HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan W. McKay)
Subject: Re: English IS easy to learn
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 18:04:37 GMT

michele@catnix.UUCP (Michele Simond) writes:

>I sometimes wonder how English readers of some of the texts I have
>to translate (mostly in the computer, telecommunications and radar 
>technology domains) can understand what is presented to them.  One
>argument I have heard, is that English is much more flexible than
>French, and that as long as one can relate whatsoever to what he/she 
>reads there is no problem.  I still think there will come a
>day, soon, when nothing will make sense anymore.

>Any comments?

After learning Russian and German over the past 4 years, I have become
more and more aware of some of the atrosities (sp?) of the English
language.  (The need for me to include (sp?) above, demonstrates one of
them).  I am constantly amazed at the way some people try to string
sentences together in both the written and verbal forms.  It really
seems to be breaking down, but I have to wonder if that is just in
North America, or in England as well.  Anybody know?

A couple of very minor things that I find myself doing less and less
are using the adjective as an adverb, and using "who" rather than
"whom".  There are, of course, many other things, examples of which I
don't immediately recall.

-- 
--
Alan W. McKay		| (902)542-2201.158	| Wolfville, N.S. Canada
alan@acadiau.ca		| Acadia University	| SUB Box 6008, B0P 1Z1
----------------------------------------- My Canada includes Quebec -----
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
From: pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Pierre Jelenc)
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Reply-To: pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Pierre Jelenc)
Organization: Columbia University
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:52:42 GMT

In article <2A89A85E.17288@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.181330.3716@midway.uchicago.edu> hau4@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>In article <2A885C3B.10024@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>>>
>>>And I'd rather not speak a language that classifies my mom as a female
>>>father, thank you.
>>>
>>
>>Perhaps you are unjust to Esperanto. I know of no language that contains
>>gender information while being gender-symmetric, i.e. in which you can tell
>>if the person mentioned is male or female AND in most such cases neither is
>>derived from the other with an ending meaning "female" ("male" in any 
>>language?). Esperanto simply avoids exceptions in this case, like
>>in everything else.
>
>I do not think I am being unjust.  My mom is my mom, not my Mrs. Dad.
>My dad is my dad, not some word kernel.  Think about it -- in most
>instances, the female parent is the basic one; look at any litter of
>puppies or examine any old human Paleolithic settlement.
>
>Anyhow, I don't like a language that relegates an entire section of
>humanity to a suffix.  Yes, I KNOW lots of them do that, but Esperanto
>should be able to surmount this; it HAS no excuse of "historical value"
>or even "habit" to explain it.  Zamenhof plainly thought that the father
>was basic and the mother a variant on him.  My parents play varying
>roles, one is NOT a variation on the other.  As such, in my estimation,
>Eo does not represent my reality enough to make me want to learn it. 
>
>>Anyway, Esperanto is not meant to be the language in which one would express
>>love to one's mother, 
>
>Then you can keep it for yourself. 
>
>>but a language of communication between people of
>>different nationalities - who are usually unattached enough that there's no
>>need to worry about such lack of emotions.
>>
>>Sven
>
>What a dead language then.  You suppose that NO ONE ever talks about
>emotions in Esperanto?  If it is that limited, then as a lingua franca,
>it sucks.
>
>Regards,
>Janis C.
> 
>


Esperanto does not have "suffixes" and "prefixes". Those words refer to 
languages such as those of the hindo-european family, and have no meaning
in Esperanto. "patr" is a root, and so is "in". They are absolutely on the 
same footing. Do not get confused by misguided attempts to make Esperanto
grammar "more like what you're used to" in beginners' courses.

As for Sven's comment on lack of emotions, he's either a rank neophyte,
or singularly misguided.


Pierre

Pierre Jelenc                        pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu 
                                    Columbia University, New York
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld)
Subject: Re: Russian dative + infinitive
Keywords: Alfred von Neumann
Reply-To: hau4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 04:53:47 GMT

>In article <1992Aug15.234259.3037@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>
>  [...]
>>> 
>>> #         What, me worry?  (Alfred E. Neuman)
>>> #         Him learn Russian? Forget it!
>>> 
>  [...]
>>               Also: are there analogues in other languages?  I'll
>>start with German: NO!  German infinitives are militantly subjectless
>>(well, most of the time);  the subjectless (1) is OK, (2) with accusative
>>"subject" is not, and (3) with nominative works only if the nominative
>>constitutes a *separate* question, indicating that it is not the subject
>>of the infinitive.
>>
>>	(1)  Was?  Russisch lernen?   'What?  Learn Russian?'
>>	(2)  Was?  *Mich Russisch lernen?   'Me learn Russian?'
>>	(3)  a.  Was?  Ich?   Russisch lernen?
>>	     b.  Was?  *Ich Russisch lernen?   'I learn Russian?'
>

Question: how is Alfred E. Newman's sentence worded in German edition of MAD?

Sven
From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Russian dative + infinitive
Date: 15 Aug 92 23:42:59 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <36726@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu>, djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:
> In article <1992Jul31.142533.2915@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
> 
> #         What, me worry?  (Alfred E. Neuman)
> #         Him learn Russian? Forget it!
> 
> I wonder if this construction existed before Mad Magazine popularized
> it in the 50s.  It seems to me that when I first heard it, it had a
> definite "me Tarzan" ring to it -- i.e., its value derived from the
> fact (?) that it violated normal grammatical rules.

I appreciate your "(?)", since I don't think these sentences actually do
violate grammatical rules -- they just don't apply one key rule: the
verb(oid) is not tensed, which means that the subject pronoun form by
rule is not used.

I don't know anything about the antiquity of the construction.  Since
I'm 51, I was part of the Mad generation that popularized it.  But I have
a suspicion that it's older.  Certainly the equivalent participial con-
struction is older (but also more general, since it is not confined to
questions.

	Hmm, me doing linguistics!
 
> Can we launch another search for early citations, as we did with
> "NOT"?

By all means.  Also: are there analogues in other languages?  I'll
start with German: NO!  German infinitives are militantly subjectless
(well, most of the time);  the subjectless (1) is OK, (2) with accusative
"subject" is not, and (3) with nominative works only if the nominative
constitutes a *separate* question, indicating that it is not the subject
of the infinitive.

	(1)  Was?  Russisch lernen?   'What?  Learn Russian?'
	(2)  Was?  *Mich Russisch lernen?   'Me learn Russian?'
	(3)  a.  Was?  Ich?   Russisch lernen?
	     b.  Was?  *Ich Russisch lernen?   'I learn Russian?'

--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
From: pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Pierre Jelenc)
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Reply-To: pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Pierre Jelenc)
Organization: Columbia University
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 15:17:46 GMT

In article <64057@cup.portal.com> EZ-as-pi@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Gilson) writes:
>Sven's comment that no language that
>shows gender information but is
>symmetrically disposed between mas-
>culine and feminine displays the usual
>reluctance of Esperantists to accept
>the successors of Esperanto as "real"
>that I see constantly. Look, for
>example, at Ido. In Ido, the unmodi-

Ido is dead

>will also see this note) you might
>prefer Novial or Intal, where non-

Novial is dead. Never heard of Intal.


Pierre




Pierre Jelenc                        pcj1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu 
                                    Columbia University, New York
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter)
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 06:36:22 GMT

In article <36768@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu>, djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug15.071008.22450@leland.Stanford.EDU> richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter) writes:
|> 
|> # As a language with few irregularities, I'd like to recommend
|> # Japanese.  There's a lot to be said for a language where the verb
|> # 'to be' is regular.
|> 
|> Maybe so, but you can't say that about Japanese.
|> 
|> Assuming you're talking about the copula, it doesn't have an "(r)u"
|> form; the polite "desu" is not a regular formation from "da"; based on
|> the past "datta", the continuative should be "datte", not "de"; the
|> negative should be "danai", not "de wa nai"; and it doesn't occur as
|> the main verb of attributive phrases, being replaced by "na" or "no".

Actually, I was talking about "iru" and "aru", which seem pretty regular.
The forms of "desu" are not exactly regular, but they are at least simple.
In any case, you don't have any messy inflections for number or person.

I'm not an expert, but a casual glance at Japanese suggests that it is
far more regular than, say, English or French.  No strong vs weak verbs.
No first, second and third conjugations.  (Okay, -u dropping vs. -ru dropping,
but even the exceptions are fairly regular.)

Other than the minor variations in "desu", what other areas of Japanese are
irregular?  (Someone pointed out in E-mail all those counters that go on
numbers.  That would be one thing.)


--Rich Wingerter
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: typology of Esperanto
Organization: LLNL
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 05:43:46 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.214711.24506@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.023350.2629@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU 
>(Rich Alderson) writes (quoting me):
@(Actually, FORTRAN is a better candidate--all its vocabulary is derived from
@English.)

>I hope you're joking.  It's a computer language, whose syntax, semantics,
>and mechanisms of change are entirely different from those of human
>languages.  Nor is the derivation of Fortran mnemonics from English words
>much more regular or predicable than Zamenhof's construction of Esperanto
>from IE roots.

	Actually, FORTRAN and other computer-programming languages
might be classified as pidgins. If I remember correctly, a pidgin may
be defined as a language that is hacked together so that different
groups of people without a common language can communicate with each
other. Which describes the human-computer situation pretty well :-)
There is the further similarity in that the "prototype" pidgin, a
certain English-Chinese one, featured English words with Chinese
syntax; computer languages typically feature English words and
familiar symbols arranged in somewhat odd ways. I'm sure English must
be the international language of computing by now; does anyone know of
versions of programming languages using words from other natural
languages? (I've heard of French-word Pascal, but that's about all) I
once saw a Korean manual for a VAX running VMS, with all the command
names left in their original English-word form (I guess they didn't
try to translate the VMS command names into Korean inside the
operating system). On the personal-computer front, I don't know
anything about foreign-language versions of the IBM PClones, but I do
know that the Macintosh can be configured to make the names of menu
items anything desired.

/Loren
From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Date: 18 Aug 92 00:32:31 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <10397@spark.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
> In article <1992Aug16.002920.3039@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>
>>The point is that _patrino_, like (most? all?)
>>nouns referring to females, is *formed* in exactly the way that a
>>word for 'female father' would be.
> 
> Not really.  This holds only if you take it that "in" means precisely
> `female', so that "Xin" turns out to mean `female X'.  If instead you
> assume that "X" means `male X', "Xin" means `female X' and "geX" (in
> the plural) means `pair of male and female X', the female father
> problem won't arise.

I don't follow your meaning.  If Esperanto needed (only ex hypothesi)
a *word* for 'female father', isn't this how it would be formed?

>>Furthermore, since the supposed
>>point of Esperanto word formation rules is that the meaning of a
>>word is to be discovered by the less than fluent by picking it
>>apart, an intermediate semantic representation 'female father' is
>>in fact *expected*.
> 
> Not if we agree that "patr" means `parent' rather than `father'.  The
> semantic component `male' is expressed by a zero morpheme, just as the
> component `singular' is expressed by a zero morpheme if the plural
> ending "j" is not present.

I don't think this argument is legitimate.  Many languages have zero
*allomorphs* of some morpheme or other which also has non-zero realiza-
tions.  (English does; Esperanto probably doesn't.)  But morphemes
are units of word formation, not of meaning, although they usually do
have meaning.  I maintain that morphemes may be posited only if they
have some nonzero realizations; 'singular noun' and 'male noun' in
English, Esperanto, and many other languages are never realized as
morphemes on nouns (though, of course, a singular noun subject in
English triggers a singular morpheme on a present tense *verb*).

>>The new Esperantist is
>>precisely supposed to find meaning in the -in- suffix, just as the
>>learner of English is supposed to find meaning in -ing, -(e)s, etc.
> 
> Yes, and the meaning of "in" is `the female counterpart of'.  How's that?
                                       
Perhaps the morpheme is ambiguous: both 'female counterpart', as you
suggest, and 'female whateveritis'.  We need an expert Esperantist
here, and I don't know the language.

>>We certainly can conclude that he thought maleness was "basic" and
>>femaleness somehow less basic, or a least less worthy of being taken
>>seriously.
> 
> Did he also think plurality was "less worthy of being taken seriously"
> than singularity?  I don't see how we can conclude anything of the sort.

But surely plurality is "less basic"; we never get to the "or at least".

--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan W. McKay)
Subject: Re: English IS easy to learn
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 13:50:33 GMT

ed@wente.llnl.gov (Ed Suranyi) writes:

>All of my relatives of my parents' generation or earlier have 
>Hungarian as their mother tongue.  All of them have had to learn
>various languages as adults:  English, French, German, and Russian.
>They all agree that English was the easiest.  As my father said,
>"Although English spelling can be difficult, it is easy to learn to
>speak English well enough to get by."

My German girlfriend who speaks German (native), French, Russian,
English and Czech concurrs.  She says that English is pretty easy
to learn as compared to the other languages she speaks.

Of course, English is closer to German than any of the others are,
so that probably has to be taken into consideration.  But in the
above example, Hungarian is not similar to the other languages
at all.
-- 
--
Alan W. McKay		| (902)542-2201.158	| Wolfville, N.S. Canada
alan@acadiau.ca		| Acadia University	| SUB Box 6008, B0P 1Z1
----------------------------------------- My Canada includes Quebec -----
From: schiller@tira.uchicago.edu (Eric Schiller)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 18 Aug 92 22:45:41 GMT
Organization: Center for Information and Language Studies / University of
	Chicago

Of all the proposals posted, yours is the least likely to succeed.
It is sexist to the core, since the pronunciations would
be identified with the men:

es = 'is
E = 'e

dialectally short for his and he in h-drop lects.

Anyway, you can't impose new words on people. If the speakers so
desire, some formulation will arise on its own.

Eric Schiller
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: magyar@hss.caltech.edu (Ted Turo'cy)
Subject: Re: "Yes Virginia!" What does it mean?
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 01:12:45 GMT

In <1992Aug13.172620.26717@discus.technion.ac.il> davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:

>I don't know if that is the proper newsgroup to ask it in but I'll try.

>I ran into the expression "Yes Virginia!" in several places and couldn't
>find any explanation in dictionraies (either standard or Slang/Americansims
>ones). I guess it's from an American movie.

This one's pretty old.  I'd say '30s or '40s, if I remember right.  I don't
remember all the details of the story (sorry :->) but the gist of it was
some little girl (Virginia) wrote a letter to the editor of some
periodical (newspaper, I think, but could have been a magazine) asking if
there was a Santa Claus.  I believe she had just begun to suspect he was
a fiction...  In any event, the editors published a reply, which is
fairly famous, describing how Santa Claus was as really just the
personification of the spirit of Christmas, and so, they said, "Yes,
Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus."  Thus, we get the expressions
"Yes, Virginia" (and, by extension) "No, Virginia".

Ted Turo'cy
magyar@hss.caltech.edu

Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
From: richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter)
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 07:41:08 GMT

In article <2A89A85E.17288@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug12.181330.3716@midway.uchicago.edu> hau4@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
|> >In article <2A885C3B.10024@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
|> >>
|> >>And I'd rather not speak a language that classifies my mom as a female
|> >>father, thank you.

Since Esperanto is a "defined" language, perhaps this is a problem that could
be fixed if enough people wanted it to be.  Surly new words are added to
Esperanto, and new words for "female", "mother", "daughter", etc. could, in
theory, be added.

Of course, I suspect that the vast majority of Esperantist are men.   :-)


--Rich Wingerter
Xref: sparky sci.lang:6437 soc.culture.esperanto:1401
From: EZ-as-pi@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Gilson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
Subject: Re: [Anglolingvo/English] easy to learn English?
Date: 15 Aug 92 13:36:08 GMT
  <2A885C3B.10024@noiro.acs.uci.edu>
  <1992Aug12.181330.3716@midway.uchicago.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Sven's comment that no language that
shows gender information but is
symmetrically disposed between mas-
culine and feminine displays the usual
reluctance of Esperantists to accept
the successors of Esperanto as "real"
that I see constantly. Look, for
example, at Ido. In Ido, the unmodi-
fied form carries no gender implica-
tion, unlike Esperanto. The Esperan-
to suffix -in- has its correlative
in -ul- (easy to remember if you
think of mascULine and femINine).
So the language is absolutely
gender-symmetric. If that mechanism
is too heavy (it shouldn't be to
an Esperantist, but non-Esperantists
will also see this note) you might
prefer Novial or Intal, where non-
gendered nouns (common or neuter)
end in -e, but the Romance terminals
-o (masc.) and -a (fem.) are usable
when desired: Novial ave=grandparent,
avo=grandfather, ava=grandmother,
for example.
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Gender neutral pronouns
Date: 21 Aug 92 14:42:56 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1684813499.JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU> JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
<In article <10431@spark.ed.ac.uk>
<iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
< 
<>(That's "thou were", right?  Or is it "thou wert"?  Damn.)
<>
<Howzabout 'thou wast', laddie?

Naw, it disny work that wey.  :-)  That's the indicative; the
subjunctive is "thou wert".  I looked it up in a grammar book.  :-)

<   No mumbling aboot subjunctives, now!
<   We all know those moody things have been abolished by all right thinking
<   persons.

Naw, pal, ah'm feared ye're wrang here.  The subjunctive isny deid yet,
an it widnae dee as lang as ah'm alive.  (Aye, gae aheid, tell us ah'm
no richt thinkin.  :-))

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld)
Subject: Re: English Orthography (was "easy to learn?")
Reply-To: hau4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 00:33:01 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.081820.25427@leland.Stanford.EDU> richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.221041.7548@midway.uchicago.edu>, hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld) writes:
>|> Sven
>    15
>
>15  'v' how is this pronounced???
>
Well, those damn telemarketers always pronounce my name either "Steven" or
"Seven", which is actually good because I immediately know that it is not
someone I'd like to talk with. So, when I hear "Is Seven Hopfield there", I
say "No, there's only one" and hang up.

Thus, if you don't want me to hang up, better figure out how this 'v' is
pronounced!!!		;-)

Sven Hauptfeld
From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Chomsky's 'Minimalist' paper
Summary: Any linguists here??  Linguists???  ???
Date: 18 Aug 92 03:38:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Aug18.033810.23837
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

Is there anyone here who has read Chomsky's new "minimalist" paper and
would care to comment on it?

(It's obtainable from the Dept of Linguistics, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139,
for $6 postpaid in the USA.  My copy hasn't arrived yet.)

-- 
+ Michael Covington - Artificial Intelligence Programs - U of Georgia - USA 
+ Unless otherwise noted, these are private opinions, not official statements.
+ VOTE NO GEORGIA LOTTERY - don't tie education to an unpredictable income.
From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: ethymology of foobar
Date: 18 Aug 92 01:50:40 GMT
Organization: University of Kentucky

In article <1992Aug17.215943.39694@urz.unibas.ch>
smit@urz.unibas.ch writes:
 
>
>In many of manuals I've seen the word 'foobar' as a placeholder
>for any name. (e.g. "send the file 'foobar')
>
>Does anybody know the origin of that word?
>
>Stefan
 
I have never seen this particular usage, but during WWII the term 'fubar'
(and a number of others, all inspired by 'snafu' of the same period) was
used as an 'acronym' for 'fucked up beyond all recognition'.  Check a good
slang dictionary or article on WWII army argot.  I fear that this net will
lead to the replacement of dictionaries, since so many posters ask questions
readily answered in Partridge, OED, EDD etc.  Pity we have lost the use of
using reference works.  Perhaps we should put such works on line with an
automatic filter that shunts questions via them before they are posted.