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- Path: sparky!uunet!psgrain!qiclab!arts!lily!palepink
- From: palepink@lily.arts.com (Suzii Abe)
- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
- Subject: Re: quite unique
- Message-ID: <4gRLuB1w165w@lily.arts.com>
- Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 10:49:26 PST
- References: <casseres-181192230800@kip2-46.apple.com>
- Lines: 22
-
- casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) writes:
- > "unique, certainly, but not at all unusual."
- > I swear to god I didn't make that up....It wasn't
- > meant as a joke, either. Is it illogical? No, but it's... it's... what is
- > that word I'm groping for?
-
- Goofy?
-
- Reminds me of an argument I had with Shirley Collins (one of the finest
- English teachers in the country--any other alums of her initiation out
- there?--regardless of her unwillingness to admit to being wrong in front
- of the class...), who said that "possible" is a much stronger word than
- "probable", leading to descriptions such as:
- "probable, certainly, but not at all possible."
-
- I suspect you're looking for the word "incorrect" but don't want to
- say so. Perhaps you could settle on the word "confusing", with it's
- connotations of clearly coming from your personal perspective.
-
- --Suzii.
- palepink@lily.arts.com
-
-