- I'm of the perhaps controversial opinion that a potato salad is not a salad, particularly a warm one.
- A wedge salad is right on the edge. It's a traditional salad except that the lettuce leaves are not separated. But if it was anything else in that form factor, like replacing the lettuce wedge with a potato, that's not a salad.
The meaning of a word doesn't care what your opinion is. Enough people believe a potato salad is a salad that it has to be contained within one of the definitions for salad.
I'm absolutely horrified by the way kids use "literally", but that definition has achieved critical mass and must be included in the dictionary.
The insistence on a single definition is where the silliness of the original article comes into play. There are obviously multiple definitions of salad; you don't have to accept all of them.
Yes and I agree with the dictionary quotes from the article. It seems to me that there are indeed multiple distinct meanings to the word "salad". I'd say that a potato salad is a different class of food from a green salad.
If one attempts to have a single definition stretched over all the meanings, then you indeed get a definition that is way too broad that includes soups and sandwiches, which is ludicrous. But it's quite common for a single word to have multiple senses, let's just go with that.
Comments
- I'm of the perhaps controversial opinion that a potato salad is not a salad, particularly a warm one.
- A wedge salad is right on the edge. It's a traditional salad except that the lettuce leaves are not separated. But if it was anything else in that form factor, like replacing the lettuce wedge with a potato, that's not a salad.
The meaning of a word doesn't care what your opinion is. Enough people believe a potato salad is a salad that it has to be contained within one of the definitions for salad.
I'm absolutely horrified by the way kids use "literally", but that definition has achieved critical mass and must be included in the dictionary.
The insistence on a single definition is where the silliness of the original article comes into play. There are obviously multiple definitions of salad; you don't have to accept all of them.
Yes and I agree with the dictionary quotes from the article. It seems to me that there are indeed multiple distinct meanings to the word "salad". I'd say that a potato salad is a different class of food from a green salad.
If one attempts to have a single definition stretched over all the meanings, then you indeed get a definition that is way too broad that includes soups and sandwiches, which is ludicrous. But it's quite common for a single word to have multiple senses, let's just go with that.