Talk:List of English words with disputed usage/Archive 1

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Archive 1

To do

  • Transpire
  • Brutalize
  • Decimate
  • Hysterical
  • Peruse and Scan
  • Comprise
  • Moot
  • Since (as a synonym for "because") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.138.132 (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

...au jus

Same problem as hoi polloi. I'll have the sammich with au jus. I'll have the sammich with with juice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.171.88.10 (talk) 21:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Less

I do not believe that the usage of "less" is disputed. What evidence is there of this 'dispute'? 80.255 18:56, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

See the AHD Usage Note at 'few'
OED A smaller number of; fewer. This originates from the OE. construction of læs adv. (quasi-n.) with a partitive genitive. Freq. found but generally regarded as incorrect.--Mike hayes 17:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
The evidence to those who are habituated to the distinction between "less" and "fewer", is in our own ears. It sounds ungrammatical to us because we only ever use "less" with singular nouns and "fewer" with plural nouns. So just as "much people" sounds ungrammatical to your ears, "less people" does the same to mine. "Fewer people" sounds correct to my ears because it follows a sound grammatical principal that my brain interprets as correct.--Mike hayes 05:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree with 80.255. That some people do not know the usage of the word does not mean that the word is disputed. There is no dispute over the spelling of "misspell," yet people continue to misspell "misspelled" frequently.Wharrel (talk) 07:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Whom are you talking to

What makes "Whom are you talking to?" a "dubious" usage? I believe it would be pretty common upper-class British usage (though I could be wrong, not being an upper-class Brit, myself). - Jmabel 07:59, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A speaker of Received Pronunciation (the English of the upper classes of southern England), would in formal writing say, "To whom are you speaking?", but using a preposition at the end of a sentence would tend to suggest even to a very careful speaker that the more colloquial "who" would be appropriate. Informal is informal even to a pedant.--Mike hayes 05:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Your raising the issue confirms that indeed it is dubious (which just means doubtful or undecided). 'Who are you talking to?' can be justified on the grounds of common usage. "Whom are you talking to" is dubious because it is not very common at all, perhaps because most (or all?) of those who wish to be "grammatically correct" would also be grammatically correct with respect to avoiding the dangling preposition. I'm not saying it's "correct" or "incorrect", just dubious. By the way, I think you'll find purists everywhere deprecating 'Whom are you talking to?', not just in Britain. Peak 19:10, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I think you'd find that while the grammatical "arguments" for 'whom' and against 'dangling prepositions' are both pretty lame and old-fashioned, the "argument" for 'whom' is a lot stronger and based in actual (old-fashioned) usage than the proscription against fronting the wh-word objects of prepositions. Hence, the construction "whom are you talking to" is certainly one that someone that finds merit in the former rule and none in latter might use. Secondly, while you claim that dubious "just means" doubtful or undecided, the fact that you have to specify a definition means that your usage of the word is questionable. Indeed, the word dubious has the connotation that the speaker or writer is almost certain that the matter in question is not true. --Nohat 20:34, 2003 Dec 24 (UTC)
I think you need to better establish was constitutes a "dispute" and on what grounds. "Whom are you talking to?" is good english and indisputably so. "Who are you talking to" is grammatically incorrect, but in common usage. There is no "dispute" whether the former is correct or whether the latter is incorrect. The only dispute I can see is whether the latter should be accepted as "common usage". Dangling prepositions are an inventiuon of Loweth and have nothing to do with English grammar, merely style and perceived elogance; the same can be said of split infinatives. 80.255 16:07, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think it is clear that what constitutes a "dispute" is when a prescriptivist declares as "incorrect" some usage that is commonly employed. Although you may not like it, English usage has been increasingly replacing whom with who for hundreds of years and eventually whom will go away entirely. The assertion that it is grammatically incorrect to use who for all cases is in conflict with the assertion that it is in common usage. How can a rule that declares something grammatically incorrect in direct contradiction to common usage be anything other than someone's particular point of view on how the language ought to work? This notion of "correctness" is unfortunately not grounded in reality. Nohat 00:53, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
To say that grammar is simply somebody's particular point of view on how language ought to work is rather naive. Rules of grammar follow logical rules that are ignored by some because their brains have not learned to interpret the rule correctly. Learning your mother tongue is no different from learning a foreign language. If you don't learn correctly, you are not going to hear when something is not following the rules of grammar. Even the illiterate are perfectly capable of using grammar correctly, if they have learned it correctly by ear, but if those around us are not following the rules and the logic of those rules, a misusage may become standard. But there will always be those whose ears are more acute and who hear the illogic in the ungrammatical, even when the misusage has become very common. It is rather like perfect pitch. Some people's ears are more attuned than others' to knowing when something is not right, even when they don't conciously know the reason why. This was described as "one of the many mysteries of language" in JAMA in a brief artivcle about the word "intraoperational". Mike hayes 19:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
'Whom...' is obviously right and 'Who...' wrong, but 'Whom...' is so uncommon and obviously pedantic that it's pretentious and therefore ill mannered, so I'd say that 'Whom are you talking to?' is not correct in genteel British usage. If anything, it sounds snobbish and bourgoise. Rentwa 22:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I want to reiterate the point I made above - if you want to use the more formal "whom", then common sense dictates that you should be formal about your prepositions as well and put them at the beginning of the sentence if possible. Mixing formal with informal sounds stupid.(at least to my ears)--Mike hayes 05:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Link to Fowler would be good.

Point in time

The British don't recognize the usage of this phrase(?)--Jondel 11:35, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

'At this point in time' is very common in British English, although simply means 'now'. Orwell would have hated it. Rentwa 23:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Literally

The usage of this word is not disputed - it is merely used incorrectly by very many people and should be removed. 61.195.156.129 04:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Among/amongst

Concerning the section explaining between versus among, amongst. I personally feel though not a native English speaker: Amongst means "in the middle or centre of more then two" and among "just somewhere in the area described by the several items mentioned".

So the undisputed usage of among/amongst x between could be disputed on the grounds that we cannot share money in the middle and the house could be in the central place where the tree grow.

I don't think there is actually any difference in meaning between "among" and "amongst," between "while" and "whilst," or any other similar pair. The biggest difference (besides spelling and pronunciation) is that the latter is almost never used in America. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.208.134 (talk) 19:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Remove Render. Rogers

I removed "render" and "Rogers". In the case of the former, the entry did not indicate how any usage of the term was in dispute. In the case of the latter, this article has nothing to do with whether or not forenames are similar to surnames and therefore a cause for confusion (!). --SigPig 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Should youth/youths be added here?

Also, possibly, person/people/peoples/persons?

See "Talk:Persecution of Bahá'ís#Youths, by the way, is good grammar" for reasonings. I won't be adding it to the list, obviously, as I have strong feelings about it and not an NPOV at all. If two fellow Bahá'ís can't get along about such minutiae — when talking about the persecution of other Bahá'ís — then perhaps we have a disputed usage.

  • Opposing view first : 'youth' is both singular and plural and 'youths' does not exist in standard English.
  • My view : 'youth' can be either a count noun or a mass noun and when it is a count noun, the word pluralizes to 'youths'. Iainsona 16:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I read through the thread; surreal. I don't know if the term is "disputed" in the way used here: I believe that this article has to do more with disputes between published sources, such as style guides and dictionaries. The "opposing view" is only held (as far as we know) by those editors in that thread; they are therefore unciteable, and their opinions are original research.
You may, however, wish to include "people" as that does appear to be in dispute according to American Heritage Dictionary[1], and since you did touch upon that in your thread.
And you made me go through this edit to make sure it was all standard English (which it probably is not). You linguist, you! Go home, yer mudder got buns. :) --SigPig 19:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry ... I guess that I was also feeling a little, well, for lack of a better word: persecuted. I just needed to hear someone else here say that I wasn't crazy so thanks. :) I can leave it be now for a while unless and until someone else brings it up whereupon I can support them ... or maybe they'll change their minds themselves; stranger things have happened. Iainsona 20:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

None

Should "none" be added? Seems like people use it in the singular quite often when it should be plural. "Of the five dogs, none was/were barking."--207.230.48.9 05:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an English major, but I think that usage sounds correct. "Of the five dogs, none (not one) was barking" I believe the pronoun "none" is singular. See Wiktionary's entry on none. Jecowa 22:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Contemporary as Modern

Contemporary is most definitely defined as modern. In addition to its common usage just about everywhere, the Oxford English Dictionary entry for contemporary lists this definition in fourth place as "a. Modern; of or characteristic of the present period; esp. up-to-date, ultra-modern; spec. designating art of a markedly avant-garde quality, or furniture, building, decoration, etc., having modern characteristics (opp. PERIOD n. 15)."

I think its inclusion in a British dictionary means that it is an accepted definition in British English as well as the other dialects (I'm Australian and hear/see it used in this sense all the time), it even quotes Aldous Huxley using the term in 1925. I think contemporary should be removed from the list, unless anyone can come up with a substantial dispute? Dotto 12:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Here is the full definition from my Concise OED 1991:
contemporary adj. & n. -adj. 1 living or occuring at the same time. 2 approximately equal in age. 3 following modern ideas or fashion in style or design. -n (pl -ies) 1 a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another. 2 a person of roughly the same age as another.
Sense 3 is closest to 'modern' but still not synonymous with it. Eg a building which was new could be described as 'modern', but only 'contemporary' if it was built in the latest architectural style.
Which OED are you using? Rentwa 14:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
If you describe a new building as "modern," you will certainly get many more complaints than you would for "contemporary." Not all (not even most) buildings today are built in the Modernist style. You could, of course, simply call it "new." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.208.134 (talk) 19:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Diagnose

According to American-Heritage[2] and Merriam-Webster[3] you can both "diagnose a disease" and "diagnose a patient". I'd like to see a cite that says that the second usage is disputed, since neither AHD nor M-W offer any usage notes. --SigPig 21:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see a cite that second usage is standard British English. Rentwa 14:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
But while I'm waiting, how about this?[http://www.amazon.com/Between-You-Little-Book-English/dp/1402203314]
'Is it possible to "diagnose with a disease" (as in "She was diagnosed with cancer") or, for that matter, to receive a "free gift"? No on both counts, says Cochrane, another Brit with a sincere regard for the English language and a strong desire to correct those who mangle it..' Rentwa 15:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
WRT Mr Cochrane, if he's a language or grammar expert, by all means reinstate the entry and add him in as a cite to the contrary position. --SigPig 19:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it would be good to see some entries from respected usage guides (Fowler et al); the dispute seems to arise between the prescriptive (dictionaries) and the descriptive (usage guides/grammaries). Whether or not the word "foo", say, can be used in a particular context ("Foo all the elephants!") may be seen by some to be undisputed if there is consensus in the dictionaries; on the other hand, if Fowler states that "'Foo' is an intransitive verb and never takes a direct object", well, we have our dispute then, don't we? It was your mention of Cochrane that twigged me to that; I did a little checking on him Googlewise (the be-all-and-end-all of computer-based research), and it mentioned he was an editor with some 30-odd years experience (although he is not without his detractors, even in the linguistics community).
And as for selection of dictionaries, I apologize if you thought I had a hidden agenda to propagate American English usage (as a Canuck, heaven forfend!): M-W, AHD, and RH are available online and more readily accessible when I'm typing away; so please do not attribute to disingenuousness that which could more be accurately described as a slight (and somewhat embarrassing) lack of diligence. Cheers. --SigPig 19:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
And please check out this edit...perhaps this is a consensus? --SigPig 19:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough :) . And please forgive my combative manner. OED as I understand it is descriptive - a few instances of usage are enough to justify inclusion (there was a documentary about the OED inclusion process on British TV recently).
I don't want to bang on about the Atlantic divide, but what you obviously can't appreciate is how bad some usages sound to British ears. My other disputed (or should I say meta-disputed) entries both sound terrible to me, but 'seek' for 'try' is in my 1991 OED and 'contemporary' has become standard since 1991. But I only hear 'seek' for 'try' coming from politicians and the political media, and 'contemporary' from obviously uneducated style pundits on TV. The fact that they're used by these groups or in the OED doesn't alter the fact that they grate with thousands of reactionary bigots like me :) . Rentwa 22:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Concerted; contemporary

I removed theses entries:

  • Concerted: Not in dispute, but misused. Its use in "I made a concerted effort..." is not even alluded to in the dictionaries. Should be moved to List of frequently misused English words
  • Contemporary: Despite what this entry originally stated, contemporary does indeed mean "modern", as is attested by Random House[4], American Heritage[5], and Merriam-Webster[6].

It's amazing what you find out when you start citing your work. :) --SigPig 22:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

And amazing what you can prove by selecting your evidence! Rentwa 14:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by that, unless you are suggesting that I am selecting only a source or two, and ignoring others. If you have a counter-argument, or have other evidence, I suggest you add the relevant citation, rather than resorting to innuendo. --SigPig 13:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Seek

I removed this entry:

  • Seek - means 'look for', but is used to mean 'try' or 'want'. Highfalutin.
    • Disputed usage: '...we did seek to resolve the Iraq crisis by peaceful means....those who seek to emulate his legacy of murder....the Conservatives seek to undermine that future...'
    • Undisputed usage: 'Seek and ye shall find.'

All major English dictionaries I checked give a definition supporting this usage without comment:

  • M-W says "5 : to make an attempt : TRY -- used with to and an infinitive <governments...seek to keep the bulk of their people contented -- D. M. Potter>". [7]
  • RH says "4. to try or attempt (usually fol. by an infinitive): to seek to convince a person." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/seek
  • AHD4 says "5. To try; endeavor: seek to do good." [8]
  • OED says "7. a. To try to obtain (something advantageous); to try to bring about or effect (an action, condition, opportunity, or the like)."

Nohat 01:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

'Seek' is criticised by Fowler under the heading 'formal words'.

Only

Have we discussed the word "only" here?

I'm unsure whether it is to be placed before or after the word it is qualifying. DavidMcKenzie 15:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Only, like all modifiers, should be placed in a position that leaves no ambiguity about which word it is modifying.
  • Good: When lit, use exact change only.
  • Not what was meant: Use exact change when lit only. (if not lit, don't use exact change)
  • Ambiguous: Use exact change only when lit.
I'm not sure there is much dispute though
--Selket 22:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


They

The OED records the use of "they" as a singular neuter pronoun from the 16th century. I would _guess_ that the modern use is continuous with this long-standing usage but has become more prevalent because of contemporary concerns about gender neutrality.130.225.26.145 13:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

And

What's wrong with using a conjunction to start a sentence? After all, William Parry started Jerusalem that way. And if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. :-)

One thing which should perhaps be mentioned on the main page (though perhaps under "or" rather than "and") is that the expression "and/or" is a tautology; its meaning is covered by "or". "A and B" means "both of them"; "A or B" means "one (or both) of them"; "either A or B" means "one (not both) of them".—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])


Starting a sentence with "and" is not automatically an error; however, almost all instances that occur in real life are grammatically incorrect or, at least, of very poor style. Consider "John went home. And watched TV." for an extreme example. (The underlying problem is often a misunderstanding not of conjunctions, but of what makes a sentence/clause.)

Considering that the current abuse of "and" (and other conjunctions) is a massive problem today, the article (2009-06-18) is dangerously misleading (while correct in principle), because it can be (ab-)used as an excuse by those who lack the proper understanding.

I have added the misleading-tag to both the "and" and "but" entries.

I vote that the entries are amended to clearly differ between use of "and"/"but" _per se_ and the common abuse.

(As an aside, poetry underlies much laxer rules than prose in a variety of ways.) 88.77.177.181 (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

  • The second sentence in "John went home. And watched TV." breaks the usual rules of English grammar not because it begins with "and", but because it lacks a subject. My opinion is that, given that this is not a problem specific to the use of "and", it makes the section ungainly to describe in detail the difference between a sentence and a fragment. It seems somewhat like saying that an article that mentions that the Moon revolves around the Earth is misleading if it doesn't explicitly clarify that the Sun does not. Willhsmit (talk) 01:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Lay and lie

I'm noticing that lay and lie aren't on this list, but probably should be. —  MusicMaker5376 18:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

They are included in List of commonly misused English language phrases. Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 07:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Overly

I removed this entry:

  • Overly as an adverb is not listed by OED as current English, and is deprecated by other sources. Fowler notes that some editors object to it. The prefix over- is safer, and accepted by all: "He seemed over-anxious."

It had no explicit citations. The implicit OED citation is incorrect: OED says "After the Old English period, rare (outside Scotland and North America) until the 20th cent." I can't verify the Fowler citation, but if anyone can, they can put it back, with a proper citation. For what it's worth, all of RH, M-W, and AHD4 list the word without comment. Nohat 20:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Nohat. I hadn't realised that you had discussed this here, when I reverted your deletion of overly. Please include in edit summaries a reference to the talk page, when there is discussion here.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 22:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, now I have had a chance to look things up. Once again, I have been caught out by OED's recent revisions. My citation was out of date, coming from my CD-ROM version. Quite right: OED now says something different. Nevertheless, Fowler (3rd edition, 1996) says this:

Until about the 1970s, and in some quarters still, regarded as an Americanism, but the evidence shows that it is now widely used in BrE.

Well, in some quarters that still makes it disputed, yes? I turn now to an American source, M-W's Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, 1989 (WDEU):

Bache 1869 and Ayres 1881 succinctly insulted contemporaries who used this word, calling them vulgar and unschooled. Times have changed: modern critics merely insult the word itself. Follett 1966, for example, claims that overly is useless, superfluous, and unharmonious, and should be replaced by the prefix over-. Bryson 1984 adds that "when this becomes overinelegant ... the alternative is to find another adverb [...] ".

As usual, WDEU goes on to give examples of its use, and to allow that in some cases it is preferable to any alternative. But the evidence of its entry for overly as a whole (almost half a dense page of text) is that it is at least disputed. Compare thusly, I say.
On the strength of that, I am reinstating and revising our treatment of overly. I hope this will be seen as warranted, now.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 22:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Noetica, thank you for finding the Fowler source. I agree that with the quotation the entry is justified. Also, you can assume for future reference that I always put discussion here when removing items from this page. If you consult the history of this page, you will find that to be the case. I will endeavor to reference the talk page in future edit comments. Nohat 00:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Nohat. Well resolved.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 00:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Meet

M-W gives "come face to face" and AHD gives "come together" as intransitive senses for meet, which seem to me to be the sense used in sentences like "I will meet with you tonight" ("I will [come face to face] with you tonight"/"I will [come together] with you tonight"). Therefore I am not comfortable with the statement "On the other hand, none of M-W, AHD4, or COD11 entertains this usage." I think that the assumption behind the analysis, that the word with is being "inserted" into the sentences, is wrong. The two usages have completely different syntactic structures: the cases lacking with are cases of transitive meet, and the cases having with are cases of intransitive meet. While I am sure that this usage has been disputed—it's the same complaint that people have with "off of"—I don't think the current commentary is well-informed. Nohat 02:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

"In ... We met with the entry requirements ... the verb phrase meet with is not in dispute." That seems strange. I would have thought it was even less British than Alice met with Bob.--Rumping (talk) 00:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Grammatical use of "whether"

In the entry for Hoi Polloi "whether or not" is used. Doesn't whether imply "or not"? Should the sentence not read "The question surrounding hoi polloi is whether it is appropriate..." I thought I had better ask before making the edit since these would appear to be dangerous waters for grammar edits.--Jeff Johnston (talk) 04:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Being strictly redundant, is not, in my opinion, sufficient justification for removal. Whether or not is perfectly idiomatic English. Nohat (talk) 05:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

nauseous

I remove this addendum:

    • There are two domains where knowing the distinction in terms leads to better usage: in medicine as opposed to the derogatory informal usage. For example, when a patient feels nausea, the doctor considers this person nauseated. When someone feels repulsed by someone, they are apt to characterize the offensive person as nauseous or nauseating. Said in another way, when someone has the pain of migraine, they frequently admit to nausea and are considered nauseated. When someone makes an unwonted overture of affection, that person is described as a nauseous person or a nauseating person.

It doesn't seem to add anything to what is already said in much more neutral and better-referenced terms in the main part of the entry, and in fact seem to be little more than an apologia for the traditionalist view. Nohat (talk) 22:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Confusion with usage/history

Some entries make the claim that the word is old fashioned whilst others overly claim the word started usage in only the 20th century. Language is forever changing. Old words are still good words. New words are good words when their use is widely known. Those that attempt to place a certain time table on the English language miss the point of how languages evolve. Shakespeare is credited with coining several words we take for granted today. Would the editors of Wiki bar the Bard writings here? As long as the entries communicates in a direct manner, I do not think we need to say certain words are to be avoided. Wiki editors should concern themselves with style, not usage. --70.230.169.145 (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Undisputed *misuse* of whomever, not "disputed usage"

The article includes these two examples:

  • Disputed usage: Give it to whomever wants it.
  • Disputed usage: Give it to whomever you think should have it.

These are common grammatical errors, since the "to" in each case suggests that "whomever" is the object of the preposition "to". There is no basis whatsoever for terming them "disputed usage". This would be like calling the spelling it's of the possessive neuter pronoun a "disputed usage".

But as all experts will agree, the correct word's role as the subject of a verb ("wants" in the first example, "should have" in the second) requires using the subjective case. (The proper object of "to" is the clause "whoever wants it" in the first example, and the clause "whoever you think should have it" in the second.)

I strongly doubt that any respected expert on English usage would term either of these a "disputed usage"; they are universally considered just plain wrong.

It's true that "who" is often used in the objective case orally (with very few experts accepting this as standard written English), and "whoever" is universally accepted as usable for either case, subjective or objective.

But "whom" and "whomever" are always used objectively and never subjectively, outside of what is universally accepted by experts as error.67.102.230.202 (talk) 21:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Pled/Pleaded

Although "pled" is commonly used, many style guides prefer "pleaded" as the past tense of "to plead" (as in "Doe pleaded guilty.") Some discussion is found here. --Dystopos (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have very rarely heard "pled": I think it's American. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 11:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for new article

Do we need an article on words that have definitely changed their meaning in whole or part? Examples I can think of are:

  • obnoxious: originally meant "liable (to)" or "exposed (to)"; the current meaning arose by confusion with noxious
  • candid: originally meant "open and innocent, thinking the best of people"; then because of its association with honesty, came to have its current meaning
  • specious: originally meant "good in appearance" (whether misleadingly or not), then via utterances of the form "this argument is specious, but in fact it is misconceived", and a possible confusion with "spurious", came to have its current meaning. (The word "plausible" is on the cusp of a similar change.)

and everyone's favourite: "nice", which has gone through about five meanings. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 11:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Color Coded For Your Convenience

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage

It's a really good source to use in this article. Pcap ping 10:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Less (2)

There seems to be incorrect information in the middle of the first paragraph of the entry on less, but it's not clear whether it is perhaps sourced:

"Less has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing."

This looks as if it might be implicitly in the scope of "Merriam-Webster notes", or of the link to an OED article (behind a pay wall) at the end of the paragraph. But it also looks suspiciously like an instance of recency illusion. The wording was introduced in 2004(!) by User:Nohat. [9] I looked it up in WDEU, and there is no indication there that this might be becoming more frequent.

BTW, they date the prescriptive rule back to a 1770 recommendation ("appears to me not only more elegant [...] but also more strictly proper").

Moreover, it seems prescriptivist POV to me to say "[...] argue that less should not be substituted for fewer". This doesn't make it clear that "substitute for" is not neutral. As WDEU explains (and my sense of language agrees), less is the natural choice in constructions such as "less than thousand miles". WDEU speculates that constructions such as "fewer than 600 miles" are the result of copy-editors (incorrectly, IMHO) substituting fewer for less. Hans Adler 18:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

... the quote goes on to say "Less is more likely than fewer to modify plural nouns when distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved <less than 100 miles> <an investment of less than $2000> <in 25 words or less> and as likely as fewer to modify periods of time <in less (or fewer) than four hours>", which seems to concur with what you and WDEU are saying. what is it that you feel needs changing, and how do you want to phrase it? Sssoul (talk) 18:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Current first sentence: "Some prescriptivists argue that less should not be substituted for fewer."
  • Proposed first sentence: "Some prescriptivists argue that less should not be used where fewer can be used, i.e. when comparing numbers of countable things."
The other point was to make sure that we are not spreading a recency illusion as fact. The article claims less is getting more common. My personal impression is that fewer is getting more common due to people following the prescriptivists. I consider "12 items or fewer" pedantic but acceptable, and "fewer than 600 miles" absolutely revolting since distances are not actually countable. Therefore the claim that less is spreading is contradicting my recency illusion that fewer is spreading where it sounds wrong. If nobody can trace the claim that less is spreading to one of the two sources where it might be from, then I am going to remove it.
My proposed first sentence doesn't cover the problem of some prescriptivists assessing (un)countability, but at least it doesn't suggest that stupid people are substituting less for fewer. Hans Adler 19:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
thanks for clarifying. maybe something like this?
  • less – Some prescriptivists argue that less should not be used where fewer can be used, i.e. when comparing numbers of countable things. Merriam-Webster notes: "The traditional view is that less applies to matters of degree, value, or amount and modifies collective nouns, mass nouns, or nouns denoting an abstract whole while fewer applies to matters of number and modifies plural nouns. … Less is more likely than fewer to modify plural nouns when distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved: <less than 100 miles> <an investment of less than $2000> <in 25 words or less> and as likely as fewer to modify periods of time <in less (or fewer) than four hours>"[ref]
    • Undisputed usage: We had fewer players on the team this season.
    • Undisputed usage: There is less water in the tank now.
would something like that be an improvement? Sssoul (talk) 19:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
That seems to be what I proposed, except that you have removed the example of disputed usage. I think that's quite important. For my ears "12 items or less" is the natural formulation and "12 items or fewer" is pedantic and almost wrong. Many prescriptivists argue that only "12 items or fewer" is correct. That seems to be the main point that this entry is about, so I wouldn't drop the example.
But of course if a highly respectable source says that less is actually spreading, then there is no reason not to say it. It only needs a clear inline citation so everybody can check it's not a case of recency illusion. Hans Adler 19:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
oops - that was an inadvertent omission. the examples should be:
    • Disputed usage: This lane 12 items or less.
    • Undisputed usage: We had fewer players on the team this season.
    • Undisputed usage: There is less water in the tank now.
i agree about a clear ref being needed for the assertion that the use of less is increasing. Sssoul (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Try...

Mention should be made of the disputed usage "try and" vs. the accepted usage "try to". Ninjatacoshell (talk) 21:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Deprecate

The computer jargon use of "deprecate" means "to declare obsolescent", not obsolete. Deprecated terms are ones that are still valid, but may be removed in future software version releases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.171.88.10 (talk) 20:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

ensure/insure

In recent years, particularly in the USA I have heard the word 'Insure' (to make a compensatory bet or arrangement with a financial organisation) used where I would expect 'Ensure' (to make certain of, to take care to bring to be). Casual dictionary checks suggest the distinction may be already lost. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.137.63.170 (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

due to the fact that

Is there a place for the frightful 'Due to the fact that'? Which can, and should, always become 'because'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.137.63.170 (talk) 08:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

whoever

This could usefully point out that while there is no 'whomever' there is a useful 'whomsoever'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.137.63.170 (talk) 08:50, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

influence/inform

I removed this entry:

  • influence and inform. To influence is to persuade or sway someone on a particular matter, while to inform is to communicate or impart knowledge or information about some topic. Some dictionaries accept an "influence"-like meaning as a secondary definition of "inform", but not all. The use of "inform" in this manner seems to be growing in recent years.
    • Standard: My website will inform the public about the dangers of bad grammar.
    • Standard: The opinion poll could influence the actions in Congress.
    • Non-standard: This document should inform all short-term decisions.
    • Non-standard: This study will inform the debate on health care reform.

It had many flaws in increasing order of significance:

  1. It uses "standard" and "non-standard", unlike the rest of the page
  2. It makes a claim about increase in usage, likely an example of the recency illusion
  3. It has no citations
  4. It seems wrong to me. In "This study will inform the debate on health care reform" the word inform is not being used to mean "influence", it is being used to mean something like "give life or substance to". This is as in sense 2b of "inform" from Merriam-Webster: "to be the characteristic quality of : animate <the compassion that informs her work>" or as in sense 3 of "inform" from Random-House Dictionary: "to give evident substance, character, or distinction to; pervade or permeate with manifest effect: A love of nature informed his writing."

If someone can give a reliable source of this sense being criticized, I'd entertain putting it back. Nohat (talk) 05:14, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

humanitarian

I removed this entry:

  • humanitarian – News reports often use the adjective humanitarian when referring to a disaster which affects a large number of people, whereas humanitarian as an adjective actually means 'of, relating to, or holding the views of humanitarians', or 'of or relating to human welfare'.(OED) −a humanitarian being 'a person who seeks to promote human welfare' or 'a philanthropist'. The OED comments that expressions such as "This is the worst humanitarian disaster within living memory" use the word humanitarian "as if humanitarian meant 'of or relating to humanity' ", which it doesn't.

Because it doesn't have any citations. It has an implied citation of the OED, but it is paraphrased, and it's not clear if the OED actually condemns the usage. I don't currently have access to the OED, so I can't see the actual quotation. It's not clear to me how the use of the word "humanitarian" in "humanitarian disaster" doesn't mean "of or relating to human welfare". Indeed some dictionaries, such as Random House explicitly give this sense of the word: "pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering: a humanitarian crisis." If someone wants to make a proper citation with a quote of what the OED actually says, I'd entertain putting it back. Nohat (talk) 05:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

  • The Oxford Compact Dictionary, OUP 1996, on page 484, as a note under the entry humanitarian says: "♦Usage The adjective humanitarian is often used inaccurately by reporters, e.g This is the worst humanitarian disaster within living memory, as if humanitarian meant 'of or relating to humanity'. Such use can be avoided by using the adjective human instead." End of quote. Italics and punctuation are as shown.--Lepton6 (talk) 21:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the citation. I have restored the entry but tempered the commentary to not take a side on the issue. Nohat (talk) 01:46, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Your consideration of the issue and subsequent substantiated and neutral re-presentation of the matter is noted and appreciated. With regard to the actual definition/meaning of humanitarian, the OUP (1996) says "humanitarian •n. 1 a person who seeks to promote human welfare. 2 a philanthropist. •adj. 1 of, relating to, or holding the views of humanitarians. 2 of or relating to human welfare (on humanitarian grounds.)" End of quote.
Thereafter the OUP have inserted their 'Usage' note, quoted above. The preface to the dictionary says "More than four hundred authoritative Usage Notes are provided with the text, explaining difficult and controversial points of grammar and usage." End of quote.
So it would seem that the matter is indeed somewhat controversial and hence 'disputed', (although not all would agree!) thus warranting inclusion of the adjective humanitarian in the Wikipedia list of English words with disputed usage. Your co-operation and research into this matter is much appreciated. Regards. --Lepton6 (talk) 12:00, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The May 12 wording of the article is very good (and significantly better than I could have achieved!), and the addition of clear references to Longmans, Random House and Macmillan are very helpful. However, Longmans (as cited) does not give any senses for the use of adj. humanitarian as in human disaster, it only gives examples of use as in the senses of 'humanitarian aid/assistance/relief' (i.e. Humanitarian aid is being sent to the refugees.) and 'humanitarian grounds/reasons/purposes' (He was released from prison on humanitarian grounds.) This being so, I suggest that the entry be re-worded slightly to make it harmonise more closely with the references cited. --Lepton6 (talk) 22:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Refute/Deny

There is 'disputed' usage and there is incorrect usage. To say that X refuted Y's argument means that X destroyed Y's argument. If the speaker meant that X really just denied Y's argument means something very different.

You can 'deny' an assertion; you can't 'deny' an argument. You can deny the assertion that is being argued for; or you can refute (or rebut?) the argument itself.

I don't mind encountering this misuse in spoken discourse; but I find it particularly irritating when it is done by professional writers, such as journalists. MrDemeanour (talk) 11:58, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Hoi polloi

I think actually the more common dispute about hoi polloi is whether or not it should be preceded by the word the, as hoi is Greek for the. Nohat 03:44, 2003 Sep 11 (UTC)

Pronunciation: In English 'hoi polloi' rhymes with 'boy' not 'bee'. DJ Clayworth 14:29, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

needs review

I'm not active in the article; the recent edits by User:80.255 don't look wrong enough for me to just roll them back, but there are misspellings, grammatical errors and mayb even some dubious claims. Someone active in this article should review. -- Jmabel|Talk 19:30, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Owing to / due to

Some people accept "due to" as a preposition, but others only accept "due to" as an adjective and require "owing to" as a preposition. Worth a mention in this article? -- Beland (talk) 15:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Comprise

I thought the primary dispute was regarding whether it is valid to use the word "of" following any form of "comprise", as it would then mean "consist of of" - yet there is no mention of this in the covering text. Halsteadk (talk) 16:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Another discussion could be whether its use is closed according to Fowler or open according to US patent language. Rob G Weemhoff 08:06, 12 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rob G Weemhoff (talk • contribs)

Because

I was always told you shouldn't begin a sentence with 'because'. Dunno why - just because. Because now whether its right or wrong, someone should look into it :) The Yeti (talk) 19:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There's a difference. A sentence reading "Because I say so", without more, is regarded as wrong because it is not a complete statement: it's a subordinate clause masquerading as a sentence. "Because I say so, you shouldn't do it" is ugly and awkward, but it is a complete sentence, because it explains the fact as well as the reason for it. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Prescriptivism

Now that someone has gone to the trouble of adding "prescriptivist" to every entry I'd hate to revert all that work, but it seems to me it's a pretty uninformative change. If you want to make a point about the relative merits or demerits of prescriptive rules, it belongs in a note at the head of the article, or even better as a link to this dispute in some other relevant article. Adding "prescriptivist" into every entry looks more like psychological warfare than helpful information, plus it's ugly. I wonder if the perpetrator or some other helpful soul could be convinced to make these changes. --Chinasaur 19:58, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

That was me. I noticed that many of the entries seemed to be asserting that various points of view about usages were facts. If you look at the changes I made, I didn't just add the word "prescriptivist" to each entry—I revised many of the entries so as to clarify who is making claims about correctness, which is invariably prescriptivists, and so the phrase "some prescripitivists claim" was a frequent addition. If you have a better suggestion for how to contextualize the claims without using the word "prescriptivist" or equivalent ("language purist", "usage writer", etc.), please go ahead and revise. But simply taking out the word "prescriptivist" will remove information. One of the crucial questions that has to be answered for each disputed usage is "who is doing the disputing", and the answer is "prescriptivists". If you simply assert the prescripivist position without contextualizing who makes the assertion, it's a violation of NPOV policy. Do you really suggest it is possible to neutrally describe a dispute without identifying the disputants? Nohat 21:03, 2004 May 20 (UTC)
I think I understand the POV problem you're talking about, but to me it seems like adding "prescriptivist" to every article is not really addressing that problem directly. The article wasn't "asserting" any position before; it identified some usages as "disputed" and identified the disputants as "some" or "some critics"; that seems acceptably NPOV to me (okay, looking back at the history there were some entries where the original wording was too one-sided, but you modified a lot of other entries where it was fine to begin with).
What you did for the most part was just identify the "some" or "some critics" as "some prescriptivists", which is accurate enough but doesn't add any information unless we actually explain what a prescriptivist is, what the internal logic of the position is, etc.. So I was just hoping that someone would do that, or add a link to another article providing that information. Looks like someone has indeed linked to a prescription article, so that's good.
Three things were distasteful to me about about adding "prescriptivist" everywhere. First, it's ugly. I'm not advocating "elegant variation", but repeating one phrase over and over again unnecessarily is just not easy or enjoyable to read. Second, making the vocabulary this unilateral seems manipulative to me. This is a tricky issue, because in fact it's true that you can dismiss everything in this article with a single argument against prescriptive linguistics. Still, the monopolization of the vocabulary seems to encourage this kind of dismissal, and that doesn't seem NPOV to me (sorry if I'm getting a little too feminist PoMo here). Finally (and related to last point), we actually lose information by saying that every dispute can be attributed to "prescriptivists". Better to point out that in one case the motivation for prescription is etymological, in another purely historical, in another based on cognitive linguistics, etc..
I guess to me saying every usage dispute is due to "prescriptivists" is like saying everyone pro-life is Republican. It might be (as least mostly) accurate, but it isn't very informative; instead it glosses over important differences in ideology, and in doing so makes it too easy to simplify by grouping everyone of a differing opinion into one camp... --Chinasaur 01:21, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
"Anti-prescriptionism" is just as much a POV as "prescriptionism" itself. That there are rules of grammar is a fact; they are not inventions of "prescriptionists" - they are real patterns that can be seen to be present in the language. Now, I could writes ignornizing every ones of they and you're coulds still understanded basically it who me says! Even the most fanatical "anti-prescriptionist" would be forced to admit, that, whilst he could understand that sentence, the grammar was none the less wrong. 80.255 16:22, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. The so-called "rules" of prescriptive grammarians are an invention of those wanting to control and regulate the language. There are descriptive rules, which attempt to create a model for how language works -- but these are "descriptions" of the language as it is used and not prescriptions as to how it should be used. Your ungrammatical construction, while understandable, is ungrammatical because it has no currency--it is an idiosyncratic construction. There are communities in which grammars have evolved that are "ungrammatical" by prescriptivist standards, but which nonetheless have their own internally consistent rules of grammar which can be described and which are undertood by speakers in such communities. Happily, the English language has proven remarkably resilent to attempts by prescriptivists to stifle change and innovation. older≠wiser 16:43, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
I second. While perhaps "anti-prescriptivism" is POV, certainly "descriptivism" is inherently NPOV. Descriptivism describes how language is actually used without making claims about "correctness". Instead descriptivist claims are about grammaticality. The "without rules we have chaos" argument is a tired cliche that doesn't obtain. The use of language is indeed governed by rules; however, what those rules are is decided not by self-appointed arbiters of correctness, but by the mass of usage as a whole. Descriptivists would be fine to state a rule that states "bit man dog" is not a grammatical English sentence because it is in fact a "rule" of English that no native speaker of English would say that. On the other hand, a rule that states "that ain't true" is not a grammatical English sentence is descriptively invalid because lots of native English speakers would say that. All of the examples on this page are words that native speakers certainly do use in a particular way (and are thus valid from a descriptivist viewpoint) but are rejected as "incorrect" by at least some prescriptivists. While some prescriptivists would argue that "This lane 12 items or less" is incorrect, to the descriptivist, it is perfectly grammatical because it enjoys such a great volume of usage. Nohat 00:38, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mayhap what it needs is a longer intro that raises the issue of usage prescription and commentary at the outset, so that it's on the table for what follows, whatever follows. Smerdis of Tlön 01:36, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

The fact is that there are two separate issues here. It is one thing to say "the function of a student of language is to describe usage, not to influence it". It is quite another to say "no one should try to influence usage". It is simply a fact about any language that there are people waging various campaigns for some usages and against others, that a lot of these are based on arguments about historical or logical correctness and that some of these campaigns are more successful than others. Like it or not, this is one of the factors explaining how the language comes to be as it is. To say that all these campaigns should stop, right now, is to say that the language should be other than it is. In other words "anti-prescriptivism" is itself a form of prescriptivism. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It seems you're about nine years late to this discussion. I think it need not be said that it is certainly not Wikipedia's place to take a side in any of these battles, but only to describe that they are occurring, which is exactly the point of this page.Nohat (talk) 18:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

new items that need to be explained better

I removed these newly added items:

  • Momentarily - does this mean after a moment has passed, or after a little amount of time has passed?
Well, my dictionary says both. What exactly is the dispute about?
It looks like here a definition of a moment is given: a little amount of time. The dispute is if it means a moment (very soon) or a duration (short). Rob G Weemhoff 07:31, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Mutual means only reciprocated between two people, not any more.
According to who? M-W say:

Main Entry: mu·tu·al Pronunciation: 'myü-ch&-w&l, -ch&l; 'myüch-w&l Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French mutuel,from Latin mutuus lent, borrowed, mutual, from mutare to change -- more at MUTABLE 1 a : directed by each toward the other or the others <mutual affection> b : having the same feelings one for the other <they had long been mutual enemies> c : shared in common <enjoying their mutual hobby> d : JOINT 2 : characterized by intimacy 3 : of or relating to a plan whereby the members of an organization share in the profits and expenses; specifically :of, relating to, or taking the form of an insurance method in which the policyholders constitute the members of the insuring company

I'd say that only meaning 1a and 1b even imply that only two people can be involved. The rest don't seem to have any such restriction. Are you saying that for example "Mutual insurance" is incorrectly labeled?

--Nohat 17:34, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC)

The British argument (which I've only seen in a preface to Our Mutual Friend besides OED) is that mutual describes relationships, and if you only mean 'common' then 'mutual' is wrong. OED gives this usage as 'disputed'.
According to this interpretation, "Mutual Insurance" would only be right if as well as the company insuraning my house, I also insured their offices :) . Rentwa 23:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage cites examples of "who" directly after a preposition, from Shakespeare ("To who, my lord?") to Faulkner ("About who?"). It's still very rare in print, but not so beyond the pale as to merit being marked as "incorrect" when it could simply be "disputed". Tablesaw 07:50, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)

I thought about adding "Alright", but then I realised that's not an incorrect usage but an incorrect word altogether. Is there an article dealing with that sort of thing? Lee M 03:10, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't go on this page, but I wouldn't call it an "incorrect word altogether", as it seems to be in at least one of the dictionaries I use: [10] Nohat 03:16, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)
Well, my Eng Lang teacher in high school (all of 30 years ago, when schools actually taught good English usage, he sneered) was always drumming it into our heads that "there's no such word as alright", so as far as I'm concerned it'll never be a real word.... Lee M 01:24, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Merriam-Webster says under usage:"The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing <"the first two years of medical school were alright" -- Gertrude Stein>.
Some of those self-same teachers who taught "good English usage" perpetuated the myth that you cannot end sentences with prepositions, or split infinitives, etc. SigPig 21:38, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Auto archive this talk page

We recently had someone chime in on a nine year old thread. I think it's time for auto-archive. How's a six-month retention time sound? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:19, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, I'm implementing auto archive. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:03, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Miza Bot appears to have stopped auto archiving as of about a month ago, so we're going to have to wait until either it gets fixed or there's a stable replacement. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Looks like it's fixed. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Two points - archive and framing

So I see the archiving being discussed - and a note placed - but I dont actually see anything archived? So nothing has been yet, or does archiving mean "deletion of sections, the history being archive enough" :D ? In any case, (not that its important) but it seems kind of overkill for a little page like this to do archiving...

Anyway, on to point 2 - this article is framed as "disputed usage" - seems more like "List of English words some people have strong feelings on" to me :P. Ok, some of the points seem to be valid enough, but I saw at least a couple that are bull**** (pardon my language). Anyways, I've left comments on the two related pages on grammar disputes, and as I said there, I won't be doing anything quite yet - but do mean to sometime! 37.209.42.230 (talk) 14:48, 7 August 2015 (UTC) - PS - probably not that many people (will) actually stumble over (or read...) this article - so I guess investing too much is probably not worth it..

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Should "utilize" be added to the list?

Maybe with exceptions? I understand it's a bad word for use. Not sure how understandable to all it is (at least a rule for simple WP?). comp.arch (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

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