Write It Right: Bug for Beetle

4 responses to “Write It Right: Bug for Beetle”

1. Adelaide Dupont | June 10, 2021 at 6:29 am | Reply

   Not even the errors on our computers?

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   • markstextterminal | June 10, 2021 at 7:00 am | Reply

     Well, that’s a perfect question, and the kind any teacher hopes to hear. Thanks Adelaide!

     LikeLiked by 1 person

     • Adelaide Dupont | June 10, 2021 at 11:56 pm |

       Your response makes me want to read Bierce and understand his reasoning for his pithy decisions.

       [and compare, say, to Fowler or to Strunk and White or even the Government Style Guides].

       [and of course the Hacker’s Dictionary – which explains in part that we have bugs on our computers – and IN our computers – because an actual material bug got into a first generation mainframe].

       [also I think of the Jargon File].

       I do know that Bierce lived and wrote largely before computers and computing were in our lives.

       [it has been reprinted several times and is in the public domain?]

       And I have a feeling he would not have enjoyed “bug” as a verb. He would have thought it a barbarism or a vulgarism.

       Also I think of “beetling along” and the genericisation of the Volkswagen Beetle which would permit verbing.

       LikeLike

     • markstextterminal | June 11, 2021 at 8:01 am |

       Yes: “Write It Right” was originally published in 1909. I post from it because I love Ambrose Bierce–he is little known today, but is regarded, I think, as a major figure in American letters–and find his comments on usage fascinating. Also, I think some of Bierce’s squibs from this book are good prompts for discourse. You’ve already added to my library of prompts where this book is concerned, Adelaide, for which I am grateful to you.

       LikeLiked by 1 person

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