Maximal or maximum?
Geoff F
use maximal instead of maximum. The people who post are mainly American
and I suspect that they are merely using it because a previous poster
used the term. Could someone tell me if this is normal American usage?
Geoff.
--
Bob Cunningham
<ge...@sputnik-one.com> said:
> I have noticed in another unrelated news group, a trend
> for people to use maximal instead of maximum. The people
> who post are mainly American and I suspect that they are
> merely using it because a previous poster used the term.
> Could someone tell me if this is normal American usage?
Depending upon how we define "normal", I would say it is
not. But something can be normal in one group of speakers
and esoteric in another. I, for one, don't remember any
American who was not a mathematician saying "maximal" or
"optimal".
Sir Ernest Gowers in _The Complete Plain Words_ writes about
bad practices in British writing. He devotes some remarks
to the excessive use of "maximal", "maximize", and related
words. I infer from that that there are people in England
who feel that those words represent normal usage.
On page 245, under the heading "Maximal, Maximize; Minimal,
Minimize; Optimal, Optimize", he says
These words are all enjoying a vogue and are more
often than not signs of a writer who is muddled or
showy or both.
_The Complete Plain Words_ was published in the late 1980s.
I suppose it's possible British officialdom have learned to
use plain English since then, but I doubt things have
changed much so soon.
K. Edgcombe
Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>_The Complete Plain Words_ was published in the late 1980s.
>I suppose it's possible British officialdom have learned to
>use plain English since then, but I doubt things have
>changed much so soon.
>
Surely it's much earlier than that. Bruce Fraser who edited the second edition
after Gowers' death would be in his nineties if he is still alive.
Some parts of British officialdom have actually started to do much better over
the last twenty or so years (thanks in part to the Plain English Campaign).
But the jokes will never go away, of course.
Katy
Bob Cunningham
said:
> In article <g1so3vgeai60hq6u7...@4ax.com>,
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > _The Complete Plain Words_ was published in the late
> > 1980s. I suppose it's possible British officialdom have
> > learned to use plain English since then, but I doubt
> > things have changed much so soon.
> Surely it's much earlier than that.
Yes and no. Sir Ernest Gowers died in 1966 (born in 1880),
so his original edition would have been much earlier than
the 1980s, but the third edition, which is the one I have,
is a revision by Sidney Greenbaum & Janet Whitcut, with
"British Crown copyright 1986".
> Bruce Fraser who edited the second edition after Gowers'
> death would be in his nineties if he is still alive.
The second edition, by Sir Bruce Fraser, appeared in 1973.
_The Oxford Companion to the English Language_, at
http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=441558&secid=.-&hh=1of
, says the first edition was published in 1954, and goes on
to say
The book was based on two slimmer books that
[Gowers] wrote at the invitation of the British
Treasury, _Plain Words_ (1948) and _The ABC of
Plain Words_ (1951),
[...]
There have been two subsequent editions. Both
endeavoured to retain as much as possible of
Gowers's original text and to follow the
vitality and vigour of his style in the changes
they introduced. Revisions were needed to take
account of changes in the language or in the
practice of writers. In addition, the writers
introduced contemporary examples and references
to replace those that seemed dated, and they
discussed some recent trends in English.
> Some parts of British officialdom have actually started to
> do much better over the last twenty or so years (thanks in
> part to the Plain English Campaign).
That's good to hear.
> But the jokes will never go away, of course.
Long live jocularity!