[Sussex] Do we confuse you?

[nik butler]

Geoffrey J. Teale wrote:

>Ah.. when it comes to American war-time comedy-drama you cannot beat:
>
>"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll
>carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry
>me back to old Virginie, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I
>will not carry a gun!"
>
>.. and I'm sure there's a million from Catch 22 as well, but I can't
>remember any of those :-)
>
>  
>
yes .. but none of the above carries abbriviations or jargon !


I do feel though that possibly the media itelf is to blame for useless 
oversimplification and word creation of issues in an attempt to make a 
200 word story from a topic which requires 1000 words to understand. 
There is a Campaign group called "The Campaign for Plain English" and 
even their title is a clear statement of what they wish to achieve. In 
Ten years of campaigning however they have made little real impact on 
how people are talking and communicating between eachother.  I do 
undertand though that shorthand or abbreviation make initial 
communication simpler and faster from the senders point of view. In 
hindsight I wonder if our abbreviations will become lost in translation 
as we distance outselves from their original purpose, for example POP 
can be either Post Office protocol, Point of Presence, Purchase On 
Presentation or even a Fizzy drink. When historians come to read our 
manuals and our emails ( should the internet archive ever last that long 
) will they make sense of all of our ROTFLMA as IANAL and BRB . As we 
discuss WarDriving, WarWalking, Phishing, Phreaking, Faking, Farking, 
POP'ing and Tunneling will it have a clear context or will some rosetta 
web site be needed to help in our understanding of what we really meant 
to say. Better yet are we really clear that we have understood what we 
meant to say to each other as we type and read it ? if theres little 
hope of that being true today then what chance do we have of 
understanding each other tommorow  ?

I dont think its Users alone who are confused, the problem spreads far 
wider and deeper than that and do stray from the topic a little let me 
demonstrate.

When someone says they will come either next friday or even a week next 
saturday, what am I to discern from this ?

As an Example.

if today is monday 1st then next friday is the 5th , to some ( and note 
not all) the next friday is the 12th.
if today is wednesday 3rd then next friday is to me the 5th but to the 
rest its the 12th.
Now people say im being pedantic which i find upsetting since they dont 
understand from my point of view that next means next. I find the 
English language bloody awful and its my first language. but lets move 
on ...

if I ask everyone the next odd number after 1 , the answer is 3.
if I ask everyone the next odd number after 2 , the answer is 3.

next is next ... so the next friday is always the next friday until I 
reach Friday and then the next Friday is the next friday  . . . Why does 
next have a arbitary meaning dependent on the communicators position  ?

Any way .. theres pedentry enough for the list for the weekend. Im off

TTFN !