XP: Written Word/English Language&Reading Material

Speaking of (to employ a useful neologism) lexophilia ...

· Venison for dinner again! Oh deer!
· England has no kidney bank, but does have a Liverpool.
· I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.
· Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
· This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club,
but I'd never met herbivore.
· What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?
A thesaurus.
· Don't worry about old age: it doesn't last.
· I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
· Velcro -- what a rip-off!
· They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Typo.

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

On what is perhaps another slant someone said, "After you dialogue with someone you can then task them with the deliverables." (I say "perhaps" because I'm not totally sure what to make of this slant.)
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this rises to firing squad level. And quickly. Don't spare the bullets, there must be no chance of survival.
 
The use of "dialogue" as a verb goes back to 1595, according to the OED. I was not objecting to it as a verb. There are also some specialized uses, writing dialogue for a play or writing a musical piece in which instruments react to each other in a way similar to people talking with each other, that it would be a shame to lose. I was objecting to Pete's notion that it had some special meaning different from "to talk with" or "to converse," which the OED does not support and which turns out to be typical euphemizing terminology.
 
Talk about egregious...and I hear and read variations of this more and more.

In this morning's paper a pro football coach said, "It's between Michael and I."

On rare occasions, I've brought the error to the offender's attention and the response has usually been either quizzicalness or a shrug.

(Rhetorical question) How can this happen among well educated people?!?

. . . . . Pete
 
Following the direction of pointless observations in this thread, I will note that the phrase, "verbing a noun," verbs a noun. I don't thing Willard Van Ormand Quine ever noticed this one.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
And since most words in Italian end with a vowel, when Italians speak English, they tend to add a vowel to the ending of words.
Click to expand...

In a geeky sorta way, this relates to a story I tell in class about the etymology of the name benzene (cribbed from I Asimov's great essay "you too can speak Gaelic"). The source of it is the sap of a Javanese tree, purchased as "Luban Java" by Venetian traders in the spice markets of 12th C Damascus. The rest, as they say, is history.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
And since most words in Italian end with a vowel, when Italians speak English, they tend to add a vowel to the ending of words.
Click to expand...

In a geeky sorta way, this relates to a story I tell in class about the etymology of the name benzene (cribbed from I Asimov's great essay "you too can speak Gaelic"). The source of it is the sap of a Javanese tree, purchased as "Luban Java" by Venetian traders in the spice markets of 12th C Damascus. The rest, as they say, is history.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Speaking of which, currently reading another revisionist world history, one called The Silk Road, full of Venetians and others trading right and left (but seldom up and down, except as a way to go right and left).
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
And since most words in Italian end with a vowel, when Italians speak English, they tend to add a vowel to the ending of words.
Click to expand...

In a geeky sorta way, this relates to a story I tell in class about the etymology of the name benzene (cribbed from I Asimov's great essay "you too can speak Gaelic"). The source of it is the sap of a Javanese tree, purchased as "Luban Java" by Venetian traders in the spice markets of 12th C Damascus. The rest, as they say, is history.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Speaking of which, currently reading another revisionist world history, one called The Silk Road, full of Venetians and others trading right and left (but seldom up and down, except as a way to go right and left).
Click to expand...

Good to hear, O. That's been on my ever-growing "to read" list.

Mark Lipton
 
jpcpunc.jpg
 
"This piece is in loving memory of my parents, Francoise Dupuy Frohlich and Karel Frohlich, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins."

. . . . Pete
 
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