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Re: [OM] [OT] Proper Word Use

Subject: Re: [OM] [OT] Proper Word Use
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 11:53:14 -0500
I strongly disagree. Whether you or the teacher use it that way or not I do, just like Charlie and lots of other people as well. Search Google with this quoted phrase "the weather is dank" and you'll get 2,370 hits. Language is ultimately based on usage and not the dictionary.

Chuck Norcutt

On 2/17/2015 10:42 AM, Bob Whitmire wrote:
The dictionary that pops up when I highlight a word on my Mac says for dank:

dank |daNGk| adjective
disagreeably damp, musty, and typically cold.
DERIVATIVES
dankly adverb.
dankness noun
ORIGIN Middle English: probably ofScandinavian origin and related to Swedishdank 
‘marshy spot.’
I tend to think of some basements as being dank. Seldom, if ever, have I used the word as a 
direct description of weather. In days gone by during my youthful explorations of the 
mountains of Western North Carolina, I might have escaped a maddening and ongoing drizzle by 
ducking into a natural rock shelter. The shelter might be dank, musty, etc., but not the 
weather outside it. Hope this is slightly clearer than mud. I do think that if I saw the 
above mentioned adverb— dankly—I might collapse with laughter, which, I 
suspect, would not be what the writer intended.
But then I’m not sure I would have subtracted points from a pupil’s paper for 
using it as your daughter did. Instead, I might have written a note in the margin explaining 
distinctions as I understood them.
—Bob Whitmire
Certified Neanderthal

On Feb 17, 2015, at 9:58 AM, Charles Geilfuss <charles.geilfuss@xxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:

   I am seeking information on the proper use of a word. I have exhausted
the dictionaries at home and found no help with online versions. In
desperation I turn to the vast depository of English language knowledge
that resides in the OM List.
  One of my children recently took a vocabulary test at school. The word in
question is "dank". I don't know the exact wording of the sentence she used
to demonstrate its usage, but something to the effect of "The weather is
dank". The teacher subtracted points, writing in the margin that weather
cannot be dank. This came as a surprise to me. Certainly other things can
be dank: clammy hands, humid air, etc. I live in South Carolina where the
weather is often dank. What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance,
Charlie
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