(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

Microsoft Word just underlined the word "antiemetics" in my novel. It's a real word -- it means "pills that prevent vomiting" -- but Word is suggesting "ant emetics." I believe that would mean "something that makes an ant vomit."

I don't know what the sick folk down at Microsoft get up to in their spare time, but I could do without all the ant vomit, thank you very much.

Comments

[sugar-spun.livejournal.com]

Maybe they think it should have a hyphen?

I had terrible trouble when writing an essay on Eastern Philosophy. There's a writer I was referencing whose name is Asma, and Word kept changing it to Asthma no matter how often I told it not to. In the end I made it As Ma and made a note in the bibliography.

*kicks Word*

[seal7.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, did you try switching automatic correction off altogether?

[sugar-spun.livejournal.com]

It was a college computer (in the days before I had a laptop) and I halfway think that was Admin Access Only. I do remember that everyone in my class had the same problem, and most people just left a space and wrote in the man's name. Except for the guy doing dual-major Mathematics and Philosophy, who was computer literate enough to make a jpeg out of the name Asma and paste it in.

[seal7.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see. That's really amusing though if the entire class had the same problem :) Very nice lol-story. I hope the prof was at least a tiny bit amused.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Mine suggests hyphens, if applicable.

Beisdes, they didn't want anti-emetics or anti emetics -- ant emetics was the sole suggestion.

[frog-songs.livejournal.com]

At work, my Outlook recognizes "ninjas" as a word. I haven't done the research, but I'm pretty sure that that ain't right.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Well, depends what your rules are for the pluralization of foreign words and borrowings from languages with no plurals. Japanese does not pluralize words as most (all?) the European languages do, so "ninja" would be used even if you were beset by 14,000 of them.

Some people consider it, as a borrowing, subject to the normal English usage for regular words. I tend to not to pluralize Japanese words, though, because I prefer to use the pluralization in the original language -- seraph/seraphim, for example.

[frog-songs.livejournal.com]

I'm aware that the rules for pluralizing foreign words are somewhat subjective. My surprise at seeing "ninjas" recognized as a "real word" is really more of a reflection on my own values about these things, because I also prefer to use the pluralization in the original language.

There are exceptions, though. For instance:

"So, am I right in thinking that the ninja were never acknowledged by any official body?"

and

"Omigod, there are like 14,000 ninjas in this movie!"

are utterances I'm probably equally like to make.

As for the Japanese plurals, my teensy linguistics background tells me that the language would use entirely separate morphemes to indicate a whole bunch of ninja. Something like "ninja+lots of 'em" or "ninja+plural" or "ninja+14,0000," but not in the same way we do in English. (I'm entirely willing to admit that I might be off on this, but the trip to Wikipedia is just so far. ^^;)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

They can express the concept, of course, but it's not a phoneme added to the word. You can say "many ninja," of course.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious as to whether ants actually vomit. I guess bees do so it's not impossible but what possible purpose could it serve to make them vomit. I somehow doubt it would taste as good as honey.

And maybe it's just me but if antiemetics weren't a word, my first alternative would be antisemitic and not ant emetics maybe I'm crazy or the people at Microsoft are very very cruel and twisted.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I kept thinking of that old "lark's vomit" sketch of Monty Python's. But, yeah, probably not like bees.

Now that I think of it, though, if honey is bee vomit, maybe marmite is ant vomit. And here I always thought it was marmot extract.