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Heaven: English language

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  • Or "with respect" means you're a knob.
  • And "we hear what you say" has come to mean "we're going to totally ignore your opinion".

  • I dislike the ugly neologism 'to surveil' partly because it is ugly, but mostly because it is unnecessary. 'Watching' and 'monitoring' have always served the purpose perfectly well and more elegantly.

    But then, in the words of the New York Times, which prides itself on the correctness of its language (or used to, in the days of William Safire), my Dear Wife and I were 'boosterised' a few days ago. For no good reason I rather like the word. 'Boosted' isn't right, and 'received our booster vaccinations' is a bit clunky. It will probably soon disappear from the language, so I'll have fun with it while I still can.
  • Nothing wrong with "boostered" in my opinion.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    I think "part of our DNA" does not simply mean "very important" but rather "part of our immutable identity".
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    which when you understand how natural selection works is pretty ironic
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    I dislike the ugly neologism 'to surveil' partly because it is ugly, but mostly because it is unnecessary. 'Watching' and 'monitoring' have always served the purpose perfectly well and more elegantly.
    Pretty sure we’ve discussed this one on the Ship before. According to the Etymology Online Dictionary, the first recorded use of surveil In English was in 1903; the first recorded use of surveillance was in 1802.

    My current pet peeve is the overuse of “amazing,” particularly to describe people.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I dislike the ugly neologism 'to surveil' partly because it is ugly, but mostly because it is unnecessary. 'Watching' and 'monitoring' have always served the purpose perfectly well and more elegantly.
    Pretty sure we’ve discussed this one on the Ship before. According to the Etymology Online Dictionary, the first recorded use of surveil In English was in 1903; the first recorded use of surveillance was in 1802.

    My current pet peeve is the overuse of “amazing,” particularly to describe people.

    I think you are right, and it was probably me. I really loathe that word. A century after its birth it is still ugly and unnecessary.

    If I receive an e-mail (or 'email' in Washington Post corporate usage) headed 'Amazing', which I do quite often, it gets deleted without hesitation - usually a long PowerPoint or video that just wastes memory.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I dislike the ugly neologism 'to surveil' partly because it is ugly, but mostly because it is unnecessary. 'Watching' and 'monitoring' have always served the purpose perfectly well and more elegantly.
    Pretty sure we’ve discussed this one on the Ship before. According to the Etymology Online Dictionary, the first recorded use of surveil In English was in 1903; the first recorded use of surveillance was in 1802.

    My current pet peeve is the overuse of “amazing,” particularly to describe people.

    I think you are right, and it was probably me. I really loathe that word. A century after its birth it is still ugly and unnecessary.

    If I receive an e-mail (or 'email' in Washington Post corporate usage) headed 'Amazing', which I do quite often, it gets deleted without hesitation - usually a long PowerPoint or video that just wastes memory.

    One of my pet peeves is when people use "memory" to mean "storage".
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Back before I retired, if somebody told you that something was an 'exciting opportunity' run as though from the plague.

  • Whenever I book my swimming sessions, I receive a confirmatory email which begins: "Great news!"

    In my book "great news" would be much more significant than that.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Nothing wrong with "boostered" in my opinion.

    Or even "boosted"
  • "Boosterism" is hardly new - it's been around for at least 150 years: an Internet trawl suggests that both New Zealand and California (and possibly other places) developed in the late C19 as a direct consequence.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    One of my pet peeves is when people use "memory" to mean "storage".

    It makes reading computer ads/descriptions painful. It's like you called the SSD the DRAM.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    One of my pet peeves is when people use "memory" to mean "storage".

    It makes reading computer ads/descriptions painful. It's like you called the SSD the DRAM.

    And sends me in the wrong direction when service desk pass calls to me where they've misused the terminology.
  • Where do you store memories?
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    The most prominent exponent of boosterism at present is the UK's current PM.
    Ans is it really the case that when somone in the USA has been burgled, they say they have been 'burglarized'?
    To wrap all this up as far as I am concerned, as a lawyer I find accuracy in the use of words supremely important. Otherwise, how can we communicate meaningfully?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 2022
    Eirenist wrote: »
    The most prominent exponent of boosterism at present is the UK's current PM.
    Ans is it really the case that when somone in the USA has been burgled, they say they have been 'burglarized'?
    To wrap all this up as far as I am concerned, as a lawyer I find accuracy in the use of words supremely important. Otherwise, how can we communicate meaningfully?

    Amazingly, billions of people around the world manage without obsessing about accuracy. It's all about appropriateness - within a given field there will be words with very precise meanings whose utility depends on a close agreement of their exact meaning. This is true in technical fields, in sciences and of course in Law. You can't talk meaningfully about bird evolution, for example, without using the term dinosaur in a very precise way that probably doesn't align with what most people use it to mean.

    Outside of those fields, it just doesn't work that way, and you will merely find yourself imitating Canute if you insist on trying.

    As regards Burglarize, you have to bear in mind that the original root word is Burglar. Because the -ar and -er endings get confused as they sound alike, that resulted in the back formation of "to Burgle", because it was folk analysed as meaning "one who burgles" (if it did originally mean that it would be Burgler, not Burglar), in British English but not US English. US English instead used the suffix -ize to describe what a Burglar does. "Burgle" dates only from the 19th C.
  • Yes, context affects narrowness of meaning. I remember having arguments with scientist friends who were annoyed that people use "theory" in a loose way, e.g., "my theory is that your father has absconded", where "theory" is like idea or notion. Of course, there is a strict sense of "theory", but it's OK to be looser. In fact, we need vague terms.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Yes, context affects narrowness of meaning. I remember having arguments with scientist friends who were annoyed that people use "theory" in a loose way, e.g., "my theory is that your father has absconded", where "theory" is like idea or notion. Of course, there is a strict sense of "theory", but it's OK to be looser. In fact, we need vague terms.

    To be fair, once the millionth Creationist idiot has said "evolution's only a theory" you tend to wish the colloquial meaning of the word would sod off and die once and for all ;)
  • DormouseDormouse Shipmate
    edited May 2022
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I also dislike the misuse of "like". I would add the use of "that" as an all-purpose intensifier. (Now someone will tell me it's not that bad.)

  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Yes, context affects narrowness of meaning. I remember having arguments with scientist friends who were annoyed that people use "theory" in a loose way, e.g., "my theory is that your father has absconded", where "theory" is like idea or notion. Of course, there is a strict sense of "theory", but it's OK to be looser. In fact, we need vague terms.

    To be fair, once the millionth Creationist idiot has said "evolution's only a theory" you tend to wish the colloquial meaning of the word would sod off and die once and for all ;)

    Well, that's interesting, as they are using the word to mean non-empirical hypothesis, which is different again from the colloquial sense. I think a scientific theory should have strong evidence, and should be predictive, and falsifiable.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Outside of those fields, it just doesn't work that way, and you will merely find yourself imitating Canute if you insist on trying.

    I find that the challenge comes because specialist fields don't have hard edges. I've quite often found myself having discussions in a group of people, where none of us are world experts in that particular field, but several of us are at least interested amateurs. And so we're using the language in a technical sense, except that a couple of the other people in the group aren't, and then the wheels all fall off.

    (Funnily enough, my high school kid often uses 'dinosaur' to describe birds. They've spent quite a long time studying birds, and we know they have, and so it becomes in-group language.)
  • mousethief wrote: »
    It's like you called the SSD the DRAM.

    Miss Amanda would never call a single-sided document a document read after m*st*rb*t*ng.
  • Where do you store memories?

    In the heart, of course.
  • Lovely.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Outside of those fields, it just doesn't work that way, and you will merely find yourself imitating Canute if you insist on trying.

    I find that the challenge comes because specialist fields don't have hard edges. I've quite often found myself having discussions in a group of people, where none of us are world experts in that particular field, but several of us are at least interested amateurs. And so we're using the language in a technical sense, except that a couple of the other people in the group aren't, and then the wheels all fall off.

    (Funnily enough, my high school kid often uses 'dinosaur' to describe birds. They've spent quite a long time studying birds, and we know they have, and so it becomes in-group language.)

    Birds sort of became dinosaurs over the last few decades - firstly, by the firming up of the model whereby they evolved from non-avian dinosaurs, and secondly by a general shift in classification towards cladistically justifiable groups. Since T. rex and your chicken dinner share a far more recent common ancestor than T. rex does with, say Stegosaurus, you can't call those two dinosaurs without including the chicken, if you want Dinosaur to be a cladistically valid taxon.

    Monkeys are the worst here. If you want to call the New World Monkeys monkeys, and monkey to be a valid clade, it has to include apes and therefore us. Traditionally biologists have liked to draw a line between monkeys and apes (having or not having tails mostly) and that means you also have to kick the NW Monkeys out into their own group. Or possibly fish; you can't have a fish clade at all unless you include tetrapods, which basically makes everything with a backbone and a jaw a fish. Fish is not surprisingly no longer used as a taxon because calling a pangolin a fish is just silly.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Eirenist wrote: »
    Ans is it really the case that when somone in the USA has been burgled, they say they have been 'burglarized'?
    It is indeed the case.

    KarlLB wrote: »
    As regards Burglarize, you have to bear in mind that the original root word is Burglar. Because the -ar and -er endings get confused as they sound alike, that resulted in the back formation of "to Burgle", because it was folk analysed as meaning "one who burgles" (if it did originally mean that it would be Burgler, not Burglar), in British English but not US English. US English instead used the suffix -ize to describe what a Burglar does. "Burgle" dates only from the 19th C.
    Yep.

    FWIW, the Online Etymology Dictionary says this about “burgle” and “burglarize”:
    burgle (v.)
    "commit burglary, be a burglar," 1869, humorous or erroneous back-formation from burglar (q.v.) as thought [sic] it were an agent noun.

    burglarize (v.)
    1865, American English, from burglary + -ize. Damned as an American barbarism in England and Canada.
    In my experience, “burgled” is definitely heard as humorous in the US.

  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    "I think a scientific theory should have strong evidence, and should be predictive, and falsifiable".
    Are you saying 'The theory of evolation' (or rather, 'Natural Selection', isn't.
    I would argue it is, but that would need another thread (there's probably one already in Dead Horses).
    Just sayin (a use of English I loathe, what does it mean?).

  • RockyRoger wrote: »
    "I think a scientific theory should have strong evidence, and should be predictive, and falsifiable".
    Are you saying 'The theory of evolation' (or rather, 'Natural Selection', isn't.
    I would argue it is, but that would need another thread (there's probably one already in Dead Horses).
    Just sayin (a use of English I loathe, what does it mean?).

    I thought theory of evolution has evidence, is predictive, and falsifiable. Rabbits in the Cambrian is the famous counter.
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    Just for the record, I have no problem with people using “part of my DNA” to mean “innate” and I’m aware that in those situations it is being used as a metaphor. I have heard it used when the phrase really doesn’t make sense, but can’t currently recall an example. I shall make a note of it next time if it’s necessary to back up my opinion with a direct quote, though this seems unusually rigorous for a Heaven topic!
  • That made me laugh a lot, rigorous for a Heaven topic.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    I thought theory of evolution has evidence, is predictive, and falsifiable. Rabbits in the Cambrian is the famous counter.

    Rabbits in the Cambrian would be a boffo name for an indie rock group.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Aravis wrote: »
    I shall make a note of it next time if it’s necessary to back up my opinion with a direct quote, though this seems unusually rigorous for a Heaven topic!
    For what it’s worth, I took it that you meant what you said—that you’ve heard “It’s part of my/our DNA” when the intended meaning is “This is something I think is very important.”

  • mousethief wrote: »
    I thought theory of evolution has evidence, is predictive, and falsifiable. Rabbits in the Cambrian is the famous counter.

    Rabbits in the Cambrian would be a boffo name for an indie rock group.

    Brilliant. Haldane said it, I think.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I thought theory of evolution has evidence, is predictive, and falsifiable. Rabbits in the Cambrian is the famous counter.
    Has evidence yes, predictive for a certain value of predictive, falsifiable if you assume that it gets falsified first. Rabbits in the Cambrian only falsify evolution if you assume that the theories you rely on to distinguish between rabbits actually from the Cambrian and rabbits that have burrowed into the Cambrian layer and then died are not themselves falsified.

  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    When I hear "burglarize", I usually think that someone has been made into a burglar.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Me too. 'Hospitalized' = turned into a hospital rather than taken to one. 'Brutalized' = converted to beasts rather than attacked with violence.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    Please don't invite me to reach out to you, unless you're drowning, which you probably won't be in an office job (other than in piles of virtual paper but that's another story).

    "From now on" is fine. No need for "going forward."

    Magazines have issues. People and computers have problems.

    "Incredibly" is unbelievably. Fine if you really mean that, but it's still all right to use "extremely" if you just want to emphasize "very" rather than making it one of those "you'll struggle to believe it" adjectives. Please don't overwork it. It's incredibly annoying.

    And why are so you excited all the time?
    "I'm excited to apply for this job/work with you on this project/announce this incredible new development..."
  • Ariel wrote: »
    Please don't invite me to reach out to you, unless you're drowning, which you probably won't be in an office job (other than in piles of virtual paper but that's another story).

    "From now on" is fine. No need for "going forward."

    Every time I am asked to 'reach out', I have to avoid breaking into song:

    "Reach out, reach out to me...
    (Huh!)
    I'll be there, to love and comfort you"

    I tend to slap myself on the wrist if I find myself saying 'Going forward'!
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Ariel wrote: »
    "Incredibly" is unbelievably. Fine if you really mean that, but it's still all right to use "extremely" if you just want to emphasize "very" rather than making it one of those "you'll struggle to believe it" adjectives. Please don't overwork it. It's incredibly annoying.

    English speakers can't seem to have enough synonyms for "extremely." It's literally annoying.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    There is a brilliant podcast about the etymology and usage of the English language. Susie Dent is an impressive expert - and she’s very easy going about usage. Here is a link - https://tinyurl.com/yc4jj88u


    Her latest book is “ Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year”. Well worth a read.

  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    A lot of these posts made me smile. So, so good. It's not only the missuse of words - getting what the words actually do (or did) mean wrong -we object to is it? We also loathe/abhor/hate the unthinking use of cliches. I really (as a biological scientist) can't bear, "It's in our DNA". No it isn't!
    Perhaps this discussion needs to be moved to Purgatory .... or the other place!
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Boogie wrote: »
    There is a brilliant podcast about the etymology and usage of the English language. Susie Dent is an impressive expert - and she’s very easy going about usage. Here is a link - https://tinyurl.com/yc4jj88u


    Her latest book is “ Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year”. Well worth a read.

    I am indebted to Susie Dent, for the discovery of the word Scurryfunge.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    If someone tells me that something is incredible, and I don't believe it, I will respond with something like "Yes, it's literally incredible", knowing that they wont take "literally" literally. Then we are both happy in our different understandings.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    RockyRoger wrote: »
    Perhaps this discussion needs to be moved to Purgatory .... or the other place!
    There have been many of these discussions over the years, raising many of the same pet peeves. It’s a regularly recurring topic. I’m enjoying that this rehash is in Heaven, where it must needs stay a little lighter. I’ll readily admit to and kvetch about my own pet peeves, but it’s just not that serious.

  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    One of my pet peeves is the confusion of "reticent" with "reluctant". I've just heard a prime example on TV this afternoon while watching horse racing. The commentator said that a horse was "reticent " to accelerate. Now as far as I know, horses have not recently gained the power of speech.

  • KarlLB wrote: »
    One of my pet peeves is when people use "memory" to mean "storage".
    I'm always intrigued by the concept of "self-storage units". (Mind you, some of those tiny 'pod' hotels come close).

    And - thinking of a current UK discussion - if "income tax" is a tax on income and "fuel tax" is a tax on fuel, shouldn't a "windfall tax" apply to apples, pears and plums?

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 2022
    KarlLB wrote: »
    One of my pet peeves is when people use "memory" to mean "storage".
    I'm always intrigued by the concept of "self-storage units". (Mind you, some of those tiny 'pod' hotels come close).

    And - thinking of a current UK discussion - if "income tax" is a tax on income and "fuel tax" is a tax on fuel, shouldn't a "windfall tax" apply to apples, pears and plums?

    Only if baby oil is made from babies, like palm oil and sunflower oil are made from palms and sunflowers.

    It's a bit like the Animal On The Front Of The Package rule for food. Cats or dogs - food for the animals on the front. Pigs, sheep and cows - food made from the animal on the front. Fish or Chickens - could go either way. Or be food made by the animal on the front.

    Horses and rabbits probably introduce national differences.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    As in a celebrated case some years ago when a manufacturer of baby food decided to try to introduce their brand to a new, non-English speaking, market. They sent packages of the stuff bearing pictures of plump, happy, smiling babies waving spoons and they didn't seem to sell. So scratching their heads, they decided this needed to be re-contextualised with pictures of plump, happy, smiling, local babies waving spoons. At that, the entire local population wouldn't even go in the shops to buy other goods.

    Which was an entirely rational response.
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