17-11-2022, 05:53 PM
I’m very much looking forward to reading that upcoming post, nablator. I think I see what you’re saying. A gallows character might be a sign for specifying which of two possible encryption keys to use for decoding the vord. If the vord contains no gallows, use the encryption key indicated by the most recent gallows. Or, perhaps there is some degree of overlap between the two keys, such that one vord has the same meaning in both keys, making a gallows unnecessary.
I compare this almost to the linguistic concept of code switching, wherein speakers mix two different languages that are both understood by all participants. In transcribing code-switched speech verbatim, writers will sometimes italicize all of the words of one language, and none of the other, so as to avoid confusing readers/ listeners who do not code switch in this way, and might have a hard time realizing that two different languages are being mixed. Now, if a person code-switches between two related languages that have a good deal of lexical similarity, then for some words it won’t matter whether they’re italicized or not, because they mean roughly the same thing in both languages.
I compare this almost to the linguistic concept of code switching, wherein speakers mix two different languages that are both understood by all participants. In transcribing code-switched speech verbatim, writers will sometimes italicize all of the words of one language, and none of the other, so as to avoid confusing readers/ listeners who do not code switch in this way, and might have a hard time realizing that two different languages are being mixed. Now, if a person code-switches between two related languages that have a good deal of lexical similarity, then for some words it won’t matter whether they’re italicized or not, because they mean roughly the same thing in both languages.