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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (173570)	7/14/2006 10:36:11 AM
From: Murrey Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Correct usage is certainly a pet peeve of the Princess of Parse (apologies to Karen ;-) ). However, I did point out the fact that I work with an incredibly bright fellow who elevates the usage of the King's language to a level, during client meetings that often cause the clients to ask, "Walt, what in the hell does that word mean?". My point? Too much correct usage can sometimes cause good communication to go awry. V VBG

To: DMaA who wrote (173570)	7/14/2006 10:42:04 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Are you sure you used the word hopefully correctly? LOL. You know, I thought about my non-standard usage as I was typing it. Used it anyway. Use that particular form of the word often. You belong to the prescriptive school of language. There are other schools of thought. It's not being prescriptive. My libertarian self doesn't have a prescriptive bone in her body. Where I'm coming from is concern about the loss of a critical resource. It's like flushing garbage into the lake. Sooner or later the lake becomes unusable. Language, too, is part of the "commons." We need to be careful with them. I don't mind when people are creative with language if it doesn't hurt anything. I've invented words, myself. That usage of "hopefully" is useful, is well understood, and doesn't damage anything but the delicate sensibilities of school marms and other autocrats. Did you ever notice how "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing? Likewise there are words which mean two opposite things, autoantinyms, like "cleave." Doing this to a language is not helpful. And if we value our language and our lakes we will try to keep them useful. If you expand the use of the language by making it richer--adding new words and new meanings, that's constructive. If you use words in a way that clouds the very concept that the words convey, that's not helpful. completely different from the population for whom dhimmitude rules are self imposed. There is no population for whom dhimmitude rules are self imposed. That's one of the key elements of the word. Dhimmi is imposed on non-Muslims. If it were self-imposed it wouldn't be dhimmi. More like obsequiousness or an inferiority complex. You may describe me as ignorant and nasty I didn't do that and I'm sorry that it may have looked that way. I was talking about whoever coined the usage.