I saw these words in Information, and am guessing that they are the roots of the now more common extinguished and disgruntled. My question is ths: Is it "ingenuous" to use such words, given that they are basically dead?
As with any word, you're aware of roughly how often you've heard it or read it, so can gauge how unfamiliar it will be to your audience. Here you can use any word, but to most audiences politeness demands you use words they'll probably understand.
Understanding doesn't require that the hearer has heard it before. Anyone can work out gruntled if you're using it for humorous effect, though the famous Wodehouse quote does take the precaution of using the original word as well: I can't remember how it goes exactly, something like Jeeves was, if not exactly disgruntled, far from gruntled.
Tinguished is wrong in any case, if we're taking this seriously: both distinguish and extinguish are from the Latin stinguo, meaning 'prick, mark off' in one case and 'extinguish, quell' in the other. (A bit puzzling that, but Lewis & Short seem to think they're the same.)
Tinguished is wrong in any case, if we're taking this seriously: both distinguish and extinguish are from the Latin stinguo, meaning 'prick, mark off' in one case and 'extinguish, quell' in the other. (A bit puzzling that, but Lewis & Short seem to think they're the same.)
Interesting - it would appear, given the Latin root, that, in the case of extinguish, a consonant drift has occurred, (either "estingish" or "exstinguish") while it has not in the case of distinguished.
We see examples of this tendency all the time. How many times have you heard "escape" pronounced "excape", for instance? Eventually, it will probably become "excape". [Emoticon for "I hear the dark forces of linguistic conservatism gathering"].
Well the double [s] in [eks-s-] would immediately have been simplified to a single one, but in Latin they often wrote the s, as in exspecto. We always take our words from the alternative spelling such as expecto, so it's not always obvious what the root is if you take ex- away from 'expect'.
Nemo
As one of the perpetrators of those words, I beg pardon on the grounds that I was attempting to make play with this (?) week's word theme - about beheading words. See the 'Weekly Themes' forum for reference.
A moment of madness which is usually allowed on this Board. Do I have to hold my wrists out to be smacked?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
shanks asks, with slavering anticiption (and knowing full well that the board's sleaze police are away getting a politickal eddication):
Do I have to hold my wrists out to be smacked?I don't remember you as a Conservative member of Cabinet, old son.
Cap K asks: How many times have you heard "escape" pronounced "excape", for instance?
This has happened the other way around; the OE acsian has degenerated to the MnE ask.
This "incorrect" pronunciation has become the standard and the dialectal ax is considered incorrect.
CapK asides: ... and knowing full well that the board's sleaze police are away getting a politickal eddication)...
"They" did not, however, fail to hire spies ['arched eyebrow' emoticon]
A pox on the heads of all the rappers and ebonics pushers who have brought aks / ax (instead of ASK) into mainstream vocabulary. I get seriously annoyed when I hear this. It grates on my nerves – worse that nails on chalkboard.
Do I have to hold my wrists out to be smacked?
Well now, to continue the beheading trend, perhaps now the sleaze police (sleaze police?? po-leaze!) will be
content if your wrists are acked.
BTW, I hate hearing ax a question, myself.(shudder emoticon)
<A pox on the heads of all the rappers and ebonics pushers who have brought aks / ax (instead of ASK) into mainstream vocabulary. I get seriously annoyed when I hear this. It grates on my nerves – worse that nails on chalkboard. >
A few years ago I thought it would be fun to introduce a scholarly paper on "The Rise in Usage of the Glottal Stop Due to Rap and Hip Hop Music". Like "hi'in" and "qui'in" for hitting and quitting (how do you represent a glottal stop, anyway?). Not being the scholarly paper type, it was just an amusing pipe dream...
This has happened the other way around; the OE acsian has degenerated to the MnE ask.
This "incorrect" pronunciation has become the standard and the dialectal ax is considered incorrect.
degenerated
No it hasn't, it's changed.
In any case, both ascian and acsian occurred in OE.
I saw these words in Information, and am guessing that they are the roots of the now more common extinguished and disgruntled. My question is ths: Is it "ingenuous" to use such words, given that they are basically dead?Surely the question should be whether it is genuous?
In reply to:
If I enjoy the freedom that language brings to me, why would I deny the 6th grader, who knows very well that it is "incorrect" pronunciation, the wonderful feeling ...
So if said 6th grader needs to compose a report on nucular physics, do you suggest that they aks the libarian for assistance? 
"pixture" for picture and long A when someone is reading text outloud for the article a. Shudder is right! And cringe too! And maybe roll my eyes a bit towards the ceiling!
"Adversity is the whetstone of creativity"
Onie if dey aks me nicely like....
I've never heard anyone ('cept third parties) slip on "nucular libarians". (of course if they leave thier peels on the floor...
)
Actually, I make it "a point up to a point" (I think there is a thread for that), sooner or later they correct themselves when they realize I am ignoring them because of "that"
.
ps. Have you ever had to teach (not English) when my first sentence here is the standard speech pattern ALL DAY LONG!!!
pps. I was wrong to suggest that they had any feelings...