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Garlien t1_iys8w7o wrote

Reply to comment by RamsesThePigeon in TIL In verb form, the word "piss" is mentioned in the more literal versions of the Bible. by triad1996

"the" makes it unambiguous

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RamsesThePigeon t1_iysa22d wrote

“The” makes it grammatically incorrect.

Look, I know that writing corrections are unpopular, and I know that folks immediately snap to viewing them as smug, pompous, or any number of other things… but they’re (clearly) necessary.

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triad1996 OP t1_iytr87a wrote

Looking back at the title, it does seem a tad bit off. Thank you for the clarification. I stand corrected.

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Shillforbigusername t1_iysczz0 wrote

They’re not clearly necessary at all when only one person seems confused about the meaning.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_iysepim wrote

You’re missing the point.

Yes, a person can parse what was intended, but that wasn’t what was written. There are correct and incorrect ways to write in English, and knowledge of the former is altogether too rare.

Most people will even respond with some variation of “Who cares?” Frankly, that should be concerning, too.

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Garlien t1_iysz38z wrote

You're literally wrong. "the" in the OP's title separates the "more literal" into its own descriptive clause.

Got any proof that it's incorrect, or are you just correcting people on the internet without any authority?

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RamsesThePigeon t1_iyszs99 wrote

"More literal" precedes a noun, meaning that it needs to be hyphenated if it's meant to be read as a standalone adjective. This would be true with or without the presence of the word "the." Since the hyphen was omitted, the former interpretation – "a greater number of literal versions of the Bible" – becomes the "correct" one, making the word "the" a grammatical mistake.

Remember, context – which so many people cite without really understanding – is derived from structure (punctuation, mainly) first, grammar second, and definition last.

The most compelling examples stand on their own.

The most-compelling examples stand on their own.

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Garlien t1_iyt4rsc wrote

source? Nobody writes like that. You're just being needlessly pedantic.

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RamsesThePigeon t1_iyt5jjs wrote

>Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun.

Source

This is pretty basic stuff... and if you genuinely think that it's uncommon, that's probably a sign that you need to read more books and fewer Internet comments.

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Garlien t1_iytc5mu wrote

I've seen it used often for some compounds adjectives like well-known or chocolate-covered from that page, but never as a blanket rule across all compound adjectives. Most hyphenation rules they listed have exceptions anyway, so I'd argue that more-literal isn't a necessarily hyphenated adjective.

Either way, the OP is correct enough that there's no reasonable way to misinterpret it due to "the" appearing before the adjectives. "The more translations" (omitting the "literal") doesn't make sense, "More translations" would be ambiguous.

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triad1996 OP t1_iytrvw0 wrote

Believe you me, I'm a dunderhead when it comes to the fine points of grammar. If I typed a grammatically correct sentence, it's purely by accident.

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