h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, that is fun, and I really confused myself as a child repeating a word until I could no longer tell if I had it right or not, how it should be pronounced, and whether it meant anything or not. Some simple word like 'all'.

But this is a different thing. We are talking about a word with a clear definition, and it is not as you state, ~jwf~.

You say if Dave Brubeck gives his name (as he did) to a band, then it is his eponymous band. Not so; eponymous refers only to the *giver* of the name. There are no eponymous bands, only eponymous persons, according to SOED, which is the arbiter of correctness.

The commonest usage now is 'The eponymous hero of Hamlet'. Hamlet is the person whose name has been given to the play, not vice versa.

>> But this is a different thing. <<

Yes. That was the intention. I felt a need to change the subject.
Mostly because I was actually starting to be unable to distinguish
between the two uses of eponymous being promoted here. One minute
it seemed you were correct, then my version. I was vacillating at
what was approaching a critical point of sympathetic vibration.
The fabric of reality was tearing.

It is however now quite clear to me that your post above must and
will remain the definitive interpretation. I will simply avoid using
the word from now on. In much the same way I avoid effect/affect
and a couple of others that registered incorrectly in my brain at a
young age and will not stand readjustment. I have to re-check the
spelling of manoeuvre every time I use it.

I had occasion recently to listen to a speaker who used preceding
when he meant proceeding. Perhaps I shouldna laughed. We are
all guilty of similar errors, we do not get through this life without
embracing some malapropism or other.

I do hope I have used malapropism correctly in this inst.

~jwf~

>> Some simple word like 'all'. <<

Yeah it's the little ones that getcha every time.
Perhaps because we learn them young by imitation of other speakers
and have never bothered to check their etymology.

Then one day, all the sense drains out of them. Aphasia.

The conscious exercise of repeating a word over and over out loud
can trigger this phenom. I suspect it's a left brain / right brain
thingy like deja vu. One side is actively saying the word, we know
we are doing it, but the passive 'ear' (the entire auditory perception
and interpretation apparatus) just shuts down.


~jwf~

Yogi Berra: "It´s like déja vu all over again"

Here in Ireland there are quite a few people who say 'pacific' (very clearly) when they mean 'specific'. Curious.

On a recent visit home my mother greeted me* with the words "nobody can pronounce "create" any more".

You listen to a few radio programmes, or, if you live in an English-speaking country, just listen to people. She's right, you know. Even quite brainy types on Radio 4.

What happened? Five years ago - maybe even less - no one had any problems with it.

Now everyone says "crate".

* I exaggerate: She did say "hello, did you have a good flight" first.

"Flight was all right, but the plane was an old create"?

Hello everyone. I've missed you guys

In the interlude I've been trying to debate with people on Facebook, which is a non-starter as it is full of my younger cousins, who, quite rightly, see me as an irrelevant old dingbat.

So, the gratuitous and deeply maddening use of obviously, in situations when it is obvious to only one party, if that. Has it been done?

Apparently not.
At least not to your satisfaction.


I assume you find it bothersome, nay, even tedious, when someone
uses the word to preface some claim they obviously hold to be true.

It is a rhetoric device, obviously, designed to raise a certain caution
in disagreeing with the speaker. It's meant to be a sort of warning
that what is about to be claimed is not to be contested since to do
so is to admit one is incapable of seeing the obvious.

It is however, and often obviously so, a sign that it is a bluff. In light
of which I make it a point to perc up my earbones when someone says
something is obvious, because quite likely there is some obvious flaw
in their claim they don't wish to have examined too closely.


~jwf~

What's worse is "As you say . . . " followed by exactly what you don't say.

~jwf~,

I believe you have covered all the points in your ever-melodious, poetic fashion. I declare myself quite satisfied

I haven't looked at or posted to this conversation since October 2009, but I was surprised to see "16,111 new postings". Closer inspection showed that there were in fact a total of 16,111 postings rather than that number of new ones, so the system had obviously forgotten that I had already seen at least 12,000 of those.

Still, it's nice to see you're all still here proceeding as normal.

About 10 years ago, my company introduced a new standard set of colours, fonts etc for all official communications from the company. Unfortunately, they said that the new standards were "proscribed" when they meant "prescribed".

... and were you the *only* one disciplined for not changing over?

A few hours ago I had this message show up instead of h2G2:


>This service is currently unavailable while we carry out some essential site maintenance. Work is currently underway and we hope to have things up and running again as soon as possible.< [by 07:30, it said]

Two 'currently's in close proximity seems awkward, but mainly

>we hope to have...<
then
>as soon as possible<

This appears to be becoming quite common but surely it should be
'We hope to have... by 07:30'
or
'We will have ... asap'

?

They were trying to make it quite clear that you were to be in no doubt...




Obviously...


t.

PS I agree that the second 'currently' is a tad superfluous though.

'These standards are proscribed' means 'you must not apply this'. That is as bad as 'pacific' used in place of 'specific'.

One that gets my goat is 'this cannot be underestimated' to mean 'this is important'.

Should or must not be underestimated, or else cannot be overestimated.

One I have heard quite a lot lately is: "I don't want to rehearse the argument again..."

What it's got to do with rehearsal escapes me. "Re-hash", presumably.

I may have been guilty of using proscribed wrongly by mistake - it was probably an unconscious direct translation of the German "vorschreiben" - which means that you have to do it because we say so. Winter tyres, for example, are now "vorgeschrieben" (compulsory). I was surprised to learn that this was only made law a couple of weeks ago. Up until then it was recommended, but you could be warned for not having winter tyres fitted if the temperature was below 5 deg. C.

I'll watch myself in the future!

Here's an easy one: Who is Shanks? And why did he only have (or not have) a pony?

Great to see you back, Mr Naples. Was thinking about you recently.

I've always assumed that shanks were legs, as in shank of lamb.

Nothing wrong with rehearsing an argument though. 'Practise' is only meaning number 4 in SOED.

Is there any connection between "hearse" and "rehearse"?