Well maybe not. :) Just in case someone is interested, on the subject of too much or too little negation, here are some examples courtesy of http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000368.html where the presence or absense of negation doesn't appear to change the meaning. Eddie knows s...

In Hamlet's words, "Ay, [madam,] it is common." The subtext here is that common is not always desirable. Stupidity when driving is also in widespread use...therefore... Language use and driving are very very different. Language is largely unconscious, while driving is a conscious activity...

Will the invisible poster who proclaimed the despised usages stupid and wrong please respond. I'm eating apples.

Then what did you mean by this? I'm so confused.

What does get me all hot and bothered is the use of like as a substitute for said , felt , did , etc. :evil: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1704693 Quotative like can be a nifty linguistic device. It's more generic than reply or exclaim and more casual than even say. It can be used not...

and your point is? er, my point is that variations in usage are not caused by stupidity, laziness, degeneration in language, etc. sluggo claimed that no one here said that usages like "irregardless" were stupid or wrong, didn't he? And I pointed out that some people did say exactly that, ...

Will the invisible poster who proclaimed the despised usages stupid and wrong please respond. I'm eating apples. It seems to me that you said this usage was wrong when you said Everyone in the world can use a wrong- it's still wrong. When the emporer has no clothes, claiming he does does not make i...

What I wrote was confusing, wasn't it? How about: you may find certain phrases distasteful, but the fact that other people use them means that they are comprehensible and normal for those speakers.

...What I'm talking about is a more scientific approach to language... Wait, hang on, I'm beginning to get it: if "irregardless" means "regardless", then "more" means "less"... yeah, that's the ticket... Ticket? We're back to driving. Let's use Gail's map to ...

That was not my intention. My intention was: you don't have to like it, but that doesn't mean it's not wrong when other people use it.

"irregardless" and "I could care less" are not grammatically inoperative either. They make sense for the people who use them. The fact that they are in widespread use means they that do make sense. In Hamlet's words, "Ay, [madam,] it is common." The subtext here is tha...

In the case of language, if everyone uses it, then it's right. How else do we determine what is right, other than looking at the facts of usage? That's a rhetorical question. The facts of usage have to guide us in determining what is "right" and "wrong". If our rules are independ...

Delay does enter into it, because aspiration is expressed in duration. etc etc etc <sigh> I fear this entire exchange has devolved into an old Monty Python sketch. The subject was not duration of aspiration but rather the question of its existence. Even that was a tangent of the evolution of ph/f. ...

The difference in this case is that crayfish and belfry are not grammatically inoperative. Human inventiveness, to paraphrase Bailey, can work in positive or negative directions, and not every innovation survives -fortunately. "irregardless" and "I could care less" are not gramm...

Certainly standard English is very useful for helping us communicate, but it's important to recognize that a standard is just a standard, it's not better or worse than other forms of the language. And also, standards can be changed to suit our needs.

Far as I remember, the "hard" one was called "thorn" and pronounced as an unvoiced labio-dental fricative (like th- in today's three . The "soft" one (a voiced labio-dental fricative) was pronounced like the th- in today's the . þ and ð were used interchangeably for th...