From: 72627.2647@compuserve.com (Don HARLOW)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.esperanto
Subject: Recalled for Defects
Date: 16 Aug 92 22:15:47 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

To: Esperanto >INTERNET:esperanto@rand.org;
Conlang >INTERNET:conlang@buphy.bu.edu

Dato: 920816

The following message was sent by Rick Harrison to 
soc.culture.esperanto as a follow-up to Ron Hale-Evans' 
posting of the recent "Esperanto Defects" essay to that 
group. I am posting this response to the conlang group 
as well, because the original message contains some 
information that I don't think is available there. Rick writes:

>---

The essay "The Major Defects of Esperanto" is anonymous.
I typed it into my computer because I agreed to help the
author typeset it and publish it as a brochure.  Although
I did tack on the first 4 lines and transmit the text to
the con(structed)-lang(uages) forum -- on the night of the
full moon, for maximum agitational effect -- I urged Ron
Hale-Evans _not_ to post it to soc.culture.esperanto.
While the Conlang group is devoted to a rigorous discussion
of the merits and defects of various planned languages,
I realize that s.c.e is not accustomed to the same,
how shall I say it, _intensity_ of debate.
 
I do agree with many of the technical criticisms in the
article; however, I have not yet seen a planned language
that is technically perfect or 100 percent free of
inconsistencies.  If you dig deeply enough into any
conlang proposal, you will find at least one irregularity
or staggeringly irrational feature.

>---

Don replies:

Rick, you know I think you're a great guy, a hard-working 
prince of a fellow, with good ideas (the Multi-Conlang 
Dictionary, as just one for-instance -- and shall I mention 
the "Journal of Planned Languages", which in my opinion 
represents a sorely-needed resource for the conlang 
community?), but I've just got to say this ...

_You're_ the guy who typed those lines about a conspiracy 
to keep this essay off the net? And then _you're_ the guy who 
urged Ron Hale-Evans not to post it to s.c.e.? And this latter 
despite your desire (with which I can easily sympathize) for 
"maximum agitational effect"?

Don't you notice some sort of inconsistency there?

Maybe we can blame it on the full moon. (Any police department 
in the nation can tell you what kind of effect _that_ can have on a 
person's behavior.)

Well, tomorrow is another day.

(For the benefit of conlangers who don't follow s.c.e., the 
"Esperanto Defects" posting, in its first day of existence on 
s.c.e., has aroused all the violent reaction one might expect 
from a torpid sloth. The Esperantists on the net are too busy 
engaging in a multi-participant free-for-all about the need for 
a male suffix, a debate that sometimes seems to reach heights 
of "intensity", to use Rick's word, that would frighten an 
ordinary conlanger into catatonic withdrawal. Oh well, as I 
once said to Bruce Gilson, you can't win 'em all.)

=============================================
Don HARLOW                                Redaktoro Esperanto U.S.A.
tel. (1 510) 222 0187
CompuServe [72627,2647]
Internet 72627.2647@compuserve.com

"To discipline Esperantists is to eat soup with chopsticks."
                                                          Confucius
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