Ietf-languages Digest, Vol 6, Issue 4

Doug Ewell dewell at adelphia.net
Mon Jun 2 10:00:15 CEST 2003


Thor Kottelin <thor dot kottelin at elisa dot fi> wrote:

> Since it is obvious that Newspeak has existed for 50+ years as a
> variant of English - a variant with a grammar specific enough to cause
> ambiguity if not tagged - I find it very difficult to understand why
> the request for its registration should be rejected.

I think Newspeak is jargon, similar to that found in many professional
fields and trades.  There is definitely a specialized vocabulary, most
of which won't be found in most English dictionaries, but I don't see
the difference in grammar that Thor mentions.

For example, in labor relations, the word "organize" means specifically
"to form a labor union or join an existing one."  Science and law are
well known for generating new words and new meanings for old words.
Even the world of sports contributes its own vocabulary, and even some
subtle grammatical changes:

English:    Smith flew out to Seattle with two associates.
Baseball:    Smith flied out to left field with two out.

Registering a tag for Newspeak seems tantamount to registering a tag for
Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."  I agree that a sufficiently lengthy
passage, identifiably not English, should be presented to justify this
request.

As devil's advocate, I note that en-scouse and en-boont have clouded the
issue a bit.  I suggest that the criteria used to justify those two tags
be studied especially carefully.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California
 http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/



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