Tuesday, March 27, 2018

This Week: Paul Brians Goes On Record about "Tape" + tape, record

tape, record
As time goes on, we are less and less likely to record sound or video onto a physical electromagnetic tape. More and more often, such recordings are made onto computer hard drives or solid-state devices. Yet the word “tape” lives on to label the activity involved. We say we are going to tape an interview, tape a dance recital, or tape a new greeting for our voice mail, even when no tape is involved. The problem is that the word “record” is a little too unspecific to be substituted in all contexts for “tape,” so we fall back on this obsolete but handy word instead.

I’m not sure what can be done about this, but it bothers me. Now it can bother you too.
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A recent Paul Brians’ blog post discusses tape in the news.

https://commonerrorspodcast.wordpress.com/

Plans to continue the podcast as a monthly show have been scrapped, but we invite you to peruse the archives covering all the interesting topics we discussed over our two-year run.

 

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

This Week: Paul Brians' Latest Blog Post + A Word about the Podcast + fulsome

fulsome
In modern usage, “fulsome” has two inconsistent meanings. To some people it means “offensive, overdone,” so “fulsome praise” to them would be disgustingly exaggerated praise.

To other people it means “abundant,” and for them “fulsome praise” is glowingly warm praise.

The first group tends to look down on the second group, and the second group tends to be baffled by the first. Best to just avoid the word altogether.



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Does Paul Brians’ latest blog post deserve praise, fulsome or otherwise? Read it and decide for yourself.

https://commonerrorspodcast.wordpress.com/

Plans to continue the podcast as a monthly show have been scrapped, but we invite you to peruse the archives covering all the interesting topics we discussed over our two-year run.