User talk:86.139.37.217

regular

Contrary to your comment in this edit, regular means "conforming to a rule (regula)". The rule need not imply periodicity in time, which is only a secondary meaning. My dictionary gives "normal, correct" as an accepted meaning. So this is hardly a "common error". -- Elphion (talk) 17:51, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Aha. You were educated in the US of A. Error forgiven. Here's a definition from a good English dictionary to help you. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regular

To be clear, the text is not mine, and I prefer your version. But your justification is fallacious. Cf. Oxford English Dictionary: "5. Conformable to some accepted or adopted rule or standard; made or carried out in a prescribed manner; recognized as formally correct. 6. Properly constituted; having all the essential attributes, qualities, or parts; normal." -- Elphion (talk) 20:48, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

"only a secondary meaning", you say. Yet you omit definitions 1-4 from the work you mention (without citation), and you overlook the notes about US usage in the reference I provided.

In the UK the usage you mention is most often encountered on US TV programmes or places like Starbucks product lists. Unfortunately such 'American English' spreads to the less well educated youth, along with other blights like Facebook and Google. (I suspect that C S Lewis would not have used the word in the sense that you defend).

All I can say is that the citations in the 1971 OED (for the meanings I quoted above) are evidently British and start as early as the 17th century. It is clear that this is an established meaning for the word and has been for some time, and it is of British, not American, origin. It may not have survived in your dialect, but it has a respectable lineage, and the aspersions you cast upon it are completely unwarranted. (The meanings 1-4 include generally following a rule of some sort, such as "regular clergy", established procedures, temporal periodicity -- and the last is clearly only one of a host of meanings.) I do wish that WP editors were less sensitive about variations in modern usage; it would help us all to coexist a bit more harmoniously. -- Elphion (talk) 17:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

As for Lewis, there's the following, from Chapter 16 of The Silver Chair: "Puddleglum!" said Jill. "You're a regular old humbug. You sound as doleful as a funeral and I believe you're perfectly happy. -- Elphion (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

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