for 9 November 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Microsoft Words 1.0 It figures that since Microsoft couldn't make any money on it, the company would keep it from the rest of us. Maybe it's holding off, waiting for some new technology to come out. I think this photograph of God you mention could really help draw attention to MS' new dictionary site. From here it looks as if the company overlooked a great marketing opportunity. Trey <nvaughan@pillsbury.com> The way I heard it, there was room for only so many photos in the "G" section of the EWED, and in the end, the one of Whoopi Goldberg focus-grouped better than the one of God. Huck  Do you have a photograph of God? Can I see it? <leah_ed@ hotmail.com> No. Huck Hi Huck, I laughed till I cried when I read this today. Loved the Slate comment! Thanks for lifting my spirits. You're a great writer. Melody Allen Dripping Springs, TX Thanks for your note, Melody. I think you're only the second person who's ever cried over my work — me being the first, of course. I would consider this progress, but since you hail from a place called Dripping Springs, it seems like maybe you're just prone to such hydraulics. Huck Subject: Dickshunairy Enjoyed your piece on the Bill Gates amazing made-from- text New World dickshunairy. Hey, I make up good words all the time, such as "ludicrosity," which is the display and/or possession of ludicrous behaviors or tendencies. Can you put me in touch with somebody to whose dictionary I could contribute? Keep up the good work. Yr pal, Griffin <g.norman@mindspring.com> Well, like I said in the piece, the OED is accepting new words. The catch is that they have to have appeared in print — but if your letter appears in Fish, maybe you're on your way. Keep us posted. Huck "Although Americans are more likely to own a dictionary than any other kind of book, they tend to keep that dictionary around for years after the house copy of Airframe has been composted; the purchase-to-obsolescence lag time can exceed that of the family dog, if not the children." So all these people have dictionaries. But the question is: What do they use them for, if anything? Nowadays, when people need to check the spelling of a word, they use a word processor's spellchecker — a decade-old innovation that has turned most people's dictionaries into dust magnets. If there's anyone left in the world who actually wants to look up the meaning of a word, it's probably in the (now freeware) Webster's 1913 (http://humanities. uchicago.edu/ forms_unrest/ webster. form.html). And you're usually better off just going to AltaVista for uses of the word and guessing the meaning from context. But no one makes money off dictionaries getting used — they make money off dictionaries getting sold. So maybe the ultimate biz model for Encarta will be a blend of Rolling Stone and Who's Who (to name two other things no one has read in decades). On the cover, there'll be a half-naked celebrity; and on the inside, unedited nonsense that "amateur lexicographers" can pay to get included. No one will read a word of it, and it'll sell like hotcakes! Sean Burke <sburke@netadventure.net> That is a great idea. As someone who has coined many new words over the last few years, only to see none of them really catch on, I would most certainly pay to have some of them immortalized in the EWED. And then if they went and put, say, Jewel, on the cover, I'd probably buy a copy too. Huck Pimptuition Thank you for that interview. I liked it. Intelligent commentary is always pleasant to read. Einstein X. Mystery <einstein@ scn.org> "When two tigers fight, one dies and the other is crippled." — Chinese proverb No matter how nice things get, at least somebody out there knows competition isn't about fitness or personal growth or moral victory, but about kicking somebody's ass. — Suck.com 19 January 1999 "Boy, if I was a woman with absolutely no intelligence or taste whatsoever, I'd be first in line to date him." — Travis L. Eberle Antispam link — don't follow http://e-scrub.com/ spammers-are- leeches/index.htm Einstein X. Mystery einstein@scn.org *:-> ICQ UIN 17112996 If you have a question, ask. 928/968? 959! (You're wrong, Tom.) Still the only enlisted man ever to be in the LSpr-c Do you know where your towel is? Thanks for your support. I notice that each time you write in, your message seems to get shorter while your sig grows longer. Is this some sort of commentary on our age of commentary? Yr pal, BarTel "Wasted Hours" I gave away my time I typed away the hours I wanted online relation- ships Intimacy, and a few half- dozen flowers I got none of that, nothing but Date stamped symbols, numbers, and letters Emotionally I am an unpaid electronic ho I'd hook in cyberspace if I had a digital camera I was never in the game The game was me Electric Ho <electronic_ho@yahoo.com> A stunning look into the emotional void. Reminds me of another old favorite: Here I sit, broken hearted, Tried to shit, but only farted. Yr pal, BarTel Sir: That was the most profound interview I've read in a long time. The depth of it had me transfixed. I am full. I feel satisfied. Yet I don't know why ... Good work, Arl <p1763@midwest.net> Thanks, Arl. Of course, this interview merely scratched the surface. For the complete treatment you'll have to get Rosebudd's taped memoirs, and petition your local movie house to show American Pimp sometime soon. Don't forget to bring your favorite bitch! Yr pal, BarTel Peep Game Holmes, I gotta give you props for that pimp shit. I know it's hard for someone like you to look from the outside and see the kind of shit that goes on in a pimp's world. I didn't really understand some of it, but the interview was good stuff, man. In this day and age of sell-out blacks like Colin Powell (aka Schwartzkopf's main bitch) and that high yella nigger from the NAACP, we (black men) need more insight into the game. This country has a pimp running it right now, so I think it's high time a playa come back into the limelight. I'm going to try to get my home boy T-bone from around the way to run for senator next term. He's definitely got more game than Governor Bill Owens. Kid Ci$co, the hardest artist <fvelasqu@ ball.com> "Schwartzkopf" means "black head" in German, and in fact, Powell was Schwartzkopf's boss, not the other way around. But you raise an interesting point about Bill Clinton: How well would he survive in The Game? My guess is that he's got the skills, but I suspect his lack of self-discipline would get him into trouble. There'd be a big hogging-the-merchandise factor with Dolemite Bill. Still, it could be a good way for him to spend his post-presidential career. Thanks for your kind words. Yr pal, BarTel Interview with a Pimp was great. I think Rosebudd Bitterdose hit upon what to 90 percent of people believe is true, but nobody realizes or admits: "You're on the outside, trying to figure out how a race car goes 300 miles per hour when it looks just like a regular car. I don't know that shit. All I know is it can do it." People never really measure their actions nearly as much as we would all like to think. If it works once, we do it again. If it didn't work, don't do it again. Just like the trained monkeys we all are. The great thing about Rosebudd, however, is that he really does understand this phenomena. Deep down, a ho is still just a girl willing to give it all up for a relationship. And just like all the beaten wives out there who keep bailing their hubbies out of prison, the stunning unhealthiness of any given relationship seems to have very little impact on this pursuit. Taken in its context, his line, "Believe it or not, they [hoes] want a real relationship," is one of my favorites, possibly rivaling "The Internet is to plagiarism what crack is to violent glassy-eyed babbling" as the best Suck quote ever. Sincerely, Cameron Geiser <cameron@slip.net> Card-carrying Suckster #624 Member since 1997 "It's all my fault!" It's kind of like the relationship Suck has with its writers. The writer comes into the big city full of hopes and dreams, only to be beaten down, humiliated, and left penniless. Eventually we realize we're doing all the work and Suck is getting all the benefits, but we can't leave, because this is the only place where we can admit what hoes we really are. Yr pal, BarTel |
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