…compounded by another, even more minor, but nearly as irritating. While reading along in a book by an author I have come to expect to be fairly literate, published by a company that has usually competent editors, I read, “Here, here” in a context that called for “Hear, hear.”
Now, I know that sort of phrase is subject to one of the common classes of typos, and I have even–momentarily–typed “Hear, here” before *heh-heh* 🙂 But really. *sigh* The author, one of the proof readers or the editor ought to have caught that.
(Sadly, this video, which ought to be a brief introduction to the differences between “here” and “hear”–as a way of leading into the etymology of the expression “Hear, hear”– contains a comma splice in the introduction to “here” that is inexcusable in a video purporting to be English instruction. *sigh*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5xDvkk-qxA)
A decent explanation of “Hear, hear!” is here, hear?
Of course, there is one small problem in the explanation linked above. It introduces another expression that most folks have just not bothered to understand: “exception that proves the rule”–;-) Perhaps a slightly better–for not having “exception that proves the rule”–explanation is here-here.
What did you say? I can’t hear you. I have a cork in my ear.
@Mel: 🙂
Got the following in email, seemed to fit your topic…
“A man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road.
He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit jumps right in front of the car.
The driver, a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulls over and gets out to see what has become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit is dead.
The driver feels so awful that he begins to cry.
A beautiful blond woman driving down the highway sees a man crying on the side of the road and pulls over. She steps out of the car and asks the man what’s wrong.
“I feel terrible,”he explains,”I accidentally hit this rabbit and killed it.”
The blonde says, ” Don ‘t worry.”
She runs to her car and pulls out a spray can.
She walks over to the limp,dead rabbit,bends down,and sprays the contents onto the rabbit.
The rabbit jumps up,waves its paw at the two of them and hops off down the road. Ten feet away the rabbit stops,turns around and waves again,
he hops down the road another 10 feet,turns and waves, hops another ten feet,turns and waves, and repeats this again and again and again,until he hops out of sight.
The man is astonished. He runs over to the woman and demands, “What is in that can? What did you spray on that rabbit?”
The woman turns the can around so that the man can read the label.
It says..
“Hair Spray –
Restores life to dead hair,
and adds permanent wave.”
Forgive my feeble attempts to add humor here in the comment section.
Forgiven. 🙂