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Re: Neologism may get confusing sometimes...

From:Tim May <butsuri@...>
Date:Monday, March 25, 2002, 22:32
Fior Avant writes:

> So my question is: Am I wrong, unformtunate in my saying, and > stylish can possibly only mean fashionable? Or may it be used to > diminish someting involved in trend as well?
Speaking for myself, I don't see the word stylish as having any derogatory component. It certainly doesn't imply "somewhat but not totally having style" in my dialect (South coast English English?), unless you deliberately stressed the "-ish" syllable, which would be unusual but probably understood. Personally, I'd even rank "stylish" above "fashionable" - to me, a fashion implies a transitory movement, whereas a style can notionally be eternal - that is, if you say it's fashionable, you mean it's the kind of thing that's popular at present, while if you say it's stylish you mean you like it (although it probably implies that it suits some particular aesthetic style, which might well be the current fashion). I'm not sure how much this point is common to other speakers of my dialect, though - it could just be me.

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Michael Poxon <m.poxon@...>