Makes me think of this: I'm not religious, but I know people who are. They (Christians mostly - I've never heard a Christian use the word 'Allah' to refer to their own god) always use the capital G when addressing their god with me, so I've always copied them doing that. Also, consider 'There is no god but God' I suppose.
When speaking Arabic, yes, since clearly 'god' is not an Arabic word. And as @Steerpike points out, in many monotheistic religions, the language used (which is a separate thing) tends to slide the common noun for a god over to a proper noun as a name for the god under an assumptive thought process that since God is the only god, why bother using other names that may or may not exist. (there are several other names for the god of Abrahamic tradition other than just God)
Nor do I, and as I mentioned earlier, in order to simply avoid the argument for proper noun use, I always tweak my syntax (unless making a point as in my prior post) so that I can make use of the common noun structure, just as you did: "The god of Christianity....", "the Christian god...", etc. You won't catch me saying or writing "I don't believe in God." (save for in this demonstrative use) because as spoken, it syntactically denotes that I give coin to the monotheistic god of Abrahamic tradition, and when written, I am faced with the conundrum of proper noun vs. I don't freakin' want to capitalize that.
No worries. These types of conversations have a strong tendency to slide into a BrE vs. AmE dynamic, which can get dicey and personal. There were no fouls made at the point of my random interjection and I just wanted to make it clear that we are one big happy Anglophonian family here! As for the "off of" bit, ask away. The thread has shifted to a dangerously religious flavor (partly my fault) and I am wont to shift it to something else. What are your questions?
I would have to say anything that winds up on Urban Dictionary. Seriously what the hell? Does everything have to be a 'slang' term, or be some twisted mass of letters that sound so stupid coming off the tongue? Some really nasty and offensive stuff there. Blumpkin pie for one (yes this is a phrase on Urban Dictionary). In short I don't recommend looking it up. Or anything else unless you absolutely must know what the ugly sub-lingo is and it's meaning. I think I will stick to more commonly used slang thanks. That crazy nonsense that needs to be explained can go in the bin.
And on this note... Use of the word slang for every single kind of word that is considered non-standard, regional, or idiolectic. Only another linguist would care about this, but the term slang has a very defined and narrow meaning. Using it to mean any word that sounds strange to one's ears makes me twitch.
I understand the meaning of slang, and how it works. Just saying that when it comes down to the 'new' slang terminology and it's excess of craziness that makes my brain hurt. That is what I am talking about. Maybe I am just biased to the 'hip' new sublanguage that is out there with all its invented words and strange meanings. Perhaps it has become more common to use the term slang when referring to all the nonsensical words floating around. In a way I feel that the term has been bastardized as it has evolved over time to be more encompassing of all the crazy incomprehensible jumbling letters and call them 'words'. Urban Dictionary is a site dedicated to 'slang', just for reference.
This wasn't pointed directly at you. It's a linguistics thing. You'll find my mention of this elsewhere in the forum as regards the use of the word slang within the OED as a tag for pretty much all American regionalisms it lists, which is flat-out wrong, and ironic, and more than a little politically motivated on the part of the OED. To be fair, many American dictionaries do the same thing to British regionalisms, tagging them as slang when they are not. Your mention of Urban Dictionary more than anything evoked the response in me since, yes, Urban Dictionary has played a hand in diluting the term.
That reminds me: "the parental units" to mean "my parents." I had one friend in particular who used that phrase all the time when we were teens. Drove me crazy.
I hope you slapped the shit out of him. If not for his pretentious patter, then for the fact that it should be unit.
Either "toward" or "towards." I prefer for the latter to be kept because the 's' elongates the word and makes it easier to understand when you're quickly enunciating it.
Meh, just because it isn't technically wrong doesn't mean we can't hate it... 'off of' should be banned!
The word salad for coffee options in Starbucks or basically any other café geared towards the twenty-something demographic (yeah, I know, I'm a part of it). I love coffee. Coffee. But when it's a glorified milkshake with a hip name I'm getting all north-korea on them inside my head. In the same vein, iThis and McThat. Please die. I admit, I mostly liked your post because of Nile... But I can see the logic in not capitalizing the Christian god, too. I still do capitalize it in fiction if the story takes place in the modern times; seems to be common practice. Not sure if an editor would change it if I didn't capitalize it. I guess I just see it as a proper noun, one of the names that we use in many Western countries to refer to the Christian god (it's the same in Finnish: God = Jumala, a god = jumala), a convention. Except, I guess Germans have it easy here 'cause they probably capitalize both, the Christian god and a god.
I see the logic both ways. I just feel like if I capitalize it I'm saying something about my beliefs. Maybe I should link a Nile song in all my posts
