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  EDline Vol. 7, no. 55     (22 February 2002)

  Editorial mailing list (digest version)
  Published by the Electric Editors
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  Contents:

         Q & A
  [2sn]  Street language and losing languages
            [Offshoot of [2sl] Commas and quotes]

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---[2]-- Q & A --------------------------------------------------


** [2sn] Street language and losing languages
            [Offshoot of [2sl] Commas and quotes]

         Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002
         From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au

Eddie Kent wrote:

> ... it often happens that the punctuation goes inside the
> quotes. The reason given is that otherwise there would be an
> obvious gap between letter and comma. I have given up fighting
> on this one. 

Given up? Shame on you! Don't you realise that fending off the
tides of barbarism is a never-ending task?

  "It is enough for evil to triumph that good men do nothing."
  "It is enough for barbarism to triumph that those who know
  better let them get away with it."

:-)


         ----------------------
         Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002
         From: David King, david@kingdavid.org

Michael Lewis wrote:

> Given up? Shame on you! Don't you realise that fending off the
> tides of barbarism is a never-ending task?

Exactly. If we give up, then our English language will turn into
something we don't even recognise. What about street talk? I mean
the gangs, villains, low-lifes, etc who live on the streets (not
those sleeping rough) who change the language all the time so
that words mean something else, new words, new spellings, all
kinds of corruptions and perversions to our language, that
eventually filter through the media and entertainment industries,
to unsuspecting young minds and others who adopt the new ways so
our language is further diminished. Such as using "wicked"
meaning good, when it really means that it is evil, not good,
from the Devil:

  "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put
  darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for
  sweet, and sweet for bitter!" -- Isaiah 5:20


         ----------------------
         Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002
         From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au

Yebbut -- let's distinguish between evolution and decay, and
let's also distinguish between real wisdom and (often inaccurate)
16th-century translations from archaic Hebrew! (If that doesn't
fire up a new thread, nothing will...)


         -----------------------
         Date: Tues, 19 Feb 2002
         From: Julia Hubble, Jbhubble1@aol.com

David King wrote:

> What about street talk? I mean the gangs, villains, low-lifes,
> etc who live on the streets (not those sleeping rough) who
> change the language all the time

I think street language is most definately wicked. It just goes
to show how agile young minds are, and full of invention, and how
stuck in a rut the older ones of us (like me) can be. Language
has to grow. And the more directions it grows in the better! I
don't have a reliable source for this, but I believe that we are
losing languages all the time.


         -----------------------
         Date: Tues, 19 Feb 2002
         From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au

Julia Hubble wrote:

> ... I don't have a reliable source for this, but I believe that
> we are losing languages all the time.

We are, indeed. For example, there are Australian indigenous
languages spoken by only a handful of people (and written by
none); linguists at Macquarie University have received funding to
capture some of them, so that they can be preserved in some sense
-- though, like Latin, they will be "dead".


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