Re: CHAT Jargon-mangling (was: Worse Greek 102)

On Mon, 5 Feb 2001, taliesin the storyteller wrote:

> Spoilers ahead, beware.
>
> * Padraic Brown <pbrown@...> [010205 19:36]:
> > I gather it must be very hard for someone educated in a particular
> > discipline to hear or read the lingo mangled so badly [..]
>
> Ever read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? I'm quite proud I managed to
> finish it in spite of his (ab)use of linguistic theory. It's still a
> good book, but to imagine how great it might have been if I hadn't
> been reading linguistics texts for years, or if the main plot point
> hadn't hinged on a *very* strong version of Sapir-Whorf... urrrgh
Not to mention a gross misunderstanding of Chomskian Theory.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir