July 14, 2008, 07:03
zmježddescribing a room on one's own
Professor Zwicky, over at Language Log, has an interesting post about the use of
avoidance asterisks versus
real ones in a controversy over grading a GCSE exam (
link).
quote:
The news stories had to cope with reporting the obscenity, and that's of interest to us here at Language Log Plaza. In addition, the examiner compared the inappropriateness of the obscenity to the inappropriateness of using [the] preposition to with the adjective different — and such judgments on usage are another perennial topic here on Language Log.
July 14, 2008, 07:10
BobHaleYes. I read that and I wondered if, in the circumstances where someone had genuinely written an "f" followed by three asterisks rather than the full word for which avoidance asterisks are being used, someone quoting it could write "f*** (sic)" and be correctly understood.
July 14, 2008, 07:16
arnieYes, I read that, too. At least he pointed out that the couple of marks given for writing the obscenity was still a clear failing mark. Many of the tabloids here 'forgot' to mention that.
As was also mentioned in the post,
different to has a long history of unchallenged use in English, until the mavens chose to challenge its use.