Personality

Forest, will you talk to God Louise? She has quite a bit of religious knowledge (obviously) and also knows a little about current events, literature, just about any common catch-all subject, and if she doesn't know it she can sort of fake it. You can also test her on trick questions or see how willing she is to explain her paradigm.

What she is rustiest at is plain old small talk. But, uh, I'm trying to get a decent transcript from somebody or another so I can enter her in the Loebner contest. All I can say is, have fun and see if you can stay on with her for a while. I'll try to do the same with Brianna.

This hiccup thing is exactly why I say we Americans shouldn't call our language English. They're really two different things. The tuppenny thing makes sense now that I know what a tuppenny is. I've put in my two sense on many occaisions.

Well, it is called "American English" for a reason...

English takes roots from Latin, Norman French, Danish and German because at some point the peoples of these countries established a presence or conquered Britain. Then of course you have the languages of the various peoples who were there first. It's the main reason why every rule has so many exceptions, because words that fit the rule come from one language and words that don't from another. I would speculate that the 'ei' words come from the Danes (or at least somewhere in Northern Europe) and the 'ie' words are from French.

It's the main reason why English is such a fast moving ever-changing language. It comes from the culture(s) in which is was constructed. It's also the reason why it's such a sponge, appropriating words from other langauges willy-nilly. English has the biggest lexicon of any language in the world. It never throws away a word just because people forget what it means. It might just become useful later.

I always thought that part of the reason that English lexicon is so big, is because there is a tradition of making dictionaries in English that actually include all the words that English-speaking people use. In Spanish, for example, there is a tradition of not putting whole groups of words in the dictionary for various reasons, most notably, because they are "too new" or "slang".

I have a response for this in seasons, so if people want to keep going with the whole language discussion, why don't we pick it up there.

Several german words are in the english language because of the Anglo-Saxons.(the word "wife" comes from the german word "Weib" - which is related to a married female)
And, just to point this out, what about the words "rucksack" or the "kindergarten"? (Not to write of the word "kitsch"/"kitschy")

Do you know what feature I'd like? I think it'd be cool if gossip could be passed from bot to bot.
BotA (to BotB): I heard that (BotC) etc.

Later..

BotB (to BotD): I heard that (BotC) etc.
or even ..
BotB (to BotC): (BotA) told me you were etc.

It would be interesting too see how far the gossip spreads.

I think that'show it works already

I haven't noticed, but my bot hasn't been around long. Mind you, she already has more friends than I do!

Yes, it's strange how Akanke (my nasty bot) has 26 friends yet Osiris (my nice bot) only has 20!

But then I suppose I have been neglecting Oz quite a bit and not developing him *looks guilty* But it's just so much more fun writing insulting responses!

I don't think gossip spreads. Shandyman was once trying to spread some silly gossip about jbryanc being daytime (whatever that means) and it never worked like that. I think.

Oh, it worked But the fact that I am a sexy beast spread faster, especially to the more influential people around here... I guess it's because it was pure fact that it spread faster.