Securing Electricity Meter Cupboard

[JohnW2]

So are we all agreed that I may start calling this .... <piccie> ... a screw?

You are free to call it what you like, but you might find it unhelpful (an impediment to clear communication) if you chose unilaterally to do that.

However, if millions of English-speaking people came to describe that object as "a screw" and continued so to do for a substantial period of time, then I would expect dictionaries to eventually acknowledge/recognise that 'new usage' of the word. I know that some disagree, but my view is that such (documenting how a language is being used) is the purpose of dictionaries.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

That is the point.

Would it not be better to discourage the few original perpetrators from making the mistake.

I really can't understand the meek acceptance that the language is controlled by those who are ignorant and wrong so forcing the knowledgeable and correct users to change.

Will there come a time when the dictionary states that all sentences should end with "innit" - even that spelt wrongly?

 

[JohnW2]

That is the point. Would it not be better to discourage the few original perpetrators from making the mistake.

That would, indeed, be better IF one wants to have a static language.

Virtually all evolution of language involves "a few original perpetrators" using the existing language in a manner which is 'incorrect' (or, at least, undocumented) - so to discourage them would be to discourage evolution of language. If that's what one wants, then that 'discouragement' would be, indeed, be appropriate.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

Yes, but you seem to think that the evolution of language is a desirable thing in itself which should be encouraged rather than the consequence of errors which would be better avoided.

Inevitably new words are needed and transformers change but that is not the same as the fundamentally wrong usage of words becoming commonplace.

 

[JohnW2]

Yes, but you seem to think that the evolution of language is a desirable thing in itself which should be encouraged rather than the consequence of errors which would be better avoided.

I don't personally have a strong feeling either way, but I think you'll find that most Linguists feel that evolution of language is, as a concept, desirable (and probably inevitable).

As I said, IF one does support the concept of evolution, then one must not suppress all 'errors' - since 'errors' are the starting point of any evolution.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

Precisely, so, how can that be desirable in its own right?

 

[JohnD]

...said the elderly fish, frowning at the youngsters making attempts to flap across the beach.

 

[JohnW2]

Precisely, so, how can that be desirable in its own right?

That's a philosophical or sociological question about which everyone will have personal views/opinions.

"Desirable" is obviously very much a matter of personal opinion. Most things 'evolve' over time. Clothes, hair styles, furniture design, decor, the food we eat etc. etc. etc. have all changed (in most cases gradually) markedly over the decades and centuries. Whilst a lot of the changes have been due to technological etc. advances, a lot have not. Whether one regards any of those ('evolved') changes as 'desirable' is again a matter of personal opinion. I certainly suspect that, say, my great-grandparents would have regarded many of the changes which have subsequently happened as being highly 'undesirable' - but does that mean that those subsequent changes should not have been allowed to happen?

Moving a bit back onto the (off-topic!) topic, some of the attempts to change language which we discuss here are really nothing to do with evolution of language (a slow and progressive change in usage by the general public) but, rather, result from an attempt by some 'body' to suddenly impose changes. For the first several decades of my life, "lamps" were things into which one plugged "light bulbs", and that continued to be the case long after the days when all "light bulbs" resembled biological bulbs. Many of those "lamps" still exist (table lamps, standard lamps, reading lamps, inspection lamps, street lamps, headlamps etc. etc.) and still need to have some light-emitting thing 'plugged into' them. In this case we have seen a considerable degree of resistance on the part of the general public to utilise this attempt to impose this change in language.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnD]

I don't seriously believe that EFL and Ban want the English language to be picked as it was in 1812, or 1650, or 1066, or 788.

I think they want to slow down changes that occurred after they grew old.

As Douglas Adams said:

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

"...I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on...."


even the Amish are happy with technology invented before they thought it should stop.

 

[EFLImpudence]

...said the elderly fish, frowning at the youngsters making attempts to flap across the beach.

Floundering again.

 

[JohnD]

Possibly a distant relative

 

[JohnD]

or this

 

[333rocky333]

That's great @Jadele thanks for your advice. I just ordered the key safe

Would that be ok out in the wind and bad weather

 

[JohnD]

 

[EFLImpudence]

For the first several decades of my life, "lamps" were things into which one plugged "light bulbs", and that continued to be the case long after the days when all "light bulbs" resembled biological bulbs. Many of those "lamps" still exist (table lamps, standard lamps, reading lamps, inspection lamps, street lamps, headlamps etc. etc.) and still need to have some light-emitting thing 'plugged into' them. In this case we have seen a considerable degree of resistance on the part of the general public to utilise this attempt to impose this change in language

What would you call light bulbs which are not bulbs?

Would you consider an LED rope a bulb? If not, where do you draw the line.