RE: spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: CFJ: Opening the floodgates

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > It's not redefining "proposal". It's saying that "proposal" 
> > and "proosal" are equivalent. Equivalence is commutative - 
> > a==b means exactly the same as b==a (those are the 3-barred 
> > equals sign thingies, not C-style comparisons, not that it 
> > matters).
>
> Dearest Uncle Psychosis,
> 
> Equivalence may be commutative for mathematics, but that doesn't
> extend to the written word.
>
> For example "lead" (pron. leed) is synonymous with "direct", the
> verb.  But "lead" (led), the metal, is not synonymous with "direct",
> the adjective.  Moreover "lead" (leed), meaning an electrical wire,
> is not synonymous with "direct", either.
>
Well... so what? Those are different words (which happen to be spelt the same), and anyway your argument is irrelevant - to be relevant, you'd need to be saying that "lead" (pron. leed) the verb is synonymous with "direct" the verb, but "direct" the verb is not synonymous with "lead" (pron. leed) the verb. 

Not that we're dealing with the written word, in general - we're only dealing with the rules.

> Not to mention that your rule contradicts itself.  If "proposal" is
> *precisely* equivalent to "proosal", how can "proosal" be "far
> superior"?
>
> Since the "far superior" portion of the rule follows the "precisely
> equivalent" portion, and they appear to be contradictory, that
> should mean the terms are not equivalent, per the precedence
> rules.
>
Well, you could make an argument that they're precisely equivalent in use, but one is superior in aesthetics. Disregarding that, they're only not equivalent where the 2 parts would conflict - ie, they're precisely equivalent except for the purposes of determining which is superior, where proosal wins. Since no rule cares whether one word is better than another, I can't see how this matters.

uin.
-- 

_______________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

Win a ski trip!
http://www.nowcode.com/register.asp?affiliate=1net2phone3a