Maybe your suggestion might be good idea if we could change the language, and perhaps it’s a good stylistic recommendation. But that’s a rather different matter than pointing out an error. I trust you’re not under the impression that this restriction on the use of the adjective alternate currently exists in the English language?
And if we followed your proscription, presumably we’d have to discard the noun “alternate”, meaning someone with a formal role as a backup or substitute, from which we get the adjective in “alternate juror”. Those uses don’t involve alternating back and forth.
There is still a word notate in use. It means to put some information into a form of notation. The most common use involves music; somebody composing a piece of music would notate it down on paper.
Yes indeed. But when I write music on a sheet of paper I am not notating the paper; I am notating the music - setting it down or recording it using a system of notation. Similarly, if I create a flowchart, I am notating a sequence of events or decisions, rather than notating the paper on which the flowchart is written. If somebody talks about “notating the file” that’s obviously not the sense intended.
There are cultures which care more than others. When I hear someone say through gritted teeth “hablemos con propiedad” (let’s use our words correctly), I know they’re likely to be from Northern Spain. We tend to be more prescriptivist than other Spaniards, which when you think about it is logical given that most of the prescriptions of Spanish come from our dialects. In the Americas, the sentence tends to correlate with educational level as well as with location (more frequent in those places with more descent/cultural influence from Northern Spain, no surprises there).
True. The only way I can think of that somebody could say they were notating a file would be if it was a sound file and they were transcribing it. But it’s clear from the context that wasn’t what Moriarty was talking about.
It’s just one of a zillion words where the noun and verb form have the same spelling but different stresses: contest, protest, survey, compound, object, etc. The meanings themselves are often only loosely related.
This sounds a bit similar to the perceived north / south divide in Italy, where the tendency is (exaggerating and simplifying somewhat), for northerners to regard southerners as lazy, hyper-corrupt primitives who can’t or won’t get their act together; whereas southerners see northerners as workaholic killjoys with an overly good opinion of themselves; hence mutual dislike and contempt. Would you say there’s a thing somewhat like that in Spain? – or is it present only in a narrower field, such as – in your post above – language issues?
That’s not my point. There’s already a word with the meaning they’re after, alternative, and it’s almost the exact same spelling as alternate. Why use alternate? Unnecessary.
ALternate
alTERnative ALternate
alTERnative ALternate
alTERnative
No need to us alTERnate, you have alTERnative already right there waiting.
I may be totally confused, but there are some contexts where “alternate” works better than “alternative”.
“I was selected to be an alternate juror.”
According to grammarist.com, “alternate” is used to describe an object that is serving in place of another, while “alternative” is used for choices that exist outside of mainstream. So saying “We’ve got alternatives to choose from” isn’t communicating the same thing as “We’ve got alternates to choose from.” If someone chose “alternate”, I would assume they have selected that word for a very specific reason.
At any rate, I’m confused by what you mean by “unnecessary”. The English language is rife with words that have similar though not exact meanings, that can be used interchangeable in 99% of contexts without raising anyone’s ire. Personally I think that’s a feature, not a bug.
I disagree, “alternatives” works perfectly fine in that sentence. You’ve gotten used to it meaning how you perceive it, that’s why I don’t think I’ll change anyone’s mind. See also the metric system.
I agree with GuanoLad. “I was selected to be an alternative juror.” Works perfectly.
I would use “alternate” to mean “regularly changes places with.” So an “alternate juror” would be “On day one it’s me, on day two it’s him, so we alternate. We’re alternate jurors.”
There is a DC Comics superhero called Crimson Fox. Originally, Crimson Fox had two secret identities—a pair of identical twins. So the sisters took turns being Crimson Fox. They switched off. They were alternates.
I think you’ve missed my point. “Alternatives” is only the better choice in that sentence if I’m trying to say “We’ve got a number of options (that we wouldn’t normally choose) to select from.”
But if I’m trying to say that we have specific individuals on stand-by who can be selected for a task (like serving on a jury), then “alternates” is actually the better choice according to grammarist.com.
Do you not care at all that your ire may be misplaced?
I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying it’s unnecessary. Clearly enough people do it that it’s become an accepted standard usage. The problem is I just don’t like that it has.
I have not made claims as to objective truth so that’s a straw man so far as I’m concerned. All of my comments here have been stated in terms of my preferences.
In my job, people commonly mention an individual’s need to lie down. I bet lay is used more frequently. Which makes me wonder if it is to the point where it is commonly accepted as proper usage.
Note: a great many of the people misusing lay for lie are lawyers, a species often presumed to have SOME wordsmithing ability…
Frindle’s about a kid who questions why a pencil is called a pencil and not something else. When his english teacher’s answer is unsatisfactory he starts calling it a frindle. His classmates think it’s funny and adopt the word and eventually it spreads as slang nationwide. It does a fair job of getting the reader to think about what makes a word a word and perhaps how silly it would be to complain about people using a non-word since if people are using it, how can it not be a word?
Earrings are unnecessary but you don’t see me bitching at people because they’re wearing them.