TheTastyGreek

I tried watching games on TV at home once upon a time... But my ex-girlfriend ruined it by wearing a University of Georgia shirt while the North Texas game was on. I moved out and haven't been back since. That'll show the landlord that I'm not willing to put up with that sort of crap.

El Paso is a deceptively small market because of physical geography. They're a border town, so the space south of them that would ordinarily count towards a DMA ranking doesn't factor in as population. If El Paso got credit for as much of a radius as Chicago or Dallas (i.e.: including Juarez), they'd be a top 25 TV market.

It's good for everyone that he decided to stick around.

CC Sabathia. He took over the crown from Bartolo Colon.

This is probably UNTFlyer's fault. I blame him for everything baseball related now.

The second round of examples I used was for TV graphics, not formal written or spoken sentences. I hate poorly constructed and sloppy/non-standardized graphic formats. Thanks for getting this thread back on track, though. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to put commas on both sides of a quotation mark.

QUIET, YOU! Tell Devonta we're small. Tiny. There are monastic orders that have larger classes of initiates than what we generally accept at North Texas. Our school is so small, when you walk in the front door, you're already halfway out the back door. Our school is so small, he won't have room to change his mind once he gets here. We're so small, the ZIP code only has three digits. When someone drops a piece of paper on the floor, that classroom has wall-to-wall carpet. If you get a foot-long hot dog in the cafeterias, they have to fold them in half. Students get around on unicycles because there's no space for full bikes. We're a small school, is what I'm trying to say. SMALL. Tell Devonta.

Wow, that's topical... I actually had to go look up who Shane Stant was, and I had the notable advantage of having been alive when that incident happened. Should have been up for the challenge but couldn't catch a basic reference. Total failure on my part. Now I now how Dan O'Brien felt.

So if this ends his career, when's the earliest he'd be HOF eligible?

Whatever play we call, I just hope that we have to burn two timeouts before we finally decide and get it executed. It's about time we started building those new traditions.

The TWU campus is pretty good looking. I'd hit it. But so much of the campus doesn't seem at all interested in whether or not I find it physically attractive... It's confusing.

I think the original post was meant entirely in jest. We're all excited about Abron potentially coming here and we'd love to have him. Even Emmitt. You don't want to know what that guy was willing to do back when Tristan Thompson was about to commit to us back in 2007. Thanks for your insights. You've been a great addition to the forum, and I hope you'll stick around with us through the season and beyond.

HEY. DICKS. This thread was started for serious football journalism grammar discussion. We had a great conversation going until the same old suspects came along and started making their stupid jokes. Take your hijacks somewhere else. Now then... Where did I leave the other part of my infinitive?

It depends on which authority you prefer, apparently. This is the first time in many years that I've even had to think about it. Here's a link to a summary of the many, many different guidelines and how they all disagree with each other. If you prefer AP style, then collective nouns are ALWAYS plural for sports teams. If you prefer UPI style, collective nouns are ALWAYS singular for sports teams. If you're British, collective nouns are always plural, period. Unless you go with the BBC style guide, in which case some collective nouns can be singular, depending on which branch of the BBC issued the guidelines. Apparently, other style guides don't specify any hard and fast rule, and say that it doesn't matter so long as you pick one specific side and stick with it consistently throughout the story/article/whatever. Seriously. Like I said, the guy who hammered these rules into my head was a Southern Illinois grad, and apparently (every Saluki I ever worked with did it the exact same way) that place is DEVOTED to the UPI style. Deviate and be scolded, reprimanded, mocked, or worse. I don't care, and I generally don't make an issue of it either way (even though I was drilled in what I found out tonight is the UPI style) because it isn't a sensitive point for me. I was always a stickler for graphics... Titles should always be nouns (what a person IS; a general guideline being whether you could start the title with an article: A salesman, AN investigator, THE Coach of the Year) and not verbs or descriptions (what a person DID; i.e. "Rescued a woman"). People who didn't adhere to that guideline drove me INSANE. Usually, it was a function of laziness. If Rick McKinney pulls a woman out of a burning building, then he's a RESCUER or a HEROIC FIREFIGHTER, not a "Pulled Woman from Building". If you interview little Billy Jones and he was born 10 years ago, he's a TEN YEAR OLD and not TEN YEARS OLD. The "noun as a title" thing drives me insane when people don't follow it. Things get sloppy, ugly, and confusing when that standard gets lax. Not that anyone asked or cares.

Because it sounds/feels so awkward, most people who have to cover teams like the Magic, Heat, Mean Green, Golden Hurricane, etc. generally go to great lengths to refer to location rather than nickname when using the nickname would make things convoluted. If you're careful, you can avoid the issue by writing away from it. Don't say "the Mean Green is", make it a point to say "North Texas is". Sounds like the writer for the Daily didn't do it that way. For anyone who took a formal sports copy/newswriting course somewhere along the line... If you can explain things more clearly than I did, please feel free to make me look like a confused idiot. And it should also be noted that different places do have different sensitivities to the issue. I learned this rule of sportswriting and broadcasting from a Southern Illinois grad and a Syracuse grad. Other places may not be as rigorous in adhering to that rule. Just like some newswriters are more than happy to use words like "incredible" and "unbelievable" in describing their own news stories. And some folks who don't have a good background in libel/slander training throw the word "allegedly" around like it does anything to protect them legally if they fail to cite a specific person or entity as making the allegation. Not everyone has standards.

Talk to Crome and he'll explain it to you. Seriously. He can do a much better job of outlining AP rules and grammatical structure for sports team nicknames. Usually, the nickname (unless it is explicitly plural) is irrelevant to pronoun/verb usage. Think of the location, not the nickname. For Orlando, the Magic IS. North Texas? The Mean Green IS. Because Orlando IS and North Texas IS. When you talk about a team, even though it's a collective, you don't use a plural form unless it's grammatically necessary. A team IS a group, but it's a singular. I don't know who made that ruling back in the ancient days of newswriting, that's just the rule. When it's a singular nickname or an ambiguous situation, then the way to go is singular. If the nickname is explicitly plural (like the Rangers, Dodgers, Mavericks), you go with the plural form. Those teams ARE. Otherwise, the operative guideline for non-explicitly plural nicknames is to treat them as though you were talking about the location or the generic word "team". Singular form, not plural.

Have they nullified the VISA statutes or something?

What if it was "just for fun"? Better, or worse?

No. Texas Tech knows how to win more than 6-8 games in a season. Clemson is sort of like a public school version of SMU, without the death penalty excuse to explain away their last 20 years.

1981 was a pretty big year for John Hinckley, Jr., you know. But he couldn't build on his momentum and close the deal with Jodie Foster. It's been two decades of stagnation for the guy. Clemson is the John Hinckley of the ACC.

Clemson maintains spirited rivalries with Duke and North Carolina. Meanwhile... Duke and North Carolina maintain a spirited rivalry with each other.

This reminds me of UNTFlyer jinxing the Rangers no-hitter...

And when are we going to get some Premiball updates from Quoner? /flashback'd