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Subject:RE: the old insure ensure assure From:Gause_Brian -at- emc -dot- com To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:01:34 -0500
Kevin,
I share your distaste for the degradation of language, but this is a
fundamental character of all language. Words and meaning change as usage
dictates...and users are smart and dumb...apprised of the rules, and
not. You simply cannot expect English to remain intact as it stands
today, now and forever, and you are silly to take sides against the
evolution of language. The only language that doesn't change is a dead
language.
Brian Gause
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+gause_brian=emc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gause_brian=emc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 2:42 PM
To: Andrew Warren; Rob Hudson; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: the old insure ensure assure
Dontcha just love how the American dictionaries seem so eager to bow
down to the lowest common denominator. Once again, we seek the
subtraction of meaning and value from a perfectly good word. Well, we
don't, but the idiots (who can't be bothered to learn the nearby, simple
word that means what they actually want to say) are inordinately pleased
with themselves when they destroy yet-another word and spread the
dumming ever-further (or is that farther?... doesn't matter, they'll
erase the distinction soon enough).
I have the same respect for those people - and for their panderers at
the dictionary organizations - as I do for people who leave a new tool
out in the rain to rust, and then don't even have the grace to be
ashamed, because it wasn't so much an oversight as a "don't give a f..."
I'll stop now.
- Kevin
(No-no Kevin, don't hold back like that. Tell us what you really think.)
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
techwr-l-bounces+kevin -dot- mclauchlan=safenet-inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kevin -dot- mclauchlan=safenet-inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-
> l.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Warren
> Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 5:31 PM
> To: 'Rob Hudson'; TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: the old insure ensure assure
>
> Rob Hudson wrote:
>
> > From a law firm's email signature:
> >
> > "To insure compliance with requirements imposed by the U.S. Internal
> > Revenue Service ..."
> >
> > Shouldn't it be "ensure"?
>
> Rob:
>
> Check your (American English) dictionary; many allow "insure" to be
used
> as a synonym for "ensure".
>
> -Andrew
>
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