On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:21:27 -0500, Mark E. Shoulson <mark@...> wrote:

> As John Cowan correctly surmised, this was decidedly NOT a typo. It's
> my own variant of "qalamites"--though of course you're all encouraged to
> pick it up.

> Yes, I made up "lingweenie" to refer to us language geeks (if you're on
> qalam, you're probably also a lingweenie). And of course, people like
> John and me, who study Lojban, are Lojbananas.

I went bananas long ago. :) (Preference is definitely for organicaly-grown
ones.)

OK, I guess "weenie" is not a pejorative. It's very encouraging to
discover all the fun and good will in a situation that I thought could
have been unpleasant.

Being a chronic hermit, I don't keep up too well with changes in my
language, although I have noted the double-"is" phenom. that seems to have
developed in the past few months. ("The story is {brief pause} is that we
have to do it." Pause duration varies widely. Have heard occasional
similar doublings of other words. Malay influence? I doubt it.) I missed
the development of "issue" to replace "problem", although they don't seem
quite synonymous; likewise, classifying fish and birds as animals.

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Libranet GNU/Linux: No bit rot!
When will the first water skier cross the North Pole?