Re: NPR interview

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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