Shameless Plug

[John Monro]

Piques. I'm prescriptive.

Years ago there was a weekly puzzle in our newspaper which used exactly that
principal, they would give clues (no, not clews) that required a true
prescriptive knowledge to answer. For example, they would give a clue along
the lines of "to overwhelm with fauna" and the crossword would be filled in
except for one letter. In this case the crossword would contain INFE?T. It
would be up to you to choose between INFECT and INFEST.

There was a $500 dollar prize for the correct answer to the crossword, which
probably neede you to fill in only about 12 letters as explained above. I
won twice over a period of 12 years.

I don't think they run that puzzle anymore.

Dear B,
I hesitated before replying because I wondered whether you were trolling
when you used 'principal.'
Now, it is not nice to correct spelling mistakes in postings, but being
prescriptive, I thought that I should bring this error to your attention
in accordance with the principle: 'He who lives by the (s)word shall
die by the (s)word."

Talking about word usage, Trolling is a hot topic in some of the other
threads. I always thought that Trolls were monsters that lived under
bridges in Scandinavia and who gobbled up travelers. Trawling is the
process of dragging a net through the sea to catch fish, although
'Trolling' is also used.
It seems to me that a person who engages in trawling or trolling should
be a Trawler or a Troller, and not a Troll.

Regards,
John

 

[Andrew Reilly]

Talking about word usage, Trolling is a hot topic in some of the other
threads. I always thought that Trolls were monsters that lived under
bridges in Scandinavia and who gobbled up travelers. Trawling is the
process of dragging a net through the sea to catch fish, although
'Trolling' is also used.
It seems to me that a person who engages in trawling or trolling should
be a Trawler or a Troller, and not a Troll.

I had always assumed that the reason for this was twofold: (a) the early
denizens of usenet were by-and-large computer geeks, or at least science
geeks who had a greater affinity with fantasy of the D&D variety than with
fishing, and (b) once the behaviour pattern is understood (by all) you can
get away with using the (incorrect) term as a direct slur: much more
satisfying in the heat of a flame fest.

Of course, I'm just an engineer (who's been using Usenet since the days
that it was carried by uucp), not a linguist. I may very well not know
what I'm talking about.

Cheeers,

 

[Rick Lyons]

Only those who went to school back when they were still teaching
how to apply basic physics to real-world problems.

To be fair, some schools do a great job of this, but I have
personal experience of a person who got an EE degree from a
state college without ever tumbling on to the fact that when
you send current down a wire there has to be an equal current
through a return path.

Hi,

wait a second, I don't understand this "equal current
through a return path" idea. If you send current down a wire
doesn't that current just go into the Earth?


No no, I'm just joking!!!! ;-)

Have a good one,
[-Rick-]

 

[Jerry Avins]

Piques. I'm prescriptive.

Good for you. I was being sarcastic (and rueful). I assumed that the
"peek" would signal that I was poking fun.

Years ago there was a weekly puzzle in our newspaper which used exactly that
principal, they would give clues (no, not clews) that required a true
prescriptive knowledge to answer. For example, they would give a clue along
the lines of "to overwhelm with fauna" and the crossword would be filled in
except for one letter. In this case the crossword would contain INFE?T. It
would be up to you to choose between INFECT and INFEST.

There was a $500 dollar prize for the correct answer to the crossword, which
probably neede you to fill in only about 12 letters as explained above. I
won twice over a period of 12 years.

Congratulations! (No sarcasm.)

I don't think they run that puzzle anymore.

Too bad.

Jerry

 

[Jerry Avins]

John Monro wrote:

...

Dear B,
I hesitated before replying because I wondered whether you were trolling
when you used 'principal.' Now, it is not nice to correct spelling
mistakes in postings, but being prescriptive, I thought that I should
bring this error to your attention in accordance with the principle:
'He who lives by the (s)word shall die by the (s)word."

That's a humdinger!

Talking about word usage, Trolling is a hot topic in some of the other
threads. I always thought that Trolls were monsters that lived under
bridges in Scandinavia and who gobbled up travelers. Trawling is the
process of dragging a net through the sea to catch fish, although
'Trolling' is also used.
It seems to me that a person who engages in trawling or trolling should
be a Trawler or a Troller, and not a Troll.

Troll and trawl may be related linguistically and used interchangeably
in some places, but trolling in fresh water is trailing a fishing line
from a moving boat. Perhaps that use connects trail to troll and trawl.
Perhaps I'll look into the etymology; if I do, I'll report.

http://www.bassfishingusa.com/trollingmotors.html

Jerry

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

Troll and trawl may be related linguistically and used interchangeably
in some places, but trolling in fresh water is trailing a fishing line
from a moving boat. Perhaps that use connects trail to troll and trawl.
Perhaps I'll look into the etymology; if I do, I'll report.

http://www.bassfishingusa.com/trollingmotors.html

Jerry

Jerry beat me to it. I was going to point out that trolling is
fishing with a line pulled by a moving boat, trawling is fishing with
a net pulled by a moving boat. The etymology is probably interesting.

In any case, the fishing and malicious Norwegian troll connections are
both suitably fit descriptions for the sorts of usenet trolls that
we're all too familiar with.

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

 

[Jerry Avins]

Jerry Avins wrote:

...

Perhaps I'll look into the etymology; if I do, I'll report.

I found no obvious connection between trawl and troll, and no connection
to trail seems to exist. Trawl is related to tract (as in traction,
tractor) and derives directly from Latin "tragula"; sledge or dragnet. I
guess tragula is cognate to German tragen, to carry or wear.

Troll has a long history through at least Middle English, giving rise to
trolley and trollop as well meaning fishing with lines from a moving
boat. The basic meaning is turn or revolve. Side meanings were roll,
wander, drag about, ramble, and surprisingly, to circulate drinks. From
that last, it also means the singing if successive parts of a drinking
song. Now that I've been reminded, I have heard "trolling" used to mean
loud drunken reveling/caroling.

Respectfully submitted; youts etc.,

Jerry

 

[Rich Grise]

Piques. I'm prescriptive.

Years ago there was a weekly puzzle in our newspaper which used exactly
that principal, they would give clues (no, not clews) that required a true
principle.

prescriptive knowledge to answer. For example, they would give a clue
along the lines of "to overwhelm with fauna" and the crossword would be
filled in except for one letter. In this case the crossword would contain
INFE?T. It would be up to you to choose between INFECT and INFEST.

There was a $500 dollar prize for the correct answer to the crossword,
which probably neede you to fill in only about 12 letters as explained
above. I won twice over a period of 12 years.

I don't think they run that puzzle anymore.

Prizeword Pete - at least that's what they called the equivalent puzzle in
The Minneapolis Star last millennium. My mom and I did it every week,
eagerly anticipating next week's paper as if it were powerball or
something. ISTR that the prize money would roll over, and they'd increase
it by about a hundred each week, until somebody won, when they'd start
over at a hundred (or whatever - I was a kid, and it was the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow - it might as well have been a million!)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Guy Macon]

wait a second, I don't understand this "equal current
through a return path" idea. If you send current down a wire
doesn't that current just go into the Earth?

No no, I'm just joking!!!! ;-)

<Big Laugh>

It was one of those situations that just boggles the mind. We had a
newly-minted BSEE give one of the technicians a rather "interesting"
design...

There was a battery-operated box in one room that had a HC TTL output.

There was a battery-operated box in another room with a HC TTL input.

There was two hundred feet of 12AWG (!) wire connecting the two.

There was NO ground return.

The tech was reporting a 60Hz square wave & no signal at the input.

He knew about ground returns, but I had a standing order to all techs
to get the design engineer's OK before correcting even obvious errors,
and he was having trouble getting the engineer to agree to any change.

When I went to talk to the engineer, I figured that this was just a
case of an assumption that drawing the little ground symbol somehow
connects all grounds together - a fairly normal error for someone just
out of college.

Instead I found that this EE had never learned the concept of
electricity going in a circle! The usual switch/battery/lamp
drawing on the whiteboard contained new knowledge for this EE.

This was no dummy, either; the EE could run rings around me when
it came to doing advanced math and physics. It's just that the
school never taught the basics and didn't require knowledge of
basic electricity to graduate.

As Dave Barry often says, I am not making this stuff up.

 

[Guy Macon]

BFoelsch wrote:

Good for you. I was being sarcastic (and rueful). I assumed
that the "peek" would signal that I was poking fun.

Wordplay is the peak of humor.

 

[Rich Grise]

Jerry Avins wrote:

...


I found no obvious connection between trawl and troll, and no connection
to trail seems to exist. Trawl is related to tract (as in traction,
tractor) and derives directly from Latin "tragula"; sledge or dragnet. I
guess tragula is cognate to German tragen, to carry or wear.

Troll has a long history through at least Middle English, giving rise to
trolley and trollop as well meaning fishing with lines from a moving boat.
The basic meaning is turn or revolve. Side meanings were roll, wander,
drag about, ramble, and surprisingly, to circulate drinks. From that last,
it also means the singing if successive parts of a drinking song. Now that
I've been reminded, I have heard "trolling" used to mean loud drunken
reveling/caroling.

Respectfully submitted; youts etc.,

How timely!
http://www.always-safe.com/deck.html

"...
Troll the ancient Yuletide carol, falalalala, lala la la!
..."

Happy Solstice!
Rich

 

[Guy Macon]

Talking about word usage, Trolling is a hot topic in some of the other
threads. I always thought that Trolls were monsters that lived under
bridges in Scandinavia and who gobbled up travelers. Trawling is the
process of dragging a net through the sea to catch fish, although
'Trolling' is also used.

I believe that "trolling" is dragging a lure or baited hook through
the water to catch fish. A net catches wahtever is there. A hook
only catches those who take the bait.

 

[Terry Given]

Wordplay is the peak of humor.

And a bilingual pun is the pinnacle of wordplay.

Cheers
Terry

 

[YD]

And a bilingual pun is the pinnacle of wordplay.

Cheers
Terry

Takes a cunning linguist for that.

- YD.

 

[Paul Burke]

it also means the singing if successive parts of a drinking
song. Now that I've been reminded, I have heard "trolling" used to mean
loud drunken reveling/caroling.

Probably from "troll, loll, loll" sort of thing when they are too drunk
to remember the words, or are traditional English folk singers who
always forget the words drunk or sober.

youts etc.,

That's very Derbyshire, especially the hardening of the th in 'youth'.
You get octogenarians calling each other 'youth' here- the land of
enternal youth?

Paul Burke

 

[Rune Allnor]

Jerry Avins wrote:

...


I found no obvious connection between trawl and troll, and no connection
to trail seems to exist. Trawl is related to tract (as in traction,
tractor) and derives directly from Latin "tragula"; sledge or dragnet. I
guess tragula is cognate to German tragen, to carry or wear.

Troll has a long history through at least Middle English, giving rise to
trolley and trollop as well meaning fishing with lines from a moving
boat. The basic meaning is turn or revolve.

The Norwegian word "tralle" means either "trolley"/"small wagon" (noun)
or "hum"/"sing quietly to oneself" (verb). I don't know if there is any
etymological connections between the different forms.

Side meanings were roll,

There is a very similar Norwegian word, "talje", that means "tackle"
as in "block and tackle". The meaning transfers to most situations
where a rope is supported by a rolling wheel.

wander, drag about, ramble, and surprisingly, to circulate drinks. From
that last, it also means the singing if successive parts of a drinking
song. Now that I've been reminded, I have heard "trolling" used to mean
loud drunken reveling/caroling.

Another very similar "word" is "trallala" as one sings when one doesn't
know or remember the words of a song. I wouldn't be surprised if this
is the origins of the verb "å tralle" (hum/sing quitely) above.

Respectfully submitted; youts etc.,

Jerry

Rune

 

[Ian]

Jerry Avins wrote:

...


I found no obvious connection between trawl and troll, and no connection
to trail seems to exist. Trawl is related to tract (as in traction,
tractor) and derives directly from Latin "tragula"; sledge or dragnet. I
guess tragula is cognate to German tragen, to carry or wear.

Troll has a long history through at least Middle English, giving rise to
trolley and trollop as well meaning fishing with lines from a moving
boat. The basic meaning is turn or revolve. Side meanings were roll,
wander, drag about, ramble, and surprisingly, to circulate drinks. From
that last, it also means the singing if successive parts of a drinking
song. Now that I've been reminded, I have heard "trolling" used to mean
loud drunken reveling/caroling.

Respectfully submitted; youts etc.,

Jerry

My recollection is that "trolling" is specifically when using a spinning
lure,
which would fit with "The basic meaning is turn or revolve" noted by
Jerry above.

Regards
Ian

 

[John Monro]

I had always assumed that the reason for this was twofold: (a) the early
denizens of usenet were by-and-large computer geeks, or at least science
geeks who had a greater affinity with fantasy of the D&D variety than with
fishing, and (b) once the behaviour pattern is understood (by all) you can
get away with using the (incorrect) term as a direct slur: much more
satisfying in the heat of a flame fest.

Of course, I'm just an engineer (who's been using Usenet since the days
that it was carried by uucp), not a linguist. I may very well not know
what I'm talking about.

Cheeers,

Andrew,
After reading the other postings in this thread I now know that trolling
means drawing a bait through the water to atract a specific type of
fish. This is an excellent description of the process that is carried
out by Newsgroup trolls (and which livens up things from time to time)
so 'Trolling' it is!
As to WHY a person who trolls is called a Troller, I do like your
explanation. It would have seemed natural to decide that a Troll was a
creature who trolled, just as it was natural to make WATFIV the
successor to WATFOR. The computer community loves puns and word-plays!

Regards,
John

 

[Jerry Avins]

Rune Allnor wrote:

...

There is a very similar Norwegian word, "talje", that means "tackle"
as in "block and tackle". The meaning transfers to most situations
where a rope is supported by a rolling wheel.

"Block" is at least the pulley housing. "Tackle" may be just the rope,
or it may mean rope, pulley, and axle. "Tackle" is also a synonym for
"gear", meaning equipment. More to look up!

Jerry

 

[Chaos Master]

Jerry Avins to stdout:

The meaning of flammable is clear, while inflammable might be
disastrously confused with unflammable (not a real word either)
meaning non-flammable. The need for clear disambiguation on gasoline
tankers trumps the joys of pedantry.

In Portuguese, 'inflammable' would mean 'not flammable' ('in'/'im' prefix
----> 'not' as in 'impossible' == 'not possible' or 'incapable' == 'not
capable').

Yet, we still use 'inflammable' (exact translation for "inflamÁvel")

--
Chaos Master®, posting from Canoas, Brazil - 29.55° S / 51.11° W

"Sing what you can't say / forget what you can't play
Hasten to drown into beautiful eyes / Walk within my poetry, this dying
music"
- My loveletter to nobody


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