22 June 2008

New word of the week: Nerdgassing

"Nerdgassing: I Coin This Word In the Name of Humanity". http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=834 Definition: The venting nerds emit when some (often minor) detail of a book/movie/TV show/comic book/etc either conflicts with canon and/or handwaves through some some suspect science. I enjoyed the comments, and the masthead photo on the blog, too. And the whole topic reminded me of the reactions of some people, especially a subset of professional editors, when faced with incorrect punctuation or usage (or what they see as incorrect punctuation or usage, which in many cases includes the way the Brits and Aussies do it).