Joined: Jul 15 2005 Posts: 29816 Location: West Yorkshire
Mild Rover wrote:The only 'smash it' I've come across is the one that cost Richard Keys his job. 'Gay' is an obvious example. Evolution doesn't care if it is condoned. The dinosaurs never called cake and custard 'dessert' - but where are they now?
Evolution isn't always brilliant though, is it? We've evolved into a nation that spends 6 hours a weekend watching Reality tv. Apart from the dinosaurs amongst us, obviously.
Joined: Jun 01 2007 Posts: 12672 Location: Leicestershire.
Marfa Manu wrote:Like 'sick'...which now apparently means great...I could go on
Rovette heard that from her niece a couple of years ago - I didn't know if it had become fixed and/or gone beyond slang. Dessert as pudding, seems to be a widely accepted definition now.
Good team captain though, for all her hang-ups and idiosyncrasies.
'Thus I am tormented by my curiosity and humbled by my ignorance.' from History of an Old Bramin, The New York Mirror (A Weekly Journal Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts), February 16th 1833.
Joined: Jun 01 2007 Posts: 12672 Location: Leicestershire.
Marfa Manu wrote:Why you asking us where the dinosaurs have gone, your the scientist! Tell me what kind of scientist are you ? (not being rude but I have conjured up visions of the tetley tea men Technically I am considered a social scientist (from my last degree), defiantly do not feel like one though
Bioscience. I work in a Genetics Department.
'Thus I am tormented by my curiosity and humbled by my ignorance.' from History of an Old Bramin, The New York Mirror (A Weekly Journal Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts), February 16th 1833.
Joined: Mar 11 2007 Posts: 5659 Location: Next to Ramsgate Sands c.1850 in West Hull
Mild Rover wrote:Couple of days to evict someone, then we'll start task 2. I've pm'd the judges the menus, so hopefully we'll have a result soonish.
While we wait... WiH - what if a word which originally meant one thing comes, through common usage, to mean something else? I'm not sure an Academie Francaisesque attitude adequately acknowledges the way in which language evolves.
Like "bog", you mean? Quite acceptable in this case.
But "greens", for example, will only ever be different shades of green. It will never be acceptable to refer to vegetables as "greens", even if they're green.
Just as "glasses" will only ever be vessels you drink out of, or magnifying instruments for the opera or the countryside but can never be spectacles.
Looking glass, however, originally referred to a hand held polished surface which showed the holder a reflection of their image, but has now come to mean any piece of glass - huge or tiny, with a silvered reflective back. So that's evolved and now means something different (You must never, of course, refer to a "mirror".)
One of the most hideous examples is the misuse of the word "home". You can be "at home", or "going home" as "home" is an abstract noun. But you can only build a house, or buy a flat (not apartment!). Most sadly, "home" has become, by common usage, a word used incorrectly to describe the physical building in which you live. "I've bought a new couch for my home". Quite beyond the pale. This is why you may visit an "historic house" or go to stay in a "country house" but a "stately home" does not exist.
Philip Larkin wrote:
There ain’t no music East side of this city That’s mellow like mine is, That’s mellow like mine.
Mild Rover wrote:Rovette heard that from her niece a couple of years ago - I didn't know if it had become fixed and/or gone beyond slang. Dessert as pudding, seems to be a widely accepted definition now.
Good team captain though, for all her hang-ups and idiosyncrasies.
Wormy was a very good captain this week, she has set the bar, a lot of pressure now for the rest of the team when their turn comes. I always thought Wormy was an English teacher if I am honest, she certainly has a passion for the English language and clearly knows her stuff.
Joined: Mar 11 2007 Posts: 5659 Location: Next to Ramsgate Sands c.1850 in West Hull
Marfa Manu wrote:Wormy was a very good captain this week, she has set the bar, a lot of pressure now for the rest of the team when their turn comes. I always thought Wormy was an English teacher if I am honest, she certainly has a passion for the English language and clearly knows her stuff.
Shucks . Did nothing but shout and demand ideas but didn't come up with many good ones myself. My poor little pig, for example. dum-dum was a bit of a hero, though.
Philip Larkin wrote:
There ain’t no music East side of this city That’s mellow like mine is, That’s mellow like mine.
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. Did nothing but shout and demand ideas but didn't come up with many good ones myself. My poor little pig, for example. dum-dum was a bit of a hero, though.