From: mjd@plover.com Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet Subject: [rec.sport.baseball] Re: K stands for...... Date: 16 Oct 1997 10:18:21 +0200 Subject: Re: K stands for...... From: jjd@cray.com (Jeff Drummond) Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball chadbour@sashimi.wwa.com (James Weisberg) writes: |> In article <3426DB4A.7D67@daedal.net>, James Tuttle wrote: |> >Mike Mundy wrote: |> >> I know the _form_ is Latin; the researchers (as a matter of scientific |> >> tradition) used the Latin naming technique to honor their institution. |> >> But the word itself is not from the language. |> > |> >Whaddya mean it's "not from the language"? We live in an egalitarian |> >society. Berkeley researchers have just as much right to coin Latin |> >words as the papal speechwriters in the Vatican Library. |> |> No, they don't! No one has a right to coin *any* Latin words! Um, that depends in which variant of the Latin language one is coining. |> Latin as a language is frozen in time. It cannot be added to, |> amended, or changed in any way. (1) What the Vatican does to their |> *dialect* of the Latin language is inconsequential. What European |> scholars who have written in Latin is inconsequential. The |> official lexicon recognizes none of this, and never will, because |> it *ain't* Latin! Call it something else, New-Latin or Church-Latin, |> but it's different from lingua latina. Yes, but there's no one lingua latina. There's Old Latin, Classical Latin, Late Latin, Low Latin, Medieval Latin, Vulgar Latin, and New (or Neo-) Latin to name a few. The later variant is still very much alive and new words are being coined for scientific and taxonomic terms (e.g., Berkelium). |> Anyway, your line of reasoning is fairly disturbing. I can't |> just wake up one day, come up with a word that ends in "ium" and |> all of a sudden get it put into the Latin lexicon any more than |> I could come up with a word with 8000 vowels and get it put into |> the French lexicon. Except that French is a living language and therefore subject to change. If you can get enough French speakers to use your 8000 vowel word (and/or the Academie Francais to adopt it), then it becomes part of the language--however unlikely that may be. ObNeoClassicalBaseball: Chuck Knoblauch said in an interview yesterday (after the last Twins home game of the year) that he would consider waiving his no-trade clause if the Twins were to trade him to a contender and if the next element to be discovered were to be named Knoblauchium. Paul Molitor, when informed of Knoblauch's remarks about a possible trade, said he'd have to think about that with respect to his own decision whether or not to remain with the Twins. Twins officials quickly offered to name the next element to be discovered Molitorium. Brad Radke got credit for his 20th victory of the season on Sunday, prompting some fan pressure to name the next element to be discovered Radkium. Pat Meares is almost certainly out for the rest of the season after being hit by a pitch on his right calf in Sunday's game. He is reportedly unhappy with the fact that there's little consideration being given to naming the next element to be discovered Mearesium.