Not fade away

[nancylebov]

I'm very fond of the brontosaurus and don't think wetlands are an adequate substitute for swamps. I don't care as much about Pluto being a planet, but I realize a lot of people do. What else do you want defended from the howling winds of modernity?

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

We had a conversation about this a few years ago. Wetlands are not a substitute for swamps. Nor is it a particularly modern word. Well, I guess 1778 is modern in some senses.

Wetlands are any kind of wet land -- swamps, fens, marshes, mudflats, tidal flats, vernal pools that are dry in the summer, water meadows, sloughs, bogs,estuaries, banks, floodable plains . . .

We need language that refers to all of them because there are overlapping and common scientific, economic, ecological, and political issues that can be talked about that way. Also it's easier to distinguish the issues that need to be when we have a set for the different kinds of wetlands to be subsets of.

I'm not sure whether the thing next door to me -- which is called "Neary Lagoon" -- is a slough or a marsh or what. But it is a wetland.

[lightningb.livejournal.com]

Grammar. Spelling.

We seem to have lost even the concept of "correct English" As a result, I'm seeing more and more people who can't express themselves clearly enough to communicate even simple business/technical ideas to their peers.

I blame Microsoft. Its spellcheckers will accept just about anything with an "apostrophe-ess" tacked onto the end. "SNAFUs", the correct plural of "SNAFU", is flagged as an error while "SNAFU's" isn't. "It's" and "its" are interchangeble, as are "lose" and "loose". A decimal and a full stop are the same character to Microsoft.

Perhaps I was brought up too strictly, where each spelling or major grammatical error would knock my grade down a full letter (A becomes B, etc). But it'd be nice if everybody could read stuff written by anyboy else in their own mutual native language.

Plurals and Acronyms

[(Anonymous)]

I blame Microsoft. Its spellcheckers will accept just about anything with an "apostrophe-ess" tacked onto the end. "SNAFUs", the correct plural of "SNAFU", is flagged as an error while "SNAFU's" isn't.

While I agree with you about grammar and spelling, I'm gonna argue with you about the correct plural of SNAFU. I was taught to pluralize acronyms with "apostrophe-ess." It was never explicitly stated, but I got the impression that the apostrophe serves to signal that what follows isn't part of the acronym.

Inquisitive Raven

[zenlizard]

"_Brontosaurus_" is *NOT* and was never any sort of modernity. The fact that "_Brontosaurus_" is a junior subjective synonym of _Apatosaurus_ was known way back in the late 19th/early 20th century, before "_Brontosaurus_" was for some stupid reason, popularized by shitheads who very well indeed knew better, but didn't care. Therefore, there is no need to "defend" "_Brontosaurus_" from the "howling winds of modernity", as it has no stand-alone validity in the first place.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but regardless of public history, the brontosaurus is part of my childhood, and I want to hang on to it.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

I prefer "apatosaurus" myself, since the whole brontosaurus thing was an actual error, not a renaming of an existing creature. I also have no problem with the 'new' dinosaurs being warm-blooded, more like birds than reptiles, and other newly discovered things. I think it's all very interesting and, in a geekish sort of way, exciting. However, either word is highly preferable to the term that's most commonly used by the younger generation now, which is: "Longneck."

I mean, what the hell? Are we teaching our kids so little about dinosaurs that they think that horribly cutely cartoon shows are a good source for information?

[libertarianhawk.livejournal.com]

"Thunder lizard" is a way cooler name than "Damned-if-I-know lizard" and I'm sticking with it.

[zenlizard]

"Deceptive Lizard" is a more accurate translation.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Jungles.

("We used to call it clearing the jungle. Now they call it destroying the rainforest...")

And I like the brontosaurus too, so pah.

[libertarianhawk.livejournal.com]

I miss the days when people wouldn't wear clothes with the F-word written on them in large letters. And other things, but that seems to be a nice place to draw the line.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I use "brontosaurus" and Apatosaurus. The people who think there is any chance of Brontosaurus becoming correct taxonomic nomenclature are just ignorant. It isn't, it never was, it never will be, and besides, taxonomy is not a democracy. As for them defending the English word "brontosaurus" from the evull scientists, well, they're being equally ignorant there, in exactly the same way Bill O'Reilly's slack-jawed legions are when they defend Christmas from the evull secularists. There exists no conspiracy to eliminate the word in the first place: it's a made-up battle, all in their minds.

Dogs are members of genus Canis
Cats are members of genus Felis
People are members of genus Homo
Brontosaurs are members of genus Apatosaurus

As for modernity, this has all been true since before Einstein published the theory of Relativity. At what point do you stop calling a scientific fact new-fangled?