Mike Jones's blog
If you google for “There is no mass audience for Esperanto.”, you will hit a seething essay on poetry, by David Prater, which contains the following text:
“There is no mass audience for poetry. There is no mass audience for trugo. There is no mass audience for silversmithing. There is no mass audience for Esperanto. There is no mass audience for the works of Flann O’Brien. Nevertheless each of these does exist, cannot be made not to exist, and will go on existing, whether O’Brien likes it or not.”
Happy reading!
- Mike Jones
la interna… triangulo!
Ĉiuj konsentas, ke la interna ideo de Esperanto estas bela afero, sed ĉu ne estus eĉ pli bele, se ĝi havus konkretan reprezentaĵon? Esperanto mem havas konkretan reprezentaĵon, nome, la kvin-pintan verdan stelon (kaj nuntempe ankaŭ la melonecan simbolon).
Nu, ja eblas doni taŭgan reprezentaĵon al la interna ideo de Esperanto. Kaj same kiel la kvin-pinta verda stelo kaj la melono, tiu reprezentaĵo kreiĝis post la apero de Esperanto.
Regarding the poll regarding the most essential dictionary regarding Esperanto, it’s hands down in favor of Plena Ilustrita Vortaro, since PIV is VIP spelled backwards.
But, joking aside, I was just wondering how many other people were disappointed, as I was, when, many years ago having bought by mail order a copy of PIV, finding out that its “illustrations” were so meager. I was expecting full-page color spreads of vegetables, household appliances, etc., as is given in nowadays in “learners” dictionaries of English.
Regards,
- Mike Jones
Ĉiu elfaru almenaŭ stumpon en ipernity!
Ideo: ĉiu el ni EUSA-anoj sekvu la ekzemplon de J.C. Wells kaj elfaru almenaŭ stumpon (tio estas, ne-aktivan konton) en ipernity.
Afable,
Mike Jones
(en ipernity: Michael Esperanto Jones)
Here is a document, relating to Esperanto, that I just uploaded to my ipernity account. (When visiting my ipernity account, remember that I use the name “Michael Esperanto Jones”.)
On Negation in Chinglish
Negation, even under ideal circumstances, can be a tricky matter, as exemplified by the ambiguity of the sentence:
“The bicycle is not new and registered.”
Is the bicycle registerd?
The basic and pro accounts in ipernity
Ipernity offers free basic membership, but it does not come with download capability. That is, you cannot download documents uploaded to ipernity by other ipernity members. However, for a yearly subscription fee, you get download capability. Those who pay the subscription fee are known in ipernity as “pro” members (and the “pro” logo is displayed in their ipernity space).
Esperanto as the royal road to English
At my ipernity account, I have started an on-going test of English, with questions along the lines of TOEFL or IELTS. It consists of multiple-choice questions. The unique feature is that the test is in Esperanto. So, this is, moreover, along the lines of “springboard to languages”. Thus, those who have taken the advice to learn Esperanto before English, or at least in parallel with English, have this additional English-strengthening resource at their disposal.
Are there any plans afoot for revising the dictionary of Peter Benson? We’re talking about the “Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary” (CEED). If a second edition would be out of the question in the near future, how about issuing a supplement, as was done for PIV long before NPIV came out?
Below are some corrections that need to be made, which I have also uploaded as a document to my ipernity account. (The issue of additions that need to be made is much more complex, and is not addressed here.)
There are a number of intentional misspellings widely used among native speakers of English (such as "gonna" and "gimmie"). Since such misspellings, which I have dubbed "happy misspellings", are usually not in the dictionary, they are a stumbling block for ESL students. Therefore I compiled a (one-page) list of them, which I distributed to my students here in China. The information is couched in Esperanto. This illustrates my approach to promoting Esperanto: Simply going ahead and using it for its intended purpose.
Word squares, anyone?
Question: What is special about the following four four-letter words? CARD, AREA, REAR, DART
Answer: If you put them one on top of the other, in the order given, they spell out the same words vertically:
C A R D
A R E A
R E A R
D A R T
where I have put spaces between the letters in order to make the vertical arrangement easier to see.
