Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Natalie A Sera on February 28, 2013 at 8:06pm

OK (Hi, Joan!), I'm a spelling nut. Mostly because I can! So I'm going to correct you, ONLY because you asked for it (funsies!!). You didn't need to put the word "properly" in quotes, because you were using it properly (But I did). And grammar is spelled "grammar".

Hope you don't mind that I'm having fun with you!!! :-) (And I use WAY too many exclamation marks and parentheses, and I capitalize words I want to emphasize, and am not above using non-standard words and grammar when they make the sound I WANT them to!) :-)

Permalink Reply by Alan Perlman on March 1, 2013 at 11:22am

Thanks, Joan...I appreciate your loyal readership and kind comments.  Writing or speaking a language involves an infinitude of choices, which means a multitude of ways to be "wrong," whether you're a foreign language speaker putting words in the wrong order or you're a native speaker trying to navigate the confusing paths to "correctness."

And the standards keep changing.  In the 19th century, people were debating about a new verb phrase, the progressive passive ("The house was being built.").  Today, sentence fragments and (horrors!) dangling modifiers are getting more and more common.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on February 28, 2013 at 8:34pm

When dictionary makers become moralists and exclude a word, it blossoms: to wit, "fuck".

They provide job security for future dictionary makers.

During all of my dictionary-purchasing years, I bought only those whose makers included "the word".

With the New Oxford American, I hit pay dirt.

BTW, the Brits do it right(ly?) when they put a full stop (period) outside a quoted expression that concludes a sentence.

BTeffingW, I found the above usage of "to wit" in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dict'y of English Usage. "...blossoms. To wit, fuck." would also have been proper usage.

Also BTFW, I recently needed a term for effusive sentiment and coined the word "sentimentalia". If enough others use it, a future dictionary maker will include it.

What fun I'm having.

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on March 1, 2013 at 1:57am

Here's a coinage to describe dictionary makers (whether they're prescriptive or descriptive): "dictionarians".

And I'm like you: the first test I'd give a dictionary is whether it acknowledged the existence of "fuck". I was delighted to find that my first "real" dictionary, that I'd received as a present, The American Heritage Dictionary, passed. No lacuna between "fuchsia" and "fucoid". It showed me that a dictionary could recognize the word, while giving fair warning that it was likely to offend parents, teachers, and other adults.

Permalink Reply by Alan Perlman on March 1, 2013 at 11:31am

Tom,

There already is a name for it: lexicography.  Took a grad course in it.  Dictionary making was regarded as prescriptive until 1960, when the new Webster's created furious controversy by reporting what people said and attaching usage guides that reflected actual usage.

Of course fuck should be in the dictionary, along with all the appropriate caveats.  You could write a whole book on how the word is used as an intensifier ("your fucking brother said...") and even an infix, as in your example.  It's un-fucking-believable how many uses the word has. 

A lot of people don't want to hear it, but usage determines acceptance.  There are many words we should have (and other languages have, like Schadenfreud), but we don't.  Generally, if the phenomenon has staying power (e.g., "helicopter parents"), so does the term for it.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 1, 2013 at 11:34pm

Alan, more than most of us you know the illogic of the English language.

We have fiction and the non-analogous faction. We have facts and no ficts.

We have prenatal; move one letter and get the resulting parental.

We have marital; reverse the i and the t and get the coincident martial.

We have nicest; reverse the n and the i and get the illicit incest.

Is such more common with Latin-based words?

Permalink Reply by Alan Perlman on March 2, 2013 at 12:19pm

Tom, These are only coincidences.  Mostly when you change a letter or letter sequence, you get nonsense.  Only the other hand, there are plenty of strange irregularities if you know where to look.  George Carlin, who says he would have been a linguist if not a comedian, used to collect these, e.g., how come you can be hard of hearing but not hard of seeing? Idioms taken literally raise questions: when you take a shower or a shit...where do you take it to?

My favorite: "evil" spelled backwards is "live."  What do religious folks make of that?

Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on March 7, 2013 at 7:08pm

I see the word "fuck" in written material as saying the following is in all caps, boldface and underlined as in, " your fucking sister is" ....  becomes "YOUR SISTER is ..."

Years ago when I was living in Virginia (in 1952 - 53 ) I found, in the local library, a dictionary called "The Dictionary of Slang and Un-convectional English.  It had every word and its usage of the whole Anglo-Saxon lexicon of "dirty words".  It was fucking great.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 7, 2013 at 7:32pm

I regularly scan slang dictionaries in bookstores.

In one I saw the importance, in American English, of "drunk": a full page of synonyms

Moralists have messed with some recent slang dictionaries.

Authors I've met who self-published said some printers see themselves as duty-bound to keep certain words out of print.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 1, 2013 at 5:25pm

Natalie A Sera, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I am so grateful!. As I remember you have pulled me out of other holes in the past. That is a test of a good friend. I think of you every time I overgeneralize the Abrahamic religions. You are an excellent teacher.
By-the-way, my "Reply" button works only intermittently.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 1, 2013 at 11:28pm

Natalie, or any grammarian, "she is as bad as I." Correct?
Also, when a caller asks for Joan, I respond "I am she". Correct?

It feels kind of good to be a sixth grader at 77 years old. I guess I am on "rewind".

Permalink Reply by Natalie A Sera on March 1, 2013 at 11:46pm

I would never say "I am she". I would answer "This is she". But I actually avoid that by saying "Speaking." And I would say "she is as bad as I am." But do remember, Joan, that I'm not infallible, and I'm also not going to get elected to be the next Pope! :-)

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