[Zealot]

Quote by: Isherwood With the upcoming HappyDays (my own feeble attempt at humor combined with political correctness), I thought we could use a good debate that shouldn't offer any chance to flame or be flamed. I was listening to two linguists argue the other day. The issue thay were differing over was the use of the word "done" as opposed to "finished". One felt that common usage had made the two terms synonymous when used in reference to tasks being completed or a job being wrapped up. They said that, "I'm done for the day", "Are you done with your dinner?" and "Call me when you're done" are acceptable. The other argued (you should hear linguists going after each other, it can get vicious) that the proper term to use in the above examples would be "finished". "Done" is for basting turkeys or baking cookies. Humans are not "done" when they are "finished". So...are we done or are we finished...or both? Do we care? Perhaps more interesting would be to ask if we even need formal rules of grammer anymore. Are they having a hard time keeping up with common usage? Should usage be common or strictly dictated? Does a broad, rich command of the language command respect anymore? Do we still equate being well-spoken and a higher level of intelligence or education?

Wrapped up is better!