On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, John O'Gorman wrote:
> Allan Rae wrote:
> >
> >
>
> > What about products like eXceed or other apps like Applix (different
> > situation admittedly)?
>
> eXceed is not an example of X at the end of the word.
It's also not at the start. It's in the middle!
> The x in Applix is the x of Unix not the X of X Window.
So some other applications can use the X from X-Windows at the beginning
or the middle but not at the end like LyX? But they can use the x from
the end of Unix at the end? Seems a bit restricted.
> > Have you never heard of people inventing new words?
> > Small businesses do it all the time. Name like "Kwik Kopy". Neither is a
> > real word. Neither would submit to your analysis. So why can't we
> > engineers and computer scientists also invent new words like LyX?
>
> Kwik and Kopy are not new words. They are orthograhic variants of
> existing words Quick and Copy. Quick is Gernanic and Copy Latin.
> Neither is an instance of our difficulty in determining the provenance
> of the letter X in LaTeX and LyX.
Russell the linguist:
Orthographical variants are not the sole property of advertisers.
Many words have undergone a change of spelling for example Queen was
originally spelled Cw-, compare Norwegian Kune or again scent was
originally sent; the spelling changed with evolving taste. There is
nothing new about it.
> We engineers and computer scientist, as educated people, would not
> flout established linguistic conventions to invent meaningless or
> stupid neologisms. Words have a form which conveys their cultural and
> historic ambience (unless advertising men or barbarians are involved
> in the process).
> Typically, learned neologisms are well-founded on root lexemes of
> European languages (mostly Latin or Greek).
Russell (Allan's secret weapon):
With made up words English conventions can be flouted because the
structures no longer represent the written equivalent of the
spoken language but rather code words for new constructs.
The pronunciation however still has to obey the conventions.
Words in -X must be pronounced -ks.
> So I stick to my contention that LyX is pronounced as the lych in
> polychromatic. I am not arguing against the right of the word LyX to
> exist. I am merely explaining why it is obvious that it is consistent
> with its historic and cultural commections with LaTeX (pronounced
> Lah-teck) and honours the same convention of using X to transliterate
> the Greek letter CHI.
HA! (Allan gloating)
Allan. (ARRae)
