| In a message dated 6/12/2001 2:24:32 PM Central Daylight Time,
ragnarok@pobox.com writes: So why don't we just change the meaning of 'botpi' so that it only has three You have asked the impossible question. We don't change now because we are in freeze-land, wherein no changes are to be made unless catastrophe looms (i.e., the parser finds an ambiguity). As to why things got set up the way they did, why {botpi} has four places, but {tansi} three and {vasru} two, one can only point to history and the warped pyches of the devisers -- including what they happened to be thinking about at the moment they got to that word in the list. Indeed, why that word is on the list but some other is not is also lost in mists of prehistory (I have not been able to find any notes from 1955 or 6, when this was starting up) -- though Eaton and Basic English reputedly played significant roles. But we would have problems of some sort with any list; learn to live with this one. |