I figure we need a thread to post things such as this.

The people who work for the BBC's Newsnight programme are, apparently, illiterate. On their captions for their opening video on the Pope's visit, it said and I quote "The Queen was the first to formerly welcome him..."

Given that the word 'illiterate' is most often defined as 'unable to read or write', can I be pedantic and suggest you find another word to apply to their apparent disregard for standard sentence structure?

Just a couple of alternative definitions:

Seeing as this is a corner for pedants, and not for, or belonging to, a single pedant, may I suggest that the thread be changed to "Pedants' Corner"?

SYNTAX ERROR AT LINE 1
*_

Fixed.

Haha, I'd say that so far moving the OP to the tales of fail thread would be the best option.

Is this the place for me to say how much I dislike the popular use of the word "literally"?

On Masterchef recently for example, one of the judges was "literally blown away". I think not.

If only

In a restaurant in Edinburgh for my gf's birthday we were sat next to some rather religious people, one kept saying:
"All I have told you is the truth, if you can't handle that then that's your problem"

Was rather tempted to point out that truth requires evidence and support, that is unbiased and conclusive, unless he has stoned someone to death then buried them then seen them rise 7 days later his religion is a joke..... or he is a follower of zombie jesus

I was tempted to tell him that he is more likely to be stabbed with a fork in a restaurant pissing off people he is dining around than to actually have a religious epiphany, as his chances of the former were coming close to a dead cert.....

That is incorrect. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The truth is the truth, regardless of who believes it and what evidence is presented. That is the definition of the word "truth".

What does require evidence is any reasonable argument that some arbitrary story or theory may be "true". Evidence is what turns mere stories into history or science.

Many things we accept as "scientific fact" today are actually only theories, and even if they are 100% true they would have been laughed at as crazy talk not so many generations ago.

There are many aspects of religion which I hold open to ridicule; but using "bad science" as an argument is to my mind an even greater "sin" than playing the "faith" card.

Evolution is still a theory

True, however questioning what someone tells you as truth is never a bad thing. I never 'used' bad science, by calling something the truth or fact does require proof of some form or another to place it beyond any reasonable doubt, even then it may be incorrect.

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you used "bad science".

I was actually criticising your use of grammar. Truth is truth by definition.

You should have said "I believe you are wrong. What evidence do you have to support your proposal?"

Alternatively, you could have used their own "argument" against them reductio ad absurdum - i.e. "The truth is, you're wrong! It's you who can't handle the truth..." but that would be childish, like Punch and Judy.

Many things that we accept as law are theory such as gravity. Though they have been pretty irrefutable for a very long time.