Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Kragen Javier Sitaker Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-11,comp.editors,comp.text.pdf,alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.usage.english Subject: Re: What is the best free software for creating & editing PDFs nowadays Followup-To: alt.usage.english Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2026 22:45:36 -0300 Organization: Primarily biological and memetic Lines: 60 Message-ID: <87jyp9aedb.fsf@debian> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2026 01:47:55 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="3024146"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX191ujdZzhyuY7Qc9jITnHaz"; posting-host="19c753fba95970cf1a99e4804f17687c" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.2 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:T94uuUMprbSpAkiDT0YWF7m6raI= sha1:W1q4qloZaClRWcPTxL5usZFjZv0= sha256:GIx9HruX4dppnIvrgXf29Uu+APax96qr7o/+5DE2SFU= sha1:xN2Su/C28KgKkM6orx2l56tjm0k= sha256:FPiL8TObmVnEzDGumDSMJdMd52amTfIVmWsgZgKG7d0= Xref: csiph.com alt.comp.os.windows-11:34114 comp.editors:106971 comp.text.pdf:2735 alt.comp.os.windows-10:195331 alt.usage.english:1149582 Marion writes: > it's kind of like when I ask people to use "lend" as a verb vs "loan" > as a noun; or when I notice people using "further" for "farther" in > terms of distances; or when people use "less" instead of "fewer" for > things that can be counted; or when people use "dirt" when they really > mean "soil"; or when they call a "stone" a "rock" when all of these > things are actually not what people think. - “Lend” is indeed not currently in use as a noun, outside of Scottish and northern English dialects, where it has been in use as a noun (meaning “loan”) since at least 01575, with attestations up to the present day. - “Loan” has been in use as a verb (as well as a noun) meaning “to lend” since at least 01200, with attestations pretty continuously for 800 years up to the present day. - “Further” has been in use with the meaning “farther” in terms of distances since at least 01578, with attestations up to the present day except for the 18th century. - “Less” has been in use with the meaning “a smaller number of; fewer” since at least King Ælfred in 0888, making this 1138-year-old meaning the longest-standing one you ask people to refrain from using. (A.I.1.c, bottom of the left column) Additionally, “less” has the meaning “Of not so great size, extent, or degree”, a meaning which is not shared by “fewer”, and is eminently applicable to things that can be counted. For example, driving to work at 90 kilometers per hour uses *less* resources than driving to work at 120 kilometers per hour, because your fuel consumption is lower, but it doesn’t use *fewer* resources; it uses *the same number* of resources (gasoline, the car, the brake pads, etc.), just to a smaller extent. - “Soil” and “dirt” are both fairly polysemous. Maybe you can explain which usage you are taking issue with? For reference, the meanings of “dirt” given in are excrement; filth; worthless things; land; people you don’t like; mud/soil; gangue; washdirt; dirtiness; meanness; bad weather; poison gas in a mine; and to make dirty. The meanings of “soil” given in are the ground; plains; site; estate; land/region; place of one’s nativity; domicile; materials of the ground such as sand and clay; mould/earth; sill; and lintel. Similar remarks surely apply to the historical meanings of “stone” and “rock”, but it is getting to be my bedtime, and I think this adequately makes the point that, in general, you seem to be taking up arms against the Oxford English Dictionary and centuries of established English usage. Perhaps you have access to an arbiter of English meanings more authoritative than the OED and the English-language literary corpus? What might that be? Kragen