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.