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|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 905 responses total. |
rcurl
|
|
response 300 of 905:
| 
May 23 16:28 UTC 2000 |
Injun is Indian in dialect (e.g., Mark Twain's _Injun Joe_). I think it is
a proper noun, since Indian always is.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 301 of 905:
|
May 23 18:52 UTC 2000 |
blared
|
aruba
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response 302 of 905:
|
May 23 20:15 UTC 2000 |
blared 1 (gelinas)
Scores are in ~aruba/letter.match .
|
rcurl
|
|
response 303 of 905:
|
May 23 21:54 UTC 2000 |
Proper nouns are not allowed in this game.
|
kentn
|
|
response 304 of 905:
|
May 23 23:46 UTC 2000 |
unease
|
aruba
|
|
response 305 of 905:
|
May 24 13:13 UTC 2000 |
unease 1 (kentn)
|
aruba
|
|
response 306 of 905:
|
May 26 03:52 UTC 2000 |
I'll be out of town for the weekend, but I'll be back on tuesday.
|
albaugh
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|
response 307 of 905:
|
May 26 06:26 UTC 2000 |
streak
As I said when I became "it", I was pushing the envelope. No, I didn't
find injun(s) in the dictionary I consulted. Yes, as a variant of
Indian(s), it would indeed be a proper noun. But OTOH you can find
historical writings where injuns appears, uncapitalized. This required
the deductive reasoning you employed to come up with the proper word.
We can sometimes depend on our dictionaries too much. Another issue is
the "appropriateness" or "insensitivity" of the word, since it is of
the ilk of nigger(s), which you will find in Mark Twain. I don't
apologize for getting folks outside of their comfort zone: At a
certain level, "words is [just] words".
|
rcurl
|
|
response 308 of 905:
|
May 26 16:54 UTC 2000 |
By "getting folks outside of their comfort zone" do you mean not following
the rules? Well, if that is how you want to play the game... it IS just a
game.
Of course words can be deduced in this game even if they are proper nouns
or abbreviations (maybe not as easily if punctuation marks are included).
The only reason for the rule is not to save lives and prevent nuclear
catastrophy, but to just limit the scope of words allowed, primarily for
simplicity. The convention of asking for a citation is to not allow
participants to make up their own words. So, if you can't find a citation
for Injun uncapitalized, then by the rules that everyone has been
following, it isn't allowed.
You do raise an interesting question. The word nigger is in my dictionary
uncapitalized, even though its first definition is "A Negro". Was the
introduction of this usage intended to make the use of the word even more
insulting?
|
gelinas
|
|
response 309 of 905:
|
May 27 06:00 UTC 2000 |
I can offer an historical example of the use of uncapitalised "injun", but
I cannot identify a source: "The only good injun is a dead injun." I've
seen it a lot, but I cannot remember where.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 310 of 905:
|
May 27 06:42 UTC 2000 |
There is no question that people use words in all sorts of ways, but a
quote with a word misused is not a citation for its proper use.
You can find the phrase you quote at
http://www.dickshovel.com/DeadIndians.html
|
gelinas
|
|
response 311 of 905:
|
May 28 03:58 UTC 2000 |
Examples of use are the only way to determine "proper" use: The question is,
"How is the word used?", not "How does some authority think it should be
used?"
|
albaugh
|
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response 312 of 905:
|
May 28 05:02 UTC 2000 |
"Get over it." (tm)
|
rcurl
|
|
response 313 of 905:
|
May 28 05:59 UTC 2000 |
The criterion of "How is the word used?" is not useful, as it raises the
questions of by whom, how often, with what sanction or authority (or lack
thereof). The suggestion that "How is the word used?" is a proper mean of
citation, then permits qwertyuiop to be a word (well, just qwerty for this
game), since I can cite its use here. Therefore, the traditional citation
(up to now) has been any dictonary.
albaugh, we ARE getting all over it :)
|
gelinas
|
|
response 314 of 905:
|
May 29 04:37 UTC 2000 |
Since dictionaries are written by gathering up all the uses of a word that
can be found by the writer of the dictionary, 'twould seem that dictionaries
aren't useful.
Still, I'm willing to play the game by reference to dictionaries, just as I
play the Scrabble brand crossword game by reference to dictionaries.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 315 of 905:
|
May 29 05:31 UTC 2000 |
future
|
rcurl
|
|
response 316 of 905:
|
May 29 05:54 UTC 2000 |
No, dictionaries are not just dustbins for words. There is a selection
process that judges whether words have enough currency of sufficient
widespread use, in order to be included. Different dictionaries apply
more or less strict criteria, of course. An "unabridged" might require
less evidence of breadth of usage - but such do not get published
very frequently, so it does take some period of consistent use to
promote inclusion.
|
aruba
|
|
response 317 of 905:
|
May 30 02:58 UTC 2000 |
streak 0 (albaugh)
future 1 (gelinas)
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gelinas
|
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response 318 of 905:
|
May 30 03:12 UTC 2000 |
uneasy
|
aruba
|
|
response 319 of 905:
|
May 30 13:38 UTC 2000 |
(Someone else has to go before I can score Joe's guess.)
|
albaugh
|
|
response 320 of 905:
|
May 30 19:28 UTC 2000 |
trials
|
aruba
|
|
response 321 of 905:
|
May 31 03:05 UTC 2000 |
trials 1 (albaugh)
uneasy 1 (gelinas)
|
gelinas
|
|
response 322 of 905:
|
May 31 04:23 UTC 2000 |
And someone else has to go before I can guess again. Have we got a fourth
player?
|
albaugh
|
|
response 323 of 905:
|
May 31 16:11 UTC 2000 |
Well, since aruba was nice enough to move gelinas' response after mine, that
allows me to go "twice in a row", which will allow gelinas to go again.
bicarb Function: noun Date: 1922 : SODIUM BICARBONATE
|
aruba
|
|
response 324 of 905:
|
May 31 17:25 UTC 2000 |
bicarb 3 (albaugh)
|
