Chat

7498 readers

35 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

AskBeehaw

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What petty hill will you die on? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

271 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes. Ling PhD here -- after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.

*in actuality it's probably significantly higher than what is connotated by "non-zero"