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October 9

Is "Alternate" a Proper Alternative to "Alternative"?

I would really like to find out that I'm wrong about this one. Maybe it would stop annoying me so much.

Let's use broadcast newscasts as the sphere for an example.

It's common to hear traffic reports, for example, in which traffic is heavy on a principal route, but there are acceptable "alternate routes".

It's been my understanding that an "alternate" is something that or someone who alternates (in some action or position) with another thing or person. I think it's implied that the alternating is a usual thing — a switching back and forth. I understand "alternative" to be simply a substitute.

Having written that, I'm beginning to see that it sounds like I'm making a hair's-breadth distinction between the two. I'd never thought that, but all opinions (but, more constructively, facts) are welcome.

Stephen F. White ['Word' / Steve] — Toronto — ❝Diagona//y parked in a para||el universe❞ (talk) 03:22, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on whether you are a prescriptive or descriptive grammarian. A prescriptive grammarian (and I lean that way on stuff like this myself) is horrified, because that's not what the word means. A descriptive grammarian says, "That's how people use the word, so that's what it means nowadays." Is that clear? --Orange Mike | Talk 03:56, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why the <big> tag? Is your question especially important? Are you worried that we won't see it? —Tamfang (talk) 03:43, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Alternate" is also used as a noun for a thing (not just a person) that substitutes for another. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary lists the noun usage as a synonym of "alternative" used especially in North America. Meters (talk) 04:01, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, Orangemike has it. I wouldn't use it that way either, but according to the dictionary it is a reasonably common usage. Meters (talk) 04:04, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Opportunities for commonality, where the fourth pointed item says: "Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences (rather than alternate, use alternative or alternating depending on which sense is intended)."

—Wavelength (talk) 04:34, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

__________________________________

Thanks for all the cogent answers. Yeah, when prescriptive and descriptive collide, it gets messy.

Tamfang: Not at all. New to this forum, I didn't know there was a protocol. I just formatted as I prefer to see it. Note taken.

Stephen F. White ['Word' / Steve] — Toronto — ❝Diagona//y parked in a para||el universe❞ (talk) 04:56, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To my US English-speaking ear, "alternate" is a perfectly cromulent adjective in that context. 50.0.205.96 (talk) 09:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, though here in the UK your usage of alternate and also of cromulent would mark you as American. Canadians can take their choice from both varieties of English. Dbfirs 18:14, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Foo-shaped hole in my heart

English-speaking people keep saying they “have a foo-shaped hole in their heart” for various values of foo. How did this saying get so popular, or where does it come from? Is there some well-known work that popularized it? – b_jonas 20:48, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One of the earlier instances I've been able to find is the 1975 album High Times by Larry Gatlin, which contains the song "Ginny-Shaped Hole in My Heart". There's a 2007 autobiographical work by Ellen Burstyn, in which she attributes the phrase "God-shaped hole in my heart" to Sartre, but I can't find any evidence of the phrase in any work by Sartre. There must be an earlier source for this, but I'll leave the matter to someone else. Deor (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The God-shaped hole is often also attributed to Pascal, but the closest he appears to have written, in his Pensées, is:

"What does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object, in other words by God himself."

See for example Section VII: Morality and Doctrine (425-555) at Wikisource. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I got this from a blog by a French pastor. Apparently the "trou en forme de Dieu dans chaque cœur humain" or "il y a dans le coeur de chaque homme un vide en forme de Dieu" are frequently (mis)-attributed to Pascal in French too. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So the god-shaped hole in our heart is known and people misattribute it to Pascal, even though neither Pascal nor anyone we know about said that first. It's funny how these quotes work. – b_jonas 18:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From Sluzzelin's first link " since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object, in other words by God himself." If someone said "'We all have a hole in our hearts, a god-shaped hole' - Pascal", that would be misattribution. But Pascal is clearly talking about a filling a void with God, and he was probably one of the first influential writers to put things that way.

Here, [1] someone proposes that the idea traces back to St. Augustine, who said "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." I suppose one could argue that's more about a human-heart-shaped-hole in God, but my point is not to defend this proposed lineage of thought, only to share it :) SemanticMantis (talk) 18:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

exercise about, exercise on?

Are both forms right and common? If right do they mean the same? For example, an exercise about/on prepositions — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.140.4 (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You mean an exercise in a schoolbook? Yes, I'd say about and on are equally valid. —Tamfang (talk) 09:01, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In this sense, on and about are synonymous; but on is very much more common, with exercise and other similar words.

Number of instances from GloWbE:

Word	on	about
Exercise	981	57
Report	27570	2098
Lecture	2399	525
Book	14113	9186

--ColinFine (talk) 09:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 October 9

Contents

October 9

Is "Alternate" a Proper Alternative to "Alternative"?

Foo-shaped hole in my heart

exercise about, exercise on?