hakase

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

From your biased, subjective point of view that has nothing to do with the objective facts of language, maybe.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Nope, I can do this all day. Other fun examples of backformation off the top of my head are: "to burgle" from "burglar" (which the Brits still get mad about (note: this is incorrect, see conversation below)), originally from the Latin agent noun burglator from the verb burgare; and "cherry", backformed from Old French cerise, which was reinterpreted as a plural (even though it wasn't one), and then a new singular form was backformed. The same thing happened to "pea" (though that's a native English word) - you can still see the original "pease" in the old nursery rhyme: "Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in a pot nine days old".

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (19 children)

"Edit" and "access" also weren't originally verbs. Same with "babysit" and "eavesdrop". Backformation and category changing are common and perfectly natural processes in English.

Edit: This isn't directed at the OP of this comment chain, but I'm always surprised by the crazy amount of ignorant prescriptivism I see all over Lemmy. Like, I expected that shit on Reddit, but I thought we were better than that here, especially since literally the only real reason for prescriptivism is sowing class division and excluding people for not having access to the secret knowledge of "correct" (yuck!) grammar.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

My thoughts exactly.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 weeks ago

He's not wrong

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

I agree, and I love your username.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (7 children)

This entire thread is /c/badlinguistics

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

They're not gone though? My wife plays Sims 2 all the time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

/c/badlinguistics

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Maybe let your alts take over for a while then and go touch some grass.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Blaze has definitely been the biggest shit-stirrer in the situation. He's all over every thread about the migration doing what he can to stir up drama.

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