Unpopular opinions

Miura knives
Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
aporigine said:
No; it is not. There is no rigor such as displayed by those who compiled and maintain the Oxford Unabridged.

I will wait the twenty or so years between a term’s being observed and (for the extreme minority that last that long) accepted.

One cannot simply make stuff up
and pretend it has standing.
Click to expand...
Mate, people making up words is the basis of language itself. The Oxford regularly does add slang and colloquialisms that were first defined on urban dictionary after coming to life on TikTok or other social media sites. We’re not talking 20 years either, they’re adding them a year or two after they enter the youths vernacular

Case in point: oxfords word of 2023 is rizz. I didn’t start hearing that get dropped before 2022 at the earliest.
 
aporigine said:
One cannot simply make stuff up
and pretend it has standing.
Click to expand...
Hi! Hang on to your bong, because this is gonna be a real bummer.

Yes, we can in fact simply make stuff up. That is *literally how language works.* Language is a locomotive: this blazing fast, high energy, non-stop, barely on the rails train, that is *constantly* barreling into new territory, picking up all kinds of detritus along the way and just getting more and more wild as it goes.

Dictionaries are field guides. They neither prescribe nor proscribe the usage of words: they document how words are used. Take a trip into the woods and find a bird you don't recognize? Consult the bird field guide. Check out it's colors, it's plumage. Here's what that bird is. See a word you don't recognize? Check out the word field guide. It'll tell you what it thinks that word is.

But times change. We find new birds and we find new words. And eventually, most of them make it into the field guide.

Remember when we all got bummed about about "LOL" being put in the dictionary? Click me and ****ing despair.

An excerpt from that article to illustrate my point:

1712889979690.png

So yes, the institutional dictionary has yet to formally recognize it, but my dude it is *coming.*

aporigine said:
College students, for example, are correctly penalized if they submit work containing informal language, with a single exception that I can imagine:

said student is documenting research into emergent language under the aegis of cultural anthropology. That student is still required to write his/her work up using stylistically and syntactically accepted forms.
Click to expand...

Yes, said student is still required to write his/her work up using the currently acceptable mode. But that mode has changed, has always changed, and will always continue to change. And any student who feels they need to *cling* to that mode, because they otherwise would have got a bad grade in college, missed the entire point of emergent language.
 
Naftoor said:
Mate, people making up words is the basis of language itself. The Oxford regularly does add slang and colloquialisms that were first defined on urban dictionary after coming to life on TikTok or other social media sites. We’re not talking 20 years either, they’re adding them a year or two after they enter the youths vernacular

Case in point: oxfords word of 2023 is rizz. I didn’t start hearing that get dropped before 2022 at the earliest.
Click to expand...

Vertigo said:
Hi! Hang on to your bong, because this is gonna be a real bummer.

Yes, we can in fact simply make stuff up. That is *literally how language works.* Language is a locomotive: this blazing fast, high energy, non-stop, barely on the rails train, that is *constantly* barreling into new territory, picking up all kinds of detritus along the way and just getting more and more wild as it goes.

Dictionaries are field guides. They neither prescribe nor proscribe the usage of words: they document how words are used. Take a trip into the woods and find a bird you don't recognize? Consult the bird field guide. Check out it's colors, it's plumage. Here's what that bird is. See a word you don't recognize? Check out the word field guide. It'll tell you what it thinks that word is.

But times change. We find new birds and we find new words. And eventually, most of them make it into the field guide.

Remember when we all got bummed about about "LOL" being put in the dictionary? Click me and ****ing despair.

An excerpt from that article to illustrate my point:

View attachment 314753
So yes, the institutional dictionary has yet to formally recognize it, but my dude it is *coming.*



Yes, said student is still required to write his/her work up using the currently acceptable mode. But that mode has changed, has always changed, and will always continue to change. And any student who feels they need to *cling* to that mode, because they otherwise would have got a bad grade in college, missed the entire point of emergent language.
Click to expand...
Since I do not wish to become recursive, I’ll say I’ve stated my opinion.

I have a belief that language, like visual art, is at its best beautiful.

I would be similarly unhappy if the side of a graffiti-disfigured boxcar were hung in an art museum.
 
Beauty is in its own right, entirely subjective.

Unlike other art forms, language is firstly a communications method and secondly an art form, whereas pretty much every other kind of art is first and foremost meant for art. It being beautiful is secondary to it allowing effective communication between people, and with some effort it can always be pressed into whatever form of beauty suits an individual.

I mean I feel the same about music, but plenty of people tell me rap, hip hop, country and R&B are all technically music.

I feel the same about knives, but people keep making handles with tacky horn bolsters.
 
One of the things I LOVE about English (and other languages) is how elastic they are. Meanings change over time, words are created, words fall into disuse, words become other words.

Slang is just one expression of the mutability of language. And beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I find a great deal of beauty in many slang terms, terms of art, trade terms, nomenclature, colloquialisms, and vernaculars.

For example, I'm always interested in learning how different trades talk about their work amongst themselves. There's a rich language there that is deeply communicative while often being efficient, crude, funny as hell, or whatever.

Love love love it.
 
Life is messy. I think if you are going to try and wait for everything to be verified and triple verified and checked a fourth time. We will never get anywhere. I’m not saying let’s play it loose and fast with rocket science. But something as messy and rapidly evolutionary as language? We cannot be so rigid. Like almost everyone is saying 🤷‍♂.
 
HolyDiverScallop said:
One of the things I LOVE about English (and other languages) is how elastic they are. Meanings change over time, words are created, words fall into disuse, words become other words.

Slang is just one expression of the mutability of language. And beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I find a great deal of beauty in many slang terms, terms of art, trade terms, nomenclature, colloquialisms, and vernaculars.

For example, I'm always interested in learning how different trades talk about their work amongst themselves. There's a rich language there that is deeply communicative while often being efficient, crude, funny as hell, or whatever.

Love love love it.
Click to expand...
I also find trade vernacular fascinating. It serves a collateral purpose. If the new guy does not know or use terms of art easily or correctly, that is not a good leading indicator that new guy is experienced.

We had this one guy at a place I postdoc’d who would atrociously butcher terminology. Wouldn’t’cha know — he was no great shakes at the bench either.
 
fortheloveofmoar said:
Life is messy. I think if you are going to try and wait for everything to be verified and triple verified and checked a fourth time. We will never get anywhere. I’m not saying let’s play it loose and fast with rocket science. But something as messy and rapidly evolutionary as language? We cannot be so rigid. Like almost everyone is saying 🤷‍♂.
Click to expand...
I’m ok being that guy.
 
aporigine said:
I also find trade vernacular fascinating. It serves a collateral purpose. If the new guy does not know or use terms of art easily or correctly, that is not a good leading indicator that new guy is experienced.

We had this one guy at a place I postdoc’d who would atrociously butcher terminology. Wouldn’t’cha know — he was no great shakes at the bench either.
Click to expand...
You ever run into one of those guys who is so profoundly and diversely stupid that you are, for some time, genuinely uncertain whether they are a genius and you are actually a moron who simply doesn't understand things on their level, or whether they are simply a black hole for synaptic activity?

I've run into three of them in my life.

(And to be clear, this is NOT a dig on anyone here. This is real.)
 
HolyDiverScallop said:
You ever run into one of those guys who is so profoundly and diversely stupid that you are, for some time, genuinely uncertain whether they are a genius and you are actually a moron who simply doesn't understand things on their level, or whether they are simply a black hole for synaptic activity?

I've run into three of them in my life.
Click to expand...
No. I’ve been lucky; I think. I’ve only run into the sorts whose stupidity is evident in the first ten minutes. Those who made it to minute eleven proved to be solid.

N. b. this is not to say I’m extra perceptive. I’ve been lucky.
 
Naftoor said:
Unlike other art forms, language is firstly a communications method and secondly an art form, whereas pretty much every other kind of art is first and foremost meant for art. It being beautiful is secondary to it allowing effective communication between people, and with some effort it can always be pressed into whatever form of beauty suits an individual.
Click to expand...
Hmm. I mean, I agree, but I disagree. Language is a medium for expression, of which communication is one expression. Art would be another.

This may be a philosophical question.

Naftoor said:
I mean I feel the same about music, but plenty of people tell me rap, hip hop, country and R&B are all technically music.
Click to expand...
Man, don't get me started on all the petty ******** and ego around music. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's without merit.

And to cherry pick an example, when you consider that the precursors to modern R&B are folks like Otis Redding, Mavis Staples, Andre Williams and ****ing Prince, you can't legitimately argue that R&B isn't music. You may not LIKe some of it, but that's ok.
 
HolyDiverScallop said:
Hmm. I mean, I agree, but I disagree. Language is a medium for expression, of which communication is one expression. Art would be another.

This may be a philosophical question.


Man, don't get me started on all the petty ******** and ego around music. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's without merit.

And to cherry pick an example, when you consider that the precursors to modern R&B are folks like Otis Redding, Mavis Staples, Andre Williams and ****ing Prince, you can't legitimately argue that R&B isn't music. You may not LIKe some of it, but that's ok.
Click to expand...
I admit that I am listening almost exclusively to orchestral music of the last century.

Whether or not boom-car music has merit or not, I’m happier in its absence.
 
blokey said:
Sometimes I’m not sure if every jeans is becoming slim fit or I’m just fat
Click to expand...
I now check for suspender buttons. Didn’t useta.

(technically ending a sentence on a preposition. Tell me again I’m inflexible.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top