Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: jmfbahciv on 29 Dec 2009 08:39 António Marques wrote: > Peter T. Daniels wrote (28-12-2009 12:29): >> On Dec 28, 5:01 am, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:40:47 +1300, PaulJK >>> <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in >>> <news:hh9nbf$ejq$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in >>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: >>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: >>>>> On Dec 27, 3:49 pm, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >>>>> Whatever you recently did to "fix" your encoding has >>>>> resulted in blank spaces where you typed funny letters. >>>> No, it's posted with Content-Type: text/plain; >>>> charset="iso-8859-1" I don't think the problem was caused >>>> by his last mod farther down the list of formats. >>> >>> It's almost certainly a problem with Google Groups. If >>> Peter would break down and get a decent news client, he'd >>> not have the problem. >> >> Yet somehow Google Groups managed to show the letters a few minutes >> later. >> >> None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with >> google groups. > > I don't see that there is much wrong with GG from the POV of who doesn't > use GG (whereas Outlook has a number of bugs, after all these years, > that can disrupt other people's experience of the 'news'). The problem > with GG is that it's a pain to use, though I don't know of any web > interface that isn't, and the occasional weird behaviour - the > inconsistency you mention above being a good example. I've been using Seamonkey which is web-based. It has about a dozen annoying bugs. Google's implementation is horrible. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 29 Dec 2009 08:40 Marvin the Martian wrote: > On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:06:43 +0800, Robert Bannister wrote: > >> Marvin the Martian wrote: >>> On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:41:23 +0800, Robert Bannister wrote: >>> >>>> chazwin wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> All thinking is language dependant. >>>> I have serious doubts about that unless you think that thinking you're >>>> hungry isn't thinking. >>> It is a Chomsky thing. >>> >>> The rebuttal to Chomsky's assertion that thinking is language dependent >>> is simple: Observe how a chimpanzee has an ability to reason that is >>> not too far behind the average human; problem solving and primitive >>> tool use. Since chimps have no language, how is it that they think? >>> Ergo, not >all< thinking is language dependent. >>> >>> Q.E.D. >> Except that chimpanzees and some other apes have been successfully >> taught sign language, so I'm not sure that "have no language" is quite >> true. I doubt that most of us think verbally except when we are >> composing sentences in our heads. > > That doesn't follow because apes that don't have language still use > primitive tools and show problem solving skills. They don't NEED language > to think, even if they can acquire language from humans. > > BTW, the acquisition of language by apes shows the impact that an > intelligent influence can have on the less intelligent. ROTFLMAO. Did you really mean this? /BAH
From: Peter Moylan on 29 Dec 2009 08:30 On 29/12/09 13:42, Brian M. Scott wrote: > On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:05:09 -0800 (PST), DKleinecke > <dkleinecke(a)gmail.com> wrote in > <news:e1f26d37-f0bf-4a6d-9aa3-9f3ee47a6f08(a)o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> > in > sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > >> On Dec 27, 10:53 pm, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> >> wrote: > > [...] > >>> ... I am more than ever at a loss to understand how any >>> linguist can maintain with a straight face that dh/th >>> are in "complementary distribution". > >> It offends them that there are no minial pairs. > > Tthere are, and they know it: <thigh> ~ <thy>, and for many > people <either> ~ <ether>. They dispose of these on other > grounds. You're talking modern English now. Those examples wouldn't have worked in the days when eth and thorn were part of a writer's alphabet. -- Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page.
From: jmfbahciv on 29 Dec 2009 08:51 Brian M. Scott wrote: > On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:13:23 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote in > <news:149065af-e4ab-4d84-aedb-57a8999264af(a)u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> > in > sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > >> On Dec 28, 8:00 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > >>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: > >>>> On Dec 27, 8:20 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > >>> <snip> > >>>>> However, that is one of the reasons English was used to >>>>> describe science and technical specs instead of >>>>> another Western Civ language. There are no government >>>>> rules that prevent creation of new words in countries >>>>> where some form of English is spoken. > >>>> Not in France, not in Israel, not anywhere else that >>>> there's an Academy of Language do "government rules >>>> prevent creation of new words." New words continue to >>>> come into languages as they are needed, whether or not >>>> they get into some official wordlist somewhere, and >>>> there's nothing a "government" can do about it. > > True, but not particularly relevant to the incident in > question. > >>> The purpose of the law which required JMF's presentation >>> to be translated was to keep the language pure. All it >>> did was > >> "The purpose of the law" can be determined from what in >> the US is called the "legislative history" and its >> interpretation in the courts. > >> "The purpose of the law" is not invented by someone with >> paranoiac notions of "language purity." > > BAH is probably right about the underlying purpose of the > law in question. > >>> prevent training and, thus, production. If the government >>> wants to purge non-French words from the country, let them. >>> But insisting that those public meetings be conducted in >>> French is nonsense. The seminar should have been scheduled >>> for 6 hours instead of 1 so the time needed for translation >>> could be done. The content of the seminar was technical >>> and most of the words used would have been English anyway. > >> Or ... the speaker could actually have had the courtesy to >> have their speech translated into French (if they >> couldn't handle the language themself). > > Wouldn't have helped much, since the seminar was far too > short anyway. Wasn't necessary, since everyone involved > spoke English. JMF assumed that there were some people who didn't speak English and endured the delays. After the formal presentation ended, he found out that everyone could understand English and the translation was due to that law about purism. Try to pretend that his seminar was about baking a chocolate cake; he didn't even get to finish listing the ingredients due to the time constraint, especially the chocolate piece of the material. > >> Is "CIV" going to turn up in your little narratives one of >> these days? > > No, though a couple of poker decks might be an acceptable > stand-in. > The sentence, "Subtract one hundred four" is supposed to be appended to my posts. Somehow, somewhere, it disappeared. /BAH
From: James Hogg on 29 Dec 2009 08:41
Peter Moylan wrote: > On 29/12/09 13:42, Brian M. Scott wrote: >> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:05:09 -0800 (PST), DKleinecke >> <dkleinecke(a)gmail.com> wrote in >> <news:e1f26d37-f0bf-4a6d-9aa3-9f3ee47a6f08(a)o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> >> in >> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: >> >>> On Dec 27, 10:53 pm, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> >>> wrote: >> [...] >> >>>> ... I am more than ever at a loss to understand how any >>>> linguist can maintain with a straight face that dh/th >>>> are in "complementary distribution". >>> It offends them that there are no minial pairs. >> Tthere are, and they know it: <thigh> ~ <thy>, and for many >> people <either> ~ <ether>. They dispose of these on other >> grounds. > > You're talking modern English now. Those examples wouldn't have worked > in the days when eth and thorn were part of a writer's alphabet. The problem is that eth and thorn could be used interchangeably in Old English. -- James |