Re: I have an opinion!

At 4:24 pm -0400 2/4/01, David Peterson wrote:
>    I must admit, I really, really, really, really, really, really HATE the
>shortening of words and phrases, e.g.: conlang, auxlang, AFAIK, etc.  It
>drives me crazy.
QED

>If you'll notice, I've never used any such shortenings in
>any of my e-mails.
....except, of course, e-mail!
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At 4:41 pm -0500 2/4/01, Andrew Chaney wrote:
>On Monday, April 2, 2001, at 03:57 , Padraic Brown wrote:
>
>Whoops, accidently sent this to Padraic instead of the list.
>
>> ... You may well cry foul, since most
>> of the words in my list are _commonly accepted_ grammatical shortcuts;
>> but you _did_ write "e-mail", which is precisely the sort of
>> condensation you are so vociferously complaining about!
>
>Speaking up momentarily in David's defense, I don't think email (or e-mail)
>really qualifies as an abbreviation anymore.  I think has become a word in
>and of itself.
Aw, come off it!  *Exactly the same* can be said of _conlang_ and _auxlang_
after their years old usage on this and related lists.

e-mail is no more and no less an abreviation than these other two.
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At 9:19 pm -0400 2/4/01, David Peterson wrote:
>In a message dated 4/2/01 3:51:39 PM, fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:
>
><< If "conlang", "auxlang", SciFi, CompSci, PoliSci, etc., count as
>abbreviations, then so does e-mail.  And, if e-mail isn't an
>abbreviation, then neither is conlang, etc. >>
>
>No one person can say whether a conjunction has become accepted; it depends
>on what most English speakers think.  Most English speakers do NOT have
>"conlang", "auxlang", "compsci", "polisci", and many not "scifi".  Nearly
>everyone has "e-mail", and it's already become a verb.
It seems to me that you have, in fact, just contradicted you first sentence
by being one person who is pontificating on whether these _abbreviations_
(for such they are) have become 'one word'.

Most English speakers, it is true, are not familiar with 'conlang' and
'auxlang' - but practically _everyone_ on this list has been familiar with
these terms for as long as I can remember - and that's going back quite a
few years.  They are quite clearly just as familiar with the terms as with
they are with the abbreviation e-mail.

I was familiar with the term "scifi" some 45 or more years ago.  It has
been around far, far longer than e-mail.

>Just because some
>condensions were formed the same way doesn't mean they have equal billing,
>says I.
Indeed not, some have had much longer usage than others.
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At 9:21 pm -0400 2/4/01, Nik Taylor wrote:
[snip]
>
>Still, I don't see the logic in accepting "e-mail" but not "conlang".
>It would be ridiculous, ESPECIALLY on this list, to use "constructed
>languages" and "auxiliary languages".  Maybe when speaking to people who
>aren't familiar with the terms.
Quite so - the whole thing is ridiculous.

Also, as Padraic rightly pointed out, David quite happily peppered his
original electronic mail with Latin abbreviations like i.e., e.g., etc.

Maybe, instead of the nasty IMO I should, in future, write u.o. (ut opinor   :)

>Besides, this whole thing was just out of the blue.  It's not like we
>were in a thread about abbreviations, you just suddenly burst out with a
>pet peeve of yours, criticizing everyone who uses those abbreviations.
>Why?
Why, indeed?

Ray.

Post scriptum - after reading the original mail early this morning, I was
musing on the bus into work what the collective noun for pedants might be.
I tried 'pain' and 'pest' - but Nik's given me a better idea - a peeve of
pedants  ;)

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