Talk:Fumblerules

I updated the page to include information pertaining to the book being reissued under another title--an important bit of information readers need to know.

Examples
Please include the example of "Don't use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice". Just a thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Markpatrickennis (talk • contribs) 20:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Another example
Could not another example be "I must ask you to not split infinitives"? All right, that was not my own - it is in Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * There are lots of others besides the examples that are listed. It's hard to say how far we can reasonably go with listing them. — Smjg (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Collected from teachers of English grammar?
Is this really a criterion for a given rule being a fumblerule? I would have thought that anybody can write such a statement of such a rule of language, and it would equally be a fumblerule. There are many lists of these on the Internet, and I would be surprised if anybody really makes a distinction between those written by grammar teachers and those written by random individuals. And while some of them may have been devised by the authors of the websites they appear on, the origins of others may be lost in the mists of time.

Moreover, what about the same concept in other languages? It would be absurd if a French fumblerule, or an Esperanto fumblerule, or whatever, would have to come from an English grammar teacher to count.

The cited source says "Safire keeps by him, as a memento mori, a list of 'fumblerules' said to have been culled from teachers of English". I interpret this as meaning that the fumblerules in Safire's list are allegedly culled from teachers of English. This doesn't necessarily mean that fumblerules generally are necessarily taken from teachers of English.

What do you reckon we should do with the definition on this basis? Just thinking about how it could be rewritten ....
 * A fumblerule is a rule of language or linguistic style, humorously written in such a way that it breaks this rule. Fumblerules are a form of self-reference.

What do you think? — Smjg (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Muphry's law
It appears that the see-also link to Murphy's law was intended to be Muphry's law, but I haven't looked through the history comprehensively enough to figure out who made the incorrect correction and why. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 22:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have ✅ the requested edit myself. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 21:03, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Is the plague a cliché?
As the headline states. Is the word "plague" a cliché, or does "Avoid clichés like the plague." mean something else? Fomalhaut76 (talk) 15:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * avoid like the plague is the cliché. The real non-fumblerule is "Never use no double negatives", which is self-consistent! --wqnvlz ( talk &vert; contribs) 21:34, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Up with which I will not put
This regards the following edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumblerules

Before I get to the main point, the following is most likely a fake attribution.

According to :


 * Churchill's statement is sometimes misunderstood. In fact, I've seen it quoted as support in favor of the rule against sentence-ending prepositions on a few occasions--once by a lawyer in the Texas Bar Journal.


 * But Churchill was being ironic:


 * "When Winston Churchill was chastised for ending a sentence with a preposition, he wittily responded. 'This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.' Churchill’s retort illustrates that attempts to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition can be labored and ludicrous." -- David Angell & Brent Heslop, The Elements of E-mail Style 79–80 (Addison Wesley 1994).


 * You see, the more natural-sounding sentence, which Churchill preferred, would have been:


 * "This is the type of arrant pedantry I will not put up with."


 * But in an ironic jab at his tormenter, he avoided the sentence-ending preposition with what, I hope you'll agree, is a stilted and silly construction.

So while the edit is technically correct, is sadly fails to be "humorously written in such a way that it breaks the rule".

Most people reading this page will have heard a version of the fake quote. Perhaps we should resore the old version and explain that its is humorously written in such a way that it follows the rule? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)