Re: file searching/vista help

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

But what's the harm in noting that something is erroneous when it is?
What's the worst thing that can happen? That the user might blush in
the privacy of his scriptorium? Take for example the OED on 'bubukle'
-- 'A confusion of bubo and carbuncle (put into the mouth of Fluellen).
1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iii. vi. 108 His face is all bubukles and
whelkes.' Do we think less of Shakespeare because he was on one
occasion careless with this word? Yet it's interesting that
(according to the Web versions, for what they are worth) Webster 1828
simply qualifies the word as 'not used' and Webster 1913 doesn't even
add that qualification. Is there a kind of reverse linguistic
snobbery deep in the American lexicographical soul? For that matter,
why does Am Her remain the one major dictionary to investigate
Proto-Indo-European roots?
> Being more a descriptivist than not, I have no problem with someone
> using willy-nilly to mean "in an unplanned manner," or for a dict.
> to admit that that usage exists without using "erron." -- and in
> common usage I think Random House is probably right: "sloppily" or
> "haphazard" (Web10) is now the first sense for most Americans.
>
> Paul Lagasse