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Old 02-20-2012, 11:20 AM   #24
Zanaspus
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Join Date: Aug 2009
First Name: Tony
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Default Re: The Word Puro w/Poll

Quote:
Originally Posted by markem View Post
[puro] adj. pure, uncontaminated, untainted; clean, free of dirt; absolute, utter

It is an adjective, "part of speech used to modify a noun". Ergo, it is meaningless without an explicit or implicit noun upon which to act.

A simple test would be, for example, to replace "puro" in a sentence with your chosen definition. For example, let's say we want "puro" to mean "cigar".

I smoked a rockin Nicaraguan cigar today (not bad, but not what you really intended).

Now, let's use one of the words from the definition above.

I smoked a rockin Nicaraguan pure today. Not so good. However, I think that if we made it a real adjective, we get something like this: I smoked a rockin pure Nicaraguan cigar today.

Much better, me thinks.

I tend to slant towards the rules of the Blue Book (http://www.grammarbook.com/) but can go with the flow for anyone who wants to head in the direction of Strunk and White (original is online here: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html).
My God! Someone else on the internet who actually cares about not butchering his mother tongue!

I salute you sir!
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