Author Topic: Dear Expert (Read 165711 times)

Jonathon · « **Reply #1000 on:** August 28, 2016, 04:00:42 PM »

No problem!

Jonathon · « **Reply #1001 on:** September 12, 2016, 12:11:13 PM »

I just spent my lunch break answering this four-month-old question on Reddit about pairs like lay/lie and raise/rise. Here's the link to my answer.

It may have been a huge waste of time, but I regret nothing.

rivka · « **Reply #1002 on:** September 12, 2016, 01:53:56 PM »

Tell me again why you're not active on Quora?

Jonathon · « **Reply #1003 on:** September 12, 2016, 02:26:04 PM »

Because I already have enough time-sucks in my life?

rivka · « **Reply #1004 on:** September 12, 2016, 07:04:43 PM »

So replace Reddit with Quora. Problem solved!

Jonathon · « **Reply #1005 on:** September 12, 2016, 07:21:21 PM »

I don't actually spend any time on Reddit. I was googling something and came across that unanswered question, and I felt compelled to respond.

But if I were to spend time answering questions on some forum like that, I'd definitely choose Quora over Reddit. I signed up for Reddit a while back and quickly realized that answering questions there would be a totally Sisyphean task. There are just so many dumb questions and so many dumb responses, and I'm only one man.

rivka · « **Reply #1006 on:** September 12, 2016, 09:32:45 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on September 12, 2016, 07:21:21 PM

There are just so many dumb questions and so many dumb responses, and I'm only one man.

Yup, that's Reddit. Quora has plenty of dumb questions too, but not the sort of flood Reddit has.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #1007 on:** November 17, 2016, 03:04:11 PM »

Jonathon - help me out here.

The guys (I work in network support area) keep writing documentation that says things like "The batch job errored at this point".

I keep telling them there is no such word as "errored" - you can say "erred" but I'm not sure even then they are using it correctly. Probably better to say "the process encountered an error" or something like that. But CAN you actually use "erred" as the past tense of error in these instances? I see one web site that says you can't say "the program erred" because the program isn't making a mistake. Confused.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1008 on:** November 17, 2016, 04:14:59 PM »

The problem is that error isn't a verb—except in technical jargon like this. It may not be in the dictionary, but I think it's probably pretty common in the IT world. So errored is a correctly formed past tense from a verb error meaning "to run into an error". It's just that it's jargony.

rivka · « **Reply #1009 on:** November 17, 2016, 04:16:50 PM »

I can't answer from a general grammar/usage perceptive. But I can tell you that using "errored" that way is absolutely typical for computer tech types. Sometimes "errored out".

Farmgirl · « **Reply #1010 on:** November 17, 2016, 04:28:50 PM »

You two are taking all the fight right out of me..

rivka · « **Reply #1011 on:** November 17, 2016, 05:25:42 PM »

Jargon is ugly, and frequently bizarre. But its is also often useful in ways that standard language may not be.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1012 on:** November 17, 2016, 05:40:30 PM »

Well said.

Ela · « **Reply #1013 on:** January 19, 2017, 12:45:04 PM »

My friend re-posted this on Facebook:

I'd like a second opinion from our resident expert.

Just for the record.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1014 on:** January 19, 2017, 12:56:29 PM »

It's true that alot is not in the dictionary (all the online ones I tried either sent me to "allot" or "lot" or returned no results) and that it's considered a nonstandard form of a lot. But what's stupid about the argument is that we do actually write awhile, even though it's just the article a + while, when it's used adverbially, but not when it's used as a noun (for example, when it follows a preposition, as in for a while). So by the same logic, it should be okay to write I like it alot.

The only real difference is that awhile goes back to the 13th century, while alot is apparently a much more recent, since lot wasn't even used this way until the 19th century.

Ela · « **Reply #1015 on:** January 19, 2017, 01:14:21 PM »

Thanks! Good points.

I basically thought it was a trivial point of grammar to bother getting annoyed about. A lot of people use it, whether you think it's correct or not.

Edit: Ha, I should have said "alot." Just because.

saxon75 · « **Reply #1016 on:** January 19, 2017, 02:52:34 PM »

Seems like an appropriate time for a classic: The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything

Jonathon · « **Reply #1017 on:** January 19, 2017, 03:10:24 PM »

Always appropriate.

Ela · « **Reply #1018 on:** January 19, 2017, 03:23:21 PM »

Ha, yeah.

And reading it, I realized I never actually type alot for a lot myself. Unless I'm talking about an alot.

But I can still think of many other grammatical quirks that bug me more.

rivka · « **Reply #1019 on:** January 19, 2017, 05:18:19 PM »

Quote from: saxon75 on January 19, 2017, 02:52:34 PM

Seems like an appropriate time for a classic: The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything

Darn! beaten to it!

rivka · « **Reply #1020 on:** January 23, 2017, 11:28:28 PM »

Leaving aside the annoying blog set-up, I wondered what you thought of this: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/10-verbs-contronyms/?

Jonathon · « **Reply #1021 on:** January 24, 2017, 08:41:22 AM »

I think some of those are misleading or wrong. The two meanings of buckle aren't really antonymous, and the two cleaves are actually completely unrelated but homophonous words. The second sense of peruse is usually considered a misuse, but it's probably here to stay. There are a few others that I would say aren't quite antonymous, but close.

rivka · « **Reply #1022 on:** January 24, 2017, 08:53:12 AM »

Quote from: Jonathon on January 24, 2017, 08:41:22 AM

I think some of those are misleading or wrong.

Ok, so it's not just me. Thanks.

Amilia · « **Reply #1023 on:** January 24, 2017, 09:19:55 PM »

Stupid question:

Quote from: Jonathon on January 24, 2017, 08:41:22 AM

. . . and the two cleaves are actually completely unrelated but homophonous words.

Quote from: the article

Specifically, a contronym is a word with a homonym (another word with the same spelling but different meaning) that is also an antonym (a word with the opposite meaning).

Generally, contronyms became contronyms in one of two ways: (1) different words with different etymologies converged into one word,

Did the article misrepresent what a contronym was? Or is there a subtle difference in what they are saying and what you are saying that I am not picking up on?

Jonathon · « **Reply #1024 on:** January 25, 2017, 08:55:25 AM »

I apparently missed that part, but yes, that's another thing I'd disagree with, especially because that post misuses its own definition.

The technical definition of a contronym is a word with two opposite meanings. And for two words to be homonyms, they have to be different words, like can the noun and can the verb. A single word with multiple meanings is not a set of homonyms; it's just a polysemous word. So either they're a contronym, or they're a pair of homonyms that just happen to have opposite meanings, but they can't be both.

I think cleave/cleave is the only pair of homonyms and the rest are actually the same word. It's just debatable whether the rest are true antonyms.