Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[RED-DOG]

2 pages of BS, Guy?


1,431 pages more like.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Stuff that.

Brevity is the soul of wit

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

[Redsgirl]

2 pages of BS, Guy?


1,431 pages more like.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Stuff that.

Brevity is the soul of wit

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Hey! You, over there, whats it like to have no hair!

[Claw75]

2 pages of BS, Guy?


1,431 pages more like.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Stuff that.

Brevity is the soul of wit

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Hey! You, over there, whats it like to have no hair!

Is it good or is it bad? You look like a brillo pad!

[kinboshi]

I laugh at the arguments over the correct way to use the language, when it's the evolution of language that keeps it alive, and relevant. I wonder if they'd had the internet back when Shakespear (or whoever really wrote his stuff) was creating, there'd have been threads debating his incorrect use of "seen better days" or "full circle" - they'd have called it "a sorry sight" but that was another phrase they'd have been slagging off.

I'm not suggesting blonde is as important to the language as Shakespear was, but the odd incongruous turn of phrase doesn't really hurt ;-)

Fair comment. Ish.

The world relies on the correct use of wordage, as practised by myself, of course, to save it from a lexiconic hell. 

More seriously.....I do actually find it extremely interesting how it evolves though.

Have you noticed - I only see it on poker fora, but it may well be have spread to the real world - how the meaning of words change? Nothing wrong with that, but us old-timers find it hard to adapt, don't we?

"Friend" has been completely changed, &, imo, devalued. By my definition, a "Facebook Friend" is nothing like a friend, it is an online acquaintance at best, in most cases. Tick that box, simple, job done, "we are now Friends". Sod that.

"Heroes" & "legends" ditto ditto. By correct definition, both are exceedingly rare, but a DTD Final Table can contain half a dozen of each.

All very discomfiting, or it is to me. 

Going back to "most unique", "Unique" is a lovely word, but now bastardised. In my line of work, we use it all day every day, to describe how many different players are on site each day - UPD (Uniques Per Day) - or how much they spend per day - MPU (Margin Per Unique). 

What were the uniques like yesterday? is the first question each morning. And the bigger the number, the better. So in Online Poker business-speak, the more uniques the better.

Yup, 20,000 uniques yesterday.

We are all, it seems, either unique, or a unique.

Tal got another post in before me, but now I have recovered from the swoon his latest effort induced, I'll get back to the question I was going to ask Tikay,
 What word would you use 'all day every day' if you made a stand and stopped using unique?
The point being if its used frequently, by eveyone then it must now be the best word for the job.

Individuals.

Individuals are not special as such. Unique is special.

Tal is an individual.

Robbie Williams is unique.

Drift duly got?

I'm with the cantankerous sod on this one.  Unique has been abused in this context, and individual is a better description of the visitors - rather than unique. 

Then he goes and ruins it by comparing the peerless Tal unfavourably to the egomaniac that is Robbie Williams

Anyway, amongst his vast works Shakespeare was responsible for the introduction of many words into the English language.  A list of some are here:
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html


academe    accused   addiction   advertising   amazement
arouse    assassination   backing   bandit   bedroom
beached    besmirch   birthplace   blanket   bloodstained
barefaced   blushing   bet   bump   buzzer
caked   cater   champion   circumstantial   cold-blooded
compromise   courtship   countless   critic   dauntless
dawn   deafening   discontent   dishearten   drugged
dwindle   epileptic   equivocal   elbow   excitement
exposure   eyeball   fashionable   fixture   flawed
frugal   generous   gloomy   gossip   green-eyed
gust   hint   hobnob   hurried   impede
impartial   invulnerable   jaded   label   lackluster
laughable   lonely   lower   luggage   lustrous
madcap   majestic   marketable   metamorphize   mimic
monumental   moonbeam   mountaineer   negotiate   noiseless
obscene   obsequiously   ode   olympian   outbreak
panders   pedant   premeditated   puking   radiance
rant   remorseless   savagery   scuffle   secure
skim milk   submerge   summit   swagger   torture
tranquil   undress   unreal   varied   vaulting
worthless   zany   gnarled   grovel

Whoa whoa whoa !

How did we nearly go 2 pages without someone calling BS on this?

Ok, carry on, my work here is done

No it's not. Writers at the time of Shakespeare created many new English words, and popularised many others.

What exactly are you calling bullshit on?

[outragous76]

The one which particularly jumped out was dawn

[kinboshi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare's_influence# vocabulary

[kinboshi]

The one which particularly jumped out was dawn

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dawn

Seems to suggest the verb was around since the 12c, but the noun wasn't introduced until Shakespeare's time.

[kinboshi]

I merely quoted that list as it was the first one I found, and it includes links through to the work that was first to include it (the first of Shakespeare's anyway).

Having looked at a few of the words at random, I haven't found one that is glaringly incorrect as yet.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=majestic
Dates it as 16c.

Of course, many of the words and phrases attributed to him might have been used elsewhere first, maybe by some of his contemporaries, but because of his popularity at the time and since, it's probably their inclusion in his works that has seen them adopted into the English language as standard dictionary terms.

[Redsgirl]

2 pages of BS, Guy?


1,431 pages more like.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Stuff that.

Brevity is the soul of wit

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Hey! You, over there, whats it like to have no hair!

Is it good or is it bad? You look like a brillo pad!

Is it hot? Is it cold? I don't know cos I'm not bold!

[Laxie]

The one which particularly jumped out was dawn

I'm with Guy on this one.  My mom was a Hippy back in the day.  She definitely wasn't calling me after something Shakespeare came up with. 

[kinboshi]

The one which particularly jumped out was dawn

I'm with Guy on this one.  My mom was a Hippy back in the day.  She definitely wasn't calling me after something Shakespeare came up with. 

She was on drugs.  Explains everything.

[Laxie]

The one which particularly jumped out was dawn

I'm with Guy on this one.  My mom was a Hippy back in the day.  She definitely wasn't calling me after something Shakespeare came up with. 

She was on drugs.  Explains everything.

   Could've been worse...

[RED-DOG]

I have a friend who would like to play online poker while travelling in Europe.

It's unlikely that he would consider breaking the law or risk having his accounts suspended, but nevertheless he would like to know what, if any, options are available.

[tikay]

I have a friend who would like to play online poker while travelling in Europe.

It's unlikely that he would consider breaking the law or risk having his accounts suspended, but nevertheless he would like to know what, if any, options are available.

I think it's self-regulating Tom.

To take an extreme & somewhat unlikely example. If your friend wanted to play on, say, Sky Poker whilst in, say, France, where Sky Poker are not licensed, he would not be able to access the site, unless of course he covertly circumvented the "block".

Hope your friend has a lovely trip. Taking a van, is he?

[RED-DOG]

I have a friend who would like to play online poker while travelling in Europe.

It's unlikely that he would consider breaking the law or risk having his accounts suspended, but nevertheless he would like to know what, if any, options are available.

I think it's self-regulating Tom.

To take an extreme & somewhat unlikely example. If your friend wanted to play on, say, Sky Poker whilst in, say, France, where Sky Poker are not licensed, he would not be able to access the site, unless of course he covertly circumvented the "block".

Hope your friend has a lovely trip. Taking a van, is he?

As far as he understands it, even sites that are licensed don't allow non residents to play.

I don't think he has any idea what covertly circumventing the block would entail.

I think he's got his eye on a MPV that is currently languishing in the ' Damaged, awaiting sale' section of a popular auction house. The damage is superficial, but he's hoping it will put most people off.

If he did manage to buy it, he plans to remove the rear seats, install a bed & a cooker, tint the windows limousine black, and go Euro camping without attracting as much attention as he would with a 'Normal' camper.

As an added bonus, he would be able to use it as an everyday vehicle the rest of the time, thereby eliminating the need to pay road tax, insurance, repairs bills etc on a vehicle that would stand idle for most of the time. (He is a bit of a nit.)