BarkellWH -> RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the" flamenco. (Jun. 8 2016 18:02:13)
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Indeed: Wiktionary thinks so; and when I tried to correct it, I was contradicted with a quotation from Tennessee Williams. So I asked “If there is such a dance, what does it look like? What is its time signature, is it fast or slow? Is the key of the music major, minor or Phrygian?” The reply: “It's about usage as well as accuracy. If people say 'I can dance a good flamenco' then we need to cover that usage.” After that I gave up. The whole "Wiki" enterprise, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc. is fraught with pitfalls. I never depend on it for information. Regarding Wikipedia, if you know your subject you don't need it. And if you don't know the subject, you have no way of knowing whether or not Wikipedia has the correct information. In looking up some information I knew well, I found that Wikipedia got it wrong. But more often, I have found that Wikipedia may not be wrong as far as it goes, but it is incomplete in its description of the subject under consideration, which is just as bad as getting it wrong. There is still nothing like a good hard-bound dictionary or Thesaurus for proper English usage. And the same holds true for a good library of established authors on subjects one is interested in that can be used for reference, whether it is one's home library or the public library. It is supposed to be a marvelous development that anyone can post anything on the internet regardless of his level of expertise and experience in the subject. Everyone gets to enter the public domain and comment on anything. Fair enough. But it leads to a lot of garbage as well. So Wiktionary thinks "It's about usage as well as accuracy. If people say 'I can dance a good flamenco' then we need to cover that usage." That's like the Topeka, Kansas school board mandating that "Creationism" be taught along with evolution. After all, if accuracy is of so little importance that it must compete with inaccurate "usage" (or in this case "belief"), why not teach that the earth is 6,000 years old, along with touting one's ability to "dance the flamenco." Indeed. Bill
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