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[Starver]

Posting because people have no reason to shit all over a thread for a perfectly acceptable usage of a word simply because the original and mostly obsolete definition is not the same as the current one.

While I see your point, and I did indeed only enter the thread because my Spider-Grammar-Nazi sense was tingling, I feel a bit miffed that you replied to make this counter-point in response to the post in which I deliberately made sure had thread-specific information in it.  Don't know if it helped (not heard if there seasonal saves provided an embark save, but by now I'm assuming not), but it was intended to be relevent.  OP?

There is no reason to say it doesn't equal annihilate either, since the usage here is not the same as annihilate's.

Maybe not (close though... just one survivor, if I read correctly), but that's what a lot of people use both words for anyway (i.e. perhaps survivor), and both (IM[H?]O) in error.  And I make no apologies for informing the public that a word has been misappropriated these last few centuries or so.  I'd expect exactly the same treatment in return.  I almost expect it every time I use words such as "while" (for some meaning "during", but for others it is "until"), and I'm sure there's holes to be picked in most of my missives (especially this one), if you're of a mind to do so, and quite probably I'll be happy to be improved.


Anyway... I've never had fire-snake fire-starting (not actually noticed firesnakes in .31 games, at all, but as they're vermin they're easily missed I suppose), but it is something that I know of that may have happened, or perhaps a convenient explanation for something else (e.g. whatever caused this situation) that never got properly identified.

[Ross Vernal]

I fully realize that the word has been used wrong so often that the common understanding of it has changed. That doesn't make it correct, simply popular.

Language shift with popular usage. A word is correct when a large percentage of people use it under the same understanding.

Not only no, but hell no.

*pulls the lever on you*

Alot of emigrants were suppose too move towards my fort. I was use two there making it all the way, but, irregardless, a discrete horde of goblins decimated they're plans when they cut the head of a dwarf and sent it flying in an arch. You're advice wood be good, unless you could care less.

In other words:

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7386/overruled.jpg

[forsaken1111]

I fully realize that the word has been used wrong so often that the common understanding of it has changed. That doesn't make it correct, simply popular.

Language shift with popular usage. A word is correct when a large percentage of people use it under the same understanding.

Not only no, but hell no.

A lot of immigrants were supposed to move towards my fort. I was used to they're making it all the way, but, regardless, a small horde of goblins devastated their plans when they cut the head of a dwarf and sent it flying in an arc. Your advice wood be good.

In other words:

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7386/overruled.jpg

You make my head hurt.

[Ross Vernal]

I made my own head hurt. It's just that what that guy said managed to set off my internal Grammar Nazi.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to deceive Grammar Neville Chamberlain and invade Grammar Poland.

Grammatik, Grammatik über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
Grammatik, Grammatik über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
GN marschiert mit ruhig, festem Schritt.
Kam'raden, die Analphabeten und Dummkopf erschossen,
Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit!

*goose-steps his way out of the thread*

[Musashi]

I'm surprised. Over here, when we hit the Godwin point, it's usually over the re-invention of unreliable gas chambers and pointless eugenics. Not semantics.
Have we weaponized language yet, by the way?

[Psychobones]

I fully realize that the word has been used wrong so often that the common understanding of it has changed. That doesn't make it correct, simply popular.

Language shift with popular usage. A word is correct when a large percentage of people use it under the same understanding.

Not only no, but hell no.

*pulls the lever on you*

Alot of emigrants were suppose too move towards my fort. I was use two there making it all the way, but, irregardless, a discrete horde of goblins decimated they're plans when they cut the head of a dwarf and sent it flying in an arch. You're advice wood be good, unless you could care less.

In other words:

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7386/overruled.jpg

There's a difference between a word adopting a new meaning, and improper use of words. Decimate has adopted a new meaning, in the same way that forum has adopted a new meaning. Unless I missed it, we're not currently at the town square of a Roman city, however we are on a forum. Decimate as the OP used it is correct.

[Uthric]

i had a embark now back in 40d that  gave me some fire snakes that ended in death of everyone as soon as i unpaused it by fire

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

Thermonuclear catsplosion.  That is all.

[Tiruin]

What happened in the past 3 pages really made me smile. From a simple question to grammar correction (sorry, it was my fault  ) and now we have prose in this thread. I love the forums for its uniqueness.

[Shades]

Alot of emigrants were suppose too move towards my fort. I was use two there making it all the way, but, irregardless, a discrete horde of goblins decimated they're plans when they cut the head of a dwarf and sent it flying in an arch. You're advice wood be good, unless you could care less.

The abuse of words here for wrong meanings are ones that have not made it to a dictionary. Decimate has.
Which is a fairly good indicator of language shift due to large numbers of people understanding it having a new meaning, and just a large minority of people using words incorrectly.

Although I admit to many people abuse 'could care less' to mean basically the opposite.

[Endiqua]

I'm sure there's holes to be picked in most of my missives (especially this one), if you're of a mind to do so, and quite probably I'll be happy to be improved.

I almost hate to do this, dude, but "I'm sure there areholes..."     (It's a rule - any time someone posts regarding someone else's grammar error, there will almost certainly be an error in that post.)

Also, "relevant" rather than "relevent."

(I'm sorry.  Really.  I'm not picking on you...well, maybe I am, but not in a mean way.  Look at it like this, I'm providing you an opportunity to back up what you said about being grateful for it.)

I can't really fault anyone for using "decimate" in the sense of "annihilate" since this usage is allowed in current references.  Honestly, I'm just happy to see words that have more than 4 letters used in a manner that is consistent with current references. 

I must admit, though, I always notice "decimate" and have to quell the urge to comment.

[Starver]

I almost hate to do this, dude, but [...]

I did essentially ask for it.  I did leave a common typo of mine (must have been the "relevent", I forget) as a deliberate sacrifice to the Pedant's Curse[1], good call on the contraction, though.

(Near where I live, there's an area where the local dialect uses "were" in all senses (as well as "we were going out", also "I were going out") and another area where "was" is used in all senses (as well as "I was going out", also "we was going out"), and I suspect that this error of mine is a bit of dialect leaking out into text. )


Anyway, at least no-one has invoked RAS Syndrome or Greengrocers Comma's.

And fire snakes it is, then?

[1] Or Pedants' Curse, according to preference and your understanding of whether it targets each pedant, or all of the pedants.

[Haspen]

I made my own head hurt. It's just that what that guy said managed to set off my internal Grammar Nazi.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to deceive Grammar Neville Chamberlain and invade Grammar Poland.

Grammatik, Grammatik über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
Grammatik, Grammatik über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
GN marschiert mit ruhig, festem Schritt.
Kam'raden, die Analphabeten und Dummkopf erschossen,
Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit!

*goose-steps his way out of the thread*

72 years ago my forefathers, at this very hour, were fighting to defend said Poland and I happen to be from Poland as well.

I'm kinda angry now, even if it is grammar-ified

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

Sounds like you've got a case of fire snakes.
I've found that vermin leather seems to appear when you make sapients eatable, because I'd be able to embark with lungfish leather armor. One of your dwarves might have brought fire snake leather boots or something similar.

[Ross Vernal]

No offense was meant at all; my apologies, Haspen.