gaffer

icicle gems

I saw his face and marked it, half with awe,                                                                             60 Half with a quick repulsion at the shape. . . .

has clocked up 32 prefixes

Then again that makes little sense when trying to account for why people use the less-standard preventative instead of preventive or irregardless instead of regardless, he notes.

Have you ever said you felt nauseous? In the traditional sense that would mean you felt like you were capable of causing others to woof cookies, not that you were feeling sick to your own stomach—much along the lines of how poisonous and poisoned work.

The word people is best not used with words of number, in place of persons. If of ‘six people’ five went away, how many ‘people’ would be left? Answer: one people.

It was enclosed in scare quotes, a sort of acknowledgment that the author knew it was non-standard, but was too apt for the purpose to resist. I remember reading it and trying to think of the “real” word that would be employed there, but could not find a satisfactory alternative. Since then, I’ve found myself unable to resist using the word when appropriate, due to its utility!

Amy: It's a real word. I use it all the time (of course, I'm a linguist, and I allow the possibility that I picked it up from my linguist chums, though it doesn't seem particularly jargony to me). For me, "disprefer X" means something like "not choose X when other options are available". This is subtly different from "prefer anything over X", quite different from "not prefer X", and totally distinct from "dislike X" or "object to X".

Perfectly useful jargon: if we say that of alternatives ABCD, we disprefer C, we mean "definitely choose something else if possible", almost as strongly as if we said C was the worst alternative.

It baffled me, because I wasn't sure whether it meant simply "don't prefer", or the stronger "dislike". Despite having read the article, the possibility that it meant that "prefer anything over" didn't occur to me until I saw blahedo's comment. "Disprefer" is the most disunconfusing word I've heard in a long time.

*Other things being equal, we should disprefer blogs to journalism. USE prefer journalism to blogs.* I can't say he's clearly wrong about this one, depending on the information structure of discourse or text. If blogs are the topic, there's a lot to be said for making it the direct object rather than an oblique, the object of a preposition.

*It's interesting as a spelling pronunciation, preferred by some speakers, dispreferred by others. USE not* Fiske fails to note that dispreferred expresses a contrary negation, not simply a contradictory one. The writer is excluding the possibility that the dispreferring speakers might be merely indifferent to the pronunciation in question, but the use of not would include that possibility.

The most important nontechnical use of 'disprefer' (for me) is to say that among a sea of choices to which I am largely indifferent, there is some choice that is particularly my least favourite—I may not have any legal, moral, or other objection to it, I just don't like it. I wouldn't say I use this all the time, but I certainly use it regularly when it's appropriate.

Not preferring is not the opposite of preferring, but rather the absence of preferring.

ameliorate

consumes more CPU and memory to simplify the logic and improve reliability.

His eyeswere tearful and such as are found in impure boys of thirteen or fourteen

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

“Broadly speaking, the shortwords are the best, and the old wordswhen short are best of all,” attestedformer British Prime Minister WinstonChurchill,

“Usethe smallest word that does the job,”advised essayist and journalist E. B.White.20

the straw man fallacy

(I know calling it "a philosophy" is confusing, I'll search a better word)

I recently stopped working on it to learn Solid

academics (and students)

the word “replace” is more suitable in this situation on account of coherence and the choice of word.

Thrice-blessèd they that master so their blood To undergo such maiden pilgrimage,

maiden pilgrimage,

Blair lceds the popular desire for rules of taste, guidelines for writing and speaking, and well-digested, if not predigested, samples of proper liter• ature.

dialogue fertilizes thought

parasitic inhabitation

wonderful, poisonous

Largely from this fact, have arisen their cultural gifts to America

to preserve

Anyex~~isanimperfectionmarkedbyurgency;itisadefect,anobstacle,something~",aitiIIgtobedone,atlringwlrichisotherthanitshouldbe

sentiments