Your region for free !!! no fees !!!

Score:

M-W: 1
Pep the troll: 0
The forum: -1000



Way to go Pep.

It's official: we have finally run out of worthwhile things to argue about.

*rings bell*

No we haven't!

1 user agrees: Marcel Flatley

That presumes we had anything worthwhile to argue about to begin with.

It doesn't matter what the subject is - an argument is always worthwhile - just for the sake of it

Oh, crud. You were right. I really only scanned the note this morning before I had any coffee.

In the end, she talks about encouraging people to use other grids, and making a negative campaign against LL if they carry out their announced openspace policy... so... no translation.

Discussing linguistics is worthwile.


Funny enough, word formation is one of my special research areas. Acronyms don't have to be pronouncable OR end up being used as "words" (Try to define "word" and you'll soon know why linguists don't use it as a technical term). Depending on which theory you follow, you might end up with acronyms and initialisms, the latter being the ones you CAN'T pronounce, or just acronyms no matter whether they can be pronounced or not. Or alphabetisms. Throw in a bit of folk etymology (what people think how something was coined!), and you have a lot of fun with reinterpretation. There's also the practice of backronyms (a nice term in itself), i.e. acronyms that have been created with a specific outcome already in mind, ending up with a rather forced full form.

So stop arguing what an acronym is and what isn't. It depends on the theory you're following.

Shouldn't that be "funnily"?

Thank you Alyx.

Aw, thanks!

@Key: Depends...usage of adverbs is a funny thing! Colloquially, those poor adverbs usually lose out! As does the use of the present perfect in sentences such as "I just did that", which should be "I have just done that"....
Do we say "I grew up bilingual" or "bilingually"? Both are correct but imply slightly different personal preferences. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to such things, as English isn't my first language, BUT it is my research subject....and I teach linguistics. Which, in my students' opinions (or opinion-again, personal preference...), means I'm some kind of weirdo anyway.

OK, I elected to not read 7 pages of acronym debates and "ROFLCOPTER.. 4 users" posts.

I just want to put a warning out if it hasn't already been mentioned.

IF you do this.. DO NOT use your SL name and password. That one should be a given, but bares mention.

IF you do this and take your original created content, scripts or whatever over there you are at the whim of the owners who can take copies of it all and turn around and re-sell it at their whim on any grid they choose.

IF you do this be careful with your personal info.

These guys may be as trustworthy as any of the other people owning/operating opensim based grids or not.. but be careful what you risk in finding out.

Current stats of the place:



So somebody is taking him up on this.

And if that is on some guy's home PC set up it is gonna lag worse then the most blingy club in SL.

Yes, the majority of people in this thread are going "no kidding", but there are those out there who may not think of this stuff and jump head first into the place.

Caution is your friend here..


Oh.. and WAY IBTL

I agree with you 100%. One of my special areas of interest stretching back to college was linguistics (at the time, I was studying fantasy languages, of which Tolkien's was of primary interest), and the changing nature of natural language. It was a nice contrast to the rigorous rules of computer languages, which were my primary field of study.

This little "discussion" really isn't so much about the subject as it is about dispensing rope.

Still, it is an interesting topic, at its base, since it strikes at the heart of one of the fundamental engines of change in language usage.

It is one of the things that makes English a very flexible and dynamic language; that it can have strict formative and usage rules and, at the same time, can tolerate abject violations of said rules, even to the point of incorporating the violations as native constructions.

It is especially interesting when applied in the realm of computer science, such as with a language which can not only define itself, but actually be used to extend itself in terms of both its syntax and its symbology.

You mean bam, pow, and biff aren't words?



While I can't say I'm highly educated, I am nonetheless intelligent, and I say ain't if I want to, and don't give a rodent's hindquarters what anyone thinks about it. I'm a Southern girl, I ain't afraid of what random people think of me, I ain't gonna waste energy tryin to impress people whose opinions don't affect me.

I think Pep would have a fit if he were to visit my hometown, even the high profile business people sound like Jethro.

The cool part of this, is I was able to locate my own grid to run on my own pc I can use the client to connect to and test stuff out/setup builds/etc. lot of stress testing of items and see how it will look on the main grid.

woot. Actually cool to log into your own copy of the sl server running on your pc although just me but I can pretend to own the entire world then cut and paste my junk over into the real grid, or copy items i own back over onto my personal sl server to stress test.

fun times,

I made no judgment call - merely pointed out the ambiguity of the dragon's definition of a word, which would require it to have a meaning

I should point out that however intelligent you think you are, you might do better to actually read (and try to understand) what has been writtten before you post. I am arguing (indisputably) that TANSTAAFL, the grammatically "incorrect" (because it has "ain't" in it) form, is actually the "correct" form, TINSTAAFL being that used by anal grammar Nazis like Talarus ignorant of its origins. You are not alone in not reading previous posts accurately, as Key (understandably - why waste your time with such propaganda) has acknowledged and Phil (who must have missed the post about TANSAAFL having 55 times the number of references as TINSTAAFL - and most of the latter are comments on how it is an incorrect form) demonstrate.

Pep (how many of your "high profile business people" use "ain't" in their legal contracts, do you think?)

Been there, done that too.

You might be surprised to learn that I agree with this 100%.

Pep (But lots of others getting it wrong as well doesn't make *you* right)

Pep. You still don't understand that the dictionary is subject to people, as is grammar, and not the other way round. It's people who decide what's correct and not the dictionary makers, who only reflect what the people decide. If you can grasp that, you'll be well on the way to some good understanding.

By my counts this is the third time you have posted the same unfounded comment, which I answered elsewhere the first time.

Pep (But then, it is evident that you don't necessarily read threads before you post)

PS I am still waiting for anybody other than the error-prone dragon to claim that they knew of the existence of TINSTAAFL before this thread, or even prefer it as the initialism of the philosophy widely propagated by Heinlein

is this the right room for an argument ?

Yes. Would you like the 5 minute argument or a full 30 minutes?

If you think it's unfounded, why don't you ask your favourite Oxford Dictionary people And, since you've seen me say it 3 times, how come you haven't grasped it yet?

Just out of interest, why do you suppose that the word "fayre" is now "fair"? Do you imagine that some dictionary people decided to change it, or do you think it changed because of the way that people were spelling it anyway? That's just an example, of course, but there are many such words, as you know.

oh just the 5 minutes

That's a downright silly number to choose. I didn't even offer you 5 minutes!

Just waking up this Sunday morning and peeking in. I can't believe this thread is still going on...and what is all this brewhaha about acronyms?

Oh...and IBTL...again?