Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics.
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
A while ago I had people arguing with me that the word "is" means basically the same thing as the word "was" and that I was being pedantic by saying it didn't.
It did mean the same thing, but now it doesn't
It's a noble fight, but a losing one. Language changes so fast and since common people make common usage, we're bound to shift over time to something truly incomprehensible like actual Old English is to what we speak today.
Witan þæt, in sooth, þæt wisdom of ealde tunges is of great worth, forsooth. Þæt tongue, fram eallra yore, hath been a vessel for þe heah wisdom of our forebears, and to hold fast to þe staþolfæstness of grammar and wordcraft is to keep þe richnesse of þe auncient lores alive. By þe seofonfold strength of prescriptive ways, we becomen keepers of þe pure tongue, untainted by þe waning of times and þe unstedfast weathers of speech, þereby granting us þe true understanding of ealdan wisdom and þe right ways of our folk.
You can keep your prescriptive linguistic nazism. I'll enjoy my descriptive freedom.
In all seriousness, prescriptive linguistics have a limit in a sense that language is formed by usage and that's inherently a "descriptive" process.
It is possible to prescribe language when you're in a majority of users, but after some critical mass of people there is nothing you can do. Even when they're technically wrong.
I’m literally always saying this.
Same goes for "literally" as "metaphorically."
And the hill I will die on is the word "bring."
You're not "bringing" anything anywhere unless it's exactly from anywhere else to where you are right now.
You "take" things with you elsewhere, you don't "bring" them elsewhere.
I've always thought of "I'll bring {thing}" as shorthand for "I'll bring {thing} with me"
Exactly, that's incorrect, it's "I'll take things with me"
That does feel better, I'll endeavor to correct that!
A fact is an observation made in nature. At 8:40 PM PDT I read from my kitchen thermometer 73°F. One datum.
So often people use the term fact to suggest something is true, e.g. Gravity is a scientific fact. It's an easily demonstqble phenomenon. There's a mathematical law that predicts the interval of falling bodies. You can make and present facts that demonstrate the consistency of gravity, but it isn't a single fact in itself.