The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132499   Message #4082202
Posted By: Steve Shaw
06-Dec-20 - 09:23 PM
Thread Name: BS: Language Pet Peeves
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
Generally speaking, authorities on the English language are self-appointed. The best authority is wot people actually say or write. That isn't to say that there aren't many ignoramuses. English is an amazingly unfettered language both in writing and, more especially, in speech. We should celebrate that. However, and this is very much my personal view, we should always be vigilant in never allowing degradation of nuance to pass. There really IS a useful difference between disinterested and uninterested, and we should fight to maintain that difference. Alternate and alternative are not words that can be used interchangeably. It's VACCine, never vaccINE. Stuff like that. There's definitely a fight to be had, but not against misuse of apostrophes or typos or dodgy spelling. It's usually against pretentiousness or jargonistic bullshit. .