From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: quite unique research?
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 17:55:56 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.133806.25234@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.074859.24040@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>That the standard of "Good" usage is what good speakers and writers do.

>You'd have a difficult time finding good writers today who would use 
>'most unique" in any significant way.

Was this discussion limited to the written idiom?  I hadn't heard.

>>c) Lambaste the group -- I get testy when people like you simply say
>>"this usage is wrong" and can't even tell me how you know that.  How
>>would you feel if someone took a piece of work you had done and told you
>>it was wrong, but refused to tell you why?  Would you trust them?  Respect
>>them?

>To be honest, I couldn't care less if you trust or respect me, Roger, because
>you have not proven _yourself_ to be respectable.  As for your analogy, it
>flounders because the English language is not your piece of work.  It is

But my uses of it are.  And it is this or that use that you are criticizing.

>something that everyone is entitled to have an opinion on because it belongs
>to all of us.  Your is no more valid than mine which is no more valid than
>S&W's or my next door neighbor's.  

What is this?  rec.sport.baseball?  I never thought I'd see the "all opinions
are equally valid" dodge here.  

Sorry, Gabe, but that's just not so.  All opinions are equally valid -- 
if you assign them the default value of zero.  Opinions gain in value 
through their support.  Through argument and evidence.  

Again and again I have begged you for evidence and reasoned argument,
especially when you couched your opinions in terms that suggested that
you felt they were more than mere opinions, that they carried the 
weight of some standard.  "This usage is wrong" is *not* an
opinion; it is a judgment.  And judgments are odious if they are not 
based on evidence and reason.

>And yes, you get a little more than "testy."  You become insolent and
>contemptuously rude.

Be more precise about what's judgment and what's opinion, and this 
won't happen ever again, I promise.

>>>who disagrees with him is worthy of, in his own words, being belted in the
>>>head with a two-by-four.  

>>Another lie.  I suggested that that was what it might take to get 
>>YOU to address the implications of your own remarks.

>As if that somehow justifies your comments.  Not.

Well, I must say it finally worked.  You've admitted that the things
you wrote in the style of judgments were only meant to be opinions,
and that's a big step.  Now how about reworking your style to make 
this clearer?  Or giving some of the sources of your opinions? I
bet they'd be genuinely fascinating.

>>>There are many others...Fowler, S&W, etc. who disagree, and

>>Actually,  it's hard to tell.

>Not really.  You only have to read them.

I did.  So did others, one of whom has pointed out that Ted's count
is highly questionable.

>>>their opinions are no less valid than E&E becuase you didn't happen to
>>>quote them.

>>Somebody else quoted Fowler -- both books.  As for the validity of their
>>opinions, my quoting them does not affect that; but their arguments are
>>indeed worth examining for validity.

>Indeed.

So -- go for it!

>>True indeed, as I pointed out as well in discussing the AHD Usage Note.
>>Opinions vary, as do levels of speech.  Most editors would strike "most
>>unique" -- though I asked my editor tonight (he's Follett's son-in-law,
>>no less) and he said he'd take "not quite unique," but not "quite unique."
>>It's clear that there's no consensus on this matter among style critics.
>>Lexicographers agree, though: one of the standard meanings of "unique"
>>is "unusual," like it or not.

>Gee, then why is Follte's son-in-law so quick to qualify what he would
>accept as a modifier for "unique"?  

I mentioned this because it was in direct contradiction to -- was it 
Rheal?

Besides, I don't understand your question.  Follett was not a lexicographer,
but the author of a (weird) usage guide.

>I suspect he would take "quite unusual" but not "quite unique."  I wonder why!

He doesn't like the "truly" meaning of "quite," that's why.  Too long in
England, I think. 

>>But that it's in the dictionary means that people *do* use it

>So?  People use "axe" and "irregardless" too and can be understood, and I'm
>sure they appear in some dictionary somewhere.  That doesn't mean anything.

Well, then, if it doesn't mean anything, why are there dictionaries? 

Why?  To tell us how and where and when those words *are* used.  

>>> As I've said, many fine
>>>dictionaries list "infer" and "imply" as synonyms, which they clearly
>>>are not.  

>>I have bad news for you: to many people, they *are* synonyms.  Their 
>>meaning is changing.  

>Not to careful writers.

Round and round and round.  What will you do when you encounter a
previously "careful writer" who does that?  Cross them off the list?
If "like" as conjunction is a test of a careful writer, you're in deep
trouble, because your list will shrink almost to nothing.

>>>You can infer an implication, but you cannot imply an
>>>inference, no matter what your dictionary says.

>>So?  You're talking about the nouns, now, for one thing.  That's no
>>help.  But the point is: people have taken to saying "infer" where they
>>might previously have said "imply."  These shifts in meaning happen, and
>>have always happened.  

>Perhaps, but I suspect that most good and careful writers would still use
>infer to indicate what the person receiving is doing, and imply to indicate
>what the person sending is doing.

Well, now, that's a bit more moderate, and easier to agree with.  We're 
down to suspicions about most careful writers, as opposed to assertions 
about all careful writers.

>>>...Still waiting for Roger to tell me where exactly I "spatter my prejudice
>>>everywhere I go"....  

>>By saying: It's just bad usage, without telling us how you know, and 
>>without telling us what you mean by "bad usage."   

>No, that's a difference of opinion, not prejudice, and you're hardly
>qualified to a) know if I "spatter prejudice" and b) know everywhere
>that I go.

"everywhere you go" is a metaphor, sonny.  And, no, when you say it
like that, it's not opinion.  You're being horribly imprecise and
misleading by stating opinions like that.  Careful writers don't.

>The only thing I'm prejudiced against is your penchant for rudeness.

Sloppy writing is rude, too, especially when one knows better.  Why
dress up your nice opinions as dicta ex cathedra?

Roger

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english