(Sexy Picard2000,
Fri 30 Nov 2007, 17:38,
archived)
Somebody was complaining earlier (at you, I think) about the running-together of "a" and "lot" to make the new word "alot".
Then Fluffy Elephants mentioned an argument with a friend who thought some other phrase was all one word. Thing is, though, english contains masses of compound words. Already in this reply I've used "somebody" and "together" and "already". Will we never have any new ones now, just because we have dictionary entries to be snotty about? Are dictionaries bad for the health of a language?
(_Felix's school of dance and occult sciences,
Fri 30 Nov 2007, 17:19,
archived)
I was actually trying to type "a lot" but I didn't hit space hard enough,
whoever it was was just taking advantage of the fact that I'm younger than most on here ;)
How about: the publishers of dictionaries look out for new words all the time, and include them in new editions.
These words come about by people using words that aren't in dictionaries. Whenever they do this, there are other people who tell them that they shouldn't use those words because they aren't in the dictionary. Is their disapproval right or wrong? Should we stop inventing new words for new dictionaries?
(_Felix's school of dance and occult sciences,
Fri 30 Nov 2007, 17:28,
archived)
Oh, I thought you were saying that
Well, "B4" can't really BE a word, because it's half a number :S