This was said by Samdie:

Ah! The perennial descriptive/prescriptive argument. Unfortunately, dictionaries do not say something like "40% of English speakers use this to mean cause death by electric current" while 60% use it to mean "subject to a severe electric shock". They inevitably waffle (if they make any distinction, at all) by saying something like "also used to mean ..."

Even if they were to make some sort of statistical breakdown, as regarding usage, most would ask themselves, "who are the 60% and who the 40%'". Do you really wish to take as your criterion of usage the London/New York taxi driver (supposing for the moment, that they constitute the majority)? To suggest that usage should be determined by popular usage is tantamount to saying that we should all strive to emulate the lowest common denominator,

Obviously there are those who, despite overwhelming popular usage, would cling to the past (and that is probabley futile and, perhaps, to be discouraged). Nonetheless, to take an obvious example,
There would be no "New World" if Columbus had heeded the warnings of the "flat-earthers" (who voiced the majority opinion)

I wonder what dictionaries are useful for in your opinion, Neil, We have a dictionary RAE made by highly qualified professors here in Spain and we do pay attention to them, as we should. A dictionary provides a standard and in this case (electrocutar) the word is simply misused and that should be amended not the dictionary! Silly thought.

*it's up to you whether or not you take that usage into account when deciding what language to use in the future.

• So why have it in the first place? Why consider the spelling of dise (dice) incorrect when millions of people say it that way'

yes I agree

Well, my argument with Neil was that, regardless of the dictionary, which I had never checked before to find out the meaning of "electrocutado", to me it the word meant "dead and fried by electricity", intuitively. That's how my parents used the word, my friends used it, newspapers used it, books used it, the TV used it,...

Now a newspaper write that sentence that sounds funny to me, I check the dictionary just in case, and it sounds even more absurd afterwards, but Neil seems to suggest (maybe he doesn't) that because the newspaper says so, maybe Is should reconsider the usefulness of my dictionaries (which are far from perfect anyway) and 36 years of existence using that word as a native, and accept it as natural evolution of the language. I'll be damned if one mistake in a newspaper is going to tell me how to speak my language, and make me throw away all my dictionaries, as if I and them are just old rusted pieces of used rubbish.

When I keep hearing "electrocutado" used like that for many years systematically, I'll accept it. In the meantime, I think I know how to speak my language, thanks.

P.S.- One of my dictionaries is descriptive, and it has not been compiled based on the DRAE, but from current newspapers, magazines, books, and transcripts of dialogs, and therefore, it contains many words and uses not accepted in the DRAE, but only those in use, according to their corpus. Electrocutar only appears as "to die". What else can I say'

Anyway, coming back to the dictionaries, you have to use common sense:

People who read a lot and live in a country, can have an immense vocabulary and an excellent command of the language without having checked the dictionary much. So, the dictionary is not really that essential... if you know your culture, your traditions, you read a lot, you talk a lot with other knowledgeable people, etc. If you leave your country before you finish your basic education, you can barely write correctly, you haven't read much, you are disconnected from your culture and traditions, and you lack so much vocabulary, grammar and expressions, that you have to rely on the language of the new country where you live to fill the gaps, even to express the most basic concepts and feelings, what you speak is not Spanish... but Spanglish, or any other crippled mixture of two or more languages, where you don't even have the natural native feeling for at least one of them.

If there are many people in these circumstances, what do we do? Do we listen to them because there are many of them, or we check the dictionary, written by very well educated people that are fully immersed in their own culture and traditions, and have they been using their own language all their lives, taking advantage of its full potential and richess? Mmmmm, I don't know. Let me think.

People who love their language, and have a good command of it, accept changes in the language to accommodate the present circumstances, but they do it because it is inevitable, because they are necessary to compensate for certain excesses or deficiencies, or because they like it, but there are too many fashions that don't survive more than a decade (or just a few years), and these changes need to take place slowly and gradually, and not overnight and in a rush. And certainly, not because of a single newspaper article. Dictionaries reflect this gradual and slow changes, always a few decades of the current times, carefully incorporating gradual changes after they have set in the culture to stay. Unfortunately, changes nowadays with Internet and the current technology make this caution look like they are centuries behind the times.

speaking as a lowest common denominator, I have to say that this kind of talk is unfortunate at best. Who hasn't known cab drivers and mechanics who were very well spoken, and half-wits with several degrees? The rabble is here to stay. If anything, our percentage of the whole of society will be growing, as there are fewer and fewer people to sell to because more and more people have nothing to spend.

Language will evolve whether we like it or not, and it will evolve based on usage. You can avoid having to witness this by dying of course. I Spend time here because I love language, so don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor its de-evolution into the grunts and groans of the the person who works with his/her hands. I am in favor of educating That worker, and indeed everyone who will stay in school. So that the working person can, if he wishes, hold his own with members of the intelegentsia. We used to do that. not everyone's education was top notch, but that's another issue. We're heading in the wrong direction now.

We just had an instance of this development the other day with a translation of the English word ritualization, which didn't seem to be in spanish dictionaries or the minds of the spanish speakers who replied. Someone found it in an article on psychology as ritualización. Usage leading the dictionary.

Heidita said:

This was said by Samdie:

Do you really wish to take as your criterion of usage the London/New York taxi driver (supposing for the moment, that they constitute the majority)? To suggest that usage should be determined by popular usage is tantamount to saying that we should all strive to emulate the lowest common denominator,

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The systematic 'method' for compiling Dictionaries has nothing to do with culture or education. James Murray, was the most famous Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and developed the system to compile the dictionary . He was working class and left school at 14 without any qualifications but is still considered to be the best since Samuel Johnson. The system is quite clean cut and clinical in it's approach to modern vocabulary.

James Murray also spoke Spanish, so just to clarify, would that qualify him to Edit a dictionary on Spanish or not since he was a Jock and spoke with a Scottish accent?

Today, Newspaper Editors choose specific 'headlines' to improve their circulation figures, likewise publishers are keen for dictionaries to shout out how many 'new words and entries' have been included to increase their sales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murray_(lexicographer)

'Right, and those new entries are there because of usage and time. My comments on class and education were in reply to samdies comments(byway of Heidita) on the same.

Mark Baker said:

The systematic 'method' for compiling Dictionaries has nothing to do with culture or education. James Murray, was the most famous Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and developed the system to compile the dictionary . He was working class and left school at 14 without any qualifactions but is still considered to be the best since Samuel Johnson. The system is quite clean cut and clinical in it's approach to modern vocabulary. Today, Newspaper Editors choose specific 'headlines' to improve their circulation figures, likewise publishers are keen for dictionaries to shout out how many 'new words and entries' have been included to increase their sales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murray_(lexicographer)

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steve said:

'Right, and those new entries are there because of usage and time. My comments on class and education were in reply to samdies comments(byway of Heidita) on the same. Mr. Steve, my reply was in response to Mr. Lazarus. As far as Samedi is concerned, they knew the Earth was round when Aristotle saw the sails of a distant ship appear above the horizon before seeing the hull. Greek Geometry and Sacrabosco proved it by using radians hundreds of years before Columbus. God only knows what he's is thinking about jejeje

Everyone has mis-read the essence of the post left by Neil Coffey!!!!

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Have a good one

Mark Baker said:

steve said:

'Right, and those new entries are there because of usage and time. My comments on class and education were in reply to samdies comments(byway of Heidita) on the same. Mr. Steve, my reply was in response to Mr. Lazarus. As far as Samedi is concerned, they knew the Earth was round when Aristotle saw the sails of a distant ship appear above the horizon before seeing the hull. Greek Geometry and Sacrabosco proved it by using radians hundreds of years before Columbus. God only knows what he's is thinking about jejeje

Everyone has mis-read the essence of the post left by Neil Coffey!!!!

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There are two main points of view on this subject: "descriptive" and "prescriptive".

In its extreme form, the prescriptive approach holds that there are absolute rules of grammar, spelling and word usage. Follow the rules and you're "right"; deviate from them and you're wrong. Again, in its extreme form, this position usually maintains that the rules are "fixed" (if not for "all time", at least, for a very long time) and that the rules are decided by some group of "experts".

The descriptive approach, in its extreme form, maintains that there are no rules and that the concept of "correctness" is meaningless. There is only prevailing usage (the vox populi) which may (probably will) change at any moment. For them, the ideal "authority" would be the result of an instant survey (presumably, in which everyone was polled).

There are, unsurprisingly, more moderate versions of these two positions as well. The prescriptivists will admit (perhaps, reluctantly) that some change is inevitable and occasionally "update" their rules (though they may drag their feet). In a similar vein, the descriptivists may decide not to poll the inmates of insane asylums, denizens of "Skid Row", non-native speakers, children under the age of (say) six, etc.

English language dictionaries in the US tend now to support a more "middle-of-the-road" approach (where, up until the '50s, they tended to be more prescriptive). Mostly in definitions or examples of usage, they will sometimes add a qualifying phrase .e.g. "some people say ..." or "widely used to mean ...". When applied to dictionaries, the (modified) prescriptive approach is easier to defend since people typically consult dictionaries to find out the "correct" spelling/meaning. In that respect, the descriptivists have a philosophical problem. If popular opinion is the only standard and if, as certainly seems to be the case, most people rely on dictionaries to provide the correct answer, the descriptive dictionaries would not (by their own definition) be dictionaries. One might also expect them to eliminate 40-90% of the words found in a "standard" dictionary because for the "average" person, such words don't even exist. Finally, one might suggest that, for the remaining words, they should include all of the popular variant spellings that the "average" person produces, since there's no such thing as the "correct" spelling.

In contrast to the American dictionaries, the OED (not the ConcOx or the SOD) is essentially descriptive but with an implied prescriptive nature. In addition to the marvelous etymological information, most entries consist primarily of quotations to illustrate the uses/meanings of a word. So it could be called descriptive in that the primary message is "this is how the word is (has been) used". On the other hand it's prescriptive, in that the quotations are taken from (usually) well known authors/works, so the message is "this is what literate, informed people take the word to mean". They have not solicited the opinions of chimney-sweeps and street cleaners. Nor do they cull their quotations from today's headlines. I'm not sure that they have a fixed policy but one would be hard pressed to find a citation from the past twenty years.

So now you want to take on chimney-sweeps? Dick Van Dyke Would not be happy.

samdie said:

TThey have not solicited the opinions of chimney-sweeps and street cleaners. Nor do they cull their quotations from today's headlines. I'm not sure that they have a fixed policy but one would be hard pressed to find a citation from the past twenty years.

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Mark Baker said:

As far as Samedi is concerned, they knew the Earth was round when Aristotle saw the sails of a distant ship appear above the horizon before seeing the hull. Greek Geometry and Sacrabosco proved it by using radians hundreds of years before Columbus. God only knows what he's is thinking about jejeje
Having read a fair amount of Aristotle in my misspent youth, I'm well aware that (some) Greeks realized that the earth was not flat. My point was not, who first figured that out but, rather, the more general question of "How much weight should be given to popular opinion and in what circumstances'" It seems to me a short step from "popular opinion should be the arbiter in matters linguistic" to "popular opinion should be the arbiter in matters scientific", etc. If the average European (in the 15th century) could be wrong about the earth being flat, why cannot the average person today be wrong about the meaning of a word'

From the New American Descriptive Dictionary:

oxymoron (definitions):

50% - Uh, I don't think that's a real word.
15% - A really stupid cow.
15% - The name of a laundry detergent.
13% - A flat musical instrument that you play by hitting it with sticks.
7% - A figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas or terms are combined.

Lazarus -- perhaps I didn't express myself very well, but that wasn't really the argument I was having! I hope that people will see that my argyment wasn't about the usage of an individual word-- it was about the "bigger picture" of the nature of the dictionary and what it represents. If you tell me that you observe that in 95%/99% or even 99.99999% of cases, "electrocutar" is used to imply "kill", I have no grounds to disagree with that observation!

lazarus1907 said:

Well, my argument with Neil was that, regardless of the dictionary, which I had never checked before to find out the meaning of "electrocutado", to me it the word meant "dead and fried by electricity", intuitively. That's how my parents used the word, my friends used it, newspapers used it, books used it, the TV used it,...

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