Does this bug you?
Jan. 9th, 2006 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pixiecrinkleI keep coming across news stories that use the word "ancient" in a way that I didn't think was correct.
For instance, in this story about trying to identify a skull that may or may not be Mozart's, the following phrase appears:
forensics experts admitted Sunday on national television that they still can't say with certainty whether an ancient skull belonged to the composer, as some believe.
My first gut reaction was "Well, if it's 'ancient' it couldn't be Mozart's because it wasn't quite that long ago that he was around."
So I looked up the definition of "ancient" and it seems that it is acceptable to use it to mean "something really old" whereas I thought it was meant to be used to indicate something specifically at or before what we refer to as Ancient Greece or Rome.
Opinions?? Do I need to let go of this particular grammatical pet peeve?
For instance, in this story about trying to identify a skull that may or may not be Mozart's, the following phrase appears:
forensics experts admitted Sunday on national television that they still can't say with certainty whether an ancient skull belonged to the composer, as some believe.
My first gut reaction was "Well, if it's 'ancient' it couldn't be Mozart's because it wasn't quite that long ago that he was around."
So I looked up the definition of "ancient" and it seems that it is acceptable to use it to mean "something really old" whereas I thought it was meant to be used to indicate something specifically at or before what we refer to as Ancient Greece or Rome.
Opinions?? Do I need to let go of this particular grammatical pet peeve?
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Ancient and Pet Peeves
Date: 2006-01-10 12:12 am (UTC)