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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
Yes, there are always some rocks that take longer to grind down to sand
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
'Ere, you little twerp, bring that dining room chair in off the beach this instant! You'll get it all wet an' mucky. You just wait 'til your father gets 'ome! -- Knutty's Mum
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
darn, yuh got ahead by 30 seconds! Not my fault that you were too long coming! (See Dunlendings.)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
French underwent a storm of elisions, and survived it very well. I doubt that an accumulations of elisions would improve English. Perhaps we can blow the whistle on them, and keep the consonants, and avoid confusion.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Knutty sez: But if a word appears to be changing in a way that seems (to me) ugly, then I don't have to be a passive observer, I reserve the right to resist the change.
Many of the definitional changes in Modern English tend toward imprecision. A term which has a narrow usage is used sloppily. The definition broadens, following the poor usage. The language, capable of great precision, becomes less precise ... as does the thinking of those who damaged it. (When you're my age, you can say curmudgeonly things like this and get away with it.)
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
When I saw this subject line, I immediately thought of the French (and Portuguese, and maybe Spanish) term contretemps/contratempo. [/aside]
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Ed.:
Forget it - this was far too late to be relevant! Comes from trying to answer the 'phone while (whilst?) posting.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Many of the definitional changes in Modern English tend toward imprecision
Then other words crop up to fill in the void and y'all complain about those.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Only the ugly sounding ones!
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
A term which has a narrow usage is used sloppily. The definition broadens, following the poor usage. The language, capable of great precision, becomes less precise ... as does the thinking of those who damaged it.
Sorry, Padre, I just don't buy it. Seems there was a thread hereabouts recently about how the Golden Age of Yore (tm) wasn't always what it was cracked up to be. Same with language. Take Latin. Is it more or less precise than French or Italian? Did Neanderthals speak a precise language of utter purity? Why aren't we grunting out monosyllables all meaning the same thing? Is English any worse off now that silly means 'foolish' rather than 'happy, innocent, pitiable, feeble' as it did in Middle English? The problem is this: languages change. Always have, alweays will. The only known way of stopping a language from changing is to set the number of its speakers to zero. I am reminded of Canute on the beach.
I think that people with poor critical thinking skills and poor verbal skills use a language in an inprecise manner. The same could be said of somebody using a hammer sideways to hammer in a screw. Is the hammer any less of a hammer. Oh, now I feel like Canute. (Sorry, Father Steve, just a pet peeve of mine.)
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