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More.... |
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| Posted by |
Joe(NoVA) on October 21, 2005 at 4:08 PM |
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This message has been viewed 42 times. |
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| In Reply To |
From Lynch Guide to Grammar and Style: posted by Joe(NoVA) on October 21, 2005 at 04:03 PM |
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"The word infer is a good one. It means the opposite of imply. Just as buy is to sell, or lend to borrow, or teach to learn, infer is to imply. It is a very useful word. You may say something quite straightforwardly and innocently, but I might infer from it my own meaning. Alternatively, you might deliberately imply a certain extra meaning in your words, and I might fail to draw any inference. Most people today have started to say “infer” when they mean “imply”. This has a few effects, all of them bad: the people themselves do not know what they are saying; there is greater ambiguity; the people speak less impressively and less beautifully; the tool that is the English language is rendered less powerful, since this common misuse threatens to kill the important distinction between two words. When two words which were once opposites come to mean the same thing, they are rendered meaningless." from: La-Z-Link
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Joe
Sport 530bb/Inconel
AIM: hoyatiger81
"You probably never even got you hands dirty working on a car. Take care toolbox!" --djtz1
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