Timeline for The "infelicities of language" means?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 14, 2016 at 21:30 | comment | added | Brian Donovan | A student this past term, writing about the history of dating, noted that after one of the World Wars "a lot of males were rare." I commented, "You can say that there were not a lot of males, or that males were rare, but saying a lot of males were rare suggests that people were undercooking them. I gave up marking such careless errors and infelicities here because there were just too darned many of them." | |
| May 14, 2016 at 21:13 | comment | added | Hot Licks | As Mitch says, it could be any of several things, depending on context. To his list I'd add the difficulty of saying what you mean in many cases. | |
| May 14, 2016 at 21:05 | answer | added | Mitch | timeline score: 1 | |
| May 14, 2016 at 19:05 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | This has been addressed (as regards the stricter definition) on LinguisticsSE (see the most upvoted answers, and John Lawler's comment). | |
| May 14, 2016 at 18:20 | answer | added | Hank D | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 14, 2016 at 18:06 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | A quick Google shows that the phrase has been used in a variety of contexts with a variety of meanings. If you provide a specific context we can help you. | |
| May 14, 2016 at 17:56 | comment | added | NVZ♦ | I think you've got the right idea already. | |
| May 14, 2016 at 17:44 | history | asked | Andy W | CC BY-SA 3.0 |