It actually makes little to no difference what dictionary makers say–it’s how the words are used. Dictionaries do not dictate language. Actual usage does. There are plenty of words I use that are not in the dictionary or the dictionary hasn’t caught up with more modern senses of the word. That bothers me not one bit, as long as the meanings are understood with the people I’m communicating with.
Take a look at these two images. See any difference?
They look quite different to you, but they actually are both worth $1. You see, the law says they are both legal currency. You might not like that new-fangled coin (especially since it has a picture of a woman on it, and daggummit, this country was founded by men!). You are free to not use the coins if you so desire, but people will look at you like the crank you are if you insist that the coin is only cargo cult currency.
Can you tell a SSM from a OSM from looking at the marriage certificate? If one marriage isn’t real there should be a way to tell even if the names are “Pat” and “Sam.”
I know I don’t believe any definition that isn’t from Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language.
Your 1961 dictionary ain’t shit.
Consensus? I doubt that.
But what if someone *demanded *that you accept it as real?
That is not an argument. Do not do this again.
If the “counterfeit” dollar confers on me the same rights/purchasing power as a “real” dollar, then it’s a “dollar.” You’re welcome to make a distinction between “real” and “counterfeit,” but to me, they’re both real if they’re treated as dollars in popular usage and even moreso if codified into law.
But you don’t get the point: you really don’t accept it, but are forced to by others. It really has no value, you’re just pretending it does.
Uh, that’s how fiat currency works. Take a dollar out if your wallet and read what’s written on it.
So what defines its value? Melchior’s opinion, and no one else’s? If the law says it has a value, it still doesn’t so long as you don’t like it?
It doesn’t matter. If it acts like money and is accepted like money, it is money. Money is what we agree for it to be.
It’s an analogy. Do you accept that the copper 1921 peace dollar is not a real 1921 peace dollar, just something that looks like it?
You do understand that the law says the fake dollar isn’t a real dollar, right?
Never mind, of course you don’t.
If you owe Melchior twenty bucks and hand him a nice green official engraved portrait of Andy Jackson, he’s free to put it behind him next time nature calls. However, the evil guvmint will still force him to accept the fact that you don’t owe him twenty bucks any more. That’s how “legal tender” works.
What about a 1943 nickel? By definition a nickel should be made of nickel, no? Simple enough. Hey, so simple it’s almost tautological. But those war nickels had no nickel in them. Did they cease being nickels? Of course not. But who knows, maybe you call those particular nickels “five cent pieces” in order to keep it logically consistent.
And your point is demonstrably incorrect. We allow opposite-sex couples to marry even if they happen to be infertile – and, as was recently pointed out to you upthread, we in fact require some opposite-sex couples to be incapable of breeding before we allow the marriage to go through.
We do not require, as a formality, that an opposite-sex couple seeking marriage be able to breed; if they brazenly lack that capacity, the marriage proceeds regardless. We do, however, require some opposite-sex couples seeking marriage to be unable to breed.
So that’s, like, the reverse of a pro forma requirement: it’s never actually required, but sometimes the opposite is required. You have it exactly backwards.
If they are both treated as “real” dollars, they are real dollars. You can feel free to call one an “original 1921 peace dollar” and the other a “reprint 1921 peace dollar” if you want to make the distinction, just like you can call it “traditional/opposite sex marriage” and “same sex marriage,” if you wish to further specify, but both dollars are “dollars” and both marriages are “marriages.”
Is this a mod instruction? 