Retraction

I've had a further communication from Burping Squid. He/she asks that I correct my earlier post, in which I (understandably, to my mind) called him/her a "Squid." Burping Squid takes the position that his/her username is a two-word participial phrase, with "Squid" serving as the object of the verbal "Burping." That is, the name describes a person who has eaten a plate of calamari, with the consequence that his/her gas emissions are redolent of squid.

When I referred to my correspondent as "Squid" for short, I mistakenly assumed that "Burping" was a participial adjective modifying "Squid," so that the Squid does the Burping.

So it goes. I apologize for the error, but you can see why I might have come down on the wrong side of the grammatical ambiguity here.

I should note, as a further matter, that I make this retraction not because I have any interest in giving any more airtime than necessary to this molluscaphage heckler, but rather out of a desire that my record of the events in this weblog be mistake-free — and therefore unimpeachable.