[MD] Doug Renselle & Language

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Ian

On 2010-08-18 14:00, Ian Glendinning wrote:
> I often get caught making smart-ass comments that much of our
> "problem" expecting to reach definitive conclusions on any aspect of
> MoQ .... is basically linguistic. Some of you don't find this helpful
> ;-)
>
> In my real day-job life, I spend a lot of time on (effectively)
> linguistics .... standardizing terminologies shared between businesses
> .... and often find myself preaching to people not to expect to find
> one language to suit (literally) all situations unambiguously. Those
> with high expectations don't always find that helpful either. Hey ho.
>
> One thought that often springs to mind, is Doug Renselle's
> idiosyncratic quest to develop and promote MoQ ... where he has his
> own invented language, to distinguish specific MoQish uses of terms
> from everyday use. I hear myself saying "it'll never work Doug" ...
> and invoke Wittgenstein's "private language" argument, but .... an
> open question ...
>
> Does anyone see value in working towards a MOQish language ?

I don't think we can avoid it. I think it has already happened. As soon 
as we started getting tired of explaining what "pattern" "dynamic" and 
"static" means in MoQese, we simply stopped explaining them and assumed 
everyone knew what we meant by those terms. And that happened just a 
month after starting the list and has been going on ever since.

I mean, a pattern for any other human being is probably different 
depending on where he comes from. A physicist thinks 
interference-pattern of radiation, a tailor thinks of different ways to 
make a sweater (at least swedish tailors would), and a child might think 
of colourful and regular dots or lines on a paper.

So when we say "pattern" and assumes everyone knows what we're talking 
about, I think we're badly mistaken.

And also, I miss Doug. I can't say I understood or liked everything he 
said, but he was, hmmm.. energetic.

	Magnus