On Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:58:58 -0700, Al Eridani wrote:
On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 9:09 AM, Camaleón<noelamac@gmail.com> wrote:
"Pasao" is not a valid word in Spanish
Absolutely correct.
No, it's not.
If you think it is, please send any authoritative reference that points
to that direction.
(you won't find that term
registered in the RAE dictionary which is nowadays the maximum
authority that regulates the Spanish language). And Spanish language is
very strict with its rules and norms.
OTOH, I've found some references to the word "dunno" in English
dictionaries (e.g., Oxford's, Cambridge Advanced's, Thesaurus's...) so
you can say its usage can sound "rare" or "strange" but incorrect?
The "DRAE" is prescriptive.
Yes, that's what I said.
All the English language dictionaries are merely descriptive, as there
is no "de jure" or "de facto" prescriptive body for the English
language, unlike the bodies for the Spanish or French languages.
And so the validity of "dunno" which does not mean it was the most
appropiate term but I already explained why I use that style when posting
here (that is, you will not see me to write "dunno" on business writings).
Therefore, the presence of an entry in an English language dictionary is
orthogonal to its correctness, which, for practical purposes, is a very
slippery concept regarding the English language, anyway.
You can't like the usage of a term in a phrase and you could have choosen
another one, that's fine, but you can't say is "incorrect". As you say,
it's a matter of taste. But this is not valid for Spanish. If you say a
word that is no currently available at the RAE's dictonary, is not
correct, regardless you find it right or not because is not people who
makes the rules but academics.
When somebody gently chided you for using "dunno" and you seemed
genuinely interested in finding out the reason, I tried to help you by
pointing to "pasao", as I assumed that you would be more familiar with
it and that you could make the mental leap from one to the other.
Sorry, but it wasn't a good example.