Your region for free !!! no fees !!!

the rantings of little literacy is much better IMHO

There you are, Love: yet another acronym coined to describe you.

Pep (Horrendously anxious tantrum-filled emotions?)

No it doesn't, but your anti-american statements do - they actually make you something much worse, but troll will do for now.

Thus sayeth The Whingebot

Thanks

L.O.V.E.?

You love me Pep?

This is easier than finding angsty teenagers at a Lollapalooza concert. The one that had Smashing Pumpkins.

H.A.T.-F.E.

Hat-fe?

I already did, a few pages back.

The hat fee is L$100, payable at the door of the Argument Clinic.

I had a high school teacher talk about both forms: TINSTAAFL and TANSTAAFL.

The queue for those with no sense of humour started behind Love, sorry.

Pep (And even my sub-teenage kids know the difference between criticism of what you are and what you do)

Wrong, they are still a snapshot or biased by the revisionists

Words have been added and removed, it is not a record. It's a slice of the language, with definitions those authoring it agree on.

the oxford much like all the other collegiate dictionaries are the same in that they change with the time to match the use of the language.

Oxford is just more of a hard nose about it, by claiming to represent the pure language.

When English to be honest is a mutt language. Hence it's strength and diversity, to claim to be a definitive guide to the language is at best hubris.

Then your sub-teenage children aren't very well educated yet - naturally so - or they'd know that what you do is representative of what you are.

Really? Oh! I have to admit I kind of enjoy getting lost sometimes just so I can have the fun of finding my way home.

Let's see.

I thought you were arguing that an acronym had to be a set of initials that spelled a pre-existing word. But actually you agree that this is a good definition of acronym:




And you agree with their definition of their example word, laser?




I guess I got even more confused about the ain't thing. I did get that you favored the common form of the free lunch expression which was used by Heinlein. But then for some reason I got the impression that you were disparaging Mr. Twain's use of the colloquialism. Which I must admit I did find rather surprising and I realize now I should have doubted.

I'm thinking that at this point TANSTAAFL and TINSTAAFL are both in common enough use to justify either one being used with it being a matter of choice and style whether to go for the folksier, Heinlein related version or the more grammatical one.

As for whether TANSTAAFL or TINSTAAFL are acronyms, well.
You are saying that it isn't a proper acronym until it makes it into the dictionary as a word (and not just the Merriam-Webster) which these two sets of initials haven't.
Your position is that if we form a new club "SERIOUS MATURE ADULTS REVEALING THEIR TOUGH INSIGHTFUL ERUDITION STRENUOUSLY " I couldn't say that our nickname, formed by the initials, was a word or an acronym until OED began to list it as such. Right? That seems like a reasonable argument.

In fact TANSTAAFL and TINSTAAFL are just abreviations like lol and afk which also won't be acronyms until the dictionary says they are I guess...

How am I doing?

Maya.. walk away. Quickly. Then sit back and chow down on the popcorn.

Pep loves arguing and I'm beginning to think the others do to. I think I'll just stay on the edges and watch the meltdown. Not to mention pad my post count a bit. I don't think this thread will ever get locked..

Ah. (The word competing seems pretty loosely used here.)

Really. It's like ageism and sexism. How do people think it makes those initials feel?

You are showing your ignorance now, MortVent. Or maybe you are mistakenly referring to the Concise version? The OED (Not "Oxford" but I suppose you are also one of those who indolently and misleadingly drop "street" from the names of roads) tracks changes in the meanings of words through time from Middle English.

Since you are apparently too lazy to look up what I am talking about here is the text from the OED site.

"As the OED is a historical dictionary, its entry structure is very different from that of a dictionary of current English, in which only present-day senses are covered, and in which the most common meanings or senses are described first. For each word in the OED, the various groupings of senses are dealt with in chronological order according to the quotation evidence, i.e. the senses with the earliest quotations appear first, and the senses which have developed more recently appear further down the entry. In a complex entry with many strands, the development over time can be seen in a structure with several 'branches'."

Pep (Is that better?)

The man(?, ok, "person"; I severely doubt anyone with this level of insecurity can be called "man" who quotes the Oxford (English, as opposed to Spanish, Greek, Swahili, et cetera ad nauseum) Dictionary, completely ignores facts, but yet continues on believing that he is right and everyone else is ignorant, dumb, and/or stupid (and saying so at every opportunity!) has the audacity to call something that someone else says "dogma", and someone else "pedantic". I think you should look up those two words in your precious OD sometime; you're likely featured there as an "example definition". If not yet, then keep watching; you'll be there soon.

Anyway, look on the bright side; I am glad I could teach you a new word for self-description: "pedantic".



Oh, so the target is moving now? They not only have to recognize TINSTAAFL but NOT recognize TANSTAAFL? Wow, next, they will have to be from Mars, must have two heads, or something else even MORE ludicrous and inane.

Do you really take yourself SERIOUSLY? I mean, it may seem normal for you to run around wearing a painted-on smile and a large rubber nose, but to the rest of us, "t'aint normal".

I demand you look up "competing" in the OED and post it here!

Entirely wrong yet again, of course.

Pep (Doing an apparently intelligent thing accidentally occasionally, as you probably do, doesn't make you intelligent)

Hey pep, here is a clue for you: They still pick and choose what definitions are added. they still revise it. Might want to compare some of the many versions.

It is better when he uses finger puppets; that way, it distracts from the slack-jawed, drooling visage.

Contrasts well with the excess of vacuous spew coming from your direction.

Is ROFL an acronym?