Username
goofy
Member Since
July 24, 2006
Total number of comments
186
Total number of votes received
652
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Latest Comments
all _____ sudden
- July 29, 2010, 7:03pm
I'm sorry to inform Patricia that the English languages has been destroyed for a long time: the noun "reveal" means "that part of the side of a doorway or window opening between the frame and the arris", first cited in 1666. With the meaning "a final revelation of something previously kept from an audience", it dates from 1975.
“Anglish”
- July 28, 2010, 6:53am
"But then, what’s so bad with proposing a little change?, after all that’s how the english you and I know came about: through radical change."
The difference is that Old English didn't become Middle English because people consciously proposed the introduction of French words into English based on some argument that it would make the language better. But that's what the Anglish people are doing. They're trying to change the language by decree based on their specific idea of "better". But no language is intrinsically better than any other. And an attempt to change English by decree will never work anyway.
He and I, me and him
- July 23, 2010, 2:57pm
I don't think there is a proper order. I've heard some people say that you should put "I/me" last to be polite, but that has nothing to do with grammar.
“Anglish”
- July 15, 2010, 12:02pm
Actually "wrong" was borrowed from Old Norse.
I don't think there's such a thing as a "pure" language. Even Anglo-Saxon isn't pure. Anglo-Saxon is descended from Proto-Germanic, and many Proto-Germanic words are descended from Proto-Indo-European, but many aren't - they were presumably borrowed from other now extinct languages.
“she” vs “her”
- June 20, 2010, 9:31am
spay, not spade
- June 10, 2010, 2:10pm
"spade" is an obsolete form of "spay" according to the OED. Perhaps it survived.
“Zen” as an Adjective
- May 26, 2010, 9:44am
It's listed as an adjective in the OED.
Fora vs Forums
- May 11, 2010, 9:08am
Dave Johnson: It's the "the true scholars of English, the writers and the poets" who are using the words you're complaining about. Well, maybe not the poets, but good writers of all kinds use "forums" and "data" as a mass noun in carefully edited text.
A piece of irony
- May 8, 2010, 7:43am
One of the entries in the OED for "ignorant" is "5. dial. and colloq. Ill-mannered, uncouth."
Canadian pronunciation of “out and about”
It's called Canadian raising, where the diphthong /aw/ is raised to /?w/ and /aj/ to /?j/. It occurs before a voiceless consonant - so the vowel in "out" isn't the same as in "loud", and the vowel in "knife" isn't the same as in "knives". It's also found in some US dialects.
Speakers who have Canadian raising articulate the vowel in "out" a bit higher than it is with speakers who don't have Canadian raising. So speakers without Canadian raising hear it as a higher vowel - namely the vowel in "boot". Of course it isn't the same as the vowel in "boot", it just might sound a bit like it.