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- From: rhonda@cc.usu.edu (Tye McQueen, E.)
- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
- Subject: Re: Dictionaries
- Message-ID: <1992Dec29.041156.62316@cc.usu.edu>
- Date: 29 Dec 92 04:11:56 MDT
- References: <5597@daily-planet.concordia.ca> <1992Dec28.002712.2129@ra.msstate.edu>
- Organization: Spillman Data Systems
- Lines: 18
-
- In <1992Dec28.002712.2129@>, wkl1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Wing-Keong Loke the consummate chronic prevaricator) writes:
- > In <5597@daily-planet> mckay@alcor.concordia.ca (John McKay) writes:
- >>
- >>I have a theory of change which is that dictionaries serve two purposes:
- >>they record usage - correct and incorrect - and they also act as a resource
- >>in that the presence of a word and its meaning in a dictionary will often
- >>be interpreted as authoritative. It is not hard to see that these two
- >>interpretations lend themselves to propagating change, sometimes
- >>unnecessarily.
- >
- > Could be. But I've heard of people say that the pronounciation
- > of a word in the dictionary is wrong, and they have got it right! We
- > get all kinds, all kinds ... .
-
- Exactly! There's an L in "almond" and it is there for a reason!
- My dictionary doesn't even list the use of an "L" sound as an
- accepted alternate pronounciation. We'll we all don't eat no
- ahmonds around here, no matter what some dumb book says!
-