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