This is interesting

[conuly]

It's a piece about how people will make up distinctions between words if there isn't one already.

Literalminded wrote something on the same subject a few years ago.

Comments

[redbird]

I can't help wondering whether part of why people were coming up with distinctions is the phrasing of the question: "what is the difference between A and B?" assumes there is one. "Is a bag the same thing as a sack?" (and then follow-up of "what's the difference?" for people who said no) might get a higher number of "there is no difference."

[conuly]

That's a good point.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Argh, so true, and it's most annoying. Bag=sack, pail=bucket, lightning bug=firefly, soda=pop, braunschweiger=liverwurst, and (dammit,) freedom=liberty. That last is one that my housemate refuses to admit; he goes off into long dissertations on the difference between Freedom and Liberty.

People make shit up all the time, and spout it as if it was Gospel Truth without attempting to check its accuracy, or even its plausibility. Then they get huffy when one points out the fact that their statements are *ahem* unsupported. It's usually easier on everyone to just accept that pointing out such facts is futile: most people would far rather go on thinking they're right than find out that they're wrong, and will not believe facts that contradict what they already think. An argument over linguistics is always a tempest in a teapot, and does not improve the tea.