🚀 go-pugleaf

In <KDR.91Jun6204153@dirty.doc.ic.ac.uk> kdr@doc.ic.ac.uk (K D Rigotti) writes:

>If we don't keep an eye on its development it is possible that we will
>finish up with a ``Netspeak'' that just doesn't have the expressive power
>of *any* of the constituent languages --- rather it would be a pidgin
>everything. This would be a sad loss to all of us. The net represents a
>golden opportunity to return to the days of a single language for all
>research and advanced thinking (pity latin was so awkward), so lets not
>cripple it from the start.

And will students learn our new improved language in highschool?

Languages develop naturally to best serve the communication needs of the people
using them, so to an extent I think any discussion about guiding this progress
is silly, but I can't pass up this point:  In this of all groups we should
remember that we WANT news to be as accessable as possible to new users, and a
specialized vocabulary is not a good start.  How long would it have taken you
to figure out what IMHO stands for if you didn't ask the user next to you?
Esp. if you were not a native speaker familiar with the phrase?

I'm not some kind of linguistic purist, and I don't have problems with people
posting in languages other than English, but let's remember that the fall of
Latin wasn't caused by its grammer.  It fell when Science and Catholicism were
reclaimed for and by the people whose lives were being affected by them.

Joanna

=====     I wish there was a true love / I wish there was a great art
       I wish there always was enough / But I'd not want if I were smart
joanna@gargoyle.uchicago.edu        Want Not Want Not -- the Roches    =====