• The forum software that supports hummy.tv has been upgraded to XenForo 2.3!

    Please bear with us as we continue to tweak things, and feel free to post any questions, issues or suggestions in the upgrade thread.

Assume v. Presume

Black Hole said:
Wasn't the original one good enough? "He's in a good place"
Click to expand...


Link please! Are you saying that being 6' underground or converted to ashes and scattered are not good places to be?

Give an example of someone saying that when they meant position, please! I can't see anyone saying "He's in a good position" when they mean "He's dead!"

(Sorry to be pedantic!)

PS I prefer clichéed.
 
Black Hole said:
That's just plain silly!

I can't link to things, because these are frequently heard on radio or TV. "Position" can be used to imply a "set of circumstances", "place" can't.
Click to expand...


We all know that. That's like saying moor isn't a synonym for moor because one is a bit of terrain and the other is a person! Nobody said that every meaning of one word has to be a synonym of a meaning of another word, just that, under one choice of meaning for each they can be synonyms. You seem to be saying that no meaning of position is a synonym for place which is just pedantic, and just what this thread thrives on! :D
 
but... but...

I'm not saying that no meaning of position is synonymous with any meaning of place, only that no meaning of place corresponds with the meaning intended in the cliché phrase "he's in a good place".

But that does not alter my previous position (ie stand point) on synonyms.
 
There was a wrangle on Breakfast this morning, fired up by some council's decision to remove apostrophes from street signs. Funny, I thought that had already happened.

Anyway, there was the usual showpiece debate between a traditionalist bent on "rules is rules" and a progressivist "there are no rules only conventions" (of course, my take is "conventions is conventions"). The progressivist claimed apostrophes do not get pronounced - this may be true, but is irrelevant.

What I found more interesting was that he also said the conventions about apostrophe usage had already shifted away from using them in plurals - I was not previously aware that the Grocers' Apostrophe used to be 'correct' at some period in history (although I like to use them when expressing the plural of a character symbol, eg "there are four t's in this sentence" - imagine the trouble I had with iOS on that!).
 
Mike0001 said:
there are four ts in this sentence

Simple!

(Or "t"s.)
Click to expand...
'ts' is what I was taught.
The only issue with using italics is using a medium or application which does not allow italics.
But I thought when there are only one set of quote or speech marks "t"s is US English, and the UK English version is 't's?
 
Black Hole said:
The progressivist claimed apostrophes do not get pronounced
Click to expand...


Plenty of place names have bits that aren't pronounced. So they shouldn't put them on signs either. Reductio ad absurdum - go entirely phonetic; the American tourists would like it. Gloster, Lester, Lufbrer (or would it be Luffbrer?).
 
Mind you, local councils will want to use the local dialect ... so you'd get signs to Larndarn in the SE and The Smoke anywhere north of Watford.
That Midlands place would be Beermingum.
Nobody would be able to find places in Scotland, or Wales. No change there then :)
 
Black Hole said:
although I like to use them when expressing the plural of a character symbol, eg "there are four t's in this sentence" - imagine the trouble I had with iOS on that!).
Click to expand...
Me too - I learned the rule a long time ago but did spot it recently in one of the excellent books by Lynne Truss.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top