Literally

[minsue]

Look up "nasty" and "nice" in your OED. You will find "nasty" simply meant "wet" at one time, while "nice" once meant very much what is now meant by "nasty"!

cantdog

You mean nasty isn't nice?

 

[cantdog]

I mean that words mutate, and not always for sane reasons.

I like wet things, too, however nasty some people think they are.

Er sumthin. Wo.

But I sympathize with dr_Mab. It sucks to see these words become pointless due to a concerted ignorance.

I was an ambulance attendant, almost a paramedic, at one time not so very long ago. You know the word "dilate"?

Well, there's a second word, "dilatate," pronounced "dillatate," now. When "dilatate" was first coined, the distinction was that things dilated on their own, spontaneously, whereas if somebody came along and did it on purpose it was dilatation. A gynecological surgeon might dilatate a cervix, but pupils dilate all by themselves. So far, so good.

But everybody kept using "dilatate" for both senses in the 'eighties. Pupils were reported over the radio as being dilatated 5 centimeters! Ouch, dude. What sadist is opening people's pupils?

But you can't stop that shit. People distort the language for their own purposes, sometimes just because they can't pour piss from a rawhide boot with complete instructions on the heel.

But WE are the real grammatical and usage experts. We are, any native speaker. What a native speaker of English says-- that is English; and the grammar he uses is English grammar.

It's up to the dictionaries to keep pace.

 

[cantdog]

Another thing

I hope nobody minds too terribly my posting here on the august and elevated, refined and ethereal Editor's threads.

I have edited. I have edited here, for Lit. authors, for free. But I did it all sub rosa without application to the Be An Editor button at the site.

Mea mutha fuckin culpa if it's a problem.

Seriously.

Kinda.

cantdog

 

[minsue]

I mean that words mutate, and not always for sane reasons.

I like wet things, too, however nasty some people think they are.

Er sumthin. Wo.

But I sympathize with dr_Mab. It sucks to see these words become pointless due to a concerted ignorance.

I was an ambulance attendant, almost a paramedic, at one time not so very long ago. You know the word "dilate"?

Well, there's a second word, "dilatate," pronounced "dillatate," now. When "dilatate" was first coined, the distinction was that things dilated on their own, spontaneously, whereas if somebody came along and did it on purpose it was dilatation. A gynecological surgeon might dilatate a cervix, but pupils dilate all by themselves. So far, so good.

But everybody kept using "dilatate" for both senses in the 'eighties. Pupils were reported over the radio as being dilatated 5 centimeters! Ouch, dude. What sadist is opening people's pupils?

But you can't stop that shit. People distort the language for their own purposes, sometimes just because they can't pour piss from a rawhide boot with complete instructions on the heel.

But WE are the real grammatical and usage experts. We are, any native speaker. What a native speaker of English says-- that is English; and the grammar he uses is English grammar.

It's up to the dictionaries to keep pace.

LOL

I was just being silly, sweetie.

 

[cantdog]

originally minsue the gosling marry aye:
LOL

I was just being silly, sweetie.

Yeah. But I guess I'm susceptible

You're pretty cool, y'know that?


cantdog

 

[HawaiiBill]

Not a problem!

I hope nobody minds my posting here . .

It's hard to imagine anyone with a mind objecting to your sensible calls to put thought to use.

Every now and then somebody logs on here and complains about things that have nothing to do with words or meanings or subtle niceties of language. I've been known to suggest they scoot in the interest of bandwidth preservation. 'Ethereal' has nothing to do with it.

Clearly, as in an ethereal light, you're in the right place!

 

[cantdog]

for Hawai'i Bill

Decent.

I'd be interested in your take on the paragraphing discussion in dr_Mab's thread.

Hawai'i rules. I went there not long ago, to Oahu and to the Big Island, and we have plans to return and catch Maui.

You are a lucky bastard to live in such a place.

cantdog

(edited to add: I meant 5 millimeters! On the pupils, that is! Oi!)

 

[HawaiiBill]

paragraphing?

I'd be interested in your take on the paragraphing discussion in dr_Mab's thread.

Can't figure what you mean or where we are to look.

Hawai`i is a mixed blessing. Have fun on Maui but for most of us guys out here, there's not much to do over there that you can't do in Los Angeles.

Our volcano is in it's twentieth year and, as this is written, it is pushing a 500-foot wide swatch of molten lava into the ocean. Better come back here!

 

[minsue]

Re: paragraphing?

Can't figure what you mean or where we are to look.

He means the thread right below this one. Dialogue & Paragraphing

 

[snooper]

Re: Re: paragraphing?

He means the thread right below this one. Dialogue & Paragraphing

Except it's now immediately above, only this posting will change the order again!