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Can any one explain to me why the sight of 'Express Lane - 10 Items or Less' might elicit feelings of wincing despair and superiority in a linguaphile?
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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This is a situation that arises when a die-hard prescriptivist, suffering from chronic arthropod infestation of the distal GI tract, contemplates the distinction between "fewer" and "less" while shopping for Rolaids.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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Can any one explain to me why the sight of 'Express Lane - 10 Items or Less' might elicit feelings of wincing despair and superiority in a linguaphile?
As for the wincing despair I, too, am baffled. The misplaced feeling of superiority might be easier to explain, but why they would accept "more" with both counted units and measured units is beyond me. What this has to do with national motel chains also baffles me.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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regarding word rage resulting from changing usage, David Crystal reminds us, "The only languages that do not change are dead ones."
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
"The only languages that do not change are dead ones."
That's it! We need to kill English to preserve (or embalm) it. Now to start a society and a website.
Latin changed quite a bit between 9th century BCE and the 15th century CE, when humanists like JC Scaliger and D Erasmus killed Latin off by prescribing that only the Classical grammar and style were to be used.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Oct 2005
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2005
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never mind... but it's still not a question about suppurate. ;-P
Last edited by Myridon; 02/01/08 04:40 PM.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Myridon, check AWAD for 02/01/08 -- it's all related.
-ron o.
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 2
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Sep 2005
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I'm baffled: what corporation is called "Suppurate"? Googling the word leads to many entries that use the word in its literal, medical sense. The only possible "corporate" definition is an obscure Japanese art collective...but that doesn't seem to be a "corporation" as usually defined. Otherwise we could say that "Sex Pistols" is a "corporation" - band names, art collectives, etc., hardly seem to fit the definition of corporation. Not to mention that using such an obscure corp. is a bit...odd.
So seriously: some corporation actually named itself "Suppuration"? Nearly as bad as the medical entity some years back around here that named itself "Emphesys"...good job, using the first several letters of "emphysema" in your name - such an apt connotation!
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Don't click here, there be spoilers ahead! (As Faldo noted within and withal.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Jul 2005
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
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Back when I was a prescriptivist I would have agreed wholeheartedly, but I was having too much heartburn. So turned in my pre-credentials for those of a de- and now much more content with the State of the World
dalehileman
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