Are you suggesting that "the" is syntactically singular? The other speakers of English will be quite surprised to hear this. In any case, while there has indeed been a shift from plural "United States" to singular, it was certainly not a rapid change caused by the Civil War: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1798
Nope, "pain" is is not used as slang for "money" in French. The use of "bread" to mean "money" in English comes from Cockney Rhyming Slang, where "bread and honey" == "money".
Good points. I took the comment about Leopard to be an implied comparison with Tiger, where running applications had a solid black triangle underneath the icon. I recall complaints when Leopard first came out that the light blue dot was harder to see.
You know, I hadn't thought about that. It's likely that presidential elections without an Electoral College would become more expensive by forcing the candidates to compete everywhere.
I still think we should get rid of the EC for the reasons GP suggested--why should the election be decided by a handful of voters who, by an accident of demography, live in swing states?--but the possible added cost of a direct election is a consideration.
No, something can pique your interest, but GP was saying that his interest peaked, i.e. reached a high point. His usage is correct.
Nice pun, though:-P
"needs " is common in dialects of Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. I grew up using this construction and never knew it was non-standard until I moved out to the East Coast and people started looking at me funny.
In other words, your knowledge of American dialects needs expanded.
Definitely a possibility, but you've got it backward: it's the summer hours we'd want to keep if you like the extra daylight after work. Winter hours are Standard Time.
Exactly. Imagine I made two videos. Video #1 informs viewers that bananas are a healthy and delicious snack full of potassium. Video #2 warns viewers that overripe bananas will kill your children, and claims that the Dole Corporation is involved in a huge cover-up and buying off FDA officials.
Guess which video will be watched more often. I see no reason to think a video's popularity would be related to its truth value.
Esperanto does not have genders, at least not in the linguistic sense of noun classes. It does have infixes that indicate the biological gender of the referent--that is, if you want to, you can specify "female doctor" or "male doctor".
But it's not like French, where "table" is feminine for no discernable reason.
Ah, but when it comes to language use, the "right way" is only "right" because enough speakers consider it so. Language use is a set of arbitrary conventions that shift over time, whether we want them to or not. Our "correct" usage would horrify and bewilder Shakespeare, whose usage would be strange to Chaucer, whose usage would be incomprehensible to pre-Norman-Conquest Saxons.
You might as well argue that modern Romance languages are abominations brought about by people who are too lazy and uneducated to speak proper Latin.
In a way, language is like fashion: the consensus of what is "good" fashion changes over time, and some new fashions may appear ridiculous to some observers. Thankfully, though, language doesn't change quite as fast;-)
Yep, that's exactly what I meant with "infer." I see it used that way pretty frequently, and--as much as I try not to be a prescriptivist--it kind of drives me nuts.
I like your movie idea:)
Oh, definitely confusion can arise. For example, the increasingly frequent use of "infer" to mean "imply." That sure seems like it can cause unnecessary confusion, much more so than using "beg the question" to mean "raise the question."
But in general, language change happens at a rate that does not cause mass confusion among its speakers. It bugs me when prescriptivists bust out the canard that novel word usages will somehow lead to immediate and total incomprehensibility--as if English speakers are going to wake up tomorrow morning and start randomly reassigning nouns to new referents willy-nilly.
Funny thing about linguistic change: when a new usage catches on, it becomes a new definition for the word or phrase. Words and phrases only mean what they mean by common consensus; when enough people start making a "mistake" such as misusing "beg the question," it is no longer a mistake.
Words acquire new meanings and shed old ones, and arguing against linguistic change is as pointless as denouncing continental drift.
Those over the age of 50 have had at least 20 years longer to burn it into their memory:)
That, and your age is a big factor in determining who "close family relatives" are. For most people under 30, "close family relatives" are their parents and maybe a sibling or two. For people over 50, "close family relatives" are more likely to include a spouse and children. I'm gonna go out on a limb and hypothesize that parents have an easier time remembering their children's birthdays than vice versa.
calling something else by that name makes it very difficult for people to communicate... People violating those conventions by laziness or ignorance gum up the works for everyone else.
I agree in principle, but you gotta admit you knew exactly what the author meant when he [mis]used "begs the question." Yes, language wouldn't work if large numbers of words kept changing their meaning arbitrarily every day, but the gradual diffusion of a new usage throughout the popular idiom is hardly going to render us unable to communicate.
I agree with you, but creationists will dodge this by saying that they accept observable microevolution but not macroevolution. Even the most hard-core creationist understands that bacteria mutate. They're just unwilling to apply the concept on a larger scale and accept the idea of speciation.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you suggesting that "the" is syntactically singular? The other speakers of English will be quite surprised to hear this. In any case, while there has indeed been a shift from plural "United States" to singular, it was certainly not a rapid change caused by the Civil War: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1798
Nope, "pain" is is not used as slang for "money" in French. The use of "bread" to mean "money" in English comes from Cockney Rhyming Slang, where "bread and honey" == "money".
Good points. I took the comment about Leopard to be an implied comparison with Tiger, where running applications had a solid black triangle underneath the icon. I recall complaints when Leopard first came out that the light blue dot was harder to see.
Only the music stations are commercial-free. The talk/news/sports stations have always had commercials.
You know, I hadn't thought about that. It's likely that presidential elections without an Electoral College would become more expensive by forcing the candidates to compete everywhere. I still think we should get rid of the EC for the reasons GP suggested--why should the election be decided by a handful of voters who, by an accident of demography, live in swing states?--but the possible added cost of a direct election is a consideration.
No, she's pro-choice. To be "pro-life" in the context of American politics means she would force that decision on other women.
Exercising your right to choose not to have an abortion does not make you pro-life.
For info on all the class abilities and zones, http://www.wardb.com/ is up :-)
This coming weekend is Preview Weekend. I gather the idea is to stress-test the servers, not actually start the beta early.
No, something can pique your interest, but GP was saying that his interest peaked, i.e. reached a high point. His usage is correct. Nice pun, though :-P
Heh, I think you meant "Branch Davidians." Camp David is a retreat for the POTUS.
Goddammit, that looked fine in the preview. The first part is supposed to read "needs ".
"needs " is common in dialects of Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. I grew up using this construction and never knew it was non-standard until I moved out to the East Coast and people started looking at me funny.
In other words, your knowledge of American dialects needs expanded.
Definitely a possibility, but you've got it backward: it's the summer hours we'd want to keep if you like the extra daylight after work. Winter hours are Standard Time.
Beware, parent is myminicity.
Exactly. Imagine I made two videos. Video #1 informs viewers that bananas are a healthy and delicious snack full of potassium. Video #2 warns viewers that overripe bananas will kill your children, and claims that the Dole Corporation is involved in a huge cover-up and buying off FDA officials.
Guess which video will be watched more often. I see no reason to think a video's popularity would be related to its truth value.
Esperanto does not have genders, at least not in the linguistic sense of noun classes. It does have infixes that indicate the biological gender of the referent--that is, if you want to, you can specify "female doctor" or "male doctor". But it's not like French, where "table" is feminine for no discernable reason.
Spudds' presumption was correct. I upgraded last night, and the beryl-* packages were removed automatically.
A minor point. I'm just grateful someone finally spelled it correctly.
You might as well argue that modern Romance languages are abominations brought about by people who are too lazy and uneducated to speak proper Latin.
In a way, language is like fashion: the consensus of what is "good" fashion changes over time, and some new fashions may appear ridiculous to some observers. Thankfully, though, language doesn't change quite as fast ;-)
Yep, that's exactly what I meant with "infer." I see it used that way pretty frequently, and--as much as I try not to be a prescriptivist--it kind of drives me nuts. I like your movie idea :)
But in general, language change happens at a rate that does not cause mass confusion among its speakers. It bugs me when prescriptivists bust out the canard that novel word usages will somehow lead to immediate and total incomprehensibility--as if English speakers are going to wake up tomorrow morning and start randomly reassigning nouns to new referents willy-nilly.
Funny thing about linguistic change: when a new usage catches on, it becomes a new definition for the word or phrase. Words and phrases only mean what they mean by common consensus; when enough people start making a "mistake" such as misusing "beg the question," it is no longer a mistake. Words acquire new meanings and shed old ones, and arguing against linguistic change is as pointless as denouncing continental drift.
That, and your age is a big factor in determining who "close family relatives" are. For most people under 30, "close family relatives" are their parents and maybe a sibling or two. For people over 50, "close family relatives" are more likely to include a spouse and children. I'm gonna go out on a limb and hypothesize that parents have an easier time remembering their children's birthdays than vice versa.
calling something else by that name makes it very difficult for people to communicate... People violating those conventions by laziness or ignorance gum up the works for everyone else.
I agree in principle, but you gotta admit you knew exactly what the author meant when he [mis]used "begs the question." Yes, language wouldn't work if large numbers of words kept changing their meaning arbitrarily every day, but the gradual diffusion of a new usage throughout the popular idiom is hardly going to render us unable to communicate.
I agree with you, but creationists will dodge this by saying that they accept observable microevolution but not macroevolution. Even the most hard-core creationist understands that bacteria mutate. They're just unwilling to apply the concept on a larger scale and accept the idea of speciation.