On 26 Aug 2004 at 11:47, Andrew Stiller wrote: > On Aug 25, 2004, at 3:21 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > >> The term "bandstration" has been in widespread use for over 40 > >> years. > > > > And you're advocating the use of such a monstrosity? > > It's not up to me to advocate. I'm not in charge of the English > language.
I beg to differ, Andrew. You're the author of a widely used and widely respected text on a closely related subject. Your voice *does* have some authority. You seem to me to be someone who admires precision of language and integrity of usage. "Bandstration" may be used (it seems very narrowly used), but that doesn't make it good. People do all sorts of things in daily usage that are basically wrong or confusing. In short, I'd expect you to fall more in a prescriptivist camp in regard to usage than in the descriptivist camp. And, actually, it's not the nominative form that's a problem. We have "arrangement," a perfectly good term, for the nominative case. What we lack is a verb. Was it it that one does to make the conversion? I would say one "orchestrates the piece for band." I see no real alternative to that. "Arranges" does not mean precisely the same thing to me, which has been the point of this very long discussion). Nor does "transcribes." I simply see no problem with this metaphorical usage. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
