Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Karl,

By "standard", I was referring to use of the lexeme in my own use and 
what I hear around me. It is standard to hear such "plod" examples. At 
the end of the day, you still must reckon with such data. Like I've 
repeatedly asked: what is the uncancellable meaning/semantics of "plod" 
for such people whose examples I listed are entirely acceptable? At some 
point, the "uncancellable meaning" of "plod" that existed in your own 
so-called "international standard English" actually was cancelled -- and 
these days now to the point that the use does not sound "weird", is not 
poetic, is not some extreme use, etc. How can this occur if semantics is 
said to be uncancellable meaning? And what is the uncancellable meaning 
that is now the result? What is the "uncancellable meaning" of "plod" 
across the examples I gave?

By the way, adding "slow" to plod is not redundant for me in example (2) 
I gave, it just specifies that the "plodding" action is "slow" rather 
than "fast". it is unnecessary to specify it in (3).

Regards,
David Kummerow.


> David:
>
> We are not talking about your dialect, wherever it comes from, rather
> we are talking about international standard English used for
> international communications, which, incidentally, has the same
> meaning as in the variety of English that I grew up with, namely upper
> Midwest U.S. English.
> And I backed up my claim with an international list of reference works.
>
> (I asked my son, who grew up here on the left coast, if “plod quickly”
> made sense: he laughed and said it is an oxymoron, as slowness is a
> necessary part of “plod”. So apparently your use is dialectal,
> non-standard and as of yet not a sign of changing use in standard
> English.)
>
> You misrepresent Rolf, me and others on this list when we use
> “uncancellable meaning”, for none of us insists that an uncancellable
> meaning must cross the boundary from a standard use of a language to a
> dialectal, non-standard use. You are wrong to insist that it must in
> order for the concept to be valid.
>
> Now back to Biblical Hebrew: during the time it was written, from
> about 1400–400 BC, it remained remarkably stable, with almost no
> change in lexicography and grammar. There are changes in literary
> style that are recognizable, but we don’t find lexicographic (words
> that change meanings) nor grammar changes. So for the Hebrew used
> within that period, it is possible that there were uncancellable
> meanings that were valid neither for cognate languages such as
> Aramaic, nor for Mishnaic and later Hebrews. The question is, did Rolf
> correctly identify those uncancellable meanings?
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> Ps: adding “slow” to “plod” is like a double negative in koiné Greek,
> making something already slow even slower.