From owner-freebsd-chat Wed May 12 19:14:54 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from hostigos.otherwhen.com (mavery-gw.pernet.net [205.229.2.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6329115170 for ; Wed, 12 May 1999 19:14:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mavery@mail.otherwhen.com) Received: from mail.otherwhen.com (mail.2.229.205.in-addr.arpa [205.229.2.19] (may be forged)) by hostigos.otherwhen.com (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA25787 for ; Wed, 12 May 1999 21:25:42 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199905130225.VAA25787@hostigos.otherwhen.com> Received: from PORKY/SpoolDir by mail.otherwhen.com (Mercury 1.44); 12 May 99 21:14:47 -0600 Received: from SpoolDir by PORKY (Mercury 1.44); 12 May 99 21:14:29 -0600 From: "Mike Avery" To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 21:14:25 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Is it ok to use the FreeBSD name in a cyberpunkish fictional story? Reply-To: mavery@mail.otherwhen.com In-reply-to: <3.0.6.32.19990512202146.00958db0@mail.bfm.org> References: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.10) Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 12 May 99, at 20:21, G. Adam Stanislav wrote: > At 18:42 12-05-1999 -0500, Licia wrote: > >(smiles) I've got to get around to writing that glossary :) c&e is slang > >the characters use to mean 'compress and encrypt', I'll try to start a > >glossary when I get episode 2 online, and update it with each new episode > >:) > I have a better suggestion: Incorporate it in the story. When a slang term > is used for the first time, find some excuse to explain to the reader what > it means but not in an obvious way. > Otherwise you are forcing the reader to interrupt the reading experience > just to look something up in a glossary. A very good point. When I am browsing in a book store and a work of fiction has a glossary - or worse yet an explanation of a foreign language the author and last 4 people the author slept with made up while they were really wasted on their drug of choice - causes me to look for another book. The writers job is to communicate. And if a work of fiction requires a glassary, the author hasn't communicated. Mike ====================================================================== Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com (409)-842-2942 (work) ICQ: 16241692 * Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way * A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day: A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message