From: robert felt <rfelt@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:22:42 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: RE: SOWPODS as a METAPHOR
Message-id: <199709291622.LAA13733@dfw-ix7.ix.netcom.com>

At 10:57 AM 9/29/97 -0400, Graeme wrote:

> It's simply human nature to react in this manner when playing
> word games in one's native language,
There are many people, like this player who disliked Scots, and the player who thought that HUGging was a nasty American practice best not seen in decent company, who react strongly to the revelation that English is a large language, with many dialects. Further, anyone not a specialist is very likely to encounter thousands of words in the dictionary which are never encountered in normal life. The crucial point is that different groups of people have widely differing views on what should be allowed into the core of the language. Graeme

Concerning the list of twos published. At the risk of repeating myself, in a merger I would seek to kill perhaps half a dozen of the OSW twos, and would not be surpised if most brits wouldn't welcome most of those changes. PH and CH are exactly what Dan calls them, games pieces. No sensible construction of word would include them. FY and NY are simply old-fashioned misspellings, with perfectly ordinary equivalents. On the other hand, I don't understand how we are updating our word list and not includind QI or GI.

When Lester and I played at the local chess club Saturday, an 11-year-old kibitzed for a while. He asked what some words meants, but when I pronounced GI for him, he immediately recognized the term as a costume for practicing martial arts.

OI, ST etc are no better or worse than UH or MM, and I can't make a serious case to keep one set and not the other.

I don't know a single brit that actually advocates the merits of PH or CH. I expect PH to be gone from OSW4, while CH was older than OSW, and the Chambers folks have finally given it a part of speech, so it will probably survive absent a merger.

But ZO and GU are names of real things, which despite most Americans being unfamiliar with them does not make them less real, or their names less appropriate for word game play.

Chris Lennon says lets just go ahead. We are going to go ahead if and only if Hasbro and Mattel agree that we should go ahead, and that is unlikely to happen without a consensus. It is not the discussion on CGP that is delaying the transition. Rather the discussion on CGP is raising the consciousness of the community. These issues are discussed beyond the still rather limited confines of this newsletter.

Once a world book is created, it is fatuous to assume that in any foreseeable short term, 10% of the junk would be removed. And once folx had been forced to learn that extra junk, the prospect of quickly unlearning it would be truly daunting.

If you combine the two books intact, thats the way they will stay. The only time you can make major parings is at the single, agreed cutover point. and only after discussion.

I once suggested WILLIWAUGHT# was a nonsense word, and was roundly jumped on as simply being ignorant of Scots literature.

I think we'll only lose OSW words the Brits don't like, and OSPD words the Americans despise. But that would stil be substantial progress.

Robert Felt <rfelt@ix.netcom.com>
San Francisco, California USA