Richard Wright wrote:
>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.
Wrong, Wright; *you* wrote that. I feel that it's one of the *worst*
ways the language can be made more concise [evolution be damned]
because it comes at the cost of a loss of clarity, as experienced by
Stephen Dubin.
>Anyway, it is a bit late to be regretting the examples you give.
It's never too late to regret bad usage.
>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."
A good example of bad usage: *what* metric, *what* quantities?
The reader should not be left hanging with those questions unanswered.
>As for the other examples, 'professional' as a noun was good enough
>for Dickens. Milton (1671) uses 'academic' as a noun.
Context?
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