Does Janis G. Jack, federal judge, misuse the word 'credulity' when she notes that many of attornney Richard Laminack's silicosis plaintiffs have also filed asbestos lawsuits?

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Judge Jack: Now what you have here is 70-some-odd percent of your clients that have had both a diagnosis, according to you, of silicosis and asbestosis, which when I heard the experts in February not a single expert had ever seen a combination of those two. …. none of them had ever seen a case of asbestosis and silicosis combined.
Mr. Laminack: I totally understand. And you bet my experts are going to explain that. I think the explanation on a lot of the cases is that asbestosis diagnosis is wrong.
Judge Jack: Well, that would be a shame, wouldn't it, that your clients made fraudulent claims in asbestosis and now those same people who mad the fraudulent claims are trying to make another pneumoconiosis claim here. It – that impacts their credulity tremendously.

Ummm, fireproof breast implants?

Yes. He means credibility. Credulity means the tendency to believe something, not the tendency to be believed. Like the other thread on belies/betrays and the old, old discussion of imply/infer they are pairs of words with opposite meanings that are commonly misused.

Of course if the evidence suggests that silicosis and asbestosis when combined turn the poor victim into a more gullible person then he was right. Seems unlikely though.

(None of them bug me quite as much as the sometimes heard lend/borrow confusion.)

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None of them bug me quite as much as the sometimes heard lend/borrow confusion

What's that confusion?

Bob, my point was somewhat different. Agreed that on the standard meanings, the judge misspoke (or her court reported mis-transcribed), and the pressmen missed the error. But has that usage of 'credulity' become so common that it is perhaps at or near the point of being an accepted meaning?

Kalleh, "Can I lend your comb?" (To which I always reply,"Certainly - who to?", not being picky abiut who and whom).

"Can you borrow me a cup of sugar?" (As you might guess my reply is - "Of course, wait here I'll get from the neighbour."

Both formations are increasingly common in the UK although they have been around for many years, sometimes as jocular formations but more often as errors.

shufitz - My point is that no it hasn't become an accepted meaning but that this kind of sloppy usage will eventually make it so and we'll have two words with the same meaning and one meaning flapping about in the wind without a word for which some joker will doubtless coin "discredulity".

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"Can you borrow me a cup of sugar?"

Can't say I've noticed this problem in the States. Might be a UK English problem. It's a common enough phenomenon in historical linguistics; these pairs of opposites tend to drift semantically. English give is related to Latin habeo 'to have' fr. PIE *ghabh-; cf. debeo 'to owe' fr. de- + habeo. English have, OTOH, is related to Latin capio 'to take' fr. PIE *kap-.

That is odd. I think I may have heard the lend/barrow confusion once or twice in vernacular speech in America, but always thought it was quite strange and haven't heard it since.

It's much more common one way round. The "Can I lend your biro" construction is fairly common here. The "Borrow me a biro" construction is heard but not very common.

I was right; English borrow comes from the Old English borgian 'to take or give a loan, borrow, lend'. Related is the Old English verb beorgan 'to save, protect, shelter, fortify, spare, preserve; defend, secure, guard against'; this verb is related to the word whence came English bargain ultimately via French. Looking at its cognates in other Germanic languages one sees originally that the meaning had more to do with the pledge which is independent of which party is the agent and which the beneficiary.

Also, lest the grammar mavens get on my case, all medieval-like and righteous, let me assure them that not only do I approve of the standard meaning in Modern English, but that I use lend and borrow accordingly. I simply point out this word history to show that sometimes non-standard usages may have more to do with historical linguistics than stupidity or ignorance.

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Originally posted by zmjezhd:
sometimes non-standard usages may have more to do with historical linguistics than stupidity or ignorance.

I'll bet you a pint of the beer of your choice that 99.99% of the people I've heard misuse it either way have absolutely no idea whatsoever of the historical linguistics. Not only that but they are using it in a culture where their use is considered wrong. Nor is it a regional variation. There is no British region that I know of where accepted modern usage has lend/borrow as interchangeable and it is misused with similar frequency (and no I haven't done a count) in all the regions I have ever lived in.

It might possibly have some connection with cultural linguistics at a familial level as I can think of at least one pair of brothers who both consistently misuse it. Families do of course pick up and replicate speech habits within the family just as people pick up and replicate them in wider communities so it is possible that it follows down through generations of misuse within a family and has historical connections that way. On the other hand as there is no region where it's widespread so that looks to me to indicate that the historical usage has been not just suplanted but obliterated within the knowledge of the group.

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I'll bet you a pint of the beer of your choice that 99.99% of the people I've heard misuse it either way have absolutely no idea whatsoever of the historical linguistics.

I'd be quite happy to buy you a pint or two of your choice, just to have the pleasure of discussing linguistics with you. I am not prepared to say that the sub-standard use of borrow/lend is not dialectal (i.e., regional), English dialectology not being my particular speciality. You, of course, are welcome to your opinions, too. I did not mean to imply that somebody who doesn't speak what used to be called RP has any idea about linguistics, historical or otherwise. I just meant to point out that the "problem", if such it may be called, has existed for a space of time longer than either of us has been around, and, in fact, was not really a problem 1500 years ago. It may be ignorance on the part of your students. I doubt it's stupidity, which to my mind's eye seems more congenital than mere ignorance. You, of course, as their teacher, are in a better position to evaluate. Cheers.

[Edited to add the following.]

In Meriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage under the entry for borrow: "The use of borrow to mean 'lend' is dialectal. The Dictionary of American Regional English finds it most prevelent in the Northern area west of the Great Lakes." I am not surprised, though I have not heard it in the wild.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

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"Can I lend your comb?"

Well, I came late to the dance, but I agree with my American colleagues that I haven't heard it used that way...ever, I don't think.

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I was right;

We never had any doubts!

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[Edited to add the following.]

While some forums rant and rave when people edit posts, we don't here. I've never quite understood why people worry about edits, but I assume they think something dastardly was being planned. In fact, I spend my whole life, it seems, in the edit function (yet, I still make mistakes! ).

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Can I lend your biro

Of course, I would never say that.

I would say, "Could I borrow your ballpoint pen". Biro I reserve for the genuine article - just as I do "hoover" and "thermos".

I have known people who might say, "Could you borrow me your biro," but even they would never have said it, as all of us were ignorant of the nature and function of a biro. Never heard of a biro.

Apparently a biro is a ball-point pen, and I remember when such a thing was brand new, a few decades ago. Its marketers advertised that it could be used for writing under water, and many people were asking who would want to do that !

There used to be a guy at work who was from South Dakota. He always said things such as, "Borrow (or borry) me a dollar, will you?" It was common enough when I was in high school that English teachers taught it was "wrong." There again, I think it is probably part of a country dialect or "substandard English."

Tinman

By the way, I think my Dad used that same construction. I know he used to say "borry." I remember once he asked a paperboy if he had any "extrys."

Tinman

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Apparently a biro is a ball-point pen,

Lazlo Biro and his brother George (both Hungarians but living in Argentina) invented the ball-point pen in the 1930s. He applied for patents in 1938 and 1940 with the European Patent Office. In 1938, the newly formed Eterpen Company manufactured the Biro pen.

Unfortunately Biro neglected to patent his pen in North America and so, when Milton Reynolds introduced "the first pen to write underwater" in 1945, it was his design that became known and this is probably why Biro's name is not well known.

Much the same happened with the vacuum cleaner, invented in England by Booth. However, it was the US Hoover company that popularised the domestic machine and this is why many people talk about "hoovering" even when they are not using a Hoover brand vacuum cleaner.

Do people talk about "hoovering" mostly in England? I've never heard that term before in America.

Yes, it's odd that the British should use 'hoovering' while its use is virtually unknown in the USA, the origin of the Hoover vacuum machine.

Funny, I tend to say 'I need to do the vacuuming/vacuum the <insert adj here> room' - I very seldom, if at all, use 'hoover'.

I also have to pause when writing 'vacuum' too - I keep going to put an extra 'c' in it, lol.

No, Sean, we definitely don't say "hoovering;" we say "vacuuming." It is strange that the British say "hoovering" and we don't when the Hoover was invented here. It seems as though you should say "boothing."

Booth's firm, BVC (British Vacuum Cleaners) marketed its cleaners unde the Goblin brand name and they were at one time a major contender in the market. Behind Hoover but ahead of most others.

In fact, my late Father-in-Law used to work for the company, based in Leatherhead, Surrey. However, their later cleaners were not all that reliable (we had one and bits kept falling off) and they finally were taken over and closed down.

My aunt had a Goblin when I was young and she called it "The Jimpy" - which I believe was the name of a then popular newspaper cartoon sprite. So we used to take about "Jimpying" the carpet.

Perhaps we should have used 'gobbling'?