Re: Common ancestor between man and ape

On May 31, 2:12 pm, AC <mightymartia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 31 May 2007 10:49:53 -0700,

UC <uraniumcommit...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 31, 11:59 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
UC wrote:
On May 31, 11:18 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

UC wrote:

<snip>



Would you agree? If so, attesting the use of
"ape" in Shakespeare (e.g.) is irrelevant to any argument about current
meaning.
No, most words in shakespeare are currently used in exactly the same
senses. Otherwise it would be impossible to understand him. True some
words have changed from his plays, but the number is a small
percentage.

You make a habit of non sequiturs and irrelevancies. That doesn't
address the point. Because some words have changed meanings, we can't
point to Shakespeare as an example of current usage. So aroint, thou
rumpfed runion.

No, I don't "point to Shakespeare as an example of current usage". I
point to Shakespeare as an example of how little of language has
changed, and how much of it is still current, even if sometimes
archaic. We can still use archaic language, can we not?

How little it has changed? I'll admit that a few hours and you can
read Elizabethan English with relative ease, though the archaic
words and phrases will still mess you up on occasion until you become
quite familiar with the odder words and references. But I doubt
there is any English speaker in the last 200 years who could pick up
Henry V the first time and just read it off without going "Huh?"

I can. I'm literate.

Go back much further, like the Canterbury Tales, and you're looking
at a such an uphill climb that we actually have to have modern
renderings (read "translations") so that we don't have to go to
a great deal of effort to learn Middle English. There are still
considerable structural differences which make it a rather great
effort to read.

No question about that.

Go back to Old English, and I'll be blunt, it's an entirely different
language.

Correct.

My efforts to read in the original English have usually
ended with me cursing in defeat and going for a nice modern
translation of Beowulf. I envy those with the linguistic skills
and patience to pour through that variant of West Germanic.

Yes, I understand.

The very fact that Shakespeare's works are littered with
anachronisms, archaisms and words with divergent meanings goes
to show you just how much language has changed in the last four
or five hundred years. At its core, Elizabethan English is the
earliest stage of Modern English, but its still a very different
form from what a speaker in the 21st century is used to. The
core of English may not have changed as much as some might think
in the last thousand years, but word-wise it's a whole other
ball game. English is probably the language that most soundly
smashes your argument to pieces. I'd wager you would have more
success if you concentrated on a language like Italian, where
some effort has been made to try balance the Latin cpre and
the more modern dialects of the language. Heck, in your case,
I'd probably recommend Sanskrit, a nice artificial language that
has had many centuries of individuals maintaining it as the
ideal Hindu language. The fact that damn few people actually
speak it, but rather speak its descendants shows just how bankrupt
your whole notion is.

What "whole notion" is that? All I'm claiming is that 'ape' is used by
most English speakers to mean something much less precise than the
'scientific' usage (that is, they would include baboons and other
lesser apes and 'monkeys'), and that the overwhelmingly vast majority
of people who use the word or read the word do not understand it to
refer to human beings. That's all I'm claiming.

I have THREE dictionaries that say exactly that:

Shorter OED (1973)
Websters 3rd New International (1961)
Century (1889)

Prove otherwise.


.

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