"tolerance"

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Wed Apr 28 06:43:36 UTC 2010


Well, wouldn't one also generally find the same implication of entailed disapproval in the use pf
"tolerate" withOUT  negation: "We will tolerate such behavior"?
------Original Message------
From: Herb Stahlke
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: [ADS-L] "tolerance"
Sent: Apr 28, 2010 12:11 AM

On today's Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan has a piece on "tolerance"
(http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/tolerance.html)
in which quotes, and seems to accept, the claim that the act of
tolerating entails disapproval of what one tolerates.  I've heard this
claim before, but I don't find this sense in either the OED Online or
Merriam-Webster Online, although MW does allow that inference.  I
wonder if the sense of entailed disapproval comes from the use of
"tolerate" with negation.  "We won't tolerate such behavior" obviously
implies disapproval of the behavior.

Herb

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