Conference thebay::joyoflex

DEFENESTRATION

    
    Some  ...RST...'s
     
     fiRST
     eRSTwhile (as "eRST")
     buRST
     
    jc
     
   

     
    
             underSTUdy
                 ( or, RSTU )
     jc

A couple more....

HIJinx
STUpid
GHIbli	! Proper noun - a sexy looking Maserati two-seater.
woRST
uNOPened

Keep 'em coming.

Larry

    
    
    how about:
    
    ZABaglione--a frothy sauce from whipping egg yolks, sugar and wine
    
    

        
     gyMNOPlast
     jc

re: .5
Scratch GHIbli - replace with lauGHIng...

    bYZAntine
    ABCoulomb (Ok, I cheated, I looked it up)

    
    caLMNess
    
    >M

    Where's the moderator?

    Most likely, "hijinx" is a word. It's certainly not a picture, and I
    can't imagine what else it might be. I don't know if it's in the
    dictionary, though. 
    
    	Jon

    RE: .12  So, by your rules, "jlksdjferionmsdlkefkl" is a word, too?
    
    Jeff.

    
    
     If my memory serves...I believe the country's name is 
     Tanna TUVa
     jc

    re .13:
    
    No, that's a random string of characters; no one would recognize
    it as a word.
    
    Actually, I didn't say what my rule on the subject is, so I'm
    absolutely delighted that you brought it up. 
    
    My rule is that something is a word if anyone says it is. Yup, that's
    all. Yup, if you say that "jlksdjferionmsdlkefkl" is a word, then it
    is. A silly, unpronounceable, and eminently forgettable word, but a
    word nonetheless. 
    
    This may strike you as silly, but there's really no other way to do it.
    I get this rule from the how one decides if something is art when one
    studies aesthetics. 
    
    In aesthetics, the standard for saying that something is art is that
    something is art if one person says it is. Note that this doesn't make
    something *good* art, it doesn't mean you have to like it, merely that
    it is art. 

    Saying that the newest bureaucratic buzz-word isn't a word is in my
    opinion like saying that a painting isn't art because it uses an
    unpopular medium. I don't like this week's "-ize" word any more than I
    like Elvis on black velvet. But note that I said that the "-ize" word
    is a word. Similarly, the portrait of Elvis is a portrait, and it is
    art. (Ian Shoales once said that the relationship between the artist
    who paints on black velvet and its customer is the most honest
    painter-customer relationship in the art world. Alas, I'm afraid he's
    right.) 
    
    	Jon

    I'd prefer to call it a "term", not a "word".
    
    Like "functionality".
 

    Fine with me. Since terms are words, seems good enough.
    
    	Jon

    I agree with Jon. We need to get away from anything prescriptive
    in Linguistics, and think more in descriptive terms.
    
    So if the Scots say porage, but someone I know says poshie for the
    same thing, then poshie's a word - maybe not a common one, maybe
    even not a "nice" or "good" one, but it's a word.
    
    (OK, this person is only five years old, but I don't exclude her
    on that score from having one of the versions of English which make
    up the English language as a whole.)
    
    Phillip (Aged 29)

    Re: .15  I still don't see how compressing two distinct words into
    one qualifies as a word.  Perhaps I should have chosen a better
    example than keyboard garbage to illustrate my point.  How about
    "digitalsoftwareengineering"?
    
    Jeff.

>    How about
>    "digitalsoftwareengineering"?

You've never read James Joyce?  ;-)
					>>>==>PStJTT    

    Re .19:
    
    That's "digitalsoftwa reengineering", the division which appears on the
    bars at ZK.  It is particularly appropriate, since most of what goes on
    here is fixing problems, adding new features to old systems, adapting
    software for new hardware, or similar things:  reengineering of
    digitalsoftwa.
    
    
    				-- edp

    It seems to me that this has the potential to be a very interesting word
    game, but as presently defined it is too limiting in that certain
    combinations are not feasible (e.g. PQR, since Q must be followed by U 
    in English -- if we disallow foreign words).
    
    I have therefore posted a new note (346.0), defining the rules of a
    revised word game which is intended to make play a little more tractable.

    Re: .19
    If "digitalsoftwareengineering" were used (Woo! Subjunctive! I've
    been on holiday, I'm feeling refreshed.) to mean the engineering
    of software for Digital, then I'd agree, it isn't a word (whatever
    that really is) but merely the juxtapposition of 3 words when written
    down, cause it could well be three discrete words when spoken.
    
    It isn't part of English orthography to do that, though our friends
    in the German-speaking countries might see no problem with it.
    
    However, if "DECs/wEng" be used (Yabba yabba, yibble yibble) to
    mean, er, big round green things which go yabba yabba yibble yibble
    and read Steve Bell every day at breakfast time, then I would accept
    that as a word.(I may be missing the point here cause I only started
    to read this note at about .15, but this makes sense in the context
    of Jeff's amusingly entitled reply to my reply.)
    
    As a rough stab at a descriptive rule, a word in a person's idiolect
    is an arbitrary series of sounds which signify something. That should
    be wide enough to include anything, whic is how I feel about the
    description of language. However, to make it absolutely stringent,
    it only applies to words (lexemes?) which are actually used, and
    not to things which might be made up to make the enquring linguist
    look a fool.
    
    It seems that poshie is in fact a dialect term from central Scotland,
    though even there it  is primarily a children's term. So my informant
    was not showing the imaginitive, creative aspect of language which
    all prescriptive (or do I mean proscriptive) grammars would, er,
    prescribe. Pro-.
    
    ???
    
    Phillip