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Comment on Petty pedantry

suicidaleggroll@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

The complaint isn’t about the colon in OP’s image, it’s the colon in OP’s explanation.

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zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It isn’t even an error, though. It’s just wrong. “Earth” should be lowercase. I can understand being pedantic, but pedantic and wrong is super irritating.

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- Bazoogle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The original post is technically correct on the topic of capitalization for “Earth”. When referring to the planet, it is a proper noun, thus capitalized. source
  
  However, that is a pretty egregious use of a colon XD
  
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  - zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Keep in mind that idioms follow their own rules. Down to earth, what on earth, and move heaven and earth do not capitalize the planet, and four corners of the earth or salt of the earth take the definite article.
    
    “On earth” (e.g. “richest man on earth”) is one of those idioms, so the E is lowercase. See the first entry here.
    
    Idiom: on earth Among all the possibilities: Why on earth did you put on that outfit?
    
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