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This, IMO, is the problem with hardcore descriptivism. If anything goes, anything goes. So, what is to hate? About presenteeism, that is. We have us a phenomenon. What's wrong with the word presenteeism being used to describe it?
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enthusiast
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This, IMO, is the problem with hardcore descriptivism. If anything goes, anything goes. So, what is to hate? About presenteeism, that is. We have us a phenomenon. What's wrong with the word presenteeism being used to describe it? I've got nothing against a new word being made up for the phenomenon but I think presenteeism is clunky and awakward to say. Maybe because there are different ways to place stress on the syllables in present. I tried it out on someone who had not nheard it before and once I got the stress right he understood what it meant without any explanation so that was good but I still think the description someone used earlier of "clunky" is on the mark.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Is it clunkier than absenteeism?
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Is it clunkier than absenteeism? for me yes because I only know one stress pattern for absent and that makes absenteeism easier to say.
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Carpal Tunnel
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right. I would read the word as PREE-zent-EE-ism, and that's just weird. and anyway that it's pronounced doesn't seem to give much meaning to the concept. the idea is that people are sick and shouldn't be at work. just seems like there might be a better coinage.
though I don't got one at the moment.
formerly known as etaoin...
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No serious linguist thinks that. But many an armchair linguist would seem to, which was my point. Therefore, I would like you to sit in the ignoratio elenchi chair for five minutes, and think about what you have done. As a lowly plebeian whose only encounter with P's and D's has been at Wordsmith Talk, "anything goes" seems to me to be the latter's watchword. The retort from my own armchair is that this amounts to a cheerful disregard for taste. Seriously Jim, there is no need to be snooty. This is a web forum, not the Oxford Symposium of Linguistics. Or, if you must be snooty, at least repress your sighs of professorial exasperation until they are actually warranted.
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On that list of links that is mentioned up in the information and announcements there are a couple of good links on this subject one called descriptive or prescriptive and the other called language is the people's.
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Seriously Jim, there is no need to be snooty.
Seriously, Hydra, I am not being snooty. My sigh was plebian and to the point. I simply find your characterization of the descriptivist camp exasperatingly false. You choose to label me and other linguists as everything goes anarchists, and, in your mudslinging attitude from on high in your armchair, that's perfectly okay with you. So, be it. Leave me be, and I'll try to leave you alone, too.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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old hand
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I'm chuckling from my armchair because this thread squabbling is very amusing. Some of you need to read "The Sneetches" by the venerable Dr. Seuss. Just substitute a big P for the the star and a big D for the lack of a star...
The funniest bit is where Hydra flings out "ignoratio elenchi" whilst remonstrating zmjezhd a bare 3 sentences later for being snooty! Thanks for a good laugh right before bed! I am not taking sides, either, just being amused...
My perception of the group on this forum is that there are no pole-sitters, really. Almost everyone seems to fall along the P------D continuum somewhere, and some even move around depending on the particular issue. I think that's the way it should be, and we all need to embrace the scope and fluidity which are, by the way, the lifeblood of the forum. (now stepping off the soap box and going to bed) :0)
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The funniest bit is where Hydra flings out "ignoratio elenchi" whilst remonstrating zmjezhd a bare 3 sentences later for being snooty! Thanks for a good laugh right before bed! I am not taking sides, either, just being amused...
Ignoratio elenchi is a gloriously snooty phrase, I agree, and should be reserved for when one snootily refutes a point you did not assert.
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