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welcome message (Community)
welcome message // Communitythe derekJan 4, 2003, 3:36am
here is the welcome message for AW
Immigration Officer: Welcome to Active Worlds! For complete details of this new version open the "User Guide" tab or go to http://www.activeworlds.com/help/. Join us for the 5th annual Avatars conference, celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien's eleventy-first birthday in AV02! now... what exactly is an eleventy-first birthday? carlbanksJan 4, 2003, 3:40am
usul 2Jan 4, 2003, 3:51am
J.R.R. Tolkien was born on January 3rd, 1892 .... so it would be his
111th birthday or eleventy first. absolute monarch absolutemonarch(at)sappphireestates(dot)cjb(dot)netJan 4, 2003, 4:21am
Eleventy-first is 111. J.R.R. Tolkien made it up, I think. Rather smart
don't you think? It's his Birthday today. Making HIM 111. wizard myrddinJan 4, 2003, 10:28am
ROfl, I think its for those that are unaware of how to write or understand
how to use English as Epp would say.. Good publicity there [View Quote] technozeusJan 4, 2003, 11:05am
I wondered about that too. Technically, it makes no less sense than saying one-hundred-eleventh birthday, and would probably be understood by most children who can count past thirty in English even if they haven't yet been taught how to could past thirty-nine. :) Actually, it's the tenties and twelvties that throw most kids off. Eleventies come naturally. :)
TechnoZeus [View Quote] wizard myrddinJan 4, 2003, 11:30am
lol, now this says a lot about the mentality of the person who changed it,
rofl Hey, where is this "New" version as well. Or is this a publicity stunt for visitors to av02? if so the terrible english killed it stone dead. Cant wait for the Sixteeny one birthday [View Quote] d a nJan 4, 2003, 11:43am
sk8man1Jan 4, 2003, 1:48pm
That's how J.R.R. Tolkien wrote ages in the hobbit... (that was the
hobbits' own way of saying 111 birthday... like part of their language) [View Quote] technozeusJan 4, 2003, 3:14pm
That would actually make sense if their language was supposed to be closely related to English, since many creoles and lesser known dialects of English have such gramatical simplifications. For example, instead of saying "he went" a person might say "he had go" and mean exactly the same thing. I've always found it rather interesting that the words eleven and seems to have no relation to the rest of the English number naming system except for it's aparent relation to the word twelve. Maybe the hobbits in his stories were supposed to have liked that particular word for some reason. Perhaps the resemblance to the word elves? :)
By the way, it's interesting to note that such peculiarities in number naming are not exclusive to English and languages derived from English. There have been several number systems that at one time or another were much more popular in certain cultures than base 10, so that has had some influence in the development of the modern names for numbers. For example, base 12 and base 60 were once very popular and have influenced the way we record time. Computer circuits like base 2 because it's easy to work with, and geeks tend to like base 16 beause it easily converts to base 4 and base 2. For a while, even base 8 got to be somewhat popular in certain circles. By the way, those who have an interest in languages and didn't already know this may find it interesting that the French language has no word for eighty, unless they added one without me knowing about it which wouldn't surprise me. The French word for "4" is "quatre" and the French word for 20 is "vingt" so instead of a single word for 80 you would say "quatre-vingts" which litterally means four twenties. Feel free to correct me if my information isn't quite right, but it may give a few people something to think about anyway. :) TechnoZeus [View Quote] ryan jacobJan 4, 2003, 3:52pm
bowenJan 4, 2003, 4:10pm
[View Quote]
People take English words and use them to write sentences, but foreigners don't
always get them grammatically correct. --Bowe-- stecloudJan 4, 2003, 6:24pm
JRR Tolkien used the phrase eleventy-first to describe Bilbo's 111th
birthday in the Lord of the Rings. The welcome message is supposed to be a pun considering Tolien would be 111 is he were still alive. Its grammatically incorrect - but it doesent matter since tis a pun. technozeusJan 4, 2003, 6:31pm
Interesting summary. I think actually though that a more accurate one would have been something like: What's grammatically incorrect to some people may be grammatically correct to others. :)
TechnoZeus [View Quote] bowenJan 4, 2003, 6:55pm
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Grammar is based on the general assumption of what's right by the majority of those
that use the language natively? Just because all the Chinese people learn English and decide "the" should be changed to "oleyumption" doesn't make it right. :O --Bowen-- absolute monarch absolutemonarch(at)sappphireestates(dot)cjb(dot)netJan 4, 2003, 11:51pm
Ummmm.......yes........
-- Thankyou for your attention. Your's Faithfully, Absolute Monarch A.K.A The Evil Chaotic Lord of the Dead and Demons 338508 Mayor of Sapphire Estates - AW 18000s 16000w Post in our Newsgroup: news://news.andras.net/aw.sapphireestates Alumnus of Hell, Fields of Demonolatry and Demonology From the NG2tNGs: Absolute Monarch - Ruler of Sapphire Estates and self-proclaimed "Evil Chaotic Lord of the Dead and Demons", this necrophile will beg, borrow, and steal to get attention for his town. Be especially wary if he starts asking about worlds... goober kingJan 5, 2003, 12:13am
Y'know AbMo... there's something wrong when your signature is almost 20
times the size of your actual post... :P [View Quote] -- Goober King Man of few words gooberking at utn.cjb.net syntaxJan 5, 2003, 12:24am
Oy, no kidding
Tone it down, AbMo. We know who you are. -- - Syntax - http://www.swcity.net http://forum.swcity.net [View Quote] d a nJan 5, 2003, 10:11am
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> Y'know AbMo... there's something wrong when your signature is almost 20
> times the size of your actual post... :P .... lol O_O --- D a n technozeusJan 5, 2003, 11:54am
For the most part, I agree... but I was talking about native speakers. Not all "native" speakers of a "language" speak the same dialect of that language so the majority of fluent adult native speakers of English in some area may actually use that particular word formation and see it as correct, and languages do evolve. Also, all native speakers of all languages go through a stage of development when they choose logic over exceptions to rules simply because they either haven't yet learned the exceptions or have learned them but have not yet gotten used to them. The only possible exception to this that I could think of is if a person failed to learn any language until late in their childhood or some time in their adulthood, and were then carefully taught a very orderly language such as Esperanto for a first language, and I think even then they would go through that stage.
We tend to correct children when they say things in a way that makes sense rather than the way they're "supposed to" say it, but I often wonder if we should pay more attention and learn from them as much as we teach them. For example, the verb forms "gooder" and "goodest" are logical enough even though we're used to something else, they would be easier for people learning English as a second language, and I don't see how a native English speaker could fail to recognize their meaning let alone think they meant something else unless they had learned a dialect of English that's WAY different from any I've ever heard of. What makes such words "wrong" anyway? The words we use now and think of as correct were all wrong "everywhere" at some point in time. TechnoZeus [View Quote] bowenJan 5, 2003, 4:28pm
> We tend to correct children when they say things in a way that makes sense rather
than the way they're "supposed to" say it, but I often wonder if we should pay more attention and learn from them as much as we teach them. For example, the verb forms "gooder" and "goodest" are logical enough even though we're used to something else, they would be easier for people learning English as a second language, and I don't see how a native English speaker could fail to recognize their meaning let alone think they meant something else unless they had learned a dialect of English that's WAY different from any I've ever heard of. What makes such words "wrong" anyway? The words we use now and think of as correct were all wrong "everywhere" at some point in time. What makes it "wrong" is just how people feel. Believe it or not, it's usually how it sounds in a sentence that determines it to be wrong. "It's gooder than cheese." just doesn't sound good, maybe it's growing up with the language and knowing it's not right but I just don't think it sounds good at all. --Bowen-- syntaxJan 6, 2003, 12:32am
Yea no kidding, I never read TZ's posts.. lol
-- - Syntax - http://www.swcity.net http://forum.swcity.net [View Quote] stecloudJan 7, 2003, 10:40am
Language has just developed in certain ways, some because its easier to talk
that way - like using "an" in front of nouns that begin with vowels. As apposed to "a elephant" which requires greater effort than "an elephant". I couldn't guess how other less logical preferences developed when it came to speaking, but every language has had irregular words - even Latin (although a considerable less amount than the English language). |
