Hear, hear ! ! !

Bill Kaufman
Woodinville

On 4/27/09 4:24 PM, "Guttman,Burton" <GuttmanB at evergreen.edu> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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