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Pelegius, since the Church no longer requires Latin mass, the number of people familliar with it will dwindle as that generation dies off.
Those who study it now do so, as was said, as an intellectual curiosity and as a means of understanding other languages and etymology better - most often with regards to professions that still use greek and latin words such as law or medicine.
It is a dead language no matter how many people learn to speak it in schools. Maybe you're not clear on what the term "dead language" means.
quote:You weren't taught in secondary school to use data as a plural by your science teacher?
I'm fairly certain we were all taught metric, too.
quote:I am not sure what the "eth" character is, is it the thorn: ??
quote:þ Thorn. Borrowed by Old English scribes from the runic alphabet for a non-Roman, Germanic sound, now written "th." The "th" combination was introduced by Norman scribes in the Middle English period. The þ later became similar to a Y in handwriting (though not phonetically) and in this form it continued to be used by printers as an abbreviation for "th" in early printed books.
ð Eth. Another way of representing the Germanic "th" sound, invented by Old English scribes. The eth and thorn were used interchangeably in Old English manuscripts. The eth fell out of use by the Middle English period, while the thorn survived to the end of the fourteenth century.
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The population of Vatican City, according to the CIA World Factbook, is 932. It is the world's smallest state. The languages are listed as "Italian, Latin, French, various other languages". Latin, I think, is like Hebrew was in the nineteenth century. And it may be a little silly to try to apply Latin pluralizations to English borrowings from Latin, but I still say "criteria are" and "media are" if I can; it's slightly more common than "fora" but it's not really that big of a deal. It's a little bit distracting, but I don't think it really merits comment, let alone all the complaints about thesauruses/thesaurii some people keep making.
I really don't find Pelegius's writing to be all that difficult to read. I try to write, grammatically speaking, how I talk (no problem starting sentences with a conjunction, sorry), and focus more on making my thoughts clearer. Then again, I've had complaints that my writing is needlessly parenthetical (not here, mainly in English class, but still...), so maybe I'm too close to Pelegius's writing style to tell. I also try to keep my "who"s and "whom"s straight, and I avoid split infinitives, but that's as much to satisfy the pedants as it is for myself.
Side note: Pelegius, if you ever find yourself trying to use the plural form of the word "cactus" in the vocative sense, you've got problems. Seriously. Like that guy who wrote a freaking ode to a freaking Grecian urn.
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quote: You may well be the only people in the world who use the word datum.
I work at a university. The people that use the word are people who use data.
quote: 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.
The people who have occasion to use both words on a regular basis don't seem to think so.
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Jon Boy, people who are familiar with the Old English/Old Norse alphabet should not be claiming that Latin is obscure. Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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"Like that guy who wrote a freaking ode to a freaking Grecian urn."
I don't know why (well I guess I do, it's because of the freakings) but that Keats reference made me think of Snakes on a Plane, and then I started to think how funny it would be if Samuel L. Jackson did his own interpretation of Keats.
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kmboots, I was not familiar with the theatre/theater distinction, but it makes sense to me. All actors, playwrites and directors I know use theatre for the art form but I have not noticed the use of theater for the building. Most say I went to a. " see a film," b. "see a movie" or c. "to the cinema," when refering to films/movies/the cinema.
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kmbboots: So you reject forums even though it's preferred 26.6:1, but you make a distinction between the British and American spellings of theater because stage actors tell you to?
Pelegius: I never claimed that Latin was obscure, just that it's dead. There's a difference.
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"I'm fairly certain we were all taught the metric system, too." Case rested, if not entirely proven. You have doubtless had cause to use the S.I. almost every day since having learned it, e.g. when reading a book or magazine published outside of the U.S.
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"I never claimed that Latin was obscure, just that it's dead." Yes "dead," in this context anyway, is much stronger than obscure. Basque is obscure, but no one would venture so far as to say it is dead.
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quote:You have doubtless had cause to use the S.I. almost every day since having learned it, e.g. when reading a book or magazine published outside of the U.S.
*laugh* I'm trying to guesstimate how many Americans actually have to use the metric system every day. I believe the number to be lower than you think. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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We all learned metric in school, yet I'm 6'3" tall, weigh 190 lbs, drive 9 miles to work, and need to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home.
If I were to say I was 191 cm, weigh 86 kg, drive 14.5 km to work, and need to pick up 3.78 liters of milk on the way home, most Americans would look at me weird and have a hard time understanding my meaning (without looking up conversions).
It is not common usage in this country (and more specifically on this message board), just as Latin isn't common usage.
You need to fit what you're saying to your audience. Telling someone from Europe how many miles you need to travel and how many gallons of gas you need is just as out of place.
It's about time and place, and I think most people are saying that on this forum your style is not jiving with either - or, to put it in a way you might understand, temporally and spacially aberrant.
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I use it whenever I read The Economist, once a week, or any book published in Canada or the U.K., every day. And I am primarily studying the humanities.
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Pelegius, on what grounds do you claim that Latin is not dead? Find me the community of native speakers that justify it as a living language.
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: "I never claimed that Latin was obscure, just that it's dead." Yes "dead," in this context anyway, is much stronger than obscure. Basque is obscure, but no one would venture so far as to say it is dead.
I think you're conflating the senses of those words. They do not simply mean different degrees of the same thing. The deadness of a language and the obscurity of a language have nothing to do with one another.
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Again, you may be surprised at how few Americans read The Economist regularly, much less any book published in Canada or Britain that has not been Americanized. Then again, based on your tone, you may not. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I don't "reject" forums; I do prefer "fora". And I certainly wouldn't criticize someone for using "fora" as it is at least as correct.
"Theatre" and "theater" are both American spellings.
Scientists use the metric system, doctors use the metric system, pharmacists, manufacturers, anyone who buys a two liter bottle of Coke - I need to use it for knitting if I use a pattern from anywhere but the US.
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FlyingCow, were I to claim that Michael Grant, or his publisher rather, needed to change his measurments all to metric, I would be laughed at, even though I bought and read the book in the U.S. It is just assumed, not without reason, that S.I. is understood by all educated readers (hence the name Système International d'Unités) which cannot be said for the old British Imperial system.
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quote:It is just assumed, not without reason, that S.I. is understood by all educated readers (hence the name Système International d'Unités)...
Actually, most American editors do not assume that all American readers are "educated" in French measurements. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Haha, actually I worked in a law firm 3 summers ago between highschool and university, and by the end of it, I was ready to kill myself. Although it was corporate law, so that might have contributed to the dullness. Compare that to my current and last summers where I work in a cancer lab, get to learn about science all day, dress how I want, browse the internet (and hatrack) while my assays are in progress (god I love incubation periods), and leave at 3:30 almost everyday (but be paid until 5:00), and I think I'll stay right where I am thank you. Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Most importantly, this is not the "U.S. Citizens sit around and talk about the U.S." Forum, we have posters here from Israel, the U.K. and Brasil.
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kmbboots: I just wanted to apologize if I've come off a little rude in this thread. Threads like this tend to get me a little riled up.
I do have a serious question for you, though: what makes something correct or incorrect? From whence do language rules draw their authority?
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Wrong issue. You guys are allowing Pelegius to convince himself that all anybody wants is for him to dumb his language down, when what he really needs is to sneer at his readers less. Of course, convincing himself that you all need a simpler vocabulary to understand him will lead to more sneering, not less.
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They're hardly "French" measurements, Tom. The US is one of the only nations still using the so-called Standard System. (And don't get me started on the idiocy of that!)
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Actually, I've never had anything to do with law. I moonlight as a biochemist when people aren't looking, but I hope to never touch the degree again. Your profile says you're in Toronto, which cancer lab are you working in?
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Again, Pelegius, you're not getting the point.
Time. And. Place.
In science? Metric.
In medicine? Metric.
Distance in Europe? Metric.
A journal read by "educated" readers? Metric.
Distance in America? Customary System.
On American television? Customary.
Talking with most Americans? Customary.
Heights, weights, and lengths in America? Customary.
Time and place.
Do you understand?
I'm not talking about universal usage here, but localized usage. Speaking with a high level of erudition has its place, as does speaking with a high level of jargon or slang.
Using a tone that doesn't match well with the environment brings undue attention to the words themselves at the meaning's expense.
Does that make sense to you at all?
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quote:Most importantly, this is not the "U.S. Citizens sit around and talk about the U.S." Forum, we have posters here from Israel, the U.K. and Brasil.
Yes. True. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
The point being made with the mention of the metric system is that, as widely accepted and known as it is, it is not the primary mode of measurement in this country. It simply isn't used; most American scientists I know who think perfectly well in centiliters and centigrade will still say "I'm six feet tall" or "It's seventy degrees outside."
Latin's the same way. Most of us know a little bit of it, but it's certainly not used in common practice -- and walking around speaking Latin, while it might actually be understood in some circles, is going to earn you a reputation for weirdness.
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"Actually, most American editors...." New York is only one of two major publishing cities in the English Speaking World, and most editors in London do assume a knowledge of S.I. In terms of scholarly presses, the distinction is much clearer, with the Oxford Press being much larger and more prestigious than it nearest rival in the U.S., Harvard.
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I also second Icarus' point. Beyond word choice, your tone smacks of condescension at times. Such as: "that S.I. is understood by all educated readers" - there is a value judgement there, damning all those that aren't familiar with metric.
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Last summer I worked at Sunnybrook, under Bob Kerbel. We mostly did research into antiangiogenic drugs and a new form of chemo called low-dose metronomic chemotherapy. This summer I am working at Princess Margaret (well it's a little complicated, I actually work in the MaRS center across the street, in the Toronto Medical Development Tower, but for a lab that is primarilly based at PMH, just don't know how well you know toronto), for the Cambell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research, headed up by Tak Mak. I'm in the therapeutics section, so it's mostly drug development (the validation process) based on oncogene targets.
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*sigh* Yes. But we're speaking here about the use of the metric system within America. Ergo, we're exclusively discussing American editors.
Whether Oxford publishes more useless, dull, and didactic drivel than Harvard does is not germane to the conversation. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Pelegius, do you get what he is saying? That your point could get lost if your readers get too bogged down in your language. I remember reading the second of the Thomas Covenant trilogies (anybody remember those?). By the middle of the second book, it was hard to become immersed in the story becasue I had to look up every other word. (I'm still not sure what "roynish" means. Anybody?) He failed to communicate. Won the battle, but lost the war.
I don't think that you are trying to "sneer" at anybody, and we already think you're bright. So relax a little.
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I know one of my friends from Waterloo worked at Sunnybrook for a while, but for the life of me I can't remember which one it was.
As far as validation goes, *groan*, if you can love validation you're a special person. I spent about a year doing preclinical work which was dull enough, but validation would have killed me. Although, ironically, maybe that would have been better because I'd have wasted fewer years in biochem
Don't let me dissuade you, though, I like new and better drugs and I'm glad someone is working on them. I just find it telling that the vast majority of people I talk to that have degrees in biochem no longer work in the field Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I've gotta say I think everyone's being a little unfair here. To be honest, I see a lot of posts by other people that are just as pretentious as you claim Pelegius' to be. So he likes to use big words and proper grammar? Big deal. Unless you have trouble reading what he writes, leave him alone for it.
And before I hear anything about it, yes, I realize he started this topic about himself. That doesn't mean that we all have to be mean to him. A lot of people are damning him for being condescending. I don't see why. Maybe it's just me but I don't really feel talked down to when I read his posts. Then again, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt (a habit that I'm sure I'll grow out of as I become older and more cynical ).
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Pelegius, you don't understand. We know every word you're using. It's just that in order to get to the meaning of what you say, we have to wade through all of the sentences that are just there to show off all the big words you know.
So if the only reason you're posting here is to make sure everyone knows you're pretentious, then you're getting across your point. But if you're posting here because you're interested in exchanging ideas, then you need to stop trying to prove how smart you are in every post, and instead let your ideas stand on their own merit.
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Jacen, I think you're interpreting our being critical with our being mean. We are certainly doing the former, which is the purpose of this thread as I understood it, but I don't feel as though we are doing the latter.
And I totally agree with what blackwolve just said.
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I like to do that every now and then to draw the pedants out.
I suppose you would have also winced when Shakespeare, Defoe, Smollett, Dickens, Dryden, Gibbon, Twain, and the translators of the King James Bible used that construction, right?
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No, I'm trying to point out that there's a difference between mildly criticizing someone’s posting style and repeatedly calling them a pretentious jerk, especially when many of the people saying such are just as bad. Anywho, I actually think jatraqueros are some of the nicest people I've ever met online, I think we all just need to lay off of Pelegius a bit.
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quote:I suppose you would have also winced when Shakespeare, Defoe, Smollett, Dickens, Dryden, Gibbon, Twain, and the translators of the King James Bible used that construction, right?
Yes, that's right. Only the truly great ones make me wince: Shakespeare, Defoe, Smollett, Dickets, Dryden, Gibbon, Twain, the translators of the King James Bible, and Jon Boy.
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quote:Originally posted by Jacen: No, I'm trying to point out that there's a difference between mildly criticizing someone’s posting style and repeatedly calling them a pretentious jerk, especially when many of the people saying such are just as bad. Anywho, I actually think jatraqueros are some of the nicest people I've ever met online, I think we all just need to lay off of Pelegius a bit.
Honestly, Pelegius wasn't getting harassed any more than the average Hatracker with expressed opinions right up until he created a feel-sorry-for-myself thread to...yeah, you guessed it, feel sorry for himself.
It was pointed out to him, repeatedly, that the very act of creating that thread highlighted part of what people find so hard to swallow. His reaction was to create a second thread, practically identical to the first. I'm not sure what reaction he or you expect.
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