That’s not the speaking for me I was referring to.
And I don’t think I ever called anyone a moron either - that was your little flourish.
You know, this whole debate strikes me as a bit like other social conventions, such as dress. Fashion and dress “rules” were partly invented by common use only, with a little help from elites and authorities. Most of the dress codes we have now are based on nothing more than enforcement of existing arbitrary norms. Men wear strips of silk around their necks because other men do.
Yet we still have dress codes, both mandatory and socially upheld. And most people understand why, and most expect them to be upheld. They differ from place to place, and there’s plenty of flexibility built into them, and some people push their limits. But few people want to do away with all of them. They serve a purpose.
I don’t think it’s an error at all. I think we are seeing cite evolve out of message board communities to carry the distinct connotation of a reference provided online as part of some form of online discourse, (in contrast to a formal reference in printed material, especially of an academic nature).
Of all things, I find this to be a bizarrely arbitrary objection. Clipping is a one of the more common ways for words to evolve in order to assume more specific connotations. Do you also object to the use of bike, and demand that everyone say bicycle? Do you object to math, and demand that everyone say mathematics?
Of course not, because like all Jeremiahs, he hasn’t actually thought about his objections. He’s stumbled across it or, more likely, been told by someone that he should object to the usage and the result is a flood of o tempora o mores-esque complaints.
No, it isn’t, because “error” implies that people are doing something “wrong”–that they are violating something. On the contrary, they’re filling a need by adapting one word to express a new connotation. By using this kind of terminology you are refusing to accept how language actually works; to complain about it is to complain about the very nature of language. It’s like saying a flower is the “wrong” color because you can’t find it in your guidebook.
Just because you can’t find cite in the dictionary today as a noun doesn’t mean that it’s an “error” to use it that way. And it certainly doesn’t mean that people “shouldn’t” use as such–that they should prohibit themselves from doing so–until the day you can find it listed as a noun. Dictionaries follow usage, not vice versa. That’s the fundamental concept you need to understand and accept.
Granted, there might be certain rare contexts (such as academic writing), that are by nature very conservative, where one might be better advised to avoid such usage at this time, but an internet message board certainly isn’t one of them. That’s another concept people need to understand: acceptable usage depends entirely upon context and purpose, and so in these situations you can’t make absolute statements such as, “Using cite as a noun is an error.” The term “error” has no role here.
MA in linguistics, BA English, college instructor (English), occasional writer and editor. But so? You don’t have to be a professional to understand these things.
Meanwhile, Captain Deflection, you haven’t explained why bike is unobjectionable but cite is an error. And don’t just say common usage, because they both are commonly used. Explain what has secured bike its status as a word that cite lacks.
True. But a pro is going to understand, and appreciate, the description/proscription tension. More importantly, a pro will always do proscription at some point. It’s impossible to be a pro without it. You have certain rules that you enforce, regardless of where the rules came from. Those who insist that there are no rules, or that the fact that they change through common use makes them pretty much non-existent, couldn’t possibly function as a pro.
It shouldn’t be in the dictionary as a noun. *That *is my argument. If this were simply about what’s in dictionaries, we wouldn’t need a thread to debate it, we’d just look up stuff.
