Re: [vox] [OT] ISO's vs ISOs

[Rick Moen <rick@linMAPSuxmafia.com>]

Quoting Micah Cowan (micah@cowan.name):

> I'm afraid that parallelism went right over my head. Care to elaborate?

Sure.

Peter was stating the tiresome shibboleth always hauled out against
people articulating "rules" you don't happen to approve of:  You 
accuse such people of opposing change, opposing allowing the language
to "live".

You (the shibboleth-slinger), on the other hand, are Progressive and Good. 
Unlike the nasty mean conservative, who reminds you overmuch of the 9th
grade English teacher who wore dirty tweeds and always smelled like
cabbage, _you_ want the English language to go ever onward and upward.
Excelsior!

OK, enough of that slop.  What I was saying is that the obvious
rejoinder to that sort of tiresome gamesmanship is to stand right next
to the shibboleth-slinger, clap him on the shoulder, and assure him that 
you _also_ are on the side of Progress and All That Is Good.

You _too_ are absolutely 100% Pro-Change, like all good people.

Of course, you remind the now-off-balance propagandist, this does _not_
mean that you've suddenly lost your ability to distinguish the clear
from the unclear, the graceful from the frankensteinish, the bold from
the bureaucratic.  If some shyster is pushing on you an innovation, and
it happens to stink to high heaven, you're going to give him the bum's 
rush.  Just as you would something in Fowler's English Usage that
happens to be crack-addled.

Thus, you're willing, and able -- nay, you insist on it -- to cut out of
your language the shlock, new _or_ old, that someone wants to urge on
you.  Thus the surgeon part.

> However, judging by your previous comments, you don't necessarily
> believe this to be one such instance...

I neither know nor care whether leaving the apostrophe off is approved
by some hypothetical panel of ancients.  I was just trying to whatever
common sense I'm still capable of, at this hour.

-- 
Cheers,     Founding member of the Hyphenation Society, a grassroots-based, 
Rick Moen   not-for-profit, locally-owned-and-operated, cooperatively-managed,
rick@linuxmafia.com     modern-American-English-usage-improvement association.

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