User talk:Bossrat

Terminology
Hi. When you are editing, please don't introduce antiquated wording such as "authoress" and "murderess". Such words aren't used in publishing today. Also, the infobox actor is a standard infobox for all persons who act. There is no separate infobox actress. When you change that, it just forces the server to redirect to the infobox actor template. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:40, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Please stop changing the word "author" to "authoress". It is an antiquated, obsolete word that is never used in today's publishing world. Look it up "Now usually disparaging." Effectively, there is no longer such a word used today. The same is true for "murderess". I believe that was used in the 1800s, but not in the past century. Wildhartlivie (talk) 12:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Introduction of grammatical errors in the Tragedy article
Hello. Please stop "correcting" the grammar in the sentence in the introduction of the tragedy article. Consult the article collective noun if you are confused about this. Regards, DionysosProteus (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Messages on talk pages are usually added to the bottom of the page. With regard to your message, I suggest that you actually bother to read the article on collective nouns. Then you wouldn't make such elementary grammatical errors. DionysosProteus (talk) 00:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Try actually reading the article, moron. Then you wouldn't make yourself look so stupid. Since you're clearly incapable of following a wikilink, the revelvant explanation is here:

"In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example, "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals. [...] In American English, collective nouns usually take singular verb forms (formal agreement), but either a singular or plural verb is correct American usage where the noun is understood as a group of individual components. In cases where a metonymic shift would be otherwise revealed nearby, the whole sentence may be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "the team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or "the team is fighting [full stop].") See American and British English differences - Formal and notional agreement."


 * Following the link from there, you'd discover that:

"In BrE, collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is, respectively, on the body as a whole or on the individual members; compare a committee was appointed with the committee were unable to agree. "
 * and

"In AmE [...] The rule of thumb is that a group acting as a unit is considered singular and a group of "individuals acting separately" is considered plural. "


 * I explained it to you several times and provided the link. The problem comes when you assume others are being as moronic as you clearly are. Regards, DionysosProteus (talk) 01:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Assisted suicide
Hello. I bet you know things about English I don't, but there is this Gender-neutral language so I reverted your edit there. Best. Jesanj (talk) 22:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

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"Corrections" of they to he
Hi. Please avoid correcting singular/generic they to "he", except in cases where the antecedent is straightforwardly masculine. Wikipedia has no specific policy on generic they, but does have a policy on gender-neutral language. If you want to change instances of "they" with a singular antecedent, then please rephrase the sentence in a way that doesn't involve a gender-specific pronoun. However, I feel I should add that the enterprise is somewhat pointless to begin with. The word they has been used with singular antecedents in English for centuries, and by good writers (as usual, Language Log has a number of articles worth a read, like this one). It's also rather useful. I for one see no good reason to object to it. garik (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I might add that, while you're not doing any harm by changing "due to" to "owing to", you're not really doing anything useful either. Whatever Fowler thought of it, this distinction is pretty much dead in modern English. There's a great deal of bad writing on Wikipedia that really needs improving, and it would be great if you contributed to that improvement, but currently you seem to be focusing on applying old-fashioned prescriptivist notions when there are far more worthwhile contributions you could be making. garik (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Fed up
Eh?? ,, ,. How many more examples would you like? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I was taught that 'fed up with' was incorrect and that, although it was said by most people, including me, it had usurped 'fed up of,' which was correct. This correction was one I 'knew' to be right and so I did not verify it before typing. I am reluctant, nevertheless, to accept internet references without checking them, despite the corroboration you sent me, because a lot of information on the internet is copied from other people. I looked for guidance, pre-internet and unable to find my Collins English dictionary, I found 'fed up with' in my 1993 Collins Robert French dictionary. I therefore, withdraw my correction and apologize. Bossrat (talk) 13:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

...and no, I would not trust the BBC to run a bath!Bossrat (talk) 13:56, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You mean "draw a bath", don't you. You're not a darned foreigner or something, are you? No worries. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

National varieties of English
In a recent edit to the page Brembo, you changed one or more words or styles from one national variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you. Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

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Unsourced addition
Hello, I'm Brianhe. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Motorcycle training, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Brianhe (talk) 23:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

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