| Author |
Message |
Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 12:04 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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On 6 Nov 2004 10:43:53 -0800, hrichler@sympatico.ca (howard richler) wrote:
| Quote: | Garner's Modern Eng Usage says that some dictionaries "have thrown in
the towel" and now list flaunt/flout as synonyms. Could someone tell
me which dictionaries do this? I have approx 10 dictionaries and none
of them treat them as synonyms.
|
I wouldn't flout that about, if I were/was they.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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Bill Bonde ( ``And the La
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:22 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Adrian Bailey wrote:
| Quote: |
"Bill Bonde ( ``And the Lamb lies down on Broadway'' )"
stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in message
news:418D8388.D9CB2DD6@backpacker.com...
I'll try and believe that your alright.
_beleive_
There's an art in functional illiteracy and you have went too far. |
--
The Republicans are going for the Dem jugular in 2008 with Pataki or
Giuliani for president, putting New York state in play, and Condi or
Colin for vice president, putting the black American vote into play. The
Dem response is to run Hillary. Hilarious. |
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CyberCypher
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:38 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Skitt wrote on 07 Nov 2004:
| Quote: |
CyberCypher quoted and commented:
Usage Note: Flaunt as a transitive verb means "to exhibit
ostentatiously": She flaunted her wealth. To flout is "to show
contempt for": She flouted the proprieties. For some time now
flaunt has been used in the sense "to show contempt for," even by
educated users of English. This usage is still widely seen as
erroneous and is best avoided.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition. Copyright© 2004, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
About those "educated users of English" -- they may well be
educated, but they are not necessarily "users educated in the
English language". I have known many educated users of English
who can hardly put a sentence together, and misuse of these kinds
of words is standard for them.
I have seen dictionaries present quotes from well-known writers as
examples of usage. I contend that being a well-known writer does
not automatically entitle one to set usage standards. After all,
writers are often well known for what they express, not for how
they do it.
A beautifully told story may well have some language
irregularities that are purely part of the teller's idiolect.
After that, others may copy them, and so it goes.
No disagreement here.'Cept I'd think that being "educated" was |
inclusive of knowing how to use the language well, idiomatically, and
at a high level. Yousta mean that, I thunk when I was yunger, but,
Hel, that's the passed now, a yousless eidge ta wurry 'bout.
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
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CyberCypher
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:43 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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CyberCypher wrote on 07 Nov 2004:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote on 07 Nov 2004:
CyberCypher quoted and commented:
Usage Note: Flaunt as a transitive verb means "to exhibit
ostentatiously": She flaunted her wealth. To flout is "to show
contempt for": She flouted the proprieties. For some time now
flaunt has been used in the sense "to show contempt for," even
by educated users of English. This usage is still widely seen as
erroneous and is best avoided.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition. Copyright© 2004, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin
Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights
reserved.
About those "educated users of English" -- they may well be
educated, but they are not necessarily "users educated in the
English language". I have known many educated users of English
who can hardly put a sentence together, and misuse of these kinds
of words is standard for them.
I have seen dictionaries present quotes from well-known writers
as examples of usage. I contend that being a well-known writer
does not automatically entitle one to set usage standards. After
all, writers are often well known for what they express, not for
how they do it.
A beautifully told story may well have some language
irregularities that are purely part of the teller's idiolect.
After that, others may copy them, and so it goes.
No disagreement here.'Cept I'd think that being "educated"
|
DELETE: "was inclusive of" [Been reedin' too many medical manuscripts
by native sinophones].
| Quote: | included knowing how to use the language well, idiomatically,
and at a high level. Yousta mean that, I thunk when I was yunger,
but, Hel, that's the passed now, a yousless eidge ta wurry 'bout.
|
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet. |
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Dylan Sung
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:01 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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"Ron Hardin" <rhhardin@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:418D3559.5C7F@mindspring.com...
| Quote: | The distinction between flaunt and flout is moot.
|
You hear the phrase, 'flouting the law' meaning to go against the law, but
if you said 'flaunting the law' it sounds to me that you're showing off your
knowledge of the law. But what do I know.
Dyl. |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:23 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Martin Ambuhl wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | The COD10 usage enty for "flaunt" suggests that a usage that
accounts
for 20% of the instances of a word is an "error":
– USAGE It is a common error to use flaunt when flout is intended.
Flaunt means ‘display ostentatiously’, while flout means ‘openly
disregard (a rule or convention)’. Around 20 per cent of the uses
of
flaunt in the British National Corpus are incorrect in this
respect.
In COD11 this note has been cut back, removing the self-indictment:
– USAGE It is a common error to use flaunt when flout is intended.
Flaunt means ‘display ostentatiously’, while flout means ‘openly
disregard (a rule or convention)’.
SOED5 is not so prescriptivist (s.v. 'flaunt'):
[...] |
There's a weak spot which I wonder if modern lexicography has
machinery to deal with. In journalism in particular, skilled writers
will quite often reach for a word and pick up the wrong one by
mistake (as _The Guardian's_ Readers' Editor put it). The same can
happen even when the words are to appear between hard covers.
Do lexicographers ring writers to ask them if they really meant what
they wrote?
On the one hand, a dictionary is there to tell people what a word
means in a particular context; but on the other it's also there to
tell us what the _consensus_ is. These are not necessarily the same
thing. A crudely statistical approach may give a false result (cf
Google), since many of the examples a lexicographer finds may be
cases in which the writer later kicked himself. Widely discussed
errors can strengthen themselves by a sort of communal hypnosis: I am
probably now much more likely to write "flaunt" by mistake for
"flout" (and kick myself afterwards) than I was as a boy, just
because we talk about it a lot. A well-known British writer once
appeared on television to complain about "hopefully" as a
sentence-adverb, and damn it all, before he knew what he was doing,
he'd used it.
Mike. |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:39 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Mike Lyle <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
[discussing "flaunt" and "flout"]
| Quote: | There's a weak spot which I wonder if modern lexicography has
machinery to deal with. In journalism in particular, skilled writers
will quite often reach for a word and pick up the wrong one by
mistake (as _The Guardian's_ Readers' Editor put it). The same can
happen even when the words are to appear between hard covers.
Do lexicographers ring writers to ask them if they really meant what
they wrote?
|
Everyone makes mistakes -- journalists, editors, lexicographers -- but I
think this is the same sort of question as whether dictionaries can
distinguish among a typographical error, a common misspelling, or a new
widespread variant. It depends on overall numbers and proportions. You
have to trust that when a dictionary gives definitions and citations, it
is basing its selection on a representative sample, and that each
citation printed represents many more index cards stuck in the pigeon
hole.
My own small experience in running Google searches and saving the
numbers shows me that there's really a marked difference in quantity
(exponential, really) of usage of the casual error, the mistaken belief,
and the genuine development of a new spelling. Even if an etymology has
its roots in a mistake or confusion (and I'm afraid that happens a lot,
and probably always has) there does reach a point where the confusion
has become so widespread, substantial, and entrenched that it would be
be pointless to pretend something new wasn't going on here.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Peter T. Daniels
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 9:28 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | There's a weak spot which I wonder if modern lexicography has
machinery to deal with. In journalism in particular, skilled writers
will quite often reach for a word and pick up the wrong one by
mistake (as _The Guardian's_ Readers' Editor put it). The same can
happen even when the words are to appear between hard covers.
Do lexicographers ring writers to ask them if they really meant what
they wrote?
On the one hand, a dictionary is there to tell people what a word
means in a particular context; but on the other it's also there to
tell us what the _consensus_ is. These are not necessarily the same
thing. A crudely statistical approach may give a false result (cf
Google), since many of the examples a lexicographer finds may be
cases in which the writer later kicked himself. Widely discussed
errors can strengthen themselves by a sort of communal hypnosis: I am
probably now much more likely to write "flaunt" by mistake for
"flout" (and kick myself afterwards) than I was as a boy, just
because we talk about it a lot. A well-known British writer once
appeared on television to complain about "hopefully" as a
sentence-adverb, and damn it all, before he knew what he was doing,
he'd used it.
|
Lexicographers aren't particularly interested in what writers intended
when they came up with a "wrong" word; it's the use of the "wrong" word
that's indicative of a change in progress -- in this case, one that will
prevail as surely as "disinterested" and "transpire" have.
(James Michener, for some reason, was asked to review the 1961 MW Third
International, so he looked up one of his favorite bugbears -- is that
different from a bugaboo? -- "transpire" and found _himself_ cited as
the "authority" for the 'happen' sense. The review, with many other
entertaining ones and discussion, is reprinted in James Sledd, ed.,
*Dictionaries and THAT Dictionary*, 1963 or so.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net |
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Peter T. Daniels
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 9:32 pm
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Raymond S. Wise wrote:
| Quote: |
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:418D5155.4EA7@worldnet.att.net...
Raymond S. Wise wrote:
While MWCD11 does not formally list "flout" and "flaunt" as synonyms, the
definitions it gives for a transitive sense of each verb appears to show
them to be de facto synonyms:
For "flout": "to treat with contemptuous disregard : SCORN <_flouting_ the
rules>"
For "flaunt": "to treat contemptuously <_flaunted_ the rules -- Louis
Untermeyer>"
If you had quoted the full entries, rather than cherry-picking, you
would have noted that the "flaunt" definition is the last one given,
hence the most recent. (That it's backed by an Untermeyer quote is
indeed surprising; didn't he write usage guides? wasn't he on "usage
panels"?)
I'm surprised at your response. It makes no sense unless you believe
"synonym" to mean "exact synonym." I'm sure you are aware that there are
very few exact synonyms in English. There is thus little reason to refer to
them and consequently no reason to assume that the word "synonym" is being
used for "exact synonym" except when it is explicitly stated that it is
being so used.
|
What a bizarre approach to take in your response! I'm sure I didn't even
notice the word "synonym" in your preface; I looked only at the partial
data you provided.
| Quote: | Your "cherry-picking" charge was thus baseless. I cited the meanings which
were relevant to the matter under discussion.
|
But not the usage note that Donna cited. I didn't need to look it up; I
happen to know the history of this particular word.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:39 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Raymond S. Wise wrote:
|
[snip discussion of "flaunt/flout"]
| Quote: | Your "cherry-picking" charge was thus baseless. I cited the meanings which
were relevant to the matter under discussion.
But not the usage note that Donna cited.
|
Not me. Musta been someone else. Looks like Martin.
| Quote: | I didn't need to look it up; I
happen to know the history of this particular word.
|
I think this conversation is getting confused. The heart of the original
question was whether any dictionaries gave similar meanings for "flaunt"
and "flout." Ray showed that MW-11 did. Beyond that, I haven't spotted
any actual questions.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Martin Ambuhl
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:58 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Raymond S. Wise wrote:
[snip discussion of "flaunt/flout"]
Your "cherry-picking" charge was thus baseless. I cited the meanings which
were relevant to the matter under discussion.
But not the usage note that Donna cited.
Not me. Musta been someone else. Looks like Martin.
|
Musta been someone else. For someone to have charged "cherry-picking"
of my posting would require that someone to have been a bit unhinged. |
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Peter T. Daniels
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 7:00 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Martin Ambuhl wrote:
| Quote: |
Donna Richoux wrote:
Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Raymond S. Wise wrote:
[snip discussion of "flaunt/flout"]
Your "cherry-picking" charge was thus baseless. I cited the meanings which
were relevant to the matter under discussion.
But not the usage note that Donna cited.
Not me. Musta been someone else. Looks like Martin.
Musta been someone else. For someone to have charged "cherry-picking"
of my posting would require that someone to have been a bit unhinged.
|
The cherry-picking was by Raymond. I thought I saw the Usage Note in
Donna's post.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net |
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howard richler
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:25 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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I googled "flaunt authority" vs "flout authority."
Depressingly, the former is almost as popular as the latter - 19,000 vs 24,000
"Raymond S. Wise" <mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> wrote in message news:<MK-dnT_uEa8ixBDcRVn-rg@gbronline.com>...
| Quote: | "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:418D5155.4EA7@worldnet.att.net...
Raymond S. Wise wrote:
While MWCD11 does not formally list "flout" and "flaunt" as synonyms,
the
definitions it gives for a transitive sense of each verb appears to show
them to be de facto synonyms:
For "flout": "to treat with contemptuous disregard : SCORN <_flouting_
the
rules>"
For "flaunt": "to treat contemptuously <_flaunted_ the rules -- Louis
Untermeyer>"
If you had quoted the full entries, rather than cherry-picking, you
would have noted that the "flaunt" definition is the last one given,
hence the most recent. (That it's backed by an Untermeyer quote is
indeed surprising; didn't he write usage guides? wasn't he on "usage
panels"?)
I'm surprised at your response. It makes no sense unless you believe
"synonym" to mean "exact synonym." I'm sure you are aware that there are
very few exact synonyms in English. There is thus little reason to refer to
them and consequently no reason to assume that the word "synonym" is being
used for "exact synonym" except when it is explicitly stated that it is
being so used.
Your "cherry-picking" charge was thus baseless. I cited the meanings which
were relevant to the matter under discussion. |
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 10:52 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 08:01:13 -0000, "Dylan Sung"
<dylanwhs.tsktsktsk@pacific.net.hk> wrote:
| Quote: |
"Ron Hardin" <rhhardin@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:418D3559.5C7F@mindspring.com...
The distinction between flaunt and flout is moot.
You hear the phrase, 'flouting the law' meaning to go against the law, but
if you said 'flaunting the law' it sounds to me that you're showing off your
knowledge of the law. But what do I know.
|
When I applied for a job as an editor, we had to do a test that has a lot of
word pairs like that that are commonly confused. Another is militate/mitigate.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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Daniel
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 11:55 am
Post subject: Re: flaunt/flout redux |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | Ron Hardin <rhhardin@mindspring.com> wrote:
The distinction between flaunt and flout is moot.
Or maunt.
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The gout man limped, because he had gaunt. |
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