I lurves me some words and language. Which causes me some pet peeves and admitted philosophical inconsistencies.
Language is a living, breathing thing. The French choose to ignore this, and via the Academy, try to give French usages the force of law. Which gives us good movie fodder, for those of you who remember "Royal with Cheese" vice "Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
But language is one place where the masses of the great unwashed can, and do, thumb their noses at the patrician elites. The French use the dictionary to beat you over the head. The Anglosphere uses the dictionary to try to keep up, and chart the changes.
So - I find myself straddling this particular slit trench. On the one hand is my stubborn inability to use its and it's correctly. Just chaps me. But that's it for me about me - the rest of you are getting on my last nerve.
There's this continual misuse of the word shrapnel, when what you really mean is... fragments. Shrapnel is properly reserved for Lieutenant Shrapnel's invention of adding musket balls to the explosive content of common shell to add to it's lethality. The resulting round is... shrapnel. But you guys are hopeless on that.
Then there's the so-called "Greatest Generation" and what the did to clip vice magazine. Well, really shouldn't blame the GIs, it's really John Garand's fault for building his rifle with an integral magazine that was itself loaded by clips. All those draftees came back from the war calling anything you slapped into a weapon a clip, when, well, it just demonstrably ain't! Again, you guys are hopeless.
And you kidz. Good golly gee. You take a perfectly good word, like "awesome," which used to mean "struck dumb with awe" or, something along the lines of "When Moses heard God speaking from teh Burning Bush he was awestruck," and now what's it mean? "Hey, like, kewl, man!" A perfectly good word that has fallen from uptown to living in a cardboard box reeking of urine under the bridge in the seedy part of town near the railyards. Now you're trying to take "sick" and turn its meaning upside down. [Pssst! Hey, didja see I actually managed to use its and it's right? Took some doin', lemme tell ya.]
Then there's the Left (and, to be fair, politicians in general, and don't get me started about the advertising industry). They all take a perfectly serviceable word and give it the "Awesome" treatment.
The word? Genocide. See here and here. Remember how the good Reverend Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson sees it - repealing Obamacare is on par with the Holocaust, Armenia, the Holodomor, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc. It just takes a little longer, apparently. Feh. Damncat has something to say (and, as ever, do) about this.
Language is a living, breathing thing. The French choose to ignore this, and via the Academy, try to give French usages the force of law. Which gives us good movie fodder, for those of you who remember "Royal with Cheese" vice "Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
But language is one place where the masses of the great unwashed can, and do, thumb their noses at the patrician elites. The French use the dictionary to beat you over the head. The Anglosphere uses the dictionary to try to keep up, and chart the changes.
So - I find myself straddling this particular slit trench. On the one hand is my stubborn inability to use its and it's correctly. Just chaps me. But that's it for me about me - the rest of you are getting on my last nerve.
There's this continual misuse of the word shrapnel, when what you really mean is... fragments. Shrapnel is properly reserved for Lieutenant Shrapnel's invention of adding musket balls to the explosive content of common shell to add to it's lethality. The resulting round is... shrapnel. But you guys are hopeless on that.
Then there's the so-called "Greatest Generation" and what the did to clip vice magazine. Well, really shouldn't blame the GIs, it's really John Garand's fault for building his rifle with an integral magazine that was itself loaded by clips. All those draftees came back from the war calling anything you slapped into a weapon a clip, when, well, it just demonstrably ain't! Again, you guys are hopeless.
And you kidz. Good golly gee. You take a perfectly good word, like "awesome," which used to mean "struck dumb with awe" or, something along the lines of "When Moses heard God speaking from teh Burning Bush he was awestruck," and now what's it mean? "Hey, like, kewl, man!" A perfectly good word that has fallen from uptown to living in a cardboard box reeking of urine under the bridge in the seedy part of town near the railyards. Now you're trying to take "sick" and turn its meaning upside down. [Pssst! Hey, didja see I actually managed to use its and it's right? Took some doin', lemme tell ya.]
Then there's the Left (and, to be fair, politicians in general, and don't get me started about the advertising industry). They all take a perfectly serviceable word and give it the "Awesome" treatment.
The word? Genocide. See here and here. Remember how the good Reverend Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson sees it - repealing Obamacare is on par with the Holocaust, Armenia, the Holodomor, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc. It just takes a little longer, apparently. Feh. Damncat has something to say (and, as ever, do) about this.
I would fund an ongoing contract (like Schlock Mercenary has for lawyer drones) for those who cannot and will not understand the difference between there's (there is) and theirs (belonging to them)
Yes, yes, but... the true purpose of "awesome" is its role as a bonding word, signalling to other users that they share a cultural outlook and currency. Sort of like the VN-era evolution of "right on," which originally meant.... what? Hmmmm?
[P.S. I hate to tell you this about one of your "it's"es, but, um.... oh, never mind.....]
8^0
Sounds like you're wound tighter than a $2 watch. (When is the last time you heard that expression?)
We all have our peeves but unless the person is an insufferable bore or is really egregious I generally let it slide.
I think there are a lot of words that are being trivialized and I miss Edwin Newman, who championed speaking and writing well, who helped to buck that particular trend. It's too bad that teachers are more interested in building a student's self-image than his or her vocabulary.
Shrapnel...fragments...both are better going out then coming in.
A Rose by any other name could be a Chrysanthemum.
And what about words like Head, Fag, Booty, and other slang. And who listens to Jesse Jackson anyway?
And you want pet peeves? I'll give ya pet peeves...
"irregardless"
"orientate" (vice "orient")
pronouncing the word "moot" as "mute"
adding the phrase "take and" to most verbs...
...heeeeer's yur sign.
Fishmugger - The words you tossed out are, perhaps, notable for being linguistic multitools: serving diverse functions depending on place and time. Fag, besides the contemporary derogatory (and how'd that one evolve?), covers off the smoke in a Tommie's hand, a private-school junior acting in a serving role (perhaps the culprit?) and, as an adverb, fatigue: fagged out.
Baroness - Yet another nasty inheritance from Herr Marx's nekulturny disciples.
For a while I kept a dictionary close at hand. When I felt someone was 'cheating' I'd drag it out, look up the word in question, and ask that we agree on which definition we were using.
Like as not the reply was "Oh, what I meant was..."
I eventually gave up the exercise as futile.
[shrug]
David - both SWWBO and I have taken (SWWBO officially at work even) flack for our respective vocabularies and accused of either making words up or looking up big words to use to confusticate and bebother people, as well as taking on faux-intellectual airs and acting as pretenders to the intelligentsia.
Heh. Hang around me long enough, you know I just use the words I use. I do make an effort when doing formal speaking, briefings, etc, to tune it to the audience.
Prestonious - you are correct about words shifting to new accepted usages. That was the point of my blathering about the different approach the francophones take vice anglophones to dictionaries.
And there are people who study language quite seriously who *lament* the very diversity that David (and I) extol and revel in - lotsa lotsa words, which can be used to convey many nuances and messages. They claim it impedes communication and makes people feel stupid and that's bad. I say -quit being lazy and expand your vocabulary. The best way to do that is by... reading. Of course, if you don't understand a third of the words, that's not much fun. And so the vicious cycle continues.
Of course, when it gets in the way of communication - such was when any of us make the mistake of pushing BCR's "Mad Scientist" button and she starts speaking in Physics - at which point most of us go into the Far Side Dog mode, where we hear "Blah blah blah, and then John - this is really cool! - blah blah blah blah."
I sometimes do it to test myself. I figure if I can keep up with at least a third of the conversation without my bowel ripping free and reaching up to choke me to death, my education is holding up and was better than 95% of the population's....
But I'm not cutting you guys slack on "clip." And I'm going to slap anyone over 30 I hear misusing "sick."
That is all.
I trained on an M1 and .45. I heard the confusion, but it didn't bother me.
Conveniently, my SKS uses a Stripper Clip to fill it's (possessive) magazine. And I use wheel guns as side arms.
Aside: The SKS can offer up a M1 Thumb for those who aren't careful. Won't tell you how I know that.
@Armorer and DAMNCAT, the word "genocide", has a very special place in my vocabulary. Let's, just for a moment, look inside my brain as if it were a computer hard drive. We open the "hard drive", find the "vocabulary folder". As we open it, we see a password protected folder, labeled' "White Glove Terms". Wait a minute, how did this term get here? I can only speak for myself. Armorer, you have said, "Our mileage may differ." In my experience, I've found this to be true. In my life, I've found that it's in those miles that has caused certain words to be put into the "White Glove Folder". I've known people were one member each of Mengla's Twins. I've known members of a team of people who helped get Adolph Eichmann captured. Genocide is such a term. Why "White Glove Folder"? The answer is you handle it with great respect and care.
Politician, *Choose your words, very, very carefully!*
Its is possessive.
It's = it is.
Okay, you win!
Look up 'feverishly erudite' . [grin]
Walter M. Clark, retired (yipee!) California Public School District Fiscal Services Director.
"Fragment" has always carried the connotation of an ephemeral memory (a fragment of a half-heard song), or of fragile remnants (a fragment of a 16th Century nautical chart), or of a diminutive portion of a comestible (a fragment of leftover kabab).
It's (note well the proper usage) too *soft* a word to describe a chunk of red-hot steel, weighing anywhere between 3 ounces and a full pound, composed of ten-to-twenty jagged, razor-sharp edges and projections zizzing past at 200 meters per second.
But that's just me.
Dood.
*sigh*
0>:~}
Why do only military types use "vice" instead of "versus" or "instead of". I am unaware of any dictionary showing "vice" as used by youse military types, though rumour has it that you do have "vices".
I do not remember hearing "vice" used when I was in (though I have to admit that has been over four decades ago).
Perhaps it came from the PowerPoint Brigades, as have so many other "vices".
Dood."
Like, towww-t'llee.
0>;~}
As for the Washington stuff... those of us who live near Federal City just say, "D.C." When referring the state, we say, "out in Washington." I guess that qualifies as regional dialect.
Oh, and this: passive voice. "The plane was boarded by passengers." Instead of: "Passengers
And... um, John... I've been meaning to talk to you about that headline... *friendly grin*
I thought that the new term for "fragments" is "sprinkles". I rather like that one, I do.
Using the word "less" vice "fewer".. "she got less votes than her opponent" when it should be "she got fewer votes than her opponent".
Using "cheap" instead of "inexpensive". Cheap refers to quality. Inexpensive refers to price. Something can be both, of course.
His Mom, being much like mine, carefully soaked the blood out of his tunic with cold water, and then sewed neat patches on the entrance and exit holes.
"Goodbye" is a good read, but White Goddess sooooo much better, IMHO...
JTG, *yes* on that in/on business. Are they sitting atop the wings, perhaps? And I'm really sorry about those 5 points. Wha'd you screw up on? Heh...
However, on the internetz, "Washington State" is easier to get across to people who would otherwise mistake it for D.C.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vice
1601, from L., from vice, ablative of vicis "a turn, change" (see vicarious) + versa, fem. abl. sing. of versus, pp. of vertere "to turn, turn about"
If you have shopped for souvenirs around a hard target, you soon learn that 'shells' don't fragment, they 'splinter'. Note that we 'change a tire', vice 'change a wheel', despite changes to the actual procedure in the last century.
Cheers
Of course not. Everyone knows you can't cut with the upper edge of a blade if it's a clip-pointer.
Ummmm, what?
Just call it "The Pacific NorthWet" -- everybody understands that.
Yeah, I stole that from Cricket. Sue me.
Yep. And we pronounce it wrong, too....
Cheers
:) ML
However,,, being unable to resist the bait...
It would be fine, if John had written, "Damncat and I, Myself, Are Annoyed by These Things"
@BillT, *what* are you doing? Are you just trying to bring some *common sense* to this place? What kind of mayhem are you up to? This appears to be some perverse form of reverse psychology.
@Susan Katz, "Troublemaker." Smart move, hurry up and get the focus on BillT, then you go do your thing without getting caught. The problem i- you found hooked on the barbed hook, very sneaky.
Lady history, herself speaks, "Grumpy, you want to be the smart one on this smart one, how would you say it?" My reply, "Dang it, I got caught!" Lady History says, "No, I mean how would you say this?" My response, this is the Armorer speaking, "Speaking for Damncat and Myself, these are the things that annoy us!" I continue, "If I was smart, I would have kept my big mouth *shut*, but that is no fun, this is fun."
Thanks, BillT, Susan Katz, all of you and even the Auld Phart with Damncat. By the way, BillT, keep it stirred. If not, it might just wind up hitting the main rotor, just like a ceiling fan. Carry on.
Its really no biggy if peoples don't know what it's supposed to be called. Their not doing it to be mean with they're usage.
I'm waiting for the day when the clip becomes a snippit of ammo.
Luckily for me, I don't use grammar, I use grimmir. So all the above is correct and proper for so long as I say it is... or until I get beat about the head and shoulders and choose, thereby, or from thereby, or of thereat, or whatever, to reform myself.. or get banned and have to come up with a new screeny... or something.
But, serisouly for just a sec. When I was a youngin', I was even more headstrong and agrumentative than I am in my calm old agedness. When it came to "language arts" class, I could not understand the need to know a specialized language (noun, verb, adverb, proverbial post partum hedgefier and such) to define a language that I already spoke. Since the knowing of it made no sense to me, I refused to learn it.
News flash to any youngin's reading here. You WILL be judged by your ability to write and communicate properly within the rules and dictates of grammar. It sucks, I know. It's totally unfair, but it is what it is. Learn it. It matters.