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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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True. So did some damn Yankee lexo, which was quoted only recently on AWAD's final line...
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>So did some damn Yankee lexo, which was quoted only recently on AWAD's final line...
Sorry, I don't get the AWAD mail.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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hmmm. Think it was one of the dailies but. Can’t find the file with Anu’s citation, but here’s where I used the same quote a while back: http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=theme&Number=18236I also just found this quotation in David Crystal’s ‘Words on Words’ (pub Penguin Books, 2000): The notion that anything is gained by fixing a language in a groove is cherished only by pedants. ~ HL Mencken, 1919, The American Language
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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How odd, he complains of additions to the English Language. I don't mind new additions whether I would use them or not. Especially if they describe something new or in a new way eg. Frankenfood or McJob. What makes me sad is the words which drop out of common use. I'm afraid that losing words will simplify the way we think. The first example which comes to mind is color, things used to be cerulean or teal or azure or periwinkle blue. Now they are light, dark or "sort of a medium bluey-greeny kind of colour". If we only have a generic word for it do we only see a generic colour.
My high school English teacher devided words into weedy, those often overused words with imprecise meanings eg. you look nice and woody those that gave a specific meaning eg you look elegant. Papers were often handed back to be weeded.
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Joined: Jun 2002
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My high school English teacher devided words into weedy, those often overused words with imprecise meanings eg. you look nice and woody those that gave a specific meaning eg you look elegant. Papers were often handed back to be weeded.that's splendid! 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
I'm of the opinion that if a dictionary is designed to be a reference book rather than a text book - and I assume that this is the case - then any word (or meaning of a word) which gains more than a very local or regional currency, even for a short time, should be included. Think how many archaic or "obsolete" words and definitions of words which are vaguely attributed at best or are a pure and simple guess at worst - ?1320, for instance - simply because no one went to the trouble of defining how the word was used at the time. Do we want future generations to be put in the same position simply to somehow keep dictionaries "pure"? That's horseshit!
And if I'm correct, then all of the words mentioned above should be included in all dictionaries. To hell with the purists. Their continued position in the gene pool seems less than certain, anyway. Too fussy to breed, most of 'em ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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To be fair to the man, I think he was saying that he was surprised longneck wasn't in the MW dictionary long ago.
Bingley
Bingley
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words which drop out of common use
This raises the question: Is the loss of words cause or effect? That is, does the loss of words restrict our choices in thinking or do we lose words because they have no more use?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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once the occupation becomes obsolete, people no longer remember the word
Unless, as noted in the second thread, it becomes fossilized in a name.
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