On 15 Dec 2004, at 21:12, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I have a pet linguistic peeve in this debate.
Please don't mix up
the words "systemic" and "systematic". Something is
"systemic" if it
has become built into a system. Something is "systematic" if it is
done in a structured and organized way.
YAY for linguistic nitpicking! ;-)
The enormousness of the enormity of using ''enormity'' to mean
''enormous''...
;-D
Seriously now, I am SO with you! :-)
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
www.ropersonline.com
PS:
And then there was this incident--as Dave Barry would say, I am not
making this up--where some US employee was actually FIRED--ie, he had
to go to court to get his job and good reputation back--purely because
he had said that doing such-and-such would be niggardly. Apparently
the colleague had never ever heard of the words "niggard",
"niggardly"
or "niggardliness" and REFUSED to listen to an explanation, so your
man had to go to the courts to get his colleague--who was totally
convinced of having heard a racial slur--to actually ''have a look in
the dictionary'' and duly discover that the term had more to do with
Scrooge McDuck than with skin colo(u)r.
Meh. Words fail.
Ladies who work to maintain the morale of our armies deserve medals for
their meretricious servic.
Ec