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From: smryan@netcom.com (Artie Choke)
Subject: Re: BTW, IMO acronyms are dumb and commie
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Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 11:00:31 GMT
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William E Meuse (meus0001@maroon.tc.umn.edu) wrote:
:  		BTW, IMO Acronyms Are Dunb and Commie

:  Let me say that I oppose seeing our language eclipsed in such a 
: thought-obviating manner. English has been tortured enough over the 
: centuries, let's let it live in some dignity. One example of what it 
: could resemble if this trend continues is George Orwell's "duckspeak". 
: Another is Chinese.

This kind of thing has been going on for millenia. When a culture
decide some topic is too sensitive or objectionable, it finds an
oblique way to say it. In time the oblique way becomes so closely
associated with the topic that if it is still taboo society comes up
with another euphenism or acronym or obliqueness. For example, do
you urinate, pass water, piss, tinkle, shit, relieve yourself, see
a man about a horse, move your bowels, or excrete in the WC, water
closet, john, toilet, little boy's/girl's room, restroom, or 
facilities?

If referring to Chinese's use of alot of short homonyms, it may be
all languages run in that direction until the number of collisions
forces speakers into longer and longer productions. This is just
another example of the balance between entropy and synergy of all
life.

Political euphenisms are just another way to avoid taboo words like
"taxes." If people wish to communicate, they are just substituting
one sequence of sounds for another to refer to the same semantics.
Most people realise that "revenue enhancement" means "raising taxes."

Newspeak by itself would probably not work. It seems that anything
people wish to communicate they can communicate in any language.
It is necessary to control _what_ they want to communicate rather
than _how_.

(I heard a story that Russian linguists said that because English is 
such a simple language because Americans were so economically
advanced, and that as Revolution brought wealth to the USSR, Russian
would begin losing inflexions. Instead it added some. I 
suggest that the politics of the last few decades have little to
do with languages of the last few centuries (or millenia)).
-- 
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Away! the wealth and worried throne!    |          Clone me, Doctor Memory?
