• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    12 days ago

    Remember that, unlike French and its steering organization, English is a “usage dictates form” kind of setup where the most popular usage drags the language down after it.

    That’s why people pluralize mass nouns and say things like “emails” as a noun, or join words to get “startup” as a verb, or say “literally” as if they know no other adverbs: someone popular said it like that and everyone is cloning that dialect glitch. They’re making “fetch” happen.

    So let’s all do the needful, action that ask and synergize the spend.

    Or we say no. We ridicule the people yammering like misfit kids of drunkard used-car salesmen, and we correct them, and we only address the content when the errors are fixed. Set the bar for discourse.

    • jackr@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 days ago

      You want to become like the French? I don’t know who hurt you, but you are not alone, remember that. You can get help for this.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        I’m an American… I’m thinking recently that we could stand to be a little more like the French a little more often.

    • LwL@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      So, english works like language has always worked, and french has lost the plot.

      That said, complaining and refusing to use it yourself when people use language in a way that you think makes no sense is also part of that process. Feeling superior because of that is just ridiculous though.