I take that as a complement from you Alex !!!!

 

but you mean 'compliment' right?

 

I certainly did mean that, you are not wrong !!!!

:pissed off that I didn't check that post before hitting submit !!!:

 

lol calm down. it's a small mistake

what pisses me off even more is when people mix up "your" with "you're" and vice versa

or when they say "should of" instead of "should have"

 

Oh, don't get me started on those !!!!!

There are definately a few out their who make these mistakes constantly .....

 

My argument is not against the evolution of language, nor is it against common usage broadly.

My argument is against common usage that turns a word with a concrete meaning to one whose meaning is ambiguous. This robs language of its essence: to communicate ideas accurately.

As an example, "decimate" means to reduce by 1/10; as such it means that 90% remains. To use it to mean "to destroy completely", so that something described as decimated could either be completely gone or 90% intact makes it meaningless in practice, all the worse when there are many existing words--annihilate, demolish, raze--that already mean to "destroy".

 

 

I agree with you Bill in the word decimate for instance, however, it seems that nauseous has been used in this way for more than 400 years, so I would have thought that is long enough to be accepted

 

So you're suggesting that nothing is lost by using a word that means you're feeling sick, unless it means that you're making others feel sick.

I, for one, prefer concreteness: I'll use nauseated for the former and nauseous for the latter.

Unapologetically.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by magician
[B]So you're suggesting that nothing is lost by using a word that means you're