The role of country codes/Not snazzy

John Cowan jcowan at reutershealth.com
Thu May 29 12:47:04 CEST 2003


Marion Gunn scripsit:

> These silly threads seem to indicate too many people on these two lists are
> underemployed or interested in developing smokescreens for other activities.

Insolence *and* paranoia.  I see.

> When a reference to using embryonic ISO 639-3 to 'legitimize' SIL's flawed
> Ethnologue is let pass with no comment, 

Of course it's flawed.  The whole idea of an unflawed list of languages
is a pipe-dream, because "language" is not a well-defined concept.

> John Cowan's pet 4-letter word (on ietf-l),

Distinguo.  I mentioned the word (as opposed to using it), I ellipsized
the vowel (which was part of the point), and I clearly marked my remark
as humor.

> one has to ask why more serious professionals do
> not sign off those lists.

Feel free to do so at any time; I doubt you will be missed, and I have
publicly promised not to pursue you beyond them.

> en-IE is most commonly used to indicate a locale with a different
> currency, etc., to either en-US or en-UK/GB.

So it is, but the topic on ietf-languages is languages and their varieites
and tags therefor, not labels for locales (IMHO a much more flawed concept).

-- 
"And it was said that ever after, if any                John Cowan
man looked in that Stone, unless he had a               jcowan at reutershealth.com
great strength of will to turn it to other              www.ccil.org/~cowan
purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering           www.reutershealth.com
in flame."   --"The Pyre of Denethor"


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