[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About


Aliases (info)
WMBT

Referenced by
WikiEtiquette
SLConventions
MessagesToPeopleC...
WatchaMeanByThat
MathematicalBound...
LivelyDebateOnEng...
MetaDiscussion2002

Homepages
HuOfKGS

 

Watcha Mean by That
    Keywords: SL description

In the spirit of this page, "Watcha mean?" is a contraction of the phrase "What do you mean?".

Well done! Dave :-)

2002-11-14

Dieter: I do not want to offend anyone but I would like native English speakers to try and refrain from imaginative phrasing. Sometimes it is difficult for me to understand what's said so I think that people whose English is even worse than mine will give up already. I must say that if anyone asked me to keep it simple in my own language, I would feel apprehensive about it too. Anyway, just a thought - and please go ahead and correct my own sloppy contributions.

Dave Sigaty: Sorry about that. Some of us native speakers do not realize when we abuse the patience of our international colleagues. We need a little hint now and then. Please feel free ask for clarification. To help make this relatively painless I have created Watcha Mean By That with the alias WMBT. Just add a line:

WMBT?

or inline text (WMBT?) as a signal to request further clarification. Let's see if this helps.


Charles There really is a problem about English vocabulary, when we're talking on the scale of 4000 pages, as now is. English is rich in synonyms. I can imagine native speakers of German and French (say) preferring different choices out of a phrasal verb and a Latin-derived word; for example, do we take away territory or reduce it? (I found someone eroding territory, today.) [erase, minimize, eat away, deteriorate, crumble, nullify, wipe out, dismantle, tear down, break up, squash, dissipate, dissolve, consume, shatter, tear to pieces, crush, rub out, obliterate, suppress, smash, pick apart, chew up, strike down, sink, swamp, scuttle, expunge, waste, devour, desolate, destroy, gut, ravage, bulldoze, devastate, annihilate, trample, blast, ruin, knock down, chop up, slice and dice, shrivel -- Hu]

Add to that colloquial modes of American and British English (at least), and there will be linguistic problems. There probably is a subset of 'International English' that is more generally used; like 'International Cuisine' it buys its acceptability by being bland.

A rather limited vocabulary is indeed suitable for discussing problems and solutions. My impression is that this works fine here. It is less suitable for discussions of strategy - in that case it is hard enough for native speakers to make themselves understood to other native speakers.

Anyway, I don't think this can be policed on a wiki. Strange expressions should probably be edited down by the 'clean-up crew' doing a first copy-edit.

For myself, I don't like smileys and Internet abbreviations in long-term text. Of course some people are more used to that kind of communication than literary English.


Hu: Thank you Dieter for bravely stepping forward to identify a real problem and Dave for coming up with a creative and efficient way to address it. As Charles points out, this is the kind of problem we like to have. I will try to pay particular attention to any WMBT I see.

The best writers are always thinking of their readers. They write to make it as easy as possible for their readers to understand what has been written. Abbreviations and symbology of any kind that are cryptic fail to meet this standard. On the other hand, the richness of English polyglot vocabulary and phraseology is an expressive advantage. It is true that "Brevity is the mint of style", but adding a rephrased expression or sentence can make it clear while keeping the original wording that prevents the text from becoming too dry. The web confers the further advantage that a concise, dry, and accurate definition and simplified example of a concept can be linked easily to pages that explain, discuss, and provide deeper examples.

Knitting it all together is a challenge, but Wiki has the advantage of open source software: "Given enough eyeballs [and ears], all bugs are shallow." (Linus's Law, propounded by Eric S. Raymond, 1997, [ext] The Cathedral and the Bazaar).




This is a copy of the living page "Watcha Mean by That" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.