Re: txt msgs & BrSc

At 7:38 am -0400 16/6/01, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
[snip]
>>Good point - but the important question, it seems to me, is: (a) whether
>>people find it annoying because it is a 'distortion' of English, (b) or it
>>is the use of single letters & non-alphabetic symbols to express syllables
>>and/or morphemes that causes annoyance.
>>
>>If (a), then that is not relevant as "BrSc" has as yet no written form to
>>be distorted; but if (b) is this case, then this does have a bearing on any
>>decisions I make about the written form of BrSc.
>
>Lemme invoke (c). If I've got it right, Briefscript is intended as writing
>system to be used in any situation, yes?
Yep - just as Speedwords was (Duttons teaching literature included excerpts
from the then British Highway Code as well translation of part Bernard
Shaw's "St Joan", inter alia).

>The abbreviation-heavy language
>examplified by your _R u gr8 @ txt msgs_ is confined mostly to web chats,
>ICQ messaging and similar. This form of communication is characterized by,
>among other things, generally very short messages.
Very valid point.

[snip]

>Compared to normal English (or indeed any lang written by the Roman
>alphabet), Abbrev makes it easier and faster for the writer but more
>difficult for the reader. This makes sense in a chat, which in many ways is
>closer to spoken language than to "normal" writing, but hardly in a longer
>text of the one-way-communication variety.
I agree - thanks, it's helping me clarify some ideas.

>But I suspect that a consistent Briefscript would, structurally, be more
>similar to a syllabary like Japanese than to Abbrev.
Maybe - certainly it must be more structurally consistent than Abbrev.

>                                                     Andreas
>
>PS I disagree about you're interpretation of the characters in "msgs" as
>meaning respectively /mE/ /sI/ /dZ/ and /(I)z/. I'd rather say that "msgs"
>refers to the SPELLING {messages}, or perhaps rather {message} + plural.
Actually, I disagreed almost as soon as I sent it ;)

I did actually refine my analysis in first email as regards the final -s; I
agree with your last statement: -s is the plural morpheme.

Certainly, "msg" refers to the spelling {messages}, but the use of the
consonants is similar to the Semitic scripts, i.e. {m} = /m/+ any vowel.
--------------------------------------------------------------

At 5:28 pm -0500 16/6/01, Eric Christopherson wrote:
[snip]
>type out whole words anyway :) ) The same goes for <txt> (IMO), which has
>been for over two decades a standard filename suffix for text files (In DOS
>and CP/M at least, since they only allow filenames with up to 8 characters
>plus a suffix of 0 to 3 characters; did Unix and other OSes without such
>filename restrictions use .txt as well?)
If all youngsters who indulge in web chats & ICQ messaging were familiar
with this use of {txt}, I would agree.  But I can assure you, that as a
lecturer in Computer Science I am painfully aware that now (unlike 10 years
ago) on this side of the the vast majority of my students have no idea what
filename suffixes are and are hopelessly lost outside their Windows
environment - and as for other operating systems, forget them; and as for
trying to teach them to program, I think I'd have more success if I tried
teaching them Sanskrit.  As a programmer, I find it depressing so few are
interested - but I'm getting a bit off topic now.

No, I feel most think the {x} = /Eks/, analogous to the {8} in {gr8}. after
all they are used to {Xmas} /"Eksm@s/ and {xray} /"Eksrej/.  Indeed, there
is a distinct tendency here for semi-literate to read initial x- as /Egz/
in unusual words, e.g.  'xanthic' /Eg"zanTIk/, 'xiphoid' /Eg"zIfQjd/,
'Xerxes' /Eg"z@(r)ksiz/, etc.  I've even heard /Eg"zajl@f@un/ !

But the interpretation of individual symbols in 'Abbrev' is, I think, a bit
of a red herring.  I think we'll probably all agree that however they're
used, their usage is not consistent.

Ray.


=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

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