Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consensus

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Todd Samusson writes:

> What's with the vocabulary on consensus on this list?

Firstly, I don't believe in prescriptivist grammatical rules too much.   
If lots of people start to use the language a certain way, that suggests  
that it is more useful to them that way.  I occasionally regret it when  
some usage that was convenient to me falls by the wayside (eg it's  
inconvenient that disinterested is becoming a synonym for uninterested),  
but I don't think it's valid for anyone to claim a right to define what  
English is.

I'd like to specifically argue for the verb "to consense".  Particularly  
for those of us that sit in half a dozen consensus meetings every week,  
this verb is very convenient.   Consider the following sentence.  "The  
Senate consented to the President's wish to send troops into Bosnia,  
though the vote was close."  The senate consented, but it did not  
consense.

Stuart.

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Stuart Staniford-Chen           |        N St Cohousing, Davis, CA
stanifor [at] cohousing.org             |       Cohousing Network Webweaver