pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: A Picture Poser
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-picture-poser.html
Thursday, 16 August 2012. This picture (taken in The Missing Bean, in Oxford. 8212; coffee and service both good, and it's just across the way from Lincoln College) enables you to imagine I don't have a beard. Our perceptual experience of objects leads us to 'construe' what we see (so much for 'objective' reality'! This phenomenon of 'filling-in' —. Or 'perceptual completion' as it is called in the trade —i. Posted by Chris Maslanka. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). View my complete profile.
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: Spot The Leopard
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2013/02/spot-leopard.html
Monday, 4 February 2013. Even a puzzle at the humble level of a wordsearch demonstrates interesting enigmatic features. First of all, because it involves a finite search space, effort— particularly if undertaken in a systematic way— is bound to be rewarded (Seek and ye shall find). If you want to be systematic, it raises the strategic question: what might an efficient searching procedure be? In this case, as you need to find LEOPARD you might, for example, first locate the Ls). Finally notice that the sq...
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: ¡No pasarán!
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2013/01/no-pasaran.html
Wednesday, 2 January 2013. Assume this sign is for the sighted as the PC say. What's wrong with the punctuation? Posted by Chris Maslanka. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). The Pyrgic Puzzles column has appeared on Saturdays in The Guardian since 1988. View my complete profile. You Might Have Shaved First!
pedanticus.blogspot.com
Pedanticus Speaks: Reign Ends — Here Comes the Son!
http://pedanticus.blogspot.com/2013/02/reign-ends-here-comes-son.html
Friday, 1 February 2013. Reign Ends — Here Comes the Son! Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, the oldest reigning Dutch monarch, announced her abdication yesterday.- [Guardian 29/01/2013, p 14]. How many reigning monarchs do they have, then? Sent in by Sam Howison. This conflates two conflicting ideas. The oldest reigning Dutch monarch. From the Greek sole. In the phrase the Dutch monarch. Correctly asserts this singularity. But the adjectival phrase oldest reigning. Through the word oldest. Queen Beatrix,...
pedanticus.blogspot.com
Pedanticus Speaks: Shome Mishtakes
http://pedanticus.blogspot.com/2013/04/its-easy-to-make-mistake-but-not-always.html
Wednesday, 3 April 2013. It's easy to make a mistake but not always so obvious what you should have said in the first place. In some cases the sentence can be put into beautiful English with just a little rearrangement. So don't just sit there passively reading this. Take an active part by rendering these sentences into trouble-free English! He learned to make a trombone from his uncle.". Stephen Evans, From Our Foreign Correspondent BBC Radio 4 11:55; 11/03/2013. Expert* on network radio.
pedanticus.blogspot.com
Pedanticus Speaks: Expect Better!
http://pedanticus.blogspot.com/2012/07/anticipate-does-not-mean-same-as-expect.html
Wednesday, 11 July 2012. Does not mean the same as expect. It means to do something before something else happens. For example:. The runner anticipated the starter's gun. Means that the runner started before the starter fired his gun. If you screw a screw in with a chisel you not only damage the screw- you also damage the chisel. By using anticipate. Because you are too lazy or indiscriminate to reach for expect. You are taking the edge off anticipate. Posted by Chris Maslanka.
pedanticus.blogspot.com
Pedanticus Speaks: Correctives for Collectives
http://pedanticus.blogspot.com/2013/03/correctives-for-collectives.html
Monday, 18 March 2013. A reader writes: Dear Sir,. In days gone by we had lessons in English grammar and we did exercises in collective nouns. Nowadays, schooling is so patchy that many of us pick up our English on the hoof. Collectives group elements into a set, either explicitly (a pride of lions, an observance of hermits) or implicitly (team, government, audience). Bog-standardly, when one is thinking of the group as a unit it behaves as a singular noun because the group is conceived of as one entity.
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: Pointy-lism
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2013/01/pointy-lism.html
Tuesday, 22 January 2013. When do arrows point at right angles to the direction they refer to? One answer is in street signs, where a vertical arrow can mean 'straight on'. This sign seemed ambiguous at first glance. I saw it in Oxford on my way to lectures. Posted by Chris Maslanka. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). The Pyrgic Puzzles column has appeared on Saturdays in The Guardian since 1988. View my complete profile. You Might Have Shaved First!
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