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Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Ricardo)
for some reason it was a real struggle to get that fox5 website open ..my computre just didnt like it ..loading ..failing ....reloading .. but eventually it worked .. And i get to see Ricardo playing The Flamenco .. I doo like the use of THE as the defininite artical of flamenco as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite artcle. . i was just learning flamenco ..... now i have discovered The flamenco ... I would have really liked to have gone there cos you finally playing something simple that i can understand ...in the flamenco .. pity your half a world away .....
Anyway well done with the flamenco , it's always good to see people that you kinda feel you know somewhat from here putting their stuff up , of the flamenco.. . well done The Ricardo
Posts: 15483
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Ricardo)
Obviously, the world over, many people's superficial understanding of flamenco dance is that it is a single song form. Like they learn "The two step", "the mambo", "the merengue", "the Cha Cha", "the tango", etc etc. When they say this to me I usually toss it back like "I don't dance THE flamenco myself, I wonder if you could teach me THE ballroom dance?"... And they give you that strange look like what's wrong with this A hole?
Posts: 41
Joined: Apr. 3 2016
From: Iraq, Living in North Carolina
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Ricardo)
Congratulations! It was refreshing to watch that segment -something rarely happens to me when I accidentally watch anything on Fox News- ... I wish we had more of you and your wife instead of the two goofy looking presenters.
Posts: 1811
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Obviously, the world over, many people's superficial understanding of flamenco dance is that it is a single song form.
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.”
Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
If people I know say .....'I can dance a good flamenco' ....I would direct them to an English teacher to go through some syntax and basic grammar rules...
Posts: 3484
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
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
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to BarkellWH)
it means if everyone uses the wrong word or term enough times and with wider and more frequent use it will force itself to be correct due to the massive quantity of use as oppose to the ,perhaps , relatily small use of the correct form ...getting pushed out .. . ,. a bit like " i haven;t got nothing " is it a double negative ..yes is it wrong...........technically ..yes is it in common use ....definately in some cities more than others, However its in common use and therefore you dont have to avoid it as most wont even stop to correct you ... I know that doesnt make things right but if enough called it 'The Flamenco' ..usage would insist that wikipedia would then have to cover it .
but if everyone called it 'flamenco ' wikipedia wouldnt cover it as its usage has not changed ... yes . i see the point ....its to do with change .... maybe ... @ The BarkellWH ....
Posts: 1811
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to El Kiko)
quote:
if everyone uses the wrong word or term enough times and with wider and more frequent use it will force itself to be correct
According to the COD, the spelling miniscule has now overtaken minuscule in frequency
In the same vein, I see that BBC News has now forgotten how to use adjectives. To take just today’s news:
• Doubts grow over 'smuggler' extradition (instead of 'smuggler'’s) • Ethiopia base attacked in Somalia (Ethiopian) • Students doubt university value (university’s) • Peru election goes down to the wire (Peruvian)
Posts: 3484
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
Ignorance of the correct use of English can have real world consequences that go beyond syntax and misunderstanding the meaning of a word. A good example occurred in the mayor's office in Washington, DC about 12 years ago and received wide coverage in the Washington Post. A white male employee, commenting on the city budget, noted that one line item received so little funding that it, as he put it, "was a niggardly amount." A black colleague overheard him and lodged a complaint, stating that the comment was "racist." When told that "niggardly" was not racist and meant "stingy" or "miserly," the black colleague still complained. the white employee was eventually transferred to another department. So instead of the employee ignorant about English language usage being reprimanded or transferred, the employee using the term correctly was.
Unsurprisingly, there have been dust-ups at several universities over the term "niggardly." Several years ago at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a leader of the Black Student Union complained to the faculty senate that a professor teaching Chaucer had used the word "niggardly," and that the professor continued using the word after she (the student) told her she was "offended." When told that the term had no relationship to racist language, the "offended" student replied, "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid." These are supposed to be educated people, and yet their ignorance of the English language appears to be setting the agenda these days.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
These are supposed to be educated people, and yet their ignorance of the English language appears to be setting the agenda these days
The sad thing, IMHO, is that many of them do know the correct meaning of "niggardly" yet still decide that it is offensive, merely because of how the word sounds. I think it has more to do with political correctness going unchecked than with ignorance of the English language per se. In any event, the whole situation is utterly absurd.
@Ricardo. Cool vid by the way! It's a shame they made the sequences so short but hopefully you'll get something, at least some good advertising, out of it.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to BarkellWH)
A well-known personality scale that was still being used in the 1980’s contained “I like to be gay at parties” and “I like to wear a pretty frock”. The use of language changes and attempts to prevent this are probably doomed to failure. The same applies to spelling. Yes, we could try and read Chaucer.
In the case of minority languages there is often a feeling that national cultural identity will be lost if the language changes and this gives rise to national committees charged with preserving the language, for example, the Académie française. One of many initiatives was to make French Academics give papers at international conferences in French in order to receive financial support – even when official conference languages (each supported by simultaneous translation into one of the other two) might have been English, German and Russian say.
In the case of English, preservation is not an option – our imperial past ensured that. Things are out of control - when I hear “less” rather than “fewer” I am sad but resigned.
Posts: 15483
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
These are supposed to be educated people, and yet their ignorance of the English language appears to be setting the agenda these days.
But of course, if you suggest simply ignoring the antics of the illiterates, you’re accused of élitism (or rather, elitism).
Only if you are a niggardly white rich male.
Seriously there will be folks that know full well the implications of misunderstandings and can play into that which is not cool IMO. The tv cartoon South Park used to do that all the time (in particular the episode "naggers"). This film maker Tarantino and others I have noticed get away with this stuff.
RE: Fox 5 news DC Learning "the... (in reply to El Kiko)
quote:
ORIGINAL: El Kiko I belive it ... i remember a case in England I think, where some people were against this guy who moved into and area as he was a pediatrician... just a part of the word and you make the rest up your selves ....