#187492 - 10/28/09 01:11 PM
the inevitable corruption of tongues
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 08/13/05
Posts: 2471
Loc: R'lyeh
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A common lament (more like a rant), on-line and off-, is that linguistic change is corruption and leads to the imminent destruction of language and subsequent incommunication. To see what utter nonsense this is, one needs only to look so far as the history of language change in Europe. Latin started to change even before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Who, amongst the linguo-Casandras, can cogently argue that Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian, Provencal, etc., are worse than Latin or less capable of communication? French is as different a language from Latin as (Present-Day) English is from Old English, but what of it? Great literature exists in all four of those languages.
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#187495 - 10/28/09 01:26 PM
Re: the inevitable corruption of tongues
[Re: zmjezhd]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 6690
Loc: Vermont
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#187498 - 10/28/09 02:03 PM
Re: the inevitable corruption of tongues
[Re: zmjezhd]
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stranger
Registered: 10/26/09
Posts: 8
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So we should never judge one form superior to: another, a whole other, a whole nuther?
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#187499 - 10/28/09 02:16 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Christine W]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 08/13/05
Posts: 2471
Loc: R'lyeh
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So we should never judge one form superior to: another, a whole other, a whole nuther?While I did not use the terms superior or inferior, I did suggest the appropriate registers in which to use the term whole 'nother. Your question in the other thread, only discussed the appropriateness of the use whole 'nother, and I believe that is what I addressed: the context of its usage.
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#187502 - 10/28/09 02:47 PM
Re: the inevitable corruption of tongues
[Re: Christine W]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/06
Posts: 3757
Loc: Netherlands, the Hague
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 Well, comparing modern English to the English of the 17th century, it has become a lot easier to read. I've just finished R.E. Pritchard's 'Odd Tom Coryate' , quote: "The first noble carowsing that I saw in Germany was at mine Inne in Basil. Where I saw the Germanes drink helter-skelter very sociably, exempting my selfe from their liquid impositions as well as I could. It is their custome whensoever they drink to another, to see their glasses filled up incontinent{for therein they most commonly drinke } and then they deliver it into the hand of him to whom they drinke, esteeming him a very curteous man that doth pledge the whole, according to the old verse: Germanus mihi frater eris si pocula siccas.{German, thou shalt be my brother if thou drainest the cup.} But on the contrary side, they deeme that man for a very rusticall and unsociable peasant, utterly unworthy of their company, that will not with reciprocall turnes mutually retaliate a health. And they verifie the old speeche... eyther drink or be gon. For though they will not offer any villainie or injury unto him that refuseth to pledge him the whole { which I have often seene in England to my great griefe } yet they will so little regard him, that they will scarce vouchafe to converse with him." It is fun to have the old(er) and the newer English both.
Edited by BranShea (10/28/09 02:51 PM)
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#187515 - 10/29/09 11:26 AM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 06/23/06
Posts: 3757
Loc: Netherlands, the Hague
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#187519 - 10/29/09 06:11 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: BranShea]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1773
Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA
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zm I'd amend your position by suggesting that when a new or novel gadget or concept appears that it's usually better to coin a new word than adapt an old one. By applying more and more meanings to an old word we dilute its meaning until ultimately anything one says can come to mean anything at all
Thus a drive drive drive drive is the flight of a ball in a baseball game, the outcome of which results in an automobile trip by the all-time home-run champion to a venue in which culturally-acquired concern for the proliferation of a keychain semiconductor memory is sponsored through the profits of a lumber mill whose continued existence depends upon the legalization of dredging a shallow river intended to convey logs downstream for further processing
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dalehileman
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#187520 - 10/29/09 07:04 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: dalehileman]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 12530
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Ya know dale, it's easy to find some process that you don't like and invent an example of that process doing something that makes no sense. Natural language change doesn't work that way. There's a Latin example involving repetitions of the string malo that translates out to something about wanting to be in an apple tree, but no one would have ever spontaneously said it in quotidian speech. You might claim that using the term drive for something that doesn't have a bunch of wheels spinning around is going to cause confusion, but to the computer and to the computer user the thing sometimes known as a flash drive or a thumb drive looks exactly like a hard drive or a floppy drive or a tape drive in every sense but the literal. And nobody's going to be confused by using the word drive to talk about it.
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#187527 - 10/29/09 11:31 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: olly]
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enthusiast
Registered: 11/24/07
Posts: 387
Loc: कहीं &...
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"I have never seen a language corrupt. "
Does anyone argue this?
Language in itself is as innocent as the bullet in the gun.
i do not think that is a good analogy since the only purpose of a bullet is destructive. Even unfired(?) the bullet is waiting to cause harm.
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#187545 - 10/31/09 03:11 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/03/00
Posts: 9576
Loc: this too shall pass
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You might claim that using the term drive for something that doesn't have a bunch of wheels spinning around is going to cause confusion, but to the computer and to the computer user the thing sometimes known as a flash drive or a thumb drive looks exactly like a hard drive or a floppy drive or a tape drive in every sense but the literal. And nobody's going to be confused by using the word drive to talk about it. ya know, it's sad in a way that the floppy drive (and floppy disk) is going the way of the dodo bird. link it was fun to explain (with props) to a group of neophytes why a 3½-inch floppy disk was called floppy. - joe (show & tell) friday
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#187546 - 10/31/09 07:36 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: tsuwm]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 10392
Loc: Louisville, Kentucky
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#187549 - 11/01/09 07:30 AM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: tsuwm]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 12530
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I was sorry to see the death of the slow mainframe computer. One could go down to the computer room, look at the computer through the large, glass window, and gauge the sort of response time one would get when accessing it from the terminals up on the second floor. And the golden age of digital display was the nixie tube. The anodes were aligned at varying depths when seen from the front and typically not arranged in numerical order. Thus the display of digits, when counting up, as may happen when displaying a changing voltage, would skitter back and forth in a seeming random manner. The tube, of course, is known in British English, which we all know is far superior to the degraded American English, as a valve, despite the fact that it is nothing at all like a folding door.
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#187581 - 11/02/09 09:58 AM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: tsuwm]
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old hand
Registered: 02/28/08
Posts: 796
Loc: western NY
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ya know, it's sad in a way that the floppy drive (and floppy disk) is going the way of the dodo bird. link it was fun to explain (with props) to a group of neophytes why a 3½-inch floppy disk was called floppy. - joe (show & tell) friday I always thought that a 5 1/4 was a floppy, and a 3 1/2 was a "hard disk", but it's so long ago, my memory might be a bit floppy... ;0)
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#187590 - 11/02/09 12:55 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: tsuwm]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1773
Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA
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"Ya know dale..........Natural language change doesn't work that way. There's a Latin example involving repetitions of the string malo.....but no one would have ever spontaneously said it in quotidian speech. You might claim that using the term drive ...... is going to cause confusion, but to the computer and to the computer user the thing...... looks exactly like a hard drive......And nobody's going to be confused........"--Fal
Inevitably the descriptivist defends each and every usage, on the basis of "well, that's just the way a language develops." But the World is full of war, crime, and suffering too. Is it all justified by saying that, well, that's just the way folks are
You seem to defend with equal vehemence the use of "hard drive" to describe a keychain semiconductor random-access memory, for some reason giving me pause so I am wondering if other newly-converted descriptivists in the group might have had the same reaction
[--which I might have called a "keseram"...but thank you for "quotidian", a new one on me, I like it
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dalehileman
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#187600 - 11/02/09 07:10 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: dalehileman]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 12530
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"Ya know dale..........Natural language change doesn't work that way. There's a Latin example involving repetitions of the string malo.....but no one would have ever spontaneously said it in quotidian speech. You might claim that using the term drive ...... is going to cause confusion, but to the computer and to the computer user the thing...... looks exactly like a hard drive......And nobody's going to be confused........"--Fal
You seem to defend with equal vehemence the use of "hard drive" to describe a keychain semiconductor random-access memory, for some reason giving me pause so I am wondering if other newly-converted descriptivists in the group might have had the same reaction
Nope. A hard drive is one with hard disks of a recording medium inside a container of some sort. The device variously known as a thumb drive, a flash drive, or any number of other names is not called a hard drive. The 3-1/2 inch floppy was called a floppy not because it sorta looked like a 5-1/4 inch floppy but because the medium inside the hard case was the same, floppy medium as that in the 5-1/4 inch floppy that happened to be in a more floppy case. One reason for not using the term random access memory might be that one of the features of RAM in modern computers is that the memory is volatile, that is, it doesn't retain the memory when power is lost. Such a feature would make a flash drive totally useless.
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#187601 - 11/02/09 08:44 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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enthusiast
Registered: 11/24/07
Posts: 387
Loc: कहीं &...
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"Ya know dale..........Natural language change doesn't work that way. There's a Latin example involving repetitions of the string malo.....but no one would have ever spontaneously said it in quotidian speech. You might claim that using the term drive ...... is going to cause confusion, but to the computer and to the computer user the thing...... looks exactly like a hard drive......And nobody's going to be confused........"--Fal
You seem to defend with equal vehemence the use of "hard drive" to describe a keychain semiconductor random-access memory, for some reason giving me pause so I am wondering if other newly-converted descriptivists in the group might have had the same reaction
Nope. A hard drive is one with hard disks of a recording medium inside a container of some sort. The device variously known as a thumb drive, a flash drive, or any number of other names is not called a hard drive. The 3-1/2 inch floppy was called a floppy not because it sorta looked like a 5-1/4 inch floppy but because the medium inside the hard case was the same, floppy medium as that in the 5-1/4 inch floppy that happened to be in a more floppy case. One reason for not using the term random access memory might be that one of the features of RAM in modern computers is that the memory is volatile, that is, it doesn't retain the memory when power is lost. Such a feature would make a flash drive totally useless. Does this exchange suggest that the verb dalehileman as defined in zmjezhd's link is now being used in both an intransitive and a transitive sense?
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#187655 - 11/04/09 02:27 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1773
Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA
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"Ya know dale..................the thing...... looks exactly like a hard drive......And nobody's going to be confused........"--Fal
You seem to defend with equal vehemence the use of "hard drive" to describe a keychain semiconductor random-access memory, for some reason giving me pause.........
Nope. A hard drive is one with hard disks of a recording medium inside a container of some sort. The device variously known as a thumb drive, a flash drive, or any number of other names is not called a hard drive......... Fal sorry if I was not clear but my contention was that the wording of your reply seemed to suggest that if one accepts the term "drive" for the device then he might conceivably have accepted "hard drive" as equally applicable, which notion you now evidently reject However, "One reason for not using the term random access memory might be that one of the features of RAM in modern computers is that the memory is volatile, that is, it doesn't retain the memory when power is lost." is well taken as indeed I should not have called it a RAM, my bad. I had simply made the evidently mistaken assumption that surely the modern RAM might be available also in non-volatile form
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dalehileman
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#187667 - 11/04/09 09:48 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: dalehileman]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 12530
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Fal sorry if I was not clear but my contention was that the wording of your reply seemed to suggest that if one accepts the term "drive" for the device then he might conceivably have accepted "hard drive" as equally applicable, which notion you now evidently reject
It's kind of like had arguing that a rugby football is a ball so therefore I must be arguing for the validity of calling it a baseball. It just ain't so.
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#187672 - 11/05/09 01:18 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1773
Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA
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zm thank you for that rundown, for confirming that the flash device isn't volatile. Fal forgive me once more for misreading but I still maintain it shouldn't be called a "drive"
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dalehileman
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#187677 - 11/06/09 06:07 AM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: dalehileman]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 12/01/00
Posts: 12530
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I still maintain it shouldn't be called a "drive" Fine. As long as you understand what people mean when they use the term that way and you make yourself clear when referring to the devices in question. And don't let me catch you using the word album to refer to a single CD or a single LP.
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#187712 - 11/10/09 12:53 PM
Re: archiphonemes dancing on the tip of a tongue
[Re: Faldage]
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Pooh-Bah
Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1773
Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA
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"And don't let me catch you using the word album to refer to a single CD or a single LP."
Coincidentally one of my pet peeves as a former prescriptivist
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dalehileman
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