Re: Accidental Conlanging
| From: | J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, January 23, 2003, 7:20 |
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In a message dated 2003:01:21 08.24.54 PM, slimehoo@YAHOO.COM writes:
>Conlanging: It's not a hobby, it's a mental illness.
ROTFLMAO... no friggin' joke. OCLD = Obsessive ConLanging Disorder.
Ya know ya have OCLD if ya:
- haunt many bookstores hunting for linguistics books and foreign
language dictionaries
- willing to pay exorbitant prices for said books
- scribble notes on languages - natlang and conlang - at strange
times of the day and night and even while in the bathtub or sitting on the
toilet
- have memorized the _entire_ IPA and at least one ASCII
representation thereof
- talk in your own conlang(s) as well as try to read aloud other's
conlangs
- find yourself automatically attempting to translate advertisement
slogans and magazine headlines into conlangs while waiting in doctors'
offices or waiting for a bus, etc.
- constantly/consistently websurfing for linguistic and conlinguistic
materials ("I'm goin' surfin', I'm goin' surfin'... Hang Binary, Dude!...
DiGiBuNGaaAAA!!!)
- don't at all mind the high volume of email postings on the ConLang
(and related email lists), in fact, LOVE it and can't imagine life without it
And, in my case, conlanging is one major factor in my sobriety -
nowadays, I rather be conlanging than be drunk, high and/or loaded.
It's a more interesting, productive, less damaging, creative obsession.
Kinda makes me wonder if Tolkien called it the "secret vice" for more reasons
than he let on.
Hanuman Zhang, 3-Toed-Sloth-Style Gungfu Typist ;)
"the sloth is a chinese poet upsidedown" --- Jack Kerouac {1922-69}
€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€€º°`°º€ø,¸~->
"One thing foreigners, computers, and poets have in common
is that they make unexpected linguistic associations." --- Jasia Reichardt
"There is no reason for the poet to be limited to words, and in fact the
poet is most poetic when inventing languages. Hence the concept of the poet
as 'language designer'." --- O. B. Hardison, Jr.
"At some point in the next century the number of invented languages will
probably overtake the number of surviving natural languages." - Cullen Murphy
in _Atlantic Monthly_ (October, 1995)
"La poésie date d' aujour d'hui." (Poetry dates from today)
"La poésie est en jeu." (Poetry is in play)
--- Blaise Cendrars
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