Mourning the Demise of Descriptive Notation

Babble comes from the Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel.  See the book of Genesis.

Babbling also means speaking without making sense. Sometimes words have more than two meanings (see below).

Logic dictates 2 possibilties.

1. I speak like a baby. (I think it is the etymology of babble)

2. Your comprehension is like a baby.

When I was about 10 years old I taught myself DN - that was the only notation to learn chess in the US at that time. Later, in about 1985 I discovered AN. It was easier and less cumbersome than DN. Yeah - it's hard to change and I resisted at first. Now everything is in AN.

But learning DN means that I read the old chess books (such as 1000 Best Short Games of Chess, Blackburne' Chess Games. and an incredible amount of chess magazines and articles from the 19th century (mostly BCM magazines) to the 1980s. So, it's best to learn both systems. Yeah! =)

Interesting to note, there are at least four ways to write AN.

(1) Long (1.e2-e4 c7-c5 2.g1-f3)

(2) Short (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3)

(3) Informant (more universal)  - a variation of the Short in which eliminates the x, +, and = symbols.

(4) Figurine (uses images of the pieces). See Informants and newer books from 2000 and later, and scoresheets from players who are bored with their game.

Personally, algebraic notation seems simpler than descriptive notation so I do not understand why a player would mourn the demise of the latter version. Algebraic notation is quite literally simple coordinate geometry with a few differences.

Perhaps both answers are true. I didn't understand you because your comment about Battleship not being invented yet had no bearing on the demise of DN, or why DN was not as popular as AN, or even why FIDE kept DN an acceptable system as long as it did.

@Barefoot_Player What is with the blue text?

we?

I didn't talk about it. But I see you've brought up the topic of Battleship more than once.

Obviously, you give yourself permission to repeat yourself. But not me?? hmm..

What you mentioned about Coordinate systems also known as computer notations and LAN.

Like I mentioned, there are at least four ways of writing AN.  So adding another way of writing it seems to support what I wrote, rather than discard or even diminish it.

It seems you like to complain a lot.

long,

"How could it not? Battleship introduced Algebraic Notation to millions and millions of kids." 

It seems you don't know the Informal Fallacy of Appealing to Ignorance. Please look it up.

Long,

It is up to the writer of any post, letter, editorial, to make his meaning clear. Not the reader.  That may be OK for literature, but not OK for posting here. You have a limited space to write, and not a novel.  And people here do not expect or even want to read anything too long (sorry for the pun!). Basically people want to talk and learn about chess. If the wanted poetry or a long book, there are other websites that can accompany them.

BTW, I love literature, even studied in college. Would have made my major, but I didn't like the thought of starving.