Another proclamation

[cosmolinguist]

I like "sheer" as an adjective. It just sounds cool, and it makes nouns sound cool. People do things for the sheer joy of them. The problem with grading papers isn't the quality but the sheer volume of the reading. "Sheer" makes things seem vast and impressive, while just being a simple little word itself.

"Shear," on the other hand, is what you do to sheep. My grandma calls scissors "shears." It's all about cutting and stuff like that.

I admit this is tricky, only one letter different and they even sound the same. But they're different.

Maybe someday something will happen to me, and I can write about that instead of just whining about small abuses of language I see on the Internet.

Comments

One of my all-time favorites

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

http://www.ecn.bgu.edu/users/gas52r0/Jay/spelling/looselose.html

This page has been up for years. Doesn't seem to have helped much. :/

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I think it's time for a more proactive approach ... maybe a big stick and a good shouting voice?

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

Although they may be small when viewed on the screen - just a letter here and a letter there - they loom very large in the vast sea of language abuses.

Internet language abuses make me twitch.

[cosmolinguist]

Glad to know that someone understands me. :-)

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

"Sheer" and "shear" are just one of **MANY** examples of why most non-native English speakers consider it *the* hardest language to learn.

[parakleta.livejournal.com]

Shears and scissors are actually subtly different, as I understand it. Scissors actually have blades that are sharpened, and capable of cutting in their own right. Shears rely on two pieces of metal to come together in such a way as to impart a shearing force on the material you're trying to cut.

I think shears provides a cleaner cut, especially on soft materials, than scissors do, but they have to be of a much sturdier and precise construction. Shears are quite often used for cutting fabric, which may be why your grandma calls scissors shears.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

People do things for the sheer joy of them. The problem with grading papers isn't the quality but the sheer volume of the reading.

She always wore sheer pantyhose?

[cosmolinguist]

It's not something that I noticed much of before, so maybe you're right about it being more prevalent here. (Though the instance that spurned me writing this was after reading something written by an American but, then he worked for Microsoft ... )