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Fortunately, we still have one word that can be used as Adverb, Adjective, Noun, Verb, etc. I learned the proper usage in the service back in the '50's.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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Go forth and multiply?
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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Is "verbification" self-descriptive? Let me google that...
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One that grinds my gears is "Please revert" meaning please reply.
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If someone asked me to please revert I'd revert my latest code changes
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We are currently moving databases from one environment to another. We have automated the process to include moving the database back to its original location if needed. The guy who built that part even went as far as to think about "What if they decide to move it over to the new location again?" So he built into the code the logic for, and this is what he called it, "Rereverting" the database.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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When I was a lad "alternate" was pronounced "alt-er-nate" and meant 'to switch back end forth between two options'.
It seems to be used as a replacement for alternative in North America. I always find that odd.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Alternate shouldn't be used in place of alternative unless there are only two of them.
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As far as I can tell (in NA anyway) "alternate" is officially both a noun and verb.
Verb - Occurring or succeeding by turns
Noun - One that substitutes for another
Seems official rather than regional slang or misuse.
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It's also an adjective as in "alternate facts"!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Yeah, no, it depends on context. Maybe kinda time-sensitive.
There may be several alternatives until a choice is made and then you have decided on an alternate.
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I tend to pronounce the verb with a “nate” ending which rhymes with number eight and the noun with a “nit/net” ending.
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Brings back memories of a high school sports cheer:
What do we got?
We got a lot!
We got a team that's Red Hot!
(We were a very sophisticated group of students back in the early 1970's. )
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You should hear Virgin Mobile's robo-voice. It seems to target British pre-teens.
/ravi
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Be thankful that their target demographic isn't Valley girls!
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Their voicemail prompts use "hit" for "press", "scratch" for "delete" and a host of other substitutions that make no sense to me. I grew up speaking the queen's English, so I dare say I know a thing or two about the language. Also, their robovoice is a thickly accented British female. I appreciate the local slant, but for a North American market?
/ravi
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I remember my first consulting job in the states... I was given the wrong address and the lady at the reception called the other office (where I should have been) and said, "I have a consultant with a really cute British accent here looking for xxx"... I've never heard a Cumbrian accent[^] called cute before... and never again since...
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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As a lifetime resident of Georgia, USA, I "mash" buttons. So it could be worse.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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As a lifetime lover of potatoes, I do the same.
/ravi
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I've recently heard various people, all of whom should know better, pronounce epitome as epi-tohm, as opposed to epit-uh-me. I think that the lack of accents in English is partly to blame.
Keep Calm and Carry On
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In my childhood (the Norwegian variant), grammar and spelling rules were generally considered 'prescriptive': They laid down absolute, non-negotiable rules that had to be obeyed, come rain or come shine.
Every language changes, especially spoken language. So in my childhood, we more or less had two different languages: The written language, as it was written by our grandparents (we had new spelling norm in 1917), and a significantly different spoken language that we used in all everyday talking.
Since then, the official language policy of Norway has changed significantly. The standard is now far more 'descriptive', documenting how the language is, rather than how great-grandparents think that it ought to be. In a changing language, new words are adopted, and when the usage is high enough, it is accepted into the standard dictionaries. Often, in the period of adoption, there has been alternate spellings; when accepted as a 'Norwegian' word, the spelling closes to traditional Norwegian spelling rules is selected for the dictionary as the recommended spelling.
Sometimes, the spelling of well known words are 'modernized', typically with old imported words that retains their non-Norwegian spelling for a generation before a Norwegian style spelling creeps in. For a while, the dictionary will show both spelling as alternates, and a few years later, only the Norwegian style is left in.
Right now (I think today) the dictionary editorial board is voting whether the pronoun 'hen' shall be accepted as official Norwegian: When you refer to someone that may be of either sex, you may have to say 'he or she' ('han eller hun' in Norwegian). In Finish, there is no sex specific pronoun, you refer to 'hen' even if it definitely is a male, or a female. So should 'hen' be accepted in Norwegian as well? It has been used for a few years, but not found in the dictionary. Most likely it is considered proper Norwegian from now on.
All these cries about how bad it is (in English) to verb nouns, to simplify spelling, to use another word than the 'correct' one ... they set me back to my grandparents - and everyone else of that generation - complaining about how the True, Correct, Proper Norwegian is being ruined completely by the way young people speak. Another side: My grandparent generation never wanted a Norwegian like their grandparents wrote/spoke it. Everyone fighting for a 'proper' language, want to stick to the language they learned when they were school kids themselves.
English is no different. You want an English the way educated people wrote/spoke it fifty years ago - not the way they wrote/spoke it a hundred and fifty years ago.
I am happy that we in Norway/Norwegian are through that stage of every natural language evolvement being condemned as something that ruins The Pure, Proper Language. I like that the 'Språkrådet' (Norwegian Language Council) makes an effort to adapt forms that follow established Norwegian rules for reflecting pronunciation, and different word forms (e.g. using Norwegian plural suffices rather than the English '-s'); I don't want the language to be a mess with thousands of exceptions.
Trying to stop a language from evolving is futile.
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