@MontereyJack,
Quote:Newspapr[sic] writers and editiors[sic] and book publishers and editors, whom you've been dissing lately and their use of language is heard by millions of times more speakers of the language than you are.
Quote: The legislators of "correct English," in fact, are an informal network of copy-editors, dictionary usage panelists, style manual writers, English teachers, essayists, and pundits. Their authority, they claim, comes from their dedication to implementing standards that have served the language well in the past, especially in the prose of its finest writers, and that maximize its clarity, logic, consistency, elegance, precision, stability, and expressive range. William Safire, who writes the weekly column "On Language" for the [New York Times Magazine], calls himself a "language maven," from the Yiddish word meaning expert, and this gives us a convenient label for the entire group.
To whom I say: Maven, shmaven! [Kibbitzers] and [nudniks] is more like it. For here are the remarkable facts. Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since. For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them, spawning identical plaints about the imminent decline of the language century after century. All the best writers in English have been among the flagrant flouters. The rules conform neither to logic nor tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which certain thoughts are not expressible at all. Indeed, most of the "ignorant errors" these rules are supposed to correct display an elegant logic and an acute sensitivity to the grammatical texture of the language, to which the mavens are oblivious.
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html
Note the plurals of 'Kibbitzers' and 'nudniks'
Quote:The people that use the language determine how it works, and they often don't follow the rules you deem worthy.
You've just shot yourself in the foot, Jack. The same foot that you've stuffed in your mouth. You're right. People who use the language determine how it works. And what is determined by people who use English in a natural setting, those who aren't subjected to these ignorant pedants? They inflect following the rule that is English - add 's' or 'es'.
Did you miss the part where DLowan said she was joking?
Quote:You are being just as prescriptive as the prescriptivists you dislike so much.
Again, your ignorance shines bright, Jack. I'm not at all being prescriptive. I haven't told anyone not to use these words. I haven't said you mustn't say such and such.
I wrote:
Granted, usage makes allowances for these silly goofs. There's no sane reason to use Latin plurals for words that aren't Latin. 'thesaurus' is an English word. What its etymology is doesn't matter squat.
So let's do keep the facts straight, Jack.
I've just pointed out the ignorance involved in doing so. I've merely pointed out that the ignorant, like Merry, are really the ones who are ignorant.
Those who follow the rules of their language can hardly be termed 'ignorant'. Surely someone who is not ignorant, like you, can see that.
Do the Japanese keep English plurals for the tens of thousands of words they have borrowed from English?
Do the we keep Japanese plurals for the words we have borrowed from Japanese?
Quote:The Hebrew plural "kibbutzim" occurs about three times more frequently than "kibbutzes"
Your research skills are abysmal, MJ. It's more like 30 times. But all you are doing is highlighting the fact that there are many ignorant pedants around.
You'll find all manner of idiots in the US who consciously believe the nonsense taught about 'everyone/their'. In fact, there are, as you know, some of those very idiots here on A2K.
Quote:Cherub and cherubim, seraph and seraphim.
seraphs
About 543,000 results
seraphim
About 8,640,000 results
cherubs
About 5,100,000 results
cherubim
About 2,300,000 results
How many of these Jewish origin words follow the pattern that you think is necessary?
abacus
amen
bedlam
behemoth
cider
cinnamon
coral pebble
elephant
gauze
gopher
hallelujah
Israel
Jew
jockey
jot
jubilee
jug
kosher
leviathan
manna
messiah
Nimrod
rabbi
Sabbath 'Sabatical'
sapphire
Satan
sodomy
================
rabbis
About 11,000,000 results
rabbinim
About 3,450 results
Note how that shining beacon of language rectitude, Merry Andrew, is nowhere to be found.
