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Re: NPR interview

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Monday, August 6, 2001, 23:06
Matt Pearson wrote:
> >> > The comparisons with model shipbuilding and crossword puzzling, for >> > example, were quite apt. >> >> For some values of conlanging, yes. Some of us don't set out to make >> a "miniature", but something more like a glimpse of something >> full-size. > >I'm not sure I understand the distinction. I (and the people in the NPR >piece) meant "model" figuratively--a clever simulacrum, intricately >detailed, which resembles the real thing in many important ways but is not >(or cannot) be used the way the real thing is.
And, at least as regards model shipbuilding, a knowledge of the field that is, or ought to be, equivalent to that of a professional ship-wright. (I thought he trivialized us, with that crossword-puzzle bit.) Consider the level of knowledge of linguistics, anthopology, sociology, history, religion etc. etc. so many members of this list have acquired, many without any professional or academic reason to do so. A correspondent on another list produced a nice phrase (we were discussing what Borges would have thought of conlanging-- which he indulged in in at least one story): "...the grave and precise explication of the unreal, thereby giving reality to the unreal."

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Irina Rempt <ira@...>