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Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? )
Subject:Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? ) From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 20 Dec 2000 10:53:46 -0800
Herman Holtz wrote:
>
> > I agree with Dick that the specialized vocabulary of grammar and
> > linguistics is useful. Personally, I think that writers would
> > benefit by the addition of about another hundred technical words to
> > make discussion easier.
>
> I have read someone's estimate of about a illion words in English,
> divided about evenly between technical and nontechnical terms, vailable as
> tools for the writer. In light of that, I would not urge the addition of new
> words but the learning of words already available and little used. New words
> will be born, of course, out of new technology and other influences, but we
> don't need to further encourage te invention and introduction of new words,
> do we? We need to learn the tools we lready have. - Herm
>
To be honest, I don't care how the new vocabulary is generated; I'd
just like to have it. For example, the situation in which I first
noticed the lack was in trying to discuss different types of
transitions from one scene to another in fiction. The people in the
discussion borrowed some terms from movies, including "fade" and
"dissolve," but there were still some types of transition that
didn't have a name. We could still talk about them, but without a
name, it was much harder.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"Last and most important question: Did Valerie have time to do the
chocolate coating?"
- S. Morgenstern, "Buttercup's Baby"
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