On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Kevin M. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:53 AM, Adam Bowie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Steve Timko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Kevin M. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> >>>> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:41 AM, Adam Bowie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> > Yes - Rose would be in awe of her, because she >>>> > did oversee the expansion of the Empire into all corners of the globe. >>>> >>>> Small nitpicky thing: spherical globes don't have corners. Maps have >>>> corners. >>>> >>> >>> I've got to side with Adam on this one. Corners are not necessarily right >>> angles. It can allude to an isolated area, i.e. "corner of the woods." >>> >> >> Like so many things - this expression, or at least "all corners of the >> world", comes from Shakespeare. If it was good enough for him, it's >> good enough for me! >> >> http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/26150.html > > Just because something has been used for hundreds of years doesn't > make it correct (US citizens still write "theatre," for example, and > that hasn't been correct since Noah Webster's first American-English > dictionary). For that matter, not everything Shakespeare did was good. > His comedies were abysmally unfunny. Like I said, it is me > nit-picking, but, colloquial usage aside, the phrase isn't accurate, > and if had the misfortune of having me as your English teacher, and > you'd written it on a paper I was grading, you would have lost points.
Well I'm glad I wasn't in your English class! "Four corners" is a perfectly acceptable expression where I come from. Obviously there aren't literally four corners in the cuboid or rectangular sense. And in Shakespeare's time it was clear that the earth was not flat - that wasn't what he was referring to. The English language would be terribly dull if we couldn't use expressions and phraseology however technically correct or incorrect it may seem to be. I note that Google's dictionary of choice allows corner to be used precisely in the sense of "four corners of the earth" or a "quiet corner of Paris" (http://www.answers.com/corner). Collins Dictionary (http://www.collinslanguage.com/) also allows corner to be used as a remote place: "far flung corners of the earth", as does Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corner - "to every corner of the earth", the Oxford English Dictionary (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/corner?view=uk), and Chambers (http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=corner&title=21st). As for "theatre" - well that's the correct [British] English spelling - French in origin though it may be. So that's what we continue to use this side of the pond. (NB. The Atlantic Ocean is obviously somewhat larger than a pond which is itself somewhat smaller than a lake in size. Nonetheless, it's a commonly used expression - at least over here it is). On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Mark J. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > To defend Shakespeare, in his time "comedies" were not required to be > funny--just have a happy ending. > > Following this logic, most of our procedural drama series would be > considered comedies, since the good guys almost always win in the > end. If they don't, they would be tragedies. I've just seen the season opener of Bones which was set in London, and comedy really doesn't do it justice. There was me hoping we'd moved on a little from National Lampoon's European Vacation! Adam --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Like TV only smarter. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
