Oh, I know I'm gonna get my ass rapped for this, and people are going to call me a snob and a jerk and all kinds of other things. But, friends, I think of the good folks on Tweeters as intelligent and well-educated, and mistakes in language are beneath them. And, also, I can't stand to let English go down the drain any more than it has already.

Friends and colleagues, there are three homophones in English that we must not keep confusing:
1. sight: as a verb, to see something; as a noun, something one has seen. "I sighted a Merlin overhead."
2. site: as a noun, a certain place, such as the place where building stands; as a verb, to place something on a site, as, "We are going to site the memorial on this site."
3. cite: only a verb, meaning (1) to call on someone to appear, as before a court; (2) to quote or mention as an example or authority; (3) to mention formally for commendation or praise; or (4) to call to someone's attention.

Okay, go ahead and shoot. But it's really distressing to have intelligent people tell us that they've "sited" an interesting bird. If we don't maintain some standards for our language, pretty soon we'll have like people y'know like saying that they saw this like interesting bird.

Cheers,
Burt

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu <mailto:guttmanb at evergreen.edu>
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503