Dragaera

Ubiquitous

Thu Feb 17 10:50:32 PST 2005

This turned out to be funnier than I had even intended:

Howard: "If you want to learn a language well, there are much easier
languages.   But
to learn it poorly, English is a good choice. And of course, it is
ubiquitous."

Shawn (commenting on how easy communication is in English even if used
poorly): "What is a 'ubiquitous' mean?"

Def #1: "Nifty" (this may have been a joke)
Def #2: "Easily Corruptible"
Def #3: "Widespread"
Def #4: "It means that everybody knows what the words mean"

I got kicked in the head by how truly difficult (and possibly
non-ubiquitous) the English language is. Perhaps the words themselves are
ubiquitous (although this is a matter of degree), but definitions are
resistant to dissemination. And they are malleable. And there's nothing
wrong with that. I'm going to use "ubiquitous" as "nifty" from now on.

Shawn