Re: Word games

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

No, no, Wolfgang, it's OK (but thanks). I know the difference between
good-natured fencing and serious flames. I had nitpicked Robert's choice
of a Latin tag a few days ago--presumptuously, since he's the
medievalist, I only the amateur of the Middle Ages. So of course when he
found something to nitpick in a post of mine, he struck back. I'm a copy
editor, after all: I make my living nitpicking others' prose, and by
others shall mine be nitpicked. It's part of the job description (to use
a cliché); you should see the scarcely disguised glee with which the
fellow members of the Editorial Freelancers Assn jump on me when they
think they've caught me out.
	I'll even give Robert his opening for a riposte by asking what a
gerund-grinder is? It sounds like another grammatical (or, more
precisely, syntactical) ailment, along with dangling participle and fused
gerund. But lest others be confused by our joshing, let me clarify: I was
indeed bemoaning the prevalence of GUIs, but the verb I used is indeed "a
valid word of the English language," the third of that spelling listed in
the OED, and meaning "to render mean or base, to lower in dignity,
abase." Most people use "demean" in that sense, but recalling its
connection with "demeanor," I prefer to use that word with the meaning
"comport, behave." And the form of "bemean" I used was not the gerund (a
verbal noun ending in -ing, as in "Walking is good exercise") but the
present participle (a verbal adjective ending in -ing, as in "The man
walking down the street..."). In my original sentence it was not,
however, used attributively (before the noun, as in the example above)
but postpositively, as the predicate adjective completing the understood
verb "is." (Robert, I am sure, knows all this, but others may be
confused.)
Patricia