Re: FWD [forteana] Re: Leonids: Imperfect Storm 'Casting

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2001 - 13:14:25 MST


> FYI, here's some insight into proper use ...

What you included was a dictionary entry. Almost all dictionaries
today are purely descriptive, i.e., they don't even pretend to
give advice on proper usage, they merely describe what speakers of
the language actually say (which some may consider "de facto"
proper usage if not de jure) There are a few notable exceptions,
such as American Heritage which is quite good. But as a general
rule, one cannot use a dictionary to determine proper usage--one
of the many important things our school system utterly fails to
teach correctly.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:25 MDT