the other response about “sous-miner”

Meillassoux’s verdict this morning is even harsher:

“Sous-miner and sur-miner seem frankly ridiculous to me, without any existence in the French language, and the sound of which would inevitably lead to a comical effect.”

Case closed.

When I made my earlier post about how for my terminological purposes English is lucky to have “undermine” as a word in common everyday use, I was relying on the opinion of these two gentlemen, and they have reaffirmed the views that led me to that conclusion last year.

The negative comment on my post was by no means an effort to be “helpful,” as anyone can see who read it originally; that’s just retroactive nonsense, along with some of the rather surprising additional insults that were thrown on the table in an effort to shift the focus of discussion.

There’s never anything wrong with making a suggestion, of course. It’s simply when suggestions are public, haughty, and (apparently) ill-informed that no one is interested in receiving them.