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I shouldn't post much about language.
Oct. 1st, 2012 12:40 pmThe truth is that descriptivism only hides my real feelings, which is that as a New Yorker my speech is utterly perfect and everybody else's can be judged by how much it diverges from what we say in New York. I know, I know, everybody secretly (or not so secretly) thinks this about their own dialect, but it's only here that we're right when you think that. The rest of you are merely being provincial because you can't accept the utter rightness of New Yorkers in this respect.
Not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not? Neither am I!
But seriously (seriouslier), I'm now in the position of talking over in one place about whether or not it matters if we have a number marker in a word that no longer marks a specific number (well, it's either that or give up use of the word decimate entirely, don't you think?) and in the other about whether or not we can have a word without a meaning. That conversation will probably be shorter, which is why I'm posting it for general consumption: Words without any meaning attached whatsoever - are they still words? Yes, no, kflipin?
Not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not? Neither am I!
But seriously (seriouslier), I'm now in the position of talking over in one place about whether or not it matters if we have a number marker in a word that no longer marks a specific number (well, it's either that or give up use of the word decimate entirely, don't you think?) and in the other about whether or not we can have a word without a meaning. That conversation will probably be shorter, which is why I'm posting it for general consumption: Words without any meaning attached whatsoever - are they still words? Yes, no, kflipin?
