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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; 05/06/2006 4:25 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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veteran
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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; 05/08/2006 1:16 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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Does that make me an ignoramus?
Yes, it does. That's the great thing about prescriptivism. You're wrong, and I'm right. No, but, seriously, I was kidding. Gifted is as valid as orientated. Gee, it's fun to be a descriptivist again.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I DO take exception to its use to mean "gave".
Yes, thank you for proving my point. Yes, indeed.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I'm with you and tED and Faldage.
No, you're wrong, Milo. As wrong as you can possibly be. You've never been right. Not now, or never. Go back to counting birds.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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enthusiast
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*walks into the thread with a full-plate*
Uh yeah, you said it yourself-- these words have been with us for a long time. What gets to me is those words that are mutilated by new (nonsensical) definitions, like "props" (i.e. respect, recognition). Please, don't ever give me props, I stand well-enough on my own.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
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.
Sorry Milo, I was commenting on the quality and forcefulness of the argument, not the content.
Personally, I think that if a word like "gifted" is applied to bright children for long enough, then it assumes that meaning . The use of "gifted" has shifted or been added to for long enough for the new meaning to "stick" IMHO.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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Excuse me, but your battle cry reminds me somewhat of Don Quijote's attack on windmills:
There is absolutely no need to accept a verb "to gift" in order to approve of the adjective "gifted". There are plenty of adjectives on -ed which were formed from nouns without passing through the verb stage: e.g. strongheaded, bearded, grey-haired...
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There is absolutely no need to accept a verb "to gift" in order to approve of the adjective "gifted".
The OED1 does just that for both gifted and bearded, but that is because the verbs to gift and to beard have existed these four or five centuries.
Under the enter for -ed 2, the suffix that is applied to nouns substantive, such as blue-eyed and diseased, there is a great quotation from Coleridge apropos the suffix: "I regret to see that vile and barbarous vocable talented ... The formation of a participle passive from a noun is a license that nothing but a very peculiar felicity can approve." [from Table Talk 1836]
But I love your invocation of Don Quixote's tilting against windmills as an apt image of grammar mavens railing against the very nature of language.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And what, you may well ask, does gift as a verb offer that give doesn't?
Well, for one thing, gift definitively states that it is a gift and return is not expected. I could give you a book and expect you to return it at some time in the near future or to pass it on to someone else. If I gift you the book, it is yours to keep. It all depends on whether you value precision in the language.
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
Excuse me, but your battle cry reminds me somewhat of Don Quijote's attack on windmills:
There is absolutely no need to accept a verb "to gift" in order to approve of the adjective "gifted". There are plenty of adjectives on -ed which were formed from nouns without passing through the verb stage: e.g. strongheaded, bearded, grey-haired...
I kinda like "to stronghead," W, thanks.
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
And what, you may well ask, does gift as a verb offer that give doesn't?
Well, for one thing, gift definitively states that it is a gift and return is not expected. I could give you a book and expect you to return it at some time in the near future or to pass it on to someone else. If I gift you the book, it is yours to keep. It all depends on whether you value precision in the language.
'There is no such thing as a gift.' [that is, there is *always* something expected in return]
GWF Hegel (yes, I know, as though anyone around here cares what that old boob had to say).
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Quote:
'There is no such thing as a gift.' [that is, there is *always* something expected in return]
Whether that is true or not is of no concern. The fact is that the thing itself is not expected in return if it has been gifted to someone; it may be if it has been merely given.
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I probly associate with the wrong class of people; but if I wanted something returned I would *loan it and definitely not *give to one of them.
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Quote:
I probly associate with the wrong class of people; but if I wanted something returned I would *loan it and definitely not *give to one of them.
True of me, too - if I give something, I don't want it back. If I want it back, I'll lend it.
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I'm with Fald's subtleyness on this one.
formerly known as etaoin...
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I like tsuwm's, too:
I would *loan it  
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Well, personally I'd lend it!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Me, I'd rent it but that's just because they screwed up my paycheck again.
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