Assume v. Presume

Mike0001 said:
If it is customary to call the thing in a URL a dot then you, of all people, BH, should be fighting the slovenly degrading of the term.
Click to expand...
I never said it is called a dot, I said it is customary (by which I mean almost universally accepted) to pronounce it as "dot" in that context. What that particular typographic symbol is actually called is no doubt a subject of some disagreement. Surely you recognise the difference between pronunciation (or vocalisation) and naming? Eg: & (ampersand) "and".

Mike0001 said:
When have you ever agreed with usage as opposed to precision? :disagree:
Click to expand...
I have to agree with usage, but not necessarily common usage. In this case, I am utterly unaware of any alternative to "dot" or have any alternative to propose (or indeed why this damned iPad keeps replacing '"dot"' with '"for"'). Do you really refer to a full stop as a period?

I had to get my head around this kind of thing years ago, when faced with the convention of writing (say) 13.4 in a cricket scorebook as meaning "13 overs and 4 balls". Mentally I objected to the dot - which I regarded as a decimal point - as representing a heximal point (base 6), until I came to terms with the realisation that any particular symbol is only defined to have a particular meaning within a particular realm of context.
 
Last edited:
I suppose they call a ball on which no runs were taken as a 'dot ball' because it's a lot more manageable than 'full stop ball' or even 'period ball'.
BH said:
Do you really refer to a full stop as a period?
Click to expand...
Of course not. I only mentioned it to be contentious (successfully, it would appear).
 
Trev said:
Mike is pronounced MIke
Click to expand...
But how is MIke pronounced? Mike?

Black Hole said:
MIke wouldn't need the e
Click to expand...
Or Μικε0001! Coo, I like that, but I can't change my forum name.

This is a truly pointed discussion. I mite just change the subject.

·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾·˙̣ׅׄ͘﮲﮲﮳﮴﮵﮶﮷﮸﮹﮺﮻﮽﮾
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Although people commonly use "lie in" and "lay in" interchangeably the same cannot be said of "lying in" and "laying in" as the latter has a specific meaning for imminent mothers to be.
 
Did you lie in that last post? I think you did.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What's with the American confusion over bring and take? .. or is it us that are confused?
 
Bring is synonymous with fetch, as in 'bring it here' and take is synonymous with deliver, as it 'take it over there'. In bring, the object comes to you and in take, it ends up somewhere else. What on earth is confusing about that.
 
Nothing - that's my understanding too - but I keep hearing Americans say bring instead of take (on TV and in films and when I'm over there) although they do seem to use take as well.

The most recent example I heard that jarred - I went to see the new TMNT film this evening (excellent btw.) and at one point the turtles are at the opposite side of the city to Splinter and one of them hands something to April and says "bring this to Splinter".

Edit: googled it a bit instead of just being lazy and asking here.. found this which matches my experience.

In American English, bring and take are not complementary—instead, bring is not obligatorily bound to the location of the speaker, whereas take is.
...
You can say “Bring your books to school”, whether you are at school or at home, but you can only say “Take your books to school” if you are not at school.
Click to expand...
(from http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3131/bring-vs-take-in-american-english)
 
Then it's not us Brits that are confused, it's the natives in out transatlantic colonies. (Is there an emoticon for 'duck')
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top