The irony is that the EFF routed around Gilmore's presumed obstruction.

For the record, I'm increasingly of the view that free-speech absolutism is very badly flawed. If my reading of the situation is correct, then I'd agree with the action. That said, I'm as much in the dark as anyone whose information is the Register piece itself, so don't read too much into what I'm saying.

What I'm evolving toward is a sense of interrelated, and often opposing, rights and obligations around communications.

Free expression, a right to truth, privacy in general, though some obligation for disclosure in public interest or concern, freedoms of and from association or expression, among others.

The benefit to this is that it gives a unified scope for looking at what have been a set of distinct and discrete rights. The disadvantage is that there's no simple or clear guidance, only trade-offs. Though (another benefit) at least those trade-offs are made clear, explicit, and the relationships are established.

I've found a few others thinking along similar lines, with some work out of the Berkman Klein Center (at Harvard) and UC Berkeley, the latter specifically addressing a right to the truth. I can dig up specific names if requested.

The very earliest advocates for free speech, most notably Milton, excluded established powers from its protections, notably the Catholic Church:

I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled.

-- John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644.

Someone probably learned a new word today here. Or was reminded of an unfamiliar one.

And yes, there's virtue as well in clarity. Sometimes that comes from precision.

// No comments needed to explain this one!

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=antepenultimat...

We're here because the same sophisticated discussions in new technologies don't happen in our language. Please make what you write accessible to us as well.

I still remember hearing a Mexican friend whose English was, at the time, very basic use the word "polemical" and I could hardly believe it. I'm not sure most English speakers could use it correctly; I'm all but certain that I at the time couldn't.

Sometimes using a word outside the register [0] or literary style is just a way to include a nice lexical nugget.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)

It's the same reason a doctor might use words like "etiology" instead of "cause".

Aside from the 1984 reference (which is appreciated), the fact is that hanging a negative prefix (or suffix) on an adjective doesn't actually capture the meaning of the antonym. Or if it is defined to be equivalent, then you're missing out on various useful shades of meaning. Consider the uses of the phrases 'not good', 'not very good', 'not bad', 'not too bad', etc.

For example, 'not good' often doesn't actually mean 'bad', it is (usually) closer in meaning to 'not good enough', or perhaps 'mediocre'. When 'not good' actually does mean 'bad' or even 'very bad' it is because the speaker is using understatement.

Orwell was trying to make a point about the totalization of language and constraining thinking to promote binary thinking (us/them, for/against, good/bad). But he failed to really account for human perversity, which would have immediately produced phrases in NewSpeak such as 'not ungood', 'un-doubleplus ungood', etc., not to mention the use of sarcasm, which in the UK can be so deadpan that it is undetectable unless you have a lot of context.

Oddly, while Orwell obviously understood both satire and parody, and employed both to great effect, sarcasm seems to have largely eluded him. His characters are nearly always earnest and sincere. A few are insincere, euphemistic, even mendacious, but I don't think many (or any?) are ever sarcastic. It's an odd omission.

Anyone is welcome to look up words they don’t understand.

And I thought knowing what penultimate meant was fun. For those that don't know, penultimate means second to last and antepenultimate means third to last.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate

Here, though, the quest for elegant variation must prematurely conclude at 'quasihemidemisemiquaver'.

Reading "A quarter note triplet consists of three-quarter notes over the same amount of time as two-quarter notes" causes Baby buddha Jesus-Mohammad to cry and kick puppies in frustration at where humanity has gotten.