On 14 Nov 2005, at 05.00, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
By your own admission: YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Informing people is not losing. If the law worked here as it did on
Wp, then some admin could've banned you indefinitely for trolling. I
still want back on. Why is no one doing anything for me?
On 12 Nov 2005, at 08.35, Rowan Collins wrote:
So do you see language change as a constant decline
away from some
historical perfection? I admit that there are changes which leave
languages "poorer", but there are plenty which - however accidental -
make them far more powerful and useful at their purpose of
communication and expression. And I am very firmly of the conviction
that there is not some historical point at which language in general,
or any "separate" language in particular, attained some state of
"completeness" deserving of preservation.
If the changes don't rob the language, then it isn't made less perfect.
I should know: I wrote most of [[Elision]] before some linguists took
out the goods. I've been dealing with lowly authorities all of my
life; this is why I'm against them having any power not backed up by
their mind.
What would you know?
The rules
should if the changes should, not if the changes do. And
only if there is something /wrong/ with the earlier rules. Otherwise,
the language should grow like any person or nation would and not, like
a cancer, grow everywhich way so that it eats and poops itself and
eats
that.
I would argue that the above is, in a subtle way, contradictory:
people, nations (and, the underlying metaphor, plants) do not grow
"only if there is something wrong". They grow dynamically, complexly,
Your understanding is contradictory because you cannot read. I did not
say that; I even said the opposite.
by trial and error, and with natural checks and
balances. Essentially,
the process is one of evolution, as currently understood by mainstream
science: random changes occur, and may or may not die out; those which
are harmful are *more likely* to die out, and those which are
beneficial *more likely* to spread, but it all comes down to chance,
not certainty. What's more, there's no outside definition of "better"
or "beneficial" which governs these chances, because that depends on
the circumstances. Still, *in general*, life evolves to be better at
passing on its genes, and language evolves to be better at allowing
communication.
Harm and health in the growth of choice go on ease--convenience--and
don't directly care about consistency or accuracy or precision.
"Better" is objective: quality (howness, suchhood) and quantity
(whitness, muchhood).
Anglo-Saxon?
No, it's English. What people speak today is a mutt of
English, Latin-French-English, and Greek-Latin-English. And I'd write
"pure" as "sheer".
So, like I say, the argument comes down to different definitions of
"English": what I call "English", you would call
"Greek-Latin-French-English" or somesuch; what you call "English", I
would call something like "artificial Anglo-Saxon". However, when the
average person who considers themselves an "English speaker" says
"English", their meaning will be a lot closer to mine than to yours.
And, crucially, when
en.wikipedia.org calls itself "the English
Wikipedia", it is using "English" in this popular sense, which is why
your edits are being rejected as inappropriate.
What do /you/ know about English anyway? Anglo-Saxon looks and sounds
nothing like English. Those edits were truer to English than anything
else, and weren't as controversial as "riht" is. If we were talking
about popular (vulgar) English, then maybe I should change all
instances of "its" in Wikipedia to "it's"?, seeing that most
people are
illiterate? They're innumerate too, as they think that someone is a
"they" rather than a "one". They're ineducate too, as they think
that
the sky is blue, when the sea is blue, and it's nearer to cuan (cyan).
They're incorrigate too, as whenever I correct them they often get
hostile and defend their stupidity; many discussion group owners have
banned me for correcting people's spelling /offlist/. Such people must
be taken down.
A lone
language has only one word for the same
meaning.
Well, I've never heard of a "lone language" before, but I can't
imagine this claim has ever been true for any natural language.
as opposed to many languages. Can you prove that? Different words in
the same language have different meanings.
But none of
writing this is making me feel better
for being wrongfully kicked off Wikipedia by a liar for doing what I
hold is riht.
Just because you hold it to be "riht" doesn't mean that it is in the
interests of the Wikipedia project, or that other contributors to that
project are somehow compelled to agree with you. Your input is
welcome, but only if you are willing to co-operate, compromise, and
welcome the input of others.
They are not willing to do it for me, immediately dismissing my reasons
and ignoring my explanations, thinking that they know better. They
give wrong reasons that I had already dealt with. They ban me because
I am and do controversial and dispopular.
I didn't
say that it /wasn't/ others' article. I said it was my
article. Logic goes over most people's head.
Well, "my" certainly implies some sort of ownership or possession; I
suppose you could argue that there is a sense in which all Wikipedia
articles "belong to" everybody, but that would seem to render the
"my"
logically true, but somewhat redundant. The problem is not that logic
goes over our heads, but that it is not logic we use to communicate in
every day situations, it is expressive, sometimes ambiguous, language.
It implies relation too--as in "my kind" or "my child". Shutting down
my use of "my" when I was talking about an article I wrote is lame and
mindless.
Were we
talking about English? I was using a Greek word.
Yes, we were talking about content on the English Wikipedia, which is
(except when specifically discussing foreign languages) in English.
Specifically, the English word "kinetic", which is based on a Greek
word only ever spelled in a different alphabet, is *not* generally
spelled "cinetic". Once again, I'm using "English" to mean the
language spoken by millions of people the world over, which is
inherently *not* logical, and does *not* conform to historical or
logic rules. You can argue that it *should* (though I would disagree),
and demonstrate how it might look if it did, but the English Wikipedia
is not the place to do so; maybe you should join the community around
artificial languages like "Lojban"?
You disagree why? Corrupting languages is harmful to readers. The
illiterate have criticized my use of "lige" and "lyging" instead of
"lie" and "lying". Yet, if I used the latter, the meaning is
ambiguous
and could not be drawn from the context in most cases. Many speakers
complain about the inconsistent spelling and pronunciation in English
because of such corruption; much of it's not even English. I defy you
to find a source that says that "kinetic" is an English word, rather
than a word that's used with English. What, are you afraid that if I
write "cinetic", that a bunch of other people will also? That's a Good
Thing. They already write cinema, cinematic, and cinematics.
-Aut