so, who's going to be there?
unfortunately, I have a concert that evening, so I can't. I'm bummed, because I enjoyed the last one with Jesse Sheidlower.
It doesn't seem to say anywhere what time the chat is. Does anyone have sharper eyes than mine?
Bingley
Yep, 4pm GMT. I'll prolly try to make it, but need to check commitments closer to time.
That's 11 p.m. WIB. I should be able to manage that.
Bingley
>Yep, 4pm GMT.
Hmm, get up in time to join in a chat at 4 in the morning? Maybe next time.
> get up in time to join in a chat at 4 in the morning?
aw, c'mon Vern, just stay up an extra hour or two ;)
>aw, c'mon Vern, just stay up an extra hour or two ;)
Sorry, my fiend sjmaxq might be mad enough to do that, but I'm not.
oh, that's a shame. If you talk to sjmaxq or pass him on the high street ( I hear New Zealand's quite small isn't it?) do pass on the message to see if he'll be there, can you?
If you talk to sjmaxq or pass him on the high street ( I hear New Zealand's quite small isn't it?)
UK: land: 241,590 sq km
NZ: land: 268,021 sq km
10% more room for 1/15th the population - no wonder you mock the meat we send you to feed on.
SHHHHHH! Don't tell everyone how wonderful it is.
There are enough Americans running to hide there already in the fond belief they might meet Frodo!
besides, if you unraveled Wales and spread it out flat it'ud be bigger'n than England on it own :)
Faldage and I will be there. I wonder why the announcement was removed?
eta, if you have a performance in the evening, why can't you be there at noon? Is it out of town?
yeah, I have rehearsal and a meeting that day...
http://www.stowearts.com/choirfestival2005.htmldoesn't mention the soloists... [double frown]
Oh, dumb ol' me .. will someone convert the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to Eastern Daylight Savings Time or even Eastern Standard? This USAn can easily figure it out from there.
Thank you.
Will Shortz, cruciverbalist extraordinaire and leader of the U.S. Team at the World Puzzle Championship, announced the qualifier to join this year's team will be Saturday at 1300 EDT (an hour after the chat).
http://wpc.puzzles.com/I expect other countries will be holding their contests around this time. The championship will be in Hungary. I'm certainly not in their league but some of y'all are.
http://www.worldpuzzle.org/championships/2004/index.html
I will have returned home very late (about midnight) from being out of town on business. Even if I awaken early enough, I might be too groggy to ask anything sensical.
k
Great chat!!
Anu says the transcript will be available about 6PM GMT.
Doesn't seem to be there yet. I lost my connection about 10 minutes before the end, so I'd like to see what I missed.
Edit, I was looking at the concluded chats section rather than the link to Quinion. It is there.Bingley
I love the little advert for this board which AnnaStrophic and Faldage tacked onto the end of this on-line chat. Well done!
advert for this board
We PMed Anu about it, sent it in about twenty minutes before the chat ended, and Anu held it till the end.
> advert for this board
Yeah, good job. Just read the transcript; interesting chat, nice bloke is Quinion.
I did get a little confused about his repeated truth vs. fable comments though, when you consider that so many etymologies stand on such shaky ground, despite the tremendous work by him and his peers. Can one really speak in such absolutes? Isn't all of language a story where we all consult our internal dictionaries to create a relative meaning for that moment? Or does a consensual, objective truth exist to words or to things (units of thought) at any one time or at all? Isn't it often a question of what, of the myriad of possibilities (or etymologies), we grant more of our attention? Anyone?
I don’t know if I’m following your point here, but in everyday contexts I think there *is a consensual, objective truth or meaning to the symbols - vocal, written and body language - that we use as communication tools. But at other times I agree that interpretation varies from person to person and place to place.
In striving to convey meaning (like uh, heavy, dude) the poet takes one route and the narrative writer another and as aids to imagery both use analogies and metaphors that are sometimes a challenge to unravel. The rest of us do our best and that includes stealing from the poets and writers!
The frustration of being unable to find words, or even a series of sentences, that exactly get ones meaning across is a common felt thing. This frustration can be seen as soon as a child is old enough to grasp that communication is possible. Then form and structure are learnt and then still later comes the realisation that language is actually more about efficient communication than it is about form and structure. Hopefully grace and beauty retain their place in language alongside efficiency.