Biblical Hebrew Forum

[alanf00 AT home.com]

To Dave Washburn:

Your response is an amusing and quite standard display of, as a
friend of mine is fond of saying, "excusogetics".

Would you like me to explain what "excusogetics" is, why the word
is a noun and why, in the context of this discussion, it is a
perfectly valid made-up word, and therefore why it actually IS a
word? When you get off an airplane, do you understand when the
flight attendants talk about "deplaning"?

> Note: I read material like this and then think "And I'm the one
who gets accused of sounding arrogant."

The material you quoted from me was not arrogant, because it
simply stated facts. On the other hand, my words above certainly
sound arrogant. How do you like a dose of your own medicine?

> But I'll let that pass.

Thank you, O Great Oz!

> It's easy to say "Because the phrase FUNCTIONS as a nominal, it IS a 
> nominal, but it's another matter to prove it grammatically.

Correct, but because I've done that, it's no longer an issue. All of the 
material that you conveniently snipped and failed to comment on helped prove 
it. The material I put in my first post (which I'm not sure actually ma
de it to the list) proved it.

On the other hand, you've offered nothing by way of factual disproof -- 
you've simply issued blanket denials without offering support beyond the mere 
fact that you disagree. If you want to actually prove your case grammat
ically, you have to do it by presenting convincing facts and arguments, not 
simple assertions.

Here is a good bit of advice: The magazine "Technology Review", 
February/March 1992, published an article titled "Looking for a Few Hungry 
Samurai." It gave general advice (p. 5) to moonlighting authors who might 
want to
write articles for the magazine, and offered a few suggestions on how an 
author could make his writing a success:

<< Don't preach to the converted. Readers want to know your opinions, even 
those with strong political implications. But it's important to assume that 
readers are intelligent skeptics who don't already agree with you - ot
herwise, why bother to write? - yet who are willing to be convinced. The key 
is to present enough material, including a fair rendering of opposing 
viewpoints, so that readers can decide for themselves. "The best way I kno
w of persuading you of anything," says MIT physicist Philip Morrison, "is not 
to plead with you to trust me, not to invoke authority in general, not even 
to call upon some expert, but to show you just what it is that pers
uaded me." >>

In these posts I have tried to apply Morrison's advice, whereas you have done 
exactly what he said not to do.

So let's try again: According to Webster's, a "nominal" is "a word or word 
group functioning as a noun". According to _The Essentials of Grammar_ 
(Hayden Mead & Jay Stevenson; The Philip Lief Group; 1996; p. 145), "nomina
l forms are nouns made from verbs or adjectives."

I assume you agree with these definitions. If not, then tell us why not.

Going along with Dan's thesis, if the second use of "I AM" in Exodus 3:14 is 
a name, then it is a nominal by the standard definition of "nominal". Since 
"I am" is normally a verb form, this use certainly fits the notion o
f "a word group functioning as a noun", wouldn't you say? And it certainly 
fits the notion of a 'noun made from a verb', so it is by definition a 
"nominal form".

If you disagree, then present your reasons and display some references that 
contradict the above listed ones. If you are unable to present any reasons 
for disagreement, then admit it and I'll let it pass.

> I've already been over this with Peter, and it's clear we're not going to 
> resolve it because we're beginning with two completely different theories 
> of grammar.

Your "theory" agrees with a similar theory advanced and enforced by 
L'Académie française. The English-speaking world has no equivalent to 
L'Académie. So far as I am aware, the people who wrote the Bible did not have 
one e
ither. So much for your "theory", as you'd like it to apply to Hebrew and 
English. But again, I'm open to discussion of actual facts.

> My child might use a telephone book as a booster chair, but because it 
> FUNCTIONS as a booster chair does not mean it IS a booster chair.  If I say 
> "Hand me the sky" it is not a valid sentence simply because I said it.

You're comparing apples and oranges here.

Language is a dynamic, ever-changing thing, even when there is something like 
L'Académie française to act as a brake. Words change their meaning through 
usage. Someone invents a new usage or coins a new word and it catche
s on, or people begin borrowing from another language, and a word becomes 
part of the language. Despite the objections of L'Académie française, it is 
perfectly proper French to say, "bon weekend". It is fine to look for "
le parking". Verbs come to be used as nouns, and vice versa, and sometimes 
the old usage is dropped altogether.

On the other hand, a telephone book is not dynamic. It always remains a 
telephone book. But even so, while a book used as a temporary chair 
physically remains a book, while it is being used as a chair it BECOMES a 
chair -
- if only for a few moments -- in the sense that we can easily accept the 
broader concept that "chair" is not limited to the narrow notion of "piece of 
furniture made to sit on", but can be extended to "thing you sit on".


But words have no such physical limitations. People are free -- and they use 
their freedom -- to do all sorts of things with words, and this activity 
results in the continual creation of new words. I'm sure you had no pro
blem figuring out what "excusogetics" means. Similarly, while you and people 
like members of L'Académie might have objected for a time, people in general 
had no trouble understanding what "let's interface on this" meant w
hen the new verbal usage was first becoming popular.

Thus, if a verb phrase is used as a name, it BECOMES a name --
even if it is only in that particular context. For you to argue the
opposite would be like arguing that "Dances with Wolves" is not a
name because it was only used in one movie.

How do you think language evolves? How do you think new words
are accepted into a language? By divine decree? By some outfit
like L'Académie française issuing a ruling?

> The rest of Alan's post is old ground that I have already dealt with,

Not so. Pretending to deal with part of a post by dismissing most
of it without a bit of argument is not dealing with it, unless by "deal"
you mean "ignore". But that's certainly a valid usage for a lot of
people.

> so I will refer the interested reader to the archives in the interest
of bandwidth.

Do you know how many times I've heard this excuse in online
discussions? The poster who uses it invariably has engaged in
massive excusogetics and uses the great mass to confuse issues
and readers. When someone actually takes the time to look in
archives, they find little or nothing of substance.

Either deal with the issues I've raised, here and now, or admit you
were wrong. That's what any honest scholar would do.

Alan Feuerbacher