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Post by Twoddle on Feb 1, 2019 11:32:25 GMT
Mmmm. Quantum can mean “a required or allowed amount” of money, so I suppose it’s OK. Yes, but total quantum? The amount was neither required nor allowed. The quantum is mere padding, trying to make the writer seem intelligent. I agree. "Quantum" denotes a discrete, or total, amount of something; "total quantum" seems tautologous.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 1, 2019 11:47:14 GMT
I am not sure that quantum is improperly used in the way that you deplore, Vv. Most on-line dictionaries seem to accept this usage and it seems to have been in use since long before its adoption by physics in such a new and precise way. I too have an aversion to some words and phrases. My current objection is to “up close and personal”. I recently determined to discover who had first perpetrated that abomination. Imagine my pleasure, then, when I discovered that the person who seems to have invented the term apparently also disliked it. english.stackexchange.com/questions/118966/origin-of-the-phrase-up-close-and-personalI have, so far, failed to discover the origin of other expressions I deplore. For example, I deprecate “going forward” rather than “in the future” which has been adequate for many years. Then we have “the clock is ticking” which in the UK has been used excessively during the debates on brexit in the UK parliament as members who have nothing more original to say remind us that we are supposed to make important decisions before the end of March. Is it possible that anyone doesn’t know this? Happily, “double whammy” and “not fit for purpose” seem to have been “put on the back burner” but everything is “incredibly” important. Does all this irritate me? Absolutely. (= yes).
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 1, 2019 21:42:32 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 1, 2019 23:02:28 GMT
Thanks, Verbivore. I eventually found it again, in the first of your three links, in a message posted on August 9th 2017 by "natrekep". I don't know what WordReference.com is, but there was a hellishly long discussion about the subject on that forum, albeit with no decisive conclusion. In your third link there's a lengthy debate on ought, oughtn't, aught, nought and naught, with a further link to another thread where aught and naught are discussed in even more detail, and straying into nowt and owt usage. I think I'll stay out/ought/owt of that one.
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