Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Besides, for our original poster in the US, it is in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary as a verb anyhow.
That settles it then......
A
Besides, for our original poster in the US, it is in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary as a verb anyhow.
In any case, cwbirder, your friend is talking nonsense. There is no 'Academie' or 'Academia' that determines prescriptive rules on the English language (thankfully). The OED, Websters or Chambers or whoever have no authoritative remit...they are merely reporting on changes in usage, rather than legislating. English is flexible and has adapted to different cultures and groups worldwide in different ways. Here, 'Bird' as a verb is certainly used in its current sense only by 'Birdwatchers'. That doesn't mean it's wrong, only that I must use 'Birdwatching' if speaking to a non-Birder. Obviously 'Bird' as a verb has been in use for centuries, albeit with different meanings, i.e. to kill 'em, not just look at 'em. So what...a verb changes meaning slightly over the years. Fancy that.
Besides, for our original poster in the US, it is in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary as a verb anyhow.
Brings to mind a Calvin and Hobbes strip about "verbing", i.e. the tendency to take nouns and start using them as verbs. Maybe your friend agrees that "verbing weirds language":-O
Mind you...I hate it when I hear 'action' used as a verb. Particularly if it's 'going forward'.
Mind you...I hate it when I hear 'action' used as a verb. Particularly if it's 'going forward'.
The irritatingness of that formation cannot be underestimated - which of course should be 'overestimated' (a typical illiterate BBC usage. BBC reporters are now one of the prime sources of illiteracy in the modern world). Way more than anyone else, I find.
Another one that really irritates me is 'protest' used to mean protest against - the exact opposite of the correct original meaning ('testify in favour of, assert' : "I protest my innocence."). What people hundreds of years hence will think we all meant to say is beyond imagining.
(/old fogey)
Cheers
'I'll bring you on holiday next year'.....you won't, you'll take me. The use of bring is linked to time and place, the here and now is bring, a future or geographically distant place is take.
erm......
"when you visit me next year can you bring your telescope"
"please take that thing away from here right now"
bring = towards, take = away, nothing to do with time and place, or here and now
It's fascinating how soon the veneer of dispassionate scientific detachment cracks in these discussions. We--some of us anyway--start out wrapped in the mantel of linguistic science where usage is everything and prescription has no place at all. Until, that is, we start hitting usages we don't like--really really don't like--and up in flames we go, condemning them in the most angry and intemperate terms. Mea culpa! You too, Sancho.
What about the use of 'bring' mainly by Americans it has to be said, when they should say 'take'.
'I'll bring you on holiday next year'.....you won't, you'll take me. The use of bring is linked to time and place, the here and now is bring, a future or geographically distant place is take.
Accents and spellings are one thing but this is being used completely, wrongly and what happens in America and on American tv, gets picked up for wider usage, mainly by Europeans who speak English as a second language.
Re 'verbifying' words, that is at least a derivation and progression of a root word, very different to using the wrong word!
Here are a few lines from the BBC today about the culling of Bison.
It is seeking volunteers to help cull a herd of bison in the famous gorge, which it says are damaging park resources.
About 600 bison live in the area, but experts say that could hit 1,500 in a decade if their numbers are not controlled.
A lottery system will be used to choose the shooters.
The bison are owned by the state of Arizona, and are descended from animals brought there in the 1900s.
The word used should surely be 'taken', they were either 'taken there' or if the person was reporting from the actual place, 'brought here'.
I don't think it's too much to ask, that people who write for a living, presumably in their native language, should be able to do so competently?
A
No:I bird.
I used to birdwatch.
Other people think I bird-spot.
I am a birder.
David
Isn't "send" the correct verb here?And what should I do with my mother-in-law....'bring' or 'take' her 'birding'?