June 01, 2004

Maybe if Liane Hansen wasn't there?

I and many of my readers enjoy word puzzles, and hang out with lots of other people who enjoy word puzzles. So it's pretty rare for us to be exposed to people whose opinions on word puzzles are so diametrically opposed to ours.

Posted by Francis at 01:50 AM
Comments

There are a few different dimensions here -- there's the puzzle and then there's the competition and then there's the public display of the competition. And of course there are different kinds of language-related puzzles. And then, as Francis notes, there's Liane Hansen.

Geoff Pullum, the author of the opinion being discussed, is also the author of this post about "right-justified fixed width text, no padding":
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000133.html

So go figure.

Posted by: Mark Liberman at June 1, 2004 04:43 AM

A guy who can't think of a farm animal that begins with the same letter as a farm implement? Yeah, this is a guy whose opinions matter. :-)

Posted by: Trip at June 1, 2004 10:54 AM

Mind, Trip, his opinions about syntax matter a great deal. However, as a linguist and an avid word puzzler, I'll agree that his opinions about word puzzles matter to me as little as my opinions of parrots matter to him.

I think we agree about Liane Hansen though.

Posted by: Lance at June 1, 2004 12:04 PM