Results of Poll by Email No. 24

        The last poll asked, "What is your favorite component of conlanging?" You
people rather enjoy making my thankless task miserable, what with all the
multiple responses some of your tried to sneak in. However, I just dumped
them into "G." Heh. There will be a Hall of Shame at the end for those who
could not make up their minds. (Order! There must be order! :) The 26
responses broke down as follows:

        A. Phonology (4 responses, 15%)
        B. Morphology (4 responses, 15%)
        C. Syntax (1 response, 3%)
        D. Vocabulary building (2 responses, 8%)
        E. Conculturing (8 responses, 31%)
        F. Orthography (2 responses, 8%)
        G. Other (5 responses, 19%)

        If any of you need a phonology for a language, see Josh Brandt-Young: "In
fact, this is usually as far as I get--I love creating new phonologies (I
have literally hundreds of them) but taking the next steps with the risks
therein involved is a leap I often have trouble taking."

        And Rosta, ever one to question semantics, answered: "If we interpret
'favourite component' as 'chief motivation for one's own conlanging', then my
answer is C & G (semantics). If we interpret 'favourite component' as 'most
fun and least onerous', then my answer is A."
        I thought about that for a while, and decided that I didn't know what should
be meant by "favorite," so And's answer was pegged to "A", since it was the
one answer in a single category. :)

        More of what Maggel-on-the-mind does to you, from Christophe Grandsire:
"Hehe, as I said various times, I'm more a mechanician of conlangs, who loves
to work in the motor but has no intention of polishing the body or even
driving the car. So B and C are my favourites, with B as first." Good thing
there's no law saying that a conlanger must become fluent in their conlang.
(Unlike in auxlanging, where one must not only be fluent in one's own
auxlang, but also able to mock other auxlangs in Solresol.)

        Sylvia Sotomayor answered: "C. Syntax. And I'm mostly done with Kélen in that
regard, and am now thinking of hatching daughter and sister languages. I
bought a book on Nootka the other day, and am itching to try out some of the
concepts." Actually, she also answered "E," but since no one else talked much
about "C", that's where her answer was pounded into.

        Does it comes as any surprise that our resident sloth/poet likes vocabulary
building? (Actually, Hanuman Zhang said that he liked all of them, but "D",
like "C", was mighty small and that was his first choice. :)
        In the "No Great Surprise" category, several people wished that there was a
"Everything but D" category. Would anyone care to hypothesize why something
as fundamental as vocabulary is so studiously avoided? :)

        Kendra extols the merits of conculturing: "I think E is the least frustrating
for me; drawing maps and designing culural dress is for some reason, very
soothing once I've exploded with rage over grammar that just doesn't seem to
be coming together."

        In "The Lost Chord" category is Robert Wilson: "I actually created my first
conlang, manerau, so i would have a language to go with a script that i had
made.  i still think it's one of the most beautiful scripts i've ever made,
but i've forgotten most of it and i've lost all of my notes about it (for
some reason those pages are torn out of the notebook they were in), which is
kind of appropriate, because now it is to me what it is to kontoko speakers -
a beautiful script that no one can figure out..."

        While E. Notagain (hmm...I just finally noticed that) answered "E", his
comment on scripting was too good to pass up: "And orthography... it's just
some odd thing I love. Maybe it's because I have awful handwriting (I just
know nature's telling me to be a doctor), and I'd like a script I can write
legibly."

        The Hall of Shame:
Jan van Steenbergen: B, D
Tristan: "Everything but D"
Roger Mill: "All of the above, dammit, and in about that order."
Keith Gaughan: B, C, E, F
Steg Belsky: A, E, F

        Thanks to everyone who responded, and stay tuned for the next Poll by Email!
        :Peter
--
Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive!

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