OT "online" (was: computer time, was: MNDungeon)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:13 AM -0500 1/29/03, Mark A Mandel wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Davis, Iain E. wrote:
>
>#Hmm. Define "online".
>#
>#If it means "at a computer", It's probably something close to 100
>#hrs/wk for me.
>
>I certainly wouldn't call it that, any more than being in a room with a
>radio -- not necessarily turned on -- counts as listening to the radio.
>"Online", to me, means actively using the Internet (including its
>subset the WWW).
>
>Well, I guess it could depend on context. If my machine is connected to
>the Internet and I get an alert when email arrives, even if I'm using a
>local app, then I could say that I'm online in the sense of being
>accessible by Internet, but not in the sense of where my attention is.
>
>I find this question interesting linguistically, and I'm bcc-ing this
>post to the American Dialect Society's discussion list.
>
I think it has to allow for the latter, more "liberal" context.  My
daughter is online whenever she's on a computer because she has her
AIM activated even when she's writing a paper.  I think "using or
accessible by the Internet" would cover this.

Larry