The Love Child of the Return of The Thread on Word Usage that Grates like Blackboard Fingernails...

Depends on what you thought its meaning was before:

Given its etymology, I think "gourmet hot dogs" may be appropriate.

What does the gourmet dog food taste like??

Yesterday, on the previous incarnation of this thread, I mentioned the egregious substitution of "issue" for "problem."  There's another, burgeoning substitution for "problem" that is starting to replace "issue" and that's "challenge."  

"i-Anything"...especially when it's the publicly-funded CBC crowing about Apple's latest locked-up gadget.

Only if you think death is the "end result" of life.

If one goes along with your argument, when someone is credited with "saving lives," we're really just saying "delaying the inevitable."

Speaking of the philosophy of Albert Camus, whatever happened to that swell babbler named sisyphus?

I'm pretty sure I heard someone on the radio this morning say "without further adieu." I kind of love the poeticism of that line.

Hee, Unionist.

This reminds me of Tobias Wolff's short story "Bullet in the Brain," where a cynical, jaded book critic gets shot in the head by a bank robber who too-closely resembles his constitutive cliches, and in a protracted moment, recalls his one pure, genuine childhood moment:

I just read about someone engaged in the act of "reigning in."

Is this what that would look like?

Sometimes an error is almost better than correct usage...

Check the "Comments" section.

"Ask" is used in that manner in fund-raising campaigns as well.

I don't suppose they can blame that one on Guillaume le Bâtard.

That's a wonderful short story.  Thanks for linking to it. 

I recently read a student paper about the War Measures Act that talked about "Marshall Law."

The "news" presenter on AM640, Tina Trigiani, just said "passer-bys."

Let me guess, the devolution of language and culture only started within past hundred years.  Or perhaps it's been on going since the peak of the Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Mayan etcetera golden ages.  Yet some how society manages to go on.  Funny how culture 100(0) years ago always seems so much more elegant.

Ouch I think I've been called pompous and uncouth in the same statement.  Bravo Unionist.

Haha, I understood the comment to say that I was being pompous by spelling the word out in full but failing because I did so in the least elegant way possible.  The rather ironic thing is if I were writing for a more formal purpose, say an academic paper I'd use etc. because that's the convention.

Despite frequent use of web shorthands based on my mood I have an inclination to write things out in full.  Bit of a reaction to the frequent unnecessary shorting of words which annoys the hell out of me.  For example when some one in conversation abbreviates computer to comp, can't stand it.

I'm aware that they are two separate words.  If was wrong to think that it was acceptable to present them as one then thank you for correcting me.

You succeeded.

Well my inability to get jokes aside.  The use of devolution seems to imply that efforts to formalise a language elevate it, while accepting common useage into proper useage degrades it.  I can't say I accept that view.

Do you have a preference?

Better proof reading or spell check and I would have caught that.  Arbitrary rules are best enforced with flexibility.

I rather like Caissa's distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.  In my opinion making the study of language more of an exercise in understanding common usage seems like it would better facilitate common understanding in communication.  This is not to say that we can do without prescriptive grammar but one wonders if making the art strictly so unnecessarily impedes communication as some are attempting to adhere to a set of rules that others may be largely unaware of.

Hmmm I think I reduce my previous statement to, "I think that grammar would help more if it studied what people do instead of what they should do."  May I have a rebuttal now?

Can someone please clarify for me the use of "fast" and "quickly".  In most contexts other than  for example, colour fast, fast asleep, and "not to eat" the word fast is an adjective...I think.. The fast car.   Quickly is an adverb.  The fast car goes quickly. I don't think " the car goes fast"  or "he can run fast" are correct.  This was the subject of a debate between me and the wife recently...I know...get a life. Does any of yous word miesters that talks good no the answer.

Fast must be one of those Old Norse words.  I don't have the OED with me right now.

My Granny, whose first language is Icelandic, once said to me, "We say 'fast,' but it doesn't mean the same thing in English," meaning "fast" in Icelandic has a similar meaning to "tight" or "close" in English.

You're correect; "myself" is an intensifier.  I think pompous folk like to use "myself" instead of "me" because "myself" has way more letters and twice the syllabalic power.

As for "fast," Catchfire's correct - the OED also says it started as an adverb.  Here's a wee sample of the OED on "fast":

Moot?  Who uses that silly word?  Yes, it has few synonyms and it's meaning is clear, but I find it irritating.  It's the kind or word which when I hear it used, I think, wow, how long have you been waiting to slip in that silly word?  What's more disturbing about this silly word is that it was in the lyrics of a popular 80s era ( I think) song.  Does anybody know what song?....a challenge!

The Moot Moot song?   Good trick...you win the challenge...cheque is in the mail.

I just read someone use "relevancy" in a sentence.  This sounds like Sportscaster's English, so I looked it up in the Canadian Oxford and found it listed as a noun.  I then checked my 1983 edition of the Concise Oxford and found only "relevance," which is how God intended the citation to read.

I would think that the fact that there are so many of them being made would imply that they're more planned than "improvised".

"Chair" as a verb, i have come, reluctantly, to accept. I'm still not sure about the same "chair" as a noun - meaning the person who presides over a meeting; that is, occupies the actual "chair" [item of furniture designed for a single human beings to sit in or on; the particular chair referred to in this context being located at the head of a conference table; in modern times, it may resemble all the other seating in the room, but in the past, would usually have been superior to every other chair in the room and often been the only such furniture in the room, hence: The Chair].

However, my real problem is with the rejection - and imminent extermination - of the objective pronoun  me. "He gave George and I a wonderful present." Or "This news was devastating to Tony and I ."  It seems that so many people who paid no attention in English class, when they said something like: "Me and Tracy went shopping," were corrected so often ["Tracy and I"] that they simply gave up on me. This is true of politicians, news broadcasters and other persons ostensibly trained in public speaking, as well as the uneducated. 

But that's not even the worsest, most chalkboardiest thing. The worst is a form of quantitative description that has recently come into vogue: "two times larger" or "ten times less toxic ". Does three 'times more' mean the original amount multiplied by three, or the original amount plus the original amount multiplied by three, or the original amount cubed...? How much is 5 times less than 2? Oh well, it doesn't matter, because no original amount is ever stated.  

The CBC, which lately has taken to butchering some six or seven dozen words at a breakfast, has this bit of good news on its website today:

Loonie homes in on parity

Shouldn't that be "Loonie hones in on parity"?

"Tinfoil hat" and "conspiracy theorist": esp. when they're used by people who themselves can't seem to provide any evidence for their argument, possibly don't understand what it is, and almost always have contributed nothing of any substance to the debate.

Ironically enough, these terms are used most by people who claim to use the scientific approach and claim to understand what "evidence-based" means.

My theory would be that you clicked "Post comment" at the same time Maysie did. But hey, your theory is much more colourful. You have a very fanciful imagination. Would you like to tell us about how the far right has infiltrated anti-fluoridationist cells?

I'm glad you said it.  I was concerned that babble's 9-11 disease was about to take over this thread.  By the way, does it drive anyone else nuts when someone says "nine-one-one" when referring to the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre?

It is not so much the shorthand reference that annoys me as it is the creeping Americanism of the form this shorthand date reference employs.

With the possible exception of whatever company got the sweetheart deal with the Canadian federal government who insist references be in the order of year, month, date (something really, really annoying when you (or me, as a volunteer Financial Agent during election campaings) are trying to enter data for Elections Canada reports) practically everyone uses the ascending order (smallest to largest) of date, month, year - which would make the the correct form of the reference: eleven-nine. Damn 'mericans!

What is babble's "9-11 disease"? You seem to be the first one to mention this, and the first one to bring up 9/11 in this thread. If you don't want it discussed, why would you bring it up? It's kind of like you're obsessed with it.

Sorry, but if you're going to derail your own thread, I'm not going to stay politely away.

Oh yeah, M. Spector? Next you're gonna tell us that "honing pigeons" is a howler?

Um, actually, it was al-Q who started the trolling. He also makes it a habit to troll in every thread where he thinks there might be "conspiracy theorists". But glad you're on it, Catchfire.

It was an on-topic post that also allowed me to express my frustration with Babble reactionaries. It was absolutely on topic, and is also a fairly serious problem here, one that warrants comment, and this was a very effective way of making that comment.

The terms "tinfoil hat" and "conspiracy theorist" tend to be used most by people who have the least to offer intelligently in a discussion. When used pejoratively, they are terms of last resort for someone who either can't argue on credible terms or who has run out of arguments, or is refusing to acknowledge information that is being shown to them.

This is a very good thread in which to draw attention to where such terms are being used incorrectly and inappropriately.

So "cat" is a verb? Who kmew!

I think the verb is to "cat and mouse," which isn't really any better.

These would be good examples for Catchfire's 2010 word/expressions list, but I disremember where that is:

• "perfect storm"
• "on a daily basis" (why not "every day"?)
• "end game"

While he's parodying Danny Gallivan's "Savardian Spin-a-rama," Taylor is nevertheless a scintillating  commentator, cannonading out those verbal gems in rapier-like fashion.

"Christoph Schubert, with a Tchaikovsky of a goal!" Bwaahaha! He's way worse with ramdom commentaries on NHL number whatsit for EA Sports video game play, as EA game play goes.

TSN announced that Washington won a 4-2 "decision" over Montreal in last night's hockey game. Where the hell did that usage come from? Boxing? Baseball, I suppose? I do not see how it applies to hockey.

I like that one.

Q. if the UN "sanctions" a state's actions...

is it forbidding them, or approving them?

Richard Nixon used to be famous for saying "Let me make myself perfectly clear."

I just heard Pollyanna Tremonti say someone "waded in" to a discussion.  Maybe she was on the shores of a minefield.

I suppose her term sounds more logical that the traditional "weighed in."

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Closed for length.