LOL? Give Me A Break!

[Cattypuss]

Lizzie, does this link work? It answers your question...

http://www.oed.com/page/faqs/frequently-asked-questions#qualify

 

[NippleMuncher]

Why should there not be another description of "large"? And to be fair, "enormous" and "gigantic" do not mean the same thing as "large". They have subtly different meanings. "I went to bed with him and found he had a large penis" does not have the same effect on the listener as "I went to bed with him and found he had an enormous penis".

If large, gigantic, and enormous don't work, there's always "really FUCKING huge!"

Generation after generation of English speakers have bemoaned the way the young and uneducated are destroying our language. This has been happening for hundreds of years. And yet the language survives. New words get added; old words fall out of use. Maybe, just maybe, in a hundred years nobody will use the word "enormous" any more - maybe everyone will be using "ginormous" instead.

The upside is that I'll be dead in a hundred years and won't be subjected to it!

I'm not saying I approve of all the changes that are happening. A bugbear of mine is the way that "affect" and "effect" seem to be becoming synonymous through widespread ignorance. I do find myself wincing when I see the wrong one in a sentence. But if in 20 years the misuse/confusion has become so widely accepted that it is normal, then I will just have to stop wincing.

Language is a democracy, not a dictatorship.

That's kind of my point though, just because something is done in ignorance doesn't make it right nor mean that the rules should be changed to "make" it right. That's like choosing the dumbest student in the room and requiring the entire class be taught to that level. Oh, wait, that's what the educational system does, my bad.

 

[NippleMuncher]

This is dangerously close to being off-topic, but in Orwell's novel "1984" (which contains a hellish vision of a totalitarian state), there is a government department that is responsible for paring the language down to its bare minimum.

For instance, the word "bad" is removed from the language because "good" and "un" already exist. "Ungood" makes "bad" redundant and so "bad" is banned.

The argument that "ginormous" should not be added to the dictionary because "large" and "enormous" and "gigantic" already exist somehow puts me in mind of that Newspeak philosophy.

Any more Orwellian than Texas deciding it doesn't like the N word in the literary classic Huck Finn and editing the textbooks that will be disseminated throughout US public schools?

 

[Pleasure_Fan]

Is that correct in American English? In the UK, "drug" is a noun meaning medication or certain illicit substances; it is never a participle of the verb "drag" - we say "I dragged her to the nearest computer".

Hi Cattypuss -
Point well taken - I suppose I should have policed my own use of the English language a bit better while responding to a post discussing usage of the English language.
Ack! Have I done it again? Can "police" be a verb? Ok, OED says yes it can.
What I should probably stick to is NOT posting past midnight on a Saturday

 

[NippleMuncher]

Hi Cattypuss -
Point well taken - I suppose I should have policed my own use of the English language a bit better while responding to a post discussing usage of the English language.
Ack! Have I done it again? Can "police" be a verb? Ok, OED says yes it can.
What I should probably stick to is NOT posting past midnight on a Saturday

10 lashes with a wet noodle for your ginormous fox paws!!

 

[Cattypuss]

That's like choosing the dumbest student in the room and requiring the entire class be taught to that level.

I differ from you here.

If we're talking about the inclusion of these new words in the OED (and you may find the link I posted for Lizzie informative on this point), it's more like noticing that a significant proportion of the students in the class are acting in a certain way, and recording that fact - regardless of whether the instigator was the most stupid child in the class or the most gifted child in the class.

The job of the OED is not to be the arbiter of what is acceptable English or of what is desirable English. The job of the OED is to record, without judgement, the way that English speakers use the language. As I said in my first post in this thread, the job of a dictionary is to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

I find this whole area fascinating but I think I'll bow out of this thread now - don't want to keep repeating myself.

 

[Cattypuss]

Any more Orwellian than Texas deciding it doesn't like the N word in the literary classic Huck Finn and editing the textbooks that will be disseminated throughout US public schools?

Well I wouldn't ever argue that two wrongs make a right.

And with that, I really really really am gone

 

[bailadora]

Is that correct in American English? In the UK, "drug" is a noun meaning medication or certain illicit substances; it is never a participle of the verb "drag" - we say "I dragged her to the nearest computer".

It's quite common in Southern/Western parts of the US. It's probably a dialectal variance, as in "You look like something the cat drug in."

 

[Pleasure_Fan]

It's quite common in Southern/Western parts of the US. It's probably a dialectal variance, as in "You look like something the cat drug in."

Being a Texan, I'm going to count myself as excused on that one. Thanks

 

[bailadora]

Being a Texan, I'm going to count myself as excused on that one. Thanks

What a coincidence....

 

[bailadora]

Any more Orwellian than Texas deciding it doesn't like the N word in the literary classic Huck Finn and editing the textbooks that will be disseminated throughout US public schools?

Oh man! Don't even get me started on this topic.....

I'm going to be one of those parents who tell their kids, "I don't care what the flippin' textbook says. It's not correct!"

 

[NippleMuncher]

Oh man! Don't even get me started on this topic.....

I'm going to be one of those parents who tell their kids, "I don't care what the flippin' textbook says. It's not correct!"

Oh, I'm gonna wind you up, 'cause I like to watch you spin!

If I were a parent, I'd be inclined to rally the other parents and have the proper book supplied or supply it myself. Of course, this isn't the only book that's been burned by the schools in an attempt to rewrite history. ... And we wonder why people today have no coping skills ...

 

[bailadora]

Oh, I'm gonna wind you up, 'cause I like to watch you spin!

If I were a parent, I'd be inclined to rally the other parents and have the proper book supplied or supply it myself. Of course, this isn't the only book that's been burned by the schools in an attempt to rewrite history. ... And we wonder why people today have no coping skills ...

You're terrible!


Oh there was plenty of protesting going on, from parents and teachers alike. The Texas Board of Education didn't give a shit. Never mind that not a single person on the board has a background in education (lawyers, a dentist and a newspaper publisher). How they got there, I haven't a clue.

So yeah, when certain subjects come up, my kids will be in the library learning what really happened.

 

[yertle]

As a Texan who travels to other states for work I'm tired of people like our "board of edu-ma-cation making us all out to be Cletus the slack jawed yokel! Nevermind that I actually have an Uncle Cletus! That's beside the point!

I had a conversation with a an older friend of the family who was a teacher until she retired recently. I was even more frightened when she AGREED with the board's sentiments!

 

[RandallKinds]

On the news tonight, it seems that the "words" LOL, OMG, BFF, and IMHO, among others, have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary! Seriously? Why? These are not words, they are acronyms, and while they were around before the invention of texting, texting has spawned countless others. WHY, WHY, WHY, must dictionaries promote the death and mutilation of the language?

Anyone else think this is a ginormous mistake? Yeah, like that one? It was added to the dictionary a few years back because stupid people can't say giant, gigantic, or enormous. I'm all for making new words when new words are warranted.

/rant ...

They are perfectly crumulent words.

 

[Mac98]

I'm from the generation using those acronyms and although I use it often, NEVER would I use it in public (when speaking) or in an essay at school or something. I can't speak for everyone, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, but I would think that most kids don't use these words that often, at least not outside the internet or texts.

I doubt acronyms will ever replace words like that. If they do, it won't last. More people are against it than there are people FOR it...

 

[NippleMuncher]

You're terrible!

Yes ... Yes I am!

 

[NippleMuncher]

As a Texan who travels to other states for work I'm tired of people like our "board of edu-ma-cation making us all out to be Cletus the slack jawed yokel! Nevermind that I actually have an Uncle Cletus! That's beside the point!

I had a conversation with a an older friend of the family who was a teacher until she retired recently. I was even more frightened when she AGREED with the board's sentiments!

You're right, whenever things like this come out of a certain state or place, the reader tends to generalize ALL inhabitants of that area to be of similar mindset.

I completely understand why the school board doesn't like the word, not many people do. But, if you've got a problem with it DON'T READ THE FUCKING BOOK!!!!!!!! Take it off your mandatory reading list and substitute Strawberry Shortcake and the Friendship Party or The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh

 

[Eilan]

I'm from the generation using those acronyms and although I use it often, NEVER would I use it in public (when speaking) or in an essay at school or something. I can't speak for everyone, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, but I would think that most kids don't use these words that often, at least not outside the internet or texts.

Think again.

 

[Nidhogg]

I used to study mandarin and japanese. While I found that these languages were surprisingly easy to learn, I just didn't feel a lot of flexibility with them. Now, granted, I am not a native speaker so I would never be a true master of them. But even native speakers I knew would talk about how much they enjoyed the malleability of the english language. Even if it did make learning it a bitch.

The Japanese actually have a secondary alphabet (katakana) that is used for writing foreign words that they adopted in to their language. Things like computer didn't have a literal japanese translation. Rather it would be spelled out with the phonetic alphabet and pronounced "con-pyu-taa." These words would still feel and sound foreign, though.

In english, american english specifically, our ability to adopt any word and make it part of our own language is just amazing. Being able to create new words out of the blue and make them part of our language is equally amazing.

If we didn't create and adopt new words so easily, just imagine what the names of everything from the past 50 years would be. We'd be driving auto-carriages, talking on telephonic receivers and transponders, and sounding like turn of the century gadabouts who are amazed with the latest thinga-ma-jig they saw at the World's Fair.

I do not like recognizing LOL or OMG or any of that other crap as a word, but that is part of linguistic freedom. We accept new words based on their popularity and use, not based how good of a word they are.

 

[NippleMuncher]

I do not like recognizing LOL or OMG or any of that other crap as a word, but that is part of linguistic freedom. We accept new words based on their popularity and use, not based how good of a word they are.

That's the point though, these are NOT words, they're acronyms. Use them all you want WITH the knowledge that they are what they are, acronyms.

I too appreciate flexibility in language to allow for new words, when a new word is warranted, such was the case of "microwaveable" which didn't exist before the use of microwave ovens. I stand firm on my position with the pseudo-word "ginormous".

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Lizzie, does this link work? It answers your question...

http://www.oed.com/page/faqs/frequently-asked-questions#qualify

It does, thanks luv.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

I differ from you here.

If we're talking about the inclusion of these new words in the OED (and you may find the link I posted for Lizzie informative on this point), it's more like noticing that a significant proportion of the students in the class are acting in a certain way, and recording that fact - regardless of whether the instigator was the most stupid child in the class or the most gifted child in the class.

This I can understand.

Teachers are forever varying their methods to they can connect with kids and teach them. If that means incorporating some txtspk then so be it.

 

[Pleasure_Fan]

That's the point though, these are NOT words, they're acronyms. Use them all you want WITH the knowledge that they are what they are, acronyms.

I too appreciate flexibility in language to allow for new words, when a new word is warranted, such was the case of "microwaveable" which didn't exist before the use of microwave ovens. I stand firm on my position with the pseudo-word "ginormous".

Hey NM -
How do you feel about NASA and NATO?
I'm just asking, because LOL, etc. bug the heck out of me too, but I will sound out NASA without thinking twice about it.
Hmmm... Thanks a lot. You've exposed another of my prejudices to me!
So now, do I dislike LOL et al. because 1.) they aren't "traditional", and I'm just a classic sort of girl 2.) they lower my opinion of people who use them in spoken word - or - 3.) I'm just plain stubborn? D? All of the above?
Yes, NASA and NATO are in the OED. Wait - my brain just spelled out OED instead of substituting "Oxford English Dictionary"... Ack! Where does it end??

 

[NippleMuncher]

Hey NM -
How do you feel about NASA and NATO?
I'm just asking, because LOL, etc. bug the heck out of me too, but I will sound out NASA without thinking twice about it.

I don't have a problem with those because they're being used in a substantive manner, though similarly I don't care for GAO, OES, and the myriad of other governmental acronyms that just become an unintelligible chain of letters with no meaning to the average person.

Hmmm... Thanks a lot. You've exposed another of my prejudices to me!

You're welcome. If my posts don't make you think or laugh, then I haven't done my job.