The Oxford Dictionaries blog, written by the dictionary's staff, on word origins, usage, grammar myths, and language change.
HN commenters link it to settle usage questions, such as scone pronunciation, collective nouns, and compliment versus complement.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/08/literally/
> It comes down to that oft-spoke mantra – language changes. Our job is to document that for better or for worse. Except for us, there is no worse. We have to look at language objectively and dispassionately.
That's a bit like the difference between a helper taking blood samples and the doctor, not to mention a loved one. Linguists can be lovers of language and philosophers, but they don't have to be, they just measure what's there. Language is made up by billions of people using it, and I consider my rejection of parts of it a curative effort. So I ask, with as much right as any other single human being using language: how does this particular "invention" move language forward? That other people might say it does, without anyone (I could find) giving an argument how it does, doesn't really help.
Where, exactly, is "forward", here? Downstream? Even not gaming anymore, I noticed that "kids these days" tend to call low frame rates "lag". I still know what they mean, but I also consider it regression and impoverishment of language and more importantly thought. And while it's a silly example, I find it fascinating in a morbid way how things just get picked up and passed on. I observe similar dynamics with more serious things, like how words like "terrorism" or "war" get used. I think what it all really boils down to is that power in various doesn't (feel the) need to justify itself, and likewise people who say things most…
> Pedantic, but unlike pregant you can qualify unique.
Pedantic, but you can't. Unique is not a gradable adjective. This is not just my opinion :
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/an-extremely-most-unique-opportunity/
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/adjectives-gradable-non-gradable
https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives-gradable-non.htm
> we wouldn't have expressions like "totally unique" or the "most unique"
I wouldn't normally bring this up, but while we're being pedantic, there are lots of reasonably common expressions that exhibit gratingly poor grammar or sematics. You have quoted two of them above.
> unique means the quality of differing from other things, and this is a continium.
Ah no. Unique means "one of a kind", not merely "differing". "uni" as a prefix means one, e.g unicycle, universe, unitard. "one of a kind"-ness is not continuous! As per the second link, "unique" already contains the idea of "very different".
Sorry to be pedantic, but your very first reference confirms what I said:
>However, sometimes the situation isn’t so cut and dried. There’s a set of adjectives (including perfect, infinite, and unique) which fall into both categories, gradable and absolute. (...)
>(...) unique has developed a weaker, less precise meaning: ‘very remarkable, special, or unusual’. The historical Oxford English Dictionary first records this sense in the 19th century, and it’s now well established. The ‘very remarkable or special’ meaning is not an absolute concept and is therefore gradable, so it’s grammatically acceptable to use modifying adverbs:
√ I saw a guy wearing some really unique eyeglasses.
√ They’ve devised a highly unique way to cook and serve meals.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/an-extremely-most-unique-opportunity/
Somewhat related: There are words that are their own antonyms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym).
A better example is nice, which started bad (meaning "foolish" or "silly"), achieved a positive meaning in 18th century and on it's way down again ("How's my coding? It's nice.") Full story and some other interesting examples are here: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/10/change-in-word-meanings/
OK, can't help it, another interesting example. The word slut, of unknown origin, was first applied to men and then generally applied to kitchen maids with a mild negative meaning of slovenliness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slut, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=slut). There are other words starting with sl- that made a similar journey but are now fell out of use, e.g. slattern and slammerkin
In this case your correction is better, and would probably be more acceptable to most educated English readers (especially in formal contexts). But the original is still fine, in this informal context.
What you're nitpicking is a common and frequently-taught misconception. You can end a sentence with a preposition. Some elitists in the 17th century tried to make English conform to the rules of Latin and those rules have stuck around even though they weren't necessary in the first place, unlike in Latin where a sentence doesn't make sense if you don't follow the rules.
This article gives a few examples of when it's more natural to end a sentence with a preposition (and mentions the history): http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/11/grammar-myths-prepositions/
The single most helpful thing I discovered for learning android opengl es graphics programming is that it does have error messages, after all! [abbrev code, use to lookup docs]
int error;
while((error=GLES20.glGetError())!=GLES20.GL_NO_ERROR) {
msg += android.opengl.GLU.gluErrorString(error);
}
Also, the offical android opengl es 2.0 tutorial is wrong in subtle ways (after the non-subtle wrongnesses were corrected).
TIL "advice" can be countable: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/05/30/advise-advice/
> Advice is mainly used with the first meaning, and in this meaning it is a mass noun (that is, it has no plural). The business/legal meaning, however, is a count noun: it has a plural form, advices.