Timeline for Using the word "hole" in formal contexts
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 18, 2013 at 20:14 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Daniel: In my first comment where I said "gaps" evokes the passage of time, I meant that normally when we use gaps metaphorically, it's in relation to temporal continuity. Hence Arlo Guthrie's 1997 re-recording of Alice's Restaurant is explained as being responsible for the 18.5 minute gap in the Nixon Tapes (a missing section in a tape is normally referred to as a gap, not a hole). Metaphoric holes are usually crucial parts of a pattern that are missing, not chronological discontinuities. | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 20:00 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @WendiKidd: Maybe it's just because erudition normally means profound scholarly knowledge, so it feels unnatural to use the word in contexts where you're calling attention to the things someone doesn't know. "I have limited knowledge" sounds fine, but "I have limited erudition" just sounds weird. | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 19:37 | answer | added | Mari-Lou A | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 15:43 | comment | added | Daniel | @WendiKidd As a fellow American, I feel like a hole in your story is an inconsistency, while a gap in your story is an unaccounted-for period of time. Does that sound right to you? | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 14:05 | comment | added | WendiKidd | @FumbleFingers No, but we poke holes in things! :) As an American I would use gap to refer to a gap in knowledge, but for all other similar things I would always use hole ("holes in your story", etc.). I agree that it sounds odd to use either for erudition, though I can't put my finger on why. | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 11:43 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @J.R.: There does indeed seem to be a UK/US split here. Surprisingly, for such a disputatious bunch, you Americans apparently don't pick holes in things even half as much as we Brits! | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 9:14 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | @Fumble: In my lifetime and on my continent, the Ngram is a virtual dead heat. More importantly, though, conversationally, I believe I've heard hole more often. (Data isn't as readily accessible, although two Google searches favored "hole in the argument" by more than 3 to 1. Of course, I didn't bother to examine the millions of results with scrutiny – but it did make me wonder if this might be a BrE/AmE thing.) | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 3:04 | history | edited | James Waldby - jwpat7 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
rev a couple of sentences
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| Jul 18, 2013 at 2:56 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @J.R.: Indeed - though certainly with arguments, gaps have always been more common (with plans, it's about even). | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 0:12 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | @Fumble: We may not use "holes" in that context, but we do speak of "holes" in things like arguments, defense, plans, and stories. | |
| Jul 18, 2013 at 0:09 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | I don't think lacunae would be a good choice at all; I'd use holes before lacunae, as lacuna is quite rare and not widely known. | |
| Jul 17, 2013 at 23:54 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | I don't think this is a matter of formal/informal - it's just that idiomatically we don't normally speak of "holes" in things like education, employment history, knowledge, etc. Gaps would be a common choice, but I must say it sounds odd to describe erudition like that anyway. It's an abstract concept that we might metaphorically reference as "broad" or "vast", but to me it seems a stretch too far to imagine it as some kind of sheet with holes in it ("gaps" evokes the passage of time, so it works for education better than for erudition). | |
| Jul 17, 2013 at 23:22 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglishLL/status/357641585669832704 | ||
| Jul 17, 2013 at 22:37 | history | asked | user114 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |