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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.
Your single-word usage is acceptable according to many dictionaries. I was simply trying to be pompous.
You succeeded.
I know, it comes naturally to me.
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.
It's the difference between prescripive and descriptive grammar.
Do you have a preference?
No, I don't suppose that anyone who writes "useage" would.
Blimey.
Better proof reading or spell check and I would have caught that. Arbitrary rules are best enforced with flexibility.
Flexible, shmexible, but on the other hand, some folks can be a tad too rigid:
Name change stirs Pakistan protest
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.
"We can assist retail establishments to enhance profitability by demonstrating methodologies for optimal utilization of personnel resources."
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?
The University of Regina currently has a billboard campaign with the slogan:
"Realize. UR going places guaranteed!"
I don't think further comment is necessary.
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.
Actually, "fast" developed in the adverbial form first: as in, "to hold fast" to something--the verb "to fast" has the same root. This developed into "to run fast" which means to run while sticking close to your prey--similar in construction to "run hard." Someone said to "run fast" became "fast" (adj.).
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.
I brought this up in a similar thread but didn't get a response. I'll try again.
Am I so old and/or out of touch that rules of grammar have changed without me noticing? Correct me if I'm wrong but is there an "issue" with this quote and similar quotes which we hear every day.... "last month's meeting which was chaired by myself....."
Is "myself" not a reflexive personal pronoun which should refer back to the subject of the sentence and be used to add emphasis. "Now that I'm a big boy, I chaired last month's meeting myself." "I may have chaired last month's meeting myself but last month's meeting was chaired by ME". This of course brings us to ...now we're using "chair" as a verb.
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":
I gave up reading after this, and that's a fact, Jack.
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!
Let's see, there was The Moot Moot Song, by Betty Everett back in the 50s.
"Silly" has an interesting history. It used to mean "deserving of sympathy" back in the 15th century, then by the 16th century "silly" came to mean "defenceless" (as in women and children) and "weak," "poor" or "trifling." It acquired something like its current meaning later in that century, as it became synonymous with "unsophisticated," "rustic" and "ignorant."
1576 first saw it written with the meaning you seem to intend above:
The Moot Moot song? Good trick...you win the challenge...cheque is in the mail.
So what's wrong with "moot?" I like it.
The only problem I've ever seen with it is when someone says, "That's a mute point," which isn't poor old moot's fault anyway.
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.
The torture never stops...
Why do those in control of these sorts of things use "IED" (Improvised Explosive Device) instead of "bomb?" Do the extra syllables make these bombs more dangerous? Is "booby trap" too sexually suggestive?
How are these IEDs "ïmprovised" anyway. Does some guy walking along the road see some sticks and rocks, then in a jazzy state of creativity arrange them into something explosive?
I like the French term, bombe artisanale. This term at least gives the bomb-maker some credit for planning and strategy.
I would think that the fact that there are so many of them being made would imply that they're more planned than "improvised".
The recent history of IEDs and preferred car bombing techniques since the 1980s is considered explosive. Best not go there.
"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.
How about using "decimate" to mean "destroy," or "light years" to refer to a long time?
"Chair" as a verb? That would be like saying Elizabeth II thrones over us, I suppose.