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When can one adopt a native dictionary? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 105 of 124 01 December 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm really flabbergasted by this train of thought. As I said in an earlier post, I'm always left scratching my head trying to understand @cainntear's cryptic flights of imagination. We're discussing the example of "grandaddy" and not all the related family analogies. I'm assuming that "Whose your daddy?" is supposed to be "Who's your Daddy?" But what does that have to do with the matter at hand? What in the world is a comprehension dictionary as opposed to a dictionary of usage? I give up trying to understand this. But let's get back to more serious matters. Is "grandaddy" really slang? Let's first attempt to define slang. Here is what Wikipedia has to say: "Defining slang Few linguists have endeavored to clearly define what constitutes slang.[1] Attempting to remedy this, Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter argue that an expression should be considered "true slang" if it meets at least two of the following criteria: * It lowers, if temporarily, "the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing"; in other words, it is likely to be considered in those contexts a "glaring misuse of register." * Its use implies that the user is familiar with whatever is referred to, or with a group of people who are familiar with it and use the term. * "It is a taboo term in ordinary discourse with people of a higher social status or greater responsibility." * It replaces "a well-known conventional synonym". This is done primarily to avoid the discomfort caused by the conventional item or by further elaboration.[1]" One could possibly argue that "grandaddy" in the sense of "grandfather" could qualify as slang, although I think it would be considered merely informal and akin to the language of children. Now "grandaddy" in the sense of "best, great or respected" is not an informal term for "grandfather". It is a term in its own right. One couldn't write, "Le Petit Robert is the grandfather of modern one-volume French dictionaries." and mean "the best." I would claim that in this usage "grandaddy" is the sole proper term. And this is why businessweek.com used that word. If it had used "The Grandfather of All Bubbles", the meaning would have been very different. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 106 of 124 01 December 2011 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
And I'm always surprised that someone can be as rude as you in public. But hey-hgo
Don't give up, cos it's really simple. Most dictionaries are designed to tell you what words mean - they aid your comprehension. Very few dictionaries are actually designed to tell you how to use words. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 107 of 124 01 December 2011 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let's see if we can understand what this is supposed to mean. Are there any examples of pure comprehension dictionaries? Are there examples of pure usage dictionaries? The answer is clearly NO. This is a false dichotomy based on pure imagination and like that earlier grand statement about "plenty of bilingual slang dictionaries" totally baseless and unfounded. In plain words, this is bunk. I'll just quote from the preface of The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition (1993) that I happen to have in front of me. "The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition, embodies the belief that the ideal dictionary is a companion that not only answers questions about individual words accurately and carefully but also engages the mind in larger questions involving language such as how best to express oneself or what our language tells us about ourselves. ... The College Dictionary is designed to ensure that the reader knows what a word means and how it is used. Our usage program under the guidance of the noted linguist Geoffrey Nunberg discusses carefully chosen usage points to help the reader understand broader issues of usages." Let's see some examples of comprehension dictionaries. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5233 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 108 of 124 01 December 2011 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess you are following a slightly wrong track, in this case. Shouldn't we imagine the smiling face of a person who says "Louis armstrong, the grandaddy of all jazz trumpeters" (- this is the example my monolingual "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English", 2009, gives)? Would we really be allowed to say "Newton, the grandaddy of physics", except with a humorous touch? Even worse, is Ella Fitzgerald the grandaddy of all the female jazz singers? The Gramma? Is Homer (not Simpson) the grandaddy of epic poetry? Maybe, although I am not aware of many classical philologists describing him like this. Why does a journalist of an otherwise respected journal use this term in connection with a "bubble"? What exactly happens when we see a crisis with possibly far reaching (terrible? I don't know) consequences as "the grandaddy of bubbles"? Does this journalist really think this is the "correct, appropriate" terminology in this case or is he just trying to be smart by using some colorful, strikingly inappropriate language and wants to catch our attention? Grandaddy in this sense is certainly not a neutral term, and informal too weak a description to catch its real connotations. Btw., I think Cainntear is on a right track in this case by showing the analogy to mother of, godfather of and similar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 109 of 124 01 December 2011 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure that I understand the point here. And I may be wrong. There are two distinct uses in a metaphorical sense. One is an analogy with grandfather as an ancestor. In which case, I agree it probably would not be proper to call Newton the grandaddy of modern physics except in a book for young readers. But there is also the other sense of "the best, the greatest, the most respected" without being the ancestor. As I tried to point out earlier, it is not always easy to render the distinction. You have to look at the surrounding text. Here are some real examples from a google of "grandaddy of": "This Granddaddy of Blacksmithing Schools was established in 1970 making it the oldest of the modern blacksmithing schools. " "The granddaddy of social-media companies is considering an IPO sometime in the second quarter of next year, although the exact timing has not yet been determined, the Wall Street Journal reported." "We’ve had fun with facetious Amazon customer reviews for a number of odd products, like the TSA Security Checkpoint toy, the Three Wolf Moon Shirt, and the Table That Attaches to Your Steering Wheel (which has the world’s greatest customer images). But the granddaddy of all customer-reviewed Amazon products is Tuscan Whole Milk, which we featured back in 2006." "The Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of them all as announcer Keith Jackson would say, is a great place for football and rose lovers alike. ... I had to look this up, but its called the granddaddy because it is the oldest bowl game, going all the way back to 1902." "I recently had the opportunity to review the grand-daddy of all beach bags: the whale bag sold by SaltwaterCanvas.com. These mesh beach bags are the best thing since sliced white bread, I’m telling you. All I can say about these bags is that they are AWESOME!" We see that the meaning varies between "ancestor of" and "the best, the greatest". Are these slang usages? Is there a whiff of impropriety in any of these? In the sense of "the best, the greatest, the biggest", grandaddy cannot be replaced by grandfather. In the original example, we can't really say "the grandfather of bubbles" with the same meaning. All of this is quite subtle and very heavily dependent on context and writing style. There are similar things happening with other words like "mother" and in the "mother of all wars", but I tried to point out to @cainntear we are discussing "grandaddy". Edit: Sorry, I couln't pass up this quote from a serious university guide: "The Open University has been dubbed the "granddaddy" of widening participation in education in the latest Sunday Times University Guide, published yesterday. The OU also scored top for teaching excellence and joint second for most satisfied students. "The OU is not among those offering scholarships for academic excellence. It points out those would be contrary to its mission of providing open entry, " says the Sunday Times' report. "In an era when all universities are talking about widening participation, the OU really is the granddaddy." Edited by s_allard on 01 December 2011 at 4:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5233 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 110 of 124 01 December 2011 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
I mean, well, of course there is, isn't it? Less so where the writer wants to emphasize the age of an institution or person, we buy this easily and say, haha, yes, the grandaddy, of course, such an old blacksmithing school. But this is still an example, where a web page is effectively doing some marketing. I know some people working in this field, creative, but I would not want them to write a dictionary of bon usage of any language ... The rather young Facebook as the grandaddy of social-media companies, come on, that's intrinsically funny, a clever writer, in this case. Then we have an announcer, always witty guys, looking for a funny gag that could lighten up their presentation, the grandaddy of beach bags, well, you have to write something, so why not this.
This may be a competent speaker of English, indeed, I guess this is why he used quotation marks to mark the use of the word as, well, slightly inappropriate? Probably ... b.t.w., "making it the oldest of the modern blacksmithing schools". Isn't this quite funny, too? Edited by lingoleng on 01 December 2011 at 5:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 111 of 124 01 December 2011 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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But the point here is that "grandaddy" is appropriate in all the examples given. It might be used for all sorts of stylistic reasons but it's not even slightly inappropriate. When replacing "grandfather", i.e. for the blacksmithing school, it adds a touch of familiarity and simplicity. But the Sunday Times Reports says (without quotation marks), "In an era when all universities are talking about widening participation, the OU really is the granddaddy." Here grandaddy is not the ancestor or the the oldest, it refers to the most complete or the best. You can't replace it with "grandfather". You can replace with other things, mind you. You could say, "most comprehensive", "outstanding", etc.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5233 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 112 of 124 01 December 2011 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
As I said, I doubt it, but my point is made, and I am not a native speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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