Re: comments?

Jim Casey wrote:

Ruth Baltopoulos wrote:

Yes, of course, but common misuse of a word doesn't necessarily make it right. I believe that current dictionaries still show the definition of 'classical' to be similar to that which I mentioned in my original post.

Yes, that is still the first (oldest) dictionary definition. However, the question of when "misuse" becomes accepted is often open to argument. Chaucer would have been horrified by Shakespeare's misuse of "englisc."

That may well be so. The word is commonly used to mean traditional, or elegant, and is more than likely included in the myriad of dictionaries to be found as such.

Podhajsky wrote a book with the snappy title, "The complete training of the horse and rider in the principles of classical horsemanship," though I don't know whether it was originally written in English or whether the words were chosen by a translator.

Would you condemn the term "classical physics" as opposed to "modern physics"? The dividing line there is 1905, and classical physics has little to do with the ancients.

I don't think I condemned anyone or anything, simply professed to be humored by a quote from a website offered up by Tamara, after which the discussion of the word 'classical' ensued.

Fowler is often authoritative, but not this time. 

Bite your tongue!
--
Ruth B
.

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