Thanks a lot for the answer! Quite interesting that the Proto-Indo-European word could have been something close to wasp, only for English to go through the waps->wasp that you explained in your previous post.

Well, one fewer false “fact” to believe in, many more to go!

I understand that civilians are under no obligation to follow the rules of language, but writers should be striving for precision in their language. Impressionism doesn’t really work for literature. You can’t be blurry.

Won’t read the rest, this is enough for me to understand you’re now either arguing in bad faith, or are ignorant of how language evolves. Is English you first language? Look up the contributions of Shakespeare to the language. Are you Italian, like “piccolo” could suggest? Look at Dante Alighieri.

Your language would be different without the freedom that writers take over the ages, and for one thing you’re unhappy about, there are a myriad you don’t even think twice about, and hopefully, quite a few metaphorical and poetic idioms that you find beautiful.

I won’t engage further. Have a good day.

I am talking about none of these things. I am talking about the well-defined, mathematical concept called a disk (or disc). That is, the flat surface bounded by a circle. In the same way that if I was talking about a square in the sense of a shape, I would be talking about the geometric object, not a square as in “town square” (yes they often have four sides too, and no, they’re not always square shaped).

Re disk: I have seen both spellings in the maths literature, I just am not sure whether the distinction is as simple as US vs UK, or if it is more granular (Cambridge vs Oxford for instance), and whether there is also a temporal element to it.

Also, I am sorry that this is now so needlessly pedantic, but it kinda sorta proves my point. We don’t need all that to agree that pizzas are circle shaped, and I would not actually have corrected you and said “no, they are a disk!”. All of that is pseudo-intellectual wank in the context of talking about pizzas.

EDIT re your “round” shadow edit. Well now you’re just deliberately missing the point. Have a good day.

Obviously you look into the literature to see who has the first claim, and they get to keep it. The others have to edit and re-print the entirety of the corpus.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Both spellings are accepted to designate the mathematical object. I think it’s mostly a UK vs US spelling but please don’t quote me on that.

EDIT just realised I missed the opportunity to answer with the extremely unhelpful mathematician response: “yes”

I sure hope you say pizzas are disk-shaped, not circle-shaped.

Disk and circle are properly defined geometric terms. Civilians can’t just come in and start misusing them.

To be fair maybe you do make the difference between disks and circles, but the point is, you (and everyone) almost certainly “abuse” some other language element that will also annoy somebody else. And if they corrected you, when all your life you and people around you had done the same abuse and understood each other perfectly, you’d think, rightly, that they are being pedantic.

Damn right. Also, to the direction of my far too numerous fellow Frenchmen from metropolitan France who are irritated by your post and mine above: Swiss French is French, Belgian French is French, Quebec French is French, Cajun is French, and so are the multitude of other ones the post above mentions, and if you don’t accept it, please listen to “La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part” from Georges Brassens. He has something to say about you.

I thought “wasp” came from the Norman word “wespe” (French word guespe then later guêpe), but is that not true? Or do we just not know and these are possible explanations but there is no consensus?

I knew that and wasn’t irrationally angry at this one. A hyperbolic or absurd meaning does not bother me (but I get that its “overuse”, for a while, could).

Apparently, to mean the climax rather than the increase leading to it.

This is not the first time I hear someone singling out French for this and I kind of wonder why.

Yes, there is a prescriptive institution “Académie Française” and yes it has had an influence on the normalisation of French in the past (like, 400 years ago).

No, linguistically, it does not work that simply (French is not prescriptivist), and it’s been a while since anyone gave a damn what this institution says. French marches on, and the Académie is largely regarded as an illegitimate group of old men who try to force a classicist and artificial version of the language of their own making. They also have other missions which aren’t about prescribing usage, but that’s not what you usually hear about.

Also no, this institution no longer dictates what “proper” French is, and by that I mean it does not dictate it “legally” anymore. It never did, linguistically speaking.

And finally, I don’t know why it is that French is the language always used when it comes to descriptivism vs prescriptivism. From my admittedly limited knowledge, it looks to me like at least in western Europe, English is the exception rather the rule regarding this. Other countries and languages have had prescriptivist institutions propped up in the past to try and dictate usage of the language.

In all cases, whatever they say does not automatically become gospel. You can make a point that such institutions can suggest usages, but they can’t force them. Like the other commenter said, this is not how languages work. Ultimately, whatever the institutions say, if the people don’t use it this way, then the institution is wrong.

I can’t help but think about 1984’s newspeak whenever I see something like the abominable “unalive”. I know the reasons are different for this particular one, but I agree that we seem to be moving into that kind of direction.

I was not aware of the crescendo one and looked it up. Imagine my surprise learning this dates back at least 100 years ago with the Great Gatsby (have not read it). I am now irrationaly angry that I’m learning about this way too late to complain about it.

If I want to bork my system, I’ll bork my system. I’m big enough and ugly enough to make my own mistakes.

I have nothing against y pointing up, but I loathe the fact that left-handed coordinate systems are somehow considered an ok choice. This is probably the strongest I feel about something so inconsequential but I’ll die on that hill.

How old does it need to be in order to be considered niche by virtue of its age rather than by its original success or lack thereof?