http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=262434

Oh, those poor people...

I'm sorry that decimate doesn't mean 'kill one in ten' any more or that candidate doesn't mean 'someone dressed all in white' or miniature doesn't mean 'painted red', but, as the Red Queen said, "You've got to run as fast as you can to stay in one place."

****Fal forgive an old fart on the threshold of senility of not Alzheimer's but you will have to explain the latter two perhaps using examples, though in my own defense when I relayed them to Laverne who is much smarter than I she didn't understand either

pardon me for barging in, but I had to look this one up..

candidate ad. L. candidat-us adj., clothed in white, n. a candidate (because candidates for office wore a white toga), f. candidus white

Candid is also verging on the semanticly shifting edge. Its meaning, from Open and Sincere, Informal & unposed (As in a candid photo) is turning into Candid as in Hidden Camera.

Semanticly shifting edge sounds as dangerous as landslides and avalanches.

Yes, all it takes is one generation to nudge it over the precipice into oblivion. But then again, we will know the difference, wont we?

This sort of thing has been going on ever since we started talking. The language is not some fragile thing that will fall apart because of the slightest crack that appears in it. Language will do what it has to do to allow us to communicate. If one word becomes too ambiguous to do the job it was hired for some other word will come in and fill the job or we will make do with a team of words joining together in a phrase.

Hi,I have been trying to read this post again, but now the site asks me to log in. Could you post the post here, so that it's easier to get the reference? Thanks.

Language Log has a post about what seems to be the sad result of this obsession with keeping language static. Mr Halpern sounds like a scary angry man.

Hi Avyy
I couldn't get in to read it either. But then I ask myself, do I want to spend time with scary angry people? hmmm.

Hi back Zed,
I have been here before and I know that not all of them are scary and angry; or maybe, not all of them are scary and angry at the same time. Besides, if and when the words begin to fly, I'll duck.

Huh? Is this the freeratio site you couldn't get into? As far as I know, the scary, angry Mark Halpern doesn't have anything to do with freeratio (formerly Internet Infidels).

Or did I miss something again (not an unlikely possibility).

You did not misunderstand me. The Language Log post about Halpern's rant seemed relevant to the similar theme of some posts in this thread. I could not make any sense of dalehileman's post at the other site or get the point of it which for me is how his posts here leave me too.

Candidate was handled quite nicely by tsuwm. Miniature derives, ultimately, from the Latin miniare, 'to color red'.

Hi lat: I sometimes get that reaction which always puzzles me. The frdb post was a dig at the massive technological and software incompetence of Dish Network and its indifference to its subscribers but facetiously cloaked in semantic terms so a to impart an inferential choice of implied allusions in order to elicit a diversity of rejoinders and incidentally constituting a rationale for propagating a media-centered grievance in a language-oriented venue, thereby increasing the probability of interception by the sympathetic industrial counterpart with ties to a pertinent intermediary

The foregoing tactic based on a proven observation that with given requirement or question your message is only six steps of exchange from reaching its intended goal; your probability of success, as with a Letter to the Editor in the Fourth Estate, increasing in direct proportion to the extent of its dissemination; a phenom worthy of a separate thread

As for other posts in WS if you would identify them with links I wold be most happy to discuss their meaning, if extant, or anything else of interest, being yours at dalehileman@me.com and apparently don't care who knows it

Thank you again lat and look Fwd to hearing from you

OooooF !

Welcome Avyy you seem to possess a sense of humor and would discuss anything with you being dalehileman@me.com

This came up at Language Hat.Some supported the above statement, others disagreed.

1586 (n.) "a reduced image," from It. miniatura "manuscript illumination or small picture," from pp. of miniare "to illuminate a manuscript," from L. miniare "to paint red," from minium "red lead," used in ancient times to make red ink. Extended sense of "small" (adj.) is first attested 1714, because pictures in medieval manuscripts were small, infl. by L. min-, root expressing smallness (minor, minimus, minutus, etc.).

>miniare "to illuminate a manuscript," from L. miniare "to paint red,"

is this where the dispute comes in? (some words (read character strings) got overloaded in Latin, just like they have in English.)

Thank you Mr. DH. Will take you up on that when there is something to discuss.

Yes, this etymology gives many miminismes, but I liked the detail of the minium, used to make red ink. The dispute, it seems, started from 1714. I looked it up and could not find anything in English. This transl. text says:
For this ink the 'rubricator' used pulverized red minium, hence the name 'miniature'.

It was used mainly for rubrics - in early books and manuscripts, a title, initial letter, or the like lettered in red or in some other distinctive fashion.

As could be expected the word rubric connects with 'red' as well.
rubric:
c.1375, "directions in religious services" (often in red writing), from O.Fr. rubrique, from L. rubrica "red ochre, red coloring matter," from ruber, from PIE base *rudhro- (see red).

Well I do have a variety of interests; philosohy, religion, cosmology, language, beer. If you were a closer neighbor I'd hope you could come over and join my excellent sons and I in our sauna tastng exotic imported brews

Cosmology is okay. How about poetry, drama, cooking, and language as in grammar (descriptive not prescriptive) and type 1 words?


Whether I am a close neighbour depends on which route i take. If I take the "Trans Gaia Route" and start digging a hole in my back yard, the light at the end of my tunnel will be from your sauna. I will however wonder why you'll walk upside down.

**When I access your profile Av, I note you haven't filled it out so I presume you're Down Under (weak pun)

There is not much we have in common huh?


How about this... I notice you are good at making puns. I am not, but i want to learn. I am reading a book that is a study between puns in the English language and puns in Sanskrit. It is absolutely fascinating! It has got me interested in puns for the first time ever. So maybe we could talk about puns?


Wrong! Look at the globe; I just did to confirm that we are exactly half a world apart. (Actually the above paragraph gives away where I am from.)

See you at dalehileman@me.com.

Remember, halfway around the world is farther away than all the way around the world.

Yeah.

***No it doesn't or at least not to me but that's perhaps because I'm such an old fart, on the verge of senility if not Alzheimer's and so I'd still like to learn where you live

India.

Aha! I gather from your posts that you guys are much more tolerant of almost everything than the typical U.S. blogger and look Fwd to having you as a correspondent