On Friday, January 21, 2011 12:10:26 Steven Schveighoffer wrote: > On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:54:53 -0500, spir <denis.s...@gmail.com> wrote: > > (*) > > Or do people really speak like: > > << Would you please make a duplicate of the guest list? >> > > in the US? > > They might, it doesn't sound that odd to me, though copy sounds more > common.
I'd find that a bit odd, personally. It's perfectly understandable but a bit odd. I think that part of the problem though is that you're talking about a document, and you don't typically talk about duplicating documents. Actually, if you want to get really technical, I think that duplicate is most typically used when talking about someone doing the same thing as someone else rather than taking the original and copying it. So, instead of taking the guest list and copying it, if you're duplicating it, then that often would imply that you're recreating it yourself rather than copying the one that exists - though, it is a bit odd to talk that way about a document. More typically, you'd talk about a technological device or whatnot. It's like how you'd say that you duplicated effort, but you'd never say that you copied effort. That's not to say that the use of either copy or duplicate is entirely consistent however. Language is a rather maleable thing, and common usage has a large effect, regardless of what is technically correct based on the definitions of the words. - Jonathan M Davis