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Can you believe that there are ignoramuses (aside--since ignoramus is a Latin verb 'we ignore', you cannot form its plural in the Latin mode by using -i, but you knew that) who think that gifted is a proper word? (Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?) Feh! the destruction of our sweet tongue is complete. The past participle gifted pressuposes that disgusting verbed noun to gift. Yeesh! How could anybody utter this abomination? "Suzie Creamcheese is a gifted student." O tempores, o mores. I do not care that gift has been a verb since the 16th century, or that gifted has been around since a century later. This is grammar, damn it!, and not history. Those who use gifted are driving a solecistic stake through the heart of our Mother Tongue.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I couldn't fail to disagree with you less!!! An aside: If ignoramus is from the Latin for 'we ignore' isn't it already plural? Shouldn't the singular be ignoro?
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I couldn't fail to disagree with you less!!! Three excalmation points, and a frownie face. Ma che sciagura. An aside: If ignoramus is from the Latin for 'we ignore' isn't it already plural? Shouldn't the singular be ignoro? Ah, you've run rings around me logically! I shall follow your rules ad astera per mingere.
Last edited by zmjezhd; 05/06/06 04:25 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Quote:
Can you believe that there are ignoramuses (aside--since ignoramus is a Latin verb 'we ignore', you cannot form its plural in the Latin mode by using -i, but you knew that) who think that gifted is a proper word? (Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?) Feh! the destruction of our sweet tongue is complete. The past participle gifted pressuposes that disgusting verbed noun to gift. Yeesh! How could anybody utter this abomination? "Suzie Creamcheese is a gifted student." O tempores, o mores. I do not care that gift has been a verb since the 16th century, or that gifted has been around since a century later. This is grammar, damn it!, and not history. Those who use gifted are driving a solecistic stake through the heart of our Mother Tongue.
Ah, I come back to the board after a reasonably long absence and find this. Marvellous stuff!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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> ignoro
now that's a moniker for a superhero!
formerly known as etaoin...
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And a stake through the heart of the tongue. WOW! Didst thou mean that the stake through the heart was the solecism or was there some other referrent there?
All seriousness aside, I have to register my disagreement with your screed. Indeed, the use of gifted as meaning endowed with a special talent is well-settled in the English language. I doubt that even an ignoramus, which I do not consider myself, would be unaware of what it means. And I certainly would use it unreservedly.
Does that make me an ignoramus? I think not.
TEd
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Like TEd, I have no trouble with the word "gifted" to mean someone who is exceptionally talented. I DO take exception to its use to mean "gave". "Christmas gifting" is a particularly annoying phrase. What the h-e-double-toothpicks was wrong with "giving"?
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Quote:
Like TEd, I have no trouble with the word "gifted" to mean someone who is exceptionally talented. I DO take exception to its use to mean "gave". "Christmas gifting" is a particularly annoying phrase. What the h-e-double-toothpicks was wrong with "giving"?
The answer is quite simple. You and tED and Faldage like meaning over structure, and zmjezhd and Capital Kiwi like structure over meaning.
I'm with you and tED and Faldage.
Last edited by themilum; 05/08/06 01:16 AM.
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Was uncle JB serious, or was his surprisingly prescriptivist tirade a little leg-pull?
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oh, i guess regifted is way beyond the pale..
like "i already had a george forman grill, so i regifted it to my DIL" (its convenient that my birthday comes before mother's day.)
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