comprise      for compose
>>>>              anxious       for eager
>>>>              nice          for pleasant
>>>>              sophisticated for refined
>>>>
>>>
>>> The author of Malapropisms was Charles Dickens.
>>> He wasn't ignorant, and it was intentional.
>> You don't think Richard Sheridan might have had something to do with
>>it?
>>
>Yes. I checked around 5 minutes after I posted.
>She _ought_ to have been a Dickens character. He was pre-plagiarised.
>
But you were correct that 'Malapropism' was a nineteenth century coinage
(per those learned people at the OED). It might even have been by
Dickens, though I can't think of a likely context. Sheridan didn't
invent the term, only the character Mrs Malaprop herself, as far as I
know.

(Disclaimer. No original enquiry has been made during the composition of
this post.)
--
Paul