HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hlirg@alf.uib.no (Roger Greenwald)
Subject: Re: what has happened to "ascribe" ?
Organization: University of Bergen, Norway
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 18:41:24 GMT

In article <23912@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Jul17.174706.3008@alf.uib.no> hlirg@alf.uib.no (Roger Greenwald) writes:
>
>>I can think of nothing so UNhelpful as
>>putting red marks all over an essay, together with abbreviations
>>referring to a book of rules.
>
>This is exactly what happened to my essays at school. I found it a
>very efficient way of teaching me the rules. The process is: explain
>rules, show how rules can be found in the book, give exercise
>involving use of rules, mark mistakes with refs to book, repeat until
>rules mastered. Why is this unhelpful?
>
You found it helpful because you were equipped by education and
inclined by temperament to learn this way. And I have taught myself
much of a foreign language from a book, but I already had
a firm grasp of grammar.

The method is usually unhelpful for several reasons. The first
is that the student's main motivation is to convey his thought,
and he can usually not tell from the notation of error why his
sentence fails to convey his thought (indeed, sometimes it does
not fail to convey it). The sentence sounds right to him, which
is why he wrote it that way in the first place.
Second: When he goes to the book, there is often not enough information
to make the problem intelligible; the examples are not like his
sentence; he has written the sentence his way for a reason not
addressed in the book, etc.
Third, even when there is enough info in the book, the student
may not have a firm enough grasp of the concepts and the terms
to understand what is said there and see how it applies to his own
sentence.

I will grant that it can be helpful, if one _explains_ the
problem with the sentence as written, to refer the student
to the book as well.

Note, however, that not all problems with writing are of the
simple grammatical sort covered in handbooks. Sentences may
be entirely correct, but the emphasis may fall on the wrong word, given
the intended meaning (e.g. in a contrast); or a logical connective
may be ambiguous, etc. These are problems related to specific
contexts and the train of thought in those contexts. Teachers
who put lots of refereces to handbooks in the margin often (not
always) tend to neglect to put other kinds of comments there.
So it would have been more precise to say it is unhelpful
_merely_ to put references to handbooks in the margin. But
for the reasons stated above, such references can also be unhelpful
even when there _are_ other comments. It depends a lot on the
particular student.
-- 
Roger Greenwald
Greenwald@hf.uib.no (address valid only until 10 August 1992)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Mutilation (sci.lang, English)
Followup-To: als.usage.english
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 05:53:14 GMT

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

>> When one learns a language in school that is not one's mother-tongue,
>> one has to memorize a lot of rules that come naturally to a native
>> speaker....
>
>My, we are getting nasty, aren't we?  And xenophobic to boot.

Nasty?  But xenophobic?  Be serious.

>...Kartik didn't tell us anything we didn't already know: that
>American newspapers sometimes make dreadful mistakes, and that some
>speakers of English (both native and foreign) don't write so well.

That's not what he was saying at all.  In fact, he was objecting to
US colloquial language, viewing it as a mangling of the the rules of
grammar laid down by God.  The posting showed no appreciation for
what language really is, savored of pomp and spite, lacked sound
grammar and facile expression, and was placed in the wrong news-
group to boot.

Followups to alt.usage.english.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: kartik@hls.com (Kartik Chandrasekhar)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Mutilation of English -II
Date: 29 Jul 92 17:08:52 GMT

Hi,

Refer to posting : JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU, University of Kentucky item # 8072)

>There is an irony here I shall not dwell on when a foreigner who cannot
>spell 'their' or 'columns', who doesn't know how to represent possessives,
>whose control of definiteness (and thus the article), tries to preach
>"correct" English to native speakers!  He need not have told us that he
>is ready to, "accept any flaws," in his argument.  Since his post is full
>of flaws, we shall assume he accepts them, although we do not.  Perhaps
>he, and others who propound "correct" English need to be reminded that
>the should consult a good English grammar (say that of Sir Randolph Quirk)
 ^^^
 Here is a masterpiece. A sentence construction as shown to us by a perfect 
native English speaker and a English guru!!.:-) 
(Of course sarcasm intended !!).

I was not pontificating as you are !! As I mentioned in the article I did not 
intend to criticize Americans or American English. It is no denying the
fact that in the last 100 years America has been one of the greatest success
stories in the World. Its a great country and one with the greatest 
intellectual talent (native or migrated) in the world. Xenophobic predators 
like you who prowl the world of BBs such as sci-lang with flame-guns 
made no contributions to this success. One can find mistakes in every 
posting if one had the time and the inclination  to do so. You seem to 
have both.

I also apologize to people (Especially Americans)  who may have been 
offended but the intent of the article was not to criticize Americans or
American English but usage of English, American or otherwise. American 
English has its place and fortunately I do not see these despicable 
usages in Text books. I would like to thank others who responded
with informative and constructive criticism or appreciation of my
viewpoint. I am not an authority on English and I do not propound
any theories. By the way I will run a spell checker next time. 


Thanks 
Kartik

Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: hoeksema@let.rug.nl (J. Hoeksema)
Subject: Re: Chomsky's "Minimalist" paper
Organization: Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, NL
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:03:31 GMT

David Pesetsky writes (in reply to Eric Schiller):

>However, all the empirical *effects* of the Projection Principle are
>retained, and in fact something exceedingly close to the Projection
>Principle is still around, since the satisfaction of lexical properties
>is immediate once the requisite structure is built under Chomsky's new
>system, and perseveres to LF, as in previous systems.  This makes the
>following remark inaccurate:

>What is so striking is how few *analyses* seem to be affected even if
>Chomsky is on the right track, though these analyses might be couchable
>in slightly different terms.  Furthermore, the spur for this corner of
>Chomsky's work, Larson's shells, are rather undermotivated in the first
>place.  Therefore, if one discards this, one should take Chomsky's
>rethinking of D-structure and its consequences with a grain of salt.

>>Those stil unconvinced of the radical nature of the paper consider this:
>>Raising to Object is back!

>Not really, except as a figure of speech.  In the old theory and the
>new, accusative subjects of infinitives (in languages like English)
>never occupy the base position of direct objects.  Furthermore, in the
>old theory and the new, accusative subjects and accusative direct
>objects get case in the same way.  The new theory differs from the old
>in positing a distinct position -- related, it is claimed, to object
>agreement -- in which accusative case is assigned, a position which is
>neither the underlying object position nor the underlying
>subject-of-infinitive position, but another position higher than V.


Question to David: Is there then anything in this minimalist paper
that IS new, exciting, or even halfway right?

Eric had me thinking, for a moment, that maybe I should pick up this
paper rather than spend my time on sci.lang ..


jack hoeksema - university of groningen  
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: yair@shum.huji.ac.il (Yair Friedman)
Subject: Re: Dilemma = Dilemna ??
Reply-To: yair@cs.huji.ac.il
Organization: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Date: 30 Jul 92 18:19:59 GMT

|> In article <1992Jul28.133921.2894@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

|> 
|> >What's interesting about dilemna is that it is oddly restricted to
|> >Canada; no one so far has indicated even a single example from South
|> >of the border.  

Here are examples outside Canada.

From Mt.Scopus library:
 Author RUDOY, DEAN WILLIAM
   Title ARMED AND ALONE
  Sub-tl THE AMERICAN SECURITY DILEMNA
   Place NEW YORK
    Pub. G.BRAZILLER
    Year 1972
   Pages 96P
 Subject UNITED STATES-MILITARY POLICY
Author-a CITIZENS' HEARINGS ON NATIONAL SECURITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
         1972
       - COALITION ON NATIONAL PRIORITIES AND MILITARY POLICY
  Year-f 1972

From Hebrew national library:
  Author BULLIVANT, BRIAN MILTON
   Title THE PLURALIST DILEMNA IN EDUCATION
 Cont-tl SIX CASE STUDIES
Add info BRIAN M. BULLIVANT
 Imprint SYDNEY : G.ALLEN & UNWIN
    Year 1983,C1981
    Note INCLUDES INDEX
Note-Bib BIBLIOGRAPHY: P.[245]-264
   Dewey 371.98

I think this is a common typo. Since n is next to m on qwerty key keyboards this
sort of error is very reasonable.  It is also hard to detect beacuse the letters
look very similar.
-- 
					Yair Friedman.
yair@cs.huji.ac.il
yair@hujinix.BITNET
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Dilemma = Dilemna ??
From: comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 03:07:17 GMT
 <1992Jul28.143336.164276@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> <1992Jul28.133921.2894@memstvx1.memst.edu> <1992Jul28.195327.14154@alf.uib.no>
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

I just checked Auckland University Library's on-line catalogue and found
SEVEN entries with 'dilemna' in them, doing a keyword search.  Six
occurrences were in titles, the seventh in a blurb.  One of the occurrences
was flagged <sic> indicating that the cataloguer recognised the misspelling.
Four of the books were published in London, one in New York, one in Reston,
Virginia, and one in Auckland.

This is horrifying!  I had never seen this spelling until this thread
brought it to my attention.  Now I'll never be able to overlook it.  It's
like a doctor opening up a patient to remove an appendix and finding him
riddled with cancer!!

jj

John Thayer Jensen                      64 9 373 7599 ext. 7543
Commerce Computer Services              64 9 373 7437 (FAX)
Auckland University                     jt.jensen@aukuni.ac.nz
Private Bag 92019
AUCKLAND
New Zealand
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: aeb@cwi.nl (Andries Brouwer)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: Etymology for Baltic etc
Date: 26 Jul 92 12:06:03 GMT
Followup-To: sci.lang

sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:

> In English we talk about the Baltic Sea and say "The Baltcis"
> for the countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Swedish
> we call the sea "\stersj|n" (The East Sea), but we still
> talk about "Baltikum" to refer to the area.
...
> and sure enough "balt" is the Latvian word for "white".
> Is just "balt" = "white" a random coincidence, or is there
> really a connection with name of the area or the sea?
The answer is: nobody knows.
The name `mare Balticum' was already used by Adam van Bremen
around 1075. In Latvian the sea is called `Baltin,a ezers'.
The name of the area is derived from the name of the sea.
Many papers have been written about the origin of this `Balticum'
(and the probably cognate watername `Belt').
Roughly speaking it seems that there are three candidate explanations:
One is Adam van Bremen's own explanation connecting the watername
`Belt' with the `belt' (girdle) derived from Latin `balteus', which
is of unknown origin, maybe Etruscan.
A second connects it with English `pool', Dutch `peel' (swamp),
OSlav. `blato' (lake), Lith. `bal`a' (swamp).
A third derives it from IE *bhel from which the words meaning "white"
are derived. Some authors also derive the second group of words
from this same root.

>Speaking of coincidences, the Swedish word for "street" is "gata",
[related to English `gate']
>Latvia has "gate" (although "iela" is more widely used) and
>Lithuanian has "gatve". Here, however, it must either be a case
>of false cognates, or a loan in some direction.
They are loans.
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6171 eunet.misc:448
From: ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,eunet.misc
Subject: Finnish question
Date: 23 Jul 92 13:57:58 GMT
Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S

ISO standard 6937 mentions that the Finnish language uses two characters
that look like S and Z with a small v above (a hacek accent).

I have never seen any Finnish text that uses these two characters.
Does Finnish use them? Or has Finnish used them in the past?

-- 
Claus Tondering
Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
E-mail: ct@dde.dk
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: What lies deep within us?
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:32:19 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Jul21.050802.13225@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:

>One wag of my acquaintance, noting that the "e" in the transcription represents
>an ETA, has suggested that the word was more like "baaa-kos"...

Hmmm, this is the first time I've heard R. H. Robins referred to as a "wag"...
:)

-- 
==========================================================================
Michael A. Covington, Ph.D. |  mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu  |  ham radio N4TMI
Artificial Intelligence Programs | U of Georgia | Athens, GA 30602  U.S.A.
==========================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: eiverson@nmsu.edu (Eric Iverson)
Subject: Looking for word frequency software
Organization: Computing Research Lab
Distribution: sci
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 18:16:57 GMT


A friend of mine would like to do some word frequency/trigram work on
an IBM PC.  Does anyone know of software (commercial or not) that is
available? 

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Iverson				Internet: eiverson@nmsu.edu
Computing Research Lab
Box 30001/3CRL				Life is something to do when
New Mexico State University		you can't get to sleep.
Las Cruces, NM 88003-0001			-Fran Lebowitz
VOICE: (505) 646-5711	
FAX:   (505) 646-6218
From: blz1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Betsy L Zucker)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.classics,sci.anthropology,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.meta,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Eyes as Windows of the Soul
Date: 31 Jul 92 03:44:01 GMT
Reply-To: blz1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Betsy L Zucker)
Organization: Columbia University


Well, folk etymologies are nice, but here's what the _The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs_ has to say about the windows of
the soul:

     "the face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its
     interpreter ... the face (also, eye) is the index of the
     mind."  -- Cicero

     "The eyes ... are the wyndowes of the mynde, for both ioye &
     anger are ... seene ... through them."  -- T.Phaer [1545]

     "I can refell [refute] that Paradox ... of those, which hold
     the face to be the Indexe of the minde." -- Johnson [1601]

     "The eye, which is the reflector of the external world, is
      also the mirror of the soul within."  -- G. Seaver [1940]

And, not until 1979!!! in the form it seems most familiar:

      "If the old saying, the eyes are the window of the soul,
      were true, then this young girl had misplaced her soul."
      -- J. Gerson [1979]

So actually the eye or face is the interpreter, index, mirror or
window of the soul or mind.  It's interesting that all these
expressions and uses do tend toward the view from the outside,
not the homunculus view from the inside -- the eyes of person X
show the observor Y what X's soul and mind are up to.  None of
the expressions look through the other side of the window to
suggest that the eyes of person X are the windows which the soul
of person X uses to observe the world.


           %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
             Jeff Zucker  c/o  <blz1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu>
           %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: hlirg@alf.uib.no (Roger Greenwald)
Subject: Re: Oliver Sacks (Was: What lies deep within us?)
Organization: University of Bergen, Norway
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 19:21:27 GMT

In article <SLEATOR.92Jul23121822@SPADE.PC.CS.CMU.EDU> sleator@CS.CMU.EDU (Daniel Sleator) writes:
>I've been skeptical of Oliver Sacks ever since reading "the man who
>mistook his wife for a hat".  It contains a story about a pair of
>twins in an institution who played a game in which they took turns
>naming ever-growing prime numbers.  Sacks neglected to report the
>actual numbers, along with numerous other details, and I don't believe
>the story.
>
>It appears that Sacks takes liberties to make the stories more
>interesting or ironic.  This makes his books more fun to read, but
>useless for scientific interpretation.
>
Talk about unsubstantiated, unreliable claims! "It *appears* that
Sacks takes liberties"? Evidence, please?
And by what leap of logic do you find the failure to include
a list of prime numbers in an essay evidence of dishonesty?

I don't think Sacks is beyond criticism. The essay by Perlmutter
in the New York Review of Books, cited in another post here,
shows that Sacks did not understand nearly enough about sign language.
I too would like to recommend Perlmutter's article; it is informative
and fascinating. (But it is NOT well written! On the contrary,
plodding and repetitious.)

I think one has to understand what kind of writing Sacks does when
he writes for a lay audience. Even a book like AWAKENINGS, which
reports case histories, does not print lists of dates and doses
of L-Dopa for each patient. That would be called for in a paper
in a scientific journal. Papers aim at conveying detailed
reports of methods and findings, plus whatever understanding
can be reasonably (and cautiously) gained from them. Work for
a lay audience stresses the understanding, backed up by simplified
accounts of the research. In some of the fields Sacks has written
about, the understanding is necessarily partly speculative (and
all the _more_ valuable for that). But of course, speculating
on the basis of detailed knowledge (neurology) is one thing;
speculating on the basis of hasty observation, superficial
knowledge, and a fondness for metaphor (Sacks on sign language)
is something else again. I think in the latter case his reach
exceeded his grasp.

It may interest you to compare an article by Sacks (in a recent
NY Review of Books) on phantom pain with an article on the same
topic in Scientific American (May 92, I think). You will note
that both authors have gained a lot simply by _thinking through_
the information available to them. In this case Sacks seems
to be on fairly solid ground; he's within his area of special
competence.
-- 
Roger Greenwald
Greenwald@hf.uib.no (address valid only until 10 August 1992)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: English and its Mutilation
Organization: University of Kentucky
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:55:47 GMT

In article <9207282034.AA09794@nms.netman>
kartik@hls.com (Kartik Chandrasekhar) writes:
 
>
>To top it here is an example which appeared as a 3 inch headline in the
>San Jose Mercury News during the heady days of the Bush presidency.
>
>"Why Bush cannot be beat". (Instead of .... cannot be beaten).
>
>There is a lot of difference between the British or Indian Newspapers
>who use chaste English and the US newspapers who are careless and
>irresponsible. They have to realize  that it is through thier colomns
                                                         ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>that a language flourishes in todays world and they should not butcher
                               ^^^^^^
>the language. The editorial should also provide the everyday lesson in
                             ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
>English to the people.
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> I am not trying to compare USA Vs UK or Vs India it is just that
> when my 1 1/2 year son grows up here and starts reading the newspapers
> he should get more out of it than just the news and the scores.
>
>In conclusion I would like to say that I will gladly accept any flaws
                                                                 ^^^^^
>or corrections in my argument.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> kartik
>
There is an irony here I shall not dwell on when a foreigner who cannot
spell 'their' or 'columns', who doesn't know how to represent possessives,
whose control of definiteness (and thus the article), tries to preach
"correct" English to native speakers!  He need not have told us that he
is ready to, "accept any flaws," in his argument.  Since his post is full
of flaws, we shall assume he accepts them, although we do not.  Perhaps
he, and others who propound "correct" English need to be reminded that
the should consult a good English grammar (say that of Sir Randolph Quirk)
and a good English dictionary (say the OED), before presuming to pontificate.
And of course, as is so commonly the case, his bugbear of a past participle
"beat" was English in England, long before it was used on the west of the
Atlantic.  (Please, everyone, do NOT plague the world with accusations of
American innovation until you check to see whether the item in question was
used in England before it was used in America -- this is sci.lang, not
alt.flame.usage).  One advantage natives, of whatever persuasion, have over
autocratic immigrants, is a trove of material learnt as infants, that is
commonly pan-English (check the Opies' wonderful compilations, inter alia.)
 
          Tom, Tom, the piper's son
          Stole a pig, and away he run.
          The pig was eat, and Tom was beat....
From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Dilemma = Dilemna ??
Date: 28 Jul 92 13:39:21 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <1992Jul28.143336.164276@dstos3.dsto.gov.au>, jrt@hawk.dsto.gov.au (J.R.Terry-AEG) writes:
> mstede@cs.toronto.edu (Manfred Stede) writes:
> 
>>It appears that people from various parts of Canada spell the
>>word `dilemma' with `mn' instead of `mm', which is interesting,
>>because no dictionary (including Canadian) seems to support this
>>view.
> 
>>Does anyone else know/use this spelling?
>>Any clue how (where) this spelling originated?
> 
>>cheers,
>>manfred
> 
> Is it not perhaps yet another example of (North) American english (?)
> speakers almost total inability to spell correctly? :-)

What's interesting about dilemna is that it is oddly restricted to
Canada; no one so far has indicated even a single example from South
of the border.  I teach German; there's no way I would defend the
spelling practices of most of my students, much less of other Americans.
But really, the USA isn't responsible for *all* the illiteracy in the
world.  We just try to make it *seem* that way by electing the president
some of us (not I!) did.

--Leo Connolly
From: ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Maori word wanted
Date: 29 Jul 1992 02:24:43 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Could someone from New Zealand (or anywhere else for that matter)
please give me the Maori word for "sixteen"?

Thank you.

Claus Tondering
Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
E-mail: ct@dde.dk
From: vaccaro@novavax.UUCP (N. Trafford Vaccaro)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: etymol. of the word "Viking"
Keywords: norse, viking, etymology
Date: 29 Jul 92 00:27:45 GMT
Organization: Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Referring to the above subject line, does anyone know the origin of the
word "Viking"? My dictionary is inadequate in this area. Thanks!


Nicholas Vaccaro
Newsgroups: sci.lang