Re:The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of lo...
by mieseratte on Friday June 07, 2019 @10:35AM
(#20124919)
Well you mentioned that professionals stopped. I’m asking about common use as opposed to proper terminology.
An academic using that phrasing would certainly be wrong, but a layman?
Re:The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of lo...
by Frondo on Friday June 07, 2019 @03:43PM
(#20127904)
Literally once every 4 or 5 years I've heard a layman say "second world" referring to "poorer than America, richer than Ethiopia"; the lay usage is probably still first/third world, but people are slowly cottoning onto developed/developing nation.
I think even in common use, that use of "second world" is still "wrong," as far as anything in English can be wrong. Ted Cruz referred to it as a "basketball ring" and we all had a laugh, but we also all understood what he was talking about; is that wrong?
I'm mostly reluctant to tell anyone that their use of English is wrong, because it's such a fluid and ever-changing language; but when something like "second world" comes up and not in reference to the Soviet countries, it still jumps out at me as "well, that's not how people always used to use that phrase"...
As someone else pointed out, "second world" always referred to the Eastern Bloc countries (the soviet states and those allied with them). It never meant "somewhere in between first and third world, in terms of quality of life". That's the mistake.
The language shift was from first/second/third world to developed/developing nation, the mistake is using second world to mean something other than an eastern bloc country; you'd probably be understood, but that meaning was not ever in widespread use.