OT: -ic(al)

* T. A. McLeay said on 2007-04-30 08:48:14 +0200
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> > * T. A. McLeay said on 2007-04-30 01:42:10 +0200
> >> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> >>> * MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM said on 2007-04-29 01:07:02 +0200
> >>>> Actually the word is spelled "politically".  Your
> >>>> dictionary must be wrong.
> >>>>
> >>> Dictionaries of English can't be wrong, as it is only the
> >>> dictionaries themselves that define how English is
> >>> spelled.
> >>
> >> Actually, they can be. Dictionaries don’t define how
> >> English is spelt; usage defines English.
> >>
> >> The New International Dictionary had the non-word _dord_
> >> for a while. This didn’t make _dord_ a word.)
> >
> > Ah, but some people started using _dord_ *as if* it was a
> > word, ergo making it one :)
>
> You know, you’re only arguing *my* case now :)
My actual case passed several thousand <length-measure of your
 preference> above both your heads. My case was that it is
frequently wrong to assume that a dictionary of English is wrong
since:
1. there is more than one English
2. there is more than one way of spelling quite a few English words
3. point 1 overlaps and interacts with 2
4. there are more Englishes on the way, thanks to globalization,
   therefore soon even more ways of defining "correct" English

Should I have sent the flame I wrote first, you think? That
surely would be harder to misunderstand, even though I write
them so dripping with sarcasm that people still interpret it 180
degrees off from what I meant...

Did I ever mention how annoying it can be when you're on an
international conference, getting along just fine speaking your
L2 English with all the other "English as L2"ers, when someone
with English as L1 cuts in, ruins the conversation by speaking
faster than lightspeed, with an extreme (yet native, ergo
allowed) accent, using idioms that only that speaker and people
in the same county/small region have used for the last hundred
years or so, and then proceeds to be upset with the idjeet
bloddy furriners (while, mind, not being in a country where
English is the first language) who are too stupid to understand
him/her, therefore stomping away while making rude signs and
noises?

It's happened more than once, in more than one scientific field
even. I was equally flabbergasted each time.

It might be a pet peeve, but I consider such behaviour to be
somewhat rude.

Anyway, this thread demonstrates why YA??Ts can be dangerous.


t.

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