Words, words, words.

Originally posted by Squeeky B
Why is there no meaning of the word 'dictionary' in a dictionary?

"Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work."

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Originally posted by Wulebgr
"Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work."

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Bierce likely didn't have linguistic studies at his disposal,
but, apparently non-literate languages are very 'unstable.'
I don't remember what language it was (or where it was,
but Australia sounds right...), but apparently someone had
done some rudimentary linguistic field work with this group
of people in the 20s (or whereabouts), and, some 80 years
later, the language is almost totally different. That is,
the conjugation, declension, even the vocabulary is totally
different than four generations ago.

I wish I had a copy of the article still, but I've lost it and
can't remember the details. My dates may be off, but
the gist of it is correct. It was astounding to hear that a
language literally evolve to the point where it became
literally unrecognizable.

Nemesio

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
Several times in this forum, what would otherwise be perfectly decent discussions degraded into petty arguments about the definition of a word or phrase and how it should be used ("free will" and "burden of proof" are two that I can think of off the top of my head, but there are others, including a myriad list of "religious" terms).

I have some interest in the subject of free will. I even started a thread about it.
I read a lot more than I post here at RHP. But I haven't read any petty arguments about the definition of the term "free will."
Would you mind pointing out the specific thread for me? Thanks.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
"Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work."

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

If u looked at the page before then u would have seen that Starrman has already posted a perfectly good meaning. Thankyou.

Originally posted by Squeeky B
If u looked at the page before then u would have seen that Starrman has already posted a perfectly good meaning. Thankyou.

I was replying to three posts by Starrman, perhaps four