"Nostrobino" wrote:
"Floyd Davidson" wrote:
"Nostrobino" wrote:

I've been saying the misusage is ignorant. It is. I haven't said that the
people misusing the term are ignorant. On the contrary, I presume that
most
of them are folks of at least ordinary intelligence who have innocently
picked the misusage up from Usenet and elsewhere. To be ignorant of some
particular state of affairs before one has the facts is hardly a shameful
thing. To try to DEFEND that ignorance after being apprised of the facts,
however, is stupid. Please note that I am making a careful distinction
between ignorance and stupidity. The former is often only temporary; the
latter tends to be lasting.

Your entire diatribe about language and word usage is then,
according to the above, *stupid*.

Language *is* dynamic.

Again, that is the eternal argument of the semi-literate and those whose
grasp of language is feeble. Every error is followed by the excuse,
"language is dynamic." Since these people cannot be made to understand their
mistakes, they never improve.

Hogwash. You are suggesting we should all be speaking Chaucer's
English. Patently, and we would hope obviously to anyone with
half a thimble full, *stooopid*. And I don't mean ignorant, I
mean stupid.

Dictionaries are *not* an authoritative
source of *correct* word usage, and this abjectly silly
suggestion that any jargon not found in a dictionary is
therefore wrong is a demonstration that you are ignorant about
this topic. Dictionaries are a compilation of current usage,
and have very little to do with what is or is not "correct".

Try to organize your argument such that it supports one side or the other.
If dictionaries "are a compilation of current usage," and "language *is*
dynamic," then dictionaries must reflect that dynamism according to your own
assertion and can hardly be "*not* an authoritative source of *correct* word
usage" as you claim in the same paragraph.

You have real difficulty with understanding English, don't you?

Dictionaries are a *history* of past usage that has become
common enough to be recorded as such. But you cannot 1) find a
current dictionary that includes correct usage *as* *it*
*exists* *today*, or 2) find one that predicts what will be
correct tomorrow, or 3) find one that lists the jargon for all
fields. Which says, simply put, that a dictionary is *not*
the authority on "correct" word usage.

Make up your mind which side of the argument you're taking. You cannot take
both sides simultaneously, unless you're John Kerry.

Learn to read the English language. You'll do a *lot* better
yourself.

--
FloydL. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)