cellio | (no subject)

I used to think I wanted the internet in my brain, but I've reconsidered.

The phone rang around 8:30 this morning. That was early enough to be plausibly important, so I answered. The caller butchered my name (my last name doesn't even have several of those morphemes); my suspicion that it was a junk call was soon confirmed.

She was calling from "Concerned Women for America". She got about three more words out before I said "don't call me again" and hung up. That was based on the rudeness of a solicitation at that hour, but I also had a negative reaction to the name of this group I'd never heard of before, and I found myself wanting to look them up while on the phone, with no computer immediately to hand. Every word in that name except "for" set off a warning bell (and "for" is on probation due to proximity). Taking them in the order the alarms sounded:

"America": in a political context, high correlation with rabid right-wingerss
"Women": you're going to try to categorize my beliefs, interests, and priorities, and you will be wrong
"Concerned": you have a crusade

If you want to see how I did, check Google. It's not hard.

Maybe I don't want a neural link to the internet. It's much easier to scrub the pollution from a browser cache when it's on disk.

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A crusade, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing

Right. You need to look more closely, as you say; it's a warning bell, not a full-blown "run away now" siren. I approve of your crusade, and think it might be slighly less doomed than one of mine: to stamp out use of "email" as a counting noun.

>>to stamp out use of "email" as a counting noun.<<

I wasn't at all aware nouns could even think, much less count. :-) Splainy?

I think that means the usage "I got three emails today".

Like the others said. Water is a mass noun [1]. Raindrop is a counting noun.

[1] I mean the conventional usage, not, e.g., "the waters of Babylon".

Interesting thought. Certainly 'mail' is a mass noun. But if one wanted to quantify their great quantity of mail, one would use something like 'letters'. However, to say 'letters' when you mean 'email' seems odd. 'Messages' works.

Why is 'email' being a counting noun while 'mail' is a mass noun so unacceptable? They are clearly related, but why must they be in the same grammatical category?

I use "messages" to refer to the countable instances.

Why is 'email' being a counting noun while 'mail' is a mass noun so unacceptable?

The former is clearly a closely-derived form of the latter, so I expect it to follow consistent patterns absent a really good reason for variance. I guess I'm reversing your question: why shouldn't they be the same grammatical category? Patterns in language are useful; why violate them when we don't need to?

Email is a mass noun. But when used to mean an "email message" it's a counting noun.

There's still quite a bit of debate, but most authorities seem to at least acknowledge both positions have possible merit.

It's sort of like arguing e-mail vs. email: a lot depends upon your style manual.

Email is a mass noun. But when used to mean an "email message" it's a counting noun.

People use it that way, but that doesn't make it a sound usage. "Email" (with or without hyphen) is analogous to "mail", that paper stuff you get most days in your physical mailbox. Do you get "a mail" or "three mails"? No, of course not -- you get a letter, a bill, a notice, an advertisement, a dire threat, a package, or whatever, but you don't get "a mail". You do get "mail", however. I want people to use "email" in the same way. I recognize that I am doomed in this regard.

The problem is, there's no analogous word to "letter." "Message" doesn't work, especially since it's used for text messaging (which is making e-mail obsolete anyway).

Words that are mass nouns for one meaning often are counting nouns for others, usually beginning in a technical context. For example, "I drank a water at every other water stop during the marathon. I drank seven waters total" would be a common thing to hear at a marathon.

And, as you point out, there's the whole "Waters of Babylon." It's not a common usage, but it is acceptable because it's a different meaning. It's quite similar, though not exactly the same as "There were three different waters available at the Fish Show setup: low osmolarity, brackish, and saltwater."

This is how languages grow and change.

Firefox is marking "osmolarity" as incorrect. Sigh.

"Message" is the word I use, actually. If I really need to convey that it was an instant message I can say that, but usually it doesn't matter -- the point is usually the communication, not the medium. "I received a message from Joe this morning" is usually sufficient. If the interactivity of IM is important, I'll probably say "I chatted with Joe this morning" -- who cares if it was voice or text? (If that's important, I'll say "spoke".)

I drank a water at every other water stop

You're using "a water" as shorthand for "a {serving, bottle, glass} of water", like when people talk about drinking "a Coke". "Waters of Babylon" is correct in that kind of context, but it doesn't make "waters" as a plural noun correct globally. Context matters.

I can't dictate usage nor am I trying to. I just think it costs very little to be precise and precision reads a heck of a lot better.

"You're using "a water" as shorthand for "a {serving, bottle, glass} of water", like when people talk about drinking "a Coke". "

So if you acknowledge the shorthand possibility, say "an email" is shorthand for "an email message". Problem solved, no?

I don't actually like the shorthand; I was just diagnosing it. I think shorthand works in specific contexts (at the counter at Starbucks, for instance); the difference between "a water" and "an email" is that the former isn't common usage across the board. An analogue of the marathon might be a customer-service center that receives, and needs to track, complaints via email, phone, and web form; when tallying them up you might say "3000 emails, 2000 phones" as shorthand. Still feels sloppy, which means this probably isn't a good example. But my point is that specialized contexts shouldn't be justifications for general usage patterns.

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I send lots of e-mails each day.

Re: I send lots of e-mails each day.

Re: I send lots of e-mails each day.

Re: I send lots of e-mails each day.

Re: I send lots of e-mails each day.

Re: I send lots of e-mails each day.