Friday, November 24, 2006

Again with the Pedantery

Josh writes:

A gaffe is a blunder or faux pas.

A gaff is a pole with a big hook on the end of it.

Don Brash may "make gaffs" in his spare time if he has an interest in metalwork, but I'm pretty sure it's his gaffes that have got him in trouble at the moment.

As you were.

4 comments:

Matthew R. X. Dentith said...

Pedant. I think Josh was referring to the now extinct Purple Camel, or Pedantery, which was the Moor's choice of transport in the fourteenth century, and often were used as the official means by which a Grammarian was carried.

Josh said...

Or I was being ironic by putting an obvious error in the title of a post on being pedantic. You'll note that the last such post used the word "pedantism" -- I'm pretty sure that's not a real one, either...

Anonymous said...

I always thought of gaff as a Britsh slang term for a house/flat. My ignorance of the non-slang definition is doubtless the product of too many teenage hours spent reading Gallagher brothers interviews.

Apathy Jack said...

A gaff is a metal hook on a pole.

A gaffe is a blunder.

A giraffe on the other hand...