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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Don' feel like no lone ranger, Pfranz. USns up here in the real up uses it like that, too.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Once, about a hundred years ago, whilst I was taking an undergraduate journalism class, I wrote an article in which I used an overworked metaphor about "causing the ship of state to founder." The professor, who was well past mental retirement age, changed the verb to "flounder" in red ink on my copy. I asked him what was wrong with the word I chose and he responded that it was simply the wrong one. Alas.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
I was taught that the cardinal points, and the seasons, were proper nouns and were, properly, capitalised. So for me it's always North, South, East, West, Summer, Winter, Spring and Autumn. I'm sticking to that. (I'd want to believe a US government official document anyway?)
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I suppose if there were only one Summer, but, as I remember, there was one last year and the year before that and the year before that back to the middle of the last century and I have every expectation that there will be one next year and the year after that. As for the cardinal directions, ain't the same thing as relative location of two sites. While you might speak of the narrow road to the deep North, what's north of me is liable to be west of you.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
That's the thing, though. In school, these were rules - there was no context-specific information. The word was West, and it didn't matter how it was being used. Maybe I need to reconsider it....
...Nah. That would mean admitting that my teachers were wrong.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
I'm with Faldage.
******
On a different note... I often proffer this usage:
"...what's north of me is liable to be west of you."
How did 'liable' become "likely"?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Dunno how it happened, but the OED has a citation from 1682 in the sense subject to the possibility of (doing or undergoing something undesirable. From there to a sense without the undesirablity isn't much of a leap.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
I guess that explains both the 'legal' and 'likely' *connection.
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