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Janne Kirjasniemi on Quiz Night! at 23:38 on 18-05-2013 - link It seems that most of the quiz questions were weirdly constructed just to get tricky with rules. And then it comes out that they did them wrong too. These sorts of quizzes are nice for non-native speakers to encounter some funny and challenging situations, but that point kinda vanishes if the examples are not good.

On the Hilary sibling situation, perhaps the person making the introduction does not feel comfortable assigning a gender to their third sibling or wishes to mess with the receiving party for some reason.

I've always thought that semicolons are more of a stylistic affair than an affair of strict functionality. Like the peacock of punctuation marks, all flair and wacky flamboyance(but not that much, since it is a punctuation mark), without practical purpose. Did Wilde use a lot of semicolons? If they're useless, they might be art.
Andrew Currall on Quiz Night! at 11:15 on 18-05-2013 - link I agree question 9 is the worst; the answer is just wrong. All three sentences are perfectly correct; the last is perhaps a slightly unusual construction, but in no sense wrong.

I also take slight issue over the semicolon question. I would say that it's pretty much always acceptable to replace a comma with a semi-colon if it aids readability. The second option is certainly the most usual usage.

The brother one is just silly.
http://fightstart.blogspot.com/ on Quiz Night! at 13:15 on 17-05-2013 - link I'd like to add to Shimmin's list of pragmatics suggestions -

c) the speaker is an arse.

It ties in with Melanie's aside that "for some reason I'd decided to phrase it like that." Why would anyone decide that was a good way to phrase it (and I realise that's exactly what she was getting at)?

If you've managed to construct a sentence in which the exact position of a comma significantly alters meaning then you're just asking for trouble, to be honest. Go back to the beginning and try again. So many examples in this type of quiz are just examples of flat-out poor communication.

"But grammar is important for clarity!"

Evidently not. Or at least not like this.
Arthur B on Quiz Night! at 09:12 on 17-05-2013 - link I wish people would understand that human beings do not speak with correct punctuation. Unless my friend were introducing me to their siblings by passing a note there's no reason for the hypothetical sibling gender confusion to come up.
http://jain.dreamwidth.org/ on Quiz Night! at 02:26 on 17-05-2013 - link An additional criticism of Question Three: grammatically speaking, there's no reason that Hilary couldn't be the person of unidentified gender being addressed (the "you" in the sentence) rather than the speaker's third sibling. It would be a very odd sentence, but not an incorrect one.
http://arilou-skiff.livejournal.com/ on Quiz Night! at 01:14 on 17-05-2013 - link It might be post-eurovision semifinal tiredness, but I read "a date which will live in infamy" as the other sense of "date" first...
Shimmin on Quiz Night! at 23:24 on 16-05-2013 - link Ooh, I've already ranted about this to people...

Also if someone introduced me to their brother, their sister, and their only other sibling, I would assume they were deliberately not identifying their third sibling as male or female. Because, as you say, people don't generally communicate through logic puzzles, and I don't see any other reason to use brother, sister, and then sibling.

Exactly. This question does something that frequently annoys me about language questions, which is picking a language-hammer and then assuming everything is a language-nail. Grammar is not the only component of language! In this case, basic pragmatics suggest that the speaker is either:
a) deliberately presenting you with a logic puzzle while introducing three siblings; or
b) introducing three siblings, but deliberately not assigning a gender to Hilary
of which the first is not very likely, especially since during introductions you can normally see or hear the introduced person.

I actually agreed with the answer to the may/might question, although I think it's very badly expressed. Both "may" and "might", in standard English, can express a continuing possibility, but only "might" is used to express a counterfactual (a hypothetical situation that isn't true).

Your first two examples are both possibilities: it's possible you'll go shopping tomorrow, and it's possible that doing X was a mistake. "That might have been a mistake" could also be a counterfactual, as in "That might have been a mistake, except that he'd laid a bet with me last night that he'd do it."

I might go = I may go = it's possible that I'll go
I might have said it = I may have said it = it's possible that I said it

The third set of examples aren't really hypothetical at all: they're using the "possible" structure to express "regardless of X". Consider "you may have finished your homework (and you may not), but you still can't watch telly tonight."

I don't think I've ever seen "may" used for counterfactuals, and it feels genuinely wrong to me:
I might have gone, but I didn't != *I may have gone, but I didn't
(though that doesn't mean it's not used in some other dialect I'm not familiar with, but I really don't see it as standard English).

The preposition question is, strictly speaking, not about grammar; it's Churchill trivia with a grammatical tinge...

The semicolon answer is wrong, since function overrides form: you can perfectly well use phrases like:
My uncle's beard is magnificent; but that's quite enough of my rambling.

Another option for seating is "I was seated in the chair".

There is no obvious error in the last question. Consider:
"The Queen arrived at the castle with the King by her side, in a dress adorned with hand-sewn embroidered dragons."
"The Queen arrived at the castle with the King by her side, in his tatty old pyjamas."
Which looks more wrong? The second one should, of course, be:
"The Queen arrived at the castle, with the King by her side in his tatty old pyjamas."
Melanie on Quiz Night! at 19:54 on 16-05-2013 - link
you can't just assume that somebody who says “this is my sister, who lives in Madrid, and this is my brother who doesn't” necessarily has an additional brother. They might just not have audibly paused.

Huh. If I were writing that sentence, and for some reason I decided to phrase it like that[1], I wouldn't put a comma there... because I feel that after a certain point, having too-frequent commas makes it less clear which bits of text should be grouped together. Especially when, as here, commas are being used both to separate items in a list and to separate out asides. I think it turns the sentence into something you have to pause and decipher instead of just reading it.

Also if someone introduced me to their brother, their sister, and their only other sibling, I would assume they were deliberately not identifying their third sibling as male or female. Because, as you say, people don't generally communicate through logic puzzles, and I don't see any other reason to use brother, sister, and then sibling.

Technically correct, although I tend to feel that the semicolon is an entirely useless piece of punctuation.

Actually, I think that semicolons can be pretty useful for the kind of situation I mentioned above, where you have a list of items and some or all items have commas in them. You can use the semicolon as a list separator and then use the commas within the list items as normal, and it's not confusing or ambiguous.

Also, I think that stitching together a couple of sentences with a semicolon, combining them with an em-dash, combining them with an ellipsis, and just leaving them as completely separate sentences, all have slightly different "flavors"/tones.

[1]"I'd like to introduce you to my sister Clara (who lives in Madrid), to my brother Benedict (who doesn't), and to my only other sibling, Hilary."
http://mommybird.livejournal.com/ on Quiz Night! at 18:15 on 16-05-2013 - link Actually, both French and Spanish *do* have official rules laid down by official academies. Obviously, this is something no speaker of English is going to tolerate. *g*
Arthur B on Ho There Jim Lad at 10:18 on 15-05-2013 - link I suspect in the long run they'll find that sort of fragmentation unsustainable, for much the same reason as consumers aren't expected to maintain a different cable/satellite subscription for every single studio: people won't want a massive proliferation of subscriptions, and there'll be material advantages in putting your content on the services with the largest customer base (namely, your product gets put in front of more people).
Adrienne on Ho There Jim Lad at 08:55 on 15-05-2013 - link Unlikely, given that the studios just decided that what they actually needed to do was take a bunch of their content OFF Netflix to start their own competing services. (See Streamageddon.
Arthur B on Ho There Jim Lad at 14:04 on 14-05-2013 - link Netflix have some interesting stats that demonstrate that when they set up their streaming service in a territory, BitTorrent use in the same country/area goes down dramatically. So hopefully studios will get the hint and start putting things on Netflix in a more timely manner in the near future.
Andy G on Ho There Jim Lad at 13:40 on 14-05-2013 - link With regard to film/TV rather than music, I've found it frustrating that although I'm perfectly happy to pay for DVDs/subscription services, the studios nonetheless seem to want to encourage me to pirate their product by (a) making me wait upwards of a year from broadcast to DVD release (b) restricting my paid-for streaming services so they won't work on my operating system (Linux). Music I actually find much more straightforward to buy/stream legally, and I'm happy to pay unless an album or track is inexplicably not available to buy anywhere online.
Arthur B on Ho There Jim Lad at 13:00 on 14-05-2013 - link
For an example, games that require you to be online to play them, despite having no multiplayer component. Red Alert 3 is the worst example of this - if you lose your internet connection, only for a minute, it'll let you keep playing, but it won't save your progress anymore.

And of course there's the recent Sim City debacle, where the multiplayer aspects of the game add very little beyond a source of griefing, required a scaling-back of the scale of the simulation so you're actually dealing with a substantially smaller city than you were in the previous game, and relied on servers that proved not to be up to the task, forcing EA to excise vital features from the game like turning the speed up... all because someone, somewhere, decided that a series that had been a 100% single-player-only experience to date really needed a mandatory internet connection and multiplayer aspects in today's market.

Then EA literally showered everyone with poo. It's almost as though their board of directors has been replaced by a cabal of very skilled trolls or something.
Robinson L on Ferretbrain Presents the teXt Factor Episode 1 - Monotheism at 12:36 on 14-05-2013 - link @Cheriola: Personally, I've only read the first three Dresden books, and I found them, on the whole, decent fluff (though with significantly more sexual content than you describe in "Codex Alera," and all of it highly juvenile). In fact, I'll even go to the wall for Butcher's ability to dig his protagonist in deeper and deeper and making his situation look utterly hopeless (multiple times in the same book, even), and then pulling him back out without resorting to Deus Ex Machina. Granted, I often got frustrated by just how bleak it got sometimes (it undermined the whole "disposable fun" aspect for me), but I can't say it was effective.
Axiomatic on Ho There Jim Lad at 11:41 on 14-05-2013 - link With videogames, at least, it's sometimes not even a question of getting the same product for free, it's a question of either paying for an inferior product, or getting a superior one for free.

Because the anti-piracy measures used sometimes actively make the game worse. For an example, games that require you to be online to play them, despite having no multiplayer component. Red Alert 3 is the worst example of this - if you lose your internet connection, only for a minute, it'll let you keep playing, but it won't save your progress anymore. So you'll finish a mission, and SURPRISE! You have to do it over again, because you lost your internet connection at some point.

The thing with anti-piracy measures is that they only ruin the fun of the people who ACTUALLY GAVE YOU MONEY.

That said, there was a pretty clever anti-piracy thing in a recent game, which simulates running a videogame company. The pirate version of the game is basically impossible to win, because you always go bankrupt because pirates destroy your profits.
http://foghawk.livejournal.com/ on Ho There Jim Lad at 10:12 on 14-05-2013 - link I read a very interesting article the other day about the distinction between piracy and bootlegging, but I can't seem to find the link now. Ho hum. Anyway, I found it a striking point of discussion. There really is a difference between depriving a corporation of some amount of income and knowingly allowing a bootlegger to turn a profit off stolen ("stolen") goods—in fact, and in people's reactions.

I'm sure that the majority of torrenters are happy to hop on, grab a copy of something they want, and hop off, but of the habitual uploaders—the ones who make sure the material gets onto the web in the first place—a substantial proportion seem to regard what they do as a sort of public service. There are private music trackers with incredibly strict self-policing systems, the better to ensure maximum sound quality, and members who deliberately track down and buy forgotten junk CDs or vinyl presses, the better to broaden the catalog. There are server hosts in ebook-sharing communities who habitually buy, scan, OCR, proofread, and format books, even books they would otherwise have no interest in, because hey—somebody might want that. From what I've gathered, the urge to give back to that kind of community is really, really common, even if it only means correcting the typos in a book you wanted to read anyway or rifling through your dad's music collection just in case.

But you can't take money for that. Nobody takes money for that.

(Okay, that's not strictly true. Occasionally TV shows on filehosting sites will show up in links hidden behind ad redirectors or the like. But putting ads on something isn't quite like charging for it, in one of those ways that seems (is) economically irrational but makes a difference to people. Besides, those aren't peer-to-peer networks; by definition there isn't the same kind of community there. You couldn't put ads on a torrent if you wanted to.)

Filesharing sites are basically gift economies—to make a tactless comparison, rather like open-source software projects. Nobody owes anyone anything else, but people are supposed to seed when they can. The fastest, most prolific, best-quality, or most helpful rippers and uploaders gain trust and status in proportion to their contributions—as do the groups they align themselves with. Scene groups compete furiously to release desirable new files. And they all pretty much do it for nothing.

I suspect I'm waffling on here, but the long and short of it is that I suspect heavy torrenters are even less likely to buy, support, or even tolerate unlicensed merchandise (in whatever form) than the average Joe. It's against the ideology; it's against the culture—and why would you ever let someone charge you for what you could do yourself for free?

I suppose that's all only tangentially related to the issue under discussion—the fact that copies cost nothing to make is probably much more relevant. But it interested me anyway.
James D on Ho There Jim Lad at 05:54 on 14-05-2013 - link I feel like some of the smaller music niches have a pretty good handle on how to deal with piracy. As Arthur mentioned above, thanks to huge strides in technology, it's very possible for bands today to produce a fairly professional-sounding album in their free time, without needing to pay to use a professional studio (which usually requires being signed to a decent-sized label who can front them the money). This means that in most niche music genres, the vast bulk of the bands putting out albums are comprised of people with day jobs, who don't expect to ever make their living off of their music and would be perfectly happy to continue making albums in their spare time. They play shows on the weekends and hope their ticket and album sales will let them break even. These aren't bands whose sales figures are factored into those music industry reports.

Fans know this; unlike with major bands, for small bands the cost of one $10 album sale goes mostly into their pockets, and it can actually make a noticeable difference to the band if I choose not to buy an album. The rest of the money would likely go to a niche distro and label that definitely would feel that loss as well. So, I operate on a strict "try before I buy" policy. I'm not going to gamble $10 without hearing an album, just like I wouldn't buy a tomato without checking it for bruises or buy a car without taking it for a test drive. But if I listen to the album and like it, I'm definitely going to buy it.

This attitude is pretty widespread, and it results in fairly strong social criticism of people who download only, which seems pretty effective at encouraging people to support their bands. Of course not everyone can afford to buy every album they like, but it is well within the means of most to spend $10 here and there, especially if they can already afford the computer and internet connection required to pirate music. Thanks in part to technological developments and the increased exposure the internet provides, many niche music genres have experiences a huge upswing in sales and popularity for smaller bands, despite whatever sales they've lost due to piracy. These are the bands I care about, and I'm not worried.
Andy G on Ho There Jim Lad at 15:34 on 13-05-2013 - link As an aside, did anyone hear the amusing story that the makers of the "You wouldn't steal a handbag" ad were themselves sued for unauthorised use of the backing music?
Shimmin on Ho There Jim Lad at 15:28 on 13-05-2013 - link
If animal rights activists put together adverts that said "Meat is murder. Murder is against the law" you'd think they were nuts.

Actually, I'm astonished if they haven't already done that.

I agree that when the industry explicitly invokes the law they should be held to it. In the context of more general pro/anti-piracy discussions I think it's less clear-cut.

Can we perhaps agree that:
a) piracy does not meet the legal definition of "theft" under the jurisdictions we tend to talk about;
b) discussing the issue in terms of theft is not constructive, withstanding a) or otherwise.
? :)
Arthur B on Ho There Jim Lad at 15:28 on 13-05-2013 - link
If animal rights activists put together adverts that said "Meat is murder. Murder is against the law" you'd think they were nuts.

Or Morrissey! <3 <3 <3
Dan Hemmens on Ho There Jim Lad at 15:20 on 13-05-2013 - link
In legal terminology (of jurisdiction X), sure, but legal and common-language definitions don't necessarily match up, and coming out with "I think you'll find the legal definition of X is..." tends not to improve matters in arguments.

I'd normally agree, but the industry explicitly invokes the law, so I don't think it's unreasonable to hold it to legally correct definitions. The classic example here being the "you wouldn't steal a car..." advert which took over from the "piracy funds terrorism" adverts. FACT still, as far as I know, ends most of its ads with "Piracy is stealing. Stealing is against the law." It specifically equates piracy with theft on a technical, legal level. If animal rights activists put together adverts that said "Meat is murder. Murder is against the law" you'd think they were nuts.
Arthur B on Ho There Jim Lad at 15:12 on 13-05-2013 - link
As with a lot of things, people don't necessarily care whether piracy is "theft" under the current local legal definition of the term (especially when they're arguing over what that definition should be), they mostly care whether it's "theft" under some fuzzy notion of their own, partly because it's not clear how else to express that idea.

Sure, but I've rarely if ever seen people use the term "piracy is theft" outside of the context of a scaremongering campaign based on ignorance of the law.
Shimmin on Ho There Jim Lad at 13:42 on 13-05-2013 - link @Dan, alilou-skiff:
I've now worked out that the "possessing" bit does actually create a contrast, so forget that.

As other people who know more about this than me have pointed out, the definition of theft is fairly specifically *both* of those things - that is, getting something by removing it from someone else without permission.

In legal terminology (of jurisdiction X), sure, but legal and common-language definitions don't necessarily match up, and coming out with "I think you'll find the legal definition of X is..." tends not to improve matters in arguments. As with a lot of things, people don't necessarily care whether piracy is "theft" under the current local legal definition of the term (especially when they're arguing over what that definition should be), they mostly care whether it's "theft" under some fuzzy notion of their own, partly because it's not clear how else to express that idea.

Basically I think this is a Games/Art situation where the problem is that talking about theft at all just confuses the issue, which is fundamentally "is this okay, is it legal, and should it be?".

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