Proposal: A separate antedatings list

[Lynne Murphy]

Barry said:

> From Lynne:
> ...
> "I receive ADS-L in digest form, and usually skip a whole day's digest if
> I see that the titles are mostly about antedatings and local food  terms."
> ...
> "Sorority sauce" was for her (and the next HDAS). It appears that the
> term"sorority sauce" (for "ranch dressing") is used at Baylor, where
> Lynne  taught. Maybe she had nothing to add?

Never heard of 'sorority sauce', so had I read it, I would have had nothing
to add about it (except that I've never heard it).  But I didn't read it,
because I have become selective about what I read here--there is just too
much.

The solutions that people have suggested re filtering won't work if you
receive the digest.  What would work for me is a better digesting system,
which puts threads together (as is possible on some other lists I belong
to), but I assume that that would involve moving off listserv onto some
other software, and I assume that we're going with what's supported at the
university that hosts ADS-L.

(I don't think that going off the digest and filtering messages is an
option for me.  I just can't cope with that many pings in my mailbox per
day anymore.)

But I also find some of the arguments against moving antedating
conversations to the DSNA list to be weird.  One of the arguments seems to
be that DSNA is a low-volume list.  Um, why is that a reason not to have
antedatings there?  They could cope with more volume, ADS-L could do with
less...sounds like a solution!

Anyhow, I can see that I'm very much outvoted on this issue.  I used to be
much more involved in ADS-L, but now find myself taking long vacations from
it due to the volume/relevance problems.  So, that's how I'll have to
continue dealing with it, I guess.  (Which means that I can't be counted
upon to notice when a post was intended 'for me'--sorry, Barry.)

Best wishes,
Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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