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There's just no pleasing some people. Who, F? It would seem to me valuable that words differ so as to allow one to express fine distinctions of meaning (less vs. fewer, recur vs. reocur) and that a single-word-doing-double-duty (more) conveys less. F, what side did you take in the "he-she-it" controversy, on October 5-9 at http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=42471&page=&view=&sb=&vc=1? If I recall, you and I were each on the side of preserving terminological distinctions.
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stranger
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Thanks, tsuwm, for the Bartleby link. I've added it to my list of Favorites (that makes four; still new at this due to prior time constraints but seriously on my way to addiction). Must say I agree with Keiva that fine distinctions of meaning are the icing on the language cake.
This site [you guys] is [are] the greatest! Just spent a couple of hours perusing Information and Announcements. Whew. You can drill down forever and ever. Can't wait to get to Miscellany, etc. Feels like home...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome, diborg. Pull up a chair.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, indeed, diborg, pull up a chair. And food and drink, and pillow and blanket...sink right on in, and welcome aBoard!  I shall now give you a sampling of the kind of thing you'll often find here. (Yes, people, I know that I am going to violate the suggestion that I posted a reminder about recently, of keeping Q&A serious, but there's too much above for me to resist. So sue me.) ... and we just lie back and think of England, truly we do ... [Snicker]Well, CK, I have now been shocked for the second time in two days...[Snort!]...I had no idea, truly I didn't. [Howl!] ============================================================ Keiva, I think you were a little mixed up, my dear. You said 'more conveys less'; and, didn't you mean to say, "you and I were both on the side of preserving terminological distinctions."? [evil grin emoticon] ============================================================ Speaking of emoticons--I just noticed that when you Reply to a post, you can now click on the words "Post Icon", and a new window will open that shows the pictures of them. (Though you still can't select one except when you open a new thread.) Somebody help me out here, please--I have too many Am-I-losing-my-mind moments: has that always been like that? Am I wrong in thinking that they used to just be in the drop-down menu and not in a separate window?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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didn't you mean to say, "you and I were both on the side of preserving terminological distinctions."? [evil grin emoticon]Nope, m'dear: In the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, "I meant what I said and I said what I meant." Each of us was acting independently of the other, not collaboratively. Quite characteristically; a board-member (I dasn't say "ayleur"  ) tends to have a strong streak of independent-mindedness! a double-dactyl illustrative as to word-usage (but not, let me hasten to add, illustrative of my view of F ): Higgledy-piggledy.
Gilbert and Sullivan
Collaborated and
Got very rich.
Nevertheless, and quite
Characteristicallly
Each thought the other
A bit of a twitch.
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It would seem to me valuable that words differ so as to allow one to express fine distinctions of meaning
Sure, if they're needed they're nice to keep. Hoi Polloi seem to have decided that the difference between counting and measuring comparisons is not significant or that it can be handled by other means. The comic strip Jump Start did a joke on less vs. fewer once which ended with the phrase "there are less people in that line" being illustrated by one of the people picturing people erased at the waist or with missing arms or legs. Your normally intelligent person is not liable to be confused by the use of less to indicate a countable comparison since the context almost always gives that meaning. It would be easy to use recur or reoccur in a situation where the context would not give the necessary information.
what side did you take in the "he-she-it" controversy
For starters, your link led me to an entire nother thread. I had to change it to showthreaded to get to the right thread. Also, if you are trying to point someone to a specific post in a long thread (I include this for the education of strangers and newbies) it is good to include more information about the specific thread (or else bite the bullet and do it in threaded mode). Keiva's inadvertent misdirection may have come from the fact that he included more information than needed in the link; he should have cut it off after the post number (42471).
That said, I looked at the thread and I don't think that I even saw a he-she-it controversy. I mentioned that in Old English wif (woman) was neuter and wifman (female human being) was masculine merely to point out that English didn't always suffer from "natural" (take that, stales) gender.
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your link led me to an entire nother thread. I had to change it to showthreaded to get to the right threadOdd, Faldage; the link I posted (noting the dates of Oct. 5-9) gets me to the right thread. Sorry it didn't work for you. (Edit: perhaps the cause is that you set your display preferences at a lower number of posts-per-page than I?) I repeat the link here, for convenience: http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=42471&page=&view=&sb=&vc=1?I don't think that I even saw a he-she-it controversy.See portion beginning with CK's post of Oct. 5, in which he proposed, "The woman went shopping and it bought a new pair of knickers". (emphasis added)
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I went to 99 posts per page and it came out ok. Since I normally use the far superior threaded mode this is not normally a problem for me.
I don't think that I even saw a he-she-it controversy.
See portion beginning with CK's post of Oct. 5
That was a controversy? I thought that was Good Natured Bantering. The onliest controversy I see on these pages is whether we cave in to the ultraliberal attempts to foster the degeneration of the language or insist upon holding to the reactionary dictates of the elitist prescritivists.
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Your question, diborg, reminds me of the regardless/irregardless controversy. Irregardless is usually regarded as a vulgarization of regardless, but irregardless seems to be gaining in popularity and usage. And welcome to the board, diborg! It is, indeed, a home away from home, as you say. You can move right in and set up shop! But, as you'll see, trying to stay away is the real trick! 
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Irregardless had always been a joke, but it now seems to be a joke repeated so often that it sounds right to the ear of those who have heard it all their lives. We reinvent the language every generation and we reinvent it based on what we hear during that critical several year period when we hear the language unencumbered by the dictates of formal education. I count myself as one of the perpetrators of the joke and even to my aged eye regardless looks somehow incomplete.
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