The language we use today is a bastardization of how language was. Every complaint you make about people using language wrong someone has made about the language you are using. And they complained first
So I should accept people saying “could care less” when they mean the exact opposite? Not sure I can do that.
No, you should not.
Illiteracy isn’t a valid excuse.
I’ll die on that hill alongside ‘on accident’.
Idioms don’t have to (and often don’t) make sense. How do you feel about “head over heels”?
Interesting - Wiktionary says that the phrase was originally “heels over head”, which makes sense when conveying the sense of tumbling over. I guess that became corrupted, resulting in “head over heels”. Maybe I should start saying “heels over head” then.
I mean, the main point is that language doesn’t have to make “logical” sense. It’s not a math problem. Just look at all the inconsistencies in pretty much every aspect of a language. It’s all there simply because of history and people agreeing on meanings for words and phrases. For example, you’ve got something like prepositions. There’s literally zero logical reason why we talk or speak to someone, but we don’t tell or converse to someone.
And people who are more rigid in thinking about language always seem to think the language they learned growing up is the most “correct” version, whether that has a basis in history or not. Like even though literally has been used as an intensifier for (literally) hundreds of years, that seems to be a sticking point, whereas something like very, which has a similar root (veracis meaning truth), any sentence using very doesn’t have to have an exact truthful meaning.
Hell, once we go back to “original” meanings of words, where do we stop? The singular use of “they” is older than that of singular “you”, but I somehow never see the “singular they is confusing” crowd advocating for a return to thee/thou.
Irregardless, you can still make fun of people for anything. Remember the US president and that disabled guy?
People need to start saying “God be whit ye!” again instead of “Goodbye” which IMO has nothing to do our Lord and Father in Heaven
Well I could care less if can’t do that
If it’s only morons that use it “wrong”, then it does indeed become right, but still gains the added subtext of “by the way I’m also a moron”
Well. Sort of.
Some terminology is better defined by how the relevant experts use it. It’s singular and precise definition is required for any useful dialogue. If 99% of people call a kidney a liver but doctors call it a kidney its a kidney.
Some terminology evolves and is used differently by different groups. Sometimes the more illiterate group flattens the language by removing nuance or even entirely removing a concept from a language with no replacement. Arguably both definitions may be common usage but one is worse and using it means you are.
Some word usage just becomes so common everyone, even generational gaps understand it. If you talk to an 18 or a 65 year old and say the word blowjob, they both know what you mean, yet they aren’t out there blowing on dicks or trying to force air up urethras… Hopefully…
yet they aren’t out there blowing on dicks or trying to force air up urethras… Hopefully…
I see you don’t regularly read the sex forums and questions on reddit.
Hopes dashed. It’s not common, but there are some people who have the right combination of circumstances to make them think blowjobs involve the movement of air.
I feel like people forget that words can have multiple definitions. You can have a technical definition and a popular definition
And homonyms.
Ad hominem.
And I’m still gonna bitch about it if they’ve reduced the usefulness of a word due to habitual misuse!
For all intensive purposes, the meaning of words matters less than how we use it. Irregardless of how we decimate it’s meaning, so long as we get the point across there is no need to nip it in the butt. Most people could care less.
::glares:: Well done. 😆
I will hunt you for sport.
I hate you.
YeS, YoUrE rIgHt. aS lOnG aS tHe mEaNiNg iS uNdErStOod, iT dOeS NoT mAtTeR.
For all intensive purposes, the meaning of words matters less than how we use it.
I think you mean fewer than how we use it lol.
I’m filled with unreasonable blind rage now. Thank you.
I guess it’s a moot point
Definately!
I don’t see the backside of Morpheus’ head.
Should look like that:
i think he is looking at the meme which you are inside
Just realised there’s a gun pointed to Neo’s head in both images
“Everyone” meaning the social media someone and their social set get their info and cues from, not the rest of the people around them.
“Everyone” meaning folks off-line who you feel the urge to keep correcting because you got hounded by grammar nazis on the internet and now the “correct” meaning is branded into your skull.
Off line? Who is being a grammar Nazi IRL?
My pet peeve is ‘loose’ being used when ‘lose’ is intended. It’s so common now it might as well be the new spelling but I will die on this hill. I’ve had people comment in response to me correcting someone like I’m being ridiculous. Feels like I’m taking crazy pills!
I seen that all the time.
What if I told you that if everyone uses a word the “wrong” way, in slightly different ways, it’s wrong?
even worse, everyone spells that word wrong
I think we should bring back philosohoraptor - Morpheus seems wrong for this meme
Descriptive
languagegrammar >> prescriptivelanguagegrammardescriptive linguistics >> prescriptive linguistics
LITERALLY everyone!
I remember when that word meant something.
“Literally” meant “something”.
Huh. I missed that synonym from everybody misusing literally [for literally forever].
Literally’s now literally I’ll be using in place of something from now on.
Literally I’m looking forward to when I’m looking for literally.
Literally being used as an intensifier bothers me less than inflammable meaning both flammable and not flammable.
classic case of the four-leaved-clover story
edit:
Prescriptivists should be shoved into all the lockers in the world.
