There's a big debate! I read an interesting summary of many of the points in Word Reference Forum - look at post one where the question is established and there is a green link by the moderator to post 289 which is a very interesting summary. There is a clear prescriptive attitude embedded but a fairly even-handed description of the two sides' arguments.
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=87385
I grew up saying 'thing' and when I saw it written as 'think', I thought I'd been mishearing it all my life and felt ashamed! So I was converted into a thinkist and I like the parallelism of it but the pronunciation is almost identical, so it is only a decision when using the idiom in written form.
A2, it is a great example for prescriptivism and for language change through common use and agreement. Also link to the recent semantic shift in the use of 'literally' to mean 'metaphorically' but with extra emphasis (hyperbole) e.g. My head literally exploded! - That has caused some vitriol...
No comments:
Post a Comment