111–120 of 129 posts
At this point in "post post-modernism"? I guess my line in the sand is pronunciation of proper nouns. Cue the "gif" vs "jif" debate.
I recall my mum, it must have been in the 1980's, engaging in much eye-rolling and tut-tutting at our (Australia) then prime minister, Bob Hawke, using the word 'irregardless'. Bob was ostensibly quite charismatic, but no one could accuse him of being an especially thoughtful communicator. In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standa…
> and assume it's sufficiently cromulent for formal use Ha! Good one. > the use of the word 'decimate' as an alternative spelling for 'destroy' An alternative spelling ? I don't think so.
My point is/was that if that claim is true, then the choice of which word to use is purely one of aesthetics rather than exercising any nuance of meaning or intent -- a regrettably poor evolution for a language.
I recall my mum, it must have been in the 1980's, engaging in much eye-rolling and tut-tutting at our (Australia) then prime minister, Bob Hawke, using the word 'irregardless'. Bob was ostensibly quite charismatic, but no one could accuse him of being an especially thoughtful communicator. In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standa…
> In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standard repertoire This seems an excessively negative take on it. How do we learn new words? Sure, we COULD look up the definitions, but (1) who bothers, and (2) we have plenty of evidence that definitions are so vague as to be useless. (I recall arguing with my high school english teacher abo…
The idea that not spending the requisite minute or so to look up meaning and usage of a new word is acceptable behaviour of adults seems depressingly defeatist. We don't consider this an acceptable attitude during a child's dozen or more years of formal education, and realistically most adults have easy & rapid access to authoritative sources.
That our languages should then be (re)defined by these torpid users -- well that's just a horrible deal.
The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such as `television' and `flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is profi…
> and `flammable'. Which has the same definition as inflammable. This has always been inconceivable in my mind.
So “flammable” is born and people start using it and thinking the original form is opposite.
But inflammable materials are dangerous to treat otherwise! Since no one confuses “flammable” for inert, for safety reasons, the word “flammable” is used when labeling inflammable material.
The Simpsons made a joke about it once with Dr. Nik.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and `flammable'. Which has the same definition as inflammable. This has always been inconceivable in my mind.
Even though I know the correct meanings, no matter how hard I try the word “flammable” sounds to me like “able to flame” while “inflammable” sounds like “incapable of flame”. I hate English.
English spelling, and etymology are fascinating and closely related. English spelling often retains the original spelling despite changes in pronunciation.
Inflammable come directly from the Latin where “in” is not a negation but putting something “in” a state of being, in this case flame.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though I know the correct meanings, no matter how hard I try the word “flammable” sounds to me like “able to flame” while “inflammable” sounds like “incapable of flame”. I hate English.
English is beautiful. I say that as an ESL who speaks Spanish and Italian fluently. English spelling, and etymology are fascinating and closely related. English spelling often retains the original spelling despite changes in pronunciation. Inflammable come directly from the Latin where “in” is not a negation but putting something “in” a state of being, in this case flame.
However, both its grammar and spelling is incredibly ad-hoc. To someone who is a fan of structure (such as a programmer like myself), this is frustrating. I was going to make a comparison to a programming language, but I came to the conclusion that there isn't really a programming language out there that absorbs everything without making it natural in the adopted framework.
Like you, I learned English as a second language and even though I can speak it reasonably well, I'm constantly annoyed by its idiosyncrasies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though I know the correct meanings, no matter how hard I try the word “flammable” sounds to me like “able to flame” while “inflammable” sounds like “incapable of flame”. I hate English.
English is beautiful. I say that as an ESL who speaks Spanish and Italian fluently. English spelling, and etymology are fascinating and closely related. English spelling often retains the original spelling despite changes in pronunciation. Inflammable come directly from the Latin where “in” is not a negation but putting something “in” a state of being, in this case flame.
An accident of history: the printing press and the first dictionaries started arriving and codifying spelling just before the shift occurred:
The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such as `television' and `flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is profi…
> it is obviously a stupid word, and that makes it stupider. This is the social signaling aspect of language at work, not the communication part. Human brains can trivially digest the correct meaning of “irregardless”. Using the word, however, marks someone as not having had a “proper” education, and would perhaps brand the speaker as “stupid”, “irregardless” of whether the idea they were expressing was intelligent o…
How so? Surely those who say `regardless', the vast majority, are not trying to signal anything.