popular usage Exactly what I am complaining about. Popular usage has effed up the language. I like it when the language changes for the better, but not when it takes a dive into the Wrong.
Other examples:
Sportscasters have made the word "defense" into a verb. It's a noun - it means the part of the game where the people who don't have the ball (the defense) knock the bejeesus out of the people who do (the offense). There is no such thing as "defensing" a play. There's a perfectly good word out there - "defend" -- which is hardly used anymore.
Jocks are also using "give" as a noun. It's a verb. "The give is to the running back". No sir, the hand-off, the pitch, the lateral, and any number of other nouns is given to the running back. There's no such thing as "a give".
There's more on my Grammar Police web page.
Homo hatred is two words. Let's keep 'em that way. If this was German we'd bitch-slap them into one word, but not in English, thank you.
I don't want to give the impression I'm against clever new ways to say things. For instance, murdering a gay person is homocide, but that sounds just like homicide. I kind of like fagicide. It has a wonderfully nasty ring to it. Not PC, I know, and totally insensitive, but one must suffer for one's art.
And I like the word "twink". I think it sounds like who it is describing.
no subject
Exactly what I am complaining about. Popular usage has effed up the language. I like it when the language changes for the better, but not when it takes a dive into the Wrong.
Other examples:
Sportscasters have made the word "defense" into a verb. It's a noun - it means the part of the game where the people who don't have the ball (the defense) knock the bejeesus out of the people who do (the offense). There is no such thing as "defensing" a play. There's a perfectly good word out there - "defend" -- which is hardly used anymore.
Jocks are also using "give" as a noun. It's a verb. "The give is to the running back". No sir, the hand-off, the pitch, the lateral, and any number of other nouns is given to the running back. There's no such thing as "a give".
There's more on my Grammar Police web page.
Homo hatred is two words. Let's keep 'em that way. If this was German we'd bitch-slap them into one word, but not in English, thank you.
I don't want to give the impression I'm against clever new ways to say things. For instance, murdering a gay person is homocide, but that sounds just like homicide. I kind of like fagicide. It has a wonderfully nasty ring to it. Not PC, I know, and totally insensitive, but one must suffer for one's art.
And I like the word "twink". I think it sounds like who it is describing.