FJohnSharp wrote:
I guess my biggest problem is that I have never seen 'lichen' used in any posts regarding whistles, so it was all a bit confusing to me.
Yes

. For some of us,
the
Dadameter is the only refuge.
I think it isn't just the choice of the word "lichen" to replace "lichen" that is so funny, but also the fact that the word "lichen" apparently had a special meaning here that some of us were totally unaware of.
Those of us who are somewhat out of it first had to deal with
Dale telling us that we should not use the word "lichen" for displaying pictures of nice instruments. Okay, that was weird right there and a little scary because it seemed like
Dale might have gone crazy.
Then as people started responding, we grasped that apparently people
were using the word "lichen" for these photos, even though we had never noticed it. And so, although relieved to find that
Dale wasn't going crazy, we then started thinking
we were going crazy for not having noticed this.
Then, there was the necessity of figuring out that the problem wasn't that lichen-seekers were coming here but that the forums weren't showing up on searches done with computers that block out lichen.
Then comes the surprising announcement that from now on the word "lichen" will take the place of "lichen".
Lichen?
I think that to explain the selection of the particular substitute word "lichen" over, say, "vagabond", "zirconium", "brilliantine", "lulu", "liverwort", or "Edsel", just to name a few possibilities, would be pretty difficult. I think it would probably require us to deconstruct
Dale's mind---which would involve "discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying—and unspoken and implicit—assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief". I'm just not up to that right now

.