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This is a true story. It happened to me. It's a prescriptivist's nightmare and a descriptivist's dream...
Teacher: I need to get more sleep. I'm mad tired.
Student: Miss, not to disrespect, but I hear all these people using "mad" wrong.
Teacher: Really? Like "mad tired"? I hear people say that a lot.
Student: Yeah, I know. But it be the wrong way to use it. It mean "a lot". You know, like "There was mad people in there."
Teacher: Oh, I see. Thanks!
;0)
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You realise the student is being a prescriptivist here.
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a prescriptivist's nightmare and a descriptivist's dream
Mad as used by the teacher in the dialogue does not mean a lot; it means very or way. Mad is a troublesome word. Many folks use it as a synonym for angry. This upsets some. I'm not sure that descriptive linguists dream of ESL/EFL classes and the kind of mistakes that student regularly make in them. (I know this from experience as I am currently taking Japanese lessons at work with some colleagues.) Descriptivists merely try to describe language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptivists try to control how people speak and write, often resorting to extra-linguistic rationalizations for why some common usage is "incorrect".
[Corrected mistaken identity.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 12/20/08 05:24 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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>-- Mad as used by the teacher in the dialogue does not mean a lot; it means very or way.You mean way tired? Is that not just as strange as mad tired ? - way used in the meaning of very? I know this from the expression "You're way out of line". ( have been often enough I'm sad to admit ) 
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cool!
no, way cool!!
no, no; MAD cool!!!
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"You're way out of line"
I doubt that even the most normative of grammarians would blink at this construction in normal conversation. I deliberately gave two examples of common intensifiers (very and way), common and more colloquial. I, personally find way less unusual as an intensifier than mad, which seems a British usage. Very and too are interesting in that they are commonly used in speech but deprecated in more formal registers, such as writing.
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Descriptivists merely try to describe language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Descriptivists try to control how people speak and write, often resorting to extra-linguistic rationalizations for why some common usage is "incorrect". That second "[d]escriptivists" should be "[p]rescriptivists", yes?
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That second "[d]escriptivists" should be "[p]rescriptivists"
Yes, I have corrected it. Thanks.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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The new use for "Mad" reminds me of my contention we might sympathize with the prescriptivists' nightmare that eventually any word at all will come to mean anything you want it to
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 existencce depends upon the legalization of dredging a shallow river intended to convey logs downstream for further processing
Venue, incidentally, is another case in point
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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 existencce depends upon the legalization of dredging a shallow river intended to convey logs downstream for further processing
Venue, incidentally, is another case in point
I can only add that deathless line by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator in the last days of the republic. Malo malo malo malo.
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You realise the student is being a prescriptivist here. Yes, I do, but he didn't realize it, so it doesn't count... ;0)
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formerly known as etaoin...
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doesn't a lot mean very?
Doesn't work for me.
1a. He had to buy a lot of books.
1b. *He had to buy very of books.
1c. He had to buy many books.
2a. She drinks a lot.
2b. *She drinks very.
2c. She drinks much.
3a. The books are very red.
3b. *The books are a lot red.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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mad skillz. 
formerly known as etaoin...
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zmjezhd hits that one, but I can say that, based on what I hear daily, "mad" can mean both "a lot" and "very". This student was objecting to the "very" interpretation... Doesn't work for me.
1a. He had to buy a lot of books.
1b. *He had to buy very of books.
1c. He had to buy many books.
2a. She drinks a lot.
2b. *She drinks very.
2c. She drinks much.
3a. The books are very red.
3b. *The books are a lot red. Now, far be it from to question the Big Z, but isn't 2a. incomplete? Shouldn't it specify what the "lot" consists of? If it did, you could use mad with all of them: 4a. He had to buy mad books 4b. She drinks mad _____. (beer, whatever)(although I have heard, brace yourselves, "mad lot"...) 4c. The books are mad red. I kinda like it because it is broad. There is a word in Spanish that can mean any of the following: there is, there are, is there? are there? and it's one of my favorites for the same reason. :0)
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mad is just an exaggerator, so kind of like very, or a lot, or much.
I think.
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Now, far be it from to question the Big Z, but isn't 2a. incomplete?
I use the minuscule zed in me moniker, ta. Well, in my dialect, a lot can be used by itself as in (2b).
2b. She drinks a lot.
2d. She drinks a lot of beer.
2e. He cheats a lot at cards.
2f. He cheats often at cards.
2g. A: Does she drink? B: Yes, a lot.
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2z. She drinks mad beer. ( and the hipper might even say She drinks mad beerage.)
2z2. He mad cheats at cards.
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Some might interpret that as meaning strong beer (or otherwise extreme - smokey-cheese-raspberry-shrimp stout anyone?). She's capable of drinking a lot of beer would be: she has mad beerage skillz. (^_^)
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And one may wonder how Alice's Mad Hatter became so mad.
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Well, in my dialect, a lot can be used by itself as in (2b).
2b. She drinks a lot. Mine, too.
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2z2. He mad cheats at cards. Nope. That's going too far (around here). Never heard it modifying a verb. Here are some I might with the same meaning: 1. He's a mad cheater at cards. 2. He cheats mad hard at cards. 3. He cheated mad times at cards. and the like.... Okay, okay on "a lot". (but I do like "Big Z"; maybe I'll make it oxymoronic as "Big z". Yeah. I like that!) ;0)
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2z2. He mad cheats at cards. Nope. That's going too far (around here). prescriptivist. :P
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[quote=zmjezhd Mad is a troublesome word. Many folks use it as a synonym for angry. This upsets some.
[/quote]
I'm not sure why that would be though. In my Oxford dictionary, one of the definitions of mad is "angry" and in my Webster's, one of the definitions is "enraged".
I wonder what is the cut-off for acceptance of a modification of definition. If the modification happened in the 20th century, is it not as acceptable as if it happened in the 15th?
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Or it could've happened in the 15th century but the peevist never heard it till yesterday and assumed it was new. Happens all the time.
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And one may wonder how Alice's Mad Hatter became so mad.
High tea?
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And one may wonder how Alice's Mad Hatter became so mad.
High tea? Nope. Hatters (hat makers) were known to suffer neurological damage, and sometimes lose their lives, through exposure to the mercury used in treating the felt made for hats. :0)
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And one may wonder how Alice's Mad Hatter became so mad.
High tea? Nope. Hatters (hat makers) were known to suffer neurological damage, and sometimes lose their lives, through exposure to the mercury used in treating the felt made for hats. :0) Now that is interesting. I always wondered about that hat felt as opposed to felt used in other things. Thanks.
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Doesn't mad also mean good? Like other words that also now mean good? Like bad, wicked, evil, cool, etc? In fact just about any adjective other than good itself now means good doesn't it?
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Yes mad means good and mad means cool and mad means ice: ants on ice Sorry, we suffer from the mad ice disease by the hundred thousands, maybe millions. Two more days and the thaw will change us all back into dull sensible people. The Kinderdijk video on full screen is really too mad beautiful.
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Doesn't mad also mean good? Like other words that also now mean good? Like bad, wicked, evil, cool, etc? In fact just about any adjective other than good itself now means good doesn't it? Around here, mad is used as an adverb, not an adjective, thus the possibility of "mad good". In fact, that is a phrase I hear regularly. It is not used as an adjective. :0)
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But in this standing expression like "mad cow dísease", is it an adjective then? Or Ludwig ,the mad King?
Could " mad good" be something like a replacement of the old
fashionable expression "far out"?
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You've got it exactly right! The "mad" cow was the one acting strangely, falling, etc., and although I doubt they thought the cows were truly insane, it fit their behavior. And yes, I think that's true. We've been through a few in between (believe it or not, when I was a teenager, the expression was "Mint!"). :0)
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