Brian Clarke wrote: > I was using 'shy' in its nominative sense of being an object you throw at a > coconut. > Perhaps it's a meaning of which the Macq knows nought because it's not a > media-common > usage? Well it's referred to in a number of dictionaries as not being in common usage as a noun, so presumably that suggests the Macq might have something going for it, if in fact it doesn't list it in nounal use -- that is unless of course, the other dictionaries picked that up from "the media", which presumably would make it wrong. Why do you persist with these bullsh*t myths that the Macq is either the only dictionary that cites media or is somehow a dictionary that is more dominated by media than any other dictionary? If you bother to go to the Oxford dictionary, as I suggested, you'll find the London Times newspaper cited hundreds of times. Or is the Times not "media" and the Oxford only a weak cousin to the Macq or somesuch? You might hate it, but it seems extremely likely you'll find the tendency to cite media continued and even expanded in future, with even the Brisbane Courier Mail getting a run. Thus, in Lingua Franca, ABC radio, 12/3/2005, Sarah Ogilvie, an OED lexicographer, said: "There is a wonderful database called Nexus Lexus, which is just all of the world's newspapers; we can search that, and they are downloaded every single day. We can search newspapers from the Ayr Advocate to the Nigerian Chronicle, just from everywhere around the world, it's fantastic." Better give up on the dictionaries, Brian. They're all going to rack and ruin. Stick to those parchment thingies... or is that thingys? -PeterM peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. - Arthur C Clarke ************************************************** To view the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field (without quotes). To manage your subscription (e.g., set and unset DIGEST and VACATION modes) go to www.freelists.org/list/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************