Re: Quartz/Halogen incandescent bulbs

["Shapiro, Mark" <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU>]

Ah yes....English is such a lovely language.

....no time like the present to present the present....

....time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana....

Mark
http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Sylvester [mailto:msylvest@SPIN.IT]
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 1:42 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: Quartz/Halogen incandescent bulbs


At 05:54 PM 2/11/00 -0800, Leigh Palmer wrote:

> Gratuitous English grammar lesson follows:
>
> "Break the degeneracy!" "Breech" is a noun; "break" is the verb. I
> am sensitive to the difference because I was raised by folks who
> thought the difference mattered. I realize that my attitude is not
> politically correct. I still think "lend" is a verb and "loan" is
> a noun, and that's the way it was when I went to kindergarten
> sometime during the late Pleistocene. There seems to be a move
> afoot to make the English language more degenerate by reducing the
> number of distinct parts of speech! Isn't it interesting that the
> term "degenerate" can be interpreted in two ways here? I always
> wondered about how that word got attached to two or more equal
> energy states. One who uses "loan" as both a verb and a noun is
> practicing degenerate grammar.


However, "to breach" is a (rather fine) verb, meaning "to break through".
"Breech" would be the singular of "breeches", or the back end of a gun. It
also means "buttocks" apparently. And it can also be a verb, an archaic one
at that, meaning "to put a boy into breeches", thus being an early example
of "verbing" a noun. So why don't we just let the English language develop?
It will, anyway.

Mark.