quote:You know, if someone were asking me to come up with a single word to describe kmbboots, I'm not utterly sure what it would be, but I can say with certainty that it wouldn't be "prim".
I might use "prmboots," though.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I haven't really been following your posts, Pelegius, so I went looking for an example of this writing that's causing such a fuss, and found this post of yours:
quote:In in fac used the term "personal language," which, although perhaps the same in the German of the Tractus, was not intended to convey the same sense as "private language" does there, but instead to refer to the basic structure of language-dialect-idiolect/vocabulary, which Wittgenstein esentialy excepted as valid.
Now, I'm not sure if "in in fac" is a misspelling of "I've in fact" or just a term I've never seen before, but coupled with the awkward phrasing, the heavyhanded references to highbrow literature, the misspelling of "essentially", and the incorrect use of "excepted", I could definitely see how people could take issue with your writing style. The combination of basic spelling mistakes and arrogant tone makes it extremely difficult to understand the point you're trying to convey.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Since my last post wasn't all that constructive, I offer this piece of advice: eliminating spelling and grammar mistakes from your writing will make you look a lot smarter than writing with a thesaurus in hand, and/or packing every sentence with obscure references.
Also, never use a $20 word when a $1 word conveys the same thing.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
And just to spread around the love a little:
quote:I'm sometimes a little afraid that I'll use a contraction wrong and the rest of the thread will be dedicated to lofty corrections. Specifically when dealing with your/you'r/you're and its/it's.
Wouldn't want to disappoint you, so:
There's no such word as you'r. Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It is interesting to note how many seem to comment on my supposed love of thesauri, when I have, in fact, recently expressed my distaste for them. This is not to say I have never used one, although I never could be bothered on internet fora, but the times I have used them have ended about being about 50% useless and 50% semi-useful which is hardly a ringing endorsement for Mr. Roget.
As for the "use a $20 word when a $1 word conveys the same thing," I have never found such an instance, although there are certainly times when three or four words might be used instead of one, in which case I almost always prefer one, although there are some rhetorical devices which need more words.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
See that post was much better, apart from the whole fora thing (you really like that word don't you?), but I must now take issue with your point. I think it's nearly impossible that you haven't found instances where you could use "1$ words" instead of big or obscure ones to convey your message. In the time it takes to think of a 20$ word, you could most likely think of 5 smaller ones that are just as effective (though of course there are exeptions, but I think that they are just that, exeptions, and not the norm).
Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
We're not impressed that you think of all these words without a Thesaurus. The point with bringing it up is your words are unnecessary because there are more-to-the-point words which would do you better service in the same context, not that you need a Thesaurus to find them.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: So, (this question is to anyone, not necessarily Pelegius) why is it "fora" and not "forums"? Is "forum" Latin or something?
Yes.
quote: Because I have never seen anyone else use it that way ... outside of this thread, of course.
I hear it that way much more often than not.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Angiomorphism: See that post was much better, apart from the whole fora thing (you really like that word don't you?).
Huh. I thought it sounded exactly like all his other posts.
In my opinion, "fora" is a silly affectation used by people who want to show that they know something (but not much) about Latin.
Google turns up 2.25 billion hits for "forums," but only 84.6 million for "fora." That means that the regular English plural is 26.6 times more popular.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Puffy Treat, no, forum is a singular neuter word with the plural of fora.
Many, but not all, masculine Latin words end "us" or with an r in the singular and form the plural with an "i," pronounced "EE"
Many, but by no means all, feminine Latin words end in a and form the plural with "æ," pronounced "EYE."
The pronunciations I gave are for Classical Latin, Church Latin/ Mediæval Latin differs quite strongly in matters of pronunciation and some what in grammar.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I use "forums" and "fora" pretty equally. Of course, I did coursework in Latin and Roman history, so I'm used to using "fora" in the historic sense (e.g., "Hey, Trajan, they's sum mighty fine fora what yous been buildin'").
Posts: 100 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote: "fora" is a silly affectation used by people who want to show that they know something (but not much) about Latin.
And châteaux must then doubtless be a silly affection as well, one used by pretentious francophones, how about café or machismo?
English has always taken words from other languages, and, unlike other languages, we generally preserve their form. Obviously, this can be taken to extremes and no one uses "fori" in the genitive or "cacte" in the vocative, although the latter may be because so few people ever need to address cacti.
"Cacti" is also an affection, doubtless.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
" That means that the regular English plural is 26.6 times more popular." There are no regular English plurals, ask any goose or any group of men, sheep or oxen.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Has some necromantic power brought Latin back from the dead? I may have missed the memo.
Forum is a latin word, yes. Fora is the latin plural, yes.
We are not speaking latin.
Forum is an english word, yes. The general english rule for pluralization of a word that ends in "um" is "ums" - i.e. "hums", "bums", "sums", and "happy num-nums".
It is perfectly okay to say "forums" - as we are not speaking latin, and need not hold slavishly to latin grammar rules.
Same is true for dangling participles. "What did you do that for?" is perfectly okay - and far more sensible than "For what did you do that?"
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
"Has some necromantic power brought Latin back from the dead?" That would be the Pope.
Mind you, an organization to which I proudly belong has as the first part of its creed
quote: We the members of the Junior Classical League, covenant to hand on the torch of classical civilization in the modern world. We believe an acquaintance with the civilization of Greece and Rome will help us understand and appraise this world of today, which is indebted to the ancient civilization in its government and laws, literature, language and arts.
Dangling participles are a different matter, as English grammar is not derivative of Latin grammar in the way English vocabulary is. To be perfectly sure, the same goes for the so-called "split-infinitive" which is no more an offense than the equally nonexistent split nominative.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Doesn't mean it is correct.
Sure it does.
quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: There are no regular English plurals, ask any goose or any group of men, sheep or oxen.
The overwhelming majority of English nouns are formed by adding an s on the end. The fact that there are a few irregular plurals doesn't mean that there are no regular plurals.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: And châteaux must then doubtless be a silly affection as well, one used by pretentious francophones, how about café or machismo?
I'd call châteaux silly, yes, but neither café nor machismo is a foreign plural.
quote:English has always taken words from other languages, and, unlike other languages, we generally preserve their form.
You have a lot to learn about the history of English, young padawan.
quote:Obviously, this can be taken to extremes and no one uses "fori" in the genitive or "cacte" in the vocative, although the latter may be because so few people ever need to address cacti.
Why pick one Latin rule to follow if you're only going to break that rule by extending it to all cases? How is that any more correct than using the English plural?
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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So Latin is no longer a dead language? I guess I did miss a memo.
And as for English vocabulary being derivative of Latin, that's not really the case. English vocabulary is derivative of everything.
You will find words based in dozens of different languages, and words that have entered into language through corruption/slang of previously accepted words. Latin rules for plurals, conjugation, grammar, etc. have as much hold on English as do Germanic rules for plurals, conjugation, grammar, etc.
More and more, common usage will trump classical usage. Datum is nearly gone completely. Fora will follow quickly after. Very, very few people are taught Latin at present, and Latin usage will disappear more and more rapidly.
At one point contractions were considered in bad form and only used by the uneducated, and scholarly papers still frown on their use. However, they are as much a part of the english language as anything else.
You might as well start putting the "U" back in "honour", "colour", "flavour", and the like - as that is more close to original usage. Truth is, American english has done away with the extra "U" simply through common usage trumping an older form of the words. The same will happen to fora, I'm sure.
If you really want to hold onto the past, why not start using the "eth" character to start words like "the", "them", and "that". Surely, our use of "th" in place of the eth isn't proper.
I think what gives people pause is that your writing feels unnatural and contrived, wholly removed from common usage and vernacular english. While what you write may be entirely proper according to some set of rules you adhere to, your tone suggests a disconnectedness with the world around you at best and a pompous disdain for that world at worst.
I understand Twain's comment that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug, but the idea of the "right word" depends greatly on your audience. If the audience gets hung up on word choice to the point where it affects their willingness to listen to your meaning, then no matter how precise your language may have been, you didn't use the "right" words.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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"So how many drinks do you want?" "Three smalls, two mediums, and a large."
"Bob draws and paints, and he is equally competent in both mediums."
"I talked to two different mediums, and neither can contact my dead aunt."
"Looking at both mediums, we can see that print news and television news both show some bias."
Of course, "media" now has a new english meaning, and can have its own plural.
"The media in America is different than the media in England, but both medias tend to reflect more liberal viewpoints."
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
"Datum" is certainly used where I work. In any case "datum" is the singular. We use "data" (the plural form) all the time.
The fact that English changes is no reason to make it change faster or to be critical of language that is correct, just not as "everyday" as you would like it to be.
I also happen to like the "extra" U.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Except for the first and third examples, those all sound wrong to me.
edit to add: our style manual (and just about every theatre person I've ever known) uses "theater" to refer to the building and "theatre" to refer to the art form.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:The fact that English changes is no reason to make it change faster or to be critical of language that is correct, just not as "everyday" as you would like it to be.
Not sure what you're saying here.
I'm not trying to make it change faster, nor am I being critical of language. At least I don't mean to be.
Language changes. To resist the flow and clutch dearly to older usage only serves to make your word choice more noticable to your audience, which then in turn takes their focus off of what it is you're trying to say.
The same goes for exceptionally poor grammar and usage - say, if someone were to post using no punctuation, capitalization or paragraph breaks, and did not use any form of accepted spelling. The words steal focus from the meaning, and it becomes harder to see the forest because of all those dang trees standing in the way.
If your goal is to convey a message, you want to use language that is as unobtrusive as possible - language that doesn't get in the way of your meaning. On this forum, the standard is higher than most other forums (ahem), but Pelagius' words threw up flags because they didn't fit in with the forum norm.
The examples I used about adding the "u" or using the "eth" were to show how out of place that would look on this forum - which is predominatly American english. Adding the "u" would not look so out of place on a predominantly British or Canadian forum - but using an eth would look out of place almost anywhere.
Either way, the farther you stray from the norms of those speaking/writing around you, the more your words will attract the audience's focus - and the less your message will.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Except for the first and third examples, those all sound wrong to me.
Heh. You're also comfortable with "datum".
It's an individual thing. Medium is one of those words in flux. Sometimes it works with "media" and other times it doesn't. It depends on your audience.
Obviously, a group of art majors would use "media" more often as the plural. And actually, thinking about it more, students I have taught in the past would probably gravitate more towards "types of media" than "mediums" anyway.
So, it would be:
"Looking at both types of media, we can see that print news and television news both show some bias."
rather than,
"Looking at both media, we can see that print news and television news both show some bias."
Still, it depends on your audience.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:our style manual (and just about every theatre person I've ever known) uses "theater" to refer to the building and "theatre" to refer to the art form.
Good point. And I would do it similarly - I mean when I go to the movies, it's in a movie theater, not a theatre. I just never realized I was making the distinction before.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: "Datum" is certainly used where I work. In any case "datum" is the singular. We use "data" (the plural form) all the time.
You may well be the only people in the world who use the word datum.
quote:The fact that English changes is no reason to make it change faster or to be critical of language that is correct, just not as "everyday" as you would like it to be.
In the Oxford English Dictionary I found an example of forums that dates back to the mid-seventeenth century. Is 350 years slow enough?
I'm critical of language that is stilted and pedantic and bears little or no resemblance to everyday usage. Language rules don't come down from some magical source on high.
quote:edit to add: our style manual (and just about every theatre person I've ever known) uses "theater" to refer to the building and "theatre" to refer to the art form.
What the heck? That is the most nonsensical style rule I've ever seen.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote: And châteaux must then doubtless be a silly affection as well, one used by pretentious francophones, how about café or machismo?
I would argue that all of those words -- although only cafe if you use the accent -- are symptomatic of a certain amount of pretention. Someone who would say, for example, "It is more appropriate, do you not think, for one as healthily possessed of copious machismo as I to sup in one's own chateaux, and not in some common cafe," is deserving of death by pop music.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: Good point. And I would do it similarly - I mean when I go to the movies, it's in a movie theater, not a theatre. I just never realized I was making the distinction before.
What the heck? People are actually agreeing with such a ridiculous notion?
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
"It is more appropriate, do you not think, for one as healthily possessed of copious machismo as I to sup in one's own chateaux, and not in some common cafe"
I challenge everyone to use this phrase at least once in the next week.
Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
"So Latin is no longer a dead language?" Correct. I, for one, am able to read a fair degree of Latin as are about 1 200 Wikipedians. It is also the official language of the Vatican City and taught at many secondary schools.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I use theater and theatre in exactly the same way, and I used datum as the singular of data when I used to be a researcher. I suspect most people with science backgrounds would report the same.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I, for one, am able to read a fair degree of Latin as are about 1 200 Wikipedians.
It's worth noting, by the way, that Klingon recently passed Esperanto in popularity and was catching up to Latin -- although I'm sure that the current Star Trek-less television environment will depress its growth slightly.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: "So Latin is no longer a dead language?" Correct. I, for one, am able to read a fair degree of Latin as are about 1 200 Wikipedians. It is also the official language of the Vatican City and taught at many secondary schools.
Well if 1200 wikipedians speak it... No, I'm sorry, but Latin is definetly a dead language. It might be the "official" language of the Vatican City (the smallest city in the world mind you) but if you went to a cafe (haha thought it inject that in there) in the Vatican, what language do you think people would be speaking?
I went to a high school where latin was thaught, and classics conferences were held each year province wide, but even the people who took latin all throughout highschool agknowledged that it was just an intellectual curiosity, and that it helped them in learning new languages and understanding new words. They all agreed that for all intents and purposes, it is a dead language.
EDIT: you're right, it's not the smallest city, but "It is the smallest independent nation in the world" (wiki)
Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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"sup in one's own chateaux." Even if one owned more than one châteaux, I think one would be obliged to sup in only one château at a time.
"You may well be the only people in the world who use the word datum." You weren't taught in secondary school to use data as a plural by your science teacher? Regardless, it is a quite common usage.
"Very, very few people are taught Latin at present, and Latin usage will disappear more and more rapidly. " The levels of Latin taught in schools has increased dramatically since the 1970s. At least ten high schools at about the same number of middle schools offer it here in San Antonio.
I am not sure what the "eth" character is, is it the thorn: ??
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: "So Latin is no longer a dead language?" Correct. I, for one, am able to read a fair degree of Latin as are about 1 200 Wikipedians. It is also the official language of the Vatican City and taught at many secondary schools.
Learning how to read a dead language doesn't bring that language back to life.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: "You may well be the only people in the world who use the word datum." You weren't taught in secondary school to use data as a plural by your science teacher? Regardless, it is a quite common usage.
Of course I was taught that. Not everything they teach you in school is true, though. Realistically speaking, it's actually a mass noun that takes a plural verb.
quote:I am not sure what the "eth" character is, is it the thorn: ??
Edh or eth: ð Thorn: þ
[ July 07, 2006, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
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