Use of Other Languages

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Comments

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    .... So languages not spoken in the UK are, technically, foreign. Although, all but one of the 14 native languages of the UK would also require translation.
    Flattered though one might be at that suggestion, it's not quite as many as that. According to Bede, it's 4 + Latin. One of his four has been extinct since shortly after his time. It is now both lost and indecipherable. Since his time, two of the extant languages have each split into two, but one of those successors is extinct. If you include the adjoining islands that are not technically part of the UK that gives you two more, but one of those is known but extinct, and the other probably as good as. So the maximum number of currently spoken ones that are native is probably now 4 + 3 that people can learn but are not in day to day use anywhere. Even of the 4 working ones, the main stronghold of one of them is outside the UK's boundaries.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Enoch wrote: »
    [Non-Ship's business]

    I'm not sure what board you think you're posting on, but it sure as fuck isn't The Styx.
  • RooK wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    [Non-Ship's business]

    I'm not sure what board you think you're posting on, but it sure as fuck isn't The Styx.
    @Rook you'll need to explain to me what you're objecting to. I was quoting from and following on from a post on this thread from @lilbuddha on the 26th September. Also, although you've quoted me as saying it, I don't think I've said
    "[Non-Ship's business]"
    in any post on this thread..

  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    edited September 2019
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Rook you'll need to explain to me what you're objecting to.

    As you wish.

    The purpose of this board, The Styx, is to discuss Ship's business. Which, specifically, is regarding topics that directly affect the running of The Ship. The tangent you were pursuing is clearly NOT such discussion, and instead is suited for another board. Pick a board, and have that discussion there. Not here.

    My use of square brackets was meant to indicate functional paraphrasing. Apologies if it was not sufficiently clear for you.

    Let me know if there is any part of this that you need further clarification on. But only that. Everything else should be on a discussion board suitable for the topic.

    RooK
    Styx Host
  • Could the ban on foreign languages be extended to acronyms please? There are more and more posts I cannot understand because they are full of abbreviations I don't know. Ok, I'm old and thick, but if we want to understand each other I think something needs to be done.

    There are the really obvious ones: UK, USA, NATO, but MAAAU (many are abstruse and unhelpful).
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited October 2019
    There is no consensus on what a "really obvious" acronym is, so no.

    The working principle is that acronyms that should make sense to the readers of a particular thread are OK, and that there's no shame in asking for clarification.

    At the same time, it would be nice if posters were to consider whether any acronym they use is going to be widely understood and in case of doubt, use the full name of whatever the acronym is for on first occurrence in a thread, followed by the acronym in brackets.
  • That makes sense, and I can see that a ban wouldn't work (unless you had a list of Ship-approved terms, which would lead to many arguments). But I wish some posters would put more thought into their writing, so the rest of us can understand them! (Of course, this applies more widely than the present thread.)
  • That makes sense, and I can see that a ban wouldn't work (unless you had a list of Ship-approved terms, which would lead to many arguments). But I wish some posters would put more thought into their writing, so the rest of us can understand them! (Of course, this applies more widely than the present thread.)

    Posts on threads aren't reports or articles. We can't heap more and more burdens on those writing posts or no-one will bother
  • You do have the right to query a poster and ask them to explain their comment. They are not obliged to reply but it is a good reminder to them that we do not all share the same culture and what is taken for granted in one may not be obvious in another.
  • That makes sense, and I can see that a ban wouldn't work (unless you had a list of Ship-approved terms, which would lead to many arguments). But I wish some posters would put more thought into their writing, so the rest of us can understand them! (Of course, this applies more widely than the present thread.)

    Posts on threads aren't reports or articles. We can't heap more and more burdens on those writing posts or no-one will bother

    Do you ever wish some of them didn't bother? Apologies, having a tired and cynical day here.
  • Scrolling past is and always has been an option. Hell is another.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    There is no consensus on what a "really obvious" acronym is, so no.
    There is no consensus as to what is "really Obvious" as to foreign phrases either. And yet SOF happily makes that distinction.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    The working principle is that acronyms that should make sense to the readers of a particular thread are OK, and that there's no shame in asking for clarification.
    By board make more sense than by thread. In purg I've run across many threads with an alphabet soup of Christian acronyms and I generally don't participate in threads that go too deep in the weeds in that area.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    At the same time, it would be nice if posters were to consider whether any acronym they use is going to be widely understood and in case of doubt, use the full name of whatever the acronym is for on first occurrence in a thread, followed by the acronym in brackets.
    If communication is the key, acronyms are no different to foreign languages and should be treated the same way.
  • There has to be a balance with self expression. Asking people to constantly self police is ridiculous.
  • There has to be a balance with self expression. Asking people to constantly self police is ridiculous.
    Self policing is part of the balance.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    There are benchmarks for non-English words and phrases in the form of dictionaries. For instance, "je ne sais quoi" is in English-language dictionaries, as is "schadenfreude." It's not hard to figure out which non-English words and phrases have entered the language and which have not.

    Dictionaries are less useful as benchmarks for acronyms. NIV and NRSV are acronyms that most of us here will recognize, but they aren't in dictionaries, while KJV -- something we'll also recognize -- is.

    I keep tripping over the acronym DUP in the Brexit thread, and I keep looking it up. One of these days it'll stick in my head. In the meantime, I don't think regular contributors to that discussion need to type "Democratic Unionist Party" again and again and again.
  • It is going to be contextual, of course. On a Brexit thread, DUP is an expected acronym.
    In the Protestantopia of acronyms and in-words that ooze from Eccles and Keryg into Purg, I've done the web searches to figure them out. Without context, it can be less than straightforward.
    Hence, I am of the position that they are not in a different catagory from foreign languages as far as how they impact communication.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    I keep tripping over the acronym DUP in the Brexit thread, and I keep looking it up. One of these days it'll stick in my head. In the meantime, I don't think regular contributors to that discussion need to type "Democratic Unionist Party" again and again and again.

    For the DUP (and many other political parties around the world) most people use the initialism rather than the full name. The same goes for a bunch of common acronyms (I'd guess more people would recognize NATO than the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited October 2019
    Quite a lot of us pronounce 'dup' to rhyme with 'sup' - i.e. me - rather than as three initials.
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    edited October 2019
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    It is going to be contextual, of course. On a Brexit thread, DUP is an expected acronym.
    In the Protestantopia of acronyms and in-words that ooze from Eccles and Keryg into Purg, I've done the web searches to figure them out. Without context, it can be less than straightforward.
    Hence, I am of the position that they are not in a different catagory from foreign languages as far as how they impact communication.

    It strikes me that is perhaps time to create a new edition of the Ecclesiantics Dictionary. There are a couple of editions on the old boards but nothing much around here at present.
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    edited October 2019
    Jengie Jon wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    It is going to be contextual, of course. On a Brexit thread, DUP is an expected acronym.
    In the Protestantopia of acronyms and in-words that ooze from Eccles and Keryg into Purg, I've done the web searches to figure them out. Without context, it can be less than straightforward.
    Hence, I am of the position that they are not in a different catagory from foreign languages as far as how they impact communication.

    It strikes me that is perhaps time to create a new edition of the Ecclesiantics Dictionary. There are a couple of editions on the old boards but nothing much around here at present.

    Started
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    There has to be a balance with self expression. Asking people to constantly self police is ridiculous.

    Sorry, but this is bull; there's nothing "ridiculous" about it. To whom is this purported "self" expressing what it writes here on the Ship? Not, presumably, to the "self" alone; that's for journaling.

    Here we write for others; this is a discussion forum, conducted mostly in English (note exceptions [plus many others] listed by Ruth) among a community of international users, including some for whom English is not the native language and including others from a variety of cultural and political perspectives. Self-policing is essential if the goal is to make one's posts readily understood by most readers.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    I keep tripping over the acronym DUP in the Brexit thread, and I keep looking it up. One of these days it'll stick in my head. In the meantime, I don't think regular contributors to that discussion need to type "Democratic Unionist Party" again and again and again.

    DUP dupes the electorate.
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