2012 NFL Season Thread

[Island_Style]

The Lions traded a draft pick for Mike Thomas.

[BlueSky]

No. That dictionary is wrong. That's like saying the top of a hill is the side of a hill. We have to stop legitimizing widespread errors.

Yours truly,

Longtime music student whose band directors would've thrown chalkboard erasers at him for not knowing what a crescendo is

My original statement was: My hopes for Gregg Williams to be fired started in 2010 and reached a crescendo after the 49ers playoff loss...

And #3, from dictionary.com, is the definition I remembered for that word and was what I intended. I include #2 because #3 refers to it.

2. a steady increase in force or intensity: The rain fell in a crescendo on the rooftops.

3. the climactic point or moment in such an increase; peak: The authorities finally took action when public outrage reached a crescendo.

FWIW, musically I always thought of a crescendo in terms of say cymbals, where the player starts softy and gradually increases the volume until it ends with kind of a flourish at maximum volume. That would fit the definitions above.

Or if you're at a game and it's 3rd down for the visitors and the crowd starts making noise and it gets louder and louder until the snap and then subsides. Crescendo, right?

Maybe the admiral's music teacher was wrong.

[tBBP]

Carl Nicks done for the season...dang, man.

[CS85]

"Sources" say Jaguars are aching to pull off Tebow trade before deadline, Jets say this is nonsense.

[The_Admiral]

Or if you're at a game and it's 3rd down for the visitors and the crowd starts making noise and it gets louder and louder until the snap and then subsides. Crescendo, right?

The gradual increase in noise is what composes the crescendo, not its loudest point. It's about the journey, not the destination. Any arguments to the contrary are just the same concessions to "an evolving language" as "could care less" or "irregardless." Le Six will back me up here.

[tBBP]

"Sources" say Jaguars are aching to pull off Tebow trade before deadline, Jets say this is nonsense.

Slow news week.

/sources

[Island_Style]

Nothing this Halloween can scare me more than this Tebow to Jax trade rumor.

[TFoA]

The New York media has been making up stuff about Tebow all year.

[infrared41]

Or if you're at a game and it's 3rd down for the visitors and the crowd starts making noise and it gets louder and louder until the snap and then subsides. Crescendo, right?

The gradual increase in noise is what composes the crescendo, not its loudest point. It's about the journey, not the destination. Any arguments to the contrary are just the same concessions to "an evolving language" as "could care less" or "irregardless." Le Six will back me up here.

So will infrared41. The Lt. Colonel is correct.

[NEW.ERA]

Jets bye week, Tebow is from Jacksonville, he is visiting Jacksonville to see his folks, I presume. Easy rumor!

[BlueSky]

Or if you're at a game and it's 3rd down for the visitors and the crowd starts making noise and it gets louder and louder until the snap and then subsides. Crescendo, right?

The gradual increase in noise is what composes the crescendo, not its loudest point. It's about the journey, not the destination. Any arguments to the contrary are just the same concessions to "an evolving language" as "could care less" or "irregardless." Le Six will back me up here.

So will infrared41. The Lt. Colonel is correct.

Okay...so you guys are right and dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, the Cambridge American English Dictionary, et al, are wrong.

All those sources have some variation of this, which is from the Cambridge dictionary:

A gradual increase in loudness, or the moment when a noise or piece of music is at its loudest.

No offense, boys, but until you can cite a source other than your music teacher or each other, I'll go with the people whose business it is to know what words mean.

[The_Admiral]

UGH THAT MAKES NO GODDAMN ETYMOLOGICAL OR SEMANTIC SENSE COME ON

You're basically relying on descriptivism, which is the idea that the dictionary should say what people say, rather than people saying what the dictionary says to say. I mean, if you want to win on a technicality, go ahead and run a victory lap around your desk, but it's a pretty empty victory. Like, you can surely find a dictionary that will tell you a majority is the same as a plurality, but that doesn't make and will never make 35% a majority.

And another thing, while I'm in the neighborhood: people have to stop saying that someone's strong suit is his for-tay. It's pronounced "fort," derived from the French for "strong," not the Italian for "loud." It's clever enough when you grope your way through "Imagine" by John Lennon on someone's piano and say "hehe I guess piano isn't my forte" but beyond that, get the word right.

EDIT: come to think of it, that particular pun would almost certainly require one to be sandbagging it at the keys for subsequent rhetorical effect, as anyone who knows that "piano" is the opposite of "forte" almost certainly has enough musical background to play a few bars of freaking "Imagine" with acceptable competence

[BlueSky]

UGH THAT MAKES NO GODDAMN ETYMOLOGICAL OR SEMANTIC SENSE COME ON

You're basically relying on descriptivism, which is the idea that the dictionary should say what people say, rather than people saying what the dictionary says to say. I mean, if you want to win on a technicality, go ahead and run a victory lap around your desk, but it's a pretty empty victory. Like, you can surely find a dictionary that will tell you a majority is the same as a plurality, but that doesn't make and will never make 35% a majority.

And another thing, while I'm in the neighborhood: people have to stop saying that someone's strong suit is his for-tay. It's pronounced "fort," derived from the French for "strong," not the Italian for "loud." It's clever enough when you grope your way through "Imagine" by John Lennon on someone's piano and say "hehe I guess piano isn't my forte" but beyond that, get the word right.

EDIT: come to think of it, that particular pun would almost certainly require one to be sandbagging it at the keys for subsequent rhetorical effect, as anyone who knows that "piano" is the opposite of "forte" almost certainly has enough musical background to play a few bars of freaking "Imagine" with acceptable competence

Look, I have no dog in this fight other than what I always thought the word meant, which is the same as the dictionary meanings. And it's not like I'm citing some remote web dictionary maintained by some clown in a hut somewhere. And think about your previous response: "...that dictionary is wrong."

To be fair, I just asked my wife, who spent many years in band and played in OU's band for 3 years. I didn't prompt her with any background, just asked, "What does crescendo mean to you?" She gave the same answer you did - a gradual increase, without mentioning the peak. She added that the other side of that is "diminuendo." She then asked whether there are really people with nothing better to do than argue s*** like this. I guess that answer is yes.

But isn't your argument like saying the word "mountain" just means the slopes and not the summit? You can't have a crescendo without reaching a peak, right, so isn't the peak then inherently part of the crescendo? And let's say for argument's sake you're right. What's the word for what the dictionaries say is the second part of crescendo's definition, the part when the music reaches it's loudest point?

BTW, given your reaction, perhaps the next definition we'll discuss is "sedative."

[TheOldRoman]

UGH THAT MAKES NO GODDAMN ETYMOLOGICAL OR SEMANTIC SENSE COME ON

You're basically relying on descriptivism, which is the idea that the dictionary should say what people say, rather than people saying what the dictionary says to say. I mean, if you want to win on a technicality, go ahead and run a victory lap around your desk, but it's a pretty empty victory. Like, you can surely find a dictionary that will tell you a majority is the same as a plurality, but that doesn't make and will never make 35% a majority.

And another thing, while I'm in the neighborhood: people have to stop saying that someone's strong suit is his for-tay. It's pronounced "fort," derived from the French for "strong," not the Italian for "loud." It's clever enough when you grope your way through "Imagine" by John Lennon on someone's piano and say "hehe I guess piano isn't my forte" but beyond that, get the word right.

EDIT: come to think of it, that particular pun would almost certainly require one to be sandbagging it at the keys for subsequent rhetorical effect, as anyone who knows that "piano" is the opposite of "forte" almost certainly has enough musical background to play a few bars of freaking "Imagine" with acceptable competence

First off, I am a musician but have never touched a piano, so I wouldn't be able to play a single note of that song, unless by accident (and why would I want to, really?). Anyway, I agree with you on "reach a crescendo", but disagree about forte. Whether or not the origins are different, it is pretty much universally accepted in the English language that we pronounce it for-tay. We have twisted the pronunciation of most words we port over from other languages, and I guess that's fine. I mean, you can pronounce it "fort" all you want, but you are going to sound as pretentions as people who pronounce bruschetta "brew-sket-a".

[The_Admiral]

you are going to sound as pretentions as people who pronounce bruschetta "brew-sket-a".

already there

[ninersdd]

I guess this has turned into the "cresendo" thread the day of the horrible coaches bowl.

[tBBP]

/what's done happened to this thread

[BlueSky]

/what's done happened to this thread

Nah, it was just a minor tangent.

(To which the Admiral replies, "Tangent? No. A tangent is...)

[The_Admiral]

/what's done happened to this thread

Hey, you want to talk about Chiefs-Chargers? HAVE FUN

[rams80]

Hey, you want to talk about Chiefs-Chargers? HAVE FUN

I thought Halloween was last night.