How many does it take to be "diverse"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Dear Xtreem Word Posse:

  Like everyone I have ever projected my own assumptions onto, I've always believed that one needed to have three or more things for them to be "diverse," yet the OED def. does not indicate this subtlety. The same goes for its treatment of "various."

  But as I read the following passage, I get a feverish feeling that something is not right in the author's use of "diverse."  Is it just me?  Or would "different" be better?

  1990 Michael Klein in Dittmar & Michaud, eds._From Hanoi to Hollywood_ (Rutgers U.P.) 31:  Kubrick...challenges the nationalist-chauvinist assumption that, given the superiority of the U.S. troops, most battles...were won (or were winable [sic]). ..._Full Metal Jacket_  is [thus] a significant corrective to films as diverse as _Rambo II_ or [sic] _Platoon_.

  (OED calls {winable} "erroneous.")


  Signed,

  Worried






---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org