The Mad Latinist ([info]jdm314) wrote,
@ 2007-09-29 00:19:00
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Current mood: proud
Current music:Daniel Pi — Oops I Did It Again (fugue)
Entry tags:latin wikipedia, vicipaedia, vicipaedia latina, wall street journal, wikipedia, wsj

Latin Wikipedia is famous!
We've had an article in Vox Latina before, but never something as prestigious as this!

Due, I think, to my thoroughly arcane and scholarly interests, I didn't impress Mr. Gomes as much as some of the others did (don't get me wrong though: Josh does makes a fantastic "poster boy." Now I need his autograph!) but I'm glad he did find something he considered worth quoting from our interview. Unfortunately we had a slight misunderstanding of the sort that is almost obligatory in newspaper articles. So I should clarify.

Computatrum. When I lobbied against it was actually back in the mid-nineties, before wikipedia existed. On the Grex Latine Loquentium computatrum and other -trum words were (and are) very widespread, and it really bothered me. But I couldn't convince very many people on this topic. And as proper usage is determined more by what people actually say than by what they should say (OK, that's not exactly true in a dead language, but it makes sense in cases like these), I eventually gave in to the masses on this one word. Computatrum is just too wide-spread now to fight, and if you can't beat 'em.... But I do still fight the use of this suffix on most other words. So Gomes presented this whole sequence, over 10-years long, as something that happened on Wikipedia, when really it was decided long before.

But in general the article is good, and I'm very pleased!

ADDENDVM: Uh oh, he also confused Tangaloa and Tagalog. Iacobus Amor won't like that.


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[info]wisclassic
2007-09-29 06:52 am UTC (link)
FYI, Robert Gurval is the guy who supervised my Latin teaching for the past year!

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[info]tanagers
2007-09-29 11:53 am UTC (link)
That's cool! It makes you sound really argumentative. Funny. Congrats!

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[info]ioscius
2007-09-29 04:02 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, the errors were far to slight to take away from the absolute coolness of this article. Me aside, I think it puts the project in a great light, and really explains the essence of what we're doing. It's flattering while being honest. It's also certainly nice to see that Lee asked around to find a professional opinion (Gurval) of us (and that the opinion didn't say we suck!)!

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[info]jdm314
2007-09-29 04:04 pm UTC (link)
(and that the opinion didn't say we suck!)

Yes, and that's the most amazing part!

Seriously, I hope my nitpickery doesn't seem ungrateful, because you're absolutely right about the rest.

And welcome to LJ!

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[info]ioscius
2007-09-29 04:24 pm UTC (link)
Damned LJ sure isn't wikipedia, though. I wish I could go back and edit my last post with an extra "o" in "far to(o) slight" . . . :::grumble:::

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[info]thecanuckguy
2007-09-30 07:16 pm UTC (link)
I usually just hit the "delete" button (after CTRL-Cing the whole thing) and write a new one, fixing the error after the old text is pasted. It's probably inconvenient (and probably a bit of an annoyance to the LJ owner who I'm replying to since it probably generates multiple emails, but I don't know as I've never done it in my own LJ) but, being a bit of a perfectionist, it works.

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[info]jdm314
2007-09-30 07:19 pm UTC (link)
Speaking of which, you really like that word "probably" don't you! ;)

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[info]thecanuckguy
2007-09-30 07:35 pm UTC (link)
Good job! You come off a little as a contrarian Wikipedian, but I think you take that as a compliment.

I do however, take great credence in what you think a new word should be in Latin. I still greatly prefer "anthematology", one you gave me, to any other description of the hobby, and passionately defend that one.

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[info]jdm314
2007-09-30 07:49 pm UTC (link)
But... but... I was WRONG about anthematology. I mean, I'm glad you like it, but I told you that ἄνθημα isn't a real word. I recall you were a bit disappointed in me for screwing that up, so I'm surprised you're still such a partisan.

And I confess that the impression of contrarianness is one reason why the inaccuracy bothers me (in fact, I sometimes worry that my opinion is given too much weight on Vicipaedia). Of course nitpicking the article doesn't make me seem less contrarian, does it? ;)

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