SC - Language (was: .food riddle and query)

[Bernadette Crumb]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
Lord Ras,

Thank you for dealing with this -- person.  I was only trying to
help someone out with the little bit of knowledge that I have and
it really hurt to be slammed on the terminology I used.  I feel
bad enough some days and being "talked" to as if I were being
purposefully ignorant about something just makes the bad days
worse.  After his second snipe about language, I just wasn't up
to replying... 

Thanks for taking the hurt away.

Bernadette

> In a message dated 12/11/99 3:30:24 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> cclark at vicon.net writes:
> 
> << BTW, I checked my dictionary and didn't find any definitions equating
>  grains/kernels with berries. And that is as it should be. >>
> 
> I suppose this is correct if you wish a language to become stagnant and dead.
> There are many languages that fit the picture of perfection you describe.
> Latin comes first to mind. No one speaks Latin. So if you wish the standards
> you tout so highly to be rigorously and unyieldingly applied to English, I
> would assume that you wish English to become a dead language?
> 
> Agriculture and food sciences recognizes the term wheat berries' a a precise
> term. We are discussing food science and agricultural on this under list most
> circumstances. When we are not this is readily apparent to all. So I submit
> that botanically correct terms, while sometimes useful to a few people on
> this list for specific needs, for the most part add confusion and unnecessary
> burdens when they are applied in situations where using industry standard
> terms (e.g., wheat berries) immediately creates common ground and facilitates
> communication.
> 
> Amazingly, you seem to be the only person that I know, or have ever known,
> that seems to have any difficulty differentiating between strawberries and
> wheat berries without being confused.
> 
> (BTW, going by the 'ideal' language standards you propose, the word 'silly'
> in the manner you used it was incorrect since by those standards it means
> 'happy, innocent, pitiable.' It's use as a term for helpless/weak (archaic),
> rustic/plain, lowly in station (obsolete), humble, weak in intellect
> (foolish), exhibiting or indicative of a lack of common sense or sound
> judgment, trifling/frivolous and being stunned or dazed well outside the
> original meaning of the word).
> 
> Ras
> 
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