Date:    Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:45:58 -0400
<br>From:    Larry Horn <laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: pomo
<br>
<br>At 12:34 PM -0500 4/23/98, Mark Mandel wrote:
<br>
<br>>Can we please judge Dave on his own words, rather than on misreadings and
<br>>>misquotations? As quoted by Barry Popik,
<br>>he actually wrote:
<br>> >>>
<br>>
<br>>>     I am on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary.  Unless he can
<br>>>explain it, it will never be an English word.  A nonce word, yes, and even
<br>>>gibberish, but not English.
<br>>
<br>> <<<
<br>>
<br>>Not Larry's "I've never heard it, so it must be gibberish", but
<br>>        UNLESS [the user of the word] CAN EXPLAIN IT...
<br>> [emphasis added].
<br>>
<br>>The actual comment requires no excuse. Yes, the rest of the quote is
<br>>grumpy in tone, but I might be grumpy too on seeing
<br>>an unfamiliar word used without explanation.
<br>>
<br>Well, what makes \ME/ grumpy is a lexicographer assuming that a word s/he
<br>comes across that s/he hasn't heard before is automatically "gibberish" or
<br>"a nonce word" unless the user can explain it.  Guilty until proven
<br>innocent?  I'd take the default assumption to be that if you use a word in
<br>print that I don't recognize, it's not (contrary to the tacit assumption
<br>here) an attempt at intentional obscurity on the part of the writer.  I
<br>still maintain that my reading is a paraphrase (albeit an unfriendly one)
<br>of the original John Simonesque remarks, rather than a misreading of them,
<br>but maybe I'm just being grumpy myself.
<br>
<br>Larry
<br>