@Ceili,
Ceili wrote:"A few" is overkill. It's not necessary.
Its
NOT "overkill".
Without saying "a few" your concept is
INCOMPLETE; u only
HINT at it,
instead of saying it outright,
and to the extent that u popularize the error,
u render English less precise and more awkward, dragging it down.
There is no reason to do that.
Ceili wrote:Go to google. Type in "within days".
You will see millions of posts and headlines from around the world
using the phrase exactly the same way I did.
I don 't dispute that.
I know it already; Googling is unnecessary.
Your defense is that the error is
POPULAR.
That 's a terrible justification.
That 's like arguing that u'd be rong to go drunken driving,
IF u were the
only person who
DID that, but if
ENUF of the populace
goes out drunken driving all the time, then that makes it
OK.
Y not do it
right, instead of appealing to more
pervasive error????
Ceili wrote:Perhaps you should start a one man crusade.
Your logic v.s. the world. Write to every publication and tell them,
their thinking is not logical.
That sounds like a lot of work, Ceili.
Will
YOU pay me for doing that???? It 'd take a while; time n labor.
Ceili wrote: Tell them you prefer Orwellian doublespeak and to be spoon-fed.
For
WHAT reason shoud I tell them
THAT???
In the book, it said the opposite of what it actually was.
Y r we discussing
that?? Note that u did
not say
the
OPPOSITE of what u meant; u were simply vague and incomplete.
I don't believe that its asking too much
for people to say what thay
MEAN
and to mean what thay
SAY with the same precision that thay calculate arithmetic.
Ceili wrote:While you're at it, please write all these letters with your mangled excuse for English.
I'm sure they'll see the Mensa in you and capitulate. You have a problem with written English, not me.
Not with
u PARTICULARLY, but u
did perpetrate the error
right in front of us. U shoud not blame me for pointing it out.
Its the same as if a traffic police officer catches u drunken driving.
It is not a competent defense to say that a lot of other people do it
TOO.
David