Comments on: Guardian 25,449 / Rufus

By: Resources

Resources — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:21:21 +0000

Hi there, the whole thing is going perfectly here and ofcourse
every one is sharing data, that’s really fine, keep up writing.

By: Davy

Davy — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 08:40:39 +0000

Just a late comment regarding the ‘imply/infer/allude/refer’ debate. I do not like slovenly speech and these words definitely have four separate meanings.
The point is that people misuse words and if enough people do so, then over time, the wrong usage will become a sub or sometimes main definition in the dictionary. An example would be the word ‘sophisticate’ which originally meant ‘to spoil the natural beauty or purity of’ and we all know what it means now.

I once heard somebody say ‘he was very expertise in computers’. I inwardly shuddered but did not correct the person.

By: Rishi

Rishi — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:19:22 +0000

Sorry for not closing the html tag.

By: Rishi

Rishi — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:18:30 +0000

I first encountered the word ‘peccavi’ in college sometime in mid-Sixties. I think it was in John Webster’s play, The Duchess of Malfi, though my memory is fading now and the book is in a carton on the loft.

(If anyone can confirm my remembrance, I will pat myself on the back.)

Rishi
in Madras that is Chennai, India

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:35:40 +0000

duncan@26
I am assuming that cannot be serious.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:10:26 +0000

The Scarlet Pimpernel was really allusive, as I recall.

By: caretman

caretman — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:09:25 +0000

And since I had to figure out what the novel was, it was Gambit, published in 1962. The scene is introduced thus:

Mr. Wolfe is in the middle of a fit. It’s complicated. There’s a fireplace in the front room, but it’s never lit because he hates open fires. He says they stultify mental processes. But it’s lit now because he’s using it. He’s seated in front of it, on a chair too small for him, tearing sheets out of a book and burning them. The book is the new edition, the third edition, of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published by the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. He considers it subversive because it threatens the integrity of the English language. In the past week he has given me a thousand examples of its crimes. He says it is a deliberate attempt to murder the — I beg your pardon. I describe the situation at length because he told me to bring you in there, and it will be bad.

By: caretman

caretman — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:58:18 +0000

Thanks, duncanshiell, for the blog and the discussion of ‘infer’ vs. ‘imply’.

I, too, distinguish the two and wish they could maintain their distinct meaning. I am reminded of an old Nero Wolfe mystery novel which opens with Nero Wolfe, a word lover, tearing pages out of a new dictionary he had just purchased and feeding them into a fire. When a visitor asks him why he is doing that, he replies, “Do you use ‘infer’ and ‘imply’ interchangeably?” His new dictionary countenanced outrages such as that and he was purging it of its offending pages.

By: Davy

Davy — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:53:28 +0000

Thanks Duncan,

It seems that whatever Rufus comes up with, it’s always a gentle stroll to some commenters. PECCAVI was the one answer I didn’t get and with the letters P_C_A_I one might spend ages trying to come up with a word (Find and Fit notwithstanding). Should I know this word or is my life bereft of a classical education ?. It would seem so as most people seem to know this word (too many seems it would seem). Yes I have sinned but I simply do not know this word. Have I been found out ?.

By: duncan

duncan — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:16:21 +0000

I would agree that “in the red” is, these days, allusory.
once it might have literally (rather than figuratively, pun intended!) referred to one’s accounts being written in red ink to signify debt, but these days bank statements & the like tend to be printed or displayed in black on white. red’s difficult to photocopy, I understand.
anyway, my understanding of “allude” came directly from an old book I have, “the (something) book of english idioms”. I can’t find it, nor can I remember the publisher. but each explanation of a phrase told the reader to what it alluded; the distinction in my mind was that the idiom was of a metaphorical & not literal nature.
besides, I like the idea that these four words (& more) have their own distinct meanings. makes them more useful, I think.