I disagree with you Chuck :-) - that's the (small) number of people
(slightly) misusing the word.
Searching examples of correct usage "the * was dank" gets 91 million hits.
Jez, in a glass dankly.
On 17 February 2015 at 16:53, Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> I strongly disagree. Whether you or the teacher use it that way or not I
> do, just like Charlie and lots of other people as well. Search Google with
> this quoted phrase "the weather is dank" and you'll get 2,370 hits.
> Language is ultimately based on usage and not the dictionary.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
> On 2/17/2015 10:42 AM, Bob Whitmire wrote:
>
>> The dictionary that pops up when I highlight a word on my Mac says for
>> dank:
>>
>> dank |daNGk| adjective
>> disagreeably damp, musty, and typically cold.
>> DERIVATIVES
>> dankly adverb.
>> dankness noun
>> ORIGIN Middle English: probably ofScandinavian origin and related to
>> Swedishdank ‘marshy spot.’
>> I tend to think of some basements as being dank. Seldom, if ever, have I
>> used the word as a direct description of weather. In days gone by during my
>> youthful explorations of the mountains of Western North Carolina, I might
>> have escaped a maddening and ongoing drizzle by ducking into a natural rock
>> shelter. The shelter might be dank, musty, etc., but not the weather
>> outside it. Hope this is slightly clearer than mud. I do think that if I
>> saw the above mentioned adverb— dankly—I might collapse with laughter,
>> which, I suspect, would not be what the writer intended.
>> But then I’m not sure I would have subtracted points from a pupil’s paper
>> for using it as your daughter did. Instead, I might have written a note in
>> the margin explaining distinctions as I understood them.
>> —Bob Whitmire
>> Certified Neanderthal
>>
>> On Feb 17, 2015, at 9:58 AM, Charles Geilfuss <charles.geilfuss@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I am seeking information on the proper use of a word. I have exhausted
>>> the dictionaries at home and found no help with online versions. In
>>> desperation I turn to the vast depository of English language knowledge
>>> that resides in the OM List.
>>> One of my children recently took a vocabulary test at school. The word
>>> in
>>> question is "dank". I don't know the exact wording of the sentence she
>>> used
>>> to demonstrate its usage, but something to the effect of "The weather is
>>> dank". The teacher subtracted points, writing in the margin that weather
>>> cannot be dank. This came as a surprise to me. Certainly other things can
>>> be dank: clammy hands, humid air, etc. I live in South Carolina where the
>>> weather is often dank. What am I missing here?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>> Charlie
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