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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Jonathan Chang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Langmaker.com and another thought (was Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005)
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Geeks and Nerds (was Re: On nerds and dreamers)
From: Kevin Athey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Kontaxta
From: Kevin Athey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Swearing in other cultures(was: On nerds and dreamers)
From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: some of... vs. some... et al.
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Kura
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: On nerds and dreamers
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. What to Call Non-Conlangers
From: Dan Sulani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 03:21:26 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
Hi!
"H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 11:10:08PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> [...]
> > Motivation:
> > The main problem I was having with all conlangs so far
> > was the question of assignment of arguments to predicates:
> >
> > - Which roles are direct arguments to verbs?
> > I.e., how to handle verbs that naturally have
> > three arguments like the prototype 'to give'?
> > Do we want two or more core cases (a core dative
> > case?)
>
> Interesting. This is what motivated me to devise Ebisédian's (and
> Tatari Faran's) case system (along with my general dissatisfaction
> with the passive voice).
Aha, someone with similar notions of 'nice structure'? :-)
> During my early attempts to solve this problem I decided that I
> needed at least 3 core cases, so that trivalent verbs like 'to give'
> can be expressed without adjuncts.
Only my first conlang Fukhian had three core arguments, and I think
that was more a similarity I copied from langs I know than thinking
about it. In the next two major projects Tyl Sjok and Qthyn|gai, I
also started with three core cases, but instead of keeping them, I
dropped them in order to keep the number of grammar rules and ordering
constraints low. In Qthyn|gai, the number of valence infixes needed
would have been enormous -- even with only two core cases, it has some
27 infixes or so.
The alternative was an approach like Lojban, which makes the
borderline between argument and adjunct depend on the verb -- but
still, there is a decision to be taken -- I did not want this --
neither globally, nor for each verb. I personally find the Lojban
argument system rather unsatisfactory.
When finishing my grammar sketch, I wondered whether AllNoun's
structure is comparable to S11, but I don't think so. Diving into the
structure I found out that Tom Breton himself mentioned problems he
encountered that I don't think I will face since my lang is not so
simplistically motivated -- and verbs *are* different from nouns. And
I think nouns like 'act-of-being-red' seem to be a bit awkward.
> The Ebisédian case system tries to handle this by 2 additional core
> cases, on top of the 3 prototypical for 'to give'. In retrospect, this
> did not work very well, which is why Tatari Faran reverts to 3 core
> cases, and uses postpositions for adjuncts.
I had wondered about how you assign the roles to the Ebisedian cases,
actually, because the cases are different from well-known natlang
cases and I wondered whether free-running verbs will be nice enough to
let you assign cases easily. But I never dived into your grammar too
deeply, I must admit...
And I really liked the structure of Tatari Faran that you presented
here. I found the verb complements quite intuitive for some
reason. :-) Maybe it felt like Afrikaans, which has these great
negation complements which I copied into Da Mätz se Basa. :-)))
Only for each verb, not for negation.
> originative, 'into' -> receptive, etc.. However, there were also many
> postpositions which did not easily fit into this paradigm.
Ah, ok. I wondered.
> Eventually, I came upon a rather elegant solution (IMHO): since the 3
> core cases were marked by postclitics, which were already treated as
> separate words, why not open up the class and treat postpositions the
> same way as well? And so, I decided that Tatari Faran postpositions
> govern the unmarked NP (without case marker). I.e., they appeared in
> the same position as where the case markers would appear, and
> essentially behaved like the case markers.
A bit like Finnish does it, I think, if you think of the adjunct,
non-core cases. But Finnish has additional postpositions that look
different. Some German dative objects that are not arguments also
look like arguments syntactically. But again, the normal case is a
prepositional phrase that looks different, yes.
> I even went so far as to equate postpositional clauses with NP's at
> the syntactic level, in that the indicative word order was
> subject-verb-arguments, and if one fronts a postpositional clause,
> the order becomes PC-verb-subject-arguments. I.e., the PC has the
> same status as a 'normal' NP.
Ah, ok. The word order rule resembles Germanic V2 (verb second) order
then, where the topic phrase (either subject or object NP or adjunct
PP) is just in front of the verb. Is the fronting due to topicality
in Tatari Faran?
> > - there are no adjuncts either, the whole structure is controlled
> > by using a sequence of noun-verb pairs.
>
> Nice! This sounds almost like a fleeting idea I posted to the list
> once, while thinking about Ebisédian grammar.
Did you? When was that?
> receive'? Then "A gives B to C" could be expressed as "A-offer
> B-transfer C-receive", which looks strikingly similar to what you
> describe below. :-)
Yes. It's indeed the same idea. Maybe it's the *only*
solution. :-)))
> Awesome! I think your solution is in many ways more elegant than mine.
> :-)
Oh, thanks! That's a nice statement! I hope I get the phonology
right so that the elegance remains in the final language...
> > 'John, who asks a question, is addressed.' =
> > John JIT LU KHAN NI GUP JIT MAT.
> > noun ev. verb noun verb rel. ev. verb
> > John hearsay ask question posed who hearsay addressed
BTW, the evidence markers serves a second purpose in this lang: it
marks the start of a sub-clause, otherwise some maybe bad ambiguity
could arise. But with evidence as start marker and relative particle
at the end, it's properly bracketed.
**Henrik
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 18:33:22 -0800
From: Jonathan Chang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
on 3/2/05 1:02 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> <...> Many dreamers are conlangers, and their conlangs
> are often naturalist and usually quite fanciful and accompanied
> by elaborate conculture. A nerd could never build something like
> Quenya or Tsolyani; it takes a dreamer to do that.
I would have to agree to that wonderful insight.
IMHO Auxlangers tend to be rather nerdy-centric &/or "control-freakish
idealists."
--
Hanuman Zhang, MangaLanger
Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift, phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics mutate, lexicons explode,
orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep, slang flashes, stylistics
warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every quantum leap...
"Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" -
title of a chapter on pidgins and creoles, John McWhorter,
_The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 20:36:07 -0600
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Langmaker.com and another thought (was Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005)
Roger Mills wrote:
> Someone commented that what's obscene (or just merely insulting) would
> depend on the conculture. And I suspect many of of have overlooked that-- I
> know I have, in many cases, and ought to devote more thought to getting away
> from the defecatory/sexual obscenities that _we_ consider so horrible. I
> wonder if it's a Judaeo-Christian (+Islamic) thing...:-))
>
> Any comments about other cultures/traditions? nat- as well as con-??
In the Simik (formerly Zirínka) language, the most "obscene" words are
the plain words for things like "virus", "torture", and "war". These are
words that are avoided in polite or formal conversation, while the
Zireen sexual vocabulary is considered more or less innocuous (no more
shocking than words like "hug" or "kiss" in English). I haven't given
much thought to words for excretory functions. I think they'd be mildly
repulsive, like the word "vomit" in English, but not especially
objectionable.
Here's a web page I made back when this subject came up years ago:
http://www.io.com/~hmiller/lang/ZireenExpletives.html
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 03:57:09 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: My new conlang S11
Hi!
Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> "Henrik Theiling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Motivation:
> > The main problem I was having with all conlangs so far
> > was the question of assignment of arguments to predicates:
>
> Designers of APIs in computer programming have analogous problems.
Ah, good analogy -- that's right. So I solve these problem every
day. :-))) So when designing an API, the principles about argument
order are really case->role assignment principles like in a conlang...
:-)
> > I found the questions very hard an unsatisfactory to solve each
> > time and was searching for some grammar structure that ultimately
> > solved these questions without arbitrary borderlines e.g. between
> > arguments and adjuncts.
>
> That is, unless some limits for these borderlines are hardwired in UG.
Well, with limits, you still have to make a decision within those
limits. For me, only 0, 1 and \infty are nice numbers, so maybe
that's why I was searching for a radical solution.
In the same way, my number system in Tyl Sjok, which I borrowed into
Qthyn|gai also uses this principle: there is no base word for
'hundred' or 'thousand' although the base is ten (by default). It is
all constructed using only 10^1, not 10^2, not 10^3, not anything
else. That's the same type of niceness. :-)
> > - there are no adjuncts either, the whole structure is controlled
> > by using a sequence of noun-verb pairs.
>
> Mmm... pairs. Once I thought of making a language out of
> two-word clauses, as an attempt to model what the language of the
> Eloi of Wells's _The Time Machine_ would be like, ...
Ah, there are more and more people who have thought about this, then.
Funny! :-)
> But where do adjectives fit into this plan? Or do you plan to handle
> them as relative clauses? And whither adverbs?
Adjectives will either be verbs or nouns, depending on what they
denote. I think as in my previous langs, entities and states will be
the same and thus nouns, and events will be verbs. But I have to
think about this borderline, too.
Adverbs will be normal participants in the sentence, thus just another
noun-verb pair:
'John asks politely.' =
john PERCEPTION ask polite use.
noun evidence verb noun verb
This is quite a prototypical serial verb construction, I think.
'polite' would have to be translated as 'politeness' and 'polite use'
would be 'with politeness' = 'politely'.
There will probably also be some derivational mechanisms to convert
between verbs and nouns. My goal is not minimal complexity, but
minimal felt awkwardness. :-)
Further, attributive adjectives will be used in a relative clause, yes
(quite like Chinese), and denominalised first if necessary.
I have not yet thought thoroughly about which denominalisers I will
have, but an 'essive' prefix (= 'to be in the state of _') can be
expected, I think:
E.g. 'Polite John asks (a question).' =
john HEARSAY be-polite REL PERCEPTION ask.
noun evidence DENOM-noun REL evidence verb.
\_verb___/
Something like that.
> > there are simply two (or more) verbs for each role. I think they
> > will all be suppletives, and not derivationally related (or maybe
> > related by some irregular, chaotic, non-productive process in some
> > cases).
>
> Any reason why they should all be suppletives?
Yes: because I fear that any attempt to derive them regularly will
introduce a bias towards a nominative/accusative or ergative or
active/split-S or whatever system and thus a trace of a structure that
has more than one core argument to predicates. E.g. I'd have to
define: to derive the verb that takes the patient, use the verb for
the agent and modify it this way: THE_WAY. Suppletives and chaos
avoid this reference to roles. A role is simply defined by its verb.
There is no generic agent, there is someone who asks. There is no
generic patient, but only someone who is hit, etc.
> > After the first noun in a pharse, there must be an evidence marker,
>
> Are these grammatical evidence markers just something you wanted
> to try, or is there some deep grammatical reason for them?
First of all, I love them. :-) Second, they mark the start of a
sub-clause.
> The whole thing reminds me vaguely of serial verb constructions
> in some African languages.
Could you give some examples? Sounds very interesting!
**Henrik
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 04:07:52 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
Hi!
Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> activation energy barrier of our shyness. Even I have now
> been blessed with a wonderful girlfriend, albeit after 25
> years of unsolicited solitude. ;o)
Oh, recently? All the best wishes! :-)
Coincidentally, my girlfriend and I recently engaged, thus the picture
I sent a few days ago.
**Henrik
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 21:32:08 -0600
From: Herman Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
Sally Caves wrote:
> Meanwhile, back to nerd and geek. What do others think is a distinction
> between these two? "Geek" does seem to have gravitated more to the
> technical side than "nerd" does.
I think "geek" still has connotations of weirdness or bizarre habits,
while a "nerd" would be involved with things that most people consider
to be boring and uninterested in more social activities. I tend to
prefer the word "nerd" since I learned that "geeks" were originally
carnival performers who supposedly did things like biting off the heads
of chickens. Why someone would pay to see that is beyond me....
But I've heard the usage of "geek" referring to a carnival performer
exactly once, in the lyrics of a song which a little Google searching
reveals to be "The Carny" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. So I don't
think it's probably that well known. I think Andreas Johansson's
definitions are closer to my understanding of these words.
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 21:52:34 -0600
From: Kevin Athey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Geeks and Nerds (was Re: On nerds and dreamers)
>From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>Meanwhile, back to nerd and geek. What do others think is a distinction
>between these two? "Geek" does seem to have gravitated more to the
>technical side than "nerd" does.
Both terms, of course, vary greatly in meaning from speaker to speaker. A
friend of mine and I once got into a lengthy discussion about just what the
distinction was, at least for us, and we came up with rather technical
definitions, which continue to serve us well, at least within the
"in-group". I shall share those with you now:
Geek: A "geek" is any person such that there exists some topic such that
there does not exist a comfort-based limit of acceptable interest in the
topic for the person. That is, a geek has at least one area of interest
(often more) where the normal societal cap of just how far you can get
"into" the area doesn't exist.
Nerd: A "nerd" is a geek such that the geek is not aware that comfort-based
limits of acceptable interest exist. That is, a nerd is also deeply
interested in at least one topic, but is not aware that his or her interest
in this (or any other) topic is abnormal.
We also speak of the Omnigeek and the Metageek. The Omnigeek is a geek
whose areas of interest (wherein the above limit does not exist) are
coterminous with classical "geeky" areas of interest, such as computers and
role-playing games. The Metageek is a geek for whom _all_ topics can be
classed as geek areas of interest.
I hope that's of some interest.
Athey
_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 22:00:06 -0600
From: Kevin Athey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Kontaxta
>From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>"Ivan Baines" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > That may because the syllable structure is inspired by Japanese.
> > A syllable may be CV, V or C (but while in Japanese the only
> > C syllable is 'n', here pretty much any consonant can stand
> > as a syllable on its own).
>
>No, 'n' is not the only C mora in Japanese. A high vowel (/i/, /u/)
>between two voiceless consonants will often become silent, and
>a final high vowel after a voiceless consonant drops out in men's
>speech as well. For instance, kana spelling "kontashita" would
>be pronounced "ko-n-ta-sh-ta".
Not technically true. The high vowel in these cases (at least in standard
Japanese) is voiceless, but still pronounced, as is apparent from some
non-homophonous words which would otherwise be so. However, as is mentioned
elsewhere, geminates count as an extra mora, so the first consonant of such
a sequence may well be considered a C mora, although this does funky things
to the pitch accent, if I recall.
Athey
_________________________________________________________________
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:06:24 -0500
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
> > Meanwhile, back to nerd and geek. What do others think is a distinction
> > between these two? "Geek" does seem to have gravitated more to the
> > technical side than "nerd" does.
>
>For me, they denote similar kinds of personality, but while "nerd" is
>pretty
>neutral, "geek" is decidely negative.
In Quebec, "geek" isn't used and "nerd", borrowed from north american
english, is used negatively
Here, a nerd is someone who has for only passions things that are usually
done only in school by most of the people and who has no friends
These school's passions may be Mathematics, Hystory, Geography, Science,
and, unfortunately, Languages
Someone whose hobby is to learn things when he doesn't ought to is a nerd..
Having a reputation of "nerd" here isn't a good thing and nobody will show
themself saying "I'm a nerd and I'm proud to be" because it is very
negative.
-Max
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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:42:47 -0500
From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures(was: On nerds and dreamers)
> "Roger Mills" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Someone commented that what's obscene (or just merely insulting)
>> would depend on the conculture. And I suspect many of of have
>> overlooked that--
> I
>> know I have, in many cases, and ought to devote more thought to
>> getting
> away
>> from the defecatory/sexual obscenities that _we_ consider so
>> horrible. I wonder if it's a Judaeo-Christian (+Islamic) thing...:-))
>>
>> Any comments about other cultures/traditions? nat- as well as con-?
<snip>
>Behalf Of # 1
>In Quebec, "geek" isn't used and "nerd", borrowed from north american
>english, is used negatively
>
>Here, a nerd is someone who has for only passions things that are
usually
>done only in school by most of the people and who has no friends
>
>These school's passions may be Mathematics, Hystory, Geography,
Science,
>and, unfortunately, Languages
>
>Someone whose hobby is to learn things when he doesn't ought to is a
nerd..
>
>
>Having a reputation of "nerd" here isn't a good thing and nobody will
show
>themself saying "I'm a nerd and I'm proud to be" because it is very
>negative.
>
>-Max
Hey, an insult having nothing to do with sex, any other bodily function
or religion!
On a related note, among my former circle of friends, to be a "person
who studies" was considered laughingly low, as in "Pah, she's nothing,
she studies". Not taken (completely) seriously, of course, being a
"studier" was still a good fraction of how a person's worth was
measured.
Oh, one was supposed to make stellar grades withought the study.
Now these kiddies are on their way to the mythical ivy covered walls of
academia...
--Cristina
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:45:42 -0600
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: some of... vs. some... et al.
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> In our field
> methods class, we're studying an African language, Moro,
> about which nothing has been written (and boy do I have
> stories! The language makes no case distinction between
> nominative and accusative, but does have *two* inessives,
> a supressive, a locative, a genitive and an instrumental/
> commitative. *However*, it does have an accusative case
> for proper names!)
Actually, quite a few head-marking languages do precisely
this. Since core arguments are cross-referenced on the
verb, you don't need to mark them on the dependent nouns.
Thus, in Meskwaki and Nahuatl, locatives and vocatives
have case suffixes for NPs, but otherwise NPs are entirely
devoid of case-marking. So, the next question would be:
is Moro a head-marking language?
(Interestingly, the Meskwaki vocative singular case suffix
is exactly that of Latin: -e. [Plural is -etike, though.]
This is in part coincidence, and in part functional:
vocatives tend to be reductions of particles equivalent
to "oh" and "hey" in English.)
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 21:54:45 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
What an interesting thread.
Sally wrote:
<<
It's another ambiguous phrase defined by the people who use
it. Comments?
>>
This is referring to the phrase "get a life". I think it applies to an
idea which I'll come back to that, at least in America (from what
I understand), someone who's well-rounded and "maleable", for
lack of a better word, is valued more highly over someone who's
specialized and rigid. So, for example, someone who knows a
little bit about a bunch of different things has more social value
than someone who knows a lot about one thing. This can be seen
in informal social gatherings. Compare a person who can take
a part in any conversation and relate it to many different topics,
and compare that to a person who can't really participate in any
conversation unless s/he can relate it to, say, The Simpsons (a
criticism of one of my friend's ex-boyfriends). Maybe this is
because, in general, people don't want to always talk about the
same thing...? Eh. I've run this thought dry.
Sally wrote:
<<
Meanwhile, back to nerd and geek. What do others think is a distinction
between these two? "Geek" does seem to have gravitated more to the
technical side than "nerd" does.
>>
Someone brought up a really good point about this. Let me find the
message. Ah, yes.
Christian wrote:
<<
For me, the guy with in-depth knowledge
on his field (be it assembler programming, audio hardware or
oil painting) but lack of social skills is a geek.
>>
For me, the specific word "geek" is moving in this direction. In fact,
I'd say that pretty soon the "in-depth knowledge in one field" will
take over, and the "lacks social skills" aspect will become less and
less core. I know people that use "geek" derivationally, in fact. Take
any field, any interest, and insert "geek" after, and it becomes a
person who spends "too much" time doing stuff in that field, to
the neglect of everything else. And geek no longer need apply
only to the prototypical "geek" things (computers, role-playing,
Star Trek, etc.), but to anything. For example, within my own
linguistics department, I've been referred to as a language geek,
because I spend a lot of time learning about different languages,
as opposed to, say, learning about theory.
The implication, though, is that if you have a person that spends
most of their time doing one thing, they're probably a less well-
rounded individual, and, therefore, less socially adept. However,
the positive association (i.e., if you have a problem in field x, you
want a field x geek to help you) is definitely alive, and will continue
to grow, I think. Isn't there something like this with Best Buy and
the Geek Squad, or something, for computers...?
Now, as for nerd... Nerd still has very negative associations with
me. With a nerd, I think of someone who:
a.) is socially inept
b.) lacks interest in "normal" things
c.) is not smart
That last one is the sticking point with me. I knew lots of people
in high school that were interested in, say, role playing, but who
were smart, and who got things done in school, and had a life, even
if it didn't involve playing sports and hanging out with "popular"
people.
The nerds were the ones who were always saying they were smart,
getting along with no one, and failing remedial English for the third
year in a row. They had nothing at all going for them.
For an analog, think about Napoleon Dynamite in the movie
_Napoleon Dynamite_. This is a kid who clearly lacks social
skills, is no good at sports, isn't interested in anything popular,
and isn't very smart. He's a good prototypical nerd: He's got
nothing at all going for him. One of the things that makes that
movie so interesting is that he starts with nothing, and then
proceeds to build himself up, so that, by the end, he's greatly
improved. He comes to several realizations in the movie, and
then starts to set himself some goals, wherever he finds them,
sets out to accomplish them, and accomplishes them. So even
though he hasn't really done anything fantastic by the end,
you get the sense that he's on his way; that he's going somewhere.
Anyway, that's my impression of the words "nerd" and
"geek"--and of _Napoleon Dynamite_, which I thought was
the most underrated movie of last year--Million Dollar Baby
be damned!
Oh, and on Herman's post:
<<
But I've heard the usage of "geek" referring to a carnival performer
exactly once, in the lyrics of a song which a little Google searching
reveals to be "The Carny" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. So I don't
think it's probably that well known. I think Andreas Johansson's
definitions are closer to my understanding of these words.
>>
Let me put on my Simpsons Geek hat and inform you that this
usage found its way into the carny episode of the Simpsons. This
was the one with the late Ernest. Homer and Bart are hired to
work as carnies at the local carnival after Bart wrecks Hitler's
car (an attraction at the carnival). One of their jobs, as informed
by the carnival owner, was to work as geeks in the Geek Show.
What they had to do: Bite the heads off chickens, and take a bow.
This is a capsule of the episode:
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/5F08
Here's the exact quote:
Tex: All right. Now, this geek bit is pretty straight forward.
You just bite the heads off the chickens and take a bow. [He
hands
Bart and Homer chickens] Go on. Give it a try. Big smiles.
-David
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 01:12:12 -0500
From: Damian Yerrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
"Herman Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I tend to
> prefer the word "nerd" since I learned that "geeks" were originally
> carnival performers who supposedly did things like biting off the heads
> of chickens. Why someone would pay to see that is beyond me....
Why does Ozzy Osbourne, known for biting the head off a bat,
still pack stadiums?
--
Damian
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Message: 14
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 22:07:14 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
Tom wrote:
<<
Actually, quite a few head-marking languages do precisely
this. Since core arguments are cross-referenced on the
verb, you don't need to mark them on the dependent nouns.
Thus, in Meskwaki and Nahuatl, locatives and vocatives
have case suffixes for NPs, but otherwise NPs are entirely
devoid of case-marking. So, the next question would be:
is Moro a head-marking language?
>>
Uh...head-marking? I've never been good at this. Here's
a big NP:
ej jamala iki [EMAIL PROTECTED]
/all PLU.-camel this CONC.-white/
[CONC. means "concord": Adjectives agree with nouns in class.]
That's "all these white camels". Now, if you wanted to say
"next to all these white camels", you'd say...
ej jamalanano iki [EMAIL PROTECTED]
/all PLU.-camel-LOC. this CONC.-white/
That's head-marking, right? (Not that I'm trying to get you
to do my work for me...) Dependent-marking would be if
the case got tagged onto the adjective, right?
Oh, wait, no, that has to do with verbs. Yes, in Moro, subject
and object (and, for some reason, I don't think we've tried
indirect objects. I've got to pencil in the word "give" for next
session...) are marked on the verb. I can't give you any examples,
because I never paid much attention to the verbs, since my
job is noun cases and adpositions... :*(
Something like...
udZi ga-n-fo ege
man SBJ.(animate class)-object-hit house
"The man hit the house."
Don't know about that "n", but something like that. So,
yeah, I guess it does make sense. But why have special
cases for proper names only? That's something I've only
seen in, say, languages of the Philippine type, but in those
there are just two different sets of markers: One for nouns,
and one for proper names. In other words, nouns are
marked. Why only mark proper names, if you can get
by just fine without it?
Anyway, thanks for your input, Tom! It'd be nice to
have a linguist in our class helping us out. ;) j/k
-David
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 01:59:26 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
Herman Miller wrote:
> But I've heard the usage of "geek" referring to a carnival performer
> exactly once, in the lyrics of a song which a little Google searching
> reveals to be "The Carny" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. So I don't
> think it's probably that well known. I think Andreas Johansson's
> definitions are closer to my understanding of these words.
> >>
I have a very distinct and vivid memory of a (very serious) movie in the
late-ish 40s, starring IIRC Ray Milland as an alcoholic heading toward
bottom (I think not "Lost Weekend" though memory is foggy). Anyhow, having
lost wife, job, everything, he ends up as a geek in a carnival, and yes, has
to bite the heads off chickens. The word was briefly popular in our local
slang.
A couple terms from college days at Harvard in the early-mid 50s:
"wonk" was used by prep-school types to refer to public HS guys and the
locals who commuted. The stereotype was that they were intense, competitive
science/pre-med majors, didn't dress well, and were often of non-Anglo
origin. (By contrast, the preppies called themselves "tweed" or "shoe").
Idiotically, hopelessly snobbish; and alumni reports over the years have
shown that many wonks have done extremely well for themselves. (The term
seems to have improved a bit--we now have "policy wonks" in Washington.)
"Nerd" didn't exist then AFAIK, but it could have applied to the same
people.
One of my irreverent friends wrote a little ditty--
"It's pleasant of a Sunday
To worship in a pew;
But I can't find no solace there
'Cuz Jesus wasn't shoe."
"Shoe" for that matter (it was elliptical for the white buck shoes that
fashionable folk wore in spring/summer) has also come back again (or never
went away), in refs. to NYC "white shoe" law firms and banks. ˇAy de mí,
plus ça change.......!
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 08:39:34 +0100
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
Sally Caves wrote:
> Some of the most interesting swear words come from right across our border,
> here in Upstate. I never thought that the words for "host" or "tabernacle"
> could be so injurious in French-Canadian sectors when used out of their
> contexts.
>
> But I can understand it: in Middle English, the worst swear words were
> religious: 'zounds, coming from "God's wounds," "'sblood," etc. To refer
> lightly to Christ's torment on the cross was to add to it, and commit
> blasphemy.
>
> Sally
In Hindi the worst insult is to call someone _sálá_ "wife's brother"
because it implies "I've f*cked your sister". Thus the word has
to be used with discretion even when speaking of one's actual
brothers-in-law!
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 11:36:42 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Sally Caves wrote:
> > Some of the most interesting swear words come from right across our border,
> > here in Upstate. I never thought that the words for "host" or "tabernacle"
> > could be so injurious in French-Canadian sectors when used out of their
> > contexts.
> >
> > But I can understand it: in Middle English, the worst swear words were
> > religious: 'zounds, coming from "God's wounds," "'sblood," etc. To refer
> > lightly to Christ's torment on the cross was to add to it, and commit
> > blasphemy.
> >
> > Sally
>
> In Hindi the worst insult is to call someone _sálá_ "wife's brother"
> because it implies "I've f*cked your sister". Thus the word has
> to be used with discretion even when speaking of one's actual
> brothers-in-law!
Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China, the
ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course implies
"I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
Andreas
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:27:47 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Moro Cases (was Re: some of... vs. some... et al.)
Hi!
"David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> ... But why have special
> cases for proper names only? ...
You ask 'why' for grammar phenomena? You must be kidding! :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 19
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:48:15 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
Hi!
Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China, the
> ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course implies
> "I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
>...
Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
I don't know many... This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
explicitly expressed. :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 20
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:09:07 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:48:15 +0100, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > > In Hindi the worst insult is to call someone _sálá_ "wife's brother"
> > > because it implies "I've f*cked your sister". Thus the word has
> > > to be used with discretion even when speaking of one's actual
> > > brothers-in-law!
> >
> > Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China, the
> > ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course
> > implies
> > "I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
>
> Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
> I don't know many... This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
> cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
> explicitly expressed. :-)
I once wrote a co-worker from the former Soviet Union a note telling
her that her mother had called, and wrote "tvoja mat' zvonila". She
later told me that she was startled at first, and advised me to write
"tvoja mama" next time.
What I had written was grammatically correct, she said, but was
uncomfortably close to "tvoju mat'", which is another such
insult-by-cultural-agreement, since there's no verb (it's merely
"your-ACC mother"), though I believe there's a canonical expansion
using a certain verb which is part of "mat" (Russian swearing; that
term, in turn, I believe comes from this "canonical insult" involving
"mat'").
Still, I found this reminiscent of what BP said about "...even when
speaking of one's actual brothers-in-law".
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 21
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:23:30 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swearing in other cultures (was Langmaker.com and...)
On 3 Mar 2005, at 11.48 pm, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> ...
>> Possibly a linguistic urban myth, but I heard that in parts of China,
>> the
>> ultimate insult is to tell someone "I'm your father", which of course
>> implies
>> "I fucked your mother". I suppose they were much amused by Star Wars.
>> ...
>
> Hmm, I only know 'His/Her mother's!' as a very bad Chinese insult, but
> I don't know many... This seemingly strange insult is insulting by
> cultural agreement, it seems, and the real insult is just not
> explicitly expressed. :-)
I've heard 'your mum' used as an offensive insult on more than one
occasion, usually from the mouths of (east) Asians, normally Vietnamese
I think. I originally interpreted it as being abbreviated from the
non-offensive insults like 'Your mum's so fat, she got a parking ticket
while waiting to cross the road!', but the degree to which it offends
suggested it probably came from something from their culture. The
Chinese did have a strong influence over the Vietnamese in the past, so
it seems even more likely.
--
Tristan.
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Message: 22
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:32:38 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Kura
Crestine Skćlante vrćt:
> I was looking around here: http://del.icio.us/feaelin/conlang
> and ended up in here: http://www.ats.lmu.de/kura/index.php
> (Kura, a multi-user open-source linguistic database).
> Does anyone have any experience with Kura (and would like to share)?
I've tried it various times on both Linux and Mac OS X, and never had
much success. My best experience allowed me to add data, and apparently
save it, but on relaunching it didn't seem to read the file properly so
it was as good as gone.
(PS: Rather than replying, it's better to create a new thread when you
want to create a new thread. Threaded mail readers would otherwise
place your thread as a subthread of the original thread, and it might
end up being missed, if someone's not interested in swearing but is
interested in linguistic databases.)
--
Tristan.
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Message: 23
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:48:13 +1100
From: Tristan McLeay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
On 3 Mar 2005, at 12.48 pm, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> For me, they denote similar kinds of personality, but while "nerd" is
> pretty
> neutral, "geek" is decidely negative. It also has connotations of
> exclusive
> obsession with a single field that "nerd" lacks. In practice I only
> speak of
> computer geeks and roleplaying geeks, but I suppose one could be a
> conlanging
> geek.
Really? I have exactly the opposite! You could offend me by calling me
a 'nerd' (because I'd assume that your intention), but calling me a
'geek' and I would probably not realise you were being offensive. Max's
definition of 'nerd' in Quebeckese French seems to be pretty similar to
my definition/understanding of nerd in Australian English. (By more
conventional folk, of course, 'geek' and 'nerd' are much closer to
synonyms. I know this, I just forget it because I don't use them as
such.)
In general I agree with Christian. Except about the girlfriend bit :(
Tho a few other geeky types got their first girlfriends at ~25, so
maybe I just have to wait five more years before the girls mature or
something :)
--
Tristan.
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Message: 24
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:21:04 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On nerds and dreamers
* Jörg Rhiemeier said on 2005-03-02 22:02:01 +0100
> A "nerd", as I understand the word, is someone who is single-mindedly
> pursuing one special field. This type is especially common in the
> computer trade, and I learned to know many nerds when I was studying
> computer science in university. These people do almost nothing
> without computers. Their hobbies are computer programming, computer
> games, computer this and computer that. At most, they play chess,
> or role-playing games, but the latter without actually role-playing,
> reducing the game to dice-rolling and rules-lawyering. Some nerds
> conlang, but their conlangs are mostly loglangs, engelangs or other
> non-naturalist projects, often inspired by computer programming
> languages more than by human languages. And there is almost never
> a conculture attached.
Yeez, Jörg? Bitter much? This characterization makes me a little angry.
Being a member of at least two computer clubs[*] I know a lot of
geeks/nerds and I consider myself to be one. (And they consider me to be
one, just so that is clear.) I do everything on my computer(s), but when
I rpg I prefer diceless, roleplay-heavy rpging, as does everyone I know
that I know rpgs, geeks/nerds or not. It's about maturity and access to
other systems of thought/rpgs than Dungeons and Dragons...
So, what would you call someone that are both a dreamer and a nerd/geek?
> Another personality type who is frequently mistaken for a nerd is
> the "dreamer". Unlike the nerd, who isn't really all that imaginative,
> the dreamer is a very imaginative person. [..]
[*] This town has AFAIK both the oldest university computer club and the
oldest rpg-club in the country, and a very big (half a dozen clubs) live
role play contigent.
t.
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Message: 25
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:56:23 +0200
From: Dan Sulani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: What to Call Non-Conlangers
Hi all!
In a recent off-list email to Sally Caves,
I had occasion to mention those who do not
participate in our (well, whatever it is we do ---
art, craft, hobby, etc).
I couldn't come up with an acceptable (to me,
at any rate) term for the collective non-us.
"Non-conlanger" doesn't really do it for me.
So I borrowed a leaf from Harry Potter and called
them "muggles". But that's not it either. (And besides,
that would imply that we conlangers are all wizards
and witches! Well, language-wizards, maybe. ;-)
But still...! )
Sally thought that we might refer to them as
"avlangers" or "Avvles? (i.e., average users of language)"
Anybody else have any ideas as to what we should call
those who don't create langs?
Dan Sulani
--------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.
A word is an awesome thing.
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