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Quiz. What Are The Two Words They Can't Say On AFKN?
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laogaiguk

Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:24 pm Post subject:

Woland wrote:

PS I understand that we have been nominated for a prize for stupidest argument on Dave's this year, but am willing to bet that rteacher or meegook will beat us out with one of their threads.

"will" ???

flotsam

Joined: 28 Mar 2006

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject:

laogaiguk wrote:

Woland wrote:

PS I understand that we have been nominated for a prize for stupidest argument on Dave's this year, but am willing to bet that rteacher or meegook will beat us out with one of their threads.

"will" ???

History is cyclical.

Woland

Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 11:14 pm Post subject:

laogaiguk wrote:

Woland wrote:

PS I understand that we have been nominated for a prize for stupidest argument on Dave's this year, but am willing to bet that rteacher or meegook will beat us out with one of their threads.

"will" ???

Until the envelope is opened and the winner announced, it remains a competition.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:06 am Post subject:

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_party

TaS,

While I'm relieved to know the reindeer are safe, I'm now confused whether the Brits are putting Greeks or Turks on their pizzas.

Tiberious aka Sparkles

Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: I'm one cool cat!

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 3:34 am Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_party

TaS,

While I'm relieved to know the reindeer are safe, I'm now confused whether the Brits are putting Greeks or Turks on their pizzas.

It's Greek to me.

mindmetoo

Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:47 am Post subject: Re: Quiz. What Are The Two Words They Can't Say On AFKN?

Dev wrote:

The following is a quote from one of their recent TV ads. "Tired of bland pizza with topings that you don't want? Come and build your own pizza at the Dragon Hill Lodge."

I laughed when I saw this commercial because they were being so polite to avoid offending certain people. And I'm sure the people I'm referring to didn't get it.

What are they really talking about? What are the two words? Very Happy

A good observation. I'm not sure why the others are slammin' your ass about it.

Hollywoodaction

Joined: 02 Jul 2004

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:05 am Post subject:

Woland wrote:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

You know, there's this really cool invention called the Internet. It's got these snazzy thingies, 'search engines', that let you look words up like in a dictionary, but better because it shows you how languages are actually used by their speakers...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%22donner+kebab%22&btnG=Search

"Results 1 - 10 of about 15,400 for "donner kebab"." (if you set preferences to search for English language pages only)

Yeah, who knew there would be so many ways to say, "You're wrong"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6ner_kebab

"The d�ner kebab (usually doner kebab; sometimes donner kebab; the Arabic name "shawarma" is also commonly used) with salad and sauce is also a very popular dish in both the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. "

PS. Check what the Wikipedia article says about how Germans call their donners.

Sigh. If they want to know how to spell words, people go to dictionaries, not search engines. Why? Because even the semi-literate can use the internet and put up web pages.

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,150,000 for rediculous.
Results 1 - 10 of about 22,600,000 for definately.

You should know this from hanging around Dave's. Very Happy

Interestingly, if you look more closely at your top ten list for 'donner kebab', you'll find some interesting things.

Site #2 leads to a fatal error page (even in cache), not to anything about doner kebabs.

Site #6 is for a search of a recipe site producing these results:

Your search resulted in

0 category matches,
0 title matches

(Just for the record, you get the same result with 'doner kebab')

The video at site #9 is in Dutch

Site #10 is in Spanish.

But most of all, the wikipedia site you refer to highlights the primary spelling as 'doner'.

And while we're doing google searches, you might check this:

Results 1 - 10 of about 297,000 for "doner kebab". That's right - about 20X hits for the one 'n' spelling. And every link on the first page leads to something really about doner kebab in English. I guess that's where the usage is.

I will grant you that some people do spell it with two 'n's, and that the spelling hasn't been standardized in English. But, with one dictionary already using the one 'n' spelling, more will follow, especially with history and numbers on its side. Unless you want to start a movement for the 'nn' spelling.

I don't get your point about the German section of the wikipedia page.

PS I understand that we have been nominated for a prize for stupidest argument on Dave's this year, but am willing to bet that rteacher or meegook will beat us out with one of their threads.

No argument, here... You're wrong.

Are you a clueless purist or simply dishonest?

1) Go to google, preferences, and reset your preferences to English pages only. No Spanish or German pages after that.

2) Don't you know that dictionaries hardly ever include colloquialisms? Yeah, colloquialisms. See, the thing is, language is not determined by the contents of a dictionary, but by its users. Don't believe me? Well, the only languages that don't evolve are dead languages. Language doesn't wait years for the new edition of the dictionary before it evolves.

3) Quoting the number of results for 'rediculous' or 'definately'? Oh, please. You know that those words, regardless of spelling, are far more commonly used than 'donner kebab' or 'doner kebab' (88900 in English--again, learn to use Google).

4) "But most of all, the wikipedia site you refer to highlights the primary spelling as 'doner'."

Well, you conveniently forgot to mention that it also highlights the fact that donner is a common spelling...And I quote, "D�ner Kebab (as d�ner kebap in Turkish and often simply kebap, d�ner, doner, donner or donair)" and "The d�ner kebab (usually doner kebab; sometimes donner kebab; the Arabic name "shawarma" is also commonly used) with salad and sauce is also a very popular dish in both the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland."

5)"Sigh. If they want to know how to spell words, people go to dictionaries, not search engines. Why? Because even the semi-literate can use the internet and put up web pages."

Sigh...Here's why... http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/doner

Does that mean 'doner' isn't a word?

Dictionaries are limited in scope. As I've already mentioned, they are static. Once they've been published, they don't change, whereas language is in continuous evolution. As a result, you've got over a million words in English, and less than 500000 in the most complete dictionaries.

Again, if you want to know what is acceptable use of a language, refer to its users. One of the best sources of 'real' English is the Cobuild Corpus (its data is taken from publications such as books and magazines). Check what I found in it: "from minestrone soup, telafel and hummous, donner kebab, chicken couscous or crepe suzette if". Sure, it's only one entry (I was only checking through the free sampler), but a search for 'doner' brought up only two concordances (see number 3 again).

I've you've studied linguistics, please return to school do some upgrading. Things have evolved in the last 100 years.

flotsam

Joined: 28 Mar 2006

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:45 am Post subject:

Ahhhhh...stupidest arguer. I see.

Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 12:03 pm Post subject: ...

Bush sucks

flotsam

Joined: 28 Mar 2006

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:06 pm Post subject:

Does not.

Hollywoodaction

Joined: 02 Jul 2004

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:25 pm Post subject:

flotsam wrote:

Ahhhhh...stupidest arguer.

I see.

Takes one to know one.

flotsam

Joined: 28 Mar 2006

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:09 pm Post subject:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

flotsam wrote:

Ahhhhh...stupidest arguer.

I see.

Takes one to know one.

Mr. Grammar Guru has yet to grasp the superlative, eh?

Your mother!

Sweet.

Hollywoodaction

Joined: 02 Jul 2004

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:45 pm Post subject:

flotsam wrote:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

flotsam wrote:

Ahhhhh...stupidest arguer.

I see.

Takes one to know one.

has yet to grasp the superlative, eh?

Your mother!

Sweet.

Mr. Grammar Guru? Because of a discussion about orthography and lexicon? Ah!

Your mother!

Woland

Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:08 am Post subject:

Double post Last edited by Woland on Fri Nov 03, 2006 7:57 am; edited 1 time in total

Woland

Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:09 am Post subject:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

Neither clueless, purist, nor dishonest. And my linguistics credentials are in good shape, as well.

If you read my earlier posts seriously, you'll see that I conceded your point that some people have spelled the word with two 'n's.

My point in my initial post was simply that the word in Turkish and, as a small aside, that its Turkish root has one 'n'. It really wasn't intended to insult you and I'm sorry you took it that way.

I took some offense at the "blah, blah, blah" line you put in your response and got a bit hyperbolic in my reply. For that I apologize. But my point about the spelling of doner with two n's being less than standard stands. It's supported by your own frequency data from google (if usage alone does determine what the standard is), but also in the judgements of those who record these things. Again, if you'll read my posts, you'll note that I said that most dictionaries have no entry on the matter, but that one (Cambridge) does favor the single 'n' spelling. I expect that any trend of recognition will continue in that direction because 1) the historic root is spelled with one 'n'; 2) one dictionary has already recognized that as standard; and 3) the usage numbers support it.

My point about the unreliability of google searches as sources for what is standard (which is why I included the examples 'definately' and 'rediculous' - people produce them, but I don't think you want to claim that they are standard or even English) also stands. First, when I pointed to the problems in your search, I clicked on your link to get those results. It wasn't my not setting my preferences properly that produced a page in Spanish or a YouTube page in English hosting a Dutch video.

Second, I own up to the fact that I didn't reset my preferences to get my results for 'doner kebab' and that the numbers I gave include the many pages in languages other than English. Mea culpa. I don't have my preferences set to weed out non-English pages in general not in ignorance of that function but because I regularly read pages in Russian, Spanish, and, to a lesser extent, Turkish, French, Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech (the last four of these just for gist, not details). I don't want to weed out foreign pages. But you are correct, for what we were arguing about, I should have. Considering that your search wound up including a page in Spanish, I wonder if the numbers you got for 'donner kebab' are accurate. Even if we accept them, with the corrected figures you provided for 'doner kebab', the one 'n' reading still has more than 5X hits than the two 'n' spelling.

As for knowledge of corpus linguistics, again, I assure you that my qualifications are up to date, and, although I don't want to argue the point here, are superior to yours (I'm reasonably certain of this, but you could prove me wrong). Check my post history. As far as I know, I'm the only poster here who directs people to corpus linguistics solutions to various problems that they ask about. I don't recall seeing you do it, but again, maybe I missed something. I did it in the last week in response to a post by ajuma about lessons for prepositions.

And I recognize the processing error of anticipation in your last sentence, but won't make a fuss about it because I do the same thing myself sometimes.

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