Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Kyle, you have confused etymology which means derivation or the origin of the word itself with original usage , meaning how the word was originally used in its first state - whether that is Latin, Greek, Middle English, Old English, Scandinavian, Polynesian etc.
Umm. Etymology, has three meanings in my dictionary:
1. the derivation of a word.
2. an account of the history of a particular word or element of a word.
3. the study of historical linguistic change, esp. as manifested in individual words.I think I fell reasonably well into 3, with a bit of 2.
My point was, people complain about how people now, in common usage, use words differently than how they used to be used, or 'correctly'.
That's a falsehood, as most words in the English language are no longer used how they used to be used, and to stand in say 1950 (1960, 1970 etc), pointing at 2007 saying "that's wrong", without looking at the couple of thousand years behind you is, I think, short-sighted.
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I'm with Robyn here. In context, what people are saying on the internet is news, in the same way that vox pops, polls and protests are news.
Meh. If two people wrote letters to the editor (or, I think in this case, one person wrote a letter to the editor, and another person wrote a letter quoting the first), then it wouldn't be news. Neither should a trashy internet posting.
If the internet was flooded with y'know... dozens at least... of people trashing on Zaoui, then that could be news. But a story based on one person's opinion has only been elevated, because they posted it on the internet, and a reporter/editor whoever in the media read it and elevated it to 'news'.
It's not 'news'. It's just accessible.
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Ironically, and this isn't a recommendation 3410, but not according to Urban Dictionary.
But yes, good poking at that apostrophe.
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I don't believe Australia are really all that, and you never know, even this awful England team might just find some reserves when it comes to playing the crowing ones from the West Island.
Seriously? When Robinson went off in the England-South Africa match, was I the only person thinking "well now you've got zero good players on the field".
And, as a side note, I didn't see Ireland vs Namibia or Georgia, but if they barely got over the line against those two... can't imagine they're going to go well against Argentina or France.
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Not many people would be prepared to go on camera and say, "Ahmed Zaoui should go back to where he came from!" But such opinions do exist, whether they're expressed verbally, on the internet, or silently held as thoughts.
Anonymous internet posts often give us a conduit into what people think but are too scared to openly say.
That's a bit of a sad indictment on journalists. There's plenty of good stuff out there on the internet - good quality professional and amateur investigation which has ended up being 'real news'.
But if we're going to just pick up any old trash off the internet and call it news, I've got tonight's headlines all figured out:
People look for porn, download music, and use illegal software off the internet.
People argue with each other on blogs.
Lots of people use myspace, god knows why.
People seem to be using their time at work to surf the internet.There ya go. Who needs reporters?
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It's called Ask Your Aunties and it's on Maori Television. Sorry to end your TV production career so brutally soon.
Damn murrays! It's all because of that treaty. Knew we shouldn't have signed it.
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I guess some of us get antsy when the incorrect-but-accepted meaning kills off the real meaning of some very fine words.
I suspect that the battle has been lost with "enormity", and people will now happily use it as a synonym for "magnitude" and not to mean "horror". Tell me that's not a damn shame.
OK, but here's the etymology of some words you used in your post:
Guess originally meant to estimate/appraise, as in value. You've used it as a qualifier to water down what you're about to follow up with, and the meaning you've applied to it is "think".
Kill originally meant "to strike, hit, beat, knock", and didn't become associated with "depriving of life" for a century or so later.
Similarly, real originally meant "relating to things" (hence "real estate"), and didn't become associated with "genuine" for a couple of hundred years.
Battle means a physical battle between soldiers, and yet you've used it with a meaning of some sort of verbal/written battle about ideas.
It starts to get silly, but people complaining about the changing nature of meaning of words, using words which have all changed meaning... 'correct' and 'incorrect' are only relative terms from where you're standing in history.
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Kyle, I think you have just come up with a brilliant concept. We could empanel a few nanas with a teapot and biscuits and get some riveting television...
Does anyone have a contact for nz on air? I gotta get dibs on it before some TVNZ reporter reads this and gives that Russell Brown credit for the idea.
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As well as lazy journalism, it's also not 'news'.
"People talk a bunch of shit on the internet".
How does something being on the internet make it news, other than the fact that a reporter can access it from their desk?
I mean you wouldn't see "Old people discuss how Zaoui should be kicked out while drinking tea" as a headline.
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And Brian Edwards can bite me if he thinks common usage based on error trumps correctness!
I seriously don't understand this view of language. 'Correctness' in language, as people put it about these days, is pretty much what our grandparents/parents (depending on your age) had beaten into them at school. It's post WWII Queens English.
The idea that there's nothing in 'correct English' which doesn't include words which are actually 'common usage based on error' of some earlier spelling, pronounciation. 's' used to be written more like 'f'. I don't see anyone standing up to demand that everyone do that anymore.
Language evolves through a number of means. All throughout that history people have sat and looked at 'current English' and bemoaned it being wrong based on the English of a generation or two ago. Do people these days think this is a new story? It changes, it's normal, and there's nothing you can do about it, same as has been going on for hundreds of years.