jon (07/05/82)
ALRIGHT! Let's get hot and heavy into argumentum ad hominem. Pablo Alliende thinks I am a computer troll who thinks all words have 32 bits, and I think that anyone named Alliende is intrinsically incapable of accurately judging questions on the English language. (that was facetious) Seriously, I think the argument can be summed up as follows: Mr. Alliende claims that any unit of speech or writing that conveys meaning is a word. (perhaps he would narrow this a bit, but you get the drift.) I claim that a word must conform to convention, at least if it's to be considered a word in a particular language. "Ov" does not conform to English convention. The dictionary definition only addresses the question of "what is a word" not "what is 'a word in a language.'" The distinction is important. And furthermore, eggs should always be opened at the big end. Jon Mauney