Dragaera

Ubiquitous

Thu Feb 17 11:07:40 PST 2005

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shawn Burns" <s1burns at ucsd.edu>
To: "'Dragaera (E-mail)'" <dragaera at dragaera.info>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 11:50 AM
Subject: Ubiquitous


> 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
>
>
I find this to be the case in written communication more often than when
speaking. I wonder if this is from the visual/body language cues that are
missing, or if in a verbal conversation one is more likely to ask a question
at the point of misunderstanding?

Jeff