nornen:

Christa627:(I thrive on Wikipedia rabbit trails!)

Oh my, I know this just too well. I have spent hours hopping from one rabbit hole in wikipedia to the next completely forgetting what time it was. Don't dive into every rabbit hole. And I will tell you this: You will never catch the white rabbit.

If it weren't for a Wikipedia rabbit trail, I wouldn't be here . I was reading the wiki article on Leonardo da Vinĉi, and from there went to the article on mirror-writing, from there to boustrophedon, and then to somebody's webpage where you could turn text files into boustrophedon-format PDFs, and from that site to lernu.net. Rabbit trails can be dangerous, you never know when one might change your life forever !

erinja:someone active in online Esperanto forums is likely to know the meaning of 'mojosa' (even if they might think, like me, that the word itself is the very embodiment of uncoolness, and makes its speaker seem uncool as soon as the word is spoken).

yup.

and this...

erinja:If you choose to use a word that you realize is less commonly used (or nonstandard), it's a good idea to have more of a standard word in your back pocket, to pull out in case you aren't understood...

Erinja's opinion regarding mojosa does not represent an official opinion, but rather I see it as a warning: "Don't you dare to do anything more of this sort." Overuse of the word, though, is a concern.

? I don't know what you mean by a warning or an official opinion. My opinion of the un-cool word is my personal opinion, like everyone elses's opinion in this forum. I don't care about the word at all linguistically, and I don't have a problem in principle with it because it was derived entirely from Esperanto words. I just think it's uncool. Others are very free to disagree and use it as much as they want (however I will definitely think that you are uncool if you use it. You can decide for yourself whether this is a problem for you).

i prefer "malaĉa" myself. it's got bite. "mojosa" just sounds goofy to me.

erinja:? I don't know what you mean by a warning or an official opinion. My opinion of the un-cool word is my personal opinion, like everyone elses's opinion in this forum. I don't care about the word at all linguistically, and I don't have a problem in principle with it because it was derived entirely from Esperanto words. I just think it's uncool. Others are very free to disagree and use it as much as they want (however I will definitely think that you are uncool if you use it. You can decide for yourself whether this is a problem for you).

I said so because you hold a position in this forum and your words carry much weight. The thing is that your words can have an inhibitive effect on self-expression: we can't say some innocent things because the words to be used provoke some undesired reactions from persons we regard with respect, so we better self-censor to avoid discomfort.

I do not mean any offense, I apologize at any case.

the very uncoolest thing i can think of right now is a computer that crashes when i am trying to make a post. we are checking to see if the keyboard is to blame, so i am stuck using the on-screen keyboard. not very efficient .

patrik:Erinja's opinion regarding mojosa does not represent an official opinion, but rather I see it as a warning: "Don't you dare to do anything more of this sort." Overuse of the word, though, is a concern.

I don't know what you mean either; who's 'you' and what's 'anything more of this sort'?

While Erinja thinks the word 'mojosa,' which literally means 'modern youth style,' is uncool, I think the modern youth styles themselves are uncool (weird, stupid, ugly). So I almost never use the word 'mojosa,' not because I fear being thought uncool, but because it doesn't really fit my definition of coolness. When I say something is cool (or awesome or epic), I mean that I like it, and find it somehow interesting or exciting, not that it is 'in' among the modern youth. For example, complete lack of capitalization and punctuation is 'modern youth style,' but I wouldn't call it cool. The Periodic Table of the Elements is really cool, but most of the modern youth I know think it's boring. Repetitive techno music is cool to some, but annoying to me. The thing is, coolness is a very subjective thing. I don't even classify people as cool or uncool, because it is such a subjective thing; I don't want to impose my standard of coolness on other people, who have a different standard.

But I think we'd all agree that having to click each letter to type is way uncool. Especially when you're feeling verbose.

Christa627:
That is my very short paraphrase of what I remember from the article. In my opinion, this is a silly way to come up with a word for 'cool,' and to have it be an abbreviation for 'modern youth style' is even sillier. But that's what the lernu! dictionary gave me, and I see it fairly frequently on the Internet.

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I just caught this. Actually, it's a rather time-honored way to make new words in Russian. The Komitet gosudarstvennoj bezopastnosti is universally known as the "kah-geh-beh" or more recognizably KBG. and there are THOUSANDS of such words in Russian (some of them dating from AFTER the wallfall). Even the name of my local group is such a word: Orieso comes from ORienta Iovaa Esperanto Societo. And let's not forget JoMo in the Espranto music world; his stage name is just his initials with the Esperanto o attached to each one.

orthohawk:

Christa627:
That is my very short paraphrase of what I remember from the article. In my opinion, this is a silly way to come up with a word for 'cool,' and to have it be an abbreviation for 'modern youth style' is even sillier. But that's what the lernu! dictionary gave me, and I see it fairly frequently on the Internet.

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I just caught this. Actually, it's a rather time-honored way to make new words in Russian. The Komitet gosudarstvennoj bezopastnosti is universally known as the "kah-geh-beh" or more recognizably KBG. and there are THOUSANDS of such words in Russian (some of them dating from AFTER the wallfall). Even the name of my local group is such a word: Orieso comes from ORienta Iovaa Esperanto Societo. And let's not forget JoMo in the Espranto music world; his stage name is just his initials with the Esperanto o attached to each one.

Well, I believe that's called an acronym; there are, of course, words in English like that, such as Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, that was originally SCUBA in all caps, but now it is not uncommon to see it as simply scuba, like a normal word. But my point about mojosa, is that it seems silly to me for a bunch of people to get together and say "Hey, we need a word for 'cool'; let's think one up!" or something to that effect (which was the impression I got from the Wikipedia article). Usually such words seem to come about more spontaneously. Of course I understand that in Esperanto things sometimes work a little differently. Also, my definition of "cool" is significantly broader than "modern youth style".

Mentioning Russian words doesn't do a whole lot for me, as my knowledge of Russian is at present very minimal. Although I know that Esperanto does have quite a bit of Russian influence.

The name of the Esperanto club that used to be active in my state was "Ek!Ek!"; for "Esperanto-Klubo! En Koloradio!"... but for all the exclamation marks, it seems to be defunct now .