Re: USAGE Re: Defining words and how they are used

Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:54:24 +0100, R A Brown <ray@...>
> wrote:
>
>>Michael Adams wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>>Is not Jihad close to the word Haj "pilgrimage"?
>>
>>Eh?
>>About as close as, say, 'petal' is to 'tap' or 'tunic' is to 'nit', as
>>far as I can see.
>
>
> Yes; but, Michael's _main_ point was correct.
Sorry - but I was not at all clear what his main point was.

> This type of "Eh?" comment is one of the ways some oldbies scare off some
> newbies.
Is it. FYI I would not use just "Eh?" with a newby. A newby is one thing
Michael is not. He's been around IIRC at least as long as I have on this
list.

"Eh?" was meant to be shorthand for "Sorry - either I've misunderstood
you or you've made a pretty obvious error." But Michael (aka Abrigon,
aka Morgoth, as I knew him when I joined the list many, many moons ago)
seems to prefer elliptical forms.

> Michael has already proven difficult to "scare off"; but, Ray, I wish you
> would be a little more careful to come across as polite.
After how many years? Yes, I agree, he is not easy to scare him off -
nor do I wish to scare him off. Though, quite frankly, I do wish he
would make clearer what he's saying; then misunderstandings would be
less likely to arise.

[snip]
>>Shouldn't the mail have been prefixed OT,
>
>
> No, it's on-topic, not off-topic.
I got confused. The constantly changing size of font didn't make it easy
to read.

Some of Mike's mailings have seemed to have had a political slant. For
example, I understood his recent progress~Congress mail to be a dig at
the US Congress. I had an uneasy feeling that there was politics in this
one - but maybe I read more into it than I should.

I must admit I failed to notice his penultimate sentence.

>
>>or at least USAGE?
>
> Yes, it's definitely USAGE.  But, getting all hung up in your underwear
> about the proper use of tags is another way oldbies have scared off newbies
> on this list.
Yes, but Mike ain't exactly a newby! Good grief, I wouldn't expect a
newby to be familiar with all the tags. But I shouldn't, I guess, have
let what seemed to me a crass example of folk etymology upset me.

==================================
Michael Adams wrote:
 > Yes, before the tags came about, but yes, sorry.. Did not edit
 > fully, and working on it.. Got to not post when up for 24
 > hours..

Probably a good idea - maybe I oughtn't to post first thing in the
morning before my matutinal intake of caffeine    :)

 > The idea was, how do you design your conlang, to be precise or
 > open for various meanings?

Right - gotcha.

It rather depends upon the type of conlang, I think. If you're trying to
design a naturalistic type of artlang, like Quenya or Sindarin, clearly
you will have the same sort of imprecision as we find in natlangs. But
the creator of a engelang will probably be looking for as much precision
as possible. Some engelangs (e.g. IIRC Loglan, lojban, Livagian &
Classical Yiklamu) claim to have no ambiguity at all.

Auxlangers often claim to have no ambiguity, but I have not yet met an
auxlang that does not (unless one counts langs like lojban as an
auxlang) - at least not of the a_posteriori kind.

 > I know from history, many wars started or keeps going, cause one
 > party thinks a word means this, and the other think it means
 > this,

I know this is often said, but I am not certain that it's very true. The
causes of wars are IMO generally complex, tho the _excuse_ to go to war
is often simple.

 >and why we have lawyers, to have someone who has a
 > consistant vocabulary of meanings and words, so that contracts
 > are clear and all parties is happy with it.

	:-)

Yes, I have a feeling that even in Livagia and Lojlandia lawyers will
still find a way to exploit the language to their own advantage   ;)

=================================================
Michael Adams wrote:
 > Abrigon is Michael Adams
 > Ghost Wheel or Morgoth
 > or one or two others, long story.

I don't remember 'Ghost Wheel', but Abrigon & Morgoth I certainly
remember. Yes, indeed, 'tis a long story  ;)

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

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