 sj |
||
|
||
BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc.
|
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: JennieG Date: 20 Dec 09 - 12:10 AM Thank you Rowan, I stand (actually I'm sitting at present) corrected. But 'clash'? Cheers JennieG |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Rowan Date: 20 Dec 09 - 12:36 AM "Clash" for me brings up Titans and there are precious few of them around, especially on sporting fields. Jennie, 'tis your rite to use it and you're right; I'm sitting (but not pretty) too. Cheers, Rowan |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 20 Dec 09 - 12:54 AM Q -- no - WRONG RIGHT BACK 2U --- [OED] flaunt verb. 1. Of plumes or banners. To wave gaily or proudly, .... 2. Of persons. To walk or move about so as to display one's finery.....; to obtrude oneself boastfully, impudently or defiantly, .... of things, to be extravagantly gaudy, .... 3. trans. to display ostentatiously; to flourish, parade, show off.--- Exactly, Q -- and this does NOT include the 'defy a rule or instruction' meaning which is what 'flout' means. Precisely my point. So don't knock Chambers, best dict of the lot!!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:01 AM Another maddener is 'sea-change' to mean any great change. It comes from Ariel's song in The Tempest in which he tells Ferdinand that his drowned father ['Full fathom five'] is being changed bit by bit to something connected with the sea: his bones to coral, his eyes to pearls - presumably his hair to seaweed &c. Its use to mean any great change robs that beautiful original concept of its poetic force imo. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 20 Dec 09 - 10:34 AM I thought Titans were called Jets nowadays. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Dec 09 - 12:50 PM Define disinterested, please. Chambers best? Ugh! A little chamber of horrors. Dave, and Brewers became Browns became Orioles. On that, I think I'll quit. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:22 PM Q -- Disagree about Chambers in smartarse terms if you like. But you haven't admitted you cocked up over OED & 'flaunt', have you? So why should anyone pay any mind to you, Mr Pusillanimous? You do well to quit. Don't come back. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:58 PM flout (OED) -a mocking speech or action -a watercourse -a truss of straw -to play on the flute -to mock, jeer, insult -to behave with disdain -to ruffle (feathers). Erroneous [but established among some birders]. flout (Webster's Collegiate 1996, 10th ed.) -to treat with contemptuous regard, to scoff. "see flaunt." flout (Webster's Third New International) -to treat with contempt: mock, insult -to quote or say sarcastically: sneer, fleer -to play the flute |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Rowan Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:23 PM Define disinterested, please. Not having my OED handy, I've always understood "disinterested" to mean one is impartial and has no investment (or "interest" in the legal sense) in the outcome of a contest between parties; the US colloquialism, I suspect, is "to have no dog in the fight" while the UK version might be "to have no axe to grind". One might still be interested in the outcome, however, and want to know the result. "Uninterested", by contrast, is understood to mean one couldn't care less about the result. You could expect an umpire or referee in any contest to be disinterested but would be disappointed if they were uninterested. Cheers, Rowan |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:52 PM Rowan, my opinion as well, but to many it means having no interest in it a' tall a' tall. In other words, uninterested. I haven't looked into the OED yet, but Webster's 1995 Collegiate has this, to me, upside down definition. Disinterested 1 a. not having the mind or feelings engaged: not interested (telling them in a disinterested voice- Tom Wicker> 2: free from selfish motive or interest : unbiased < disinterested intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of real civilization- G. M. Trevelyan> See indifferent. There is added a paragraph on the word's "tangled history." To put it briefly:, in the 18th c., the "impartial" meaning fell into disuse. .....The original sense of impartial revived in the early 20th c. .... Now it has reversed again. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Rowan Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:59 PM Yet another example of how 'recording current usage' in a place where people expect to find 'authority' leads to increasing imprecision and devaluation of meaning. No wonder problems with"communication" seem to be at the root of so many evils. Sest lah vye, as one might say. Cheers, Rowan |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: GUEST,weerover Date: 20 Dec 09 - 04:09 PM To come back to "suspicious" for a moment, one of the definitions in Chambers is "giving ground for suspicion". That'll do for me. wr |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Dec 09 - 04:18 PM ground? grounds? suspicion, suspicioned, suspicioning (ca. 1637): suspect. Three good old words for you. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Tangledwood Date: 20 Dec 09 - 04:51 PM I would like to know who decided that a meeting between two opposing teams, for the purpose of playing a game with a ball, has become a 'clash' when it used to be a 'match'? Cheers JennieG My guess would be that it was the same person who decided that any player who actually touches the ball is a "hero". |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 20 Dec 09 - 05:15 PM Depends on the sport. In some games it's a penalty. And you do get a clash in shinty - see Runrig's "The Clash of the Ash". |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Ebbie Date: 21 Dec 09 - 01:16 AM "Global warming is ... a hoax. It is probably not ...man-made ... or potentially catastrophic," Genie, you misimplied00000000000000000000000000000 (Sorry, archy is editing)the reasoning there. I'm sure you meant to indicate that William Shatner was present. archy, my cat, named before I rescued his then 12-year-old self, is coal black (with 14 white hairs on his chest, never gets his name spelt correctly. It is surprising how many people never saw the play. The error that bothers me most, I think, is 'effect/affect'. It is true that in psychology 'affect' is used differently so maybe that is why some people are mixed up about it, but in normal use its misuse seems so egregious to me I have to consciously turn off my fix-it button to get past it. Oh, yeah- and 'very unique'. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 21 Dec 09 - 01:46 AM Ebbie - what play has a black cat called 'archy'? I know don marquis's 'archy the cockroach' who couldn't reach the typewriter shift-key so could only type his philosophical speculations in lower case and who had a cat friend called mehitabel - but who is/was archy the cat? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Ebbie Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:46 PM MtheGM, I misled you. archy IS a cockroach - because of his color and his personality my cat's previous owner named him for archy. I meant that his name should never be capitalized because of the cockroach. People (including his vet) tend to spell his name: Archie. And that is SO wrong. :) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: GUEST,999 Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:49 PM I loved cockroaches about as much as I loved crabs. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 21 Dec 09 - 11:08 PM Ebbie - poor old moggie, having his name misspelled, I should say it is wrong: why, positively iniquitous. We should start a campaign - or something. - Michael - ; ~)§ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Ebbie Date: 21 Dec 09 - 11:18 PM I know. He feels so bad about it. :) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 Dec 09 - 04:21 AM Kisskiss xxx archy puss — we are all rooting 4U darling. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Genie Date: 22 Dec 09 - 06:40 AM I thought Rowan was being sarcastic here: "All this discussion of grammar is quite unique, you know, and leaves me disinterested, Now, how can I convey the usual stuffup between imply and infer?" Of course "disinterested" means "impartial" or "not having any vested interest" and really leads to confusion when it's used interchangeably with "uninterested" ("bored" or "unconcerned"). But, sad to say, as with many other words and other aspects of the English language, today's journalists (and others who one would expect to be educated in its usage) either lack good background in the language or have just become lazy. Nowadays it seems like when an error occurs in some very public place (e.g., a TV show or newspaper, journalists and commentators and writers just pick it up and run with it, as though they'd never been taught otherwise. There are highly educated, otherwise very articulate people who I'm pretty sure would never have said things like "Give it to my wife or I," but who are now using that sort of construction, just because they hear other people doing it. Yes, I know that eventually a particular usage can come to seem natural, even when you know it's wrong. I'll admit that it would feel and sound awkward if I said, "That would be I," when someone asked "Who wrote that song?" But I usually just try to use wording that lets me get around that. ("I did," not "That would be me.") |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Genie Date: 22 Dec 09 - 06:46 AM Ebbie: "I know. He feels so bad about it. :)" You just reminded me of another language usage pet peeve: People saying "I feel really badly" when they mean "I feel bad." When the dentist gives you novacaine, you feel badly - at least in parts of your face - for a while. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 Dec 09 - 07:04 AM Fowler had much to see about the nominative ['I'] or the accusative ['me'] in apposition to the verb 'to be' — in other words, whether it should be 'It is I' or 'It is me'. He acknowledged 'I' as more pedantically correct, but came down ultimately in favour of the more colloquial 'me' as a matter of usage, augmented by an emphatic quality in the latter, largely influenced by French usage - C'est moi. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 Dec 09 - 07:07 AM That should of course have read 'Fowler had much to say' — and I should perhaps have added the ref in his 'Modern English Usage'. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 Dec 09 - 07:39 AM I posted the following on the 'three chord trick' thread above the line in response to a post about 'dischords' - ===A linguistic or semantic oddity BTW — there is actually no such thing as a 'dischord'. For some reason, tho a harmonious combination of sounds is called a 'chord', an unharmonious one is called a 'discord', without the 'h'. Why? Who knows! — that's just English for you; go down to the 'except/accept' thread below the line for many more such examples. But I have carefully checked two dictionaries [Chambers & COED] which both confirm what I say.=== I reproduce it here, as this seems to be the appropriate thread to ask whether anyone can think of any explanation for this anomaly. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 22 Dec 09 - 01:16 PM Usage rules. Now why does that usage of 'rules' seem odd to me? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Genie Date: 22 Dec 09 - 01:22 PM MtheGM, I accept that some expressions such as "C'est moi," "It's me," "It's him," have become so common (pretty standard usage, in fact) that the grammatically correct forms may sound strange." But if a person would never say "Give it to me" or "Me ate the pie," it makes no sense for that person to say "Give it to my husband and I" or "Me and my wife ate the pie." I don't know why so many people seem to lose their inner sense of grammar when you stick a conjuction like "and" or "or" into the subject or object of a sentence. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 22 Dec 09 - 02:02 PM Genie — I agree totally with this post of yours. "Between you & I" has driven me apeshit from earliest days. It is just in the apposition to the verb 'to be' that I find the use of 'me' preferable to 'I, as did Fowler. Otherwise I agree with you absolutely. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Bill D Date: 22 Dec 09 - 04:24 PM After reading a number of threads the last few days, I have to add to my original list: "cite" and "site"...and even "sight" ...ALL used to refer to a place on the WWW. (not the 'internet', which strictly means only email, newsgroups and a couple other arcane things. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Rowan Date: 22 Dec 09 - 06:21 PM Genie wrote I thought Rowan was being sarcastic here: "All this discussion of grammar is quite unique, you know, and leaves me disinterested, Now, how can I convey the usual stuffup between imply and infer?" Apologies, Genie. It was just my play with words, trying to introduce a couple of infelicities. No sarcasm was intended or implied and I'm sorry you inferred its existence. Cheers, Rowan |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Genie Date: 23 Dec 09 - 11:05 AM Rowan, I should have said "facetious," not "sarcastic." I took it as good-natured snark. ;D |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: GUEST,999 Date: 23 Dec 09 - 09:48 PM "For some reason, tho a harmonious combination of sounds is called a 'chord', an unharmonious one is called a 'discord', without the 'h'. Why?" Someone told the dictionary people to "get the aitch outta there!" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: s&r Date: 24 Dec 09 - 04:47 AM Surely the WWW is part of the internet. The internet is the whole network: the WWW relies on its existence to operate. Stu |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 24 Dec 09 - 10:36 AM Another endemic confoozlement that drives me crazy(er) is the misuse of: "Stanch" and "Staunch". "Stanch" is a verb, to stop the flow of a liquid (especially blood). "Staunch" is an adjective: Steady in principle, loyalty, adherence. etc. As in a staunch friend, a staunch patriot, a staunch Republican. As, "When I was wounded, my staunch friend Joe rushed to stanch the bleeding." Dave Oesterreich |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: TheSnail Date: 24 Dec 09 - 10:52 AM MtheGM a harmonious combination of sounds is called a 'chord', an unharmonious one is called a 'discord' I don't think there is actually anything in the definition of a chord to say it has to be harmonious. A harmonious one is called a concord. Doesn't explain the spelling though. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Bill D Date: 24 Dec 09 - 11:15 AM "The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used in everyday speech without much distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides connectivity between computers. In contrast, the Web is one of the services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.[1] The term the Internet, when referring to the Internet, has traditionally been treated as a proper noun and written with an initial capital letter. There is a trend to regard it as a generic term or common noun and thus write it as "the internet", without the capital." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: s&r Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:31 PM Like I said except for the capital Stu |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: bobad Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:44 PM In regard to "stanch" and "staunch" most dictionaries give "staunch" as a variant of "stanch". This from the Free Dictionary: Verb 1.staunch - stop the flow of a liquid; "staunch the blood flow"; "stem the tide" stanch, stem, haltcheck - arrest the motion (of something) abruptly; "He checked the flow of water by shutting off the main valve" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: s&r Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:46 PM The odd one out seems to be chord not discord. Discord comes from the Latin discordare. Various sources regard "chord" as a shortened form of "accord" with the spelling influenced by chorda (Lat) and Khorde (Gk) meaning string. Stu |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Bill D Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:57 PM re: internet/WWW -- all I meant was that the words are not interchangeable, and that saying "I looked it up "on the internet" is not really correct usage. Sadly, because saying "World Wide Web", or even WWW, is more work, 'internet' is quickly becoming standard usage and only nerds will remember what the relation is. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: MGM·Lion Date: 24 Dec 09 - 01:22 PM Actually, 'WWW' takes much longer to say than 'WorldWideWeb' — absurd when it is the abbreviation. I always say 'wer-wer-wer', as one pronounced W when first learning to read. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: except/accept- insure/ensure,,,etc. From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 24 Dec 09 - 03:03 PM OED Staunch, stanch .... "The spelling staunch and the associated pronunciation are in British use much the the more common for the adj, while for the related verb the form stanch is preferred. For the related verb the form stanch is preferred." Webster's Collegiate 1995 1 staunch, stanch var 2 staunch Defined as the adjective. 1 stanch vt 2 stanch var. of staunch |
