XP: Written Word/English Language&Reading Material

Larry and Jeff took the words out of my mouth. The usage means to inflate an activity by identifying it with one that takes much more work and study. And because it inflates it, it is a bad use of the word, regardless of whether it has become accepted "usage." It is up there with the winegeek use of varietal because it sounds, somehow, more technical, or the insistence on importing the word terroir without importing the meaning when there are a number of perfectly good English words or phrases that have the sought after meaning. But they don't sound as resonant.

On the opposite side is the use of wordsmith for writer. I find that people who favor this substitution usually don't write extensively and think that, once the hard work of thinking is done, one needs merely a kind of smith to cobble the thoughts into words. It is a deflation to hide the hard parts of thinking that one is sloughing off onto others.

As George Orwell knew, unnecessary transmogrifications of meanings generally have a source in sloppy thought. That is the reason for struggling against them.
 
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It is up there with the winegeek use of varietal because it sounds, somehow, more technical
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varietal is more technical than variety?!
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Well, sure. Doesn't varietal sound more sciencey and specific than just plain variety? Anything can be a variety of a species. But if you're a wine grape, you get to be a varietal.
 
I'm actually interested (even sensitive?) to what's being said about the degradation of the cited terms. Even so, I have asked other people what they think about the use of "curate" and none of them had a similar reaction as to what has been expressed here.

I guess one might say it is sad that the "degradation" is not common knowledge. For example, I can never remember the guidelines that were offered up as to how "begs the question" can be properly used. Also, one might further say that "pretentiousness" is often just in the eyes of the beholder.

Thanks for interesting dialogue on all of this.

. . . . . . Pete
 
The litmus test here is whether the use of the term curate adds extra meaning beyond what one gets from the word chosen. If the current use of curate has meaning beyond “carefully chosen” it’s lost on me. In that regard, it reminds me of the emergence of finalize as a verb when we already had the word finish at our disposal.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
The litmus test here is whether the use of the term curate adds extra meaning beyond what one gets from the word chosen. If the current use of curate has meaning beyond “carefully chosen” it’s lost on me. In that regard, it reminds me of the emergence of finalize as a verb when we already had the word finish at our disposal.

Mark Lipton
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Like Jonathan wrote, "The usage means to inflate an activity by identifying it with one that takes much more work and study," so curating would be choosing informed by "much more" work and study than that which informs the run-of-the-mill chooser. That said, the chef or sommelier doing the curating for Pete's crowd no doubt consider that they put in sufficient work and study, since this is subjective. My sense is that the stench of affectation will continue to permeate the usage as long as it remains a borrowing from a more rarified activity. But if enough people use it, and it becomes common for things like dinners, tastings, and wardrobes, the bad semantic smell will dissipate as that particular degradation becomes the new norm.
 
Languages change over time, words (and phrases) come and go. The prescriptivists among us -- myself included -- already know all this but it is interesting to see how various organizations approach the current imprecision in the meaning of the phrase "beg the question":

Wikipedia is quite erudite or pedantic, depending on your tastes.
Merriam-Webster is surprisingly rather snotty about it.
A site dedicated to language issues gives a balanced, nuanced view.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Languages change over time, words (and phrases) come and go. The prescriptivists among us -- myself included -- already know all this but it is interesting to see how various organizations approach the current imprecision in the meaning of the phrase "beg the question":

Wikipedia is quite erudite or pedantic, depending on your tastes.
Merriam-Webster is surprisingly rather snotty about it.
A site dedicated to language issues gives a balanced, nuanced view.
Click to expand...
These sites really taught me something: I had always heard that begs the question was a shortening of beggaring the question,thus rendering it valueless by assuming the answer. I did not know it was a deceptively literal rendering of petitio principii, a phrase I know the meaning of, because it's common philosophical shorthand, though. I don't know Latin. Learn something new every day, or, at least, I wish I did.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
Sliding further into the pit, today I saw "upskill," used as a verb. As in "are you looking to upskill your team?" I guess it's pithy, but I nearly gagged.
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I am sorry to say that I'm in the industry that probably came from. I have been told, in the past, to spend my down time skilling up....
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg: OK, Pete, having scared you off from question begging, I will now turn my attention to wordsmithing. The word writers use to describe that act is writing.
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Jonathan, thanks as always. I actually thought about you when I selected "wordsmith" and checked the definition ("define wordsmith") which I found to be "a skilled user of words". That is what I was intending to be the characterization of Jim.

Guess I still miswrote.

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

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg: OK, Pete, having scared you off from question begging, I will now turn my attention to wordsmithing. The word writers use to describe that act is writing.
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Jonathan, thanks as always. I actually thought about you when I selected "wordsmith" and checked the definition ("define wordsmith") which I found to be "a skilled user of words". That is what I was intending to be the characterization of Jim.

Guess I still miswrote.

. . . . . . Pete
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The word is in the dictionary. So, I guess, is impactful.That doesn't mean you need indulge in it.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg: OK, Pete, having scared you off from question begging, I will now turn my attention to wordsmithing. The word writers use to describe that act is writing.
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Jonathan, thanks as always. I actually thought about you when I selected "wordsmith" and checked the definition ("define wordsmith") which I found to be "a skilled user of words". That is what I was intending to be the characterization of Jim.

Guess I still miswrote.

. . . . . . Pete
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The word is in the dictionary. So, I guess, is impactful.That doesn't mean you need indulge in it.
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Speaking of yucky, I've never understood why people use the redundant "commingle" when mingle already does the job.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Languages change over time, words (and phrases) come and go. The prescriptivists among us -- myself included -- already know all this but it is interesting to see how various organizations approach the current imprecision in the meaning of the phrase "beg the question":

Wikipedia is quite erudite or pedantic, depending on your tastes.
Merriam-Webster is surprisingly rather snotty about it.
A site dedicated to language issues gives a balanced, nuanced view.
Click to expand...

Language Log is, as usual, the clearest on this.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

One (dubious?) opinion...

Commingle vs Mingle - What's the difference?

. . . . . Pete
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Interesting. So, if mingling is mixing without blending, while commingling is mixing and blending, a casual chat at a mixer would be mingling, whiles having sex afterwards would be commingling.
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That was very near the example I was going to use. One mingles at a party. One commingles bodily fluids.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Languages change over time, words (and phrases) come and go. The prescriptivists among us -- myself included -- already know all this but it is interesting to see how various organizations approach the current imprecision in the meaning of the phrase "beg the question":

Wikipedia is quite erudite or pedantic, depending on your tastes.
Merriam-Webster is surprisingly rather snotty about it.
A site dedicated to language issues gives a balanced, nuanced view.
Click to expand...

Language Log is, as usual, the clearest on this.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that is nicely detailed and clear.
 
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