The fact that there exist lexicographers who are guilty of the same confusion does not make it any less of a confusion.
What would, then? If every English speaker on this planet only normally used “edible” to mean ‘fit to be eaten’, would they be all wrong?
“-ible” is the same as “-able”. (The difference has only to do with which conjugation the Latin verb belonged to.)
So what? “Forgivable” normally means ‘easy to forgive’, not ‘which could be forgiven, at least in principle’. So it’s not just -ible words to which that applies.
Actually not being confused. This isn’t a question of authority, at all.
If every English speaker on this planet only normally used “edible” to mean ‘fit to be eaten’, would they be all wrong?
There are a number of issues to untangle here.
First, “fit to be eaten” is not actually very different from “able to be eaten”. The meaning of “able” depends on context. In normal life, one describes something as “able to be eaten” if it is “fit to be eaten”. But this may not apply in all contexts. So, the meaning of “able” is not fixed. Therefore, neither is the meaning of “-able/-ible”.
Secondly, as I discussed in the comments above regarding denotation and connotation, a word can have patterns of being applied that do not affect its inherent meaning. So, even if nobody on the planet bothered to utter the following sentence:
Monsieur Mangetout demonstrated that many more things are edible than previously believed.
that does not, in itself, make the sentence false. (In fact, the sentence, in its own context, is true—it’s just that the meaning of “able” implicit in the word “edible” is not the ordinary one. For ordinary purposes, metals etc. are not “able to be eaten”. But technically, in extreme contexts, they may be.)
“Forgivable” normally means ‘easy to forgive’, not ‘which could be forgiven, at least in principle’
Disagree entirely. If I say something is “unforgivable”, I mean it cannot be forgiven, not merely that forgiveness would be difficult.
The reference includes both sexes and if anything placing the first emphasis on “having a penis” when describing “f*able” is a perspective biased towards people who would like to have sex with males—a primarily female attitude with homosexual (or bisexual) males as a secondary group. The “androcentric” answer would have only mentioned (or at least opened with) the things that the “andro” kind of person would have sex with.
By Army1987′s proposed definition, an entity that neither has a functional penis nor can be penetrated by a functional penis is definitionally not fuckable.
That seems pretty clearly to be a penis-centric definition of fuckability. (A functional-penis-centric definition, at that. Cucumbers, for example, are not by this definition fuckable, however women may feel about them.) In the same way that “has a functional vagina or is capable of being inserted into one” would be a vagina-centric definition of fuckability.
Admittedly, penis-centric isn’t quite the same thing as androcentric… not all men have penises, after all, and not all penises are attached to men… but given that the community of penis-havers overlaps so significantly with the set of men, treating the two groups as roughly equivalent doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
I don’t say here that this is a bad thing, or really express any moral judgment about it at all. Mostly I think it’s a silly digression from a silly discussion, my own contribution to it no less so than anyone’s, and we should all be downvoted for contributing to it.
But if we’re going to get pedantic about it, I’d have to say that Never_Seen_Belgrade’s position here is at least more straightforward than yours.
But if we’re going to get pedantic about it, I’d have to say that NeverSeenBelgrade’s position here is at least more straightforward than yours.
It is more ‘straightforward’ only in as much as it is a simplification in the direction of ‘wrong’. (And self described ‘sniping’ should be more accurate than the sniped comment, not less.)
What would, then? If every English speaker on this planet only normally used “edible” to mean ‘fit to be eaten’, would they be all wrong?
So what? “Forgivable” normally means ‘easy to forgive’, not ‘which could be forgiven, at least in principle’. So it’s not just -ible words to which that applies.
Actually not being confused. This isn’t a question of authority, at all.
There are a number of issues to untangle here.
First, “fit to be eaten” is not actually very different from “able to be eaten”. The meaning of “able” depends on context. In normal life, one describes something as “able to be eaten” if it is “fit to be eaten”. But this may not apply in all contexts. So, the meaning of “able” is not fixed. Therefore, neither is the meaning of “-able/-ible”.
Secondly, as I discussed in the comments above regarding denotation and connotation, a word can have patterns of being applied that do not affect its inherent meaning. So, even if nobody on the planet bothered to utter the following sentence:
that does not, in itself, make the sentence false. (In fact, the sentence, in its own context, is true—it’s just that the meaning of “able” implicit in the word “edible” is not the ordinary one. For ordinary purposes, metals etc. are not “able to be eaten”. But technically, in extreme contexts, they may be.)
Disagree entirely. If I say something is “unforgivable”, I mean it cannot be forgiven, not merely that forgiveness would be difficult.
What about “f\*able”? Does it mean ‘anybody with a functional penis and/or any orifice able to be penetrated by one’? :-)
Take a look at the syllogism I provided here for “edible”, and construct the analogous one yourself.
Psst. Your penetrate-centricity is showing.
I don’t want to detour into “What is fuck?” but I do want to drop by to snipe. Just like that.
(Edited in response to reasonable criticism.)
The reference includes both sexes and if anything placing the first emphasis on “having a penis” when describing “f*able” is a perspective biased towards people who would like to have sex with males—a primarily female attitude with homosexual (or bisexual) males as a secondary group. The “androcentric” answer would have only mentioned (or at least opened with) the things that the “andro” kind of person would have sex with.
By Army1987′s proposed definition, an entity that neither has a functional penis nor can be penetrated by a functional penis is definitionally not fuckable.
That seems pretty clearly to be a penis-centric definition of fuckability. (A functional-penis-centric definition, at that. Cucumbers, for example, are not by this definition fuckable, however women may feel about them.) In the same way that “has a functional vagina or is capable of being inserted into one” would be a vagina-centric definition of fuckability.
Admittedly, penis-centric isn’t quite the same thing as androcentric… not all men have penises, after all, and not all penises are attached to men… but given that the community of penis-havers overlaps so significantly with the set of men, treating the two groups as roughly equivalent doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
I don’t say here that this is a bad thing, or really express any moral judgment about it at all. Mostly I think it’s a silly digression from a silly discussion, my own contribution to it no less so than anyone’s, and we should all be downvoted for contributing to it.
But if we’re going to get pedantic about it, I’d have to say that Never_Seen_Belgrade’s position here is at least more straightforward than yours.
It is more ‘straightforward’ only in as much as it is a simplification in the direction of ‘wrong’. (And self described ‘sniping’ should be more accurate than the sniped comment, not less.)
You’re missing the point but you’re still kind of right. So I fixed it.
The fault for the point missed likely lies on the absent clarity I sacrificed for brevity.