Author Topic: A blue day  (Read 2712 times)

mkenuk

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A blue day
« on: October 03, 2010, 12:21:14 PM »
The challenge of Saturday 2nd October had 'blue', 'bluer', 'blues' and 'blued' all accepted as common words. I've no problem with that: they are all words in common usage, in my opinion. 'Blue' can be used in many ways: the name of a colo(u)r, (adjective or noun), a feeling of intense sadness, or a verb meaning 'to squander money' (in UK) or 'to fight' (In Australia). 'Bluer' is obviously the comparative form of the adjective, and 'blued' the second or third form of the verb.  But what about 'blues'? In chihuahua-speak does it refer to the music of (for example) John Lee Hooker? The problem then is that 'blues' is also the third person singular form of the verb, or the plural form of the noun ('Look at all the different blues in that seascape.'), and in that case would be unacceptable. Or maybe I'm just being pedantic?
Mike

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Re: A blue day
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2010, 12:33:15 PM »
There are a few words in the Chihuahua game where a word and the same word with an ess added to the end are permitted. I believe the general principle is that it is permitted if the word with an ess added to the end (e.g. blues) is more commonly thought of as something unrelated to the word without the ess. For instance, most people probably think of the music style when they first think of blues.

Similar permitted combos are pant/pants and more/mores and probably some others that my wee brain cannot grasp at this time.

The question as to whether a word with an ess added at the end is to be permitted is an ongoing headache for Alan.

Alan W

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Re: A blue day
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2010, 01:49:03 PM »
Yes, that's right, Mike. Blues wasn't always allowed, but I accepted a suggestion to admit it. And since then, I've used the word more than once to illustrate the approach I take to such cases. For example, in a post about the word arts, I said:

Quote
An example is blues: this could refer to different shades of blue, but it is far more likely to be referring to a type of music or a sad mood, where "the blues" is not "more than one blue".

This approach has been hammered out during some fierce controversies in this forum - you could say we've had a few blues about it, in the Australian sense. You can track down some of the debates by searching on pants.
Alan Walker
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technomc

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Re: A blue day
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2010, 08:42:43 AM »
Nice to see my 'pants' are coming up in conversation yet again.... :-[

pat

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Re: A blue day
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2010, 09:10:40 AM »
Better than them coming down, T!

technomc

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Re: A blue day
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2010, 01:16:48 AM »
I wish........ :-R