As I said, that didn't work with what EFLI posted, because he posted it as an image.
Kind Regards, John
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Kind Regards, John
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But it works in the actual post which EFLI "quoted" by using a screenshot....
Ah. That could explain why some of your replies do not quite seem contiguous.
Indeed it does (as I now know) but, as I wrote, that post was so long that I didn't bother reading any of it.
Kind Regards, John
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Then stop "contributing" right now. If you are going to be so lazy, and therefore by extension so contemptuous of other people here, then you have no business joining in.
As with many things in life - do it properly or not at all.
It's the only one in this thread that I haven't read, since BAS had not until then reverted to his line-by-line 'War and Peace mode'!
Kind Regards, John
Shameful.
As I've told you before, I generally do not bother to read posts from anyone, in any thread, in any forum, if they are significantly more than 'one screen' in length. Those wanting to get my attention should perhaps bear that in mind.
Kind Regards, John
I've just given you that guide, and you said that you will try to remember it.
Kind Regards, John
I guess I should also make a mental note to be wary of any post you make in any topic where it is separated from your previous one by significantly more than one screen's worth of other posts, since it is now clear that you cannot be relied upon to have read anything which others have written between the two.
Sorry, I don't know how big your screen is, but I've made my reply shorter for you. Hopefully it will make more sense to you than the original did.
Since that is the only example I have mentioned in this topic, and you've seen what has happened to me as a result, I advise you to be careful in saying that it was a mistake, and should perhaps have been "hit on the head" early on, for (if he is consistent and unbiased) you will attract criticism and mockery from JohnD for suggesting it.
You may be right, but I think you are probably wrong - I don't think that it is incredibly unusual for for slang usage to arise by mistake - I feel that words are usually deliberately taken and a new usage/meaning added to them. I wonder what mistake it could have been, for example, which made "gay" come to mean homosexual?
Hmm. Not sure about that. True, it was originally coined because we needed a word for executing people with an electric chair, but we also needed a word for a fatal electric shock. We don't seem to have a problem with "shot", "hanged", "decapitated" etc being used for both judicial and extra-judicial killings, nor accidental deaths, so I'm unconvinced that we should not have started to use "electrocute" in the same way. Yes, the type of link which there is between "execute" and "electrocute" is not there with those other words, and maybe it would have been better if we'd opted for one of the alternative proposals instead of "electrocute", such as "electromort", but we didn't, and TBH I don't see how using "electrocute" to refer to an accidental death could have a detrimental effect on communication, as it's hard to see how someone being told about a person being electrocuted would mistakenly think they'd been executed after having been found guilty of a capital offence.
It is the relatively recent change of "electrocute" being used to mean a non-fatal electric shock which concerns me. And I think it is relatively recent, as so far only one dictionary recognises it.
But in this case we had an opportunity to hit it on the head at the time, and I wish we had. Or possibly still do, if other dictionaries don't follow suit. It was not a good or useful evolutionary change. Whereas the chances of someone not knowing, 120-odd years ago, if "Did you hear about Fred? He got electrocuted" meant he'd been executed by the state or meant he'd received a fatal electric shock in some other way were probably pretty small, now we have the problem that you don't know if Fred is dead or alive. It was/is all so unnecessary. We did not need to take a word which meant "fatal electric shock" and strip "fatal" from it, leaving us with no word for the fatal version, just because people were too lazy to deal with 2 more letters and the same number of syllables by carrying on saying "electric shock".
I think the haste with which the OED gave in to the ignorant/lazy was shameful.
Guardian? Or authoritative documentation of correct usage? No way should any dictionary be allowed to control what words people are or are not allowed to say, but there is nothing wrong with a mistake which has a wholly negative effect remaining de facto a mistake for ever.
It was equally an error/misunderstanding on the part of everybody who used "electrocute" to mean a non-fatal electric shock until the new usage was endorsed by the dictionary(ies).
We do not operate on the Humpty Dumpty principle, and should not allow the anarchy of someone suddenly deciding to use an existing word to mean something which not one other person thinks it means, or (much worse) suddenly deciding that it no longer means what everybody else thinks it does, without them being told that they are wrong.
No it doesn't.
I give you prostrate.
If a mistake adds nothing and takes away something, there's no reason why it should not be regarded as a mistake for ever.
50-odd years ago my secondary school English master used to "go on about it", but IIRC it was because he thought using it was lazy, not because it meant something other than what we all thought it meant.
Do they?
And what is its "correct" meaning? Foolish? Stupid? Wanton? Lascivious? Ostentatious? Neat? Elegant? Dainty? Strange? Rare? Extraordinary? Slothful? Lazy? Effeminate? Unmanly? Pampered? Luxurious? Coy? Shy? Reluctant? Unwilling? Fastidious? Scrupulous? Punctilious? [In terms of column-inches, those cover 20-25% of the entries in the Shorter OED. I don't think that typing out any more would add anything]. Interestingly, "neat, elegant, dainty" dates from around the 15th century.
The one JonhD picked on:
If by that you mean the meaning "agreeable, pleasant, delightful, friendly" etc, it's been more than decades - that meaning is 300 years old.
Since that is the only example I have mentioned in this topic, and you've seen what has happened to me as a result, I advise you to be careful in saying that it was a mistake, and should perhaps have been "hit on the head" early on, for (if he is consistent and unbiased) you will attract criticism and mockery from JohnD for suggesting it.
You may be right, but I think you are probably wrong - I don't think that it is incredibly unusual for for slang usage to arise by mistake - I feel that words are usually deliberately taken and a new usage/meaning added to them. I wonder what mistake it could have been, for example, which made "gay" come to mean homosexual?
Hmm. Not sure about that. True, it was originally coined because we needed a word for executing people with an electric chair, but we also needed a word for a fatal electric shock. We don't seem to have a problem with "shot", "hanged", "decapitated" etc being used for both judicial and extra-judicial killings, nor accidental deaths, so I'm unconvinced that we should not have started to use "electrocute" in the same way. Yes, the type of link which there is between "execute" and "electrocute" is not there with those other words, and maybe it would have been better if we'd opted for one of the alternative proposals instead of "electrocute", such as "electromort", but we didn't, and TBH I don't see how using "electrocute" to refer to an accidental death could have a detrimental effect on communication, as it's hard to see how someone being told about a person being electrocuted would mistakenly think they'd been executed after having been found guilty of a capital offence.
It is the relatively recent change of "electrocute" being used to mean a non-fatal electric shock which concerns me. And I think it is relatively recent, as so far only one dictionary recognises it.
But in this case we had an opportunity to hit it on the head at the time, and I wish we had. Or possibly still do, if other dictionaries don't follow suit. It was not a good or useful evolutionary change. Whereas the chances of someone not knowing, 120-odd years ago, if "Did you hear about Fred? He got electrocuted" meant he'd been executed by the state or meant he'd received a fatal electric shock in some other way were probably pretty small, now we have the problem that you don't know if Fred is dead or alive. It was/is all so unnecessary. We did not need to take a word which meant "fatal electric shock" and strip "fatal" from it, leaving us with no word for the fatal version, just because people were too lazy to deal with 2 more letters and the same number of syllables by carrying on saying "electric shock".
I think the haste with which the OED gave in to the ignorant/lazy was shameful.
Guardian? Or authoritative documentation of correct usage? No way should any dictionary be allowed to control what words people are or are not allowed to say, but there is nothing wrong with a mistake which has a wholly negative effect remaining de facto a mistake for ever.
It was equally an error/misunderstanding on the part of everybody who used "electrocute" to mean a non-fatal electric shock until the new usage was endorsed by the dictionary(ies).
We do not operate on the Humpty Dumpty principle, and should not allow the anarchy of someone suddenly deciding to use an existing word to mean something which not one other person thinks it means, or (much worse) suddenly deciding that it no longer means what everybody else thinks it does, without them being told that they are wrong.
No it doesn't.
I give you prostrate.
If a mistake adds nothing and takes away something, there's no reason why it should not be regarded as a mistake for ever.
50-odd years ago my secondary school English master used to "go on about it", but IIRC it was because he thought using it was lazy, not because it meant something other than what we all thought it meant.
Do they?
And what is its "correct" meaning? Foolish? Stupid? Wanton? Lascivious? Ostentatious? Neat? Elegant? Dainty? Strange? Rare? Extraordinary? Slothful? Lazy? Effeminate? Unmanly? Pampered? Luxurious? Coy? Shy? Reluctant? Unwilling? Fastidious? Scrupulous? Punctilious? [In terms of column-inches, those cover 20-25% of the entries in the Shorter OED. I don't think that typing out any more would add anything]. Interestingly, "neat, elegant, dainty" dates from around the 15th century.
The one JonhD picked on:
is late 16th century.
If by that you mean the meaning "agreeable, pleasant, delightful, friendly" etc, it's been more than decades - that meaning is 300 years old.
If you are talking about words like "lamp" and "continuity", I agree.
Kind Regards, John
Until we get affordable room temperature superconductors in T/E, "continuity" is never going to be a binary concept, it is always going to the case that "Yes, there is continuity" is going to imply "Yes, there is an acceptable quality of continuity" i.e. a quantitative resistance measurement.
These are all "roads":
But a "yes/no" answer to the question "Is there a road between A&B?" might not tell you what you really need to know...
The MS Word spell-checker seems to have thought of that, and can cope with at least four vertical/diagonal/lateral 'finger slips' (in a 9-letter word) .....
I may be wrong, but I doubt whether it would/could have done as well as that if it wasn't thinking about key positions - "ijcoereft" is hardly very close to "incorrect" (i.e. I very much doubt that you would have worked out that the former was meant to be typed as the latter)!
Kind Regards, John
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