]] Philip Hands > Tollef Fog Heen <tfh...@err.no> writes: > > > ]] Ian Jackson > > > >> That is 6+ weeks' more stop-energy. 6+ weeks' more inaction. 6+ > >> weeks during which members of the TC have been prevaricating. > > > > What are you accusing the TC of lying about? > > I think that British English has drifted into using that as a synonym > for procrastinate while American English seems to have stuck to its > earlier meaning (judging by the online dictionary entries I see).
That doesn't match the reading of the Cambridge dictionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prevaricate prevaricate verb [ I ] UK /prɪˈvær.ɪ.keɪt/ US /prɪˈver.ə.keɪt/ formal to avoid telling the truth or saying exactly what you think: Or the Oxford dictionary, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/prevaricate: prevaricate VERB [NO OBJECT] Speak or act in an evasive way: > I certainly didn't (and still wouldn't) assume that Ian was accusing > anyone of lying here. Given his later apology, I'd assume so as well, but as a native speaker of English, Ian should really know better than using the term in the first place. -- Tollef Fog Heen UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are
