(no subject)
10 Feb 2007 06:56 pmHappy birthday
inthesewall !
OMG Something Positive (my favourite webcomic) is being referred by Language Log :
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004174.html
I think the Language Log sorta missed the point ^_^;;
OMG Something Positive (my favourite webcomic) is being referred by Language Log :
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004174.html
I think the Language Log sorta missed the point ^_^;;
no subject
Date: 10 February 2007 10:31 pm (UTC)Anyhow, PeeJee also missed the (very minor) phenomena of grammar communists, spelling anarchists, and language libertarians, among other factions. And the new kids on the fanaticism block, the Noun-Compound Taliban.
Language Log does make a habit of taking something in an article or comic or whatever, something that was a very minor aside, and blowing it up and analyzing the crap out of it. It's kind of cute - they take language very seriously. :)
no subject
Date: 11 February 2007 12:23 pm (UTC)And both the comic and the article don't mention the fact that Nazi isn't the first proper noun to become a derogatory common noun that has only a tenuous link to the original meaning - the same thing happened to Puritan/puritan. Although admittedly the Nazis are in a different ballpark to the Puritans, so we'll see if calling someone a nazi loses its original meaning like calling someone a puritan has.