Originally posted by oddoneout
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Bach Immersion
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Originally posted by Bryn View PostBy Americanism, I take it you intend redundant British English (some would say correct British English).It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostOthers would say obsolete British English.
"Redundant" means someone or something else is already doing the work; "obsolete" means the job no longer needs to be done. A redundant function can best be illustrated by a convenience store with five people on a shift; only one or two are actually needed to make the store perform profitably. Anybody else is redundant and should probably be fired. An obsolete function is one that is simply no longer needed in any context, like a blacksmith or someone who delivers huge blocks of ice. We shifted away from a horse-and-icebox-based economy about a century ago and are not going back. It isn't so much a matter of having too many blacksmith shops in town, it's more a matter of not needing any of them.
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Originally posted by Bryn View PostAn interesting difference. However, since the sense implied is still of use, "obsolete" seems inapposite. "Redundant" is, I feel, more appropriate.
https://socratic.org/questions/what-...-and-redundant
OED obsolete : No longer used or practised; outmoded, out of date ; Latin obsolētus grown old, worn out, dilapidated, fallen into disregard
I can see nothing in the meaning provided for 'redundant' (nor in the OED's definitions) which would fit this case of language usage. The 'interesting' point is that when English was carried over to America by the early settlers 'gotten' was standard English. Whereas it is still current in transatlantic English, it lingers on merely in remote pockets of habitation in England, here and there with individual users .
If one were to say 'obsolete and redundant', 'redundant' would be redundant because it adds nothing meaningful to the world 'obsolete'; if one were to say 'redundant and obsolete', 'obsolete' would not be redundant because it's necessary in order to explain what the heck you might mean by 'redundant'.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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... but it could be 'redundant' in the Miltonic* sense of 'abounding to excess, copious overflowing' - the additional letters at the the end of 'got ten' are redundant.
*
"... to visitants a gaze,
Or pitied object, these redundant locks
Robustious to no purpose clustring down,
Vain monument of strength... "
Samson Agonistes
" ... his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind
Lovelier. ... "
Paradise Lost
.Last edited by vinteuil; 27-12-17, 10:20.
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Redundancy as it's undertood in linguistics implies reinforcement rather than puyrposelessness.
Anyway, what about forgotten/forgot?
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Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostAnd Hamlet's hobby horse.
"So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! Die two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by 'r Lady, he must build churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is “For, oh, for, oh, the hobby-horse is forgot.” "
.Last edited by vinteuil; 27-12-17, 14:40.
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And more augustly even, from Aubrey's Brief Lives:
This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.
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