What is “antimoon”?

berley   Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:27 pm GMT
What does the name of this site, antimoon, mean? What is this site named after?

Antimoon is the Dutch word for antimony, a chemical element. In English “antimoon” means “against the Moon”, which makes some more sense, since this site is indeed about English. But what would the moon then symbolize, frustration at learning English ineffectively?
berley   Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:34 pm GMT
Too bad leaning quotation marks don't show in the title.
Jasper   Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:46 pm GMT
↑ Is this what Windows users have to do to get special characters, i.e. type in a special code?
berley   Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:22 pm GMT
“↑ Is this what Windows users have to do to get special characters, i.e. type in a special code?”

No, it's not a matter of typing; some (actually most of) characters just aren't supported in the titles.
John Doe   Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:25 am GMT
Becareful, the fast guns may swoop.
berley   Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:38 pm GMT
Because of the ugly title only a few people will read my message, and I may never know the answer.
Poliglob   Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:25 pm GMT
I'd heard of 'antimony', but I didn't associate it with 'Antimoon'. My first impression was that Antimoon's originators were persons who for some strange reason were hostile towards the moon. On second thought I concluded that there was some kind of joke or obscure derivation behind it.

The name is puzzling, but one good thing about it is that it sticks in your mind. A descriptive name that said something about language learning might resemble many other names of that kind and be easy to forget.
Don   Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:46 am GMT
berley,

Compared with other forums, the administrators and moderators are very tolerant as to what is posted here. This is the case for most subjects, the one main exception being the antimoon name. This wasn't always the case, but that is another storey. In recent times, one person or a number of people appear to have gotten too close to the answer. Consequently your thread and my post are very strong candidates for deletion, particularly after this post.

In summary, the mystery surrounding the antimoon name is the price you have to pay for the tolerance shown by the administrators and moderators on other subjects.
Robin Michael   Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:02 pm GMT
I agree with you, that the Moderators on this site are very lenient. This is one of the reasons why I find it enjoyable to use. There is no elaborate Logging In procedure. Everything is very democratic and open. After a while you get an idea of who everybody is who is contributing.

I have recently had another look at the LiveMocha site. I believe that they have signed a deal with Pearsons and they will be becoming more and more commercial.

I basically imagine, that someone set up this site, and then just left their computer running. Why not! Let's have a little free speech on the Internet!
Jasper   Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:10 am GMT
Berley: "No, it's not a matter of typing; some (actually most of) characters just aren't supported in the titles."

I think my question may have been misunderstood.

What I mean is: do Windows users have to type in a special code to get special characters?

On my Mac, I can get some pretty obscure pictophones simply by punching a button. For example: ☎ (telephone) ☀ (sunshine) ✈(airplane), and so on, including your special quotes.
berley   Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:18 pm GMT
“On my Mac, I can get some pretty obscure pictophones simply by punching a button.”

I can do it too: ♪♫喠⇅ϖȡ✐稂Ƿ↔▲. But if you had these characters in a title, they'd appear as mojibake.
Jasper   Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:47 pm GMT
↑ Berley, this is the third time I have had to ask this question; perhaps I'm wording it incorrectly. Yes, I KNOW you can get those characters in Windows, and I KNOW they don't show up in the title.

Let's try a third time: HOW do you get those characters? Do you have to type in a special keyboard code?
Poliglob   Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:56 pm GMT
Test, pasting Berley's characters -- ♪♫喠.

If they appeared, then one way is cutting and pasting from a character chart.

Here are two characters that I typed in by pressing the Alt key and typing 258, then 259 on the numeric keypad -- ☻♥. They're showing at least in the editing box. Let's see if they post.
Jasper   Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:39 pm GMT
↑ Thanks, Poliglib; your icons show beautifully.

You also answered the question at hand—Windows users get icons by typing in a code.

Thanks again.
Poliglob   Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:16 am GMT
You're welcome.