Conflict notifier?

[Opus4]

I can't resist either... I enjoyed the point an author made in the notes at the end of a book I read recently: a word is a word if the listener/reader understands the meaning of what is said. A word may still be a word if a listener doesn't understand that word, of course, but as long as someone understands what is said, the word in question is a word.

Now as to...

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

My problem with irregardless is it has the EXACT same meaning as regardless. How can "irsomething" and "something" mean the same something??? It just doesn't make sense.

Hmmm... how can something with the ir- prefix mean the same thing... the ir- prefix could be argued to come from the in- prefix, with the spelling changed for certain words and used to negate the meaning of the original word: illegal, improbable, incapable, incorrect, among many others. Sometimes, this prefix seems irrational when applied to other words and perhaps it should be taken as an imperfect rule.

Think of the confusion surrounding flammable and inflammable. With a cursory glance at the above prefix rule, it sure seems that a combustible item is flammable, but an incombustible item ought to be inflammable. I've seen comments that because of this confusion, warning signs for inflammable items ought to say they are flammable instead because of the confusion caused by what appears at first glance to be the in- prefix added to the word.

Finally, when told that a word ain't a word, I'm reminded of my teachers insisting that it ain't proper to use the word ain't. I told them that languages change over time and asked if they understood me when I said ain't. They had to admit that they did and that's why I enjoyed the above-mentioned author's note.

However, inirregardless of what I just wrote, I'm not entirely sure what I think of the word irregardless. But I do know that its use will not improbably instill a bit of confusion, since the meaning of a sentence using the word may be ilunderstood by the reader.

- Andy

[src666]

Originally Posted by APillowOfClouds

I had one going at one point but it's still hit-or-miss because of the specific signal levels involved. I don't fully understand it all but I know the amp didn't permanently solve the problem. I had a cable tech come out, go through and test everything, re-crimp most of the ends, and I have all fresh runs from the main split to the boxes. When the tech came it was all good for a while, then it went south again, I would get pixellated or black shows on certain channels, now it's been somewhat stable again for a while. I live in the middle of the woods in a very small neighborhood so they basically just don't really care what the signal quality is like out here.

Drop a line to your local public utilities commission, or whoever grants the cable franchise. There are minimum signal levels they are required to provide, and if they aren't doing that, then they have to take steps to fix it.