astuteb has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 2 lists, listed 1 word, written 4 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 2 words.
astuteb has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 2 lists, listed 1 word, written 4 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 2 words.
Comments by astuteb
astuteb commented on the word nonce-word
I personally suspect this was made up by the OED editors because they were bored and because they could get away with it.
I mean, who's a bigger authority that can call them on it?
December 3, 2008
astuteb commented on the word swyve
Main entry is "swive", says it's an archaic word for copulating and that it's related to swaying somehow.
December 3, 2008
astuteb commented on the word privative
There's a great bit on this in Mill's A System of Logic:
Such is the word blind, which is not equivalent to not seeing, or to not capable of seeing, for it would not, except by a poetical or rhetorical figure, be applied to stocks and stones. A thing is not usually said to be blind, unless the class to which it is most familiarly referred, or to which it is referred on the particular occasion, be chiefly composed of things which can see, ...
(on Google Books)
November 24, 2008
astuteb commented on the word wunderwaffel
cf. Wikipedia on wunderwaffe
November 24, 2008