The Death of the English Language Part 9999

Published on December 9, 2007 By John Galt In Ethics

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The word cancel means:

1. to make void; revoke; annul: to cancel a reservation.
2. to decide or announce that a planned event will not take place; call off: to cancel a meeting.

(source: Dictionary.com)

It does not mean to POSTPONE! I know it makes people catch the article title if you say cancel but it isn't freaking cancelling anything people! The flight will still take place, just at a different date! That's postponing something, not cancelling it! This is basic grade 3 english class here! And this is a national Television network quoting a source that is an international news agency for crying out loud!

Something is really bad not real bad. An event that will take place, but not when scheduled is postponed, not cancelled damnit! And the word ignorant: It is not an adjective people! It is a verb meaning to not be educated in the facts of something. A person can't be described as ignorant. They can BE ignorant damnit! And it has to be in relation to something! You can't just BE ignorant in general, you have to be ignorant in relation to something specific!

Basic english language usage!

Why is this important? I know what it means so who cares right? The reason is that all human understanding is based on clear, and absolute abstraction, conceptualization and then DEFINITION. If you intentionally use the wrong word then you undermine the entire purpose for language: To convey concepts in absolute terms without mistake of meaning. I.e. To COMMUNICATE. You can't do so if one person thinks that a world means one thing, and another person thinks it means something else. The result is chaos.

GRRR.

Comments

Zoologist03

on Dec 09, 2007

Ignorant isn't an adjective? Hmm...

ig·no·rant

–adjective

1.	lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man.

2.	lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics.

3.	uninformed; unaware.

4.	due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement.

~Zoo

cactoblasta

on Dec 09, 2007

The flight will still take place, just at a different date! That's postponing something, not cancelling it!

Not necessarily. There may already have been a flight on that different date, in which case the earlier flight was cancelled and its passengers moved to the new flight. It's only a postponed flight if the plane wouldn't have left at that later time anyway. And with most air travel I'd be surprised if that was the case.

You can't just BE ignorant in general

Ignorant is usually used to imply ignorance of a specific thing anyway. There's the connotation when it's used generally (ie to say "he's ignorant") that in actual fact he's ignorant of whatever we're talking about or whatever is important to us.

The subtext lets us know which.

John Galt

on Dec 09, 2007

In the case of the flight on that different date, then the original WAS cancelled and not rescheduled, only your booking was rescheduled. Thus the flight was cancelled, not postponed. If however there was no other flight, and everything else was identical (i.e. such as the space shuttle which gets up 2 or 3 times a year at this rate for billions in wasted money) then the flight wouldn't be cancelled, it would be postponed.

Notice that in all 4 definitions it is ignorant of something. A person can't be ignorant simply because you don't like their position, there has to be a reason. The CONTEXT of my comment is how it's being used now-a-days which is not at all any of those 4 defintions. "That person is just ignorant". They're using it to me a bastard, a stubborn person, or someone that doesn't agree with them and is not nice about it. Hence if you take me in the CONTEXT of what I said you'll get the meaning.

cactoblasta

on Dec 10, 2007

They're using it to me a bastard, a stubborn person, or someone that doesn't agree with them and is not nice about it. Hence if you take me in the CONTEXT of what I said you'll get the meaning.

Give me some conversation examples and I'll believe you, but I've never heard it used without the assumption the ignorant person is ignorant of something in particular.

eg some schmo makes a racist comment, the rejoinder might be, 'you're just ignorant.'
You don't need to say 'you're just ignorant of race relations/difference/whatever'; it's implied.

dynamaso

on Jan 16, 2008

And the word ignorant: It is not an adjective people!

Below are a number of definitions of the word from different online sources. You will note these all have the word listed as an adjective.

Oxford Dictionary:
ignorant - adjective
1. lacking knowledge or awareness in general.
2. (often ignorant of) uninformed about or unaware of a specific subject or fact.
3. informal rude; discourteous.

— DERIVATIVES ignorantly adverb.

— ORIGIN from Latin ignorare ‘not know’

From Merriam-Webster:

ig·no·rant
Pronunciation: \ˈig-n(ə-)rənt\
Function: adjective
1 a: destitute of knowledge or education ; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified b: resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence
2: unaware uninformed
— ig·no·rant·ly adverb
— ig·no·rant·ness noun

From OneLook Dictionary:

Quick definitions (ignorant)

adjective: lacking information or knowledge
adjective: lacking basic knowledge (Example: "How can someone that age be so ignorant?")
adjective: used of things; lacking sense or awareness (Example: "Ignorant hope")
adjective: ignorant of the fundamentals of a given art or branch of knowledge (Example: "Ignorant of quantum mechanics")
adjective: lacking general education or knowledge (Example: "An ignorant man")
adjective: lacking knowledge or skill

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