I'm not sure if I've posted this in the right place, so please feel free, moderator(s), to move this message appropriately....I've just noticed in reading the comments regarding the interview with Josh Howard that the Leonardo Award has been given to Fr. Bill--the award itself a great idea, and one that is well-deserved by Fr. Bill.As an English professor, a peer reviewer for a couple of educated journals, and a copy editor, I can't help but gently point out two typos. The pop-up that appears when mousing over the award icon should refer to "Leonardo Da Vinci," not "Leonardo DeVinci." Also, since I assume that there will be more than one user who will win awards, the title of the box housing the award should be "Users' Awards," not "User's Awards."I've pointed these out not to criticize but to help out; I love AvSim (been a member since 2002) and read the reviews and get on the forums at least one or two times a day.Regards,Joel

The pop-up that appears when mousing over the award icon should refer to "Leonardo Da Vinci," not "Leonardo DeVinci."

Just to make it perfect: the correct spelling for the middle part of a surname that is of toponymic origin, is in lower case, so it's "Leonardo da Vinci"http://it.wikipedia....grafia_italiana

Non vogliono invece la maiuscola le particelle preposizionali da, di, de o d' usati nei nomi dei personaggi del passato, quando non esistevano i cognomi, per introdurre patronìmici (de' Medici, ) o toponìmici (Francesco da Assisi, Tommaso d'Aquino)

This to refer to people of an historical period where no formal surnames existed. Modern surnames expressed as such, will use the upper case instead, as in "DI Pietro", "De Nicola", etc.

Thank you for the correction, Umberto. I double- (and even triple-) checked my message, not wanting to do just what I did (make a correction ... incorrectly ), but I obviously missed the lack of the capital.In any case, I especially appreciated the information concerning the use (or not) of the capital. That was very helpful, and it will be something that I'll use in the future in my own copy-editing.

English being my second language, couldn't the Avsim staff just as easily have written "users's awards" as "users' awards" ?

English being my second language, couldn't the Avsim staff just as easily have written "users's awards" as "users' awards" ?

Moving the apostrophe around changes the meaning a bit, but in your example, also how it would be said, so Users's Awards' would be pronounced as 'users-ez awards', which is clearly not right, whereas writing Users' Awards does not affect the pronunciation, the apostrophe on the end of the pluralised users simply indicates the plural is possessive, i.e. it would mean these are the multiple awards which belong to the users.Your English is good. But English is confusing, and in truth, the vast majority of English people are confused by where apostrophes should go if my experience is anything to go by. English people often put them in the wrong place, or add them when they are in fact not needed. Using apostrophes incorrectly, or putting them in the wrong place is known in the UK as a 'greengrocer's apostrophe', which is a term that comes from the hand written signs you often see on fruit and vegetable market stalls, where the use of incorrect apostrophes is notoriously common, so you see signs with mistaken and unecessary apostrophes such as Fresh apple's - 58 pence a lb, and things like that.If you don't know where to put an apostrophe, a simple rule is to just not put one at all, or better yet, re-word something so an apostrophe is not needed; which is less of a mistake than putting one in the wrong place. So although writing the awards belonging to the users, or the awards granted by users, is a bit clumsy, it is at least not incorrect.Al

Whatever it's called and however it's spelled or punctuated, ^_^ I logged on here to express my absolute amazement that I had been chosen for a "User's Award." It was a total shock and when I first saw it I wasn't sure if it was just a technical glitch. I have no idea who to thank so I'm posting this here.Thank you for a wonderful honor. And to be told that I am "following in Opa's footsteps" is about the greatest compliment I can imagine. When he passed away I made a conscious decision to try to contribute more to the forum, knowing that he had left a great legacy of generous help to others and wanting to honor that legacy. No one person could ever fill his "AVSIM shoes" but if enough veteran simmers step up and try to help others, we can at least keep the path he made with those shoes alive.To whoever (whomever? LOL) thought of this award, implemented it and nominated me for it, I give a humble, somewhat embarassed but deeply heartfelt "thank you."Ian

I have no idea who to thank

Ian,If you click on the 'User's Awards' below your avatar, you will find out. ;)

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I love the English language and even considered teaching it as a career. In my past profession my peers and command staff nicknamed me "Dictionary" as they would either pick up their phones and call; "chirp" (Nextel/Sprint direct connect); or find me in the field or at headquarters just to get the spelling of a word. Personally, to me, the iPhone is never too far away to check on just about anything if I'm not sure.I was also usually proof reading their field reports and memos as well at their request before they submitted it to the command staff. I guess I should have just gone into education! :Nerd:

I hate to rain on this parade, but one of the issues we had with the forum upgrade over the last 24 hours was the AWARDS module. We have had to remove it until such time as the author makes the necessary changes that allow it to play nice with the new core system. We'll bring it back online the moment we know that it won't blow anything up in the new version of the forum.

English being my second language, couldn't the Avsim staff just as easily have written "users's awards" as "users' awards" ?

Sorry for the downvote. Was an accident!

I didn't realize it was still possible to down vote, all I can do is up vote, lol.

I didn't realize it was still possible to down vote, all I can do is up vote, lol.

You can't downvote for yourself.. :Party:

LOL how else am I supposed to win the game and get all the points?But really, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to still see a down arrow for the voting. Shall I create a ticket?

You can't downvote for yourself.. :Party:

Just re-checking the voting system, Tom. I "down checked" your post, but then "upchecked" your previous post to keep things in balance... :Peace:

I'll bail you out this time, Tom... I went ahead and took you out of the red and upvoted you. Consider it a stimulus package of the forum voting system :Nerd: