Do you like the way the new nickel looks?

[OLAM Dad]

This is the first time that a president has stared straight at you. All the others have been in profile.
[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/materdei/OLAM%20Entrance/newnickel.jpg[/img]

[shortnun]

I'm more worried about where Tom looks like he's about to [b]fall off[/b] the nickel:

[img]http://jasonsroom.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/new_nickel400_2.jpg[/img]

[qfnol31]

What's with all these new backs?

[OLAM Dad]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Jan 12 2006, 06:02 PM']What's with all these new backs? 
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[/quote]
I think it's all about marketing. The mint makes a lot of money selling new coins and proofs to collectors.

[Earthsea Annie]

I could give a fig about how my money looks. As long as it spends, that's really all I care about.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='OLAM Dad' date='Jan 12 2006, 04:48 PM']This is the first time that a president has stared straight at you.  All the others have been in profile.
[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/materdei/OLAM%20Entrance/newnickel.jpg[/img]
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[/quote]
He looks like an aged He-Man. I don't like it too much.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='shortnun' date='Jan 12 2006, 04:56 PM']I'm more worried about where Tom looks like he's about to [b]fall off[/b] the nickel:

[img]http://jasonsroom.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/new_nickel400_2.jpg[/img]
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[/quote]
This one is cool. I love buffalo.

[homeschoolmom]

I haven't seen OLAM Dad's but I have seen shortnuns. I don't like 'em. Mine has a Lewis and Clark back.

[Andrea348]

it looks fake

[shortnun]

[quote name='Andrea348' date='Jan 12 2006, 07:25 PM']it looks fake
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I remember when the new $20 looked like Monopoly money to me.

Evolution of the $20 bill: (in order from current to oldest)

[img]http://images.usatoday.com/money/_photos/newbill-pop2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.moneyfactory.gov/uploads/new20.jpg[/img]
.

[morostheos]

I haven't seen any new nickels. Maybe it takes a while for them to make it out to the boonies....

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='Jan 12 2006, 06:54 PM']This one is cool. I love buffalo.
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[/quote]
It's a bison. Buffalo are only native to Africa. :

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='shortnun' date='Jan 12 2006, 08:08 PM']I remember when the new $20 looked like Monopoly money to me.

Evolution of the $20 bill: (in order from current to oldest)

[img]http://images.usatoday.com/money/_photos/newbill-pop2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.moneyfactory.gov/uploads/new20.jpg[/img]
.
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[/quote]
Ahem...I'd be REALLY careful doing that...it has to be outside the limits of 400% or 25% by federal law, I believe.

[photosynthesis]

i'm too poor to see much Jefferson on 20$ bills but I see plenty of nickels

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Jan 12 2006, 10:09 PM']It's a bison.  Buffalo are only native to Africa. :
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While I would possibly agree that if we're talking about the technicalities of taxonomy this would be a fair claim, I think the vernacular usage permits, and arguably prefers the use of 'buffalo' over 'bison'.
Said creatures were described as buffalo long before anyone decided to use the term bison in their regard, and I might base my argument partly on this fact. And while I don't have any statistics at hand, I might also argue that this is simply the more common term and thus the more appropriate for common use.

You will find that I resent such things as strict grammar and linguistic formalism. My view is that language is meaningless apart from the concrete and living anthropological consciousness in which it subsists. I like to call this the philological context. So from my view the vernacular sense within a given philological context trumps any extrinsic semantic rules derived from an artificial and static taxonomic organization.
To put it simply: the fact that people in our context properly understand the referent of the term buffalo, means that it is a correct usage. Similarly I can be correct in using what might be considered 'bad grammar' according to the latest textbook. As the semantic trends and prevailing syntactical structures change and adapt, which is proper to a philological context, the books ought obviously to change. But they have never been correct in the first place, nor can they be; or so I would say.

I would like to see a comprehensive argument as to why buffalo ought to be considered a misnomer. As far as I can tell, any such principles of justification would denigrate the better part of our own contemporary language. If you trace back to that maelstrom of ancient languages which met in such an illicit union as to bring forth this bastard tongue, I would dare say that there are an unfortunately vast number of illegitimate locutions polluting the landscape of our particular parlance.

I believe that the attitude you've expressed is symptomatic of a perception of language that I should like to characterise as Euclidean and Newtonian, in contrast with my view that language ought to be evaluated within a paradigm that is relativistic and probabilistic.