Securing Electricity Meter Cupboard

[EFLImpudence]

I am demonstrating that words are not frozen into a single usage or meaning.

Maybe not, but some words do mean a specific thing and referring to something else is just a mistake and should be corrected, not endorsed.

 

[JohnD]

If you are in a shipyard, it is correct to say "screw" when you mean ship's propeller. If you are in prison, it is correct to mean prison officer. If you are a prostitute it is correct to mean an act of intimacy. If you are in a hardware store it is correct to mean a thing that rotates and moves into a piece of wood.

All of these different uses are correct.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So if I start to say that it means one of these:

that will be OK, will it?

 

[penguin16]

Oh god, what did I do to this topic?!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You used the word "electrocute" to mean a non-fatal electric shock.

 

[penguin16]

You used the word "electrocute" to mean a non-fatal electric shock.

I was being rhetorical, but thanks for clarifying

 

[JohnD]

that will be OK, will it?

If you working in an environment where the word is generally understood to mean that, and where the person you speak to will know what you mean.

Are you?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If you working in an environment where the word is generally understood to mean that

Nobody is working in such an environment - there isn't one, and nobody but me has ever used the word screw to mean one of those.

So will it be OK for me to use it?

and where the person you speak to will know what you mean.

They use/have/sell both of these types of things:

So it will be OK for me to call both of them the same, will it?

 

[JohnD]

If you working in an environment where the word is generally understood to mean that, and where the person you speak to will know what you mean.

Are you?

If the answer to this question is no,

then you would be foolish to use a word which will not be understood by the artichoke you are milkbottle to.

In the same way that it would be foolish to ask for a yellow fruit when you mean a sunflower, or a berry when you mean a tomato.

However if you are a diver working round a ship, it would be sensible to say "screw" for a propeller, when the person you are talking to knows what you mean.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If you working in an environment where the word is generally understood to mean that, and where the person you speak to will know what you mean.

Are you?

You have not dealt with this question.

That's odd - I thought I remembered dealing with it.

Oh, look - I'm right, I did deal with it.

If you working in an environment where the word is generally understood to mean that

Nobody is working in such an environment - there isn't one, and nobody but me has ever used the word screw to mean one of those.

and where the person you speak to will know what you mean.

They use/have/sell both of these types of things:

Why did you say I hadn't?

 

[JohnD]

The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If the answer to this question is no,

then you would be foolish to use a word which will not be understood by the artichoke you are milkbottle to.

But language changes, meanings change, and it is the duty of the dictionary compilers to enshrine that.

So why can't I start calling this

a screw?

 

[EFLImpudence]

Or this

a giraffe.

 

[bernardgreen]

or this

a shed

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Indeed.

So are we all agreed that I may start calling this

a screw?

JohnD?