G'day Nerd,

There are no universal rules for how words are used ... but, unless there are ground rules, there is no language ... only noises. I'm just setting out the rules that makes sense to me - and it happens that they (mostly)agree with (one of) the main maker's catalogue usage.

Other than that, we are where I'm used to being ... in the trap of knowing (and bothering about) what words mean ... in a post-modernist workd that says they mean what they want them to mean (and therefore, you can take anything they say as meaning anything you want it to mean ... ?) And that leaves me where I have to do a quick reality check before I say anything, because it may be taken to mean anything else by the person listening.

Come to think of it ... that's part of why I'm interested in folk music (and other pre-modern things) ... I believe that we have a past ... and that it's relevant ... and it would be a nice thing if people had half a chance of understanding what some one said in a great ballad 400 years ago ... or a description of an instrument 80 years ago ... or what I said five minutes ago.

But then, this thread started with someone who thought we should use the term they are familiar with from their youth ... and not something else ...

Now, what did Douglas Adams's Hitch-hikers' Guide say about the "Babel Fish" ...?

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton