On Thu, 23 Aug 2001 04:33:44 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Neville X.
Elliven) wrote:
I don't feel that the practise (where the adjective takes the place of
the adjective + noun) is regrettable. This is one of the ways by which
languages evolve into conciseness.
Anyway, it is a bit late to be regretting the examples you give.
The OED cites the following use of metric as a noun: 1921 Proc. R.
Soc. A. XCIX. 104 "In the non-Euclidean geometry of Riemann, the
metric is defined by certain quantities . . . which are identified by
Einstein with the potentials of the gravitational field."
As for the other examples, 'professional' as a noun was good enough
for Dickens. Milton (1671) uses 'academic' as a noun.
>The word in that setting refers to a metric *function*, with the noun in
>the phrase left out; a common, if regrettable practise, seen in the use
>of words such as "professional" and "academic". A metric function on a
>suitable topology provides a measure analogous to distance.
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