From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-09-25T23:33:28+09:00
Subject: Re: select and select


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng" <hgs@dmu.ac.uk>


> > > My pet peeve in this regard is "login" versus "log in" :-(.
> >
> > Mine is "setup" (as a verb) versus "set up."
> >
> > Interesting people don't make this mistake much in a
> > non-computer context. "Sometimes I situp in bed, lookout
> > the window, and lookupat the sky."
>
> OTOH, words get blended for specific meanings: lookout, pickup
> (truck or stylus or guitar sensor), and recently deafblind in
> Europe, which is still generally deaf-blind in the US, to signify a
> loss of vision AND hearing significant enough to impair
> communication.  Then there's "already"...
>
> The people who compile the Oxford dictionary continually say they
> reflect current usage, they don't tell people how to use language.
> I'm beginning to believe that "correct" only applies to constructed
> languages and dead languages...  "Generally accepted" is another
> matter.
>
>         Hugh

Interesting dissertation, Hugh.  "lookout" and "pickup" can hardly be argued to
be bad language, can they?  But how does "already" relate to "all ready"?  Most
other "al-" words are pretty clear.  Which reminds me: I was taught at school
that "alright" is invalid; what's the status of that nowadays?

It's impossible to define "correct" language.  Some say dictionaries are out of
date within 5 years.  My 1993 Shorter Oxford doesn't even contain /e-?mail/.  I
get frustrated playing games like Scrabble because language, it seems, has
fewer and fewer rules, and I hate games without rules.  I heard a sports
commentator use the "word" "jinked" (meaning, roughly, "punted") recently.
That was the first time I'd encountered it, and it made sense.  Would it be
valid in Scrabble?  That's a rhetorical question.  Then I saw it in print.
Twice.  Now is it valid?  Who knows?

On the other hand, I think "correctness" in language can mean something, which
is the evolution of the language based on sensible principles and preservation
of grammar.  That's a bit vague, but there has to be some reason why "alot" is
ugly.

One bad consequence of the Internet, to me, is that even educated people often
eschew good writing style and contribute to the desecration of the language, by
the exact process you describe: the Oxford dictionary records our word usage.
It may be a fad, though.

Just my AU$0.04.

Gavin