--- Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I had an idea the other day while I was on a radio interview.
I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
I would say that userpages are a great place for this sort of information. If you have a degree in Engineering from CalTech, put the year you graduated. If you have 12 years experience in laying Italian marble, say so. If you're been working for the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles for 9 years, write it down.
I think that very little of the world's knowledge and expertise is accurately captured by academia's diplomas.
If you're a veteran helicopter pilot, you training coming from Desert Storm and now you're an instructor at a military base, I would say your degree and certifications are probably rock-solid.
If you are making cheese and have been taught by your father, who was taught by his father, who was taught by his father and forebearers and ancestors all the way to the 11th century, you may not have a high school diploma, but you probably know more about cheese than a recent agronomy phd.
I would say that there is a perception that if "William Thurmond Sr." edits an article, it will be more authoritative than if "pixidust" edits it. Yet "pixidust" may understand 17th century scottish litterature better than Thurmond Sr. Heck, she may really be Ann Margaret Bershire, Ph. D. and Professor of Linguistics at Cambridge University, who prefers to let loose on WP as "pixidust" because she doesn't want to get the cold shoulder from her high and mighty crusty colleages.
I would also say, as someone pointed out, that the very lack of prominent information about authors leads people to contribute who don't want to be in the limelight of controversy, something which I think is the plague of most other online content systems.
I think that when professionals come in to look at wikipedia and see the articles in their area of expertise, and see the quality of the writing, the clarity in which ideas are expressed, and the accuntability of the system, they immediately realise that this is not usenet.
Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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That is entirely plausible but for some reason I find it very funny that, say, Peter Daniels, self-proclaimed world-reknowned expert on the world's writing systems (to be fair, although one can begin to doubt it after watching his activities on qalam-l, he _is_ a world-reknowned expert) would edit Wikipedia using the pseudonym "sweetpeteny", or that Dr Florence S McCarthy-Jameson, PhD would edit as "flos2hot4u"...
Mark
On 24/05/05, Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I had an idea the other day while I was on a radio interview.
I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
I would say that userpages are a great place for this sort of information. If you have a degree in Engineering from CalTech, put the year you graduated. If you have 12 years experience in laying Italian marble, say so. If you're been working for the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles for 9 years, write it down.
I think that very little of the world's knowledge and expertise is accurately captured by academia's diplomas.
If you're a veteran helicopter pilot, you training coming from Desert Storm and now you're an instructor at a military base, I would say your degree and certifications are probably rock-solid.
If you are making cheese and have been taught by your father, who was taught by his father, who was taught by his father and forebearers and ancestors all the way to the 11th century, you may not have a high school diploma, but you probably know more about cheese than a recent agronomy phd.
I would say that there is a perception that if "William Thurmond Sr." edits an article, it will be more authoritative than if "pixidust" edits it. Yet "pixidust" may understand 17th century scottish litterature better than Thurmond Sr. Heck, she may really be Ann Margaret Bershire, Ph. D. and Professor of Linguistics at Cambridge University, who prefers to let loose on WP as "pixidust" because she doesn't want to get the cold shoulder from her high and mighty crusty colleages.
I would also say, as someone pointed out, that the very lack of prominent information about authors leads people to contribute who don't want to be in the limelight of controversy, something which I think is the plague of most other online content systems.
I think that when professionals come in to look at wikipedia and see the articles in their area of expertise, and see the quality of the writing, the clarity in which ideas are expressed, and the accuntability of the system, they immediately realise that this is not usenet.
Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
he _is_ a world-reknowned expert
I highly doubt that. Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert. Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred articles with that spelling mistake in them.
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
Timwi
On 5/28/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
I highly doubt that. Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert. Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred articles with that spelling mistake in them.
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid spelling of something. :) Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 5/28/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
I highly doubt that. Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert. Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred articles with that spelling mistake in them.
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid spelling of something. :) Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
That sounds like an internet equivalent of a badly arranged sound system in an auditorium. With this message there will be 172,001 google hits.
Ec
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 12:25:17PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid spelling of something. :) Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
Speak for yourself.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
As I said before, even dirty perscriptivists (viz Perrin, C.) always come to accept language change _eventually_.
Otherwise, the text of your message would have read like something more along the lines of "Spec þū fore þin sylf!" (Stephen Forrest may correct me here in the case that ic may've spake me here in a wrong-like manner yar)
Mark
On 28/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 12:25:17PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
172,000 google hits says that one day we will consider it a valid spelling of something. :) Lots of places you would expect to be spellchecked contain "reknowned".
Speak for yourself.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 07:28:01PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, even dirty perscriptivists (viz Perrin, C.) always come to accept language change _eventually_.
Otherwise, the text of your message would have read like something more along the lines of "Spec þ?? fore þin sylf!" (Stephen Forrest may correct me here in the case that ic may've spake me here in a wrong-like manner yar)
In point of fact, the examples of archaic speech you provide owe their obsolescence more to an imposition of standards than to a modification of language by accepting corruptions. The fact that there is only one "correct" spelling for "self" is, in fact, more a prescriptivist-friendly alteration of language than descriptivist. Semantic, syntactic, and even vocal standards have been adopted as "correct" over the years in addition to descriptive drift over the years. In any case, barring the development of an immortality treatment, I doubt I'll outlive a time when "reknowned" is considered technically incorrect by a substantial demographic.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
No, not really.
This has little to do with spelling - even in the most recent times when English spelling was largely up to the individual author, they would've branded that as "incorrect".
People like you seem to believe that language does _not_ change over time.
In that case I say to you, behold:
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bið æghwæm þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne. Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman unlifgendum æfter selest."
That's a quote from what I consider to be one of the most splendid works of English poetry.
What, you say, English? Isn't that Icelandic or some other crazy langauge like that? No, it is indeed English, and that is how it was written. Even if you replaced the spelling of words that have cognates in modern English with their current standard spelling, it would be quite literally incomprehensible.
Many of the words have been replaced by French ones, many others have changed in their pronunciation so drastically as to be quite literally unrecognisable.
Mark
On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 07:28:01PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, even dirty perscriptivists (viz Perrin, C.) always come to accept language change _eventually_.
Otherwise, the text of your message would have read like something more along the lines of "Spec þ?? fore þin sylf!" (Stephen Forrest may correct me here in the case that ic may've spake me here in a wrong-like manner yar)
In point of fact, the examples of archaic speech you provide owe their obsolescence more to an imposition of standards than to a modification of language by accepting corruptions. The fact that there is only one "correct" spelling for "self" is, in fact, more a prescriptivist-friendly alteration of language than descriptivist. Semantic, syntactic, and even vocal standards have been adopted as "correct" over the years in addition to descriptive drift over the years. In any case, barring the development of an immortality treatment, I doubt I'll outlive a time when "reknowned" is considered technically incorrect by a substantial demographic.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 02:10:13PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
This has little to do with spelling - even in the most recent times when English spelling was largely up to the individual author, they would've branded that as "incorrect".
This seems almost without context. What?
People like you seem to believe that language does _not_ change over time.
I'm curious where you get that impression. Really. I have no such belief.
In that case I say to you, behold:
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bið æghwæm þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne. Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman unlifgendum æfter selest."
I fear some characters aren't rendering properly. Your example, thus, is not presented accurately.
What, you say, English? Isn't that Icelandic or some other crazy langauge like that? No, it is indeed English, and that is how it was written. Even if you replaced the spelling of words that have cognates in modern English with their current standard spelling, it would be quite literally incomprehensible.
Really? Why don't you do so, and let others judge it for themselves? Maybe it'll be more comprehensible to me if it uses characters I can see.
Many of the words have been replaced by French ones, many others have changed in their pronunciation so drastically as to be quite literally unrecognisable.
I don't see how that in any way invalidates what I said.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Although you'll probably complain now that it's not "authentic" and that you can't judge anything with it, I have replaced the "special" characters with their not-so-special equivalents (keep in mind though that the original used thorn, eth, and aewhateveritscalled):
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bith aeghwaem thaet he his freond wrece, thonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se the mote domes aer deathe; thaet bith drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest."
In modern spelling, that would be (keep in mind though that the words were pronounced differently - 'sorga', although equivalent to the modern 'sorrow', was actually pronounced 'sore-gah'):
"Not sorrow, (snotor) (guma); (selre) be each that he his friend (wrece), than he full mourn. Our each shall end (gebidan) world life; work se the must doom are death; that be (drihtguman) (unlifgendum) (selest)"
List of words without cognates: Snotor = wise; guma = one; "sel" is an adjective meaning "good" so "selest" is "best"; wrece = avenge; gebidan = pray; se = the; drihtguman = ??; unlifgendum = ??; selest = best.
Now note that in the above transcription I had to discard case endings or other parts of words in many cases (only "aeghwa" in "aeghwam" corresponds to "each", the final 'm' is the genetive case ending), and that many of the words have slightly different meanings ("world life" for example).
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
"Befell that, in that season on a day; In Southwark, at the Tabard as I lay; Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage; To Canterbury with full devout courage; At night was come into that hostelry; Well nine and twenty in a company; Of sundry folk, by adventure he fallen; In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all; That toward Canterbury would ride; The chambres and the stables were wide; And well we were treated with the best; And shortly when the sun was to rest; So had I spoken with him every-which-one; That I was of hir fellowship anon; And made forward early for to rise; To take our way, there as I you devise".
Of course that makes much more sense than the Beowulf extract. But much of it doesn't mean what you think. "with full devout courage" means "with a fully devout heart", not "with full devout courage"; "by adventure he fallen" means "by chance fallen"; "the stables were wide" means "the stables were large".
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
You could write "zoo" in a term paper and it wouldn't be a problem, but could you write "F'e'd've thought'f't, th'n'e'd prob'ly've invent'd th'telephone b'fore that"? Perhaps that's not how _you_ say "If he would have thought of it, then he would probably have invented the telephone before that" in casual speech (you may "drop" less sounds or you may "drop" more), but the point still stands: the same way that that is purely casual usage, "zoo" used to be purely casual and it was not OK to write a term paper on a zoo - it was, as far as you would be concerned with writing your term paper, a zoölogical garden (or perhaps a zoological garden, depending on how stuck up you really are).
Mark
On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 02:10:13PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
This has little to do with spelling - even in the most recent times when English spelling was largely up to the individual author, they would've branded that as "incorrect".
This seems almost without context. What?
People like you seem to believe that language does _not_ change over time.
I'm curious where you get that impression. Really. I have no such belief.
In that case I say to you, behold:
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bið æghwæm þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne. Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman unlifgendum æfter selest."
I fear some characters aren't rendering properly. Your example, thus, is not presented accurately.
What, you say, English? Isn't that Icelandic or some other crazy langauge like that? No, it is indeed English, and that is how it was written. Even if you replaced the spelling of words that have cognates in modern English with their current standard spelling, it would be quite literally incomprehensible.
Really? Why don't you do so, and let others judge it for themselves? Maybe it'll be more comprehensible to me if it uses characters I can see.
Many of the words have been replaced by French ones, many others have changed in their pronunciation so drastically as to be quite literally unrecognisable.
I don't see how that in any way invalidates what I said.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 07:36:27PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
Although you'll probably complain now that it's not "authentic" and that you can't judge anything with it, I have replaced the "special" characters with their not-so-special equivalents (keep in mind though that the original used thorn, eth, and aewhateveritscalled):
Say what? If you're so convinced you know what my opinions are and how I'll respond, perhaps you should just write a bot with my name and have a conversation with that instead of me.
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bith aeghwaem thaet he his freond wrece, thonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se the mote domes aer deathe; thaet bith drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest."
In modern spelling, that would be (keep in mind though that the words were pronounced differently - 'sorga', although equivalent to the modern 'sorrow', was actually pronounced 'sore-gah'):
"Not sorrow, (snotor) (guma); (selre) be each that he his friend (wrece), than he full mourn. Our each shall end (gebidan) world life; work se the must doom are death; that be (drihtguman) (unlifgendum) (selest)"
List of words without cognates: Snotor = wise; guma = one; "sel" is an adjective meaning "good" so "selest" is "best"; wrece = avenge; gebidan = pray; se = the; drihtguman = ??; unlifgendum = ??; selest = best.
All of that seems to indicate positive evolution of the language. I'm surprised you didn't try to make a case for "evolution" of the language by way of the sort of inclusionary modifications that are popular with strict descriptivists, since that seems to be your point. Of course, I never said that the language doesn't change according to the whims of descriptivists, or that it doesn't change at all: only that A) it shouldn't change because some radio-friendly song popularizes a particular corruption of the language and B) a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes.
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
When did I say that?
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
It's nice to see that occasionally grammatical rules that make sense become more widely used.
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
Since when did I express a problem with contractions and abbreviations? They grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived. On the other hand, I am a little disappointed that in cases where longer terms are appropriate people have chosen to eschew accuracy without any particular good reason. Then, of course, other people have chosen to chronicle the abbreviated terms as "official" parts of the language. The word "zoo" was, orginally, an abbreviation of "zoological [noun]" (modify spelling as necessary to make it strictly accurate, using the correct character set -- which I apparently don't have installed on this computer). A dictionary reference to "zoo" as a slang term is appropriate when zoo enters common usage, and ultimately removing the "slang" reference might be appropriate as well, but including (for instance) reference to "imply" as a synonym of "infer" in the dictionary is absolutely NOT appropriate. Given a couple decades, however, it might end up being an accepted synonym for a significant portion of the population because dictionary editors have started making unironic reference to this supposed synonymous meaning.
That's a brief explanation of how your attempted characterization of my intent missed the mark, and how I actually feel on the matter. I want accuracy and precision, not stultifying adherence to tradition.
Essentially, as far as I'm aware, prescriptivism is about defining the language according to its rules, and descriptivism is about defining the language according to the way people who don't know, or ignore, the rules use it. As far as I'm aware, neither one is trying to say that the language did or did not evolve from any given set of standards, though they may say that it should or should not have evolved the way it did.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 07:36:27PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
Although you'll probably complain now that it's not "authentic" and that you can't judge anything with it, I have replaced the "special" characters with their not-so-special equivalents (keep in mind though that the original used thorn, eth, and aewhateveritscalled):
Say what? If you're so convinced you know what my opinions are and how I'll respond, perhaps you should just write a bot with my name and have a conversation with that instead of me.
If I knew a programming language, perhaps I would. But that would probably be an enormous waste of time.
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bith aeghwaem thaet he his freond wrece, thonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se the mote domes aer deathe; thaet bith drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest."
In modern spelling, that would be (keep in mind though that the words were pronounced differently - 'sorga', although equivalent to the modern 'sorrow', was actually pronounced 'sore-gah'):
"Not sorrow, (snotor) (guma); (selre) be each that he his friend (wrece), than he full mourn. Our each shall end (gebidan) world life; work se the must doom are death; that be (drihtguman) (unlifgendum) (selest)"
List of words without cognates: Snotor = wise; guma = one; "sel" is an adjective meaning "good" so "selest" is "best"; wrece = avenge; gebidan = pray; se = the; drihtguman = ??; unlifgendum = ??; selest = best.
All of that seems to indicate positive evolution of the language.
"Positive"? What do you mean?? That "snotor" just plain doesn't make sense as a word meaning "wise"? That phonetic spelling is bad (that is actually how those words were pronounced at the time - the spelling used in the original _is_ phonetic)? Or something else that makes more sense?
I'm surprised you didn't try to make a case for "evolution" of the language by way of the sort of inclusionary modifications that are popular with strict descriptivists, since that seems to be your point. Of course, I never said that the language doesn't change according to the whims of descriptivists, or that it doesn't change at all: only that A) it shouldn't change because some radio-friendly song popularizes a particular corruption of the language and
See, "corruption" is where I believe you're wrong, and what is essentially the problem between descriptivists and prescriptivists (more like proscriptivists).
You characterise all those letter-droppings and corruptions of perfectly good existing words and improper usages which got the language from Proto-Indo-European all the way to Modern English as "good" and "making sense", yet anything that occurs _now_ is bad, ignorant, "corrupt", and "incorrect". Except, of course, the things that happened before you were born, which you accept as prized innovations (contractions, for example - they save oh-so-much time! the fact is that contractions have always been used, they have just been kept to speech most of the time)
The simple fact is that prescriptivists, in any language at any time, have been saying the same thing. You can find it in the Appendix Probi - it's _bad_ to use anything other than the most proper Latin! But then through the magic of language change, the same language one-and-a-half millenia later is being praised by French prescriptivists as the most logical language ever, and they want you to use it a certain way that would've given the author of the Appendix Probi a heart attack because it's such an abomination of Latin.
The same thing with Sanskrit: Panini would've had a fit if he had been told that Sanskrit would become, through a series of complex changes, such "incorrect" "corruptions" of his perfect logical favourite language as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati...
And finally with English. The writers of Beowulf were probably not prescriptivists, but they would've told you that the language we're using today is most certainly not "Englisc" as they knew it, or if it is it is a nasty vile corruption of it. Not just the spelling - no, to them our grammar, syntax, and usage of foreign words would sound like a foreigner's poor attempt at producing coherent speech.
B) a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes.
So, o snotor guma, work you use such sel words at least once a decade in your English speech and writing as "bearn", "wrece", "drihtguman", "gebidan", or "unlifgendum"?
Modernising their spelling doesn't help much either, seeing as they have no cognates in modern english and quite simply can't be modernised.
And unless you're absolutely numb in your blain, you must've noticed the dramatic syntactical differences as well as the fact that words had case endings in Old but not Modern English??
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
When did I say that?
Just now - "a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes."
Oh, but that was *after* I sent my e-mail, was it not? But you said it, nonetheless. Just as I told you you would.
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
It's nice to see that occasionally grammatical rules that make sense become more widely used.
"That make sense" - can you give me, please, some examples of grammatical rules YOU enforce that are nonsensical? Or do you believe that they all make sense?
Like any believer in any religion believes that his is the one true path, the only RIGHT religion, any prescriptivist from any language at any time believes that the form of the language HE promotes makes the most sense, and would like to beat to a pulp with a pencil those future prescriptivists who would say differently.
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
Since when did I express a problem with contractions and abbreviations?
You never did. That's exactly my point. Had you been a prescriptivist of yesteryear, you would've. But you're not. So you don't. What was once illogical, ignorant, and incorrect, is now greasing the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
They grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
If I said "I go store tomorrow in blue bus with Jenny", that would certainly be more compact than "I'm going to go to the store tomorrow in the blue bus with Jenny", and in that way it would grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise rules from which it was derived, but would you allow it or would you look down your nose at it and scoff at its ignorance, lack of education, etc etc etc?
On the other hand, I am a little disappointed that in cases where longer terms are appropriate people have chosen to eschew accuracy without any particular good reason. Then, of course, other people have chosen to chronicle the abbreviated terms as "official" parts of the language. The word "zoo" was, orginally, an abbreviation of "zoological [noun]" (modify spelling as necessary to make it strictly accurate, using the correct character set -- which I apparently don't have installed on this computer). A dictionary reference to "zoo" as a slang term is appropriate when zoo enters common usage, and ultimately removing the "slang" reference might be appropriate as well, but including (for instance) reference to "imply" as a synonym of "infer" in the dictionary is absolutely NOT appropriate. Given a couple decades, however, it might end up being an accepted synonym for a significant portion of the population because dictionary editors have started making unironic reference to this supposed synonymous meaning.
"because" dictionary editors have? In a century, imply will probably mean the same thing as infer even according to the most conservative of prescriptivists, and the fact that they once meant what they supposedly do now (I must admit, I use them "correctly" and am irritated when they're used "incorrectly", but I am irritated with my irritation because I know it's silly since language change is natural) will be an interesting footnote in the long history of English.
That's a brief explanation of how your attempted characterization of my intent missed the mark, and how I actually feel on the matter. I want accuracy and precision, not stultifying adherence to tradition.
Like this sentence because not long but still accurate? (Do you like this sentence, because it is not long, yet it is still accurate?) Maybe hate because ungrammatical? (Maybe you hate it because it is ungrammatical?) This show why prescriptivism silly - say discard unnessecary good, but only if discard unnessecary already (This shows why prescriptivism is silly - you say that discarding "unnessecary" things is good, but only if they've already been discarded)
Those example maybe not good, not that much shorter but if en.wikipedia use like this, save much space. (Those examples may not be good examples because the simplified versions aren't that much shorter, but if en.wikipedia were to adopt this usage, it would save a lot of space.)
Essentially, as far as I'm aware, prescriptivism is about defining the language according to its rules, and descriptivism is about defining the language according to the way people who don't know, or ignore, the rules use it. As far as I'm aware, neither one is trying to say that the language did or did not evolve from any given set of standards, though they may say that it should or should not have evolved the way it did.
No, it's about who is competent.
Presciptivism takes those nose-in-the-clouds approach and says that only people who study "rules" which are not based on modern usage "know the rules of the language", while descriptivism takes the down-to-earth approach and says that any native speaker who is fluent in the language "knows the rules of the language".
If a person didn't "know the rules of the language", they'd simply not be able to use it at all. Rules of language are fluid and are defined by actual usage, whether you like it or not. Prescriptivism is just a little behind the curve and takes quite a while after usage becomes popular before accepting it.
Mark
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 10:46:13PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
Say what? If you're so convinced you know what my opinions are and how I'll respond, perhaps you should just write a bot with my name and have a conversation with that instead of me.
If I knew a programming language, perhaps I would. But that would probably be an enormous waste of time.
That was sorta my point.
All of that seems to indicate positive evolution of the language.
"Positive"? What do you mean?? That "snotor" just plain doesn't make sense as a word meaning "wise"? That phonetic spelling is bad (that is actually how those words were pronounced at the time - the spelling used in the original _is_ phonetic)? Or something else that makes more sense?
I mean that changes that arise because of a need rather than because a bunch of people start misspelling things due to a lack of education are positive. By contrast, then, changes that arise because people are uneducated and don't know how to use a dictionary are negtive.
As far as I'm concerned, anything that arises from willful ignorance is a "negative".
See, "corruption" is where I believe you're wrong, and what is essentially the problem between descriptivists and prescriptivists (more like proscriptivists).
Maybe people with the attitude you're trying to ascribe to me are not actually "prescritivists". Maybe you should be referring to "proscriptivists" instead.
You characterise all those letter-droppings and corruptions of perfectly good existing words and improper usages which got the language from Proto-Indo-European all the way to Modern English as "good" and "making sense", yet anything that occurs _now_ is bad, ignorant, "corrupt", and "incorrect". Except, of course, the things that happened before you were born, which you accept as prized innovations (contractions, for example - they save oh-so-much time! the fact is that contractions have always been used, they have just been kept to speech most of the time)
No, actually, I don't. I do, however, object to the addition of a K to the word "renowned" just because some critical mass of people who can't spell all make the same mistake on a regular basis. The same goes for use of "infer" to mean something that is almost precisely its opposite. I don't much care when it happens: if it's a good change, it's a good change, and if it's a bad change, it's a bad change. The coining of the neologism "cyberspace", which did indeed occur within the span of my life, is a good thing. So, too, is the arrival of terms like "Linux" and "wiki" in the English language.
To judge by the descriptivist approach, though, we should start calling it "The Wikipedia", rather than "Wikipedia", because so many people call it "The Wikipedia" out of ignorance. By the same token, "Perl" should be changed to "PERL", "Linux" should start being pronounced "Lynucks" (the spelling soon to follow), and Internet Explorer should be called "The Internet" now.
The simple fact is that prescriptivists, in any language at any time, have been saying the same thing. You can find it in the Appendix Probi
- it's _bad_ to use anything other than the most proper Latin! But
then through the magic of language change, the same language one-and-a-half millenia later is being praised by French prescriptivists as the most logical language ever, and they want you to use it a certain way that would've given the author of the Appendix Probi a heart attack because it's such an abomination of Latin.
I'm not the most strict subscriber to prescriptivist notions in the world, obviously, but I certainly sympathize more with the notion that there's a "correct" way to use the language than the attitude that supposes it's okay to confuse words with their antonyms.
And finally with English. The writers of Beowulf were probably not prescriptivists, but they would've told you that the language we're using today is most certainly not "Englisc" as they knew it, or if it is it is a nasty vile corruption of it. Not just the spelling - no, to them our grammar, syntax, and usage of foreign words would sound like a foreigner's poor attempt at producing coherent speech.
Maybe so. Too bad. The change is already accepted practice in academia. What I'm not happy with is the acceptance of any old change at all based on nothing more than a statistical survey among those who don't care.
B) a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes.
So, o snotor guma, work you use such sel words at least once a decade in your English speech and writing as "bearn", "wrece", "drihtguman", "gebidan", or "unlifgendum"?
I meant a previous example. I thought that was clear, since I was talking about something I'd said prior to your example from Beowulf.
Modernising their spelling doesn't help much either, seeing as they have no cognates in modern english and quite simply can't be modernised.
Words falling into disuse hardly constitute an argument against prescriptivism, anyway.
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
When did I say that?
Just now - "a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes."
So you're using something I said AFTER you made that assertion to support the assertion, as though that was your justification at the time? That's absurd. Furthermore, as I stated, my reference to something only looking like it differed by way of spelling changes was about your archaic-spelling modification of original content, not your quote from Beowulf or Chaucer.
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
It's nice to see that occasionally grammatical rules that make sense become more widely used.
"That make sense" - can you give me, please, some examples of grammatical rules YOU enforce that are nonsensical? Or do you believe that they all make sense?
What the heck is that all about?
Like any believer in any religion believes that his is the one true path, the only RIGHT religion, any prescriptivist from any language at any time believes that the form of the language HE promotes makes the most sense, and would like to beat to a pulp with a pencil those future prescriptivists who would say differently.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone suggesting a better use of the language than the current standard who presents a reasonable method of implementing it is welcome to do so.
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
Since when did I express a problem with contractions and abbreviations?
You never did. That's exactly my point. Had you been a prescriptivist of yesteryear, you would've. But you're not. So you don't. What was once illogical, ignorant, and incorrect, is now greasing the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
Frankly, if I thought there was a way to rewind that, I might actually like to do so. I have the language I currently have, though, and I'll work with it. Contractions are a mixed bag, though. It's difficult to determine whether or not they're for the best, at least from where I'm sitting.
I certainly try to avoid them in most formal essays.
They grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
If I said "I go store tomorrow in blue bus with Jenny", that would certainly be more compact than "I'm going to go to the store tomorrow in the blue bus with Jenny", and in that way it would grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise rules from which it was derived, but would you allow it or would you look down your nose at it and scoff at its ignorance, lack of education, etc etc etc?
Compactness that actually violates grammatical rules by omitting terms useful to clarity of meaning are not particularly good. Compactness is not the sole point of measure for the worth of a contraction or abbreviation. Your first example in that paragraph is actually confusing and lacks clarity of meaning due to the structure of the sentence, even after staring at it for a while. For one thing, "store" has more than one meaning. Replacing "store" with, say, "supermarket" would make it clearer in that one instance, but it still creates a structure that fails when other words are substituted. As such, it's a net loss as an "evolution" of the language.
On the other hand, I am a little disappointed that in cases where longer terms are appropriate people have chosen to eschew accuracy without any particular good reason. Then, of course, other people have chosen to chronicle the abbreviated terms as "official" parts of the language. The word "zoo" was, orginally, an abbreviation of "zoological [noun]" (modify spelling as necessary to make it strictly accurate, using the correct character set -- which I apparently don't have installed on this computer). A dictionary reference to "zoo" as a slang term is appropriate when zoo enters common usage, and ultimately removing the "slang" reference might be appropriate as well, but including (for instance) reference to "imply" as a synonym of "infer" in the dictionary is absolutely NOT appropriate. Given a couple decades, however, it might end up being an accepted synonym for a significant portion of the population because dictionary editors have started making unironic reference to this supposed synonymous meaning.
"because" dictionary editors have? In a century, imply will probably mean the same thing as infer even according to the most conservative of prescriptivists, and the fact that they once meant what they supposedly do now (I must admit, I use them "correctly" and am irritated when they're used "incorrectly", but I am irritated with my irritation because I know it's silly since language change is natural) will be an interesting footnote in the long history of English.
Yes, because dictionary editors (and others in similar positions) do that sort of thing. If it was never acceptable to educators (whether by trade or by accident), it would never become common practice. Do you really think it's a good idea to reverse the meanings of words like that and declare it official? How confusing do you think it would be to be commanded to refrain from touching something because it's hot if "refrain" and "hot" both had alternate meanings that made perfect sense within the context of that sentence? What if that confusion led you to third-degree burns on your hand?
Communication is important, and accurate communication moreso. Giving "infer" both its proper meaning and the meaning of "imply" strips communication of all that value of accuracy.
That's a brief explanation of how your attempted characterization of my intent missed the mark, and how I actually feel on the matter. I want accuracy and precision, not stultifying adherence to tradition.
Like this sentence because not long but still accurate? (Do you like this sentence, because it is not long, yet it is still accurate?)
Like? No, not particularly. Accept, because this is a casual conversation and not likely to be taken as a canonical example of proper English? Well, sure. You may note that my adherence to strictly proper use of language has slipped a bit here and there in this discussion, but this isn't exactly a textbook, either. Slang and colloquialism have their places. Textbooks meant to teach a language aren't those places.
Some of your later examples of shortened sentences, on the other hand, ARE really bad. They modified the meanings of the sentences, which isn't really even acceptable for casual, colloquial conversation. The mere omission of the word "may" is a clear example of that.
Essentially, as far as I'm aware, prescriptivism is about defining the language according to its rules, and descriptivism is about defining the language according to the way people who don't know, or ignore, the rules use it. As far as I'm aware, neither one is trying to say that the language did or did not evolve from any given set of standards, though they may say that it should or should not have evolved the way it did.
No, it's about who is competent.
Presciptivism takes those nose-in-the-clouds approach and says that only people who study "rules" which are not based on modern usage "know the rules of the language", while descriptivism takes the down-to-earth approach and says that any native speaker who is fluent in the language "knows the rules of the language".
I reject your definitions of prescriptivism and descriptivism on the grounds that they don't even seem to apply to observed behavior of prescriptivists and descriptivists, let alone their self-described purposes.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Yes, but does "pronunc" in "pronunciation" sound anything like "pronounce"? No, and you don't spell them the same, but they're related.
Similarly, at least the way I say it, "inform" doesn't sound like the first part of "information" (I would write it "infirmation" because it sounds more like "infirm" than "inform), yet it's spelt identically.
And remember that even perscriptivists generally concede when something had already passed into popular usage at least a generation ago - "reknowned" may not be etymologically correct, and tightwads such as yourself may peck to death those who have at some point or another decided that the word is properly spelt that way, but if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense because the definition of the word I pronunce (make that "pronounce") as /ri 'nau nd/ is something along the lines of "well-known". And please don't question the "re-" prefix because you can "refer" to something without having ever "fer"red to it before, you can "relate" to somebody without having ever "late"d to them before, and you can "relish" or "resign" or "refute" without having ever "lish"ed, "sign"ed, or "fute"d before.
Mark
On 28/05/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
he _is_ a world-reknowned expert
I highly doubt that. Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert. Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred articles with that spelling mistake in them.
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
Timwi
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced like "known".
I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it seem. I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar and spelling. My previous message was not meant to belittle those who do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart. I certainly don't.
It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word. Once someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow it, thinking it might be the correct spelling. But the thoughts of that first person are beyond me.
Timwi
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in "information" as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know" (more like "gnaw" - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know" in "knowledge" the same as "know" when it's by itself...
Often, a morpheme (whether it's a morpheme any longer or a sub-morpheme is debatable) is spelt identically but pronounced differently in different words....... so "reknowned" does not seem at all illogical to me.
Mark
On 28/05/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced like "known".
I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it seem. I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar and spelling. My previous message was not meant to belittle those who do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart. I certainly don't.
It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word. Once someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow it, thinking it might be the correct spelling. But the thoughts of that first person are beyond me.
Timwi
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Having said that, I would like to state for the wreck herd that I am knot the first person to use that spelling, nor am I trying to explain away their usage.
And although I hate prescriptivism, I also dislike improper usage... a sort of paradox. So while I acgnawledge that language changes, and that I personally don't think "This is she" is any more grammatical than "This is her", "This be her yo", "This one her", "This her what", or even "In herlike fashion bes this here one", my brain cries every time somebody says "Me and her went to the store".
If, however, somebody is speaking a different variety of English, an English pidgin or creole, or they are speaking English non-natively, it for some reason doesn't sound bad. In fact when talking to people I tend to adapt and switch relatively quickly to the variety (even if they're trying to speak the same variety of English, but non-natively) they're using, which can be quite interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view (my communications with Singaporeans, for example, tend to be in a very basilectal form of Singlish, because it "feels right")
Mark
On 28/05/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in "information" as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know" (more like "gnaw" - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know" in "knowledge" the same as "know" when it's by itself...
Often, a morpheme (whether it's a morpheme any longer or a sub-morpheme is debatable) is spelt identically but pronounced differently in different words....... so "reknowned" does not seem at all illogical to me.
Mark
On 28/05/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced like "known".
I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it seem. I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar and spelling. My previous message was not meant to belittle those who do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart. I certainly don't.
It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word. Once someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow it, thinking it might be the correct spelling. But the thoughts of that first person are beyond me.
Timwi
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 05:08:34PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in "information" as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know" (more like "gnaw" - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know" in "knowledge" the same as "know" when it's by itself...
Funny, I pronounce it like "inform". So do most of the people I know. Maybe I'm just lucky.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Chad Perrin wrote:
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 05:08:34PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in "information" as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know" (more like "gnaw" - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know" in "knowledge" the same as "know" when it's by itself...
Funny, I pronounce it like "inform". So do most of the people I know. Maybe I'm just lucky.
The purpose of language is to communicate. This holds notwithstanding Mark's efforts to prescribe all manner of fanciful and illiterate constructions and pronunciations. There is no shortage of local dialects and idioms, and it is good to know that they exist as well as where and how they are used. But that does not allow us to pretend that the usage will be accepted everywhere or to extrapolate a local meaning to the wider community. When you do that the reader is just as likely to interpret a term on the basis of its use in his own community, and that usage can be very different. It is notable that even though CNN is based in Atlanta it does not insist that all of its announcers speak in a Georgia drawl.
I am prepared to accept Mark's testimony that in his Arizona dialect "acgnawledge" is a commonly used variant, and that the people of Arizona are properly "infirmed" in their retirement. I am not prepared to accept that such aberations have fallen into general usage.
One aspect of the English language's dominance in the world is its ability to create new words whenever circumstances require. English has no Académie rushing in to say, "You can't use that word, because it's not in the dictionary." This is a huge problem for lexicographers. New words are regularly being invented, but many are invented for a particular ephemeral occasion. When that occasion passes the word passes with it; it has no need for an obituary. If I inject a new word or usage into a text or conversation, as I frequently do, it is in anticipation that my readers or listeners will understand it's meaning from the context. If I suggest that Mark quayles the English language readers will have some understanding of what I mean, but I would have no illusion about making that verb a normal part of English usage.
L33t may very well describe the speech patterns of a certain sub-culture for the private purposes of that sub-culture, but are we benefitted by those of its advocates who would want that recognised as a part of general English usage? The rest of society is not a part of the inside jokes that accompany much of that geek speak.
Those of us with a more conservative view of language accept a lexicographer's duty as one of description and documentation. Mark and his prescriptivist friends are too quick to tell us what belongs in the language without the least shred of verifiability. They seem to forget the basic point that I put at the begining of this message: "The purpose of language is to communicate."
Ec
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 11:53:55AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
One aspect of the English language's dominance in the world is its ability to create new words whenever circumstances require. English has no Académie rushing in to say, "You can't use that word, because it's not in the dictionary." This is a huge problem for lexicographers. New words are regularly being invented, but many are invented for a particular ephemeral occasion. When that occasion passes the word passes with it; it has no need for an obituary. If I inject a new word or usage into a text or conversation, as I frequently do, it is in anticipation that my readers or listeners will understand it's meaning from the context. If I suggest that Mark quayles the English language readers will have some understanding of what I mean, but I would have no illusion about making that verb a normal part of English usage.
I agree 100% with the content of that paragraph. Good job.
Those of us with a more conservative view of language accept a lexicographer's duty as one of description and documentation. Mark and his prescriptivist friends are too quick to tell us what belongs in the language without the least shred of verifiability. They seem to forget the basic point that I put at the begining of this message: "The purpose of language is to communicate."
I would not, on my weirdest days, describe Mark's views on linguistics as "prescriptivist". I tend to agree with the content of your entire email except your characterization of Mark's views as "prescriptivist". In fact, judging by what I read in your email, I'd call YOU a prescriptivst, but with the entirely reasonable addition of an acceptance of new additions to the language when old material doesn't suffice. That is, in fact, basically how I'd describe my own views on the matter.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Timwi wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced like "known".
I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it seem. I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar and spelling. My previous message was not meant to belittle those who do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart. I certainly don't.
It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word. Once someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow it, thinking it might be the correct spelling. But the thoughts of that first person are beyond me.
For an example of a sentence where the "k" would be correct: "After an absence of many years she was happy to be reknown by her lover." :-)
Ec
Timwi wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
he _is_ a world-reknowned expert
I highly doubt that. Although he might be a _world-renowned_ expert. Throughout the past week, I have fixed on the order of one hundred articles with that spelling mistake in them.
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
With a little luck someone may reknounce the error of his ways. :-)
Ec
Timwi wrote:
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
Here is the best way to understand it: English spelling and pronunciation are highly irregular. When a person is "world renowned" then they are _known_ around the world.
Since "know" and "knowledge" have a silent 'k', then adding a prefix would not _make_ the k silent, it would merely _leave_ the k silent. The fact that "know" and "knowledge" sound different from "renowned" isn't really helpful, since they sound different from _each other_, and it is quite common for variants of English words to be pronounced differently for no apparent reason.
A German and I once had a very confusing conversation at a restaurant in Austria surrounding the word "dough". A certain item on the menu was a piece of meat surrounded by duff, apparently. Hmm? What's that? Interesting food these Austrians eat. Unfortunately, when I got the meat and ate it it was tuff, and I had to coff.
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
--Jimbo
Technically, the word receipt doesn't have a "p" in it. It's just spelt that way.
With most such words (knife, knight, know, cough, hiccough), it is for etymological reasons: people really did pronounce them that way at some time or another. ("gh" sounding a bit like French "r").
The reason receipt is spelt that way is long, complicated, and frankly quite boring.
Since everybody is so fond of long, complicated, and boring explanations, I will elaborate.
"receipt" was, at its point of entrance into the English language (from Old Norman French), spelt "receite", identical to its spelling in the language of origin. Unlike most such words (ie, those with silent letters), it was never actually pronounced with a medial /p/ while it was an English word. The Old Norman word "receite" was derived from the Mediaeval Latin "recepta", from the Latin-Latin "receptus", the past participle of "recipere", to take back, to regain. (essentially that means that "receptus" means "received"). "Recipere" is itself a combination of the prefix "re" meaning back or again, and "capere", to take.
"re" is a shortened form of "red", which has its origins in Proto-Indo-European *wret, a metathetical variant of *wert. (metathetical means some guy who couldn't pronounce the word correctly changed it by flipping the order of two phonemes, like how some kids say /p@skEti/ instead of /sp@gEti/ for "spaghetti") *wert means "turn" (in this sense as in "turned back"), and itself is an extended form of *wer, meaning to turn or to bend.
"capere" has its origins in Proto-Indo-European *kap-yo, to grasp something, a suffixed form of *kap, to grasp. *kap-yo is also the origin of English "heave", which is from the Old English "hebban", to lift, from the Proto-Germanic *hafyan.
If your daughter asks again why a word is spelt a certain way, you can ask me and get the truth, which will either make it so she never asks again why a word is spelt a certain way or make her become interested in word etymologies.
Mark
On 04/06/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Timwi wrote:
And here I am trying very hard to understand how someone can think that a word that is pronounced the way "renowned" is, can possibly have a k in it. It is not even pronounced anything like "know" or "knowledge". Furthermore, as "gnostic" versus "agnostic" clearly teaches us, letters do not tend to become silent when there is a prefix before them.
Here is the best way to understand it: English spelling and pronunciation are highly irregular. When a person is "world renowned" then they are _known_ around the world.
Since "know" and "knowledge" have a silent 'k', then adding a prefix would not _make_ the k silent, it would merely _leave_ the k silent. The fact that "know" and "knowledge" sound different from "renowned" isn't really helpful, since they sound different from _each other_, and it is quite common for variants of English words to be pronounced differently for no apparent reason.
A German and I once had a very confusing conversation at a restaurant in Austria surrounding the word "dough". A certain item on the menu was a piece of meat surrounded by duff, apparently. Hmm? What's that? Interesting food these Austrians eat. Unfortunately, when I got the meat and ate it it was tuff, and I had to coff.
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
--Jimbo
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 6/4/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The p is silent as in psychology, or swimming ;)
C
On Jun 5, 2005, at 10:21 AM, Cormac Lawler wrote:
On 6/4/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The p is silent as in psychology, or swimming ;)
C
The word combines two previous vulgate words, one for a list of ingredients(receit), the other for receive (recipere). A receipt is then a recitation of what you are the recipient of.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The irony with such situations arises when you answer "I don't know", and somebody still insists on an answer. So you just oblige them with a made-up answer. Those insisting on an answer are not just children.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The irony with such situations arises when you answer "I don't know", and somebody still insists on an answer. So you just oblige them with a made-up answer. Those insisting on an answer are not just children.
I should note based on what I said, that Danny didn't make up a crazy answer, and he properly couched it in terms of being a possible theory. He offered that perhaps a long time ago people pronounced with with a p. So his answer was perfectly fine, and properly indicated his own doubt. :-)
My own answer was much worse: "Beats me, ask Danny."
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales said:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The irony with such situations arises when you answer "I don't know", and somebody still insists on an answer. So you just oblige them with a made-up answer. Those insisting on an answer are not just children.
I should note based on what I said, that Danny didn't make up a crazy answer, and he properly couched it in terms of being a possible theory. He offered that perhaps a long time ago people pronounced with with a p. So his answer was perfectly fine, and properly indicated his own doubt. :-)
My own answer was much worse: "Beats me, ask Danny."
Receipt, like debt, is a post-hoc latinization of a Middle English word derived from Norman French. dette by way of debitum was latinized to debt. Receite by way of recepta (neut pl) was latinized to receipt. The letters p and b in these cases were almost certainly always silent.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Jimmy Wales said:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well educated and smart people.
The irony with such situations arises when you answer "I don't know", and somebody still insists on an answer. So you just oblige them with a made-up answer. Those insisting on an answer are not just children.
I should note based on what I said, that Danny didn't make up a crazy answer, and he properly couched it in terms of being a possible theory. He offered that perhaps a long time ago people pronounced with with a p. So his answer was perfectly fine, and properly indicated his own doubt. :-)
My own answer was much worse: "Beats me, ask Danny."
Receipt, like debt, is a post-hoc latinization of a Middle English word derived from Norman French. dette by way of debitum was latinized to debt. Receite by way of recepta (neut pl) was latinized to receipt. The letters p and b in these cases were almost certainly always silent.
I'm sure there was no deceipt intended. :-)
Ec
Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I had an idea the other day while I was on a radio interview.
I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
I do agree that this is a danger to be considered.
I would say that userpages are a great place for this sort of information. If you have a degree in Engineering from CalTech, put the year you graduated. If you have 12 years experience in laying Italian marble, say so. If you're been working for the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles for 9 years, write it down.
Yes, but the point is to make this kind of information available in a format that is more usable to our readers.
I think that very little of the world's knowledge and expertise is accurately captured by academia's diplomas.
I agree, and I think that our view of credentials should be fairly expansive.
I would also say, as someone pointed out, that the very lack of prominent information about authors leads people to contribute who don't want to be in the limelight of controversy, something which I think is the plague of most other online content systems.
And this is a good reason to never require it.
I think that when professionals come in to look at wikipedia and see the articles in their area of expertise, and see the quality of the writing, the clarity in which ideas are expressed, and the accuntability of the system, they immediately realise that this is not usenet.
Yes, but "not usenet" is a fairly low aspiration. :-)
--Jimbo
On Tuesday 31 May 2005 03:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
I do agree that this is a danger to be considered.
Another possible outcome is that it helps make it clear the extent to which "non-experts" make useful contributions. For much of their history encyclopedias were compiled by the learned, but not necessarily "experts" -- the very notion is a modern innovation. In any case, even then, useful contribution were made by folks outside of their field [1], such as Thomas Young [2].
[1] [[ Unpublished However, to claim that reputation motivated contributions is not to state that all participants were simply seeking fame. In fact, Thomas Young, the natural philosopher who worked on the wave theory of light while also deciphering the Rosetta Stone by 1840, agreed to contribute to the Britannica, but required anonymity in any subject "not immediately medical"; Young did not want scientific controversies to weaken the confidence the public had in his capacities as a physician (Yeo 2001:265). ]] [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_(scientist)
In fact, I think the compilation of materials by the competent but non-expert has a usefulness related to what I call the Feynman notion of simplicity: "His principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not fully understood yet" [3].
In some situations however it would be a good thing for the person with the degree in astrophysics to tell the person without to stfu.
Edo Nyland and those few who agree with his crackpot theories (http://www.highspeedplus.com/~edonon/linguist.htm) - ie, that all the modern languages of the world with the exception of Basque, Ainu, and the Dravidian languages were all invented by Benedictine monks as part of a conspiracy.
In addition to sloppy and inaccurate work (ie, not all of his rules apply all of the time, and he doesn't seem to realise that statistically any word, even one made up at random, you could find the "etymology" of by using his almost-too-large Basque dictionary and his system for deconstructing 'invented' words), his theories are just so astronomically stupid that nobody who spent 4 years studying linguistics (let alone somebody who has a PhD in linguistics) would buy any of his crap.
Without the makeshift credential system we already have in place to idiotproof the language-related articles of Wikipedia (see the response when some guy tried to add crap to the Finno-Ugric article about how it hasn't been proven as conclusively as it really has, and that most linguists disagree which they most certainly do not), he could add his theories all over Wikipedia.
Short of that, he could add shortcomings of the comparative method (the way REAL linguists find which languages are related) which don't really exist (there are shortcomings, but the ones he gives are extremely na"ive and show a complete lack of understanding of the complex statistical reasons why his own ideas do _not_ make any sense).
Without knowing something in advance about languages and linguistics or at least being able to recognise the mathematical problems with his ideas (not just any mathematician would be able to do that by looking at his ideas - you'd have to consider how many phonemes there are in language X, how many phonemes there are in Basque, how many words there are in the Basque dictionary he uses, and what the chances are he will find a match for a randomly-constructed non-word, which are about 100% because if he can't get a match using his normal rules, he ignores them and reaches outside of them for a match)... most non-linguists (or people without some advanced knowledge of languages and linguistics) do not notice the shortcomings of his ideas.
And his theory seems simpler and makes more sense from the POV of most non-linguists than the comparitive method.
In fact, it's so believable that his page on Yiddish etymology (ie, how it is an invented language derived from Basque rather than a language descended ultimately from Proto-Indo-European) received some sort of best-of-the-web award.
A few examples from Yiddish: "ashkenazim" - Nyland derivation: axola ' kena-azima Nyland translation (not actual Basque meaning usually): Worried about losing our identity; Actual origin: Hebrew "ashk@naaziim" actual translation of the origin: Germans "bar mitzvah" - Nyland derivation: ibarretshe imini itzaba Nyland translation:He has a work obligation at the house in the valley; Actual origin: 1. bar > Aramaic "bar" (son) form of "b@raa" > Proto-Semitic *bn 2. mitzvah > Hebrew "mitswah" (commandment) noun form of "tsiwwa" (to command) > Proto-Semitic *tswy "blintse" - N.d.: balintz ehotza N.t.: must be eaten; A.o.: Belarusian "blintsy" diminuitive-plural of "blin" (pancake) > Old Russian "blinue"/"mlinue" > Proto-IE *mlii (thing which has been ground up) extended form of *mel@ (to grind)
One from English: "eat" - N.d.: ea atondu N.t.: Especially prepared; A.o.: Middle English "eten" > Old English "etan" > Common Germanic "etan" > Proto IE *ed-
Mark
On 31/05/05, Joseph Reagle reagle@mit.edu wrote:
On Tuesday 31 May 2005 03:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I personally don't like the idea, because it does create a sense of "I have a PHD in Astrophysics and you don't so stfu" that I don't think would be conducive to the exercise of wikilove.
I do agree that this is a danger to be considered.
Another possible outcome is that it helps make it clear the extent to which "non-experts" make useful contributions. For much of their history encyclopedias were compiled by the learned, but not necessarily "experts" -- the very notion is a modern innovation. In any case, even then, useful contribution were made by folks outside of their field [1], such as Thomas Young [2].
[1] [[ Unpublished However, to claim that reputation motivated contributions is not to state that all participants were simply seeking fame. In fact, Thomas Young, the natural philosopher who worked on the wave theory of light while also deciphering the Rosetta Stone by 1840, agreed to contribute to the Britannica, but required anonymity in any subject "not immediately medical"; Young did not want scientific controversies to weaken the confidence the public had in his capacities as a physician (Yeo 2001:265). ]] [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_(scientist)
In fact, I think the compilation of materials by the competent but non-expert has a usefulness related to what I call the Feynman notion of simplicity: "His principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not fully understood yet" [3].
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Tuesday 31 May 2005 20:02, Mark Williamson wrote:
In some situations however it would be a good thing for the person with the degree in astrophysics to tell the person without to stfu.
Ah, OK. So you are touching on the issue of what exact role does the credential system serve. Is it an intelligence highlighter, a moron mitigator, I way of incenting contributions, etc.
As a crackpot moron mitigator, I don't expect credential would do that much with respect to the crackpot -- your just part of the conspiracy. If it served in some way to help others regulate the crackpot, then perhaps...
Exactly - it helps others realise that the crackpot is a crackpot.
What if the crackpot opens a RfC to get other people's opinions about who is correct, and they all agree with the crackpot because his version of the truth "sounds better"? Thus the crackpot version gets written into the article semipermanently, and any further attempts by the smart person to remove it from the article will be seen as anything from a troublesome annoyance to vicious vandalism.
Mark
On 01/06/05, Joseph Reagle reagle@mit.edu wrote:
On Tuesday 31 May 2005 20:02, Mark Williamson wrote:
In some situations however it would be a good thing for the person with the degree in astrophysics to tell the person without to stfu.
Ah, OK. So you are touching on the issue of what exact role does the credential system serve. Is it an intelligence highlighter, a moron mitigator, I way of incenting contributions, etc.
As a crackpot moron mitigator, I don't expect credential would do that much with respect to the crackpot -- your just part of the conspiracy. If it served in some way to help others regulate the crackpot, then perhaps...
On 6/1/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
What if the crackpot opens a RfC to get other people's opinions about who is correct, and they all agree with the crackpot because his version of the truth "sounds better"? Thus the crackpot version gets written into the article semipermanently, and any further attempts by the smart person to remove it from the article will be seen as anything from a troublesome annoyance to vicious vandalism.
But NPOV says we should be prefering citable resources over odd straw polls on wikipedia. Voting is harmful, just another example. Creds don't help the problem much... but I don't think having them would hurt.
Mark Williamson said:
Exactly - it helps others realise that the crackpot is a crackpot.
What if the crackpot opens a RfC to get other people's opinions about who is correct, and they all agree with the crackpot because his version of the truth "sounds better"? Thus the crackpot version gets written into the article semipermanently, and any further attempts by the smart person to remove it from the article will be seen as anything from a troublesome annoyance to vicious vandalism.
The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he will prevail. Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.
On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he will prevail. Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.
or being a smart person he will realize that he is arguing with Tony Sidaway, conclude that attempting to empty the oceans with a dixie cup would be more productive, and just give up.
Exactly! Giving up on an argument only makes you wrong if you're a girl.
Mark
On 01/06/05, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
The smart person, being a smart person, will realise that he has failed to persuade, and will henceforth exercise his persuasive skills to the extent that, being smart and (one is presuming here) demonstrably correct, he will prevail. Or else, being a smart person, he could realise he was wrong.
or being a smart person he will realize that he is arguing with Tony Sidaway, conclude that attempting to empty the oceans with a dixie cup would be more productive, and just give up. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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