Posted by Janes_kid on May 09, 2003
In Reply to: Re: Usage vs Use posted by Bob on May 09, 2003
: : I've never really understood the value of the word 'usage'. Surely, wherever you can use the word 'usage', it is also acceptable to use the word 'use'.
: : I know it's more common to say that something is 'in common usage', but is it in fact more correct or necessary?
: Usage is not identical to use. Usage (particularly in the sense of how words are used/accepted/understood in a language community) is an accepted set of conventional verbal patterns. (When writers go wrong, it can be grammar, punctuation, usage, spelling, etc. - the non-word "alot" is in common use, but it is not proper usage.) "Ain't," for another common example, is acceptable usage in some communities, verboten in others.
In the US I first noticed the excessive use (or usage) of words ending in "..age" where the "..age" ending was unnecessary, back in the '70s when many managers started going to "continuing education classes". Wastage and spillage are other examples of this usage. Many examples of unnecessary words and endings to words seemed to me to have come from those classes.