Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Degradation of language, part 2
- Thread starter dougjwray
- Start date
Ha ha HA omg yes, spell check is far worse for the degradation of language than vernacular becoming accepted usage
Which reminds me....Ice 9...in Kurt Vonngegut's book Cat's Cradle is based on the work that his brother did at General Electric during the Cold War. A project to try to control weather. It's been a while, but Ice 9 was the fictional variant of water that would freeze at a higher temperature.
There are in fact variants of water with different properties.
I'm just wondering if these guys can explain it in Pittsburghese.
From Sci-Fi to Real Life: Newly Discovered Substance Changes the Behavior of Water
A research team at the University of Pittsburgh has discovered a liquid polymer that raises water’s freezing point from 32 degrees Fahrenheit to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, much like the deadly ice-nine does in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic sci-fi novel “Cat’s Cradle.”
A good book:
Invalid Link Removed
Interestingly, ice cream is always in something called "continuous phase", that's why it changes over time. The ice crystals get larger as the crystals pull other water molecules near them into the crystalline structure, the texture and flavor change as the balance of ingredients slowly shift as a result of the various molecular properties. More stable at lower temperatures.
Invalid Link Removed
Last edited:
OP here.
It might be ummm... challenging to count the molecules, but what I really meant was "discrete objects" (rather than a substance). (Or maybe a quality-- I hear *less soulfulness* in Musician A's playing than in Musician B's. Musician A plays *fewer notes*.)
Last edited:
Double negatives get me. If you say under oath, "I didn't have nothin to do with it" Is that admission of guilt?
This thread reminded me of this:
Nice theory ya got there.1) "Less" applies to a substance. "Fewer" applies to things which could be counted.
"There is less water in this glass."
"There are fewer water molecules in this glass."
It drives me nuts when people say something like "There are less jazz fans in Iceland." It should be "There are FEWER jazz fans in Iceland."
2) Use "who", not "that", when you're referring to humans.
It's not "They are the people that run the country", it's "They are the people WHO run the country."
Some people get twisted when there's a 1/32" gap between the pickguard and control plate on a Jazz Bass.
I get twisted when people are tonedeaf about language.
Thank you for your time. Goodbye for now.
My #1 language pet peeve: the colloquialisation (is that a word?) of words to the point they lose meaning. And my favorite example is the word theory. A theory is NOT a guess. A theory is NOT a hypothesis. A theory is a description of reality. It can be flawed, it can even eventually be proven incorrect (such as the old geocentric theory). But it is a description of reality that withstands the test of comparison to reality, given available evidence.
My #2 language pet peeve is the word belief (and its derivatives). A question you hear frequently: “do you believe in science?” And my answer is always NO. I don’t need to believe in it. Because despite all the human foibles that can pollute it, science remains a METHOD for the discovery of reality. To “believe in” it would make it a lie. And it’s interesting that the word LIE is the core of the word belief.
Last update of the Oxford English Dictionary they put out a caveat that the language is changing way faster than that august institution can keep up. Alanis Morissette has won.
I agree 100%. The brilliant astrophysicist Lawrence Krause says that he doesn't "believe" things. He makes reasonable assumptions.
You hear "But evolution is just a theory" way, way too often.
Einstein said (I'm paraphrasing), "Science isn't perfect, but it's all we have."
Y'also get to avoid the ambiguity of whether greater jazz fans would be more numerous, more famous or more zealous
Or more corpulent.
Irregardless. Inflammable (saw this on the back of a gasoline tanker truck). Their, there, they're.
BBB
With so many languages using double negatives as correct grammar, it's hard to not think of the English demonization as a conceit. I understand that it's logical that when loading up 2 negatives, the second one might cancel the first. But it seems like human nature wants to see them both as reinforcing each other.
D
D
Like, why get like, so like, upset with like, how people, like talk.
An interesting website:
I had a calc professor who hammered correctness into me . I can't overlook it.
That’s what we call everything between Philly and Pittsburgh. Pennsyltucky.I've heard that dialect referred to as "Pennsyltuckian" (by a former resident that grew up there).
I also got to consider how important not being misunderstood is in a conversation. I've heard from several lawyers in these discussions that law graduates are taken fresh from uni and given a crash course in grammar before they are any use to anyone. Guess that's what happens when a misplaced comma can send millions of dollars to the wrong recipient. But different from Facebook.
Meanwhile, I like this content provider.
