Posted on 12/18/2004 10:55:44 AM PST by quidnunc
When you had finished reading your October Prospect, were you purple with rage? One contributor, writing about Gordon Brown, described him as an "heir apparent" who might find that someone else inherited after all. But an heir apparent must necessarily succeed; the term the writer should have used was "heir presumptive." A second contributor discussed why parliament is "like it is"; that should have been "as it is," or so we used to be taught at school. A third contributor wrote about the norms of something being "flaunted," when he meant "flouted."…
-snip-
The idea that language can be manipulated to disguise the truth, and even to control and limit thought, is, of course, one of the themes of George Orwell's 1984. Orwell also explored the topic in his famous essay "Politics and the English language," written in 1946. He took five specimens of recent writing to illustrate "various of the mental vices from which we now suffer." The first is a clumsy and contorted sentence by Harold Laski containing so many double negatives that he seems to have ended up saying the opposite of what he meant to say. The second is from another once celebrated intellectual, Lancelot Hogben, whose vices are dying metaphor, pomposity and facetiousness ("we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables"). …
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at prospect-magazine.co.uk ...
All hail the Queen's English, Masterpiece Theater, and our grade school English teachers who explained when to use "shall" vs. "will".
You 'may', but you 'mustn't. I shan't discuss the subject any futher.:)
Well unless you're into prose or poetry; language takes on a secondary importance of supplementing the main theme. In these cases; it is isn't the main thrust of your effort, but a tool to garnish your effort with.
This holds true for Science, Business, and to an extent even Law and philisophy; where your focus is on formulating an idea, hypothesis or proving a theory.
You use italics and capitalizations etc to emphasize words or points and you also construct sentences to make for easy reading and understanding.
If you have enough time, you could work on both the language and content; tut when time is scarce you focus on the content, hoping to come up with a draft, which you could sumbit the way it is or improve at a later time.
Another thing to pay attention to is that, people like change; you get tired of the same colors,the same fashions and the same seasons. Similarly at times you have to incorporate changes into your language to do away with boring cliches and make conversing or reading a fun or exciting experience. This has given rise to slang and the practice of using Latin and French terms in place of trite English terms.
But like I said, you can play around with language only if you have the time and only if you are willing to make it the main theme of your effort at the cost of content.
Unless i am writing prose or poetry; i'd say i'd rather focus on content than on garnishing bull with prose. If one has the time, one could do both; but then one hardly ever has one enough time for anything.
You usually tailor your language to the group, you're conversing with. If you are conversing with the younger lot; then they are mostly into slang and other concoctions of their times and age. At times; i use don't in place 'does not'; ain't in place of 'is not'; and broke in place of 'broken'.
However, if i were commmunicating with someone older or working on a formal piece of writing; i wouldn't use these terms.
at times it's simpy a typo; take the instance of my using ' times and age' instead of using ' time and age' or just ' times' in the above post.
Since people think in language [and express their thoughts in language], culture of language is culture of thought, and sloppy language makes the quality of thoughts expressed in it rather suspect. Thus, while vocabulary, style, preferred usage, etc. can and do change, the requirements of clarity, rigor and precision do not, or should not.
My name isn't Well. :)
ah...
one who does not say what he means cannot be understood to mean what he says.
a word which can mean many things means no one thing precisely.
to control the meaning of the terms of dialogue is to control the dialogue itself.
to a leftist (or lawyer) a rose by any othe name is not a rose.
this is something the left has understood and practiced for decades, and is one arena in which they must be decisively crushed.
...depends on what your definition of is, is.
Not really - it's more important than that. In scientific research, the work is not complete until it is written up as a scientific paper which is clear and concise. In business, you are always selling (to your bosses, as well as others), and good use of language is critical to making your point.
"You usually tailor your language to the group, you're conversing with. If you are conversing with the younger lot; then they are mostly into slang and other concoctions of their times and age. At times; i use don't in place 'does not'; ain't in place of 'is not'; and broke in place of 'broken'.
However, if i were commmunicating with someone older or working on a formal piece of writing; i wouldn't use these terms."
____________________________________________________________
Don't talk down to them, but don't cater to them either. The grownup trying to talk hip is a perennial character in youth culture down the ages. Word.
Ive heard it said that the combination of similar words & concepts is a sign of intelligence.
Good example is the word "misunderestimate."
Combines two similar words and produces a new word that expresses both concepts.
Is "greag" more than "great"?
FMCDH(BITS)
Bump and Word.
FMCDH(BITS)
TH15 Thr34d 15 +3h 5uXoR!!!!!!111one
It do if'n it be Ebonics.
You 'may', but you 'mustn't. I shan't discuss the subject any futher.:)
=====
Well then there now, ewe kneeds ta hap skatch round da side
back afor ewe frak churz yer caloon zout !!!
Oak Hay Dare, Joan Zee... Isle Ike Free Pin, Doan Chew ???
You have described a portmanteau word. Chortle comes from chuckle and snort. Slithy from lithe and slimy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.