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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

English is a user-modifiable, perfectly cromulent technology.

Everything changes and evolves...

English is a user-modifiable technology - Boing Boing:
"Here's a stirring Boston Globe op-ed from master lexicographer Erin McKean, presenting the humane case for a dynamic English language in which speakers are allowed to coin neologisms and new usages without grammar tightasses insisting that language is not a user-modifiable technology.
Whenever I see 'not a real word' used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading 'I am not confident about my writing' on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an 'unreal' word? ...(In case you noticed cromulent, that was invented in the 1990s for 'The Simpsons.')..."

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