From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Subject: Re: quite unique research?
Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 13:38:06 GMT

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.

>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
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.  

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

>>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.

>>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.

>>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.

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

>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.

>> 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.

>>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.

>>...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.

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


--
Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.     "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings 
gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu       to be seriously considered as a means of 
N2GPZ in ham radio circles        communication. The device is inherently of
72355,1226 on CI$                 no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877
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