WTF english and false synonyms

[NiranV Dean]

Ok, now I am lost.

Just like me.

Okay, let's try so solve this issue logically.

I thought i derailed this topic (which would be my first topic i derailed) into what looks like a related topic but not the actual topic itself, this went on for a while and we were suddenly not talking about the initial topic anymore but something similar to the point that we've almost made a full circle.

Your comment that this became so wide-ranged kind of proves this to be false as you've accepted that this is simply part of the original topic. Which it kinda is, it's a sub-topic derail inside the overarching topic. (is it even a derail then?) I explained with my post that you thinking that this is part of the overarching topic would be a failure to what i was thinking is a derail, initiated by me.

You then asked a question that i cannot quite understand what you mean, which could be a trick since this whole topic kind of is about misuse of words and now misunderstandings too. So my question to start solving this issue is, what exactly were you asking when you asked "your first topic?" and what did you mean with "Look at who the OP is", what are you implying with you being the OP in this?

 

[WolfEyes]

Isn't intentionally derailing a thread considered trolling? Seems to me it would be.

 

[NiranV Dean]

Isn't intentionally derailing a thread considered trolling? Seems to me it would be.

I never said i did want to derail this intentionally. I have just come to accept that it happened because i asked something and even then i seemed to have failed... or did i? If it wasn't intentional i didn't fail, can something you didn't fully achieve unintentionally even considered a fail? Now we're getting philosophical.

 

[Govi]

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments."

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Okay I got one for you guys.

A long time ago, I remember watching some Saturday-afternoon kid-ucational short from before I was born, something like Schoolhouse Rock but maybe not Schoolhouse Rock exactly. Anyways, this thing was talking about vowels, and it listed them as "A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y". I don't remember it ever giving an example of a word in which Y functioned as a vowel....or even what exactly made Y a "vowel" in some cases but not in others. I also never heard about this rule in school, that's for sure.

SO! Older people who grew up with this weird rule - please explain it to me.

Mary, Harry, cary, leary, ferry, jelly, Jerry, furry, Tory, Lyme, rhyme, cry, ...

 

[Free]

This thread is so meh. Feh. Beh. Geh.

 

[EmpressOfCommunism]

If you guys think English has a lot of rules and contradictions, with a particular flavour of common rule breaking, just remember:

In colloquial Bosnian "I am" and "You are" can be the exact same phrase. It roughly translates to "I are". Mandarin can sometimes do this too. I learned this via Bosnian spouse and talking in morse code mixed English and Mandarin with Chinese ham radio folks. "CQ, CQ, CQ, I are (call sign), who are you?" The point is, English formally has a lot of rules, colloquial rules too, AND different dialects, AND common errors which sometimes become part of the official lexicon. English is not even terribly complex when compared to languages like Finnish, Russian, or Japanese. All of which have their own caveats, and complexities. Grammar is fake, strict prescriptivism is a foiled endeavour in 2018.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

 

[NiranV Dean]

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite countryballs comic on the VV Forums.

But yea, he's right. If you thought german has way too many words and forms of words, you haven't seen anything yet. Though i'm surprised you can even have so many forms for a single word, i mean are you differentiating between a dog owned by a boy, girl, man, woman, old lady, old grandpa and so on, i can't imagine how you even manage to make so many forms without being a super nitpicker.

We do differentiate between many different forms of a single word too, depending on who does it, the time, sometimes previous descriptive words or even depending on how the sentence is built and whether you are using old or new german but even then quite a few forms overlap each other because there is only so much you can do with -ing, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -tion, -en, -et, -t and a few other endings you can smack onto most words to bluntly force them into a given time and/or make them verbs.

In german you can (although it is frowned upon) take almost any word and just smack -et, -en or -t at the end to make it a verb (and at the same time "germanize" it, something people really hate).

Best example would be "Fuck". People tend to say "Fuckt" or recently even "Fucken" as opposed to "fucked" or "fucking" which would be the correctly written version but then again we've basically germanized "fuck" anyway, "das fuckt ab" ~ "it's fucking annoying". Idk, this is weird if you think about it.

 

[Caliandris]

I'm not overscrupulous about it, but it bothers me sometimes. One of the biggest pet peeves is when a person uses "religious" when what they actually mean is "Christian". I'm a polytheistic Pagan and when debates about religion in public life are happening, no one is ever talking about any form of Paganism (or Hinduism or Shinto or African traditional and Diasporic traditions or...).

Hmm maybe that's an American thing? I think religious is applied to any religion in the UK and not just Christianity. Not sure it extends to Wiccan, but Hinduism and Jainism, and any organized religion. I'd expect someone meaning Christian to say Christian tradition or specific Christian sect here, because multicultural communities in the UK mean a lot of different religions.

It makes me grind my teeth when people say religion when they mean spirituality, because I see a vast gulf between a religion which imposes certain beliefs and rituals upon its adherents and spirituality which allows the individual an awareness of things beyond the material and to choose what to believe and how to apply those beliefs.

I can think of dozens of misused words which are wrongly applied. Ambiguous and ambivalent. Disinterested and uninterested. Alternate and alternative. Less and fewer (growl, growl). Amoral and immoral. And so on.

The question is whether common usage should be the guide (as in the acceptance of literally meaning the opposite) or whether we should resist the dumbing down of our vocabulary by the ignorant or careless. Diphtheria is frequently spelled incorrectly because the accepted pronunciation ignores the first "h".

As I worked as an editor for 10 years, I used to be very pedantic about everything, but then I realized that Shakespeare didn't even spell his name the same way every time, and he used creative and often random spelling for other words too. It was only the introduction of the dictionary which made people anal about spelling, and given the number of words which Shakespeare coined, maybe the language is richer when it evolves and changes quickly. Perhaps the casting in print of English wasn't such a great idea, and a vibrant language needs change and variation to move with the times.

 

[Caliandris]

Or, flip that around, and take two different words that mean the same thing: 'dived' and 'dove'. For me it's the latter, I grew up with it, prefer it, it feels right. The former? Fingernails on chalkboards... anytime I stumble across it in a book I have to put the book down for a minute, calmly consider that the author must have just grown up in part of the country that tolerates that kind of abomination.

Right back at you Jopsy! The fingernails on chalkboard for me is 'dove'. Dived! It's dived!

 

[Ashiri]

Though i'm surprised you can even have so many forms for a single word, i mean are you differentiating between a dog owned by a boy, girl, man, woman, old lady, old grandpa and so on, i can't imagine how you even manage to make so many forms without being a super nitpicker

I learnt Latin at school. That was enough to show how much easier analytic languages are.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Right back at you Jopsy! The fingernails on chalkboard for me is 'dove'. Dived! It's dived!

Dove. Not to confused with dove.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I can think of dozens of misused words which are wrongly applied. Ambiguous and ambivalent. Disinterested and uninterested. Alternate and alternative. Less and fewer (growl, growl). Amoral and immoral. And so on.

Whenever I hear a newsreader say that someone "refuted" an accusation, I frequently want to yell, "No he didn't! He rebutted it! And if you're not sure what he did, just say he denied the damn thing!"

 

[Kara Spengler]

Go Finland!

 

[Essence Lumin]

It makes me grind my teeth when people say religion when they mean spirituality, because I see a vast gulf between a religion which imposes certain beliefs and rituals upon its adherents and spirituality which allows the individual an awareness of things beyond the material and to choose what to believe and how to apply those beliefs.

The Unitarian church I sometimes attend has spent Sunday mornings talking about that difference. If someone is an adherent to a religion it will be hard to speak with them about spirituality often or usually, I'd say.

 

[Jupiter]

Hmm maybe that's an American thing? I think religious is applied to any religion in the UK and not just Christianity. Not sure it extends to Wiccan, but Hinduism and Jainism, and any organized religion. I'd expect someone meaning Christian to say Christian tradition or specific Christian sect here, because multicultural communities in the UK mean a lot of different religions.

I am American and I live in Australia and I observe the same usage here.

Yes, in America (and in Australia), I think there's a general understanding that "religion" includes more than just Christianity. It includes Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. It does include Wicca in the U.S. (it's debatable in Australia). But I was referring to public discourse and political conversations about "religion" usually mean Christianity.

For example, when politicians talk about whether there should be "religious" education in public schools, they're not talking about the Satanic Temple coming in to schools. They'd be horrified if that was the case and would oppose it. They're talking about Christian education in public schools. When they talk about an opening prayer at the town hall meeting, they're not thinking about inviting the local voudou priestess to give it. They're thinking about a Christian prayer. I mention the Satanic Temple here because it's an organisation that is constantly pushing back on Christian groups trying to blur the boundaries between church and state in the U.S.

 

[Caliandris]

I am American and I live in Australia and I observe the same usage here.

Yes, in America (and in Australia), I think there's a general understanding that "religion" includes more than just Christianity. It includes Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. It does include Wicca in the U.S. (it's debatable in Australia). But I was referring to public discourse and political conversations about "religion" usually mean Christianity.

For example, when politicians talk about whether there should be "religious" education in public schools, they're not talking about the Satanic Temple coming in to schools. They'd be horrified if that was the case and would oppose it. They're talking about Christian education in public schools. When they talk about an opening prayer at the town hall meeting, they're not thinking about inviting the local voudou priestess to give it. They're thinking about a Christian prayer. I mention the Satanic Temple here because it's an organisation that is constantly pushing back on Christian groups trying to blur the boundaries between church and state in the U.S.

That *is* an American thing. I sat on the SACRE for my local area - the standing advisory council on religious education. I am a Universalist Quaker, my fellow participants included a Sikh, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian Catholic and Christian Protestant. There is a strong commitment to teaching children in state schools about all religions and not just Christianity in the UK. My local school (99% white European) was marked down in its inspection because they didn't make enough effort to inform the children about other cultures and religions. I think a Wiccan would be welcome. Not sure the Satanic Temple would be - well no, I think it wouldn't be. But the spirit of all religions being equally important (something that enrages some Christians) is clear in the intention. It was a swift learning experience for me, and I thought the committee was a rather wonderful collaboration between people of all faiths and none.

 

[Kara Spengler]

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite countryballs comic on the VV Forums.

But yea, he's right. If you thought german has way too many words and forms of words, you haven't seen anything yet. Though i'm surprised you can even have so many forms for a single word, i mean are you differentiating between a dog owned by a boy, girl, man, woman, old lady, old grandpa and so on, i can't imagine how you even manage to make so many forms without being a super nitpicker.

We do differentiate between many different forms of a single word too, depending on who does it, the time, sometimes previous descriptive words or even depending on how the sentence is built and whether you are using old or new german but even then quite a few forms overlap each other because there is only so much you can do with -ing, -heit, -keit, -schaft, -tion, -en, -et, -t and a few other endings you can smack onto most words to bluntly force them into a given time and/or make them verbs.

In german you can (although it is frowned upon) take almost any word and just smack -et, -en or -t at the end to make it a verb (and at the same time "germanize" it, something people really hate).

Best example would be "Fuck". People tend to say "Fuckt" or recently even "Fucken" as opposed to "fucked" or "fucking" which would be the correctly written version but then again we've basically germanized "fuck" anyway, "das fuckt ab" ~ "it's fucking annoying". Idk, this is weird if you think about it.

It is probably why people find Finnish so hard to learn (and why I am struggling with it now too). Pronounce the suffix just a little bit differently and you have an entirely different word.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Why wouldn't the Satanic temple be accepted?