About 20 years ago @Alan wrote a great article about the word ‘resolute’ and all its family memembers. So, how are you going to spend New Year’s Eve 2022 and do you have any New Years Resolutions?
I don’t do anything on holidays. I will most likely be sitting here at home doing the same thing I do every other night.
I never got into New Year’s resolutions. Although a few years ago I made a semi-serious resolution to start paying bills on times. I had become very forgetful about paying bills and the late fees were starting to be substantial. So I resolved to crack down and try to get them paid on time. I was fairly successful, but not entirely.
In Alan’s article he mentioned the resolution of a computer screen. He might not have realized that he skipped a step in the evolution of the word. When people talk about the resolution of their monitor, camera or printer, that is not true resolution - it’s a misuse of the word.
Alan said:
“If you have a computer screen that has a high resolution the quality and clarity are good because the tiny little dots are very close together”.
This is not true resolution. Dots being close together might actually decrease the true resolution, not increase it. True resolution has more to do with the space between the dots. It is the ability to separate one dot from the adjacent dot.
Consider an astronomer looking at distance stars. If two stars are “close together” from the astronomer’s point of view, he might not be able to “resolve” or discern the difference. He might think it’s only one star when in fact it’s two. In order to resolve, or discern, the two stars there needs to be discernible space between them.
When you take an eye exam, can you discern, or resolve, the difference between these two letters?
i l
In order to do that you need to see the space between the line and dot above the i. That is true resolution. No matter how many dots there are, and no matter how big or small they are, you can’t resolve the difference without the visible space.
This is a good example of the evolution of language. It’s also why I don’t like hard rules with language. The incorrect use of the word “resolution” became so widespread that now it’s the definition that most people use.
When enough people use a word, or a particular sentence structure, it automatically becomes the new “correct”. Modern dictionaries update electronically. They scan the Internet, especially newspapers, books, etc. They compile billions of words and their usage. Then update the dictionary on a regular basis to reflect modern usage. For example the Oxford dictionary recently removed the hyphen from several thousands words to reflect the modern trend.
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