Spelling and Grammar Errors on Mindat

Vik,

Shouldn't that be "Spelling and Grammatical Errors on Mindat"...LOL. I couldn't resist. To be honest, I'm a frequent offender also, especially in punctuation.

Steve


To absent friends...in memory...still bright.

Steven,

this issue might be debatable. As I understand it, there are 2 possible interpretations:

1: "Spelling", "Grammar" and "Errors" are all nouns.
2: "Spelling" and "Grammar/Grammatical" are adjectives, while "Errors" is a noun.

English is not my mother tongue (Flemish/Dutch) is, so forgive me for not remembering all of its linguistic peculiarities.

In a distant past (2003) I graduated in multilingual translation (Dutch, English, French and German), and have been using all of these languages on a daily basis, so I like to think I do catch the most obvious errors here on Mindat (when I feel like looking for them that is...).

Keep the errors coming (or rather, try not to make any more :-p), I will correct them whenever I can...

Vik

It should indeed be “grammatical error.” Note that there is no adjectival form of the word “spelling.” Therefore, there cannot be a construction parallel to “grammatical error.” The phrase “spelling error” is a compound noun.

There are no rules for compound nouns. Some are normally spelled as a single word, such as housekeeper. Others are normally hyphenated, such as house-fly. Still others are two separate words, such as house detective. In these cases, however, the alternate spellings are usually acceptable. There are no general rules. You just have to know what the preferred form is. But a few compound nouns must be hyphenated, such as paper-clip, to distinguish it from paper clip, which is a clip made of paper. There are some compound nouns used in mineralogy. “Streak test” is one. In this case, it is probably clear to everyone that it isn’t spelled “streak-test” or “streaktest.”

We could say “spelling errors and grammatical errors on mindat.” Compound nouns have to stay together, so neither “spelling and grammar errors on mindat” nor “spelling and grammatical errors on mindat” is correct.

However, to be more elegant, we might say “errors in spelling and grammar on mindat.” That avoids the issue altogether, so that is the rule I would follow.

Is this silly season, or what? (silly season n: a period marked by frivolous, outlandish, or illogical activity or behavior)

I believe that authors tend to disregard, but the author tends to disregard. Isn't that correct, Toby?

The formula entered for Ferronybøite is incorrect. It should read NaNa₂(Fe²⁺₃Al₂)(AlSi₇)(OH)₂

Olav

Olav,

I fixed the formula for Ferronybøite (the formula for Ferric-Ferronybøite is left untouched, is this one correct or not?)

Vik



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2012 10:11AM by Vik Vanrusselt.

This can't be correct.
This mineral should almost explode when you touch it
Probably just 22 oxygen atoms missing.

Formula changed again to add the missing oxygen!

on [www.mindat.org] and linked pages - naphthalene, not naphtalene

Naphthalene is now fixed.

Vik

There is a spelling error in the following location:

"Wiscassett, Lincoln County, Maine, USA"

The correct spelling is" Wiscasset" (one t at the end, not two).

Henry Minot

Seems to have been fixed - Thanks!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2012 02:35PM by Henry Minot.

I don`t know if this is the right place to point this out, but the correct spelling of the locality "Cozzodisi Mine" is "Cozzo Disi Mine". That is the famous sulfur mine in Sicily, the error has propagated worldwide by now but should probably be fixed.

The error on the Cold des BagAnelles PODT is still there ! It's BagEnelles

I hope this helps.

Paul.

Renamed Cozzodisi to Cozzo Disi.

Col des Bagenelles has apparently already been fixed (see [www.mindat.org]).

Vik