Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

...Well, it's actually a quote of or reference to biblical language. And in New Testament times nobody was thinking of "Earth" as a planetary body among others, but of "earth" as everything this side of heaven, so to speak.

Oh dear, I'm not touching that with a 50ft pole. Religion and heavenly bodies don't mix. In the interests of not offending anybody it's best if I keep my mouth shut on this one.

Commander McLane wrote:

Not only the Americans. I don't know the origin of the quote right now, but I think it goes like "English was born in England, grew up in America, got sick in Asia, and died in Africa."

That's actually a new one on me. I was thinking more along the lines of two nations separated by a common language or something like that.

Commander McLane wrote:

Don't think that other languages are less inadequate and ill-conceived. Germans, for instance, can spend hours ranting about the ridiculousness of certain aspects of their language, and especially about the various attempts of reformed grammar and spelling. Mind you, the last big orthographic reform is now ten-or-so years old, and there are still newspapers which refuse to use the new orthography, because they think it's ridiculous/wrong/ill-conceived.

Now you're getting all Whorfian on me... How many words do Laveans have for "Space"? (and do they capitalize them?)

I'm not really fluent in any other languages but I have studied them enough to know that they all have their oddities and exceptions to rules which noone can really explain. The Germans also like to have competitions to see who can make up the longest (but legitimate) word possible. The Americans on the other hand like to use as few letters as possible, ideally abbreviating common phrases to 5 letters or less. ROTFL

I often wonder if we could "invent" a perfect language. Not quite sure how you would qualify perfect, but thinking in terms of computer science there would be no ambiguity and the "language" would compile without exception every single time. The only thing is, perhaps that might put a damper on creativity. Although computer programs can still be creative. I should probably read up more on Esperanto.

Commander McLane wrote:

And just to prove that there are not only grammar nazis, but topic-sorting nazis as well: This whole thread belongs in Outworld.

Make it so... TSN.

Space (capitalised) is a place, therefore it should be capitalised.

Space (non-capitalised) is also a concept, so depending on context it the capitalisation is not always warranted.

Yes, I'm a fence sitter, and I suffer from splinters.

"Religion and heavenly bodies don't mix."

well there was apparently a bright star over Bethlehem, and a Great Red Dragon did a fair bit of damage to some others, etc etc....

Darkbee wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

...Well, it's actually a quote of or reference to biblical language. And in New Testament times nobody was thinking of "Earth" as a planetary body among others, but of "earth" as everything this side of heaven, so to speak.

Oh dear, I'm not touching that with a 50ft pole. Religion and heavenly bodies don't mix. In the interests of not offending anybody it's best if I keep my mouth shut on this one.

In this case, however, it's more a question of literature and heavenly bodies. If an expression is a quote from a book (or at least alluding to a quote), it doesn't really matter which book it is. And the expression "peace on earth" clearly is at least a reference to one of the most famous chapters from one of the most famous books (Luke 2:14).

Or, if it's about the concept of "heaven and earth" (or "Heaven and Earth"? ), it's also not about religion, but more about the ancient middle eastern world view, which simply didn't know of "Earth" as a planetary body orbiting the sun together with the other planets. And it certainly didn't care about exoplanets and the distribution of life in the universe.

Can't be a place. Otherwise there'd be congestion charges, hyperspace drive clamping and double yellow lines all over the place.

Darkbee wrote:

I often wonder if we could "invent" a perfect language. Not quite sure how you would qualify perfect, but thinking in terms of computer science there would be no ambiguity and the "language" would compile without exception every single time. The only thing is, perhaps that might put a damper on creativity. Although computer programs can still be creative. I should probably read up more on Esperanto.

Or Volapük, or Solresol. Or Eskybalauron, if you really want to approach perfection ... the quest for a universal language is littered with loonies (not to mention practical jokers).

Language does tend to get some people really upset. The claims that Americans have "butchered" English is an example of a trope whereby speakers of a language regard their own particular local version of it as definitive, pure and unchanging, and take exception to any variation. American English is in general more traditional and less altered over time than Standard (Southern English) English. "Autumn", for example, is a French import into English, and a relatively late one. The reason that Americans use "Fall" is because that's what the old English word was, when the first colonists headed over there. But people in the UK will tut and sniff about the fact that Americans "make up new words", when actually what they're usually doing is entirely the opposite (the same thing is true in many instances in Northern English versions of English, and Scottish Standard English – although they're also preserving other regional imports from e.g. Danish, like "bairn").

It's all about familiarity and 'comfort zones' really. American English is to many Englishmen 'butchered', but to others is entirely sensible. You don't need a 'u' in colour for example, but to call a cheque a 'check' is downright silly. 'Check' is to test/confirm, or a pattern of squares, whereas Cheque is derived from exchequer and relates to revenue/money.
American English will in all likelyhood become the norm in time, as computers 'speak' American English...my computer is underlining (questioning) the word 'Cheque' each time I type it for example (it also didn't like 'colour' for that matter).
And all languages evolve over time anyway, some die out and others gain prominance, and if one day we ever do end up with a universal language, it may be more machine driven than human driven.

C U L8R
Smivs.

Well it's one of those annoying words that has different meaning to different people. To astronauts its a destination suggesting capitalisation. To physicists it's not space it's spacetime. etc etc etc.

Funnily enough I'm with wiki pedia on this one:

"The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe although disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework."

ergo, this tread is going to be a long one.

Somewhat delayed, but finally moved to Outworld.

Darkbee wrote:

Religion and heavenly bodies don't mix.

Ooo.. I don't know. Unfortunately since I'm at work I can't find the pic to illustrate the point I'd like to make.

Cheers,

Drew.

MKG wrote:

Can't be a place. Otherwise there'd be congestion charges, hyperspace drive clamping and double yellow lines all over the place.

Give it time. Once Zephram Cochran invents the warp drive and we can whizz around the galaxy, the Conservative party will impose all kinds of legal shenanegans!

...and the socialists will tax private Ship ownership out of existance and nationalise the space-bus companies

Darkbee wrote:

Religion and heavenly bodies don't mix.

I was being intentionally oblique. Last time I posted something controversial I was accused of being a Mac hater and a troll.

To move on... as my old language teacher used to say, it's not so much what you say, but more a question of can you make yourself understood. Of course, he was talking learning foreign languages but the principle still applies in English. Check is in the mail to all those that understand where I'm coming from*.

*Correction: Cheque is in the post.