HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kasprj@jacob.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Subject: Re: I need a word
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge 
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 06:35:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.051155.7735@leland.Stanford.EDU>, jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug18.021437.18935@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
|> >JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
|> >
|> >	I always thought Synecdoche was a city in New York State
|> > 
|> >That may be, but there are two Notasynecdoches, one in East Texas, and 
|> >the other in Louisiana. They are both pronounced different and funny.
|> 
|> 
|> 	I'm not sure, but I think that Jarea's comment may have been a very
|> witty joke.  There is a city in NY called Schenectady (I think I got the 
|> spelling right.)
 
 There is no such city as Schenectady. It is as mythical as Kibo.
 
 Synecdoche, NY is the home of the headquarters (and hindquarters) of 
the Generous Eclectic Coprolite.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.religion.kibology
From: craigdo@microsoft.com (Craig Dowell)
Subject: Agnostics vs. Athiests (was Wanks vs. Twits)
Date: 13 Aug 92 23:01:27 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Aug11.220757.27048@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>
>I thought Slartybardfast created the Earth for the mice, and wound up getting
>an award for the part with the fjords.

No, mon.  He got de award for de chebbys.
From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Unspoken Words
Summary: George Orwell's School Days unlike Tom Brown's
Date: 12 Aug 92 14:51:49 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

>  francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>>
>>  ...   The great Public Schools in England are not
>>renowned for the body of facts they impart -- Manchester Grammar will do
>>that much better -- but for their acute sense of social behaviour. 


  tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>	Or, as it seems to some (including many who've attended them), 
>they're renowned for their often successful attempts to turn children into
>snobs and shits.


I refer you to the essay, "Such, Such Were The Joys" in the
_Collected_Essays_ of George Orwell.  Orwell was a
"scholarship boy" at a low-tier-but-aspiring public school;
his memories are of hunger, brutality, sneering class-consciousness,
lonliness and emotional abandonment.  His prose is admirably
suited for recounting such and experience.

---
Joel Hanes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Dangerous What?
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:05:22 GMT

                                  Wednesday, the 19th of August, 1992

Also you reminded me of _Oedipus Tyrannos_, which we know
in English by the Latin _Oedipus Rex_. Shelley (I recall)
titled his translation _Swell-foot the Tyrant_.

                  Mike Morris
           (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: U48073@uicvm.uic.edu (Cole Kendall)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Polar Star
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:03:54 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

In article <c_4mw5q.troach@netcom.com>, troach@netcom.com (Tom Roach) says:
>
>I've been listening to Polar Star during my commute. I find it a
>fascinating story, perhaps because my hobby is monitoring Russian
>communications from ships of just this type. Has he written (Martin
>Cruz Smith) since this book?  Any other admirers of Polar Star
>out there.  I really enjoyed his description of the hag fish
>(slime eels).
>
>Tom Roach

I happened to be reading Polar star on a trip to Moscow several years
ago (the late Gorby era), and gave it as a gift to a young local, on
the condtion that she write me telling me what she thought.  I was
particularly interested as to the accuracy of M C Smith's description
of the USSR, since it had been revealed that he had not visited
Moscow prior to writing Gorky Park.  Since there
was some fear of censorship in the mail, we agreed that she would
refer to the book as "the book on astronomy."  Here is what she had to
say:

"The book on astronomy which you gave me was a great fun.  It
was as exciting as seeing our planet from another galaxy...One
huge archipelago, and nothing more---that is all that can be
seen from there.  Anyway, all the details are very precise, and the
atmosphere is very close to the reality and looks natural."

Cole Kendall
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Life's too short. Was: 1930s Science Fiction
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 04:49:38 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Aug19.90021.3801@ms.uky.edu> fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) writes:
>My interest in science fiction is minimal because as a genre its target --
>the relation of man to science -- seems to me to be too narrow for fiction
>and to have been summed up neatly by _Frankenstein_: its province is the
>consequences of knowing for the sake of knowing. Has science changed
>since Bacon? The content has advanced but its human aspect (that there 
>are consequenceless facts) doesn't change quite so readily.

	Deeper and deeper, Mr. Davis.  You now have progressed from dismissing
all its works but one to summing up sf's "target," which also cannot be done 
from a position of ignorance.

	The truth on this matter is simple, I believe:  if you have not read a
great deal of science fiction, you cannot reasonably make summary claims about
it.  (You may regard it as a corollary of Mike Godwin's "Satanic Principle," 
which has been the subject of appallingly long threads over the past few years.)
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: turney@cs.cornell.edu (Jenn Turney)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:29:04 GMT
Expires: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 04:00:00 GMT

Barclay Blanchard writes:
  I was raised Methodist and haven't read any novels for which
  that was helpful.

Try George Eliot's _Adam Bede_.

Jenn
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| turney@cs.cornell.edu | Dept of Computer Science | Cornell University |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14974 rec.arts.sf.written:11363 alt.horror:3476
From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 13 Aug 92 04:54:14 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

I can't stand the paste-post-riposte-re-post format that obliges everyone to
re-read slabs of old argument, so I hope Tom Maddox will forgive me for
paraphrasing some of his comments on the canon...

I don't accept as given the "necessary cultural pluralism of our times." I live
in a multicultural country, which is fine, but if a group does not have some
kind of shared references, common experiences, it isn't a group at all. For 30
years, the shared references have largely been TV commercial and Saturday
morning cartoons. That's not enough.

I've mentioned Frye's definition of classic as a book that won't go away; but I
recognize the probability that, without the protected market of university,
most of the classics would vanish almost overnight. Shakespeare would probably
last, or some of him, but forget Ben Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Byron, Blake and a
host of others; they would become the objects of very small cults of very old
people. (After a half-millennium of barbarian invasions, some 27th-century
Renaissance might rediscover them and restore them to the literary pantheon
along with Danielle Steele and Harold Robbins...)

So if we "define our own canons," we are forgoing any chance of a shared
community of experience and language. We're just doing our own personal,
individual thing. And if that's the case, why are we bothering with formal
education at all?
From: frank@fnbc.com (Frank Mitchell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Life's too short. Was: 1930s Science Fiction
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:51:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: fnbc.1992Aug19.155151.16721
Organization: First National Bank Of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA

In article <1992Aug19.90021.3801@ms.uky.edu> fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)  
writes:
> My interest in science fiction is minimal because as a genre its target --
> the relation of man to science -- seems to me to be too narrow for fiction
> and to have been summed up neatly by _Frankenstein_ ...
> 
> My own taste in genre fiction runs to detective stories and spy stories:

As far as that goes, one could argue the target of detective stories is who  
killed who; the target of spy stories is who knows what.  But Sara Paretski  
(sp?) and John D. MacDonald (to name two mystery writers that I've read) have  
more on their minds than whodunnit.

Raymond Chandler once wrote a brilliant essay called "The Simple Art of  
Murder", in which he argues, in part, that genre fiction (his genre, at least)  
is only good fiction when it transcends the simple formulas.  A detective story  
that is a simple whodunnit is dull, but mix in characterization and higher  
themes and evocative prose, and you have a good novel, genre or not.

Try reading works by Frederick Pohl, Pat Cadigan, Harlan Ellison, Gregory  
Benford, or Philip K. Dick (if you haven't already, I missed the original  
post), and see how much they adhere to "the relation of man to science".  (So a  
few of the above don't write _science_ ficiton exclusively; the genre has  
changed a lot since 1930.)  For that matter, reread those other books, and pay  
attention to the other themes.

Sorry if I seem to be biting your head off, but I always get annoyed when  
people interpret science ficion as having only one narrow focus (whether it's  
man-and-science, social satire, prediction of the future, or technophilia).

--
Frank Mitchell,	Business Systems Analyst, First National Bank of Chicago
email:frank@fnbc.com (NeXTmail)

"It's a sobering thought to think that, when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead 
for two years."		-- Tom Lehrer, in 1965
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: free will/omniscience redux (long)
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:19:07 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Aug12.193648.18902@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
>In article <7177@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>>"Free will" does not mean that you are free to do anything but what you do.
>>>You may freely choose what you do, but having chosen, you can not do other.
>
>>But could you have chosen something else?  If so, you were free to do
>>other than what you did.  If not, how can you say you have free will?
>
>What does this question mean?  Could you have under what circumstances?  You 
>*did* (, Oscar, you did).  The past is not malleable.

And therefore I couldn't have eaten something different for breakfast
this morning?  What are you saying?  Are you trying to rule out this
manner of talking?

>The question concerning free will is whether, from the point of view
>of a time-bound entity, the *future* is pre-fixed.  

What is _this_ supposed to mean?  Since they don't know the future,
in what sense can it be pre-fixed from their point of view?

>The question concerning omnipotence/omniscience and free will is whether the
>existence of an entity with these characteristics necessarily means that a
>time-bound entity lacks free will.

I think the answer to this question will follow similar lines to
the answers about whether determinism is compatible with free will.

And if God knows all the future, then only one future is possible.
I don't think any of the arguments you've given so far have done
much to show that's compatible with free will.

But isn't this a subject for a different newsgroup?
From: kassover@ra.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Agnostics vs. Athiests (was Wanks vs. Twits)
Date: 15 Aug 92 19:46:25 GMT
Organization: bleah!

In article <1992Aug13.230127.25895@microsoft.com> you write:
>In article <1992Aug11.220757.27048@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>>
>>I thought Slartybardfast created the Earth for the mice, and wound up getting
>>an award for the part with the fjords.
>
>No, mon.  He got de award for de chebbys.

Wasn't it a Tschebychev polynomial the mice were evaluating?



-- 
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
uupsi!khazad!kassover	          sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@aule-tek.com                   F. Collins
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 15 Aug 92 02:47:17 GMT
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Aug14.163358.16770@news.cs.brandeis.edu> st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>> (whole bunch of scientific arguments showing god's limits)
>
>Who says god has to follow the rules he created?  For all we know, all these
>natural laws came into existense when god got tired of interfering and
>put the universe on autopilot.

What about those that would believe that God is past his prime, and is now
not so omni*.* any more, is senile, or insane, or going through a bad divorce,
or is experiencing denial (do you think it's easy being all powerful?  You
have all these followers begging for favors, etc.), or maybe has aids.  (Do
gods practice safe sex?  I think in ancient Rome they didn't).

Maybe God is more like Squire Trelaine of Gothos, and now his parents are
punishing him for playing around in his little sandbox that we call the
universe.

Or maybe God is a Puerto Rican steambath attendant as portrayed in Bruce Jay
Friedman's "Steambath" which I think was the first frontal nudity program on
American PBS (with an unclothed Valerie Perrine later in Superman; what ever
happened to VP?).  He would be somewhat sadistic, in part being fed up and
bored with us, etc.

I guess even omni*.* beings can have bad days, or even millenia :-).

cjl (we now return you to our regularly scheduled discussion of snuff films, 
Terries, KIBO, Disraeli (or was it Gladstone? no, it was Churchill) and
micro-waved exploding cats.)
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14947 rec.humor:26702 alt.folklore.urban:21871 rec.arts.sf.misc:2651
From: sut@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Secure Unix Team KID01)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 21 Aug 92 15:35:04 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: ICL Bracknell, UK

In article <1992Aug21.081211.5150@pacifier.rain.com> keithf@pacifier.rain.com (Keith Furrow) writes:
>In article <g60nbv2z@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug18.140604.19294@wam.umd.edu> ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
>>>In article <chris.714120892@rufus> chris@state.COM.AU (Chris Keane) writes:
>>>>ara@wam.umd.edu (Ford Prefect) writes:
>>>>
>>>>>IF THIS DOESN'T STOP, IM GOING TO START THE WORST CASCADE EVER.
>>>>WHILE EATING THIS SLOP, I SEWED THE FIRST BROCADE BEAVER.
>>>BILE FITTING RIG STOP, LIE SPEWED THIRST LIVER !!!!
>>IF YOU MUST CONTRIBUTE, AT LEAST DELIVER...
>WHO MAY I ATTRIBUTE TO THIS BEASTLY SLIVER?
TO SPAY A LUTE IN A GREASY RIVER

-- 
    ___
  /// \\\  The sole Ipswich Town fan in the frozen wastes of North Staffs is...
 |||O^O||| Martyn Amos -- Secure UNIX Team, ICL Kidsgrove, Staffs., ST7 1TL
 ||| ) ||| mra@zen.icl.co.uk (0782) 771000 Ext. 3152
 |||\_/||| "There's only one way of life, and that's your own" -- Levellers
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.classics
From: jscott@ecst.csuchico.edu (John A. Scott)
Subject: Re: I need a word
Organization: California State University, Chico
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 22:35:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug11.152333.14632@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Aug11.025307.26856@athena.mit.edu>
>kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:
>
>>Chuck Smythe writes:
>
>CS:
>>>In the course of the last week's reading, I encountered a word that meant
>>>"letting an example stand for the whole".  It was used to describe the 
>>>(profoundly dishonest) debating technique of trying to discredit a school
>>>of thought by savaging one of its least able defenders, then representing
>>>him as typical.
>
>KM:
>>	Your example seems to encompass two rhetorical techniques:
>>first, "synecdoche" is the substitution of a part for the whole. e.g.
>>Tom Maddox is a writer. Second, the "argumentum ad Hominem" as a
>>technique of evading the issue of an argument by, say, attacking your
>>opponent's character. None of that around here, of course. 
>
>No disrespect, Keith, but what you adduce as an example of synecdoche is,
>thanks to the inclusion of the predicative copula, nothing but plain,
>"degree zero" speech.  Now, if I were to refer to the redoubtable Mr Maddox
>as "that scrofulous, garrulous hack", that would be a metonym, except on
>the vaguely Quinean, ontologically relativistic view of Tsvetan Todorov,
>under which all tropes may be subsumed under synecdoche, depending on the
>individuating criteria of the assumed part-whole relation.  On the other
>hand, referring (of course, only hypothetically) to the slimily turgid
>writing style of the same Mr Maddox as characteristic of "that unctuous,
>oleaginous prick", or "that constipated, haemorrhoidal arsehole" would
>qualify as a meiotic synecdoche on the most rigorous reading.
>
>As for the original question, I would look for a fancy name for the fallacy
>of arguing from the particular to the general, starting with Aristotle.
>Comments from readers fluent in Greek are hereby solicited.

The original argument sounded more like a classic case of building a       
"straw-man", than it did an argument ad hominem...  Afterall, the basic
thrust of the argument was to present the opposition in the weakest possible
sense.
 
Then again it's too hot for philosophy in the Sacramento Valley right now! ;-)
 
John
jscott@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Zora Neale Hurston (was Re: The Literary Canon)
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:12:05 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <1992Aug10.213726.7839@athena.cs.uga.edu> heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:
> In article <1992Aug10.190352.29712@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> jwh3g@amazon.evsc.Virginia.EDU (Julia Hayden) writes:
> 
> >
> >  There are a few teachers out there who will teach Hurston... As a senior
> >in high school, We read Their Eyes Were Watching God, and it remains one of 
> >select group of books that really have influenced me in the way I think, write,
> >and read. When I got to college, I found several other people in my dorm who 
> >had read it as well, and on whom, the book had made a powerful impact as well. 
> 
>      It's encouraging to hear that.  There may be hope yet.
> 
> >  I am looking for a good biography (if such a thing exists) of Hurston...Im 
> >currently in the middle of her autobiography, but Id also like to have a anotherpoint of view.
> >
> 
>      I haven't heard of one lately, but now I will keep my eyes
> peeled.  Enough people are talking about Hurston and reevaluating her
> work to justify a good bio or two.  I'm sure it won't be long before
> we see a few.

Grolier's Encyclopedia lists one by A. S. Newson in its bibliography on
its Hurston article.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
					 -- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Book recommendation wanted.
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:16:36 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

calvo@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Sherri Calvo) wrote:
> Are the "facing page" translations academic editions? I have a couple of
> books like that in Hebrew/English, but haven't run across any in other
> languages yet.

Penguin used to have a "Penguin Parallel Text" library; the only ones I've
seen were French/English, but I think they did German/English as well.
Some of their European poetry editions had prose translations - I have the
Heine, Lorca, Baudelaire and Rimbaud ones.  They also published a book
edited by Stanley Burnshaw called "The Poem Itself" which gives completely
explicit literal translations for things in French, German, Spanish,
Italian and Russian, and leaves you to work the rest out for yourself.

Blackwell's editions of Wittgenstein have German and English in parallel.
There are some editions of ancient Greek writers (Loeb?) that have a Latin
translation in parallel.  Ararat Verlag does several titles with side-by-
side Turkish and German.  Al Saqi Books has a volume of Palestinian poetry
(Darwish, Adonis and somebody else) in Arabic and English.  Ian Wedde's
anthology of New Zealand poetry has some things in Maori and English.  The
collected poems of Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley Maclean) are printed in
Gaelic and English.  I'm sure any good religious bookshop could find you
Biblical parallel texts - the most extreme one of these I've seen had four
languages to a page - the original with Syriac (?) and Latin as well as
English.  And most opera librettos are parallel-text productions.

The most heroic effort at parallel text ever must be Bernard Comrie's "The
Languages of the Soviet Union", with its snippets of morpheme-by-morpheme
translations from everything from Estonian to Nivkh.  It didn't leave me
anxious to try a parallel-text novel in Abkhaz, though...

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:27:47 GMT


Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:

> Great, now I've got Mark Taranto to enjoy and despair over as
> well as Terrance!

Please, enjoy me, do not despair over me.  There is still hope for all of us.


Mark



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 16:14:43 GMT

                             Sunday, the 16th of August, 1992

John McCarthy writes:
  I will repeat my much earlier contention that there is a world culture
  today that is predominantly founded on Western culture.  Western
  culture itself is partly founded, before say 1450, on non-Western
  cultures, but until say 1950 ran autonomously.  Therefore, Western
  culture has a special importance not only for Westerners but for
  everyone.

Of course.
  
  Are the opinions of people on this newsgroup subject to influence
  by experiment, or are they a matter of ideology?

Ideology, of course.

Martha and I went to the movies Friday night (hey, with two little ones
these days, it's a big event), and we ran into a trailer for ``Christopher
Columbus: The Discovery''. I immediately thought of your historical
proposals and wondered if your company had been in on the ground floor of
this one? At least they're selling it as ``The story that has never been
told.''

          Mike Morris
      (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)