donderdag 28 juni 2007
For people who love to argue diction...
The Word of the Day for September 26 is:reiterate \ree-IH-tuh-rayt\ (verb) : to state or do over again or repeatedly sometimes withwearying effectExample sentence: Megan rolled her eyes as her mother reiterated the rulesfor the umpteenth time.Did you know? Can you guess the meaning of "iterate," a less commonrelative of "reiterate"? It must mean simply "to state or do,"right? Nope. Actually, "iterate" also means "to state or doagain." It's no surprise, then, that some usage commentatorshave insisted that "reiterate" must always mean "to say or doagain AND AGAIN." No such nice distinction exists in actualusage, however. Both "reiterate" and "iterate" can convey theidea of a single repetition or of many repetitions. "Reiterate"is the earlier of the words -- it first appeared in the 15thcentury, while "iterate" turned up around 1533. Both stem fromthe Latin verb "iterare," which is itself from "iterum" ("again"),but "reiterate" took an extra step, through the Latin "reiterare"("to repeat").
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Well as others can attest I am a staunch supporter of 'iterate' and only using 'reiterate' when one actually does mean again and again, or even just more than once. If you're repeating for the first time then no 'reiterate.'Of course this is a loosing battle since the common usage fucks always fuck up everything anyway. Like the elegant 'toward', officially and without shame be said as 'towards' which is far uglier. But it has been in common usage for so long it is now correct. I will not capitulate, but I don't yell at others for it. But I tell you this; no matter how common it becomes I will NEVER accept the qualification of the word 'unique'. Never I say. Never.
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