Minor grammar annoyances

Subscribe to Minor grammar annoyances 15 posts, 4 voices

RunningBlind Scriptwright

I'm not a huge stickler for grammar, but the public profile headings are pretty annoying.

Scripts they wrote, Their favorite scripts, Comments they have written

The pronoun, "they" should only be used for plural third person. It used to be pretty common to find "he" or "him" used as a third person singular noun when the gender of the individual was unknown, but that, I suppose, was probably thought to be weird when the person is actually a female. "He/she" would be more appropriate in these cases, but that just sounds tacky.

I think the headings should instead just put in the name of the user, e.g., Scripts by RunningBlind, RunningBlind's favorite scripts, and comments RunningBlind has written.

Again, it's only a minor issue.

 
RunningBlind Scriptwright

I guess, while I'm at it, I might as well point out a few others.

On the main forums page, the description for "The Banana Bar" reads, "A forum for general, off-topic chit-chat between monkeys."

"Between" indicates that there are two monkeys, but hopefully the forum is a bit more busy than that. It should read "among" instead. Maybe that sounds too formal. I'm not sure.

Also, the description for "Userscripts.org" reads, "Ideas or problems with the site? Here is where to talk about them." I think "This is where" just sounds better than "Here is where". I really don't have any grammatical reason for it. I think it might just sound a bit better.

 
Jesse Andrews Admin

@RunningBlind,

While I can program in many languages, my skill at grammar is lacking.

I appreciate "diffs" for improvement! I'm to blame for all but the "banana bar" - that was britt :)

I had changed the headings so it included the username, but it seemed like too much repetition. (I assume you are talking about the user page). Let me know if you think this works.

 
RunningBlind Scriptwright

Wow. That was fast.

I like the new headings on the user page. I don't think "favorited" is a word, but it is descriptive. Perhaps "Favorite Scripts" would fit better.

Anways, thanks.

 
Jesse Andrews Admin

Updated. Keep posting if you find other stupid mistakes :)

 
jerone Scriptwright

I got one: in the home menu you call it "scripts", on the page itself you call it "Your Scripts" and in the title you call it "Script Management". Better to stick to one, I prefer the last one.

 
RunningBlind Scriptwright

Power-ups is spelled with a hyphen.

(Title on index)

 
Jesse Andrews Admin

jerone & runningblind, fixed

 
jerone Scriptwright

I've got another one :)
On a script page it's called "Discussions",in the home menu and dashboard it's called "Comments", on every script table its also called "Comments", on the page itself it's called "(recent) discussions" again and by the feed it's called "posts".

 
RunningBlind Scriptwright

And another. :D

"Optional. Used through-out the site. Max 255 characters (172 left), plain text."
-Update Script page

Throughout is one word.

 
Jesse Andrews Admin

@RunningBlind, Fixed the "throughout" issue.

@jerone, ya - the script "discussions" are powered by the some code that runs the forums. I'm not sure what the language should be. Opinions?

 
jerone Scriptwright

I think "Discussions" is a good description.

 
ScroogeMcPump Scriptwright

Depends on where/how you use it. My main script has three old comments and one post Jesse used to gather them into a single topic; that's currently resulting in "Discussions 4" in the tab bar. A "discussion" in the grammatical sense generally would have more than one participant, so it'd be more appropriate to label this as one "discussion", not four, or else use a different word here.

 
Jesse Andrews Admin

ScroogeMcPump - there are actually two number for "discussions" - the number of topics and the number of posts. I figured showing the number of posts was better for now.

 
ScroogeMcPump Scriptwright

showing the number of posts was better
I agree - that's the more appropriate number to use there; my only concern is that it seems misleading to associate that number with the word "Discussions".

Cross
Presentational HTML allowed.
Use <code> for inline code and <pre> for code blocks. Use &lt; and &gt; for literal < and >.
We help break paragraphs and link your links.
or cancel