TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?!

@cicerone imposter,

When my ex-husband and I first heard the word "egregious" in an editorial in the Boston Globe about Teddy Kennedy sometime between 1978 and 1983, the word meant "known for being bad," which is not the same thing as "bad."

There is a theory among Celticists that Guy Fawkes himself never existed. There are figures close to him in traditional Celtic and Scandinavian lore.

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@plainoldme,

If the lasagne is among your delusions,
it can be very low calorie.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Although you sometimes show a touch of wit, most of the time, your posts are ignorant. The most upsetting ones stem from your having to ask the meaning of words in common parlance.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

If the lasagne is among your delusions,
it can be very low calorie.

Actually, this could be interpreted as a statement that I have no delusions. Not very verbal, are we?

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Although you sometimes show a touch of wit, most of the time, your posts are ignorant. The most upsetting ones stem from your having to ask the meaning of words in common parlance.

I am ignorant
of literally trillions of things in this universe
(and others, if such there be).

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@OmSigDAVID,

Your thinking that you understand most things in this universe shows how ignorant you really are. Trillions represent but a small percentage of all knowable things. Maybe less than 1%. You are ignorant.

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I like the listing of forums to which this thread applies. Republican nuts is my fav.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Your thinking that you understand most things in this universe
shows how ignorant you really are.

EITHER
your errors comprehension r attributable
to your not knowing how to READ,

OR

your mind has become infected with chaos;
maybe both.
It is suprizing tho.
Try it again; there 's a chance
that u can pull it off.

cicerone imposter wrote:

Trillions represent but a small percentage of all knowable things.
Maybe less than 1%. You are ignorant.

That is a stupid thing to say.
It depends upon how many trillions are used;
for that matter, the same amount coud be expressed in 1000s.
One need only manipulate the zeros.
I guess u don 't know that; u r IGNORANT of that fact.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

I like the listing of forums to which this thread applies. Republican nuts is my fav.

That shoud be FORA
(but then u never claimed to be a Latin professor).

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

While you claim to be intelligent, you never claim to be nice. I have used fora previously and you never cited me for being correct, have you now? Of course not! You even argue with me when you are wrong, as you are in this case.

From the free online dictionary:

fo·rum (fôrm, fr-)
n. pl. fo·rums also fo·ra (fôr, fr)

Note that "fora" is the secondary and not the primary plural.

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You may not have noticed, David. We're speaking English.
"forums" is the first plural.

Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 2nd ed.
Random House Unabridged, 10th ed.

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@MontereyJack,

As evidenced here, David still has problems with English.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

While you claim to be intelligent,
you never claim to be nice.

Plain, this is the very first time
that I must agree with u.
I never claimed that.

plainoldme wrote:

I have used fora previously and you never cited me for being correct,
have you now? Of course not!

I never did.
It did not occur to me to do so,
but if I HAD, then don't u think that 'd have sounded
patronizing and condescending ?
U might have deemed me rude,
for acting as if I were your dad, if I had complimented u.
Possibly, u might have taken it as an insult,
but even so, I see the merit of your point.
Maybe I shoud apologize.

In the future, if I see u say something above
average, like getting fora right,
I will comment upon it, now that I know
that u will not be offended.

plainoldme wrote:

You even argue with me when you are wrong, as you are in this case.

From the free online dictionary:

fo·rum (fôrm, fr-)
n. pl. fo·rums also fo·ra (fôr, fr)

Note that "fora" is the secondary and not the primary plural.

Let us be mindful
that we shoud not attribute
a God-like omniscience to lexicografers.
Some years ago, I was helping the wife
of my friend, Donald, to learn better English.

She is a refugee from Red China.
She came to NY to study medicine
and Donald married her. She was
an admitted medical doctor back in China.
Anyway, she was applying for better medical
certification to be admitted to practice
as a health care professional in NY,
but she needed better vocabulary to pass tests.

I got some vocabulary books to expand
her vocabulary and I sat with her to explain them.
I was shocked and scandalized
at the grotesque errors, the lexical mangling in my new books.

(I know that u will say that undoubtedly
I was the ignorant one, and thay were right.)

My point is that to err is human,
including lexicografers.
Thay can screw up and thay DO, too ofen.

To me, it was obvious that thay got some
lazy college students at minimum wage
to pump out words, with no oversight.

The way to ascertain what is right
is to invest the time in research,
including the etymological evolution of the word,
deconstructing it, to see how it functions;
to understand the underlying LOGIC of the word.

Your lexicografer is deferring to POPULARITY of use.
In that sense (erroneous as it may be) forums
IS indeed the first usage; the lexicografer
subordinates the factual history of the word,
its etymological source, that it is NOT
an English word, but it is LATIN
and, therefore, subject to the rules of Latin.
Because it is a Latin word, I respect and apply the Latin rules.

Thank u for joining me in that.

David

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Not only does ole lonesome dave have problems with English, but, also with logic and . . . dare I say it? . . . facts.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Sorry, but you commit two errors here and one is a error of logic and the other is a error of fact.

You think you can blithely dismiss not the single dictionary I consulted but the two that MJ cited by using yourself as a standard. You are not a standard. And your scenario as to how the books you bought, most likely, without having paid attention to the content or the publisher, would have been the product of "lazy college students" who were paid "minimum wage" is sheer idiocy.

You have demonstrated that you know nothing about many topics that you discuss with force (the human singing voice from a few months back . . . remember?). Worse, you know little about words that most people have used for decades (resale shop . . . remember?). I have been particularly angry because of some of the stupid requests for definitions you have made . . . while
sitting at your computer . . . for all manner of words that you should know as a living person who likes to tout his self-estimated intelligence.

Furthermore, with your silly campaign for "phonetic" spelling, based upon YOUR INTERPRETATION of the sound of English, totally destroys an credibility you might CLAIM as a lexicologist.

It is widely known that Latin adopted words are a large part of the English language. There is a great deal of debate over what percentage of English words stem from LAtin. However, most of the Latin-based vocabulary originated not from direct borrowing but from French, a language that English grew up with and whose development and stages can be paralleled in English.

The 400 years of Roman hegemony of the British Isles did not influence the English language but the Norman Invasion did. When those Old French speaking Vikings, who had resided in France for less than two centuries, conquered Britain, they brought their language with them which overwhelmed the languages spoken in the BRitish Isles at the time.

Furthermore, the order of the English sentence (subject - predicate - direct object) derives from William's civil servants, able administrators from Gascony, who brought the Gascon sentence with them.

Our linguistic Latin roots are a thousand years old but they have had to twist around the rocks of many languages before blossoming as English.

Finally, Latin is called a dead language. Its rules are studied by those who would be Classicists. When those LAtin-French words were adapted into English, the rules that governed the Latin lost their potency. After all, the English sentence is not the LAtin sentence, which I remember as having the verb at the end.

1 Reply

David says:

Quote:

the lexicografer
subordinates the factual history of the word,
its etymological source, that it is NOT
an English word, but it is LATIN
and, therefore, subject to the rules of Latin.
Because it is a Latin word, I respect and apply the Latin rules.

Really? So that means that in the sentence you thought you were "correcting", you should have used the Latin genitive plural form of "forum", since that is its function in the sentence. But you used the nominative plural form, so you did not in fact "respect and apply the Latin rules" as you said you did. Do you in fact know, off the top of your head, the dative and accusative forms of "forum" when it fills those roles in English sentences, and do you use them"? Or are you just arbitrarily using only the plural? You once again played the pedant, were idiosyncratic and arbitrary, and did it wrong. Sorry, David, "F", go to the back of the class.

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And, David, if you are so big on respecting the "factual history of the word, its etymological source" why in the hell are you so intent on ignoring its history and source with your goofball "phonetic" spelling?

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@MontereyJack,

David has the habit of claiming knowledge, but it's evident from his unskilled ability at English and facts, that his real knowledge is ego.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

And, David, if you are so big on respecting
the "factual history of the word, its etymological source"

This is for the purpose of ascertaining what the word MEANS.
There is another step to arranging a logical
correspondence between how it is pronounced
and how it is spelled; thay shoud be fully in harmony.

MontereyJack wrote:

why in the hell are you so intent on ignoring its history
and source with your goofball "phonetic" spelling?

To ease the burden of future generations of Americans,
we shoud have the spelling of English words
fully in harmony with how thay r pronounced.

When I post on various fora online,
my expression represents my greater loyalty to logic,
to sound reasoning, n efficiency than to tradition,
in and of itself, for its own sake.

Insofar as spelling is concerned, for many years n decades,
I applied paradigmatic English spelling,
and I corrected my secretaries, when thay failed
to do so in my correspondence, or motion practice, etc.;
(this was b4 computers with spellcheck).

However, on re-consideration, I have realized
that altho MOST of English is already fonetic in its spelling,
there is a small minority of atavistic words
that used to be foneticly spelled several centuries
ago, in Chaucer 's time, but r now inconsistent
with spoken use--wastefully so;
e.g., there is no logical reason to add
the letters UGH to the word tho.

It is anti-logical n inefficient to put an L into woud, coud or shoud.

I believe that it is helpful to drag down the old
tradition to the extent that it is illogical and wasteful.
I wish to lead by example, just by showing the world
that there is a faster n easier way to do it.

The Spanish shud not have a monopoly on fonetic spelling.
We shud have it equally as ez.
Future generations of Americans who see
fully fonetic spelling for the first time,
with new eyes, will not deem it "goofball" as u have.

I am confident that the ez way will prevail,
and woud win with no help from me,
but I like to help it along, as a public service.

David

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Sorry, but you commit two errors here and one is
a error of logic and the other is a error of fact.

You think you can blithely dismiss not the single dictionary I consulted
but the two that MJ cited by using yourself as a standard.

I do. That 's true.

plainoldme wrote:

You are not a standard.

Everyone is the criterion of what
he will believe from the available allegations.
U r the judge of what u will believe.
So shoud it be.

plainoldme wrote:

And your scenario as to how the books you bought,
most likely, without having paid attention to the content

I paid meticulous attention to the content, while
advising a Chinese student on the English language for several hours.
I coud not, in good conscience, and woud not tell her
that words mean what I know damn well thay DON 'T mean.
Maybe u 'd have done differently; I dunno.

plainoldme wrote:

or the publisher, would have been the product of "lazy college students"
who were paid "minimum wage" is sheer idiocy.

Your judgment of these books WITHOUT HAVING READ THEM,
not even glimpsed them, is very, very unfair.

That is the DEFINITION of prejudice.
U judge the books only on the basis of your dislike for ME, because u know
that I love personal freedom and that I abhor authoritarianism.
If I were a communist, then u woud trust me.

plainoldme wrote:

You have demonstrated that you know nothing about many topics
that you discuss with force (the human singing voice from a few months back . . . remember?).

I do. Thank u for bringing that to my attention.
I bawt several copies of Jackie Evancho 's DVDs,
as Christmas presents; wonderful. Thanx again.

plainoldme wrote:

Worse, you know little about words that most people have used
for decades (resale shop . . . remember?).

I do. To this date, I 've never heard anyone else use that designation.
Was that definition ever resolved ?

plainoldme wrote:

I have been particularly angry

I 've noticed that, but I don 't take it seriously.
Maybe its good for u to vent; cathartic.

plainoldme wrote:

because of some of the stupid requests for definitions you have made . . .

Do u say that to English students
when thay ask u what something means?

plainoldme wrote:

while sitting at your computer . . . for all manner of words that you should know
as a living person who likes to tout his self-estimated intelligence.

That is a false statement, Plain. I have NEVER in my life
boasted to anyone that I was intelligent.
Doing that woud be very awkward and untoward.
U shoud not accuse me of doing that.

plainoldme wrote:

Furthermore, with your silly campaign for "phonetic" spelling,

U quote me incorrectly, Plain. I said "fonetic" spelling.

plainoldme wrote:

based upon YOUR INTERPRETATION of the sound of English,
totally destroys an credibility you might CLAIM as a lexicologist.

I think thay call themselves "lexicographers".
The reasoning of what I post either stands or falls
on its own merit, not because I recommend anything.
This is an anonymous forum; I have never engaged
my own credibility.

plainoldme wrote:

It is widely known that Latin adopted words are a large part of the English language.
There is a great deal of debate over what percentage of English words stem from LAtin.

I have no opinion as to that percentage.

plainoldme wrote:

However, most of the Latin-based vocabulary originated not from direct borrowing but from French, a language that English grew up with and whose development and stages can be paralleled in English.

The 400 years of Roman hegemony of the British Isles did not influence the English language
but the Norman Invasion did.

Did English EXIST when the Romans decamped??

plainoldme wrote:

When those Old French speaking Vikings, who had resided in France for less than two centuries, conquered Britain, they brought their language with them which overwhelmed the languages spoken in the BRitish Isles at the time.

Occupation can DO that.
Maybe we shoud ask Thomas whether the American
occupation of Germany affected its language.

plainoldme wrote:

Furthermore, the order of the English sentence (subject - predicate - direct object) derives from William's civil servants, able administrators from Gascony, who brought the Gascon sentence with them.

Our linguistic Latin roots are a thousand years old

I think thay r older than that.

plainoldme wrote:

but they have had to twist around the rocks
of many languages before blossoming as English.

That 's a nice metafor.

plainoldme wrote:

Finally, Latin is called a dead language. Its rules are studied by those who would be Classicists.
When those LAtin-French words were adapted into English,
the rules that governed the Latin lost their potency.

It is crude mangling to say "forums" instead of the real way, the historically accurate way.
U had it right the first time.
Stick to your guns !

plainoldme wrote:

After all, the English sentence is not the LAtin sentence,
which I remember as having the verb at the end.

apples & oranges

1 Reply

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