OT: Musings on CFC afterimages

Jan 21, 2011 29 Replies

Indeed. Geometry, or any other discipline, can be stringent as to how any word is used within that discipline. In the world at large, anything goes. It comes as a surprise to many people that a dictionary is not an manual of instructions. It is an attempt to record what is common usage. As the great unwashed misuderstand and mis-use the language, eventually dictionaries reflect it.

**Nope. Never. I've seen notebooks that have been incorrectly described as such, however.

The wire bit doesn't

**No. It looks like a helix.
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

"Trevor Wilson"

** The pedant mode switch is stuck on.

..... Phil

"fritz"

** Not a typo when it is made twice - in the heading and the body of the post.

.... Phil

"T.T."

** Dictionaries have always been DESCRIPTIVE rather than PROSCRIPTIVE publications.

Shame that few schools explain this to students or detail how one is created or all would realise the fact. Instead dictionaries are used solely as references for correct spelling and meaning - which leads to all the trouble.

Plus, languages are living things - new words arise all the time and old ones acquire new or altered meanings. Hence the constant need for new and updated dictionaries.

BTW:

Even the worst pedants will normally acknowledge a famous dictionary as authoritative - but not our TW!!!

The monumental fool is way out on the lunatic fringe, even among pedants.

..... Phil

Where's "WhySoSerious?" when you need him? (Probably still trying to come up with a plausible reason for not handling high ohm resistors by their leads...)

Or shaking his head at the number of people who don't seem to get his style of humour.

Sylvia.

A sane person would figure out that it wasn't working.

Only that it's not working with a number of people.

Sylvia.

Where "a number" is the universal set.

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