Tag: language update
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Upon whom shall Newton’s apple drop?
For many years schools taught prescriptive grammar, while real linguists and dictionaries had long since switched to descriptive grammar. The dispute finally went away in the 70s. Only conservatives and neocons are still pushing the prescriptive crap. None of the prescriptive crap made the slightest sense. The prescribers weren’t real authors, just various scholars who…
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Facta
One discussion of Prevost’s background mentioned a school whose motto is Facta non verba. Google doesn’t find the reference now, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t AI-hallucinate it. The Endarkenment inverted the meaning of factum. In Latin a factum was simply a completed task, a got-r-done**. Now we think facts are authorized descriptions of the…
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Medieval // REM
Not especially relevant, and I’ve said it before in a different context. When programmers add comments to code, we think we’re doing something new and modern. Here’s a piece of my C++ code from Audin, my all-purpose courseware engine. The active parts are on the left, and my explanations and reminders are on the right.…
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Reminded me…
Something reminded me of the word ranch. Decided to look up the etymology, since it doesn’t sound like other terms for land. It comes from the French military se ranger, meaning to pitch camp or set up a location, related to arrange. Range, of course, has dozens of meanings in math and biology. It also…
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Latin note
Random language note while I’m thinking of it… Sherri Olson’s books on medieval England are full of quotes from village documents, always including both the actual text and the modern version. The court rolls were mostly in Latin, and church services were also in Latin. Villagers took part in the courts often, monthly in some…
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Oughta be a word
When I read that yesterday was Cellophane Tape Day, my first thought was “Huh? Is that a newly invented alternative to scotch tape?” No, it’s just the official generic name for scotch tape. When the trademark becomes generic (scotch tape, kleenex, hamburger), reverting to the untrademarked term (cellophane tape, facial tissue, bun sandwich) is a…
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Reassuring, sort of
I guess it’s reassuring. Amid the invasion by celebrities turning Substack into MSNBC and increasing Andreessen’s share value, the native Substackers are still quibbling about Oxford commas and em-dashes. I stopped using em-dashes about 10 years ago, obviously not because it resembled ChatGPT. Simply because the usual way of doing it—like this—is confusing. Words are…
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Rules of ambiguity
Last week I commented on nicknames for cities. Pondering this deep subject further, I conclude that we naturally apply the linguistic rule of ambiguity to city nicknames. If the second word is City: You CAN leave off the City when the first word is unique. Ponca, Dodge, Cawker. When the first word is ambiguous, such…
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Okie like button
This 1950 Chevy truck infomercial includes a familiar word that I haven’t heard since leaving Oklahoma. Mr Wayne Slocum, head of an oilfield service company in OKC, is comparing the new Chevy to his “other brand” trucks. Wayne’s voice and dialect are a perfect specimen of the Eastern Okie sound, often heard in OKC but…
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Car grammar
The car sales training films are all about grammar, and not in the usual dumb way. (Upon whom, through which, in order better to drive, I haven’t cars.) All of the sales advice can be reduced to noun cases. This 1958 Chevy film** hits the points directly, but all of them from 1950s to 1970s…
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Random grammar thought
Those old industrial films followed the radio “grammar” rules rigidly. 1. Never end a sentence or phrase with a preposition. 2. Never begin a sentence with if. Reverse the verb. 3. All verbs must be passive. 4. Don’t say I or you. Say one. 5. Every sentence must contain at least one which or whom.…
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If logic worked
This week: It’s raining. It’s snowing. It’s sleeting. It’s hailing. It’s storming. It’s thundering. If logic worked on language we’d also say: It’s winding. I can see why tornado, graupel and lightning don’t work. The first two are recent imports and the third would be uncomfortably redundant. Wind is an old word and “should” behave…
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Hack-proof is impossible.
Supposedly China has used “quantum” computing to set up a hack-proof satellite linking China with South Africa. (The C and S of BRICS.) There’s no such thing as hack-proof. There are thousands of well-established ways to encrypt a message. None of them are hack-proof if the channel can be physically intercepted. Avoiding physical interception is…
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Idiom oddity
Noticed an odd pair of phrases. In question and out of the question mean more or less the same thing. Walking today is in question. Walking today is out of the question. The second is more certain, but both mean that I shouldn’t walk. Logically the converses, Walking today is out of question. Walking today…
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Satisfying metaphor
A dream this morning formed a metaphor. I had finished one piece of a courseware project … [this is true, not a metaphor] … and told the maid to send out the result. [THE MAID? WHERE DID SHE COME FROM? I’VE NEVER HAD A MAID!] Later I checked the mailbox and saw that the maid…
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