Your sense of humor seems just fine, but hey, that’s just True Blue Jack saying so. People who disagree with you might not consider it much of an endorsement.
Sort of similar to the nonplussed reaction social conservatives showed when Playboy gave its endorsement, circa 1970, to detailed sex education in the schools.
True Blue Jack
Or “hocks” as somebody physically present yesterday afternoon kept saying today: Maybe it’s a hocks./ Looks like someone is being hocksed. Etc.
Don’t quite get what you added to the “WHOOSH” but thanks.
True Blue Jack
Yeah, Tracy, I caught where he started a thread saying that about you, upon checking the all-threads option on his profile.
,indeed!
True Blue Jack
Thank you, too.
True Blue Jack
Good comeback. Thanks.
True Blue Jack
Uh, I’m sorry as piss, CC!
True Blue Jack
Where the heck did you get that? I’ve never heard such a rule in my life. Not to be a jerk, but that really sounds like you’re making shit up, and he asked about how a particular field of study defines what a word is, not how you personally would choose to.
Linguists don’t sit around drawing lines around “words” and “nonwords” the way foolish “language mavens” like the OP do. Linguistics is a science; what is correct in language (to whatever extent the term has any meaning) is what’s used; if people use a word, then it’s a word. If one person simply mispronounced a word, that (naturally) doesn’t count as a new word, but we don’t sit around deciding what qualifies as an actual word or not. A word is a unit of language (speaking very roughly, of course) - in fact, even if a word was entirely novel I would be astonished to see a linguist describe it as “not a word”. What the hell else is it, a kind of fish? We don’t go around making value judgments over what is good enough to be a word and what isn’t - that’s completely contrary to the notion of observing what actually happens, which is at the core of linguistics and all sciences.
Exactly, Excalibre!
A further note: All words are “made up.” That’s how languages in which the word originates gets the word: someone makes up the word and then it becomes popular.
“UPDIKEING?”
WOW! I came across the “I lied” thread Monday. Has his name become a verb here already? Perhaps it will be entered under “About This Message Board” under the mod stickie about common phrases and in-jokes on the board. Or would that cause a risk of legal problems for the administration?
True Blue Jack
Thank you very much! 
True Blue Jack
Good one, Bippy!
True Blue Jack
Thank you, as well!
True Blue Jack
I’m sorry, but can I just say that my personal pet peeve is posters posting multiple times in a row to reply to individual messages? Sorry, just had to say it…
Yes, opinion will differ as to how funny it was. But you admitted that you were “got going” by it, even if temporarily. That’s all I would ask of anyone.
True Blue Jack
I took linguistics in school, including one graduate-level course (although I am obviously not as knowledgeable as you, or your tapeworm), and I recall that a word was defined as an independently meaningful unit of language. I didn’t make a value judgement. It was simply an observation that “applausage” is not independently meaningful right now. It relies on the listener’s understanding of the word “applause.” That could change, but I’ve never heard anyone use “applausage” besides perhaps Paulie Shore, as a joke.
I think you misunderstood “independent”. A word doesn’t have to be somehow “independent” of other words - after all, many, many words are derived from others, and you’ll never convince anyone that positional (for instance) is somehow magically “independent” of position. You’ve invented your own imaginary dichotomy here. Derivation is one of the main processes for creating new words in any language. What “independent” means in that context is that a word can stand alone. It means something all on its own. That part of the definition is there to distinguish a word from a bound morpheme, like say the /-s/ plural ending, which is meaningful, but not indepedent.
Defining what constitutes a word is actually not a simple task, particularly in some languages; as I said (and Monty, who is also a linguist, agreed) no linguist would sit around declaring that “applausage” wasn’t a word. Because again, what the hell else could it be? It might be chalked up as an error on the part of the speaker (if they, say, misspoke and accidentally created a new word on the spot) but it wouldn’t be classified as something other than a word. The entire concept that some things are legitimate enough to be “words” and others aren’t (as exemplified in such cutesy nonsense as “‘Ain’t’ ain’t a word” and so forth) is simply not an idea that exists in linguistics. That’s outside the realm of linguistics, because linguistics is about observation, not deciding what is and isn’t a valid use of language.
You may have taken some linguistics classes, but you failed badly in internalizing the most basic aspects of the field. It is fundamentally based upon neutrally observing how language is actually used; all sciences share this trait of observing - that’s a core aspect of what science is. I’m sorry if I sound overly harsh, but no, you clearly don’t understand linguistics very well, and it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people try to co-opt my field of study to support their own little language-related prejudices.
Again, you seem to be ascribing to me a value judgement that I did not make. If you have a definition of “word,” it must exclude some things and include others. I can only imagine “applausage” used as a joke. The joke would require that the listener know the word “applause” and refer to it to be funny (which is not to say it would be funny, either way). That’s my observation of how it is used. I attach no more value to it than I do when I say “ing” isn’t a word.
And again, I’m saying that there’s no linguistic rule that would decide that applausage isn’t a word. Sure, it’s stupid-sounding, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a word. And as I’ve explained, you misinterpreted the meaning of independent in that definition.
Please fight my ignorance - I assume the term “Updikeing” refers to the author of the “Rabbit” series of novels, but since I’ve never read any of them, I can’t assign a meaning to this word except what can be inferred from the context. (Ooh, nice run-on sentence, babe.)
Would you mind clarifying for me? Thanks muchly.
Access violation at address 005418AE. Read of address 00000000
005424F5
True Blue Jack, one post at a time, please! If you want to quote multiple posts, type your ONE POST thusly, using copy and paste where necessary:
[quote=EddyTeddyFreddy]
Ah, maybe it's just my warped sense of humor, but I thought it was funny.
[/quote]
Your sense of humor seems just fine, but hey, that's just True Blue Jack saying so. People who disagree with you might not consider it much of an endorsement.
Sort of similar to the nonplussed reaction social conservatives showed when Playboy gave its endorsement, circa 1970, to detailed sex education in the schools.
[quote=FlyingCowOfDoom]
You mean, WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHAGEACITYNESS!!!
--FCOD
p.s. Justin_Bailey the hoxe is on you!
[/quote]
Or "hocks" as somebody physically present yesterday afternoon kept saying today: Maybe it's a hocks./ Looks like someone is being hocksed. Etc.
Don't quite get what you added to the "WHOOSH" but thanks.
Etc. etc. Seriously, it disrupts the thread to have a whole page of True Blue Jack or whatever else in the middle of an otherwise flowing conversation. Especially if all you’re doing is thanking each poster for contributing.
There was a poster very recently banned, named Updike, who upon seeing that he was losing an argument started frantically banging drums for sympathy by saying that both his parents were killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Some other posters (maybe mods) noted that he’d very recently talked about his parents in the present tense, and he admitted he lied in the Pit and got banned.