Re: OT: Verbal Pet Peeves

G. L. Pease wrote:

...One of the modern language abuses that really twists my knickers is the
use of the word "loan" as a verb, rather than "lend."...

Greg, I guess a lot of our pet peeves are personal ones. Tim is
right. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary describes the word "loan",
used as a verb, as not exactly "modern language abuse".

"Usage: The verb loan is one of the words English settlers brought to
America and continued to use after it had died out in Britain. Its use
was soon noticed by British visitors and somewhat later by the New
England literati, who considered it a bit provincial. It was flatly
declared wrong in 1870 by a popular commentator, who based his
objection on etymology. A later scholar showed that the commentator
was ignorant of Old English and thus unsound in his objection, but by
then it was too late, as the condemnation had been picked up by many
other commentators. Although a surprising number of critics still
voice objections, loan is entirely standard as a verb. You should note
that it is used only literally; lend is the verb used for figurative
expressions, such as "lending a hand" or "lending enchantment." "

Sorry...
Cheryl


I


Worse than this,
though - far worse - are "mousing," and "keyboarding." Still worse? O,
the horror of this one; disagreement between verb and subject.
"There's many things." "There's lots of reasons." This has actually
become quite common in the contemporary vernacular, and it's not just
irritating, it's just plain WRONG.

We live in a culture that is dominated by an overly-synthetic language
molded by those who have something to sell us, whether it's a product of
"information." We're media dominated in our thoughts, our speech, our
habits, and this reflects in the language that we speak. We want to
communicate effectively, and mistakenly believe that the vernacular may
be more effective, simply by virtue of its currency, not to mention its
brevity, when in fact, more traditional language would be more precise,
and more broadly understood. But, to communicate effectively requires
more effort, and more time, and the attention span of the average
reader/listener has been reduced by the proliferation of the sound-bite
to something under a minute. (In fact, most who started reading this have
probably long since skipped it...)

Language is, and always has been quite plastic, and conforms to the needs
of the culture in which it is used. Modern communication technology has
resulted in more rapid evolutionary (or, devolutionary, to some minds,
including my own) changes to the common language, and it is losing much
of its richness in favour of slang and vernacular. Truly sad.

Which reminds me of a story. I had a high school English teacher who was
very strict on sentence fragments and run-on sentences. In one paper, I
used a fragment as a literary device to emphasize a point. It was
effective use. His comments were quite amusing, though at the time, I
failed to find them so. "I applaud your strong use of this device
Nevertheless, it is a sentence fragment, and you know the rules."

Yes. I knew the rules then, and do now. Sometimes, I break them, but I
know damn well I'm doing it. Today's high school students, I'm afraid,
just don't know any better.

-glp

P.S. Don't get me started on, "Only one carb!"
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Verbal Pet Peeves
    ... don't know when to turn off the teacher brain. ... Does the verb "give" not cover this meaning? ... We live in a culture that is dominated by an overly-synthetic language ... was very strict on sentence fragments and run-on sentences. ...
    (alt.smokers.pipes)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... that vernacular terms can't follow scientific usage. ... domesticated cattle, dogs, and grains for OUR benefit, not theirs. ... None of which has to do with language or with the present case. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... no-one thought of referring to ancient animals ... As soon as archaeopteryx was discovered, scientists called it a bird. ... It entered the vernacular vocabulary as a bird. ... I'd say that vernacular language is the everyday language as used ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... no-one thought of referring to ancient animals ... As soon as archaeopteryx was discovered, scientists called it a bird. ... It entered the vernacular vocabulary as a bird. ... I'd say that vernacular language is the everyday language as used ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... but that has NOTHING to do with the VERNACULAR word ... I take the meaning of "vernacularized" to mean "accepted into ... The domestic or native language of the people of a particular ... The everyday or common language of a geographic area or the native ...
    (talk.origins)