Again, as this is the suggestion forum I'm going to suggest/remind that we all (a) respect the forum definitions (this forum, as is spelled out in the Index, is for site suggestions) and (b) keep offtopic personal exchanges in the PM (private message) system. That said, and as long as we're here, he...

-And we have a near parallel, for the culinary meaning at least, in picante. Is there any difference betwixt the two as far as Meaning #1?

As to "Ignore," I thought of this, too. I wasn't so much concerned about missing out on possible worthwhile posts from the annoying one, however. My worry was missing potential posts from others, who might have posted earlier, before the latest post from the one being ignored. Oh. My prev...

Not sure I follow, Doc-- why don't hyphens count? French uses them quite readily especially with là and ci to define the position. It's just the way they do it. And là-bas is used in the same sense as yonder , is it not? Or do you mean it has no older, possibly archaic, standalone word? French does ...

I'm not sure this would work-- we have a large number of threads on linguistic things that can very legitimately come up again much later. That's not the type of thread you mean, but with the ability there, it could be misused, and then a worthy topic would have to start over, with its commentary di...

My mistake. I didn't notice this until today either when it came up in the Skinem-on-Skinem action

But it is still an option for any current fluff posts that happen to be on the end.

Slava-- good point, and that eluded me before. In the phrase, the bench could be at least three sizes, even without changing the hyphen: - a bench the size of an entire laboratory (impressive but impractical) - a bench of a suitable size for use in a laboratory (prolly what the term means but techni...

Sure it's an idiom, but I think this is just part of English's penchant (especially British it seems) for stating some things indirectly or in an inside-out way. There's no particular reason to have a phrase like "the too-distant future", but when we introduce the idea of distance, while a...

I would. It seems while Doc points out that yonder is fading into archaity, we still have three distinct degrees. So does French: ici = here; là = there; là-bas = yonder (more at "down there") I suspect this is a necessary expression and we'll continue to employ it even if we do lose yonde...

We say, "That is not so often done" easily enough, NOT "That is not-so-often done", which would instantly be recognized as incorrect. So why should I suddenly want to say "not-so-distant" vs. "not so distant". Most obviously, done is a verb, which makes not-s...

I couldn't help noticing that Doctor Goodword, in the Good Word entry veracity , hyphenated the word widespread as "wide-spread". The proofreader in me originally merged it into the single word, but then I undid the deed in case Doc meant something subliminal there. editors should be light...

Skinem, you've just quoted Skinem verbatim. While I employ this tactic every day for the obvious attendant prestige, the self-critique may be read as narcissistic

Glad to hear I'm not a lone in this. I originally brought this up waaaay back here.

We missed one last week--relaying from the archive 2/11: Veracity Pronunciation: vê- ræ -sê-ti • Hear it ! Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural) Meaning: 1. Truthfulness, trustworthiness. 2. Precise accuracy, factuality, believability Notes: Veracity , like truthfulness, means something slightly d...

Serbian is a language that preserves this distinction, though in Serbian, too, the third adverb is disappearing: ovde "here", tamo "there" and onde "over there". So yonder comes from good stock. On an interesting but unconnected (?) note, onde is Portuguese for "w...

I agree more with Saparris. Omitting the hyphens and leaving not so distant past might technically not be misleading, but it requires the reader to slow down and reanalyze that the first three words are intended as a group. The hyphens make that obvious and therefore, a smoother read. Lab sized-benc...