People Who Define Words in Special Ways

[HYHYBT]

Sometimes a more specific, precise definition is necessary... in which case it's really frustrating when others insist you use only a more general one. This when you *do* state what definition you're using, albeit possibly only after finding out it was unclear.

[draco664]

I agree. Yes we all @#$%ing know that "irregardless" and "regardless" means the same damn thing. That the prefix of "ir" means "not" and the suffix of "less" means "without"...but it's been used since the early 20th century and is in common use.

"Irregardless" may be common, but it is considered incorrect (or perhaps more specifically - erroneous) by technical linguistics.

People will understand when you use it. Some will be annoyed to various degrees by those who use it. BFD...

I once got into a friendly debate about it with a friend who claimed that since flammable and inflammable were equivalent, then so should regardless and irregardless. I pointed out that flammable had the root of 'flame' where inflammable had the root of 'inflame', which are different words.

Although the term Faggot isn't well used over here, you could also have the back up comeback of
"I enjoy putting faggot balls in my mouth, they are tasty."
As faggots are a form of meat ball in the UK.

A favourite book passage of mine is from Good Omens, where a witchfinder tries to get into an army base by presenting his official credentials. The private on guard duty was baffled by the antiquated language (since it was from the middle ages) and spots a word he thought he recognized.

"What's this then. Says we've got to give you faggots."
"Oh, we need them. We burn them."
"Say what?"
"We burn them."
"Right on!"

It needs to be understood that language evolves. Every generation adds its own flavour to the language - the bits that work are kept, those that didn't get discarded. English is particularly good at it; it's the alleyway mugger of tongues. It waylays other languages, beats the crap out of them and steals their lexicons.

It's also worth noting that protecting the purity of languages is a long-held tradition with lots of different techniques. Places like the Académie française actually produce 'offical' dictionaries. Some French scientists actually publish their papers in English because they can create and define new terms that reflect the new concepts without their work being knocked back for not being pure enough.

[Andara Bledin]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I dislike the use of irregardless because it's redundant and wasteful and the people who most often tend to use it are trying to sound smarter than they are and tend to make themselves look pretentious instead of intelligent. There's absolutely no reason to tack "ir" on the front of regardless.

As for the whole flammable/inflammable thing, it used to be just inflammable, but the powers that be feared people would think inflammable meant that it wouldn't burn, so they cut of the "in" part of the word and started just using flammable and encouraging others to do the same. So, technically, inflammable is an older usage that is being phased out in favor of a less ambiguous term. So, while both words are equally correct, the National Fire Protection Association would prefer you use flammable.

Also, for a little bit of fun: Part of the reason that people get its and it's confused might be that only a little over 100 years back, it's was possessive and the contraction was 'tis. When people decided that 'tis was just too old-fashioned, they adjusted it to the more modern it's and changed the possessive to be just its.

I love language. I love words. I love knowing what they mean, where they came from, and why we use the ones we do. Vice versa is four syllables in the original Latin, which I went out and learned after it came to me that there was no way that the first word could possibly have a soft 'c' because Latin doesn't work like that.

As a logophile, however, it irritates me that people would abuse whatever language they're using an attempt (often failed) to be seen as more clever than they really are or in an attempt to sidestep the fact that their own argument is too weak to stand on its own merits and so they redefine words after the fact just to be able to say that those who tore their argument to shreds really didn't because what was said wasn't really what was said. >_<

[Ginger Tea]

The it's its thing, sometimes I go back and hit the ' key, most others I don't, for example don't got auto corrected and I've doesn't. This auto correction has only been on since moving to windows 8, if it was an option in vista I didn't know of it to turn it on.
Other errors, not based of my poor spelling (which auto correction negates without me noticing I had mistyped to begin with), are now due to my wireless keyboard wanting a better line of sight on the pc, at first I thought it was a low battery as it's the same since I got it, but some days I have no issues with it.

Inflammable, I think you can thank words like indestructible and indecisive for the confusion, I hardly use the word but I thought it was odd that Non flammable was the opposite when there was already inflammable knocking around, it just sounds the opposite.

I've heard vice versa said as viza versa, is that the Latin original?
Even if it was once said as viza, even without the credit card of the same name, I would not use it against the word vice.
And although wrong and pointed out numerous times on QI, I still like the incorrect version of Ye Olde Shoppe where the E is erroneously pronounced. Yes it's wrong, I know it's wrong, I just don't care, I like the wrong sounding word.
Look it's centuries old and almost as out of date, English adapts and words die only to be re found in old text with no pronunciation guide, or words are sent across the globe in plain text so we have two ways of saying aluminium, I see my way as the correct way yet Americans would disagree.

I pronounce Beta differently, possibly not even like the greek letter, but I do not know or care to find out, I just remember hearing it said as Bey Da when talking about Sony's video standard and thinking God that sounds horrid and Sony is Sonny not So knee, even if the original managing director came in spirit form and chanted the correct sound to me over and over as I slept (I'm just assuming he's dead by now).

I also hate Transliteration, not the concept, the word, I hate saying it out loud, never had to till recently, I was discussing getting my Alt written in Korean (Hangul for the picky, Han-geul for the pickier), I have an instant Japanese book which wrote Japanese words in the Roman alphabet (AKA transliteration) and it's easy to say stuff out loud till you find that they write X but it's pronounced Y.
The Japanese ones are normally based off one or two systems by language scholars but according to the wiki Hangul is done by the Korean government some time ago, yet words are still wrong.
I was watching a Korean Word of the Week due to the clash of cultures thread I started and the whole big brother fan sub post, I watched a few more and the one on Gangam style, she said it was pronounced kan gam or something like that, basically the G was a K sound, so why the everloving is it written with a G?

It's meant to make the language easier for someone to read Korean out loud without needing to understand the text, just as any other non Roman alphabet language for that matter, if I see Car written, I will say Car, I do not expect to then find it is pronounced Star.

I worked with a guy called Xing, most other Chinese workers adopted an English name, this guy came a few years after they had left, I asked him how it was said, thinking the X would be a Z like in xylophone, nope shin, or something very similar.
How the ever loving am I to read Xing and see shin as in the bit of leg, pop out at me?

Edit:
My Alt name in Korean ends up double the length of the average full name, maybe not in actual syllables, but when you get a persons full name in 3 'characters' (even though it is actually a cluster of 1-5) and my first name is 3 syllables long by itself, well it ended up being a bit too big for where I wanted the henna job to go.
Also it can be pronounced two ways but the site I used to get the png reference image goes by the one I don't use, luckily I could fix it.
Ginger Tea was a bitch to convert using Google translator, I was pleasantly surprised that the Japanese one gave me jin ja tee as the first option and not <ginger tea*> (*as translated from the Japanese, as they used to put in comics).
Korean on the other hand, came up as the Korean for ginger tea, not something you could show and have them read it out loud as Ginger Tea or the closest approximation, luckily pasting the Japanese one in and docking the last character, which I think just stressed the vowel, worked more or less, I just didn't have that on my phone to compare and wore a coat for the final day of the festival I thought about getting the henna at.

Ginger Tea
Japanese ジンジャーティー
Korean 진저 티

Japanese one looks way better

[Andara Bledin]

... I thought it was odd that Non flammable was the opposite when there was already inflammable knocking around, it just sounds the opposite.

Thus the reason for it being encouraged to just say flammable instead.

I've heard vice versa said as viza versa, is that the Latin original?

Nope. The 'c' in Latin is given a hard sound, so the first word would be closer to "vee-keh" or "wee-keh" because the 'v' carries a sound somewhere closer to English 'w' than English 'v' as with the joke about "nuclear wessels" in Star Trek.

Even if it was once said as viza, even without the credit card of the same name, I would not use it against the word vice.

Since I speak American English and not Latin, I just say "vice" like a clamp, myself.

As for things like "shoppe," when you're saying it to be humorous, of course you pronounce the 'e.' As regards aluminum, we dispensed with the vestigial 'i' and the extra syllable that came with it. It went with all those pointless 'u's you guys use.

How the ever loving am I to read Xing and see shin as in the bit of leg, pop out at me?

If you follow any sort of Chinese anything, you'd know right off how Xing would be pronounced. I'm so used to the non-English for 'x' in names that I have to actively think about how someone who'd never heard it would think it would be pronounced.

Otherwise, if you don't know better, you ask. If you don't ask, how can you possibly expect to learn?

[Ginger Tea]

If you follow any sort of Chinese anything, you'd know right off how Xing would be pronounced. I'm so used to the non-English for 'x' in names that I have to actively think about how someone who'd never heard it would think it would be pronounced.

Otherwise, if you don't know better, you ask. If you don't ask, how can you possibly expect to learn?

I don't even follow the Chinese horoscope, I just know my sign

I did ask, even he couldn't say why his name was spelt like that 'for English speakers' it's like saying it's pronounced Beijing but when written its spelt lkasdfe.

Although it's better than reading an African word or name with a click in it and not knowing that cx is a click.

[SongsOfDragons]

'Ye' is an interesting one because it once meant 'you', in a time when we had many forms of 'you' depending on respect and number like in modern French. (Would make things a hell of a lot easier if we'd kept it )

But it's also Old English for 'the', but rather a misspelling, as it was originally spelt with a...Danish letter? Thorn. It looked like a P where the loop had slipped halfway down. In blackletter and other fancy writing it looked like a Y, and the new word was born through some semi-literate moo XD

One of the best pub names I know of is 'Ye Olde Leathern Bottle'.

[Ginger Tea]

I didn't grow up during pound shillings and pence, but I was confused to see prices marked as 1d for pence and I am sure I posted about my pronouncing LB as in pound weight as illibles just think syllables, nothing about LB says pound to me.

[Andara Bledin]

Fun fact: The lb abbreviation for pound stands for libra which is the Latin word for weight. And the pound symbol for British currency is also for the word libra because of the old custom of keeping accounts in Latin.

I suspect this custom was kept because it would be more confusing to change it than just live with it. I mean, you see how well people have dealt with changing inflammable to just flammable.

[Bloodsoul]

But it's also Old English for 'the', but rather a misspelling, as it was originally spelt with a...Danish letter? Thorn. It looked like a P where the loop had slipped halfway down. In blackletter and other fancy writing it looked like a Y, and the new word was born through some semi-literate moo XD

Bring back þorn! Yeah! Þorn kicks ass! ^_^

(I've also heard that the "þ" to "y" switchover was due to German printing presses not having a letter "þ", thus its need for a substitute)

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregar...eference_books

The problem with the word is that since it's been in use since 1912, and that as referenced in the above link as time goes on it's finding its way into more and more modern reference books on language (Dictionaries and the like)...

Like it or lump it, it's here to stay. Until something comes along and changes things. English is a language of evolution. It changes as we change.

Also, for a little bit of fun: Part of the reason that people get its and it's confused might be that only a little over 100 years back, it's was possessive and the contraction was 'tis. When people decided that 'tis was just too old-fashioned, they adjusted it to the more modern it's and changed the possessive to be just its.

Now this does bother me. When we're speaking, we don't hear punctuation. "It's" and "Its" sound the same and we get the meaning from the context of the words.

But when we're reading, we have been trained to use the punctuation to represent the nuances we would normally hear in verbal communication. So it's important to get it right. And when there is such a simple way to check if you use "it's" or "its", it's inexcusable to not do it right.

[Andara Bledin]

The problem with the word is that since it's been in use since 1912, and that as referenced in the above link as time goes on it's finding its way into more and more modern reference books on language (Dictionaries and the like)...

I don't see what the problem is. The word is identical to another word that is shorter. There is no instance where tacking "ir" on the front of "regardless" has any value at all. It's inefficient and inelegant. And, as I stated earlier, most of the people I've heard use it also tend to say things like "with my friend and I" because they think it sounds smarter when it just sounds ignorant.

[Ginger Tea]

most of the people I've heard use it also tend to say things like "with my friend and I" because they think it sounds smarter when it just sounds ignorant.

It might be a class thing, but I do remember an episode of drop the dead donkey where someone's son said "me and mummy" or "mummy and me" and was corrected with "mother and I" which then lead up to a divorce joke, maybe in America the term isn't used as much, but it is iir used predominantly within the upper class or the well to do, those using the phrase might be trying to sound more refined and above their status, but if they are dressed as chav's or bro-douches then it is coming off as fake.

I have no beef with some one saying "My friends and I", sometimes people bring out the posh words (some one posted about a $20 word where a $2 one would have sufficed.) take Jules in Pulp Fiction asking to partake of the beverage to wash the burger down, I could Google the line from the script as I recently used the Marvin death scene on another forum*.
Maybe those that go to Ivy league schools talk that way, the evil English villain too and people start to use it too to add airs and graces to their other wise 'thug life'.
On the whole people stopped using phrases like "I say old chap, that was rather bad form." Unless watching an old Ealing Studios or Terry Thomas movie you probably wont hear it unless watching a Gamer chap and Berty YouTube video.



*It might have been the guy picking the wrong word when he translated what he was after, he was writing something and what was posted was like a synopsis of a scene, then a few posts later he said it was for a script not a book or short story, so I posted that heavily edited scene and said that's how a script runs, do you mean a script or did Google translate eff up?

Edit: OK my paraphrase was slightly off unless the script and the scene differ, but Jules was using a lot of 'fancy' words around the movie in between swearing.

[Andara Bledin]

But using "I" as the predicate nominative or the object of a preposition is wrong. Period. End of line.

X: Jonny likes I.
O: Jonny likes me.
X: Jonny likes Jenny and I.
O: Jonny likes Jenny and me.
X: Jonny likes hanging out with I.
O: Jonny likes hanging out with me.
O: I like Jonny.
O: Jenny and I like Jonny.

There is no exception where any of those sentences begun with an X are correct. Ever. And anyone who speaks like that in the interests of sounding intelligent is failing so utterly it's just plain sad.

There is nothing "posh" about it; it's purely pretentious and, honestly, more than a bit pathetic.

[Ginger Tea]

Actually I googled my friend and I after posting last and two prominent links said that it was the correct way of saying it.
http://www.englishforums.com/English...ccglk/post.htm
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...8164935AAu43Gd
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/i-or-me

Yes Jonny likes I is wrong and sounds it too
I and me are not 100% interchangeable, for example "Me go shopping on Wednesday" who are you the hulk?

edit:
I will admit freely that I could not, nor do I care that I can not, say which is a noun pronoun verb adverb adjective or any other term for a word, I more or less make sense when talking, if I don't tangent onto something like someone clicking the first hyperlink on a Wikipedia post and going from there.
But I had heard but never bothered to look into split infinitives, well if not caring about if a word was a verb or a noun is so low in my priorities it's almost subterranean, split infinitives had no chance, but it was a link and I clicked it.

I took out one example that's why the text refers to plurals.

What are split infinitives?
Split infinitives happen when you put an adverb between to and a verb, for example:
She used to secretly admire him.



Some people believe that split infinitives are grammatically incorrect and should be avoided at all costs. They would rewrite these sentences as:
She used secretly to admire him.

She used secretly to admire him. say what?
it makes it read like secretly is something like a pair of binoculars yet people think the split infinitive is wrong because it's a split infinitive, I cant even read it in my head without getting a mild pain.

edit:
Back to Xing, I just typed "how do you say Xing" and this was the first or best looking result.
Again if it is SH in sound, and Chinese doesn't use A-Z in their writing system, why would they or whom ever decided upon the rules, make it so you could not just read it off the page.
Each time I see names like that on screen I end up thinking "Staring the unpronounceable's", yeah if I had any inclination to learn Chinese or travel there* (which would also mean learning Chinese), I would find this shit out, but seeing a list of names in a credits roll and going, nope no idea.
Least with the Korean names when you get someone called Young when you hear it you know it's not said as in youthful the G is silent, but it also is not pronounced so off the wall that you think someone in the translation department is fucking with you. A better wording of Yoon might be in order, even if the name in Korean gets transliterated as Young, it still sounds like Yoon, seeing Xing on screen amongst other words doesn't isolate it to enable you to go oh Shin is how you say Xing, gotcha.

*Maybe one day Japan or Korea (which I still refer to as the poor man's Japan) but I am leaning more towards Korea if I were to actually live there long term (South obviously)