From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Subject: And now we are 3, or is it 4? Date: Mon, 07 May 90 16:59:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1 (1) This is not a major statement from the editors, but rather simply a note to mark the beginning of Humanist's fourth year -- and to remark that Humanist is now appearing in 685 individual e-mail boxes as well as at 19 redistribution sites -- a prodigious accomplishment, for which we again thank Willard. From: Willard McCarty Subject: self-reflections in the machine Date: Fri, 04 May 90 18:06:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1 (2) Since Mary Dee was bold to reveal herself by telling tales of a computer I also remember working with -- in fact [name-drop warning!] I toggled switches on an IBM 709 (with its 6000 vacuum tubes) in my youth -- I'll also uncover. I was once asked by a friend what sex I thought the computer had. Wanting to provoke her, I remarked that it was obviously female: bitchy, powerful, and mysterious. She said, "No, no, it's obviously male -- handy to have around the house, but when I don't need it I can turn it off and walk away." I'm fascinated by the number of people who think of the machine as neuter. There's almost nothing I regard as neuter. According to Chinese tradition, if I'm not badly mistaken, everything can be sorted into male and female. And what do we mean by neuter? Sexually unremarkable, which could suggest the same sex as the beholder? Willard McCarty From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" Subject: Talk about computers Date: Sat, 05 May 90 08:55:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2 (3) I believe it was I who enlarged the tidy question of the gender of words meaning "computer" in languages other than English. My (unexpressed) premise was recently stated by Willard McCarty: the way we talk about computers can "tell us a considerable amount about ourselves." It appears that the systems programmer I know may be using the masculine pronoun for a program (the VM/CMS operating system) rather than for the hardware ("he is thinking about crashing"). The comment is usually not about something good. The only times I have heard feminine references were in speeches of encouragement ("You can do it, girl!") or praise ("She found the file in the root directory!"). I am interested in the pronoun number used for a computer. "The" computer may be used of a mainframe rather than for "a" microcomputer, but it does not seem that simple. I used to think that those who were sophisticated about computing, and who recognized that there were significant differences among computers talked of "a" computer or of "computers," and that those who failed to understand the differences talked of "the" computer. It now appears to me that some very sophisticated computer users speak of "the" computer when they mean any computer: a micro, mini, or mainframe. Another matter (that may "tell us a considerable amount about ourselves") is that we talk about computers in a highly metaphoric way; technical and non-technical language about computers is filled with figures of speech of all kinds: files (a metaphor to start with) are packed, squeezed, crunched, and squashed; they can be killed, or they may hang or crash the system and force us to boot or reboot. I notice that my students "boot" a computer to start it (the original metaphor seems to be that the operating system pulls itself up by its own boot straps), but they also "boot" a computer by kicking out the operating system (rebooting it). Do HUMANISTs have observations about the metaphoric language of computing? Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET.BITNET From: Willard McCarty Subject: language of computing Date: Sat, 05 May 90 16:44:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 3 (4) This query represents somewhat of a digression from the ongoing talk about the sex of computers and the number (singular or plural), but it is the same kind of question. When listening to others talk about the behaviour of computers I have often noticed what seemed to be an unusually high percentage of superstitious expressions. Sheizaf Rafaeli, as I recall, refers in an article to our habit of speaking in animistic terms about the machine, but I wonder if anyone has studied contemporary linguistic usage and found that superstition was unusually prevalent amongst systems programmers and other experts who deal with very complex computing systems. Willard McCarty From: "Peter D. Junger" Subject: First Impressions of the Machine Date: Mon, 7 May 90 13:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 4 (5) Mary Dee Harris's posting about not remembering `ever thinking of the machine as anything but a machine -- without gender' invokes memories. At the time of which she speaks--or maybe a little later, the IBM/360 had just come out--I was not working with assembly language. I was a lawyer working on Wall Street, for the most part assembling contracts, leases, and other legal instruments (instruments that to a surprising extent were composed of `so long as ...', `if ... then ... ', `else ...', `while ...', and similar control structures). And then we became peripherally involved with the case of a corporation that had acquired a computer and--as a consequence--ended up with a mismatch between billings and receivables of fifty million dollars, back in those innocent days when that was a lot of money. The corporation wrote off five million dollars for its losses from this matter and went out and purchased a lot of quill pens, while at my office several of us decided that it was time that we learned something about computers. Being a very establishment sort of firm, we were able to pull a few strings and infiltrate ourselves into the IBM Executive Computer Concepts Course--a peculiar cross between a boondoggle and a bootcamp for financial vice-presidents and comptrollers of Fortune 500 companies that were considering the initial purchase of a computer. The course was taught with a simulated time machine: on the first day the computer had just been invented and the only way to program was machine language; the next day assembler was invented; the day following came Fortran; the day following that introduced Cobol, and so-on to APL ... that was on the day they were going to demonstrate the C(athode) R(ay) T(ube), only it was broken. And so, for me too, the first introduction to computers was to registers and to `the Chinamen inside the computer with abacuses that really made it work.' And then years later, when I was trying to write a filter that would insert double underlining into a Wordstar file, I learned BASIC, which didn't work because it would not treat a carriage return as an ASCII character, and PASCALZ, which worked but excruciatingly slowly and required that I like to the machine by telling it that ASCII characters were simply bytes, and finally assembly language, which not only worked but also gave up the pretense that there was no such thing as a register inside the machine. And now whenever I work with a computer I sense the data being moved on conveyor belts through the machine, looping around, like marbles in a pinball machine: tahpucka, tahpucka, ..., tahpucka. The computer is not alive, it does not have gender, it does not have--except most periphally--a G(raphical) U(ser) I(nterface). It is an abacus, disguised is a great, big Rube Goldberg contraption. Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: The sex of computers Date: Sat, 05 May 90 11:20:40 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 5 (6) I was grateful for Willard's contribution on the sex of computers. We are in danger of making some fundamental linguistic muddles which in my own field (not generally at the forefront of linguistics) were exposed and attacked as long ago as 1961 by James Barr, *The Semantics of Biblical Language*. Only in a language like English where all nouns are neuter unless explicitly male or female could the use of the pronoun be at all significant. If 'computer' in Dutch is a masculine noun of course it will be 'hij', just as 'teknon' (child) in greek is 'auto' (neuter) not 'autos'. But to translate these into English as 'he' (for the computer) or 'it' (for the child) would simply display ignorance of the workings of language. dare I say that parts of this discussion have come perilously close to displays of such ignorance? I liked Willard's analysis of 'metaphorical sex' but feel it's potentially simplistic. Is a car in English 'she' because it is temperamental, or 'she' because it is a symbol of masculinity or 'she' because (like a woman) it gives one a special sort of thrill? Or do males generally personalise things as female, because another male would be a potential rival? One would need to know a great deal more about the sex-stereotyping which influenced the original choice, as well as that (potentially very different!) of the other users of the terminology. Douglas de Lacey From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" Subject: medieval robots? Date: 4 May 1990 19:44:05 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 6 (7) I am enjoying the discussions of the Golem, but I have to ask: since when is sixteenth-century Prague medieval? Even my advisor, who was fairly expansive about the boundaries of the medieval period, stopped with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, University of Illinois at Chicago From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" Subject: GOLEM AND COMPUTER Date: 4 May 90 20:07:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 7 (8) In an amusing essay by Primo Levi (from "Other People's Trades" I think), he talks about learning how to use a computer. He compares it to the Golem, because you have to put a disk in its mouth to get it to work. Since Jim O'Donnell insists on broadcasting his observation, I'll point out to him yet again that you can buy connectors that will change gender. From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 3.1359 Golems (62) Date: Sun, 06 May 90 14:36 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 8 (9) Harry Bauer? The GREAT golem film was Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS. The mad genius lives in the odl town in the bowels of the highly-technologized aerial city of the far, thank heavens! future, and the workers there are slaves, before transistorized golemniks or golemnikgals? are invented. Kessler at UCLA From: Itamar Even-Zohar Subject: Re: 3.1355 Queries: Bibliography Software; Nodes; SCORE (63) Date: Sat, 05 May 90 11:17:34 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 9 (10) I have heard (not confirmed officially from any source) that Dragonfly Software are planning to make versions of IBID., Nota Bene's bibliographic software, for both Word Perfect and Word. This will let WP and Word users have one of the privileges of NB, if this is true. As it looks now, NB goes deeper and deeper into fulfilling the needs of researchers and writers, while WP is going in completely other directions (perhaps where the large market is). I expect NB to come up with more IBID-like products in future, and WP & Word will probably always lag behind in these domains. Itamar Even-Zohar. From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 3.1355 Queries: Bibliography Software; Nodes; SCORE (63) Date: Sun, 06 May 90 05:03:16 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 10 (11) on bibliography packages: dragonfly is working on a version of ibid for word perfect and for word. no release date as yet. perhaps you could be a beta-tester for them. don't say i sent you. From: Harry Hahne Subject: Re: 3.1355 Bibliographic software Date: May 6, 1990 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 11 (12) Regarding Mark West's query about bibliographic software that works with Word Perfect, LIBRARY MASTER sounds like just what you want. It is a database manager designed especially to meet the needs of those who work with a lot of textual and bibliographic information. It overcomes the limitations of typical database managers (such as fixed length fields, column based reports and limited support for non-English text) for this type of application. LIBRARY MASTER allows easy entry of multilingual text of arbitrary length, rapid searches on any combination of fields, and flexible report formatting. The flexible report generator is works especially well with variable length text. Reports can produce documents in the file formats of many popular word processors, including Word Perfect. Annotated bibliographies are automatically formatted according to manuals of writing style such as Modern Language Association, University of Chicago, American Psychological Association and Turabian. Data may be imported from online library catalogs, online information services, other database programs and text files. If Mark West or anyone else wants more information or a copy of the demonstration program, they may contact me. Harry Hahne Wycliffe College, University of Toronto From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 3.1355 Queries: Bibliography Software Date: Mon, 7 May 90 08:00:46 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 12 (13) Dragonfly's IBID works only with Nota Bene. A stand alone package of similar or superior power (except for being available inside the word processor) is Personal Bibliographic Software's Pro-Cite. You can import PRO-CITE output into your word processor. It can extract references from a text file prepared by Word Perfect and generate the appropriate reference list. The following information is a couple of years old: Personal Bibliographic Software, Inc. 412 Longshore Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48105 313-996-1580 The price used to be c. $400. I believe there may be site licensing discounts; you might ask your computer services organization is there is a site license. I haven't seen the package discounted anywhere. There are DOS and Mac versions. There are some add-ins for doing on-line searching of commercial bibliography services. There is a comparative review of bibliographic database programs in Science, Vo. 235, 2/27/87, pp. 1093-1096, Ruth E. Wachtel, Personal Bibliographic Databases. I have heard a rumor on USENET that SCI-MATE, a major competitor of PRO-CITE reviewed there, is defunct. Can anyone confirm or correct this rumor? Alas, learning one word processor after another is the common fate of all users of word processors. I actually use Nota Bene but anticipate having to learn a new system in a few years as products improve. The really upleasant situation to be avoided is having to use several bad word procesors simultaneously. From: Subject: Bibliographic software Date: Mon, 7 May 90 15:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 13 (14) Mark West asked about bibliographic software. My experience tells me that you're right to conclude that NB's Ibid. is the best there is. Per- haps others have had better luck, but I have looked in vain for something to match either Nota Bene as a word processor for longer manuscripts des- tined for publication or Ibid. as a bibliographic utility. The newest version even solves most of the problems with multi-language entries. I too am wed to WordPerfect for the time being. It is good and getting better and better. I will say, however, that I would switch to Nota Bene in a minute (I have used it for one large project several years ago. The manual is daunting, but learning the program is relatively easy, and the results marvelous.) if they would support downloadable fonts other than HP's own. I've asked but they show little interest. One possible sidelight. In my attempts to transfer work from WordPerfect to and from Nota Bene, I came across a great little program called "Word for Word" which will transfer files in and out of most formats. It works quite well (better than I expected) and the help line staff was extremely helpful. Alas, I could not solve the problem of transferring italics as WordPerfect and Nota Bene treat the issue differently. Lacking that I would be transferring back and forth regularly. Hope that there's something useful in all this. Randy Donaldson (Donaldson@LOYVAX) From: Alan D Corre Subject: Gender Date: Fri, 4 May 90 16:57:12 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 5 (15) Clearly there is some connection between sex and gender, but in most languages it is not clear cut. English pays little attention to sex/gender. It differentiates chiefly in the third person singular pronouns. Occasionally inanimate things are called "she" but this is often rather deliberate. (Consider the news item that went something like this: "Her Grace christened the ship by breaking a bottle of champagne over her bows, after which she gently slid into the water.") Tamil, a Dravidian language quite unrelated to English behaves in much the same way. It has three third person pronouns like English, but there is no adjectival concord by gender. The third person verb does have separate endings though. On the other hand, German, a language closely related to English, has complex gender distinctions that often relate to the shape of the word rather than the sex of the object referred to. Thus the word for "girl" is neuter, and referred to as "it" because the word has a diminutive ending which selects the neuter gender. The Romance languages lack a neuter gender, or largely so, and squeeze all objects into the masculine/feminine dichotomy. This is often determined by the shape of the word. Thus the word for "sentry" in French is feminine, and referred to as "she" although women rarely fulfill this role. In Latin some words of typically feminine shape can however be masculine, poeta, for example. One looks in vain for logic in natural languages which constantly change, ironing out some irregularities while creating others. We may ask why the distinction exists at all. Professor Rabin of the Hebrew University told me of an individual of his acquaintance who had unilaterally decided that gender distinctions in Hebrew were unnecessary in the modern world, and refused to use any feminines, referring even to his wife as "he". (I mean the English "he"; the word "he" in Hebrew happens to mean "she"). I imagine that most people would find this quite difficult. It is worth pointing out that Semitic languages are particular to distinguish gender in the "you" forms, even where some other distinctions are obliterated in modern dialects. Accordingly one finds that the recipes on the side of food packages in Hebrew ("take one tablespoon..add water..stir") are invariably in the feminine, while the instructions for operating a hacksaw will be in the masculine. It's easy to see how this fosters sex roles, and probably this is part of the key to the whole issue. Natural languages have many subtle markers which put varying degrees of space between interlocutors. In a recent showing of "People's Court" Judge Wapner chastised a defendant who addressed him as "man". The individual replied: "Sorry, judge." I also once had occasion to calm a colleague who was incensed at a student who had used the expression "..and all that shit.." in an exam paper. I pointed out that the student was probably unaware that such a locution may be ok in the local bar, but is not to be used in written English, and he simply should be advised accordingly. These expressions give cues as to the relationship between speakers, and sometimes misfire. French has a familiar "tu" and a formal "vous" and even verbs to indicate the usage ("tutoyer" -- to call someone "tu"). Whether one uses one or the other can sometimes be a matter of difficulty. It's interesting to note that in local Tunisian French, "tu" is routinely used, presumably because the colonists didn't see fit to address the locals ever by the polite form, which is itself a comment on social attitudes. Gender differences are probably tied up with these subtle ways that we differentiate you/me boy/girl lower/higher and so on. Such things can be exasperating or fascinating, and that will probably determine whether you enjoy studying foreign languages, or avoid them like the plague. From: Subject: Query: Oppenheimer's Gita Date: Fri, 4 May 90 16:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 14 (16) At Trinity, when they exploded the 1st atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Does anybody know what translation (and what verse & chapter) he was quoting from? My father-in-law has serached through several translations, but this wording has not been evident in any of them. Thanks -- Kevin Berland From: Charles Ess Subject: Scientific wordprocessing Date: Fri, 04 May 90 18:15:58 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 15 (17) On behalf of a colleague who finds writing equations in WordPerfect cumbersome at best -- any experience/recommendations on scientific/ mathematically-oriented wordprocessors? (He has a 386 machine with lots of memory and harddisk, if that is pertinent). Also -- experience/recommendations on 2400 baud modems, especially as available from mail-order? As the American wandering through Switzerland (German-speaking part) was heard to say, Danke field mouse (Danke viel mals) Charles Ess Drury College From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Queries Date: Sat, 05 May 90 11:22:32 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 16 (18) A colleague has asked about a specific point with potentially broader implications. Can any Humanist help on either level? He recalls seeing (but cannot now find) a paper on the unity of Luke and Acts which used as an argument in favour a list of words, longer phrases, and motifs which the two had in common. His question, when I confessed ignorance as to the source, was, Is there a program which will identify any phrases or word-groups which two works have in common? Now I confess that although interested in stylometry, I have never seen such sophisticated attempts at measuring it--perhaps just a measure of my own ignorance. Can anyone enlighten me? Douglas de Lacey From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 3.1350 Queries (89) Date: Sun, 06 May 90 04:53:56 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 17 (19) on kaspar hauser. why don't you write to the goetheanium in arlesheim, swtizerland. they must have a library etc. i think the topic is fantastic! From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Siegen Conference perplexity" Date: Sat, 5 May 90 17:29:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 18 (20) A colleague recently wrote on HUMANIST that he had not received any registration materials for the Siegen conference although he had sent in all requested information a month or two prior. The same is true for me. Are others also in the dark? Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Plymouth State College (NH) joelg@psc.bitnet From: LINDYK@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: RE: 3.1333 Meta-Discussions: Matrix and Addresses (57) Date: Sun, 6 May 90 12:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 19 (21) Hello, I quite agree with Mary Dee Harris. I am in the same situation as she is and I quite appreciate having a name and address at the end of a message. This way I can edit out the very long header. I hope the the situation of us modem users is taken into consideration. Sincerely Bogdan KARASEK lindyk@vax2.concordia.ca From: Marc Bregman Subject: Scripture Fonts Date: Mon, 7 May 1990 14:21 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 20 (22) We have heard mention a few times in the last few days of Scripture Fonts (re the communications by John Bloom and Bill Ball), produced by Zondervan Electronic Publishing. I would be very appreciative to hear more about this from anyone who knows. Pehaps even John Hughes, who seems to have been involved in its development would care to contribute a description. I, for one, would NOT consider this commercialism. Since I live outside the US, it is too expensive to simply call Zondervan to get more information, as has been suggested. Marc Bregman, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 3.1350 Queries (89) Date: Sun, 06 May 90 14:18 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 21 (23) And nodes in Budapest, for that matter, if any? Kessler@ucla From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Subject: Oxford Text Archive Short List Date: Mon, 07 May 90 20:56:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 7 (24) Two new versions of the Oxford Text Archive Snapshot have been placed on the file server: The TAGGED VERSION of the Oxford Text Archive Snapshot should be processable by any SGML-conformant parser capable of dealing with tag minimisation, e.g. MarkIt or XGML CheckMark. A version in canonical form, with all end tags supplied, is available on request for use with e.g. Author/Editor. -------------------- [A complete version of this list is now available through the fileserver, s.v. OTALIST SGML. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] The FORMATTED version of the Short List of Texts held in the Oxford Text Archive is sorted primarily by language, within that by author and within that by title. -------------------- [A complete version of this list is now available through the fileserver, s.v. OTALIST FORMAT. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 3.1347 Slang; Matrix; Euphemisms (86) Date: Sun, 06 May 90 14:10 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 22 (25) were one to be offended at all, then b@lls is just as offensive as Great Balls of Fire! and for that matter isnt it silly and prudishly hypocritical for learned folks to euphemize to satisfy a long dead Queen Victoria? Gee whiz! Kessler From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: note for Humanist Date: Tue, 1 May 90 16:55:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 23 (26) In response to the request for computer in various languages: Chinese is dian (1st tone) nao (3rd tone). The first character is the word for electric power and is used in various compounds such as the word for movies. The second character is the word for brain, e.g. the part of your body inside your skull. I asked a Japanese visitor what the word for computer is in Japanese. He said it is "computer" which is spelled out in the phonetic alphabet. From: Subject: scientific wordprocessing Date: Tue, 8 May 90 08:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 24 (27) My colleagues in the sciences tell me that TEX (available in mainframe and pc versions) is the wordprocessor of choice. As I understand it, the program works much more like dedicated wordprocessors--very little attempt at "what you see is what you get". The codes are there, obvious, and the user must insert them. Randy Donaldson (Donaldson@LOYVAX) From: Jan Eveleth Subject: Scientific Word Processors Date: Tue, 08 May 90 09:37:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 25 (28) Physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers I know use T3 (T-cubed) for the express purpose of having functional equation writing properties. The program should benefit by running on the 386 platform as it is quite large. Learning it is no joy but the results seem to be quite nice. As of Oct. 1988: TCI Software Research Inc. 1190 Foster Road Las Cruces, New Mexico 88001 (800) 874-2383 Inside of New Mexico or outside US: (505) 522-4600 List price $595 Jan Eveleth Yale University From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Scientific word processing Date: Tue, 08 May 90 10:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 26 (29) On Mr. Ess's query about scientific word processors: Probably the best software for mathematical work is TeX (pronounced "tech"). Although it is not especially easy to learn (no "menus", "icons", and other claptrap) and is a bit clunky in its handling of some of the standard features of word processing (such as setting margins), it handles virtually all mathematical notation very well. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: ANNA MORPURGO DAVIES Subject: RE: 4.0006 Queries (97) Date: Tue, 8 May 90 17:58 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 27 (30) In answer to Charles Ess (4 May) request for a scientific word processor to write equations. I am a comparative linguist who needs endless symbols and find T3 Scientific Word Processing very useful. I persuaded my brother who is a physicist to use it and he has never looked back. The program is produced by TCI Software Research, Inc. 1190-B Foster Road. Las Cruces, NM 88001. Tel. (800)874-2383 or (505)522-4600. Apparently the latest upgrade (T3 2.3), which I have not yet installed, is compatible with Word Perfect. It requires an IBM compatible with a fixed disk and 640K memory. Anna Morpurgo Davies From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0004 Bibliographic Software (122) Date: Tue, 8 May 90 09:12:27 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 28 (31) In the forum on bibliographic software Randy Donaldson (Donaldson@LOYVAX) comments: [deleted quotation] The Lodestar Utilities (Lodestar Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 2870, Canoga Park, CA 91306, USA, phone 818-340-0807), priced at $65, can generate a Nota Bene printer driver for any collection of HP download fonts. It the character set of the font is different from what Nota Bene expects you may have to create an appropriate substitution table. The Utilities include a downloader that can be invoked from within Nota Bene. The NB manual is long and rather formidable, but its organization is head and shoulders above that of the WP manual, in my opinion, and it has indices and tables of contents (in each volume and part), plus abstracts in each chapter, that make it much easier to use than any other word processor manual I have dealt with. The only problem, maybe, is that large sections of it have actually to be read, and it is, after all, a technical manual, not a work of literature. From: Subject: bibliographic software Date: Mon, 7 May 90 20:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 29 (32) All the raves about Ibid tempt me, at least for a moment, to move into the DOS world. But for the moment put be down as a fan of the bibliography maintenance facilities in Scribe for VMS. There is a neat bibliography maintenance program for CP/M called (originally enough) Bibliography. It was manufactured by Pro/Tem software, and I got it for about $20 from Spite Software, which was unloading a lot of CP/M stuff at firesale prices. I have seen ads for bibliographic software for DOS from Pro/Tem as well. If they are true to their CP/M form, their program will work well with other wordprocessors and will work as a sort of pre-processor. I think Pro/Tem also makes a text-oriented DBMS (which can handle random unfixed field lengths and so on and is useful for scholarly purposes) called Notebook II. (This would be the DOS offspring of another CP/M parent called Notebook.) John Burt Brandeis University From: John Lavagnino Subject: Explaining computers Date: Tue, 8 May 90 10:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 30 (33) As a novice, as a systems programmer, as a graduate student in English, I have never called a computer anything but "it." To think of computers as people, or as supernatural entities rather than dull mechanisms, isn't a way of thinking that seems helpful or natural to me---though I admit I did use to ask people who complained that "it isn't working right" whether they'd remembered to light the three black candles. The superstition I evolved to explain computers is the notion of the Humor Department. I was often struck when working with VAXes how their software, generally pretty good, would tend to have unaccountable flaws. An early C compiler from Digital, for example, included a very complete library of the usual functions found on Unix systems---except for one or two, and these were ones that amounted to a few lines of code, not anything fancy. The people who wrote this compiler obviously knew what they were doing. They couldn't have just forgotten. It would have been easy to put these functions in. It must be the case, therefore, that any product Digital develops has to go through the Humor Department before it is released; and the Humor Department studies the product at length and decides on one tiny change that can be made that will render it almost useless. To my mind, hardware and software do have personality traits, but only in the same way that writing does: these traits derive from those of the creator, and the creation doesn't have the ability to go off and develop on its own. The Humor Department is a comic version of this view---the "real" reason for these software failings is probably lack of imagination and the usual resistance to the portability of software; but no matter what, it's got to be human agency that's behind these things. (By the way, my theory cannot be applied to other manufacturers without modification. IBM, for example, does not have a Humor Department, because the entire corporation is one vast Humor Department.) John Lavagnino, Brandeis From: "Bill Ball" Subject: anthropomorphizing machines Date: Tue, 08 May 90 14:21:21 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 31 (34) God I hope my computer is an IT. As often as I am elbow deep into its internals, I'd need a MD or permission from some animal rights group if it isn't. Actually I have always resisted anthropomorphizing things, especially consumer goods. Seems to me that endowing things with human qualities is a two-way street. We might warm up to the things but we also tend to make people more mechanical/manufactured/instrumental in our minds. The good Dr Kant and I are disinclined to do that. Well the thread on computer gender has been interesting, but in a way it's too easy of a project. After all computers are tangible. Now what kind of beast is 'the network'? How are we gonna reify that sucker? ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: the cruel joke of the paperless office and the sacrifice of Date: 8 May 1990, 16:05:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 32 (35) paper, skin and eyes As a person who would like to bring back Zeus-worship because it would help preserve oak trees, I like the idea of saving paper, and my office is full of newspaper, cardboard and laser printer mistakes. I try to save paper, but I do value it, in its place, over what I can see on a VDT. A VDT, even in its best affordable present incarnation, causes us to strain at focusing on a point about fifteen inches from our eyes, for hours on end, with our necks and backs locked rigidly. The repetitive motion of our fingers on the keyboard, while less cramping than writing with the two fingers wrapped around a pen or pencil, creates an occupational hazard of arthritic stress on wrist and finger bones. Neither the seeing nor the sitting is exactly comfortable or natural. Perhaps someone under fifty can resist getting headaches or cramped fingers: hence young hackers. But computing is an unnatural act, done mostly by shy people, privately, with some physical discomfort. Could we get that straight, and then go on to talk about saving paper? Roy Flannagan From: Mark Ritchie Subject: Golem Date: Tue, 08 May 90 09:17:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 11 (36) The classic film about the Golem of Prague is the 1920 UFA film. WATERLOO MEDIA CATALOGUING SYSTEM TITLE: der Golem - Wie Er In Die Welt Kam or: the Golem: How He Came Into The World the Man Of Clay SUBJECT HEADINGS: Moving-pictures, Germany INTERSUBJECT HEADINGS: Cinema Studies - Features DEWEY CLASS: 791 DESCRIPTION: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Universum Film Aktien Gesellschaft (UFA) PRODUCTION DATE: 1920 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: German PRODUCTION CREDITS: Acting: Albert Steinruck Acting: Ernst Deutsch Acting: Lyda Salmonova Acting: Paul Wegener Design: Hans Poelzig Design: Rochus Gliese Direction: Carl Boese Direction: Paul Wegener Photography: Guido Seeber Photography: Karl Freund Script: Henrik Galeen Script: Paul Wegener ABSTRACT: For this version of THE GOLEM, Wegener returned to the legend, setting the film in medieval Prague: Rabbi Loew gives life to the Golem who falls in love with the Rabbi's daughter and brings fear to the emperor's court. He is destroyed by an innocent child who offers him an apple then removes the Star of David from his chest, sending him crashing to the ground. Mark Ritchie | Tel: (519) 888-4070 Media Librarian | Fax: (519) 888-6197 Audio-Visual Centre | University of Waterloo | NetNorth: avfilm@watdcs.Uwaterloo.ca -------- From: Marc Bregman Subject: Collage Date: Tue, 8 May 1990 17:15 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 33 (37) I am working on an idea of applying the term Collage to Midrash, a particular type of ancient Jewish Literature. I would appreciate any bibliography on the subject of Collage (Pastische, Cento, etc.) as an art form, particularly in any kinds of literary texts, especially ancient ones. I am particularly interested in the psychological effects which Collage has on its audience and the heurmenutic problems of interpreting such works. Any leads will be most highly appreciated. Marc Bregman, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: WARMCN@AC.DAL.CA Subject: "translatio studii" Theme Date: Tue, 8 May 90 14:10 ADT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 34 (38) I am looking for references to the "translatio studii" theme--that is to the myth of the western movement of civilization. The AENEID is, of course, a central text in this tradition (Troy to Rome); later this would involve Britain (Rome to London). In the eighteenth century the idea is expressed as European, usually English, culture moving to the Americas. Berkeley's "Verses on the Prospect of Planting the Arts and Learning in America" is a good, if short, eighteenth-century example. Does anybody know of any other eighteenth-century or Renaissance examples? David McNeil (WARMCN@AC.DAL.CA) From: Ken Steele Subject: 2400 Baud Modems Date: Mon, 07 May 90 21:51:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 35 (39) I have no specific brand name recommendations for 2400 baud modems, although I have no reason to complain about my GVC Supermodem 2400, but I do have some recently-learned advice to share: avoid internal modems! A few months ago I tried to upgrade from a 1200 baud external modem to a 2400 baud internal one, since I finally had a full-size AT case with plenty of expansion slots, and thought it might be nice to clean up some of the clutter on my desk. Almost immediately there were hardware conflicts that three separate batteries of experts could not resolve: I/O addresses, interrupts, COM port settings, etc were the least of the trouble. Erratic problems with various programs occurred without rhyme or reason, yet disappeared whenever the modem card was removed. Ultimately, the only solution was to exchange the internal GVC for an external GVC -- which was just as well, because within a month I needed to use it on a PS/2, and its micro-channel architecture would not have accepted an AT- style modem card anyway. External modems, though aesthetically less pleasing, offer fewer internal hassles and greater compatibility across machines. Any brand should do -- I had absolutely no problem with my first one, either, an Avatex 1200, which was simply the cheapest in town. Ken Steele University of Toronto From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: derogatory terms of reference to students Date: Tue, 08 May 90 14:11:01 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 36 (40) A few weeks ago someone raised the question about slang terms for students. At the time I glanced at these remarks without giving them much thought--although I remember one in particular. This correspondent believed th at the reason we don't make up derogatory references to students is because we recognize them as our bread and butter. I think he may also have said that we are, after all, very fond of the little buggers. As a matter of fact, we do speak of students--both undergraduate and graduate alike--in derogatory terms. We just don't have an argot for describing them. What we do is repeat the incredibly bizarre things that they say and write. For example, I like to tell people about a reading several students gave to a line in Shakespeare's Sonnet 116--"It [i.e., love] is the star to every wandring barke"--which has a stray dog baying at the heavens. Or very recently one of my students wrote that Lady Macbeth was "roofless." But I don't think I have ever had any as funny as a couple printed recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education ("Marginalia"). Did you know that King David was an Israelite king who was always fighting the Falafelites; or that Sir Francis Drake circumcised the globe with a 100-foot clipper? Professors, being articulate and verbose, are not as likely as carnival people to invent words to describe outsiders. But by recording, or at least remembering, these gaffes, we make clear that we, the teachers, "never" appear ridiculous while our feckless disciples always can be counted on to amuse us. In time, of course, they give us less cause to be amused. Herb Donow Southern Illinois U. at Carbondale From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Finally, some colleagues who admit "it."" Date: Tue, 8 May 90 23:01:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 37 (41) Thanks, HUMANIST colleagues Lavagnino and Ball, for lending some support to the anti-anthropomorphic current regarding computer "gender" (ugh). Somehow, the whole golem discussion seems to fit creepily into this look at computer use in the life of humanists. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Plymouth State College (NH) joelg@psc.bitnet From: brad inwood Subject: computer personalities Date: Wed, 09 May 90 08:42:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 38 (42) Our (Classics) department has always had some named and therefore personified computers. Our original PC was dubbed Clytaemnestra by our sometime depart- mental secretary, who was rather resistant to computerization. When the first AT came along, it immediately became Orestes, named by the academics who used him for research purposes, and so named in part as an assertion of the positive value of computers -- a gentle barb in the politics of technological advancement. But then came the peripateia, and Orestes was transferred to the secretaries for administrative work -- and in fact to the same technophobic secretary! So poor Orestes suffered a sex-change and deification in one swoop and became Nemesis. The AST which replaced the old AT for research purposes was dubbed Pylades -- a logical substitution for his pal Orestes, now in limbo I assume. Meanwhile we hired new secretaries, with no trace of resentment for machines. Their computers remain unnamed to this day. And so, by the way, does my own. I wonder if there is anything typical in this story. Do we name what we fear and wonder at? Has anyone else used computer nomenclature to mediate the stress of new technology? And do those of us who most comfortably live with machines least need to name them? From: O.B. Hardison Subject: RE: 4.0002 Thinking about computers (166) Date: 9 May 90 01:14:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 39 (43) There are two subjects here (1) the sex of computers and (2) the metaphorics of computers - especially metaphorics relating computers to human moltives/bahavior/attributes. Take the second first. One very intresting phenomenon is the fact that scientific literature is saturated with the metaphorics of computers. Many metaphors are found in Pamela McCorduck's excellent MACHINES WHO THINK (1979). The relevance of metaphors for thinking about computers is recognized powerfully in Alan Turing's seminal paper in MIND (1950 "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," which asserts, "I believe that by the end of the twentieth century, the use of words and general educated opinion will be altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without fear of being contradicted." I have traced a good many of the metaphors of machine life, and related them to the ngpoing debate, nn the chapter "Deus ex Machina" in DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT: CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY (New York, Viking, 1989), p. 284ff. Toward the end of this chapter I review some of the still more outrageous (but fascinating and revealing) metaphors being used in the scientific community in relation to machine evolution and even to the interchangeability of machine and carbon-based intelligence. I think in the light of this body of metaphorica that human-like robots of science fiction - and also the human-like robots increasingly rolling off the assembly lines - can be understood in one sense at least as EXPRESSIONS OF THE IMPULSE TO MAKE THE METAPHORS A REALITY. Now, as to item (1) - the sex of computers - I think it is less a matter of concers which sex is choses than the fact that A sex is chosen. To choose a sex is to use a metaphor attributing life (intelligent?) to a machine. There may be good reasons for that beyond the impulse to understand what is coming into being in human terms, but I'll stop here. --O. B. Hardison, Jr. From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0010 Computers: Superstition, Reification, & Stress (79) Date: Tue, 8 May 90 14:10:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 40 (44) I was sitting with my programmer last night, and his comment at one frustrating moment was "What's that sucker doing now." Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0012 Queries: Collage and "Translatio Studii" (28) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 06:02:22 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 41 (45) on collage: i think you are barking up the *right* tree. i have for several years thinking of midrash as cento or mosaic. From: Michel LENOBLE Subject: RE: 4.0012 Queries: Collage and "Translatio Studii" (28) Date: Wed, 9 May 90 00:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 42 (46) In answer to Marc Bregman's message concerning bibliographical sources about the topic of collage I would first read the book written by Antoine Compagnon "La seconde main" published by Le Seuil. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Re: 4.0012 Queries: Collage and "Translatio Studii" (28) Date: Wed, 9 May 90 08:45:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 43 (47) In reply to Marc Bregman's request: Take a look at an essay by David Antin, a poet who has taught visual arts at Univ of California San Diego for many years, on the subject of collage and modernist poetry. The essay appeared in Boundary 2, a journal of postmodern literature in the early 1970s. Antin does a very interesting job of relating the collage techniques of the dada artists, such as Schwiters and Arp, to the poetry of Eliot and Pound. I will try to find my copy of the essay and send you a more precise citation (or a photocopy if you can't locate it in Jerusalem). From: ruhleder@sloth.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: TeX and LaTeX Date: Tue, 08 May 90 15:10:55 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 44 (48) TeX is a typesetter's dream: described in the preface to ``The TeXbook'' (by Donald E. Knuth, one of the founders of computer science) as ``... a new typesetting system intended for the creation of beautiful books--- and especially for books th contain a lot of mathematics.'' It is DEFINITELY not WYSIWYG, but it truly will transform your manuscript into ``pages whose typographic quality is comparable to that of the world's finest printer.'' The catch: it's not easy to learn, especially if you are trying to produce very intricate documents. And forget graphics, unless you want to torture yourself further by learning ``pic'' or you can afford a Sun Workstation with suntools (ie. picturetool). The alternative: LaTeX (billed as ``A Document Preparation System'' with a manual by Leslie Lamport of DEC) is a special version of TeX which adds a collection of simplified commands. This is what I have used to prepare formulas for statistics classes, and it does a good job. I also use it for all my writing. Note: I don't know what kind of equipment you need; I do know that there is a program on the Mac called ``textures'' that I believe converts from ``TeX'' to whatever is on the Mac and back. Karen Ruhleder From: Willard McCarty Subject: scientific wordprocessing Date: Tue, 08 May 90 18:40:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 45 (49) A friend of mine, a mathematically inclined historian of science, has worked through just about every wordprocessing package suitable for equations. Despite his general dislike of WordPerfect, he now regards it as the best such package. What he has shown me looked impressive indeed. T-cubed I discovered years ago. It was originally developed in the UCSD p-system and ever after has dragged some of the features it was given then from version to new version. It seemed to me, when I knew it, a brilliant tour de force but unfortunately saddled with these old features, inappropriate in a DOS environment, such as it own internal file structure. Sorry I cannot remember more. Willard McCarty From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0009 Software: Scientific word processing; Bibliography Date: Wed, 9 May 90 11:13:58 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 46 (50) TeX is not properly a word processor - it is a markup system; you supply the text editor. In most cases, when someone says TeX they actually mean TeX + LaTeX. TeX is a fairly low level system. LaTeX is a "macro package" that implements a high level scheme of markup. I think that TeX/LaTeX with a laser printer produce about the best-looking output of the various scientific word processing tools for the PC that I have seen. In fact, the results are publishable as is. There are numerous versions of TeX for various operating systems. Some DOS versions are freeware. T3 is a WYSIalmostWYG word processor. I believe that the latest version has some tools for importing and/or exporting LaTeX - I forget which. I have had some limited experience with the previous edition, and thought that everything was fairly nicely done, except for two problems. First, the editing interactions (cursor movement, insertion, etc.) were quite awkward, particularly in the default typeover mode. They reminded me of WordMARC, an early DOS word processor. The standard set by WordPerfect, MS Word, and XyWrite/Note Bene, etc., makes this approach seem rather clunky. Second, the design of the system was very DOS-independent. T3 does its own subdirectories (packing several "documents" into one DOS file) and generally behaves as if you still had DOS 2.0. On the other hand, the system of function keys and menus was pretty nice, better than Nota Bene as far as the menus, at least, and the manual was well done. The setup for using and creating exotic fonts and keyboards for keying them in is just plain good. Before deciding on T3 try to get some literature and ask them to supply you with the name of someone nearby, e.g., at your University, who might be willing to demonstrate their copy. From: "Michael S. Hart" Subject: Information About Project Gutenberg Date: Wed, 09 May 90 11:12:29 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 17 (51) The following is posted in response to the flood of inquiries we have had recently from members of various listservers which directly or indirectly carry messages concerning Project Gutenberg. My apologies to those whose names appear on more than one of these lists as you receive two copies. *************** The purpose of Project Gutenberg is to encourage the creation and distribution of English language electronic texts. We prefer the texts to be made available in pure ASCII formats so they would be most easily converted to use in various hardware and software. A file of this nature will also be made available in various markup formats as it is used in various environments. However we accept files in ANY format, and will do our best to provide them in all. We assist in the selection of hardware and software as well as in their installation and use. We also assist in scanning, spelling checkers, proofreading, etc. Our goal is to provide a collection of 10,000 of the most used books by the year 2000, and to reduce, and we do mean reduce, the effective costs to the user to a price of approximately one cent per book, plus the cost of media and of shipping and handling. Thus we hope the entire cost of libraries of this nature will be about $100 plus the price of the disks and CDROMS and mailing. Currently the price of making CDROMS is said to be about $2,000 for mastering and then $5 per copy. I have it on fairly good authority that these prices are negotiable, and as actual cost, the price per CDROM is about $2. To create such a library would take less than one out of ten of a conservatively estimated 100,000 libraries in the U.S. alone: if each created one full text. If all the libraries co-operated, it would be less than 10% of a volume per library. If there were 10 members of each library creating electronic texts, then each only has to do 1% of a single book to create a truly public library of 10,000 books which would each be usable on any of the 100 million computers available today. So far most electronic text work has been carried out by private, semi-private or incorporated individuals, with several library or college collections being created, but being made mostly from the works entered by individuals on their own time and expense. This labor has largely been either a labor of love, or a labor made by those who see future libraries as computer searchable collections which can be transmitted via disks, phone lines or other media at a fraction of the cost in money, time and paper as in present day paper media. These electronic books will not have to be rebound, reprinted, reshelved, etc. They will not have to be reserved and restricted to use by one patron at a time. All materials will be available to all patrons from all locations at all times. The use of this type of library will benefit even more greatly in the presence of librarians, as the amount of information shall be so much greater than that available in present day libraries that the patron will benefit even more greatly than today from assists in their pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, we call on all interested parties to get involved with the creation and distribution of electronic texts, whether it's a commitment to typing, scanning, proofreading, collecting, or what ever your pleasure might be. Please do not hesitate to send any e-texts you might find to this address. If you prefer sending disks, a mailing address follows. We hope to be thanking you soon for your participation. MICHAEL S. HART 405 WEST ELM ST. URBANA, IL 61801 Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg National Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts BITNET: HART@UIUCVMD INTERNET: HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (*ADDRESS CHANGE FROM *VME* TO *VMD* AS OF DECEMBER 18!!**) (THE GUTNBERG SERVER IS LOCATED AT GUTNBERG@UIUCVMD.BITNET) From: O.B. Hardison, Jr. Subject: RE: 3.1354 Golems (48) Date: 9 May 90 00:34:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 47 (52) Terry's reference to the iron man recalls Spenser's awesome proto-robot Talus, who accompanies Arthegal, symbol of justice, in his adventures in book V of the Faerie Queene. Just now, I'm not certain of the sources of Spenser's image, but they are covered pretty well in the VARIORUM. Another treatment of the golem can be found, with other brief refs. to the Middle Ages, in Isasac Azimov's and Karen Frankel's ROBOTS: Machines in Man's Image (New York: Harmony Books, 1985). - O. B. Hardison, Jr. From: "N. MILLER" Subject: Golems yet again Date: Wed, 9 May 90 11:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 48 (53) My thanks to Mark Ritchie for reminding us of Wegener's 1920 film version of the Golem story. I've never seen it, but I now remember looking at some stills. As to friend Kessler there at UCLA, who prefers Metropolis to the e-less Harry Baur film, I wonder whether he might be conflating Metro- polis (which as I recall has no mad genius and is anyway a politically flabby if cinematographically influential flick) with another Fritz Lang film: Mabuse, a theme he dealt with 3 and maybe 4 times. Maybe Mark Ritchie can come to our aid once more. Norman Miller From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0003 More Golems (33) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 05:45:07 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 49 (54) mcqueen's question about medieval is very important and interesting. there are serious reasons to claim that for eastern european jewish culture, the medieval formation lasted until the eighteenth century! there is no *significant* cultural difference between a prague rabi of the sixteenth and of the fourteenth century. this is not true for italy, where the modern period hit the jews about the same time as the non-jews. by the way, who says that for darkest poland there was a rennaissance anyway? From: Hans Joergen Marker Subject: End of medieval times Date: Wed, 09 May 90 10:41:23 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 50 (55) Michael Speerberg McQueen raises the question on wether 16th century can be considered 'Medieval'. It is quite common in Lutheran countries to set the end of medievial times at the Reformation e.g. 1536 in Denmark. So you will have a tiny portion of the "Dark Ages" in the 16th century. Hans JŚrgen Marker Danish Data Archives From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: gender. Date: Wed, 9 May 90 21:47:00 -0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 20 (56) In early times, cars used to be masculine in Italian: "un automobile" presupposed "un [veicolo] automobile"; e.g., an automotive vehicle. However, gender was reversed, and now cars are in the feminine: "un'automobile", "una automobile", perhaps presupposing "una mcchina automobile". It was the ultra-nationalist and supermanist poet Gabriele d'Annunzio who decided that car is female, and everybody followed suit. Cars amplify the motive capability, and the ego, of drivers, and are felt to be passive themselves. In Hebrew, too, both "machine" (mekhona) and "car" (mekhonit) are in the feminine: "mekhona" is an aaptation of the international term, but as if the lexical root were "kwn", which in Hebrew used to yield derivatives associated with "standing", and solidly so (and in Arabic, with "being"). I recently inquired about the gender of "car" in Russian with our departmental secretary, a born Russian, and told her about D'Annunzio; I did not get the linguistic datum I looked for, but, instead, her conviction that "cars (`mekhonit') must be female". A man myself, I was somewhat hurt by this sexist attitude, but seemingly the psycholinguistic prejudice about the gender/sex of cars is trans-national and trans-cultural. On the other hand, in Italian, "calcolatore [elettronico]", or, for computer people, also "elaboratore elettronico", is in the masculine; calculators, much more limited in their capabilities, came before, were named before, and are still named and "calcolatrice", "macchina calcolatrice". In the early 1980s there still was a course, in certain out-of-hand universities, named "macchine calcolatrici": by name, concerning calculators, but actually in computing. Morphological patterns are to blame, but considering the lexicon synchronically, ignoring recent history, one is left with the sad impression that computing are "male" and calculators are "female", reflecting considerations on sexual roles in human society. That is, albeit computers are as passive as cars, here it is comparison with calculators which makes computers masculine, as if male. Actually, I don't believe anybody had such sexist intentions, in coining "calcolatore" or "calcolatrice", albeit I have some doubts about "calcolatore": it is the morphological derivation patterns at hand that already carried gender with them. I recall my (by then) old teacher in the humanities, at junior high school in Milan, used to boast that her own teacher used to praise her "male" recall power. Ephraim Nissan Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. BITNET address: onomata@bengus.bitnet From: Lou Burnard Subject: New Book (advert) Date: Wed, 9 May 90 10:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 51 (57) Hot off the presses (and on acid-free paper to boot):- `Information technology and the research process: proceedings of a conference held at Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK, 18-21 July 1989' edited by Mary Feeney and Karen Merry. Bowker-Saur, 1990. isbn 0-86291-476-0 This is the published version of the conference on which I posted a detailed report to Humanist last July. It's well worth ordering from your library for my contribution alone. Modestly, Lou Burnard From: "Michael S. Hart" Subject: Earth Day: Reflections on Immortality Date: Wed, 09 May 90 11:20:35 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 52 (58) This arrived too late for Earth Day. I hope it is short enough that those who receive multiple copies will not suffer unduly. What would save the world, More than any other thing, Would be our immortality - For we would no longer try To lie, knowing forever is Too long not to get caught Too long to spoil with our Lies, our cheating, lives, Lives lived so differently If we only knew we will be Around to see all results, ALL RESULTS, of everything We have ever done. More a Benefit to the environment Than to ourselves would be The Gift of Immortality. From: MERIZ@pittvms Subject: Bhagavad Gita quotation Date: Tue, 8 May 90 20:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 53 (59) I believe the passage from the Bhagavad Gita quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds", occurs in Chapter 10, verse 34. However, I cannot identify the translation. -Diana Meriz meriz@pittvms From: MERIZ@pittvms Subject: 2400 baud modems Date: Tue, 8 May 90 20:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 54 (60) In response to Charles Ess' query on 2400 baud modems, I would certainly recommend the Practical Peripherals external modem I purchased in the not- too-distant past from PC Connection of Marlow, NH. It costs a fraction of the price of the comparable Hayes model, works flawlessly, and is warranted for five years (the Hayes version carries only a two-year warranty). -Diana Meriz meriz@pittvms From: Subject: Addition to Donow's collection Date: Tue, 8 May 90 15:28 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 55 (61) A colleague of mine in English found in a graduate student paper on "The Scarlet Letter" the statement, "Hester Prynne had to leave the town that branded her behind." Best wishes, Charles Young From: Malcolm Brown Subject: siegen arrangements Date: Tue, 08 May 90 13:50:33 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 56 (62) Not only have I not received confirmation, a note from Randy Jones suggests that the train stop might not be Siegen, but rather Weidenau. Randy notes that the conference hotels are "scattered across a wide area." I hope the conference folks will be coming forth with information fairly soon. Malcolm Brown Stanford From: Willard McCarty Subject: Project Gutenberg Date: Wed, 09 May 90 19:21:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 57 (63) Project Gutenberg sounds fascinating. I wonder if Mr. Hart would do us all the favour of describing the Project itself rather than its aims, that is, its staff, institutional affiliation and funding, current holdings, policies, and formal relationships with other text archives and projects, e.g. the new Princeton-Rutgers Center and the Oxford Text Archive. Willard McCarty From: CHAA006%vax.rhbnc.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: RE: 4.0017 Information about Project Gutenberg (90) Date: Thu, 10 MAY 90 12:27:50 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 58 (64) [deleted quotation] Oh lord, this is going to cause terrible confusion. There already exists an e-mail list / user group called `GUTenberg': `Groupe francophone de Utilisateurs de TeX'. I can't see the French changing the name of their group ..... Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, ``The University of London at Windsor'' From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Project Gutenberg Date: Thursday, 10 May 1990 1126-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 59 (65) Many thanks the Michael Hart for sharing some basic information on Project Gutenberg. If I have read it correctly, Project Gutenberg focuses (exclusively?) on English language materials, with an emphasis on published books that are widely used. And there is clearly a "missionary" aspect to the Project -- to get people informed and involved -- with which I have great sympathy myself. Nevertheless, as a person involved in related endeavors at a wide variety of levels, and as a potential contributor to projects such as Project Gutenberg, I need to know some other basic information if I am to get serious about cooperation. Who/what is Project Gutenberg? Does it have institutional affiliations? Is it mainly Michael Hart? Does it have or seek funding, and if so who administers the funds? What is its relation to other similar archives, repositories, centers, etc. (see Mike Neuman's list), such Center for Machine Readable Texts? Is it yet affiliated with any library or libraries, and ultimately with the electronic bibliographical sources such as RLIN or OCLC? Does Project Gutenberg also want English language materials that are not among the 10,000 most used books, and how does it make known its holdings (e.g. like OTA catalogues/lists, or on RLIN, or mainly through the GUTNBERG electronic list)? I mean these to be honest questions, and questions which can be answered by some extent by any project. And I think they need to be answered if Project Gutenberg hopes to realize the sort of cooperation envisioned in Michael Hart's description. Bob Kraft (Religious Studies and CCAT, Univ. of Pennsylvania) From: "Michael S. Hart" Subject: Etext Submission to Project Gutenberg Date: Thu, 10 May 90 12:14:37 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 60 (66) We are happy to report submissions of etexts in reponse to our message. Please send only short etexts, i.e. several pages, via email. Texts of longer length should be sent as FILES to or to if you prefer. My apologies to those mainframe operators who had to restart my mail when the mailer died under the load. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg National Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts BITNET: HART@UIUCVMD INTERNET: HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (*ADDRESS CHANGE FROM *VME* TO *VMD* AS OF DECEMBER 18!!**) (THE GUTNBERG SERVER IS LOCATED AT GUTNBERG@UIUCVMD.BITNET) From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0013 Responses on Modems and on Students (56) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:22:54 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 61 (67) About "derogatory references to students"-- as a graduate student in English at UC Santa Barbara, I would just like to add that I think the laughing at the "gaffes" goes in both directions! But I suppose we students don't have as much access to put it in print... Lisa Garmire From: "Ed. Harris, Academic Affairs, SCSU" Subject: Donow's collection Date: Thu, 10 May 90 12:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 62 (68) Let us not think solecisms are the exclusive property of students. A former colleague, an epidemiologist, claimed in his vita that he was "responsible for all VD in Boston." --Ed Harris From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0013 Responses on Modems and on Students (56) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 12:13 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 63 (69) after a few more years, perhaps you will weep with compassion and not be so amused at the spoonerist metaphorical malapropisms, since after all you are perhaps asking the wrong questions on quizzes, and they, poor things, are grasping at flaws in your preaching...the pitiful things wear thin after three decades, and by things, I mean the endless errata of unfocussed, and unfocussable minds. Then, in a few decades you will smile with compassion at the pretty things, who are subjecting themselves to you, to us? to it? in hopes of passing a few years towards a degre with some gain from it, and not a feeling of forlorn hopelessness before the Learned and Mighty who qualify them for a low level deskjob some where they hope...and wanting not to be lashed for our pleasure as the Duke and Dauphin were by Twain, those two giants of imposture on the Mississippi about 150 years ago! Same gags, it seems. Same citizens. Same suckers for a bit of orotund pentameter. Kessler here at UCLA From: Subject: ALLC-ACH 90 Date: Wed, 9 May 90 16:33:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 64 (70) Concerning the other problem, the confirmations of Congress Partner, there are two points to consider: During this weeks several strikes of the Deutsche Bundespost employees are carried out and there can be delays on this cause. The other point is, that only if the conditions of Congress Partner are fulfilled the travel documents will be sent out. These conditions are especially: Only Credit cards of Eurocard, Mastercard, Access, American Express or Eurocheque will be accepted n o t Visa or others. If someone try to pay with cheques the second cheque has to show the following sum: First night deposit + DM 35.- handling fee + additional services (ie. Farewell dinner). I have spoke with Congress Partner today and they assured me that oversea participants will get there documents as soon as possible. It would be fine if you could give these information on HUMANIST. Kind regards Rolf Grossmann From: Gordon Dixon, Institute of Advanced Studies Subject: Siegen arrangements Date: Thu, 10 May 90 11:56:56 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 65 (71) THE NEW MEDIUM ALLC/ICCH International Siegen Conference Federal Republic of Germany June 4-9, 1990 Further information re.: Malcolm Brown's 'Siegen arrangements' of 8th May The information that I have been given for travel to the conference via Frankfurt Airport is as follows: Frequent trains run from the airport to Frankfurt Main (which is a journey of about 10 minutes). Trains run from the main station direct to Siegen or via a change at Giessen. For example the Hagen train stops at Siegen and the train to Kassel can be taken to Giessen where a local train runs to Siegen. The cost of a first class ticket from the airport to Siegen is around 15 UK pounds or second class a little over #9. I have received a letter (but not confirmation of registration) from Cornelia Thiede an official of the company that Susan Hockey mentioned in her 4th May 'Siegen reminder' which is: Congress Partner, Reise- und Veranstaltungs GmbH, Tiefer 2, D-2800 Bremen 1, Tel. (UK 01049) 421320028 FAX. (UK 01049) 421324344 Telex: 2 45 837 congr d Gordon Dixon G.DIXON@UK.AC.MANCHESTER From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 21:52 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 66 (72) But all this is really silly chatter, at best chitchat. McCorduck is a charming disseminator of enthusiasm, but it is not, ultimately serious. I, who am engaged with poetry and not thinking in the usual ratiocinative, academic sense, dare to suggest this. Thinking is not, pace Turing, something one is able to do easily or consciously. Reflecting on thought, as it is delivered to one, is something else, and what is usually mistaken for thinking. I rather agree with Bergson who observed that it is precisely the activity of thought that one cannot observe without ceasing to think, as one, from a rapidly moving vehicle cannot see both the moving landscape and single objects in it, a phenomenon we have all witnessed and wondered at,I dare say, from trains and cars, from childhood on in this century. Machines do not think as we think, because we can desribe and program, or ordain their "thought," to use the French term for the computer. We can program it. Thought is something else. Who is, who thinks, for example, the thought of saying this equation is right or wrong? The best recent discussion of this matter that I am familiar with is Stanley Rosen's most important book, THE LIMITS OF ANALYSIS. Most of the computer people are analysts, and dont really seem to know how to thnk about thinking. I disliek seeing technologists get all mystical about this thing of theirs. Not mine. My macs are neither he nm or shes, but almost always LEMONS. And that goes for the programming these days too. The are not suckers, to quote someone, but they to do indeed such. Kessler at UCLA From: Subject: two more comments on gender Date: Thu, 10 May 90 07:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 67 (73) Here is another anecdote about computers and gender. Those involved in the "coupling" of computers have habitually referred to male and female connectors. In fact, our campus tech staff (male), when called upon to make an adapter cable, calls them "gender benders." I was very interested several years ago when one of the tech guys remarked that many of their female service customers (much more numerous with the proliferation of PCs, compared to the "old days") did not like the use of male and female terminology for these connectors. I asked what he would use instead, and he said "plugs" and "sockets." Now, this always lurks in my mind when the occasional conversation turns to connector-gender!! Those on HUMANIST who, like myself, are not linguists, may be interested nonetheless in parts of George Lakoff's book, "Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind," 1987, U. of Chicago Press. (I may have originally seen the reference to Lakoff on this list a year or so ago.) He has interesting examples of how various words in a language may be placed in what, to the outsider, may seem incongrous categories. Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ. N.H. j_cerny@unhh From: Sally Webster Subject: The mind in the machine and vice versa Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:43:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 68 (74) I've been reading the mail about computer gender, anthropomorphizing computers, and metaphorizing (!) with great interest. The way computer lingo has invaded the general culture and is used to explain or describe human actions and mental states is every bit as interesting. Looking at the metaphors we use (and have been using for years before computers arrived), I think humans tend to glom onto the newest technological language and apply it to themselves. "...broke the mould after he was born..." "...he's gone off the rails..." "... the old ticker is still going strong..." "...re-programming myself for the single life..." J. David Bolter wrote a whole book about this, TURING'S MAN, which I recommend to you all. Bolter gives a perspective to this question, and as icing on the cake, he's an entertaining writer. From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0020 Gender (48) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:18:44 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 69 (75) Perhaps the masculinization of the term, "computer", has to do with the fact that computers use extensive programs that at least in the beginning were composed by men. (I have in mind the computer sex programs for the Macintosh-- I don't know if you are aware of them,but they are obviously created by and for men, allowing the computer user to have "control" over the object on the screen). It's an hypothesis, anyway... Lisa Garmire University of CA, Santa Barbara Dept. of English From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:27:54 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 70 (76) I think it's all a question of power. Lisa Garmire UC Santa Barbara From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0018 Golems in Literature and Film (32) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 23:03 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 71 (77) No, no conflation here. The man with the long hari in the long black krtle or c loak in the little gingerbread house in the depths of the Metroplolis, who crea ted a female aluminum robot and sent her upstairs. there is is blond young hero , the mayor's son, in white clothese, tennis clothes of the 20's, and his grilf riend, another blondie, in whose likeness the female robot is made. It's metro plois all right, and the workers are below in steam rooms and sweating like gal ley slaves, and big gears and all that and it goes on for 2 hours and more. One never forgets those early MOMA movies. Mabuse is something else again. Kessler here. From: Mark Ritchie Subject: Mabuse and Metropolis Date: Thu, 10 May 90 09:27:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 72 (78) In addition to the two Mabuse films listed below there were two others made during the same period. The Testament OF Dr Mabuse and The Thousand Eyes Of Dr Mabuse were not as well crafted as the first Mabuse film. In the films Mabuse makes use of "modern" technology in his crime empire but does not use a robot. In Metropolis the robot is a starring character. WATERLOO MEDIA CATALOGUING SYSTEM TITLE: Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler - Ein Bild Der Zeit or: the Big Gambler Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler, 1 Teil: Der Grosse Spieler le Joueur der Spieler SUBJECT HEADINGS: Moving-pictures, Germany INTERSUBJECT HEADINGS: Cinema Studies - Features DEWEY CLASS: 791 DESCRIPTION: PRODUCTION DATE: 1922 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: German PRODUCTION CREDITS: Acting: Alfred Abel Acting: Aud Egede Nissen Acting: Gertrude Welcker Acting: Lili Dagover Acting: Paul Richter Acting: Rudolf Klein-Rogge Direction: Fritz Lang ABSTRACT: A baroque tale about master criminal Mabuse who gambles with lives and fates, is an allegory of postwar German decadence. Brilliantly directed, designed and photographed, it was originally half of a two-part film, now shown separately (DR MABUSE, KING OF CRIME). TITLE: Dr Mabuse - Inferno Des Verbrechens or: Dr Mabuse, King Of Crime le Demon Du Crime Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler, 2 Teil: Inferno the Inferno Of Crime the Inferno SUBJECT HEADINGS: Moving-pictures, Germany INTERSUBJECT HEADINGS: Cinema Studies - Features DEWEY CLASS: 791 DESCRIPTION: PRODUCTION DATE: 1921 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: German PRODUCTION CREDITS: Acting: Alfred Abel Acting: Aud Egede Nissen Acting: Gertrude Welcker Acting: Rudolf Klein-Rogge Direction: Fritz Lang ABSTRACT: Part two of Lang's epic work DR MABUSE, DER SPIELER, which follows various story threads and details Mabuse's descent into madness. Not as flamboyant as Part One, but still quite good. TITLE: Metropolis: Das Schicksal Einer Menschheit Im Jahre 2000 or: Metropolis SUBJECT HEADINGS: Moving-pictures, Germany INTERSUBJECT HEADINGS: Cinema Studies - Features DEWEY CLASS: 791 DESCRIPTION: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Universum Film Aktien Gesellschaft (UFA) PRODUCTION DATE: 1926 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Germany ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: German PRODUCTION CREDITS: Acting: Alfred Abel Acting: Brigitte Helm Acting: Fritz Rasp Acting: Gustav Frohlich Acting: Heinrich Geingge Acting: Rudolf Klein-Rogge Design: Erich Kettlehut Design: Karl Vollbrecht Design: Otto Hunte Direction: Fritz Lang Laboratory: Eigen Schufftan Music: Gottfried Huppertz Photography: Gunther Rittau Photography: Karl Freund Script: Thea von Harbou SUMMARY: In the twenty-first century a gigantic metropolis is controlled by an authoritarian industrialist who lives with his son, Freder, and his collaborators in a paradise-like garden. The workers live in a subterranean portion of the city. Maria, a saintly agitator, exhorts the workers to be patient; soon the mediator will come. Freder becomes a devotee of Maria. The industrialist hears Maria and entrusts a mad inventor with the job of creating a robot that looks exactly like her and that will incite the workers to revolt. The inventor is successful and the workers destroy the machines, releasing flood waters that threaten to drown their own children. Freder and Maria save the doomed city and, in the finale, a foreman shakes hands with the industrialist, and Maria and Freder are married: labour and capital are united. "The path to human dignity and happiness lies through the master of us all, the great Mediator, Love," says the industrialist at the end of Thea von Harbou's scenario. This ending is not the one originally planned for the film because the German Censors banned Lang's original ending featuring a successful worker's revolt overthrowing the established powers. Mark Ritchie | Tel: (519) 888-4070 Media Librarian | Fax: (519) 888-6197 Audio-Visual Centre | University of Waterloo | NetNorth: avfilm@watdcs.Uwaterloo.ca -------- From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Epochenabgrenzung, Date: 09 May 90 17:56:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 73 (79) which is what the Germans call these discussions. For the alleged end of the so-called Middle Ages, I would make two observations: first, that the importation of the word `Renaissance' into English is, on the evidence of the OED, a 19th century act of conscious cultural construction (Ruskin, Pater, usw.) -- many marvelous things happened in Italy and elsewhere in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but the decision to enshrine that rebirth, capitalize it, and make it part of our thought-furniture is a conventionalism of the 19th century, not something intrinsic to the evidence; second, P.O. Kristeller had a marvelous article in the *Dante Jahrbuch* perhaps five years back on the survival of Latin as learned and diplomatic language. The success of the vernacular (one of the conventional points of difference marked between medieval and modern times) was nowhere near universal, comprehensive, and thorough: particularly east of the Rhine and south of the Alps and Pyrenees, Latin had a lively and vigorous existence on many levels until well into the eighteenth century. So to quarrel about whether the 16th cent. is medieval or not is quite beside the point: the predication can be useful (`the 16th cent. is medieval' thus meaning that, for purposes of the present discussion, the 16th cent. shares a variety of useful characteristics with the centuries that preceded) but not predictive or determinative (it does not make sense to say that `the 16th cent. is medieval and therefore people then were superstitious, backwards, and unmodern': that is either tautology or nonsense). From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: Did Poland have a Renaissance? Date: Thu, 10 May 90 00:05:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 74 (80) Are we connected to Poland yet? If so, the lines will be burning with messages from Polish neo-Latinists, etc., in response to Daniel Boyarin's very thoughtless observation. Poland did indeed have a Renaissance, as my colleague Dr. Jacqueline Glomski taught me during her period at our Centre for and Renaissance Studies! Germaine Warkentin. From: Sarah L. Higley Subject: A query for Terrence Erdt, and thanks Date: Wed, 9 May 90 19:58:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 75 (81) I'd like to thank all of you who have given me golems, but I'd like to correspond particularly with Prof. Erdt of Villanova University. Unfortunately, he hasn't included his internet e-mail address in his missives, and I keep getting DAEMON messages when I attempt to put together an address from the openers. To Terrence Erdt, thank you, and my address is slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (internet). I hope you don't think me too presumptuous! But I can't let another android- enthusiast slip by... From: Leslie Burkholder Subject: Tichborne claimant Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:25:44 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 76 (82) Does anyone happen to know whether a film was ever made dramatizing the Tichborne claimant case? (The case involved a claimant to the Tichborne estates and took place in the UK from 1867-1874.) Thanks, Leslie Burkholder From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0020 Gender (48) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 22:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 77 (83) Is it not odd that this discussion about gender never touches on the morphology of male nad female? about how bodies are imaged to the selves within those bodies? the hollow vs the solid, the womb vs the phallus? So much of the chitchat on this topic is very abstract, and in the head, the male head, perhaps. To drive a car is to be inside a body that you can hope to control, much as if one regressed to the imagination of the male fetus directing the great power of the mother's locomotion, form inside, etc. A little imaging might help here, in addition to the linguistic things that so confuse the innocent, about what is male and female in grammar. Hungarian has not she or he, incidentally, but the Magyars seem to know the difference between the genders of things and people. How so ? Kessler at ucla. These are all remnants of remnants left over from a lost past, I fear, the superstitions of the superstitions.... It is amusing, a little. From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0021 Book Advertisement; Immortality (41) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:14:00 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 78 (84) We are Immortal. The problem is in the definition of the subject. From: Subject: ALLC-ACH 90 Conference "The New Medium" Date: Thu, 10 May 90 15:31 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 79 (85) Dear Humanists, There seems to be a great confusion about the upcoming Siegen Conference ALLC-ACH 90 "The New Medium". Please apologize for the confusion as well as for the late response to these messages by the Conference Organization, but we had network problems and did not receive any message for about ten days. The problem concerning the confirmation of registration seems to be an interculturel one. Credit Card Companies in Europe - especially when it is necessary to contact a correspondend Company in USA or somewhere else over the world - waste a hugh lot of time before delivering money your account will be charged for. Confirmations including travel documents and informations "How to reach Siegen best" will be sent out very soon. If anyone plans to leave his home well before the beginning of the Conference, please contact the Registration Bureau "Congress Partner" in Bremen. They will deliver the hotel reservations to you when you arrive at the Conference Location at Siegen University. If there remain any problems, please contact the Conference Organization by e-mail. Prof. Dr. Helmut Schanze ALLC-ACH 90 Adolf Reichweinstr. 5 D-5900 Siegen Germany Phone: 0271/740-4110 e-mail: GC130@DSIHRZ51 Nevertheless, if anyone plans to attend the Conference and did not yet register he is encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Manfred Kammer (Conference Organization) GC130@DSIHRZ51 From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 80 (86) DATE: 11 MAY 90 14:33 CET FROM: A400101@DM0LRZ01 SUBJECT: Siegen "arrangements"? Willard McCarty's report from Rolf Grossmann is reassuring, but I still think that the performance so far of Congress Partner GmbH has been less than impressive. There have been some brief warning strikes here _in the last two weeks_, but that doesn't explain why CP have treated registrations from February and March (see Humanist postings) with silence. I registered in March, and wrote to the Siegen organizers after five weeks to ask what was going on. I got by the same post (1) a letter from the Siegen organizers to say that CP hadn't received my documents and I should register again (2) a letter from CP, dated a week before that from the Siegen organizers, to ask for more money on the second cheque! I would point out that there is a large registration fee for this conference, plus a not insubstantial fee for handling hotel bookings. In view of this, better service might be expected. Three weeks before a conference starts is too late to be sending documentation across the Atlantic, or even within Europe, regardless of whether or not there are postal strikes. Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: Gender discussion for computers Date: Thu, 10 May 90 18:00:54 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 81 (87) I find the discussion very strange indeed. The main reason is that I never thought the linguistic concept of gender was intended to be a clue to anything these days---and that the use of gender terms in reference to inanimate things is not itself the mechanism whereby linguistics decides to attribute gender to those entities. That is, just because some people refer to their pet automobile as a female doesn't eventually force the language to attribute gender to automobiles. It isn't a poll. Thus, what I see is a lot of very unscientific heresay based on individual experiences which, even if it WERE representative of general usage in the world at large STILL wouldn't be indicative of what the language as a whole would do. It is a confusion of personal psychology with linguistics. For example. In electrical engineering, gender is definitely used to refer to connectors and plugs. There are male and female connectors. However, I am unaware of anyone using gender pronouns to refer to these. Thus, people don't say things like ``The male RS232 connector on my PC cable has HIS pins bent and I can't plug HIM into the female connector in the PC because the bent pins won't go into HER sockets correctly.'' It is bizarre enough to make people look at you strangely, like you suddenly had decided to start making smart-aleck remarks or deliberately engage in sexism to annoy others. ---- Re: computers `thinking'. Computers don't `think'. We invented the word to refer to the action of human beings and it is self-reserved. However, the issue is whether computers can perform the same tasks we perform by thinking, but using other methods. I believe this reduces to asking whether WE can perform tasks solely through the subset of thinking processes we refer to as reasoning or have to resort to additional methods. I would claim that anything human beings can do by reasoning can be duplicated by a computer. (The reverse, incidentally, isn't true --at least not if the time taken to perform the task is part of the requirement. For example, apparently we can't control equipment such as space shuttles or jet fighters without computers. Our nervous system can't function fast enough to maintain the homeostatic state of these devices at the speeds needed.) --- You're a better machine than I, Space Shuttle. If you want to get into really hot water, consider the issue of what qualifies a device for humane treatment as a sentient being. That is, how and when would we decide that a machine was deserving of the same considerations we afford human beings, such as unborn children. Is our world view such that no other form of sentience can ever have the same rights we have? From: Boyd Davis Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 19:59:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 82 (88) Brad Inwood asks if we name what we fear or wonder at. In fall, 1988, while introducing my undergraduates in a linguistics class to terminals and BitNet,I asked them to log on to our balky IBM mainframe in pairs, to speak their reactions and comments, to write down what their partner said and did, and to bring their notes back to class after the mid-class break time. They reported that they addressed the terminal almost continually after the initial glitch; utterances fell into two categories, Baby Talk, usually with false and honeyed endearments, and Curses, usually scatalogical epithets. Baby-talkers usually coupled their naming with exhortations to perform better ("Come on, honey"), and Cursers usually employed rhetorical questions (You Bleep, why won't you Do X"). Most agreed with the student who commented that each mode of address was really a form of denigration and reflected the frustration and anxiety they felt, and had chosen to direct at the terminal. From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn) Subject: Rebirth in eastern Europe Date: 10 May 90 17:59:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 83 (89) Our ignorance of eastern European Renaissances (here is the place to praise Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi, fifteenth century king of Hungary and creator of an astonishing library of precious manuscripts: there is a volume of facsimiles of selected pages edited by two persons named Csapodi, I believe, and well worth a half hour in the library turning the pages) is in part a reflection of the long Stalinist darkness in the east. Too many important historical investigations in that area can only be carried out with a variety of linguistic skills and local awareness likely to be found only in native speakers. For Corvinus, for example, it would be necessary in order to write his biography (not yet written in a `western' language -- what may exist in Magyar I have no way of knowing) to master at least German, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish (his best moments outside the library spent fighting the Turks). It is hard even to imagine from what department of an American university one could acquire the Ph.D. that would fit one to write his story. As our e-links to the east begin to open, it is pleasant to think that in restoring the central and eastern Europe of the present to the European community, it may also be possible to restore more of its past. Our standard history textbooks (the ones that worry about when the Renaissance started) are too often (I'm thinking of one textbook by Peter Gay, for example) histories not of Europe but of France and England, with Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Low Countries in supporting roles. Or look at Barbara Tuchman's books about the run-up to WWI, *The Proud Tower* and *Guns of August*: the Balkans don't exist for her, nor the Baltic. Two books that threw much light in these areas for me (and I'd love to hear of more): Rebecca West, *Black Lamb and Grey Falcon* (account of her journies in Yugoslavia in the 30s, long and rambling and idiosyncratic, but fascinating), and Patrick Leigh Fermor, *Between the Woods and the Water* (account of the Hungarian and Romanian stages of a walking tour he made in the early 30s from Holland to Constantinople -- but written in the 80s, with no mawkish nostalgia or melancholy recollections about what happened in those lands since: Leigh Fermor's books generally are marvels of amateur erudition, shedding light wherever he goes). From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0028 Poland, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance (38) Date: Fri, 11 May 90 07:14:23 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 84 (90) i apollgize for thoughtless observation about Poland. I must admit that my image is really of backward little Jewish villages and I have no, repeat, no knowledge of anything about Poland. One of the disadvantages of email is that the casual idiocies that one usually only shares with friends get broadcast to strangers. From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: recent mailing - new word Date: Thu, 10 MAY 90 22:48:11 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 85 (91) In a recent contribution to the GENDER question from Sally Webster she used a word I've not come across before ... "to glom onto the newest technological language" Is "glom" correct or was it a typo? I hope not ... to glom sounds such a nice verb! Has it any history - or is it just another of those words that appear 'on the streets' in the US and hasn't yet crossed over to the UK? I would like to hear of any background to glomming (is that right?). Simon Rae: The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK From: Michel LENOBLE Subject: ALR-Powerflex 286. Date: Fri, 11 May 90 00:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 86 (92) Is one of the HUMANIST the happy owner of a ALR Powerflex 286? I would like to get in touch with him/her. Please contact me directly. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: CATHERINE@ VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Tex and Latex: Cons and Pros Date: Fri, 11 MAY 90 11:30:50 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 35 (93) TeX and LaTeX: Cons and Pros Reading the high praise of TeX and LaTeX, I feel the picture is not quite complete. TeX and LaTeX are very good tools; handled well, either can give very good results. And so far as their capabilities for typesetting Maths, both score very high indeed. But there are some hefty drawbacks: 1) The fonts they use. Both come with Computer Modern fonts; these are fonts that have been designed especially for TeX, using the related program Metafont. Computer Modern is not a very attractive typeface. On the Macintosh it is possible to access other typefaces. It is also possible to set the system up so that it will work with postscript or other fonts, but this is a very large undertaking. 2) TeX is very 'low level'. You have to tell it almost everything. It has no notion of a structured document. If you want all the headings etc to be treated in the same way, it is up to you to write a macro to do this. The result is that the majority of things typeset with TeX do not look good. Most people who typeset their own papers, documents, books do not yet have the knowledge or the discipline to produce a well-planned, well-laid out document. 3) LaTeX produces structured documents. It knows about different levels of headings, and different parts of documents. It can, with the greatest of ease, produce lists of figures, tables, tables of contents, abstracts, and many other things. Cross references are a doddle. BUT again you rarely see something produced with LaTeX that really looks good. This is because while it is easy to use the style sheets provided, it is notoriously difficult to alter them. These considerations are undeniably important; this is shown by the amateura look at many documents produced by TeX and LaTeX. If you are expert enough to write your own style sheet, and knowledgeable enough to design a good layout, and preferably use a system which employs fonts other than Computer Modern, LaTeX is an excellent typesetting program. As for TeX: with TeX, really anything is possible. Someone, it seems, can always write a macro to do whatever it is that you want. And TeX gives you wonderfully fine control over the white space on a page, and this, I believe, is one of the crucial factors in really good typesetting. But not only do you need the sometimes highly skilled Tex experts at your elbow, you also need a good sense of design (or, preferably, to have your document professionally designed), and the discipline (experience?) and eye for detail to see it through. Bearing these things in mind, yes, TeX is maybe a dream. But beware, dreams can become nightmares... Catherine Griffin Oxford University Computing Service From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Philadelphia Consortium Announcement Date: Friday, 11 May 1990 1644-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 87 (94) THE PHILADELPHIA CONSORTIUM ON THE STUDY OF RELIGION The Philadelphia Consortium on the Study of Religion, organized in April, 1989, provides an umbrella organization for encouraging and facilitating cooperation in the academic study of religion among institutions and departments of religion-- undergraduate, graduate, seminary, and post-graduate--and their faculty and students. At the present the Consortium consists of forty-seven institutions within a hundred mile radius of Philadelphia. Dr. Robert B. Wright, Chair of the Religion Department, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the Chair of the Consortium. Four projects sponsored by the Consortium to date are: a monthly calendar of special events in Consortium schools; a sharing of graduate level courses for cross-registration purposes (both of these facilitated by Temple University); A "Guide to the Libraries of Member Institutions," produced by Dr. Robert Emmet McLaughlin, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Villanova University. The fourth project, produced by Dr. Glenn A. Koch, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a Directory of 226 faculty, listing personal and professional facts, including fields of specialization and areas of research. In addition, the Directory lists the Consortium's statement of purpose, officers and committees, and member institutions. Printed directories, as well as electronic forms of it, are available. Contact Dr. Koch at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, City & Lancaster Aves., Philadelphia, PA 19151, for orders (Ph. 215-896-5000). The printed Directory is $13.00. For further Consortium information contact Dr. Wright: 617 Anderson Hall, Philadelphia, PA, 19122 (Ph. 215-787-7923). From: HUMM@PENNDRLS (Alan Humm Religious Studies U. of Penn) Subject: Quoting the Gita Date: Friday, 11 May 1990 1238-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 88 (95) According to _The New Promethians_, as I recall, Openheimer read Sanskrit (I do not know how well). If no published translation of the Gita readily presents itself, it may have been his own. Alan Humm (Humm@PENNdrls) From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: collage Date: Fri, 11 May 90 08:49:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 89 (96) The two pieces by David Antin on collage in art and poetry are: Modernism and Postmodernism: Approaching the present in American poetry, Boundary 2, Vol 1 #1 Fall 1972 (SUNY Binghamton) Some Questions About Modernism, Occident, Vol VIII new series, Spring 1974 (U.C. Berkeley) Neither has anything to do with the Talmud, but both are excellent essays about the relationship between the visual and literary usage of collage in the 20th century. From: Michel Pierssens Subject: Translatio studii Date: Ven, 11 Mai 90 11:35:20 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 90 (97) In reference du D. MacNeil's query: the major literary expression of the idea of translatio imperii (hence studii too...) in Renaissance france is Ronsard's failed epic LA FRANCIADE. Francus is the hero that supposedly came from the Mediterranean to found the new people that would inherit antique culture. Rabelais' vision is equally strong in GARGANTUA but less political. But every french " humaniste" of the period labored on that "poncif", of course... From: Stephen Clausing Subject: students Date: Thu, 10 May 90 17:22:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 91 (98) I have never heard a derogatory term for students, but I do remember seeing once a satire of student excuses called "The Professor's Bill of Rights." Basically this consisted of axioms such as "I reserve the right to come to class totally unprepared because I had a bad night last night." Speaking of malice towards students, I just finished reading my student evaluations. My favorites this semester were two students who condemned me for using family names, rather than first names in the classroom. What students never realize is that I have heard this complaint ever since I was a first year graduate student, rejected it then, consider it utterly inane now, and really have no desire to hear more moral indignation about it year after year. Have I been teaching too long or does everybody feel this way? From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: David Sewell's request 2 May 90 Date: Fri, 11 May 90 08:47:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 92 (99) In response to David Sewell's request for information about software for collaborative writing: I pass his message around to various researchers at IRIS who are working on group annotation systems. A report on our work can be found in "InterNote: extending a hypermedia framework to support annotative collaboration" in the Hypertext '89 Proceedings published by ACM. Paulette Bush, one of the researchers, suggest that you look at Syllabus for the Macintosh, Number 10 (March/April 1990) [P.O. Box 2716, Sunnyvale CA 94087-0716] which has a write up on several programs currently used on the Mac for this kind of thing. From: "Paul N. Banks" Subject: Re: 4.0034 Queries: "Glom"; ALR-Powerflex (32) Date: Fri, 11 May 90 16:57:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 93 (100) In response to Simon Rae's query about "glom": I don't have any idea of its origins, but "to glom onto" is, I'm almost certain, a phrase from my childhood, which means that (if I am correct in remembering it from childhood) it has been around in the U.S. at least forty or fifty years. From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Re: 4.0034 Queries: "Glom"; ALR-Powerflex (32) Date: Fri, 11 May 90 17:42:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 94 (101) Glom Well, the word gets used at IRIS alot. People glom things together, as in "If you glom together all the different options you come up with..." I always assumed it was a linguistic mutation of conglomerate, which is in my online version of the American Heritage Dictionary as a verb, along with the adjective glomerate, both from Latin glomerare, to wind into a ball and glomus ball. Must be American usage. From: James O'Donnell Subject: appendix to last message Date: 11 May 90 18:02:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 95 (102) ... [eds] `Glom', on the other hand, is fine old American slang, but not the sort of thing that turns up on paper very often. I would say that it is initially a verb of seeing, but with overtones of acquisition: you glom on to something when you not merely look at it, but look at it all over, get the idea behind it, and somehow or other make the seen into your own possession. So it can appear in context just as a rough equivalent for `to learn'. Also a useful word. From: ruhleder@sloth.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: ``Glom'' Date: Fri, 11 May 90 15:43:32 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 96 (103) In a recent message, Simon Rae asked about the word, ``glom.'' I've heard it used for several years now (but only among people in an information and computer sciences department, as far as I can remember). It's not in my dictionary, though it might well come from ``glomerate,'' which is. To ``glom onto something'' is to latch on to a new idea, technology, or even group of people. I wouldn't deem it a commonly use word. Karen Ruhleder UC Irvine From: John Unsworth Subject: Glom Date: Fri, 11 May 90 20:54:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 97 (104) Simon Rae asks for information about the word "glom"--I also noticed it with pleasure in Sally Webster's mailing. It's a word I've heard and used for at least ten years. I don't know where it comes from, but my guess would be that it is related to "conglomerate" (abbreviated from?). Perhaps it originated as slang in the business world, where to "conglomerate" with another company might be abbreviated as "glom onto". There is a word "glomerate" (adj., meaning formed into a ball): the Latin root of that word is "glomus"--a ball. At any rate, glomming is definitely something done with the hands (though the word is used metaphorically to describe any type of grabbing or latching onto, e.g. by the attention). John Unsworth From: Robin Smith Subject: Glom Date: Fri, 11 May 90 21:31 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 98 (105) Simon Rae asks about 'glom.' I've been aware of this word since childhood; in American use, at least, it occurs only in the expression 'glom on to,' which I have always taken to have the sense 'grab.' Eric Partridge says: glom on to: To grab; to steal: Can.: since ca. 1920. (Robin Leech, 1974.) Via US, ex Scots dial. glam, glaum, to clutch. I have never heard the word used in the sense 'steal.' For what it's worth, the earliest printed occurrences I can recall are in Pogo comic strips from the 1950s (Walt Kelly was rather fond of the expression). From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: Glom Date: Sat, 12 May 90 12:09:14 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 99 (106) Simon Rae wrote asking about the word "glom." Hadn't crossed the boundary into UK yet, he thought. Actually the word, according to Websters Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, has been around for close to a century. In fact, from an English d ialectal form, "glaum," meaning to grab. H. Donow Southern Illinois U. 5 From: "Adam C. Engst" Subject: Re: 4.0034 Queries: "Glom"; ALR-Powerflex (32) Date: Sat, 12 May 90 17:59:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 100 (107) Ah yes, 'to glom'. An interesting word which I use rather often, mostly in reference to an action approximating that with which my plecostomus catfish sucks on to the side of the aquarium and refuses to move. Also appropriate for describing the actions of small children clutching soon-to-be-favorite new stuff animals. Possibly related to the Greek lamBanw or maybe even to some lesser usages of proseXw (ASCII terminals are terrible for Greek). Certainly not linguistically descended from the above words however. :-) Adam Disclaimer: I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about, I can't remember my Greek from Matt Neuburg as well as I'd like, and if pressed would claim my mother invented the word. :-) Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0034 Queries: "Glom"; ALR-Powerflex (32) Date: Sat, 12 May 90 15:28 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 101 (108) To glom onto is Americanism. goes as far back as 1907. "glom; glaum; glahm: n. A hand, considered as a tool for grabbing. v.t. To grab; to seize; to take hold of. and to steal. 1907. "we discovered that our hands were gloved. "Where'd ye glahm 'em?" Iasked JACK LONDON, The Road, 131. 1951: "Under the pretense of glomming a diamond from the strongbox of a rascally broker..." S J Perelman, NEW YORKER, Mar 3, 27.2. THE MOST COMMON MEANING; ORIG. HOBO AND UNDERWORLD USE. v. i. to be arrested. Lit:= to be grabbed by the hand of the law. glommer=A hand, used from grabbing or stealing. since c1930=ONe who uses his hands to graps things,as a fruitpicker. Cf MITTGLOMMER. from DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, Wentowrth & Flexner 1960. Kessler@ucla From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: Glom Date: Sat, 12 May 90 09:48:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 102 (109) Glom is a delightful and expressive verb, and I suspect it's widely used here in Canada. I remember it from my adolescence in the second-largest city in the country, and my husband from his forties boyhood in a rural Manitoba town. I always thought it must be a Brit word, and I may be right: a Webster's we have at home (where I am as I write) says: 1907; from British dialect "glaum". It's not in the old OED (which we have in the magnifying-glass version) but may be in the Supplements or second edition. Is the set of words associated the word "agglomerate" (roll into a ball) part of all this? Germaine Warkentin From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" Subject: RE: 4.0034 Queries: "Glom"; ALR-Powerflex (32) Date: Sun, 13 May 90 06:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 103 (110) "Glom"has unfortunate connotations to me; I've heard it only in the form "glom those gams!" in speaking of female legs. My husband tells me it is a common expression. Other than that, I have never hear of it! L. Morgan (Morgan@LOYVAX) From: Bronwen Heuer Subject: Glom Date: Mon, 14 May 90 09:03:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 104 (111) My Websters show a date of 1907 for the adoption of GLOM--and yes, I use it all the time; my mother has used it for a long as I can remember: ``You kids will glom on to anything!'' 1. Slang: take, steal. 2. slang: seize, catch. glom on to, slang: to take possession of. [vt. glommed, glomming] bronwen heuer room 137 phone(516)632-8054 coordinator of user services computing center state university of ny bitnet: bronwen@sbccvm stony brook, ny 11794 internet: bronwen@ccvm.sunysb.edu From: koontz@alpha (John E. Koontz) Subject: Glomming Onto Date: Mon, 14 May 90 08:36:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 105 (112) glom onto v.tr. to take up the use of (colloquial) This doesn't strike me as particularly new usage, but I couldn't say when or where I picked it up. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Clausing on addressing students Date: Monday, 14 May 1990 1148-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 106 (113) I'm surprised. As long as I can remember, I have resisted creating or maintaining formal barriers between students and myself, and thus attempt to learn their first names as soon as possible. Sometimes I manage to learn last names as well. Nor do I discourage them from using my first name, although few of them feel comfortable doing this. Am I missing something? Is there an educational benefit to using last names, etc.? I see it as a mater of style and choice, and am happy for Stephen Clausing to follow his style -- and I hope he can respect my choice as well. Bob Kraft From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: The last last names Date: Mon, 14 May 90 11:29:30 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 107 (114) Call it superstition, but for twenty-six years I have made it a rule to address students by their first names, using their family names only when I have to. While I sympathize with Prof. Clausing's reaction to students who say they would prefer to be addressed by their last names (Humanist, May 10th), I've never heard such a request from my students, and I'm surprised that he has. In fact, students have told me that they appreciate my using their first names in class. It's a practical matter more than anything else: they address each other by their given names only, and my using their first names makes it easier for them to get acquainted with each other. However, I have another reason to use first names, whereby hangs a tale. It is reminiscent of Vercors' short story "Le Cheval et la mort," where one of the characters says that the anecdote he is about to tell is obviously true because it has no ending, and one can always find an ending for fictional stories. When I was a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, we did not receive lists of the students in each section but packets of hole-punch computer cards, each with a student's name on it. I found the cards quite handy, and to this day I still write the students' names on individual 3x5 cards in order to help me learn their names quickly, as well as for other uses. Anyway, I would normally go through each packet of cards before meeting a class for the first time, if only to check for names I couldn't be sure how to pronounce. This habit was especially helpful because we assistants were officially encouraged to address students by their last names, presumably to lend a little dignity to the classroom. For some reason, in the semester beginning in January 1964, I received a packet of cards too late for me to review before the first day of class. That seemed unimportant; class cards did occasionally arrive at the last minute, and it could hardly even be called an inconvenience to have to read them cold. Greeting the class, I took out the cards and proceeded to call the roll, little suspecting that I had been dealt the equivalent of a royal flush. The roll-call went routinely at first: call the name, match the name with the face when the student responded, and then turn up the next card, until: "Mr. Johnson?" "Here." Next card: "Mr. Kennedy?" "Here." (Nervous smile to acknowledge the coincidence) Next card: "Mr. Oswald...." That's all there is. Any ending seems superfluous. How did we react? Outwardly, not at all, but if you can remember those times, you can imagine... Johnson and Kennedy are common names, but Oswald is not; and to turn up those three names, one after the other, with no others in between, only a few weeks after that day in Dallas, felt somehow retrospectively ominous. That combination of names has never reappeared on my class lists since then. But from that day on I have always called students by their first names. It's friendly. It helps them to get to know each other. And I always read the names silently, to myself, before calling the roll on the first day of class. At least I'll know which names I can't pronounce... And you never know when fate will deal you the ace of spades. Call it superstition, if you wish... From: lang@PRC.Unisys.COM Subject: more on gender discussions Date: Mon, 14 May 90 10:29:28 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 108 (115) Bob Amsler writes: [deleted quotation] I'm surprised that nobody has yet brought up the old linguistic chesnut (well, I think of it as a chestnut) that in Romance languages, words (both clinical terms and slang locutions) denoting male sex organs tend to be of feminine gender, and vice-versa. I haven't done extensive research in this area (!), but I've always heard this to be true. From: Alan D Corre Subject: Poem [eds] Date: Mon, 14 May 90 14:17:19 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 109 (116) By popular request--well, at someone's suggestion--I am submitting a poem I wrote some six years ago. Previously it was only privately circulated, but it may serve as a contribution to the discussion of computer gender. The computer must have been a 64K Apple Two Plus. On account of explicit language you may wish to press the fast forward button on your keyboard if a child is looking over your shoulder. Here it is. My Computer My friend said: "Go screw your Computer. It's really her that you love. I'm tired of hearing of constants, Of gosubs, intrinsics and such. "I don't want to be the rival Of transistor, circuit and switch. There's no room for you in my program. Our romance has one big glitch! "It's far too late to debug me. My charms--you'll no more load 'em. So take your touch-tone Princess phone And stick it in your modem!" Dejected and sad I left her, Ashamed at what I had done. Flesh and blood I'd surrendered For a silicone son-of-a-gun. I sat down to my Computer, And then, I turned her on. She warmed to me as usual And sang to me this song: "Don't worry about your girl friend. She wasn't the one for you. I'll be loyal and faithful My limited warranty through. "I'll keep your checkbook for you Like a microcomputer should. I'll follow your stocks, track investments, Give you recipes for your food. "I'll answer your phone, write your letters, And though you may not believe it, I'll measure your stress and your tension, And suggest ways to relieve it. "Video games we'll play together, Have lotsa fun you 'n me. We'll battle torrents and whirlwinds, And sail the mighty sea. "I won't have bad breath in the morning Or put curlers in my hair. I just need a dime's worth of current And a little bit of software. "I'll be loyal and faithful. To you I shall ever be true. My Basic desire is service, My functions are all for you." I stopped her seductive output With my final touch of her switch. Her amber went dark and dismal, Her blinkies ceased to twitch. I traded my Computer For a bunch of roses red. I took them to my girl friend And got her back instead. "I'll never touch her keyboard Or view her monitor. I'll never feed the printer. I'll cease to be a bore. "I'll never stuff her disk-drive Or warm her up, to boot. I'll be a macro-lover And not a micro-brute!" So now we're wed and happy, Have children, one, two, three; Yet--sometimes--in my dreams--I Tickle ctrl-C. From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: computer personalities Date: Sun, 13 May 90 20:05:44-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 14 (117) [deleted quotation] Please observe that Digital's version of Bell's UNIX, is ULTIX. Seemingly they coined the term from "ultra" and an ending looking like the ending of UNIX. However, the name happens to be also the feminine form of Latin "ultor" ("avenger"). Thus, "The Avengeress". [Against Bell?] Whereas ULTRIX supports networks, we had some drawbacks with running AI programs, and also because of some commands and online documentation missing. The Avengeress is mistargeting... [deleted quotation] Perhaps it means the new secretaries have not such a background in the classics as the former one (too skilled for the job?). Perhaps it also means we like to know our foes by name, whereas mere instruments that do not arouse passions would not get a proper name. On the other hand, I guess the technophobic secretary had a good ergonomic intuition: indeed, instead of accepting dreariness with nameless problems, she surrounded her workplace with fictitious characters from the classics she is fond of. It made problems heroic, and made them show also a pleasant aspect. Having problems with Orestes & Co. means you, too, are in Wonderland. After all, socialism, too, either Marxist, or Tolstoian, or Gordonian Zionist (with its post-Gordon Work Religion) also tried to make work look appetizing by cute and heroic conceptualization. (Pasolini's "Lavorare stanca", "Work is tiring", was a heresy from this viewpoint.) Sincerely, Ephraim Nissan Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. BITNET address: onomata@bengus.bitnet From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Typical KDEM/OCR Errors Date: Friday, 11 May 1990 1647-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 110 (118) As I sit here yet again doing global changes on a KDEM produced file by identifying those impossible combinations of letters that result when "e" is read as "c" (ncw, wc, vc, etc.) or when "1n" represents "m" (1ny), or "rn" also for "m" (rnu, sorn, rnay, etc.), it occurs to me to ask if any other KDEMites have prepared such a list for inclusion in an automatic correction (tailoring) program? This would be the sort of program that is sure that a letter combination is impossible, and thus corrects it on the spot. If such a program or list is not available, I'd be happy to be involved in creating one! Bob Kraft From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Modems Date: 12 May 90 10:29:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 111 (119) Let me add my vote to K. Steele's and D. Meriz's recommendations of external modems. I'm afraid I have no experience with 2400's, but my Practical Peripherals 1200 has been trouble-free. Whatever brand you buy, be sure that it is "Hayes-compatible." You will also need telecommunications software, of which there is quite a variety. You might want to start with a freeware program --there are some very good ones--and then when you know what your needs are, buy one of the more versatile shareware or commercial programs. George Aichele Adrian College 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: gwp@hss.caltech.edu (G. W. Pigman III) Subject: Re: 4.0035 TeX and LaTeX (56) Date: Sat, 12 May 90 00:10:51 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 112 (120) Since I've had a hand in typesetting seven books with TeX (published or to be published by Longmans, Oxford University Press, and the University of California Press), I'd like to respond to Catherine Griffin's reservations about the program. We agree with Don Knuth, the author of TeX, on a crucial point: designing a book is a difficult task best left to the professional. (Six of the books I mentioned were set to specifications provided by the publisher; the seventh was designed by a colleague who had already typeset one book, had once worked for a publisher, and had founded and directed the Caltech Art Gallery.) In fairness one should note that this difficulty is not peculiar to TeX; it applies to all desktop publishing. Catherine Griffin mentions three drawbacks: 1) unattractive fonts 2) the "low level" of TeX 3) the difficulty of modifying LaTeX style sheets. I can't speak to the third because I have never used LaTeX, but I would like to say a few words about her first two points. 1) Attractiveness of fonts is a matter of taste. I myself find the Computer Modern fonds attractive, and Computer Modern Roman, the basic text font, is very similar to Times Roman, although lighter. I would suggest that those interested in judging look at a book produced on a phototypesetter (such as Knuth's own *The TeXbook*) rather than 300dpi output from a LaserWriter or comparable printer. CM fonts look significantly better at resolutions higher than 300dpi. Moreover, I must disagree that it "is a very large undertaking" to use other fonts. If one prefers Postscript fonts, the public domain dvips enables one to use them without too much trouble. And it is fairly easy to use Bitstream fonts (Times, Garamond, and many others) with TeX, although one must buy them. Finally, there is a fine set of Greek fonts (complete with all the accents) that complements CM. 2) Yes, TeX is "low level" and provides little help towards producing a structured document, but there are a number of public domain macro packages to help with such amenities as numbered footnotes or endnotes or even complicated matters like the production of a critical apparatus (I use the latter myself thanks to the good graces of HUMANIST John Lavagnino of Brandeis). And writing macros for running heads is not as formidable as Catherine Griffin implies. An example might be useful; at least it will give the flavor of simple TeX commands. To center left and right running heads with pagenumbers in the outer margins on every page after the first, one could do something like this: \headline={\ifnum\pageno>\firstpageno \ifodd\pageno\headfont\hfil RIGHT HEADER\hfil\rm\folio \else\rm\folio\headfont\hfil LEFT HEADER\hfil\fi\fi} In English, If this is the second or subsequent page if the page number is odd (the recto) center RIGHT HEADER in the desired font and place the page number in Roman in the right margin else (if the page number is even (the verso)) center LEFT HEADER in the desired font and place the page number in Roman in the left margin else (if this is the first page) omit the running head (print a blank line). (One would need another line to specify the first page number and the font desired for the running head.) If this code looks terrifying, then I dare say that TeX is not for you, but if you can puzzle your way through it, you can probably learn enough to typeset most books published in the humanities. Yes, you will need someone who knows TeX to answer your questions, but isn't that true of any wordprocessing program? In closing, let me mention two advantages of TeX, one mentioned by Catherine Griffin, one not. First, let me elaborate a little on her comment, "TeX gives you wonderfully fine control over the white space on a page, and this, I believe, is one of the crucial factors in really good typesetting." TeX allows you to control (with very little trouble) the looseness or tightness of lines (i.e., the amount of space between words), and this usually makes it easy to avoid widows and clubs or bad breaks in displayed quotations or to suppress almost all hyphenation (even though TeX has an excellent hyphenation algorithm). Furthermore, one of the real joys of TeX is the ability to balance pages (i.e., to make recto and verso begin and end in exactly the same place regardless of section headings, displayed material, footnotes, etc.). It's easy to to request variable amounts of space before and after headings, displays, or before footnotes, since TeX doesn't determine the spacing until it has processed an entire page. Second, since TeX produces device-independent output, one can easily produce proofs on a LaserWriter and final copy on a phototypesetter without making any changes to one's input file (in fact, without even running TeX twice). -Mac Pigman gwp@hss.caltech.edu pigman@caltech.bitnet From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: TeX, LaTeX, and Scribe Date: Sat, 12 May 90 12:25:43 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 113 (121) TeX was created to compensate for the difficulties Donald Knuth had in getting his textbooks typeset the way he wanted. It offered significant advances over previous typesetting languages in several areas (mathematics (The American Mathematical Society endorsed TeX), font design (Metafont allowed users to sculpt fonts--albeit according to professional font designers only as `artificial' fonts), kerning, and later auto-hyphenation) and in general gave the user control over very delicate matters of appearance often ignored by other languages. It's major problem was that it was too difficult for novices to easily master. At the time, Scribe, created by Brian Reid, was a language which provided very nice high-level control of the typesetting task with possibilities for low-level intervention provided the user were willing to become a hacker. LaTeX was created, I believe by Leslie Lamport, to offer a high level interface and commands for TeX. It worked quite well. The model which he used was that of Scribe's command language. This model has also been used by Symbolics for their limited typesetting of output on the Symbolics LISP workstations and who knows where else. As far as I'm aware, LaTeX can also run TeX code. The biggest problem one faces in using these is that one can so customize one's typesetting, adding one's own macros to do exactly what one wants, that in effect one renders one's text into a program that requires its own subroutine library to be `compiled' into print. Mathematics typesetting has since advanced past TeX to special packages such as Mathematica, that outperform TeX. Scribe has since added a TeX-like mathematics typesetting capability. Scribe is a commercial product available from Scribe Systems and quite expensive. It does offer the best device-independence of any typesetting system I know of, offering output ranging from screen-display to Postscript, and with every other device inbetween supported at some level. This means one can readily print a Scribe document on a terminal, line printer, Imagen laser printer, or Postscript printer. I use it at Bellcore to do color Postscript typesetting. TeX was public-domain and thus quite a bit less expensive. --- My general experience with typesetting languages is that: (1) There is no GOOD way to typeset text. The process is inherently more complex than you want to be involved with and will force you to diddle with more things that you want to. In this regard it means that subjective statements about typesetting languages and their ease of use will abound. The devil you know can easily appear to be simplier than the devil you don't know, but what is actually being judged is familiarity in most cases. (2) Higher-level typesetting is a nice goal, and best represented today in the form of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) and its applications such as that of the AAP's markup language. Texts marked up with these tags can readily be translated downward into actual typesetting languages. But alas, they have to be translated in most cases. This is somewhat better than it sounds since having a Rosetta Stone is an advantage over not having one, but: THE PROBLEM IS THAT WE LACK A HIGH-LEVEL DEVICE-INDEPENDENT SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE FOR DEVICE-DEPENDENT TYPESETTING FEATURES. This means that you have to get into the ink and onto the print surface at some point to actually make your document print out and the only way to do that is to do it in a lower-level language. From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0033 Eastern European Renaissance (48) Date: Sat, 12 May 90 15:11 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 114 (122) Actually, Maria D Birnbaum, Professor Hungarian Lang & Lit at UCLA, has been at work for a decade on Matthias Corvinus, and if I am not mistaken, has published the book. I would have to get out of this program to look it up on ORION, but I can get the Bibliogrpahical entry, if you like. She is of course from Budapest, a '56er, and has done it all in English for the world. Anyone want the reference, or can you suice it yourselves from ORION, at UCLA? It is online, as is Melvyl, if I recall Humanist letters about it last year. Jascha Kessler From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0027 Metropolis and Mabuse (147) Date: Sat, 12 May 90 15:07 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 115 (123) Actually, the original METROPOLIS, with the two piano score, is being shown at this instant (I am making a Beef minestrone),alas, at the Goethe Institut in Los Angeles. What a fiery Joanna Baptista that Maria was, is, and ever shall be, with that quasi-balletic Expresionistic silent acting! What a lissome blonde, w hitedressed (pleated tennis skirt) proselyter of revolt. And so it has come to pass: Labor & Capital are united in West Germany as never before! When was the last strike? A business-manager of my acquaintance is touting investment in European mutal funds: stability is almost as sure as it can be, for all those quasi-solcialist, welfare states have suppressed the unions. So much for the Proletarian dreams of Marx and Engels, if not the suppressed LaSalle. Only our Teamsters Union has it both ways: with a gun to the heads of government, well-concealed, but then cf Claire Sterling's studies in the big M. Kessler From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn) Subject: Doddle? Date: 11 May 90 17:59:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 116 (124) The very informative piece on TeX etc. included the throwaway line `Cross-references are a doddle.' I think I infer correctly that they aren't handled very well at all, but the word `doddle' attracts me: a recent Britishism? It sounds useful and with a little instruction I would be happy to propagate it. Life, I surmise, is full of doddles waiting to be called by name. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Idiom trading? Date: Monday, 14 May 1990 1132-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 117 (125) To "glom onto" something is familiar to me -- I have a sort of oral-dental image, maybe like eating with no teeth -- but despite ongoing conversations with British friends, I don't recall hearing of things that "are a doddle" (Catherine Griffin, on LaTeX). Seems to mean they are a snap, or a piece of cake, or "no problem" (with correct intonation). Origin(s)? Bob Kraft From: Geoff Rockwell Subject: MaxSpitbol Date: Mon, 14 May 90 12:12:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 118 (126) Can anyone provide an address for the distributors/publishers of MaxSPITBOL? Thanks in advance Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: "Paul N. Banks" Subject: Various Date: Fri, 11 May 90 17:11:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 119 (127) ... [eds] I will be spending much of the summer in Paris, and am trying to determine if it is possible to keep in e-mail contact with my account at Columbia University (including possibly receiving Humanist if that doesn't represent too large a load) while I am there. I can dial directly into the Columbia computer system with a modem (which I could if necessary purchase for my laptop), but that obviously gets expensive and I worry about various compatibilities). Is there any way to (e.g.) get a guest account for a reasonable fee at some institution in Paris from which I could log on to (ultimately) the Internet? I don't remember having seen postings of a similar character, but I imagine that this issue must arise for other Humanists. Thanks for any tips you can provide. Paul N. Banks ===== Thanks for your assistance. Paul N. Banks | Conservation Education Programs Research Scholar | School of Library Service pbanks@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu | 516 Butler Library 212 854-4445 | Columbia University 212 865-1304 | New York NY 10027 From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: e-mail makes the NY Times Date: 14 May 1990, 07:28:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 120 (128) The Sunday, June 13, Times carried a cover story about the increasing use of electronic mail, discussing the medium partly in terms of a lonely hearts club where two University of Maryland programmers met and fell in love but also discussing the emergence of corporate e-mail at such places as Microsoft and Bell Labs, with voice and television mail in the near future. The Internet was mentioned, along with Compuserve, but not BITNET. Anyone want to write the Times a letter? Roy Flannagan From: Oliver Berghof Subject: re: macros for editing Date: Fri, 11 May 90 16:20:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 121 (129) A friend of mine came up with the idea of using (wordprocessor) macros to teach students in English Composition classes revision techniques. Involved would be the retrieval of an initial, "faulty" version of a text, quotation etc. , and the step - by - step revision, on-screen, of this document, triggered by only a few keystrokes, for which the student would be prompted. He is certainly not the first one to have come up with this idea. As only few of us enjoy re-inventing the wheel he would be very grateful if HUMANISTs who have worked on a similar project could get in touch. Of course recommendations as to wordprocessing packages that are especially suited for this task would be very helpful. Ideally, the macro-capability should extend to the possibility of slowing down the on-screen demonstration, and to the option of calling upon several other files during one demonstration. Suggestions are needed for both the IBM and the Apple- world. Many thanks in advance, Oliver Berghof Department of English and Comparative Literature University of California, Irvine oberghof@next.acs.uci.edu OR mschwab@orion.oac.uci.edu From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards) Subject: establishing sub-lists within Humanist Date: Fri, 11 May 90 14:43:01 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 47 (130) I have noticed lately that a quite a few of the notices posted to Humanist have to do with social and political themes - e.g., the various postings relating to earth day, trees, and lately our perspectives of Polish society. Interesting as these may be, I find them to be mainly expressions of personal opinions which don't help me with my work in using electronic texts, computer methods, etc., and they load up the mail queue and do take time to screen. I had thought at first of terminating my membership, but have found much of value in Humanist once I strip away these other things. I wanted to ask if others feel this way. If so, perhaps a 2-tiered mailing list could be devised. Those interested only in topics relating to electronic texts, computer methods, queries relating to academic topics, etc., would receive only those; people interested in everything would receive everthing. I mean nothing pejorative here. I certainly don't mean to imply that these other topics are not important; rather only to question whether they belong on Humanist or could be circulated as effectively on one of the usenet groups (e.g., talk-politics). -Jane Edwards From: Michael Ossar Subject: glom Date: Tue, 15 May 90 10:33 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 122 (131) The discussion of "to glom onto" seems to have prompted an international wave of linguistic benevolence and affection. To judge from several of the responses, it's everybody's favorite slang word (or one of them). It's curious how some locutions enjoy such universal popularity and others, like "proactive" and "empower," get such mixed reviews. From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" Subject: SERIOUS THINKERS Date: 14 May 90 21:43:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 123 (132) The correspondence on glom and on gender reminds me of the book of Don Marquis, *Hermione and her little group of serious thinkers* (NY, 1916). Well, anyway, Randall Jarrell and Mary McCarthy would have had fun with HUMANIST contributions. One of the guilty ones, Jim Halporn From: krovetz@UMass Subject: doddle Date: Mon, 14 May 90 19:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 124 (133) The word `doddle' is listed in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English as informal British English. It is defined as: `Something that is very easy to do: That driving test was a real doddle' -bob krovetz@cs.umass.edu From: DM@GEOVAX.ED.AC.UK Subject: Doddle [eds] Date: Tue, 15 MAY 90 10:35:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 125 (134) I find the Transatlantic exchange of words like "glom" and "doddle" to be quite fascinating. Jim O'Donnell from Penn asked if a "doddle" was some sort of Britishism; yes. Students often refer to classwork being a doddle, meaning that it was very easy. I'm not sure of the origins of the word but feel confident in saying that I've only rarely heard it used outside Scotland. I've heard the word used on a couple of occasions in England, but then by people with Scottish links of one sort or another. So Jim O'Donnell's reading of "doddle" just goes to show that Transatlantic communication is not the doddle that it's made out to be. David Mitchell (Geography, Edinburgh) From: R.M.McRae@VME.GLASGOW.AC.UK Subject: Doddle Date: Tue,15 May 90 12:42:16 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 126 (135) Shorter OED: DODDLE v. 1653 [var. of DADDLE] 1. trans. To shake, nod (the head ). 2. intr. To toddle; to totter; to dawdle 1761. Definition 2 is the one relevant here, I think, specifically in the sense of "dawdle", implying an effortless stroll. A common enough scottish word used eg to denote an easy victory in a football (soccer) match. Rod Macrae at Glasgow. From: N.J.Morgan%vme.glasgow.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Re: 4.0045 Doddle (24) Date: Tue,15 May 90 12:56:59 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 127 (136) In Edinburgh a doddle is apparently a small piece of home made toffee; more generally it is something that is easy to do (bastardised dawdle). In North east Scotland to walk feebly, and in Caithness, male genitals (since the eighteenth century) in the plural. All this and more from the Concise Scots Dictionary (which says that glomming is a derivative of gloamin). Nicholas Morgan Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow From: "Ed. Harris, Academic Affairs, SCSU" Subject: Glom Date: Tue, 15 May 90 09:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 128 (137) As a native glommer who has spent almost exactly half his life in the midwest (St Louis) and half east of the Hudson (NYC and CT) with a 3-year stretch in the middle in LA (how about them credentials?), whenever I have glommed, I have acquired *visually*. I can't wait to see how our other new word--is it boddle? I don't save my correspondence, so forgive the looseness of my memory--works out. Someone feels it connotes something positive and someone else something negative. It sounds like it should mean 'foul up' to me, though I've never run across it before. --Ed. Ed Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: Subject: 4.045 Doddle Date: 15 May 1990 11:32:39 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 129 (138) Doddle does indeed mean "easy, a snap", as Bob Kraft surmises. As an American living in Britain, I am intrigued and heartened by this recent exchange of information on local slang. As someone has said (Shaw?) and as I have learned the hard way, Britain and the U.S. are indeed two countries divided by a common language. (Sorry about the repetitions of "as"--4 times in three sentences!) Don Spaeth University of Glasgow gkha13@cms.glasgow.ac.uk From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: Sublists for Humanist Date: Mon, 14 May 90 19:47:33 EDT (1 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 130 (139) I am deeply puzzled by Jane Edwards' feeling that people who are interested only in computer information, "academic queries" (whatever that means in such a context), etc., should constitute a separate sublist of Humanist. What would then make them Humanists? One of the distinctions of this seminar is its refusal to accept such compartmentalization. Most of the time I zap the longer technical items, but rarely before reading them. I have learned a lot that way. Surely a person with technical interests who joined Humanist would assume that the intellectual traffic moves in _both_ directions? Germaine Warkentin (with some asperity!) From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: Re: Humanist structure Date: Tue, 15 May 90 02:45:33 EST (3 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 131 (140) I am sad to see (hear? read?) that yet again, someone is suggesting that HUMANISt segregate the techies from the non techies. The current editors, following in Willard's footsteps, have done a splendid job of grouping messages and labelling them as to content. As a non-techie, I have no problems in quickly deleting discussions dealing with Tex and Latex...although I appreciate having the opportunity to read them, should I wish to. surely the same would apply to techies faced with discussion of computer gender and student names? The name HUMANISt implies, for me, a wide ranging discussion, in which a hardware/software topic might well branch off into a non- computing subject. And if such a branching leads to various ruminations, including gentle humour, then does it not reflect the way that *humans* conduct conversations of a most edifying type? I vote to keep HUMANIST as open-ended as possible... From: Rich Mitchell Subject: Serendipity files; electronic texts vs. humanism Date: Tue, 15 May 90 00:57:01 PDT (1 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 132 (141) [...]. Regarding Jane Edwards hope to remove the distractions of social, political and humanistic commentary from the "substance" of talk about electronic texts and computers, I would appreciate quite the opposite. For me, HUMANIST is a forum for humanist thought, not production techniques. To suggest that a dialogue on the human condition belongs elsewhere is to place mechanism ahead of its social meaning, a notion one social critic, Marx, would find alienating. From: Dr. Gerd Willee 0228 - 73 56 20 UPK000 at DBNRHRZ1 Subject: establishing sub-list within HUMANIST; Date: 15 May 90, 15:07:36 MEZ(14) (1 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 133 (142) I totally agree to the idea that the main aim of HUMANIST is to inform or better said to communicate about matters related to humanists' work with computers. Therefore I too sometimes have difficulties to find the nuggets in the masses of sand and really would prefer, if some discussion items would be distributed only for those, who really want it. E.g., the discussion about computer gender, aboutslang words, about problems with laptops in planes (for my oppinion the only problem related to this topic is the one people must have, if they need to take with them such rather problematic machines when travelling ... ), etc. is worth being mentionned once or twice for the complete HUMANIST group, as these topics are interesting for many, but not for all of us, but if such discussions begin to grow, one really should transplant them to a special sub-list. The contributions to such sub-lists could be stored as files for the HUMANIST fileserver, so that interested people could get the information, even without getting each single contribution directly into the mailbox. Gerd Willee From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0047 Query on Humanist Struct Date: Tuesday, 15 May 1990 9:43am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 134 (143) A similar question to the one raised by Jane Edwards has come up recently on Megabyte University, which is devoted primarily to issues pertaining to computer-assisted writing instruction but which has lately been the medium for a number of more "personal" exchanges. The consensus on MBU was that those personal messages, expressions of opinion and friendship and so on, are somehow essential to the social fabric (virtual fabric, I should say); and I think the same is true here as well. I often don't know very much about the technical/scholarly issues being discussed (no Greek at all, no Hebrew since my Bar Mitzvah, etc., etc.), and while I often enjoy and learn from the stores of knowledge so freely shared here, I would very much hate to lose the other messages; they seem to me integrally related to what it means to *be* a humanist. John Slatin University of Texas, Austin From: Jim Cahalan Subject: HUMANIST subjects Date: 15 May 90 11:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 135 (144) In response to Jane Edwards' query, I find most of the technical computer postings deadly boring and other kinds of postings refreshing. My feeling is that the name of the newsgroup is "HUMANIST," not "COMPUTER NERDS IN THE HUMANITIES." Don't get me wrong: I'm as excited about computer developments as the next humanist; it's just that I enjoy humanistic conversations more than technical ones. Perhaps some other Humanists may feel the same. Jim Cahalan, Graduate Literature English Dept., 111 Leonard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705-1094 Phone: (412) 357-2264 From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards) Subject: more on Humanist structure Date: Tue, 15 May 90 09:38:44 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 136 (145) I would like to add etymologies of slang terms to the list of things which might be considered for selective distribution (the 2-tiered suggestion) or distribution over one of the Usenet groups (e.g., sci.lang) instead of Humanist. From my perspective the reason for this is the "needless nuisance" factor - i.e., the meaning of "glom" was clear from context in the original message, but also could have been clarified locally (i.e., without needing to post a query to Humanist). Of course, there is also the fact that such postings change the feel of Humanist to be in fact more like a coffee clatch or social club, while at the same time diluting the average information-level of messages distributed on Humanist. If this is what people want, then, it will surely go that way, but I wanted to raise the issue so that at least that choice, if it is made, will be made consciously. -Jane Edwards From: Subject: 4.045 Humanist structure Date: 15 May 1990 11:41:32 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 137 (146) I have some sympathy with Jane Edward's views and have expressed similar ones myself in the past. BUT (I hasten to say) I've changed my mind since this issue was last raised about 6 months ago. Humanist is a community of scholars, and as such may discuss a wide variety of issues, just as we would if we were to meet in person. (See Sunday NY Times front page for more on such communities.) Still, there is a limit to the amount of time we can spend on such chat. So I hope Elaine and Allen will continue (as they appear to be doing) Willard's custom of breaking contributions up into different topical files. One demonstration of the hold that the Humanist umbilical cord has on me is that I have resubscribed while on holiday in the U.S.! I expect that my Glasgow colleagues have read my contributions with some surprise. Don Spaeth From: vivace!cb%kcp.UUCP@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Christopher Bader) Subject: Introductory files; First impressions Date: Tue, 15 May 90 13:27:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 138 (147) I'm a new HUMANIST member; I joined on May 4. [note to editors removed] I haven't been too pleased with what I HAVE received. I agree completely with Jane Edwards' suggestion that a sub-group be created for "those interested only in topics relating to electronic texts, computer methods, queries relating to academic topics, etc." -- Christopher Bader From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Re: 4.0047 Query on Humanist Structure (28) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 15:11:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 139 (148) I would like to endorse Jane Edwards's thoughtful proposal of a two-tiered mailing list. --David David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] From: koontz@alpha (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0042 OCR errors; ... Date: Mon, 14 May 90 16:21:39 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 140 (149) The solution to the problem that Bob Kraft mentions with correcting OCR character recognition problems is to use a spelling checker. The checker in the PC word processor Nota Bene, for example, will build a table of automatic corrections, like change wc to we or lne to me, etc., as you go along. You just add the correction to your personal list by specifying that the correction is to be made automatically hereafter. I think that other word processors and stand alone spelling checkers would in most cases have similar features. A problem would arrise if a misrecognition resulted in a correct spelling, but the examples he cites do not seem to result in such problems. As an aside, for languages other than English, especially highly inflected ones, note that SIL has a package of PC tools that can be used to check spelling in languages that use phonemic or quasi-phonemic orthographies. These tools can check plausibility of spelling based on canonical form, as well as on list membership. This package is available for $3.00 or $4.00 and is called something like Documentation Aids for Non-Major Languages. From: Mark Rooks Subject: Scan errors Date: Tue, 15 May 90 04:26:45 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 141 (150) Regarding Bob Kraft's inquiry concerning lists of common scanner error-letter combinations: I too would be interested in such a list; however, I would find of more use a list of mis-scanned words, in which the scanner error results in a different correctly spelled word. For example 'modern' is sometimes scanned as 'modem,' 'but' as 'hut,' etc. We have begun assembling such a list, but would certainly be interested in what others have. Writing an acceptable program to automate scan error correction would be very difficult, since it would require a substantial semantic component. Any ambitious automation would inevitably introduce correctly spelled words which were not the words scanned, even with a semantic component. A simple-minded automation would introduce even more. Impossible letter combinations are usually not, particularly when dealing with scholarly materials and abbreviations. Of course such a program would be acceptable (in my view), if it merely showed the context of the presumed error to a human with the appropriate alternative, and gave the human the option of rejecting the alternative. (See below.) Although scan errors tend to cluster around certain letter combinations, this is just a tendency. 'rnay' (e.g.) might be generated by a word other than 'may,' though it commonly would be. In our experience, a correctly spelled "incorrect" word, is worse than a host of misspelled "incorrect" words, given that any word error causes us sleepless nights. At some point a human must look at the remaining errors in the file, and it is easier to overlook a correctly spelled word than an incorrectly spelled one. Omnipage has just introduced a spell-checking dictionary (Omnispell), which we have purchased (but yet to receive), designed for use with scanners. Common scan errors (with scan flags (e.g. '~' and '^')) are anticipated by the spell-checker, but a human must look and (at least) click a button in each case (or so the advertising goes). Mark Rooks InteLex From: Mark Olsen Subject: Kurzweil errors Date: Mon, 14 May 90 19:13:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 142 (151) As usual, Bob Kraft has the good idea. After writing more routines to clean up KDM errors in various languages and on various computers than I care to recall, I think that a general program would be very helpful. The following is a description of the corrections that we make to scanned material and the sed script (UNIX Stream EDitor) which performs those corrections. Unfortunately, most of this example is probably French specific. I too would be happy to contribute to Bob's program. Mark This is a list of the automatic corrections for kurzweil documents, as of 4/20/88. The caret "^" means at the beginning of a line, and the dollar sign "$", at the end of a line. Note that spaces are significant. Besides changing "," to "'", space is changed to "'" in that environment. characters: changed to: "dc" "de" "nI" "M" "^^I" "M" "qu," "qu'" "Qu," "Qu'" "qu " "qu'" "Qu " "Qu'" " v " " y " "^v " "y " " ct" " et" "^ct" "et" " nc " " ne " "^nc " "ne " " nc$" " ne" " cc " " ce " "^cc " "ce " " cc$" " ce" "quc" "que" "Quc" "Que" "unc " "une " "rnm" "mm" "mrn" "mm" " rn" " m" "^rn" "m" "rnent " "ment " "rnent$" "ment" ":." ":" ".:" ":" ";," ";" "]-" "j" ")-" "j" "1-" "i" " -- " " --- " "^'" " " "^." " " " c," " c'" " C," " C'" " d," " d'" " D," " D'" " j," " j'" " J," " J'" " l," " l'" " L," " L'" " m," " m'" " n," " n'" " t," " t'" "^c," "c'" "^C," "C'" "^d," "d'" "^D," "D'" "^j," "j'" "^J," "J'" "^l," "l'" "^L," "L'" "^m," "m'" "^M," "M'" "^n," "n'" "^N," "N'" "^s," "s'" "^S," "S'" "^t," "t'" "^T," "T'" " ll(s) " " Il(s) " " 1l(s) " " Il(s) " "^ll(s) " "Il(s) " "^1l(s) " "Il(s) " " ll(s)$" " Il(s)" " 1l(s)$" " Il(s)" "^ *" " " (tab) # corrdocs.sed # s/dc/de/g s/nI/M/g s/\^^I/M/g s/\([qQ]\)u[,\ ]/\1u'/g s/ v / y /g s/^v /y / s/ ct/ et/g s/^ct/et/ s/ nc / ne /g s/^nc /ne / s/ nc$/ ne/ s/ cc / ce /g s/^cc /ce / s/ cc$/ ce/ s/\([qQ]\)uc/\1ue/g s/unc /une /g s/rnm/mm/g s/mrn/mm/g s/ rn/ m/g s/^rn/m/ s/rnent /ment /g s/rnent$/ment/ s/:\./:/g s/\.:/:/g s/;,/;/g s/[])]-/j/g s/1-/i/g s/ -- / --- /g s/^['\.]/ /g s/ \([cCdDjJlLmMnNsStT]\)[\ ,]/ \1'/g s/^\([cCdDjJlLmMnNsStT]\)[\ ,]/\1'/g s/^1'/l'/g s/ 1'/l'/g s/ [1l]l / Il /g s/^[1l]l /Il /g s/ [1l]l$/ Il/g s/ [1l]ls / Ils /g s/^[1l]ls /Ils /g s/ [1l]ls$/ Ils/g s/^ */.P / s/^\ \ */ /g From: Sebastian Rahtz Subject: Re: Tex and Latex: Cons and Pros Date: Tue, 15 May 90 13:59:40 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 51 (152) Catherine Griffin's note on "TeX and LaTeX: Cons and Pros" in HUMANIST 4.35 passed before my eyes in a circuitous way. Its a long time since I left HUMANIST, but I can't resist sending you a quick reply. I highlight a few points [deleted quotation]... [deleted quotation] I agree with Catherine that Computer Modern Roman isn't an attractive typeface, particularly at low resolution. And I would concede that TeX and CMR have been unhealthily associated for too long now. But I would certainly *not* agree that using other fonts `is a very large undertaking'! It is essentially trivial. I have been producing books, reports, handouts etc with TeX for the last four years, and I have yet to use CMR for my final draft. The last three books I have done were in Baskerville, Lucida and Times. I have used three different ways of getting TeX in sync with PostScript fonts, and I could set any of them up on Catherine's computer in half an hour. No, I don't use a Macintosh! LaTeX 2.10 will, by the way, provide a much easier way of setting up new font families. [deleted quotation] ------ this is a non sequitur, m'lud [deleted quotation] This is an argument against all known typesetting systems... [deleted quotation] Criticisms at this level apply to the whole, spurious, field of `desktop publishing', not to TeX. [deleted quotation] Again, Catherine is right - there is a lot of hideous stuff produced with LaTeX; there is a zillion times more produced with Macwrite, Pagemaker and Ventura. Blame the craftsman, not the tools! It is not `notoriously difficult' to write new LaTeX styles (nor is it fair to criticize Leslie Lamport for creating default styles which suit American, not Oxford, taste), but neither is it *supposed* to be easy to do a designers job. [deleted quotation] The amaterishness comes from the designer, not LaTeX. Last year I did a book in PostScript Times Roman using LaTeX for Oxford University Press. Since OUP specified all the parameters of the layout, who is to blame if you don't like the result? - OUP for the layout, and Adobe for the font, but not LaTeX. [deleted quotation] a bit like all other typesetting systems, then? [deleted quotation] Yes, of course. But we are in the context of computers here. Computers and their software are *general purpose tools*; that is their horror, and their excitement. To criticize a program which embodies all that is best and worst in computers is a swipe at the fundamental assumptions of our business! When someone points me at a program which allows me the control over typesetting that TeX provides; is free; runs on every computer I use; is almost infinitely extensible; whose source comes with it; which has almost no known bugs (that is not to say it is perfect!) - then I'll have one, thanks. Sebastian Rahtz Southampton University From: matsuba@writer Subject: Re: 4.0040 Addressing Students (77) Date: Mon, 14 May 90 17:41:01 EDT(5) (13 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 143 (153) Writing as a graduate student who moved from a rather formal department to a much more informal one, I find that using first or second names really depends on what is more comfortable for the person being addressed. At the University of British Columbia, it was more or less expected that you refer to a professor as "Dr." or "Professor" so-and-so. There were, of course exceptions. At York University, it is the opposite. It is almost expected that you address profesors by their first names. Again, with some exceptions. My way of coping is to address people as "Dr./Professor/Mr./Ms. ______", and then wait for a response. Usually they will SAY, "NO CEREMONY, STEPHEN, NO CEREMONY," or they will smile in way that says you did the right thing. Stephen Matsuba York University Toronto, Canada matsuba@writer.yorku.ca (no ceremony) From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn) Subject: nomenclature Date: 14 May 90 17:54:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 144 (154) Long ago, trying to figure out a sensible way to deal with sticky issues of names and titles, I decided that two rules ought to suffice: 1. Always call other people by whatever name/title/nickname *they* will feel comfortable with. If first names, fine, if last name and titles, if Miss, fine, if Ms, fine, if Mohammed Ali, fine, if Binky, fine. My experience has been that my students expect and are comfortable with first names, so first names it is. 2. Always allow and encourage other people to call *me* by whatever name/ title/nickname *they* will be most comfortable with. So when I taught at Catholic U. of America, where the culture demanded `Dr.', I gritted my teeth and took it (growling when I came into the office with an older, wiser, and more learned friend, and the secretary punctiliously looked up and said, `Good morning, Dr. O'Donnell, Good morning, Mr. M-----r.' So when I taught at Cornell, it was all first names. Now at Penn it tends to be Dr. again, but not always: but I'm *not* going to put students on the spot by insisting on something less formal. I suppose the exception would be a flagrantly contemptuous address: but then I'm not objecting to the form of address, but to the contempt -- and so if then (it's never happened), I have to say, `That's DR O'DONNELL to you, bud,' it's not really a question of nomenclature. Anyway, these rules work for me and I find I spend little if any time worrying about such things. More important problems. From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0040 Addressing Students (77) Date: Mon, 14 May 90 15:35 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 145 (155) Well, having grown in a tough-enough Bronx, the last name is the name to address anyone by safely. Gladhanding with the first name seems to me a condescension and intimacy not earned, and I hate to give a D or F to someone I call by his or her first name. Using the first name makes me feel I am laying hands on the student, and not respecting their maturity. Without a Ms or Mr it is intimate enough for me, thank you. Kindergarteners get to be called by their first name, but that is a childish thing one puts away on coming to voting age, I should hope. Just because one is friendly, one is not friendly to people who not one's peers, and the lack of formal heirarchy is a bit disorganizing. Of course, if you let them decide who is teaching and who is being taught, what little one can teach, because one knows so little, then one is getting down and not bring them up. I'll be damned if I let a stranger call me "Yosha" or something like that, when it cost me a front tooth in childhood because I didnt like the hamfisted guy who sneered when he call me that. I prefer the last name, with or lwithout Professor or Doctor, Mr will do to approach this old fella. Next thing one knows, one is hauled in for giving a nuance to"Suzy, dont you know a dangler when you see one?" NOt for me. Miss Jones isbetter than Suzy Q. Kessler here at UCLA From: Stephen Clausing Subject: not addressing students Date: Mon, 14 May 90 19:59:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 146 (156) It was never my intention to begin a discussion on the merits of using first vs. last names with students. I chose that example almost at random from my student evaluations to show that students get very upset over issues that are inherently trivial. The general rubric was "malice towards students" and this was my contribution. I know one colleague who refuses to read his student evaluations because of the utter stupidity of student comments. He is, I might add, one of our best teachers. I do read my evaluations if only because I am vain enough to believe the good ones and arrogant enough to think that the bad ones are wrong. I sometimes get evaluations in which the student says I am the best teacher he or she has ever had, and in the same class I may have a student who blames me for the D he or she is going to get. What I really would appreciate would be this evaluation: "Dear Professor X. You obviously attempted to do a good job teaching the class even though the administration doesn't care and no one will ever know that you did, except me. Thank you." From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: Student names Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 147 (157) Wait a minute. After 14 years at the U of M now you tell me that I am supposed to learn my students' names! Why? ... But seriously, doesn't context have anything to do with the issue? In a course with 340 students I give up. In a seminar with 4 students I know them well, much more than by first name. I know their talents, personalities and egos. I find a class of 40 to be a problem. It is time consuming to call roll but tempting to get to know individuals. In evening school I prefer first names. In morning classes, last names. Context counts. From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: Cyberspace Conference Date: Mon, 14 May 90 20:35:50 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 53 (158) Humanists might want to know about a recent conference held at the University of Texas at Austin, May 4-5, 1990. The First Conference on Cyberspace was convened through email by Professor Michael Benedikt of the School of Architecture at UT. The School of Architecture worked with Computer Science to sponsor the event. "Cyberspace" was the term the novelist William Gibson used for computer-simulated virtual reality. Cyberspace is a total sensory environment constituted by information. The information comes in holograms and other multi-dimensional structures. To enter the holographic data environment, the user dons headset and data-gloves which transmit retinal images and textures. Attending the conference were representatives of American Express, IBM, EDS, etc. Several companies envision cyberspace as the office environment of the future. These "virtual workplaces" will advantages, as they see it, over real-time geographical workplaces, including less dependence on a physical transportation infrastructure. Other planners conceived cyberspace in more poetic and imaginative terms. Two things struck me about the conference. One was the intrinsically interdisciplinary nature of the discussion. Another was the spontaneous combustion of metaphysical problems raised by the plans for cyberspace. The conference papers will be published in a book called early in Fall 1990 by MIT Press. ** ** ** ** ** The papers were as follows: Session One: Why Cyberspace? 1. Joel Anderson, NCR Comten, "Ancient Landmarks in Cyberspace" 2. Natalie Stenger, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, "The Mind is a Leaking Rainbow: How Cyberspace Fills New Levels of Reality" 3. Steve Pruitt, Texas Instruments and Tom Barrett, Electronic Data Systems Session Two: Visions of the System 1. Chip Morningstar and Randall Farmer, American Information Exchange Corp. (formerly of Lucasfilm Ltd.), "The Lessons of Habitat" 2. Michael Benedikt, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin, "Cyberspace: Some Proposals" 3. Tim McFadden, Altos Computer Systems, Inc., "The Structure of Cyberspace and the Ballistic Actors Model" Session Three: Logical and Ontological Problems 1. Marcos Novak, The Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Texas at Austin, "Liquid Architecture in Cyberspace" 2. Joseph V. Henderson, Interactive Media Lab, Dartmouth College, "Cyberspace Representation of Vietnam War Trauma" 3. Michael Heim, Department of Philosophy, California State University at Long Beach, "The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace" 4. Michael Lewis, Department of Information Science, University of Pittsburgh, "Cyberspace and the Two Gibsons" Session Four: Representing and Manipulating Data in Space 1. Meredith Bricken, Human Interface Technology Lab, The University of Washington, "No Interface to Design..." 2. Randall Walser, Autodesk, Inc., "Elements of a Cyberspace Role Playing System" 3. Carl Tollander, Autodesk, Inc., "Collaborative Engines for Multi-Participant Cyberspaces" 4. Wendy Kellogg, John Carroll, and John T. Richards, IBM Watson Research Center, "Making Reality a Cyberspace" ** ** ** ** ** Hope Humanists will get in on the planning stages of this habitat of the near future. Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: David Zeitlyn Subject: Dictionaries & Databases. Date: Tue, 15 May 90 14:49 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 148 (159) Hello, I'm back from more work in Cameroon, and return to the computerised world determined (ass I am every time I get back) that THIS year I will write my Mambila - English dictionary. For those who forget Mambila (language no. 710 in the Cameroon Linguistic Atlas) is a non-Bantu Bantoid, and usually classed in the Mambiloid group. I would appreciate comments from Humanists about the choice of database to use to make the dictionary. Unless VERY good arguments are produced I will use a MAC since I've sorted out the necessary phonetic fonts for this, which is part of the battle - BUT has any one yet worked out how to change the sort-order on a MAC? The dictionary will collate existing information on the various different dialects and include french and english focal glosses for reverse sorting. As I see it the main question - which I keep changing my mind about - is whther to use a flat file d-base (hcard even, although that'ld probably be too slow for the intended size approx 3,000 entries) OR whether to use a relational database. This would have the advantage that the dialects could be entered as separate simple word lists and hence be easily farmed out, then combined using relational qualities... but that 'merging@ would be fairly complex while a single but messy flat file 'card' could handle it. All opinions and comments gratefully received Best wishes (and nice to be home) David Zeitlyn in sunny but cool Oxford From: "L. Dale Patterson" Subject: Computer Maps Date: Sun, 13 May 90 14:19:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 149 (160) I am looking for a computer product which will generate maps for me which I can then add to and alter. I teach courses in American history, and no matter how good the textbook there could always be one more map. What I would like is so mething which starts with the basic outline of the U.S. and which includes the outlines of the states (it would be great if there could be different outlines for specific time-periods) and then would let me fill in cities I want to empha size, draw lines, shading to emphasize westward movement, strength of a given party or religious group, etc. I would appreciate any ideas or comments. Thanks. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" Subject: MaxSPITBOL Date: Tue, 15 May 90 06:38:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 150 (161) In answer to the question by Geoffrey Rockwell, MaxSPITBOL is available from Catspaw, Inc., P.O. Box 1123, Salida, CO 81201 U.S.A. (719) 539-3884. Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: sneaking someone into the bedroom Date: Tue, 15 May 90 06:17:31 IST (6 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 151 (162) a colleague wants to know: does anyone know of stories in which a wife sneaks someone else into bed with her husband instead of herself, because she is barren or for any other reason and suceceeds in fooling him? thanks From: janus@ux.acs.umn.edu Subject: ANY NERDS KNOWN IN AMERICAN LITERATURE? Date: Mon, 14 May 90 21:55:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 152 (163) A Danish colleague here at the U of Minnesota wonders if any HUMANETS (?) have ideas on the first literary representation of a nerd. He is astounded at Americans' negative reaction to nerdiness (which he sees as more bookishness), and would like to find out if there are some classic American nerds in literature. Obviously he is not interested only in nerds by that name, but any nerds will do. Ideas? Louis Janus Dept of Scandinavian Studies U of Minn From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: NY Times on E-Mail Date: 05/14/90 22:27:04 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 153 (164) Just to prove the power of E-mail wouldn't it be nice if all members of Humanist wrote a brief letter to the NY Times immediately to tell them about this marvelous list-server. Imagine the impact of such a network of correspondents. From: ANNA MORPURGO DAVIES Subject: RE: 4.0048 Etymologies of 'Glom' and 'Doddle' (116) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 23:31 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 154 (165) It is odd that so far noone has quoted the OED supplement for GLOM and DODDLE. The latter is labelled 'colloquial' and glossed 'something that is easy or requires little effort; a 'walk-over'. First evidence 1937. The former is labelled U.S. slang and glossed 'to steal, to grab, snatch'. First evidence 1907 (Jack London). Anna From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: nerds in American lit. Date: 15 May 1990, 18:43:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 155 (166) Surely Holden Caulfield in _The Catcher in the Rye_ is something like the classic American nerd, though one could make an argument for Tom Sawyer. Roy Flannagan (Incidentally, I think Buddy Holly gave the look to nerdism, and a nerd is usually classified by former athletes as "someone I should have beat up on the playground, if I didn't.") From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0055 General Notes and Queries (29) Date: Tuesday, 15 May 1990 18:54:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 156 (167) By the way, Ichabod Crade in Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the earliest nerd I know of. (Crane; that's CRANE) From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0055 General Notes and Queries (29) Date: Tuesday, 15 May 1990 18:53:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 157 (168) I think that the word NERD was coined for the TV show HAPPY DAYS. The show was set in American High School culture of the 1950's (although it played in the 70's & 80's) and the local hoodlum, Fonzi, called individuals who weren't COOL, NERDS. I remember the fifties, and I remember the Fonzis of the period, and they did not have hearts of gold, like the fellow on TV, nor did they refer to people they didn't like as NERD, although they might have used a rhyming word. But what they might have said couldn't be used in a family-based TV sitcom, so NERD was coined. Or, at least, I've always thought that was it. The word narrowed from a general one meaning UNCOOL which was associated with bookishness (one of many ways to be uncool) to a term for a studious person with no concern for style and fashion to someone devoted to computers, it seems. I don't think the word was used in the movie AMERICAN GRAFITTI, from which HAPPY DAYS comes, but it may have been. As I say, this is all guesswork. --Pat Conner From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: Nerds Date: Tue, 15 May 90 20:28:47 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 158 (169) Interestingly enough, the OED2 cites Dr. Seuss as the earliest occurrence of `nerd', i.e. the 1950 quote from `If I ran Zoo' is ``And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo and Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!'' The origin of the term is alternatively also seen as possibly being a variant on `turd' (in a commentary that looks far too unsupportable). The person was deemed to be someone insignificant or contemptable who was conventional, affected or studious. Noplace does the entry doesn't mention computers. Gosh... maybe Preppie or Geek came from Preep too? Has Dr. Seuss been instrumental in directing U.S. Slang to other categories of people we find socially annoying? (Geek is thought to be U.S. carnival slang, so this is basically a bit of whimsy). From: "Ed. Harris, Academic Affairs, SCSU" Subject: Nerds Date: Wed, 16 May 90 09:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 159 (170) Although he's not very early, how about Thurber's Walter Mitty? Ed Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: "Peter D. Junger" Subject: Nerds in literature Date: Wed, 16 May 90 13:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 160 (171) I cannot think of any nerds in American literature, but surely (I may not be spelling the name correctly) Widmerpoole in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time is an archetypical nerd. Perhaps it might be well to suggest to Danish Colleagues that the fact that no one in Denmark today would name a child So/ren has something to do with the perception that Kirkegaard--the man, not the writer--was rather a nerd: what was the name of his unfortunate girlfriend? Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: nerds in American lit. Date: Wed, 16 May 90 08:49:58 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 161 (172) A quick response to Janus on nerds in American literature. I am sure as the day wears on I will think of many but Melville's Bartleby comes immediately to mind. "Tertan, Ferdinand R." from Trilling's "Of This Time, Of That Place" also has to be a prime candidate. The pursuit of nerds through literature sounds like fun. Searching for a lost identity, Janus? Good luck from an erstwhile nerd. Herb Donow Southern Illinois University From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: sneaking someone into the wife's or husband's bedroom Date: 15 May 1990, 18:49:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 162 (173) It is a medieval and Renaissance motif, something to do with Gyge's ring? Maybe the best version is the infamous Canto 28 of Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_, in which infidelity, at first a cause for depression and despair, finally becomes a huge joke between two men. Ariosto cautioned women not to read that canto. Roy Flannagan ú From: John Morris Subject: Sneaking in a surrogate wife Date: Tue, 15 May 90 17:58:14 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 163 (174) Re: Daniel Boyarin's query about a wife who sneaks a surrogate into her husband's bed. In _The Changeling_, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley (c. 1652), Beatrice-Joanna is to marry Alonzo de Piracquo, but she prefers Alsemero. Beatrice asks her loathed servant, de Flores, to murder Alonzo. In return for the murder, de Flores extorts Beatrice's sexual favours from her, and he continues to blackmail her with threats of fresh exposures of her compounded and compounding crimes. Beatrice finally marries Alsemero, but, fearing that he will discover that she is no longer a virgin, sends her maid, Diaphanta, to him on her wedding night. The deception works until the end of the play when Beatrice and de Flores are exposed. From: TBESTUL@crcvms.unl.edu Subject: RE: 4.0055 General Notes and Queries (29) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 21:55 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 164 (175) On the matter of wives sneaking another woman into bed with her husband and he not knowing: the classic example in medieval literature is in the Tristan and Isolde stories (see especially the version by Gottfried von Strassburg, ca. 1210). Isolde on her wedding night persuades her servant Brangane to take her place, since she has (unfortunately) lost her virginity to Tristan. Isolde's husband Mark is completely deceived by this subterfuge. Tom Bestul, University of Nebraska-Lincoln tbestul@unlvax1.bitnet tbestul@crcvms.unl.edu From: DJT18@HULL.AC.UK Subject: Re: 4.0055 General Notes and Queries (29) Date: Wed,16 May 90 10:21:04 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 165 (176) Sneaking someone into the bedroom... Machiavelli's "Mandragola" (Mandrake) springs to mind immediately. Translation available at University of Hull, if not commercially. June Thompson, CTI Centre for Modern Languages. From: Jeffrey Perry Subject: Bedchamber substitutions Date: Wed, 16 May 90 08:50:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 166 (177) In 4.0055 Daniel Boyarin asks: [deleted quotation] A good example of this trope (if that's the expression -- I just do the computer support thing) is "The Three Bushes" of W.B. Yeats, wherein a virtuous nobelwoman arranges an assignation with her equally high-born beloved, sending her chambermaid to him in her place. "And maybe we are all the same / where no candles are". Later the nobleman falls from his steed and dies of a broken neck, noblewoman follows suits of a broken heart, and the chambermaid is left to tend both their graves, which are, of course, adjoining. The priest who hears the latter's confession in old age buries her between the two, and plants three bushes, one to a grave, which eventually entwine and are as one. Sort of like certain LANs I could name. From: John Lavagnino Subject: Sneaking nerds into the bedroom Date: Wed, 16 May 90 13:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 167 (178) Something like this switching can be found in W. B. Yeats's poem ``The Three Bushes'' and the six associated poems that follow it in editions of Yeats's collected poems: here it's a woman substituting her chambermaid for herself in her lover's bed, to preserve her chastity. One distinction between a nerd and a merely bookish person is that---at one time, anyway---the nerd was always someone greatly, maybe solely, interested in science and far better at dealing with technology than with other people. Such a nerd is always male. Kurt Vonnegut's novel ``Cat's Cradle'' is concerned in part with this sort of personality, though I don't think it uses the term. John Lavagnino, Brandeis From: Subject: Re: 4.0040 Addressing Students (77) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 17:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 168 (179) I can't help wondering what the students call *you*. I have consistently asked students to call me "Sue." I know that other faculty use their own first names; others, more formal, opt for Dr. or Professor ***. Curious to see a poll from here, I remain.... Sue Besemer.... From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" Subject: THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST Date: 15 May 90 20:32:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 169 (180) It's OK for an 850 lb. gorilla like Jim O'D to be addressed as Jim, and address his students as Dick and Jane if he wishes. Little gnats like me prefer to follow Miss Manners and consider students as students and not as pals. First name calling is a bad American habit (particularly annoying in phone solicitations). Further, experience of others has shown me that teaching in a torn T-shirt and cutoffs and addressing your students by first names makes them uncomfortable and less able to accept any evaluation (or grade) you give them as being a serious assessment. Humanists have a bad enough reputation for being blowhards and frauds to encourage those beliefs. One of the nerds, Jim Halporn From: Stephen Clausing Subject: first names after all Date: Wed, 16 May 1990 09:59:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 170 (181) Again, I never meant to begin a discussion on first names vs. last names, but since this has happened, I might as well join in. I use first names for friends and good acquaintances, not for students, because they are neither. I try very hard to establish a comfortable atmosphere in the classroom, but I also try never to forget that these people have their own lives and in reality there is no personal connection between us, nor should there be. Experience has shown me that students who are the best of friends during the semester will hardly look twice at me one year later. These relationships are really quite superficial and we should not pretend otherwise by using first names. When I was the TA supervisor at another university, I always advised against using first names with students, but I never forbid it either. From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0052 Addressing Students (10 Date: Wednesday, 16 May 1990 9:13am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 171 (182) Stephen Clausing is of course right in pointing out that "students get upset over issues that are inherently trivial"; so do most members of the faculty, myself included. But I'm not at all sure that the issue of naming is one of those "inherently trivial" ones-- as witness the interest here on HUMANIST. Personally, I still have moments when someone says "Dr. Slatin" and I turn around to see if my father's in the room (I being an academic brat). And although I'm generally more comfortable when students and colleagues and staff address me as "John," I too encourage people to call me whateverr *they* feel comfortable with. An amusing and instructive incident took place last year, during a computer-mediated discussion in a graduate seminar: it seemed to me that, among other things, it simply took too long for students to type "Dr. Slatin" every time they wanted to address a remark to me, so I suggested that "John" would do just fine. Two students, both women-- one a Mexican-American from South Texas, the other from the Republic of China-- immediately replied that they felt such informality to be grossly improper given their cultural training, and said they'd go on callling me "Dr." To which another student, a retured Navy officer, said that where he came from, when a superior suggested you call him by his first name, that superior *meant* for you to call him by his first name. So much, I thought, for any attempt on my part to pretend there was no power differential in the room. There is a differential, of course, and students (at least here in Texas, a state with a very strange devotion to individual liberty and supreme authority) do not like it when we attempt to cross the lines they believe to be drawn in concrete (not dust). What we call students, and what they call us, matters a lot: it's one of the principal means by which we define our relationships with them. I had a professor in grad school, the late Larry Holland, who scrupulously called each of us by our last names until the end of the first semester of his American lit seminar; then, when we arrived at his home for an end-of-semester/Xmas party, we were astonished to find that he greeted each of us by first name-- a practice he continued for the rest of our time at Hopkins. It was as if we'd passed some breakpoint we didn't know was there, and it meant a good deal to each of us, I think. John Slatin, UT Austin From: Norman Hinton Subject: 1 tier, I hope: address by rank Date: Wed, 16 May 90 10:21:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 172 (183) ... [eds] 2) Addressing by rank: when I was still quite young, and a non-tenured Assistant Prof at ST. Louis U., I was going to lunch with a Full Professor and an Associate Professor, and we met the then Chair of Classics on the stairs: he said "Hello, Professor, Doctor, umm"....I was "umm". From: Subject: scrambling Date: Wed, 16 May 90 15:51 N X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 59 (184) Forwarded by: Willard McCarty C A L L F O R P A P E R S =============================== TILBURG UNIVERSITY WORKSHOP ON ******************************* ******************************* ***** ***** ***** SCRAMBLING ***** ***** ***** ******************************* ******************************* Place: Tilburg University / Bestuursacademie Noord-Brabant Meerkoldreef 6, Tilburg (next to RR station Tilburg- West) Time: October 18 through 20 1990 (Thursday through Saturday) Keynote speakers: Hans den Besten Ken Hale (invited - yet to be confirmed) Katalin Kiss Selected speakers: There are 15 slots for 40 minutes presen- tations. Speakers whose abstracts have been selected may expect a honorarium of dfl. 300.-- (about US$ 150.--). Abstracts: You are invited to submit abstracts whose length should not exceed 2 pages. Pertinence to the topic will be an im- portant criterion. The original abstract should contain your name, address and affiliation, and preferably also your e-mail address. In addition you should send 6 copies of the abstract. Your sub- mission should be addressed and mailed to: e-mail: corver@kub.nl snailmail: SCRAMBLING c/o Corver Dept. of Language and Lit. Tilburg University P.O. Box 90153 5000 LE Tilburg The Netherlands Deadline: Deadline for the submission of abstracts is September 1 1990. You may expect a decision by September 15. Participation: Participants (non-speakers) will be ex- pected to pay a registration fee of dfl. 50.-- (about US$ 25.--). Topic: Scrambling: Scrambling refers to a set of phenomena in natural languages which have to do with (relatively) free word order. While the delimitation of this set is not entirely obvious, we take permutations of XPs (complements and adjuncts) in the inner areas of the sentence to be the core case of scrambling. This means that wh-movement and other movements to the (roughly) first position, extrapositions (movements to the last position) and head movements such as Verb Second are not included. Fringe cases are clitic movement, at least of the Germanic type, and embedded topicalization as found, for example, in English. This delimitation is undoubtedly arbitrary in many ways and should itself be considered part of the problem: current theorizing simply does not tell us much about the status of such phenomena. In fact, if we approach the question from a theoretical perspective, we notice that there is a considerable discrepancy between current conceptions of Move Alpha and scrambling phenomena. One of the central problems a theory of the Barriers type confronts, for example, is the status of adjunction to such nodes as the VP. In languages like German, this is often assumed to be the cause of the relative freedom of word order in the Mittelfeld. For languages like English, on the other hand, the problem is that adjunction to VP may have to be assumed for theoretical reasons but can only be an intermediate stage in a derivation (it cannot survive at s-structure). More generally speaking, if adjunction of XPs to a variety of nodes is allowed, why is so little visible use made of this possibility in many languages. Are there any alternatives that get by with little or no adjunction? Of course, Heavy-NP-Shift may be an instance of adjunction to VP, but that is rightward adjunction, as opposed to the adjunction assumed for long movement. So one empirical generalization might be that overt adjunction to VP may never cross the verb, i.e. it must leave the adjoined XP on the same side of the head. It appears, then, that, while vague in certain respects, the problems related to scrambling phenomena are connected with several important and difficult issues, both empirical and theoretical. From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0054 Technical Notes and Queries (73) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 15:22:23 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 173 (185) Just yesterday there showed up in the mail a mailer from Egghead Software enclosing a demo disk for PC Globe and PC USA. I quote: "Includes maps of the entire country as well as regions and individual states. Shows major natural features, elevations and the location of each state's largest cities. Displays statistical information on each map." Also includes demographic data. Maps can be exported in PC Paintbrush format. Price not given since it depends on educational discounts, but it probably retails for about $70. Requires IBM compatible with 512 K. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: LINDYK@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: RE: 4.0042 OCR errors; Modems (40) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 08:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 174 (186) RE: Modems I have been using a GVC Super Modem 2400 for 6 months now and Have had no problems. It is Hayes compatible which is a very important criterion as it is the industry standard. Also, for the few extra dollars, get a 2400 baud as opposed to a 1200 baud; transmission is faster. Also, get an external modem; you will save a slot and you can see the flashing lights that will indicate that all is proceding normally. Suggest *CROSSTALK FOR WINDOWS* as your communications software if you using a PC. It is very easy to use, especially if you have a mouse and it also contains the KERMIT protocol that enables you to communicate with a mainframe. This is very important if you are using e-mail on the Bitnet system. Sincerely Bogdan KARASEK lindyk@vax2.concordia.ca From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0043 TeX (162) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 13:59:56 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 175 (187) [deleted quotation] The Publisher (ArborText, Ann Arbor) offers a nice front end for TEX. It provides a high-level SGML interface for writing, WYSIWYG previews, but the capability of inserting straight TEX for truly special requirements. I've been using it for about two years on a SUN 3/50 and have been quite pleased with it. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Subject: RE: OCR errors Date: Wed, 16 May 90 14:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 176 (188) We just got a scanner, so I'm having fun playing around with it. However, I'm fascinated by some of the poetic misreadings that the Kurzweil performs. Instead of "bulletin board" it read "bulletin bard"! Every bulletin board should have its bulletin bard. I would nominate Willard. My favorite error is its changing "subject to change" to "subject to chance". This one seems to have metaphysical implications. I'm beginning to wonder if this machine contains the reincarnated soul of some dead poet. Perry Willett SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: Mary Massirer Subject: new book Date: Wed, 16 May 90 14:14 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 177 (189) I'd like to recommend, for your summertime edification, a new book by Page Smith called *Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America* published this year by Viking Penguin. Since I have no Ph.D and no tenure, I was delighted to hear him condemn both systems. I have not gotten to the chapter called 'The Inhuman Humanities' but it promises to be interesting. Mary Massirer (massirerm@baylor) From: "David L. Barr" Subject: Humanist topics et cetera Date: Tue, 15 May 90 20:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 178 (190) Recently rereading some of e.e. cummings' poetry, I came across the following delight. I pass it along well knowing the risk of reopening dead topics and side-tracking our more technical discussions. my sweet old etcetera aunt lucy during the recent war could and what is more did tell you just what everybody was fighting for, my sister isabel created hundreds (and hundreds)of socks not to mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers etcetera wristers etcetera, my mother hoped that i would die etcetera bravely of course my father used to become hoarse talking about how it was a privilege and if only he could meanwhile my self etcetera lay quietly in the deep mud et cetera (dreaming, et cetera, of Your smile eyes knees and of your Etcetera) From: farrukh Subject: Re: 4.0046 Notes and Queries (81) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 20:36:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 179 (191) [regarding the article on electronic mail in the New York Times. eds] the article may have appeared on may 13 instead of june 13. From: Geoffrey Rockwell Subject: Thanks for the Max Date: Wed, 16 May 90 9:43:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 180 (192) I would like to thank everyone who has sent me information about MaxSPITBOL. Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: Alan D Corre Subject: Hypercard and ProIcon Date: Wed, 16 May 90 10:17:16 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 62 (193) I am currently engaged on two educational projects for the Macintosh computer. One employs Hypercard and one ProIcon. Since both these packages have interest for Humanists, I should like to offer some comments on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each. 1. The Hypertext Concept. This concept, which arranges knowledge in a tree structure, has great potentiality for changing the way we learn. Hypercard is specifically designed to exploit this concept, and can be used to great effect. ProIcon is not so designed. 2. Graphics. Hypercard has remarkable graphics capacities, while ProIcon has none. A caution is needed. It is all too easy to produce badly designed software with Hypercard, and alarms are sounding that this is already occurring. In my Hypercard project I am cooperating with an artist, and our areas are clearly delineated. It seems to me hazardous to get involved with Hypercard unless you have graphic design capabilities, or can work with someone who has them. 3. Sound. There is an excellent separate package, HyperSound, for adding custom sound to Hypercard. This can be speech or music. Be warned that sound takes up a great deal of space, and must be used judiciously. HyperSound is part of the MacRecorder, which is useful for learning basic concepts in acoustics, if that topic is of interest. ProIcon does not have sound. 4. Windows. Hypercard has text fields which can be made visible and artistically customized. ProIcon has an excellent windowing system. It is easy to use, and very powerful. Here too some graphic design is desirable, although it is not so serious a problem as in Hypercard. 5. Speed. Hypercard is not compiled, and saving is automatic, so time is saved in programming. But with complex programs Hypercard can be impossibly slow in execution. This can be remedied by using external functions and commands which have to be "glued" to Hypercard--at which point Hypercard ceases to be the "erector set" it is claimed to be. ProIcon is an integrated development program which works swiftly and neatly. I have never found any problem at all with the execution speed of ProIcon. It's fast. 6. System. You need a hard disk for Hypercard. ProIcon will work on any except a first generation Mac. 7. Programming. Hypercard has its own programming language called Hypertalk, which is designed to be "English-like." For example the statement Put cherry into cocktail is Hypercard's English-like way of assigning the string "cherry" to the variable "cocktail," i.e. cocktail := "cherry" In my view, the experience with COBOL demonstrated that such attempts are liable to fail. Executive types are not interested in reading programs, however English-like they may be, while programmers like shortcuts which render English-like programs cryptic anyway. Moreover, Hypercard would not understand the (for me) more natural Put cherry in cocktail Icon, the programming language underlying ProIcon, has, in my view, an excellent blend of brevity and explicitness which avoids this whole pseudo-issue. Hypertalk is object-oriented. You program separately items such as fields, cards and buttons, so the programming is fragmented. This offers interesting new possibilities, but makes it difficult to design an overall program. ProIcon is structured, has procedures of equal status (unlike the nesting you have in Pascal) and offers the possibility of linking to frequently used libraries of procedures. Hypercard has a number of string procedures which are quite useful. It cannot generally process single characters entered without a carriage return, although buttons may compensate for this. ProIcon has a highly sophisticated way of handling strings which is as ingenious as it is practical. 8. Conclusion. Hypercard and ProIcon are not in competition, rather they supplement each other. With the help of the two, or by using programers familiar with them, humanists can become latter day alchemists, marshalling their knowledge for inspiration, education and entertainment. Hypercard comes free with the Macintosh. ProIcon is published by Catspaw, Inc. of Salida, CO (719-539-3884). MacRecorder is published by Farallon Computing, Inc. of Berkeley CA (415-849-2331). I have no connexion with any of these developers, and offer these comments only to aid colleagues. I would be glad of any comments on these packages, or tips to further enhance their usefulness. From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179) Date: Tuesday, 15 May 1990 18:08:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 181 (194) The assertion of power often begins by making rules about what should and should not be said in a given context. Indeed, that's one of the major agenda of kindergarten teachers and drill sergeants. I am not interested in much of what comes over HUMANIST, but I am less interested in Jane contexts which would make some topics illegitimate. I want to continue to be able to glom onto this and that as it appeals to me; after all it's a doddle to delete what's not of interest. From: "Sheizaf.Rafaeli" <21898MGR@MSU> Subject: Humanist Structure Date: Tuesday, 15 May 1990 8:05pm ET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 182 (195) Clearly the most parsimonious solution would be to eliminate suggestions about metacommunication. Esp. those that suggest elimination. Sheizaf From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE Subject: RE: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179) Date: Tue, 15 May 90 22:49 -0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 183 (196) Since everyone seems to be flaming on the subject either of getting rid of the computer nerds or of segregating the humanist nerds in their own litle corner, let me throw in my own morsel into the fray. I find most humanist mailings fascinating, although they do take up more of my time than I realy should be dedicating to them. Although I ocasionally grow bored with some of the subjects flamed over, I can always not read them, seeing that the editors do such a good job in segregating the subject matter and informing us about what to expect in the "subject" heading. If you don't like the subject, by all means don't read it, but don't take away the opportunity of others having the chance of reading it. Let's have a bit less chauvinism in this list. Ciau Dennis From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 00:45:40 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 184 (197) Although HUMANIST is the very first list I subscribed to, I've been considering dropping it. It's not because the contributions aren't interesting. It's because I hate wading through many things that are not of interest to me in order to reach one item near the end of the chunk. Has HUMANIST ever considered going the un-moderated route? Although automatic lists usually involve clutter of various kinds (including misguided messages saying things like "review" or "sub"), I prefer them to moderated lists. The dialogue moves more quickly, and it's easier to delete unread the threads of discussion you're not interested in. Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) From: MFZXREP%cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Splitting of Humanist Date: Wed, 16 May 90 11:03:12 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 185 (198) I have been following the discussion on the splitting of Humanist into sublists for *techies* and *non-techies*. A sublist in any form would really constitute a totally new discussion group and as such would, in my humble *techie* opinion, defeat the object of Humanist as I see it. Discussion between members of any community are generally far ranging, this suggested split would probably cause those members who are interseted in computing as a tool for research/education/communication to receive predominantly from the suggested sub-list. Many of the problems faced by subscribers with software/hardware which are at present aired within the Humanist group would be routed to the sublist even though these subscribers are in general recipients of the *nontechie* material. This, given the editorial practice of selective grouping of topics, would be detrimental to the growth of Humanist, and to some degree the growth of Humanities computing as a whole. After all, if we are not aware of methods and practices within other institutions, does it not negate one of the major pros of groups such as Humanist, and also, why should those amongst us who wish to further develop computing usage within the community while continuing to be active members of the community at large be relegated into a subset of Humanists. Humanist is at present highly commendable both in editorial policy, and content. I do not read all the items, but by simply locating the subject line of each group listing, read those in which I am interested. Generally a blend between subjects falling into both the *techie* & *nontechie* categories. I see no reason why Humanist should in any way change its present form, and feel that those who wish it to do so should perhaps contemplate on how the split within the Humanist community would affect both the nature of Humanist and the progress of unified Humanities progress in computing as the *techies* who contribute to other topics could, if they become a subset, merely continue with the present form of discussion leaving those who wish the changes made, with an incomplete discussion group made up of those who have little or no interest in the medium they are using to communicate. From: Randal Baier Subject: HUMANIST as Techno-wonder Date: Wed, 16 May 90 08:15:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 186 (199) I am glad that HUMANIST remains both a discussion for technical, computer related issues in the humanities as well as more traditional humanitistic concerns. The concept is iconic in that we use the tools to discuss and advance them within the discipline. In order to understand how to use, e.g. cross-national electronic concordances, we need a certain level of technical instruction and awareness. I think the headings that group messages together are adequate for browsing the list. One can then delete them if they are not relevant to one's interests. Randal Baier Cornell University Library From: Willard McCarty Subject: survival? Date: Wed, 16 May 90 08:37:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 187 (200) One question in my mind is, will Humanist and things like it survive their own success? If the New York Times were to get wind of this seminar, and if the editor of that section were to become interested enough to get a reporter to write a story, and this story were to make it into print, then I guess we would find out. Another question is, will such seminars survive improvements in the technology? What would happen if audio and video signals were to be added? Is more necessarily better? Willard McCarty From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" Subject: split this list? Date: 16 May 1990 10:05:16 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 188 (201) homo sum; nihil humanum mihi alienum puto. Split this list and I'm gone. Michael Sperberg-McQueen P.S. me too -Lou Burnard From: Skip Knox Subject: Humanist Structure [eds] Date: Wed, 16 May 90 11:28:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 189 (202) I would like to add my voice to those urging that HUMANIST stay in its present format. I agree that one special attraction of this list is the wide-ranging nature of the discussions, and that it is precisely this quality (along with a welcome and judicious moderation by the editors) that makes of this list a genuine community. When I tell professors about Bitnet, one pitch I use is that it is the closest thing we have to the faculty club or faculty lounge, and it is HUMANIST in particular that I have in mind when I say this. Were the list to be segregated it would lose that quality of community and become like so many other lists on Bitnet: a useful place in which to ask a specific question but otherwise arcane and uninteresting. Skip Knox Microcomputer Coordinator (cum) Medieval Historian Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: Norman Hinton Subject: 1 tier, I hope: ... [eds] Date: Wed, 16 May 90 10:21:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 190 (203) 1) I hope HUMANIST will not try to distinguish discussions by tiers: I very much like the variety of notes, and I can dispose of those I don't want to read...I'm as interested in computer hardware questions as I am in etymologies, etc. It might be too much to claim that HUMANIST is as varied as life itself, but it comes close on occasion, and that's one of the best things about it. ... [eds] From: "Peter D. Junger" Subject: Subject of Humanist Date: Wed, 16 May 90 13:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 191 (204) Humanist would be worthless to me without the apparent digressions. Humanists are humanists (and human) while computers are computers; the intersection of interesting matters relating to the two very different types of critters is inherently fuzzy. Most of the interest, however, resides in the fuzz. Let those computers and their wetware imitations who cannot glom onto this fact subscribe to ADVISE-L. To have any understanding of the not wholly harmonious relations that exist between the Humanities and the Computer, one has to be eternally aware of all the issues that are not in practice--and perhaps not in theory--computible. I also believe that Willard was right in requesting us to identify ourselves in out signature lines, although moderation is in this area--as in most others--something to be desired. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve Univ. Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: Paul Brians Subject: Glom Date: Wed, 16 May 90 15:44:25 PLT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 192 (205) Scrooge McDuck has a rival named "Flintheart Glomgold." From: Robert Kirsner (213)825-3955 Subject: The Glom, Consolidated Interglom Date: Wed, 16 May 90 22:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 193 (206) With respect to 'glom', when used as a noun it is the name of the intelligent but shapeless beings who attempt to invade Earth in Robert Sheckley's classic short story 'Shape' in his volume Untouched by Human Hands.(1954) (The invasion fails because Earth offers the invaders unlimited Freedom of Shape; the various Glom turn into trees, dogs, and birds.) A local listener-sponsored station, KPFK, once had a commedian who referred to the generic huge corporation as 'Consolidated Interglom'. Those who were unfamiliar with these uses of the term 'glom' should enrol in Remedial Cultural Literacy 403A Next week, kiddies, we shall deal with the phrasal verb BLOB OUT, as in "The Ex-President spends many hours simply blobbing out in front of the TV." From: Subject: RE: 4.0056 Glom and Doddle (1); Nerds (7). (98) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 18:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 194 (207) I have a perpetually bewildered cat. His name is Uncle Nerdly. He keeps track of the other two feline friends, Babycakes and Twit. He seems preoccupied and confused most of the time. Professorish, but sweet. Melinda Swenson Indiana University School of Nursing From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" Subject: NERDS IN TRILLING Date: 16 May 90 19:32:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 195 (208) I must differ with Herb Donow. In the story "Of This Time, Of That Place," Tertan is crazy (in his thrice-woven circle). There are two possible nerds in the story (again not so named): my candidate is Joseph Howe (the archetypical HUMANIST), the other is Blackburn. Jim Halporn From: barry alpher Subject: nerd Date: Wed, 16 May 90 21:15:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 196 (209) /nerd/ is attested in its current meaning at least as early as 1968, hence before the TV show in question. I heard it in 1960 used to refer to a hardened droplet of glue squeezed out between two clamped boards: /a nerd of glue/. From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0056 Glom and Doddle (1); Nerds (7). (98) Date: Thursday, 17 May 1990 00:09:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 197 (210) Having contributed the earliest nerd in American lit so far (Ichabod Crane), I shall take the liberty to say more on the subject. Robert Amsler's reference to OED2 is exactly the right tactic for etymologizing a word, but I think the OED's wrong on this one. Seuss may have used the word NERD, but in the context of strange animals to be brought back to the zoo, I'd want some hard evidence that that's the origin of the current term. I'm almost certain that the word gained general currency from the TV show , which Fonzi would have said in real life. Surely the writers were inventive enough to come up with a word which the actor could deliver with pure contempt without having to check nonsense words from Dr. Seuss. Can anyone find a use of NERD denoting any sort of person which predates the TV show from the mid-seventies (or whenever it played)? Meanwhile, I shall have to check the variant etymology. It may be that NERD should have been lemmatized twice in the OED2, once under NERD, mythical animal; then under NERD, jerk or social dolt. --Pat Conner From: Elaine Riehm (ECF@McMaster.CA) Subject: Nerds Date: Thu, 17 May 90 09:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 198 (211) Nerds, I was once told, are also what you have left in your pocket when you have taken everything out. From: "Matthew B. Gilmore" Subject: form of address first/last name Date: Wed, 16 May 90 23:12:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 199 (212) Studenthood within recent memory, I recall amongst the students professors were referred to by their last name--Smith, Jones (pseudonyms to protect the guilty), usually Dr. Smith, Dr. Jones to their face. As a ubiquitous research assistant to two professors, I eventually got around to using John and Jane in conversation with them, for some of the faculty. It sometimes seemed awkward. But since towards the end of the program we are just about ready to be colleagues the first name basis seemed ok. But then I obviously had more contact. From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0058 Addressing Students and Others (100) Date: Wednesday, 16 May 1990 23:48:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 200 (213) I attended a very small high school (15 graduating seniors and it was literally high--it was on the second floor of the building which also contained the elementary school); I had been called by my middle name all my life because the town was so small that everyone knew that that's what I was called by at home. On my first day at the University, my instructor addressed me as Mr. Conner, and I remember thinking that finally I had some sort of status in the world, albeit very very small. Consequently, I call my undergraduates Mr./Ms. and I tell them that I do it because I think that they are now adults. Then I tell them how I was amazed to discover that I was entitled to be a Mr. Conner, and urge them to consider the value of relationships which do not assume an easy familiarity. I may use their first names (and I may not) in tutorial situations, and it's a mixed bag with graduate students, depending on many things, but usually I move to a first name basis with graduates very quickly, because I think of them as colleagues-in-training. I find that--more or less--the same thing is true reciprocally: under- grads call me Mr/Dr/Prof (I never explain professional titles unless asked) and graduates often call me Pat out of class and Dr. Conner in class. Being a medievalist, I find all of that just Bysantine enough to be enjoyable. From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: Students' names Date: Wed, 16 May 90 23:34:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 201 (214) When I entered first year university in 1951, the transition from high school to university was marked by the fact that we were now called "Miss" and Mr.", a change that gave us all shivers of pride. But then, the whole University of Toronto only had 8000 students, and no one felt lost or anonymous. Today the university is somewhere in the 40,000 range (I don't want to know the exact figure!), and the students I teach tell me my classes of 30-60 are sometimes the smallest they have. Instead of being rooted in the lives of their college and travelling year by year with a cohort of at most 150, they range all over the university, dropping in and dropping out as finances make it possible. I cannot, to save my life, call these dislocated kids "Miss" or "Mr." Indeed, they learn each others' first names from me, as I use them in class. They are deeply courteous to me, always addressing me as "Professor." Which is fine; I don't mind teen-agers being courteous to me. My grad students call me by my first name, and vice versa. My point is that all lot of these arrangements are and _have_ to be situational. My colleagues seem to follow the same procedure; "James" and "Alice" in the common room turn into "Professor ----" in the Department meeting, which is appropriate to that situation. Even more so if James and Alice are currently fighting over which of them is going to car-pool their kids to day-care! In effect, the practice appropriate to the situation is making it possible for everyone to engage in civil discourse. Which I hope hope is the result of first names in the classroom too. Germaine Warkentin From: Robert Hollander Subject: Re: 4.0058 Addressing Students and Others (100) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 01:00:16 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 202 (215) My favorite story about this rank-conscious business of naming goes back many years. I heard it when I was a graduate student at Columbia in the early sixties. Some many years before even then, it was told me on good authority, Andrew Chiappe, a person of exquisite sensibility, joined the Columbia College English faculty at the (then exalted) rank of Instructor. Lionel Trilling, himself not much olde than Chiappe (pron. "shap" on this side of the water) found himself introducing the new guy to the very distinguished Joseph Wood Krutch. Says Trilling, "Andrew, I would like you to meet Joseph Wood Krutch. He likes to be called 'Joe.'" Responds Chiappe: "How do you do, Joe. May I call you Professor Krutch." From: CATHERINE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Glomming typefaces with Latex---a doddle? Date: Thu, 17 MAY 90 11:31:39 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 203 (216) Sebastian, I wish you would come here and install it on my machine... I agree with much of what you say. I wasn't trying to deal TeX/LaTeX a death-blow of any sort, just give a warning. It is of course possible to do superb documents with them, but you don't see many. Of course getting a designer is what everyone should do. But the fact reamins that most people don't, and I daily see a lot of documents which contain lots of ultra-tricky macros etc, but which look awful. On a typewriter they wouldn't have had quite the scope for looking awful... cheers, Catherine Glomming typefaces with LaTeX: a doddle? I received several responses to my caveat about TeX and LaTeX. Two main points were raised: 1. "It is a simple matter to attach use other typefaces with LaTeX". Perhaps. I believe the majority of TeX/LaTeX users at the moment cannot do this. It depends on the istitutional support they may or may not receive.But perhaps the picture is changing rapidly. Access to different fonts certainly constitutes a major improvement. 2. My criticism of TeX applies to all desk-top publishing systems (being so low-level puts the onus on the user to have the knowledge and discipline to create well-structured documents, with consistent treatment of headings etc) This is not quite right. Programs which impose a structure are better (although maybe less versatile) than those which don't, for the amateur. Certainly, authors are now producing documents (books, reports, etc) which look more professional than their previous typescript (or early word-processed documents). They now expect to deliver a more professional document, even for informal purposes. That seems to be the legacy of word processing. But most authors are not acquainted with the sets of rules and norms that used to be the purview of typographers and typesetters. So they now find themselves in the position of having the equipment to produce a more professional document, but not the know-how. (Again, it seems to me that this picture is rapidly changing; many authors are becoming more sophisticated, and more aware of the need for design and thought-out typography in documents.) Nonetheless, some desk-top publishing programs, namely those which use some form of generic tagging (each type of thing, e.g. a first-level heading, second-level heading, new section etc has its own specific name, with its own set of typesetting instructions) will at least be more likely to produce a more consistent document. It will not produce miracles: of course it is still possible to mis-handle the tags. But the documents which come out of this type of system on the whole 'work' better in that there has been a real attempt at consistency. These documents are easier to read, as the reader receives the right cues from the typography (inconsistencies often make reading more difficult; the reader is momentarily puzzled as to where he is in the logical structure). Thus, in this important respect, LaTeX is better than TeX, Ventura is better than PageMaker (whose tags are not enforced), etc. Perhaps doddle was originally Scotch, but it is certainly used liberally this far South of the border. We must have glommed it. Catherine Griffin Oxford University From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Re: [4.0051 TeX (89)] Date: Thu, 17 May 90 13:42:43 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 204 (217) How nice to read Sebastian Rahtz' dulcet tones once again! His defence and advocacy of TeX are spot on. TeX is also the only program I can see that has a chance of making sense of a SGML file, since all these silly WYSIWYG packages need irrelevances such as initial space or blank line to indicate a new para. Of course, one would need a front-end processor to change the SGML mark-up into TeX commands. Is anyone writing one? Douglas de Lacey From: Geoffrey Rockwell Subject: 4.0060 Responses- Maps; Date: Thu, 17 May 90 15:17:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 205 (218) In MacWorld, June 1990, there is a review of Azimuth 1.0. It "produces maps with a nearly infinite range of viewpoints; object-oriented drawing tools make customizing maps easy." This is a Mac product, it costs 395$ US, and I have no experience with it. I should add that there are collections of maps for the Mac in the public domain. We have some PICT files of countries around the world and states of the US. They can be scaled and adapted in any draw program for the Mac. If one looks in any PD software catalogue there should be disk sets of map clip art. There are also six map clip-art collections listed in the Kinko's courseware catalogue. (Does anyone know the status of the Courseware Exchange?) On the PC side there are maps that come with Corel Draw. There is also a company MicroMaps Software Inc., (609) 397-1611, that has disks of EPS format files. (These should be usable in any program that can import their brand of EPS files. Graphics programs like Corel Draw and Illustrator can import and manipulate compatible Encapsulated PostScript files.) Yours, Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Computer maps Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:18:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 206 (219) A note forwarded to Humanist asked about computer maps. Have you checked Simtel20 or the Bitnet servers for Simtel20? I remember a note passing in front of my eyes that listed a directory of 15-20 US and world maps. These would be free, but I have no idea of format except they would be compatible with MS/DOS. If there is any interest, I will look up the note when I get to another machine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 BIX: eparker USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Pastiche, Renaiss., AI Date: Wed, 16 May 90 15:07:35-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 12 (220) I am responding to: [deleted quotation] On linguistic pastiche in particular: My favorite is the Renaissance historian from Candia, Eliah Capsali (Hebrew spelling: qof, pe, sin, aleph, lamed, yod). He wrote, in Hebrew, a history of Spain, Venice, and Turkey. The Magnes Press of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has published it in three volumes. I first browsed the first volume, I am referring to in particular, at Ambrosiana in Milan (they got a complimentary copy, as one of their manuscripts had been used). Capsali was particularly fond of pasting quotations from the Bible and, occasionally, the Hebrew Tannaitic literature, sometimes "as is", and sometimes with small adaptations. His text abounds, of course, given his theme, of loanwords or adapted loanwords. Consider, in particular, the story of Djem or Djim, called Zizim by Westerners (as spelt by Larousse; I would have believed the spelling to be, rather, Zizyme, patterned after Didymus...). Djem (1459-1495) was son of Sultan Mehmet II, and fought against his brother, Sultan Bayazid II, who won him, but afterwards remained a very suspicious king, and an inclement one. Capsali calls Djem "Zamzummi" (Hebrew spelling: șzmzwmyș and occasionally șzwmzwmyș, if I recall properly, and with a dpouble quote inserted before the penultimate letter, as traditional for loanwords or foreign names in Hebrew texts up to Modern Hebrew excluded). Now, Zamzummi(m) was a name the Pentateuch ascribes to an ethnic group of Transjordan (extinguished by Moses' times), the name itself is related as having been in use in the language of another Transjordanian group. Djem fled to the coast, where he first tried to embark on a Venetian vessel. However, the captain refused to take him on, with the pretext "I have not [got] the commission". Capsali thus calls him "the stupid Venetian", as he feared the reaction of the authorities of Venice, whereas had he seized the opportunity, he would have enabled Venice to chant the Sultan and get back "Coron, Modon," etc. Capsali spells the name of the captain as șpyrw dydwș. I read PYRW as Piero (a usual Venetian variant of Pietro) rather than as Pirro. As to SYSW, as far as I know both Dido` (Di Donato? Di Domenico?) abd Diedo are Venetian last names. Please let me know, if I err. When the Cavaliers of Rhodes learnt about the whereabouts of Djem, they sent a vessel and merrily welcomed him in their island, and even had a woman conceive a child from him. Afterwards, Djem moved to France, and ultimately met with a sorry end (as Capsali stated without specifying). When Capsali relates about what Zamzummi told PYRW DYDW, he uses the same utterance that Sarah maid Hagar used in addressing the angel, after her first evasion: "From Sarah, my lady, I am fleeing way." The point is, that Hebrew for "my lady" and "I am fleeing away" are in the morphological form selected for a female speaker! And by Capsali account, there is no doubt about Djem's maleness, given what happened in Rhodes... Not only: there is the story of Ahmed Pasha, killed by the Sultan. Machiavelli, in historical considerations in verses, called him "Acomatto Baiscia`" and states he was strangled (if I recall properly), whereas Capsali has the Sultan walk with his military commander in a garden, with the intention of killing him. Capsali has the Sultan ask the unaware victim: What should be done to the man who [commits evil deeds towards his King]? Which reuses Ahasuerus question to Haman, from the Book of Esther. And Ahmed Pasha replies with a Hebrew Midrash, a Jewish exegesis! "He shall died and shall not live: he shall die in this world, and shall not live in the next world." Then, the Sultan kills him. The whole of Capsaly history is a mosaic of such quotations, which the Jerusalemite editor (in the 1970: I have not here the exact reference) punctiliously trace back to the sources. Now, let us consider pastiche in Italian novels in the post-WW2 period. The most obvious novelist to mention is Carlo Emilio Gadda, which ranges -- from Roman-oriented pastiche (but with such lexical coins as "tanganicoreverenziale", that is, "Tanganikan-wise reverential"), in "Quer pasticciaccio brutto de Via Merulana", -- to Northern-Italian-cum-South-American in, if I am not mistaking it for another novel, "La cognizione del dolore". During the 1970s, another Italian novelist has written a pastiche novel, "Horcynus Orca". I can trace his name back at home, perhaps, by just now I am unable to do that. I, too, have employed a kind of Hebrew pastiche, including an Eblaite-like conjugation, and, Latin-wise, a new gerundive and a future participle, along with heavy alliteration and linguistic collage, in a recent literary essay: "`Whenever I measure:' The Lycian Key, the Immigration Key, and the Individual's Development Key." ( = "Midde' Muddi': The Lycian Key, the Key of the Loft, and the Opener of the Self-Opening of the Particular." Hebrew: mdy mdy: hmptH hlyqy, mptH h&lyh, wmptH htptHwt hprT.) Sections: 1. Introduction; 2. The poem; 3. The Lycian key; 4. The immigration key; 5. The dance of ordinal letters; 6. From the River Oft, our vicissitudes come; 7. The individual's development key; 8. Concealment and its interpretation. I am still completing it. From the content viewpoint, there is a kind of Baroque Conceptism, and indeed, for a reason explained in the last chapter, it is proposed as a kind of Israeli Baroque. There is also a relation to artificial intelligence: the concepts are organized as if along an associative network, a data structure from AI. As I state at the end, some smattering of matroid theory could also be made use of. The Lycian key refers to embedded references to lexical items drawn from recent attempts to decipher the Lycian language of Anatolia. However, the most clear key of the work commented about, is immigrants' experiences in Israel. Ephraim Nissan Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. BITNET address: onomata@bengus.bitnet From: Naama Zahavi-Ely Subject: Biblical sneaking into bedrooms Date: Thu, 17 May 90 11:58:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 207 (221) Hello! I can't believe nobody mentioned Jacob and Lea yet. Jacob worked for seven years for Laban, who was Lea and Rivka's father, for the hand of Rivka. On the wedding night, Laban substituted Lea (who was older) for Rivka. If I remember right, Jacob expressed some surprise and disappointment when he got up the next morning and found the wrong woman in his bed. I don't have the bible with me at work, but you can check Genesis, in the later part of the book. Best wishes, -Naama From: JackFruchtman_8302850 Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189) Date: Wed, 16 May 90 19:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 208 (222) I can't tell at this point whether anyone is keeping a tally of whether HUMANIST ought or ought not be split into tiers. If there is such a poll, I want to add my name to those who wish the list to stay as is. I'm computer literate, which means I can do the basics, but it also means I wish to learn more about the technical ends of the business. Meantime, my interests are far-flung from most of you who seem to have joined this list -- which makes your chatter and banter all the more interesting to me. Don't split anything! You'll lose what Willard was able to bring to great heights and the new editors are continuing on into the future. And you'll lose me, too. Jack Fruchtman, Jr. Towson State University e7u4fru@towsonvm From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" Subject: Structure of Humanist Date: 16 May 90 19:42:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 209 (223) Is it worth mentioning that the line: "homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto" from Terence's Self Tormentor (77) is spoken by Chremes, the nosy busybody of the play? Jim Halporn From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards) Subject: Humanist Structure - the vote is in Date: Wed, 16 May 90 18:57:56 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 210 (224) This topic has caused a great deal more fervor than I had expected, and for that I am sorry. Part of the fervor is the result of people misinterpreting my intent. I, TOO, WOULD OPPOSE A TECHIE VS. NON-TECHIE DIVISION of the group. I find fascinating the various scholarly discussions concerning topics outside of my own discipline which I would otherwise never have the opportunity to encounter. And to be privy to discussions on those topics by people who care about them and have specialists' knowledge about them is an extremely exciting and enriching experience. The diversity of topics and disciplines represented here is really spectacular and is one of the reasons why reading Humanist is such a fun and interesting thing to do. What I was objecting to is what looked like an ever increasing trend toward unsubstantiated opinion or pure chat since the Earth Day exchange. It is not really possible as some have suggested to screen articles for this on the basis of Subject line. They must be read for this, and here is where the commitments in time (in reading) and space (in disk space necessary for incoming mail) come in. I was never suggesting censorship, i.e., preventing anything from being circulated or archived. The Subject lines would have circulated to everyone, and everything would still have been archived, it's just that articles which the poster's marked as "social" or "political" would have been distributed _in full_ only to the sublist; all others would have been circulated in full to everyone. In this note, I hope I may have helped to re-balance the scales I unintentionally upset by my previous postings on this topic. The majority view is that the list stay unified, so I withdraw my proposal for any change. Sorry if my comments were the source of unneeded friction here. As I stated above, this was not my intention. -Jane Edwards From: Robert Hollander Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 01:10:24 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 211 (225) O my sister, o my brother Can't we put up with one another? If we cannot, let it be: Only tickle control-C. From: Ken Steele Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 06:50:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 212 (226) I was reluctant to enter the fray (yet again) over whether Humanist is a discussion group for humanities COMPUTING or computing HUMANISTS, and I rightly braced myself for the onslaught of replies (upholding my opinion six months ago, as now) objecting to the idea of suppression or division. If we are conducting a poll, by all means count me among those who wish to see no such dissection. I find it rather intriguing that techies and non-techies alike feel as though THEY will be relegated to the isolation of a sub-list -- I assumed it was the Humanities which would be so discarded, but others object to the compartmentalization of the Computing! This alone should be sufficient to demonstrate the perceived injustice of segregation. I admit, technical discussions occasionally attract my attention -- like the issue of modems, with which I have recently dealt, or airport security -- but generally my interest lies in the humanities. As a group we cannot predict what technical or non-technical subjects will interest us -- so let's not try. As I said, I was reluctant to join the fray, knowing that my opinion would appear in sufficient numbers to defend itself, but I am writing because I cannot allow Natalie Maynor's rather remarkable (and unsupportable) assertion to stand unchallenged, that an UNmoderated list would be easier on its members! Those now whining because they receive ten or eleven messages a day, neatly organized by topic and condensed together, would be astounded at the confusion which would result in unmoderation -- I would estimate 50-80 messages a day, randomly scattered over the techie and non-techie spectrum, often without subject lines and probably a good deal longer than those to which we have grown accustomed. HUMANIST is successful because it fuses the humanities and computing, and the massive effort which goes into moderation is what makes it both feasible and interesting to most of us. I trust that cooler judgements will prevail, and that HUMANIST will not consider either of these two most unfortunate suggestions for change. Ken Steele University of Toronto From: judith brugger Subject: Re: 4.0063 Humanist Structure (189) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 07:08:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 213 (227) I agree with Natalie Maynor. Let's get rid of the clumping. I want to be able to see a header in my mail file that relates to one incoming file. If I want to delete that file unread, good for me. If I want to see it, ditto. I hate reading 10 headers in a clump and then ten semi- connected messages. From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 214 (228) I agree with those who prefer to keep HUMANIST as it is. The variety of topics, the interdependence of those topics, and the divergences of views all provide just what the name *HUMANIST* imples. If we segregate one group of interests from another we are succumbing to the kind of departmentalization we should be fighting. Nick Eiteljorg (n_eiteljorg@brynmawr.bitnet) From: Douglas Greenberg Subject: Re: 4.0049 Humanist Structure (179) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 08:05:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 215 (229) I have been reading the various messages, notes, and other material on HUMANIST silently since subscribing several weeks ago. Like anyone who is a newcomer at a social gathering, I have been trying to get a sense of the conventions of the group and its styles of communicating. I confess to thinking that much of what I have been reading was of little interest to me (or at least too little to justify my spending so much time on it). More than that, although I am a a humanist with some knowledge of computing and an interest in the recent developments in th field, I remain disappointed with the intellectual quality of what I read on HUMANIST. It isn't that the sometimes boring debates over technical questions are trivial or of no interest that disturbs me. After all, that is true of some proportion of what we all do in our "normal" scholarly work too. It is, infact, one of the main signs of professionalism. Rather, it is the concentration on these quaetions to the exclusion of real interchange about scholarly issues (as opposed to trivia contests about etymologies and so on). I assume (perhaps wrongly) that almost everyone on HUMANIST has a life that is not, as it were, computer driven, a life that focusses on teaching and writing in those disciplines that we call the humanities. It was exchange on those sorts of questions that I had hoped to take part in when I subscribed to HUMANIST. I see now that I either misunderstood the purpose of HUMANIST or that I don't understand the social/cultural milieu that animates it. I will probably drop HUMANIST because I haven't got the time even to delete all the messages I get every day, but before I go, let me at least try to raise the sort of question that I expected to find at the center of your concerns. Much discussion in the humanities thes past few years has centered on texts and their nature. In at least three disciplines (literature, philosophy, and history), a huge theoretical discours on these questions as emerged. The lit. crits. have led the charge but the philosophers and the historians haven't been far behind (and the art historians are starting to get into the act too!). The sorts of questions raised n this discourse are complex of course, but they center around one big issue: What is a text and how should we define the limits of its contents? This may be an infelcitous way to phrase it, but the other issues of the discussion (representation, catachresis, intertextual- ity and so on) can usually be subsumed under this one large question. At the same time, humanities computing has been producing "electronic" texts, and not a little energy has been devoted (although not on HUMANIST so far as I can tell)to trying to define an electronic text and its contents. I haven't seen much evidence, however, that these two ongoing scholarly questions have been brought together in any way at all, either on HUMANIST or in the scholarly journals, in spite of the fact that they rasie precisely the same issues for two different groups of scholars . Moreover, these two groups are likely to get closer to one another and to overlap more than they do now. This is only one of the kinds of questions that serious scholars in the humanities might discuss on HUMANIST. I could easily come up with others, but from what I have observed( and I confess to limited exposure) it doesn't seem to me that most of the people who subscribe to HUMANIST would be any more interested in these questions than I am in most of what is now absorbing most of the discussion. I would be very pleased to discover that I am wrong. By the way, I find it offensive to see people threaten to leave the room if they don't get their way or because they don't want to discuss a question in which others are interested. No one is that important. Not even Sperberg- McQueen and Burnard! Douglas Greenberg(SDGLS@CUNYVM.BITNET American Council of Learned Societies Sorry for all the typos in this message! From: Jim Cahalan Subject: stay moderated! Date: 17 May 90 09:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 216 (230) Please do NOT go to an unmoderated format! I finally withdrew from the unmoderated MEGABYTE U list because I felt overwhelmed by the constant deluge of unmoderated junk mail--every time I logged on I had to spend undue time deleting their constant stream of most irrelevant postings before I could get to my "real" mail. Stay moderated! Thanks, Jim Cahalan, Graduate Literature English Dept., 111 Leonard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705-1094 Phone: (412) 357-2264 From: "GILES R. HOYT" Subject: Structure Date: Thu, 17 May 90 11:39:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 217 (231) There is no reason to change what appears to be working fine. From: Willard McCarty Subject: getting together in Siegen Date: Thu, 17 May 90 07:35:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 218 (232) I have had a message from Manfred Kammer, an organizer of the ALLC/ICCH conference in Siegen, that the initial get-together will be held at the "Queens Hotel", Kaisergarten, Siegen, Monday, 4 June at 6 p.m. The person to contact in Congress Partner is Cornelia Thiede, fax: 49 421 324344 (where 49 is the country-code, 421 the city-code, etc.). Willard McCarty From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Page Smith Date: 16 May 90 18:02:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 219 (233) I do, alas, have tenure (cf. Goethe, `und *leider* auch Theologie'), which may not be relevant, but I found Page Smith's book every bit as appalling in its leftish way as I found Allen Bloom in his rightish way, and for that matter, as I found Henry Rosovsky's *The University: An Owner's Manual*, in its centrist way. Smith in particular is ill-informed and querulous, having had senior administrative office when rather young (40ish), then having made enough money writing to get out of academe completely by the time he was about 50, and he writes now 20 years later. By my count, he hasn't had a department chairman to argue with (from below) since 1960, and the world has changed a bit since then. Plenty wrong with our institutions, but kvetching and whining are not specially apt remedies. I am coming to the conclusion that good books about universities are like good books about baseball: scarcer than hens' teeth. That doesn't keep from reading many too many of both. From: Willard McCarty Subject: XYMouse Date: Wed, 16 May 90 22:17:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 220 (234) Has anyone purchased and tried out XYMouse, the mouse-driver and enhancer made by Galactic Software? If so, a report would be appreciated. Willard McCarty From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Re: [4.0050 OCR Scanning Errors (197)] Date: Thu, 17 May 90 12:53:29 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 221 (235) John Koontz recently mentioned what looks like a fascinating package of tools from the SIL (in the context of auto-correction of scanned text, though the package looks as though it would have much wider application. My mailer doesn't recognise his address, and conceivably other HUMANISTs may also have been interested. So could I use the list please to ask for more details? Thanks, Douglas de Lacey From: FLANNAGA%OUACCVMB.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu Subject: And now for something completely different: foreskins Date: Wed, 16 May 90 21:42:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 222 (236) In lines 144-45 of Milton's tragedy Samson Agonistes, the Chorus in describing one of Samson's famous victories uses an image that many editors and critics wish it hadn't: "...A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestin / In Ramath-lechi famous to this day ...." The subject is no doubt painful to most men reading it, and especially to the uncircumcised. I have been wondering about it for years, ever since, in the fourth grade of an Episcopalian prep-school, my religion teacher told an awe-inspired class of all-boys that the Israelites in battle enumerated their slain and bragged about their kill by cutting off the foreskins of their enemies and displaying them in their tents after battle. My suggestible pre-teen mind immediately formed an image that I have never forgotten, of the inside of an Israelite battle tent with its little clothesline of foreskins hanging up to dry and to brag about, a little like the lines of beads that count scores in a pool hall. I have to make a note on the passage in _Samson Agonistes_, for the edition I am working on. I am not embarrassed by the passage but I am confused. Do the foreskins stand for the fallen Philistines, by synecdoche, the (yuck!) part standing for the whole, as in Alastair Fowler's note (1968 Longman edition), in which he identifies "foreskins" as "uncircumcised Philistines" (1968)? Or are those foreskins *real* foreskins that Samson bothered to cut off, rather fastidiously, after the battle? Are there some biblical scholars or experts on ancient combat out there who might help us puzzle this one out? Roy Flannagan From: "Peter D. Junger" Subject: Archie, transmigration, and the Intel 80170 Date: Thu, 17 May 90 09:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 223 (237) Perry Willett's suggestion that his Kurzweil machine "contains the reincarnated soul of some dead poet" seems less than farfetched in light of Dvorak's column in the May 29, 1990 issue of PC Magazine proclaiming that "Intel's 80170 chip has the theoretical intelligence of a cockroach--no kidding." Toujours gai! Peter Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Tzvee Zahavy's suggestion about the NYT" Date: Wed, 16 May 90 11:25:16 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 224 (238) I've just written a letter to Paul Lewis, United Nations Bureau Chief of the NYT. I met him on a bus ride from the Toronto Airport to the ACH-ALLC89 conference last year. Perhaps others could write to the editors about HUMANIST. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Plymouth State College (NH) joelg@psc.bitnet From: Naama Zahavi-Ely Subject: foreskins Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:33:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 225 (239) Hello! It seems that 11 years of non-religious biblical studies in an Israeli school are bearing fruit! In Samson's story (Judges 13-16, this episode in chapter 15) the philistines are often called "arelim", that is, those who have foreskins (arlot). There is no mention of collecting foreskins in Samson's stories, or anywhere else that I know of off hand, except for one: in the story of David and Saul. David at the time was a very popular officer of Saul, who was the king. Saul was jealous of David, and was looking for a way to get rid of him. David and Michal the daughter of Saul fell in love, and Saul's condition for their wedding was for David to bring him 100 foreskins of philistines. His intention was to get David killed by the philistines. It seems to be presented as an unusual request. For details, see Samuel I chapter 15. Best wishes, -Naama Zahavi-Ely elinze@yalevm.bitnet Zahavi-Ely-Naama@Yale.Edu From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 05:26:43 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 226 (240) Dear Mr. Flannagan, the "foreskins" of milton is undoubtedly synechdoche. there was no custom whatsoever to scalp enemies. the bible generally refers to philistines as the "uncircumcised," a word that looks in hebrew something like the word for "foresckins", so i suspect that in some english bible, there was a mistranslation, but that has to be checked. in any case, this synechdoche is *not* used in hebrew. daniel boyarin From: Alan D Corre Subject: Philistines Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:18:05 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 227 (241) In response to Roy Flannagan's question, in the first book of Samuel chapter 18 verse 25 Saul requires David to produce 100 Philistine foreskins in return for being allowed to marry his daughter. His intent was that David would be killed in carrying out this mission, but David completes it successfully and wins his bride. From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 17:22 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 228 (242) Well as professional synecdochist, what poet would think it logical to write th at foreskins that fell, rather to think it, were foreskins, and not a short han d way of saying in synecdoche, Philistines, ie, the uncircumcised enemy, the PH ilistines. Milton wrote it simply, it seems to me. and saved a syllable in th e line, for Philistine would ruined that pair of iambs, a thousand foreskins... Kessler. From: "Sheizaf.Rafaeli" <21898MGR@MSU> Subject: Foreskins Date: Friday, 18 May 1990 9:12am ET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 229 (243) I'm not a biblical scholar, nor an expert on ancient combat. I know even less about the subject matter. But: could it be that this is a confusion/allusion to the similarity of ORLA (Hebrew for foreskin) and AREL (Hebrew for 'uncircumcised', derived, I think, from ORLA, and by extension, a disparaging term for gentiles)? From: Yvonne Cederholm Subject: Old English fonts Date: 18 May 90 15:40:10 EDT (Fri) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 230 (244) I was asked by a collegue at the English departement if there is some font for Old English (for the Macintosh), including thorn, eth, yoch, and ash. Could anyone help me out? Yvonne Cederholm cederholm@hum.gu.se Faculty of Arts Computing Service Centre University of Gothenburg From: nye@UWYO.BITNET (Eric W Nye) Subject: Query for HUMANIST Date: Fri, 18 May 90 14:04:19 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 231 (245) I was reminded for the umpteenth time recently how the humanities endure poverty in the modern university. I needed to extract from Chadwyck- Healey's _British Library General Cat. of Printed Books to 1975_ (3 CD- ROMs) about 250 titles issued by a certain early 19th C publisher. Our most sympathetic librarian told me I could wait 'til the cows come home, but that $16,400 for the three disks would not be forthcoming. $16,400 is less than it costs to replace defunct lab equipment after the power mysteriously hiccups on a clear spring day. Vice Presidents may raise eyebrows at such costs in the sciences, but they won't leave those cows standing in the field. Thus, I am now finishing a gruelling episode of compiling by hand and eye a simulacram of the same list from Peddie's _English Catalogue of Books, 1801-1836_. It can be nowhere near as accurate, despite long hours of concentration. Let me weakly ask fellow HUMANISTs whether any of their libraries has managed to acquire the British Library Catalogue on CD, and if so, whether a search on a publisher field can be commissioned from afar. I'd like to compare mine with such a list. Most gratefully, Eric W. Nye, Dept. of English, Univ. of Wyoming (NYE@UWYO), 307-766-3244 From: Paul Brians Subject: Mapplethorpe Date: Fri, 18 May 90 15:04:14 PLT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 232 (246) For a research project on the NEA/Mapplethorpe controversy I need to know of any recent especially notable articles (say from the last three months) giving a good overview or more detail than is provided in the sort of harrumphing editorials everybody's been printing. I would be grateful for any suggestions, sent to me direct (I'm in rather a hurry). From: Willard McCarty Subject: Milton and Sylvester/Du Bartas? Date: Fri, 18 May 90 20:39:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 233 (247) The following query was sent to me. Can anyone help this person out? If so, please reply directly to the questioner, who is not on Humanist. Willard McCarty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date Thu, 17 MAY 90 13:41:38 BST [deleted quotation] I am interested in links between Sylvester/Du Bartas and Milton. I would be very grateful if you could let me know of any texts available in this area (excluding those in the Oxford Text Archive). I particularly need to acquire versions of the Divine Weeks of Sylvester. Many thanks, (Dr) Noel HEATHER Arts Computing Officer Royal Holloway & Bedford New College University of London Egham Hill, Egham, UK e-mail: n.heather@uk.ac.rhbnc.vax From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: spouse abuse Date: Fri, 18 May 90 15:27:35 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 234 (248) My wife has been collecting stories about spouse abuse. (Ever since she stoppe d abusing me, she wants to read about it.) If anyone has run across any short fiction dealing with that subject involving either sex abusing the other, she w ould appreciate some titles. One story in particular that she is trying to locate is one she thinks is entitled "Sweat," by Hurston (I'm not sure of the spelling. Herb Donow Southern Illinois University From: Michael Ossar Subject: sneaking into bedrooms and nerds Date: Fri, 18 May 90 10:48 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 235 (249) ... [eds] On nerds (albeit not in American lit.) we should not omit the arch nerd of all time, Casaubon in Middlemarch. From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0064 A Glom and some Nerds (98) Date: Friday, 18 May 1990 03:17:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 236 (250) NERD as in nerd of glue is a back-formation or clipping from nerdle, a dialect variant of nodule. This is great fun. Barry, where is NERD attested in 1968? From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: dating of "nerds" Date: Fri, 18 May 90 09:30:39 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 237 (251) I am ashamed to add more to this incredibly idle chatter on the subject of nerds, but what the hell . . . . I cannot attest to when the word first came into usage, but I can declare with absolute certitude that it did not exist in our language (at least in the northeast U.S.) in 1954 or so. When I was an undergraduate at Cornell University, there was a fraternity whose only requirement for membership it would seem was "nerdiness." (They rushed me.) Being subject to the influence of others, I of course declined to join. However, what we called the members of this fraternity, and any like them, was "turkeys." Believe me, if the word "nerd" had been available, we would never have defamed the "bird." By the way, does anyone want to comment on the transformation of the word "dork"? One last comment on nerds in American literature. To Jim Halporn, on his observation about my candidate for nerds in literature. Whatever Tertan was in "Of this Time, Of that Place," the initial image we have of him as he enters Howe's class is, I believe, that of a nerd. Certainly, every student in the class, had the word been then available, would have thought "nerd." Herb Donow Southern Illinois University From: Richard Ristow Subject: Nerd: A citation c. 1960 Date: Fri, 18 May 90 14:19:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 238 (252) Let me date myself, betray my origins, and otherwise get into trouble. I recall the protagonist of a Hamburg Show (the annual student-produced burlesque) at Swarthmore College c. 1960 was named Millard Fillmore Nerd and was a 'nerd' in something resembling, but not identical to, the present colloquial sense. That is, he was an essentially harmless individual of no personality, "never getting below a C -- never getting above a C, either" (for a modern nerd, "A" is more likely); less self-important than Ichabod Crane, less frustrated than Walter Mitty, a harmless nothing. (The modern nerd is more likely to have developed the absence of personality into a particular kind of vivid personality.) If I'm right, this clearly antedates Happy Days; it is consistent with Suess as originator, but I join in doubting that. I do not believe the Swarthmore use could be the word's origin; it seems to have been used as a term already well understood for such persons. I know this show by hearsay only, and have no documentation. Any Humanists at Swarthmore who could check it out in the library's Swarthmoreana collection? It would almost have to have been in 1959, 1960 or 1961. From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU (Skip Knox) Subject: Electronic Atlas Date: Fri, 18 May 90 11:31:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 239 (253) The messages about the availability of computer maps are correct but don't tell the whole story. Yes there are collections of maps available (the ones that are free are generally not as good, but there are some commercial ones that are stinkers, too), but not one fits the needs of a historian. Many collections, for example, show political boundaries but not geographical features such as rivers. The better ones do, and the best ones treat the geographical features as objects separate from political boundaries and thus can be removed and added at will. All collections, of course, show _modern_ political boundaries, which is not much use to a European historian. This is why the best deal is a draw program that sells a supplemental library of clip art (I like Arts & Letters). But it's still many, many hours of adding handles and stretching or removing boundaries to make a map of 13thc France. And for real fun, try the Holy Roman Empire! Vector format is generally preferrable to paint, but even here problems arise. Take shading, for example. It's easy enough to shade the interior of an object, but very tedious to shade just portions of objects. With a paint program, it's not hard to indicate the progress of the Black Death across Europe. With a draw program that same map is extremely difficult. I have argued for some time that one reason humanists lag behind the scientists in the use of computers, both in teaching and research, is that what we do is so much more sophisticated that what scientists do. Historical maps are another case in point. All scientists and social scientists want to do is to display numbers graphically over a map. Historians, on the other hand, need to be able to do actual cartography. As yet I've found no product that meets the need satisfactorily. Skip Knox Microcomputer Coordinator (cum) Medieval Historian Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: Electronic Atlas Date: Fri, 18 May 90 11:36:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 240 (254) There is a program from Strategic Mapping called Atlas*Mapmaker It runs on all Macs with 512K or more. This provides Map outlines of the US and the world along with tools for editing the maps. It also comes with a data analysis system, so one can add informatin to a chunk of a map. You can see that what the creators had in mind was a tool businesses which want to track their sales, etc over a geographical area. Data can be associated with regions or points. The program comes with boundary files of the US by state and by county, with cities. It also has Canada by province and the rest of the world by country with capitol cities. There are some data files as well containing things like census and population data. It is possible to buy other boundary and data files, but they are even more centered on the US, showing information like locations of major shopping areas, and congressional districts. I haven't used this program yet, but it seems to be the best available on the Mac. It apparently also exists on the PC with name of Atlas*Graphics. It costs about $290 from reputable mail-order houses. --Elli Mylonas, Managing Editor, Perseus Project Harvard University From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: computer maps Date: Sat, 19 May 90 12:35:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 241 (255) I recently spent considerable time looking for an inexpensive yet versatile piece of software that might be used to make maps on an IBM compatible. It occurs to me that my experience may be useful to whoever first raised the question. My initial inquiries lead me to several people at the University of Maine involved in Geographic Information System (GIS) research. Though they taught me much about GIS research and about GIS packages designed for PCs, I decided in the end that was not what I needed. As a medieval historian I needed to have a draughting facility that would allow me to draw maps for which there is no mountain of digital information available and that paid absolutely no attention to modern political divisions: case in point, the county of Flanders in the early 14th century (today split between the states of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). For some applications, a paint program may well be worth consideration. In the end, however, I decided that a Computer Assisted Design (CAD) package was what I needed, specifically because it allows one to draw descrete objects (stored as vectors and thus independent of screen resolution) and to scale and combine objects in the final product (paint programs, as I understand it, have less facility to do so). A number of reviews appeared in _Professional Geographer_ in recent years that provided the information I needed. I learned about AutoCAD (ca. $3,000) and its student version, AutoSketch ($99) -- both reviewed August 1989 -- as well as others. I decided to buy TurboCAD by IMSI and Pink Software ($99) because of a review in the May 1989 issue -- it allows 128 layers, five text fonts, many line thicknesses, cross-hatching; supports many digitizers, plotters, and dot-matrix printers; and runs on both my EGA screen at the University and on my Hercules monochrome at home. I was able to buy it through mail order from CAD and Graphics (San Francisco, 800-288-1611) for $69.95. I have not been disappointed by TurboCAD thus far. The biggest problem is to construct the base maps. Doubtless a digitizing tablet would be most efficient for this, but I have had reasonable success with the following: I make a transparency of the map I want to produce; tape the transparency to my monitor; and outline it (the drawback is that the program stores everything in exact deminsions and angles that work independently of the screen's aspect ratio -- I had to fiddle a bit with the printed output to get the same x-y ratios as I developed on my screen). It also reads .DXF files (AutoCAD) as well as Hewlett Packard HP7475A plotter files (HPGL). This last could be useful for those who want to use already-existing boundary files. For example, the Spring-Summer 1990 catalog from National Collegiate Software and Duke University Press lists "Mapsets", p. 11: outline maps of the US, Europe, and the world that can be plotted on an HP7475A -- it might be fairly simple to capture the plotter data to a disk file and load the outline maps in TurboCAD. One last suggestion: if you have either a 24-pin dot matrix printer or a laser printer, order the F-Plot utility ($29.95 from CAD and Graphics). The built-in printer driver in TurboCAD includes 9-pin printers and does only draft-quality printing (you would need to use a plotter for publication quality, I think), but F-Plot produces really nice quality on a 24-pin Panasonic 1124; I can only guess that laser output would be better yet. I am sorry that this began to sound a bit like a commercial. I am simply pleased that I was able to find something as versatile and affordable as I found. I have seen the same product offered by a number of vendors in _Computer Shopper_. If you decide to try another package, my advice is to buy a CAD product (stores info in vectors and not screen bits) that allows variable line thicknesses and type, cross-hatching, multiple layers, a selection of text fonts, and access to plotters, printers, digitizers, and other file formats. I hope whoever first posted the query about computer maps finds this useful. Because I saw the query on both HISTORY and HUMANIST, I have sent this to both. William H. TeBrake, History, U. of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0058 Addressing Students and Others (100) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 17:13 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 242 (256) I expect to be called Mr. Some call me Professor. Some call me Dr., a usage I f ound common out here when I came in 1961. My mother used to laugh and asked me for my Rx for what ailed her, an allusion to my opting out of medicine, for wha t? Poetry, believe it or not. I must have been mad. I was. Kessler From: Michael W Jennings Subject: Re: 4.0058 Addressing Students and Others (100) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 09:27:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 243 (257) In re: the student name game. I am faintly puzzled by the implication in many of the submissions on this topic that students begin and remain anonymous, distant entities. Mr. Clausing suggests that students are neither close acquaintances nor friends. Mr. Halporn implies that relation- ships with students are analogous to those with telephone solicitors. I certainly don't pretend that I'm buddies with my students, and a certain formal distance defines my relationship with many, if not most, of the students with whom I work; in a significant number of instances, though, I--and many of my colleagues--do form much oser bonds with undergraduates. I am surrounded this year by a talented and engaging group of seniors; several of them have become my friends by any definition (American, Canadian, or European bad habits aside). Oh, yeah. I call 'em by their first names and they call me whatever they're most comfortable with: mostly Professor, sometimes Mr. or first name, mercifully enough almost never Dr. From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Re: [4.0065 Forms of Address (81)] Date: Fri, 18 May 90 16:14:55 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 244 (258) It's interesting that all the contributors to the dscussion on forms of address have concentrated exclusively on their inferiors. Have they ever asked themselves how they would comfortably address (and be addressed by) those who in some sense are superior in some context--the Vice-Chancellor (or whatever the US equivalent is), the chairman of a grants application committee, their doctors? I'd frankly rather keep what others may think of as formality but what I prefer to offer as a courtesy of the title-and-surname approach; at least until on other levels we are close friends. I remember a book in which someone mused on the absurdities of social intercourse in rural England (perhaps no longer true) -- brought up to address his publican as Jones and his gardener as Mr Smith, he moved to anoher county and discovered that when he applied these conventions there both men felt highly insulted. But I regret that I have lost the details and the reference. Douglas de Lacey From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Friday, 18 May 1990 03:34:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 245 (259) A text is a system of signifiers. Now back to NERD! --Pat Conner (It's a joke, Mr. Douglas; really, a joke!) From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Dilemmas for HUMANISTs Date: Thursday, 17 May 1990 2048-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 246 (260) I found Douglas Greenberg's comments about the topics discussed and not discussed on HUMANIST to be very interesting, and to pose a typical dilemma met at various levels in life. I recall past discussions of many of the things he mentions (and I'm happy to have them past!), and persons interested in such matters could, if they took the time and energy, check through the HUMANIST FileServer for pertinent archived materials. Of course, it is unrealistic to expect every new member of HUMANIST to check the past discussions, and in any event, they have a different flavor as (dead) archived artifacts. Still, it is also somewhat unrealistic (and artificial) to expect those who have already debated such issues to encourage or even initiate them every few months! Many of the issues will reemerge in one form or another. Those who feel they have something to say will do so. The newer members, such as Douglas Greenberg himself, will finally feel comfortable enough or frustrated enough to speak up, thus reinitiating aspects of the cycle. This is healthy, I think, but I hope the newcomers will not think us "older hands" to be uninterested or tongue-tied if we don't participate enthusiastically. In another year, with another round of newcomers, and a new cycle of the "old" topics, you will probably understand better what I am saying! Meanwhile, as you rightly tweak at Sperberg-McQueen (and through his footnote, Burnard) about threats of abandoning the HUMANIST boat if it is severed, realize that the tone of your note was not that different! Be patient, and contribute, and it will all come around again!! Bob Kraft From: Willard McCarty Subject: old man of the bitstream Date: Thu, 17 May 90 20:50:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 247 (261) I'm not old yet, except to my children, but perhaps I may sound like one for a moment by looking back and reflecting. We have had this discussion about the irrelevance of what appears on Humanist, or its lack of intellectual quality, many times. In the early days, as some of you senior citizens will also remember, we were buffeted by the opposite complaint, namely that Humanist was far too controlled and should be allowed complete license. As the man in the middle, I put the two sorts of complaints together and asked how it could be that such opposite conclusions could be drawn from the identical phenomena. My own conclusion was that both groups of extremists were seeing some piece of the whole as accorded with their predispositions. Consider the problem: how do we understand what is new except by relating it to something we already know? What then happens if we are not very watchful and remind ourselves of what we are doing? Is it not reasonable to suppose that we'd begin to think that the new thing was actually somehow a deviant (perhaps also promising) form of the old thing? It seems to me that we are now struggling to understand the nature of e-mail in much the same way, for example, as those who tried to grasp the place Alexander Graham Bell's new gadget would play in daily life. Obviously, some people thought, it was a nifty replacement for the speaking tube or system of bells by which one summoned one's servants. (What they didn't see at first was that it would allow the servant to summon the master, or for total strangers -- imagine the impertinence -- to ring the master without even a by your leave.) To others it seemed just as obviously something meant for the factory owner, so that he could give orders from his home. The story of the telephone is much more complex than that, just as I suspect the story of e-mail will show itself to be someday. But the fascinating part for this discussion is how difficult it was for people to understand what Bell had done, and what it was good for. A related point to be made is that although we can spot several determinisms at work in the development of a new technology, there seems to be considerable room for individual human desire to push that development one way or the other. The value of this kind of discussion, at least to me, is that it forces people to think, and if we are fortunate say, what it is that they want Humanist to be. Humanist and its kind continue to represent in my mind a very great opportunity to realize the dream of humanism. Yes, I know, big dream, but why not? What other choices do we have? Occasionally we perhaps need to be told, "Shape up, shut up, stop being so silly !" -- ideally by ourselves, but if we won't, then by our colleagues. But let's also think very carefully about the nature of irrelevance in the context of the medium we are using, and not in the context of a peer-reviewed journal. Walter Ong's statement, to the effect that the medium of communication restructures the consciousness of the person using it, is somewhat one-sided, but there's much truth in it. Enough at least for me to feel like advocating that some of us should have our consciousness restructured. Humanist continues to be a fascinating experiment. The Confucius who had written on his bathtub "Renew it daily!" would be delighted. Willard McCarty From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:04:11 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 248 (262) To each his/her own. Jim Cahalan withdrew from MBU-L because it was unmoderated. I joined MBU-L, after becoming fed up with the digest of it (C&C), because I kept deleting the digests half read and thought that it would be easier to delete individual postings. It has been easier. Now I follow the parts of the discussion I want to follow. Re people who "threaten to leave the room if they don't get their way": I'm flattered if that was aimed at me! I didn't consider my mention of dropping HUMANIST a threat. I'm sure that HUMANIST will flounder horribly if I leave the room. :-) Seriously, I know from personal correspondence that some people subscribe to only one or two lists. In those cases, it probably doesn't matter whether they're moderated or unmoderated -- except that turn-around time is slower. But if you get 150-200 pieces of e-mail a day, you tend to save the "chunks" (i.e, digests like HUMANIST) until the end -- and then run out of time and delete most of the digests unread. If this were not an interim period (no classes tomorrow), I would almost certainly have deleted the posting I'm replying to right now unread. A colleague said to me today, "Remind me to tell the Computing Center to get me off of HUMANIST. [Our new system makes us group recipients rather than individual recipients.] The postings are too long to wade through." Ah, another "threat"! :-) From: Douglas Greenberg Subject: Re: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 07:45:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 249 (263) Just a datum that may be of some interest: I have received numerous messages outside of HUMANIST from subscribers who agreed with my plea for more intellectual substance. Most also said that they despaired of such a thing happening and that HUMANIST was dominated by a central group that has tended to dismiss postings outside their interest as unimportant. So much for the implicitly democratic potential of electronic communication! Why don't they feel it is worth their time to send intellectually substantial material to HUMANIST? By the way, the potential political consequences of electronic communication and information storage are extremely complex and of real interest in several disciplines. Just another scholarly issue that might merit some discussion. Douglas Greenberg SDGLS@CUNYVM.BITNET From: ZLSIISA%cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: re. the Topics discussed on Humanist Date: Fri, 18 May 90 13:12:31 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 250 (264) The American Council of Learned Societies sounds a very solemn body. Perhaps that is why Douglas Greenberg's note seemed rather humourless. Let me reassure him that although some of the specific Etext questions which he has raised may not have been discussed recently, other aspects of the subject have certainly been aired, enough in the past six months or so to have given me a file containing 0.5Mbyte of text. No doubt responses to his comments are already winging their way to the Editors. I have some sympathy with the recent complainants about the content of Humanist, but I suspect that they are seeing a transient not a permanent problem. Remember that Humanist has only recently changed site and Editor. Since the change, there has been, it seems to me, more duplication of information - the Golems discussion particularly - and this may be what makes the less serious/academic/technical (choose your own word) discussions appear more prominent than they are. This is surely a matter of editorial skill, and, presumably, as our new Editors become more practised and more confident, the balance will be, and be seen to be, restored. But to shift the less s/a/t elsewhere, as suggested - oh no! Where then would be the stimulus to imagination, the opening of new horizons as we take on board ideas which would never in a thousand years have crossed our minds otherwise? "Scarcer than hen's teeth" says Jim O'Donnell: I, a townie, would never have thought about such a thing otherwise, but don't chickens have teeth? Do any birds? And then there's Roy Flannagan's query (serious no doubt, though perhaps mischievous in its timing, given the recent comments) about early semitic warfare - I do look forward to the responses to that. I also think Douglas Greenberg misunderstood McQueen and Burnard. As I understood it, they were threatening to leave Humanist not if they read things they didn't like but if they didn't. Finally, was Kessler's anger about mocking students (about 2 weeks ago) directed towards those of us who enjoy student essay howlers? Only the mean and twisted among us would like them on the grounds that they somehow denigrate (if a thing can denigrate - possibly not) the perpetrator. The rest of us surely just rejoice in the linguistic incongruity, especially in those juxtopositions (like Drake and his clipper) so felicitous that they (as was once said of the great William McGonnagall) "back inadvertently into genious". Sarah Davnall (Davnall@Manchester.ac.uk) From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU (Skip Knox) Subject: 4.0069 Date: Fri, 18 May 90 11:31:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 251 (265) Douglas Greenberg has mentioned the debate about the definition of text. I've seen this dialogue elsewhere and confess to being utterly baffled. Perhaps Greenberg or others could explain what all the fuss is about. I know what a document is. I know what text is. Am I being simple-minded here? This seems a bit like trying to define what a car is. Everyone knows a car when they see one. Try to define one and you get into murky areas (four wheels and a motor but doesn't fly and is big enough for at least one adult). But you see it doesn't really matter if we can define a car precisely because there's no benefit to be had from such false clarity. One request to anyone kind enough to explain this debate: please explain in such a way that does not send me scrambling for my dictionary or require the reading of a book in order to acquaint myself with the vocabulary. I know what the word "representation" means, but I dimly suspect the literary critics have absconded with the poor dear and made it into something else. I'm sure "catachresis" is in a dictionary (though my spelling checker couldn't find it) and I shall go look it up. "Intertextuality" defeats me utterly. If I can explain computers in English, surely the literary folks can emerge from their webs long enough to speak in the common tongue. Skip Knox Microcomputer Coordinator (cum) Medieval Historian Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: Gunhild Viden Subject: re. 4.0069, Douglas Greenberg's comments Date: 18 May 90 18:28:14 EDT (Fri) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 252 (266) HUMANIST is what we make it. So far, it has been a charming, interesting mixture of great and small, tech and non-tech. Raise a serious topic and you will be certain to find serious answers. But don't make the mistake of believing that serious scholars deal only with serious matters, or vice versa. The very vividness of HUMANIST ought to be an indication that it works very well in its present state. By all means keep it that way! Gunhild Viden, University of Gothenburg, Sweden From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 11:34:14 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 253 (267) [deleted quotation] "By the way, I find it offensive to see people threaten to leave the room if they don't get their way or because they don't want to discuss a question in which others are interested. No one is that important. Not even Sperberg- McQueen and Burnard!" But isn't that precisely what you state you will do in your note? As to the anti-intellectuality of the forum: I think you've misjudged its purpose. It is the electronic equivalent of the faculty coffee shop. I defy you to find the kind of discussion you would like to hear in that forum. I participate to pick up useful information and to keep in touch with what is going on. I do not use HUMANIST as a forum for my scholarly research, except insofar as it touches upon questions dealing with humanities computing. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Naama Zahavi-Ely Subject: Re: 4.0057 Sneaking into Bedrooms (89) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:07:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 254 (268) Hello! Sorry for the slip of fingers in my previous posting: I meant, of course, the story of Lea and Rachel, not Rivka. See Genesis, ch.29, and especially verses 21-25. -Naama Zahavi-Ely elinze@yalevm.bitnet Zahavi-Ely-Naama@Yale.Edu From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Biblical Bedrooms Date: Thursday, 17 May 1990 2107-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 255 (269) Lest the HUMANIST biblical savants be condemned too quickly for inattention, it wasn't poor desirable Rachel who snuck her weak-eyed sister Leah into the honeymoon bed in Genesis 29.23, but scheming daddy Laban, who parlayed the move into another 7 year hitch for patient Jacob! Wasn't that the question? What females substituted another female in a conjugal situation? Sarah almost does it to Abraham by substuting her maid Hagar in Genesis 16.2, but it is presented as a preconceived situation (pun fully intended). Indeed, Rebekah substitutes one son for the other to gain Isaac's blessing in Genesis 27, but that is another sort of story. The Judah-Tamar story comes closer, with the seemingly anonymous harlot (Tamar in disguise) substituting Tamar herself so as to conceive by her fearful father-in-law as a protest against his inattention to social and legal conventions. Check it out in Genesis 38. Great story! Bob Kraft, U. Penn From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" Subject: sneaking into bedrooms, cont. Date: Fri, 18 May 90 07:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 256 (270) For a classic selection of lovers brought into bedrooms, see Poggio's *Facetiae*. One good one give an example) is V. A peasant discovered his wife had "two vaginas" and therefore offered one to the church (at his wife's suggestion). Thus she was able to bring the priest to bed with them, with her husband's full consent. There's an English translation- Hurwood is the translator's name. If you're interested in such materials, there's an excellent new book out, *Festum Voluptatis*, by David Frantz (Ohio STate University Press, 1989). The second half (which I haven't yet read, since it's about English materials- Italian is my field) might interest the poster of the original inquiry. Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX1) From: Michael Ossar Subject: sneaking into bedrooms and nerds Date: Fri, 18 May 90 10:48 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 257 (271) On sneaking into bedrooms, don't forget Helena and Diana in All's Well that Ends Well. ... [eds] From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 08:55:36 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 258 (272) The SIL spelling checking package in which Douglas de Lacey was interested is distributed as a booklet with an accompanying software disk. The booklet is: Black, Andy; Kuhl, Fred; Kuhl, Kathy; Weber, David. 1987. Document preparation aids for non-major languages. Occasional Publications in Academic Publishing 7. 44 pp. It can be ordered from: International Academic Bookstore Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, Texas 75236 The price with disk is something like $4.00 or $5.00, with handling. I suppose that the handling fee would be more for overseas mailing. The Bookstore will quote you the price, if you write to them. Let me emphasize that you need to specify 5.25 vs. 3.5 inch disk format when ordering. I have gone through the documentation, but have not had occasion to use the tools, which consist of a series of compiled C programs. They are designed for doing spelling checking for non-major (e.g., minor and not so minor indigenous languages of South America and Indonesia, in the authors' case). he programs allow various combinations of checking words by linguistic canonical form (e.g., CVCCV, (CCVC)*, etc.) or by membership in a list of explicitly permitted exceptions. Interactive changes or batch editing are supported. The approach of canonical forms is not particularly effective with English, due to our spelling system, but can be useful with languages like Quechua, when spelled in a phonemic notation. The problems with checking the spelling of a Quechua document being, of course, that Quechua spelling lists for standard spelling checkers are hard to come by, and that Quechua is highly agglutinative (in something like the Turkish style). One nice feature of the tools is that they can be set to work only with particular fields in a file. So, if your interlinear file has \qch at the head of Quechua fields and \eng at the head of English fields, the checkers can be made to confine their attentions to the forms in the \qch fields. The field format employed is SIL's Standard Format. The authors suggest that users might want to modify the general framework of the code to produce new tools. The source code is available from JAARS, an SIL subsidiary, though I have not ordered it. From: Peter Shillingsburg Subject: Re: 4.0050 OCR Scanning Errors (197) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:03:56 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 259 (273) This is a reply to John Koontz on "correcting" OCR texts: You appear to think that a correctly scanned text is one that has all the words spelled correctly. Do you recognize that a correctly scanned text is one that has all the same errors as the text scanned from? I tried the fatal shortcut of a spell checker on texts scanned for use in collations for a scholarly edition. The result was dishonest--no, that is a moral term; it was just foolish. From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: TeXies Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:40:44 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 81 (274) Excuse my not replying sooner to Sebastian's preemptive strike against TeX criticism in any form. In part it was due to my being a little upset when he took a message I sent him off-line to use as the source for extracting bits to use in his rebuttal. It wasn't so much that I'd said anything in that message that couldn't have been said to Humanist at large, but that I was myself replying to an off-line message he had sent me and frankly didn't think this type of TeX discussion was worth everyone's time on Humanist. His reply didn't convince me I was wrong. It seemed a little strange to have Sebastian lambasting Scribe while admitting he had never used it. Probably the appropriate stand for a religious warrior; ``Of course I don't know anything about THEIR system--do you think I want to be contaminated by infidels?'' There are a couple things I would like to say. I just finished a rather small Snobol4 program to convert a particular 150 page document from Waterloo GML (pretty much the closest working typesetting system to SGML from what I have seen) and it once again proved to me the rightness of the SGML-level of text description. The conversion was basically a set of simple substitutions with some bells and whistles thrown in for the attributes of some tags. I would attribute this in part to Scribe's high-level operators. It most certainly could also have been done in TeX, but that it exactly the whole point. From the higher level langauges one can translate downward easily into the lower level languages. The important principle is to believe in the worthiness of that translation step for the future of machine-readable text. It is really tempting to fall under the sway of a single typesetting system and come to believe that it has reached perfection itself because it lets you manipulate everything at the level of XXXX. I mean, Fat Bits on the Mac are wonderous to add that Incunabula look to a document to make sure each letter E is slightly different; simulating the wearing down of wooden type. (And Sebastian would add.... ``Yes, that's what I like about TeX, it has Metafont available to make it possible to do things like that more professionally than on the Mac'') The point is that it is very hard to climb back UP to the high-level description from the more specialized forms. You have to infer what the author intended by those little changes they invariably seem prone to make. As someone who spends time trying to UN-typeset documents to make their text usable for things like database extraction and extracting useable data, I can assure you it is worse to try and unravel TeX and troff than anything short of Postscript and Impress. (And for Sebastian: Scribe is indeed a system for designing document styles and does let you ``sink down into raw typesetter speak'' to specify things like character widths, select individual characters to make up your own alphabets and font families. It lacks Metafont capabilities though, if that makes you happy.) From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Job Posting Date: 18 May 90 13:01:05 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 82 (275) Software Designer/Programmer Dartmouth College is seeking a person for software design and development in an academic environment. This is an opportunity for someone with a background in programming and academic applications to take a lead role in the design and implementation of a substantial project to produce a flexible multimedia environment tailored to the needs of scholars, teachers, and students working with foreign language texts and video. A B.A. is required. Some experience in software development teams or project management is desirable. The position is available immediately. We are looking for a person with most of the following: 1. general familiarity with the Macintosh OS and Macintosh applications; 2. toolbox level programming experience; 3. extensive experience in C and/or Pascal (preferably in the Macintosh environment; 4. knowledge of Hypercard; 5. familiarity with the academic environment; 6. some knowledge of foreign languages. Inquiriues should be directed to: Search Committee for Software Programmer/Designer, 201 Bartlett Hall, Hanover, NH 03755-1870 e-mail: newmuse@Dartmouth.edu From: Willard McCarty Subject: Yearbook meeting in Siegen Date: Thu, 17 May 90 18:12:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 83 (276) The general editors of The Humanities Computing Yearbook (Clarendon Press, Oxford) are holding a public meeting on Thursday, 7 June, in Siegen during the ALLC/ICCH conference, to discuss volume III of the Yearbook. All interested individuals are invited. The editors would like to discuss the kind of collaboration that would ensure the timely publication of a book that truly represents the state of the field, and to solicit opinions and comments on a proposal concerning standards of submission, peer review, and division of labour among contributors and editors. We are very interested in meeting persons who would like to contribute to the effort. The time and place of the meeting will be announced at the conference. Ian Lancashire Willard McCarty General Editors, The Humanities Computing Yearbook From: Alan D Corre Subject: Poem Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:23:08 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 84 (277) The following poem was written in 1977. At that time I was using an interactive SPITBOL program which had been prepared for me on the UNIVAC 1100. The system had timeouts; if you left the terminal idle for five minutes, you were thrown off, and had to wait a long time to get back on. My programmer explained that you could defeat the timeout with a wait program, of which there were several. You entered the command @FARBLE and everything was fine. He did not specify, or I failed to understand, that this had to be done at the operating system level. Entering an at-sign at the beginning of a line while a SPITBOL program was active could bring dire results, as I discovered. Late one evening I was running my program, and I decided to take a break. I typed in @FARBLE. The terminal seemed to tremble at the affront, and all hell broke loose. The screen was flooded with things I did not understand. I entered all the commands I knew which were supposed to stop things--@END, @@TERM, EXIT, ctrl-D--but nothing worked. I tried to phone my programmer without success. Eventually I gave up, switched off the terminal and went home. The next morning I returned at 8 a.m. and switched on the terminal. The program was still there. It apparently had run all night and finally stopped. I called the programmer, and this time I got him. I told him what had happened, and for some reason he found it quite amusing. He was giggling uncontrollably, when I innocently told him the final message on the screen. "It says MAX PAGES." His mirth vanished. I heard a gulp at the end of the line, followed by a pregnant silence. "MAX PAGES?" he exclaimed. "MAX PAGES?? Nobody EVER reaches MAX PAGES!!!" Well, almost nobody. I had reached that distant bourne, and in so doing spent almost $5,000 of computer time. The reason I got such a bargain was that that stupid loop had been executed a billion times in the wee hours at ten percent of normal cost; if it had been daytime, I should have spent $50,000. Two little addenda. Two weeks later, I was going through some CVs as a member of a committee awarding some grants. One candidate recorded that two years previously he had been granted $500 of computer time. He had it on his CV, and I had spent ten times that at one swell foop! A week after that I was again sitting at my terminal, chastened but persistent. A student sitting at the next terminal happened to key in by accident an unpublished code that caused his machine to start spitting out in excruciating detail a list of every single file on the system. He turned to me in horror. "What can I do?" he pleaded. With aplomb, I leaned over, pressed the break key, and typed on his keyboard the magic symbols which had been burned into my neural eprom the day after that fateful night: @@X TIO The unwanted output stopped, the machine reported EXECUTION TERMINATED and meekly awaited the next instruction. The student turned to me gratefully. "Thank you so much," he said, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. "Don't mention it," I replied. "It's easy when you know how." FARBLE I only meant to FARBLE As other users do, But you kept right on going And ran the whole night through! I only meant to FARBLE And take a spot of tea, But sure enough, you looped the loop, And almost spent five G. I didn't mean to garble Or set your bits awry. You really were not nice to me-- You SPITBOLed in my eye! No order could restrain you You laughed at @@TERM You wouldn't take an EXIT You really made me SQUIRM! And now the Dean is puzzled, Perhaps a bit impressed, "My, what a lot of lolly In *DICT to invest!" I've dreamed of living grandly And spending like a sheikh. How strange that I should do it When I was not awake! From: Subject: spouse abuse Date: Sun, 20 May 90 21:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 260 (278) Do you plan to include everything that goes on in the House of Atreus? Seriously, be sure to include the Clerk's Tale. You might also have a look at Norris's _McTeague_. John Burt From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: spouse abuse Date: Mon, 21 May 90 11:17 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 261 (279) Herb Donow, Does your wife know about Ring Lardner's "Haircut"? Spouse abuse is not the major issue of the story, but it certainly does figure in it. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: More about Foreskins Date: Sun, 20 May 90 17:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 262 (280) After Saul's death, David sends messengers to "Saul's son Ishbosheth with the demand: 'Hand over to me my wife Michal for whom I gave a hundred Philistine foreskins as the bride-price'" (The Revised English Bible: 2 Samuel 3:14). From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0057 Sneaking into Bedrooms (89) Date: Sun, 20 May 90 06:56:23 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 263 (281) thanks for all of the comments. uit seems that it was practically a topos in renaissance. great subject for a presidential after dinner speech some day. keep everybody awake. daniel From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0079 Sneaking into Bedrooms (59) Date: Sun, 20 May 90 21:46 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 264 (282) I think the finest retelling of the Judah -Tamar story is thomas Mann's version of it in JOSEPH & HIS BROTHERS. He brings out all sorts of powerful features, about women's stubborn foresightedness, should one say woman's...." Jascha Kessler From: cbf@faulhaber.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: TeX and LATeX Date: Mon, 21 May 90 08:24:43 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 265 (283) I am reposting this since I don't remember seeing it among recent messages: Can anyone give me any information about sources for TeX or LATeX, particularly for MS-DOS? Are there different varieties, and, if so, which is the best. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley ked@ucbgarn.bitnet From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Archaeological software Date: 21 May 90 10:36:47 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 266 (284) A colleague has promotional literature for "Minark" from Quantitative Systems. The software is said to be a database manager tailored to the needs of archaeology, but the promotional literature is vague on its capabilities, power, or user interface. As we have been using 4th Dimension to create a database of pottery fragments, including illustrations, automatic graphing of distributions of measurements from selected samples, bibliographic references, and a customized user interface, we wondered whether "Minark" might offer advantages to development in 4D. Descriptions of development experience with Minark, completed applications using the software, or pointers to detailed reviews in the literature would all be appreciated. Target platform is Macintosh. From: DEL2%phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Re: [4.0074 Queries (84)] Date: Mon, 21 May 90 16:23:17 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 267 (285) Further to Eric Nye's comment about liibraries not being able to get funding for CDs. I rang the Cambridge University Library to see if we had the _British Library General Catalogue_ on CD. I was told that we did not, because on the demo disc(!) shown to the staff they had identified so many input errors that they felt the expenditure was not justified. Does anyone know about the quality of other CD-aids being advertised? Douglas de Lacey From: LINDYK@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: RE: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Sat, 19 May 90 11:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 268 (286) Hello, Please keep the list the way it is now. Personally, it fits a need that I don't find on other lists. Sincerely, Bogdan KARASEK lindyk@vax2.concordia.ca From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: 4.0078 Stucture of Humanist (263) Date: Sat, 19 May 90 19:58:16 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 269 (287) Oops. Obviously others had threatened to "leave the room." I guess that was in one of the chunks I deleted unread. I still vote for the unmoderated style. Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: Splitting Humanists Date: 20 May 1990, 13:50:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 270 (288) We might divide ourselves into those who think the term *humanist* includes having a sense of humor (although that quality may be difficult to define) or a sense of playfulness, and those who think that life is All Business. But splitting hairs or dividing people wouldn't seem to be the mission of humanists. We do work very hard on understanding our machines, our programs, our texts, all day long. Can we have a few cakes and ale at night? in between the discussions of collecting everything ever written by human beings in one database or the discussions of how to define catachresis, synecdoche *or* nerd (don't forget the Popular Culture people as well as the New Historicists)? Roy Flannagan From: Mary Massirer Subject: moderated lists Date: Mon, 21 May 90 12:55 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 271 (289) Another note in the discussion of what if anything to do with Humanist: leave her as is, and Please! keep it moderated. I got off Folklore because it is unmoderated and was driving me crazy. Humanist is sane and reasonable and much easier to manage than unmoderated lists. Whew! I feel better! Mary Massirer (massirerm@baylor) From: Subject: topics on humanist Date: Sun, 20 May 90 11:31 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 272 (290) In the five months since I subscribed to HUMANIST, the postings have ranged from the airily abstract to the immediately specific, from high seriousness to play; I cannot believe, as Mr. Greenberg seems to imply, that our editors past or present have censored postings to eliminate "intellectual substance." If he and those he speaks for bewail the lack of such intellectual substance, why don't they post such items rather than complain of their absence? If, as he implies, such postings are "unimportant" to other subscribers of HUMANIST, then he perceives, not the absence of "the implicitly democratic potential of electronic communication," but its working. Democratically active audiences may choose not to respond to messages uninteresting to them. Perhaps more broadly relevant, however, may be Greenberg's conception of "intellectually substantial material," since his examples seem to be all of a theoretical nature. Are we, in fact, in semantic difficulties with "intellectual substance" meaning "theoretical" and "trivia contests" meaning "applied" knowledge? Judy Boss University of Nebraska at Omaha From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0075 Nerds (59) Date: Sunday, 20 May 1990 01:40:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 273 (291) I accept Richard Ristow's etymology for NERD to a Swarthmore revue from about 1960, if that's verifiable. That would explain credibly where the Happy Days writers got the word. If we want to push it back further, we should look to Mad Magazine, a source during that period for a lot of amateur material, as Monty Python is now. I agree that this is all mostly a waste of time, except that the word is very common, threatens to become a part of our standard vocabulary, and is most under-documented in OED2. It's a good example to which students can relate when talking about the limitations of dictionaries to describe a language's vocabulary. But I solemnly promise not to comment nerdishly on NERD anymore. --Pat Conner From: barry alpher Subject: nerd Date: Sun, 20 May 90 17:15:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 274 (292) Patrick W Conner has queried me, or called my bluff, on the attestation /nerd/ in 1968. The utterer was myself. The referent was was ugly and stupid and had no style. This was, I believe, the original sense of the word before it acquired 'studious' (which, although clearly not synonymous with 'smart', seems to be associated with 'smart' in common usage). The addressee was Dr Melvin Firestone of Arizona State University. He asked me what /nerd/ meant and I referred him to the droplet of glue; he understood perfectly. I wondered at the time if this usage was my own coinage, but the rapidly accelerating popularity of /nerd/ during this period made me realize that I must have heard the word so used by someone else. So it seems to be a fine story of the collective unconscious and a term whose time had come. I suspect that 'studious' entered via TV; if so, we have a fine example of how power can bend the collective unconscious. Barry Alpher From: Robin Smith Subject: Nerds in the '60s Date: Sun, 20 May 90 08:39 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 275 (293) Sure, there are better things to talk about than the age of 'nerd,' but not at this time of the year. I can attest that it was in use in the South (east Tennessee, anyway) among high school students around 1962 as a term of abuse. The precise sense was never clear to me. (Webster's refers to certain uses of obscenities as 'meaningless intensifiers'; I would have to have called this a 'meaningless term of abuse.') I can also testify that by 1964, it was in use at some East Coast universities with a more precise sense: roughly, a socially inept, foolish, and probably physically unattractive person. My memories are that it was applied only to males and that it was more popular among fraternity types. It was definitely not a coinage of any TV show writers. --Robin Smith Philosophy, Kansas State University From: wtosh@cs.utexas.edu (Wayne Tosh) Subject: "doddle" Date: Sun, 20 May 90 10:51:59 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 276 (294) Lest we dawdle further with "doddle," may I suggest that it is merely the o-grade ablaut of "diddle." From: "[DCGQAL]MILLER16" Subject: [DCGQAL]MILLER16!Courseware Exchange Program Date: Fri, 18 May 90 06:10:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 277 (295) Comments-of: "Patrick W. Conner" Someone asked about Kinko's Software, and what happend to it. I received the following announcement from my Apple representative just the next day after I'd deleted that request. [deleted quotation] "[DCGQAL]MILLER16" [... eds] ---------------------------------------------------------------- APPLE ANNOUNCES INTERIM ACADEMIC COURSEWARE EXCHANGE DISTRIBUTOR ---------------------------------------------------------------- CUPERTINO, California--February 26, 1990--Apple Computer, Inc. announced today that Intellimation of Santa Barbara, California will provide Academic Courseware Exchange service on an interim basis to colleges and universities while final arrangements for an expanded program are being completed. Apple and Kinko's Copies announced last July their intention to replace the Academic Courseware Exchange program administered by Kinko's with more sophisticated software distribution, publishing and marketing. The Academic Courseware Exchange was originally established in 1986 by Apple and Kinko's to make software created by college faculty easily available to other faculty members and students at a reasonable cost. "During the past five years, curriculum software development has flourished well beyond our early expectations - in part because of the introduction of HyperCard software and other easy-to use Macintosh development tools as well as the growing interest in multimedia technologies," said Apple academic solutions manager Katie Povejsil. During this interim period, Academic Courseware materials may be obtained by calling 1-800-346-8355. Intellimation will also take inquiries from software developers interested in distributing materials through the Academic Courseware Exchange for the program's eventual administrator. Intellimation was founded in 1987 as a subsidiary to ABC-CLIO, a 37-year-old educational publisher. The company publishes and distributes multimedia materials and is best- known as marketer and distributor of The Annenberg/CPB Collection of video courses such as The Brain and The Mechanical Universe. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh and HyperCard are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Contacts: Janet Male Regis McKenna, Inc. 415-354-4427 or 408-974-4173 Becky Snyder Intellimation 805-968-2291 From: Subject: Thematic mapping for the Macintosh. Date: Sun, 20 May 90 11:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 278 (296) I have only given partial attention to the postings on mapping software, so I hope this does not repeat what has been covered. This is to partly address the original question and to include some observations that may be useful to others. This semester I taught a seminar in which we looked at the possibilities of making a thematic atlas using Macintosh desktop publishing hardware and software. (Even though I have used many kinds of computers for many years, and know how time-intensive these "labor saving" systems can be, I still GREATLY underestimated how much time it would take to produce a finished map, from data collection to final tweaking.) We did not buy any new software, but used the software the Geography Department already had licensed and which I had already used to varying degress. We had a Mac SE/30 and Mac II as our machines with ouput to Imagewriter II (for drafts) and Applie LaserWriter. The primary program we used was "MapMaker 4.0" by Select Micro Systems (tel. 408-985-7400). This allows you to make: * choropleths ("shading-by-area") * dot maps * propoertional point symbols (squares or circles) * cartograms (non-contiguous or "exploded" type) It comes with base map files for USA by states, each USA state by counties, and world by countries. You can order other areas or prepare your own base map files. It supports some digitizers, but not the particular Summagraphics model we had. To prepare our own bases we scanned a printed base map (Microtek scanner), then imported that to a general-purpose drawing program (SuperPaint) to retrace the outlines, then imported that to MapMaker for its own "autotracing." MapMaker lets you import Excel spreadsheets, so you can manage your data there. MapMaker is good as far as it goes and I don't know of another program that makes the same range of maps. Version 4.0 has substantial improvements over version 3.0. However, use it to make the maps and THEN move the maps to SuperPaint (or whatever) for annotation. MapMaker, naturally, is not as full-featured as those for adding text etc., and it is also substantially slower to redraw the screen (even on an SE/30 it got very slow as map complexity increased). Most annoying, and which I've suggested to them that they address in the next release, is the lack of a style-sheet or scripting option so the new map defaults to YOUR favored shading patterns (the default set is awful) and other display options. Overall, I'd say that MapMaker is capable of producing maps for a use or publication that is not too demanding, but lacks features (such as a a really good set of gray scale shades) I think many experienced cartographers would want to have to be satisfied. Both Mac and PC DOS users should be aware of RockWare Inc. (tel. 303-423-5645). As the name suggests, they emphasize software for geologic applications. I suspect they develop most programs in the DOS environment and then port them to the Mac. That is certainly true for MacGRIDZO for isarithmic (contour) mapping, which includes an impressive number of options, but lacks the usual Mac look-and-feel. Finally, I recently received demo disks from WTC Scientific in the UK (tel. 0625-20210) for WhizSurf, WhizMap, and Atlas, but have not tested them much. WhizMap looks like an alternative to MacGRIDZO. Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services and Geography Department, University of New Hampshire. j_cerny@unhh From: Subject: Old English fonts Date: Sun, 20 May 90 17:47 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 279 (297) The font known as SuperFrench, available from Linguist's Software, Redmond, Washington, USA, for US$99.95 works very well with the Macintosh. Tom Bestul, Department of English University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588 (tbestul@unlvax1.bitnet or tbestul@crcvms.unl.edu) P.S. I have the exact address for Linguist's Software, for any one interested. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0074 Queries (84) Date: Mon, 21 May 90 08:45:29 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 280 (298) For those looking for exotic orthography Mac fonts ([real] Old English, phonetic, Sanskrit, Greek, Amharic, Cuneiform, Mayan, etc.): Here are the addresses of the first three Mac font companies that handle a variety of fonts. Neoscribe International, Inc. (Info here is older; may not be POB 633 current.) East Haven, CT 06512 203-467-9880 Ecological Linguistics Handles fonts and keying POB 15156 Washington, DC 20003 Linguist's Software Ditto POB 580 Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 206-775-1130 or Linguist's Software 925 Hindley Lane Edmonds, WA 98020 206-775-2173 Linguist's Software also distributes the Mac version of SIL's IT [Interlinear Text] program. I have no hands on experience with any of these fonts, but prices are O($100) or cheaper and examples in fliers I've seen look acceptable to my untutored, not very critical eye. You can get fliers and judge for yourself easily enough. Someone else's request on Mac fonts in USENET's comp.fonts produced the following, which I filed away: [deleted quotation] John E. Koontz All recommendations are my own, and do not express the views of my employers. From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: names, terms and attitudes Date: Fri, 18 MAY 90 10:53:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 281 (299) Name calling The discussion on what students/faculty call each other has highlighted a difference in terminology between North American and British university practices. We don't in general have classes for undergaduates. Lectures yes. Seminars certainly. And tutorials. Perhaps sessions in laboratories. But classes are for school. School; another difference. School is for pre-undergraduates. When you come to University you have left school. In our exams and assesments we dont have quizzes, or a least we dont call them quizzes. A quizz implies playing little games to tease people into revealing their knowledge and ignorance. Giving people quizzes tells them that they are not yet ready to look at real problems, an dthat they have to jump through hoops held by those with superior minds. The point I am making is that for me North American terms such as these have heavy connotations of regimented learning and attempts to control through manipulation. I am NOT saying that we avoid those attitudes in British universities, just that the language of American academic life suggests from my perspective that those attitudes have been internalised and accepted while British terms *appear* to challenge them and to offer students a more equitable and dignified relationship. How are these terms actually interpreted by North Americans (and how do they react to British terms). By the way calling someone just by their last name is a pretty heavy put-down over here. It definitely implies a master/servant, officer/ranker type of relationship. Edis Bevan From: "S. Thomson Moore" Subject: forms of address Date: Mon, 21 May 90 09:13:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 282 (300) Always implicit in forms of address is the question of power relationships. The members of the Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) felt, and many still feel, that it is unethical to make distinctions of rank, wherefore their adhesi n to plain dress and plain speech (using the familiar 2nd person singular to al ll, whether inside the family or out, whether "superior" or "inferior").The usu al form of address in a formal situation omits any statement of rank, including "Mister" or "Mrs.", using the first and last names only. When a Quaker needs to speak to someone whose name is unknown to her/him, she/he says "Dear Friend". From: Stephen Clausing Subject: addressing students Date: Sun, 20 May 90 17:16:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 283 (301) My opposition to using first names with students can be explained by an analogy. It is wrong to make a sexual advance towards a student, even when that advance is not coupled with a threat, because implicitly any such advance is always coupled with a threat, the threat that the teacher might retaliate against the student if he or she says no. Similarly, using a first name with a student implies an intimacy with the student which the student may not share, but which the student might be reluctant to reject. The better policy would be to assume that the student would prefer a certain distance, call it respect if you will, and address students only with last names. One could conceivably conduct an anonymous poll at the beginning of the class asking whether students would object to first names. There are, however, two problems with this. First, if only a single student objected, the teacher would be forced to abandon the use of first names, particularly since there would be no way of knowing which student objected. Second, students can sense the answer the teacher is hoping to receive (why pose the question unless the teacher wants to use first names?) and will probably again feel coerced into assenting. Ultimately it comes down to this: no lives will be lost if family names are used, and a certain formality is better than giving offense. Moreover, first names do not guarantee an atmosphere conducive to learning nor do family names prohibit this. As a graduate student, I found the teachers who were most chummy with the students, e.g. first name basis, were also the ones who were most disappointed when I did not share their political views. Was their use of first names merely an act of cordiality or an attempt to curry my favor? Conversely, I developed a deep respect for my dissertation advisor and consider him a good friend, but he will always be Prof. Seifert to me. This is enough intimacy. From: Willard McCarty Subject: Yearbook meeting in Siegen Date: Mon, 21 May 90 14:37:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 284 (302) The public meeting to discuss the future of The Humanities Computing Yearbook, announced on Humanist last week, will take place in Siegen at the conference site on Thursday, 7 June, at 7:00 p.m. All interested individuals are strongly encouraged to attend. Ian Lancashire Willard McCarty General Editors, The Humanities Computing Yearbook Oxford University Press From: "Stephen R. Reimer" Subject: e-text request Date: Fri, 18 May 1990 23:33:59 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 285 (303) I am in need of an electronic version of the complete poetry of the seventeenth-century English poet Ben Jonson, and I would appreciate any information which other HUMANISTs might offer to aid me in locating one. Stephen R. Reimer University of Alberta SREIMER@UALTAVM.BITNET From: "M. R. Sperberg-McQueen " Subject: Query: help with neo-Latin paleography? Date: 20 May 1990 14:05:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 286 (304) I'm editing a manuscript of neo-Latin poems (written by a German around 1630). My transcription is by and large complete, but I'm uncertain about how to render some of the diacritical markings (if at all). Is there anyone out there who is sufficiently familiar with neo-Latin paleography that they might be able to discuss some of the problems with me? Please write to me directly. Marian Sperberg-McQueen University of Illinois at Chicago U15440 at UICVM From: "Robin C. Cover" Subject: NEW READING ON TEXT Date: Mon, 21 May 90 10:34:02 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 287 (305) New Discussion on "Text" Skip Knox wrote (18-May-90, re: 4.0069 Douglas Greenberg's mention of "text"): "Perhaps Greenberg or others could explain what all the fuss is about. I know what a document is. I know what text is." "What text is" may prove to be a more interesting discussion than we think. Not as important as "nerds," of course. New reading is available for those who want to contemplate what text ("really") is, or should be, or could be, inside a computer. It's a contribution by some members of the Brown/Harvard/Brandeis "CHUG" unit. DeRose, Steven J.; Durand, David G.; Mylonas, Elli; Renear, Allen H. "What is Text, Really?" Journal of Computing in Higher Education 1/2 (Winter 1990) 3-26. [Abstract: "The way in which text is represented on a computer affects the kinds of uses to which it can be put by its creator and by subsequent users. The electronic document model currently in use is impoverished and restrictive. The authors agree that text is best represented as an ordered hierarchy of content object[s] (OHCO), because that is what text really is. This model conforms with emerging standards such as SGML and contains within it advantages for the writer, publisher, and researcher. The authors then describe how the hierarchical model can allow future use and reuse of the document as a database, hypertext or network."] For those like the article and want further reading on the SGML view of "text," here's a landmark piece (with earlier contributions by DeRose and Renear). Coombs, James; Renear, Allen; DeRose, Steven . "Markup Systems and the Future of Scholarly Text Processing." CACM 30/11 (1987) 933-947. [ISSN: 0001-0782; cf. CACM 31/7 (July 1988) 810-11)] [Abstract: The authors argue that many word processing systems distract authors from their tasks of research and composition, toward concern with typographic and other tasks. Emphasis on "WYSIWYG", while helpful for display, has ignored a more fundamental concern: representing document structure. Four main types of markup are analyzed: Punctuational (spaces, punctuation,...), presentational (layout, font choice,...), procedural (formatting commands), and descriptive (mnemonic labels for document elements). Only some ancient manuscripts have no markup. Any form of markup can be formatted for display, but descriptive markup is privileged because it reflects the underlying structure. ISO SGML is a descriptive markup standard, but most benefits are available even before a standard is widely accepted. A descriptively marked-up document is not tied to formatting or printing capabilities. It is maintainable, for the typographic realization of any type of element can be changed in a single operation, with guaranteed consistency. It can be understood even with no formatting software: compare "
" to ".sk 3 a; .in +10 -10; .ls 0; .cp 2". It is relatively portable across views, applications and systems. Descriptive markup also minimizes cognitive demands: the author need only recall (or recognize in a menu) a mnemonic for the desired element, rather than also deciding how it is currently to appear, and recalling how to obtain that appearance. Most of this extra work is thrown away before final copy; descriptive markup allows authors to focus on authorship. (abstract supplied by Steve DeRose)] Robin Cover 3909 Swiss Avenue Dallas, TX 75204 AT&T: (214) 296-1783/841-3657 FAX: 214-841-3540 BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org INTERNET: robin@utafll.lonestar.org UUCP: texbell!txsil.robin From: "Peter D. Junger" Subject: What is a text? Date: Mon, 21 May 90 12:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 288 (306) Since we were recently chided for not discussing such issues as `What is a text?', I will raise that issue since it actually relates to the writing that I should be doing this Summer. I am working with the "forms of actions"; formulas that used to be required--and still are often used--to start an action at law. They were originally incorporated into writs from the King to the Sheriff commanding the latter to do something--in the _praecepi_ writs that I am most concerned with, the sheriff was commanded to command that the defendant (or tenant) do something. I sort of have the suspicion that most people think of a text as a series of statements (propositional sentences) and not as commands. Am I wrong in this suspicion? I would suppose that my problem has something in common with the question as to whether a recipe, or a computer program, or a wiring diagram is a text. I have written computer programs of the small variety and I have even read some computer programs. I like to read recipes. But is the sort of interpretation that one does in reading a program or a recipe in any way related to the interpretation that one gives to a poem, a detective story, or a history? The original writs were not written to convey information--they were formulae which, when properly written down, resulted in mechanically predictable--if not purely physical-- consequences. Still another way of expressing my concern would be to say: "Is an illocutionary act a text?" I doubt that my question is well formed, but I suspect that it may stir up some discussion. Peter D. Junger--Case Westerrn Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: Daniel Boyarin Subject: Re: 4.0069 Humanist Structure (210) Date: Sun, 20 May 90 07:08:36 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 289 (307) in response to douglas greenberg: the questions that you raise are exactly the ones that keep me busy most of the time -- i am a talmudist trying to understand how texts work in culture. i am not sure that humanist is where i can discuss seriously such difficult issues. however, i am glad to have a forum for less weighty matters of scholarly and intellectual interest across a broad forum of disciplines, such as the opportunity for finding out recently that there are renaissance parallels to a theme in ancient jewish literature etc. i also find that the technical discussions are occasionally very useful and i am willing to spend the few minutes delteing the others in order to get at the ones i want. i think the answer is that each of us finds different parts of humanist worthwhile and that's why it has to remain a well organized buffet. sort of p.s. aren't you threatening to leave the room also? From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Subject: Garbled Mail Date: Mon, 21 May 90 18:08:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 94 (308) Some subscribers at the University of Toronto received garbled mail last Thursday. If any other Humanists also had their mail garbagified in transit, please let us know and we'll send you copies of the relevant digests. (The problem was extensive -- if you wonder if your mail was garbled, it probably wasn't.) From: Subject: PROGRAMME ALLC-ACH 90 Date: Mon, 5 Mar 90 18:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 3 Num. 1129 (2986) namely: Friday, 8 June Main Topic: Methods and Applications 2:00-2:30pm Parallel Session (Chair: N.N.) l...] The Total of the Distances between the Languages as an Index of the Compactness of the Language Families (Yuri Tambovtsev, Lvov Lesotechnical Institute) Ideally I would like some comparative linguist (or whoever is interested) to tell me about this paper, and maybe acquire a copy of the paper from Tambovtsev if it is available, or at least find his postal address. Is there someone who will be attending the Siegen conference who is also interested in this paper and willing to communicate with me about it? David Nash Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIATSIS) | Dept Linguistics GPO Box 553 Fax: (06)2497310 | ANU Canberra ACT 2601 Telegraphic: ABINST | GPO Box 4 Phone: (06)2461166 | Canberra ACT 2601 From: Subject: ALLC-ACH 90 travel informations Date: Tue, 22 May 90 18:40 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 290 (309) ALLC-ACH 90 The New Medium 4 - 9 June 1990 Siegen To whom it may concern With the start of the conference approaching may I take this opportunity to briefly describe "How to reach Siegen?" Siegen is situated in the centre of the Federal Republic of Germany. By car you will reach Siegen: [deleted quotation]and turn west into A 45 (direction Dortmund) [deleted quotation]turn south into A 45 (direction Frankfurt) [deleted quotation]into A 45 (direction Frankfurt) Leave Autobahn A 45 at exit "Siegen/Netphen" By train you will reach Siegen: [deleted quotation]to Siegen-Weidenau Station. [deleted quotation]to Siegen-Weidenau Station. [deleted quotation]to Siegen Central Station. Transport from station to your hotel might be handled most conveniently by taxi. The same applies for your way to the Get-Together-Cocktail which will take place at "Queens Hotel", Kaisergarten, Siegen at 6:00pm on June, 4th. The Conference will take place at the University of Siegen in the building complex along Adolf Reichwein-Strasse. You can reach the university: by car: Follow the sign "Universitaet"; take either the city freeway (Huettentalstrasse) or B 54/62 from Siegen Centre to Weidenau (about 4 km), turn into B 62. Please, pay attention to the ALLC-ACH posters showing you the way. by bus: From Weidenau railway station take bus (lines 33 or 41) uphill to Haardter Berg (bus-stop "Robert Schumann-Strasse). Overseas participants who have not yet received (or will not receive in time) their documents through "Congress Partner", Bremen should not worry. These will be held for them and can be obtained at either the Queens Hotel (starting at 12:00am on June 4th or at the Get- Together-Cocktail) or at the Conference Information Desk during the following days. I hope you will have a pleasant journey and look forward to seeing you in Siegen soon. Yours sincerely Rolf Grossmann (Organization Assistant) From: "Lou (in Chicagoan exile) " Subject: Textual ontology Date: 21 May 1990 19:36:03 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 291 (310) I think that a text is a cultural object. This note is a text but there is also a sense in which the machine I am writing it on is a text, and another in which the textuality of this note is all in what happens when you peek (or whatever) at it. Being rather busy at present in trying to condense into some coherence what others have proposed as `essential textual features', I fear I must remain yours elliptically Lou From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" Subject: what is a text Date: 21 May 1990 19:22:06 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 292 (311) In response to Peter Junger's questions: I don't know what most people think. Certainly I would have said that the writs he describes, and recipes, are texts in the strict sense. Nor can one limit the term 'text' to series of propositional statements without eliminating a great deal of literature (even in the traditional canon). Computer programs seem more text-like than otherwise to me. I'd call them texts, if only because the other position would cause problems for recipes. Like recipes and writs, they can be read, or they can be (read and) performed. It seems plausible that performance may be different from reading, since computers can perform programs, but that is a difference in the reader, not in the text. Wiring diagrams will clearly cause some people to cough a bit before deciding whether to call them texts. So will knitting patterns, and bell-ringing charts. I'd personally say that calling a wiring diagram a 'text' is at least a comprehensible metaphor. I suspect a lot of people (theorists at least) would say it's a normal usage and see no metaphor in it at all. Apart from the confusion unexplained metaphors wreak in unsuspecting listeners, I'm not sure there's a difference worth discussing here. Wiring patterns can presumably be nonsensical or garbled or impossible or inconsistent with themselves or just plain weird, which suggests that they have something which can be called, at least metaphorically, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Sounds more and more like a text to me. In haste, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0093 What is Text? (136) Date: Tuesday, 22 May 1990 9:56am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 293 (312) The question "What is a text?" is enormously complicated. It's not enough to say that it's "a series of statements" (where did they come from?), nor will it do to speak of a series of document objects-- though both of those may be useful. In both cases, however, there are prior questions that have to be asked-- i.e., whose statements make up the series of document objects? what authorizes us to believe that those objects are the right ones? This question has animated (to put it mildly) recent debate over the 1984 "synoptic" edition of Joyce's _Ulysses_ prepared by Hans-Walter Gabler and published by Random House to supplant the 1961 edition with which most current readers are familiar. As Charles Rossman has pointed out in a series of articles in 1988 and 89 (see TLS, December 88, and NYRB, also December 88), decisions about what constituted the "text" of _Ulysses_ have been fraught with all sorts of considerations-- political, economic, and so forth-- that might seem at first glance to have nothing to do with Joyce or _Ulysses_ or anything else; and yet those decisions have real impact: I don't know how much Random House makes from sales of _Ulysses_ in any given year, but it's not peanuts. Or, to take a writer about whom I know more, there's the American poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972). What is probably her single most famous poem, called "Poetry" (it begins "I too dislike it"), was first published in July 1919, in a little magazine called _Others_. There are at least seven *different* published versions of the poem, three of which are so different from one another and from all the rest as to constitute different poems. There's the 1919 text already mentioned-- 30 lines, in 5 6-line stanzas and a complex, consistent pattern of rhyme and syllabification. The next major variant appeared in 1925, in the second edition (and only the second edition) of a volume called _Observations_ (NY: The Dial Press, 1925). This version is only 13 lines long, and is in free verse; it also suggests a different stance toward poetry than that taken in the 1919 text. In subsequent collections Moore reverted to a text resembling (though not precisely identical to) the 1919 "Poetry"-- that is, until her _Complete Poems_ appeared in 1967: there, "Poetry" has been sliced down to a mere *three* (3, yes) lines (these are in essence the first three lines of the 1919 version). A longer version, miscalled "Original Version," is preserved in the Notes at the back of the volume. Whew! Sorry for all that detail. Now: what is the text of Marianne Moore's "Poetry"? May we talk about "the" text, or must we talk about the *texts*? The problem becomes even more complicated because, in many cases, Moore entered, by hand, "corrections" to published texts (e.g., before presenting a copy to a friend, or when someone asked her to sign a copy for them, etc. Whoops, sorry about the etc. But not very!). How would Humanists recommend dealing with such things (this is not atypical for Moore, by the way)? John Slatin, University of Texas From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: "Classes" vs. "lectures" Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:38:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 294 (313) I was fascinated by Edis Bevan's remarks about North American academic terminology. S/he is so clearly striving for an open, democratic, non-regimented terminology, but the terms cited resonate (to me) with precisely the opposite values. "Lecture" is a no-no here (though I still use it); it implies no interaction with the students. Mass learning is certainly a vice in North America (because of budgets; what the British call "the cuts") but it is by no means any one's ideal. And as for regimentation, I would like to see Bevan dealing with an argumentative class (yes, class) of American undergrads (Canadians are more passive; we need our energy for quarreling about the Constitution). Is the difference perhaps caused by the fact that so few British school-leavers go on to university in comparison with North America? The figures I have seen suggest about 12-15% in Britain, contrasted with nearly 60% in the US and nearly 50% in Canada. Our students enter much less well-prepared than the British entrant with his/her three glossy A-levels. But by fourth year they are quite the equal of their contemporaries abroad. Bevan seems to me (Open University or not) to be in a very privileged situation! Germaine Warkentin (Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) From: N.J.Morgan Subject: Classes Date: Tue, 22 May 90 09:38:40 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 295 (314) I'm sorry to contradict a British colleague, but some British Universities still have classes; most, if not all, are in Scotland. In our four year degree structure we have an Ordinary Class, a Higher Class, an Advanced Ordinary Class (for students taling an ordinary degree in three years) and then Junior and Senior Honours Classes. We have Class Essays, Class Exams, and (of course) Class Prizes. And, if a student completes the work of a Class, he or she receives a Class Ticket, without which a degree exam cannot be taken. It is not that long ago that Professors collected Class Fees from students at the start of each term as a supplement to their meagre salaries. Nicholas Morgan Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow Glasgow From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0091 Forms of Address (88) Date: Mon, 21 May 90 17:05 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 296 (315) Master/servant; officer/ranker. Well, GB is not a republic, nor a democracy, and we dont usually put people down by their accents in the USA, amusing as various ones are to various geographical areas, mutually. Americans always took delight in the wild variations, and dialectal jokes were the rage in the 1820's-1850's, as various humorous collections of stories and peices tells us, Mark Twain and Faulkner, etcetera. It began, I would say even before the Revolution. But, as far as first names go, if the professor doesnt want to be called by the first name, then what right, except that of master or boss,has the professor or teacher to use the first name, after the age of 13, say...? None, in the States. I wait till the student graduates, or is agraduate student, since the latter status deserves friendly intimacy, if it the same gender, that is, and if one likes and is liked. After all, who has the brains and energy? the graduate student. The graudate student is the person who catched the prof nodding, yawning and plagiarizing, usually. Kessler at UCLA From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: wordolitarianism; gender Date: Tue, 22 May 90 19:19:58-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 297 (316) Amsler's message was right to point out that the morphological gender has nothing to do with sex or psychological sexual characterization IN GENERAL: this is why I emphasized that "automobile" as masculine presupposes "veicolo", whereas as feminine it presupposes "macchina" or "vettura", as then the neologism just inherited their gender. The myth of virility invaded terminology, after D'Annunzio, with Mussolini: he claimed that "I fatti sono maschi, e le parole sono femmine" ("Facts are male, and words are female", as "fatto" is masculine whereas "parola" is feminine). The grotesque is evident to everybody, once somebody points it out. Totalitarianisms are very serious about themselves. When turning to terminology, they sometimes apply "wordolitarianism": repressive measures concerning terminology. (Such was the Fascist ban on loanwords. See Monelli's book republished by Hoepli of Milan in 1942.) In a liberal society, D'Annunzio had reason to fear his vulnerability to irony. Here is an anecdote. One play of his is titled "Isaotta Guttadauro". Literally translated, this proper name means: "Iseult Gold-Drop". Standard Italian has "Isotta" and "goccia d'oro". D'Annunzio selected Latinate forms ("gutta", "auro" from "aurum"), and the arbitrary "Isaotta" (perhaps as evocative of Isabella, Isaura, or Liselotte). One critic titled his review of the play, splendidly and caustically: "Risaotto al pomidauro". In standard Italian, "risotto al pomodoro" means "pilaf with tomato": a prosaic concept, as contrasted with D'Annunzio's aulicity. "Pomodoro" for tomato is "pomodori" or "pomidoro" in the plural, and, `wrongly', "pomidori". By calque on "Isaotta", the critic derived "Risaotto" from "risotto". "Risa otto" means "eight bursts of laughter". Indeed, "risa" is the collective plural for "riso" ("laughter"), whereas "risate" is the singulative plural: countable bursts of laughter. "Facciamoci quattro risate" means "Let's have four bursts of laughter", that is, "Let's have some fun [at X's expenses]". Here, the bursts of laughter are eight, the double of the four in the idiom. The message of "Risaotto al pomidauro" was: D'Annunzio's play is matter for laughter and deserves tomatos. Of course, D'Annunzio did not forgive this. More in general, the sublime and the ridiculous are very close neighbors. Best regards, Ephraim Nissan BITNET address: onomata@bengus.bitnet Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. From: Alan D Corre Subject: Queries about English Date: Mon, 21 May 90 16:41:26 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 298 (317) I have two queries about the pronunciation of English words, and one about syntax. I usually hear the plural of the word "process" pronounced as if it were a Greek word, that is to say the end sounds like the end of "hypotheses" (-EEZ). It is easy to see why this might occur; the word is often used in learned contexts, and has a sibilant at the end. I don't think "axes" (plural of "ax") and "axes" (plural of "axis") will ever merge because "ax" is so rarely used in a learned context. Is this "error" common outside the American midwest? Does it occur in UK? I know two words in English that have four acceptable pronunciations. "vase" may be pronounced vayz, vays, vahz or vawz. The herb "basil" may be bassil, bazil, bayssil or bayzil. Are there any words that have more than four? I realise that broad pronunciation differences from one area to another may complicate this question--and please excuse my unscientific transcriptions. Sentences of the type: "The problem is that he has no money" invariably come out in speech here with the word "is" repeated: "The problem is is that he has no money." I think this must be due to contamination by sentences like "What his opinion is, is nobody's business." Is this also midwestern usage, or does it have wider currency? From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: TeX sources Date: Tue, 22 May 90 10:21 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 299 (318) In Re: Charles Faulhaber's request for sources of TeX: Personal TeX, In. 12 Madrona Ave. Mill Valley, CA 94941 (415)-388-8853 ArborText Inc. 535 West William St. Suite 300 Ann Arbor, MI 48103 (313)-996-3566 There are probably other sources, but these are the ones I know. I've tried both and like the Personal TeX version best--it's easier to install and seems to require less memory. I'm not a TeX pro, though, so pay attention to what more experienced users have to say. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Queries on scanners & OCR" Date: Mon, 21 May 90 13:02:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 300 (319) Have any colleagues used the Xerox Datacopy GS Plus, the 730GS or any Siemens scanners? Opinions? As for software, we're thinking of OCR Plus for MS-DOS-based PC's and which comes with 19 pre-programmed typefaces and is also trainable. Has anyone tried AccuText (Mac-based OCR software) and Xerox' MacImage and PCImage desktop publishing software for image processing? From: Marc Bregman Subject: Computer Info to Non-US users Date: Tue, 22 May 1990 09:34 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 301 (320) Yesterday a (very human, but non-HUMANIST) friend and I were talking about the following curious phenomenon. Though we have faithfully registered all the hard and software we have purchased from companies most of whom are based in the US we sometimes receive no mailings from them about updates, further developments, etc. This is true even of very well established companies such as Hercules, Lotus, Microsoft, Dragonfly. Does this happen to other non-US computer users? Is there a general policy in come companies not to send mailings outside of the US? If so, is there any way to see that we non-US users are placed on mailing lists? Any wisdom on the subject will be greatly appreciated. Marc Bregman (Hebrew Union College) Jerusalem, Israel (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0086 Qs: TeX; Archaeology Software; CD Quality (47) Date: Mon, 21 May 90 17:09 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 302 (321) for #2 query, re arch. software. Have you looked into Business Filevision, for the Mac? that with Endnote might work too. You can do pictures and lots of toher database arrangements with FileVision, I think, and it is a tested program of some years now. Kessler at UCLA. It was to have been handy for my son, in Chinese arch., but he was much too busy on his dissertation, and no one can write Chinese yet on the Mac or anywhere else. Real problem there! From: dgn612@csc2.anu.OZ.AU (David Nash) Subject: Minark Date: Tue, 22 May 90 18:21:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 303 (322) Following the inquiry of David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu, 21 May 90 10:36:47 about Minark... I saw a demo of the CP/M version about five years ago, have heard it is available for MS-DOS, but am surprised if it is available for the Macintosh. I think there was a review of Minark (and other similar software) in a 1989 issue of the newsletter of the Australian Anthropological Society. (I don't have a copy to hand.) David Nash Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIATSIS) | Dept Linguistics GPO Box 553 Fax: (06)2497310 | ANU Canberra ACT 2601 Telegraphic: ABINST | GPO Box 4 Phone: (06)2461166 | Canberra ACT 2601 From: Ken Steele Subject: Errors & CD-ROMs Date: Tue, 22 May 90 10:32:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 101 (323) Douglas de Lacey inquires about the general reliability of commercially-available CD-ROM databases, like the British Library General Catalogue. I don't yet have the luxury of a CD-ROM drive, but I would like to approach the matter in a somewhat oblique way which will, I hope, stimulate further discussion. Last year I ordered the ETC WordCruncher electronic Shakespeare (based on the Riverside edition by G. Blakemore Evans). Naturally (naively?) I expected a reliable research tool, but I was alarmed to discover a high frequency of errors and inaccuracies -- also reported by others who have used the software. WordCruncher invites corrections by mail, but does not announce or identify upgrade releases, nor does its proprietary encryption permit the user to (legally) correct his or her own copy, so one is quite permanently stuck with these errors. Likewise, in my work with the old-spelling transcriptions of the quarto and folio texts of Shakespeare (available through the Oxford Text Archive), I have been alarmed to discover errors even in those texts which T.H. Howard-Hill proofread repeatedly before preparing his Shakespeare concordances (and also in those texts I myself have proofread letter-by-letter more than once!). Similar errors were reported by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, who used these files in preparation of the text for the Oxford edition of the Complete Works (which many argue also includes errors, both intentional and unintentional). If such errors can proliferate in commercial and academic texts of about 10-15 megabytes, it is not surprising that a 500 megabyte CD-ROM should contain fifty times the errors. Even one error per megabyte becomes considerable as technology develops and databases grow. It seems to me that accuracy has long been the rallying cry of those who distrust computing technology -- whether for searching a card catalogue, preparing a collated edition, or simply looking up a reference. I used to counter vehemently that the ease of correction in electronic texts made perfection (eventually) attainable, but I have become less vehement of late. Reading a recently-published collection of short stories (in paperback) I was struck by the number of typographical errors even there. In reading the book, of course, I consciously and unconsciously made allowances for the errors, as would any human reader. Perhaps electronic texts prepared from paper texts are inevitably going to contain higher error rates (because most people seem to find proof-reading on-screen so difficult?), but even conventional printed publications are error-prone (and not only in Renaissance England). Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on producing software which can accommodate human imperfection in all its permutations, rather than attempting to produce error-free information resources, adapting man in the image of the machine? Error becomes particularly undeniable when projects become more ambitious, such as scanning the entire Library of Congress, providing access to newspapers on-line, or even filling a CD-ROM with literary texts. Can anyone offer more theoretical insights on error rates or human fallibility? Has any careful research been published on the subject? (My apologies for the length of this note). Ken Steele University of Toronto From: "Patrick W. Conner" Subject: 4.0090 Fonts Date: Monday, 21 May 1990 22:30:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 102 (324) The questions and answers about Old English fonts suggest that it's time to advertise ANSAXNET again on HUMANIST. ANSAXNET is a Special Interest Group using BITNET and associated university and research networks telecommunications systems for scholars and teachers of the culture and history of England before 1100 C.E. Persons interested in the later English Middle Ages and those interested in the early Medieval period throughout Europe are also encouraged to join the list. Currently, we have over 100 members in nine nations. Members receive a directory of all our members in order to facilitate dialogues among small groups of member; access to ANSAX-L, a LISTSERV list which provides each member with the ability to communicate simultaneously with all other members of ANSAXNET; and a monthly electronic report to which members are encouraged to contribute announcements and information. This report often provides our members with new information about the use of computers in some aspect of their disciplines, as well as news of more conventional developments in the field. We also have projects underway to encode databases which members may use in their own work, we provide access to the Dictionary of Old English at Toronto, the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici project at Manchester, SASLC ("Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture"), the Old English Newsletter, and Medieval Studies published by the Pontifical Institute at Toronto. We would be glad to add your name to our directory and thus to make you a member of ANSAXNET. Membership is free to everyone with access to a BITNET node. Either send an e-mail note to Patrick Conner, U47C2@WVNVM.BITNET or, as a command or mail-message, SUB ANSAX-L YOUR NAME. The full command form is TELL (CMS; use SEND for VAX) LISTSERV AT WVNVM SUB ANSAX-L YOUR NAME. Patrick Conner ANSAXNET sysop Department of English West Virginia University Morgantown, WV U47C2@WVNVM.BITNET From: Clarence Brown Subject: nerds and humstruc Date: Tue, 22 May 90 10:48:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 304 (325) I am interested in forming a support group for Humanists in the Princeton area who compulsively read all submissions on nerds and hate themselves in the morning. Clarence Brown, Comp Lit, Princeton. CB@PUCC. From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC> Subject: Trivia: Confucius didn't say it Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:31:16 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 305 (326) I know that Willard's knowledge is broad, but I can't resist correcting an incorrect attribution in his comments on the structure of Humanist. He said that Confucius had written on his bathtub "Renew it daily". That phrase is actually one quoted in the _Great Learning_ (Ta-hsueh) and was interpreted by the Sung figure Chu Hsi as meaning "renew yourself everyday". I am unable to put my hands on my copy of the _Great Learning_, but I believe that the quote was of the very early (perhaps legendary) emperor T'ang and appears in the _Book of History_, which predates Confucius. The phrase was a subject of much debate because Chu Hsi used it to justify emending the text of the first lines of the _Great Learning_ from "hold the people close to your heart" (ch'in min) to "renew (or remold) the people" (hsin min), which he understood as teaching the people so that their original good nature would emerge from what obscured it, much as one would polish the dirt off a brass mirror. The "bathtub" was probably a basin and the phrase was intended to tell the emperor to continually polish the mirror of his heart so that its original virtue would appropriately reflect the objects around it (he would respond correctly to all occasions). Perhaps Willard intended all of that, but it would have passed most of us by. Tom Nimick, Graduate Student in Chinese History, Princeton Univ. From: "Michael S. Hart" Subject: Re: 4.0087 Humanist Structure Date: Tue, 22 May 90 14:50:20 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 104 (327) I can handle Humanist as either moderated or unmoderated, and even could stand a change from time to time as long as it was announced well ahead. The only moderation I recall being discussed lately was that of signing: i.e. whether note writers should be required to identify themselves. As a result I have created the signature block as seen below. I thought an interest in knowing who wrote something was valid, and even though I was properly identified in the headers, I added the signature block for that set of readers who received my mail through systems which "ate" headers. I don't really mind the signature block, other than a waste of bytes. I don't even mind if Humanist doesn't require that we all sign our notes as I am willing to find out who did and post it for others. These cases are usually few and far between, and most Humanists know I am willing to toss a few barbs between the ribs of overinflated types who need it. mh Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg National Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts THESE NOTES ARE USUALLY WRITTEN AT A LIVE TERMINAL, AND THE CHOICE OF WORDS IS OFTEN MEANT TO BE SUCH AS TO PROVOKE THE GREATEST POSSIBLE RESPONSE SHORT OF BEING OFFENSIVE. TRUTH IN THESE NOTES IS OF GREAT CONCERN, THE FORM IS SECONDARY - OTHER THAN THE TOKEN EFFORT OF JUSTIFIED RIGHT MARGINATION. BITNET: HART@UIUCVMD INTERNET: HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (*ADDRESS CHANGE FROM *VME* TO *VMD* AS OF DECEMBER 18!!**) (THE GUTNBERG SERVER IS LOCATED AT GUTNBERG@UIUCVMD.BITNET) NEITHER THE ABOVE NAMED INDIVIDUALS NOR ORGANIZATIONS ARE A AN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF ANY OTHER INSTITUTION NOR ARE THE ABOVE COMMENTS MEANT TO IMPLY THE POLICIES OF ANY OTHER PERSONS OR INSTITUTIONS, THOUGH OF COURSE WE WISH THEY DID. From: KESSLER Subject: RE HALIO REDUX Date: Tue, 22 May 90 18:06 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 105 (328) I know that Halio thing has died down, of its own weighty inanition, perhaps, but I must send you this letter I received from a colleague at UCLA, a Biochemist, who wrote it to the Editors of ACADEMIC COMPUTING on 10 February and never received the courtesy of a reply. Miffed, he sent it to me, saying that writer likes to be read by at least one person. I answered that with his permission I would send it out to over 600 readers on the Humanist network, which naturally is unknown to the biochemist. His arguments against the article are not only clear and cogent and objective, but have that unmmistakeable ring of the scientifically trained intellect, as contrasted to the various socio-metaphorical Humanist arguments that surged back and forth for some weeks on this network. So what follows is Professor Daniel Atkinson's criticism of the Halio piece. Enjoy it, all! (Jascha Kessler) -------------------- This is in response to the article in the January issue of Academic Computing by Marcia Peoples Halio entitled "Student Writing: Can the machine maim the image?" Ms. Halio's thesis, condensed and slightly simplified, is that students consider Macintosh computers to be toys, and use them to produce sloppy treatments of inane topics, while their peers who use IBM machines turn in papers at an altogether superior level of content, spelling, grammar, and style. In support of that thesis, Ms. Halio quotes approvingly the suggestion of a TA that an IBM is a superior writing instrument for students because it is difficult; the Macintosh is too easy. By a logical extension of this austere viewpoint, Ms. Halio's students would be better writers if they ground their own pigments, compounded their own ink, and sharpened their own goose quills. Fortunately older writers may not need to resort to such draconian measures. Ms. Halio suggests that students' use of a Macintosh may "arrest their writing at a less mature stage of development." That is comforting for faculty members; presumably use of a Macintosh will not jeopardize whatever skills we have already developed. Of course we cannot hope for any improvement. Academic Computing is not a scientific or professional journal, and does not publish results of scholarly studies. But it circulates in the academic community, and its articles should be intellectually respectable. Recognition of the elementary principle that if the effect of some factor on two groups is to be compared the groups must be similar in other respects should not require any scientific or statistical background. No comparison should be taken seriously unless there has been a serious attempt at random assignment of individuals to the groups; comparisons between self-selected groups are meaningless. Ms. Halio's groups were totally self-selected; students chose to use Macintosh or IBM machines. The questions that she says she is asking are not answerable by the observations that she reports, and her conclusions are not self-consistent. She wants to know, she says, whether the products produced (by which she means the writings written or the essays essayed) by students using a Macintosh are different from those produced by students using an IBM. More specifically and more importantly, "does the choice of hardware and word processing software in any way influence the stages in the writing process as well as the content and style of the finished products?" She seems convinced that it does, and she suggests that teachers in schools that offer only Macintoshes to their students should be alerted to the corrosive effect of those machines on students' writing. Ms. Halio's own observations refute her concern. She contrasts the shallow and inane topics chosen by students using Macintoshes with the deep and significant choices of IBM users; the two groups of topics, she says, were "very different in a fundamental way." The malign effect that she ascribes to the Macintosh is now seen to be parapsychological in nature; even before the first key has been touched or the first word committed to the screen, the Macintosh has already affected for the worse those students who will use it in the future. It is clear that Ms. Halio's observations have no bearing on whatever effect the use of a convenient and "friendly" machine might have on the quality of writing. What they suggest is that among freshmen at Delaware there is a perception that a Macintosh is a toy and an IBM is somehow more respectable, and that this perception causes those students who are predisposed to select more challenging topics and to take more care in their writing to choose IBM's. The quality of the finished product seems much more likely to be correlated with the type of topics chosen than with the ease of use of the machines the papers were composed on. At a school where all students use Macintoshes, there will be no such self selection. Students who take writing seriously are likely to take it just as seriously if they use a machine that makes the mechanics of writing easy, and students whose attitude is frivolous or shallow can be expected to produce frivolous or shallow papers even if they use an IBM or a goose quill. Faculty members of my acquaintance overwhelmingly prefer Macintoshes to IBM's. Like the conclusions in Ms. Halio's article, that comment is based on uncontrolled observation, but I suspect that it is more generally valid. My perception that the Macintosh is strongly preferred by those who do serious scholarly writing, if true, raises the question of how Ms. Halio's students acquired such a different view of its capabilities. However interesting that question may be in a sociological sense, it has no bearing on the teaching of writing. Ms. Halio finds herself unable to resist comment on a recent column in the New York Times in which a Macintosh IIcx was described as perhaps the nearest available approach to the ideal writing machine. The author mentions the monitor and keyboard that he would include in his ideal system. Ms. Halio seizes on those stipulations as a basis for further denigration of the Macintosh. He had to add the monitor, she says, "to surmount the problems with the small screen," and the keyboard because of the deficiencies of the Macintosh keyboard. Actually, no members of the Macintosh II family come with either a screen or a keyboard, and no "small screen" is available for use with them. The author was merely listing the components necessary for a complete system. At a time when most students are woefully deficient in the most elementary writing skills, when all too many, using ball point pens rather than either IBM's or Macintoshes, cannot pursue an idea consistently and cogently across even two sentences when writing an answer to an examination question, it seems strangely ingenuous for an instructor of writing to devote her time and concern to the characteristics of the writing instruments used by students in her classes. To mix metaphors in a way that Ms. Halio doubtless would gleefully jot down for citation as an example of her thesis if it were perpetrated by one of her Macintosh users (and to confirm her suspicion that I am using a Macintosh to write this), I suggest that it would be difficult to conceive of a more striking example of tilting at windmills while Rome burns. Daniel E. Atkinson Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of California Los Angeles, CA 90024 From: cb%kcp.UUCP@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Christopher Bader) Subject: fonts Date: Tue, 22 May 90 18:06:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 306 (329) I have compared many Greek fonts, both PC and Macintosh. MacGreek, from Linguist's Software, is the most complete I have found. It includes all possible combinations of accents, macrons, subscripts, and breathings. It does this by backing up the cursor when necessary, both on the screen and on paper. One of the reasons linguists should prefer Mac's to PC's is that you can't do this on a PC. The screen cursor on a PC cannot back up. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0100 Software: Info to non-US buyers; Archaeology (2) Date: Wed, 23 May 90 08:45:40 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 307 (330) Two Chinese word processors: TianMa2 for DOS systems from: Asia Communications Inc. 2761 McColl Place Victoria, BC V8N 5Y8 Canada 604-477-7829 FeiMa (Mac, DOS): Wu Corportation PO Box 699 195 West Main Street Avon, CT 06001 US of America 203-677-1528 I have heard of a Chinese TeX, but didn't retain any information on it. The current issue of Communications of the ACM has an article on encoding Chinese characters. Sorry - I don't have it at hand to provide the citation. From: JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: 4.0099 TeX answer Date: Wed, 23 May 1990 8:45:41 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 308 (331) Re: Charles Faulhaber's request for sources of TeX: A free (shareware) version recommended to me as very good is available for the PC from: Eberhard Mattes, D-7141 Moglingen, West Germany. Send six 3.5" diskettes (it runs in 512K, the rest is for fonts). The only hitch is that the documentation's in German... currently being translated by from whom I also got Mattes' address. Sorry I can't comment on the version, mine didn't arrive yet. From: JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RM-COBOL for PC Date: Wed, 23 May 1990 8:50:52 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 309 (332) Does anyone have the address of AUSETEC, makers of RM-COBOL for the IBM-PC? The 1989 software directory said 1740 Technology Drive, San Jose CA, but our letter to that address spent 6 months in limbo before returning, shaken but unopened. If anyone knows of a program by that name from someone else, that's fine too. From: JUDYK@LIB.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: "Queries on scanners & OCR" and related software Date: Wed, 23 May 1990 8:58:20 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 310 (333) Does anyone know of any software that'll take a line drawing input by a scanner and convert it to vectors for manipulation by AutoCad? You can do it really well for $40,000 but our pockets are empty (meaning shareware would be real nice and anything over around $1000 is probably out. IBM-PC compat. please. From: Skip Knox Subject: What is text? Date: 22 May 90 16:24:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 311 (334) John Slatin gives a detailed example of a question about text, but the question seems pretty easy to me. When I write something and then revise it, I don't have one text, I have two. I have the first draft, and a revision. Simple. Your poet, John, has several versions of her poem. The versions probably reflect various stages of her artistic life and I would study them in that light. I would be hard put to imagine any other approach. The _Ulysses_ debate seems to me to have more to do with the notion of "authorized edition", an ancient battle between publishers and writers. Is this really all there is to this debate? Of course there are different versions to any literary work. There are different versions to interoffice memos, for pity's sake. This is scarcely grounds for philosophical arguments in academic journals. The good historian will collect everything possible and make sense of it as best she or he can. I agree with Sperberg-McQueen that a text can include computer programs and recipies and the like; I have some misgivings over wiring diagrams. If we allow that, why should we not call the drawings in an artist's sketchbook "text"? In the Middle Ages artists worked from highly standardized sketchbooks which they were expected to use as a kind of template for their own work. They had more room to make changes than does an electrician, but the function was pretty much the same. I would stick at words -- a text has words. Skip Knox Microcomputer Coordinator (cum) Medieval Historian Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: Skip Knox Subject: What is text, again? Date: 22 May 90 16:24:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 312 (335) Humph. I asked folks to explain the debate over textuality without referring me to books and Robin Cover pulls a fast one and refers me to articles instead. No fair! And, in the abstract of the first article, I'm informed that "text is best represented as an ordered hierarchy of content object[s]. . . ." Huh? An ordered hierarchy as distinguished from one the lacks order, I suppose. Why can't anyone involved in this subject speak in layman's terms? The issue seems to have something to do with how we draw conclusions from what we read - a subject of some interest to a historian - but I'll be blasted if I can puzzle out the jargon. Still waiting and hoping . . . Skip Knox Microcomputer Coordinator (cum) Medieval Historian Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: O.B. Hardison, Jr. Subject: RE: 4.0096 What is Text? (103) Date: 22 May 90 23:36:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 313 (336) I recall a lively paper on just this subject by Jim Thorpe in PMLA a couple of decades ago. It was a modestly witty reply to those textual critics, especially followers of Fredson Bowers, who claimed to have reduced textual criticism to exact (or almost exact) science. As I recall, Thorpe was discussing the problems of editing Emily Dickinson and pointed out that often the variants in the text of a single poem were so great that it was ludicrous to try to establish a single definitive "text." This problem is exactly the one that led to the celebrated recent controversy about the true "text of KING LEAR and resulted in the decision of the Oxford editors that there are really two plays and any attempt to conflate them falsifies both. But before leaving this topic, I'd like to add that a "text" is also something that is supposed to have - and to be able to accomplish - its cultural mission. I am haunted by the history of classical texts between the late 15th century - when the object was to produce texts that could be used by what you might think of as the "general reading public" (whatever that phrase or its equivalent might have meant in the 15th century) because "reading the classics" was considered by humanists to be culturally beneficial - and the style of textual editing of the 17th and later centuries, when ancient authors were all but walled off behind barriers of complex apparatus. Point is, a text that has been so "edited" that people are put off by it is maybe quite different from the text that the author might have wanted to produce. I don't mean to be anti-intellectual, merely to point out that the ifdea of "text" includes the idea of what the text is to be used for, how it is to be read and by whom, etc. Having written this, I wonder if the problems of producing "texts" of older authors aren't analogous to the problems of translation - what is one really after? From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0096 What is Text? (103) Date: Wed, 23 May 90 11:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 314 (337) Offhand, off the top of the hand, so to say, one might opine that all the versions are of course texts by Miss Moore. What each version IS, is another question. In #1 the poet says one thing; in another the poet says another. None of them constitute THE poem. It is significant that she herself kept refashioning her text for THE POEM. If you look at a lithograph by Picasso or Matisse that has several stages of redoing, or better yet his successive linocuts, to change the image by substracting surfaces and colors, you get an image, or "poem," as it were, that is different because the form that constitutes it is materially altered. All artists who work in materials have usually a pleothora of versions of a particular image. We who work in words tend, perhaps, to work as if the texct is an ocon that represents an ideal image or idea, in the mind of BEING itself...? As for the versions of ULYSSES, it is erhaps not Random House to look at, casuistically and marxistly, but the conditions under which it was produced in France. FINNEGANS W. is a hairier case, because fo the constant rewritings and scrfawling of the almost sandblind JAJ. Taken loosely, all the printed versions of a poem are poems, each different. Events that occur differently, though they may have common reference in the title. Since poetry is so slippery a godling, perhaps that is what troubled M Moore herself. Or did she simply decide that new versions vere superior foul papers, a most cynically subversive thought, no? I take it back, just kidding. Kessler at UCLA From: MERIZ@pittvms Subject: Accents and Forms of Address Date: Tue, 22 May 90 23:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 315 (338) It may very well be that "we don't usually put people down by their accents in the USA". Still, our claims to egalitarianism notwithstanding, some accents remain more acceptable than others (in corporate boardrooms, for example, or on network newscasts). As far as forms of address are concerned, might not the widespread practice of addressing secretaries by their first name be viewed as a variation on the master/servant relationship? -Diana Meriz meriz@pittvms.bitnet From: stephen clark Subject: Accents and Democracy Date: Wed, 23 May 90 10:00:26 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 316 (339) I haven't been following the discussion about how to address students, staff and vice-chancellors, so I don't know what lies behind Kessler's sudden declaration that Great Britain is not a republic (true) nor yet a democracy (he/she must have a different definition of democracy than mine). It's true that - in England (which is not the whole of Britain) - accents tend to identify class and locality, and that this can cause problems. But so what? Most of us like hearing different accents, and do our best to imitate at least a few of them because we like them. My own natural accent carries Staffordshire/Teeside vowels inside an Oxford matrix: the Oxford bit gets despised at times, but not the vowel sounds. Stephen Clark Liverpool University From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE Subject: RE: 4.0097 Classes and Lectures; Forms of Address (64) Date: Wed, 23 May 90 15:16 -0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 317 (340) I would like o take issue with KESSLER at UCLA on his statement: "Well, GB is not a republic, nor a democracy, and we dont usually put people down by their accents in the USA....." First, I don't know kessler's definition of a democracy, but having lived quite a few years in a military dictatorship in Brazil, and 5 odd years in the UK, I can assure him that GB, as he calls it, is most certainly a democracy by anyones definition (except, it seems, by his). As to not putting people down by their accents, it does not seems that Mr. Kessler has had any contact with East Coast prep schools and the Ivy League brigade (I did both) where accents are very much taken as a marker of a person's social standing. Standard disclaimers apply, (I am neither american or british) Dennis From: "Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras" Subject: addressing students Date: 23 May 90 10:29:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 318 (341) Apropos of addressing students, Kessler writes that graduate students deserve friendly intimacy if they are of the same gender. I am certainly glad that the male professors with whom I worked closely in graduate school didn't share that attitude. This view would deny a great many female (and some male) graduate students the sort of working relationships that can make the difference between a worthwhile educational experience and a miserable slog. Obviously his caveat stems from a concern about accusations of sexual harassment. This is a real problem (both the existence of actual harassment, and the possibility of innocently meant comments being taken as harassment). It can, of course, exist between members of the same gender as well. And I would be very surprised if female students ever feel harassed when a male professor is treating them exactly as he treats his male students--the problem of misinterpretation arises when a professor thinks that friendly collegial intimacy with women requires different behavior from that with men. If we (faculty) don't know how to be friends with graduate students (or colleagues) of the opposite sex without creating an impression of impropriety, it's about time we learned. Ruth Mazo Karras University of Pennsylvania From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Re: 4.0099 TeX answer; Scanner query (35) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 17:48:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 319 (342) Concerning Joel Goldfield's inquiry about the Datacopy OCR-Plus software, be warned that this software is not fully trainable. Specifically, it is hardwired for look-alike checking, so that if you train foreign characters that look nothing alike to '1' and 'l' (for example), it will not bother to look at the bitmaps, but will instead use its "intelligence" to decide whether you mean a letter or numeral. I made the mistake of purchasing such a package after calls to tech support assured me that it was well suited for the project I had planned using various Cyrillic materials. When I discovered these limitations and protested, technical support first insisted that I was mistaken. They then admitted that I was correct and insisted that this was not a bug or a design flaw and that their system was perfectly trainable and ideally suited for foreign languages because "we sell lots of them in Germany." My dealer took it back and sold me a Panasonic scanner and SPOT, which I have been very happy with. Datacopy burned him by refusing to take back the hardware or software, which meant he had to tie up his funds until he could find another buyer who didn't need real foreign-alphabet trainability. I conclude that the Datacopy OCR-plus program is a bomb for foreign alphabet work, although it may work acceptably with Latin alphabet languages other than English. I also find Datacopy's treatment of their customers and dealers unacceptable, exploitative, and abusive. Caveat emptor. --David djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: scanner Date: 23 May 90 11:28:47 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 320 (343) --- Forwarded Message from Otmar K. E. Foelsche --- We have tested the Siemens Scanner (400) with Omnipage and with Textpert. The US Version of Omnipage does not include drivers for the Siemens scanner at this point. We have been using the German version. The results have been satisfactory. The scanner appears to be faster than the Apple Scanner. We have also been using Textpert on the Siemens Scanner. The results, after training, are acceptable. Accutext does not include the Siemens driver. A phone call about two weeks ago informed us that Accutext could not get the driver from Siemens. MacWorld, on the other hand, mentioned that the latest update to Accutext contains the Siemens driver. We have not received the latest update... Otmar Foelsche From: cb%kcp.UUCP@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Christopher Bader) Subject: Scanners and OCR Date: Wed, 23 May 90 13:16:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 321 (344) I am one of the authors of Accutext, so of course I recommend it. Caere's Omnipage is also good. You should not consider any OCR software for the Mac other than those two, however. The Xerox Datacopy GS Plus, which my company sells, is a pretty good scanner. You may also want to consider the HP Scan Jet Plus. From: "Robin C. Cover" Subject: PC-KIMMO: a two-level processor for morphological analysis Date: Tue, 22 May 90 20:32:17 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 111 (345) Keywords: KIMMO, two-level model, morphological parsing, finite state morphology PC-KIMMO is a new implementation for microcomputers of a program dubbed KIMMO after its inventor Kimmo Koskenniemi. It is of interest to computational linguists, descriptive linguists, and those developing natural language processing systems. The program is designed to generate (produce) and/or recognize (parse) words using a two-level model of word structure in which a word is represented as a correspondence between its lexical level form and its surface level form. PC-KIMMO is language-independant. For each language description the user prepares two input files: (1) a set of rules that govern phonological/orthographic alternations and (2) a lexicon that lists all words (morphemes) in their lexical form and specifies constraints on their order. The rules and lexicon are implemented computationally using finite state machines. The purpose of developing PC-KIMMO is to provide a version of the two-level processor that runs on an IBM PC compatible computer. The PC-KIMMO program is actually a shell program that serves as an interactive user interface to the primitive PC-KIMMO functions. It provides an environment for developing, testing, and debugging two-level descriptions. The primitive PC-KIMMO functions are also available as a C-language source code library that can be included in a program written by the user. This means that the user can develop and debug a two-level description using the PC-KIMMO shell and then link PC-KIMMO's functions into his own program. For example, a syntactic parsing program could use PC-KIMMO as a morphological preprocessor. PC-KIMMO will run on the following systems: MS-DOS or PC-DOS (any IBM PC compatible) UNIX System V (SCO UNIX V/386 and A/UX) and 4.2 BSD UNIX Apple Macintosh The PC-KIMMO software is packaged with the book that describes how to use it: Antworth, Evan L. 1990. PC-KIMMO: a two-level processor for morphological analysis. Occasional Publications in Academic Computing No. 16. Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 0-88312-639-7, 273pp., $23.00. The book is a full-length tutorial on writing two-level linguistic descriptions with PC-KIMMO. It also fully documents the PC-KIMMO user interface and the source code function library. The book with release diskette(s) is available from: International Academic Bookstore 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas TX, 75236 phone 214/709-2404 There are two versions of the PC-KIMMO release diskette(s), one for IBM PC compatibles and one for the Macintosh. Each contains the executable PC-KIMMO program, examples of language descriptions, and the source code library for the primitive PC-KIMMO functions. The PC-KIMMO executable program and the source code library are copyrighted but are made freely available to the general public under the condition that they not be resold or used for commercial purposes. For those who wish to compile PC-KIMMO for their UNIX system, it is necessary to first obtain either the DOS or Macintosh version and then contact us at the address given at the end of this message. In addition to the book and full software release, a demo copy of PC-KIMMO is also available for downloading from various network sites. The package contains the executable PC-KIMMO program (the full program), some basic documentation to get you started, and a couple of sample descriptions to run. The IBM PC version is contained in an archive that must be restored using the PKUNZIP program available on many bulletin boards. In order to preserve the directory structure, be sure to use the -d option; that is, type "pkunzip -d pckimmo". The Macintosh version is contained in an archive that must be restored with the UnStuffIt program available on many bulletin boards. PC-KIMMO is a research project in progress, not a finished commercial product. In this spirit, we invite your response to the software and the book. Please direct your comments to: Academic Computing Department PC-KIMMO project 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 phone: 214/709-2418 Internet: evan@txsil.lonestar.org (Evan Antworth) (via Compuserve: >Internet evan@txsil.lonestar.org) From: Mark Rooks Subject: P-text errors; Clean e-text algorithm Date: Tue, 22 May 90 23:17:53 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 112 (346) Ken Steele writes that "even conventional printed publications" sometimes have a large number of errors. We looked at a 250K work by J. S. Mill, published in the late 1980's by one of the two leading British university presses; we found over 50 word errors in the work. We looked at a different 280K work by Mill published in 1978 by a U.S. commercial press, and found over 60 word and 1200 punctuation errors. Both editions purported to be the last edition published in Mill's lifetime; hence the errors were deviations from the last edition (which we had in hand). (None of the errors were corrections in Mill; these numbers ignore spelling discrepancies.) (We handed the U.S. press their errors; they promised corrections in a later edition.) We are now working with 5 different editions posing as "reprints" of Bentham's 1823 edition of Intro. to the Princ. of Morals and Legislation. Unfortunately all five occasionally disagree with one another, although 3-2 disagreements are more common. (Interlibrary loan has yet to gainsay us a copy of the actual 1823. Interlibrary loan: "But we have reprints of the 1823.") Not all print is bad (though all is suspect): we found 5 word discrepancies between a ~1900 Oxford reprint of the 1651 Leviathan, and the Mcpherson Penguin 1651 reprint, none terribly important (e.g. 'these' vs. 'those'). The Mcpherson differed by 1 word from the actual 1651, the Oxford by 4. By contrast the 1843 Molesworth Leviathan differed by over 350 words and 2000 punctuation marks from the 1651, ignoring orthography and spelling modernization. Assuming the availability of multiple editions (not based on one another) with multiple typefaces, scanning should produce nearly flawless text. Double or triple scan and file compare. On different typefaces the scanner will rarely make the same errors. We usu. follow this procedure: scan 1 edition, proofread it onscreen, electronically proofread it; scan a 2nd edition; print out a file comparison and arbitrate with a 3rd edition. For the 3rd edition we usu. use the last edition published in the author's lifetime, unless it itself is scannable. (We thereby generate the last edition in the author's lifetime (though there are complications of course).) Cleanup of the first scan is the bottleneck, assuming decent scanning equipment. We are more likely to introduce an error by an inadvertent keystroke during our markup phase, than miss one with the above procedure. Too many discrepancies warrant a third scan (of a 3rd edition). The second scan sometimes requires cleanup, but no guessing is permitted (since the same wrong guess might be made in the cleanup of the first scan). At 1 error per megabyte (Ken Steele's figure), the notion of error itself becomes problematic. Though I'm sure these issues have been discussed in this forum: does one duplicate missing periods in the author's last edition? Misspelled (?) words? (Critical editions sometimes address these concerns.) How does one discover (assuming realistic economic constraints) that a database contains only 1 error per megabyte? Or fewer than 1 per megabyte? (If I observe the error, it no longer is (a variant on Heisenberg?) (the Textual Uncertainty Principle?).) Mark Rooks From: Gordon Dixon, Institute of Advanced Studies Subject: 4.0095 Siegen: Comparative linguistics Date: Wed, 23 May 90 08:51:12 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 113 (347) (Tuesday, 22nd May, 1990) Information for David Nash dgn612@csc2.anu.OZ.AU THE NEW MEDIUM ALLC/ICCH International Siegen Conference Federal Republic of Germany June 4-9, 1990 Friday, 8 June Main Topic: Methods and Applications 2:00-2:30pm Parallel Session (Chair: N.N.) The Total of the Distances between the Languages as an Index of the Compactness of the Language Families (Yuri Tambovtsev, Lvov Lesotechnical Institute) Yuri Tambovtsev is the Slavonic and USSR representative for the ALLC Literary and Linguistic Computing Journal published by Oxford University Press. His address is: Professor Dr. Y. A. Tambovtsev, Chairman Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, Lvov Lesotechnical Institute, 290044 Lvov-44, P.O. Box 8834, USSR. Yuri wishes to attend the conference but says that as the rouble is not convertible he would need to seek financial assistance. He can pay for his return travel to the conference but not for expenditure in the West. Gordon Dixon G.DIXON@UK.AC.MANCHESTER Editor L&LC From: Malcolm Hayward Subject: A Danish Address? Date: 22 May 90 17:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 322 (348) I'd like a contact at the University of Copenhagen, particularly the Center for Translation studies, to transmit a file. Any connections? Thanks. Malcolm Hayward MHayward@IUP Department of English Phone: 412-357-2322 or IUP 412-357-2261 Indiana, PA 15705 From: arb1%ukc.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Subject: Swift,satire,etc. Date: Wed, 23 May 90 09:20:30 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 323 (349) I remember reading somewhere in the late sixties that someone - and it is that vague - rewrote Swift's Modest Proposal in modern English and published it in a West Coast local paper. The reaction was outrage. Readers assumed that the writer really was advocating cannibalism. Can anybody help me trace the reference, and does anybody know of other occasions where parody or satire have been taken at their face value, particularly when the satire (or parody) has suggested forms of activity so outrageous that no reasonable (! sic) person could take them seriously? I would find it helpful to receive personal replies. As much as I enjoy reading some of the crazier contributions (and even some of the heavy intellectual theoretical discussions), I don't always find the time to go through everything. Tony Bex arb1@ukc.ac.uk From: Mary Dee Harris Subject: Misplaced Particles ( and such) Date: 22 May 90 22:04:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 324 (350) I've been out of town (and off HUMANIST) for about 10 days and am just now catching up, so my comments may seem quite delayed. But I couldn't resist -- Charles Young referred to the graduate student who wrote "Hester Prynne had to leave the town that branded her behind." When I was a graduate English major at UT Austin, we had a select society of those who had read all seven books of "The Faerie Queen" -- not at all a large group, but one which I belonged to. I recall at one of our society meetings (invariably over some sort of spirited beverages) that I was the only one to remember the scene in the 5th or 6th book, when Spenser describes Una and her donkey after their long trek through the woods, as (and I paraphrase) "And Una lay down with her ass in the moonlight." Who says that grad. students have a monopoly on the pseudo-scatological! Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0098 Words: Wordolitarianism; Pronounciation & Syntax (79) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 22:10 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 325 (351) Nissim: your d'annunzio anecdote is delicious. Many thanks! There is I think a freudian sexological symbolism in Mussolini's formulation, too obvious to explicate, I should think. Kessler @ucla From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0088 3 Nerds and a Doddle (69) Date: Wed, 23 May 90 12:02 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 326 (352) Before the NERD there was the turkey, no? I was surprised by it in an essay in the year 1958, and asked what turkey was doing in the closet of the frat house? They laughed at me. It wasnt part of my vocabulary for jerk and the like. Now a nerd is also an asshole, a term of opprobrium I dislike, but which, heavens! came yesterday in the synonym list for Micrfsoft's Thesaurus Desk Accessory called WORD FINDER! Was I surprised! The talking asshole first appeared in an extended joke, to my first reading that is, in Burroughs' NAKED LUNCH, but it must have been around much earlier, given his fascination with that orifice and its vicissitudes. Kessler cleaning up his email From: BML@PSUARCH.Bitnet Subject: belated response re midrash and collage Date: Tue, 22 May 90 23:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 327 (353) Marc Bregman a couple weeks ago posted a query about collage as a model for the structure of midrash. There has already been some invoking of an analagous model for such redaction according to non-diachronic criteria. The model bases itself on cinematic montage, however, rather than pla stic arts and has been applied to inner-biblical problematic editing (rather than to post-biblical work). Eisenstein's (Sergei) THE FILM SENSE about the synergy achieved in splicing divergent shots together is particularly appropriate. For use of this model, see: R. Alter, THE ART OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE (New York: Basic Books, 1981) 140. Also, Mr. Bregman, your colleague Alan Cooper at HUC (Cincinnati) has also invoked such a model in his work, I believe several years ago in a review in the journal STUDIES IN RELIGION; you might check with him directly. Hope this is of use, Bernie Levinson, Penn State From: Subject: CYBERMARS Date: Wed, 23 May 90 11:32 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 328 (354) Have been informed about your recent Cyberspace Conference in msg. fm MHEIM forwarded to me. Colleague Mel Neville and I "taught" a Mars Colony simulation this last spring: 24 students role-playing and "MUD-gaming" in "Tiny Mars" address "telenet naucse.cse.nau.edu 5678 (for TinyMars), 4201 (for Dragon) JOPSY (John Phillip Crane) keeps house there. Colony was linked over BIXNET to other communities in same Solar System. We plan to do a better job in Spring semester 91 with teams/ classes on several other campuses, each smulating a "viable community" somewhere ~2040; we get Mars again! Intent to use BITNET, sharing syllabi among instructors, etc. All this sounds pertinent to how your Conference was focused; we remain open to innovations and alternatives. From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Still more on Humanist structure Date: 22 May 90 19:30:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 117 (355) I would urge D. Greenberg to spend more time with HUMANIST before making the judgments which he does in his recent posting. It seems to me that "we" (and what this "we" is, is still very problematic!) have been discussing these topics (what is a text? what is an e-text?) off and on for quite some time. Granted one does not find here the rigor and thoroughness expected from a (good) scholarly paper or monograph; but we need to remember that this is a new thing--so new that even its newness is yet undefined--and we're still finding our way, establishing the protocols, and all that. At least, that's how I feel about it. HUMANIST may often sound more like informal conversation in the hallway or at the lunch table--but where I work, that is often far more productive and stimulating than what goes on in the lecture hall! George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: Bob Boynton Subject: Sony electronic books Date: Wed, 23 May 90 08:12 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 118 (356) Forwarded by: Michael Hart Cross-Posted to: GUTNBERG; MBU-L; OBI; PACS-L The Washington Post had a story a week ago on Sony's "electronic book." That is the only place I have seen it mentioned. It is not a whole lot of information -- Bob Boynton Sony to Make Electronic Books 'Data Discman' Player Will Use 3-Inch CDs David Thurber Tokyo, May 15--Sony Corp., the brains behind the ubiquitous Walkman stereo, said today it will introduce an "electronic book" system that uses a palm-size player for reading books recorded on 3-inch compact discs. Sony's "Data Discman" player has a screen that displays text recorded on CDs called Electronic Books that each can store about 100,000 pages of text--more than 300 paperback books, Sony officials said. "The purpose of this product is to create an entirely new market. Instead of having to go to a library or bookshelf for information, people can have access to it anytime and anywhere," said Sunobu Horigome, head of Sony's General Audio Group. If successful, Sony's reward could be big. In two years, the Japanese market alone for CD information discs, including the new CD books, is expected to grow to about $2.6 billion, according to Hideo Nishikawa, general manager of new media development for the publishing house Iwanami Shoten. Sony said it plans to begin marketing the machine in Japan on July 1 for about $380. Overseas sales are expected to begin in less than a year, after arrangements with local publishers are made, officials said. The Data Discman comes with a CD containing five different English and Japanese language dictionaries and can be plugged into a regular television screen to create a larger display. Users also can listen to regular 3-inch audio CDs with an earphone. A small typewriter-like keyboard allows a user to select particular entries or portions of the text. Twenty-eight Japanese publishing companies have formed an Electronic Book committee that cooperated with Sony in developing the format, said Nishikawa. Eighteen CD Electronic Book titles will be released at the same time as the Data Discman. Titles will include reference books and guides to medicine, movies, travel and entertainment, he said. Electronic Books are likely to cost an average $20 to $33, Nishikawa said. "Novels are certainly possible, but the question is how successful they will be because of the small screen," a Sony official said. The screen can display only 10 lines at a time, but can be "scrolled" up or down. Both the CDs and player will be sold through regular bookstores. The player's built-in software allows it to display indexes and quickly find particular portions of the text. Compact discs use digital codes to record information ranging from music to computer programs or databases. Those that contain data used by computers are called CD-ROM--CD read only memory--because they generally cannot be altered or re-recorded. Washington Post May 16, 1990 pp. D9,D13 From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear Subject: mail distribution options Date: Thu, 24 May 90 15:43:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 119 (357) If you would like your Humanist mail discontinued temporarily we recommend that rather than 'unsubscribing' you instead set your listserv distribution option to NOMAIL by sending email to listserv@brownvm or listserv@brownvm.brown.edu with this line for the body set humanist nomail If you at a Bitnet/Netnorth/Earn node, you can try to set this option interactively by sending listserv@brownvm the message "set humanist nomail". From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: What is text? Date: 24 May 1990, 07:01:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 329 (358) O.B. Hardison brings up a difficult but interesting point that Humanist has touched on in the past: when should an editor translate an old or difficult text into modern English and when should he or she leave it in its original form? Even seventeenth-century spelling, pointing, italics can be confusing to a modern reader, but a poet like George Herbert, in a poem like "Easter Wings," meant something by phonetic spelling, by the varying degrees of pauses indicated by the different marks of punctuation and not only by italicised words or phrases but also by the shape of the poem on the page. So what does a modern editor do with that? The text in this case might be a printed version as compared with the manuscript prepared from the author's by a careful and devoted scribe. Shouldn't the editor of Herbert, basing his or her decisions on a careful study of all of the printed and manuscript versions of the text, arrange the versions in a chronological tree and then select the text that seems to represent the author's final intentions (or in some rare cases his best intentions?)? In the case of the versions of _King Lear_ with something like equal authority, both texts might be published together. For a scholar, and especially for the scholar who uses electronic texts, the more authoritative or even "bad quarto" texts, the better. To come back to the question above, should we modernize, say, Wyatt, and not modernize Spenser, because Spenser's spelling seems to be more important to his phonetic system and hence the sound and meaning of his poems? And should we modernize Shakespeare because if we don't modern American students might not read him? We obviously need to translate Chaucer for someone who cannot bother to learn the English of London in 1400, but we realize there is a loss in that translation. Comments? Roy Flannagan From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Re: 4.0101 Errors and CD-ROMs Date: Thu, 24 May 90 09:05:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 330 (359) In response to both John Slatin's comments on variations in Marianne Moore's poetry and Ken Steele's comments in errors in electronic texts: There are several ways in which the current model of electronic text is impoverished when compared to printed text. One important one is that there is no agreement about conveying variations or critical apparatus as part of the text. Obviously it can be done, and I would argue that it can be done more effectively in electronic form than it is currently done on the printed page. But it is missing from most of what I see today. Likewise, we have no way currently to update and correct electronic texts in a timely manner. Once again, it can be done, but it will take some infrastructure. One example from the sciences that comes to mind is the Online Mandelian Inheritance of Man (OMIM), a catalog of genetic mapping produced by a professor at Johns Hopkins Univ. This is published as a book once a year, but it is also maintained as an online database that can be accessed over various networks. The professor in charge takes corrections and amendations via e-mail and updates the database on a weekly basis. The result is a very useful resource to the participating community. From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0108 What is Text? (4/123) Date: Thursday, 24 May 1990 9:28am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 331 (360) A quick reply to Skip Knox: Of course you're right when you say that there are umpteen versions of Moore's poem "Poetry," as well as several versions of Joyce's _Ulysses_. And you're right, too, in pointing out that much of the problem has to do with "authorized editions" and what *text* they include. But this isn't such a simple matter, at least not when we're talking about print. The "Definitive Edition" of Moore's _Complete Poems_, for instance, includes only the three-line (1967) text of "Poetry" and the "Longer Version" that appears in the notes; there's no reference at all to the 13-line version of 1925. A variorum edition could of course handle this problem; so could a hypertext or other on-line version. As for _Ulysses_, things get a bit more complex: the "reading text" published by Random House after Gabler's massive project is very odd: every word in it was at some point written by Joyce during the preparation of _Ulysses_, and yet the text published by Random House had never existed before-- it cannot be traced back to any single extant text of _Ulysses_. So what is the text of _Ulysses_? And if a text is something that "has words," what becomes of Blake-- to say nothing of more recent forms like interactive fiction? John Slatin From: Willard McCarty Subject: collage, biblical narrative structure, and e-mail Date: Wed, 23 May 1990 21:44:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 332 (361) Bernie Levinson's reference to Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative is a useful one. Alter's book is interesting but not, in my view, as good as it could have been if the author had not fought so hard to avoid the idea of typology, especially as developed by Erich Auerbach and studied by such people as Jean Danielou. (Alter actually detours to Homeric criticism to pick up the notion of "type scenes" rather than to get what he needs from the biblical tradition itself.) The question of structure in a work constructed out of fragmentary sources is a particularly relevant one for scholars of electronic communication to consider, since the proceedings of an electronic seminar are radically discontinuous. Is it too much, too wild to suppose that exegetical skills honed on the Bible and other patchwork texts would prove effective in dealing with such radically discontinuous sources as e-seminars or other multidimensional conversations? By "patchwork" I imply no disrespect of the texts in question. As Auerbach showed masterfully for the Bible, a collage of disjunct, contradictory, or repetitive segments can be more powerful by far than any smooth, logical sequence of prose could ever manage. Breathtaking, in fact. Of course, the collected works of Humanist ain't no Bible. I'm thinking merely of certain rudimentary, yet strikingly unknown, techniques for dealing with text that comes in seemingly undigested lumps. Willard McCarty From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: Midrash and collage Date: Thu, 24 May 90 09:10:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 333 (362) I do hope Mr. Bregman will read the penetrating critiques of Jacob Neusner regarding recent work on midrash. Neusner insists that each collection of midrashic comments has an agendum reacting to specific historical, social and economic circumstances. Each midrashic collection has its own view of the world embedded in the various comments to individual verses. The notion of midrash as collage appears to me at first glance to defy this systematic conclusion and offer in its stead a rather vague and listless substitute. I suggest for a summary of Neusner's method and conclusions _Canon and Connection: Intertextuality in Judaism_, UPA:1987. The author summarizes his studies of Mishnah, Talmud and major midrashic works such as Leviticus Rabbah, Sifra, Sifre, Pesiqta deRab Kahana, analyzing the relation to scripture in each case, the logic and rhetoric of each document, the topic and proposition in each program. He concludes with a vigorous critique of Cohen, Schiffman and Handelman and a discussion of intertextuality. Anyone who has gone through this material would be forced to agree that the notion of collage has little value in the study of midrash. (Unfortunately many Israeli scholars refuse to read Neusner. The Hebrew Union College library in Jerusalem cancelled their order for one of his translation series on the basis of a vindictive review in JAOS several years ago. Thus I suspect that Mr. Bregman may not have the research tools available to pursue the subject in light of the most current publications in the discipline. Please correct me if I am wrong.) E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, 310 FOLWELL HALL, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 From: LSXLSLS@UCHIMVS1 Subject: SGML Date: Wed, 23 May 90 21:17 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 334 (363) Am I correct in understanding that SGML is a{ standard set of ASCII codes for non-ASCII language symbols? If so, how do I obtain a list of these codes? Thanks Tim Bryson (lsxlsls@uchimvs1) From: Knut Hofland +47 5 212954/55/56 FAFKH at NOBERGEN Subject: Concordancing/text retrieval on Unix Date: 24 May 90, 19:05:32 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 335 (364) On Macintosh and MS-DOS there exists several freeware text retrieval programs like "Free Text Browser" on Macintosh and TACT on MS-DOS. Does anybody know of similar programs for Unix? It could be a simple command driven program or preferably a program that index the text and display the word list, concordance and text in separate windows. Knut Hofland The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Street adr: Harald Haarfagres gt. 31 Post adr: P.O. Box 53, University N-5027 Bergen Norway Tel: +47 5 212954/5/6 Fax: +47 5 322656 From: John Morris Subject: CALI request Date: Wed, 23 May 90 20:17:52 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 336 (365) The Alberta Research Council is currently preparing a database of PC-based interactive Computer-Assisted Learning and Instruction packages in the following general subject areas related to the construction industry: Trades training Health and safety New materials, designs, techniques and technology Project management General business practices Although the project may only be of peripheral interest to humanists, I would be grateful for any assistance in tracking down packages or software manufacturers who specialize in interactive learning software. Information on a more appropriate forum, such as a civil engineering list similar to Humanist, or a reposting of this request to such a list, would also be greatly appreciated. Private responses are requested, but if any interest is expressed, I will post a digest to Humanist. John Morris JMORRIS@UALTAVM.BITNET From: Subject: RE: TeX sources Date: Thu, 24 May 90 08:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 337 (366) TeX for MS-DOS, along with a collection of macros (along with a huge collection of other free- and shareware) is available through anonymous FTP from WSMR20-SIMTEL.ARMY.MIL (This is the White Sands Missle Range). There is a file called PD1:SIMIBM.ARC that lists all files available. Perry Willett SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: "Robin C. Cover" Subject: HELP ON TOPOS: WHAT IS MAN? Date: Thu, 24 May 90 07:00:47 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 338 (367) HELP WANTED: Rhetorical Irony on "What is man...?" Can fellow HUMANISTS supply some classical/medieval/modern literary parallels to the memorable biblical passage (in sexist RSV language): What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou dost care for him? (Psalm 8:4 - Heb 8:5) These lines have several fascinating twists already in the biblical corpus, with evidence that the "original" lines were misunderstood or deliberately mis-represented quite early. The most celebrated example is Job's complaint ("bug off, God"): What is man, that thou dost make so much of him And that thou dost set thy mind upon him (That thou dost) visit him every morning And test him every moment. (Job 7:17-18, RSV) Paul Dion in SR 16/2 cites two passages in Kipling which are reflexes of this "what is man...?" topos. One is from the first Jungle Book, where "Bagheera the black panther recites to Mowgli, 'What is Man that we should care for him...'" and the second is from Kipling's "Harp Song of the Dane Women" in Puck of Pook's Hill, "What is a woman that you forsake her?" I'd appreciate any other literary reflexes known to HUMANISTS, especially usages embodying irony. More generally: how does one go about finding such kinds of parallels? Were I to have access to all world literature on computer, I can think of some queries on patterns in various languages... but failing that (or Lou Burnard's offer to run a few queries against the entire Oxford Archive), how does one find such things? The Stith Thompson motif index (haven't checked) is too much focused on folklore, I imagine. Your specific or general help will be gratefully received (in support of a very noble cause -- unmentionable, but known disdainfully in our family as "the D-thing"). Willard -- you seem to have some interest and expertise in studying literary topoi? Dredging up quotations and allusions? Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org UUCP: attctc!utafll!robin UUCP: attctc!cdword!cover UUCP: texbell!txsil.robin From: vincent b.y. OOI Subject: Re: Classes & Lectures Date: Thu, 24 May 90 20:01:30 -0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 339 (368) I'm interested in reading the report that Germaine Warkentin (Hi!) cites for the figures of school-leavers going on to university in Canada, the States, and Britain: could I have the reference please? Also, does anyone else have similar figures? Regards, Vincent From: Ed Haupt Subject: query Date: Thu, 24 May 90 12:59:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 340 (369) Does anyone know 1) who is the source, 2) what is the most commonly accepted English translation of Wie die Leber die Galle, so erzeugt das Gehirn das Denken. Any recent sources on the history of materialism in 19th-century German/continental science would be welcome Ed Haupt Department of Psychology Montclair State College Upper Montclair NJ 07043 haupt@pilot.njin.net From: KESSLER Subject: Re: 4.0103 Nerds; Confucius didn't say it (36) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 22:04 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 341 (370) INTERESTING THAT YOU SHOULD THINK TANG LEGENDARY. NOT AT ALL. READ MY SON'S DISS. 1989, ON MICROFILM NOW, THE ERLITOU SITE ETC., BY ADAM T. KESSLER, UCLA 1989. YOU MAY BE IN FOR A SURPRISE. J KESSLER From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Faerie Queene Date: Thu, 24 May 90 09:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 342 (371) If Mary Dee Harris actually read SEVEN books of "The Faerie Queene" she must indeed have been indulging in some "spirited beverages". :-) :-) :-) A standard joke among my class of grad students was "If you found the lost 6 books of FQ would you tell anyone?" Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Satire Date: Thu, 24 May 90 09:20 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 343 (372) Tony Bex, In reply to your request for instances of parody being taken seriously-- In Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt" there is a scene in which George Babbitt delivers a speech to his realtor's association convention. It is full of the usual Babbitt chauvinism, patriotism, and illogic. Some years ago (maybe 10?) an American actor (can't remember his name--recognizable, but not a big star) delivered the same speech verbatim to a group (Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions?) in Duluth, Minnesota. Members of the audience were interviewed later and commented that the speech was stirring, inspirational, etc. None recognized its source. This was all televised as part of a special on midwest attitudes or some such thing. Sorry to be so fuzzy about all of this but it was quite a while ago and although it was pretty funny I had no reason to remember the details of it. I'm sending this to both you and HUMANIST; maybe someone else on the list will have a better recollection of the show. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: PRIMER@DRACO.BITNET Subject: Swift,satire,etc. Date: Thu, 24 May 90 10:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 344 (373) Tony Bex asks for "other occasions where parody or satire have been taken at their face value [etc.]." The best example by far is Defoe's "The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters" (1702), which gained instant notoriety and did not long remain a work by "anonymous." Irwin Primer, English Dept., Rutgers University, Newark NJ 07102 From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE Subject: RE: 4.0106 Greek fonts; Chinese word processors (42) Date: Thu, 24 May 90 10:32 -0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 345 (374) Christopher Bader claims that: "One of the reasons linguists should prefer Mac's to PC's is that you can't do this on a PC. The screen cursor on a PC cannot back up." I think Mr Bader is slightly misinformed. What actually happens is that the Mac works full time in a graphics screen (what this means is that each pixel - picture element on the screen is controled by software). IBM and clones work in two modes, text and graphics. Text mode works with a predefined character set; this resides in ROM (Read Only Memory) and makes for much faster screen updates. Some of the newer display devices (EGA, VGA, 8514 and other variants) permit redefining the ROM characer set, you can substitute the "factory" character set for any 256 or less characters of your own design. This still leaves the problem of proportional spacing (the predefined character set has fixed spacing between characters). The other mode PC and clones work under is the graphic mode (of which there are several, but let's keep things simple). Under graphics mode, the PC family can do anything a q Mac can do. When a program takes advantage of graphics mode in the pc anything that can be programed into a Mac can also be programed into a pc. In point of fact, since the Mac has some inbuilt drawing tools (the so called Toolbox built into the machine) it is easier to program the mac for some applications which involve a lot of screen redrawing details, thus the richer offerings of desktop publishing software for the Mac. But inherently the PC has all the capabilities of a Mac, it is just that programers are a bit lazy in taking advantage of them. Regards Dennis From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Chinese WP Date: Thu, 24 May 90 08:19:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 346 (375) I seem to have missed the original question, so this is a comment on the answer about Chinese word processing. One of the best sources is CCNET-L@UGA (std. listserv cmds., so to subscribe send mail to LISTSERV@UGA with SUB CCNET-L in the body. They discuss both commercial and PD/shareware Chinese WP software, where to get it, development, and WP in general. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 BIX: eparker USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: "Sheizaf.Rafaeli" <21898MGR@MSU> Subject: Not really Halio, Disintermediation, Direct Manipulation Date: Wednesday, 23 May 1990 11:36pm ET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 127 (376) Blame Kessler for reigniting this one. I'm just here for the ride... I'd like to share some (experimental) results and run a short argument with those HUMANISTS not too blinded with infatuation with their own preferred machine... I've been interested in a concept system designers call "Direct Manipulation". In essence, this is a suggested guideline for those engaged in making software products. It intends to indicate how best to make computerized interfaces. Following is an abstract of a research report, titled "SEMANTICS OVER SYNTAX". "Direct Manipulation" is a theoretical construct used in explaining the quality of human-computer interaction. DM is often invoked to explain the appeal and diffusion of emerging hypermedia and other computerized communication applications. Building DM interfaces, it is claimed, should make interfaces as intuitive as the steering wheel. But DM, as a theoretical construct, lacks formal explication and validation. Here, I suggest one element: an interface is "direct manipulation" when it elevates semantics over syntax. Allow the contents of the task through, even at the cost of ceding the structure so dear to you. DM as transparency. I conducted two experiments. Each started with an some conventions about how the "syntax" of computerized tasks ought to be. In each, the conventional "syntax" imposes some structure on the semantics. In one, 101 subjects performed information retrieval tasks, using combinations of selection mechanisms and menu depth structures. In the second experiment, 56 subjects queried a database using different access methods: natural language, menu hierarchies, or complete content schemas. In both experiments, the DM-based access method proved superior, contradicting empirically-based extrapolations or conventional expectations, and supporting the construct validity of DM. Dependent measures include user confidence as well as the productivity measures of speed and accuracy. Direct manipulation or the transparency ideal should receive more attention in theory and research of computerized communication, as it is not just a convenient design principle. As a dimension of describing mediating systems, DM may have profound use in communication theory. Now, assuming my methods ARE kosher, (please let's spare the network), I'd like to pose a couple of questions: 1) My thinking is social-science, communication theory based. I'm sure this business of battling syntax and semantics has some treatment in the humanities as well. Could you show me? 2) Several disciplines have discussions of something called "disintermediation". For example, The Reformation is said to have disintermediate between people and God. I wish to claim that a "Direct manipulation" policy is a recipe for "disintermediation" (remove or reduce the syntax, or mediation. Highlight the semantics, or mediated). Has "disintermediation" appeared in any Humanities disciplines? 3) "Direct manipulation" was actually championed first by Macintosh supporters. Some may claim the Mac interface is DM, what with all the garbage cans on screen, mice in hands and all. But it seems that Halio is making the argument that these icons are all syntax that gets in the way of semantics. IBM, on the other hand, allows the sheer glory of the semantics to shine, disintermediatedly. Comments? Sheizaf Rafaeli Michigan State University, University of Michigan, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, (currently 21898MGR@MSU) From: Germaine Warkentin Subject: Faerie Queene Date: Fri, 25 May 90 10:12:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 347 (377) A pedantic note in support of Mary Dee Harris: Spenserians tend to divide on whether to count the "Two Cantoes of Mutabilitie" as the seventh book or not, and she must have studied with the one of the "yeas" rather than the "noes". With respect to longer works: when I was a grad student studying for the infamous U. of T. "Generals" we tended to award each other imaginary buttons when we knocked off one of the biggies, as in "Have you got you _Clarissa_ button yet?" Before I get into my famed variation on the "Ubi sunt" topos I think I better sign off. Germaine. From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: What is man? Date: Fri, 25 May 90 15:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 348 (378) In response to Robin C. Cover's inquiry about parallels to the biblical "What is man," let me offer two from Shakespeare. The first occurs in the following exchange between Lafew and Parolles in ALL'S WELL ENDS WELL, 2.3.192-195: Are you companion to the Count Rossillion? To any count, to all counts: to what is man. To what is count's man. Count's master is of another style. The second, surely better known, occurs in Hamlet's soliloquy from 4.4.32-35: How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. The first seems ironic; the second might echo Job's complaint. Hardy M. Cook Bowie State University From: O MH KATA MHXANHN Subject: wie die Leber die Galle... Date: Thu, 24 May 90 23:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 349 (379) Just happened to be browsing through Ludwig Buechner's _Kraft und Stoff_ during vacation last summer, and recall that, in a chapter entitled "Der Gedanke," that author refers to the materialist in question, Niklas Vogt (1755-1836). Buechner quotes Vogt thus: "Die Gedanken stehen in demselben Verhaeltnis zu dem Gehirn, wie die Galle zur Leber oder der Urin zu den Nieren." Hope this much is of help. W, McCarthy Washington, D.C. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Language Permutations Date: Tuesday, 22 May 1990 2208-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 350 (380) A brochure announcing the availability to educators of a discount on Bernoulli Boxes contains the following description of Bernoulli Technology: "When not spinning, the stationary media falls away from the read/write head, preventing head-crash." The accompanying diagram shows something called "Media" adjacent to the "Bernoulli Plate." I see at work here a linguistic process that takes a much used (sort of collective) plural word "media" (here specifically computer media; but also relevant in relation to "the media" and "mass media") and treats it as a singular, similar to "data" as a collective singular, I suppose. I suppose it is an unconscious process among persons not attuned to the quirks of Latinisms. Have other HUMANISTs noticed this development? Is there yet a tend to talk of "medias," for example, or to say things like "my favorite media is TV"? And are there OED "spies" on HUMANIST taking note of these discussions, to include the most accurate possible information in the next OED? I hope so. It changes before our very eyes. Isn't it fascinating data, in whatever medias?!" (1990) Bob Kraft, U Penn From: Julie Falsetti Subject: processes Date: Thu, 24 May 90 15:11:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 351 (381) I don't know if this bears any relevance to the question raised about the pronunciation of 'processes', but I recently completed a course in operating systems and the word process (a program in execution) was used frequently in both singular and plural. It was always pronounced in the plural as '-eez'. The professor began the course using the standard pronunciation, but after about two days he switched to the -eez form when students were unable to distinguish between 'processes' and 'processors'. Julie in New York City From: John Lavagnino Subject: What is a text? Date: Fri, 25 May 90 11:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 352 (382) The notion of hypertext as a form for critical editions of literary works has recently appeared even in the TLS: Jerome McGann, in the issue of May 11-17, 1990, comments on its particular value ``for writers who exhibit not merely an extreme interest in finished forms (unities of being), but who obsessively rework their texts in an effort to arrive at their impossible (and changing) dreams''---such as Yeats. John Lavagnino, Brandeis From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Error Date: 22 May 90 21:34:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 353 (383) `Accuracy is a duty, not a virtue' was A.E. Housman's view, characteristically acerbic, of the responsibility of editors of classical texts for reporting the readings of medieval manuscripts. `Zero defects' was the motto of the moment around military engineering facilities I knew twenty years ago. We panic at the thought that the risk of cancer may be doubled by ingesting some chemical without asking what the risk was before it was doubled: if 0.00000001, perhaps not a *dire* threat, but we seek assurance. We want out investments insured against all possibility of peculation and natural disaster. And all this in spite of the undeniable fact that most of us, even HUMANISTs, were actually born and raised as human beings. The best advice from the *long* tradition of copying and editing classical texts is to remember that every attempt to correct an error is itself a fallible human act. I suppose you could construct a curve to show the possible improvement in texts through mass proofreading through the ages, but 0 is only the asymptote, not the goal. Is it time again for the old legend about the Septuagint Greek translation of the Bible? How seventy scholars went into separate booths and each translated the whole of the Hebrew scripture and came out with miraculously identical and perfect texts (including, unaccountably, some texts for which Hebrew originals were not forthcoming). An old dream, the infallible, eternal, impeccable Word. From: Alan D Corre Subject: Direct Manipulation Date: Fri, 25 May 90 12:29:44 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 131 (384) I have tried hard to follow Sheizaf's contribution, because it seems important for my work with computers and also for my understanding of the world. I majored in Linguistics for my Ph.D but have little knowledge of communication, which is perhaps a comment on how compartmentalized we get these days, and how this group can help to broaden horizons painlessly. Let me comment first on the religious comparison to see if I have it right. Does this mean that Catholicism by its priests and ritual interposes something between God and man which Protestantism abolished? In that case it would seem to me that a similar thing happened in Judaism by historical circumstance rather than by the intervention of a Luther. The destruction of the Temple in the year 70 caused prayer to replace the Temple service and personal confession and repentance to replace the sacrifice of bulls. The Rabbis understood Hosea 14.3 "take with you words..and we shall pay our lips as bulls" to mean that prayer can replace the sacrificial service. The traditional daily Jewish service contains descriptions of the sacrifices which claim to replace the actual Temple service. Might one say then (and I am not trying to be flippant) that pre-70 Judaism and Catholicism are IBM and post-70 Judaism and Protestantism are Mac--but not according to Halio? Now something from my own computer experience. For the past half year I have been constantly involved with the Mac computer, using ProIcon and HyperCard, not because I was dissatisfied with my Zenith PC, which is a good friend, but because I have the impression that students prefer the Mac, and since what I am doing is for their benefit, I felt I should cater to their desires. I remain unreconciled to the Mac. I don't care for its icons, I dont care for its pull-down menus. When I have the option of "keyboard shortcuts" I find myself wasting time wondering which to go with. The result is that in preparing data files for programs I have written for the Mac, I prepare them on the Zenith where I feel comfortable, and carry them over to the Mac. Thank God for ASCII. My feeling is though that this is because I am essentially a words person. I prefer poetry to paintings, cheap novels to soap operas and classics to Public TV. I enjoy rock and roll (sorry) but many people are surprised to find that I actually listen to the lyrics. (Some of them are not bad, yeah, yeah, yeah.) I feel that the majority of people like pictures more than words, hence they like the Mac more than IBM. Or in other words it's visual v. verbal. I think I should find it helpful if Sheizaf would give us just a few samples from his experiments, so that I could grasp better just what the subjects were doing. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: TACT Date: Thu, 24 May 90 14:57:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 354 (385) In respone to Knut Hofland's queries on concordance programs, I would be interested to learn more about TACT, the DOS program that he mentions in passing. I am afraid I have no leads on Unix concordance programs. There are basic Unix utilities to (a) build word lists and (b) find examples of words in particular files. From: "N. MILLER" Subject: The actor in the Babbitt suit Date: Thu, 24 May 90 17:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 355 (386) Phil Rider asks: who was that masked man? Can there be any doubt in the surreal sense that it was a former governor of California (understandable) and president of the United States (unbelievable)? Norman Miller From: John Morris Subject: More CALI Date: Thu, 24 May 90 18:45:27 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 356 (387) Further to my request for CALI information yesterday, does anyone know of a Humanist-like list specializing in interactive computer-assisted learning and instruction, or a list dealing with interactive video-disk software. John Morris, JMORRIS@UALTAVM.BITNET From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Thanks for OCR & scanner info" Date: Thu, 24 May 90 11:43:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 357 (388) Thanks to colleagues who answered my query about OCR software and scanners. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield joelg@psc.bitnet From: "Steven J. DeRose" Subject: SGML Date: Thu, 24 May 90 18:40:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 358 (389) In response to Tim Bryson's query (and in quest of the briefest clear description): SGML = "Standard Generalized Markup Language", ISO 8879: 1986(E). SGML defines a standard means of providing markup for the structure of documents. With it you can declare names for whatever units you wish to divide a document into, and then mark the divisions. For example, you can declare that a consists of a and any number of <chapter>s, that chapters consist of certain other things, and on down to character data. An SGML-supporting application can then unambiguously parse documents, and apply whatever semantics are appropriate to the current use. SGML itself says *nothing* about those semantics. A word-processor might interpret the element <title> to mean: 18-point bold Helvetica, with page break before. But an information retrieval system might give this meaning instead: Counts double for the importance of contained words. SGML's treatment of character encoding issues is basically limited to declaring reference names for many, many characters, for use when those characters are not part of the standard character set. They are intended for use in interchange, or for encoding occasional uses of the characters, not primarily for encoding non-Latinate texts. See section D.4 of the standard. Other International standards relevant to character encoding include ISO 646, 2022, 8859, and 10646. From: cb%kcp.UUCP@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Christopher Bader) Subject: 4.0126 Greek Fonts Date: Thu, 24 May 90 18:56:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 359 (390) Dennis Cintra Leite is quite correct about PC's in graphics mode. I should have said that the screen cursor on a PC cannot back up in text mode. Text mode is the mode that matters, however, to users of e.g. Nota Bene. The Greek screen fonts of Nota Bene are necessarily incomplete because each combination of vowels, accents, breathings, macrons, and subscripts must be represented by its own one-byte code, and there just aren't enough one-byte codes to represent all the possibilities and still accommodate the rest of the Greek alphabet. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Siegen help Date: Fri, 25 May 90 12:49:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 134 (391) I have a problem. I am scheduled to give a talk at the Siegen conference on Tuesday, June 5, 4 pm but I will be unable to attend because my funding fell through. I asked a colleague who was going if he could give the talk for me but his funding didn't pan out either. Another colleague may be able to help but he may not be able to attend my session. Is there anyone out there who can do this for me? I intend to tape the talk and I have a demo disk for the Macintosh. You would only need to turn on the Macintosh, start the tape, and then press various macro keys as instructed by the tape. Stephen Clausing Yale University SClaus@Yalevm From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: Center for the Study of Language and Information Calendar Date: Wed, 23 May 90 18:43:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 135 (392) C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 May 1990 Stanford Vol. 5, No. 29 _____________________________________________________________________________ A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4115 ____________ [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. CSLI ANNOUNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: from no-mail to mail Date: Fri, 25 May 90 17:25:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 360 (393) As an addendum to yesterday's announcement on how to put your Humanist subscription on vacation: When you would like discontinued Humanist mail restarted you can set your listserv distribution option to MAIL by sending email to listserv@brownvm or listserv@brownvm.brown.edu with this line for the body set humanist mail If you at a Bitnet/Netnorth/Earn node, you can try to set this option interactively by sending listserv@brownvm the message "set humanist mail". From: "DOV - DR. ART ST. GEORGE" <STGEORGE@UNMB> Subject: RE: 4.0118 Sony Electronic Books (Cross-posting) Date: Wed, 23 May 90 21:07 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 361 (394) This question was raised when Willard was in charge of the Humanist list and I'm afraid I have to raise it again. Isn't there some way to reduce the amount of mail I receive from the list? Would it be possible to aggregate the messages? I'm getting 10-15 a day sometimes and although my interest in the subject is high, my current position means that there is no way I have the time to read these. I have to believe others share this feeling. Dr. Art St. George Network Services Officer U of New Mexico From: janus@ux.acs.umn.edu Subject: UNIX concording programs Date: Fri, 25 May 90 22:34:52 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 362 (395) In answer to Knut Hofland's request for cheap concording programs on UNIX, I recommend HUM-- A CONCORDANCE AND TEXT ANALYSIS PROGRAM. It is available from ftp host uunet.uu.net where you will find three files in the directory comp.sources.unix/volume10/hum . This package is a set of C source code programs that will, among other things, produce kwic, kwal (for poetry), cross- references, frequency counts of words and characters, produce word length histograms. It also finds sentences with specified patterns (a grep that gives humanistically relevant results, not just single lines of texts). There are a number of other programs that come in the HUM package. The three compressed files that you can download also contain manual pages for the programs. The beauty (or drawback -- depending on your viewpoint) is that these programs fit into the general UNIX scheme: each program is a module that you manipulate the way you want. A finished printed concordance will have to be massaged with a number of sorts, and a formatting program. HUM was written by William Tuthill at U of California Berkeley, and the version I have used is 3.7, from the early 80's. It will be reviewed in CHum in the future. --Louis Janus U of Minnesota Scandinavian Dept From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards) Subject: Re: 4.0132 Notes and Queries (4/43) Date: Sun, 27 May 90 01:33:37 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 363 (396) Regarding UNIX concordance programs, we use one which was written by William Tuthill (now at SUN microsystems in Mountain View), called the HUM package (for computer analysis of texts in the Humanities). It includes the following programs: 1. freq - generates frequency distribution and total count of types and tokens, with options which include mapping upper to lower case, redefinition of punctuation set, listing in order of alphabetical or numerical halves of the frequency - type pairs. 2. kwal - key word in line concordance 3. kwic - key word in context concordance 4. wheel - rolls through the text a word cluster at a time 5. wdlen - counts the length of the longest line in the text 6. sfind - retrieves a record surrounding a pattern (word or tag) with options for specifying the record either by explicit delimiters or (by default) up to a standard end-of-sentence punctuation mark (period, question, exclamation mark). His email address: tut@sun.com -Jane Edwards From: Ivy Anderson <ANDERSON@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: RE: 4.0129 Permutations in Language and Pronounciation (2/41) Date: Fri, 25 May 90 17:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 364 (397) Re: Bob Kraft's query about the singular use of plural nouns: I have a colleague who insists on using the word "consortia" to refer to a consortium of which we are a member, as in "The Consortia has decided...," despite the fact that the singular form is used in the organization's title. I have never had the heart to correct her, though it drives me crazy. Ivy Anderson Brandeis University From: MERIZ@pittvms Subject: Media: From Plural to Singular Date: Sat, 26 May 90 10:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 365 (398) Alas, _media_'s "gentle passage" from collective plural to singular, referred to by Bob Kraft, is not echoed in French, which treats the word as a singular (masculine). As one might expect, the plural form is _medias_ (with e acute). -Diana Meriz meriz@pittvms.bitnet From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2> Subject: Plural of Medium [eds] Date: Sat, 26 May 90 17:32:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 366 (399) To quote an acquaintance of mine, "Media is different from books," echoing McLuhan's ideas but not his Latinity. (In response to Bob Kaft's query on language permutations, this one item comprises my total datumbase on the subject.) Brian Whittaker Department of English, Atkinson College, York University From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0129 Permutations in Language and Pronounciation (2/41) Date: Sun, 27 May 90 11:13:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 367 (400) Bob Kraft inquires about the use of "media" as a singular noun. In 1984 I began working on a bilingual microcomputing glossary, which I completed in 1986 (French/English). In 1984 already "media" was commonly used as a singular noun in the North American computing press. My first encounter with this usage dates back to several years before that, however, to about 1977 or 1978, when I first began hearing it from my students, who would make statements like, "Television is the most effective advertising media." This usage on their part may have been encouraged by the fact that the French term "me<eacute>dia" has long been used as a singular (since at least 1965, according to the _Petit Robert_ dictionary) with the plural form "me<eacute>dias" being in common use. Indeed, "mass media" is commonly translated into French by "les me<eacute>dias". I have rarely encountered the plural, "medias", in English, except in computing terminology, where it now appears to be used exclusively, except by academics. In other areas, "media" seems to me to be used as both a singular and a plural, a situation fraught with ambiguity. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: CHAA006@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0129 Permutations in Language and Pronounciation Date: Tue, 29 MAY 90 14:26:11 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 368 (401) [deleted quotation] How interesting. The only place that I have encountered the `long plural' of `process' is on a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) training course; could Julie enlighten us as to whether it was a DEC course that she attended ? Is this an example of the evolution of `DECspeak' ? When I verbalise `processors' and `processes' in unstressed <Br.E>, the distinction sounds obvious; the former ends in <schwa zed-ess>, while the latter ends in <short-i zed-ess>. Could an <Am.E> correspondent comment on the N. American pronunciation ? Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, ``The University of London at Windsor'' From: Judi Moline <moline@asl.ncsl.nist.gov> Subject: Request for help from Humanists Date: Fri, 25 May 90 17:43:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 369 (402) I'm developing a model of how a numismatist (coin person) does his/her research. Specifically I'm looking for references to studies of numismatists and to studies of parallel type work, maybe art history. I'm looking for content, ie tasks, methods, and all used by numismatists, and also I'm looking for an accepted methodology for obtaining and processing the data. Please write to me directly. Judi Moline moline@asl.ncsl.nist.gov From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@UMTLVR.BITNET> Subject: Reference for the CURSOR program. Date: Fri, 25 May 90 20:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 370 (403) I wish I could find the complete reference of a program developed at the University of Waterloo called CURSOR. It is a critical edition package. I would be glad if anyone could help me. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: JONATHAN KANDELL <KANDELL@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu> Subject: bulletin boards [eds] Date: Sat, 26 May 90 01:25 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 371 (404) Does anyone have references regarding the effects of bbs chat? I am interested in psychological aspects; e.g. detached intimacy, sublimation of human contact, use by teenagers, etc. Jonathan Kandell, kandell@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu From: Ronen Shapira <RONEN1@TAUNIVM> Subject: rambam Date: Sat, 26 May 90 21:11:52 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 372 (405) A friend of mine is preparing a term paperon the subject "RAMBAM (MAIMONIDES) ATTITUDE TO THE OLD AGE". He will appreciate any help in finding biblioraphy, since he couldn't find any. He would also like to know if there is something about the influence of the RAMBAM as a physician on non jews. Any ideas where to start looking will be accepted with gratitude. Ronen Shapira From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: MICRO OCP Date: 29 May 90 09:36:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 373 (406) I recently received a brochure from the Oxford UP on Micro OCP (cost: $350 for individual use; site license [viz. one campus] $1750). Has anyone had experience with this program? How does it compare with WordCruncher? I am asking because the brochure does not make reference to any published reviews of the program. James W. Halporn (HALPORNJ@UCS.INDIANA.EDU or HALPORNJ@IUBACS). From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM> Subject: Re: 4.0131 Direct Manipulation: A Query (1/40) Date: Mon, 28 May 90 06:36:19 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 374 (407) i am also very interested in what sheizaf had to say anbd could not quite follow it. however, on the question of macs vs ibms, actually these days gui's versus word- based interfaced, why don;t we assume that these are differences of tasted and personal style as allen corre suggests and get on with making sure that there is equivalent software for doing jobs with both types of interface. right now for most scholarly work, in the humanities, i still think nota-bene is the best tool around and that's a reason to go the ibm route. daniel From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0131 Direct Manipulation: A Query (1/40) Date: Sun, 27 May 90 22:17:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 375 (408) Alan Corre talks about not liking the Mac because he is a word person, as opposed to a picture person. However, a more apt difference might be the one between people who learn visually and those who learn by hearing. I am very much a word person and have far more appreciation for the written and spoken language than for the graphic representation. A picture is never worth more than half a dozen words for me. Yet in my consulting practice as in my own work I concentrate on the Mac. I am fluent with both and learned to use the PC first. However, I find the Mac a much more expressive environment within which to record my words in part, I think, because I can more easily visualize the flow and the action that lead to the finished product. When I use a PC I find myself repeating the commands under my breath (Alt-F4 - cursor - Cntl-F4 - 1) whereas on the Mac I can see the process before I perform the actions. I realize my words are failing me in my attempt to elucidate a possible difference between Mac and PC users, but consider the method with which you learn a foreign language. Do you hear the words or see them in your mind? And does that correlate in any way to your preference of computers? Perhaps I'm well out in left field on this one, but it's worth thinking about for a moment. -Adam Engst As an aside, I agree that Halio's research was shoddy and should never have been published in anything approaching a respectable academic journal. Peer review would never have let anything so loose and non-scientific slip by. Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "I ain't worried and I ain't scurried and I'm having a good time" -Paul Simon From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: [...] Philistine synecdoche? Date: Mon, 28 May 90 18:41:42 -0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 141 (409) Dear Humanists, dear Roy Flannagan, eureka. Concerning Humanist 4.0071 (17 May 1990), here is what I found on p. 196, note 66 of the Hebrew book "The Sea Peoples in the Bible" by Othniel Margalith (Dvir, Tel-Aviv, 1988). The point is: the Egyptians used to gather the foreskins of dead enemies, but if they were circumcised, seemingly this motivated them to gather cut hands, instead. In particular, this applies to the invasion of the Sea Peoples, who included, it seems, uncircumcised groups (like the Philistines from the Bible) and circumcised groups. I disagree with Margalith's book on several accounts. Its estimation of the Aegean cultural survival in the Land of Canaan reacts to its underestimation in mainstream research, due to the absence of deciphered inscriptions, but Margalith's enthusiasm leads him to an overestimate, based on arguments that often are weak, albeit the book is a mine of interesting details, data or sometimes more convincing intuitions. Here is what we need. The text refers to the Egyptians defeating the invading Sea Peoples. We quote from Margalith's note (as translated from Hebrew): Breadstead, Records, III, p. 247, note h, brought my attention to the fact that from inscriptions it is unclear what were the countries of origin of the invaders. Moreover, from the inscription in Karnak it is not clear any more what is the connection between the hands cut off and the uncircumcised male organ: line 54 states "Ekwesh who had no foreskin [=i.e, were circumcised] whose hands were carried off [for] they had no foreskin." By the way, "[for]" is reconstructed hypothetically. Then, the causal link "their hands were cut [because] they were circumcised" is just based on a hypothetical reconstruction. If the context is correct, then according to line 53 also the Shekelesh and the Teresh were also circumcised, and their hands, too, were cut, and then we would have to accept the conclusion that many of the Sea Peoples, not just the Ekwesh were circumcised. Then, in his note, Margalith quotes definite or tentative opinions of some authors about certain peoples involved being uncircumcised. Margalith's book, in the passage that refers to the note, tries to identify the _ Hiwwi . of Genesis with the Achaeans. Elsewhere, he identifies the Israelite tribe of Dan with the... Danaoi from Homer (!!!), claiming they had assimilated to the Philistines, and moreover could have taken part to the War of Troy along with other Sea Peoples; Samson, the hero of the Danites, would have been... Heracles. (Relata refero!) Of course, Milton, whom Flannagan's query mainly concerned, was unaware of anything which is not explicitly stated in the (translated) Bible, and he may well have used a synecdoche. Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus [...] eds From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: last names Date: Mon, 28 May 90 18:41:42 -0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 142 (410) [...] Concerning the discussion about the use of last names vs. first names. In Italy, the use of the first name in the workplace or at school is expanding from the upper-middle class. Small bourgeois and especially proletarians stick to the last name. There are still some proletarian wives, or wives in couples with a proletarian background, who call, or refer to, their husband by his last name. At the Jewish school in Milan, the first name was and is usual for pupils (from the kindergarten to high school), whereas teachers are referred to by their last names. Instead, at state-run schools, the last name is the rule (except at the kindergarten), albeit the use of the first name is expanding in high schools. I remember that the wive of the owner of the firm that moved my belongings from Italy to Israel (and kept some valuables) used to refer to her husband by his last name: they were people from Verona (thus, in the North-East), with an evident lower-class background, and were non-Jews. I also remember this use among Jews: in an interview with the widow of Leone Efrati ['e-fra-ti: the stress is on the first syllable, whereas in Hebrew it would be on the last], broadcasted in a Jewish program on the state-run TV, she referred to him as "Efrati". During the 1930, this boxer represented the pride of the proletarians and small bourgeois from the Jewish ghetto in Rome, in front of the racist campaign; anyway, the fans of his opponents used to consider the fight as between Aryans and Semites. It ended when the Fascist authorities forbade him to fight (and win) any longer. An illiterate, he left for the United States, but then went back to Rome. Of his American gains, the last thing left to him was an impermeable skin jacket; once he saw a man throw himself into the River Tiber. After he saved him, he covered the man with his jacket, and asked him to bring it back to his home address, but he never got it back. Then, once under the German occupation (the Jews were deported in phases, but the city was not held long enough to deport all of them), two local Fascists saw him in the street while he was walking with his child, threatened them with a revolver, and brought them to the Gestapo headquarters in Via Tasso. The boy (who survived the extermination camp where they were deported, whereas his father didn't), later recalled having seen there also some belongings of an uncle. Anyway, I related this to point out that in places as far and disparate as the Trastevere ghetto of Rome and Catholic Verona, proletarians used the last name even when wives addressed their husband. There are still people around that stick to that use. In Israel, instead, the first name is usual at school, and at primary school pupils are used to refer to their teacher by her (usually it is she) first name. Undergraduates refer to docents by their last name, with exceptions in addressing instructors, or an advisor (even of undergraduate projects). The singular of the second person is usual, in Hebrew and Israeli Hebrew, to address interlocutors, but in court, "kvod ha-shofet" (literally: "the honor of the Judge", that agrees with the 3rd person) is usual. Ultra-orthodox people, both Ashkenazic and Sephardi, refer by "kvodo" (his honor) to people they are unfamiliar with, or (often) to superiors. Some people for whom Hebrew is a second language used to reproduce the addressing forms of their first language in Hebrew. This use was found among some Europeans, but also among speakers of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), as in Ladino the 3rd person is used both as a form of respect, and as a form of contempt. Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus From: Rorschach@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0053 Cyberspace -- Conference Report (92) Date: 28 May 90 12:24:32 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 376 (411) Would you care to the following statement you mad about cyberspace... [deleted quotation] It is as regards the metaphysical bit that I am interested. Rorschach From: J J Higgins <Higgins@np1a.bristol.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0045 Doddle (24) Date: Tue, 29 May 90 10:32:25 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 377 (412) I don't think "doddle" is particularly recent or unusual. I think the origin is a comic mispronunciation of if your horse can win it without hurrying, so by extension any task that requires no effort is a doddle. From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM> Subject: Re: 4.0125 Parody (2/38) Date: Mon, 28 May 90 06:08:15 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 378 (413) i would like to contribute a case of misread satire from *real* -- too real-- life. two years ago traveling in a jitney cab in israel, we passed a site of a settlement on the west bank where there had been demonstrations by peace people. some babbit in the car said that those traitors should be put in jail, to which i replied that they should be put in concentration camps. he said he thought i was too extreme and that jail was enough. daniel From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0123 General Notes and Queries (3/73) Date: Sat, 26 May 90 10:56 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 379 (414) What is a man? The most obvious formal parallel in classical literature is Pindar Pythian 8. 95-6, epameroi: ti de tis; ti de ou tis; skias onar anthropos, translated by Bowra as Man's life is a day. What is he? What is he not? A shadow in a dream is man (but the indefinite tis and the word anthropos are not gender specific. [...]) The question about resources for Toposforschung is a good one. Classicists would go in the first instance to certain well-known and very comprehensive commentaries (Pease on Vergil and Cicero, headlam on Herodas etc). It would be nice to have a collection of tips for the various disciplines that HUMANIST covers. Don Fowler From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Siegen needs help Date: Mon, 28 May 90 17:51:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 145 (415) You may have seen the help request I posted on Humanist a few days ago. My thanks to those who responded. Another problem has arisen which affects me and probably a few other people. The organizers in Siegen have promised a Mac IIcx (color) for my demonstration but apparently they could not get hold of a projection device. Could someone bring one of those portable Kodak projection devices and loan it to the Siegen group for the duration of the conference? Let's face it, these people need help. From: Richard Giordano <rich@welchlab.welch.jhu.EDU> Subject: NY-SPEAK Date: Wed, 30 May 90 11:27:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 380 (416) Regarding Philip Taylor's comments on 'processors' and 'processes,' you should keep in mind that the two words sound alike in New York City, not generally in the United States. In general, final R's are hardly ever pronounced in New York. As far as I can tell, many folks don't pronounce *any* R's at all. When I first started graduate school there (coming from Boston), I went to registration and the secretary asked me "What's your depAWment?" It took a few seconds before I realized what she was saying. The general Northeast urban dialect in the US is also characterized by front dentals. Thus, 'th' is pronounced a lot like 'd'. When you're on the subway, you can be sure to hear the conductor announce 'Watch da closing daws' as the doors as closing. Anyway, as soon as I pronounced 'processors' and 'processes' the way Julie mentioned, I realized that I heard that a thousand times in New York. I should point out, also, that there are slight dialect differences from one borough of New York to another. For instance, in Brooklyn you might pronounce 'cold' to be 'co-old', while in Queens this is elongated to 'co-wold'. I've heard 'milk' in Brooklyn pronounced something like 'meelk' while in northern Manhattan it's 'mulk'. All over the place, folks there say, 'On line' for 'in line'. Thus, you stand 'awn loin' to buy a ticket to the movie. In my hometown of Newark, New Jersey, I grew up hearing 'azz' for 'ass'; (In fact, all 'ss' is pronounced as 'z' there) 'shtrike' for 'strike' (common for 'st' to be pronounced 'sht'); and 'egg' and 'leg' to be pronounced 'ayg' and 'layg' (as in hay or lay). I don't know if this characterizes Newark or just second and third generation Italian immigrants there. Richard Giordano The Johns Hopkins University From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0109 Address: Accents, Power, Democracy, Gender (4/79) Date: Tue, 29 May 90 22:23 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 381 (417) I DONT KNOW WHAT BRAZIL HAS TO DO WITH IT AT ALL. I know about the East Coast Prep schools: but that is snobbery and breaking down even there over the past 25 years. They knock regions at east coast prep schools, and especially anything west of Mass or shenandoah, or the Hudson. But that is all merest nonsense today. As for GB, I must be mixing all my life with the wrong clahws of pipple. I meant it only that GB is anomalous in having a royal house and titles, though it has one person/one vote rough and tumble hustings all right. Democratic it may be in politics, though one wonders about schooling and schools, etc. I am sorry if I shot from the lip. Two pounds on the heart, colpo mio, etc. I do know about snobbery at them places, having been there, and had the kids there, and all that. But most of it is the usual derivative pseudo-AngloSaxon, mostly plutocratic racism and snobbery and foolishness iwth a capital R and S, and A and S. So, okay it went out afterOrwellridiculed the BBC sound? Or was it sour grapes on his part too? 2000 apologies. Insularity, perhaps? Every time I had a choice, instinctively I headed for the Meditteranean countries, where a bad accent in an acquired tongue costs one nothing in the way of the unmerited sneer, etc. You know what I mean, I expect. Kessler at UCLA From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0109 Address: Accents, Power, Democracy, Gender (4/79) Date: Tue, 29 May 90 22:27 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 382 (418) I mean, to continue, the very term, "one's social standing" is my point. In a democracy there isnt anything like that, or should I say, in the pulverized socieites of GB and say the US in the 20th Century. Where does one stand socially in this world? Where is society? Palm Beach? San Marino? Clubs? the Lab? Markers of social standing based on accent are subject to ridicule, as poor GBS, who had no real social standing tried to explain in PYGMALION, I take it? Etc. Let us not go into that. I stick with Dame Alisoun's definition: Gentle is as gentle does. The rest is rather done with cash, laws, and mirrors. Not so? From: HUMM@PENNDRLS (Alan Humm Religious Studies U. of Penn) Subject: query: C programming on the Mac Date: Tuesday, 29 May 1990 1348-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 383 (419) I am looking for a good but inexpensive C compiler for the MacIntosh. I am also (or perhaps instead) interested in a C++ compiler (also for the Mac). My priorities are 1. Price 2. ANSI compatability 3. Advanced debugging capabilities. Can anyone help with their knowledge/experience? Thanks, Alan Humm (Humm@PENNdrls) CCAT/CATSS From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0132 Notes and Queries (4/43) Date: Wed, 30 May 90 12:05:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 384 (420) For UNIX there is a package of concordance routines which is available from Berkeley, called HUM. Claire LeDonne of the Berkeley Campus Software Office cld-cso@cmsa.berkeley.edu cld-cso@ucbcmsa.bitnet should be able to provide information on how to get access to the package. It was written in the early '80's and has not been modified since, so it talks a reasonably skilled UNIX user. Charles B. Faulhaber From: KLCOPE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Electronic Style Date: Wed, 30 May 90 9:42 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 385 (421) Mr. Kendall asks for information concerning the effect of BBS chat on various persons. One of the foremost authorities on this subject is Natalie Maynor of Mississippi State University (MAYNOR@MSSTATE), who is an avid e-mailer and always happy to respond to inquiries. KLC. From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE <FGVSP@BRFapesp.BITNET> Subject: RE: 4.0136 Mail/Nomail; Less Mail? (2/35) Date: Sat, 26 May 90 22:17 -0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 386 (422) It suprises me that Dr. Art St, George hasn't figured out a way to keep his reading time dedicated t HUAMANIST to a reasonable level. Ask for a listing of your mail files, look at the subject headers, and just delete, unread, the files that hold no interest dor you. That is what the editors do thir work for. They group mailings as per subject matter, describe, succintly the contents of what is included (they even go to the trouble of counting the number of lines in each mailing and including that number in the subject heading) and let you decide whether it is worth your while reading the contents or not. I think this sort of complaint is really a matter of misinformation. Regards Dennis From: Philip Taylor (RHBNC) <P.Taylor@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk> Subject: Is there an alternative to GUIs Date: Wed, 30 MAY 90 16:07:25 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 148 (423) The `Mac vs IBM' debate, of which the latest incarnation is the discussion resulting from the `Direct Manipulation' submission, is possibly the only unifying theme between all the mailing lists to which I subscribe, and is therefore, I suggest, an important debate, in the sense that it arouses strong feelings in persons from a very wide range of disciplines. What worries me slightly is that while we (on HUMANIST) seem able to debate it dispassionately and objectively, its manifestation elsewhere is undoubtedly the late twentieth-century equivalent of religious wars, and arouses deeper feelings and stronger reactions than any comparable topic (I suspect that the `Unix vs VMS' debate comes a very poor second). However, my worries concerning the quasi-religious fervour which it arouses are nothing compared to my worry that despite the continuance of the debate on countless mailing lists, both the learned journals and the computer industry seem agreed that the war is already won: the future human-computer interface will be graphically oriented. Yet if the issue were that cut-and-dried, would the debate still rage ? Would thousands of man-hours be wasted in continuing to argue the relative merits of the two systems ? I think not; I believe that there is most certainly a case for the perpetuation of the `traditional' interface (imperative verb + parameter[s] + qualifier[s]), which is, I believe, the `natural' way of working for [many of] those who are language- or word-oriented. What the Macintosh (and its predecessor, the Lisa) have undoubtedly done is to shew that there is an {\it alternative} to the `traditional' interface --- an alternative which is readily acceptable by, and accepted by, a significant proportion of potential and actual computer users; what they have {\it not} done is to shew that this alternative is so superior that it will, by a process of natural selection, become the only viable interface for the forseeable future. If my assertion is true --- that the `traditional' (or command-line) interface will remain the interface of choice for [many] computer users who are language or word-oriented --- then should we not also be discussing how that interface should evolve ? CP/M (with its arcane `PIP' syntax) mutated into MS/DOS; RT-11 and RSX-11 mutated into VMS (again with the loss of the `PIP' syntax); Unix, although apparently a descendent of Multics, appears to have mutated to such an extent in becoming a new species that most traces of its Multics ancestry have completely disappeared in its command-line interface --- indeed, Unix interfaces in general appear to be characterised by terseness and lack of mnemonic significance, and I suspect that if interface-acceptability were the only criterion of significance in the natural selection of operating systems, the only trace of Unix today would be an occasional skeleton buried deep in the fossil records ... So, to start the ball rolling, let me offer some thoughts on what I believe to be the essential features of a {\it good} command-line interface: [1] The use of natural language --- verbs and qualifiers should, as far as possible be words which occur in [either English or] the natural language of the user; [2] The use of `intuitive semantics' --- words used in the interface shall have a meaning as close as possible to their meaning in [either English or] the natural language of the user; [3] Consistent semantics --- when the same qualifier is used in conjunction with two or more verbs, that qualifier shall have the same meaning independent of the verb. [4] Natural language ordering --- for example, one searches a list of places for a thing, or copies a thing from a place to a place; one does not search for a thing in a list of places, or copy to a place from a place. This last is presumably debatable --- while I find the suggested order natural, and the deprecated order unnatural, there must be others who find the reverse the case (otherwise MS/DOS and Unix wouldn't be as they are). But then that must be true for all the other suggestions as well ... [5] Order independence --- where parameters and qualifiers occur in a single command, it shall not matter whether the qualifiers precede or follow the parameter, unless the qualifiers have only local significance, in which case they shall follow the parameter to which they refer. [6] Case insensitivity --- it shall not matter whether a verb, parameter or qualifier be entered in upper, lower or mixed- case: the meaning shall remain the same. [7] Context-sensitive help --- the command-line parser must be able to offer guidance on appropriate completions for a partially entered command, and to explain the syntax and semantics of all the components of the command, including optional or alternative components not [yet] entered. The parser must backtrack as the user makes interative corrections, using <delete previous <thing>> or <overstrike/replace> editing. Why these features above all else ? Because I believe that they are intuitive, and therefore not only easily grasped but easily guessed. When faced with a new operating system, a user {\it has} to make a guess at the probable effect of any action --- I believe the Macintosh interface is just as counter- intuitive in this respect as CP/M, or TSO. The strength of the Macintosh interface (and I accept that it has strengths, as well as weaknesses) is its uniformity --- to achieve a particular aim, one always carries out the same operation(s), regardless of the program in use. But this consistency need not be absent from `traditional' (command-line) user interfaces; it is simply that the need for unformity had not been adequately perceived at the time when [the majority of] [programs for] `traditional' user interfaces were evolving. Surely with hindsight we can see that consistency and intuitive semantics are paramount, yet are not implictly tied to the graphical user interface of the Macintosh world; the deterministic behaviour of the command-line interface (`when I type <foo>, it always does <foo>') has much to commend it when compared to the probabilistic behaviour of the graphical interface (`if I can manoeuvre the cursor within the confines of an icon that I believe represents the concept <foo>, and if I press a particular button exactly the right number of times within a fixed period of time, then [there is a distinct probability that] the system will do <foo>'). The time has come for the command-line users of the world to unite: we have everything to lose, including the chains of our preferred style of working, if we allow the `GUIs rule OK' dogma to remain unchallenged. Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, ``The University of London at Windsor'' From: rodprep%pollux.ucdavis.edu@ucdavis.BITNET (Earl H. Kinmonth) Subject: Books to Review May 29, 1990 Date: Tue, 29 May 90 14:05:23 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 149 (424) The following books have come into my hands for review in *Computers and the Humanities*: Edward Barrett, ed. *The Society of Text: Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Information.* (MIT Press). Alan Biermann. *Great Ideas in Computer Science: A Gentle Introduction.* (MIT Press). G.R. Ledger. *Re-counting Plato: A Computer Analysis of Plato's Style.* (Clarendon Press). Philip Leith. *Formalism in AI and Computer Science.* (Ellis Horwood). Whitman Richards, ed. *Natural Computation.* (MIT Press). E. Talstra, ed. *Computer Assisted Analysis of Biblical Texts.* (Free University Press). Nico Weber. *Maschinelle Lexikographie und Wortbildungsstrukturen.* Niemeyer). If you are interested in reviewing any of these books, and can do so by July 31, please contact me for the appropriate protocol. [...] Kevin Roddy, Book Review Editor, CHum Medieval Studies, UCD Davis, California, 95616 USA kproddy@ucdavis.BITNET From: Elaine Brennan and Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Humanist Editors Hit the Road Date: Wed, 30 May 90 17:55:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 150 (425) If both of us will be away from Brown for longer than a few days we generally expect that Humanist mailing will be handled by one of the local members of the Humanist editorial board. Substitute editors, however, are not yet ready to deal with some of our still unstandardized procedures. Therefore, Humanist will probably be irregular, at best, from June 4 to June 12, while we're in Siegen at the ALLC/ACH conference. We will try to make a telnet connection from Siegen to run Humanist remotely from Germany, but please don't be surprised if Humanist is quiet for ten days. From: Geoffrey Rockwell <Geoffrey_Rockwell@poczta.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: 4.0145 Siegen (1/11) Date: Wed, 30 May 90 13:26:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 387 (426) I have the same problem of needing a projection panel at Seigen. If someone does bring one I would appreciate being told. Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: OTHERNET LIBRARIES? Date: 30 May 90 23:48:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 388 (427) At Bob Kraft's request, I'm writing a short how-to piece on the mechanics of using INTERNET to access remote academic libraries, a subject we've discussed before on HUMANIST. He wonders, and I have no idea, whether there are other networks that can be used to gain access to those libraries by people who don't have university connections to INTERNET. Is it possible to dial your way into INTERNET through CompuServe, for example? Put simply, if you're just sitting at home with a computer and a modem and no powerful friends in the world, is there a network you can access that will let you call Berkeley and Michigan and Colorado and Penn without long-distance charges? I know one solution is to find a university that let's you get on to internet without having to go through a cybername/password gate (I know of at least one), but that is (a) useful only if you live close enough to such a university to minimize long distance charges, and (b) dishonest -- sort of, I guess, in most cases (though there might be exceptions). Anyway, any advice will be very helpful and much appreciated. From: Stig Johansson <h_johansson%use.uio.uninett@nac.no> Subject: singular plurals Date: 31 May 90 11:33:19+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 389 (428) On nouns like 'data' and 'media', see the article by Randolph Quirk, 'Grammatical and pragmatic aspects of countability', in his book: Style and Communication in the English Language (Edward Arnold 1982). First printed in: Die Neueren Sprachen 77 (1978). There is an example of 'media' with the indefinite article in the LOB Corpus: ... this is an ideal media... (text E35, referring to press advertising, in an article on advertising). Note the comment in the OED on the 'erroneous' use of 'media' in the singular. (The LOB Corpus text was published in 1961.) An indication of the special status of nouns like 'data' and 'media' is that they are quite regularly used as the first element in noun + noun compounds (data base, media campaign, etc), while ordinary plural nouns only appear in this position under very special circumstances. So this is a singular group indeed! Stig Johansson University of Oslo From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: plural nouns as singulars Date: Wed, 30 May 90 23:18 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 390 (429) How long is this discussion of "media" going to remain on the agendum? From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Standing on line Date: Wednesday, 30 May 1990 2318-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 391 (430) As a Connecticut Yankee who always stood "in line," I had never thought that Philadelphians (via NY ?) who insisted on standing "on line" were simply pronouncing "in" as "on" -- rather, I supposed that they had a different (and, yes, to me strange!) concept of "line," of which I was part (by being in it) but with which they were only in contact (by being on it). Any light from other HUMANISTs? Do Britishers stand "on queue"? Another strangeness of idiom that struck me when I arrived in Philadelphia nearly 3 decades ago was the use of "babysit" as a transitive verb -- "Do you want me to babysit him tonight?" for example. Where I came from we would "babysit for him." Bob Kraft, U. Penn. From: Linc Kesler <KESLERL@ORSTVM> Subject: disintermediation Date: Wed, 30 May 90 19:37:01 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 392 (431) Re: Sheizaf Rafaeli and "disintermediation" Hey Sheizaf, thanks. Your note on "disintermediation" arrived just in time: tomorrow's the last day of class in my history of the english language course, and naturally I'd like to track on all the current trends. And for years I've been trying to think of a simple, direct, and "transparent" or is that "disintermediated" term to describe what the Reformation did for all them poor and hopelessly buffered Medieval catholics. Now "mis-statement" and "disinformation" I can understand, since there are obvious legal implications to terms such as "lie" and "cheat" and nobody wants to pull the president's pants down in public (and have to look at the unappetizing result). But "disintermediation" really sounds more like one of those truly sick defense department confections designed to describe the terminal state of relations between a B-52, its cargo, and the hapless earthbound geeks watching from below. But if I tell this story in my class, which is mostly made up of Kiwanis Klub members, are they likely to get the joke? Nah, they'll probably just take notes. -- Linc Kesler, Oregon State U. From: PETERR@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0147 Q: Mac C; Rs: HUM; Social effects of BBS; Mail Date: Thu, 31 May 90 10:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 393 (432) I can *strongly* recommend Think C for C programming on the Mac. This used to be Lightspeed C, is now published by Symantec (they advertise everywhere) and has advanced to version 4.0. I have been using it for nine months now, writing ever-more complex collation programs and - it works. Very reliably too: I have not found a single bug in the program. I have thought at times I have got one, but every time I have (eventually) traced it to my own folly or (occasionally) to something Apple haven't quite finished in the Toolbox, and that is another story. Very fast too: on a IICX 30,000 lines of program in twenty five files compiles and links in about ninety seconds. You can get in, edit a single file, recompile and relink, run it over again, within seconds. Advanced debugging? I can't imagine a neater, smoother, easier to use implementation than the debugger included in the ThinkC package. You can set a conditional breakpoint, then just click your way merrily through handles, pointers, structures, arrays, arrays of handles to structures, etc etc. Hardware needs? It runs very well - debugger and all - on a bog standard SE, with 2M of memory. A hard disc is essential, or minimum two floppies: it will run on a basic Plus, but you will get die of MacElbow from disc swopping before anything useful is done. At around #130 academic price here, including full ANSI libraries, various specimen apps, etc, this is cheap. Incidentally, there is a neat "console" library included: with this you can make your Mac emulate a TTY terminal or (gasp) an IBM, and run vanilla C programs. There are also various "class" libraries thrown in, and much talk in the manual about Objects - according to a Byte review a few months ago these are well done. I haven't tried any of these, so can't comment. And, of course, you can get at all 900 plus Mac toolbox functions, use resource files, write INITs, CDEVs, anything you like. Here follows LARGE WORD OF WARNING. C programming affords plentiful opportunity for self-immolation at the best of times. The legend that the Mac is hard to program is no legend. Put the two together and it is like walking barefoot in a snakepit. If you want to use the tool-box, with multiple resizable scrollable windows, cut and paste, nice icons, multifinder compatibility etc etc, allow SIX MONTHS FULLTIME to write your first simplest application. And that is for something you could do in a few days on a PC. Of course the PC app wouldn't be a patch on the Mac one for elegance etc but good looks don't come cheap. As for "dressing up" a PC program for the Mac, forget it. It's better to start all over, and be prepared for some very nasty shocks while you learn the amazing things the Mac can do with memory while you aren't looking (surely I put that variable down just there a minute ago .. what's the operating system doing there .. bomb). The good side of it is that when you finally get on top of the toolbox and C, the machine will sing for you (I write this out of hope - sometimes it does, for me). Now why has the screen gone all funny on me again.. Peter Robinson, Computers and Manuscripts Project, Oxford University Computing Service. From: "M. R. Sperberg-McQueen " <U15440@UICVM> Subject: Micro-OCP Date: 30 May 1990 17:48:52 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 394 (433) I'm sure to be far less familiar with Micro-Ocp and Word Cruncher than other Humanists, but I can say at least say a little in response to Halporn's inquiry. The main difference between the two is that Word Cruncher is interactive while Micro-Ocp is not: you tell Micro-OCP what you want it to look for and, depending on how complicated the search is, you get a cup of coffee, and you come back to a file containing your results. For some of my work I've preferred using Micro-OCP because it is easy to print the results of searches generated by it--the version of W-Cruncher I have (things may have changed) was so much oriented toward being interactive, that it was very difficult to get a printed, permanent record of what one had found. --What I was asking it to do was relatively simple: I had it generate frequency lists for German texts that I was going to present to students: I was interested in finding out what words came up often enough to merit being put into a separate glossary, and which came up infrequently and could be glossed on an ad hoc basis. That's a very simple sort of thing to do in Micro-OCP--it can do things that are vastly more complicated. I should also mention that it can deal with all the usual languages, including transliterated Greek and Russian. I was favorably impressed with the OCP manual and with the command language. I'm not one of those people who have a whole lot of of patience with computer manuals, and my computing skills are quite basic. I found the Micro-OCP manual easy to get along with, i.e., I was able to find out how to do what I wanted fairly quickly. The commands make sense and are fairly easy to learn. The only caveat, as I'm sure many of us on this side of the Atlantic are aware, is that Micro-OCP insists one use British spelling. --Marian Sperberg-McQueen Univ. of Illinois at Chicago U15440@UICVM From: FLANNAGA.at.OUACCVMB Subject: Foreskins Date: 28 May 1990, 17:40:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 395 (434) Dear Ephraim, Eureka indeed! I thought the story was more than a rumor, and I suspect Milton knows more about the Israelite army practices than most modern commentary might provide, mainly because he had access to incredibly thorough medieval and Renaissance commentary on Judges. I have read many of the commentaries on Genesis, some few on Revelation and Job, but none on Judges. Perhaps it is not synechdoche at all but an almost superhuman (i.e. Samson-like) achievement--1000 Philistines, 1000 foreskins! If you want to post this to Humanist as well, fine. Thanks very much for the help. Roy Flannagan From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Foreskins Date: Thu, 31 May 90 14:09:00-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 396 (435) To: Prof. Roy Flannagan <FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB.bitnet> May 31, 1990 Dear Roy, Thank you for your message. I have the suspect the ancient Egyptian army had the interest of making it seem as if a greater share of the Sea Peoples soldiers were circumcised than true: indeed, let us suppose that X of the fallen enemies were, and Y were not. Then, honest boasts would claim X+Y "relics" in all. Then, by cutting one hand of up to Z of the uncircumcised (where Z is an integer number equal to the minimum between X and Y), the Egyptian army could make believe that the enemy lost up to X+Y+Z men, not just X+Y. Therefore, one should be cautious about deriving ethnographic information concerning circumcision among the Sea Peoples from the Egyptian data. Ephraim Nissan From: "PATANJALI S. VENKATACHARYA" <VENKAT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Asian/North African Conference needs multilingual wp information Date: Thu, 31 May 90 14:25:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 155 (436) Dear Members of HUMANIST, The International Congress of Asian and North African Studies is a triennial/quadrennial gathering of scholars in the humanities and social sciences dealing with East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. It has been compared to the Olympic Games in the Asian-studies field, in that for a century (formerly known as the International Congress of Orientalists) it has met once every three or four years somewhere in the world, attracting top-level talent. The next Congress will be in Toronto, on the campus of the University of Toronto, during the third week of this coming August. The program theme of the Congress will be "Contacts between Cultures". This will be the first time ever for the Congress in Canada, and only the third time in the Western Hemisphere; it was in the United States in 1967 and in Mexico in 1976, and will not likely return to the Americas until the next century. On the basis of responses received so far, we expect an attendance of at least one thousand scholars from around the world : half from the Western Hemisphere and half from Europe and Asia. As part of the Congress proceedings a special seminar and presentation on "Multilingual Word Processing" is being organised. As well, a publication is being developed that will contain detailed descriptions of present multilingual software for IBM and Macintosh PC-based systems. As members of HUMANIST, I am sure that many of you currently use some form of multilingual word processing package. The package(s) you currently use may be those that assist in implementing english diacritical marks (especially for transliterated text), and/or create and edit foreign-language text documents (such as transliterated Sanskrit, or Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese word processors; just to name a few) I am a new member to this discussion group, and from people such as Willard McCarty and John Bradley (UofT) I am told that many of you could be of some help to me in this situation. As you may know, there are a growing number of multilingual word processors and similar packages that go unheard of among even the most up-to-date computer groups. I am currently looking for more software developers/distributors to contact to obtain more information on such software, and also request submissions for this publication. I am also looking for comments on software packages from people who have been using word processing packages of this type (noted above). I also understand many of you are currently conducting research or have conducted some research in the area of foreign-language word processing, and your comments would be very helpful as well. I would be very grateful if those of you who use multilingual word processing packages (for IBM PC and Macintosh computers) could "flood" me with some helpful information at this address : VENKAT@UTOREPAS If you would like more information on the Congress, or on this particular event in the Congress, please also be free to contact me at : (416) 494-2933 or (416) 585-4578, or FAX at : (416) 585-4584. Thanks, and hope other HUMANIST members can be of some help !!!!! Patanjali S. Venkatacharya, Multilingual Computing Consultant, 33rd International Congress of Asian & North African Studies, The University of Toronto, Canada E-Mail : VENKAT@UTOREPAS From: leblanc@cosy.uoguelph.ca Subject: Interfaces (1/1 Date: Wed, 30 May 90 19:32:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 397 (437) Philip Taylor makes a very good point-- that is, that he regards the idea of the 'natural selection' process of the GUI over command-line has yet to be proven. But the power of the GUI can best be expressed when you need to do something that is much more difficult to do using words, for example, if you need to describe a "spiral staircase", without using your hands or drawing a picture. You end up spinning lines and lines of rter of an hour, before you can adequately complete the description. But with a simple gesture and a few words you cam make the point. But pictures work great ONLY if the information is not particularly specific. Words then act as modifiers, strengthening the pictures, while the pictures strengthen the words. Written language has evolved from pictograms to alphabets because these forms allow us to be much more specific about our ideas. It must be remembered, however, that the GUI is not purely graphic but contains words AND pictures. I believe that the perfect interface will not end at the GUI, but will provide the same level of richness that the world outside the computer provides. That is, 3D, pictures, sound AND text, perhaps even feelies. So the GUI is only a step towards perfection, but that's only because it provides reinforcing information to the computer operator. Michael From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0148 Interfaces (1/125) Date: Wed, 30 May 90 17:06:45 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 398 (438) I use mostly UNIX and MS-DOS. My only foray into the Mac world was to organize a specific product; so I can't speak to its strengths and weaknesses with any authority. My one basic problem with the interface was that I was never sure where I was. The tree structure imposed by DOS and UNIX is apparently so deeply ingrained into the way I do things, that I kept getting lost on the desktop. I know that files are in folders which can be in other folders; so in essense it's the same-- but it wasn't. The ability to move things around on the desktop was too powerful. I had the uneasy feeling that I was moving folders recursively; and I kept losing things. The Mac offers the user so much flexibility that one of its major advantages--the fact that everything works the same way--is undermined by the fact that no user organizes the desktop in the same fashion; which means that when you come into a public machine (or at least one which is used by a number of different people), you never know what you're going to find. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: windows 3.0 Date: Thu, 31 May 90 09:41:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 399 (439) After a week of using the new WINDOWS 3.0 I wonder whether others with the same or greater experience feel that the debate over the relative merits of the Mac and the PC should now be consigned to the ashbin of history. Yours for global fenestration, Clarence Brown. Comp Lit. Princeton. From: Geoffrey Rockwell <Geoffrey_Rockwell@poczta.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: 4.0148 Interfaces (1/125) Date: Thu, 31 May 90 20:31:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 400 (440) I think this point has been made before, but I will make it again. The interfaces that are "winning" in the market place allow one to work both from a command line and by pointing and clicking. Take the NeXT, one can open within the GUI a window where one can type commands just like the good old days. In Windows 3.0 one do this, as one can on the Mac if you get MPW. If one is to believe the rumours about the upcoming Mac OS, the Mac will get even more tools for traditional commanding. The success of the GUI is its ability to give commanding personalities their screen space too. One need not loose functionality with a GUI. There is nothing inherent in the notion of a graphical user interface that prevents one from typing text, and asking the system to execute ones commands. The trend I see is towards interfaces that can be used in different ways, with different views for different folks. This I think is an improvement over the "traditional" environments. Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: Windows 3.0 Date: Fri, 01 Jun 90 01:11:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 401 (441) I second the sentiments of Clarence Brown. Windows 3.0 brings the GUI to the PC in a big way. It will have a place in user interface options. But do take heed. There is no final word on this. Just when I was sure that the Mac had that graphical advantage and that it appealed to the masses, my son came home from tenth grade and informed me with great enthusiasm that he discovered how to transform Mac directories from icons to lists and that he was now going to go into our SE's hard disk and "improve" all the folders. What I am sure of is that we need competition to grease the wheels of progress. E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, 310 FOLWELL HALL, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0148 Interfaces (1/125) Date: Saturday, 2 Jun 1990 01:03:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 402 (442) Philip Taylor's logic is faulty; he asserts the following: - What the Macintosh (and its predecessor, the Lisa) have undoubtedly done is to shew that there is an {\it alternative} to the `traditional' interface --- an alternative which is readily acceptable by, and accepted by, a significant proportion of potential and actual computer users; what they have {\it not} done is to shew that this alternative is so superior that it will, by a process of natural selection, become the only viable interface for the forseeable future. - But he has already said: - However, my worries concerning the quasi-religious fervour which it arouses are nothing compared to my worry that despite the continuance of the debate on countless mailing lists, both the learned journals and the computer industry seem agreed that the war is already won: the future human-computer interface will be graphically oriented. - - Does that premise not, in fact, contradict his assertion? If if the learned journals AND the industry have indeed agreed that the war is won, then someone, somewhere has shown them the value of GUI. I, for one, don't see such homogenization of interfaces of either kind. It would be, quite simply, contrary to the immense flexibility which has come to characterize computer use. Is it still common in GB to use the verb TO SHEW? --Pat Conner --West Virginia University From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0148 Interfaces (1/125) Date: Thu, 31 May 90 22:07 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 403 (443) As a Mac user from 1984, may one offer a suggestion to this command line homily that comes with all its very heavy language? I have found that those who rely always on the icons give me a pain in the brain, that is: everytime a computer support helper gets into my office to fix up a problem with the new system, I find that he/she ahs turned everything to icons, and it is a jungle of unorganized, even chaotic images. But--the Mac also ahs all the features the word folk like, alphabetical listings, dates by sequence, times, etc., all available by menu choice. The mixture of choices makes for a flexible habitat, and one finds that there are mouse and key commands both available after a little acculturation to the machine if that is the correct word? It is the either/or logic that is discomfiting. And the natural selection process shows that icons mixed with the logic of numeration, alphabetization and so forth is coming on the market. The early IBM things were made by engineers to fit the needs of the keyboards and transmission schemes, and had nothing to do wth words or images. It has taken a decade and htings are not yet sorted out. Pazienza, all, please. Kessler at UCLA. From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0151 Qs: Siegen Projector; Net Access to Libraries (2/33) Date: Thu, 31 May 90 18:55:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 404 (444) In response to James O'Donnell's question about getting to Internet from other networks, there are at least two commercial gateways. Compuserve provides one (their node address is compuserve.com) and MCI mail provides another (their node is mci.com, I think). I believe that Fidonet also provides access to Internet, and Fidonet is not an institutional network. Of course, in all of these cases, transactions are limited to mail: I don't think you can run any- thing interactive (like Telnet) from any of these nodes. By the way, I'd like to hear more from anyone who has further information--this is a question of in- terest to me as well. John Unsworth <jmueg@ncsuvm> From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: network interfaces Date: Fri, 01 Jun 90 19:04:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 405 (445) To follow up on my comments of yesterday about inter-connections between the Internet and other networks, I received a newsletter called _The Electronic Web_ which has information about electronic journals, networks, and resources for network information. It is put out by Robert Weber (weber@world.std.com) and it has a nice graphic representation of the network connections. It also has information about _The Matrix_, which is a book (Digital Press, $39.50: 1-800-343-8321) documenting the connections between various networks, and providing information about computer conferencing. John Unsworth jmueg@ncsuvm (bitnet) jmueg@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu (internet) From: Ramon <J_IRIZARRY@UPR1.UPR.CUN.EDU> Subject: Compuserve to Internet Access Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 13:16 AST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 406 (446) Regarding the question of how to access public libraries through the INTERNET if you do not have a connection in a university, I can offer the following information : You can send messages from Compuserve to anyone on the INTERNET, but it's not interactive so the person could not use it to access the libraries by himself. But if he knows someone with an account on interactive INTERNET he can pass along his request. There are other consumer networks like TYMNET or TELENET, but I doubt that interactive INTERNET access is provided ( maybe someone could check that. ). Some commercial or military installations also have access to the INTERNET and could "give you a lift" if you know someone with an account there. This is done regularly in the UNIX to UNIX networks so I don't see anything wrong or dishonest in it. Ramon Lopez Dept. of Physical Sciences Univ. of Puerto Rico From: CHAA006@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0152 Plurals; Idioms; Disintermediation (4/68) Date: Fri, 1 JUN 90 12:17:58 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 407 (447) [deleted quotation] No. At least in South-East England, we stand "in a queue", or "form a queue". The term "a line-up", which I have heard used in <Am.E> for what I would term a "queue", I have only ever encountered once in <Br.E>, and that is in a context where a (well educated) man thought he was going to have to tackle a whole group of youths who were bent on trouble (he had studied the martial arts to 4th Dan level in Japan, so he wasn't entirely intimidated by this thought); he reported the event as "I thought I was going to have to take on a line-up". As to babysitting, although I have never taken part in this activity, I believe thhat we would neither "babysit him" not "babysit for him", assuming that "him" was the baby in question. We might "babysit with him", but if we "babysat {\it for}" anyone, that person would have to be the parent or guardian, not the infant. Which brings me to my own question: in <Am.E>, I have frequently encountered the expression "to visit with", which so far as I know does not occur in <Br.E>; it seems from my experience of "visiting with" that it has connotations far beyond those which are concommitant with the <Br.E> concept of simply "visiting"; when a British person "visit"s someone, they go to that person's house, chat, perhaps have a cup of tea or a snack, and then depart (I wouldn't like to place an upper bound on the length of time that they might stay, but I think that an ordinary "visit" is probably less than a day, whereas an "extended visit" might be several days). However, the time length isn't important, any more than is the tea and snacks: what seems to come across from the <Am.E> usage of "visit with" is that the resulting conversation will be close and intimate, and that the discussion will be about the family and friends, and that there will be lots of reminiscing and so on and so forth ... I realise that this is all very waffly, but am I right: that there is an implicit closeness and intimacy associated with "visit with" that is totally foreign to the British concept of simply "visiting" ? Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, ``The University of London at Windsor'' From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM> Subject: NY speak Date: Thu, 31 May 90 23:54:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 408 (448) First of all, I am not a New Yorker and secondly, being a teacher of ESL I have no accent :-). Seriously, I think the change in pronunciation of 'processes' had nothing to do with the fact that this classroom happened to be in New York City. At least 3/4 of the students in the class were not native speakers of English. In most cases if a word is mispronounced, context and intonation will be enough to clarify the meaning. Since the 'processors process the processes' the meaning of the two is so close that a change in pronunciation was necessary. Multi processes are fairly common, whereas multiple CPU's are another story. Julie in Noo Yawk From: J J Higgins <Higgins@np1a.bristol.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0139 Queries (5/60) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 16:57:23 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 409 (449) Micro OCP A survey review of concordancers including Micro OCP and WordCruncher will appear in System (Pergamon Press) either Vol 18, 3 or 19, 1. Micro OCP incorporates COCOA formatting (a metalanguage for embedding codes) which allows sophisticated sorting, eg separating citations according to which character is speaking in a play. On most direct comparisons WordCruncher comes out ahead. [ ... ] From: Knut Hofland +47 5 212954/55/56 FAFKH at NOBERGEN Subject: Micro OCP (re: 4.0139 .0153) Date: 1 June 90, 23:35:33 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 410 (450) Micro OCP (and the main frame OCP) is very slow so you will need a rather fast machine if you don't want to drink a lot of coffee... I have use "A Dolls House" (155Kb) by Ibsen to test several indexing and concordance programs. On a 16 Mhz 386 machine, Micro OCP used 3:00 minutes to pick out the context of two words (43 occurences). On a standard 4.77 MHz PC, OCP used 25:18 minutes and would have used more than 17 hours if I wanted to search in all of Ibsens plays (about 670.000 running words). WordCruncher and TACT used 2:30 to index "A Dolls House" and then the context of any word could be searched in a matter of seconds. Mark Zimmermanns "Free Text Browser" on a MAC SE/30 (also a 16 Mhz 32 bit machine) index the text in 23 seconds. (This program is available via mail or msg from MACSERVE at PUCC/IRLEARN or ftp from sumex-aim). Other stand alone KWIC programs are 5-6 times as fast as Micro OCP. Micro OCP has a general and powerful command language, but it does not seem to be optimised for speed. The command generator is an interactive part (and a good help for the novice compared to working with OCP on a main frame), but the rest of the program is a batch program. It should be possible to run several jobs in one run, but this is only possible if you makes your own copies of the control file, renames these on after another and run only the search program in between. (This is not mentioned in the manual). My experience with the program is with the first version for PC. WordCruncher is mainly for retriving contexts to words, pattern of words or combinations of words. In the later versions (4.2 or 4.3) it is easy to save the results to a printer or file (F6). It has no option to make a word list sorted by frequency or in reverse order, this has to be done outside WordCruncher (with your own program or a standard program), but the alphabetic word list made by WordCruncher could be a starting point. As a rival to WordCruncher I would recommend TACT from University of Toronto, which has several features not found in WordCruncher, like general pattern match, better possibilities for having references in the text and using them in a search, collocations (in version 1.2). For information about TACT send a note to CCH@UTOREPAS.BITNET. TACT is freeware, for version 1.1 they only charged CDN $30 for printed manual and handling. Knut Hofland The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Street adr: Harald Haarfagres gt. 31 Post adr: P.O. Box 53, University, N-5027 Bergen, Norway Tel: +47 5 212954/5/6 Fax: +47 5 322656 From: "Matthew B. Gilmore" <GY945C@GWUVM> Subject: computing/alphabets/language--Comm. of the ACM Date: Fri, 01 Jun 90 15:46:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 411 (451) In the May 1990 Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) [CACM] has a whole section: _Special Section on Alphabets and Language_ * Introduction by Edgar H. Sibley * Six Digit Coding Method by Jinan Qiao, Yizheng Qiao, Sanzheng Qiao =coding Chinese= * Building bilingual microcomputer systems by Murat Tayli and Abdallah Al-Salamah =the Integrated Arabic System (IAS) on IBM PC-based machines= * Typographic style is more than cosmetic by Paul W. Oman and Curtis R. Cook =empirical study on effect of typographic style= * An AI-Based approach to machine translation in Indian Languages by S. Raman and N. Alwar From: Z00WYR01@AWIUNI11 Subject: Re: 4.0155 Asian/N.African Conference Info/Request (1/80) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 90 09:35:42 MEZ X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 412 (452) On Thu, 31 May 90 17:47:01 EDT you said: [deleted quotation] ... [eds] [deleted quotation] Perhaps it would be also of value to include information for those poor people using SCRIPT/DCF. We here in Vienna use it even for most exotic projects like diacritics in early German texts, Sanskrit romanization, early orthodox hymns of East Europe. SCRIPT-L is more concerned with technical matters independent of applications in the humanities. R. Wytek, Computer Center, Univ. of Vienna. From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: 4.0107 TeX; RM-Cobol; Autocad (33) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 01:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 413 (453) A request for information about converting raster images to vector (specifically AutoCAD) images was recently posted. An article in the July, 1989, issue of CADalyst magazine ("Converting Paper to CAD" by David Cohn) compared 5 programs to do that. In addition, David Cohn can be reached on CompuServe for further comment. He is an editor (I think) at CADalyst and an architect. Nick Eiteljorg (n_eiteljorg@brynmawr) From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0154 Foreskins Date: Thu, 31 May 90 21:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 162 (454) Dear Nissim, I may have misunderstood the whole discussion; but -- it seems to me that the foreskins claimed (of the Sea Peoples, of the enemy Philistines) were not the corpses of soldiers who were circumcised, but the corpses of the fallen whose foreskins were cut off as trophies. NOt so? YOu count the dea by the number of scalps (if you are an Indian in the American plains, called by teh French word "coups") or the number of phalluses cut off, or foreskins cut off, but the battlefield spoliators, usually old women picking up armor and bracelets, and such, a practice that has continued, one reads, up through the Wars of the Roses and the 100 Years' War. Not so? Kessler at UCLA From: cbf@faulhaber.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Lemmatization programs Date: Thu, 31 May 90 14:53:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 414 (455) Are there any automatic or (more realistically) semi-automatic lemmatization programs out there? The latter, for example, might take a machine-readable text and systematically highlight each word (with extremely common words skipped via a stopword list), then allow the user to assign either to assign it to a lemma manually by typing the lemma on a command line or, if one were adding lemmata and forms to an existing corpus, bring up a set of existing lemmata, from which the user could pick the correct one or to which the user could add a new one manually. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Arther Ferrill <ferrill@blake.acs.washington.edu> Subject: stamps Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 23:22:45 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 415 (456) I am writing a book on the Roman Emperor Caligula. One problem is the interpretation of the coins of the reign, whether the legends and designs represent Caligula's personal policies. A modern analogy is American commemorative stamps. ... [combined mail, eds] does the President of the U.S. personally approve all commemorative issues? Did some issues under Nixon, e.g., always reflect his own personal views and policies? Stamp collectors out there, help me. . From: IN%"Read@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU" 26-MAY-1990 15:59 Subject: Anthropology Software Request Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 11:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 416 (457) I have been asked to write a review article on the use of computer software in anthropology for the Social Science Computer Review. For this review I want to concentrate on new directions that are being explored with software written by anthropologists. The software need not be finished--I'm interested in work in progress as well. "New directions" should be taken broadly--it can include novel use of application software, courseware, hypercard type programs, hypertext, programs written in any of the standard and not so standard languages, etc. The common theme should be how the software allows one to address problems in anthropology that otherwise would have been difficult to deal with without the software, or how the software has opened up new avenues of research. Finding out about software is very much a word-of-mouth affair, so please reply not only in terms of any software you may be using/writing, but let me know about software you have heard about as well. Please reply by June 15, if possible, to READ@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU. Dwight Read From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: Brain dead mailer Date: Thu, 31 May 90 22:48:29 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 417 (458) I am trying to send mail to University of Southhampton, but my mailer rejects all attempts to send mail to HII013@IBM.SOTON.AC.UK.BITNET. This form of address works for all the other sites in the UK that I send mail to save for several addresses at Southhampton. Is my mailer brain dead or is Southhampton an exception that proves the rule? The target of my e-mail is the HiDES Project. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Mark From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn) Subject: 4.0163 Email Date: 02 Jun 90 16:16:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 418 (459) For brain-dead mailers to foreign addresses, always try this form: cybername % address @cunyvm.cuny.edu That will route the message via CUNY, whose machine seems to be much the best informed about overseas addresses (and, if I recall, it is through CUNY that virtually all messages to Europe go anyway). From: INNWN@vm2.uni-c.dk Subject: Danish contacts [eds.] Date: Sat, 02 Jun 90 21:50:59 DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 419 (460) I have received the request for Danish contacts. There is no translation center at the University of Copenhagen and I found nobody to contact at English Department. However, you may try to get in contact with Bjarne Christoffersen, at Humanist EDB Department, University of Copenhagen, and he might provide you with some information, or adresses for future contact. Personally, I am in Hebrew Bible studies; discourse analysis of the Hebrew Bible and linguistics, and thus of no help. Adress for further possible contacts: BCH at ANNE.IHI.KU.DK From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Re: 4.0158 Connections between Networks (3/90) Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 10:14:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 420 (461) One of the usenet groups (comp.mail.misc) posts a guide to network gateways several times a year. Those interested in sending mail across gateways may wish to monitor this group to keep up with most up-to-date connections. --David David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Networks Date: 07 Jun 90 20:07:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 421 (462) I have been accessing [is that ok?] Internet, Bitnet, and the rest for several months now via CompuServe. As my college is too cheap/poor to establish a network connection, it's that or nothing for me. It is complicated and expensive, and email only, but it does work quite well. I have to be very conscious of how long I'm online (my software helps there)--I turn "autosave" on, scroll through the entire list of letters as fast as I can (deleting only when I'm _sure_ I'm not interested) and then read at my leisure once offline. If you're getting started on a modem on your own phone, I suggest you do some practice runs on a "free" local number (perhaps your college computer has a phone connection, or there are many local bulletin boards) before you get very involved with a commercial service. That way you can explore the hard- and software without running up a gigantic bill. If you're trying to reach someone on CompuServe, I'll be happy to look up an ID#/mailbox for you. George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: "N. MILLER" <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: Windows 3.0 Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 19:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 422 (463) Clarence Brown's note is somewhat ambiguous. Should the PC/Mac debate be relegated to history's dustbin because there's now a clear winner or because it's a dumb question? And what exactly is included in the act of global (de)fenestration? The baby together with the bath water? My own opinion of Windows 3.0 (having been suckered into it by the tons of hype that appeared in the NY Times) is that it remains a video-arcade toy. Aside from being s l o w and taking up some 4 mb., what does it do for _adult_ users that trusty Desqview doesn't do more swiftly and more elegantly? The question that intrigues me is how Microsoft can go on getting richer while producing one bomb after another. Perhaps this is what Mr. Brown had in mind, in which case I would certainly agree that mashing the delete button is in order. N. Miller From: CHAA006@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0157 Interfaces Date: Mon, 4 JUN 90 18:50:05 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 423 (464) "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> wrote: [deleted quotation] [Sorry about the long extract, but I can't see how to answer Patrick's assertion without repeating his/my premises ...] I don't think that the facts and my assertion are inconsistent. Yes, industry and the learned journals seem agreed that GUIs rule ok (to use a slightly dated UK idiom), but there's a hell of a lot of people --- real users --- who seem unconvinced. There is a directly analogous situation w.r.t. Unix; industry and the l-js seem convinced that Unix is {\it the} operating system of the future, yet there are hundreds and thousands (hundreds of thousands ?) of users who continue to use (and prefer) VMS, or MS/DOS, or even `Macintosh' (what is the correct name for the Macintosh's operating system ?). The fact that command-line users, and VMS users, still exist in such numbers, and are prepared to continue to argue their case (albeit on bulletin boards rather than in academic journals) suggests to me that natural selection has not yet occurred; it is taking place, and there is a distinct possibility that GUIs and Unix may yet win, but I do not believe that the war is won. If I were, I probably wouldn't have wasted my time writing my original submission. Perhaps as one whose motor-visual skills [and visuo-mental skills: am I the only one in the world to whom airline safety procedures are a totally meaningless set of pictographs ?] are very poorly developed, I never will grow to accept the mouse as anything but a pain in the @rse [<Br.E>, = `pain in the b@tt' <Am.E>], but I can certainly accept that pop-up windows have a great deal to offer. Indeed, in an off-line discussion with David Benfield <Benfield@Apollo.Montclair.Edu>, I think we converged on agreement that the single most beneficial enhancement to the present command-line interface would be a pop-up window, available at any point in the command, which would allow the user to (a) see what productions are valid at this point; (b) see what other productions would have been valid if the command had been entered differently; (c) investigate other topics from the `Help' system, and (d) enter another, perhaps quite different command, while retaining the partially-entered command in its entirety [David suggested that this could also be a pseudo- command entry, which would allow commands to be checked for their syntax (and perhaps for their semantics) without actually performing the command.] Of these, (a) already exists in a remarkable program written by Stan Rabinowitz called WHAT [and probably elsewhere as well], and point [7] of the original desiderata was intended to suggest some of these ideas. From: MFZXREP@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk Subject: Wordprocessing query Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 11:56:33 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 424 (465) This is a message that I have been asked to pass on by a working party who are to report on wordprocessing facilities within the Humanities and to make a reccomendation for future use encompassing as wide a spectrum of humanities needs as possible. Guy Percival, computing officer, Arts, University of Manchester. We are at present investigating the capabilities of various word- processing systems with the view of recommending the system(s) to the relevant departments within the faculty. We would be interested to hear from others who have carried out similar studies, and who have practical knowlegde of the systems. Our criteria for rating a system covers several main areas; Right to left wordprocessing for Aramaic and Hebrew. Good diacritics/character sets for a wide range of languages. A wide range of fonts and printer drivers supporting them. Ability to present parrallel texts/translations. Bibliographic capabilities. Indexing and tabulation. WYSIWYG-iness. General user-friendliness, good interface. Good on-line help facilities. Footnote and endnote creation/automatic numbering/renumbering. As there are areas not included above which are neccessary for some applications, we would also like to hear from users of systems in various disciplines who have found certain systems to be most desirable in their area. We would like to hear from both MAC and PC users as we intend to include a recommendation as to the preferred o/s in our report. Replies to. Mr Gordon Neal - mffgkgn@uk.ac.mcc.cms (g.neal@uk.ac.manchester) Mr Guy Percival - mfzxrep@uk.ac.mcc.cms (g.percival@uk.ac.manchester). Arts Faculty. University of Manchester. U.K. From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk Subject: Bibliographic software query Date: Fri, 08 Jun 90 09:22:41 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 425 (466) I am writing on behalf of a working party which has been set up here at the University of Manchester to review bibliographic software. We have identified 18 different products, but for two of them we have very little information. Does anyone out there use, or know about, DMS4CITE or Papyrus? We would be glad to hear from you, especially any specific comments about good and bad points. Thank you. Sarah Davnall (Davnall@Manchester.ac.uk) From: "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius" <KEHANDLEY@AMHERST> Subject: WordPerfect and Greek Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 09:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 426 (467) I have a Greek Language Module for WP 5.1. Installation is easy, as is using it. Problems: Sometimes printing did not work. Once I tried printing on an Epson LX-800, and it worked fine (except for the problem with some characters being struck 6 or 7 times (the ones that WP has to make graphically), while others are only struck once). Currently, the output is not acceptable on an LX-800, and all 9-pins, I imagine (unless they have a Greek font built in). BUT, sometimes I could not get it to print "correctly" at all. I would get extraneous characters, and not get the right ones. There seemed to be no problems printing to a PostScript printer, though, as far as the mechanics go. There is a problem with diacriticals printed on a PostScript printer: they are not good representations of printed diacriticals (for instance, there is often no separation between the diacritic and the letter, and it appears that WP just uses ' and ` for acute and grave accents, which makes them difficult to tell apart sometimes). I also am not certain that the complete Greek WP character set is really a complete Greek character set, that is, some possible character/dia- critic combinations may be missing. Also, I believe that (at least with a VGA, maybe not with a Herc+) you can only have two languages installed at one time (English and something else) so that multi-lingual documents that aren't mostly Western European are still out. What does all this say? To me, it means that WP is still way behind Nota Bene in foreign alphabet word processing, but you all already knew that. (based upon Humanists' comments on NB: I will get NB when the new year comes in July) (Also, a coworker tried the Cyrillic Module and really hated it, seeing no reason to switch from Turbofonts, a third-party add in that makes WP print and display Cyrillic characters.) Keith Handley Amherst College Academic Computer Center From: Louis Janus <janus@ux.acs.umn.edu> Subject: grammar checking for foreign lang pedagogy Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 16:13:22 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 427 (468) Does anyone know of a grammar checking program (or better a shell for a program) that could be used for foreign language teaching. I picture a system in which students type in their papers and get not just corrections on bad grammar or poor usage, but a good explanation of the grammar points that were used poorly? By a shell for this system, I propose that any teacher or group of teachers could list the type of mistakes that their students make, and call up the appropriate screens of explanation. If no one knows of such a system, what do you think? Would it be a useful way to help students? Would it be more complicated to program than the results would warrant? I'd appreciate ideas and information. Louis Janus Scandinavian Dept U of Minn From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: MACSERV address Date: Sat, 02 Jun 90 23:21:06 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 428 (469) I was intrigued by a recent mention of "MACSERV at PUCC/IRLEARN" as a source for a Macintosh indexing program. Can someone please provide me with the correct BITNET address so that I can get the Mac program? Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College P.S. Although I use a Mac, I also wish to irrefutably demonstrate that one can do perfectly adequate graphics on the IBM. To wit: __ / 0_____ | .\ | )----' / | \ \ | | | \ | |__/ | \_____/ |____) -- P. Opus, distinguished flightless water fowl From: Jane Andrew <ST402834@BROWNVM> Subject: telephones and e-mail Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 23:09:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 429 (470) As a new subscriber browsing through last month's postings, I was struck by someone's comparison of the current state of e-mail to the early days of telephone use. This connected up with something I've become curious about...does anyone have a recommendation for a good book on the history of the telephone? I'd like a look at either the dynamics of the industry (the interplay of research and commercial pressures) or the effect of phones on society at large. I was told that our basic 7-digit numbers were the direct result of George Miller's famous paper, The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. True or not? Also, three cheers for the person who described these lists as the electronic equivalent of the faculty coffeeshop! I think that captures it perfectly, except that it's a coffeeshop where students are also welcome. Jane Andrew Brown University From: JONATHAN KANDELL <KANDELL@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0146 Pronunciation (3/72) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 16:21 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 430 (471) Can anyone out there familiar with secular biblical studies tell me what are generally considered the best english translations of the Old Testament? kandell@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu From: Brian Minsk <BMINSK@EMUBUS> Subject: Query: Color Projection Panel Date: Wed, 6 Jun 90 16:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 431 (472) I am looking for a color LCD projection panel that can work with VGA and Mac II (also, potentially, Mac SE). Any recommendations from HUMANISTs? Brian From: U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: Date: 8 June 90, 17:27:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 432 (473) subject: 3270 emulation without hardware Does anyone know if it is possible to emulate a 3270 terminal only with communication software, without any dedicate card? Thank you. Please, if you can help, write directly to me at my email address. Maurizio Lana From: A_ARISTAR@vaxa.uwa.OZ.AU Subject: List of Bboards Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 16:22:16 wst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 433 (474) Someone here asked me recently whether there was any list of bboards available via Internet or Bitnet. I admit I blenched--there must surely be dozens--and I was even further taken aback when I realized that the person didn't just mean academic bboards and er mailing lists either, but anything and everything known to man or woman. The upshot of it was that I said I would at least post this to Humanist, to see whether anyone can give an answer to this dangerous question. Any takers? Anthony Aristar From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: To Visit Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 10:50:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 434 (475) In Maine where I grew up, "visiting" was something you did with people out of town and usually involved an overnight stay and at least 1/2 hour in the car to get there. We visited with people we didn't routinely have an opportunity to see. After moving to Indiana, the word took on new meaning--particularly after hiring a native Kentuckian. In Indiana, "visiting" was usually done in your neighbors' kitchen or on their porch and frequently included something to drink and munch on. My Kentuckian however would use the word synonymously for any type of conversation--including business meetings. An appointment with his manager to discuss job evaluations was "a visit"; a conversation in the hall with another staff member was recounted as "I was just visiting with Sam Hill..."; a request to talk about pay was made by asking "I'd like to talk about my wages. Do you have time to visit tomorrow?" Appointments were visits, parties were visits, conversations were visits. Certainly, not everyone from Kentucky "visits" so liberally. Nonetheless, I'm glad to be back in New England where an appointment is business and I can visit my family in Maine after sitting in the car for 9 hours. --Jan Eveleth eveleth@yalevm Yale University From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0159 Idioms; Pronunciation (2/42) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 12:11 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 435 (476) for Philip Taylor: I think a lineup in the US is the few people in the police identification room, the suspects, from which the witness are to choose the one they think committed whatever. I have been to one. The lineup is also the team 's ordering for baseball, the order in which they come to bat. Otherwise, it is a line that you stand in, or line up in for tickets, entry, etc. We stand in l ine and on line, which is what queuing is. Visit with is perhaps a rural Midwesternism, one or both. I never heard it in the East, or West. Maybe it is Southern or Swestern. It probably also hearkens back to before the automobile. Yrs Kessler at UCLA From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: visit with Date: Tue, 05 Jun 90 08:41:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 436 (477) The phrase "visit with," discussed in a recent submission, is a Southernism and could often be heard in the speech of Lyndon Baines Johnson. In South Carolina we used to "visit with" neighbors wherever they were encountered-- at the grocery store or the country club--and not necessarily at home. Yall come. Clarence Brown. Comp Lit. Princeton. From: Sarah Jones <SAAJONES@IUBACS> Subject: Re: 4.0159 ("visit with") Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 09:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 437 (478) Regarding the connotations associated with "to visit with" in American English..... Where I come from (a small town in east central Iowa), there isn't a particular sense of intimacy or closeness connected with "visiting with" someone. Friendliness, neighborliness, yes, but no special intimacy. Actually, "to visit" has two meanings back home. One refers to the physical act of going to another person's house in order to see them on a social basis. The other names the chit-chat that goes on while you're there. This second sense can occur without the preposition "with"; alternatively, the expression including "with" has only one meaning--that of the chit-chat. While this chatting occurs between people who may have a dimension of closeness or intimacy in their relationship, the content of the chatting is not intimate. That is, matters of special personal or political importance, or matters touching on anything remotely controversial, are actively avoided. Sarah Jones Indiana University SAAJONES@IUBACS.BITNET From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: Halio Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 22:54:59 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 438 (479) Since Marcia Halio's article continues to provoke strong reactions, we need as much information as possible about the conditions under which her observations were made. Unfortunately, the original article in AC failed to provide important details. I don't think Marcia realized how sensitive a nerve her article would strike. But some of her critics continue to expound views based on the assumption that Halio's students chose to go into a Mac section or an IBM section of English comp. That's not correct. In a letter from March 4, 1990, Marcia wrote me the following: "Some letters have attacked my article because the students 'freely chose' either IBMs or Macs. In the survey I did last fall, 75% of the students said they had not even noticed they were signing up for computer sections; they simply chose a section of freshman comp because of the time of the day or some other factor unrelated to computers. So the students really were a random sample of the population of mid-range freshmen at our university -- a state-supported school that attracts neither Ivy Leaguers nor sub-literate dingbats." She goes on to say: "I am now in the midst of a controlled experiment with six classes of freshmen English and three classes of junior and senior business writing. I should be spending the summer working with five other teachers evaluating the data obtained." I submit this not out of a desire to defend her thesis but because I like to see criticism hitting the mark rather than puncturing straw men. Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: "GILES R. HOYT" <IPIF100@INDYCMS> Subject: More on IBM vs. Mac for writing Date: Sat, 09 Jun 90 15:21:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 439 (480) Jim Seymour, a columnist for PC Week, has picked up on the controversy involving the recent article in Acadmic Computing. He intimates that there is indeed something to the accusation that writers using the Mac tend not to write as persuasively as those using DOS machines. He picks up on the argument from the point of view of the corporate world. He states: "I thought back over the mail I get, over drafts of corporate proposals I read. I recalled many conversations with corporate PC managers about the kinds of people in their companies who ask for Macs and those who ask for DOS machines. And I have to agree: Despite its undeniable advantages, the Mac does lull some users into producing shallow work. Why? My guess is that using a DOS machine forces us to confront working at the computer in a much more structured and rigorous way. . . . Even more powerfully, a plain-looking page of PC-produced text forces us to look at the words and sentences, think about the ideas. Grammatical mistakes and flimsy arguments stand out more sharply than on those more handsome pages that roll out of Mac users' LaserWriters." He wishes to hear from readers regarding their opinions on the matter. Now the corporate community can sharpen their rhetoric if not their logic and observation skills, on the issue. As a PC user, i.e., DOS-user, I am now worried about what Windows 3 is going to do to my writing talents, sharpened to a razor's edge by years of work with CP/M and DOS text oriented computers. Only time will tell. Fellow HUMANISTs will please keep a critical eye on the style and precision of the occasional pieces I may contribute to this LIST. If decline is observed, please warn me immediately. Giles R. Hoyt, IUPUI, Indpls IN From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Conference at Siegen and Jet-Lagged Editors Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 16:40:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 170 (481) For Humanists who may have missed our note of June 1, the editors were not simply pulling a bunk and disappearing off the face of the earth for 10 days; we were in Siegen, West Germany, attending the 1990 ALLC/ACH conference. Entitled "The New Medium," the conference brought together approximately 220 scholars and staff from colleges, universities and research institutes. It was a pleasure for us to meet in person many Humanists we'd previously known only as user ids, to re-meet some old friends, and to be reminded again that electronic personae are often very different from the virtual reality! Our thanks go out to the conference organizers, and especially to Helmut Schanze, Susan Hockey, and Nancy Ide. Dan Brink, you've got your work cut out for you! We spent mornings in plenary meetings that discussed many questions of vital interest to computing humanists, and afternoons in more specialized sessions. We hope to report more about the conference on Humanist, and we'd also like to re-open some of the questions that arose at Siegen for broader discussion here. We're hereby encouraging all conference participants to share their impressions with other Humanists -- we know there are several unfinished discussions out there. Right now, unfortunately, we're both still exhibiting the mind-numbing effects of jet-lag and are struggling to remember exactly what time zone we're in! Please bear with us as we re-orient ourselves; you'll hear from us -- and even more from the other conference attendees -- over the next several days and weeks. Elaine & Allen From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: LEMMATIZATION Date: Sat, 02 Jun 90 16:36:00 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 440 (482) Re: 4.0163, Faulhaber's query on lemmatization programs I'm sure lemmatization programs must be available for English (beyond those that may be mentioned in the <cit>Humanities Computing Yearbook</cit>). For a more generalized approach (other natural languages), you might examine the interlinear text (IT) processing program developed at SIL. It's not a dedicated lemmatizer, but a tool for developing a corpus of annotated interlinear text. Among other things, it maintains lexical mappings between multi-line interlinear aligned fields, two of which could certainly be your base test and lemma. Much of the annotation process is done automatically. They also have a related program (something like ITF, "interlinear text formatter"), a (La)TeX based tool that supports typesetting of texts in interesting interlinear text formats -- though this package may not be complete yet. The IT program does just about what you asked for, though a lot more. The IT program (quoting an older brochure): * keeps word and morpheme annotations aligned vertically with base form * saves word and morpheme annotations in on-line lexical database * retrieves previous annotations to ensure consistency * inserts annotations automatically when unambiguous * asks for user input when annotation is unknown or has multiple options * adds new annotations automatically to lexical database * allows user to specify organization and type of annotations * up to 22 kinds of annotations per analyzed text Word or morpheme annotations might include: phonetic transcription, traditional orthography, allomorphic transcription, morphemic representation, lexemic representation, morpheme glosses, word glosses, grammatical categories, syntactic bracketing, functional labels, semantic case roles, semantic subcategorization, participant indexing, intonation, and so forth. In addition to word- and morpheme-level glosses, freeform (clause, sentence) annotations are also possible. There might be a description of IT in the 1988 HCY, but it would be out-of-date by now. You want the description of the Mac program. The earliest DOS versions of IT were (in my judgment) a bit hard to use. With the improved documentation and interactive interface in the Macintosh incarnation, I think IT is quite a usable tool. The Mac version is quite superior to the IBM version, especially in guiding the user through the process of creating a text model. The program currently has only minimal facilities for database manipulation (though it can generate dictionaries and mappings of various kinds). For full database handling of these interlinear text databases, one can use LBase, a PC-based program mentioned previously on this forum. For availability of IT, contact: The Academic Book Center Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 USA (214) 709-2404 Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 441 (483) DATE: 13 JUN 90 16:40 CET FROM: A400101@DM0LRZ01 SUBJECT: 4.163 lemmatization As regards Charles Faulhaber's query on lemmatization, I know of no generally available, _language-independent_ programs. But I am doubtful about lemmatizing interactively at all. It really is preferable, in our experience (we have just produced a lemmatized concordance to Gratian's Decretum, which is a text of about 4 MB with 420000 words), to be able to look at a whole set of lexical forms with information about whether the system thinks they are unambiguous or not. If you arrange your text into a table of forms (case-insensitive) and a table of instances giving information about position in text, how to convert back for upper/lower-case, etc., then you only need to lemmatize the _forms_ in a text (in medieval Latin, the ratio of forms to occurences is about 1:10 in a large text - I don't know how this compares with other languages and much would probably depend on whether the orthography is standardized or not). Most forms a good morphological analyser will be able to tell you are unambiguous and you can look at its decision and then in most cases can forget about hand intervention at all; for the seemingly ambiguous ones you can in a lot of cases (again, generalising here from medieval Latin) say that the ambiguousness is only theoretical - and that leaves you with only a very small number of forms which need to be disambiguated by hand. If you let things come by you interactively and do them on the fly, the risk of mistakes is much greater, and it's hard, in a large text, to stay consistent. None of this answers the question of what programs will do this for you - but if your preferred system has a relational DBMS and you have a reasonably helpfully organized machine-readable dictionary in the language of your choice it ought to be possible to set something up without too much difficulty ... Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich From: <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: Software of the Future Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 09:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 442 (484) The members of HUMANIST have in the past discussed the scholar's workstation of the future. I'd like to turn the discussion to musings about the software of the future, particularly software for text analysis. At a recent conference (IASSIST--mostly social scientists, but this year's conference included consideration of electronic texts, images and sounds) I heard several presentations about text analysis software. It seems to me, without having a good grasp of the nature of research using this software, that most of the software is based on one of two types: a concordance model, or a mark-up scheme. Using concordance-type software like WordCruncher requires, it seems to me, a fairly thorough familiarity with the text under analysis, searching for evidence of occurences the researcher already knows to be there. The second type, using mark-up schemes, requires that one painstakingly plan what we wish the computer to tell us. If *only* syntactic elements are marked, then searching by structural elements is still impossible. These two types of software strike me to be somewhat first- generational. I've looked briefly through the _Humanities Computing Yearbook_ for evidence of other kinds, but do not see anything. Perhaps I'm missing something. Perhaps the complexities of language and literature will not allow for any more sophistication than this. Perhaps the development necessary isn't equivalent to the expected financial or career payoff. Still, I would like to hear from other HUMANISTs the kinds of software they would like to see developed for text analysis, either taking into consideration the limits of humankind and machinery, or not, whatever one's preference. I think both pragmatists and dreamers can contribute to this discussion. What will the literary software of the future do, what will it look like, and who will develop it? Perry Willett Main Library SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: programming these silly micros - a relevant concern Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 22:55:59 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 443 (485) Every few months we seem to get into a pretty senseless debate over GUIs. We know that GUIs are good for some things, and not good for others. Likewise, good command-line interfaces can be very good for some things, and not so good for others. Some combina- tion of both is probably ideal. Certainly the Mac errs on the one side, and MS-DOS errs on the other. Maybe Microsoft Windows is okay for some people. Maybe the OS/2 presentation manager is okay for others. For many (me included) we let our kids play games on Macs and PCs and do our real work under Unix :-). One thing I would point out is that people seem to be forgetting an important point about computing: Programming. If an architecture or an operating system does not permit easy programming, software is going to be expensive and not as easy to come by. Conversely, if a machine or an OS is easy to program, software will be cheap and plentiful. What Mac fanatics don't seem to be able to get through their heads is that their machine was trend-breaking and innovative in only ONE respect: The GUI. As a programming environment, the Mac was, if anything, a setback. This doesn't mean that MS-DOS, or specifically IBM, people should jump with glee. This isn't a soccer game and we aren't fans. We are just a bunch of cold observers looking over long-term market trends, and trying to assess the relative advantages and disadvan- tages of various bits of hardware and software. For multilingual work, the Mac wins hands down. MS-DOS users are in the dark ages. Nota Bene is cute, but is fundamentally limited by its operating environment. For programming ease, MS-DOS wins hands down. And besides, just pick up a trade journal some time and it will become obvious that there is FAR more MS-DOS software that runs faster on cheaper hardware than you'll get for a Mac. It's a tradeoff, and there's no sense getting all up in arms about this or that cute GUI. GUIs are important. The Mac, however, does not represent a quantum step beyond its competetion in this respect anymore. If you don't want to program it, don't care about the cost of peripherals and what not, and are happy with the software base, then buy one. It's still a very nice machine. I'd love to have a Mac II on my desk here at home, especially if Apple gets its act together and offers us a Unix version that will be a breeze to port things to. -Richard L. Goerwitz goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet goer@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer From: John McRae <JRM@CORNELLA> Subject: Conference announcement Date: Fri, 08 Jun 90 14:42:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 444 (486) CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS "Buddhism in the Modern World" FKS International Buddhist Conference December 25-29, 1990 Fo Kuang Shan Kao-hsiung, Taiwan The North American coordinators for the FKS International Buddhist Conference, to be held December 25-29, 1990 at Fo Kuang Shan, Kao-hsiung, Taiwan, on the subject of "Buddhism in the Modern World," are issuing a call for paper proposals. Topics may involve any aspect, country, or tradition of contemporary Buddhism (i.e., doctrine, recent history, social issues; Thailand, CHINA, UNITED STATES, ETC.; THERAVADA, MAHAYANA, VAJRAYANA) BUT SHOULD REPRESENT original research. Papers will be selected on the basis of originality and significance; graduate students, independent scholars, and junior and senior faculty are encouraged to apply. Please send a statement of intent and a brief description of the proposed paper as soon as possible; an information packet including a description of paper format, reply form, and personal data form will be provided. Abstracts of 500-1000 words are due September 10, 1990, and initial paper drafts by November 1; requests for extensions of these deadlines will be considered on an individual basis. This is the third in a series of major conferences sponsored by Fo Kuang Shan, THE EARLIER TWO BEING ON SUTRIC AND TANTRIC BUDDHISM (DECEMBER 1986) AND THE PLATFORM SUTRA AND CH'AN BUDDHISM (JANUARY 1988). IN ADDITION, THE 1990 conference will be followed by a FKS Buddhist Youth Conference on "The Modernization of Buddhism," January 1-5, 1991, which participants will be invited to attend. All participants will be responsible for their travelling expenses to Fo Kuang Shan and back, but the Fo Kuang Shan Cultural and Educational Foundation will be responsible for food, lodging, and local sightseeing during the conference. All papers recommended by the Program Committee and presented in the conference will be rewarded $700.00. After panel discussion and any necessary revisions by the author (to be done within one month after the conference) all papers will be collected and published by the Fo Kuang Shan Cultural and Educational Foundation. Send paper proposals, abstracts, and any requests for further information to: John R. McRae, Asst. Professor (607) 255-1328 Department of Asian Studies, RF 389 BITNET: JRM@CORNELLA Cornell University ITHACA, NY 14853-2502 From: Hedy McGarrell <alfmcgarrell@brocku.ca> Subject: FREINET CONFERENCE Date: 13 Jun 90 9:54 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 445 (487) One of my colleagues asked me to submit the following announcement: FREINET PEDAGOGY/COOPERATIVE LEARNING CONFERENCE Plenary sessions and workshops on the Celestin Freinet approach to cooperative learning, with attention to Language Arts, Arithmetic, Social Studies, and Community Projects. Sessions by presenters from Canada, the USA and France. October 11-13, 1990, at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, CANADA, L2S 3A1 Full schedule and registration details by return post or fax from John Sivell, Department of Applied Language Studies (416-688-5550 x3374; Fax 416-682-9020), Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1 (or use e-mail ALFMCGARRELL@BrockU.CA) From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Top Level Professional Opportunity Date: Tuesday, 12 June 1990 2310-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 174 (488) The following is the official notice for a (resumed) search for a top-level academic/administrative position at Penn. Obviously it is a key position, replete with ambiguities and challenges, in an ambiguous and challenging University environment. I will be happy to provide further, less official information and insights if desired. The "right" humanistically oriented person in this position would be a godsend! Bob Kraft (Prof of Religious Studies, U Penn) ----- VICE PROVOST FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND COMPUTING University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania invites applications and nominations for the position of Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing. The Vice Provost will provide vision and leadership for all computing activities at the University. Specific duties include: strategic planning in connection with both academic and administrative computing; responsibility for development and management of adminsitrative information systems, including all mainframe administrative applications (both financial/resource- management and academic/recordkeeping) and decentralized information collection and dissemination strategies; responsibility for the maintenance, logical development and expansion of a campus-wide network for both academic and administrative data communications; negotiations and contracting with external vendors and suppliers; development of policies and procedures for coordination, resource sharing, and long range planning in connection with all academic computing activities in the individual Schools and developing, in conjunction with the libraries, plans for the scholarly information environment of the University. We seek a proven leader in the field. Qualifications include an advanced degree and substantial experience in a leadership position in an information systems environment at or similar to that of a large research university. Creative vision, technical competence, and sensitivity to the multi-faceted and decentralized nature of computing in a university environment are essential. A faculty appointment would be avaialble for a suitably qualified candidate. Nominations and applications should be directed to: Search Committee Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing 106 College Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia PA 19104-6381 The University of Pennsylvania is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. //end of formal announcement// Nominations and applications can also be made through Michael Luskin 200 Lake Drive East, Suite 101 Cherry Hill NJ 08002 609-482-7890 [That might actually be a more efficient route. RAK] From: <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: RE: list of bboards Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 08:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 446 (489) This probably doesn't answer the question about a list of bboards, but I recently found out about a guide to Internet resources. This 200-page guide lists many of the resources, like library catalogs, supercomputing centers, databases like the Dartmouth Dante project, that are available through the Internet. This list, like all lists, is not complete; there are for instance only about 15 or so libraries included. Still, it seems to be a good source of info. It is available through anonymous FTP from the NSF Network Service Center (Internet address: nnsc.nsf.net), and is available in either Postscript or ASCII format in subdirectory "resource-guide". It is fairly large, and the easiest way to get it is in a compressed file with the *.tar.z extension. Perry Willett SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Connections between networks Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 07:48:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 447 (490) David Birnbaum mentions a internetwork mail guide posted on Usenet. This may be John Chew's guide--a monthly compilation of how to get from one network to another. Art St. George has been kind enough to keep the current copy on a server available to Bitnet users. For the most recent copy, send mail to LISTSERV@UNMVM with GET NETWORK GUIDE in the body. Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: "Tony Roder" <TONY@SLACVM> Subject: Re: List of Bboards Date: Wed, 13 Jun 1990 08:39 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 448 (491) SIMTEL20 lists several BBoard lists in its <msdos.bboard> (I think) directory. Very comprehensive and updated. How to reach SIMTEL is an arcane science known best by you local wizzzzzzard. Good luck. From: CHAA006@vax.rhbnc.ac.uk Subject: Re: `Brain dead mailer' Date: Fri, 8 JUN 90 18:44:59 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 449 (492) Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> asked: [deleted quotation] There is probably some confusion at your site. Both `Bitnet' and `Uk' are top-level domains; an address should not end with both. I would recommend HII013@IBM.SOTON.AC.UK or HII013%IBM.SOTON.AC.UK@UKACRL.BITNET Philip Taylor Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, ``The University of London at Windsor'' From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0139 Queries -- RAMBAM (MAIMONIDES) Date: Sun, 3 Jun 1990 09:14 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 450 (493) In reply to Ronen Shapira's query about "Maimonides' Attitude to Old Age", see Harry Fox, "Maimonides on Aging and the Aged in Light of the Esotericist-Harmonist Debate", in *The Master as Exemplar: Studies in Maimonides*, ed. Ira Robinson *et al*, Edwin Mellon Press, Spring/Summer 1990, pp. 317-381. Fortunately, Prof. Fox (of the University of Toronto) is in Jerusalem; you can reach him by phone 02-225076 if you have further questions. He is not sure whether the book has already appeared or not. He also told me that in the above article he deals with the sources about Rambam's influence as a physician on non-Jews and that this article is part of a book-length study of the subject which he is preparing. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: English OT Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 14:53:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 451 (494) What one considers the best English translation of the OT will depend, of course, on one's criteria. I suggest the following: (a) the Revised Standard Version has been, for some time now, as close as we come to a standard for university work in biblical studies. It is generally considered to be a solid, "critical" translation. It is widely used in scholarly monographs and, in my experience, in undergraduate teaching. It is available cheaply, in numerous formats, and several derivative study aids (of a secular sort, including electronic and paper concordances) also use it. Finally, the RSV is subject to continual revision, to keep pace with changes in the language; a new version has been released this summer. So, for a combination of accuracy and versatility, the RSV is hard to beat. (b) None of this means that the RSV is the *best* translation. The New English Bible, New American Bible, and New International Version all have their advocates and constituencies. But (i) the ancillary study tools available for these versions are relatively meagre -- although the (evangelical Protestant) NIV crowd are trying very hard to change that -- and (ii) none of these has been able to capture a significant share of the N. American university market. (c) There is, however, another possibility. The translation of the Hebrew Bible done by the Jewish Publication Society, called _Tanakh: the Holy Scriptures_ is, in my view, the very best alternative for university work. It does not have the versatility of the RSV (by a long shot), BUT: (i) it is an original translation of the Hebrew text, fully critical, and free of the influence of the Christian translation tradition; (ii) it is indeed not the "Old Testament", but the Hebrew Bible -- a self- contained collection whose integrity is not conditioned by a Christian interpretive appendix (the "New Testament"); (iii) the proper, original order of the text (Torah, Prophets, Writings) is preserved, rather than the Christian arrangement; (iv) the translation itself draws upon quite recent insights into the development of the language from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ugaritic, Akkadian, and other sources; and (v) it is an elegant translation, attractively laid out. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to studying the Bible in university is the very familiarity (or perceived familiarity) of the text. Whatever you recommend that they buy, a good portion of your students will roll up with the old family Bible -- dog-eared, perhaps annotated, black-covered, and probably in what one student called "the King James Virgin". I have found that using the Tanakh in class helps to avoid this problem. Students usually decide that the Tanakh is sufficiently different from their familiar Bibles, in both translation and layout, as to warrant the purchase of the new text. And that's where the real fun of learning begins. Like the Corn Flakes ads say, they can "taste it again for the first time". Steve Mason Humaniites, York U. From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: JUDAICA FELLOWSHIPS Date: Sun, 03 Jun 90 11:13:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 452 (495) Isaiah Gafni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has asked me to post the following announcement. Visiting Fellowships in Jewish Studies Yad Hanadiv and the Barecha Foundation have established a Visiting Fellowship program in Jewish Studies. Fellowships are awarded to teachers of Jewish Studies who hold non-tenured university positions. Fellows will spend a year in Israel, participating in a structured program together with a senior scholar in their field of study, while concurrently working on their own research projects. Fellowships for the 1991-92 academic year are in the amount of $20,000. Candidates involved in the teaching of Jewish studies at the university level, as well as other interested parties, such as chairs of Jewish Studies departments, may write to the following address for further information and application forms: Yad Hanadiv/Barecha Foundation Fellowships 16 Ibn Gvirol St. Jerusalem, Israel 92430 Requests for information can also be sent to Prof. Isaiah Gafni by bitnet: HNUGI@HUJIVM1 From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: ICANAS August 19-25 Date: Fri, 8 Jun 90 17:28:52 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 453 (496) If you are attending the ICANAS meeting in Toronto, and would like to get together with other subscribers to this group, let me know and I shall see if something can be arranged. Include your hotel and preferred time of meeting. Alan D. Corre Department of Hebrew Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (414) 229-4245 PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201 corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu From: Mary Massirer <MASSIRERM@BAYLOR.BITNET> Subject: latin-amer. studies Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 15:32 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 454 (497) I have a friend, not yet on BITNET, who directs a program in Latin-American Studies. Since he will be hooked up soon, he would lik to exchange info. with others who are interested in or involved in LAS programs. Send info. to me, and I will forward to him until his machine becomes part of the network. Thanks, Mary Massirer (MASSIRERM@BAYLOR) From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Vesta Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 08:02:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 455 (498) I am searching for secondary materials on Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth (the Greek Hestia). I know Jean-Joseph Goux's article in Representations 1 (1983) and the sources cited there, and of course a good range of classical citations. But I would like to know of anything important neglected by Goux, anything more recent, and in particular feminist readings of the Vesta material. Material in French and Italian welcome, Spanish too, and German at a pinch. Can any Humanist help? With thanks, Germaine <Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: Hershey Script Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 13:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 456 (499) Does anybody know what Hershey Script Fonts are? John Burt Brandeis University From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: Metaphysics of Cyberspace Date: Wed, 06 Jun 90 22:25:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 179 (500) Rorschach at Edinburgh would like more on the statement I made about the conference on cyberspace. In describing the First Conference on Cyberspace (May 4-5 in Austin, Texas), I said there was a spontaneous combustion of metaphysical problems raised by the plans for cyberspace. First a little about cyberspace. What is it? The fiction of William Gibson depicts a full-featured cyberspace as a hybrid between an international data network for business and a three-dimensional videogame. Users access cyberspace through a computer console, a deck with electrodes feeding directly into the brain. The user's body is "the meat" that stays behind to punch the deck and give the coordinates, while the user's mind roams the computer matrix. Gibson's novel *Neuromancer* describes cyberspace as "a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data." Several research and commercial projects are producing cyberspace prototypes. (See Howard Rheingold's article in Whole Earth Review #67 summer 1990.) The cyberspace prototypes resemble the fictional models to some extent. The prototypes reach for a total sensory environment constituted by information. The information arrives in holograms and other multi-dimensional structures, all modelling the phenomena of the corporeal world. To enter the holographic data environment, the users don headsets and data suits that transmit retinal images and sensory stimuli. Multiple users perceive the same holographic objects and communicate with reference to the same locus points. Instead of moving physically back and forth in the world, users deal with informational objects constructed by data. The informational objects include representations of the users' physical selves. When speaking of cyberspace as a total environment for manipulating data structures, the developers refer to a "computer-simulated virtual reality." While they work out the details of this virtual reality, cyberspace developers find their language turning strange and their thoughts getting metaphysical. How, for instance, should the users appear to themselves? Should they appear in cyberspace as one set of objects among others, as third-person bodies they can inspect with detachment? Or should the users appear to themselves as headless fields of awareness attached to bodies, similar to our phenomenological experience? Does causality underpin the cyberworld so that an injury inflicted on the user's cyber body likewise befalls the user's physical body? And what about the process of creating the cyberspace world? What determines its qualities and dimensions? Should a free aesthetic imagination draw and paint cyberspace? Should artists create unique hyper-real worlds, like cinema, which surpass the mundane tasks of the extracyber world? Or does poetry cease where the economics of the virtual workplace begin? (At the conference, American Express and IBM showed a strong interest in a cyberspace that mimics the contemporary office workplace.) But why be satisfied with a single cyberspace? Why not several? Must we pledge allegiance to any single reality? Perhaps reality will be layered like onion skins, realities within realities, permitting free aesthetic pleasure to coexist alongside the more task-oriented business world? Does the notion of multiple systems make the notion of reality obsolete? Has the word reality lost reliable meaning, really? These were some of the questions thrown around at the First Conference on Cyberspace -- at least as far as I can remember and could discern. Someone else might get a different set of questions from reading the papers by the programmers and architects at the Conference. The papers are forthcoming with MIT Press in Fall of 1990 under the title <Cyberspace> edited by Michael Benedikt. Hope this fills in what you are asking for. Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: history maps Date: Mon, 4 Jun 90 10:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 457 (501) A writer recently requested information about U.S. history maps for PCs. The April, 1989, issue of _Cadence_ magazine has an article entitled "AutoCAD and the Historian" by T. Lloyd Benson which describes a complex project involving maps and data bases. It might be of interest. Nick Eiteljorg From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Color Projection Panel Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 07:30:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 458 (502) Although I can't recommend a particular panel, PC Magazine had a review of these panels in late February, I believe. It did include at least one color. Audio Visual Communications (Feb. 1990; pp. 40-7) also had a review and included addresses for most of the manufacturers. Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: Text (God & Law) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 22:59:30 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 459 (503) In our recent discussions of what constitutes a text, and why at all look for THE text, I haven't noticed anyone as yet mention the theological-legal connotations of textuality in our Western culture. Western religious and Western legal systems base their legitimacy on an authoritative word, whether the word of God or the lawmakers' statutes on the books. Our religious and legal traditions deem essential the search for the original meaning and hence the original text. The author's original meaning (found in the word) establishes the rule of moral and legal life, and these together constitute the code of conduct. The nature of other texts, literary or philosophical, seem determined to a large extent by the theological-legal concerning text. Even when a new philosophical text seeks, in the Niezschean fashion, to destroy the theological remnant, such a text itself achieves a quasi-hallowed status. Witness the paradoxically chic and academically successful Deconstructive and postmodernist criticism. Even these efforts to create "radical" texts devolve into fashionable authorities cited by name and treated as demigods. Might electronic texts change our respect for THE word? Will they perhaps undo what books have proved powerless to accomplish? Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: misread satire Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 16:09:54-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 460 (504) Re: Humanist, 4.0125, 4.0144. In Arabic, the noun "hajw" means both "satira" and "spelling". You got both ambiguity, and spelling-misreading... Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus.bitnet From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM> Subject: Re: 4.1065 Windows 3.0; GUI (2/84) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 05:26:24 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 461 (505) on the gui. i am quite in agreement. i prefer a command line interface with a good system of menus like nota-bene's. i don't have any problem with other people who like to work with icons or whatever, but i would be very unhappy if computer hardware etc were desgined in the future to make it impossible to talk to my computer in words. daniel From: Geoffrey Rockwell <Geoffrey_Rockwell@poczta.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: 4.1065 Windows 3.0; GUI Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 11:35:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 462 (506) One thing that intrigues me about the GUI - Command line issue is the possibility that the two can enhance each other. MPW has Commando where one can use dialogue-boxes to build commands one is unfamiliar with. You see the command emerge as you select options. Once you understand the parameters of the command you can skip the dialogue-box and issue it directly. Commando (what a terrible name!) is only one side of the equation. I would like to see an interface where you could ask the system to walk you through the gestures that correspond to a command and show you the commands that correspond to your gestures. One could then create larger eventa that are combinations of gestures and commands. Yours, Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: Jeffrey Perry <JEFF@PUCC> Subject: Machine-readable English idioms Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 15:25:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 463 (507) I have a customer who is looking for a dictionary or glossary of English idioms. It doesn't matter whether it runs on a DOS machine, a Mac, or a mainframe. Does anyone know of any such product? Please mail all replies to me; I'll summarize to the group if anything interesting turns up. Thanks, Jeff Perry Humanities Specialist C.I.T. / Princeton University JEFF@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Query: PostScript font Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 22:17:14 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 464 (508) Does anyone know of sources for PostScript fonts (vector, not bitmaps) of Old Church Slavonic; Ethiopic; Syriac or Coptic? Last time I asked, Linguists' Software didn't. Thanks for any help or leads. Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@PHX.CAM.AC.UK> From: ACOOPER@UCBEH Subject: Re: 4.0176 Responses on Maimonides and on OT Translations Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 20:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 465 (509) This is merely to second Dr. Mason's remarks about English translations of the Hebrew Bible. Some ancillary aids are becoming available that make use of the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations has produced an elegant commentary on the Pentateuch, edited by Gunther Plaut, that uses JPS as its base text. And JPS itself is pro- ducing a commentary on the Pentateuch based on the translation; one hopes that they will be encouraged to move on to the rest of the Bible. Three volumes have appeared to date (Genesis, by Nahum Sarna; Leviticus, by Baruch Levine; Numbers, by Jacob Milgrom--the latter two are unquestionably the finest commentaries in English on their respective books). One of the great virtues of using JPS with undergraduates (as I did for many years at McMaster University) is that it stimulates them to appreciate the integrity of the Hebrew/Jewish Bible; it is not merely an "Old" Testament, requiring the New in order to be made whole. Alan Cooper, ACOOPER@UCBEH, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0176 Responses on Maimonides and on OT Translations Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 16:32 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 466 (510) And for the professor's resource: the ongoing, volume by volume critical edition called the Anchor Bible, with nearly thirty volumes out. Not cheap: I have subscribed since the beginning, and the volumes run about 16.95$ now, but line by line with current annotation from all the best sources, archaeology and so forth. Two shelves now available, each colume done by a separate editor or editors. For your LIbrary to buy? or you to subscribe? Kessler at UCLA From: JONATHAN KANDELL <KANDELL@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu> Subject: Best old testament translations? Date: Wed, 13 Jun 90 22:58 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 467 (511) Can anyone out there familiar with secular biblical studies tell me what are generally considered the best english translations of the Old Testament? From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: It ain't the law's fault Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 10:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 185 (512) Mike Heim of Cal State Long Beach writes that: Western religious and Western legal systems base their legitimacy on an authoritative word, whether the word of God or the lawmakers' statutes on the books. Our religious and legal traditions deem essential the search for the original meaning and hence the original text. The author's original meaning (found in the word) establishes the rule of moral and legal life, and these together constitute the code of conduct. As a law teacher this seems to me a very questionable proposition. Our tradition in the United States (with the exception of Louisiana) is that of the English Common Law, which is most definitely _not_ based on statutes. Although it is traditional to say that the Common Law is not written law, it is as a matter of fact incorporated in written texts--the reports (aka stories) of earlier law cases which are _interpreted_ by the oracles of the law (in Blackstone's wonderful phrase) the judges (whose predecessors wrote--or, in the case of English judges, perhaps only told--the stories that they are interpreting). Mike Heim's statement reeks--though perhaps I have sensitive nostrils--of `legal positivism', the nasty idea that law is (nothing but) the command of the sovereign. In particular, the dogma that the `original intent' of the framers of the United States Constitution should govern today's interpretation of our fundamental law, a doctrine that was subscribed to by the Reagan administration, represents a political effort to turn the clock back to a time when there were minimal protections of civil rights rather than an intellectually defensible legal interpretation. (There are arguments for paying respect the to original intent--and stronger arguments that, in any interesting case, there is no original intent to refer to--but these are arguments, not givens.) I raised the question of the interpretation of those texts or formulae that are used to start the wheels of the law agrinding--which struck me much like the problem of interpreting those texts, if they are texts, which serve as computer programs. The interpretation of the Sibyline books containing the reports of law cases is another matter. That type of interpretation undoubtedly has much in common with the interpretation of stories in the Bible--or the Sutras--but, though those texts may be treated as being `authoritative', they do _not_ (with the exception of the Ten Commandments and some other thou-shalt-not's) consist of rules that are to be obeyed. I do not believe that it is fair to blame the law--as to the issue of blaming God I take no position--for the Western tendency to think that _the Answer_ is lurking in a text. A lot of lawyers and some law teachers are afflicted with this sort of naivety, but I think that that is a disease that they acquired from other elements of our society--like philosophers and Sunday school teachers. Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0179 Metaphysics of Cyberspace Date: Thursday, 14 June 1990 9:10am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 186 (513) Mike Heim's lovely account of cyberspace and the strange turns it gives to designers' language dovetails nicely (as I expect he knows very well) with his ostensbily more mundane question (in a previous message) about what the literary-analytical software of the future will look like (and about who will design that software). Richard Lanham has made the argument ("The Electronic Word," _NLH 20 (1989) that the digitalization not only of text but of work in other media, both visual and auditory-- and now tactile as well-- will work precisely to undo what books have not been able to do: the fixity of THE text. Lanham argues that it has been the central endeavor of humanistic scholarship since the Renaissance to establish the text; but the electronic text is malleable, mutable, to a degree unrivalled and impossible to print. My guess is that there's an inextricable connection between what the literary-analystical software of the future will look like and what the software for "literary" *production* will look like, not only because some of the analytical software will be designed to address the problems posed by the "production" software, but also because the production software, or the material it produces, will retroactively transform our conception of older and more narrowly literary forms. That transformation (those transformations?) is/are of course going forward already: witness the arguments of Heim and others about the problematic status of "the" text. We'll need software that knows about such problems, software that avails itself of new means for representing the complexities of what happens "in" a text as well as the complexities of locating/constructing the object(s) of study. If interactive, multimedia fictions become paradigmatic, as I think they will in the not terribly distant future, and if the composers of such extravaganzas start to employ the technology of cyberspace (expensive, yes, to be sure-- but already down from the $300,000 range to something in the neighborhood of $20-$30,000 for the "low-end" systems AutoDesk is now working on), nothing we have now will be adequate to the task of describing, tracking, analyzing what's "going on"-- not least because nothing we have now is adequate to the task of tracking the "reader's" experience of the material, or the reader's construction of the material. (Another thing such scholarship will have to take into account, I think, are "objects" like button scripts in, e.g., interactive fictions composed using tools like HyperCard: Stuart Moulthrop, at the recent Computers & Writing Conference in Austin (May 17-20), did a brilliant demonstration showing that at least one of the button scripts in John McDaid's _Uncle Buddy's Funhouse_ can and should be understood as a poem capable of enacting itself.) And of course we'll need to continue finding ways to examine the status of connections between the virtual reality of the works under study and the virtual reality of the work in the world... Oh, it's gonna be confusing! And a hell of a lot of fun. John Slatin, Univ of Texas at Austin From: David Miall <DMIALL@UALTAVM> Subject: Text Analysis Date: Wed, 6 13 22:29:45 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 187 (514) One step beyond either concordances or marked-up text is to use the Z-score: this does give some help in the case of a text that may be not too familiar. The latest version of TACT (1.2), just released by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at Toronto, now includes a neat Z-score facility. TACT, in case you haven't yet seen it, offers standard concordancing (interactively) plus several related features, and now in my view outdoes WordCruncher by some distance. In looking at an unfamiliar text, assuming you have it indexed in TACT, you might start by looking for substantive words that occur with a high frequency (TACT provides a frequency command), then run the Z-score on each of the words. This will bring up a list of words occurring within a span of (say) 5 words on each side of the target word, ordered by Z-score, ie., showing the degree of significance of each word as a collocate. Such a list begins to get from the level of words up to that of themes and ideas, and is a useful discovery tool for mapping the semantic shape of a text. If you then want to follow up a given collocation, TACT lets you jump direct from the Z-score list to the text itself. With this facility and some other features, TACT seems to me provide a good tool for use in the classroom as well as for research, and it is of course very cheap: currently $30 CAN for disk and manual (and you can make as many copies as you like). It runs on IBMs and clones. Texts with COCOA or WordCruncher codes already in them can be indexed by TACT with no problem, by the way: it's remarkably flexible. Regards, David Miall University of Alberta From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Visit Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 23:06:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 468 (515) I can attest to "visit" in the sense of "chat" from relatives of mine in Kansas and Missouri. I try to keep it quiet about these relatives, particularly at a place like Yale, but for once they prove useful. From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Sea Peoples apud Karnak Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 15:59:11-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 469 (516) CORRIGENDUM ----------- The formula I gave should have been X + 2 Y , where X may be even zero. The original formula, X + Y + Z , where Z = min ( X , Y ) , assumes a self-imposed fraud-circumscription constraint, on the part of the Pharaonic army, that is unwarranted. Ephraim Nissan BITNET: onomata@bengus From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0074 Queries (84) Date: Sun, 03 Jun 90 22:43 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 470 (517) Depends what is meant by abuse. Faulkner is full of it, say in THE HAMLET, not to speak of the SANCTUARY redux novel about Temple Drake. What about CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, poor Maggie, etc. And then there is the recently revived STrindberg, DANCE OF DEATH, which is on a BBC video too, with Olivier. Or must itbe tawdry uptodate abuse? Kessler at UCLA From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: stamps Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 10:48 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 471 (518) Arther Ferrill, I am only a fringe philatelist, so someone else can probably answer your question better, but in case no one else responds.... Subjects for American commemorative stamps are approved by a panel appointed (I think) by the Postmaster General. I don't think that, as a matter of course, the president has a say in what is or is not approved. But I'm sure that if he wanted to he could. If you don't get a more informed answer I would suggest that you send your question to "Linn's Weekly Stamp News" the authoritative stamp publication. Someone on the staff or among the readership will certainly know the answer. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0074 Queries Date: Sun, 03 Jun 90 22:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 472 (519) Brians: today the LA Times Calendary had a longish essay by its art critic,Knight, on Mapplethorpe/Warhol/Pollock/and his teacher Benton. 6/3/90. If the NY Times or LA times publish my op ed essay on the controversy, I will upload it. Meanwhile, it is on a disk whose directory was smashed today, ten years' of essay on it. Have to get it rebuilt somehow by an expert at the U this week. Kessler From: Nick Eiteljorg <N_EITELJ@BRYNMAWR> Subject: GUI and Command Line Interface [eds] Date: June 15, 1990 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 473 (520) There are a few programs which illustrate the possibility of having both the gui and the command line. A particularly interesting one, for me at least, is AutoCAD. Having been developed in the DOS world, it retains the command line in the MAC version. I use both, but I use the command line in the MAC version at least as much as I use the pull-down menus. A new data base manager which is actually an intermediary between a relational data base and Cad systems also illustrates the potential of using both forms of input. GEO/Sql helps the user construct sql queries from with a CAD environment and can create a pull-down menu name for the request. But the user can also see the actual structure of the sql command if he wishes. Some would argue that Hypercard (and other oops tools) also combine the direct text input with icon-based input, since programming with Hypercard permits one to create one's own mechanisms - and, as Geoffrey Rockwell wanted, to take existing commands/icons and modify them to meet new needs. Nick Eiteljorg From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0172 Text-Analysis Software; Programming Micros (2/89) Date: Fri,15 Jun 90 12:31:38 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 474 (521) I'm sure Richrad Goerwitz's remarks about the ease of Dos programming compared with the Mac are true, but be warned anyone who has pc hardware and wants to program for a GUI (ie Microsoft Windows). THis is not easy, and the tools are poorly developed and badly documented (this is a statement of truth from the heart !). Whatever its benefits I can't imagine that Windows 3 will resolve this drawback. Nicholas Morgan Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM> Subject: Re: 4.0182 GUI (2/24) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 04:39:18 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 475 (522) again on nota-bene's interface. it has no icons of course, but as you work with menu options it builds the command-line syntax on the command line thus providing exactly the sort of learning device interace called for. From: CTILIT@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Guide applications for Mac & PC Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 15:43 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 191 (523) The recently set-up Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing is looking for applications written in Guide for either Mac or PC for demonstration purposes. Does anyone out there have anything particularly relevant to teaching and research in literature or linguistic studies that they would be willing to share with us? We would be very grateful. We would also like to announce that we have just produced a brief update sheet to the newsletter *Computers in Literature* published by the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies. If anyone would like a copy of this, or indeed of the first issue of *Computers in Literature* which came out in January, send me a note. I am looking for contributions for the next issue which is to be published in the autumn. I am particularly keen to hear about software and projects to do with teaching literary and linguistic subjects. If anyone would like more details about the Centre for Humanities Computing or the CTI Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies, or would like to receive our publications free of charge, contact me: Marilyn Deegan CTI Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies Oxford University Computing Service 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN e-mail: CTILIT@VAX.OX.AC.UK From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0171 Lemmatization (2/99) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 12:51:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 476 (524) My thanks to Robin Cover and Timothy Reuter. Both of you may be right. The specific problem I'm trying to solve is doing normalized searches on unnormalized text. In most medieval languages spelling variations are so great, especially if more than one dialect is concerned, that trying to recover all tokens of a given type through soundex procedures, unix-type wild-cards, or algorithms is unlikely to be successful (e.g., in Spanish 'to talk' can be fablar, hablar, ablar, favlar, avlar, havlar; the past participle of 'to do' can be echo, fecho, hecho, feito, feyto, fejto). In the latter instance, the echo, hecho forms can also belong to the verb echar 'to throw' (and these are trivial examples off the top of my head). Thus the need to lemmatize the corpus. Reuter's approach sounds useful, but there would need to be a good deal of manual intervention in any case; and, again, it would require a morphological analyzer for each language used (I think; I don't know enough about computational linguistics to have an informed opinion). Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Search/Browse Program for HP 110 Laptop Date: Thursday, 14 June 1990 2319-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 477 (525) I have resuscitated a few of the old sturdy HP 110 Laptops that were given us to play with some years back (getting and installing new battery packs is cheap and easy), and want to use them occasionally to show off flat file data (e.g. genealogical). There is no search/browse feature in the built-in software, so I tried to load a recent version of LIST, but was told there was insufficient memory. Programmers here have suggested that they could write a quick solution, but before I agree to that, is there any light from the HUMANIST world? CHKDSK tells me that the machine has 71K bytes free of internal memory (and 176K bytes of available disk space). I want to be able to search for at least simple matches (multiples, etc., would be nice but not essential) and have them display in context on the 16 line 80 column screen. The LIST model is adequate for my purposes -- LIST allows a simple search, and puts the hit line about 5 lines below the top of the screen which is filled with the complete context of the hit. Note that the limited screen depth (16 lines) precludes direct use of any program that assumes a 24 line screen and needs to write to that entire space. Possibly an early version of LIST would work, but are there any other suggestions? Thanks for any help offered! Bob Kraft (KRAFT@PENNDRLS.bitnet) From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0187 Text Analysis (1/30) Date: Friday, 15 June 1990 7:48am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 478 (526) Thanks to David Miall for his useful account of TACT and the uses of the Z-score. I know it's come up here a number of times, but would someone be kind enough to repeat information on how to obtain a copy of the program? Thanks. John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin, EIEB360@UTXVM. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Technology, Tendenz, and Bible Translations Date: Friday, 15 June 1990 0020-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 193 (527) In his interesting and useful note on translations of Jewish scriptures, Steve Mason correctly points out that a valuable pedagogical advantage of using the Jewish Publication Society TaNaKh translation is that it is "free of the influence of the Christian translation tradition" (for most practical purposes, at least) and that its "integrety is not conditioned by a Christian interpretive appendix (the 'New Testament')." I could not let his next point pass, however, since it is both misleading and itself illustrates that simply by avoiding one traditional trajectory ("Christian") one does not automatically move into territory that is free of analogous interests (in this instance, "Jewish"). I don't mean this to be a polemical observation, but a descriptive "fact." I have no solution, except to recommend that NO SINGLE TRANSLATION be used to the exclusion of others. In any event, the point made by Steve that serves as my illustrative focus is his #3: that in the JPS translation "the proper, original order of the text (Torah, Prophets, Writings) is preserved, rather than the Christian arrangement." As I'm sure Steve knows, the question of the order of Jewish scriptural books is extremely complex. How one can determine what is "proper" or "original" or for that matter "Christian" (or even "Jewish") goes far beyond academic historical description! Before the advent of the codex form of gathering texts together under one cover (a technological revolution in the 2nd through 4th centuries of the common era!), there was no simple or obvious way of assigning order to the scriptural books that were being collected and organized into groupings -- there might have been lists (Sirach and Luke-Acts and Josephus provide some evidence for ways of ordering subsections and/or giving some sort of table of contents), or possibly ordered bins in a segmented scroll box, but even the concept of "proper and original order" seems improbable in this scroll technology period. These are later issues that probably grew with the technology that made it possible to create a "Bible" under one cover, requiring a specific order. Much diversity of specific order is attested before either "Jews" or "Christians" developed what came to be traditional in the classical forms of those perspectives. Yes, use the JPS TaNaKh; and also use RSV, NRSV, NIV, etc. And alert your students to the influences, both overt and more subtle, that the surviving traditions continue to have on how we look at these matters. And don't forget that technological developments have often, sometimes in almost forgotten ways, played important roles in changing how things were viewed and what matters were considered important. I would argue that the order of the books of Jewish scriptures is one of the least important things to consider in choosing a translation for academic purposes! Bob Kraft (Religious Studies, Penn) From: DGEDALECIA@WOOSTER.BITNET Subject: TAIWAN ADDRESSES Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 00:50:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 479 (528) Forwarded by: Kevin Berland <BCJ@PSUVM> Herewith is a mail query humanist may be able to help with (from XCULT-L@PSUVM). Does anyone know how to contact academic institutions in Taiwan? I am interested in exchanging information with scholars at institutions like Academia Sinica or National Taiwan University, or even with scholars working at the National Central Library. Any information or lists will be much appreciated. Thanks: David Gedalecia College of Wooster Wooster, Ohio 44691 U.S.A. DGEDALEC@WOOSTER.BITNET From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: ARABIC/FARSI FOR WORDPERFECT 5.1 ? Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 19:46:01 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 480 (529) On behalf of a friend, I'd like to ask if anyone knows of Laser printer support for Arabic/Farsi with WordPerfect 5.1. I don't mean a sophisticated solution with right-to-left screen wrap and full program knowledge of contextual forms -- just the bare necessities for printing. Proper screen rendition is not even necessary -- just correct laser printout. Replies may be sent to me directly. Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: pds@mx.csun.edu Subject: Re: 4.0160 Concording: Micro OCP, WordCruncher, TACT (2/70) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 12:10:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 481 (530) Our library doesn't carry System. I would be grateful for a complete citation to the forthcoming comparison of concordancers so that the library can get a copy through the loan system. Peter Smith pds@mx.csun.edu From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: 2400-baud modems Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 12:39:07 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 482 (531) Any recommendations on the subject? Price is important, but so is ease of use and functionality. For an IBM PS/2, and preferably external. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Erik Carvalhal Miller <ERCMILLE@IUBACS> Subject: New Baltic republics list ("BALT-L") Date: Thu, 14 Jun 90 17:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 483 (532) The following is a mailing distributed on the ESPER-L Esperanto list regarding a new LISTSERV list for the newly emerging Baltic republics. This may be of general interest to fellow HUMANISTS. --Erik Carvalhal Miller ERCMILLE@IUBACS Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana USA BALT-L on LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Baltic Republics news and development list BALT-L is an online forum devoted to communications to, and about, the Baltic Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It aims to further networking with those countries, in two senses of that word: the technical one of establishing the basic links to permit electronic communications; and the softer definition of a network of people building up people-to-people contacts and working together on matters of common interest. A core aim of this list is to foster practical projects. Subscription to this list is welcomed from anyone with skills or interests relevant to the Baltics, or who just wants to know whats going on. We hope in particular to bring together :- Participants living in the Baltic Republics. :- People around the world with origins in the Baltic Republics, or who have connections with those countries. :- Anyone with technical skills in electronic networking who may want to contribute to developing electronic links to the Baltic Republics. :- Anyone needing to research on developments in the Baltics. :- Anyone around the world with a need to contact, visit and/or work with College staff or students living and working in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. Although English is likely to be the lingua franca, ALL languages of communication are WELCOME: but especially in Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian. NOTE: all COMMANDS described below should be sent to LISTSERV@UBVM ; [...] To subscribe, send the following command to LISTSERV@UBVM via mail or interactive message: SUB BALT-L your full name where "your full name" is your name. (NOT your network userID ). For example SUB BALT-L Joan Doe ---------------------- BALT-L will be peered on two hosts. Please subscribe to UBVM for now, even if you are in Europe. Archives of messages already sent through BALT-L can be obtained by interactive LDBASE or by sending an "INDEX BALT-L" command to LISTSERV@UBVM. These files can then be retrieved by means of a "GET BALT-L filetype" command. Owner (UKACRL): Edis Bevan <AEB_BEVAN@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX> Owner (UBVM): Jean-Michel Thizy <jmyhg@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Initially mailings to BALT-L will be distributed 'as sent'. Eventually we hope to develop a system where packages of messages bring together specific themes. Examples could include: electronic linking; visits; agriculture; Industrial development; opportunities and pitfalls of a free market economy; discussions of History; armed forces or disarmament; Lithuanian Language items.. From: Henning M|rk <slavhenn@aau.dk> Subject: Polish Connection Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 16:15:44 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 484 (533) This is an attempt to speed up the efforts being done to establish communication possibilities with Poland. A friend and colleague of mine - Jan Nowak, a Polish humanist temporarily employed at the University of Aarhus - is prepared to spend this summer promoting e-mail facilities in Poland. We have been thinking of possible ways to put a mild pressure on the relevant authorities. Here is where you HUMANISTs come in. We should like to ask those of you who have friends and colleagues in Poland to send those people's names to us. Just write their (title) name & institution - and we shall make a complete list of all mentioned persons. Rich Mitchell refers (in HUMANIST, May 4) to Anna Wyka and Andrzej Scinski of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. This is just the beginning. In this way we hope to be able to put together a list of several hundreds of Polish intellectuals with whom colleagues from abroad want to have e-mail contact. A long list of Polish university people who need e-mail contact with people from Western Europe and the American continent might - at least we hope so - accellerate the whole process. Henning Moerk Slavisk Institut Aarhus Universitet SLAVHENN@AAU.DK From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Taiwan connections Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 09:31:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 485 (534) I'd like to add my query to that of David Gedalecia; does anyone know of a node address at National Tsing Hua University in Hsingchu, Taiwan? John Unsworth jmueg@ncsuvm jmueg@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu From: G.R.Hart@durham.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0183 Queries: Machine Readable Idioms; Fonts (2/25) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 12:03:05 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 486 (535) I don't know the answer to your query, but someone who might know is David Pollard (David Pollard Associates), Folly Bridge Workshops, Abingdon Road, Oxford (0865-240048), whom I have found very helpful concerning font problems. Jill Hart. From: David Mighetto <mighetto@hum.gu.se> Subject: The text of "Don Quijote" Date: 17 Jun 90 16:33:40 EDT (Sun) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 487 (536) Are you hispanist? I am interested in finding a machine-readable version of Cervantes' Don Quijote, Part 1 (preferably via E-Mail). Do you have it? Please, contact me! David Mighetto, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. From: janus@ux.acs.umn.edu Subject: names of computers Date: Sun, 17 Jun 90 10:49:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 488 (537) Does anyone know of a study or collection of names of computers? Here I mean network names (e.g. the Vax at St. Olaf College called "THOR.") rather than brand names. If no such study exists, how would you propose collecting and analyzing the names? Ideas? What is the cleverest name you know of? How did the computers get their names? At St. Olaf, there was a sort of a contest, but I don't remember the details. Louis Janus Scandinavian Dept U of Minnesota From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: Back to the Bible Date: Fri, 15 Jun 90 18:27:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 489 (538) I'm a great fan of Bob Kraft's, so if HUMANIST will tolerate a brief rejoinder to his remarks on Bible translations, I hope that it will be understood to be free of ad hominem. Bob argues, in part, that canonical order is not a key criterion for selecting Bible translations and that, in any case, the "proper order" of the biblical text is problematic. First, two clarifications: (a) I agree that order is not the most important criterion -- didn't mean to say that it was; (b) I was thinking of macro-order -- Torah, Prophets, and Writings, not of arrangements within the last of these categories. Now the polemical point. It is not at all clear that the question of order only became significant with the development of the codex, in the second to fourth centuries. Indeed, the crucial shift, surely, is not from scroll to codex but from oral culture to written. Scrolls and codices were, it seems to me, merely symptoms of these larger conditions. Scrolls, with all the difficulties that they posed for reading, worked tolerably well in oral culture because they weren't read all that often: they functioned more as textual repositories that could be consulted for clarification, but that were not read on a routine basis. When it became important to consult the written text more often (for proof-texting among other things), necessity invented the codex. My point: all of our evidence (Ben Sira, Paul, Matthew, Luke, Josephus - 1 cent CE) attests that the order Torah, Prophets, and Writings, was deeply ingrained in the consciousness of both Jews and early Christians, long before the appearance of the codex. Jews did not get this schema from physically consulting the scrolls; it was a traditional category that reflected the descending order of importance of these texts, corresponding to the order in which each section of the Bible was "closed". This powerful construct seems even to have overridden the physical fact of the Septuagint's different arrangement. It would be difficult to maintain, I think, that this matter of order was not important to pre-codex Jews and Christians. And if it was important to them, it should be important to their interpreters, on the Enlightenment principle of recovering the first readers' situations, nu? Anyway, what I meant to say was that the JPS Tanakh, in preserving the traditional order (of both Jews and first-century Christians), has a certain shock value that might prove pedagogically advantageous -- that in addition to its other virtues. Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: ACOOPER@UCBEH Subject: Re: 4.0193 Technology and Bible Translations (1/48) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 90 21:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 490 (539) Dr. Kraft's interesting reply to Steve Mason goes far beyond the original query (about which English translation of the Bible is "best"), and gets to a fundamental problem of Bible instruction in the secular university. Mason had suggested (and I agreed) that one of the virtues of the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh is that it does not presuppose the unity of the Old and New Testaments, and thus stimulates students to reflect on the integrity of the Hebrew/Jewish Bible in its own right. To that suggestion, Kraft replied that "simply by avoiding one trajectory ('Christian') one does not automatically move into territory that is free of analogous interests (in this instance, 'Jewish')." Kraft appends some well-taken cautionary remarks against assuming the integrity of any collection of biblical books, since such collections were the products of complex historical processes. I do not think, however, that the discussion ought to focus on which ordering of biblical books is more or less authentic. Surely Mason's point was not that re-describing "Old Testament" as "Tanakh" would replace a value-laden, anachronistic designation with one that was value-free, or more correct from an historical point of view. The idea, rather, is to promote good teaching by defamiliarizing a text that is, in our society, unreflectively taken to be the "Old Testament," with the theological underpinnings of that label simply taken for granted (even by many non-Christian students, in my experience). Now historical-critical, literary-critical, and social-scientific approaches to the Bible--no more value-free in my view than the theological ones--are also good ways of defamiliarizing, and of getting students to question their presuppositions. (Is the problem uniquely acute for teachers of Bible?) In the first instance, however, I think that Kraft is absolutely right when he says that we need to "alert [our] students to the influence, both overt and more subtle, that the surviving traditions continue to have on how we look at these matters." A good way of doing that, even before immersing students in the more overtly "secular" methodologies, is to confront the "Old Testament" with the "Tanakh." It helps, of course, that the JPS translation is such a fine piece of work from a purely philological standpoint. Alan Cooper <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Hebrew Union College From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Effect of surviving traditions on the interpretation of Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 13:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 491 (540) Bob Kraft mentioned in the context of biblical translations that one should be alert "to the influences, both overt and more subtle, that the surviving traditions continue to have on how we look at these matters." I believe that I am confronted by a similar problem--the influence of current legal interpretations on our reading of texts from the thirteenth or the sixteenth or the seventeenth centuries. I would be very interested in any references to works by biblical or historical scholars in how one can spot and counteract such influences on one's own readings of the earlier texts. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH From: <DMIALL@UALTAVM> Subject: TACT distribution Date: Sat, 6 16 10:23:54 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 492 (541) To obtain a copy of TACT you should contact the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, Robarts Library 14th Floor, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1A1. (Tel: 416-978-8656) The Centre is currently charging $30 CAN or $25 US, for which you get a disk and a bound copy of the manual. The program is described as "essentially shareware", and can be freely copied provided the copyright is preserved, etc. Seems a great bargain to me! Regards, David Miall University of Alberta From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Interactive Fiction? Date: Mon, 18 JUN 90 16:36:54 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 493 (542) Recent mailings (incl. 4.0179 etc. Metaphysics of Cyberspace) have refered to INTERACTIVE FICTION. Although familiar with the term I would like to know more - could anyone give some pointers or references to it's practitioners please? The concept of a "button script(s) in John McDaid's _Uncle Buddy's Funhouse_" being understood as a "poem capable of enacting itself" carries with it so many unresolved links as to be criminally teasing! I look forward to your responses - thank you in anticipation. Simon Rae: Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK From: J.Wexler@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0157 Interfaces (4/108) Date: 18 Jun 90 14:21:00 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 494 (543) May I butt in, as a non-subscriber to HUMANIST who just happens to have seen some of the discussion on graphics-vs-text interfaces? Unless somebody has disposed of it in earlier correspondence which I haven't seen, an important point is being missed: text interfaces are (or should be) good for batch work and complicated "programmed" jobs, with conditional flow of control and elaborate parameterisation of commands. It shouldn't surprise or offend anyone if a majority of users prefer graphics interfaces; that is what suits their style of working. Anybody who has heavy repetitive work to do, though, will not want to spend his/her days directing a computer through the tasks with a mouse and windows, and will be glad to be able to write his/her own programmed, parameterisable commands and/or batch jobs. The facility to do this inevitably affects the design of a command language in ways which make it less attractive for interactive use. In fact, the better the interface is for "batch" or "pre-programmed" working, the further it is likely to be from an ideal interactive interface. Batch mode users often expect the operating system also to do elaborate scheduling to optimise throughput, meet deadlines, avoid deadly embrace in resource allocation, and achieve some kind of "fairness" between multiple users. That means that it should be possible to look at a job in advance and to know quite a lot about it - whose it is, what resources it will use, how urgent it is, and so on. This imposes another set of complications and constraints on the command interface. User interfaces which allow for all of this are hardly likely to be intuitive. It is possible to provide a much simpler and more natural interface for straightforward interactive use. However, there's not much point in implementing "simple use" as a text interface; people don't want to have two different command languages (one simple and one powerful) for a single system. In any case, a graphical interface can do the job much better for simple easy intuitive interactive use. Anyway, why worry about it? Both interfaces can co-exist on a single system, and can usefully interact: for a couple of simple examples, you can call up a shell command from an icon, or control windows from shell commands. John Wexler Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre From: PETERR@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0190 Interfaces (3/46) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 90 9:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 495 (544) Further to Goerwitz's remarks concerning the relative difficulty of programming a Mac compared to a PC. It is facile and misleading to say that it is easier to write programs for the PC than for the Mac. What sort of programs? Sure, if you want ot write a simple one-off utility for your own use this is probably correct - though there are lots of programs around for the Mac (eg Microsoft Basic, Turbo Pascal or Catspaw's excellent Mac Spitbol) which allow you to implement such a program on the mac very easily. You can even use the "console" environment in Think C to write vanilla C programs that use command lines and write printf to the screen just as they would on any Dossbox. But if you want to write a "GUI" program with multiple windows etc, all those menus, dialogue boxes, unlimited fancy fonts - there just ain't any contest. As Morgan's reply suggests, the Mac is far ahead. This is where six years lead with WIMPS shows right out. There are shelves full of literature - starting with the superb Inside Macintosh series, for my money the real reason for the Mac's success, and extending to Howto guides of every sort - and masses of fancy third party programming environments that will give you a flying start in the prickly business of programming for a GUI. The real point here is that programming for *any* GUI is several orders of magnitude more difficult than programming for a command line (and also, I think, several more orders worth-while, which is why some of us do it). You need the best possible tools, and lots of them, to help you on the way. Such tools exist for the Mac - I don't see them for the PC. If you want to compare like with like compare (as Morgan does) programming the Mac with programming for Windows.Then come back and have your say. Peter Robinson Computers and Manuscripts Project, Oxford University Computing Service. From: "Bill Ball" <C476721@UMCVMB> Subject: 2400 baud modems Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 13:38:49 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 496 (545) I highly recommend the ATI 2400 etc modem. I and several of my collegues have the AT bus internal model but it is available in an external model. Compared to others i have used it is much more up to date technology with a suprisingly low number of chips--indicating higher reliability (ATI seems pretty cutting edge in general). Its a MNP level 5 --which is absolutely great if you have another MNP 5 to connect to (data compression giving about 4800 baud rates + NO LINE NOISE!). It is very competitive pricewise: the external can be had for around $170 from mail order houses. BTW the company just came out with a 2400 MNP 5 + Group 3 fax card in the $400 range. (I have no connection with ATI) ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: ACOOPER@UCBEH Subject: Re: 4.0194 Notes and Queries (5/136) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 15:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 497 (546) Re: Charles Faulhaber's query about 2400-baud external modems. I am very happy with my low-end Everex 24E+, which includes MNP error correction Class 2-5, and comes with Bitcom communication software. I paid $179 for it at the local Compdd outlet. For a telecommunications tyro such as myself, it has proven to be economical, easy to use (I even understand the manual!), and trouble-free in operation. Bitcom, too, was easy for a beginner to use, but I quickly grew tired of its limitations and acquired Procomm Plus. Alan Cooper, Hebrew Union College. From: MERIZ@pittvms Subject: 2400 baud modems Date: Sat, 16 Jun 90 16:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 498 (547) In answer to Charles Faulhaber's question regarding 2400 baud external modems, I would strongly recommend the Practical Peripherals unit, as I did in a recent message. It is 100% Hayes compatible, but sells for a fraction of the price of a Hayes unit (currently $179 from PC Connections). It is very easy to set up, performs flawlessly, and is warranted for five years. I purchased my unit almost two years ago, together with PROCOMM PLUS, and have had no cause to regret my choice. - Diana Meriz meriz@pittvms From: Deian Hopkin <DRH@ABERYSTWYTH.AC.UK> Subject: Conference on Information Transfer in the Historical Sciences Date: 17-JUN-1990 21:18:37 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 200 (548) The Association for History and Computing announces a one day session at the 17th International Historical Congress: 17TH CISH , MADRID 1990 ROUND TABLE Thursday, 30 August 1990 Methodological and Technical Information Transfer in the Historical Sciences. ________________________________________ The Round Table will consist of two linked half-day sessions. Part 1 is coordinated by Dean Lawrence McCrank of Ferris State University, the President of the Association for the Bibliography of History, while Part 2 is jointly coordinated by Dr Deian Hopkin of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and Professor Konrad Jarausch of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Associated with the Round Table there will be demonstrations and an exhibition dealing with the use of computers in history. PART 1: - BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHIVAL RESOURCES AND CONTROLS. ... [see below to obtain complete schedule] PART 2: THE CHALLENGE FOR HISTORICAL INQUIRY Fresh Perspective and New Methods ... The purpose of this afternoon session will be to explore the implications of changing methodological approaches and the oportunities of novel techiques for the historical use of computers, since both subjects are closely interrelated. On one level, the issues which ought to be addressed concern the dichotomy between the old "new social history" and the new "new social history" (terms of Natalie Davies) such as the tension between analysis and narrative, sociological and anthropological approaches, generalization and individuation and so on. On a second plane, the subject should involve the results of rapid developments in data bank methods as well as advances in quantitative procedures (such as categorical modelling). ... [see below to obtain complete schedule] ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS Association for the Bibliography of History American Historical Association Association for History and Computing International Commission on Bibliography International Commission on Quantitative Methods Canadian Historical Association -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. AHC90 CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Tom Crone <CRONE@CUA> Subject: Re: Hershey Script Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 12:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 499 (549) John Burt (BURT@BRANDEIS) asks: [deleted quotation] Dr A V Hershey[1] digitized (designed?) a set of a couple thousand characters for use on pen plotters. These included everything from simple, uppercase only block characters to script, old English, German, Greek, and Cyrillic fonts and musical, mathematical and map symbols and even astrological signs. These were put into the public domain, and are used in SPSSGraphics, SASGraph, VAX GKS, and many (most?) other graphics packages. There were at least 2 script fonts, one single stroke and one double stroke, to simulate the effect of a pen with a point that is not round. Some of this information was taken from a 1978 National Bureau of Standards publication, 'Computer Science and Technology: FORTRAN IV Enhanced Character Graphics', that included 15 pages of DATA statements to define the characters! If anyone wants a copy of the Hershey fonts, I still have (I think) a set that were optimized somewhat for pen movement. Tom Crone CRONE@CUA or CRONE%CUAVAX.DNET@NETCON.CUA.EDU Sr User Consultant/Programmer The Catholic University of America Washington DC [1] 'A Computer System for Scientific Typography' Computer Graphics and Image Processing, Vol 1 pp 373-385, (1972) From: J J Higgins <Higgins@np1a.bristol.ac.uk> Subject: System [eds] Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 16:08:19 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 500 (550) System is published by Pergamon Press, Oxford, three issues per year. ISSN 0346-251X. The review of concordancers is by John Higgins and will probably be in Vol 19, No 1, March 1991. From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) Subject: Re: interactive fiction Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 13:09:13 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 501 (551) The Winter 1989 issue of _New Literary History_ has an article on interactive fiction by Richard Ziegfield, which attempts a comprehensive look at the possibilities and includes a good listing of examples up through about 1987 or so. Gary Lee Stonum Society for Critical Exchange Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106 Internet: gxs11@po.cwru.edu From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: American Imago Date: Tue, 19 Jun 1990 15:22 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 502 (552) A little help for a Humanist here in Israel where current US periodicals arrive only many months after their publication. A "very close friend", Etti Golomb-Bregman, would like to know if her article "No Rose without Thorns -- Ambivalence in Kafka's 'A Country Doctor'" has appeared in the most recent issue of American Imago (that was supposed to be out in March, 1990), published by Wayne State University Press (I believe). Many thanks to anyone who happens to be close to the Current Periodicals section of a library. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJVM1) From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Collage Date: Tue, 19 Jun 1990 13:45 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 503 (553) Now that Humanist is back on the air, I would like to thank all of those who responded to my query about Collage (May 8). I have hardly begun to digest the vast and varigated bibliographical information I received. I would like to repond to just one comment. Prof. Tzvee Zahavy referred me to Jacob Neusner's Canon and Connection -- Intertextuality in Judaism Lanham: UPA, 1987. This was indeed yet another very useful reference and for that I thank him. He concluded his communication with the following remarks: "Anyone who has gone through this material would be forced to agree that the notion of collage has little value in the study of Midrash. (Unfortunately many Israeli scholars refuse to read Neusner. The Hebrew Union College library in Jerusalem cancelled their order for one of his translation series on the basis of a vindictive review in JAOS serveral years ago. Thus I suspect that Mr. Bregman may not have the research tools available to pursue the subject in light of the most current publications in the discipline. Please correct me if I am wrong)." To set the record straight, it should be noted that the Hebrew Union College (Jerusalem Campus) Library is a relatively small collection of approximately 30,000 volumes. Of these over 180 are works by Prof. Neusner, including many new works published this year. While this does not represent a complete collection of his very large and significant ouvre; I feel it would be misleading to leave the impression that this important scholar's views on Rabbinic Literature have been intentionally slighted by my institution. In perusing those works by Neusner which are available in our Library -- at Prof. Zahavy's suggestion, I did discover that he is also misinformed about Neusner's own views on the value of the notion of collage in the study of Midrash. In his discussion of the first homily in Pesiqta Rabbati, Neusner (From Tradition to Imitation -- The Plan and Program of Pesiqta Rabbati and Pesiqta deRab Kahana, Atlanta, 1987, p. 108) states: "We may now ask whether our *pisqa* forms a highly cogent syllogism, with a proposition systematically proven by each of the components; whether it forms a collage, in which diverse materials seen all together form a cogent statement; or whether it constitutes a scrapbook in which thematically continuous materials make essentially individual statements of their own. Among these three choices, the second seems to me, in balance, to apply to *Pisqa* One...So we may judge our *pisqa* to be an imperfectly executed collage, one that, in the aggregate, really does make its point (see also Neusner's concluding remarks on page 226). I am in basic agreement with the description of this passage as a collage, but with this reservation. From the other replies to my original query about how the term collage might be applied to Midrash, I have learned how this term is presently being employed in the broader Humanities. Not as a pejorative evaluation (i.e. worse than a syllogism, but better than a "scrapbook"), but rather as a critically neutral term describing a particular type of artistic composition. In this sense, I do believe "collage" is a very helpful notion in describing the composition of many of Midrashic compilations. Once again, I would like to thank the many Humanists who have helped me clarify, in my own mind at least, this admittedly "parochial" issue. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM> Subject: re. 4.0196. The ancient ordering of biblical texts. Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 00:09:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 504 (554) In addition to the writings listed by Steve Mason for the ordering Torah, Prophets, and Writings in pre-codex times may now be added the following line from the soon (?) to be published text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Miqtsat Ma'aseh Torah (4QMMT C10) (1-2 century BCE): "We have written to you so that you might discern (the correct interpretations) of the Book of Moses, and the words of the prophets, and (the words of) David." Note that the three divisions are denoted by their inspired "authors." Steven D. Fraade Religious Studies Yale University at Prof. Zahavy's suggestion, I did discover that he is also misinformed about Neusner's own views on the value of the notion of collage in the study of Midrash. In his discussion of the first homily in Pesiqta Rabbati, Neusner (From Tradition to Imitation -- The Plan and Program of Pesiqta Rabbati and Pesiqta deRab Kahana, Atlanta, 1987, p. 108) states: "We may now ask whether our *pisqa* forms a highly cogent syllogism, with a proposition systematically proven by each of the components; whether it forms a collage, in which diverse materials seen all together form a cogent statement; or whether it constitutes a scrapbook in which thematically continuous materials make essentially individual statements of their own. Among these three choices, the second seems to me, in balance, to apply to *Pisqa* One...So we may judge our *pisqa* to be an imperfectly executed collage, one that, in the aggregate, really does make its point (see also Neusner's concluding remarks on page 226). I am in basic agreement with the description of this passage as a collage, but with this reservation. From the other replies to my original query about how the term collage might be applied to Midrash, I have learned how this term is presently being employed in the broader Humanities. Not as a pejorative evaluation (i.e. worse than a syllogism, but better than a "scrapbook"), but rather as a critically neutral term describing a particular type of artistic composition. In this sense, I do believe "collage" is a very helpful notion in describing the composition of many of Midrashic compilations. Once again, I would like to thank the many Humanists who have helped me clarify, in my own mind at least, this admittedly "parochial" issue. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Collage Date: Tue, 19 Jun 1990 13:45 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 505 (555) Now that Humanist is back on the air, I would like to thank all of those who responded to my query about Collage (May 8). I have hardly begun to digest the vast and varigated bibliographical information I received. I would like to repond to just one comment. Prof. Tzvee Zahavy referred me to Jacob Neusner's Canon and Connection -- Intertextuality in Judaism Lanham: UPA, 1987. This was indeed yet another very useful reference and for that I thank him. He concluded his communication with the following remarks: "Anyone who has gone through this material would be forced to agree that the notion of collage has little value in the study of Midrash. (Unfortunately many Israeli scholars refuse to read Neusner. The Hebrew Union College library in Jerusalem cancelled their order for one of his translation series on the basis of a vindictive review in JAOS serveral years ago. Thus I suspect that Mr. Bregman may not have the research tools available to pursue the subject in light of the most current publications in the discipline. Please correct me if I am wrong)." To set the record straight, it should be noted that the Hebrew Union College (Jerusalem Campus) Library is a relatively small collection of approximately 30,000 volumes. Of these over 180 are works by Prof. Neusner, including many new works published this year. While this does not represent a complete collection of his very large and significant ouvre; I feel it would be misleading to leave the impression that this important scholar's views on Rabbinic Literature have been intentionally slighted by my institution. In perusing those works by Neusner which are available in our Library -- at Prof. Zahavy's suggestion, I did discover that he is also misinformed about Neusner's own views on the value of the notion of collage in the study of Midrash. In his discussion of the first homily in Pesiqta Rabbati, Neusner (From Tradition to Imitation -- The Plan and Program of Pesiqta Rabbati and Pesiqta deRab Kahana, Atlanta, 1987, p. 108) states: "We may now ask whether our *pisqa* forms a highly cogent syllogism, with a proposition systematically proven by each of the components; whether it forms a collage, in which diverse materials seen all together form a cogent statement; or whether it constitutes a scrapbook in which thematically continuous materials make essentially individual statements of their own. Among these three choices, the second seems to me, in balance, to apply to *Pisqa* One...So we may judge our *pisqa* to be an imperfectly executed collage, one that, in the aggregate, really does make its point (see also Neusner's concluding remarks on page 226). I am in basic agreement with the description of this passage as a collage, but with this reservation. From the other replies to my original query about how the term collage might be applied to Midrash, I have learned how this term is presently being employed in the broader Humanities. Not as a pejorative evaluation (i.e. worse than a syllogism, but better than a "scrapbook"), but rather as a critically neutral term describing a particular type of artistic composition. In this sense, I do believe "collage" is a very helpful notion in describing the composition of many of Midrashic compilations. Once again, I would like to thank the many Humanists who have helped me clarify, in my own mind at least, this admittedly "parochial" issue. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM> Subject: re. 4.0196. The ancient ordering of biblical texts. Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 00:09:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 506 (556) In addition to the writings listed by Steve Mason for the ordering Torah, Prophets, and Writings in pre-codex times may now be added the following line from the soon (?) to be published text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Miqtsat Ma'aseh Torah (4QMMT C10) (1-2 century BCE): "We have written to you so that you might discern (the correct interpretations) of the Book of Moses, and the words of the prophets, and (the words of) David." Note that the three divisions are denoted by their inspired "authors." Steven D. Fraade Religious Studies Yale University From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: GUIs and lunar lander games gotten out of control Date: Mon, 18 Jun 90 20:06:54 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 203 (557) I quote: Further to Goerwitz's remarks concerning the relative difficulty of programming a Mac compared to a PC. It is facile and misleading to say that it is easier to write programs for the PC than for the Mac. What sort of programs? A good question. Each computer is good at a specific range of tasks. I admit that it's easier to put a lot of cute windows into a Mac pro- gram than into something designed for a vanilla PC. If I didn't make this clear, then let me reinforce it now: The Mac has a nice user in- terface, and some nice tools to back it up. We here at the University of Chicago are pretty much a Mac/Sun institution, with Macs being the machine of choice for naive users. There's nothing wrong with the Mac. Sure, if you want ot write a simple one-off utility for your own use this is probably correct... You are now beginning to become somewhat misleading yourself :-). Just because a program doesn't have lots of pop-up windows and "fancy" fonts doesn't mean that it is a simple one-off utility. Do you know what lex or yacc are? Have you ever used a regex library? Let's be serious now. Extremely powerful and useful software exists which assumes very little in the way of a graphical user interface. Let's not give people who don't write their own software that the Mac is better than "the PC" (i.e. an ISA machine running MS-DOS) for everything but "simple one-off utilities." Disclaimer: I emphasize that there are many, many good points to the Mac. The reason I make these sorts of postings regarding both it and its com- petitors is to encourage people to think of their computers more as com- modities than as children, husbands, or wives. All too often I see peo- ple who make major commitments of both time and money to a machine and/or operating environment get kind of feverish about defending it. It's a natural tendency, I'll admit. The fact that it's natural, though, doesn't make it very smart. If someone wants to take me to task, don't write in about how I've over- looked this or that feature or convenience of your pet GUI or OS. Take me to task about all my snide remarks about leaving the Macs and PCs for my four year-old to play with, and tell me how my favored Unix environ- ment is hardly more than a lunar lander game gotten out of control.... -Richard L. Goerwitz goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet goer@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: free language software Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 09:58:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 507 (558) My university (Yale) has just completed the IBM version of Private Tutor, the well-known language authoring system for the Macintosh. The IBM version will soon go on sale through Wisc-Ware for $60, however, we would like to offer the program free to anyone on Humanist interested. The IBM version requires Microsoft Windows and is equivalent in function and appearance to the Macintosh version. Files created with the IBM version are compatible with the Macintosh version. To obtain a copy of the IBM version, send me your name, university affiliation, and languages taught, over the network. I will send the program to you by Bitnet. Indicate whether your system can accept and download binary files or text files or both. Sorry, but I cannot send the program over regular mail, since that involves buying disks, stamps, etc, and we want to do this at no expense to you and to us. Bear in mind that the program has not yet been formally tested, so you should expect bugs. Incidentally, I did not write the IBM version. This was done by Igor Popovic, also of Yale University, and it was a monumental task to create an IBM program which had the same look and feel of the original Macintosh program. From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Re: 4.0197 TACT Address; Interactive Fiction Query (2/31) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 07:55:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 197 (559) [deleted quotation] If this is true, is it possible to make it available on the Humanist ListServ? Thanks, David -------- David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] -------- From: A0234@AppleLink.Apple.COM (UC Berkeley, Grycz,AUC) Subject: Polish Institute Forming Date: 19 Jun 90 17:39 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 205 (560) Henning, Thank you for your posting to the Humanist list concerning e-mail links to Polish intellectuals. The University of California is sponsoring an outreach program, called "Cooperative Assistance" in which we are expecting to establish an international "Institute for Regional Development," centrally-located in Wroclaw, Poland, as a demonstration project and facility for Eastern European connections to the West. We are having an initial joint meeting of the delegates during the week of 2 July 1990 in Wroclaw (two weeks from now). One of our principal collaborators from the Polish side, is Dr. Daniel J. Bem, director of the Polish Academic Computing Network, KASK. The information you gather will be very useful. Perhaps UC can help channel it to the appropriate authorities in Poland. Cordially, Chet Grycz Scholarship and Technology Study Project ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Czeslaw Jan Grycz | BITNET: A0234@AppleLink.Apple.Com University of California | - or - CJGUR@UCCMVSA Kaiser Center, Eighth Floor | AppleLink: A0234 300 Lakeside Drive | MCI Mail: 262-7719 Oakland, California | Phone: (415) 987-0561 94612-3550 | FAX: (415) 839-3573 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Collage Date: Tue, 19 Jun 1990 13:45 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 508 (561) Now that Humanist is back on the air, I would like to thank all of those who responded to my query about Collage (May 8). I have hardly begun to digest the vast and varigated bibliographical information I received. I would like to repond to just one comment. Prof. Tzvee Zahavy referred me to Jacob Neusner's Canon and Connection -- Intertextuality in Judaism Lanham: UPA, 1987. This was indeed yet another very useful reference and for that I thank him. He concluded his communication with the following remarks: "Anyone who has gone through this material would be forced to agree that the notion of collage has little value in the study of Midrash. (Unfortunately many Israeli scholars refuse to read Neusner. The Hebrew Union College library in Jerusalem cancelled their order for one of his translation series on the basis of a vindictive review in JAOS serveral years ago. Thus I suspect that Mr. Bregman may not have the research tools available to pursue the subject in light of the most current publications in the discipline. Please correct me if I am wrong)." To set the record straight, it should be noted that the Hebrew Union College (Jerusalem Campus) Library is a relatively small collection of approximately 30,000 volumes. Of these over 180 are works by Prof. Neusner, including many new works published this year. While this does not represent a complete collection of his very large and significant ouvre; I feel it would be misleading to leave the impression that this important scholar's views on Rabbinic Literature have been intentionally slighted by my institution. In perusing those works by Neusner which are available in our Library -- at Prof. Zahavy's suggestion, I did discover that he is also misinformed about Neusner's own views on the value of the notion of collage in the study of Midrash. In his discussion of the first homily in Pesiqta Rabbati, Neusner (From Tradition to Imitation -- The Plan and Program of Pesiqta Rabbati and Pesiqta deRab Kahana, Atlanta, 1987, p. 108) states: "We may now ask whether our *pisqa* forms a highly cogent syllogism, with a proposition systematically proven by each of the components; whether it forms a collage, in which diverse materials seen all together form a cogent statement; or whether it constitutes a scrapbook in which thematically continuous materials make essentially individual statements of their own. Among these three choices, the second seems to me, in balance, to apply to *Pisqa* One...So we may judge our *pisqa* to be an imperfectly executed collage, one that, in the aggregate, really does make its point (see also Neusner's concluding remarks on page 226). I am in basic agreement with the description of this passage as a collage, but with this reservation. From the other replies to my original query about how the term collage might be applied to Midrash, I have learned how this term is presently being employed in the broader Humanities. Not as a pejorative evaluation (i.e. worse than a syllogism, but better than a "scrapbook"), but rather as a critically neutral term describing a particular type of artistic composition. In this sense, I do believe "collage" is a very helpful notion in describing the composition of many of Midrashic compilations. Once again, I would like to thank the many Humanists who have helped me clarify, in my own mind at least, this admittedly "parochial" issue. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM> Subject: re. 4.0196. The ancient ordering of biblical texts. Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 00:09:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 509 (562) In addition to the writings listed by Steve Mason for the ordering Torah, Prophets, and Writings in pre-codex times may now be added the following line from the soon (?) to be published text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Miqtsat Ma'aseh Torah (4QMMT C10) (1-2 century BCE): "We have written to you so that you might discern (the correct interpretations) of the Book of Moses, and the words of the prophets, and (the words of) David." Note that the three divisions are denoted by their inspired "authors." Steven D. Fraade Religious Studies Yale University From: Knut Hofland +47 5 212954/55/56 FAFKH at NOBERGEN Subject: Re: Nodes in Taiwan Date: 19 June 90, 23:19:47 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 510 (563) I enclose a list of BITNET nodes in Taiwan. It is taken from a file that lists all nodes. On a BITNET node running VM/CMS try FILEL BIT* * * to locate this file or contact your system admin. TWNAS886 1079 TW Academic Sinica (JNET) VMS Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (C.C. Hsieh) HSIEH@TWNAS886 ((882) 278-9924) TWNCTUCS 2590 TW Nat'l Chiao-Tung Univ (JNET) VMS Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (C.H. Lin) CHLIN@TWNCTUCS ((886) 357-1212) TWNCTU01 0087 TW National Chiao-Tung Univ (JNET) VMS Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (D.C. Liu) LIU@TWNCTU01 ((886) 357-1130) TWNITRI1 2652 TW Industrial Tech Res Ins (JNET) VMS 4.7 Con. to TWNCTU01 87 via NORUNIT (11 interm.nodes) Cont (Johnson Lee) BITADM@TWNITRI1 ((886) 359-6610) TWNMOE10 1906 TW Ministry of Ed Taiwan (RSCS) VM/SP HPO Con. to JPNSUT00 1116 via NORUNIT ( 9 interm.nodes) Cont (Wen-Sung Chen) ZCHEN@TWNMOE10 ((027) 377-0110) TWNMOE20 2378 TW Ministry of Ed Taiwan (RSCS) VM/SP Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (Wen-Sung Chen) ZCHEN@TWNMOE10 ((027) 377-0110) TWNNTIT 2739 TW Nat'l Taiwan Inst of Tech (RSCS) VM/SP Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont TWNSCU10 2053 TW Soochow Univ (RSCS) VM/SP Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (Whei-ju Hwang) SCU004@TWNSCU10 ((023) 111-5310) TWNSRRC1 2203 TW (JNET) VMS 5.0 Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (K. T. Hsu) KUOTUNG@TWNSRRC1 ((886) 023-6399) TWNTTIT 2945 TW Tatung Inst of Tech (RSCS) VM/SP 5.0 Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont (Chia-Lin Tan) TTITBIT@TWNTTIT ((886) 02-5925252) TWNTUCC1 2735 TW Nat'l Taiwan Univ (JNET) VMS Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont TWNTUCC2 2726 TW Nat'l Taiwan Univ (NJE ) NOS 2.5.3 Con. to TWNMOE10 1906 via NORUNIT (10 interm.nodes) Cont Knut Hofland The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Street adr: Harald Haarfagres gt. 31 Post adr: P.O. Box 53, University, N-5027 Bergen, Norway Tel: +47 5 212954/5/6 Fax: +47 5 322656 From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Finding BITNET addresse- Date: 20 Jun 90 10:0:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 511 (564) I have only recently gained access to the networking side of the academic world. I have been doing what I can to discover ways and means of doing things locally, but some things prove elusive. Does anyone know how to use BITNET in a manner analogous to a telephone directory? Put another way, how do I find someone's BITNET address? People are so cheery when on-line (it seems!), and the cost and speed are certainly right. Electronic mail *has to be* the "mode of choice" for communicating with colleagues. Still, some jealously guard their email addresses in a way in which they would never (be able to) guard their phone numbers. (So, e.g., the HUMANIST membership list is "restricted"....) John Hughes's _Bits Bytes and Biblical Studies_ (1987) makes reference to some utilities available from NICSERVE that would seem to be helpful, but I have not been able to access these. Any help would be appreciated. David Reimer; BITNET: REIMER@WLUCP6 From: "Richard W. Unger" <USERPVIF@UBCMTSG.BITNET> Subject: Phillipine Address Date: Tue, 19 Jun 90 14:22:30 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 512 (565) Does anyone have an e-mail address in the Phillipines? The internal network, I am told, is AUSEA, but I know of no gateway. Specifically I need a contact for De La Salle University in Manila. Richard W. Unger History University of British Columbia From: Deian Hopkin <DRH@ABERYSTWYTH.AC.UK> Subject: Association for History and Computing Date: 20-JUN-1990 11:00:57 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 207 (566) ASSOCIATION FOR HISTORY AND COMPUTING Aims and Activities The Association for History and Computing is an international organisation which aims to promote and develop interest in the use of computers in all types of historical study at every level, in both teaching and research. The Association was proposed at a large conference at Westfield College, University of London, in March 1986. At a second conference at Westfield, in March 1987, it was founded and its constitution approved. A central co-ordinating body, the Council, organises the Association's international activities, including an Annual Conference (in 1988 this was in Cologne, in 1989 in Bordeaux), and supervises publications. Branches of the Association have been formed for countries or groups of countries where a large membership exists and organise activities at branch level. Sub-groups dealing with specific aspects of computing (such as the standardisation and exchange of historical data) have already been formed, and others will follow. Publications A magazine, History and Computing, published by Oxford University Press, is issued free to members. Proceedings of conferences are published and are available to members at a discount on the published price. A series of Research Reports is being inaugurated and the publication of introductory material is also planned. The Association also participates in the journal Historical Social Research/ Historische Sozialforschung, and members are able to subscribe to this at a reduced price. Training The Association has a particular commitment to the dissemination of computing techniques among history teachers. Courses and summer schools are being organised at both international and branch level Officers President: M.Jean-Philippe Genet, Paris University I Sec-General: Dr Peter Denley, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London University Denley@UK.AC.Westfield Treasurer: Dr Deian Hopkin, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth DRH@UK.AC.Aber How to Join It is possible to become a member of the Association either directly or through a branch. Subscription is per calendar year. The annual subscription is 10 pounds (7 pounds for students and the unwaged). It is possible to pay by cheque, Eurocheque, Bankers' Order or Post Office Giro. If you would like to join the Association, please send this application to the Membership Secretary: Dr Veronica Lawrence, 4 Nunnery Close, Blackbird Leys, Oxford OX4 5EG. e-mail (JANET): LAWRENCE@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX From: CTILIT@ VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Computers in Literature Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 9:21 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 513 (567) *Computers in Literature* To all of you who requested the first issue of *Computers in Literature* as well as the update sheet, and details about the new Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing. We are just printing the brochures for the Humanities Computing Centre and will send all who requested information an information pack about our activities as soon as we get the brochures back from the printers. If any of you are in Oxford anytime, do call in and see us. Marilyn Deegan CTI Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies Oxford University Computing Service 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN UK 0865-273221 e-mail CTILIT@UK.AC.OX.VAX From: KLCOPE@ VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Conference Seminar Announcement and Invitation Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 15:43 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 514 (568) KEVIN L. COPE wishes to invite proposals for a seminar newly added to the program for the 1991 SCSECS (South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) convention, scheduled for College Station, Texas, next spring. Entitled "PRAISE €X‡: PANEGYRIC, DEDICATION, AND COMMEMORATION AS LITERARY MODES, ARTISTIC FORMS, AND PHILOSOPHICAL POSSIBILITIES," the seminar will explore any and all acts of approbation, from the most constructive to the most sycophantic, from pious veneration of authority to impudent grubbing after money, and from straightforward panegyrical verse to marginal forms of applause (for example, Elsum's or Shaftesbury's solitary conversations with approved painting and sculptures). With a mode like panegyric, the sky's the limit! Send proposals to: Prof. Kevin L. Cope Department of English Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-5001 U. S. A. From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1> Subject: Midrash as Collage Date: 06/20/90 11:58:52 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 209 (569) I thank Mr. Bregman for his response to my note. I must apologize for assuming that Neusner's books were deliberately excluded from the library collection of the Hebrew Union College. I assumed that the College attempted to order all new titles in the fields of Jewish Studies. I did not realize that the Jerusalem collection was so small and limited. I hope they will have the resources to catch up and fill in the gaps in the library. I also stand corrected in assuming that Mr. Bregman meant to use "collage" as a term to define the entire phenomenon of "midrash". Surely we must agree that each document of early rabbinism be subjected to critical scrutiny on its own merits. Some sections of individual midrash-collections will resemble a "collage". I see now that Mr. Bregman means to use the term to describe literary components within specific volumes. That would constitute a valid approach under the prevailing paradigm for research. Global application of "collage" to "midrash" would still be meaningless. E-MAIL: MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET: MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, 310 FOLWELL HALL, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 From: TBESTUL@UNLVAX1.BITNET Subject: Electronic text of Byron Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 12:08 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 515 (570) Does anyone know of an electronic text of Byron's Don Juan? The Oxford Text Archive doesn't record one. A graduate student in English here would be grateful to learn if one exists. Tom Bestul Department of English, University of Nebraska, Lincoln tbestul@crcvms.unl.edu or tbestul@unlvax1.bitnet From: Jose Igartua <R12270@UQAM> Subject: INGRES Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 16:27:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 516 (571) Does anyone know of any electronic discussion group (LISTSERV or otherwise, on BITNET or on INTERNET) of the INGRES relational database product? I am part of a large research project that uses INGRES as its database software and would like to converse with other research users. I met only two or three at the North American Ingres Users Assocation meeting in Salt Lake City last month. For those using ORACLE (which I also do), there is a list called L-ORACLE at UQAM <L-ORACLE on the UQAM Listserv>. We would welcome additional participants. This list is public. From: Robert Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: OFFLINE 29 Date: Wednesday, 20 June 1990 1114-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 211 (572) ---------------------- <<O F F L I N E 2 9>> by guest columnist James O'Donnell, for Robert Kraft [HUMANIST 20 June 1990] [Religious Studies News 5.4 (Aug)] [CSSR Bulletin 19.3 (September)] ---------------------- <Accessing Remote Libraries> One of the topics of special interest to a number of readers who responded to the invitation in OFFLINE 28 is how to access remote libraries. Since everything I know about that topic has come from my colleague in Classical Studies, Jim O'Donnell, it seemed sensible to ask him if he would write a guest column for OFFLINE on that subject. He agreed, to the benefit of us all, and the results follow. The directions work for me, but then, I am on the same computer system that Jim uses. You may need to put a bit more energy into making them work, but keep at it -- the results are well worth it! Thanks, Jim, for sharing your expertise. <La bibliothe/que imaginaire d'INTERNET> "Ad hoc, ad loc, quid pro quo, so little time, so much to know" was the complaint of the Nowhere Man in the animated film _Yellow Submarine_. The paradox of the computer age is that it makes it possible to learn more things in less time, while at the same time making many more things for us to know. At Bob Kraft's request, I am going to sketch here one advance that has been revolutionary for me and for others. Any working scholar with experience in e-mail will find it all rather transparent; the scholar who has not yet gone on-line with the world will find it rather less transparent at first, but should be assured that in fact it is all a piece of cake. If you can do _anything_ on an IBM or Macintosh, you can summon the wisdom of the world down the wires into your machine: it's easier than learning to use a word processor. The first principle is that the great research libraries of the world have been and are continuing to make their collections more accessible through computer cataloguing. Most major university collections now have at least part of their collection in an on-line catalogue and most users are now accustomed to looking not only in a card catalogue but also in one of a row of terminals usually found standing in the entrance hall of the library. The second principle, specific to the world of computers, is that any information in any computer anywhere in the world is theoretically available to any other computer anywhere in the world, including the one on your desk. In practice, there are often obstacles, but happily librarians genuinely enjoy minimizing those obstacles. Many exciting developments remain, but much has already been done. What can you do? From any modem equipped telephone anywhere, you can now reach a huge variety of library catalogues. Now catalogues are not the same thing as books, and it is certainly frustrating to learn that a book is on a shelf someplace where you can't go; but it may be useful to know that anyway. Among the uses of the kind of library searching that I will describe below are these: browsing specialized collections in remote libraries, confirming the existence of and locating relatively uncommon volumes, searching in catalogues better equipped than that of your home institution (this can be useful in several ways), and the exhilarating sense of intellectual play that comes from nosing through any collection of books anywhere. Some examples. I grew up in New Mexico and Texas. The University of Pennsylvania library is not specially strong in southwest regional history and sociology; but the collections of the Universities of New Mexico, Colorado, and California (to name the ones I've had access to) are much stronger. I can learn of the existence of materials, get confirmed bibliographical records, and (if it came to that) decide which collection(s) might be so strong as to be worth a visit sometime. Often I find myself in possession of a defective and obscure bibliographical reference: title, author, date, with perhaps the title slightly garbled. The Penn library doesn't have it on-line. A little intelligent snooping, and I find it in the University of California system: I get a confirmed title/author/place/date record and take that the next day to our Interlibrary Loan office, where they do a much better job of getting the book quickly than they ever could have with the defective record with which I started. But, you might wonder, wouldn't the National Union Catalogues have the same information? Probably, but: (1) I just finished rearranging all my books at home and I've confirmed that I _don't_ have room on my shelves for all the NUC volumes, not even merely (sic) the pre-'56 imprints; and (2) the computer databases can be searched in ways more cunning than the printed volumes or a card catalogue. If your reference is really defective as regards author or title, the computer lets you do searches by parts of words, keywords, subject, and in some cases even call-number: it's much easier to turn a bad reference into a good one from a keyboard than by walking up and down helplessly in front of a row of NUC volumes. You also need to know less about library cataloguing and filing conventions than you used to, and that can be a great time-saver in obscure cases. Perhaps the most important use, however, is for gaining access to catalogues better than that which your home institution can offer. At Penn, for example, the full computerized catalogue covers items received and catalogued since about 1968/70. That means there's an awful lot of older material just not on line; some recent additions have put defective and partial records of a lot of older stuff on-line, but those additions, while they may help me locate a book that is in the collection, are no substitute for the full catalogue information that a regular catalogue record can allow. My most idiosyncratic use of the catalogues is not for everyone: I use them as a grand intellectual toy. I have always found it an important part of the life of the mind to browse, rummage, snoop, and generally prowl the libraries. On a leave a few years ago, I devoted some time to reading through the shelves of the Bryn Mawr College library collection: I got through all the philosophy/religion, history, and literature shelves over the course of a year. Just walking along looking at things, pulling off whatever struck my fancy, and sitting down to sort them as often as my arms were full. A richly useful intellectual experience. With the computer, it is possible to do half of that: you can't pull books out and look at them, but you can browse and snoop much more widely, in much bigger collections. But no description of possibilities can be prescriptive, only suggestive. Whatever you can do with a library catalogue, you can do better and faster from your computer: if that means something to you, read on for directions. <HOW TO USE INTERNET FOR LIBRARIES> _First_, you need a PC (Mac or IBM are identical for these purposes) with modem and modem software. _Second_, you need a connection to the great world. Characteristically, this will be furnished by your home academic institution. You will probably have gotten that connection in order to do e-mail of some kind, or perhaps to have access to on-line student records for registration or the like. Some institutional connection is apparently essential: inquiries have failed to find a commercial service that offers the right kind of interactive link to INTERNET. There may be an easier way: snoop around academic institutions close to you. See if any of them allow outsiders to reach the level of access necessary to get to INTERNET without a formal account or password; institutional policies will vary widely. _Third_, you will need to find out from your local computer gurus how to get on to INTERNET, the nationwide computer network that links the libraries (and many other facilities). Usually this is easy. For me, it means giving a single command on first logging on to the local computer (I merely type "TELNET" and hit a carriage return <CR>), then I get a new prompt at which I type the letter T and the "address" (either names or numbers: example below) I seek. In a matter of seconds, I am linked to the computer I seek and can begin logging on there. BUT YOU MUST FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF WHAT THE EXACT PROTOCOLS ARE AT YOUR HOME INSTITUTION: NO TWO SYSTEMS ARE EXACTLY ALIKE. Now _fourth_, you need more information. The easiest way to get the information you need is through e-mail. Ask you local e- mail gurus how to acquire files from remote list-servers. On many systems, this is as simple as issuing a one-line command from the basic system prompt; others require you to send a short mail message. On the common VM/VMS systems, the message you need to send is: TELL LISTSERV AT UNMVM GET INTERNET LIBRARY The crucial elements are the address (UNMVM: a computer at the University of New Mexico) and the filename (INTERNET LIBRARY). This file is a collection of very specific and explicit instructions for gaining access to libraries all over the country. (If you have had a copy of this file around for some time and done nothing with it, now would be a good time to get a new copy: it is updated regularly, with new facilities being added all the time.) Read this file. (Dr. Art St. George of UNM deserves at least a medal for his patient work in gathering and updating this material: it is really the browser's bible.) At this point, you want to follow your nose and your inclinations. Which libraries are of most interest to you will be a matter of taste, and trial and error will confirm them. For each library discussed in the file, there will be good instructions how to log on to the individual facility. Here's where an example helps, so I'll walk you through the University of Maryland, which is a very easy system to approach. First on my machine, I have given the link-to-internet command: TELNET Then the call-Maryland command T 128.8.161.199 The number 128.8.161.199 I learned from the INTERNET LIBRARY file. Some places have also alphabetical addresses like those familiar from e-mail addresses (e.g., PENNLIB.UPENN.EDU); if you have addresses in both forms and one doesn't work, try the other; for Maryland, you would use UMCAT.UMD.EDU. Anyway, after you connect you get a rather austere prompt, but from INTERNET LIBRARY, you know to answer: CAT <CR> At this point, you can stop reading this article and start looking at the help screens you get on the computer. These will be the same screens you would get if you were in the catalogue department of the library itself. You will want to experiment with what you can get. One thing I like (and don't have at home at Penn) is the capacity to do keyword searches, e.g., k=water buffalo That is a command that will get you many more "hits" than a subject search: subject searches are restricted to the kinds of things that librarians have explicitly selected and ratified, the kinds of things that were formally listed on the card in the old card file; but keyword searches look at the whole record, and so if there is a book with "water buffalo" in the title, you will get it (even if it's a novel); and if somebody wrote a book under the pseudonym "Clem Water Buffalo," by golly, you'll hit it. You may well get therefore more dross with such a search, but also more gold. (I've also noticed that SUBJECT headings in these catalogues are the ones most prone to typographical errors: in the old days, the subject heading typed on the original author card was not a crucial piece of information: it would be retyped correctly on the actual subject card. But in the computer record, _that's_ the place the computer looks for the subject heading. Curtailing your search target is a good idea here.) And always remember, a search that doesn't work out takes a second; you can usually think of a way to improve your question to get more effective results. A=JONES is going to get thousands of "hits"; think about how to reduce the range. When in doubt, of course, always use the shortest possible search target: don't ask for "water buffaloes" because you'll _only_ get the plural (and even then somebody might have spelled it "buffalos" and you'd miss that); ask for the singular and the plural will come along at no extra charge; and in fact "water buf" is likely to get you everything you want, and the fewer characters you type, the fewer chances to make a typing mistake and have to start over. So, go ahead, play. Browse, snoop, take notes. When you're done, hang up the modem or disconnect (sometimes systems will have explicit logoff instructions; if you know them it's polite to use them, but in an emergency or if you simply don't know them, just breaking the connection will suffice). Start again. Go back to INTERNET LIBRARY and look for someplace else to call. <ON NOTE-TAKING, AND ON OTHER LIBRARY FACILITIES> Note-taking. Depending on your software, your hardware, and the characteristics of the individual library you are calling, you may be able to "LOG" your call and keep a record of your results on disk. Sometimes this takes a little practice (at Penn, for example, there's an undocumented alternate "terminal type" you need to tell it to emulate in order for most communications software packages to be able to log successfully). Once you do that, whatever you see on screen will be recorded on disk for later editing and manipulation. But almost every computer, modem software, and printer combination will allow you to PRINT SCREEN, and that is in fact the way I usually handle it. Get a screen with interesting information, hit the PRINT SCREEN button, and nudge my laser printer to eject the paper and I have a printed record. 99% of the time, this is fine, even wonderful. Other facilities: There are two main proprietary systems that enrich the possibilities of on-line library work, OCLC and RLIN. Both of these systems, which report the holdings of many libraries, require special access codes and, at least indirectly, payment of fees. Practices vary sharply from institution to institution, but at Penn, we may get access to RLIN and our own account number on request, but the library administration periodically reviews the costs and benefits and reserves the right at some point to pass the charges on to users. We do not have access to OCLC. Consult your local institution (usually somebody in the library) for information about these systems. These systems have their own special strengths, special databases, etc., and RLIN, for example, is the best source I have for information about very new books --sometimes even finding out about books before they are actually published, as the Library of Congress posts information registered by the publishers. <THE FUTURE> As you play around with INTERNET LIBRARY, you will find that some institutions have already begun putting other services on- line: I would like to have a good on-line encyclopedia, and would be happy to have as many reference databases as possible handy. At some institutions, you can already check circulation status of a book and leave, by computer, a request that a book be recalled or merely paged from the stacks and held for you at the circulation desk. Similarly, at Penn there is talk of allowing faculty to initiate their own Interlibrary Loan requests by machine from home, with the existing ILL staff freed up to concentrate on the really tough cases and on the management of the flow of books in and out of the building. Somewhere beyond INTERNET lies a Borgesian fantasy library, where all the texts are themselves on-line, and where you may flit from text to text without budging from your desk in your study, perhaps miles away from the library. A pretty fantasy, but not all _that_ unrealistic and worth keeping in mind as the goal towards which all the interim developments reach. <FOR FURTHER INFORMATION> In the first instance, consult your local computer gurus about INTERNET access and your local library people about things like RLIN and OCLC. The INTERNET LIBRARY file gives addresses for queries directed to other libraries. For queries about this article, the author may be reached as JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU (and would be particularly glad to hear of any corrections or improvements that might be suggested). <-----> Please send information, suggestions or queries concerning OFFLINE to Robert A. Kraft, Box 36 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104-6303. Telephone (215) 898- 5827. BITNET address: KRAFT@PENNDRLS. To request printed information or materials from OFFLINE, please supply an appropriately sized, self-addressed envelope or an address label. A complete electronic file of OFFLINE columns is available upon request (for IBM/DOS, Mac, or IBYCUS), or from the HUMANIST discussion group FileServer (BROWNVM.BITNET). From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2> Subject: Re: 4.0196 Interpretation and Ordering of Biblical Texts Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 00:32:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 212 (573) Peter Junger asked for methodological references dealing with the problem of getting back to the way a text might have been read and understood in the time and place where it was written, rather than as it might be read by a historically naive reader in our own time and place, or at some point in time and space between its origin and ourselves. As I tell my students, we look at texts and events down the wrong end of the telescope of history... Edmund Spenser saw himself as influenced by Chaucer; he did not see himself doing things that would influence Milton. Matthew presents Jesus explicitly in relation to the Torah and the Prophets; he does not present Jesus explicitly in relation to the administration of the Church by bishops. One major scholarly tradition devoted to this methodological problem most often goes by the name of "hermeneutics." While this discipline has roots that go deep into the ancient world, the modern movement grows most directly out of the philosophical work of Martin Heidegger, most notably _Sein und Zeit_ (translated as _Being and Time_). Heidegger, like many people educated in the German philological tradition, believed that the etymology of a word often carried the true meaning of the word (a pun on the etymology of "etymology" that Heidegger would have approved of). The German word which most often corresponds to English "existence" is "Dasein": "sein" would translate as "being" and "da" as either "there" or "then". Thus existence must involve being in a particular place and time, and, at least as far as we can know, being would not take place in eternity. The contrast with the Platonic tradition is trivially obvious. Applying this view of "existence" by analogy to the meaning of texts would yield the hypothesis that a text does not have an eternal and immutable meaning but rather has meanings specific to particular audiences in particular times and places. If one of these meanings has primacy, it would be the meaning of the text for its original audience. This hypothesis has been pursued with considerable vigour and influence by two of Heidegger's colleagues, Gadammer and Bultman. Ernst Georg Gadammer, in _Wahrheit und Methode_ (translated as _Truth and Method_) lays out a detailed method and sustaining theory for the interpretation of texts in their original contexts. Gadammer's main interest is in the interpretation of philosophical texts, and there is in English a collection of translations of his shorter interpretive essays under the title _Philosophical Hermeneutics_. Followers of Gadammer have tended to see him in rather narrow Hegelian terms, pursuing a historically verifiable and thus useful Ursinn or original meaning to the exclusion of all other meanings. Gadammer himself acknowledged a more Kantian attitude... advancing prescriptively an agenda for the way a scholar ought to seek the original meaning of a text while acknowledging descriptively the way the reader enjoys and profits from the naive reading of the text. That the former prescriptive hermeneutics and the latter descriptive (and aesthetic, in the Kantian sense) hermeneutics were not only both important but continually interactive for Gadammer may be seen from the following anecdote: I once heard him address and audience of academics who had (somewhat willfully) read him in the strictly Hegelian and prescriptive sense I mentioned above. When he said that even with a text whose meaning in its original time and place he had studied with great thoroughness, like Nietshe's _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ (_Thus Spake Zarathustra_), he still enjoyed and valued the naive and anachronistic twentieth- century meaning that he could get when reading the same text for pleasure, there was a reaction of shock and dismay, especially from those who had been teaching their students that Gadammer insisted on always reading "hermeneutically." One graduate student said during the question period "But surely it changes your under- standing of Goethe's "Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh" if you know that it was written while Goethe was recuperating from a serious illness." Gadammer sat down suddenly, put his hand over his mouth and sat in silence for several minutes. Then he said, and I paraphrase as best I can, "You know, all my life that has been my favourite poem, but from now on I shall understand it very differently. I am profoundly grateful to you." Gadammer's colleague Rudolph Bultmann applied an interesting variation of hermeneutic method to the study of the Christian New Testament. Bultmann's approach in books like _Jesus Christ: Kerygma and Myth_ was to specify features of the text whose meaning was specific to the time and place of writing, like the assumption of a (veritcal) spatial relationship between heaven and earth, because of which Jesus would return for the second coming "riding on a cloud", so that these ancient elements could be discounted and the text made more meaningful for modern readers whose world view was radically different from that of the original audience. This process of filtering the text to obtain what still survived as meaningful Bultmann called "de-mythologizing". There have been a number of recent publications on literacy and reading habits in various periods, but one of the best books of this sort for the medieval period is still Eric Auerbach's _Literary Language and Its Public in the Latin Middle Ages_. He is one of the few modern scholars to appreciate the extent to which the Roman rhetoric texts shaped the medieval model of communication. In the last half-century, the French structuralists, following the methods of Saussure's _Cours general de Linguitique_ (_Course in General Linguistics_), and more recently the French deconstructionists, following the methods of Derrida's _De la Grammatologie_ (_Of Grammatology_), have unnerved the more complacent among the philosophers, historians, literary historians and art historians. The impact of the Prague School structuralists, like Roman Jacobson, may be more productive in these fields, because of the greater scope this model allows for diachronic processes. Also from language study one might cite the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein's _Philosophische Bemerkungen_ and the injunction to ask not what a word means but rather how the word is used. Barbara Raw's recent book _Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconology and the Monastic Revival_ applies this line of enquiry to tenth-century scultpture and manuscript illustration; where the art historian has traditionally begun with a kind of etymology of the medieval sculpture or painting, seeking its ancestry in earlier works, Raw begins with the question of how the particular work of art was *used* - - what did people do with it. Her book demonstrates just how fruitful this line of enquiry can be. Brian Whittaker Department of English, Atkinson College, York University From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Codex Date: 20 Jun 90 19:09:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 213 (574) Robert Kraft brought up in a recent posting the important technological development of the codex, at the beginning of the common era. What is known of the history of the codex? Are there any particularly good sources on this question? I know Aland and Aland (*The Text of the New Testament*) have a bit to say about it, and I get the impression that the origins are quite obscure. Is it true that the first codexes were (Christian) "Bibles"? (Granted the extreme variability of the early collections!) If so, do we know why? Kermode (I think) speculates that it may have had to do with the desire to "flip" back and forth between the (Jewish) scriptures and the added commentaries (now known as New Testament)--which would be much more difficult with scrolls. (Fulfillment of the scriptures and all that.) I also like Steve Mason's recent comment that scrolls worked well enough for a predominantly oral culture--does this imply that the switch to the codex correlates with a greater interest in reading and the written word? (Perhaps, as Samuel Sandmel suggested, a rejection of the "oral Torah"?) I also have a hunch that there is some relation between this matter and recent HUMANIST discussions of graphics vs. command line interfaces and of on-screen editing vs. use of hard copy-- but don't ask me what! Maybe now that we've got hypertext, it's time to add another testament or two. (Just kidding!) George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: IBM Private Tutor update Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 22:53:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 517 (575) I was swamped for requests for the IBM version of Private Tutor, so it may take me a few days to get around to everybody. If you have not received anything a week from now, write back to me. I am sending out the binary version first to everyone who indicated they could handle binary files. Download this as binary and then type ptutor10 in the command line. The file will then de-archive itself, at least that is what the IBM people here tell me. From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL> Subject: RE: 4.0195 Notes and Queries (5/80) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 1990 11:12:23 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 518 (576) Re. Louis Janus' question on names of computers: I don't know of any study but can give a few examples from personal experience. In Israeli universities, most of the nodes get their names from their operating system (the first VMS machine is VMSA, etc.) or function within the institution (TECLIB is the Technion library computer, HAIFAL the Haifa University L(ibrary) one). Some commemorate a Great Event in the lives of their proud owners (WIND is the Aeronautical Eng. computer, commemorating the building of a large wind tunnel). The neatest idea I've come across started out from the Proud Owner syndrome: NOGA after the newborn daughter of one of the programmers/systems managers; but since Noga in Hebrew is the name of the planet Venus, it spawned a fashion, and subsequent machines were called by the names of planets (Pluto, Neptune etc.) with the occasional associative idea thrown in (Star, Galaxy). How do you collect them? The only thing I can think of is to ask anyone who feels inclined to help to list the nodes of his institution (plus any others easily verifiable, eg those accessing his network from others) to a file and send you the file. Of course that doesn't tell you the reason behind each name or even the meaning of the name if it isn't English. From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: One and Many Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 15:46:12 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 215 (577) "I've learned a lot--and most of it doesn't apply anymore."--Charles E. Exley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NCR Corporation, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1990. Mr. Exley's statement set me thinking, and I found that it applies to me too. I became involved with computers around 1975 after a visit to Professor Guido Alinei's computer project on Italian texts at the University of Utrecht. Few Humanists were involved in computers at that time, and it was very difficult to obtain any information, let alone get involved. I started to learn about the Univac 1100 to which I had access, and became quite proficient at its operating system. That system was like a graveyard. As new methods came in, the operating system accomodated to them, but nothing was ever disposed of. Even today you can in theory edit a file by punching individual corrections on individual cards--but there is no longer a punch machine on which to punch the card or a reader to read it once punched! As of next January no new accounts will be opened on that reverend machine, and the following July it will be phased out entirely. With that, my knowledge of the 1100 operating system will become totally useless. Unfortunately I have no conscious erase program in my head, and I guess those neurons will stay active until they are food for worms. After years of working with that cumbersome machine, the Apple II was like a revelation. I loved Ken Bowles' neat operating system that was adapted for Apple Pascal, and never understood why it did not become more widely accepted. Although programs I wrote with that p-system are still in use, I do not use it any more. At this point I feel that my useless computer knowledge is greater in bulk that the knowledge that I can actually use, and wonder for how long this has to continue. Is this what is meant by "keeping up?" What a drag. There has been some compensation, though. It has really been thrilling and exciting to watch the way in which the computer world has bounded ahead, even with my limited technical know-how. The kind of progress that took centuries for some disciplines has taken just a few decades for computers, and I am grateful to have been able to watch some of the action. I heard a lecture by Grace Hopper, the computer veteran, who related that in the forties she got into difficulties keeping her check book in balance, and her accountant brother pointed out that she had unwittingly started using octal arithmetic. I was unaware of computers at that time when mental octal arithmetic was a prerequisite, but I am happy to have witnessed, and in my way understood the enormous changes that have taken place. I have to contrast this, however, with my "real" area. I learned the basics of Classical Hebrew forty-five years ago, and nothing has changed. By definition it cannot; if you change it, it isn't Classical Hebrew. True, we understand certain features better today than we did before with the help of modern Linguistics. But the essentials are the same, now and forever. The same applies to the texts to which the language studies are the key. The insights and turns of phrase of a Jeremiah, a Lucretius or a Shakespeare can be "run" again and again in an individual life, and in the collective life of humankind, and never become obsolete. And it's the same for great art and music. "The One remains, the many change and pass." In some sense the classics are part of the "One" and the snazzy new desk-top is part of the many, but there does seem to be need for both. How we balance the two seems to me one of the major current challenges for the humanist. From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: JANET names Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 10:47 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 519 (578) In an idle moment this morning I have been analysing the names of JANET sites, a list of which is freely available. Of course these names for computers are all assigned according to a Name registration scheme and therefore less freely chosen than those you might find in your local department. There are 1131 different terminal names (i.e. the last name following the dot) in the current list, most of which are one offs. Among countless abbreviations for places and institutions, there are a lot of really rather silly names (examples of hapax legumina <fn>this is a joke</fn> which caught my eye include AMAZON, BADGER, BASIL, BEETROOT, CABBAGE, KLINGON, NUTMEG, PIGLET, TURNIP WOMBAT and ZEN - as well as one to delight the heart of all humanists - 'GOLLEM' (sic). If anyone wants the full list, I will send it. For the moment, here are the names that appear more than five times: no surprises here, unless it is to demonstrate fairly conclusively how popular computer manufacturers with names begining with 'D' are these days, for networking purposes at least: A 6 CAD 6 CU 6 DIR 6 DIRECTORY 6 EE 6 IBM 6 APOLLO 7 CMS 7 COMPUTER-SCIENCE 7 MATHS 7 MVAX 7 NEWS 7 PAD 7 VAXC 7 CLUSTER 8 NORHEP 8 INFO 9 PRIME-A 9 TEX 9 SUN 10 UX 10 LASERJET 11 LIB 11 TEST 14 VAXB 16 CS 17 STARLINK 22 VAX 25 LIBRARY 31 VAXA 34 From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: postscript on JANET names Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 11:05 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 520 (579) P.S. I forgot to remark that there are a total of 1670 different JANET sites in the list I looked at, which produce 1121 different terminal names. I also forgot to sign my message Lou Burnard From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0213 History of the Codex? (1/26) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 12:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 521 (580) The standard work on the introduction of the codex is C. H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat The Birth of the Codex london 1983, though many areas remain controversial. But one should be very careful about excessive technological determinism. There is a lot of re-evaluation going on of the notion of orality and its effects in Greco-roman culture, and a growing scepticism about the sort of stuff Havelock and others pushed out. The development of literary scholarship as we know it - a concern for exact wording, even down to questions of punctuation and accentuation - took place in the Greco-roman world in the 3rd C B.C.E. when scrolls were the norm. That was also the period when the order of works was fixed for many authors. But try asking a Sanskritist about the way Panini and the other grammars were (indeed are) discussed orally and you will see that the question of respect for the word and literacy are much more complicated than fanatics like Ong make out. There's a huge bibliography. Don Fowler. From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0213 History of the Codex? (1/26) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 1990 09:51 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 522 (581) In reply to George Aichele's remarks on the history of the Codex. I would appreciate a more complete reference to Sandmel's suggestion that the transition to the Codex represented a rejection of the "oral Torah". I would also like to mention my own humble contribution to this discussion. In my article "An Early Fragment of Avot deRabbi Natan from a Scroll", Tarbiz 52:2 (1983), 201-222 [Hebrew with extensive English Abstract] I assembled what information was then available for use of the Scroll format for recording non-Biblical materials (i.e. "oral torah"). I also suggested that the replacement of the tetragrammaton with various pious abbreviations was related to the transition from the hallowed scroll format to the less sacred codex format. Since that time some additional material has been published by Peter Schafer and Malachi Beit Arie. Also Menachem Haran of the Hebrew University Bible Dept. has published a number of articles (at least some of which also appeared in the journal Tarbiz) on the subject of the scroll format. If this is of interest, I will try to get together a more detailed bibliography. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: psc90!jdg@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (Dr. Joel Goldfield) Subject: "Query about locating old world history texts" Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 20:00:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 523 (582) Does anyone have suggestions about locating a few old world history texts via INTERNET or other means? Interlibrary loan searches by a colleague have proved fruitless for 3 texts by Barnes, Willis West and Hutton Webster published between 1900 & 1914 for use in U.S. secondary schools. I'd welcome contact with anyone with a research interest in pre-WWI U.S. world history texts to get in touch with me. Thanks, Joel D. Goldfield Plymouth State College (NH, USA) joelg@psc.bitnet From: "Robert T. Trotter, II" <CMSRTT01@NAUVM> Subject: bibliographies on computer disk Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 16:09:00 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 524 (583) I would be very interested in finding sources of bibliographies that are available on computer disks. If people would like to reply directly to me, I would be willing to summarize for the list, or replies can be sent directly to the list. I am most interested in bibliographies about U.S. ethnic groups and Latin America. The subject matter is not important, although global information on particular cultures is of considerable interest. I am trying to find out what sources of bibliographies are available, in addition to the normal on-line/mainframe search sources. RTT From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: voice cards Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 12:39:10 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 525 (584) A friend of mine has asked me to transmit the following question: Has any of you already had experiences with voice cards, i.e. cards which allow your computer to reproduce digitally stored speech/sounds? We're looking for such a card to be used in Second Language Teaching; it should therefore a) produce speech at the best possible quality b) offer possibilities to connect headphones AND an external loudspeaker c) be also able to record speech digitally. Thanks for responding, Thomas Zielke Historisches Seminar Universit{t Oldenburg Postfach 2503 D-2900 Oldenburg From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0201 ... Interactive Fiction ... Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 08:27:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 526 (585) For those interested in interactive fiction, Gordon Howell of Herriot-Watt University in Scotland published a sporadic journal called IF-Digest which is oriented towards interactive fiction as a literary genre. Gordon's address is gordon@hci.hw.ac.uk. Also, I majored in hypertextual fiction at Cornell last year and wrote a large piece of hyperfiction along with a long discussion of hyperfiction as a literature. Both pieces are in a hypertext editor (what else?) called StorySpace on the Mac. StorySpace was written by Jay David Bolter of U of North Carolina and Michael Joyce of the U of Michigan and will hopefully be published this summer by a company called Eastgate Systems. If anyone wants a copy of my thesis work, send me a disk with a self-addressed, stamped envelope ($.45 usually does it if the envelope is light in the US). The files are too large to upload and will come in a self-extracting StuffIT archive. A Mac Plus and hard drive are required. Another place to get information on interactive fiction is the Usenet group rec.arts.int-fiction, which I started four years ago, but which has changed topic from hypertextual fiction (as I started calling it) to things like AI role-playing games and simulated environments, in which I'm not as interested. The best place to find other references is in my thesis discussion so I won't go into more details here... Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: New discussion group Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 17:13:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 527 (586) I'd like to announce the commencement of a new discussion group on postmodernism, which has recently begun operating at NC State. Interested parties can subscribe by sending a request to pmc@ncsuvm (Bitnet) or pmc@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu (Internet), or by sending mail containing the one-line command subscribe pmc-talk [your full name] to the address listserv@ncsuvm (Bitnet) or listserv@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu (Internet). The list is open and unedited, and is a companion-list to <Postmodern Culture>, the peer-reviewed electronic journal which begins publication in the Fall. So far, the discussion group has included postings of the first in a three-part series by Michael Heim, a forthcoming essay by one of the participants in the _Harper's_ symposium on computer hacking, and an extensive bibliography on the subject of postmodernism. Please join us. John Unsworth From: Ben Salemans <U070011@HNYKUN11> Subject: Re: 4.0210 ... Ingres listserv list Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 17:35:09 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 528 (587) Subscription to an INGRES-list is possible. The simple (?) message: TELL LISTSERV AT HDETUD1 SUB INGRES-L Ben Salemans resulted in my case in a subscription to the INGRES-list. I found the name of this and other interesting lists in the file LISTSERV LISTS which was sent to me after I gave the message: TELL LISTSERV AT HEARN LIST GLOBAL In your case you will have to fill in another name for 'HEARN' (most of the times this will be the central EARN- or BITNET-node which is as close as possible to the computer you are working on. But I think you can face this problem, since your subscription to the HUMANIST-list was succesful. Else, ask your local network wizzard for more information on the matter! Ben Salemans --------------------------------------------------------------------- This information was also received from Hans van der Laan <RCDILAA@HDETUD1.TUDELFT.NL> at Delft University. -- [eds.] From: Lisa Cziffra <LISAC@PUCC> Subject: Re: 4.0183 Queries: ... Fonts Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 12:51:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 529 (588) Have you tried the Oxford Catalogue of Fonts? If not, contact Catherine Griffin at the Oxford University Computing Service (13 Banbury Road; Oxford OX2 6UP, England) (Janet address: CATHERINE@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX). In Spring 1989 she announced her intention to create such a catalogue. Lisa Cziffra, Data Librarian Princeton University BITNET: LISAC@PUCC From: Mary Ann Lyman-Hager <MAL1@PSUVM> Subject: Re: Interfaces [eds.] Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 17:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 530 (589) One can see constantly the conflict of "form over function"; "content over substance," by viewing (even) such films recently released as "sex,lies an d videotape" and "Broadcast News." Isn't there a comparison between the beauti ful GUI and lovely text that the Mac offers and the power of text generation of fered by the IBM PS/2-generation machines? Seems a bit simplistic, but I use both machines for different reasons. From: Henning M|rk <slavhenn@aau.dk> Subject: Contact with Canada Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 11:05:48 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 531 (590) A friend of mine wants to have e-mail contact with Wiktor Askanas, Fredericton University, Canada. (Probably: Department of sociology). Please send information about possible addresses directly to: Jan Nowak SLAVJAN@AAU.DK From: Bill Ball <C476721 at UMCVMB> Subject: node names Date: 22 June 90, 13:02:35 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 532 (591) Re the query on node names: I have a 2500 line list of Bitnet node names and institutions which I could send to whoever is interested. Unfortunately its dated 10/88. I would recommend that one check one's local system for such a list first, but again I'd be glad to forward what I have . Bill Ball Pol Sc U. Mo-Columbia c476721@UMCVMB --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone interested in the current list of bitnet node names and institutions can request the files directly from the bitnic listserv by sending the commands get nodes info1 get nodes info2 to listserv@bitnic either interactively or in a mail file. See your Guide to Humanist if you need further information on how to do this. -- Elaine & Allen From: <MAL1@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0121 Midrash and Collage Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 17:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 533 (592) Will someone redefine "midrash"...I seem to have lost the argument, but am very much interested in it. From: ST_JOSEPH@hvrford.bitnet Subject: Re: 4.0212 Hermeneutics: was Ordering of Biblical Texts Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 00:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 534 (593) Sorry to be picky, but its Hans-Georg Gadamer, not Ernst George Gadammer (!). David Carpenter St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: The Codex Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 20:23:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 535 (594) George Aichele inquires about the origin of the codex. The standard recent source is Colin H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat,, _The Birth of the Codex_ (London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1983). The argument there, well substantiated by reference to the relevant papyri, is that the codex origi nated, probably at Antioch, as a medium for the sacred writings of early Christianity. For their merely secular writings the early Christians used the same kind of rolls employed by the Greeks and Romans, and the codex did not become the dominant form of the book until the fourth century, by which time its association with the sacred was well established. Germaine Warkentin (Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca). From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Codex - Canon Date: Tuesday, 26 June 1990 1454-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 536 (595) I hope I may be forgiven for sending this note to both the HUMANIST discussion group and to IOUDAIOS, since some of the same issues are of interest to both, and the discussion regarding canonical order in Jewish scriptures that began on HUMANIST has now been taken up on IOUDAIOS as well. George Aichele has asked about the history of the codex, and Don Fowler rightly notes that many of the claims about that history remain problematic. Perhaps the most influential voice in the English speaking world on the development of the codex has been Colin Roberts (Oxford), who has argued that for all practical purposes it was Christians who popularized the codex form in the 2nd century of the common era, perhaps for economic reasons (double the space to write on) as well as convenience of reference. The idea of writing on both sides of a surface and binding such "leaves" together on one edge was certainly known prior to the beginnings of Christianity (e.g. in school exercise books, with leather thongs binding together thin waxen boards), so the issue is less "who first had the idea?" than it is "who first brought it into wide/popular usage?" The main evidence that Roberts offers is the percentage of codex fragments of Christian writings relative to the percentage for non-Christian works in the early centuries, with much more evidence for Christian use. Indeed, in what I would consider to be a methodologically question-begging approach, some scholars argue that the early fragment of Genesis known as P.Yale 1 (perhaps as early as the last third of the first century) must be "Christian" in origin because it is codex in form! My suspicion is that it may very well be a Jewish codex, and that there may be other early biblical fragments that are Jewish as well. How does one tell for sure? One can assume that Jews would not put scriptural texts on anything but scrolls, but that certainly begs the question. One can argue that certain abbreviations of "sacred" words and names (spirit, heaven, Joshua/Jesus, Lord, God, etc.) must be Christian, but that also needs to be argued on the basis of evidence. Maybe "Christians" (whatever that designation means for the particular times and places under discussion) did popularlize the use of codices, but I don't think the evidence has been examined carefully enough yet to establish that as a historical (sociological, technological) "fact." In this context, it would be interesting to hear more about the evidence from Qumran -- Frank Cross once alluded to the discovery there of what seemed to be piles (or perhaps a pile) of unbound pages that contained consecutive text, but I never heard more (e.g. what sort of text? written on one side only or on both? -- that is, could they be glued or sewn together to form a scroll, or not?). Anyone out there have any light to shed? And in emerging classical Judaism, when and under what conditions do discussions of whether Torah must be on scrolls, etc., take place? Is it a response to an identifiable situation (such as Christian codex Pentateuchs)? A further observation about the development of codex technology, which relates to the question of order of works and (perhaps) of significance of ordering. The earliest codices of which we know (2nd century CE) are relatively small in capacity -- often holding a single work (e.g. Genesis) or even a portion of a work. They are often formed by folding larger sheets into a "single quire" of maybe 20 or 30 pages (the more pages, the more technologically awkward in terms of the inner margins near the fold), held together with thread/cord. As the idea of binding several small quires together into a multi-quired work develops, the ability to hold vast numbers of writings together in a single (but more complex) codex also develops. By the mid 4th century CE, such large codices are being manufactured and circulated. Thus "order" is ont an automatic concomitant of "codex" format, but as codex format becomes more sophisticated, order becomes a more relevant issue in the sense of "table of contents." Bob Kraft, Religious Studies, U. Penn. From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: codex and scroll Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 09:10:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 537 (596) I also found Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex, London: Oxford University Press, 1983 to be a good source about the early codex. I thought it might be useful to share an excerpt from a paper prepared for the Electronic Publishing '90 conference, to be held in September in Gaithersburg Maryland. The paper, "Design of Hypermedia Publications: Issues and Solutions" was co-authored by myself and Julie Launhardt of IRIS and Krzysztof Lenk and Ronnie Peters of Rhode Island School of Design. The point made about the scroll in this quote is a contribution from Prof. Lenk, who is working on a large study of information graphics from the early manuscript tradition up through current practice on both print and electronic media. "The presentation of information on the computer screen has some similarities to one of the book's earliest forms, the scroll. In Mediterranean antiquity, before the technology of binding leaves of papyrus or parchment between boards was developed, the method for creating portable collections of written material was to roll and tie continuous pieces of papyrus into a scroll [Roberts 1983]. The way in which a scroll stores and presents information to the reader is interesting in the context of our present work on the computer screen. In a scroll, information is stored on either side or above and below the area being read. This is similar to the operation of the scrolling bars of the document window on the computer, and the present practice of revealed information only within the document window. In either case, the reader does not know what information is just out of view. Unlike the pages of a book, which are of a fixed size, the viewing area of a scroll can be broadened or narrowed. As a result, the demarcation between visible and hidden information on the surface of a scroll is not as clear as the edges of a book page. Even in the case of the scroll, the reader is oriented to the magnitude of the collection by being able to hold the entire collection in her hands. In contrast, a visual examination of the surface of the computer screen does not give the reader the same kind of access to the hypermedia publication as a whole. The hypermedia documents are 'hidden' within the memory of the computer and the visual appearance of the icons that represent each document does not express the same information as spines of bound volumes on a shelf or stacks of papers on a desk. There are other interesting comparisons to be made between hypermedia and the printed book. Yankelovich, Meyrowitz, and van Dam [Yankelovich 1985] point out a fundamental difference between the two: that information in a book is static. Once committed to ink on paper, the information cannot be changed without reprinting the book. Their table of comparison emphasized the greater potential for reader interaction found in electronic media. While print media offers advantages in areas such as portability, established standards of typography and graphic design, and general aesthetic appeal, the reader of a book cannot alter the content or customize the arrangement of a printed page to suit individual needs. Intermedia, designed in large part by Yankelovich and Meyrowitz, challenges this relationship between the author and the reader. The Intermedia reader must actively create the sequence in which information is presented. Within the limit of permissions established by the author, the reader is also invited to add to and alter the information being presented. While this area of comparison is entirely valid, there are other issues of orientation and meta- information that should not be overlooked. These include a consideration of the non-verbal information found in the book as a physical object, the differing relationship between verbal and visual language in the two mediums, and a comparison of the sensory channels through which the book and the computer screen present information to the reader. The physical presence of a book, i.e. its weight, size, method of binding, its cover (hard or soft), can tell the reader a great deal about the publication before it is read. Flipping quickly through the pages will tell the reader about the type of publication, the amount of copy, the size of type, the number of illustrations (if any). Our visual sense is the primary channel through which we receive information from a book. However, a person reading a book uses more than just the sense of sight. A book can be picked up and oriented to the viewer's requirements. The "hard" nature of the book brings in such sensory information as the physical feel of the pages, the weight of the book, the smell of the ink, evidence of past ownership, and so forth. By convention, books have bound pages that are expected to be read with a directional orientation. While this directionality varies from culture to culture (Greek and Latin reading horizontally left to right, Hebrew and Arabic reading horizontally from right to left, Classical Chinese reading vertically right to left), the page of a book in the European tradition is, by convention, read from top left to bottom right. The contents of pages within a book are most commonly organized in a linear, sequential fashion." If anyone is interested in the full text of the paper, let me know and I will send a printed copy via surface mail (the full paper relies on figures that cannot be transmitted via HUMANIST). Paul Kahn Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship Brown University pdk@iris.brown.edu From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Non-Roman Fonts (Forwarded from comp.fonts) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:20:20 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 224 (597) Original Sender: scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) The following on non-Roman fonts may be of interest to Humanist subscribers. It was posted on USENET's comp.fonts by Scott Deerwester. Forwarded message follows: ----------------- A month or so ago I asked for information on non-roman fonts. The list that I asked about was: Arabic Chinese Gujarati Korean Pollard Armenian Cyrillic Gurmukhi Lao Sinhala Batak Devanagari Hebrew Latin Tamil Bengali Ethiopic Japanese Malayalam Thai Burmese Georgian Javanese Mongolian Tibetan Cambodian Greek Kannada Oriya I've heard back about several sources of fonts, and here is a summary of what I've heard. Thanks to all who gave me information. I will update this list if there appears to be a need to. This list makes no attempt at all to include things that are written with a varient of the Roman alphabet. This explicitly includes Vietnamese, Turkish, Polish, Icelandic and any other scripts that are basically Latin, but with extra characters. It's not that I don't care about those, it's just that that's not the point of this survey. First, there are several kinds of fonts; - MetaFont source, suitable for use with TeX - BDF (X Windows) fonts - Stroked PostScript (usually called "Laser") fonts - Macintosh screen fonts - SUN NeWS fonts My posting said that I was interested in PostScript, but I heard back about a number of kinds of fonts. The remainder of this posting is divided into two sections. The first section lists sources of fonts, with an indication of what they have. There are two kinds of sources of fonts; ftp sites and companies. I've tried to indicate price for companies. The second section is listed by script. *** I do not have any connection with any of these sources of fonts, *** and inclusion in this list does not constitute endorsement. I. Sources of fonts A. Commercial Macintosh and PostScript fonts 1. Linguist's Software Address: PO Box 508, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 Telephone: (206) 775-1130 Fax: (206) 771-5911 This is arguably the best single source of non-Roman fonts. Most of the Mac fonts are $79.95. The "MacSEMITIC COPTIC DEVANAGARI" package, which is also $79.97, includes everything between Coptic and Devanagari in the following list. Macintosh fonts: Gujarati, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Tamil, Burmese, Armenian, Georgian, Kanji (Japanese), Chinese, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac (Nestorian, Jacobite and Estrangelo), Ethiopic, Ugaritic, Sabean, Devanagari, Hieroglyphics, Akkadian, Sanskrit, Greek, Cyrillic Laser fonts are between $99.95 (why don't they just say $100?) and $149.95. "Laser" (PostScript) fonts: Cyrillic, Hieroglyphics*, Greek, Tibetan, Hebrew, Thai (8 typefaces), Extended Latin 2. Ecological Linguistics Address: PO Box 15156, Washington, DC, 20003 [deleted quotation]Macintosh." They concentrate on things like "almost automatic" transliteration, keyboard interpreters, switching fonts easily, and cheap prices. The licensing is for "any number of users on a single terminal (one user at a time)." They also have a lot of fonts which have some alphabet plus Times. Macintosh fonts: Amharic (Ethiopic), Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Burmese (Mon, Shan also available as additions), Cambodian, Cyrillic, Cham, Cherokee (Cree, Inuktitut, Pollard syllabic), Chess, Bopomofo (if you don't know, don't ask), Devanagari, Hieroglyphics, Georgian (plus Old Georgian), Greek, Gujarati, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Hebrew, IPA, Katakana (Japanese syllabic), Kharosthii, Korean, Laotian, Malayalam, Mayan Hieroglyphs (plus a Mayan calendar calculator!), Mideastern Syllabaries (Mycenean, Cypros, Paphos, CyproMinoan, Ugarit), Mongolian, Mycenean, Oriya, Sinhalese (4 typefaces), Tamil, Telugu, Thai (22 typefaces!), Tibetan. PostScript fonts: Greek, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Thai, Amharic, Arabic, Hebrew He (Ecological Linguistics is a "he") also sells script managers, etc. Prices are mostly $50 for Mac fonts (on a system disk) and $90-$120 for PostScript fonts. 3. Pacific Rim Connections, Inc. Address: 3030 Atwater Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010 Telephone: (415) 697-0911 Fax: (415) 697-9439 They sell a lot of Asian language software for Macintoshen and PC compatibles. If you're interested in Chinese, Japanese or Korean word processing on the Mac or IBM PC, write to them for a catalog. I'm not, so I didn't include the information here. They also second- source a number of Linguist's Software's fonts, for the same price. Worth contacting if you want to know about the software. 4. NeoScribe International Address: PO Box 410, Clinton, NY 13323 Telephone: (315) 853-4427 Email: neoscribe%applelink@apple.com They sell a PostScript Devanagari, Hebrew, Arabic and some other fonts. They also do custom font design for non-Roman scripts if you're desperate and can pay. Michael Ross, the President of Neoscribe, seemed very knowledgeable and helpful, even though they don't have a large inventory of fonts. 5. Bitstream Address: 215 First Street, Cambridge MA 02142-1270 Telephone: (800) 237-3335 Bitstream claims to have "over 1,000" typefaces. According to a TUGBoat article, this includes Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Laotian and Tai Dam. Unfortunately, none of these is available except to OEM's. If you're an OEM, maybe they'll talk to you. They sent me a letter entitled, "Dear Macintosh User." Oh, well. 6. Publishing Solutions Telephone: (301) 424-3942 They allegedly have a lot of fonts, but I have not yet received any literature from them in response to a phone call. They *did*, however, answer the phone, which is more that some other companies managed! B. Public Macintosh fonts There is a collection of Mac fonts at doc.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.30). They've got fonts for Polish, Russian, Czech, Ukranian, German, Greek, Armenian, Yiddish, Georgian, Bengali, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Devanagari, and Tamil. The fonts vary a lot in quality, as you would guess. There's also an IPA font and some sillier things like Elvish. C. Metafont 1. Survey Dominik Wujastyk (wujastyk@euclid.ucl.ac.uk) wrote an article in TUGBoat, v. 9 (1988), no. 2, entitled, "The Many Faces of TeX: A Survey of Digital MetaFonts." He listed fonts in: Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Arabic/Farsi, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, IPA and various other things. 2. RussTeX A note from Dimitri Vulis says: I am the 'administrator' of RusTeX-L, the mailing list for Russian text processing (mostly TeX-oriented). We have METAFONT for Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, et al), and we're planning to extend it to support Uzbek, Azeri, etc (Cyrillic-based with extra letters). You might be interested to browse through the list archives and files on LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU in filelist RUSTEX-L (of course). There are also pointers to PostScript and (raster) HP fonts. 3. Washington A number of Metafont fonts are available from ymir.claremont.edu in directory [anonymous.tex.babel]. This archive is maintained by Don Hosek (dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu). D. NeWS Standard NeWS sites have fonts in Kanji, Cyrillic, Coptic and Elvish. These can be convered using NeWS utilities to fonts that are usable in X, but I haven't done so. II. Sources of Fonts by Script Sources: 1. Linguist's Software 2. Ecological Linguistics 3. doc.cso.uiuc.edu 4. Pacific Rim Connections 5. ymir.claremont.edu 6. X distribution 7. Neoscribe 8. Wujastyk article 9. Bitstream PostScript Mac X TeX Arabic 1, 2 1, 2 Armenian 1, 2 1, 2, 3 Batak Bengali 2 2, 3 Burmese 1, 2 Cambodian 1 Chinese 1, 4 5 Cyrillic 1, 2 1, 2, 3 6 5 Devanagari 2 1, 2, 3 8 Ethiopic 2 1, 2 Georgian 1, 2, 3 Greek 1, 2 1, 2, 3 6 5, 8 Gujarati 1, 2 Gurmukhi 1, 2 Hebrew 1, 2, 7 1, 2 5, 8 Japanese 1, 2, 4 Javanese Kannada Korean 1, 4 1, 3, 4 Lao 2 Malayalam 2 2 Mongolian 2 Oriya 2 Pollard 1 Sinhala 2 Tamil 2 1, 2, 3 8 Thai 1, 2 1, 2, 3 Tibetan 1 1, 2 III. Odds and Ends A. Hanzi A package called Hanzi is available that allows manipulation of files in Chinese in a format called HZ. It comes with a relatively complete PD set of Chinese (raster) fonts in their own format, but with tools to convert to other things. It is available from june.cs.washington.edu in /pub/yeung, which also has a document on transcribing cantonese. B. Chinese Metafont ==> These files are not usable with TeX or modern MetaFont <== Go Guoan and John Hobby, now at Bell Labs, wrote a set of Chinese fonts in *Old* Metafont. It is asserted that somebody, somewhere is working on these being updated to Metafont, but I have not heard anything more. These files are available by anonymous ftp from june.cs.washington.edu. This is Pierre Mackay's home machine, which explains a few things... C. Here is a paragraph from an article on the net by Mark Edwards, posted in February, 1989: ------- This is my attempt at compiling information about output devices and such things. What I mean by output devices are display terminals, laser printers, and typesetters. The kinds of information that you will find here is about typesetting, fonts, converting some type of font to another, converting device independent files to device dependent files, converting various ways of storing pictures to postscript and so. I have also started a small glossary of important or useful terms to help aide in understanding. I originally posted parts of this list in comp.fonts and comp.text. But it has grown and includes information that pertains to other groups now. ------- If there is sufficient demand, perhaps Mark will post it again, or if he doesn't mind, I'll post my copy. D. Kterm Here is the first paragraph of the README: Kterm is a terminal emulator allowing to use Japanese on X11 Window System. It is expansion of xterm and have some bugs like xterm. Further there may be some bugs in the expanded part. If you find such bugs, send me them please. 1989 November 18 Hiroto Kagotani kagotani@cs.titech.ac.jp It comes in the contrib/clients directory of the X11R4 distribution. E. Hopefully, since this is way at the bottom of a huge posting, nobody will see it, but (and here I switch to 6 point type) I've collected most of what's on the net regarding non-Roman fonts, and if there is absolutely overwhelming demand, I will make it available via anonymous ftp from a system at the University of Chicago. Shhhh... Scott Deerwester | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu Center for Information and | Phone: 312-702-6948 Language Studies | 1100 E. 57th, CILS University of Chicago | Chicago, IL 60637 From: Giorgio Perissinott <9824peri@UCSBUXA.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0218 Qs: ... Voice Cards Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 14:08:26 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 225 (598) This is in answer to the inquiry about voice cards. There are, of course, several on the market. I am personally familiar with an 8bit card by Covax inc. 765 Conger Street, Eugene, Oregon 97402 (503 342 1271). It is marketed as a Voice recognition system with the name Voice Master Key. The cost is about $175.00 including software. I have been using for quite some time and I am pleased with it. I must say, however, that the end user will probably have to develop his/her own software. I am currently developing software for Teaching Language Varieties (L.A. Spanish) using a combination of Hyperpad and My Own Programming in C. I will glad to correspond with anyone working along the same lines. Giorgio Perissinotto Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 gperissi@ucsbuxa.bitnet gperissi@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu From: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Subject: Knowledge: Permanent and Transient Date: Tue 26 Jun 90 10:54:37 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 226 (599) Alan Corre observes the difference in his computer knowledge, which rapidly becomes useless, and his classical knowledge, which serves him always. Fair enough. That's an interesting observation; I hadn't quite thought of it that way. I sympathize - I work as a PC support tech, have for six years, but have my Ph.D. in Early Modern European history. But I have to disagree with the despondent tone of his message. I don't see that anything needs to be balanced. I can still recite the Winston cigarettes jingle. I can see Speedy Alka-Seltzer in my mind's eye. My brain is stuffed with all sorts of garbage. But that's not the right metaphor. My brain is not an urn, which gets filled up. It is a muscle that needs regular exercise. It doesn't much matter whether I exercise it with something eternal or something ephemeral; it's the exercise that counts. So just because I remember the syntax for PIP (but not all the switches!) is no cause for alarm. That just means that I've been busy over the years, and the old muscle in the cranium is still limber. Don't worry, Alan - you've still got tons of disk space left! -= Skip =- Skip Knox Boise State University Boise, Idaho DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Codex - Canon Addendum Date: Tuesday, 26 June 1990 1707-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 227 (600) This is a PS to my note earlier today on Codex - Canon. I forgot to call attention to the fine study relating to the development of the codex by Eric G. Turner entitled The Typology of the Early Codex (U. Penn. Press, 1977). Turner supplies information on much of the hard evidence important for this discussion; for example, in table 13 he gives an inventory of codices dated before the 4th century CE (starting with 2nd century CE). Of the approximately 30 examples of possibly 2nd century codices, 6 are clearly "Christian" (gospel traditions, etc.), 12 are of Jewish scriptures, and the rest seem to have no Jewish or Christian clear associations. Interestingly, Turner himself is only confident about the second century date of 13 of these codices, of which 1 is Jewish scriptures (Ex+Deut; note the "order") and 4 are "Christian" gospel traditions. He is sceptical (as am I) about the late 1st century date assigned to P.Yale 1 by Bradford Welles, and would even suggest "perhaps" (p.95) a 3rd century date for that fragment! Reference should also be made to Kurt Treu's article on "Die Bedeutung des Griechischen fuer die Juden im roemischen Reich" ["What Greek meant for Jews in the Roman Empire"] in KAIROS 15 (1973) 123-144, which seems to have made little impact on English language studies but is extremely stimulating and competent. In his preface to the Codex volume, Turner apologizes for his use of the term "Christian" to mean "Biblical" as follows: I have used "Christian" as a blanket term to describe theological, religious, polemical or scriptural works that are obviously not "Greek literature" [sic! from a classicist's perspective]. I wish I had used a more neutral terminology. Dr. K. Treu has recently pointed out ... that a number of anomalies make it less certain than has been generally supposed that the use of the codex form and certain standardized _nomina sacra_ are firm evidence that the text concerned is of Christian ambiance. [Preface, xxii] As is clear from my earlier note to which this is an appendix, I agree fully with such caveats! Bob Kraft, Religious Studies, Penn. From: cb%kcp.UUCP@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Christopher Bader) Subject: 4.0225 Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 18:57:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 538 (601) Anyone who wants voice input and output on a personal computer should consider a Macintosh. All the recent models have a speaker and a sound chip for audio output. Voice input can easily be added with MacRecorder from Farallon (about $160). No "cards" are necessary for either input or output. From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0218 ...Voice Cards ... Date: Wednesday, 27 June 1990 8:54am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 539 (602) Re: Thomas Zielke's query about voice cards for use in language teaching. There are quite a few such cards available, ranging from very expensive devices such as Digital Equipment Corporation's DECtalk (a few thousand dollars US-- it offers 9 different voices, possibility of multiple connections, excellent output), down through Texas Instruments' Speech Board 2 (also high quality, with an extensive library to support development; cost is around $1000 US I think-- well worth it, though, as TI's support service is extensive and excellent, including a free BBS), and on down to relatively inexpensive devices like the Votrax Personal Speech System (around $400 US), and even cheaper things like CoVox (around $100). These are all for MS-DOS machines; the Macintosh has its own on-board speech synthesizer, though the sound quality isn't as good. The TI card I mentioned earlier allows for record-and-playback of human speech as well; so does the Farallon MacRecorder, a very inexpensive device for the Macintosh. Hope this is helpful. John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin (EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET) From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Hardware/Software configs for sight-impaired Date: Tuesday, 26 Jun 1990 23:17:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 540 (603) A close friend of mine just returned from a visit, after many year, to a boyhood pal, and discovered that his friend's sight is rapidly deteriorating; he can, in fact, read his computer monitor only with great difficulty. My friend promised him that he would try to find out what options exist for configuring a microcomputer so that it can be operated by a blind person, and I have been asked to query HUMANIST on the subject. I have a couple of ideas about how to approach this problem on the Mac, using Smoothtalker, etc., but I would like to produce a list of recommendations for all kinds of machines, and provide a list of appropriate software, particularly software which has been developed for sight-impaired persons. I shall compile all responses into a single file, leaving headers and signatures intact, and forward it to HUMANIST to be deposited on the server for others who may be interested in the subject. Thank you in advance for any information you may send my way. Pat Conner West Virginia University BITNET : U47C2@WVNVM INTERNET : U47C2@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU From: Gerald Barnett <OTT@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: ACADEMIC SOFTWARE SUPPORT Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 16:04:01 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 541 (604) The Office of Technology Transfer at the University of Washington is seeking to identify colleges and universities that have implemented interesting models of support for software development. We are especially interested in how other academic institutions support software--including distribution, on-going program maintenance, and end-user support--after the creation of working alpha versions. We would appreciate hearing from those who have found effective (decent?) support for their software packages. We would also like suggestions of names of people we should contact to discuss software support models in more detail. Send replies by e-mail to OTT@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU or by snail to Gerald Barnett / Office of Technology Transfer XD-40 / University of Washington / Seattle, WA 98195 From: K.C.Cameron@exeter.ac.uk Subject: Re: ... Teaching French ... [eds.] Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 19:02:04 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 542 (605) [deleted quotation]the teaching of French. Would it be possible to set up a subgroup of persons into the teaching of French Language and Literature for an exchange of ideas relating to that discipline? I am prepared to lead such a subgroup. Keith Cameron. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0219 Interactive Fiction Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 08:32:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 543 (606) Oops, I forgot. For anyone who wants to send me a disk for a copy of my thesis fiction, my snail mail address is 901 Dryden Rd. #88, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA. Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: Donald Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: 4.0215 Meditations Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 09:35:32 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 544 (607) Has the study of Classical Hebrew really not changed? The Hebrew itself may not have, but I'm sure interpretations have. My own field (early modern English history) has changed significantly over the past 45 years--several times--although I grant not as much as computing. Don Spaeth From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0226 Knowledge: Permanent and Transient Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 18:00 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 545 (608) I rather think Corre was expressing something else: the economics of it all. The fact is, one invests in learning something, like his Classical Humanist subjects over years, and also years in learning computer procedures, which fade faster than a Pasadena rose. He mourns the "waste" of time. Thoreau has many lessons to teach on this head, in WALDEN. The first chapter, on ECONOMY. What Corre was also getting at is something only age teaches one: that the very same things, the very same proverbs, apothegms, saws, tropes, choruses, prayers, songs, become ever deeper in meaning and significance, while the procedures of input were never more than 1 micron thick in signficance. Furthermore, computers are but the latest example of something more profound, since science itself functions by disproving and forgetting what it once labored to learn. Not maths, I guess, but the understanding gained by more primitive instruments: the procedures of Leeuwenhoek are not useful to the electron microscopist. Life itself is expensive too, in terms of time. Most of what we have learned is quite forgettable, though it too often comes up out of the lower depths in hours of fever or delirium, as we all know. So, the analogy of the urn is of course false; only our littel children wonder if our heads are stuffed up, with useless knowledge; but then as we get older we say, If only we knew it was to become obsolete. But then the joy of learning to use the instrument is part of the long road. Pity that learning so manmy things is wasteful of our strength and time, but some things are expensive. A poet often finds, as I have, that lots of reading of all sorts sometimes comes out as a phrase that condenses it all, and the rest of the work goes for naught; but without all effort, that phrase so full of pith would never have come into existence. We are indeed very strange creatures, and not like my 20 meg diskdrive at school that is full of mere programs and so very slow to execute anything as a consequence. Kessler at UCLA From: Helmut Schanze <GC130@DSIHRZ51> Subject: ALLC/ACH 90 Conference Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 17:06 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 546 (609) To all participants of the ALLC-ACH 90 Conference THE NEW MEDIUM SIEGEN The local Organizers would like to express thanks to all participants of the conference who contributed to the success of the conference by lectures, demonstrations, chairs and statements in discussions or even by giving hints in more private talks. We also would like to thank all participants for coming to Siegen. The great interest compensated many times for the efforts of organization. Those who could not attend the conference but are interested to get a book of abstracts may order it by help of their local book seller or the publisher. The price is DM 50,- (plus shipping). The address of the publisher is: Alano Verlag Kongresstrasse 5 D-5100 Aachen Germany Helmut Schanze From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM> Subject: Halio article Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 23:18:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 547 (610) The Halio article has reached the New York Times (6-26-90). A summary of the article was the follow up piece for a review of MacProof. The intro reads "Most writers need all the help they can get. If a recently published study is to be believed, those who write on a Macintosh computer may need even more. " I guess it is to be believed because the last paragraph of the summary of the Halio article is "A computer analysis of randomly selected compositions confirmed her impression. The research will continue." From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: One and Many Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 15:46:12 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 215 (611) "I've learned a lot--and most of it doesn't apply anymore."--Charles E. Exley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NCR Corporation, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1990. Mr. Exley's statement set me thinking, and I found that it applies to me too. I became involved with computers around 1975 after a visit to Professor Guido Alinei's computer project on Italian texts at the University of Utrecht. Few Humanists were involved in computers at that time, and it was very difficult to obtain any information, let alone get involved. I started to learn about the Univac 1100 to which I had access, and became quite proficient at its operating system. That system was like a graveyard. As new methods came in, the operating system accomodated to them, but nothing was ever disposed of. Even today you can in theory edit a file by punching individual corrections on individual cards--but there is no longer a punch machine on which to punch the card or a reader to read it once punched! As of next January no new accounts will be opened on that reverend machine, and the following July it will be phased out entirely. With that, my knowledge of the 1100 operating system will become totally useless. Unfortunately I have no conscious erase program in my head, and I guess those neurons will stay active until they are food for worms. After years of working with that cumbersome machine, the Apple II was like a revelation. I loved Ken Bowles' neat operating system that was adapted for Apple Pascal, and never understood why it did not become more widely accepted. Although programs I wrote with that p-system are still in use, I do not use it any more. At this point I feel that my useless computer knowledge is greater in bulk that the knowledge that I can actually use, and wonder for how long this has to continue. Is this what is meant by "keeping up?" What a drag. There has been some compensation, though. It has really been thrilling and exciting to watch the way in which the computer world has bounded ahead, even with my limited technical know-how. The kind of progress that took centuries for some disciplines has taken just a few decades for computers, and I am grateful to have been able to watch some of the action. I heard a lecture by Grace Hopper, the computer veteran, who related that in the forties she got into difficulties keeping her check book in balance, and her accountant brother pointed out that she had unwittingly started using octal arithmetic. I was unaware of computers at that time when mental octal arithmetic was a prerequisite, but I am happy to have witnessed, and in my way understood the enormous changes that have taken place. I have to contrast this, however, with my "real" area. I learned the basics of Classical Hebrew forty-five years ago, and nothing has changed. By definition it cannot; if you change it, it isn't Classical Hebrew. True, we understand certain features better today than we did before with the help of modern Linguistics. But the essentials are the same, now and forever. The same applies to the texts to which the language studies are the key. The insights and turns of phrase of a Jeremiah, a Lucretius or a Shakespeare can be "run" again and again in an individual life, and in the collective life of humankind, and never become obsolete. And it's the same for great art and music. "The One remains, the many change and pass." In some sense the classics are part of the "One" and the snazzy new desk-top is part of the many, but there does seem to be need for both. How we balance the two seems to me one of the major current challenges for the humanist. From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Computing for Visually Impaired Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 09:49 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 548 (612) For visually impaired students here we have an AST Premium/286 with Vert Plus which enables the computer to "speak" information that appears on the screen via headphones or a speaker. It also has a Vista screen magnification system and a NEC Multisynch XL 19" monitor. We also provide a braille embosser for braille output. I don't know details (costs, companies, configurations, etc.) about this system, but if anyone is seriously interested I will try to find out and pass it along. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: AEB_BEVAN@ VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Software applications for sight-impaired users Date: Thu, 28 JUN 90 17:20:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 549 (613) Patricia corner asked about sources of infromation on software applications for people with visual imnpairments. There are specialist lists open to discuss (amongst other issues) software adaptations for peopel with disabilities. One is BLIND-L ... sorry dont remember the host offhand. Another is L-Handicap@NDSUVM1 Good luck with your serch - and if you find specialist software with particular application for sight-impaired scholars I and the office for students with special needs at my University will be glad to hear from you Edis Bevan Open University UK From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Computing for the Visually Impaired Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 14:41 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 550 (614) After my last posting I received my copy of the May-June issue of "Perspective", the newsletter from the Office of Academic Computing at UCLA. It contains a longish article on computing facilities for the disabled at UCLA. The person looking for information on resouces for computing for the visually impaired might be interested in this. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Re: Teaching French Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 17:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 551 (615) The American Comparative Literature Association is currently looking into setting up some kind of electronic-mail groups on the Bitnet or Internet. They suggest two functions (in a letter to their membership that I got last week): ``1) to collect and make available material such as current syllabi, lists of books and related information, pedagogical strategies in various settings, and critical perspectives on all of the above, and 2) to provide a national communication space where teachers of Comparative Literature, world literature, or international/ intercultural literature of any kind could exchange ideas and experiences related to their work.'' They didn't include any electronic address. The person who's collecting information on this is: Professor Sarah Lawall Chair, ACLA Undergraduate Studies Committee Department of Comparative Literature South College 315 University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 John Lavagnino, Department of English, Brandeis University From: Diana Meriz <MERIZ@pittvms> Subject: Subgroup on the teaching of French Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 15:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 552 (616) Many thanks to K. C. Cameron for suggesting the formation of a subgroup devoted to exchanging ideas related to the teaching of French language and literature. Please count me in as a prospective member. Diana Meriz University of Pittsburgh <meriz@pittvms> From: Espen Ore <espeno%navf-edb-h.uib.uninett@nac.no> Subject: 4.0218 Qs: ... Voice Cards Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 08:43:11 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 553 (617) A simple but effective system for digitized sound/speech on a computer is a Macintosh with MacRecorder (a sound sampler) from Farallon Computing. MacRecorder is an eight-bit sampler, and its best quality is about the same as old fashioned hi-fi. With two MacRecorders (or some tricky use of one) you can record stereo sound. The software that comes with MacRecorder allows for editing of the sounds, and it is possible to use the sounds (mono) as standard sound resources in HyperCard. I think the price for the MacRecorder is about $ 200, and you can use it on any Mac from the Plus and up. Espen Ore Bergen, Norway From: J J Higgins <Higgins@np1a.bristol.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0218 Qs: ... Voice Cards Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 14:10:51 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 554 (618) Thomas Zielke, who asked about voice cards, may like to know that one of the best informed people in this area is Bernd Rueschoff of the University of Wuppertal. I am afraid I have not got an exact address. Both the cards I have worked with incorporate a headset with microphone, and will also take input from a tape recorder and digitise it, and feed output to an external amplifier or loudspeaker. Quality varies, but I do not think that second language learners need high quality. A great deal of real-life listening takes place in acoustically unfavourable conditions; a diet of studio-recordings of careful speech in language labs may not be the best preparation for coping with listening in the real world. Some of Bernd Rueschoff's work made a virtue of necessity, since he based listening exercises on a simulation of playing back the tape on a telephone answering machine, justifying the less-than-perfect sound quality and the one-sidedness of the conversation at a single ingenious stroke. From: Richard Ristow <AP430001@BROWNVM> Subject: A confirmed nerd from Swarthmore Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 16:53:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 235 (619) In followup to the exchange about the term "nerd", thanks to Gregory J. Marsh in Special Collections at the Swarthmore College library. He writes in response to an inquiry about its occurrence in a college review in the early 1960s: "I found Millard Fillmore Nerd in ... the 1961-62 Hamburg Show. ... In [a] skit, 'The Dean's Office,' he is visiting the dean and is unable, at first, to tell the dean his problem. The dean assumes he has broken some college rule (drinking, women, etc.) and prepares to expel Millard. Millard finally admits that his problem is that he has broken no rules, and is hence a square." He also feels that, in context, Nerd's name seems intended to imply his squareness, and that therefore the term was previously known to the show's authors and audience. Marsh points out that, in addition to the 1950 attestation in Dr. Suess previously mentioned on the list, the OED2 cites the Glasgow *Sunday Mail* as defining "nerd" as "a square" in 1957; these are the only two attestations before 1968, after which they become relatively common. He cites Richard Martin's book *Jocks and Nerds* as attributing to Eric Partridge a conjecture that the term originated in the 1920s or 30s. The interesting picture this paints is that the term has existed in roughly its modern sense since the late 1950s, but with limited popularity, and that it gained wide usage around 1970. The television show *Happy Days* is apparently anachronistic in making it common in 1950s slang, but may well have contributed to its more recent popularity. From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0222 ... On Midrash Date: Thu, 28 Jun 1990 12:51 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 555 (620) In reply to the request (from MAL1@PSUVM, 23 June -- RE:4.0121) for a definition of "Midrash", I would refer those interested to what I consider the best non-professional introduction to this very "thorny" question: Barry Holtz, "Midrash" in *Back to the Sources -- Reading the Classic Jewish Texts*, Summit and Jewish Publication Society, New York, 1984), ed. Barry Holtz, pp. 177-211. On page 178, after clarifying the problems of defining such a term, Holtz says: "What, then is Midrash? It is helpful to think of Midrash in two different, but related ways: first, Midrash (deriving from the Hebrew root "to search out") is the process of interpreting. The object of interpretation is the Bible or, on occasion, other sacred texts; second, Midrash refers to the corpus of work that has collected these interpretations, works such as Midrash Rabbah" The discussion about Midrash and Collage (initiated by my query back in May) was more about the editing and "literatary texture" of the Midrashic corpora. At the end of this article, Holtz gives a good short bibliography. Further bibliography can be found in *Midrash and Literature*, eds. Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick, Yale: New Haven and London, 1986, pp. 369-395. I hope that helps to clarify matters somewhat. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0226 Knowledge: Permanent and Transient Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 07:04:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 556 (621) I would have to disagree with skip: not only does the brain get full, rampant senility set in, etc. for a major portion of the population, but even if you do not consider this, the following is still fearfully true and a cause for rampant conservatism as age increases: When one is ten years old, half one's knowledge is five years old. When one is 20 years old, half one's knowledge is over 10 years old. ..... When one attains maximum political power, academic power, etc. one is likely to be 55 - 65 (or later, in the case of the Gipper, or earlier in the case of JFK) and then half one's information (or more, in case of senility) is going to be over 30 years old. Even in the case of the classics, new information/interpretation arises. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg National Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts THESE NOTES ARE USUALLY WRITTEN AT A LIVE TERMINAL, AND THE CHOICE OF WORDS IS OFTEN MEANT TO BE SUCH AS TO PROVOKE THE GREATEST POSSIBLE RESPONSE SHORT OF BEING OFFENSIVE. TRUTH IN THESE NOTES IS OF GREAT CONCERN, THE FORM IS SECONDARY - OTHER THAN THE TOKEN EFFORT OF JUSTIFIED RIGHT MARGINATION. BITNET: HART@UIUCVMD INTERNET: HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (*ADDRESS CHANGE FROM *VME* TO *VMD* AS OF DECEMBER 18!!**) (THE GUTNBERG SERVER IS LOCATED AT GUTNBERG@UIUCVMD.BITNET) NEITHER THE ABOVE NAMED INDIVIDUALS NOR ORGANIZATIONS ARE A AN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF ANY OTHER INSTITUTION NOR ARE THE ABOVE COMMENTS MEANT TO IMPLY THE POLICIES OF ANY OTHER PERSONS OR INSTITUTIONS, THOUGH OF COURSE WE WISH THEY DID. From: "Diane P. Balestri" <BALESTRI@PUCC> Subject: Software support Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 09:35:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 237 (622) In reply to Gerald Barnett's query about software support: there's an article in the Spring 1990 issue of the EDUCOM Review that takes up the topic. "Managing Software Support in Higher Education" by Ree Dawson (MIT), Bill Mitchell (U Mo/Columbia) and Lee Shope (U Iowa). It summarizes the findings of a survey conducted by the these folks under the auspices of the EDUCOM Software Initiative, now called the EUIT (for Educational Uses of Information Technology). They conclude that successful strategies are closely tied to an institution's own culture and level of experience with technology; that policy and procedures in software support should be used as marketing and management tools; and that timing is critical to their effective use. EUIT, by the way, is both an organization of participants and a set of projects sponsored by EDUCOM. Some of its projects are related to support services; others have to do with intellectual property issues, access for disabled persons, faculty development, information resources, software reviews, and awards. The next meeting of the EUIT participants is in Snowmass, CO, Aug. 8-10. Anybody interested can get more information by scribbling a note to eden@bitnic. Diane Balestri From: Bob Boynton <BLABYNPD@UIAMVS> Subject: electronic books (forwarded from GUTNBERG filelist) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 01:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 238 (623) Forwarded by: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> I would like to thank the individuals who made suggestions about dealing with copyright, publishers and producing my own electronic versions of out of print text. I feel more confident. This seems a group that would be interested in the shareware program I have just run into--named IRIS. It is a program/language for producing electronic books; running on IBM PCs and compatibles. For displaying text there seem some rather direct parallels with KnowledgePro (the original, not the Windows, version). It is a rather creative attempt to take advantage of the flexibility computers provide to enhance enjoyment of texts/books. And it is one way to address the claims that reading off a "tube" is an unpleasant experience. Their description follows. N.B. the registration fee is only $8.00. I got it for $4.00 (I think) from one of the shareware sales/distribution companies, but I will also pay the registration fee. GRB blabynpd@uiamvs IRIS: ELECTRONIC BOOKS MADE SIMPLE Binding sheets of paper together to form books was a landmark idea. Papyrus scrolls were suddenly obsolete. The book format made a table of contents and index practical. Steering the reader to another part of a book was as simple as citing a page number. Best of all, you never had to rewind a book. This was the beginning of random access. Iris has taken books one step further. Instead of citing page numbers, authors can cite topic names. Readers can select the names directly from the screen, or from a menu. Electronic books can ask questions and respond to the answers. Readers can jump from one topic to another with the flick of a key. Windows can change color and size, and be accompanied by pleasant tones. When you use Iris, the first thing you see is a friendly help screen and a menu of available books. This menu works like all Iris menus. A single sorted column with items that can be selected with cursor keys, or by typing the first letter of the item. If all the items cannot be shown at once, readers can quickly scroll up and down the list. The Iris distribution disk comes with two complete electronic (or "virtual") books. One is a tutorial. Another is a reference work. The tutorial and reference books cover Iris itself, including an introduction to writing virtual books. Both are good examples of what Iris can do with these types of books. Although a sample text adventure was not provided, it's obvious that Iris was designed with gaming in mind. If you already have material stored in an ASCII text file, converting it to a virtual book is a snap. Internally, Iris uses a format similar to the well-known DOS batch file. The major difference is that "unmarked" lines are displayed, while "command" lines take special prefixes. To get started, all Iris needs is an occasional "topic name." These look just like a batch file "label". Just type a colon followed by the name you want to give the following text. Topics can be any length. Rename the file with a .PGE extension, and you're in business. Of course, you might want to go on and take advantage of the many special features Iris offers, but that's optional. Note that Iris does not include an editor. To write a book, you must use your own text editor (or ASCII-capable word processor), and name your file with a .PGE extension. Burgeoning authors would also want to print a copy of the IRIS-XTR book for reference. UserWare is also building a "library" of virtual books. Your submissions are invited, and royalties will be paid. Catalogs will be distributed to registered users. A registered copy of Iris sells for $8.00. An advanced version, Prism, is $16.00. Prism adds many features that would interest people writing books themselves. Iris, a MS DOS program, uses 148k of free memory, and works well with both color and monochrome monitors. UserWare, 4 Falcon Lane East, Fairport NY 14450-3312. Features List: For readers: selectable screen colors, borders, and CPU speeds, sound switch, bookmark, topics list, view list, DOS shell. For authors: color, sound, windows, variables, arithmetic and logical operators, procedural commands, external programs, user input, link topics via menus or "hotwords", (advanced version also includes) autoplay, topic and variable listing, command trace, editor support. Capsule Description: Iris. "Electronic book processor." Link topics. Store input. Merge variables. Run programs. Use color, sound, windows. $8 registration. 148K, monochrome or color. Disk _____. From: Pamela Trittin <trittin@dorothy.asel.UDEL.EDU> Subject: Spanish Dictionary and Corpus [eds] Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 14:25:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 557 (624) I am a graduate student at the University of Delaware doing research in speech synthesis for the Spanish language and am looking for the following: (1) An off-line Spanish dictionary in either ASCII or EBCDIC in order to test my text-to-speech program. (2) A Spanish corpus which contains words that are most frequently used in the Spanish language (a more contemporary piece of work would be most appropriate for our applications). Any information, leads or contacts pertaining to the above inquiries will be greatly appreciated. I can be reached at the following email address: TRITTIN@ASEL.UDEL.EDU or the following surface mail address: Alfred I. duPont Institute Applied Science and Engineering Laboratories P.O. Box 269 Wilmington, DE 19899 Thank you for your time attending to this inquiry. Sincerely, Pamela J. Trittin From: "Jim Y." <UD131000@NDSUVM1.BITNET> Subject: Russian(Cyrillic) WordProcessor Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 22:43:08 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 558 (625) [Forwarded by: Kevin Berland <BCJ@PSUVM> Posted on: International Intercultural Newsletter <XCULT-L@PSUVM> Please reply directly to UD131000@NDSUVM1] Hi, Maybe this isn't the right plae to ask, but: Recently I've been writing a *simple* (and Free!) English/Russian WordProcessor for IBM PC (and compatiables). My goal is to be able to display Russian(Cyrillic) and English characters at the same time, and print them using a standard (Epson brand) printer. Does anyone have a book reference on the Russian keyboard Layout ? I've sent Air-mail to my family, but it takes 6-8 weeks. Thanks.... Jimbo From: Rich Mitchell <MITCHELR@ORSTVM> Subject: Elephants and Blind Men Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 16:36:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 559 (626) The John Saxe poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant" is familiar to many North American school children. I would like to use this piece in introduction to a book in which a social movement, so called survivalism, is considered from a variety of perspectives. Can any HUMANIST help with the origins of Saxe's poem? It is rumored to be derived from a Sufi poem circa 1200, something about an "Elephant in a dark house." Author Rumi? I suspect the implied presence of an external, objective reality will not be present in earlier versions. Any help much appreciated. Richard Mitchell Department of Sociology Oregon State University MITCHLER@ORSTVM.BITNET From: Gerald Barnett <OTT@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATION Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 16:22:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 560 (627) The University of Washington participated in the EDUCOM survey and received a copy of the report written by Dawson et al. in November 1989. The material we received is directed primarily at college-wide support polices and services such as how to classify levels of support for software packages used broadly on campus and what percentage of schools publish their software support policies. My concern, however, is with the (often) non-commercial software developed on campuses, often with federal or corporate grant funding, and with what happens to that software once it has reached a useful, working state. Examples: Data acquisition software developed as part of a grant in a biochemist's research lab. Instructional software specific to an introductory Russian course. Whose responsibility--if it is anyone's--is it to assist academic software developers in maintaining and distributing the software? Along these lines, I would be interested to hear from people who have used academic software distribution centers such as Wisconsin's Wisc-Ware, Duke's National Collegiate Software, and Iowa's National Clearinghouse for Academic Software. Have these centers adequately served your needs? When you need a specialized software package for research or instruction, do you consider checking these sources, or do their ads in the Chronicle and Academic Computing go for naught? --Gerald Barnett/OTT@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU From: U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: using server containing beta-versions of CCAT software Date: 2 July 90, 14:49:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 561 (628) Some weeks ago I received a message from Jack Abercrombie. I don't understand what must I do to access the server containing beta-versions of CCAT software. Here is his message: anyone can help me? [deleted quotation] I have access to a 3270 terminal, running VM; at home I have a modem running at 2400 baud. If you can help, please write to my personal email address. Thank you. (I don't write directly to Jack because he has too much to do|). Maurizio Lana From: Terrence Erdt <ERDT@VUVAXCOM> Subject: computers for the visually impaired Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 19:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 562 (629) Patrick W. Conner <U47C2@WVNVM> inquires about hardware and software for indiviudals with sight impairments: According to ads in BYTE, The National Braille Press (617-226 6160) offers a publication entitled "The Second Beginner's Guide to Personal Computers for the Blind and Visually Impaired," which surveys large print display processors and voice cards. The address of the press is: 88 St. Stephen Street Boston, MA 02115 The American Foundation for the Blind's National Technology Center (NTC) maintains a user network of people who use adaptive equipment, including computers. The phone number for the center is: (800) 232-5463; the address is: 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 CompuServe offers the Handicapped Users' Database (Go Hud) and the Disabilities Forum (Go Disabilities). A message sent to the nearest listserv (e.g., listserv@villvm) can elicit a subscription to Blind-l, which emanates from listserv@uafsysb (that is, the Univ. of Arkansas Main Campus); otherwise, send the message sub blind-l [your name] to listserv@uafsysb. Terry Erdt, Villanova University From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0229 Notes and Queries (4/64 Date: Sunday, 1 July 1990 2:26pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 563 (630) A quick reply to Pat Connor's query about configuring microcomputers for the visually impaired. There's quite a lot of stuff out there: you might contact Project EASI (Equal Access to Software for Instruction), via Jim Fox (I think that's right) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I'm afraid I don't have their address handy. There's also the second edition of The Beginner's Guide to Computing for the Visually Impaired, available ffrom the National Braille Press in Boston-- again, I don't have the address to hand (it's in my office, and I'm not!). Telesensory Systems of Mountain View, CA makes a product called VISTA, which is a screen enlarger, and a very nifty one at that: it allows the user to mark an area of the screen for enlargement, and to toggle back and forth between enlarged view and normal view so as not to lose too much context (sometimes a problem with screen enlargers, at least for me); it also allows the user to control the degree of enlargement. VISTA can be used on its own, or it can be used in conjunction with VERT Plus, also from Telesensory Systems, which provides high quality speech output and thus reads the screen data to the user. I've just seen an announcement from Telesensory that they're shipping a scanner/OCR package, OsCar, as well. It's pricey stuff, though not as pricey as the Kurzweil Personal Reader (a standalone device that includes, in the top-of-the-line model, both a handheld and a flatbed scanner, and sends output through the DECtalk speech synthesizer: around $12,000 US; they make a PC-based version that's around $6000, if you don't need portability). There are other screen enlargers out there as well, such as the Lyons Large Print Program (distributed by a programmer named Lyons, who's somewhere in Canada), and others whose names I've forgotten. I took an alternate route for myself, at least as a temporary solution: when I bought my new computer back in January, I ordered a 19" color VGA monitor: the larger screen means that text displays are larger as well, and this is adequate for the time being-- it's the first time in years that I've been able comfortably to see what I'm doing! As my eyesight deteriorates, I will probably go to something like the VISTA screen enlarger-- should be an amazing combination, between the already-large 19" display and the magnifying capabilities of the VISTA! On the Macintosh I use CloseView, a screen enlarger that comes as part of System software. It's not bad, I guess, but I find it very frustrating on a 9" screen; I was recently given the use of a Mac II with a 13" monitor, and CloseView is a little less claustrophobic there. CloseView is a stripped-down version of another product (Enable, maybe?) by Berkeley Systems Design; I've not used the full version. In a previous message I mentioned several speech output devices, including the DECtalk and the Texas Instruments Speech Board, and the CoVox, and the Votrax Personal Speech System. Hope this helps. John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin (EIEB360@UTXVM) From: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Subject: Knowledge [eds] Date: Fri 29 Jun 90 10:14:00 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 564 (631) Michael Hart's comments about the age of knowledge are specious. When I learned about the Roman Revolution I was 27 (or so). But those were not "fresh facts" - the knowledge was centuries old. But then, that whole logic is nonsense. Was the knowledge as old as the text I read, or as old as the events themselves? If I re-read the text, does the knowledge become new again, as I gain fresh insights upon re-reading, or is it the same old knowledge? And I am frankly astonished to find anyone arguing that the brain gets full. On the contrary, I've always understood senility to be in part biological inevitability (sigh) but in part also the result of mental inactivity. We've all seen active old people who attribute their vitality to the fact that they try new things. It's when you STOP trying to fill up your brain that you risk senility. -= Skip =- DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0236 Responses: Midrash; Transient Knowledge (2/69) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 20:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 565 (632) Sorry, but information qua news gets old; knowledge is something else again. We put away what we thought as children, not because it is old, or out of date but because it belongs to an epoch in ourselves we include, but stand outside of. Playing with numbers is absurd, when it comes to knowledge. A little self (or Psycho) analysis would reveal immediately that old knowledge is oftern dterminant knowledge. If we could be reborn each day with new news, what would we be like? Of course old and recent information and knowledge is what we must always work with in a lively fashion, lifely fashion. Try some of Idries Shahs' Sufic anecdotes and you will see what old knowledge makes new again each time, as in Aesop, which is more accessible. What sort of knowledge lies inside a fable like that of the ass in the lion's skin? does it get old, even if asses are not running down the alley where you live, I mean 4 legged ones, and lion skins are worn only by Masai today? Etc. Kessler. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Software reviewers needed again Date: Sun, 01 Jul 90 22:04:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 566 (633) A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers who wanted to review software for Calico Journal. About 20 people responded positively in spite of the policy that software reviewed had to be returned to the journal. For those who disagreed with this policy, I am happy to report that reviewers may now keep the software. If anyone would like to be added to the list of reviewers, given this new information, please send me a brief note to my e-mail address: SClaus@Yalevm. For your information, Calico Journal deals with language software in all its facets but with an emphasis on computer aided language instruction. From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Teaching French Date: 29 June 90, 10:48:16 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 567 (634) Besides a Humanist sub-group may I suggest that people interested in French a way or another should contact French members of these various networks we use in order to get "real french" exchanges ? Although it is rather difficult to have "real french" without diacritics ... Amusez-vous bien. Marc From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: more on codex Date: 30 Jun 90 09:47:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 243 (635) For Marc Bregman, and anyone else who may be interested: S. Sandmel's remark concerns the gospel of Mark 7:1-8, especially Jesus's words to some Pharisees and scribes, "You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men." It appears on page 32 of *Anti-Semitism in the New Testament?* The inference drawn was mine, not Sandmel's. Thanks to all for your many helpful suggestions, and I would indeed be interested in a copy of the bibliography that Marc mentioned. George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown University Academic Subject: Spanish corpus or dictionary. Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 11:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 568 (636) Pamela Trittin, You wrote in Humanist (Vol. 4, No.0239 Monday July 2, 1990) that you were searching for a Spanish corpus or off-line Spanish dictionary. The following three organizations might be what you are looking for. The first two are Text corpi, and the last has an electronic dictionary available. A. The Digital Archive and Thesaurus of Spanish Texts at the University of California at Berkeley. (text corpus) Professor Charles Faulhaber Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of California Berkeley, Ca 94720 internet: Cbf@Faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu B. Nijmegen Corpus of Spanish Texts. (text corpus) Hans van Halteren Department of English University of Nijmegen P.O. Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen The Netherlands telephone: (NL)-080-512836 bitnet: Cor_Hvh@Hnykun52 C. Institut d'Etudes Romanes. (dictionary available) Professor David Mighetto Departmento de Lenguas Romances Seccion Lengua Espanola Universidad de Gotemburgo S-412 98 Gotemburgo Suecia telephone: 031-631800 bitnet: mighetto@Hum.Gu.Se James A. Wilderotter II Project Assistant Georgetown University Department of Text and Technology bitnet: Bitnet%"Wilder@Guvax.Bitnet" From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: UPENN CCAT SERVER Date: Tue, 03 Jul 90 12:21:19 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 569 (637) Re: Using Server Containing Beta-Versions of CCAT Software For Maurizio Lana and others who may be having trouble reaching the Penn server on Internet (by virtue of a stupid NameServer, or having none at all on your local system): try the IP routing direct, using 128.91.13.73. Otherwise, Bob Kraft (kraft@penndrls -BITNET) may be able to help you but he also is busy, and I do not know the latest status of Penn's External Services. Please don't ask me, in any case. Robin Cover zrcc1001@smuvm1 From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2> Subject: Interfaces Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 19:16:48 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 245 (638) In a recent message to Humanist Mary Ann Lyman-Hager drew a contrast between "the beautiful GUI and lovely text that the Mac offers and the power of text generation offered by the IBM PS/2-generation machines". Before someone reopens the wars of digital religion that have laid waste continents, lists and bullentin boards, perhaps we could build a productive dialogue. Assuming that everyone has heard enough of the glorious Graphic User Interface for the moment, could I ask the other side of the question: What *specific* powers of text generation and manipulation are available on the IBM but not on the Macintosh? I am not calling for renewed hostilities. The IBM's evolution has clearly profited in recent years from trying to catch up with the Macintosh's interface. I suspect that the Macintosh could profit similarly from trying to catch up to the IBM in other areas, and text handling may well be one of those areas. Please try to be specific. It may be possible to add features to Macintosh text editors like Vantage and word processors like Nisus by way of macros and external commands, or by means of simple utilities. This is the kind of dialogue from which all may profit by refining the tools on which we all increasingly depend. Brian Whittaker Department of English, Atkinson College, York University. From: SA_RAE@ VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: software to aid indexing Date: Tue, 3 JUL 90 16:06:39 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 570 (639) A colleague has asked about software to aid/assist in the task of indexing keywords and concepts contained in two 19th century trade journals ("BOOKSELLER" and "PUBLISHERS' CIRCULAR"). Neither of the two journals are available in machine-readable form and there are no plans to input them. If anyone has information about software that may be of use would they respond direct to my e-mail address, I will summarize any replies for HUMANIST if necessary. Thanking you in anticipation, Simon Rae: Research Adviser, Academic Computing Services The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET address or SA_RAE@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX JANET address) From: Robert Hollander <BOBH@PUCC> Subject: Re: 4.0235 The Absolute Last Word on "Nerd" Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 00:54:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 571 (640) And "wonk": does no one remember that denomination of nerdliness? If we are to close the books on "nerd," is there a wonker out there who can start the philology of our kind moving in ever more pedantic and wider arcs? If nerd is a four-letter word And wonk is a four-letter term Has anyone out there heard Of other versions of "worm"? From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0228 Voice Cards Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 09:12:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 572 (641) The MacRecorder is only the beginning of voice on the Mac. At Macworld Expo last year I saw a product called (I think) the Voice Navigator, which would recognize your voice commands and act on them. It worked pretty well, even in the loud and crowed expo hall. I can't think of the name of the company now, but if anyone is interested, I'm sure I could find it. Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: indexing programs: further query Date: 03 Jul 90 21:46:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 573 (642) I have a dense 450,000 word manuscript in the home stretch and have begun thinking about indexing it. This will be a large project: there will be at least three and perhaps four separate indices (index of the works of the author I'm dealing with, index of other ancient and late antique passages cited, perhaps separate index of scriptural passages, index of subjects/names/etc., and perhaps index of modern scholars cited). The indices locorum alone could have five to ten thousand entries. The work is being prepared in Nota Bene on IBM, but I have been advised that NB can be slow and cumbersome in doing its indexing. I also have WordPerfect 5.1 available, and on small MSS, its indexing works fairly quickly and transparently, but in WP 5.1, anything involving large files (this will be broken up into fourteen files of between 150 and 300K each: further breakdown not very practical) gets *very* slow, at least on my 8 MHz 286 with 640 RAM. The query is: is there another way to do these indices that I should be thinking of? Factors I know to consider are ease of marking items to be included, speed of index generation, accuracy of index generation: are there others? From: Barry W. K. Joe<grfjoe@BrockU.CA> Subject: Word Processor and IPA Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 11:55-0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 574 (643) A colleague in Child Studies recently asked me if I knew of a word processor that would permit him to incorporate the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet in his word processing documents. I am sure I have seen references to a number of packages that will produce the IPA symbols, but I cannot remember details. Does anyone on HUMANIST have a reference for this? Barry Joe Brock University From: Antonio-Paulo Ubieto <HISCONT@CC.UNIZAR.ES> Subject: two archeological queries Date: 28 Jun 90 18:23 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 575 (644) Dear HUMANISTs: I forward hereby two archeological queries from allready-non-HUMANIST colleagues here at Zaragoza. Please reply to them at "arqueolog@cc.unizar.es". Thank you very much. Greetings. Antonio-Paulo Ubieto, Zaragoza University (Spain). ----------------------------------------------------------- SUBJECT: studies in ceramic technology Dear colleague: We are working with ceramic tipology, and we are especially interested in functional approaches and ethnoarchaeological studies about pottery. We are studing Iberian pottery (VI-I centuries B.C.) and Roman pottery in the Middle Ebro Valley (Spain). We are especially interested in patterns of production, firing and decoration. Yours faithfully Elena Maestro and Jesus Tramullas. Department of Antiquity Sciences Zaragoza University, Spain arqueolog@cc.unizar.es ----------------------------------------------------------- SUBJECT: microwear stone axes analysis Dear colleagues: We are working about microwear analysis, experimental and functional studies in polished stone axes. This studies are focusing in Spanish Neolithic, Calcolithic and Bronze Age, so we would be very grateful to all help you can provide. We are especially interested in North Europe studies about this subject, and in ethnoarcheological studies about primitive tribes that use this kind of utils, too. Yours faithfully Luis Miguel Alfranca and Jesus Tramullas Department of Antiquity Sciences Zaragoza University, Spain arqueolog@cc.unizar.es ---------------- the forwarded messages end here. Thanks and greetings! From: Jose Igartua <R12270@UQAM> Subject: Re: 4.0242 ... French Date: Wed, 04 Jul 90 10:47:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 576 (645) Les francophones de cette liste pourraient d'abord s'identifier aupres de M. Eisinger? Jose Igartua Departement d'histoire Universite du Quebec a Montreal From: 6600ca@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: etymologies Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 15:09:12 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 577 (646) I'm curious if anybody has any insight into the term "empathy". Does anybody have a Esperanto (sp?) translation? thanks, charles at ucsb From: elli@harvunxw.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: Press Clippings (64 lines) Date: Wed, 4 Jul 90 10:39:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 248 (647) Recently, I noticed a clustering of articles in the popular press that may be of interest to HUMANISTS. It struck me that these publications are all pointing out problems (and solutions??) that are familiar. "The Next Frontier is the Text Frontier" Business Week, 6/18, pp. 178, 180. This was brought to my attention by a colleague, Sebastian Heath. This article points out the difficulty in performing retrieval on text that is not in database or other structured format. Because this is Business Week, it mentions text retreival as a $98 million and growing industry, and goes on to discuss research in this kind of software- Verity's Topic software and GESCAN's hardware-based system . Also Information Dimensions Inc's Basis. In addition to the introduction to the problem of full text retreival that is given in the article, there is a side bar on (you guessed it!!) hypertext. This is just a brief definition of the term, with a reference to Ted Nelson's _Computer Lib/Dream Machines_. Products mentioned are Apple's HyperCard, Autodesk and Nelson's Xanadu (almost product) and Folio Corp.'s Views. "Gothic Mystery: Pixelated Probe Pries Prose from Palimpsests" Scientific American, July 1990, p. 28. This is a short exposition, in the "Science and the Citizen section in SA, on James Marchand at U of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. He is using ultraviolet scanning and image enhancement in order to read Gothic palimpsests. He is able to get very good results from this, and has also been able to get reproducible pictures of the codices. Marchand also wants to use this methodology to publish more manuscripts. The column does not really explain how, but it does mention that he has a typeface based on the scribal hand, which he uses to create facsimiles. (Seems to me that this requires new data entry however, which is another project again...) Finally, the column mentions that he "dreams of expanding his basement scrivener's den into a national archive for the storage and analysis of digitized manuscripts." SciAm point out that this would "put the pressure on those nonpublishing scholars and uncooperative archivists who monopolize a large share of the world's manuscripts." Ben Smith, "Around the World in Text Displays" Byte, May 1990 p. 262-268. A basic exposition of the problems facing those who want to compute in languages that are not English, or worse yet, character sets that are not Roman. It describes the technology different systems use for handling diacritics. Packard's Ibycus gets some press, as well as Zondervan's ScriptureFonts. The article continues with a description of the difficulties of Chinese and Japanese. It concludes with a truly wise sentiment: "Until the problem is attacked at that level [international standards] international users will be forced to make do with ad hoc solutions. Not that we need more standards; the existence of YAT (Yet Another Standard) would only make the problem worse. We just need to change our mind-set from "I can do it better" to "We can do it together." This is a good basic introduction. Also, Avital Ronell's _Telephone Book_ was reviewed in the NY Times by Robert Coover. it was in the Sunday Book Review, but I have misplaced my copy, so I can't say exactly when. what strikes me most about these columns and articles is that the problems many of us are trying to solve are becoming more prominent for the general computing world. They are not just strange requirements of a restricted group engaged on arcane work, as humanists are sometimes viewed by the industry. --Elli Mylonas, Perseus Project, Harvard University From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Userid Directories Date: Thu, 05 Jul 90 13:07:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 249 (648) David Reimer recently asked about finding userids. Since I've done some digging in this area myself, let me see if I can share something useful. [Most of this information comes from the _Internet Resource Guide_ put out by NSF Network Service Center (nnsc@nnsc.nsf.net).] Electronic databases of user information are frequently referred to as White Pages. Several organizations, including DDN, NYSERNet, and CREN/CSNET, maintain white pages. Of most interest to BITNET users would be the CREN/CSNET service. (CREN = Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, formerly BITNET, Inc.) All users of the Internet are eligible to register and use the service. To get information about the service send mail to INFOSERVER@SH.CS.NET with the following lines in the body of the message: Request: info Topic: ns You will receive 2-3 files with instructions on how to use the service. If you are interested in registering yourself on the service, duplicate the following form with your information and send it in a mail message to cic@sh.cs.net. (It will take a few working days for your entry to be processed.) Example mail message form from CSNET: Name: Mock Turtle Account: mt,wonderland.oxbridge.edu, oxbridge Mailbox: mt@wonderland.oxbridge.edu Phone: (617) 999-8765 Address: Oxbridge University Eastboro, MA 02199 Misc: soup Griffon Disposition: Add The "misc" category above should include one-word indications of the topics you're interested in. How to find someone that's registered in a white pages database? You can query the database directly. The CREN/CSNET white pages can be reached by telnetting to sh.cs.net, login as "ns". Once logged on you may use the "whois" command (help is available) to locate a user/userid. Similarly for using the NYSERNet White Pages Pilot Project (about 50 institutions currently participating) accessible at wp.psi.com, login as fred. But an easier (though not always faster) method is to make your query on the Knowbot Information Service. Knowbot systematically poses the query to many white pages located around the country--including CREN/CSNET. To access Knowbot, telnet to nri.reston.va.us 185. (The 185 is a port number and is essential.) Once connected, you are provided a rather stark screen with a prompt waiting for your input. Simply type the name you're searching for, e.g. Mock Turtle. The system searches for exact matches so if Mock Turtle registered as M. Turtle, Knowbot won't find it. Usually best to use just last names, but beware those that are common; you could easily end up with over 100 Smiths. The disadvantage of Knowbot is that it will systematically search through all of it's accessible white pages, even if you found the user you were looking for at the beginning of the search. The advantage of using Knowbot, is the simplicity of use and "one-stop shopping". As with any information service, it will only be useful if there's a critical mass of users. I encourage you to register with CREN/CSNET and try Knowbot. And, as with any publicly-accessible information, there will be some people who don't want their phone numbers--or userids--listed; so don't expect to find the email address of your university president. Jan Eveleth eveleth@yalevm Yale University From: Roberta Russell <PRUSSELL@OCVAXC> Subject: Publishing support services Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 11:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 578 (649) I would like to hear from Humanists whose institutions provide publishing support services to their faculty (by publishing support I mean preparation of manuscripts for publication in scholarly journals or books, not "desktop" or graphics-oriented publishing). Such services might include producing diskettes, camera-ready copy, or e-mail transmission of manuscripts. Who on your campus is responsible for providing these services? What do they entail? Is there a fee involved? Additionally, is anyone aware of any surveys of university presses and/or journals to determine their software and formatting requirements? What should computing center personnel gear up to support in the way of preferred software, disk formats, etc.? Please send your replies directly to me - I'll summarize if there is enough interest. Roberta Russell Academic Computing Associate Oberlin College prussell@oberlin From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Jewish/Civil Calendar Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 09:16:11 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 579 (650) I have published the code for a visually equivalent Jewish/Civil calendar. The file is about 29K bytes. If you would like a copy, send a request to ralph@cs.arizona.edu Alan D. Corre Department of Hebrew Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (414) 229-4245 PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201 corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu From: Malcolm Hayward <MHAYWARD@IUPCP6.BITNET> Subject: Last Nerd Word Heard Date: 05 Jul 90 12:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 580 (651) I swore to shut up. Okay. RPI, Troy, New York, 1962, the word was "tool." Variation: "wedge" (because a wedge is "a simple tool"). I checked Mad Magazines c. 1968-1972: no "Nerds" that I could find. In fact, surprisingly few general terms of the name calling sort. Mostly comic names--little slang. Still, it's crackers to slip a rasor the dropsy in snide. Malcolm Hayward MHayward@IUP Department of English Phone: 412-357-2322 or IUP 412-357-2261 Indiana, PA 15705 From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0241 The Age of Knowledge (2/38) Date: Wed, 04 Jul 90 23:33:00 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 581 (652) re: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Senility, Roman Empire, etc My response must be that you check these out yourself, and not take my word or Skip's. Skip's "arguments" are ALL listed in the 57 major fallacies. mh From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM> Subject: Re: 4.0247 Qs: Indexing ... Date: Fri, 06 Jul 90 06:17:43 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 582 (653) On indexing. I think that you will probably find it easiest to remain with nb's indexing program rather than massaging the text for someone else's. It is a fairly slow process but not otherwise cumbersome in my experience and very accurate. Perhaps you could borrow a 386 machine for this job. On a fst machine it takes a fraction of the time that it does on a slow one of course. Also a job like that can be left to run overnight or over a weekend if you are sure about the electricity supply. By the way, your book sounds fascinating to me. What is it about? My guess is Philo or patristics? Both topics of great interest to me. Good luck,Daniel Boyarin From: "M. R. Sperberg-McQueen " <U15440@UICVM> Subject: low tech indexing; NLCindex Date: 7 July 1990 11:50:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 583 (654) The following addresses the questions on indexing raised by O'Donnell only indirectly. But perhaps a general discussion of people's experiences with indexing might be of interest. When I did an index last summer, I ultimately settled on a very low tech solution that, however, worked satisfactorily: I followed the Chicago manual of style recommendations for manually marking the page proofs and then, instead of writing the entries on index cards, I created the electronic equivalent in the form of a list of entries in a file that I later sorted alphabetically (as one would sort the index cards). In part, this solution reflects my being more comfortable working on a hard copy, where you can flip back and forth to look in the margins to see how you treated a particular concept on an earlier or later page. And, having marked the hard copy, it seemed silly to re-mark a copy on the screen. The idea that indexing an electronic copy permits you to begin your index before you get the page proofs doesn't seem to me to be persuasive. If one has a publisher who's not going to allow reasonable time to do the index on the basis of page proofs, one should find a different publisher. It's not a weekend project. I found trying to index the text electronically frustrating: WP is happiest if you simply mark words in your text; since I was often indexing concepts that did not consistently appear as words or phrases in the text, I was having to type these in--and having to do so repeatedly, as WP didn't allow me to write a macro for a phrase to be called up and entered into the index entry field. I was also indexing titles of German baroque poems which, notoriously, are not short, and WP had a limit on the length of its entries. It's easier to get around these problems in NB, since you can invoke stored phrases into index entry fields. For indexes of names and places such as O'Donnell speaks of, either WP or NB may well provide good solutions; for indexes of subjects, they may be less helpful. I will not dwell on the quality of subject indexes of the majority of computer manuals, as these disasters presumably have been produced by people who don't realize that an index is not a word list and that a good one requires intelligent reflection on the part of the human indexer. I have the feeling my low tech route is not going to be very appealing; as compensation I suggest looking into LNCindex, which was originally developed for indexing a scholarly edition (the Jefferson papers?) with very complex and detailed multiple indexes. It permits 3 levels of entries; it reduces typing by allowing one to use abbreviations (one could type, for example, TJ to get Jefferson, Thomas). It runs on IBM compatibles. It may or may not seem like a bargain at $160 (you can get a $25 demo disk with the $25 to be applied to the purchase of the program). It can certainly handle very large indexes; I don't know how it does speed-wise, which is one of O'Donnell's main concerns. But I know at least one person who thinks it's the cat's pyjamas, and Michael would doubtless be willing to talk about it when he returns to Chicago Monday. For official information on the program, you can write NLCindex / The Newberry Library / 60 West Walton Street / Chicago, IL 60610 or phone 312/943-9090. Marian Sperberg-McQueen U. of Illinois at Chicago. From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0247 Qs: Indexing ... Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 11:39:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 584 (655) In response to Jim O'Donnell's query re indexing, one approach might be to use a dedicated indexing program rather than trying to handle the various tasks with a word processing package. The old mainframe version of CINDEX we developed for the Laurens Papers project has been revised into a user-friendly PC version that will run on IBMs or IBM-compatibles and is available through the Newberry Library at Chicago, 60 West Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610. Running on a standard IBM-AT, an index with 10,000 cites takes about 45 minutes to sort. We've used the PC version for the last three indexes of the Laurens Papers. The PC files are fully compatible with the mainframe version which means that we can easily update our in-house cumulative index as we publish volumes. Like its predecessor NLC follows the indexing rules of the Chicago Manual of Style. One of the major improvements in the PC version is its flexibility in allowing the user to edit and resort the index files it creates. On a normal index at Laurens, we probably spend 50% of our time editing and refining the index so its very important to us to be able to produce a "rough draft," edit that, and then have a new draft which incorporates those changes. Editing can be done in any word processing package which writes an ASCII file back out for reprocessing via NLC. David Chesnutt Papers of Henry Laurens University of South Carolina From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: indexing report Date: 09 Jul 90 13:29:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 585 (656) My thanks to numerous correspondents. I thought I would report briefly on what I have found about indexing large files. 1. There is what sounds like a good dedicated index program out there, and I have encouraged the specialist who knows about it to report directly. 2. WordPerfect is going through a turtle stage. I have confirmed both with other users and with their 800-line that if you are at all crowding the limits of available RAM (not hard, since the program alone takes well over 400K now in 5.1), the program slows down astonishingly. Executing a simple command in a 228K file took a full and unbelievable thirty seconds, just to mark one word for indexing. Expanded memory may help, if you can get enough headroom that way, and WP reports that they `are working on it'. Breath-holding not advised. 3. Detailed experiments with Nota Bene have been more encouraging. I put 600+ index markers randomly through the same 228K file, and it generated a very satisfactory index (on my AT at 8MHz with 640 RAM) in only about ten minutes. For myself for now, that is probably the way I will go. 3. One piece of advice. If you are creating a text that will need to be indexed, you may think about including some fence or marker when you are generating the text. I have a lot of abbreviated references to ancient works (e.g., Aen. 6.234-238, Aug. conf. 11.10.13): it would speed things marvelously in marking these things for index if I had put some fence character (even one that is invisible to the printer) after the 238 or the 13 in those examples: then in one program or another a macro or a global search/replace could speed the marking of items dramatically. From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Recursive Fiction Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 19:36:03 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 253 (657) There has recently been some discussion about interactive fiction on this group. I should like to speak of recursive fiction, which I discovered a few years ago, and of which I have written the first (and possibly the last) example. It came about thus. The fine editor used on the Apple II Pascal system, written by Ken Bowles of UCSD, has two modes, either of which may be TRUE or FALSE. The setting FILLING=TRUE and AUTOINDENT=FALSE is appropriate for normal text like this, since it avoids constant carriage returns. The setting FILLING=FALSE and AUTOINDENT=TRUE is appropriate for writing Pascal programs, where each successive indentation is continued until canceled. The setting FILLING=FALSE and AUTOINDENT=FALSE is appropriate for columnar output which would be spoiled by filling. This leaves one possibility (both TRUE) for which there appears to be no use whatsoever. Now the Midrash (you all know about Midrash) Genesis Rabba 10.5 declares expressly that "even the things that you view as superfluous in the world" are part of the generality of creation and hence have a function. This, it declares, includes fleas, gnats and flies, imagine! And spotted owls. The thought is repeated in at least three other places (Leviticus Rabba 22.2, Numbers Rabba 18.22 and Ecclesiastes Rabbati 5.8.2.) Accordingly, it became a challenge to find SOME use for FILLING=TRUE and AUTOINDENT=TRUE. Now the LISP programming language likes to use recursion rather than iteration for repetitive actions. Maybe I should explain recursion, which is a concept with an eerie feel about it, as though one was entering a hall of mirrors. Using Icon, which also supports recursion, but is a little easier to follow than LISP, I will give you an example, will give you an example, give you an example, you an example, an example, example,. (sic--or sick, if you prefer, but please note the comma before the period.) Consider the following procedure: procedure recurse(phrase,n) if n > 0 then { recurse(phrase,n-1) writes(phrase) } return end Let's substitute "Hi there!" for phrase and 2 for n and see what happens. The procedure first checks if n is greater than zero. Since it is, we enter the curly brackets. But now the procedure calls itself, so we have to enter the second call of the procedure before we can finish the first. In this call, the value of n is 1, because n has been reduced by 1. Lo and behold, it calls the procedure a third time. This time the value of n is 0, so the curly brackets are skipped. The call of the procedure concludes, having done--precisely nothing. But it finished, and that is important. Another proof of the truth of our Midrash. This lazy call serves just by standing and waiting. At this point the second call of the procedure can be finished, but since this continues INSIDE the curly brackets it writes out "Hi there!". Since it then finishes, the first call can be finished and writes out "Hi there!" again. There is now no unfinished business, and we are through. And we have performed a repetitive action without an iterative loop. We selected the number two, but these calls can go on for- ever, or until the memory runs out of space, whichever comes first. (The computer has to "remember" all these uncompleted calls.) On the computer on which I am writing, I found that I could call this procedure 219 times. If I dare to go 220, the machines blows its stack, and in effect tells me that if I want to do that I had better buy the next 128K of memory. LISP programs generally represent the "depth" of the recursion by increasing indentation on the page. The constant decrementation which helps ensure that the program will end after 2, or 219 calls is represented by continually beheading a list of linked items, rather than by whittling an integer down to zero. When this list becomes of zero length--the words you see between the comma and period above--the program ends. The head of the list is mystically referred to as its CAR. Somehow we have got used to the idea of zero, but an empty list is still strange. Can you imagine going to the supermarket with a shopping list consisting of nothing? But centuries ago zero must have given people the same feeling. And maybe we should shop occasionally with an explicit empty list; it is quite economical, and perfectly logical. Computers are tolerant of insanity, and maybe can teach us mortals a lesson. Recursion provided the key to a use for the two trues. If I wrote a recursive story, I could use filling for the story and autoindent for the depth of recursion. And that is what I did. If you use the EMACS editor, you can turn on the auto-indent and auto-fill modes simultaneously to achieve a similar effect. I called my story The Friends of Gerry A Recursive Parable Gerry sat down at the counter of his favorite bar, and ordered a double apple juice. The bartender handed him his drink, and he sat quietly contemplating it. Suddenly he noticed a beautiful young woman sitting nearby. She was physically perfect in every detail. He admired her blonde hair and hazel eyes. Her ample bosom gave promise of pneumatic bliss. Her slender legs were draped around the bar stool naturally and expressively. Gerry turned to her and said: "Would it be a thin to have a drink with me?" (Gerry always lisped when he was nervous.) She agreed with a sweet smile. Gerry put out his hand and touched her elbow lightly. She did not flinch or scowl, but looked at him calmly and confidently. "I think we can be friends," said Gerry. "So do I," replied the girl, and she impulsively grasped his hand. Just as she did so, Gerry noticed another young woman who had come in. She resembled the first young woman so closely that Gerry could hardly believe it, but there was one crucial difference--she was headless. Gerry found himself wondering why this inspired no dread in him, and how she managed to smile at him when she had no head. He found himself thinking of the Cheshire cat in 'Alice,' who disappeared leaving only his smile behind. "That was different," he concluded. "After all, the Cheshire cat had a head to start with, and yet.." He got up abruptly, leaving his beautiful companion with no sense of loss. "Would it be a thin to have a drink.." he essayed. Like the first woman, she agreed readily, and explained to him that she had stopped in for some light refreshment because she had lost her car. Gerry expressed his regret and concern, but she shrugged it off with a gesture of resignation. "In an environment like this, what else can you expect?" she said. Gerry was puzzled by this comment because he had no awareness of being in a bad neighborhood. On the contrary, he had heard that it was full of intellectuals and pilots without a flight plan. "Why am I so attracted to a headless woman who has lost her car?" he asked himself in some puzzlement. He bent forward and touched her elbow. "I think we can be.." he began, but as he finished the sentence, he noticed another woman come in and sit down, and he hardly heard the response to his remark. He got up and moved towards the new patron, noticing as he did so that she was merely a waist and a pair of legs. Despite her deficiencies, she still, to his surprise, seemed perfect in every detail, just as attractive as her predecessors. "Would it be a.." he began. Gerry felt a little foolish. "Why don't I try a new line?" he thought. "Those other women must be listening and thinking what a bore I am." Yet somehow he realized that the line was working, and it would be foolish to change. Touching her elbow presented no difficulty to Gerry, although he could not under_ stand why it did not, seeing that she was, so to speak, only part of a woman. As he moved his hand along her arm he was dis_ tracted by a new visitor. This woman, perfect and beautiful as the rest, in_ spired in him a sense of listlessness which he had not felt be_ fore. "No hair, no bosom, no legs," he said to him_ self. "Why, she isn't ANYTHING AT ALL!" None_ theless, he could not resist her fatal attraction. Leaving abruptly the waist and the legs that had so en_ chanted him he addressed his newest love. "Would it.." he began. But Gerry got no further. The smell of apocalypse was in the air, and his failing consciousness dissolved in a flash of blazing l i g h t . From: K.C.Cameron@ exeter.ac.uk Subject: Call for Papers Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 17:27:52 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 586 (658) Preliminary notice and call for papers There will be a conference on the theme of CALL and HyperMedia University of Exeter September 18 - 20 1991 For further information, please contact Keith Cameron, Department of French, Queen's Building, University of Exeter, EXETER, EX4 4QH, UK. <cameron@uk.ac.exeter> From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Search for reviewers of English mss on Arabic text retrieval" Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 23:34:49 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 587 (659) Any HUMANIST members interested in reviewing English-language manuscripts dealing with information retrieval involving Arabic and the Koran (the Holy Quran), please contact me. I would also welcome queries from non-HUMANISTs possessing such expertise, especially those residing in the western hemisphere (for postal reasons). Sincerely, Dr. Joel D. Goldfield Assistant Editor, Computers and the Humanities jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu or joelg@psc.bitnet From: C. David Perry <carlos@ecsvax> Subject: Re: Publishing Support Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 08:06:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 588 (660) The Association of American University Presses has produced a pamphlet of general instructions for authors preparing manuscripts on computers. I have a supply of them and would be happy to share copies. I will have to have a stamped, self-addressed envelope, however. David Perry University of North Carolina Press Box 2288 Chapel Hill, NC 27515 (919) 966-3561 carlos@ecsvax.bitnet carlos@uncecs.edu From: U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: corresp. analysis software Date: 6 July 90, 12:57:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 589 (661) I know the following software to do correspondence analysis: SIMCA SPAD-N SPAD-T the package from professor McKinnon SAS 6.3 LEXICLOUD I am interested in the last item: I know that it exists and comes from France, Universit! de Saint Cloud, but nothing else. I'd like to know an address to which one could ask information and maybe buy the software. Lexicloud seems to be the only software, together with Spad-t, able to read directly the text and produce the data for the cluster analysis. If used it, you know that spad-t is completely unfriendly, produce erratic errors not well explained (or also not explained at all), and use only 40k RAM also on machines with 640 and more... Please, could you answer (also) directly to me? Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: KLCOPE@ VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Restoration Jeopardy, Or, Who is Bentivoglio? Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 20:40 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 590 (662) Can anyone identify the party who might be signified by the type name BENTIVOGLIO? The name appears in William King's DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD, c. 1699, which concerns a controversy over Bentley's EPISTLE FROM PHALARIS. Elements in the work concern Swift, Temple, Bentley, Wotton, and Dryden, but the work, which sends up this Bentivoglio, may attack someone else altogether, or may be aimed at a composite identity. I appreciate any suggestions. Kevin L. Cope KLCOPE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK or ENCOPE@LSUVM.BITNET From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Jewish/Civil Calendar Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 13:08:54 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 591 (663) I wish to clarify that the visually equivalent Jewish/Civil calendar is offered in the form of Icon code which must be compiled. It is not a simple table. Visually equivalent means that the Hebrew and English months are the same shape on the screen, and hence can be compared easily. If you would like a copy, send a request to the *address below.* Alan D. Corre corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: IPA font Date: 05 Jul 90 22:43:14 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 592 (664) Neoscribe International produces a Postscript font (i.e., screen font and laser font combination) containing the IPA symbol set. Any Macintosh applications (not just w.p.'s) which support fonts can use the IPA symbols intermixed with usual text (this includes any w.p. you're likely to encounter). ---Barry W. K. Joe<grfjoe@BrockU.CA> wrote: Does anyone on HUMANIST have a reference for...a word processor that would permit [one] to incorporate the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet in his word processing documents... ---End of quoted material From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: 4.0242... French Date: Fri, 06 Jul 90 20:48:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 593 (665) C'est quoi, au juste, un-e francophone, dans le contexte electronique? Dana Paramskas, University of Guelph From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0251 Responses: Nerd; Knowledge (2/26) Date: Sat, 07 Jul 90 16:36 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 594 (666) To Hayward re "tool." We used tool to mean a dumb schmuck in the 30's in the Bronx. But as you know, a schmuck is slang for penis, which is also a tool. Read Moravia's novel Io e Lui. Schmuck is jewel in german of course. Precious thing, to some. But always pejorated. Kessler at UCLA From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: Arcane Humanists & Info Society Date: Sun, 08 Jul 90 11:38:48 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 595 (667) Elli Mylonas makes the good point, with evidence, that questions arising among us humanists, such as text retrieval, are questions that also arise in the business community and the world at large. He notes that "the problems many of us are trying to solve are becoming more prominent for the general computing world. They are not just strange requirements of a restricted group engaged on arcane work, as humanists are sometimes viewed by the industry." The convergence of shared problems is no surprise in the age of information. McLuhan remarked in one of his letters (to John Culkin): "In the age of information the University becomes itself environmental, whereas in the mechanical age it had been merely the content of a machine technology." When our nations's primary product becomes information, then we as a society relate to the University as an environment. An environment is the subconscious backdrop or ground against which all cultural activity occurs. Whatever the difference in content may be, the same background guides the shared approach to content. If information becomes the backdrop of business and commerce, then the University as the clearing house for information becomes the invisible paradigm for intelligent work. Have you noticed how in recent years businesses have co-opted educational situations like "workshops" and "seminars"? But what is the relationship between information and humanism? Is information the same as humanistic endeavors? Which leads to the related question, what is the relationship of academic humanists to the University as information-provider? If we distinguish information from significance, perhaps the work of humanists is to assess the significance of cultural information? If so, how does humanistic work relate to the business community and the University? Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Knowledge Date: Thu, 05 Jul 90 21:21:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 596 (668) As a social psychologist, I am intrigued by the current discussion re: knowledge transience. As is Knox, I am astonished that anyone would entertain the notion that one's brain could get full. Certainly, the structure of memory could get sufficiently complicated as to make it difficult to retrieve long-unused information, and there does exist evidence for the physical decay of memory (even though we don't know what "physical" processes are responsible for memory). I am equally intrigued with the notion that knowledge could get old. The dynamics of memory make that impossible. Every time information is used (remembered), it is "freshened." More important, every time knowledge is used it is altered, however slightly, by what is going on in the current environment. In Knox's words, the knowledge does, indeed, become new again upon rereading a text, or merely reflecting upon what was once read in a text (or any other source). Kessler made the same point when referring to reexamination of Sufi anecdotes, although any reconsideration is sufficient to alter stored memory. Similarly, existing (stored in memory) knowledge affects one's interpretation of new knowledge--psychologists refer to this a proactive interference. Again in Knox's terms, existing knowledge is determinant knowledge. Thus, there is a dynamic cycle of new information being affected by and simultaneously altering existing information. It's this dynamic process of human memory that has the Artificial Intelligence folks pulling out their hair--computer models of human memory usually fail because computers do not forget, nor does new information "unintentionally" alter information stored in memory or on disk. Frank Dane From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0252 Indexing (4/145) - Fence Characters Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 14:34:19 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 597 (669) In regard to O'Donnell's comment on inserting fence characters - I suppose he means something that can be replaced by a final bracket around the item to be indexed. If not, the following is founded on a misconception. Instead of using such a bracketing marker, a system that can do pattern matching on regular expressions could be used. For example, in this case the pattern would be something like: ((Aen.)|(Aug. conf.)) [0-9.-]+ That is, match Aen. or Aug. conf., followed by space, followed by a maximal string of digits, periods and dashes. (Notation for "regular expressions" is not quite standardized, but this is typical.) There are a number of text editors on the market that have regular expression matching, as well as several implementations of the AWK text processor, which also has regular expression pattern matching. The thing to be cautious about, however, is that text editors often have limits on line length. E.g., the Brief text editor does regular expression replaces, but has a user-set line length limit. AWKs also have line length limits (c. 1000 chars.). This is significant because Nota Bene paragraphs are represented as "lines," as far as ASCII text editors are concerned. An editor that might do the job would be Lugaru's Epsilon. I believe that I have heard that it does not have limits on line lengths, though I cannot confirm this at the moment. From: "R. Burr Litchfield" <HI700000@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0252 Indexing Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 09:11:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 598 (670) With regard to indexing, I have a good program called INDEXX (IBM-PC) that I got from the inventor, Norman Swartz, Dept. of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 186, in 1986 for about $50. It makes an index from page proofs, or other printed sources. The program was also distributed by the Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. It was recommended by Princeton University Press. I have used it with success ever since. It is a compiled Basic program. Instead of making slips from the page proofs, you type the entries and page numbers into the program prompts. It does some standardization (it will ask whether the D. Hume you just typed in was the David Hume you were using earlier--and it will up-date the earlier entries). At the end, it alphabetizes the entries, sorts the page citations, and sends the final index to a printer or a disk file for further work with your own word processor. You can have up to 750 entries, but for longer indices you can combine up-to-750-entry segments. Some use of one's own word processor is needed at the end to change 11, 12, 13, 14 into 11-14, add diacritical marks (which the program doesn't recognize), and put in final refinements. I am now on my third index using this program, and for the money I have found it to be very satisfactory. Maybe there is now an updated version (I have 2.05). From: tgmcfadden@ucdavis.BITNET Subject: Indexing Software Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:30:30 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 599 (671) What follows is a comment on the recent HUMANIST conversation on indexing software. There are essentially two kinds of indexing software: that which works from within a particular word processing program, and that which does not. The former is intended to extract marked text from a word processing file and format and paginate an index. The latter is intended to be used with publisher's printed page proofs, and generally requires that all index entries be entered manually. What this software does, frequently using a 3x5 card metaphor, is sort, organize, format, and output the completed index, either to paper or to a disk file. There are about 10+ software programs currently available of the second kind. These programs are most often used by professional indexers who require not only power and flexibility, but also a variety of output formats (of which the University of Chicago style is one of most common). Hence the most sophisticated of these programs are relatively expensive: in the $400-$500 range. There are other such programs which, while less sophisticated, would nonetheless be quite suitable for use by an author wishing to prepare his or her own index to a work. Professional indexers find that subject analysis in particular can best be done using indexing software of the second kind, which permits human intervention in the process of designing and structuring an appropriate indexing vocabulary for the work in hand. Indexing software of the first kind, which is a kind of low-level automatic indexing, can generally not provide this kind of flexibility. The American Society of Indexers publishes several titles which might be of interest to readers of this note: Choosing a Computer for Indexing ($15) Generic Markup of Electronic Index Manuscripts ($15) A Guide to Indexing Software ($15) Register of Indexers ($15) The Register of Indexers is a classified list of professional indexers whose indexing services (or editing services) are available over a wide range of disciplines and formats. All of these titles can be obtained, prepaid, from: ASI Publications Sales Office POB 386 Port Aransas, TX 78373 I would of course be happy to answer any other questions about indexing software programs (if I can) or about the American Society of Indexers. From: tgmcfadden@ucdavis.BITNET Subject: Indexing Software Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:48:44 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 600 (672) A postscript: There are two indexing programs with very similar names: NLCindex and CINDEX. These programs appear to be rather different. The CINDEX program is published by: Indexing Research POB 18609 Rochester, New York 14618 (716) 461-5530 I happen to use this program in my own work, and find it very satisfactory. I cannot comment on the other program. From: Andy Covell <LIBABC@SUVM> Subject: ZyIndex Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:24:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 601 (673) I have a client who is seeking advice on ZyIndex and other full-text indexing packages which may be useful in qualitative research, and I've been told that this list is a good place to look for such expertise. If you have used ZyIndex or other similar packages and are willing to share your expertise, please respond directly to me...I do not subscribe to the list. A brief summary of your experiences with some indication of the pluses and minuses of the software you have used would be greatly appreciated. Thank You. Andy Covell =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Manager, Research Data Center | (315)443-3606 | Academic Computing Services | LIBABC@SUVM | Syracuse University | libabc@suvm.acs.syr.edu | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: "GILES R. HOYT" <IPIF100@INDYCMS> Subject: Indexing Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 10:32:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 602 (674) Regarding the recent discussion on indexing: has anyone tried using WordCruncher which is advertised by MLA? From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Knowledge Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 16:22:39 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 603 (675) In response to Frank Dane's comment, I should like to say that I do not think that anyone ever suggested that the brain could become full in reality. That notion was a straw man which one respondent knocked down to comfort me for the regret that I expressed at my obsolescent knowledge of the Univac 1100. Another respondent correctly noted that my concern was economic rather than plenitudinous--with computers bounding along the way they are, how can one intelligently use one's time and energy in ways that do not become obsolete in short order. At the same time, I think one can get a perception of fullness. Terms like "mental indigestion" and "cramming for exams" suggest that people sometimes feel that their poor brains are ready to bust. The medical student learning the names of human muscles for a quiz, and even buying books of mnemonics to help, must sometimes feel that the surplus knowledge is about to run out of his or her ears. Maybe the art of good teaching is the ability to serve an intellectual alka seltzer along with the hard knowledge one imparts. From: Jim Cerny <J_CERNY@UNHH> Subject: Knowledge/memory and anecdotal evidence. Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 09:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 604 (676) When people say something like "their brain is too full," I suspect they are reacting to problems of memory writing and retrieval and that this is a colloquial way to express it. Anecdotal evidence seems to abound and I wonder how formally it is recognized in any psychological or medical studies. I always thought I had a very good memory (easy to store facts, easy to retrieve them), though not "photographic," until reaching 40 or so. Wow! What a shock. The most noticible problem was retrieving information, particularly names of things and people. But my ability to cram facts is also much diminished. Linda Weltner, a writer for The Boston Globe, wrote an _excellent_ commentary on this a year or so (see, what I mean!) ago. She vividly describes how one is racing along in a conversation, bringing in witty and incisive tidbits of information, and suddenly, WHAM!, some key item you need is just not there. Resort to cute mnemonic tricks won't retrieve it, it just isn't there at that moment, though it will bob to the surface later. Everyone in the 40-50 age range that I have showed this to, has said, "Yes, yes! Exactly!" So, I return to my original speculation. Has anyone bothered to study this? Do the studies bear out the anecdotal evidence? Is this something that has always existed, but is just much, much more noticible in an information age? Is it due to something we are ingesting or exposing ourselves to (I think some people regard aluminum as a suspect)? Jim Cerny, University of New Hampshire. j_cerny@unhh From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0257 Humanist Tasks; Transience of Knowledge (2/74) Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 17:21 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 605 (677) Frank Dane is making an interesting comment, when he alludes to the "rstoration " as it were of a memory trace in its recall, into a temporally-new context. But as each moment brings with it temporal novelty as well as newness, and also recedes into the past directly, en passant, as it were, we have the problem of a n enlarging cistern or tank, or cesspool, or oubliette, but not a midden, in which discarded, say abalone shells, layer by layer, attest to a 5-10,000 year village dependent on mollusc harvest. The interesting thing to me at least, subjectively, is that reading itself is something one continually learns, as is seeing and hearing music, say. The great texts, those that seem to contain the possible freshness of the future and which lead to understanding or wisdom, must be read early and again and again, studied, as we say, in order to be comprehended. But...do they comprehend us, or we comprehend them? The computer physiological model is one that starts from reductionism, and cannot, or does not grow, it seems to me. If I ask myself why, I think it is because our age tends to be terribly egoistic: my brain, my motherboard, my circuits, and overlooks the committment of the self to the greater whole, which itself must be made up and remade constantly in our attention, the quest for angelhood, even deityhood. Example: how could one have grasped, I mean understood, such a simple admonition as that in ECCLESIASTES (which I read as a lad of 8 or so, and surmised to be full of terror, how did I surmise it? because it was mysterious? what is that?), and it said, One day the sound of the water plashing in the fountain in the courtyard will be intolerable to you. When one thinks, and thought in imagination as a child, Gee, the fountain sounds so soothing and calming and nourishing out there in the glare of the day (a di chirico fountain?), so what must it mean to be told that one day its very gentle delight will exacerbate your sensibility. Inf ormation it was then, to me the child; knowledge it became to me the adult, as a sort of guide; and now, after 60, I begin to comprehend that it meant what it said, and what it meant was a kind of horror at existence itself, which is eve rything to one! It is a phrase that reverberates with wisdom and understanding; yet that understanding is not ever new and refreshed when one calls it up, not simply that: it grows louder and more full of meaning, if one gives oneself to it, and not simply takes it in as another bit of many sentences in that work. In fact, it begins to be unendurable because unspeakable, because too full to be uttered, except as itself; and yet as itself it is but a sentence. One of course know that the world's wisdom literature is chocabloc with such sentences, and they are different in kind from other sentences, as is poetry different from prose, etc. Tell that to the business community? How? Who whom? as Lenin. asked Kessler at ucla. Maundering, but here. I hope. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: clearing houses for information? Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 20:51:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 261 (678) In 4.0257 of Humanist, Mike Heim wrote that, "If information becomes the backdrop of business and commerce, then the University as the clearing house for information becomes the invisible paradigm for intelligent work.... But what is the relationship between information and humanism? Is information the same as humanistic endeavors?" While respecting the question, my verbal fur is rubbed the wrong way by two expressions here, "clearing house" and "information". I would argue that since words are all we have here, getting the right ones for the question is worth some bother. "Clearing house", I suggest, is all wrong for the job because it connotes a chaotic place in which quantities of stuff are sold at a discount or otherwise distributed with a minimum of care or fuss. Rare or precious things are not found in clearing houses except by accident; accidents may, of course, be happy accidents, one may find a real bargain, just what one has been looking for. You cannot reasonably expect to find every size and shape of thing, however, and you must take special care that what you do find is worth carrying away. Universities to my mind should not be dumping grounds or clearing houses for whatever piles of information may have accumulated. Furthermore, the idea of the university as a kind of business, a vendor of things people happen to think they need at the moment, seems to me pernicious. Universities are part of society and so must respond, but the question is how? Isn't the idea of a Socratic opposition still as necessary as it has always been, perhaps even more so? "Information" seems wrong to me also. All knowledge is in a sense information, and the etymology (suggesting that to be in-formed is to be given intelligible shape) suggests further that information is what every philosopher strives for, or should. The current English word connotes, however, "factual information", as in how to drive a car, build a circuit, enroll in a course, or mix paint. "Knowledge" is quite different in ordinary usage, "wisdom" even more so. I wonder very seriously if the vision of the Information Age, when our most important commodity is information, has any room at all for the knowledge of poets and philosophers. Surely as computing humanists we are best equipped to understand the difference between "information" (what can be fed into the computer, and what comes out) and the "knowledge" or even "wisdom" that we may occasionally, with much hard work, be able to derive from it. Words are important, such distinctions as I am trying to make are important. Again from failing memory I pull out what I recall as a Confucian gem. (I beg to be corrected or supplemented by those who know.) Asked what one thing he would want to have done, the single, most important change to be made to the world as he knew it, Confucius is reported to have said, "the rectification of terms". Let us say clearly what it is that we want. Willard McCarty From: <RX6@PSUVM> Subject: bibliography programs Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 17:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 606 (679) I am seeking information about application programs specifically designed for compiling large bibliographies on the Macintosh. I'd also be interested in data base programs that could be easily adapted to managing MLA format for footnotes and bibliographies. My word-processing program is Microsoft Word 4. I'd appreciate any advice from Humanist subscribers. Thank you, Jane Rice, RX6@PSUVM German Dept., Penn. State Univ. From: Roy Flannagan <FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB> Subject: HSLA? Date: 9 July 1990, 17:31:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 607 (680) Needed: identification of an acronym for a journal in fine arts and literature probably published in Israel--HSLA. A colleague asked me to post a query. The person who had an article published in HSLA is a professor at Bar Ilan University. Thanks for any help. Roy Flannagan From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Dickens and James Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 09:45:59 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 608 (681) A faculty member here at UCSB, not yet a user of e-mail or a member of HUMANIST, has asked me to mention that he would welcome the opportunity to communicate with anyone interested in the use of machine readable text for stylistic textual analysis of the works of Dickens and James. He has been using our Kurzweil scanner to create his texts, and is now beginning to manipulate them with the OCP and WordCruncher. His address is: Patrick McCarthy Department of English University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Eric Dahlin Humanities Computing Univ. of California, Santa Barbara hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0253 Recursive Fiction (1/211) Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 10:46:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 609 (682) Bravo! A truly innovative use of the strange tools that abound around us. A ficcionne enforced by its very medium - I suspect Borges would approve. I must try this some time soon . . . Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0253 Recursive Fiction Date: Tuesday, 10 July 1990 1:44pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 610 (683) Many thanks to Alan Corre for the wonderful explanation/demonstration of recursion in fiction/action. Your story reminds me of Poe's "The Man That Was Used Up" (The Man WHO Was Used Up?), in which the narrator keeps trying to find out about Brig. Gen. John ABC Smith. He encounters a number of people at different social functions, and puts his question to each of them in turn. Always his interlocutor replies, "Br.g Gen. John ABC Smith? Why, he's the man--" and then something happens and the sentence goes unfinished. The narrator becomes increasingly frantic, until, in desperation, he goes early one morning (the last morning of the story, of course), to the General's home. He bursts into the General's room, to find the General's valet patiently putting the General together from a series of what we would now call modular units-- and the sentence is finally complete, and with it Poe's story: "Brig. Gen. John ABC was the man who was used up." (In italics, of course.) Many of Poe's stories work like halls of mirrors-- most notably "William Wilson. A Tale," which ends with the narrator fatally wounding someone who is either his double or himself, seen in a mirror. The story itself, like many of Poe's stories, breaks into two mirror-images. So does "Ligeia," for instance: the first half ends with the death of Ligeia, the second half ends with the death of the Lady Rowena of Tremayne and Ligeia's "return," accomplished through the medium of Rowena's corpse... "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the paradigmatic case, to be saved for another time if anyone cares. John Slatin From: Terrence Erdt <ERDT@VUVAXCOM> Subject: computers & visual impairments Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 17:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 611 (684) One more piece of information on computer resources for people with visual impairments: The Advisior column in _PC Magazine_ (July 1990, p. 27) mentions IBM's National Support Center for Persons with Disabilities (P.O. Box 2150, Atlanta, GA 30055, USA; voice (800) 426-2133). Apparently the Center distributes a publication entitled _Resource Guide for People with Vision Impairments_ , which suggests, for instance, a "text-magnification utility" called _ZoomText_, as well as _B-Pop_ (a shareware program from Hexagon Products (P.O. Box 1295, Park Ridge, Il 60068 USA; voice (708) 692-3355). The Disabilities forum on CompuServe is said to distribute Hexagon's products ("browse" Data Library 4 of the forum sv. "bpop*.* and bedit*.*). Terry Erdt, Villanova University From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: IPA fonts Date: Tuesday, 10 July 1990 0039-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 612 (685) Another Macintosh IPA font is available from Linguist's Software. It is called LaserIPA, and as the name suggests it is a Type 3 PostScript font. You can reach the company at (206) 775-1130. Regards, Jay Treat, Penn From: Lou Burnard <LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: EP90 - conference announcement Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 05:23:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 265 (686) Electronic Publishing '90 Advance Program and Registration Information International Conference on Electronic Publishing, Document Manipulation, and Typography September 18-20, 1990 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD About the conference EP90, "Electronic Publishing '90," is the third in a series of international conferences dedicated to all areas of electronic publishing, document manipulation, and digital typography. Widely regarded as the premier forum for reporting new research developments in these fields, the EP conference series has attracted scientists and engineers from leading academic, research, and industrial organizations around the world. The British Computer Society sponsored EP86, held in Nottingham, England and INRIA sponsored EP88, held in Nice, France. EP90 will be held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, close to Washington, D. C., from Tuesday, September 18th through Thursday, September 20th, 1990. An associated exhibition will provide an opportunity for participants to see commercial and research systems in action. A broad definition of electronic publishing is adopted to encompass all aspects of computer-assisted preparation, presentation, transmittal, storage, and retrieval of documents. Topics include traditional paper-based documents; hypertexts and hypermedia; font design (both latin and non-latin alphabets); experience with structured document preparation systems; the intersection with and application of database systems and software engineering environments; the theoretical foundations for document models and systems; character, text and document recognition and manipulation; experience with standards; and documents with actively computed content. The proceedings of EP90 will be published by Cambridge University Press in its Electronic Publishing Series and a copy will be provided to each conference registrant. Sponsors EP90 Sponsor: National Institute of Standards and Technology EP90 Co-Sponsors: ArborText Inc., EPSIG/American Association of Publishers, INRIA, University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center In Co-operation With: Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Office Automation, TeX Users Group Preliminary program Tuesday, September 18 8:00- 9:00 Registration 9:00- 9:30 Opening session/chaired by Peter King Welcome to NIST James H. Burrows (Director, NCSL, NIST) 9:30-10:30 Keynote Issues and Tradeoffs in Document Preparation Systems Brian W. Kernighan (AT&T Bell Laboratories) 10:30-11:00 Coffee break 11:00-11:30 Invited paper Towards Document Engineering Vincent Quint (INRIA), Marc Nanard (CRIM), and Jacques Andre (INRIA) 11:30-13:00 Paper session 1/chaired by Vincent Quint Managing Properties in a System of Cooperating Editors Donald D. Chamberlin (IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center) A Logic Grammar Foundation for Document Representation and Document Layout Allen L. Brown, Jr. (Xerox Corporation, Webster Research Center) and Howard Blair (Syracuse University) Structured EditingHypertext Approach: Cooperation and Complementarity Anne-Marie Vercoustre (INRIA) 13:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:30 Paper session 2/chaired by Robert Morris An ODA Page Planner for Professional Publishing Giovanni Guardalben and Mose Giacomell (Hi.T Srl Ingegneria per la Microinformatica) flo: A Language forTypesetting Flowcharts Anthony P. Wolfman and Daniel M. Berry (Technion) Design of Hypermedia Publications: Issues and Solutions Paul Kahn, Julie Launhardt (Brown University), Krzysztof Lenk, and Ronnie Peters (Rhode Island School of Design) 15:30-16:00 Coffee Break 16:00-17:30 Paper session 3/chaired by Jan Walker Strengths and Weaknesses of Database Models for Textual Documents B. N. Rossiter (Newcastle University) and M. A. Heather (Newcastle Polytechnic) A Structured Document Database System Pekka Kilpelainen, Greger Linden, Heikki Mannila, and Erja Nikunen (University of Helsinki) The Integration of Structured Documents into DBMS Jose Valdeni De Lima (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) and Henri Galy (Laboratoire de Genie Informatique, IMAG) 17:30- Exhibition and Reception Wednesday, September 19 9:30-10:00 Invited paper Electronic Publishing - Practice and Experience David F. Brailsford, David R. Evans (University of Nottingham), and Geeti Granger (John Wiley and Sons) 10:00-11:00 Paper session 4/chaired by Peter Brown ADAPT: Automated Document Analysis Processing and Tagging John Handley and Stuart Weibel (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.) Recognition Processing for Multilingual Documents A. Lawrence Spitz (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) 11:00-11:30 Coffee break 11:30-13:00 Paper session 5/chaired by Richard Rubinstein Editing Images of Text Gary E. Kopec and Steven C. Bagley (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) Automatic Generation of Gridfitting Hints for Rasterization of Outline Fonts or Graphics Sten F. Andler (IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center) Chinese Fonts and their Digitization Y. S. Moon and T. Y. Shin (Chinese University of Hong Kong) 13:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:00 Keynote address TBA 15:00-18:30 Exhibition 18:30- Banquet Thursday, September 20 9:30-11:00 Paper session 6/chaired by Heather Brown The Role of a Descriptive Markup Language in the Creation of Interactive Multimedia Documents for Customized Electronic Delivery Gil C. Cruz and Thomas H. Judd (Bellcore) An Extensible, Object-Oriented System for Active Documents Paul M. English, Ethan Jacobson (Interleaf, Inc.), Robert A. Morris (University of Massachusetts at Boston), Kimbo B. Mundy, Stephen D. Pelletier, Thomas A. Polucci, and H. David Scarbro (Interleaf, Inc.) Documents as User Interfaces Eric A. Bier (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) and Aaron Goodisman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 11:00-11:30 Coffee break 11:30-13:00 Invited paper Electronic Publishing: Why is it so hard? Richard J. Beach (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) Close -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ep90 confrnce. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Computational Linguists <registry@tira.uchicago.edu> Subject: Linguistic Software Registry Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 12:37:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 266 (687) NATURAL LANGUAGE SOFTWARE REGISTRY There are now many natural language software projects, both commercial and noncommercial. In order to facilitate the exchange and evaluation of software, the University of Chicago's Center for Information and Language Studies is undertaking to catalog projects for the community. If you have developed a piece of software for natural language processing that other researchers might find useful, you can help us by describing it below. An electronic version of the form is preferred; it is available by anonymous ftp to tira.uchicago.edu. Feel free to write up software that is useful to you, even if you are not the originator. Although the registry will be an ongoing project, we ask that you please return the form by July 30 for existing software. Results will be made available in this forum. Elizabeth Hinkelman, for CILS (registry@tira.uchicago.edu) Name: Person to contact for software (if different): Institution: Department: Street: City/State/Zip: Country: Phone (with country & area codes): Email network & address: Name of system: Type of system: commercial product research system other (specify) Application: machine translation database interface parsing generation understanding other (specify) Components: phonological analyzer/generator morphological analyzer/generator parser/generator semantic interpreter knowledge representation discourse structure pragmatic features other (specify) Are the components available as independent modules, or firmly embedded? Can they be extended easily, under certain conditions, or with difficulty? Size of system: Programming language: Operating system or hardware: Applicable natural language(s): Can other languages be substituted easily? Number of examples the system has been tested on: [Unit: sentences, messages, other (specify)] 1-10 - demonstration system 10-100 - small research system 100-1000 - larger research system 1000-10000 - robust or production quality system Is the project under development, completed, or ongoing? Summarize the main goals and ideas. Indicate what makes the project a useful and interesting tool for research applications. List documents in which the software is described: User documentation: System documentation: Available support: none upgrades source code consulting Format for software distribution: Cost: Restrictions on use: If you are willing to have the software reviewed, please send us a version along with this information. We are also interested in reports and documentation, even for software not reviewed. NL Software Registry Center for Information and Language Studies 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA registry@tira.uchicago.edu From: C. David Perry <carlos@ecsvax> Subject: AAUP pamphlet on electronic mss, additional info Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 10:40:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 613 (688) An early respondent to my earlier posting offering to send copies of the AAUP pamphlet on preparing electronic mss to interested persons and requesting that responders include a stamped, self-addressed envelope points out that it would be useful to have an idea of the size of the pamphlet so that folks can know how large an envelope to enclose. The pamphlet fits very well into a standard business envelope and a first-class stamp will get it anywhere in the US. Postage to folks in other places: Canada, $.30; Europe, $.45; Latin America, $.90. This assumes you have a drawerful of US stamps. Obviously, it would be handy to have an electronic version of the guidelines on the Humanist file server. I'm working on it. David Perry University of North Carolina Press PO Box 2288 Chapel Hill, NC 27515 (919) 966-3561 carlos@ecsvax.bitnet carlos@uncecs.edu From: Ralph Griswold <ralph@cs.arizona.EDU> Subject: Re: Code for Jewish/Civil Calendar Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 12:29:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 614 (689) Alan Corre's Jewish calendar material is a program, not a printable calendar. The program is written in the Icon programming language. If you want a copy of the program, you can get it by anonymous FTP to cs.arizona.edu. cd /icon/contrib and get calendar.text. See your local support group for information on using FTP if you are not familiar with it. Ralph Griswold / Dept of Computer Science / Univ of Arizona / Tucson, AZ 85721 +1 602 621 6609 ralph@cs.arizona.edu uunet!arizona!ralph From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: PAT RETRIEVAL PROGRAM: PUBLISHED REVIEWS Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 13:54:33 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 268 (690) Several months ago, I saw an article in UNIX Review, or UNIX Today, or UNIX World (I think) on PAT, the exceptionally powerful retrieval program developed at the UW Centre for the NOED, now (perhaps) supported by an offshoot company, Open Text Systems. Does anyone recall the location of this article on PAT? Actually, I would be interested in any published reviews of PAT, or comments from those who may be using PAT. Equally: an email address or postal address for Open Text Systems. Thanks in advance, Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: John Burt <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: indexing software Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 18:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 615 (691) There is in the public domain software for making indexes from page proofs. Essentially it is a small database program, and its chief use is to automate the sorting and collating of entries, each record being a single, multi-level entry. Naturally you can make analytic entries as you please, since you are not tied to the words in the text, or even to markers in the text. I am familiar with a program called INDEXER, available from the CP/M user's group of the Boston Computer Society. I expect that there must be MS-DOS versions available, and I would not be surprised if there were C source code available from the C user's group in Kansas. I have also just seen on MS-DOS bulletin boards public domain bibliography software which will do what Pro/Tem's BIBLIOGRAPHY or Scribe's Bibliography Utility will do--construct a bibliography in any format from a database of citations, selecting from that database only the works you cite. I haven't tried it out since I don't have an MS-DOS machine, but I expect the program will be coming soon to bulletin boards in your area. From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0262 Qs: Bibliographies Date: 10 Jul 90 20:09:42 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 616 (692) Pro-Cite and EndNote are two commercial products which will maitain bibliographic references and automatically format bibliographies according to MLA and other style sheets. EndNote is interactive with Word 4: you select references from your bibliography during editing, then later use the program to automatically format both the references and the cited references in a bibliography. ... [eds.] From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: bibliographic software Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 09:21:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 617 (693) I have been using ProCite for the Mac (current version is 1.4) for several years. This is a database management system designed specifically for managing bibliographic information and generating citations in a variety of formats from a single database. It comes with a dozen formats for output of citations, including MLA. The software is available from Personal Bibliographic Software, PO Box 4250, Ann Arbor MI 48106 (313) 996-1580. I don't know what the current price for the software is. You might want to check with your campus computing center first, since a number of universities have volume deals with PBS already. From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Codex and Scroll/Canon Date: Wed, 11 Jul 1990 15:19 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 270 (694) In reply to George Aichele's "More on Codex" of June 30, here is the bibliographical information that I hope some others involved in the Great Canon Debate may also find of interest. Prof. Menahem Haran of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has been doing quite alot of research on how Biblical and other ancient texts were committed to writing (the materials: papyrus, skins, parchment, etc. and the formats: scrolls, codices, etc.) and its impact on the question of how these texts were canonized. Haran is presently preparing a booklength monograph on this subject in Hebrew. But quite a number of articles have already appeared: "Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times", Journal of Jewish Studies 33:1-2, (1982), pp. 161-173. "Book-Scrolls at the Beginning of the Second Temple Period -- The Transition from Papyrus to Skins", Hebrew Union College Annual 54 (1983), pp. 111-122. "More Concerning Book Scrolls in Pre-Exilic Times", Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), pp. 84-85. "Book Size and the Device of Catch Lines in the Biblical Canon", Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (1985), pp. 1-11. "Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages", Hebrew Union College Annual 56 (1985), pp. 21-62. "The Codex, the Pinax and the Wooden Slats", Tarbiz 57 (1988), pp. 151-164 [Hebrew with English abstract] Book Size and the Thematic Cycles in the Pentateuch," Die Hebraeische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte -- Festschrift fuer Rolf Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. E. Blum, C. Macholz u. E. W. Stegemann As I mentioned in my earlier communication, I have dealt with the continued use of the Scroll format for non-Biblical materials ("Oral Torah") in my article: "An Early Fragment of Avot deRabbi Natan from a Scroll", Tarbiz 52 (1983), pp. 201-222 [Hebrew with English Abstact]. Since then another such scroll fragment has been published by: Peter Schaefer in his Geniza-Fragmente zur Hekhalot-Literatur (Tuebingen, 1984), pp. 9-32. I believe other such early material may be found in a book to which I do not have immediate access: C. Sirat, M. Dukan & M. Beit Arie, Les papyrus ecrits en lettres hebraiques trouves en Egypt [CNRS]. I would be most grateful for any additional bibliography on the transition from Scroll to Codex which has not appeared in the discussion of Canon so far. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem [HPUBM@HUJIVM1] From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0261 Clearing Houses for Info Date: Wednesday, 11 July 1990 9:06am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 618 (695) Gregory Bateson defines information as the news of difference (elsewhere he says that information is difference that makes a difference), and that perception of difference is always limited by a threshold. (That's in Mind and Nature.) The example I use in talking to students is the chameleon, which is biologically compelled to try to avoid *becoming* information: its goal is to bring the difference between its skin color and the surrounding environment below the perceptual threshold of its predators, and when it succeeds it is not information. But when the environment changes faster than it can change in response, then it does become information-- or, to put it differently, food. For thought? Maybe. We try to create information where none is apparent: we so construct the contexts, the environments, as to make visible to ourselves and our readers the things we've been lucky enough to see (or unlucky enough to see even if we'd prefer not to). John Slatin From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0253 Recursive Fiction (1/211)] Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 14:50:32 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 619 (696) Sorry Alan, your recursive story is not the first (and probably not the last). See the one in D Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher Bach in which some characters read a story about themselves reading a story about themselves reading... Douglas de Lacey. From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0262 Qs: HSLA Date: Wed, 11 Jul 1990 14:45 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 620 (697) In response to Roy Flannagan's query about HSLA. This stands for: Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts. I hope that helps. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem (HPUBM@HUJIVM1) From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Subject: Re: 4.0262 Qs: Bibliographies; HSLA; E-Dickens and James Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 12:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 621 (698) Attn: Roy Flanagan The abbreviation _HSLA_ refers to "Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts," published twice yearly by the Institute of Languages,s, Literatures & Arts, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It is available for $15/yr or $8/single issue from Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, POB 7695, Jerusalem 91076, Israel. It is also sometimes referred to by the abbreviation _HSL_. The most recent number that I've seen is 17 (1989). I have all this information at my fingertips, incidentally, because I had trouble tracking down a reference, too! Best wishes. Alan Cooper <accoper@ucbeh> Hebrew Union College From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0260 Knowledge and Memory (3/100) Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 13:01 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 622 (699) Maybe not aluminum, but the way the chemistry lays down the traces attended to in aging, apart from interest. The lecturer, like myself, and others I have spoken to, who is on the high wire, without notes, notices this all the time. I know what I intend to say, but am aware that by the end of the sentence I may not be able to fetch up, retrieve, the name, the title, the author I actually thought to allude to at the beginning of the sentence. It makes for thrilling lectures. Notes help, but they tend to be vague, boring, repetitious, and more meaningless each year, as one's thoughts, on literary subjects alter, or opinions, or tastes. Living dangerously, a nice incitement, but only for those who know how to associate. I will look out the window, as if thinking, and wait for the second to pass: either Rover, good boy! fetches that old bone of a title, or line or phrase, or he doesnt. I wonder how older actors do it. My god, to get LEAR up after 65! Anyway, it is not a subject that is understood, but then, only when the curious docs get more research money for this crucial brain stuff will we know what has happened to us after 40. Try, meanwhile, Lecithin tablets, which are sold in healthfood counters. Experiments (how good?) suggest that they supply the acetylcholine stuff for the synapses, although the label on the bottle says nutritional value unknown. It is soya extract oil. 6 a day possible, but I make do with 2 in the morning, since it really is an unknown thing, and perhaps a waste of money. When I get desperate, I will up the intake? Maybe. Kessler here. for your entertainment, at least. From: Ruth Hanschka <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: Hitting the Memory Wall Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 22:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 623 (700) Here's some more anecdotal evidence for you. But first I have to disagree on a small point - it isn't just "older" :) folks that that happens to. I'm only 24, and it happens to me all of the time. My memory seems to be prinarily [primarily - anyone know a good text editor for mailer systems?:)] visual and musical. I can often remember faces, places, and whatever, but run into the "memory wall" when I try to put names to them. I could not remember the word 'lilac', as in bush, yesterday. And English is my first language.:) Re: cramming problems - I have not run into any yet. Give me a few decades, please, before that one sets in.;-) -Ruth Hanschka - and yes, I have experienced the "overload" feeling - where was that neuro-alka-seltzer when I needed it? From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: Shakespeare on CD-ROM Date: Wednesday, 11 July 1990 1755-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 624 (701) Have any HUMANISTs made use of the following, which I found advertised in the magazine CD-ROM EndUser 2.3 (1990) 15: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Modern & Queen's English versions on the same disc! Search in seconds with DiscPassage software! $99 + $5 shipping & handling! CMC ReSearch, Inc. 7150 SW Hampton, Suite C-120 Portland, OR 97223 (503) 639-3395 Copyright 1989. I'm especially interested in the value of the software, and the choice of texts (and their integrity). The price seems right. Is this one of the Shakespeare texts alluded to by Michael Neuman in his excellent and instructive report to the ACH/ALLC on Text Archives? Incidentally, elsewhere in the same magazine William H. Perry has a column called "Lexicographer's Corner" in which he suggests that there is a tendency in computerspeak circles to use the spelling "disc" for optical media, and "disk" for magnetic (p.25). He presents some impressive evidence, and the ads in the magazine seem to support the point. How did this come about? Bob Kraft, Penn From: sem sutter <book@midway.uchicago.edu> Subject: Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs Outside USA Date: Thu, 12 Jul 1990 11:47:20 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 625 (702) What information can anyone share with me about procedures for (or their own experiences with) logging on to OPACS outside the USA via Internet? I have Art St. George's "Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs & Databases" (available on BITNET by sending the message GET INTERNET LIBRARY to LISTSERV@UNMVM) and find it avery helpful directory with Internet addresses and logon procedures for many online catalogs, but it covers the USA only. Does anyone know of comparable list(s) for Britain and the Continent, or can they share bits and pieces of info from personal experience? I would be most greatful for any leads. Sem C. Sutter book@midway.uchicago.edu Bitnet: uclbook@uchimvs1 Internet: book@midway.uchicago.edu From: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD> Subject: Belinda in E-text? Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 17:47:09 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 626 (703) Aside from the fact that our Kurzweil has just gone on vacation, it would save 450 pages of effort for one of our faculty who needs Maria Edgeworth's "Belinda" in electronic format. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Peter Lafford, Manager, Humanities Computing Facility Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona USA (602) 965-2679 From: <P_EMISON@UNHH> Subject: laptops Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 17:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 627 (704) I am looking for advice about laptops in the $2500 range. I will be using the machine for LaTeX. I hope eventually to scan texts and images (I am an art historian specializing in Renaissance prints). I have been considering the Zenith Turbosport 386 with 40 MB and 2 or 3 MB RAM, but am curious about a machine due out in August from Airis, a VH286 with 20 MB and 2 or 4 RAM (only 6 1/2 lbs.) Thanks for any information, pointers, shared convictions--about either outstandingly good or mamouthly bad machines. Has anyone used laptops to scan images or text (especially with early printed books)? Patricia Emison, Univ. of New Hampshire p_emison@unhh.bitnet From: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD> Subject: ACH '91 Call for Papers Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 17:44:44 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 275 (705) CALL for Papers ACH/ALLC 91: "Making Connections" where: Tempe, Arizona, USA when: March 17-21, 1991 abstracts: of: 1,500 to 2,000 words on: any topic in humanities computing by: October 15, 1990 to: ATDXB@ASUACAD.BITNET Daniel Brink English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 USA The Program Committee for ACH/ALLC 91 (Don Ross, University of Minnesota, chair) invites abstracts/proposals on any topic in humanities computing to be considered for delivery at the 1991 joint international conference of the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, March 17-21, 1991, at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, USA. Abstract review will be completed by December, 1990. Electronic submissions (to ATDXB@ASUACAD.BITNET) are encouraged. Program Committee: Don Ross, Minnesota, chair (ACH) Daniel Brink, Arizona State, local host (ACH) Paul Fortier, Manitoba (ACH) Nancy Ide, Vassar (ACH) Randall Jones, Brigham Young (ACH) Thomas Corns, Wales (ALLC) Jacqueline Hamesse, Louvain-la-Neuve (ALLC) Susan Hockey, Oxford (ALLC) Antonio Zampolli, Pisa (ALLC) From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: Codex/Scroll Bibliography Date: Wednesday, 11 July 1990 1806-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 628 (706) A forthcoming CNRS Colloquium (10-11 October 1990, Paris) should perhaps be added to Marc Bregman's bibliographical list on Scroll/Codex, etc., in anticipation of the publications that will be associated with the Colloquium. The title is Tablettes a ecrire de l'antiquite a l'epoque moderne [Writing Tablets from Ancient Times to the Present] and the papers include Beatrice Andre and Jean-Louis de Cenival (both of the Louvre) on Tablets from the Middle East (in French); Colette Sirat on Wooden Tablets in the Jewish Tradition: Texts and Documents (in French); Joseph van Haelst on the development from a codex of tablets to the short codex, and on Greek and Latin terms used to designate writing tablets (in French); John Sharpe on "The Dakhleh tablets and some codicological considerations" (English); William Brashear on Magical Tablets (French); Francisca A. J. Hoogenduk on "School Exercises on Wax Tablets" (English); David Thomas on "The Wooden Writing Tablets in Latin from Vindolanda in North Britain" (English); and so on to a closing paper on electronic tablets! Write to Elisabeth Lalou, Secretary, IRHT, 40 avenue d'Iena 75116 Paris (tel 47 23 61 04). I'll try to keep the program handy, if any HUMANISTs need more information. Looks interesting. Most papers in French, a few in English, and one each in German and Italian. Mostly on the ancient materials. Bob Kraft, Penn From: Curtis Rice <USERCRIC@SFU.BITNET> Subject: 4.0247 Qs: IPA Fonts Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 23:08:38 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 629 (707) Gamma Productions of Santa Monica put out Multi-Lingual Scholar and also offer an IPA font. Write to Gamma, 710 Wilshire Blvd, STe 609, Santa Monica, CA 90401, Tel 213-394-8622. Curtis Rice From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0263 On Recursive Fiction Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 17:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 630 (708) Dear John: My reading of USHER is different, and after decades I thought I had found its secret, when I was advised to give up the main consolation of my life, my giant $5.00 cigars. I discovered that the story was really about addiction and withdrawal, about the structure of personality. I havent written a note, because only ex-smokers (or poppy addicts) will understand subjectively that Roderick Usher is the esthetic faculty (his wild improvisations on the guitar) and the person addicted to the inspiration of...what? laudanum? morphine? and his twin sister is Madeline, she, the substance and addiction itself, which is laid down in the nerves. She is renounced, killed, buried, but can claw out of her tomb and come for her "brother." (Cf Cocteau's remarkable description of the power of opium to recall in the very bloodstream as it were, itself, from renunciation. The ego, the personality, the rational part of the self is the narrator, who finds usher and his body sadly decayed. For the ego and reason never suffers change, and cannot. After all, what is it that saves the doomed drunk or drug addict who is strung out from the next, and fatal binge or shot...? If the ego and reason are weak, well, then, fare thee well. read Berryman's unfinished novel on that head, and see how his reason itself said farewell, in despair, what is it that despairs? who? the soul? the narrator of the story? and then leaps onto the ice from 60 feet after blessing the world in farewell. As for recursive fiction: it is good for a one time shot, a curiosity, like much of Hofstadter's gee whiz logicking. It suffers from what Whitehead termed the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. IN this case, taking the surface, the story as told, as the object of esthetic attention. That is the trouble with the esthetic of minimalism that has so many excited: it is on the surface only, and yields its whole self at the first go. It has nothing more to say, because it mea ns nothing more than its saying. Good for chat and fun and critics who think they have found something new, but...also vacuous, and immediately so, not in the longer run. Kessler From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: memory Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 21:13:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 631 (709) More unsystematic thoughts on memory and its loss. I've noticed that some people remember facts as factual quanta, others remember facts as parts of a pattern. (Some people, rare ones, remember in both ways simultaneously.) As one grows older, and years of accumulated thinking about certain patterns of thought strengthen them, is it not possible that the inability to remember things as things may also signify a mental maturity rather than, or in addition to, a degeneration? What happens seems in part to depend on one's field of specialization. Us humanists in this respect seem to have the advantage over mathematicians and theoretical physicists. Physical degeneration certainly seems inevitable. But is it not possible that going down hill may be accompanied, if one works hard at it, by soaring? (It is, of course, entirely irrelevant that my birthday is tomorrow!) Willard McCarty From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: information Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 18:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 632 (710) Didn't Marshall McLuhan claim that a lightbulb (lit) was pure information? Tom Benson Penn State From: MHEIM@CALSTATE Subject: University -- information clearinghouse Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 21:15:52 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 633 (711) Re: university -- information clearinghouse Now that Willard McCarty is back among us, I will have to watch my language. He objects to my referring to the university as a "clearing house for information" in the information age. What rankles him is the significance of the terms I use, not their informational value. He objects to what these terms imply about the contemporary university. For this I'm grateful and stand corrected. A deep bow to the Confucian reverence for terms. Where did I get such terms? Recently the letters of Marshall McLuhan have fascinated me. I note the way his vocabulary widened over the years, opening up to influence from business, advertising, and the media. In an effort to break away from the stuffiness of academic life, he seems sometimes to have betrayed the values he held privately as a professor. Willard says, "I wonder if the vision of the Information Age, when our most important commodity is information, has any room at all for the knowledge of poets and philosophers." Could it be that McLuhan's own life split him down the center because he tried to reconcile the two unreconcilables: the university and the information age? The director of the Kenyon College library wrote recently: "The image of the humanist scholar in the book-crammed study, thinking deep thoughts, will continue to be less and less viable in professional scholarship." What could this librarian, who knows the hearts of scholars, have meant? Will we soon bid adieu to the Schreibstube in Faust's "hochgewoelbtes, engen gotischen Studierzimmer"? Would a computerized library of exclusively electronic texts signal the renovation of a university that is on the way to becoming a clearing house for the information society? Or does today's university have such a strong identity that it can resist such change? Mike Heim Cal State Long Beach From: "W.Watson" <ERCN94@emas-a.edinburgh.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0247 Qs: Indexing Date: 13 Jul 90 16:29:54 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 634 (712) Jim O'Donnell might also look at the July 1990 issue of Byte magazine, (which I just got y'day). In the International Section, pp. 64 IS 15-22, Dick Pountain suggests using the Micro - Oxford Concordance Package to do indexing. He would have to read the details, to see how this compares with other answers already offered via Humanist. If the copy of Byte that he can buy does not include these pages, then I'll put them on a xerox, if he will give me a paper mail address. Bill W. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: Disk v. Disc Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 09:21:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 635 (713) About the term disc (vs. disk)... When I was doing some research into videodisc applications, I came across mention somewhere (and I really have no idea where) that the word "disc" should be used for read-only media whereas "disk" should be used for read-write media. I can't see that it makes much difference, but it is a handy rule of thumb when you are dealing with both types of media. Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.bitnet From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: On Memory and Memorials Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 11:22:01 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 636 (714) Remember the Art of Memory (described by Frances Yates in The Art of Memory). Placing what one needs to recall at will in an imagined building is still a helpful device. I would also recommend as a splendid evocation of what it's like to be a really efficient Bruno-esque memorist John Crowley's fantasy novel Little Big, and the first volume of his Aegypt. We imagined computer storage long before we had anything like computers. Stephen Clark Liverpool From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0261 Clearing Houses for Information? Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 15:11 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 637 (715) Oh by the way, I think Confucius was working against a vast cultural catastrophe that preceded his era: the destruction of all written things by that man Chin chi Huang, the Great tyrant megalomaniac who unified China for the first time. Capital punishment to own a book under him. Well, it was all destroyed, thousands of years of achievement. But then, there are the Bamboo Annals, a reputed discovery of the chief historical records, and he was their annotator. But...how to discover what the terms were and meant? after such a lapse, hiatus, lacuna? That was his problem, and a hell of a problem it was. We however suffer from a plethora of writings. Does it come to the same thing, sort of? Confusion? From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Mike Heim's comment on the University Clearinghouse" Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 09:53:02 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 638 (716) Oh, these are deep, dark thoughts! Mike may be right that McLuhan was "split" by the very "holism" (my term) he elected to adopt in the spirit of information tolerance. Did he indeed become an information generalist, open to all linked information, and thus lose the tighter humanistic focus that helps provide a counterbalance to the pragmatism of technology and the Information Age? Are those of us in literary and quantitative studies, including structuralism and stylo-statistics, changing the bandwidth of literary studies? Or is McLuhan's comment to a surprised movie-goer and would-be McLuhan critic in _Annie Hall_ (while Woody Allen delightedly eavesdrops in line) to be believed? (Roughly, since dimmed by the slightly decayed memory: "I AM Marshall McLuhan, and I just wanted to say that I heard what you said. You don't understand anything about my work.") Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Language Outreach, Dartmouth College From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Knowledge & the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle theory" Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 22:47:03 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 639 (717) Can someone confirm my impression that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle puts into the mouth of Sherlock Holmes his idea that a "brain too full" (my paraphrase) requires that some previously "learned" information leave before new information can be retained? Regards, Joel D. Goldfield jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu joelg@psc.bitnet From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Useful Reference on Finding Quotes Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 09:48:20 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 640 (718) I noticed the following new book and thought that it might be useful in connection with a recurring theme of this list: Shipps, Anthony W. 1990. The quote sleuth: a manual for the tracer of lost quotations. U of Illinois Press. 200 p. From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: "Jewish Greek" / New Documents vol. 5 Date: Friday, 13 July 1990 0956-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 641 (719) This morning's regular mail brought my copy of volume 5 of NEW DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATING EARLY CHRISTIANITY, by Greg Horsley (Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, Australia: 1989). This volume differs radically from the first four, which reviewed specific papyri and related documents pertinent to a study of early Christianity that were published or republished in the period 1976-1979. In volume 5, subtitled LINGUISTIC ESSAYS, Horsley provides state-of- the-discipline treatments on key philological issues as noted below. The only focused discussion of actual documents of the sort reviewed in volumes 1-4 comes on pp. 95-114 "A Fishing Cartel in First-Century Ephesos." Volume 5 is Horsley's "swansong as regards the series" (4). He will now concentrate his efforts on the "New Moulton-Milligan" project to update our information on the Greek of the early (Jewish and) Christian period and produce an appropriate lexical tool to replace Moulton-Milligan. The New Documents Series is committed to continue under a new editor for at least 5 more volumes. The "Essays" deal with the following subjects: 1. "The Fiction of 'Jewish Greek'" 2. "_Koine_ or Atticism -- a Misleading Dichotomy" 3. "The Syntax Volume of Moulton's _Grammar_" 4. "The Greek Documentary Evidence and NT Lexical Study: Some Soundings" The blurb on the back cover helps give the feel for Horsley's interests in its description of the problems addressed: -Was there a separate Jewish-Greek dialect of the _koine_? -Is the emphasis given by NT Grammars to its Semitic features justified? -Can onomastic research aid our understanding of the social level of the early Christians? -How adequate for current research is Moulton and Milligan's _Vocabulary of the Greek Testament_ and other such lexicographical works? The application to ancient languages of certain features of General Linguistics is dealt with, and an appendix is included which surveys some recent linguistically attuned contributions to Ancient Greek studies. Cumulative indexes to all five volumes of the series have been produced _de novo_. The book thus serves in part as a stocktaking of the wealth of non-literary material which the earlier volumes have highlighted for the study of early Christianity and contemporary Judaism. [Thus far the blurb.] Those of you who know the series, or its editor/author, will know that this is front-rank scholarship at every level it addresses. Students of early Christianity and early Judaism are extremely well served by the series, but also students of the ancient world in general, of the Greek language, and of comparative linguistics -- to mention only the most obvious. As a sample of what you will find, and as a contribution to discussions of the aforementioned areas, I will close by quoting extensively from the conclusion to Horsley's essay on "Jewish Greek" (40): The edifice of Jewish Greek lacks foundation in reality, neither does it have any cogent linguistic framework. Accordingly, it is built largely using weak arguments and assertions. While it is not denied that certain Semitic features obtrude into Greek written by Jews and Christians in antiquity, where this occurs it is to be understood as the expected phenomenon of interference which manifests itself in varying degrees in the speech and writing of bilinguals. The door should be left open, however, for the possibility (and even liklihood) that Greek was spoken with a distinct ("marked") accent by those Jews in Palestine whose mother tongue was Aramaic (or perhaps Mishnaic Hebrew). But phonological differences alone are insufficient to establish the existence of a separate dialect. Furthermore, other Aramaic speakers who acquired facility in Greek must have had a similarly marked pronunciation. All that could have distinguished a Jew from a non-Jew in this regard, then, would be the use of certain technical terms distinctive of Jewish culture and religion.... It was in their social customs that the Jews were distinctive, not in their use of Greek, as K. Treu has emphasized.... Problems of definition are one aspect of the question, lack of contact with developments in linguistics another. Possibly a certain theological predisposition has encouraged the continuing acceptance of Jewish Greek in certain quarters. Just as there are ghost words imputed to a language, so it may be urged that Jewish Greek is a ghost language. And like all ghosts it needs to be laid to rest. [Thus far Horsley.] Bob Kraft, Penn From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: Dissertation Abstract Date: Friday, 13 July 1990 0020-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 642 (720) I asked my relatively new colleague, Edward Breuer, for permission to circulate the following abstract of his recently accepted PhD Dissertation at Harvard (1990). The networks are a good way to keep people informed of this aspect of scholarship as well. Bob Kraft, Penn. IN DEFENSE OF TRADITION: THE MASORETIC TEXT AND ITS RABBINIC INTERPRETATION IN THE EARLY GERMAN HASKALAH The German-Jewish Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, the Haskalah, marks the political, social, and intellectual transition of European Jewry to modernity. One of the most important features of this movement was an intensified interest in the Hebrew Bible. Beginning in Prussian lands, the Maskilim decried the contemporary neglect of Biblical scholarship and called for pedagogic emphasis on linguistic and exegetical skills. The struggle to revive a creative and vigorous tradition of Bible study has long been understood as a positive manifestation of the Maskilic internalization of Enlightenment cultural ideals and a move away from centuries of Jewish learning centered on rabbinical literature. This thesis will focus on another set of factors that appear to have shaped the Maskilic interest in Scripture, namely the contemporary challenge to traditional Bible study. Eighteenth century European scholars aggressively questioned the authority and reliability of the Masoretic text, a move that undermined the historical Jewish perception of this version of the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, early modern writers attacked the rabbinic interpretation of Scripture as philologically and grammatically untenable. We shall attempt to demonstrate that Moses Mendelssohn and other Maskilim of Berlin and Ko%nigsberg were sensitive to such attacks, and that the publication of Mendelssohn's edition of the Bible must be partly understood as a defensive response to contemporary challenges. In its exegetical writings, the early German Haskalah not only remained faithful to medieval Scriptural interpretation and handling of Talmudic and Midrashic literature, but endeavored to go beyond medieval writings in order to bolster the Maskilic defense of rabbinical exegesis. As such, the German Haskalah's embrace of _Aufkla%rung_ ideals represented an important reorientation of Jewish life, but one that was informed by a need to respond to elements of eighteenth century culture that were perceived as threatening to traditional Judaism. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: MULTILINGUAL OCR Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 23:08:31 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 282 (721) Multilingual OCR/ICR With Kurzweil 5100/5200 I would appreciate help from anyone who has had experience scanning multilingual documents or mixed non-Roman scripts using the Kurzweil Model 5100 (or 5200) scanner. If you have personal experience or can supply the name of someone who has, I will be deeply grateful: please include name, email address, postal address and phone number. I need to make these contacts in the next three weeks. About a year ago I tested the Kurzweil Model 5100 sufficiently to determine that its optics (400 dpi) and brain are excellent for scanning standard roman and non-Roman scripts; it has several striking performance advantages over the older Model 4000. For example, it faithfully scans sub-linear diacritics (like Hebrew vowels) where the Model 4000 is nearly blind. Unfortunately, I was unable to make one crucial test. This is now my primary area of interest: the arbitrary assignment of "special characters" to 4- or 5-byte strings. Trainability is the issue, of course, though Kurzweil's marketing division (feeling pressure from Panantir/Calera's "automatic" scanning) forced the term "verification" to be used rather than "training" for the current models. Whereas the Model 4000 permitted about 400 of these "MPD" assignments (as I recall) and allowed mapping to 3-character strings, the Kurzweil Model 5100 and 5200 support an allegedly "unlimited" number of MPD's, and mapping to 4-character strings (5100) or 5-character strings (5200). As of a phone conversation today, Cambridge-Kurzweil stands by this claim of "unlimited" number of MPD's, but this is still theory as far as I'm concerned. I want to hear whether someone has tested Kurzweil 5100/5200 trainability in making 500-2500 or more such arbitrary assignments, and whether performance is thereby degraded, and in what ways, to what extent. Theoretically, the technology would allow for millions of special-character assignments, (hi-bit chars are legal with a few reserved chars) but I confess I'm skeptical. "Unlimited" is clearly hyperbolic, and "millions" is probably also false, so what's the truth? One unfortunate disadvantage of the "omnifont" (general feature extraction) technology used in the newer Kurzweil Discovery Series is that the user has lost control over fixed "font" assignments. On the earlier Kurzweil models ("multiple-font recognition"), trainability suffered from too limited a number of map-able characters, but at least the user *could* map characters of a certain set into discrete "fonts." This permitted a mode or state operation (it takes two characters in a font to trip the "font sequence), so that alphabets, languages or other sets with typographically-distinct print attributes could be output in delimited formats. Delimited strings based upon user-defined font sets has apparently been lost in the "omnifont" technology, at least in Kurzweil's scanners. The Model 5200's 5-character-string mapping buys back some of the earlier "font" functionality if one makes creative (if necessarily painful) mnemonic assignments with four characters, leaving the fifth (first) byte as a font identifier. (This is just theory too!) For example, pointed Hebrew could be scanned -- I tried this -- in block-character units, using one hi-bit character for the Hebrew font identifier, two characters for the (mnemonic) consonant-name, and two for the (mnemonic) vowel-name. Training would not be a nightmare, and subsequent text-processing with string handling utilities could supplement the standard output with delimiters based upon these named entities in fonts/alphabets/languages. We all do this for markup anyway. Questions: (1) Does the Kurzweil Model 5100/5200 actually support an "unlimited" number of MPD's -- and at what cost? What *actually* starts happening with the second, third, fourth, fifth...alphabet? (2) Are there any other trainable scanners that can compete with Kurzweil in this arena? Until now, I have not heard of any serious competition to Kurzweil if you have documents in Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic or other mixed non-Roman scripts where training is required from the ground up. ("Optiram" does not interest me at this point.) Thanks to anyone who will contact with me if you can shed light on these matters. No flames please: I know many believe scanning will never be practical for digitizing multilingual texts. But even industry -- and the EEC moving toward 1992 -- are starting to say otherwise. Robin Cover DTS - Semitics & OT 3909 Swiss Avenue Dallas, TX 75204 AT&T: (214) 296-1783 FAX: 214-841-3540 BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org UUCP: ...texbell!txsil!robin From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Halio article (on student writing) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 11:45:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 643 (722) [...] Some months ago, Humanist discussed Marcia P. Halio's article on student writing ("Student writing: Can the machine maim the message," <Academic Computing>, Jan 1990). This month's Academic Computing carried a note that the article and also comments are available via anonymous FTP from umd5.umd.edu (128.8.10.5). They are in subdirectory pub/jac and in addition to plain- vanilla ASCII, can be pulled off in a variety of word processor formats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: *RELATIVELY* USEFUL... Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:14:08 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 644 (723) Re: [deleted quotation]John Koontz is to be thanked for alerting us to this resource: I intend to have a look. Another feeling swept over me as I read the posting, however. For 10% of the cost in production and distribution, we could have had something 10-times more useful, if what you want to do is "hunt for a lost quotation." A diskette instead of a book. Probably 2-3 times more content, as well (with compression). Someone will say, "Well, you can't curl up by the fire with a good novel and a diskette of digital quotations." Right: my solar-powered hand calculator won't work by firelight either, but I won't trade it in for my old slide rule. Why don't we all write Univ. of Illinois Press and say, "Gee, if you publish this on a diskette where it's actually useful, I'll buy it." rcc From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Can anyone locate this passage from Borges? Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 645 (724) Recently, while browsing through the Lexis library of law review articles, I discovered an article by Jay M. Feinman entitled "The Jurisprudence of Classification," 41 Stan. L. Rev. 661, 662 (1989), which quotes the following passage from M. Foucault, The Order of Things xv (A. Sheridan trans. 1970), which in turn--as you will note--quotes from Borges. I have seen this reference to Foucault several times, but have not been able to discover where the passage appears in the writings of Borges himself. I have posted this query before, but I am still looking. Can anyone tell me where the quoted passage appears in Borges's writings? This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought -- our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography -- breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.' In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that. Thank you. Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Australian e-mail problems?" Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 16:57:18 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 646 (725) Could anyone tell me if users at 'wacsvax' are being deprived of INTERNET or BITNET mail due to mailer failure or other reasons? My connections to wacsvax.cs.uwa.oz.au have been refused for the past few days. Thanks, Joel D. Goldfield Language Outreach, Dartmouth College jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0279 More on "University as Clearinghouse" (2/37) Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 18:36:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 647 (726) New to the list, and one of the heretics who never benefitted from a liberal arts education (science was all, all else was elective), I must ask: What is the difference between information and knowledge? Is not knowledge merely information applied in an appropriate context? Frank Dane Mercer University (a liberal arts institution) From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0279 More on "University as Clearinghouse" (2/37) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 20:06 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 648 (727) Of course, McLuhan said it, before he ..well, deaded it. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0279 More on "University as Clearinghouse" (2/37) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 20:07 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 649 (728) I mean, if he said it, it is to be believed. Take him at face value: his message is his message. Kessler From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Re: 4.0279 More on "University as Clearinghouse" (2/37) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:09:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 650 (729) Confucius was responding to the fragmentation of a much older unified "Chinese" culture. The First Emperor, Qing Shi Huang Di, ruler of the state of Chin, unifier of the several "Chinese" states, and connector of the Great Wall, lived about 300 years after the author of the Analects. He did have a famous book burning party and did bury scholars alive. Somehow, information survives. From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: ... Yates on Memory ... Date: 13 Jul 90 17:32:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 651 (730) Yates's book on Memory is famous (but to be used with this caution: the Renaissance claimed to be reviving an ancient technique, but probably wound up taking it more seriously and using it more effectively than ever the ancients did), but even more accessible and exotic and fascinating is Jonathan Spence, *The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci*, about the transplantation of these notions from eastern into western culture in the sixteenth century. Holmes's remark (I'm doing this, ostentatiously, from memory) is about the memory as a lumber room that has to have extraneous clutter kept out of it and appears in the first story of all, *A Study in Scarlet*. Dedicated Holmesians have pointed out that many of the subjects which Holmes claims to have willfully ignored at that stage turn out to be ones on which he is later revealed to have much accurate expertise. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0278 Responses: Indexing; Disk/Disc; Yates on Memory (3/39) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 20:05 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 652 (731) And then, alas, there is the awful fate of the human computer memory bank, the idiot cripple in Borges' marvelous story, "Funes, the Memorious." (Funesto is a sad name, a funereal onomastic.) Kessler From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Memory Capacity Date: 14 Jul 90 13:24:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 653 (732) With regard to the continuing discussion on memory and the fading thereof, I want add my observations based on my own experience. When I was in college, I had an excellent memory for names. If I met a person once, I knew the name and could recall it quickly. When I began teaching, I also learned the names of all my students. Even with 100-200 students in a semester, by the third or fourth week I could call each student by name, both in class and out- side of class. But when the semester ended and I turned in the grades, I forgot the students' names. If I saw them even a week later, I would have trouble remembering their names. Only when a student had been through more than one semester, would I learn their name well. (I was never conscious of trying to forget the names; it was more like a "Clear memory" operation that coincided with turning in the grades.) I am now very bad at learning names of people I met. When I attend conferences, I rely on name tags, but unless I make a determined effort, I won't remember names. It has occurred to me that I must have a certain number of slots for names in my brain and I used them all up years ago. I don't seem to have as much trouble remembering other kinds of things, but specific names (including titles of books or articles) are a real bother. Perhaps, someday brain researchers will understand some of these phenomena, but for now we can only speculate. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu mdharris@guvax.bitnet From: Jamie Hubbard <JHUBBARD@WISCMACC> Subject: Re: 4.0277 On Memory and Memorials; Information (2) (3/74) Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 11:06 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 654 (733) To add a few words to Willard's discussion of loss of facts and soaring , I remember reading an article some time back that talked about the inevitable and astonishing loss of grey matter (some hopeless number of brain cells dying daily) but it was coupled with the increased number of neural "links" (physical? chemical? electrical-- synapses?) that were created as one gets older. The point was something to the effect that though we may lose discrete facts as we get older, because of the increased complexity of the neural patterns we not only gain the depth of wisdom but are also (usually) able to re-find those lost bits of information because they exist in many many more virtual constellations of meaning (patterns), so that more routes exist to take you to them. Like a single word being linked to many other discussions in a hypertext situation. Which also brings to mind the hallowed difference between knowledge and wisdom. While knowledge may be the accumulation and quick manipulation of discrete facts, possibly the territory of the young, wisdom is almost always said to be the domain of the elderly (the wisdom of age, etc.). Certainly the mere accumulation of information is not significant. In this information age we are daily (and it seems to me rather brutally) reminded of the impossibilty of "knowing it all." If I let my e-mail go for a couple of days, the fear of "You have 83 new mail messages" greeting me serves not to whet my appetite for facts, information, and the delightful tidbits of other's wisdom that I know are in many of those missives, but rather to keep me from logging on at all (which only compounds the problem). Lao-tzu (Lao, of course, means "old, venerable") said: "Learning consists in adding to one's stock day by day; The practice of Tao consists in subtracting day by day, Subtracting and yet again subtracting till one has reached inactivity; But by this very inactivity everything can be activated." Ch. 48 No knowledge, only patterns, which activates everything??? So take heart on your birthday Willard. On the other hand, at the 'tween age of 37, I think that there is only loss with no new and exciting patterns emerging. Jamie Hubbard (jhubbard@smith) From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Memory Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 18:24:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 655 (734) Jim Cerny wrote: [deleted quotation] witty and incisive tidbits of information, and sudden- ly, WHAM!, some key item you need is just not there. Resort to cute mnemonic tricks won't retrieve it, it just isn't there at that moment, though it will bob to the surface later. Everyone in the 40-50 age range that I have showed this to, has said, "Yes, yes! Exactly!" So, I return to my original speculation. Has anyone bothered to study this? Do the studies bear out the anecdotal evidence? Is this something that has always existed, but is just much, much more noticible in an information age?<< That one is incapable of calling up a key item now and then is not surprising. Indeed, I suspect that many outside the 40-50 range would also respond "yes" to the idea. Perhaps members of the 40-50 age range respond "yes, yes" because they are concerned such slips are signs of aging. What I find much more fascinating about memory (which is not my area of expertise) are all of those other occasions on which one is racing along and experiences no WHAM!, or the period of wit and incite that precedes the WHAM! Considering the amount of information, knowledge, wisdom, whatever we process every day, what is surprising is that lapses occur with such infrequency that we are able to notice them at all. From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: A.C. Doyle & Knowledge Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:38 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 656 (735) It's been a while since I've read the Holmes stories, but I don't recall Holmes ever commenting on the notion that old information has to leave the brain before new information can be acquired. What we are told (via Watson) is that Holmes has no use for knowledge that is not directly relevant to his line of work (sounds like some of our students!). Thus, he doesn't know or care whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa, but he does care about the appearance of various types of tobacco ash. The ash may help him identify a criminal; astronomy will not. Watson's explanation of this is in the opening pages of the first Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet". Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: knowledge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 03:24:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 657 (736) Along with about seventeen other humanists, I'm sure, I write now to respond to Joel Goldfield's impression that Sherlock Holmes inveighs against an overloaded brain. Mr. Goldfield is correct. It's in _A Study in Scarlet_, the first of the Sherlock Holmes Cases. Not only does Holmes fear packing his brain too full of irrelevancies, he describes it as an attic that can be crammed too full of junk. He doesn't even know (or care) that the earth revolves around the sun, or who Carlyle is. I must say I find this a little inconsonant with his other many claims that one never knows when a bit of trivia will come in handy. Despite the ungodly lateness of the hour which combined with my eyestrain made me hit control D and send my incomplete posting to the editors, I've trudged out into the living room and retrieved my copy of the Doubleday Complete Sherlock Holmes where the passage in question is to be found on page 21: "His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. `You appear to be astonished,' he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. `Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.' `Forget it!' `You see,' he explained, `I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.' `But the Solar System!' I protested. I am too tired to trudge back out into the living room and find the story in Borge's _Labyrinths_ where the man goes insane because he can remember every blade of grass he sees, the number of bricks on every wall. I believe that it has been said (or it should be if it hasn't) that knowledge-- or at least "consciousness"-- is everybit as much what one forgets as it is what one remembers. Forgetting and coherence. Holmes has a point there. But I think that somewhere along the line, knowing something about astronomy might help him solve a case. I think Doyle modified this portrait of Holmes as ignoramus-savant... or at least film versions have done so. I can't imagine Jeremy Brett admitting to not knowing Copernicus or Sartor Resartus. Isn't there a koan somewhere which, along with the sound of one hand clapping, challenges you to "not think of a monkey"? How does one "do one's best to forget" something? Sarah Higley The University of Rochester slhi@uhura.cc.rochester slhi%uhura.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm rutgers!rochester!ur-cc!slhi From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: Sherlock Holmes and the Brain Date: Saturday, 14 July 1990 0009-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 658 (737) Joel D. Goldfield's memory serves him well. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does indeed have Sherlock Holmes express the theory that the brain can get too full. The reference is in the very first Sherlock Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet." In Chapter 2, Watson explains the composition of the solar system to Holmes, whom he has just met and found to be ignorant of the Copernican Theory. Holmes promptly decides to forget this information. On the assumption that the material is now public domain, I will quote Holmes' justification. "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." There you have it, another piece of lumber for your attic. Regards, Jay From: "Ed. Harris, Academic Affairs, SCSU" <HARRIS@CTSTATEU> Subject: Holmes' brain Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 659 (738) I think Joel Goldfield is referring to an early conversation between Holmes and Watson, just after they've taken rooms together and begun to chat and Holmes has demonstrated his remarkable powers of observation and deduction. Watson is surprised that Holmes knows so much about some very esoteric things and nothing about some things that Watson considers commonplace. Holmes explains his strategy of study by likening the brain to a desk which contains a limited number of cubbyholes, which one can choose to fill any way one wishes. But a cubby once full of data on cigar ash, say, cannot then be used for something else. Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: Workshop on Textual and Lexical Resources at COLING-90 Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 21:11:35 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 288 (739) WORKSHOP ON TEXTUAL AND LEXICAL RESOURCES 9-12 Sunday, 19 August 1990 At COLING-90, Helsinki, FINLAND [Check at registration for location] Work in computational linguistics is becoming increasingly sensitive to the need for natural language data. Data are critical for theory formulation, for the development of practical applications in the language industries, and, in particular, for the evaluation of computational linguistics as a whole. Of particular interest from this point of view are recent activities concerned with the collection of text files, with the creation of lexical data and knowledge bases, and with the development of ways to increase the ability to reuse and share both data and tools. The results will increase the possibility and likelihood of cooperation across a broad range of areas in computational linguistics. This workshop will provide an open and informal forum within which these activities are discussed and their relationship to current research and development established. The results will be reported on during COLING-90. There are no restrictions on participation and there is no need to register specifically for the workshop. For further information, before 10 August contact: Dr. Donald E. Walker Bellcore, MRE 2A379 445 South Street, Box 1910 Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA Phone: (+1 201) 829-4312 Fax: (+1 201) 455-1931 Internet: walker@flash.bellcore.com Usenet: uunet.uu.net!bellcore!walker After 10 August, contact: Dr. Hans Karlgren Prof. Fred Karlsson KVAL Department of General Linguistics Skeppsbron 26 University of Helsinki S-111 30 Stockholm, SWEDEN Vuorikatu 5 B, Hallituskatu 11 Phone: +46 8 7896683 SF-00100 Helsinki, FINLAND Fax: +46 8 7969639 Phone: +358 0 1913512 Telex: 15440 kval s Fax: +358 0 653726 Internet: hkarlgren@com.qz.se Earn/Bitnet: karlsson@finuh Bitnet: hkarlgren@qzcom.bitnet From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Memory Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 660 (740) An excellent book on memory, information, and knowledge is A. R. Luria's *Mind of a Mnemonist*, about a patient of his with an extraordinary memory. This patient was, like Borges's Funes, a person whose vast store of information impeded his ability to think: abstract thought and analysis were very difficult for him; he couldn't step back from the facts and generalize. He wound up drifting from job to job, passive in the expectation that something ``particularly fine'' would someday happen to him... John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: mcs@iris.brown.edu (Mark C. Sawtelle) Subject: Re: 4.0285 University as Clearinghouse (4/36) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 11:12:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 661 (741) The present discussion puts me to mind of some of the flap during James Watt's tenure at the Dept of Interior. Substitute "information" for "the environment". On a more useful tangent, I highly recommend Theodore Roszak's _The Cult of Information_, from which (I think) the following quotation is taken: "...the technology of human communications has advanced at blinding speed, but what people have to say to one another by way of that technology shows no comparable development." - T.Roszak As I recall it, Roszak explores questions like: - What kind of "information"? - What is it about? - Is that really useful? - How are we getting it? - Who's selling the means of access? (computer vendors) - Are their priorities altruistic (what do you think?) - Do these priorities subtly direct discussions about The Information Age? - Who's getting it? How are they controlling it? - Scholars? - Business concerns? - The government? - How is information really being used? - To find the cure for cancer, or to see if you've ever bounced a check, or perhaps burned a flag? -- Mark C. Sawtelle IRIS - Brown University p.s. I owe the transcription of the Roszak quotation to Dave Phillips Internet: davep@acsu.buffalo.edu Bitnet: v184gavw@ubvms who uses it in his signature. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0285 University as Clearinghouse (4/36) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 11:03 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 662 (742) Yes, but that information was said to have been found in a bricked up wall: all the history, as it were, of the past: the Bamboo Annals, I believe they are called. They have not survived, but been copied. Still, it is asked were there such things as came out of a wall, or were they created much much later...That is a rather big crux in Chinese historiography, one reads. And I have been told that there are some centuries in our Era from which no texts of the Pentateuch are known. How does one comprehend the precision of the 4th century texts, say, that match those from much earlier. Paleographers hope that something may somehow somewhere turn up, I have been told. But those texts are not "information" merely, in any casual use of the term. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0287 Holmes' Brain (4/137) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 10:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 663 (743) Dear Sarah Q., Here is a bit of information, which can also go to all Humanists who have ever been stumped, mystified, stymied, nauseated by the impossible statement, "The sound of one hand clapping." The monkey you associate with that is the "monkey mind," shorthand for that impossible creature Poe calls The Imp of the Perverse, which one may also know today as the ID. However (and of course I have forgotten the name of the author and the title of the book, which I gave away to my local bookshop a few years back), there was an autobiography, by a Dutch or Belgian fellow who left for Japan and Zen training in the late 1940's, and spent a long, perhaps as much as 16 years, undergoing the monastic discipline and training, which was devilish hard work, especially, the zazen or sitting, for a longlegged European. One of the repeated instances of the training was the audience, regular, perhaps weekly, of all the young monks at which one or another was to speak, to announce a solution to his koan. Invariably they were wrong, since satori, or insight, or enlightenment, or the achievement of access to the secret of our being, is not to be had for the asking or praying, or even a decade's latrine-cleaning, rice husking, courtyard sweeping, and so on. And each time a monk failed to announce with clarity, the Master's hand struck the low table before him with immense force: a clap of thunder in the silent auditoriaum! That was to recall him and the rest to thoughtful meditation, to keep their monkey minds from hopping about. That is the sound of one hand clapping, a reminder to them to remember where they where, or are, are were not, or are not. What is the sound of one hand clapping? The crack of that palm on the table, heard by those with heads bowed. Things are even simpler than mistranslation and pothead mystification guesses! Try it with a napping classroom sometime! Jascha Kessler at UCLA [... PS] Sorry, I see it is Higley, not Quigley! Speak of a full head of ill-assorted lumber! That's mine. From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Quotation book Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 664 (744) According to an article about Anthony W. Shipps in the *Harvard Magazine* last year, his book *The quote sleuth* is not a quotation dictionary, but a book about tricks for finding the sources of quotations that aren't in any such compilation. So I don't imagine it would really be at the top of anyone's list of stuff that would be better published only in electronic form. John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Robin Cover's comments & 'digital books'" Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:31:17 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 665 (745) Speaking (writing) of "curl[ing] up by the fire" or not with a diskette is not as far away as we might think. I've already seen several announcements of Sony's new digital book technology using 2" disks that not only include the text (at least as long as a novel's) but also sound and graphics. The display is an LCD of some sort and can run on batteries, solar power, or from a house current adaptor. Just the thing to curl up with on the beach, eh, as long as you don't get it wet. It's being marketed first in Japan, I think, sometime late this year. Does anyone have more information on this? Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Language Outreach, Dartmouth College From: Ric Gudgeon <R1436@CSUOHIO> Subject: Cartagraphic Software for the PC Date: 17 July 1990, 16:14:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 666 (746) Is there any software for someone who has cartagraphic skills that can manipulate images and text on screen, including the ability to rotate letters at more than 45 or 90 degrees? Such software would presumably allow scanning (using an optical scanner) of hand drawn maps to begin with and allow the user to paint textures (for landforms, etc.) on screen. Also will it permit the user to tilt and rotate three dimnesionally? My friend would prefer to stay away from the Cad environment if possible. Additionally, are there any maps of Israel in some type of databank for biblical cartography. Ric Gudgeon, R1436@CSUOHIO From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Holmes' brain Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 08:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 667 (747) Of the four of us who responded to the query about Sherlock Holmes, the other three were right and I was wrong. But they all cheated and actually looked it up! :-) (I was going to look it up but I couldn't remember where I put my copy.) Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "A.C. Doyle and knowledge, cont." Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 00:01:07 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 668 (748) Many thanks to my fellow HUMANISTs who wrote in about the quotation from "A Study in Scarlet," and especially to Sarah Higley and Jay Treat who, in the wee hours of the morning, took the time to quote the appropriate passage to us all. By the way, should one prefer underlining the title or enclosing it in quotation marks? [...] Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Language Outreach, Dartmouth College From: UBWC003@EUCLID.UCL.AC.UK Subject: MA in Computing for the History of Art Date: Thu, 17 May 90 17:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 292 (749) University College and Birkbeck College, University of London, History of Art departments, are offering an MA in "Computer Applications for the History of Art" this October. This course will cover new developments in the use of computers in museums, galleries and research institutions. Their use in conservation, databasing, graphics, imaging and image processing will be covered. A skill can be learnt such as video disk/CDROM design, or databasing, imaging .. etc. It will run joint with the MA in Historical Computing at the Institute for Historical Research. Many computer facilities are available for demonstration and projects in the department and the "Bloomsbury Consortium". The departments are active in Arts Imaging research including a multi-million dollar European project VASARI (Visual Arts System for Archiving and Retrieval of Images) to develop high quality and high resolution digital image scanning direct from paintings. The course is offered full time (1yr) or part time (2yrs). For further details please contact: Prof. William Vaughan, History of Art Dept. Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPD tel: (0)71 631 6110, Fax: (0)71 631 6107 From: Alvin Snider <ASNIDEPD@UIAMVS> Subject: Foucault on Borges Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 21:00 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 669 (750) Michel Foucault's quotation of Borges in _The Order of Things_ (which Peter Junger is now puzzling over, as I did a few years back) comes from an essay on "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins," available in _Other Iquisitions, 1937-1952_ (Austin, TX, 1964). Wilkins is best known as the author of a universal language scheme, _An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language_ (1668), and Borges hilariously parodies his elaborate taxonomies with his invention of "a certain Chinese encyclopedia," which divides animals according to the scheme Foucault quotes. The Foucault- Wilkins connection is discussed in an article by Sidonie Clauss, "John Wilkins' _Essay_: Its Place in the 17th- Century Episteme," _Journal of the History of Ideas_ 43 (1982): 531-53. -- Alvin Snider University of Iowa From: THEALLDF@TrentU.CA Subject: qUERY ON bORGES AND FOUCAULT Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 07:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 670 (751) The passage by Borges which Peter Junger cites from Foucault is from "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins". The Spanish title is "El lenguaje analitico de J.W.". It was published in 1941. A translation of it can be found in Borges:A Reader, ed. Monegal & Reid, p.142 (where the reference to the original Spanish publication can be found in an endnote) or in Other Inquisitions 1937-1952, p.103. Donald Theall THEALLDF@TRENTU.CA From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Borges Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 671 (752) The Borges quotation in Foucault is from ``The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,'' in his collection *Other Inquisitions*. Compare this from Kierkegaard, *Repetition*, translated by Walter Lowrie (Princeton UP, 1941), 56: A wit has said that one might divide mankind into officers, serving-maids and chimney sweeps. To my mind this remark is not only witty but profound, and it would require a great speculative talent to devise a better classification. When a classification does not ideally exhaust its object, a haphazard classification is altogether preferable, because it sets imagination in motion. A tolerably true classification is not able to satisfy the understanding, it is nothing for the imagination, and hence it is to be totally rejected, even though for everyday use it enjoys much honor and repute for the reason that people are in part very stupid and in part have very little imagination. John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "... knowledge, cont." Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 00:01:07 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 294 (753) [...] Sarah Higley's comments about Borges are also intriguing, not in the least because the concepts which I think of as conscious or unconscious selective omission influence us as literary critics as well. Several of the contributors to _Literary Computing and Literary Computing_ (ed. Rosanne Potter, U. Penn , 1989) note or imply that they would have never found certain phenomena in the text(s) they studied had they not had access to a complete analysis of thematic groups or other such strategies that could be implemented by a nearly infallible, counting and "ordering" computer (thinking of the French "ordinateur"). At conferences I've attended -- MLA, Institute for Academic Technology, ALLC-ACH, among others -- a few attendees expressed their surprise that certain results could be "massaged from the data" (my quotation of Frank Dominguez' remarks at the IAT conference, March '90, UNC-CH, in support of a presentation I had just made). Yet the literary results have not been refuted. If one omitted mentioning the computing side, perhaps no-one would ever notice how one arrived at the tip of the iceberg (or perhaps the bottom?). Besides the wealth of personalities and viewpoints throughout the ages that demands reinterpretation of texts, it seems that quantitative wealth of information, of words, collocations, paragraphs, pages, books, and the poetic and rhetorical devices, themes, etc. we find within them comprise another factor, not to forget forgetfulness. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Language Outreach, Dartmouth College From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: hypersatire (Hebrew, neologizing) Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 19:52:28-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 295 (754) The postings, in Humanist, on hyperfiction (interactive, hypertextual fiction) and Alan Corre's "recursive fiction" prompted comments about the exciting perspectives of features of specific kinds of computer support guiding the content of composition. Well, I am completing a rather heterogeneous book, mainly social satire, titled << Midde' Muddi' >> ("Whenever I Measure"). Language is wildly neologizing but also archaistic Hebrew (formation of hundreds of neologisms is fully documented in especially playful, but sometimes scholarly notes (of notes (of notes (...) ) ) , that also introduce satirical considerations, and are not really secondary). Another thorough neologizer, Shlonsky, had to limit innovation to avoid the necessity of including notes (albeit sometimes he had to insert them). Hypertextuality allows text parallelism that has something holographic about it, so the need for explanations is no longer a deterrent. Also, associations can occur rather freely, as several paths can be followed: we are not limited to one level of notes. Occasionally, such paths meet, but basically, their theme is meant to ultimately strengthen the message of the starting passage in the text. Different subsections or notes (chunks or text) differ by style and linguistic stratum. Some are even (mildly) mathematical. Windows (or, on paper, as the book is: odd pages with notes, the main text being on even pages, for example, as suitable according to the quantitative ratio) allow, sometimes, a kind of holographic rounding of the meaning. Or, very critical passages are cooled down, out of literary economy or of sarcasm, by recalling innocuous and themes. This way, one sentence that depicts the yellow of a broken giant egg inundating society, points to an ancient Talmudic legend about the giant bird Bar Yokhani, one of whose eggs would have inundated sixty cities and many more villages, and then, Eastern mythical gigantornithology is discussed. This, in turn, leads to Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi's reuse of the image of the Giant Cock in a philosophical pessimistic passage, but we make sure a note reproduces the Latin definition (he had read) from 17th century Buxtorf's Rabbinical Hebrew an `Chaldaic' Lexicon. The fact a 19th century edition of Buxtorf's Lexicon was dedicated to a person qualified as Belfastinus Irus (an Irishman from Belfast), is pointed to from a mention of our present president, Haim Herzog (also a belfastinus Irus), who recently avocated a very controversial electoral reform, a proposal that brought people in the streets (in favor). As to the yellow of the egg, the mention points to a certain verse from a poem about society, but that can also read according to a Lycian key, that is to say, to embedded linguistic, geographical, and other data based on a paper by Gusmani, with an intepretation of a Lycian stele from the city of Xanthos (that we can misread as suggesting yellowness). A context suggesting seats, in a very critical context, has a pointer leading us to a note, with a translation of a short review from an ergonomics journal, about a bibliography on the science of seating (user aspects of seat manufacturing), and a nearby note, also by rather free association, mentions McAlpin's hypothesis on a prehistoric link between ancient Elamite (of western Persia) and the Dravidian languages of India, and yet another note referencing a paper on reactions, in mid 19th century Britain, to the till then unheard-of phonetics of Khoisan languages (specifically, Victorian reactions to the clicks and clucks produced by Bushmen brought to Britain). Let us consider a certain passage, <<The Diaspora of Tires>>, based on an episode taken from real life. One kibbutz (pace Marx) sold its manufacture -- producing machinery for producing tires -- to South Africa (of all places), practically together with the personnel, made up of people from nearby Hatzor of Galilee, an [under-] "development town" of Jewish immigrants from North Africa: a kind not much beloved by the (pre-1977) ancien re'gime (at least). The passage includes a poetized litany (based on a report on job interviewing with the new owner), of workers begging the new employer to fly them to the new location of the manufacture, instead of leaving them flatly unemployed: ha`ifenu, ( "Have us fly, hadrifenu, Send us to South Africa [ acronymic root: Dr'f = Drom 'Afriqa = South Africa ], hatrifenu Make us devour / eat lehem huqqenu, Our lawful bread, qnenu, Buy us, torfenu, Devour us, hoqnenu. Give us an enema." ) And so on. (In this quotation, only "hadrifenu" is a neologism.) The passage wonders: will those tires have nothing to do with necklacing? What can this new diaspora expect? A subsequent section recalls that predicament, in a more general social context: "Stand on a hill, bellow: < Zeem-be-zoom! > ... but down in the city, they are not even going to hear you: they are too busy with "zoom-zeem" (that is to say: "zoom" of "zeem"; see below). Pointers lead to explanations of these Hebrew neologisms (expanding the topic), inter alia. "Zeembezoom" is a regularly formed verbal form from a new root (a morphologically adapted loan from "Zambezi"), and it means, obscurely of purpose: "They Zambezized them", that is, "They [sent] them [south of the river] Zambezi [and of the River Limpopo, too, for that matter." Actually, there is a further note, in English in the original: "They Zambezize 'em!" In connection with another point (also mentioning the River Limpopo), there is a reference to the owls of the Limpopo valley (including a metaphorical elaboration in verses about the pearl-spotted owl), with an ornithological discussion, and neologisms meant to translate their names into Hebrew. Another point in the text has "zeembezoom" co-occurring with "qimbezoom", a new Hebrew verb of the same conjugation an expressing the factitive aspect (having somebody do a given action), an based on the Judaeo-Arabic verb "qambaz", that is, "to sit down frogwise". (As to "zoom-zeem", it is a neologism we could render as "porno-zooming": "zeem" [zim] /zimm/, from /zimma/, means "lust". That is, people are thought to be insensitive to the plight of the exiled and to rather play a porno-cassette, for example, and zoom close in.) Hypertextuality can afford this style, that in sequential text would be either awful or impossible. Another passage, about the dire effects on mentality produced in peoples ruled by "New Man" ideologies (either Leninist of Ben-Gurionite, mutatis mutandis), has a term inserted in the text, "deshrait", which is morphologically formed as an adverb, and use with that syntactic role in the passage. A note explains it synthesizes some features pointed out in the passage: the term is defined as meaning "Northern (Soviet, relative to here, or of red Haifa), red, and swampy". The etymon is the ancient Egyptian toponym Deshrait (the Place of the Red Crown, that is, of the crown of Northern = Swampy Egypt. Egyptian had two similarly sounding terms for north and swamp: mehi and meht). This way, we have also a deadpan serious discussion of two entries in a toponomastical lexicon of ancient Egypt. However, one more note thwarts a possible criticism of having kept the vowel "e" in "deshrait" as a Hebrew neologism, instead of replacing it with a more standard "i". And then? The note asks (though more concisely than what I am explaining here): didn't (physician and founding-father neologizing philologist, also: former Russian revolutionary activist) Dr. Aaron Meir Masie (1858-1930) or his posthumous editor, (paganizing poet, and physician) Shaul Tschernichowsky (1875-1943) include, in their "Dictionary of Medicine & Allied Sciences (Latin, English, Hebrew)" (Jerusalem: Margalit, 1934), the entry for "spine", as Hebrew "shedra"? (Now, standard is "shidra".) Another note has a personification of querulous personification of academical self-importance blame Tschernichowsky (for providing me with a precedent): Parce Dr. Masie (who first was here as a physician in villages run by Rothschild: now, part of national myth), one of the founder of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but his (all the more mythical) editor? Shaul, Shaul -- from the shoulder down [cf. King S[h]aul, chosen because he was higher than average from his shoulder up] -- wasn't it enough we brought you [in 1931] to this country and gave you a job? [He first got a job as the editor of late Masie's dictionary, and after its publication, obtained a job as a physician in the schools of Tel Aviv.] (For not having corrected that "e":) You have not read your lesson. Were you playing "iskumdarei"? (Another note relate scholar's actual discussions on the identity of this game, whose Aramaic name taken from a Talmudic idiom.) And so on, and so forth. The term for "spine" ("shidra") is resorted to in another passage, for neologizing purposes. Two sentences there state I am not continuing a list of faults, because I don't wish to tarnish the page any more; the second sentence goes on: ' ' ' ' ' ' "Lo etqanne be-khore- ha-(d)dovi me-'iyye 'eretz shidra'im." (neologism) (neologism) = "I wouldn't envy the miners of guano (dovi: from divyonim, bird drops) from the islands of the Land of the Spinalians." That is, of the islands of Chile, in the Pacific. Chileans are Spinalians, because Chile is like the spine of the back of South America (Hebrew: Drom America; acronym: dr'm. This acronymic root is embedded inside the word for Spinalians: "shidra'im"). Acronymicity is conveyed by a double quote inserted inside the word, as usual in Hebrew. But, on the other hand, orthographically, the y of the plural ending /-im/ șymș is missing, thus conveying an association with Phoenician names of peoples, where the ending was also /-im/ but was written by the șmș alone. (Phoenicians ---> countries far away, beyond the sea.) Another passage tells about a person (myself) who finds a job in Australia. There is a sentence that could be rendered as follows: "Thus far, existence was Chagallian, aereous. And now: wawirrious." A note explains that, according to data gathered by Ken Halle, apud a certain paper by Eloise Jelinek, "wawirri" means "kangaroo" in Warlpiri (sic), a native Australian language. "Chagallian", instead, points to a passage about Italian singer Domenico Modugno who, in the mid 1960s, sang <<Volare>> ("To Fly": after Chagall's people in the air). Perhaps you recall: "Volare, oh oh. Cantare, oh oh, oh oh. Nel blu, dipinto di blu. Felice di stare lassu`." I (mis)translated these words into Hebrew -- keeping the original metrics -- in such a way that we are brought back to autobiographical remarks, out of the senses that standing in air can take. But yet another note relates recent news about Modugno related: compelled to use a wheelchair, after a stroke, in '89 he was beaten up in a parking lot, by somebody who wanted to park his car where Modugno's car was. What wouldn't one do for a place? The hologram of the main text and the hypertextual hierarchy (or net) of notes produces what I term, neologizing again in Hebrew, a "kattabbavu'a" (last vowel stressed), for a blend of images within text. And then there is a rambling, neologizing passage explaining this, and another passage that explains hypertext and proposes Hebrew terms for hypertext (partzikhetev) and hypermedia (partzitemekh). For Neologizing writing, the model is Shlonsky, but in the extreme, as only hypertextuality can afford. This is also part of the satirical intent, beside the fact I take a great pleasure in word coinage. (Well, I even developed an expert system for doing that, by conservative rules, but I used none of its proposals in the book: why should I leave the fun to a stupid machine?!) I suppose that Oedipus lurks in my relating to Shlonsky's (literary, not editorial) lesson. Shlonsky, as an editor, was a kind of ideological vestal for published Israeli literature to be, broadly speaking, Marxist or at least Marxigenous (i.e., originating in the right, i.e. left, circles), during the 1950s-60s, that is, at a time you had better be (or be thought to be) with the ruling camp to get a job (after all, the trade union concerns used to be, and still are, the largest employer, and the trade union used to own 60% of national economy). Well, it is history, hopefully, albeit an open-minded newspaper such as "Yedioth Ahronoth", that is open to a broad ideological spectrum (and that took the lead over "Maariv", hat used to be the independent newspaper of the Labor Era), often relates about persisting ostracizing attitudes in the literary establishment. There used to be a visible exception even among Shlonsky's contemporaries: Uri Tzvi Grinberg, another giant. Even the trade-union paper used to publish his poems, accepted by Shlonsky, but then, again, "Yedioth Ahronoth" recently charged His Royal Editorhood with having, once at least, even plagiarized one of Grinberg's submissions, by using a cute idea and even passing it to another poet, and then rejecting Grinberg's original poem, because its ideas were unoriginal (two poets had used them). Well, it was for the Good Cause. And Shlonsky definitely did not need somebody else's literary ideas. More in general, now and then, you hear about some recently dead writer (even such one who was "the father of them all" right after World War I), that stopped writing some decade ago because he was not on the winning ideological vessel. The fact these things are said openly, now, and the growth of several independent publishing houses, ought to modify the situation. Those literati that are still outcasts can blame only themselves for not founding some journal of their own, to save themselves from critics that keep silent on their work to (its) death. Moreover, reasons are often idiosyncratic, not necessarily ideological; there is, for example, the case of Hungarian-born Ephraim Kishon, a benign satirist who is popular in some Northern European countries, and enjoys the esteem of the Israeli public (well, he used to be the witty weekly satirist of "Maariv" of old), but is a lifelong bitter outsider among Israeli literati (especially Israeli-born, perhaps). His success in German-speaking countries has even been used to blame him. These aspects of the history of Israeli literature are little known outside the local scene, but perhaps this has very much to do with the rather narrow extension of its cognoscenti circles. ("Cognoscenti" is a term I frown upon: it is a hybrid of Latin and Italian. Italian "conoscitori" is American "cognoscenti". Italian "conoscenti" is English "acquaintances". The "gn" in "cognoscenti" comes from Latin verb "cognoscere", "to know. to be acquainted with", which in Italian is "conoscere". Stress is on the second syllable.) More on neologisms: I sent the Academy of the Hebrew language a report with "100 terms you should know about e-lists"; later, an academician told me why they had rejected this (without notifying me): I had resorted too much to portmanteau formation. Therefore, as the book uses two or three of these terms, I made an appendix out of the e-list glossary. Standard Hebrew for mail is "do'ar". I coined: "dorur" for e-mail; "dorurav" /do%rurabb/ for e-list (email + many), "doruriv" for a quarrel on an e-list, stemming from flaming on e-mail (formation: email + quarrel); "dorurabban" for an e-list editor (e-list + rabbi), and, for an e-list woman editor: "dorurabbanit" ("rabbanit" is the wife of a rabbi); and so on. There is even: "dorurovina" (the stress is on the "o"), for an e-list primadonna, after the late Israeli stage actress Hanna Rovina. "Dorurit ha-qqetanna shel Dickens" (Little Dorurit from Dickens: instead of Litle Dorritt) is pictoresque speech for a newcomer to email, that still needs some guru to mentor him or her. Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus.bitnet From: Tim Seid <ST401742@BROWNVM> Subject: Interpreting Manuscripts (HyperCard stacks) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 16:20:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 672 (755) [These Hypercard stacks will be available on the server by the end of the week -- eds] INTERPRETING MANUSCRIPTS Interpreting Manuscripts is a series of HyperCard stacks (800k) which teach about the procedure involved in analyzing ancient Manuscripts. Since the stacks are designed for the course Earliest Christianity, all of the examples are from the New Testament and deal specifically with that area. The purpose of this exercise is to help the undergraduate student be aware that interpretation of a text not only concerns judgment of the modern translation or of the critical text but has to do with how one deals with the ancient manuscripts themselves: reconstructing the original from the copies, editing the ancient text (deciphering characters, making divisions between words and sentences, punctuating), and finally translating and exegeting ("drawing out" the meaning of) the document. The main stack creates the simulation of going to the New England Museum of Antiquity in order to begin work on some newly found manuscripts. With a little animation, you are brought to your office in the Ancient Manuscript Center. From here you will be able to learn about Paleography and Textual Criticism. After you have mastered these disciplines, you are ready to go to the basement to the Manuscript Vault (Be careful on the stairs!). The last task, after analyzing the four manuscripts (Codices Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Rhode Island) and dating them, is to start up the computer that is on your desk in the office--a Macintosh, what else?-- and run the program MacEdit. You first have to edit each manuscript. Then determine the relationship among the four. The key here is to see if manuscripts share the same mistakes or are completely different (the scribes who produced these copies were really bad). Finally, you must attempt to reconstruct the manuscript from which the others were copied. When you have finished, you can compare your reconstruction with the actual original, something we don't get a chance to do in reality. This project was funded by an Educational Computing Grant from Brown University in the name of Dr. Stanley K. Stowers, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University. The author, Timothy W. Seid, a graduate student in the Religious Studies Department at Brown, received funding from the Graduate School in the form of several Computer Proctorships. You are encouraged to make use of this stackware without cost. If you make changes or have comments, send them to Tim Seid, Religious Studies Dept., Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 or electronically to ST401742@BROWNVM. From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0290 Notes on Books; Query on Map Software (3/46) Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 20:50:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 673 (756) SAS institute (box 8000, SAS Circle, Cary, NC 27512-8000, USA) has an extensive graphics/cartographic package that is a component part of their Software package. It is a language based, as opposed to mouse manipulable, program, but includes topographical capabilities and a number of preexisting maps (mostly USA I believe). I have no idea how much it may cost, but SAS is rarely inexpensive. Good luck, Frank Dane, Psychology, Mercer University From: "James Bower" <BM.GAN@RLG> Subject: Job Announcement: Executive Director for MCN Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 10:39:54 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 297 (757) The Museum Computer Network (MCN) seeks an Executive Director to develop and administer programs of this not-for-profit professional membership organization dedicated to furthering the use of computer technology in all aspects of museum research, management, and interpretation. Must have good knowledge of museum history and practice and of relevant state-of-the-art computer technologies; ability to communicate complex subject matter to specialist and lay audiences; skills in membership development, budgeting, fund-raising, and grant administration. Duties also include editing quarterly journal (Spectra), organizing annual conference, and representing MCN to the field. Overall policy direction is established by a Board of twelve specialists in museum-related fields. Headquarters presently East Coast, but relocatable. Salary commensurate with experience. Send resume and names of three references to: Suzannah Fabing, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 20565 (fax 202-289-3584) before August 17, 1990. EOE/M/F From: Terry Butler <TBUTLER@UALTAVM> Subject: Language Characters Printing Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 09:26:33 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 674 (758) Special Character Printing in Word Perfect 5 One of our faculty is using Word Perfect 5.1 to create camera-ready copy for a multilingual journal. He has so far been unable to locate an HP LaserJet II font source which has the COMPLETE set of foreign language characters so enticingly printed as Character Set 1 in the Word Perfect manual. (Word Perfect does a lousy job of graphically simulating these characters with the International Collection fonts, which he is using for their Western European language characters.) He requires fonts with a range of sizes (e.g. 6pt for footnotes, 10pt for text, 14pt for headings), roman bold and italic styles, proportional of course, with the complete range of language characters. Is there any hope? Terry Butler Humanities Computing Coordinator, University of Alberta TButler@VM.UCS.ALBERTA.CA From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: Request for info on bibliographic software Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 16:37:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 675 (759) This request was posted on another list--I thought that folks here might be able to help. Bibliographic Instruction Discussion Group <BI-L@BINGVMB.BITNET> I am presently writing an article on bibliography formatting software. I have information (some extremely sketchy!) on about 47 or so programs. I'd like to know if I'm missing any. If you know of any programs not on the following list, could you please send me email at uncses@med.unc.edu? Thanks! Archive Artfile Autobiblio Bibliog Bibliography Generator Bibliography Maker Bibliotek BiblioStax Bookends (for PC and Mac) CDS/ISIS Cites dms4cite EdiBase EndNote Find It Quick Get-A-Ref Journallog Keylibrarian Literature/Library Database Manager MacDewey Manuscript Manager Medilib Nota Bene (has bibliography module) Notebook II/Bibliography Paperbase Papers Papyrus Personal Bibliographic Reference Personal Reference Catalog Pro-Cite Publish or Perish Quickcite Ref-Ed Ref-11 RefBase Reference Gateway Reference Manager Reflist Refmaker Refmenu Refsys Research Assistant Research Notes System Resnoter Sapana Cardfile Sysbib 3x5 Ceased??: Bibtools Citation SearchLit 25:02 Sue Stigleman Health Sciences Library CB# 7585 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7585 (919) 962-0700 uncses@med.unc.edu From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0291 Holmes (2/27) Date: 18 Jul 90 00:24:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 676 (760) Can't resist: quotation marks or underlining A Study in Scarlet? The first edition of that work appeared as the only editorial contents of something called *Beeton's Christmas Annual* in 1887. Beeton was a magazine publisher who would at Christmas sell ads to put out a Christmas thing, and in that year the only thing in the book (about the size and shape of a copy of Readers' Digest) was the story by Conan Doyle. There are numerous pages of ads at the beginning, and others (I think later on). Now if an entire issue of a periodical be given over to a single story (which is later sometimes published in a volume with other stories and sometimes published separately), is that story a `novel' and therefore to be underscored or a `story' and therefore to be put in quotation marks? Serious question. I know the *Beeton's Christmas Annual* so well because once upon a time in the stacks of Sterling Library at Yale I was looking idly at the Conan Doyle range and wondered what this odd little cardboard covered, untitled volume was. It was indeed the first first edition, sloppily bound in cardboard in the library bindery. I knew that this was an extreme bibliographical rarity (who in 1887 knew that *this* edition of this throwaway magazine on little better than newsprint contained a literary classic?) and knew perfectly well that it would be a matter of two seconds concealment to get it out of the building. Instead I took it to the reference desk, who asked me to write up a note explaining why it was rare and valuable (1960s price: over $1000) and they would pass it on. I nosed further and found taht the reason why a copy was in the stacks was that they already had a copy in Beinecke (with `With the Author's Compliments' but no signature on the first page of the story) and figured that the second was just redundant and could be left in the stacks to circulate! Any curious Yalie would do me a favor to check and see if both copies are now safely in Beinecke. From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Thanks for the source of the Borges quotation Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 12:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 677 (761) I wish to thank all those who told me, through HUMANIST or directly, where I could find the quotation from Borges. I am especially grateful to John Lavagnino for the matching quotation dividing mankind into officers, serving-maids and chimney sweeps. Peter D. Junger CWRU Law School Cleveland, Ohio From: Michael Hancher <MH@UMNACVX.BITNET> Subject: Foucault > Borges > Franz Kuhn? Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 16:22 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 678 (762) Like other participants in this discussion I was puzzled by Foucault's crediting the "Chinese encyclopedia" to Borges. When a friend referred me to Borges's _Other Inquisitions_ the puzzle didn't disappear but regressed, as I should have expected. It is not clear that the encyclopedia is Borges's "invention," as Alvin Snider suggests (16 Jul 90). Borges introduces it as follows: These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies [i.e., in Wilkins's seventeenth-century taxonomy] recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled _Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge_. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained . . . [etc.] (103) Kuhn was a prolific sinologist; Hatto Kuhn has described his career in _Dr. Franz Kuhn (1884-1961): Lebensbeschreibung und Bibliographie seiner Werke_, Sinologica Coloniensia 10 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980). Many of his works are hard to locate in the United States. Borges could just as well have invented the Chinese encyclopedia: but maybe he really did rely on Kuhn. Thanks to Foucault's famous commentary it would be worth tracking down what Kuhn wrote, and with reference to what. Michael Hancher Deparment of English University of Minnesota From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Dutch student of Zenn Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 11:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 679 (763) I believe that Kessler's reference to a Dutchman who studied Zen in Japan is to Van der Wettering (or something like that) who wrote The Empty Mirror about his experiences and later book called something like A Touch of Nothingness about his attendance at a sesshin in the United States. Van der Wettering is the author of several detective procedurals about a team of policemen in Amsterdam--the Zen attitudes often show through in his writing. As I understand it, the various zen practices are designe to free one's mind from distracting thoughts and perceptions, rather than to clear memories out of the old lumber room in the back of the house. [for designe please read designed--I abominate mailers!] Peter Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, OH From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Hypersatire Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 11:38:50 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 300 (764) Before responding to Ephraim Nissan's rather astonishing convulsion, there is one general point I should like to make. Jewish and Islamic culture share the feature of having sacred texts at the heart of their cultural experience. These texts are cultivated and fondled, and above all, learned by heart. If you go at 4 a.m. of a Saturday morning to the synagogue of the Bukharan Jews in Jerusalem, you will find them singing lustily their religious hymns written in their obscure, allusive language. Not a book is open. The little kids with a faraway look in their eyes, brought on by the hypnotic nature of the chant, join in, the words and melody welling up from deep down inside. When I visited Tunis some years ago, I was invited to come and hear "les psaulmistes" in the afternoon. A group of old men sit round a table and chant the entire 150 psalms in Hebrew from beginning to end. When one tires, another takes over, while the others mouthe the words. A marathon effort in itself--but it is all done by heart! These men can recite the book of Psalms without a slip. Mishnayot, on their surface dry, legalistic texts, are lovingly memorized in traditional circles. One of my teachers asserted that as a child he enjoyed closing his eyes and summoning up a vision of a page of the Babylonian Talmud, complete with all the commentaries on the margin. Muslim boys commonly commit the entire Koran to memory, and are reinforced by the pleasure their elders express when they have, so to speak, adsorbed to their very being the eternal uncreated word. The medieval sage Moses Maimonides explicated the process very well. He declared that initially one says to a child, learn such and such a mishna, and I will give you a candy. And the child learns because children like candy. Later you offer nice clothing, because teens are typically concerned about their physical appearance. Then you say: learn so and so many pages of the Talmud, and people will do you honor, and stand when you enter the room. But the ultimate goal is to learn the truth, simply because it is the truth, and for no other reason, and the truth resides somehow in these texts. Similar situations exist in other cultures, and have a profound effect on their adherents. They have an intellectual and spiritual heritage shared with their fellows, and it only takes a hint, a word, a turn of phrase to summon up recollections of this heritage and how and when various elements of it were acquired. Gifted poets and writers like Immanuel of Rome or ibn Zabara could use this feature even for comic effect. For example, there is a statement in the Mishna that the hand that explores among women is praiseworthy, while the hand that explores among men deserves to be cut off. This opaque statement means that the woman should constantly piously check that she is not menstruous to avoid her husband's unknowingly falling into transgression, whereas the man must scrupulously avoid self-stimulation. Along comes a wag who says that *he* had the "hand that explores among women"--the same kind of theme that Robert Herrick revels in, but with the added spice of allusion to a religious text dealing with holiness. The establishment often disapproved of such liberties--Joseph Karo proscribes the reading of such books, especially on the sabbath--but the situation was there to be used for good or ill. It seems to me that Christian Europe lacked this feature. The literature of the classical world was the best candidate for this kind of treatment, but the players were pagans, with all their nasty self-indulgences, and Christians were never quite comfortable with them. Virgil was coopted into the Christian heaven, and even given retroactive prophet's privileges, but he must have stuck out like a sore thumb amid all those haloes. And the New Testament may or may not be a necessary ingredient in man's eternal salvation, but it is dreadfully unquotable. Most of us have our illusions, but Ephraim has his allusions. I wish him luck in being understood. Ephraim might be able to use productively the Iris software which has, I believe, already been mentioned in these pa--screens. I have not had a chance to look at it in detail, but it claims that the virtual books it creates can "ask questions and respond with the answers (sounds like a schoolteacher!), readers can jump from one topic to another, and windows...can be accompanied by pleasant tones." It would enable the layering of materials in the way he seems to need. They even offer to distribute the virtual books you create, although I do not know how far their net is spread. This effusion now gets more technical, and some of you may wish to tickle you know what. A few miscellaneous points. lehem huqqenu does not mean "our lawful bread" but rather the bread of our portion, the bread of our rizq, to use the Arabic expression. Needless to say, although Ephraim wrote this, he has no dibs on what it means, especially as it is allusive (Proverbs I think). Zeembezoom I should prefer to connect with the Zamzumim of the Ammonites. The be is just "leshaper et haqeriah" to ease the passage betwen m and z (am I playing the game according to the rules?) On the model of qambaz, I would propose hashbez, which means "to absorb occupied territory quickly." I admit that it is fun to read Hava's dictionary and see the astounding combinations to which Arabic words can correspond: for example, sajara which means "to prolong her groans" (of a she-camel); afhasha meaning to hold unseemly, obscene talks against someone, or nafaja which means either to spring up (but only as a hare does) or to come forth (but only as a chicken does.) So the next time you see a chicken come forth, be aware that she is nafijatun, engaging in that special chickeny-rich coming forth which only the magnificent Arabic language can properly capture. And now a comment on shedra. I noted in the Israel Brodie festschrift that the segol is subphonemic. You never get a three-way a/i/e contrast in classical Hebrew. e occupies middle ground, sometimes representing the a phoneme, and sometimes the i, possibly because Hebrew was being heard through Aramaic ears (why should anyone ever have thought that the phonemic inventories of the two languages are identical or even similar?) In the Sephardic tradition many i-words are e-words, and why not? I-efshar (impossible) is e-efshar; midrash is medrash. (In the London Portuguese Jewish community the members of the congregational academy were called "medrasistas".) Ephraim at this point must be the doruran who takes the prize for a contribution directed to an in-group, in this instance to students of classical Hebrew. The Sanskritists will doubtless take a nirvanistic revenge, but a commentary in nothing more outlandish than late Latin will be appreciated. From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0298 Queries: WP Fonts; Bibliographic Software (2/100) Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 20:39:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 680 (765) re: WP fonts query There is a software package called Publisher's Powerpak, from Atech Software, that does a wonderful job of serving as a 'ghost' printer for Word Perfect. It serves as a printer as far as WP is concerned, and then reformats all characters so as to optimize the signals received by the 'real' printer: laser jet, whatever. Atech's address is 5962 La Place Court, Suite 245, Carlsbad, CA 92008. Their customer support # is (619) 438-2244 (only number I have, I assume they will also accept orders and provide pre-sales information). I have used Powerpak to produce camera ready copy for one journal (with an HP DeskJet+ printer), and am thrilled with the results. It includes full font range (from 6 to 90 or something incredibly large) and reproduces all of the characters in the WP manual with amazing clarity. Frank Dane, Psychology, Mercer University ------------------ [...PS -eds] I forgot to add that the cost is in the $150 range. Frank Dane From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Multilanguage Fonts Date: 19 Jul 90 13:34:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 681 (766) In reply to Terry Butler's request for information about fonts for use with WordPerfect 5.1: I have been using the software product SuperFonts 25/1 for a while and it has a "cartridge" that might be helpful for Terry's colleague. The way this package works is in two steps: first, you "make" the "cartridge" using their software (very simple), then you download the "cartridge" into the HP II laser printer (I use it with my HP II P). Once that's done WordPerfect can access any font that's in the cartridge. When you hit Cntrl-F8 (Font), it gives you all the choices on that cartridge plus any built in ones and any others you have downloaded (until you turn off or reset the printer). SuperFonts 25/1 has all the HP cartridges defined; i.e. if you can buy a cartridge for the printer, it's in the package. I think The "C" Cartridge might work. The request was for 6 pt for footnotes, 10 pt for text, and 14 pt for headings with roman bold and italic. With SuperFonts, you get 12 pt roman, roman bold, and italic for the following symbol sets: USASCII, Roman8, Roman Ext, French, German, U.K., Spanish, Italian, Swe/Fin, and Dan/Nor. You also get 8.5 pt Line Printer. (The above are all Courier.) In addition to the standard Portrait, you get 8.5 pt for Landscape. Maybe not quite as requested, but workable. The price is about $180 US from Metro Software,Inc., 2509 N. Campbell Ave, Ste. 214, Tucson, Arizona 85719, 602/292-0313 or 5A Greys Road, Henley-on- Thames, Oxon RG9 1SB, England, Tel. 0491 579857. I bought mine at a printer store in DC, not at a software place. The only disadvantages that I have seen are that the manual is bad (not unusual) and you can't turn the printer off without losing the cartridges and having to download them again. But it doesn't hurt to leave the printer on, so that's not a problem. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Prolog/Lisp exercises needed Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 15:35:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 682 (767) Does anyone have the programs for the exercises for "Natural Language Processing in Prolog" by Gazdar/Mellish? If so, can you share them with me? I would also be interested in the programs from the Lisp version. I have already written to the authors and was told that the text programs in the book are available from the authors, but not the answers to the programming exercises. I am trying to decide between using Gazdar/Mellish for a course or James Allen's text "Natural Language Understanding" and availability of exercise answers is an important factor in my decision. Any help would be appreciated. From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Canon Date: Thu, 19 Jul 1990 12:43 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 683 (768) I would like to add a few more items to the bibliography I listed on Codex/Scroll, which may also be of interest to those dealing with the Biblical Canon. Menahem Haran, "Scribal Workmanship in Biblical Times", Tarbiz 50 Jubilee Volume (1981), pp. 65-87 [Hebrew with English Abstact] __________, The Size of Books in the Bible and the Division of the Deuteristic Work, Tarbiz 53 (1984), pp. 329-352 [Hebrew with English Abstract] Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem [HPUBM@HUJIVM1] From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Hypertextuality, Memory limits Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 23:15:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 684 (769) Re: Hypertextuality, Nissan Fixed memory Humanists may appreciate (?) Saffire's comment in this Sunday's NYT magazine: "One word, one meaning, is my motto; when you use an alternative form to mean the same thing, you have wasted valuable space on the hard disk of your memory, and you have blocked the development of a different meaning." [Saffire is writing about eschewing "denouncement" in favor of "denunciation".] It seems to me Nissan (onomata) would disagree. Nissan's delightful dissertation on double meaning and neologizing seems to indicate he favors a democratic, living language. His (projected) disagreement with Saffire is twice curious. (1) Nissan is obviously close to Saffire's politics. (2) His understanding of hypertext is decidedly autocratic (as in here is a tool that will let me impose endless layers on my readers). Which brings me to my main point. The additional dimension(s) made possible by hypertext are viewed rather flatly if the social possibilities, [multiple authorship rather than multiple levels], are ignored. True, hypertext allows text to become "Holographic" (multi dimensional). So do parentheses, notes. But the most interesting added dimension is that of authorship. As the first generation of those thinking about hypertextuality it is our responsibility to shape the social construction of these tools. I'd much rather harness this new technology as a liberating one, than use it as glorified, electronic brackets. For example: I completely disagree with Nissan's politics, and most of his interpretations. (I really do). But I'd love to get my hands on his book. If only because it would give me pleasure to add my own neologisms and interpretations. I may retitle the work, by dropping a few letters: Midei Muddi --> Dai Dai. I may add my own interpretation to "hatrifenu" - as derived from "taref". I may even be tempted to rhyme my own lyrics to Volare... or look for some verse in "Alilot Mikki Mahu" that would sound good to that tune. Think about hypertext mostly as a tool that overthrows the tyranny of the author over reader! Hypertext is about DIFFUSING control. (ducking.... ...in expectation of Nissan's response) Sheizaf Rafaeli From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Hypertextuality, Memory limits Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 23:15:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 685 (770) Re: Hypertextuality, Nissan Fixed memory Humanists may appreciate (?) Saffire's comment in this Sunday's NYT magazine: "One word, one meaning, is my motto; when you use an alternative form to mean the same thing, you have wasted valuable space on the hard disk of your memory, and you have blocked the development of a different meaning." [Saffire is writing about eschewing "denouncement" in favor of "denunciation".] It seems to me Nissan (onomata) would disagree. Nissan's delightful dissertation on double meaning and neologizing seems to indicate he favors a democratic, living language. His (projected) disagreement with Saffire is twice curious. (1) Nissan is obviously close to Saffire's politics. (2) His understanding of hypertext is decidedly autocratic (as in here is a tool that will let me impose endless layers on my readers). Which brings me to my main point. The additional dimension(s) made possible by hypertext are viewed rather flatly if the social possibilities, [multiple authorship rather than multiple levels], are ignored. True, hypertext allows text to become "Holographic" (multi dimensional). So do parentheses, notes. But the most interesting added dimension is that of authorship. As the first generation of those thinking about hypertextuality it is our responsibility to shape the social construction of these tools. I'd much rather harness this new technology as a liberating one, than use it as glorified, electronic brackets. For example: I completely disagree with Nissan's politics, and most of his interpretations. (I really do). But I'd love to get my hands on his book. If only because it would give me pleasure to add my own neologisms and interpretations. I may retitle the work, by dropping a few letters: Midei Muddi --> Dai Dai. I may add my own interpretation to "hatrifenu" - as derived from "taref". I may even be tempted to rhyme my own lyrics to Volare... or look for some verse in "Alilot Mikki Mahu" that would sound good to that tune. Think about hypertext mostly as a tool that overthrows the tyranny of the author over reader! Hypertext is about DIFFUSING control. (ducking.... ...in expectation of Nissan's response) Sheizaf Rafaeli From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0289 Memory, Information, and Knowledge (4/110) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 10:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 686 (771) To Sawtelle: As I recall my review of Roszak's book, I thought it superficial and highly tendentious, a kneejerk from the 60's. The level of thought is tawdry and obvious. Take your quotation about information. Thoreau said it better and more interestingly, more politically too, in WALDEN, in the 1840's: I am not quoting him, but rephrasing him: People boast about the new telegraph that will connect Texas to Massachusetts (or Maine). But suppose Massachusetts has nothing to say to Texas? That is more to the point than thinking like Roszak that we cannot think as fast as the machines that transmit our thoughts. Kessler at UCLA From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Hypertextuality, Memory limits Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 23:15:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 687 (772) Re: Hypertextuality, Nissan Fixed memory Humanists may appreciate (?) Saffire's comment in this Sunday's NYT magazine: "One word, one meaning, is my motto; when you use an alternative form to mean the same thing, you have wasted valuable space on the hard disk of your memory, and you have blocked the development of a different meaning." [Saffire is writing about eschewing "denouncement" in favor of "denunciation".] It seems to me Nissan (onomata) would disagree. Nissan's delightful dissertation on double meaning and neologizing seems to indicate he favors a democratic, living language. His (projected) disagreement with Saffire is twice curious. (1) Nissan is obviously close to Saffire's politics. (2) His understanding of hypertext is decidedly autocratic (as in here is a tool that will let me impose endless layers on my readers). Which brings me to my main point. The additional dimension(s) made possible by hypertext are viewed rather flatly if the social possibilities, [multiple authorship rather than multiple levels], are ignored. True, hypertext allows text to become "Holographic" (multi dimensional). So do parentheses, notes. But the most interesting added dimension is that of authorship. As the first generation of those thinking about hypertextuality it is our responsibility to shape the social construction of these tools. I'd much rather harness this new technology as a liberating one, than use it as glorified, electronic brackets. For example: I completely disagree with Nissan's politics, and most of his interpretations. (I really do). But I'd love to get my hands on his book. If only because it would give me pleasure to add my own neologisms and interpretations. I may retitle the work, by dropping a few letters: Midei Muddi --> Dai Dai. I may add my own interpretation to "hatrifenu" - as derived from "taref". I may even be tempted to rhyme my own lyrics to Volare... or look for some verse in "Alilot Mikki Mahu" that would sound good to that tune. Think about hypertext mostly as a tool that overthrows the tyranny of the author over reader! Hypertext is about DIFFUSING control. (ducking.... ...in expectation of Nissan's response) Sheizaf Rafaeli From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0289 Memory, Information, and Knowledge (4/110) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 10:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 688 (773) To Sawtelle: As I recall my review of Roszak's book, I thought it superficial and highly tendentious, a kneejerk from the 60's. The level of thought is tawdry and obvious. Take your quotation about information. Thoreau said it better and more interestingly, more politically too, in WALDEN, in the 1840's: I am not quoting him, but rephrasing him: People boast about the new telegraph that will connect Texas to Massachusetts (or Maine). But suppose Massachusetts has nothing to say to Texas? That is more to the point than thinking like Roszak that we cannot think as fast as the machines that transmit our thoughts. Kessler at UCLA From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0269 Indexing Software; Bibliographic Software (3/46) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 10:42:48 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 689 (774) Kevin Roddy's book <emp>UNIX: NROFF/TROFF</emp> (Holt Rinehart Winston, 1986) is a user-friendly introduction to UNIX text formatting which includes a chapter on how to create indices. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Subject: Re: 4.0301 Responses: WordPerfect Fonts (2/65) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 20:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 690 (775) Further to Frank Dane's remarks about Publisher's Powerpak from Atech Software: (1) It is easy to use, and provides a wide variety of fonts and point sizes; (2) Atech's 800 number is 1-800-748-5657, and they aree happy to supply a free demo disk; (3) They have lowered the price of the software to $79.95 (with optional add-on typefaces @ $29.95). I've tried three printer enhancements for WordPerfect (the other two werewere Fontmax and Lines, Boxes, etc.), and Publisher's Powerpak is the only one that works on my seven-year-old XT-clone (may it live and be well). Alan Cooper xD Hebrew Union College From: Randy Donaldson <DONALDSON@LOYVAX> Subject: Fonts for WP 5.1 Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 11:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 691 (776) Terry Butler asks about fonts for WordPerfect 5.1. As I read the request, the Bitstream SoftFonts available (these days for an extra fee) from Word Perfect would fit the bill. I'm finishing up a manuscript with at least four Western European languages and have had no problems. You can create fonts in any size from 1 point to 144 points (although I'm told that Word Perfect has so trouble handling point sizes above 30), including decimal values. Each font includes the Roman-8 character set, which I have found entirely adaquate for non-English language characters (albeit my needs are limited to Western European languages and basically a Roman alphabet). The basic kit includes the Swiss, Dutch, and Charter type- faces (Swiss is Bitstream's Helvetic, Dutch its Times Roman). Swiss and Dutch can be created in Roman, Italic, Bold Roman, and Bold Italic and a combination such as that mentioned (6 pt., 10 pt., and 14 pt.) would easily fit into the 356 K basic memory of a Series II. With additional memory any combination is possible. One aside: WordPerfect will bold Roman and Italic character even if there's not enough room in memory to download specific bold fonts. Add kerning and leading and you have very presentable camera-ready copy--even if at 300 dpi, but that's another issue. Randy Donaldson (DONALDSON@LOYVAX) From: Jeffrey Perry <JEFF@PUCC> Subject: Job Announcement Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 11:43:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 692 (777) Humanities Applications Individual with advanced graduate training in literature, languages, fine arts or history and with basic computing skills on both mainframe and microcomputer for position in Research Services. Familiarity with such packages as SCRIPT and SPIRES under VM/CMS, relevant application programs under UNIX, word processors such as Word, WordPerfect or Nota Bene on the IBM/PC or Apple Macintosh would all be helpful. Programming experience, familiarity with some foreign language(s), and an understanding of the concepts of information retrieval and DBMS are all desirable. The most important qualification is an ability to work well with colleagues and computer users with widely differing backgrounds. The successful candidate will provide computer support for faculty, staff and students in humanities research and instruction; install and support software packages; write special purpose software in languages such as C, and assist users in locating and using machine- readable and multimedia resources and programs for analysis. Activities must be completed and documented in a timely fashion. This appointment is to the Professional Technical staff. Qualified candidates should forward their resumes to: Bruce Finnie Computing and Information Technology Princeton University 87 Prospect Street Princeton, NJ 08544 FAX: 609-258-3943 BITNET: FINNIE@PUCC An Equal Employment Affirmative Action Employer From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Carcinogenic monitors Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 13:38:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 693 (778) A number of friends and colleagues have approached me lately to warn me of impending death from my close association with computer monitors. Apparently, the Apple Color 12" monitor is especially bad in this regard -- I take it that we're discovering that low-level radiation from such monitors is carcinogenic? In all seriousness, if anyone has or can refer me to CONCRETE information on recent studies, I would be grateful. Especially as I am facing an additional installation of four double-page monitors on a Mac network, I need to know if I am inadvertently contributing to my students' health risks. Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College Springfield, MO 65802 417 865-8731 From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Heinz Pagels on Information versus Knowledge Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 14:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 694 (779) The following is extracted from a letter to the editor by Heinz R. Pagels that appeared in The New York Times, on Friday, February 19, 1988, Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 35, Column 2, that was entitled: The Computer as Scapegoat: Some intellectual prophets have declared the end of the age of knowledge and the beginning of the age of information. Information tends to drive out knowledge. Information is just signs and numbers, while knowledge involves their meaning. What we want is knowledge, but what we get is information. It is a sign of the times that many people cannot tell the difference between information and knowledge, not to mention wisdom, which even knowledge tends to drive out. It is the better part of wisdom today to make sure that people, not computers, stand behind decisions. I believe that this passage (which is downloaded from the NEXIS database) has some relevance to the recent discussion about filling one's brain up with information. Peter D. Junger--CWRU Law School--Cleveland, Ohio From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0280 Query on Sherlock Holmes; Quote Reference Book (2/24) Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 11:01:59 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 695 (780) A Baker Street Irregular I'm not, but in one of the early stories ("A Study in Scarlet"?), Watson takes stock of Holmes's knowledge, which is vast in all matters pertaining to crime and abysmal in much else. He did not even know whether the earth revolved around the sun or vice versa, since it was a matter or profound indifference to him and affected his work not at all. When taken to task, Holmes compared the mind to a lumber room (attic), which could be well ordered with all the relevant information one might need, or a jumble of unrelated and useless information. Unfortunately, in later stories Conon Doyle muddied the picture somewhat by showing Holmes engaged in studies on black letter imprints. This also brings to mind --in re the question of what is "information"-- Holmes's distinction between seeing and observing. He asks Watson how many times he has seen the steps leading up to 221B Baker Street, to which Watson replies that he has seen them some hundreds of times. Then Holmes's asks him how many there are, a question which Watson cannot answer but that Holmes, of course, can. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley P.S. Coming back to this a week after the initial query, I suspect that others will have already answered, and probably more accurately. From: DAVE KERBY <DAVEKERB@USMCP6> Subject: HOLMES' MEMORY AND MARK TWAIN Date: 19 JUL 90 17:47:46 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 696 (781) The recent discussion about Sherlock Holmes' memory brings up a comparison with Mark Twain. Holmes complained that learning new things could be a bad idea, because it might crowd out old memories. Mark Twain notes that learning new things could be a bad idea, because it might not crowd out old memories. (Forgive me if someone else has noted the parallel. I have been absent from HUMANIST for most of the summer.) The passage occurs in _Life on the Mississippi_. In Chapter 13, Twain speaks of a pilot whose memory was amazing. After seeing each part of the river once in the day and once at night, his memory was so nearly complete that he took out a daylight license. After only a few trips, he obtained a full license. The man forgot very little. Wrote Twain: "Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrences are of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting circumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an insufferable bore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led aside." -- Dave Kerby University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, Mississippi <DAVEKERB@USMCP6.BITNET> From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0286 Mary Dee Harris on Memory (5/139)] Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 12:06:17 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 697 (782) We appear to have at least two different kinds of memory; one short-term and one permanent. A colleague of mine who suffered from a horrendous attack of meningitis as a child was left bereft of the former. She was totally incapable of looking at a phone number, turning to the phone and dialling it; she had consciously to `learn' the number. Lucky for her that Conan Doyle was wrong! Of course, the more permanent long-term memory gets lost or confused, and there is that strange phenomenon of `knowing that I know x' without being able to recall it, and perhaps the even stranger one of leucotomised patients who `know' one set of data if they read a question and a totally different set if the question is received aurally. Anyone an expert on memories out there? Douglas de Lacey. From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: The Ubiquity of Borges Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 17:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 307 (783) In my original inquiry wondering where in Borges's writings there appears the passage about the various types of animals that Feinman quotes Foucault as quoting from Borges, I quoted the passage as it appears in Feinman, The Jurisprudence of Classification, 41 Stan. L. Rev. 661, 662 (1989). Yesterday, after the members of HUMANIST had informed me that an English version of the passage appears in the essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" at pages 141-43 of E.R. Monegal and A. Reid, Borges: A Reader (New York: Dutton, 1981), I picked up a copy of that collection. The translation there, by Ruth L.C. Simms, varies slightly from the version that I quoted. That slight variation strikes me as a great improvement and so I take the liberty of now giving Simms's English version, which has the advantage of not having been filtered through the French of M. Foucault, that appears in Monegal and Reid at page 142. But first let me remind you of the context in which the passage appears, since the essay reminds me vividly of a recent scholarly discussion in HUMANIST (a discussion that I appreciated, but could hardly understand). Borges is discussing Wilkins' effort to generate a general language "that would organize and contain all human thought." Wilkins divided the universe into forty categories or classes, which were then subdivisible into differences, subdivisible in turn into species. To each class he assigned a monosyllable of two letters; to each difference, a consonant; to each species, a vowel. For example _de_ means element; _deb_, the first of the elements, fire; _deba_, a portion of the element of fire, a flame. In a similar language invented by Letellier (1850) _a_ means animal; _ab_, mammalian; _abi_, herbivorous; _abiv_, equine; _abo_, carnivorous; _aboj_, feline; _aboje_, cat; etc. In the language of Bonifacio Sotos Ochando (1845) _imbaba_ means building; _imaca_, brothel; _imafe_, hospital; _imafo_, pesthouse; _imari_, house; _imaru_ country estate; _imede_, pillar; _imedo_, post; _imego_, floor; _imela_, ceiling; _imogo_, window; _bire_, bookbinder, _birer_, to bind books. . . . _Idem_ at 141-42. Borges is not totally satisfied with Wilkins' universal language, and that is where the passage that originally caught my attention appears: These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled _Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge_. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into: (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance. _Idem_ at 142. But what is interesting is the way that Borges seems to have prefigured the entire content of this HUMANIST list. Thus in discussing the notation used by Wilkins, Borges had already noted (at page 141) that "Descartes had already noted in a letter dated November 1629 that by using the decimal system of numeration we could learn in a single day to name all quantities to infinity, and to write them in a new language, the language of numbers." And then he adds, in a footnote, in what strikes me as the perfect marriage of humanism and computer bits: Theoretically, the number of systems of numeration is unlimited. The most complex (for the use of divinities and angels) would record an infinite number of symbols, one for each whole number; the simplest requires only two. Zero is written 0, one 1, two 10, three 11, four 100, five 101, six 110, seven 111, eight 1000. . . . It is the invention of Leibniz, who was apparently stimulated by the enigmatic hexagrams of the Yi tsing. And this, in turn, should, of course, lead us--at least those of us who have read Quine's variation on the theme in his "Quiddities"--to Borges' "The Total Library" (which appears in Monegal and Reid at pages 94-96) where it is proposed that, by the use of twenty-five symbols (twenty-two letters, the space, the period, the comma), left to chance recombination and repetition, one could write "everything it is possible to express: in all languages." But, of course, we know--and surely Borges already knew--that only the two binary symbols of Leibniz are needed to express that universal library, though whether the coding should be ASCII or EBCDIC is a matter perhaps best left unresolved. (It was Quine who pointed out--or so it must appear in one of the books in the Total Library--who pointed out that one would need only two books, one containing just the symbol `1', the other just the symbol `0', plus some simple rules for stringing them together, to represent all the information contained in that library.) Now, if this is true, then I have in my head--like Funes the Memorious (who appears in "Fragment on Joyce" in Monegal and Reid at pages 134-36), but more so--the contents (or, at least, the means of generating the contents) of every book that could ever be written. And if that is so, then this message has, sub species aeternitas, been written by Borges, or by me, or by Pierre Menard, and need not be repeated here. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University--Law School From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0299 Holmes; Borges and Foucault; ...and Kuhn; Zen (4/103) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 16:14 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 698 (784) Yes indeed, EMPTY MIRROR. How easily that title expunges itself, by mere suggestion! And yes, that one hand clapping certainly does call the dithering monkey minds of the assembled little monks back to reality, that sudden sharp crack of the palm on the table! That, that is reality itself. What a nice thing is e-mail when so many can help refresh the one. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0299 Holmes; Borges and Foucault; ...and Kuhn; Zen (4/103) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 16:17 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 699 (785) Afterthought to Junger: in Saul Bellow's HENDERSON THE RAIN KING, Henderson, who cannot grasp his own monkey mind, let alone reality, gets his first (zen) glimpse when a log of firewood he is splitting jumps up from the ax and hits him squarely in the forehead (where his 3rd eye would be, if it were awakened), and the shock and the light are his first intimation. We need shocks. And that is the sound of the one hand clapping too. Only repeated shocks, which are his fate in the novel serve cumulatively to bring him from the slumber that has sealed his spirit, as he says over and over to himself. Kessler again From: Jamie Hubbard <JHUBBARD@WISCMACC> Subject: Machine-Readable Buddhist Texts Date: Sun, 22 Jul 90 11:22 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 309 (786) CONNECTIONS by Jamie Hubbard (jhubbard@smith.bitnet) (from the AAR Buddhism Section Newletter, 6/90) The second meeting of the ad hoc group of scholars interested in the use of computers in Buddhist Studies (known as WCCABS, the Working Committee on Computer Applications in Buddhist Studies, formed under the American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in 1988) met at the Hsi Lai Temple last November. We updated each other on the various projects underway in our field, with special attention to the Buddhist Canon input projects underway in several parts of the world. I briefly reported on those projects at the AAR/Buddhism Section Business Meeting, and will simply repeat here that information, adding several new developments. TIBETAN The Asian Classics Input Project One of the more exciting moments this year was the recent receipt of a number of disks from the Asian Classics Input Project containing "the ten most often requested titles from the Kangyur and Tengyur collections" including the _Abhisamayalamkara_, _Madhyamakavatara_, Abhidharmakosa_, Pramanavarttika_, _Vinayasutra_, _Mulaprajna_, _Uttaratantra_, Catalog to the Kangyur (Derge edition), Catalog to the Tengyur (Derge edition), Catalog to the Kangyur (Lhasa edition), and the United States Library of Congress Tibetan-language Holdings. Under the Project Director, Michael Roach, these texts were input at Sera Mey Tibetan Monastic University and are distributed in standard ASCII format. The _enlightenedï policy of distribution (_so long as funding allows the data created should be offered to the international community without charge, for the betterment of mankindï) should serve as a light to all of us as we enter the age of information processing in the field of Buddhist Studies. For more information contact The Asian Classics Input Project, Washington Area Office, 11911 Marmary Road, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, 20878-1839, phone (301)948-5569. PALI The Mahidol Edition of the Pali Canon Many of you know that the entire Thai version of the Pali canon was input under the supervision of Dr. Supachai Tangwongsan at Mahidol University, and is available today with software for either Thai or Roman character display, search, and printing of any portion of the canon. This database comprises some 25 million characters, and together with indices occupies the better part of an 80 megabyte drive. Unfortunately, the high cost and unwieldy distribution of the database prevented it from becoming widely available. Fortunately, Lew Lancaster, just back from a visit to Mahidol University, reports that they are interested in making the data available on a CD-ROM, a project that should be relatively easy to accomplish. This summer ought to see the beginning of the pre-mastering stage for this important contribution. The Pali Text Society Edition Two years ago the American Institute of Buddhist Studies secured permission from the Pali Text Society to input and publish electronic versions of their editions of the Pali texts (including commentaries and translations), easily the standard editions in use today. A proposal for funding this project is still pending with the NEH, but in the meantime input has begun at the Dhammakaya Foundation in Bangkok, and several disks have already been received. Lew Lancaster checked their work and reports a high accuracy rate, attained through a double-input of the text followed by semi-automatic and manual verification. It is estimated that the sutta portion will be completed by July, and so work on the pre- mastering of this data set should also be well underway by the time of our conference in November. CHINESE The input of the Chinese canon is perhaps the most daunting of all canon input projects. Several initiatives are underway, including the Fo Kuang Shan sponsored input project to input the Ch'i sha edition that I reported on at our Anaheim meeting. Lew (he was a busy traveler this spring) also made contact with the Korean Lay Buddhist Association, which has pledged their support for the input of the Koryo canon. I have also heard that Professor Ejima, at Tokyo University, has made plans to input the Taisho canon, though I have not heard more on that subject. The Buddhist Text Archive With all of the financial, technical, scholarly, and other difficulties of these large text archive projects it is sometimes easy to lose sight of what is rapidly developing into the single largest database of machine- readable texts in our fieldŻ all of the research (commentaries), editions, and translations input by individual scholars throughout the world, either first entered into a computer of one sort or another or later printed from a computerized typesetter. The number of English translations and studies produced in the last decade alone would be a substantial database to have available for instant access, not to mention the Japanese, French, German, and other materials. Although the preservation and use of these materials involves significant problems, the fact remains that machine-readable texts and studies are being created every day in great numbers, and something needs to be done to record this information and begin the process of making it available. The Buddhist Text Archive, sponsored by the American Institute for Buddhist Studies, originally announced in this Newsletter (Issue #10) and endorsed by WCCABS at their last meeting, hopes to provide this kind of information-sharing. The Buddhist Text Archive, like other such archives (Oxford, Rutgers-Princeton, the Sanskrit Text Archive, etc.), seeks to collect and disseminate information regarding machine-readable texts, in our case, of interest to the field of Buddhist Studies. Initially the bare-bones information about the text (title, creator, original edition, availability, contents, format, etc.) would be cataloged. It is important to note that the simple existence of a machine-readable version of a text does not mean it is available; hence, your manuscript (your encoded text file) that was just published commercially could still be listed in the archive, even though no distribution was foreseen. The actual collection and distribution of these texts is another step, albeit a distant prospect at this stage. It is intended that this information will be readily accessible via IndraNet, though at this writing IndraNet is still in a state of transition (Bruce Burrill, who donated the original equipment and a great deal of time as the original sysop, turned the system over to the American Institute of Buddhist Studies last autumn). I will keep you posted when IndraNet comes back on-line; in the meanwhile, just think about a few CD- ROMs, with all of the Chinese, Tibetan, Pali, and Sanskrit texts at your fingertips, as well as full text versions of all of the modern research published within the last few decades . . . It is hard not to become slightly giddy at the prospect, but it does look as though we are finally getting closer to the time when such is not just the stuff of dreams (or envy of our colleagues in Classics or Western religious studies) but everyday reality. From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0305 N&Q: Job Announcement; Monitor Hazards Date: 20 Jul 90 21:30:29 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 700 (787) MacWorld, July 1990 issue has a cover story on health hazards from monitors. It is surprisingly comprehensive and critical of the computer industry. Low frequency electrical and magnetic fields have been associated with brain chemistry changes and diminished T-cell production (important in immune response) in experimental animals. Some epidemiological studies have correlated video display usage with elevated risks of cancer or miscarriage; others have apprently failed to find such effects. The industry has sytematically denied any health risks. The MacWorld piece gives measured magnetic field fluxes at several distances in different directions from 10 different monitors. There are also some important caveats about measurements, such as industry decalrations of safety based on measurements of X-ray emissions (negligible) rather than VLF (very los frequency) and ELF (extremely low frequency) electromagnetic radiation. The article cites journal literature, but often with incomplete bibliographical information. From: Jim Cerny <J_CERNY@UNHH> Subject: monitor hazards Date: Sat, 21 Jul 90 10:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 701 (788) -------------------------------------------------------------------- from CCNEWS Newsletter (CCNEWS@BITNIC), v. 3, n. 21, June 22, 1990: Video Terminals as a Health Issue "I imagine most subscribers have some awareness of the Paul Brodeur's recent book on the potential, but seemingly understudied, electric and magnetic field hazards with which we surround ourselves. Things like video terminals, electric blankets, etc. "For our computer newsletter (ON-LINE), we have always tried to address computing health issues and Brodeur's reporting is something that we, as editors, have tried to follow closely and call to the attention of our readers. Included here is a list of some of the more important and accessible materials we have found. ... [eds.] "There seem to be two main voices emerging here. Brodeur represents one position, which I would colloquially put as: "Hey folks, it looks like we have a real problem here, why aren't people paying more attention." The other position is represented by M. Granger Morgan and associates at Carnegie Mellon University. Morgan heads the Department of Engineering and Public Policy there and I'd colloquially summarize his position as: "We who do research in this field are aware of the risks and they are not anything to get alarmed about -- and besides there are lots of problems with Brodeur's methodology." "For the Brodeur position see: * Brodeur, Paul, 1989, "Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempt to Cover Up Their Threat to Your Health, Simon and Schuster. [Originally published in three installments in The New Yorker in June 1989.] * Brodeur, Paul, 1990, "The Magnetic-Field Menace," MacWorld, July 1990, pp. 136-145. [Includes some specific tests done on Macintosh monitors.] "For the Morgan position see: * Morgan, M.G., 1990, review of Paul Brodeur's book, Scientific American, v. 262, n. 4, April 1990, pp. 118-123. * Morgan, M.G., 1989, "Electric and Magnetic Fields from 60 Hertz Electric Power; What Do We Know about Possible Health Risks?," 45 pp. [Done in question and answer format. Includes a subset of the material in his longer study, below.] * Nair, I., et al., 1989, "Biological Effects of Power Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields," Background Paper, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. 103 pp. OTA-BP-E-53. GPO stock no. 052-003-01152-2. Government documents cataloging no. "Y 3.T 22/2:2 B 52/16". [This is particularly useful for the very extensive bibliography, which runs to about 13 pages.] "Presenting this as a Brodeur/Morgan dichotomy of views, reminds me, BTW, of this old joke: All people can be divided into two categories -- those who believe everything can be divided into two categories and those who don't! -- Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, University of New Hampshire. j_cerny@unhh From: Donald MacRae <grfmacrae@brocku.ca> Subject: monitors Date: 21 Jul 90 13:44 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 702 (789) There was an article in MacUSER in February 1990, pp. 147-151, entitled: "Unsafe At Any Frequency?" It might have some useful information in it for him, although I am not sure how "concrete" i.e scientific it really is. The bottom line seems to be "...the best advice we can give is to take reasonable measures to control your exposure." Perhaps that suggests the use of one of the filters for the monitor which will cut down the radiation substantially. These are not cheap, however. If memory serves me right, about $200.00 plus. th e only other alternative seems to be to sit at least a meter from the screen, but at that point, some of us may have trouble reading the dots on the screen!! Don MacRae Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada. From: Diana Meriz <MERIZ@pittvms> Subject: Computer Monitors Date: Sat, 21 Jul 90 15:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 703 (790) Charles Ess' recent query regarding low-level radiation from computer monitors brings to mind a rather sobering article on the subject that appeared in the July (1990) issue of MACWORLD. In this report, at least, Apple's own high-resolution RGB monitor does not at all fare well for close-distance viewing, but then neither does any of the other monitors reviewed. One's chances regarding low-level radiation are improved if the monitor is viewed from at least 28 inches' distance (a rather tricky thing to accomplish with a Mac Plus or SE!). Diana Meriz <meriz@pittvms> From: Robert Dale <rda@cogsci.edinburgh.ac.uk> Subject: Carcinogenic Monitors Date: Sun, 22 Jul 90 11:54:26 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 704 (791) See the US edition of MacWorld, July 1990; they have a lengthy feature on this topic, with some references (one of the articles in there is by Paul Brodeur, who wrote a recent book on electromagnetic emissions: "Currents of Death", Simon and Schuster 1989---I haven't seen this book, does anyone have any comments on it?). Seems there's controversy over the evidence, but if those who suggest that monitors are indeed a health hazard are right, it looks like there's little you can do other than complain to the manufacturers until changes happen. Some monitors are worse than others, but all CRT devices are bad, seems to be the story. One way out is the use of LCD displays. This means everyone who has a Mac has to replace it with a Mac portable :-). Things are a little easier on the IBM-alike market -- I think there are a few vendors of LCD displays there. See the latest Whole Earth Review for a mention of one. If you have a large bit-mapped display workstation screen, I think you may have to wait a while for an alternative to appear. R -------- Robert Dale Phone: +44 31 667 1011 x6487 | University of Edinburgh UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!cogsci!rda | Human Communication Research ARPA: rda%cogsci.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | Centre, 2 Buccleuch Place JANET: rda@uk.ac.ed.cogsci | Edinburgh EH8 9LW Scotland From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: hypersatire Date: Sun, 22 Jul 90 20:30:12-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 311 (792) In this note, I wish to answer Alan Corre's interesting note. His description of memorizing is beautiful. [deleted quotation] I dared to be that allusive, for the very reason I adopted hypertextuality. It is like a game going on between the author at layer N, the reader at layer N, and then the author's comment at layer N+1. This way, Alan's remark: [deleted quotation] is just one legitimate, and sought-for (by the author), way to read the text. (By the way, Zeembezoom meant to be obscure, for the purposes of the passage.) On the other hand, the average secular youngster in Israel would certainly not think about a Penthateuchal hapax like "zamzummim", and would rather think of the modern verb "zimzem", that is, "to buzz", whereas a Moselm Israeli would perhaps think of the Zemzem Well in Mecca. As to the insertion of "b", I would expect it from an Italian speaker: "Israele" (for "Israel") is often "Isdraele" as pronounced in Italy. And the Biblical arch-hunter Nimrod had a "b" inserted (not only in Italian); in Italian it became Nembrotte. According to the reader's background, he or she would analyze neologisms differently. For the same reason (unless you read the explanatory note) you would not expect "Shifregaz" to be a proper name for a horse, unless you know about the Midrash (legendary exegesis) that states this was the name of the horse mounted first by Ahasuerus and then by Mordecai (the Book of Esther does not provide us with the name of the horse). An Israeli would rather think of a gas company (a competitor of AmIsra-Gaz? "shifra" could convey an agreeable sense; it is an existing term derived from the same root of the verb Alan used above: "leshaper"). Instead, an Italian confronted with the word "Shifregaz" would rather consider it a dialectal-like form of "ci fregasse", a conjunctive mood form of a vulgar verb: the meaning would be: "[that] he would cheat us", or, if followed by the direct object, "[that] he would steal [the object] from us". According to sectors of expected readership, one could try to standardize expectations, but as an exact task, it would be hopeless. My hypertextual note is a reply to the reader's expectations, but they would most often differ. Indeed, one thing is analysis to cope with unknown lexicon, and another one is knowing the conventions about an existing term. Layer N proposes the reader to analyze, whereas layer N+1 proposes the convention. [deleted quotation] This is a 4-literal verb devised according to an idiomatic compound that Alan is quoting by the very acto of neologizing, and that semantically, composes "quickly" + "snatch". Here is another example: in the Haggadah read on the evening of Passover, there is a Jewish Aramaic passage (which in baghdad was repeated in translation, by alternating the Jewish Aramaic text and the Judeo-Arabic translation three times), that includes: "Ha-shata hakha" ("This year [we are] here": "Hassana nihna hon" in Judeo-Arabic, but printed version are more literary.) Out of this idiomatic expression, verb "shattakh" was formed, in the Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic: it means to celebrate Passover evening rite. [deleted quotation] OK. My English translation was inaccurate. Actually, the idea of portion (that in a sense, is a due portion: hence the connection with law) is conveyed by "lehem huqqenu". I think I was thinking also of the Judeo-Arabic sentence "yit`i:nu: haqqu:", that is, "he'll give him his due [portion]". In yesterday's (July 21) Pentateuchal portion, Rashi's comment states that Balaam got his due (he was killed): "we-lo qippehuhu" -- "and they did not withhold his due" -- which incidentally happens to be coincident with another sense of the verb that here is negated: "qippehuhu" means also (in the same stratum of Hebrew) "they did away with him". Thus, if, instead, "qippehuhu" would have held as in the first sense, Balaam would NOT have been killed, as his "due" would have been withheld, and therefore "we-lo qippehuhu" would have been true as in the second sense: "they did not make away with him". This I write to combine Alan's remarks of above, about ambiguity (as in Zeembezoom), with the discussion about "huqqenu" and the due portion, or the lot. [deleted quotation] OK. This is the very reason Masie accepted the form "shedra", and Tscernichowsky did not modify this. However, whereas Masie as a data gatherer was (at least emotionally) rather in a *descriptive* philology mood, his dictionary had a *prescriptive* role: he was Ben-Yehudah successor as the president of the Committee (later Academy) of the Hebrew Language. That institution increasingly emphasized standard forms, from the morphological viewpoint. This is why the term in its form "shidra" prevailed. This narrowing of formation possibilities (according of an ideal of "the smaller, the purer": you find it also among Arabic institutional neologizers) I found worthy of ironizing about. [deleted quotation] OK. I accept the prize. I enjoy contributions to Humanist that are not in my own field, as they allow me to get a taste of things I am not doing. Of course, if I am not interest, I just avoid going on reading. However, my specifical contribution was meant to address several topics combined in "Midde' Muddi'": 1) hypertext; 2) satire (as a genre, and as content); 3) wild neologizing (in literature, you find it, e.g., in Carlo Emilio Gadda, who wrote in an Italian-based linguistic pastiche); 4) Hebrew. In a sense, four different in-groups are addressed, and you prized me just for point four, dear Alan... Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus.bitnet From: Rudolf WYTEK <Z00WYR01@AWIUNI11> Subject: Re: 4.0307 Borges and Foucault Date: Mon, 23 Jul 90 16:58:42 MEZ X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 705 (793) Many thanks for your beautiful and most humane reply, but let me add one afterthought: I, as the universal librarian of this universal library, would refuse to accept data in ASCII or EBCDIC introducing again man-made conventions ... why not use GOEDEL numbers as representation of all possible information? rwy, Univ. of Vienna. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0307 Borges and Foucault Date: Sat, 21 Jul 90 11:09 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 706 (794) What has always struck me as the difficulty with the abstrusities of Leibniz, Descartes, and their parodists, especially the witty parodist, Borges, is that to speak of generating the infinite numerations implicit in the concept is to assume, by the impossible leap forward of the mathematical imagination, that what possibility is present already present in the abstract. But, to paraphrase and alter TSEliot, What might[be]remains a perpetual possibility only the world of abstract speculation. ONLY! Borges himself cancels logic out when he has his DON QUIXOTE being written again, letter by letter, as if for the first time, since to say it again as it was said, is superhuman, or metahuman, perhaps? That is, the element, or factor, or whatever the devil it is, of TIME is always amited from the calculator, and time means novelty, time means it has to happen, to come to happen, whatever we mean by futurity. It happens, and has to be integr ated through the present into the past. The history of the atom is also a HISTORY. Viz., the search for the life, or is it halflife, of the proton. The universe can be described only in mathematics; but if it is not static, if it is expanding, then it is still coming into being(ness), always. We do not yet know the history of the first second of the cosmos that we are cognizant of. It is still a matter of speculation (that word!), or hypothesis, and easier word. Before we allow ourselves to be swept in the enthusiasm, the sense of the power of KNOWING, suggested by the being able to say 0, 01, and say everything, we must realize that we cannot say or say meaningfully, our own birth, our own death, o ur own next moment, even before it is known that the next thing I will type will be a [.] (and perforce, a naming of my name, Kessler at UCLA). From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Quotation source sought Date: Sat, 21 Jul 90 16:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 707 (795) An acquaintance seeks the source of this quotation: When I asked Mr. Church if he was himself the architect, he replied, ``Yes, I can say, as the good woman did about her mock turtle soup, `I made it out of my own head.' '' John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Address Request Date: 21 Jul 90 16:02:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 708 (796) I am seeking an address (email or snail) or phone number for Christine Brooke-Rose. To the best of my knowledge she teaches at the University of Paris. I thought I had her home address (in Paris) but my letter was returned "address unknown." Any assistance would be much appreciated. George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: HOKE ROBINSON <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1> Subject: Information vs. Knowledge Date: Sat, 21 Jul 90 14:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 709 (797) Frank Dane's question about the difference between information and knowledge reminds me of an exchange I had with a tutor for student athletes. She had called me about a logic student of mine who would be missing a number of classes because of an athletic road trip, and wanted to know another way (aside from attending class) the student could "get the information," using that phrase a number of times. The presupposition was that the class fed information to the student, which information the student could also get elsewhere, e.g. by reading a book (!). I finally managed to convince her that logic was more than information, but instead was rather like tennis: you need information, but you need to develop a skill, too, one that takes practice. Very good students (which the one in question was not) could get the "knowledge" or "know-how," the skill, from the book together with some practice on their own, but most students needed the instructor, as does a tennis player. Information, I think, has a purely passive, receptive connotation which knowledge does not (necessarily) have. You may inform students that it was Descartes who said, "Cogito, ergo sum," but I don't think they can be said to "know" it until they know something about Descartes and the background of his system. Understanding requires still more activity. See the debates on "Erklaeren vs. Verstehen." From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown University Academic Subject: Holmes Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 12:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 710 (798) In keeping with the topic of Sherlock Holmes, here is a quote that most Sherlock Holmes fans should remember: "It had always been a maxim of Holmes's that whenever the possible had been eliminated, the remainder - however improbable - was the truth." Dr. Watson (_The_Seven_Percent_Solution_. New York: Ballantine Books. [1974] page 18). Jim Wilderotter Wilder@Guvax From: "W.Watson" <ERCN94@emas-a.edinburgh.ac.uk> Subject: Winged Paraclete Books Date: 23 Jul 90 15:30:36 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 711 (799) Dr Zinn, With Joy today, I am able to say, Seven Books flew in last Wednesday. Seven books have arrived By the Air-mail way Therefore now it is time to pay. Thirty-Five Ninety-Two won't break the bank, And Grover Zinn we have much to thank . . . Twenty Pounds and Tuppence, in British cash, In sending to you, we'll cut a dash . . . All we would like you to us to say, Is the name of your Banker, down Oxford way . . . And when that is done, we will also insist, That our friends all be glad, upon Humanist. Or - more prosaically - this records the happy conclusion of the query I initiated back in February, about Fr Chrysogonus Waddell's books on the Hymns from the Paraclete; so, thanks again to those who helped at that time. Bill Watson. From: Ruth Glynn <RGLYNN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Disc vs. disk Date: Mon, 23 JUL 90 14:01:10 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 712 (800) The rule of thumb Adam Engst defined re disc and disk is not correct. The difference between the two respected in the computer industry and by most publishers is that 'disc' refers to all optical discs, whereas 'disk' refers to magnetic disks. Prior to the emergence of optical media, in the UK at least the preferred form was 'disc' for your floppy and hard disks, with 'disk' being considered an Americanism. There is no good reason for there to be a distinction, but since one has arisen, all OUP's electronic publications now respect the 'disc'/'disk' definitions as above. Ruth Glynn Oxford Electronic Publishing, OUP From: Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK> Subject: Jewish Inscriptions Project Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 17:16:48 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 316 (801) Members of HUMANIST may be interested in the following details, and I would certainly be interested in any reactins they may have. Regards, Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@PHX.CAM.AC.UK> The Jewish Inscriptions Project at the University of Cambridge (JIP) The Faculty of Divinity St John's Street, Cambridge CB2 1TW. Tel: +44-223-332580 Contact: Dr DR de Lacey Tel: +44-223-335019 fax: +44-223-464230 e-mail: DEL2@UK.AC.CAM.PHX / DEL2@PHX.CAM.AC.UK The Jewish Inscriptions Project (JIP) at Cambridge has as its goal the collection of all epigraphic material related to Jews and Judaism in the Graeco-Roman world (roughly, Alexander the Great to Gregory the Great) into a single database as a tool for scholarly research. It is currently funded by the British Academy. Planned publications include index, concordance and corpus materials for selected regions. A longer-term goal is the production of an electronic format of the database with a package which will allow scholars to define their own analyses of the material. Individual members of the Project are also working on prosopographical and historical studies aided by the database. Languages involved include Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin. Texts were input by hand, and we also express gratitude to Dr J Mansfield of Cornell who made some of his texts available to us. At present we are concentrating on a hard-copy publication of the materials from Egypt and Cyrenaica, and inputting material for the next phase (Italy excluding Rome). The personnel involved in the project are as follows: Dr GI Davies;Dr W Horbury; Miss JM Reynolds (Directors); Prof JA Emerton; Dr DM Lewis; Dr NRM de Lange; Dr T Rajak (Senior Advisers); Dr DR de Lacey (Senior Research Associate); Dr DE Noy (Research Assistant). Currently the database is entered in MUSCATEL format. This allows conversion to a wide range of other formats as necessary, either hard-copy using an in-house text processor developed by Dr de Lacey or other electronic formats such as COCOA. A program is available to format the text for the Ibycus Scholarly Computer, and it could probably also be flagged for other multilingual textprocessors such as NotaBene. From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: Bad news re Texas curriculum Date: Monday, 23 July 1990 5:03pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 317 (802) Dear friends, I'm writing to ask for your help. As you may recall, back in May I sent a letter to MBU-L outlining an exciting new direction for the required first-semester writing course at the University of Texas at Austin. The course has been highly controversial, and its opponents have, temporarily at least, won the day. What follows is the text of a letter that has just been sent to the editor of the campus newspaper, _The Daily Texan_: 23 July 1990 To the Editor: In April 1990, the Lower Division English Policy Committee authorized, by a vote of 4-2, the development of a new syllabus for E 306, Rhetoric and Composition. The new syllabus was to focus on writing responsible arguments about the complex topic of difference. At that time, several members of the Lower Division English Policy Committee agreed to work on the syllabus during the summer months. Later, all interested Assistant Instructors [that is, graduate students who would be teaching the course] were invited to join the faculty working on the syllabus. This group has just received word that Dr. Standish Meacham, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, has decided to postpone for one year the implementation of the new syllabus. We deeply regret that decision. We regret it all the more deeply because none of those who opposed the course, and no member of the College or University administration, has ever seen or asked to see the completed syllabus. Those who have the most to lose from this unprecedented and unwarranted interference are not the people who have spent so much time over the past several months devising a coherent syllabus; nor is it the faculty of the English Department. Those who stand to lose the most are, first, the students who would have taken the course in 1990-91, and, in so doing, prepared themselves for full, responsible participation in the University community; and, second, the graduate students who, since the course was announced, have been preparing themselves to teach it. The English Department loses when administrators act without reasonable cause to overturn a legitimate decision taken by a duly constituted departmental committee-- a committee charged with establishing curricular goals, selecting course materials, and setting course policies. By extension, other departments lose as well. But The University of Texas is ultimately the greatest loser of all. In foreclosing the very possibility of argument, this action does irreparable damage to The University's reputation as a center of intellectual inquiry. [Signed] Linda Brodkey, Shelli Fowler, Allison Mosshart, Susan Sage Heinzelman, David H. Ericson, Margaret Downs-Gamble, John M. Slatin, Dana Harrington, Stuart Moulthrop, Richard Penticoff ***** End of Text ****** Colleagues, I ask for your support. If you feel that there are sufficient grounds for doing so, please write to express your concern about the "postponement" of E 306. Address your letters to Dr. Standish Meacham, Dean, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX 78712; to Dr. Gerhardt Fonken, Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX 78712; and please send copies to Dr. Joseph Kruppa, Chair, Department of English, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX 78712 and Dr. Linda Brodkey, Director, Lower Division English, Department of English, University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX 78712. Thank you. John M. Slatin Director, Computer Research Lab Department of English University of Texas at Austin Austin TX 78712 EIEB360@UTXVM (bitnet) 512-471-8743 From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: memory Date: Mon, 23 Jul 90 23:52:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 318 (803) Mary Dee Harris asked for experts on memory. While I cannot claim that label, I submitted her query and those of others to another forum that includes such experts (PSYCOLOQUY: the psychological equivalent of humanist). Apparently, the colleague to whom Harris referred could not have actually lost her short-term memory. Instead, her short-term memory capacity was severely limited in terms of space or temporal stability. Short-term memory (STM) survives only about 30 seconds in the absence of continued refreshment (continued perception of the "stuff" to be held in STM. And, STM has a capacity of 7 (+/- 2) "things." If the information (and here I'm sure it's information, not knowledge) is "chunked," more material can be held in STM, but the limit remains 7+/-2. Thus, a phone number (with area code) might be pushing the limits of most people's STM, but chunking (area code + exchange + four digits) compresses the material to 6 "things." True loss of STM (although I imagine it's true enough to Harris's colleague) would prohibit one from learning anything new. All information that eventually is stored on long-term memory (LTM) must pass through STM first, and must be held in STM for some (currently unknown) amount of time for the brain cells to have whatever magic occurs to them happen during the conversion to LTM. Visual and auditory memory may or may not be two different processes; the researchers are currently fighting it out with various experiments. There is sufficient evidence to conclude that auditory and visual material are stored in different memory bins, but it's not clear that the processes by which they are stored and/or retrieved are different. The notion of memory bins also is used to explain the phenomenon of "knowing you know something but being unable to recall it." Current theory and research is based on an analog of computer storage processes, and proposes that there may be "bins" for what has been stored--much like the FAT for a disk--and separate bins for the actual information/ knowledge. Presumably, human FATs are not as reliable as computer FATs, and the analogous explanation is similar to the notion of having the file names stored in the FAT but with incorrect or incomplete information about the path under which the file (actual information) can be found. Thus, you know you know something (the file name is in the FAT), but you don't know which where it's stored (faulty path information). Also, it appears that humans are constantly in dual process mode. After having given up on intentionally recovering the path information, the brain continues to search various pathways until it finds the "hidden" file. That is the explanation offered for suddenly remembering the information minutes/hours/days after you have given up trying to remember it. Point of etiquette: current memory types shudder at the mention of "unconscious" processes because it smacks too much of Freudian notions; they (and I) prefer the term "unintentional." That's probably more than anyone (including Harris) wanted to know, so I'll stop now. Frank Dane, Psychology, Mercer University From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE> Subject: hypersatire Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 713 (804) Nissan's hypersatire is as fascinating as Rafaeli's observations about hypertext as a means of multi-authorship are intriguing. However, as part of this exercise in multi-authorship, may I juxtapose the following quote taken from another stream of our HUMANIST discourse with their comments. I assume the analogy is obvious. [deleted quotation] Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE> Subject: hypersatire Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 714 (805) Nissan's hypersatire is as fascinating as Rafaeli's observations about hypertext as a means of multi-authorship are intriguing. However, as part of this exercise in multi-authorship, may I juxtapose the following quote taken from another stream of our HUMANIST discourse with their comments. I assume the analogy is obvious. [deleted quotation] Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE> Subject: hypersatire Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 715 (806) Nissan's hypersatire is as fascinating as Rafaeli's observations about hypertext as a means of multi-authorship are intriguing. However, as part of this exercise in multi-authorship, may I juxtapose the following quote taken from another stream of our HUMANIST discourse with their comments. I assume the analogy is obvious. [deleted quotation] Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Knowledge and information Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 12:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 716 (807) I treasure a letter from Britton Lee, Inc., dated September 1987, which begins: T. S. Eliot was a poet. But he sounded like a database management specialist when he said: "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" Information can't become knowledge until it reaches the right person at the right time. A sales pitch for a database system follows. John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: Ruth Hanschka <HANSCHKA%uhavax.decnet@uhasun.hartford.edu> Subject: Nodes is Cameroons [Cameroun] Date: Mon, 23 Jul 90 22:05:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 717 (808) Does anyone know the addresses of any Internet, Bitnet, or UUCP nodes in the Cameroons? This has very little to do with Humanist, but it seemed a good place to try, given the diverse mailing list. From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Fractals, Chaos, Mandelbrot, Lorenz, etc. Date: Wed, 25 Jul 90 13:21:23 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 718 (809) We have been viewing some very interesting video tapes and computer programs such as NOVA - Chaos, Nothing But Zooms (Cornell Supercomputer) and an Innovation tape in which Benoit Mandelbrot appears. Also of high interest books "Chaos, The Making of a Science" by James Gleick, "Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty" by Clifford Pickover, and "The Beauty of Fractals" by Peitgen and Richter. We are interested in finding DOS programs of fractals or strange attractors in chaos, especially 256 color and or versions which use math coprocessors. These materials are highly recommended and we would love to hear public or private commentaries on them. Michael S. Hart From: 9824peri@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0252 Indexing (4/145) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 90 13:08:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 719 (810) I have found that for large texts Wordcruncher performs well as an indexing tool. It is not, however, easy to use and requires a considerable amount of time to master. The address is: Electronic Text Corporation 5600 North University Ave. Provo, UT 84604 (801) 226 0616 Giorgio Perissinotto University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 GPERISSI@UCSBUXA.BITNET GPERISSI@UCSBUXA.UCSB.EDU p.s. Wordcruncher works really well with WordPerfect. From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: New List: SHAKSPER Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 19:39:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 321 (811) S H A K S P E R . o O o . This is to announce a new international electronic conference for Shakespearean researchers, instructors, graduate students, and those who share their academic interests and concerns. Like more conventional annual meetings and conferences, SHAKSPER offers announcements and bulletins, scholarly papers, and the formal exchange of ideas -- but SHAKSPER also offers the same opportunities for spontaneous informal discussion, eavesdropping, peer review, and a fresh sense of worldwide scholarly community. Furthermore, all the benefits of such a conference can be yours without any travel or charge, beyond whatever you or your institution may have to pay for electronic mail itself. Relevant newsletters and announcements are distributed electronically to all members of SHAKSPER, as are calls for papers, employment announcements, and notes or queries from any member. Members are encouraged to submit short reviews of scholarly books, news about videotape and film resources, theatre reports, and even draft articles for comment from other members. Lengthier electronic texts such as Shakespearean conference papers, articles, or theses submitted by SHAKSPER members will be made available for on-line retrieval on an individual basis. Other forms of electronic information may also become available, such as sample journals, publishers' catalogues, and bibliographical resources. SHAKSPER is a ListServ "list" based at the University of Toronto, Canada <SHAKSPER@utoronto>. The list editor is Ken Steele, <KSTEELE@utorepas> or <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>, who normally publishes contributions unaltered, though grouped according to topic for readers' convenience: some possible categories could include Gender Studies, New Historicism, Computer Applications, Textual Studies, Rhetoric, Translation, Perform- ance, Playhouses, and Film -- but these suggestions are in no way intended to shape or inhibit the natural evolution of discussion. Any Shakespearean interested in becoming a SHAKSPERean is invited to apply for membership by issuing the following command: TELL LISTSERV@UTORONTO SUB SHAKSPER Jane Doe (where "Jane Doe" is replaced with your full name, as you wish to be known). You will then receive more detailed instructions for becoming a registered member of the electronic colloquium devoted to Shakespearean scholarship. From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE> Subject: hypersatire Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 720 (812) Nissan's hypersatire is as fascinating as Rafaeli's observations about hypertext as a means of multi-authorship are intriguing. However, as part of this exercise in multi-authorship, may I juxtapose the following quote taken from another stream of our HUMANIST discourse with their comments. I assume the analogy is obvious. [deleted quotation] Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Knowledge and information Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 12:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 721 (813) I treasure a letter from Britton Lee, Inc., dated September 1987, which begins: T. S. Eliot was a poet. But he sounded like a database management specialist when he said: "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" Information can't become knowledge until it reaches the right person at the right time. A sales pitch for a database system follows. John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: John Burt <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: fractal programs Date: Wed, 25 Jul 90 21:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 722 (814) There is a bitnet mailing list to discuss fractals and related matters. It's called frac-l and its address is frac-l@gitvm. According to the people there, there are good fractal programs for MSDOS available from a company called Art Matrix. Also highly recommended is a public domain program called Fractint. It is up to about version 12 now, and can deal with just about any graphics board. It's quite fast too, because it uses integer arithmetic. You can find out more from frac-l. I think the program is available from simtel, but since I've never asked for anything from simtel, I don't know how to get it. John Burt Brandeis University From: matsuba@Writer.YorkU.CA Subject: Allusions again Date: Thu, 26 Jul 90 01:11:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 723 (815) Back in the days when HUMANIST was a University of Toronto domain, or more accurately Willard McCarty's domain, a debate over the ability of the computer to search for allusions ensued. No single view seemed to prevail. My interest focuses on the nature of allusions, particularly those identified in Shakespeare's works by various critics. My proposed dissertation will involve a computer-assisted analysis of allusions. These results will be compared to critical material on the subject, and, based on this analysis, I hope to design a computer program that searches for allusions in different texts. And while I am limiting my main research to Shakespeare's works, I hope to draw some conclusions about a more general theory of allusion. I am interested in discovering what other HUMANISTs see as the definition and structure of allusions. Has there been any recent, detailed studies about them? Carmela Perri wrote an article in 1978 ("On Alluding" *Poetics* (1978): 289-307) in which she noted her own work that was forthcoming, and a book by Helen Williams that was supposed to be out in 1978. I have not been able to trace either of these items. If anyone knows of their existence, and any other material on allusions, I would greatly appreciate the references. Stephen N. Matsuba York University matsuba@WRITER.YORKU.CA From: Michel Pierssens <PIERSENS@FRP8V11> Subject: Books by Thomas Molnar Date: Jeu, 26 Jui 90 21:39:57 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 724 (816) Here's a query from a french theologian. He's looking for the exact references of two books by Molnar. One deals with politics and the sacred (details missing) and the other is entitled The Church at Century's End (?) Any further information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks| From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0317 Writing Course at Texas Rejected Date: Thu, 26 Jul 90 10:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 324 (817) Dear John Slatin: It interests me. However, your letter doesnt really tell us what the syllabus was, or was supposed to be. Was it THE Freshman English course in comp and rhet? what was the list of topics and assignments. What was, to use the old epical term, "the Argument"? Your message sounds like the Dean quashed the very subject of analyzing arguments, political, religious, religious/scientific, etc. But one doesnt know what it is really about. Or what the 2 Nay votes on the committee argued. I mean, it comes to me a bit like a poke, with only a pig's ear sticking out of it, and not a silken one, at that. Kessler@UCLA From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0324 Query on Texas Writing Course Date: Friday, 27 July 1990 8:52am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 725 (818) Thanks for the query, Kessler. I've posted (at some ungodly hour this morning) two long, rambling messages describing some of the ambient circumstances; buried in one of them is a brief account of the syllabus and the materials. But I'll post a more detailed account later. Meanwhile, if it's of any interest (it certainly is to me), the National Association of Scholars has taken to telling callers that they've scored "a wonderful victory" in Texas: "We've succeeded in stopping a course there," says the phone answering person. The National Association of Scholars was described by my colleague, Prof. Alan Gribben, a member of both the NAS and the recently formed Texas Association of Scholars, as "an organization of resisting scholars": what they resist are Women's Studies programs, African-American studies programs, Mexican-American studies programs, ethnic studies programs of all sorts; they are dedicated to resisting the hiring and promotion of feminist scholars, Marxist and neo-marxist scholars. In short, they are staunch defenders of academic freedom and open debate. And Gribben has already announced his intention (and presumably his organization's intention) to fight proposed changes in both the sophomore-level literature offerings and the shape of the undergraduate English major. More later. Slatin at Texas From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: UT's disgrace Date: Friday, 27 July 1990 6:17am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 726 (819) ... [eds.] The Dean's stated reason for acting had to do with what he perceived as the need to address the "concerns" and "misunderstandings" that have been raised on campus about the course. I'll just add that some of those opposed to the course-- most notably James Duban, another Americanist and an instructor who's gotten quite a few teaching awards, some for his writing courses-- make the argument Nancy thought had been "settled" some time ago: for Duban, Gribben, and many of the psychology faculty and engineering faculty who signed the paid "Statement of Academic Concern" in the campus newspaper, a writing course should focus on writing: according to _The Daily Texan_ (the campus paper) of Tuesday, 24 July 1990, "James Duban, the other professor who [with John Ruszkiewicz] resigned from the [Lower Division English Policy] committee, expressed pleasure with Meacham's decision [to postpone the new syllabus]... "'Students will certainly benefit from being able to enroll in freshman composition classes that continue to stress _writing_ as the primary subject matter,' Duban said in a prepared statement" (p. 2). Ruszkiewica writes, in a longer article that appeared in _The Daily Texan_ on the same day (Tuesday, 24 July 1990)-- this is an article by Ruszkiewicz that was written, apparently, at the invitation of the Texan's editor, Kevin McHargue, a supporter of the course; Ruszkiewicz writes: "The catalog title of E 306-- 'Rhetoric and Composition'-- includes the term _rhetoric_ for a good reason. It identifies the subject matter to be taught and learned-- an art of writing, research and thinking which will benefit students, in both the long and short term, far more than portentous classroom discussions of current affairs. Instruction in rhetoric focuses on the logic and validity of arguments, the development and enrichment of ideas, the appropriate arrangement of subject matter and the power and correctness of language. These are necessary and pertinent concerns of writers whatever their discipline, level of expertise, or political orientation. "It is my conviction [Ruszkiewicz continues] that first-year students develop most effectively as writers when they are introduced to processes of composing that make them competent to handle the rhetoric of various academic assignments-- from analyses of causality and evaluative pieces to research papers and exploratory essays. Such instruction is the surest way I know of giving students the skills they need to function as responsible and articulate citizens." ("Altered E306 format compromised by ideological freight," _The Daily Texan_, 24 July 1990, p. 4). Here both objections emerge: the objection to the particular content of the new syllabus, and the objection to the departure from the skills-based approach. Later in the same essay, Ruszkiewicz writes: "It is my opinion that the E306 curriculum changes were compromised by their ideological freight and by a rush to do what seemed politically correct on this campus at the moment" (4); the proposed curriculum was announced days after two ugly racial incidents occurred on campus in association with a campus-wide fraternity event called Round-Up (an annual thing which in past years has involved gay-bashing, sexual harassment, and similar nastinesses; even the Texas Exes, an organization of alumni boosters, has withdrawn its financial and moral support for the event). Earlier in the essay, Ruszkiewicz had spoken of "a familiar manual of mechanics and usage" as the one element of the proposed syllabus that was made openly available to interested persons. He neglects, for reasons I cannot begin to imagine, to say that this "familiar manual" is _The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers_, and that the authorship of this handbook is attributed to Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewica. So he is quite willing, apparently, to endorse the syllabus after all. Sorry. John Slatin From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: What's Going On At Texas Date: Friday, 27 July 1990 6:17am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 326 (820) Short answer: God only knows. Long answer follows. A number of people have asked for clarification of the circumstances attending my recent posting, "Bad News about the Texas Writing Curriculum" (or whatever I called it). What follows is hastily composed, on-line, and therefore longer-winded and messier than it probably ought to be; it is also biased. I am an interested party: a member of the Lower Division English Policy Committee which voted to authorize development of the new syllabus back in April (that is, we voted back in April to authorize...), and a member of the ad hoc group of faculty and graduate students who've spent much of the summer developing the syllabus. I am therefore annoyed at having my work suddenly run into a wall. But I will do my best to describe things as clearly as I know how. The first thing I need to make clear, I think, is that we teach approximately 100-120 sections of the first-semester writing course a year, with each section enrolling roughly 25 students (that's the maximum allowed). Since 1985, when the 66 Lecturers were fired in a single coup by then-chairman W.O.S. Sutherland (who approached the Executive Committee the following day and asked for ratification of his act; and got it; I am ashamed to say I was on the EC at that time and voted with him despite my reservations)-- since what's come to be known as the Texas Massacre, virtually all sections of our required first-semester writing course have been taught by graduate students with the title of Assistant Instructor (i.e., they've completed their MAs and are working toward Ph.D.). That's still the case. Until recently, the "syllabus" they followed, more or less, was more or less a syllabus written by myself and a colleague and the then-Freshman English Policy Committee (the Lower Division Program is a conflation of two formerly separate ones, Freshman English [Writing] and Sophomore Literature Policy Committee [guess what]; said conflation having been intended to subordinate Freshman Writing to Sophomore Literature and thus restore the Natural Order of Things, i.e., the demise of writing instruction as a significant aspect of Life In the English Department). The point of all that is that we had, in effect, no mechanisms for supervision and evaluation of writing instruction, no real way of maintaining consistency at any level: material, nature and quality of writing assignments, grading criteria, grading systems-- nothing. I'm entitled to say this because I am in part responsible for having created the situation, or having allowed it to go on, or something. When Brodkey joined the faculty and assumed the Directorship of the Lower Division program, she was quite properly horrified at the state of things (she came to us, as some of you will no doubt know, from the Grad School of Education at Penn; she has a deep and abiding commitment to professinalism in instruction and, unlike me, she actually knows something about what that might mean). What distressed her most was that we had no common syllabus, and therefore nothing to be consistent about (she might of course describe this differently). During the Spring semester (of this past year), the Lower Division Policy Committee voted to approve the addition of the new DC Heath Anthology of American Literature to the list of texts available for use by Assistant Instructors teaching E 316K, the sophomore introduction to literature course (of which there are 3 flavors right now: Masterworks of British Lit, Masterworks of American Lit, and Masterworks of World Lit-- "world" meaning European, in most cases, and "British" and "American" meaning canonical texts as enshrined in the Norton Anthologies of etc.) While many of us expressed reservations about the Heath anthology (particularly concerning the adequacy of the critical apparatus), the committee voted to approve its adoption as an acceptable alternative to the Norton, which, along with the almost identical (to the Norton) Macmillan anthology, would continue to be available to any AI who preferred it. For those who haven't seen it, the Heath anthology, edited by Paul Lauter, makes a deliberate effort both to expand the corpus of American literature by including the work of Native Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, and other groups not generally well represented in conventional literature courses (or in the Norton); the Heath anthology is designed to emphasize difference and cultural diversity, while the Norton is designed rather to suggest a common cultural heritage and thus to de-emphasize the marks of difference. One member of the committee expressed disappointment with the Heath anthology on the grounds that in the name of diversity it enshrined a political agenda and disenfranchised European ethnic groups; as a consequence, he voted against the adoption. Several weeks later, Linda Brodkey called a meeting of the Lower Division English Policy Committee (sorry, I don't have the minutes in front of me so don't have the exact dates; I'll get them if anyone cares). At that meeting, she proposed a new syllabus for the existing first-semester writing course; that syllabus, she said, would center on the theme of difference. Readings would be drawn from civil rights cases pertaining to Titles VII and IX, with supplementary material in Paula S. Rosenberg's collection _Sexism and Racism_ (St. Martin's), a text designed for sociology courses. There would also be a handbook, Hairston and Ruszkiewicz's _Scott, Foresman Handbook_, and a packet of photocpied material that would include material on exploratory discourse by James Kinneavy as well as material on argumentation adapted from Stephen Toulmin's work on claims, grounds, and warranting. Although there had been at least a week's notice about the meeting and its purpose, one member-- the same one who had voted against the D.C. Heath adoption-- missed the meeting, later saying that he had thought it was scheduled for the following day. He sent a memorandum outlining 8 objections to the proposal; the memorandum was circulated to the committee and, though we had already taken a preliminary vote to approve development of the proposed new syllabus, Brodkey re-convened the committee in order to give this member an opportunity to defends his objections in open forum. He did so, and was joined by a second member. Another vote was taken, and this time the result was 4-2 in favor of the proposed new syllabus. I should mention, by the way-- not at all by the way, really-- that Brodkey had already informed both department chair Joseph Kruppa and Dean Standish Meacham of her desire to implement this program, and had received indication of support from them provided that she had the approval of the Lower Division English Policy Committee. Where are we now... OK, we have a 4-2 vote from the Lower Division English Policy Committee authorizing the development of the new syllabus centering on difference, with readings from the Rothenberg volume _Racism and Sexism_ plus a packet of photocopied materials, plus the Hairston/Ruszkiewicz _Handbook_. Several committee members, myself included, volunteered to participate in developing the syllabus; later on, an invitation was issued to any graduate student who might be interested to join in the process. The syllabus writing group was composed of four faculty members and eight graduate students; we met at least once a week, beginning in May and continuing until this past Monday, 23 July. I should also add that early in May, the Chair called a department meeting. At that meeting, a majority of members present expressed an interest in modifying the sophomore literature offerings to reflect the Eurocentric orientation of the current "World" literature variant, and finding a way to broaden the representative character of the courses. Then the meeting was turned over to Brodkey, who outlined the proposed new syllabus for first-year writing course (the goal here was to inform both facutly and graduate students about the planned changes in the syllabus). The associate chair, Wayne Lesser, suggested that the new syllabus would perhaps be more credible in the eyes of the University community (rumblings of protest had been heard from outside the department: the Psychology department was especially incensed that we would consider using a sociology text in an English course; so were some sociologists; so were the two members of the Lower Division Committee who had voted against the syllabus changes and, having lost, had taken their case to the campus newspaper and other campus and off-campus organizations)-- the new syllabus, Lesser suggested, might have more credibility if a number of faculty expressed an interest in teaching it. I raised my hand to volunteer, and was followed by quite a few colleagues: I believe 8 of us were scheduled to teach the new syllabus in the Fall semester, and an approximately equal number had requested to teach the course in Spring 91. It would be impossible to overemphasize the unusual character of this situation: faculty members who for years had resisted any suggestion that faculty ought to be involved in teaching first-year writing were signing up in large numbers to teach the new syllabus. And they-- we-- were signing up *because* of the new syllabus. Work on the new syllabus continued throughout May, June, and July. So did opposition. Publicly at least, that opposition was led by Professor Alan Gribben, an Americanist, an expert on Mark Twain, who had int he past served as chair of the Graduate Studies Program-- this was during the "Rhetoric Wars," when the Lecturers were being axed and the Literature Wing was in the ascendancy. Gribben has been writing constantly to the campus newspaper and to the Austin paper, contending that the course represents a form of "thought control" and an attempt by the radical left to politicize what ought to a course devoted solely to "writing."He has been joined in his crusade by John Ruszkiewicz (who has not, however, asked that the Handbook he co-authored with Maxine Hairston be withdrawn from the required texts for the course) and Maxine Hairston (whose public opposition has taken the form of adding her signature to a paid advertisement appearing int he campus newspaper and signed by 55 other faculty members (there are well over 2200 faculty members at UT Austin)-- 7 from the English Department, a multitude from Psychology, and many from various Engineering Departments, all of course *well* known for the abiding interest in writing instruction). I omitted to say that in early July (I think it was early July; it may have been late June; again, I can get dates if anyone wants them), Brodkey and the syllabus writing group concluded that the Rothenberg text (_Sexism and Racism_) was unworkable-- not because the opponents of the course continued to demand its removal, but because it did not fit into the syllabus as it was evolving by then; in particular, the essays in Rothenberg's collection didn't provide the kind of contextual material we thought would be most useful in helping students understand the issues at stake in the court cases), and Brodkey and Kruppa acted to withdraw the textbook and rescind the order that had been placed with St. Martin's Press. Now given the vehemence of the opposition to the book (I had spent an hour one afternoon trying to calm the Chair of Psychology, who cornered me at a cocktail reception and seemed headed for a stroke), one would think the announcement that it had been dropped would have met with resounding approval from those who had demanded that it *be* dropped. But the response was instead the now-often-repeated charge that the syllabus writing group was doing its work in "secrecy," and refusing to tell anyone what we were doing. Now it is true that we had not published either the draft syllabus or the table of contents for the packet of materials with which the Rothenberg text was to be replaced: the draft syllabus was still just that, a draft, not yet coherent in our own minds, not yet ready for publication (and there's no precedent at this University for asking people to publish their syllabi); we were still awaiting receipt of various permissions, sot he contents of the readings packet were still unsettled. On Monday of this week (that's the 23), the syllabus writing group was to meet to hammer out the final details of the syllabus and begin thinking through the orientation program that was to be offered August 20-24 to all those teaching the course. The Department Chairman came to the meeting and read us the memo from Dean Meacham announcing postponement of the syllabus. Tonight, the local PBS affiliate will air a debate (I guess that's what it is) among Prof. Gribben, speaking for the opposition, and Profs. Elizabeth Fernea (a member of the Lower Divison Policy COmmittee) and Ramon Saldivar, an expert on Mexican-American narrative. This ain't over by a long shot. I apologize for the inordinate length of this message, and hope it clarifies the circumstances. John Slatin, UT Austin From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Memory Date: Thu, 26 Jul 1990 9:20:17 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 727 (821) Further on Douglas de Lacey's comments of July 20th: the phenomenon of differential storage in the mind of different types of memory (linguistic, visual, aural etc.) seems to be pretty commonly observed. I am painfully aware, for instance, that I keep visual memories (e.g. faces) and verbal information (e.g. name, age, occupation, temperament etc. of the owner of the face) in different compartments, linked by pointers which tend to get lost or cut. For me it's very common to see someone and know that I know him/her, but I can't remember a darn thing about the person, not so much as the name. The moment someone tells me the name, everything else I know about that person is instantly recalled, from where I met him to my personal opinion of him to old gossip about him... Comments by others via Humanist on memory have shown me that this isn't unusual. I conceptualize this as meaning that the name is the key to verbal knowledge, stored in one place (left brain?) while the graphics (the face) are stored elsewhere (right brain?) with pointers between them which, as said, may get lost. Usually it gets lost in one direction only: if you tell me the name of someone I know, I can recall her face and whole-body image, but if you present me with her face, as said, I very often can't recall the name and all associated information, unless I've seen her (the pointer has been refreshed?) fairly recently. Is this a left-brain right-brain business? (I'm left-handed...) Meanwhile I console myself with the thought that I never wanted to be a politician anyway. Judy Koren, Technion, Israel. From: "Matthew B. Gilmore" <GY945C@GWUVM> Subject: book(s) by Molnar Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 09:10:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 728 (822) In re your inquiry on HUMANIST: Molnar, Thomas Steven. Twin powers: politics and the sacred. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988. The other I could not find in Melvyl. Matthew Gilmore From: Y. Radai <RADAI1@HBUNOS> Subject: Re: Fractals, etc. Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 18:38:02 +0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 729 (823) Michael Hart asks for DOS fractal programs. I have about a dozen such pro- grams (all freeware or shareware), the best of which (by far!!) is FRACTINT. Version 13.0r offers over 55 types of fractals and supports over 80 video modes. It can be obtained from Simtel20 by requesting (either by e-mail or by FTP) the file <MSDOS.GRAPHICS>FRAIN13R.ZIP . Y. Radai Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Israel RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET RADAI@HUJIVMS.BITNET From: Leslie Morgan <MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET> Subject: Call for Papers: Theory and Practice in the Language Classroom Date: July 27, 1990 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 328 (824) CALL FOR PAPERS The Department of Foreign Languages at LOYOLA COLLEGE IN MARYLAND announces a conference: BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM October 18-20, 1991 -> Abstract deadline: March 15, 1991. Send a one-page abstract to the address below. On a separate sheet, provide name, address, phone number(s) and BITNET address if applicable. Electronic submissions are accepted. -> Notification of abstract selection will be May 30, 1991. -> Papers are encouraged in (but not limited to) the areas of applied linguistic s, second language acquisition, curriculum, empirical research on teaching and learning, p edagogy, and methodology and MUST INCLUDE classroom considerations. -> All levels of language and all languages are welcome. -> All language instructors (including graduate students) are urged to submit pr oposals. -> Papers should last 20 minutes MAXIMUM. For further information on the Conference, or to be placed on the mailing list, please write: Committee for the Conference on Language Learning Dept. of Foreign Languages Loyola College in Maryland 4501 North Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21210-2699 phone: 301-323-1010 X 2780 (leave a message) e-mail MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: GRAMCORD address Date: 30 Jul 90 09:5:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 730 (825) I would like to be able to contact the GRAMCORD Project (at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield) by E-mail. I have addresses and phone numbers: does anyone out there know their E-mail address? I would find it very strange if they were not hooked up with some network. Thanks. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Simtel BITNET address Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 11:17:18 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 731 (826) A recent message points to the existence of a wonderful fractal program on the Simtel file-server. For those of us who must address the Internet by way of BITNET mail to have such files sent to us -- can someone provide the BITNET address I need for the Simtel file-server? Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College From: "Charles Bailey, University of Houston" <LIB3@UHUPVM1> Subject: Electronic Journals on BITNET/Internet Date: Thu, 26 Jul 90 17:35:33 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 732 (827) As the editor of two electronic journals (The Public-Access Computer Systems Review and Public-Access Computer Systems News), I am writing an article about electronic journals on BITNET and Internet. I would appreciate any information about such journals, especially journals that are analogous to printed scholarly journals. Please send your messages to me at LIB3@UHUPVM1. Thanks for your help. +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles W. Bailey, Jr. Voice: (713) 749-4241 | | Assistant Director For Systems FAX: (713) 749-3867 | | (and Public-Access Computer BITNET: LIB3@UHUPVM1 | | Systems Forum Moderator) | | | | University Libraries <<<<<<<<<<C>>>>>>>>>> | | University of Houston >>>>>>>>>>W<<<<<<<<<< | | Houston, TX 77204-2091 <<<<<<<<<<B>>>>>>>>>> | +----------------------------------------------------------+ From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: The best part of the poem is its fallacy? Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 15:34:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 733 (828) A familiar-sounding quotation in Hebrew came up in a discussion recently. The phrase is "MEITAV HASHIR KZAVO (or KIZVO)". Roughly translated, this means "the best part of the poem is its fallacy". Does anyone know the origin of this quote? Other similar-meaning statements? Does the paradox tickle you too? Thanks, Sheizaf Rafaeli, Sheizaf@UMichUB From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Wittgenstein on poems Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 17:30:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 734 (829) A Wittgenstein query: In my haphazard notes of yesteryear I have uncovered a Wittgenstein dictum which is a verynice summation of one of the points I'm making about Welsh poetry, but I have no attribution. I've checked the Wittgenstein Concordance under _Gedichte_, but it is really only a Concordance to _Philosophical Investigations_. Perhaps one of you out there might be able to identify it in the way that four of us could identify Holmes's memory attic (somehow I think Doyle is more coherent and classifiable than our esteemed philosopher): Do not forget that although a poem uses the language of information, it is not involved in the language-game of _giving_ information. There 'tis, and my excavations of the Blue and Brown Books and _The Essential Wittgenstein_ and other texts won't unearth it. Speaking of information and knowledge, is a distinction made in cognitive science between information and sensation? If you put your elbow in your hot soup by mistake, aren't you informed by the way you jolt, yelpingly, out of your seat, that you have erred? Or does the "information" come separately? When we read, is that a sensation? When we remember, isn't that a sensation as well? Thank you, Professor Kessler, for the kind remarks about the koan. Perhaps I made up "don't think of a monkey." And my name really ought to be Quigley, as so many have said that it would suit me. From: Mel Smith <MEL@jkhbhrc.byu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0282 Multilingual OCR (1/91) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 14:22:00 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 735 (830) At the Humanities Research Center here at BYU, we have a 5100 and have done some Cyrillic on it. We soon hope to experiment with Chinese, but just haven't got around to it yet. I would be happy to discuss this further. Mel Smith Humanities Research Center Brigham Young University 3060 JKHB Provo, Utah 84602 INTERNET: mel@jkhbhrc.byu.edu From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Library Catalogues in UK Date: 30 Jul 90 10:25:00 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 736 (831) Most University automated library catalogues in the UK are accessible through JANET. Edinburgh University library has produced software called SALBIN for getting access to them without the need to remember all the horrendous numbers in the addresses. Some British Libraries are automated but only allow you to use their computers to access their own catalogues. The Edinburgh policy is the better one. David Mealand (D.Mealand@uk.ac.edinburgh) From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0327 Responses: Memory ... Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 23:31:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 737 (832) Perhaps due to the lateness of the hour, I cannot forego "jumping on" Koren's remarks concerning left brain/right brain business and memory. When one reads the research, as opposed to popular press, concerning hemispheric differences, it is apparent that the whole R/L business has been quite overblown. In most people, the left brain is more active when processing linguistic information than is the right brain. Except in those individuals who have had their corpus callosum severed as a treatment for epilepsy, that's the extent of the R/L brain "business". For all others, the CC provides a complete link between the two hemispheres. Thus, most of the R/L business is, in the words of one of former professors, pop crap. Frank Dane, Psychology, Mercer University P. S. As my finger moves to send this, I have a sinking feeling that I am going to get blasted in future discussions. Nevertheless... From: HANSCHKA%uhavax.decnet@uhasun.hartford.edu Subject: re: Memory Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 17:50:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 738 (833) Judy, I know how you feel. I too am a south-paw [baseball for lefty]. I also have the same problem with being able to remember a face, but being unable to put the name to it. The other direction - being told the name and the name pulling everything else up with it - works well for me too. One chronic offender is an old History teacher of mine. I can often retrieve his face, but have to hit my high school yearbook to recall his name. I also ran into a former biology teacher of mine at a wedding a few weeks ago. I remembered the face, but it wasn't until someone told me her name [I broke down and asked ;-) ] that I could remember the rest. Is this a lefty phenomenon, or is it limited to left-handed, female, computer junkies? ( 8-) ) -Ruth H- From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: realities of technology? Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 22:18:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 332 (834) Let me recommend to you a recently published book, originally a series of six lectures by Ursula Franklin, formerly a professor here in the department of metallurgy, now a university professor emeritus. It is _The Real World of Technology_, published by CBC Enterprises, P.O. Box Station A, Toronto, Canada M5W 1E6. Dr. Franklin is interested in the cultural impact of technology. She argues the ancient but often ignored thesis that we tend to be ruled by our own creations. To do this, she speaks about technology not so much as the products we all admire but as practice, as a way of thinking about and structuring the world. She draws the distinction between "holistic technologies" (chiefly done by craftsmen, who control what they are doing while doing it) and "prescriptive technologies" (mostly what we think of as "industry", in which the work is controlled by the short-term efficiency of the process). One of her examples of the latter is the manufacture of Chinese bronze vessels in the Shang Dynasty, but there are many from more recent times. She shows how "Prescriptive technologies constitute a major social invention. In political terms, prescriptive technologies are designs for compliance" (p. 23). They have also, she argues, brought about all the benefits we daily hear of and enjoy, but at a cost we seldom think about very clearly. The intention of her book is to bring this cost to light, and so to assist her readers to resist programming by those who have the most to gain from our compliance. Perhaps the part of Franklin's book closest to the concerns of computing humanists is the fifth chapter, in which she describes the impact of new technology from the perspective of the society that accepts it. First the enthusiasm and imaginative appeal, stressing liberation from toil and drudgery, creating social bonds and sense of excitement from people grateful to be participants in such a progressive time. Then the growth and standardization of the technology, with a greatly reduced involvement of people, and a very strong tendency for users to become captive supporters of both the technology and the infrastructures. The technology becomes impossible to do without (no longer high, just free from withdrawal pains). Since there is much money to be made from the enthusiasm of the initial phase, it gets embedded in upbeat advertising and official policies in the second phase. It becomes doctrine. An example. Franklin quotes from an article about the sewing machine, written in 1860: "The sewing machine will, after some time, effectively banish ragged and unclad humanity from every class. In all benevolent institutions, these machines are now in operation and do or may do 100 times more towards clothing the indigent and feeble than the united fingers of all the charitable and willing ladies collected through the civilized world could possible perform." The result? Sewing done in sweatshops, exploiting the labour of women, and women immigrants in particular. "Sewing machines became, in fact, synonymous not with liberation but with exploitation." Less sewing done at home, more in factories according to prescriptive technologies. I think that's about enough to give you the flavour of the book. I cannot resist, however, passing on to you a poem she quotes, ironically humorous, to illustrate the increasingly modern phenomenon of meaningless work. ANOTHER SILLY TYPING ERROR by Helen Potrebenko The nature of typing is such that there are none but silly errors to make: renowned only for pettiness and an appearance of stupidity. I don't want to make silly little errors; I want to make big important errors. I want to make at least one error which fills my supervisor with such horror she blanches and almost faints and then runs to the manager's office. The manager turns pale and stares out the window then resolutely picks up the phone to page the big boss at his golf game. Then the big boss comes running into the office and the manager closes his door and hours go by. The other women don't talk or talk only in whispers, pale as ghosts but relieved it isn't them. An emergency stockholder's meeting has to be called about which we hear only rumours. To make sure I don't accidentally get a job with a subsidiary, allied company, or supplier, I am offered a choice of either fourteen years severance pay or early retirement. A question is asked in Parliament to which the Prime Minister replies by assuring the House most typists only make silly typing errors which only rarely affect the balance of trade. The only time I get to talk about it is when I am interviewed (anonymously) for an article about the effect of typing errors on the economy. (from _Life, Love, and Unions_, Vancouver: Lazara Publishers, 1987). Ok, this is a story at least partially about our world. Does it fit? If it does, what do humanists do about it? Willard McCarty From: Lou Burnard <LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: NUDIST? Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 12:55 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 739 (835) A document has landed on my desk describing a piece of software with the somewhat unlikely name of NUDIST (supposedly an acronym for Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing). It is apparently the brainchild of Thomas J Richards, reader in AI at La Trobe University, who is planning to visit Europe and North America later this year with it. He also mentions the first International Conference on Computing and Qualitative Analysis, to be held at Breckenridge, Col. Has any Humanist anterior knowledge of NUDIST or of this conference? It seems to be about content analysis, e.g. of the General Enquirer flavour. Lou Burnard From: 6600ca@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: re multilingual OCR Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 15:33:24 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 740 (836) After glacing at Mel Smith's note regarding mulitlingual 5100 OCR, I'm wondering if anybody has any ideas/tips/techniques/tricks/ideas for using the 5100 to scan Arabic and/or Hebrew. I'm fishing. Charles Ashley /UCSB From: grgo@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Greg Goode) Subject: Mac software query Date: Tue, 31 Jul 1990 10:28:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 741 (837) This is a query about collaborative text-critiquing software for the Mac. Here at the University of Rochester our Humanities Writing Center, as well as the Office of Administrative Information Services, is looking for Mac software that allows users on an AppleTalk network to review and comment upon a piece of writing. Imagine this scenario. In a networked composition class, a student writes a text in MacWrite, MS Word, or WordPerfect, and leaves a copy on the AppleTalk server. Then the instructor, fellow students, etc., would somehow access this text and make marginal comments. (And by "marginal comments" I mean comments placed in the margins, not, like RightWriter, interspersed through the text.) This critiquing software would allow commentary from several reviewers sitting at other nodes on the network, and would identify the authors of the comments to other readers of the reviewed text. Ideally, this software would itself run on the server. We seem to remember a package called Proof that did something like this, and I myself attended sessions at Brown University's MacAdemia that featured software along these lines. Any suggestions? You can mail to Humanist, or directly to me and I will summarize. Thank you. ____________________________________________________________ | Greg Goode \ BITNET: | | University Computing Center \ GRGO@UORDBV.BITNET | | University of Rochester > | | Rochester, NY 14627 / Internet: | | Tel. (716) 275-2811 / grgo@uhura.cc.rochester.edu | |__________________________/_______________________________| From: "Matthew B. Gilmore" <GY945C@GWUVM> Subject: Humanities computing in the university Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 21:09:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 742 (838) Mel Smith's posting prompts me to this inquiry--is there a list of humanities computing centers in universities in the US? If not, is anyone willing to help me compile one? (Name, Address (e- and snail-mail), contact) Or will the Editors? (compile one) [Perhaps Willard will update us on the _Humanities Computing Yearbook_ schedule and contents? -- Editors] Matthew Gilmore DCPL Washington, DC From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: jobs in the West for Russians? Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 16:11:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 743 (839) Is there any mechanism for individuals who wish to emigrate from the USSR to get jobs in the West? I have an inquiry from a highly qualified computational linguist and lexicographer, but I have no idea what to suggest to him. Any assistance will, I'm sure, be appreciated. Willard McCarty From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: an uncertain humanist Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 21:59:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 744 (840) How many times have you read or heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applied to literary criticism and theories of reading? The "Uncertainty Principle" declares that we can never chart the exact position and velocity of an electron without moving it off course; if we were to direct a beam of photon particles at it (the most exact way of measuring its position) these would alter it. The more we refine our beam the greater energy it emits and the more we disturb the object of our scrutiny. This theory did in the major claims of determinism and introduced an element of uncertainty into all modes of inquiry; obviously, it is consonant with many post-modern concepts of reading. The more we shed light on the text, the more it moves away from us. I came to Heisenberg independently through my interest in science fiction, but I was warned against using it in my analysis of uncooperative Welsh poems because it was "trite." This from a colleague. Okay, just how trite is it? "EVERYone these days is applying Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to the study of texts. Jesus. Get original." Fine. Who has quoted him and where? (no answer) So I pose it to you with keen memories. I want some names. Just a medievalist and a science fictionist who thinks that it is not WHOM you quote that makes you original but HOW you quote whom. Sarah Higley slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu From: Malcolm Brown <mbb@jessica.stanford.edu> Subject: Riverside Shakespeare in ascii Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 09:52:49 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 745 (841) Forgive me if this has been answered before, but I haven't found an answer in my HUMANIST clippings. We're interested in acquiring an electronic version of the Riverside Shakespeare in ASCII. I know that ETC offers it on CD-ROM, but I think it's in an encoded format. Anyone have leads or suggestions?? thanks! Malcolm Brown Stanford From: GPA13@RZ.UNI-KIEL.DBP.DE Subject: Demand for Information Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 13:20 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 746 (842) [Please reply directly to Kybelka --eds] ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Willee from IKS, Bonn has given me your Adress. I'm intereted in Text-Databases of Autobiographies, e.g. of Rousseau, Franklin, St. Augustine or Goethe. Do you know something about such activities of other scientists, who are scanning, indexing and do retreivals in or with Autobiographies? Thank you for your help and greating from Kiel (Germany). Joerg Kybelka Institut fuer Paedagogik Olshausenstr. 40 D -2300 Kiel 1 Tel.: 0431-880-2972 Tel.: 0431-880-3286 Earn-Nr.: gpa13@rz.uni-kiel.dbp.de From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0331 Memory, Right and Left (2/39) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 11:43:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 747 (843) Left-handed, female computerjunkey Ruth H. reminds this right-handed male computerjunkey that he has forgotten the name of the man who sent him e-mail about the Petrarch project last spring. Will that person please be back in touch with me? Thanks, Bob Hollander (bobh@phoenix.princeton. edu) From: "Diane P. Balestri" <BALESTRI@PUCC> Subject: The literature of the profession Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 11:04:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 336 (844) Questions for a talk that I am planning to give at the EDUCOM90 conference in Atlanta: What are the seminal books for "professionals" in the field of information technology for higher education? (if we define professionals very broadly, to include faculty, researchers, students, relevant administrators and the whole range of information technology support staff members) Put another way, what books or articles have most influenced you in your own work? What are the books, articles, journals, electronic conversations, etc. that you rely on most for current information about this field? Are there any books, articles, etc. that you might recommend to a (probably skeptical) provost, dean, or VP, about the significance of information technology for higher education? I'd be interested in responses to these questions from as many readers of HUMANIST as possible. You can address responses to me, but (in the spirit of Willard's very interesting notice this morning about Ursula Franklin's book) I'd also like to see whether any debate arises about the most important texts for this emerging "profession" within higher education. Thanks! Diane Balestri Assistant Dean of the College Princeton University balestri@pucc.princeton.edu (or pucc.bitnet) From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: job posting Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 08:21:28 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 748 (845) DATE: 07-11-90 JL TITLE: Assistant Director of Computer Education DEPARTMENT: Academic Computing & Instructional Technology SALARY RANGE: Negotiable STARTING RANGE: Negotiable FLSA STATUS: Exempt HOURS: 8:30 - 5:00, M-F This position is responsible for managing the Academic Computing and Instructional Technology department charged with coordinating and delivering faculty and student education services, including the development and provision of courses and workshops about the CMU computing environment, general computing, and computing techniques; overseeing a computing skills workshop; promoting computer learning activities; providing information on discipline-specific software and acquisition of computer applications software for public clusters and centrally supported systems; developing system documentation and help files; coordinating external communications on computing for Academic Computing and publishing the "Cursor"; and managing public computer facilities. QUALIFICATIONS: An advanced degree or equivalent in a computer related discipline is required along with a solid background in the delivery of computer education services, previous management experience, strong communication and marketing skills. ú lb0q+ andrew 7/31/90 § Leslie Burkholder editors@brownvm.bro 7/31/90 job posting From: Sterling Bjorndahl <USERBJOR@UALTAMTS.BITNET> Subject: Biblical Scholars address book - update is forthcoming Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 20:14:38 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 749 (846) Dear HUMANIST readers: Some of you know that for several years I have been maintaining an annotated list of scholars in the field of Biblical Studies and related fields. This list includes electronic addresses, paper addresses, phone numbers, and a brief description of fields of research and study, for as many people in the discipline(s) who care to be included in the list. It is *not* a discussion, it is just a sort of "telephone book." Those of you who are already included in the list should have recently received a brief message from me as a test in advance of the next distribution of the list, which I hope to do in a few weeks. If you would like to be included in the list, and to received copies if it, and you have not recently received the above-mentioned test message, please send me your name, electronic and paper addresses, phone number, and a few lines describing your major areas of interest and research. When HUMANIST was still at UTOREPAS, there was a copy of the latest edition of my list on the file server. I haven't checked to see whether it survived the move to BROWNVM yet, but if it's there, those wondering what it looks like can order a copy from LISTSERV. [Send mail to LISTSERV AT BROWNVM (or LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU) with the line GET BIBLICAL SCHOLARS HUMANIST as the body --eds] Sterling Bjorndahl Camrose, Alberta, Canada USERBJOR@UALTAMTS From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Language Engineering Directory Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 12:40:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 750 (847) The Commission of the European Communities, DGXIII (Luxembourg) has, according to a letter I recently received, initiated the creation of a Language Engineering Directory. It has commissioned a firm in Amsterdam, INK International, to carry out a world-wide survey of the activities in "language engineering", i.e. research or development of technologies for the computer-based processing of natural languages. This survey takes the form of an extensive questionnaire, which I presume is available for the asking. The survey was first carried out in 1988/89 in both public and private sectors, their products and research projects. The survey for 1990 is devoted entirely to commercial products. The stated aim is to publish a low-cost Directory available to the general public and perhaps someday to make the results accessible online. Interested individuals should write to the following address: Kick Sprangers Survey Coordinator INK International P.O. Box 75477 1070 AL Amsterdam The Netherlands Willard McCarty From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Language acquisition and French as L2. Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 17:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 751 (848) Those interested in second language acquisition or french spoken by adults in Montreal (francophones, anglophones and lusophones) could make use of these bibliographical entries: Bazergui, N., Connors, K., Lenoble, M., Majkrak, B., "Acquisition du francais chez des adultes a Montreal: Volume 1 - Etudes morphosyntaxiques et discursives." Montreal: Office de la Langue Francaise, 1990. Bazergui, N., Connors, K., Lenoble, M., Majkrak, B., "Acquisition du francais chez des adultes a Montreal: Volume 2 - Corpus informatises: anglophones, francophones et lusophones." Montreal: Office de la Langue Francaise, 1990. Free copies can be obtained from: Gouvernement du Quebec Office de la langue francaise Division des publications 800, Place Victoria, 16e etage Case Postale 316 Montreal (Quebec) Canada -- H4Z 1G8 Humanist wishing to have their names on the sending list of the Office could send me a message at my e-address; I will forward their request to them. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0329 Queries: GRAMCORD; Simtel; E. Journals; On Poems Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 08:34:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 752 (849) re: Higley's inquiry on the difference between sensation and information. Yes, there is a distinction. Sensation is what occurs at the sensory cell level (yes, I recognize the tautology). The biochemical processes that convert pressure to neural impulse (ears, skin) and convert light to neural impulse (eyes) falls under "sensation." Information is what is stored in memory (even if only short-term memory) after the process of perception. Perception is the process of converting the sensory signal into meaningful units; interpreting the sensory signal. Your retinal cells react to the edges and tilt of the letters you see befor you on the monitor. Perceptual processes, many of which are learned, enable you to interpret these edges and tilts as letters, which you further interpret as words. What you store in memory as a result of the perceptual process known as "reading" is information. Presumably, what you do with that information reflects knowledge. Frank Dane, Psychology, Mercer University From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: left-handedness Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 21:26:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 753 (850) Oh dear. I always remember students' faces. And their life histories. And their marks. I cannot remember their names (which I have piously learned) at all. Lately I have had trouble remembering _anybody's_ name. I am female and left-handed, and if I don't get off this machine in a minute my spouse will allege yet once more that I am a computer junkie. Is there perhaps something I should know? Germaine Warkentin (WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM> Subject: Re. 4.0329: "The best part of the poem is its fallacy" Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 754 (851) The source of the saying quoted by Sheizaf Rafaeli is the Italian Immanuel Ha-Romi (1260-1328), in his _Mahbarot_, ed. D. Yarden (Jerusalem, 1957/8), 8.277. See also Leopold Dukes, _Nahal Qedumim Nahalat Ya'aqov_ (Hanover, 1853, repr. 1968/9), vol. 2, pp. 54-59, who titles a chapter of his book with this saying. For a Hebrew paraphrase, to the effect that poetry's "strength" is in its dis-similitude, see the Even-Shoshan _Dictionary_, s.v. _kazav_, where this saying is quoted. Needless to say, Immanuel was a poet. Steven D. Fraade Religious Studies Yale University. From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: Simtel bitnet address Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 09:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 755 (852) The simtel files are available on bitnet from listserv@rpiecs. The best way to start is probably by sending a one-line mail message (with no subject): /pdget pd1:<msdos.starter>simtel20.inf This will get you a small (ca. 10pp) document that is all I've ever needed to use this service handily. (I don't recall, but I think the info comes as a spooled file rather than as a mail message. If this is right, you will see a bullet when you log on that says there is a message waiting for you. You then need to 'receive' that message to get it into your directory, from which you can edit, print, or download it.) Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: Harry Hahne <HAHNE@UTOREPAS> Subject: Re: Request for info on bibliographic software Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 756 (853) To the list which Sue Stigleman is creating of bibliographic software, you should add LIBRARY MASTER. This is a very powerful and flexible bibliographic and textual database manager, which can be adapted to a wide variety of applications for libraries and personal scholarly research. LIBRARY MASTER allows easy entry of multilingual text of arbitrary length, rapid powerful searches on any combination of fields, and flexible report formatting. It allows researchers to keep track of tens of thousands of articles and books and to take research notes on these works. Information can be classified not only under subjects but also passages in literary works such as the Bible, classical literature and Shakespeare. The flexible report generator is designed to work especially well with variable length text. Complex reports can be designed without programming. Reports can produce documents in the file formats of popular word processors. Annotated bibliographies are automatically formatted according to manuals of writing style such as Modern Language Association, University of Chicago, American Psychological Association, Turabian, Vancouver, Council of Biology Editors and others. Data may be imported from a wide variety of sources, including online library catalogs, online information services, other database programs and text files. If anyone wants more information, they should send me an email note at HAHNE@UTOREPAS and I will send a more detailed information sheet. A free demo version is also available. Harry Hahne <HAHNE@UTOREPAS> From: iwml@ukc.ac.uk Subject: SHADOW OF SPIRIT Conference report Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 18:56:11 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 341 (854) SHADOW OF SPIRIT Conference held at King's College, Cambridge July 21st - 25th, 1990 Organised by Phillippa Berry (King's, Cambridge) and Andrew Wernick (Trent U), Shadow of Spirit was a bold venture, which was hugely successful. That is surprising, since it aimed to invite postmodernists from a range of disciplines to explore what is usually seen as marginal issues; began by declaring boldly that no-one knew how to define postmodernism; and concluded with delegates still asking each other, "Which shadow?" and "Which Spirit?" The signs of success were there long before the conference began in that the number of applications far exceeded the level of interest expected by the organisers. The conference failed to find closure. It has established itself as a network with King's as its "home", with proposed national round tables and another international conference in two years' time. The lead speakers were a formidable group of scholars, some magisterial in their own field, and who largely, if not intentionally, directed the flow and agenda of the conference with their various contributions throughout the conference. Mark C Taylor (Williams College), one of the few modern theologians to have formulated a new theology, opened with a lecture which would have been more successful in written form. In discussion afterwards he agreed that his mental process of word play is more effective on paper, where the synchronic and diachronic can be displayed simultaneously. Taylor's association of postmodern artists with philosophers and theologians underscored the interdisciplinary nature of the process. Gillian Rose (Warwick), in a critique of Taylor's theology and John Milbank's Theology and social theory, argued powerfully that we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Her impact, though, had the element of a gnostic treatise in that Milbank's book has yet to be published, and Rose and Milbank were the only people in the room who knew what she was talking about. At the end of this opening session, Taylor and Rose had opened up theology, ethics and politics as the ground. The conference then decentred itself into group sessions over the following three days, to hear 66 papers in four locations. There were comments towards the end that the conference had a number of subtexts which showed in the attendance and contributions from various standpoints. Prominent among these were the feminist, Jewish and Buddhist contributions. Reinhard Friedrich (Hawaii) began from his base in English literature to compare the genre of Gospel endings as climax and emanation with a range of nineteenth and twentieth centuries texts, with question time leading him to concentrate on Kafka. David Jobling (Saskatchewan) pondered on why Gerhard Theissen had failed to complete his psychoanalytical analysis of Paul's text, particularly 2 Cor 3.4-4.6, and became one of the first to open up Christian anti-Semitism, in the context of the subconscious choice of Jung over Freud. A helpful question in question time linked the closure of The Epic of Gilgamesh with the disciples in Gethsemane. Stephen Clark (QMW, London) ponderously explored Ricoeur's relationship to deconstruction and the sacred, his excursions into considering evil, the double intentionality of meaning found in the author, and a challenge to us to plough through Time and Narrative. A different approach was found from Fraser Watts (MRC, APU, Cambridge) and Guy Claxton (King's, London). Watts looked at Freudian and Jungian analogues inside Christian doctrine, arguing that essentially those doctrines were necessary as answering basic needs in the human psyche. He offered an interesting tension between eschatology as contained in a never achieved hope, and sin as a doctrine of the balance of man. Claxton raised the question, which was to appear elsewhere, of the status and influence of modern technology. Using Aldous Huxley's term neurotheology, Claxton considered the interaction of cognitive science with experience and philosophy in a religious context. He revealed useful links in neural networks and current artificial intelligence research into PDPs in ways which seemed to echo something of chaos theory. The plenary session between Don Cupitt (Emmanuel, Cambridge) and George Steiner (Geneva) could have been billed as the clash of the titans! It dominated everything thereafter. No-one will be able to forget Steiner's contribution which excelled everything else. He was responding to Cupitt in a binary opposition which seemed to deserve the description of lecture v sermon. Cupitt unintentionally made an error of judgment. He assumed he was known and that his background was known. Throughout the rest of the conference, British delegates were having to continually explain Cupitt's status and position in our theological world. His contribution was hopeful, liberal and pluralistic. He likened theological concepts to the market place, and revealed his religious humanism with disarming honesty. Steiner's response went for the jugular. He used Cupitt against himself, incisively but gently. He basically offered an apologia for traditional Judaism - Cupitt has "covered all except the Mosaic", noting that the two messianic heresies that rejected the very faith which spawned them - Christianity and Marxism - were struggling, and Judaism was haunting them. It was without doubt his rhetorical style coupled with his awe-ful/Awe-full challenge, in an emotionally charged atmosphere, to the communal Christian/human guilt conscience over the Shoah which led several people to openly admit later that they had been fighting back tears. With a challenge which matched the skill any evangelical preacher would have been proud of, Steiner asked what we - and he - did when another holocaust perpetrated by Pol Pot took place and this time we saw it on our television screens. Steiner was crushingly dismissive of deconstruction, noting that it was not without symbolic significance that the leaders of the movement in France were presiding over its final death throes, even having changed the title of their journal to La Fini. Steiner saw the 21st century as one where pluralism and liberality may not be the order of the day, but because of fundamentalism, it may well be a century of religious wars. Nothing could follow Steiner. Words seemed inadequate. Emotions varied from guilt and appreciation to anger, and objection to his inability to accept the needs of minorities voices. Back in group sessions, Andrew Wernick (Trent U) began what became a series of personal confessionals throughout the rest of the conference. He confessed his confusion and turmoil at the failure of ideals in left theologies and politics, and considered this in the context of Althusser. His confusion seemed the stronger since he had been preceded by a masterful evaluation of early Marx by Eve Tavor Bannet (South Carolina), in which she considered the enduring influence of Halachah, on his overall thought. Remaining in a philosophical vein, Pamela Reeve (Toronto) explored the relationship of Via Negativa theology to deconstruction, and seriously questioned the extent to which negative theology could be deconstructed. Gayatri Spivak entered the stage at this point in a plenary session which also turned into new directions. Her initial criticism of assumed monotheism, and assumed superiority of monotheism over polytheism was widely misunderstood, and she had on more than one occasion to push her basic question of whether the lack of appropriate Western training prevented those living in and through other experiences from having any valid contribution. While it was valuable to see the ways in which Western anthropologists had perceived polytheism in their own terms (sometimes confusing Hindu polytheism with Hellenistic polytheism), this was an expression in colonial terms. Through her usual style of pointing up through anecdotes, Spivak exposed the audience to a range of unexpected insights into life in the Indian sub-continent to convey her message. In further group sessions, Valentine Cunningham (Corpus Christi, Oxford) applied literary post modernism to the Judaeo-Christian texts, seeing text as a game, with God as the joker in the pack, word playing on text as para-sitic, and considering the r[le of dreaming the text. His contribution rested largely on Genesis as the text, and raised the question as to why post modernists have a tendency to equate Genesis and the Bible as synonymous. Gerard Loughlin (Newcastle), assessed Lyotard's contribution to the performing of God's writing at the same session. David Martin (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) and Graham White (American University, Cairo) came across unfortunately as though they were trying to defend traditional Christian theology by using the weapons of the enemy of postmodernism against itself. That was not their intention, I am sure, and Martin's exposition of the function of the mimetic was particularly perceptive. He did, though, seem to be saying that resting on the truths of Catholic theology was the answer to all of Man's needs. White spoke from the basis of foundationalism, and relied on Luther's binary opposition of the theology of glory v the theology of the cross for much of his argument, appearing to equate the theology of glory, glitz and modernism in the same bracket. Jonathan Bordo (Trent) provided a broad and succinct picture of the ineffable in the discourse of modern technology. Calling his contribution Release from the centre he began from the early concept of the earth as the geocentre of the universe, and raised a number of green issues about Man's attitude to his relationship to the environment, with rapid journeys through Descartes and Kant. This he then linked into modern technology through a series of unanswered questions which were ethical and political. Lance Olsen (Idaho) gave me a brand new perspective on cyberpunk writings. I had never even begun to think that the Judaeo-Christian ethic might be present in computerised robots and mainframes which raises ultimate questions about process over progress. Relying heavily on W Gibson's trilogy, beginning with Camp Zero, Olsen demonstrated how cyberpunk was a form of voodoo integrating the acceptable face and the unacceptable in religious practice. These silicon monsters even manage to self destruct and spawn themselves (a resurrection?) into mini versions which seem to match the multiplicity of Hindu gods and goddesses. The conference closed with two plenary sessions. The first, a feminist round table discussion, became an extraordinary series of confessionals about what each of the six contributors believed. Perhaps sitting on the same stage where Steiner had delivered his sermon gave this and the final plenary its sacral quality, and converted Keynes Hall into the cathedral of honesty? A sociologist had to forcefully plead for some consideration of the communal implications of our discourse in the end. Each contribution bar one centred on theological and religious coping, rejecting, and reassessement in the light of text and institution, both of which represent male dominance. The other contribution raised questions of political dominance. However, there were many points of discussion which seemed to be of concern as a human dilemma rather than identifiable as a feminist question. The closing plenary brought the big guns together. Some took the chance to get their own back, and each made very individual comments. Patricia Jopling (Yale) wanted to know whether we could have identity without violence, while Cupitt mused on whether the binary opposition of transcendence and immanence were not what was under question. Spivak thought the absence of any consideration of Islam was a major lack, saw Hegel as racist but one from whom we could still learn, and developed some of her earlier points. Rose summed up the fact of the conference, that it was dominated by two prophets - Cupitt and Steiner, but challenged each by asking where we were to locate domination and where to locate pluralism. Steiner had etched his r[le, and the session was not disappointed. He saw the subtext of the conference as Judaism, and a lack of rigorousness from those who should be able to offer the essence of atheism. He concluded that there had in fact been no language of dialogue, and mused whether there ever could be in the last resort. To Taylor fell the task of summing up. He, too, saw the conference as operating in the space between Cupitt and Steiner. He echoed Steiner in saying that he had found dialogue difficult, and that there had not been sufficient consideration of ethics and politics. Phillippa Berry and Andrew Wernick received the gratitude they deserved. The dialogue has now begun, not ended, in the absence of itself. Watch this space! Recordings of all the above talks and plenaries are available at cost plus postage and packaging - about $3.50 each - from Ian Mitchell Lambert, Tangnefedd, Windmill Road, Weald, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN14 6PJ, or fax 0732 741475, or email iwml@ukc.ac.uk. I can take plastic money with the usual name, address and expiry date! These were recordings made for my own study purposes, and are offered on an "as-is" basis. Ian Mitchell Lambert Board of Theology and Religious Studies University of Canterbury at Kent 26th July, 1990 From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0332 The Real World of Technology (1/102) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 21:56:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 757 (855) I was reminded when I read McCarty's note on the realities of technology of another author who has also dealt with the problem of technology in society. Jacques Ellul, who was professor of law at Bordeaux and lay French Reformed theologian worte a lot on this subject. HIs best know is Technological Society which argues that technology is seductive and we can quickly begin to produce for the sake of producing, just because we can make it, not out of any need. The end result is Technique, the manipulation of materiel, and it is then applied not just to goods, but to politics, religion, thought, life. He continues this concern through several other books, including one of his last Humiliation of the Word, where he voices concerns over the possibility of having faceless discussions!! His concern is for us to remtain our humanity in the face of technology. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: matsuba@writer Subject: Technology and ethics Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 00:04:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 758 (856) In Willard McCarty's note on the ethics of using the machine, he asks whether we as humanists have a response to the ideas and dilemmas put forward by Professor Franklin. The simple answer is yes. We must consider what the impact of out use of the technology has on our discipline and, and it sounds a bit grandiose but is still true, on society. As humanists working with technology, we have to consider what the end result might be. Is the cost worth what may result. The computer has made the generating of a concordance an invalid topic for a Ph.D, or even a Master's thesis. Such work was once the domain of the scholar; now any undergraduate with OCP and a machine readable text can do one. My own project does make me stop and think about what I am doing. If I can get a computer to search for allusions, does that mean I have allowed the machine to make decisions for me? The danger is always there. If I go further and say that my work might lead to the creation of a truly intelligent machine, should I consider finding something else to do? Some of my peers have said so much. My feeling is that one must push the technology to its limits--to discover what you can get it to do. I am interested in genre and canonical studies, and the computer allows me to digest a vast amount of material--material that one could not read in several lifetimes. But it is only a tool. I must make the critical decisions. If I let the machine do it for me, then the machine becomes the critic, and so I deserve to be replaced. This is no different than someone who adheres to a particular theory and allows the theory to dictate what his or her response will be rather than using the theory to help reveal some aspect of the work being examined. I saw an interview a long while back in which Arthur C. Clarke, commenting on intelligent machines, said that if we let the computer supplant us, it will serve us right. I believe that the same principle can be applied to us. We should develop the technology as far as possible, for we cannot deny ourselves the possible benefits that may result. But we must hold the final authority. If we lose it, it is our own fault. Stephen Matsuba York University From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Franklin, holistic -- prescriptive Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 13:06:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 759 (857) Willard: Lovely poem, thanks. Franklin's 'holistic' vs. 'prescriptive' classification sounds much like Shoshana Zuboff's 'automating' vs. 'informating' modes of using computers. "In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Power and Work", New York: Basic Books, (1988). Two observations: (1) The challenge, of course, is in better understanding both the tasks and the technology. (2) One danger is in reifying 'the technology'. It's all really in the uses (read: users, policy, ideology). Not in the machinery alone. Of course, we need to spend mental effort on understanding the potentials and perils, to make a more holistic use (policy, ideology) of the machines. But watch out before you place the responsibility at the doorstep of technology. Laborers in sweat shops were (are) enslaved by people or social systems. Not by sewing machines. Daniel Boorstin suggests an interesting contrast between technology and political systems. One of the dimensions is cyclicality. Political systems, he claims, have a limited range of variance. Not so with technology. Hence, politics (and history) are doomed to repeat themselves. Not so with technology. His claim may be too optimistic for my tastes. But worth thinking about whenever determinism rears its head. What is it about Toronto or Canada that have produced by now a fourth (McLuhan, McCarty, Franklin, Potrobenko) sage telling us it is all in the medium? Sheizaf Rafaeli Sheizaf@UMichUB From: Eldad Salzmann +972 3 472406 <ELDAD@TAUNIVM> Subject: A key-stroke recording program Date: Wed, 01 Aug 90 06:47:35 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 760 (858) Colleagues, I'm looking for a PD/shareware program which records all one's keystrokes, thereby helping the user to recover from a power failure in case s/he hasn't saved the data. I guess such a program would be something every user would like to install on her/his computer. Such a program would be especially useful for researchers who are novice computer users (i.e., people who still haven't assimilated the habit of pressing the SAVE key every five minutes or so...). In Israel they sell a software package called Power-Buster, which seems reliable to me, but I haven't tested it enough. I wish to know if something like that (which keeps track of every key you press until you save your file, when it starts anew) exists on a PD/shareware basis. Recently I learned that a file called RESQ21 EXE exists on SIMTEL20, which helps you recover from an accidental erasure of files from __the RAM__. This means that if you inadvertantly abandon your edited file without saving it first, you can still rescue your poor file by looking for its traces in the RAM and collecting the pieces. Sounds interesting enough, but I haven't tested it yet. Anybody -- any experience with the latter program? Eldad Salzmann <Eldad@TAUNIVM.BITNET> From: "S. Thomson Moore" <STMOORE@PUCC> Subject: laudario di cortona Date: Wed, 01 Aug 90 09:04:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 761 (859) A musical colleague is preparing a musico/theatrical performance based on the l aude (c. 1300) from the Laudario di Cortona, and is interested in finding infor mation on folk elements in Northern Italian Catholicism. Is there a Humanist wh o is interested in this or related topics, and who would be willing to serve as a source of information? Can someone suggest printed resources? Thanks. Tom Moore, Music Listening Library, Princeton Univ. From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: SIMTEL guide Date: 01 Aug 90 09:43:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 762 (860) I sent the command: /PDGET PD1:<MSDOS.STARTER>SIMTEL20.INF to LISTSERV@RPIECS and got back a file with an encouraging filename, but on inspection it turned out to be the most entrancing collection of punctuation marks I've ever seen. Is there some decode stage necessary first? From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: transcription standards for Romance languages Date: Wed, 1 Aug 90 09:56:39 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 763 (861) While we are all eagerly awaiting the draft TEI guidelines (hint, hint Michael Sperberg), I would like to know if there are any de facto standards for transcribing texts in the Romance languages, i.e., standards which have been used by large-scale projects and therefore which have a considerable body of already encoded material. Since my own field is Spanish I am familiar with David Mackenzie's <emp>A Manual of Manuscript Transcription for the Dictionary of the Old Spanish Language</emp> (4th ed. Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1986), which has been used to transcribe ca. 75 Mb of medieval Spanish texts. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: CMU? Date: Wed, 01 Aug 90 14:38:28 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 764 (862) With regard to the following item, [deleted quotation] could Leslie tell us what or where CMU is? I'm sure it is somewhere obvious, and I'm silly not to know, but I don't. Dominik Wujastyk From: HOKE ROBINSON <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET> Subject: The Texas Writing Syllabus Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 16:17 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 765 (863) Leaving aside the NAS, Round-Up, and the wasted preparation for the cancelled course, Mr. Slatin's cause seems a variant on the "canon" issue: the Sophomore lit course was to be broadened beyond the Eurocentric, and the Freshman writing course accordingly restructured around the theme of difference. Whereupon the usual charges arose: the "progressives" were trying to bring leftist indoctrination into the curriculum, the "reactionaries" were trying to preserve the white male European world-view. As a flag to those who want to stop reading now, I'm going, regretfully, to have to side with the reactionaries. The route I take to this conclusion may be somewhat different from the usual one. The group whose interests are regularly overlooked in these discussions, it seems to me, is the students. They will take Freshman Composition and Sophomore Lit (hopefully) once only, and then on to upper division courses, graduation and adult life. A "trial-and-error" approach to the curri culum is grossly unfair to the students in the "error" class: they may get a reasonable grade and graduate on time, but they write less well and know literature less well. They have been cheated out of a part, if perhaps only a small part, of their education. And this is the case whether they wind up ideologically left, right or something else: they are less effective, the less well they express themselves. What in Sophomore Lit is in the students' interest? Relevance, to be sure; but not just relevance for Fall 1990. For the majority who take only the required literature, it's relevance for the next fifty years. That means a responsible text selection has to take into account how transient a text's relevance may turn out to be. If twenty years ago you read _The Greening of American_ instead of _Leviathan_, _Zen and the Art.._ instead of _The Odyssey_ and _MacBird_ instead of _MacBeth_, you've got a good malpractice case against your Sophomore Lit instructor. What constitutes a "classic" changes, of course, and classics had to start sometime. But it is irresponsible to replace a "classic" with a work whose main recommendation is its contribution to diversity; first, it may be entirely forgotten in five, much less twenty years, and second, diversity may be replaced by commonality as a central theme. Of course the instructor can then update the syllabus; but the student is stuck with the now outmoded content. What for Freshman Writing is in the students' intere st? I think, to learn to write -- clearly, effectively, convincingly, and perhaps even elegantly. How well they master this is a major factor in their subsequent success as undergraduates, graduates and in professional life. To be sure, they need something to write about. But the theme of sexism and racism seems an extraordinary poor choice. To begin with, the analysis of Titles VII and IX is quite complex, as the readings packet shows, with the result that the instructor spends an extraordina ry amount of time teaching history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and law, in an English Department course entitled "Writing." Second, the issues can be expected to generate a lot of heat not conducive to learning to write. Third, the very choice of theme will inevitably be taken by the students, and perhaps by many GA's as well, as signaling a "pro-Affirmative-Action" tilt to the course, leading to the cynical (though hopefully inaccurate) belief that arguments _for_ AA are eo ipso sound a rguments. The choice of theme should not detract from the main goal of the course: teaching students to write. I certainly don't mean to discourage re-evaluation of the literature selections or the writing curriculum. Debates on diversity and commonality, text selection and writing goals are healthy and to be encouraged. But knee-jerk reactions by left and right are not healthy when it's the students who get kicked around. Hoke Robinson From: Ed Waldron <UD081917@NDSUVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0325 More on UTexas Writing Course, Part I (2/98) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 09:15:40 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 766 (864) The incident at UTexas sounds disturbingly like the arguments we went through twenty years ago concerning the *content* of composition courses. It seems it is still next to impossible to get non-English teaching colleagues to understand that "writing" as content for a course makes little sense. It is a method of writing that we teach (or, in my case, taught), _not_ "writing" as a subject matter. What freshman is going to be able to compose an argumentative discourse on some arcane facet of written communication? Having students think and write about topics that are of interest to them (or ought to be) can be a great help in getting over that initial barrier to writing -- "What can I write about?" My condolences to you. From: Michel Pierssens <PIERSENS@FRP8V11> Subject: Texas syllabus Date: Sam, 28 Jui 90 22:06:21 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 767 (865) This is turning into a typical summertime "feuilleton" for idle newsrooms or a remake of some David Lodge novel about cocktails and academic poli tics. I must confess that although I went through countless similar situations when I used to teach in the States I fail to see why the Texas problem should deserve so much e-space. True, there are real questions at the bottom of it all, but do we need to know all the particulars? Shouldn't the people involved try to get to the essentials and tell us whether there is something to be learned that is valid for all -- and then what? Isn't this a case of endemic academico-centrism on the part of academics? Is it the case that the future of th world rests on what happens with writing courses in Texas? I know that Hegel or Schelling would have said "yes" in a similar situation -- but then, what's the true role for a university today (not 1820)? Well, here comes the "university as information clearing-house" topic...Damn loop. From: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Subject: Texas syllabus Date: Tue 31 Jul 90 08:27:23 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 768 (866) For myself, I'll vote with the administration of Texas in the matter of E306. I agree that a writing class is not the place to let students vent their opinions on current events. Such a course (or, more appropriately, seminar) would probably be a good thing to introduce into the curriculum. It could teach students the difference between their beliefs, their prejudices and their opinions without having to come to any sort of partisan conclusion. Nevertheless, I sympathize with the English dept.'s reluctance to be the fall guy for such a course. I wouldn't want it in my History curriculum masquerading as a history course. You could easily argue that Sociology should host it, or History or Anthropology or a variety of other disciplines. Just because they write their opinions down doesn't make it an English course. This should not be a writing course. The instructor and the students would spend most of their time sorting out fact from fancy from prejudice rather than learning how to write. As one who still vividly recalls "English" courses that taught me NOTHING about the English language or about writing but only urged me to express myself (in whatever maundering mood struck me at the time I sat down with pen in hand), this course sounds like another sham. I'm still bitter that my English professors didn't teach me English. -= Skip =- Skip Knox Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il> Subject: 4.0327, Frank Dane's comment on left brain-right brain Date: Wed, 1 Aug 1990 9:35:57 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 769 (867) Wow, Frank, the hour must have been late! Your riposte landed square, if not exactly fair, on my right brain (which side were you aiming at?) Well, I can't claim to read the research the way a psychology professor does, but quite a lot of it does trickle through my fingers, and I take a quick, unprofessional peek at it (which is more than I do at the popular press). And it definitely tells me that however good the links through the corpus callosum, most people process linguistic information on the left and pictorial information on the right and there's precious little they can do about it. Or did all those ingenious experiments come up with false results? What about the poor souls who lost the ability to speak following left-side-only neurological damage, are we to tell them that according to all the latest theories it shouldn't have happened to them? I doubt very much that the split is all-or-nothing, and obviously there's a lot of connection (what, after all, is the physical basis for what I referred to as "pointers" between the pictorial information and the associated linguistic, just to mention one aspect?); still I suspect that I unwittingly touched a raw nerve of yours with that quite incidental comment of mine, and perhaps not all researchers (certainly not the more biomedically inclined, rather than the more psychology-inclined) would have hit the ceiling at what I said. Following the other comments to my note, I think we have a new and fruitful line of research here. Any other left-handed females out there who have trouble matching faces to names? (Or even males who do, but have so far been too bashful to admit it...) Perhaps we could apply for a multi-national research grant...the possibilities seem endless... Judy Koren From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0331 Memory, Right and Left (2/39) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 13:03:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 770 (868) On Mon, 30 Jul 90 21:03:21 EDT you said: [deleted quotation] When someone says, as does the Melancholy Dana above "When one reads the research . . . it is apparent . . . ." what is apparent that a flag should go up . . . WARNING . . . WARNING! This is a similar warning to "always" and "never" which he approaches when he says "except" for a very small group . . . "For all others . . . ." This man is saying something similar to "Dallas and Ft. Worth are really the same city since they are connected by a CC highway and road system - or - "Cities are cities, even if they are only connected by bridges over the rivers going through them." We have four chambers in the heart, does that mean they all have the same function? The Melancholy Dane also had at least one part of his brain saying he sending the message . . . . Proof positive he was of two minds. mh PS I am glad he sent the message. We need more like it. From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: hypersatire Date: Wed, 1 Aug 90 18:35:43-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 346 (869) I would like to thank Sheizaf Rafaeli for her (?) message. It makes some interesting points. I don't think I have tried to describe all aspects of my book, in my note on Humanist, but there are at least two that I omitted, and that may be of interest from Rafaeli's viewpoint: 1) Readers are not expected to visit all layers. They can choose, even hough the author can make such a visit necessary (e.g., by including an obscure point in the immediately upper layer). 2) There is much room for experimenting with ambivalence. For example, there is a passage that a note abstracts in one Arabic sentence (actually, with not even one verb: hazl al-`uyun al-bandaqiyya wa-ddumu` al-`uyun al-`anjSiyya), which substantially consists of a parallel between fruity metaphors of eyes. Together with the other notes and the upper-layer passage, you obtain a multifaceted exposition, which allows for other viewpoints. Another passage includes a Hebrew translation from a short nationalistic poem found in an Arabic newspaper used for packing at the greengrocer's. One paths tells about the context of going to the greengrocer's on that day (actually, my mother fainted there for a certain reason, but later, at home, she provided a rough but exact translation which I later put into poetry). Other paths lead to several topics, and viewpoints. Sometimes, I impose a sequence. For example, the second part of the book is the one which is more militant (as much as to make the first part a pretext). Beside the pretextual parts, there are "obstacles": one short section, in the middle between the two parts, translates passages from a book on the theory of complexity (defining "honest functions"), and from a book in algebra (with the theorem on the purity of ideals). At the very end, the reader is told that actually, this was not the sense I wanted to discuss, of the purity of ideals and honesty. Follows a section in verses, which relates our family tradition about the funeral of a great-uncle, a successful businessman in the Near East, who had access to several authorities in countries of the region (but actually, a leader of the Revisionists in Baghdad), who met with death during the holiday of Hanukkah in 1944, during the "Saison", that is, the campaign of denonciation or hunt of non-Marxist militiamen on the part of the two leftist militias (actually, subdivisions were to some extent ethnic: the plight of Afro-Asiatic, down to their slumification, is a constant point of reference in the book). The poem has a note which is a poem itself. Having put this chapter as a mandatory stage in reading, notwithstanding hypertextuality, justifies, at certtain points, from the literary viewpoint at least, some passages of myth dissacration or poetic abuse. There is one passage that focuses on an old picture of Ben Gurion near his prote'ge' Prof. Israel Ber (afterwards sentenced to life, in the early 1960s, as a Soviet spy). There was an aspect depending on pride, on the part of Ben-Gurion, in promoting a would-be convert from Leninism to Ben-Gurionism, along with Ben-Gurion's strife to promote some professionals not only according to the rights of camaradery in (leftist) militias (this was important in shaping the army: veterans of the British Army during WW2 were promoted by Ben-Gurion, against a course advocated by the former Palmach militia). Ber, as a professor in military studies, visited NATO headquarters and then consigned documents to a Soviet diplomat, by night, in a dark alley, spy-wise. One may figure out that Ber figured out he would become an Israeli Ulbricht, or the like. Well, the PICTURE was taken at the inauguration of a chair in strategic studies at the University of Tel Aviv, set up for Ber. In the picture, Ber, very high and storky (even in his front and eyes), is on the left, whereas Ben-Gurion sits, with a broad smile, on the right: somewhat very oldish but also very childish, as was typical of the man. With afterwit, we know Ber "knew better". One note to a verbal description of the picture addresses the photographer, complaining because the "fruit of the camera" was not printed on a leaf of nenuphar. This completes an image from the swamp, but it is still hypertextuality which allows animosity towards B-G at that point (on the Sephardic account, and on the Saison account, which have nothing to do with Ber). It is still hypertextuality which allows me to write something atrocious about Peres, yet defend him against Rabin (the latter, especially because he is being made the object of a Strong Man quest in upmarket quarters, who demonstrated in the streets also against the Orthodox sector of the population. As I am a practising Jew myself, this provides further fuel for writing. For example, there are hypertextual passages on the recent controversy on a speech by Rabbi Eliezer Shakh, of the Lithuanian Orthodox branch: an ultra-pacifist speech, substantially, as it denied value to territoriality in general -- and, under that respect, I think, interestingly close to some European pacifists -- but which denied Peres the votes of two members of Parliament and seemingly of five others, and that also offended those Israelis who consider Judaism a nation and not a religion: Rabbi Shakh would rather abhor the concept of "nation"). As to hypertext as a liberating technology, much has been written about computer-assisted and class in education science forums; to the extent there is strong class (or, like here, ethnoclass) stratification, and little encouragement for schools in poor neighborhoods, computing in the classroom (or, like here, for paying pupils after hours) may easily become a further element of dis/advantage. Technologies are neutral, what they become depends on how you use them. [deleted quotation] [ I find it dangerous to restrain human creativity because of a fetishistic conception of technology. Besides, blocking the development of a new meaning, M2, to be associated with term T2 which, instead, has been "wasted" on M1, as a synonym of T1, assumes that the potential of word-formation is very narrow, which is not the case. E.N. ] [deleted quotation] [ Well, in Midde' Muddi', I use several registers and strata of language; when it is rhetorical, it is also autoironically aloof, archaistic or utopistic; when it is abusive, it resorts to a quasi-Biblical style and stratum, or to a cool technicalese from Tannaitic Hebrew. But in general, yes, I do favor a democratic, living language, which allows me, as a particular case, also to experiment with kinds of language that are unlikely to be used in common speech. E.N. ] [deleted quotation] [I dunno. E.N.] [deleted quotation] [ True and untrue. Readers can choose while accessing layers, but as an author, I can be very manipulative of their choice. As an author, I may be autocratic -- which is human and Freudian -- but I can try to dissacrate the very medium, to the extent that I find it too conducive to manipulation. Besides, as this piece of hypersatire, if it get published, is likely to end up in the hands of intellectuals of the New Class, not of slum people, there is also a kind of game, sometimes fierce, between readers' expectations and the author's expectations of readers' expectations. Here is a simple example: at some point, some linguistic commonplaces of national rhetorics are followed by a "captatio benevolentiae" on the part of the readers, who then are led to discover that actually I was glorifying Kenya's independence, including shouts of enthusiasm I remember it from radio broadcasts in my chidhood (I figure out I remember also in relation with making friends, shortly afterwards at the airport of Athens, with Kenyan athlets attending the Rome Olympic Games...) E.N. ] [deleted quotation] Actually, on the social versant, there is an ambition to provide with a (benign or dissacratory) mouth (which obviously is mine own) with public sectors which the Labor-fostered New Class which rules (disregarding its present political leanings) would, in the extreme, rather prefer to continue to consider as mouthless as if illiterate: thus, you find there the slum, the ultra-Orthodox street, the Ethiopian immigrant (or would-be immigrant), a young woman slain during a bus kidnapping but "guilty" -- for certain ears -- of bearing an ultimate Hispanic name (Portugue's), or the boy from the village near Hebron working at the greengrocer's and unable to go home as his mother, to protect him and the family from activists imposing to stop commuting to Israel, tells neighbors her children emigrated to Kuwait, and then there is his account to my own mother, about of his own mother telling him about the Jews of old -- those slain in Hebron in 1929 -- that were a different of Jews different from the new one, as well as his candid question to my mother: "But are you Jewish? Aren't you? As Jews, Jews are crazy." And, on the other hand, the amazement of a leftist friend: "What? You let an Arab in your apartment???" (and then, there are Near Eastern supposed reactions, either Arab or Jewish, to overpatronizing New Class pacifists: as I believe clash between different cultures of interaction pragmatics plays an ominous role in eternizing our regional conflict). [deleted quotation] [= Whenever [= Enough, I measure ] Enough! ] Thanks. Sincerely. It is a pleasure to see that today there is readiness to read, and then shout "Enough, Enough!" I reckon that during the 1950s: (1) "Enough!" would have preceded the book ever appearing (albeit this would have still been possible), and (2) that by then, I would have better not to be a civil or otherwise public servant... (But anyway, as I have already written, I have taken a position abroad.) If today we are able to bring skeletons out of the cupboard (or, as I did, from the Saison), it is for the very reason that at least from the early 1970 there has been a trend to admit diversity of opinions. Which has been accompanied by slow social progress, and even political change, albeit basically the effects of the errors of old are still there, and do not seem to be going to disappear. [deleted quotation] OK. Then, let us diffuse computing. Also, there are several interrogation marks about the effects of hypertext: when I open an encyclopedia, voices are signed. If we allow text to be modified, then this only strengthen the potential for manipulation. This possibility exists, of course, also with hardcopy books, but to a lesser extent. For example, today I looked, at the university's medical library nearby, for the medical dictionary by Masie and Tschernichowsky that I mentioned, from the 1930s (I had always consulted it there), but today it is no longer in the library, as seemingly sombody thought that the "New Medical Dictionary" by Even-Odem and Rotem (Rubin Mass Publ., Jerusalem, 1967), is enough. Even-Odem was an interesting wild neologizer (and the book, like Masie's, was pooublished after his death, thanks to the co-author/editor). Yet, today, with the limited amount of efforts that I am ready to devote the task, I am unable to check, in Masie & Tschernichowsky, certain things I thought of only because before, I had access to this book. With hypertext, such losses would be, perhaps, the rule. I thing the editors would agree about the opportunity not to deal, on Humanist, with politics, if not to the extent this is made necessary by the discussion of technical issues that are specifically of interest for this forum. Of course, Rafaeli and other have the right of reply, but I hope that on my versant, there will be no more need for me to tackle the political side of hypersatire, in the framework of this discussion. Thank you for your kind attention. Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Editor Error Date: Thu, 02 Aug 90 10:16:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 348 (870) This is one of those classic "Is my face red" situations -- I deleted all of the notes that had anything to do with Heisenberg before I sent them out to Humanist, so would all of you who had anything to say on the topic please resend them? Thanks. Elaine From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il> Subject: 4.0329, the best part of a poem... Date: Wed, 1 Aug 1990 9:13:06 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 771 (871) Meitav hashir kizvo: the best part of a poem is its fallacy Meitav hashir kitzvo: the best part of a poem is its rhythm The word-play is immediately obvious, but since no-one else pointed it out yet, I thought I would, just in case anyone who doesn't know Hebrew is reading this discussion. Judy Koren. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: Autobiographies Date: 31 Jul 90 23:45:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 772 (872) A German customer for Augustine's Confessions should get in touch with Prof. C. P. Mayer at the University of Giessen or with the Augustinus-Lexikon housed at the University of Wuerzburg: they have all of Augustine's 5,000,000 word output in machine-readable form. American users should address Prof. Allen Fitzgerald of Villanova, FITZGERAL@VUVAXCOM, who has a copy of the Wuerzburg database to which he can provide access under restrictions set by the Germans. From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: Technology as good tool and bad dehumanizer Date: 1 August 1990, 13:20:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 773 (873) Well at least the computer hasn't taken away all our jobs, as robots were supposed to do. It has just overloaded us with information, so that we become like Nixon in the famous photograph of him in Paris, shaking hands with someone in the crowd while looking at his watch. Have you noticed, while talking to someone long-distance, that they seem more distant than they need be, not paying attention, really, but then you hear a faint clicking over the receiver and you realize they are, perhaps, playing solitaire with Windows 3.0, while they are supposed to be talking to you? Do you notice that glazed look in a teenager's eye as he or she sits becoming a potato on the couch while watching Ninja Turtles? Every bot of the technology we expose ourselves to is dangerous, in that we can become at any moment the tool of our tools. Roy Flannagan (with some help from Thoreau's unforgettable image) From: HOKE ROBINSON <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET> Subject: The Texas Writing Syllabus Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 16:17 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 774 (874) Leaving aside the NAS, Round-Up, and the wasted preparation for the cancelled course, Mr. Slatin's cause seems a variant on the "canon" issue: the Sophomore lit course was to be broadened beyond the Eurocentric, and the Freshman writing course accordingly restructured around the theme of difference. Whereupon the usual charges arose: the "progressives" were trying to bring leftist indoctrination into the curriculum, the "reactionaries" were trying to preserve the white male European world-view. As a flag to those who want to stop reading now, I'm going, regretfully, to have to side with the reactionaries. The route I take to this conclusion may be somewhat different from the usual one. The group whose interests are regularly overlooked in these discussions, it seems to me, is the students. They will take Freshman Composition and Sophomore Lit (hopefully) once only, and then on to upper division courses, graduation and adult life. A "trial-and-error" approach to the curri culum is grossly unfair to the students in the "error" class: they may get a reasonable grade and graduate on time, but they write less well and know literature less well. They have been cheated out of a part, if perhaps only a small part, of their education. And this is the case whether they wind up ideologically left, right or something else: they are less effective, the less well they express themselves. What in Sophomore Lit is in the students' interest? Relevance, to be sure; but not just relevance for Fall 1990. For the majority who take only the required literature, it's relevance for the next fifty years. That means a responsible text selection has to take into account how transient a text's relevance may turn out to be. If twenty years ago you read _The Greening of American_ instead of _Leviathan_, _Zen and the Art.._ instead of _The Odyssey_ and _MacBird_ instead of _MacBeth_, you've got a good malpractice case against your Sophomore Lit instructor. What constitutes a "classic" changes, of course, and classics had to start sometime. But it is irresponsible to replace a "classic" with a work whose main recommendation is its contribution to diversity; first, it may be entirely forgotten in five, much less twenty years, and second, diversity may be replaced by commonality as a central theme. Of course the instructor can then update the syllabus; but the student is stuck with the now outmoded content. What for Freshman Writing is in the students' intere st? I think, to learn to write -- clearly, effectively, convincingly, and perhaps even elegantly. How well they master this is a major factor in their subsequent success as undergraduates, graduates and in professional life. To be sure, they need something to write about. But the theme of sexism and racism seems an extraordinary poor choice. To begin with, the analysis of Titles VII and IX is quite complex, as the readings packet shows, with the result that the instructor spends an extraordina ry amount of time teaching history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and law, in an English Department course entitled "Writing." Second, the issues can be expected to generate a lot of heat not conducive to learning to write. Third, the very choice of theme will inevitably be taken by the students, and perhaps by many GA's as well, as signaling a "pro-Affirmative-Action" tilt to the course, leading to the cynical (though hopefully inaccurate) belief that arguments _for_ AA are eo ipso sound a rguments. The choice of theme should not detract from the main goal of the course: teaching students to write. I certainly don't mean to discourage re-evaluation of the literature selections or the writing curriculum. Debates on diversity and commonality, text selection and writing goals are healthy and to be encouraged. But knee-jerk reactions by left and right are not healthy when it's the students who get kicked around. Hoke Robinson From: Ed Waldron <UD081917@NDSUVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0325 More on UTexas Writing Course, Part I (2/98) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 09:15:40 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 775 (875) The incident at UTexas sounds disturbingly like the arguments we went through twenty years ago concerning the *content* of composition courses. It seems it is still next to impossible to get non-English teaching colleagues to understand that "writing" as content for a course makes little sense. It is a method of writing that we teach (or, in my case, taught), _not_ "writing" as a subject matter. What freshman is going to be able to compose an argumentative discourse on some arcane facet of written communication? Having students think and write about topics that are of interest to them (or ought to be) can be a great help in getting over that initial barrier to writing -- "What can I write about?" My condolences to you. From: Michel Pierssens <PIERSENS@FRP8V11> Subject: Texas syllabus Date: Sam, 28 Jui 90 22:06:21 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 776 (876) This is turning into a typical summertime "feuilleton" for idle newsrooms or a remake of some David Lodge novel about cocktails and academic poli tics. I must confess that although I went through countless similar situations when I used to teach in the States I fail to see why the Texas problem should deserve so much e-space. True, there are real questions at the bottom of it all, but do we need to know all the particulars? Shouldn't the people involved try to get to the essentials and tell us whether there is something to be learned that is valid for all -- and then what? Isn't this a case of endemic academico-centrism on the part of academics? Is it the case that the future of th world rests on what happens with writing courses in Texas? I know that Hegel or Schelling would have said "yes" in a similar situation -- but then, what's the true role for a university today (not 1820)? Well, here comes the "university as information clearing-house" topic...Damn loop. From: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Subject: Texas syllabus Date: Tue 31 Jul 90 08:27:23 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 777 (877) For myself, I'll vote with the administration of Texas in the matter of E306. I agree that a writing class is not the place to let students vent their opinions on current events. Such a course (or, more appropriately, seminar) would probably be a good thing to introduce into the curriculum. It could teach students the difference between their beliefs, their prejudices and their opinions without having to come to any sort of partisan conclusion. Nevertheless, I sympathize with the English dept.'s reluctance to be the fall guy for such a course. I wouldn't want it in my History curriculum masquerading as a history course. You could easily argue that Sociology should host it, or History or Anthropology or a variety of other disciplines. Just because they write their opinions down doesn't make it an English course. This should not be a writing course. The instructor and the students would spend most of their time sorting out fact from fancy from prejudice rather than learning how to write. As one who still vividly recalls "English" courses that taught me NOTHING about the English language or about writing but only urged me to express myself (in whatever maundering mood struck me at the time I sat down with pen in hand), this course sounds like another sham. I'm still bitter that my English professors didn't teach me English. -= Skip =- Skip Knox Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0343 Queries Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 10:55:03 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 352 (878) My apologies to readers of a job posting I made to Humanist and elsewhere a few days ago. I neglected to say where the position was. (Several people used a reference in the job description to figure out where it was.) The posting was for a position at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Here again is the advert: TITLE: Assistant Director of Computer Education DEPARTMENT: Academic Computing & Instructional Technology SALARY RANGE: Negotiable STARTING RANGE: Negotiable This position is responsible for managing the Academic Computing and Instructional Technology department charged with coordinating and delivering faculty and student education services, including the development and provision of courses and workshops about the CMU computing environment, general computing, and computing techniques; overseeing a computing skills workshop; promoting computer learning activities; providing information on discipline-specific software and acquisition of computer applications software for public clusters and centrally supported systems; developing system documentation and help files; coordinating external communications on computing for Academic Computing and publishing the "Cursor"; and managing public computer facilities. QUALIFICATIONS: An advanced degree or equivalent in a computer related discipline is required along with a solid background in the delivery of computer education services, previous management experience, strong communication and marketing skills. Leslie Burkholder AC&IT and CDEC CMU From: Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [4.0339 Sensation v. Information; Handedness and Memory Date: Thu, 02 Aug 90 13:32:41 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 778 (879) The idea of memory 'pointers' to a mental FAT is fascinating, but I'm not sure one can conclude (with Judy Koren) that the name is 'the key' because it is stored in a particular place. What about music? It's an old quiz game trick to give someone the third line of a tune and ask for the first--*very* much more difficult than the other way round. So it looks more as though we *use* names to co-ordinate info about people in the same way as we use the beginning of a tune. Is this a learned response? Is it always the name which triggers other info? If Germaine Warkentin is *told* a name, does that trigger the rest? Regards, Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@PHX.CAM.AC.UK> From: Mary Dee Harris <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Gender and Handedness Date: 2 Aug 90 10:38:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 779 (880) As a left-handed female who admits to memory deficiencies, I had to respond to the continuing discussion. I wondered even as a child w hether I didn't look at the world differently than other people, especially other girls. I have made my living for 25 years in the computer field (I'm reluctant to refer to myself as a "computer junkie" for that reason) and during those years I've noticed an inordinate number of left handed folks being especially good with computers (and math and science). I don't think the research has determined entirely why this is, but it certainly seems to be the case that left handed people are better at scientific and mathematical work. What fascinates me is that in the field of computational linguistics and natural language processing (one field called two different things by different people) a very high percentage of the original research is done by women. I don't know how many of them are left handed. As someone reminded us recently, the pop analysis of the right brain/left brain phenomenon has been blow out of proportion by the media, but the general concensus is that lefties use both sides of their brain for language to a greater extent than righties. Since women are supposedly more adept at language to start with, what does that say about left-handed women? An intereesting question. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Left-Right Brain, Information vs. Sensation Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 12:30:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 780 (881) On Left/Right brain and Sensation/Information Two related topics. My (limited) knowledge of both topics draws from the following sources: On sensation vs. information: Robert B. Zajonc: numerous articles in the mid 80's in American Psychologist and Journal of Consumer Research, variously titled: "On the primacy of affect", "Preferences need no inferences", etc. These titles are so good, you don't need an abstract. On L/R Brains: Norman Geschwind: "Specializtions of the Human Brain", _Scientific American_, Sept. 1979. Also reprinted in _Language, Writing And The Computer_, edited by William S-Y. Wang. On the L/B issue: Geschwind is unambiguous: while some recovery and substitution are possible, there are clear divisions of labor among regions in the brain regarding various speech and cognition abilities. One pathological occurence related to L/B brain of interest to Judy: "...prosopagnosia: it is a failure to recognize faces. In the normal individual the ability to identify people from their faces is itself quite remarkable. At a glance one can name a person from facial features alone, even though the features may change substantially over the years or may be presented in a highly distorted form, as in a caricature. In a patient with prosopagnosia this talent for association is abolished. What is most remarkable about the disorder is its specificity. In general it is accompanied by few other neurological symptoms except for the loss of some part of the visual field, sometimes on both sides, and sometimes only in the left half of space. Most mental tasks are done without particular difficulty" (p. 11). No mention of gender. Are their any more recent sources on these issues? From: Monica Paolini <paolini%icopen.ico.olivetti.com@RELAY.CS.NET> Subject: Help on TOPICS Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 13:53:00 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 781 (882) I am currently working on a dissertation on knowledge representation and text generation in the Renaissance rhetoric, focussing in particular on Giulio Camillo Delminio Theatre (for reference see: F.A. Yates, The Art of Memory) and on the topics of elocutio. I am looking for anything about topics -about history, rhetoric, aesthetics and semiotics-, since I have not been able to find anything really interesting on it, apart from Roland Barthes' book on ancient rhetoric and and article by Ducros appeared in the 1970. I am studying topics as peculiar forms of knowledge representation that enable the rhetorician to construe figures of speech and arguments. I would like to follow the historical development of topics and to elaborate a typology of topics. Second request. Since I am trying to simulate the functioning of Camillo theatre by writing a PROLOG program to generate figures of speech implementing a topic as a structure for knowledge representation, I would like to get some information about other attempts to build programs generating figures of speech. Any information or comment on this will be most appreciated. Monica Paolini paolini@icopen.ICO.OLIVETTI.COM (until the end of August) mail address: via de' Marchi 23 40126 Bologna Italy phone: 051-334401 From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: library lists Date: Thu, 02 Aug 90 12:00:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 782 (883) On behalf of my colleagues in our library who've taken a recent shine to BITNET -- can HUMANIST readers recommend any lists which would do for librarians what HUMANIST does for us (whatever that is)? Replies -- either to me directly or to the list -- would be most appreciated. Charles Ess Drury College From: Tom Horton <tom@cs.fau.edu> Subject: Video and archaeology Date: Wed, 1 Aug 90 18:15:57 edt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 783 (884) A colleague in Anthropology asks: Tom: Could you put me in touch with someone on campus or(?) who could give me advice on pros & cons of particular video imaging boards/software,etc. I have a large database of archaeological site records and to make my information archive really worthwhile, I should be able to call up a video image of the site or structure. Any ideas??? Thanks in advance. I have no knowledge about this area. Can someone out there please help me point him to something useful that's appeared in a magazine or journal or on a bulletin board. (If there's been some previous relevant discussion on HUMANIST, let me know and I'll pull it from the file server.) Info on or experiences with particular products is welcome too. Reply directly to me; I'll summarize the responses and post back to HUMANIST. Thanks a lot. Tom Horton Department of Computer Science Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL 33435 USA Phone: 407/367-2674 FAX: 407/367-2674 Internet: tom@cs.fau.edu Bitnet: HortonT@fauvax From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1> Subject: Hebrew LJII Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 01:39:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 784 (885) A colleague wants to know about programs that will create and download Hebrew fonts to the HP LJ printer. NB: answer only if you have used such successfully and with various applications. Heresay is not acceptable evidence... E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN From: Joanna Johnson <JOHNSON@MCMASTER> Subject: Text-based Information Retrieval Software Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 12:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 785 (886) Carl Cuneo of the Department of Sociology here at McMaster University is looking to acquire a text retrieval program because he has about 200-300 interviews which have been transcribed into files which run about 100,000 bytes in size EACH. He would like to communicate with people who have actually used products of this type since he is at present limited to reviews and vendor information. I seem to remember a discussion of some products of this type here but I can't remember when it was. What we would like to know specifically is, can the product handle such a large volume of data EASILY, preferably without having to divide the files or code the text? The vendors that Carl has talked to seem to have a work-around for their product, but he has yet to find the one that he know will handle files of this size automatically. He has been looking particularly at Search Express, IZE, AskSam, PackRat, Agenda and Memory Lane. Suggestions of others which can easily handle such a large amount of data are also welcome. Carl's e-mail address is CUNEO@MCVM1 (BitNet/NetNorth) or CUNEO@MCMVM1.CIS.MCMASTER.CA. Mine is JOHNSON@MCMASTER (BitNet/ NetNorth) or JOHNSON@MCMASTER.CA. Thanks for your help. Joanna M. Johnson Computing Services Coordinator (Humanities) McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: what is the real world of technology? Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 07:24:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 356 (887) Several fellow Humanists have, in effect, pointed out that Ursula Franklin (in her book _The Real World of Technology_) is telling a certain kind of story. In this story an original condition of goodness is somehow corrupted, and as a result the world falls into an evil state, from which we can be rescued only by a kind of return at great cost to a renewed form of the original condition. The opposite story, the one usually told by technologists, tells us that once upon a time we lived in primitive savagery, beset by ignorance and disease of all sorts, from which we were elevated by some miraculous gift, and by cleverness we have progressed to our present heights. I am of course grossly oversimplifying Franklin's argument by extracting from it the edenic story of a fall from a golden (holistic) to an iron (prescriptive) age, but at least as I read the book that story is there. It is not surprising to find a culturally sophisticated scientist reacting to the equally false myth of progress in that way. At the same time, we should not let the influence of the edenic story on her argument obscure the truth in it. Here on Humanist we can hardly do justice to Franklin's book (or any other, for that matter) because we cannot all obtain and read it. (Remember the discussion of Halio's article on the influence of Macs and PCs on the quality of writing?) We can, however, deal intelligently with the problems Franklin is pointing to. Holistic vs. prescriptive technologies. The scholar is (or was) an holistic craftsman, working on some problem in the manner he or she thinks best, controlling the pace of work, more or less, the shape of the whole, its attributes, and so forth. The craftsman's care with work and practical concern for its perfection -- always a struggle against the demands of the client or need to make a living, but nevertheless recognized as a virtue to be admired -- is something that we as scholars can recognize. (If you are an academic but can't, then find another occupation.) We also, I think, know what a prescriptive manner of work is, and how demeaning and repugnant it is, and we can all sense the tendencies in modern life to impose prescriptive formulas if not technologies. What, do you think, are the implications of the thrust towards greater "productivity" -- the making or more "products"? The equation of the academic's life with the factory worker's? The tools of our tools. I think we also have no difficulty understanding that the adoption of a technology means the adoption of a new manner of work, the asking of a new set of questions, the alteration in our perception of what is there to be questioned. To me what is so interesting about our common field is this reordering of things. But there is a danger, don't you think, that we forget what we're about, that the important questions become obscured by those we can now so easily answer, that the real problems of the humanities are put aside because there is no external support to work on them? Franklin has worried for years, and very intelligently too, about how research is controlled by those with the money. Isn't there a danger threatening us here too, esp. if we get knee-deep in expensive equipment? Aren't we in need of some fundamental public relations (to put it crudely) so that our fellow citizens outside the academy understand what the academy is for? Don't we ourselves need to refresh our understanding of why we do what we do? And, finally, what impact do computers have on the asking of such basic questions? Enough. Let me observe one thing more before decamping for my office. The people I've met because of a common interest in humanities computing are among the most well equipped to tackle such questions. That to me is a hopeful sign, an indication of renewal rather than corruption. Am I wrong? Willard McCarty From: Mary Dee Harris <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: UT Freshman Comp. Date: 2 Aug 90 10:59:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 786 (888) I can't resist pointing out to Humanist readers that when I was one of the original Assistant Instructors at the University of Texas at Austin from 1968 to 1971, we were in the midst of the Freshman Comp. wars. In three years we had three Directors of Freshman English, including the (in)famous Jim Sledd who brought in CLASSICAL RHETORIC, much to the horror of the faculty at large. I think he followed the Director who brought in the theme "Identity and the Sense of Self" with the notion that students needed something to write about and they were already concerned about their **search for identity**. We had a choice of books to teach, including _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_, _The Invisible Man_, Erik Eriksson's book _Identity ..._, and some others I don't recall. At that time Maxine Hairrston (sp?) was Assistant Director of Freshman English (now one of the "reactionaries"). I remember her explaining in a training session for TA's that it really isn't that hard to discuss penis envy in a Freshman English class. (Not everyone was convinced.) I don't mean to trivialize the struggle going on in the Composition program at Texas. Teaching freshman to write is exceedingly important, exceedingly difficult, and immensely rewarding. But it is, and always will be, fraught with controversy. John, keep up the good work!! Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: David Sewell <dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Texas composition debate Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 12:05:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 787 (889) I don't think John Slatin's postings concerning the Freshman Comp situation at the University of Texas were inappropriately long. (As for length of postings, would Humanist be Humanist if people weren't free to submit astonishing volumes of words concerning arcana that only a dozen or so scholars in the world comprehend... <add paralinguistic irony>.) While the issue is of primary interest to teachers in the U.S., it touches on questions of institutional politics and the nature of writing instruction that are universal. And for humanists in the U.S. it is important indeed. Texas has been a de facto national leader in certain respects in higher education and research (computer consortia, super-collider physics); the writing program at UT is one of the largest in the country; and what happens in Austin will be watched carefully by faculty and administrators alike all over the country. And I think members of Humanist might want to ponder and perhaps discuss a statement like that of Alan Gribben, the UT faculty member who has led the opposition to the Civil Rights comp course, who said in the course of attacking multicultural studies requirements (I'm quoting from memory from a NY Times interview, but this is pretty close to the original), "The university is by definition multicultural. If I'm reading Greek epics and studying Roman history, I'm having a multicultural experience." (Were a Yale closed to Jews or a Cambridge closed to women therefore offering "multicultural experience"?) So freshmen at UT are going to be put in their comp classes this fall and told to just "learn how to write." But they mustn't think about civil rights in the meantime. A little bit like spending five minutes not thinking about elephants. Perhaps some of them will be inspired to write research papers on the bizarreness of academic politics, and about the peculiarity of a discipline (composition instruction) which nobody wants to do and which everybody looks down on, but which everyone knows how to do better than the people who spend their professional lives doing it... Me? I, like Alan G., am just a Mark Twain scholar. What do I know about freshman comp? From: w mccutchan -- computing services <walter@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: responses to the responses to the Texas Writing Course. Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 14:26:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 788 (890) In response to Hoke Robinson and his comments regarding the Texas Writing Course I should like to raise my voice in a loud "bravo!" I couldn't have said it better myself. I wish I had said it. ..walter mccutchan p.s. further comments about just _how_ I can go about a malpractice suit against the (well meaning) "educators" who perpetrate on their students their misguided adventurisms will be most appreciated. From: Jim Cahalan <JMCAHAL@IUPCP6.BITNET> Subject: Texas controversy Date: 03 Aug 90 10:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 789 (891) I'm surprised by the reactionary nature of a number of postings about the dean's back-burner veto of the new writing course at Texas. I find the view that such a course is unfairly "political," and that students should simply be taught "writing" and "the classics"--as if anyone can teach anything without a political stance, and as if the view that "the classics" should be taught and not newer "political" works is not one of the most sharply political positions--amusing at best and scary at worst. As Terry Eagleton puts it, "Hostility to theory usually means opposition to other people's theories and oblivion of one's own." Neither "writing" nor "literature" (or "the classics") are value-free lenses that the teacher can simply hold up in front of students and teach them to look through devoid of any implicit political stance. People who support "the classics" and the status quo regularly accuse teachers to the left of them of being "political," amusingly and irritatingly pretending that their own position has nothing to do with politics. I never could figure that out--or actually I guess that I can: It's a lot more convenient and self-serving to pretend that oneself is "objective" and "impartial" and that people with whom you disagree are "biased" and "political." Certainly the view that students should read Homer and be kept "neutral" and quiet, rather than debate racism in Texas and learn to write about the broader issues of which it is a part meaningfully and from their own individual points of view, is a powerfully reactionary and above all political position. P.S. Even more relevant to the Texas controversy than the quotation from Terry Eagleton that I posted a little while ago is one from Kenneth Burke: "Whenever you find a doctrine of 'nonpolitical' aesthetics affirmed with fervor, look for its politics." Jim Cahalan, Graduate Literature <JMCAHAL@IUP.BITNET> English Dept., 111 Leonard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705-1094 Phone: (412) 357-2264 From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: headings so nicely provided by our editors@brownvm might come Date: Friday, 3 August 1990 3:26pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 358 (892) in handy there, don't you think? Hoke Robinson prefers to leave aside minor problems like the NAS's involvement in the movement to get the course stopped. Glad he has the luxury, but it might be of interest to some others to learn that the local affiliate, the Texas Association of Scholars, paid for the advertisement I mentioned in an earlier posting (one of those long messages Pierssens objects to; hope he's stopped reading by now). I have no problem with their doing that; I do have a problem with the fact that the name of the organization does not appear in the ad, and that the ad is represented as a statement of concern by individual faculty members. I was under the impression that political advertisements were supposed to carry the legend, "Paid Political Advertisement" or words to that effect. The NAS is welcome to the debate-- but as the NAS. But, leaving aside racism and the NAS and all that unpleasantness, as Professor Robinson would like, what have we got? Well, we've got the dread specter of multiculturalism, which Professor Robinson raises before going on to talk at some length about questions of "relevance" and the problems to teaching by "trial and error." I must have missed something somewhere-- I don't recall having said anything about encouraging either graduate students or faculty to randomize their text selection processes. I wasn't aware, soehow, that the only alternatives to teaching texts Matthew Arnold would have approved (whoops! sorry to have brought into the discussion someone so declasse as to have lectured in the vernacular) were randomness on one hand or, on the other, whatever the current equivalent of _The Greening of America_ might be-- _The Closing of the American Mind_, perhaps? There is, it seems to me, something rather contradictory about first insisting that only books which have stood the test of time can be taught without risk, and then making it impossible to submit anything to that test, but I'm sure I`m missing something somewhere again and I'm sure someone will be kind enough to explain it to me. Of course some texts will fail to stand up over time! So do scientific theories; so do theories of history and explanations of historical events and patterns. Things do change. I don't understand Professor Robinson's conception of "risk," either-- surely he can't be serious in suggesting that students should sue us for malpractice if we "guess" wrong about the future? Mind if I borrow your crystal ball, sir? What if we "guess" wrong about the PAST? What if everyone who teaches Milton turns out, 20 years from now, to have mistaken for a document of universal and timeless value a text espousing ahighly partisan and narrowly sectarian point of view about parochial religio-political issues on a small island off the coast of the United States of Europe? Does it diminish Milton, in some way I'm too stupid to imagine, to consider that there might have been other poets writing, at about the same time in non-European languages, works of similarly astonishing beauty and scope? Did the re-emergence of the Homeric texts do violence to Virgil? I don't recall feeling that the Epic of Gilgamesh did anything to hurt The Iliad, or that Things Fall Apart did harm to Madame Bovary. Perhaps Professor Robinson would feel more comfortable if we left out of the English curriculum everything written after 1850; that way we could be really sure everything had stood up well. And while we're at it, let's get rid of American literature again-- after all, it entered the curriculum pretty damn recently too, just another bunch of colonial upstarts. When I was an undergraduate in the English HOnors Program at the University of Michigan in 1972, we had to petition for an honors seminar in American lit; the department gave in only reluctantly. Meanwhile, I suggest malpractice insurance. And to Ed Waldron, thanks. John Slatin, UT Austin From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0343 Queries Date: Thu, 02 Aug 90 16:39:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 790 (893) re: recovering erased files Norton utilities is wonderful for recovering erased files; it gets them directly from the disk. The only restriction to recovery is that you cannot have saved something else on the same disk area. Frank Dane From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: address of frac-l Date: Wed, 1 Aug 90 22:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 791 (894) The Bitnet address of frac-l, the list devoted to discussion of fractals, is frac-l@gitvm1. I gave the wrong address in an earlier posting. From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Hypersatire. Date: Wed, 1 Aug 90 18:56:41-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 360 (895) I would like to elaborate on Rafaeli's remarks on multiauthorship and hypertext. What would multiauthorship imply from the viewpoint of coordination? Would free access to authors be mediated as in an e-list? What would be the effect on the creativity of the individual author? Can we figure out a taxonomy of multiauthorship, such that, for example, the case would be included of fiction authors A and B that alternatively develop a shared plot? In my approach to hypersatire I tried to involve, to a limited extent, multiauthorship as follows: 1) Short quotations. But as they are short, they are easily manipulated for my own purposes. 2) Bibliographical notes. There are two cases: a) entries which -- I figure out beforehand -- in all likelihood readers would not try to access and read, because: i) it was only the title that interested me for poetic reasons: this is the case, for example, of two papers in experimental phonetics and signal processing, by Anandapadmanabha and Yegnanarayan; the first focuses on the recognition of the sentence "Cats and dogs hate each other" in a certain Indian language, as uttered by several speakers; in the other paper, published later, the utterance selected was just "mum", but, by chance, "mum" ("moom") is also the Hebrew word for "disablement". Thus, you get the two titles to comment -- as though -- in the background, on the effects of conflict. In the background, you get "Les Invalides" in the most literal sense: a drip of newly crippled people is scanned, as the two kilometrically named authors had their subjects of the experiment utter. Another example is the contents of a paper collection on eclogites (a kind of minerals), as a counterpoint to a mention of eclogues (idyls). ii) I mentioned that title only because it is exotic, as a counterpoint to some very prosaic point in the text, to be satirized. b) Entries that the reader is advised to access, even though by no means we could assume s/he would try to do. Ideally, we would like to have the referenced text available through the hypertext, but it does not happen in reality. Thus, the bibliographic note is just a simulation of a missing link. 2) Long quotations. For example, from a sermon of Rabbi Shim`on Aghassi, (Baghdad, 9 Adar 5673), in the version published by the Fund for the Publication of the Writings of the Rabbis of Babylonia [=Baghdad] (Jerusalem 5724=1964). It addresses issues such as cultural colonialism and keep-up-with-the-Joneses-ism. On the latter, he wrote some short satirical pearls. However, the longest quotation is my translation, from Italian, of the Song of the Wild [Giant] Cock, that Giacomo Leopardi wrote in 1824 (if I recall properly), in the framework of his "Operette Morali". I mentioned the context where I inserted this, in my first posting on hypersatire (4.0295); it stems from considerations on some proposals to reduce representativeness in our electoral system (a certain demographic sector has urban concentrations that could be almost wiped, in electoral terms, by reform, even without gerrymandering of the kind we had at the last trade-union elections, when kibbutzim of employers were united in the same circumscription as the towns of their employees), and goes on with social unrest, the broken egg of a giant bird, and so on. Then, we got to Leopardi. The "Song" claimed to be a free translation from a certain (mixed) stratum of Hebrew and `Chaldaic', but actually Leopardi developed original considerations on young and old age of the individual and the universe, in his typically pessimistic mood. I tried to reproduce the marble surface of his prose, in contemporary literary Hebrew with a flavor of the strata he feigned he was translating. He had added a disclaimer to the ideas expressed in the "Song", by claiming they suited a poetic mood, whereas "rationally", he believed something different. Then, I added a disclaimer (of my own) of both his poetic truth and his rational truth... Perhaps this is the closest I went, to Rafaeli's ideal of multi-authorship. Now, a remark about Alan Corre''s wondering about the relevance of postings directed to an in-group. My reply (4.0311) included the following: [deleted quotation] I happened to omit point five: Jud(a)eo-Arabic. If I don't err, Alan and myself are the only ones to have applied computing to that domain (albeit Alan did much more thoroughly, and much longer). So I figure out we are the ultimate in-group... Should the low cardinality (=number of elements) of an in-group (actually, a set, not an algebraic group) condemn a discipline to being excluded from e-lists? I feel that "Humanist" in general is the right forum for all areas within humanities. However, Alan is correct when he points out that readers would have little interest in a discussion whose technicalities thay don't understand. This is why I made my postings long, by including explanations. To let readers to appreciate the whole discussion, here is a short glossary: Re: Corre''s 4.0300: [deleted quotation]A people of Watussi-high (?) people from Transjordan, exterminated by the Ammonites, who used to call them Zamzummim. Perhaps cremators instead of inhumators, unless we find the remains of giants there. [deleted quotation]Both Arabic and Hebrew term a she-camel a "naqa", and by chance (?), "naaqa" is Hebrew for groan. [deleted quotation]The segol is the orthographic sign for the (grammatically) short "e" vowel. [deleted quotation]the congregational academy were called "medrasistas".) "Midrash" usually denotes Jewish exegesis. But "`The House of' midrash" is the house of learning, i.e., school, after the primary acceptation of "midrash". Arabic for "school" is "madrasa". There is a regular correspondence between Hebrew/Canaanite "sh", Aramaic "th", and Arabic "s", but the "s" of "medrasistas", instead, is due to the fact Judeo-Spanish (to which exiled Portuguese Jews adapted) often transforms "sh" into "s", like Modern Spanish, whereas it sometimes keeps "sh" (Moshiko: an hypocoristic form of "Moshe", Moses); Spanish used to have "sh" (written as "x": cf. the old orthography of the Sicilian dialect of Italian: Leonardo Sciascia's grandfather spelled "Xaxa", and Bettino Craxi is pronounced "Kracksee" but, as a Sicilian last name, it used to be "krashy"). However, the pronunciation of Spanish "x" evolved to that of "j" from (Me'xico--> Me'jico, axolotl --> ajolote). Re: Sheizaf Rafaeli's 4.0303: [deleted quotation] Midde' Muddi' (the title of my book): "Whenever I Measure". Dai Dai: "Enough! Enough!" in Hebrew. Italians, instead, would understand quite the contrary: "dai", "da'" = "give!", but as an exclamation, "Dai" is a standard incitation. (But, if uttered with a weary voice, with a descending instead of rising pitch, it means: "Stop it!" as means Romanesco [=Roman Italian] "E dayye!", which is angry, but melodically descending-pitch). To understand Rafaeli's point (that presumably had nothing to do with Italian), one has to consider Hebrew orthography, that can be transliterated as follows: MDY MDY = midde' muddi' DY DY = Dai! Dai! [deleted quotation] "Taref" means non-kosher. The morphological formation pattern is the same as of "kasher" (kosher). "Trefa" is a kosher animal that was killed (and, possibly, partly devoured) by another animal, thus making the meat non-kosher. By extension, "Trefa" is any non-kosher carcass, or meat therefrom. The original acceptation is "devoured", from verb "Taraf", "to devour" (as carnivora would do). [deleted quotation] "Volare" (Flying) refers to Modugno song I had mentioned. "Alilot Mikki Mahu" is a book (also) for children, by Shlonsky. The title means: "The Adventures of Mickey `What is it?'", where the name of the character emulates Mickey Mouse. It is playful, but with some references for literati or politicos: for example, there is a goose that, in a theater, protests: "Hebrew only!". This is a reference to the play "Yente Telepente", that was that crucial, it lent its name to a place in Tel Aviv (it was demolished). The play itself was not a success at all. The cast boasted of the wife of a (by then) well-known Yiddish actor, and she was explicitly referred to as his wife... Anyway, they arrived to Palestine, in the 1920s, and were expected to play in Yiddish. Only, the struggle between Hebrew and Yiddish was raging, in the country. In 1920, the trade-union had been established, and at its founding convention, the Yemenite workers' delegation requested that Hebrew be adopted, so they could understand. The extreme left, instead, would have preferred to stick to Yiddish, that used to be the languages of the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe. Albeit the convention adopted Hebrew, the communist delegation sent to the podium a delegate it had expressly picked because he could speak Yiddish but not Hebrew. (As Yemen was not believed to have been enlightened by the Verb of Marx, the Yemenite workers were heathens to be despised or/and civilized, according to that creed, as I see it.) Anyway, the convention had not yet terminated the language struggle. When the turn of the play came, the Hebraizers tried to prevent the cast of "Yente Telepente" from playing, unless they hastily adopted Hebrew. A lawyer of the Mops (Mifleget Po`alim Sotzyalistit, Socialist Workers' Party, that is, the Leninists) told the Austrian consul that the Zionists were persecuting German; the consul inquired, and, having learned better, chose to do nothing about it. (Later on, a group of the Mopsies emigrated from Palestine to the Soviet Union [as many Communists in the world were doing], and tried to set up a commune in Crimea. Stalin did away with them.) Ultimately, the cast gave in. They played in Hebrew, like parrots, as they did not know the language. The Yiddishizers, offended, did not attend. The Hebraizers did, but were not in a benevolent mood. At one point, a young woman in the audience rose and shouted (whence the goose in Mickey Mahoo): "Hevreh, zeh schund!" and led the audience out. Fellow's, it's filth!" Her sentence was ^ ^ ^ uttered in a mix ș ș ș of: slangish ș Yiddish(!!!) Hebrew. Hebrew. Such a disaster of a play was nevertheless hailed as the battle that gave Hebrew victory in Palestine over Yiddish. As Sheizaf Rafaeli concluded posting 4.0303 by using the term "Ducking", I took the liberty of mentioning the goose from "Mickey Mahoo" that, in real life (that is: the fanatic, not the goose), doomed "Yente Telepente", and now, I am going on... McDucking. In "Midde' Muddi'", a certain chapter includes a gallery of political portraits, but the last one fades into a certain character from Disney: Disney's most determined character is not McDuck, but Bridget, the businesswoman that would rather send him under an oxygen tent, for the purposes of courting. One note explains that actually, back in the Klondyke (pseudo-etymologized as from "klon-", i.e., the "kalon" of, "kalon" being a noun meaning "shame", from root "kln"; but the standard Hebrew lexical root associated with shame is "bush", as in "bushah", that is the standard Hebrew term for shame), the very creative Italian license- holders of Disney had placed Doretta Do-Re-Mi (Dorritt, a saloon singer), that later on, in the Sixties, manages to have McDuck (!!!) assume responsibilities for her grand-daughter, a hippie. This gives us the opportunity of redrawing McDuck's Klondyke with the scene of Chaplin eating the sole of a shoe, while his bear-like companion is eating the vamp of the same shoe. Only, the Hebrew term for a vamp (of the shoe, not Dorritt from the saloon) is ['penet] /pent/, which sends us pseudo-etymologizing again: a certain Pharaoness is known to have sent for gold to the Land of Punt, thus there "must" be a reminiscence there. Only, Velikovsky (a historian from Princeton who broke all conventions -- especially the belief in the truth of the accepted list of Egyptian dynasties as handed down -- to the extent that an editor who accepted a book of his in a scientific series was fired; findings since the 1950s disprove his conjectures on the relation between languages and peoples, e.g., the Hittites, etc., ), maintained that actually, the Queen of Sheba was not the Queen of Sheba, but that particular Pharaoness, and Punt was Solomon's kingdom, that is, my own country. After Dorritt's story, we are led to Bridget's (Italian: Brigitta Papera), whose determination and looking fade into a modern Israeli character that, according to an ancient elegy, is known as "Shulamit the Terrible" (that little known passage in the elegy meant Israel, as Shulamit in the Sing of Songs is metaphorically taken to represent Israel). Israelis do not need further hints to understand whom I am referring to. The other portraits of the gallery are, instead, considerably more this-worldly, and linguistic acrobacy is used along with quotations from the daily press. Here is an explanation of the Arabic sentence I included in my reply to Rafaeli's posting: [deleted quotation] hazl = smile (but by sound, it is a reminiscence of English "hazel"). al-`uyun = the eyes. hazl al-`uyun = the smile of the eyes. The adjective accompanying "eyes" is "<<bundaq>>-like", "like hazelnuts", thus: "hazel eyes". However, the adjective is also the Arabic noun that means "a carabine". Thus, the sense is both: "the smile of the hazel eyes", and "the smile of the eyes of the carabine". The simile goes on: "... and the tears of the eyes that are <<`anjaS>>-like", where `anjaS is the Arabic name for plums (cf. English "prune", for a dried plum, and French "prune", plum, vs. "prunelle", i.e., the apple of the eye). Semitic languages allow further associations. Ephraim Nissan From: dusknox@skipspc.idbsu.edu (Skip_Knox) Subject: Technology (eds) Date: Mon 06 Aug 90 08:34:12 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 792 (896) I don't like Willard's dichotomy, splitting work into holistic and prescriptive, and I especially object to his historical references. There never was an age of the Craftsman, the careful and painstaking expert lovingly turning out objects both beautiful and functional. Equally, the advent of the machine age did not do away with the possibility of making such works. In the alleged Golden Age -- when did Willard have in mind? -- work was controlled by guilds, are far stricter and more oppressive force than any 20th century funding agency. (apologies for the typing errors; I'm going to fix this editor, just as soon as I can find some plastique) Within that milieu were many instances of craftsman using inferior goods, copying the work of more famous cities or craftsmen (copyright violation), and generally trying to clip the customer for a few extra ducats. If anything, the evidence suggests that the guilds as organizations fought a continuous battle over quality against their individual members who were always trying to cut corners (according to the guilds, the corner-cutters were always foreigners). Moreover, in modern times, we have many, many craftsmen, nor are these all only Bohemian-types off making stained glass and Boston rockers. I would argue that modern craftsmen include even such folks as computer makers. It seems to me that the threat to craftsmanship comes from units of economic organization; that the guild as much as the international corporation, by setting "standards" creates an environment that discourages excellence. And yet, the modern corporation, unlike the guild, has the flexibility at least to allow craftsmanship, albeit only in corners rather than across the whole organization. Finally, I'd like to suggest that craftsmanship and innovation may not be compatible. The former suggests adherence to a kind of Platonic ideal form, while the latter is pragmatic and experimental. Modern, if you will. I do agree that the desire for "productivity", and especially the rather foolish notion that it can be measured -- and the pernicious notion that a worker's measurable productivity is an accurate indication of the individual's worth to the organization and to society -- is unfortunate and actually dangerous. But computers have not made university administrators foolish; they'll be fools regardless of the technology. Skip Knox Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU From: Norman Hinton <SSUBIT12@UIUCVMD> Subject: Evolution and technology Date: Mon, 06 Aug 90 10:27:11 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 793 (897) After 6 weeks away from HUMANIST, I'm glad to see that Willard is still proposing vital and difficult questions for us. I have one suggestion, triggered by his reference to a mythic history of mankind's "up from the slime", evolution-based version of technological progress: take a look at Stephen Jay Gould's latest book, _Wonderful Life_ in which, among many other things, he complains about a "progress" notion of evolution, and includes a number of wonderfuly wrong icon- nologies of evolution, which he rather easily demolishes. It's in an early chapter, but don't stop there: the whole book should be read by humanists.... From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0356 The Real World of Technology? (1/66) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 90 18:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 794 (898) Dear Willard, et al., I would recommend highly a sociological work, rather stilted and ponderous, but also organized, serious, and clear in its thought, entitled THE TECHNOLOGICAL CONSCIENCE, by Manfred Stanley. Available in Uni of Chicago paperback, and originally published in 1978. Its prspective is learned, and it doesnt stay at the level of emotional myth. What Willard is worried about is the leveling of the Humanist in terms of "output." Output has to do with measurement, and tchnology is almost all to do with measurement, as it comes from science and engineering. Until things were measured, more and more accurately, one could do with vague and mythological thinking. It is no accident that Marx was interested in economy, which is essentially measurement. I dont myself equate mythology, edenic nonsense or otherwise, with the thought poetry. Poetry is something quite other, and other than this newfangled jargonical word Holistic, which too many granola eaters and birkenstock-wearing hikers use freely to cover a multitude of unexamined lives and notions. I am simply musing, but as a generally unrational, poetic thinker of analogies, I shrink from the invasion of poetry or the misuse of it by all sorts of writers, religious and otherwise, who wouldnt know how to read a poem or a sacred text, but sure know how to complain about the tight shoes, the iron shoes of Zeus' law: the iron law of causality, from which technology is mistakenly thought to have descended, when it came from the forethinker, Prometheus, who was our helper in the world after Eden, if you are Greekified, and who never was imagined b y the Semites, I mean the Hebrews. Moses by the way allied himself as soon as he could with the Midianites (ironworkers). All vagaries, but nothing holistic here. Your friendly muser, and amuser, I hope, Kessler here at UCLA, Willard. From: Michel Pierssens <PIERSENS@FRP8V11> Subject: Texas Freshman Comp Date: Lun, 06 Ao­ 90 09:09:21 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 795 (899) Prof Slatin is (understandably) touchy about the UT writing problem and that may obscure his perception of other people's reactions to his state ments. Isn't indicative of a failure to communicate effectively and convin cingly (what freshman comp is supposed to be about -- at least partially)? When people disagree with your views does that mean that they are reactionaries or that your arguments lack rhetorical strength? A one paragraph badly argued point will always be too long. Prof Cahalan rejoinder suffers (in my view) from another type of rhetorical weakness: the recourse to quotes from Authorities. What strength can there be in a trivial quotation by Terry Eagleton? The end result is that, even though ideologically sympathetic with Prof Slatin's general outlook, his way of arguing his point makes me doubt its value. Here's proof of my good faith: give me an effective essay on the UT controversy and I'll publish it in SubStance (which I edit at Uof Wisonsin Press). From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: Texas controversy Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 21:05:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 796 (900) Keep doing what you are doing, John Slatin, and I, for one, will contribute to a fund to pay your malpractice insurance. I'm pleased to see that UT Austin still has people with the courage to take on the cultural conservatives. William TeBrake (Ph.D. Texas, 1975, in history) From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Texas Writing and Multiculturalism Date: 03 Aug 90 22:02:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 797 (901) The Texas flap sounds to these jaded ears like nothing so much as an internecine struggle within the local thought police to see who will control the official ideology. Shouldn't the function of academic discourse be to demolish ideology wherever we find it? Replacing old ideologies with new ones, or defending old ones against new ones, is a sterile game at best, better left to politicians and other lower life forms. No right-winger I, but *experto credite, Teucri*, the idea that Greece and Rome are somehow part of the majority culture in America at this time is a *sheer* fantasy. Nothing easier than to teach them multiculturally, and 90%+ of classicists known to me, including outrageous right-wingers, do so. Is it fair to instance the institution that wanted to introduce a non-western culture requirement and then at a very late stage had to change the name hurriedly to `diversity requirement' when they noticed they had included `Hispanic' as a `non-western' culture? From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0358 Texas Controversy, Part II (1/82) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 90 16:46 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 798 (902) Dear John Slatin: I just read your remark about the Am Lit Honors course petition at Ann Arbor in 1972. I am astonished. I left in 1954, with the Ph.D., on DH Lawrence, maybe the 2nd thesis to be done in the States! But among the first few. I had no idea UoM had backslid so far! Ridiculous! I shant take up your heated reply; but I do wonder how it is that folk who wish to teach their fresh comp students to think usually want to do it with texts they think their students will get excited about? Malcolm X and suchlike. It was Soul on Ice a while back, but Cleaver is a nono today because he came back and said Algeria was superracist. He should have read early Baldwin, who preferred the States to Europe...until he got older and went to live in europe etc and write about whites and gaiety...a ruined mind, from the 70's on. Not his fault perhaps, as is it ever? But...John, the firebrands who want to take kids out of high school in the States where they have had next to zilch by way of thinking, and lots of anti-thought in the culture from tv and movies, and start them in hot topics are perhaps thinking of their own recent awakenings. I think one could do even more damage to reactionaries with Homer, with Ecclesiastes, with job , with Alex Pope, and certainly a hell of a lot more awakening with house of 7 gables, with scarlet letter, with moby dick, with Huck Finn, with Confidence Man, with even H James and Faulkner and Fitzgerald, and such like. Socrates is always a good bet, symposium. Thinking can be taught well where the emotions are not directly, but indirectly engaged, so that examples from contemporary life can be brought to bear to connect! Passage to India will do it. But the polemics of the current decades are usually pretty confused and confusing. There are post war books, but from Daddy's or say Grandpa's youth (I keep forgetting I am past 60). YOu want them to think? Machiavelli. Use indirection, and keep the Dean guessing because you are using bona fide classics. gulliver's tales. C'mon! Subversion can be the Federalist papers even. Critical subversion of nonthinking reaction. Otherwise one falls into the feverishness of agitproplithink. 1984 will always work! It takes you into Europe and the betrayal of all hopes by the murder of the idealists by the CP in Spain. C'mon. Dos Passos will do fine for that. But there are also essayists: Freud and Jung and Koestler et al. Bernard Shaw will do. the 19th century is not that bad: Meredith's novel on LaSalle, the socialist who was knocked off by the Commune and Commune-ists. Darwin should upset them. Even Eddington or Einstein. The frame of reference ought to be big enough to excite their imaginations, not local with Nam or whatever. Dreyfus, Mein Kampf, you name it. World politics, not local stuff. Otherwise we are still at the Alamo, no? I love the older things...then the instructor will make the necessary connections, not the Deans, etc. Indirection and subtlety count. Kessler here at ucla. From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Topics Date: 03 Aug 90 22:11:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 799 (903) `Topics' in the history of rhetoric a fascinating and deep subject. Would be very glad to have the ref. for whatever R. Barthes had to say. Would recommend G. Kennedy's volumes on the history of rhetoric in antiquity for general background, Cicero's *Topica*, and perhaps best Eleonore Stump's translations of Boethius' very influential works on the subject. On the practical applications, I again commend J. Spence, *The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci*, for applied Yates-ian memory technique. J.J. Murphy on rhetoric in the middle ages *might* be pretty useful too, depending on where you're going with the subject, but I haven't looked at that in too long a time. From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0355 Queries (5/115) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 90 07:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 800 (904) In response to Monica Paolini's request about Renaissance and rhetoric, I would suggest that she contact Paolo Valesio at Yale. His *Novantiqua* among other publications treats rhetoric; he has also worked on Shakespeare. When I was a graduate student (I finished in '82) he was teaching courses on interpretation of Renaissance texts (incl. history, not just literature) by rhetorical methods, among other topics. He is at the Dept. of Italian Language and Literature at Yale Univ., New Haven Ct.; she could also try looking up his name in the various bibliographies for more recent publications. Hope this helps; sorry not to write directly to Monica, but I was unable to send to that address. Leslie Morgan Dept. of Foreign Langs. Loyola College 4501 N. Charles St./Baltimore, MD 21210-2699 MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0355 Queries (5/115) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 90 12:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 801 (905) In HUMANIST 4.0355, Monica Paolini asks for work on rhetorical topics. [...] There has been some work on topical systems of invention amongst rhetoricians in the (mostly American) field of speech/communication. An interesting application of topical invention for beginning students appears in John Wilson and Carroll Arnold, PUBLIC SPEAKING AS A LIBERAL ART (Boston, Mass., USA: Allyn & Bacon [there are several editions, the latest in 1989, I think]). You might want to check the journal PHILOSOPHY AND RHETORIC; there have been several articles on topics and rhetoric; also check the journals RHETORICA and QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH. Some of the relevant journals are indexed in Ronald Matlon, AN INDEX TO JOURNALS IN COMMUNICATION. You might also want to try e-mail queries to CRTNET@PSUVM (an e-mail "journal" in communication studies); and RHETORIC --an e-mail "hotline" run by COMSERV@RPIECS. Tom Benson (T3B@PSUVM.BITNET) Penn State University From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: left-handed people Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 22:44:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 802 (906) When I took my SATs in high school, they made all left-handed people, which included me, go into a separate room. I assumed at the time that this was done throughout the country that year in order to test whether lefties would score better than other people. But I never heard the results. As a teacher I always observe which students are left-handed, and I have yet to see any pattern, which has always disappointed me. For whatever it is worth, I am good at math and science and music, but terrible at drawing, visualizing shapes, etc. I am also a computational linguist. I wonder if we could ask everyone on Humanist whether they are right or left-handed? I suppose this would be impractical and the results hardly scientific, but the answers might be interesting if it could be done. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: [Handedness --eds] Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 20:32:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 803 (907) To Douglas de Lacey: yes, the name _does_ elicit the information, in fact a torrent of it! Does this help? To Mary Dee Harris: I too grew up in a different mental world from most of my friends, male or female. Partly it was left-handedness, partly the fact that if I had any mathematical ability, it disappeared under the usual math-blockage women of my generation often gave in to. But I was quite good at logic in university, and am supposed to be highly systematic and organized (or so I am told by people who claim to be less so, but often get more done). I came to computers very late and as a complete amateur but seem to have adapted to them very quickly, though at a not very advanced level (too much to do, no time to learn). Germaine Warkentin WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0360 Hypersatire (1/286) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 90 18:54 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 365 (908) For Nissan, and all the rest: Wonderful and charming too are Nissan's peregrinations through this new world of hyperistics. However, one thing his generous soul perhaps does not take into account: copyright, and its ancillary, bibliography for Humanists (read professors), whose various review committees will fail to find a way to apportion credit for publication properly, and whose most predictable response will be: Dont promote! We dont and wont understand it at all. Copyright ownership in this real world also means publishers and cash. As long as all this is part of the email, it is delightful; reality is materialistic. In America, alas, we are counted hair by hair and usually found wanting in the scales. I could go on into the computer as the master inflater of bibliographies, and the its use to count citations of one's name, as a form of credit with Deans, but that way lies the madness of medical and sociological committees, who count citations in the "literature," but never read, as bibliographies are transported in vast chunks from article to article by the secretaries of those who have secretaries, namely doctors and sociologists, etc. My drift is clear? Meanwhile back to the fun of Nissan out there in the deserts of the MIddle East, from Kessler, here in the desert of the LA Basin.... From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0355 Queries (5/115) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 16:19:53 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 804 (909) Re Image data bases. Contact Steve Jacobson (csvsj@cmsa.berkeley.edu) for information about an image data base system which UC Berkeley has developed for UNIX workstations (currently available for SUN). Jacobson can probably provide information about other such systems Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Heisenberg Date: Wed, 01 Aug 90 08:37:48 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 805 (910) Sarah Higley's query about the "uncertainty principle" reminds me of a wonderful story. Several years ago, at a dinner party at York University in Toronto, I sat next to a noted physicist, and took the opportunity to ask him about Heisenberg and what physicists thought about the "uncertainty principle." Across the table from us was sitting a committed post-structuralist, whose face visibly revealed her expectations as I asked the final question, "Well, how the dickens do you _do_ physics then, given the implications of what Heisenberg says." She was utterly dejected when the physicist put his arm around my shoulder and with an air of post-prandial command said "Germaine, you can do a _hell_ of a lot of physics before you get to Heisenberg!" I have since established this as Warkentin's Relative-Certainty Principle, and might even publish it, if I ever get around to it. Maybe. Germaine Warkentin (WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) From: Harry Hahne <HAHNE@UTOREPAS> Subject: Re: library lists Date: [August 7 1990] X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 806 (911) Charles Ess writes: [deleted quotation] Look at Public Access Computer Forum: LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET Also Instruction Discussion Group: BI-L@BINGVMB.BITNET Harry From: Allen Renear <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Library Lists Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 20:08:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 807 (912) In addition to the lists mentioned above I recommend... MLA-L (IUBVM) Mailing list for the Music Library Association GOVDOC-L (PSUVM) Discussion of Government Document Issues The are other library-related lists as well. If you send the listserv command LIST GLOBAL to your nearest listserv you will receive a file named LISTSERV LISTS which will list all the public listserv lists currently active. --Allen allen@brownvm.brown.edu From: ZLSIIAS@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk Subject: Hebrew fonts Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 10:02:07 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 808 (913) NotaBene will download nice looking Hebrew Fonts to an HPlaserjet successfully. I do not like the package and did not find it very intuitive. However, it has an impressive database, and it can generate a bibliography (unlike many of the other popular wp's) It is supplied by Dragonfly Software based in New York. Fontmax is another package supplied by Intercontinental Software System, Inc, 3463 State Street, Suite 283, Santa Barbara, California (fax (805) 497-3494) which provides Hebrew fonts, amongst many others, and which is used from within WordPerfect (the version for WP 5.1 is now out). This makes it quite an attractive package. The cost is 159.95 (this includes screen and printer fonts, I think). For this you do get an extremely good range, and you can in fact generate your own fonts. From: Monica Paolini <paolini%icopen.ico.olivetti.com@RELAY.CS.NET> Subject: Re: topics [4.0363/1] Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 11:19:28 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 368 (914) [Reply to James O'Donnell] Thanks for your reply. Here's the refererence you asked for: Roland Barthes, L'ancienne rhetorique, 1970 (there is an interesting chapter on topics) By the way, I am surprised not to find anything on topics by Greimas or someone from his school at L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, except Ducros. Have you ever read something about it? I have read the Murphy's book on medieval rhetoric: interesting, but not what I am looking for. I have read a good number of books (all the ones I was able to find at Bologna University) on history of rhetoric, but the subject of topics seems always to be disregarded -whike much more emphasis is places on the sistem of figures of speech. Topics is often treated as one of the most useless products of *formal* (in the negative sense) rhetoric. I have been reading some Renaissance treatises on topics and I am convinced that it is a subject more interesting and relevant from an historical point of view than usually thought. I would like to find either a good and detailed history on topics or a theoric discussion on the subject, such as Barthes' or Curtius' (European literature) ones. Jonathan Spence's book on Matteo Ricci is a fine book, a very enticing fresco of the life of Missonaries in Asia, but I did not find his reconstruction of Matteo Ricci Palace of Memory an essential contribution to the history of ars memoriae. There are many others mnemonic systems which I think deserve more attention than Ricci one (you could have a look to the articles by Lina Bolzoni, Paolo Rossi and Cesare Vasoli). I have never heard about G. Kennedy's books on history of rhetoric and Eleonore Stump's translation of Boethius: will you please give me the exact reference? From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: myths, not historical references Date: Tue, 7 Aug 1990 00:00:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 809 (915) I don't know enough about medieval guilds to agree intelligently with Skip Knox, but what he says about their oppressiveness sounds likely enough. I am sorry, however, that he misunderstood my intent so completely. The dichotomy I used was certainly not mine, rather a fundamental distinction between two kinds of myths that are very useful in understanding how we think but which mistakenly get told as history. My intent was to separate from any Franklin-like argument the misapplication of the edenic or golden age myth and rescue the cogent observations on some very dangerous possibilities in our technological life. I again urge attention be paid to the story of Daedalus, which is really what Franklin's book circles around without saying so. Now here surely is a myth the historicity of which no one will be tempted to get distracted by. It tells tellingly, however, how the inventor in us gets trapped by his own inventions. The sexual pathology in the allied story of Pasiphae helps the tale of the Labyrinth really come alive with as much psychological truth as one could ever wish for. Sorry, and again too. This is not fair -- alluding to something so tantalizingly -- but the whole matter really is all there, in that myth. It never happened in history, but it keeps happening in the way we relate to our gadgetry. I do beg to differ on another point as well. The age of the craftsman exists whenever a craftsman manages to do something right. The world has probably always, or mostly, worked against his or her success. It certainly does now. Am I wrong to think that scholarship and craftsmanship have much in common? Willard McCarty From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0356 The Real World of Technology? (1/66) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 14:35 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 810 (916) Dear Willard: If you saw, no you would not have seen it, Pres Bok's parting interview as outgoing Prexy of Harvard, you would be interested to learn how many ways he says the university merits an "F" in its relations to society and its problems! Everyone comes in for his pessimistic and scathing condemnation. If you had a mail address, I would clip it and mail it to you. Jascha Kessler From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk Subject: Handedness, gender, etc Date: Mon, 06 Aug 90 12:01:53 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 811 (917) Oh dear, I'd hoped not to get involved - this could run and run - but as another left-handed female in computing support, I'll have to respond to Mary Dee Harris. I have been either a programmer or a computing advisor for nearly 20 years, but in public libraries I get mistaken for a member of staff, and a librarian is probably what I would have become had I not discovered computers first. My interests have always been literature, performing arts and History, and although I can do sums quite well, I don't understand mathematics at all. Moreover, when I studied as a part- time student for an MA in early mediaeval history, 6 of my twelve fellow- students were also left-handed, making us the majority. As far as I can remember, their occupations were: (males) computer engineer, solicitor, history/geography teacher; (females) history teacher, history/religious studies teacher, animal rights worker. The two lecturers who taught us the history, as opposed to the documents work, (the two did overlap considerably!) were also left-handers; they were qualified in both history and archaeology. We knew we were odd: only the odd would assemble at the end of the working day to consider the more esoteric aspects of 850-1350AD. Were we even odder than we thought? Sarah Davnall, Humanities Liaison, University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Davnall@uk.ac.manchester P.S. I forgot to say that my memory for names seems to be much the same as reported by others, though it is better if I take the trouble to write the name down. Actually, my memory for everything is much the same. I would put it down to middle age, except that my much younger (right-handed) sister has the same problem. At a mock-interview once, she was asked what she considered to be her weaknesses. "I have three." she started brightly,"I have a bad memory, I am untidy, and .. er, I can't remember the other one.". From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0366 Responses: Image Databases; Heisenberg (2/30) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 15:11:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 812 (918) Germaine Warkentin's anecdote about her dinner conversation with the physicist who saved most of his terrain from Heisenberg's uncertainty reminded me of the first time I heard Heisenberg referred to in a literary context. It was in 1963 or so and I was sitting in on a senior seminar given by R.P.Blackmur and devoted to readings of Dante, Montaigne, and Pascal. RPB invoked H's uncertainty principle with reference to Montaigne, claiming that M. (intrinsically) was saying that "if you know where you are, you don't know where you are going; if you know where you are going, you don't know where you are." That pre-post-structuralist construction probably offered an early opportunity to be skeptical about almost all such borrowings, but in those calm days at Princeton it only seemed amusing. From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines available Date: 7 August 1990 17:18:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 371 (919) **** TEI DRAFT 1.0 PUBLISHED **** The Steering Committee of the ACH/ACL/ALLC Text Encoding Initiative is happy to announce that its first draft Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine Readable Texts are now available. The Text Encoding Initiative, which is sponsored by the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the Association for Computational Linguistics, and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, has prepared these Guidelines over the past two years and will test and revise them during the next two years. The Guidelines take the form of a 300-page report containing: * a description of the TEI project * a gentle introduction to SGML * recommendations concerning the representation of divers character sets for interchange purposes * proposals for a standard `electronic titlepage' * tagsets for features common to most text types * tagsets for features of some specific text types * tagsets for representing detailed linguistic analyses * recommendations for ways of extending the guidelines * examples and SGML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) Parts of the Guidelines were presented in preliminary form earlier this year at the annual conferences of the ALLC/ACH and the ACL in Siegen (Germany) and Pittsburgh (USA) respectively. This is however the first full publication of the Guidelines, and marks the end of the first phase of the TEI's work. The second phase, which will continue until June 1992, will be marked (it is hoped) by extensive public discussion of the initial proposals set out in this first public draft, which we expect to distribute as widely as possible. At least one, and probably two, interim drafts are likely before the final version of the Guidelines is published in 1992: we expect to change a lot of what is in the current version, and to add even more. What goes in, and what gets changed, will be determined to a very large extent by the feedback that this draft provokes. The four working committees of the TEI have taken a year to formulate the proposals it contains: no one associated with the project is however so immodest as to believe that our current draft provides an answer for every text encoding problem. However, we believe that it does provide a set of basic notions and a viable framework, within which, with your help, the real work is now about to begin. The present draft is available on request from the following addresses: (in Europe) Lou Burnard, OUCS, 13 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN fax +44 (865) 273275 email LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK (in North America) C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Computer Center (M/C 135), University of Illinois at Chicago, Box 6998, Chicago IL 60680 fax +1 (312) 996-6834 email U35395@UICVM (Bitnet) or U35395@uicvm.cc.uic.edu (Internet) There is no charge for the first copy sent to any one address. Further copies will be charged at 15 pounds or $30, payable in advance, by cheque / check to the appropriate institution (OUCS or UIC). Redistribution of the draft is encouraged, provided that it is reproduced in full with due acknowledgment and not sold for profit. For more information and news of all TEI activities, subscribe to TEI-L@UICVM, by sending a note containing only the single line SUB TEI-L Your Name to LISTSERV@UICVM on BITNET or listserv@uicvm.cc.uic.edu on internet. -Michael Sperberg-McQueen ACH / ACL / ALLC Text Encoding Initiative University of Illinois at Chicago From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: 4.0354: Memory, information, gender and handedness Date: Tue, 7 Aug 1990 11:59:31 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 372 (920) This is going to be a long note. Perhaps all "pure" Humanists (i.e. those uninterested in brain research!) had better delete it now so as to save feeling swindled afterwards. 1) Douglas de Lacey's comments on music: I agree you can't conclude the name is "the key" on the basis of an experimental sample of one (me). I did hypothesize that, in the particular case I discussed and presumably others like it (assuming I'm not unique helps to keep me sane), the name is "the key" to all the linguistic data associated with the graphical -- the face. If the idea of a key is valid, you can then start asking whether this organization of data works also for other types of stored information, e.g. music. Douglas's remark about the 1st versus 3rd line of a tune suggests the key here would be the first line. But is that the key to recalling everything you know about the music (title, composer, date and everything else that finds its way onto the back of record albums) or only to the tune itself? If only to the tune, what links the tune and the linguistic information about it? Can we widen this to other sense organs? If I taste something, do I have to identify it as "sugar" before I remember its chemical structure and what it does to my teeth? (Personally, I do.) Or in general terms, how does a sensory stimulus -- a specific sight, sound, touch, taste, smell -- trigger access to the data stored in the brain concerning the object from which the stimulus originated? Incidentally -- but related -- a lot of people, including myself, seem to get an almost emotional satisfaction from knowing the name of something: a bird, flower, insect, piece of music, whatever. On seeing one they can't identify, those who take any interest in it are likely to ask "what is it?", i.e., what's it's NAME? And upon being told, get a peculiar sense of satisfaction, as if they now "know" or "know something about" the object, when in fact they don't really know anything more about it than they did before. I think of all those avid gardeners who so evidently enjoy knowing the name of every plant, ditto ornithologists for birds, etc. But why is this? Why the sense of satisfaction? Is it (wild hypothesis only!) that knowing the name enables us to prepare the "FAT entry" -- we now have a place to park, and a way of finding, anything else we may learn about the object, thus a way of organizing future experience? Does this connect with the fact that, if you're in no way interested in the object (i.e. are unlikely to need to store information about it in memory) you couldn't care less whether you know its name or not? You don't need the name to identify the object, upon re-seeing one, as the same visual memories cannot REMEMBER the object, i.e. recall a mental picture of it, without the name. Does anyone else (except me) find him/herself giving private names to unknown trees, birds etc. that they like but don't know the names of? It happens quite unconsciously. You see a tree afire with red flowers and your mind says "that's a flame-tree". Why? One of the first things Adam did was to name all the animals, which suggests, again, that I'm not unique. 2) Mary Dee Harris's remarks on left-handed people being better at scientific and mathematical work: the following ideas are taken from, or germinated by, a book on intelligence and giftedness; one of those that trickle through my fingers from time to time here at the library. (I can provide the reference if anyone's interested -- I don't have it with me). It reported a wide array of research and made two points about left-handedness that seem relevant to this discussion: a) there is no difference between the AVERAGE intelligence of lefties and righties. BUT the distribution of IQ in lefties isn't the expected bell curve, it's more like a double peak, one below and one above average. This is because a significant percentage of left-handed people are left-handed because of neurological damage to the left side of the brain, which prevented it from becoming dominant. An additional result of this same brain damage is that the person usually has below-average IQ. The conclusion is that the rest of the lefties, those with no neurological damage, are, as a group, of above average IQ (since the average of all lefties is the same ca. 100 as that of the population as a whole). The authors suspect that this may help explain the over-representation of lefties which has been found in all academic fields, not just science and math (they're talking, if I remember rightly, about 15-20% versus 9.4% lefties in the general population of the U.S.) b) They also found that among children with a very high IQ (140 plus) which expressed itself as a marked specialization for language, 75% were short-sighted (childhool myopia) and a significant percentage, I forget how many, had hayfever-type allergies. The latter indicates, they claim, the mis-processing of olfactory information -- particles which usually only trigger the sense of smell are misinterpreted as "foreign invaders", triggering an immune response. Many of the subjects also had a very bad sense of smell, i.e. they were even worse than most humans at perceiving and identifying scents. cells are needed to process linguistic data than exist in the brain area usually devoted to linguistic processing, and that cells are pressed into service from adjacent areas -- which are those that usually handle vision and smell. This results in less processing power for these functions, with the observed results. What they didn't say is whether (assuming their hypothesis to be true) the myopic/allergic child geniuses were lefties or righties. One could suggest that if lefties are more likely to use the right side (in addition to the left) for processing linguistic data, they may be less prone to myopia or hayfever-type allergies resulting from such a "fight over resources" than are righties, who don't have the same access to processing space in the right brain and whose linguistic processing may therefore be expected to overflow into adjacent areas of the left brain ...? 3) Sheizaf Rafaeli on prosopagnosia: That's interesting too. Is it purely a pathological condition, i.e. existing in an extreme form (you can't put a name to your boss's face, perhaps not even to your spouse's...?) or are there gradations? Meaning, is the case I described (I can't put a name to a seldom-seen face, or to a well-known one that I haven't seen for several years, unless of course I know whom I'm expecting, as in the case of wedding guests, and can work out who it is by a process of elimination) a mild example of something classifiable as abnormal, or is it something that occurs in many people in milder or worse forms and should therefore be regarded as an expectable quirk of the human brain? (This does NOT mean, am I "normal" or not, for to tell you the truth I am, thankfully, past the age when I could care how you classify me. The question is, what turns a normal quirk of the human brain into something that scientists give a long Greek name to and classify as akin to a disease? Is one the high and one the low end of a continuum, implying that prosopagnosia, for instance, is the high tip of an iceberg? Or is prosopagnosia (and similar disorders) something that you either have or you don't, and the milder inabilities to put names to faces are a different phenomenon? Judy Koren From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: Continuing Saga at Texas Date: Tuesday, 7 August 1990 10:17am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 813 (921) At the risk of taking up even more e-space than I have done already over the Texas controversy, I post the following, which appeared on the editorial page of yesterday's (8/6) _Daily Texan_, the campus newspaper. It is an interesting document; I've not yet seen today's paper, so I don't know what the reaction to it has been. John Slatin, UT Austin Text follows: [Editor's note: The following is the full text of a July 9 letter from Alan Gribben, professor of English, to Dallas resident Anne Blakeney, a member of the UT Liberal Arts Foundation Council. We believe the letter's contents along serve as a strong enough indictment of Gribben's position. The letter was obtained through the Texas Open Records Act by Tom Philpott and Scott Henson, co-editors of the Polemicist.] Thank you for contacting me about the politicization of the English 306 course. I feel very strongly that academic courses at the University of Texas at Austin should not be politicized, and I have been vocal and public about this opinion. During my 16 years in this English department, I have witnessed its gradual domination by a highly politicized faction of radical literary theorists. Their methods include character assassination and intimidation. As an incredible result, among my 80 English professorial colleagues only a handful today agree that neither E306 nor any other English course should be politicized. My support on this issue comes mainly from faculty members in other departments and schools-- psychology, sociology, chemical engineering, law. The fact that I-- a traditionally inclined literature professor-- have been the main thorn in the radicals' side has made me controversial. You have a right to know my status in the department. You will hear highly derogatory things said about me. But you may be assured that I am a dedicated teacher, a producing scholar with a national reputation and a principled person oriented toward stability in his family's life and activities. Can the same be said of my many detractors? Your offer of assistance in my efforts to halt the new E306 course, reform my out-of-control department and rescue my academic career at the University is more than I could hope for. If we accomplish even one of these, we might accomplish all of them eventually. I believe that the University of Texas ultimately belongs to the state of Texas and the citizens who take an interest in its direction, care about the quality and integrity of its instruction and are willing to communicate with like-minded individuals about its performance. Probably 30 or more people have contacted me since I began speaking and writing in public about the politicization of our freshman composition course, and all were well-intentioned and resolved to help in some manner, but only members of the Liberal Arts Foundation Council actually understand how the University operates and what it will take to effect any significant improvement in the English department situation. As I mentioned in our conversation, I have come to the conclusion that our problems are so profound and likely to be longlasting that: - The English department should be placed in receivership indefinitely, with someone like Donald Foss (chairman of the psychology department) as its director for several years; and then be governed by a new English chairman appointed directly by Gerhard Fonken, executive vice president and provost; and - During this period of receivership the department's faculty should be divided into a Department of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies and a Department of English Literature and Language. This division of the radical theorists from the remaining traditional scholars would give the latter the freedom to offer a true literature and writing program. Or - Barring the accomplishment of these steps, the two University-wide required English courses (E 306, E 316K) should be abolished, thus ending the necessity of hiring additional English professors at the rate they have been recruited from the most radicalized (but prestigious) graduate programs across the nation. Most vital of all will be a comprehending College of Liberal Arts dean with nerve and a determination to oversee the recruiting policies and decisions of the English department, which has lost all sense of tradition, direction, civility and academic freedom in the classroom. In short, the UT Department of English has become dysfunctional. Its main motivational drives are basically fear of censure by the enforcing ideological element and hope of reward, financial or other, for adhering to their reigning dogma. Many of the faculty radicals in English departments are influenced by the Marxist conviction that power itself should be the end of all endeavors, even educational ones. This overbearing view that the individual is helpless and must align with a cause or network stymies any idealism suggesting that an undergraduate can trust his or her own abilities to think independently of a radical political group. Newspaper reporters routinely remark to me about the pervasive "fear" they sense among our English faculty-- something that puzzles them, since one associates a university with the protection of free speech and the contest of ideas. Yet just to say that our English department ought principally to teach the history and features of English literature, language and writing is viewed as outrageously heretical-- so dangerous, indeed, as to warrant slanderous attacks. If I could specify the most disturbing trend I have observed here in the past 10 years, it would be the selective recruitment of new faculty members with an expectation that they will bring with them an ideologized sense of advocacy-- radical feminism, Marxist analysis, militant "ethnic" studies, anti-canonical campaigns, Third World oppression studies-- to influence students inside and outside the classroom. Anyone who objects to these efforts at propagandizing and political sloganeering is branded as a hated representative of the bourgeois status quo. Rumor- mongering has replaced parliamentary discussion as an accepted form of achieving a departmental "consensus." I look forward to working with the Liberal Arts Foundation Council to return this troubled academic unit to something resembling an English department that teaches English rather than politics. -- The Daily Texan, Monday, August 6, 1990, p. 4 From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0362 Texas Comp. Controversy Date: Tuesday, 7 August 1990 4:19pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 814 (922) I appreciate the cooling responses to my heat of the other day; thanks. I hope I'll be able to meet Michel Pierssens' challenge with "an effective essay" for SubStance. I wasn't aware that you were taking issue with my arguments, M. Pierssens-- as I recall your message, you addressed yourself rather to the amount of space they took up, and it was to that complaint I took exception. Jascha Kessler asks why people who want to teach their first-year students to think well so often want to use texts they think the students will get excited about, and goes on to talk about _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_, _Soul on Ice_, and similar texts. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the readings for the course we had proposed to begin teaching on August 29 consisted of six (6) cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and other Federal courts, plus a packet of academic essays on issues directly related to the issues addressed in the court cases; one of our aims, and an important one, was to offer students ways to conduct closely reasoned, civil (and civic) discourse about ISSUES that generate passionate response-- in other words, we would like students of whatever persuasion and whatever political stripe to know how to construct grounded ARGUMENTS for the positions they have arrived at after considering the issues involved. The seven major writing assignments are directed at identifying and assessing the strength of arguments offered by the several parties to the court cases we will be studying, and the essays that provide contextual material. Here, for instance, is the fifth writing assignment, which would have been assigned on Fri., 10/19, and been due on Mon. 10/29 (references to "group" have to do with the writing groups established at the beginning of the semester; each group will have primary responsibility for working on one of the court cases and the accompanying essay): WRITING ASSIGNMENT 5 A court opinion summarizes and evaluates the arguments made by the plaintiff and defendant and provides a rationale for affirming or denying the case made by the plaintiff. An opinion may consist of one or more of the following: (1) the argument that supports the court's decision (majority opinion) (2) an argument that dissents from the argument in the majority opinion but supports the court's decision (minority opinion); and (3) an argument that dissents from both the opinion and the decision of the court (dissenting opinion). If your group has been assigned a case in which there is a majority opinion, a minority opinion, and a dissenting opinion, focus on one in your essay. Building from the work you've already done in Scripts 9 and 10 ["Scripts" are informal writing assignments of 50-100 words, designed to get students thinking about issues prior to class discussion and more formal writing], this assignment requires you to: (1) re-read the case assigned to your group (2) choose an opinion (if there is more than one) (3) re-read the relevant law(s) [these are also included in the course packet] (4) identify the principal claims and grounds in the opinion (5) assess how well the grounds warrant the principal claims in the opinion Write an essay of about 700 words summarizing and evaluating an opinion in the case assigned to your group. Summarize the opinion before assessing the grounds used to warrant the argument. [END OF TEXT FOR ASSIGNMENT 5, E306 Syllabus, UT Austin] You will notice that students are not being invited, here, to offer their private opinions on the issue before the court, or on other matters that raise the emotional temperature of the classroom or the campus. They are instead asked to examine the arguments in the case itself, and to assess the strength of the grounds offered in support of those arguments-- an assessment having less to do with their own preferences than with the way the argument is constructed. I hope that alleviates some of Kessler's concern, and the concern of other subscribers to this list who had feared that we were simply turning the students loose to write about explosive matters. If not, or if it raises other concerns-- e.g., as to the propriety of introducing complex legal matters into a classroom full of 18 year olds led by people whose training is in English literature or composition rather than in the law, I will ask you to bear in mind that court opinions on matters of public moment routinely appear in the NY Times and other national newspapers on the assumption that such things are naturally and properly the concern of an informed citizenry. I will also point out that we have taken care to choose cases in which the outcome was not determined by narrow "technicalities" within the law. I will say again, on a somewhat different point, that we have been at pains to make clear to all who will be (or would have been) teaching this course that our goal is to encourage all students to make the best possible arguments for the positions they hold or arrive at; this may well prove as discomfiting to those of us on the left as it does to those on the right-- there are, after all, some very bright conservatives on this campus. None of this has very much to do with Jim O'Donnell's argument about the multicultural dimensions of the classical texts (which point I take)-- or, to put it another way, Prof. O'Donnell's argument about the value of continuing to teach the texts of classical antiquity has very little to do with the debate over this particular first-year writing course; nor does it have much to do with the debate I am sure will arise when we come to discuss the addition of a new variant to the sophomore literature offerings. As noted many times here, by me and by others, readings in first-year composition courses do not typically involve selections from the classical texts mentioned by Profs. O'Donnell and Kessler; indeed, at this particular institution, the only composition course in which the "Great Books" are read is the elite Plan II Honors course, a year-long course required of all students admitted to the Plan II Honors Program within the College of Liberal Arts. I won't dwell on the ironies here. No one, in my hearing at any rate, has proposed to do away with that course, nor am I aware that anyone has proposed doing away with the Classics Department or the hugely successful courses it offers to throngs of undergraduates; these are courses in, e.g., Classical Mythology and in Greek and Roman Civilization. They are not *English* courses, and I very much doubt that members of the English Dept. would join in a public protest if the Classics Dept were to begin revising its offerings-- though the outgoing chair of classics, Karl Galinsky, signed the so-called "Statement of Academic Concern" that appeared in the campus newspaper last month. Galinsky, too, raises arguments about multiculturalism and the classics very similar to those put forward by Prof. O'Donnell-- my stepdaughter came back from the National Junior Classical League convention in Denton, Texas last week and told me that Dr. Galinsky had given a most stimulating and exciting lecture that was, she said, sprinkled with allusions to the dangers of multiculturalism, allusions whose point she didn't quite get until, as she said, it occurred to her that he must be a member of the UT Austin faculty. The course we have proposed to teach entering students has nothing to do with these arguments; it is not and does not pretend to be a course in literature, and does not threaten any literature curriculum, liberal, radical, or conservative. It threatens only those with a vested interest in the hugely profitable market for college-level writing textbooks-- the production of which is in any case generally regarded with considerable disdain by members of the literature faculty. Thank you all for your patience. John Slatin, UT Austin From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Topos bibliography Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 22:33:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 815 (923) If Monica Paolini reads German, she might wish to look at Walter Veit, "Toposforschung" in DVLG 37 (1963), 120-163. My own German is almost non-existent; I read Viet's article with the help of a student. It's possible it may address some of the issues she is concerned with. I too recommend George Kennedy's books. She might also wish to join the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (address to be found, I think, in any issue of _Rhetorica_ (if not, e-mail to me before Aug. 31 and I'll find it!) Germaine Warkentin (WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) From: "Marjorie (Jorie) Woods" <A014@UORVM> Subject: topics Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 10:57:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 816 (924) Re Monica Paolini's request for work on the topics: my husband just forwarded your latest posting to me and I'm not sure of the context in which you asked for the information, so these suggestions may not be as helpful as I hope. The renaissance manuals you are looking at probably draw on Cicero's De inventione, a work widely read throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance and still useful but almost completely ignored. (Cicero criticizes it himself in De oratore, calling it "rudis," and unfortunately we've taken him at his word.) There is to my knowledge (I work on how medieval students were taught poetic composition according to rhetorical principles) no history of the topics such as you seek. There is now some work being done in composition studies in the United States on the topics. An essay by Frank D'Angelo in *Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse* on the development of the topics does compare ancient lists of topics with more modern groupings of them. Some of his argument is questionable (especially his use of Julian Jaynes [sp?] work on the bi-cameral mind), and I don't agree with his unspoken evolutionary assumptions about the more sophisticated use of topics now, but his is the *only* treatment that I know of that covers the western tradition, even cursorily. Please let me know if you would like page numbers etc. of D'Angelo's article (the editors of the book of essays in which his appears are Robert Connors, Lisa Ede, and Andrea Lunsford; the book is at home and I don't have the rest of the information here. I can also give you the Kennedy and Stump references if they're not forthcoming from other sources. From: gwp@hss.caltech.edu (G. W. Pigman III) Subject: Re: 4.0368 'Topics' in Rhetoric Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 20:23:52 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 817 (925) While hunting around unsucessfully for something I remember reading on topoi a few years ago, I came up with the following books, none of which I've read. Caveat lector. Niels Jorgen Green-Pedersen, *The tradition of the topics in the Middle Ages* (Munich, 1984). Eugene Thionville, *De la theorie des lieux communs dans les Topiques d'Aristote et des principales modifications qu'elle a subies jusqu'a nos jours* (Paris, 1983). Peter von Moos, *Geschichte als Topik : das rhetorische Exemplum von der Antike zur Neuzeit und die historiae im "Policraticus" Johannes von Salisbury* (Hildesheim, 1988). Von Moos's *Consolatio* is an exhaustive study which I found very valuable, so I'd try him first, even though the title suggests a focus different from the one you're after. From: PROF NORM COOMBS <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Using Greek alphabet on an IBM Date: Wed, 8 Aug 90 13:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 375 (926) I have a colleague who is not on the network yet. He wants to have a word processor which can handle both English and Greek and a printer which can print both. For various personal reasons, he prefers an IBM. Thinking of purchasing a PS2. However, the people at the computer store know nothing about word processors or printers which will handle Greek. Obviously, there are dozens of classical scholars on this list who do it every day. What should I advise my friend to buy? Norman Coombs From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0371 Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines Available Date: Wed, 8 Aug 90 01:22:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 818 (927) It is perhaps supernumerary to do so, but the Rutgers/Princeton folks would like to habe a copy. It is perhaps also unnecessary to send a preliminary gesture of gratitude in the direction of M. S-M and all those who have labored so hard and long. Nonetheless, it is worth remarking that some people are willing to wager that their effort on behalf of colleagues yet unknown (and even yet unborn) will one day be grateful that some fellow humans were willing to make a major commitment of their lives to make all of theirs at least a little better. Willard comes to mind, and many another. The nicest thing we can say about them is that their ambition is to be forgotten in a future which works better. In all the small (and sometimes large) hassles on HUMANIST we at times forget not only what we have in common but how useful the enterprise may one day be. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0369 Technology Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 12:02:56 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 819 (928) I will gladly move the argument away from historical grounds at Willard's request. I thought the analogy misleading as said so; but, I think the underlying worrying is wrong too. That the inventor gets trapped by his own invention is a lovely poetic insight but that does not make it a sociological or historical insight. The only trap that I see is a fairly mundane one, though real for all that; namely, that an individual can get so entranced by the machine that he or she forgets to do scholarship and becomes a computer jock. Even that, though, is not bad unless that person refuses to recognize that she has made a de facto career change. That does happen. People have been fired for such things, though not so far as I know in academia. I'm sorry, but not only do I fail to see what is insidious about this information revolution but I fail to see the point in inquiring. Are we trying to anticipate what _might_ be bad? Why not concentrate on what is actually bad or forseeably bad? Things like hacking, for example. The media may provide new opportunities for crime or sin or injustice, but that is hardly grounds for concern about the electronic medium itself. In short, I'm not worried, I'm excited. Can you be more specific, Willard? -= Skip =- Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University INTERNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU 1910 University Drive BITNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: 4.0373 Posting on Texas Controversy Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 16:45:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 820 (929) The "Editor's Note" contained in John Slatin's posting yesterday was from the Editor of the *Daily Texan*, not from us. If either of us were to have taken a public position on the E 306 issue at Texas, we would have posted it from one of our individual accounts. We regret any misunderstanding that may have occurred. Elaine & Allen From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: The UT troubles and the use of law cases in writing Date: Wed, 8 Aug 90 14:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 821 (930) I sympathize with the goal of introducing critical (legal) studies to undergraduates, but am horrified at the idea that anyone might (mis)take the opinions of federal courts in civil rights cases as good writing, good argumentation, or good law. By the way, a majority opinion is one that is joined in by a majority of the judges; a minority opinion is one that is joined in by a minority of the judges; a concurring opinion is one that agrees with the majority opinion's result, but not its wording (in this case `wording' may or may not mean the same thing as `reasoning'); a dissenting opinion is one that disagrees with the majority opinion's result. Peter D. Junger--Professor of Law--Case Western Reserve University From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Texas debacle Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 22:40:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 822 (931) Whatever makes Alan Gribben think his problem might be solved if he divided the Texas English department into "theorists" and "traditional scholars"? Some of us stack rats are real nuisances to have around! On another point, I think I am safe in saying that Canadian participants in Humanist must be watching this bizarre debate on multiculturalism with awe. Being a chronically skeptical lot, we tend to have very few "sacred" words in our national vocab- ulary, but multiculturalism is probably one of them. My sympathies are with Prof. Slatin, though his course looks to me as if it belongs in a department of Rhetoric. It seems clear, however, that something other than a battle over the curriculum is going on here; some other agenda is being dealt with. Return ing to the revenge of the stack rats, with which I began: on the morning after Nelson Mandela emerged from prison I had the great good fortune to be teaching Marvell's "Horatian Ode" to my second-year class, and did not miss the chance to make a connection between poetry and the world of action. Kessler is right; the art of instruction is in the connections you make for your students. My students, unhappily don't question enough; connections sufficiently startling help make that happen. Germaine Warkentin (WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) From: A_ARISTAR@vaxa.cc.uwa.oz.au Subject: Texas Writing Controversy Date: Wed, 8 Aug 90 12:22:12 wst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 823 (932) I'm joining this controversy with some reluctance. I'm not in English-- I'm a linguist--and have never taught a writing course in my life. I'm an Australian, living and working in Australia, though a UT graduate, so I'm distant from the current controversies in the USA. And I know, like and respect John Slatin, so I'm reluctant to come out in opposition to him. Nevertheless, I do feel that there's a position which has not appeared so far, except, if you'll pardon the trendy term, as a "subtext" in the ongoing discussion. The position I'm alluding to is one of directionality. It's a cliche of scholarship that the very issues which we investigate are dependent on our theory of the problem we have chosen to address. What we derive from the investigation depends much more upon this than upon the data. And every teacher knows that the issues which students are offered an opportunity to discuss are usually much less important than those those which our readings encourage them to discuss. Teachers choose readings. They aren't inevitable parts of the course being given. This observation is in fact part of the standard critique of traditionalist courses. Ultimately then, a course usually has a particular directionality which is a result of choices made by its originators. Now, it seems to me very clear that John's course has its own directionality, and that directionality is what has made it co troversial. First, it has chosen a set of issues for discussion which are of much more concern to one side of the political spectrum than the other. Issues such as racism and civil rights are, in modern America, invevitably of relevance to everyone. But they occupy those on the left much more than those on the right. The left has had a great deal more to say about them than the right, and this shows very clearly in the readings chosen. These readings have some balance, but ultimately lean fairly emphatically to the left. There is a body of intelligent, right-wing opinion--many of the articles of _Commentary_ come to mind--which is simply not there. There's another kind of directionality present as well. The court-cases which were to be examined were all ones which the left largely won. Most students, even in America, end up conforming. Most students will, when given the court-oriented documents, end up on the winning side. Unlike some people at Texas I do not ascribe Macchiavellian motives to John and his colleagues. But if one genuinely wished students to learn rational argument in an unbiased context, I cannot, with the best will in the world, feel that this was the way to do it. So I can only say that I think that the administration of the University of Texas made the right decision. I do not believe the course was intended to indoctrinate into students a particular political opinion. But that, I fear, would have been its effect. Anthony Aristar University of Western Australia. From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: "Writing" in UTexas com- Date: 08 Aug 90 09:4:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 824 (933) Greetings, Prof. Slatin. Thank you for taking the time to bring your controversy to the attention of fellow HUMANISTs. I find it striking that this sort of departmental internecine strife seems so often to take place within English departments: why should that be so? (Or is it simply the case that my anecdotal evidence here is skewed. I think in particular of the severe tensions at Oxford in the pre-WW II years as told in the biographies of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, etc.) Anyway, my query: I am wondering how you see the relationship of _argument_ and _writing skills_ as it would be worked out in your syllabus? Certainly examination of court cases lends itself nicely to understanding the structure of argument, thus of "rhetoric". But tightly knit arguments can be badly written. And court records (? are these verbatim records, or "written" product?) need not be examples of exemplary prose. The text-book market may have vested interests, but (I mention this at the risk of being perceived as hopelessly naive!) do not works like Strunk and White, _Elements of Style_ have a role to play? I teach Western Religions, and routinely (sometimes passionately!) recommend this work plus our English Department's writing courses to undergrads. If you can face spending more time on this, I would be interested to have your further reflections. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6 From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0373 Texas Comp. Controversy (2/274) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 10:23 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 825 (934) Dear John Slatin: I thank you for the clarification of your syllabus, to the extent that you have clarified it with a model sample. But, I think I should most hard put myself, now and even more so when I was a Freshman, to imagine analyzing a court case. Law is a manifestation of social concerns, in the action of controversy, as I understand it, with a vast and deep subtext, and tight rules of argument, which are not the same rules as rhetoric and debate. Arguements cant be guided by very strict rules by a presiding judge. Justice has nothing necessarily to do with truth, goodness, or beauty. There is great hidden subtext of history and manners and customs and morality etc., and to dissect a case is not necessarily to learn how to think. Except to think as a lawyer. I wouldnt want to use as a case the current abortion/anti-abortion volcano. Marching on the Supreme Court and picketing it are not necessarily sensible ways to look at law. And the Gribben letter you quote is really a pitiable instance of the effects of politicization on fantastic grounds, all around. I wont go into that at all, except to wonder that the traditionalists of 30 years ago surely sowed some sort of whirlwind in the Academy, which is now full of what I would term lumpen idealists, cryptoMarxists and the like. It is rather comical, seen from above, if one thinks one can look down from an angelic detachment... Gribben is asking for a real disaster, and forgets his history: bring in an outside force, and both sides will be pulverized, like calling in Genghis Khan to settle a family dispute. Look at how Serbs (Orthodox) and Croats (Roman) both speaking the same language! murder one another! Balkan logic, Gribben's is, I think. Anyway...good luck down there. Texas! All you educated folks so far out and away ahead of the society, which prefers football and rallies and subdivisions and S & L developments. Maybe the price of oil, it's (hi)jacking up, will reactivate the fields and alleviate all that depression from the Depression? Kessler here with an ice pack. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: the garden path Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 20:53:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 826 (935) Skip Knox rightly challenges me to be historically and sociologically specific about the garden path to perdition down which technology has and might again lead us. This is certainly difficult to do with respect to computing in the humanities, at least in any way except by anecdote, since our use of gadgetry is so recent. We are now at the stage of asking, what might happen to humanistic scholarship as the result of applying computers to it? Certainly the unrealistic claims of some enthusiasts are enough to give one pause, and the extent to which trendy notions afflict our work is great enough that we might well get a bit concerned. (I am taking for granted, as obvious, the many real benefits.) "Lovely poetic insight", unless I'm quite mistaken, is dismissive, like the word "myth" in popular usage. An insight into human nature -- which seems to undergo so few changes over time -- should, however, be able to survive the test of history. If we are allowed to consider examples of unfortunate technological seduction beyond the humanist's computer, we should have no difficulty showing that people get trapped by their own inventions. Do we need to go back any further than the Bomb? Probably, in which case we need an historian of science and technology to cite example upon example. The telling ones to me may not seem so important to an historian or sociologist: the invention of the wheel, which makes possible the wheel of fortune, the notion of a circular inevitability to life, and so the insidious metaphor of the doomsday clock whose hands are always poised just a minute or so before the midnight of atomic annihilation -- as if the human will were not involved; or the book (codex), which led to the literally interpreted image of the Recording Angel, and so the crushing weight of one's misdeeds, set down where they cannot be forgotten. Or the old idea of the automaton (some were invented by Hephaestus, Daedalus' divine counterpart), which in recent times has led to the design of the "semi-autonomous agents" in some information filtering systems. The problem here is that these agents act with total consistency on incoming mail according to an explicit description of the user's interests -- as if we could at any moment know all that we will know or be interested in. The designers propose that a random choice of messages supplement the controlled selection, thereby confusing randomness (which can be computed) with the unpredictable effects of subliminal thoughts and passions. The conception of man is flattened to fit his invention, the machine. This tendency to invent something, then to worship it as an autonomous agent, should not itself be taken as inevitable, doom-laden, and so to be rejected as totally false, indeed silly. Perhaps to be self-aware makes no difference; perhaps things, like computers, just happen and we get affected by them whether we want to or not. I have the idea, however, that if computing humanists have any real function at all, it must include a critical examination of the technology and a tentative attempt to put it in cultural perspective. I also have the idea that we are not nearly so passive and helpless as we make ourselves out to be. Passive people have no responsibility, right? Not that Skip Knox was saying or implying that we are, or that our function is any less. He's right, we should have some examples to back up some very old, very strong myths. Willard McCarty From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0329 Queries: ... On Poems Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 15:16 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 827 (936) Dear Professor Higley: I renounced my Wittgenstein volumes two decades ago, first editions I should have kept; but it was perhaps a spasm of irritation. Wittgenstein notoriously asserted something to this effect: About which one cannot speak, one should remain silent. Well, poetry, which is a making (cfSOCRATES' observations about Eros in THE SYMPOSIUM), almost always (via metaphor) speaks about things that one really cannot speak of, if one speaks of information only. Anywhere that poetry is vatic, and in most ways it fundamentally is so, you will find that it speaks of what cannot be known, or is "known" to the speaker in a way that cannot be described. Take for instance Daniel to N. the tyrant: "thy days are numbered. How can he have said something which would have to be verified later on? That they are numbered now, is known to him, but how so? The hand, writing the words on the wall, words he could read and N. could not? Why could not N read them? Or understand them? Because they spoke of what was not (yet). Should Daniel have remained silent? He had already been dragged before the tyrant (not Saddam Hussein, not yet) but had to speak of what was not (yet). You see my drift? You will recall Prospero's closing remarks, as he gave up vaticination and magic. What sort of information was he giving in saying, We are such things as dreams are made of...? That is assertation not hypothesis. Poetry lands one in trouble promptly and constantly, from the beginning of language, I expect. Wittgenstein butted his head against it. Best wishes, and clap thathand! and sing the louder, as Yeats advised too, for every tatter in our mortal dress ...all metaphor that statement. not so? YOurs J Kessler From: LEWIS@cs.umass.EDU Subject: inference of semantic properties of collocations from statistical ones Date: Thu, 9 Aug 90 13:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 828 (937) I recently encountered in papers by Church, etal and Smadja the idea that collocations with different characteristics occur on different scales. For instance, two words which are part of compound ("White House", "bowling alley", "computer scientist") will have a mean separation between word occurrences close to 1.0 and very low variance in this separation. Collocations which are based on some semantic relationship will have a much larger variance in the separation between occurences of the word in a document. Can anyone give me some pointers to other literature on this phenomenon? I'm particularly interested in the possibility of statistically inferring the extent to which a compound is compositional ("computer programmer" > "bowling alley" > "White House") in its meaning. Best, Dave David D. Lewis ph. 413-545-0728 Computer and Information Science (COINS) Dept. fax. 413-545-1249 University of Massachusetts, Amherst NET: lewis@cs.umass.edu Amherst, MA 01003 USA From: A10PRR1@NIU Subject: Greek alphabet on an IBM Date: Thu, 09 Aug 90 11:01 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 829 (938) Norman Coombs, Tell your colleague to look into Nota Bene (from Dragonfly Software); it handles English and Greek easily. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: Texas Syllabus vs. Texas Issues Date: Wed, 8 Aug 90 21:04:56 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 830 (939) There seemed to be two issues in the Texas Syllabus Debate and I fear the mixture of both in one solution led to an unfortunate confrontation. The first issue was that of English being taught without a syllabus, such that individual variation between sections of the course were uncontrollable. The second issue was whether racial and minority predjudice were running rampant among the freshmen class and whether the English department wasn't forced to take a stand that could undo some the implications of prior selections of readings appearing to foster the notion that all worthy writing came from all-white authors, largely of the USA and a few nations in Europe. The first issue required a syllabus be developed, however the second issue seems too broad for an English Department (much less a subset of an English Department) to have single-handedly decided it had to correct. The Humanist discussion has broadened this second issue into a discussion of the generic problem of the legitimacy of the `politicization' of a curriculum in order for some group to get their message across. I believe that it probably is important to identify possible predjudice in a curriculum and take steps to neutralize it, but in applying corrective measures it is JUST as dangerous to over-correct and attempt to `legislate from the bench' as our courts have been accused of doing. This seems the flaw in the solition proposed. The English syllabus proposed, civil rights court case decisions, is specific to one issue. It doesn't address `thinking' about issues in general and leads to an equally objectionable notion that the English curriculum is both the vehicle to correct racial and minority predjudice and that the other issues our society faces are less important than this social issue. We need students who can apply critical reasoning to MANY issues. If the only thing one sees in issues such as abortion, labor vs. management, environmentalism vs. development, funding in the arts, etc. is that these can be reduced to issues of racial or social minorities one has become just as prejudiced, only in some form of social activism. If the human race survives, I suspect it will be more due to DE-EMPHASIZING that predjudice can and does exist than to EMPHASIZING that there are issues that transcend racial and minority standings and that what can be seen of you from the outside in no way describes what is inside your head. Teaching anti-prejudice doesn't seem as useful as teaching the need to quest for understanding of the issues that exist and what the viewpoints on each side might be. Prescribing the issue to be seen ahead of time seems a far less effective approach to this than providing powerful generic writings in which multiple issues can be discerned. From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: Jim Sledd and the Comp Wars Date: Thu, 09 Aug 90 09:08:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 831 (940) Jim Sledd's name having come up in a recent contribution on this topic, I cannot resist a salute to this great man. He was my Freshman English teacher at Duke in 1946 (his first teaching job, perhaps). With no previous experience, I did not think it in the least odd that I was set to learning the syllogism, the distributed middle term, the square of opposition, and other tools of valid reasoning. His teaching was not limited to classical logic, for I somehow learned the use of the semicolon and that "existence" is so written. Came termpaper time, and I went to my conference with him proposing to write about "Negro Poetry." Reader, please consult once again the locale and date of this story; the topic was a part of my rebellion against my background. Sledd, pushing back onto the bridge of his nose glasses that were forever in danger of slipping off the end, said, "Very well, Mr. Brown, so long as you understand that you will be writing about Negroes and not about poetry." Part of my quest to understand what on earth he might have been talking about involved writing a paper about the NeoAristotelian critics in Chicago. Years later, crossing the Atlantic on the last voyage of the France, I ate breakfast every morning with Wayne Booth. We eventually discovered that we had both known Sledd. Booth said, "Jim Sledd taught me more than any other man I have ever known." That goes for me, too, and I am proud to acknowledge my debt to a remarkable teacher and scholar. Clarence Brown, Comparative Literature, Princeton. From: Tony Bex <arb1@ukc.ac.uk> Subject: Texas controversy Date: Thu, 09 Aug 90 14:34:43 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 832 (941) [deleted quotation]the first mailings but have watched the developing whirlwind with fascination. A "writing" course? To me it reads more like a critical thinking course (and more power to it). Surely, a writing course should be primarily concerned with the relationship between the authors and their (potential) readers. Nobody I've ever met just sits down to write about a court case for its own sake. Either they're writing journalism, academic papers, letters or whatever. And each of these genres has a specific audience. Similarly, what might count as a powerful argument in one genre may misfire completely in another. When I teach my students to write I rarely start from a topic - they are perfectly capable of supplying that. I prefer to start from a hypothesised audience and get students to write convincingly to that audience following analysed models that have been addressed to a similar hypothesised audience. The imperatives of accuracy and truth remain constant across topics and audiences; the ways in which they are expressed vary. Surely it is the latter we should be teaching in something called a Writing Course? Tony Bex (arb1@ukc.ac.uk) From: Hedy McGarrell <alfmcgarrell@brocku.ca> Subject: Call for Papers Date: 10 Aug 90 9:46 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 833 (942) CALL FOR PAPERS The Department of Applied Language Studies, Brock University, will host its 6th annual CALL Symposium on October 27, 1990. The Symposium brings together people with different levels of experience (novices to experts) from teaching, research, administration, curriculum and courseware development. Participants share expertise and materials and exchange ideas about recent and future developments in CALL. Abstracts of papers or demonstrations (60 mins.) are invited on a variety of topics including - software development - software evaluation - materials development - curriculum development - instructional aids. Please send abstracts (max. 300 words) by September 7, 1990 to: Hedy M. McGarrell, Symposium Chair Department of Applied Language Studies Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1 Tel. (416) 688-9646, ext. 3374 Fax (416) 688-9020 E-mail: <ALFMCGARRELL@BROCKU.CA> From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Using SIMTEL Date: 10 Aug 90 13:0:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 834 (943) Several postings recently have mentioned the SIMTEL server (?) which is, I gather, a sort of super-listserv for PC shareware. Is this so? Would anyone with the knowledge and expertise care to share with us how to find out what is available from SIMTEL, and how to get it? Many thanks. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: WITTGENSTEIN, with thanks to Profs Rooks, Mulligan, Kessler & McKinnon Date: Thu, 9 Aug 90 17:49:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 382 (944) Thanks go to Mark Rooks and Kevin Mulligan for helping me find an attribution. Kevin Mulligan wanted me to let him know where the quotation I cited a week ago comes from, and I'm happy to say that Professor Alistair McKinnon was able to supply it for me (with his voluminous, computerized concordance to the Wittgenstein corpus): Das Sprechen der Musik. Vergiss nicht, dass ein Gedicht, wenn auch in der Sprache der Mitteilung abgefasst, nicht im Sprachspiel der Mitteilung verwendet wird. "The way music speaks. Do not forget that a poem, even though it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information." _Zettel_, I-160, Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, eds., and G.E.M. Anscombe, trans. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), p. 28. Whether this statement about poetry is true or not, I'm happy to know where it comes from. Many thanks to my Humanist colleagues. In the midst of preparing this posting I received new mail from Humanist and the lively letter from Professor Jascha Kessler. Thank you, Mr. Kessler, for your thoughtful comments on poetry, and you're going to send me (aacck!) on another round of looking through Wittgenstein, but surely he is not alone in his conception of poetry as a private language. Poetic "difficulty" is a subject in which I'm keenly interested, and I've been making it one of the focuses of my book on ninth and tenth century Welsh poems. I'm entitling it _The Uncooperative Text in Early Welsh and Old English Nature Poetry_ because the verses have a way of eluding analysis, evading category and thwarting comparisons; the more we try to translate them the more they change under our ministrations; the more we try to pigeonhole them the more uncategorizable they seem. Of course we are working against a thousand year gap and a host of lost contexts, but the really interesting material in the Welsh (in my opinion) lies in the intentionally obscure texts, the "rhapsodes" from _The Book of Taliesin_ which are clearly vatic in nature and almost completely unintelligible in their fascinating catalogues of "irrelevancies." In your years at UCLA, perhaps you are acquainted with Professor Patrick Ford, Celtic scholar and Taliesin expert. If so, give him my regards. Sorry to make public this salutation but I'm unsure of how to piece together a proper e-mail to you from the riot of data that heads every single posting. Where's that Humanist Biography Listing we were promised?? :) Properly uncertain again, Sarah Higley The University of Rochester Department of English Rochester NY 14627 slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu From: Mary Dee Harris <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Jim Sledd Date: 10 Aug 90 08:53:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 835 (945) In reply to Clarence Brown's reminiscences of Jim Sledd expressed in the past tense, I feel obliged to point out that while the incident he mentioned occurred a while back, Professor Sledd is still alive and kicking. He retired from the English Department at UT Austin in 1985, but retained an office until quite recently. During some office shuffling, he was re-assigned to an office formerly occupied by graduate students. He refused to take that office because he did not want to deprive the students of the space. Very Sledd-ian!! By the way, his glasses still slide off his nose. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: literature Date: Thu, 9 Aug 1990 21:13:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 836 (946) I salute Bob Amsler for his intelligent statement in Humanist 4.380 that, "Prescribing the issue to be seen ahead of time seems a far less effective approach to [overcoming prejudice] than providing powerful generic writings in which multiple issues can be discerned." Lovely poetry and prose have their uses. Willard McCarty From: <STGEORGE@UNMB> Subject: New Release of Internet Library List Available Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 15:43 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 384 (947) A revised release of the Internet Library List has been posted on listserv@unmvm. This release contains the following additions: University of Konstanz, Germany University of Hawaii Virginia Commonwealth University Deakin Library, Victoria, Australia Vanderbilt Library Australian National University Auburn Library Wayne State Library University of Missouri University of Chicago Case Western Reserve University Also included are the results of two recent surveys: 1. access to libraries through dialup lines; and 2. the volunteer effort to check the accuracy of library connectivity. library catalogs and enhancements of several existing catalogs. To retrieve the revised List, send mail or a command to Listserv@unmvm. The body of the mail or command should say GET INTERNET LIBRARY. This will retrieve the ascii version of the List. The Postscript version should be available in the near future. It is possible to automatically received updated version of this List. For more information, send mail or a command to your nearest Listserv node or, only as a last resort, to Listserv@unmvm. The body of the mail or the command should say INFO AFD. You will be sent a file called Listafd Memo which describes the automatic file distribution feature of the Revised Listserv. I apologize if this note reaches you on several lists. As always, if you have any questions about the List or suggestions for additions or corrections, please send mail to stgeorge@unmb or stgeorge@bootes.unm.edu. From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0381 Call for Papers; A Query (2/46) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 90 19:47:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 837 (948) [deleted quotation] Simtel20 has thousands of PC (and others) programs avail for the the cost of downloading. If you can FTP, the name is WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL; password "anonymous" and all that. (I think if you try to use BITFTP@PUCC, you get a msg. suggesting you use one of the Bitnet server, BTW. The Bitnet servers in the US are at NDSUVM1 and RPIECS. To get started, send mail to LISTSERV@RPIECS and in the body put GET PDGET HELP. The server will send 10pp. or so of intro material. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: JOHNSTON@brandeis.bitnet Subject: RE: 4.0375 Query: Greek on IBMs (1/9) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 17:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 838 (949) In Reply to Norm Coombs' request about Greek on the IBM: After years of trying all kinds of software, pricing various printers, etc., and finally settling on an H-P Laserjet printer plus much expensive additions to my aged IBM XT, I finally ended up--sorry--with an Apple SEII plus Lasergreek. The Greek on screen and also on the printed page is really quite acceptable, and I can always bring in my disk to campus and produce a superb copy on the Brandeis Laser Printer. I'll spare you all the exhaustive research, since I really don't want to think about it any more--suffice it to say it was less expensive and less complicated to go with the Apple, but I still do prefer composing on the IBM (apropos of Halio's article, I make many more mistakes on the Apple, even with extended keyboard, and the Apple--OOPS, I mean MACKINTOSH SE II!--software (Word) is much too intrusive for my taste--so I still do my creative work on the IBM.) I've been told, however, that IBM clones are now available that can do wonderful things, if one is starting from scratch....but then I've been hearing that for a number of years! Good Luck! From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: The garden path Date: Sat, 11 Aug 90 12:39:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 839 (950) The exchange between Skip Knox and Willard McCarthy concerning technology's role in bringing humans to perdition reminds me of an incident I read about some time ago -- sorry, I can be no more specific than to say I believe I read it in one of Lewis Mumford's books. In any case, the managers of a nuclear power plant, somewhere in England as I recall, had attempted to foresee all possible problems that might occur, including an automatic alerting of others should an operator be asleep at the switch by dialing a certain telephone number. When something did go wrong, the computer dutifully dialed the number for help; another computer answered and dutifully informed the first computer that the number had been changed. Fortunately the operator was only dozing and not sleeping and was able to take the steps necessary to avert a disaster. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0378 Responses: On Technology; Wittgenstein/Poetry Date: Fri, 10 Aug 90 10:28:24 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 840 (951) Willard cites some interesting examples of the insidious effects of technology, all of which are satisfyingly old {small smile}. Where he sees an effect of technology, though, I see a manifestation of human nature. The invention of the wheel made possible the metaphor of the wheel of fortune. Well and good. And the invention of scales made possible the image of Justice. But humans will find physical expressions of their hopes and fears, using Nature where Machines will not do. The technology itself did not _cause_ anything. Rather, humans chose the technology. And other humans, weak as we are, interpreted the symbols too literally, surrendering the fierce heat of choice for the cool shade of obedience. This all seems like simple human nature. Let me offer another example, from the Renaissance (gee, I hope it's not too modern!): printing. When the printing presses really caught on, toward the end of the 15th century, many was the scribe who bemoaned the dehumanizing effect (a modern phrase, that) of the new machines. Books, they argued, should not be stamped out but written out. Printed books were ugly. Only the human hand could have the properly sympathy for the human word. They were wrong, of course. Those at the time could barely discern the true effect of the mass production of literature and knowledge, and could scarcely imagine the political, social and economic effects of that. The world of the scholar was forever changed by the printing press. Would anyone care to argue the change was for the worse? -= Skip =- Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University INTERNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU 1910 University Drive BITNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0383 Jim Sledd; Literature Date: Saturday, 11 August 1990 0:13am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 387 (952) Forgive me, but I fail to see what "powerful generic writing in which multiple issues can be discerned" has to do with "lovely poetry and prose"; I must be missing something again. And I'm afraid I missed the point of Clarence Brown's beautifully told anecdote about Jim Sledd (whom I like and admire, and whose loss of office space I deplore): were you suggesting that Sledd was *right* when he said, in response to your proposing to write about Negro poetry in 1946, that that would be fine so long as you realized you'd be writing about "Negroes" and not about poetry? John Slatin, UT Austin From: Michael Neuman <NEUMAN@GUVAX> Subject: Call to Membership in ACH Date: Thu, 9 Aug 90 16:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 388 (953) Dear Colleagues: The number of subscribers to HUMANIST recently surpassed 700, but fewer than half that many currently belong to the Association for Computers and the Humanities. On behalf of the Executive Committee of ACH, I would like to invite prospective members to join and former members to renew. Members receive four issues of the ACH Newsletter (with its updates on conferences, projects, and publications), six issues of Computers and the Humanities (a refereed journal with articles of interest to a wide spectrum of humanists and computer specialists), and reduced registration fees for the annual joint ACH/ALLC Conferences. In addition, members enable the ACH to continue its support of such projects as HUMANIST, the Text Encoding Initiative, and the annual conference. Below is a list of membership categories as well as an application form. Please send the completed form and your check (payable to the Association for Computers and the Humanities) to Association for Computers and the Humanities c/o Joe Rudman, Department of English Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 For membership inquiries and change of address notices, contact Joe at the address above or by email at RUDMAN@CMPHYS. Thanks for your consideration. Mike Neuman Georgetown University For the ACH Executive Committee Fees: Please X the appropriate membership category and additional options. _____ US $45 for student or Emeritus faculty member _____ US $55 for individual regular member _____ Add US $5 for Northeast ACH membership. _____ Add US $7.50 for joint membership for couples. _____ Add US $45 (outside North America $50 surface mail or $65 airmail) for Bits and Bytes Review. Application Form: Name: Address: Areas of Interest: Electronic Mail Address: From: scott (Scott Deerwester) Subject: Welcome to Polyglot! Date: Wed, 08 Aug 90 11:51:00 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 389 (954) This is the premier issue of the Polyglot digest. The purpose of the digest is to provide a forum where the multilingual computing community can discuss issues related to the use of computers in dealing with other, and especially multiple languages. Although there are newgroups that are related to multilingual computing, one of the major reasons for making this a mailing list is that the multilingual computing community is sufficiently far flung that there are important segments of it that don't have access to news. There is also ample precedent for feeding a mailing list into a news group or vice versa if both exist. As many have pointed out, there is a lot of information related to multilingual computing spread over a large number of mailing lists, newsgroups and bulletin boards. One of the roles of this digest is to make information on these available. We also solicit descriptions of projects related to multilingual computing, descriptions of multilingual text archives, sources of information. Polyglot is moderated. It will be issued not more often than weekly, depending on the volume of submissions. Submissions are solicited on any topic related to multilingual computing. The mailing list will, at least initially, be in ASCII until there appears to be a good reason to do something different. Readers may be interested to know that the list has charter subscribers from the Canada, Austria, Australia, France, Israel, the United Kingdom, Japan and Sweden. We have people who do word processing in all sorts of languages and scripts, moderators of mailing lists devoted to particular languages, people who have developed Japanese and Chinese word processing packages. There are a very few people who are "subscribed" because I thought they might be interested, but who do not have access to news. If any such people do not wish to receive Polyglot, please let me know at the above address. Scott Deerwester Center for Information and Language Studies University of Chicago [...] eds. -------------------- [A complete version of this digest is now available through the fileserver, s.v. POLYGLOT DIGEST1. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "E-mail address query" Date: Sun, 12 Aug 90 19:15:50 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 841 (955) Does anyone on HUMANIST have an e-mail address for Oxford University Press or for someone connected with subscriptions to the ALLC's _Journal..._? Have any 1990 issues been published yet? Thanks in advance. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: A_ARISTAR@vaxa.cc.uwa.OZ.AU Subject: Avestan Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 22:06:24 wst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 842 (956) I'm doing some research, and am having some minor problems with Avestan grammar. Is there anyone out there who might be kind enough to offer some help? To avoid bothering the rest, you might reply directly to me. My thanks! Anthony Aristar From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: M. Paolini Date: Wed, 15 Aug 90 08:48:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 843 (957) Could Monica Paolini please send me her postal address? I replied to her e-mail message but suspect it did not get through; she should note my correct e-mail address, as follows: WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca. I am away August 31 October 13, so she should send me her postal address quickly. Germaine Warkentin. From: <ENG003@UNOMA1> Subject: RE: 4.0386 On Technology (2/58) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 07:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 844 (958) Just as a bit of devil's advocacy, I'd like to remind Skip that the printing press has also brought us the "junk mail" phenomenon, Harlequin Romances and their ilk, mass pornography, the daily newspaper even when no news occurs, and the "publish or perish" credentialism of scholarship. Surely, these are not among the improvements he ascribes to the technology? Judy Boss Department of English University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, Nebraska 68182 BITNET: eng003@unoma1 From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: the garden path to better technology Date: 16 August 1990, 15:39:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 845 (959) After that Faustian invention, moveable type, began changing the society of western Europe, the first big change in printing, as I remember it, was the movement away from blinding black-letter type to some absolutely beautiful and irreplaceable type-faces, many of which are still in use today, so perhaps there is some hope in technological leaps--though I still wish Henry Ford had chosen alcohol, natural gas or hydrogen over petroleum. Roy Flannagan From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: technological imaginings Date: Tue, 14 Aug 90 18:55:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 846 (960) One of the strengths of Ursula Franklin's argument is that she identifies technology as a way of living and thinking, not a bunch of gadgets, and certainly not an autonomous inhuman force. I agree completely with Skip Knox that human nature is the source of the human problems we have been dealing with, but apparently I haven't been very clear about the relationship I see between human nature and its technological expressions. It seems to me that there are two ways of evading responsibility for what happens to us as a result of the technological objects and processes we have devised. One is to attribute to these things autonomous power -- the wheel relentlessly turning, the conveyor-belt moving from worker to worker, freeways spreading like a stringy cancer, and so forth. The other way is to deny the importance of the problem altogether. What's interesting to me is to avoid both. Yes, by means of technological thinking we create our machines and devices; these inevitably mirror our conception of the world and ourselves, objectify that conception, if you will. I wonder about the narcissism involved in our fascination with these things. At the best, they are a means of discovering who we are, what we are thinking about, and why. At the worst, they tyrannize us because we forget that their autonomy is partly at least an illusion. When I was first in graduate school, I had a conversation with one of my professors about some ideas I had formed while reading Eliot's Wasteland. At every turn in my struggle to be articulate, this professor labelled what I had just said as belonging to this or that famous heresy. I'm sure his intentions were good, but he made it very difficult for me to think clearly. What I learned from him on that occasion was how hard it is to deal honestly with an enigma, something that is both this and that, and neither this nor that. I think the problem of our relationship to technology is enigmatic, and so presents us with the struggle to avoid easy, cut-and-dried answers. The answers keep turning into questions! But doesn't this mean that we're on to something worth talking about? I'm not trying to avoid modern examples, really. As I said, let us consider the Bomb, or more generally the military relationship between powerful nations insofar as that involves technology. Or how about the automobile? Or the telephone? Let me here recommend a most fascinating collection of essays about this very successful, very human technology: Ithiel de Sola Pool, The Social Impact of the Telephone (MIT Press). Willard McCarty From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: question about a Hebrew verb form Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 12:20:32 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 847 (961) There are a lot of people who teach biblical Hebrew reading this newsgroup, and I'd like to try to fish them out (and see if I can find an answer to a question as well). I am just wondering why we get _yevosh_ with /e/, but _yavo_ with /a/. The theme vowel for both is the same, /a:/ -> /o:/. -Richard From: CSHUNTER@UOGUELPH Subject: Date: 17 August 90, 09:47:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 848 (962) A colleague of mine will be going to Cambridge (England) in the fall of 1991 to spend a year's leave. So that he can fill out his grant application in as much detail as possible, he is interested in knowing: 1. Who he should contact at Cambridge to get information about a mainframe account that would allow him to communicate with his graduate assistant here at Guelph; 2. What the cost of such an account would be; 3. If it is possible to rent an MS-DOS PC and what the cost of that rental might be. Anyone who could contribute any information in this regard should address e-mail answers to cshunter@uoguelph. From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: thanks; CPM Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 22:40:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 849 (963) First of all, belated thanks to the many folk who responded so generously to my query regarding library lists. (The library staff are up to their ears with suggestions!) One positive experience raises hope for another. A colleague is hoping to make the leap from her Kaypro and CPM-based files to the IBM world. (We have a largely true-blue campus, and she can only stand so much peer pressure. Who said computers would help democritize things?) Question: is there a program and/or technique for converting CPM text files into a generic IBM format which could be picked up by a wordprocessor? Advice and suggestions appreciated. Charles Ess Drury College From: <NEUMAN@GUVAX> Subject: ALLC address Date: Fri, 17 Aug 90 09:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 850 (964) In a recent posting, Joel Goldfield asked for an email address for _Literary and Linguistic Computing_. According to the journal's "Notes for Contributors," Gordon Dixon (the editor) can be reached at G.DIXON@UK.AC.MANCHESTER. Mr. Dixon's email address appears in a different format in the "List of Participants" from the recent ACH/ALLC Conference (with a probable typo at the fifth character): GDIXOM@UK.AC.MAN.CS.CGU Mike Neuman Georgetown Univ. From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: left-hand faces Date: Sat, 18 Aug 90 22:09:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 393 (965) The discussion on left-right brain and handedness has taken some interesting turns while I was away (on vacation, not hiding from reactions to my earlier blast). Judy Koren's "wild hypothesis" about a need for naming things providing an entry in the FAT is probably closest to current constructions of memory models. Douglas de Lacey's counterargu- ment concerning third lines of songs is not inconsistent with an initial premise concerning the "keyness" of names. The name or other means by which thoughts are stored in memory does not initiate a memory dump of all stored information concerning the name. Instead, much like storage on an unoptimized computer disk, memory seems to operate on a pointer principle. Each chunk of information may hold a pointer for the next chunk. Third lines are much more difficult to recall because we also rely heavily on temporal context for recall, which is a fancy way of saying ordered recall is easier than random recall. Songs are particularly sensitive to ordered cues because they, among other things, are usually learned serially. With respect to names, sociobiologists (I can locate the refer- ence if anyone is interested) have recently proposed that our (humans) seemingly overwhelming concern for names may be related to kinship selection. Unlike other mammals, humans don't identi- fy kin through odor (e.g. deer mice), are too mobile to rely on direct knowledge such as witnessing the birth of one's sibling (e.g. gorillas, possibly chimps), and learn not to rely on physical appearance as the sole criterion. Thus, surnames provide evidence (though obviously not conclusive) about kinship, which enables us to make kin-related decisions about helping, hurting, and mating with others. Concerning Koren's question about abnormalities, I suspect (though it may be mere prejudice on my part) that different answers result from different assumptions about human behavior. A "medical model" behavior scientist would probably say abnormal- ity is qualitatively different, an all-or-none phenomenon. That is, one either does or does not have a disease. An "eclectic model" type (among whom I count myself though I'm not a clini- cian) would say abnormality is an extreme form of everyday quirks. We all fail to associate names with faces at times, but consistent failure is abnormal (prosopagnosia). We all imagine sounds, even voices, from time to time, but consistent voices is a symptom of abnormality (schizophrenia). I confess to being left-handed, and to having trouble remembering names, though not to being female. The high proportion of women in areas concerning the study of language seems, to me, accounted for by higher verbal (including math, by the way) intelligence among women. Trouble associating names and faces being more prevalent among left-handed people is a mystery. Without going into the statis- tical theory, Koren's report of the argument concerning bi-modal distribution of doesn't hold up. Also, left-handers include three different groups: left-side damage, undamaged and left-side dominant, and undamaged and right-side dominant. The latter are sometimes called "true" left-handed. I don't know that it would shed a great deal of light on the issue, but I would be willing to collect the kind of survey data suggested by Stephen Clausing. Perhaps there is a greater prevalence of name-face nonassociation among left-handed people, perhaps not. HUMANIST subscribers would not be a random sample, but we would be a beginning. If people cooperate, I'll tabulate the results and report back. If you are willing to participate, respond to the following three questions: 1) Are you (a) left-handed (b) ambidextrous (c) right-handed? 2) Do you have trouble associating names and faces (a) almost always (b) sometimes (c) hardly ever? 3) Are you (a) male (b) female? Send your responses to fdane@uga. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0391 Technology, Etc. Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 17:27 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 851 (966) Dear Willard, Oh those tweedy, not-so-avuncular professors who condescended to one with their declarations of one's "heresy." From what? TSE retracted his book of heresies, AFTER STRANGE GODS, in which he had anathematized Blake and Lawrence as "heretics." He had the Orthodox line. Rome of course wouldnt not have said that of his adherence to Canterbury. And he himself, flirting with the brownshirted "heretics" against civilization itself, as the West once knew it. If all those condemned as heretics of one kind or another were laid end to end, they still might not reach to the plane where TSE's poor soul probably lies awaiting redemption. Would you like to see, Willard, my mythologem on TSE? Now that you mentioned him? Kessler From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0391 Technology, Etc. (3/74) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 90 08:15:07 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 852 (967) Judy Boss played the devil's advocate to my comments on the printing press. Since I'm about to take semi-serious issue with her, does that make me a divinity's advocate? Sure I can see those developments in a positive light. Harlequin romances are nothing more than modern forms of the silly tales and bawdy romances of earlier ages that were related orally (and occasionally written down). Pornography has certainly always been with us; I can't find anything reprehensible in the mass distribution of it. Daily newspapers that report things even when there's nothing to report are just gossip that makes money. As for junk mail -- at least I can throw it away. The drop-in peddlar or huckster took more effort to get rid of. I'll admit that "credentialism" may be a novelty, but isn't this merely a case of non-scholar administrators unimaginatively applying what is after all a fairly reasonable rule (namely, that scholars ought to publish)? No, I'm not trying to say technological innovation is an unmixed blessing. I'm trying to argue that WHATEVER the effects, those effects occur because of the humans, not because of the technology. Let's quit trying to find something sinister in the machine. It's just a machine. Anthropomorphizing is the proper province of poets, not of social analysts. -= Skip =- Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University INTERNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU 1910 University Drive BITNET: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0391 Technology, Etc. (3/74) Date: Friday, 17 Aug 1990 13:08:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 853 (968) One might add to McCarty's suggestion concerning the de Sola Pool collection Avital Ronnell's THE TELEPHONE BOOK: TECHNOLOGY, SCHIZOPHRENIA, ELECTRIC SPEECH. It offers a fascinating (and scary) view of telephonics in a book which, itself, is a marvel of technological innovation as far as printing goes. - Patrick O'Donnell From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Why do we call them computers? Date: 19 Aug 90 11:27:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 854 (969) Why do we (still) call them computers? They were invented to do high-speed numerical calculations, and the concepts on which the most fundamental levels of programming (machine language, if they still call it that) rely are mathematical in origin, but in the last decade at least the range of uses has penetrated a wide range of very un-mathematical manipulations of information. My purpose in asking is twofold: (1) The math/sci./engineering origins of the machines seem to me to exercise still a baneful influence on the way we manage our systems. Administrators of computer systems are more often than not from the math/sci./engr. world and the way systems run reflect their interests and concerns. E-mail, for example, is still a ways away from becoming the ideal means for the interchange of information because the character set is limited (at least on systems I know) to the original ASCII 128 character set and because the software for editing on our mainframes is worlds behind what we expect as a minimum on our little PC's. If we envisioned `computers' not as math/sci. tools but as instruments of communication, on the other hand, it would seem natural to put humanists at the helm. (2) On a more philosophical level, there is nothing about the physical structure of the universe that requires `computers' to have at their heart a set of structures designed on mathematical models. As I understand it, this is part of what the AI people are struggling against. That everything in the machine is done with 0's and 1's is not something intrinsic to the nature of silicon and the movement of electricity, it is rather a mathematician's conceptualization imposed on silicon and electrons. So: any good substitutes for `computer/computing'? Any good substitutes already in use in non-English (or preferably: non-European) languages? From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: Jim Sledd and the Texas Comp Wars Date: Fri, 17 Aug 90 10:29:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 855 (970) John Slatin asks me in his note of 11th August to explain my "beautifully told anecdote [thanks] about Jim Sledd." My contribu- tion was woefully beside the point of the Texas Comp Wars, I realize, and was simply a sentimental tribute to a teacher who meant a great deal to me (and to many others). What did Sledd mean by telling me that in writing a projected paper on "Negro Poetry" I would be writing about Negroes, not about poetry? I cannot tell you what he meant. I can tell you, at most, what my 61-year-old brain now thinks went through my 17-year-old brain after some time spent pondering his observation. I thought he meant that I should write about poetry as poetry, without any adjective attached to it; that I should write about poems not because they had been written by Episcopalian women but because they were poems. My education would be advanced, I think he thought, by considering the proposi- tion that poetry was a special form of discourse, the merit of which, if any, was not to be descried in the identity of its author, its philosophical drift, and so on. Since I was the product of a late Victorian education in a small Southern high school (no blacks, no women, and almost no education) whose idea of poetry was bounded on one side by the Baptist Hymnal and on the other by "The Best Loved Poems of the American People," I had never encountered anything remotely like this idea, which was sufficiently preposter- ous to catch even my attention. Sledd sent me to read an article by Hoyt Trowbridge in, I think, the "Sewannee Review." Can't remember the title. From there I went on to read Crane, McKeon, McLean, and the other Chicago critics and, most mind-blowing of all, the "Poetics" itself. I later became the only Greek major in my class. I believe that my term paper for Sledd in Freshman Composition 1 consisted of trying to read Wordsworth's "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free" in the light of neo-Aristotelian doctrines that I could not possibly, at that age, have understood. But the issues that I then confronted altered my life, and I am grateful that I was stopped from writing a paper in which I would have dutifully admired Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen for producing quite nice poems in spite of their obvious handicaps, magnanimously overlooked by me. From this dual insult to black writers and to poetry I was saved by Jim Sledd, to whom all honor. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Hooking in to BITNET Date: Friday, 17 August 1990 1521-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 396 (971) Jim O'Donnell's guest OFFLINE 29 column has now appeared in hardcopy (it appeared first on HUMANIST, weeks ago), with its information about accessing libraries remotely. Response to the column from the general readership, most of whom are not on BITNET, underscores a problem that some HUMANISTs may be in a position to help solve -- the main question is, "How can we plug into this sort of resource if we are not affiliated with an institution that is on the network grid?" I hear this from faculty at small colleges and seminaries, from retired colleagues, from isolated individuals, etc. The electronically accessible libraries are closed even to people who can get to INTERNET through compuserve, I am told. Thus the question: do HUMANISTs know of network centers that are able and willing to offer connectedness to the currently unconnected (disenfranchised) at reasonable cost and without a lot of red tape? Some Universities require users to have an official status at the University. Some permit outside accounts but at a cost most individuals would find prohibitive. Have any of our institutions opened the gates to become general conduits for interested outsiders? Is it a reasonable suggestion (and perhaps even a marketable one, in a not-for-profit environment) that this be considered, or better, attempted somewhere if the need is as general as it seems to be? Suggestions? Bob Kraft From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0396 Network Access for Small Colleges & ... Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 23:07:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 856 (972) The University of Georgia has graciously opened its computing doors to a number of state and private institutions. I do not know what the institutional costs are, but there are no costs to the individual user. There are several local access numbers through which users outside the Athens, GA local calling area can dial in without paying long-distance rates. There must be other institutions equally gracious. Frank Dane, Mercer University (fdane@uga) From: David Sewell <dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Hooking into Bitnet Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 23:23:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 857 (973) Recently I was skimming through John Quarterman's massive book _The Matrix : Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide_ (Bedford, Mass. : Digital Press, 1990), a book that every serious user of the Bitnet or Internet should look into (it answers, for now, all those questions about "is there a net connection in Cameroon," etc.), and was hoping to find information about public-access connections of the sort Bob Kraft asks about in order to answer a question from a friend-of-a-friend about getting onto Humanist. There's surprisingly little directly relevant information. Corporations can subscribe to services that provide connections not only to the Internet but also to MCI Mail and other business-oriented electronic nets. The most promising route for individuals in the U.S. to take to get public access to the major networks and mainframe systems, so far as I could see, would be to contact WELL, the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, of San Francisco, at 1-415-332-4335 (yes, originated by Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Foundation). Quarterman says this is one of the few services to offer such access to individual users using credit-card charges. In USENET postings I've seen return addresses referring to a Denver Public Access Unix (which obviously must have network connections), but I know nothing about it. For what it's worth, you can receive not only mail from the Internet on a CompuServe account but also send BITNET ListServe commands and get responses (I've tried it just to see). Only problem is that CompuServe can't handle mail of over 1000 lines or 50,000 characters. Of course, e-mail to Internet and Bitnet takes forever, and you cannot take advantage of any interactive resources (e.g., the "telnet" command that allows you to log on to library catalogs). David Sewell, U. of Rochester (dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu) From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0396 Network Access for Small Colleges & ... Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 09:02:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 858 (974) One option for anyone who owns a Mac is the Email package from CE Software, QuickMail 2.2, along with a fourth-party add-on, Information Electronics UMCP Bridge. The combination of those two products along with a modem allows anyone to transfer files via the Unic uucp protocols, which includes mail and Usenet news (though the news reader I and another person am working on is just being started). It would certainly suffice just to read Humanist though. There are two catches. First you have to have access to a Unix machine at a local campus or business. They will give you a uucp account, which means that only your machine can log on so they can be assured you won't be using their resources unduly. It can be hard to find a local Unix machine that just hands out accounts. The solution to the first catch which is also the second one, is a machine (and organization) called UUNET, which will give anyone a uucp mail feed via their 800 number. However, they charge for transfer time by the hour, which wouldn't be too bad if you have a fast modem and only want mail, but which could get expensive if you want to transfer larger files more frequently. Thus, getting a feed is either unlikely or potentially expensive. Sorry. With that done, I must say the the QuickMail link seems to work pretty well for the people around here who are using it. I don't have my copy yet, so I haven't had a chance to really test it, but the developer of the UMCP Bridge is in Ithaca and swears by it. (and occasionally at it when he's developing for it :-)). I don't have the information on how to get a feed from UUNET now, but it should be available via FTP from uunet.uu.net (anonymously, of course). If there is demand, I'll look around for it and post to Humanist. Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: "James H. Coombs" <JAZBO@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0396 Network Access for Small Colleges & ... Date: Tue, 21 Aug 1990 09:47:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 859 (975) There has been some discussion in other lists. Here is a copy of a fragment, reporting access for some on the west coast and a possible precedent. --Jim [deleted quotation] From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0392 R: ALLC mail; Qs: Hebrew; Camb Computing; CPM2DOS Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 19:13:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 860 (976) Regarding the e-mail address for ALLC, submitted by Mike Neuman, the format of the node address must be reversed if you are sending the mail from the U.S.: in other words, mail should go to GDIXON@Manchester.ac.uk (or possibly to G.DIXON@Manchester.ac.uk--Mike gives both userids in his note). For some unknown reason, the Brits reverse the order of the domains in the node portion of e-mail addresses, giving the highest domain first instead of last. Mail sent from the U.S. to England using British addressing conventions will be automatically returned as undeliverable. John Unsworth From: Jim O'Donnell Subject: 4.0392 R: ALLC mail; Qs: Hebrew; Camb Computing; CPM2DOS (4/66) Date: 20 Aug 90 21:52:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 861 (977) Kaypro to IBM: The owner of the machine may even have something already, buried on the CPM utility disks. Look for a program with a name like UNIFORM or other suspicious `formatting' program. From about 1984/5, Kaypros shipped with such a program. Before that, you have to find a copy of the commercially available (about $50) program that is actually called UNIFORM, specifying exactly which Kaypro you had (2, 4, 10: there were different versions of Uniform for each). The program works very handily, formatting IBM-readable disks in your Kaypro's B-drive, then copying files to them. I spent about twelve hours in the summer of 1986 copying 44 Kaypro floppies that way and every scrap of data made it through loud and clear. How to find UNIFORM? Alas, no idea of the maker or whereabouts, but software catalogues, etc. ought to be able to turn it up. Old Kaypro users' groups? From: Bill Kupersmith <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: CP/M Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 09:41 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 862 (978) In answer to Charles Ess's query about CP/M files: there was a lot of software to convert CP/M to IBM in the middle '80s. I have a package called UNIFORM which was sold by a firm called Micro Solutions in De Kalb, Illinois. It works by creating an imaginary C: drive on the IBM which mimics a variety of CP/M machines. --Bill Kupersmith --University of Iowa From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re: left-hand faces Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 23:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 863 (979) Just one more kink for the record.;-) There are times when I cannot put a name to a face for the life of me. But, when I finally break down and ask someone else, I almost never forget that match-up afterward. I was just wondering if this is a personal quirk [one of many ;-) ] or if other people experience the same thing. And yes, I'm one of the left-handed female contingent.;-) Ruth H From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: handedness and brainedness Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 02:09:38 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 864 (980) I'm a right handed man. I remember faces very well, but often have difficulty putting a name to a face if I haven't been dealing with the person on a fairly regular basis. I also forget names as soon as I'm told them, a maddening failure at parties. Dominik Dominik Wujastyk, | Janet: D.Wujastyk@uk.ac.ucl Wellcome Institute for | Bitnet/Earn/Ean/Uucp: D.Wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk the History of Medicine, | Internet/Arpa/Csnet: dow@wjh12.harvard.edu 183 Euston Road, | or: D.Wujastyk%ucl@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk London NW1 2BN, England. | Phone no.: +44 71 383-4252 ext.24 From: Farrukh Hakeem <FBHJJ@CUNYVM> Subject: Re: 4.0393 Memory (1/78) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 10:02:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 865 (981) Response: 1.c 2.c 3.a 'would like a copy of your analyses or conclusions. fbhjj@cunyvm From: Frank Dane <FDANE@uga.cc.uga.edu> Subject: Re: Memory Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 16:01:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 866 (982) clark survey responses received-- re: willingness to support all clarks, a hard-core sociobiologist would respond that Stephen is probably not related to all clarks, and therfore should not feel inclined to support all of them. At least that's what I think a hard-core sociobiologist would say. From: DAN MANDELL (219)284-4610 <XLYKN8@IRISHMVS.BITNET> Subject: Left Handed People forced to Switch Date: Sat, 18 Aug 90 22:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 867 (983) I am curious whether there are any studies of the effects on a left-handed person of being forced to change in childhood to right-handed behaviour that have led to any valid generalizations. Dan Mandell Bitnet: xlykn8@irishmvs Internet: mandell@bach.helios.nd.edu From: Hans Joergen Marker <DDAHM@vm.uni-c.dk> Subject: Re: 4.0395 Why "computers"; Jim Sledd (2/74) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 08:55:38 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 868 (984) Jim O.Donnell asks for alternatives to the name computer in use in other languages than English. In Danish an alternative name was developped: datamat. The most common name for a computer in Danish is the English word computer, but the English word is still not fully assimilated in the language ie: it is still pronounced in English not with a Danish pronounciation. The word datamat is widely used and understood, I think it is the second mostly use name for a computer in Danish, but personnally I feel that the use of datamat for computer gives a text an odeour of intellectualism that may be unwanted in a particular text. Further I think that the word datamat is not particularly Danish anyhow, it plays on similarity with Latin inspired words such as for instance automat. Hans JŚrgen Marker DDAHM at NEUVM1 From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: What call them `computers' Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 12:59:11 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 869 (985) James O'Donnell raises a good point in that the choice of name reflects the time period in which a machine is introduced and the expectations of its developers. However, we didn't call them `computers' initially, they were `calculators' and then `electronic calculators'. They also were `electronic data processing machines', which actually was more accurate for today's purposes--but somehow became associated with doing payroll calculations and hence tainted as a name. Today I do not know what we would call them if they JUST appeared--probably something like `bi-stable logic-based symbol manipulators' (BLSMs) and eventually some more pronounceable name would appear (remember ENIAC, UNIVAC, etc. were initial computer names reflecting the VACume tubes of which they were made). I would however take issue with the imposition of 0/1 on computers being solely a mathematician's characterization. It is the essence of digital computation and the basic common characteristic of all modern computing technology. I.e., engineers basically look for materials (e.g. silicon, gallium) or means of microscopically storing two distinct states (e.g. bubble memory) to use as the basis for computation. Two-state devices are essential since all our hardware is based on that form of computation. (There is a fundamental understanding that using two states one can represent everything from numbers in any base to letters to grey-scale and color images, etc. that may have been hard to accept--but now is well accepted in some quarters. This might be a significant idea--akin to the quantum in energy/matter we now have the bit in information). From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0395 Why "computers"; Jim Sledd (2/74) Date: Tuesday, 21 Aug 1990 08:24:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 870 (986) Jim O'Donnell says <that everything in the machine is done with 0's and 1's is not something intrinsic to the nature of silicon and the movement of electricity, it is rather a mathematician's conceptualization imposed on silicon and electrons>. Surely, he's wrong. Electricity is either carried through a circuit, or it isn't. That is, the switch is on or off (0 or 1). The way to have it partly on and partly off is to have two circuits, one on and one off, combined, and there is born the chip. At least, that's the way I learned it. I'm fairly certain that two or three things are real in this imperfect world, and an electrical switch is one of them. That's why God's first words were Fiat lux, and then he flipped the switch. --Pat Conner From: Chris Gowlland <ST402868@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0395 Why 'computers' Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 15:08:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 871 (987) I'm not sure what the objection is to the use of 1's and 0's within computing. My understanding is that using them does not in any way restrict one to a certain number of characters, like those in the standard ASCII set -- you can extend the number of characters more or less indefinitely by simply lengthening the descriptor for the characters. Last year I was working at the National Central Library in Taipei on Taiwan, and one of the jobs I had to do was to act as rapporteur at a conference about the use of computers in Chinese language processing (with a special focus on bibliographic work). Researchers in Taiwan and Hong Kong claimed to be working on a standard set of codings which will allow them to describe precisely every character ever written in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, including all the variant simplified forms and those which are found only once... probably something over 70,000 different and unique characters (I did have a more precise figure, but don't have it to hand here). It would probably have been a relatively simple matter to have a much larger set of defined characters (covering all the major alphabetic scripts etc.) when they were first deciding how to set up the ASCII format... but I wouldn't have thought that the limitations of the medium as it currently exists are necessarily the result of choosing to use binary coding. I too am not happy about the fact that there are no consistent formats for sending the Roman alphabet plus diacritics, and I appreciate that it must be much more frustrating for those who would like to communicate using Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, etc. But how much is enough? Should a "wish list" for a really comprehensive system for character interchange include the International Phonetic Alphabet too? How about Gothic script? How about every one of the different alphabetic scripts found in South Asia? It's surely just a matter of what is initially decided. Enough. Incidentally, the ordinary Chinese word for a computer is "dian-nao", which in syllabic etymological translation means "electronic brain". From: <ENG003@UNOMA1> Subject: Technology, etc. Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 20:49 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 872 (988) While I think you're oversimplifying, Skip, I agree with you that machines are not sinister in themselves; however, the human use of and dependence upon them does have some sinister elements, I believe. Several years ago (I cannot remember source and date, alas.) a study of people using cal- culators included a control group using normal, functional calculators and a group using calculators modified to provide erroneous answers. The two groups were given several problems to solve, and those with the modified calculators believed their calculators even when the correct answers were fairly obvious and/or easily estimated and the error was also large and should have been obvious. Judy Boss Department of English University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, Nebraska 68182 bitnet: eng003@unoma1 From: <S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE> Subject: Technology Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 10:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 873 (989) Technology My latest cheap digital wrist watch has four buttons which work in conjunction and in various sequences to control a variety of functions. For instance, the button used to illuminate the face is also used, depending upon the 'mode' the watch is in, to set the chime, alarm, chime & alarm; to set/re-set the stop-watch; to set a reminder indicator; to set a timer, either in manual or automatic re-set mode.... This wondrous time-keeper is not only flexible, but also complex: is its complexity required to achieve its flexibility? Could it be made more 'user-friendly' without undue increase in expense or size? Now that I use this digital watch, has it in any ways changed my practices, temporal perception, and temporal cognition? Why do I use it rather than an analogue watch? I could easily use an analogue watch to keep my appointments, and to know when to go for lunch. Is there something insidious in the very promotion of digital watches? Does the use of digital watches entrench consumerism, and enslavement to bureaucratic, rigidified social structures? Is the use of a digital watch just one more attribute of a digitalized, speed-crazy, hyper-efficient society that promotes the use of micro-wave ovens, video-recorders, telephone interviews as opposed to face-to-face contact, e-mail and fax mail as opposed to postal mail...? If I were to opt out of the use of my digital watch, and return to using an old-fashioned, mechanical time-piece, would that make me a Neanderthal; a less effective member of contemporary society? When someone asks one for the time, will one's response be a sure give away to whether one has coopted into digitalization or whether one has remained true to humanistic values of metaphor, and analogy: it's 9:16:25, versus "it's just past a quarter past nine in the morning, just about mid-way to noon". Once a technological device is invented and used, does the user irrevocably change? Is there a constant to humanity? Or is humanity as flexible and changeable as are his inventions? Does it make sense at all to think either that the nature and uses of technology are intrinsically dependent on humans; or, that humans are intrinsically the product of their technological developments. Rather, the relation between technology and humanity is symbiotic: when the shoe pinches one change the shoe, but if one decides not to change, the foot deforms to fit the shoe, and the shoe once old and worn, deforms to fit the foot. ------------------------------------ Sheldon Richmond S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE.BITNET From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0394 On Technology (3/63) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 11:28 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 874 (990) To Skip Knox: while I agree 100% that whatever it is, is just a machine, I cavil at your statement that anthropomorphizing is "the proper province of poets." As a poet, I would say that poetry makes plain what the thought/feeling/message is, whereas the social scientist all too often is unaware of the bad poetry being uttered in the name of a social science dictum. All language used informally is probably and basically permeated, tinged, contaminated, perfused, etc., with metaphor, which is a form of projecting anthropos and all its concerns, whether projecting at reality to transform it via technology, or at other anthropoids in order to make them conform in the thought, so as to have had communication. I hope you would agree to that? I am not arguing with you, Skip KNox, mere chatting. I always get a bit antsy when the nonpoets start in confining us to our proper provinces, which today is a word that is not satisfactory. I think of it rather as being confined to quarters, which quarters are cordoned off, in preparation for our starvation, our being withered away, our being liquidated from the proper provinces of "analysis," so called. There is a metaphoric analogy for you. And of course, it has happened already to the poets, patrolled by the dogs and janissaries of the social sciences, which are scarcely to be thought of as proper sciences at all, but methods of acquiring and presenting information from which certain patterns of human reality can be extracted for reification and further mortification...preferably of others. As for administrators and publication, they ahve taken great pains to provide (often publicly) subsidized presses for the publication of materials that will be of use in obtaining tenured positions for young Ph(u)Ds. Do those books get sold in even the best bookstores? Where? That part of printing is a private province for Academe. Well, 'twas ever so. The Scrolls of the Law remain in the hands of the priesthood till this day, so to say. (And when they are printed in the vulgate for everyone, you see what happens? Everyman his own prophet and storefront, tv, whatever, preacher and in the USA tax evader. Well, we are rich still, and can afford it. I myse f venerate the god of the Band Aid. Yrs, this silly morning, Kessler at UCLA From: Abigail <REED@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: message Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 09:24:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 875 (991) Dear Humanist: could you please circulate the following plea sent to me by a colleague on the Records of Early English Drama. Perhaps someone on HUMANIST can help. Thanks. Germaine ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Here it is: We at REED are trying to identify a Shakespearean actor who is a little out of our period. His name is Thomas Oakes, and all that is really know of him are the following facts: 1) in 1792 he signed a lease as part of his purchase of the British Plate Glass Company in which he described his occupation as Shakespearean actor; 2) he lived while in London on Upper Wimpole Street; 3) the actor Garrick had lent money to Oakes' company before he had acquired it. We'd be grateful for any further information anyone might know who was more conversant with the period than we are. Also, we have been told that there is an on-line index to the London Stage 1660-1800, but have been unable to find out where this is or whether it contains more data than the printed index: any leads on that, or the email address, if any, of its compiler, Ben Ross Schneider, would be gratefully received as well. Thanks for your help. Abigail From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: Danish history Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 15:07:09 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 876 (992) I'm looking for books on Danish history, especially covering the 17th and 18th century and the administration of Denmark and the German parts of Denmark in the said centuries. I would also like to get information on the latest publications on 'History and Computing', especially those on the use of databases and database design in social and economic history. Thomas Zielke From: Norman Hinton <SSUBIT12@UIUCVMD> Subject: CPM to DOS Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 10:16:34 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 877 (993) Public Brand Software, a shareware firm in Indianapolis, has a disc for CPM to DOS which allows you to read CPM discs on most PC machines and clones and dowhatever you want with them. The disc does not include EVERY CPM appkication, but the PBS catalog specifically mentions "Kaypro 11/2/2x/4/10/Pro-8" models. The disc costs $5. If you want to register it with its authors, there is a further charge, explained on the disc itself. It is PBS # UX13.1 . The address is Public Brand Software, P.O. Box 51315, Indianapolis, IN 46251, or you czn call 1-800-426-DISK and use Master CArd or Visa. (there is also a $5 shipping charge.) I know people are wary about shareware, but I have used quite a lot of PBS software over the years, and they are quite reliable. They ship the day after your order is received. From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0397 Network Access for Colleges and Individuals (4/156) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 21:06:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 878 (994) About David Sewell's remark that Compuserve can only handle mail up to 50,000 characters, it should be noted that this is a bureaucratic and not a practical limitation: it applies only to individual customers, not to corporate accounts. It might be a service to the general public for Compu- serve subscribers to complain to the management about this limitation. John Unsworth From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0395 Why "computers"; Jim Sledd (2/74) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 12:00 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 879 (995) To Clarence Brown: First to thank you for your simple, clear explication of what it was you learned about poetry from Sledd. It is a touching and poignant story. I like its truth. Second: to observe how history and these times have boulversed, so to speak, the entire weltanschauung of Sledd's and yours notion of the thing you are talking about. Alas, today, not only the minority and ethnic will not be condescended to because of their inferiority in respect of the origin of their poetic words, but will demand that the poem itself can ONLY be read an d understood as a text expressive of the social warfare currently endemic here there and everywhere, almost, but not quite, not yet, a situation Hobbes defined as our natural and orginal state. A Black poem, a Chicano Poem, a Chicana Lelsbian poem exists to be read ONLY as the projection of the (objectively defined) subjectivity of the author. That this is being made a general principal of in tellectual life (if not yet cultural life) may be deduced by any casual scanning of the titles and short descriptions of the books being published by almost all the University Presses these days, except the most conservative and elite, say U Cal and Harvard. If you ask the young new Ph.Ds if they believe the things they have written, many will confess that they do not, I would guess, but have been of course coerced and terrified into their theses topics, or have done them lemminglike, because they need jobs. sometimes I think it is not serious endeavor; sometimes I think it is mauvais fois; sometimes I think it is voulu;somet imes I think it is practical and also fanatical and also self-hypnotized; somet imes I think it is part of the unexamined life adrift on the trends of the times; sometimes I think it cowardly; sometimes I think it prudential. But always, always I think, it can come to no good at all. But that is our brave new (academic) world. Sometimes I wonder if that is one main reason today that we are discounted as a serious enterprise by the powers (the scientists and technologists) on our campuses. I can understand that; but it hard to be condescended to by behavioral psychologists (pace BF Skinner, pace), by political scientists, and worst of all by the law profs, the BusAd profs, the sociologists, who are not so bad as they are simply usually lacking language per se with which to communicate, apart from their categories. Just consider the regard, anywhere, Harvard, etc.,and the rest, that is extended to the Romance languages and the cultures and histories they represent! But now I am getting into fouled waters. Far from where I began. To return: when I discuss and read from the work of a Gwendolyn Brooks, a Sterling Brown, an Al Lee, a Nikki Giovanni, in the Am Poetry lecture course, and there are a few Black students there, I am amused to see the anxious glances cast in their direction (from behind them of course) by the other you ng students, who are what used to be called Anglos, and are now in the latest Calif Statistical Survey I filled out called "Euro-Americans." Even to read and discuss their poems aloud, superficial explication and reference to social status and origins and conditions, is to cause great fear that I may offend and miss tep. We are heading for silences in the classroom. I plow ahead, since the Blac ks and others are usually quite delighted to see such works in, say, the Norton anthology! You may be aware of this where you are? I think you would need to be in a place like UCLA to see the whole picture before you...since our students represent the choicest of the State's high school kids, the top 12%. But, the point behind this is, that it is certainly today not poetry, but Negro, etc. poetry one discourses on, and the same goes for fiction of course. It has its positive side too, for the novel, say, because it is a popular form of literature, unknown to the POETICS, and we can appreciate that Bernard Malamud could not have written ROGER'S VERSION, and no Jew could have written THE SCARLET LETTER, to say the least, or THE GOLDEN BOWL. Enough of the obvious. What else is email good for? Kessler at UCLA From: "]" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Computers -- 0's and 1's Date: 22 Aug 90 10:12:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 880 (996) Speaking as a long-time Computer Science prof, I want to clear up some misunderstandings. Yes, we teach that the electrical circuits operate in either an off or on state, but that's really an oversimplification. Electricity does indeed work a bit like water flowing through pipes (not exactly but close enough for this discussion) in that the level of flow is not nothing or complete. The 0/1 distinction comes from the level passing a certain threshold -- below that level is 'off' and above that level is 'on'. Exactly at the level chosen, is a bit fuzzy because it switches from one state to another, but the change is quite small. The 0/1 distinction was chosen as a convenience. Very early computer designers contemplated using a decimal system rather than binary, but found that the fluctuation in the circuits (did you just see the lights dim slightly?) cause the 7's to become 5's, slide up to 8's, before settling back to 7's. It was essentially an even worse case of the situation described in the previous paragraph. With regard to the early history of computing, yes, much of the early programming was mathematical, but not all. Remember Alan Turing (who was a mathematician and probably left-handed) can be considered the father of artificial intelligence. The famous Turing test had nothing to do with mathematical calculations, but communication with a human in such a way that the human could not detect the computer. I've often thought that the metaphor of numbers in the computer was misleading. Calculations are actually done by switching circuits on and off, not by some finger-counting 1, 2, 3, ... method. (I used to teach assembly language programming which required teaching the underlying circuitry of the registers, etc.) With regard to the analog/digital discussion of watches, it is very much the same issue as well. Time is analog as is sound. Thus a digital representation of time is breaking the continuum up into tiny chunks. For philosophical (and esthetic) reasons, I've always worn an analog watch, in fact one that has no marks (except for a gold ball at the 12 o'clock point). At the pool recently I wore an old watch with small marks at the quarter hour points and found it difficult to tell time with. (We certainly are creatures of habit, aren't we.) I decided some time ago that at this time of my life, I don't need to know the time more precisely than what I can see by the position of the hands. The plane may be scheduled for 12:03, but I know I have to be there ahead of time anyway, and it probably won't leave on time. Digital recording of sound is better than analog recording because of the medium and the equipment, n ot because of the nature of sound. Phonograph records and needles must be of very high quality to produce excellent sound, and they are subject to damage. Cassette tapes get crinkled and stretched. But digital recording such as on a CD is stable. Producing digital media is less error prone because of that, and errors in the recording can be corrected during production. So much for the discussion of analog/digital. I really should finish my paper for the September conference. Office hours will be held later. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0400 Computers -- Names for and Nature of (4/109) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 22:45:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 881 (997) One advantage to the name "computer" is that it is descriptive. Whether dealing with numeric or alpha representation, my (simple) understanding of the CPU is that it adds and subtracts, period. Thus, even when processing text all that is going on is a great deal of adding and subtracting, computing numbers. It's all the software that makes those binary numbers text, graphics, or (my favorite) numbers. What's wrong with description? Frank Dane, Mercer University From: Iam Mitchell Lambert <iwml@ukc.ac.uk> Subject: Computers Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 00:00:26 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 882 (998) I note there is a discussion on the word 'computer' currently filling the air. In a short paper recently I was pondering whether a new name would be needed for future developments. As I understand it, we only have computers which are binary based because that is how we invented them in the early days. I gather some research departments have developed other 'computers' with other bases. 'Computer' is also approaching interchangeability with 'IBM' and 'Mac', in much the same way as 'hoover'. To what extent is our current binary computer system a form of Western colonialism? It matches Western binary thought. It insists that other linguistic systems adapt themselves to it. It appears to have a commercial monopoly in both hardware and software worldwide. Ian Mitchell Lambert PhD research student Tangnefedd Department of Theology Windmill Road University of Kent at Canterbury Weald United Kingdom Sevenoaks Kent Co-ordinator TN14 6PJ AIBI Network (Association Internationale Bible et Informatique, Maredsous, Belgium) Telephone (UK): 0732 463460 (international): +44 732 463 460 Email JANET: iwml@uk.ac.ukc EARN/BITNET: iwml@ukc.ac.uk or iwml%uk.ac.ukc@ukacrl Fax 0732 741475 (overseas +44 732 741475) Telex 94082452 Answerback: CSECL Microlink mailbox (available via Dialcom and Goldnet (Israel) and JANET) MAG33187 From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr> Subject: Do computers compute? Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 23:44:16 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 883 (999) Jim O'Donnell, you bring up a number of interesting issues, and manage to tie them into such a knot that I have some difficulty in responding coherently. I think I understand your complaint: on-campus computer services don't respond to humanists' needs. But I'd hardly attribute this to the baneful influence of the root "compute", and certainly not the digital nature of computers. Software is simply very primitive. You give the example of the limited character set available in E-mail. Fixing this -- it is called Internationalization in the biz -- is going forward, but slowly, despite the enormous international business market. The poor administrator of your university computer center (whether it's a physicist or a classicist) can't do much about this. (For that matter, the physicist would love to include formulae and graphs in his E-mail...) ((You can get most of this functionality today on NeXTs, but only between NeXTs ....)) Have some pity for the hard scientists. Since the machines were already there, we had the opportunity to play with applications like E-mail and word processing when it would have been prohibitively expensive to buy a computer for that alone. Our expensive playthings have become your daily utility, but are distorted by our tastes. Patience. Digital computers are not philosophy. They're a specific technology, based on discrete mathematical structures implemented with digital electronics. Most AI people are not struggling against this; they are trying to build on top of it. Some researchers like other models ("neural nets") for certain things. Neural nets will not fix your E-mail problems. Stavros Macrakis Grenoble PS informat -ics, -ique, -ica, -ik in English, French, Italian, German; pliroforiki in Mod.Greek (same meaning) From: Gunhild Viden <viden@hum.gu.se> Subject: Re. 4.0395 Why computers? Date: 22 Aug 90 09:21:00 EDT (Wed) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 884 (1000) A Swedish computer used to be a "data machine". Nowadays it is a "dator". Maybe that is a more satisfactory name for a Humanist working tool? Gunhild Viden, University of Gothenburg <viden@hum.gu.se> From: KROVETZ@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Why "computers" Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 19:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 885 (1001) ENIAC stands for `Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator'. I assumed UNIVAC, and JOHNIAC were based on the `-IAC' from ENIAC. I had never heard of any reference to VACuum tubes in their naming (I thought UNIVAC was based on `UNIVersal'). -bob krovetz@cs.umass.edu From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Digital watches Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 10:00:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 886 (1002) Sheldon Richmond's recent message about his new digital watch and its possible effect on his perception of time made me think back to my first experience with a digital timepiece (I now wear nothing but analog watches.) When I first began using a digital watch about ten years ago, I found that I was constantly rushing to get to classes and appointments on time. It seemed to me that I was leaving for such things later than had been my custom. The only reason I could find for this was that with a digital watch my point of reference was always the *previous* hour (10:15, 10:35, 10:52, etc.), whereas, with an analog watch, at least half my time references are to the *approaching* hour (28 minutes to eleven, quarter to eleven, five to eleven, etc.). This shift of the point of reference to the previous hour seems to have lulled me into a false perception of the rapidity with which the next hour was approaching. The visual aspect of an analog watch face may also have played a role in this. A time such as 10:52, as displayed by a digital watch is just a number that does not have the impact of actually seeing the narrowing gap between the watch hand and the twelve 'o clock mark. My experience with a digital watch may be nothing more than the result of a personal quirk, but I am convinced that a digital timepiece has a definite effect on my own perception of time. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0401 On Technology (3/109) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 22:53:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 887 (1003) re: Richmond's question about analog watches, no, wearing one does not make one a Neanderthal (note my defensiveness), and yes, an analog watch does allow one to keep appointments. I don't know about its influence on lunch-eating, I eat when hungry as opposed to eating according to socially defined temporal restrictions. One advantage to analog watches is that one is never embarassed by being unable to turn off those silly alarms. Frank Dane, Mercer From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re: Left-Handed People Forced to Switch Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 18:48 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 888 (1004) I was never FORCED into it, but indirect pressure to conform still abounds. One of my pet peeves about college and high school concerns those stupid one-piece desks. The ones on the lecture halls [the flip-up type] are the worse. Either there are NO left-handed desks in the room [very common] or else all of the leftie desks were in the back! In the corners yet! Not liking to pull one of those things all the way to the front row, I would often write in my lap. a pain, or across my body, also a pain. I finally taught myself to use a pen right-handed in self-defense.;-) There are few left-handed scissors available. When you can find them, they are usually more expensive. I don't own a pair, and am not certain I could use them if I did. The same thing goes for calligraphic pens. The foutain-pen type are often made to be used right-handed only. And you wonder why us lefties write funny; we have to turn our hands all crazy ways to get the dumb pens to write!;-) There's more, but this should be enough to start. Ruth From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: lefties are not that special Date: Tue, 21 Aug 90 19:18:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 889 (1005) I have already stated that I suspect, but cannot prove, that lefties are statistically different from right-handed people. But I am puzzled by this fascination with names and faces. Doesn't everyone forget the name when seeing a face now and then? As a lefty, I can hardly imagine that I am any worse off than anyone else in this accord. On the other hand (if you will pardon the expression), I can think of a number of much better criteria for this matter. For example, I mentioned earlier that I am good at music but bad at drawing. Let me elaborate. I can hear a melody and repeat it afterward without any problem (minus the words). I can turn it into a minor chord, or create a harmony on the spot. But my wife, who is right-handed, cannot do this. By contrast, if you show me a top, bottom, and side view of an object, I have no idea what the thing looks like, nor could I draw it if I did. But for my wife this is easy. I have an impeccable sense of directions, but my wife can barely find the bathroom at night. None of this may have any relation to handedness, but these are the criteria which we ought to consider in such matters, not universals such as whether we occassionally forget a name. From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Left to right Date: 22 Aug 90 10:16:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 890 (1006) Someone asked about the consequences of changing a left-handed person into a right-handed one. My family has always said that my father was left-handed, but was forced to use only his right hand and he stuttered for several years. I've heard that was a common result. It doesn't happen as much any more. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: <J_CERNY@UNHH> Subject: on technology and human nature Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 08:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 408 (1007) In one of the recent (July or August) issues of The Chronicle of Higher Education, there is an interesting article on the problems of big science, that I think illuminates what happens when human nature, as manifest in political bureaucracy, guides technology. The point that really impressed me was this. When someone representing NASA (or some other big project such as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Superconducting Supercollider) goes to Congress to present a budget, the political pressures to be unrealistically optimistic are overwhelming. It was pointed out that if a project manager insisted on giving Congress realistic cost projections, then the manager would be replaced with someone who would tell Congress what they were prepared to hear!!! Perhaps this is just another example of why "yes people" rise so high in organizations, but it was useful to be reminded of it in the context of current technological issues. Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services (and Geography), University of New Hampshire. j_cerny@unhh From: Lou Burnard <LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Anyone for Nostradamus? Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 17:12 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 891 (1008) Does anyone know of any computer-assisted text research in progress on the works of the 17th century magician Michel de Nostredame aka Nostradamus, whose prophecies continue to fascinate some? A rumour has reached me of a Norwegian Journal of Nostradmus Studies. Does it exist? Thank you Lou From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Chesterton Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 15:39:21 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 892 (1009) A former student is now doing graduate research and would like to have works by G. K. Chesterton in machine-readable form. If anyone knows where he may find them, please send a message to me. Thanks. Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET From: <YOUNGC@UCRVMS> Subject: CP/M to DOS Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 10:29 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 893 (1010) There is a shareware utility that converts CP/M to DOS. It's available on a lot of bulletin boards, among them the PC Spectrum at (714) 381-6013. There the file is called cpmtodos.zip; one will also need an un-zipper to extract the files. One is available there as pkz110.exe. I'm told it's very good, but I've not tried it myself. Charles Young youngc@ucrvms From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: RE: 4.0392 R: ALLC mail; Qs: Hebrew; Camb Computing; CPM2DOS Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 23:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 894 (1011) Re: CP/M to DOS conversions After reading much of humanist for the past few months with great interest, I am pleased to be able contribute something which may be of general use. There are two issues to be addressed when converting CP/M files to DOS: 1- The file must be copied from a CP/M formatted diskette to an MS-DOS format. There are some public-domain utilities which do the job, and I believe that Kaypro has(had) such a program bundled with its utilities. The best commercial program available is Media Master. The conversion problem is compounded by tha fact that there is no "standard" CP/M format. One must find a program which can "read" a Kaypro CP/M format and convert it to MS-DOS. There are fewer MS-DOS formats, and many of them are interchangeable within MS-DOS. An alternative procedure, if you lack a conversion program, is to transmit your CP/M file by modem to a DOS computer. Obviously, this is more complicated, and if the files are large, time-consuming. 2- Once the file has been copied to MS-DOS, it must be converted to a useable or at least readable format on the new system. ASCII text files can be read with DOS's TYPE command and most wordprocessing programs will accept them without conversion although they lack the special characters which help wordprocessors do their job. Many wordprocessing programs (Wordstar, Wordperfect) have conversion programs. A CP/M Wordstar file will be read without difficulty by any DOS Wordstar except Wordstar 2000. Sometimes one must convert the file to ASCII and then back to the new WP format. Because of the great diversity of CP/M systems (both software and hardware..even by one manufacturer), every ex-CP/Mer must use a slightly different procedure. I have only given the general process here. Morgan Tamplin, Trent University Peterborough, Ontario TAMPLIN@TRENTU.CA From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0392 R: CPM2DOS (4/66 Date: Thu, 23 Aug 1990 15:29 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 895 (1012) RE Charles Ess's query about converting from CP/M to IBM format. I have had very good results converting from Apple CP/M to IBM dos format with a Matchpoint Card and UniDos program. These are available from Microsolutions, INC. 132 West Lincoln Hwy., DeKalb Illinois 60115 Tel. (815) 756-3411. You might want to give them a call and see if this is a solution for your colleague with the Kaypro. By the way, I have friend in the States who is a diehard Kaypro lover and has now bought one for every member of his family! We exchange text files all the time over bitnet, so there is certainly no problem transferring files that way. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College Jerusalem [HPUBM@HUJIVM1] From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) Subject: Re: Computer Access Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 13:09:09 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 896 (1013) Bob Kraft asks an excellent question about access to library catalogs and other sources for those without Internet or Bitnet access. One limited possibility is the Cleveland FreeNet, a community telecomputing facility that currently allows access to a few library catalogs (CARL, MELVYL, and several Cleveland sources). My guess is that in the relatively near future FreeNet will have wider porting facilities. As the name implies, FreeNet is free, the only catch being that you have to dial in and hence pay for any toll or long distance charges. The dial-up number is 216-368-3888; the modems respond at rates between 300 and 2400 and the preferred communications settings are no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit. As with bulletin boards elsewhere, you can login initially as a guest, browse around reading the boards, but must wait until after registering before you can post messages. As far as I know, guests can use the "teleport" service, which is where you find the gateways to library catalogs and also to Compuserve. Navigating FreeNet is pretty easy; the menus are clear and the on-line help is pretty good. The basic idea is that all the services are conceptually organized as "buildings" and "neighborhoods" in an electronic city, the directory of which appears as the main menu. Registering to get a FreeNet id is another story. The application can be downloaded, but must then be mailed in. Unfortunately, getting back one's id can take some time; FreeNet is not exactly overstaffed and answering paper-and- stamp mail seems to rank low on their dignity scale. FreeNet is the first and as far as I know the largest of a new network of community computing services, the National Public Telecomputing Network. Some of the others on the network may offer similar services and be closer by via telephone. Incidentally, for humanists the other claim to fame of Cleveland FreeNet is that it is the home of the Electronic College of Theory, the Society for Critical Exchange's bulletin board service. Gary Lee Stonum Society for Critical Exchange English Dept., Guilford House Case Western Reserve Univ. Cleveland, OH 44106 216-368-3342 From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Network access Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 17:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 897 (1014) Freenet in Cleveland, which is supported by Case Western Reserve University, allows members of the general public to subscribe and allows its subscribers (called "reigstered users") to send email to any internet address (and that includes bitnet addresses if one knows a gateway). The editing and mail reading facilities are way below standard--and are the same facilities that the faculty and staff at CWRU are supposed to use--but for people who do not have other access to the networks, it must be a very good deal. There is no FTP ability available to non CWRU users of Freenet. I cannot give you the Freenet address (I have an account, but the address for members of the CWRU community is not the same as that for members of the general public). I cannot stand Freenet, it has the ickyest interface and the nastiest bunch of metaphors that I have ever seen on a bulletin board. Even so, it is undoubtedly a great contribution to the general public in Cleveland--just as it is an embarassment to members of the CWRU community. Peter Junger CWRU Law School From: Sarah Jones <SAAJONES@IUBACS> Subject: Digital watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 11:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 898 (1015) in response to S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE's comments (4.0401 "On Technology") yes... There *is* something about digital watches vs. their analog counterparts. I've long since given up on digital watches, and refuse to trade my 17-year-old analog clock radio for any digital variety. I observed three behaviors in myself when I'd use a digital watch: 1) I'd glance at it to see the time and *never* remember what time it was, even just seconds later. This seldom happens when I use an analog watch. 2) I felt an irresistable urge to keep it in 24-hour mode. For some reason, there was a great appeal for the process of translating "14:45" into "2:45 in the afternoon" 3) On the other hand, it was a real pain to respond to other people's requests for the time. I hated the urge to say "11:57" instead of "almost noon", and I resented the effort it took NOT to say "11:57". --Sarah SAAJONES@IUBACS.BITNET sarah@grafted.UUCP From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Subject: Re: 4.0406 Digital vs. Analog Watches (2/42) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 17:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 899 (1016) The problem with wristwatches is not analog vs. digital, it's the quartz crystal and multi-year battery life. You can't use "I forgot to wind my watch this morning" as an excuse any more, and goodness knows we need *more* plausible excuses, not fewer. Alan Cooper Hebrew Union College From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: digital watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 1990 8:30:02 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 900 (1017) Let me join the newly-forming club of those who refuse to wear digital watches. My own reason is, firstly, practical: in order to know the time you actually have to READ it, whereas with an analog watch all you need to perceive is the pattern on the watch-face; it takes less time. Now my conscience is shouting at me that the real reason is that I'm so darn used to analog watches, and perceiving time through a digital watch is a big change and over-40s don't like making changes. My own second reason (steadfastly repressing the voice of my conscience) is that the things are simply ugly. Since you have to read it, the numbers have to be big. You can't make a small, elegant digital watch, and judging by current market offerings, you can't make a SIMPLE, small, elegant one. They're all bristling with little knobs, some of which have to be pricked in order to consent to work, and almost all of which are there to give you access to more than you ever wanted to know. They radiate (this is a subjective judgement, I know I am hereby infuriating at least half my audience, my apologies in advance!) -- they radiate the macho image, they go with the metal studs on leather jackets. Perhaps that's why teenagers love them (no, says my conscience, teenagers just aren't used to analog ones). These random musings of course raise the possibility that men find digital watches more attractive than women do, and perhaps someone should collect data on the question, but Frank Dane has his hands full with the unexpected results of one of my last attempts at random musing, and I'm just about to go on vacation and anyway suspect the idea would prove unfounded. Judy Koren From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re: Digital -vs- Analog watches Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 16:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 901 (1018) I usually wear a digital watch with a 24-hour clock setting. I happen to like it, that's all. I also keep it set ten minutes fast; that way I'm on time.;-) On the other hand, I also have a small collection of analog watches, also set ten minutes fast. And to tell the truth, I've never noticed a difference. Maybe it's because I've grown up using both, or maybe it's that old leftie thing come back again.;-) Just out of curiosity, what hands do folks out there wear their watches on? And which hand do you write with? <things that make you say "Hmmmmm.";-)> Ruth From: Donald Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: 4.0404 Computers and hoovers Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 13:24:06 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 902 (1019) Jumping in quickly as a trans-Atlantic translator... the British use the make Hoover as a synonym for vacuum cleaner. Don Spaeth University of Glasgow From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Trademark Neologisms Date: Wednesday, 22 August 1990 1634-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 903 (1020) Ian Lambert's not-so-obvious reference to the "hoover" as a generic British (English?) term for what people I know in the USA would call a vacuum cleaner (what is Canadian usage?) raises that interesting question of what "trademark" type words, and for what reasons, have become generic terms. Words are such fun! Others that occur to me in USA American English (Northeastern Seaboard to Chicago, at least) are "jello" for various geletin dessert and salad concoctions (but not for jelly as a bread spread), "kleenex" for facial tissues in general, and maybe "fridge" if it refers to the brand Frigidaire rather than simply to refrigerator and "gat" if Gattling was primarily a trademark rather than mainly a reference to the inventor of a new tecnological advance -- the ability to fire multiple shots by means of a revolving barrel, apparently on hand guns (thus "gat") as well as on the larger proto-machine guns. As an after thought, I have checked the available "websters" in the office, both of which happen to be real Webster's dictionaries. The one from 1951 has none of these trademark words, but the one from 1986 has all my examples (except "webster" with the meaning dictionary). Jello and Kleenex are both capitalized and attributed to extensions of trademarks. Not so "fridge, also frig...(1926) REFRIGERATOR"; but there is a separate entry "Frigidaire...trademark -- used for a mechanical refrigerator." There is no entry for "Hoover" in these dictionaries. If I had the electronic OED I would search for "trademark" and see what else is offered. I bet there are lots of these things, especially the more technical the subject matter is, although the distinction between an inventor/producer whose name gets attached to something (by virtue of obtaining a patent?) and a trademarked something that lends its name to an entire class may be very slim (e.g. Bunsen burner, British "mackintosh" raincoat -- is "London fog" a trademark?). I see that "lifesaver" for a mini-donut shaped mint ("polo" in other climes?) has not made it into these dictionaries, nor "bic" for a ballpoint pen (not for a lighter?). How about "levi's" for blue denim jeans (yup, it's in the book). Break time is up. Gotta go back to work. Have fun. Bob Kraft From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0408 Big Science (1/20) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 18:25:12 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 904 (1021) This is true of "small science" too. When I was studying System Dynamics and Design at Dartmouth, I once cornered the head of the department in his office, and forced him to tell me that what he was telling congress was not what he really thought, or what anyone who had studied systems in even a single class would think. When he finally told me the truth, I nearly abandoned hope (all ye who enter here). Michael S. Hart From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0408 Big Science (1/20) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 10:47 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 905 (1022) Even more insidious (I suspect) in the long run is the practice of applying for Big Science grants, say in biology, chemistry, in medicine, etc., to do resear ch WHICH HAS ALREADY BEEN UNDERWAY, EVEN COMPLETED AND SUCCESSFULLY DONE. That way, the reports at the end of the year will show provable, testable progress. That way, the grant will be renewed, the referrees will be able to write letter s validating the research as good. The old idea of say dropping lead balls from the Leaning Tower, our Humanist (fossilized) memory and model is not pertinent, because testing hypotheses that may not PAN out (no gold there), will show th at themoney was spent on work that led to a dead end. Funders are not in busine ss to keep a lab running, with its overhead in salaries and equipment, for the sake of having a lab running. The lab must be successful. So, you get fairly easy projects, or you get things that are will probably show results that are pos itive, but you dont get risky things, or harebrained (as it turns out?) results with Palladium. You dont get challenging science either, or odd or far out or problematic things to investigate. Or you get, increasingly, fudged papers and results because of the pressure to produce. Alchemists were more honest looking for the homonculus, perhaps. ON their own time and equipment. If desperate, talk to the Black Poodle playing with its tail, and sign a longterm contract for success. One is more "honest" with a small time, individual grant application to write or complete a book of poems, say. The poems may turn out poor things. But it would be wiser to have completed the book or almost done it, and show th at as a positive result, more cynical, but wiser. Also of course, for J Goldfield, a good example of la mauvaise foi, which is endemic to these times. Everyone can approve success or promising results; no one wants to say, the odds were against finding those proteins in that way in that place, because then you are betting other people's funds and sounding irresponsible. An analysis of the bibliographies transported (by computer) from research paper to research paper, and citations of names cited, which is used to measure quality too, is a self-justifying, self-perpetuating "racket." In big sociology and psychology too, one might suggest. But, que voulez-vous? Kessler From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Computer names. Date: Thu, 23 AUG 90 20:09:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 415 (1023) Following on from recent mailings concerning names of early computers ... here are a few more: ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) built at the (UK) National Physical Lab. in the late 40s by English Electric. COLUSSUS built at Bletchley Park (the UK war-time intelligence/code breaking centre) in 1943. DEUCE NPL's 2nd computer (see ACE) also built by English Electric (1955). EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) built at the Cambridge University Mathematical Lab in 1947-49. EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) built in Princeton (?), USA in 1945-47. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator) built in the University of Pennsylvania completed in 1946. FERUT Nickname for the Ferranti Mark 1 computer sold to the University of Toronto by BV Bowden in 1951. Bowden (later Lord Bowden) wrote "Faster Than Thought" a book extolling the praises of computing machines in 1953 - much of the information in this note comes from this book. LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) built by J Lyons & Co (famous in the UK for their chain of corner cafes in London!) in the early 50s. Maniac "The name ... given unofficially to the high-speed machine ... built in Princeton." (1952). "Alternatively, anyone who has been making or using a digital computer for more than a few years." Quotes from "Faster Than Thought". MERCURY built by Ferranti Ltd. First one installed 1957. PEGASUS built in large numbers (28!) by Ferranti Ltd. The first was installed in 1956. Whirlwind built at MIT. Early 50s. The fastest of its day. Z3 built in Germany by Konrad Zuse in 1941 (possibly the first). I do think computer names have gone down hill since the early days! Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0407 Handedness and Memory (3/61) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 1990 8:53:49 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 906 (1024) Re: Stephen Clausing's suggestion of other criteria for left-right differences: I suspect we're fascinated by the face-name business because it's intrinsically so bizarre. But I don't think Stephen's criteria are linked with handedness, even though better criteria than face-name diffi- culties must exist. My husband, who is right-handed, can not only repeat a melody and create a harmony from hearing, but also play the thing on his left-over-from-childhood accordion; I, who am left-handed, am lucky if I get to sing it almost-right, and you wouldn't want to hear me try to play it, even though my loving parents sent me to piano lessons for 7 long years. I am not that good at drawing either. My sense of direction, on the other hand, is pretty good, whereas I have a right-handed friend who can't get from point A to point B in a strange town even with a street map and even when he's done the same trip on half a dozen previous visits (but sit him in a jeep in the desert and he will unerringly negotiate among a spiderweb of dirt tracks, all of which look alike to me. Then when we get back to the road you have to tell him whether to turn right or left.) In short, I and my husband just about cancel out Stephen and his wife. I seem to remember that musical ability is often linked to mathematical (my husband's a physicist and dreams in equations) and I wouldn't be surprised to find it linked to handedness but I haven't, personally, seen any sign of a link to date. Judy Koren. From: Jack Kolb <IKW4GWI@OAC.UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0395 Why "computers"; Jim Sledd (2/74) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 02:10 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 907 (1025) Re: James Sledd. My dad, his collaborator on "Dr. Johnson's Dictionary," is still using a manual typewriter, though I hope, now that he's retired, to coax him to the keyboard. So I'll have to speak for JS. I grew up with the man and his family in Chicago in the 1950s. Like all of us, he has his negative qualiti es. He was the proverbially dissatisfied academic. But he had--and could not help have, a fiercely independent and intelligent mind. I remember him with great fondness and admiration. Jack Kolb. From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Halio - again (sorry) UK version. Date: Thu, 23 AUG 90 16:56:52 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 908 (1026) Having read the recent discussion on HUMANIST about the Halio report and attendant (US) national publicity I'm a bit loathed to send this but ... The front page of "Computer Weekly" for this week (23/8/90) carries the following headline below a photo of (presumably) Marcia Halio: "STUDENT IBMPC USERS OUTSCORE MAC LOVERS". The article briefly resumes the report beginning with the sentence: "Students using IBM-PCs may reach higher academic standards than their counterparts using Macintoshes, according to a study at the University of Delaware." "Computer Weekly" is a free computer paper sent out to computer professionals in the UK - it covers it's cost by carrying job ads etc. Of all the freebies in the UK it has a reasonable reputation and does a good job of reporting the UK computing scene: commercial, academic and research. A leader comment on the editorial page refers to the report and wonders whether, "Although the results from Delaware hardly count as scientific research ...", "we might not be sacrificing accuracy for the sake of user friendliness." The real lesson from this may be of course, just how far behind the US press the UK press really is! Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. From: SUSAN@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: Advance notice ALLC-ACH92 at Oxford Date: Thu, 23 AUG 90 12:41:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 417 (1027) Please make a note in your diaries/calendars that ALLC-ACH92, the 19th International Conference of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing and the 12th International Conference on Computers and the Humanities will be held at Oxford University, England, on 5-9 April 1992. Accommodation has already been reserved in Christ Church, one of Oxford's oldest and best known colleges. Nearer the time we will be setting up a special username for the conference. This will be announced on HUMANIST. In the meantime, please contact me if you would like to go on the mailing list for further information about ALLC-ACH92. Susan Hockey Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England E-mail: SUSAN@VAX.OX.AC.UK From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Beyond ones and zeros Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 16:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 418 (1028) Binary representation is indeed not the only choice for a digital computer. Donald Knuth claims that the balanced ternary system, which uses 0, 1, and -1, would really be a better choice (see his Art of Computer Programming, volume 2). And Claude Shannon of Bell Labs once built a computer that used Roman numerals internally; it was called THROBAC. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: names as aids to kinship-knowledge? Date: Wed, 22 Aug 1990 12:27:35 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 909 (1029) Frank Dane's report of the sociobiological theory that, in the absence of direct sensing of kinship information (e.g. by smell), "surnames provide evidence (though obviously not conclusive) about kinship, which enables us to make kin-related decisions about helping, hurting and mating with others" is very surprising. My scepticism is aroused by several points: a) the relationships reflected by the same surname are those the individual is most likely to be aware of anyway: nuclear family; the ones often not revealed in surnames are the more distant ones (cousins, offspring of married female relatives, etc.) b) More important, surnames are a recent invention and essentially most wide-spread in post-Medieval Europe. Some societies lack them to this day, many adopted them only as a result of contact with the Western world, including polygamous societies where kinship relations can be much more complex than is normal in the West: e.g. the Arab world, which only started to adopt surnames a century or so ago and hasn't completed the process yet. I find it difficult to believe that such a basic human need as the identification of one's kin relies on a mechanism as recent in origin and narrow in its distribution among human societies as the use of surnames. Of course, since I don't know anything about the sociobiological theory in question, except for Frank's few lines, I'm open to being convinced, if anyone wants to try... c) I forgot! Since surnames are of recent origin and were usually developed from epithets indicating, for instance, a person's origin (Hamburger, a person/thing from Hamburg) or occupation (Wainwright, a carriage-maker) or other identifying characteristics, many people have the same surname but aren't in fact related at all. Or the relationship is so slight as to be non-existent for all practical purposes (all Horowitzes/Gureviches are descended from the same seventeenth (? - I think) century inhabitant of a village of that name, but I doubt I'd welcome any and everyone named Horovitz as a long-lost relative on that account, even if they knew I was myself a Horovitz before I married). What do we do with the Smiths and the Cohens? What value has their name for deciding whether we should marry them or lend them money without security? I also know someone whose surname is Chwolles, and she is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that anyone with that name is related to her husband; but I submit that this is the exception to the rule, and a rare exception at that. Judy Koren. From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics) Subject: Anamnesis Date: 22 Aug 90 22:02:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 910 (1030) These remarks are the result of cross-pollenation between the interesting responses to my earlier query about what we do and should call `computers', a private e-correspondence with Monica Paolini arising out of her earlier postings, and a PACS-L posting forwarded by a friend. (I am grateful for the various responses to my query and will offer only one ungrateful and dogmatic response: Technology *is* Philosophy. We do not ride upon the railroad, ...) One aspect of computers reflects a deep and long-standing concern of the western humanistic tradition: all computers have `memory'. Good computers have a variety of forms of memory, from ROM to RAM to HD's to CD-ROM's. `Processing' is largely a matter of moving things back and forth, variously transformed, from one form of memory to another. But of course using the word `memory' for such a context is a highly constructed cultural decision. (But not unprecedented: how many recall a charming little half-hour black- and-white documentary done by Alain Resnais early in his career called `Toute le memoire du monde', a documentary about the Bibliotheque Nationale?) But it's an important decision. From the earliest stages of western written literature, memory is problematic. Writing is suspect to writers from Plato to Vergil because it threatens to undermine memory somehow: what is on the page need no longer be in the memory, and so memory will fade. The ancient `memory technique' of which mention has been made on HUMANIST more than once was a conscious reaction to that threat, an attempt to create a technology that would preserve memory by turning it into a kind of alternate system of writing. Even now I am preparing to dilate at length in another forum on the place of memory in Augustine's *Confessions*: memory is the place he finds God, to put it very simply; and in some sense, Augustine finds the `present' disappearing and sees us left in life with nothing but memory and hope. To leap tall centuries at a single bound, our own century has been no less concerned with the subject: Proust and Joyce wrote about little else, and Eliot's *Four Quartets* is in the same tradition. And so it is no surprise that our technologies of memory-preservation have been developed to such a high level of sophistication and power. The written word did in fact mark a quantum advance over the fallible and mortal human memory for storage of information, whatever it did to the human faculty itself; the printed word marked a quantum leap again, and now the computer offers almost unlimited capacity -- I suppose there is no real limit to the amount of potential memory-media (magnetic, bubble, whatever) in the world? But will success finally kill off the romance? Will we soon discover that being able to remember everything is no blessing, and will we rather study to forget? We cherish and scrounge for every scrap of information about the sixth century A.D.: but who will *want* to write the history of the 20th century A.D.? There is already too much, and the rate at which we preserve what we produce is escalating dramatically. Librarians traditionally sought out and preserved: ironically, it will probably now be their principal job qua preservationists to decide what to discard, and to discard 90% of what they are given. Wisdom itself will more than ever consist of knowing what to forget and how to forget. From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0413 Trademark Neologisms Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 08:14:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 911 (1031) More on the trademark. Here is one I grew up with, though today it is becoming rare. Coke was the term we used for any dark brown soda beverage (except Dr. Pepper!!!). It has been in the past few years I have noticed that when I order a 'coke'the server will look at me and say 'Is a Pepsi (or whatever) alright?' Well, of course it is. However, this is changing, yes? -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: Nick Eiteljorg <N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0413 Trademark Neologisms Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 09:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 912 (1032) Bob Kraft's comments about trademarks are interesting, but the law is such that there are not so many examples as one might expect. At least in this country a company cannot use a trademark as a generic and maintain its exclusive right to the mark. If, for instance, Kimberly-Clark uses Kleenex as the name of the product, it risks having a judge decide that the term has lost its reference to the singular product, Kleenex tissues and is therefore no longer protected. Thus, the trademark is always used as an adjective modifying a noun - Kleenex tissues, Jell-o gelatin, Velcro fastener, Lexan plas plastic resin, etc. Aspirin is, I believe, the best-known example of a manufacturer losing his mark by ignoring the legal niceties. Rather than using the correct "aspirin tablet," the manufacturer/inventor simply advertised the product as aspirin and lost his trademark. Hence, aspirin should be added to your list, but it one of a rather small number. The owner of the mark has a vested interest in preventing the transfer from specific to generic. Nick Eiteljorg From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0413 Trademark Neologisms Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 11:02:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 913 (1033) The classic trademark which is commonly used to the chagrin of the companies in that field is, of course, Xerox. Kodak and other companies just hate it when their copiers (actually called duplicators if they're over a certain size) are used to make xeroxes. I remember even seeing something about what Xerox thought of the common usage. To the Xerox company, the word xerox is only a trademark and should not ever be used when not referring to the company. Goes to show what effect company policy has on common linguistic usages... Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu From: Phil Rider <A10PRR1@NIU.BITNET> Subject: Trademark terms Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 11:17 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 914 (1034) Concerning Bob Kraft's recent posting on trademark names which have come to be generic terms: Although at least some of these will appear in the dictionary, a handier source is any standard history of the language textbook. These normally have a section on how new words come into the language. Two other such terms are "zipper" (originally a brand name: something like "Zipper fastener") and "xerox" (Xerox Corp. has steadfastly fought to prevent the word from becoming generic). Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: More on 'hoover' Date: 24 Aug 90 13:2:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 915 (1035) It's a good thing someone translated "hoover" -- I was thinking of doing the same thing. I am surprised that "xerox" was not included in Bob Kraft's list. Maybe it was and I read past it. An anecdote: it was psychologically jarring to arrive in England in '85 (for a stay of several years) and run across the term "hoover", because it acts as a verb as well as a noun ("Will you hoover this morning, or shall I?"). When we had to buy one of the wretched things it seemed incongruous to pay for a "hoover" and walk out of the store with a Phillips... And in Canada, "vacuum cleaner" is the ticket.... David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: John Dorenkamp <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Tradenames Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 17:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 916 (1036) Let me add a couple more examples to Bob Kraft's observations on Trade Marks, or perhaps better brand names. It seems that when a company gets there first and dominates the market, that name tends to become for a while at least a generic name, e.g., Kodak, Victrola, Hoover, and lately Xerox. Over time, other versions of the same product appear and the generic use of the original starts to disappear. An exception, of course, is when the original name undergoes a shift in function, thus Xerox becomes not just a name for a copier but also a verb as well as a name for the product of the verb. This upsets CEOs and others, especially if the uppercase X becomes lowercase--not surprising when the brand name Xerox derives from "xerography." Nonetheless we go merrily on xeroxing on our Ricohs. Kraft notes that bic is not to be found in dictionaries denoting the ball point pen. I've never heard a ball point referred to as a bic, and with the decline in smoking, there seem to be fewer references to a disposable lighter as a bic. A common usage in parts of Europe is "biro" for a ball point pen. It is, I believe, a brand name that has become generic. Here are a couple of others, and I hope you all will continue the list. Tabasco for hot sauce is pretty common and Q-Tips for cotton swabs is prevalent. (Incidentally, if you happen to be in Rome and find yourself in need of a Q-Tip, a colleague has discovered that sticking your little finger in your ear, jiggling it around, and saying "fioc" will get the desired result in any farmacia.) Meanwhile, what are we to make of petroleum jelly in a little tube sold as Vaseline Lip Therapy? John Dorenkamp dorenkamp@HlyCross (Bitnet) From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr> Subject: Technology/Memory Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 13:02:37 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 917 (1037) The Brits prefer (or perhaps preferred) `store' to `memory', precisely because it is less anthropomorphic. There are informaticians (notably Edsgar Dijkstra, the "humble programmer") who insist on avoiding anthropomorphic names in informatics. Too much information is not only a problem for librarians and historians, it's also a problem for users today. As Herbert Simon pointed out many years ago, the scarce resource in information retrieval is not data, but the user's attention. And then there's the temptation to want to use as much data as possible rather than to get the best understanding possible. Stavros Macrakis PS All digital computing is alike, to first approximation. Ternary (balanced or otherwise) won't display Greek any better, either. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0418 Digital Computers and Binary Representation ( Date: Friday, 24 Aug 1990 01:08:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 918 (1038) I don't know enough even to ask this question, I suspect. But John Lavagnino tells of of Claude Shannon's computer <that used Roman numerals internally.> The numbers or numerals must be representations of electrical states, mustn't they? The shape of the symbol isn't important, but rather the number of symbols. How many Roman numerals were used and how did Shannon achieve more than two states? As someone has already said, there is no pure ON nor pure OFF state, but for practical purposes we have to assume that. I don't care which numerical symbols are used by those who schematize the electrical states in the machine, but I am interested in knowing how more than two states can be defined in any one circuit. I suspect that Knuth's ternary system is a refinement of the system of representing on/off symbolically and does not represent a change in the number of electrical states which the machine recognizes, but I admit to having no background in such things, just a curiosity. From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr> Subject: 4.0414 Big Science Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 17:20:55 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 919 (1039) Those interested in Kessler's remarks about the funding and publishing "racket" might want to look at C.J. Sinderman's _Winning the Games Scientists Play_ (how to); Derek de Solla Price's _Big Science, Little Science_ (sociology of science); Sir Peter Medawar's _Advice to a Young Scientist_ (paternal). Eugene Garfield, the publisher of the various citation indexes useful both for research and for counting citation brownie points, also writes essays on the subject--mostly based on statistics, occasionally containing interesting insights--duly collected, published, and indexed by his firm. A propos, how many Humanists use Citation Indexes, and what do you think of them? On paper, it looks enticing to be able to pull up the articles referring to, say, _Billy Budd_. (Important in-text references are counted as though they were footnotes.) Stavros Macrakis From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0419 Names & Kinship Knowledge Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 08:21:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 920 (1040) re: surnames and kinship--I don't care to press this point too far, but it occurs to me that the development of using surnames is contemporary with the development of hygenic bathing and/or extensive use of perfumes. Anyone with better knowledge of the Middle Ages (perhaps all of you) should feel free to support or contradict this idea. What may be pressed is the point that surnames became more important as the size of villages became larger and intervillage travel became more accessible to the general population. Current mating/dating practices lead me to infer that Middle Age individuals were also more likely to form relationships within a limited geographical area and/or within occupational categories. Thus, it makes sense that surnames, if they aided kinship identification, would be based on village/town or occupational identification. Anyone who has spent any time in the Southern US and has observed the practice of assessing kinship (Isn't she Billy Bob's cousin on his mother's side?) as an integral part of everyday conversaion would be convinced that assessing kinship remains an important aspect of life, regardless of the toic of conversation or the activity at hand. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: ed waldron <UD081917@NDSUVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0419 Names & Kinship Knowledge Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 08:50:06 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 921 (1041) A simple note on surnames and kinship: We in this country (and hemisphere) should remember that many surnames were, in fact, artificially forced upon a large group of people as property identification marks, *not* kinship marks. From: "Bill Ball" <C476721@UMCVMB> Subject: in defense of digital watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:11:56 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 922 (1042) Ok so my Casio is one ugly little bugger. However it remembers all my friend's phone numbers and my relative's birthdays. If I used Watts numbers or calling credit cards I could have it dial the numbers for me. My motto is: use technology to fight technology (in this case having to remember more and more numbers). Analog watches are not much help in the fight. Perhaps the watch manufacturers should produce an Ivory Tower edition. A beautiful numberless analog face with the electronics behind it to tell one the mostly recently forgotten appointment, and a built-in thesaurus of archaic usage (in the language(s) of choice of course). BTW: I am left handed so I wear my watch on the right hand. Although I barely write anything by hand anymore so it doesnt matter much (look at it this way-- computers have lessened the need for the rest of the world to suffer through the handwriting of us lefties (and yes, I am well under 40)). ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:22:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 923 (1043) Hey, Ruth, if you're left-handed, how come your smile face shows up ;-) and not (-; ?? Bob Hollander bats right, throws right male watch: ambidextrous, but worn on left wrist except when using (preferred) pocketwatch From: Robert Kirsner <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:21 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 924 (1044) My defense against those who refuse to wear watches at all (digital or analogue) is to suggest in classes that those who don't are marginally retarded, are unable to tell time, and hence go around asking the rest of us "HEY WHAT'S THE TIME, DUDE?" Of course now that digitals have been around for awhile, there is a backswing to analogue watches. Al Capp had it all figured out. In LI'L ABNER, once people had REAL shmoos, they could easily be talked into thinking they needed plastic shmoos and chocolate shmoos. But I haven't seen anyone wearing sundials yet. From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: Backward, turn backward, O Time Date: Friday, 24 August 1990 0205-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 925 (1045) We are raising an entire generation that cannot be trusted to read an analog timepiece--that is, if my own children are at all typical. My daughter is on the honor roll at an award-winning high school, but last year she had great difficulty learning how to tell time in her high school French class, because she couldn't decipher the analog clock faces which were provided as though they were self-explanatory glosses to the corresponding French phrases! Has anyone else had to explain to a teenager what it means when the big hand is on the nine? Or what "quarter till" means? Some day, I'll tell her I know how to use a slide rule. Regards, Jay C. Treat, Religious Studies, University of Pennslyvania From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL> Subject: RE: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches (4/82) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 1990 9:15:58 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 926 (1046) I wear a watch on my left hand, the hand I write with. "Righties" also wear it on their left. Watches are made to be worn on the left hand, that's why; wear it on the right and the knobs face up your arm. Ever tried to wind an old-tyme watch or set the time on a quartz one with your left hand while wearing it on the right? I realise watches are made that way for right-handed people, but see no disadvantage to having the hand that wears the watch wield the pen. If anything, you can see the time more easily while you're writing, which is sometimes an advantage. (Of course you have to wear it with the face on the outside of your wrist, not, as some people do, with the face on the inside so they can take surreptitious peeps at it with their hands meekly folded in their laps while the boss rambles on.) Judy Koren From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr> Subject: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 16:07:32 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 927 (1047) Knurled knobs on a heavy gold chronometer certainly shout "macho", but minuscule sheet-metal or rubber buttons on light Casios scream "nurd". Digital or analog seems secondary, although correlated. Interestingly, lunar phases on watches don't appear to be female/feminist/feminine but simply "stylish". Why? From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 10:52:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 928 (1048) I was glad to see the final posting from someone (Ruth) saying that she did wear a digital watch after all those postings from people who see a major philosphical problem with digital watches. I personally like a digital watch that can act as a stopwatch to hundreths of a second, keep at least 8 laps in memory, includes a timer with count-down repeat, count-down/count-up, and an alarm. I like knowing that it is 11:57 because it takes me 8 minutes to get to place X and I have to be there at 12:05. I also like having the day, date, and European-style time becuase I occasionally forget the day or date completely and would be lost without my watch. A watch also has to be durable, shock-proof, and waterproof, because I wear it except when sleeping and refuse to take it off just because there is a stream in my way. For the record, I wear it on my right hand with the face pointing in - a habit left over from high school where the face could easily be scratched on the brick walls one walked past between classes. One potentially valid question to ask is the age of the wearer. I may be younger than most Humanists at 22 and having grown up in the digital age I find that it fits into my life much more seamlessly than many older people I know. Same thing with other digital creatures like computers... Adam Engst From: Jane Andrew <ST402834@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 15:45:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 929 (1049) I gave up on digital watches about 5 years ago--whenever I worked up the least sweat the crystal went blank. Very annoying. Probably a better quality one would have worked ok, but they're all so ugly. You can tell I grew up on the analog side of the great divide: I was absolutely shocked (in 1985) to meet a 9 year old who couldn't read a regular clock. I was working at a swimming pool; he came up and asked what time it was, and I grouchily told him to go look at the clock for himself. He shame-facedly confessed that he couldn't read it because it wasn't digital--that's the only kind of clock they had in his house. Has anybody else met kids like this? (Goes right along with kids who can't tie shoes because all they have is the velcro-fastened kind!) From: Feili Brenda Tu <GRFG086@TWNMOE10> Subject: Seeking references Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 16:28:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 424 (1050) I am Feili Brenda Tu, a technical services librarian, officially titled Associate Research, in the Information and Computing Library, Taipei, Taiwan, THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA. I am doing a joint research with a refernce librarian on the issues of *MULTIMEDIA CD-ROM REFERENCE MATERIALS AND THE IMPACTS TO REFERENCE SERVICES.* We chose some of the multimedia cd-roms on general reference or ready reference materials, such as dictionary, directory, encyclopedia and so forth. The research plan is focusing on the impacts to the essce of reference services and to the reference librarian'role in public services, moreover, predict the influence to traditional reference services. The project will organize all the information and issues, then generate a paper to discuss some possible transformation to the reference services in the future. Our project include two parts: I. The introductions of multimedia cd-roms reference materials In this part of discussion, we are going to introduce some basic referenc e works on cd-rom version including: a. Compton's MultiMedia Encyclopedia b. Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia c. Guinness Book of Records on CD-ROM d. Whole Earth Catalog on CD-ROM F. Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary on CD-ROM G. Birds of America II. The impacts to library reference services a. the change on public services 1. possible facility change 2. possible staff change 3. possible serving methods b. librarian's roles and challenge 1. posible change on roles 2. possible change on workload 3. possible attitude for public services c. library users' feedback and reponse We look forward to get any kinds of ideas probably from outside of the library community, from the libary users, or from the HUMANISTS' ideas on these issue. Meanwhile, we need more references on the CD-ROM products I listed above. We do appreciate your suggestions. Thanks in advance! you can directly e-mail to me or share ideals with the HUMANIST. Feili Brenda Tu BITNET: GRFG086@TWNMOE10 Information and Computing Library VOICE: 886-2-737-7739 13F., No. 106, Hoping East Road, Sec. 2 FAX: 886-2-737-7740 Taipei, 10636, Taiwan THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0423 Watches (8/140) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 09:54:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 930 (1051) I guess I was born a little too early -- I was the first kid on my block to have a digital watch, in grade seven I think. (Remember those LED wristwatches that you couldn't read outdoors?) Yet somehow I was never totally comfortable with digital time -- I was constantly trying to translate 17:53 to an analogue image in my mind. Ultimately my choice of wristwatches has always been aesthetic, though, and I've compromised to a Timex with a traditional analogue face but a small digital window, which can function as day/date, alarm, stopwatch, etc. (But then compromise is supposedly the Canadian way out of any problem, isn't it?) By the way, how *do* you use a sliderule? Ken Steele University of Toronto From: "]" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Telling Time and Wearing Watches Date: 25 Aug 90 14:46:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 931 (1052) I was quite surprised by the comment that someone had to teach his teenager how to tell time. Since when do we wait that long? I taught my son to tell time (on an analog clock) when he was 4 or 5. Am I to assume that the current policy is to see what the schools fail to teach and fill in for them, if we happen to notice? I don't remember who made the comment so I can't hold it against a particular person, but it seems to be a trend that I don't like. Now, speaking of problems with watches. I had a student a few years ago who could not wear a watch at all -- digital or analog -- because the watch would quit running. The batteries would go dead in digital watches and the mechanism would go haywire in analog. She was an unusual person. I used to have a watch that always ran 5 minutes slow. Within a couple of hours after I set it, it would be 5 minutes slow, but never more than that. (I had to set it when I forgot to wind it.) So I let it have its way and generally left it at 5 minutes behind the time. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu mdharris@guvax.bitnet From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: digital watches and other time pieces Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 01:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 932 (1053) I wear a digital watch most of the time [see earlier posting (-: ] [see, I can do smileys that way too. the literally Russina way;-)] I wear it on my left hand because if I wear it on my right, all the wrong buttons are forever getting hit by mistake. It's one of those big Casios complete with calculator[rarely used], memos[highly useful], phone #s, and stop watch. The face is a bit scratched up because it's too darned big to wear on the inside of my wrist.(-8 But, outside of this handy-dandy timepiece, my dream watch is a Hamilton Railway Special. That's a wind-up pocket watch. It has very large numbers so that those whose arms have gotten too short [to read with] can see the face.(-: They keep good time [as conductors' watches they had to]and are pretty much kill-proof. My father has one that's about sixty years old; it still runs fine. The living room clock is a reproduction Regulator. Yes, you have to wind it, Virginia. So not all the stuff in this house is digital. Oh well. It chimes on the quarter hour, and you thought that hour watch chimes were bad! Wrist chimes are not anything new; they're just portable versions of the same old thing. I know what someone meant about cheap watches. But the problems I have are not with cheap digitals, but with cheap analogs. Actually, it's my father's problem. He kills analogs. He can keep one running for about two years, and then it dies dead. These are Timex watches, waterproof ones. He tends to perspire quite a bit, and his perspiration eats the watch. The watch, when munched sufficiently, goes dead. I don't know what he would do to a digital; he won't wear one. This man still uses a slide rule. But I'm the one who uses fountain pens.;^) Ruth, the rambling anachronistic southpaw From: Robert Kirsner (213)825-3955 <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: watches Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:21 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 933 (1054) My defense against those who refuse to wear watches at all (digital or analogue) is to suggest in classes that those who don't are marginally retarded, are unable to tell time, and hence go around asking the rest of us "HEY WHAT'S THE TIME, DUDE?" Of course now that digitals have been around for awhile, there is a backswing to analogue watches. Al Capp had it all figured out. In LI'L ABNER, once people had REAL shmoos, they could easily be talked into thinking they needed plastic shmoos and chocolate shmoos. But I haven't seen anyone wearing sundials yet. On Surnames: Those familiar with the science fiction classic film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" will recall that Klaatu, who came from a society about 5000 years ahead of our's had no surname. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0420 More on Trademarks (6/122) Date: Friday, 24 Aug 1990 23:09:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 934 (1055) Is BIC not used as a generic for ballpoint pen in French? Un bic? --Pat Conner From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0413 Trademark Neologisms (2/51)] Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 12:53:08 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 935 (1056) Bob Kraft raises again the significance of the transatlantic language barrier. I agree that the use of a personal name for an object or activity (bowler [hat], [trade] boycott, gerrymander, &c) is rather different from using the name of a manufacturing company (as I would guess in Hoover for vacuum). Interstingly we have biros, not bics. Was biro ever a manufacturing company? More significantly. I am currently reading a putatively scholarly work about St Paul, in which the greek root mo_r- (long 'o') is consistently translated 'moron[ic]'. That word in British English has connotations so strong that the immediate reaction is almost to want to apply it to the author. Does it have a very different significance across the water? My English-German dictionary has a little mark against certain words (like aktuell and actual) to warn of the dangers of assuming similar meanings. Is there a US-UK equivalent?! Regards to all, Douglas de Lacey From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0420 More on Trademarks (6/122) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 09:22:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 936 (1057) Let's not forget (off the top of my head) "Band-Aid," "Scotch Tape," "Walkman," "Kitty Litter," "X-Acto Knife," and perhaps also "Windex" (the name I say regardless of the label on the bottle, anyway). Local retailers use "Smarties" to refer to any number of brands of candy-coated chocolate (you have to buy "Rowntree Smarties" to be sure you're getting the real thing), and we say we're buying no-name "Kraft Dinner" (although of course the President's Choice people can't call it that). When we cook chicken coated with bread crumbs, it's "Shake 'n' Bake" whether we bought a brand-name coating mix or mixed it up ourselves. Although I understand people who call xeroxes xeroxes, I have always called them "photocopies" and have never been tempted otherwise. But some of the examples in my previous paragraph may likewise be part of my own, my family's, or the region's ideolect; doubtless the use of such brand-name shorthand can be either widespread or local. Ken Steele University of Toronto From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Generic Trademarks Date: Sun, 26 Aug 90 10:48:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 937 (1058) Sorry, a few late arrivals: how about "Thermos," "Popsicle," "Post-It Notes," "Levis," "Camcorder," and (according to my wife) "Wet Ones" (for pre-moistened cloth wipes)? Aren't word games fun? What was the point of all this again? Ken Steele University of Toronto From: iwml@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Hoovers - cleaners or Presidents? Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 02:07:44 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 938 (1059) My thanks to those who can translate American English into proper English for me! There I was thinking that I had selected a transatlantic trade mark! Ian Mitchell Lambert University of Kent at Canterbury From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: Tradenames Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1990 13:43:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 939 (1060) A colleague just returned from Indonesia with the information that small boats are not propelled by outboard motors but by johnsons [I don't know if it is capitalized or not]. And a few years ago one of my graduate students from Ghana, who was fascinated by bleu cheese, reported that, yes, they did have cheese in Ghana. When I asked what kind, he said, "Kraft." And while we are having fun with this, would Crapper as a term for a water closet come here? From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: why 'computer' *and* brand names: the one that got away Date: 27 August 1990 13:35:34 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 940 (1061) One name hasn't come up in the recent discussion of brand names becoming generic, possibly because it later lost out to 'computer'. The histories of the subject say that in the (early?) 50s, the common colloquial term for 'computer' was 'univac'--unless I'm forgetting and it was some other trade name. It lost out, presumably, because Sperry Rand lost its commanding lead in the market when IBM expanded its business from punched-card machines to, ah, computers. Michael Sperberg-McQueen [...] From: macrakis@ri.osf.fr Subject: 4.0421 Digital computing Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 17:54:45 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 941 (1062) Electronics can perfectly well represent multiple distinct values by multiple distinct voltage levels (or current flows, or whatever). Binary circuits are simply by far the cheapest, fastest, smallest, and most reliable today, and anything else can straightforwardly be simulated using them. (By the way, most (all?) non-binary machines in the past were actually NOT based on non-binary electronics, but simply simulated other bases using binary circuitry.) Analog circuits (where there are no distinct values, but rather a continuous variation) have been used in the past for certain kinds of numerical computation, and there is (as I said in a previous message) some interest now in "neural nets" (but don't be seduced by the name!), but no one proposes to use them as a substitute for digial circuits for text editing, databases, telephone switching, banking, etc. From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: [Calculation Tradeoffs and Bases; 0/1 vs. T/F --eds] Date: 27 August 1990 13:35:34 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 942 (1063) [...] Me for base-negative-two computers: handling of negative integers is much simpler with base negative-two than with twos-complement notation. Only drawback is that it makes hex arithmetic even more confusing. But I still think that the most natural interpretation of binary digital signals is as T/F, not as 0/1. Deep down, computers don't deal with numbers but with booleans. And for real fun with those who claim 0 and 1 are 'really' there, ask them about tape formats, many of which do *not* have a one-to-one relationship between the magnetic fields and the bits represented. From: Johnfox@RCN Subject: oral history conference Date: Sun, 26 Aug 90 13:11:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 428 (1064) The national Oral History Association is holding its annual meeting and 1990 conference at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, Cambirdge, November 8-11. The program is scheduled to be mailed during the week of September 3. The 46 sessions are wide ranging and cover subjects within various disciples of history, social sciences and English. We have included several workshops to aid those who are just becoming involved in oral history. For teachers we are offering, through Salem State College, a 3 credit workshop on Saturday, November 10. If you are not on the OHA's mailing list and would like to receive a program, please drop me a line at my EMAIL address or write to me: John J. Fox, OHA/LAC, Department of History, Salem State College, Salem, MA 01970. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0421 Responses: Memory; Digital Computers; Big Science Date: Friday, 24 Aug 1990 23:18:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 943 (1065) The problem with citation indexes in literary study is that they just aren't old enough (or Arts & Humanities Citation Index isn't). To be minimally useful, they have to have catalogued all articles and their citations since 1960 (since 1945 would be a lot better), but the on-line version I've used doesn't go back earlier, I believe, than about 1975. I work more efficiently by simply compiling a bibliography from standard references and extending the bibliography from the citations I deem significant as I read. --Pat Conner From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0421 Responses: Memory; Digital Computers; Big Science Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 14:52:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 944 (1066) re: Citation Indexes. Citation Indexes are critical to the practice of psychological research. When one comes across an article written, say, 10 years ago, it is necessary to track down others who cited that article in their research. My perception is that Citation Indexes continue to be useful, but have been misused as an "objective" means of judging the relative worth of someone's work by those whose own work is in a different area. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Handwriting technology. Why? Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 11:34:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 430 (1067) I've been seeing a lot of articles in the computer trade rags recently about the handwriting technology being developed by Go (and funded by IBM) and other companies like Grid. Most of the articles seem to laud the ability to write on a computer screen as the next great leap in civilization since the ubiquitous sliced bread. What I wonder, and pose to Humanists, is what really is the use of handwriting technology? I type far far faster than I can write, as do most of the people I know. So it is not faster by any means as a text input device. The fact that my handwriting is barely legible should be moot since the computer will be able to translate any scrawlings (eventually) into correct characters no matter how messy. There is of course use in fields where workers must carry pads and clipboards and write down or check off small bits of information but those fields are fairly small in comparison to the rest of the computer users out there. I think Bill Gates said something about removing the metaphor of the mouse with a pen that could write on the screen, but it only removes one layer of the metaphor, because every icon or screen object is itself a metaphor for the information contained within. Another problem I see with writing on the screen is that computer screens will have to become flat and oriented like drafting tables. Otherwise users will have major ergonomic problems with working at the computer for long periods of time. (not to mention the fact that you will have to clean the screen of skin oil all the time :-)). So I fail to see the overall utility of handwriting technology for the masses. Instead, it would seem to make more sense to concentrate on re-representing the images and objects of the computer's world to make it easier to manipulate them. The closest I see us coming at the moment is the Data Glove work being done at MIT and other places. Perhaps the problem is that we should try to avoid physical manipulations of non-physical objects? In any event, I would be interested to see other arguments for or against handwriting technology from the rest of you. cheers ... Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: "James H. Coombs" <JAZBO@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? Date: Tue, 28 Aug 1990 10:38:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 945 (1068) [deleted quotation] 1. Requires only one hand to write. You can use the other hand to hold a book open, etc. I use a book holder now, but some books insist on snapping shut. You can also use one hand to hold the machine and the other to write. 2. Handwriting technology permits free-hand drawing as well. For parse trees, flow charts, org. charts, etc. Not good at free hand? Use it for rough drafts. Eventually, some pattern matcher will probably be able to convert a free-hand drawing into structured graphics. 3. Keyboards tend to be too noisy for meetings, classes, libraries, etc. Handwriting is quiet. 4. Some people don't type. Some people have only one hand. 5. Perhaps, there is less stress on tendons from handwriting than from striking keys. On the other hand, I do not get cramped fingers from typing. 6. The proportion of "checking-off" activities to other computing may not be so small that we should postpone handwriting technology. We should be careful here about what we compare also: people, hours, $? We should also consider the possibility that handwriting technology will cause a shift in practices. For an idealistic example, let's say that electronic technology enables an aircraft manufacturer to rapidly disseminate information about critical pre-flight inspections. The check-off list for an aircraft may suddenly have an extra entry---say, to check for cracks in a certain high stress area. They find the cracks. The aircraft that would have crashed does not. This scenario may never occur. I use it simply to illustrate that we need to think about the applicability of a technology to "critical" problems, where a small proportion of hours of use may carry a much higher value to society. I'm sure that there are other advantages. I should also point out that most people see handwriting as an adjunct to typing, not as a replacement. From this perspective, I feel little need to discuss the disadvantages of handwriting in the abstract. I think most of us would love to have a machine to take to the library, etc., given perfect handwriting recognition, zero weight, zero cost, perfect compatibility with our base work stations, etc. I think the main questions now have to do with the success of the various attempts to produce machines. (I also assume that we will have handwriting machines before we have a universal electronic library available instantaneously to every machine.) --Jim Dr. James H. Coombs Chief Architect Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University, Box 1946 Providence, RI 02912 jazbo@brownvm.bitnet From: Chris Gowlland <ST402868@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? (1/42 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 17:31:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 946 (1069) I agree. There seems no good reason for developing (presumably at vast expense, which will then be passed on to the rest of us and to the institutions where we work and study) the technology for "writing" on the screen, or indeed onto a horizontal pad or anything of the same ilk. I recall reading in another of the trade mags, some time in 1988, that the reason for developing these toys was for the benefit of CEO's and other worthies aged over 40 who can't type ("woman's work") and aren't willing to demean themselves by learning how to. They want the information that the computer can give, but they aren't willing to use any kind of interface more complex than a fountain pen. I know, it probably seems ridiculous to everyone likely to be reading this list, but there are (to my certain knowledge) members of faculty at Brown who have computers sitting on their desks which they have never even switched on... they still write out everything by hand and pass it to a secretary to be word-processed. They're not all all that old, either [not a sic!] :-) From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? (1/42) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 22:53 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 947 (1070) Chinese and Japanese too are not really accessible as "written" characters, especially Classical Chinese, unless one can write on the screen. That is one reason to keep on with the possibility of powerful graphics chips and writing tools. A good reason indeed, not for me, but my son with his Mac Plus, who has his Ph.D. in Classical Chinese, but everything is done by hand. Scanning 10,000 book s of the standard history might ormight not help out. A vast corpus of important things is not available, unless to the very specialized specialist. But then, the Chinese are really a century or so off from mass ownership of computers, let alone communication like ours. Kessler murmuring aloud. From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Digital/analog Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 09:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 948 (1071) It is striking how deeply embedded this notion has become in many minds, that computers necessarily use binary representation because an electrical current is either on or off---when the truly fundamental distinction, as other contributors have said, is between digital (discrete) and analog (continuous), and the number system you use isn't really the point. I suppose this is just because the on/off notion continues to be retailed in textbooks and manuals. What's interesting is that, in a different realm, everybody understands the important distinction quite well. Ask a humanist to explain the difference between analog and digital sound recording and he or she will usually give an accurate account, without saying anything at all about binary numbers. Your guess is as good as mine on why this is so: a more familiar physical phenomenon to explain, ability to assume that everyone sort of knows about digital computing already anyway, ... John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0427 Nature of Computers (2/32) (decimal computers) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 08:55:59 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 949 (1072) My earliest computing experience was with an IBM 1620 system willed to my high school by the district administration. It was a decimal machine. The decimal digits were coded internally with 4-tuples or 5-tuples of bits, but this was largely invisible, even to the machine language programmer. The 1620 is not the only decimal machine to be manufactured, though I don't happen to recall the model names of any of the others I've run across since. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0425 Analog vs. Digital Watches (4/100) Date: 28 Aug 90 00:09:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 950 (1073) But every home should have at least one electric-powered digital clock. Purpose: to report how long it has been since the last power outage ended. And at least one electric-powered analog display clock: to enable you to calculate how long the power outage lasted. I don't see a way for either to do both, and both are useful facts to have in hand while contemplating the status of one's freezer and its contents. From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: Telling time in school Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 21:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 951 (1074) They don't teach kids how to tell time in analog format any more. They do have clock in classrooms, but I've only seen about two or three that were actually on time. I wish it was an exaggeration, but it isn't, at least not much. In high school, the teachers used to ask the students to keep track of time if they weren't wearing watches themselves. Figures.(-: Ruth From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0423 Watches (8/140) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 14:36:41 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 952 (1075) I'm sure all you analog types keep the skills alive - to read various types of water clocks, sundials, sextants, compasses, etc, etc, etc. However, there are those of us who just know what time it is, and some of us never have to use an alarm clock either. (However, I *do* look at a clock when I set my internal alarm, and once in a while I wake up in the middle of the night so refreshed I think it is morning - if I am alone, I get up and work - why waste the energy and mood.) Like, I'm sure it matters that you know how to read analog recordings with your antiquated analog music systems, and I'm sure handwriting is being kept alive and well. Let's face it, when there aren't millions of people doing something, the expertise gets lost. In the depression we had lots of people doing all sorts of things for a buck, so we got awesome tap dancers, etc. I am sure all of you count the words for your 5000 word articles and let your word processor sit idle instead of using it to count and spell. I am also sure you all know how to interpolate the log tables (I wonder how many of you can spell log-----) Probably about as many as differentiate between 400% MORE than X and 400% OF X. Enough for now, but more is available. Michael S. Hart PS I have direct disk recordings that destroy CD's, but their time is going. From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM> Subject: names for people Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 22:56:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 953 (1076) Regarding names in general, Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" suggests that people first had names in the Mesolithic era (10,000 - 8,000 B.C.) Because of a warming trend, the populations were larger and more fixed. Also the people lived longer and the groups became larger so it was necessary to distinguish the members. He mentions the question of names in reference to the hallucinatory voices he claims these people heard emmanating from the right half of the brain. That the voices were now from 'named' persona they played an even greater role in individual behavior. As I am not a psychologist, I would be interested in hearing the comments from other humanists who are familiar with his theory of the bicameral mind. P.S. This is a 'must read' for all lefties. :-) From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0422 Kinship (2/37) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 90 12:38 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 954 (1077) Not only for property, but in the Napoleonic census that opened the ghettoes too, and gave Citizen's names, so called, to all the Isaac ben Solomon people, a not inconsiderable number of folk to put on the tax (extortion) rolls. My friend the sculptor, Milton Hebald, finds no Hebalds in any phone directory. He says it is a family story that his great-great-great, etc., was not too bright, and was trying evade the fellow with the quill writing down names, but at the end, lingering, some Hussar threatened him with a saber, and he shouted, frunning ` towards the desk, He! Bald! Meaning Anon! Anon! And so Hebald came to be their name. What is in it, for anyone? The confusions of identity, perhaps, unless there is a crest, which you can buy for a fee in the US, as the computers are put to work tracing (chimerical) lineages. I was offered a Crest myself recently, all the Kesslers having been tracked down by some assiduous fellow in Ohio, who now offers a guarantee of distinction. I need Count Harry von Kessler for a relative? (Check your library catalogue). NO, and besides, even the Kessler was so me accident at Ellis Island, it seems...what matter? my father used to mutter. Amor Fati! I cry with Nietzche, but not, Excelsior! though the shades of night are falling fast.... Kessler From: Ruth Glynn <RGLYNN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Mr Biro Date: Tue, 28 AUG 90 16:25:36 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 955 (1078) As I was sure that Biro was a man and not a firm, I looked the word up in OED/2e (where else?). The entry reads: Biro. [f. The name of Laszlo Biro, the Hungarian inventor.] The proprietary name of a particular make of ball-point pen; also (with lower-case initial) applied loosely to any ball-point pen. First published occurrence was in 1947 in the Trade Marks Journal of 29 October. 'Biro. Writing instruments and parts thereof, not included in other classes.' Ruth Glynn Oxford Electronic Publishing, OUP From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Brand new names" Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 10:18:49 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 956 (1079) These brand new materials will give my translation students food for thought. I'm happy to see so many colleagues intrigued by eponymous terms. Keep those eponyms coming (not that I was the one to first ask for them, but I'll happily record them from the HUMANIST index)! Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0413 Trademark Neologisms (2/51) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 15:32:39 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 957 (1080) Kraft uses his "Webster's" which he claims to be be Websters, without defining the term to a usable disctinction. We know he means Webster CAN be used to refer to ANY dictionary, but he doesn't ever specify a Merriam-Webster or just something based on old Noah's principles. In my house we have to go even further, and we refer to them as First and Second and Third (Merriam Webster International Unabridged): but NOTHING other tham Merriam Webster's would ever get the term Webster, at least around here. We also use the OED, Century, and Random House dictionaries, and most of the rest are referred to as "junk" but they are kept around for those occasions when wider or deeper knowledge is sought. Michael S. Hart (I still prefer the Second Internatioal Unbridged-MW) From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Teilhard de Chardin Date: Sun, 26 Aug 90 12:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 958 (1081) A colleague in our math department has asked if I know of a machine readable text of the works of Teilhard de Chardin. If any of you know where one can be obtained, I'll gladly pass along the information. Thanks, John Dorenkamp Holy Cross College Worcester, MA 01610 dorenkamp@HlyCross (Bitnet) From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: War Studies Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 17:13:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 959 (1082) This is a query for a friend. What universities in the UK have a department of War Studies? He knows about Kings College, London. Are there others? There do not seem to be any in the US outside of the military colleges (Annapolis or Newport for ex.) Please respond to me personally. elli@brownvm.bitnet elli@ikaros.harvard.edu From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Date: 28 August 90, 16:07:05 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 960 (1083) A friend of mine going to US for one year is looking for a job. She is specialized in conference translation, english/french/spanish, mainly in the medical field. She has degree from France and UK, undergraduated in Latin American countries. If it rings anything to anyone, please send me a note so we could go further. Thanks in advance, Marc From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: O.B. Hardison, Jr. -- A Renaissance Man Date: 28 Aug 90 17:41:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 437 (1084) On Friday, August 24, 1990, I had the sad honor of speaking at a memorial service for the recently deceased O.B. Hardison, Jr., a short-term member of our crew. To say that he was a Humanist is an understatement in several senses, but he had subscribed to HUMANIST only last spring. He died after a short illness on August 5. O.B. was the Director of the Folger Library for 14 years; while there he started the Shakespeare Theater, opened the reading rooms to a wider audience, organized the Folger Consort, raised enough money to turn a quiet library into a national treasure. O.B. published about 30 books, two of them poetry, 6 original texts, and the others commentaries on various subjects and authors from Horace to Milton. O.B. was a dedicated teacher, originally at Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina) and recently at Georgetown University. He taught Shakespeare by having his students act out the plays. He arranged for me to teach a course call "Literary Analysis with Computers" because he thought it was time to get that sort of course into the curriculum. O.B. was fascinated with computers. Since he claimed that students today would learn more about poetry if it were presented to them like MTV, he started a multi-media presentation of Lysidas on his beloved Amiga. With accompaniment of the opening notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra, leafs float down the screen and a tear falls from a huge eye, while the lines of the poem are displayed below. O.B.'s book, _Disappearing through the Skylight: Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century_ is the second in a trilogy, published last December. It should be required reading for participants in this network. The book covers biology, architecture, poetry, art, and cybernetics, while alluding to everything from ancient Greek work to modern poetry. And O.B. was my friend, a man with a wonderful family and hundreds of friends, who will sorely miss this beautiful, optimistic, funny, creative man. His book ends with a quotation from "Sailing to Byzantium" -- "Of what is past, or passing, or to come." One of the speakers at the memorial service read that and commented that O.B. lived in the past, the present, and the future. I still find myself saying "I have to remember to tell O.B. about that." O.B., we'll finish the conversation later. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: handwriting Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 07:41:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 961 (1085) My first response to the message about handwriting for computer screens was "ridiculous!", but then that was my first response to the notion of an electric can-opener. Then somebody told me how useful they were for handicapped people. Jim Coombs' message suggests that the second is the better one, particularly as I feel the occasional arthritic twinge in that notorious left hand of mine! But another thought occurs to me: if the handwriting has to be scanned for transmission, then experience with scanners (which often still balk at early printed books) would suggest that we are going to have to improve our wretched scrawls. As I depart for a much-anticipated research trip abroad, I leave HUMANIST with the apocalyptic vision of future generations working at their penmanship lessons, loop after patient loop, just the way I had to even in the backward forties! cheers, and talk to you all again in six or eight weeks! Germaine. From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: why handwriting recognition, Chinese Date: 29 August 1990 18:03:43 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 962 (1086) Recognizing Chinese is a nice goal for handwriting recognition, but wouldn't it be simpler to catalogue the direction, shape, and order of strokes and use keystroke input? I assume in fact that it is, since at least some Chinese-input systems do use stroke-by-stroke construction to do the job. (It is sometimes suggested the canonical stroke ordering should radically simplify the task of recognizing the character, so that recognition could proceed almost at the rate of typing -- but sometimes it is replied that tests of such systems with native speakers reveal that people don't always use the same stroke ordering. Back to the drawing board...) Michael Sperberg-McQueen, UIC From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: handwriting or ...? Date: 28 Aug 90 22:45:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 963 (1087) Has anybody ever devised or seen a full keyboard (all 26 letters plus 10 numerals plus punctuation if not all the symbols on the shift of the numeral keys) designed to be used by one hand? Thinking about the problems in reduction in system size, the two main obstacles are a display big enough for our gross eyes to read and a keypad big enough for our gross hands to manipulate. Substantial saving in space and enhancement of convenience (using with one hand while the other hand is busy or absent) if there could be such a critter. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 10:12:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 964 (1088) ----------------- [What follows is Engst's reply to Coombs' posting in Humanist 4.431. Coombs' points are presented flush left; Engst's commentary, indented beginning with a '--', follows each point. This reply was originally sent directly to Coombs who then forwarded it, on Engst's request, to Humanist. In the following item in this digest Coombs responds to Engst's comments. --ahr] ----------------- [deleted quotation][...] [deleted quotation] 1. Requires only one hand to write. You can use the other hand to hold a book open, etc. I use a book holder now, but some books insist on snapping shut. You can also use one hand to hold the machine and the other to write. -- But only one hand is allowed as well. Most of the time when you write the other hand sits limply on the desk. 2. Handwriting technology permits free-hand drawing as well. For parse trees, flow charts, org. charts, etc. Not good at free hand? Use it for rough drafts. Eventually, some pattern matcher will probably be able to convert a free-hand drawing into structured graphics. --Perhaps, but this brings in the ergonomics again. I can't imagine drawing on the SE/30 screen directly in front of my face, where it sits for optimum reading. 3. Keyboards tend to be too noisy for meetings, classes, libraries, etc. Handwriting is quiet. -- Good point. 4. Some people don't type. Some people have only one hand. -- True in both cases, but a stylus is still a very slow text input method. Perhaps a better distinction would be "Some people don't input much text." Those that do (and care about speed) should use keyboards. People with one hand can use chording keyboards which can be even faster than normal ones. 5. Perhaps, there is less stress on tendons from handwriting than from striking keys. On the other hand, I do not get cramped fingers from typing. -- I've never heard of carpal tunnel syndrome in relation to handwriting, but that doesn't imply that keyboards are bad, merely that current keyboard designs are bad. I get writer's cramp incredibly quickly these days and had basically stopped taking unnecessary notes senior year because of it. 6. The proportion of "checking-off" activities to other computing may not be so small that we should postpone handwriting technology. We should be careful here about what we compare also: people, hours, $? We should also consider the possibility that handwriting technology will cause a shift in practices. For an idealistic example, let's say that electronic technology enables an aircraft manufacturer to rapidly disseminate information about critical pre-flight inspections. The check-off list for an aircraft may suddenly have an extra entry---say, to check for cracks in a certain high stress area. They find the cracks. The aircraft that would have crashed does not. This scenario may never occur. I use it simply to illustrate that we need to think about the applicability of a technology to "critical" problems, where a small proportion of hours of use may carry a much higher value to society. -- Very true, and I do see the utility in those limited situations. I was more concerned with the view expressed in the trade magazines that handwriting was the neatest technology around (because IBM was sinking a lot of money into it, in part) and that it would become the dominant input device. One small problem is that the pen is not attached to the computer and I know that I lose pens with an unerring frequency. I also have problems keeping them close at hand when I want them. It's hard to lose a mouse, keyboard, or trackball and they seldom wander from the computer desk. I'm sure that there are other advantages. I should also point out that most people see handwriting as an adjunct to typing, not as a replacement. From this perspective, I feel little need to discuss the disadvantages of handwriting in the abstract. I think most of us would love to have a machine to take to the library, etc., given perfect handwriting recognition, zero weight, zero cost, perfect compatibility with our base work stations, etc. I think the main questions now have to do with the success of the various attempts to produce machines. (I also assume that we will have handwriting machines before we have a universal electronic library available instantaneously to every machine.) -- I definitely have not gotten the impressions from the magazines that handwriting technology is to be an adjunct to typing. That's why these machines are all laptops - because then the keyboard can be eliminated without causing too much fuss. A laptop screen may be a terrible ergonomic writing surface (I can't stand writing on clipboards when standing up, for instance) but it will be basically impossible to write on standard desktop machine screens (which would be necessary to remove one level of metaphor, as Gates suggests) unless the screen are embedded in drafting table-style desktops. As an adjunct, it is of course hard to contest. I am also not contesting it for the sake of being spiteful or anything, I'm merely curious and see more cons than pros. Far be it for me to stand in the way of any new technology, though I must admit a certain suspicion whenever IBM is involved heavily. :-) Jim Dr. James H. Coombs Chief Architect Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University, Box 1946 Providence, RI 02912 jazbo@brownvm.bitnet From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: handwriting Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 07:41:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 965 (1089) My first response to the message about handwriting for computer screens was "ridiculous!", but then that was my first response to the notion of an electric can-opener. Then somebody told me how useful they were for handicapped people. Jim Coombs' message suggests that the second is the better one, particularly as I feel the occasional arthritic twinge in that notorious left hand of mine! But another thought occurs to me: if the handwriting has to be scanned for transmission, then experience with scanners (which often still balk at early printed books) would suggest that we are going to have to improve our wretched scrawls. As I depart for a much-anticipated research trip abroad, I leave HUMANIST with the apocalyptic vision of future generations working at their penmanship lessons, loop after patient loop, just the way I had to even in the backward forties! cheers, and talk to you all again in six or eight weeks! Germaine. From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: why handwriting recognition, Chinese Date: 29 August 1990 18:03:43 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 966 (1090) Recognizing Chinese is a nice goal for handwriting recognition, but wouldn't it be simpler to catalogue the direction, shape, and order of strokes and use keystroke input? I assume in fact that it is, since at least some Chinese-input systems do use stroke-by-stroke construction to do the job. (It is sometimes suggested the canonical stroke ordering should radically simplify the task of recognizing the character, so that recognition could proceed almost at the rate of typing -- but sometimes it is replied that tests of such systems with native speakers reveal that people don't always use the same stroke ordering. Back to the drawing board...) Michael Sperberg-McQueen, UIC From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: handwriting or ...? Date: 28 Aug 90 22:45:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 967 (1091) Has anybody ever devised or seen a full keyboard (all 26 letters plus 10 numerals plus punctuation if not all the symbols on the shift of the numeral keys) designed to be used by one hand? Thinking about the problems in reduction in system size, the two main obstacles are a display big enough for our gross eyes to read and a keypad big enough for our gross hands to manipulate. Substantial saving in space and enhancement of convenience (using with one hand while the other hand is busy or absent) if there could be such a critter. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 10:12:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 968 (1092) ----------------- [What follows is Engst's reply to Coombs' posting in Humanist 4.431. Coombs' points are presented flush left; Engst's commentary, indented beginning with a '--', follows each point. This reply was originally sent directly to Coombs who then forwarded it, on Engst's request, to Humanist. In the following item in this digest Coombs responds to Engst's comments. --ahr] ----------------- [deleted quotation][...] [deleted quotation] 1. Requires only one hand to write. You can use the other hand to hold a book open, etc. I use a book holder now, but some books insist on snapping shut. You can also use one hand to hold the machine and the other to write. -- But only one hand is allowed as well. Most of the time when you write the other hand sits limply on the desk. 2. Handwriting technology permits free-hand drawing as well. For parse trees, flow charts, org. charts, etc. Not good at free hand? Use it for rough drafts. Eventually, some pattern matcher will probably be able to convert a free-hand drawing into structured graphics. --Perhaps, but this brings in the ergonomics again. I can't imagine drawing on the SE/30 screen directly in front of my face, where it sits for optimum reading. 3. Keyboards tend to be too noisy for meetings, classes, libraries, etc. Handwriting is quiet. -- Good point. 4. Some people don't type. Some people have only one hand. -- True in both cases, but a stylus is still a very slow text input method. Perhaps a better distinction would be "Some people don't input much text." Those that do (and care about speed) should use keyboards. People with one hand can use chording keyboards which can be even faster than normal ones. 5. Perhaps, there is less stress on tendons from handwriting than from striking keys. On the other hand, I do not get cramped fingers from typing. -- I've never heard of carpal tunnel syndrome in relation to handwriting, but that doesn't imply that keyboards are bad, merely that current keyboard designs are bad. I get writer's cramp incredibly quickly these days and had basically stopped taking unnecessary notes senior year because of it. 6. The proportion of "checking-off" activities to other computing may not be so small that we should postpone handwriting technology. We should be careful here about what we compare also: people, hours, $? We should also consider the possibility that handwriting technology will cause a shift in practices. For an idealistic example, let's say that electronic technology enables an aircraft manufacturer to rapidly disseminate information about critical pre-flight inspections. The check-off list for an aircraft may suddenly have an extra entry---say, to check for cracks in a certain high stress area. They find the cracks. The aircraft that would have crashed does not. This scenario may never occur. I use it simply to illustrate that we need to think about the applicability of a technology to "critical" problems, where a small proportion of hours of use may carry a much higher value to society. -- Very true, and I do see the utility in those limited situations. I was more concerned with the view expressed in the trade magazines that handwriting was the neatest technology around (because IBM was sinking a lot of money into it, in part) and that it would become the dominant input device. One small problem is that the pen is not attached to the computer and I know that I lose pens with an unerring frequency. I also have problems keeping them close at hand when I want them. It's hard to lose a mouse, keyboard, or trackball and they seldom wander from the computer desk. I'm sure that there are other advantages. I should also point out that most people see handwriting as an adjunct to typing, not as a replacement. From this perspective, I feel little need to discuss the disadvantages of handwriting in the abstract. I think most of us would love to have a machine to take to the library, etc., given perfect handwriting recognition, zero weight, zero cost, perfect compatibility with our base work stations, etc. I think the main questions now have to do with the success of the various attempts to produce machines. (I also assume that we will have handwriting machines before we have a universal electronic library available instantaneously to every machine.) -- I definitely have not gotten the impressions from the magazines that handwriting technology is to be an adjunct to typing. That's why these machines are all laptops - because then the keyboard can be eliminated without causing too much fuss. A laptop screen may be a terrible ergonomic writing surface (I can't stand writing on clipboards when standing up, for instance) but it will be basically impossible to write on standard desktop machine screens (which would be necessary to remove one level of metaphor, as Gates suggests) unless the screen are embedded in drafting table-style desktops. As an adjunct, it is of course hard to contest. I am also not contesting it for the sake of being spiteful or anything, I'm merely curious and see more cons than pros. Far be it for me to stand in the way of any new technology, though I must admit a certain suspicion whenever IBM is involved heavily. :-) Jim Dr. James H. Coombs Chief Architect Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University, Box 1946 Providence, RI 02912 jazbo@brownvm.bitnet From: "James H. Coombs" <JAZBO@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0430 Handwriting Technology. Why? Date: Wed, 29 Aug 1990 17:48:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 969 (1093) In response to personal mail from Adam C. Engst: [deleted quotation] At least one manufacturer has taken plans to enable the "docking" of a handwriting machine to a workstation network. We also have a handwriting pad that can be attached to a microcomputer, which is also equipped with a keyboard. [deleted quotation] I think that writing on a standard screen is out of the question. The idea is to have a writing surface that one can manipulate much like a notepad. The writing surface may also be the display on a laptop. I don't know about the metaphorical aspects of handwriting interfaces. The question seems much too complicated for me to extemporize about. An example. It seems to me that to use the word "menu" for those lists of choices that one sees on the Macintosh is a metaphorical use of the term menu motivated by someone's perception of a similarity with restaurant menus. I doubt very much, however, that users use their knowledge of restaurant menus to help them understand Macintosh menus and how to use them. So what is the role of the menu metaphor? And isn't the whole thing supposed to use the "desk top" metaphor? Then what are we doing with menus on it. And what is that trash barrel doing on my "desk top." Is it a mixed metaphor? I don't know. I think "direct manipulation" can be useful, but I have never seen any evidence to support the contention that these metaphors help people understand and use computers. Yes, we can in some nice, academic sense count the metaphors; perhaps we can even eliminate a "level" of metaphor. But what evidence do we have that we have changed anything other than our vocabulary in discussing the interface? It's all such a mess (What are these windows doing in the middle of my desktop?!) that I can't believe that the metaphors have much to do with people's actual computing. If they did, I think we would hear people saying, "That doesn't make sense! Desktops don't have windows. And trash cans go on the floor. And menus belong in restaurants." Since they don't say such things, I feel justified in believing that the metaphors are just a veneer of terminology that we use in discussing our interfaces. If I am right, then it is a little bit ridiculous to talk about adjustments to this veneer as major developments in computing. The handwriting technology may be a major development, but the adjustments to our terminology should not be treated as necessarily or even probably having a major effect in the cognitive processing that we perform while computing. And we should not let marketing gas affect our evaluation of the technology. --Jim Dr. James H. Coombs Chief Architect Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University, Box 1946 Providence, RI 02912 jazbo@brownvm.bitnet From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: ach taskforce Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 16:20 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 439 (1094) ACH Taskforce on Humanities Computing Support One of the outcomes of the ICCH conference last year in Toronto was the formation, loosely speaking, of a taskforce to come up with a set of requirements for Humanities Computing support: in other words, a list of services and other support elements that Humanists should reasonably be able to expect their Universities to provide. Granted, this ideal computing support environment would probably never exist in one place; still, many of the elements should be within the means of any Humanities College or Division. As the first step in creating a document describing this ideal, we drew up a list of services etc. that might be included. This list was distributed to several ACH members via e-mail and a few comments were forthcoming. Since we are rapidly approaching the 1991 ICCH, we would like to present this list for comments from the wider membership of ACH, so that we may discuss this further in Phoenix. Please direct all additions, subtractions, and comments to Dr. Vicky A. Walsh, Humanities Computing, 248 Kinsey Hall, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., LA, CA, 90024- 1499; imd7vaw@uclamvs. In addition to comments concerning what should be on the list, we also welcome comments on the relative ranking of these services: e.g. which are indispensable and which you can live without. Thanks for your input! Computing Services for the Humanities: 1. provide personal computer for each faculty member, 2. provide acquisition, support, maintenance, insurance for faculty machines, 3. provide consulting service for faculty projects, 4. provide programming support for faculty projects, 5. provide special hardware such as text/graphics scanning, cd-roms, laser discs, video capture, slide production, etc., 6. support multiple vendors, 7. establish network connections, both internally within the Humanities and externally to Bitnet, Internet, etc., 8. evaluate software and hardware of potential interest to Humanists, 9. establish reference library of software, books, and journals relating to computing for the Humanities, 10. teach classes, workshops, seminars on topics of interest to computing humanists, 11. fund projects in computer assisted instruction, 12. establish student computer labs, both centrally, and within departments, that support faculty developed applications, 13. provide access to multi-media workstations for advanced projects, 14. provide audio/video production capabilities, 15. support desktop publishing for multi-lingual projects, including bi-directional and exotic fonts, 16. acquire, produce, store, maintain large data bases for use by individuals as well as across departmental boundaries, 17. create software of general interest to Humanists if not already available, e.g. hypertextual access to library catalogs, 18. create documentation as needed for both commercial and academic applications, 19. establish a mechanism, such as a newsletter or electronic bulletin board, to provide communication between computing humanists within the university, as well as a link to humanists outside the university, 20. provide adequate training of students, graduates especially, so that they are prepared to use computers effectively when they graduate and move on to jobs elsewhere. From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler) Subject: bi-stable devices Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 10:49:17 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 440 (1095) This discussion is getting irritating. Look, there is such a thing as a bi-stable electrical device. Think of it as something that with high probability is either in one state or another, but if it finds itself inbetween it tends to get into one of its two stable states. Light switches are such devices. Bi-stable devices have played an important part in the development of computers because they directly mimic binary arithmetic. A bi-stable device doesn't have to be active, which was what made bubble-memory so appealing (and is how a solar-powered pocket calculator can be made to remember the last digits it held when the light goes away). Now, there is also such a thing as using bi-stable devices to build a digital computer, i.e. a computer which calculates using discrete numbers (rather than an analogue computer which tries to use devices considered to hold every state inbetween their limits). When you build a computer you pick a number system for it. You can offer the programmers any number system you want as the most basic way of dealing with the computer. However at the electrical device level it would be very rare to encounter n-stable devices being used. It is much easier to gang together a bunch of bi-stable devices to pretend to be something else. I would very much doubt the IBM 1620 was built using special 10-state devices. In most digital computers there are mechanisms to allow the programmer to ``get at the bits'' and perform direct binary `and' and `or' operations. Such operations are often needed for efficient use of memory to compare vectors (for information storage and retrieval), manipulate graphics (computer vision, computer graphics) or even do some mundane tasks such as convert upper-lowercase characters into all uppercase by directly affecting their stored bytes through masking with suitable binary values. Since the use of bi-stable electrical devices and the performance of binary arithmetic are so close to being the same thing, the analogy is carried to its logical conclusion that they are the same thing and that programming a computer is setting the bi-stable devices directly. In actuality there are lots of other details to a hardware implementation, such as the error-checking, self-correcting, and diagnostic components of a computer that try to keep the analogy working even though the electrical devices are falliable. There can also be organizations of the bi-stable devices that perpetuate another analogy, that of the computer using some other number system. From: "Edith A Moravcsik" 23-AUG-1990 16:04 Subject: Conference: Word Order In Discourse Date: Wed, 23 Aug 90 16:04:00 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 441 (1096) Forwarded by: Willard McCarty On April 12-14, l991, there will be a conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on the topic "Word order in discourse". This will be the 20th Annual Linguistics Symposium in Milwaukee. Papers are invited on the question of how and to what degree differences in constituent order are affected by discourse structure, i.e. by the functions of clauses and their constituents in discourse. Proposals reporting on studies relating to particular languages, studies comparing two or more languages, and typological studies are encouraged. Eiehter a synchronic or a diachronic perspective may be taken; language acquisition studies will also be considered. Invited speakers will include BARBARA FOX, ROBERT LONGACRE, and MARIANNE MITHUN. ABSTRACT DEADLINE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, l990. Ten copies of one-pag, anonymous abstracts are requested. For more information, contact Mickey Noonan, Dept. of English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201; or e-mail noonan@csd4.csd.uwm.edu. From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0436 Teilhard etext? Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 10:12:33 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 970 (1097) [deleted quotation]There are Teilhard de Chardin etexts, perhaps not the complete works. Contact the ARTFL Project, Dept of Romance Langs and Lits, U Chicago, Chicago IL 60637. Leslie Burkholder From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0436 Qs: Teilhard etext?; War Studies?; Job? (3/37) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 13:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 971 (1098) Teilhard electronique ---------------------------------------------------------- Dans la bibliographie du ARTLF il est fait mention de deux textes de TdC. Le milieu divin et Le phenomene humain. Les cotes des ouvrages sont respectivement L748 et L753r. Pour plus de renseignement contacter Mark Olsen a Chicago. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca ------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas.H.Luxon@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Networks in Britain Date: 29 Aug 90 23:00:13 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 972 (1099) I'm going to London for six months and will be connected (by spouse) with the English Department at University College London. I'm bringing my mac and a few hard disks and I want to know how I can connect myself to the networks (Internet, Janet, Bitnet, and so on) while I am in London. I'm willing to buy a modem, or try connecting through an office at UCL. No one in the English department at UCL has yet answered my queries. Is there anyone out there who can give me some info? Whom should I see; what sort of modem should I buy: what should I look out for as I travel internationally with my equipment and so on. Any info would be appreciated. Tom Luxon Dartmouth College Thomas.H.Luxon@mac.dartmouth.edu From: Dr Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: Family history Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 15:18:18 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 973 (1100) I have just received the following two queries about genealogical software and wonder if anyone out there can help. (1) Does anyone have details on the "International Genealogical Index" (sometimes called the "mormon computer index file") and know of ways of accessing it? (2) Does anyone know of suitable software for drawing family trees by computer, eg something similar to "chemtex" which allows simple drawings of chemical molecules to be incorporated into TeX. Details to me directly, please. Thanks for your help. Donald Spaeth CTI Centre for History and Computing University of Glasgow 2 University Gardens Glasgow G12 8QQ United Kingdom email: gkha13 @ uk.ac.glasgow.cms (on JANET) gkha13 @ cms.glasgow.ac.uk (from EARN/BITNET) From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0435 Trademark Neologisms (3/49) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 1990 16:52 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 974 (1101) My Israeli-born wife tells me that in her childhood in Jerusalem any animated film (what we Americans called a "cartoon") was known as "a Mickey Mouse" -- yes even if it featured Donald Duck! Also an interesting "reverse" example of a Generic becoming a Brand Name is "Jeep" which began -- so we are told by Webster -- as G[eneral] P[urpose] (Vehicle) in use by the US Army in the Second World War. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem [HPUBM AT HUJIVM1] From: STEVEC@FHCRCVM Subject: trademarks - coke Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 22:18:09 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 975 (1102) The restaurant question "Is Pepsi okay?" is to avoid lawsuits. If one orders Coke and is served Pepsi big trouble can result. There are actually people who go to restuarants for the pop companies and order Coke and check that Coke is actually served. So this is more an example of awareness of lawsuits (truth in advtizing) than a change in common usage, although it is perhaps forcing a change in common usage. From: STEVEC@FHCRCVM Subject: citations Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 22:27:37 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 445 (1103) I did my dissertation on Garrett Hardin's thought and an interesting discovery (I used the citation indexes) was that his article, "The Tragedy of the Commons" was cited in every major discipline/science and uncritically applauded. It was one of the 100 most cited articles between 1969 and 1977. Even Hardin lamented that inspite of the citations it was seldom discussed! And when the same ideas appeared 18 years later under an editor's title "Living on a Lifeboat," nearly everyone who cited it attacked him and few cited it!So, as others said a citation by itself may not amount to much, and the reaction may be more to the package (title) than to the actual thought in the cited article. From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: More on Moron Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 10:46:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 446 (1104) Doug De Lacey raises an interesting question about US-UK perceptions of the word "moron", especially as they might bear on translations of the cognate _mo_r-_ in Paul's writings (1 Corinthians 1-4?). Since we Canadians are neither fish nor fowl on these matters, and are advised to combine British spelling with American punctuation -- my positioning of the comma outside of the quotation marks above was a rather heroic act of existential authenticity, not the party line -- I can only make two observations, as an outsider. The first is that (North) American culture seems to suffer from a higher rate of rhetorical inflation than the UK. Just as good things over here tend to be "awesome" or "radical", indeed "totally" so, and we have stores/shops called Miracle Mart (also some churches, I think) or Super Duper, so also the bad things in life attract powerful adjectives. A few years ago, I thought that we were experiencing a re-evaluation of our lexical currency when people began to call positive experiences dee-SEHNT (decent), but this turned out to be a temporary lull, until we could find replacements for expired terms like super-fantastic. Anyway, I suspect that your American translator, Doug, may not have been quite as sensitive to the traditional connotations of "moron" as you are. A second point to consider, however, is whether we have not become so used to hearing the New Testament as translated by dignified scholars and read in polite company that we miss the sharp rhetoric of some of Paul's phrasing. Famous examples are his vivid castration language in Gal 5:12, which is rendered as a less specific reference to "mutilation", and his advice that men should control their "vessels", in 1 Thess 4:4 (with clear sexual connotations). Is it possible that Paul really wanted to speak of "morons" in 1 Cor 1-4, and that we translate otherwise to make him more polite than he really was? I quickly tested that hypothesis on the relevant passages, and got this impression: the abstract noun _moria_ could probably be rendered "moronity" in most cases (in 1 Cor 1-4) and yield a plausible sense, from this Canadian's perspective ("to the Jews a scandal, to the Greeks moronity"). And the noun _moros_ seems to have the sense of "moron" in Matthew (e.g., 5:22 -- "Anyone who says (to his brother) 'you moron' risks the fire of Gehenna"). But did Paul really mean to say of his followers "God chose the morons of the world . . . "? On that one, Doug, I'm with you. Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: Norman Miller <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: a word query Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 20:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 448 (1105) The mention of hoover (noun and verb), a word of American origin which isn't immediately understood by most Americans, prompts this question: Do we have a name for this sort of thing, for loan words or words of vaguely foreign inspiration (such as the French vasisdas or the Glaswegian "Sherman tanks" for Americans) which are not (and better yet, never have been) understood by speakers of the "host" language? And if not will one of our Humanists be good enough to invent one on the fly? From: macrakis@ri.osf.fr Subject: 4.0438 Handwriting Technology (5/229) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 12:23:00 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 976 (1106) Could correspondents please clarify whether they're talking about handwriting as a way of entering computer-readable text (and thus can be indexed, sorted, or spell-checked like keyboarded text) or just as a way of entering uninterpreted scrawls, which can only be filed, transmitted, and displayed (like MacPaint drawings)? Two quite different cases. From: w mccutchan -- computing services <walter@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: machine reading/hand writing Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 16:33:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 977 (1107) Sometimes we tend to look at technology only with an eye to our own uses. Let us not overlook the needs of the business world. Machines that can read hand writing are a grail for the post office, and the banks are seeking them too. I personally think the day a machine can read my cheque is a long way off. Of course, the cheque may never get where it is going if the post office is waiting for a machine that can read an envelope addressed by hand. Gee, the very thought gives new life to "the cheque is in the mail". ..walter From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0438 Handwriting Technology (5/229) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 11:11:34 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 978 (1108) In reply to J. O'Donnell. If I remember correctly, Doug Englebart (pater multorum) designed and built a one-handed keyboard with five (?) keys. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: PSCO Information Date: Friday, 31 August 1990 0937-EST (167 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 450 (1109) [I have planned for a long time to post the following information on HUMANIST and IOUDAIOS, where it will be of interest to various persons, and perhaps institutions. It is hoped that past minutes can be put into electronic form in the near future, and that more recent minutes will be available soon (see the description). Bob Kraft] ---------- PHILADELPHIA SEMINAR ON CHRISTIAN ORIGINS R. A. Kraft BRIEF HISTORY [updated to 31 August 1990] coordinator The Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins was organized on October 8, 1963, when 16 teachers of biblical and early church studies from the Philadelphia area gathered at the University of Pennsylvania at the invitation of Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) and John H. P. Reumann (Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia). It was decided that the subject matter should vary from year to year, and should be technical in nature, geared for those with academic, specialized interests in the period of Christian origins. Participating membership in the Seminar is open primarily to persons with advanced training in the subject, especially those who teach at a college or seminary level, although other interested persons may be invited at the discretion of the members. Regularly scheduled meetings are held bi-monthly throughout the academic year, with occasional additional special meetings when circumstances dictate. Since its inception, the Seminar has had support from the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, and more recently, from the Humanities Coordinating Committee at the University. It now holds most meetings in Williams Hall at the University. The Seminar also maintains a mailing list of non-participating members. The minutes of the meetings are reproduced and mailed to all members at the end of the academic year. Persons on the mailing list who do not attend meetings are asked to contribute $2.00 annually towards mailing costs. Otherwise there are no dues. Complete copies of the minutes and other materials are deposited with the libraries of the University of Pennsylvania and the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). Back copies of minutes are still available in most instances, at the cost of $2.00 (vols 1-17) or $3.00 (vols 18- ) per volume to cover packaging and mailing expenses. [As of 9/90, minutes for vols 20-21 and 23 onward have not yet appeared. Electronic scanning and distribution of the minutes are under consideration.] The topics and personnel (co-chairpersons, secretaries) have been as follows: 1 (1963-64) THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WORLD - R. Kraft and J. Reumann (J. T. Townsend, secretary) 2 (1964-65) GNOSTICISM - R. Kraft and J. Reumann (J. T. Townsend, secretary) 3 (1965-66) GOSPEL TRADITION IN THE SECOND CENTURY - R. Kraft and S. Benko (P. M. Peterson, secretary) 4 (1966-67) "ORTHODOXY" AND "HERESY" IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY - R. Kraft and J. Reumann (E. Magalis, secretary) The result of this study was published as the English edition of W. Bauer, _Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity_ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). 5 (1967-68) JEWISH CHRISTIANITY (APART FROM PAUL) - R. F. Evans and D. Hay (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 6 (1968-69) THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL, & ECONOMIC SETTING OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY - S. Benko and J. J. O'Rourke (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) These studies are collected in Benko and O'Rourke, eds., _The Catacombs and the Colosseum_ (Valley Forge: Judson, 1971), also published as _Early Church History_ (London: Oliphants, 1972) 7 (1969-70) APOCALYPTIC THOUGHT IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY - S. Laeuchli and J. T. Townsend (R. V. Hotchkiss and P. G. Maurer, secretaries) 8 (1970-71) JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS - D. Hay and S. Isenberg (R. V. Hotchkiss and P. G. Maurer, secretaries) 9 (1971-72) MELITO OF SARDIS AND HIS _PASCHAL HOMILY_ - R. F. Evans and D. F. Winslow (R. V. Hotchkiss and P. G. Maurer, secretaries) 10 (1972-73) ORIGEN'S COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN - H. Kee and E. Pagels (R. V. Hotchkiss and P. G. Maurer, secretaries) 11 (1973-74) CREATION: IMAGES OLD AND NEW - P. Henry and D. Winslow (R. V. Hotchkiss and P. G. Maurer, secretaries) 12 (1974-75) EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN NORTH AFRICA - S. Laeuchli and D. Efroymson (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 13 (1975-76) CURRENT APPROACHES TO CHRISTIAN ORIGINS - R. Kraft and R. Kraemer (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 14 (1976-77) MAGIC: THE PHENOMENON AND THE ISSUE IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD - D. Efroymson and H. Kee (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 15 (1977-78) HEAVENLY ASCENT IN GRAECO-ROMAN PIETY - R. Kraemer and J. G. Gager (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 16 (1978-79) ANCIENT SCHOOL ACTIVITY IN ALEXANDRIA AND ROME - W. Adler and R. Kraft (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 17 (1979-80) PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA IN RELATION TO ANCIENT "SCHOOL TRADITION" - J. Gager and M. Himmelfarb (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 18 (1980-81) MARCEL SIMON'S _VERUS ISRAEL_ - D. Efroymson and J. C. White (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 19 (1981-82) _VERUS ISRAEL_ (Continued) - D. Efroymson (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 20 (1982-83) THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY AND GNOSTICISM - Anne McGuire (W. Adler, asst.; R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 21 (1983-84) SYRIAN CHRISTIANITY UP TO THE 4TH CENTURY - W. Adler (R. V. Hotchkiss, secretary) 22 (1984-85) ORIGEN AGAINST KELSOS (CELSUS) - D. Efroymson (T. Bergren, assistant) 23 (1985/86) THE MANI CODEX AND MANICHAEANISM - J. Gager & M. Himmelfarb (J. Pastis, asst.; D. Utz, secy.) 24 (1986/87) EVIDENCE FOR DIASPORA JUDAISM OUTSIDE EGYPT - Ross S. Kraemer (J. Pastis, asst.; D. Utz, secy.) 25 (1987/88) PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS: DEMONS AND ANGELS IN THE WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY - Martha Himmelfarb (D. Frankfurter, prog. coord.; D. Utz, secretary) 26 (1988/89) TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION IN THE WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY - Benjamin G. Wright III (D. Utz, secretary) 27 (1989/90) RETHINKING SOCIAL DESCRIPTION OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN LATE ANTIQUITY - Howard Kee & Ross Kraemer (D. Rech, secretary) 28 (1990/91) CHRISTIAN TRANSMISSION OF JEWISH PSEUDEPIGRAPHA - Kraft & Benjamin Wright (D. Rech, secretary) All correspondence concerning the Seminar or subscriptions to current or past minutes should be addressed to: Robert A. Kraft, PSCO Coordinator Religious Studies, Box 36 College Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6303 bitnet(internet): KRAFT@PENNDRLS(.upenn.edu) From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Call for Papers Date: Monday, 3 Sep 1990 15:51:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 451 (1110) ***CALL FOR PAPERS ON COMPUTERS AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES*** **FOR THE 26TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES** *KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN -- MAY 9-12 1991* Computers at Kalamazoo I: THE TEACHING OF MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES BY COMPUTER Sponsor: Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies, Oxford University Organizers: Patrick Conner, West Virginia University and Marilyn Deegan, Oxford University Computer-Assisted Language Learning is now a well-respected tool in the teaching of foreign languages, and there are many projects in this area currently being undertaken by scholars throughout the world. Some of these projects are focused particularly on medieval languages, and we would like to invite papers from scholars who are either doing research or who have been using computers in their teaching. Computers at Kalamazoo II: HYPERTEXT AND MEDIEVAL STUDIES Sponsor: Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies, Oxford University Organizers: Marilyn Deegan,Oxford University and Patrick Conner, West Virginia University Hypertext is a concept that has been in existence for some 40 years. Its value has recently been recognized in scholarly research and teaching, and there are several implementations of hypertext authoring packages (Hypercard, Guide etc) which are used by scholars. Because these packages offer ways of combining different kinds of material, allowing images, text, and sound to be implemented in complex ways, they are ideal for presenting the kinds of original source material worked on by medievalists. For this session we would like to invite discussions of research projects using hypertext, in particular those which exploit its multimedia capabilities. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ * Abstracts and proposals should be sent e-mail; be sure to include in your proposal a list of equipment you will need for your presentation. We expect to be able to provide both DOS and Macintosh computer systems with projection capabilities. We will read abstracts of about 500 words, proposals in the form of sentence outlines, drafts of the presentation, or completed papers. We are most intested in proposals which promise to demonstrate original applications of computer technology to Medieval studies. In the event that you have a proposal which does not exactly fit the description of one of the two sessions, we will nevertheless be glad to review it and include it on the program if there are not sufficient high-quality submissions in the proposed fields Please send copies of your proposal to BOTH organizers: Marilyn Deegan <MARILYN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Patrick Conner <U47C2@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU> From: aristar@wacsvax.cs.uwa.OZ.AU (Anthony Aristar) Subject: Classics Text Analysis Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 16:37:57 +0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 979 (1111) I'm sending this message for a colleague in Classics, who has no direct net-access. He's interested in text-processing software and particularly in software which is capable of producing a morphological analysis of Ancient Greek. Is there anything available out there, commercial or otherwise? If there is software available, how sophisticated is the morphological analysis which it's capable of? My thanks! Anthony Aristar From: <JBOWYER@UNOMA1> Subject: Humanist's Software Repetoire Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 20:05 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 980 (1112) Power computer users have a toolbox full of essential programs such as Norton Utilities or PCTools, PKZIP, Fastback Plus, etc. Which programs might be found in a computing humanist's toolbox? Jeff Bowyer University of Nebraska at Omaha From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0439 ACH Taskforce on Humanities Computing Support (1/82) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 10:59:17 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 981 (1113) In the list as constituted, I don't see what turns out to be (at least on our campus) the most urgent support issue: Technical support for relatively low-level problems: word processing (what programs, how to solve specific problems, how to get the entire system tuned (configuration, printer/software handshaking), i.e., the piddling little nitpicking problems which drive all of us crazy. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Genealogical Research Date: Thursday, 30 August 1990 2026-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 982 (1114) I've gotten all excited about the brochure that arrived from Automated Archives Genealogical Research System, with their promise of loads of pertinent raw and digested data on a series of CD-ROMs, etc. I've showed it to our CD-ROM librarians, and filled out the Associate Membership Registration Form with its annual dues of $50 to join. But darned if I can find an address to which to return the application (I threw away the envelope, which might have had the address). And since there is a benefit to an old member through whom someone new joins, the first one out there to send me the address and your "sponsor member #" will get the benefits of my membership! If none of you are members, can anyone tell me the adress anyway -- probably Orem UT or thereabouts, but it would be nice to be sure. And other HUMANISTS interested in genealogy will want to know of this promising resource. (Is there a network group that focuses on genealogical research? Probably would be worth having such.) Bob Kraft, U. Penn From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0448 Words for Loan Words (1/14) Date: Fri,31 Aug 90 08:30:01 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 983 (1115) I have never heard anyone in Glasgow refer to an American as a sherman tank. But anyway, isn't this example of rhyming slang rather different from the use of brand names as generic descriptors ? Nicholas Morgan Archivist, United Distillers plc (and sometime research fellow in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow) From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: A word query/brandnames Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 13:02:01 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 984 (1116) Norman Miller refers to 'hoover' as an American word (which Americans do not understand), I presume because he thinks of Hoover as an American company. But is it? British 'hoovers' are made in Britain, and are in fact one of the few consumer goodies that are. We own an Electrolux hoover, made in Britain (I think), although Electrolux is Swedish; we also own a Hoover washing machine, made in Britain. But the issue is more complicated than that (am I boring you?). There are companies in Britain with the same name as American companies, with no relationship between them. As a Pacific Northwesterner I greeted with some surprise Safeway's markets, which even have the same logo as the American company. The two companies are now distinct. Woolworth's is an old established shop in Britain; the company, which is a conglomerate, now prefern to call itself Kingfisher. Mars produces chocolate bars in Britain, as in America. But the American Three Musketeers is called a Milky Way here; the Milky Way is called a Mars bar. There is no equivalent to the American Mars bar. As an American, I tend to make the arrogant assumption that the American company (and name) was first and spread to Britain. How often am I right, I wonder? Don From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: TRADEMARKS Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 11:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 985 (1117) "Jeep" may well be an acronym of sorts for a [G]eneral [P]urpose vehicle, but surely that came after the lie-detecting little animal called the Jeep appeared in the Thimble Theater (Popeye) comic strip. Other characters appearing about the same time included Alice the Goon and the Shmoos. John Dorenkamp Holy Cross College From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0444 Trademarks (2/23) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 90 12:28 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 986 (1118) One aspect of the trademark question is that they can be ambiguous. The most famous example is _Durex_. In Australia this is apparently a brand of adhesive tape (British English _Sellotape_), in the UK its the generic name for condoms (rubbers, but that's another issue). All my Australian friends have claimed to have had the experience at one time or another of going into a post office and asking for a large Durex. Another issue is those brand names which cannot be used in some countries because they have the wrong connotations. The classic examples are the Rolls Royce Silver Mist in Germany, the Commodore Pet computer in France, and the Vauxhall Nova car in South America, but there are lots more (another computer one is the failed computer called here the One Per Desk or 1PD, which unaccountably didn't make it in France). There are said to be companies which check on this sort of thing for a large fee, usefully providing jobs for linguists. With the changes in Eastern Europe, there's going to have to be an awful lot of brabd names being checked for rude meanings in Ukrainian. Don Fowler. From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0446 The Word "Moron", NT Language, &c. (1/43)] Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 11:52:17 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 987 (1119) My thanks to Steve Mason for his support. Another term which does not travel well is one which turned up very recently in my e-mail (I think on HUMANIST); namely 'bugger'. Here it *only* means 'homosexual' and is normally (outside the courtroom, in which buggery is or at least used to be a crime) used only as a rude expletive. On inflation there was an interview on BBC recently with an american official in which the interviewer said 'that must be an enormous problem' and received the response 'oh yes, *very* enormous'. How far can one go? Douglas de L. From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Re: 4.0435 Trademark Neologisms (3/49) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 90 15:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 988 (1120) Michael Hart's note about his Second and Third Edition Merriam- Webster dictionaries without so much as a passing reference to the political joking that went on at one time raises the question: is everyone tired of the limp gags or too young to have heard of them? NM From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Tradenames and Dictionaries Date: Thursday, 30 August 1990 0020-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 989 (1121) Since Michael Hart asked, my attempted clever reference to a "Webster's" that was a real Webster was indeed a reference to the Merriam-Webster "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary" (editions as cited), based on Webster's New International Dictionary, etc. Trust me, Michael. But I have no idea whether there is real continuity of a commercial as well as a literary sort between these products and the historical lexicographer. Perhaps. But I am disappointed. Thus far, noone has offered information on what a computer search of OED for "trademark" (etc.) would turn up. Can it be that so few of us have convenient access to the electronic OED? Won't someone test its versatility on this subject? I confess, I don't have it at hand. Sorry. Bob Kraft From: MFZXREP@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk Subject: Computer users toolbox Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 09:45:56 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 990 (1122) In reply to Jeff Bowyers question, all of those *toolkits* mentioned. As they all deal with the repair and recovery of files on damaged disks, all sites with large computing (PC) resources should have at least one copy to save work held on media which for one reason or another has become damaged. PC-tools is probably the best and it is certainly the one I use with unfortunate regularity to repair damaged media. Guy Percival Arts Faculty Manchester University From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0452 Contributions to a Humanist's Software Toolbox List Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 09:30:52 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 991 (1123) As language-oriented contributions to the Humanist's software toolbox list, I suggest: Shoebox, a dictionary/slipfile-oriented freeform database package $15.00 US (including postage and handling) International Academic Bookstore Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 West Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 214-709-2404. TACT, a text indexing/concordance and analysis package $25.00 US [address not to hand!] Programming languages: AWK Did anything come of Elizabeth Hinkelman's Natural Language Software Registry project? From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Re: 4.0448 Words for Loan Words/4.0435 Trademarks (Mr. Biro) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 19:05:20-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 992 (1124) Norman Miller asked for a name for loan words that are not understood in their country of origin. I don't know of an existing term, but, as Miller invites us to invent one, what about Nemo-propheta-in-patria loanwords ? Ruth Glynn writes about Mr. Biro: [deleted quotation] The date issue is interesting, also as far as the actual spreading of the *thing* (not the *name*) started. There was controversy concerning the use of a ball-point pen in editing Anna Frank's diary. According to detractors of the diary (not just of the editor), such pens were not available during the war. Yet, I am told by my mother that her uncle imported such pens to Baghdad shortly after their invention, shortly *before* the war. That uncle himself suddenly died in 1944, in Tel Aviv, in circumstances I described on another occasion; earlier he had to leave Baghdad, where he was contractor of the recreation services of the municipality -- the Saadun Park and the theater of the officers' club -- because competitors resorted to threats. That way, we can pinpoint an "ad quem" date for his importing the newly invented ball-point pens with a fair degree of certitude. Can anybody add information about when ball-point pens spread? As the original discussion was about people who became a brand name, here is a related issue. As to Anna Frank, about one year ago I read an interview with a classmate of her, published by the Israeli newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth". The interviewer observed that whenever that woman mentioned Anna Frank as a classmate and friend, she would say "Anne Frank", whereas whenever she referred to Anna Frank as the well-known diary author, she would say "Anna Frank", the way she is best known. Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus.bitnet From: "Grace Logan - ACO Office PAS 2031 x.2597" Subject: OED and 'trademark' Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 14:25:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 993 (1125) We've been away for a whole month so I don't know if anyone is still interested or, for that matter, if someone has already answered the call (I haven't got through all the mail yet) , but when we go over to the NOED Centre this week, Harry and I will be glad to investigate 'trademark' and report. Are we looking for it in the etymology chiefly? cheers, Grace Logan Arts Computing Office Univ. of Waterloo From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0446 The Word "Moron" Date: Tue, 04 Sep 90 15:21 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 994 (1126) Dear Steve: Americans have hyped the language almost from the time of the Revolution, if not before. The love of hyperbolic rhetoric is a popular thing that has lingered on. Now with tv, you get morons using big words too they dont even know the meaning of, let alone little words. Hype is selling the hicks and rubes the virtues of snake oil and bear grease. Our humorous literature is all made of hype, or hyperbole, and it was once used for humor. Now it is simply inflated. And you cannot get a laugh or make a sale unless it zooms right off the scre en at them. Understatement for humor, a lost art, or never an art, not since Thoreau or Emerson. With Whitman and Twain, it goes for the grandiose, partly humorous, partly serious. Kessler From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0453 Trademarks and other Words (7/120) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 08:26:31 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 995 (1127) For the delectation of non-American subscribers, in the US bugger is a noun, referring to a discrete unit of snot, as in 'a bugger' (rhymes with sugar). From: KROVETZ@cs.umass.EDU Subject: Trademarks Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 996 (1128) I just checked the machine-readable version of the Longman dictionary, and there are 81 trademarks listed as entries. Among them are: KLEENEX HOOVER COCA-COLA (also COKE) BAND-AID BEETLE (note ambiguity) FORMICA FRISBEE WEDGEWOOD XEROX THERMOS VASELINE TEFLON Manufacturers fight like hell to make sure that these don't enter the public domain. Coca-Cola is the most litigated name there is; they sued a number of restaurants when they went in and asked for a `coke' and were given some other brand. Does anyone have any examples of overlap between product names and common words? The only ones I found in the Longman list were - BEETLE, COKE, and COLT (a gun and a horse). On another note, does anyone have examples of ambiguity arising from dialect differences? For example, I think the word `billion' in British English means the same thing as `trillion' in American English. As another example, I came across the following anecdote: A British family moves to the United States, and the mother brings her child to school to meet the teacher. The child asks the teacher `Do I need to bring a rubber?'. The teacher is taken aback, and the mother tells the child: "Dear, in America they're called `erasers'". Cheers, Bob From: John Dorenkamp <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: trademarks Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 997 (1129) It was not that many years ago (sub specie aeternitatis) that Esso changed its name to Exxon after a purportedly computer search for a name with no etymology (like Kodak), a name that had no overtones and could be used worldwide. I had at the time an Esso/Exxon credit card (this was before oil spills) and finally learned to write the double x when making out checks. Why is it, then, that when I travel to Europe (admittedly not often) and the Caribbean, I never see an Exxon station--only Esso? John Dorenkamp From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0452 Morphological Analysis of Ancient Greek Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 09:30:46 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 998 (1130) I am aware of two sets of PC programs that might be relevant to the problem of producing a morphological analysis of Ancient Greek forms. 1. The Summer Institute of Linguistics sells (cheaply) two programs which can memorize analyses of forms and insert interlinear glosses under forms in text or under their analyzed breakdown. Both programs allow alternative analyses and work interactively. The programs are IT (c. $60) and Shoebox (c. $15). IT is a system for producing texts with aligned interlinear glosses. Shoebox is a dictionary/cultural notes database system that has a glossing function built into it. IT's glossing facilities are more elaborate, but it lacks the database component. 2. SIL also sells (cheaply) several programs that do rule-based analysis of morphological forms. These include PC-KIMMO and Ample. For information on SIL software contact: International Academic Bookstore Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 West Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 214-709-2404. Some specialized in-house materials are distributed by a subsidiary of SIL, JAARS: JAARS PO Box 248 Waxhaw, NC 28173 Issue 9.5 (August 1990) of their newsletter Notes on Computing contains an extensive list of these. From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL> Subject: RE: 4.0429 Citation Indexes Date: Tue, 4 Sep 1990 9:10:34 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 999 (1131) I use citation indexes quite a lot, and find them useful mainly for keeping up with known authors (what did so-and-so write lately that I may have missed?) or finding new authors with related interests (who does so-and-so quote and who cites him? -- I meant "cite" not "quote" of course. Darn these mail editors! >-: -- I suppose someone will also catch the "him" instead of "him/her" or whatever, but I'm fed up with these word-deep games of equality so will make no apology for that one). I find citation indexes (to get back to the point) less useful for subject searches. Either the term is too wide and I'm deluged with hundreds of articles, or if it's narrow enough to be useful, the chances of its having been used in the title are not great. Probably the sciences have less problems with that. A friend recently concocted the title of his latest book by choosing all the keywords he wanted to appear for computer retrieval purposes and combining them (or to be exact, throwing them at me with a request to make grammatical English out of them) with, I think, very satisfactory results; but how many of us do that? The problem of course is that citation indexes use only words from the title, as versus computer searches (Dialog etc.) which scan also the abstract. Judy Koren From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0449 Handwriting Technology (3/39) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 08:37:05 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1000 (1132) In response to the last three messages on this topic, (1) I was originally suggesting discussion on the use of a pen to enter real text into a computer, not just static bitmaps like MacPaint files. (2) There is a difference again between the entering of text and the analysis of previously written text (on paper). Certainly OCR with handwritten characters would be nice, but it wouldn't save many of us much time. For those that work with hand written manuscripts, though, it might be a godsend. (3) In reponse to the last article about the one-handed keyboard, yes, there have been (and are still, though I don't know the details) five-key keyboards that use a chording system to enter all the characters. The reports I've heard indicate that they take some getting used to, but once you are proficient, you can use a chord keyboard much faster than a normal one. cheers ... Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu From: L. Houwen <houwen@gufalet.let.rug.nl> Subject: Announcement Reynard Conference Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 10:26:16 METDST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1001 (1133) The 9th International Colloquium Beast Epic, Fable and Fabliau, organized by the International Reynard Society will be held at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) from Monday to Friday, 22-26 July 1991. Contributions will be welcome on all areas of beast epic, fable and fabliau, as well as on the associated areas of art history, and moral, satirical and comic literature. A selection of texts will be published in "Reinardus. Yearbook of the International Reynard Society". For further information on the Colloquium please contact: Willem Noomen Faculteit der Letteren Vakgroep Mediaevistiek Postbus 716 NL - 9700 AS Groningen The Netherlands From: John Price-Wilkin <USERGC8Z@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Query: Searching by Phonetics Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:07:16 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1002 (1134) This message was forwarded to me. I though the group might be able to help. Please reply directly to the sender. John Price-Wilkin [deleted quotation] From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: Fun with words Date: Wednesday, 5 September 1990 2358-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1003 (1135) Thanks to our editors for putting together such nice and variegated packages of HUMANIST comments on words. Since the subject is, at least to me (and obviously to some of you), quite addictive, please forgive the following tidbits (as we would say in Connecticut -- my Webster's [1951] says "tidbit" is "U.S." for a "titbit" -- it then unhelpfully defines "titbit" as "...a choice morsel; a tidbit" and refers to the first definition of "tit," to whit, "a small inferior horse; a nag; jade" -- which frankly leaves me feeling lost!): On creating a word for loan-words-not-known-at-home (where they originated), how about loanonownahome words? It has a ring to it. On Anna/Anne Frank, in my experience she is "best known" as Anne, not as Anna. Have I missed something? On Grace Logan's catch-up query, yes, the question was how often an etymology is explained as a frozen trademark (and thanks to Bob Krovetz for the Longman dictionary data). On US use of "bugger" (etc.), I think that uses such as "look at the little bugger go" (about a skittery tadpole, for example) is probably historically derived from the derogative "British" use rather than from our slang about nasal clots -- and indeed, the latter is probably/possibly derived from bug (a bug in my nose)? Colonial America also had its semantic breadth regarding this term, as the following item from the Sept 1990 YANKEE Magazine, in an article on "The History of Sex in New England" shows: "1642 A man is 'found in buggery' with a cow on the Lord's Day in Salem, Massachusetts, and is promptly put to death. So is the cow." (Was the problem the timing?!) Compare the wide range of meaning for "sodomy" in more recent American law and speech. On million/billion, etc., that really is screwed up between what my Webster's calls the "French and US system" as over against the "British and German." Did you know that in the former, a vigintillion has only 63 zeros, but in the latter, 120! Who to blame? Probably those old Latins, for whom a thousand was a "mille" -- maybe we can't even hope for this to be cleared up in the millenium! On ambiguity between American and British English, I once developed a talk on such things as a reflection of my two years of teaching at Manchester, as I recall, some key examples of the same "word" with quite different meanings were: biscuit, caravan, napkin, squash, yard -- and many more. Look 'em up; check 'em out. Also frustrating were equivalent sounding phrases with quite different meanings, such as when my wife was asked by the hotel clerk when she wanted to be "knocked up" in the morning, or the startled and quizzical look on my face when I telephoned (uh, I mean "phoned up") someone and was asked "are you on the phone?" (what did he think! -- but the question meant, do I have a telephone in my home). Etc. Enough. Who started all this, anyhow? Ian Lambert, I think! Bob Kraft, U. Penn (and fascinated by words) From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@UCBCMSA> Subject: 4.0455 Trademarks and Loanwords Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 15:46 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1004 (1136) On interdialectcal confusion: The Talmud has an anecdote based on the fact that in Palestinian Aramaic a word which means pumpkin, means candle in Babylonian Aramaic. It seems that a Babyloniam woman married a Palestinian man (Imay have the whole thhing backwards), and when he asked for a pumpkin, she brought him a candle, and the mcp divorced her. From: Kjetil T. Homme <kjetilho@ifi.uio.no> Subject: Trademarks Date: Thu, 6 Sep 1990 02:55:14 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1005 (1137) Leafing through our electronic Webster (7th ed.), I found 121 trademarks. Among a lot of chemical substances there were some commonly used words, e.g.: Bakelite, Burberry, Caterpillar, Celluloid, Dictaphone, Dry Ice, Freon, Gramophone, Mah-Jongg, Photostat, Ping-Pong, Polaroid, Teletype, Windbreaker and Yo-Yo. The only trademark I found that could lead to any ambiguity, was Caterpillar(tm)... Neither Colt nor Coke was listed in my dictionary as trademarks. Let's hope this passes Coca-Cola Company(tm) by ;-) Kjetil T. Homme, University of Oslo, Norway. From: John Bradley <BRADLEY@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: TACT Distribution Date: Thu, 06 Sep 90 09:24:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1006 (1138) In a recent Humanist note John Koontz mentioned TACT, but didn't have the distribution address handy. Please allow me (as TACT developer) to contribute it. TACT is a shareware program for MS/PC-DOS (vers. 1.2) that assists textual analysis by retrieving segments of text according to specified word forms and by displaying the results in graphs, lists and tables. Lidio Presutti and I are the developers (at University of Toronto) -- my electronic mail address is (presumably) listed above. Copies of TACT are available from: TACT Distribution, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, Robarts Library, Room 14297A, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1A5, Canada. Attn: Elke Rudman. You can also reach Elke electronically at CCH@UTOREPAS.BITNET. Distribution is at at cost: $30 Can or $25 US. Non-commercial users are welcome to distribute copies of the program freely and without permission from the developers. I'd be glad to answer questions about TACT. ... John Bradley From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0454 Contents of Humanists' Toolbox Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 21:33:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1007 (1139) Guy Percival (and others) have mentioned "media damage" several times in the past few months. Assuming what is meant is something other than errant erasures of files, a product called Spinrite II should be added to the list of tools in the box. Spinrite II does a low level, NONDESTRUCTIVE format of any disk (except those manufactured by Plus Development). It can be obtained from Gibson Research Corporation, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 (USA). Spinrite prevents the development of "bad sectors" that were once good (caused by alterations in head alignment during use) by reformatting the disk and placing existing data squarely under the head. It retails for less than $100.00 Frank Dane From: "Jouko Lindstedt, University of Helsinki" <LINDSTEDT@cc.Helsinki.FI> Subject: Humanist Discussion Group: Ancient Greek Date: Thu, 6 Sep 90 10:04 EET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1008 (1140) Since PC-KIMMO was mentioned as one possibility of doing rule-based morphological analysis of Ancient Greek word-forms, I would like to add that Martti Nyman from Helsinki has designed a set of so-called two-level rules for Ancient Greek that can be used with PC-KIMMO. His e-mail addresses: MANYMAN@cc.Helsinki.FI, MANYMAN@FINUH.BITNET. --- Jouko Lindstedt, University of Helsinki From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Morphology Date: 06 Sep 90 13:58:28 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1009 (1141) There are at least two systems for morphological tagging. One was created by David Packard and recently revised at the University of Manchester (UK) by G.C.Neal. One of the versions I have even offers alternative tagging with an option to add your own tag if you wish. Contact person: Gordon Neal (Dept. of Greek and Latin, Manchester Univ.) mffgkgn@uk.ac.Manchester-Computing-Centre.CMS but you need to reverse the domains after @ if mailing from USA David Mealand (Edinburgh) From: Michael Hancher <MH@UMNACVX.BITNET> Subject: handwriting technology Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 22:30 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1010 (1142) Since 1987 there has been a professional society devoted to the interface between handwriting and computers: the International Graphonomics Society (Society for the Science and Technology of Handwriting and Other Graphic Skills). Information about the society can be had from the president, Arnold Thomassen, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands (THOMASSE@HNYKUN53.BITNET). Recent publications include: _Graphonomics: Contemporary Research in Handwriting_. Advances in Psychology 37. Ed. Henry S. R. Kao, Gerard P. Van Galen, and Rumjahn Hoosain. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1986. _Computer Recognition and Human Production of Handwriting (Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Handwriting and Computer Applications, Montreal, 20-23 July 1987)_. Ed. Rejean Plamondon, Ching Y. Suen, and Marvin L. Simner. Singapore: World Scientific, 1989. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0440 Nature of Computers Date: Fri, 31 Aug 90 08:45:01 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1011 (1143) I am sorry if my description of the IBM 1620 was confusing. I thought I had made it clear that it used 4-tuples or 5-tuples - I don't remember which - of bits to represent decimal digits. (The extra states beyond ten had special functions.) In other words, it did not use special ten-state devices; it used collections of two-state devices. The basic addressable unit was the digit (call it a 4 or 5 bit word, if you like). Numbers were represented by marking the high order digit with a special code called a flag. The number extended from the addressed digit to the flagged digit. The manuals contained sections explaining the underlying binary basis of the system, but assembly and machine level programming were at the decimal digit level. There was no way to manipulate the bits directly. Machine language commands consisted of a two digit number followed by two fixed length fields of digits representing addresses or constants. Addition and subtraction, etc., were performed in memory - there were no user accessible registers for arithmetic. I doubt there are any functional 1620s anywhere today, but the manuals are still available. I may have some buried somewhere. In its time the 1620 was a very important machine. From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0415 Computer Names Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 15:14:00 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1012 (1144) Well, the names the manufacturers put on them may have diminished in quality, but the names the users label them are just the opposite. If you need examples . . . . Michael S. Hart PS For those who don't know what I am talking about, look at the names in the relay systems shown in the headers. I receive from at least several of the seven dwarfs, have worked on repairing Darth Vader, and the time it takes for a name to appear (such as Sugarbombs in Calvin) on a computer is sometimes apparently less than a femtosecond.)(btw - I finally tracked down the names for information larger than megabytes and gigabytes and terabytes - who else knows what lies between them and the large sized whamtobytes?) From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM> Subject: Educated misspellings Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 06:23 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1013 (1145) Since we're discussing both trademarks and US/UK differences, here is another item of wordplay I've found interesting over the years. There are a number of English misspellings that seem to depend on a bit of education. I would nominate 'supercede' as such a case ('supersede' looking ignorant to some eyes). From within my own field, there's the work by Aristotle allegedly entitled 'Nichomachean Ethics' (or even 'Nichomacean Ethics'): I've actually seen the former spelling in scholarly articles and books ('Nicomachean' is correct). A few of these seem to have long ago crept into English. 'Author' (rather than the older 'autor') is usually explained as a scribal error based on the false belief that the word has a Greek ancestry and that Greek-derived words probably have lots of thetas and chis in them (cf. the bizarre variation in medieval Latin mss. of versions of 'metaphysics': 'methapysics,' 'methaphysics,' etc.). So, is there a recognized name for this sort of thing? And do others have favorite examples? Two comments on other notes. About citation indexes: since *Arts and Hum. CI* gives exact citations, it's occasionally useful for locating articles which discuss a particular passage in a classical author (look up, e.g. Aristotle, De Anima III.5). And about another subject: in my experience, the American word 'booger' is so spelled. From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Re: 4.0458 More Words and Trademarks (3/84) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 08:53:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1014 (1146) Doing a search for "trademark" in the definitions of the American Heritage Dictionary I get 160 entries, from adrenalin (that's adrenaline without the e) to zip code. Does someone actually want the list? From: John D. Hopkins <HOPKINS@FINFUN> Subject: File Available of SAE/SBE "Ambiguities" Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 16:33 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1015 (1147) In continuation to Bob Kraft's examples of 05 September on "ambiguities" between American and British English, I could offer a nine-page (A-4) single-spaced Email file of such examples to anyone who lets me know they would like it -- I'd also welcome comments on and additions to it. This is a handout in a course on "Introduction to American English" for professional translation students, who must be able to distinguish between SAE and SBE variations. Further, two entertaining published collections on the subject are BRIT-THINK, AMERI-THINK: A TRANSATLANTIC SURVIVAL GUIDE (Walmsley, Penguin Books), and WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? (Moss, Hutchinson of London Press). John D. Hopkins (Hopkins@FINFUN.Bitnet; Hopkins@CSC.FI) University of Tampere, Finland From: "Lorraine Olley, Preservation, 855-6281" <OLLEY@IUBACS> Subject: RE: 4.0444 Trademarks Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 08:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1016 (1148) Of course, the generic name for a Coke or Pepsi or RC is "cola." Since this discussion started, I have been waiting for the story about Coca-Cola reps visiting restaurants to make sure that a coke is a Coke to surface. Does anyone know, do they really do this, or is this another bit of modern folklore? Lorraine Olley Indiana University Libraries From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: pointless word game for Humanists Date: 7 September 90, 13:46:50 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1017 (1149) I ran a memo through the spell checker in Word Perfect 5.1 and for the last name of 'Tillema' it came up with the following suggestions: 'ptolemy', 'thalami', and 'tyloma'. I wonder what interesting ideas it would come up with for other unusual family names? Unfortunately, given my name, I can't join in the fun to find out. Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0458 More Words and Trademarks (3/84) Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 12:33 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1018 (1150) In 1952, walking about an empty Rome, a vacant Colosseo, we met up with an English couple, the man about 6'6", moustached, ex-officer, etc. Simple chap. He prevented me from buying a good waterman from an urchin, saying they were all fakes. It was blazing hot, not a car anywhere. I offered him a candy, that is a hard sourball that one sucks on, lemon or cherry. He was grateful, and I heard him suddenly crunching it to bits with his apparently good molars! I said, astonished, You are supposed to suck on these. He replied all innocently, Oh, you said it was candy. We chew candy. We suck sweets. I laughed, because we dont use the word sweets in the US. It is all candy, and anyone with a bit of pragmatism or empiricism would not bite down on a crystal! What words can do to activate reflexes! But no, he was being so very polite. So English. It was charming. But I have never forgiven him for interdicting my purchase of a real, good Waterman's fountain pen! He also said he was a Liberal in politics, and didnt suppose I knew what that meant, as it was a party that was vanishing, and had but about 8% of the vote. I told him I knew, I knew: not for nothing was I doing a PhUD in the Georgian Period...not that he had read Brooke, Woolf, Forster, et al. Good chap, though. Kessler From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0458 More Words and Trademarks Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 15:03:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1019 (1151) It would appear all our transatlantic folk have forgotten the British term "Bally table" as the generic term for pin-ball machine. Or perhaps you were, like myself, banned by your parents from such things. Michael S. Hart (Who once held three records on the pins as an adult) PS For those who don't know, Bally was the manufacturer of "long flipper" games, versus Got(t)leib, who made the earlier (and harder) short flippers. From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Personal Computers for Faculty Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 10:36:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 462 (1152) The recent posting by Vicky Walsh of the humanities computing services lists as its top item that each faculty member should be provided with a personal computer. Recently I encountered a second-hand story about a prominent faculty member in our history department making some (suprising?) comments about computer use in the humanities at what was predominantly an administrative meeting. He reportedly stated that universities, such as Stanford, that have routinely provided computers to every faculty member have seen no benefit in the overall quality of the work being produced in their humanities departments (he claimed knowledge of the history research in particular) and therefore there was no attached increase in prestige forthcoming to these departments. He either then stated or implied that the availability of computing resources was not a factor in attracting high caliber faculty members. Our administration provides funds by heavily weighting these types of issues: prestige, attracting prominent faculty, etc... To hear from a respected faculty member (who by the way *does* use computers) that computers play no role in improving the quality of research does not bolster efforts to have the administrators see the computer as tool now necessary to doing scholarly research. The cost burden is, for the most part, left on part, left on the shoulders of individual faculty members with not even a tax advantage offered. Are faculty members content to purchase their own computers? Is there evidence that quality of work and hence departmental/school prestige has been enhanced because of availability of computers in humanities departments? How about quantity of work? What about research that couldn't be performed without a computer--has it added to the value of its discipline? It seems to me that the computer has indeed become an essential tool to nearly every humanist and should therefore be provided by the university. --Jan Eveleth Humanities Computing Yale University From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: encoding standards for hypertext? Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1020 (1153) Two colleagues and I are developing Macintosh software for scholarly note-taking. It will surprise no one, I suspect, that we are using hypertextual techniques for connecting notes to each other. We are now at the point at which it would be useful to know what work has been done on standards for encoding hypertextual links. If there are any front-runners, we'd be inclined to choose one and follow it. If there are any cogent arguments for or against any scheme, we'd like to consider them. As always, forgive ignorance of the obvious, but please point it out! Willard McCarty From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Tustep software Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1021 (1154) I recall there was a discussion about Tustep, a program developed at Tuebingen, within the past year. Would someone who has the information readily available please forward to me the address and purchase information? We are interested in the MS-DOS version rather than the mainframe version. Thank you. Jan Eveleth Yale University From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum)(7) (1 lines) Subject: Re: 4.0459 Responses: TACT ... Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 15:32:05 EDT(6) (1 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1022 (1155) The recent posting on TACT from the developer inspires me to repeat a suggestion that may have been overlooked earlier. TACT is freely distributable, but the developers charge $25 or $30 for media and handling. Would it be possible to put a copy on the Humanist ListServ, so that subscribers could order the files electronically and save the media fee? Thanks, David J. Birnbaum From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1023 (1156) David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] From: "David S. Miall, Department of English" <DMIALL@UALTAVM> Subject: PCs for faculty Date: Sat, 8 Sep 90 14:00:32 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1024 (1157) This university [University of Alberta] runs what is called a Capital Recruitment Fund, which provides new faculty with some $5000-$6000 to spend on equipping their office. In Arts this has usually meant a computer. I've just acquired a new 386 with lots of megawham as a result, to the envy of a couple of colleagues who joined before the Fund was established. I wonder how many other universities are as enlightened as this? Regards, David Miall From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0462 PCs A Necessary Research Tool for Faculty? Date: Sat, 08 Sep 90 11:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1025 (1158) While making no fetish of the computer as an ancillary to one's work, whatever it may be, certainly it beats even the best of the electronic typewriters, which I replaced with a little Mac in 1984. That is, for paperwork and word shuffling. The Historian at Yale, who is quoted 2nd-hand, is saying something rather stupid, even to a non-historian. The matter is serious, and his remark is quite unserious. That is, has he thought about the rapid decline in the quality of historiography itself over the past two decades? Is he not making a judgment about Stanford, for which is NOT responsible, himself being at Yale, and the historians there? Is he not giving Administrators an opportunity to cut down further on faculty support? It is an invidious statement. If one walks about the Administration Building at UCLA, for example, the continual upgrading of everything in the offices of administrators is blatant, from furniture to CPU's, not to speak of secretarial help and painting and anything that goes to make life comfy. But--try to get a little MAC for the record keeping of the single most importan t Faculty Committee, the committee that selects the membership of all the other committees, and you cannot get an allocation of 2000$! When Governor Brown, that good Democrat was cutting the UC system to the bone, the Administration was getting new wall to wall carpeting in its offices. I saw it all, and remember it all, and am not blind to what is blatant. For Faculty in the Humanities at UCLA, one had to wait 3-5 years to get a word processor, because the machines were available only as gifts! from IBM and Apple.... If you look at the quality of the books being published by most university presses, you will also see that they are not measurable improved by any standards, whether or not they were produced with processors, and who knows about that? The catalogues and the books are really mostly amusing and a bit shocking. That historian was talking about his discipline, not computers. If he was saying, They wont improve with or without computers to help, he was saying something different than, say, You wont make better history out of poor historians, which I take it to mean is a self-criticism of his own students too. Perhaps he was getting after Cliometricians? At any rate, it was a foolish, irresponsible thing to have said to anyone, especially to Administration, if he did say it. Kessler at UCLA From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0462 PCs A Necessary Research Tool for Faculty? Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 15:45 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1026 (1159) I can only speak for UCLA and then only for those cases I know about, but... many faculty who are being recruited ask if a computer will be available to them and insist upon one if they can. Other faculty are VERY reluctant to spend their own money on computers and are thrilled when we give them one. I have seem some projects go to publication that would still be on 3x5 cards if not for computers and some people who have gone from word processing to sophisticated computing because they were given one for their office. Not all move so quickly, of course, and I haven't done a formal study but we have been very pleased with the results we've seen here. It is hard to judge the overall contribution of computers to prestige etc. but if it helps recruit the best then it will contribute to the overall advancement of the dept. Vicky Walsh, UCLA Humanities Computing From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0462 PCs A Necessary Research Tool for Faculty? Date: Sun, 09 Sep 90 22:37:18 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1027 (1160) Jan Eveleth wonders if computers really do improve the quality of research, then goes on to assert that computers are really essential in a modern university. I believe the answer is no to the first and yes to the second. A number of professors have told me that they are able to produce MORE, but none have said they can produce better research because of their computer. Many of the scientists do say that certain types of projects simply would not have happened without personal computers, but this really only means that other types would have happened in their stead. Still, PCs are essential. I recall hearing a news story two or three years ago about automated services in the banking industry. The reporter talked to a number of large banks about the huge capital investments they were making in computerizing their banking services. The question was, did these services improve the bank's competetive edge? The answer was invariably, no. The reporter asked why the bank would sink so much money into a technology that did not bring increased profits. The answer was the same at each bank: the investment was not to improve but to preserve their edge. Universities must continue to provide computing services to their faculty simply because it has become a necessary tool and an expected tool. If a university stops this kind of funding it will lose faculty, plain and simple. And I do believe that the PCs will make a qualitative difference. I believe they will make a difference out here in the tertiary schools with few on-site resources. As our faculty get connected, and as libraries and archives become digitized, being located at Yale (to pick a school at random <g>) will become less important than once it was. PCs may not improve YOUR quality, but they will improve OURS. And the entire scholarly community will benefit. AND it will be the humanities that benefit more strikingly than the sciences. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Software toolbox Date: Sun, 09 Sep 90 10:44:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1028 (1161) For Jeff Bowyer's request on "tools" in a Humanist's toolbox, my toolkit is heavy with utilities for handling communications and email in a PC environment. There is little that is unique to humanities. Most are shareware or freeware and most are available from Simtel20. The toolbox includes: DR and DIRNOTES, freeware from PCMagazine. DR is an excellent replacement for DOS' DIR; DIRNOTES allows you to add a note to a file name; HISTORY, shareware, allows editing and recall of DOS commands; SHEZ, shareware shell for using, unpacking and viewing files compressed with ZIP, ARC, etc.; TEXTOUT/5, shareware, for converting WordPerfect files into ASCII; much better than the WP conversion; EXPLOSIV, shareware, a screen "blanker" that clears the screen after a set time and a fireworks-like display starts; I like it because it reminds you the monitor is on; P Super Print Utility, shareware, prints ASCII files with a simple "p filename" command; can be configured to your needs; PMCAT, shareware, disk cataloger; Gofer, commercial program, excellent for text search and retrieval. For communications programs, I use Boyan, Procomm Plus, Kermit, and sometimes Crosstalk. Some or all of Norton Utilities, Mace Utilities, or PCTools are also running. Actually, several of the individual programs can be replaced with one of these, but, for me, it seems a waste of time to install and learn a continuous series of new programs when the old ones do what I want. Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU> Subject: Hypertext Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 19:59:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1029 (1162) In response to Willard McCarty's query about standards for hypertext...I am not that familiar with what is out there on the market. But I recently reviewed the CDWord Library package, a Bible research tool on CD-ROM running under Windows. The cross referencing runs smoothly. They seem to have worked out many of the issues of hypertext linkage. I suggest you take a look at that work and see if it fills your needs. Perhaps the developers would be willing to point you in the right direction. It is never worthwhile to completely re-invent the wheel. BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN From: Ephraim Nissan <ONOMATA@BENGUS> Subject: 4.0458 More Words and Trademarks Date: Sun, 9 Sep 90 14:47:44-020 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1030 (1163) Concerning Boyarin's story, in Humanist 4.0458, on interdialectcal confusion, that caused a husband to divrce hios wife because she had brought him a candle instead of a pumpkin, I recall that in the 1960s, the was a song, in Italy, sung by the Sicilian comic actor Franco Franchi: "Non ci capiamo piu`" ("We no longer understand each other"). The husband, who is supposed to sing, complains because, for example, he asked his Northern wife to put "due sciuri" (Sicilian for "two flowers") near their bed, and, back from work, he found there "due signuri" (Sicilians for "two sirs"). Milanese for sirs is "sciuri". In Syrian Arabic, "basta" means "satisfaction". (Hence also Israeli Hebrew, from Arabic: "mabsut" = "satisfied".) In Iraqi Arabic, "basta" means "bastinado". (My family used to distinguish between the two senses by specifying: "the Syrian `basta'" vs. "the Iraqi `basta'".) And concluding, "basta" in Italian means "Enough!". (No perlocutionary act involved here...) Ephraim Nissan From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0461 Words: ... Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 20:33:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1031 (1164) re: Bill Ball's spellchecker--French Dune Frank Dane, Mercer University From: "Francis,Bill" <RISKS@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: Inquiry-machine readable dictionaries Date: Sun, 9 Sep 90 11:28:58 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1032 (1165) Perhaps this has been discussed -- would someone provide information about low-cost dictionaries usable by microcomputers? I am interested in the text more than the search and retrieval software. Thank you. From: "William R. Bowen" <BOWEN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: numerology and homosexuality Date: Sun, 09 Sep 90 11:00:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1033 (1166) Is there a tradition that links the number 16 with homosexuality? I am not aware of any such connection in classical numerology; however, I have been informed that one may be part of later traditions. Any help would be appreciated. From: Marshall Gilliland 306/966-5501 <GILLILAND@sask.usask.ca> Subject: Source of quotation sought (13 lines) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 90 18:44 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1034 (1167) Can you help me? I saw the quotation below a few years ago and refer to it often in classes, always with the note that I forgot to write down its author and the book where I found it. I DO want to know. George R. Stewart's fine novel that illustrates beautifully the sentiment in the quotation is not, I believe, the source. (The novel is EARTH ABIDES.) The quotation is "Imagine the art of reading lost--and with it writing, study, and verbal recovery--and it is hard to see how civilized man could survive the shocks and anxieties of his state, let along serve his multitudinous desires." Thanks for all help! Please send the source to Marshall Gilliland GILLILAND@SASK.USASK.CA. From: Ken Tompkins <ktompkin@pilot.njin.net> Subject: Computer Naming Date: Sat, 8 Sep 90 19:28:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1035 (1168) Recently someone posted a note about computer names and I remembered that there is a recent RFC (Request For Comments) by Sol Libes on exactly that topic. I have a copy; it is an informal document on the various conventions of naming computers and what not to do if you are in the process of choosing a name. Some readers of Humanist might like to see this text (I'm constantly surprised at what Humanists like to read and discuss) but it's a bit long -- 18K -- for submission to you. Is there any other way it might be distributed to anyone interested? Listserv? Ftp? I could mail it from here anyone wants it, also. Ken Tompkins Stockton State College From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: Lehigh Low Date: Sun, 09 Sep 90 11:59:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 468 (1169) I read in the papers today (New York Times, 9 September 1990) that Lehigh University has abolished the language requirement. Truth to tell, I read only the headline, feeling little need for the details. At my age, I have encountered the details many times already, and they seldom offer the interest of novelty. My purpose is to invite comments on the following observation. The abolitionists at Lehigh doubtless number among their arguments the fact, and it is a fact, that few students of "French" ever learn to speak French. Better, they doubtless think, let them spend their time on something they really need--English. Here is the rebuttal that can almost never be inserted into the minds of such reasoners: studying "French" is a splendid way of learning English. Those confined to English cannot see it. They know it as they know the inner recesses of their consciousness--instinctively, but not as a thing to be spoken of. The only way to know English with that form of knowledge that allows one to control it is to know also at least one thing that is NOT English. "French" will do, though its difference from English is too slight to be of much help. Tagalog is better. Japanese is nice. Clarence Brown, Comparative Literature, Princeton. CB@PUCC From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0468 The Importance of Learning Languages Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 11:24:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1036 (1170) To second my colleague Clarence Brown I can report that, having endured a (consciously) Rousseauist primary school from which I issued at age thirteen literally not knowing what a noun or a verb was (the school did not only forbid the teaching of foreign languages, but insisted on teaching people their own language non-analytically), I went to a first- rate secondary school. The first thing I did was flunk, in my first marking period, English, French, and Latin. I finally caught on to what grammar meant from Latin, and from then on began to learn languages. Princeton came close to abolishing the language requirement in the heady sixties. Some of us helped it hold on and through that period (I think only Dartmouth and Princeton, among the "Ivies," did so). As unpleasant as such requirements are for all concerned, to think of removing them is not a responsible act. The recent burgeoning of Latin in some inner-city schools might be a clue to people in charge of curricula: it is one of the best and most accessible ways to teach people LANGUAGE (Greek, Russian, etc. will do just as well, but are too difficult). Latin is the perfect combination of foreign and familiar. We hear so much talk about "empower- ment" these days, mainly from people who want to make curricula more politically conscious and, as far as I can see, less difficult. Being in command of one's own language is the most "empowering" thing we, as teachers, can help our students achieve. Clarence Brown, by the way, is teaching a course for our majors in Comparative Literature on... how to write. Bless his heart. From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: language abolitionist at Lehigh Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 09:45 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1037 (1171) I completely agree with Clarence Brown. Let me add one more comment. There are very many people in the world and lots of them are intelligent. Many of these intelligent people are having good and important ideas and are not publishing them in English. It takes a good deal of chutzpa to say that Lehigh engineers (or arts students, for that matter) don't need to know what anybody else in the world is thinking if it hasn't been translated into English. I remember reading some years ago in the New York Times that some Russian graduate student at an institute in Siberia solved an imprortant mathematical problem (with practical implications for cryptanalysis) called something like "the travelling salesman" problem, and that American mathematicians remained ignorant of this for some time because so few of them could read Russian journals (I believe the journal in question is not one that is routinely translated). The fact that it takes many years for a student to learn to speak a foreign language well is not an argument for not learing it at all or for not learning to read it. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0468 The Importance of Learning Languages Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 10:38:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1038 (1172) I'd agree that foreign languages are an excellent way to improve one's English abilities. Perhaps the best course I took at Cornell was Matt Neuburg's Greek Composition course, which is one of those subjects that undergraduates often remember with dread after the fact. Instead, I remember fondly having huge arguments about whether or not the imperfect was more appropriate than the aorist in such-and-such sentence. Both were possible, but you had to really delve into the meaning of the English sentence before you could decide on the best possible method translating into Greek. What made the task even more enjoyable is that Greek is a verb-based language, whereas English is a noun-based language (forgive my ignorance if I'm overgeneralizing). Occassionally one came across a sentence in English that could be rendered into Greek with only several perfectly chosen words. Such an elegant language, lack of word order and all! cheers...Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: learning languages Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 21:45:16 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1039 (1173) Clarence Brown notes that learning languages other than English helps one's English. Good point. Latin certainly did that for me, as it was my first foreign language and was presented in a highly systematic way. The real point against the philistines' abolition of "useless" or at least not actively used languages is quite different, however. In a world in which gaining wealth and importance has nothing at all to do with learning, much less wisdom, we cannot argue successfully for a subject based on its discernible utility. We accept that basis for the argument and we are lost. It has always struck me that what one gets from studying a language, even a difficult one such as Greek, is so out of proportion to the effort that there should be no question of why. But I guess if you're numb, the most loving caress is meaningless. Is there a link here to the question of whether computers make scholars better at their craft, or at least better at turning things out? Shouldn't there be more attention paid to how use of the machine changes the nature of what we do, as has been suggested? Its application as a communications device would then receive much more attention, and perhaps respect, than it has. But we'd have to give due place to the role of play in learning. Computers are so much fun, esp. as a rhetorical tool. Willard McCarty From: Charles Elliott <CEE@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0468 The Importance of Learning Languages Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 07:01:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1040 (1174) One can only chortle with joy at Brown's splendid spoof of the ancient and misguided notion that somehow learning a foreign tongue can improve one's grasp of English. This, of course, arose from the fact that learning a language called for learning the metalanguage of grammar - once you know what a noun is - you know it for all languages. Unfortunately, language learning is dreadfully conserv ative, and the theory of grammar used in language instruction has for years bee n medieval, out of date, and just wrong. Hate to be so dull about this, especially after Brown's delicate spoof ! Charles Elliott CIT Cornell Univ (standard disclaimer....views are my own and don't represent CIT CU or the DMLL ) From: Ruth Hanschka <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re:Lehigh Low Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 21:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1041 (1175) It's true that most students need help with their English; read some Freshman English papers if you don't believe me. On the other hand, dumping the language requirement is a lousy way to go. Learning part of a second [or third] language can teach you about your own. The things you learn in language classes may very well tell you things about your own that you never knew before.[All of the things that Mother never taught you...:-) ] For me the best example is verb tenses. If my grammar school teachers ever taught me the names for all of the verb tenses, it must have been a long time ago. I do not remember the names for most of them in English. But I do know them in French. One of these days I'll have to learn them in English.:-) Ruth From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0468 The Importance of Learning Languages Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 16:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1042 (1176) Dear Clarence Brown, and interested et alia, Your argument is one that is all too familiar, and I, though not Emeritus yet, sympathize with it, as translator and writer. However, as you must realize all too well yourself, one cannot meet those arguments, those barbaric reasons, on the grounds upon which THEY set them out. I think myself that they always act in bad faith, la mauvaise foi, if I got it right this time, and that they are really talking about a struggle for budget controls. I saw how over 25 years our Romance Language Departments were shoved towards ruination at UCLA, partly because they themselves couldnt get their act together (being often embroiled in internecine personal quarrels), partly because the students are not serious and marched and picketed and petitioned, and partly because the bad faith of the Administrators took advantage to scoop up the vacated dollars and FTE. What was really wrong was that the secondary schools dropped the misery of their 3 years' first, or 2 years, and then it became a question whether 2 years in College did anything by way of getting some footing, some little bit of another language. Instead, they should have made a chosen language a 3-4 requirement of all Liberal Arts Majors, history included, chosen that is by each student, whether Chinese or Persian or Italian, etc, as a principle of education. Leaving it at 2 years was the limpest solution, and so it went largely by the board, with any number of substitutions of mickey cour ses to satisfy breadth requirements, including militant ethology of this that and the other, so that the rankbreathing camel of sociology and anthropolgy got its head into the Humanities too, to dilute and destroy any SUBJECT matter, even the grammar of French or Spanish, until it was an option, and when there are such options Gresham makes his gloomy forecast true for other than coinage. Yrs, Jascha Kessler at UCLA From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: PCs for Faculty Date: 10 Sep 90 21:52:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1043 (1177) Jim O'Donnell encouraged me to send this in, and, against my better judgment, here goes. There used to be a saying in the early days of computing (the time of the punch cards) in the form of the acronym GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out). Now, with a computer on many faculty desks, we have a new acronym (thanks to Jim for his help): GILO: Garbage In, Landfill Out. Jim Halporn (Indiana U) From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: computers for faculty Date: 10 Sep 90 21:37:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1044 (1178) Quantity and speed may be enhanced: marginal, though not negligible goods. The important category is this: as computer-accessible information increases, there will be more and more kinds of ignorance that are indefensible. For a student of Greek literature to say something authoritative a generation ago about the meaning of a word meant one thing; to say it now absolutely flatly totally requires that the student have checked the word on the TLG corpus. Many nonsensical things still get said about Greek words by TLG users; but to fail to consult TLG and still to deliver your opinion is stupidly irresponsible (and your article should be rejected for publication). In that precise sense, the machines are increasingly necessary. Jim O'Donnell Classics, U. of Penn. From: John Rakestraw <JRAKESTR@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0464 Computers for Faculty Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 20:12:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1045 (1179) Ours is a small college--about 40 full-time teaching faculty and about 400 full-time students. Two years ago we initiated a program we call Computer Focus. We began by providing each faculty member with a computer and printer, and the next year started providing a similar set-up to each entering full-time first-year student. We just provided computers to our second class; two years from now the entire student body will be equipped. Of course, a cynic might say that it's merely a gimmick because students are paying for their computers. It's true that they're paying for them. However, in the last two years we've begun a transformation from a campus on which PCs were hardly evident to a campus on which students and faculty are finding it difficult to remember how we survived without them. Moreover, there are a couple of rather less obvious reasons for doing it this way: first, we're all standardized on the same WP and the same spreadsheet, since we provide one of each with each machine. Second, the college has said to students (and to faculty) that these machines are changing the way we live and do our work, and the better we understand them, the more likely we are to direct at least some of those changes. We're attempting to assess the changes this program makes to our campus as we go along. One rather interesting thing that's already emerged relates to our identity as a women's college. There's some indication that a computer culture is emerging in the dorms, and at least some of the literature on women and technology (computers in particular) leads us to be pleasantly surprised about that. Will it make us better teachers? We think so. To mention only one example, I allow students to turn in "papers" on diskette, and I find it easy to make more sustained comments on them in that form. This is perhaps more than enough comment on our particular situation. If anyone wants to discuss it more fully I'd be happy to respond to direct postings. John Rakestraw Philosophy and Religious Studies Wesleyan College, Macon, GA jrakestr@uga From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@UCBCMSA> Subject: 4.0464 Computers for Faculty Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 17:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1046 (1180) I find it hard to imagine that anyone cannot conceive of computers improving the quliaty of research as well as the quantity. When I use my cd rom for instance to find me all of the places in the Talmud where a certain word occurs in combination with another certain word, there is no doubt in my mind that my research is improved vis-a-vis a hand search. From: Michael Kessler <Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu> Subject: 4.0464 Computers for Faculty Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 16:35:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1047 (1181) I do have a question: I recognize that often we are playing with percentages, i.e. give enough people computers, and some will use them; but when do we decide that the result is not worth the cost? Altogether too many computers are sitting in departmental offices and faculty offices as decorative pieces. I have heard reliably the following story: a faculty member requested a computer and printer, which were duly delivered. Unfortunately the technician misplaced the power cord and forgot in which office he had installed the computer (he was installing quite a few). He figured that it would not be a problem, since the person would come by and request a cord. Six weeks later he was still waiting for the request. Costs continued: Being neither faculty nor administration, I can speak to this issue a little differently. I believe that in this day and age of budget deficits, cutbacks and looming recession, overlooking fat--be it in plush administrative offices or in granted underused hardware-- means less money elsewhere. This may mean less support personnel or smaller salary raises. Why do faculty consider learning something new in public demeaning if they expect their students to do it? Why would a professor request a Laserwriter of his personal office when there is one available across the hall for all faculty (and is underutilized)? I am far more appreciative of the faculty member who makes "do" with a public machine until his increased knowledge requires the space of his office (for references, for his own installed software, etc.) than of the one who will not touch a computer until it is delivered in his office. It may be obvious, but those who do invest in equipment for home or office use are the ones who are most likely to use the newer and better equipment their school is willing to distribute. Ironically, some of them were the last ones to ask for that equipment because they did not think they qualified according to the guidelines handed out by the computer committee. The track record does mean something. I am very skeptical about the lack of value of computers for banks. I remember reading similar articles about keeping the competitive edge, but I would like to know how much labor costs banks have saved by installing ATM machines. They are not likely to let you know--something about letting the cat out of the bag, I suspect. Michael_Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: MTRILEY@CALSTATE (Mark Timothy Riley) Subject: RE: 4.0462 PCs A Necessary Research Tool for Faculty? Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 15:08:12 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1048 (1182) In response to Jan Eveleth's note. I think it would be difficult to show any overall improvement in scholarly work, imrovement due to computer use. Indeed, there is doubt that computer use has improved productivity in the service sector in American society as a whole. In my field, for example (classics), we have an outstanding comuter resource, the TLG, but I have the impression that only a tiny bit of the year's work in classics uses the TLG at all. (Most classical work is still the time-worn "character portrayal in the Aeneid" type of thing.) It will be years before computers are completely integrated into humanistic scholarship. Mark Riley From: Mark Rooks <rooks@cs.unc.edu> Subject: Latin spell-checker? Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 13:23:39 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1049 (1183) Does anyone know of the existence of a 17th century (or thereabout) Latin spell-checker or word list (which we could of course immediately transform into a spell-checker)? A group of us are generating the complete works of Spinoza in Latin (and Dutch with some Hebrew) and the complete works of Descartes in Latin (and French and authorized French translation of the Latin). We have generated between 500K and 1 MB of flawless text so far, but from that gleaned only about 15,000 unique word forms, too few to make a useful spell-checker. Any help would be appreciated. (The project is primarily commercial, but with partial funding and assistance from the non-profit world.) Mark Rooks Per bonum id intelligam, quod certo scimus nobis esse utile. Spinoza, _Ethices_ Pars IV. rooks@cs.unc.edu or 70671.1673@compuserve.com From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Mongolian script on computer Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 13:12:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1050 (1184) Does anyone have any information about software that can support Old Mongolian script on any kind of computer? I am trying to help out a visitor from the Academy of Science in the Mongolian People's Republic, who is hoping to develop a system for reading and writing Old Mongolian script on computers. In the 1940s the Mongolians switched over to using the Cyrillic alphabet for printing their language, and as part of the political changes they are hoping to revive the use of their own script. Any information on past or present software in this area would be greatly appreciated. Paul Kahn Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship Brown University Box 1946 Providence RI 02912 401 863-2402 pdk@iris.brown.edu From: MTRILEY@CALSTATE (Mark Timothy Riley) Subject: query about Ledger _Recounting Plato_ Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 15:12:56 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1051 (1185) I have just been reading a computer analysis of Plato, by Ledger _Recounting Plato_ a study of the authenticity of certain pseudo-Platonica (Letters, Epinomis) and the chronology of the works, all using MVA analysis of the style (actually the frequency of the use of certain letters within and at the end of words). I think Ledger did an excellent job, bt honestly I don't understand most of the statistics. Is anyone reparing a review of this book (Oxford 1989) or is anyone willing to submit a note about it. Mark Riley From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Numbers in the Odyssey Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 14:48:37 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1052 (1186) A bright and observant student noted that the number 20 appears frequently in the Odyssey (20 years gone; 20 suitors picked for the journey after Telemachus, etc.) Colleagues in literature here, including a classicist, are as clueless as I am as meaning(s). Do any Humanist readers have helpful information -- either recollected knowledge or references -- to help us respond to the student's wonderful observation and query, "What does it mean?" Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College From: "R. Jones" <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: 1991 CALICO Symposium Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 16:22:56 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 473 (1187) CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT CALL FOR PAPERS The Eighth Annual CALICO International Symposium will be held on April 4-6, 1991 at the Radisson Hotel, Atlanta Georgia. Pre-conference seminars are scheduled for April 2,3. CALICO was organized in 1983 and has served since then as an international organization dedicated to computer-assisted language learning. The 1991 symposium will once again feature presentations, demonstrations, panel discussions and workshops on all aspects of CALL, including interactive audio/video, courseware development, hypermedia, authoring techniques etc. Call for papers deadline is November 2, 1990 For information about the conference write to: CALICO 3078 JKHB Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602 USA Tel: 801-378-7079 FAX: 801-378-6533 BITNET: CALICO@BYUVAX Randall Jones Brigham Young University JONES@BYUVM R.L. Jones From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0467 Queries Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 11:32:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1053 (1188) Concerning William Bowen's query regarding a possible connection between the number "16" and homosexuality: I know nothing about this. It does, however, happen that Dante devotes the 15th and 16th canti of the INFERNO to homosexuality (there is some debate about all this, but I do not think it valid). The 16th canto is devoted to Florentine homosexuals involved in political/civic concerns. One of the things that is most striking about his treatment is that, counter to the usual and untutored view, which has such medieval writers as Dante holding criminally unjust views of homosexuality, his presentation of these men is arguably THE most sympathetic treatment of a group of sinners (after those in Limbo) in the entire INFERNO. I do not know quite what to make of this, but it is an obvious fact that the commentators conveniently duck. Hope this is of some help. From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0467 Queries Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 9:24 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1054 (1189) I'm no numerologist (a good opening line for a poem) and can't help on 16: but a colleague in Atmospheric Physics here wrote an intersting piece {title}On the unconscious significance of the number thirty one{\title} in the International Review of Pscyho-Analysis 11 (1984) 119-20: his name is Raymond Hide. Apparently 31 often has sexual manings in many languages. He refers to Sir Hrold Jeffreys {title}The Unconscious significance of numbers{\title} in Int. J. Psychoanal. 17 (1936) 217-223, but I guess that is well-known to numerologists. Don Fowler. From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Re: 4.0467 Queries Date: Mon, 10 Sep 90 19:17:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1055 (1190) [deleted quotation] By a happy coincidence, the 10 September New Yorker arrived today with an ad on p. 67 for the American Heritage Dictionary (one of my favorites) in an $89.95 (plus $3.95 shipping and handling) electronic edition. They crow about their "revolutionary new SearchText (TM, of course) retrieval feature," which does some sort of fuzzy semantic searching. The dictionary is bundled with a word processor called Writer that they say is worth (well, costs) $30.00. 1-800-633-4514 1-617-272-3707 in Massachusetts 1-800-458-9501 fax --David David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: sgml & hypertext Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 10:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1056 (1191) In answer to Willard's query about how to encode hypertextual links in a portable way, the place to look for information is (of course) the Text Encoding Initiative's draft Guidelines, chapter 5, section 7. This proposes ways of recording point-to-point and point-to-span links, and has some gestures in the direction of how one might deal with span-to-span linkages. It also has a good comparative overview of the different possible addressing strategies that can be used to specify the target of a link. Most of it (the section) was written by Steve De Rose who, by an agreeable coincidence, was also responsible for most of the design of the CD-WORD product which Ephraim Nissim mentioned in an earlier response to this query. Anyone who's forgotten (or never knew) how to get a copy of the TEI Guidelines, see me after break. Lou From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim) Subject: Re: 4.0407 Handedness Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 16:32:05 -0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1057 (1192) For those interested in handedness, here is a bibliographical entry: S. Coren (Ed.) "Left-Handedness: Behavioral Implications and Anomalies." (Advances in Psychology, 67.) Elsevier (Amsterdam & New York, 1990). 592 pages. US$ 130.75. (I have not seen it. Cannot afford it anyway.) From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Morphological Tagging Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 08:59:49 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1058 (1193) Information on DOS morphological parsing software for Greek, known as PCMORPH, and available from Gordon Neal (mffgkgn@cms.manchester- computing-centre.ac.uk), of the University of Manchester's Department of Greek and Latin: [deleted quotation] From: "Allen Renear, CIS, Brown Univ. 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Humanist Listserv Announcement Date: Tue, 11 Sep 1990 17:23:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 476 (1194) Tim Seid's INTERPRETING MANUSCRIPTS Hypercard stacks are now available on the Humanist server. The files are: HCMSS01 SITHQX HCMSS02 SITHQX HCMSS03 SITHQX HCMSS04 SITHQX HCMSS05 SITHQX HCMSSDOC TEXT To retrieve them send mail to LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU with the lines GET HCMSS01 SITHQX HUMANIST GET HCMSS02 SITHQX HUMANIST GET HCMSS03 SITHQX HUMANIST GET HCMSS04 SITHQX HUMANIST GET HCMSS05 SITHQX HUMANIST GET HCMSSDOC TEXT HUMANIST See the GUIDE TO HUMANIST for more information on retrieving files from the fileserver. The SITHQX files contain the Hypercard stacks. Once downloaded to your Mac convert them to Stuffit documents with BinHex (v. 5.0 or later) and then use Stuffit (v. 1.5.1 or later) to extract the stacks. --------------------------- INTERPRETING MANUSCRIPTS Interpreting Manuscripts is a series of HyperCard stacks (800k) which teach about the procedure involved in analyzing ancient Manuscripts. Since the stacks are designed for the course Earliest Christianity, all of the examples are from the New Testament and deal specifically with that area. The purpose of this exercise is to help the undergraduate student be aware that interpretation of a text not only concerns judgment of the modern translation or of the critical text but has to do with how one deals with the ancient manuscripts themselves: reconstructing the original from the copies, editing the ancient text (deciphering characters, making divisions between words and sentences, punctuating), and finally translating and exegeting ("drawing out" the meaning of) the document. The main stack creates the simulation of going to the New England Museum of Antiquity in order to begin work on some newly found manuscripts. With a little animation, you are brought to your office in the Ancient Manuscript Center. From here you will be able to learn about Paleography and Textual Criticism. After you have mastered these disciplines, you are ready to go to the basement to the Manuscript Vault (Be careful on the stairs!). The last task, after analyzing the four manuscripts (Codices Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Rhode Island) and dating them, is to start up the computer that is on your desk in the office--a Macintosh, what else?-- and run the program MacEdit. You first have to edit each manuscript. Then determine the relationship among the four. The key here is to see if manuscripts share the same mistakes or are completely different (the scribes who produced these copies were really bad). Finally, you must attempt to reconstruct the manuscript from which the others were copied. When you have finished, you can compare your reconstruction with the actual original, something we don't get a chance to do in reality. This project was funded by an Educational Computing Grant from Brown University in the name of Dr. Stanley K. Stowers, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University. The author, Timothy W. Seid, a graduate student in the Religious Studies Department at Brown, received funding from the Graduate School in the form of several Computer Proctorships. You are encouraged to make use of this stackware without cost. If you make changes or have comments, send them to Tim Seid, Religious Studies Dept., Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 or electronically to ST401742@BROWNVM. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0470 Learning Languages, Part II Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:28:59 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1059 (1195) All the defenses of learning foreign languages seem to come down to the grounds that the other language teaches one grammar. I heartily agree that grammar is one of the fundamental pillars of the educated individual, so here's a completely novel idea: How about the English professors teach a bit of grammar? What an innovation! English teachers teach English! The very mountains reel at the notion. The consequences are staggering. If English were taught at the university, then English-Secondary Ed teacher would likely learn a bit of it. Mayhap they were pass some knowledge of grammar on to their students. If enough of this got round, it might even be seen as . . . important. But, I'm being foolish. English departments are havens for writers and literature buffs. The clear signal sent by all (despite their pious mouthings) is that grammar is dull, while literature and writing are interesting. Little wonder the word is passed down the chain. And so they pass the dreary chore off to the languages -- as English was not a language. If we don't lead, then we ought to shut up. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Learning other languages at young age Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 12:30:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1060 (1196) As a visitor on sabbatical in a different country, I'm putting my two children (2 and 5) through the process of imposed, rapid acquisition of another language. This process is humbling to watch. They just snap it up: idioms, accent, grammar and vocabulary. A matter of weeks. It makes one want to make kids go through this ordeal again and again, as often as possible, as long as learning is so easy for them. 1) Is this a cruel thought? 2) What are the limits of this charmed ability? (in age, capacity?) 3) What are the implications for teaching computer languages and concepts like iteration, structure and recursion? 4) Are my (or other multilingual) kids missing out on the advantages of the structured learning of languages? Sheizaf Rafaeli School of Business Administration University of Michigan Sheizaf_Rafaeli@ub.cc.UMICH.edu or SHeizaf@UMICHUB or 71271,763 on compuserve or (313) 763 2373 From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM> Subject: Value of learning a second language Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 19:31 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1061 (1197) Though I strongly support the learning of at least a second language as part of a general education, I am not persuaded by the argument that its value lies in its somehow revealing to one the grammar of one's native tongue as a result of having to slog through all those paradigms. That can as easily lead to pernicious as salutary results (think of what we still hear today about the 'illogicality' of double negatives functioning as positives, a part of the legacy of imposing Latin grammar where it doesn't belong--and even though the first logician of all, Aristotle, said *ou me* like any other Greek). What I think is valuable is the process of becoming self-conscious about the workings of one's own language, and practice in translating from one language to another is a unique vehicle for encouraging this. An English-speaking student learning the difference between the aorist and the imperfect has to give some thought to the differences of sense of various English expressions. I would also agree that language study is more beneficial if the second language is more remote from the first. The exercise of choosing among Russian verbs is lots more interesting for a speaker of English than trying to decide which French or German tense to use. From: STEVEC@FHCRCVM Subject: learning foreign languages Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:27:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1062 (1198) I may have missed part of this discussion, but it seems to me that the main issues have not been raised (maybe because everyone "knows" them?). I passed the Latin exam on college entrance (a tribute to my high school teacher!) and so took no language as an undergraduate. Then in graduate school, I finally got over the French and German "reading" hurdles. I cannot easily read either now, and I feel at a disadvantage when I realize that non-U.S. people often have fluency in at least 2 languages. I think the benefit of learning other languages is not so much increased understanding of one's own language, or even the ability to read untrans- lated material in one's academic discipline. Rather, it is learning that there are other cultures, other ways of living, and other world views that enable people to get on with life. This knowledge moves one away from nationalism, cultural imperialism, etc., and can lead to a fuller appreciation of the unique contributions of one's own culture. Even persons in ethnic minorities in the US can usually function in at least 2 cultures - the minority and the white, but put a WASP in Harlem or Watts . . . But this kind of training is different from language requirements as hurdles. And at the graduate level, would require actually using the languages in the discipline classroom, reading assignments, etc., a tremendous effort that I doubt students or faculty are ready to shoulder! I salute those rare individuals who do it on their own. From: "Robert R. Blackmun" <ACC00RRB@UNCCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0464 Computers for Faculty Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 16:49:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1063 (1199) Thanks very much for the copy of the contributions re faculty PC's, which I believe are as rlevant to social scientists, physical scientists, etc. as to humanists. I attended a conference this morning in Greensboro at which one of the speakers referenced a survey of faculty members that indicated that 95% use their machines for word processing, with the next group of applications (note taking, information organization) used by 50-55%, and a much smaller fraction (15-35%) used it for things like statistical analysis, access to data bases, etc. I think this relates well to the point that at least one person made: word processing doesn't itself make better research or publications; it may enable a capable faculty member to do more scholarly work, and some of that research and publication may be "better". I don't think this settles the question of whether the institution should provide faculty members with PC's, even as an "imperative" (to avoid losing good people). It does, however, provide useful information to Deans and others who are faced with difficult decisions about allocating scarce resources (even when that includes decisions about equipping administrative offices with furniture, equipment, etc.!). My point here is that such decisions aren't "computing" decisions, they're "resource" decisions that are simply made more difficult by the widespread attraction and adoption of the techology. Again, thanks for the info. From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Computers for Faculty (etc.) Date: 12 Sep 90 20:03:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1064 (1200) While I agree in principle with J. Eveleth's posting of 7 September, I urge a qualifier: when the school provides me with stationery or paper clips, I don't care who makes them, because I don't believe that that makes any difference. However, many recent discussions here on HUMANIST have shown that it DOES make a difference to many of us whether we are using a graphics or a command line interface (among other computer-related factors). It doesn't matter whether the reasons for these preferences are "objective" or "subjective"; the computer is not (perceived as) a neutral, transparent tool, but rather as something which affects the ways we think and write. If we ever get to the day when a micro on every teacher's desk is regarded as essential (and that'll be a LONG time coming here in Adrian!), I hope the teacher gets some choice in the machine she/he is to use (unlike the general practice in the business world). And let's not forget that there are other machines besides Macs and IBMs! On an entirely unrelated matter (I hope), I agree with R. Smith, the thing that comes from one's nose is a booger, not a bugger. George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0472 Queries Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 01:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1065 (1201) Twenty and its meaning. ------------------------------------------------------- It sounds interesting to me to hear that twenty was already some kind of base for the numerical system. It might be some kind of equivalent of the nowadays used "scores". Just to add more confusion twenty used to be a base unit for counting in french. Twenty is still found in quatre-vingt(s), a remnant of the vigesimal system. Zwitserland uses also huitante et octante instead of quatre-vingt, which is more in lign with the decimal system. Another remnant of the vigesimal system is the name of the Parisian hospital which had 300 beds in it and which was called "L'hospital des quinze vingt". Pounds in Britain used to be devidable into twenty units, which in their turn used to be devidable into 12 smaller units (or was it the other way round). They, since then abandoned the imperial system and the last (retarded) country to keep this medieval weight/distance system is the USA. I guess that programmers in the US would be glad to be able to use the decimal system? Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0472 Queries Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 08:42:56 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1066 (1202) In regard to the query on the significance of 20 in the Odyssey, while I cannot say anthing particularly relevant to the Greek context, in general 20 is the number of digits on the human body. It is sometimes used as a base in counting systems, probably based on this. Perhaps it symbolizes completeness or totality. From: pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) Subject: Hypertext standards Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 13:27:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 480 (1203) This is in response to Willard McCarthy's question about hypertext standards: This information comes from Victor Riley at IRIS (var@iris.brown.edu), who has participated in some of the standards discussions at NIST and has written the interchange format used by Intermedia, the hypermedia system developed at Brown. Some of the participants in the Dexter Group, such as Tim Oren of Apple Computer and Frank Halasz of Xerox PARC, may be good sources of defacto standard information. And as the message from Lou Burnard mentioned, there is something buried in the TEI documentation on this subject as well. ============== There are three groups currently working on standards in the Hypertext arena. The first and foremost is the ANSI X3V1.8M committee. X3 is the Information Processing Systems group of ANSI, while V1 is the Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems subgroup of X3. .8 is the Languages for Text Processing and Interchange task group of X3V1, and M is the Music Information Processing Standards study group. You ask what music has to do with hypertext? Well when specifying a score or opera one needs links to the various parts so that they can be played simultaneously. This standard is called HyTime for Hypertext and Time-based media. The standard is based on SGML and defines a DTD for linking and anchoring in documents. To get a copy of the latest draft of the standard one can contact: Steven R. Newcomb Center for Music Research Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-2098 (904) 644-5786 The HyTime standard has started on the path to becoming an ISO standard. Associated with this is the JTC1 TAG (Joint Technical Committee 1, Information Technology Technical Advisory Group) group. They have a new Multimedia Standardization study group forming to discuss standards. They will be considering HyTime for this. The second group is NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology). They are trying to come up with a hypermedia standard by holding workshops to encourage the sharing of knowledge. The last workshop was in January and presented lots of work (including my Intermedia Interchange Format). Though NIST doesn't have a standard yet, they are leaning more towards an ODA (Open Document Architecture) format. I can't find the proper people to get the proceedings from, but you should be able to get the proper information through NIST by contacting: Judi Moline National Computer Systems Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 (301) 975-3351 The third group is the Dexter group. They are a group of representatives from various parts of the Hypermedia industry. While Dexter doesn't have a Hypermedia standard, they do have a rather complete Hypermedia reference model that can become the framework for a standard. Some members of the Dexter group are in support of the HyTime standard, while others are still undecided. The Dexter reference model is included in the NIST proceedings. From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL> Subject: RE: 4.0470 Learning Languages, Part II Date: Thu, 13 Sep 1990 8:46:44 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1067 (1204) The main advantage of learning a foreign language is that it teaches you that your own is a cage, that you are not interpreting the world through a crystal-glass window, and that other peoples think very differently from you and your compatriots. If you haven't at least tried to learn another language, you have to be a poet to realize the thickness of the bars on the cage, or even that they are there. Sometimes, on those very rare occasions when I have nothing else to do and am not too tired to do nothing, I try to map the meanings and connotations of a word (it always turns into a word-cluster) from Hebrew into English or vice versa. Of course I have yet to find an exact translation, but the exercise is usually illuminating. What I find puzzling is the implication, in people's comments so far, that U.S. students aren't required to know a second language even to study History. Excuse me, I grew up in Britain. How can you get by studying History without knowing at least one European language plus Latin? Judy Koren From: Douglas deLacey <DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0470 Learning Languages, Part II Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 13:32:43 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1068 (1205) Surely this debate is a bit late? The right time to learn languages is when you are very young. In the good old days here Latin was taught at primary (yes, PRIMARY) school. My kids didn't seem to learn anything at primary school; it was all free self-expression and play. So Sheizaf, let your kids make the most of this experience; when you've finished at Michigan go to the Sorbonne or Berlin! I have several fully bilingual friends (results of mixed marriages). It is not clear that in any other educational area they seem deprived in comparison to me. It is perfectly clear that I am infinitely poorer than they in the languages area. Douglas de Lacey. From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: learning foreign languages Date: Thu, 13 Sep 1990 11:53:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1069 (1206) Skip's notion of having professors of English teach some grammar in the hope that secondary English teachers would learn a bit and teach it to their students misses, I think, the mechanism by which the study of grammar is useful. Several centuries ago , while a high school English teacher, I did a survey of all the research that I could find on the teaching of writing. I was amazed to find that there were no data supporting the notion that the study of grammar improved one's ability to write. The ability to do grammar exercises seemed to be a skill independent of the ability to write well. I began to observe my own students more closely and found that, indeed, there were students who could do all the grammar exercises and yet could not write worth a damn. I will always remember the student who tried to persuade me that an ungrammatical sentence was correct because she could diagram it. [By the way but aside from the present discussion, the only thing that seemed to correlate positively with writing was reading. Good writers seemed to read a lot more than poor writers.] Now back to Skip's point: I suspect that the reason that the study of, say, Latin helps one learn grammar in a way that is useful in understanding one's own language is that one must learn Latin grammar in order to read and write the language. Kids already know English and they can study grammar as a separate discipline, with little or no impact on the way they use the language. Similarly one can learn to speak a modern foreign language through verbal interaction with people who speak that language; one learns a tacit grammar just as our kids learn a tacit English grammar. I shared the experience of others who found the study of Latin valuable in understanding and using my own English language. I had studied Spanish briefly as an oral exercise and without formal grammar without much success, but the study of Latin in high school made a remarkable difference. In one sense it was like learning the first wordprocessing program. Having learned Scripsit, PerfectWriter was easy, and WordPerfect was an absolute snap. I found the knowledge of Latin helpful in studying German, French, and Greek, although Hebrew was a different can of worms. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: John Dorenkamp <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Grammar Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 09:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1070 (1207) Re Skip Knox's [deleted quotation] Which grammar(s)? From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Learning foreign languages" Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 23:31:53 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1071 (1208) I like the President's Commission report (1979) on the scandalous state of language teaching in the U.S. The communicative compentency aspect still needs work, especially in the public schools, but higher ed is no exception. The ACTFL/ETS oral (& other) proficieny guidelines have helped, but nothing will take the place of competent teachers who feel just as comfortable teaching the oral language as the written one. Dartmouth College, William & Mary, Allegheny, Wheaton and others seem to be making great strides: they have peer tutors who concentrate on the oral language and faculty members who integrate all four skills in dramatic fashion into their classrooms. Some test results have recently been reported in _The Ram's Horn_ (Dartmouth College) and seem rather encouraging. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Visiting Scholar, Duke U. From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il> Subject: Charles Ess's query on the number 20 in the Odyssey Date: Thu, 13 Sep 1990 8:33:35 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1072 (1209) I don't know anything about the Odyssey, but I suspect an analogy with the number 40 in writings from the early Arab period, and indeed in the OT and therefore possibly continuously between the two periods. Larry Conrad wrote an interesting paper a few years ago (I don't have the reference handy but can supply it) showing that the number 40, and by extension 400, 4000, 40,000 etc., in Early Arab literature, including private letters and State correspondence, was used to mean "quite a large (but indeterminate) number", "a very large number", "a huge army", etc. etc. The basic unit was 40 and you added zeros according to the size you wished to convey. This is interesting because in Roman and Byzantine historical accounts around, say, the 3rd to 7th centuries AD you also find similar numbers cropping up. Somebody mentioned Ulfila's 40 years of missionary work to the Goths, and scholars have been wrangling ever since, because all calculations show that Ulfila was actually there for only 37 or 38 years... Was this a Biblical parallel of the "40 years in the wilderness" variety (itself an indeterminate use of the number 40), or simply a way of saying that he dedicated a commendably long time to his sacred calling? The Byzantine Emperor sent 4,000 soldiers to help the West fight the Goths (I haven't looked at this material for a few years and am not going to quote names to all of you who know better than I, without looking it up first!). Various accounts of the Byzantine-Arab battles during the Arab conquest, 630s AD, mention 40,000 soldiers fighting on each side (they also mention other numbers, such as 100,000). The Caliph Mu'awiyah, in the mid-7th C., complains about an importunate petitioner who has sent him 400 letters and 4,000 presents... etc. I'd bet you a reasonable sum that your 20 in the Odyssey is something along these lines (though I might end up, after everyone else has also had their say, feeling lucky we couldn't shake hands on it!). Judy Koren From: stampe@uhccux.BITNET Subject: 4.0479 Responses: Numerology (2/38) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 00:49:43 -1000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1073 (1210) Twenty, as the sum of the fingers and toes, sometimes is named for the whole person. I've found counting systems in Indian tribal languages with one-hand `5', one-hand-one `6', one-hand-two `7', ..., two-hand `10', one-foot `15' one-person `20', three-person-one-hand-one `66'. There are numeral systems based on four (fingers counted with the thumb), five (fingers and thumb), eight, ten, twelve (the three joints of the four fingers counted with the thumb), and twenty. In Sora, a Munda tribal language of India, the number bases are 12 and 20. 45 is two-twenty-five, 55 is two-twenty-twelve-three. If I counted right! David Stampe <stampe@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, <stampe@uhccux.bitnet> Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawaii/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822 From: Tom Flaherty <FLAHERTY@CTSTATEU> Subject: Faculty microcomputers Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 08:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1074 (1211) In the discussion re: providing faculty members with computers, it seems to me that a couple of points, mundane though they are, need to be made. First, it is essential that the people so supplied be trained to use them effectively--workshops & such. Perhaps the major reason so many faculty use them only for WP is that they don't know how to do anything else. I am amazed at how many faculty still use grade books when they have a PC on their desks and access to any number of spreadsheet programs for the asking. The same is true for databases and other software. Why do we assume that because someone is intelligent that they don't need support in acquiring specialized skills? Would we be comfortable knowing that our 737 pilot had a Ph.D. and an IQ of 160 if we also knew that he'd never been in a cockpit before? On the other side, whatever resources institutions put into faculty computing should be quickly recovered in saved people time. Does anyone remember when secretaries completely retyped 25+-page papers six or eight times? Very few secretaries do routine typing anymore. Many of our faculty teaching large sections (although we provide precious little of the support referred to above) generate and edit their own objective exams on their PC's, thereby saving more secretarial time. I am not sure where we'd be if we did not have the computers; we surely would not have adequate secretarial support otherwise (not that it is adequate now; many make do with none at all). With the exception of a few recalcitrants and curmudgeons, faculty use their computers in ways that allow levels of productivity that would otherwise be impossible. Once the bug bites, it is unstoppable. Thus, on the purely practical side, I can think of few better investments for a college or university than (appropriate) faculty computers and training in getting the most from them. --Tom Flaherty, Central Connecticut State University From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "Computers & faculty" Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 23:25:23 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1075 (1212) Some very good arguments for providing computer tools necessary for humanistic research have already been made, and recent attendees at the ACH, ALLC & CALICO conventions have an even greater repertoire, I suspect, of legitimate, helpful applications. Schools like Brown U., the U.S. Air Force Academy, Naval Academy, and others would have no problem, I assume, justifying the substantial investment they've made in computer-assisted language learning hardware & software, not to forget training for faculty to develop custom-designed materials. It's another matter to help colleagues with little or no experience in instructional technology experiment with curricular models for integrating these materials into their courses. For information on the use of computers in literary criticism, I'd suggest _Literary Computing and Literary Criticism. Theoretical and Practical Essays on Theme and Rhetoric_ (ed. Rosanne G. Potter, U. Penn, 1989). Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Visiting Scholar, Duke U. From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Review editors' addresses? Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 15:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1076 (1213) I wish Joel Goldfield could send me his latest e-address. Could anyone on HUMANIST send me the e-address of the person acting as book review editor for LLC? Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: A10PRR1@NIU.BITNET Subject: Concordance programs Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 13:09 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1077 (1214) I think this question has appeared on HUMANIST before, but.... A colleague wants to find concordance software to use on a PC. I would like software names, prices, company addresses, etc. Thank you. Phil Rider Northern Illinois University From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@UCBCMSA> Subject: 4.0476 "Interpreting Manuscripts" Availability Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 06:23 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1078 (1215) Tim Seid's "Interpreting Manuscripts" program sounds like I might almost want to get a MAC, something I never even dreamed of till now. Software does drive hardware. From: Michael Kessler <Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu> Subject: Intelligent Computer usage Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 24:22:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 485 (1216) [deleted quotation]Francisco Chronicle: A correction from the pages of the Fresno Bee: "An item in Thursday's Nation Digest about the Massachusetts budget crisis made reference to new taxes that will help put Massachusetts 'back in the African-American.' The item should have said 'back in the black.'" Yes, friends, the "search and replace" function in your word processor is not a toy; please engage mind before pressing keys. A nice warning in light of Robert Blackmun's report on the uses of computers. Michael Kessler <Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu> From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@lilac.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0482 More Responses on Numbers (2/53) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 13:53:11 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1079 (1217) Aha! he said, as the lightbulb went on. One of the caliphs of Cordoba (Abderraman III?) was said to have a library of 400,000 volumes, a figure which has always struck me as improbable in the extreme for the 9th century. But 400,000 meaning 'very large'--that I can buy. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Howell Chickering <HDCHICKERING@amherst> Subject: 20 in the Odyssey Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 17:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1080 (1218) Beowulf carried 30 suits of armor on his arm during an extended swim. He rules for 50 years. Epic retinues typically are numbered in multiples of 100 or 1000. Cf. the Song of Roland. While 20 in the Odyssey may connect with the period of O's exile, the age of Telemachus, or the Greek concept of a generation, Charles Ess's student might be given the explanation that in Western European epics classical and medieval, round numbers off the base 10 are used simply to indicate 'a large number' or 'a long time.' This is par- ticularly true for oral epics. If the question had been posed about the AEneid, one would have to think about Virgil's knowledge of Pythagoras and Duckworth's oft-disputed claim that that written epic has a numerological basis (the Fibonacci numbers). One is reminded of a cartoon of the 1950's in which Pogo asks Churchy La Femme how many there are of something. The turtle replies, "Thousands! Hundreds, even!" Howell Chickering Amherst College From: Kevin Donnelly <K.P.Donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk> Subject: Twenty Date: 14 Sep 90 09:41:00 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1081 (1219) The twenties system is used for counting in Scottish Gaelic. In a similar manner to "quatre-vingt" and "quatre-vingt-dix" in French, the only words in Scottish Gaelic for 30, 40, 50, 60, etc, are: 30: twenty and ten 40: two twenties 50: two twenties and ten (or half-hundred) 60: three twenties 70: three twenties and ten 80: four twenties 90: four twenties and ten In church things are carried still further, beyond 100. The "134th salm" is read as the "fourth-salm-teen past the six twenties". In Irish Gaelic there are words for thirty, forty, fifty, etc, like in English, but the twenties system is normally used for ages: "74 years of age" would normally be phrased as "three score and fourteen years of age", or "four-years-teen and three score". Kevin Donnelly From: "R. Jones" <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: Numerology Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 11:29:23 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1082 (1220) On the topic of numerology, does anyone know anything about the significance of a duodecimal system among Germanic cultures? The fact that the numbers eleven ("one left") and twelve ("two left") are formed differently than the numbers thirteen and beyond (simply based on existing lower numbers) might suggest that a twelve-based system was once in use. Randall Jones Brigham Young University R.L. Jones From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il> Subject: RE: 4.0481 Language Learning Date: Fri, 14 Sep 1990 12:38:41 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1083 (1221) A few comments on Sheizaf Rafaeli's questions about multilingualism. I did quite a bit of reading on the question before deciding to talk English to my own kids from birth. The reading is now out of date - that was 13 years ago - but the consensus, then at least, is that growing up multi-lingual usually delays the onset of speech a few months but is otherwise beneficial, and there seems no observable limit to the number of languages a child can absorb simultaneously (there are published studies of children who grew up learning 4 or 5 languages simultaneously, one from each parent, one from each set of grandparents, and that of the dominant culture...). The point was made, and certainly applies to my own experience, that it's important for a particular person to consistently talk the same language to the child: s/he can learn 4 languages from 4 people, but not 2 languages from one person, s/he gets confused separating out which language is which. There seems to be some evidence that the brain is "wired" for language acquisition during a critical period, which, as we all know to our cost, ends during childhood. I don't know when, but I would guess shortly before adolescence. Of the people I know who are not native Israelis, those who immigrated before about age 10-11 are likely to have no foreign accent, those who immigrated around 10-11 or later probably will have one. There is quite a bit of evidence that immersion in the language is critical. Speaking a language only in the home is sufficient up to about age 3-4. Then the child realizes that the dominant culture does not understand the second language (he may have been in a day-care center from the first year of life, but only now does it bother him that the big wide world doesn't understand one of his languages), and a psychological reaction sets in. The child refuses to utter a word in the second language. If the parent goes on talking it to her nonetheless, or the parents talk it among themselves, the child will grow up understanding it but quite unable to speak it. Israel is full of now-middle-aged people who understand, but cannot speak, Yiddish or Arabic because their parents spoke it, of children who understand, but cannot really speak, any one of 50 European languages, and of under-5s who are fluent in 2 or 3 languages. We spent a year on sabbatical in Canada when my kids were 2 and 5. My son spoke English, with an Israeli accent, on arrival (he had started life with a British accent just like Mother's, but it fared badly from age 3 on). 3 weeks after arrival, he announced "nobody here speaks Hebrew and I'm not going to speak it", and from then on we couldn't get a word of Hebrew out of him. He arrived back in Israel to enter 1st grade with a flawless Canadian accent; he understood everything said in the classroom but couldn't say a word in Hebrew, even though, obviously, he very much wanted to. It took him 3 months to get back fluency in Hebrew. Incidentally, he started talking late, right in line with the predictions, but in both languages from the start, and could separate them out from the beginning and translate between them with no problems. We went through similar rejection problems with his sister. If it weren't for the fact that we tend to spend a month in the States every summer and could threaten them that if they didn't talk English they wouldn't be able to talk to their old friends and buy icecream, I have no doubt that neither of them would still have been able to speak English 2 years after returning to Israel, even though I stubbornly continued to talk English to them. BUT once they get to around age 6, the resistance miraculously vanishes, suddenly they are happy to talk the second language again. This, too, I have heard from several friends, not just from my own experience. Of course if they haven't talked it from age 3, they're quite unable to start doing so now unless they get back into an immersion situation (such as another sabbatical). All the above musings were intended to illustrate that, apart from the "critical period" and the waning of the ability to learn by immersion starting from late childhood on, there are a lot of other factors, psychological and social, which influence second-language acquisition. The conclusion, though, is clearly that the earlier you start the better, and the more languages you present them with, the better or at least it doesn't affect them for the worse. The studies I got hold of left me with the impression, at least, that bi- or multi-lingual children tested as more flexible and receptive in their abilities to form new concepts and restructure old ones than monolingual children. This isn't surprising, since each language categorizes the world differently and you have to adjust conceptualizations as you move between them. There was a load of work done on bilingual children in the first half of the century, down to the 1960s, which came to quite erroneous conclusions because their subjects were the children of immigrants, usually fleeing persecution, poor, and despised by the dominant society, and they failed to take such factors into account when trying to explain why the children tested poorly on language ability and general IQ (on an IQ test given in English of course). It took U.S. scholars a long time to realise that in Europe, multilingualism is the norm, not the exception; European scholars weren't studying it so much, perhaps because they didn't define it as a problem. So the literature down to the 1960s, as said, most of it American, concluded that if you bring your kids up bilingual they will be linguistically and cognitively disadvantaged, whereas the literature of the 1970s on comes to the exact opposite conclusion. Sorry this was so long. Happy Rosh ha-Shanah to all of you who care! Judy Koren From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0477 Language Learning Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 09:09:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1084 (1222) "STEVEC" (no signature) perhaps came closest to my view on the value of learning another language. Grammar can be learned from the teachers of one's native language, culture can be learned in a Western Civ. or Anthropology course. What cannot be learned other than through a foreign language is thinking differently. Using the words and syntax of another language forces one to consider alternative ways to conceptualize, a different "logic" if I may be allowed to play loose with terminology. I no longer remember my Latin, nor much of my German. But I retain the notion of attention to proper tense vis-a-vis an argument for the future based on information obtained in the past, and I remember the importance of subtle differences in the activity level of verbs. Then again, some of these things were reinforced by other foreign languages: Fortran, Basic, Assembly, and so on. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: Delicate spoof Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 10:15:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1085 (1223) DELICATE SPOOF #2. Why is it that everything Willard writes is considered sage, everything Kessler writes gloriously mad, and everything I write "a delicate spoof"? But I assure you that I am grimly earnest in thinking Lehigh's diploma diminished by their dropping the language requirement. And it is not a spoof that one cannot really know English without also knowing something that is NOT English. We know what is big by knowing what is small, or bigger. The tot who says "I digged it" knows to perfection the fundamentals of his language and only later has to learn the crazily aberrant form "I dug." Such knowledge, slightly enhanced, will get most people through their linguistically undemanding lives. But suppose you want more than this minimum? You must stand outside English and look back on it. I knew that the Earth was beautiful, even in New Jersey, but the lovely NASA photograph convinced me at last that it really is Nabokov's "orbicle of jasp." Clarence Brown, Comp Lit, Princeton. CB@PUCC. From: ooi@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Jim Porter) Subject: Learning Languages Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 15:58:57 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1086 (1224) I'm all for people learning foreign languages--in fact, I'm for people learning lots of stuff they don't know. It would be nice if they knew French and English, better if they knew Latin, French, English, and economics, better if . . . and so on. The issue to me is what we are cutting out when we put something else in the curriculum. Obviously more learning is better than less learning--but how are we going to make judgments about what to choose when there is so much to learn? I'm a writing teacher who is very much in favor of teaching students BOTH grammar and writing. Unfortunately, the curriculum does not afford the space, at any level, for students to take grammar, writing, and--to throw in another--literature. Too many take the choice of teaching grammar in place of writing, ignorant perhaps of the research that indicates that the study of grammar (in place of "writing") actually has a deleterious effect on the quality of writing (see George Hillocks, RESEARCH IN WRITTEN COMPOSITION). An argument for putting more in ought to make a corresponding argument for what to take out. Jim Porter Purdue University ooi@mace From: GL250012@Venus.YorkU.CA Subject: e-mail to Lithuania Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 10:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1087 (1225) Does anyone know if any universities in Lithuania are reachable over this or another network? (Sorry if this has come up before) Jim Benson Glendon College York University Toronto GL250012@YUVENUS From: Chuck Bush <HRCCHUCK@BYUVM> Subject: Nota Bene to Word Perfect Conversion Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 09:58:30 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1088 (1226) Can anyone suggest software that can convert Nota Bene files into Word Perfect (any version)? Chuck Bush BYU Humanities Research Center HRCCHUCK@BYUVM.BITNET From: Princeton Theological Seminary <Q2835@PUCC> Subject: Searching for Pseudo-Philo Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:22:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1089 (1227) We would like to obtain a MRT of Pseudo-Philo. It has not as of yet been entered on the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae data bank. Is there a MRT in existence elsewhere? Scott R. A. Starbuck Office of Computer Assitance for Textual Research Princeton Theological Seminary Q2835@PUCC.BITNET From: Laine <LAINE@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: Numerology Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 17:41:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1090 (1228) And then there is Danish, which also counts in 20s. The Danes on the list will I am sure correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that halvtres (= 50) is shorthand for '3 times 20 minus 1/2 of 20' halvfiers (=70) is shorthand for '4 times 20 minus 1/2 of 20' fiers (=80) is '4 times 20' etc. P.S. Jag ber Danskarna om ursaekt - jag har aldrig laert mej stava (trans: My apologies to the Danes, I never learned to spell!) Laine Ruus Univ of Toronto Data Library Service From: Hans Joergen Marker <DDAHM@vm.uni-c.dk> Subject: Re: 4.0486 Numerology (4/75) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 09:50:50 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1091 (1229) Twenty seemes to have been quite common as a number base in ancient Europe. In Danish it remains in the names for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90. 60 is called "tres" which is short for "tresindstyve" meaning in old Danish three times twenty. Likewise 80 is called "firs" abbreviation of "firsindstyve" meaning four times twenty. Even more complicated are 50, 70 and 90, "halvtres", "halvfjerds" og "halvfems". They are build on a base of "halvtrediesindstyve" meaning literally half third times twenty, with half third meaning two and a half. Hans Joergen Marker Danish Data Archive From: "Ned J. Davison" <HISPANIA@UTAHCCA.BITNET> Subject: Infinite numbers Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 00:53 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1092 (1230) The Arabic 40 and its expansions to 40,000 for a "very large number" bring to mind Jorge Luis Borges' favorite infinite numbers: 1001 (the endless nights of Scheherezade) and its analogous infinite book in "El libro de arena," the elaboration of Borges' footnote in his earlier "La biblioteca de Babel; and 14, cited specifically in "La casa de Asterio'n," as the number of doors in the Minotaur's labyrinth. Ned Davison, U. of Utah From: "Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras" <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: duodecimal system Date: 17 Sep 90 09:46:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1093 (1231) Randall Jones asks about a duodecimal system in Germanic cultures. Indeed there seems to have been such a system in pre-Christian Scandinavia. The Old Norse _hundrath_ (that's an eth on the end) meant 120. According to Cleasby-Vigfusson, "with the introduction of Christianity came in the decimal hundred, the two being distinguished by adjectives--tolfraett hundrath=120, and tiraett hundrath=100." ** Ruth Mazo Karras RKarras@PennSAS.BITNET ** Department of History RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.EDU ** University of Pennsylvania (215) 898-2746 (voice) ** Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379 From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0486 Numerology (4/75) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 08:49:57 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1094 (1232) In speculating on Homeric use of 20, one might want to consider the suitability of various Greek decade terms, etc., to the meter, too. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: numbers Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 01:39:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1095 (1233) Allow me to recommend the following book on the cultural significance of numbers: Karl Menninger. Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers. Transl. Paul Broneer. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1969. This is derived from: Zahlwort und Ziffer. Rev. edn. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1958. There's so much here that my natural desire to natter on is utterly frustrated. Willard McCarty From: "" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: 20 digits Date: 15 Sep 90 14:05:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1096 (1234) To: "humanist" <humanist@browvm.brown.edu> When I taught number systems in beginning Computer Science courses, I used to point out to my students that there are some cultures that use base 20 systems, as I recall in the South Sea Islands (???). Our speculation was that they went beyond ten to twenty because the warm climate did not require them to cover their feet. In past times we also referred to computers as one-fingered idiots, hence binary. But the analogy is not exact since the decimal system involves ten separate symbols, from ten digits (or fingers), so the computer should have two "fingers" to match the two digits. Maybe computers count on both hands! Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu P.S. I currently have a broken finger -- the ring finger of my right hand -- which has turned my typing into an octal operation. The little finger can't participate without its neighbor. Alas! From: Princeton Theological Seminary <Q2835@PUCC> Subject: Searching for Pseudo-Dionysius Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 20:17:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1097 (1235) A few days ago I posted a request for any MRTs of Pseudo-Philo, specifically Greek texts. Well a couple of Humanists who are in the know (and I imagine others as well) noted that Pseudo-Philo is preserved only in Latin. Indeed we had our information crossed and it is Pseudo-Dionysius that we would like to obtain (he is preserved in Greek but is not in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae data bank). We were encouraged to find a MRT of Pseudo-Philo and hope we will be equally fortunate with Pseudo-Dionysius. Thanks. Scott R. A. Starbuck Office of Computer Assistance for Textual Research (OCATR) From: Harry Hahne <HAHNE@UTOREPAS> Subject: European Languages Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 11:27:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1098 (1236) I am writing a routine for a program that needs to ignore articles when searching text. I need to know the definite and indefinite articles used in all languages that use a Latin-based alphabet. I know about French and German and would like to know about Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, etc. Any help would be appreciated. Harry Hahne From: Mark Sacks <AP02@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> Subject: Laser printers Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 07:46:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1099 (1237) Perhaps this has been dealt with in the past. Does anyone have any information on the relative merits of the HP LaserJet II Plus, vs. the HP LaserJet III? From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0487 Languages and Learning (4/163) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 09:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1100 (1238) I've found the discussions of the value of language learning illuminating. It raises my hopes that some HUMANIST can answer a more mundane question for me. I'm taking a course in elementary Italian at my university this semester. Can you recommend (1) a good computer-assisted Italian software that might be of help, and (2) an Italian wordprocessor or font? On my desk are a MacII (running Word) and a PS/2 running WordPerfect 5.0, both connected to a LaserWriter NT (yes, my university believes in computer support for its humanists). ______________________________________________________________________ Tom Benson | INTERNET: t3b@psuvm.psu.edu Dept. of Speech Communication | BITNET: T3B@PSUVM Penn State University | 227 Sparks Building | University Park, PA 16802 USA 814-238-5277 (home); 814-865-4201 (office) ______________________________________________________________________ From: 1ECHAD @ UTSA86.SA.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: concordance programs Date: Thu, 13 Sep 1990 18:05:44 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1101 (1239) The best concordance program I know--and certainly one of the cheapest-- is called Kwik-magic. It was written by the linguist Ken Whistler and sells for around $80.00. It is quite fast, because--although you have the option of writing to a file, etc. if you want--it is designed so that you can scan lots of text and create a "throw-away concordance" fast on the screen. It allows you to enter text of your own (with four different gloss lines if wanted) or to concord text files in ASCII; you can search for up to twelve keywords at once, do Boolean searches (AND, NOT, OR, etc.), generate all kinds of statistics, and design the output in lots of ways (e.g., how many lines of surrounding text to print, whether or not to print gloss lines, whether to center the word searched for, etc.). As a linguist, I also find two of its other features very helpful: it allows you to search from the END of a word back (so, for example, if you want to find out how many present participles are in the text, you search for "GNI--"), and it helps you line up morpheme by morpheme glosses. I've used it for five years and have found it very reliable. The version I have also comes with a basic word-processor and windows --quite handy. There may be newer versions of Kwik-magic out now, which do even more things; or maybe Ken, like the rest of us, has gotten back to more "standard" academic tasks. But this venture into programming netted an excellent tool. I don't know if it's marketed in stores now. Most of the people I know who use Kwik-magic got it by writing the developer--I'll dig out the address if anyone is interested. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: 4.0488 Queries: Lithuania e-mail; NB->WP; Pseudo-Philo (3/36) Date: 14 Sep 90 17:49:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1102 (1240) If there is no software to convert NB to WP, it is still a fairly simple procedure. WP will call up the file from NB, where it will appear as it does in `expanded mode' in NB, and then it is a simple matter to do a series of global search/replaces and, esp. for things like bold and italics and footnotes, macros that will convert. If you have a lot of files to do, you can build up a set of macros that will do the essentials quickly. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: NB to WP Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 01:53:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1103 (1241) The program I have for conversion of Nota Bene to WordPerfect files, and vice versa, is Word-for-Word, available from XyWrite. It seems to work well enough, although I haven't tested it on documents with really complex formatting. WfW offers translation for about 35 different formats, including WordStar, PFSWrite, Samna, Multimate, and several others. It's the only such program recommended by Dragonfly for the job. I got my copy by calling XyWrite. The telephone number I have is (617) 275-4439. Willard McCarty From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: Nota Bene to Word Perfect Date: Sat, 15 Sep 90 01:21:19 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1104 (1242) Regarding Chuck Bush's query about Nota Bene to Word Perfect conversions: A package called "Word for Word" does a decent job. From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Old English Corpus now in TEI format Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 18:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 492 (1243) OLD ENGLISH CORPUS NOW AVAILABLE IN TEI-CONFORMANT MARKUP As promised, we are now distributing a revised version of the Toronto D.O.E. Corpus which uses TEI-conformant markup throughout. The text is derived from the most recently corrected version distributed from Toronto, supplemented with bibliographic and other information. The encoding scheme used is based on SGML and follows the TEI recommendations in all respects, except for the handling of dubious reading, which has not been changed from the original (this was, retrospectively, a mistake). If you'd like to know more about the encoding scheme or see an example, let me know and I will gladly expatiate. We are distributing the text in our usual way: you send us a signed order form and specify the media on which you want the text together with payment. Please note: because of its size, we are not (as yet) distributing the Corpus on diskette. It is available on magnetic tape or cartridge ONLY. The all inclusive cost is 20 pounds (within Europe) or 30 pounds (restofworld). Cheques payable to OXFORD UNIVERSITY COMPUTING SERVICE please. ----------------------------------------------------- Lou Burnard/Alan Morrison ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Oxford Text Archive 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN tel +44 (865) 273238 fax 273275 ----------------------------------------------------- From: Judi Moline <moline@swe.ncsl.nist.gov> Subject: Response to 4.0480 on hypertext standards Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 11:20:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 493 (1244) This is in response to the posting Vol. 4, No. 0480. Wednesday, 12 Sep 1990 by pdk@iris.brown.edu (Paul D. Kahn) regarding Hypertext standards When the inquiry came from Willard McCarthy I considered how I might respond in a manner that would shed light on the work being done. Because NIST is not directly involved in the standards making process for hypertext at this time, I didn't respond. However, since we were mentioned in the Kahn/Riley posting, I must now make some comments. I agree that there seem to be three groups working on standards in the Hypertext arena currently. However, the National Institute for Standards and Technology is not directly attempting to produce a standard. The other three groups are identified in the previous note. The numbers don't match because the HyTime work and the new multimedia work (X3L2.8 and JTC1 TAG) have been lumped together. The third group is the Dexter group. We support these efforts towards standardization and held a workshop in January towards bringing the standards efforts together. Up until then we were not aware of any meetings which had brought together the participants in the diverse efforts. From our perspective the January workshop was very effective in opening the channels of communication. We tentative planned a follow-up for August but due to lack of a core of solid paper submissions cancelled it. Our decision was based on the feeling that there was not enough new technical material to warrant bringing people from all over the world to a workshop at that time. The allegation that we lean towards ODA is not true. NIST supports both SGML and ODA. As to why SGML isn't more in evidence in the OSI workshop, I don't know. There is certainly a corporate feeling that these two standards should not be competing and should be brought together. At the moment I am working with SGML as are others in my group. I appreciate Paul Kahn's giving us credit for the workshop and hope that we may play a role in mediating or facilitating the development of the standards important for Hypertext. Judi Moline National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. 20899 From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: ACH/ALLC 91 Reminder Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 16:36:18 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 494 (1245) CALL FOR PAPERS ACH-ALLC 91 "M A K I N G C O N N E C T I O N S" Arizona State University, Tempe March 17 - 21, 1991 The 1991 international joint conference of the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) will be held on March 17-21, 1991, at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. ACH-ALLC invites submission of 1,500 to 2,000 word abstracts on computer- aided topics in literature, linguistics, and humanities disciplines such as history, archaeology, and music. All parties are encouraged to participate in this conference. Submissions should be sent by October 15, 1990 to: Professor Daniel Brink Department of English Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302 U.S.A. E-mail:* ATDXB@ASUACAD.BITNET Fax: (602) 965-2012 Phone: (602) 965-2679 * electronic submissions are encouraged A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published by Oxford University Press in the series Research in Humanities Computing. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE Chair: Donald Ross, Minnesota (ACH) Local Host: Daniel Brink, Arizona State (ACH) Members: Paul Fortier, Manitoba (ACH) Nancy Ide, Vassar (ACH) Randall Jones, Brigham Young (ACH) Thomas Corns, University of Wales, Bangor (ALLC) Jacqueline Hamesse, Louvain-la-Neuve (ALLC) Susan Hockey, Oxford (ALLC) Antonio Zampolli, Pisa (ALLC) ---------------------------------------------------- Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Technology Infusion College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 (602) 965-7748 (FAX: 965-2012) ATDXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0487 Languages and Learning (4/163) Date: 14 Sep 90 18:02:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1105 (1246) Two anecdotes come to mind from Elias Canetti's marvelous memoir of his childhood, *Die Gerettete Zunge* (Englished as `The Tongue Set Free'). First, of his grandfather, a Sephardic Jew of the old school born around 1850. He knew seventeen languages: that is to say, he could go into the places where those languages were spoken and make himself understood and understand enough to do what he wanted to do there, as an old-fashioned trader. But he could read only one language, Ladino, in which he read newspapers. Has anyone thought whether learning to read and write is the thing that hinders us from learning additional languages? The grandfather had clearly gone on picking up languages osmotically long after the `critical age'. And is there any good work on multilingual skills in contexts where linguistic frontiers are many and fluid? In a mostly non-literate society, dialectal variation from one village to another is fairly pronounced and the traveler quickly finds himself astray in a Babel-like world; and yet (this is *very* interesting) ancient and medieval works very rarely speak of people requiring translators: they made do somehow. I suspect partly by accepting a less precise level of competence than we, under the influence of written texts and grammar-book-wielding teachers, will tolerate. Think how bashful we are of expressing ourselves in another language until we have vocabulary, syntax, and grammar correct: banish those very literate anxieties, and the task ought to be much easier -- more like the way it appears to small children. The second anecdote is harder to credit but perfectly lovely. As a boy in Ruse on the Danube, Canetti spoke Ladino to his family and Bulgarian to the non-Jewish servants. He left Ruse at age 5 for England, then at about age 12 came back to Austria, where he finally learned German (his parents had known German all along, but used it as a private language between themselves, unknown to others in the large and intrusive family around them). At any rate, it was some years later when Canetti realized that all his memories of the first five years in Bulgaria, when he had known only Ladino and Bulgarian and not a word of German, had somehow or other translated themselves in his memory into German when he wasn't looking. (The story of how he learned German is itself worth reading: he *had* to learn German, and so his mother taught him, in a Swiss boarding-house, in about six weeks of utterly totalitarian teaching. And he learned it well enough to do well at school from the outset.) From: Roland Hutchinson <R.RDH@Macbeth.Stanford.EDU> Subject: The education profession and the rest of us. ( Re: 4.0469 Learning Date: Fri 14 Sep 90 21:11:36-PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1106 (1247) Robert Hollander writes: "The recent burgeoning of Latin in some inner-city schools might be a clue to people in charge of curricula..." One part of the problem--and I am not at all sure that it is a small part--is that the people in charge of curricula seem to be of the unanimous opinion that they are in charge not of _curricula_, but of _curriculums_. My landlady, who holds a Ed.D., and I, who will (deo volente) hold a Ph.D. Real Soon Now, are engaged in a running battle over the plural of ``curriculum.'' Apparently, it is uniformly ``curriculums'' throughout what is known in the ed. biz as ``the professional literature.'' Are there any Educators among our readers who would care to defend the usages of their profession? Does anyone share my feeling that this seemingly small point of prose style is tellingly emblematic of the tragic lack of common ground between the education community and the rest of us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Roland Hutchinson Visiting Specialist/Early Music Internet: rhutchin@pilot.njin.net Department of Music Bitnet: rhutchin@NJIN Montclair State College Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 From: <CHURCHDM@VUCTRVAX> Subject: Language learning & requirements Date: Sun, 16 Sep 90 17:39 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1107 (1248) As a language teacher, I can't resist the temptation to add a few remarks to the ongoing discussion of language learning and language requirements. First of all, let me say that I agree with a lot of what has already been passed through the list on the subject, especially with Skip Knox's comments on literature teachers' not being interested in teaching grammar. I see one of the biggest problems with foreign-language teaching in American colleges and universities as a by-product of the fact that our so-called "foreign-language" departments are actually litera- ture departments, filled with people who view teaching the (ugh!) language as a necessary evil. I myself am a product of that mind- frame (having written a doctoral dissertation on Albert Camus's attempts to create modern tragedy), but I have spent the major part of my academic efforts trying to do a good job as a language teacher and the last several years working on computerized materials to enhance the language-learning process. (Maybe that's why, after 25 years in the profession, I'm still not a full professor.) While I deplore the linguistic parochialism of the average American and acknowledge that "language learning is broadening" and even have personal experience of how studying another language gives one a greater appreciation of ones own language, I refuse to be upset over Lehigh's dropping its language requirement. Quick, before I'm shouted down by an angry chorus of colleagues who are perhaps fearful for their jobs (as has happened to me in the friendly confines of my own university), let me state my reasons for this stance. On the one hand, there is an overwhelming body of research to indicate that language learning, for whatever purpose, is best accomplished during childhood. What post-secondary teachers should be doing, rather than trying to conscript unwilling students into their courses, is fostering the development of teachers and administrators who will create truly effective language programs in the elementary schools. Even if we have to deal with the unfortunate ones who didn't learn another language as children, the current requirements don't make much sense. The normal requirement of two years, even in the most enlightened programs that combine modern proficiency methods with old-fashioned insistence on correctness, does not represent a useful level of language learning if the use is discontinued at that point. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is tired of meeting alumni at cocktail parties and hearing them say, "Oh, so you teach French [substitute other language to fit the case]. I took two years of French [substitute as above] n years ago, and I can't speak/read a word of it now." I am constantly reminded of the time when, following national trends, Vanderbilt "almost" dropped its language requirement. (It adopted a system, obviously inspired by Byzantine academic politics rather than any educational philosophy, wherein students had to choose between further work in language or mathematics.) I really enjoyed at that time teaching elementary French classes filled with students who actually wanted to learn French (or, at least, who disliked French less than they disliked math). Nowadays, since we are more enlightened and have reinstated the requirement, I face a multitude of students who are taking French only because they have to do so and greet me with a defiant air ("Just try to teach me French ... just try!"). And I spend a good deal of time trying to teach them a first, very important lesson ... that there is a direct correlation between getting a good grade in the course and learning French. The students who are taking the language only because it is required aren't going to become accomplished users of the language anyway; why make life miserable for both students and instructors by requiring that they take the course? D.M.Church Assoc. Prof. of French Director, Language Laboratory Vanderbilt University From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: On Grammar and Delicate Spoofs Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 12:47:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1108 (1249) In response to Dr. Ellis Skip Knox's "Pillars of the Educated" and Professor Clarence Brown's "Delicate Spoof": I agree with Dr. Knox that teachers are not teaching teachers to teach children grammar but have taken him to task for his "mayhap they were pass some knowledge of grammar"; yes, it was a typo but an infelicitous one. We teachers are blamed for everything, darn it all!!! And I enjoyed Prof. Brown's newest delicate spoof, although I never saw it in that light before. In fact, I thought his suggestion was one of the sanest I'd read. I have long thought that students can learn better through analyzing "difference" than "sameness"; that "you must stand outside English and look back on it." I know that a huge breakthrough for me in understanding and appreciating the quirks of the English language was when I first took Spanish. After French, German, Old English, Latin, Old Norse, Old Irish and Middle Welsh, English began to look pretty strange-- like all other languages. Sitting there and parcing English sentences has its merits, but one really begins to understand the construction of the present perfect by seeing how the Germans came up with an ingeniously simple alternative to the Roman method of tacking on those ornery endings. The point is to give students a point of reference for the English language which, by itself, is often a piece of invisible machinery for them. As I'm a language teacher, and worse-- a teacher of dead languages and therefore marginalized and misrepresented in this postmodern era of academe, I can agree with Knox that PART of the fault lies in a shift of focus away from "boring" philology and "exciting" analysis of literature. But taking the old hackneyed line that our educational system is at fault is not offering any new solutions. What is considered "exciting" goes in trends. Until we can convince the powers that run secondary educational institutions that linguistics is exciting and relevant and that some of our greatest thinkers and writers were caught up with the "strangeness" of language it does no good to inveigh, mayhap, against the professors who exercise really very little power in the early foundations of education. For instance: as a professor of Anglo-Saxon I'm often faced with students who have a kind of grammar "blindness," similar to a block against math or a deficiency in analytical reasoning, which makes them incapable of understanding how to put the concept and the practical application together. They can fit the labels to the words but they can't put these combinations into coherent sentences. It's a problem I encounter depressingly often at the GRADUATE level. Here are graduate students in the English Department who have never been asked to grapple with the logical structures of their own language let alone a foreign or archaic one. It's not just a matter of teaching students English grammar. You have to make them SEE the English language as it relates to other languages. The earlier the better. Keep spoofing... Sarah L. Higley slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu Department of English The University of Rochester Rochester, New York 14627 "Grammarians of no character lecture on that of Homer." Heraclitus From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0455 Trademarks and Loanwords (6/139) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 12:18:42 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1109 (1250) I have been away from my computer for a while, so this reply may be outdated by now, but I thought I'd offer what the Germans say for "loan words" which aren't a part of the native vocabulary from which they seem to come. German has for instance quite a few "English" words which we (Americans, at least) have never heard of: Bo(a)rdcase ('overnight case'), Dressman ('male fashion model'), Twen ('person in their twenties'; cf. English 'teen'), etc. I believe such words are referred to as "Scheinentlehnungen" or "Pseudo-Entlehnungen". Would then perhaps "pseudo-loan" be an appropriate calque in English? It strikes me as more snobbish (which is often the case!) than "false loan" (along the lines of 'false etymology, analogy, analysis'). tom shannon uc berkeley From: Mary WhitlockBlundell <mwb@u.washington.edu> Subject: booger Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 22:48:41 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1110 (1251) The American "booger" must be related to British slang "bogie" ("bogey"?), of the same meaning. This makes the etymology from "bug" look less plausible. How about deriving it from bogie meaning "phantom, goblin, bugbear, scarecrow" (OED) :-) Or the French bougie? And what about "bogey" the golfing term? My favorite British/American ambiguity is the word "pavement," as in the US road sign "Drive on the Pavement," which baffled me for some time. Mary Whitlock Blundell From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0471 More on the Necessity of Computers for Faculty Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 06:49:33 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1111 (1252) Everyone seems to have forgotten the original meaning of the GIGO principle: perhaps it was my own invention and I am only upset that it has not caught on: GARBAGE IN --> GOSPEL OUT Meaning: the input is a sloppy human operation, full of errors as we know, but the output is done by a computer, so everyone assumes it is correct. Michael S. Hart From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: Notes from the underclass Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 17:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1112 (1253) A curious thing: on the east coast a distinguished humanist who writes a good deal about the middle east and who seems to be unable to write on _any_ subject without dragging in Israel as the arch-villain; on the other side of the continent another distinguished humanist who can never end his weekly Phillipic without some kind comment about social scientists: one week dogs, another week camels. With bad breath yet. As a longtime member of friend Kessler's bestiary, I write not so much to protest as to raise a serious question. Or a question seriously. We _think_ we understand the anti-intellectualism that leads, for instance, to the gutting of foreign-language study. But how do we account for humanist anti-intellectualism? Certainly, competition within the academy for scarce goods leads to hard feelings. But that's not where the dog lies buried. While I don't have an answer, I've been intrigued by a clue that it seems to be limited largely to England and the United States. Maybe Canada. Whatever the explanation, it surely involves an examination of Western intellectual history. Having picked up my spectacles many years ago, I would urge attention to the connections between that history and that of class relations. Those with other perspectives will I trust speak for themselves. Norman Miller From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0487 Languages and Learning (4/163) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 14:56 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1113 (1254) MAD? CB? EVEN GLORIOUSLY MAD? I weaved through all this correspondence and dove off the edge, and this is the first time I hear everything I write gloriously mad. I thought it was entertaining, or meant to be. The tweedy puffpuff profs, a costume put on by grad students in English, surely it is not a straitjacket? Mad? I can tell any hawk from any handsaw, no matter what midden the breeze wafts from. Thanks, CB for the characterization. Kessler From: Henk van Riemsdijk <RIEMSDYK@KUB.NL> Subject: scrambling Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 17:37 N X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 498 (1255) TILBURG UNIVERSITY WORKSHOP ON ******************************* ******************************* ***** ***** ***** SCRAMBLING ***** ***** ***** ******************************* ******************************* Place: Tilburg University / Bestuursacademie Noord-Brabant Meerkoldreef 6, Tilburg (next to RR station Tilburg- West, 10 minutes walk from university, bus or train connection from Central Station in Tilburg). Time: October 18 through 20 1990 (Thursday through Saturday) Keynote speakers: Hans den Besten Ken Hale Katalin Kiss Topic: Scrambling: Scrambling refers to a set of phenomena in natural languages which have to do with (relatively) free word order. While the delimitation of this set is not entirely obvious, we take permutations of XPs (complements and adjuncts) in the inner areas of the sentence to be the core case of scrambling. This means that wh-movement and other movements to the (roughly) first position, extrapositions (movements to the last position) and head movements such as Verb Second are not included. Fringe cases are clitic movement, at least of the Germanic type, and embedded topicalization as found, for example, in English. This delimitation is undoubtedly arbitrary in many ways and should itself be considered part of the problem: current theorizing simply does not tell us much about the status of such phenomena. In fact, if we approach the question from a theoretical perspective, we notice that there is a considerable discrepancy between current conceptions of Move Alpha and scrambling phenomena. One of the central problems a theory of the Barriers type confronts, for example, is the status of adjunction to such nodes as the VP. In languages like German, this is often assumed to be the cause of the relative freedom of word order in the Mittelfeld. For languages like English, on the other hand, the problem is that adjunction to VP may have to be assumed for theoretical reasons but can only be an intermediate stage in a derivation (it cannot survive at s-structure). More generally speaking, if adjunction of XPs to a variety of nodes is allowed, why is so little visible use made of this possibility in many languages. Are there any alternatives that get by with little or no adjunction? Of course, Heavy-NP-Shift may be an instance of adjunction to VP, but that is rightward adjunction, as opposed to the adjunction assumed for long movement. So one empirical generalization might be that overt adjunction to VP may never cross the verb, i.e. it must leave the adjoined XP on the same side of the head. It appears, then, that, while vague in certain respects, the problems related to scrambling phenomena are connected with several important and difficult issues, both empirical and theoretical. VVV Stadhuisplein 128, 5038TC Tilburg, NL phone: + 31 13 351135 (ask for information desk) fax: + 31 13 353795 Questions: If you have any questions, you can contact us at the following addresses: Norbert Corver e-mail: CORVER@KUB.NL (BITNET) phone: + 31 13 662971/662668 Henk van Riemsdijk e-amil: RIEMSDYK@KUB.NL (BITNET) phone: + 31 13 662642/662668 snailmail: Tilburg University Dept. of Language and Lit. P.O.Box 90153 5000 LE TILBURG NL fax: + 31 13 663110 T H E P R O G R A M: [... see below to obtain program] -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. SCRAM90 CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to listserv@brownvm or ListServ@brownvm.brown.edu with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: djb@harvunxw.BITNET (David J. Birnbaum) Subject: Slavic e-texts Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 15:40:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1114 (1256) I would be grateful for pointers to electronic texts in any Slavic language (Cyrillic or Latin alphabet, modern or pre-modern, any format and medium). Please reply to the addresses below. I will post a summary (assuming anyone replies) in a couple of weeks. Thank you, David Professor David J. Birnbaum Internet: djbpitt@vms.cis.pitt.edu The Royal York Apartments, #802 Bitnet: djbpitt@pittvms.bitnet 3955 Bigelow Boulevard Voice: 412-687-4653 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Fax: 412-624-9714 From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: CALL on Macs Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 10:46:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1115 (1257) Your recommendations, please. I am looking for Macintosh software to assist the teaching and learning of French (2nd year and beyond) and Italian, German, and Spanish (from the beginning). I'm aware of HyperGlot's products but do not have a very good sense of anything else. I'm asking on behalf of individuals who eventually would like to replace their conventional language lab with a Macintosh setup, including facilities for use of CDs and videodiscs. At the moment, these people simply need to get started, but the direction in which they get started should not make their long-range goal any more difficult than it is. Thanks. Willard McCarty From: MMORGAN@opie.bgsu.edu Subject: INQUIRY: Neo-Classical Women Sculptors Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 20:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1116 (1258) I am looking for information on American women neo-classical scuptors: Harriet Hosmer-friend of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Mary Edmonia Lewis, Anne Whitney, Vinnie Ream Hoxie, Emma Stebbins, Louisa Lander, Margaret Foley and Blanche Nevin. If you know of any readings outside of Gerdts or Craven, or if you want to share your insights, please respond. Thanks Vivienne Morgan Dept of Art Bowling Green State University From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0490 Qs: P-Dionysius Etext; Articles; Italian; Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 07:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1117 (1259) Two answers: Italian definite/indefinite articles: un, un', uno (sinar); what do you want to do with partitives? lo, la, l', gli, (in Modern Standard Italian) 2. Italian CAI and wordprocessing/font(s0 Of CAI, I don't know too much worthwhile stuff; there are page-turners, to go with specific texts. Please feel free to contact me if you would like information. I use Word Perfect on the IBM with a Spell-checker (costs extra). The Spell-che cker also exists on the Mac (with Word-Perfect); our student network has just been equipped with Spell-checkers for Italian, FRench, Spanish, and GErman. They work reasonably well. Fonts: you can redefine keys to print the accented characters. However, with Italian you can also do what Italians without a special typewriter do: use the apostrophe after the word, since only final vowels are accented. Again, if you would like more specific information, feel free to contact me. Leslie Morgan (morgan@loyvax1.bitnet) Dept. of Foreign Langs. Loyola College, Baltimore MD. From: BOYARIN@UCBCMSA Subject: 4.0490 Qs: P-Dionysius Etext; Articles; Italian; Printers Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 08:25 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1118 (1260) on laser printers: there is no such thing as a laserjet II plus (the p stands for personal). The laserjet III has two main features that the IIp lacks , speed and scalable typefaces. Moreover, the III has a kind of hinting or something which changes the sizes of the dots in curves, making the resolutiojn seem much higher. the difference is visible. From: "R. Jones" <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: HP LaserJet II vs. HP LaserJet III Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 20:16:59 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1119 (1261) In response to Mark Sacks' inquiry about the relative merits of the HP LaserJet II vs. the LaserJet II printers, I have used both. Simply stated, the III does a lot more than the II for less money (at least until HP chopped the price of the II). The III has four sets of internal fonts, two of which (Times Roman and Univers) have four styles--regular, bold, Italic, and Italic bold--which are scalable from 2 to 200 points. Thus in WordPerfect I can ask for a font change, select Times Roman Italic, then specify 30 points, and I'm ready. The III also has an option for better resolution (800 dpi as I recall) with additional software. Randall Jones Brigham Young University R.L. Jones From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0488 Queries: Lithuania e-mail; NB->WP; Pseudo-Philo Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 13:30:22 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1120 (1262) re: NB->WP We have used software bridge successfully to convert documents between Nota Bene and WordPerfect 5.1. All the print types and modes seem to convert properly. Randall Smith 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0495 Language Learning (4/213) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 09:40:35 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1121 (1263) D.M. Church talks about the experience we've all had of meeting a person who says they took a language in school but can now neither speak nor read a word of it. I'm not sure that's entirely the fault of the schools. Europeans are taught English in their schools (how many years, I wonder), but they have a further advantage. English is a culturally dominant language. The Europeans are exposed to music in English, movies in English, magazines in English, English-speaking tourists. I live in a city of 100,000 people and I have to work to find even a foreign- language magazine. Foreign-language movies and music are even harder to find. I may have taken two years of French, but unless I'm a very unusual sort of person, I'll likely not hear a full sentence spoken in French for the rest of my life. Without a constant exposure to the language, how can I be expected to retain the skill? If I can't be expected to remember the tongue, why learn it in the first place? This may sound like a volte face to those who recall my earlier posting, but I've never been intimidated by my own arguments. :-) Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: language learning Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 21:18 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1122 (1264) Not only did Elias Canetti learn German well enough in six weeks of "totalitarian teaching" in a Swiss boarding house to handle school in Austria; he also went on to win a Nobel Prize for his writing (in German). From: Roland Hjerppe <rhj@IDA.LiU.SE> Subject: Re: 4.0495 Language Learning (4/213) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 08:45:15 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1123 (1265) James O'Donnell asks: "And is there any good work on multilingual skills in contexts where linguistic frontiers are many and fluid? In a mostly non-literate society, dialectal variation from one village to another is fairly pronounced and the traveler quickly finds himself astray in a Babel-like world; and yet (this is *very* interesting) ancient and medieval works very rarely speak of people requiring translators: they made do somehow. I suspect partly by accepting a less precise level of competence than we, under the influence of written texts and grammar-book-wielding teachers, will tolerate. Think how bashful we are of expressing ourselves in another language until we have vocabulary, syntax, and grammar correct: banish those very literate anxieties, and the task ought to be much easier -- more like the way it appears to small children." Ivan Illich and Barry Sanders make many interesting points in their book "ABC The Aphabetization of the Popular Mind", e.g. 'One obstacle most moder readers face when they want to study the history of "language" is their belief in monoloingual man.' and 'Another landmark in the history of language occurred on August18, 1492 - just fifteen days after Columbus had set sail - when a Spaniard named Elio Antonio de Nebrija published the first grammar in any modern European language, the Grammatica Castellana, which attempted to reduce vernacular tongue to rules of grammar. Nebrija goes beyond the Carolingian Scribe, who listened to Frankish depositions and wrote them down in Latin. He demands that Spanish be madeinto a language that is not spoken, but that serves to record speech. The six page introduction to the Grammatica presents a concise and powerful argument why the new age , dawning when Columbus departed, called for the replacement of the vernacular speech of the people by a language - an "artifact" - that all people must henceforth be taught." Everyone who is interested in texts, books and language should read this book, "only" 128 pages but full of interesting stuff. Roland Hjerppe LIBLAB Dept. of Computer and Information Science Linkoping University S-581 83 Linkoping Sweden Internet: rhj@ida.liu.se T. +46 13 281965 BITNET: rhj@SELIUIDA F. +46 13 142231 From: <BURT@BRANDLOG> Subject: language learning Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 20:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1124 (1266) D.M. Church's anecdote about how Vanderbilt some years ago gave students the option of learning a language or continuing to study mathematics brings to mind a lovely anecdote about the physical chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs. Some time, I think, in the 1880's, the Yale faculty was debating whether mathematics or classical languages were better for "training the mind." After the debate had raged for hours, Gibbs stood up and said, "Gentlemen, mathematics _is_ a classical language." John Burt Brandeis University From: "Richard W. Unger" <USERPVIF@UBCMTSG.BITNET> Subject: Numbers Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 16:31:10 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 502 (1267) Since the topic came up it seemed to be right time to announce: CALL FOR PAPERS TWENTY-FIRST MEDIEVAL WORKSHOP, COMMITTEE FOR MEDIEVAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA November 15-16, 1991 Numbers - Theory and Practice in Medieval Europe Submission is invited of a one-page abstract on any aspect of the topic (harmony, proportion, symbolism ....) by 15 January, 1991 to: Rae S. Baudouin Department of French University of British Columbia 797-1873 East Mall Vancouver, B. C. V6T 1W5 Canada Please note: Papers will be limited to twenty minutes From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM> Subject: English plurals of Classical words Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 07:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1125 (1268) Roland Hutchinson worries about whether the education establishment is right to use 'curriculums' as the plural of 'curriculum.' It seems to me perfectly de- fensible to pluralize English words by putting an 's' on the end, and 'curricu- lum' is thoroughly naturalized. In fact, this business of trying to show one's knowledge of Classical declensional patterns tends, I think, to get silly. What is the plural of 'octopus'? Why not 'octopodes'? (Only an ignorant Roman who didn't know Greek would say 'octopi.') How about 'cornucopia,' or 'nexus'? Or why stop with Latin and Greek? We keep calling her Raissa Gorbachev; why not get it right with Gorbacheva? Operas include arias: shouldn't opere have arie in them? It was, I think, Shelley Berman who used to do a routine involving lots of pseudo-Classical, etc., plurals (my favorite: 'kleenices'). And Ogden Nash came up with the wonderful pair 'sheriffim and bailiffim.' Two disclaimers: first, the ancient Greek name for the little animal that often winds up in sushi is 'oktapous' ('oktopous' usually means 'eight feet long,' though LSJ says it might mean 'octopus'); the native Latin form was 'oc- tipes.' Next, unsympathetic as I am to enforcing borrowed inflections, I must confess that I can't stand 'phenomena' and 'criteria' as singulars or imagine 'phenomenons' and 'criterions.' And at the sound of 'a media,' I'd reach for my revolver, if I had one. From: <LS973@ALBNYVMS> Subject: Our English Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 22:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1126 (1269) Good old mom, who taught English in the middle 20th century in secondary school always insisted that the past tense of dive is dived. So, Kessler, have you indeed dived off the edge? Experts -- advise!! Lorre Smith SUNY Albany ls973@albnyvms From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: words for loan-words Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 15:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1127 (1270) Thanks to Tom Shannon for his Scheinentlehnung. It's exactly right. But isn't there a kinder translation than "pseudo" or "false"? One of the things that attracted me to these words in the first place was the element of innocence, of venturing to use an imperfectly-known language. apparent loan screen loan non-loan Not quite. We need something maybe in Greek, and the family classicist is busy (if not, then he's in big trouble). An additional reason for avoiding "false" is that I'd rather see it used to describe what _seem_ to be loan-words but aren't. Yiddish, which delights in borrowing, has "balang" which, appear- ance aside, is not from the English. The same _may_ be true of 'visper', although the evidence is going against me. Here's another question: do we have a term for the much larger class of loan-words whose referents, while real enough, are rarely or differently used in the host language: redingote, smoking, non-stop? Or my favorite, castlegarden? Finally, what do we say about borrowed _uses_? The English "like" is both a preposition and a verb; its Yiddish cognate "glaykh" is only a preposition. But in the U.S. it has become a verb as well and has in fact almost completely replaced the older forms. How did most of us end our dissertations: much research remains to be done. Norman Miller From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Pseudo-loanwords Date: Tue, 18 Sep 1990 15:14:04 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1128 (1271) How nice that someone brought this up! I wanted to give a few examples but they didn't seem to fit into the "loanword" category and I wasn't bright enough to invent a category of my own for them. Hebrew has some confusing pseudoloans from English; the ones I can think of offhand are mainly from the real-estate field. E.g. it used to be the case that any single-family home was a "villa" (I leave you to decide which language that actually came from); almost everyone lived in apartments and the word "house" was understood to mean "apartment" ("at my house" = "at my place"). "Villa" really meant what we used, in England, to call a bungalow (borrowed from some Indian language -- shades of Imperial glory) with no intimations of Roman aristocracy. Now that single houses are more common and duplexes and triplexes commoner still, the term has faded; the object is just a "single house". But the term "cottage" has entered the language, meaning (prepare for a surprise) any housing unit with 2 or more floors to it, i.e. with stairs inside the individual dwelling-unit, as opposed to the old apartment-block plan with one set of stairs for the whole house, each apartment opening off it. It is NOT a single-family house; there are 2 - 6 cottages in a typical house. Then there are the words adopted in the plural to which a native Hebrew plural is added. My favourite is "brakes-im" == brakes (there's a perfectly good Hebrew word for brakes, but only a well-educated driver routinely uses it). The mechanism here is akin to that in all those English place- names which started with a Celtic word meaning river, forest, hill or whatever, to which the Anglo-Saxons tacked on their own word for river, hill, etc., taking the Celtic one to be the name of the hill rather than the generic word. You don't realize you've already got it so you duplicate it. I could no doubt think up some more lovely examples but I don't have time right now and you don't really want me to get started on this subject anyway, it's too vast. Anyone got any examples from English of borrowing a foreign word in the plural and tacking an English plural onto it? Judy Koren From: Malcolm Brown <mbb@jessica.stanford.edu> Subject: Computers for Faculty Date: Thu, 13 Sep 90 18:28:40 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 504 (1272) Gee, I wonder if any of our historians' feelings would be hurt if they knew that Yale looks askance at the Stanford department? Anyway, here's a *true story* from Stanford. Curiously enough, at a meeting of our faculty senate a few months ago, a faculty committee was delivering a report on academic computing. When it was suggested that Stanford's humanities faculty were somewhat behind the times in computing (true in the sense they're all using old 8088 PCs, a situation soon to change), the very chair of the history department stood up to say he didn't need a computer to come between his mind and his texts. Harumph. Although his is a minority opinion, it is interesting to consider if the computer could be an *impediment* rather than an assitance to research. Certainly there are times when we can't get the silly box to boot or do something we want, but might there be a deeper sense in which the computer is an impediment to research? I personally find it difficult to think of the computer as an impediment, as long as one doesn't forget that the computer is a research *tool* and not some kind of a research performing device. Malcolm Brown Stanford From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: ACM SIGIR '91 -- Call for Papers Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 16:05:34 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 505 (1273) ACM SIGIR '91 Call for papers 14th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT in INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Chicago, Illinois October 13-16, 1991 Sponsored by ACM SIGIR In co-operation with: AICA - GLIR (Italy) BCS - IRSG (UK) GI (Federal Republic of Germany) INRIA (France) The events of SIGIR '91 are being coordinated with the Centennial celebrations of the University of Chicago. The Center for Information and Language Studies (CILS) is responsible for the coordination. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Problems relating to the effective storage, access and manipulation of textual information are among the most challenging to current computer science. Information is continuing to grow exponentially and is increasingly becoming available in machine readable form; computer networks are making communicating information easier; new computer architectures and inexpensive, powerful hardware are making feasible the introduction of sophisticated, computer intensive algorithms for efficiently storing and retrieving information. Research in information retrieval touches on fields as diverse as the design and analysis of algorithms, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, hypertext, multimedia data management, and software engineering. The Annual ACM SIGIR Conference is the premier forum for presentation and discussion of current research in Information Retrieval. The 14th Annual Conference will continue this multidisciplinary tradition, but will focus especially on the problems of full text databases. The program will consist of contributed research papers and panel presentations. There will also be a program of tutorials on Sunday, October 13. TOPICS FOR SIGIR '91 Original research papers and panel proposals are solicited on topics including, but not limited to, the following: Information retrieval theory: Retrieval models and algorithms, Evaluation, Document and query presentation, extension to full text databases. Artificial Intelligence Applications: Knowledge representation, Connectionism, Expert Systems. Natural Language Processing: Application of lexicons, parsing algorithms to IR. Interface Issues: Human-computer interaction, design considerations. Hypertext and Multimedia Systems: Software reuse, Office information systems, Case-based retrieval. Implementation issues: New computer architectures, Retrieval hardware, Storage devices, Data structures, Compression methods. INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTED PAPERS Persons wishing to contribute original research papers should send four copies of a full paper to the appropriate program chair, as indicated below. Papers or (if the author chooses) extended, 10-12 page, abstracts will be published in the conference proceedings; authors will be required to sign an ACM copyright release form. The program committee may select papers for journal publication, in which case an abstract will be published in the proceedings. Submissions are due March 25, 1991. PANEL PRESENTATIONS Suggestions for panels should consist of descriptions of the topics to be covered, the names of proposed speakers and moderator, brief abstracts of the proposed presentations, and the desired length of time for the panel. Four copies of proposals, of no more than three pages, should be sent to the appropriate program chair. Proposals are due March 25, 1991. TUTORIALS Proposals for tutorials should consist of the topic to be discussed, the name(s) and brief biographies of the presenter(s), and an outline of the tutorial. Four copies of proposals, of no more than three pages, are due April 25, 1991. Email may be used for tutorial proposals, but backed up by hard copy. Proposals should be sent to the tutorial chair: Dr. Donna K. Harman Building 225/A216 National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 harman@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov IMPORTANT DATES March 25, 1991: Papers and panel proposals due to program chairs April 25, 1991: Tutorial proposals due to tutorial chair June 3, 1991: Authors informed of acceptance of papers and proposals July 15, 1991: Final versions of papers due to program chairs CONFERENCE CHAIR Prof. Abraham Bookstein 1100 E. 57th, CILS University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637, USA bkst@tira.uchicago.edu Telephone: (312) 702-8268 FAX: (312) 702-0775 PROGRAM CHAIRS Americas and Asia Europe, Africa, Australia Prof. Gerard Salton Prof. Yves Chiaramella Department of Computer Science LGI-IMAG Science B.P. 53 X Cornell University 38041 Grenoble CEDEX Upson Hall France Ithaca, NY 14853, USA chiara@imag.imag.fr gs@gvax.cs.cornell.edu PROGRAM COMMITTEE Maristella Agosti Universita di Padova, Italy Nick Belkin Rutgers University, USA Abraham Bookstein University of Chicago, USA Christine Borgman University of California, Los Angeles, USA Giorgio Brajnik Universita degli Studi di Udine, Italy Yves Chiaramella (Chair, European Committee) University of Grenoble, France S. Christodoulakis University of Waterloo, Canada M. Crehange CRIN, France Bruce Croft University of Massachusetts, USA Christian Fluhr CEN-SACLAY, France Ed Fox Virginia Polytechnic Institute, USA Norbert Fuhr Technische Hochshule Darmstadt, Germany Paul Jacobs General Electric Research, USA Gary Marchionini University of Maryland, USA V. Quint INRIA, France Fausto Rabitti IEI-CNRS, Italy Vijay Raghavan (Co-Chair, USA) University of Southwestern Louisiana, USA Edie Rasmussen University of Pittsburgh, USA Gerard Salton (Co-Chair, USA) Cornell University, USA Craig Stanfill Thinking Machines Corporation, USA Jean-Luc Vidick Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Peter Willett University of Sheffield, UK Michael Wong University of Regina, Canada Clement Yu University of Illinois, Chicago, USA Keith van Rijsbergen Glasgow University, UK CONFERENCE COMMITTEE Conference Chair: Abraham Bookstein, Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago Program Chairs: Gerard Salton, Cornell University Vijay Raghavan, University of South West Louisisana Yves Chiaramella, Institut de Mathematiques Appliques de Grenoble Tutorials Chair: Donna Harman, National Bureau of Standards, USA Local Arrangements Chair: Michael Koenig, Rosary College Publicity Chair: Edward A. Fox, Virginia Polytech Local Publicity: Scott Deerwester, Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago Treasurer: Clement Yu, University of Illinois, Chicago Campus From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: academic computing Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 19:01:01 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 506 (1274) I have tried to log relevant comments and references for the following, but indulge my asking formally. In light of a new initiative to continue the development of an academic computing environment which, up until now, has grown in largely episodic fashion in often erratic directions -- we (one liberal arts [me], one architecture/computer, one technical support person, one business/finance professor, and the director of academic computing) have been charged with developing a coherent plan outlining the development of the campus computing en- vironment for the next three to five years. Part of our task will be to work closely with the larger faculty to ensure a maximum role in the planning process, and to (hopefully) develop consensus and support for the resulting plan. Query 1: Do folk in similar circumstances have "the ideal campus computing environment" plan -- one which they would be willing to share with us as a model for consideration? Such a plan would not only include specifications of desired/desirable functionalities, software and hardware configurations, etc. -- but also specific guidelines for support staff, faculty development, directions for future growth, computer ethics and use policies, etc. Query 2: Does anyone have good experience with using an outside consultant to facilitate this planning process? If so, recommendations would be welcome. Thanks to one and all -- and peace. Charles Ess Drury College 900 N. Benton Ave. Springfield, MO 65802 417-865-8731 From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: ACH newsletter Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:18 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1129 (1275) Anyone out there have any news, notes, publications, articles, works in progress or anything newsworthy for the ACH newsletter??? If so, please let me know asap. I will need copy (via e-mail is perfect) by late Sept. or early Oct. Thanks, Vicky Walsh ACH newsletter editor From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Saving Footnotes in Word Perfect Files Date: Tuesday, 18 September 1990 2230-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1130 (1276) Does anyone know how to save the footnotes in converting a Word Perfect 4.2 file to ASCII for distribution on the networks? I have received a nicely done paper from a user of Word Perfect 4.2, but when I try to output it in "DOS" (ASCII) form, the footnotes disappear! I called the Word Perfect people about it, and they were very nice but of no help. "Interesting problem," they opined, and gave a couple of suggestions that haven't worked. I could print them out and scan them back in, but that seems silly. Help! Bob Kraft From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0499 Qs: Slavic Etexts; CALL on Macs; Women Sculptors Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:02:18 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1131 (1277) Let me echo Willard's request for CALL for Macs. There is some very nice material available for MS-DOS (I'm thinking of Jim Noblitt's Systeme-D word processor-cum dictionary cum grammar and Don Sola's parallel program for Spanish, Salsa; but I know of nothing similar for the Mac. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: Computers for Faculty Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 09:53:38 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1132 (1278) I read Malcolm Brown's anecdote with some amusement, since my job is to discuss computing with a large number of harrumphing historians! But computers CAN come in the way of research in ways which I'm sure everyone has experienced, by requiring one to spend potentially large amounts of time tinkering. As we know, in the short term computers are not a labour-saving device. But even in the longer term, academics are faced with a choice between learning about software/hardware or keeping up with their field. I feel in an enviable situation in that I'm paid to play around with history and commercial software; but my research has suffered considerably. Computers, like administration, can give one the false sense that one is accomplishing something, when in fact one is completing a series of small, relatively irrelevant tasks. And, of course, the software itself can lead the computer-conscious historian to concentrate on problems easily soluble by computer (although this is less a problem than it was). Developing one's own software is no solution, but only a larger distraction. The tool-oriented approach is, I'm convinced, the right one; but not all historical projects may be best served by use of the computer. So I may invest large amounts of time learning about software/systems that I may not need for my next project (if I ever complete my current one!) and will be obsolete when I next decide on a computer-based project. (Before I am assaulted, let me stress here that I am distinguishing between such uses as word-processing and bibliography and and note management, on one hand, and analysis. The latter is my focus when I mention projects for which a computer may or may not be appropriate in the previous paragraph.) These points seem sufficiently obvious to be hardly worth making. I make them to counter the almost universally positive answers the question has received to date. Should every lecturer have a computer on their desk? Yes, if they ask for it. And with suitable software. Now for the next question: should every lecturer have their computer and software replaced in 3-5 years? I suspect that universities have not yet woken up to this requirement! Don Spaeth CTI Centre for History and Computing (UK) gkha13@cms.glasgow.ac.uk From: Ru-Fan <T121267@TWNCU865> Subject: Computers for Faculty Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:58 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1133 (1279) Malcolm Brown's remark of Tues 18 Sept. that [deleted quotation] is well worth serous and perhaps much much deeper reflection especially on the part of those of us who,through regular use, have become addicted disciples of the computer. Trying to be honest or at the least acutely aware of one's shortcomings and excesses is not necessarily something that scholars especially excel in. We naturally tend, like everyone else, (and we can even be more insidious and self-deceptive in our own defense) to rationalize and find support for those activities to which we devote our time and energy. Using a computer at this point in history has taken on the kind of religious zeal that one tends to associate with crusaders and so there is the danger of overlooking or avoiding the dark or negative side of things. It seems essential as educators that we be willing and able to step back and see where we are and where we are taking others. Just think of how much time each of us has spent: learning to use hardware and software; dealing with virus and virus protection; system maintenance; backups; keeping abreast of the torrent of new products that make everything we have labored to learn instantly obsolescent; and answering the endless reams of e-mail that deflect and distract concentration and often seems to be drowning us in inessential trivia Does anyone who regularly uses a computer still remember the blissful moments of rapt, creative contemplation that one experienced before the advent (A.C. After Computer) of the computer. I still believe that our best research grows out of a tranquil mind. Imagine where Plato would be if he had spent most of his time monkeying around with a computer. Let's not kid ourselves. The computer is, as Brown said, just a *tool* and when the tool begins to become more important than its use, begins to accrue to itself almost supermundane powers, it's perhaps time to *delete* More important perhps than a quick search and find operation is the creative spark that sets us about looking for something. And that creative spark, at least for me, arises only after long periods of silent and focused meditation and concentration. Although it's possible to be mindful about doing anything we must face up to the fact that using a computer is not the most efficacious way to reach satori. Nor is it necessarily the best way to improve your intuition or foster creative insight. A flurry of activity and increased facility at organizing and analyzing vast amounts of data is no substitute for creativity in our research. We seem to be spending an excessive amount of time either manipulating or thinking up new ways to manipulate vaster and vaster amounts of data. We are (whether we take the responsibility for it or not) rearing a generation of young people who may never have the option we had to choose to be without a computer. As we seem to be part of an ineluctable tide we had best begin to seriously put our creative energies into envisioning what that tool should be like. For me the key is transparency, total transparency. Only when the computer becomes a totally *transparent* tool will I feel more comfortable and more willing to wholeheartedly join the crusade. Robert E.Front Taiwan Mail: Chung-Da Syin T'sun #37 English Department Chung-Li National Central University Taiwan R.O.C. 32054 Chung-Li PHONE : 888-3-490-6606 Taiwan R.O.C. 32054 FAX : same as above BitNet : T121267@TWNCU865 From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC> Subject: Language Learning Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 08:47:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1134 (1280) REPLY TO 09/17/90 21:50 FROM EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET "Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear": 4.0495 Language Learning (4/213) There is a clear consensus that students should learn foreign languages and that the earlier they start the better. However, I have seen little discussion among this primarily university-level crowd about how such goals are to be accomplished short of requiring foreign language study in colleges and universities. I was on the sidelines of a program to encourage the teaching of Chinese in high schools and can only report that the immediate prospect for good foreign language training in high schools is poor at best. I also think that universities have been remiss in requiring only minimum levels of foreign language (often two years) because, as a number of people have pointed out, many students retain little of the foreign language that they learn. I see little hope short of restructuring the way elementary and secondary school education is designed and funded, but perhaps some of you have better ideas. As for the learning of languages once you have left childhood, my own experience suggests to me that continuous language learning perhaps preserves some of those language acquisition skills to a later age. I studied French from the seventh grade until graduation from college, and some Latin and Spanish within that time. Upon graduation at 22 I started my study of Chinese that continues to this day (now 32). At 29 I started Japanese and found that I had only as much difficulty with it as my younger classmates. I am curious whether others have had similar experiences. From: Norman Hinton <SSUBIT12@UIUCVMD> Subject: Language Learning; pseudo-loan words Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 10:22:52 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1135 (1281) I wasn't going to add to the languge learning discussion, but I'm too much an academic to resist.... Surely one of the goals of humanistic education is to show studentss things they have not been aware of ? to get them to "stand outsdie themselves" and experience other cultural forms, methods, etc ? and it is certainly true that not all students learn the procedures, but we do it anyway.... I don't see that exposing students to other languages is any different than expopsing them to other music,painting, architecture, etc. Should we teach only English and American composers, painters, sculptors? I find that nothing gives students a sense of otherness more quickly than exposure to another language, even if they don't lern it well---even if they reject it as "silly". As to "pseudo-loan words"...a newtopic to me, and a fascinating one. I'm searching for borrowing of foreign plurals as English singulars.... As a name for the phenomen_on_, how about "quasi-loan(s)" ? From: "Ned J. Davison" <HISPANIA@UTAHCCA.BITNET> Subject: Language and memory Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 10:18 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1136 (1282) James O'Donnell's recounting* of Canetti's memories passing from one language to another poses an interesting question about memories themselves and the role of language in them. I'm sure most people who speak another language or languages have all had the experience of recalling events and experiences and being unable to determine whether they took place in one language or another. Often, only by retracing specific instances and environments can one be certain about the language that was being spoken on those occasions. What do the psychologists have to say about the basis of memory? Is it fundamentally eidetic and only incidentally linguistic? And what might this tell us about learning in general? *"At any rate, it was some years later when Canetti realized that all his memories of the first five years in Bulgaria, when he had known only Ladino and Bulgarian and not a word of German, had somehow or other translated themselves in his memory into German when he wasn't looking." From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Anti-intellectualism and Language learning Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 15:18:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1137 (1283) [deleted quotation] Just remember "il faut imaginer Sysiphe heureux" when in front of "show-me" students. [deleted quotation] And there is a great deal of anecdotal information showing that even adults can learn languages at least usefully (I am thinking of the many refugees from wherever to wherever who have learned to operate in a new language). [deleted quotation] The next time I meet Stephen J. Gould at a cocktail party, I will remind him that the Earth Science and Earth History courses I took (he was the lab assistant) survived just long enough for me to pass the final exam. [deleted quotation] Amen. We need not go far in history to see intellectuals and humanists cozy up or at least accomodate themselves to unpalatable powers that be. Just look around the world for the last 50 years. Intellectualism and humanism are no guarantee of probity. MKessler@SFSU.HUM.EDU From: ENCOPE@LSUVM Subject: A MORON CRIES FOR HELP! Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 20:27:20 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1138 (1284) I admit it, I'm a moron! Could someone please help me out by providing a simpleton's translation of the recent announcement of the conference on scrambling. The topic looks interesting. I suspect that the conference`organi zer might stir up more interest if they made the field a little more accessible or at least jargon-free! I don't mean to be disrespectful (although, being mentally scrambled, I probably am succeeding in doing so), but the purpose of this list, after all, is the dissemination of information, so I think I'm justified in CRYING FOR HELP! Ever yours, KEVIN L. COPE, A Moron From: <S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE> Subject: transportability of friendships Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 11:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1139 (1285) Has anyone done or know of research into the effect of mobility upon the maintenance of social networks? I.E. How does moving to new jobs affect one's family and friendships? Are old friends dropped and new one's made? Or, does one ever make 'friendships' as opposed to an ever-changing set of 'acquaintances?' Thanks. Sheldon Richmond 8-?>> From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: Pseudo-loanwords Date: Wed, 19 Sep 1990 18:05:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1140 (1286) Although Robin Smith's discourse on pseudoclassical endings for English words is attractive enough, I would wade in on the side of economy of pronunciation in some cases. "Curricula" is just so much easier to say that "curriculums." And "Kleenices" is a mite easier than "Kleenixes," whether one knows Greek or not. [cf appendix, appendices]. I guess I am more curious about Roland Hutchinson's word "educationist" than I am about the demise of "curricula." What a god-awful word "educationist" is. According to my Webster's New World, 2nd College Edition, the "-ist" ending would mean (1) someone who does, makes, or practices education, (2) a person skilled in or occupied with; an expert in education, and/or (3) an adherent of, believer in education. That would fit quite a few people, including but certainly not limited to professors in colleges of education and common school educators. Roland, what in the world do you mean by that atrocity? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0503 Words: Plurals; Past Tenses; Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1141 (1287) Re: foreign word(s) with English plurals: How about spaghettis? (spaghetti IS plural, though I must admit that I've never heard anyone talk of a "spaghetto".) Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET) From: "Stephen R. Reimer" <SREIMER@UALTAVM> Subject: Plurals Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 16:32:12 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1142 (1288) Judy Koren asks for examples of English borrowing foreign words in their plural forms and then adding on an English plural: I have no doubt that other Humanists will be happy to swamp her with dozens of common examples from various medias. But I can do one better: how about an English plural to which English added a second English plural marker? The Old English "cildu" has a plural form "cildra" which in the Middle English period was not recognized as a plural form; so they added the "-en" plural marker (the one found also in "oxen") to give us "children": both the "r" and the "en" are (historically, at least) separate plural morphemes. Stephen Reimer English U of Alberta Edmonton, Canada From: Richard Giordano <rich@research1.computer-science.manchester.ac.uk> Subject: Italian plurals to English plurals Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 13:21:17 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1143 (1289) Judy Koren asked if anyone has an example from English of borrowing a foreign word in the plural and tacking an English plural into it. My mom, a second generation Italian in Newark, New Jersey (city of lights and city of music) used to ask me to go to the store "to buy some macaronis." Hell, until I got to graduate school, I still thought the plural of macaroni was macaronis. Richard Giordano Computer Science Department University of Manchester M13 9PL United Kingdom From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Words loaned, then mangled Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 14:12:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1144 (1290) On the subject of words loaned: then mangled: Judy Koren has already mentioned the modern Hebrew "Brakesim" for brakes. In the automotive sphere, my favorites are the "front- backax and back-backax" (sic), as refering to the two axles in a car. Sport is a great domain for this. In basketball, did you know about the latest developments in how to propel the ball toward the basket: There are both underarm UKSHAS and overarm UKSHAS. Upon closer examination, UKSHA is a hebraicised, mispronounced Hookshot. In soccer, every Israeli male knows about PENDELs. These are the 11 meter free kicks meted out to the oponents of violating teams. How many of us were aware that this is a bastardization of Penalty Shots? From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: screwed up borrowings Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 23:10 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1145 (1291) Reply to Judy Koren's inquiry: how about the "Rio Grande River"? A slightly different phenomena (apologies to Robin Smith) is the German construction "Busbahnhof." From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0503 Words: Plurals; Past Tenses; Pseudo-loanwords (4/113) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:45 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1146 (1292) Dear Lorri Smith: Ireversed those past things on purpose, as a "delicate spoof. " It was the 8th grade when we were adjured that the man weaved through thecrow d and dove off the pier. Some of us preferred wove through the crowd,because ou r socks were interwoven. There were lots of puzzled expressions on our little B ronx faces. So I revoise it on occasion, so to speak. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0503 Words: Plurals; Past Tenses; Pseudo-loanwords (4/113) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 17:48 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1147 (1293) Dear Lorri Smith, or was it wived through the crowd and dove off the pier? He w ove his way through traffic? No, that wont do. He dived into the crowd and so w eaved the last shred of his dignity; no, shredded the last woven thing he wore? Kessler, not so gloriously maddened by past perfects, or had woven his doom? From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: Cantonese on Hypercard Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 15:33:42 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1148 (1294) Anyone interested in obtaining a Cantonese pronunciation guide on Hypercard may obtain it by sending a request and seven blank 3.5" disks to: Prof. Peter Leung Dept. of Asian-American Studies University of California Davis, CA 95616 Prof. Leung is offering the program free of charge. (Poster's note: I think it might be a good idea to label the blank disks and enclose them in a self-addressed, stamped mailer) From: 1ECHAD @ UTSA86.SA.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: Kwik-magic concordance program Date: Tue, 18 Sep 1990 18:07:18 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1149 (1295) I have had several requests for information about ordering the concordance program I described on Humanist--also suggestions that I identify myself. (Sorry about leaving out my name; it is NOT 1echad). The address I have for Kwik-magic is : Dr. LST: Software 545 33rd. St. Richmond, CA 94804-1535 phone: (415) 232-9882. I hope those of you who try the program like it as much as I have. Helen Aristar-Dry From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0497 Humanists Anti-Intellectual; Humanists Mad Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 12:48 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 513 (1296) Dear Norman Miller: A phillipic is scarcely what I mean to produce,not against social scientists, among whom I have far more intelligent and good friends than among the Anguish Profs. Really. But there is a habit of thought that is ignorant of Humanistic concerns, and it has been cultivated in the US by the Behavioral psychologists and the cliometric sociologists, who have perhaps a phobia to literature, and are untrained in it, as much as some of us, myself, alas, are unable to focus on quadratic equations and such. The whole culture is anti-intellectual, and I am misrepresenting myself, a lover of poetry and philosophy, if I give the impression that I am anti-sociological/ -intellectual, which attitude is what I spend a lot of time, in reviews and teaching, excoriating. When it comes to the university however, I have always been able to spot the psych building or the sosh building, whenever I have been led around to give a poetry readi ng. Newest, tallest, bestest. Our society seems to need sociologists and therapists and reflexologists an awful lot. You can always tell the social science majors from their writings in English. These are commonplaces. The camel I alluded to what to do with priorities for funding. A close friend laughed in my face 4 years ago: You'll never get networked, you'll never get pc'd. We the pcs came along as agifts over 5 years, charity, and thenetworking...a decade's fighting . Perhaps lit people dont deserve such considerations, but it is not a question of pro- or anti-inty, as I call our crowd. I will of course gladly stand for the knuckle rapping, but my hyperbolic jesting has to be taken as the humor of someone who hopes to pass for "serious." What I meant to convey was merely that the budgets of our big and little outfits have to be scrutinized, and when they are pie-graphed, the truth of our situation and our status leaps up from the page. I would hope that my fellow Humanists (History is a social science at UCLA ) would concur in this rough estimate of our measurable plight? Kessler at UCLA From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: Amarna, and other things Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:01:58 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1150 (1297) I am in the process of writing an article about the Proto-Semitic subjunctive. I know that lots of people on this newsgroup are in- volved in either linguistics or Semitic languages. If anyone out there feels particularly competent in Amarna Akkadian, could he or she perhaps drop me a line? This is a co-authorship proposal. I have handled the Hebrew, Geez, Berber, Akkadian, and other relevant evidence. The Amarna section is still a bit lacking, though, and I would appreciate input from someone who has made this a more cen- tral point of study. -Richard L. Goerwitz goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet goer@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer From: David S. Miall <DMIALL@UALTAVM> Subject: E-texts for Oxford Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 10:13:10 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1151 (1298) I've been talking with Oxford Electronic Publishing (branch of OUP) about the possibility of scanning and editing texts here for publication in the electronic English texts series they are planning. I've made my own estimate of the time involved in producing an average text for my period, but am curious as to what others with more experience of this work have found. I believe Oxford is also talking with other scholars about this work, and I would like to know if some kind of standard rate is emerging. Any comments direct to me -- dmiall@ualtavm -- would be very welcome. I'll report back to Humanist if I receive enough information. Regards, David Miall Department of English University of Alberta From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0507 Qs: ACH News?; Exporting WP footnotes; MAC CALL Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 16:17:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1152 (1299) The answer to Bob Kraft's question about how to export WordPerfect footnotes to ASCII format is this: define a Dos Text printer for your copy of WP (if you don't find the Dos Text Printer definition, Standard Printer will do); next, edit the definition so that output is directed to a file rather than to a port (e.g., to "dos.txt" rather than to LPT1:); finally, print the file using that definition. The resulting file (dos.txt) will contain all headers, footers, endnotes, and footnotes--all embedded text, in short. It will also contain hard page breaks and spaces or hard returns for margins (Left-margin and Top- Bottom, respectively): for that reason, it might be a good idea to set the margins back to 0" right and left before printing, so you don't have all those spaces to take out. You may also find that underlining needs to be cleaned up (removed from between the lines), depending on which printer definition you used. Note that you can't just use your existing definition reset to output to a file: you need something really basic like the Dos Text Printer so that there won't be a lot of formatting codes sent to the file along with the text. By the way, the output file will be ASCII text, not WP-format. Also, the same procedure works with releases of WP after 4.2. --John Unsworth From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0507 Qs: ACH News?; Exporting WP footnotes; MAC CALL Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:24:58 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1153 (1300) This isn't going to be what Bob Kraft wants, I think, but it's the only electronic way to retain the footnotes: print to disk. I can't even remember where you set that in 4.2 - it's been too long - but I do remember doing it. The resulting file will have the footnotes at the bottom, but of course they won't be real footnotes any more. The real question is, what does the person at the other end want to do with the document? Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Bill Kupersmith <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: WordPerfect to ASCII Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 08:46 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1154 (1301) The trick in preserving the notes in WordPerfect files when converting to ASCII is to print the WordPerfect file to disk. You have to define one of your printers as a DOS printer, and create a filename for the output file. Then you print the file just as you normally would, only instead of a hard copy printout you create a formatted ASCII file. Of course you lose the underlining, and get some features that you don't want, such as page breaks, but these are quite easily edited out. I can't believe the WordPerfect people don't know this, but perhaps they went out of their way to make WordPerfect incompatible with other wordprocessing systems. --Bill Kupersmith University of Iowa From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0507 Qs: ACH News?; Exporting WP footnotes; MAC CALL Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 09:00:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1155 (1302) In response to Bob Kraft's query regarding WordPerfect footnotes for the network: I've been faced with the same problem when posting contributed Shakespeare or Renaissance papers to the SHAKSPER fileserver, and have always found the best solution to be a macro which invokes footnote edit, block moves the note, replaces the note's location with some unique character, and moves it to a blank second document as a paragraph beginning with some unique character. If you write the macro properly, it can reinvoke itself at its end, hence proceeding through the document copying notes to the other. In the end, you'll have the original document, with asterisks (for instance) at the location of each footnote, and a second document of endnotes, with asterisks (or something) marking the beginning of each note. A quick matter of numbering the asterisks in each document and appending the second document to the first, and you have a document with endnotes. This is perhaps not the most elegant method, but it's quick and easy. Plain ASCII documents, with no page breaks, simply don't suit themselves to footnotes at all. Either you place the footnotes in parentheses (which I think would horribly disrupt the document) or as endnotes. This method will work with any version of WP -- if the versions 5.x have a simpler utility, I haven't read that far in the manual yet. Ken Steele University of Toronto From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Converting WP 4.2 to ASCII Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 07:42:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1156 (1303) Bob Kraft asks about converting a document in WordPerfect 4.2 to "net- compatible" form, keeping footnotes. This would *appear* to be a job for TextOut/5. It does this excellently with 5.0 and 5.1 files, but I have not tried 4.2. It is availble from BBSs and Simtel20 at TXTOUT13. The author also monitors the WP50-L list and can be reached from Bitnet at 72446.2704@compuserve.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: "Pieter C. Masereeuw" <PIETER@ALF.LET.UVA.NL> Subject: Saving footnotes in WP files Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 08:37 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1157 (1304) In reply to Bob Kraft's query: [deleted quotation] You might try to print the file to disk using the Dos text printer as current printer definition. Keys are: "Shift-F7", "4", "3". Now, select the printer number of the Dos text printer. After this, select the right "printer port" (option "8") and enter a file name. Pieter Masereeuw University of Amsterdam The Netherlands From: "Allen Renear, CIS, Brown Univ. 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Word Perfect List Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 19:00:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1158 (1305) Humanist Word Perfect users might be interested in subscribing to the WP50-L, mentioned above, which is the list for discussing WordPerfect. It is fairly active and keeps extensive logs. It is also a good guide to what's on the SIMTEL20 archives related to WordPerfect -- which includes some stuff to support exporting and conversion. My favorite, of course, is WP2LATEX.EXE. I sleep better just knowing it exists. A couple listserv peers for WP50-L are UBVM and HEARN -- they will route your subscription request to the nearest WP50 peer. -- Allen allen@brownvm.brown.edu allen@brownvm.bitnet From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: PSCO 28.1 Date: Thursday, 20 September 1990 1801-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 516 (1306) [[Attached is the notice for the initial meeting of the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins for 1990-1991. The topic lends itself to wide-ranging discussion, and will profit from the expertise of various persons in fields other than "biblical studies" and "Christian origins" as such. An electronic form of R. Kraft's paper is being prepared for circulation to any interested parties; the paper will not be read at the PSCO session, but aspects of it will be discussed.]] PHILADELPHIA SEMINAR ON CHRISTIAN ORIGINS in its 28th year an Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar under the auspices of the UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Department of Religious Studies Box 36 College Hall, Philadelphia 19104 215 898-7453/5827 Topic for 1990-91: Christian Appropriation and Adaptations of Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha Chairpersons: Robert Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) Benjamin G. Wright III (Lehigh University) Secretary: David Rech (University of Pennsylvania) Coordinator: Robert Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) 20 September 1990 The first meeting of 1990-91 will be held at 7pm on Thursday, September 27, in the Gates Room of the Van Pelt Library (34th & Walnut Sts.) on the Penn campus. Speaking at this session will be Robert Kraft (University of Pennsylvania) on "The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity: Current Interest in the Topic and the Central Issues" Persons wishing to dine with other seminar participants prior to the meeting should assemble at Duhring Wing at 6 pm. The schedule for the remainder of 1990-91 has yet to be confirmed. Notices of subsequent meeting dates, speakers and topics will follow. The tentative dates, however, are: November 29, 1990 January 31, 1991 March 14, 1991 April 25, 1991 If you wish to have advanced copies of the Seminar paper, they will be made available. For information contact Robert Kraft (215-898-5827). From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0508 Computers for Faculty (2/124) Date: 20 Sep 90 00:19:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1159 (1307) Yep, computers are tedious things to fiddle with sometimes. The analogy worth keeping in mind is the automobile. To own an automobile in the 1920s meant knowing a lot about spark plugs and tire-patching, but lots of people had automobiles and got places and were glad they did. I figure we're up to about 1927 in computer-world on that analogy. If spark plugs and tire-patching are too much nuisance for you, then by all means, PLEASE, walk to where you're going, because the rest of us already spend enough time pumping up tires for friends who don't bother to learn how. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: impedimenta Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 07:42:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1160 (1308) The question raised by Malcolm Brown, then carried forth by Drs. Spaeth and Front, is whether computers can be an impediment to research. All cogently recognize that enthusiasm for our marvellous gadgetry can lead us from research into temptation, and worse. God knows it is hard enough to face beginning a project, or pushing it through some bad patch. What a blessing it may seem to have something mechanical one MUST do BEFORE one can get started.... (such as read one's e-mail from Humanist). And there are worse, and more permanent seductions-by-computer, but never mind. Dr. Front speaks about the desirable "transparency" of the tool -- Beatrice Ward's contentious phrase to describe perfect typography was "a crystal goblet" -- but I wonder. Can any tool or medium really be transparent, i.e. something we look through without our sight in any way being affected? Haven't we learned from Innis, Havelock, McLuhan, Ong, and others that what one says is inevitably changed or even determined by what one says it with? (I struggle not to say, "the medium is the message", because it isn't, but the antithesis isn't true either.) The job determines the tool, the tool determines the job, but in the midst of that resonance is mind, our minds -- if we have any! Again and again, it seems to me, we're brought back to the question of desire: want is it that we want? To be more specific, how to we conceive of our research such that it can be helped by these machines? Are our conceptions good ones? Let me propose one additional alternative. It is said that manipulation of the yarrow stalks is the best way to consult the I Ching. Perhaps this is because the complex activity of shifting around those stalks distracts the infernal mental busybody by giving it something to do, so that the normally unreachable resources of the questioner have a chance to be heard. Of course there are practical advantages, but playing mental solitaire with the computer does in my experience assist contemplation. Now pardon me while I shlepp my busybody mind off to work. Willard McCarty From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0509 Borrowing of Plurals as Singulars Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 08:35:32 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1161 (1309) I can't contribute anything new to Norman Hinton's solicitation of instances of foreign plurals being borrowed as English singulars, but here's a little exotic data. The Caddoan language Arikara borrows English apples as an invariant noun apos. There may be some other similar examples of English loans in Arikara, but this is the one that sticks with me. Arikara doesn't mark plurality in the noun, as far as I can recollect - only in the verb. In this case I suspect that apples are not being thought of as discrete fruits, but as something that comes in sacks or bushels. Perhaps in all cases where a plural nominal form is borrowed as the singular or only form of a noun it is possible to apply a collective/mass reading to the plural. Under the right morphological circumstances the process of singularization. can be reversed. I can think of two instances of mass nouns that end in s in English which have been reinterpreted as plurals, e.g., pease and cherise. It may also be of interest that the late Senator Dirkson, I believe it was, is on record as having used brethren as a singular. I can't supply the reference! From: dahanson@COLBY.EDU (David A. Hanson) Subject: Plurals from borrowings Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 11:15:13 edt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1162 (1310) Would Judy Koren be interested in the obverse of what she asked for? Here are two cases where English plurals were adopted as a singular, and had native plural endings added. Durng my year on exchange in Poland I found that small pads of paper were called "notesy". (3 syllables) The Polish plural ending -y was added to the object which was sometimes imported and sold, a pad with "Notes" printed on it. Even more widespread, naturally, was "djinsy"--jeans plus -y. David Hanson, Colby dahanson.colby.edu From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0496 Words: Scheinentlehnungen; British Slang; GIGO (3/49) Date: Thu,20 Sep 90 08:11:09 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1163 (1311) Anyone who has read D H Lawrence will know that booger is an east Midlands dialect version of bugger. Plain and simple. Nicholas Morgan From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: non-sexist language Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 10:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1164 (1312) May I just make a modest plea that those of us who wish to avoid sexist language do so without resorting to expedients like "Should every historian have a computer on their desk?" It is just as easy to say "all students must hand their papers in by Friday" as it is to say "each student must hand their paper in by Friday." Life is irritating enough as it is. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0511 Words: Plurals and Borrowing; Perfect Weaving (8/115) Date: Thursday, 20 Sep 1990 01:22:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1165 (1313) If CURRICULA really is easier to say than CURRICULUMS, as Tom Vicker avers, let's agree to say DRA instead of DRUMS, and DA-DA instead of DUM-DUMS (or should that be DUM-DA instead of DUM-DUMS?) To all of which, I say BA!, by which of course I mean BUMS! --PWC (who is trying to avoid grading a batch of sophomore compositions) From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: HP Laserjet IIp Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 16:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1166 (1314) I recently replaced by HP Deskjet with a Laserjet IIp. With it came a promotional offer from HP for their Type Director Program along with 8 scaleable fonts for 39.95. A good deal, I think; and it works very well. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0507 Qs: ACH News?; Exporting WP footnotes; MAC CALL (3/37) Date: Thursday, 20 Sep 1990 01:12:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1167 (1315) I told Willard privately, but since Charles Faulhaber has also asked, let me recommend Stephen Clausing's PRIVATE TUTOR program as an excellent tool for CALL on Macs. You can make your own lessons, tests, etc., keep track of students' efforts, incorporate drawings, permit multiple right answers, etc. PRIVATE TUTOR is available from INTELLIMATION, a company which is now marketing the courseware which KINKOS used to sell. Clausing's German lessons created using PRIVATE TUTOR are available, I believe from DUKE. There is also a program called MacLang which is designed for Language Laboratories, and which can control audio tape cassettes for pronunciation drill; I have not spent enough time with MacLang to review it here, but I do recommend Clausing's programs highly. - Patrick Conner Department of English West Virginia University From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: e-mail to Lithuania Date: Thu, 20 SEP 90 15:30:11 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1168 (1316) Jim Benson asks about the current possibility of e-mail to Lithuania. Answer: not yet, but possibly very soon. Subscribe to the specialist LISTSERV BALT-L for the latest news. (BALT-L@UBVM or BALT-L @UKACRL ). This is the Baltic Republics news and discussion list. Edis Bevan From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1169 (1317) Please do not be concerned that there have been no Humanist digests posted since last Thursday, September 13. We have both been in Chicago, attending a workshop at the University of Illinois, Chicago, sponsored by the Text Encoding Initiative. This digest, in fact, is being brought to you courtesy of telnet and the University of Illinois. We thought we would be able to continue our editorial roles from here, but Sperberg-McQueen and Burnard are working us so so hard we never got the chance. Sorry for the resulting unannounced hiatus in Humanist mailings. The workshop has been a terrific exhibition of the expressive power of the TEI Guidelines, a feast of fascinating issues in the preparation and use of machine readable texts. We'll each be posting more, and we encourage the other participants to join us in posting impressions of the weekend. We would say more. But we should get this off before a network connection goes down somewhere. We'll be back tomorrow. [deleted quotation] Elaine Brennan Allen Renear From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: question for humanist readers Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 19:08 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1170 (1318) I would like to ask two questions of the collected wisdom of this group: a) are any of you part of or know of a LAN for Humanists; that is, a network set up for humanities departments only? b) do you participate in a college/univeristy network that was established for a wider group of users? please send replies directly to me, Vicky Walsh, at imd7vaw@uclamvs I appreciate your help. Vicky Walsh From: Ian Mitchell Lambert <iwml@ukc.ac.uk> Subject: BIBLICAL COMPUTER SYLLABI Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 17:04:43 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1171 (1319) We have some interest in developing a biblical computing course and I have been asked to obtain information of such programmes. Does anyone know of such courses, and contact people/email addresses, please? Ian Mitchell Lambert University of Kent at Canterbury Department of Theology and Religious Studies From: Hans van der Laan <RCDILAA@HDETUD1.BITNET> Subject: Josias Priest Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 21:14:30 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1172 (1320) For some time I have been studying the origins of, and the circumstances around, Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas". Much has been written on Purcell and on Dido and Aeneas, but I don't succeed in tracing Priest. As you know, Dido and Aeneas was first performed in 1689, at a boarding school for Young Gentlewomen. The libretto (one copy survived) describes the work as: A N O P E R A Perform'd at Mr. JOSIAS PRIEST's Boarding School at CHELSEY. By YOUNG GENTLEWOMEN. The Words Made by Mr. NAT. TATE. The Musick Composed by Mr. Henry Purcell. Josias Priest lived from 1655 to 1737. "He was a choreographer at the Theatre Royal and --since the sixties-- an important dancer in the London playhouses" (Curtis Price: _Henry Purcell and the London Stage_). It might be that Purcell and Priest worked together earlier. Sir John Hawkins writes in his _General History of the Science and Practice of Music_ : "One Josias Priest, a celebrated dancing-master and a composer of stage dances, kept a boarding school for young gentlewomen in Leicester Fields. The nature of his profession inclining him to dramatic representation, he got Tate to write, and Purcell to set to music, a little drama, called 'Dido and Aeneas'." More opera's might have been performed by the girls at Priest's school, but I can not say how many times. Blow's "Venus and Adonis" has been adapted for such an occasion. Maybe my search for Priest goes in the wrong directions, biased as I am on music and early opera. Can anyone show me the way to other sources? Hans Hans van der Laan Bitnet: RCDILAA@HDETUD1 Advisor S-mail: P.O. Box 354 Delft University of Technology NL-2600-AJ Delft Computing Centre The Netherlands From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Virus - Frodo??? Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 00:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1173 (1321) I would be glad to hear from any humanist having had the visit of the Frodo virus. It was due to appear on 22 september. One of its effects was the message "Frodo is alive" inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the rings. Has anyone living in the New York area any reference on an Association of industry against viruses. (The translation of the name of this association is approximate). Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca P.S. Anonymity is guaranteed to those having caught the virus (or having been caught). From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Question about HumaNet and its newsletters Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 10:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1174 (1322) I have a classicist who was attracted to the HumaNet bulletin board by an article in one of his professional journals, and in particular to the CLA Classics Newsletter apparently distributed through this b-board. We were both somewhat put off by the high connect costs advertised, however. Are there any classicists out there with experience with HumaNet who have opinions/info about (1) is HumaNet worth the cost? (2) if so, are there local-access phone numbers for the Philadelphia area, or is there Telnet access (this was not clear in the literature my faculty person had) ? (3) is there any sort of redistribution of the CLA newsletter in some free-of-cost or trial method over the internet? General comments about HumaNet would be welcomed as well; I apologize if I've missed a previous discussion about this on Humanist. Thanks... - Matt Matthew Wall Humanities Computing Coordinator Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA 19081 wall@campus.swarthmore.edu wall@swarthmr From: Judi Moline <moline@swe.ncsl.nist.gov> Subject: Help re arts and humanities as different Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 08:13:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1175 (1323) I'm looking for references to studies/theories that document how research in the arts and humanities is done and perhaps touch on knowledge representations used in arts and humanities in general and art history in particular. Please respond to me directly at jmoline@nist.gov. Happiness! Judi Moline From: Phyllis Wright <lbswright@brocku.ca> Subject: Identity of American Novel Date: 25 Sep 90 11:50 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1176 (1324) I wonder if anyone can help identify a novel written about 20 or so years ago. The only info I have follows: Setting: Guatemala Topic: Landowners/poverty/family life/rural life Language: English/fiction Author: American (maybe South American, but it is not M.A. Asturias) Place: Published in the USA this may be a shot in the dark - but i've exhausted all possible sources. thanks phyllis wright brock university st. catharines, ontriario lbwswright@brocku.ca From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1177 (1325) date: tue, 25 sep 90 12:51:47 edt from: steve mason <shlomo@yorkvm1> subject: early church fathers i have the fear of someone who just woke up in class and asks a question about something that was thoroughly discussed during his nap. i'm sure that it's been discussed, but can someone please direct me to an mrt of the "ante-nicene" fathers? (parents?) thanks, steve mason humanities, york u. From: Giorgio Perissinotto <9824peri@UCSBUXA.BITNET> Subject: Printer Memory Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 11:28:35 PDT(6) (13 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1178 (1326) I am looking for a source to purchase addtional memory for my HP IIP. There seems to be quite a difference in price form one vendor to another. Please reply to gperissi@ucsbuxa.bitnet Giorgio Perissinotto Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of California Santa Barbara CA 93106 From: Michael Kessler <Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu> Subject: PRIVATE TUTOR Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 24:41:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1179 (1327) Is it possible to get the address of INTELLIMATION? MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Concordance programs for Macintosh? Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 09:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1180 (1328) We are interested in medium-featured (not too many bells or whistles required) concordance programs that will run on the Macintosh to generate word lists for use in foreign language and classics drills. Does anyone have experience and/or recommendations? We're looking for a price of $300 or less. Company addresses and price information would be a bonus. Short of a Mac program, will MicroOCP generate word lists with user-defined markup strings? Thanks in advance. - Matt Wall Humanities Computing Coordinator Swarthmore College wall@campus.swarthmore.edu wall@swarthmr From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Robert Electronique? Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 11:37:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1181 (1329) Would anyone have information about a CD-ROM version of the Robert dictionary for French, Robert Electronique, its price and the address of the vendor? Thanks. Willard McCarty From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: OFFLINE 30 (abridged) Date: Thursday, 20 September 1990 2101-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 522 (1330) ---------------------- <<O F F L I N E 3 0 H (abridged for HUMANIST>> by Robert Kraft, with guest columnist Tzvee Zahavy -------------------- This OFFLINE column has three primary aims: (1) To alert readers to the computer related activities at the annual meetings in New Orleans; (2) to follow up on some issues raised in OFFLINE 29 by Jim O'Donnell's discussion of accessing libraries remotely; and (3) to present a comparative review of some CD-ROM packages for biblical and related studies by guest columnist Tzvee Zahavy. [[...]] <Computers, CARG, and New Orleans> There will be various pieces of detailed information on the programs of the SBL Computer Assisted Research Group (CARG) at the New Orleans meetings, and on associated (AAR, ASOR) or separate (e.g. comercial vendors exhibits) computer activities. The special CARG program on Saturday (coordinated by Robin Cover and Alan Groves) will focus on materials for computer assisted instruction, including presentations by my colleague Jack Abercrombie on his CINEMA project for using movies as a base for language and other instructional modules, and by our current guest columnist Tzvee Zahavy (see below) on his Hebrew language instructional software. CARG will also have the usual special exhibit and demonstration room running throughout the period of the meetings, in the Marriott Hotel. Seek us out and help us help you to keep in touch with developments. <ATARI User Group Update> The August 1990 SBL ATARI ST User Group Newsletter 4.3 recently arrived and announces a change of leadership from Doug Oakman, who has coordinated the group for the past three years or so, to Ray Mattera (1130 South Lorraine, Apt 3B, Wheaton IL 60187; tel 708 665-5240). Thank you, Doug, for your valuable investment of time and energy on behalf of your colleagues; and best wishes, Ray, as you continue the task of developing and exploiting the scholarly use of this powerful and inexpensive system. <Mac Alert -- Possible Problem Displaying TLG/CCAT Greek Texts> Apple Macintosh users of Conrad Gempf's Corinth Greek font for displaying "Beta Code" Greek files (from CCAT or TLG) that have been filtered through the CCAT programs "Transcribe" and "Running Text" may find that every line that begins with a smooth breathing beneath a circumflex accent is missing! The author of the programs, Jay Treat, can provide information on how to avoid the problem; he can also provide updates (including TRANSCRIBE 2.7) to those who supply a formatted disk and a self-addressed stamped envelope, or via electronic mail. Contact Jay through the OFFLINE addresses provided at the end of the column. <More on Accessing the Electronic Networks> An immediate and widely represented response to the printed publication of Jim O'Donnell's OFFLINE 29 discussion took roughly this form: How can the person who is NOT connected to the University networks take advantage of the opportunities offered by electronic communications and access to remote libraries? The question is not insoluable, but finding the appropriate answer for your own situation may take a great deal of perseverance on your part! [[...]] The August 1990 issue (19.1, 64-65) of _T.H.E Journal_ contains a brief article by Martin B. Solomon entitled "E-Mail: a Primer for Academics." Solomon describes INTERNET, which is what you want to plug into, as "a non-commercial computer 'network of networks.' ...Anyone using any one of the member networks can communicate with people on any other member network." A large number of networks are connected in this way, including BITNET, Arpanet, CSNet, NSFNET and the like. Organizations pay a fixed annual fee to join the Internet, and you as an individual want somehow to establish an association with such an organization, or at least find ways to plug into the Internet facilities. One approach is to obtain an account at an accessible University that is connected to the Internet. Sometimes this is only possible for persons affiliated with the University. Sometimes "outsiders" can obtain an account but the costs may be prohibitive -- at my own institution, $50 per month has been quoted as a minimum. But the variations are significant, and you might want to shop around. Stanford (415 723-4795), for example, charges non-affiliated account holders 35% more than its own people, but has no minimal fee for usage so that the costs are the telephone tolls plus about $.36 per minute CPU from 6 pm to 6 am. Disciplined usage of such a system has proved quite valuable for some. An enquiry for more information on such matters was sent to the combined membership of HUMANIST (a network discussion group of some 700 humanists) and produced interesting results. The University of Georgia, it is claimed, has provided toll-free dial-in numbers for "a number of state and private institutions" that are otherwise not connected to the networks. Details were not known regarding costs to those institutions, but apparently there are no costs to individual users. Hopefully other Universities and areas will follow this sort of lead. There is a service called the Cleveland FreeNet (supported by Case Western Reserve University; modem dial-up 216 368-3888) that apparently provides at least limited access to some library resources for the cost of the telephone charges. Something called CERFNet in the California area might also be promising (619 534-5087). Vague reference was also made to "a Denver Public Access Unix" address. What you need is some magic telephone number (preferably toll- free, of course, but at least at low cost hours!) that gets you to a connection where your TELNET command is accepted -- from there, just follow Jim O'Donnell's instructions. A dial-up line to a University Library might do it; you will only find out by trying. Some things can be done through commercial networks such as CompuServe (800 848-8199; $39.95 to join, $1.50 per month, $6 per hour at 300 baud; for basic information see J.Hughes, _Bits Bytes & Biblical Studies_ 5.4.1) or the WELL (415 332-4335; $8 per month, $3 per hour connect time), among others, such as sending and receiving messages, getting files from FileServers, and the like. But the interactive use of resources such as library catalogues is not yet possible with those facilities. Still, if you are on such a network and want to get involved in the e-mail Internet world, you can do so. [[...]]... <CD-ROM Computer Resources: Rabbinic Literature and Bibles> The remainder of the column has been contributed by Tzvee Zahavy, professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of books on _The Traditions of Eleazar Ben Azariah_ (Scholars Press for Brown University Judaic Studies), _The Mishnaic Law of Blessings and Prayers: Tractate Berakhot_ (Brown Judaic Studies, 1987), _The Talmud of the Land of Israel: Tractate Berakhot_ (University of Chicago, 1989), and _Studies in Jewish Prayer_ (University Press of America, 1990). He is also the primary author of "Milim: Vocabulary Drill for Foreign Language Instruction," published by IBM's Wiscware, of "MILIM-Windows" and "Verbs" published by Exceller Software, and he is co-author of the Windows language shell system, "Sentences," also published by Exceller Software (1-800-426- 0444). As was mentioned above, he will be exhibiting and discussing some of his instructional software at the forthcoming AAR/SBL/ASOR annual meetings in New Orleans. The following comparative review deals with collections of electronic texts (databanks) stored on CD-ROMs and accompanied by accessing software that runs on IBM-type microcomputers (similar resources for Mac users are also beginning to appear). Thus they differ from those CD-ROMs which contain texts but no software -- e.g. the TLG, PHI/CCAT, and PHI/DUKE discs, which have been described in earlier OFFLINE columns. The popularity of CD-ROM as a delivery device is growing rapidly, as should be clear to anyone associated with a modern research library, and thus Professor Zahavy's review is most welcome and most timely. <The Setting> [[two paragraphs omitted...]] The Tora Treasure and the "Computer Bibles" reviewed here share common characteristics. Each package comes with search software and a CD-ROM containing a text databank. The Computer Bibles have in addition reference resources. Each runs on IBM or compatible computers with a CD-ROM storage device disc drive. <The CD-ROM and CD-ROM Reader Drive> [[section omitted...]]] <The Computer Configuration> To use these products one must have as a minimum configuration an IBM-PC, AT or PS/2 (or compatible) with 640K of internal memory (RAM) and a CD-ROM drive connected. I tested these programs on a Toshiba 3201A drive attached to a PS/2 model 60. The RAM memory requirements for these packages are substantial. When I began to test these products with a DOS shell program running on my computer I had less than 500K RAM memory space available for other programs. Thus, to run the CD-ROM packages, I had to disable the shell programs I normally use. <What Can the CD-ROM Packages do?> The programs and databanks under review put Rabbinic literature or Bible versions and reference works conveniently at your disposal. They can print or save to disk the results of your searches. Some even provide cross-referencing to encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks and other resources in the package. The Computerised Tora Treasure comes from Israel and runs in Hebrew. The screen displays in Hebrew on an IBM-type computer using either a chip or special software and an EGA or VGA monitor. One disappointment in the Bible Computer packages is their lack of support for Greek and Hebrew character display on screen and to printer. A customer paying these prices expects state-of-the- art software. Subroutines to display the foreign characters for those users who want them on screen or printed ought to be included with each package. After describing each package I will provide a comparative analysis of its features and a final reckoning, following the evaluation model established in the reviews of the computer publication _InfoWorld_, where 5.0 and above is satisfactory, 6.25 is good, 7.5 is very good, and 10.0 is excellent (averaging the weighted evaluation of each of the features that is compared). <Computerised Tora Treasure> Version: none specified, no date, no label on the CD-ROM Company: Computerised Tora Treasure (Machon Otzar HaTorah HaMemuchshav -- ATM), 59 Rabbi Akiva St., B'nei B'raq, Israel, telephone 03-783-262. List Price: Starts at $350 for the Tanakh, and goes up to several thousand dollars, depending on the data collections desired. Hardware/ system requirements: 640K memory with 500K free. Positive features: Has rabbinic literature. Runs in Hebrew on the screen. Good search program. Negative features: High cost, poor support. Many errors or inconsistencies in the texts. Some features on menus not operational. The program is copy protected by means of a very inconvenient system. A "doggle" from the publisher must be attached to the computer's parallel port. The first one sent to me did not work. As a result I could not run the program for a month until I received a replacement from Israel. Summary: The software is fast and intuitive. The databank is extensive. A great tool for research. -Textbank and Capacity (318 megabytes+) [very good] Tanakh, Mishnah (with commentaries), Tosefta, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Midreshei Aggadah, Rambam: Mishneh Torah, Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Ramban on the Torah. Soon available: Zohar, Midreshei Halachah, Rashi and Tosafot for the Talmud Bavli, Shitah Mequbetzes. Potential users should note that the publishers of the Tora Treasure provide no information concerning the source(s) of their electronic texts. The rights to some of this material may be subject to dispute. [[detailed comments ommitted from the following sections...]] -Compatibility of Output [good] -Search/Retrieval Capabilities [very good] -Documentation/Help Facilities [satisfactory] -Learning Curve [good] -Efficiency for Users [good] -Errors: Fallibility and Consequences [good] -Product Support [satisfactory] -Is it Worth the Price? [satisfactory] -Final Average: good (6.2) <Master Search Bible> Version: 1.2 Company: Tri Star Publishing, 475 Virginia Drive, Ft. Washington, PA. 19034 List Price: $695.00 Hardware/system requirements: 640K memory with 500K free. Positive features: Excellent documentation, tutorial, memo feature, multiple windows, four bible versions, secondary research aids (dictionary, encyclopedia, geography), access to original languages. Negative features: Hebrew and Greek transliterated only; clumsy retrieval mechanism. Summary: A slick package with strengths that falls short on some expected capabilities. Comes with a memo pad feature. Is the only program of the three to allow for four full windows with different texts, easy movement between windows and scrolling within each. -Textbank and Capacity (320 megabytes) [very good] Bible editions: King James, New American Standard, New International, transliterated Greek and Hebrew texts. Only Hebrew and Greek words found in Strong's dictionary may be accessed, using a difficult and non-intuitive style of transliteration beta-code. This is a drawback to the package. Reference tools: Expository Dictionary of the Bible, Handbook to Biblical Study, The New Manners and Customs of Bible Times, New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, Oxford NIV Scofield Study Bible, NIV Study Bible, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, The Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands. [[detailed comments ommitted from the following sections...]] -Compatibility of Output [very good] -Search/Retrieval Capabilities [good] -Documentation/Help Facilities [very good] -Learning Curve [satisfactory] -Efficiency for Users [good] -Errors: Fallibility and Consequences [good] -Product Support [very good] -Is it worth the price? [satisfactory] -Final Average: very good (7.3) <The FABS Reference Bible (FRB)> Version: no date, no version specified Company: FABS International Inc., DeFuniak Springs, FL 32433 List Price: $795.00 [RAK note: this price has been reduced drastically and negotiations are underway for the American Bible Society to take over the package and reissue the CD-ROM under its own label at perhaps one-third of the original price.] Hardware/ system requirements: 640K memory with 500K free Positive features: Documentation on disk (must be printed out by user). Simple search engine with save and print features. Extensive databank of biblical versions, including Vulgate, Spanish and German editions, and aids to study. Provides very good support for grammatical inquiries via searches of the Westminster morphological analysis of the Hebrew text and the Gramcord morphological analysis of the Greek New Testament. A multi-language wordprocessor (MegaWriter, English/Hebrew/Greek) is included. Negative features: Limited to search of index entries. Hebrew and Greek resources rely on beta code transliterations; no reference card included; some unusual choices of secondary sources. No apparent user support. Some documentation on the disk was missing or corrupted. Summary: For the most part, lives up to its advertising. The "Foundation for Advanced Biblical Studies" provides a valuable electronic study Bible for ministers, teachers and advanced students. -Textbank and Capacity (279 megabytes) [good] Bible editions: King James, New King James, New International, American Standard, Revised Standard, New American Standard, two Spanish Bibles (LALB and 1960 RVR), German (Luther, 1984). Reference tools are presented in several categories: "Original Language Texts:" Hebrew Bible (UBS), Greek "Septuagint" (Rahlfs), Greek New Testament (UBS), Greek Harmony of the Gospels, Hebrew Harmony of the OT History, Latin Vulgate (UBS). "Grammatical Key to the Bible:" Hebrew Bible (Westminster), Greek "Septuagint" (CATSS), Greek New Testament (GRAMCORD), Hebrew Lexicon (Davidson), Greek Lexicon (UBS). "Bible Study Aids:" Abingdon's Dictionary of Bible and Religion, Apostolic Fathers (Lightfoot), Works of Josephus, English Septuagint (Benton), English Harmony of the Gospels, English Harmony of the OT History. "FABS Electronic Journal" of theological writings. "FABS Electronic Library" of additional materials. [[detailed comments ommitted from the following sections...]] -Compatibility of Output [good] -Search/Retrieval Capabilities [very good] -Documentation/Help Facilities [satisfactory] -Learning Curve [good] -Efficiency for Users [good] -Errors: Fallibility and Consequences [good] -Product Support [poor]: None apparent. -Is it worth the price? [satisfactory] -Final Average: good (6.3) <The Bible Library> Version: 1988 date, no version number. Company: Ellis Enterprises, P.O. Box 1775, Edmund, OK 73073 List Price: $595.00 Hardware/system requirements: 640K memory with 500K free. Positive features: Lower price, easy to install and use, very good documentation with tutorial, parallel versions presented in record retrieval, flexible search criteria. Good use of function keys in the search software. Negative features: No searching in transliterated Hebrew, incomplete transliteration system, limited browsing among record fields Summary: For the price this product delivers an excellent value in many respects. -Textbank and Capacity (287 megabytes) [very good] Bible editions: 27 titles, 9 Bibles and 18 reference works -- American Standard, King James, New King James, Living Bible, New International, Revised Standard, Simple English Bible New Testament, transliterated Hebrew and Greek Bibles. Reference tools: Easton Illustrated Dictionary, Elwell Evangelical Dictionary, Gray Home Bible Commentary, Henry Concise Commentary, Life and Times of Jesus, Literal Translation, Micro Bible, Osbeck's 101 Hymn Stories, Sermon Outlines, Strong's Greek Dictionary, Strong's Hebrew Dictionary, Theological Wordbook of the OT, Vine's NT Dictionary, Vine's OT Dictionary. [[paragraph omitted ...]] [[detailed comments ommitted from the following sections...]] -Compatibility of Output [good] -Search/Retrieval Capabilities [excellent] -Documentation/Help Facilities [very good] -Learning Curve [very good] -Efficiency for Users [very good] -Errors: Fallibility and Consequences [good] -Product Support [good] -Is it worth the price? [very good] -Final Average: very good (7.5) <CDWord Library> Version: 1.0 Company: CDWord Library, 2 Lincoln Center, 5420 LBJ Freeway LB7, Dallas, Texas 75240 List Price: $595. $8 video demonstration available. (Known initially as CDWord, but changed name to avoid confusion with the software Microsoft Word.) Hardware/system requirements: 286 or 386 processor, hard disk with 6-10 megabytes free (for Windows software and program files), 640K memory (uses 512K to 2 Meg of extended or expanded memory if available), EGA, VGA or Hercules graphics monitor, mouse, Epson 24- pin or HP Laser printer, MS-DOS 3.0 or higher, Windows 2.0 (run- time version included) or Windows 3.0. Positive features: Uses Windows environment to display multiple references and employs the mouse for pull down menus. Offers synchronized scrollable windows to enable simultaneous viewing of Bible versions and commentaries. Displays Greek characters on screen and permits searching in Greek LXX and Greek NT. Hypertext- like interaction between biblical texts and lexica, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, cross references and graphics collections (maps, charts, diagrams). Greek parser available. Includes a highly refined search engine. Negative features: Extensive hardware memory and software requirements. Learning curve for this package may be more extended than for others. Does not include a Hebrew Bible. Hebrew texts and lexica along with other enhancements will be in a future release of the package according to Jim Bolton of CDWord Library. Summary: By far CDWord Library represents the state of the art of the Bible CD-ROM programs. After working with the package I was so impressed I considered changing my area of research specialization from rabbinic literature to biblical studies. All the databanks are presented in an attractive fashion. Little enhancements permeate the package and make using the program very pleasant. For instance, you can adjust the size of the characters or windows in the display. With the provided "navigational tools" you can backtrack to previous stages in your work in each session or you can insert a bookmark and return later to that place in your search or browsing. You can modify many of the default settings. [[two paragraphs omitted ...]] The superb hypertext links and features like the on-line parser and search concording capacities make the program powerful for learning and for research. I judge this program will be the standard for competitors to reach. -Textbank and Capacity (300+ megabytes) [very good] Nestle-Aland Greek NT with diacritics; Rahlfs Greek LXX with tags (based on the CATSS/CCAT version of the TLG text plus the CATSS Morphological Analysis); KJV; NIV; NASB; RSV; New Bible Dictionary; Harper's Bible Dictionary; Bauer Lexicon; Intermediate Liddell and Scott; one volume Theological Dictionary of the NT; Harper's Bible Commentary; Bible Knowledge Commentary; Jerome Bible Commentary; also graphics: illustrations, charts, chronologies, cities, genealogies, maps and tables. [[detailed comments ommitted from the following sections...]] -Compatibility of Output [excellent] -Search/Retrieval Capabilities [excellent] -Documentation/Help Facilities [excellent] -Learning Curve [very good] -Efficiency for Users [very good] -Errors: Fallibility and Consequences [excellent] -Product Support [very good] -Is it worth the price? [excellent] -Final Average: excellent (8.8) <Conclusions> These packages are among the most sophisticated electronic Bible and rabbinic text databanks available. Obviously the hardware system requirements and price put them beyond the means of most home users. Libraries, seminaries, and large synagogues or churches might be more likely to invest in these resources. Despite the high price one could argue that the purchase of a CD Bible resource might save a library money. The Bible Library manual, for instance, brags that the materials it provides would cost over $1400 retail in print form. A recent and extensive catalogue from a software dealer and consultant, Hermeneutika: Computer-Aided Bible Research (1-800- 55-BIBLE), lists over 350 PC Bible software and hardware tools. New products include some promising and interesting items. Some are more economical but less extensive than the products reviewed here. Other products may serve the more specialized interests of various users. Among the examples of alternatives is the new stand-alone Franklin Electronic Holy Bible. This small portable unit is available with either the KJV or the RSV for $250 from the publisher Technologies for Learning (P.O. Box 210, Lumberton, NJ 08048). An inexpensive popular disk-based program, Godspeed, can be purchased from many software dealers. With the KJV it is $99.95, with the NIV, $119.95, and with the Greek/Hebrew, $149.95. Those who want an alternative for Hebrew Bible searching in the original may find Zondervan's MacBible the best available at $399 (1-800-727-7759; 1415 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids MI 49506). CD-ROM storage for rabbinic literature and computer Bibles are exciting technological developments for scholars and professionals who work with biblical and classical Hebrew texts. For those who regularly have relevant applications, I recommend these packages highly. Please send information, suggestions or queries concerning OFFLINE to Robert A. Kraft, Box 36 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104-6303. Telephone (215) 898- 5827. Electronic addresses: KRAFT@PENNDRLS.bitnet or KRAFT@PENNDRLS.upenn.edu. To request printed information or materials from OFFLINE, please supply an appropriately sized, self-addressed envelope or an address label. A complete electronic file of OFFLINE columns is available upon request (for IBM/DOS, Mac, or IBYCUS), or from the HUMANIST discussion group FileServer (BROWNVM.BITNET). //end// From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: planning Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 21:21:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1182 (1331) Charles Ess has asked for contributions on the subject of planning for the future of computing in universities. His is indeed an excellent idea. I think that many of us could benefit from a lively discussion on this subject, which I hope would include voices of experience. Let me suggest some useful questions that a comprehensive plan might respond to. 1. What kind of a (computer-assisted) instructional environment should we be working towards? What functions should be provided for instructors, what for students? 2. Should a communications system ideally be a substitute for face-to-face meetings (e.g. for distance education), or a supplement to class meetings? If a supplement, what role would it play? 3. At what level should a comprehensive environment make distinctions by discipline? Do we want to see separate labs (if that's the way we think of computerized classrooms) for the humanities, say? If so, why? 4. In what way should we proceed to get instructors interested in the tools? How best can we fit an individual's pedagogy to them? If authoring systems (such as HyperCard) are the answer, what can be expected from the instructor, what assistance should be given by staff dedicated to the purpose, and how far should it extend? 5. What kind of research environment could best serve everyone and be sufficiently flexible to adapt to new developments? What basic tools are needed to serve undergraduates as well as graduate students and faculty? In other words, what should the electronic library-without-walls look like? (I am not thinking here of anything that would replace the conventional library -- may it last at least as long as my children do -- rather of a consistent interface to a whole range of online resources, accessible in the library but also from home, the classroom, etc. Sorry, these are just off the top of my head and so not terribly well thought out. But if we can stick to the topic for a while, some good guidelines might emerge from vigorous communal thinking. Finally, let me contribute a brief extract from a report I wrote on the last Pacific University Consortium Conference, held a few weeks ago in Vancouver, BC. It concerns these issues of planning. - - - - - Beginning of extract - - - - - In the first morning session, Robert Kavanagh, Associate Vice- President, Office of Information Technology (Saskatchewan), spoke on `Strategic Planning for Information Systems in Education'. After briefly reviewing the facilities at his university, he addressed the critically important directions and the fundamental changes they require. He said that although computing is clearly of strategic importance to everything we do, it is very difficult to convince one's colleagues of this fact. What we need, he declared, is leadership, since the problem is not simply money, the need for more desktop computing, or a lack of consensus. Kavanagh attacked several misconceptions by which leadership may be crippled: that desktop computing is all we need; that for an institution desktop computing is relatively inexpensive and is getting more so; that mainframes are or should be dead; and that computing is unimportant for many disciplines and activities. The role of leadership, he said, should be as a facilitator of process rather than as prophet or lawgiver; we need to recognize that people have different levels of understanding and to address them accordingly rather than to talk down to them. Thus, he advised, resources should be allocated to demonstrate `as intensively as possible' what can be done: `get apostolic'; `ravenously seek client input on needs and ideas'. - - - - - end of extract - - - - - Willard McCarty From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0506 Query: Planning Academic Computing (1/33) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 22:32:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1183 (1332) I hesitate to call it a "plan," but we (Liberal Arts) have adopted a strategy of encouraging users to decide on what hardware best suits their particular needs, with a caveat that the hardware be able to "modem" with a VAX "big" micro. The VAX serves as a central distribution point for inter-machine communication. This caveat only limits people vis-a-vis communication software that enables a VT-100 simulation, which is not onerous. IT also provides the flexibility for the graphics-intensive types to have their Macs, the numeric-intensives to have their IBM clones, and those who don't know any better to have their Apples (sorry, couldn't resist). The VAX (a 34xx series I think) is large enough for us big-time number crunchers to play with large matrices (matrixes?), and then download the results to a PC for manuscript preparation. As one committee member put it, "We don't legislate whether one should use a BIC versus a CROSS pen, why legislate computer hardware and software." The harware support people maintain the VAX and "well-known" types of PCs the software support people assist with "well-known" software (WordPerfect, Lotus, SAS ( (statistical package), Noto Bene, etc. Those who use "strange" software are on their own. It seems to work. Frank Dane From: rhutchin@pilot.njin.net (Roland Hutchinson) Subject: Re: 4.0511 Words: Plurals and Borrowing; Perfect Weaving Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 6:45:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 524 (1333) Tom Vickery writes: I guess I am more curious about Roland Hutchinson's word "educationist" than I am about the demise of "curricula." What a god-awful word "educationist" is. According to my Webster's New World, 2nd College Edition, the "-ist" ending would mean (1) someone who does, makes, or practices education, (2) a person skilled in or occupied with; an expert in education, and/or (3) an adherent of, believer in education. That would fit quite a few people, including but certainly not limited to professors in colleges of education and common school educators. Roland, what in the world do you mean by that atrocity? Well, I deliberately used an atrocious neologism to refer to the people who run and make policy for America's schools and the people who train them, because that's the kind of word (and worse) that they themselves seem to like using. I thought it rather a nice rhetorical ornament to exemplify the very vice that I was condemning (disregard of the standard lexicon), but I quite forgot that the conventions of electronic rhetoric demand that all such flourishes be flagged with a smiley. :-) [Even on Humanist??? --Yes, alas, even on Humanist.] What has provoked me to make uncomplimentary generalizations about educationalistic prose? I'm glad you asked. As a relatively new member of a college music department, I have been trying to read up on education and educational research, since many of my undergraduate and graduate students are majoring in music education. And I am a great admirer of good teachers and of gifted teachers of teachers--among whose number I count the director of the music education program in our department. I am also considerably amused to consider (while surrounded daily by prospective high school and elementary teachers) that while my M.A. in music is sufficient qualification to teach teachers, I would have to study something called "education" for at least three years in order to be considered qualified to teach in the public schools myself. And having looked at some length at the materials that education students are expected to read and regurgitate on exams, I honestly do not think that I could do it even if I wanted to. Now, as a musicologist I admit to membership in a profession that has generated its share of turgid and self-important prose. But the field of education seems actually to value poor writing as a distinguishing mark of serious scholarship. Anecdotal evidence on this point: at last week's meeting of a glorified music bibliography course that my department calls "Seminar in Historical Research," one of my graduate students, a credentialed (or as we say in New Jersey, certificated) teacher, spontaneously offered the following reaction to Barzun and Graff's THE MODERN RESEARCHER: "This book is really very clearly written. You can tell what they're getting at. I didn't expect that it would be that way. Is that a new trend, to write research in plain language?" This really happened. My student had clearly learned to associate professionalism with unintelligible prose. Unintelligible textbooks were all that she was asked to read as an undergraduate! And I am beginning to suspect that education textbooks are models of clarity compared to journal articles on education research--at least the textbooks are more likely to have received the attention of a skillful copy editor. I speak of course in generalities here. Thank goodness for the all-too-rare exceptions that demonstrate that education can be written about in thoughtful, well-crafted prose. To resume my attempt at a direct answer to Tom's question: Aside from its intended load of sarcasm, I find no virtue in the word "educationist." So I propose a query: what, O fellow Humanists, is a suitable (neutral, non-judgmental) term for people who study the theory and practice of K-12 education, but do not customarily teach below the college level themselves? Surely they are not simply "educators"--we are all educators, are we not? (At least we ought to be!) "The analogy of "humanist" was probably in the back of my mind as I lighted upon "educationist," clearly a barbarism. The analogy of "musicologist" (a word itself at one time decried by linguistic purists) suggests "pedagogiologist," which is the best I can mangage at this hour of the night. It is by now quite clear that I have absolutely no talent in the line of wordsmithing and had better get out while I can... Roland Hutchinson P.S. Just to clarify my position on English plurals (or, as we say in EduSpeak, my philosophy of pluralization): I quite agree with Robin that speakers (and writers) of the language own the language and are quite entitled to whatever plural forms they collectively choose to agree on. (Let us not enter here into polemics on the right of each individual to preserve her or his particular idiolect in print.) I myself use words like "concertos," "melismas," and "octopuses" on a daily basis. Well, maybe not _daily_ "octopuses"! But I _do_ say or write "violas da gamba" several times on a typical day. The dispute with my landlady concerns one word only. The points in question are two: (1) whether there exists among educated English-speaking Americans a consensus or at least a majority sentiment favoring the form "curricula" and (2) if that is the case, whether it is prudent for educators to have settled on the form "curriculums" as a standard. (It is a friendly dispute, presupposing as it does our mutual assent to the proposition that there must surely be _something_ wrong with a profession that feels it cannot get along without the verb "to certificate.") From: CJONES@BENTLEY.BITNET Subject: Mac CALL Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 09:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1184 (1334) There's a lot going on. Private Tutor is a good recommendation. MacLang (under pretty much continuous development by Judy Frommer at Harvard) is brutally simple for faculty to use and is edging toward being as flexible as PTutor. It now has error and score collection as well as pretty much unlimited error correction. I am working toward having MacLang banks of exercises which can be selected from for class-specific floppies. Hypercard is another major area of activity. HyperGlot out of Nashville publishes nothing butHyperCard-based CALL materials. Otmar Foelsche at Dartmouth and Frank Ryan at Brown are two colleagues of mine (language lab directors) who are intensively involved in HyperCard developments at their institutions. Otmar has just produced a CD-Rom disc with a Hypercard front-end for Chinese character study; lots is going on at Brown. ... To complete my earlier mailing. I myself am working on what I call "cultural environments" using HyperCard with the project name "Ambiances". For hypermedia applications the Mac is way out front. Sound and imagery can be added easily using MacRecorder (from Farallon) and HyperScan. For example, I scanned 55 images onto cards for my current project on the City of Paris in two hours. For videodisc and CD manipulation, very simple toolkits are available from Voyager in California. A final comment from the trenches. Systeme D is a monumental and admirable achievement. When I used it in intermediate French it trashed my evaluations. The interface took 2 solid hours for my students to master; they never forgave me. That is why the HyperCard programs I offer them have one technique-- the mouseclick--to master. I would recommend foreign language versions of Word or WordPerfect with their accompanying dictionaries for advanced students. Beginners probably shouldn't be spending that much time writing anyway. Or maybe James Noblitt will come up with a Mac version, as Gilberte Furstenberg has done for her videodisc produced under the Athena project (highly recommended--the Mac part, that is). By the way, the new cheap Mac is the lab machine of the future. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Language learning Date: Thu, 20 Sep 1990 22:52:36 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1185 (1335) Re. Tom Nimick's comment that continuing to learn languages preserves one's ability to do so for longer: my own experience is similar to his (French from age 11, Latin from 13, German from 15, all carried through to age 18 and I can still read them though can only speak French with any fluency; at 22 I learnt Hebrew from near-scratch with no trouble, at 25 was immersed in German for a year, at 35 tried Arabic just for the fun of it (Classical written) and had little trouble with the grammar though I remember precious little of it now). Despite all this, I suspect that what really counts is your ability to learn languages. People vary widely in this, just as they do in their prowess at Math or anything else. My father knew 7 languages and nobody in my family doubted that it was an inheritable gift. I suggest that the people who find language-learning easy, and consequently fun, are the ones who go on practising the skill, whereas those who find it difficult and can't get their tongues round the words or their minds roung the grammar are those who give up as soon as they can and don't try again as adults. Also, we're talking about formal, grammar-based language learning, which is very different from the way young children learn a language. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the latter, in\ which all normal children seem to be proficient, affects the former, which as said varies widely, some can learn languages and some can't. (NB I'm lousy at Math.) Re language shifts in memory: on the contrary, my mind insists on remembering events, people and situations in the language I would have used had I been there. This gets to be highly annoying when remembering things that happened in Switzerland, for example, or thinking of people I know from there, since my German vocabulary was always pretty narrow and my thoughts keep getting held up while I search for a word. Nonethe- less it takes a real effort of will to switch languages and remember a conversation in a language I did not/would not have used. Judy Koren From: arb1@ukc.ac.uk Subject: language learning Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 15:54:10 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1186 (1336) As usual I've come in at the tail-end BUT "overwhelming evidence that learning another language is best achieved in childhood". Where's the evidence? Whose is the culture? What are the languages? I can see that this kind of mailing needn't carry a bibliography, but statements like that sound suspiciously like myth masquerading as fact. Most researchers into formal language learning have found that the optimum age for learning another language is around puberty. (I'll swap my booklist if you'll swap yours). Tony Bex From: Ruth Hanschka <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re: Language Learning Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 20:23 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1187 (1337) All of this has reminded me of something I used to wonder about. To all the people who became fluent in more than one language at one age or another [or semi-fluent, or whatever] : which language(s) do you dream in? Or does anyone else besides me ever remember dreaming in more than one language? No, I'm not fluent, but it happened anyway. :-) From anecdotal evidence, memories do get translated; I'm just wondering if dreams do too. Ruth From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: honour to a Humanist Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 13:34:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 526 (1338) Allow me to share with you an exceptional piece of good news, a very fine example of humane computing officially recognized and honoured. Norman Coombs, a fellow Humanist, has been named Professor of the Year by New York State, as the following article will explain. He sent me the article, I begged him to allow me to pass it on to Humanist, and he finally consented. Yours, Willard McCarty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE Tuesday, September 18, 1990 Norman Coombs named Professor of the Year Norman R. Coombs, a blind professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has been named New York State Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The organization chose Coombs from 537 state nominees for his extraordinary commitment to teaching, service to RIT and his profession, and his impact on students, according to RIT. About 2,900 colleges and universities belong to the council, the nation's largest association of educational institutions. Coombs, who has worked at RIT since 1961, is known for teaching his classes along with telecourses in the College of Continuing Education through RIT's computer network. He conducts class discussions and sends and receives assignments all on the computer. A voice synthesizer enables him to "read" his students' electronic messages. "I tell them I'm blind, but it's irrelevant," Coombs said in the written announcement. "I work on the computer the same as they do. The computer obliterates my handicap." Coombs is on a sabbatical leave to adapt three of his black history courses for computer delivery. Coombs wrote _Black Experience in America_ and he has published extensively on computerized instruction. He has a master's degree and a doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. From: Norman Miller <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: life in the ivory league (part I) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 12:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 527 (1339) As I tried to say in my last note, matters of turf and jealousy about whose building is the tallest and newest don't interest me much. Not because we sociologists have got it all, for that's plain wrong: Kessler is either misinformed, has spent too much of his career in one place, whatever. But right or wrong, if I thought that this was a squabble about who gets to beat the erasers or fill the inkwells I wouldn't be writing. Obsession with honor and pelf fills our days, a sad truth, and most of us have wasted time fighting for offices, paper clips, anything as long as that other bunch don't get more. But the animus against sociologists and psychologists has nothing, zero, to do with perqs and Kessler is old enough to know it. Funded research in the social sciences came to the mid-1950's, and lasted through the 60's. These funds created healthy appetites for electric typewriters, later computers (I first got to use one, a laughable device, in 1959) and all sorts of other bad things. But the simple truth of the matter is that humanists were sneering at sociology long before we could get a college administration to buy us a slide rule. Did I say slide rule? That was expensive. A paper punch. Sociology came early to state schools and those in the Midwest and South, but it was otherwise with the Eastern biggies. Columbia's Seth Low had to pay Giddings from his own pocket. Princeton didn't have a separate department until the 50's. Cornell waited even longer. But (and this I think is highly significant) the last holdouts were those New England tsatskes Amherst, Trinity, Wesleyan, Williams in the late 60's. And how received? No new building, Kessler. What I got from the dean (I started things up in 1969) was this: "I'm sure there are lots of empty offices around. Why don't you see what you can find?" What I found was a building that had been condemned. And when it was finally torn down, a disgrace, I had to scramble again. So much for bricks. And how did the faculty welcome the new department? Some friendly, to be sure; more were amazed at how cleverly I'd hidden my horns and that I spoke English. This in the radical 60's when every humanist under 35 spoke an instant-mashed-potatoes Marxoid jargon made up of dimly understood words and phrases cannibalized from Old Carbuncle, Weber and Marcuse. (The jargoneering among humanists continues of course unabated, only the vocabulary has changed so that they now understand even less of what they say.) My fellow-chairmen at the Precious Few, all old friends, had similar stories to tell. Do old histories bore my younger readers? Try a mental experiment instead. You're in English. A rich button-manufacturer has decided to create five endowed chairs in, say, Classics. Envy? Sure. But how many bitter barbs about Classics as a discipline? In short, the notion that hostile judgements have their roots solely in the characteristics of those being judged is plain silly. Some Poles, it's said, are looking for Jews on whom they can blame their present troubles and, the country being essentially Judenrein, have had to settle for..Mazowiecki. Same idiocy. No, we bring much to the judging. A good place to look for an answer is in Emma, from whose author we still have much to learn. I've gone on too long already and haven't even begun the important part of my sermon. Perhaps I'd better wait until the dust settles on this installment. I've exaggerated of course, being even older than Kessler and therefore more privileged. If anyone wonders why I subscribe to Humanist, the reasons are these: there is no other list around for people who enjoy good writing; and literature is prophecy, thus far too important to be left in the hands of priests. Gut yomtov to you all. Shana tova um'tuka. A good and sweet year. Norman Miller From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: Word Perfect 4.2 Footnotes Date: Thursday, 20 September 1990 2142-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1188 (1340) Thank you all, HUMANISTs, for the truly amazing outpouring of timely advice (and sympathy) on how to get those elusive footnotes from WP 4.2 into an ASCII file. I am overwhelmed! HUMANIST has proved to be extremely user-friendly. I will summarize the suggested solutions, in case that is of help to another who comes after me, and will tell you what I ended up doing. Please understand that (1) I seldom find myself in need of "fancy" "wordprocessing," since my main commitment is to electronic publication in mildly markedup ASCII -- thus I am a real novice at things more complex and less userfriendly than PC-WRITE (gasp! he uses something that is practically free!); thus (2) although I know the word and can guess at what it means, I have never made/written a "macro" and was not really anxious to find a WP 4.2 manual and teach myself how (gasp! what an amateur); and (3) I was sort of in a hurry and would rather spend an hour massaging a usable, only slightly messedup text than two hours (or more) getting the appropriate information/assistance (which many of you generously offered, thank you) to do it slightly better. If I knew that I would need to do this on a regular basis, my approach would be different! Hopefully, it won't happen very often (to me). Anyhow, the solutions can be grouped into various types, starting with what I suspect are the best (long term): (1) Find readymade software that does the job -- suggestions included TextOut/5 (BBS Simtel20 at TXTOUT13, whatever all that may mean! gasp! you mean he really doesn't know? sorry, but even Allen Renear's advocacy of the WP50-L list and reference to "listserv peers" have failed to open my eyes) and LPTX.COM (for printing to disk) and R-Doc/X (for converting to PC-Write 3.x); (2) Do/make/write a macro to shift the notes to the end of the text (or transfer them to a separate file) and/or turn them into text by blocking the content and copying it, or something similar. I think this may have been the sort of thing the Word Perfect hotline people were trying to suggest (they talked about turning the notes to columns, or something like that), although they were not clear how to do it. I might have tried this, if I wanted to take the time and make the effort to master macroing, and if I knew just what commands to macro! (3) Print to a disk file. This was the most frequent suggestion, and, indeed, I tried it and it worked. It is best to set the left margin to zero, to cut down on wierd spacing. The actual footnote numbers are retained in both text and notes, but the codes for underlining, accents, etc., are lost. The results are pretty good, both as displayed in PC-Write and through LIST, my workhorse displayers for DOS files (gasp!). So (think you), he used option #3. No. While experimenting with all this I found a 4th option that may not have saved me any time (compared with #3, for example), but gave me a more secure feeling that I had retained the author's markings accurately. (4) When you call the text into the WP 4.2 shell, using F5, choose option "5. Text in" which will treat the text (I guess) as an intruder (not a WP file, even if it is!), and will convert all the markings and notes to readable symbols. The resultant long lines can be reformatted appropriately (I used PgDn, but there are doubtless better ways), and the whole thing saved as a DOS/ASCII file. Well, actually, for some reason I only got half the file on my first try, and had to do the second half separately -- there seems to have been a "EOF" code about helf way through. No matter. Once I had it out in ASCII and put it into PC-Write for massaging, it was simple to search and replace each coded feature, from umlauts to underlining, except that I had to add the footnote numbers by hand. If I had it to do over again, I would probably choose the same route because the footnotes were loaded with underlining and with foreign (accented, umlauted) words. But with less need for such coding, I would go the print to disk route. Anyhow, thanks for all the speedy help. It has been very instructive, and hopefully will be helpful to others as well. Am I ready to switch to Word Perfect? Not on your life! Bob Kraft (U Penn) From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0507 Qs: ACH News?; Exporting WP footnotes; MAC CALL Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 22:42:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1189 (1341) re: WP footnotes--before creating the ASCII version, position the footnotes manually in the text itself. You can do this with the MOVE command; it beats scanning and photocopying. Frank Dane From: Hans Joergen Marker <DDAHM@vm.uni-c.dk> Subject: Re: 4.0507 Exporting WP footnotes Date: Fri, 21 Sep 90 09:17:57 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1190 (1342) The way to make an ASCII file from a WP4.2 dokument with footnotes is to make a printerdefinition on the basis of "Standard printer", which prints to a file, and then print the document using that printerdefinition. The problem with this is that the ASCII-file will be divided into pages with the notes on the bottom of the relevant pages. If this is not what you want you may consider transforming the footnotes to endnotes before printing the document to a file. This transformation is achieved by defining and activating colums for the entire document. The transformation is irreversible, which means that the notes will remain endnotes after a deactivation of the the colums. By the way, does anybody out there know how to make endnotes to footnotes in WP (any version). Hans Joergen Marker Danish Data Archives From: hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: RE: 4.0515 Rs: Exporting (w/ footnotes) from WordPerfect (7/144) Date: 21 Sep 90 07:04 -0330 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1191 (1343) RE: WordPerfect Footnotes Export FROM: Hans Rollmann (hans@kean) I used to have two macros, one called FOOTOUT, which called up the footnotes and inserted them into angular brackets in the appropriate places of the text. Since angular brackets are ASC, as is the text that goes with them, they can be transmitted via the phone lines. Another macro, called FOOTIN, changed the footnote content in angular brackets to regular WordPerfect footnotes. I used this procedure largely for editing, to see text AND footnotes on the screen and yet move them into footnote format whenever required. But the communications application works as well. HANS ROLLMANN. From: NZ101@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Saving WordPerfect footnotes Date: Sun, 23 Sep 90 16:40:47 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1192 (1344) There are a lot of people out there who seem to be interested in the problem that Kraft has. It is easy to prepare a macro for a WP5.0 file, that not only separates notes from text, but also numbers the notes (and the appropriate places in the text), and then saves notes and text in two separate files. The fact that his text has been prepared with WP4.2 shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just bring it up using 5.0 and then run the macro. The macro has to be prepared with the macro editor; it searches for the first note, copies it, erases it from the text, puts the number (a variable) in its place, puts the number and the note in the second screen that WP provides, then goes back and does it again, adding 1 to the variable each time. Finally the macro can then save both the notes and the text as separate files - best saved as WP rather than ASCII texts at first, so that marking of various printing codes (underlining, italics, etc) can be done if desired, before these are stripped when the files are resaved as ASCII texts. The macro can be written to handle footnotes or endnotes. It is useful for preparing material for a publisher who has to have an ASCII text. Norman Zacour(nz101@uk.ac.cambridge.phoenix) From: Judith Rowe <JUDITH@PUCC> Subject: networks Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 07:38:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1193 (1345) As you will probably hear from every primary and secondary reader of HUMANIST from Princeton, there is a campus-wide network to which some users from humanities departments belong and several departments have LANS. It would help to understand the motivation of Vicky's inquiry. From: jdg@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joel D. Goldfield) Subject: "E-dictionary en francais" Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 23:37:39 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1194 (1346) To Willard & colleagues: since Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch, as was Harper & Row, and the new amalgam named "HarperCollins" or very close to that, I'd try this firm in NYC. Got a NYC phonebook perhaps in the library? Or perhaps one of our colleagues in the Big Apple could help out. Regards, Joel Goldfield New telephone # 919-684-3637 (W); 919-286-5956 (H) From: TBESTUL@crcvms.unl.edu Subject: RE: Robert Electronique Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 13:46 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1195 (1347) Le Robert Electronique is available on CD ROM from Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., 1101 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA, telephone 800-752-0515. The cost as of March 1 was US $995. Chadwyck-Healey also has a UK address, namely [C cambridge place, Cambridge, CB2 1NR, tel (0223) 311479. Tom Bestul, University of Nebraska-Lincoln tbestul@crcvms.unl.edu (internet) tbestul@unlvax1 (bitnet) From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: Early Church Fathers Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 02:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1196 (1348) If I were you I would try Paul Tombeur at the CETEDOC center in Belgium or Ferdinand Poswick at L'abbaye de Maredsous, Centre Informatique et Bible. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Randall Smith <6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET> Subject: Re: MAC Concordances; Micro-OCP Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 08:26:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1197 (1349) I do not know of a MAC concordance program, but I can address the question about the microOCP; it does generate concordances with user-defined markup strings. We recently used it to generate an index of words from a list of descriptions of slides. We used references of the type: <S DPTA0001> where S is the level and the rest a text string assigned when the list was created. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Intellimation Date: Wednesday, 26 Sep 1990 12:57:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1198 (1350) Information about publishing or obtaining materials available from the Intellimation Library for the Macintosh is available by calling 1-800-3-INTELL. The first Intellimation Library for the Macintosh catalog will be available in the fall. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Private Tutor/Intellimation address Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 13:10:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1199 (1351) In answer to Michael Kessler's query regarding the Intellimation address for Private Tutor, here is the complete information: Intellimation P.O. Box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93116-1922 toll-free numbers: 1-800-346-8455 or try 1-800-443-6633 Applelink: Intell2 Fax: 1-805-968-8899 cost: $65.99 They are also now distributing the German Tutor exercises derived from Private Tutor, same cost. From: LS973@ALBNYVMS.BITNET Subject: Intellimation Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 16:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1200 (1352) The address for Intellimation is: Intellimation P.O. Box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93116-1922 This is the company that distributes the Annenberg/cpb Project materials. Lorre Smith SUNY-Albany ls973@albnyvms From: Sarah L. Higley <slhi@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: FRODO Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 00:58:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1201 (1353) I thought the expression was "Frodo lives." As in "Spock lives," or "I grok Spock." At any rate, I can't think the virus could be too original if allFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! it said now wait a minuFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!te. What's going onFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! uHO, i cAN't seem TOFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! cONtrol MY caps somebody pleaseFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!help me... From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0527 On the Nature of Universities Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 23:18:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1202 (1354) As long as Norman Miller was brave enough to be first,let me join in the discussion concerning social sciences. Like Sociology, Psychology began as a poor cousin; either applied Philosophy or experimental Physiology. When James started the first Psychology Lab in the U.S. at Harvard, littlemore went on there other than "introspection of the illogical side of the mind" (NOW the building is named after him). To this day, I am asked (most often by Literature types) whether I'm a behaviorist or a Freudian, as though those two extreme points of view represent all there is to Psychology. (Linguists generally ask for my views about Chomsky.) If I may be permitted to use an analogy tha stems from catching only snatches of the PBS Civil War series as I pass the VCR, the issue of funding for Literature, Linguistics, and "social sciences" seems similar to the field hands' envy of the house slaves. Ain't none of us getting what we should, unless we happen to be able to contribute to Defense or Medicine in some way. For the record, Psychology at Mercer is in the second oldest building on campus. We got it from Chemistry years ago when they convinced the administration it was "unfit." (Administration has the oldest building, but it's been refurbished; ours is just old). Frank Dane From: Norman Miller <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: A footnote Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 11:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1203 (1355) In praising Humanist for the quality of the writing one generally finds, I should have mentioned as well IOUDAIOS, which is moderated by our fellow-Humanist Steve Mason and which deals ostensibly with First Century Judaism; but calendars are arbitrary things and there are signs of an expanded horizon. At any rate, the high scholarly level of the discussion and the fact that it serves as distributor of as-yet unpublished manuscripts--an innovation, I believe--makes IOUDAIOS something special. Among the outstanding recent articles is a stunning piece by Baruch Halpern which links social structures and ideologies. While Halpern gives no sign of having read Marx or Mannheim or Marcel Granet, his analysis is profoundly sociological. I don't know whether this will please or anger him. My own reading is that he draws heavily on the tradition of Continental biblical scholarship, a tradition that knows little of the Anglo-American wall between humanist and social scientist, and that sociological concepts are therefore part of his instrument case. And this footnote, which started out simply to praise and thank Steve Mason, is getting out of hand. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0527 On the Nature of Universities Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 11:37 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1204 (1356) Dear Norman Miller: I offered you a public apology, saying I was (half) jesting with you as sociology's rep on these Story Boards, so to say. Perhaps the West is too full of high rises for sociology and psychology (the latter of which in its physiological work is always most impressive). Ancient history, such as poor Veblen's incarceration in a basement room at Columbia, from which he was later ousted, does not excuse the second part of the 20th Century. I agree of course it is a battle for funding, and the Humanities went to the wall about 1950, where they have remained, perhaps for good and sufficient reasons. I have learned much from the great sociologists, and I dont knock it. But, I also believe that the lack of integration of training in sociology with the Humanities, or History, and/or History, has led since 1950 to a deplorable mental state of affairs, as evidenced in the alienation from one another's discourse in both camps. If they are camps. That is a result of both disciplines crowding their students out by cramming their requirements schedules, which is a battle for space, classrooms, teaching positions, at bottom. Furthermore, I sense that in the 20th Century, while the number of literary, or humanist documents remains more or less fixed, the number of texts or documents for the social sciences has swollen uncritically. I seem to have galled your kibe, Professor Miller; but I did so carelessly and jocularly, in the sense of jesting or complaining or criticizing among colleagues. Perhaps it remains true: loose lips sink ships. No deep offense was meant. I could say much more harsh things about the quality of the discourse I have known among the people in my own discipline that I would ever dare to say about folks in sociology. That should be understood. We all of us could. You ought to try talking to the law profs sometime! Or Bus Administration! Power corrupts, said the Lord Acton. We are now the meekest of the meek, and we squeak. Yours with best wishes, Kessler From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-91 Annual Meeting Call for Papers Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 17:15:21 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 531 (1357) CALL FOR PAPERS 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 18 - 21 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, California, USA TOPICS OF INTEREST: Papers are invited on substantial, original, and unpublished research on all aspects of computational linguistics, including, but not limited to, pragmatics, discourse, semantics, syntax, and the lexicon; phonetics, phonology, and morphology; interpreting and generating spoken and written language; linguistic, mathematical, and psychological models of language; machine translation and translation aids; natural language interfaces; message understanding systems; and theoretical and applications papers of every kind. REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe unique work; they should emphasize completed work rather than intended work; and they should indicate clearly the state of completion of the reported results. A paper accepted for presentation at the ACL Meeting cannot be presented at another conference. FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Authors should submit six copies of preliminary versions of their papers, not to exceed 3200 words (exclusive of references). The title page should include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses, a short (5 line) summary, and a specification of the topic area. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send to: Douglas E. Appelt Artificial Intelligence Center SRI International 333 Ravenswood Road Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA (+1-415)859-6150; (+1-415)859-6171 fax appelt@ai.sri.com SCHEDULE: Preliminary papers are due by 19 January 1991 (the December date specified in The FINITE STRING Fall issue is incorrect). Authors will be notified of acceptance by 8 March 1991. Camera-ready copies of final papers prepared in a double-column format, preferably on laser-printer output, must be received by 19 April 1991, along with a signed copyright release statement. OTHER ACTIVITIES: As a new feature, there will be a ***Special Student Session*** organized by a committee of ACL graduate student members. Participants must be ACL members; anyone interested should contact Philip Resnik, Computer & Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; (+1-215)898-1595; resnik@grad1.cis.upenn.edu. The meeting will also include a program of tutorials organized by Cecile Paris, USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292, USA; (+1-213)822-1511; paris@isi.edu. Anyone wishing to arrange an exhibit or present a demonstration should send a brief description together with a specification of physical requirements (space, power, telephone connections, tables, etc.) to Sandra Newton, Brown Bear Consulting, 3842 Louis Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA; (+1-415)856-6506; newton@decwrl.dec.com. CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Local arrangements are being handled by by Peter Norvig, Division of Computer Science, University of California, 573 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; (+1-415)642-9533; norvig@teak.berkeley.edu; and Robert Wilensky, Division of Computer Science, University of California, 571 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; (+1-415)642-7034; wilensky@teak.berkeley.edu. For other information on the conference and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; (+1 201)829-4312; walker@flash.bellcore.com or bellcore!walker. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Doug Appelt (SRI International), Ken Church (AT&T Bell Labs and USC/ISI), Robin Cohen (University of Waterloo), Erhard Hinrichs (University of Illinois), Eduard Hovy (USC/ISI), Robert Ingria (BBN Systems & Technologies), Yasuhiro Katagiri (NTT Basic Research Laboratories), Diane Litman (Columbia University), K. Vijay-Shanker (University of Delaware), Meg Withgott (XEROX PARC), Henk Zeevat (University of Amsterdam). From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0524 "Educationist"? Date: Tue, 25 Sep 90 23:12:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1205 (1358) Have you considered "Professor of Education" or "Education Professor"? According to my Websters (II, New Riverside), one who professes on the topic of education, as opposed to educating others about topics other than "how to teach," might best be called one or the other. Frank Dane, "Psychology Professor," Mercer University P.S. Any final responses to the left-hand/memory survey before I begin crunching the data? From: Peter D. Junger <pdj2@po.cwru.edu> Subject: Educationists, Sociologists, and Turgidity Date: 26 Sep 90 11:05:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1206 (1359) Roland Hutchinson's recent claim that "the field of education seems actually to value poor writing as a distinguishing mark of serious scholarship" puts me in mind of a similar claim--only about sociology--that was made to me by Malcolm Cowley when I was staying at his house in the mid-fifties. He insisted that he knew a young man, who could write well, who had written a turgid, and unreadable, Ph.D. dissertation in sociology; the young man's defense of his bad prose was simple: he would not have gotten his degree if he had written clearly. Cowley also claimed that David Riesman was a good example of a sociologist who could write well, but didn't when writing sociology. (I did not know it at the time, but Riesman started in law; he wrote one quite well-known law review article before he went on to higher things. The law review article reads like a law review article, viz., the prose is pretty bad, but not nearly down to the level of sociology.) Cowley also had a strong distaste for psychologists, not only because he felt that they write like sociologists, but also because of their total lack of aesthetic compunction, a lack that he felt was demonstrated by their use of T.A.T (Thematic Aperception Test, I believe it is) cards, little drawings that, I agree, no one should be forced to look at. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, Ohio INTERNET: PDJ2@PO.CWRU.EDU --or-- JUNGER@CWRU.CWRU.EDU BITNET: JUNGER@CWRU P.S. When I was growing up in Wyoming we always said octopods. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0524 "Educationist"? Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 10:17:12 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1207 (1360) Hey ho! for Roland's broadside across the bows of the good ship Education. Actually, I don't think that it's a ship at all; rather, some people agreed once that there _ought_ to be a ship and have spent the decades since then arguing over its shape and where it's going, should it ever exist. The disease of sloppy and inflated writing is not peculiar to the displine of education, or even of educationalizing. Government, the social sciences and other unfortunates turn the stuff out by the metric ton. It's unfortunate that nonsense spews from public officials; rhetorical skill was once a requirment of honorable public service. But I should think that the folks in Education would take it as a point of pride that they excel all others in clarity and grace in their native tongue. Instead, language seems almost a matter of indifference. Why? I dunno. But those who know better ought to raise their voice and call the Educationeers to task. Let the professors of Education demand educationality of their students. Let them insist not merely on competency but on excellence. Let their students be an example in turn to _their_ students and to the communities they serve. What am I saying? Let the chuckling commence -- 'twill never be done. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0525 Mac CALL; Language learning Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 02:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1208 (1361) [deleted quotation]acquisition techniques specifically for Dutch, English and German I gathered that the best time to learn a language efficiently was when a child had completed the acquisition of his/her mother(/father?)tongue. Studies in bilingualism and trilingualism at that time showed that the better the native language was acquired the better the second language was acquired too. For those interested in the subject of bilingualism and multilingualism, Albert Verdood published a commented bibliography in the Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique series at the Universite de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve). Language learning is just like gastronomy: some will only eat hamburger where ever they are in the world and others will at least try if not like chinese, japanese, french, italian, indian, etc. cuisine. Line editors being what they are they force me to add a y to the word studying and an s to hamburgers. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: Language memory Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 01:51:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1209 (1362) Judy Koren's and Ruth Hanschka's postings (#4.0525 Tue 25 Sep) about foreign-language learning's effect on dreams and memory remind me of a remark made by one of my professors, years ago, the late Ramon Guthrie. He enjoyed translating poetry as well as writing it, and when asked how he went about translating what we students blithely assumed was untranslatable, he said, "I memorize the poem [in French], tell my subconscious to work on it, and three days later I remember it in English." That observation has stuck with me even though I've never tried it - there must be some advantage, after all, in being a poet. The process does seem to work with - I would guess - all creative thinking, complex problem solving or whatever you want to call it. I've found it works when translating prose or writing in English. Refining the process - or perhaps just stating it less succinctly - it comes down to this: (1) Study the problem thoroughly (2) Make a mental resolution to "sleep on it" (3) Keep a note pad and pencil handy (the answer may wake you up in the middle of the night, come to you while you're in the bathtub.. one never knows) Jacques Hadamard's famous book, _The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field_, has some interesting anecdotes bearing on the role of the subconscious. I'd like to see a discussion of such mental "tricks" as they apply to non-conscious processes, stimulating creativity and suchlike ("etc"). From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: So, why did so many jump on the WP bandwagon? Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 08:37:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1210 (1363) Reading the raft of suggestions concerning how to keep footnotes created with WordPerfect when creating an ASCII file reminded me of the considerable pressure I received from colleagues and friends a couple of years ago when I began looking for something besides WordStar for word processing. Get WordPerfect, they said in chorus. The footnote facility often was touted as its strongest feature (though I had WS 5 with its footnote facility on my office micro, I still used WS 2.26 on my old CP/M Osborne at home without an integrated footnote facility). In my usual perverse way, I resisted and began using NotaBene instead. I have never regretted the decision: flawless footnote/endnote manipulation, automatically creates an ASCII-like file with some internal markup that can easily be located and modified with macros, etc. Actually, now that I think of it, with the external program Footnote and WordStar 2.26, I could easily extract, merge, change footnotes/endnotes as well. So, what was the great improvement over WordStar that WordPerfect hype used to stress? There, this should ruffle a few feathers. regards Bill TeBrake, History, U. of Maine. From: "ALAN C. ACOCK" <ACOCK@ORSTVM> Subject: WordPerfect files Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 10:03:34 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1211 (1364) If you can upload files as BINARY files and whoever receives them can download them as BINARY files, then all this footnote discussion is unimportant. The literal WP file will be transferred and this will include footnotes, tables, even graphics. The same can be done with an *.exe or *.com file. You can send software this way. On an IBM machine using PC3270 connection/software the command for an ascii file is SEND FN.EXT FN FT FM (ASCII CRLF For a binary file the command is SEND FN.EXT FN FT FM. On other systems this may not be practical. From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Isogloss and 'booger' Date: 21 Sep 90 09:0:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1212 (1365) I hesitate to prolong discussion of this subject, but ever since it was mentioned I have been expecting a contribution from someone (anyone!) in Scotland. A Glaswegian acquaintance of mine informed me a few years ago that the proper term (if one can call it that) for "booger" was "bogle" in that part of the world. The conversation then turned up some other variations which suggested some fairly clear isoglosses distinguishing local vocabularies. Any light to be shed on this subject from those in a position to know? David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6 From: JLANCASTER@amherst Subject: Plurals Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 18:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1213 (1366) An anecdote told by J.W. Marchand in teaching (Germanic) linguistics at Cornell in the late 60s: In Swahili there is a class of nouns beginning in ki- that forms its plurals by replacing ki- with vi-. The name of a traffic circle in one African country (I don't recall which) that used the English traffic pattern is "kiplefti"; the plural is "viplefti". John Lancaster (jlancaster@amherst.edu) Amherst College From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: miscellaneous Date: Wednesday, 26 September 1990 2142-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1214 (1367) Welcome Back, HUMANIST! Not that there isn't plenty else to do, but I did miss you. And Congratulations, Norman Coombs (thanks, Willard, for posting the kudos -- yes, it is a singular form, in Greek, but I almost said "kudo"!)! As for the sociologists and psychologists, and the connected tales of woe, try being in "religious studies" (originally "religious thought"!) in a highly professionalized and science oriented (also social science) context such as Penn! At least we can consciously focus on trying to bring together the best in the various "approaches" to religion, including sociological, anthropological, psychological, historical, philosophical, philological-textual, and the like. Indeed, the only humanities courses here devoted to instruction in using computers as such are offered by "religious studies" (that must mean something!?). Ian Lambert, can that information help with your quest for "biblical computing" courses? (You have a ready made text book in John Hughes' BITS, BYTES & BIBLICAL STUDIES [Zondervan, 1987, but still potent].) Finally, my general experience with language skills in such "different" scripts and structures as Hebrew and Arabic is that adeptness in Math (or in testing well in "quantitative" skills) often correlates with adeptness in learning and using the languages by native English/American speakers. But Judy Koren says she is lousy at Math but adept at languages. Blows another hoary theory of mine! Ah well, life is too short to worry about it. Bob Kraft (Religious Studies, U. Penn) From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0530 Social Sciences and the University Date: Wednesday, 26 Sep 1990 18:20:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1215 (1368) In Professor Kessler's response about social sciences and the humanities, I believe there are at least two misleading remarks. 1) the humanities and the social sciences are closer in the nineties than, perhaps, they have ever been, with the fast-growing evolution of cultural studies, of which new historicism (whatever its problems) is but a single offshoot. 2) the claim that documents have not swollen in the humanities in the 20th century is incomprehensible, both for primary and secondary texts. NB especially for secondary texts, one only need compare a 1935 MLA bibliography with a 1988 MLA bibliography to see the difference. I really don't understand, therefore, the distinctions Prof. Kessler is Dn interdisciplinary notation which has not quite yet lost its relevance) part of the human sciences. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: It's the quality of mind that counts, yes? Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 20:20:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1216 (1369) My gratitude to Norman Miller for his sermon in praise of mind over departmental affiliation. Perhaps there are many humanists in this seminar who by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have been driven to the margins of the (officially defined) humanities and found that culture and cultivated intelligence do not end there or fade into barbaric cant. We certainly have cant enough within the very core of the humanities, tired old crank-turning, frantic new crank-turning, and many other symptoms of pervasive morbidity I need not enumerate. What I've always thought was humane about the humanities was the training in the exercise of the imagination, the ability to transcend one's own mental provincialisms and take on other worlds. For me the computer has been the occasion for many adventures -- perhaps I should call them raids -- into disciplines for which I was never trained (one of them is, in fact, sociology), but I have not noticed on the whole that the prose gets any worse or the wit any less sharp. Or any better. Computing in the humanities relentless drives us outward to seek connections with other disciplines. From the perspective of computing, can any distinction be made between the social sciences and the humanities? When we consider the phenomenon of modelling, how is the representation of systems in the humanities any different from those, say, in medicine? To drive this to its limit, is there any such thing as "computing in the humanities", or is our field merely a response to a temporary problem of user support? Wandered a bit, I know. I keep thinking that the primary value of computing for the humanities is the reexamination it should force us to make of what we do and why, where we draw our disciplinary lines, and why. But now I must run off and be productive, with a computer. Willard McCarty From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: Is it really necessary to dump on whole groups of non-humanists? Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 20:42:48 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1217 (1370) Of course, there are those in education and sociology who do not write as well as they should, just as there are those in the humanities who are less than perfect. But what really is the point of the infantile categorization of sociologists or educationists (if that's what they prefer, so what?) as poor writers. Such statements make those of the recently castigated Halo seem very sophisticated indeed. And it's downright foolish to be jealous of an occasional new building for one of the social sciences, isn't it? Unthinking statements of this type earn for us humanists as a group the reputation of being self-centered, egotistical know-it-alls. If we do not treat others with respect, we have no right to expect it for ourselves. I shudder to think where my own discipline of history would be today if it had not been exposed to some of the methods and perspectives of the social sciences. Maybe we should also learn better manners from another quarter? Yours (with one foot in the humanities and one in the social sciences), Bill TeBrake, History, U. of Maine. From: Sheldon Richmond <S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE> Subject: writing among academics Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 09:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1218 (1371) The Kessler/Miller exchange, and other commentators remarks about "educationists" and writing raises a distressing question: Why do academics, by and large, write so unclearly? We know that in medieval times scribes often wrote obscurely to hide their ideas from the unlearned who might confuse their minds by misconstruing profound thoughts. What's the rationale for unclear writing these days? Two theses: 1) People (i.e. university professors) don't take you seriously unless you write in the jargon of the day --this thesis has been mentioned in the HUMANIST. 2) These people have nothing to say (the 'emperors of the Mind are naked'), but want to hide the obvious bareness of their thoughts from themselves. Objection: New ideas are hard to express so we need new jargon, "technical language", to convey the new and complicated theories. Let us suppose this is true. The obvious reply is-- put your money where your mouth is: Please tell us your new ideas, in the social sciences, or the humanities? Let us hear just one new idea, or even one new question: My challenge is, can we in the HUMANIST, compile a list of say, 10 new ideas developed in the last thirty years? Let them come pouring in--a torrent of original thoughts in the social sciences and humanities, even questions. Sheldon Richmond From: <JELLEMA@HOPE> Subject: RE: 4.0524 "Educationist"? (1/99) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 21:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1219 (1372) "Educationist" may be a barbarism in the ears and eyes of some of you gentlefolk, but neologism it is not. It's been in the lingo for over 150 years. Dirk Jellema From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: NOTICE OF MEETING Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 10:52 EST (163 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 536 (1373) [ I have not seen any notice of this conference on Humanist so colleagues at the University of Waterloo have given permission for the announcement adapted from the conference brochure, to be posted. Note that the pre-registration deadline of October 5 is next week and the September 28 accomodation deadline is almost upon us. I suggest contacting the organizers by e-mail at: newoed@waterloo.edu for details. or telephone directly: (519) 885-1211. ext. 6183] 6th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE UW CENTRE FOR THE NEW OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND TEXT RESEARCH ABSTRACT ELECTRONIC TEXT RESEARCH With the continual growth of text processing systems, efficient and reliable access to written material stored electronically is increasingly important. Texts of all varieties -- including reference books, collections of literary works, news services, authoritative critical editions, journals, and unreviewed research reports -- are being created and maintained in computer-readable form. The demand for access to such data has been met through on-line services and through distribution via magnetic tapes, floppy disks, optical disks, and computer-to-computer communication networks. As shared text usage has increased, demand for access has matured and users expect simpler, more effective interfaces. Research is necessary to discover how to provide better access to existing materials and what requirements on data and software are imposed by the diverse applications that rely on text. This conference will focus on recent activities aimed at extracting information from variety of machine readable texts, whether for immediate use or for input to knowledge bases. The Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary and Text Research was established at the University of Waterloo to encourage research involving large text databases and to promote interdisciplinary participation. The 6th Annual Conference will again bring together experts from the fields of lexicography, computer science, linguistics, literature, and publishing to examine the state of the art. Whether they be theoreticians or practitioners, attendees will exchange ideas about the limits of current techniques and the most pressing needs for ongoing research and development. We welcome you to participate in furthering "Electronic Text Research." The Conference lunch is sponsored by IBM Canada Limited Laboratory. The Centre also acknowledges the ongoing support of the University of Waterloo and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. -------------------------------------------------------------------- PRELIMINARY PROGRAM Sunday, October 28 7:00 pm - Registration and reception (Valhalla Inn, The Viking Room) Monday, October 29 8:30 am - Registration 9:00 am - Session I Rapid Incremental Parsing with Repair Steven P. Abney, Bell Communications Research Searching on Tagged Corpora: Linguistically Motivated Concordance Analysis S. Warwick, J. Hajic, G. Russell, ISSCO, Geneva Session II Linking Bilingual Corpora and Machine Readable Dictionaries with the BICORD System Judith L. Klavans, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Evelyne Tzoukermann, A.T.& T. Bell Laboratories Fully Automatic Cross-Language Document Retrieval Using Latent Semantic Indexing Thomas K. Landauer, Michael L. Littman, Bell Communications Research Lunch Session III The Use of Inter-Concept Relationships for the Enhancement of Semantic Networks and Hierarchically Structured Vocabularies Pat Molholt, Geof Goldbogen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Mapping Dictionaries: A Spreading Activation Approach Nancy M. Ide, Vassar College and Jean Veronis, CNRS, Marseille Session IV: Panel Discussion Moderator: Frank Wm. Tompa, University of Waterloo Panelists: William Y. Arms, Carnegie-Mellon University Robert J. Glushko, Search Technologies, Inc. F.P. Lock, Queen's University 7:00 pm - Cash Bar and Dinner (Valhalla Inn, The Grand Ballroom) Responsive Documents: The Promise of Hypertext Norman K. Meyrowitz, Brown University Tuesday, October 30 9:00 am - Session V Models for Lexical Knowledge Bases Branimir Boguraev, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Beth Levin, Northwestern University Natural Language Generation and Machine-Readable Dictionaries David Forster, Robert Krovetz, University of Massachusetts Session VI Generating a Lexical Database for Adverbs Sumali Pin-Ngern, Martha Evens, Thomas Ahlswede, Illinois Institute of Technology [deleted quotation]Judith L. Klavans, N. Wacholder, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Lunch - Sponsored by IBM Canada Limited Laboratory Session VII: Software Demonstrations PROGRAM COMMITTEE Robert Allen (Bell Communications Research) David Barnard (Queen's University) Roy Flannagan (Ohio University) Graeme Hirst (University of Toronto) Martha Evens (Illinois Institute of Technology) John Simpson (Oxford University Press) Chairman: Frank Tompa (University of Waterloo) For further information contact: Electronic Text Research Centre for the New OED Davis Centre University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3G1 newoed@waterloo.edu -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. NEWOED CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: PROF NORM COOMBS <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Anglo-Saxon and 18th century discussions Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 20:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1220 (1374) I have a colleague whom I have finally talked into getting connected to the network. Her fields of interest are Anglo-Saxon lit and 18th century English lit. I believe I have seen reference to discussion groups in these fields, but I did not keep such information. Can anyone direct me to relevant discussions groups which might interest her that is besides Humanist? I love getting someone new hooked on our habit. From: STILL@URVAX.BITNET Subject: cai in anthropology Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 20:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1221 (1375) Greetings, Is anyone out there familiar with software packages used to teaching in introductory or cultural anthropology classes? If so could you send me the name and other relevant data on the package plus an any personal experiences (good or bad) that you have had with it? Thanks! Julie Still University of Richmond still@urvax.bitnet still@urvax.urich.edu (internet) From: ENCOPE@LSUVM Subject: Syllabi for Bibliography and Research Methods Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 08:26:58 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1222 (1376) Owing to the decline in the numbers of hard-core bibliographers, I have been asked to teach a graduate-level seminar in bibliography and research methods, despite my lack of sophistication, even qualification, in that area. I would like very much to see examples of syllabi for similar courses in other graduate programs (I am in a department of English literature, but syllabi from scholars in other disciplines are welcome). In order to reduce network traffic, please reply to me at my personal address (ENCOPE@LSUVM) rather than via the discussion list (unless, of course, you would like to say something of general interest to list members). Thank you. Kevin L. Cope ENCOPE@LSUVM From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Computers and other impedimenta Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 12:14:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1223 (1377) A few days ago we were asked to consider what might have happened if Plato had a computer. As both an avid computer user and student of Plato, I agree that the result could have been horrible (though he might have employed some elements of OOP as a model for participation of instances in Forms). However, I wonder if equal damage to western culture might also have occured if Plato had been a participant in the current "publish or perish" academic environment. Is there time for meditative contemplation of problems and ideas in teh current academic environment, to say nothing of the frantic modern world? Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: Word Perfect & foot mice Date: 26 September 90, 21:57:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1224 (1378) Why is word Perfect so popular? Because its so popular. Its growing dominance means all kinds of support groups & newsletters for those who can't R.T.F.M. (three words of which are 'Read' 'The' 'Manual'). It means vast third-party vendor support -- printer cartridges, VGA drivers, etc. It means the program itself does all kinds of nifty stuff that may not be the academic writer's most needed functions, but they sure are great on the rare occasion one can use them (page layout & graphics (by the way: I highly recommend taking a look at Draw Perfect), tables of contents, file searching, and others). A big market share means big resources to develop a big powerful program. It does run on PCs, Macs, and under UNIX--again very handy at times. Oh yes, it does do footnotes and endnotes. On a more serious note: The biggest complaint about using a mouse with a computer is that one has to take one's hands of the keyboard to use it, right? Well it seems to me that we have a couple of other appendages doing nothing but hogging space in front of the heater vent. Why not foot mice? Brief experimentation (that dissertation is not writing itself, is it?) shows that it could be done, although it would work out better if one foot moved the mouse and the other clicked the buttons (and you need to set the sensitivity down). It shouldn't be any harder than driving a clutch. Secretaries have been using foot pedals for dictation machines for decades. Anybody know a good patent lawyer? :) ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Foreign Language Word Processor Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 16:16:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1225 (1379) A comment on CJones' recommendation of a word processor in European languages. I have been using PCWrite for quite some time. I converted to it when I switched from a Cromemco to the PC. At the time, it was the easiest word processor to adapt to extended ASCII characters (it is easily adapatable to print Portuguese vowels, although the screen representation is arbitrary). It's shareware. Use it for free; if you like it, pay for it. Its cost is similar to educational costs of MSWord or WordPerfect ($129 for full support). However, PCWrite Lite is cheaper and fits on a single diskette ($79). That is a big advantage for students who may need to have their word processor with them in various places (home, lab, libraries). According to Quicksoft, "the disks for PC-Write Lite with Cyrillic are available for $19. Most foreign spell checkers also cost $19 except the Russian version, which is $29." I have not used any of them. PC-Write's English spell checker is not overwhelming. "You will be able to print Cyrillic characters won Epson and IBM graphics printers and compatibles; and there will be a downloadable soft font for Hewlett-Packard compatible laser printers." Quotes come for a letter I received from PC-Write when I could not believe the cost of the Russian dictionary. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Mac concordance program Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 22:34:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1226 (1380) In Nancy Ide's text "Pascal for the Humanities" there is the source code for a simple concordance program. In my Pascal course last fall I had my students write the program for the Macintosh and make one improvement, namely the ability to handle files of unlimited size. I would be happy to pass this on to anyone who is interested. This is a very limited program, but it is free. My brightest student in the class wrote a Macintosh interface for the program, but I neglected to keep the source code. I told him jokingly at the time that he had written the best concordance program for the Macintosh and if he kept working on this for another semester he could probably beat out WordCruncher on any computer. I now think this was no joke. From: 6500jdw@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0521 Further Queries (4/52) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 14:31:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1227 (1381) Willard McCarty inquired about obtaining the Dictionnaire Robert on CD-ROM. I just received a catalogue from FOREIGN LANGUAGE SOFTWARE, P.O. Box 486, Westerville, OH 43081 (Tel. 614/882-8258) which lists the CD-ROM Robert (and several more) for just $995. Whether there's a better price and whether the Robert's database capabilities are like those of the OED CD-ROM I do not know. Respectfully, Jonathan Walsh UC Santa Barbara From: COR_HVH@KUNRC1.URC.KUN.NL Subject: Re: 4.0521 Further Queries (4/52) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 11:01 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1228 (1382) According to Electric Word #17, Jan/Feb 1990, Le Robert Electronique costs FF 7709 ($1000) and the vendor is Dictionnaires Le Robert 107 avenue Parmentier 75011 Paris France tel +33 (1) 43 57 73 13 fax +33 (1) 43 57 36 11 Hans van Halteren From: Bob Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS> Subject: clarification regarding OFFLINE 30 Date: Wednesday, 26 September 1990 2203-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1229 (1383) I forgot to mention in my "miscellaneous" note -- Although OFFLINE 30 appeared in an abridged form on HUMANIST, due to potential problems in transmitting very long files to some nodes, the full column is available on the ListServer for any who are interested. Bob Kraft [From the Editors: The file is retrievable as OFFLINE 30; consult your Guide to Humanist for further information on how to accomplish this.] From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0529 Responses Date: Wednesday, 26 Sep 1990 19:15:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1230 (1384) Does this HigleyFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!person really think thaFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!t intelligent academics like oFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!urselves will fall for thFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!at? Or is Kessler writing FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!under two names now? --ConFRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE! FRODO IS ALIVE!ner here. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Help for our Norwegian colleagues Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 17:29:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 542 (1385) The NAVFs EDB-senter for humanistisk forskning (Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities) in Bergen is now undergoing a serious review with potentially far-reaching consequences. At least one member of the Centre has already left for employment elsewhere, and another will leave early next year. I understand that the cause of this review and of the discouragement felt by the staff there has nothing whatever to do with the quality of its work or the wisdom of its direction. According to my sources, this review is actually the second within the last few months; the prior one was apparently so obviously prejudiced that it could not withstand close inspection. Letters of support, I am told, might help the Norwegian Research Council reach a fair assessment of the Centre and determine its future. Let me suggest, then, that anyone with direct experience of the Centre's work write a letter relating his or her experiences and address it to the following official: Dr. Ingvild Broch Chair Council for Research in the Humanities The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities Sandakerveien 99 N-0483 Oslo 4 Norway Copies of the letter should be sent to the following: Dr. Leif Arne Heloe Director The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities Sandakerveien 99 N-0483 Oslo 4 Norway Mr. Jostein Hauge NAVFs EDB-senter for humanistisk forskning Harald Haarfagresgate 31 Postboks 53 N-5014 Bergen-Universitetet Norway Yours, Willard McCarty From: Judith Rowe <JUDITH@PUCC> Subject: IASSIST Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 13:22:25 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 543 (1386) An apology to those who have already seen this item, which has been posted on multiple Lists. IASSIST 1991 Conference Announcement IASSIST 1991 and Call for Papers We are pleased to announce the 17th IASSIST conference, which will be held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada during May 14-17, 1991. The central theme will be "DATA IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE: STEWARDSHIP OF AN EXPANDING RESOURCE." This title expresses IASSIST's concern for managing and sharing computer-readable data gathered on a wide range of issues facing our global community. This theme also touches upon the need to care for and preserve an ever-expanding volume of computer-readable data. The Conference Committee is soliciting proposals for papers, presentations, poster sessions, and panel discussions in areas including: - the management of data library collections, - the process and development of data collections, - major comparative data sources, - and data library hardware and software issues. Specific topics within these general areas for the 1991 conference include: - the International Global Change Programs, - circumpolar data collections, - national census plans in the '90s, - collecting data under adverse conditions, - new mass storage devices, - disaster management of computer files, - the Text Encoding Initiative and SGML - copyright and computer files, - organizing and managing computer music, - and integrating data services with traditional library services. Proposals for presentations of any kind should be received by the Program Committee Chair on or before November 15, 1990. Proposals should be accompanied by a brief abstract (ca. 100 words). Notification of acceptance of the presentation will be given by December 15, 1990. For further information, we invite you to contact the Program Committee chair: Laine Ruus Data Library Service University of Toronto Library 130 St. George Street Toronto, ON M5S 1A5 telephone: (416) 978-5589 FAX: (416) 978-7653 or e-mail: laine@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca Pre-conference workshops will be conducted and provide an ideal opportunity to upgrade professional skills in the areas of managing a data library, supporting economic and census data, and working with new computing environments. Details of the workshops will be announced in the preliminary conference schedule. The International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) brings together individuals from around the world engaged in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and distribution of computer-readable text and numeric social science data. Founded in 1974, the membership includes data archivists, librarians, information specialists, social scientists, researchers, planners, and government agency administrators. The city of Edmonton lies in rolling parkland, a transitional region between the open prairies and the Rocky Mountains. The resorts of Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise are within an easy day trip, and in mid-May are still open for skiing. Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta and home of the University of Alberta. Among the many attractions of the city, Edmonton is home of the Stanley Cup champion Oilers and of the West Edmonton Mall, the largest indoor shopping and entertainment complex in the world. Come and join us in May 1991 for an exciting IASSIST conference! Members of the Program Committee: Anna Bombak Chuck Humphrey Ernie Boyko Doug Link Peter Burnhill Walter Piovesan JoAnn Dionne Karsten Rasmussen Gaetan Drolet Judith Rowe Carolyn Geda Laine Ruus Dianne Geraci Libbie Stephenson Laura Guy Wendy Watkins §Chuck Humphrey Judith Rowe 9/29/90 Conference Blurb Ready for Pos From: David S. Miall Department of English Subject: Color scanning Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:38:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1231 (1387) University of Alberta Does anyone have experience with producing color graphics on a PC with either a color scanner or a video digitising setup? I've been having some difficulty getting to see anything here in Edmonton, so its hard to evaluate the available options and cost something that will work. I want to produce high quality images from photographs (usually 6 x 4 inches) for display on a VGA screen. I probably ought not to ask for more than $5000 or so (to increase my chances of obtaining the grant that would pay for this). Is this realistic? I'm told there's a Howtek personal scanner for about $2800 (CAN) which scans at 300 DPI. Another possibility is a video camera and a board, such as Targa+ -- but this seems more expensive. If anyone has any advice to offer I'd be most grateful (direct to me: dmiall @ ualtavm). Regards, David Miall From: ktompkin@pilot.njin.net (Ken Tompkins) Subject: Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 12:32:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1232 (1388) The Director of my library is about to undertake a major (for us) archiving project. He has over 30,000 newspaper articles on the casino industry that need to be indexed. What he wants to index is (1) the title of the article; (2) the date of the article; and (3) an indexing code. His question to me was, "Is there any OCR method to read these three items and "insert" them into a database?" I know that our modest Kurzweil Freedom board will certainly read the items but am fairly sure it will not insert them into a database. The estimated cost of keyboard input is $11,000 which seems high to me but unlike straight typing there will be a good deal of time spent handling the articles and finding the items to key in. Does anyone have any experience with such projects, with hardware that will handle the tasks, or any other ideas on how this part of our project might be done? Ken Tompkins Stockton State College From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: The American Prospect Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 10:22:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1233 (1389) I am trying to locate a journal for which I have the folloiwng information: "Le professeur W. Wilson est fondateur d'une nouvelle revue intellectuelle progressiste, _The American Prospect_, dont le premier numero est paru en mai 1990." Would anyone have more information about it? Thank you, Michael Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Chinese OCR Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 10:33:50 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1234 (1390) I know we've discussed OCR at length on HUMANIST, but I don't recall anyone describing its use for Chinese/Japanese/Korean. Can anyone point me in useful directions? Thanks, Douglas de Lacey. From: David Sewell <dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Does anyone have MindWheel? Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:32:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1235 (1391) I'm trying to find a copy of MindWheel, an interactive fiction game whose text was written by poet Robert Pinsky. Broderbund released it a few years back, but of course it's out of print (I contacted customer service). I'd like to let students in a contemporary fiction course have a look at it. If anybody has a copy (either IBM/MSDOS or Mac) and is willing to sell or donate it, please let me know. (Please respond e-mail rather than through Humanist: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu; from BITNET, dsew%troi.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm. Thanks!) From: BOYARIN@UCBCMSA Subject: 4.0517 Computers as Tools (was 'Computers for Faculty' (2/52) Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 17:39 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1236 (1392) It occurs to me that maybe somebody out there can help me with what is rapidly becoming an annoying problem. I have a 386 with two megabytes of memory running dos 4.01. I am trying tto set up desqview 386 so that I can run nota-bene and a text base on cd rom at the same time in order to grab text from the text base to paste into my nb files. I can't seem to get enough memory available for this. either nb or the text-base or both die when i try to run them in desqview. also since i ran qemm 5.0 and gained thereby enough system memory to at least have my fax program resident, my cd rom drive is flaky sometimes it runs and sometimes not. finally i cannot do a tape backup unless i boot wwithout the qemm drivers. quarterdeck is impossible to reach. can anybody help? From: Vincent Ooi <eib014@central1.lancaster.ac.uk> Subject: Information Management Systems for Schools Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 11:58:25 WET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1237 (1393) Could anyone give me some pointers and references concerning "database systems for schools curriculum"? Someone who teaches in a secondary (high) school here would also appreciate knowing about "interactive language-learning programs" (presumably those aimed at high school students). I'll pass on any info received to him. Many thanks. Vincent Ooi -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- |vincent b. y. Ooi | |UCREL: Linguistics & Computing | |Bowland College, Lancaster University | |Lancaster LA1 4YT | |ENGLAND (UK) | | | |E-mail(JANET)address: b.y.ooi@lancaster.ac.uk | -=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=- I'd like to let students in a contemporary fiction course have a look at it. If anybody has a copy (either IBM/MSDOS or Mac) and is willing to sell or donate it, please let me know. (Please respond e-mail rather than through Humanist: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu; from BITNET, dsew%troi.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm. Thanks!) From: David S. Miall Department of English Subject: Color scanning Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:38:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1238 (1394) University of Alberta Does anyone have experience with producing color graphics on a PC with either a color scanner or a video digitising setup? I've been having some difficulty getting to see anything here in Edmonton, so its hard to evaluate the available options and cost something that will work. I want to produce high quality images from photographs (usually 6 x 4 inches) for display on a VGA screen. I probably ought not to ask for more than $5000 or so (to increase my chances of obtaining the grant that would pay for this). Is this realistic? I'm told there's a Howtek personal scanner for about $2800 (CAN) which scans at 300 DPI. Another possibility is a video camera and a board, such as Targa+ -- but this seems more expensive. If anyone has any advice to offer I'd be most grateful (direct to me: dmiall @ ualtavm). Regards, David Miall From: ktompkin@pilot.njin.net (Ken Tompkins) Subject: Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 12:32:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1239 (1395) The Director of my library is about to undertake a major (for us) archiving project. He has over 30,000 newspaper articles on the casino industry that need to be indexed. What he wants to index is (1) the title of the article; (2) the date of the article; and (3) an indexing code. His question to me was, "Is there any OCR method to read these three items and "insert" them into a database?" I know that our modest Kurzweil Freedom board will certainly read the items but am fairly sure it will not insert them into a database. The estimated cost of keyboard input is $11,000 which seems high to me but unlike straight typing there will be a good deal of time spent handling the articles and finding the items to key in. Does anyone have any experience with such projects, with hardware that will handle the tasks, or any other ideas on how this part of our project might be done? Ken Tompkins Stockton State College From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: The American Prospect Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 10:22:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1240 (1396) I am trying to locate a journal for which I have the folloiwng information: "Le professeur W. Wilson est fondateur d'une nouvelle revue intellectuelle progressiste, _The American Prospect_, dont le premier numero est paru en mai 1990." Would anyone have more information about it? Thank you, Michael Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Chinese OCR Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 10:33:50 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1241 (1397) I know we've discussed OCR at length on HUMANIST, but I don't recall anyone describing its use for Chinese/Japanese/Korean. Can anyone point me in useful directions? Thanks, Douglas de Lacey. From: David Sewell <dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Does anyone have MindWheel? Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:32:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1242 (1398) I'm trying to find a copy of MindWheel, an interactive fiction game whose text was written by poet Robert Pinsky. Broderbund released it a few years back, but of course it's out of print (I contacted customer service). I'd like to let students in a contemporary fiction course have a look at it. If anybody has a copy (either IBM/MSDOS or Mac) and is willing to sell or donate it, please let me know. (Please respond e-mail rather than through Humanist: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu; from BITNET, dsew%troi.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm. Thanks!) From: BOYARIN@UCBCMSA Subject: 4.0517 Computers as Tools (was 'Computers for Faculty' (2/52) Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 17:39 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1243 (1399) It occurs to me that maybe somebody out there can help me with what is rapidly becoming an annoying problem. I have a 386 with two megabytes of memory running dos 4.01. I am trying tto set up desqview 386 so that I can run nota-bene and a text base on cd rom at the same time in order to grab text from the text base to paste into my nb files. I can't seem to get enough memory available for this. either nb or the text-base or both die when i try to run them in desqview. also since i ran qemm 5.0 and gained thereby enough system memory to at least have my fax program resident, my cd rom drive is flaky sometimes it runs and sometimes not. finally i cannot do a tape backup unless i boot wwithout the qemm drivers. quarterdeck is impossible to reach. can anybody help? From: Vincent Ooi <eib014@central1.lancaster.ac.uk> Subject: Information Management Systems for Schools Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 11:58:25 WET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1244 (1400) Could anyone give me some pointers and references concerning "database systems for schools curriculum"? Someone who teaches in a secondary (high) school here would also appreciate knowing about "interactive language-learning programs" (presumably those aimed at high school students). I'll pass on any info received to him. Many thanks. Vincent Ooi -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- |vincent b. y. Ooi | |UCREL: Linguistics & Computing | |Bowland College, Lancaster University | |Lancaster LA1 4YT | |ENGLAND (UK) | | | |E-mail(JANET)address: b.y.ooi@lancaster.ac.uk | -=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=- From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: TEI trip report Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 14:09:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 545 (1401) Trip report on TEI workshop, Sep. 22-24, UI at Chicago Last weekend, I attended a TEI sponsored workshop in Chicago, in order to learn about, discuss, criticize and generally get in up to my elbows in the TEI draft guidelines for encoding texts. It was a great weekend, spent mainly talking about tagging texts, SGML and other such arcana. We also had the opportunity to walk by several of Chicago's museums, and look at them longingly, but Michael Sperberg-McQueen and Lou Burnard (co-editors of the TEI) kept us too busy for random cultural expeditions. They did feed us several pleasant meals of different ethnic provenance, however. The participants were both SGML neophytes and experts, but all were experts on the subject of the texts they had to tag. We also had a few computer scientists to keep us honest. The workshop was a combination of presentations on various features of the TEI draft guidelines, and presentations from participants of their types of texts. These texts were also used as test cases for applying the guidelines. About 24 people attended; most are on TEI subcommittees and the steering committee, but there were several from affiliated projects who are entering texts as diverse as Nietzsche, Pierce, women writers in English, Classical Greek literature and linguistically analyzed materials. On Saturday morning, Lou and Michael reviewed the basic features of TEI.1, the DTD that is described in the guidelines. In the afternoon, we tried to collectively tag a passage from _Tristram Shandy_ using these guidelines. It was interesting to note that problems arose not so much from any ambiguity of TEI.1, but from our inability to decide exactly what it was we were tagging and what features we considered salient. We finally had to decide by fiat that our persona was that of lexicographer, represented by Antonio Zampolli, and our text was a paperback edition represented by Lou. When this was straightened out, we were able to argue productively about features to be tagged, and how to tag them. The next morning, several of the participants presented the sample texts they had brought. We all then split into groups and tried to tag these texts so they would both fulfill the needs of the person creating them, and conform to the TEI specifications. Each group then summarized its results to the whole workshop. The texts we discussed were an 18th c. American letter presented by David Chestnutt, some Nietzsche from the unpublished notebooks that was brought by Malcom Brown, a passage of parallel Greek and English from Herodotus presented by Sebastian Heath, and a few pages from an 17th. c. edition of the trials of two Quaker women from Elaine Brennan of the Women Writer's Project. Each of these texts has different problems, and most projects that are tagging them can only spend a limited amount of their resources on the tagging. The consensus was that it was possible to create minimally TEI conformant texts with a little effort. There are still features and details to be ironed out in the guidelines, and the co-editors took note of these as they arose. The worst problems come from projects that have a great need to record the presentation of their text, as well as the content. Sunday afternoon was spent learning about some of the more arcane aspects of the TEI guidelines, and discussing software tools. Topics covered were tags for linguistic analysis, reference and hypertext links, parallel texts, and extending the guidelines. Three categories of software tools were described: SGML- intelligent tools (editors, validators and translators), SGML-aware (same thing but not fully SGML conformant) and SGML-ignorant tools that can be made to work with SGML documents. There are a number of high-end, true SGML tools available on numerous platforms. Many of them are built around the Software Exoterica SGML parser. There was also some discussion of the general pattern matching and translation tools that are often used to tag SGML documents. Examples of these are lex and sed under Unix, and Qued/M on the Mac. We were able to play with Software Exoterica's CheckMark and SoftQuad's Author/Editor. The former is a very elegant SGML validator, and the latter is an SGML editor and validator with some formatting options. Monday morning most of the workshop participants, "hard-core TEI maniacs" though they may be, looked rather tired. It may have been the dinner at the French Bistro, and 30 minute evening walk back through downtown Chicago that did it. However, we went on to discuss some more difficult texts that had been brought: a document in an Eskimo language that contained several parallel linguistic transcriptions from Gary Simons of SIL, a syntactically parsed document from a newspaper article from Beatrice Santorini of UPenn, and a play of Aeschylus, which was my contribution. The workshop ended in the early afternoon with a self-evaluation, and a discussion of the future plans of the TEI. Everyone liked the workshop; the hands-on tagging of other people's texts, and the general discussion that followed got the highest marks. We all thought that more general workshops that start with SGML basics would be useful for other projects or individuals that have texts to tag. However, it is very important for the TEI to work on identifying and describing software tools. One of the biggest problems we all had faced was the lack of SGML-(and therefore TEI-)conformant software that would make the tagging process easier. More discussion of these should take place on TEI- L. It would also be useful to have TEI workshops at the professional meetings such as the MLA. (There will be another TEI workshop held in Oxford, for European TEI maniacs. If the Chicago one is any indication, it should be both informative and fun. Highly recommended!!) Elli Mylonas, representative of the Perseus Project, and member of Subcommittee 2 (text representation). From: Terrell Ward Bynum <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: Computer Ethics Job Announcement Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 20:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 546 (1402) JOB ANNOUNCEMENT The Research Center on Computing and Society at Southern Connecticut State University is seeking a Research Associate with the rank of Instructor to help run a busy office in computer ethics. Duties will include helping to plan a national scholarly conference on computing and values, develop a research library, prepare curriculum materials, edit books and other scholarly materials. (No teaching is required, although it is possible to teach as an adjunct.) Candidates should have (1) a graduate degree in philosophy (Ph.D. preferred), (2) a college degree or significant experience in computing, and (3) excellent office management and human interaction skills. Prior academic editing or desktop publishing experience preferred. Prior library employment or library science study also preferred. This grant-funded position, which is contingent upon Board of Trustees approval, is for one year, with a strong possibility of renewal for a second year. Salary $30,000. Suggested starting date November 15th. Closing date for applications October 15th. Applications should include a letter of inquiry, a resume', and two letters of recommendation. Send to Professor Terrell Ward Bynum, Director, Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT 06515, USA. Phone: (203) 397-4423 or 397-4554. FAX: (203) 397-4207. E-Mail: BYNUM@CTSTATEU.BITNET From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Footnotes - the moral Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 14:19 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1245 (1403) Surely the moral to be drawn, if there is one, is that those who live by procedural markup shall die by same? If you mark up your text with explicit (visible) tags like <note id=1>This is footnote 1</note> you can safely export them to any formatter you please, provided it has a rudimentary macro facility. Personally, the thing I find most annoying about WP footnotes is the arbitrary distinction it makes between foot- and end- notes. And the fact that you can only have one sequence of foot- (and one of end-) notes. And ... Lou From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: Why do we call them word processors? Date: 27 Sep 90 21:37:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1246 (1404) The programs, I mean. We were all struck by the waterfall of people using WP and responding authoritatively to Bob Kraft's query, but it reminded me of a nagging question that's been in mind for a while. Why have programs that specialize in producing *paper* so dominated the market? Why have the programs that have dominated the market chosen to upgrade and enhance themselves chiefly by improving the way they handle paper and the prettiness of the paper they put out? Couldn't we imagine a `word processing program' that would function chiefly within a computer environment, manipulating and presenting words in ways that take advantage of the possibilities of the computer environment and only secondarily worrying about how they will look on paper? Are there such programs, only less well-known and less commercial? (Probably: any recommendations?) Or when you move in that direction are you really talking of what gets categorized as data-base programs or hypertext? The question has a specific and more or less pressing aspect. Just finishing one large project that began before I got my first computer, I'm conscious that I have not fully utilized the power of the machine yet. So before sinking into another project, I'm at least casting the horizon for ideas about the kind of program to make my home in for a while that will let me gather, organize, manipulate, and transmit primary and secondary source material with the greatest efficiency. WordPerfect and NotaBene are wonderful tools each in their own way, but neither fits my fantasy; and data-base programs are also high-powered toys, but there's a twain that doesn't quite meet. Do these meanderings strike any chords with others? Any recommendations? From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Discussion lists Date: 28 Sep 90 09:2:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1247 (1405) Norman Coombs asks about Anglo-Saxon and 18th c. English literature groups. Here are some suggestions that edge a little closer: C18-L@PSUVM 18th Century Interdisciplinary discussion list WORDS-L@YALEVM English language discussion list SHAKSPER@UTORONTO Shakespeare Electronic Conference These might be places to try. Here's a suggestion, NOT for the faint-hearted: Our indefatigable list editors once noted that a GLOBAL command to any listserv node would produce a directory of all "lists" known to that node. I tried it. It produced a document about 2000 lines long. There is something for everyone ... and more. Sports? STATLG-L (baseball); SOCCER-L; YACHT-L; HOCKEY-L. Culture? J-FOOD-L (Japanese food and culture); CHINA-ND (news digest); INDIA-L; IRAQNET (sic); 9NOV89-L (events around the Berlin wall)... Natural stuff? QUAKE-L; SEISMD-L; STORM-L... And striking me as offbeat: NSP-L (Noble Savage Philosophers list); NUTS (traditional nutty stuff); WONDERLK (recipes for warding off evil spirits); BRINE-L (Brine shrimp discussion list); DTS-L (Dead teachers society discussion list)... Order this directory at your peril!! Speaking of impediments to research.... David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6 From: ENCOPE@LSUVM Subject: 18th Century List Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 21:21:01 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1248 (1406) The decorated Norman Coombs might direct his colleague who is interested in eighteenth-century studies and Anglo-Saxon studies to C18-L. This is an open list; the address is C18-L@PSUVM, the method of subscription being the delivery of the usual subscription command to the listserv at this same node. KLC From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0538 Queries (4/68) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 22:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1249 (1407) In response to Norm Coombs (to whom I offer congratulations), the discussion groups are ANSAX-L@WVNVM and C18-L@PSUVM. Any medievalist (not only those primarily interested in things Anglo-Saxon) will find ANSAX-L well worth the time. IN response to the earlier question about a concordance program for the Mac, there is a basic concordance program for the Mac on the listserv for ANSAX-L. You might give it a try. In closing I have a question. Does anyone know of a successful way to exit from the Univ. of Pennsylvania library catalogue via Telnet. Getting on is no problem---getting off is (for me) impossible! Control-Z and other possibilities do not work. Thanks in advance. Grover Zinn Oberlin College FZINN@OBERLIN From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0540 Responses: Mac Concording; E-French (3/43) Date: Thursday, 27 Sep 1990 23:44:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1250 (1408) There is an excellent shareware concordance program by John Thompson of Australia. I have a copy of it on the ANSAXNET server and will sent it to you in BINHEX form if you ask. Do me one favor, though. Don't send a request to me for CONCORDANCE GENERATING PROGRAM until after October 10; I'm preparing now for a conference and will be away in early October, so I would prefer not to have my reader clogged with these messages, and at present I don't have the disk space to store extra mail. Please write a note to yourself to request the program on or after 10 October, and I shall send it to you as soon as a I receive the request. Oh, I should have said, THIS IS A MACINTOSH CONCORDANCE PROGRAM. It is very flexible, has a decent statistics output, and if you combine your text with SGML or some other markup, I'm sure you could use it for virtually any purpose. --Pat Conner, Editor --ANSAXNET From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities & Education Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 20:40:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1251 (1409) re: New Ideas I'm game. One new idea from Social Psychology is the notion of spontaneous processes. Categorizing (stereotyping if you like) people, assuming actions are intended (we call it the Fundamental Attribution Error), and self-generated attitude change are some examples of spontaneous processes. As a result of the way in which we organize information, categorical responses and blaming others are results of mental processes that *cannot be avoided*. We can only revise or correct such thoughts after they have been activated. The notion of spontaneous processes seems to be a promising way in which to stem (but not eliminate) various "isms" (race, sex, elite--take your pick). Categorization seems to be an inevitable aspect of human thought, which is not an apology for prejudice but instead a step toward understanding how to help people prevent acting upon (discrimination) categorical thinking (prejudice). Frank Dane, Mercer University P.S. No fair counting anything attributed to Aristotle when attempting to assess the novelty of ideas. Otherwise, we might as well forego the game. From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Writing ill Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 11:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1252 (1410) I'm afraid I'm not up to Sheldon Richmond's challenge to contribute to a list of ten new ideas although I probably would not be too hard pressed to come up with any number of ideas whose most recent proponents >think< are new. The quality of writing in the humanities is another question. For those of us who have spent a considerable portion of our lives trying to impress upon students the desirability of clarity in their writing, it is more than a little discouraging to see the publish and flourish sanction awarded to those whose prose is characterized by turgidity, obscurity, obfuscation, jargon (in its worst sense), neologic puffery not to mention dys-, caco-, and phoney- (or is the new word "faux"?) phony. (**Insert**) Disclaimer. Of course, I know, as Alexander Wolcott said, "One man's Mede is another man's Persian." We may not always agree on what is good and what is bad writing, but applying community standards, etc., when we see it....End disclaimer. One (and I emphasize it is only one) reason for bad writing in English studies seems to me to be the desire to ground such studies in a "respectable" context (I should, of course, say paradigm). Intellectual respectability depends upon a philosophical/scientific base for one's pronouncements (or "positionings"). And we all know philosophy and real (whether physical or social) science is hard to read. Clarity is, at best, suspect. Lest this become too long, let me just add my own sadness at a development that is perhaps cause and/or effect, antecedent and/or consequence of the above, viz., the fact that "humanism" has become a dirty word and that to have one's work labelled (as a colleague's was) "broadly humanistic" is the kiss of death. John Dorenkamp Holy Cross College From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.0524 "Educationist"? (1/99) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 1990 17:50:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1253 (1411) For a professor of education--not an educationist--to take up the cudgels for his own field in the face of "infantile" generalizations [Thanks to Professor TeBrake] about the quality of the writing in that field seems a bit too self serving to be worth the while, but I am reminded of the favorite aphorism of one of my professors when confronted by generalizations of this sort: All Indians walk single file, or at least the one I saw did. And I accept Sheldon Richmond's challenge. I defy anyone to rewrite Book I-- "Foundations of a Theory of Symbolic Violence"--of Bourdieu and Passeron's _Reproduction_in_Education,_Society,_ and_Culture_. I have used this in my seminar Curriculum [plural=curricula] and Social Control for several years, and although my students complain about their [B&P's] recondite prose, after mastering the content of the material, no one has ever been able to reduce the abstractions therein to simple or even ordinary English. And last, confronted by Dirk Jellema's claim that "educationist" was at least 150 years old, I retreated to the OED and discovered a citation from 1829, as well as one for "educationalist" from 1857. There does not appear to be any pejorative intent in either word. T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0532 Education and Writing (3/82) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 20:16:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1254 (1412) Now see here! It's one thing to read with amusement attacks on the writing being produced by Educationists (or whatever we may call them). It's entirely different when Junger and Knox begin to include the social sciences, and specifically Psychology, in the same category. Clearly, the information bits that comprise the prototypes concerning the production of verbalizations of episodic memory differs between Education and Psychology. The transformation of conceptual codes into motor coordination is a complex process, one ought not to be assaulted verbally by those familiar only with the output phase of the process rather than the cognitive algorythms that govern the exchange of information. Thus, it can easily be demonstrated through sufficient methodological constraint that the inculcation of techniques for advancing the metatheoretical understanding of the learning process in formal settings is best served via exchange of information that requires considerable encoding, but the same applied to learning in general is sufficiently simple to be understood by the average, random sample of the population. That is, do we not all have sufficient jargon within our disciplines to make it difficult for outsiders, even well-educated outsiders, to understand what we are writing about? Grammatik IV insists I change "concept" to idea, but how can one write about theory without using the word concept? We should all decry inflated writing, but let us not assume that precise writing that is not immediately understood is necessarily inflation. Then again, I never did like looking at T.A.T. cards, let alone those idiotic Rorschach blots. Unguiltily Yours, Frank Dane, Mercer University From: MLR@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: RE: 4.0527 On the Nature of Universities (1/66) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 16:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1255 (1413) Thanks, Norman, for the terrific Rosh Hashanah, or was it Yoma Kippur, sermon. I enjoyed it immensely, though I would surely make the same comments about Classics that I would about Sociology, for I cannot imagine priviledging one over theli other. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities & Education Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 14:54:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1256 (1414) Jargon & New Ideas: Soon to be a major motion picture! As a computer consultant and writer I run into the jargon problem quite often because I teach novices how to use computer hardware and software and have to bring the language into their linguistic realm. In an adult education course I was teaching recently, one student remarked that memory was a poor term for RAM, since it went away whenever the computer is turned off, unlike human memory (let's not get into the meaning of "turned off" for humans, though :-)). Computer jargon, as with other lingui-jargons I know, also tends towards the use, abuse, and overabuse of the acronym. The construct of the acronym frequently cannot be deduced, making the term seem even more foreign. Yet, with all the negative parts of lingui-jargons they remain a necessity. How else can a new idea work its way into popular culture? The facsimile machine, for instance, has a reasonable name - it makes facsimiles of papers. When popular culture gets the term, though, it is truncated to the ubiquitous "fax" - misspelling and all. It bothers me, though not as much as words whose "c's" are replaced with "k's". Part of the problem in English may be the relative difficulty of creating new words. In German or Greek, both of which can easily create new words from clumps of other, smaller words, new words are not such a theoretical problem (though my linguistic experience is too limited to say whether or not this really happens all that often). Whatever the linguistic process or necessity, jargon is here to stay. Clients of mine complain when I use computer terms they don't know, but then they blithely reel off acronyms like OCLC, RLIN, LC, and the like. My mother works in Cornell's library system, so I do know these particularl ones, but many others I have no idea about. I once asked what OCLC stood for and stumped several library people for about 15 minutes because to them, it's just OCLC, it doesn't stand for anything. Same thing with RAM for me. Regarding new ideas, I propose the idea of electronic fiction in which the machine is an active participant in the reading process, facilitating the reader's passage through parts of the text, limiting that same passage at other times. I suppose it isn't necessarily all that different from an epic poet, though there are a number of radical differences even still. The idea that the machine is not merely a storage space or display unit, but an active helper (perhaps through the work of a human programmer) seems new to me, but then again I ditched a number of majors at Cornell because I wasn't going to be able to do original work until senior year or grad school or even later. Just some various musings (now there's a word loaded with etymological connotations :-)) Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: ahem.. Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 15:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1257 (1415) The following is the first sentence of the first paragraph, etc., etc. of the new electronic journal Postmodern Culture. To which I extend my best wishes for a long and happy life. Postmodernist discourses are often exclusionary even when, having been accused of lacking concrete relevance, they call attention to and appropriate the experience of "difference" and "otherness" in order to provide themselves with oppositional political meaning, legitimacy, and immediacy. The sentence was chosen only because a) it was right there on page one and b) it didn't have to be copied. Now then. I am morally certain that there is purpose and meaning somewhere in that prose, but I am determined no longer to break my teeth trying to decode it. We were discussing bilingualism not long ago, but I don't recall any mention of the possibility of two tongues in one. I invite Peter Junger to venture a guess as to what Malcolm Cowley would have said about _this_ kind of writing. And I invite everyone to enter the competition for the Isaiah Berlin (or if the winner prefers Mark Twain) prize by translating the sentence above into plain text. C. Wright Mills did it once for Talcott Parsons; humanists can surely do as well. The prize? As Chico Marx answered when asked what was trump, "You'll find out". From: P.Burnhill@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities & Education (6/147) Date: 28 Sep 90 12:53:40 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1258 (1416) Why the brickbats? I would deplore a discussion on a mathematician or statistician bulletin board/list server that bemoaned the lack of numeracy among professors of English Literature (say): they way they fiddle with their loose change on the bus, etc. Some people, myself included, have to work hard to achieve plain English. By all means advocate clear expression, and give us lesser mortals some good examples to follow, but do not be too harsh on such a large class of people as social scientists, and *educationists* I remain your avid reader, neertheless Peter Burnhill erstwhile applied social statistician and Manager, Edinburgh University Data Library ps having problems putting in apostropes from my Mac onto VT100. The MacUs problem gives this RrubbishS or RrubbishS. Any suggestions? From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Date: 28 September 90, 09:00:34 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1259 (1417) [deleted quotation]What the hell is an SAT ? [deleted quotation]What kind of private joke is that ? [deleted quotation]What is Foreign ? And hundreds of more like that. Once for all I'd like to remind US users of this list that they are not alone. If they want to, no problem, we "foreigners" can "unsuscribe". Marc From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0541 Miscellany: Administratrivia; FRODO (2/25) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 10:59 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1260 (1418) Sarah Higley! Stnad up for yourself! Bring the Bards with you! Taleisin, Thomas and all! But dont let them think that Kessler recurses, ever. No how! no way! Kessler Exculpatory. From: David S. Miall Department of English Subject: Color scanning Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:38:25 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1261 (1419) University of Alberta Does anyone have experience with producing color graphics on a PC with either a color scanner or a video digitising setup? I've been having some difficulty getting to see anything here in Edmonton, so its hard to evaluate the available options and cost something that will work. I want to produce high quality images from photographs (usually 6 x 4 inches) for display on a VGA screen. I probably ought not to ask for more than $5000 or so (to increase my chances of obtaining the grant that would pay for this). Is this realistic? I'm told there's a Howtek personal scanner for about $2800 (CAN) which scans at 300 DPI. Another possibility is a video camera and a board, such as Targa+ -- but this seems more expensive. If anyone has any advice to offer I'd be most grateful (direct to me: dmiall @ ualtavm). Regards, David Miall From: ktompkin@pilot.njin.net (Ken Tompkins) Subject: Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 12:32:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1262 (1420) The Director of my library is about to undertake a major (for us) archiving project. He has over 30,000 newspaper articles on the casino industry that need to be indexed. What he wants to index is (1) the title of the article; (2) the date of the article; and (3) an indexing code. His question to me was, "Is there any OCR method to read these three items and "insert" them into a database?" I know that our modest Kurzweil Freedom board will certainly read the items but am fairly sure it will not insert them into a database. The estimated cost of keyboard input is $11,000 which seems high to me but unlike straight typing there will be a good deal of time spent handling the articles and finding the items to key in. Does anyone have any experience with such projects, with hardware that will handle the tasks, or any other ideas on how this part of our project might be done? Ken Tompkins Stockton State College From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: The American Prospect Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 10:22:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1263 (1421) I am trying to locate a journal for which I have the folloiwng information: "Le professeur W. Wilson est fondateur d'une nouvelle revue intellectuelle progressiste, _The American Prospect_, dont le premier numero est paru en mai 1990." Would anyone have more information about it? Thank you, Michael Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Chinese OCR Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 10:33:50 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1264 (1422) I know we've discussed OCR at length on HUMANIST, but I don't recall anyone describing its use for Chinese/Japanese/Korean. Can anyone point me in useful directions? Thanks, Douglas de Lacey. From: David Sewell <dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Does anyone have MindWheel? Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 17:32:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1265 (1423) I'm trying to find a copy of MindWheel, an interactive fiction game whose text was written by poet Robert Pinsky. Broderbund released it a few years back, but of course it's out of print (I contacted customer service). I'd like to let students in a contemporary fiction course have a look at it. If anybody has a copy (either IBM/MSDOS or Mac) and is willing to sell or donate it, please let me know. (Please respond e-mail rather than through Humanist: dsew@troi.cc.rochester.edu; from BITNET, dsew%troi.cc.rochester.edu@uorvm. Thanks!) From: BOYARIN@UCBCMSA Subject: 4.0517 Computers as Tools (was 'Computers for Faculty' (2/52) Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 17:39 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1266 (1424) It occurs to me that maybe somebody out there can help me with what is rapidly becoming an annoying problem. I have a 386 with two megabytes of memory running dos 4.01. I am trying tto set up desqview 386 so that I can run nota-bene and a text base on cd rom at the same time in order to grab text from the text base to paste into my nb files. I can't seem to get enough memory available for this. either nb or the text-base or both die when i try to run them in desqview. also since i ran qemm 5.0 and gained thereby enough system memory to at least have my fax program resident, my cd rom drive is flaky sometimes it runs and sometimes not. finally i cannot do a tape backup unless i boot wwithout the qemm drivers. quarterdeck is impossible to reach. can anybody help? From: Vincent Ooi <eib014@central1.lancaster.ac.uk> Subject: Information Management Systems for Schools Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 11:58:25 WET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1267 (1425) Could anyone give me some pointers and references concerning "database systems for schools curriculum"? Someone who teaches in a secondary (high) school here would also appreciate knowing about "interactive language-learning programs" (presumably those aimed at high school students). I'll pass on any info received to him. Many thanks. Vincent Ooi -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- |vincent b. y. Ooi | |UCREL: Linguistics & Computing | |Bowland College, Lancaster University | |Lancaster LA1 4YT | |ENGLAND (UK) | | | |E-mail(JANET)address: b.y.ooi@lancaster.ac.uk | -=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=- From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.Edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0545 TEI Workshop Trip Report (1/129) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 16:11:34 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1268 (1426) I can't remember whether I added my impressions of the TEI draft or not. Needless to say, I was very impressed by the amount of work that went into them and the incredible variety of issues that needed to be addressed. The appendices with sample DTD's are very useful. I would also like to suggest a second group, with a "starter set" of tags for the most common document types, i.e., the minimal level of encoding that the committee would recommend. My only problem with the draft was that I found it somewhat difficult to put the various pieces together. I think we need something that we can hand to people to get projects started, then give them the guidelines to consult when specific problems arise not covered by the starter set. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0547 The WP Saga's Markup Moral; Real Word Processing? (2/45) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 9:52 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1269 (1427) Lou Burnard is of course right about procedural markup, but the problem is that for most people it is an awful bind to set up their system so that explicit SGML type tags can be used (you have to write the macros, however rudimentary). What is necessary is to get the major commercial WP programs to provide an SGML import/export facility, so that one could use the easy facilities within the program for footnotes, font changes (esp. between languages - the problem with moving Greek or Hebrew between WPs) etc but then choose to have the text output with tags. Of course there would have to be sensible (and changeable) equivalencies between typographical and logical markup, which could never be perfect (is that underlining emphasis, a title or what?), but it would help a lot and would me more use to most people than large expensive SGML editors (which I gather exist). How about putting pressure on Microsoft and WP Corp to provide something like this? Don Fowler From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0547 The WP Saga's Markup Moral; Real Word Processing? (2/45) Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 10:57:59 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1270 (1428) Lou says, [deleted quotation] Many HUMANISTS use Nota Bene (aka XyWrite, which is also embedded in many turnkey systems, especially for professional typesetting, like ATEX), and this program allows three separate layers of footnotes, tagged as follows: <<FN1This is the text of a first-level note>>, <<FN2While this will be a second.>>, <<FN3And this is a thirt-level note.>>. This looks pretty SGML-like to me. ("<<" and ">>" are char codes 174 and 175.) And you can command the notes to be put at the bottom of a page, not to be printed at all, or to be dumped out at the end of the main text. You can control each level of notes separately in this respect. That's one of the reasons I like XyWrite. And James O'Donnell asks [deleted quotation] Such programs exist in profusion, as one might have guessed, and are called "editors" as opposed to "word processors". In essence, a word processor is an editor plus a formatter. The editor allows you to input characters. Some of these characters are your text, others are codes that will later control the formatter. When you press "print", the codes tell the formatter what to do with the text. Some clever word processors can do this in real time, printing the output on the screen. That is WYSIWYG. Others go part way in real time, but offer full WYSIWIG only as a preview facility: look but don't touch. The great grand daddy of all editors is EMACS by R. M. Stallman (MIT and FSF). EMACS wasn't the first, and it stood on the shoulders of TECO, but I think it could count as the one that taught the world what an editor should be like. EMACS is still one of the best editors around, and is installed on about half of all mainframe computers and minis in the world (pity the other half). FREEMACS by Russ Nelson is a version of EMACS for DOS. The great grand daddy of all formatters is harder to decide, but it is probably Osanna's roff/troff/nroff. Reid's Scribe has also been hugely influential. But most word processing programs try to hide the formatting codes to a greater or lesser extent, so one is less explicitly aware of this side of the program. Garn! I managed to say all that without mentioning TeX -- oops! Dominik From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: new electronic seminar Date: Mon, 01 Oct 90 18:01:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 552 (1429) Ficino: a new electronic seminar and bulletin-board for Renaissance and Reformation studies The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS), at Victoria University in the University of Toronto, takes great pleasure in announcing the creation of Ficino, an international electronic seminar and bulletin-board devoted to all aspects of the Renaissance and Reformation. The aim of Ficino is to further lively discussion and rapid exchange of information amongst scholars with an interest in its subject areas. Although focussed on these areas, Ficino is meant to be radically inclusive. Students of both Northern and Southern European cultures are equally welcome, as are those in distant or adjacent periods who wish to contribute their knowledge and skills to the subject matter of the seminar. All approaches and disciplines are equally relevant, but Ficino particularly encourages the interdisciplinary breadth of learning appropriate to Renaissance humanism. As with Humanist, membership is open to anyone who submits a biographical statement of background and interests. A form for this purpose is appended below. My thanks to Steve DeRose for the original from which it was taken. Ficino has been named after Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), a Florentine Platonist, man of letters and prolific letter-writer, in order to suggest not only the historical period on which it focuses but also its intended manner. As you may know, Ficino himself was preoccupied by intellectual communication, the ideal form of which he found in the Platonic convivium. Thus he wrote to Bernardo Bembo that, `The convivium ... rebuilds limbs, revives humours, restores spirit, delights senses, fosters and awakens reason. The convivium is rest from labours, release from cares and nourishment of genius; it is the demonstration of love and splendour, the food of good will, the seasoning of friendship, the leavening of grace and the solace of life.' Our seminar is designed to provide an electronic analogue of Ficino's ideal institution; experience suggests that the new medium holds great promise for our success. Like Humanist as well, Ficino also uses ListServ to provide a kind of `bulletin-board' or fileserver for various materials of a less dynamic nature. Plans are in progress to make available on the server the International Directory of Renaissance and Reformation Associations and Institutes (Toronto: CRRS, 1990); the Occasional Publications of the CRRS that deal with its holdings; other bibliographies; calls for papers, announcements for conferences and projects, and job postings; electronic texts; information about relevant software; and so forth. The CRRS also warmly encourages contributions to the archive from its members. A biography recycled from Humanist is acceptable, although it may have to be revised to place greater emphasis on interests in the Renaissance or Reformation. It should follow the format below as closely as possible. - - - - - -- - - - Please fill in and mail to the editor - - - - - (Any long item can be continued on following lines) *NAME: *INSTITUTION: *DEPARTMENT: *TITLE: *EMAIL: *PHONE: *ADDRESS: *POSTAL CODE: *COUNTRY: *PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: *BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH (ca. 100-500 words) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thank you. Willard McCarty, editor Senior Fellow Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto McCarty@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA William Bowen, associate editor Chair, Publications Committee Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto Bowen@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Chinese OCR Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 10:29:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1271 (1430) Douglas de Lacey asks about scanners for character-based languages. A good start might be the CCNET-L list. This is a list devoted to Chinese word processing. They discuss OCR problems and collectively have impressive knowledge of the various software available. Standard listserv commands apply. Send request for subscription to LISTSERV@UGA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: Information Management Systems for Schools Date: Tue, 2 Oct 1990 12:35:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1272 (1431) The Kellogg Project at Syracuse University has had a multimillion dollar grant to create an online database of materials on adult education. It began with a problem not unlike that of Ken Tompkins [creating a database of casino articles using OCR] except that the collection was huge and included typed, handwritten, and printed texts. The goal was to put this stuff online so that adult educators around the world could have access to it. I must admit that I do not know the current status of the work, but you, Ken, could inquire of Barbara Florini [BFLORINI@SUVM] for more information. T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0544 Qs: Color Scanning; OCR;... (corrected version) (7/127) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 09:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1273 (1432) In response to Vincent Ooi's question, I would suggest that the teacher subscribe to a journal THE (Technology in Higher Education---I believe). I just dismembered my last issue and sent relevant articles to the computing center, etc., so I do not have an address. Maybe someone else on the network will have it. Grover Zinn Oberlin College From: Andrew Oliver <ANDREWO@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Logiciel d'analyse grammaticale et syntaxique Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 15:35:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1274 (1433) Existe-t-il un logiciel qui permette d'etablir des modeles de structure syntaxi que et de structure grammaticale au niveau de la phrase? J'aimerais pouvoir det erminer des paradigmes syntaxiques et grammaticaux de certains textes litterair es (y compris des poemes) que je pourrais par la suite comparer avec d'autres m odeles obtenus a partir d'autres textes. Merci a l'avance de tout renseignement . (J'aurais du preciser que le systeme - MACINTOSH ou MSDOS - n'a aucune import ance). From: "R. Jones" <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: A Spoken Corpus of German Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 08:57:28 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1275 (1434) For the past year I have been working on putting together a computer corpus of modern spoken German, similar to the one done by J. Alan Pfeffer in 1961. Last year I was successful in completing work in Austria, Switzerland and (with the generous help of Professor E. Hexelschneider of the Herder Institute in Leipzig) what until tomorrow has been known as the German Democratic Republic. Through a variety of ways I have also been able to collect about 25% of the interviews for the FRG. I need, however, to make contact with colleagues in several German cities in order to complete my work, which I hope will be next summer. If anyone can provide me with names and addresses, phone numbers, FAX numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. for individuals in the following cities I would appreciate it. It would be useful if they have some interst in language, but this is certainly not obligatory. The main thing is that they be willing to work with me for a few hours to identify speakers (4-8 in any given city) and either conduct the interview or else find someone to do it. The cities I still need are: Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Worms, Koblenz, Passau, Erlangen, Munich, Giessen, Hamburg, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Muenster, Braunschweig, Emden, Hannover and Osnabrueck. If anyone is interested in knowing more about the project I will be happy to provide information. Randall Jones Department of German Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602 R.L. Jones From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: Dramatis personae Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 10:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1276 (1435) I've recently acquired two sets of framed playbill illustrations. The first is from a play with a cast that includes Katig, Tartar, Orasmin, Fairy Queen, Fid., Lord Alford, and Georgian. The second portrays Mr. Mead as Hotspur and Mr. Marston as Prince Henry. Can anyone help me identify these? Thanks. Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: RGLYNN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Oxford Electronic Text Library Date: Mon, 1 OCT 90 16:22:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 555 (1436) To Humanist Discussion [deleted quotation] Subject Oxford Electronic Text Library I'd just like to take the opportunity to correct something David Miall said about the Oxford Electronic Text Library from Oxford Electronic Publishing. This text library will not be restricted to English texts -- it just so happens that the first publications will be of English material. If people want any further information on the OETL, they should contact my colleague Kathy Fahey, Oxford Electronic Publishing Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK Another minor point: Oxford Electronic Publishing is a department within the Science, Medical & Journals Division of OUP and not a branch office. Ruth Glynn Oxford Electronic Publishing From: macrakis@gr.osf.org Subject: 4.0518 Words: Borrowing and Plurals; 'their'; shortening (5/74) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 19:49:42 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1277 (1437) Borrowing plurals as singulars probably depends on the function of the plural in the two languages as well as morphology. For instance, Turkish borrows a number of Greek plurals as singulars, e.g. domates (tomatoes). There is no Turkish morphological restriction I know which prohibits *domata. I would guess that it has to do with different ways of expressing collectives. In Greek, `a basket of tomatoes' uses the plural, while in Turkish it uses the singular. For a more complicated situation, cf. Arabic where there can be many different (and even compounded) plurals. Thus in Turkish there is the Arabic singular s,ey (= thing) which takes a regular Turkish plural (in fact, Turkish plurals are always regular). However, the Arabic plural of s,ey exists as a distinct word in Turkish--es,ya, which means `things' in the sense of `baggage, stuff', and which can also take a Turkish plural. Getting back to English, note that `agenda' is a Latin neuter plural and not a feminine singular, however `propaganda' is not even in the nominative (although you might think it's the neuter plural `things to be propagated', it actually comes from the phrase `Congregatio de propaganda fide'). Since it would be out of place in this discussion to mention the etymological plurals of `status' and `octopus', I won't. Of course the standard gaffe is `media' (singular), which presumably comes from 1) -a being a good singular ending and an unusual plural and 2) the singular `medium' being a word restricted to the (over-) educated. Stavros Macrakis From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0549 Misc. on ideas, writing, disciplines ... (7/238) Date: 01 Oct 90 22:21:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1278 (1438) Jargon and jargon. The Cambridge classicist Porson (c. 1800), the finest Greek scholar of his age (and most others), was once, when not in his cups, heard to say that he had a high opinion of Gibbon's prose in *Decline and Fall* and that it would be a useful school exercise if students were assigned to turn a page or two of it into English. From: Roland Hutchinson <R.RDH@Macbeth.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0532 Education and Writing (3/82) Date: Tue 2 Oct 90 08:05:03-PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1279 (1439) Frank Dane thus on substitute terms for "Educationist": [deleted quotation] Although this clearly comes close to answering the precise question that I asked rather than the one that I _meant_ to ask (and is therefore just what I deserve), it fails to supply the need for a general term. "Education professor" leaves altogether too many co-conspirators unindicted: Lecturers and other university teachers of non-professorial rank, school principals and other administrators, mambers of state textbook selection committees, overpaid consultants to ETS, to name but a few. Roland Hutchinson Discipline-basher In Spite of Himself rhutchin@pilot.njin.net rhutchin@NJIN P.S. Apologies for my having termed "educationist" a neologism. I stand corrected. ------- From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0525 Language learning -- Dreaming (4/103) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 1990 16:11 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1280 (1440) In response to Ruth Hanschka's query about Dreaming in other than the Mother Tongue. I began learning Hebrew in my College days at Berkeley. When I came to Israel, like many others I studied in what's known here as an Ulpan (intensive modern Hebrew class). About three months into this I had a terribly intensive dream set in a dark forest in Eastern Europe. I was a boy who was told to look in the back of a horse cart and discovered there a headless body. Woke up trying to stammer: Eyn Lo Rosh -- He has no head. My first non-English language dream and one of my first exposures to the delights of the Dream Work. Here's another -- more comical -- example. In my youth in USA there was a commercial on TV that featured a Chicken sitting on top of a Hellman's Mayonaise jar -- reciting the slogan "Hellman's Uses the Whole Egg". One of my earliest Hebrew dreams -- sortly after I began learning Bible was this same visual scene, but with the Chicken reciting the verse: Sheqer ha-HEN [actually the H is guttural], ve-hevel ha-yofi (Proverbs 31:30) -- Grace ("Hen" in the Hebrew) is deceptive and beauty is illusory. So here I am now many years later, having slipped over into the area of Rabbinic Literature and planning to do a book on Midrash (famous for its word plays) and Dreaming -- particularly the similarities in the thought processes behind both. Any thoughts or bibliography from fellow humanists that might be of interest would be highly appreciated. Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem [HPUBM at HUJIVM1] From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: IOUDAIOS Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 11:54:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1281 (1441) This is just a note to express thanks to Norman Miller for his gracious words about IOUDAIOS, a few days ago, but also to point out that since it is not a moderated list, all of its participants must share in any credit for its success. If I tell you that people like Bob Kraft are involved, you'll get the picture. Who is like Bob Kraft? You're right; it was a figure of speech. Many other HUMANISTs also participate and make it a most worthwhile forum. Norman accurately perceived a certain "loosening of the reins" in terms of subject matter. We began with a focus on Philo and Josephus but quickly realized that these two fellas implicated us in the whole can of worms that was Judaism in the Graeco-Roman world. So we pretty much follow our impulses, good and evil, within that broad field, while retaining our fictional allegiance to P & J. Membership is around 140; have you thought of joining? Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: Eastern Europe lists Date: 28 September 90, 00:33:56 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1282 (1442) I thought some of y'all might be interested in these: -------------------------------------------------------------- POLAND-L on LISTSERV@UBVM POLAND-L is a mailing list devoted to the discussion of Polish culture and events. We are interested in all subjects related to Poland, Polish Americans and Eastern Europe (related to Poland). USSR-L on LISTSERV@INDYCMS USSR-L (USSR news & information list) is a public discussion and distribution list dedicated to the dissemination and analysis of non-classified news and information regarding the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its constituent republics. It is intended to supplement and complement, rather than to supersede or compete with, other existing electronic mail lists, including but not limited to: Disarm-L, Poland-L, 9Nov89-L, et al. BALT-L on LISTSERV@UBVM BALT-L is an online forum devoted to communications to, and about, the Baltic Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It aims to further networking with those countries, in two senses of that word: the technical one of establishing the basic links to permit electronic communications; and the softer definition of a network of people building up people-to-people contacts and working together on matters of common interest. A core aim of this list is to foster practical projects. SOVNET-L on LISTSERV@INDYCMS SovNet-L (USSR electronic communication list) is a public discussion and distribution list dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of non-classified information regarding electronic communication to, from and within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its constituent republics. It is intended to treat all forms of electronic communication and to include the Soviet electronic mail discussions begun on RusTeX-L. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0550 MetaDiscussion: Writing Criticism; US-Centricity (3/72) Date: Monday, 1 Oct 1990 23:03:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1283 (1443) Mark... ...FRODO was invented by a fat fellow at Oxford... From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: Eisinger's inquiry Date: 2 October 1990 09:04:16 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1284 (1444) I'm not going to touch SATs or Frodo (though the latter, at least, is certainly not a US-only topic and was raised by one of our esteemed Canadian colleagues), but thought I'd take a stab at defining "foreign-language word processor". I always thought it would be a word processor with faciliities for work on languages other than the national language of the (a) developers or (b) user or (c) machine's character set. In Germany, a word processing program with good facilities for handling French or Danish would be a 'foreign-language word processor' -- in France, one that can handle German or Danish. Judging by the heat of his inquiry, I infer that Mr. Eisinger feels that the term "foreign language" marginalizes non-Anglophone languages and their speakers. But since no language spoken by any subscriber to this list is likely to lack a word for "foreign", the concept certainly does not seem ethnocentric to me. And since the current condition of the computer industry includes a striking bias toward either English or the national language of the country in which a machine is sold, I should have thought the problem of finding good facilities for handling "languages-other-than-the-one-the-software-developers-speak" is of general, not parochial, interest. Perhaps not. -Michael Sperberg-McQueen University of Illinois at Chicago From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: ASCII Ethnocentrism Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 10:38:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1285 (1445) As an "apatride" (and analogously might be considered "alingual" rather than "bilingual") who is and will remain a "foreigner" in any target language, I apologize for using the term "Foreign Language word processor," only because it offended, not because it is offensive. However, accents are "foreign" to ASCII, as are all non-Roman alphabets, not to speak of the Chinese character system. I guess we will have to live with what started as American provincialism--and is obviously perceived as a form of imperialism by Eisinger--until something better comes up. ISCII, anyone? But I have a nagging feeling that the complaint about all the hundreds of unconsciously ethnocentric comments have been offset by the little pleasures that may have been generated when reading "our" jeremiads on the lack commitment to foreign language education in this (i.e. the U.S.) country. Michael Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: "Dana Paramskas, U. of Guelph" <LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA> Subject: Vol. 4, No. 0506, Sept. 19, Academic Computing Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 20:26:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 559 (1446) I forwarded Charles Ess' query to a colleague here who is an expert in the field. He asked me to post his reply: ---------------------- Subject Partial Answer to Charles Ess I don't have clear set of answers for Prof. Ess at Springfield but i would like to suggest a possible resource. I have just received the Fall '90 issue of the EDUCOM review and it contains a number of articles that bear on the question of planning for computing on campus. In particular, there is an article (page 75) describing the approach at St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y. The article describes the replacement of a time-sharing computer with a network and personal computers. In the same issue, the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon is reviewed; I am not suggesting that many of us can afford to emulate CMU in this area, but it is worth looking at the CMU scene in order to see what the possibilities are. Finally, an article by John Kemeny gives some hint as to why progress has been so slow in implementing "computing" in all of the areas where one *might* expect more rapid progress. Ken MacKay University of Guelph kma@cosy.uoguelph.ca From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0554 Qs: Grammar & Syntax Analysis; Spoken German; ... Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 09:16:07 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1286 (1447) In regard to Andrew Oliver's query, for a program that sets up models of syntactic structure and grammatical structure at the phrase level, here's what I would suggest, if I understood his question properly. 1) Use SIL's IT (Interlinear Text) program to tag the text interlinearly with part of speech and/or phrase structure information. 2) Investigate the patterns that appear in the tagging fields (lines) with something like a concordance program or perhaps something like TALLY - a program that I am not familiar with, which allows one to investigate patterns of appearance of particular strings. Note that it would be desirable to have a concordance program that could be instructed to restrict its attention to particular fields, i.e., the tagging fields, not the original text field. From: "Dana Paramskas, U. of Guelph" <LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA> Subject: English Pedagogical Parser Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 16:43:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1287 (1448) Sometime ago, a HUMANIST member asked about parsers capable of dealing with ill-formed input. Don Loritz of Georgetown has written one and is willing to distribute it free to anyone interested. He writes: "We achieved 90% accuracy with *Ms. Plurabelle* among our population of deaf college-prep students at Gallaudet this past spring..." He has an e-mail address, but it works erratically: loritz@guvax.georgetown.edu Better to write: 1313 North Illinois Street, Arlington, VA 22205. I've seen earlier verions of this program and was very impressed. From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: markup vs wysiwyg Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 08:33:41 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1288 (1449) Can anyone provide references to comparisons of explicit markup word-processing programs (eg, Tex, Scribe) vs wysiwyg ones (eg, MacWrite)? I am interested in studies concerning such things as ease of use, ease of learning, user confidence, user support needs, etc. (Please, not personal experiences, but studies like controlled experiments aimed at refuting or confirming some hypothesis.) Leslie Burkholder CMU From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Re: 4.0551 TEI, SGML, and Real Word Processing (3/103) Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 17:23:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 551 (1450) The following showed up in my mailer apparently quite coincidentally: It was sandwiched between two other messages about Lou Burnard and TEI which have been deleted. My comments follow the message, which appears here intact. On Tue, 2 Oct 90 21:26:29 EDT you said: [deleted quotation]"What is necessary is to get the major commercial WP programs to provide an SGML import/export facility...." What would appear more reasonable would be for SGML to support the more general access provided by normal ASCII files such as this one, wierd header not included (I don't write the headers, you know.) This is a fine example of the attitude of those who write what I read about SGML and TEI. They want the whole world to adapt itself to them, and to support their new, not yet perfected manner of doing things. I say TEI and SGML, in their finite wisdom should find it easy to provide etexts a normal person with a normal word processor can take quotations from without any further ado, should they be writing articles, papers, columns, taking notes or whatever. Project Gutenberg supports electronic text in general and does not seek to recommend any one format over any other. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg National Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts THESE NOTES ARE USUALLY WRITTEN AT A LIVE TERMINAL, AND THE CHOICE OF WORDS IS OFTEN MEANT TO BE SUCH AS TO PROVOKE THE GREATEST POSSIBLE RESPONSE SHORT OF BEING OFFENSIVE. TRUTH IN THESE NOTES IS OF GREAT CONCERN, THE FORM IS SECONDARY - OTHER THAN THE TOKEN EFFORT OF JUSTIFIED RIGHT MARGINATION. BITNET: HART@UIUCVMD INTERNET: HART@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (*ADDRESS CHANGE FROM *VME* TO *VMD* AS OF DECEMBER 18!!**) (THE GUTNBERG SERVER IS LOCATED AT GUTNBERG@UIUCVMD.BITNET) NEITHER THE ABOVE NAMED INDIVIDUALS NOR ORGANIZATIONS ARE A AN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF ANY OTHER INSTITUTION NOR ARE THE ABOVE COMMENTS MEANT TO IMPLY THE POLICIES OF ANY OTHER PERSONS OR INSTITUTIONS, THOUGH OF COURSE WE WISH THEY DID. From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0551 TEI, SGML, and Real Word Processing (3/103) Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 18:16:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1289 (1451) Pardon my ignorance--what is SGML? From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0547 The WP Saga's Markup Moral; Real Word Processing? Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 21:38:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1290 (1452) In regard to the request for a text manipulation environment, I can only point to the long-awaited Xanadu from hypertext visionary Ted Nelson. I haven't the time to post more information now, but in the near future I will be releasing a special issue of TidBITS devoted to thoughts from the Ted Nelson World Tour that a friend in Sweden saw and recorded. I'll post an announcement when I send it out and give instructions on how to find that issue of TidBITS for those that don't already know how. Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities & Education Date: Fri, 28 Sep 90 18:10 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 562 (1453) Of course my remark about the limited number of texts is incomprehensible...if one counts bibliographies of secondary texts, which have proliferated in our time beyond the scale of an enormity. But if one teaches secondary texts, then one is making a fundamental excursion away from the primary concern. Not all texts are to be equally enumerated. The manufacture of texts for the purposes of th e academic machine...well. When Thoreau went to Harvard about 165 years ago there were I seem to recall its having been mentioned (by Matthieson, in AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, I think), that there were (after 200 years of Harvard's history) about 55,000 books, of which perhaps 54,000+ were collected sermons. As for the making of sociological texts, well,that material will grow and has grown, as if composted with yeast. Not a value judgment at all. UCLA alone counts I think it was 5 million volumes at last assessment, when it was voted #2 in academic libraries, after Harvard's #1? What to do, clap hands and sing? and sing all the louder for every text in its immortal dress, so to say? Is one to tell one's graduate students to master the secondary literature, too? Take the Victorian novel, for instance...no, never mind those 3-deckers. I always have kept in mind a charming essay I read about 20 years ago, written by a fine scholar of English Literature. He was retiring; he was 65+; he was moving west to, say Arizona; he was faced with the question: what to keep from library, after the house had been sold and the movers were coming to carry his chattels off into the sunset years. His essay describes the winnowing, from thousands of essential works collected over a lifetime to...fewer than can be counted on the fingers one hand! Well it made good sense, and I heard his admonition then and had it in mind now when I asked how many texts were necessary to be counted. Of course, there is the busyness of scholarship and investigation, and of the making of books there is no end, as we have heard it said more than two millenia ago, far more. So the matter is worth our contemplation, when it comes to evaluating books. The primary texts do not grow in number, not if they are texts from before the 19th century. Works about them grow, of course. I was looking backward, perhaps, to Diogenes, who dispensed with everything, as a measure at one end. Had not Alexandria's library burned, perhaps it would be somewhat different. But I am surprised that this odd observation was to some incomprehensible. Perhaps I am quite out of bounds? I hope not; not too far. I realize that to disregard secondary texts is to strike fear into every one of ourselves, our contemporary makers of books, as suggesting that our efforts to produce books are inconsequential, ap art from the fact that this is what we do, which is of course our essentiality to our selves, if not to the past or the future. Kessler. From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: planning campus computing Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 08:27:34 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1291 (1454) Charles Ess asked for information on planning for computing on campus some time ago. Dana Paramskas posted a lead to some information, including an article about Andrew at CMU. Just to even things out, here's a reference to the Athena project at MIT. B Levine "How to manage educational computing initiatives: lessons from the first five years of project Athena at MIT" in Edward Barrett (ed), The Society of Text: Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Information (MIT Press 1989). Leslie Burkholder CMU From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Re: 4.0559 Planning for Computing (1/27) Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 18:02:49 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1292 (1455) My thanks to one and all who have replied to my query regarding academic computing. As the lone humanist (pun intended) on the planning committee, I have found the comments and suggestions from colleagues at other insti- tutions to be both very helpful and rhetorically powerful. Any additional comments or suggestions would of course be welcome. With regard to Prof. MacKay's kind suggestion that I look at the Fall '90 issue of EDUCOM -- let me, as my students say with such maddening consistency, ask a dumb question: how can I get a copy of it? Thanks again, Charles Ess Drury College From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: footmice Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 21:09:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1293 (1456) Sorry, couldn't resist. Back in the Good Old Days, when I had my spiffy Osbourne (with the 80-column option, I might add), and keyboards were simple, I rigged up a foot-switch to the control-key so that I could perform all those WordStar operations speedily. Worked very well. Why couldn't a trackball be used on the floor with one's foot? But to carry the question further, what kinds of control mechanisms might be suitable to an interface able to interpret 3-dimensional movement? What's going on in advanced cyberspace research? Willard McCarty From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: re: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities & Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 23:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1294 (1457) I think I have a solution to your apostrophe problem. Get rid of that Mac and get yourself a real computer! No IBM compatible I've ever used has had a VT100 incompatibility problem. <long string of smileys here :-) > Ruth From: Ivy Anderson <ANDERSON@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Logging off library catalogs via telnet Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 13:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1295 (1458) RE: FZINN's query about how to exit the Penn State LIAS system via telnet: This is a problem with quite a few online catalogs, because most of them were designed before networking came along. The system we came up with at Brandeis for our gateway to remote online catalogs was to tell users to issue an "escape" command to the telnet software and ask it to close the connection. I don't know if all telnet software has this capability, but ours does. On our VAX, if you type "control-^" followed by "C", you are returned to the VAX telnet prompt, and can then just type "exit." It's clumsy, of course, but it does work. I have more recently found that plain old "control-C" seems to work these days as well. You might contact your local campus network gurus to find out if there are similar commands on your system. Ivy Anderson Brandeis University From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0550 MetaDiscussion: Writing Criticism; US-Centricity Date: Tue, 02 Oct 90 21:43:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1296 (1459) Apostrophes generated on a Macintosh appear as a capital U on mainframe and other limited ASCII systems because you are trying to map the true apostrophe (the curly one) instead of the single hash mark that most other systems use instead. It is correct to use the curly apostrophe instead, but if it changes to a U it's even less correct :-). Adam (couldn't reply because of the address format) Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Playbill Query Response Lost Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 23:11:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 566 (1460) I managed to delete an answer to Ed Harris's request for help identifying some playbills. Would the Humanist who sent it please send it again? Thanks --Allen From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) Subject: Simtel20 and how to get there Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 11:46:08 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1297 (1461) May I ask again a question asked and answered not that long ago (but long enough that I can't recall when and hence can't recall the log file to recall)? It was, I believe, Elliot Parker who explained how to get to files stored on SIMTEL20 (spelling?) and how to retrieve them. For Bitnetters the task was tricky; for Internetters with FTP it was pretty easy if you knew how to use the FTP utility. Having recently acquired access to the latter (though not yet any practical knowledge), I'd appreciate a reminder about addresses and procedures. And assuming that others with other facilities have memories not so other than mine, could the reminder include the Bitnet instructions as well, so that All You Need to Know About Simtel appeared in one place. Gary Lee Stonum English Department Case Western Reserve Univ. gxs11@po.cwru.edu From: Steve Condit <STEVEC@FHCRCVM> Subject: BinHex 4.0 Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 10:21:13 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1298 (1462) Where can I get a copy of BinHex 4.0 or 5.0? I want to try Tom Seid's manuscript program. From: F5400000@LAUVAX01.BITNET Subject: E-Ryle? Date: Thu, 4 Oct 90 18:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1299 (1463) A philosopher friend who has not yet had the courage to make the umbiblical link with Humanist has asked me if anyone out there has or knows of the works of Gilbert Ryle in machine readable form. My friend is going to produce a concordance, especially of Ryles's Collected Papers. John Sandys-Wunsch F5400000@LAUVAX01 (You may have to add LAURENTIAN.CA) From: CETEDOC <THOMDOC@BUCLLN11.BITNET> Subject: Gregorius Turonensis Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 16:25:48 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1300 (1464) We have at CETEDOC for one year a young scholar wishing to work on the opera of GREGORIUS TURONENSIS (540-594 A.D.), bishop of TOURS (France) and edited by B. Krusch in the MGH Script. rer. Meroving., vol. I. We don't have the works of this author in machine readable form. Before scanning them, is there someone who has these texts (Historia Francorum and alii) already encoded? Thanks by advance. CETEDOC Universite Catholique de Louvain B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium email: THOMDOC@BUCLLN11 From: Ben Salemans <U070011@HNYKUN11> Subject: Search for computer text centres Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 16:37:07 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1301 (1465) Lectori salutem! Via the HUMANIST list I hope to get in touch with people who know of the existence of computer text centres all over the world. At this moment I try to establish a computer text centre for Dutch texts for researchers of Dutch language and literature: the CCTN ("Computer Centrum Teksten voor de Neerlandistiek"). To get 'workable' subsidies from the Dutch and Belgian governments/institutes it is clear that: 1. they have to be convinced of the necessity of the CCTN; and that 2. a sound planning of CCTN-activities (goals, technical equipment) has to be formulated. I hope it will be possible for me to take advantage of the experience of managers of other computer text centres. I would appreciate it very much if HUMANIST-readers would forward adresses (e-mail-adresses or 'snail'-mail-adresses) of computer texts centres to my computer adress (u070011@HNYKUN11.BITNET). Thanking you in advance, Ben Salemans *--------------------------------------------------------------------* | -.--. .--. | Drs. Ben Salemans | Tel. work: | | / ) ( '| University Computer Centre Nijmegen| 080-617901 | | / --' `-. | (URC), Dept. User Support | | | / ) ) | Geert Grooteplein Z 41 | Tel. priv.:| | -'-- ' `-- ' | 6525 GA NIJMEGEN (Nederland) | 080-442209 | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | E-mail address: U070011@HNYKUN11.BITNET | *--------------------------------------------------------------------* From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0565 Rs: Telnet & Library Catalogs; Apostrophes (2/36) Date: Thu, 4 Oct 90 16:58:17 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1302 (1466) Re the question on capital U's on files transferred from a Mac to a mainframe, I can confirm the source of the problem (I also believe that curly apostrophes turn up as capital Ts!). In most word processing programs for the Mac (e.g. Word) you can turn off curly quotes (under preferences); this will then insure that the proper codes understandable by the mainframe will be inserted. Alternatively, in (at least some) communications software (e.g. RedRyder, I believe) and other programs like Add-Strip you can set the feature to "uncurl" these problem-causers. Whatever you choose, it sure beats having to "uncurl" them yourself, as I can amply testify!! Best wishes, tom shannon ucberkeley From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: Qurly cuotes Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 23:05:32 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1303 (1467) Ruth (<HANSCHKA@HARTFORD>) writes Mon, 1 Oct 90 (Subject: re: Re: 4.0535 Musings: Disciplines, Universities &): "I think I have a solution to your apostrophe problem. Get rid of that Mac and get yourself a real computer! No IBM compatible I've ever used has had a VT100 incompatibility problem." -- Okay, I accept your :-) disclaimer, but your posting is apostrophacalyptic literature for us Macfanatics! My response: Argh! :-O (you gotta be kidding face). Romance-language accent marks come built in, but the curly-quotes option is software. Likewise, terminal emulation is a software feature. My Versaterm 3.2 - chosen for its modest size and ease of use - emulates VT100, Tek 4014 and DG D200. Other applications may have other options. As for a "real" computer, well, I got a Mac precisely because it can write just about any Roman or non-Roman alphabet you might like, allows you to use any or all in the same line, and displays them on the screen, neat as you please - no arbitrary characters. I admit, though, you do have to remember to find-replace characters that have ascii equivalents, hence the need to replace the curly-quotes and apostrophes with tick marks before saving the text to send as e-mail. What ever happened to that discussion about how us mac peeple dont rite so good?! Seriously, some of my best friends use IBM... :-) ! Oops... better get back on line... (Going off line is another Versaterm - not necessarily Mac - feature)... From: PETERR@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0564 Adapting the Machine (2/25) Date: Thu, 4 Oct 90 8:51 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1304 (1468) So now a 'real computer' is one that is VT100 compatible. What a shame about all those VT220s, 320s, Crays, etc etc.. Peter Robinson From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0564 Adapting the Machine (2/25) Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 14:09:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1305 (1469) For more information on foot mice and the like, those who have access to a Mac and HyperCard could look at two articles we've written in TidBITS, one on ALternate Limb controllers and one on a new controller interface that will use 3-D Nintendo controllers. They are in the 7/16/90 and 9/3/90 issues respectively (#13 & 19), which can be found at most large LISTSERV sites that carry Mac software. Two good ones are MACSERVE@PUCC and LISTSERV@RICEVM1. A good command to start with is TELL LISTSERV@RICEVM1 HELP and see what they tell you as far as retrieving files. Adam Engst Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: A beginner's guide to SGML? Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 07:48:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1306 (1470) As it happens, I am now faced with having to encode some texts in the simplest possible way (so as to mark accented characters) and may soon be faced with having to encode other texts for other basic features, or at least to recommend how this should be done. My situation causes me to wonder about two things. (1) For a text intended only to be read by humans for the information it contains, how should accented characters be encoded? In this case, it seems to be that the most minimal markup possible (e.g., u" or "u for u-umlaut) is what one wants, yes? For texts to be sent over networks to various countries, must one look out for the possibility that an ASCII character handy for indicating an accent (e.g., `, the leading single quotation mark) will be coopted by software for another purpose? If so, what should I do? (2) Does there exist anywhere, preferably in electronic form, a beginner's guide to simplest TEI-conformant SGML? One that specifies -- in less than 5 pages or 10K bytes, and in the most straightforward manner -- what we should do to achieve minimalist markup? May we hope for such a thing soon? Free of charge, on Humanist? Willard McCarty From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: markup and word processing Date: 4 October 90, 00:05:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1307 (1471) My thoughts on standardized text formats run to more radical solutions than have been discussed so far in the thread on TEI & SGML. I generally see mainframes as communication and network server machines. Many of us are using ever more powerful PCs to read our Bitnet mail already. The day when PCs need be limited to ASCII is rapidly passing. Why not move toward something like display postscript for a document standard? Upgraded networks like NREN can handle the traffic. Current high end PCs can handle the display (the NEXT already uses display postscript). An advanced standard like this could display and print documents, with color illustrations, in a form extremely close to the original. Proper software can mark, index, analyze, and do whatever with text regardless of the form it is in. This software is much more likely to get written, and get distributed at reasonable cost, if it works on a format of interest in general (i.e. business) computing. It seems to me that in general we are letting the relatively low state of the art in mainframe WP software set unreasonably severe limits on document standards when much more is already within reach. my $ 0.02 worth, Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: sed script Date: Thu, 04 Oct 90 14:51:30 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1308 (1472) The sed script that was recently mentioned as a way of stripping SGML strings from a file suffers from what I see as the main problem with SED, AWK, PERL and even (gulp) ICON. They are all profoundly line-oriented. If you have a file like this: This is a test <file just to see> if the SGML <strings do indeed get stripped> or not. And you run the cited SED commands on it (sed 's/<.*>//g' in >out) you will get this: This is a test if the SGML <strings do indeed get stripped> or not. This is no good, of course. I expect that there is a simple way around it (any offers? I hardly know SED). But it would be refreshing to come across one of these much-vaunted tools that didn't see a file as primarily a set of lines. HUMANISTS hardly ever have texts with tags that are confined to single lines. Try to think of one, in a normal text: quotes? underlining? citations? sentences? words? None of these can safely be assumed not to be broken across a line boundary. Dominik From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Markup vs. WYSIWYG Date: Thu, 4 Oct 90 01:53:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1309 (1473) Leslie Burkholder asks for studies of text processing approaches. Two good places to start are B. Shneiderman _Designing the User Interface_, Addison Wesley, 1987 and Norman and Draper (eds) _User Center System Design_, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1986. There have been later empirical studies, but these two are the most comprehensive reviews I know. Your insistenceD on empirical studies is understandable. How about asking about the theory guiding hypothesis generation? ...And, is it too dangerous to mention Halio in this forum? Sheizaf Rafaeli School of Business Administration University of Michigan Sheizaf@UMICHUB or Sheizaf_Rafaeli@ub.cc.UMICH.edu or 71271,763 on Compuserve or (313) 763 2373 From: kma@cosy.uoguelph.ca Subject: Planning Campus Date: Fri, 5 Oct 90 08:22:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1310 (1474) I think Burkholder is just pointing to another major computers-in-education project .... to 'even things out', as he says. I will dig out the details for the EDUCOM review and enter here .... or perhaps I'll do some photocopying and send to Charles Ess by standard mail ? ? ken ..... From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Ficino: a correction Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 21:27:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 571 (1475) In the announcement of the new electronic seminar Ficino, the e-mail address of the editor should read: Editor@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA Willard McCarty From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: CETEDOC Date: 05 Oct 90 16:36:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1311 (1476) It was interesting to see a message originating from CETEDOC in Louvain on HUMANIST this evening, seeking e-texts of Gregory of Tours. This would seem to be an appropriate forum in which to ask CETEDOC to describe their own resources of e-texts and to describe their policies and plans for making those texts available to interested scholars, just as they are asking others to supply them. It has been my experience that CETEDOC is not receptive to inquiries of this sort, and to the best of my knowledge the only way in which they have been willing to provide access to some large bodies of texts they control (esp. late antique and medieval Latin) has been by selective publication of large and expensive microfiche concordances. From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: apologies for contamination Date: Fri, 05 Oct 90 22:36:11 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1312 (1477) Sorry to all HUMANISTS: I recently posted a complaint about a SED script that assumed the line-oriented nature of text files. But actually, the discussion about this is taking place on the TEI public discussion list, not here on HUMANIST. A nice case of textual contamination! Apologies. Dominik From: GORDON DOHLE <DOHLE@Vax2.Concordia.CA> Subject: Re: 4.0569 Macs/Characters; Foot Mice; Computer vs. Computer (4/80) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 90 22:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1313 (1478) There has been a lot of discussion lately on this and other lists about SGML TEI and other formatting problems. I have followed some of it out of curiosity, but perhaps don't understand the issue. I use a Mac to download a lot of material, including progams and texts, pictures and sound. Most of them are Binhexed and Stuffed, which means they come off the mainframe to me in what I guess is some kind of machine language. When I unbinhex and unstuff them, they can be opened and edited with whatever creator program that was used to make them, such as Word, Wordperfect, etc. It seems this is a network standard for transmitting large or small files as quickly and efficiently as possible and there is never any difficulty with digging around for ASCII equivalents. Is there no such standard encryption format in the DOS world? Gordon From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0570 SGML, Markup, Empiricism (5/120) Date: Sat, 6 Oct 90 00:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1314 (1479) I would vigorously second Willard's request for a straightforward guide to 'minimal' SGML markup for texts. As for the comments fo Bill Ball concerning use of more advanced hardware, if the procedures only function on highend machines, only a few people will be able to use them. SGML _seems_ to be something that works on the greatest variety of systems (IF you can find/program/etc an editor---and that seems to me, at least at the present, to be a pretty large IF---I would be delighted to discover that I am mistaken). A kind HUMANIST once forwarded to me a formatted copy of the marked-up Oxford list of texts. How was that done (i.e. the formatting?) I could search my files and perhaps come up with the name of the person, but perhaps this question will bring forth an answer. Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: 4.0570 SGML Date: Mon, 08 Oct 90 10:38:15 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1315 (1480) I suspect that Dominik is right and a lot of editors WILL have problems stripping out SGML. But no programming language should have this problem, nor should word-processing packages with macro facilities. WP macros and text-oriented languages (like SNOBOL) are more character than line-oriented. To a word-processor, carriage return is simply another character. I've written macros in MS Word which strip out markup bewteen angle brackets, although my purpose was to replace this markup with underlining, italics, paragraph styles to create a fully-formatted Word document. The technique in a Word macro is: (1) search for an open angle bracket, (2) open a defined block, (3) search for the next close angle bracket, (4) delete the block, (5) restart the loop. In a SNOBOL routine, the procedure would be similar: (1) read in the next line from INPUT, (2) pass everything up to the next open angle bracket to OUTPUT, (3) if an open angle bracket is found, set markup=1 and skip to the next close bracket, (4) if none is found read the next line into INPUT, etc., (5) when a close angle bracket is found start passing the contents of INPUT to OUTPUT again, (6) restart the loop. (i.e., (5) is really (2) again) Any programmer will find these obvious. But others may like to see how one might construct a stripping macro, rather than being told that "it's easy; any editor that's any good can do it"!. Cheers, Don Spaeth From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: BinHex Date: Sunday, 7 October 1990 0111-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1316 (1481) Although the Macintosh program BinHex is available, you do not need it to unBinHex files such as Tim Seid's HyperCard stack. The standard Macintosh compression program StuffIt (latest shareware version is 1.5.1) allows you to BinHex and unBinHex. StuffIt is available from Macintosh user groups and bulletin boards. You can also purchase the recent commercial reincarnation, StuffIt Deluxe. Regards, Jay Treat, Penn (typing on my favorite VT100 emulator, a Mac Plus) From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: BinHex Date: Sunday, 7 October 1990 0111-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1317 (1482) Although the Macintosh program BinHex is available, you do not need it to unBinHex files such as Tim Seid's HyperCard stack. The standard Macintosh compression program StuffIt (latest shareware version is 1.5.1) allows you to BinHex and unBinHex. StuffIt is available from Macintosh user groups and bulletin boards. You can also purchase the recent commercial reincarnation, StuffIt Deluxe. Regards, Jay Treat, Penn (typing on my favorite VT100 emulator, a Mac Plus) From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Netography Date: Sun, 07 Oct 90 09:14:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1318 (1483) To answer a question on Simtel20, I had to look at a little list of pointers I recently compiled. It is not a bibliography, but a list of items, both online and traditional hardcopy form, that deal with the mechanics of computer communications of interest to the end user. To get a copy, send mail to COMSERVE@RPIECS and in the body put SEND COMPUNET BIBLIO. -------------- Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Simtel20 Date: Sun, 07 Oct 90 09:01:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1319 (1484) Gary Stonum asks about info on getting files from Bitnet only sites. [deleted quotation]RPIECS. The essential guide is "Accessing the SIMTEL20 Archives from BITNET." To get this send email to LISTSERVE@RPIECS and in the body of the mail put GET PDGET HELP. ----------------- Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: Antonio-Paulo Ubieto <HISCONT@CC.UNIZAR.ES> Subject: Re: BinHex 4.0 (Re: 4.0567) Date: 9 Oct 90 20:08 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1320 (1485) Steve Condit asked recently about the way of getting Binhex (HUMANIST 4.0567). As this can be of general interest (I downloaded the Hypercard stacks too) here goes an answer. First of all take a look at StuffIt. If I am correct (well, I am mostly a PC-user) this program (it is shareware, you can get it from somebody that has it) is able to deBinHex files. You will also need StuffIt, normally all MAC files that are sent through e-mail are StuffIted prior to been BinHexed. Second: the easiest way of getting a copy of BinHex is from somebody at your institution. The problem with BinHex is the same as with the egg and the hen... if you get BinHex via Simtel20 or equivalent, you'll get it BinHexed and will need BinHex to deBinHex it... If you are very desperate and can't get it locally (it's legal to copy it, it is shareware or public domain, I can't remember), let me know. If I am correct, the source code of this program is stored somewhere. If you don't mind to compile it... Hope this helps. Good luck. Best wishes and greetings from Antonio-Paulo Ubieto Department of Modern and Contemporary History Zaragoza University (Spain) hiscont@cc.unizar.es "History and Computers: Past, Present, and Future, Now." From: Tom Horton <tom@cs.fau.edu> Subject: text searches Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 19:38:30 edt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1321 (1486) I would like to hear from anyone out there using software tools to find occurrences of two or more words in `close proximity' in a text. (I don't have a particular definition of `close proximity' in mind here.) I know that a number of programs identify occurrences of two words within a certain span (defined by number of words) or within a particular unit (such as a sentence or verse). So I'm particularly interested in ways of solving searches that are more complex than these -- for example, those involving a larger number of words (even 5 or 10) or larger contexts (perhaps much larger). Perhaps someone has found a program particularly well-suited for this, or perhaps someone has developed a set of tricks to accomplish this task with software that doesn't explicitly perform searches such as this. I don't have an immediate problem requiring such a solution; I'm just interested in seeing how people approach this problem. So if anyone is doing something close to this, I'd be grateful for a brief description of your problem and how you solve it. Reply directly to me and I'll post a summary back to Humanist. Thanks, Tom Dr. Thomas B. Horton Department of Computer Science Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL 33435 USA Phone: 407/367-2674 FAX: 407/367-2800 INTERNET: tom@cs.fau.edu BITNET: HortonT@fauvax From: Jody Gilbert <USERDOG1@SFU.BITNET> Subject: collaborative / distance writing Date: Sun, 7 Oct 90 10:27:32 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1322 (1487) Can anyone out there supply me with sources for articles, articles themselves, or personal experience on writing, collaborative or otherwise over a computer network anywhere from a classroom-sized network to long-distance e-mail? Jody USERDOG1@SFU.BITNET or USERDOG1@CC.SFU.CA From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: Matthew Gilmore, Where Are You? Date: Mon, 08 Oct 90 11:44:43 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1323 (1488) I am trying to contact Matthew Gilmore, but the email address I used for him six months ago no longer works. If Matthew has changed addresses, could he send me his new address. Alternatively, does anyone else know his new address? Thanks, Don From: Sarah Horton <HORTON@YALEVM> Subject: Computers in Teaching Date: Mon, 08 Oct 90 09:01:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1324 (1489) I am putting together a bibliography of texts addressing the use of computers in teaching. Preferably, the texts would present a positive view of this activity and would deal primarily with higher education. It would also be helpful if they appeared in "respectable" publications--i.e., refereed journals, not computer rags. Any ideas or contributions would be greatly appreciated. Please respond to me directly; if interest is expressed, I will gladly post the completed bibliography to the list. Thanks in advance. Sarah Horton horton@yalevm horton-sarah@yale.edu From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Query - E-Mail to Hungary Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 09:26:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1325 (1490) Does anyone know if E-Mail (Internet, Bitnet, etc.) connections exist with Hungarian universities and institutes of higher learning? Michael Kessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0569 Macs/Characters Date: Sat, 06 Oct 90 14:27 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1326 (1491) To don Webb: What, pray, is a "tick mark"? I would be glad to change all the ' and all the " to ticks before saving in text format for uploading, but what is it ? Thanks for the info. Kessler From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: seminar bibliography and resource person Date: Fri, 05 Oct 90 22:01:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1327 (1492) If it does not fall too hard on the heels of my last request for assistance, I once again seek the help of my electronic colleagues. The college organizes a faculty summer seminar every year to provide faculty the chance to study and discuss ideas, topics, etc. of interest. Recent topics have included Marxism, Ethics and Feminist Ethics, and questions of "canonicity." The faculty development committee is hoping to persuade our Dean that this coming May we should study academic computing from both theoretical and practical perspectives. That is, we might look at how computing and electronic media have affected library science, academic research, teaching, and communication -- as well as ethical issues raised by computing networks, etc. This theoretical study would then be followed with some hands-on learning and development -- e.g., learning to use BITNET, authoring a hypermedia tutorial, etc. My request is two-fold. It has been a while since anyone on HUMANIST has compiled a bibliography pertinent to this sort of study; tips and suggestions along these lines would be welcome. Secondly, does anyone wish to recommend a possible outside facilitator for such a study? We think that we would be looking for someone who is primarily an academician, with interest and some expertise in both theoretical issues (e.g., a philosopher who has written on the impact of electronic media on our notions of knowledge and permanency; a literature professor who has commented on hypermedia and deconstruction, etc.) and practical matters (i.e., experience with using computer technologies and an interest in sharing what she or he has learned). Our outside facilitators usually stay with us for five days or so; we provide for their transportation, feed them well while they are here, and give them a reasonable stipend. _Every_ facilitator has commented on how much work, and how much fun it is to work with a group of lively faculty discussants. In any case, let me also note by way of thanks -- again -- to all who have contributed comments and documents on academic computing: once our plan is finalized (by April 1 or so), I will be happy to make it available to interested parties. Charles Ess Drury College From: Hedy McGarrell <alfmcgarrell@brocku.ca> Subject: CALL Symposium'90 Date: 5 Oct 90 18:27 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 575 (1493) Could you please post the following reminder on HUMANIST: REMINDER CALL Workshops & Symposium Saturday, October 27, 1990 Department of Applied Language Studies Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario ----------------------------------------------------- Program: 09:15 - Sign-in, Senate Chambers 09:45 - Opening Remarks 10:00 - Mary-Louise Craven (York University) "How Effective is Electronically Presented Written Feedback?" OR Ed Lichtenstein (NTID, Rochester) Interactive and Conversational Computer Programs for Language Instruction 11:15 - Ian M. Richmond (University of Western Ontario) "Getting Hyper with MS-DOS: Object-Oriented Applications Generators and CALL in the MS-DOS Environment" OR Sheila Clemmer (University of Buffalo) "CALL for Everyone" 12:30 - LUNCH 13:15 - Symposium Get your "hands on" the computers Exchange public domain software Impromptu "show-and-tell" 14:15 - Philippe Martin "Teaching Grammar of Intonation with Pitch Visuzlizer" OR Charlene Fitzpatrick (Dufferin-Peel Separate Board) "A Computer Writing Course for ESL Students" Registration Fee: $18.- (includes lunch) To register please send cheque, payable to "Brock University", to: Department of Applied Language Studies Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario, L2S 3A1 For further information contact (416) 688-5550 x3374 or e-mail: ALFMCGARRELL@BROCKU.CA Thank you. Hedy [C [C [C From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: last call Date: Tue, 09 Oct 90 13:15:58 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1328 (1494) Last Call for Abstracts for ACH/ALLC 91 to be held in Tempe, AZ in March, 1991. Send your 1,500-2000 word abstract to Dan Brink (ATDXB@ASUACAD) by October 15. Decisions by December 15. See you in Tempe! ---------------------------------------------------- Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Technology Integration College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 (602) 965-7748 (FAX: 965-1093) ATDXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: IDE@vassar.bitnet Subject: Full Call for Papers for ACH/ALLC Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 23:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1329 (1495) Association for Computers and the Humanities Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing 1991 JOINT CONFERENCE 18-21 March 1991 Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona, USA TOPICS: Papers are invited on research in the areas of literary and linguistic computing, including, but not limited to, computational lexicography, corpora, text encoding, text representation (e.g., hypertext), statistical models and methods of text analysis, and syntactic, semantic, and content analysis; also computer applications in philosophy, music, history, art, etc. REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe substantial and original work, especially new methodologies and applications. They should empahsize completed rather than intended work. FORMAT: Abstracts should be 1500-2000 words in length. Send by OCTOBER 15, 1990 to: Daniel Brink Department of English Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 (602) 965-2679 ATDXB@ASUACAD.BITNET CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Tempe is immediate adjacent to Phoenix, AZ, and less than one hour by air from Los Angeles. The weather in March is dry, with the temperature in the mid-70s to mid-80s (25-30 C), making swimming, tennis, and golf popular extracurricular activities. Tempe is close to a number of Native American towns (and archeological sites), as well as early mining camp ghost towns, and not too distant from a number of famous attractions, including Grand Canyon. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Donald Ross, University of Minnesota, chair Daniel Brink, Arizona State University, local host Tom Corns, University of Wales Paul Fortier, University of Manitoba Jacqueline Hamesse, Universite Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve Susan Hockey, Oxford University Computing Service Nancy Ide, Vassar College Randall Jones, Brigham Young University Antonio Zampolli, University of Pisa From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: CHUM Call for Papers Date: Sun, 7 Oct 90 22:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 577 (1496) CALL FOR PAPERS The journal of Computers and the Humanities Special Issue on Common Methologies in Computational Linguistics and Humanities Computing edited by Nancy M. Ide and Donald E. Walker Recently, panels and sessions at COLING, and conferences of the Association for Computational Linguistics, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing have addressed the increasing merging of methodologies in the fields of computational linguistics and humanities computing. On the one hand, computational linguists are devoting considerable attention to statistical and other quantitative measures traditionally used in humanities computing. Also, work with large text corpora, long the central activity in humanities computing, is also becoming an important area for computational linguistics. Computational linguists are now beginning to consider texts, and even literary texts, as an object of study and a rich source of information about the phenomena of language and discourse. On the other hand, humanists are turning to methods for morphological, syntactic, and semantic analysis developed by computational linguists to enhance their strategies for literary and linguistic studies. A special issue of Computers and the Humanities will be devoted to papers that describe work which falls at the intersection of the fields of computational linguistics and humanities computing, either in methodology or use of materials. Papers dealing with computational lexicology and lexicography, corpora and corpus linguistics, statistical models and methods for language and text analysis, and syntactic, semantic, and content analytic methods are invited. All papers should be submitted by May 1, 1991. The special issue is expected to appear in late spring, 1992. Papers and requests for information should be sent to: Nancy M. Ide Department of Computer Science Box 520 Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, USA ide@vassar.bitnet (+1 914) 437-5988 (+1 914) 437-7187 fax or Donald E. Walker Bellcore, MRE 2A379 445 South Street, Box 1910 Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA walker@flash.bellcore.com (+1 201) 829-4312 (+1 201) 455-1931 fax From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0572 Texts: Queries; SGML; SED; etc. Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 11:18 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1330 (1497) Don Spaeth's algorithm will not work in the (far from uncommon) case where one tagged element is found nested within another. For that, as for most realistic programming, you need to be able to manipulate a stack. Lou From: CATHERINE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: wordperfect footnotes Date: Fri, 5 OCT 90 13:57:59 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1331 (1498) Having been away at the time of Bob Kraft's query about preserving Word Perfect footnotes, I am not sure if his question has been fully answered. Here at Oxford we have a macro that extracts the footnotes and inserts consecutively numbered footnotes in their places. The footnotes appear as the second document on the split screen, and can from their be edited to wherever they are wanted, presumably at the end of the same document or in a different document on their own. I am not sure how to transmit this macro by e-mail, but if anyone is interested, I can either mail it or tell them how to do it (it was written by Lyn Munro). Catherine Griffin Oxford University From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0572 Texts: Queries; SGML; SED; etc. Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 11:18 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1332 (1499) Don Spaeth's algorithm will not work in the (far from uncommon) case where one tagged element is found nested within another. For that, as for most realistic programming, you need to be able to manipulate a stack. Lou From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0572 Texts: Queries; SGML; SED; etc. Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 11:18 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1333 (1500) Don Spaeth's algorithm will not work in the (far from uncommon) case where one tagged element is found nested within another. For that, as for most realistic programming, you need to be able to manipulate a stack. Lou From: CATHERINE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: wordperfect footnotes Date: Fri, 5 OCT 90 13:57:59 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1334 (1501) Having been away at the time of Bob Kraft's query about preserving Word Perfect footnotes, I am not sure if his question has been fully answered. Here at Oxford we have a macro that extracts the footnotes and inserts consecutively numbered footnotes in their places. The footnotes appear as the second document on the split screen, and can from their be edited to wherever they are wanted, presumably at the end of the same document or in a different document on their own. I am not sure how to transmit this macro by e-mail, but if anyone is interested, I can either mail it or tell them how to do it (it was written by Lyn Munro). Catherine Griffin Oxford University From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: real computers :-) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 90 14:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1335 (1502) <grin, oooh boy....> VT100s are real? Yup, sure are; I've used one often enough. VT220s are not that much different as far as I can tell. The only problem with them is that the local version of Moria won't run off of a 220. And 320s? A large screen TV met a Mac and had a one night stand. Then the offspring of the union got nuked by a physics lab experiment that got out of control.... To work properly, now, the offspring of the offspring need special equipment. Like mouse pads. And did anyone ever find a VT320 in a computer lab WITH a mouse pad? Nahhhh. 320s are real terminals designed by David Lynch, and manufactured in the Twilight Zone. <that felt good. Now if only I had a 300-smiley sig. file to put here> Ruth H - I don't like MacIntosh apples, either.:-) From: Norman Miller <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: Language learning and dreaming Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 09:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1336 (1503) Marc Bregman's fascinating dreams turned on a switch in my head. Thanks entirely to the fact that I've switched workrooms with my spouse and and have therefore books at hand that I haven't seen or thought of in many years, I have fished out the following from the Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse, vol.X no.1, 1938: "Jeu de mots hebraiques. Une langue nouvellement acquise peut-elle devenir la langue de l'inconscient?" The paper tells of polyglot dreams including Russian, Polish, German, Arabic as well as Hebrew. One involves dreams about a mouse, but since the Yiddish for mouse is close to the Hebrew for luck...(Remember how we used to love that sort of thing? Ou sont les innocents d'antan?) The author, chers lecteurs, is Emmanuel Velikovsky. As Casey Stengel said, you can look it up. N. Miller From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0556 Words: Plurals ... (4/100)] Date: Wed, 03 Oct 90 11:01:56 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1337 (1504) Perhaps it's now old hat (do you understand that on t'other side of the water?) but a couple of interesting plural singulars worthy of note are 'news' (uniformly plural as far as I can see in 14 Century and on) and 'dice'. And in a recent posting to HUMANIST (I devoutly hope tongue-in-cheek) was the memorable phrase [deleted quotation] And I'm struck by an awful thought. Should I have said [deleted quotation] Of course in almost any newspaper one finds not mere uncertainty about whether words like 'government' should be given singular or plural verbs, but constant vacillation between the two. Regards, Douglas de Lacey. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0562 Counting Texts (1/43) Date: Fri, 05 Oct 90 08:32:48 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1338 (1505) Kessler's observations about sources is worth a response (though I suspect mine might not be the only one). For those in literature perhaps such an attitude as his is possible, but not in history. It would be a grave mistake to force my students to learn about early modern Germany by reading only primary sources; just as well say they ought to learn about the Mojave Desert by wandering about in it. Maps are better. Moreover, Kessler exhibits a bit of discipline-specific myopia when he speaks of books. In history we deal also with not-books: archival sources, parish registers, archaeological evidence, coins, inscriptions, art, architecture -- even for the medieval historian the body of relevant and important material is overwhelming. It's one of the reasons why I snicker when I hear people moaning about information overload, a truly modern and specious bit of worrying. That said, he's made me stop to think a bit. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile exercise to go through what I know of the literature in my field (secondary literature, now, mind you) and decide which ones are fit companions for retirement. I could keep a list. With each new book I read I could debate whether it was a worthy addition to the list. If a book isn't worth taking to Arizona, perhaps it's not worth inflicting on my students either. . . . Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Job Search: Dean of Candler School of Theology Date: Wednesday, 3 October 1990 1917-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1339 (1506) A request to nominate possible candidates for the position of Dean of Candler School of Theology of Emory University in Atlanta GA USA has reached my desk. Candidates must be members of the United Methodist Church, with preference to ordained clergy with PhD or similar. Since my contacts in the wider ecclesiastical-academic worlds are relatively limited, it seemed worth airing this information more widely through HUMANIST. Names and addresses of qualified interested (or interesting) parties can be sent to me, or (better) directly to E. Brooks Holifield, Chair Candler Dean's Search Committee Room 209, Administration Building Emory University Atlanta GA 30322. Thanks! Bob Kraft (Religious Studies, U Penn) From: grgo@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Greg Goode) Subject: PC-based forms generator? Date: Wed, 10 Oct 1990 09:37:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1340 (1507) Does anyone know of a forms generator for the PC? Our admissions department here at the University of Rochester uses a Mac product called Claris SmartForm. Their plan has been to design undergraduate applications form with SmartForm Designer. Then, with the companion product, SmartForm Assistant, we would issue run-time versions of the form to high school counselors so that their students could fill in the application form on the Mac. Then the counselor would return the floppy disk to our admissions office. Has anyone heard of a PC product like this? I've seen PC forms generators, but they don't have a run-time version. Thanks. Reply either to me or to Humanist. Greg Goode University of Rochester Internet: grgo@uhura.cc.rochester.edu BITNET: GRGO@UORDBV.BITNET From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Japanese KANJI fonts and the Mac Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 12:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1341 (1508) On behalf of a colleague in the department I am posting this reqrest for information. Does anyone on the list know if Canon KANJI fonts (for Japanese characters) will work with a MacSE/30 and the HP Deskwriter. Any words from a user will be appreciated (or information on who might know). Thanks, Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: Binhex, DOS Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 02:32:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 581 (1509) Let me try to sort out some of the confusion that's been surrounding discussion of arc, binhex, stuff, SGML, etc. for those who are new at these games. While it is nearly always possible to compress information, computers allow especially easy application of well-known compression algorithms to machine readable data. On Macs something called stuff is the most popular compression utility. The MS-DOS world uses arc, zoo, zip, and several others. These latter are much more than mere compression programs. They are archivers. I have them (all three) implemented under Unix as well. In addition, Unix users use pack and compress. Compress is available for DOS. On Unix-based networks, one normally uses a combination of an archiver (e.g. cpio, tar) with a compressor (e.g. pack or compress) to archive binaries and directory trees for public distribution. Tar has been implemented under MS-DOS, so files so archived can be accessed by IBM PCers as well. These compression programs are different from programs like binhex. Binhex, apparently, is the way Mac devotees put information into a format that can be transferred using 7-bit ASCII codes. Beware that, although the format is probably not an arcane one, it is not one that everyone will be able to deal with. Probably the most widely used bin -> ASCII encoding program is the Unix uuencode program, which takes groups of 3 8-bit sequences, and changes them into 4-byte ASCII sequences. Some sites cannot handle uuencoding, so this is not universal. There exist programs that do essentially the same thing as uuencode, but yet avoid certain character codes that will tend to get mangled when passing through EBCDIC sites. The most popular of these is xxencode. SGML has nothing to do wit binhex, stuff, and the like. It is a specification for a method of outfitting files containing textual information with markers to indicate coding scheme, structure, major divisions, etc. If you plan on posting publicly accessible code or information, think very carefully about who will be using it. Will it be restricted to Mac users, or will it be used by a larger group? If the latter is the case, it would be sensible to use an encoding method which is im- plemented on as wide a range of systems as possible. Probably this means using uuencode. I have no idea whether any of the archivers that MS-DOS and Unix people all have access to (e.g. tar, arc, zoo, zip) have been implemented for the Mac. Mac users tend to be off in their own corner as far as standards go, so it is possible that they do not. If someone would fill us in on the details, I'd be very grateful. Appended below are two Icon programs that implement uuen/decode. Note that this is source code. (It is very unwise to accept code that has been prepackaged and compiled; kinda like taking drugs with secret, and possibly harmful, ingredients.) Icon will run on Macs, PCs, under Unix, VMS, on Ataris, and many more machines. It is, moreover, free, and can be obtained via the icon-project@arizona.edu. Naturally, this program is implemented in C as well, but I know that C compilers are expensive in many instances (e.g. VMS), and (unless the code is par- ticularly portable) often take considerable messaging in order to accept code written in another environment. If you don't have Icon on your current machine, get it! The price is right, and it is very well suited for Humanists. ############################################################################ # # Name: iiencode.icn # # Title: iiencode (port of the Unix/C uuencode program to Icon) # # Author: Richard L. Goerwitz # # Version: 1.3 # ############################################################################ # # This is an Icon port of the Unix/C uuencode utility. Since # uuencode is publicly distributable BSD code, I simply grabbed a # copy, and rewrote it in Icon. The only basic functional change I # made to the program was to simplify the notion of file mode. # Everything is encoded with 0644 permissions. Operating systems # differ so widely in how they handle this sort of thing that I # decided just not to worry about it. # # Usage is the same as the Unix uuencode command, i.e. a first # (optional) argument gives the name the file to be encoded. If this # is omitted, iiencode just uses the standard input. The second and # final argument gives the name the encoded file should be given when # it is ultimately decoded: # # iiencode [infile] remotefilename # # BUGS: Slow. I decided to go for clarity and symmetry, rather than # speed, and so opted to do things like use ishift(i,j) instead of # straight multiplication (which under Icon v8 is much faster). Note # that I followed the format of the newest BSD release, which refuses # to output spaces. If you want to change things back around so that # spaces are output, look for the string "BSD" in my comments, and # then (un)comment the appropriate sections of code. # # NOTE ON MS-DOS: Operating systems for which newline translation is # necessary will be able to decode text files only - that is, unless # the code below is altered to open all files in "untranslate" mode. # The trouble here is that if this change is made, text files will # not come out looking right (they will remain in their native Unix # format). I will leave it to the user to decide which alternative # is the lesser of evils: 1) To be able to decode binary files, but # have to manually convert text files to MS-DOS format, or 2) to have # automatic conversion of text files, but not be able to read binary # files (the way the code stands now). # ############################################################################ # # See also: iidecode.icn # ############################################################################ procedure main(a) local in, filename # optional 1st argument if *a = 2 then { filename := pop(a) if not (in := open(filename, "r")) then { write(&errout,"Can't open ",a[1],".") exit(1) } } else in := &input if *a ^^= 1 then { write(&errout,"Usage: iiencode [infile] remotefile") exit (2) } # This generic version of uuencode treats file modes in a primitive # manner so as to be usable in a number of environments. Please # don't get fancy and change this unless you plan on keeping your # modified version on-site (or else modifying the code in such a # way as to avoid dependence on a specific operating system). writes("begin 644 ",a[1],"\n") encode(in) writes("end\n") exit(0) end procedure encode(in) # Copy from in to standard output, encoding as you go along. local line # 1 (up to) 45 character segment while line := reads(in, 45) do { writes(ENC(*line)) line ? { while outdec(move(3)) pos(0) | outdec(left(tab(0), 3, " ")) } writes("\n") } # Uuencode adds a space and newline here, which is decoded later # as a zero-length line (signals the end of the decoded text). # writes(" \n") # The new BSD code (compatible with the old) avoids outputting # spaces by writing a ` (see also how it handles ENC() below). writes("`\n") end procedure outdec(s) # Output one group of 3 bytes (s) to standard output. This is one # case where C is actually more elegant than Icon. Note well! local c1, c2, c3, c4 c1 := ishift(ord(s[1]),-2) c2 := ior(iand(ishift(ord(s[1]),+4), 8r060), iand(ishift(ord(s[2]),-4), 8r017)) c3 := ior(iand(ishift(ord(s[2]),+2), 8r074), iand(ishift(ord(s[3]),-6), 8r003)) c4 := iand(ord(s[3]),8r077) every writes(ENC(c1 | c2 | c3 | c4)) return end procedure ENC(c) # ENC is the basic 1 character encoding procedure to make a char # printing. # New BSD code doesn't output spaces... return " " ^^== char(iand(c, 8r077) + 32) | "`" # ...the way the old code does: # return char(iand(c, 8r077) + 32) end ############################################################################ # # Name: iidecode.icn # # Title: iidecode (port of the Unix/C uudecode program to Icon) # # Author: Richard L. Goerwitz # # Version: 1.4 # ############################################################################ # # This is an Icon port of the Unix/C uudecode utility. Since # uudecode is publicly distributable BSD code, I simply grabbed a # copy, and rewrote it in Icon. The only basic functional change I # made to the program was to simplify the notion of file mode. # Everything is encodedwith 0644 permissions. Operating systems # differ so widely in how they handle this sort of thing that I # decided just not to worry about it. # # Usage is the same as the Unix uudecode command, i.e. a first # (optional) argument gives the name the file to be decoded. If this # is omitted, iidecode just uses the standard input: # # iidecode [infile] # # Even people who do not customarily use Unix should be aware of # the uuen/decode program and file format. It is widely used, and has # been implemented on a wide variety of machines for sending 8-bit # "binaries" through networks designed for ASCII transfers only. # # BUGS: Slow. I decided to go for clarity and symmetry, rather than # speed, and so opted to do things like use ishift(i,j) instead of # straight multiplication (which under Icon v8 is much faster). # # NOTE ON MS-DOS: Systems for which newline translation is necessary # can encode files. The problem is that, since iiencode sends coded # files to the standard output, it is impossible to avoid sending out # OS-specific code at the end of each line. While most uudecode # programs will be able to handle the resulting file, they will not # always decode the filename properly. Binary files simply won't # work, unless the program is modified to write to a file instead of # the standard output. If you do this, make sure you open the file # for writing in untranslated mode. # ############################################################################ # # See also: iiencode.icn # ############################################################################ procedure main(a) local in, filename, dest # optional 1st (and only) argument if *a = 1 then { filename := pop(a) if not (in := open(filename, "r")) then { write(&errout,"Can't open ",a[1],".") exit(1) } } else in := &input if *a ^^= 0 then { write(&errout,"Usage: iidecode [infile] remotefile") exit (2) } # Find the "begin" line, and determine the destination file name. !in ? { tab(match("begin ")) & tab(many(&digits)) & # mode ignored tab(many(' ')) & dest := trim(tab(0),'\r') # concession to MS-DOS } # If dest is null, the begin line either isn't present, or is # corrupt (which necessitates our aborting with an error msg.). if /dest then { write(&errout,"No begin line.") exit(3) } # Tilde expansion is heavily Unix dependent, and we can't always # safely write the file to the current directory. Our only choice # is to abort. if match("^^",dest) then { write(&errout,"Please remove ^^ from input file begin line.") exit(4) } out := open(dest, "w") decode(in, out) # decode checks for "end" line if not match("end", !in) then { write(&errout,"No end line.\n") exit(5) } exit(0) end procedure decode(in, out) # Copy from in to out, decoding as you go along. local line, chunk while line := read(in) do { if *line = 0 then { write(&errout,"Short file.\n") exit(10) } line ? { n := DEC(ord(move(1))) # Uuencode signals the end of the coded text by a space # and a line (i.e. a zero-length line, coded as a space). if n <= 0 then break while (n > 0) do { chunk := move(4) | tab(0) outdec(chunk, out, n) n -:= 3 } } } return end procedure outdec(s, f, n) # Output a group of 3 bytes (4 input characters). N is used to # tell us not to output all of the chars at the end of the file. local c1, c2, c3 c1 := iand( ior( ishift(DEC(ord(s[1])),+2), ishift(DEC(ord(s[2])),-4) ), 8r0377) c2 := iand( ior( ishift(DEC(ord(s[2])),+4), ishift(DEC(ord(s[3])),-2) ), 8r0377) c3 := iand( ior( ishift(DEC(ord(s[3])),+6), DEC(ord(s[4])) ), 8r0377) if (n >= 1) then writes(f,char(c1)) if (n >= 2) then writes(f,char(c2)) if (n >= 3) then writes(f,char(c3)) end procedure DEC(c) # single character decode return iand(c - 32, 8r077) end From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: New List! LORE lives! Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 21:48 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1342 (1510) A new list discussing contemporary folklore has been started. It is designed to replace the moribund Folklore@tamvm1, which still exists in a moderated format. To all the Folklore alumni, sign on! To those who do not remember that excellent list, you don't know what you missed. to subscribe, SEND LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 SUBSCRIBE LORE <YOUR NAME>, or TELL, if that's what your system takes. It can also be done by mail, if you're on an Internet node. Just don't post it to the list, unless you run into some serious glitches. Ruth H From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: Full information on LORE@NDSUVM1 Date: Tue, 2 Oct 90 23:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1343 (1511) * * LORE - Folklore List * * Review= Public Subscription= Open Send= Public * Notify= Yes * Reply-to= List,Respect * Mail-via= DIST2 * Files= No * List-ID= LORE * Newsgroups= bit.listserv.lore * Validate= Store Only X-Tags= Yes Stats= Extended,Private * Confidential= No Ack= None Formcheck= No * Default-Options= Repro * Notebook= Yes,L,Monthly,Public * Errors-To= Owner * * Owner= NU019375@NDSUVM1 (Pat Carey) * * List: LORE@NDSUVM1 (LORE@VM1.NoDak.EDU) * * The LORE list will be a broad based, public discussion group that * will examine and discuss all aspects of Folklore. No attempt will be * made by List owner or members of group to define Folklore, or to limit * areas of discussion. The only guidelines that will be suggested are * limits to personal attacks, and the use of inappropriate language. * The discussions, like Folklore, will be organic. It will be up to * the members of the group to control the direction of the discussion. * It is the belief of the owner of the LIST that a discussion cannot * really be owned. The LIST is in reality owned by its members, and it * is up to the members to keep the LIST alive and well. * * PLEASE NOTE: Replies are set up to go the LIST as an aid to * facilitate discussion. You can override the REPLY option by * including a Reply-To: option in the header of mail you send to * LORE@NDSUVM1.Bitnet. * * Monthly notebooks will be kept. For a list send LISTSERV @ NDSUVM1 * the command INDEX LORE . For example: ======== * the command INDEX LORE . For example: ======== * * TELL LISTSERV AT NDSUVM1 INDEX LORE or * SEND LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 INDEX LORE etc. * * or send the INDEX LORE command in mail to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu or * LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET. The command must be in the BODY of the * mail and note the subject. * * The archives are also available via anonymous FTP to VM1.NoDak.EDU * with CD LISTARCH and DIR LORE.* * * To UNsubscribe send the command SIGNOFF LORE to LISTSERV AT NDSUVM1. * * PLEASE NOTE: LISTSERV commands go to ***LISTSERV***, NOT to the list! * * For more information on LISTSERV, send LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.Bitnet the * command " INFO". This may be sent interactively, as the first * TEXT LINE of MAIL, or in a file. * * LORE * Coordinator: Pat Carey NU019375@NDSUVM1.Bitnet * or NU019375@VM1.NoDak.EDU on Internet * or ...!uunet!plains!vm1.nodak.edu!nu019375 uucp From: O MH KATA MHXANHN <MCCARTHY@CUA> Subject: request for institutional addresses Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 17:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1344 (1512) A colleague of mine would much appreciate it if any member of HUMANIST would pass along to him, through me, the institutional addresses of the following medievalists: 1) Monika Asztalos 2) Ferruccio Bertini 3) Margaret T. Gibson 4) Fritz Peter Knapp 5) Bernard Guene'e 6) Jean Richard 7) Klaus Grubmu"ller W. McCarthy CUA Washington, D.C. (MCCARTHY@CUA.BITNET) From: Donald MacRae <grfmacrae@brocku.ca> Subject: A Quest For Texts Date: 10 Oct 90 19:31 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1345 (1513) I have recently read or re-read three books which have a common theme: documentation of the problems of minority groups in a society which seems determined to keep them in their place. The first, *Black Like Me*, is an account from the early 60s, by J. H. Griffin who darkened his skin to pose as a black in the southern states in order to learn of the problems they face. The second is a German work, *Ganz Unten*, by G. Wallraff. This work purports to be a documentary account of the plight of the Turkish "guest workers" in Germany who are abused by their employers. It was written by a reporter posing as a Turk himself. The last of these is *My Enemy, Myself* by Y. Benur, an Israeli who poses as an Arab in Israel. Like the others, he too is trying to document, first-hand, the problems of a group of outcasts who are a part of the social fabric of the country, but who do not receive their fair share of the benefits from that society. My question is simple: can anyone point me in the direction of other, similar works which have the same theme? Donald MacRae, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada. From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Peter Patton Date: Thursday, 11 October 1990 0040-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1346 (1514) Are any HUMANISTs in contact with Peter Patton, an early pioneer of Humanities Computing at the University of Minnesota? I would be interested in learning his whereabouts. Thanks, Bob Kraft From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Scholarly Discussion Groups Date: Thursday, 11 October 1990 0043-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1347 (1515) Have any HUMANISTs been keeping a list of the primarily academic discussion groups on BITNET (and/or other networks)? Several people have asked me about such a list recently, and it seemed to be worth having, despite inevitable ambiguities and tendencies to lean to personal preferences. I have in mind such groups as ANSAX-L, IOUDAIOS, FOLKL, and the like, with specific, traditional academic focus on an identified "field" in the humanities. Thanks, Bob Kraft From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: Info on Citation? Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 08:09 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1348 (1516) I have just received a flyer "a special introductory offer" for WP Citation, aliographic citation generator. Has anyone tried it? Is it worth $79 for a WP user? Thanks for any information or suggestions. Leslie Morgan Foreign Languages Loyola College in Maryland (MORGAN@Loyvax) From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: computers in teaching? Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 10:44:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1349 (1517) I would like to make contact with anyone who regularly assists members of faculty develop their own software for application to teaching, e.g. with HyperCard or other high-level programming and authoring languages. Please write to me directly, and I will later summarize the respondes for my fellow Humanists. Thanks very much. Yours, Willard McCarty From: TRACY LOGAN <LOGANT@lafayett.BITNET> Subject: database of Gregorian chants? Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 13:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1350 (1518) A user here needs to scan a large number of Gregorian chants to see if certain motets are based on such chants. (Approximately: this is what seemed to me to be involved.) Are there databases that might supply information about the chants? -- tracy loganT @ lafayett From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Word for Word Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 09:36:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1351 (1519) I am wondering now what experience my colleagues here have had with the format-translation utility, Word for Word. I have used it to translate files from WordPerfect to Nota Bene, both from versions 4.2 and 5.0, with imperfect results. In one case an index of a book in translation from WP5.0 lost the first two or three characters of each line, which alas for me I could not guess at. Is there anything better? Yours, Willard McCarty From: David Zeitlyn <ZEITLYN@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: message for humanist Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 15:57 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1352 (1520) Preliminary enquiry: I'm working on a research proposal to do with the use of pronouns, names and kinterms. In order to take a wider perspective than my usual Mambila-centric one I would like to be able to analyse some natural language corpora for languages other than Mambila. However, I need to know something about the speakers eg relationships, kinship, (possibly even relative ages?) or other possible power relations which obtain between the speakers. Lou B says that such information is not available for the texts here in Oxford. Does anyone out there know of any corpora which may be of use? The ideal would be corpora of families + friends engaged in mundane conversation eg table talk. For languages other than common european ones I would need translations into some meta-language! Many thanks for any help. David Zeitlyn junior Research Fellow in Social Anthropology Wofson College Oxford OX4 6UD UK zeitlyn@uk.ac.vax From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Query: SCAN Symposium Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 13:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1353 (1521) The Small Computers in the Arts Network 1990 symposium is at U Penn this year, right in my backyard (sorry, any Penn'ers out there - no crack intended) and I'm thinking about going... does anybody have any comments about this conference and/or evaluations of its usefulness and relevance to higher education? Are there any past attendees willing to give advice...? thanks in advance...reply to me or the list as you think fit. - Matt Matthew Wall Internet: wall@campus.swarthmore.edu Humanities Computing Coordinator Bitnet : wall@swarthmr Swarthmore College Tri-College DECNET: SWAT::WALL From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: OTA Accessions since April 1990 Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 19:06 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 584 (1522) A new short list of texts available from the Oxford Text Archive is now available on request. I have sent a copy to the Editors to be placed on the ListServer for general access, but as this may take a wee while to get there, I am posting the following brief list of acquisitions since the last published list.... Keep those texts rolling in! Lou Burnard, Oxford Text Archive ------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTA UPDATE : Texts acquired since 01-Apr-1990 List produced on 11 Oct 1990 ------------ Danish -------------- Kierkegaard, Soren U-1394-E | Samlede V&aeling;rker (ed. Mckinnon). Original edition A. McKinnon. ------------ English -------------- Anonymous A-1389-B | Beowulf. Original published Cambridge, MASS, 1959. Original edition Magoun. U-1405-A | Beowulf (transcript of MS). Original edition Hutcheson. Collections, corpora &c U-1398-A | Anthology of Middle English texts. Original published 1990, Various. Original edition Dr Santiago Gonzalez y Fernandez-Corugedo. A-1409-C | Blues lyric poetry: An anthology. Original published New York, 1983, Garland Publishing Inc. Original edition Michael Taft. U-1397-B | The Towneley Cycle. U-1392-B | York miracle play cycle. Original published 1982, York medieval texts. Original edition R.Beadle. [The York plays second series] Butcher, William U-1408-A | Verne's journey to the centre of the self. Original published 1990, Macmillan. [Preface by Ray Bradbury.] Fielding, Henry U-1396-B | Joseph Andrews. Original published Oxford, 1967, Clarendon Press. Original edition Battestin, Martin C. [Wesleyan series. Cleaned up version of text 54] Francis, Nicholas and William Butcher U-1407-A | Mississippi madness: Canoeing the Mississippi-Missouri. Original published Oxford, 1990, Oxford Illustrated Press. [Foreword by Edward Heath] Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of U-1395-A | Selected letters. Original published Stuttgart, 1981, Frommann-Holzboog. Original edition Gerd Hemmerich and Wolfram Benda. [A letter concerning enthusiasm & the adept ladys] Sterne, Lawrence U*-1388-C | Tristram Shandy (Chapters 1-6 and 9). 4 copies of first edition used Swift, Jonathan and Thomas Sheridan A-1386-A | The Intelligencer. Original published Oxford, 1990, Clarendon Press, OUP. Original edition J.Woolley. ------------ French -------------- Gross, Maurice A-1393-A | Materials for construction of lexicon grammar. Original edition M.Gross. Hugo, Victor U-1406-A | Littéerature et philosophie mélées. Original published Paris, 1976, Klincksieck. Original edition Anthony R.W. James. [Read from punch cards, not checked against text.] ------------ Japanese -------------- Shikibu, Murasaki U-1385-D | Genji Monogatari. Original published Japan, 1987, Shogakukan Ltd. Original edition A.Abe, K. Akiyama, G. Imai. ------------ Latin -------------- Cicero A-1391-D | Letters. Original published Teubner/Cambrdge. Original edition D.R Shackleton-Bailey. [Two different editions used 1978 and 198] ------------ Welsh -------------- Anonymous A-1400-A | Llyr gwyn Rhydderch: Kulhwch. Original published Aberystwyth. Original edition Sebastian Evans. A-1401-A | Llyr gwyn Rhydderch: Ronabwy. Original published Aberystwyth. Original edition Sebastian Evans. A-1402-A | Llyr gwyn Rhydderch: Peredur. Original published Aberystwyth. Original edition Sebastian Evans. A-1403-A | Llyr gwyn Rhydderch: Owein. Original published Aberystwyth. Original edition Sebastian Evans. ------------ Miscellaneous -------------- Collections, corpora &c U-1184-A | Amele folktales and other materials. ----------= Non Linguistic -------------- Crawford, T.D. U-1410-A | METRIX programs. --------------------------=END OF TEXTARCHIVE SNAPSHOT-------------------- From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: use of m-r dictionaries Date: Sat, 13 Oct 90 21:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1354 (1523) A recent survey of the top twenty requested items from the Oxford Text Archive reveals that the biggest category of item requested is machine readable dictionaries and other lexical materials, including Oxford advanced learner's dictionary (expanded "Computer Usable" version) Collins English dictionary Oxford advanced learner's dictionary Shorter Oxford dictionary (headwords only) Oxford dictionary of current idiomatic English English pronouncing dictionary MRC Psycholinguistic database To my knowledge, large-scale research on machine readable dictionaries is limited to a few projects. What are all those others who have acquired these dictionaries using them for? Nancy Ide From: VERONIS@vassar.bitnet Subject: Requete: textes francais et bilingues francais/anglais Date: Sat, 13 Oct 90 19:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1355 (1524) Je suis a la recherche de textes francais contemporains (litteraires ou non), et, ce qui est plus difficile, de textes bilingues francais/anglais, c'est-a-dire de textes avec leur traduction. Quelqu'un aurait-il une idee? Merci! From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: [Apostrophes in 17th c. Composition --eds] Date: 14 October 1990, 18:15:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1356 (1525) Query about c-17 compositors and apostrophes with italics. A weird question for anyone on the list who can answer it. I have noticed that the compositors who set *Paradise Lost* rarely, if ever, used apostrophes with possessive nouns unless they happened to be setting proper names in italics, proper names that happened to be in the possessive. Does anyone who has messed around with early printing methods or with setting their own books in hand-presses have any explanation for this? The type face for the 1667 and 1674 editions was a form of Garamond and the point size about ten. Thanks for any help. Roy Flannagan From: Revised List Processor (1.6e) <LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BITNET> Subject: Tutors Teaching Writing Date: Wed, 3 Oct 90 12:10:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1357 (1526) Help: We are interested in studying the advantages, if any, of tutors helping to teach writing within learning center environments. We are familiar with Irene Clark's article "Preparing Future Composition Teachers in the Writing Center", and would be very interested in additional related references. Especially research instruments or insights into the empirical evidence available. Any help would be appreciated. Irv Cockriel EDRSR438@UMCVMB University of Missouri-Columbia Bonnie Zelenak LCZEL@UMCVMB University of Missouri-Columbia From: dgraham@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: Mac compression utilities Date: 11 Oct 90 09:40 -0330 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 586 (1527) A few minor additions to Richard Goerwitz's helpful article on compression utilities. 1. Stuffit (not stuff) is a compression utility written by a teen-age whiz kid named Raymond Lau. After many shareware releases, it is now a commercial program called Stuffit Deluxe. It compresses files by means of different compression algorithms (LZW, Huffman, etc) and will also archive files in groups and decode or encode files in Binhex format. Because of the migration of Stuffit to the commercial sector, it is being replaced by a new shareware compression utility called Compactor, which I haven't tried yet, just as Stuffit replaced an earlier utility by Harry Chesley called PackIt. 2. Binhex, as Richard says, is a means of reducing Mac binaries to 7-bit ASCII for network transmission. Mac binaries, not being intended for real computers, are not likely to interest devotees of other operating systems, and so most of these people are not likely to need Binhex for anything. Richard is quite right to point out that Mac users wanting to transmit something to non-Mac users should choose another format such as uuencode. I seem to recall that Binhex deals not only with the peculiarities of the Macintosh character set, the upper part of which is non-ASCII, but with the fact that Mac binaries store what they need in two 'forks' (data and resource), unlike programs for other computers. Naturally... 3. Various of the utilities (Unix and MS-DOS) to which Richard refers are indeed available for the Mac. At least that is my understanding; I haven't needed any of them myself, since I seldom have much to do with real computers. :-) I notice that some of them at least are available from the Mac archives at Princeton (MACSERVE@PUCC) and Rice (LISTSERV@RICEVM1) to which Adam Engst referred, including: UTIL/MACCOMPRESS-32.HQX UTIL/MACARC-V003.HQX UTIL/UNZIP-101.HQX UTIL/TAR-20.HQX (These are the files to ask for from the server at Rice.) While uuencode does not (yet) live at Rice, as far as I know, I gather someone has recently implemented it for the Mac as well. If so, it will no doubt turn up at Princeton and Rice in due course if it hasn't already. 4. While Icon has been implemented for the Mac, the version available from Arizona unfortunately requires MPW (the Macintosh Programmers' Workshop) in order to run, which means that you have to lay out quite a bit of money. There is also a commercial release from Catspaw which I understand is very good, but again it costs... Hoping I haven't made too many booboos in this, David Graham dgraham@kean.ucs.mun.ca From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Academic Bitnet Discussion Groups Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 20:24:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 587 (1528) I suspect that many HUMANISTs would benefit from a list of primarily-academic Bitnet discussion groups, which could be posted on the HUMANIST Fileserver rather like the Oxford Text Archive index. This could be created by a quick sweep through the "LIST GLOBAL" obtained from a backbone Listserv, supplemented regularly by a volunteer who would monitor the Bitnet list devoted to announcing new lists (NEW-LIST@ndsuvm1). (But no, I'm not volunteering! :-) In the meantime, though, I'd be happy to plug those academic lists of which I am aware (barring the obvious, HUMANIST): ANSAX-L@wvnvm Anglo-Saxon Discussion Group C18-L@psuvm Eighteenth-Century Interdisciplinary Discussion ENGLISH@utarlvm1 for English instructors, department heads, students, scholars, etc. FICINO@utoronto Centre for Reformation & Renaissance Studies, Toronto REED-L@utoronto Records of Early English Drama, Toronto SHAKSPER@utoronto Shakespeare International Electronic Conference Although I have no personal experience of the following, I gather that they continue to operate and do indeed serve a primarily academic audience: FWAKE-L@irlearn devoted to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake HISTORY@finhutc for Historians, I presume Some lists which occasionally border on the academic include: WORDS-L@yalevm Etymological, Wordplay discussion LITERARY@uiucvme Discussions of (largely contemporary) literature Other lists on subjects such as WordPerfect, Nota Bene, and Morris Dancing might or might not fit this classification. Hope this is useful for those new networkers out there. Yours, Ken Steele University of Toronto From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Language Markup Date: 11 Oct 90 19:20:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 588 (1529) Chapter 2 ( "Use of SGML Markup") of the current TEI guidelines draft includes a fairly large section, "A Gentle Introduction to SGML." I think this introduction could have been even gentler, but then I don't know of anything else along these lines. Because it tries to anticipate all possible uses of electronic texts, SGML (or at least the TEI version) is quite cumbersome. However, the great virtue of SGML is that it is largely hardware-independent. Not all of us can afford (or have supplied to us!) state-of-the-art hardware. Alternative standard markup proposals will need to recognize how important "backward compatibility" has been at a time when a computer "generation" lasts 5 years or less. That can be overdone, too, of course (how many of us have hand cranks to supplement the starters on our cars?), but if our standards require state-of-the-art software, then the scholarly world will become even more elitist than it is now. George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: "Michael E. Walsh" <WALSH@IRLEARN> Subject: Info Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 19:21:54 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1358 (1530) the last three days we finally managed to - upgrade the AEARN-CEARNV2 link to 64kB - establish the link to CSEARN (Prague) - etsablish the link to HUEARN (Budapest) From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: A Quest for Texts Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 14:27:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1359 (1531) If books such as _Black Like Me_ can be considered as a form of adventure into forbidden lands, there probably are texts about travels to forbidden areas such as Mecca. One which a friend mentioned is "Les memoires de Rene Caille" who apparently traveled in the 1820's to Timbuktu disguised as an Egyptian (?) because whites not allowed in the area. If the emphasis is meant to be on the oppressed underclass, such books are not relevant. May this be more useful that my previous unrelated idea. MKessler@hum.sfsu.edu From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0580 Job Search; Queries: PC Form Generator? Kanji? (3/56) Date: Thu,11 Oct 90 13:49:08 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1360 (1532) Forms generator A wrote a not-very-good review for Mark Olsen of a pc product called Viking Forms that would do the things wanted. Nicholas Morgan Sometime Research Fellow Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0579 Responses: Dreams; Plurals; Sources Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 20:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1361 (1533) Dear Skip Knox: You got me there! I wasnt thinking about history. Even a seashell might be important to hisotry, a conch, a tally mark on a conch, or am I talking archaeology? But I was thinking of the literary texts. You see, Dear Skip Knox, at UCLA, History is under the Dean of Social Sciences, and not Humanities, so I am a victim of academic bureaux, or whatever the budget decrees next. My apologies to you. I am a bit lax in my responses, but gadding about like a gadfly. Kessler at UCLA From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0578 Algorithms; Footnotes; Terminals (3/42) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 00:45:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1362 (1534) If Catherine Griffin can singlehandedly end one of my two biggest gripes about Word Perfect I would be overjoyed: any way I can begin to do global searches, etc., on footnotes would be a HUGE help. Bobh@phoenix.princeton.edu From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0574 Queries (7/132) Date: Thu,11 Oct 90 13:45:50 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1363 (1535) Sarah Horton says [deleted quotation] Why only a positive view of computers in the classroom: ? As previous postings on this list have rehearsed, there are many drawbacks and difficulties associated with this activity that it would be wrong to hide from potential participators or interested parties. Only bibliographies with warts please ! Nicholas Morgan Sometime Research Fellow Department of Scottish History University of Glasgow From: David Powers AG Siekmann Subject: AAAI Spring Symposium on Machine Learning of Natural Language Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 12:48:42 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 591 (1536) Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology March 26-28 1991 - AAAI Spring Symposium - Stanford Over the last thirty years there has been a trickle of papers addressing aspects of the Natural Language Learning area. The 80s have even seen a few books published on the subject. These have tended to take drastically different theoretical approaches, and have drawn on varying degrees on fields outside Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. During this same period, computational and mathematical modelling of language and learning have increasingly been recognized as relevant to assessing the validity of a theory of Language Acquisition or the Nature of Language. Conversely, researchers in Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Philosophy, as well as Computing, have been considering how and where we can apply our increasing knowledge of the human characteristics and constraints which determine how we solve problems, learn about the world, and use language. The symposium will address all aspects of the relationship between Machine Learning and Natural Language. We not only expect input from researchers in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning, Natural Language, Robotics, Vision, Neural Nets, Parallelism, etc.) but wish particularly to encourage relevant contributions from other fields (Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Philosophy, Neurology, Mathematics, etc.) Specific areas of interest include: Traditional Approaches - Applicability of traditional machine learning. - Applicability of traditional parsing techniques. Complexity Theory - Formal results on learning and language constraints. - Development of effective classifications of language. Cognitive Science - Psychological results on language and restrictions. - Linguistic results on the nature of natural language. Parallel Networks - Neural models of parsing and learning. - Parallel models of parsing and learning. Symbol Grounding - Grounding of Natural Language Systems. - Interaction between Modalities and Learning of Ontology. System Development - Computable hypotheses and heuristics for language learning. - Experimental language learning systems and their rationale. Prospective participants are encouraged to contact a member of the symposium committee to obtain a more detailed description of the symposium goals and issues. Participants should then submit an extended abstract of a paper (500-1000 words) and/or a personal bio-history of work in the area (300-500 words) with a list of (up to 12) relevant publications. We will acknowledge your e-mail enquiries or submissions promptly, and will deal with other forms of communication as quickly as possible. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to powers=sub@informatik.uni-kl.de (and/or reeker@cs.ida.org) by November 16th. If e-mail is impossible, two copies should be sent to arrive by November 16th to: Larry Reeker, Institute for Defense Analyses, C & SE Div., 1801 N. Beauregard St, Alexandria, VA 22311-1772 OR, fax a copy (with cover page) by November 16th BOTH to 1-703-820-9680 (Larry Reeker, USA) AND to +49-631-205-3210 (David Powers, FRG). Program Committee: David Powers (chair - powers@informatik.uni-kl.de), Larry Reeker (reeker@cs.ida.org), Manny Rayner (manny@sics.se), Chris Turk (UK - Fax: +44-633-400091). From: O MH KATA MHXANHN <MCCARTHY@CUA> Subject: Word for Word, and other translation utilities Date: Sat, 13 Oct 90 20:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1364 (1537) Although I know that this will not help Willard McCarty greatly, his mention of Word for Word put me in mind of my poor opinion of its Macintosh indigitation. Oh, it translates well enough, I suppose, when it is not causing a crash, which is what it does two out of three times (on my machine, at any rate). Much better, and also much less explosive, are the MacLink translation utilities. MacLink has XYWrite translators, but I don't know if it will bring Nota Bene files to a Macintosh, or vice versa. Does any- one know if such a translation, preserving foreign language fonts, is possible using this or other available translators? W. McCarthy Wash., D.C. From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0583 Queries (10/170) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 08:14:43 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1365 (1538) We have a copy of Word for Word but have been using Software Bridge to convert to and from Nota Bene. We have not done any sort of formal testing, but it seems to handle conversions between NB and WP or Word quite well. The only problems have occured converting Kurzweil scanned texts to Word for MAcintosh; sometimes Word for Word works better there. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Willard McCarty query, again Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 13:52:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1366 (1539) I suggested an exchange of files a little too glibly (and stupidly, given recent discussion). It suddently dawned on me that not everyone is operating in the same environment. However, my offer still stands provided that Willard McCarty, or anyone else for that matter, is using a PC for E-Mail within a DOS environment. I believe that at that point, extended ASCII characters should be transported from on PC to another without any problems. If your PC is emulating a mainframe node, I don't think that it will work. What I mean by a DOS environment: my E-Mail is the local 3Com LAN's which is connected through technical wizardry to the mainframe and on to the outside world such as this forum. I suspect that anyone using 3Com, Novell or whatever local LAN they have, and do not have to go through the steps of connecting to a mainframe (with its own passwords and account names), might be able to do the same thing. Anyone wishing to try this out should contact me directly. I can do the same thing in the Mac environment, and am willing to experiment with that system too. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Word to Word Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 14:20:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1367 (1540) Cancel any idea of experimentation. I just tried it, and it does not work. Not a great idea. MKessler@hum.sfsu.edu From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Word for Word Date: Fri, 12 Oct 90 24:45:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1368 (1541) In reply to Willard McCarty's query, it might be possible to test different conversion programs if a FEW pages of the original files were forwarded to individuals with other conversion programs. I am willing to test R-Doc\X, and send Willard McCarty the results. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: 18th century British biography database Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 16:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 593 (1542) [... Forwarded by Kevin Berland, editor of C18-L ] THE REST OF THE ICEBERG The Eighteenth Century British Biography project (EBB) initiated at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in February, 1990, aims to bring together the personal records of the English speaking people of that period. It will include individuals who lived in areas that were then colonies as well as the United Kingdom. It is intended that the ultimate compilation will offer far and away the most complete the most complete and authoritative listing of the British people of the 18th century. Such diverse and prolific sources as directories, society lists, book subscription lists, wills, parish registers, charity subscriptions, obituaries from journals and newspapers, poll books, apprentice returns, &c. will be included. Through using such sources the project will make accessible large amounts of data about the common man as well as the elite of the period. The project will begin by creating a file of all local and national directories, and all book subscription lists of the period; these sources alone will produce a database of 1.5 million records. At the same time some selected data from many other sources will be interfiled, so as to work out the mechanisms of entry and retrieval; it may be that the project will result in a standradized format for biographical data, such as has been achieved in bibliography with MARC. The first version of Machine Readable Biography (MARB) will be published in the summer of 1990. The project invites contributions of biographical records. Much research, especially for theses, involves considerable accumulation of data which fails to see the light of day except in summary form or languishes unpublished. The project will interfile all such sources in the database with full reference to the provenance of the materials. Interested scholars should contact the Project office. It is expected that EBB will be published in segments, beginning in approximately two years. Publication will be in CD-ROM or whatever medium then best fosters widespread accessibility, down-loading, and manipulation. A Newsletter will be issued gratis annually, beginning October 1990; inquiries or requests to be placed on the mailing list are welcome. A more detailed description is now available from the Project office. Eighteenth Century British Biography Park House Ashow Nr. Kenilworth Warwickshire CV8 2LE Great Britain Telephone (0926) 58813 Chairman: B.H. Baumfield Director: F.J.G. Robinson Finance Director: P.J. Miller Academic Advisory Board: E.D. Barraclough (University of Newcastle), J. Brewer (University of California - Los Angeles), J, Cannon (University of Newcastle), K.E. Carpenter (Harvard University), H.T. Dickinson (University of Edinburgh), W.A. Speck (University of Leeds), H.L. Snyder (University of California - Riverside, North-American Director of the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue), M.L. Turner (The Bodleian, Oxford). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This posting is provided courtesy of C18-L@PSUVM, the 18th-Century Interdisciplinary discussion list; there is no official (or any other kind of) relation between C18-L and EBB. -- Kevin Berland, C18-L "List Owner" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA Subject: re:Searching Fn's in WP Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 07:55:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1369 (1543) This is in response to Bodh's question. I do believe if you hit Home be-fore search, WP also searches the Fn's/Endnotes. I may have the key wrong (my manual is not where I am) but I know I have the principle right. I too was immensely irritated at not being able to search notes. Unfortunately, when I found that the way to do so was right there in the manual all along, I then had to feel immensely stupid. Of course, I found it purely by accident, not because I was looking for it. There ought to be a law against having to read manuals in order to understand software. A Brook, Philosophy From: Jose Igartua <R12270@UQAM> Subject: Re: 4.0590 Misc: History is...; WP; Warts & Bibliography Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 09:25:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1370 (1544) About WordPerfect footnotes: A global search (or search and replace) is done by hitting the 'Home' key before the search or search and replace commands (F2, Shift-F2 (for backwards search), or Alt-F2 (for search and replace). As for transforming footnotes into endnotes, the 4.2 edition of the WP manual has instructions on how to do this in the "Special Functions" part ot the manual. Basically, you write a macro to "revise" footnotes by going into one, marking its contents as a block, deleting the block, coming out of the footnote, erasing the footnotes, generating an endnote, and bringing in the contents of the block into it. This works with later versions as well. Of course, this leaves the actual contents of the endnote within the WP file, but will print out the endnotes at the end of the text. From: Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0590 Misc: History is...; WP; Warts & Bibliography Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 08:33:54 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1371 (1545) Bob Hollander asks about how to search in a footnote; that's an easy one. Before you initiate the search (or the Replace), hit the [Home] key. WordPerfect calls this Extended Search and can be found in the Reference Manual under that heading. The same logic applies to some other functions as well (e.g., the spell checker, I think). So, an extended search would be [Home] [F2] instead of [F2] by itself. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU Boise, Idaho 83725 (208) 385-1315 From: grgo@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Greg Goode) Subject: Searching WP footnotes Date: Tue, 16 Oct 1990 14:28:47 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1372 (1546) Robert Hollander writes, [deleted quotation] Just press [Home],F2 for Extended Search. It will go through almost everywhere that's not on your regular document screen: footnotes, endnotes, headers, graphics box captions and text boxes. To search and replace, including footnotes, press [Home],Alt+F2. -Greg Goode From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: More "lists" Date: 15 Oct 90 23:3:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1373 (1547) Others will undoubtedly add to the list that Ken Steele began. Certainly a directory of "academic" lists in the humanities would be useful. I cannot attest to the "credentials" of all the following lists. Any comments on "quality" from HUMANISTs who subscribe to some of these? BUDDHIST@JPNTOHOK Indian & Buddhist studies forum HEGEL@VILLVM Hegel Society discussion list IOUDAIOS@YORKVM1 1st century Judaism discussion forum LORE@NDSUVM1 Folklore discussion list PMC-TALK@NCSUVM Post-modern culture discussion list PHILOSOP@YORKVM1 Philosophy discussion forum WHIM@TAMVM1 Discussion list for humour studies As previous postings have mentioned, there are vast numbers of discussion lists out there. The LIST GLOBAL command gets you most of them. These additional selections could have been expanded, but I have left aside lists that are (to my knowledge) "peered" and those whose subject for discussion remained obscure (as in NSP-L@RPICICGE, Noble Savage Philosophers mailing list...). Hope this helps. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6 From: Ezra Zubrow <APYEZRA@UBVMS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0587 Lists for Humanists (1/56) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 01:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1374 (1548) I wish to suggest Anthro-l which is the general anthropology listserver. Although it is not limited to humanistic subjects, it often includes them. General areas of discussion are archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, physical anthropology and social anthropology. Thank you. Ezra Zubrowa From: "Peter M. Weiss +1 814 863 1843" <PMW1@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0587 Lists for Humanists (1/56) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 07:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 587 (1549) [deleted quotation] There is a facility called COMSERVE@RPIECS or @VM.ECS.RPI.EDU that re- sponds to Mail (both) or interactive messages (just the former). In particular, it allows for what they call HOTLINES which is similar to the Listserv construct of lists. You join (subscribe) to a hotline and then send/receive mail to/from the hotline just like Listserv. Here are the current discussion groups (I used the command SHOW HOTLINES): Names and Descriptions of Hotlines: Name Description Newsline Joining this special Hotline means that you will receive Comserve's news bulletins automatically when they are issued. New news bulletins are normally issued when files are added to the database or when the system is changed or enhanced. The news bulletin is ordinarily sent you when you send a command to Comserve. By joining Newsline, you will receive the news bulletins automatically, that is, without having to send a command to Comserve. Unlike the other Hotlines, Newsline is a one-way channel; those who join Newsline should not themselves send anything to this Hotline. CommJobs The CommJobs Hotline is for distribution of announcements of academic or industry positions for those in communication studies. Once you have joined CommJobs, you will automatically receive copies of position announcements sent over this Hotline. If you would like to distribute a position announcement over CommJobs, send it in computer mail to the address of Comserve's editorial staff -- Support@Rpiecs. Your announcement will be redistributed over CommJobs within a short period of time. Comserve's staff will also distribute announcements on paper that are received through the US mail; however, there is a preparation charge for materials submitted in this way. Contact the staff for details. CCAnet This Hotline is operated by the Canadian Communication Association for the dissemination of CCA news and for discussion among CCA members. Anyone interested in the Canadian Communication Association is invited to join CCAnet. CCABoard This is a private Hotline for members of the board of directors of the Canadian Communication Association. Board members use CCABOARD to facilitate planning and policy discussion. This Hotline is not available to the public. MassComm For discussion of issues in the areas of mass communication, mediated interaction, new technologies of communication, etc. Interper For discussion of issues in interpersonal and small group communication. Methods For discussion of research methodology including qualitative and quantitative procedures. CommEd For discussion of issues pertaining to communication education. OrgComm For discussion of issues pertaining to communication in organizational settings including business and industry. Ethno For discussion of issues in ethnomethodology, conversation and discourse analysis, etc. PolComm For discussion of issues related to political communication. Gender For discussion of issues pertaining to the study of communication and gender. CommDis For discussion of issues related to speech disorders. Rhetoric For discussion of issues related to the study of rhetoric, rhetorical analysis, social movements, persuasion, etc. InterCul For discussion of issues pertaining to the study of communication across cultures. HealthCo For discussion of issues pertaining to the study of communication and health and communication in the health care profession. PhilComm For discussion of issues in the philosophy of communication, communication theory, and epistemology. DevelCom For discussion "aimed at understanding how people at different developmental positions attempt to make themselves understood and/or try to understand others." This hotline is edited by associate professors J. Carey and J. Weinstein, University of Massachusetts. FamComm For discussion of issues relating to communication/ interaction in the marital and family context. DisPrac For discussion of issues pertaining to disciplinary practices within communication studies. Appropriate issues for this hotline might include (but would not be limited to): the basis for divisions in the field, the evolution of the discipline, processes related to publication, peer review, etc. CMC For discussion of computer-mediated communication, diffusion of computer communication systems, impacts in education, business, government, etc. EJCREC "Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication" is an online scholarly journal under the editorship of professors James Winter (University of Windsor) and Claude Martin (Universite de Montreal). EJCREC serves as a distri- bution channel for this journal. Magazine For discussion of journalistic, communicative, economic & technological issues related to magazine publishing. Edited by Professor David Jacobson, NYU Center for Academic Publishing. ComDev "Provides the opportunity for regular global interaction among individuals and institutions working in the areas of international and development communication." Edited by Professor Tom Jacobson, SUNY at Buffalo. -- Peter M. Weiss | pmw1 @ PSUADMIN | vm.psu.edu | psuvm 31 Shields Bldg (the AIS people) | not affiliated with VM.PSU.EDU | PSUVM University Park, PA USA 16802 | Secrecy is the guardian of bureaucracy From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: CSLI Calendar Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 16:41:18 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 596 (1550) C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S _____________________________________________________________________________ 18 October 1990 Stanford Vol. 6, No. 5 _____________________________________________________________________________ A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4115 ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THURSDAY, 18 OCTOBER 1990 12:00 noon TINLUNCH Cordura 100 The Resolution Group Ivan A. Sag (sag@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar 2:15 p.m. CSLI SEMINAR Cordura 100 Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta (zalta@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THURSDAY, 25 OCTOBER 1990 12:00 noon TINLUNCH Cordura 100 The Contents of Signals and Movements John Perry (john@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below 2:15 p.m. CSLI SEMINAR Cordura 100 Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta (zalta@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below ____________ NOTE Please note that the TINLunch scheduled for 25 October doubles as the STASS Seminar for that day. ____________ TINLUNCH ON 25 OCTOBER The Contents of Signals and Movements John Perry Department of Philosophy Stanford University An important property of signals is their informational content. An important property of movements is the actions that they constitute. These crucial properties depend in systematic ways on the nature of the signal or action and the circumstances in which the signal or action occurs. The account David Israel and I have given of informational content will be sketched, as will the account of movements and actions that Israel, Syun Tutiya, and I are developing. ____________ CSLI SEMINAR ON 25 OCTOBER Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta Department of Philosophy Stanford University We shall discuss further issues concerning modality and tense. In particular, we examine the structural similarities of worlds and times, and then compare our analysis of these entities with that of others. For this comparison, we'll focus especially on the views of David Lewis. In the time that remains, we consider the interaction of modal operators and definite descriptions, and, in particular, the solution to some infamous puzzles involving this interaction. ____________ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM The SSP Internship Program, 1990 Symbolic Systems Program Summer Interns Thursday, 18 October, 4:15 p.m. Building 60, Room 61G Last summer, nine Symbolic Systems majors had internships at and around Stanford. A number of these interns will give short presentations describing their projects. The talks will outline what the interns accomplished and what they learned during the summer. Possibilities for future internship projects will be discussed, so students with an interest in internships next summer should plan to attend. The following interns will be speaking: - Yuko Munakata A Connectionist Approach to the Zeigarnik Effect - Susan Epstein Shoptalk: An Integrated Interface - Bill Grundy Flakey the Artificial Creature - Dan Fish, Eric Ly, Peter Murray New Implementations of Tarski's World - Mike Calcagno A System for Machine Translation and a Workstation for Linguists - Randy Jensen Natural-Language Generation for the Tarski Translator - Chris Phoenix Robotics, or When Theory Meets Hardware Following week: Kurt Konolige, SRI International, An Autonomous Robot Looks at the World. ____________ PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Self Notions: How to Think About Your Self John Perry Chair, Department of Philosophy Stanford University Friday, 19 October, 3:15 p.m. Building 90, Room 91A No abstract available. ____________ LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Reciprocals in Japanese Taisuke Nishigauchi Osaka University and University of California, Irvine Friday, 19 October, 3:30 p.m. Cordura 100 This paper discusses the syntax and logical structure of sentences in Japanese, which carry the semantic import of reciprocity. Two types of constructions are considered: one type of sentence involves the reciprocal anaphor "otagai," and the other construction involves the reciprocal verb "-aw." First, we will show that these two types of sentences have distinct semantic properties. Second, we argue that the "gap" that appears in the "-aw" construction has the properties of A-bar bound variables, in light of the behavior related with island sensitivity and parasitic gaps. Thus, we propose that the "-aw" construction involves movement of an invisible operator at S-structure. This, we argue, is the syntactic realization of "reciprocation" in the sense of Heim, Lasnik, and May (1990). Also, we consider the Japanese counterpart of the "grain puzzles" in the sense of HLM. ____________ PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT TALK Three Dogmas of Humean Causation Gurol Irzik Department of Philosophy Bogazici University, Istanbul Tuesday, 23 October, 12:00 noon Building 90, Room 92 Humean accounts of causation share the following dogmas: 1. Singular causation is impossible. 2. There are no "real" causal relations in nature over and above regularities. 3. Causation is an all-or-nothing affair. I argue that these claims are false and try to show why their rejection is important. ____________ SYNTAX WORKSHOP Causatives: Incorporation or Link Operation? Alex Alsina Department of Linguistics Stanford University Tuesday, 23 October, 7:30 p.m. Cordura 100 In this talk, I shall consider two recent theories of morphological causatives (Baker, 1988; Li, 1990), which assume verb-Incorporation in slightly different versions. I shall point out that both theories fail to capture two important generalizations about the morphosyntactic realization of causative constructions: the variation in the expression of the transitive causee, and the invariance in the expression of the intransitive causee. (When a transitive verb is causativized, its thematic subject is expressed either as an object or as an oblique, often in free variation within the same language; but when an intransitive verb is causativized, its thematic subject can only be expressed as an object, even in many languages that allow the oblique expression of the transitive causee.) After discussing these, and other, shortcomings of the verb-Incorporation approaches to causatives, I shall outline an alternative theory constrained by the basic assumptions that morphological words cannot be formed in the syntax and that the grammatical functions of arguments cannot change in the course of a derivation. Causative verb forms, therefore, like other morphological structures, are created in the lexicon by combining a stem with an affix; both the causative affix and the stem it combines with have an argument structure, and what results from this affixation is a composite argument structure in which an argument of the causative affix and an argument of the stem are linked (or fused). This "link operation" will be shown to be crucial in accounting for the basic properties of causatives. In addition, it will explain certain facts that would be totally mysterious for a purely phrase-structural approach such as the Incorporation analyses. ____________ PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Why Men Rebel and Why They Do Not Dipak Gupta San Diego State University Wednesday, 24 October, 3:45 p.m. Building 420, Room 050 No abstract available. ____________ NEW CSLI VISITORS HIROSHI KANEKO (kaneko@csli.stanford.edu) Instructor Department of Philosophy Hokkaido University, Japan Dates of Visit: October-November 1990 Hiroshi Kaneko is mainly interested in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, especially in intuitionism and intuitionistic type theory. Recently, he surveyed the debate between radical conventionalism and Dummettian antirealism, the result of which is available on request. As the translator of Barwise and Etchemendy's book _The Liar_, he hopes to publish a translation with fewer mistakes and more truths than the original. PRASHANT PARIKH (parikh@csli.stanford.edu) Computer Science Group Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India Dates of Visit: September 1990-September 1991 Prashant will continue his work on situated communication within the frameworks of situation theory and game theory. In particular, he will work on a book based on his dissertation. He will also explore other related topics involving situation theory, situated agency, and applications to natural-language semantics. ____________ From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Call for papers Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 13:37:55 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 597 (1551) FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYMBOLIC and LOGICAL COMPUTING DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY MADISON, SOUTH DAKOTA APRIL 18 - 19, 1991 ICEBOL5, the fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, is designed for teachers, scholars, and programmers who want to meet to exchange ideas about non-numeric computing. In addition to a focus on SNOBOL4, SPITBOL, and Icon, ICEBOL5 will feature presentations on processing strings of characters in a variety of programming languages such as Prolog and C. Topics of discussion will include artificial intelligence and expert systems, and a wide range of analyses of texts in English and other natural languages. Parallel tracks of concurrent sessions are planned. ICEBOL's coffee breaks, social hours, lunches, and banquet will provide a series of opportunities for participants to meet and informally exchange information. CALL FOR PAPERS Abstracts (minimum of 250 words) or full texts of papers to be read at ICEBOL5 are invited on any application of non-numeric programming. Planned sessions include the following: artificial intelligence and expert systems computational linguistics analysis of literary works (including bibliography, concordance, and index generation) linguistic and lexical analysis (including parsing and machine translation) preparation of text for electronic publishing computer assisted instruction grammar and style checkers music analysis Papers should be in English and must not exceed twenty minutes reading time. Abstracts should be received by January 15, 1991. Notification of acceptance will follow promptly. Selected papers will be published in ICEBOL5 Proceedings. Presentations at previous ICEBOL conferences were made by Paul Abrahams (ACM President), Gene Amdahl (Andor Systems), Robert Dewar (New York University), Mark Emmer (Catspaw, Inc.), James Gimpel (Lehigh), Ralph Griswold (Arizona), Susan Hockey (Oxford), and many others. Copies of the proceedings from ICEBOL3 and ICEBOL4 are available. ICEBOL5 is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION All correspondence including abstracts and papers as well as requests for registration materials should be sent to: Eric Johnson ICEBOL Director 114 Beadle Hall Dakota State University Madison, SD 57042 U.S.A (605) 256-5270 Inquiries, abstracts, and correspondence may also be sent via BITNET to: ERIC@SDNET From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Quantitative Linguistics Conference Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 13:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 598 (1552) First QUANTITATIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (QUALICO) September 23 - 27, 1991 University of Trier, Germany organized by the GLDV - Gesellschaft fuer Linguistische Datenverarbeitung (German Society for Linguistic Computing) and the Editors of "Quantitative Linguistics" supported by The City of Trier, The University of Trier, and the following organisations: ACH, ACL (pending), AILA, ALLC, DGfS, DGSF, ESSCS, GAL, GI, GLDV, GMD, GTW, IFIP (pending), IFSA (pending) OBJECTIVES QUALICO is being held for the first time as an International Conference to demonstrate the state of the art in Quantitative Linguistics. This domain of language study and research is gaining considerable interest due to recent advances in linguistic modelling, particularly in computational linguistics, cognitive science, and developments in mathematics like non- linear systems theory. Progress in hard- and software technology together with ease of access to data and numerical processing has provided new means of empirical data acquisition and the application of mathematical models of adequate complexity. The German Society for Linguistic Computation (Gesellschaft fuer Linguistische Datenverarbeitung - GLDV) and the editors of 'Quantitative Linguistics' have taken the initiative in preparing this conference to take place at the University of Trier, in Trier (Germany), September 23rd - 27th, 1991. In view of the stimulating new developments in Europe and the academic world, the organizers' aim is to encourage and promote mutual exchange of ideas in this field of interest which has been limited in the past. Challanging advances in interdisciplinary quantitative analyses, numerical modelling and experimental simulations from different linguistic domains will be reported on by the following keynote speakers: Gabriel Altmann (Bochum), Michail V. Arapov (Moskau) (pending acceptance), Hans Goebl (Salzburg), Mildred L.G. Shaw (Calgary), John S. Nicolis (Patras), Kenneth W. Church (Marina del Rey). CALL FOR PAPERS The International Program Committee invites communications (long papers: 20 minutes plus 10; short papers: 15 minutes plus 5; demonstrations and posters) on basic research and development as well as on operational applications of Quantitative Linguistics, including - but not limited to - the following topics: A. Methodology 1. Theory Construction - 2. Measurement, Scaling - 3. Taxonomy, Categorizing - 4.Simulation - 5. Statistics, Probabilistic Modells, Stochastic Processes - 6. Fuzzy Theory: Possibilistic Modells - 7. Language and Grammar Formalisms - 8. Systems Theory: Cybernetics and Information Theory, Synergetics, New Connectionism B. Linguistic Analysis and Modelling 1. Phonetics - 2. Phonemics - 3. Morphology - 4. Syntax - 5. Semantics - 6. Pragmatics - 7.Lexicology - 8. Dialectology - 9. Typology - 10. Text and Discourse - 11. Semiotics C. Applications 1. Speech Recognition and Synthesis - 2.Text Analysis and Generation - 3.Language Acquisition and Teaching - 4.Text Understanding and Knowledge Representation Authors are asked to submit extended abstracts (1500 words; 4 copies) of their papers in one of the conference's working languages (German, English) not later than December 31, 1990 to: QUALICO - The Program Committee University of Trier P.O.Box 3825 D-5500 TRIER Germany uucp: qualico@utrurt.uucp or: ..!unido!utrurt!qualico X.400: qualico@ldv.rz.uni-trier.dbp.de or: <c=de;a=dbp;p=uni-trier;ou=rz;ou=ldv;s=qualico> Notice of acceptance will be given by March 31, 1991; and full versions of invited and accepted papers (camera-ready) are due by June 30, 1991 in order to have the Conference Proceedings be published in time to be available for participants at the beginning of QUALICO. This 'Call for Papers' is distributed world-wide in order to reach researchers active in universities and industry. SOCIAL PROGRAMME The oldest city in Germany, founded 16 b.C. by the Romans as Augusta Treverorum in the Mosel valley is situated now in the most Western region of Germany near both the French and Luxembourgian border.In the center of Europe this ancient city will host the participants of QUALICO at the University of Trier, surrounded by the vineyards of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine district at vintage beginning. The excursion day scheduled midway through the conference (September 25, 1991) will provide an opportunity to visit points of historical interest in the city and its vicinity during a boat-trip on the Mosel river. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Chair: B.B. Rieger, University of Trier S. Embleton, University of York, D. Gibbon, University of Bielefeld R. Grotjahn, University of Bochum J. Haller, IAI Saarbruecken P. Hellwig, University of Heidelberg E. Hopkins, University of Bochum J. Kindermann, GMD Bonn-St.Augustin U. Klenk, University of Goettingen R. Koehler, University of Trier J.P. Koester, University of Trier J. Krause, University of Regensburg W. Lehfeldt, University of Konstanz W. Lenders, University of Bonn C. Lischka, GMD Bonn-St.Augustin W. Matthaeus, University of Bochum R.G. Piotrowski, University of Leningrad D. Roesner, FAW Ulm G. Ruge, Siemens AG, Muenchen B. Schaeder, University of Siegen H. Schnelle, University of Bochum J. Sambor, University of Warsaw ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Chair: R. Koehler, University of Trier CONFERENCE FEES Early registration (paid before July 31, 1991): DM 300,- - Members of supporting organizations DM 250,- - Students (without Proceedings) DM 150,- Registration (paid after July 31, 1991): DM 400,- - Members of supporting organizations DM 350,- - Students (without Proceedings) DM 250,- From: Roland Hutchinson <R.RDH@Macbeth.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Re: Query on 17th C. Typography... (4/64) Date: Mon 15 Oct 90 21:36:18-PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 599 (1553) Although I am not an expert on typography, I would hazard a guess that your 17th-century compositor's practise of using apostrophe-s only with proper names is a stylistic choice, not a question of available sorts. It seems to follow the same convention that was used in German until some revision or other of the Prussian Orthography around the beginning of this century: neuter and masculine nouns that formed the genitive in -s got a plain s without apostrophe; proper nouns got apostrophe-s. (I encounter such apostrophes almost daily on the title-pages of 19th-century music editions that are still in use, many times reprinted: _Bach's Werke_, _Breitkopf und Haertel's Orchester-Biblliothek_; compare the 20th-century series _Nagels Musik-Archiv_.) On this interpretation, the question of italics in your English compositor's practice appears to be something of a red herring. They must have had the sort for the apostrophe in their roman fonts, since it is the same sort as the closing quotation mark. (Do they not also use it for elided letters, e.g. in past-tense verbs like "rais'd"?--certainly some 17th-C compositors use it that way.) But they never used the roman sort as an apostrophe in a possessive noun since such apostrophes were used only for proper nouns, which were invariably set italic. This seems at any rate to be a reasonable guess. Roland Hutchinson rhutchin@pilot.njin.net rhutchin@NJIN ------- From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Scholarly Discussion Groups Date: Tuesday, 16 October 1990 2010-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1375 (1554) Since noone thus far has revealed that they keep such a list and will make it available, I am attaching the results of the search thus far. It is extremely provisional, modest, and probably in some instances misleading. I really don't want to be the keeper of such a list, if someone else can step in. The aim is to identify productive academic/scholarly discussion groups -- the cutting edge of future scholarship, perhaps? Additions, corrections, elaborations, etc., are requested and I will try to keep track of such as time allows, until a real editor of the Scholarly Discussion Group List emerges. Bob Kraft (with special thanks to Howell Chickering of Amherst and Ken Steele of Toronto and Greg Goode of Rochester) ---------- **WARNING: Some of the following information may be out of date** [check NEWLIST-L@INDYCMS for new science & technology lists] [also SERVICE@NIC.DDN.MIL for Internet List of Lists = SIGLIST] [also NETMONTH from BITLIB@YALEVM for new lists that appear] [also tell listserv at (your_node) list global for larger list] List Address List group description ------------ ---------------------- ANSAX-L@WVNVM Anglo-Saxon studies discussion list. C18-L@PSUVM 18th Century Interdisciplinary discussion list. ENGLISH@UTARLVM1 Department of English discussion list. FICINO@UTORONTO Centre for Reformation & Renaissance Studies FWAKE-L@IRLEARN Discusses James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake HISTORY@FINHUTC History HUMANIST@BROWNVM General Humanities & Computing Focus IOUDAIOS@YORKVM1 Judaism in the Greco-Roman World LITERARY@UCF1VM Discussions about (contemporary?) Literature LITERARY@UIUCVME [see preceding entry; which node is correct?] MBU-L@TTUVM1 On teaching college composition [??] NSP-L@RPIECS Philosophy PHILOSOP@YORKVM1 Philosophy PHILOSOPHY/Liverpool Philosophy (details?) REED-L@UTORONTO Records of Early English Drama discussion list. SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground. SHAKSPER@UTORONTO Shakespeare electronic discussion list. WORDS-L@YALEVM English language discussion list. From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0595 Lists for Humanists (3/186) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 09:20:16 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1376 (1555) David Reimer finds the subject-matter of NSP-L obscure. He needn't: it's a philosophy list, often very lively, though at various levels of expertise. There's also PHILOS-L, based here at Liverpool, which provides another academic forum for philosophers. Stephen From: <DONALDSON@LOYVAX> Subject: R. Hollander's request of WP 5.1 help Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1377 (1556) R. Hollander asks for help with WP's footnotes. Footnotes can be searched and d updated (search and replaced) through an extended search. Simply press "HOME" before doing the search or replace (F2 or Alt-F2). I've the process very useful and in a macro it works beautifully Randy Donaldson (Donaldson@LOYVAX) From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0594 Searching WordPerfect Footnotes (4/70) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 10:23:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1378 (1557) Thanks to all for straightening me out about global searching in WP, which seems to work just fine in WP 4.2 (some thought 5.0 was necess.). Not a reader of manuals, I had relied on other users who had said one could not do such searches in WP. Mea culpa. BobH From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: Searching WP footnotes and disaster Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 22:41:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1379 (1558) While in the latter stages of revising a book length manuscript a year ago I decided to do a global search-replace in WP that would include the footnotes using HOME first as several writers described. The result as I remember it was a disaster with WP going into convulsions. I determined that this was a glitch in a version of 5.0 (I think). Perhaps others have had better experiences. Do be warned that as you ask the program to do more complicated things on long files it may break down. Have others had similar experiences with WP? E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN ÿÿ From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: MacConcordance Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 22:50:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1380 (1559) I just sent copies of my MacConcordance program to everyone who had requested it from me. If I missed anybody, or if there is anyone else who would like to beta test this, please write to me. When I know the program is bug free, I will post it on the Humanist listserv. This is a simple program and not without its shortcomings, but it can compile concordances or indexes alphabetically or by word frequency. From: Sarah Horton <HORTON@YALEVM> Subject: Re: 4.0574 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 09:08:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1381 (1560) Nicholas Morgan has requested a warty bibliography on computers in teaching. I am compiling this bibliography to answer the question "Why would I use a computer in the classroom?" or, in the best case, "How would I use a computer in the classroom?" The third question, "Why am I not using computers in the classroom?"--the one your warts defend--has been pretty much covered. For that reason I requested texts in favor of computers in teaching, for I will use these text expressly to encourage that activity. Your point that bibliographies should bear warts is well taken; nonetheless, in this instance I really do need beauty marks. Sarah Horton From: ruhleder@cray1.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: FWD: Luxury tax on computers likely Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 09:51:13 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1382 (1561) .......... BACKGROUND ON NEW COMPUTER LUXURY TAX In Washington, members of the Bush Administration, the House of Representatives and Senate have been meeting in a budget summit to negotiate a bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit. They have been considering various proposals to raise new taxes as part of package. One item that should be of concern to the computing community is a luxury tax on electronics products. While most of us in the computer industry originally believed that the tax was aimed at high end TV's, VCR's, Camcorders, and other consumer electronic entertainment products, it appears that computers have been included as taxable products. HOW THE TAX WOULD WORK The luxury tax is a 10% tax assessed on the value of the following luxury items over the following threshholds: Cars over $30,000 Furs over $500 Jewelry over $5,000 ELECTRONICS over $1,000 For example, if you purchase a personal computer that costs you $3,000, you will have to pay a 10% luxury tax on the amount over $1,000. Hence, in this example, you will pay $200 (10% of ($3,000-1,000)) in addition to the sales tax when you purchase the computer at the register. APPLE'S POSITION We at Apple Computer feel that extending this tax to cover personal computers is preposterous. Computers increase the productivity of workers, teachers and students. It is inappropriate to impose a "luxury" tax on the tools which can boost American productivity. As a nation, we must be prepared to manage our affairs in the Information Age--an age in which computer equipment is not a luxury but a necessity. Yet, the Congress and the Administration seem to be unable to recognize the critical role computers now play in the lives of millions of Americans. In addition, the threshhold for computers is rediculously low. Only high-end car models are over $30,000. Only a small percentage of jewelry purchased is over $5,000. But for computers, $1,000 is the low end of the market. Most computers sold exceed this amount. It makes little sense to impose a luxury tax on a college student's investment in a personal computer while exempting the purchase of a $5,000 Rolex wrist watch. GAME PLAN If anybody is concerned about this proposal, telephone calls to Congressional representatives and senators could be a critical help. Interested persons should do the following: - call their congressional representative's local office to register their opposition to the proposed luxury tax on computers. - ask their representative to voice their concerns to the legislators who are negotiating in the budget summit. - call members of the budget summit in Washington, D.C. to register their opposition to the luxury tax: Capitol Hill Senate: (202) 224-3121 Capitol Hill House: (202) 225-3121 White House: (202) 456-1414 PARTICIPANTS IN THE BUDGET SUMMIT Rep. Tom Foley (D-WA) Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO) Rep. Leon Panetta (D-CA) Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL) Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-MN) Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX) Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME) Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) Sen. Jim Sasser (D-TN) Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) Sen. Wyche Fowler, Jr. (D-GA) Richard Darman (Director, Office of Management and Budget) Nicholas Brady (Secretary of the Treasury) John Sununu (White House Chief of Staff) Roger Pounu (White House Chief oresident) If people are interested in helping to beat back this proposal, time is of the essence. It could be a matter of days, not weeks. A luxury tax is very likely to be enacted. The question is whether or not it will be extended to computers. UUCP: crash!pro-sol!mdavis AOL, BIX: mdavis ARPA: crash!pro-sol!mdavis@nosc.mil GEnie: m.davis42 INET: mdavis@pro-sol.cts.com ProLine: mdavis@pro-sol From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0585 Qs: MR Dictionaries; 17th c. Typography;... (4/64) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 00:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1383 (1562) Textes francais et bilingues francais-anglais --------------------------------------------- D'une part j'essaierais de contacter les editeurs de collection litteraires (collection+s) bilingues: textes et traductions. D'autre part certains rares auteurs ont ecrit dans les deux langues et ont supervise leurs publications (Beckett). Voir aussi les traductions de succes americains ou anglais dans les collections de poche francaises ou quebecoises. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD> Subject: Re: 4.0583 "Citation for WP" Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 22:19:21 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1384 (1563) Leslie Morgan reported having received a flyer on the bibliography generator for WordPerfect called "Citation," and was interested in background information... I, too was interested, and called Oberon Resources in Columbus, Ohio to ask a few questions, first of which, did the $79 offer really expire one week *before* I had received the flyer...? (No, the offer has been extended until the end of December.) wpCitation assists the user in creating a datafile of bibliographic information in a WordPerfect 5.1 merge file, and then allows the user to select the stylesheet (in a primary file) which will be used to format the information into any one of "all major publishing styles, including ... MLA, ... APA, ... Turabian" and more. It sounds like the program has a good heritage, from the people who created the bibliographic software for ProTem's NoteBook II and for NotaBene, I think she said. Since it uses WordPerfect 5.1 Merge and Macro commands (note that 5.0 won't handle it), fonts and foreign charaters should come along without any trouble (but I'd like to see it in action before swearing to that fact). The $79 is an "introductory price to WordPerfect users" (who else would want to use it?); regular price is $125. They have network pricing in the $25-$40 per station range, depending on the number of stations. It might be worth a look. If you want to ask your own questions, their number is (614) 294-7762. Peter Lafford Tel.(602) 965-2679 Manager, Humanities Computing Facility Lang. & Lit. Bldg. Arizona State University (DEN-0302) Room LL-B 325 Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 IDPAL@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Text Quest Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 08:55:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1385 (1564) Would Simone Weill's _La Condition Ouvriere_ fit the pattern? MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: Prague Summer School on Formal & Computational Models of Meaning Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 17:44:43 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 604 (1565) SUMMER SCHOOL IN COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS FORMAL AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF MEANING Charles University Prague, Czechoslovakia July 8 - 21, 1991 The 1991 Summer School in Computational Linguistics is organized by the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in close collaboration with the re-established Department of Theoretical and Computational Linguistics at the Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University, Prague (Head: Petr Sgall). The main focus of the School is the interdisciplinary domain of formal and computational models of meaning. The program will be organized in four 2-hour nonoverlapping blocks per day, workshop and guest lectures. FEES Industrial participants 900 USD Academic community 700 USD The fees cover the costs of all courses, a welcome reception, a guided tour of Prague, accommodation in double rooms in the University students hostel for the whole period of the School (13 nights) and 3 meals per day in the students canteen (12 days). The organizers cannot assume responsibility for hotel accommodation. PREREGISTRATION To preregister, please fill in the attached form. Only those who send in the preregistration form will receive the final information and registration forms. The deadline for preregistration is NOVEMBER 30, 1990 For further details contact: Dr. Eva Hajicova MFF UK - Linguistics Malostranske n. 25 CS - 118 00 Prague 1 CZECHOSLOVAKIA COURSES The types of lexical information for a dictionary in an integrated linguistic description Juri D. Apresjan, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, USSR Computational lexicography B.T.S. Atkins, Oxford University Press, UK Meaning and understanding in MT Christian Boitet, G.E.T.A., Grenoble, France Computational semantics Jens Erik Fenstad, University of Oslo, Norway Semantic interpretation and construction grammar Charles J. Fillmore, University of California, Berkeley, USA A functional approach to the meaning of the sentence and to intersentential links Eva Hajicova and Petr Sgall, Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia Contextual influences on meaning Martha E. Pollack, SRI International, USA New developments in grammar formalisms Hans Uszkoreit, University of Saarbruecken, FRG Discourse and user models Wolfgang Wahlster, University of Saarbruecken, FGR Intensional semantics Mats Rooth, University of Texas, USA Computational lexical semantics James Pustejovsky, Brandeis University, USA Cognitive linguistics George Lakoff, University of California, Berkeley, USA PRE-REGISTRATION FORM Deadline for pre-registration: November 30, 1990 NAME: AFFILIATION (university or company): ADDRESS for correspondence: TELEPHONE: Please, mark the appropriate box: industrial participant academic institution student Previous schooling and experience in computational linguistics: Fill in the form and return it to: MFF UK - Linguistics c/o Anna Kotesovcova Malostranske n.25 CS-118 00 Prague 1 CZECHOSLOVAKIA From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Symposium on East Asian Language Processing Date: Thursday, 18 October 1990 1537-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 605 (1566) INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON EAST ASIAN INFORMATION PROCESSING We are pleased to announce that the International Symposium on East Asian Information Processing will be held during the weekend of October 20-21,1990, at the University * of Pennsylvania. Subjects to be covered include, but are not limited to: * Word and data processing * Computer-assisted learning * Indexing * Text analysis * Typesetting * Natural language processing * Speech statistics * Machine translation * Optical character recognition * Speech recognition and synthesis * Government policy on language planning Speakers from government, business, industry and academia will participate. Featured speakers from China (Zhou Youguang, Liu Yongquan), Japan (Yamada Hisao), Korea (Won L. Chung), the United Kingdom (Paul Thompson) and the United States (James Unger, Apollo Wu, James Caldwell, Robert Hartwell) have agreed to contribute. At the same time as the symposium, Penn is sponsoring "Tools for East Asian Studies", an international fair of notable software and hardware for East Asian languages. For more information, please contact: Dr. Victor Mair Phone: (215) 898-8432, 898-7466 847 Williams Hall Telex: 710-670-0328 The university of Pennsylvania Fax: (215) 898-0933 Philadelphia, PA Cable: PNSYL Phila., PA 19104-6305 U.S.A. E-mail: mair@penndrls.upenn.edu From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Expert Systems Conference Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 13:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 606 (1567) AVIGNON '91: Expert Systems & their Applications Eleventh International Workshop Avignon - France, May 27 - 31, 1991. Conference on Second Generation Expert Systems Call for Papers --------------- For the third consecutive year, one of the AVIGNON conferences will be devoted to the study of Second Generation Expert Systems. The term "second generation" expert systems is used to characterize knowledge-based systems able to solve problems by combining different types of reasoning. Such systems often use multiple representations of the problem to develop different problem-solving strategies. The first generation expert systems were largely based on heuristic, associational rules. To overcome their limitations, a new line of research was begun into the use of deeper knowledge, often referred to as "model-based", "causal" or "qualitative" reasoning. Since model-based and heuristic approaches appear to be largely complementary, recent work has begun to combine these two reasoning processes into a single problem-solver. Another thread of research has been aimed at making the problem solving methods used much more explicit and elaborating "task-specific architectures". Research has then been conducted into designing particular problem-solvers by combining multiple generic or primitive task-specific architectures. Second Generation Expert Systems are intended to have those two approches converge. Building systems that make explicit the tasks to be realized, the problem solving methods to be implemented and the associated domain models would appear to be the basic objective of this new field. And because a non-trivial problem can only be solved by bringing a number of different resolution methods and domain models into play, the cooperation and integration of these methods and models is one of the key problems to be met in the building of such systems. Topics ------ The Program Committee is seeking papers on the following themes (list non exhaustive): + combining different reasoning types + architectures integrating heuristic and model-based reasoning; + reasoning with multiple models; + multi-expert, multi-agent cooperation; + cooperation of distributed problem-solvers; + task-specific architectures; + knowledge acquisition, explanation, validation, in second generation expert systems; + the use of qualitative, model-based, causal or temporal reasoning to supplement heuristic reasoning; + integrating qualitative and quantitative reasoning; + applications of these techniques to real-world problems (e.g. diagnosis, design, scheduling). Papers describing applications should outline the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the implemented systems. In particular, examples and analysis of failures will be appreciated in order to delineate the applicability of the methods. Theoretical papers should be clearly related to previous work and should enlighten the advantages and originality of the proposed approach. Submission ---------- Authors should submit 6 copies of their papers before January 7, 1991 to AVIGNON '91 general chairman: Jean-Claude Rault EC2 269-287, rue de la Garenne ; 92000 Nanterre ; France tel: 33 - 1 - 47.80.70.00 ; fax: 33 - 1 - 47.80.66.29 Papers should be a minimum of 2000 words to a maximum of 5000 words (about 10 pages single-spaced). Each submission should contain the following information: title of paper; full name of all authors; complete address of first author (including telephone, fax number and e-mail address if available); abstract of 100-200 words; list of key-words. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three referees. Notifications of acceptance or rejection will be mailed from March 1, 1991. Program Committee ----------------- Jean-Marc David (chairman) Renault ; Service Systemes Experts 860, Quai Stalingrad; Bt J4-D14; 92109 Boulogne Billancourt; France. e-mail: david@renault.uucp ; tel : 33 - 1 - 46.94.54.86 fax : 33 - 1 - 46.94.50.23 Alice Agogino (University of California; Berkeley, USA); Bert Bredeweg (University of Amsterdam; The Netherlands); B. Chandrasekaran (Ohio State University; Columbus, USA); Marie-Odile Cordier (Universite de Rennes; France); Jean-Luc Dormoy (Etudes et Recherches EDF; Clamart, France); Jacques Ferber (Universite Paris 6; France); Massimo Gallanti (CISE; Segrate, Italy); Jean-Paul Krivine (Etudes et Recherches EDF; Clamart, France); Benjamin Kuipers (University of Texas; Austin, USA); Roy Leitch (Heriot-Watt University; Edinburgh, UK); Robert Milne (Intelligent Applications; Livingston, UK); Richard Pelavin (Philips Laboratories; Briarcliff Manor, USA); Olivier Raiman (XEROX Palo Alto Research Centre, USA); Reid Simmons (Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh, USA); Luc Steels (Vrije Universiteit; Brussels, Belgium); Jon Sticklen (Michigan State University; East-Lansing, USA); Pietro Torasso (Universita di Torino; Italy); Louise Trave-Massuyes (LAAS - CNRS; Toulouse, France); Walter van de Velde (Centre of Advanced Studies; Blanes, Spain). From: A_ARISTAR@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU (Anthony Aristar) Subject: A Linguist's List Date: Thu, 18 Oct 1990 15:47:25 GMT+0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1386 (1568) So far, no electronic discussion list has been set up specifically to deal specifically with the discipline I'm a part of, linguistics, or with the issues that linguists find important. We have other forums where specialized sub-disciplines have a home--computational linguistics is one such--but no list which deals generally with the field exists. I suggest that it's time such a list was formed, and that we begin the process of organizing one now. The advantages to linguists and linguistics would, I feel, be considerable. The existence of a single forum for the dissemination of information on theoretical issue that concern us, conferences, general discussions, job adverts would not merely serve our academic interests, but also serve the general purpose of keeping each of us in general, and useful, contact with each other. If any of the linguists on this list have any comments to make on this suggestion, perhaps we could get into electronic contact, and discuss it. To save the other members of Humanist from our exchanges, perhaps it would be better to reply directly to me. Anthony Aristar From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0600 Scholarly Electronic Discussion Groups (2/54) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 09:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1387 (1569) You might wish to add to your list of scholarly electronic discussion groups the electronic newsletter & proto-journal, CRTNET@PSUVM (Communication Research and Theory Network) of which I am the editor. It is a moderated group for scholars interested in human communication, speech, rhetoric. ______________________________________________________________________ Tom Benson | INTERNET: t3b@psuvm.psu.edu Dept. of Speech Communication | BITNET: T3B@PSUVM Penn State University | 227 Sparks Building | University Park, PA 16802 USA 814-238-5277 (home); 814-865-4201 (office) ______________________________________________________________________ From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0595 Lists for Humanists (3/186) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 1990 8:42:17 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1388 (1570) Ezra Zubrow's mention of Anthro-l, the general anthropology listserver, sounds right up my street. How do you subscribe to it, what listserv is it on, etc.? Judy Koren. From: al279@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Judy Drotleff) Subject: Re: 4.0600 Scholarly Electronic Discussion Groups (2/54) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 10:22:59 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1389 (1571) Additions, corrections, elaborations, etc., are [deleted quotation] LITERARY@UCF1VM is alive and well. I can't speak for the second listing. Judy Drotleff From: Sarah Jones <SAAJONES@IUBACS> Subject: RE: 4.0595 Lists for Humanists (3/186) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 11:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1390 (1572) one note regarding LORE (the unmoderated folklore list). I subscribed last Friday. Since then, I have received something close to 300 mail messages from that list, most of which had to do with the relative merits of nose piercing vs. the piercing of other body parts. To be honest, there *were* a few messages of at least semi-academic interest, but whether they balance all the rest is another question. --Sarah Jones Indiana University, Bloomington SAAJONES@IUBACS.BITNET saajones@ucs.indiana.edu From: Barry W. K. Joe<grfjoe@BrockU.CA> Subject: E-Texts: Nietzsche Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 12:42-0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1391 (1573) A colleague in Philosophy has asked me to inquire what e-texts of Nietzsche's works are available and where. His interest at the moment is _Zarathustra_, but I understand that any e-texts of the _Gesamtwerk_ are being sought. Barry W. K. Joe Germanic & Slavic Studies Brock University <grfjoe@BrockU.ca> From: "Hardy M. Cook" <HMCOOK@BOE.TOWSON.EDU> Subject: Alternative to Word for Word? Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 16:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1392 (1574) I am looking for a program to covert files between different word processing formats. In my department, we use Word Perfect, WordStar, Microsoft Word, and ASCII files. I wrote to Willard McCarty a week or two ago to ask for information about Word for Word. Imagine my surprise when Willard posted a message on HUMANIST about his difficulties with that program. The responses to Willard's inquiry so far have not mentioned alternatives to Word for Word. Does anyone know of other text file translation utilities that I might explore? Thanks, Hardy M. Cook HMCOOK@BOE.TOWSON.EDU From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: ethics, business, and story Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 18:05:00 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1393 (1575) A colleague from our department is team-teaching a course next Spring titled "Business and Society" -- an ethics course for business majors. She has previously used story (fiction) as a way of raising central ethical issues -- but it has been awhile since she last taught the course in this way. Any suggestions out there for literary works which would serve in this context? My thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College From: MTRILEY@CALSTATE (Mark Timothy Riley) Subject: Gaelic? Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 15:18:00 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1394 (1576) Please let me know (MTRiley @ CalState) if any of you is aware of a Gaelic summer program in Ireland. It could be modern Gaelic or Old Irish; I am not particular. I'd be especially grateful if one of you in Britain could look into this. I tried writing the Gaelic discussion group, but received a rude answer. Mark Riley From: mike@tome.media.mit.edu (Michael Hawley) Subject: Query -- looking for quote source Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 21:47:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1395 (1577) We are wondering who said this: "the role of education is to transform cocksure ignorance into thoughtful uncertainty" Charlie Chan? George Bernard Shaw? Werner Heisenberg...? From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0599 R: 17th C. Typography -- Possessives (1/32) Date: Thursday, 18 Oct 1990 07:38:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 609 (1578) Although I studied this sort of thing in a textual criticism course at the University of Maryland twenty years ago and have forgotten much, and although I have not instances of the type faces to look at, I wonder whether the apostrophes used in the italic font are not inverted commas. If so, then the answer may be that the Roman commas didn't look right when inverted, and since the convention of noting possession by apostrophe had not yet become the standard (is that so?) the compositor could do both. You need more examples from the same shop and other shops at the same time to determine whether the practice was ubiquitous, shop-style, or due to a compositor's ideosyncrasy. --Pat Conner From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: List of Electronic Philosophical Texts -- v. 6 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 20:24:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 610 (1579) Version 6 of the APA list of electronic texts in philosophy has been forwarded to Humanist by David Owen (University of Arizonia) and placed on Humanist listserv as PHILOSFY ETEXTS. This list is prepared by Leslie Burkholder (Carnegie Mellon University) for the American Philosophical Association's Subcommittee on Philosophy and Electronic Texts. -- Allen ____________ You may obtain a copy of this list by issuing the command -- GET PHILOSFY EXTEXTS HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; or you can send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET PHILOSFY EXTEXTS HUMANIST as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: Luxury tax on computers Date: Thu, 18 Oct 1990 9:29:32 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1396 (1580) Reading Apple's attempts (successful, I hope) to organize you Americans against a luxury tax, I can only envy. Over here the luxury tax on almost all electronic equipment, also cars etc., is 100% with no initial exemption. Interestingly, it seems not to apply to computers any more, since recent acquisitions I know of are only 25-50% over the U.S. list price. Of course in the U.S. you don't pay the list price, it's only the base from which you subtract to arrive at the "real" price. Here it's what you start adding (up to 50% or perhaps more) to, to determine the real price. Naturally I can't cable my senator, since parties are voted in by proportional representation and nobody seems to be answerable to anybody except the heads of their party. Nobody represents my neck of the woods, let alone me. Big business does rather better at lobbying, which probably explains why the tax on computers is now much less than that on cars and home video equipment. Ah well, excuse me, it's the 3rd day of a hamsin and I have to gripe about something (they say under old Arab law you are regarded with understanding if after 3 days of hamsin you murder your wife...). Go ahead and lobby, and the best of luck to you! Judy Koren, Haifa. From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: re: 4.0602 Misc: MacConcordance; Bibliography & Warts; Taxes Date: 17 Oct 90 23:32:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1397 (1581) Concerning the tax on "luxury" computers: Yes, it is ludicrous that a computer over $1,000 should considered a luxury. However, let's consider the flipside. Apple Computer would probably protest a tax on its $5,000 computers as well, so I'll just throw that under the heading "general corporate protest." A low-end Mac with reasonable power will still run in the $2,000-$3,000 range; this may not seem like a luxury to those of us who use computers every day, but it is an extravagant purchase, one that can be made only by people of means. In this manner, it IS a luxury. Granted that the tax is unfairly slanted; it remains that the deficit needs higher taxation. Any protest we send will be used as ammunition against the ENTIRE luxury tax, not any one part of it, by its enemies. This would save us our 10%, but would run the deficit much higher than our revenues alone. If you do protest, make sure you send letters to those Senators and others who are FOR the tax, as that will be the only way that a line-item is changed. Ask them to raise the threshold to include the same percentage of computers as cars, or to lower ALL thresholds to include proportionally the same amount of products. Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication (sjporte@asc.upenn.edu) From: BILL HOOK <HOOKWJ00@VUCTRVAX> Subject: re: Luxury tax on computers Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 14:31 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1398 (1582) The message posted about the luxury tax provisions of the budget compromise which was dated 10/16, appears to me to be misinformed. According to Senator Sasser's office (as of 10/19), there is no provision in the Senate Finance proposal for a luxury tax. According to the New York Times account of the luxury tax provision of the House bill, items subject to the 10% luxury tax would be automobiles (> $30,000); boats ( > $100,000); private planes (> $250,000) and furs and jewelry (> $5,000). There is nothing included about electronics or computers. The message routed to Humanist, apparently originally distributed by Apple, is at the least outdated (and undated). While there may have been such a provision at some time in the search for a compromise, I do not recall any mention of a luxury tax on electronics - even in the rejected summit compromise. Perhaps Apple's exhortation mobilized an army of E-Mail which overwhelmed our worthy legislators, quickly killing this abomination! :-) In any event, this seems to be a call to defeat a proposal which no longer exists in that form. Bill Hook Vanderbilt University From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0602 Misc: MacConcordance; Bibliography & Warts; Taxes (3/133) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 16:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1399 (1583) HOW TO AVOID TAXATION WHEN BYING A COMPUTER? -------------------------------------------- One should buy a clone or a compatible in separate bits. Buy your monitor separately. Then buy your keyboard. A few days later buy the casing and the motherboard and the disk units. And buy a dot matrix printer to have an efficient working station. Each part will be under 1000$us. Or you can come to Canada or Quebec and buy a system here, which you can later smuggle into your own country. But I must admit this law must have been proposed by the IBM&compatible gang since there is no way of splitting a Mac (except with a hand-saw...). This reopens then the IBM-Mac quarrel, doesn't it? Yours seriously, Michel Lenoble Tel.: (514) 288-3916 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Hans Joergen Marker <DDAHM@vm.uni-c.dk> Subject: Re: 4.0594 Searching WordPerfect Footnotes (4/70) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 09:54:16 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1400 (1584) Changing footnotes to endnotes in WP. There is a more straigtforward way that writing a macro. You just define colums at the top of your document, set colums on and colums of, and then voila your footnotes has become endnotes. Unfortunately to the best of my knowledge this i an irreversible proces. To make endnotes to footnotes you have to write a macro. Hans Jșrgen Marker Danish Data Archives From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: WP footnote: solution Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 13:41:37 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1401 (1585) There exists a total and complete solution to the problem of searching WP footnotes. It has been tested on many platforms, and has been found to be a good overall solution to the problem. Go to your neighborhood academic computing store and buy a copy of Nota Bene. We have two heavy users in our house, each one with different purposes in mind. Emacs is the program editor, Nota Bene the academic word processor, WordPerfect the office wp and "typesetter," and PC Write and vi our quick-and-dirty editors. I would not want to use WordPer- fect for academic work. But likewise, if I am acting as typesetter (a task I hate to waste time on) as well as writer, then Word Perfect is clearly the better choice. It just offers more control over the output format, and allows for a much wider range of output devices. I say this all just so that no one takes my bit of facetiousness above too seriously. Word Perfect is a fine word processor. I'm just suggesting that it may not be the best one for every purpose. I've never heard of a XyWrite or Nota Bene user wondering how to search through footnotes. There, it's obvious. And if you don't like the built-in methods, you can code a different search program in using the internal programming language provided. -Richard From: GLOCK@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: Computers and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 13:18 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 613 (1586) ** CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS ** COMPUTER AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN ARCHAEOLOGY (CAA91) CAA91 will take place at the University of Oxford from Monday 25th March to Wednesday 27th 1991. Papers and demonstrations on all aspects of computer usage in archaeology are welcomed, abstracts (one side) to the address below by December 14th 1990. Information from: Dr Gary Lock Institute of Archaeology 36, Beaumont St. Oxford OX1 2PG. Tel: (0865) 278240 or 278252 Fax: (0865) 278299 email: glock@ox.vax From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: Date Change for Malaysian Computational Linguistics Conference Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 13:51:31 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 614 (1587) INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CURRENT ISSUES IN COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia Tutorials: 10-11 June 1991 Conference: 12-14 June 1991 The above conference will be held in the university campus on the given dates. Please note the change of dates with respect to our previous announcement, which has been made specifically to allow those wishing to attend the 1991 ACL annual meeting to return in time. Topics covered include, but are not limited to: syntax, semantics, discourse, formal models, grammar formalisms, language analysis and generation, understanding and knowledge representation, lexical issues, machine translation, etc., with the main objectives of the conference being: (i) bringing awareness of the state-of-the-art of the various subfields, and (ii) highlighting the most recent developments and implementation. About 45 papers will be presented, including 8 from our invited speakers (who will also conduct the tutorials, as well as form the program committee for the selection of papers), namely: Makato NAGAO (Computational Linguistics - in general), Lauri KARTUNNEN (Morphology), Eva HAJICOVA (Syntax), Petr SGALL (Semantics), Martin KAY (Formal Models), Christian BOITET (Machine Translation), Yorick WILKS (Artificial Intelligence), with the program committee to be chaired by Makato NAGAO. Those wishing to submit papers are reminded that 4 copies (of length not exceeding 15 pages) are to be sent to the Program Chairman strictly before 1 December 1990, the address being: Prof. Makato Nagao, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo, Kyoto 606, JAPAN [FAX: +81-75-751-1576]. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by 15 March 1991, together with the formatting instructions for the final copies. Camera ready copies of accepted papers will have to be in Penang by 15 April 1991. The final announcement containing detailed information as well as the registration form should be going out to selected addresses by the middle of October 1990. All those who are interested but have not indicated their interest to attend the conference/tutorials are invited to write to the Secretariat: Josephine Ong, Pusat Pengajian Luar Kampus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia [FAX: 60-4-871526, Telex: MA 40254]. Academic matters are handled by Zaharin Yusoff, Projek Terjemahan Melalui Komputer, PPS Matematik & S Komputer, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia [FAX: 60-4-871526, Telex: MA 40254, Tel: 60-4-874125]. Registration fees are set at M$300 for the conference and M$200 for the tutorials, with a 50% discount given to students. The approximate exchange rate is US$1 = M$2.70 or M$1 = US$0.37. The fees include conference/tutorial material, coffee, tea, lunch, conference dinner, and transport to and from assigned hotels. Registration forms and full remittance are due in by 15 April 1991. From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Dictionary Utilities Date: 22 Oct 90 10:19:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 615 (1588) I am forwarding this message from Ken Litkowski who has developed a very useful set of dictionary maintenance utilities. I have worked with them some and they are definitely worth the money, if you need the tools to create and/or maintain a lexicon. Please feel free to respond through me (mdharris@guvax.bitnet or mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu) if you can't get through to ken on compuserve (address below). "Utilities for creating/maintaining Natural Language Processing dictionaries - a set of PC programs for creating and maintaining dictionaries for natural language processing, including slots for ordinary dictionary definitions, feature and role lists, instance and superclass links, and semantic interpretation rules. Routines to convert dictionary into ASCII, LISP, or Prolog format. Includes sample dictionaries, Microsoft C source code, and user documentation. Undergoing active development - soon to be able to access machine readable dictionaries. Available for $50, with licensing agreements for classroom or business use. Contact Ken Litkowski, CL Research, 20239 Lea Pond Place, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, or through INTERNET at "71520.307@compuserve.com"." From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Electronic Philosophical Texts -- Correction Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 20:24:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 616 (1589) [Note that the name of the file is PHILOSFY ETEXTS. In the original posting your current Humanist editor (Allen) had mis-typed it in the final paragraph on retrieval. ----------------- Version 6 of the APA list of electronic texts in philosophy has been forwarded to Humanist by David Owen (University of Arizonia) and placed on Humanist listserv as PHILOSFY ETEXTS. This list is prepared by Leslie Burkholder (Carnegie Mellon University) for the American Philosophical Association's Subcommittee on Philosophy and Electronic Texts. -- Allen ____________ You may obtain a copy of this list by issuing the command -- GET PHILOSFY ETEXTS HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; or you can send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET PHILOSFY EXTEXTS HUMANIST as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0608 Qs: Nietzsche Etexts; business ethics fiction... (5/66) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 11:37:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1402 (1590) Naturally, any of Dreiser would work well: THE FINANCIER, SISTER CARRIE, etc. all have major moral issues involving business and businessmen. F. Pohl & C. Kornbluth's sci-fi novel THE SPACE MERCHANTS looks at advertising and marketing from an interesting perspective (but it's in and out-of-print unpredicatably). If you include film as a species of literature (even without a printed script) then WORKING GIRL and WALL STREET and lots of others (back to CASH MC CALL and earlier) would make great subjects for discussion. Just out on video is CRAZY PEOPLE, which explores the notion of honesty in advertising. ******************************************************* * Reply to SDSPAN01 @ ULKYVM.BITNET, or * * call 502-588-7289 (office) or 502-245-0319 (home) * ******************************************************* From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0608 Qs: Nietzsche Etexts; business ethics fiction... (5/66) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 90 19:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1403 (1591) The best fictional text for business ethics I know of is Mordecai Richler's _The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz_. It's much easier to find fiction that illustrates what's *wrong* with business practices than to find positive models. -- Kevin Berland From: K.P.Donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: Gaelic courses Date: 22 Oct 90 11:43:54 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1404 (1592) Tim Riley asked about Gaelic summer courses in Ireland. Oideas Gael Droim Rua Gleann Cholm Cille Co. Donegal Ireland runs good, well established modern Irish Gaelic courses in County Donegal over a four week period each July and August. Galway University runs Gaelic courses in the Conemara Gaelic speaking area. Write to "Teach na Gaeilge, Galway University, Ireland" for details. Kevin Donnelly From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Nietzsche etexts Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 08:56:18 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1405 (1593) Barry W. K. Joe<grfjoe@BrockU.CA> writes [deleted quotation] A look at PHILOSFY ETEXTS on Humanist listserv shows the following: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. [Unpublished works]. For information contact: Malcolm Brown, Stanford University, Stanford CA USA; mbb@jessica.stanford.edu. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. [Various works]. For information contact: InteLex Corporation, Route 2 Box 383, Pittsboro NC 27312 USA; 70671.1673@compuserve.com. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Werke: Kritische Gesamfausgabe, eds. G. Colli and M. Montinari. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967-1968). For information contact: Malcolm Brown, Stanford University, Stanford CA USA; mbb@jessica.stanford.edu. Leslie Burkholder From: Bill Jarrold <ai.billj@MCC.COM> Subject: Electronic Thesaurus Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 11:08 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 618 (1594) We are interested in obtaining some kind of electronic thesaurus for use in a common sense knowledge base. It doesn't have to have an extremely extensive vocabulary. Would you know of any sources? We would prefer something that runs on Symbolics Lisp Machines. (or at least something that runs in lisp) . Well okay, if you twist our arms, maybee something that runs on a Sun or Mac II is okay. Use: We are working on a very large knowledge base (CYC) of common sense assertions. We now have so many concepts that we need a synonym based way of finding concept names similar to ones that may already be in the system. This will aid us in relating new concepts to the things CYC already knows about. A simple and small vocubulary would thus be useful (but not essential) in reducing the number of concept names we'd have to deal with. Any other useful reference sources that people know about would be helpful. Thank you for your help Bill Jarrold CYC Project MCC Austin TX From: K.P.Donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: Lists for humanists Date: 22 Oct 90 11:40:06 bst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1406 (1595) Beware of subscribing to the list WORDS-L. I did and discovered that it is almost complete drivel. I signed off almost immediately, but the messages kept coming for a further two days. At one point they were arriving every 30 seconds. I am not even sure that they have stopped now. Is there some way in which we can be warned in advance about such lists? There is a Unix newsgroup devoted to linguistics called "sci.lang". It seems to have fairly good quality discussions. Kevin Donnelly K.P.Donnelly@edinbu HUMANIST@brownvm.br 10/22/90*Lists for humanists From: DJBPITT@pittvms Subject: Re: 4.0607 Electronic Discussion Groups (5/87) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 07:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1407 (1596) Anthony Aristar writes: [deleted quotation] For those who are have not yet encountered it, there is an international electronic forum called 'usenet' that consists of hundreds of special interest discussion groups, including 'sci.lang'. The quality of contributions to sci.lang varies, both because it is unmoderated and because it is not specifically geared to what linguists would consider linguistics, but it might serve our interests better to participate more actively in sci.lang than to establish yet another ListServ. I would happily subscribe to a lingusitics ListServ, but it might save some administrative overhead if we just made better use of resources already available. Those who are not familiar with usenet should contact their system managers for information on how to establish a connection. --David ---------------------------------------------------------------------- David J. Birnbaum djbpitt@vms.cis.pitt.edu [Internet] djbpitt@pittvms.bitnet [Bitnet] From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.0595 Lists for Humanists (3/186) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 1990 11:19:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1408 (1597) I share Sarah Jones' evaluation of the LORE discussion list, although I would state my assessment somewhat less charitably. I have never called any of the pay-for-talk telephone numbers that I see advertised on TV ["make new friends," "share you innermost secrets," etc], but it seems to me that LORE must be the e-mail equivalent. And it took six tries to SIGNOFF. Unfortunately WORD-L turned out to be anything but scholarly. Is there no discussion list specifically for word lovers? It is obvious from the conversations on HUMANIST that there are lots of word lovers around. T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: academic discussion lists PSRT-L & PSYCH Date: 18 October 90, 22:03:47 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1409 (1598) Ok here is my pitch: A friend and I recently established PSRT-L@UMCVMB the Political Science Research and Teaching list. Its a moderated list for professional political scientists--including political theory types like myself so it may be of interest to some HUMANISTs. We have built up 160 or so subscribers in less than 2 weeks but not much traffic yet so it's still in the formative period as far as substance is concerned. Another social science list, which IMHO ranks right up there with HUMANIST in quality, is the psychology list PSYCOLOQUY (PSYCH@TCSVM). It is connected with a print journal and contains many article quality submissions. It is by far the the most journal-like list I have encountered. Recent discussions have centered on BF Skinner's work and electronic academic publishing (Indeed I have put together a file (1000 lines) on the latter subject and am willing to forward it to any interested party--it really is of superior quality). ((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia ) From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Markup, formatters, etc. Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 09:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1410 (1599) Rereading an old message on the WP footnote saga, I note mention of the usefulness of a formatter with "rudimentary macro facility". Is there such an animal for the Mac? Thanks in advance for responses. Grover A. Zinn, Jr. FZINN@OBERLIN From: Gregory Bloomquist <GBLOOMQ@UOTTAWA> Subject: Info. on Centre of Adv.Studies Date: Sun, 21 Oct 90 14:11:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1411 (1600) Would be interested in info. on the Centre of Adv. Studies in Blanes, Spain. Anyone know of this Centre? Greetings. G. Bloomquist (GBLOOMQ@UOTTAWA) From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: Computational Linguist Salary Ranges Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 09:52:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1412 (1601) I am interested in getting an idea of the salary ranges for new PhDs in Computational Linguistics or some allied area. This is for budget planning and I would be particularly intrigued to get a notion of the low and high-end of the range. Thanks in advance for any assistance. Mark Olsen Assistant Director Center for Information and Language Studies University of Chicago From: <JBOWYER@UNOMA1> Subject: Computer Pen Pals Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 07:23 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1413 (1602) Lacking knowledge of a more appropriate place to send this request, I'll try the active (and all encompassing) HUMANIST list first. I tutor several 12-13 year olds for the Urban League of Nebraska. The kids love working with computers. I'd like to show them the wonderful world of email. Does anyone know where I might be able to get email pen pals for them? Preferred language is English, but we could probably handle French or Spanish as well. Thanks, Jeff Bowyer From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: Architectural lists Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 16:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1414 (1603) A friend of a friend is hunting for discussions on either Bitnet or Internet that deal with architecture. I've been searching through the Global Bitnet list without much luck. Does anyone else know aanything? Ruth H Hanschka@hartford [Bitnet] rhanschk@uhasun.hartford.edu Thanks! From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0608 Qs: ... Alternatives to Word for Word Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 09:28:35 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1415 (1604) In response to Hardy M. Cook's request for alternatives to Word for Word, I noticed a list of programs in this area in PC Magazine 9.18:28 (October 30, 1990), in the Advisor column, under the heading `Speaking the same format'. The same column refers to a review/test of such software in the April 25, 1989 issue. From: Ivy Anderson <ANDERSON@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: RE: 4.0608 Qs: Nietzsche Etexts; business ethics fiction... (5/66) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 12:58 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1416 (1605) RE: The query about alternatives to Word for Word: I have a shareware program called XWord. I've only used it once or twice, and my copy is several years old. It converts between Wordstar, WordPerfect, MultiMate, XyWrite II, and ASCII -- no mention of Microsoft Word in the documentation (and no version number either). The developer is Ronald Gans, whose address I have as 350 W. 55th St, #2-E, New York NY 10019, CompuServe 74216,264, tel. (212) 957-8361. I imagine the software is available on various bulletin boards. Perhaps someone else has experience with this program? Ivy Anderson, Brandeis University From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Alternative to Word to Word Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 10:01:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1417 (1606) R-Doc/X ver5.1f will convert from and to XyWrite, WordPerfect 5.0, ASCII, PC-Write 2.6 or later. The fact that it uses WP5.0 instead of 5.1, and especially PC-Write 2.6 rather than 3.X may indicate a version that has since been upgraded. This version does not handle Microsoft Word files. Someone has claimed that R-Doc/X did not receive good reviews. I have had no problems with it, but the texts that I need to convert are not very complex. (10 minutes later) I just tested it with a PC-Write text that uses extensive columns, some created by tabs, some created with PC-Write's column function. The result is that one type of column or the other does not translate very well into the WordPerfect format. Simply put: it is a mess, but all the text enhancement commands (italics, underline, boldface, etc.), appeared to be properly converted. I would not rule out any conversion system without trying it out myself. WordPerfect's Convert program converts from WordStar and Word 4.0 to WP 5.1, and converts from WP to Wordstar 3.3 and ASCII Text files, but apparently not to Word 4.0. Word seems to be the odd man out. WordPerfect also converts ASCII files without using the Convert program. Using the same file as above, the result was good in layout (but I had to change the margins of the text because I used 78 characters per line while WP assumes 65 characters), but text enhancements (underlining, italics, etc.) came out as different letters preceded by a carets. Accented letters came out fine. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0608 Qs: Nietzsche Etexts; business ethics Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 18:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1418 (1607) Re transferring files between word processors: Word Perfect is quite good about accepting other files. Both Microsoft Word and ASCII can be loaded in via "Text in/Text out" (Control+f5). In experimenting with a (desperate) colleague, we loaded a regularly saved Microsoft word file into Word Perfect thus; there was a line of trash at the top, but other than that all was fine. I've never tried this with Word Star, so I don't know how (or if) that can also be loaded into Word Perfect. Hope this may help a little. Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET) Dept. of Foreign Langs. Loyola College in Maryland From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0608 Qs: Nietzsche Etexts; business ethics fiction Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 10:12:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1419 (1608) Re: Alternative for Word to Word SoftwareBridge handles all of the WP conversions Hardy Cook requires. I routinely use it for WordStar, MS Word, and WordPerfect. As to bringing the ASCII files into a WP environment, both MS Word and WordPerfect allow direct import. If the ASCII paragraphs are separated by an extra line feed (blank line), macros can be used to eliminate the hard returns at the end of each line while preserving a hard return at the end of each paragraph. There is probably a more elegant solution to converting ASCII text but it's not a chore I work with much. -- David From: Allen Renear <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Networks and Discussion Groups -- Overviews Wanted Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 22:33:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 622 (1609) The network discussion group world is pretty confusing. One thing that might help would be concise general descriptions of the three major kinds of network discussion groups. This would at least give us a common framework for our discussions of lists of interest. Another useful item would a concise overview of academic networking in general -- useful, and considerably more ambitious. So: if you feel you have a confident understanding of some one of the three principal kinds of network discussion lists would you consider volunteering to prepare a general description? (I know there are some real experts lurking out there in the readership.) Nothing too extensive is necessary -- 100 lines would, I imagine, be typical. And there is no need to duplicate effort needlessly: if you are interested in preparing one of these descriptions let me know and I will keep you informed of who else is preparing or is interested in preparing the same description -- then you may all communicate among yourselves and decide to collaborate, compete, withdraw, ignore, &c. ... as you like. But in the established liberal tradition of Humanist we will post all reports that we receive. Each description of one of the varieties of network discussion groups will probably cover the history of the service, how to get access to the groups, how to get help or information files, and survey of the topics of interest to Humanists, etc. You might wish to consult John Quarterman's book (_The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide,_ Digital Press, 1989) to verify the details.) Here are the four descriptions I think would be most useful, Beginning with the three common categories of discussion groups. 1) Listserv lists (And don't forget: Who is Eric Thomas? How do I get help files from listserv servers? How do I find out what lists there are?) 2) Internet lists (other) (What does that '-request' suffix mean? How do I get the famous Zeller 'List of Lists'? ... but my network doesn't support ftp -- what do I do now?) 3) Usenet Newsgroups (naming scheme ... number ... voting ... mailed digests ... feeds ... ... Stanford CS Dept v. Stanford University on rec.humor...) 4) An Overview of academic networks Who would like to try, in 100 or so lines, to give us the big picture on networks? I would expect such an overview would a) cover terminology like Bitnet/EARN/Netnorth, JANET, Usenet... b) compare services, protocols, and transmission speeds c) discuss how services are funded d) indicate likely directions for future developments -- both technological and organizational e) mention issues of particular interest to academics in the humanities Again, John Quarterman's book should be a useful resource. ...ok, 200 lines? Of course similar descriptions and overviews have been done in various magazines, journals, and newsletters, and (of course) lists. If you know of one you think is particularly suitable and we can get an electronic version and appropriate permissions I'll be glad to post that. Thanks --Allen (Elaine Brennan is currently in Oxford, safe in Humanist hands) From: Malcolm Brown <mbb@jessica.stanford.edu> Subject: Nietzsche e-texts Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 09:16:19 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 623 (1610) Since I've received a number of inquiries about the Nietzsche corpus, I thought that I'd post this update. I've been working on the corpus for the past two years. The entire contents of the Colli/Montinari edition have been scanned. This includes the published works (Werke), the unpublished essays (Schriften), and the unpublished notes (Nachlass). Scanning is complete. Spell-checking and proofing are complete for the Schriften and Nachlass. I expect to have finished the Werke by 1 January 91. Once proofing is done, the contents will be tagged according to the TEI guidelines. The project is officially affliated with the TEI. Currently I have *no* rights to distribute the files. I've written to deGruyter in Berlin (they hold the copyright for the German), but have heard nothing. Although I'm hoping to make the files generally available, I also don't relish the idea of being named in a lawsuit. Hence, until I can get some indication from deGruyter, I am hesitant to distribute the files. In light of copyright restraints, suggestions for distribution are quite welcome. Suggestions for lighting a fire under deGruyter are welcome as well. Malcolm Brown Stanford From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: COLUMBIA'S LIBRARY SCHOOL Date: 18 Oct 90 21:44:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1420 (1611) I think the following message from Terry Balanger of the Columbia University School of Library Service might be of some interest to humanists in general and graduates of Columbia in particular. James W. Halporn, Classics, Indiana University. --------------- Original Message ----------------- Date Thu, 18 Oct 90 17:09:00 CDT <NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS> Sender NOTRBCAT RARE BOOK AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CATALOGERS' GROUP <NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS> Comments Originally-From: "Terry Belanger: phone 212/854-4734" <terry@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu> Subject SLS This was posted on exlibris. [deleted quotation] There is (in my opinion) no hope whatsoever that Columbia will reverse its decision about the closing of its School of Library Service. The University's priorities are being redirected toward its undergraduate college, and toward the learned professions [this would appear to comprise law, medicine, and business]--toward the production, simply put, of graduates who will then or eventually be in a position to make substantial contributions, as alums, to the University's coffers. Professionals in fields like librarianship are not notoriously generous toward their professional alma maters; and though this sad fact is also true of recipients of the PhD degree in graduate schools of arts and sciences, the prestige thought to accrue to universities possessing distinguished PhD programs helps to offset the financial drain. Back to Columbia again, consider the process by which the School was eliminated. In June 1989 the committee planning for the renovation of Butler Library is quiet advised that they have the entire space of the building at their disposal, including the 15,000 square feet presently occupied by SLS (SLS is not informed of this). In November, University Provost Jonathan Cole establishes a committee to review the School, out of season and against University tradition. The review committee is chaired by Dean of the Graduate School Roger Bagnall, an unsuccessful candidate a few years before for the position of Dean of SLS, and whose wife is currently a student in the School. There are no peers [ie library school faculty], internal or external, on the review committee. When the review committee makes its report in late January, the Provost suppresses it (against the advice of the review committee itself), refusing to allow even the tenured faculty of SLS to see it (the Dean of the School, after protesting, is allowed to see a copy but only if he keeps its contents a secret). The Education Committee of the University Senate asks to see a copy of the report repeatedly, and is also refused (this Committee has statutory oversight on the educational standards and policies of the University). The Provost issues his report on SLS in the third week in April, on the Monday of the week in which the University Senate has its last meeting of the year on the Friday. The Education Committee of the Senate (which has received *its* copies of the Provost's Report two days early, on the Friday before the Monday) works quickly and sends a resolution strongly in support of the School to the Senate floor for the Friday meeting. The Executive Committee of the Senate (on which the President of the University, Michael Sovern, sits), which controls the agenda of senate meetings, brings in a substitute resolution of its own, the clear intent of which is to weaken the resolution of the Education Committee. The Senate unanimously passes a resolution cobbled together from both resolutions now on the floor, the effect of which is strongly in favor of the School. The date is Friday, April 20th. Six weeks later, the Trustees of the University vote to close the School. The six-week period is later described by Columbia administrators as a thorough and open review of the School. So: we're off. As for myself, I'm embarrassed to be working for these people. Terry Belanger Associate Professor School of Library Service Columbia University From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: COLUMBIA LIBRARY II Date: 19 Oct 90 13:31:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1421 (1612) Here is a second message on the problems at the Columbia University School of Library Service. Again I think it will be of interest to fellow humanists as well as graduates of Columbia. James W. Halporn (HALPORNJ@IUBACS.BITNET) --------------- Original Message ----------------------------------- Date Fri, 19 Oct 90 08:44:00 CDT Sender NOTRBCAT RARE BOOK AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CATALOGERS' GROUP <NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS> Comments Originally-From: "Terry Belanger: phone 212/854-4734" <terry@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu> Subject Closing of SLS More on developments at Columbia. This was posted on Exlibris awhile back. -- Emily [deleted quotation] The Representative Committee of Librarians at Columbia University released the following statement last week on the closing of the Columbia University School of Library Service. It is the first such statement to emerge from the Columbia University Libraries on the subject, and you will judge for yourself its motivation and potential impact. Most of the librarians I know at Columbia are looking to leave; the CULs are not a happy place to work, these days. Terry Belanger Associate Professor, Columbia University School of Library Service 12 October 1990 To Jonathan Cole, Provost We acknowledge the necessity to make hard decisions regarding academic programs in a time of heightened scrutiny of Columbia's resources. The termination of the School of Library Service is one such hard decision. As the Representative Committee of Librarians, a group elected to communicate the views of the professional staff to the University Librarian and the Library Senators, we regret this decision. We fault the apparent rationale for it and the apparently hasty manner in which it was done. The Report of the Provost on the School of Library Service at Columbia (hereafter the Cole Report) characterizes our profession as having two broad limitations: a lack of a research agenda, and a lack of a base of professional knowledge (p. 34). Our education and experience indicate otherwise. We are concerned that the decision to close the School was made by a Columbia administration not fully informed as to the profession's value and its essential role in the academic enterprise of a major university. The achievements of the School were discussed in the Report of the Review Committee for the School of Library Service (the Bagnall Report). We are concerned that the evidence marshalled in the report was not sufficiently weighed during the decision-making process. Likewise, we are concerned that the almost-unanimous vote of the University Senate recognizing the academic standing of the School and affirming its successful performance of an important educational function in the University was also not sufficiently considered. The subsequent decision to close SLS places us, the professional library staff in particular, in a cruel bind. The Cole Report clearly states that a ``relocation of SLS, and its related costs, are the result of the Butler library renovation''. (p. 7) No one knows better than we how desperately the libraries need more and better space. But, clearly, the need for space and the value of SLS are two separate issues. The School of Library Service's world-renowned library has given us a vitally important route, not only to keep apprised in the literature of our profession, but also to support our own research, thereby enabling us to make contributions to the field. We know that we are envied by many of our colleagues at other prestigious universities for that resources. We are concerned about the effects of the closing of the School on our constituents. Many of them have continued their professional education while working at Columbia. Indeed, for many, the opportunity to do so has been an attraction for working here. Loss of this opportunity will have a detrimental impact on our ability to retain staff, as well as on future recruitment. The students of the Library School have been a valuable source of knowledgeable and highly motivated support staff and student employees in one of the most competitive environments in this country. Losing the School will aggravate the continual challenge of finding good staff to maintain the high level of service required by the University community. To enable the professional Library staff to meet the challenges brought on by the closing of the School of Library Service, we recommend the following: 1. A dialogue be initiated on our profession and its role at Columbia University. The Representative Committee of Librarians sponsors four staff meetings with guest speakers during the academic year. We would like to invite you to discuss your report on SLS and to elaborate on your perception of the field, perhaps at one of our Spring meetings. 2. It is becoming clear that the nation's library community perceives that Columbia's libraries are suffering a reduction in their overall stature in association with the closing of the library school. At the very least, such an attitude could seriously hamper library, as well as academic recruitment and retention. We recommend that evidence of such perceptions be identified and addressed as soon as possible. 3. Many of us are concerned about the future of the SLS Library collection. We recommend that representatives from the Libraries' staff have input into the process of deciding its disposition through an appointment to any committee deciding its fate. 4. For those of us relying on the School for continuing education, we recommend that the University fund continuing education and provide professional leave for the library staff to attend other library schools. 5. We recommend that increased resources for support staff recruitment for the libraries be implemented over the next two years to partially offset the loss of the SLS student pool. From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: gender and nonsexist usage Date: Sat, 20 Oct 90 20:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1422 (1613) Quite often in recent months the topic of nonsexist usage has come up on several discussion lists. I would like to compile an electronic bibliography of related readings -- for instance, I have often heard it said that "studies have shown" that a larger number of women are troubled by the use of the masculine pronoun to indicate males and females than had been previously recognized. What studies? I have started with a list based on the "Guide to Nonsexist Language" issued by the Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges. If any HUMANISTs can send me full bibliographical information about related studies, guidebooks, essays, and controversies, I will compile them and make the list available to the HUMANIST fileserver (if there's enough interest). -- Kevin Berland (BCJ@PSUVM) --- Herewith is a preliminary bibliography of books, articles, and handbooks written to address the problem of gender bias in language -- the wide range of organizations should suggest that the issue is of concern not merely to the so-called "language police" on WORDS-L, but to educators, professional communicators, journalists, and many others. The list is taken from the AAC publication, "Guide to Nonsexist Language," which I use to begin discussion of the subject in both 1st-year composition classes and journalism workshops. The list is only preliminary, and does not include studies; I will provide a list of those later. Some of these items were available free (single copy) when the Guide was published in 1986 -- I've indicated this with an asterisk. -------------------------------------------------------------------- _Addendum to Style Guide for Authors_, July, 1976, pp. 150-152. Available from Academy of Management Review, P.O. Box KZ, Mississippi State, MS 39762. American Psychological Asspciation Task Force on Issues of Sexual Bias in Graduate Education, "Guidelines for Nonsexist Use of Language," _American Psychologist_, June 1975, pp. 682-684; also in APA _Publication Manual_, available from APA, Order Dept., P.O. Box 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784. Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, 1977. [Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020] Baruch, Grace, and Rosalind Barnett. _Lifeprints: New Patterns of Love and Work for Today's Women_. New American Library, 1984. Dosch, Jeanne. _Family: The Changing Face of American Families_. (Families - University of Wisconsin) Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1985. _Establishing Equity in Language and Illustration_. Texas Education Agency, 1985 [201 E. 11th St., Austin, TX 79701] _Fact Sheet on Bias-Free Communication_, 1985. Division of Women's Programs, Department of Human Relations, 380 Administration Bldg., Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824. * _Fair and Balanced Treatment of Minorities and Women_, 1976. Cincin= nati, Ohio: Southwestern Publishing [5101 Madison Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45227]. * _Fair Textbooks: A Resource Guide_, 1986. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights [Publications Warehouse, 621 No. Payne St., Alexandria, VA 22314]. * Gilligan, Carol. _In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Goleman, Daniel. "Psychology is Revising Its View of Women." _New York Times_, March 20, 1984, pp. 17, 19. _Guide to Nonsexist Language_, 1968. Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges [1818 R. St., NW, Washington, DC, 20009]. _Guidelines for Bias-Free Publishing_, 1983. [McGraw-Hill, Princeton Road, Hightstown, NJ 08520]. _Guidelines for Creating Positive Sexual and Racial Images in Educa- tional Materials_, 1975. [Macmillan Publishing Co., 866 Third Ave., School Dept., 4th floor, New York, NY 10022 -- Order no. 002-1194- 602; single copy free]. * _Guidelines for the Creative Use of Biased Materials in a Non-Biased Way_, 1980. [Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction, Sex Equity Project, P.O. Box 7841, Madison, WI 53707]. * _Guidelines to Ensure Sex Fairness in Education Division Communications and Products_, 1977. [Eric Document Reproduction Servis (EDRS), 3900 Wheeler Ave., Alexandria, VA 22304 (ED No. 150343)]. _Guidelines for Equal Treatment of the Sexes_, 1984. [McGraw-Hill Book Co., Order Service, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. -Guidelines for Nonsexist Use of Language in NCTE Publications_, Revised, 1965. [National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (free with SSAE)]. * International Association of Business Communicators, _Without Bias: A Guidebook for Nondiscriminatory Communication_, 2nd Ed. [IABC, 870 Market St., Suite 940, San Francisco, CA 94102. Kett, Merriellyn, and Virginia Underwood. _How to Avoid Sexism: A Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers_, 1978. [Lawrence Ragan Communications, 407 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, IL 60605]. Kramarae, Cheris, and Paula A. Treichlet. _A Feminist Dictionary_. New York: Methuen, 1985. Martyna, W. "What does `He' Mean?" _Journal of Communications_, 28 (1978): pp. 131-138. Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. _Tha Handbook of Nonsexist Writing for Writers, Editors and Speakers_. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1980. Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. _Words and Women: New Language in New Times_. New York: Doubleday, 1977. _Removing Bisa: Guidelines for Student-Faculty Communications_, 1983. [Speech Communications, 4105 Backlick Rd., Suite E., Annandale VA 22003]. _(S)He: A Guide to Nonsexist Language_, 2nd. ed., 1986. [Writing Center, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster , PA 17604]. Shear, Marie. "Solving the Great Pronoun Problem: Twelve Ways to Avoid the Sexist Singular," in "Overcoming Language Barriers to Equality," _Perspectives_, Spring 1981, pp. 17-24. Shear, Marie, "Equal Writes" (includes a Bibliography, "A Guide to the Guidelines," and "Choosing a Guide," _Women's Review of Books_, 1, 11 (August 1984): pp. 12-13. Silberstein, Sandra. _Bibliography: Women and Language_, Michigan Occasional Papers in Women's Studies, 12 (Winter, 1980). [Women's Studies Program, Universitty of Michigan, 354 Lorch Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109]. Sorrels, Bobbye. _The Nonsexist Communicator_. New York: Prentice- Hall, 1983. _Women and Language_ (Newsletter: subscriptions, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 244 Lincoln Hall, 702 South Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801). _Women and the Media_. IWTC Newsletter 14 (First Quarter, 1981). [International Women's Tribune Centre, 777 U.N. Plaza, New York, NY 10017. From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET> Subject: Query: Who was Kate Barlass? Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 12:02:46 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1423 (1614) One of our library's users has a question not readily answered with handbooks or indexes. I am told that Cicely Hamilton in A Pageant of Great Women refers to someone named Kate Barlass, apparently from Scottish history. The line justifying her place as a heroine in this catalogue is quoted as: "She barred assassin's pathway with her arm". Additional information about Kate Barlass would be appreciated. I speculated that the name might be generic for everywoman, but the other names in the catalogue are reported to be historical figures. Additional information about Kate Barlass would be appreciated. I have not been able to consult the text described. Joseph Jones From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: taxes Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 23:21 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1424 (1615) Are the taxes on computers in Quebec the same as they are in Canada? From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0619 Electronic Discussion Groups (4/92) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 09:02:04 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1425 (1616) I know about USENET news group sci.lang, but I still support Anthony Aristar's idea of a linguistics list. Some of the discussion in sci.lang is worthwhile, but a lot of it could be routed to WORDS-L per Kevin Donnely's comments without being missed. However, it might be nice if a real moderated linguistics list could be gatewayed to sci.lang, if that is the term. That would have the effect of reducing the number of entities, and would improve the quality of sci.lang. From: CSDOUG@STMARYTX.BITNET Subject: Bitnet in USSR Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 16:23:00 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1426 (1617) To: Robert Kraft <KRAFT@PENNDRLS.BITNET> You may get this message (or similar) soon from another souce, but I wanted to get the ball rolling ASAP... It has come to my attention that Prokhorov (sp?), the VP of the National Academy of Science in Moscow is at present decidign whether or not to allow Bitnet into the Soviet Union (apparently all connections so far have been without "official" approval). There are those who would just as soon NOT have any location in the SU connected to ANY international net, much less Bitnet. How can we perhaps sway the decision to allow Bitnet in and provide ALL who want it (especially in the universities) the freedom of info that we now enjoy? By contacting all VIP's (or non-VIPs) you know in the SU and urge them to contact Prokhorov and urge him to OK it. It is very important that scientists and academicians of ALL types in the West contact the SU. Even if events in the Soviet Union are not your interest, help strike a blow for freedom. The alternative is a Soviet Union further isolated. Pass this message on to any person you can think of, as well as any net you belong to. Doug Hall Chair, CS Dept St. Mary's U. CSDOUG@STMARYTX From: "Peter M. Weiss +1 814 863 1843" <PMW1@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0619 Electronic Discussion Groups (4/92) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 09:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 619 (1618) [deleted quotation] Yes, sort of. Send a note (email) to your favorite Listserv site (or to the real listserv list site, and yes, this is a case where you send to LISTSERV per se, and NOT to the list) with the body of text: INDEX listname when listname is the name of the list. What will be returned to you is, among other things is a list of the mail archives (generally by month) along with the record (line) counts. If this seems excessive to you, then don't subscribe. BTW not all lists are setup for non-subscribed users to fetch the INDEX (I think). -- Peter M. Weiss | pmw1 @ PSUADMIN | vm.psu.edu | psuvm 31 Shields Bldg (the AIS people) | not affiliated with VM.PSU.EDU | PSUVM University Park, PA USA 16802 | Secrecy is the guardian of bureaucracy From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: P.N.G. query Date: 22 Oct 90 21:0:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1427 (1619) I am anxious to know if there is any sort of computer network link to the University of Papua New Guinea. Any leads, advice, addresses, names to contact, etc. would be welcome. Please reply to: David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: "Michael E. Walsh" <WALSH@IRLEARN> Subject: Re: 4.0620 Architectural lists , lists in general. Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 18:59:58 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1428 (1620) There have recently been a number of requests for information about electronic lists on various topics. Rich Zellich, then ZELLICH@SRI-NIC.ARPA, now probably ZELLICH@SRI-NIC.EDU, maintains such an integrated list, regularly updated. My most recent copy is about 18 months old, so he may be doing something else now. The attached is the first few lines of a list description which may help with the specific enquiry. It is the only list given which claims to deal with architecture (other than computer architecture). It is my impression that this list-of lists does not include the Usenet newsgroups, of which there are hundreds. regards Michael Walsh ENVBEH-L@GRAF.POLY.EDU ENVBEH-L%POLYGRAF.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ENVBEH-L@POLYGRAF (BitNet) Mailing list on Environmental Behavior: Environment, Design, and Human Behavior. ENVBEH-L is a discussion on a variety of topics concerning the relations of people and their physical environments, including architectural and interior design and human behavior, environmental stress (pollution, catastrophe) and behavior, human response to built and natural settings, etc. BITNET subscribers can join by sending the Listserv SUB command with your name. For example: SEND LISTSERV@POLYGRAF SUB ENVBEH-L Jon Doe or TELL LISTSERV AT POLYGRAF SUB ENVBEH-L Jon Doe To be removed from the list, SEND LISTSERV@POLYGRAF SIGNOFF ENVBEH-L or TELL LISTSERV AT POLYGRAF SIGNOFF ENVBEH-L From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: homemade bibliography software Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 11:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1429 (1621) There's no need to pay anybody money for bibliography formatting software if you have a wordprocessor that does mailmerging.All such software is doing is using the mailmerge features of your software in a relatively straightforward way. To do the same, consider your bibliography to be something like a form letter, with an "address list" and a "letter form" just as in mailmerging. Let your address list be your database of bibliographic information, and let your letter form be a template for a bibliographic entry. (You can even use the sort features included in most advanced wordprocessors to keep your citations in order.) If you use a text formatter rather than a wordprocessor, you can format bibliographies using the commands for string replacement and insertion of external files. Your main file would consist of consist of lots of entries looking like this (the example is in roff4, but other formatters will do the same thing): .ds /AUTHOR/Dickens, Charles? .ds /TITLE/A Tale of Two Cities/ .ds /DATE/1990/ (that's supposed to be a slash, two lines up) .so book.rno What that entry does is define substitutions for the strings AUTHOR TITLE and DATE, and then calls "book.rno," a file with a template for bibliographic entries for books. That file might look something like this: /AUTHOR/ . /TITLE/ . ( /CITY/ : /PUBLISHER/ , /DATE/) This is quick and dirty. And it won't do one of the nice things programs like ProTem's Bibliography do--extract just the things you happen to cite from a big bibliographic database and construct a little bibliography just for the text at hand--but it will do in a pinch. John Burt Brandeis University From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: WP crashes Date: 19 Oct 90 13:04:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1430 (1622) Tzvee Zahavy's query, incidental to discussing WP footnote searches, about the vulnerability of WP 5.0 and higher on large files is well-grounded. WP 5.0 is a memory hog, pushing up around 500K of space and of course not addressing efficiently anything beyond 640, and as file size approaches available RAM space, things begin to slow down dramatically and other problems will arise. WP help line operators tell me that this is now the major problem that WP programmers are trying to address for future versions. It's *always* a good idea to save the current version of a file before trying to do anything even slightly fancy; and if doing something *very* fancy, to try it on a small sample file first, then proceed with caution. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0620 Mac. formatters... Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 09:32:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1431 (1623) The ultimate in word processing macro power is the Nisus word processor from Paragon Concepts (800-922-2993 or 619-481-1477 and $99 educational discount - call them, they're good people to deal with especially since the president of Paragon is a professor at (I think) UC Berkeley) Nisus has a full featured macro language that can use all of the commands present on the normal Mac menus, but in the latest release (3.0) they've even built in a small but capable programming language with stacks and variables and all that jazz. The macros wouldn't be nearly so noticeable though, if it weren't for what Paragon calls PowerSearch and PowerSearch+. Basically PowerSearch+ is a full featured grep utility and PowerSearch is a simplified, menu driven version of grep. For those who aren't familiar with it, grep stands for Global Regular Expression Parser and a regular expression is basically a pattern. So if I want to find an address using I can search for either 5 digits or 5 digits, a dash, and four more digits. That finds the US zipcode and from that point it's trivial to select the rest of the address. A few other features of Nisus that might be of interest to HUMANISTS... Discontinuous selections, so if you want to select five words that are not next to each other and make them all italic, it's a breeze with Nisus. I don't currently know of any other word processor that does this on any system, though I'm sure it's been done before. Multiple language dictionaries, for those of us who write in more than one language. Call Paragon for details on those, I don't use them personally. Styles, broken into User Styles that affect text, and Named Rulers, which affect formatting. I find this to be a better way of handling styles than Word's, where the character formatting is lumped in with paragraph and page formatting, whether you want it or not. A special "Don't Spell Check" style, which allows you to have Nisus automatically ignore certain types of words, like phone numbers and email addresses, which are always confusing to the spell checker. Coupled with a macro, this style is incredibly useful. You can also Ignore words caught by the spelling checker, which is a permanent style, rather than only for that session like most other word processors. An excellent thesaurus that includes definitions, synonyms, and antonyms. I believe it is licensed from Microlytics, as is the WriteNow thesaurus. Simple, but effective graphics capabilities. I find them to be more than enough for most of my graphics needs, but I'm pretty terrible with graphics anyway. There's a bunch more, including being able to create a search list of closed files to search in as well as the open one(s), limited file management, a configurable autosave, excellent customization options (but none of that terrible menu moving that's in Word), and glossaries, indexes, tables of contents, footnotes, and probably some other stuff I don't use much. If you do much text processing on the Mac, I highly recommend that you check out Nisus. Apple will even be recommending it as the word processor of choice for higher education and they write the rules :-) .... Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0620 Mac. formatters... Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 09:49:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1432 (1624) Oh one thing I forgot to mention about Nisus in regard to the word processing formats. Nisus saves all of its files as straight text files, storing the formatting information in the resource fork of the file. That way you can upload a Nisus file to a mainframe without converting anything and any other word processor can read a Nisus file easily (though with a loss of the formatting). Nisus also can read and write Word format (I know it can read Word 4.0 but it might only be able to write Word 3.0 - not positive on that because I never use Word any more at all). Basically, Nisus is a good, fast, powerful word processor for people who do a lot of writing and like to move their files around a lot as well. -Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: Date: 17 Oct 90 23:24:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1433 (1625) \ubject: re: 4.0602 Misc: MacConcordance; Bibliography & Warts; Taxes To Sarah Horton, regarding a warty biography: Definitely a laudable project. But be careful about how broadly you prune out "negative" books. I'd suggest including at least one with a balanced view of the topic, judging the negative effects on curriculum that a computer can have, and how to circumvent these effects. Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication (sjporte@asc.upenn.edu) From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Broad thoughts from at home Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 20:58:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1434 (1626) I return to Humanist after six weeks in England, and to a discussion which was in full spate when I left: the use of brand names to describe all pro- ducts of the same type, no matter who makes them (the "Hoover" debate). I described the discussion to a retired British map librarian I know, a senior scholar with many accomplishments during her distinguished career. Upon which she turned to me and said "Do you know what happens if you ask for Durex in Australia?" (In Britain, "Durex" = condoms). No, I said, wonderingly. "You get Scotch tape!" she announced with glee. I'm still trying to figure out two things: 1) how did she find out; 2) is it true? Germaine Warkentin. From: <HANSCHKA@HARTFORD> Subject: seeking kids! Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 13:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1435 (1627) [deleted quotation] This was sent to me by a friend [address above] who got it from another friend. He thought I might know someone interested. -Ruth H.. ____________________________________________________________________ Dear networker, I'm coordinating a project called KIDS-91. The objective is to get as many kids as possible in the age group 10 -15 to participate in a global dialog from now and until May 12 1991. Some of it will be electronic - for those who have access to modems and computers - some of it will be by mail or in other forms. We want to collect the childrens' responses to these four questions: 1) Who am I?, 2) What do I want to be when I grow up? 3) How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? 4) What can I do NOW to help this come true? We also want them to draw themself in their future role/world. The responses will be turned into an exhibition that will be sent back to the kids of the world. There are many countries in the world, and I was hoping that you could help get in contact with the kids of your country. You can help in two ways: 1. By sending me electronic mail addresses of teachers or other people in your country, who are involved with kids in this age group. 2. Distributing information about KIDS-91 to people that you believe would be interested, for example through local Bulletin Board Systems, which you know have many teachers as users. I can send you/them the following 'documents': * an invitation letter to teachers * a letter describing various ways of participating in KIDS-91 (from diskette based to online involvment) * the various issues of the KIDS-91 newsletter telling what is happening in connection with the project globally. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely, Odd de Presno, KIDS-91 Project Director Mail: 4815 Saltrod, Norway (Europe). Electronic addresses: Internet: opresno@coma.uio.no CompuServe ID: 75755,1327 MCI Mail: OPRESNO MicroLink (United Kingdom): MAG220, BBS at +47 41 31378 (300-9600 bps CCITT. V.22bis, V.32 up to MNP-5, 24 hours). From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Oxford Text Archive Updates on Server Date: Wed, 24 Oct 1990 17:41:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 630 (1628) The new short list of texts available from the Oxford Text Archive (announced in Humanist 4.0584) is now on the Humanist fileserver in two forms -- OXARCHIVE SHRTLIST -- An SGML tagged version OXARCHIVE FORMATED -- A formatted version To retrieve these lists send mail to either LISTSERV@BROWNVM or listserv@brownvm.brown.edu with the following lines as the body: GET OXARCHIVE SHRTLIST GET OXARCHIVE FORMATED Questions about the OTA or requests for texts should go to: Lou Burnard, Oxford Text Archive ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK -- Allen From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: CETEDOC Date: 24 Oct 90 13:45:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 631 (1629) I posted a query a couple of weeks ago regarding the policies of CETEDOC concerning e-texts created and maintained under their auspices. I have been in private correspondence with them since that time and I am happy to be able to post the following announcement, at CETEDOC's request. This is very good news indeed. ANNOUNCEMENT: The CETEDOC ELECTRONIC TEXT LIBRARY: New Products: The SUPPLEMENTA ELECTRONICA. (on CD-ROM or on floppy disks). CETEDOC already maintains two ongoing projects based on its machine-readable texts. These projects will continue. - INSTRUMENTA LEXICOLOGICA LATINA published with each new edition of the CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM series (Series Latina and Continuatio Medievalis). most recent fascicles: n. 60 CM53F Andreas a S. Victore, In Danielem; n. 61 CM97 Paschasius Radbertus, De fide; n. 62 CM71 Chronica Hispana; n. 63 CM05 Speculum Virginum. Each fascicle contains an ENUMERATIO FORMARUM, a REVERSE INDEX and an exhaustive CONCORDANCE on microfiches. - THESAURI series: already published: Thesaurus Gregorii Magni, Thesaurus Bernardi Claraevallensis, Thesaurus Augustinianus In press: Thesaurus Hieronymi. Each Thesaurus is dedicated to the OPERA OMNIA of a christian author. It consists of a printed volume with the INDEX VERBORUM SINGULORUM OPERUM and a box and binder with the complete CONCOR- DANCE and REVERSE INDEX on microfiches. The new projects are more exciting. Plans are now definite for these releases with first release less than a year away. - a CD-ROM with the whole THESAURUS PATRUM LATINORUM i.e. all the texts edited by the CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM (Series Latina and Con- tinuatio Medievalis) and published by BREPOLS, Belgium. The data base will contain about 20 millions words. First publi- cation: summer 1991. An update is foreseen every two years. The texts on the CD are corrected or not yet corrected. The CORRECTED texts are the texts published with ILL fascicles or published as Thesauri. The other are declared UNCORRECTED (they have been verified and corrected only once instead of three times). - a CD-ROM named THESAURUS FORMARUM LATINARUM containing a data base of all the latin words in the Cetedocian data banks: -> "classical" latin: words coming from the texts on the CD-ROM elaborated by the PHI or coming from other institutions (as Seneca Opera omnia, from PISA); -> patristical latin: the Thesaurus Patrum Latinorum data bank; -> medieval latin: belgian authors from VIIth until XIIth century; -> recent latin: as Spinoza, for example; -> latin texts (other): Franciscan Sources, Oecumenical councils, Bonaventura, Index Thomisticus, Salimbene, etc. More than 50 million words. The foreseen interrogation levels are: period, century, author, work. Frequencies will be given globally, by author and by work. First CD-ROM: summer 1992. Update: every 2 years. - "stand alone" data bases on CD-ROM or on floppy disks (depen- ding on the volume of data to be included in the data base). Foreseen: -> Bernardus Claraevallensis, opera omnia; -> Corpus of Cistercian Sources; -> Gregorius Magnus, opera omnia; -> Concilia Oecumenica s. XI-XX; -> Petrus Lombardus, Sententiae. - TPL texts on floppy disks: full texts without apparatus criticus. Foreseen for this series at present: -> Augustinus, De civitate Dei; -> Gregorius Magnus, Moralia in Job, etc.. Additional information can be requested from: CETEDOC College Erasme Place Blaise Pascal, 1 B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium email: THOMDOC@TEDM.UCL.AC.BE From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: Style and Authorship in Spanish Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 15:35:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 632 (1630) A colleague (who has no access to BITNET) wants to collect evidence to support his contention that the 1676 Spanish play <La segunda Celestina>, usually attributed to Agustin de Salazar y Torres, was actually written by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. To do so with computers, he needs fairly large text samples of other works by both writers; he already has the 1676 play (which has just been published) in computer-readable form. He also needs to know what sort of indices (syntactic, lexical, rhymes, metric, etc.) have been used successfully in analyses of the differences between one Spanish text and another. And what sort of software is available for computing indices of stylistic traits? Any suggestions (people to call, written references) I can pass on? ******************************************************* * Reply to SDSPAN01 @ ULKYVM.BITNET, or * * call 502-588-7289 (office) or 502-245-0319 (home) * ******************************************************* From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: German address Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 01:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1436 (1631) I wish I could get information concerning a german organisation (state or university run) accumulating regularly press documents in machine readable form directly from the press companies. Has any one data on this initiative. Thanks in advance. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0623 Nietzsche Etexts (from Malcolm Brown) (1/33) Date: 23 Oct 90 23:59:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1437 (1632) In the absence of copyright permission, does it violate the author's and/or publisher's rights to provide facilities to others to do word searches via TELNET from remote locations? From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Query: Authorware academic Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 10:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1438 (1633) I'm interested in anyone's opinion of/experiences with Authorware Academic, especially in comparison with Hypercard. Authorware is the successor to Course of Action, a pre-Hypercard course and application builder. The company is offering my institution a fairly cheap (relative to the cost of one copy of the product) unlimited site license. The academic version seems to have had a number of interesting features pruned out, such as color, sound, and animation. I'm also a little skeptical that it provides more features and/or ease of use than Hypercard for creating courseware relative to the amount of time necessary to learn how to use it, but it's hard to evaluate based solely on my experiences with the predecessor product and a few magazine reviews. Please reply to me directly and I'll summarize back to the list. If there's interest, I can also publish details of the site licensing offer. Thanks - Matt ------------ Matthew Wall wall@campus.swarthmore.edu wall@swarthmr Humanities Computing Coordinator Swarthmore College From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Business Ethics texts Date: 23 Oct 90 13:20:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1439 (1634) How could one overlook _Bonfire of the Vanities_? There are all sorts of ethical problems to consider in that one! From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA Subject: Quebec and Taxes Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 20:47:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1440 (1635) Last time I checked, Quebec was still part of Canada -- though who knows for how much longer. (Sorry, we're a bit touchy on that subject up here.) As to the question: provinces have the right to levy their own sales tax. Quebec's tax is roughly the same as elsewhere in Canada, around 8%. But you can avoid it if you buy and have your purchase delivered out of province. A Brook From: A0234@AppleLink.Apple.COM (UC Berkeley, Grycz,AUC) Subject: Gender Free Language Bibliog Date: 24 Oct 90 19:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1441 (1636) You may be interested in the AAUP Gender-Free committee. That committee has already published a bibliography on gender-free and non-sexist languages. You can get more information by writing: Marilyn Schwartz Managing Editor University of California Press 2120 Berkeley Way Berkeley, California 94720 She is, alas, not on the network, but I would be happy to forward any postings relating to this topic to her. Chet Grycz From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Subject: Re: 4.0625 Qs: Nonsexist Usage; Kate Barlass; Taxes (3/54) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 1990 20:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1442 (1637) My current reference on nonsexist usage is _Language, Gender, and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage_, by Francine Wattman Frank and Paula A. Treichler (NY: MLA, 1989). It includes about 40 pages of bibliography and suggestions for further reading. I recommend it highly. Alan Cooper Hebrew Union College From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Aaaargh! Yet Another Editorial Goof: OXARCHIV (!) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 07:52:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 635 (1638) Correction to yesterday's posting on the OTA short list files: The file names of the Oxford Text Archive short list files are OXARCHIV SHRTLIST OXARCHIV FORMATED There is no final 'E' in the file names -- LISTSERV must observe the 8 character IBM limit. (Renear slyly attempts to implicate an innocent computer manufacturer) -- Allen From: Lloyd Gerson <GERSON@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0632 Q: Analysis of Style, Attribution of Authorship Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 09:07:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1443 (1639) In reply to the question concerning stylistic analysis of texts for the purpose of author attribution, I can recommend very highly a book by G. R. Ledger titl ed Re-Counting Plato. A Computer Analysis of Plato's Style. In this book the a uthor explains in great detail the method of mutivariate stylistic analysis whi ch I believe is portable to texts in languages other than Greek, making the app ropriate adjustments of course. The book was published in 1989 by OUP. From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0632 Q: Analysis of Style, Attribution of Authorship (1/18) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 00:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1444 (1640) Just a suggestion would be to read an article by E. Irizarry, 1989, 227-233, Chum 23 (3) which deals with similar subjects. Oakman's book also has a section on authorship attribution. (Computer Methods for Literary Research, University of South Carolina Press, 1980 (1st ed.) Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Bill Kupersmith <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: SHIPWRECK TOPOS Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 09:34 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1445 (1641) In John Dryden's _Threnodia Augustalis_(1685), a funeral elegy on the death of Charles II, Dryden writes of the fruitless attempts of the king's physicians to save Charles' life: Like helpless friends, who view from shoar The labouring Ship, and hear the tempest roar, So stood they with their arms across; Not to assist, to to deplore Th' inevitable loss. (lines 192-95) This looks like a classical topos to me, but does anybody know a passage in Greek or Latin literature where an ineffectual bystander is compared to a person safe ashore viewing a shipwreck? --Bill Kupersmith University of Iowa From: BILL HOOK <HOOKWJ00@vuctrvax> Subject: RE: 4.0631 CETEDOC Electronic Text Library (1/85) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 07:59 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1446 (1642) These new products sound most interesting. Recognizing that they are both in the pre-release stages, did CETEDOC give any indication of price for these CD-ROMS? Bill Hook Divinity Library Vanderbilt University From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Writing assessment Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 16:21:46 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1447 (1643) My thanks to one and all for speedy and generous responses to my most recent query regarding business ethics texts. For better or for worse, my colleagues are becoming more and more intrigued by this use of BITNET and HUMANIST -- and so I'm becoming something of a communications flunky for especially the humanities faculty. That said, if it will not strain anyone's patience -- another query: The Director of our Writing Center is looking for a consultant or consultancy service operating through an academic institution to provide some guidance and advice regarding external assessment of student writing. She has developed a model of "longitudinal" assessment -- i.e., one which tracks student writing through their several years here, and she would like to expand her knowledge and approach regarding assessment of this sort. Relatedly, can anyone recommend a list which deals specifically with writing across the curriculum issues and writing assessment? Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0626 Networks and Lists (5/140) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 01:26 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1448 (1644) The method of examining an archive to determine list quality won't work under these conditions: a) if the list is sporadically active; b) if (like WORDS-L) the list is not archived. If your institution provides access to USENET or NETNEWS, you may be able to look at lists without subscribing. That's another approach. -- Kevin Berland From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Strange Internet Messages Date: 24 Oct 90 19:21:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1449 (1645) Is anyone else getting "test"messages via Internet from Tuebingen? Or are they all coming to my mailbox? Any explanations? George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Grotius project Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 08:31:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1450 (1646) Does anyone out there know if the Grotius project at the Royal Dutch Academy is reachable by e-mail? If, so, I would be grateful for the address. Thanks in advance. Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> From: Amaury da Gama Bentes <COL01001@UFRJ> Subject: On Network Lists Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 16:41:28 BRA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1451 (1647) Has any of you heard about a Desktop Publishing (DTP) List ? I'd highly appreciate some information. I'm also interested in Urban Planning, Urbanism and Architecture Lists, Digests or Eletronic Newsletter. I know it is somewhat bothersome to spend some minutes typing to answer a stranger's request. But believe me, it's very important to me. After all, we belong to the same Humanist brotherhood... Amaury Bentes IPPUR/UFRJ Rio de Janeiro E_Mail : Col01001@UFRJ.bitnet From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0634 Rs: Bus. Ethics fiction Date: 25 Oct 90 09:54:59 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 639 (1648) David Lodge, _Nice Work_ Thomas Mann, _Buddenbrooks_ From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Style and authorship Date: 27 Oct 90 11:4:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1452 (1649) The use of statistics and stylistics in relation to authorship has frequently been applied to the Bible. The following studies are worth checking out (there are, of course, many many more): Francis I. ANDERSEN, _Style and Authorship_. Tyndale Paper 21/2. Melbourne: Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Studies in Australia, 1976. pp.44. Anthony KENNY, _A Stylometric Study of the New Testament_. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. pp. 127. S. L. PORTNOY and D. L. PETERSEN, "Biblical Texts and Statistical Analysis: Zechariah and Beyond", _Journal of Biblical Literature_ 103 (1984) 11-21. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0636 Rs: Stylistic Analysis/Authorship Attribution Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 13:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1453 (1650) There's a chapter on computer analysis/authorship attribution of Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech by Steve Olsen in T. Benson, ed., AMERICAN RHETORIC: CONTEXT AND CRITICISM (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1989). Did Patrick Henry deliver a "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Speech"? Almost certainly. Did he write/speak the text that has come down to us? Probably not, says Olsen. Tom Benson Penn State From: nsmith@polar.bowdoin.edu (Neel Smith) Subject: Chinese KWIC Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 11:46:38 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1454 (1651) A colleague with an extensive Chinese manuscript produced on a Mac (I'm not sure what text editor) asks if there is any off-the-shelf software that would let him generate a keyword-in-context index of selected terms. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance. From: 1ECHAD @ UTSA86.SA.UTEXAS.EDU (Helen Aristar-Dry) Subject: RE: 4.0636 Rs: Stylistic Analysis/Authorship Attribution (2/27) Date: Sat, 27 Oct 1990 8:57:32 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1455 (1652) No doubt I should know this but . . . what is Chum? Computers in the Humanities? Thanks, Helen Aristar-Dry From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: laptop telecommunication Date: 27 Oct 90 22:39:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1456 (1653) A colleague with a modem-equipped Zenith 286 laptop is traveling and has a puzzle. He wishes to use the modem to make a long-distance call to his home institution, to log in to the library. The question is how to make the phone call. Where he is staying, he can only make a long distance call by using his MCI credit card. To do that for voice phone, he has a three stage dialing process: first, a 1-800-###-#### number to get hooked up to MCI, then the number he is dialing (10 more digits), and only then his MCI credit card number (including a personal identification number, so totalling 14 more digits). In each case he must dial the number and wait for the appropriate beep. His modem software is Procomm. Is it possible to dial those three successive numbers? Would you dial one, wait an appropriate period, then issue another dial command (and would the modem obey?); then another fifteen seconds later? And how will the computer/modem react to the feedback it gets from the connections intended for a voice link after the first two numbers are dialed? It must be possible, but this one isn't in the manual. (Never mind why he has this complicated dialing scheme: it has something to do with a time-share resort in the Poconos where he is staying.) From: <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: Art, Computing, and Computer Ethics Date: Sat, 27 Oct 90 14:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 642 (1654) I recently posted the attached message on the computer ethics list ETHICS-L@MARIST. Since the message concerns questions of art, aesthetics and computing, I thought it would be appropriate also to post a copy here on HUMANIST: RC/C&S SAMPLE CASE NUMBER THREE The Research Center on Computing and Society at Southern Connecticut State University is in the process of developing sample cases in computer ethics. The long-term goal is to come up with very useful cases for ethical analysis, cases that can serve as excellent "paradigms" for teaching and learning computer ethics. To move in this direction, the Research Center is always on the lookout for sample cases that could be developed or refined into teaching paradigms. Anyone who knows (or cares to invent) such a case or scenerio is invited to post it on ETHICS-L@MARIST, or else send it to the following address: BYNUM@CTSTATEU.BITNET. The regular mailing address is Terrell Ward Bynum, Director Research Center on Computing and Society Southern Connecticut State University New Haven, CT 06515 USA Phone: (203) 397-4423 FAX: (203) 397-4207 Attached is RC/C&S Sample Case Number Three: RC/C&S SAMPLE CASE NUMBER THREE: Anne is a struggling young artist whose black and white pen-and-ink drawings have recently begun to attract the attention of respected art galleries. Her drawings include complex geometric shapes, imaginary animals of the sort one would find in fairy tales, and portraits of famous film personalities. After many unsuccessful tries at being exhibited, Anne finally is invited to show fifty of her drawings in a gallery, which arranges also to sell reproductions of her drawings. Computer enthusiast Andy buys a complete set of Anne's reproductions, and then he uses a high-quality scanner to enter all fifty of them into his computer. Using an image-processing program, Andy clips out sections of Anne's drawings, including whole geometric shapes, major parts of fantasy animals, partial faces from portraits, and so on. He calls this process "mining artistic nuggets." He then assembles his "nuggets" into interesting combinations, adds color here and there, and prints out hard copies on a sophisticated color printer. Andy publishes a book of his "nugget-works" with no mention of the source of his "nuggets." The book is popular and sells widely all around the world. As a result, Andy becomes famous and wealthy. When Anne happens to see some of Andy's works, she instantly recognizes her own work. She becomes furious and feels cheated. She angrily sues Andy and his publisher for copyright violations, and she demands that the book be taken off the market. QUESTIONS: Did Andy do anything unethical? If so, what was unethical about it? Why? If Andy's publisher knew in advance how Andy had produced his "nugget-works," did he do anything unethical by publishing them anyway? Did Andy or his publisher violate Anne's copyrights? Does Anne deserve a share of the profits on the book? Should she be listed as a co-creater of Andy's "nugget-works"? Are Andy's "nugget-works" works of art? Can he rightly claim to be an artist because he made them? Does the possibility of cutting, combining and distorting images in a computer create new copyright questions? Should new copyright rules, definitions and laws be developed to take account of these new "artistic" possibilities? From: "Pierre Hamel" <HAMEL@INRS-URB.UQuebec.CA> Subject: Social Science Lists Date: SAT, 27 Oct 90 18:40:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 643 (1655) Re: Social Sciences Electronic Discussion Groups There is a list of some Social Sciences lists available from: ListServ@UQuebec with this command: GET LISTES CIRCULAI RQSS And here are other lists designed for Quebec social sciences: * * RQSS * * Regroupement quebecois des sciences sociales * ** RQSS * *** / * **** _____ _____ _______ _____ ACSALF * ***** | | | / | | \--CAACSALF * ****** | | | / | | ADQ * ***** |_____| |____ / | | SCSE * *** |\ | / | | SQSP * *** ** | \ | / | | * * * ** | \ | / | | COMMUNIK * **** | \ |_____ /______ |_____| EDUC * ** LANGUES * *** Fonde en 1989 METHO * URBAREG * * * RQSS Regroupement quebecois des sciences sociales * * Ce repertoire est ouvert a quiconque s'interesse a la recherche * en sciences sociales qui se fait au Quebec et/ou sur le Quebec. * * La majorite sinon la totalite des messages sont rediges en francais. * * Este repertorio esta disponible a cualquiesra que se interesa * a la investigacion en ciencias sociales que se hace en Quebec * o sobre el Quebec. Deben saber que la mayoria sino la totalidad * de los mensajes estan redactados en frances. * * This list is open to anyone interested in social science research * in Quebec and/or about Quebec. * You should be aware of the fact that most if not all the communication * is in French. * * En plus de ce repertoire general, vous aimerez peut-etre * vous inscrire a l'un ou l'autre des repertoires disciplinaires suivants: * * ACSALF Association canadienne des sociologues et des anthropologues * de langue francaise * ADQ Association des demographes du Quebec * SCSE Societe canadienne de science economique * SQSP Societe quebecoise de science politique * * Par ailleurs, vous pouvez egalement vous inscrire * a un repertoire thematique: * * COMMUNIK Si les communications t'interessent (usagers, professeurs, * chercheurs et etudiants)... COMMUNIK * EDUC Chercheurs en education * LANGUES Enseignement du francais par ordinateur * METHO Groupe francophone d'echange et de discussion * sur les methodes quantitatives utilisees en sciences sociales * URBAREG Etudes urbaines et regionales * * Pour s'inscrire, il suffit d'envoyer * un message a l'adresse suivante: LISTSERV@UQUEBEC * * comprenant une seule ligne: SUB Repertoire Votre_prenom Votre_nom * * Apres un an d'existence, nos reseaux de messagerie electronique permettent deja d'atteindre rapidement et sans frais la plupart des institutions universitaires quebecoises de recherche en sciences sociales. En effet, on compte plus de 150 chercheurs quebecois repartis un peu partout dans le reseau universitaire. A ces Quebecois, s'additionnent pres d'une vingtaine de chercheurs bases en Acadie mais aussi dans des institutions canadiennes au moins partiellement francophones: Ottawa, Laurentienne, Faculte Saint-Jean et le College Glendon de York. A ceux-ci s'ajoutent une douzaine de chercheurs d'institutions canadiennes de meme qu'une quarantaine de chercheurs des Etats-Unis, du Mexique et de quelques pays europeens; ceux-ci, francophones ou du moins francophiles, partagent notre interet pour la recherche en sciences sociales qui se fait au Quebec et/ou sur le Quebec. En tout, il vous est donc deja possible de rejoindre directement plus de 250 chercheurs et meme plus de 300, si on ajoute ceux qui sont desservis par un facteur electronique. Aussi, lorsque vous entendez parler d'un congres allechant sous des cieux plus clements ou de toute autre gaterie de nature academique, votre premier reflexe devrait etre d'en communiquer la nouvelle ici. Il ne manque plus que vous ! "Abonnez-vous !" qu'il disait... "Vous vous ferez des contacts !" qu'il disait ... Pierre J. Hamel Institut national de la recherche scientifique INRS-Urbanisation HAMEL@INRS-URB.UQUEBEC.CA From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0638 Qs & Rs: Lists; Grotius Project Address... (4/48) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 12:18:01 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1457 (1656) In regard to Amaury Bentes' request for a DTP list, try the USENET comp.text.dtp news group. This would be available through a readnews function on a subscribing Unix system. From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: DTP list Date: Sat, 27 Oct 90 08:47:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1458 (1657) To the question on Humanist (26 Oct) there is a Bitnet list devoted to desktop publishing. It is PAGEMAKR@INDYCMS; standard listserv commands apply. Good list; lots of knowledgeable and helpful people. ------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: 1ECHAD @ UTSA86.SA.UTEXAS.EDU (Helen Aristar-Dry) Subject: Business Ethics Fiction Date: Sat, 27 Oct 1990 9:03:11 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1459 (1658) Yes, it's mammoth; but the best book in the world on vocation and one's relation to it is, I think, _Middlemarch_. Actually, my (very unsophisticated) juniors here in Texas love it once they get into it. Helen Aristar-Dry From: Hans Rollmann (hans@kean) Subject: Is there any List on Communicative Competence in Foreign Date: 27 Oct. 1990 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1460 (1659) Language Learning? This query is circulated for Marcella Rollmann (hans@kean), Department of German and Russian, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Is there a list that deals with COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE in Modern Language Learning? Any info is appreciated. Also, what lists do exist in the area of EDUCATION? Please send replies to HANS@KEAN. Thanks. From: MHAYRYNEN@FINFUN.BITNET Subject: Inquiry on urban park history & landscape studies Date: Sat, 27 Oct 90 16:28 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1461 (1660) Hello! I would like to get into contact with people studying garden history and/or landscape history. Does anybody know about E-mail lists dealing with these topics? I would also welcome information on more recent publications concerning the history of urban parks and green areas and the history, evaluation and protection of landscapes. Maunu Hayrynen Helsinki University of Technology Institute of landscape architecture Otakaari 1 02150 ESPOO Finland E-mail: MHAYRYNE@FINFUN.BITNET OR mhayrynen@opmvax.csc.fi From: Editors of PmC <PMC@NCSUVM> Subject: Call for papers Date: Sat, 27 Oct 90 10:25:36 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 646 (1661) A CALL FOR PAPERS POSTMODERN CULTURE: AN ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY CRITICISM Editors: Eyal Amiran Elaine Orr John Unsworth _Postmodern Culture_ invites the Editorial Board: submission of works in progress, book reviews, scripts, fiction, and essays Kathy Acker on: Sharon Bassett Michael Berube Children's culture (including brief Marc Chenetier essays by young children) Greg Dawes Feminism and postmodernism R. Serge Denisoff New fiction and poetry Robert Detweiler Plagiarism Jim English Popular Culture Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Prestige Joe Gomez Postmodern iconography Robert Hodge Race and postmodernism bell hooks Reproduction & the family Susan Howe Re-reading the Frankfurt school E. Ann Kaplan Technology and Gender Neil Larsen Violence Jerome J. McGann Larysa Mykyta Send submissions by electronic mail to Chimalum Nwankwo Bitnet: PMC@NCSUVM Phil Novak Internet: PMC@NCSUVM.NCSU.EDU Patrick O'Donnell Susan Ohmer Hard copy and disk submissions are also John Paine welcome, and should be mailed to: Marjorie Perloff Mark Poster Postmodern Culture Carl Raschke Box 5657 Mike Reynolds Raleigh, NC 27650 Avital Ronell Andrew Ross Disk submission should be in ASCII text Jorge Ruffinelli or in WordPerfect; if this is not Susan M. Schultz possible, please indicate the operating William Spanos system and word-processing program used. Tony Stewart Hard copy should be accompanied by SASE Chris Straayer for return of manuscript. Greg Ulmer From: IRLUR@UCCMVSA.BITNET Subject: IRLIST Digest, Vol. VII, No. 30, Issue 35 Date: Mon, 8 Oct 90 10:57:09 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 647 (1662) IRLIST Digest October 8, 1990 Volume VII Number 30 Issue 35 ********************************************************** I. NOTICES A. Meetings announcements/Calls for papers 1. RIAO '91: Intelligent Text and Image Handling April 2-5, 1991 Autonoma University of Barcelona, Spain 2. British Computer Society 13th Research Colloquium on Information Retrieval April 8-9, 1991 Lancaster University, England ********************************************************** I. NOTICES I.A.1. Fr: G. Peschke <usergepe%ualtamts.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Re: RIAO '91: Intelligent Text and Image Handling April 2-5, 1991 Autonoma University of Barcelona, Spain CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline: October 30, 1990) organized by C.I.D and CASIS (Co Mrs Maurice 220 East 72nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10021 Tel. 212 879 40 19 - Fax 212 685 81 86) Themes: A- Linguistic analysis for automatic text treatment A1- Automatic indexation A2- Automatic Abstracts A3- Natural Language Interrogation A4- Multilingual Interface. B- Construction and utilisation of large linguistic Knowledge bases (electronic dictionaries, thesaurus, belingual dictionaries) C- Confidentiality in Information retrieval systems D- Multilingual interrrogation and computer assisted translation E- Automatic extraction of factual information from full text F- User Interfaces and ergonomy of information research systems G- Artificial Intelligence for user aid, and for personalizing system H- Intelligent navigational aids and automatic data structuring in hypertexts and hypermedia. I- Neural nets for computer aided information research J- Data entry systems (OCR, automatic structure recognition, document preparation, norms ...) K- New applications (the last conference "RIAO 88" took place in M.I.T. Cambridge Ma. USA in March 88) ********** I.A.2. Fr: Tony McEnery <mcenery@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Re: British Computer Society 13th Research Colloquium on Information Retrieval April 8-9, 1991 Lancaster University, England Papers are invited in all areas of information retrieval research, e.g. language processing, design, implementation, evaluation, integration, indexing, searching, intelligent front-ends, hci, hypermedia, user modeling, investigation, economics etc. The colloquium is designed to give an informal and relaxed atmosphere in which current research can be assessed, discussed and evaluated. As always, the colloquium encourages research students and staff to present their work in a forum they may find particularly suitable. People wishing to present a paper should submit a title and abstract by surface or electronic mail, by 9th March 1991, to : Tony McEnery, UCREL Unit, Department Of Computing, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YR. ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send subscription requests to: LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET Send submissions to IRLIST to: IR-L@UCCVMA.BITNET Editorial Staff: Clifford Lynch lynch@postgres.berkeley.edu calur@uccmvsa.bitnet Mary Engle engle@cmsa.berkeley.edu meeur@uccmvsa.bitnet Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.bitnet The IRLIST Archives will be set up for anonymous FTP, and the address will be announced in future issues. These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Mary Engle or Nancy Gusack for more information on IRLIST. The opinions expressed in IRLIST do not represent those of the editors or the University of California. Authors assume full responsibility for the contents of their submissions to IRLIST. From: "ALAN C. BOWEN" <ACBOWEN@pittvms> Subject: ircps description Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 10:56 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1462 (1663) The Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science is a non-profit educational corporation established in late 1983 by a group of educators and scholars at various academic institutions in Canada, Europe, and the United States. Its primary purpose is to enhance higher education and to promote research in both the sciences and the humanities, by supporting scholarly study concerning the history of the interaction between science and its humanistic interpretation in the various societies and language groups constituting western culture. In general, the Institute supports scholarly research in classical philosophy and science up to the seventeenth century, which marks the beginning of the modern era. To meet this goal the Institute facilitates the dissemination of research and promotes cooperation between scholars in those disciplines that traditionally touch on these subjects. Thus, in addition to sponsoring international conferences and other forms of scholarly communication, the Institute has established a program of publication that includes bibliographies, translations, monographs, and thematic collections of essays. Please direct requests for further information and queries about specific proposals to: Dr. Alan C. Bowen, Director Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science 1314 Browning Road Pittsburgh, PA 15206-1736, USA tel: (412) 362-3572 BITNET acbowen@pittvms INTERNET acbowen@vms.cis.pitt.edu From: "ALAN C. BOWEN" <ACBOWEN@pittvms> Subject: ircps publication series Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 10:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1463 (1664) The Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science and Garland Publishing Inc., are pleased to announce a new series, Sources and Studies in the History and Philosophy of Classical Science. This series (which is divided into Sources and Studies) focuses on the classical sciences (e.g., mathematics, astronomy, harmonics, optics, mechanics) in Western and Near Eastern culture from antiquity to the 1700's, the time of Newton and the beginning of the modern era. Its aim is to make fundamental texts in the history of the classical sciences accessible to the modern reader, by means of translations and interpretations that satisfy the requirements of specialists but still address the needs of non-specialists and general readers. Thus, the Sources will contain editions of scientific treatises informing, belonging to, or deriving from the classical tradition. There will also be translations of these texts into English with general introductions and philological/technical commentaries, as well as annotated bibliographies and lexica. The Studies will present the latest results of research and interpretation in analyzing these works, their place in their contemporary intellectual culture, and their impact on subsequent philosophical and scientific thinking. This new series is intended for readers who have a professional or a general interest in the history and philosophy of science in the Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds and their legacy until the modern era, as well as in intellectual history, and philology. Series Editors Alan C. Bowen IRCPS and University of Pittsburgh Francesca Rochberg-Halton University of Notre Dame Advisory Board Andrew D. Barker University of Warwick (U. K.) Bruce S. Eastwood University of Kentucky Bernard R. Goldstein University of Pittsburgh David E. Hahm Ohio State University K. Peder Moesgaard University of Aarhus (Denmark) Noel M. Swerdlow University of Chicago Scholars are invited to submit proposals and manuscripts to: Series Editors Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science 1314 Browning Road Pittsburgh, PA 15206ț1736, USA For information about purchases and subscriptions, please contact: Garland Publishing Inc. 136 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 tel (212) 686-7492 fax (212) 889-9399 From: TFGREEN@SUVM Subject: The canonical process Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 12:35:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 649 (1665) How would one give an "educational" (not historical) description of "the canonical process?" I raise this question because I am working on a book attempting to characterize education in communities of text and liturgy. The model is, of course, education to and in religious congregations. But it is not limited to that, since constitutions are also texts and have their commentary perhaps even parallel to Talmud and Midrash. And constitutional communities also have their liturgies. (What did we do when a Presidential innaguration -- constitutionally dated -- fell on "Super-Bowl Sunday? Was this a conflict of two public liturgies?) A central question is how it happens that texts, so broadly understood, come to have authority. By a community of text, I mean to refer to one that is defined by a text (body of texts), its reading and announcement, like a congregation. If we distinguish between the readings of "insider" and "outsider," then the question as to how the texts gain authority is the question as to how the reading of the outsider becomes a reading of the insider. This requires, even in the case of Biblical texts, not an historical account of how the canon came to be formed, but a pedagogical account of how certain books can come to be "the books" for a reader. What must happen in order for this transformation to occur? That is what I mean by "the canonical process," the process by which texts gain authority. Something like this happens in academic studies. No student of philosophy, for example, can claim familiarity with the problems of epistemology and remain unacquainted by the writings of DesCartes, Hume, Wittgenstein etc. At the beginning, a student might be given a bibliography of "primary texts." The question "How did the canon get formed?" might be asked at the beginning of the bibliographer. But how does it happen that these works called authoritative by someone at the beginning have become authoritative for the student at the end. It is this question "at the end" that points to what I mean by the canonical process. Who has ideas about how this process can be described? What does its occurence require? Tom Green -- Syracuse University From: Sergei.Nirenburg@NL.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: MT Summit III announcement Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 09:27:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 650 (1666) _______________________________________________________________________ MT SUMMIT III _______________________________________________________________________ In order to be prepared for the fast evolving global markets of the twenty first century where language will be a major barrier for trade, considerable attention is being focused on Machine Translation (MT) technology. The objective of MT Summits is to bring together governmental policy makers, scientists and engineers developing MT technology, and potential users of the MT systems. The first two MT Summits, held in Hakone, JAPAN, in 1987 and in Munich, West Germany in 1989 were very successful. MT Summit III is the third in this series of international conferences. It will bring together representatives from academia, industry and government interested in promoting research, development and deployment of machine translation and machine-aided translation technology. The conference will feature policy debates, scholarly presentations and demonstrations of machine translation-related software. The conference will be preceded by a full day of EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS and TUTORIALS on various aspects of machine translation research, development and policy. MT Summit III will be held on July 2 - 4, 1991 at The Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C. The organizing committee: Jaime Carbonell, General Chair Sergei Nirenburg, Program Chair Masaru Tomita, Demonstrations Chair Muriel Vasconcellos, Local Arrangements Chair, D. Radha Rao, Business Affairs CALL FOR PAPERS Contributions are solicited on all aspects of machine tranlsation theory, methodology, technology and implemented systems. The contributions must be original and report primarily on results, not work in progress or projects contemplated. Relative preference will be given to those contributions which will include a live or videotaped demonstration of a system or a component described in the presentation. Submissions can be up to 2,000 words in length, excluding references. The title page must include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses (if possible, including electronic mail addresses) and a short abstract. Please send FIVE copies of your submission to Sergei Nirenburg Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. DEMONSTRATIONS Please indicate whether you intend to show a live or videotaped demonstration (see the attached Preliminary Registration Form), including its length and any special equipment requirement. If you plan to organize a software demonstration, please contact Masaru Tomita Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. Important Dates: Submissions must be received on or before January 14, 1991. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by April 6, 1991. Final versions of the papers will be due on May 13, 1991. General inquiries about MT Summit III please address to MT Summit III Organizing Committee Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. Electronic mail: mtsummit@cs.cmu.edu (arpanet) Telefax: (412) 268 6298 Telephone (412) 268 6591 From: Subject: Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1464 (1667) Preliminary Registration Form NOTE: Please return this form if you wish to receive further information on MT SUMMIT III Name: __________________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Telephone: _________________________ Fax: ________________________ Electronic Mail: _________________________________________________ < > I plan to attend MT Summit III < > I plan to attend tutorials and/or Executive Briefings < > I would like to be an exhibitor < > I would like to receive further information on the MT Summit III From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: CD-ROM standards? Date: Sun, 28 Oct 90 17:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1465 (1668) There is much talk these days about CD-ROM for electronic dictionary, etc. Are there standards or different types or sizes of CD-ROM; are there families of CD-ROM drives? Do they come with a CD-ROM disk drive? Do we plug them on a serial or parallel port? Are there different speed or access time? Are there european and north american standards? What are the good brands? what is a normal retail price? Literature on the subject written by a HUMANIST who could send us a file of his/her text? Are external and internal drives? Has any one any bad or positive experience to tell us about CD-ROM? Brands that we shouldn't buy? Standards that are not that standard? Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0641 Qs: Chinese KWIC; CHUM; Procomm (3/44) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 12:14 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1466 (1669) To N smith re Chinese KWIK: Would you kindly inform Kessler if the chinese Characters wre produced on a Mac, and if so? how? with what software, etc.? Or is it all written in English? Kessler: IME9JFK@UCLAMVS Thanks in advance. From: vyc@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Alan T. McKenzie) Subject: taste Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 13:35:22 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1467 (1670) I have proposed a graduate seminar in theories of taste from Addison to Bourdieu for next semester. Part of the description is as follows: The seminar will consider the aesthetics and politics of taste in conjunction with the certainties of the neo- classicists, the desires of the Romantics, the pieties of the Victorians, the doubts of the moderns, and the dismissals of the post-structuralists. We will work with central texts by Addison, Burke, Hume, Coleridge, Arnold, Eliot, Hernstein Smith, and Bourdieu. Members of the seminar will explore other primary texts of their own choosing and as many secondary texts as they find convenient. I will be grateful to any HUMANISTS who send me references to out-of-the-way materials, primary or secondary, and well- considered thoughts or hunches, their own or those of others, on the topic. Some of the things I have begun to wonder about: Is taste separable from specific commodities or performances? Is there invariably an element of class in it? Are all analogies to it physiological? Send brief comments of general interest via HUMANIST; send long documents, diatribes, and trivia via Internet to: vyc@mace.cc.purdue.edu Many thanks. Alan T. McKenzie English, Purdue From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: new word, please Date: Sun, 28 Oct 90 23:23:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1468 (1671) I need a word, which I suspect someone cleverer than I will have to coin, that denotes the pathological need for information -- what to hunger is gluttony, what to sexual desire is lust. `Infomange' is the best I have been able to come up with, but (I need not say it) that's rather poor. I want the word to suggest not an amoral force that gets one into trouble within the limits of society, rather an imaginative failure or intellectual cowardice. I am trying to understand "information overload" and am supposing that one cause could be this pathological need. The term should be obvious enough not to require recondite knowledge, or what passes for it. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Willard McCarty From: <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: Shipwreck Topos Date: 28 Oct 1990 8:34 AM CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1469 (1672) Many thanks to W. McCarthy, Alan McKenzie, Lawrence Stepelevich, and Peter Cosgrove for helpful advice on the shipwreck topos in Dryden's _Threnodia Augustalis._ I'm sure Cosgrove's suggestion of Lucretius _De rerum natura_ 2. 1-4 as the proximate source for Dryden is correct, as he had just published his translation of the beginning of Lucretius second book in _Sylvae._ It's annoying to realize that I had the source right under my nose, but then the editors of vol. 3 of the California editon of Dryden didn't realize that either. I've little doubt Hume and Hegel were recalling the same passage; Lucretius is surely the sort of author Hume would have liked. As some recompense, let me offer one other example from the Restoration period, the opening stanzas of Lord Rochester's "The Disabled Debauchee," where the impotent rake is compared to a retired admiral observing a sea battle from ashore, probably picking up on Lucretius' "suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri" (2. 6). Many thanks, --Bill Kupersmith, University of Iowa -------------------------------------------------------------------- [The responses referred to are in recent postings to C18-L@PSUVM, a list for 18th century studies. -- Allen] From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0645 Lists?: Park/Landscape Studies; Language Teaching Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 14:36:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1470 (1673) Re: Parks/Landscape Architecture Charles C. McLaughlin and Charles E. Beveridge are editing the papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, one of the best known 19th US landscape architects. They have published at least four volumes of Olmsted's letters and they have organized an association which studies the public parks designed by Olmsted. I suspect that neither has an E-Mail address. McLaughlin's mailing address is 6702 Maple Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: CHum; authorship Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 10:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1471 (1674) Regarding a recent query by Helen Aristar-Dry, yes, CHum does stand for "Computers and the Humanities" (it's our official abbreviation). Many of the recent issues have included articles on authorship and stylometry. Those interested in a timely collection of essays dealing with literary computing (stylometry, authorship attribution to a lesser extent, computational thematics, stylo-statistics, etc.) might like _Literary Computing and Literary Criticism. Theoretical and Practical Essays on Theme and Rhetoric_, ed. Rosanne G. Potter, U. Penn, 1989. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Regarding a recent query by Helen Aristar-Dry, yes, _CHum_ doesAssistant Editor, _CHum_ From: "Susan R. Harris" <USERW080@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: On Network Lists Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 13:15:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1472 (1675) In response to da Gama Bentes' request for information about electronic newsletters: people may want to subscribe to CCNEWS, a bulletin board/mailing list for newsletter editors that is managed by EDUCOM. CCNEWS provides an archive of several hundred articles from newsletters around the country. (Note that I've only checked a few, and found only one that could be adapted for my own newsletter.) To subscribe, send a message to CCNEWS@BITNIC.BITNET . Susan R. Harris, University of Michigan From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: re: 4.0641 Qs: Chinese KWIC; CHUM; Procomm (3/44) Date: 29 Oct 90 13:30:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1473 (1676) Concerning modem hookups via an MCI card: It's possible to space out the numbers dialed using Hayes dialling commands. Inserting a comma between numbers causes a two-second pause. I believe there is also a character that waits for a beep, but I can't remember which one. Anyway, he should figure out about how long it takes for a beep to respond; if it's around six seconds for the first and four for the second, he should type: ATDT <MCI connect number>,,,<number of modem>,,<credit card number> Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0641 Qs: Chinese KWIC; CHUM; Procomm (3/44) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 17:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1474 (1677) If you have a look at the back cover of any CHum you will read that the accepted abbreviation for Computers and the Humanities is indeed CHum. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Procomm allows you to have several digits or blocs of digits in the dialed number. You can even have a connecting scenario which you can save in a file which is automatically used when dialing a particular number. Procomm is menu-driven so that it shouldn't be too difficult. Michel Lenoble E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: MMAC@vax.oxford.ac.uk (The_Edible_Dormouse) Subject: Newsfeed data follows Date: 29 Oct 90 00:30:05 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 655 (1678) This is an exerpt from a leaving speech given by Judith Proud of Oxford University Computing Service: Lou Burnard, private TeX, had to think of something fast. The Boolean operators were coming to get him. They were logical operators, and if they got their hands on his cluster, there'd be no basis left for negotiation. He thought of Janet, and his steely gaze softened momentarily -- maybe she wasn't Word Perfect, but at least she was Write Now. The door of the Pad swung open and a rasping voice with a slight Lisp could be heard from the hallway. "You ain't got a Snobol's chance in Hell, Burnard. When Vi and the Crays hear about your dossing around with Eva and Ada the Sun ain't goona shine for you no more, you'll be eating Worms. This is just the Prologue Chum -- when we get our hands on your front end, you'll be hitting high 'C'. Get wise quick Pal if you don't wanna end up one of them Unix. And remember -- you ain't got the Ghost of a chance." Just then, he got an idea, -- it was a Simpleplot, but it might just work ... -- Edited by Brad Templeton [...-eds] From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: CD-ROM Standard Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 08:54:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1475 (1679) Paul Hoffman (sorry, no E-Mail address given) has just written "CD-ROM In Business: Hype vs. Reality" in _MicroTimes_, Oct. 29, 1990; #75 (distributed in northern California). While it does not address all the questions raised, the article does point out a few things that are relevant: 1. Apparently, all CD-ROMs are "not slow, they're glacial. Molasses in winter. Snails on Valium". 2. Most CD-ROMs are either Mac or DOS compatible. Very few disks can be read by both types of machines. "This is not due to any technical problem: the drives and system software for both platforms can read disks that are formatted to the international standard". 3. CD-ROM players are available for about $600 (US). MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: <HARDERR@CLARGRAD> Subject: RE: 4.0651 Qs: CD-ROM Standards; Chinese KWIC Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 22:05 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1476 (1680) Please be aware that Apple distributes a Chinese Operating system for the Mac. It can be obtained from the Apple Programmer's and Developer's Association (APDA) # 1-800-282-2732. It does not have KWIC features built-in, but since Fonts are handled at the OS level on a Mac (as it should be, if only Apple had done it right! When will linguists start writing programs for linguists, so they don't have to be at the mercy of programmers) any standard KWIC algorithm should work. If that doesn't work, try HyperCard. Writing KWIC for foreign languages is quite easy. HyperCard is extremely flexible, and having a complete programming language built-in, can be used on virtually any problem. I have done concordances for specific corpora for Syriac, Greek, Aramaic, and Coptic. Chinese should not be any big deal. The problem's difficulty depends on how the text has been formatted with his editor. If He/She has saved teh files in some kind of consistent ASCII format (Or something that can be translated into ASCII) this should be a matter of a week or two's workl at the most for someone who has a knwoledge of HyperTalk. Send me a voice Phone number if you need help (No I am not illiterate!, I just type with a lisp!). Ray Harder 818-969-3434 drop me E-mail a Phone number and I'll call you if you wish! From: BREWERJ@UNCG.BITNET Subject: Procomm Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 08:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1477 (1681) Procomm has an option of using long distance codes in the dialing directory. You can type the service codes in the program as a long distance code. The four codes are used when you select the number to dial. For example, one of the code symbols is #. I typed my telephone service number, my access number and the commas needed for pauses to allow connection. To dial the number, I type #1919<university computer number> (Actually the 1919<university computer number> is listed in my dialing directory as the third entry; all I must type is #3.) The program acually dials <service number>,,,,<access number>,,1919<university computer number> Each comma represents a two second pause. I use this feature regularly, because when I call the campus computer from home, it is a long distance call. Also this system allows me to call through the service, as shown above, or to call without the service. I make the choice by using or not using the #. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0654 Rs: CHum & authorship; Hayes/Procomm; Lists (4/66) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 12:09 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1478 (1682) I had always understood that the comma insert between numbers, which I use for the Sprint accounting code system, was worth a second a comma, not two seconds. It is tricky when faxing to Europe, since I need there 6-7 seconds before the automatic twodigit code that tells my billing server who in this family is dial ling longdistance (for tax purposes) I would suppose that the 1 second comma is a standard, or so my computer son tells me. Try it that way first, is my advic e. Kessler From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: Re: 4.0641 Qs: Chinese KWIC; CHUM; Procomm (3/44) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 1990 9:34:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1479 (1683) The suggestions for using an MCI card for laptop communication with a mainframe have been very helpful, but they have not deal with the issue of unpredictable response time. When I dial the mainframe at SU from my home, I may have to wait as long as 45 seconds before I get either a connection or a busy signal. How does one program a variable wait? And assuming that I got a busy signal, how do redial without breaking the MCI connection and thus incurring a second charge if I am calling from a hotel somewhere? Ah, such trivial but vexing questions. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: re: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice (2/54) Date: 29 Oct 90 23:00:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1480 (1684) Re: new word, please The best termI I've heard to describe what you said is "news junkie," although that's a mite informal. So is the only other term I can come up with, infoholic. Perhaps something can be done with word play; I find the word "videot" (or "vidiot, " depending on whose spelling you use) to be very useful. Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication From: WIEBEM@QUCDN Subject: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice (2/54) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 23:15-0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1481 (1685) *** Reply to note of 10/29/90 23:06 How about "info-addiction" as a term for Willard's vice? Mel Wiebe, Queen's U, Kingston, Canada From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice (2/54) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 00:41:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1482 (1686) Does Willar suffer from infomania or is he a dataphiliac? Stay tuned. From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 07:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1483 (1687) Re, word for a vice. This is not the word you're looking for, but is related to it. Some time ago I saw "intellectualepsy" or something similar (I even wrote it down, with definition, but cannot seem to find it). Perhaps info-epsy would indicate periodic attacks of desire for knowledge? Leslie Morgan From: HANS ROLLMANN (hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca) Subject: RE: New Word Date: 30 Oct 90 05:43 -0330 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1484 (1688) HANS ROLLMANN. From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Willard's search for a word Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 10:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1485 (1689) How about INFOMANIA? Peter D. Junger CWRU Law School, Cleveland, Ohio BITNET: JUNGER@CWRU INTERNET: JUNGER@CWRU.CWRU.EDU (or PDJ2@PO.CWRU.EDU) From: ANDREWO at UTOREPAS Subject: information overload and appetite Date: 30 October 90, 10:16:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1486 (1690) re: information overload and appetite How about infomania? From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice (2/54) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 12:06 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1487 (1691) Dear Willard: you are talking about the need for stimulation, a thing I have noticed began with the tv age, although we left radios on in the 40's too. The need is laid down early on, and the nervous system needs to be stimulated with media transmitted noise or anxiety sets in. I would think it a sort of Infodependency, or Info-addiction. Infocrave. Something to describe it medically. As in Info-fix...? Jascha K. From: Steve Condit <STEVEC@FHCRCVM> Subject: infomange Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 09:34:55 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1488 (1692) "infomange" forms an image in my mind of a mangy dog, no doubt my limit- ed vocabulary. I wonder it the pathological need for information is not for the information but for the anesthesia that too much information provides. And/or to provide the rational ("I need more information before . . .) for avoiding decision making, Responsibility, etc. Perhaps this new word should include echos of the themes of "control" and "addiction" that are so popular in US culture today, (Is this true in other high tech cultures?) and the notion of mindless greed disquised as rationality . . . From: <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: Follow-Up Message: RC/C&S Case Number Three Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 12:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 659 (1693) I recently posted the attached message on ETHICS-L@MARIST. Since it might interest some HUMANISTs, attach a copy here: In response to RC/C&S Computer Ethics Case Number Three, Genny Engel recently said: [deleted quotation] Oh, wouldn't life be wonderful if it were as neat and tidy as Genny's comment suggests? A lawyer friend of mine tells me that current copyright law does not necessarily cover the case, given the computer's capacity to cut, paste, enlarge, shrink, rotate, color, distort, etc. If part of one graphic work is larger, a different color, upside down and twisted, when compared to part of another graphic work, is one a COPY of the other? If not, then no copyright has been violated. If one clips only the right eye from a portrait--or only the lashes--changes the size, color, and orientation on the screen-- adds a line or two and a bit of distortion--places it in a wholly different context--has anyone's intellectual property been stolen? Has the copyright law been violated? This is just one more way in which the computer is forcing us to rethink our "traditional" notions of intellectual property. Some of the other ways are already familiar to those who follow the continuing controversies regarding ownership of software. For example, when one writes a new computer program, should he/she own the source program?--the object program?--the algorithm that a flowchart would capture? Should anyone own the "look and feel" of the program on the screen? Should one get "property rights" to such things through patents, copyrights, trade secrecy, new forms of "ownership"? From: stan kulikowski ii <SKULIKOW@UWF.BITNET> Subject: citing network sources Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 14:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 660 (1694) The subject of how to cite network sources has been discussed in the past on HUMANIST, so I thought I'd pass on this person's somewhat lengthy thoughts on the subject. Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ. N.H. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Received: from UMDD.BITNET by UWF.CC.UWF.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7742; Thu, 25 Oct 90 00:39:09 CST Received: by UMDD (Mailer R2.03B) id 4685; Thu, 25 Oct 90 01:42:27 EDT Date Thu, 25 Oct 90 01:40:05 EDT Reply-To EDTECH - Educational Technology <EDTECH@OHSTVMA.BITNET> Sender EDTECH - Educational Technology <EDTECH@OHSTVMA.BITNET> Subject network reference and publication To stan kulikowski ii <SKULIKOW@UWF.BITNET> network reference and publication stan kulikowski ii educational research and development center the university of west florida i have been asked several times now about how to reference electronic publications and information. i suspect (or hope) that kate turabian or the APA are working on this issue, but in the meantimes we all have graduate students pounding out tomes of sophistry which need to refer to our collections of networked electronic wisdom. i increasingly notice authors in hardcopy publications struggling with how to cite information found in the networks. let us help these folk out. those of us who use these channels of communication should be able to specify how to refer to what we publish and what information should be provided to gain archival access. my third edition of APA (1983) only provides nonprint examples for film, cassette recording, machine-readable data file, and computer program. here is the example for the last one: Fernandes, F. D. (1972) _Theoretical_prediction_of_interface_loading_ on_aircraft_stores:_Part_1._Subsonic_speeds_ ›Computer program|. Pomona, CA: General Dynamics, Electro Dynamics Division. (National Aeronautics and Space Administration Report No. NASA CR-112065-1; Acquisition No. LAR-11249) essentially this is the form given technical and research reports with the expression in brackets informing the readers it is a form of nonprint media. my turabian (1973) manual for writers does not even suggest nonprint reference, but i would suppose we could predict they would consider such to be correspondence and treated like personal communication in snail mail: Bloomington, In. Indiana University. Dead Teachers Society Discussion List. Anne Pemberton "How 'it happens" 10 October 1990. this seems inadequate. i suspect even the IU librarians might be puzzled over the above chicago-style reference. if you know this medium, you might be able to access the text above, but you have to supply network information that is obviously and systematically missing from these forms of reference. i think we can improve the quality of bibliographic referencing for electronic information. i would like to solicit your comments on the proper form and style in referencing networked material. networked discussions are a form of publication-- they are reproduced, distributed, and archived-- but in their style and effort they often seem more like correspondence (at present). this is like a form of leverage that electronic media has over papyrus-based technology. i would suggest that referencing to networked material seems to fall in between an article in periodicals and unpublished material. actual software (a program written in a computer language) is more like a book. the central idea in referencing is to give sufficient information so that a good librarian can get access to the text. we really can supply this for network communications if we give a little thought to the bibliographic style. all networked communication are dated. we can treat an email SUBJECT: as an article title (if a SUBJECT: line has been supplied). network digests are nice to have vol and issue numbers; but, lacking these, even an unmoderated mailing list is equivalent to the title of publication. the publisher corresponds to the email account address of the moderator or listserver-- this is required information in any attempt to access archival copies. the network name (when not included in the actual email address) is an equivalent for geographical name. here are some example references which i have used use for some of my electronic publications. EXAMPLES FOR HARDCOPY REFERENCING OF NETWORKED MATERIALS Stan Kulikowski II (1988) Readability Formula; NL-KR Digest vol 5 no 10; nl-kr@cs.rochestor.edu; INTERNET. Stan Kulikowski II (1988) Report on Transdimensional Mechanics; rec.arts.drwho; USENET. Stan Kulikowski II (1988) Computer Analysis of Readability; AI-ED Digest vol 4 no 1; aied@sun.com; ARPANET. Stan Kulikowski II (1987) Antiquity of AI; AIList Digest vol 5 no 12; ailist@sri-stripe.arpa; ARPANET. Stan Kulikowski II (1986) SCAN1: A Simple Introduction to Communication Prosthesis for People with Profound Physical Impairment; public domain software; MSDOS directory, DEC-MARLBORO BBS; Marlboro, MA. as you can see, i am a little puzzled about how to reference material in USENET news discussions, since they take such effort to hide the actual net addressing in their rn reader utility... i hope some you UNIX users will respectfully approach your system gurus and ask how they would reference networked material so someone could access an appropriate archive. you can use my report on transdimensional mechanics as an example. with a BITNET listserver, you would first email an INDEX request to the listserver address. if the moderator is not routinely archiving (oh, for shame), it should then be possible to email a request directly into the network discussion, asking if anyone has archives for the dates of the desired information. this is the path i would probably follow for most INTERNET discussions. in the USENET discussions, the actual networking addresses for the news groups is usually hidden from the readers. i believe this is an effort to control cross-posting and lower the bandwidth to the network, but it amounts to a reader disservice within the net and makes it difficult for those of us outside the net to follow or join in USENET news groups. please go see if UNIX gurus have a solution to the general access and referencing of their network discussions. if the UNIX gurus say they cannot do it, then puff yourself bravely up and announce that we can do this in the other *REAL* networks and it seems a shame to have USENET news as isolated as the discussions on COMPUSERVE or MCIMAIL... then run. the FROM: line of networked material contains an account address somewhere in the network-- that may represent the individual author or may represent some other agency. this is not information usually reported in hardcopy publication style manuals. it is equivalent to an author's home address, but in our media it is broadcast with the text, making personal reply possible. this is one of the advantages we have over hardcopy. when referencing for hardcopy publication omit this information, but when referencing for network publication, include author's return email address. this brings us to another property of networked publication where hardcopy be weak-- threads of discussion. most good reader software allows you to specify a SUBJECT: title and it will march you through an email archive, message by message. an author may wish to refer the readers to a series of documents which are connected by common SUBJECT: lines. rather than individually referencing a possibly long string documents with many authors and titles like "RE: re: Re: Re: Screw yourself, Sadam"-- we should be able to reference the initial SUBJECT: title and the following thread of messages which follow. here is how i would reference a thread of discussion pertaining to the apparently unique establishment of preagricultural fortifications (jericho's walls 1990) in the HISTORY net. here we are referring to a series of communications, not each of the unique authors, imbedded in a discussion on the origins of war, government, and agriculture. Jericho's Walls (1990) HISTORY LOG9008; listserv@FINHUTC.BITNET; (thread begins 27 Aug 90). from the above reference we can contact the listserver, request a SENDME from the discussion called HISTORY of the archive file LOG9008; and, (ouila) read the text referred to. (it seems that farming bringth war and tax...) well, that about exhausts my thoughts on the technical referencing of networked text. i have tried to provide examples from most of the major networks, but i would like to hear from people who frequent the minor networks. what do you need to access archival text from a BIXNET discussion area? how would i reference a discussion thread in, say, the borland paradox area of COMPUSERVE? are there concerns in nonINTERNET networks that we should recognize in establishing reference standards? i have given one example of information on a national BBS, is there other information commonly needed in accessing BBS which should be included in bibliographic style references? (i am assuming that a good researcher could get phone numbers, parity settings, etc from a BBS listing on SIMTEL20.) please circulate this message to any networks where discussion might contribute to our knowledge of a referencing standard. i feel this kind of concern is brought about as more professionals move into information media beyond paper. some of us need these forms to gain recognition of our work before jaundiced academic credential committees. the sooner we work out these conventions, the better for more advanced publication standards. at the international levels, we are still working with a 7-bit channel, but it is not too soon to be concerned about scholars for whom the network is the primary medium of access. DISTED (1989) students may have already been looking for reference help like this, and they can now find them started in the EDTECH archives (1990). stan REFERENCES APA (1983) _Publication_Manual_of_the_American_Psychological_Association_ (3rd Ed.) American Psychological Association; Washington DC. DISTED (1989) The Online Journal of Distance Education and Communication, vol 2, no 3; jadist@ALASKA.BITNET. EDTECH archives (1990) EDTECH LOG9010; listserv@OHSTVMA.BITNET. K.L. Turabian (1937,1973) _A_Manual_for_Writers_of_Term_Papers,_Theses,_ and_Dissertations_ (4th Ed.) The University of Chicago Press; Chicago, Il. . skulikow@UWF.bitnet === ș ș close your eyes, my darling, or three of them at least --- -- old venusian lullaby From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET Subject: 4.0649 Q: The Canonical Proces Date: Tuesday, 30 October 1990 6:43am CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1489 (1695) I'm uncomfortable with Tom Greene's account of what he means by the "canonical process," whereby someone who's not a member of a particular text-constituted community learns to read that community's text(s) in the way members of the community read them. To call this a canonical process is to shift onto readers a process that rather(by convention) operates upon texts. What you seem to me actually to be talking about is conversion, or maybe just what most of us call education. Certainly it's true that education is supposed to be about bringing people into the communities constituted by one or more sets of texts (though some would argue that it has also been about maintaining the distinction between "insider" and "outsider" readings, to the detriment of the outsiders); but it doesn't seem to me to be particularly useful to call it a canonical process. John Slatin, UT Austin From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Textual communities Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 08:38:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1490 (1696) Tom Green of Syracuse University poses a question about the way in which communities cohere around a text or group of texts. This question is magisterially treated by Brian Stock in his _The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries_ (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983). Stock's book is intensely preoccupied with high medieval culture, but its implications are by no means confined to medieval studies, as the rapid adoption of the term "textual community" by those who have read him shows. His recent book of essays and lectures _Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1990) covers the same area using more accessible genres. Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0649 Q: The Canonical Process (1/40) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 09:46:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1491 (1697) Concerning the canonical process. It seems to me that Mr. Green's topic is better described as the social process of creating canonical texts. The problem is much more than just education. For it is not just learning about the texts, but rather the placing oneself, or a group, under the text. It is matter of the will and of socialization. In some communities the acceptance of the standard is part of being accepted by the community. But it is also not just a blind social process, for in a pluralistic society we can choose what we wish to be authoritative for us. (There are those who would eschew Descartes and Wittgenstein for Collingwood, Bultmann or Sarte). On the social process I would recommend a book by William McLoughlin *Revivals, Awakenings and Reform, 1607-1977*. It is not the best book on the subject but does have a bibliography and does address some of your concerns. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Canonical process Date: 30 Oct 90 09:2:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1492 (1698) Those HUMANISTs who are also on IOUDAIOS will know that any posting with "canon" in it (or a variation thereof) will have an effect similar to waving a red flag at a bull. Or, to switch analogies, having seen Tom Green's posting I respond with the alacrity of Pavlov's dog.... It seems to me that the question as posed goes in two very different directions. So, Tom Green writes: "...how ›does| it happen that texts ... come to have authority?" On this level, the question does seem -- at least to my pedestrian mind -- to be a historical one: a question of origins; why *these* books and not other books; a story of books that almost made it; and so on. On this level the question is one of *texts*. However, Tom Green goes on to write that he is not interested in "an historical a account of how the books came to be formed, but a pedagogical account of how certain books can come to be 'the books' for a reader". And this question is very different from the first one. This question assumes a tradition of authoritative works, assumes a community that endorses and maintains them as such, and asks how any given individual comes to share these textual "norms". This is a question about *people*. Both questions are of interest; but it seems to me that Tom Green wants to ask about *texts* but in terms of *readers* ... and I'm not sure how to put those two questions together. Is the question: how do texts come to be "authoritative"? or, how do readers come to recognize the "authority" of texts privileged by a given community? David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: Pete Smith <SVAF524@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: Education Lists Date: Monday, 29 October 1990 6:32pm CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 662 (1699) In response to the request for information about LISTS on educational themes, the following are those known to me: EDTECH@OHSTVMA (Educational Technology) SLART-L@PSUVM (Second Language Acquisition Research/Teaching) ERL-L@TCSVM (Educational Research). Pete Smith, who works in the Dept. of Slavic Languages Univ. of Texas--Austin From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Sanskrit character sets Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 11:55:38 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 663 (1700) At the 8th World Sanskrit Conference, in Vienna in August, there was a great deal of discussion of computer matters of various kinds. One subject -- dear to the hearts of several HUMANISTS -- was to decide on an 8-bit encoding scheme for the roman transliteration of Sanskrit. In other words, a "code page", or ISO 8859 type character set, planned according to ISO 2022. Other issues too were discussed, notably the problem of document transfer. The TEI was presented as the best general solution to this problem. Two code pages were decided by a committee, and generally approved by many of those present at the conference. Nobody objected, or proposed alternative schemes, although many alternative schemes are in use. One for Classical Sanskrit (CS) and the other for Classical Sanskrit Extended (CSX). The first would do for normal stuff; the second included accented long vowels for Vedic, and special characters for MIA, Tamil, and some other bits and pieces. Neither CS nor CSX are anybody's particular set, i.e., they were originated afresh at the conference. I append a statement on all this, with full details of the character codes as decided. (This is to be published in the Newsletter of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies.) This document is tagged for processing with LaTeX. It includes a call to the multicol.sty style of Mittelbach, which you can omit without materially affecting the document content. If you don't have LaTeX (surely everyone has by now :-) you can still probably make out what codes have been assigned. Whatever codes are not mentioned are assumed to be as IBM's code page 437, the normal character set, called extended ASCII, that is embedded in all IBM PCs and clones. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% cut here %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \documentstyle[12pt,multicol]{article} \def\diatop[#1|#2]{{\setbox1=\hbox{{#1{}}}\setbox2=\hbox{{#2{}}}% \dimen0=\ifdim\wd1>\wd2\wd1\else\wd2\fi% \dimen1=\ht2\advance\dimen1by-1ex% \setbox1=\hbox to1\dimen0{\hss#1\hss}% \rlap{\raise1\dimen1\box1}% \hbox to1\dimen0{\hss#2\hss}}}% %e.g. of use: \diatop[\'|{\=o}] gives u macron acute \title{Standardization of Sanskrit for Electronic Data Transfer and Screen Representation} \author{Dominik Wujastyk} \date{9 September 1990} \begin{document} \maketitle \section*{Text Encoding Guidelines} During the 8th World Sanskrit Conference, Vienna 1990, a panel was held to discuss the standardization of Sanskrit for electronic data transfer. Participants were encouraged to acquire and study the {\em ACH-ACL-ALLC Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine-readable Texts}, edited by Lou BURNARD and C.~M.~SPERBERG-MCQUEEN (Chicago and Oxford, 1990). These {\em Guidelines\/} are available free of charge in Europe from L.~Burnard, Oxford University Computing Service, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN, England, or in the USA from C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Computer Center (MIC 135), University of Illinois at Chicago, Box 6998, Chicago, IL 60680, USA. \section*{7-bit coding for file transfer} Professor H. Falk presented a program called {\tt CONVERT} that conveniently converts any coding scheme used in a data file to any other coding scheme. This program was generously made available at no cost, together with Turbo Pascal source code. Prof.\ Falk also presented a very useful 7-bit, multi-byte ``mediation code'' which will be of general use for file exchange. \section*{8-bit character set for text display} Finally, although the above two provisions cover all essential needs, the panel still felt that a standard assignment of graphic codes for the display of Sanskrit transliteration would be helpful. An ad hoc committee of interested parties was formed, and two 8-bit `code pages'' were designed. One, {\em Classical Sanskrit\/} (CS), for standard use and another, {\em Classical Sanskrit Extended\/} (CSX), which included the former, but also provided for Vedic, MIA, Tamil and some special usages. The codes assigned were as follow: \begin{multicols}{2}[\subsection*{Classical Sanskrit (CS)}] \begin{small} \begin{tabbing} 000 \= x underdot macron acute \= (normally German eszett, xx) \kill 166 \> l tilde \> \~ l \\ 167 \> m overdot \> \.m \\ 224 \> a macron \> \a=a \\ 225 \> not used (normally German {\em eszett}, \ss) \\ 226 \> A macron \> \a=A \\ 227 \> i macron \> \a=\i \\ 228 \> I macron \> \a=I \\ 229 \> u macron \> \a=u \\ 230 \> U macron \> \a=U \\ 231 \> r underdot \> \d r \\ 232 \> R underdot \> \d R \\ 233 \> r underdot macron\> \diatop[\a=|\d r]\\ 234 \> R underdot macron\> \diatop[\a=|\d R]\\ 235 \> l underdot \> \d l \\ 236 \> L underdot \> \d L \\ 237 \> l underdot macron\> \diatop[\a=|\d l]\\ 238 \> L underdot macron\> \diatop[\a=|\d L]\\ 239 \> n overdot \> \.n \\ 240 \> N overdot \> \.N \\ 241 \> t underdot \> \d t \\ 242 \> T underdot \> \d T \\ 243 \> d underdot \> \d d \\ 244 \> D underdot \> \d D \\ 245 \> n underdot \> \d n \\ 246 \> N underdot \> \d N \\ 247 \> s acute \> \a's \\ 248 \> S acute \> \a'S \\ 249 \> s underdot \> \d s \\ 250 \> S underdot \> \d S \\ 251 \> not used (normally the root sign $\surd$) \\ 252 \> m underdot \> \d m \\ 253 \> M underdot \> \d M \\ 254 \> h underdot \> \d h \\ 255 \> H underdot \> \d H \\ \end{tabbing} \end{small} \end{multicols} \newpage \begin{multicols}{2}[\subsection*{Classical Sanskrit Extended (CSX) additions} The following definitions are added to the above Classical Sanskrit character set.] \begin{small} \begin{tabbing} 000 \= x underdot macron acute \= (normally German eszett, xx) \kill 159 \> r underbar \> \b r \\ 168 \> a macron breve \> \diatop[\u|\a=a]\\ 169 \> i macron breve \> \diatop[\u|\a=\i]\\ 170 \> u macron breve \> \diatop[\u|\a=u]\\ 173 \> n underbar \> \b n \\ 181 \> a macron acute \> \diatop[\a'|\a=a]\\ 182 \> a macron grave \> \diatop[\a`|\a=a] \\ 183 \> i macron acute \> \diatop[\a'|\a=\i] \\ 184 \> i macron grave \> \diatop[\a`|\a=\i] \\ 189 \> u macron acute \> \diatop[\a'|\a=u] \\ 190 \> u macron grave \> \diatop[\a`|\a=u] \\ 198 \> r underdot acute\> \diatop[\a'|\d r] \\ 199 \> r underdot grave\> \diatop[\a`|\d r] \\ 207 \> r underdot macron acute\> \raisebox{.25ex}{\rlap{\a'{ }}}\diatop[\a=|\d r] \\ 208 \> a tilde \> \~ a \\ 209 \> i tilde \> \~ \i \\ 210 \> u tilde \> \~ u \\ 211 \> e tilde \> \~ e \\ 212 \> o tilde \> \~ o \\ 213 \> e breve \> \u e \\ 214 \> o breve \> \u o \\ 215 \> l underbar \> \b l \\ \end{tabbing} \end{small} \end{multicols} \bigskip These codes were chosen to have minimal impact on the standard IBM PC extended ASCII character set, but they are intended for general use in displaying Indological texts on any machine with an 8-bit (or greater) character set. Dr. D. Wujastyk will be making available small programs that load the above character sets into the EGA or VGA display adaptors, for IBM PC users. The above character codings have been approved by R. E. Emmerick, H. Falk, R. Lariviere, G. J. Meulenbeld, H. Nakatani, M. Tokunaga, D. Wujastyk, and M. Yano. These character codings are primarily intended for use in situations when the screen display of these characters is requried, such as in word processing. They may, of course, be used for data transfer, where, however, a 7-bit code (perhaps with multi-byte character codes) is still preferable. One such 7-bit scheme is provided hy H. Falk (see 2. above). \newpage These character codings are currently open for discussion and comments may be directed to Dr. D. Wujastyk at Wellcome Institute, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BN, England,\\ or by email at Bitnet/Earn: {\tt dow@harvunxw} or Janet: {\tt D.Wujastyk@uk.ac.ucl}. After a suitable lapse of time, the character sets will be sent to ECMA and ISO for registration. They will also be sent to the Text Encoding Initiative for registration, probably with H. Falk's 7-bit coding scheme. Such registration in no way enforces these schemes; it merely makes them available centrally for reference. Other schemes may also be registered in the future. \end{document} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% cut here %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dominik Wujastyk, | Janet: D.Wujastyk@uk.ac.ucl Wellcome Institute for | Bitnet/Earn/Ean/Uucp: D.Wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk the History of Medicine, | Internet/Arpa/Csnet: dow@wjh12.harvard.edu 183 Euston Road, | or: D.Wujastyk%ucl@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk London NW1 2BN, England. | Phone no.: +44 71 383-4252 ext.24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "J. Schumacher" <THOMDOC@BUCLLN11.BITNET> Subject: CETEDOC Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 09:08:51 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 664 (1701) [...] We would be happy if the people interested in the new CETEDOC CD-Rom products could let us know it: the number of copies has a great influence on the price fixing policy. Thanks by advance. J. Schumacher CETEDOC After the announcement of the new CETEDOC ELECTRONIC TEXT LIBRARY we received a lot of inquiries about the CETEDOC, about the CORPUS CHRIS- TIANORUM, about BREPOLS, about the CD-ROM products, about prices and retrieval software, a.s.o. In order to satisfy each one please find here a general answer for all the asked informations. CETEDOC: means: CEntre de Traitement Electronique des DOCuments. The CETEDOC is a research institute of the CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY of LOUVAIN at Louvain-la-Neuve. postal adress: CETEDOC College Erasme Place Blaise Pascal,1 B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium email: THOMDOC@TEDM.UCL.AC.BE Manager: Prof. Paul TOMBEUR (Dr. Phil. class.) Coordination: Jean SCHUMACHER (Dr. Phil. class.) Main project: The study of the occidental latin tradition from antiquity until now. within: - TPL The THESAURUS PATRUM LATINORUM. Data bank of all the latin church fathers from Tertullianus until Beda, edited by CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM IN THE Series Latina. Data bank of the authors included in the CON- TINUATIO MEDIEVALIS Series of CORPUS CHRIS- TIANORUM (from VIIth until XVth century). Data bases already created with the Cetedocian retrieval software LIIT (Logiciel d'Interro- gation Interactive de Textes):Augustine (more than 5 million words), Gregory the Great (1,2 million words), Hieronymus (1,7 million), Ber- nard of Clairvaux (840 000 words). In creation: TPL-Series Latina and TPL-Conti- nuatio medieevalis (each more than 6 million words). complementary project: scanning of all the authors edited by the CORPUS SCRIPTORUM ECCLE- SIASTICORUM LATINORUM (CSEL,Vienna) in order to complete the Patrum Latinorum data bank. First author in scanning: Ambrosius Mediolanen- sis. - DLMN and DLMD Medieval Latin dictionary of Belgian sources (from VIIth until XIIth century). Texts and Acta Diplomatica. Data bases already created (about 8 million words). - other: The oecumenical councils of the second mille- nium; The Franciscan Sources of the XIIIth cen- tury; The Auctoritates Aristotelis; Salimbene da Parma; Spinoza's Ethica; a.s.o. Other projects: - TPG THESAURUS PATRUM GRECORM. Study of the greek church fathers edited by CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM in the Series Graeca. first publication: Thesaurus GREGORII NAZIANZENI (in Press). Contains: Index singulorum operum, Reverse Index and Concordance on microfiches. - TLFB TRESOR de la LANGUE FRANCAISE de BELGIQUE. Study of all the french texts written in Belgium. A data base of more than 1 million words exists. Publications of the CETEDOC: Collection "Informatique et Etude de Textes'. - Conciles Oecumeniques (vol. 1-9); - A.M. Denis, Les Pseudepigraphes de l'Ancien Testament; - R. Gryson, Litterature Arienne latine (vol. 1-3); - Thesaurus Bonaventurianus (vol. 1-5); - Corpus des Sources Franciscaines (vol. 1-8); - Florileges medievaux; - Spinoza, Ethica. CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM: Editor. Contact: Father Eligius Dekkers postal adress: Sint Pietersabdij STEENBRUGGE Baron Ruzettelaan, 435 B - 8320 BRUGGE 4 Belgium. Fax: 32-50-37-14-57 BREPOLS: Publisher Contact: Mr. Laurent Bols postal adress: Brepols Publishers Baron Frans du Fourstraat, 8 B - 2300 TURNHOUT Belgium Fax: 32-14-42-89-19 Genearl catalogues, Newsletters, detailed leaflets about the collections are available. Brepols publishers is also the distributor for the CETEDOC Publications. The CETEDOC ELECTRONIC TEXT LIBRARY: New Products: The SUPPLEMENTA ELECTRONICA. (on CD-ROM or on floppy disks). These products are COMPLEMENTARY of the ongoing - INSTRUMENTA LEXICOLOGICA LATINA published with each new edition of the CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM series (Series Latina and Continuatio Medievalis). last fascicles: n. 60 CM53F Andreas a S. Victore, In Danielem; n. 61 CM97 Paschasius Radbertus, De fide; n. 62 CM71 Chronica Hispana; n. 63 CM05 Speculum Virginum. Each fascicle contains an ENUMERATIO FORMARUM, a REVERSE INDEX and an exhaustive CONCORDANCE on microfiches. - THESAURI series: already published: Thesaurus Gregorii Magni, Thesaurus Bernardi Claraevallensis, Thesaurus Augustinianus In press: Thesaurus Hieronymi. Each Thesaurus is dedicated to the OPERA OMNIA of a christian author. It consists of a printed volume with the INDEX VERBORUM SINGULORUM OPERUM and a box and binder with the complete CONCOR- DANCE and REVERSE INDEX on microfiches. Definite plans for the new products: - a CD-ROM with the whole THESAURUS PATRUM LATINORUM i.e. all the texts edited by the CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM (Series Latina and Con- tinuatio Medievalis) and published by BREPOLS, Belgium. The data base will contain about 20 millions words. First publi- cation: summer 1991. An update is foreseen every two years. The texts on the CD are corrected or not yet corrected. The CORRECTED texts are the texts published with ILL fascicles or published as Thesauri. The other are declared UNCORRECTED (they have been verified and corrected only once instead of three times). - a CD-ROM named THESAURUS FORMARUM LATINARUM containing a data base of all the latin words in the Cetedocian data banks: -> "classical" latin: words coming from the texts on the cd-rom elaborated by the PHI or coming from other institutions (as Seneca Opera omnia, from Pisa); -> patristical latin: the Thesaurus Patrum Latinorum data bank; -> medieval latin: Belgian authors from viith until xiith century; -> recent latin: as Spinoza, for example; -> latin texts (other): Franciscan sources, oecumenical councils, Bonaventura,Index Thomisticus, Salimbene da Parma,a.s.o. More than 50 million words. The foreseen interrogation levels are: period,century,author,work. Frequencies will be given globally, by author and by work. First CD-ROM: summer 1992. Update: every 2 years. - "stand alone" data bases on CD-ROM or on floppy disks (depen- ding on the volume of data to be included in the data base). Foreseen: -> Bernardus Claraevallensis,opera omnia; -> Corpus of Cistercian Sources; -> Gregorius Magnus, opera omnia; -> Concilia Oecumenica s. XI-XX; -> Petrus Lombardus, Sententiae. - TPL texts on floppy disks: full texts without apparatus criticus. Actually foreseen: -> Augustinus, De civitate Dei; -> Gregorius Magnus, Moralia in Job, a.s.o. CD-ROM products. Additional informations. - prices: not yet fixed. People with standing orders for the CORPUS CHRISTIANORUM publications will be advantaged. Updates: lower prices for people who bought the first release. - software: in final discussion. functions asked: - full sentence context; (CD-ROM TPL) - left, right and median truncature; - boolian operators; - multiple entries selection; - selections with parenthesis; - save of search strategies; - wildcards,proximity searches; - retrieval of the responses; a.s.o. - Format: not the same as the TLG/PHI disks. - PUBLICITY: IN PREPARATION (BREPOLS PUBLISHERS). From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: Postal Strike at Oxford Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 14:16 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1493 (1702) If there are any HUMANISTS out there waiting for information or texts from the Oxford Text Archive please note that the city has been hit by a local postal strike which commenced last Thursday. Hopefully it won't be too long before normal service is resummed. Until then please use email if you need to get in touch. Alan Morrison Oxford Text Archive From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Reviews: OCR Software Date: Tuesday, 30 October 1990 2314-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1494 (1703) InfoWorld 12.43 (22 Oct 1990) 73ff includes an extensive comparative review of the following IBM PC oriented software packages for Optical Character Recognition. I will give the names of the products in the order of the evaluative scores they received, from best to worst: Omnipage 386 Version 2.11 (score = 7.3) Wordscan Plus Version 1.0 (6.9) Recognize Version 2.0 (6.2) Perceive Version 1.0 (5.4) Readright Version 2.01 (5.3) Textpert Version 1.1.7 (4.0). Please consult the article for details! Bob Kraft, U Penn From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Kurzweil 4000 available Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 16:47:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1495 (1704) The Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, is planning to sell its Kurzweil 4000 scanner. Anyone who is interested in purchasing it should reply to me directly. Willard McCarty From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: CSLI Calendar Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 15:25:01 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 666 (1705) C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S _____________________________________________________________________________ 1 November 1990 Stanford Vol. 6, No. 7 _____________________________________________________________________________ A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4115 ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THURSDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 1990 12:00 noon TINLUNCH Cordura 100 Connectionist Approaches to Linguistic Information Processing David Rumelhart (der@psych.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar 2:15 p.m. CSLI SEMINAR Cordura 100 Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta (zalta@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar 4:15 p.m. STASS SEMINAR Cordura 100 An Analysis of Inference Involving Venn Diagrams Sun-Joo Shin (shin@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THURSDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 1990 12:00 noon TINLUNCH Cordura 100 Data Management in Environmental Information Systems Oliver Guenther (guenther%dulfaw1a.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu) Abstract below 2:15 p.m. CSLI SEMINAR Cordura 100 Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta (zalta@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below 4:15 p.m. STASS SEMINAR Cordura 100 Meaning in Speech Acts Tomoyuki Yamada (yamada@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below ____________ STASS SEMINAR ON 1 NOVEMBER An Analysis of Inference Involving Venn Diagrams Sun-Joo Shin Department of Philosophy Stanford University Venn diagrams are widely used to solve problems in set theory and to test the validity of syllogisms in logic. However, it is a fact that Venn diagrams are not considered valid proofs, but heuristic tools for finding valid formal proofs. The purpose of this talk is to present Venn diagrams as a formal system of representation equipped with its own syntax and semantics. Moreover, I prove that this system is sound and complete. This is a repeat of my talk at the "Situation Theory and its Applications" conference in Scotland last September. ____________ TINLUNCH ON 8 NOVEMBER Data Management in Environmental Information Systems Oliver Guenther FAW Ulm, Germany (Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing at the University of Ulm) The management of geographic data, such as digitized maps, is a major focus of FAW's research activities in the area of environmental information systems. The research project RESEDA, for example, is working on a knowledge-based system for the extraction of environmental information from satellite images of the earth. In order to obtain satisfactory results, it is essential to utilize geographic information that is available on the area investigated. This information is usually stored in a spatial data base to provide efficient access to all objects in a given spatial neighborhood. In this talk, we will discuss two techniques to facilitate the management of large amounts of data in environmental information systems. For the modeling of geographic objects we propose a concept called spatial data-base views. Here only atomic objects (such as lakes or buildings) are stored physically on disk at the largest resolution available. Molecular objects (such as cities) are represented by means of data-base views. This technique results in a structural object-orientation that helps to avoid redundancy. For efficient spatial access to these objects, spatial index structures have to be used. Whereas numerous data structures are available for the indexing of point data, the generalization to extended data objects (such as polygons) has proven to be difficult. The great variance in object sizes that is typical for geographic applications seems to aggravate those problems. In our talk, we will present a concept called "oversize shelves" that overcomes some of these difficulties. Oversize shelves are special disk pages that are attached to an index structure in order to store very large objects. ____________ CSLI SEMINAR ON 8 NOVEMBER Object Theory, Intensional Logic, and Situation Theory Edward N. Zalta Department of Philosophy Stanford University We turn from the analysis of fiction within situation theory to the general study of intensional logic. We'll begin with a discussion of Frege's views, the views of the direct reference theorists, and consider whether and how these two general views are incompatible. We shall catalog the roles Frege's senses are supposed to play in the philosophy of language, canvassing work of Tyler Burge, Nathan Salmon, John Perry, and others. Then we begin to piece together an understanding of Fregean senses from the framework of object theory. ____________ STASS SEMINAR ON 8 NOVEMBER Meaning in Speech Acts Tomoyuki Yamada Visiting Scholar Hokkaido University, Japan My long-term ambition is to develop a philosophically sound and mathematically rigorous theory of speech acts that provides an empirically adequate treatment of speech act phenomena in Japanese. In my current research, I treat meaning as relation between a type C of circumstance of utterance, a type U of utterance, a type I of illocutionary act performed, and a type B of background condition, namely: C & U => I | B (C & U involves I given that B) I will discuss the following questions: (1) Can those illocutionary acts that do not have truth conditions be about some portions of the world? And if they can, what kind of portions can they be about? (2) How should the contents of orders, requests, promises, etc., be characterized? In what respects are they different from, and in what respects similar to, contents of statements, reports, etc.? (3) Is it possible for us to complete a list of conditions of felicity for an illocutionary act without using phrases like "in normal circumstances"? If it is not, how is it possible to write a theory of speech acts? ____________ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM Color Appearance: An Approach Based on Illuminants and Surfaces Brian A. Wandell Department of Psychology Stanford University Thursday, 1 November, 4:15 p.m. Building 60, Room 61G I describe a new approach to understanding color appearance based on representing the illuminants and surfaces that underly natural-image formation. I will review (briefly) the foundations of color science and classic theories of color appearance. Then, I will describe how color appearance theories can be improved by explicitly including illuminants and surfaces, as well as photoreceptors, in the color data representations. Following week: Believing Computers, Yoav Shoham, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University. ____________ PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP The Role of Fundamental Frequency in Signaling Affect and Contrastive Stress: Evidence for a Dissociation Gerald McRoberts Department of Psychology Stanford University Thursday, 1 November, 7:30 p.m. Ventura 17 The naive intuition that English questions have a rising intonation pattern while statements have a falling pattern has not been fully supported by empirical study. Attempts to relate the irregular use of final rise to categories of questions have not proved successful. Indeed, even among Yes-No questions, which seem to be the most regular, only some 40-50% show a final rise (e.g., Cohen 1972; Fries 1964; Lee 1980). Others have suggested that paralinguistic factors may be associated with differences in the amount of final rise (e.g., Crystal 1969; Lee 1956, 1980; Jassem 1972). A somewhat different approach is suggested by a series of studies of the perception of intonation (e.g., Hadding and Studdert-Kennedy 1964, 1973). These studies demonstrated that as an f0 prominence preceding the final rise was scaled up, the amount of final rise needed for listeners to reliably judge a contour to be a question decreased. This "trading relation" was such that for particularly high f0 prominences a falling final contour was often judged to be a question. Furthermore, the influence of the f0 prominence on the final rise appeared only when listeners made (linguistic) question-statement judgments, not when they judged the direction of the final rise, suggesting a phonetic (as opposed to auditory) basis for the trading relation. A series of experiments was carried out to investigate whether the findings of Hadding and Studdert-Kennedy also pertained for the production of question-statement intonation. The results suggest that the "trading relation" between f0 prominence and final rise occurs when f0 prominence is used to convey a linguistically relevant contrast (i.e., contrastive stress), but not when f0 prominence is used in conveying the affective state of the speaker. These results are discussed in terms of different articulatory mechanisms involved in the production of f0 prominences for affect and contrastive stress. ____________ PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Criterian and Human Nature Bernard Gert Department of Philosophy Dartmouth College Friday, 2 November, 3:15 p.m. Building 90, Room 91A No abstract available. ____________ LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Grammaticalization and Argument Structure (dissertation proposal) Henry Smith Department of Linguistics Stanford University Friday, 2 November, 3:30 p.m. Cordura 100 What role, if any, grammatical relations (GRs) should play in linking theory has been the subject of a running debate. Discussion to date has focused on the trade-off between complicated representations and complicated linking (e.g., case) rules. When it comes to giving an account of grammaticalization in case rule systems, however, the no-GR analysis provides a simpler explanation. For the italicized NPs (1-4) from Icelandic, the key lies in formalizing the hierarchy of rules behind sentences (1-4): (1) Mig vantar hni'f. (me-A lacks knife-A) (2) Barninu batnaDi veikin. (child-the-D recovered-from disease-the-N) (3) E'g hef e'tiD (I-N have-1sg eaten) (4) Hann keyrDi bi'linn thessa leiD. (he drove car-the-A this-A route-A) (5) a. ACC-NP|arg|goal|of vanta b. ACC-NP|arg|goal|of vanta (6) a. DAT-NP|arg|goal b. DAT-NP|arg|goal (7) a. NOM-NP|arg b. NOM-GR1 (8) a. ACC-NP b. ACC-GR Without primitive GRs the rules are (5a-8a), with GRs (5b-8b). The rule that applies is the first or, intuitively, the "most specific" rule. Using (5a-8a) (no GRs), we can reduce this, as in phonology, to the proper inclusion relation between environments of rules(restrictiveness). This is not possible for (5b-8b) since some pairs, e.g., (6b,7b) refer to entities of a different sort. We can predict the direction and the likely paths of the grammaticalization of case: restrictiveness decreases over time (e.g., a shift from lexical ACC to DAT (later NOM) as has taken place in German and is taking place ("Dative Sickness") in Icelandic). Restrictiveness-decreasing changes are widely attested; the reverse are not. In this way, it is possible to unify and extend several partial generalizations about the "acquisition of subjecthood" (Cole et al. 1980) and semantic-to-syntactic case shift (Kurylowicz 1965). ____________ COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Are There Fundamental Limits to Network Performance? David D. Clark Laboratory for Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tuesday, 6 November, 4:15 p.m. Jordan 040 A number of factors influence network performance: technology limits, modes of sharing, algorithm design, and implementation options. These combine in a way that makes it rather complex to predict how a set of network components will actually interact. In particular, network protocols seem to be designed in a way that obscures, rather than emphasizes, the performance consequences of the design. While this might seem wrong, it is in fact the objective of the designers. Protocol design proceeds on the assumption that a single specification should permit different implementation with different performance goals. While this flexibility may be desirable, it leads to confusion. Since protocol specifications give no guidance as to the range of possible performance, a number of myths have arisen about the limits of performance, most of which have eventually proved false. In this talk, I explore where the fundamental limits of networking arise, and how they relate to the design of hardware and protocol. In passing, I will review the history of performance mythology, as well as the role of key protocol abstractions, such as layered design, in preventing us from realizing the actual performance of networks. ____________ SYNTAX WORKSHOP Light Verbs and other XCOMP-taking Predicates in Japanese Yo Matsumoto Department of Linguistics Stanford University Tuesday, 6 November, 7:30 p.m. Cordura 100 Japanese light verb constructions allow the arguments of a "verbal noun" to appear in "verbal" case marking. In (1), for example, the PP "sono chihoo e" (to the region), which is an argument of the verbal noun "yusoo" (transportation), appears as if it were an argument of the light verb "suru." (1) Seehu wa sono chihoo e busshi no yusoo o suru. government TOP the region GOAL goods GEN transportation ACC did "The government transported various goods to the region." Grimshaw and Mester (1988) claim that the construction exemplified by (1) involves the process of Argument Transfer, by which the arguments of a verbal noun transfer to the light verb "suru." The purposes of this paper are twofold: to point out the problems of the Argument Transfer account, and to propose an alternative account. First, I point out that examination of light verbs other than "suru" reveals that the properties of light verb constructions cannot be explained by an operation on argument structures (as Grimshaw and Mester conceive it), such as Argument Transfer. These properties include: (1) the fact that adjuncts can also be "transferred," and (2) the fact that the obligatory "transfer" of the subject argument of a verbal noun is in fact a case of control. Second, I will argue that the light verb construction in Japanese involves an XCOMP in f-structure (i.e., the verbal noun is the predicate of the XCOMP subcategorized by the light verb). In this view, the apparent argument transfer is explained by the principle of Functional Uncertainty, in much the same way that certain German infinitival constructions are explained (Zaenen and Kaplan 1990). I will argue that many properties of light verb constructions that Grimshaw and Mester did not explain, such as obligatory adjacency of the verbal noun and light verb, as well as the nonpassivizability of the light verb, follow naturally in my account. Furthermore, my account provides a unified account of other XCOMP-taking predicates in Japanese, such as those in the benefactive and causative constructions (Ishikawa 1985). ____________ PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM Child's Theory of Mind Henry Wellman University of Michigan Wednesday, 7 November, 3:45 p.m. Building 420, Room 050 No abstract available. ____________ From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Courtcase: "Tora Treasure" CD-ROM Data Date: Tuesday, 30 October 1990 2249-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 667 (1706) According to reports from Israel filtered through various sources (e.g. Canadian Jewish News of 9/6/1990), Bar-Ilan University has brought suit against the producers (and distributors?) of the "Tora Treasure" CD-ROM of Rabbinic Jewish materials associated with the B'nai Brak community in Jerusalem and reviewed in the latest OFFLINE column (#30). The charge is that the "Tora Treasure" materials are pirated from the Bar-Ilan Global Jewish Database project. Apparently a court has prohibited further sales/distribution of these CD-ROMs until the matter can be adjudicated. [Some HUMANIST members will have more accurate and timely information; I am posting the information partly as a followup to the OFFLINE column, partly to encourage discussion of some sticky related issues.] Meanwhile, various individuals and institutions have purchased (at considerable expense) in good faith the CD-ROM (and accompanying software) in question. Many of these purchasers are outside of Israel. It will be interesting, and also perhaps somewhat upsetting, to watch the legal, ethical, economic, etc., issues unfold in this test case on our own HUMANISTic doorstep. I hope we can be kept informed of developments. Bob Kraft, U Penn From: Malcolm Brown <mbb@jessica.stanford.edu> Subject: Remote searching and copyright Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 08:49:39 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1496 (1707) James O'Donnell wrote in a recent HUMANIST posting: [deleted quotation] This is exactly what ARTFUL does, so I would assume that either there's no copyright difficulty or that it is somehow minor in nature. It also is analogous to the kind of access you get to books in the library: you don't get to keep the book, but you can hunt around in it. Indeed, at Stanford we have a search/retrieval/analysis tool that works over the net; anyone with our front end and access to internet can access our text holdings. Unfortunately, we're not in a position to support the volume of such access, nor are we set up to take subscriptions as ARTFL does. It seems to me, however, that James' suggestion has great merit: if there was a general search system available on a national or international level, it would permit at least some level to access to electronic texts that otherwise would be impossible. Question for Bob Hollander and Marianne Gaunt: did the Rutgers/Princeton proposal to the NEH include such a facility? I don't recall. Malcolm Brown Stanford From: Mary WhitlockBlundell <mwb@u.washington.edu> Subject: Computer Ethics Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 18:54:08 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1497 (1708) An interesting case is described in "The strange case of the electronic lover" by Lindsy van Gelder in Ms. magazine for October 1985. It's about a man who uses the on-line persona of a disabled woman to create friendships and sexual relationships (supposedly lesbian) via electronic mail, and the sense of betrayal among on-line women and disabled people that results when he is unmasked. Mary Whitlock Blundell mwb@u.washington.edu From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Courtcase: Privacy of Electronic Mail Date: Tuesday, 30 October 1990 2241-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1498 (1709) Epson America Inc. is being sued by a former employee, Alana Shoars, in a class action suit on behalf of all Epson employees at the Torrance CA site, because Epson allegedly monitored/intercepted/read all e-mail that entered or left that facility as a matter of policy, although employees had not been informed of that policy (they have subsequently been informed!). My information comes from InfoWorld 12.43 (22 Oct 1990) 58-66. Doubtless many of us will now find ourselves on committees to determine the policy of our various institutions and facilities. What precedents already exist (policy statements, etc.) in the experience of HUMANIST members? Bob Kraft, U Penn From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Observations on CD-ROMs Date: Tuesday, 30 October 1990 2226-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 669 (1710) 1. I don't have disk space to hold all that material, so I'd rather have "slow" (or even "glacial"!) than unavailable. 2. In most instances with which I am familiar, it is the developer's/vendor's accessing software that is system specific, and thus can hide the data from other operating systems. CD-ROMs that contain directly accessible data, such as the TLG or PHI disks, will run on IBM or Mac as well as IBYCUS. 3. The low end on price for CD-ROM readers seems to be approaching the $500 level, but is sinking much more slowly than had been predicted. For a brief, fairly realistic assessment of the current situation see Nico Krohn, "CD ROM Technology Falls Short: Anticipated Gains in Price, Speed, and Sails Fail to Materialize," InfoWorld 12.43 (22 Oct 1990) 28. Bob Kraft From: WENG@SELDC52.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0656 Rs: CDROM Standard; Chinese Mac OS & KWIC (2/51) Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 10:41 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1499 (1711) Actually sin Chinese work with 2 byte characters a concordance program is not straight forward, But there is one which work reasonable well with Chinese made by Stephen Clausing at Yale call MacConcordance, no need to say it works only on Mac. It is small and does a good job. I have tested it for a week and I am impressed. It works with mixed text too, i.e. Chinese language and Western languages. Stephen Clausing can be reached at sClaus@Yalevm Peter Bryder Lund University Sweden From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0653 Parks/Landscape Studies (2/39) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 09:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1500 (1712) There's a chapter on the rhetorical antecedents of parks: Larry Rosenfield, "Central Park and the Celebration of Civic Virtue," in T. Benson, ed., AMERICAN RHETORIC: CONTEXT AND CRITICISM (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989). From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0625 Qs: Nonsexist Usage; Kate Barlass; Taxes (3/54) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 17:40 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1501 (1713) Non-sexist language: not my subject, but add Dennis Baron's historical study Grammar and Gender (Yale U.P. 1986), with biblio. Don Fowler From: Henning M|rk <slavhenn@aau.dk> Subject: Arabic word processor Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 22:04:01 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1502 (1714) Is there anyone on the list who can tell me about a good program for Arabic (including drivers for laser printing)? I once came across DWA, which seemed to be an anglo-arabic version of DW (later PCText) bought in Saudi Arabia. It did not seem to be good. What do people do today when they need a good word processor for writing texts in Arabic. I know there exists a good option for MacIntosh users, but what do DOS people do? Henning Moerk Slavisk Institut Aarhus Universitet Denmark From: Steven Weisberg <UOG00230@VM.UoGuelph.CA> Subject: suggestions for my thesis Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 11:29:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1503 (1715) Hello all fellow Humanists, I am a graduate student (in the Master's program) at University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) and have recently decided on a thesis topic. What I would like to do is better define how computers can make themselves a valuable tool in studying a text (ie: a text's grammar, literary style, etc.) I already have a copy of the book dealing with how Plato was studied via a computer... Does anyone know of other such materials to help me approach this topic.. Oh yes, the text studied will be something out of 20th c Canadian lit. From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: CD-ROM Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 16:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1504 (1716) Thanks for those who did send me information concerning CD-ROMs. Two HUMANIST have send me personal mail on the very subject... but my username was not complete, which prompted the mailing system here to send them a message warning them that my address was wrong. Username is LENOBLEM yes M at the end. Nevertheless, and probably they didn't tell it to the senders, they rerouted the messages to me. So please, don't bother to send them again. Thanks. If you have had bad experiences with CD-ROMs, please do tell. Anyone having a CD-Rom with a Sun computer and a Unix operating system? ----------------------------------------------------------------- I would be glad to contact HUMANIST knowing about interactive fiction, computerized-fiction, multi-author fiction or any kind of interaction between literary texts and computers. Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca NOTICE THE UNEXPECTED M IN THE USERNAME. From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: re: 4.0660 Citing Network Sources (1/201) Date: 30 Oct 90 22:13:37 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 672 (1717) My feelings on references to networked material: The whole idea on references is to give the reader the opportunity to trace back sources for more information and for verification. Since most readers of journals have neither the access nor the knowhow to actually go back through the archives (I suspect that even some regular Listserv users would have a bit of difficulty tracking some of these things down), I think it's more responsible to say something like this in the bibliography: (Asterisked references are derived from computer network sources. Hard copy available on request from the author.) Then, of course, the author would have to keep copies of the references (presumably in the same folder as the reprints?) and mail them out when necessary. Solves the problem of access, and adds a little more strength to the paper and its references, I think. Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication, UPenn From: HANS ROLLMANN (hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca) Subject: RE: New Word Date: 30 Oct 90 05:43 -0330 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1505 (1718) There is a book around, which lists all conceivable networks and databases. Its title might serve as a possible term to describe what Willard is after: INFOMANIA. Another possible contender, describing --not the thrust of empirical abandonment in the field of communcation and information-- but the result of the "overload", could be INFOSATIA. HANS ROLLMANN. From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0652 Qs: Theory of Taste; Word for a Vice (2/54) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 20:24:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1506 (1719) For Willard: "Infomania" is a word I have seen used to name the condition you describe. John Unsworth From: <JELLEMA@HOPE> Subject: RE: 4.0658 R: A Word for a Vice (9/84) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 22:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1507 (1720) "Infomania" seems to have forged ahead in the first nationwide poll. I offer the following cautionary note, however, based on my own very recent experience. When I confronted Felicia the Fact Freak, my colleague, and asked, "Are you an infomaniac?" she slugged me on the ear. The left one. From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: New word, please Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 00:29:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1508 (1721) Willard writes: "I need a word... that denotes the pathological need for information -- what to hunger is gluttony, what to sexual desire is lust... 'Infomange' is the best I have been able to come up with..." Infomania? Infoitis? Dana Paramskas University of Guelph, Ont. Canada From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0658 R: A Word for a Vice (9/84) Date: Wednesday, 31 Oct 1990 01:01:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1509 (1722) DATAPHAGIA for the act; DATAPHAGIAC for the actor; DATARRHEA for the consequences of overindulging in dataphagia. From: hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca Subject: RE: 4.0658 R: A Word for a Vice (9/84) Date: 31 Oct 90 03:43 -0330 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1510 (1723) In the mailing I received regarding Willard's word search, my reply is listed but not printed. Something must hacve gone wrong in the editing process. Plse re-post. In case you lost the text. I said that INFOMANIA seemed to be a good choice for the activity and INFOSATIA one for the result of empirical abandonment to communication and information. HANS ROLLMANN (hans@kean.csu.mun.ca) From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0637 Qs: Shipwreck Topos; CETEDOC; Writing Assessment Date: Sat, 27 Oct 90 10:33 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1511 (1724) Dryden's lines have as their model Lucretius De rerum natura 2.1-4, in Dryden's own translation: 'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore The rowling Ship; and hear the Tempest roar: Not that another's Pain is our delight; But Pains unfelt, produce the pleasing sight. There are a great number of other classical examples of the topos, in various forms (e.g. Archippus fr. 43 K., Sophocles fr. 636 Radt - often imitated, see esp. Cicero Att. 2.7.4), and an even greater number of Renaissance imitations and encounters like Bacon Advancement of Learning p.58 Kitchlin. There is a good article on 'Lucretian Pleasure' in the 18th C. but with earlier material published some time in the 50s, but I can't find the ref. for the moment. One of the headings in Betjeman's Summoned by Bells is 'Lucretian Pleasure in the bath'. There's lots more if its necessary. Don Fowler. From: David Shaw <djs@ukc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0637 Qs: Shipwreck Topos Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 14:04:44 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1512 (1725) Lucretius's De rerum natura, Book 2, opens with a couplet saying how nice it is to view a storm at sea from the safety of the land: Suaue, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem. It doesn't specifically mention shipwreck, but Dryden did know Lucretius -- see W.B. Fleischman, Lucretius and English Literature, 1680-1740, Paris, Nizet, 1964. Maybe someone can find Bill Kupersmith a closer match. David Shaw, Univ. of Kent at Canterbury From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: electronic references Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 10:26:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1513 (1726) A good paper by Sue A. Dodd at the U. of N. Carolina is "Bibliographic references for computer files in the social sciences: A discussion paper." It is available online by sending mail to COMSERVE@RPIECS and in the body put SEND COMPFILE BIBREF. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: SA_RAE@vax.acs.open.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0672 Citing Network Sources (1/19) Date: Thu, 1 NOV 90 18:16:11 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1514 (1727) Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication, UPenn says [deleted quotation] Can't help but feel that this rather limits the 'shelf life' of the things referenced this way ... if I see a reference to a book/journal/printed document then, given time and effort, I should stand a chance of tracking down a copy somewhere regardless of how long ago it was published. I would hate to have to rely on the chances of the author (1) still being alive (2) still working on the same computer system (3) 'computing' still being able to cope with todays formats. I get the impression that as soon as someone dies or moves on a lot of files get trashed and I still come across folk with punched card decks (remember those?) who can't get them read (weak analogy there but I remember when punched cards were the safest, surest way of saving programs ... for program read article). LISTSERV archives might be a way ... Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. From: macrakis@gr.osf.org Subject: 4.0668 Searching & Copyright Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 16:17:44 GMT+0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1515 (1728) [deleted quotation]not much problem for most texts. Although it is clear that such a search service is in some sense a `derived work', nonetheless it does not reduce the value of the original work by substituting for it. I say `most texts' because on the other hand, for certain kinds of book, it CAN effectively substitute for the purchase of the book. This is true for instance of many reference works in general and dictionaries of quotations in particular. But for most novels and general non-fiction I'd presume that the point of the search is not simply to extract a piece of text, but locate its position in the original, which you then consult. I'm thinking of the reasoning followed by a court some years ago in a case where the New York Times sued an independent producer of a special index of the NYT. (Sorry, I don't have the citation.) The court's argument was that the index was not useful without the original text, and so could only add value to it, not take it away. -s PS The above is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0668 Searching & Copyright; Email betrayal; Epson (3/69) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 13:26:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1516 (1729) This is in response to Bob Kraft concerning E-mail 'tapping'. As an archivist I was interested in the Epson case. It shows the growing complexity of the e-mail situation. I am concerned by those who would browse through others e-mail without notification; just as I would those browsing through memos. But I am equally concerned by those who would say that all e-mail is private and should never be touched. Such attitudes are extremes. E-mail is neith just private or just part of the coporate culture. This is where the archival practice of record analysis comes into play. Already in several states open records laws exist which have direct impact upon e-mail and voice mail. Cincinnati University and Michigan at Ann Arbor have been dealing with the problem of scheduling for archival retention e-mEven at the federal level there has been some work done done on e-mail retention. Just think of the implications if Oliver North's e-mail had been declared private! In any case we need to wrestle the issue of what is personal in e-mail and what rightfully belongs to the institution; just as we have with paper documents. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Email betrayal Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 14:49:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1517 (1730) Re: Bob Kraft's story about Epson's policy of monitoring all E-mail. A fascinating topic. Of course, urban lore needs to be taken with agrain of salt and more than your standard disclaimer/cautions. My favorite rumor is about the Aerospace corporation that discontinued EMail, (IBM's PROFS, in fact), due to its use for unionizing. Anyone else heard the rumor? Anyone know if it is more than a rumor? Sheizaf From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Arabic Word Proc. Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 08:15:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1518 (1731) There is a word processing program, with laser drivers, called Multi- Lingual Scholar (Gamma Productions Inc.), which can be used for word processing in any language that is alphabetical. I have a demo version that permits typing in Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic and of course all western European languages concurrently. If I find more specific information (address, telephone number), I'll pass it on. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Arabic Word Processing Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 10:28:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1519 (1732) Found more complete information: "_Multi-Lingual Scholar (MLS)_ is a full featured word processor capable of editing, formatting and printing with up to five different alphabets - and dozens of languages - in the same document - even in fottnotes, tables, headers and footers. _MLS_ comes standard with five alphabets: Roman (English, European and Scandinavian languages), Hebrew (includes Yiddish and Aramaic), Greek (Ancient, Biblical and Modern), Cyrillic (Russian and Balkan languages) and Arabic/Persian..._MLS_ supports Hewlett-Packard's Laserjet Plus, and Series II/III and DeskJet printers and compatibles at 300 dots per inch resolution." Available at: Gamma Productions 710 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 609 Santa Monica, CA 90401 U.S.A. Tel:(213)394-8622 Information is quoted from the May 1990 catalog. I was impressed by the demo I saw and used a few years back, although I could not judge how complete the non-Roman alphabets were. Reports from users might be useful. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: <HARDERR@CLARGRAD> Subject: RE: 4.0669 Observations on CD-ROMS (1/21) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 00:27 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1520 (1733) I have a CD-ROM reader/drive which is sold under the Apple Computer label and attaches easily to the SCSI port of either of my Macs. I can read Discs "formatted" for either IBM or Macs. As Bob Kraft recently pointed out the problem is in the software used to access the disc and not the format of the data itself. Apple supplies with the drive files which allow access to files in various formats (ISO 9660, High Sierra, and Apple's own beloved Hierarchical filing system.) Need to be copied into the system folder and teh system rebooted. The disc then appears on the desktop just like any other Mac disk. Audio formats are also acessible. There are no hardware changes necessary. I also have a Toshiba XM-5100A CD-Drive. This machine also "hooks up" to any Mac simply by turning off the machine, attaching a cable to the SCSI port copying a driver file to the system folder, rebooting and Voila! Either drive takes less than 5 minutes from start to finish of the installation process. The Tos hiba also attaches to my DOS machines. Things are considerabley more complicated there. First a SCSI card must be installed. Next the config.sys and autoexec.bat files need to be changed. Then the proper drivers need to be installed. Each product tend to come with it's own drivers. Sometimes they are complimentary other times exclusive. The drivers are the key. I suppose, if I were crazy enough (not to mention able!) I could write drivers to allow my Apple CD Drive to be attached to the DOS machines. I regulary copy files from so called DOS CDs onto my Mac harddisk and write little translators for the resulting files. What I cannot do is to use the search engines that come with some of the better "DOS CDs" since these are in fact DOS software but copying files takes seconds. If one has Mac software that is generic enough, thses files can then be concorded or searched or manipulated in any required manner. Files are files. Any microcomputer can manipulate ASCII files whatever their source. I short, the Mac is much easier to work with, but most CDs assume that the users have DOS machines. Both are useful. Ray Harder Dept Computer Science Azusa Pacific University California, USA From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Bob Kraft's OCR posting Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 10:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1521 (1734) HUMANISTs should note that the summary header for the highly-rated OmniPage386 is actually a duplicate of the ReadRight review! Be sure to read more of the OmniPage review to get a better idea of the product. I've used it here at Duke; it's quite fast and accurate with most documents (but not accurate with FAXes, unless accurate with most documents, but not accurate with FAXes unlessthey're sent in superfine mode. Regards, Joel Goldfield [The duplication referred to is in the _InfoWorld_ OCR review cited in Kraft's posting -- Allen] From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: author, author? Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 21:35:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1522 (1735) Someone -- I thought it was Meister Eckhart -- compared the spiritual life with a miner's digging for gold: you get much dirt and not much gold. Would anyone happen to know the identity of the author, or an author? I remember bothering my fellow Humanists about this some months ago, in vain. I have not been able to place the comparison yet. In case anyone should wonder, my need is directly related to work in humanities computing..... With many thanks, Willard McCarty From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: citation please Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 13:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1523 (1736) If I may divert the list's attention from humanist hardware for a moment, a friend asks the provenance of the following lines (which may or may not be titled "The Hunt"). ...'Ere they took the downs, the sporting bishop blessed the bellowing hounds.. Who, then, I wonder, blessed the fox today, The clever, tawny fox who streaked away, And ran before the pack in sheerest play, Outsmarted man and beast and went his way? For surely someone blessed the fox today. From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: education citation Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 07:13:11 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1524 (1737) Someone asked recently about the source of a quote -- roughly, "the function of education is to transform cocksure ignorance into thoughtful uncertainty." I don't recall seeing a response -- if there already has been one, please discard this note. A student who heard me use it in a discussion found it a few days later in a book of quotations -- attributed to T.H. Bell, a (former) Education Secretary. He is chasing down the particulars, if the person making the query is interested in more detail. Charles Ess Drury College From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn) Subject: A Word for a Vice Date: Thursday, 1 November 1990 0109-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1525 (1738) Philognomy From: Ed Waldron <UD081917@NDSUVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0673 A Word for A Vice (6/53) Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 10:54:08 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1526 (1739) I would cast my support to Patrick Conner's suggested word group, especially since it seems that most of the "lust" we are attempting to describe has more to do with input that understanding. From: Willard McCarty <EDITOR@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: An invitation to join Ficino Date: Fri, 02 Nov 90 08:19:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 681 (1740) Ficino: an electronic seminar and bulletin-board for Renaissance and Reformation studies The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, invites you to join Ficino, an electronic seminar and bulletin-board devoted to all aspects of the Renaissance and Reformation. The aim of Ficino is to further lively discussion and rapid exchange of information amongst scholars with an interest in its subject areas. It form and style Ficino is much like Humanist, although its focus is quite different. Although devoted to specific areas, Ficino is meant to be radically inclusive as well. Students of both Northern and Southern European cultures are equally welcome, as are those in distant or adjacent periods who wish to contribute their knowledge and skills to the subject matter of the seminar. All approaches and disciplines are equally relevant, but Ficino particularly encourages the interdisciplinary breadth of learning appropriate to Renaissance humanism. Membership is open to anyone who submits a biographical statement of background and interests. A form for this purpose is appended below. Ficino has been named after the great Florentine Platonist, man of letters and prolific letter-writer, in order to suggest not only the historical period on which it focuses but also its intended manner. As you know, Ficino himself was preoccupied by intellectual communication, the ideal form of which he found in the Platonic convivium. Thus he wrote to Bernardo Bembo that, `The convivium ... rebuilds limbs, revives humours, restores spirit, delights senses, fosters and awakens reason. The convivium is rest from labours, release from cares and nourishment of genius; it is the demonstration of love and splendour, the food of good will, the seasoning of friendship, the leavening of grace and the solace of life.' Our seminar is designed to provide an electronic analogue of Ficino's ideal institution; experience suggests that the new medium holds great promise for our success. Ficino also uses software to provide a kind of `bulletin-board' or fileserver for various materials of a less dynamic nature. Currently the fileserver contains several items of interest, e.g. the International Directory of Renaissance and Reformation Associations and Institutes (Toronto: CRRS, 1990); bibliographies; calls for papers, announcements for conferences and projects; information about relevant software; and brochures that describe various centres and institutes and their projects. Plans are to make primary texts available in electronic form as well as the Occasional Publications of the CRRS. The editor warmly encourages contributions to the archive from its members. The biography should follow the format below as closely as possible. - - - - - -- - - - Please fill in and mail to the editor - - - - - (Any long item can be continued on following lines) *Lastname, Firstname <e-mail address(es)> Institutional address; home address (optional). Title: Professional associations: Brief biographical statement, ca. 100-500 words, emphasizing your interests in the Renaissance and/or Reformation. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thank you. Willard McCarty, editor Senior Fellow Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Editor@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA William Bowen, associate editor Chair, Publications Committee Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Bowen@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA From: samia@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Samia Benidir) Subject: 1991 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 21:52:22 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 682 (1741) AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE 1991 Call For Presentations MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION SYSTEMS ASIS 1991 Mid-Year Meeting APRIL 26-29, 1991 Santa Clara, California The 20th ASIS Mid-Year Meeting will focus on one of the most important new areas in information systems: Multimedia. Traditional concerns with text and numerical data are being supplemented and may ultimately be supplanted by increasing attention to the documentation of objects, sounds, images, and moving images. Digitized sounds and still, moving and 3-D images are being stored, indexed, retrieved, and manipulated. Combinations of text with images and sounds are becoming more common. These new developments promise to change the way we think about information. How are multimedia developments going to be used to provide improved information services? What relevant experiences from art collections, museums, engineering files, and photo, film and sound archives can be used for digitized records? What new opportunities and challenges will digitized forms of sounds and images bring? Building better information services will require that we effectively use images and sound in combination with test and numerical data. To achieve these advancements we must make significant progress in computing, data storage, and telecommunications. The 1991 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting will present cutting-edge research and development in the information sciences which build upon our experience with text and data by adding access to sound and images. It will also explore current and potential applications of this research. DUE DATES & WHERE TO SEND YOUR SUBMISSION: Please submit your proposed contributions by November 30, 1990. Proposals may be sent via U.S. mail, electronic mail, or fax. You will be notified by January 2, 1991 of acceptance or rejection. At that time further information will be provided to those whose proposals have been accepted. Send all proposals to: MICHAEL BUCKLAND Technical Program Chair, 1991 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting School of Library and Information Studies University of California Berkeley, California, USA 94720 Telephone: (415) 642-3159 Fax: (415) 642-5814 Internet: Buckland@cmsa.Berkeley.edu Bitnet: Buckland@ucbcmsa From: <STGEORGE@UNMB> Subject: Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 18:50 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 683 (1742) subject: New Release of Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs A new relese of the Internet-Accessible Library Catalogs and Databases has been posted on LISTSERV@UNMVM. It contains the following additions: California State University, Long Beach Harvard, HOLLIS University of Pittsburgh University of New Mexico University of Toledo University of Tennessee, Memphis University of Texas Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Library of the Universidad de las Americas, Pueblas In addition, this release contains two new sections. The first is a list of federal, related and general bulletin board systems. The second is a brief, but expected to grow rapidly, list of CWIS, Campus-Wide Information Systems. I am sending this notice to a large number of network lists and I apologize in advance if you receive more than one copy. Please recycle duplicate copies responsibly. To obtain the revised file, send mail or a command to LISTSERV@UNMVM. The body of the mail or command should say GET INTERNET LIBRARY. This will retrieve the ascii version of the file. The Postscript version is obtained by using the command GET LIBRARY PS. Because of the size of the PS file, some users may experience difficulties in retrieving it. Both the ascii and PS files are also obtainable via anonymous FTP and from two sites. From NIC.CERF.NET, cd to cerfnet/cefnet_info and retrieve files called: internet-accessible-catalog-nov90-general.ps (Postscript) internet-accessible-catalog-nov90.txt (ascii) You can also FTP to ARIEL.UNM.EDU and cd to library. The files are called: library.ps (Postscript) internet.library (ascii) It is possible to automatically receive updated versions of this file. For more information, send mail or a command to your nearest Listserv node or, only as a last resort, to Listserv@unmvm. The body of the mail or the command should say INFO AFD. You will be sent a file called Listafd Memo which describes the automatic file distribution feature of the Revised Listserv. As always, if you have any questions about the List or suggestions for additions or corrections, please send mail to stgeorge@unmb or stgeorge@bootes.unm.edu. From: <CHURCHDM@VUCTRVAX> Subject: Full Greek Character Set on Screen Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 09:29 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1527 (1743) I'm trying to help some stubborn colleagues; so, in turn, I am turning to HUMANIST for help. Have any of you worked out any way to use downloaded non-standard screen fonts with WordPerfect 5.0 or 5.1 (MS-DOS)? My colleagues insist that must be able to see not just the characters but also accents and breathing marks on screen when they type Greek. It seems to me that one should be able to use a large character set, such as the 512-character sets available using the Duke Language Toolkit, if one could find out how WordPerfect uses the video ram to display its special character sets. The characters themselves are stored in the files as multiple characters, but the program does make some attempt to display them as single characters on the screen, with more or less success depending on what graphics card one has and how it is configured (not, however, well enough for the colleagues in question, at least with the graphics cards they are using). We were thinking of trying to pry some information out of WordPerfect, offering to share our results with them if we managed to succeed. But then it occurred to me that some HUMANIST might have already tackled the problem and could prevent us from reinventing the wheel. Have you? Or have you identified a graphics card/monitor combination that does display the WP Greek characters with accents and breathing marks? Or, even if you have done neither, do you have any advice or helpful hints for us in the event we get enough info from WordPerfect to try it ourselves? (Yes, I know. It can supposedly be done with Multi-Lingual Scholar, with PC-Write and with Nota Bene. It can also be done with fonts available for the Macintosh. But I'm talking about colleagues who steadfastly refuse to abandon either MS-DOS machines or WordPerfect. And yet they continue to clamor for visible accents and breathing marks. ( :->( ) We haven't promised them results, only that we'll try.) Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Dan Church Vanderbilt University From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: Pstscript/HP-Fonts Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 15:03:38 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1528 (1744) Our History Department is thinking of buying a high-quality Laser-Printer for printing texts, charts, maps etc. in a kind-of-DTP environment (MS- WORD 5.0, MS-Chart 3.0, Harvard Graphics and AutoCAD 2.6/9.0/10.0). We would rather like to have a Pstscript-Printer, but as our colleagues from Greek and Roman History often have to print Greek inscriptions and use special HP-LaserJet-compatible fonts to do so, we are wondering if there is a way to download these fonts into a Postscript-device or to convert HP-fonts into Postscript fonts. We do know that there is a hardware solution to our problem (plugging in or out a Postscript cartridge for the HP LJ III), but this not what we exactly want. Any ideas? Thomas Zielke Historisches Seminar Universit{t Oldenburg Postfach 2503 D-2900 Oldenburg From: JHUBBARD@smith Subject: Which CD-ROM? Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 23:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1529 (1745) My department has been given funds to buy a CD-ROM reader and small amount of software. The main purpose is to access the TLG and PHI/CCAT disks. Although there are Mac users that need to be considered, at this stage we plan to us an MS-DOS machine for offloading. Does anybody have any good advice on which model CD-ROM reader to buy? Is there any that would be usable with a SCSI interface on the PC and then on the Mac as well? Any suggestions on search/retrieve software would also be much appreciated. Thanks, Jamie Hubbard. From: Peg Kershenbaum T/L-863-7320 KERSH at YKTVMH Subject: The Electronic Scholiast Conf at Leeds Date: 1 November 1990, 23:02:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1530 (1746) Is anyone out there planning to attend the above-mentioned conference this coming July? This conference is going to bring together people interested in creating machine readable Latin and Greek lexica. I'm supposed to give a little presentation, but I don't have a clear idea of the audience. I don't want to insult, bore or amuse anyone overly much. ---Peg From: TONY@FRPERP51 Subject: help Date: 31 OCT 90 10:27:29.89-GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1531 (1747) 1) I have colleagues in the French secondary system who are preparing a competitive exam (agregation). One of their special subjects is 'Painting in the U.S. since 1945'. Can anyone with an interest in the field suggest a short list of relevant material published in the States, which I will pass on? Whilst on the subject, I should like to acquire a copy of the catalogue to the 'High and Low: modern art and popular culture' exhibition on at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Can anyone either get me a copy, which I will pay for in advance in cash, or send me the address of the relevant commercial services at the Museum? 2) Does anyone out there have a corpus of North American advertisement texts. I have a class project lined up which uses British material, but would like to extend the text analysis to American advertisements if possible. Thanks, Tony Tony Jappy Department of English and American Studies University of Perpignan France TONY@FRPERP51 From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: INFOMANIA (book) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 90 08:30:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1532 (1748) [deleted quotation] Could you give a fuller citation? This is obviously of great interest for those using the networks. There was a book called INFOMANIA written in the early years of Compuserve by a lady describing her infatuation with the "chat" mode. Obviously, not the same. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: CHENEY@SELDC52.BITNET Subject: ACCESS TO UN ARCHIVES? Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 16:27 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1533 (1749) I am forwarding this request for information on behalf of a colleague who does not have access to Internet. I have abreviated his request and separated it into 3 parts: (1) I am doing doctoral research in Political Science and am interested to know if anyone knows of a way to contact the United Nations archives in either New York or Geneva via one of the international networks (or even by fax). (2) I would also be interested in knowing about other alternative ways of getting access to archive materials without actually having to go there. (3) In particular I am interested in having access to "Communications" sent to the Commision on Human Rights concerning allegations of violations of human rights in Latin America from 1960s to the 1980s. Any responses to the above can be sent directly to me. Michael Cheney The University of Lund Lund, Sweden cheneygemini.ldc.lu.se From: Mary WhitlockBlundell <mwb@u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0679 Qs: (Who said...?) (3/46) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 90 19:18:03 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1534 (1750) Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 BCE) said "those seeking gold dig up a lot of earth and find little" (Fragment 22 DK). Mary Whitlock Blundell mwb@u.washington.edu From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0679 Qs: (Who said...?) (3/46) Date: 01 Nov 90 23:59:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1535 (1751) Lots of dirt and a little gold? There's an old variant on that, which seems to take its origin in a late antique life of Vergil, then crops up in Jerome and Cassiodorus: Vergil, the greatest Latin epic poet, was reading Ennius, the first but inevitably somewhat primitive Latin epic poet, when somebody asked him what he was looking for: `aurum in stercore quaero', he replied: `I'm looking for gold in a dungheap.' From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM> Subject: Miners and gold Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 06:35 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1536 (1752) The quotation Willard McCarty is looking for concerning miners digging through lots of earth for a little gold is from Heraclitus. I don't have a text here with me, but later I'll forward the appropriate reference. From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0679 Qs: (Who said...?) (3/46) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 90 04:10:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1537 (1753) In response to Willard's query about digging for gold (and removing rubbish along the way), how about this passage from Melville's _Pierre_: . . . it is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be trouble- somely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light. Happy would it be, if the man possessed in himself some receptacle for his own rubbish of this sort: but he is like the occupant of a dwelling, whose refuse can not be clapped into his own cellar, but must be deposited in the street before his own door, for the public functionaries to take care of. No common- place is ever effectually gotten rid of, except by essentially emptying one's self of it into a book; for once trapped in a book, then the book can be put into the fire, and all will be well. But they are not always put into the fire; and this accounts for the vast majority of miserable books over those of positive merit. Nor will any man, who is an author, ever be rash in precisely defining the period, when he has completely ridded himself of his rubbish, and come to the latent gold in his mind. It holds true, in every case, that the wiser a man is, the more misgivings he has on certain points. (Book 18, Chapter 1) I'm sure that Melville is cribbing the metaphor, probably from the source Willard is really looking for, but his treatment of it has a certain pointed relevance. John Unsworth From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM> Subject: Willard's last query Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 13:06 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1538 (1754) To fill out my earlier note about the passage Willard McCarty is trying to lo- cate, it is Heraclitus, Fragment B22 (DK): 'Those who search for gold dig through much earth but find little' (the source is Clement of Alexandria, *Mis- cellanies*, IV.ii.4.2). Or is that not what was wanted? From: Peg Kershenbaum T/L-863-7320 KERSH at YKTVMH Subject: 4.0674 RS: Shipwreck Topos Date: 1 November 1990, 22:37:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1539 (1755) Since everyone has already mentioned Lucretius, I shall pass over his name in silence. The argument that Dryden translated the lines in question makes sense. But how about the Horatian propempticon giving Vergil a send-off on a ship he doesn't REALLY trust with its precious cargo (half his soul)? There were a few of these propemptica, it seems. Statius did one for his patron in which he mimics the Horatian poem. (oy the things one must study for comps in Classics!) top From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0674 Rs: Shipwreck Topos (2/36) Date: 31 Oct 90 23:54:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1540 (1756) The best variant on the Lucretius is Mark Twain's, somewhere in *Innocents Abroad*, words to the effect that `There's no pleasure in the world quite like that of watching other people being seasick when you're not.' From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0676 Copyright; Email tapping Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 09:10:30 MST (15 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 689 (1757) - On Dale Patterson's comments. If email were private, Oliver North's email could still have been examined. It could have been subpoenaed. The real problem for justice would have been him knowing how to erase the backups. In general, privacy is only a protection against unwarrented search. - I don't think that the Epson story is urban folklore. The suit has been widely reported in the papers, just recently. I don't think Epson denies the accusation, but maintains that it was acting within its rights. There was another case recently here in Colorado. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0677 Rs: Arabic Word Processing Date: Friday, 2 Nov 1990 00:55:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 690 (1758) I believe that an Arabic WP not only has to know when it's appropriate to use initial, medial, and final forms, but that it must run right to left for text and then run left to right for numerals. My impression (& I'm probably wrong) is that that's exceedingly difficult to achieve in the DOS environment, especially if you want both left-to-right and right-to-left in the same line. Before you purchase anything, make sure the software can control the machine you're using in that way. From: SJPORTE@asc.upenn.edu Subject: re: 4.0675 Citing Network Sources Date: 02 Nov 90 14:18:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 691 (1759) Simon Rae: Admittedly, computer formats change all the time, which is why I stipulate a hard copy (i.e., a printout) be maintained by the author. I agree that this limits the "shelf life" of the studt to the "shelf life" of the author, unless some standard scheme were worked out, such as transferring the files involved to University archives or records. I still think that this would make the references more accessible than leaving them here; the VAST majority of people don't have accounts, and few that do know about LISTSERVs or their capabilities. Jeff Porten, Annenberg School for Communication From: MANYMAN@cc.Helsinki.FI Subject: De Infomania Date: Sat, 3 Nov 90 07:16 EET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 692 (1760) Willard McCarthy's thirsty need for a (new) word for - a pathological need for information - due to "imaginative failure" or "intellectual cowardice" - but not ascribable to soci(et)al amorality has received a lot of answers. I think an interim statement is in order. Notice that Willard made it a pragmatic condition that the term should not require recondite knowledge. Henceforth, this condition will be referred to as 'R'. So far (Nov.2,1990), the following suggestions have been made: (1) Infomange (Willard McCarthy): I agree with Steve Condit's objections. (Incidentally, as a non-native English writer, I first thought "-mange" would have something to do with French "manger" 'eat'). (2) Infosatia (Hans Rollmann): This (Latinizing?) coinage looks awkward (it's no Latin, no English, "infosatiety" would probably be more English, but semantically beside the point, I'm afraid.) As to Latin, "satietas" would be morphologically O.K., not "satia". (R) (3) Infoitis (Dana Paramskas): a cleverly formed piece of medicinal Latin/Greek, but too concrete(?), and R(?). (4) Dataphagia, dataphagiac, datarrhea (Patrick Conner, supported by Ed Waldron): The first term is clear enough to a Grecist, but probably: R. (Incidentally, why not "infophagia"?) (5) Info-addiction (Mel Wiebe, Jascha Kessler). Well, this might be close to the truth (whatever it is); Jeff Porten's "news junkie" (an Americanism?) and "infoholic" belong here. What an infoholic -- a funny formation, indeed! -- might be thought to suffer from is "infoholism", I presume, but "holism" (= 'wholism') might be somewhat misleading (?). (6) Dataphilia (inferred from Robert Hollander's "dataphiliac"), [why not "infophilia"?]. Well, not impossible, but perhaps not sociopsychological enough, I don't know. (7) Info-epsy (Leslie Morgan), coined on analogy of "intellectualepsy", which looks awkwardly barbaric. (R). By the way, "epilepsy" is /epi-lepsy/ not /epil-epsy/! (8) Infocrave (noun?), info-fix, infodependency (Jascha Kessler). Somehow the first looks like a religious term [but my English competence may be insufficient]. I'm unable to take a stand to "info-fix". On "infodependency", see (5) above, (9) Philognomy (Jay Treat). A learned word, indeed, so R. (By the way, why not "philomatheia" which exists as a ready-made term in Platon?). (10) INFOMANIA (Hans Rollmann, John Unsworth, Jellema, Dana Paramskas, Robert Hollander, Peter Junger, 'Andrewo at Utorepas') is the best one suggested so far. So, I'm giving my vote to it. Jellema's cautionary note must be heeded to: Felicia the Fact Freak is a real glutton: Having slugged him on the left ear, she next time must do it on the right ear -- the one left! -- Martti Nyman University of Helsinki, Finland (MANYMAN@FINUH.BITNET) From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0679 Qs: (Who said...?) (3/46) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 90 09:21:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1541 (1761) I'm curious about the citation to the court case involving the NY Times and the indexing company. DOes anyone have a more concrete idea when and where this was written up and how I could get more information on the case? Many thanks ... Adam Adam C. Engst pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: Bill Ball <C476721@UMCVMB> Subject: Academic Computing info wanted Date: Thu, 01 Nov 90 21:15:35 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1542 (1762) Could someone send me subscription information for the magazine _Academic Computing_? I cant seem to find a copy of it around here. thanks in advance Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB From: GA0708@SIUCVMB Subject: Query about quotation Date: Fri, 02 Nov 90 12:27:05 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 694 (1763) A colleague of mine is working with John Gardner's THE RESURRECTION and is puzz ling over a quotation. Does anyone know where Gardner may have gotten the foll owing lines: "For Art's sake. As the play requires. We shall set our face to Jerusalem." Herb Donow Southern Illinois University at Carbondale From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Death and loss of name Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 10:48:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1543 (1764) A friend in France asked me the following to which I hope someone can provide a better explanation than I ever would. Twice she found references to the suggestion of the loss of one's name upon dying: "whom the angels name Lenore, nameless here for evermore" _The Raven_ "There's a man going round, taking names" unidentified spiritual She wonders if this loss is based on a general belief. Is it uniquely American or also British? MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: "R.J. Shroyer" <66_443@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: logic programs Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 18:30:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1544 (1765) I have an urgent need to know more about programs designed for philosophy courses, especially courses in logic and rational decision-making, in order to help our Philosophy Department design a microcomputer lab for students and faculty researchers. Any and every logic program would be of interest, but I'm particularly keen to learn of existing, thriving philosophy labs to be used as models for our own. Because the deadline for applying to an internal university fund is almost upon us, I'm a bit panicked. With thanks, R. Shroyer, Research Director, Faculty of Arts, University of Western Ontario. (shroyer@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca) R.J. Shroyer: Department of English, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada N6A 3K7. (519)-679-2111, ext. 5839 or 5834 Canada: Shroyer@uwovax.uwo.ca From: David Mealand <D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk> Subject: Cusum Date: 05 Nov 90 17:03:16 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1545 (1766) Someone here in Edinburgh is setting up some software to do cusum charts for stylometric analysis. I have not worked on cusum as yet, but know that there has been some debate on this - one of the criteria which has been proposed is the plotting of two and three letter words against sentences. Does anyone know of replies, critiques analyses of this kind of work that would enable me as a critical but not unsympathetic reader of stylometric arguments to find a wider spectrum of debate on this issue. My main interest is in Greek literature, but I know that these methods have been tried in English literature and would like some leads on recent controversies there as I would be surprised if the method had not provoked controversy. David M. From: Subject: Anyone care to pass on some info to this chap? Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 15:19 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1546 (1767) Original Subject: Request for English grammar/style analysis software Reply-To: ags@uk.co.gec-mrc (Gavin Spittlehouse) ... [eds.] I am looking for software - preferably public domain - to analyse English text, checking grammar and style of writting, etc. This could be anything from very simple software checking for repeated use of a word or phrase to a complete grammatical checker. Please post your reply, or mail to me and I'll summarise to the net. Thanks in advance. -- Gavin. "But then I would say that, wouldn't I ?" (Standard disclaimers apply) Gavin Spittlehouse, Software Engineering Group, GEC Marconi Research Centre, Chelmsford, Essex UK CM2 8HN. 0245 73331 x3216 ags%uk.co.mrc@uk.ac.ukc From: Tom Horton <tom@cs.fau.edu> Subject: Macs teaching literature Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 13:47:11 est X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1547 (1768) This is a request for brief descriptions of how English departments have made use of Macintosh's in teaching literature courses. I know, I know -- that's a pretty wide topic! Let me explain, and I think you'll get a feel for how much info I need and at what level. Our English department has a lab of about a dozen Macs which they now use only for teaching freshman composition. I'm in the Computer Science Dept., but I hooked up with the department chair, and together we set up a text-retrieval exercise for her one of her grad courses. Apparently her department is now discussing how to make more use of this Mac lab, and her fellow faculty members have told her that they don't see how they can use it in teaching literature courses. So, she's asked me to come talk to all the faculty about this on Thursday (Nov. 8). I am not a Mac person and I don't teach literature, so this is not so easy for me. I know about big projects like the IRIS hypermedia project at Brown, but that's probably not a practical suggestion in this situation. So, if anyone out there has some success stories for literature courses in the typical US literature curriculum, give me a brief report. Send them to me directly and I'll summarize back to Humanist. (Feel free to point me to articles, preferably in things like CHum, Literary and Linguistic Computing, Academic Computing, etc.) Thanks, Tom Dr. Thomas B. Horton Department of Computer Science Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL 33431 USA Phone: 407/367-2674 FAX: 407/367-2800 INTERNET: tom@cs.fau.edu BITNET: HortonT@fauvax From: t2b@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Eugene Davis) Subject: Victorian Discussion Group? Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 08:34:14 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1548 (1769) Does a British 19th-century or Victorian Discussion Group exist? Is there one in the works those of us interested should know about? If no to the above, I would be glad to hear from prospective users, tabulate the results and report back in a month. Please use E-mail to the above address or write me (English Department, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907). From: "Hardy M. Cook" <HMCOOK@BOE.TOWSON.EDU> Subject: Information on "Voodoo" MACBETH Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 19:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1549 (1770) A colleague of mine is researching the 1936 "Voodoo" *Macbeth*; he has searched the Lincoln Center archives and is presently going through the materials at the Fenwick Library at George Mason University. He is particularly interested in the following: * the reception of the production afforded by the New York theatrical community; * the comments of Orson Welles, the director, regarding the above and his motive for casting blacks; * the reactions of others to the production; * possible revisions of original opinions by theatre critics of the time; and * governmental comments and reactions. If anyone can help him, please contact me by e-mail (HMCOOK@BOE.TOWSON.EDU) or write to Elliott Moffitt, Department of Humanities and Fine Arts, Bowie State University, Bowie, Maryland 20715. Thanks. From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0619 Electronic Discussion Groups (4/92) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 90 13:51:36 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1550 (1771) How does one get on the UNIX linguistics discussion group 'sci.ling'? Thanks. tom shannon, uc berkeley From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: new word for curiosity Date: Mon, 05 Nov 90 10:40:39 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1551 (1772) There may be a word in James Hillman's work, who has some harsh things to say about prurient (broadly so-called) curiosity. So does Augustine. Stephen From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0692 Summary: A Word for a Vice Date: Sun, 04 Nov 90 22:20 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1552 (1773) HOW ABOUT A COLLOQUIAL AMERICANISM, SUCH AS "INFOFREAK"? KESSLER From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: Infoosis Date: Sun, 04 Nov 90 13:52:39 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1553 (1774) Thanks to Martti Nyman for the annotated compendium of proposals for the word Willard wants, the one denoting "a pathological need for information that is due to "imaginative failure" or "intellectual cowardice" but not ascribable to soci(et)al amorality." Some hitherto less-discussed aspects: First, if the "pathology" is "not ascribable to... amorality," then clandestine activities, such as intelligence-gathering - in the sense of espionage or surveillance - are presumably not an issue. Is that right? Second, an unrecondite coinage may be "pragmatic" but ultimately impractical if the word is to denote a condition that is itself recondite. However, I will propose one. Patience, please. Third, Willard seems to be describing a special case of "pedantry" or, among more colorful alternatives, "intellectual navel-watching." Now, "pedantry" appears to be too general and does not necessarily refer to people who compulsively collect _Humanist_ postings. As for "information," the preferred word-stems seem to be "info-" and "data." The mind-set is commonly referred to as a "mania," which does connote the "pathological need" that Willard specifies. Between "infomania" and datamania" I prefer the latter for two reasons: (1) it has internal assonance, though the spelling makes me see double; (2) the word "infomaniac" will lead to either (a) a sore throat from overemphasizing the glottal-stop juncture after the indefinite article or (b) a clout on the ears (?) from failing to perform (a) in mixed company. Fourth, our choice of word may imply that we know the etiology of the condition. A case in point: "infomania" or "datamania" would seem to allude to a mental state; "infoitis," to a more generalized ailment. Does "-mania" imply an internal cause and "-itis" an external one? If so, we might infer from "datamaniac" that the the info-freak (a lapse in register but another nice alliteration) is the source of the affliction; from "infoitis," that the person may be the victim of contagion. "Infoitis," then, seems the least judgmental of the terms proposed, and that gives it great value. However, further neologistic problems arise: Who is the victim of "infoitis"? An "infoitic"? And what are the consequences of "infoitis"? "Infoosis"? Does an unridiculous spelling exist? "Info-osis"? "Infoo"sis"? Perhaps "info?osis," for its metapunctuational connotation, but, looking at the ? as an IPA symbol, we're back to sore throats again. Mark Riley, where are you? Finally, I feel that Willard's initial instinct, "info-mange," was right. A less jargonistic-looking French term might be "gourmand de donne'es," (the condition: "gourmandise...") but that sounds hardly more "pathological" than overindulging on leftover Hallowe'en candy. Following Willard's lead, one might coin a "recondite" word like "gnosophagy." But I prefer the English compound, a sinister term that evokes pathology on the order of a Frankenstein or a Mr Hyde - if not actually dark and stormy nights - as well as the ultimately nihilistic tragedy implicit in the condition and the one who is subject to it: "knowledge-eater." Willard, what prizes are you awarding to the winner(s) in this contest? From: Patt Haring <patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0686 Qs: Informania Book; UN Archives Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 08:00:08 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1554 (1775) On Nov 3, 11:23am, Elliot Parker wrote ... } } Subject: INFOMANIA (book) } } >There is a book around, which lists all conceivable networks and } >databases. Its title might serve as a possible term to describe } >what Willard is after: INFOMANIA. Another possible contender, } } Could you give a fuller citation? This is obviously of great } interest for those using the networks. } } There was a book called INFOMANIA written in the early years of } Compuserve by a lady describing her infatuation with the "chat" mode. } Obviously, not the same. The "Infomania" book is authored by Elizabeth Ferrarini and I would think it might have been **the** book to read on networks but that was ** BEFORE ** John S. Quarterman wrote "The Matrix" which is the current networker's bible :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------- On November 3, 1990, Michael Cheney wrote: } Subject: ACCESS TO UN ARCHIVES? } } [forwarded request] } (1) I am doing doctoral research in Political Science and am } interested to know if anyone knows of a way to contact the } United Nations archives in either New York or Geneva via } one of the international networks (or even by fax). } } (3) In particular I am interested in having access to } "Communications" sent to the Commision on Human Rights } concerning allegations of violations of human rights in } Latin America from 1960s to the 1980s. } With respect to the archives of U.N. materials, please send email to Dr. Tzipporah BenAvraham using this email path: tzippy@bklyn.BITNET Her political science experience and direct work with the U.N. may give you some leads. With respect to the violation of human rights in Latin America, you could send an inquiry to CRIES@cdp.UUCP - they're on PeaceNet and send out a newsletter about Latin America and human rights violations; also try ladbac@unmb.bitnet This is the Latin American database proejct at the University of New Mexico. Good luck! Patt Haring patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu or patth@ccnysci.BITNET "You can't sink a Rainbow." -- Greenpeace: Rainbow Warrior From: Grover Zinn <FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0692 Summary: A Word for a Vice Date: Sat, 3 Nov 90 23:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1555 (1776) Just a vote for infomania, as we press onward in the quest for finding a label for the new danger of the information age and mailboxes that will fill up too rapidly! Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Acad. Comp. address Date: Sun, 04 Nov 90 11:05:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1556 (1777) [deleted quotation] They have dropped the advertising and now charge a subscription rate: $50 for individual faculty; $40 if you complete the "Computer Use Profile" which they will presumably turn into a salable mailing list to make up for some of the lost ad revenue. The address is P. O. Box 804, McKinney, TX 75069. Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: _Academic Computing_ Date: Sun, 04 Nov 90 18:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1557 (1778) In response to Bill Ball's query, the reason he may not find _Academic Computing_ in the library or many other places anymore is that they've eliminated all or most advertising and are now charging around $30 for individuals and $70 for libraries (1-yr. subscription). It used to be a free subscription for educators. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: ST_JOSEPH@HVRFORD.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0693 Qs: NYT & Indexing Co.; _Academic Computing_ (2/22) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 00:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1558 (1779) The address for _Academic Computing_ is: Academic Computing P. O. Box 804 McKinney TX 75069-4425 Up until this Fall this magazine was free. But due to lack of support from projected advertisers they have had to switch to a subscription basis. I my opinion, the magazine is worht the cost (I don't remember the exact amount, but the projected articles over the next year or so looked good). Hope this helps. From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: Full greek character set on screen Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 10:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1559 (1780) Dan Church asked recently about displaying (my paraphrase) characters from alternate character sets on the screen in WordPerfect. I saw a blurb for a product called Font Editor made by WP which I think claimed to allow one to see any of the WP characters on screen. And their character set 8 (Greek) may have everything he is looking for. I didn't pay much attention because it's not a need I've ever had. I probably saw this on wp50-l@ub where you could look it up. Or call WP. Good luck. Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: "Paul N. Banks" <pbanks@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu> Subject: Screen fonts Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 0:11:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1560 (1781) In response to Dan Church's inquiry about the ability to display Greek fonts on screen in WordPerfect, I just received a newsletter from WP announcing "WordPerfect Screen Font Editor for Screen Text," available from WP for $49. (US). I don't know whether this would take care of the accents and breathings, however. Paul N. Banks | Conservation Education Programs Research Scholar | School of Library Service pbanks@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu | 516 Butler Library 212 854-4445 | Columbia University 212 865-1304 | New York NY 10027 From: <CHURCHDM@VUCTRVAX> Subject: Greek Characters on Screen Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 14:51 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1561 (1782) It looks like a classic case of bad timing: I sent off a message to HUMANIST asking for help with getting true WYSIWYG Greek characters with accents and breathing marks in WordPerfect, and the very next day I received the latest _WordPer- fect Report_ with, you guessed it, the announcement of the new WordPerfect Screen Font Editor for Text Screen Characters. The announcement says that it is available now, for $49US/$64CN, plus a $3US/$5CN shipping fee. However, I'd still like to hear about any solutions that HUMANISTs have come up with; it just might be that the "home-grown" solutions are better. (Wouldn't be the first time.) Thanks, Dan Church From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Greek for WP 5.1 Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 12:36:08 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1562 (1783) For using Greek with WordPerfect 5.1 I have been told that there are several add-on ($100 or so) packages that will provide full screen capabilities with accented Greek. If I can get to my CD-ROM, I will search for the product name. ... [two messages combined. eds.] This is an addition to my vague response about Greek with Word Perfect. The program I was trying to think of is: FONTMAX ISS, Inc. 3463 State Street #283 Santa Barbara, CA 93105 805-373-0212 The literature claims to work with a wide variety of languages including Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew (right to left, no less), but I have not actually used the program (we are Nota Bene users here). The price appears to be $160 for screen and laser printing version, $100 for screen display system. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: U245@ITOCSIVM Subject: Re: 4.0677 Rs: Arabic Word Processing (2/44) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 90 17:29:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1563 (1784) I used in my Department MLS. I think it is interesting but limited by its way of representing internally foreign characters: every character on video is two characters internally. So a 100K real file is a 200K MLS file... This greatly limits the possibly of exchanging data among differents programs or standards. From this point of view NotaBene is undoubtedly better. Consider also that MLS files can't exceed 30K lenght; if you want more K's, you have to link MLS files together. ... [two messages combined. eds.] MLS, that I criticized a little in my previous message, is able to use the right (initial, central, final) character form, and also to format on the same line words running from left to right together with word running from right to left. DOS hardware and software allow - despite some concepts laying behind - us to do some things quite well... Maurizio Lana From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: direction of numbers Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 16:05:08 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1564 (1785) Patrick Connor's comment "it [the Arabic WP] must run right to left for text and then run left to right for numerals" reveals an interesting piece of ethnocentrism in which most of us are enmeshed. I would assert that our numbers do, in fact, run from right to left. When you write a number from left to right, the first digit is ambiguous until the number is finished (watch what happens when you enter a sum on your electronic bank machine.) If we read numbers the other way around, this ambiguity would not exist. Think of it this way. When you write the numbers from 1 to 9, the logical thing is to have this position revert to 0, and then write the new tens digit after it, i.e. to the right. So ten would be written 01. I assume that our habit of writing numbers "backwards" is because we took over this habit from the Arabs, whose contributions were so important in the development of mathematics. An interesting sidelight. Alan Turing probably was unaware of all this, but being the brilliant man he was, sensed that our numbers are the wrong way round, for people who are in the habit of writing from left to right, and insisted that binary numbers at least should go from left to right, so in 10010011 the *leftmost* 1 was to be understood as unity. An individual who attended a lecture he gave records that he did *all* of his arithmetic on the blackboard the "other way around" to the total befuddlement of his audience. I suspect that he was not showing off or trying to confuse. It just didn't occur to him that not everyone shared his talent for ambidirectional arithmetic. Alan D. Corre Department of Hebrew Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (414) 229-4245 PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201 corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0690 R: Arabic Word Processing Date: Sun, 4 Nov 1990 14:50:11 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1565 (1786) It isn't that difficult to achieve right-to-left (for Arabic) and left-to-right (for English or numerals) in the same line; all the Hebrew word processors do it routinely on DOS machines. A very popular word processor for Hebrew over here is Wordmill; a friend of mine uses an Arabic version of it (i.e. Arabic/English rather than Hebrew/English). As far as I know it chooses the correct forms of the letters, can of course enter both languages on the same line, or Arabic + numerals, etc. Though the problem with a bi-directional line is to divide the line correctly if you reach the end of the line in the secondary language, i.e. the one that runs in the other direction from most of the paragraph. The new line will start the other side from the side native to the language you're typing (e.g. if in an Arabic paragraph you insert a few words of English and the English phrase overruns the line, the new line will place the last word(s) of the English insert at its right-hand end). Somehow it never looks right. Another problem is that Hebrew word processors in Israel, and presumably Arabic ones in Arab countries, presuppose that the alphabet in question is in RAM; obviously most U.S. users don't have anything but the IBM character set in RAM. EGA-and-up users don't have this problem because the character set is a soft font, not RAM-based. I seem to recall that my friend with the Arabic version of Wordmill uses a Hercules Plus card (now long off the market), but presumably Arabic Wordmill must have font support for EGA and up too. I tried Wordmill (in Hebrew) three versions ago and was not impressed. It's now, so they tell me, much more user-friendly and also more flexible. At any rate it's got a good 80% of the market over here, I estimate, but I suspect that's because it concentrates (like WordPerfect?) on the business side rather than the needs of the academic community. Judy Koren From: John Baima <D024JKB@UTARLG> Subject: CD-ROM drives Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 09:50 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1566 (1787) There have been a couple of vague comments about the speed of CD-ROM drives so I would like to offer my two cents about how CD-ROMs work. First, the data on a CD-ROM is stored in a spiral rather then in concentric circles like floppies and hard disks. The data is stored with a constant linear density so that the drive has to change the spin of the disk depending on where the data is on the spiral. This makes the "random access time" rather large, typically 350-800 ms. A typical XT class drive will have a random access time of about 80 ms, an AT class drive about 35 ms. Many 386 machines have drives with as little as 16 ms. Some drives with a large controller cache claim even faster times. Thus, the random access times are 10-20 times slower for CD-ROMs than hard disks. There is, however, more to disk speed than the access time. When reading a large amount of data, the data transfer rate is actually more important. Here, the speed of a CD-ROM is not quite so bad. The data transfer rate of CD-ROMs is 150k bytes/sec. This transfer rate is part of the "High Sierra" standard. Until fairly recently, most PC hard disks were MFM drives and they have a transfer rate of 500k/sec. The RLL drives have a transfer rate of 750k/sec. SCSI drives have a variable data transfer rate because SCSI is really an external bus standard and a "SCSI" drive can be either a MFM, RLL or other type. There are other types, of course. ESDI is popular with high performance PC and IDE is popular with laptops and newer PCs. Anyway, hard disks cannot sustain their transfer rates for a couple of reasons. The first is interleave. When the interleave for a drive is optimally set, it represents the number of rotations necessary to read one track. Thus, the effective transfer rate of an XT with a 3:1 interleave (typical for XTs) is 500/3 k/sec. Also, most hard disks lose at least one rotation when they have to move from track to track. Also, if only are partial track is read, then usually another rotation is lost. Disk caches which buffer whole tracks can reduce this problem. Most CD-ROM drives, however, since their data is stored in a spiral, can indefinitely keep up their transfer of data. The architecture of PCs does not allow the continuous flow from PCs so that the effective rate will typically be about 10% slower, perhaps 140k/sec. The bottom line for hard disks is that they have a hard time getting an effective transfer rate that is 1/2 of the theoretical limit after accounting for the interleave. Thus, a typical XT with a 3:1 interleave will only be able to sustain about 80k/sec, barely 1/2 the speed of a CD-ROM drive. The implications for CD-ROM applications is that they must be designed to read large continuous chunks rather than skipping around. A CD-ROM application that, for example, uses a lot of indexes and does a lot of "random access" will indeed be quite slow. However, if the application is something like reading the TLG, the performance will be somewhere between an XT (3:1) and AT (1:1) hard disk. The Greek New Testament is a nice sample because it is almost exactly 1 MB. The GNT can be read and searched for a phrase in less than 8 seconds on my 386sx--hardly glacial, IMHO. Most CD-ROM drives use a SCSI interface and the connection is easy for most PCs and trivial for Macs. The only problem usually comes when the CD-ROM drive is mixed with other SCSI drives on a PC. The SCSI "standard" is inadequately defined (SCSI II is much better) and one must be careful that all the devices can be interconnected. It is usually possible to connect almost any combination, but I would not buy without the option of returning the hardware if it does not. Finally (whew!), I think that CD-ROM drives are good technology, especially for those who want to distribute a large amount of texts. It is a pity that no "killer" business CD-ROM app has appeared and spread CD-ROMs all over, but the US Govt is making CD-ROMs like crazy and it is only a matter of time before the prices drop more (they have been, but more slowly then hoped). John Baima Silver Mountain Software d024jkb@utarlg.bitnet 440-7401@MCIMail.com From: brad inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0684 Qs: WP Greek; HP->PS Greek; CDROM/TLG Readers Date: Mon, 05 Nov 90 12:56:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1567 (1788) Re: Which CD-ROM. The Toshiba XM-2200A is a SCSI CD-ROM reader which can be shifted from a DOS machine to a Mac. We have been running it from an AT clone for several months now, searching both TLG and PHI/CCAT discs, with no problems. I strongly recommend it. Brad Inwood Dept. of Classics University of Toronto From: <LACUREJ@IUBACS> Subject: CD-ROM drives Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 22:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1568 (1789) TO : Jamie Hubbard. SUBJ : Which CD-ROM? [deleted quotation] Funny you should ask. This isn't a direct answer to your question, since there is not mention of an SCSI interface. But it is certainly an interesting development. Apparently along with polka hits of the 50's, the discounters have now gotten into the CD-ROM business. DAK's Winter 1991 catalog is carrying a CD-ROM drive for DOS machines ($499 for internal model, $699 for external) with 6 free disks. The disks include: Disk 1. 21 vol encyclopedia (with EGA/VGA illustrations) Disk 2. 8 vol. reference library (Webster's New World Dictionary, Thesaurus, etc.) Disks 3 & 4. World and US Atlas with 320 maps and charts. Disk 5. 450 title library with search software (includes Shakespeare, Doyle, Milton, etc.) Disk 6. a number of foreign language dictionaries. If anyone is interested they have a toll free number: 1-800-325-0800, or for technical questions: 1-800-888-9818. Jon LaCure | East Asian Languages and Cultures | Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 | (812) 332-3101 | lacurej@iujade From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0684 Qs: WP Greek; HP->PS Greek; CDROM/TLG Readers Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 10:29:37 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1569 (1790) ... [eds.] As for the CD-ROM reader, we are using a Toshiba XM3201B, a SCSI unit which works, fairly quickly, at least for CD-ROM, with both Mac and PC. We also have a search and browse software pacakge for TLG and PHI CD-ROM's if those are the CD's you are going to be using. Many other CD's come with their own retrieval software. There is also a package licenses by Lotus which several CD vendors are using. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Don Mabry <djm1@RA.MSSTATE.EDU> Subject: Re: Early English Orthography Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 20:51:53 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 701 (1791) I am posting a reply to the entire list even though I realize that many list members may not have a professional interest in the history of language. I do so as a possible example of how we can further the scholarly enterprise. Chriss@cwu might contact Natalie Maynor <nm1@ra.msstate.edu> for leads and information about the history of spelling. She is a student of dialects and should be able to direct inquiries into the best channels. It seems to me that one thing we can do for each other as scholars is to provide leads and information to other scholars, regardless of discipline. Don Mabry From: cfwol@conncoll.bitnet Subject: Judaic Studies Chair Search Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 13:41:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1570 (1792) Dear fellow Humanists, Please bring this to the attention of any colleagues you may think interested. Thank you. THE ELIE WIESEL CHAIR IN JUDAIC STUDIES Connecticut College, a highly selective, coeducational, private liberal arts college, seeks nominations and applications for the nation's first endowed chair in Judaic Studies named for Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. This senior appointment will be made in the Department of Religious Studies. The Elie Wiesel Professor must be a distinguished scholar who will teach two courses each semester and develop Judaic Studies in a liberal arts framework. Competence in issues of modern Judaism, participation in the Department's innovative team-taught "Introduction to the Study of Religion", and interest in theories of religion will be especially welcome. The position will be supported by strong library holdings (including the Motzkin Judaica Collection), the personal involvement of Elie Wiesel, and a distinguished Advisory Committee that will work to raise further endowment to support Judaic Studies. Screening of applications will begin December 1 and continue until the position is filled. Send nominations or applications, including a curriculum vitae, to Elie Wiesel Chair Search Committee, Connecticut College, Room 203-B, 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT 06320-4196. Connecticut College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: AAR/SBL SOFTWARE DEMOS Date: Mon, 05 Nov 90 12:18:12 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1571 (1793) Academic Software Demonstrations at Annual AAR/SBL Computer-Assisted Research Group (CARG) New Orleans, November 17-20, 1990 Academic software developers attending the Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL (American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature) are invited by the Computer-Assisted Research Group (CARG) to schedule one-hour software demonstration sessions. The sessions will run from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday and Monday, November 18-19, beginning hourly (NN:00) and ending at ten-till the hour (NN:50). A schedule of demonstration sessions will be announced and circulated in print at the main CARG program session on Saturday (1:00 - 5:30 PM, Marriott - La Galerie 5). The platforms supported for these demonstrations are IBM-PC (DOS), MAC (SE or II) and Micro-IBYCUS, each with a CD-ROM drive. Of course, you may bring NeXT or Sparc if you have one; inquire about others. DataShow (or equivalent) projection equipment will be available. For best results, plan to bring your own computer from the exhibit hall, as this will save you set-up time and ensure that you have a proper system. CARG cannot guarantee that micro-computers in the CARG Demonstration Room will have an OS (version), RAM, video and fonts that you may require for your software. The demonstration slots are open to both institutionally-affiliated and commercial software developers. If you wish to arrange for a demonstration session, contact: Professor Alan Groves, Westminster Theological Seminary, (1 215) 887-5511. Please have a couple date/time alternatives in mind. Robin Cover CARG Program Co-Chair BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@UCBCMSA> Subject: 4.0667 Court case -- "Tora Treasure" CD-ROM Date: Mon, 05 Nov 90 15:45 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1572 (1794) The courts will undoubtedly decide the Tora Treasure case as they will. People need feel no distress at having bought the product as I can attest that it waas sold in good faith. I have no connection with the producers or distributors other than as a customer and I am convinced that they believe that they have stolen nothing. Let us remember how the courts decided in the look and feel case; that didn't make it right. In any case, here the court has not even spoken yet. Sincerely, Daniel From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Citation of case involving the index to the New York Date: Sat, 3 Nov 90 17:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1573 (1795) The copyright case involving the index to the New York Times Index is, according to a quick Lexis search: The NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY, Microfilming Corporation of America, Arno Press, Inc., and the New York Times Information Service, Inc., Plaintiffs, v. ROXBURY DATA INTERFACE, INC., Byron A. Falk, Jr., and Valerie R. Falk, Defendants. Civ. A. No. 77-225. United States District Court, District New Jersey. 434 F. Supp. 217; 194 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 371; 2 Media L. Rep. 2209 May 3, 1977. The case involves a hard copy index to the Index, not a computer database, but it has always seemed to me that it is very pertinent to the issue of compiling indexes or concordances from electronic texts. I believe that the New Jersey reached the correct result; but notice that the decision is not binding on any court except the United States District Court for New Jersey. If you would like a copy of the opinion, I can fetch one over from Lexis and send it to the Editors for the archives. I doubt if anyone would worry about that as a potential copyright violation--as it is a good advertisement for the Lexis system. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, Ohio BITNET: JUNGER@CWRU INTERNET: JUNGER@CWRU.CWRU.EDU (or PDJ2@PO.CWRU.EDU, but that is flakey) From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0685 Qs: Classical Lexica; Advertisement Corpora Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 10:11:15 MST(6) (20 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1574 (1796) For a ready made corpus of advertising copy of mostly US origin see the archives of USENet's comp.newprod news group. I say "the archives" rather blandly here, but actually I don't know anything about accessing them, or whether they exist. Certainly new material is being sent out on a weekly basis, so the archives aren't strictly necessary! Note that all the copy deals with computer products. From: TFGREEN@SUVM Subject: education citation Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 21:22:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1575 (1797) Terrence H. Bell was Secretary of Education in Reagan's first administration. Charles Ess' citation is the sort of thing he might have said, but it is not likely to be the sort of thing he would have coined. Tom Green -- Syracuse U. From: ANDREWO at UTOREPAS Subject: Postscript vs HP laserjet Date: 4 November 90, 16:26:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1576 (1798) Several solutions are undoubtedly possible. The simplest might be to acquire a Postscript printer which also has HP Laserjet emulation as do the QMS Postscript printers. From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0687 Rs: Miners and Gold Date: Sat, 3 Nov 90 12:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1577 (1799) Another variant is Paul about heathen wisdom: gems in dungheap. From: dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (David Sewell) Subject: Re: 4.0657 Rs: ... Hayes/Procomm Date: Wed, 31 Oct 1990 12:02:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1578 (1800) Kessler writes: [deleted quotation] If you're using a Hayes-compatible modem, comma pause time is something that can be set with a modem command. It should be stored in the S register 8. If you give your modem the command AT S8? it should respond with whatever your default number of seconds is (mine is two, not one). If you want to set the comma pause to, say, one second, you would enter the command AT S8=1 either directly or by putting the string in the modem-setup commands. From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU> Subject: Dialing Pause Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1579 (1801) If you purchase a simple phone line splitter you can connect your phone and your modem to the same line. When you dial from the phone and successfully reach your host computer, your modem should be able to return the tone as you listen. Then you must hang up (carefully) the real phone. This should work for all software and modems. The method is called: "Giving the finger to your modem." BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN ÿÿM From: Nicole Yankelovich <ny@iris.brown.edu> Subject: HYPERTEXT '91 Preliminary Call Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 15:58:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 705 (1802) Preliminary Call for Participation HYPERTEXT '91 Third ACM Conference on Hypertext San Antonio, Texas, USA December 15-18, 1991 Hypertext '91 is an international research conference on hypertext. The ACM Hypertext Conference occurs in the United States every second year in alternation with ECHT, the European Conference on Hypertext. Hypertext systems provide computer support for locating, gathering, annotating, and organizing information. Hypertext systems are being designed for information collections of diverse material in heterogeneous media, hence the alternate name, hypermedia. Hypertext is by nature multi-disciplinary, involving researchers in many fields, including computer science, cognitive science, rhetoric, and education, as well as many application domains. This conference will interest a broad spectrum of professionals in these fields ranging from theoreticians through behavioral researchers to systems researchers and applications developers. The conference will offer technical events in a variety of formats as well as guest speakers and opportunities for informal special interest groups. Suggested Formats and Topics We are inviting you to participate in HT'91 in one of seven different areas of the technical program: papers, panels, courses, videos, technical briefings, posters, or demos. Submitters may be invited to participate in the technical program in a different category from that in which they submitted their work. Submissions in all areas of hypertext research are encouraged. Topics of interest would include the following: Paradigms for information access Information design Theories, models, and frameworks Experimental or observational studies of use Workplace deployment issues Structuring hypertext documents for reading and retrieval Underlying technologies (persistent object stores, link services, databases, information retrieval, access control) For More Information: Hypertext '91 Conference email: ht91@bush.tamu.edu John J. Leggett, General Chair Hypertext '91 Conference Hypertext Research Lab Department of Computer Science Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843 USA Voice: 409 845-0298 Fax: 409 847-8578 email: leggett@bush.tamu.edu Janet H. Walker, Program Chair Hypertext '91 Conference Digital Equipment Corporation Cambridge Research Lab One Kendall Square, Bldg 700 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Voice: 617 621-6618 Fax: 617 621-6650 email: jwalker@crl.dec.com ... [eds.] Summary of Deadlines Papers, panels, courses, videos, and technical briefings postmarked by: April 12, 1991 Demos and posters postmarked by: August 25, 1991 Acceptance notification for papers, panels, courses, videos, and tech- nical briefings: June 1, 1991 Final versions due for proceedings: July 31, 1991 Final videos due for production: September 30, 1991 Technical Program Description To maximize the opportunity for attendees to discuss their own work at the conference, we offer a variety of technical events. These events are described in detail ... [see the full text of this announcement for the details. eds.] Note: ACM will hold copyright on all material appearing in the proceedings. -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. HYPERTXT CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Jim Wilderotter <WILDER@GUVAX> Subject: RE: Death and loss of name Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 11:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1580 (1803) I have heard of some religions/cultures (which ones I can not remember at present) where the name of the dead person is not used to refer to them after death. I *can* tell you that two writers, Tolkien and Fiest (science fiction / fantasy writers), have made use of this belief when they wrote about the elven culture. I'm not sure, but I think that one of the cultures was a tribe of American Indians. Jim Wilderotter Georgetown Center for Text and Technology From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0695 ... Death and Loss of Name Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 10:12:56 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1581 (1804) In regard to Kessler's query on names. I think that the quotation "There's a man going round, taking names" means, "There's a man going round making a list of names." That, at least, is what it means to me out of context. My interpretation of the Poe line is that Lenore is nameless among the living because she is not present to be named (called). I have never heard of an American or British equation of death with loss of name. On the other hand, among the Omaha and Ponca of the American Prairie Peninsula region, and, I assume among other North American groups, at least in the vicinity, male names are clan property, and one can only use a name while living. Once you are dead, "your" name is available for reuse, though I know of some old instances of using a deceased's name to refer to him or her. One can also discard a name without dying. In some recorded instances, a man discarded "his" name to take up a prestigious name that had become available because the user had died. I don't know to what extent this is still practiced. The Omaha-Ponca language is falling into disuse, and everyone now has "English names" in addition to Omaha (or Ponca) names. Some younger people don't have an Omaha (or Ponca) name. Note that the general principles on when it is appropriate to use a name in reference or address differ substantially from those in American English. From: Judith Schrier <PY701010@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0695 Queries Date: Wed, 07 Nov 90 13:57:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1582 (1805) [deleted quotation] I have wondered about Lenore, but I doubt if the poem is based on any "general belief" about loss of name with death. Poe wrote a much-republished essay about writing The Raven, in which he claims to have chosen just about everything in it "for effect", including the name of Lenore, with its drawn out, "ghostly" oh sound. I don't really remember any details, but I would think he made her nameless just for the lonely feeling it gives... The Man taking names was making a list of those who were to die. That is, he is taking *down* the names. I don't think there's any implication that he's *removing* the names from the individuals. Or on the other hand, maybe I'm wrong. j From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Death and loss of name Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 10:48:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1583 (1806) I immodestly refer the inquirer to a paper I did (jointly with Jane Simpson): 1981. '"No-name" in central Australia', pp. 165-77 in _Papers from the Parasession on Language and Behavior_, ed. by Carrie S. Masek et al. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. which is one of many references recording the intimate links between name, identity, and death, in Aboriginal Australia. Among many central Australian Aboriginal languages, there is a noun (e.g. /kumunjayi/ in Warlpiri) which is used just to replace the (unspeakable) personal name of a recently deceased person, or any other word which sounds like the name. These terms have no synchronic analysis, and no other function. (There are name-avoidance parallels outside Australia, which no doubt others will respond with, but I do not know of specific replacement terms outside of Australia; I would like to hear of such if others know of such.) David Nash Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIATSIS) GPO Box 553 Fax: (06)2497310 Canberra ACT 2601, Australia AARNet: dgn612@csc2.anu.oz.au From: Peter Ian Kuniholm <MCG@CORNELLC> Subject: Re: 4.0699 Bi-Directional Lines (2/71) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 90 12:03:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1584 (1807) Re. comments on directionality of numbers and how we allegedly took the system over from the Arabs: They of course write retrograde to the way we do, but they express their n umbers "backwards," which is to say that the number 321 in Arabic is expressed as "one and twenty and three hundred" which makes the sequence look like 321 to us although they think of it as 1+2+3. Every time I have to deal with an Arabic inscription, I thank them for thi s oddity which makes reading their numbers that much easier for me. But it is mildly disconcerting to see left-to-right numbers in the middle of a right-to-l eft text (which doesn't bother Egyptian first-graders one bit). Peter Ian Kuniholm Cornell University From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM> Subject: numeric direction Date: 7 November 1990 18:01:40 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1585 (1808) Alan Corre is absolutely right! Our numerals run the way they do because we got them from the Arabs, and integers, at least, run right to left. Some very strange things have occurred with numbers in the transition from integer to real, and from integer to string of numerals, of which I mention just two: - decimal numbers read neither left to right nor right to left, but inward-out - telephone numbers (which are numeral strings, not numeric values) run left-to-right, like the text, in Roman scripts -- and in modern Hebrew and Arabic they also run left-to-right, *against* the textual direction (I assume the direction was taken over with the technology, just as it was earlier when Arabic numerals moved west) The latter fact leads to the very strange phenomenon that in Arabic and Hebrew, integers run the same way as the text, but numeral strings run the other way, while in right-to-left scripts the reverse is true. Neither script has a wholly consistent treatment of numbers, I think. For whatever reason, however, the native speakers of Hebrew I've worked with prefer to write telephone numbers and integers in the same order, and it's left-most digit first. Whichever way you look at it, it's tough on the software. Back to the main inquiry, though: There was a very nice DOS-based Arabic word processor based on Palantir and sold out of Washington DC or suburban Maryland, which I looked at carefully a few years ago, but I can't remember the name. It was far far superior to the Multi-Lingual Scholar of the same period, but I infer that Multi-Lingual Scholar has got past the days when the backspace key didn't work (you had to press left-arrow and delete). Michael Sperberg-McQueen From: BRIAN KAHIN <KAHIN@HULAW1.BITNET> Subject: RE: 4.0676 Copyright; Email tapping Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 09:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 668 (1809) [deleted quotation] ... [deleted quotation] Under the copyright law, providing for this kind of access constitutes a public display, which requires the permission of the copyright owner. There is an exception (part of the first sale doctrine) that says that the owner of a copy can display a work publicly at the place where the copy is located (but no more than one image at a time). Although there is also an argument that such an online display constitutes the preparation of derivative work -- as macrakis@gr.osf.org suggests in a subsequent note, it is so clearly a violation of the public display right that the derivative works argument is of little significance. Note that in either case, we have been assuming that it was okay to put the text into digital readable form in the first place. The question is, once you have something legitimately in the computer, can you make it available for others to look at over the network? Basically, no, unless there is a fair use defense. Macrakis does present an interesting argument for the particular case of remote searching to locate a particular passage in a local copy. But the correct analogy to the Roxbury vs. New York Times case which he refers to would be to identify page numbers for the text rather than actually show the text. Ironically, Section 108, which deals with copying by libraries, suggests that it may be permissible to actually copy material and send the copy over the network -- when it would clearly violate the public display right to merely display it remotely. If you think that's counterintuitive, you're right. I am a lawyer -- but would be the first to disclaim that this is legal advice. Brian Kahin (I hope someone will forward this to Humanist.) From: <SHLOMO1@HUJIVMS> Subject: OCR Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 22:23 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1586 (1810) Having spent several months abroad, I was unable to follow the ongoing discussion reOCR developments at HUMANIST. We were advised to consider purchasing a Kurzweil 5100 scanner to transform a huge number of U>S. Nat. Archive originated documents related to WWII, partially in German aas rpt as well to electronic readable texts. However we are not sure which additional technology is necessary to scan handwritten remarks on the same documents, and whether typed letter scanning and handwritten letter scanning were successfully merged in one scanner. I shall appreciate any updated info re Kurzweil 5100 or 5200 - if alreadt rpt already in use, and any other info reboth technologies. With all the best wishes and many thanks in advance, Shlomo Aronson, Professor, Poli.Sci. Dept. Hebrew U. Jerusalem From: ENCOPE@MCMASTER Subject: Admiral De Fonte Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 13:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1587 (1811) I'd appreciate any help you might offer in discovering anything at all about one Admiral De Fonte, whose "voyage" is the topic of a map here at McMaster University Library. Apparently the voyage is fantastical--but I'd still like to know whether this Admiral is a real person, a fiction, or who-knows-what else. Thanks. Kevin L. Cope ENCOPE@MCMASTER or ENCOPE@LSUVM From: ENCOPE@MCMASTER Subject: Missing Cartographers Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 13:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1588 (1812) I'd appreciate any leads concerning T. Kitchen (or Kitchen), Hermann Moll, Bowen, and Condor, all prominent cartographers of the eighteenth century. Are t here any books on these gentlemen? How can I find out about them? Kevin L. Cope ENCOPE@LSUVM or ENCOPE@MCMASTER From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: CD-ROM disks from DAK Date: 7 November 1990, 08:22:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1589 (1813) The current DAK catalogue lists a CD-ROM package of a Sony player and "$2,452 worth of FREE CD Software," including individual discs with a 21-volume encyclopedia, an 8-volume reference library (not the Microsoft one), world and U.S. atlases, 17 "translation dictionaries in 12 different languages," and a "Library of the Future" with 450 titles, from most of Conan Doyle to Confucius to Richard Henry Dana to Epictetus to Milton to Voltaire. Does anyone know where Drew Kaplan, the boistrous director of DAK, might have picked up everything from texts of Plato to the *New York Public Library Desk Reference*? Four of Harrap's dictionaries are included and Zanichelli's respectable Italian, plus Webster's New World, so someone got paid distribution rights. The whole package costs $699 and looks like a good deal, considering that CD-ROM players start at about $500 nowadays. Any opinions from you about where the texts came from (the "Library of the Future" has a little trademark symbol next to it) or how all those different disks might have been distributed? Roy Flannagan From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Bibliography software Date: 03 Nov 90 09:4:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1590 (1814) There has been discussion on this list concerning bibliography software. I am aware of a number of good packages for micros under MS-DOS. My question is this: does anyone know of a good bibliographic utility that operates under UNIX and can be site- licensed? We are looking for a package to install on our mainframe, just as we have WordPerfect (albeit 4.2) for the mainframe. Thanks for assistance with this. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET From: DAVID REIMER <REIMER@WLUCP6.BITNET> Subject: Michael Cheney query Date: 07 Nov 90 14:2:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1591 (1815) Re: access to archives concerning human rights violations. Another "list" which may be well informed on this subject is: AMNESTY@JHUVM, the Amnesty International list. I hope this is of assistance. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University REIMER@WLUCP6 From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0698 Greek Fonts; Arabic Word Processing Date: 07 Nov 90 17:36:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1592 (1816) WP Greek *noch einmal*: If you dig *further* into the latest WP newsletter, you will find their foreign `language modules', selling for under $100 (buy your laser fonts from somebody else, softcraft or fontmax). These provide screen drivers and keyboard layouts to do Greek immediately. THe Font Editor WP also sells might get you there, but I think you would be left designing your actual screen character set one at a time, and somewhere around eta-roughbreathing-circumflex-iotasubscript, you'd get a bit tired of this. I use the WP module for screen and keyboard, but then switch to Zondervan's Scripture Fonts to do actual laser printing because I like their fonts better; the two products are compatible. From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH> Subject: Re: 4.0698 Greek Fonts; Arabic Word Processing (5/96) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 1990 20:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1593 (1817) Concerning Greek screen fonts: has anyone out there used Scripture Fonts from Zondervan Electronic Publishing (phone # 800-727-7759)? According to an ad in WordPerfect Magazine, Oct/90, p. 24, the program "lets you enter, edit, and print fully pointed Hebrew and properly accented Greek for only $79.95." It works from within WP 5.0/5.1, and apparently includes all the necessary screen and printer fonts. The ad does not specify which graphicss cards and printers are supported. Any information from fellow Humanists would be welcome. Alan Cooper acooper@ucbeh Hebrew Union College From: "David R. Chesnutt" <N330004@UNIVSCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0695 Queries (8/165) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 90 14:03:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1594 (1818) RE: R. J. Shroyer's Query on Logic Programs Prof. Roger Sullivan, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 (803-777-4166) established a logic lab here about two years ago. He developed a program called Logic Works which is used in the lab. About 600 students take the course. The program runs on IBM-compatible micros from a floppy disk. The program is used to teach symbolic logic and appears to be very successful according to reports from the technical support people in our Humanities Computing Lab. Sullivan apparently does not have an e-mail address. From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@YORKVM1> Subject: A face set toward Jerusalem Date: Sun, 04 Nov 90 11:31:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1595 (1819) I'm sure that Herb Donow's reader will be flooded with replies from eager New Testament types (we're all eager) responding to his query about the lines from Gardner, _Resurrection_. This is one of our few chances to show off! The source must surely be ("surely" being a term used in NT studies when one lacks the evidence to prove a thing) the Gospel of Luke, chapter 9, verse 51: "When the days drew near for him (Jesus) to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem" (RSV; older translations -- "toward Jerusalem"). This is a dramatic high point in the Gospel of Luke. This author begins his narrative in Jerusalem and has Jesus steadily moving toward the city from Galilee. In his second volume, Acts, he has the Christian preaching emanate from Jerusalem (Acts 1:8). The follow-up to Luke 9:51 is 13:33, where Luke's Jesus says: "Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem." [deleted quotation]...), I suppose that this follow-up is the key to the citation: in both Luke and Gardner, a sense of destiny/fate/ought-ness is evoked, maybe? The interesting thing in Luke is that, even though Luke's Jesus announces already in 9:51 his orientation toward Jerusalem, and although the writer keeps reminding us that Jesus is headed toward the city (13:22, 33), Jesus doesn't actually leave the Galilee until near the end of the story (17:11); from then on, the pointers toward Jerusalem become very frequent (18:31; 19:11, 28, 41). I do hope that this helps. Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: New List Announcement Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 19:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1596 (1820) New List Announcement: LibRef@KENTVM "Discussion of Library Reference Issues" This list is a discussion of the changing environment of library reference services and activities. Topics include traditional reference services, patron expectations, staff training, as well the impact of CD-ROM and online searching on reference service. This forum will serve as a professional networking and information source. We will share ideas, solutions and experiences. Owners = Diane Kovacs dkovacs@kentvm Laura Bartolo lbartolo@kentvm Gladys Bell gbell@kentvm Mary DuMont mdumont@kentvm Julie McDaniel jmcdanie@kentvm Carolyn Radcliff cradclif@kentvm Kara Robinson krobinso@kentvm Barbara Schloman bschloma@kentvm This list is run from the LISTSERV at Kent State University and moderated by the Reference Librarians at Kent State University Libraries. The Internet address of the LISTSERV is LISTSERV@library.kent.edu. You may subscribe to this list by sending a subscribe command by interactive message or by e-mail. To subscribe by interactive message, send the command: "SUB LIBREF yourfirstname yourlastname" to LISTSERV@KENTVM. For example: IBM VM CMS users would enter tell listserv at kentvm "sub libref A. Librarian" VAX VMS users would enter send listserv@kentvm "sub libref A. Librarian" You may also subscribe by send mail to LISTSERV@KENTVM with the command "SUB LIBREF-L your name" in the body of the mail item. Please do NOT send these commands to the list address LIBREF@KENTVM. Doing so will cause your request to be broadcast to all subscribers and will not cause your name to be added to the list. From: John Baima <D024JKB@UTARLG> Subject: Searching the TLG Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 14:17 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1597 (1821) In recent weeks a problem with searching the TLG has come to light on another discussion group and I think that some HUMANISTs would be interested in knowing about it. One of the features that the TLG marks is "end of page" and it seems that these codes are not being accounted for in any of the current search systems. The main problem is words which have been hyphenated across a page boundary. When this happens (and it happens quite a bit!!), the hyphenated word will not be matched because of the "end of page" marks are in the middle of the word. Also, some systems will not match a phrase across a page boundary. I have talked with Dr. Brunner of the TLG and this feature is a problem with the search systems and not the TLG. If users of the TLG want to test their system, search for the word, "parabebhkotwn" in Justin Martyr's Dialogues with Trypho. There should be a match at 140.3, lines 7-8. Users of my program (Lbase) need to have version 5.01 or later solve this problem. John Baima Silver Mountain Software 440-7401@MCIMail.com (214) 709-6364 From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Ken Litkowski's Dictionary Utilities Date: 5 Nov 90 09:57:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1598 (1822) I recently submitted a notice for Ken Litkowski about the utilities he has developed for building and maintaining dictionaries. I have received several requests which I have forwarded to him on COMPUSERVE. Apparently he has not been able to communicate directly with BITNET so we have routed the messages through me (I'm on both BITNET and INTERNET.) One of the queries was whether the utilities could handle Greek and Latin. Ken's first response was "no" but he has since changed his mind. However, I don't remember who asked the question. Could the person who asked contact me and I will forward the message to Ken. He wants to elaborate on a possible solution. If you are on INTERNET, you can respond to Ken directly on COMPUSERVE: 71520.307@compuserve.com Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: machine of choice Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 12:43:56 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1599 (1823) At the risk of starting computer wars (again) on HUMANIST, I would like to ask a question intended to forstall such wars on our campus. The recent guidelines from the ACH Taskforce on Humanities Computing Support (HUMANIST 4.0439) makes as its first recommendation for an "ideal" humanities computer service that the service provide a personal computer for each faculty member, along with appropriate sorts of support. My impression from colleagues at other institutions where this is realized is that this means a machine of "choice" -- i.e., among a diversity of machines supported by the computer service, such as Macs, IBMs, Next (Apollos, Suns, Decs) etc. My notion is that this is a great idea -- faculty need to have access to the platforms that run the software they are primarily interested in, from the standpoint of either research and/or instruction. My question: does anyone _know_ just how widespread such a policy is -- in contrast, say, with a campus computing environment such as ours which is so dominated by one platform (IBM) that acquisition of any other platform is enormously problematic. In other words -- is there any data or impression as to how many campuses elect the model of diversity and giving faculty a choice over a range of supported equipment, vs. how many campuses elect the "monolithic" model (either through historical accident or by design)? I am hoping to get some guidelines on this to incorporate as part of a planning document. Any pertinent information in this regard would be very much appreciated. Charles Ess Drury College From: "Malcolm Butler, Music Department, HKU" <HRAUBUT@HKUCC.BITNET> Subject: Scanners & OCR Software Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 18:40 +0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1600 (1824) Help! I have to submit a recommendation for a scanner and a versatile, trainable OCR software package to our Faculty office within the next 2 days. I know that there are lots of people out there with more experience in this field than myself, so if anyone has some suggestions to make and can give me an approximate idea of costs I'd be enormously grateful. I've already grabbed the SCANNER files from the listserver so I'm familiar with the information they provide, but there is remarkably little to suggest what to buy. Our budget would be about US$2,500 but if there is something good costing a little more we'd certainly consider it. I know that this topic has been widely discussed before, so if suggestions could be sent to me directly I will gladly summarize the views for the benefit of everyone on the list. Thank you in advance for your help. Malcolm Butler Hong Kong University (hraubut@hkucc.bitnet) From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: grammar checkers Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 09:15:43 -0500 (EST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1601 (1825) Can anyone point me to reviews or studies of grammar checkers? I am especially interested in reviews or studies that have considered the questions: Will use of one of these things by freshmen writers decrease grammatical errors in their essays? Does any learning take place as a result of the use of these things? These questions do not seem to be answered in reviews of grammar checkers appearing in computer magazines. Please send responses to me and I will summarize. Thanks, Leslie Burkholder From: U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: D. Packard's MORPH; password protection Date: 9 November 90, 18:09:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1602 (1826) MORPH: I'd like to know if it is possible an academic use of MORPH, because I'm doing some studies about greek texts that I need to lemmatize. If, for any reason, MORPH can't be reached, does anyone know of some other software doing the same thing? PASSWORD: I remember I saw advertised on Byte (perhaps) a small card containing the software for a password controlled access to PCs, **before bootstrap procedure** so solving the "problem of drive A:" from which one cold boot the PC. Does anyone know something about this or similar gadgets? Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: Spelling checker query Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 09:30:54 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1603 (1827) I have heard about a French language spelling checker for microcomputers called HUGO. It is supposed to combine traditional spelling checker technology with morphological analysis to identify forms of words not found in the dictionary. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Mark ARTFL Project U of Chicago From: "Paul H. Bern" <PHBERN@SUVM> Subject: READABILITY INDICES Date: Sun, 11 Nov 90 10:04:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1604 (1828) Hello Everyone, Could anyone help me with some references for readability indices? Specifically, I am looking for articles on the "Fog Index" and the "Flesch-Kinkaid Index." If you have references on any other similar indices, I would be interested in those as well. Please respond to me directly as I no longer subscribe to the list. If I get enough of a response, I will summarize for the list. Thanks in advance, Paul H. Bern Paul H. Bern S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication Rm. 488 NCC II INTERNET: PHBERN@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU Syracuse University BITNET: PHBERN@SUVM Syracuse, NY 13244 (315) 443-4081 From: G.R.Hart@durham.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0684 Qs: WP Greek; Date: Fri, 09 Nov 90 17:14:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1605 (1829) [deleted quotation] Greek for Word Perfect: I recently heard that Hugo Minney of Durham, whose address I don't have to hand, but he should be reachable c/o Trevelyan College,Durham, UK, was working on this problem. I do not know how far he got with it, but might be worth enquiring. From: edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Jane Edwards) Subject: sci.ling query Date: Fri, 9 Nov 90 20:50:30 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1606 (1830) In 4.0619, Tom Shannon inquired: [deleted quotation] The only UNIX linguistics discussion group I know of is 'sci.lang', which is accessed by typing "rn" and subscribing to the groups of interest. If there is some other discussion group, called 'sci.ling', I too would like to know. -Jane Edwards (edwards@cogsci.berkeley.edu) From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Quotation Citation Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 15:09:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1607 (1831) "Education is the process, not the destination, the process of moving from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty." This is credited to T.H. Bell, U.S. Commissioner of Education -- unfortunately, with no further citation, in: L. M. Boyd _Boyd's Book of Odd Facts_ New York: Signet, 1979 p. 147 Sorry not to have more details. Charles Ess From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: logic and rational choice software Date: Thu, 8 Nov 90 08:42:11 -0500 (EST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1608 (1832) [deleted quotation] Anyone wanting such a listing should send me a papermail address and I'll send you the issue of the Computers & Philosophy newsletter from mid-1989 carrying the cumulative philosophy software list. Probably C&P N will have its last issue late this year and there will be another more up to date listing. After that the listings will appear in the new journal Computing & Philosophy (Ablex, contact: Barbara Bernstein). Leslie Burkholder CoEditor, Computing & Philosophy Carnegie Mellon University From: Jon LaCure<LACUREJ@IUBACS> Subject: CD-ROM drive from DAK Industries Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 16:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1609 (1833) I have gotten several inquires from Europe about the DAK CD-ROM drive ($499 for internal model, $699 for external) with 6 free disks. I only gave the DAK 800 number which is no good, apparently, from that side of the Atlantic. The drive itself is supposed to be a SONY. The ad is a full five pages of hype and hoopla but seemingly devoid of all technical information. The address for DAK is: DAK Industries, Inc. 8200 Remmet Ave. P.O. Box 7120 Canoga Park, CA 91304-9955 All the telephone numbers that they list are 800 numbers except for the FAX which is 1-818-888-2837. As a postscript, I did notice that if you already have a drive they will sell you the disks alone for a mere $495. This means, of course, you'd be losing out on a SONY internal CD-ROM drive for $4.00. However, the add is somewhat ambiguous as to whether they will sell you the internal model without a computer to go with it. I wonder if DAK should just stick to Juke Box Favorites of the 40's and Ultrasonic Flea Collars? Jon LaCure | East Asian Languages and Cultures | Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 | (812) 332-3101 | lacurej@iujade From: Ivy Anderson <ANDERSON@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: RE: A new word Date: Fri, 9 Nov 90 18:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1610 (1834) What about about "informationism"? This seems to me, like consumerism, to suggest the indiscriminate preoccupation with form rather than substance that I take to be part of Willard's meaning. "Infomania" has a more specific pathological reference, but it also conveys too much sympathetic enthusiasm for my taste. As for the metaphor of gluttony that Willard used in his original posting, compare this quote from Thornton Wilder: "The people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments." Try substituting "egomania" for "egotism" in that sentence and it becomes considerably less sinister. In my imperfectly informed opinion, of course. - Ivy Anderson Brandeis University (anderson@brandeis) From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Death and loss of name Date: Wed, 7 Nov 90 21:47:51 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1611 (1835) There is a Jewish notion that at death one forgets one's name, and this can be an embarrasment on arrival in the world to come. The remedy is to be sure to say daily before concluding the Amida prayer a biblical verse in which the first and last letters of your name are the first and last letters of the verse. then you can just say the verse, and it will act as a mnemonic. Some prayerbooks contain lists of names along with a verse which can be used for each name. I always do it. I hope it works. From: PETERR@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0695 Queries (8/165) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 90 8:56 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1612 (1836) About loss of names on death. There's something (faintly) analogous in the notion found in Old Norse that a dying man might be able to lay a terribel] curse on his enemy if he curses him by name. It was therefore sensible practice for your Old Norse hero to conceal his name: at least that is the explanation given for Sigurd concealing his name from Fafnir in Fafnismal. Helgi similarly conceals his name in Helgi Hundingsbana II, and even Odinn keeps quiet about who he is in Grimnismal and Vafthruthnismal. I suppose this all goes back to primitive (and not so primitive) notions of identity of name and object named.. Peter Robinson From: Judith Schrier <PY701010@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0706 Death and Loss of Name (4/109 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 10:19:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1613 (1837) Now that some discussion has been posted, I am remembering some "folklore" about names among Jews (at least among Eastern European Jews, which are all I know about). One does not name a child after a living person; to do so would be in some way to weaken the older person. One is *obliged* to name a child after a (usually recently) dead person, perhaps a grandparent or great uncle or aunt. It shows disrespect to a dead person if nobody names a child for him or her. Incidently, we usually don't worry about *exact* naming...it suffices to give someone the same initial. So Isaac became Irving, Abraham became Allan, etc. When a person is seriously ill, that person might be given a new name. My mother says that the idea was to give the sick person the strength of the new name, but I wonder if there isn't some notion of "fooling the angel of death". From: Michael Neuman <NEUMAN@GUVAX.BITNET> Subject: The Works of Hegel in Electronic Form: A Progress Report Date: Fri, 9 Nov 90 11:48:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 715 (1838) For nearly two years, the Georgetown Center for Text and Technology has been working with an Advisory Committee of scholars from the Hegel Society to produce electronic versions of Hegel's works. Recently, Prof. Stepelevich invited me to prepare a progress report for inclusion in an upcoming issue of The Owl of Minerva. What follows is that report. Of special importance is the final section, in which I explain the need to obtain the publisher's permission to create an electronic version of the German editions. This electronic bulletin board is an ideal forum for a discussion of the issues raised by the project, and I hope the pioneering members -- now nearly twenty -- will offer their advice. Regards, Michael Neuman, Ph.D. Georgetown Center for Text and Technology Academic Computer Center 238 Reiss Science Building Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 (202) 687-6096 The Georgetown/Hegel Society Project in Electronic Text A Progress Report Background. Collaboration between the Georgetown Center for Text and Technology and the Hegel Society of America began early in 1989 when Wilfried Ver Eecke of Georgetown's Philosophy Department offered his assistance in creating an electronic version of Hegel's works to provide a valuable tool for research and teaching. He also suggested that Prof. Lawrence Stepelevich, editor of the Owl and Treasurer of the Hegel Society, was ideally situated to obtain the advice of scholars about the works and editions to select for the project. Prof. Stepelevich fostered the project from the outset, and by the end of the winter of 1989, Prof. John Burbidge, President of the Hegel Society, had welcomed the initiative, and Prof. Peter Hodgson had offered "an enthusiastically affirmative" response to the suggestion that his edition of The Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion be among the first works converted to electronic form. Midway through 1989 the five members of the project's current Advisory Committee had agreed to serve: Prof. Lawrence Stepelevich, Chair Prof. Robert Brown Prof. John Burbidge Prof. Peter Hodgson Prof. Wilfried Ver Eecke Besides recommending works and editions, the Committee continues to advise the Center on matters of format and scholarly apparatus, and it facilitates contacts with publishers and professional organizations. Thus far, the collaboration between the Georgetown Center for Text and Technology and the Hegel Society of America has resulted in the production of electronic versions of four volumes: the Baillie translation of The Phenomenology of Mind and the three volumes of The Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion in the edition of Peter C. Hodgson for the University of California Press. The Phenomenology, demonstrated in December 1989 at the conference of the American Philosophical Association in Atlanta, is encoded for use with WordCruncher text-analysis software and contains a conversion program that enables it to be used with Micro-OCP text- analysis software. The Lectures, demonstrated in October 1990 at the conference of the Hegel Society in Montreal and released in November, comes already packaged with the text-analysis portion of WordCruncher. The electronic works are combined with a booklet consisting of a user's manual and essays on Hegel by members of the Advisory Committee. Both electronic editions are available from Georgetown University Press (202-687-6063). Software for Indexing and Retrieval. The primary purpose of converting Hegel's works to electronic form is neither to read them on the computer nor to preserve them for a longer period than the shelf life of printed books (although both of these uses are possible). Rather, the primary purpose is to enable the works to be searched quickly with new text-analysis software. One such program is called WordCruncher. Developed at Brigham Young University and now sold by the Electronic Text Corporation, WordCruncher has been licensed to the Georgetown Center for Text and Technology for use with its electronic texts. To humanists, the name "WordCruncher" is decidedly infelicitous. Rather than "crunching" words, humanists, in John Ciardi's view, "like to hang around words and listen to the way they whisper to one another." But the name does evoke the computer's capability for number-crunching, and it does remind us that the computer can manipulate words as well as numbers. So how does the software manipulate text? Essentially, WordCruncher indexes (or "tags") every word in a file of text so that any word, in all its occurrences, can be "searched" (and retrieved) by itself or in combination with other words. For example, at the recent conference of the Hegel Society on the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Stephen Dunning read a paper on "particularity" in Hegel; WordCruncher could have helped Prof. Dunning gather his textual evidence. He could have retrieved instantaneously all 119 instances of the word in the three volumes of Peter Hodgson's edition of the Lectures (as well as 577 instances of "particular" and 116 instances of ten other cognates including the German "partikularitt" and "partikulre"). At first glance, the same capability of finding a single word is afforded by a printed index and a concordance. In fact, however, the indexes to the three volumes of the Lectures cite only seven pages (approximately a dozen instances) for "particularity" and "particularization." And no printed concordance for the recently published work has yet been prepared. Furthermore, the functionality of the computer program surpasses that of a printed concordance in two key ways: by improving our grasp of a single key word in its context and by permitting searches of items larger than a single word. Let's explore these advantages in turn. In a printed concordance the reader moves alphabetically through the word list to find the desired word and then is given a limited context (usually a single line) and a reference to the work, section, and page of the word's occurrences. The reader then turns to the relevant volume of the printed work, finds the cited page, and skims it to find the occurrence in its larger context. By contrast, with WordCruncher the reader types the desired word and instantaneously receives a frequency count of the word in the three-volume text file. With one key stroke the reader receives several screens with its occurrences, each of which contains the highlighted word in a context of three lines and preceded by a citation of its volume, section, page, and paragraph. Upon moving the cursor to a citation of special interest and entering another keystroke, the reader is given the highlighted word in its context of an entire page of text that can then be scrolled forward or backward without limit through the textfile. In this larger context, a portion of the text can be "blocked," copied, and sent either to a printer or to a separate textfile for subsequent inclusion in a word-processor document. But the program's second advantage over a concordance is even more striking. Besides searching for single words, the scholar can search for blocks of words (for example, all the cognates of "recognize" and "acknowledge" that constitute the possible translation of "anerkennen"); or exact phrases (such as "the substantial unity of Spirit with itself"); or words in collocation with one another (such as the word "kingdom" in collocation with either "father" or "son" or "spirit") in contexts that can vary from an entire chapter to a mere several characters of separation. Thus the electronic tool, like all tools, can be thought of as enhancing human capabilities in several ways. For example, we can think of the computer as strengthening the scholar's memory; having read the three volumes of the Lectures, the scholar can search as if with photographic memory for the all pages on which key words or phrases occurred. To use a different metaphor, the scholar is given the equivalent of microscopic vision to find the minuscule textual detail (for example, the single instance of Magdalene in the Hegelian text of the three volumes). Furthermore, the tool provides the scholar with macroscopic vision, an overview of the text and the locations where the key word of phrase is clustered. For any given word or phrase, the program will display the number of actual occurrences or percentages of total occurrences to be found on pages, in sections/chapters, and in ranges of sections (such as, the Lectures of 1824 by contrast to the Lectures of 1827). By means of these microscopic and macroscopic views of a large file of text, the scholar can trace keywords in context throughout the work to determine, for example, where a concept is introduced and how it is developed. Next Steps. Clearly, such a searching tool would become increasingly valuable for the study of Hegel to the extent that the textfile is supplemented by additional translations; the German originals; the works of Hegel's predecessors, contemporaries, and successors; commentaries on the philosophers represented; and such forms of scholarly apparatus as dictionaries of the period and parsing programs for searching, say, all forms of German verbs with separable prefixes. Of all these expansions and enhancements, the most important is the inclusion of Hegel's works in the original German. Access to the Werke would not only increase the value of the searching capability but also clarify the procedures used by the various teams of translators. Knowing the English equivalents used, for example, by Baillie in The Phenomenology and the Hodgson team in The Lectures would help to make the various English-language versions more compatible with one another and therefore more useful to students. For these reasons, the choice of a German edition is at least as important as the choice of an English-language edition. And because scholars would naturally prefer to work with the same edition in electronic form that they use in printed form, access to the standard critical edition is devoutly to be wished. Unfortunately, publishers are often reluctant to grant permission for an electronic edition. Some fear copyright infringement, some fear that electronic texts will undercut their revenues, while others may even fear that electronic text will make the printed book obsolete. Nevertheless, several publishers have become receptive to electronic text. Oxford University Press, for example, has established an Electronic Publishing Division to create and market machine-readable versions of its own editions, such as the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the works of Jane Austen. Other publishers, more wary, have given permissions to developers but under circumscribed conditions (such as those by which the Electronic Text Corporation converts the Library of America editions of classic prose fiction). Thus the major challenge facing the Georgetown/Hegel Society project is convincing the publishers of the standard German editions that a broad knowledge-base of Hegelian texts would benefit scholars and students of philosophy and that it would also enhance sales of those works that serve as the basis for the standard electronic edition. In its effort to reach a royalty-based subsidiary-rights agreement with the German publishers (like the one reached with the University of California Press), the project welcomes the assistance of all interested members of the Hegel Society. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: virus conference Date: Thu, 8 Nov 90 15:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 716 (1839) Forwarded from: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Call for Papers 4th Annual Computer Virus & Security Conference March 14 & 15, 1991 in New York City Sponsored by the DPMA Financial Industries Chapter In Cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and The Computer Society of the IEEE The 4th Annual Computer Virus and Security Conference will feature more than thirty speakers on the topics of computer viruses and "vandalware," computer law, and computer security. Approximately twenty are well-known experts in the field, and fifteen or more will be selected on the basis of submitted papers. Held on Thursday and Friday (Ides of March) at the New York World Trade Center, this major event features: * Identification of latest threats to SNA, DEC, PC, MAC, X.25 and UNIX. * Tools and Techniques: What the major corporations are doing. * Specific Countermeasures: From labs, other companies, commercial vendors. The Conference traditionally covers recent outbreaks and experiments; virus/intruder prevention, detection and recovery; product demonstrations and ratings; and special attention to LAN, PBX, SNA, OSI, E-Mail, and legal issues. This year's focus topics are as follows: * Prevention, detection and recovery from viruses and other harmful computer programs. * Original research on these and related topics. * Recovery from the Wall Street Blackout and the Novell Virus. * Case studies of computer and network security. * Surveys of products and techniques available. * Computer crime and related actions. The bound Proceedings will include both the accepted papers and also discursive articles by the invited speakers. There will be four concurrent conference tracks each day: Thursday will feature the Main Track, Products Track, Research Papers, and a special Trap & Prosecute track geared to law enforcement and criminal justice personnel. Friday will feature Main, Products, and Research tracks, and a How to Recover track strongly requested by returning attendees from last year. In the past, this conference has been featured in BYTE, CIO, Communications (ACM), Computer (IEEE), Computerworld, Data Communications, Data Center Manager, Datamation, Info World, Macintosh News, MIS Week, Network World, and Unix Review. It is sponsored by the Data Processing Management Association Financial Industries Chapter in cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and the IEEE Computer Society. Attendees may make use of discount airfares (43% off Continental) from anywhere to New York, including both adjoining weekends. The Penta Hotel (formerly Statler Hilton) has reserved a block of Conference rooms at $89 per night. Conference itself includes luncheon and quarter-mile-high hospitality at Windows on the World Restaurant. Target audience includes MIS Directors, Security Analysts, Software Engineers, Operations Managers, Academic Researchers, Technical Writers, Criminal Investigators, Hardware Manufacturers, and Lead Programmers. Registration (202-371-1013) costs $275 for one day, $375 for both, with a $25 discount for members of cooperating organizations (DPMA< ACM, IEEE-CS). Submissions to the conference may be either as an extended abstract or a draft final paper. Four copies of each submission should be *received* by the program chair no later than Tuesday, January 8, 1991. Each submission must contain a brief abstract (approx. 200 words), and a header identifying the names, affiliation, address, and e-mail address (optional) of all authors. Successful submitters or co-authors are expected to present in person. Decisions will be announceed by Feb. 12, 1991. Submissions are invited on all aspects of the conference, and particularly on new research in the area of vandalware and countermeasures. Program Committee: Richard Lefkon David M. Chess Stephen R. White NYU, DPMA IBM IBM Thomas Duff Frederick B. Cohen Gene Spafford AT&T Bell Labs ASP Research Purdue University Dennis D. Steinauer Gail M. Thackery Kenneth R. van Wyk NIST AZ Attorney General's DARPA/CERT Office - -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Seminaire de Semantique Lexicale Date: Fri, 9 Nov 90 09:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 717 (1840) Forwarded From: Langage Naturel <LN@FRMOP11.BITNET> Seminaire organise par le GRECO-PRC Communication-Homme Machine Pole langage naturel ecrit SEMANTIQUE LEXICALE Toulouse 7-8 Janvier 1991 Ceci est une description preliminaire. Une description plus precise sera envoyee ulterieurement. Pour faciliter la diffusion, veuillez renvoyer le coupon ci-apres (par poste ou courrier electronique) si vous souhaitez recevoir les informations ulterieures concernant ce seminaire. Le but de ce seminaire est de proposer un ensemble d'exposes d'introduction a la semantique lexicale et a son insertion dans une semantique globale de la proposition ou de la phrase. La semantique lexicale joue un role de plus en plus important dans les systemes automatique de traitement de langage naturel et il parait opportun de faire un point ainsi que d'en promouvoir les idees et les principes. Seront abordes aussi bien les problemes linguistiques que les problemes de formalisation et d'implantation en machine. A cote de ces exposes un certain nombre d'interventions libres sont possibles et seront soumises a selection (envoyer un resume avant le 20-11). Le seminaire comportera un petit nombre (environ 10) d'exposes a caractere tutoriel et s'adresse principalement aux universitaires, industriels, etudiants et chercheur curieux de decouvrir ou d'approfondir leurs connaissances dans ce domaine essentiel au traitement des langues naturelles. Parmi les presentations invitees figureront: A. Cruse : On the nature of lexical relations (2 heures). (univ of Manchester, UK) H. DeSwart : Les quantificateurs generalises (2 heures). (Univ de Groningen, Pays-Bas) M. Dominicy et C. Vanderhoeft : La negation en semantique lexicale (2 heures) (Univ libre de Bruxelles, Belgique) D. Estival : semantique lexicale et TA. (ISSCO, Geneve, Suisse) Daniel Kayser : Raisonnement a profondeur variable et semantique lexicale (LIPN, Paris XIII) P. Saint-Dizier : Un environnement en programmation en logique pour la semantique lexicale (IRIT, Toulouse) A. Condamines : Un environnement linguistique pour l'acquisition incrementale des donnees lexicales. (IRIT, Toulouse) Jean Veronis, Nancy Ide : Extraction d'informations semantiques dans des dictionnaires informatises. (GRTC/CNRS et Vassar College, USA) La liste complete des presentations sera completee ulterieurement. Pour plus ample information, priere de contacter (si possible par courrier electronique): Patrick Saint-Dizier IRIT Universite Paul Sabatier 118 route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse cedex e-mail: stdizier@irit.irit.fr ou Jean Veronis Groupe Representation et Traitement des Connaissances Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 31, chemin Joseph Aiguier 13402 Marseille Cedex 09 (France) telephone: 91 22 40 64 adresse electronique: veronis@vassar.bitnet * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * COUPON-REPONSE Veuillez me faire parvenir l'information ulterieure concernant le seminaire "Semantique Lexicale et Semantique de la Phrase" organise par le GRECO-PRC Communication Homme-Machine a Toulouse les 7 et 8 Janvier 1991. Nom Institution/Societe Adresse Telephone Adresse electronique Veuillez retourner ce coupon (si possible sous forme electronique) a: Patrick Saint-Dizier ou Jean Veronis From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: DiscLit Cd-ROM Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 17:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1614 (1841) Has anyone used the DiscLit full text CD-ROM? I'm interested in critical commentary. It seems like a useful teaching tool but is it? ***************************************************************** Diane K. Kovacs Instructor, Reference Librarian for the Humanities Kent State University Libraries Kent, Ohio 44242 Phone: 216-677-4355 (after 5pm EST) Bitnet: DKOVACS@kentvm or LIBRK329@kentvms Internet: DKOVACS@library.kent.edu or LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu ***************************************************************** From: MFZXREP@CMS.Manchester-Computing-Centre.AC.UK Subject: Wordmill Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 14:59:58 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1615 (1842) I have been sitting on a working party whose brief was to assess the capabilities of wordprocessors with a view to perhaps reccomending a product (products) for use within the Faculty. We looked at several in the context of multilingual wordprocessing and aside from MLS and chiwriter were unable to find a product which gave both right - left and left - right capabilities. Sometime ago someone posted an item re. WORDMILL which claimed to have those properties we wished to look at. Therefore I am asking if anyone familiar with the product could contact either myself or the chair of the working party to hopefully answer some of our questions re the product and its capabilities. Thank You Guy Percival mfzxrep@uk.ac.mcc.cms or Gordon Neal MFFGKGN@UK.AC.MCC.CMS From: "S. Meikle" <sian@utorgpu> Subject: OED CD-ROM Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 00:57:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1616 (1843) Is anyone aware of any archives of discussions or information about the OED on CD-ROM project? (If anyone is familiar with the project, I'd like to ask a few questions...) Thanks for any help, Sian Meikle sian@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Reviewers needed; voice board; French CBT Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 10:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1617 (1844) Can anyone recommend colleagues who might be able to review one 20-pg. mss (incl. tables & notes; double-spaced) on machine translation for Korean, Japanese & English? Also for a 38-pg. mss (incl. tables & notes, 2x-spaced) on pattern matching, database querying & art history? Please contact me directly. Can anyone recommend a voice board that runs well under Windows 3.0? Does anyone know of a good MS-DOS-, Mac- or mainframe-based testing program for French and which would be suitable for administering placement exams? Thanks in advance. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: Patrick Drouin <PADROUIN@LAVALVM1.BITNET> Subject: Q: corpus of French technical texts Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 16:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1618 (1845) [Forwarded from Langage Naturel by Jean Veronis <VERONIS@VASSAR>] Bonjour a tous, Je suis etudiant a l'Universite Laval en linguistique informatique et je debute un projet de maitrise en terminologie assistee par ordinateur. Pour mener a bien cette recherche, je vais devoir traiter de facon automatique un corpus de textes techniques. J'aimerais bien si quelqu'un pouvait me donner certaines pistes qui me permettraient de trouver des textes techniques francais. Patrick Drouin Departement de langues et linguistique Universite Laval Quebec padrouin@lavalvm1 From: "J. Schumacher" <THOMDOC@BUCLLN11.BITNET> Subject: Fonts Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 10:50:32 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1619 (1846) People gave us a publicity for SUPERGREEK, HEBREW AND PHONETICS, a software (fonts) from Linguists' Software (South Hamilton, Mass. 01982). Price: $119.95. Did somebody used these fonts? Are they working well both for editing and also for printing? Do these fonts exist also for IBM machines? Thanks by advance. Jean Schumacher CETEDOC Univ. cath. LOUVAIN B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium. From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET> Subject: Inquiry on Multimedia Managers Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 09:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1620 (1847) We recently had a very spiffy presentation on a multimedia authoring system called PODIUM, out of the University of Deleware. It runs on a PS2. People here seem pretty gung-ho about it, but I cannot see that anyone here has done any sort of comparative analysis. Is anyone on HUMANIST familiar with this system? With other similar systems? Has there been a comparative study or published review? PODIUM itself was written up in the Nov., 1989, _Academic Computing_ in an article by the author of the system. Thanks in advance for access to the collective wisdom. David L. Barr, University Honors Program, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 dbarr@wsu.bitnet or dbarr@desire.wright.edu From: Steven Weisberg <UOG00230@VM.UoGuelph.CA> Subject: [...] & gavin spittlehouse Date: Wed, 07 Nov 90 13:55:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1621 (1848) [ ... ] [...] who was it that sent out a question to us by Gavin Spittlehouse? Mr. Spittlehouse's thesis sounds very close to mine and I would like to write him a letter. Yet I am unfamiliar with the code to send mail to the UK. Could anyone supply me with the correct format? Hint: Mr. Spittlehouse's address is: ags@uk.co.gec-mrc Thanks. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: is this what we're doing? Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 15:05:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 720 (1849) "The Odyssey portrays the transformation of comprehensive reason into mimesis as the price of survival. Man was once weak and ignorant, whereas nature was powerful and mysterious. Man came to master nature, but only by imitating her most rigid, routinized aspects. One sees this in experiments in science, in which the researcher subjects his every action to the stringent discipline of experimental controls. Reason comes to be defined in terms of a single task: prediction and control of the given. Thus man gradually learns to dominate nature, but at the price of renunciation. He must subject himself to a terrible discipline, under which he is forced to reject those facets of human nature that are incompatible with the controls of the scientific experiment.... The outcome is the diminution of the concept of reason itself. Inasmuch as it is concerned with the potential of things to become more than they are, reason is split off as idealism, where it comes to symbolize little more than `an imaginary temps perdu' in the history of mankind. A reason powerful enough to ensure human survival and comfort in a hostile world is purchased at the price of Reason itself. Originating in human weakness, instrumental reason overcomes nature only by renouncing the Dionysian aspects of human nature, as well as the potential of reason itself. Thus it becomes powerful only by becoming an instrument." C. Fred Alford, _Narcissism: Socrates, the Frankfurt School, and Psychoanalytic Theory_. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988, pp. 106f. Willard McCarty From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: MORPH Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 08:45:02 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1622 (1850) Mr. Gordon Neal of the Classics Department at the University of Manchester has been working on a PC version of David Packard's MORPH program. I do not know the current status as far as distribution is concerned, but I am sure Mr. Neal would not mind telling you the current status. His E-mail address is: mffgkgn@cms.umrcc.ac.uk. I can look up his regular mail address is anyone needs it. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Karl Van Ausdal <VANAUSDALK@APPSTATE.BITNET> Subject: T. H. Bell quote Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 17:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1623 (1851) According to _What They Said in 1975: The Yearbook of Spoken Opinion_, p. 76 (Monitor Book Co., 1976), Terrel H. Bell made the statement "Education is the process of moving from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty" in a commencement address at Edinboro (Pa.) State College, May 24, 1975. The source of the attribution is the _Los Angeles Times_, "8-11: (2) 4", which I am interpreting without the yearbook in front of me as the Aug. 11, 1975 issue, section 2, p. 4. Karl Van Ausdal Appalachian State U. Boone, NC From: Feili Brenda Tu <GRFG086@TWNMOE10> Subject: Re: grammar checkers Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 11:20:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1624 (1852) Greeting from Taiwan! In responce to Leslie Burkholder's query on citiations on grammar checkers, the re are two that I read before: 1. Milone, Jr., Michael N. (April 1990). Painless Grammar: Revising with the Help of a Grammar Checker. "Classroom Computer Learning" 10(7):18-23. 2. Dobrin, David N. (February/April 1990). A New Grammar Checker. "Computers and the Humanities" 24(1/2):68-80. I also read some articles on another grammar checker: Right Writer, but I have problems to actully locate their citations in this moment. Frankly, I feel ins ecure to send anythingpublicly without proving by grammar checker in advance! T herefore, I do apologize my poor writing in this message. The index pointing mu st be a great challenge for me. I have use "Right Writer" for almost one year, and I feel it does help a lot on a non-native English writer. It, at least, pro vides the stimulation for me to urge myself to read more, then to make progress step by step. On the other hand, it might be unhelpful for professional writin g and writing style. As a English professor's daugter, I must endure my father' s critics on my writing:"THE SAME SILLY AS BEFORE." Because I am very interest ed in grammar checker and its impacts to English writing for non-native speaker , I would like to be a part of this kind of research, and enjoy more progress i n the furture. How about an online educating program for me on testing grammar checkers for foreigner? Feili Brenda Tu Technical Services Librarian Computing and Information Library Taipei, Taiwan, THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA BITNET: GRFG086@TWNMOE10 From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0709 Queries (5/83) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 21:53:40 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1625 (1853) UNIX bibliographical packages. You might want to look at the BIB-IX package available from UC Berkeley's Campus Software Office. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Paul Jones <pjones@mento.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Looking for Emily Dickinson in machine readable form Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 11:42:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1626 (1854) I'm looking for the complete poems of Emily Dickinson in machine readable form for a friend of mine in the UNC English Department. Oxford may have the work available, but it's not listed in the list (admittedly very old) list that I received from them. Please reply to me at <pjones@mento.acs.unc.edu> and not to the list. Thanks, Paul From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: the "people of God"? Date: Thu, 08 Nov 90 14:08:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1627 (1855) A retired colleague here is engaged in very wide-ranging research on the political aspects of the "people of God". He is considering everything from Greek and biblical sources to modern history, but at the moment is particularly engaged with the 17th Century. He came to me wanting to know about the TLG, so no one needs to point him to that important source, but does anyone have other suggestions? He's a novice in computing ("baby" is the way he charmingly put it), so alas direct e-mail contact is not possible. Any suggestions that would allow him to focus quickly, or as quickly as possible, on key sources would be greatly appreciated. I will be his interface to the electronic world, so please send suggestions to me, but by way of Humanist please. Yours, Willard McCarty From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: Correction To LIBREF-L Announcement Date: Thu, 8 Nov 90 12:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1628 (1856) Our listname changed between our planning and online stages from LIBREF to LIBREF-L. I apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused. Diane K. Kovacs for The Moderators of LIBREF-L From: PETERR@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0698 Greek Fonts; Arabic Word Processing (5/96) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 90 8:59 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1629 (1857) A cry from the heart. Why don't the people who keep sending messages about greek fonts in Word Perfect start their own discussion group? Peter Robinson From: TONY@FRPERP51 Subject: American Art Movements Date: 13 NOV 90 17:07:01.75-GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1630 (1858) I recently posted a help request for bibliographical material pertaining to American art movements since 1945, on behalf of colleagues preparing a French competitive exam. Owing to the swapping of accounts between two machines on the local cluster, we suffered a network blackout at a most unfortunate moment: consequently any material sent to me was dispatched to the virtual dustbin! I know that my message to HUMANIST managed to leave Perpignan, as I have subsequently received queries from Japan concerning corpora of advertising copy. Anybody who did send material must think me very rude for not having replied. All I can say is that I'm sorry about all this and could they please try again. The same applies to the MOMA catalogue, if I had any takers. Cheers, Tony Tony Jappy Universite de Perpignan, 66025 PERTPIGNAN Cedex, France From: UOG00230@UOGUELPH Subject: Computer v. Human Text Analysis Date: 13 November 90, 12:08:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1631 (1859) Hello all Humanist recipients: I am currently working on a thesis comparing computer analysis to human an.I need a sample text to be used as the subject of my analysis for my computerand myself to share. I would like to be the following: A work of Canadian literature of substantial amount (a book) Something whose centre can be pulled apart, and whose plot can be deconstrcuted Something available for machine readable format. If anyone knows of such a text, or has any suggestions, I would appreciate hearing from you. Also I plan to work on the analysis on the following matter: - authorship attribution - collocation - concordance systems - content analysis - frequncy analysis - structural analysis - stylistic analysis - text complexity and - text encoding. If anyone know of any other ways of analysis that I have not listed, I would equally appreciate hearing from you as well. Thanking everyone in advance, Steven Weisberg, University of Guelph, Canada (uog00230@vm.uoguelph.ca) From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Testimony as discourse. Date: Tue, 13 Nov 90 15:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1632 (1860) A non HUMANIST friend of mine is working on a Ph.D. dealing with the analysis of the discourse of dying people (people with aids, with cancer and old people). She wanted to know if anybody had references to articles or books on the analysis of testimony as a discursive genre? Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca P.S. THERE IS AN UNEXPECTED M AT THE END OF MY USERNAME. DON'T FORGET IT. From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: dogs Date: Fri, 09 Nov 90 19:49:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1633 (1861) For an admittedly trivial project, I'd appreciate receiving brief & pithy quotations concerning dogs: here are a couple of examples. "The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs" --Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_ "What is the meaning of a dead dog?" --James Fenimore Cooper, _The Pioneers_ John Unsworth From: Peg Kershenbaum T/L-863-7320 KERSH at YKTVMH Subject: Query: Classical "facts" Date: 9 November 1990, 00:34:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1634 (1862) Does anyone have information on the source and/or truth of the following three statements: the face of the Sphinx was shot off at Napoleon's orders because it was negroid in appearance; until recently, Americans entering diplomatic service were required to read Thucydides; after the battle of Plataea in 479 a vow was made never to rebuild the Athenian acropolis, recently burned by Persians (Pericles' subsequent rebuilding of the area thus caused Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War). These stumpers were asserted by three different undergrads with great confidence and no citations. What are the facts? How did you know? Thanks! ---Peg From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: vendor wish-list for ACH/ALLC '91 Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 18:55:38 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 723 (1863) In seeking vendors (publishers, software producers, hardware producers, etc., etc.), for ACH/ALLC '91, it struck me that I might not have a complete handle on what's happnen' out there, living in red-neck country as it turns out I do. If you are, you know of, or you know of who might know of, potential vendors for ACH/ALLC '91 (March 17-21, 1991), please let me know. We should have a fairly good show. We are cooperating with an educational computing conference for the public schools and should have a real commercial show of some value. Please send me the info. on your favorite products to add to this list. Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Techonology Integration College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 602/965-7748/1441 fax: 1093 ATDXB@SUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: DAK collection vs. other CD-ROM offers Date: 15 November 1990, 09:08:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1635 (1864) No sooner had DAK's CD-ROM offer of a player plus various "library" disks been received than in comes CompuAdd with a similar offer, "CompuAdd CD ROM Knowledge Bank I," which includes either an internal or external player of unexplained origin, plus Toolworks Illustrated Encyclopedia, business software including Sprint word processor, Grammatic IV and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, plus a world atlas and a U.S. atlas, plus Toolworks Reference Library and a collection of games. The price for an internal drive plus the disks (they don't say how many) is $695, and for the external drive plus disks $795. I just called CompuAdd and was told the drive was made by Chinon and was warranted for one year parts and labor. Academic discounts may be available. The 800 no. is 477-4717. I have no affiliation either with CompuAdd or DAK, incidentally. One other thing: I found out that Bill Hustwit is the CEO of World Library Inc., which produces the "Library of the Future." The source for the texts on that disk *may* be a Great Books series. Each title within each grouping on the disk is counted among the 450 offered titles, whether it is one Conan Doyle story or Augustine's Confessions. Any more information? Roy Flannagan From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: DAK CDROM SALE Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 11:47:15 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1636 (1865) *Apologies to those of you who are on more than one of the above lists.* First at disclaimer: I have not yet spoken with Drew Kaplan since he is at ComDex, and even though I have been assured he will want to speak and work with me concerning this, there is no guarantee that this will occur nor that the sun will come up tomorrow. I post this due to an extremely fervent hassle I have received at the hands of one of our promienent and original Gutenberg list members because I did not manage to get question and answer to and from Mr. Kaplan yesterday, but did manage to get a few questions asked and answered in his absence. Most importantly, this kit is not designed for use on a Mac, though, for reasons which will become apparent, I am going to try to get the SCSI CD ROM drive to work on a Mac. However, the software is certainly going to be DOS oriented as are the CDROMs. Nevertheless, some of you might want to buy the kit, keep the drive or disks, and pass on the disks or drive. If this is the case please let me know and I will see if an intermediary will be wiling to handle this for us for a small charge. The drive is a Sony CDU 6201-10 and comes with a SCSI interface card and 2-3 foot cable (round, not flat). I will let you know what brand a card is included in mine when it gets here (must I disclaim and say "if"?) I have used this type of drive before with a Western Digital WD 7000 ASC SCSI card with great results. This drive is also said to play audio CDs through your hi-fi or with headphone (I am beginning to disclaim it all, aren't I). I was also told you have to have your computer on to run the drive through the hi-fi, I will check that out, also. Now for the bad news, these are being ordered quite quickly, I am making a call right now to confirm this again, but the line is busy. (Autodial sounds in the background - got a ring - an answer - I am told they don't have that information, but have asked for a supervisor since I received, supposedly, that type of information twice earlier. Well, supervisor in charge says they weren't supposed to give me that info, and I didn't say who give it to me before, but she told me another department might tell, so I am ringing them now. (Sound effect, please) I will write below and come back to this if I get any response - Don't forget applause for live typing with justified right margins while talking on phone, eating candy bar, etc!) About the 6 CDROM disks which (are supposed) to come with the system. I have determined through two separate pieces of information that the disk encyclopedia is the one originally released out in Monterey, CA, back in 1985 or so. They changed the name a few time, but I recall that Grolier and Gary Kildall were involved, I don't know if this is the 1985 version or if it has been upgraded. I did find out that the paper version has a 1988 edition out. This is a 9 million word encyclopedia, not as large a file as some of the others. It has some 2,000 graphics, and at least an assortment of them are VGA, but I don't think all of them could be full- screen VGA due to space limitations. (640 x 480 x 256 GIF files take an estimated 1/4 M, so 2,000 of them would take up just about the whole CD) I think some are limited in color and in resolution and even in size. The next disk is the Library of the Future (TM) containing 450 volumes - the ad says ". . . you can instantly access a passage, section . . . ." and ". . . you can copy any information you need and insert it directly into your reports, proposals, letters and any document you write." I am going to give a very loose approximation of what is in the Library of the Future, since I don't want to type in 450 titles of 50? authors. Author - approximate number of titles Aeschylus - 7 Aristophanes - 11 Aristotle - 30 Saint Augustine - Confessions Francis Bacon - Essays Baccaccio - Decameron Burton - Arabian Nights Butler - Way of all Flesh Cervantes - Don Quixote Chaucer - Canterbury Tales (each tale is a title, I think) Coleridge - Ancient Mariner Conan-Doyle - Complete cases of Sherlock Holmes (each a title) Confucius - Analects, Doctrine of the Mean, Great Learning Dana - Two Years Before the Mast Darwin - Origin of Species Defoe - Robinson Crusoe Dickens - Tale of Two Cities (It was the best/worst of times) Epictetus - Discourses Fielding - Tom Jones Galen - On the Natural Faculties Hippocrates - 17 Historical Documents - from Beowulf and the Magna Carta to 1900? Included Declaration, Consitution etc of USA. Homer - Iliad, Oddysey Hubbard - Message to Garcia Ibsen - Peer Gynt James - Portrait of a Lady Kant - 8 Khayyam - Rubaiyat Lincoln - 1st Inaugural, Gettysburg Lucretius - Nature of Things Marx/Engles - Communist Manifesto Melville - Moby Dick Milton - 30+ Paine - Common Sense, Rights of Man Plato - 25 Poe - Too many to count Religios Docs - Egyptian Book of the Dead, Bhagavad Gita, Buddha, King James Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon Shakespeare - Looks like the compete works Sophocles - 7 (Looks like all major works) Swift - Gulliver's Travels Tolstoy - War and Peace Twain/Clemens - Huck Finn Verne - Center of the Earth, 80 Days Virgil - Aeneid, Ecologues, Geogics Voltaire - Candide Wallace - New Species Whitman - Leaves of Grass (Titles are subject to change) DAK phones are 1-800-325-0800 to order 1-800-888-9818 tech info 1-800-888-7808 cust service 1-800-395-8976 computer software Well, I got a ring, but no one is answering, and I am tired so . . . Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." I disclaim everything, it is all a pack of foma. From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: REACH newsletter Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 15:58:50 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1637 (1866) The Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California at Santa Barbara publishes a periodic newsletter called REACH, Research and Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities. Some HUMANISTS, I know, are already on the mailing list. If there are others who would like to receive it, just send me a note to that effect and I'll put you on the mailing list. There is no subscription charge for the publication. Eric Dahlin Humanities Computing Facility 4421 South Hall University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 805/893-2208 HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Julie Still <STILL@URVAX.BITNET> Subject: cai anthro Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 20:13:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1638 (1867) Forwarded by from Anthro-L by "ROBERT T. TROTTER II" <CMSRTT01@NAUVM.BITNET> Some time ago I posted a message requesting recommendations on/ experience with computer assisted instruction in anthropology. Several people responded, most asking me to post the responses I received. My apologies for taking so long to do so. A search through the conventional sources revealed that little had been published on the subject, most of that in the _Social_Science_ Computer_Review_. Two programs that were mentioned by anthro-l users were Fugawiland, which simulates field and analysis experience in archaeology, the other was Tally which is designed for ethnographic data analysis. Fugawiland is available from National Collegiate Software (Duke University Press); Tally from Jeffrey Bowyer, White Mountain Software, Inc. (jbowyer@nauvm). Another anthro-l reader suggested review issues of the Chronicle of Higher Education which has a "new software column." Sources I came up with include _The_Software_Catalog:__Microcomputers_) which comes out several times a year and is divided by broad subject category. It listed several anthropologically related packages suitable for varying ages. Among the college level were: The Diffusion Game (role of change agents in diffusion) Mangry ("manipulate cultural characteristics whithin in a human society and observe the impact of such changes") Native Americans and Their Culture Non-Western Cultures World Cultures Package National Collegiate Software (Duke University Press) has a nice (free) catalog of their software (National Collegiate Software/Duke University Press/6697 College Station/Durham, NC 27708). Other possibilities include contacting the following: The Academic Software Library Box 8202 North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-8202 (919) 737-2524 risley@ncsuphys (handles software for the Center for applied Linguistics) The Clearinghouse for Academic Software Computation Center 297 Durham Center Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011 (515) 294-0323 gmblm@isumvs ISAAC (information System for Advanted Academic Computing) MS FCO6 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 (206) 543-5604 isaac@uwaee (bitnet) isaac@uwaee.engr.washington.edu (internet) Wisc-Ware Academic Computing Center University of Wisconsin at Madison 1210 West Dayton Street Madison, Wis 53706 (800) 543-3201 wiscware@wiscmacc After checking into all the software packages we have decided that perhaps the HRAF files on cd-rom would be worth pursuing as well. It is available from Silver Platter (800) 343-0064. I have more info on the HRAF files on cd rom is anyone is interested. Sorry again for the delay in posting this information. Thanks to all who responded. Julie Still Boatwright Memorial Library University of Richmond, VA 23173 still@urvax.bitnet still@urvax.urich.edu (internet) From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Information Sources, Personal and Place Names Date: Thursday, 15 November 1990 2040-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1639 (1868) Kevin Cope recently inquired about 18th century cartographers and about Admiral De Fonte, and other HUMANISTs occasionally seek information about particular named individuals of various sorts. Two possible sources of pertinent information occur to me: (1) the archival and other collections available through RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network), which often include strange and wonderful stuff -- consult with your librarian about whether and how to access this resource; and (2) the vast resources of the genealogical research world, for which there is a very active discussion group called ROOTS-L@NDSUVM1.bitnet (unmoderated) -- the ListServer is full of lists of names being researched by someone or other, sources for genealogical information, etc. Also of great potential interest to humanists is the Geographic Name Server maintained by Tom Libert (LIBERT@ EECS.UMICH.EDU) on the internet. If you can get to the Internet, try to telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000 Make sure to include the port parameter (3000), which should get you right to the query about the locale in which you are interested (e.g. Ambler, PA). Information supplied includes county name, telephone area code, elevation, latitude & longitude, 1980 census population, time zone, and zip code(s). Unfortunately, for the large population centers there are sometimes so many zip code entries that all the earlier information zips right off the screen before you can examine it with care -- try New York, NY as an example!! But in general, it is a marvelous source of such basic information. Bob Kraft, U Penn From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Greek on word processors Date: 14 Nov 90 14:16:46 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1640 (1869) P.P.S. Even better if the add-on for Greek can be programme independent, i.e. continue to feed good Greek characters to screen and printer no matter which programme you are using. This is very important if you wish to sort a file with Greek in it, transfer its data to a stats programme, use a powerful editor on it instead of the word processor or use a teaching programme and print out hard copy. Not unreasonable objectives for academics, but just try getting this effectively ! From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Greek word processing Date: 14 Nov 90 14:09:06 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1641 (1870) There has been a lot of discussion of how to include Greek (for me that must mean a FULL literary Greek character set diacritics and all) in general commercial word processors such as word perfect. I myself use a British (Manchester) system called Vuwriter Arts which gives me very clear Greek both on the screen of my ega portable and from 24 pin or laser printers, the former at home the latter in the Faculty. This system is cheaper than Nota Bene, but has much less elaborate options esp with regard to footnotes. Anyone seriously wanting Greek needs to check i.e. see on screen and on hard copy a FULL Greek character set which would be acceptable at least to thesis presentation standards. Some of the solutions that are offered fall well short of this. Many solutions are offered by people who have never used them or even seen them work. This is worse than useless. Some can only get mathematical Greek, some only Greek on screen not from a printer - the latter needs a lot of printer driver files for different printers. In summer 1990 I received a copy of _Computing and the Classics_ which printed three samples of add on fonts from different printers. All three were inferior in type face to the Vuwriter fonts I have used for several years. I would not consider any of those suitable for thesis presentation. I am not saying that VW is perfect - as I say its footnoting is adequate for me but not ideal. What would be very helpful would be to hear from someone who reckons they can get the best of both worlds, or the best of the practically possible worlds. I would also like to hear more of how someone switches between two different add-on fonts for word perfect to get handy Greek on the screen PLUS good quality printout. If someone can get really good Greek printout from Word Perfect to thesis presentation standards I suggest they send some hard copy to the editors of Computing and the Classics (and to me please). David Mealand, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. P.S. Multi-Lingual Scholar does excellent Hebrew, Greek and many other alphabets for colleagues here. I would only use it for something that needed lots of Hebrew though. Also my colleagues have got good copy from MLS out of a 24 pin Epson LQ, but simply can't get it out of an NEC laser printer. From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: TLG Search problems Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 08:49:26 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 727 (1871) I am glad that John Baima posted the comment on problems with searching TLG texts. Which network was the discussion on? As the author of one of the search programs he mentioned (Searcher 2.2) I am always happy to hear of problem words, and I found that Searcher does in fact miss the parabebhkotwn at 140.3.7 in Justin Martyr's Dialogues. The fix for this problem is no different than for avoiding any other textual markings in the TLG texts, so we should have it corrected in the next version of Searcher. If there is a list of similar "problem" words and the correct search results, it would be useful to distribute this list to the authors of programs such as LBase, Pandora, and Searcher so that timely upgrades can be made. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: K.C.Cameron@exeter.ac.uk Subject: CALL and HyperMedia Date: Tue,13 Nov 90 17:18:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 728 (1872) Preliminary Notice Call for Papers University of Exeter September 18 - 20 1991 Conference on CALL and HYPERMEDIA This will be the fourth conference to be held in Exeter on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Previous conferences have allowed not only experts in the field, but all interested parties, to meet and discuss problems and progress in CALL in a relaxed atmosphere. The proceedings have been published and bear witness to the important discoveries and research into an important area of modern education. It is hoped that the conference will be well supported by international scholars. If we are to work together and share our knowledge, an occasion such as the next conference provides a wonderful forum for us to do so. The estimated cost, with residence in Mardon Hall, centrally placed on the University campus, for full board and Conference fee is 90 pounds. Pro-rata rates will be available on request. You are invited to offer to read a paper on any aspect of CALL, but in particular topics dealing with CALL and HyperMedia will be most welcome. The papers will be considered for eventual publication in our journal, Computer Assisted Language Learning. Keith Cameron <cameron -at uk.ac.exeter> Telephone : 0392 264222 /+44 392 264222 Please write for further information to : Miss Sarah Moore, CALL'91 Conference, Department of French, The University, EXETER, EX4 4QH, (UK). Call for Papers University of Exeter September 18 - 20 1991 Conference on CALL and HYPERMEDIA Name :............................................ Address : ......................................... ................................................... ................................................... I wish to attend the conference and enclose a cheque for..... Please send me further details I should like to read a paper on : Please return to: Miss Sarah Moore, CALL'91 Conference, Department of French, The University, EXETER, EX4 4QH, (UK). From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: SGML Software Conversion Project Date: Fri, 9 Nov 90 08:34:18 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 729 (1873) [deleted quotation] Forwarded message follows: ----------------- [deleted quotation]Subject SGML Software Conversion Project Sender Text Encoding Initiative public discussion list <TEI-L@UICVM.BITNET> To "John E. Koontz" <koontz@ALPHA.bldr.nist.gov> Reply-To Text Encoding Initiative public discussion list <TEI-L@UICVM.BITNET> Message-Id <091D6C14637F00685B@ENH.NIST.GOV> X-Envelope-To: koontz@ALPHA.BLDR.NIST.GOV Much of the following will be self explanatory. Steve Klivansky is an undergraduate engineering student who is working on this senior project inbetween CCAT and his home school. He has been encouraged to contact TEI members who are especially interested in dictionary coding. "gntdict" refers to the Greek-English dictionary of the New Testament that was published in hard copy by the United Bible Societies and is distributed electronically by CCAT. Bob Kraft and Alan Humm, U Penn --------------- Date Wed, 24 Oct 90 19:19:35 EDT [deleted quotation]To kraft@penndrls.upenn.edu Subject update for lexicon project Hello! I am writing this as a short update on the progress of my dictionary project. As of today, I have a rough lex specification which is able to convert the gntdict files into a useful intermediate format with greater than 90% success. I am currently working on the other 10%, and am considering doing touch-ups by hand. This is roughly on schedule, and once a solid intermediate state exists it should not be too difficult to convert it to TEI format. If my other classes do not interfere too much I hope to have a table-building package completed by the end of November. This package should be capable of transforming a TEI formatted dictionary into compact usable form, and building lookup tables into the dictionary. The immediate goal is to transform the gntdict files to a TEI format. Once this is accomplished I will write a few pages on a generalized version of my technique. Hopefully this will be useful in itself, but it will also contribute toward a final report which is a partial requirement for CSE 400. Any questions or comments are welcome, and I will be glad to meet in person if that is preferred. Thanks for your time and attention. -Steve klivas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Textual Studies in Canada Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 20:35:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 730 (1874) This notice announces the founding of _TSC: Textual Studies in Canada_ / _ETC: Etudes Textualles au Canada_. TSC will provide a collaborative and interdisciplinary forum in which researchers and teachers can address issues related to the study of texts within a Canadian context. We are interested in how texts are composed, read, and variously defined according to disciplinary and cultural presuppositions. Appropriate subjects include Canadian literature (including "non-fiction"), popular culture, rhetoric, composition, reading theory, translation, pedagogy, Canadian Studies, feminism, and critical theory. In keeping with TSC's definition as a "collaborative" journal, we are particularly interested in receiving articles of joint or multiple authorship. We believe that writers do not compose in social vacuums, that writing is a dialogical process, and that, therefore, the meanings of texts are to be found largely in their relations to the discourse and texts of others. TSC is thus interested in exploring such issues as what motivates writing and reading; where texts come from, who writes them, and who reads them; how texts function and how they are used. TSC seeks to explore notions of writer, text and reader, and to make visible the communal and consensual interaction involved in authorship. Articles accepted will receive extensive feedback, and published versions will acknowledge, insofar as possible, the collaborative efforts of all parties and texts involved. Poetry, especially that related to issues of "textuality", is welcome. Address inquiries to: Editors, _Textual Studies in Canada_, Dept. of English, Box 3010, Cariboo University College, Kamloops, B.C., V2C 5N3, Canada. From: andrew@dgbt.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick DGBT/DBR) Subject: Post-Doc Position Available at DOC, Ottawa, CANADA Date: Fri, 5 Oct 90 15:11:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1642 (1875) The Division of Behavioural Research in the federal Department of Communications will have an opening for one NSERC Visiting Fellow in 1991/92 (subject to budgetary approval). This position requires completion of a Ph.D. and would be of interest to psychologists (and others) who have concentrated their studies in one of the areas listed below. I would appreciate it if you would alert eligible graduate students in your department to this opening by posting or circulating this letter. The Division of Behavioural Research is a group of psychologists at the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa who study the human response to new communications and information technologies. This research covers a broad range of topics in perception, cognitive psychology, social psychology and artificial intelligence. It is anticipated that the Visiting Fellow would work in the Interactive Dialogues laboratory. This lab is developing natural language systems for browsing through electronic databases. These systems are being used in advanced interactive television design, electronic telephone and government directories, public education services about AIDS, and employment search skills training. This research provides an exciting opportunity to work on the development of natural language information systems, and to evaluate them in real-world tests with the general public. This fellowship is offered for one year with a possible renewal for a second year. Currently, the fellowship has an annual value of $32,239. Any person who will have defended a doctoral thesis in experimental psychology (or related fields) by the Summer of 1991 is eligible. An interest in computers or computer usage would be an asset. Specific knowledge about communications technologies or communications research is not required. Interested persons should request an Application for the Visiting Fellowships Program immediately from: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Research Manpower Program 200 Kent Street Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 1H5 (613) 996-4363 This application must be completed and returned to NSERC before 15 November 1990. As well, people who have expressed an interest in working at the Division of Behavioural Research in the Department of Communications on their NSERC application should forward a copy of their application to: Thomas Whalen Division of Behavioural Research Communications Research Centre Department of Communications 3701 Carling Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2H 8S2 (613) 990-4683 thom@dgbt.doc.ca Further information about the Visiting Fellowships in Canadian Government Laboratories Program may be obtained directly from NSERC. For further information about the Division of Behavioural Research, I may be contacted directly. - - Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA andrew@dgbt.doc.CA andrew@doccrc.BITNET HDTV: higher resolution, improved colour, wider screen, "sit-com" reruns. What's wrong with this picture? From: elman%crl@ucsd.edu (Jeff Elman) Subject: UCSD faculty position in Linguistics Date: 9 Oct 90 04:26:05 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1643 (1876) FACULTY POSITION University of California, San Diego Department of Linguistics The Department of Linguistics at the University of Califor- nia, San Diego has a tenure-track opening at the Assistant Professor level beginning September 1991. A linguistics Ph.D. is required. We seek a linguist with major interests in language processing and experimental approaches to the investigation of linguistic structure, combined with a strong background in theoretical and descriptive linguis- tics. Expertise in psycholinguistics or computational methods is especially desirable. The annual salary for an Assistant Professor is $33,900-$42,700. Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, names of 3 referees, and one representative publication, to: University of California, San Diego Search Committee Department of Linguistics, 0108-E 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0108 Application materials must be received no later than December 1, 1990. The University of California is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. From: Elaine M Brennan <WOMWRITE@BROWNVM> Subject: Editorial Absence Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 17:10:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 732 (1877) I apologize to all Humanist readers for my slowness in getting your postings out over the last two weeks -- a combination of grant writing, conference fatigue, and a miscellany of other pressures made it difficult for me to do Humanist editing while Allen was out of town doing some conferencing of his own. Thank you all for your patience. While I can't assure you that nothing similar will ever happen again, I think we'll at least be better prepared for the possibility of a single editor crumbling under mountains of work (and meanwhile, we'll work to forestall such an occurrence). Elaine From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: Job Opening Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 11:36:16 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 733 (1878) University of Glasgow CTI Centre for History and Computing (CTICH) Research Officer The CTI Centre for History and Computing requires a research officer with interests in archaeology and/or art history. The Centre is one of 21 subject centres established in 1989 by the Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils under its Computers in Teaching Initiative. The Centre's remit is to promote and encourage the use of computers in history and economic history, primarily in university teaching. The Board has recently extended the Centre's subject coverage, adding archaeology, art history, church history and ancient history. The Centre for History and Computing strives to raise academics' awareness of the potential of computers for teaching and research, and serves as a clearinghouse for information. It publishes a twice-annual newsletter, Craft, and a software guide, and maintains a computer-based 'bulletin-board', History News, which is accessible throughout the United Kingdom via the Joint Academic Network (JANET). The Centre also evaluates software, advises lecturers, visits interested university departments around the UK, and participates in conferences and workshops. The new Research Officer will assist in all aspects of the Centre's work in all subjects but will be expected to take a special interest in the computing needs of archaeologists and art historians. The Officer will also take special responsibility for managing the bulletin board. It is hoped that the Officer will be familiar with image handling in order to complement the Centre's current expertise in database management; such familiarity is not however a prerequisite for appointment. The Research Officer will work with the Centre Director, Dr. Richard Trainor, the Research Officer (History) and Centre Manager, Dr. Donald Spaeth as well as with the Glasgow historians, archaeologists and art historians who use computers in their teaching. The Research Officer will also be responsible to a management committee. S/he will be able to draw on the Centre's secretarial assistance. The Centre for History and Computing is associated with Glasgow's DISH Project, which was established in 1985 as part of the first phase of the Computers in Teaching Initiative to develop software and teaching methods in history. CTICH is affiliated to the Departments of Economic, Modern and Scottish History and the University Archives. Under its expanded remit, CTICH will be receiving input from Glasgow's departments of Archaeology, Classics, History of Art, and Theology & Church History. The Research Officer will be a graduate in archaeology or art history, with experience in computer-based applications in either of these subjects, including one or more of the following: image handling (such as videodiscs and CAD), databases, hypertext, statistics and word-processing. Ideally the Officer should also have some research experience. The Officer need not have programming skills, as the Centre does not engage in significant software development. Appointment will be on Research Scale 1A within the range #11399-14038, with placement according to age, qualifications and experience, until 31 July 1992, with possible reappointment. Secondment may be possible. The successful candidate will be expected to take up the post as soon as possible. Applications (including a full c.v. and the names of 2 referees) should be submitted by 7 December 1990 to Dr R H Trainor, CTICH, 2 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ (041-339-8855, ext. 4662/6336/4942). It is expected that interviews for this position will be held on Monday 17 December 1990. From: MARILYN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Hypermedia and Literature Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 18:16 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1644 (1879) 'Hypermedia and Literature' A Workshop 2.00-4.00pm Friday 30 November 1990 Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Service 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN E-mail:GRAZYNA@UK.AC.OX.VAX Phone:0865-273225 or 0865-273200 Anyone who can get to Oxford on Friday 30 November is invited to participate in this workshop. There will be two papers and demonstrations, and tea will be served. There is no charge; it would be useful if you could let us know if you are going to turn up, but it is not essential. The papers are: 'Intermedia: Fundamentals of a Model Hypermedia Environment' Paul Kahn, IRIS, Brown University The fundamental design of Intermedia, a hypermedia application framework developed at Brown University's Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship, will be explained and discussed. Intermedia consists of a group of integrated applications for creating, editing, and viewing text, graphics, and timelines. It supports the creation and browsing of links among any selection in any document in a multi-user, multi-tasking environment. The Intermedia application editors are similar in design to programs running under the Macintosh operating system and links are created using the "copy and paste" paradigm found in the Macintosh user interface. Intermedia will be demonstrated and discussed along with examples of Intermedia publications in science and literature 'The Hartlib Project: A Multimedia Demonstrator' Judith Crawford and Michael Leslie, Sheffield University Samuel Hartlib, a seventeenth-century collector of knowledge and information, left a mass of papers invaluable to the scholarly community but almost impossible to use because of their great diversity of subject matter. Dr Leslie and his team at Sheffield University have been working with these papers for several years. They have converted a large proportion of them to machine-readable form and have put together a multimedia demonstration showing the wealth of knowledge collected by Hartlib. They propose to show this at the workshop and to discuss the Hartlib project generally. From: Robert Delius Royar <R0MILL01@ULKYVX> Subject: Call for Papers, NYIT Writing Conference (Pls Post) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 90 09:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1645 (1880) CALL FOR PAPERS LITERATURE, COMPUTERS AND WRITING: THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING IN THE HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ENGLISH CLASSROOM April 19,1991 The fourth annual Computers and English Conference for high school and college teachers of writing Sponsored by the Program in English New York Institute of Technology The 1991 conference on Literature, Computers and Writing will focus on the shared challenges high school and college English teachers face teaching literature and composition in a computer environment. The conference has two primary lines of inquiry: * how are the English studies canon and curriculum changing in response to computerized learning? * how should we design projects for collaborative learning in literature, computers and writing between high schools or between high schools and colleges to share pedagogical resources and methods? In addition to keynote addresses the conference supports presentations which can be either demonstrations of exercises (no longer than five minutes) that work well in the English classroom or arguments (ten to fifteen minutes long) that explain or justify a philosophy or method for a particular classroom practice. Please submit a brief abstract detailing your demonstration or argument. Panel discussions are also welcome. Be sure to include your name, high school or college affiliation, address, and daytime phone number. Suggested Topics: 1. How can computers develop more active readers of literature? 2. How can teaching writing teach literature? 3. How can we use computers to teach literary genre or metaphor? 4. How can we use computers to connect writing to literature? 5. How do computers widen or narrow the concept of literature? 6. How can we use computers to teach the role of audience in literature and writing? 7. How can rhetoric inform the experience of hypermedia? 8. How can speech-act theory apply to hypermedia? 9. How will hypermedia affect the student's understanding of critical consensus? 10. How do computer-based research projects affect students' conception of literary research? 11. How do computers in writing and literature classes change the role of the teacher? 12. How can we use computers to connect high school teachers to high school teachers and/or college teachers? 13. What resources are available to facilitate high school-to-high school and college-to-high school collaboration? 14. How can student collaborative writing, network writing, or talk-writing, be integrated into a literature class? Dates for Submission of Proposals The submission deadline is February 15, 1991. Notification of acceptance is March 10, 1991. Send proposals and requests for information to Department of English New York Institute of Technology Old Westbury, New York 11568 Attn: Ann McLaughlin (516) 686-7557 or r0mill01@ulkyvx.bitnet 72347.2767@compuserve.com rroyar on NYIT technet (CoSy) From: Al Essa <ESSA@YALEVM> Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 16:56:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1646 (1881) The Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities invites papers that examine law from the perspective of the humane discplines (e.g. history, political theory, philosophy, literature, etc.) or otherwise dicuss legal issues in a manner interesting to humanists. In the past, YJLH has published articles on medieval canon law, utilitarian justifications for the Fifth Amendment privilege, the legal relevance of Wallace Stevens' poetry, Perry Mason, and baseball. Articles that examine the the fundamental linguistic, metaphoric, philosophical, political, and cultural premisses of law or that mention Derrida repeatedly are always welcome. Authors submitting manuscripts should provide two copies, double spaced. After preliminary review by a student board, submitted manuscripts will be sent to members of the Editorial Advisory Board or other qualified reviewers. Members of the Editorial Advisory Board include Ronald Dworkin, Stanley Fish, Barbara E. Johnson, Frank Kermode, Martha C. Nussbaum, Edward W. Said, Michael Walzer, Cornel West, and James Boyd White. Since the review procedure is double blind, we ask that the author's name appear only in appropriate citations and on a cover letter sent with the manuscript. Citations should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style; alternatively, citations may conform to A Uniform System of Citation (the "Bluebook"). The Mailing Address for submissions is: Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 401A Yale Station New Haven, Connecticut 06520 (203) 432-4037 Queries may be sent to: Al Essa Lead Editor, YJLH Department of Philosophy Electronic Address: ESSA@YALEVM P.O. Box 3650, Yale Station Essa-Al@Yale.Edu New Haven, CT. 06520-3650 (203) 432-6600 ext. 341 (daytime) (203) 865-5971 (evening) From: Bob Hasenfratz <HASENFRA@UCONNVM> Subject: IBYCUS Inquiry Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 09:15:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1647 (1882) Could someone send me specific information about the IBYCUS system-- particularly the vendor's address and general price ranges? I'm trying to convince our library to buy the system but need official literature. Is there any truth to the rumor that IBYCUS--my interest is mainly in the TLL--is being adapted for use on MS-DOS machines? Thanks in advance for any information. R. Hasenfratz Univ. of Connecticut Box U-25 Storrs, CT 06269 (203)486-1525 hasenfra@uconnvm From: Barry W. K. Joe<grfjoe@BrockU.CA> Subject: _Wuthering Heights_ E-Text Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 15:53-0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1648 (1883) I am looking for an electronic version of _Wuthering Heights_, either full or partial. Even two or three chapters of the text would suffice for my purposes, if it is available. Can anyone in the HUMANIST community be of assistance? Barry W. K. Joe Germanic/Slavic Studies Brock University From: debbie@IRIS.CLAREMONT.EDU (Debbie Hoekman) Subject: french library online document project? Date: Sun, 18 Nov 90 15:49:52 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1649 (1884) Forwarded by Michael Hart <hart@uiucvmd> If you know anything about the French TGB project below or about Minitel, please contact hart@uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu. Thanks, mh Any and all input will be greatly appreciated. (Multiple server posted) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Saw this on the net this afternoon (comp.databases) I'll try to get time to look it up. Do you know anything about this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I've just read an interesting notice about the French project TGB (Tre`s Grand Bibliote`que). It seems to be a large plan for creating an electronic library, with online books, films, videos, and lots of telecommunication sprinkled all over. It was claimed that in 1995 3% of the holdings of ( ... the French national library?) would be converted to electronic form as an experiment or study for the TGB. Does anyone know anything more about this? Are they planning to use some kind of mark-upped etext documents, or only scanned documents? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ debbie From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Subject: Re: 4th Annual Computer Virus Conference (CORRECTION) Date: 11 Nov 90 05:49:28 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1650 (1885) [This one has been corrected to include the submission address.] Call for Papers 4th Annual Computer Virus & Security Conference March 14 & 15, 1991 in New York City Sponsored by the DPMA Financial Industries Chapter In Cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and The Computer Society of the IEEE The 4th Annual Computer Virus and Security Conference will feature more than thirty speakers on the topics of computer viruses and "vandalware," computer law, and computer security. Approximately twenty are well-known experts in the field, and fifteen or more will be selected on the basis of submitted papers. Held on Thursday and Friday (Ides of March) at the New York World Trade Center, this major event features: * Identification of latest threats to SNA, DEC, PC, MAC, X.25 and UNIX. * Tools and Techniques: What the major corporations are doing. * Specific Countermeasures: From labs, other companies, commercial vendors. The Conference traditionally covers recent outbreaks and experiments; virus/intruder prevention, detection and recovery; product demonstrations and ratings; and special attention to LAN, PBX, SNA, OSI, E-Mail, and legal issues. This year's focus topics are as follows: * Prevention, detection and recovery from viruses and other harmful computer programs. * Original research on these and related topics. * Recovery from the Wall Street Blackout and the Novell Virus. * Case studies of computer and network security. * Surveys of products and techniques available. * Computer crime and related actions. The bound Proceedings will include both the accepted papers and also discursive articles by the invited speakers. There will be four concurrent conference tracks each day: Thursday will feature the Main Track, Products Track, Research Papers, and a special Trap & Prosecute track geared to law enforcement and criminal justice personnel. Friday will feature Main, Products, and Research tracks, and a How to Recover track strongly requested by returning attendees from last year. In the past, this conference has been featured in BYTE, CIO, Communications (ACM), Computer (IEEE), Computerworld, Data Communications, Data Center Manager, Datamation, Info World, Macintosh News, MIS Week, Network World, and Unix Review. It is sponsored by the Data Processing Management Association Financial Industries Chapter in cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and the IEEE Computer Society. Attendees may make use of discount airfares (43% off Continental) from anywhere to New York, including both adjoining weekends. The Penta Hotel (formerly Statler Hilton) has reserved a block of Conference rooms at $89 per night. Conference itself includes luncheon and quarter-mile-high hospitality at Windows on the World Restaurant. Target audience includes MIS Directors, Security Analysts, Software Engineers, Operations Managers, Academic Researchers, Technical Writers, Criminal Investigators, Hardware Manufacturers, and Lead Programmers. Registration (202-371-1013) costs $275 for one day, $375 for both, with a $25 discount for members of cooperating organizations (DPMA, ACM, IEEE-CS). Submissions to the conference may be either as an extended abstract or a draft final paper. Four copies of each submission should be *received* by the program chair no later than Tuesday, January 8, 1991. Each submission must contain a brief abstract (approx. 200 words), and a header identifying the names, affiliation, address, and e-mail address (optional) of all authors. Successful submitters or co-authors are expected to present in person. Decisions will be announced by Feb. 12, 1991. Submissions should be mailed to: Dr. Richard Lefkon Virus Conference Program Chair 609 West 114th Street New York, NY 10025 (212) 663-2315 Submissions are invited on all aspects of the conference, and particularly on new research in the area of vandalware and countermeasures. Program Committee: Richard Lefkon David M. Chess Stephen R. White NYU, DPMA IBM IBM Thomas Duff Frederick B. Cohen Gene Spafford AT&T Bell Labs ASP Research Purdue University Dennis D. Steinauer Gail M. Thackery Kenneth R. van Wyk NIST AZ Attorney General's DARPA/CERT Office - -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Subject: Re: 4th Annual Computer Virus Conference (CORRECTION) Date: 11 Nov 90 05:49:28 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1651 (1886) [This one has been corrected to include the submission address.] Call for Papers 4th Annual Computer Virus & Security Conference March 14 & 15, 1991 in New York City Sponsored by the DPMA Financial Industries Chapter In Cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and The Computer Society of the IEEE The 4th Annual Computer Virus and Security Conference will feature more than thirty speakers on the topics of computer viruses and "vandalware," computer law, and computer security. Approximately twenty are well-known experts in the field, and fifteen or more will be selected on the basis of submitted papers. Held on Thursday and Friday (Ides of March) at the New York World Trade Center, this major event features: * Identification of latest threats to SNA, DEC, PC, MAC, X.25 and UNIX. * Tools and Techniques: What the major corporations are doing. * Specific Countermeasures: From labs, other companies, commercial vendors. The Conference traditionally covers recent outbreaks and experiments; virus/intruder prevention, detection and recovery; product demonstrations and ratings; and special attention to LAN, PBX, SNA, OSI, E-Mail, and legal issues. This year's focus topics are as follows: * Prevention, detection and recovery from viruses and other harmful computer programs. * Original research on these and related topics. * Recovery from the Wall Street Blackout and the Novell Virus. * Case studies of computer and network security. * Surveys of products and techniques available. * Computer crime and related actions. The bound Proceedings will include both the accepted papers and also discursive articles by the invited speakers. There will be four concurrent conference tracks each day: Thursday will feature the Main Track, Products Track, Research Papers, and a special Trap & Prosecute track geared to law enforcement and criminal justice personnel. Friday will feature Main, Products, and Research tracks, and a How to Recover track strongly requested by returning attendees from last year. In the past, this conference has been featured in BYTE, CIO, Communications (ACM), Computer (IEEE), Computerworld, Data Communications, Data Center Manager, Datamation, Info World, Macintosh News, MIS Week, Network World, and Unix Review. It is sponsored by the Data Processing Management Association Financial Industries Chapter in cooperation with ACM SIGSAC and the IEEE Computer Society. Attendees may make use of discount airfares (43% off Continental) from anywhere to New York, including both adjoining weekends. The Penta Hotel (formerly Statler Hilton) has reserved a block of Conference rooms at $89 per night. Conference itself includes luncheon and quarter-mile-high hospitality at Windows on the World Restaurant. Target audience includes MIS Directors, Security Analysts, Software Engineers, Operations Managers, Academic Researchers, Technical Writers, Criminal Investigators, Hardware Manufacturers, and Lead Programmers. Registration (202-371-1013) costs $275 for one day, $375 for both, with a $25 discount for members of cooperating organizations (DPMA, ACM, IEEE-CS). Submissions to the conference may be either as an extended abstract or a draft final paper. Four copies of each submission should be *received* by the program chair no later than Tuesday, January 8, 1991. Each submission must contain a brief abstract (approx. 200 words), and a header identifying the names, affiliation, address, and e-mail address (optional) of all authors. Successful submitters or co-authors are expected to present in person. Decisions will be announced by Feb. 12, 1991. Submissions should be mailed to: Dr. Richard Lefkon Virus Conference Program Chair 609 West 114th Street New York, NY 10025 (212) 663-2315 Submissions are invited on all aspects of the conference, and particularly on new research in the area of vandalware and countermeasures. Program Committee: Richard Lefkon David M. Chess Stephen R. White NYU, DPMA IBM IBM Thomas Duff Frederick B. Cohen Gene Spafford AT&T Bell Labs ASP Research Purdue University Dennis D. Steinauer Gail M. Thackery Kenneth R. van Wyk NIST AZ Attorney General's DARPA/CERT Office - -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From: CSHUNTER@UOGUELPH Subject: virus: yankee doodle Date: 16 November 90, 21:41:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1652 (1887) There is a computer virus circulating at the moment that infects one's system with a routine that (a)continuously plays <<YANKEE DOODLE>> and (b) destroys programme files on one's hard disk. Originating apparently in Austria, this virus is known as YANKEE DOODLE #1. Does anyone know anything about this virus. I have a friend-- no kidding, this is not for me -- who has brought it back recently from Russia and would like to know if anyone knows how to kill it. Please mail me -- cshunter@vm.uoguelph.ca -- if you have anything to offer. Thanks. C. Stuart Hunter, Co-ordinator of Graduate Studies, Department of English, University of Guelph, GUELPH, Ont., Canada, N1G 2W1 From: TEBRAKE@MAINE (William H. TeBrake) Subject: Death and Loss of Name Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 10:10:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1653 (1888) Here is another twist to the Death and Loss of Name topic: Suzanne Lebsock, in her excellent _Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860_ (New York: Norton, 1984), suggests that that marriage amounted to "civil death" in this Virginia town until well into the nineteenth century because the English Common Law tradition made them subject to their husbands in almost everything. At the same time they lost their surnames. Bill TeBrake History, University of Maine From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Fooling the angel of death Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 20:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1654 (1889) Judith Schrier's shrewd notion as to the beliefs underlying the renaming of a sick person is borne out, I think, by the popularity of "Alter" (old one), a name which surely doesn't refresh the invalid but deceives, one hopes, the malach hamoves. NM From: <BBOARD@VUVAXCOM> Subject: death and loss of name..a comment Date: Sat, 17 Nov 90 01:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1655 (1890) Retransmission from ACM Bulletin Board System at VUVAXCOM-(Villanova_University) To.................> HUMANIST@BROWNVM Please reply to....> 140683656@VUVAXCOM.BITNET Date of posting....> November 16th, 1990 Subject.....> death and loss of name..a comment I know for a fact that there is a tribe, either the Yaqui or the Yanomamo, who believe that it is a great mistake to use a persons name after their death. It is also true, however, that they *do* re-use the name later if a child is born who reminds them of (or who they believe is the spirit of) the dead. This is the only exception J.R. Note: I think i am way out of my league here so excuse me if i have interrupted rudely...im merely an engineering major with a cultural anthropology class. From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Estonian Institute of Human Sciences. Date: Mon, 19 NOV 90 17:31:34 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 738 (1891) The EIHS opened in October 1990 and claims to be the first and only private education facility in the Baltic States. Entry is through the submission of a written essay, followed by interview. Students take courses for the first three years, then spend two years writing two papers of publication standard. All students study foreign languages. Two EIHS students of Italian are already spending a period abroad - in Siena University. It is hoped that one-semester placements for more students can be arranged in North American Universities, starting in Spring 1991. A particular emphasis seems to be the reconstruction of rigorous courses in history and philosophy (that is, courses not tailored to meet the requirements of an official state ideology). For example, the philosphy course looks at the dialectic in its historic context streching back to Heraclitus. Students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with a number of Humanist disciplines outside their main area of study. EIHS has 70 faculty members who teach on a rota basis. There are a number of foreign teachers, currently from Italy, Finland, Japan, France, Britain and the USA. In the future EIHS hopes to produce teaching material for people abroad wishing to study Estonian, and it is planned to have places for 15 or so foreign students wanting to do intensive studies of Estonian language, history and culture. At present there are intense difficulties caused by the lack of a permanent building -teaching is scattered across severall temporary addresses in Tallinn. I suggest that this initiative deserves the support of the Humanist community worldwide. Are members of the HUMANIST list interested in making contacts with the EIHS? Appropriate help might include locating semester placement opportunities, participating directly in teaching or research work, and helping EIHS faculty keep in touch with the activities of their fields. I can try to pass messages on to the organisers. Through the BALT-L networking project we have reasonably direct electronic mail links with people in Tallinn who could pass messages on. And there is no reason why the EIHS could not come directly onto this List if the necessary equipment could be obtained. Please note that I do not have a definite contact adress for the EIHS at this moment: I am e-mailing my Estonian contacts to try to get this information as soon as possible and will post it up here. I do know that the EIHS director is a Mr. Raud. Edis Bevan Editor BALT-L Baltic Republics news and discussion list Open University Britain From: Hans Nellissen <DBPHILOS@DD0RUD81.BITNET> Subject: Adress of WAYZATHA-COLLEGE Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 15:52:23 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1656 (1892) Hallo Anybody, I'm looking for an E-Mail Adress of the WAYZATHA High-School. It's an High-School near Mineapolis.My daugther is there in next month and wish to correspondence with here about E-MAIL. Is there anybody who now an E-Mail Adress of this High-School or a way to get information about the way to this??. With greetings Hans Nellissen From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: analysis of children's drawings? Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 11:35:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1657 (1893) A colleague from the University of Genoa, here for a brief visit, has asked me about the analysis of children's drawings. He is specifically interested in the cognitive psychological aspects through morphometric and topological analysis. Please contribute any hints, suggestions, names, or bibliographies to me, and I'll hold them for him. Thanks very much. Yours, Willard McCarty From: Humanist Editors <Editors@brownvm.brown.edu> Subject: Humanist Backlog Date: 21 November 1990, 21:12:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 740 (1894) Along with everything else we've had an unusual number of special requests for help with the fileserver, subscription problems, etc. We're about 5 days behind on these -- so if you have a problem or special request pending please hang in there. We expect to be through them all by 11/24. -- Allen From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Reviewers of Coleridge criticism? Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 10:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1658 (1895) If anyone is interested in evaluating a mss concerning collocations in the works of Coleridge, please let me know. Some knowledge of statistical techniques, particularly z-scores, is needed. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Assistant Editor, _CHum_ From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: Stylometrics Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 13:40:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1659 (1896) Does anyone know of (or have experience with) a package or program called LitStat, by Stephen R. Reimer, which is capable of computing a variety of stylistic indices? ******************************************************* * Reply to SDSPAN01 @ ULKYVM.BITNET, or * * call 502-588-7289 (office) or 502-245-0319 (home) * ******************************************************* From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: Alarcon E-Text Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 15:13 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1660 (1897) This is probably a long shot, but could anyone help a stuggling M.phil student locate the dramatic works of the Spanish writer/dramatist/wit Juan Ruiz de Alarcon Y Mendoza in machine readable form? Please reply direct to me, and thanks in advance. Alan Morrison Oxford Text Archive From: TONY@FRPERP51 Subject: Menander e-texts? Date: 23 NOV 90 14:09:09.02-GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1661 (1898) I have a colleague wishing to conduct vocabulary studies on Menander. Does any HUMANIST know of any plays or fragments of Menander in e-text form? If you could contact me personally, I will forward the information to the colleague in question. Thanks. Tony Jappy University of Perpignan, France TONY@FRPERP51 From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: machine-assisted translation? Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 16:19:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1662 (1899) A non-networked colleague here is interested in finding out what tools may exist to help him translate from English into Amharic (the language of Ethopia, South Semitic, Sabian alphabet). He is a person without much institutional support so cannot envision buying a major commercial system or the services of a translation bureau. Where should he start? Are there any relatively simple packages that, for example, would offer links to on-line lexica and the tools with which to build those lexica? Is the European Community involved in any activities he should know about? Thanks very much. Willard McCarty From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: British hyphenation dictionaries Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 15:16:30 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1663 (1900) Dear Humanists, I am looking for a list of British English words with correct hyphenation points marked. I have found a printed list of 60000 (The Oxford Minidictionary of spelling and word-division, 1986), but am reluctant to type it out (assuming OUP gave me permission). Have any of you Corpus Archivists, with all your terabytes, got such an item? Dominik From: "Francis,Bill" <RISKS@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: Chinese character display Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:21:41 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1664 (1901) I have posted this question to ccnet without receiving any answers. Please excuse me if you have already seen this. At Grinnell we use Tian Ma on IBM PC compatibles with success. We would like to have similar capabilities for faculty in Chinese studies who use Macintoshes. Since I am a computing person, not a scholar on Chinese, I am not exactly sure what they are, except that we would like to be able to display "traditional" as well as simplified Chinese characters. The following note from one of the faculty may help. Any suggestions about Macintosh software would be appreciated. Bill Francis RISKS@GRIN1 ********************* Date Monday, November 19, 1990 at 8:04 am [deleted quotation]To Francis,Bill Subj Chinese and computing Thanks for the information. The problem with the Mac is that there are two different ways of writing Chinese characters: complex ("traditional") and simplified, and Mac only does simplified. Tianma does both. "Pinyin" is a romanization system--we use the western alphabet to phoneticize Chinese words, and the software converts the pinyin into Chinese characters. I think both Tianma and MacChinese work this way. We teach the students pinyin, simplified, AND complex characters, and Tianma seems to be the only program that does all three. The BITNET service sounds like a good idea--do you have its address? Thanks again. --Stephanie From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: AAR/SBL Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 11:10:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 744 (1902) I've just returned from New Orleans, site of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. Here is some news. First on the commercial front, new versions of MLS and NB word processors are coming out. MLS has a Windows-like interface with pull down menus and fantastic graphical capabilities. Linda Brandt demonstrated how you could even change the menu language to hieroglyphic if you so desired. NB will be the fastest and most flexible integrated multi-language processor. With its IBID bibliography program, look out journals! Here come the articles with really extensive footnotes! And you never have to retype an entry. You just push a few keys and my word... there is the citation in your manuscript. CAI software has progressed too. Most of the products demonstrated were authored by professors as "hobbys". In one panel presentation and discussion the participants spoke honestly and openly about the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts. The tools divided evenly between Mac and IBM. The investment costs for development ranged from $1.50 for one Mac program to $90,000 for a four program IBM based series of CAI tools. On the research side, some projects appear to be stalled. Others are making nice progress. A report was compiled by J. Allan Groves of Westminster TS on the following (perhaps he will make it available on an e-server): CDWord; Archaeological Data Base Management; Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon; CATSS; Rock inscriptions and graffiti project; Project CONSTRUE; DEBORA, Centre informatique et Bible; Oxford text archives; Hebrew lexicon; Qumran machine-readable non-biblical text; Gramcord; Gramcord Peshitta; TLG; Classics computing (Santa Barbara); Hebrew and Jewish inscription projects (Cambridge); Dictionary of classical Hebrew (Sheffield); Werkgroep Informatical; CATAB; Westminster computer project; Bible research associates (Wooster); Leiden Jerusalem Armenian Data base; CATSS Base; CCAT and CATSS (Penn.); Lbase; BHt. The general mood of the computer types was mixed. Some people showed the frayed edges of the fast paced world of technology change. It seems unlikely that hobbyist types will be able to keep up much longer. The involvement in serious projects requires more than full-time commitments. Many new faces surfaced at meetings of the computer oriented content. That bodes well for future growth and momentum. E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN ÿÿȚ From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Update Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 16:24:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 745 (1903) Since its initial announcement this past summer, the International Electronic Shakespeare Conference, SHAKSPER, has grown steadily and moved in new and exciting directions. I would like to take this opportunity to describe some of the changes in SHAKSPER, and to invite those who might have missed the initial announcement to join us. SHAKSPER is a scholarly BITNET seminar modelled on HUMANIST, currently involving more than ninety Shakespearean researchers, instructors, students, and interested amateurs from seven countries. A number of national and international Shakespeare organizations have expressed an interest in formal involvement, and a number of traditional journals have announced it to their readership. The SHAKSPER Fileserver offers conference papers and abstracts, an Index to Scholarly Works in Progress, an International Directory of Shakespeare Institutes, a Directory of Shakespearean Conferences and Calls for Papers, biographies of conference members, and reference files on a wide variety of subjects. Members of a number of seminars at the upcoming SAA Conference in Vancouver will find their colleagues ready to share papers, comments, and strategies in advance. SHAKSPEReans also gain indirect access to the SHAKSPER Quarto/Folio Textbase, a 17-megabyte textbase of all 55 authoritative quarto and folio texts of the 38 plays. The daily SHAKSPER digests offer an opportunity for informal discussion, eavesdropping, peer review, and a fresh sense of worldwide community. Conference announcements, Shakespeare Association bulletins, member notes and queries, book and theatre reviews, textual debate, discussion of lecture strategies -- SHAKSPER has already logged all this and much more. No academic qualifications are required for membership in SHAKSPER, and anyone interested in English Literature, the Renaissance, or Drama is welcome to join us. Write to the editor, Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>, or issue the command "TELL LISTSERV@utoronto SUB SHAKSPER firstname lastname," and you will receive a more detailed information file with further instructions for becoming a SHAKSPERean. (SHAKSPER is not open to automatic subscription, but no one is refused.) (Please consider forwarding this announcement to colleagues who might be interested, whether or not they are currently using Bitnet, or posting a paper copy in your English or Drama department.) From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0726 Greek Word Processing (2/59) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 14:57:39 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1665 (1904) [deleted quotation] I don't wish to suggest this is the answer for everyone, but it is a reasonable option, and it was not mentioned. Silvio Levy of Princeton has implemented a very nice classical Greek font in Metafont. It is in the public domain, so you can pick up a copy by ftp from Princeton and elsewhere. It has to be used with TeX to get full benefit of all its features (for example the automatic selection of the right sigma depending on whether it is word final or not). I am no Greek scholar, but it does have apparently all the breathings and accents that could be desired, and it is explicitly designed with some typographical awareness of great fonts of the past. Silvio has written this all up: "Typesetting Greek", in _TeX Users Group Eighth Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings_ (Providence: TeX Users Group, 1988), pp.27--34. "Using Greek fonts with TeX", _TUGboat: communications of the TeX Users Group_, 9.1 (1988), pp.20--24. It is possible to convert TeX "PK" fonts into, for example, Hewlett Packard LJ soft font format, so you could get access to the character set. But the sacrifice of all the contextual and ligature information would make this pretty pointless. If you don't mind using TeX, and it isn't *that* bad, then the classist might also want to know about the new EDMAC macros for formatting critical editions. These provide the TeX user with all the features commonly found in critical editions: multiple layers of notes (up to five, more possible), notes formatted variously (standard left margin, wrapped paragraph, 2 column, 3 column), automatic line numbering, notes referenced automatically by line numbers of lemma, and so on. Silvio's Greek has successfully been used with EDMAC. These macros will be announced in the next issue of TUGboat (about to appear). Dominik From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Greek on the Mac Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 18:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1666 (1905) The family classicist is looking for a Mac program that handles Greek. Nominations thankfully received. NM From: MARILYN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Job Available Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 17:30 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 747 (1906) UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD The Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies RESEARCH OFFICER The CTICTS is merging with the Office for Humanities Communication and wishes to appoint a Research Officer to join a four-person team; currently the team includes Mrs Susan Hockey (Director), Dr Marilyn Deegan and Ms Christine Mullings (Research Officers). The Centre exists to promote and support the use of computers in the teaching of text-based humanities subjects in British universities. The person appointed will be responsible for the Centre's information services and publications (newsletter, resources guide etc.), and for managing the HUMBUL humanities bulletin board. We are seeking a graduate in a humanities subject with some relevant computing experience and with proven writing skills. Salary will be on the lower end of the Research Assistant 1A scale (11,399-14038) and the post is for 1 year in the first instance. For further details and an application form contact Mrs Judith Thompson, Oxford University Computing Service, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN (Tel: 0865-273230; Email: JUDITH@ UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX). The closing date for applications is 21 December. Interviews will be held the week beginning 7 January 1991. The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer From: Ian Lancashire <IAN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Survey of Literature Study Needs Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 11:11:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 748 (1907) Dear Colleague: 22/11/90 The next cycle of work in the TEI Project will include a concentrated effort to develop standards geared to the needs of scholars of literature. I am writing on behalf of a Work Group charged with setting up the committee structure to carry this out. Input from the community of potential users of these standards will be particularly valuable to us at this time. Please fill out the following questionnaire and return it to me by electronic mail at FORTIER@UOFMCC.BITNET, or by paper post to Paul A. Fortier, Department of French and Spanish, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., R3T 2N2, CANADA. If you know of any colleagues who might be affected or interested by this topic, please pass a copy of this letter along to them. We need to receive your responses no later than December 10, 1990. Thank you, Paul A. Fortier, TEI Work Group on Literary Texts. QUESTIONNAIRE I. Standards for Literature Texts. I would rate the importance of the indicated categories to standards for literature texts as follows: A. Bibliographical Information : (Place, date of publication, edition, printing, etc): __Essential __Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: B. Formal Characteristics (Chapters and sub-chapters, page and line Breaks, stanza divisions, speakers in plays, stage directions, etc.): __Essential __Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: C. Grammatical Information (Basic Form, Part of Speech, Inflection Identification, etc): __Essential __Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: D. Metrical Information for Poetry: __Essential __Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: E. Interpretative Information (e.g. Narrative vs. expository passages, direct and indirect discourse, point of view, themes, images, allusions, etc.): __Essential __Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: Please Specify Important items in this category: F. In order to do my work as I prefer, I need generally accepted tags for the following aspects of texts (Please be as specific as possible. This is not a test but an opportunity to express your wishes. Please number your "wishes" and rank them in descending order of preference.): 1. 2. 3. etc. G. Futher suggestions to the Work Group on Literature Texts: II. The Current Version of the Standards (TEI P1.1) I would propose the following modifications to make them more appropriate to the needs of scholars of literature (Please list in descending order of preference): 1. 2. 3. etc. III. About yourself I consider myself to be a specialist in (Literature) (another discipline [please specify]): My sub-specialties are as follows: Genre (please specify): Period (please specify): Geographical area (please specify): Language of the texts studied (please specify): The next text I shall encode will probably be __Prose fiction __Theatre __Film script __Poetry __Essay __Non-literary text __Other (please specify): I use the following type of computer: __Mainframe __Microcomputer __both __neither I (have) (have not) prepared literary texts for computer processing. I (have) (have not) used texts prepared elsewhere for computer processing. I (have) (have not) published literary analyses based on computer results. I (am) (am not) aware of the content of the current version of the Standards (TEI P1.1) from the following source(s) __ Reading the Standards Document (TEI P1.1) __ Conference Presentations __ Published or electronic descriptions __ Other (please specify): I (would) (would not) be willing to work on a committee to develop explicit standards for my area of specialisation. Name and Postal Address (Optional): From: Roy Flannagan <FLANNAGAN@OUACCVMB> Subject: Report on the variations of the <it>OED</> Date: Mon 25 Nov 90 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 749 (1908) I was lucky enough to be invited to a conference at the University of Waterloo, near Toronto, sponsored by the Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary. For varying reasons, I thought Humanist might be interested to know what is happening in lexicography that might affect our use of everything from a Greek learner's dictionary to the great OED 2, which exists in electronic as well as printed form. The <it>New Oxford English Dictionary</>, issued in paper in 1989, now is matched by the one-gigabyte electronic edition of text plus index, a constantly maintained database that can be searched very rapidly with software designed at and now marketed from the University of Waterloo OED centre by Open Text Software. The software is actually two interdependent programs, PAT and LECTOR, which together allow people with powerful PCs employing the UNIX and other operating systems to search and display information such as Shakespeare's use of the word <b>nature</>, in context, with definitions and cross-references provided. One could also ask, say, for the first twenty five instances of nature's being used in English, or one could ask in what senses it was used between 1625 and 1674. The database at Waterloo is fluid or organic rather than static, so it does incorporate emendations and corrections. Using the program at Waterloo, one of my friends there prepared for me a rather large book of all the citations to Milton, some 12,000+, together with the sense number and asterisks to indicate each of the hapax legomena and each initial usage of a word. Frank Tompa, the programming wizard with the OED project at Waterloo, said that various experiments are being made with compressing the data so that it can be made to fit on smaller hard-drives without cramming all the memory of a PC, and he discussed some of the failures of linking all of James Murray's categories (as with "Poetic usage" or "Archaic") by modern hypertext methods. He also discussed the problems of constructing a meaningful descriptive grammar from the morass of materials in the electronic OED. Interestingly enough, the same software used for the OED can handle effectively the enormous database concerning DNA that is now accumulating information, so that gene-pool people are now in residence at Waterloo studying how to apply the software to their project. Others are applying the software to the complete Kant or to a corpus of Canadian folk-songs or to a dictionary of classical ballet terminology and dance notation (Labanotation). Sales of the book version of the OED 2 are better than expected, reported Tim Benbow, OUP Director for Dictionaries, and, despite the enormous expense of the project, a compact one-volume (!) edition of OED 2 is planned, using, as he said, something like an electron microscope to examine its fine print. A second CD-ROM edition, or really a first edition of the OED 2 on CD-ROM, is planned for late 1991 or early 1992. A third edition of the paper OED 2 is projected for the year 2005. There will be spin-off dictionaries of new English words which will be issued periodically, one of which, <it>The New Word Book</>, will be edited by Sara Tulloch. Also, there are plans to collect a British National Corpus, which will be an enormous database, over 100 million words, of contemporary British usage, a cooperation between OUP and Longmans, the University of Lancaster and the British Library. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: ETHIOPIC E-TEXTS? Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 15:28:14 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1667 (1909) Can anyone advise me on the availability of machine-readable texts in Ethiopic (Ge`ez, not modern Amharic)? Specifically, I need to contact someone with a digitized version of the Ethiopic Bible (taken from medieval manuscripts). Any hints, even the barest hints, in the right direction will be deeply appreciated. Reports from visitors to Ethiopia tell of the destruction of monasteries (with valuable manuscripts) even as you read this posting. Robin Cover 3909 Swiss Avenue Dallas, TX 75204 USA (1 214) 296-1783 BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: "Joel P. Elliott" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: E-TEXTS ON MONTESQUIEU AND MONTAIGNE Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 19:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1668 (1910) Hello, I'm trying to locate info on e-texts of Montesquiue and Montaigne. Does anyone out there know whether they exists? Thanks, Joel Elliott <jeliot@unc.bitnet> From: HARRY BARNES <1ECHRB@UTSAVM1> Subject: HUMANIST Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 19:39:04 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1669 (1911) -------------Original message------ Dear Professor Mccarty, I am interested in information on computer parsing of Greek texts, specifically Homer. I have developed (with a local software consu ltant) softward for scanning hexameter poetry and now find that the software wo uld be more useful for my purposes if it could be combined in some way with a p arser or an on-line lexicon. Bob Kraft informed me that parsers have been discussed from time to time on the Humanist and suggested that I consult you. Can you give me any further leads? I would be interested in being includ ed in the discussions on Humanist. Can you tell me how to link up? I would al so be interested in learning the email address of professor Gordon Neal if you happen to have it. Thank you much, Harry Barnes (University of Texas at San A ntonio) From: GROVES@PENNDRLS (Alan Groves) Subject: Ethnograph Date: Monday, 26 November 1990 1225-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1670 (1912) A colleague asked me if I had ever heard of a program called "Ethnograph". Does anyone have any info on where inquiries can be made? Alan Groves From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Literary Computing for AIX-Windows Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 11:33:16 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1671 (1913) Is anyone collecting information on literary computing applications that would run on IBM's RISC 6000 and AIX-Windows platform? Is anyone using third-party software that looks useful for databases, querying, hypertext, hypermedia and control of various audio/video peripherals? Thanks, Joel D. Goldfield joel@dukemvs.bitnet joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu From: Mark Olsen <mark@chips.uchicago.edu> Subject: Great American History Machine Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 14:16:34 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1672 (1914) I have heard, over the last year or so, several descriptions of GAHM, but have not determined whether this product is being distributed or by whom. I would like to have this reviewed in _Computers and the Humanities_ if it is in production. Any info regarding availability, price, supplier/publisher would be greatly appreciated. Please reply directly to me. I will forward a summary of info to the group. Thanks, Mark Olsen U of Chicago From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0743 Qs: Chinese Date: 25 Nov 90 16:51:32 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1673 (1915) Chinese macintosh operating systems exist for both "traditional" characters used in Taiwan and the simplified scheme developed and used in the PRC. If you need both in the same document, I *think* it should be possible, though cumbersome, to switch between systems for portions of the same document. I write 'should be possible' - we have done something of the sort in preparing a complete list of characters used in our CD-ROM of Chinese which supports both sets of characters, albeit with some frustration (we used Word and Pagemaker). In most instances, of course, a document would be written with one or the other schemes. --- Bill Francis RISKS@GRIN1 wrote: Subj Chinese and computing Quoting Hoare,Stephanie: The problem with the Mac is that there are two different ways of writing Chinese characters: complex ("traditional") and simplified, and Mac only does simplified. --- end of quoted material --- From: WENG@SELDC52.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0743 Qs: Chinese; Hyphens; Amharic Machine Xlation Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 21:25 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1674 (1916) If you use the Chinese systems (traditional and simplified) with systems higher than 6,05 you will be able to use both traditional (fantizi) and simplified (jiantizi) at the same time in a combined system after some manipulation of the two systems as well as western script in the same text. (actually you can add Korean and Japanese too if you want into one gigant system but you need lots of RAM). Exactly how the manipulation is done can be obtained in a textfile obtaiable from me or Lars Fredriksson mrfung@draken.nada.lth.se. Maybe best of all is an input method devceloped by Ed Lai and furnished by mrfung and me where you use pinyin as input and like Tianma can use multiple characters =words (cihui)instead of character by character. The only well behaving wordprocessor that I am aware of is NISUS 3.04 (Paragon concepts,Inc 990 Highland Drive, Suite 312 Solana Beach, CA 92075 phone 619-481-1477and 800-922-2993 ) Dr Peter Bryder Lund University Allhelgona Kyrkogata 8 S-223 62 Lund Fax: +46 46104426 e-mail: weng@gemini.ldc.lu.se From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Chinese CALL on the Mac Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 11:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1675 (1917) In response to Bill Francis' query, _Hanzi Assistant_ on CD-ROM (with Mac software) is available from Intellimation, which just took over products sold by Kinko's. They should have a toll-free number available from telephone information. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: RE: 4.0743 Qs: Chinese; Hyphens; Amharic Machine Xlation (3/71) Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 14:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1676 (1918) Regarding the question of a hyphenation dictionary... Wouldn't it be more efficient to use a program based on a hyphenation algorithm? Admittedly these are not perfect, but they can be tailored to the language/style of the corpus to be hyphenated. There is even a "Time magazine hyphenation algorithm"; UNIX users have troff and there is also TEX. Even a dictionary may not be a reliable guide because some hyphenation rules are context-sensitive. Morgan Tamplin Trent University TAMPLIN@TRENTU.CA From: "Tony Roder" <TONY@SLACVM> Subject: Re: 4.0743 Qs: Chinese; Hyphens; Amharic Machine Xlation (3/71) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 1990 17:29 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1677 (1919) In-Reply-To: EDITORS@BROWNVM -- 11/23/90 20:51 Machine-aided xlation is relatively alive and well on large machines, for the western languages; I know that Japan is also devoting some effort to it, but I have no details. For other languages, very little or nothing. There are some PC-based programs for French, German, etc. but they are expensive and slow, and require a lot of post-editing. From: <ENG003@UNOMA1> Subject: RE: 4.0720 Q: Is this what we're doing? (1/26) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 07:36 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1678 (1920) Willard: Alford's description doesn't sound like what my colleagues in biochemistry, microbiology, and geology are doing or would recommend that anyone do. Judy Boss University of Nebraska at Omaha eng003@unoma1 From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA Subject: RE: HOSTILITY TO REASON Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 16:45:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1679 (1921) This concerns Wm McCarty's quote from Alford's Narcissism: etc., etc. If Alford thinks developed, Western reason is in such a lamentable state, what does he think he is using to state his lament and how far from ade- quate, therefore, does he think his lament is? Andrew Brook, Carleton, Ottawa (ABROOK@CARLETON.BITNET) From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0720 Q: Is this what we're doing? (1/26) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 17:03 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1680 (1922) Dear Willard: I fail to follow the leap of logic after your ellipsis. I fail to see the consequencews of dimunition of reason coming from the use of reason as the means of creating those prostheses that are the hallmark of the species, b eginning with fire, say. YOurs, Jascha K From: <CHURCHDM@VUCTRVAX> Subject: Peg Kershenbaum's Query Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 16:44 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1681 (1923) I can offer a tentative answer to one of Peg Kershenbaum's queries: When I was a student in Paris, the story I heard was that Napoleon's artillery used the Sphinx for target practice. No mention was made of any reason other than honing shooting skills. I'm rather skeptical about the negroid business, if for no other reason than because it seems to me that the statue's features were probably less negroid before the bombardment than afterwards. Dan Church From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0722 Qs: Dickinson etexts; Humans v. Computers ... (9/139) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 09:02:33 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1682 (1924) In regard to Peg Kershenbaum's query: Somewhere I read a brief note debunking various historical myths that mentioned the one concerning the Sphinx. The version of the myth reported there was simply that the nose had been shot off in the course of casual target practice. According to the note, the nose was actually missing long before Napoloen's time. I think that the defacement was attributed to Islamic strictures against human representations, and that maybe a specific author of the damage was mentioned. I regret that this is no better supported than the student's assertion, but submit it in hope that it might lead to something better. I suspect that an encyclopedia (none to hand) might be a good place to start. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0706 Death and Loss of Name (4/109) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 11:42:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1683 (1925) A very incomplete and unsystematic list of North American groups which practice(d) avoidance of pronunciation of names of the dead: Navajo (and probably other Athabascan groups?) Tonkawa Polar Eskimo (and others?) Cheyenne (mild avoidance?) I believe that among the Tonkawa and Polar Eskimo words using the same lexical roots as names of the deceased, or sounding like them, were also avoided, resulting in vocabulary replacement phenomena (but not specific avoidance terms?) comparable to that observed in Australia. Probably the HRAF database (see your reference librarian) would survey data material on this. From: "Joseph B. Monda" <monda@sumax.seattleu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0714 Death and Names, cont. (3/45) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 14:58:46 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1684 (1926) I recall, from having been around Benedictine monks during some of my formative years, that there seemed to be a custom of passing down a name, upon the death of a monk, to one newly taking religious vows. It perhaps needs to be explained that it was the custom, upon taking vows, to take on a new name, one chosen for you by the Abbot. I recall that it didn't take very long after the death of "Father George," for a "Frater George" to appear. This was over thirty years ago. I'm sure there is someone on the net who can forward more than anecdotal evidence for this custom. Joseph Monda (monda@sumax.seattleu.edu) From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0737 Death and Loss of Name (3/45) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 10:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1685 (1927) Primo Levi speculates at length on the living death of the Nazi extermination camps, and reflects on the way in which prisoners were deprived of their names as part of the process of control and humiliation. (See especially SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ). Tom Benson Penn State From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0706 Death and Loss of Name (4/109) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 15:10 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1686 (1928) Those of you who are expert in ancient Chinese will be able to report on this q uestion about emperors' names: their becoming taboo after death, that is. The t aboo required a change in the writing, the character, of course. This question of taboo and sanctity of the ruler will go back in history to 2200 BC, which is pretty far piece. Kessler From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Address and contact for Estonian Institute of Human Sciences. Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 10:01:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 757 (1929) Organisation: York University Dept. of Philosophy Toronto, Canada (from a private mail message to me) In today's BALT-L items, I saw an enquiry into the coordinates of the Institute of Human Sciences, Tallinn. Here is the information, or part of the information, which your correspondent requires: (i) postal address Estonian Institute of Human Sciences / Eesti Humanitaarinstituut, 200001 Tallinn, postkast/postbox 3320. (ii) contact person in USA: Mart Susi, 122 East Gilman Street, Apartment 503, Madison, Wisconsin 53703, phone 608-255-7497. --Mart Susi, incidentally, made it possible for me to give a guest lecture at the Humanitaarinstituut this September, in the course of my visit to Estonia. I think that he is in close contact with Tallinn. Yours sincerely, Toomas Karmo Edis Bevan From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Grammar checkers Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 08:42:24 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1687 (1930) In response to requests for information about articles written about grammar and style checkers, I might point out that the next number of volume 24 of _Computers and the Humanities_ will publish an article by me on the subject: "Project Report: StrongWriter" (pages 289-294). In the article, I describe a grammar and style checker I created, and I examine how and why checkers might be used by writers. -- Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET From: cbf@athena.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Berkeley UNIX software Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:44:48 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1688 (1931) For information about Berkeley UNIX software, including the BIBIX bibliography package, contact Steve Santiago (domino@violet.berkeley.edu) Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0719 Qs: DiscLit; OED; Fonts... (8/136) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 09:38:11 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1689 (1932) In regard to Jean Schumacher's query, Linguist's Software is now at: Linguist's Software POB 580 Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 206-775-1130 They will be happy to send you a catalog. The product is MacIntosh only, and handles both keying/viewing and printing, as I understand it, though I have never used it. There are some similar competitors, also Mac only. If you are interested in a PC solution to approximately the same range of language needs, try Nota Bene or Multi-Lingual Scholar. There is a Notabene discussion list at notabene@taunivm.bitnet. From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC> Subject: Taboos on Chinese imperial names Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 08:22:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1690 (1933) Renear": 4.0756 Death and Loss of Name (4/55) The characters in any Chinese emperor's name were taboo both during his lifetime and for as long as his house reigned. This was most strictly observed in the Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1911), but can be observed much earlier than that. This gave rise to the custom of using infrequently used characters in imperial names so as to limit the problems it would cause. Some authors in imperial China also observed taboos on the characters in their father's name. Tom Nimick Chinese History Princeton University From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Chinese WP on Mac Date: Tue, 27 Nov 1990 11:27:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1691 (1934) "FEIMA from Wu Corporation: Professional version has over 7500 characters, in both simplified and traditional characters, with tone marks, with the ability to create one's own glossary. The input system is the same in both versions: phonetically (Mandarin pronunciation) via pinyin or bopomofo (zhuyin fuhao), or visually via zi gen or tsang jie radical system or the 4-stroke system. In addition to standard ASCII English, FEIMA also has Japanese kana for tri-lingual applications....Hardware requirements for the Macintosh, it requires either a Plus or SE with external disk drive or hard disk." Price: $595 This information comes from a catalog: Cheng & Tsui Co. 25-31 West St. Boston, MA 02111 (617) 426-6074 Student versions, in single or site-license packages, also available. Or contact the Wu Corporation directly: P.O. Box 699, Avon, CT 06001 (203) 677-1528. The chairman of our East Asian dept. was impressed with the program; we didn't buy it because the price was too steep for our wallets. --Jan Eveleth Humanities Consultant Yale University From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: special issue of acl journal--call for papers Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 09:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 760 (1935) CL Special Issue on Computational Linguistics Using Large Corpora Guest editor: Susan Warwick-Armstrong Call for Papers The increasing availability of machine readable corpora has suggested new methods for studies in a variety of areas such as lexical knowledge acquisition, grammar construction and machine translation. Though common in the speech community, the use of statistical and probablistic methods to discover and organize data is relatively new to the field at large. The various initiatives currently under way to locate and collect machine-readable corpora have recognized the potential of using this data and are working towards making these materials available to the research community. Given the growing interest in corpus studies, it seems timely to devote an issue of CL to this topic. This special issue will attempt to bring together contributions from a variety of areas with the aim of identifying current directions in the field. The emphasis will be on new methods and the insights gained from applying them. Papers should therefore give a clear presentation of the methods and models employed, distinguishing them, where appropriate, from particular applications. Reports on new projects and on-going activities are welcome, not necessarily as full papers, but rather to be included in the overview of activities in the field. DEADLINES: Submission date: May 1st, 1991 SUBMISSIONS: (five copies should be sent) - 3 copies to: James Allen Computer Science Department University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 USA - 2 copies to: Susan Warwick-Armstrong ISSCO, University of Geneva 54, rte. des acacias CH-1227 Geneva SWITZERLAND FURTHER INFORMATION: Susan Warwick-Armstrong email: susan@divsun.unige.ch From: Neel Smith <nsmith@polar.bowdoin.edu> Subject: 4.0751 Parsing Greek Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 07:36:39 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1692 (1936) The Greek versions of the texts in the Perseus project are all fully morphologically parsed; Homer will be included in the first public release. From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Ibycus computer Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 11:07:24 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1693 (1937) I am sure that many people will respond to the query about the Ibycus, but I will put in my two cents worth as follows. The Ibycus is (or, rather, was) a machine designed by David Packard to be a complete scholarly computer. It contained a word processor and facilities for performing searches through texts on CD-ROM from the TLG (Greek texts) and the Packard Humanities Institute (Latin, Greek, and misc.). I am not aware that the TLL has yet released a CD of texts, but presumably the Ibycus could be programmed in its Ibyx programming language (similar to Pascal) to work with new CD's as they are released. Currently the Ibycus SC is no longer being made and orders are not being accepted. I have heard that a new design is in the works but nothing definite. Perhaps someone else (perhaps a member of the Ibycus maillist) could enlighten us on this point. I am not aware of plans to convert Ibycus to being an MS-DOS machine, but there are several options available for PC and Mac users. For the Macintosh there is Pandora, available from the Harvard Classics Department which performs text search and browse operations with the TLG and PHI CD-ROM's. For the PC there is Lbase, from Silver Mountain Software, and Searcher, from the UCSB Classics Department. These programs offer various search and display options. I suggest contacting the authors directly for full details. As one of the principal authors of Searcher I will gladly provide information about it to any interested parties. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0746 Greek Word Processing (2/52) Date: 25 Nov 90 16:38:51 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1694 (1938) Nearly any Mac program (games excluded) will support mixed Greek and English text. Your task is to select from a long list of contenders the fonts whose screen and print versions appeal visually, and the keyboard layout (particularly for diacritics and breathing marks) you're comfortable using. If you need Greek-order sorting of text strings, get a copy of the Greek operating system which contains different versions of the resources for string comparisons, date formats, and the like; if you don't need these, the U.S. or other national versions of 6.0.n system will do just fine. --- NMILLER@trincc wrote: The family classicist is looking for a Mac program that handles Greek. Nominations thankfully received. NM --- end of quoted material --- From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Magnavox CDROM offer Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 13:16:42 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1695 (1939) I heard from a user in Arizona that Montgomery Wards was offering a similar CDROM special to that I described earlier from DAK and from CompuAdd. Not many details, other than that the CDROMs appeared to be the same 6 offered by DAK and that the price was under $1000 for the entire system, including the computer. This appears to good to be true. There is no Montgomery Wards store in our calling area so I would appreciate if anyone could get me further information. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0724 DAK CD-ROMs and others (2/170) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 06:53:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1696 (1940) It's extremely encouraging to see the prices of CD-ROM Drives (bundled with disks) dropping in several places. Many of us have been waiting a very long time for prices to become reasonable in this medium (although perhaps not those institutions with sufficient budgetary strength). I am still holding out, though, for a good price on a CD-ROM drive (for the PS/2 70 A21) bundled with the OED on CD-ROM. Has anyone seen the OED in these many diverse advertisements, or should I wait another year to ask Santa for one? Ken Steele University of Toronto From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Tr`es grande biblioth`eque? Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 10:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1697 (1941) Regarding "Debbie"'s query forwarded by Michael Hart, although I hadn't heard of this specific project, I wonder if it may have something to do with Mitterand's objective for the Biblioth`eque de France of putting everything they can afford to transfer to electronic form into such. I've just started working with them in an exploratory stage and will let this readership know. If anyone has more knowledgeable information Biblioth`eque de France to put everything they can affordabout the TGB, I'd be i nterested as well. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Testimony as discursive genre Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 08:37:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1698 (1942) I suspect about 100 people will send messages to Michel Lenoble suggesting he start with Natalie Zemon Davis, _Fiction in the Archives_ and its many reviews, etc., which gather together material in this field. There is much more, I know, but this book is very influential. It would be helpful for all of us if he posted the results of his query, perhaps some time next week. I certainly want to see them! Germaine. From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: analysis of children's drawings? Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 11:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1699 (1943) In response to Willard's recent inquiry, I think I remember a discussion in Rudolf Arnheim's _Art and Visual Perception_ of the trans-cultural nature of children's drawings. Or maybe it was a discussion of how children's early drawings are culture-bound. I read it many years ago, before I began to learn a lot about a little. Either way, it should be relevant to his colleague's concern. (The aphorists say that truth is more likely to be found in error than in confusion, but I'm not sure which this is.) Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: "Markku Lonkila, p. 191 2707" <LONKILA@cc.Helsinki.FI> Subject: Re: 4.0751 Qs: Parsing Greek; Ethnograph; AIX; GAHM (4/57) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 12:01 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1700 (1944) Alan Groves asked about the Ethnograph. The inquiries and orders can be addressed to: Qualitative Research Marketing 73425 Hilltop Road Desert Hot Springs, CA 92240 phone: (619) 329-7026 You can also write directly to John Seidel, the author of the Ethnograph. He has recently moved to Oregon and his new address is: John Seidel P.O.Box 2240 Corvallis, OR 97339 phone: (503) 754-1559 Since the Ethnograph seems to be one of the best-known software packages for "qualitative analysis" (read: analysis of unstructured textual data ), I would be very interested in hearing if anybody has used it - or similar programs. I have myself played both with the Ethnograph, Qualpro, Textbase Alpha and quite a few more programs. I am planning put these programs to serious test and I would be very interested in exchanging information either through Humanist or personal e-mail. Markku Lonkila University of Helsinki, Finland Dept. of Political Science e-mail internet: lonkila@cc.helsinki.fi bitnet: lonkila@finuh From: SA_RAE@vax.acs.open.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.0751 Qs: Parsing Greek; Ethnograph; AIX; GAHM (4/57) Date: Tue, 27 NOV 90 09:53:12 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1701 (1945) [deleted quotation] THE ETHNOGRAPH is one of several microcomputer software packages for the computer-assisted analysis of text distributed by: Qualitative Research Management 73 - 425 Hilltop Road Desert Hot Springs CA 92240 USA (619) 329-7026 Other packages include: QUALPRO, TEXT ANALYSIS PACKAGE (TAP), TEXTBASE ALPHA (all, including THE ETHNOGRAPH, for IBM and IBM compatibles) and HYPERQUAL (for Mac Plus, SE or II). Prices approx $150 each plus shipping/handling, sales tax, etc. Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0743 Qs: ... Amharic Machine Translation; ... Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 09:02:50 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1702 (1946) The Summer Institute of Linguistics and its affiliate JAARS market several inexpensive PC programs of use to translators. In particular, JAARS distributes Fiesta, a system to support bible translation. It can be configured to work with other sorts of texts. I believe that the price is under $20.00. Both JAARS and the SIL International Bookstore sell another packages, IT (Interlinear Text processor), for c. $70.00, that supports automated glossing of texts with user intervention. In either case the would be translator must supply his own glossing dictionary, which IT can help him build, and his own font and keying system. The SIL also supplies a font editor and keyboard redefinition software with their book Laptop Publishing for the Linguist - an approach based on MS Word, cost under $20.00. I should also mention Shoebox, a lexicographer's and text analyst's database package from SIL, price under $20.00. The address of the SIL International Bookstore is: 7500 West Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: computing environments; QuickVerse 2.0 Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 22:03:33 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1703 (1947) Perhaps folk will be interested in learning that in response to my query regarding campus computing environments (i.e., what choices, if any, do faculty have regarding vendor) -- 100% of my kind respondants reported from a "mixed" or "multi-vendor" computing environment. This means at least a healthy mix of IBM/compatibles and Macs, and, occasionally, other sorts of machines are provided and supported. While I'm not sure that three responses count as a statistically signi- ficant sample, I am grateful to all who took time to respond, and perhaps other HUMANIST readers will find this at least interesting. [...] Charles Ess Drury College From: morgan@unix.sri.com (Morgan Kaufmann) Subject: book Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 20:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1704 (1948) Morgan Kaufmann Publishers announces the publication of a new title in our series of "Readings" books: READINGS IN SPEECH RECOGNITION edited by Alex Waibel and Kai-Fu Lee (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) After two decades of considerable activity, speech recognition is beginning to show promise as a practical technology and interest in the field is growing dramatically. READINGS IN SPEECH RECOGNITION provides a collection of key, seminal papers that have influenced or redirected the field and that illustrate the central insights that have emerged over the years. The editors provide an introduction to the field, its concerns and research problems. Subsequent chapters are devoted to the main schools of thought and design philosophies that have motivated different approaches to speech recognition system design. Each chapter includes an introduction to the papers that highlights the major insights or needs that have motivated an approach to a problem and describes the commonalities and differences of that approach to others in the book. ISBN: 1-55860-124-4 Price: $38.95 629 pages, softbound From: "Mary Dee (faculty" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: _Disappearing through the Skylight_ Date: 26 Nov 90 09:19:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1705 (1949) I just noticed at the bookstore yesterday that the late O. B. Hardison's book, _Disappearing through the Skylight_ is out in paper. Just in time for the holiday season! By the way, it won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for 1990. If you're looking for a holiday present for any humanities computing folks, this book would be most appropriate. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet From: Tony McEnery <mcenery@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Subject: Machine Translation Date: 4 Oct 90 15:33:50 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 765 (1950) NEW JOURNAL ANNOUNCEMENT Applied Computer Translation Keep Up To Date With Machine Translation And Computer Aided Language Learning Applied Computer Translation (ACT) aims to encourage an inter-disciplinary perspective on this all important issue, by bringing together concepts from linguistics, computer science and related fields, in an easily understandable form. Topics covered include knowledge based and probabilistic machine translation, computer aided language learning and corpus based applications. News and reviews provide informed insight into developments in the field, as well as providing a useful channel for information. Applications from the mainframe to the micro are covered, ranging from research projects at an international level, to activities in the classroom. The journal gives high quality academic and industrial opinion in a digestible form - articles and features will work together to provide not only new information, but also background to areas already covered, to facilitate wider understanding. Within the journal, language professionals, linguists, computer scientists, industrialists and those with any interest in machines and language can find a forum for active, intelligent discussion on this important topic. CONTRIBUTIONS INCLUDE : Research Papers at the very forefront of technology. Application Reports - short papers covering a wide area, from personal comments to positional papers to previews of forthcoming work. Case Studies - reviews of major applications of computer translation in any environment. (All Above REFEREED) Reviews of books, software and new equipment. EDITORS : General Editor: Tony McEnery, UCREL, Department Of Computing, Engineering Building, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YR, ENGLAND. email mcenery@uk.ac.lancs.comp Far East Editor: Professor Jun-Ichi Tsujii, c/o Motojiro Tsujii, 78 Un'rin'in cho, Kita-Ku, Kyoto, Japan 603. (Visiting Professor at UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester, M60 1QD, ENGLAND) email : tsujii@uk.ac.umist.ccl North American Editor: Dr. Ezra Black, Continuous Speech Recognition Group, Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Centre, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA. email : BLACK@almaden.ibm.com General Board: Dr. D. Arnold (Linguistics, University Of Essex, UK) Dr. W. Black (Computational Linguistics, UMIST, UK) Prof. J Durand (Linguistics, Salford University, UK) John Higgins (School Of Education, Bristol University,UK) Ian Kelly (Chairman, British Computer Society Special Interest Group On Natural Language Translation) Prof. F. Knowles (Modern Languages, Aston University, UK) Tom Routen (Dept. Maths Stats & Computing, Leicester Polytechnic, UK) Prof. W. Skala (Department Of Informatics And Computing, Pilzen Institute Of Technology, Czechoslovakia) SUBSCRIPTION RATES : Volume 1 : Personal 22.50 pounds (45 dollars) Library/Corporate 45 pounds (90 dollars) Volume Two Onwards : Personal 30 pounds (60 dollars) Library/Corporate 60 pounds (120 dollars) Prices Include Postage/Airmail Send Cheques/PO's/Money Orders OR MASTERCARD/EUROCARD/VISA/ACCESS (number, expiry date & signature) To : Sigma Press, 1 South Oak Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 6AR, UK. SUBMISSIONS : You are invited to submit contributions to the editors. The normal length of an article is 7,00 words, though longer articles may be accepted. You should write concisely but not at the expense of clarity, bearing in mind that the referees report will be based on a contributions length relative to its content. An acknowledgement of receipt will normally be sent within seven days. A publication decision should be made within six weeks of the receipt of a contribution. Our policy is to ensure rapid publication of accepted contributions so that their currency is maintained. It is imperative that all articles are either sent in ascii format by electronic mail, or on a 5.25/3.5 inch disk in a PC format. Several word processor formats are acceptable though straight ascii is simplest. Under extenuating circumstances manually typed articles will be accepted. Each article must be accompanied by an abstract. Please note that electronic submissions save the waste of paper. More detailed notes on guidance for contributors and a style sheet are available from the publishers on request. From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: ... QuickVerse 2.0 Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 22:03:33 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1706 (1951) [...] A further query: does anyone know anything about the scholarly depth and usefulness of QuickVerse 2.0 from Parsons Technology? The literature promises the ability to examine up to four different translations of the Bible (NIV, KJV, Hebrew and Greek Transliterated Bible, New King James, RSV, New RSV, or the Living Bible available) -- along with word and phrase searches; an annotation facility; an optional Greek and Hebrew dictionary (based, so far as I can tell, on Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionary, c. 1980 and 1986); boolean searches; and cut-and-paste ability between windows. The annotation facility apparently functions both as an on-line notebook or "footnoting" editor, which further allows for transfering material over into one's own wordprocessor. Most amazing about all this is the price: $69.00 for the basic package (including one translation of the complete Bible; additional trans- lations are $39.00 each, except for the NIV, which is $49.00) -- and $39.00 for the Hebrew and Greek Transliterated Bible. (The package runs on IBM/compatible). Any comments on this would be appreciated. (A favorite dictum from informal logic: if it sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true!) Charles Ess Drury College From: Jorg Forster <forster@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk> Subject: Request for References. Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 11:56:11 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1707 (1952) We are looking for references describing `Grammar Checkers' which either on- or offline check the SYNTAX of English written text (parsing, statistical or by whatever means) Thanks in Advance Jorg Forster Department of Computing Science University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, AB9 2UB Scotland Email: JANET: forster@abdn.cs Internet: forster%cs.abdn@nsfnet.ac.uk EARN/BITNET: forster%cs.abdn.ac.uk@UKACRL UUCP: forster%cs.abdn.ac.uk@ukc.uucp ------------------------------ From: "Francis,Bill" <RISKS@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: WP and footnotes Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:40:37 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1708 (1953) I asked this question on the WordPerfect discussion list and received one response. Please excuse me if you have seen this question. I would like to be able to view/edit a footnote on screen and continue to view/edit the body of my text. I am using WP5.0. This capability would greatly enhance my ability to make better judgments about where a particular detail belongs - body of text or footnote. I have tried pulling the document onto the screen twice and putting the footnote in the 2nd window (body of text in 1st). However, this only gives me the ability to view both windows and edit *one* window (at least with any ease). Ideas? Thank you, Bill Francis From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: global software Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 11:28 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1709 (1954) Randall Smith's posting about MORPH made me realize how little I know about sofware produced outside the United States (and how relatively little discussion of it there is on HUMANIST). I wonder if those of you less ignorant than I could send some hints about what's out there that a Humanist ought to know about. From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: e-mail contact - Ben-Gurion U. Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 13:29:27 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1710 (1955) I am trying to contact Tziporah Kasachkoff, editor of the _APA Teaching Philosophy Newsletter_, who is currently teaching (as part of her sabbatical) at Ben-Gurion University (Israel). Does anyone on HUMANIST have e-mail contacts at Ben-Gurion who might be willing to act as go-betweens for a brief and simple message exchange? Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College Springfield, MO USA From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: Using Film to Teach Literature Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 16:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1711 (1956) One of my students is working on a research project to discover how many faculty members use film adaptations of literary works to teach literature. Could Humanist subscribers who teach literature please respond to my e-mail address with answers to the following questions? Do you use film adaptations of literary works to teach literature? Do the Libraries at the Institutions where these faculty members teach, provide films which support this teaching method? ***************************************************************** Diane K. Kovacs Instructor, Reference Librarian for the Humanities Kent State University Libraries Kent, Ohio 44242 Phone: 216-677-4355 (after 5pm EST) Bitnet: DKOVACS@kentvm or LIBRK329@kentvms Internet: DKOVACS@library.kent.edu or LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu ***************************************************************** From: "Joel P. Elliott" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: native american interests Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 20:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1712 (1957) Hello, Does anyone know of a discussion group dedicated to Native American interests? Thanks, Joel From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Date: 26 November 90, 12:09:43 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1713 (1958) I'm looking for the following out-of-print book : Flodin Vitamin trace element protein interaction Eden Press, 1979/1980 vols. 1, 2 and 3 Any hints ? Thanks From: cfwol@conncoll.bitnet Subject: BITNET Connections to South Africa Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 21:53:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1714 (1959) Dear List Members, Does anyone know of a way to contact any universities in South Africa. We are hoping to establish contact with students and faculty via BITNET. Connecticut College does not yet possess an Internet connection. Thank you for any help or suggestions. reply directly to cfwol @ conncoll.bitnet (Claus Wolter, Adjunct Ass't Prof of Physical Ed.) From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: e-address Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 23:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1715 (1960) I can't find Donald Ross Jr.'s address in the HUMANIST address list. Could anyone help? He works at the university of Minnesota. Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: E-text of the Mahabharata Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 11:50:20 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 768 (1961) On behalf of one of our professor who is not yet connected to an E-mail system I am looking for a machine readable text of the Mahabharata. The text could be in the original (transliterated) Sanskrit or translated into English or another language. I would appreciate any information or ideas on where to look. Please reply to me directly and I will post a summary on Humanist. Thanks. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: CILS Newsletter Date: Mon, 19 Nov 90 17:39:14 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 769 (1962) To nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu [deleted quotation] _________________ T H E C I L S C A L E N D A R ________________ The Center for Information and Language Studies Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 Subscription requests to: cils@tira.uchicago.edu ____________________________________________________________________ Vol. 1, No. 7 November 19, 1990 ~*~ Upcoming events: 11/19 16:00 JRL S-126 Workshop Jay Atlas, Pomona College 12/3 11:00 tba Lecture Brian Slator, Northwestern 12/7 14:00 Psy G110 Workshop Susan Goldin-Meadow and Howard C. Nusbaum, Psychology 12/7 15:00 Ry 276 Lecture Scott Deerwester, CILS - ------------------------------ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19 4:00 p.m. Workshop JRL S-126 The Pragmatics of Language Jay Atlas, Dept. of Philosophy, Pomona College "Ambiguity and the Generality of Sense" For more information, please contact Jerrold Sadock, Dept. of Linguistics (2-8524) or Josef Stern, Dept. of Philosophy (2-8594). The next talk will be Monday, December 3. Stephen Neale, Dept. of Philosophy, Berkeley, will speak on "'And' and '&' and 'But.'" - ------------------------------- MONDAY, DECEMBER 3 11:00 Guest Lecture Brian Slator, Institute for Learning Sciences Northwestern University Location, title and abstract to be anounced. - ------------------------------- FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7 2:00 p.m. Workshop Psy G110 Speech Science Susan Goldin-Meadow and Howard C. Nusbaum Department of Psychology "Cognitive Issues and Concept Acquisition" For further information, please contact Howard Nusbaum, Department of Psychology, Beecher 408, 702-6468, hcn1@midway. ***** 3:00 p.m. Lecture Ry 276 Scott Deerwester, CILS The TIRA Textual Object Management System Text, as represented in a computer, is a flat sequence of bytes. It is useful, however, to think of text as being composed of higher level objects than bytes, and to be able to write computer programs that operate on these objects, as well as on collections of objects. The purpose of the Textual Object Management System (TOMS) is to implement an abstraction of text as a structure populated by such objects. In this talk I discuss the abstraction presented by the TOMS, from the point of view of both a client and a textual database designer. - ------------------------------- From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Dog Date: 24 Nov 90 09:14:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1716 (1963) How about: "But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion"? Ecclesiastes 9:4 George Aichele 73760,1176@compuserve.com From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Pseudo-death and the name/number retirement Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 10:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1717 (1964) Has anyone drawn the curious, albeit somewhat tenuous, analogy between the avoidance of the deceased person's name and the "retirement" into legendary pseudo-death of a great athlete's team shirt and number? Regards without morbidity, Joel D. Goldfield From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: Another New Word for Willard Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 15:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1718 (1965) This discussion subject is a bit out of date but I felt that it was appropriate during the festive season for our neighbours to the south (of Canada, that is). What is an appropriate term for the pathological need for information? My suggestion is "INFOGOBBLE". It addresses both input and output manifestation of the condition and is related to the sin (not pathology) of gluttony suggested by Willard. North Americans, at least, may also appreciate an association with the mental abilities of those afflicted - myself included. :>) Fortunately, I will be away for the next two weeks, so I can duck (so to speak) the fallout from this proposal. I look forward to reading my mail on returning. Morgan Tamplin Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada TAMPLIN@TRENTU.CA From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: Quotes from Mark Twain Date: Sun, 18 Nov 1990 15:22:39 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 771 (1966) Quote 1: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years." Quote 2: "When I was 13, my father was a terrible fool. When I was 16, he was rather less of a fool; and when I got to be 20, I was surprised to discover how clever my father had become." Some of you may notice some slight similarity between the above two quotes. Both are attributed to Mark Twain in different books that have passed through my hands. Somehow I doubt he wrote both. Can anyone provide Ye True Originale (with reference); and can anyone explain why reputable academics (aren't we all?) are so happy to rush into print without checking their quotes?? Judy Koren (P.S. I prefer the second version, and will award a Bonus Point to anyone who can prove that that was in fact the Original Text.) From: Willard McCarty <Editor@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA> Subject: Arachnet: a federation of e-seminars Date: 27 November 1990 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 772 (1967) ARACHNET A Loose Association of Electronic Discussion Groups for Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences According to a list recently compiled on Humanist, there are now more than two dozen ListServ groups alone devoted to the humanities and social sciences. As more scholars come on-line, the size of these groups, the diversity of material they have to offer, and their total number are all bound to increase. These groups would benefit from a loose confederation that would allow them to share resources easily without imposing any kind of restrictions on their manner of operation. We propose to form such a confederation, which we have named `Arachnet'. Arachnet will consist of a ListServ list, Arachnet@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA, to which all editors of such discussion groups are invited to be members. On its file-server, Arachnet will contain a current list of its member groups, descriptions of each group, and lists of files they hold. The conversational component of Arachnet will likely be vestigial, but it may be used from time to time as a means by which editors of new groups can receive help from their more experienced colleagues. If you are an editor or owner of an existing group, you are cordially invited to join. Please fill out the attached e-form and return it to <Editor@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA>, following the format below as closely as possible. Please also circulate this note to whomever would be interested. Willard McCarty Patrick Conner Editor, Ficino Editor, ANSAXNET Editor@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA U47C2@WVNVM ----------------------------------------------------------------- Please fill in and mail to the editor (Please simply type over what is in parentheses) *Lastname, Firstname <e-mail address> Address: (institutional and, if you wish, domestic, with telephone numbers). Titles (academic and other as relevant): Professional societies: Brief description of your ListServ and electronic discussion group activities, including the name and purpose of all lists which you have served in any editorial or organizational capacity. Also please note familiarity with any other BBS software (excluding ListServ, a knowledge of which is assumed here), regardless of the platform on which it runs. (100-500 words). ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: Query: Albertanus of Brescia and his books Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 23:56:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1719 (1968) I am presently forging ahead with a thesis on the cardinal virtue of prudence in Geoffrey Chaucer's works. Part of my research is in the sources and relations of the proverbial material in <it>The Tale of Melibee</>. The <it>Melibee</> is a close translation of <it>Le Livre de Mellibee et Prudence</> by Renaud de Louens which is itself an adaptation of the <it>Liber Consolationis et Consilii</> of Albertanus of Brescia. Most of the proverbs and sentences of the <it>Melibee</> are derived from Albertanus's book. While I am perfectly content to believe that Albertanus may have got his wealth of proverbs from <it>florilegia</> and the like, I am also interested to know if anyone can point me to material on Albertanus's reading, or his library, or any library that he could have had access to. Apologies to anyone who is forced to read this more than once as it has been posted to REED-L, Humanist and ANSAXNET. John Morris, Graduate English, University of Alberta, Edmonton, CANADA. JMORRIS@UALTAVM.BITNET or JMORRIS@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca P.S. Medievalists! The useful, if sporadic, REED-L is threatening to close its gateway! Sign on and let it live! From: GORDON DOHLE <DOHLE@Vax2.Concordia.CA> Subject: Re: 4.0757 Estonian Institute of Human Sciences (1/54) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 21:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1720 (1969) Does anyone have similar references to e-mail addresses in Hungary? Thanks Gordon Dohle@vax2.concordia.ca From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET> Subject: Quick Verse Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1721 (1970) I obtained QV2 only yesterday, but so far can report that it works quite well. I got the New RSV text and retrieval is very fast (because it is completely indexed). Takes a little over 3mb. The ability of a supplemental program called QV Companion to output text directly into a word processor (in my case WP5.1) is truely remarkable. No intermediate files and complete flexibility in both your request (word matches or reference) and in format. It is not true boolean logic, but you can do searches in the formats: & word1 word2 (gets verses with both words) | word1 word2 (gets verses with either word) I would be glad to respond to specific questions, but can report that my initial impression is very positive. David L. Barr, University Honors Program, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 dbarr@wsu.bitnet or dbarr@desire.wright.edu From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0766 Qs: Computing Related (4/166) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 17:48 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1722 (1971) A parsing project that may not be well known was done by Thomas Rindflesch, U of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation, I'm not sure of the year or title but must be 1988 or 89. Vicky Walsh, UCLA From: RHIN000 <RHINE@UNB.CA> Subject: Yankee Doodle virus Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 23:03:47 AST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1723 (1972) Re: request from C.S. Hunter for help with Soviet virus named Yankee Doodle. I picked up a programme called VIRSCAN in Moscow last June from a computer friend. He said it was for testing to see if a virus was residing in one's computer system. I have not yet tried it out. Might it be of any use in locating and eliminating (exorcising) Yankee Doodle? (For all I know in this Kavkaesque world, my programme may contain that or another virus - which is why I have been reluctant to try it out.) --Tony Rhinelander, Russian&Georgian Historian, St Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5G3 RHINE@UNB.CA From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0767 Qs: General (6/97) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 09:29:28 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1724 (1973) In response to Joel Elliott's request for a discussion group dedicated to Native American interests, I recommend: NativeNet: nn.general@gnosys.svle.ma.us Gary S. Trujillo, Editor: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Re: 4.0766 Qs: Computing Related (4/166) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 20:45:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1725 (1974) re: Bill Francis's WP5.0 footnote query-- My solution (in 5.0 and 5.1) has been to copy the text of the footnote to the second document (using move or copy CTL-F4) and switch back and forth from the "real" text in Doc 1 to the footnote text in Doc 2. When you have it all straight, move the footnote text back into its rightful place in the "real" document. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: Bill Ball C476721 at UMCVMB Subject: dog phrases Date: 27 November 90, 19:57:46 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1726 (1975) For sayings, quotes & phrases about dogs I recommend _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable_, which has about 4 pages worth. Some examples: "He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick" "I don't keep dogs and bark myself" "The more I see of men the more I love dogs" "You can never scare a dog away from a greasy hide" Brewer's also lists some dogs in literature and of notable people. William J. Ball Dept. Pol. Sci. U. Mo.-Columbia From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0722 Qs: Dickinson etexts; Humans v. Computers ... Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 14:55 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1727 (1976) Dear John Unsworth: re your d-g(s). "Not that shaggy!" Kessler here From: Julie Still <STILL@URVAX.BITNET> Subject: illegal names Date: Wed, 28 Nov 1990 19:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1728 (1977) On the subject of government control of names, it is my understanding that the British government forbids the use of royal titles as names. I read a few years ago that a British couple wanted to name their daughter Princess but couldn't. Last I heard they were appealing to the queen. Julie Still University of Richmond still@urvax.bitnet From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Electronic Text Projects Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 08:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 776 (1978) Fellow Humanists: For the past eighteen months, the Georgetown Center for Text and Technology has been involved in creating a catalogue of projects involving electronic text at institutions and companies around the world. Present accounting shows that we have on record a total of 312 projects over 27 countries. We will be offering public access to an on-line version of this catalogue sometime before the end of the current year. Presently we are offering the list of project names and addresses included in our catalogue. If you desire more specific information about any project, contact me personally at the address below, and I will be happy to forward this information along to you. James A. Wilderotter II Project Assistant Georgetown Center for Text and Technology Academic Computing Center Reiss Science Building, Room 238 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 Tel. (202) 687-6096 BITNET: wilder@guvax Internet: edu%"wilder@guvax.georgetown.edu" [...] -------------------- [A complete version of this list is now available through the fileserver, s.v. PROJECTS ETEXTS. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "Alfred Kobsa" <ak@cs.uni-sb.de> Subject: lidosearch [help][info] Sends this message Date: Tue, 6 Nov 90 13:23:49 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 777 (1979) {[latex][nolatex]} Default: nolatex {[substring][nosubstring]} Default: substring {[english][deutsch]} Default: deutsch Body of message: Query pattern(s) of first query Query pattern(s) of second query : : Bugs: Very long words are truncated by the refer program which underlies the 'nosubstring' mode of LIDO. Theoretically it could therefore happen that additional undesired articles are retrieved by the LIDO MAILSERVER in this mode when long patterns are employed. Good luck with your bibliographic search with LIDO! - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ REGULAR EXPRESSIONS (egrep) (explanation) _c a single (non-meta) character matches itself. . matches any single character except newline. ? postfix operator; preceeding item is optional. * postfix operator; preceeding item 0 or more times. + postfix operator; preceeding item 1 or more times. | infix operator; matches either argument. \< matches the empty string at the beginning of a word. \> matches the empty string at the end of a word. [_c_h_a_r_s] match any character in the given class; if the first character after [ is ^, match any character not in the given class; a range of characters may be specified by _f_i_r_s_t-_l_a_s_t; for example, \W (below) is equivalent to the class [^A-Za-z0-9] ( ) parentheses are used to override operator precedence. \_d_i_g_i_t \_n matches a repeat of the text matched earlier in the regexp by the subexpression inside the nth opening parenthesis. \ any special character may be preceded by abackslash to match it literally. (the following are for compatibility with GNU Emacs) \b matches the empty string at the edge of a word. \B matches the empty string if not at the edge of a word. \w matches word-constituent characters (letters & digits). \W matches characters that are not word-constituent. Operator precedence is (highest to lowest) ?, *, and +, con- catenation, and finally |. All other constructs are syntac- tically identical to normal characters. For the truly interested, the file dfa.c describes (and implements) the exact grammar understood by the parser. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: TidBITS#30/Xanadu_text Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 12:15:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 778 (1980) [TidBITS] Editors' note: This issue of TidBITS is a special issue reporting on the progress and philosophy of Ted Nelson's mind- stretching Xanadu project. We say mind-stretching because Nelson's ideas range far from the mainstream while at the same time retaining a compelling lucidity. It is our opinion that Xanadu, if it ever comes out, will truly change the face of computing (and a hell of a lot of other things too) as we know it. This is good. So read on, enjoy yourself, and soak in the possibilities of Xanadu. Anyone who is interested in writing other special issues should contact us at one of the electronic addresses below. If the topic is appropriate we are likely to agree to it. (More information on TidBITS is at the end of this file.) Ted Nelson World Tour '90 The Abstract What is Xanadu? The New Literature Xanadu Publishing Setting Up a Stand PAX Front End Demo Further Reading by Ian Feldman (71%) One-line blurb: First Xanadu stand opens Jan. 1993, El Camino Rd, Palo Alto CA. Be there. The Abstract: Ted Nelson's worldwide open-hypertext-publishing network, Xanadu, has once again been delayed. The version described in Literary Machines 87.1, etc., has been completed, but put on the shelf due to the absence of some key software mechanisms. The new prototype of the single-user back-end server software is in Smalltalk that will compile down to C to run on essentially all types of machines. That's the nitty-gritty of the keynote lecture at the first stop of Ted Nelson's 1990 World Tour (complete with beautifully embroidered black satin jackets), the 'Multimedia 90' conference, held in Linkoping, Sweden on September 10th. Ted Nelson: "In 1987 [...] that small fraction of the computer field that knew of Xanadu was very much astonished when they heard that the AutoDesk Company [57% world market share in CAD programs] had actually bought the project, and they'd be even more astonished if they knew how many millions of dollars AutoDesk has put into it since, which I can't tell you but it is 'several.'" They now work on performance and related parameters, so that online deliveries might take place "while the user is still awake." The FEBE (front-end-to-back-end terminal access) protocol has yet to be finalized though. We're to expect a LAN-version of the xanalogical storage server to be introduced on the market in 1991, with a few front-end programs available from AutoDesk, Inc. (the Macintosh version is being written by Mark $ Miller, so we're apparently in good hands). The first public-access Xanadu vending point in Palo Alto in '93 will be followed six months later by a sister installation at Chico State University, then in some yet undecided "Country Two," in few more American states, then worldwide. [...] -------------------- [A complete version of this document is now available through the fileserver, s.v. XANADU TidBITS. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: various Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 18:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1729 (1981) Extracted from NL-KR Digest (Fri Nov 16 12:45:08 1990) Volume 7 No. 24 PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS ASL/LSA CONFERENCE ON LOGIC AND LINGUISTICS to be held at University of California at Santa Cruz July 20-21, 1991 in conjunction with the 1991 LSA Linguistic Institute sponsored by The Association for Symbolic Logic and The Linguistic Society of America with a special session on `Compositionality and the Dynamics of Anaphora' Abstracts are invited for papers which deal with problems on the border between logic and linguistics, including (but not limited to) the logical analysis of natural languages, artificial languages, and linguistic formalisms; the application of model-theoretic and proof-theoretic techniques to natural language problems. Papers will be allotted 30 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. The Program Committee consists of Jon Barwise, William Ladusaw, Alice ter Meulen, Richard Oehrle, and Rich Thomason. Abstracts should be not more than one page in length and should indicate the paper's title; its author's name, affiliation, and e-mail and postal addresses; and whether or not the paper is to be considered for inclusion in the special session `Compositionality and Dynamic Theories of Anaphora'. Abstracts should be submitted by April 1, 1991 either via e-mail to oehrle@ccit.arizona.edu or to Richard Oehrle, Department of Linguistics, Douglass 200E, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. Submission via e-mail is strongly encouraged. Notification of acceptance will be mailed May 1, 1991. supported by a grant from IBM From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: various Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 18:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1730 (1982) Extracted from NL-KR Digest (Fri Nov 16 12:45:08 1990) Volume 7 No. 24 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPLICATIONS IN INFORMATICS: Software Engineering, Data Base Systems, Computer Networks, Programming Environments, Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems. C A L L F O R P A P E R S Preliminary Version. The Fourth International Sysmposium on Artificial Intelligence will be held in Cancun Mexico on November 13-15, 1991. The Symposium is sponsored by the ITESM (Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) in cooperation with the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Inc., the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence, the Sociedad Mexicana de Inteligencia Artificial and IBM of Mexico. Papers from all countries are sought that: (1) Present applications of artificial intelligence technology to the solution of problems in Software Engineering, Data Base Systems, Computer Networks, Programming Environments, Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems and other Informatics technologies; and (2) Describe research on techniques to accomplish such applications, (3) Address the problem of transfering the AI Technology in different socio-economic contexts and environments. Areas of application include but are no limited to: Software development, software design, software testing and validation, computer-aided software engineering, programming environments, structured techniques, intelligent databases, operating systems, intelligent compilers, local networks, computer network design, satellite and telecommunications, MIS and data processing applications, intelligent decision support systems. AI techniques include but are not limited to: Expert systems, knowledge acquisition and representation, natural language processing, computer vision, neural networks and genetic algorithms, automated learning, automated reasoning, search and problem solving, knowledge engineering tools and methodologies. Persons wishing to submit a paper should send five copies written in English to: Hugo Terashima, Program Chair Centro de Inteligencia Artificial, ITESM. Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, Col.Tecnologico C.P. 64849 Monterrey, N.L. Mexico Tel.(52-83) 58-2000 Ext.5134 Telefax (52-83) 58-1400 Dial Ext.5143 or 58-2000 Ask Ext.5143 Net address: ISAI@tecmtyvm.bitnet or ISAI@tecmtyvm.mty.itesm.mx The paper should identify the area and technique to which it belongs. Extended abstract is not required. Use a serif type font, size 10, sigle-spaced with a maximum of 10 pages. No papers will be accepted by electronic means. Important dates: Papers must be received by April 30,1991. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by June 15,1991. A final copy of each accepted paper, camera ready for inclusion in the Symposium proceedings, will be due by July 15,1991. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Computational Linguistics Job Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 13:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 780 (1983) extracted from: NL-KR Digest (Thu Nov 15 16:32:23 1990) Volume 7 No. 23 The Centre National d'Etudes des Telecommunications (CNET) is the R&D research center of the French telecommunications operator FRANCE TELECOM. CNET employs more than 3000 researchers and engineers in its several laboratories situated in various locations of France. CNET is offering a position of member of the technical staff in the area of COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS This job will be based in the Natural Language Processing group of the AI department at the LANNION center. The AI dept. participates in a variety of R&D projects including the application of NLP technologies to the French Teletel network services. The AI dept. also has a firmly established working relationship with leading universities thoughout the country. Current research topics include: o tools and data for comprehensive lexicons of the French language o parsing techniques and grammars o information retrieval Interested candidates will have an advance degree in Artificial Intelligence and/or Computational Linguistics. Please send your resume and salary history to: Michel Gilloux CNET LAA/SLC/AIA Route de Tregastel, B.P. 40 F-22301 LANNION Cedex FRANCE Tel: (33).96.05.21.77 Fax: (33).96.05.32.86 e-mail: gilloux@lannion.cnet.fr From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Artificial Intelligence and the Law Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 13:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 781 (1984) extracted from: NL-KR Digest (Thu Nov 15 16:32:23 1990) Volume 7 No. 23 Call for Papers Third International Conference on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and LAW 25-28 June 1991 St. Catherine's College, Oxford, UK Sponsored by: The Society for Computers and Law, UK In Cooperation with ACM SIGART The field of AI and Law seeks both to develop useful applications of computers to law and to investigate fundamental mechanisms of legal reasoning. In addition, many researchers see the law as an ideal problem domain in which to address some of the basic theoretical issues in AI. The purpose of ICAIL-91 is to provide a forum for the latest research results and to stimulate further interdisciplinary collaboration, to demonstrate accomplishments in practical applications, and to provide a continuing focus for the growing AI and Law community. Previous meetings of the International Conference took place in Boston (1987) and Vancouver (1989). In response to the rapid increase in activity and interest in the field, it is planned to establish an International Society for AI and Law during the Conference. Authors are invited to submit papers on topics including but not restricted to: --Legal Expert Systems --Conceptual Information Retrieval --Case-based Reasoning --Representation of Legal and Common Sense Knowledge --Computational Models of Legal Reasonoing --Applications of AI to Law Papers on theoretical issues in AI and in jurisprudence/legal philosophy are invited provided that the relevance to AI and Law is clearly demonstrated. Papers on applications should include a description of the nature and purpose of the application, the techniques employed, and the current state of implementation. Submissions are due by 15 January, 1991. Papers should not exceed 5000 words. Short papers not exceeding 2500 words are also invited, particularly in the area of "applications experience". Papers will be reviewed by members of the Program Committee. Please send five (5) copies of submitted papers to the Programme Chair: Marek Sergot, Department of Computing Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ, England FAX: (071) 581 8024 Internet: mjs@doc.ic.ac.uk Notification of acceptance:15 March 1991. Camera-ready copies due:15 April 1991 Conference Chair: Secretary-Treasurer: Richard Susskind Carole Hafner Masons, Solicitors College of Computer Science 30 Aylesbury Street Northeastern University London EC1R OER ENGLAND Boston, MA 02115 USA Tel: (071) 490-4000 FAX: 490-2545 Tel: (617) 437-5116 FAX: 437-5121 hafner@corwin.ccs.northeastern.edu Programme Committee T Bench-Capon, Univ. Liverpool, UK L T McCarty, Rutgers Univ., USA D Berman, Northeastern Univ., USA E Mackaay, Univ. of Montreal, Canada A vdL Gardner, Atherton, CA, USA A Oskamp, Free Univ. Amsterdam, Netherlands T Gordon, GMD, Bonn, W. Germany E Pattaro, Univ. of Bologna, Italy A Jones, Univ. of Oslo, Norway E Rissland, Univ. of Mass., USA M Sergot, Imperial College, UK From: Konrad Eisenbichler <KONRADE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 1.82 the Renaissance Knowledge Base Date: Sat, 01 Dec 90 09:16:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 782 (1985) Re: 1992 meeting in Toronto. There will be a meeting in Toronto in the fall of 1992 of representatives of Renaissance Institutes and Associations world-wide. The meeting is a follow-up of the 1989 meeting in Ferrara, Italy, of directors, chairs, and representatives of such groups. Two decisions were reached at Ferrara. The first was to establish an association "per la documentazione nel Rinascimento." The title of the association was set up in Italian, and is not really translatable in understandable English, but it was meant to convey the idea that we were interested in establishing a group whose primary interests were to share and communicate information and databases. The researchers at the Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali di Ferrara, for example, have been quite busy inputting some of the most important texts of Italian Ren. Lit. into databases (the epics, for ex.). They have been headed by Amedeo Quondam, who in fact organized the '89 meeting. The second decision reached at Ferrara was to meet again in three years' time in Toronto. Participants in FICINO will be interested in the Toronto '92 meeting because it will be devoted, to a great extent, to the needs/questions/interests of computer-assisted documentation and research. The Renaissance Knowledge Base, for example, should be a topic for discussion. So should the question of electronic translation systems. Or the question of bibliographies. On this last matter, the Federation Internationale de Societes et Instituts d'Etudes sur la Renaissance (FISIER), now headed by Prof. Jean-Claude Margolin, is interested in participating especially because of their _Bibliographie d'Humanisme et Renaissance_, which is having problems trying to keep up with the explosion of published materials in Humanism & Renaissance studies (the last published volume, for ex., is 1985). It may be time to discuss with the editor a computer-assisted system of collecting (and perhaps even publishing) the annual bibliography. FISIER will discuss participation in the Toronto 1992 meeting at its annual meeting in Paris this coming 5 January. It is my hope they will decide to co-sponsor the 1992 meeting together with the "Societa per la documentazione nel Rinascimento." The Toronto 1992 meeting will be hosted by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (Victoria Univ. in the Univ. of Toronto) and the Department of Italian Studies (Univ. of Toronto). There may be further UoT co-hosts. For further information contact either me, Konrad Eisenbichler <Konrade @ vm.epas.utoronto.ca> or Prof. Massimo Ciavolella Ciavolel@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA). Konrad Eisenbichler Director, Centre for Ref. & Ren. Studies From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: graduate programme in humanities computing Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 22:43:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 783 (1986) This Fall the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (Toronto) launched a modest graduate programme consisting of two half-courses. These are described below. I am happy to report that the first is going very well and has already taught me a great deal about the subject. Because Toronto is such a large university, I have been able to find able and willing lecturers for each of the sessions. These have come from a wide variety of departments and disciplines, including pharmacology, industrial engineering, management studies, and library science, as well as the expected -- English, history, Slavic studies, philosophy, linguistics. The second course is now being put together. I'll be happy to report on it in the Spring. Yours, Willard McCarty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Graduate Programme in Humanities Computing Centre for Computing in the Humanities University of Toronto 1990-91 Beginning this academic year, the Centre for Computing in the Humanities is offering within the School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto, a programme of study and training in instructional and research computing for the humanities. Stu- dents who successfully complete this programme receive a Certifi- cate of Proficiency in Humanities Computing on their graduate transcripts. Candidates for the Certificate are required to complete both of the following two half-courses satisfactorily. A student will, however, receive recognition on the transcript for each course separately. CCH 1001H. Instructional Methods by Computer. W. McCarty (CCH) and invited lecturers from a variety of departments. Introduces students to computerized educational methods and tools as they apply to the humanities and the social sciences. The aim of the course is to equip university teachers to apply computers intelligently and effectively in undergraduate courses and to plan facilities and programmes employing com- puterized tools. Topics include software evaluation and `usability testing', interfaces, simulation, language instruc- tion, writing assistance, numerical thinking, textual analysis, programming, communications, and online resources. Prerequisites: none. Maximum enrollment: 18. Requirements: seminar participation; several short exercises. Date, time, and place: Thursday, 4 October to 6 December 1990, 7-9 p.m. CCH 1002H. Basic Research Methods by Computer. W. McCarty (CCH), C. Leowski (EPAS), and invited lecturers from a variety of departments. Introduces students to the ways in which the computer may be applied to fundamental problems in academic research. Its aim is to show how research can be conducted more efficiently and accurately, and how the researcher can take advantage of resources and techniques formerly unavailable or forbiddingly difficult to access. Students will learn how material from printed and online sources can be electronically extracted, stored, classified, arranged, and retrieved; how texts can be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively; and how both common and usefully idiosyncratic methods of research can be modelled on the computer without complex programming. Prerequisites: CCH 1001H. Maximum enrollment: 18. Requirements: seminar participation; several short exercises. Date, time, and place: Wednesday, 25 January to 3 April 1991, 7-9 p.m. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: new classics review (e-)journal Date: 28 Nov 90 21:54:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 784 (1987) Bryn Mawr Classical Review A new review journal has begun publication. Hard copy subscriptions are available, but this notice announces that subscriptions to e-mail distribution is also invited. Details of access at the end of this message. *Bryn Mawr Classical Review* will survey new books in `classics' (Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman history, broadly construed), offering concise and informative reviews within 6-12 months of publication. Our editorial policy is to have as little editorial policy as possible. Boundaries are kept loose (though on the whole, strictly archaeological publications are excluded). Over the course of the first year, we expect to assemble a board of regular contributors representing as many competences and approaches as possible: their jobs will be to review regularly and to scout new titles wherever they can be found. The founding editors are Richard Hamilton of Bryn Mawr College and James J. O'Donnell of the University of Pennsylvania. A particular effort will be made to report on new books published in languages other than English. In addition to the concise reviews that are our mainstay, there will be other features: *Seen Elsewhere* (newsworthy items related to the profession), *Definite Articles* (notices of recent scholarly articles that one or another of the members of the board thinks deserve special attention: again, emphasis where possible on European publications), multiple reviews of a single title (to show different points of view), occasional reviews of older books revisited in a fresh context, even occasional essay reviews. Letters to the editor are gladly welcomed and will be published, as well as interesting and timely opinion columns. The only material excluded *a priori* will be items that could be characterized as `notes' or `articles': our view is that there are sufficient outlets for that kind of publication, but that the need we hope to fill (if not actually create) is for timely discussion of new publications and for discussion generally. The Review will appear five times a year. The hard copy subscription rate will be kept as low as possible; the mechanics of publication are identical to those of Bryn Mawr Commentaries (which will subsidize the first year's publication) and the pricing policy there may be taken as a reasonable guide to our capacity for maintaining reasonable prices here. For the first year, one copy is being sent free to every North American Classics department known to us (others will be added to the list if they so request). Review copies may be sent to our editorial address and are gladly received. We also welcome notice of forthcoming publications and advice generally. Materials should be sent in the most computer- ready form possible. Our first preference is to receive reviews and correspondence by bitnet at BMCR@BRYNMAWR or (from internet) BMCR@CC.BRYNMAWR.EDU; second preference is to receive Macintosh disks prepared in Microsoft Word (SMK Greekkeys is the default method of receiving and printing Greek); IBM disks may also be sent, and traditional hard copy will also be accepted. Hard copy subscriptions are available for $10 per year: write to Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010 To subscribe for automatic distribution of the e-mail version, send a mail message to MAILSERV@CC.BRYNMAWR.EDU containing as the *only* line of message the words SUBSCRIBE BMCR-L. Do *not* put anything on the `subject' line for this message if prompted to do so. To obtain back issues, you may use `ftp' interactive technique as follows: ftp cc.brynmawr.edu Username: anonymous Password: guest At the `Command:' prompt that follows cd bmcr dir That will produce a list of files currently available in that directory; the issues will be numbered sequentially by volume and number, so your next command will look like: get bmcr1-1.txt You would get volume 1, number 1. Vol. 1, number 2 will be followed by Vol. 2, number 1 (therefore bmcr2.1) to keep `volumes' and calendar years coterminous. The transfer of files with ftp is very quick (18K per second in my case, so the whole of the first issue took about 7 or 8 seconds to transfer to the mainframe where I was logged on. (IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO USE ftp, send me a note at JODONNEL@PENNSAS and I will construct a kludge.) From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Machine Translation Conference -- Call for Papers Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 13:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 785 (1988) extracted from: NL-KR Digest (Thu Nov 15 16:32:23 1990) Volume 7 No. 23 _______________________________________________________________________ MT SUMMIT III _______________________________________________________________________ In order to be prepared for the fast evolving global markets of the twenty first century where language will be a major barrier for trade, considerable attention is being focused on Machine Translation (MT) technology. The objective of MT Summits is to bring together governmental policy makers, scientists and engineers developing MT technology, and potential users of the MT systems. The first two MT Summits, held in Hakone, JAPAN, in 1987 and in Munich, West Germany in 1989 were very successful. MT Summit III is the third in this series of international conferences. It will bring together representatives from academia, industry and government interested in promoting research, development and deployment of machine translation and machine-aided translation technology. The conference will feature policy debates, scholarly presentations and demonstrations of machine translation-related software. The conference will be preceded by a full day of EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS and TUTORIALS on various aspects of machine translation research, development and policy. MT Summit III will be held on July 2 - 4, 1991 at The Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C. The organizing committee: Jaime Carbonell, General Chair Sergei Nirenburg, Program Chair Masaru Tomita, Demonstrations Chair Muriel Vasconcellos, Local Arrangements Chair, D. Radha Rao, Business Affairs CALL FOR PAPERS Contributions are solicited on all aspects of machine tranlsation theory, methodology, technology and implemented systems. The contributions must be original and report primarily on results, not work in progress or projects contemplated. Relative preference will be given to those contributions which will include a live or videotaped demonstration of a system or a component described in the presentation. Submissions can be up to 2,000 words in length, excluding references. The title page must include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses (if possible, including electronic mail addresses) and a short abstract. Please send FIVE copies of your submission to Sergei Nirenburg Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. DEMONSTRATIONS Please indicate whether you intend to show a live or videotaped demonstration (see the attached Preliminary Registration Form), including its length and any special equipment requirement. If you plan to organize a software demonstration, please contact Masaru Tomita Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. Important Dates: Submissions must be received on or before January 14, 1991. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by April 6, 1991. Final versions of the papers will be due on May 13, 1991. General inquiries about MT Summit III please address to MT Summit III Organizing Committee Center for Machine Translation Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 U.S.A. Electronic mail: mtsummit@cs.cmu.edu (arpanet) Telefax: (412) 268 6298 Telephone (412) 268 6591 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Preliminary Registration Form NOTE: Please return this form if you wish to receive further information on MT SUMMIT III Name: __________________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Telephone: _________________________ Fax: ________________________ Electronic Mail: _________________________________________________ < > I plan to attend MT Summit III < > I plan to attend tutorials and/or Executive Briefings < > I would like to be an exhibitor < > I would like to receive further information on the MT Summit III ------------------------------ From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 13:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1731 (1989) Extracted from: NL-KR Digest (Thu Nov 15 16:32:23 1990) Volume 7 No. 23 nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu AAAI Symposium on Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology Spring Symposium Series - Stanford - March 26-28 1991 Reminder The deadline for submissions to attend or present at the AAAI Spring Symposium on Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology is November 16th. (This is the correct submission date. On the last reminder you may have seen an incorrect date.) Update When submitting (by Email), do remember to include your full address (physical as well as electronic, fax and phone) as AAAI will post you registration forms upon acceptance. AAAI has now determined the fees for its spring symposia in Stanford next March: regular: $190; student: $75. Further information: The call and/or the background paper can be obtained from me. The aim is to have a fairly broad spectrum of involvement and to promote interaction amongst those with research relevant to Language Learning, whatever their background or goals. Of course, of special interest are those language learning programs which have already been implemented, as well as extant projects with such an aim. David - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- David Powers +49-631/205-3449 (Uni); +49-631/205-3200 (Fax) FB Informatik powers@informatik.uni-kl.de; +49-631/13786 (Prv) Univ Kaiserslautern * COMPULOG - Language and Logic 6750 KAISERSLAUTERN * MARPIA - Parallel Logic Programming WEST GERMANY * STANLIE - Natural Language Learning From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Sentence Processing Conference Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 18:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1732 (1990) Extracted from NL-KR Digest (Fri Nov 16 12:45:08 1990) Volume 7 No. 24 y t i s PREREGISTER TODAY! r e y v k t i w r i n of e o C U N Y SENTENCE PROCESSING CONFERENCE e p e o n s w r t t k r a a t l e PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT The annual Cuny sentence processing conference will take place this year at the University of Rochester, May 9 - 12th. We plan to send out several more announcements. If it is likely that you will attend the conference, please contact Hofsass@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu. The exact schedule depends on some funding decisions which are pending: you will receive a final schedule as soon as possible. We are hoping to avoid sunday meetings, but that will depend on how we fare with grant proposals. We plan for two kinds of sessions, normal presentation of papers, and special didactic symposia: each symposium will have a main presenter and several commentators. The basic schedule we hope for is: Thursday early afternoon - Japanese psycholinguistics (invited speakers) late afternoon - Symposium on semantics and psychology of conditionals (invited speakers) evening - Symposium on new kinds of connectionism and language (invited speakers) Friday early morning - Paper session late morning - Symposium on second language learning (invited speakers) early afternoon - Paper session late afternoon - Symposium on psycholinguistic methodologies (invited speakers) evening - barbecue and poster session Saturday early morning - Paper session late morning - Paper session early afternoon - Symposium on lexical concepts in and out of sentences (invited speakers) late afternoon - Paper session evening - Banquet and special talk SUBMITTED PAPERS AND POSTERS Some of the session papers will be given by invited speakers. In addition, we will accept for presentation a number of papers based on submitted abstracts. We will consider any topics related to sentence processing with some attention to grouping them when possible. We urge graduate students and researchers who have not presented papers before to send in abstracts. We also would like to expand the importance of the poster session. We urge not only students but also senior researchers to submit posters. Send all abstracts to: Michael Tanenhaus, Dept. of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, Mtan@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu. Please submit your abstract via email, or with an accompanying computer disk copy in a neutral format; this will facilitate dissemination of accepted abstracts before the conference. Please indicate whether you would like to present your paper as a poster if there is not time for it as a paper. The review panel will include Chuck Clifton, Janet Fodor, Jay McClelland, Lissa Newport, Mark Steedman and Mike Tanenhaus. THE DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS IS Feb 15, 1991. FINANCES As always, the conference depends a good deal on the ability of speakers to provide for their own transportation and local costs. We will attempt to pay the costs when this is not possible. Our greatest emphasis is on supporting students by arranging free local housing and paying their travel. There will be a modest registration fee to cover some local costs such as coffee and meals. The next message from us will include a preregistration form. STUDENT FELLOWSHIPS We have secured funds to contribute towards the travel and local expenses of a number of graduate students. Students giving papers or posters will be given priority in the award of these fellowships. Applications should be sent to Tom Bever, Bever@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu, to be received by March 1. TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATIONS We have secured a conference rate arrangement with Usair, dependent on at least 20 round trips being booked. To ensure this, we request that those of you who know now that you wish to travel here by air, please contact Hofsass@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu, so we can compile a list. With current high airfares, this kind of approach is necessary. If enough participants are interested, we may arrange for vans to drive groups from Boston and New York (about 7 hour's drive in each case). We will attempt to house faculty with us personally, where possible and desired; in addition, there are a number of houses and apartments where visiting graduate students can crash. We have booked a block of rooms at a nearby hotel, The Luxury Budget Inn, at a moderate price ($43 per room, single or double occupancy). Fancier hotels are available. We will provide local transportation to and from the airport. We will make arrangements for meals. For information and reservations for local housing contact hofsass@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu LET US KNOW NOW IF YOU THINK YOU WILL ATTEND! It will help us a great deal to get a general idea of how many people plan to attend the conference. We would appreciate an email note from you right now if you think the chances are reasonably good that you will attend the conference. Send email to: Hofsass@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu; 716-275-2469 PLEASE FORWARD THIS NOTICE TO ALL POTENTIALLY INTERESTED PEOPLE From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: job posting Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 22:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 787 (1991) Faculty position in computational linguistics, University of Toronto UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Department of Computer Science The department invites applications for a tenured, tenure-track, or contractually limited position in any area of Computer Science. We are particularly seeking applications in the areas of Natural Language Understanding / Computational Linguistics, Computer Graphics, and Database Systems. Salary and rank will be determined according to the successful applicant's experience and qualifications. Appointments are to commence July 1st, 1991. Duties will consist of research, graduate student supervision, and teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Apply in writing with curriculum vitae and the names of at least three referees to: Professor Kenneth C. Sevcik, Chairman Department of Computer Science University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4 Canada Deadline for applications is January 15, 1991. For more information on natural language research at Toronto, contact Graeme Hirst, gh@cs.toronto.edu. The University of Toronto encourages both women and men to apply for positions. In accordance with Canadian immigration regulations, priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada. From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: French software Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 12:17:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1733 (1992) I am looking for information on a couple of French software packages, published by CEDIC/NATHAN in France. The packages are _Generateur Roman_ and _Saga_, both are programs designed to improve students writing skills. Has anyone had any experience with them? Could anyone tell me if they are still available? (My only source of information on them is a magazine advertisement from December, 1987.) I should be grateful for any information I can get. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: AEVANS@DePauw.Bitnet Subject: Query re: available French & Spanish CAI software (DOS) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 08:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1734 (1993) Here at DePauw we are (finally) beginning to expand our CAI (computer- assisted instruction) capabilities into a variety of foreign languages. Aside from several textbook catalogues and the listing from the "WiscWare" consortium, where might we look for French and Spanish CAI software that: 1. is affordable, 2. works on DOS, 3. allows us to adapt it to various texts ("authoring system"), and 4. students enjoy using? Any and all suggestions would be immensely appreciated. From: Herb Kugel <UPDATE@Nac.NetNorth.CA> Subject: U of Toronto Network Information Center Date: Sun, 02 Dec 90 13:25:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1735 (1994) Hi. We are starting to set up a NetWork Informatin Center that will contain pointers/ catalogs to documentation and packages that can be beneficial to our NetWork users. There are other such NICS but we want to set one up for our Canadain users/researchers etc., though, of course, it would in no way be restricted. If you know of any package/service that could be of benefit, please contact me. Thanks. Herb Kugel From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: Phonetic alphabet symbols Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:24:53 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1736 (1995) I got the following from one of the students who works for me: I was wondering if you might have any IBM software package(s) that have phonetic alphabet symbols on them. I'm writing my MA and if I don't find something like that, I'll be spending mucho time runing in and out of ASCII and various font sizes. Please let me know if I can somehow get a hold of something [...] If anyone has suggestions, please contact Lisa directly at: lisa@gide.uchicago.edu Thanks from both of us. Mark U Chicago From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Microsoft Bookshelf Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 16:56:51 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1737 (1996) When invoking BOOKS from the command line in DOS, I find that any time I use the hot keys to bring it back, the dictionary looks up whatever word is on the screen, even if it is only the prompt. Any hints as to how to avoid this? So far I have noted that ALT D actually looks up the words, while using the down arrow only causes the word to be placed in the word field of the window, but it can be deleted and replaced, which is faster than watching the dictionary look up something that you don't want. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: GORDON DOHLE <DOHLE@Vax2.Concordia.CA> Subject: Re: 4.0757 Estonian Institute of Human Sciences (1/54) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 21:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1738 (1997) Does anyone have similar references to e-mail addresses in Hungary? Thanks Gordon Dohle@vax2.concordia.ca From: Donald A Spaeth 041 339-8855 x6336 <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK> Subject: Oral history, World War II Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 12:07:05 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 789 (1998) This is a long shot. I've just had a student in my office who is preparing a project on World War II air crews and bomber command. He will be doing interviews and and transcribing the results into a textual retrieval and analysis program (TACT). Does anyone know of similar material already in machine-readable form which he could look at for comparison? Or of m-r copies of WW II air novels, such as the Dam Busters or Air Force? Or of m-r transcripts of air crew logbooks? Thanks, Don gkha13@uk.ac.glasgow.cms (Janet) From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET> Subject: Quick Verse Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1739 (1999) I obtained QV2 only yesterday, but so far can report that it works quite well. I got the New RSV text and retrieval is very fast (because it is completely indexed). Takes a little over 3mb. The ability of a supplemental program called QV Companion to output text directly into a word processor (in my case WP5.1) is truely remarkable. No intermediate files and complete flexibility in both your request (word matches or reference) and in format. It is not true boolean logic, but you can do searches in the formats: & word1 word2 (gets verses with both words) | word1 word2 (gets verses with either word) I would be glad to respond to specific questions, but can report that my initial impression is very positive. David L. Barr, University Honors Program, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 dbarr@wsu.bitnet or dbarr@desire.wright.edu From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: ETHIOPIC E-TEXTS (4.0750) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:03:49 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 750 (2000) [deleted quotation] Dear Robin, Two things come to mind. First, a gentleman wrote an article in TUGboat about a year ago about an Ethiopic font that he had developed using Metafont. That suggests some texts somewhere, although I don't recall any explicit mention of any. More importantly, given the tragic destruction of Ethiopia's culture that you so rightly draw attention to (like Tibet's), the Hill Monastic Manuscripts Library, based at St John's University, Collegevill, Minnesota, has a long standing program of microfilming Ethiopic MSS in Ethiopia. I don't know if they are still filming, but they have been at it for at least a decade, and a great deal of the film at HMML has been catalogued. They have excellent facilities for study there. Dominik From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.0753 Rs: Hyphenation; Machine Xlation (2/27) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:09:05 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 753 (2001) [deleted quotation] [...] [deleted quotation] [...] [deleted quotation] Precisely. What I actually want to do is to build a hyphenation table for British English, for use with TeX, using Frank Liang's program PATGEN. The hyphenation that TeX does (and most other "English" hyphenators) is specifically for American English, which hyphenates slightly but noticeably differently from British English. Dominik From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0766 Qs: Computing Related (4/166) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 17:48 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1740 (2002) A parsing project that may not be well known was done by Thomas Rindflesch, U of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation, I'm not sure of the year or title but must be 1988 or 89. Vicky Walsh, UCLA From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Grammar checkers Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 18:02:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1741 (2003) A colleague I am tempting to join Humanist sends the following: ---------------------- Thanks for sending along the stuff from Humanist. I have something to contribute to the person who originally asked about reviews of grammar checkers. A colleague of mine here, a student and I did a fairly compre- hensive review of several commercially available software packages. The resultant paper was recently presented by my colleague and will eventually appear in <<Behavior Research Instruments, Methods, and Computers>>. An advance copy of the paper is available upon request from William Hayes, Professor of Psychology, Albion College, Albion MI 49224, USA <Hayes@Albion>. Hayes had the original idea, I designed the experiment, the student ran it, Hayes and I collaborated on interpreting the results, I drafted the paper, Hayes edited and presented it recently in New Orleans. James W. Cook, Professor of English, Albion College <JCook@Albion>. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0767 Qs: General (6/97) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 09:29:28 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1742 (2004) [...] In response to Joel Elliott's request for a discussion group dedicated to Native American interests, I recommend: NativeNet: nn.general@gnosys.svle.ma.us Gary S. Trujillo, Editor: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET> Subject: Rs: Twain quotation Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 11:29:32 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1743 (2005) There may be no answer. An entry exists in one of the most authoritative reference sources (Respectfully quoted : a dictionary of quotations requested from the Congressional Research Service / Washington : Library of Congress, 1989. Item 2003): "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Attributed to Mark Twain ... Reader's Digest, September 1939, p. 22. Unverified. This has been widely reprinted and attributed to Twain, but has never been found in his works, though various Twain groups and the Twain Papers staff have searched for it. That's the entry. Joseph Jones, Reference Librarian From: Frank Dane <FDANE@UGA> Subject: Bill Francis's WP5.0 footnote query-- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 20:45:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1744 (2006) My solution (in 5.0 and 5.1) has been to copy the text of the footnote to the second document (using move or copy CTL-F4) and switch back and forth from the "real" text in Doc 1 to the footnote text in Doc 2. When you have it all straight, move the footnote text back into its rightful place in the "real" document. Frank Dane, Mercer University From: "ALAN C. ACOCK" <ACOCK@ORSTVM> Subject: wordperfect files Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 11:53:10 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1745 (2007) People discussed ways of sending WordPerfect files. The follown is a way of doing it to perserve the entire file intact. It works with footnotes and even with graphs that have been imported from other software. If I have a file called MYFILE.51 this is what I do: 1. From the DOS prompt in the WP51 directory I run CONVERT.EXE by entering: CONVERT The input file is MYFILE.51 The output file is MYFILE.7 I use the CONVERT program to convert the 51 file to a "Seven-Bit Transfer Format." 2. upload MYFILE.7 and call it MYFILE SEVEN (on CMS) 3. Use Sendfile to send MYFILE SEVEN to whoever over bitnet. 4. The person on the other end downloads MYFILE SEVEN and calls it MYFILE.7. 5. The person then runs his/her own CONVERT using MYFILE.7 as the input file and MYFILE.51 as the output file. The option is "Seven Bit Transfer File to WordPerfect 5.1. From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Yankee Doodle Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 24:37:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1746 (2008) Yankee Doodle is a common virus in the U.S. It can be very persistent once it infects a network. Any decent anti-viral program (McAfee's set of programs or F-PROT) will remove it. According to Fridrik Skulason, creator of F-PROT, the virus was created in Bulgaria. According to another source, it was created in Bulgaria or Austria. If you are having virus problems, you might consider joining VIRUS-L@IBM1.CC.Lehigh.EDU. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: RHIN000 <RHINE@UNB.CA> Subject: Yankee Doodle virus Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 23:03:47 AST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1747 (2009) Re: request from C.S. Hunter for help with Soviet virus named Yankee Doodle. I picked up a programme called VIRSCAN in Moscow last June from a computer friend. He said it was for testing to see if a virus was residing in one's computer system. I have not yet tried it out. Might it be of any use in locating and eliminating (exorcising) Yankee Doodle? (For all I know in this Kavkaesque world, my programme may contain that or another virus - which is why I have been reluctant to try it out.) --Tony Rhinelander, Russian&Georgian Historian, St Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 5G3 RHINE@UNB.CA From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: PD MORPH ANALYSIS PROGRAM Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 10:39:35 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1748 (2010) New PC-KIMMO: On behalf of a friend, I post the following notice of a public-domain morphological analysis program (update version). DOS, Mac and UNIX implementations are available at various locations on BITNET, Internet (anon ftp) and commercial BBS's, as indicated. Robin Cover Announcing PC-KIMMO 1.0.3 update ================================ November 13, 1990 Version 1.0.3 is the newest release of PC-KIMMO, an implementation for personal computers of Kimmo Koskenniemi's two-level processor for word production and recognition. This new version supersedes all previous versions, including 1.0, 1.0A, and 1.0B. The update fixes a couple bugs related to lexical-to-surface insertions. There are no functional changes. An update disk is now available. It includes the new executable program, revised source code files, and a PC-KIMMO implementation of the Soundex method for phonetically encoding surnames. The update disk contains only the files that have been revised and is thus intended for those users who have the full software release that accompanied the book (rather than the bulletin board package mentioned below). The update can be obtained from us in either of two ways: 1. Request it via e-mail. It will be sent as an encoded archive file. 2. Send a self-addressed, stamped disk mailer and a floppy disk to the address below. People outside the U.S. may send an international postal reply coupon instead of U.S. stamps (available from any post office). Approximate postage: to U.S.: $0.45 to Canada: $0.52 to Europe: $1.32 (book rate) Please specify system version (DOS, Mac, Unix) and disk format required. If you haven't yet returned the software registration form that came with the book, please include it with your update request. For those reading this announcement who would like to try out PC-KIMMO, a package consisting of the program, basic documentation, and a couple sample descriptions is available (or soon will be) on various ftp archives or bulletin boards. The IBM (MS-DOS) version is available from these sites: SIMTEL-20 in pd2:<msdos2.education> terminator.cc.umich.edu [35.1.33.8] in msdos/science/linguistics chyde.uwasa.fi [128.214.12.3] bison.cs.uwa.oz.au [130.95.1.23] in pub/phonology CompuServe AIEXPERT forum the Macintosh version is available from: SUMEX-AIM nic.funet.fi [128.214.6.100] CompuServe AIEXPERT forum the UNIX version is available from: uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu in linguist Send update requests and/or requests for information to: Evan Antworth Academic Computing Department Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 U.S.A. phone: 214/709-2418 internet: evan@txsil.lonestar.org From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: OED 2 errors Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:32:36 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 794 (2011) I don't know why, but about once every couple of months I write to a dictionary about a word they have wrong. This time it is the OED, second edition, and since it has been mentioned here recently, I thought I'd share my <tiny> observation. The spine of volume V of the OED has a Sanskrit word on it: "dvandva", the first entry in that volume. It caught my eye, so I looked it up. I was surprised to see it there in the first place, because it is *definitely* a Sanskrit word, never used in English as an English word (unlike, say, "yoga" or "guru"). But maybe I have missed some arcane point of lexicographical principle here. There are two errors in this entry. First, the Sanskrit word is "dvandva" not "dvandva" . i.e., the "n" is a normal one, not a retroflex one: no underdot. I thought it might be a bit of fly dirt on my copy, but it's not. Secondly, the relationship between the member words of a dvandva compound is certainly not the copula; it is the sense of "and". The mistake probably comes from believing the pericope from Monier Williams; the following one by someone else (I'm doing this from memory, or rather the lack of) which mentions the example "Prince-Regent" is better, but still misleading. It could be read as "The Regent who is also a Prince", whereas a true "dvandva" meaning would be "Prince and Regent", or even "the Prince and the Regent". In Sanskrit, dvandvas are often used just to string things together "catsdogssheepdonkeysgoats", meaning just "cats and dogs and ...". I have noticed other cases where the OUP dictionaries follow Monier Williams uncritically. Probably because they publish his Sanskrit-English dictionary. But he is wrong about a lot of things, and you really need to know the language to use his dictionary safely. Dominik From: "Tom Benson" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0775 Illegal Names Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 11:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1749 (2012) In THE MONKEY'S WRENCH, Primo Levi writes about the naming of the narrator's interlocutor. The man's father wanted to name him "Libero" (freedom) but the Italian Fascist authorities at town hall would not permit it. So he got around the problem (he thought) by naming him Libertino, thinking it a diminutive for freedom, and hence naming his son "libertine." Levi also discusses, as I recall, the tradition that the legal name must be the name of a saint. Tom Benson Penn State From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0775 Rs: Dogs and Names (3/36) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 22:51 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1750 (2013) Having worked for a while as a statistician for Vital Statistics at the State Department of Health, on the subject of government control of names, I can say that the Registrar of births tries hard to avoid registering a name such as Ima Hogg. Names of extreme length are also discouraged, which most often in- volves names of Native Americans. How much control/what kind of control we have here I will leave to others to debate. Sigrid Peterson University of Utah SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0775 Rs: Dogs and Names (3/36) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 10:24:25 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1751 (2014) Just a quick note of humor on sayings involving dogs. There's a well-known German saying (actually in Swabian) portraying the Swabians as industrious people: "Schaffe, schaffe, Haeusle baue", meaning roughly "Work, work build a little house." One take-off on this (no doubt not from a Swabian!) continues: "Hund abschaffe, selber belle", meaning "Get rid of [your] dog, bark yourself." I thought the [Swabian?] dog lovers among us would [not?] appreciate that one! tom shannon From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0743 Qs: Chinese; Hyphens; Amharic Machine Xlation Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 00:09 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1752 (2015) Info on this machinese and tianma, please? news to me, it is. Thanks. J Kessler or write or reply to IME9JFK@UCLAMVS From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Disturbing news about vocabulary and SATs Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 13:27:25 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1753 (2016) I heard two pieces of disturbing news lately. Does anyone have further information or details. 1. The average vocabulary of a 16 year old in 1947 was 25,000 words, -------------------------------------------1990 " 10,000 " 2. The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is being dropped from many of the college requirements, or made optional. I seem to remember that in 1967 or so there was some big legal case because one of the major tests (CEEB - College Entrance Examination Board), or one of the others (sorry, not sure) actually had a negative co- relation with success in college. Thank you for your assistance, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: Databases, Almanacs, etc. Date: Sat, 01 Dec 90 10:16:18 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1754 (2017) In working through our introduction to the more run of the mill CD fare, (we just acquired MicroSoft Bookshelf, Grolier, PCGLOBE, etc) we noticed a statistical bent to the information we had long ago noted in databases prepared through the United Nations. The literacy rate for the US is at a rated 99% in virtually all of these sources: whereas we hear constant warnings in the news that 20-25% of Americans can't read well enough for the filling out of job applications. We have a local group of "research enthusiasts" who love to find anything which can't be found; I presented them with this and similar issues (such as were do citizens of the US go most often when then emmigrate to other countries?) The stated figures, as per the UN were that no one ever leaves the US. This was no error in relation to the fact that the figures were in thousands and there were a small enough number to be statistically insignificant, as the same books showed emmigrations of six individuals in another instance. Can anyone point out reference works which would be more accurate in the reporting of such materials. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: Princeton Theological Seminary <Q2835@PUCC> Subject: Hebrew Scriptures Discussion Group Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 11:31:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1755 (2018) Has a discussion group along the lines of IOUDAIOS formed for those working with the Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literatures? If not, is there any interest? Scott R. A. Starbuck Office of Computer Assistance for Textual Research Princeton Theological Seminary From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: New LISTSERV group: INDOLOGY Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 14:43:39 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1756 (2019) I am pleased to announce the establishment of a new network discussion group, using the LISTSERV software. The group is called INDOLOGY and is for the exchange of views and information relating to this field. The group is aimed at people with an interest in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Apabhramsa and the other languages of classical and later India; historians of the art, literature music and culture of India; the exchange of information relating to machine-readable texts in Indic languages, and so on. Nothing that could come under the broad rubric of "Indology" is excluded. Discussion relating to the use of computers to do Indology is to be expected too, naturally. If you would like to join, the procedure is as for any LISTSERV system. Send an email message to the Janet network address LISTSERV@UK.AC.LIVERPOOL (if you are sending from outside Janet, you will probably need to reverse the string after the "@" thus: LISTSERV@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK). The message you send should consist of the line SUBSCRIBE INDOLOGY <Your Name> That's it! You will then receive some general information about how to work the group. Your contributions to the discussion should be directed not to LISTSERV@UK.AC.LIVERPOOL, but to INDOLOGY@UK.AC.LIVERPOOL, otherwise things will get in a muddle. Best wishes, Dominik From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Update, Academic Electronic Groups Date: Friday, 16 November 1990 0012-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1757 (2020) Attached is the updated list of academic discussion groups on the electronic networks, based on responses received in the past month. Thank you for your recommendations. In some instances, I did not see how the materials submitted could be included (e.g. the HOTLINES service of COMPUSERV) or was not sure it was really relevant. If further suggestions are received, I will update as appropriate. Information on which lists are moderated and which not might be useful. Bob Kraft --------- List of "Scholarly" Discussion Groups in Humanities (rak 11/15/90) **WARNING: Some of the following information may be out of date** [check NEWLIST-L@INDYCMS for new science & technology lists] [also SERVICE@NIC.DDN.MIL for Internet List of Lists = SIGLIST] [also NETMONTH from BITLIB@YALEVM for new lists that appear] [also tell listserv at (your_node) list global for larger list] List Address List group description ------------ ---------------------- ANSAX-L@WVNVM Anglo-Saxon studies discussion list. ANTHRO-L@ ?? Anthropology list BUDDHIST@JPNTOHOK Indian & Buddhist Studies forum C18-L@PSUVM 18th Century Interdisciplinary discussion list. CRTNET@PSUVM Communication Research and Theory network EDTECH@OHSTVMA Educational Technology ENGLISH@UTARLVM1 Department of English discussion list. ENVBEH-L@POLYGRAF Environmental Behavior list ERL-L@TCSVM Educational Research list FICINO@UTORONTO Centre for Reformation & Renaissance Studies FWAKE-L@IRLEARN Discusses James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake HEGEL@VILLVM Hegel Society discussion list HISTORY@FINHUTC History HUMANIST@BROWNVM General Humanities & Computing Focus (moderated) IOUDAIOS@YORKVM1 Judaism in the Greco-Roman World LITERARY@UCF1VM Discussions about (contemporary?) Literature LITERARY@UIUCVME [see preceding entry; which node is correct?] LORE@NDSUVM1 Folklore discussion list [mixed reviews] MBU-L@TTUVM1 On teaching college composition [??] NSP-L@RPIECS Philosophy (Noble Savage Philosophers) list PHILOSOP@YORKVM1 Philosophy discussion forum PHILOS-L@LIVERPOOL.ac.uk Philosophy forum PMC-TALK@NCSUVM Post-Modern Culture discussion list PRST-L@UMCVMB Political Science Research and Teaching (moderated) PSYCH@TCSVM Psychology list. REED-L@UTORONTO Records of Early English Drama discussion list. SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground. sci.lang (USENET Unix group) Linguistics SHAKSPER@UTORONTO Shakespeare electronic discussion list. SLART-L@PSUVM Second Language Aquisition Research/Training WHIM@TAMVM1 Humor Studies discussion list WORDS-L@YALEVM English language discussion list. [mixed reviews] From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: ACL Special Interest Groups Date: Sun, 2 Dec 90 19:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 798 (2021) ACL SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS ESTABLISHED Four ACL SIGs have been established, following the guidelines set out in THE FINITE STRING (TFS), September 1990, Volume 16, Number 3, page 30. More detailed descriptions will be provided in the next issue of TFS; in the interim, people interested in joining should contact the liaison representatives identified below. Proposals for new SIGs should be submitted to Don Walker. SIGMOL (Mathematics of Language) has scheduled a ``Second Meeting on Mathematics of Language'' for 17-18 May 1991 in Yorktown Heights, New York. The liaison representative is Alexis Manaster Ramer [Computer Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA; (+1-313)577-2477; amr%wayne-mts@um.cc.umich.edu]; the conference is co-chaired by Manaster Ramer and Wlodek Zadrozny [IBM TJ Watson Research Center, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA; (+1-914)784-7835; mol2@ibm.com]. Use mol2@ibm.com for general correspondence. The liaison representative for SIGLEX, which covers lexical isssues, is James Pustejovsky [Computer Science, Ford Hall, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254, USA; (+1-617)736-2709; pustejovsky@cs.brandeis.edu]. A Workshop on ``Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation,'' organized by Pustejovsky and Peter Norvig [see below under ACL-91] will be held in conjunction with ACL-91. SIGPARSE has taken over responsibility for the ``International Workshop on Parsing Technologies,'' which will be held 13-15 February in Cancun, Mexico. The liaison representative and General Chair for the Workshop is Masaru Tomita [Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; (+1-412)268-3044; mt@nl.cs.cmu.edu]. A tentative program will be mailed to ACL members in mid-November. SIGPARSE will cosponsor the workshop on ``Reversible Grammars'' described under ACL-91 below. SIGGEN covers work in natural language generation. The liaison representative is Karen Kukich [Bellcore, MRE 2A339, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; (+1-201)829-4799; kukich@bellcore.com]. SIGPARSE will cosponsor the workshop on ``Reversible Grammars'' described under ACL-91 below, and it is likely that SIGGEN will assume some responsibility for future workshops in the generation series. From: HARRISON@RPIECS Subject: Society for Literature and Science Annual Conference Date: Sun, 02 Dec 90 23:01:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 799 (2022) Call for Proposals Society for Literature and Science Annual Conference October 10-13, 1991 Montreal International, interdisciplinary organization invites proposals for papers and sessions on any aspect of the conference theme: Science and Literature -- Beyond Cultural Construction Possible topics might include: -- l'ecriture de la connaissance et la connaissance de l'ecriture -- the popular scientific essay -- literature as technology -- practices in professional life -- texts and contexts -- disciplinary and interdisciplinary language and values Alternative formats -- workshops, debates, poster sessions, roundtables, works-in-progress -- will be welcomed enthusiastically. Deadline for submissions: February 1, 1991 For further information and for submission guidelines, contact: David Lux Bryant College 450 Douglas Pike Smithfield, RI 02917 Bitnet: LDM116 at URIACC From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: WP Citation Date: Mon, 3 Dec 90 08:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1758 (2023) A while ago I asked if anyone knew anything about WP Citation, and though one person (sorry, I don't remember who) checked up to find that a discount rate remained the same though the mailing arrived a week or so afterwards, no one seemed to know the program. I bought it and tried it; I haven't done extensive testing, but can report on a few points. WP Citation is basically a WP merge file with the fields predefined. I had never worked with this sort of file before and found it extremely confusing; all fields must be entered before an "END of FIELD" marker and cannot have hard returns. (This necessitated using the "Reveal codes" at all times simultaneously with the screen for keying in new entries.) One has to run a macro each time one wishes to enter a new record, which I also found cumbersome. There are two modes for producing the bibliography itself, draft and final. The draft mode takes a reasonable amount of time, but the final takes forever. For a two page bibliography, it took 20 minutes! Furthermore, for the style sheet I chose (The Chicago format) it did not put in quote marks around the titles of articles, etc. (I had specifically hoped to avoid reading through the whole Chicago manual, which I do not nor- mally use, but ended up having to do a good bit of checking.) In short, once one becomes accustomed to the program, perhaps it might be worthwhile. But meanwhile, one must check up on formatting items, be content with a wait, and pay close atten- tion to hard returns! I have not yet tried the sort option; when I do, if anyone is interested, I'd be happy to report back. Leslie Morgan MORGAN@LOYVAX1 (Foreign Langs., Loyola College in Md.) From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1> Subject: Re: 4.0791 Rs: WordPerfect (2/35) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 90 15:04:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1759 (2024) Wordperfect files transfer intact as binary files. Just upload and download as binary. E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, 317 FOLWELL HALL, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55455 From: Jose Igartua <R12270@UQAM> Subject: WordPerfect files on the network Date: Mon, 03 Dec 90 16:35:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1760 (2025) In reply to Alan Alcock's suggestion for transmitting WordPerfect files over Bitnet, if one has Kermit, the simplest way is to upload the file as a binary file (specify SET FILE TYPE BINARY on the mainframe) and then to send the file to destination with SENDFILE. Note that does not work (at least I have not been able to make it work) when files are sent to a VMS site, because a mail header gets added and that corrupts the WP file. From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: Center for Humanities and Language Computing, UT Austin Date: Monday, 3 December 1990 2:55pm CT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 801 (2026) I am pleased to announce that the English Department's Computer Research Lab has received an allocation of $300,000 from UT Austin's campus-wide Faculty Computer Committee to support upgrade and expansion of our existing instructional computing facilities. The funds are expressly dedicated to expanding the instructional use of computers in the teaching of writing, literature, language, and the humanities generally. We will use the money to establish a new, interdepartmental Center for Humanities and Language Computing (CHALC). CHALC will incorporate the existing Computer Research Lab, and extend services for computer-assisted instruction and scholarship to students and faculty in Classics and the modern languages and, in time, to other humanities departments as well. Computer-Based Classrooms At present, we plan to add a second, Macintosh-baed computer classroom to our existing IBM classroom. We'll replace the ageing equipment in the latter with newer, more powerful, and more versatile equipment. We also plan to purchase a number of more advanced workstations for the Computer Research Lab itself, to support development of innovative software for instructional use in English and other language and humanities courses. In addition to the purchases outlined above, we plan to install a complement of Macintoshes in the Batts Hall Language Laboratories; these will make it possible for students in modern language courses to take advantage of new strategies for computer-assisted language learning (CALL) developed by faculty and graduate students at UT Austin and elsewhere. The Classics Department will also gain new equipment, enabling their students to explore ancient Greek literature and civilization by using the combination of CD- ROM, videodisk, and HyperCard software developed by Project Perseus at Harvard. Future plans call for attaching each of these facilities to the campus-wide broadband network and continued expansion of instructional computing services. Solicitation The new equipment should be in place in time for classes to begin next fall. Please inform students interested in doing graduate work in humanities computing about the new facilities at UT Austin. Letters of inquiry should be addressed to me at either of the addresses below: John Slatin Director Center for Humanities and Language Computing Department of English University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712 USA email: EIEB360@UTXVM.bitnet, or SLATIN@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU phone: (512) 471-4991 (English Department), 471-9293 (Computer Research Lab) From: Marc Nossin <mn@gsierli.uucp> Subject: GENELEX Project Date: Mon, 3 Dec 90 16:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 802 (2027) GENELEX PROJECT : EUREKA FOR LINGUISTIC ENGINEERING Bernard Normier Marc Nossin GSI-ERLI 1, place des Marseillais 94227 Charenton-le-Pont Cedex, FRANCE [the original version of this text contained charts. If you want to receive them, send your FAX number to Marc Nossin <mn@gsierli.uucp>] Since many years, computational linguistics activity is no longer only academic but an industrial activity. During the meeting of the european ministers held in the month of June in Rome, the importance and the maturity of this discipline was acknowledged, thus by accrediting one of the biggest EUREKA project of this year, the project GENELEX. This project will last with a budget of 250 million francs for a period of four years and will reunite France : Bull, Gsi-ERLI, Hachette, IBM, LADL (Paris VII) and Sema- Group; Italy : Lexicon, Research consortium of Pise, Servedi (joint company of two italian editors, Utet and Paravia); Spain : Salvat (editor), Tecsidel, University of Barcelone. Computational linguistics : The era of implementation _____________________________________________________ The language being the main vector to information, the applications needing a complexe processing of this information under the typed form are legion. Many of the following have been realized in ERLI: - Automatic Indexing. A program analyses a document, then the program associates the pertinent concepts which will then be exploited by the research phase in the base which reassembles all the documents. With these tools, we can also analyse, automatically, a question in natural language and via the concepts which indexed the document, find the reply to the question (information retrieval). - Telematic Interfaces : Particularly in France, the development of Telematics generates the needs of natural dialogues (i.e. which do not use a computational language) directly between the general public and the different services available on french network Minitel. - Automatic Translation or Computer Assisted Translation (CAT). A program analyses a sentence in a given language, and builds a more or less abstract representation of this sentence, and then generates the target sentence from this representation. We can also name the interrogation of relational databases in natural language, the automatic generation of correspondance, etc. This type of implementation can be needed as far as there are together two main factors of the modern society, so as to say the computers and language. Natural Language Processing : the tools. ________________________________________ Compared with Expert Systems, this field has remained on the margin of the real advanced media. It was due to the fact that it was possible to conceive generic commercial tools (expert systems generators) all in regularising the real problems (creation of the rules) started up by the user. In the same time, Natural Language yet at its stammering stage, prefered to deal with application development for identified clients, rather than to take the risk of investing in the development of products. To resume, the market of expert systems was guided by the supply and that of Natural Language by the demand. In Gsi-Erli, 90 % of the work done until now has consisted in development of customized application rather than in product development. Experience gained by the implementation of various Natural Language applications has lead to the possibility of developping tools which are of general value rather than specific for each application. It is the matter of developping generic tools so as to reduce substantially the cost of Natural Language applications, to introduce products on the market. Let us put in detail the genericity problems of each component which forms the heart of a Natural Language application. [...] -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. GENELEX PROJECT. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET GENELEX PROJECT HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "Allen Renear, CIS, Brown Univ." <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Humanists on Humanist Date: Mon, 03 Dec 90 23:17:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1761 (2028) Periodically the Humanist discussion turns to ... Humanist. Which is just as it should be: we encourage Humanists to discuss, debate, and otherwise comment on the format and editing of the list. Although the basic procedures (moderation, topic digests, latitudinarian editing &c.) have been in effect a long time, and have been now and then the subject of lengthy debates on the list, Humanist editorial policies are always open to revision and refinement. Up until now Elaine and I have been busy simply learning the ropes and trying to figure out how to cope with the steady growth in both traffic and membership. Although we have made many changes in the the software and the procedures behind the scenes, we have not made many that would be noticed by the readership -- other than perhaps some regularization of the topic digest system. But now that we have things somewhat under control we will probably be considering further changes this winter and welcome your suggestions. However I expect that we will be fairly conservative both in the changes we make and the rate at which we make them. We will also take instruction from the many preceding discussions of Humanist procedures that have occurred since the first Humanist mailing on 12 May 1987 23:50:02 EDT. Finally, of course, we take note of the extraordinary success of the list in its present form. (And we once again take the opportunity to thank Willard for his wise guidance in those crucial early days of the list.) The two notes below raise good problems -- and familiar problems. The editorial board has indeed been thinking about how to improve the accessibility of accumulated Humanist wisdom -- making repetitive postings less likely -- for some time now. We hope to have some proposals for you soon. (Rest assured that "splitting" the list is not an option, having been unequivocally rejected by the membership in the past.) For those of you who do wish to avoid discussions _about_ Humanist entirely, please note that all digests containing discussions about Humanist will have a subject line beginning with "Hum:". Finally: Although the notes below arrived a week ago I have waited until after the backlog was discharged before posting them. My apologies to the authors. -- Allen for Elaine Brennan and Allen Renear, Humanist Editors From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: *NOT* Greek WP Date: 24 Nov 90 00:07:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1762 (2029) The size and continuing expansion of the HUMANIST community have brought us a situation which some notice more than others: the same topics coming up, the same questions asked. Sometimes the answers bring some novelty (tonight on Greek WP and fonts to use with TeX), but more often not. Some queries I imagine just go unanswered because no one has the energy to answer them for the umpteenth time. But this is natural, given the form of HUMANIST: a continual flow of messages, never-ending, rarely interrupted, always bubbling along. What was written here a month ago exists no more -- oh, to be sure, the back numbers are all archived on the LISTSERV and may be searched and found, but how many (1) really know how to do this [I don't], and (2) find it *easier* to investigate the archive than simply to throw the question up again? Further, new members have no way of knowing which fresh and vital query they put up on the screen will evoke sighs of weariness from grizzled veterans. Is there a next stage of life for a group like this that we are ready for but have not yet found? Some way to organize and pass on the wisdom of last week or last month accurately and usefully and *easily*? Any ideas? From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Date: Sun, 25 Nov 1990 9:54:43 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1763 (2030) A cry from the heart to counter Peter Robinson's: let's not have everyone split off into super-tiny discussion groups delving deeply into almost nothing. I prefer the Renaissance approach: find out a little about almost everything. If the soft-font people are all talking to themselves somewhere else, how do I know who to turn to when I find that I, too, need them (e.g. for Arabic in any other word processor... add any other examples you care to!) How do I even know what's going on?? How do I know what might interest me if I knew about it, or what might solve a problem I scarcely knew I had or didn't know was even solvable? Judy Koren From: Allen Renear <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Backlog Down; Some Files Lost Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 00:05:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 804 (2031) All files received before Monday morning (EST) have been posted. If you have submitted a contribution to Humanist during the last two weeks and have not see it appear in a digest please send it again. It has been an unusually busy and confusing period. I did in fact accidentally delete a digest with several hardware-related contributions. I hope the contributors will notice and send their postings again. -- Allen From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0788 Qs: ...; IPA; ... Date: Mon, 3 Dec 90 09:46:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 805 (2032) In reply to Mark Olsen's IPA query, this may be the answer, albeit it is expensive enough to require institutional support: The Summer Institute of Linguistics distributes a product that provides IPA and other phonetic characters for PC's with HP LJ-type printers. They call the product SIL Premier Fonts. It is based on a collection of Bitstream bitmapped fonts (not the outlines from which these were generated), so that the quality is quite good, but the library of fonts occupies a lot of disk territory. I've been told that they plan to switch over to Type 1 PS outlines in the foreseeable future, but that product is not yet available. SIL PF can generate a set of bitmapped fonts in a range of sizes, faces, and attributes. The available faces are Dutch, Swiss, Century, and Freehand, and the available attributes are roman, italic, bold roman, and bold italic. I forget the range of bitmap sizes available, but it covers the standard needs. You can specify a custom set of faces, attributes, and scales to fit your needs. Each font generated has a custom symbol set, specified by the user from a large list of standard and phonetic symbols. It is possible to combine one or more diacritics from the diacritic list with a single base character, so that you can easily get combinations like a-nasal hook-acute accent, etc. This lets you specify a symbol set with the standard ASCII characters in the lower range, for example, and your own customized characters above this. You can actually specify several different fonts, though you won't be able to see more than one on the screen at a time, without recourse to MS Windows. SIL PF can generate printer drivers for use with MS Word and Ventura. It can also generate screen fonts for use with EGA/VGA/Hercules RAMFont type screens, though obviously these are not going to be in any particular type face! (And you can only see one at a time.) All-in-all, this sounds pretty nice, but the hitch is that it will cost you. Most SIL products are dirt cheap, but Bitstream doesn't license their fonts on that basis. There are site licenses and single machine licenses. The single machine license is $450 for Times Roman and the basic package. Additional faces cost $250 (?) each, and the entire set of four is available for $900. As I recall, the site license prices were twice this, and a site was designated as a set of buildings separated by not more than two city streets, e.g., a campus organization spread over several buildings, etc. The address is: SIL Publishing Department 7500 West Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 214-298-3331 The data above are from memory, including the department name, inserted here in an address taken from another source, so you might want to mark the envelope something like "SIL Premier Fonts Inquiry" or call instead, etc. Alternatives: with something like the SoftCraft Font Solution Pack, you can roll your own fonts. It's a lot more time consuming, but the price is somewhat lower, even though you get a set of Bitstream outlines (Dutch and Swiss) to play with. You have to create the phonetic characters by editing normal characters if you need anything uncommon. You get the diacritics onto things by cutting and pasting with the font editor. Digi-fonts offers an outline-based generator that permits one to combine a number of diacritics with any base character. Their set isn't really phonetically oriented, and I have seen criticisms of the quality for smaller scale fonts. _____ Disclaimer: I have used the SoftCraft FSP, and it is acceptable, but time consuming to work with. I have not yet used the SIL PF or Digi-fonts packages. Any recommendation expressed is my own, not that of my employers. From: Edward Shreeves 319-335-5867 <CADATKTS@UIAMVS> Subject: Alfred von Kowalski-Wierusz Date: Sat, 01 Dec 90 11:04 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1764 (2033) For an unconnected colleague: Can anyone provide information, or sources of information, on the painter Alfred von Kowalski-Wierusz, whose dates are roughly 1850-1915? He painted the immensely popular "The Lone Wolf"--copies of which must have hung in almost every home in the midwest during the first half of this century. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0795 Names ... Date: Mon, 3 Dec 90 10:02:59 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1765 (2034) A number of years ago I read an article in the Denver Post about the problems of a Breton nationalist who wanted to give his children traditional Breton names, but couldn't because none of them were on the list of names permitted under French law. I can't vouch for the validity of the background information supplied by the paper, but perhaps someone else can comment on French naming law. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: ACL special issue Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 12:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1766 (2035) CL Special Issue on Computational Linguistics Using Large Corpora Guest editor: Susan Warwick-Armstrong Call for Papers The increasing availability of machine readable corpora has suggested new methods for studies in a variety of areas such as lexical knowledge acquisition, grammar construction and machine translation. Though common in the speech community, the use of statistical and probablistic methods to discover and organize data is relatively new to the field at large. The various initiatives currently under way to locate and collect machine-readable corpora have recognized the potential of using this data and are working towards making these materials available to the research community. Given the growing interest in corpus studies, it seems timely to devote an issue of CL to this topic. This special issue will attempt to bring together contributions from a variety of areas with the aim of identifying current directions in the field. The emphasis will be on new methods and the insights gained from applying them. Papers should therefore give a clear presentation of the methods and models employed, distinguishing them, where appropriate, from particular applications. Reports on new projects and on-going activities are welcome, not necessarily as full papers, but rather to be included in the overview of activities in the field. DEADLINES: Submission date: May 1st, 1991 SUBMISSIONS: (five copies should be sent) - 3 copies to: James Allen Computer Science Department University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 USA - 2 copies to: Susan Warwick-Armstrong ISSCO, University of Geneva 54, rte. des acacias CH-1227 Geneva SWITZERLAND FURTHER INFORMATION: Susan Warwick-Armstrong email: susan@divsun.unige.ch From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: language origins conference Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 13:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1767 (2036) CALL FOR PAPERS LANGUAGE ORIGINS SOCIETY 7th Annual Meeting July 18-20 1991 Northern Illinois University DeKalb Il 60115 USA The Language Origins Society invites abstracts for papers on aspects of language origins and evolution. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the origins and development of: phonetic systems grammatical systems semantic systems writing systems speech and language biological, neurological and medical aspects non-human communication systems particular language families and subfamilies Send abstracts of 500 words or less and requests for further information to: Edward Callary Coordinator, LOS English Department Northern Illinois University DeKalb Il 60115 USA or e-mail: TB0EXC1@NIU.BITNET (TB ZERO, not the letter O) From: MARILYN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: phonetic spelling checker Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 13:30 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1768 (2037) Does anyone know of a spelling checker that can cope with phonetic spellings as well as regular ones? I have been asked by a user at the Oxford Centre for Humanities Computing who wants it for dyslexic spellings (her example was, for instance, it should pick up 'orkward' as a spelling for 'awkward'). Thank you. Marilyn Deegan, CTI Centre for Textual Studies, Oxford University. PS. Note that we have changed our name from CTI Centre for Literature and Linguistic Studies. From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Laser Printers - General Advice? Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 09:49:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1769 (2038) At the risk of raising a hardware question for the umpteenth time, I would greatly appreciate any advice or anecdotes fellow Humanists can offer to help guide a Canadian through the thickets of laser printers before the government's oh-so-popular new tax arrives January 1st. I am using a PS/2 model 70, and am primarily looking for compatibility with WordPerfect 5.0 and Windows 3 (PageMaker, Corel Draw)... and I've set an upper limit of $1500 Canadian. Lasers I've seen here in Toronto advertised under that limit include the OKIData 400, HP LaserJet IIP, Epson EPL 6000, Panasonic Laser 4420, and MT905 Laser (HP II Compatible). Advice on these brand names (or others), compatibility, or essential features would be much appreciated. (Information on local dealers might also prove invaluable). If the topic has been dealt with on Humanist recently, I haven't seen it; if a past discussion is still relevant, please direct me to it (I for one *do* use the Fileserver...). I invite direct replies if general interest is unlikely, at <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> or <KSTEELE@utorepas>. Thanks in advance to those who find this subject interesting, and my apologies for troubling the rest. Ken Steele University of Toronto From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0806 Qs: Kowalski-Wierusz; French Naming Law Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 07:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1770 (2039) I remember reading in *Time* (?) magazine some time ago that there were problems with French names; someone whose last name was the equivalent of "butt" was not permitted to name his/her child with that same last name. The upshot was that there was even more speculation about the child whose last name was not the same as that of the family! (This must have been in the 60's or 70's when I read the article; I too would like to know more about French naming law-- was this information correct? Is it still true?) Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET) From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: French Naming Law (2/22) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 08:48:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1771 (2040) Until the mid-sixties, names of the French-born had to come from the French Christian calendar, although the local registry could exercise a local option in accepting names. A friend told me the story that when she arrived at the hospital to give birth, she had to give the name of the child before she would be admitted, to avoid (illegal) delays in registering the name in case the parents disagreed on the name of the child. (One of the Truffaut movies has exactly such a disagreement between Ghislain and Alfonse--I am unsure about the latter name). She gave Sonia as the name, and was told that she was lucky, because not all localities accepted that name. The case of the Breton names came up in the mid-sixties. The man was a Breton nationalist who refused to compromise by giving his children Christian middle names, so that none of his children had any civil status (no child payments, no identification, no military service). They were non-existent as concerned anything that required legal identification. The law was changed shortly after that, allowing any name within reason, with the proviso that no child could be given de Gaulle as a first name. My suspicion is that names such as god, Chastity, Tasaday, Blessing (all names that I know of) would still not be acceptable. From: ENCOPE@LSUVM Subject: Announcement of Book Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 15:15:21 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 810 (2041) Veteran e-mailer Kevin L. Cope announces the release of his CRITERIA OF CERTAINTY: TRUTH AND JUDGMENT IN THE ENGLISH ENLIGHTENMENT, and kindly requests that fellow e-mailers ask their college or university libraries to order a copy of it (only US$29.50; write to The University Press of Kentucky, 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky, 40506-0336, U. S. A.). Authors featured in the book include the Earl of Rochester, the Marquis of Halifax, Dryden, Locke, Swift, Pope, and Smith, as well as a thousand scribblers and critics. E-mail fans will be amused to discover that both the binding and the dust jacket are the same color as the green used in many monochrome computer screens. The jacket includes a high- resolution photograph of the veteran e-mailer himself. Thanks, and cheers! KEVIN Kevin L. Cope From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: Access to HUMANIST's wisdom Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 10:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1772 (2042) Thank you, Allen, for that recent posting about the possibility of an easier system for accessing our accumulated HUMANIST wisdom. Just one voice of many, I can say that I have used the listserver several times, but because of the ever-increasing number of topics to wade through, I try to avoid doing so now whenever possible. The most important topics I create my own files for and keep our mainframe's disks and tapes humming happily (usually). I would use the listserver search system much more often were there a well cross-referenced, simple, hypertextual approach with documentation. Best wishes, Joel From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0803 Hum: Discussion Invited; Repetition; Splitting... Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 09:07:44 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1773 (2043) One approach to handling repeat questions that I have seen used on USENET is for someone to sponsor a document that collects the most frequently asked questions and the current best answers. This is presumably available on the server, but is also posted periodically for comment and, hopefully, to forestall excessive repetition of the queries. Those who aren't interested can easily recognize the header and delete it forthwith. On a moderated list it would be possible for the editors to shortcircuit the standard queries by simply mailing back this collection with some standardized explanation of what had happened. From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: ACH/ALLC '91 update Date: Wed, 05 Dec 90 09:31:54 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 812 (2044) CONFERENCE UPDATE ACH/ALLC '91 Preparations for ACH/ALLC '91, the joint conference of the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, are well underway. The conference host is Arizona State University, located in Tempe, Arizona. Conference dates are March 17- 21, 1991. The official registration packet and preliminary program will be distributed in January. This preliminary information is to help you in planning the conference: Program: The program committee has received a record number of submissions, and by all accounts the quality of these abstracts is excellent. The selection of papers should be completed in the next few weeks. Featured speakers for the conference include Martin Kay, Ralph Griswold and Helen Aguerra. There will be a software fair and poster sessions, and the vendor exhibit, which will feature over 100 exhibitors. Accommodations: A dormitory has been reserved for ACH/ALLC '91 registrants with fees of about $15.00/day. The number of rooms is limited, however, and you may be required to share a room. If you want to secure a place in this dorm, you will need to prepay directly to the ACH/ALLC '91 registration office. Details will be sent with the registration packet. There are also two commercial hotels in which rooms have been reserved for the conference, one with rooms at $50.00/day and the other which charges about $80.00/day. Both of these hotels allow up to four persons in a room (at $10.00 extra per person), and have airport shuttle service, restaurants, etc. All locations are about equally distant from the conference site. Travel planning: Activities will begin on Sunday, March 17th, in the late afternoon and continue until Thursday, March 21st, at noon. There will be recreational activities earlier on Sunday for those who arrive early. If you are traveling from any distance, it is generally cheaper to travel via Los Angeles International. A conference car rental package will be included in the registration packet, although an automobile will not really be necessary for the conference; you will be able to walk to all conference activities. A taxi to the airport costs only about $10.00. Activities: An optional overnight trip to the Grand Canyon is being planned for Thursday (returning mid-afternoon Friday), as well as shorter river runs and museum tours. There are many other recreational activities possible in Arizona in March, including golf, swimming, major league baseball spring training, and the like. Others may wish to reserve time for an independent trip to the Petrified Forest or one of many archeological sites. Fees: The conference registration fee is $90.00. ACH and ALLC members will receive a discount of $15.00, as will graduate students and independent scholars. There will also be an early registration discount of $15.00 (February 1st). There will be additional charges for the banquet and for excursions. The Program Committee is very excited about how the conference is shaping up; please make every effort to be a part of ACH/ALLC '91! Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Technology Integration College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 602/965-7748/1441 fax -1093 ATDXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: Avignon NLP'91 Conference Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 10:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 813 (2045) AVIGNON '91 NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING & ITS APPLICATIONS Avignon - France, May 27 - 31, 1991. CALL FOR PAPERS With over 3,000 attendees and visitors from some 30 countries, the 1990 10th Avignon International Workshop on Expert Systems and their Applications was the leading European event of the year in Artificial Intelligence. Avignon '91 will follow the tradition of the previous conferences by including a general conference on Expert Systems, as well as a series of specialized conferences dealing with specific fields of application. A specialized conference on "Natural Language Processing & its Applications" was held at Avignon '90, where it enjoyed enormous success, especially because it provided a platform for discussion among users, industrial companies, and researchers. The Natural Language conference will again be a part of Avignon'91, and will include papers, invited lectures, and panel sessions, tutorials, demonstrations, and an industrial forum on natural language. Topics ______ Papers may cover either applications or techniques. For the first category (computer assisted translation, interfaces with databases, automatic indexing, etc.), authors should specify whether the nature of the application is specialized or general, as well as the degree to which the implementation has been realized. For technical or scientific papers, linguistic models (dialog, lexical representations, etc.) should be clearly distinguished from the computing techniques employed (automatic systems and problem-solving strategies for analysis or generation). Submission __________ Authors should submit 7 copies of their papers before January 7, 1991 to the AVIGNON '91 general chairman: Jean-Claude Rault EC2 269-287, rue de la Garenne ; 92000 Nanterre ; France tel: 33 - 1 - 47.80.70.00 ; fax: 33 - 1 - 47.80.66.29 Paper should be 2000 to 5000 words (about 10 pages single-spaced). Each submission should contain the following information: title of paper; full name of all authors; complete address of first author (including telephone, fax number and e-mail address if available); abstract of 100-200 words; list of key-words. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three referees. Notifications of acceptance or rejection will be mailed after March 1, 1991. Program Committee _________________ Co-Chairs: Margaret King (ISSCO, Geneve) <king@divsun.unige.ch> Marc Nossin (GSI-ERLI, Paris) <mn@gsierli.uucp> From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: LN list in computational linguistics Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 09:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 814 (2046) Bulletin Electronique LN LN Electronic List Le bulletin electronique LN a pour LN is an international electronic but de favoriser la circulation distribution list for computa- d'informations a travers la commu- tional linguists. Its goal is to naute "Informatique Linguistique": disseminate calls for papers, con- appels a communication, annonces ference and seminar announcements, de conferences ou seminaires, requests for software, corpora, requetes specifiques concernant and various data, project descrip- logiciels, corpus et donnees tions, discussions on technical diverses, descriptions d'activites topics, etc. The list is primarily et de projets, discussions sur des French-speaking, but many items sujets techniques, etc. Le bulle- are circulated in English. It pro- tin est principalement franco- vides a forum for scholars working phone, mais de nombreuses informa- on French, but it is by no means tions sont retransmises sous leur restricted to this field. forme originale en anglais. Il constitue un forum pour les cher- The list is sponsored by the Asso- cheurs travaillant sur le Francais ciation for Computational Linguis- mais n'est en aucun cas restreint tics (ACL) and the Association for a ce seul champ d'etude. Computers and the Humanities (ACH). This joint sponsorship Le bulletin est parraine par reflects the fact that in addition l'Association for Computational to more traditional concerns, compu- Linguistics (ACL) et l'Association tational linguists have a growing for Computers and the Humanities interest in areas such as computa- (ACH). Ce double parrainage tional lexicography, study and use reflete l'interet croissant des of corpora, statistical models, linguistes informaticiens pour, a etc., which have been tradition- cote de domaines plus tradition- ally central to ACH. nels, des domaines tels que la lexicographie informatique, l'etude Currently the list consists et l'utilisation de corpus, les of over 140 members in Europe, modeles statistiques, etc., qui North America, and the Middle sont depuis longtemps centraux dans East. It is moderated by Jean l'ACH. Veronis (GRTC-CNRS, France and Vassar College, USA) and Pierre Le bulletin comporte a l'heure Zweigenbaum (DIAM-INSERM, France). actuelle plus de 140 abonnes en Europe, Amerique du Nord et Moyen- To join LN, send a message to Orient. Il est edite par Jean LISTSERV@FRMOP11.BITNET, contain- Veronis (GRTC-CNRS, France et ing only the following line: Vassar College, USA) et Pierre Zweigenbaum (DIAM-INSERM, France). SUBSCRIBE LN your name Vous pouvez vous abonner au Send messages to be transmitted on bulletin en envoyant un message the list to LN@FRMOP11.BITNET. compose de la seule ligne suivante a LISTSERV@FRMOP11.BITNET: In case of problems, send a mes- sage to one of the editors: SUBSCRIBE LN Prenom Nom Jean Veronis Vous pouvez transmettre des VERONIS@VASSAR.BITNET informations pour diffusion dans le bulletin en envoyant un message Pierre Zweigenbaum a LN@FRMOP11.BITNET. ZWEIG@FRSIM51.BITNET En cas de probleme, adressez-vous directement aux editeurs: Jean Veronis VERONIS@VASSAR.BITNET Pierre Zweigenbaum ZWEIG@FRSIM51.BITNET From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: Latin lexica Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 13:55 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1774 (2047) A query on behalf of my colleague David Cram. He is interested in early modern lexicography, and would like any references to discussion of lexica, indexes etc to individual classical authors and their relation to the development of general lexicography: anything from straightforward bibliography to cultural history (he is a linguist). I remember a HUMANIST discussion about biblical concordances (references?): anything more on that would also be welcome. Don Fowler From: Ruth Glynn <RGLYNN@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX> Subject: Email address wanted Date: Wed, 5 DEC 90 15:52:14 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1775 (2048) Has anyone got an email address for Mr Jon Boring at the Dallas Theological Seminary? Reply direct to me -- thanks. Ruth Glynn From: David Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu> Subject: RE: 4.0808 Qs: Phonetic Spelling Checker... Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 14:30:17 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 816 (2049) In reply to Marilyn Deegan's request for a phonetic spelling checker, there are several such around, as engines in commercial spell-checker packages. The best available (back a few years ago, when I worked on such stuff), was a product sold by Houghton-Mifflin to various computer manufacturers. I may be predjudiced, as I helped work on the product, but in the phoneticly-based correction arena it really was superior in the tests we ran. I know that Digital's DecSpell product has this engine (as well as a relatively horrible interface). Perhaps you have Decspell on vax.ox.ac.uk. For instance, our corrector could handle spellings such as felasofie, and prewn for philosophy and prune. From: TIBBO.ILS@mhs.unc.edu (TIBBO) Subject: ARIST Chapter Date: Wed, 05 Dec 90 16:39 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 817 (2050) Dear Colleagues: I am writing to solicit descriptions (preferably published ones) of projects involving computer/technology applications in the humanities. I am currently engaged in writing a chapter on information technology/systems/services for the humanities for the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST). This is an annual information science publication produced by ASIS (the American Society for Information Science). It provides state-of-the-art and literature reviews on a variety of topics of interest to information professionals each year. Joe Raben was the last person to write on this topic and that was in 1981. Needless to say, much has transpired since then! I will be covering many areas in this review such as online bibliographic services and humanists as literature producers and users, but I will devote a good deal of space to describing various projects and technology initiatives developed by humanists. What I need to become aware of is all the wonderful projects in which you are integrating technology and humanistic content, be they for the classroom or research. This is the hardest area for me to research as references to such projects are spread far and wide. I do, however, want to include as many significant projects as possible and give their creators the credit they are due. Thanks for all your help. Helen R. Tibbo School of Information and Library Science 100 Manning Hall CB# 3360 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360 (919) 962-8065 (my office) (919) 962-8366 (SILS office) (919) 962-8071 e-mail: TIBBO@ILS.UNC.EDU From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@vassar.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0809 French Naming Law Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 20:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1776 (2051) There is a restriction on *first* names in the French law. A first name, given to a child by its parents, cannot be offensive or cause prejudice to the child (or other people) in any way. You can think of all the problems of interpretation that this may cause, especially in the view of the fact that the decision is made by some city hall officer... If you stick to the catholic saints (the calendar), no problem. Otherwise, everything can happen. I am joking. Nowadays, these officers are instructed to accept all the other religious/ethnic/traditional first names. A number of cases go to court anyway. I remember two recent exemples. The first one came from parents who wanted to name their child "cerise", which means "cherry". It is not known a first name in French, or any religion or ethnic group. The officer found that this could cause later prejudice to the child. So, the parents went to court, and won. Another very interesting case was when Chanel perfumes sued parents for using a copyrighted brand as a first name, on the basis that the name was their property, and mis/over-use would cause prejudice to them. I am not sure who won, because the issue was confused by the existence of an old name Channel (with two n), or something like that. There is no such provision for last names. If I have a terrible name, it is the way it is, but my children are allowed to have it. They may ask for a change, but it is not quite simple. In cases where the name is really a problem for the person (offensive words, Hitler, etc.), courts agree to the changes. Jean Veronis ps: thanks for this refreshing question. It helps to see such topics when you have been grading computer programs all afternoon... From: Bernard_van't_Hul@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: 4.0806 Qs: Kowalski-Wierusz; French Naming Law (2/22) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 21:29:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1777 (2052) David Allerton, Englisches Seminar, Universitaet Basel, Nadelberg 6, Basel, Switzerland (not on bitnet or internet, I THINK) is good on English AND continental laws re the naming of babies. From: "Dr. Joel Goldfield" <JOEL@DUKEMVS.BITNET> Subject: French name law Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 22:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1778 (2053) My knowledge of the French name law is limited to one first-hand anecdote from a former graduate student colleague in Montpellier who was a Tunis native married to a French Catholic of Polish ancestry. The city would not allow them to name their son "Yanis," an Arabic name, since the mother was a Christian (the father was a Moselm retaining Tunisian nationality). Instead, they "recommended" the name "Ian," which was close. In fact, the civil authorities simply registered him that way. I believe that the authority could have been at the prefecture level, rather than city level, but am not sure. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield From: Catherine Griffin <CATHERINE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0809 French Naming Law (2/38) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 9:58 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1779 (2054) I was born in Paris in the prehistoric era which only those of great antiquity can remember, when WWII was about to break, and de Gaulle was just approaching his finest hour. My father went to the Registry to name me Maulde (an old French name), and was told, thank God, that this could not be allowed as a first name, as it was not in the Saints' calendar. As in France you had only a short time to register your child, and that time was just expiring, my father decided on the spot to give me Catherine as a first name; Maulde was then permitted as a middle name. I do not know what the legal position is now, but I have always been grateful to the authorities for giving me an alternative name, one where I wouldn't be asked where it came from, how it was pronounced and how it was spelt, where it came from , etc. Catherine (M.) Griffin From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: French Naming Law Date: Wed, 05 Dec 90 10:09:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1780 (2055) The question of legal first names remains a very sensitive topic in France, a very centralized system that has a hard time adjusting to regional realities. The basic rule is that names must be drawn from either the Roman catholic calendar with its roster of saints, or the revolutionary calendar of 1790 (I don't remember the exact date when it was established). Which means that a French baby could in principle be named "Charette" or "Rateau" or "Fraternite", etc. But officials registering the names have a discretionary power to reject names that could make one look ridiculous. They also have the poweer to accept names that have a regional currency, or from foreign origin, as long as the family belongs to the region or comes from a foreign country. Actually, there is now a lot of uncertainty as to what is acceptable and what not. One way to have your child bear any name you wish is to have it born in a different country. The French accept that local law takes precedence and the local French officials can but record what has been accepted by the country's authorities. It is the case in Canada where -- as horrified French officials concede -- "anything goes"! From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: French Naming Law Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 09:30:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1781 (2056) Leslie Morgan's *Time* story may have derived from an old joke which runs about this way: An Alsacian was named Wache, which the French insisted on pronouncing their way, and that eventually the spelling conformed and became Vache, which was bad enough as is. When the Germans took over once more, they insisted on Germanicizing all the French names, and the family name became Kuh. So when Alsace became French again the man understandably went to the _mairie_ to have a legal change of family name to Dupont or some other good French name. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Terence Harpold <tharpold@pennsas.upenn.edu> Subject: Re: Hypertext bibliography Date: Fri, 23 Nov 90 09:28:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 819 (2057) Hypertext and Hypermedia: A Selected Bibliography Terence Harpold Group in Comparative Literature University of Pennsylvania BitNet: tharpold@pennsas.upenn.edu CompuServe: 72647,2452 America Online: THARPOLD A Prefatory Note The following is a prepublication version of a bibliography I compiled for The Hypertext/Hypermedia Handbook, eds. Joe Devlin and Emily Berk (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991). The Handbook is scheduled to appear in print in the first quarter of 1991. In the hope that other hypertext researchers might find this material of use before then, I've asked John Unsworth to distribute it though PMC-TALK. I expect to add some items to the bibliography (and correct the missing pagination for items from the Handbook) before it goes to press. I would appreciate any comments, and suggestions for missing items. (Please keep in mind the criteria that I have set for the bibliography in my introductory comments.) Suggestions for additions should be sent to one of the above e-mail addresses prior to December 10. Please make sure that items are complete and correctly formatted. (This document is being distributed prior to its paper publication with the kind permission of Joe Devlin, Emily Berk and McGraw-Hill, Inc.) ........................................................................ In the thirty years following the 1945 publication of Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think," the literature of hypertext amounted to fewer than two dozen titles, the majority of which were the product of only two authors. In the next ten years, the literature doubled, or perhaps tripled, in size. Since 1985, the number of articles or books dealing with the theory, design and implementation of hypertext has grown--and continues to grow--prodigiously, to the point where it has become impossible to compile a single list of every relevant title. In the last two or three years, the character of the literature has changed as well. Whereas the bulk of hypertext literature continues to deal with the technical problems of design and implementation that were the focus of most of the early literature, authors are turning with increasing frequency to the epistemological, philosophical and sociological consequences of hypertext, and borrowing methods and terminology from disciplines far removed from computer science. It may be that hypertext studies have reached a kind of intellectual crossroads, where the technical problems have become sufficiently familiar that it is now possible to address the consequences of this new form of literature as a new literary form. Michael Joyce has recently argued that this sea change has already passed us. I suspect that Ted Nelson would contend that it came several decades ago. For the reasons outlined above, this bibliography can claim to be neither comprehensive, nor definitive. Rather than attempt to address the range of hypertext studies, I've selected a core set of titles on hypertext theory and design. With a few exceptions, I've excluded publications that deal with the capabilities or implementation of specific hypertext software, or with test cases of hypertext applications. The bibliography is divided into six sections: The first section, "Bibliography," includes other bibliographies of hypertext literature. The length and focus of these bibliographies vary; several include articles on implementation and applications that I have excluded from this bibliography. The most comprehensive are Simpson's Hypertext: A Comprehensive Index (which includes an exhaustive topic- oriented index of keywords), and Yankelovich and Kahn's Hypermedia Bibliography. "Collections and Proceedings" lists edited collections, conference proceedings and journals devoted to hypertext and hypermedia. Many of the individual articles in the sections that follow can be found in these collections. "History and Overview" lists books and articles of historic significance in hypertext studies (articles by Bush, Engelbart and Nelson), or those which offer an historical assessment of early hypertext systems. The notion of history I've used here is admittedly fuzzy: it's difficult to divide the "recent" from the "historic" in a field where literature that is less that ten years old can be said to be genuinely "historic." The fourth section is by far the longest. Without the benefit of a nonlinear, on-line presentation, it is difficult organize these titles under a rubric less general than "Theory and Design." Many of these publications cross boundaries between theory and design; most belong to one or more categories within those areas. The fifth section, "Critique," includes titles that are skeptical or openly critical of hypertext and the theoretical and practical assumptions upon which it is based. Proponents of hypertext often make extraordinary, passionate claims for it; the articles in this section are among the few on the topic that question those claims. The final section, "Background," lists books and articles not directly related to hypertext theory or design, but which are frequently cited by authors writing on those topics. Subjects represented in this section include interface design, the psychology, philosophy, sociology and history of computers, the theoretical and practical significance of electronic publishing, and language and information theories. As the definition of what qualifies as hypertext literature grows, the scope of this list will grow accordingly. I would like to thank Rosemary Simpson for her advice and direction in the compilation of this bibliography. Terence Harpold Philadelphia, October 1990. [...] -------------------- [A complete version of this bibliography is now available through the fileserver, s.v. HYPERTXT BIBLIOG. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: ACH NEWSLETTER Date: Wed, 05 Dec 90 17:51 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 820 (2058) Tis the season... to start collecting articles and notes for the January ACH newsletter. SO anyone who has anything to contribute should send it to me via e-mail by Jan.14 at the latest, but the earlier the better. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Vicky Walsh EDITOR, ACH NEWSLETTER From: "CISI - UNIV. Torino" <U245@ITOCSIVM> Subject: machine translation (MT) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 90 10:41:39 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1782 (2059) Does anyone know of machine translation (MT) software for PC ? I'd like to use it on my PC (80386-25), I'd like it to be not too much expensive; I'd like it to translate from Italian to English; I'd like to use it to prepare draft, personal, preliminary translations of abstracts and similar things (I know very well that these draft need further human, clever|, intervention). Thank you to everyone will help. Maurizio Lana From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: Address request Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 08:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1783 (2060) Several names come up rather frequently on the *Humanist* lists, but I haven't yet seen addresses/contact methods. (No, I'm not into LISTSERVE, either.) The two groups I'd be interested in contacting are INTELLIMATION (which took over Kinko's programs just when I tried to buy one), and WISCWARE, which seems to be coming up more and more frequently. Does anyone have addresses and/or 800 nos.? Thanks. Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX1.BITNET) Foreign Langs. Loyola Coll. in Maryland From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: ddr e-mail Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 17:14:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1784 (2061) I would like to find the E-mail address of Lothar Sprung, a Dozent in Psychol- ogie at the (former east) Berlin Humboldt Uni. Or the machine node name at the Humboldt uni, or possibly his wife, Helga Sprung, who works at the (formerly ddr) Akaemie der Wissenschaften. Thanks Ed Haupt--Haupt@pilot.njin.net (201) 893-4327 Department of Psychology Montclair State College Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@UIUCVMD> Subject: CDROM Databases of the Generic Variety Date: Thu, 06 Dec 90 12:25:10 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1785 (2062) I hear comments on many of the listservers about library specific CDROM databases such as SilverPlatter, ERIC, OCLC, Books in Print, etc. This note is to see who has experience with the more generic CDROMs, such as MicroSoft Bookshelf (and its clones), the various incarnations of CDROM Grolier Enycylopedias, PCGLOBE (and other Atlases), Apple Science CDROM 1.0 and 1.1, Apple Technical Markets CDROM, etc. Those of you who have any of these and would like to discuss strategies in their overall usage, please note me at this address. Please include plusses such as best search options, and minuses such as bugs or errors in databases or programming. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Hypertext Bibliography Problem Fixed Date: Fri, 07 Dec 90 13:16:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 822 (2063) We had a problem storing the hypertext bibliography on the fileserver. But thanks to our systems person, Peter DiCamillo, it's on there now. (the file is HYPERTXT BIBLIOG) -- Allen From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: OFFLINE 31 Date: Thursday, 6 December 1990 1937-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 823 (2064) ---------------------- <<O F F L I N E 3 1>> coordinated by Robert Kraft, with Tzvee Zahavy and Alexander Luc [06 December 1990 Draft, copyright Robert Kraft] [HUMANIST 07 December 1990] [Religious Studies News 6.1 (January 1991)] [CSSR Bulletin 20.1 (February 1991)] [coding: <h>...</h> (heading), <sh>...</sh> (subheading), <t>...</t> (book title)] ---------------------- <h>In Transition</h> Once again, this OFFLINE column represents the efforts of more than its coordinating editor, and is the first installment generated by a newly developing "editorial board" (initially R. Kraft, T. Zahavy, R. Cover, S. Bjorndahl, D. Westblade). The amount of information available to us that would interest OFFLINE readers is overwhelming, so we have selected items that hopefully will span a variety of concerns, especially among students of "biblical literature," but also far beyond. We will continue to attempt to strike a balance between the relatively elementary and the more advanced aspects of computer assisted research. It is heartening to find that the recently released <t>Critical Review of Books in Religion 1990</t> from AAR/SBL (Scholars Press, 1990) includes review articles entitled "Beyond Word Processing," by John J. Hughes, and "The Computer as a Tool for Research and Communication in Religious Studies," by Andrew Scrimgeour. Not only do these articles contain valuable detailed information that goes far beyond what OFFLINE can provide, but they represent steps in the direction of evaluating electronic tools and resources in the same context as more traditional hardcopy materials. Thank you, Beverly Gaventa and your editorial board! As will be clear from Tzvee Zahavy's report on New Orleans, a great deal is happening even in the relatively circumscribed area of biblical studies. More and more people are using the available electronic data in more and more ways. New data is appearing, older materials are being updated (e.g. an extensively corrected version of the CATSS Septuagint Morphological Analysis is now being distributed). Success has caused some problems -- e.g. the PHI/CCAT CD-ROM containing Latin and Biblical materials is "sold out," and hopefully will be reissued in expanded forms soon. New hardware and software promise more power and ease, but sometimes require older approaches to be adjusted -- e.g. the IBM DOS users can use the new Windows architecture to do what has long been possible on the Apple Macintosh, but much of the older software must be rewritten to run under Windows. Relatively newer technologies are now becoming commonplace -- e.g. CD-ROM readers and software for both IBM and Mac can do many of the things that were conveniently possible only on IBYCUS a few years ago. Advances in scanning technology promise (but don't always fulfil!) to lighten the burdens of data encoding and versatility of coverage (e.g. graphics for photos, etc.). Video and sound are more easily integrated with more static visual data and will rapidly become more interesting to today's computer users, and part of the new "electronic textbooks" that will be produced (see Harvard's PERSEUS Project as an example). OFFLINE will try to keep you in touch, but cannot possibly do so in a timely manner or in adequate depth or breadth. If you can connect to the electronic networks, the good news is that you will have immediate access to all sorts of information and resources to help you in the transition to this new world. The bad news is that you may have to adjust your usual modes of operation, to be more strict in setting priorities, more selective in how to invest your electronic time, if you want to avoid being inundated during this period of immense transition. By knowing how to contact persons and groups who share your interests (e.g. through the discussion groups listed below), your work will hopefully be facilitated and important progress will be made in various areas of scholarly research. And when you are appropriately connected to the online resources, OFFLINE will no longer be needed as a transitional aide. That is one of our goals! <h>Report on New Orleans, by Tzvee Zahavy</h> I've just returned from New Orleans, site of the November 1990 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. Here is some news concerning computer developments, most of it garnered from visits to the exhibition booths or from the sessions of the Computer Assisted Research Group. First, on the commercial front, new versions of the Multi-Lingual Scholar (MLS) and Nota Bene (NB) word processors for IBM DOS type systems are soon to be released. MLS has a Windows-like interface with pull down menus and fantastic graphical capabilities. Linda Brandt of Gamma Software demonstrated how you could even change the menu language to hieroglyphics if you so desired. NB (Dragonfly Software), on the other hand, will be the fastest and most flexible integrated multi-language processor. With its IBID bibliography program, look out journals! Here come the articles with really extensive footnotes! And you will never have to retype an entry. You just push a few keys and my word... there is the citation snatched from your bibliography database into in your manuscript. Both MLS and NB have been among the leaders in the ability to integrate and display (on screen and printer) Hebrew and Greek along with English, and both are authorized distributors of the electronic biblical texts managed by the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) at the University of Pennsylvania. One stop shopping thus is possible for some users! Other vendors with similarly integrated text-with-software services who exhibited in New Orleans include, for IBM DOS type systems, LBase and the Bible Word Program (see reviews below), GRAMCORD and Paraclete Software's MegaWriter, and Zondervan's Scripture Fonts; and for the Apple Macintosh, Linguists' Software. "Computer Assisted Instruction" (CAI) software has progressed too. Most of the products demonstrated were authored by professors as a "hobby." In one CARG panel presentation and discussion the participants from several universities (including yours truly from Minnesota) spoke honestly and openly about the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts. The CAI tools developed were divided evenly between Mac and IBM and focused especially on teaching Hebrew and Greek. The investment costs for development ranged from $1.50 for one Mac program (not counting faculty time invested, of course) to $90,000 for a four program IBM based series of CAI tools (leaving aside faculty effort, but factoring in the value of hardware received, program design and programmer costs -- this was our U of M project, MILIM). In the CARG plenary session on CAI, the audience was treated to specific descriptions and examples of (1) the use of Apple Macintosh "hypercard stacks" for research and instructional purposes, by Raymond Harder, (2) the use of interactive video for teaching language and other courses (e.g. History of Egypt, Life of Jesus), by Jay Treat for CCAT at UPenn, and (3) the development of NT Greek instruction programs on IBM DOS equipment, by John Hurd (Greek TUTOR program, UToronto). On the computer-aided-research side, some projects appear to be stalled. Others are making nice progress. A group of reports from ongoing projects was compiled and distributed in hardcopy by J. Alan Groves of Westminster Theological Seminary and brief oral reports were given as well on such projects as the following: <sh>Dictionaries:</sh> Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (Hebrew Union Col/Johns Hopkins U) Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield U) Hebrew Lexicon (Princeton Th Sem) <sh>Encoding, Tagging and Maintaining Textual Data</sh> BHS Morphological Tagging (Westminster Th Sem) CATAB Hebrew/Masoretic Materials (U Villeurbanne [France]) Werkgroep Informatica [BHS] (Free U [Amsterdam]) Biblia Hebraica Transcripta (U Munich) Qumran Non-biblical Texts (Princeton Th Sem) CCAT/Tools for Septuagint Studies (CATSS; U Pennsylvania, Hebrew U) DEBORA, Centre Informatique et Bible (Maredsous) GRAMCORD Institute Peshitta Project (Trinity Evang Div School) Hebrew and Jewish Inscriptions Project (Cambridge U) Rock Inscriptions and Graffiti Project (Hebrew U) Mesopotamian Literature (UCLA) Armenian Literature Data Base (Leiden U, Hebrew U) Thesaurus Linguae Graece (U California at Irvine) Oxford Text Archives (Oxford U) Biblical Research Associates (Wooster College) <sh>Software Development, Data Integration</sh> Archaeological Data Base Management (Harvard U) GRAMCORD (Trinity Evang Div School) LBase [see review below] CATSS Base (Hebrew U) CDWord [see OFFLINE 30] (Dallas Th Sem) Project CONSTRUE for Greek (U Manchester [England]) SEARCHER for Greek & Latin CDs (U California at Santa Barbara) PERSEUS and PANDORA (Harvard U) The general mood of the computer types was mixed. Some people showed the frayed edges of the fast paced world of technology change. Indeed it is virtually impossible to keep up with the deluge of new and always faster hardware products and the ever growing software list. It seems unlikely that generalist types will be able to stay abreast of the field much longer. Active colleagues testified that the involvement in serious projects requires more than a full-time commitment. Many new faces surfaced at meetings of the computer oriented content. That bodes well for future growth and momentum. From the meeting we observe that the computer has moved from the category of exotic new gadget into the classification as one of the powerful, and perhaps indispensable, tools available to scholars in the humanities. <h>LBase and Bible Word Program: Guest Reviews by Alex Luc (Columbia Biblical Seminary, Columbia SC)</h> Published concordances for the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible or extra-biblical material generally provide only brief contexts for the word we look for, and rarely have entries for idioms or longer phrases. With the help of computer programs, such searches have become simple and the desired results can often be obtained in minutes. My own teaching and research have been greatly helped by learning to use such tools. I have been able to produce more easily than before handouts for my students with elaborate evidence of the versions or the original texts to help them follow the arguments of my lectures. In dealing with literary or theological theories and arguments, computer research has also enabled me to evaluate or verify quickly the evidence to which they appeal. Our interpretation of ancient texts depends so much on evidence from a large number of primary sources. We need evidence produced not only by searching a word or idiom but by searching into the grammatical and stylistic phenomena of these texts. This can all be done now within a short time by using the computer -- e.g. searches to find out how often in the Greek biblical texts (LXX or NT) a preposition is followed by an article then a verb, or how common is the phenomenon of having any two verbs immediately adjacent to each other. For those who have never performed such searches and yet have access to a Personal Computer (IBM DOS compatible), the following two programs may deserve your consideration. (1) At the present, the most useful program I find for the above purposes is LBase, a multilingual database program developed by John Baima of Silver Mountain Software (7246 Cloverglen Drive, Dallas TX 75249; 214 709-6364; SILVER@UTAFIL.LONESTAR.ORG). Its new version 5.0 includes several important improved features. LBase is designed for reading and searching literary texts, texts that are in Roman or non-Roman (including Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek) scripts. LBase turns the available transliterated biblical or extra-biblical texts into their original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek scripts for viewing or for comparing different texts with each other on screen. You can leisurely search and display a word or phrase with a screenful of context for each of its occurrences. Or you can do a fast search (e.g., about one minute for the whole Bible) and then print the results on a dot matrix printer (or a laser printer with an appropriate wordprocessor). And LBase can work either from materials on floppy or hard disk, or from CD-ROM. From the appropriately tagged biblical texts, which are also available through LBase, the program can display and explain the parsing information for the verbs, nouns, etc., of the LXX, the Greek NT and the Hebrew Bible. As mentioned earlier, you can also search for grammatical and stylistic phenomena in these texts. Moreover, by just typing in the root form of a word, you can have all the occurrences of the word in its various forms along with their contexts. This ability to perform such advanced grammatical searches is still relatively rare in available computer systems of which I am aware. You may also use LBase to view or search the Hebrew parallels of any term in the LXX and vice versa, or to look up a Greek dictionary entry while viewing the texts themselves. If you have access to a CD-ROM drive, you can view or search with speed the huge collections of the TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, all Greek literature to the 6th century CE), PHI (Packard Humanities Institute, classical Latin Literature, Greek papyri and inscriptions), and CCAT (Center for Computer Analysis of Texts, biblical and related materials in various languages) texts. In previous versions, the power of LBase has been partly compromised by the complicated steps one must go through to use it. Its manuals had been written more for advanced users than for beginners. The new version has simplified some of the steps but how simplified its manual will be remains to be seen. Having been involved in helping others to learn to use this software, I composed my own short manual for beginners, which is available to anyone interested (please supply a stamped [75] and self-addressed envelope, size 6" x 9" or larger; send to Alex Luc, Columbia Biblical Seminary, P.O.Box 3122, Columbia SC 29230). (2) Another useful software product is the Bible Word Program developed by James Akiyama and distributed by Hermeneutika (PO Box 98563, Seattle WA 98198; 1-800-55BIBLE). It comes with the program disk and the Greek texts of the LXX and the NT, the texts of the Hebrew Bible (BHS), RSV and KJV. I was informed that the NIV will also be available soon. Unlike LBase, which is a very flexible database system, the Bible Word Program can search only texts that come with it, that have been transformed into its own specific format. For those who are satisfied with just doing word or phrase search with these texts and not searches into their grammatical and stylistic phenomena (or searches into the large collections of extra-biblical texts), the Bible Word Program may be sufficient. The price of the Bible Word Program is comparatively lower than LBase and it is easier to use. Though limited, it has two useful features that are not available in LBase: First, after searching the Hebrew text, for instance, for a certain word or phrase, you can create an index of all the verses found and use it to bring in immediately all the verses of the same references from the text of the LXX (or RSV or KJV); secondly, you can use the index editor in the program to compile and print out a list of Bible texts by simply typing in the references of the verses you want. These features, however, should not be the primary reasons for you to choose this program over LBase, especially if you are not sure whether you will eventually need to do searches into the grammatical and stylistic phenomena or into the many extra-biblical texts available. <h>Pot-Pourri: "Scholarly" Electronic Discussion Groups</h> One vivid illustration of the rapid domestication of computerized discussion and research is the proliferation of "scholarly discussion groups" on the University-centered electronic networks, especially BITNET. It has recently been estimated that throughout the electronic world of commercial networks there are perhaps 50,000 "Bulletin Board Services" (BBS) covering virtually any subject! Some of them are also of direct and obvious academic quality and use, but for the moment the discussion will focus upon groups produced primarily by and for academic audiences in the humanities (with representative samples from social sciences as well), and thus of special interest to students of religion in its various aspects. If you have access to BITNET or to INTERNET, consult your local support staff on exactly how to access any of these addresses -- the process differs slightly from system to system. For some details about getting connected, see also OFFLINE 29 and 30. Once you are connected, such discussion groups as are listed below are available. Some are "unmonitored," which means that any message you send (intentionally or, sometimes, by mistake!) gets published to the entire list automatically, while messages to "monitored" groups are filtered by human editors. The following list is illustrative, and is surely out of date almost from the moment of capture. BITNET addresses are normally provided, but the groups can also usually be reached from the INTERNET (consult local gurus) and/or from some other networks. More current information is available by checking such lists and services as: NEWLIST-L@INDYCMS for new science & technology lists; NETMONTH from BITLIB@YALEVM for new lists as they appear; and on the INTERNET, SERVICE@NIC.DDN.MIL for its List of Lists (= SIGLIST). You can also contact the ListServ(er) at your local node for its "global" list of available lists. List Address Subject Matter of Group (BITNET unless (selected social science and otherwise noted) new technology groups included) ------------ ---------------------- ANSAX-L@WVNVM Anglo-Saxon studies ANTHRO-L@UBVM Anthropology BIOMED-L@NDSUVM1 Biomedical Ethics BUDDHIST@JPNTOHOK Indian & Buddhist Studies C18-L@PSUVM 18th Century Interdisciplinary discussion Comserve Hotlines Several discussion groups on Communication, @RPIECS such as: ETHNO(methodology), INTERCUL(tural Commun.), PHIL(osophy of)COMM(unication), RHETORIC(al Analysis), METHODS, all of them accessed @RPIECS CRTNET@PSUVM Communication Research and Theory network EDTECH@OHSTVMA Educational Technology ENGLISH@UTARLVM1 Departments of English discussion ENVBEH-L@POLYGRAF Environmental Behavior ERL-L@TCSVM Educational Research FICINO@UTORONTO Centre for Reformation & Renaissance Studies FWAKE-L@IRLEARN Discusses James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake HEGEL@VILLVM Hegel Society discussion HISTORY@FINHUTC History HUMANIST@BROWNVM General Humanities & Computing Focus (moderated) INDOLOGY@LIVERPOOL.ac.uk (JANET list) Languages & Cultures of India IOUDAIOS@YORKVM1 Judaism in the Greco-Roman World JUDAICA@UMINN1 Jewish Studies LITERARY@UIUCVME Contemporary Literature LORE@NDSUVM1 Folklore MBU-L@TTUVM1 On teaching college composition NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (Internet) Natural Language & Knowledge Representation NSP-L@RPIECS Philosophy (Noble Savage Philosophers) PHILOSOP@YORKVM1 Philosophy PHILOS-L@LIVERPOOL.ac.uk (on British JANET) Philosophy PMC-TALK@NCSUVM Post-Modern Culture PRST-L@UMCVMB Political Science Research and Teaching (moderated) PSYCH@TCSVM Psychology REED-L@UTORONTO Records of Early English Drama discussion RELIGION@HARVARDA Comparative Religion, World Religions [new 1991] SBRHYM-L@SBCCVM SUNY/Stony Brook Literary Underground sci.lang Linguistics (USENET Unix group) SHAKSPER@UTORONTO Shakespeare SLART-L@PSUVM Second Language Aquisition Research/Training TEI-L@UICVM International Text Encoding Initiative WHIM@TAMVM1 Humor Studies WORDS-L@YALEVM English language <h>Preparing for Kansas City</> In keeping with the growing interest in new developments in communication and data availability, the CARG Steering Committee (now headed by Robin Cover and Raymond Harder) has announced the following theme for the November 1991 CARG plenary session in Kansas City, at the AAR/SBL/ASOR meetings: Academic Networking and Data Interchange: Text Encoding, File Conversion and Electronic Mail. Your comments and suggestions for enhancing the usefulness of this program are most warmly solicited. <-----> Please send information, suggestions or queries concerning OFFLINE to Robert A. Kraft, Box 36 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104-6303. Telephone (215) 898- 5827. BITNET address: KRAFT@PENNDRLS (for INTERNET add .UPENN.EDU). To request printed information or materials from OFFLINE, please supply an appropriately sized, self-addressed envelope or an address label. A complete electronic file of OFFLINE columns is available upon request (for IBM/DOS, Mac, or IBYCUS), or from the HUMANIST discussion group FileServer (BROWNVM.BITNET). From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0817 Wanted: Project Descriptions for ARIST (1/35) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 08:05:23 -0500 (EST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1786 (2065) Helen Tibbo writes [deleted quotation] She could do no better than to contact Ian Lancashire and Willard McCarty at the University of Toronto (IAN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca and MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca). They are the editors of Oxford University Press's Humanities Computing Yearbook. A new edition is coming out very soon now. Leslie Burkholder From: "Joel P. Elliott" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: Re: WiscWare inquiry Date: Thu, 06 Dec 90 23:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1787 (2066) You can request the WiscWare catalog by sending a request to wiscware@macc.wisc.edu Their address is: Wisc-Ware Academic Computing Center University of Wisconsin-Madison 1210 West Dayton Street Madison, WI 53706 (800) 543-3201 From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0821 Qs: [Intellimation] Date: 07 Dec 90 10:22:38 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1788 (2067) Intellimation 130 Cremona or P.O. Box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 805-968-2291 x 306 ; 800-443-6633 805-685-9685 (FAX) Sharon Applegate and Becky Snyder apparently run the program --- "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> wrote: I'd be interested in contacting... INTELLIMATION (which took over Kinko's programs Does anyone have addresses and/or 800 nos.? --- end of quoted material --- From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: lists for architectural historians? Date: Fri, 07 Dec 90 11:01:14 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1789 (2068) Does anyone know if there is an email discussion list for architectural historians on Bitnet or the Internet (or a network gatewayed to them), other than the Irish list for architectural history librarians? Christopher From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: EMAIL address wanted Date: Fri, 07 Dec 90 11:03:56 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1790 (2069) Has anyone an email address for Dr. Lynn Courtenay at Madison? Please reply direct to me. Christopher Currie THRA004@uk.ac.ulcc.cms (JANET) From: ELKALAMARAS@vassar.bitnet Subject: Re: Yankee Doodle virus Date: Wed, 5 Dec 90 22:17 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 826 (2070) To all who asked about the Yankee Doodle virus: We have the vaccine for the Yankee Doodle virus. Please inform the Humanists list that they can get it (starting Dec. 4) with anonymous ftp at the site csnxt1.vassar.edu under the directory /pub/virus. The names are "scanv67c.zip" and "cleanp67.zip". They are compressed using Phil Katz's PKZIP utility and can be decompressed using the program PKZ110.EXE which is also in the csnxt1.vassar.edu site, in directory pub/utilities. I will have them there until the end of December, so that people can download them. Please note that the downloading should be with the "binary" option set. I hope this helps, Lefteris Kalamaras From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Director's Posting Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 12:49:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 827 (2071) I am relaying this from Marianne Gaunt to the Project's Server and to HUMANIST. It is scheduled to appear in the 9 Jan. 1991 issue of _The Chronicle of Higher Education_. Potential applicants are asked to respond by 15 February 1991. POSITION DESCRIPTION DIRECTOR NATIONAL CENTER FOR MACHINE-READABLE TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES Rutgers, the State University, invites applications and nominations for the position of Director of the newly formed National Center for Machine-Readable Texts in the Humanities. The National Center is a joint enterprise of Princeton and Rutgers Universities and will serve as a national node on an international network of centers and projects which provide access to humanities datafiles. The Center's activities include maintaining an online inventory of computer-readable texts; collecting, compiling, and disseminating computer-readable texts; participating in the development and promulgation of standards for text encoding; and conducting educational programs to support humanities computing instruction and research. The Director will provide leadership in the organization and development of the Center, will manage Center activities, and will represent the Center before its various publics and constituents. The Director will be responsible for preparing grant proposals and conducting fundraising for Center activities. The Director will be located at Rutgers, the State University. We seek a proven leader in the field of humanities computing, possessing good organizational and communication skills with direct experience in text-based humanities computing. A PhD in a humanities discipline is preferred. Creative vision, technical competence, and the ability to administer a consortial organization are essential. A 12-month renewable appointment would be available for a suitably qualified candidate. Application deadline Feb. 15, 1990. Please send resume with salary requirements and three references to: Sandra Troy Personnel Officer Rutgers University Libraries 169 College Ave. New Brunswick, N.J. 08903 Rutgers, the State University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. ^Z From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: CILS Calendar Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 17:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1791 (2072) _________________ T H E C I L S C A L E N D A R ________________ The Center for Information and Language Studies Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 Subscription requests to: cils@tira.uchicago.edu ____________________________________________________________________ Vol. 1, No. 8 November 26, 1990 ~*~ Upcoming events: 12/3 11:00 Ry 275 Lecture Brian Slator, Northwestern 12/3 16:00 JRL S-126 Workshop Stephen Neale, Berkeley 12/7 14:00 Psy G110 Workshop Susan Goldin-Meadow and Howard C. Nusbaum, Psychology 12/7 15:00 Ry 276 Lecture Scott Deerwester, CILS - ------------------------------ MONDAY, DECEMBER 3 11:00 Guest Lecture Ry 275 Brian Slator, Institute for Learning Sciences Northwestern University Title and abstract to be anounced. ***** 4:00 p.m. Workshop JRL S-126 The Pragmatics of Language Stephen Neale, Dept. of Philosophy, Berkeley "'AND' and '&' and "BUT'" For more information, please contact Jerrold Sadock, Dept. of Linguistics (2-8524) or Josef Stern, Dept. of Philosophy (2-8594). - --------------------------------- FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7 2:00 p.m. Workshop Psy G110 Speech Science Susan Goldin-Meadow and Howard C. Nusbaum Department of Psychology "Cognitive Issues and Concept Acquisition" For further information, please contact Howard Nusbaum, Department of Psychology, Beecher 408, 702-6468, hcn1@midway. ***** 3:00 p.m. Lecture Ry 276 Scott Deerwester, CILS "The TIRA Textual Object Management System" Abstract Text, as represented in a computer, is a flat sequence of bytes. It is useful, however, to think of text as being composed of higher level objects than bytes, and to be able to write computer programs that operate on these objects, as well as on collections of objects. The purpose of the Textual Object Management System (TOMS) is to implement an abstraction of text as a structure populated by such objects. In this talk I discuss the abstraction presented by the TOMS, from the point of view of both a client and a textual database designer. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Linguistics and Knowledge Engineering Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 17:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1792 (2073) [deleted quotation] LINGUISTIC INSTRUMENTS IN KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING International Workshop organized by the Institute for Language Technology and Artificial Intelligence (ITK) 17-18 January, 1991 at Tilburg, The Netherlands Invited speakers Ted Briscoe (UK) Jan Dietz (NL) Simon Dik (NL) John-Jules Meijer (NL) Willem Meijs (NL) Sjir Nijssen (NL) John Sowa (USA) Ronald Stamper (NL/UK) Rudi Studer (FRG) Hans Weigand (NL) General chair Prof. Robert Meersman, Tilburg University SCOPE Both Information System theory and Linguistics are concerned with human communication. In the LIKE Workshop, the connection between these two disciplines will be considered in more detail: * How do we model the communication and coordination the Information System is supposed to support? Could speech act theory be of use? * How does a designer or knowledge engineer arrive at a conceptual model (structure and behaviour)? What role does Natural Language play in this process? What could be the role of a general Lexicon or an NL parser? * What primitives do we need in knowledge representation to achieve maximal expressiveness in a logical format compatible with human conceptualization? What is the link between such a formalism and linguistic structure? * What is needed before we can have portable Natural Language interfaces and/or interfaces based on general dialogue principles? The LIKE Workshop brings together computer scientists working on information systems or knowledge representation, logicians and linguists. Its aim is to give a broad overview of the linguistics vs. knowledge engineering interface, and to stimutate mutually benificial cooperation. The invited speakers are international experts in linguistics, lexicology, logic, knowledge representation, and/or information systems. The number of participants is kept limited. REGISTRATION Registration fees are DFL 150, (graduate) students DFL 75. Please reply by email (lubeck@kub.nl) or fax (+31) 13-663110 as soon as possible to ITK, attn. Nicole Lubeck, P.O.Box 90153, NL-5000 LE Tilburg. Transfer money or send cheque no later than December, 24, 1990 to KUB (Tilburg University), giro 1077496 or AMRO bank 45.50.46.042 stating "951.47 LIKE Workshop". Practical details as well as the final programme will be sent to you as soon as possible after payment. The fee for the Workshop includes proceedings (extended abstracts), lunch and refreshments. Information about hotel accomodation can be gained from the address above. We would appreciate it if you enclose a one page position paper explaining your interest in the Workshop. ORGANIZATION Dr. Hans Weigand, ITK, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands tel. (+31) 13-662688, fax: (+31) 13-663110, email: weigand@kub.nl. ------------------------------ From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Josephus Flavius on E-Text. Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 18:28:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 829 (2074) I am seeking the works of Josephus Flavius on E-Text (it is not yet on the TLG), particularly his VITA. Does any such animal exist? I am also trying to find literary parallels from the ancient Mediterranean corpora of Josephus' actions when faced with a mob trial. In V 136-140 Jos. tells of how he dressed in black and hung his sword around his neck before confronting a mob. I am searching for parallels to the action of hanging a sword around ones neck. Any leads or speculation on the cultural significance of this would be most welcome. Michael Strangelove From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Hungarian Electronic Discussion Group Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 09:37:11 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1793 (2075) Attached is an electronic version of an article which will be appearing in the next issue of REACH, the print newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara, due to go in the mail early next week. Humanists interested in following developments from the very start are welcome to send me their e-mail addresses for early inclusion in the process. Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu REACH, November & December 1990 ------------------------------- Research & Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities ----------------------------------- Newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California at Santa Barbara ------------------------------------------------ HCF PLANS HUNGARIAN ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP The UCSB Humanities Computing Facility is in the final stages of establishing an electronic discussion group which will serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on Hungarian issues. As soon as details are available, they will be announced in _REACH_ and posted to HUMANIST and other electronic lists. According to Llad Phillips, Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Science responsible for computerization, the development of the discussion group "is a logical step in our continuing relationship with Hungarian institutions of higher education." The discussion group will carry forward a long connection between UCSB and Hungary which goes back to the late 1970s when John Menzies, then Assistant to the Dean in the Graduate Division, joined the U.S. Foreign Service after receiving the Ph.D. from UCSB, and was soon posted to Budapest. In collaboration with Professor William Reardon of Dramatic Art, then Acting Dean of the Graduate Division and later Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Science, Menzies helped to initiate an exchange program between UCSB and Hungary which has continued vigorously to this day. Later, Professor Ursula Mahlendorf of the Department of Germanic, Oriental and Slavic Languages and Literatures, added significant support to the program during her tenure as Associate Dean in the College of Letters and Science. Over the years since, a number of Hungarian scholars, assisted by Fulbright and UCSB support, have visited the campus. Several years ago, Geza Jeszenszky, then a historian from Eotvos Lorand University, and now Minister of Foreign Affairs in Hungary, was in residence at UCSB. Currently, Tibor Frank, also a historian from Eotvos Lorand University has been a visiting faculty member. In the summer of 1990, Frank organized an international conference at UCSB on the opening of Eastern Europe. He is now planning a festival of culture and the arts for early 1991. Just recently, two UCSB faculty members, David Hamilton and David Messick, both of the Department of Psychology, made separate visits to Hungary. Messick will return in July. Anyone interested in the development of the discussion group should communicate with the coordinator of the Humanities Computing Facility: Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ From: ecsv24@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Bradfield) Subject: Tolkien language mailing list now in operation Date: 6 Dec 90 21:00:46 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1794 (2076) Reply-To: Julian Bradfield <jcb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk> Organization: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U Lines: 8 TolkLang Contact: tolklang-request@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield) Purpose: Discussions of the linguistic aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien's works. This covers everything from Elvish vocabulary and grammar to his use of Old English. The list is (lightly) moderated. From: Subject: CFP for 1st Principia Cybernetica Worskhop Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 08:26:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 831 (2077) Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers ********************************************************* * * * 1st WORKSHOP OF THE PRINCIPIA CYBERNETICA PROJECT * * * * computer-supported cooperative development * * of an evolutionary-systemic philosophy * ********************************************************* Free University of Brussels, Belgium July 2-5, 1991 Organized by: the Principia Cybernetica Editorial Board the Transdisciplinary Research Group Theme Principia Cybernetica is an attempt by a group of researchers to collaboratively build a system of cybernetic philosophy, moving towards a transdisciplinary unification of the domain of Systems Theory and Cybernetics. This philosophical system will be developed as a network, consisting of nodes or concepts, linked by specific types of semantic relations. The network will be implemented in a hybrid computer-based environment involving hypermedia, electronic mail, and electronic publishing, thus providing readers and authors with flexible access to every part of the system. Development of this system is seen as a long-term project involving many participants, communicating and conversing through electronic media, and supervised by an Editorial Board. While traditional publication of parts of the network will be made periodically, the project is seen as necessarily open-ended and developing, a process of discourse among a community of researchers. The philosophy to be developed is systemic and evolutionary, em- phasizing the spontaneous emergence of higher levels of organization or control through variation and natural selection. It includes: 1) a metaphysics, based on processes as ontological primitives, 2) an epis- temology, which understands knowledge as constructed by the subject, but undergoing selection by the environment; 3) an ethics, with the continuance of the process of evolution as supreme value. Workshop Topics * Supporting Technology: electronic mail and publishing, computer- supported cooperative working, groupware, Standard Generalized Markup Languages, hypertext markup languages, hypermedia, object-oriented environments, ... * Semantic and Conversational Systems: knowledge representation schemes for philosophical systems and arguments, different semantic categories and relations, knowledge structuring and integration, dealing with disagreements and contradictions, ... * Constructive Epistemology: model-building, selection criteria for models, evolutionary epistemology, metacognitive reasoning, levels of cognition: associative, rational, metarational, ... * Evolutionary Ethics: survival and immortality as fundamental values, freedom and/or integration, self-actualization, individual- society-ecosystem relations, the next metasystem transition: super- being versus metabeing ... * Process Metaphysics: modelling of emergence and metasystem transitions, actions as ontological primitives, the process of evolu- tion as generator of complexity, levels of organization ... We would particularly appreciate contributions that cut across these different tracks: for example, emergence mechanisms applicable to evolution and to computer-supported knowledge structuring, or hyperspace as technology and as substrate for "cyberbeings". The emphasis is on contributions that integrate or synthesize multiple domains or issues. They are not limited to these separate topics. Organization of the Workshop After the organization of a symposium on "Cybernetics and Human Values" at the 8th World Congress of Systems and Cybernetics (New York, June 1990), the next official activity of the Principia Cybernetica project will be a Workshop at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in July 1991. The official language is English. The informal Workshop will allow all researchers interested in collaborating in the Project to meet and to discuss the main problems. It will be introduced by a more formal Symposium where the main issues in developing a systemic philosophy will be expounded, as a basis on which to continue working. The Symposium will take one day, the Workshop will take two or three days, depending on the number of contributions. The attendance to the Workshop will be limited to some 35 participants in order to intensify the interactions; the attendance to the Symposium is unlimited. The event will be organized in the tradition of a pleasant, informal setting and warm social contacts initiated by the conference on "Self-Steering and Cognition in Complex Systems: toward a new cybernetics" (proceedings edited by Heylighen et al., Gordon and Breach, New York, 1990), which was held at the same place in 1987. There will be a possibility for inexpensive accomodation in university rooms. In addition to that Brussels offers plenty of hotels of all standards. Interested people may combine participation in the workshop with participation in the congress of the Int. Fuzzy Systems Assoc., which is held at the same location, July 7-12. Brussels, the capital of Europe, is very easy to reach by a variety of means of transportation. As the second international city in the world (measured by the number of headquarters of international organizations), and with its 1000 years of history, it offers many interesting sights to visit. It boasts the most beautiful historic market place and the highest concentration of restaurants in the world. Submission of Papers Abstracts of minimum one, maximum two pages (about 300-600 words) should be submitted to one of the addresses below, as soon as possible but not later than March 15, 1991. If possible, abstracts should be submitted in printed and in electronic form: email or 3.5 inch floppy disk (720 Kb MS-DOS or 800Kb Mac) with ASCII text. Authors should give their full address, phone number, and electronic mail address where possible. Abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee. Authors will be notified about acceptance before April 15, 1991. It is possible to send in abstracts late (after March 15), but they will be considered depending upon whether there are still places available at the Workshop. Accepted abstracts will be published in an abstract book available at the conference. The best contributions will be considered for elaboration into full papers, to be published in a book devoted to the Principia Cybernetica project and edited by its present editorial board. An international scientific publisher is being sollicited. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Conference Chairman: Francis Heylighen (Free University of Brussels) Scientific Committee: Francis Heylighen (Free University of Brussels) Cliff Joslyn (State University of New York at Binghamton) Valentin Turchin (City University of New York) Jean Paul Van Bendegem (Free University of Brussels) Gordon Pask (London) Gerard de Zeeuw (University of Amsterdam) Jean Ramaekers (Int. Assoc. for Cybernetics, Namur) Local Organizing Committee: An Vranckx, Eric Van Engeland, Alex Housen -------------------------------------------------------------------- For submissions of abstracts, or further information, contact: Francis HEYLIGHEN PESP, V.U.B., Pleinlaan 2 B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Tel. +32 - 2 - 641 25 25 Fax +32 - 2 - 641 22 82 Telex 61051 VUBCO B Email: Z09302@BBRBFU01.bitnet Cliff JOSLYN Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton 6 Garfield Ave. # 2 Binghamton NY 13905, USA. Tel. +1 - 607 - 729 53 48 Email: cjoslyn@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: Reversible Grammar Call: Correction on Submission Date - 1 March 1991 Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 13:53:30 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 832 (2078) CALL FOR PAPERS Reversible Grammar in Natural Language Processing 17 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, California, USA A workshop sponsored by the Special Interest Groups on Generation (SIGGEN) and Parsing (SIGPARSE) of the Association for Computational Linguistics and supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency TOPICS OF INTEREST: The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers whose work concerns problems of reversible grammar systems that are designed for, or may find applications in, Natural Language Processing. Papers are invited on significant, original and unpublished research on all aspects of reversible grammars, including, but not limited to: (1) Reversible computation (multi-directional and non-directional computation; algorithms for program inversion and transformation; efficiency issues); (2) Reversible natural language systems (parsers and generators for reversible grammars; reversibility of unification-based grammars; new architectures for reversible natural language processing; knowledge representation issues; reversible machine translation; lexicons for bidirectional systems; reversibility in discourse processing); (3) Reversible grammars in linguistic theory (formal characterization; reversibility within various grammatical frameworks, eg., GB, LFG, GPSG, HPSG, TAG, categorial grammars; reversibility in rule-based and principle-based approaches; reversibility and semantic compositionality). FORMAT OF SUBMISSION: Authors should submit four copies of their papers in hard copy form. Papers should be a minimum of four pages and a maximum of ten single-spaced pages (exclusive of references). The title page should include the title, full names of all authors and their complete addresses including electronic addresses where applicable, and a short (5 line) summary. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to: Tomek Strzalkowski Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences New York University 715 Broadway, Room 704 New York, NY 10003, USA tomek@cs.nyu.edu (+1-212) 998-3496 SCHEDULE: Papers must be received by 1 March 1991 (NOT 31 March, as in a previous release). Authors will be notified of acceptance by 5 April 1991. A camera-ready copy of the final paper prepared in the two-column format must be received by 10 May 1991. Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings published by the ACL. WORKSHOP INFORMATION: The workshop is held in connection with the 29th Meeting of the ACL (18-21 June). Local arrangements are being handled by Peter Norvig (Division of Computer Science, University of California, 573 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, (+1-415) 642-9533, norvig@teak.berkeley.edu). ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Marc Dymetman, Gertjan van Noord, Patrick Saint-Dizier, Tomek Strzalkowski. From: linguist@uniwa.uwa.oz.au (Anthony Aristar) Subject: New List Date: Fri, 14 Dec 1990 05:09:11 +0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1795 (2079) ANNOUNCING A NEW LIST LINGUIST@UNIWA.UWA.OZ.AU A new list has been formed, which will serve as a place of discussion for those issues which concern the academic discipline of linguistics and related fields. The list is international in orientation, and hopes to provide a forum for the community of linguists as they exist in different countries. Though the list is moderated, and all submissions are subject to editorial discretion, it has no areal, ideological or theoretical bent, and discussion of any linguistic subfield are welcomed. Membership of the list is open to all. To subscribe to this list, please send a message to LINGUIST-REQUEST@UNIWA.UWA.OZ.AU containing as its first and only line the following: SUBSCRIBE LINGUIST Any other questions may be directed to: LINGUIST-EDITORS@UNIWA.UWA.OZ.AU From: 6500cal@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: A New Electronic Journal for French & Italian Studies Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 12:34:47 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1796 (2080) ANNOUNCING A NEW RESEARCH TOOL FOR FRENCH AND ITALIAN STUDIES, ****************************** ******************************** ***___ ___ ___ ___ __ *** *** I__ I__I I I I__ I I I_ *** *** I__ I \ I__I I I I__ I__ *** *** *** ********************************* ** ELECTRONIC ** REVIEWS ** OF ** FRENCH & ** ITALIAN ** LITERARY ** ESSAYS ***************** ************************ A free electronic newsletter accessible to all on Bitnet and Internet. ___________________________________________________________ _EROFILE_ takes advantage of the rapidity of electronic mail distribution to provide timely reviews of the latest books in the following areas associated with French and Italian studies: - Literary Criticism - Cultural Studies - Film Studies - Pedagogy - Software ___________________________________________________________ _EROFILE_ will disseminate a collection of solicited and unsolicited reviews and therefore welcomes submissions from QUALIFIED reviewers. Publishers of scholarly journals in appropriate fields may also wish to consider sending backlogged reviews to _EROFILE_ for early electronic publication. The well-known interdisciplinary journal, SUBSTANCE, has already shown interest in such an arrangement. _EROFILE_ will also provide an open forum for comments on previously published reviews. In this way, we hope to create a on-going dialogue on a variety of issues in the field. Consequently, our editorial policy will have two aspects: we will reserve the right to edit reviews, while promising to publish letters to the editor as they arrive. In much the same spirit as the _HUMANIST_ listserver then, we trust that letters to the editor will not abuse our forum by including inappropriately offensive or unnecessarily familiar language. ___________________________________________________________ We also welcome recommendations of qualified reviewers such as graduate students who have formed a specialization on any topic in the above areas. ___________________________________________________________ Please send submissions, subscription requests, and questions on policy to the editors of _EROFILE_: EROFILE@ucsbuxa.bitnet or EROFILE@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Submissions should in all cases be forwarded by e-mail or on diskette, preferably in the form of an ASCII file. ___________________________________________________________ Nota bene: Those who do not yet share the privilege of Bitnet access will miss out on a great resource. Please tell your colleagues in French and Italian to get on-line with the times and to obtain a Bitnet or Internet account. ___________________________________________________________ editors: Charles La Via Jonathan Walsh Department of French & Italian University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 * * * * * * From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Date: Wed, 12 Dec 90 10:20 EST (22 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1797 (2081) Subject: "Acquisition et Representation de Connaissances en Musique" Ph.D. thesis in Theoretical Computer Science, by Bernard Bel. Defended at Aix-Marseille III University on 28 November 1990 Jury: Jean-Paul ALLOUCHE, Jean-Claude BERTRAND, Eugene CHOURAQUI, Alain GUENOCHE, Otto LASKE, Jean-Claude RISSET, Bernard VECCHIONE. Text in French (208 pages) English Abstract: This study deals with computer representations of musical knowledge based on two real-scale experiments. The first experiment focusses on knowledge acquisition in ethnography (Kippen-Bel's project on North Indian drumming): an expert (the musician), an analyst (the musicologist), and a machine interact in a learning situation. Improvisation schemata through which musicians express their musical ideas are identified and formalized with production rules in a formalism derived from generative grammars and pattern languages. A deterministic algorithm is introduced for assessing the membership of arbitrary strings to the langage defined by a given (context- sensitive) grammar. A technique for the inductive inference of regular languages is presented, enabling automatic knowledge acquisition of syntactic and lexical knowledge. The second experiment is part of the design of a computer environment for musical composition ("Bol Processor BP2"). Here the specific problem centres on time representation in a discrete structure of "time objects", and the more general problem on the synchronization of parallel processes. A method is outlined for determining a structure without complete data on the synchronization of its objects. The concept of "sound object" is then formally introduced. An efficient algorithm is proposed for the time-setting of objects in a structure, given the constraints arising from their metric and topological properties. Keywords: formal languages, membership test, grammatical inference, synchronization, time representation. Orders should be sent to: The Librarian, Groupe Representation et Traitement des Connaissances (GRTC) Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) 31 chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille Cedex 9 (France) ...along with an International Money Order (or UNESCO Coupons) for the amount of 180 French Francs in the name of "Groupe Representation et Traitement des Connaissances". Further information: bel@frmop11.bitnet From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU> Subject: Demise of Academic Computing Date: Mon, 10 Dec 90 22:42:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1798 (2082) I just received the following note: Dear Subscriber, Thank you for your subscription to Academic Computing. Unfortunately we have had to make the decision to terminate publication. We have not and will not be charging your credit card for the amount of the subscription. Your support is genuinely appreciated. -Academic Computing. This is a loss. Is there any hope of a replacement magazine? For all the pros and cons it still represented a factor in the the equation. E-MAIL:MAIC@VM1.SPCS.UMN.EDU BITNET:MAIC@UMINN1________Telephone:(612)920-4263 US-MAIL:UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, CLASSICAL AND NEAR EASTERN ÿÿ4 Demise of Academic Computing From: ext1ft@hum.gu.se Subject: Lecturer in Arabic Linguistics Date: 16 Dec 90 18:39:52 CET (Sun) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 835 (2083) Notification of interest Those interested in a full-time position as a university lecturer in Arabic linguistics at the University of Gothenburg (Goeteborg, Sweden) should make it known to the addresses provided below. Scholarly production and pedagogical experience will be given equal priority when judging the applicants. The salary falls into the range of approximately 1700 to 2700 pounds a month with a maximum of 400 hours of classes a year. Those interested are urged to send a short summary of their merits together with a ciriculum vitae to the address below. They will be notified when the vacancy becomes formal. University of Gothenburg Arabic Section Vaestra Hamngatan 3 S-411 17 Gotheburg Fax nr. 46 31 138030 E-mail: tafferner@hum.gu.se From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Facilitator sought Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 13:53:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 836 (2084) Drury College is seeking a facilitator for its Faculty Summer Seminar, to be held sometime during June, 1991. The Seminar brings together Drury faculty for an intensive, two- week period of multi-disciplinary study and discussion, centered on topics of interest marked by both a general, "academic" perspective and by relevance to teaching in specific disciplines. (Recent topics have included "Classical Ethics, Carol Gilligan, and Teaching Ethics Across the Curriculum" [1988] and "The Canon" [1989], a study of how literary and other sorts of "canons" are formed, their role in culture and education, etc.) Our topic this year is "Mind, Brain, and Creativity." The topic is occasioned by the observation that many of us, across a diversity of disciplines, have made regarding the impact of the computer: that the computer not only makes for a _quantitative_ difference in our work -- but also seems to offer an environment marked by _qualitative_ enhancements to our thinking and creativity. We are seeking a facilitator to guide our study first on a general level regarding theories of mind, brain, and creativity. We are open to a variety of approaches -- e.g., a fully philosophical approach reviewing both classical and contemporary theories (including the mind/brain discussion); a psychological approach with attention to contemporary views on creativity; the history of mathematics as an example of creative thinking and discussion of creativity in selected figures, etc. The ideal facilitator will also have sufficient computer-based experience to present a series of examples of how the computer has served as a new kind of creative environment (e.g., through hypermedia, computer modeling in mathematics, etc.) -- though other sorts of examples (e.g. teaching students Japanese bookbinding and how to incorporate images as part of the writing process) would also be pertinent. _Critiques_ of the claim that the computer provides a new sort of creative environment are, of course, also welcome. Typically, the facilitator will be asked to spend five days on campus to lead the seminar, as well as work with the Faculty Development Committee in planning the workshop schedule, reading list, and related activities. A modest honorarium for the facilitator's services, along with travel and per diem expenses, will be provided. I should also add that our facilitators consistently comment on how much _fun_ they have in the seminar, as it becomes a collaborative learning experience _for them_, with colleagues who share their considerable expertise and experience in thinking and talking about ideas which are both of interest "academically" and pertinent particularly to the art of teaching. Interested persons should contact me directly, preferably by way of BITNET. A brief description of your background, and a proposed program of study should be included. Thanks to one and all. Charles Ess Drury College 900 N. Benton Ave. Springfield, MO 65802 From: Gordon Dixon, Editor-in-Chief Subject: Literary and Linguistic Computing contents pages Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 16:43:48 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 837 (2085) Literary and Linguistic Computing Institute of Advanced Studies Manchester Polytechnic. G.DIXON@UK.AC.MANCHESTER Contents for the next two issues of Literary and Linguistic Computing VOLUME 5 NUMBER 4, 1990 In Search of the Individual, Brazil, Portugal and London, 1841-1915 J. M. COLSON, R. F. COLSON, and D. C. DOULTON Computer Usage Changes at the Dictionary of American Regional English in the 80's L. von SCHNEIDEMESSER Methodological Issues Regarding Corpus-based Analyses of Linguistic Variation D. BIBER Knowledge Representation for Text Interpretation J. de VUYST Introduction to Special Section: Papers from the Literature Workshop, Conference on Computers and Teaching in the Humanities, April 1990 S. HOCKEY A Guide Through the Labyrinth: Dicken's Little Dorrit as Hypertext K. SUTHERLAND Analysing Italian Renaissance Poetry: The Oxford Text Searching System D. ROBEY Using OCP: A Study of Characterisation in the Two Don Quixotes G. SAN ROMAN CONSTRUE: The Evolution of a Study Aid for Literary Texts G. NEAL Reports from Colloquia at Tubingen Minutes of the Annual General Meeting Chairman's Report S. HOCKEY Treasurer's Report 1989 J. ROPER Secretary's Report T. CORNS Effective Editing G. DIXON Representatives Report Medieval German Texts Diary News and Notes Documents Received New Publications Book Review Notes on Contributors VOLUME 6 NUMBER 1, 1991 Unification-based diagnosis of language learners' syntax errors M. A. COVINGTON and K. B. WEINRICH George Wilkins and the First Two Acts of Pericles: New Evidence from Function Words MacD. P. JACKSON Collating with Microsoft WORD W. SCHIPPER Introduction to the Special Section on Computers and Medieval Studies M. DEEGAN The Princeton Index of Christian Art, 1990: Update and Prospects B. CASSIDY Medieval Image Databases: Aspects of Cooperation and Exchange G. JARITZ Digital Image-processing and the Beowulf Manuscript K. KIERNAN Computational Analysis of Franco-Italian L. Z. MORGAN Medieval Texts and the Text Encoding Initiative C. M. SPERBERG-McQUEEN Computational Stylistics: Progress and Prospects A. ARMOUR The Computerized National Archaeological Record for England - its Development and Future Potential for Medieval Studies R. LEECH The Beowulf Workstation: a Model for Computer-Assisted Literary Pedagogy P. W. CONNER The Index of Charms: Purpose, Design and Implementation L. OLSAN and S. E. PARNELL Representatives Reports Japan Terminology Association UK Literary Computing Slavonic Diary News and Notes Documents Received New Publications Best wishes for the Festive Season. Gordon. December 17, 1990 From: Dave Ahlgren Subject: April 5 Conference Advice Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 15:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 838 (2086) Bob Kraft of U. Penn suggested that I communicate with your group about possible speakers at an April 5 conference "Using Network-based Information Services" which I am organizing for NerComp (New England Regional Computing Program). We plan to have four speakers, as follows: 1. Keynote speaker providing an overview of networking technology aimed at non-technical people. In this talk we might deal with network architecture, emerging technologies, what the future holds, place of networks vis a vis CD rom, etc. 2. Use of networks in the library. Library of the future. 3. Social science applications of networks (accessing data bases, sharing files, etc.) 4. Applications in the humanities, both for library research and other applications. Problems of data control (copyrights, corrections, etc), pros and cons of on-line vs. CDs, existing "experiments" such as the French Treasury, Global Jewish Data Bank [Bar Ilan], etc. It would be very helpful if you could provide suggestions for speakers. Even better: is there a volunteer in your group? The conference will be held at Trinity College, Hartford. Following the four presentations (three in the morning and one in the early afternoon), attendees will have an opportunity to log onto the Internet (and perhaps other nets) to do some hands-on experimentation in their area of interest. Speakers can provide suggestions for experiments. I'll appreciate receiving advice about this conference. Dave From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Call for Papers Date: Sun, 16 Dec 90 06:55:51 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 839 (2087) FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYMBOLIC and LOGICAL COMPUTING DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY MADISON, SOUTH DAKOTA APRIL 18 - 19, 1991 ICEBOL5, the fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, is designed for teachers, scholars, and programmers who want to meet to exchange ideas about non-numeric computing. In addition to a focus on SNOBOL4, SPITBOL, and Icon, ICEBOL5 will feature presentations on processing strings of characters in a variety of programming languages such as Prolog and C. Topics of discussion will include artificial intelligence and expert systems, and a wide range of analyses of texts in English and other natural languages. Parallel tracks of concurrent sessions are planned. ICEBOL's coffee breaks, social hours, lunches, and banquet will provide a series of opportunities for participants to meet and informally exchange information. CALL FOR PAPERS Abstracts (minimum of 250 words) or full texts of papers to be read at ICEBOL5 are invited on any application of non-numeric programming. Planned sessions include the following: artificial intelligence and expert systems computational linguistics analysis of literary works (including bibliography, concordance, and index generation) linguistic and lexical analysis (including parsing and machine translation) preparation of text for electronic publishing computer assisted instruction grammar and style checkers music analysis Papers should be in English and must not exceed twenty minutes reading time. Abstracts should be received by January 15, 1991. Notification of acceptance will follow promptly. Selected papers will be published in ICEBOL5 Proceedings. Presentations at previous ICEBOL conferences were made by Paul Abrahams (ACM President), Gene Amdahl (Andor Systems), Robert Dewar (New York University), Mark Emmer (Catspaw, Inc.), James Gimpel (Lehigh), Ralph Griswold (Arizona), Susan Hockey (Oxford), and many others. Copies of the proceedings from ICEBOL3 and ICEBOL4 are available. ICEBOL5 is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION All correspondence including abstracts and papers as well as requests for registration materials should be sent to: Eric Johnson ICEBOL Director 114 Beadle Hall Dakota State University Madison, SD 57042 U.S.A (605) 256-5270 Inquiries, abstracts, and correspondence may also be sent via BITNET to: ERIC@SDNET From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: Kyrillic on MS-DOS Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 13:35:30 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1799 (2088) Yesterday two colleagues of mine asked me whether there is any text- processing software available for MS-DOS-based systems. What they need is something that does not cost too much, but can show all characters of every (or at least some) slavonic languages on the screen and get them printed on a 24-dot matrix printer and a laser printer (HP II and above). Any ideas? Thomas Zielke Historisches Seminar Universit{t Oldenburg Postfach 2503 D-2900 Oldenburg From: DAVID BARRY <UBJV649@CU.BBK.AC.UK> Subject: User friendly front end for listservers Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 11:57 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1800 (2089) I am interested in developing a user friendly front end to run on a microcomputer to help people handle traffic to and from Listservers. I would like to hear from anyone who Knows of such a front end being in existence already and if so how I can get hold of it. This info is needed to prevent needless reinvention Following from this I would like to hear from people who might be interested in beta testing such a front end lso interested in news of any projects to develop such frontends (The first word was also) And following from that anyone interested in collaberating on such a project. From: DAVID BARRY <UBJV649@CU.BBK.AC.UK> Subject: Membership offer Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 12:16 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1801 (2090) I run a computer conferencing system based at Birkbeck College, London United Kingdom. I would like to hear from anyone interested in joining this system as an experimental or indeed practical user (if you have a project in mind using computer conferencing) or just if you are curious. To join you will need interactive connection to the Birkbeck Vax that is connection to JANET or through IPSS ( I suppose you could dial in as well but unless you are in the UK I would have thought the phone bills would be distinctly worrying...... [...] my Janet address is UBJV649@UK.AC.BBK.CU UBJV649 is my username BBK.CU is my site name UK and AC are the Domains If all else fails I am on Snail mail Dept of Occ. Psychology Birkbeck College Malet street London WC1E 7HX England David Barry From: Sarah Horton <HORTON@YALEVM> Subject: ALA Character Output Date: Mon, 17 Dec 1990 13:41:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1802 (2091) I am working on a project that involves printing the complete ALA character set. I have been doing silly things with drawing programs to try and make eths and candrabindus, but I'm losing patience. Does anyone know of a typeface that has of all these characters, preferably for the Macintosh? Or can anyone offer suggestions that are less painstaking? Sympathy? Solidarity? Thanks in advance. -Sarah Horton From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Buddhism and Stoicism Date: 13 Dec 90 13:09:16 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1803 (2092) I have noticed a number of superficial similarities between aspects of Buddhism and aspects of Stoicism. Does anyone know of a book or article containing respectable academic discussion of this issue ? David M. From: Neel Smith <nsmith@polar.bowdoin.edu> Subject: Josephus Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 09:31:42 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1804 (2093) If Michael Strangelove is looking for e-texts of the first century author of the Antiquitates Judaicae, Flavius Josephus, he is author 526 in the TLG Canon; his Vita is the second of four works of Josephus in the TLG. Neel Smith From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.0829 Etext Q: Josephus Flavius (1/11) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 90 09:54:46 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1805 (2094) I suspect that when Josephus is said to have hung his sword around his neck, what is meant is simply than he girded it on, i.e., that he armed himself. The expression "hanging around the neck," like "girding on" simply expresses literally the manner in which the sword was slung. I believe that swords were slung on shoulder belts in a number of Ancient cultures, rather than on waist belts. There were also differences as to the side on which the sword hung, depending on the culture and its military needs and customs. This could be verified in a suitable reference on arms and armor, though I can't cite one from memory. The choice of color is likely to be symbolic of his mood or situation, too, but I can't elucidate that. From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0818 French Naming Law (6/115) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 90 10:02:04 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1806 (2095) I don't know anything about French naming laws, but I thought I'd share the following info about German naming procedures. When my German wife and I got married in Cologne in 1978, we received a so-called "Familienbuch", in which, among other things, there was a list of approved names for children. Interestingly enough, it included not just Christian saints' names but also a number of very Germanic ones, like Wiebke, Frauke, and several that hearken back to the Nibelungenlied. I don't remember what would have happened if one wanted to choose a name not on that list, however. [I draw no conclusions regarding national differences and/or similiarities between the two countries, however!] tom shannon From: DONWEBB@CALSTATE (Donald Webb) Subject: Name-death & number retirement Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 13:37:32 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1807 (2096) Dr. Joel Goldfield draws an interesting analogy (i.e. I wish I'd thought of that!) between the retirement of star athletes' numbers into "legendary pseudo-death" and the avoidance of a deceased person's name (HUM 4.0770 Tue 27 Nov 90). It's true that the numbers are retired from the playing field, but they're not entirely "avoided," as though taboo. At Candlestick Park and, as I recall, the Oakland Coliseum, the retired numbers are prominently displayed. The sole exception is that of John McGraw, whose name is featured because his career antedates the use of numbers on players' uniforms. Why are the names not displayed, rather than or in addition to the numbers? Probably to sell programs and promote scholarly research and discussion among the spectators between innings. Valhalla is on the fence, in deep right field. From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0803 Hum: Discussion Invited; Repetition; Splitting Date: Wed, 05 Dec 90 10:14:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1808 (2097) One suggestion I can put forth to help the problem of repetitive postings that already exist in the archives is a personal archive. That way each person would archive things that were of interest. There would, of course, be many instances where the person didn't realize something was interesting until too late, but that's impossible to avoid. For this archiving, I propose using the next version of TidBITS for Macintosh people (when that comes out, and I don't know when it will) since TidBITS is designed as a general purpose archiver. Archving text files will be easy then, because it will just import them directly. It shouldn't be too hard to write a small application to do the same for PCs and other platforms and I expect that to happen soon after the Mac version appears. The problem with such a method is that it requires a microcomputer and a link to whereever HUMANIST comes in. But I suspect a good number of people meet those requirements. Another aid would be a program to remotely list and search the HUMANIST archives. I don't have the expertise to write such a thing, but I'm sure someone does. That would make accessing the archives as easy or easier than just asking the question again. cheers ... Adam Adam C. Engst (best) ace@tidbits.tcnet.ithaca.ny.us (probably) ace%tidbits.uucp@theory.tn.cornell.edu (maybe) ace@tidbits.uucp (guaranteed, but not preferred) pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic journal for the Macintosh. From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: Query: e-mail etiquette Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 00:51:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1809 (2098) A query is posted on HUMANIST. Members scurry around trying to dig up or dig out information requested, and eventually find same, and send it to the requestor. Three levels of response: 1) a personal thank you (warm glow... one has contributed something useful) 2) a generic thanks to the LIST (well... ok, acknowledgement appreciated) 3) no response whatsoever (did my message get there? Was it of any use? Why bother responding?) Query: do we have any common etiquette standards in this instance? Second query: what about all those who promise to report back to the list but never do? Hmm... maybe I'm reading/seeing too many tv programs focussing on Scrooge... Dana Paramskas, French Studies University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@VASSAR> Subject: How to Search -- Listserv database facilities Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 17:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 844 (2099) The HUMANIST messages are archived in notebooks. You can retreive them by sending a GET command to LISTSERV@BROWNVM. However, notebooks are usually huge files, and it's not a very good idea to have them sent on the network. Listserv provides database facilities which would enable you to access information in archives in a more flexible way. Instead of getting the whole archive, you will be able to get only the subject lines. For example, if you want to know all the topics discussed on HUMANIST this month, just send the following message to LISTSERV@BROWNVM: //SEARCH JOB ECHO=NO DATABASE SEARCH DD=RULES //RULES DD * SEARCH * IN humanist SINCE 01-DEC-90 INDEX You can, of course, replace 01-DEC-90 by any other date in the same format. You will receive a file that looks like this: [deleted quotation]--> Database HUMANIST, 55 hits. [deleted quotation]Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 002600 90/12/02 22:14 68 4.0782 Renaissance Meeting in Toronto (1/56) 002601 90/12/02 22:18 91 4.0783 Graduate Program in Humanities Computing (1+ 002602 90/12/02 22:20 103 4.0784 Classics Review (e-)Journal (1/91) 002603 90/12/02 22:25 120 4.0785 Conf: Machine Translation (1/108) 002604 90/12/02 22:38 192 4.0786 Confs: NL & Ontology; Sentence Processing (+ 002605 90/12/02 22:58 46 4.0787 Jobs: Computational Linguistics (1/35) 002606 90/12/02 23:19 136 4.0788 Qs: French SW; French & Spanish CAI; IPA; .+ 002607 90/12/02 23:21 24 4.0789 Etext Q: Oral History, World War II... (1/1+ ...... You can also restrict the search to messages containing given words. For example,suppose you want to retreive all the messages that speak about SGML or the TEI. You just send the following file to LISTSERV@BROWNVM: //SEARCH JOB ECHO=NO DATABASE SEARCH DD=RULES //RULES DD * SEARCH (SGML or TEI) IN humanist SINCE 01-JAN-90 INDEX You can of course replace SGML and TEI with other keywords, and use AND instead of OR, or more complex AND/OR combinations. You will get a file that looks like this: [deleted quotation]--> Database HUMANIST, 117 hits. [deleted quotation]Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 001343 90/01/01 18:54 140 3.885 Poetics Today (141) 001370 90/01/08 20:28 179 3.912 WP/NB; NotaBene's Ibid (180) 001386 90/01/14 22:31 206 3.928 discussion groups (207) 001427 90/01/29 19:47 73 3.969 German poetry? samhell? SGML? (74) 001431 90/01/29 19:53 192 3.973 call for software reviewers (192) 001433 90/01/30 20:34 88 3.975 Sam Hill (89) 001460 90/02/05 20:43 104 3.1002 SGML; hanzi; pingpong; bibliographic manage+ 001492 90/02/12 21:34 94 3.1034 audio input; Mac troubles (95) ...... You may want to restrict the search for keywords to the subject line (in the previous example, LISTSERV was searching for SGML or TEI in the whole message). In that case, send the following: //SEARCH JOB ECHO=NO DATABASE SEARCH DD=RULES //RULES DD * SEARCH * IN humanist - WHERE SUBJECT CONTAINS (SGML or TEI) - SINCE 01-DEC-90 INDEX Here is the file you'll get: [deleted quotation]--> Database HUMANIST, 26 hits. [deleted quotation]Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 001427 90/01/29 19:47 73 3.969 German poetry? samhell? SGML? (74) 001460 90/02/05 20:43 104 3.1002 SGML; hanzi; pingpong; bibliographic manage+ 001499 90/02/13 20:35 84 3.1041 decline of noisy reading? SGML and hypertex+ 001508 90/02/14 20:50 153 3.1050 SGML and hypertext (154) 001514 90/02/15 19:56 195 3.1056 e-critical editions; bib of SGML/hypertext+ 001518 90/02/15 20:15 161 3.1060 book; resource person; talk on SGML/hyperte+ 001526 90/02/16 22:48 125 3.1068 SGML and hypertext, cont. (126) 001543 90/02/22 21:10 90 3.1086 Chi's no Mega; SGML and hypertext (90) ...... If you want some of the documents sent to you, just ask PRINT instead of INDEX, along with the item numbers. Suppose, for example, that you want the two documents on SGML and hypertext above sent to you. Just send the following to LISTSERV@BROWNVM: //SEARCH JOB ECHO=NO DATABASE SEARCH DD=RULES //RULES DD * SEARCH * IN humanist - WHERE SUBJECT CONTAINS SGML or TEI - SINCE 01-DEC-90 PRINT 1508 1526 And you will receive a file containing these documents. There is much more. If you want to know send to LISTSERV the following message: INFO DATABASE By the way, send all the commands to LISTSERV@BROWNVM not HUMANIST! From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: neolatin Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 09:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1810 (2100) Can some kind Latinist out there help me? I want to translate a saying allegedly my grandmother's favourite utterance -- "If the shoe pinches, wear it!" I'm not satisfied with my own translation, and wish to avoid howlers. I'd be very grateful for any suggestions. -- Kevin Berland From: Gil Freund <GILF@HUJIVMS> Subject: CD-ROM help Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 23:51 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1811 (2101) I am thinking of buying a CD-ROM. As this is a rather large spending, for me, I would also like to use it as Compact disk player. I understand most of the newer units have this option. Also, The unit has to be external, as all my drive bays are full. Any comments, suggestion and advice will be most welcome. Please answer me directly (GILF@HUJIVMS.BITNET of GILF@HUJI.AC.HU.IL.). I will forward the information to anyone interested. Thanks Gil From: Gregory Bloomquist <GBLOOMQ@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> Subject: Inductive Hebrew Instruction Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 21:55:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1812 (2102) A colleague is a looking for a text for teaching introductory Hebrew using the inductive approach. She would be interested in texts in either French or English and is only interested in texts that have been used *successfully*. Many thanks for any suggestions. Greg. From: Gerry Docherty <G.J.Docherty@newcastle.ac.uk> Subject: IPA Font for MS Word? Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 12:56:13 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1813 (2103) I would be interested to receive any information anyone has about the availability of phonetic symbol fonts for use with MS Word on a PC (I do not have access to a Mac). Gerry Docherty Dept. of Speech University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne UK. (g.j.docherty@uk.ac.newcastle) From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: German e-mail address Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 10:38:44 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1814 (2104) A colleague in (formerly BRD/Federal Republic of/"West") Germany has provided me with an e-mail address which seems not to work. It reads: (user id)@gmdzi.uucp Our local postmaster can only determine that the network (uucp) and node (gmdzi) are legitimate -- but _not_, for example, whether I need to add a gateway address, i.e., something like: (user id)%gmdzi.uucp@gateway Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance, Charles (lost in the Ozarks) Ess Drury College From: vyc@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Alan T. McKenzie) Subject: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 12:06:35 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1815 (2105) I got a flyer this morning from "The Intercollegiate Studies Institute" in Bryn Mawr, PA announcing a conference on "Western Tradition v. Deconstruction" in Chicago on Dec. 29th. The Conference, at which Roger Kimball and others will speak, looks both intriguing and tendentious. Does anyone out there know anything about this Institute? What axes do they usually grind, and where do they swing them? Their phone number, for those of you who might be interested, is 800 526-7022. Thanks. Alan McKenzie, English, Purdue (vyc@mace.cc.purdue.edu) From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: Call for Papers: ACL-91 Workshop on Lexical Semantics and KR Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 17:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 846 (2106) CALL FOR PAPERS Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation 17 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, California, USA A workshop sponsored by the Special Interest Group on the Lexicon (SIGLEX) of the Association for Computational Linguistics TOPICS OF INTEREST: The recent resurgence of interest in lexical semantics (LS) has brought many linguistic formalisms closer to the knowledge representation (KR) languages utilized in AI. In fact, some formalisms from computational linguistics are emerging which may be more expressive and formally better understood than many KR languages. Furthermore, the interests of computational linguists now extend to include areas previously thought beyond the scope of grammar and linguistics, such as commonsense knowledge, inheritance, default reasoning, collocational relations, and even domain knowledge. With such an extension of the purview of "linguistic" knowledge, the question emerges as to whether there is any logical justification for distinguishing between lexical semantics and world knowledge. The purpose of this workshop is to explore this question in detail, with papers addressing the following points: a. Possible methods for determining what is lexical knowledge and what is outside the scope of such knowledge. b. Potential demonstrations that the inferences necessary for language understanding are no different from supposed non-linguistic inferences. c. Arguments from language acquisition and general concept development. d. Cross-linguistic evidence for the specificity of lexical semantic representations. e. Philosophical arguments for the (impossibility of the) autonomy of lexical knowledge. f. Theoretical approaches and implemented systems that combine lexical and non-lexical knowledge. FORMAT OF SUBMISSION: Authors should submit four copies of a position paper describing the work they have done in this area and specifying why they would like to participate in the workshop. Papers should be a minimum of four pages and a maximum of ten single-spaced pages (exclusive of references). The title page should include the title, full names of all authors and their complete addresses including electronic addresses where applicable, and a short (5 line) summary. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to: James Pustejovsky Computer Science Department Ford Hall Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02254-9110 USA (+1-617) 736-2709 jamesp@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu SCHEDULE: Papers must be received by 1 March 1991. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 5 April 1991. WORKSHOP INFORMATION: Attendance will be limited to 35-40 participants. The workshop is held in connection with the 29th Meeting of the ACL (18-21 June). Local arrangements are being handled by Peter Norvig (Division of Computer Science, University of California, 573 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, (+1-415) 642-9533, norvig@teak.berkeley.edu). TENTATIVE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Branimir Boguraev Ulrich Heid Peter Norvig James Pustejovsky Robert Wilensky From: ucc@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Tharon Howard) Subject: NEW LIST PURTOPOI@PURCCVM Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 16:51:21 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 847 (2107) PURTOPOI@PURCCVM -- Purdue Rhetoric, Professional Writing, and Language Discussion Group The PURTOPOI list is a scholarly forum for the discussion of current issues or "topoi" in the fields of rhetoric and composition, professional writing, and language research. Previous topics taken up by the group have included: - the relationship between social construction and ethnographic research in composition. - the disciplinary relationships between rhetoric, literary criticism, and linguistics. - the debate between agonistic and rogerian approaches to composition. - the impact of cultural studies on composition pedagogy and research. - and the antagonism between post-structuralist and cognitivist approaches to historical, theoretical, and empirical research methods. Members are encouraged to submit works in progress, reviews of recent publications, reports or announcements of conferences, bibliographies, or questions for group discussion. Subscription to the list is by listowners. Messages sent to the list are archived and may be retrieved by list members. Also, a filelist containing help files, bibliographies, and papers of interest is available to list members. For more information on PURTOPOI@PURCCVM, contact Tharon Howard at the addresses below: Internet: ucc@mace.cc.purdue.edu BITNET: XUCC@PURCCVM From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0750 Etext Qs: Ethiopic; Montesquieu & Montaigne (2/29) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 18:49:29 -0500 (EST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1816 (2108) Some time ago Joel P. Elliott asked for etexts of Montesquiue and Montaigne. An inspection of the Am Phil Assn's list of philosophy etexts turns up the following. Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu. De L'Esprit des Lois, ed. J. Brethe de la Gressaye, volumes 1-4. (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres, 1950-1961). For information contact: ARTFL Project, Dept. Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, 1050 East 59th Street, Chicago IL 60637 USA. Leslie Burkholder From: <ELKALAMARAS@VASSAR> Subject: Virus scanners/cleaners Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 03:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1817 (2109) [...] editors' deletion ...I am writing again to inform everyone that an ftp site is currently operational at Vassar College which contains some up-to-date antivirus utilities. The site is "csnxt1.vassar.edu". The files can be obtained using the procedure described above. The new version of VirusScan and Clean by John Mc Afee are available, as well as the NetScan and VirusShield programs. VirusScan can detect 163 different types of viruses (quite impressive!) Do not hesitate to contact me about any information you may need, Lefteris Kalamaras From: Randal Baier <REBX@CORNELLC> Subject: Poland E-Mail Sites? Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 13:27:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1818 (2110) This is an open request to any HUMANIST member who has made Internet or BITNET contacts with sites in Poland. Basically we are considering sending full-text files (or messages) using network capabilities. A specific point: what are the size limits on FILE vs. E-MAIL trans- missions? Obviously we all do this right now. Are there any problems in sending messages to Poland. Do the connections stay open consistently? Is there a list of internet -accessible nodes that one can download Randal Baier Cornell University. From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM> Subject: All Chargecard Date: Mon, 24 Dec 90 16:25:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1819 (2111) I would be interested in hearing from anyone with experience using a product call All Chargecard. It is a hardware add-in, with accompanying software, for 286 computers that allows loading TSRs into "high" memory (between 640K and 1MB) so as to free more of the basic 640K for program use. I am using a Toshiba 3200 and need as much of the 640K basic memory as possible for use with Nota Bene, as I often need to access several large files at a time together with the textbase feature. If people with experience with or information about this product communicate directly with me, I will share the results with the list. Thanks in advance. Steven D. Fraade Dept. of Religious Studies Yale Univeristy From: Roy Flannagan <FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB> Subject: e-texts for works of Michel Butor Date: 21 December 1990, 09:36:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1820 (2112) A colleague has asked me to see if any of the Humanisti might know of the existence of any of the works of Michel Butor in machine-readable form. Butor is soon retiring from the University of Geneva: does anyone there know of electronic versions of published works, or of publisher's "tapes"? Thanks for any response either to me or to Humanist. Roy Flannagan From: COMRIE%USCVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Subject: Indo-European Linguistics Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 09:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1821 (2113) Please make the availability of this position known to potential applicants. INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUISTICS University of Southern California, Los Angeles Indo-European Linguistics, with special reference to Latin and Greek. Tenure-track position starting September 1991, with joint appointment in the departments of Linguistics and Classics, initially authorized at the assistant professor level, but appointment at a higher level will be considered. PhD required. Send letter, curriculum vitae, publication list, up to three recent publications, and three letters of recommendation by 1 February, 1991, to: Classics/Linguistics Search Committee, c/o Dean of Humanities, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-4012. USC is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. From: <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: Jobs in French and Spanish Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 11:03 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1822 (2114) POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT St. Mary's Unviersity of San Antonio, Texas, seeks Assistant Professor of French and Spanish in tenure track position (pending budget approval) beginning August 15, 1991. AOS: French/Spanish languages, literature, culture and civilization. Ph.D. in French with 18 graduate hrs Spanish required. Should have successful teaching experience, preferably with teacher certification. Supportive of Roman Catholic educational tradition (need not be of Catholic faith). Will teach 12 hrs (4 courses) per semester: Elementary/Intermediate Spanish; French at all levels. Salary competitive. Contact: Dr. Ruben A. Candia; Chair, Languages, Modern and Classical; St. Mary's Unviersity; One Camino Santa Maria; San Antonio, TX 78228-8553. Tel: (512) 436-3738. FAX: (512) 436-3500. Initial screening begins February 15, 1991; applications accepted until position filled. AA/EOE. From: Peter M. Weiss <PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0844 How to Search Humanist Archives (1/120) Date: Friday, 21 Dec 1990 08:29:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1823 (2115) One erratum for the excellent Listserv Database discussion: the search arguments are character strings and not (key)words i.e., the search operates on the target as one big string of undelimited characters so that your search arguments may find a "hit" in the middle of a word. /Pete Weiss PSU Management Services From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: How to Search -- Listserv database facilities Date: Fri, 21 Dec 1990 11:43:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1824 (2116) Thank you, Jean Veronis, for your great explanation of how to do searches of the archived database at a LISTSERV. Would that you were writing software manuals for a living! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0845 ... Intercollegiate Studies Institute Date: 20 Dec 90 18:03:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1825 (2117) The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, to judge by the telephone book, works out of a single office in a small office building about half a mile from my apartment: the sort of building with odds and ends of lawyers and dentists. A student at Penn some years ago had to do with them about getting a scholarship to support her graduate study at Toronto. My impression was of a small, zealous, not especially eccentric, but distinctly conservative organization. I would infer that the conference announced on "Western Tradition v. Deconstruction" is expected to declare unambiguously in favor of "Western Tradition". Now we all know when Deconstruction came into the critical argot; my question is, can anyone say when "Western Tradition" came into use in the sense employed nowadays? My guess is that it would not antedate 1800, and perhaps not 1900. (I do know that "Judaeo-Christian", to judge from OED, is a term invented as a pejorative in the 19th century for agnostic anti-Christian use: the implication was that organized Christianity had so far foresworn its origins that it was now every bit as hidebound by legalism and ritual as Judaism was presumed to be; the polemical effectiveness of the term lay in lumping Jews together with Christians, the latter of whom would be presumed to be offended by the association. When "Judaeo-Christian" turned around and became an eirenic and platitudinous way of evoking the wisdom and tolerance that Judaism and Christianity are presumed to share, I do not know; but it seems to me a usage of a piece with the mythical creature, "Western Tradition." J.J. O'Donnell Classics, U. of Penn. From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Date: Fri, 21 Dec 1990 11:39:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1826 (2118) Alan McKinzie's note concerning the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's conference on the western tradition and deconstruction makes me wish that I could sample the conference. If anyone is going and gets good papers to share, I hope they put them on the list or at least share the information of what each did and how we might order those of interst. Thanks a bunch. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: "ehemalige" DDR E-mail Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 20:25:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1827 (2119) Sehr geehrter Herr Professor Ess ! Please pardon the ironic germanicization of the address. I, too, tried to get some E-Mail somewhere east of the old border. I found two adressess in UUNET for Humboldt Uni(versit"at) and tried to send one. No answer yet, but then my physical mail hasn't got an answer yet. I then spent time trying to find out what's going on. Manfred Stassen of the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies (Hopkins) told me that the phone lines are still so wretched that nothing goes through, now that Germans are trying to use phones like normal people, rather than as a privilege bestowed by the "Bonzen". If you really want to try, the best contact I have had is with a postmaster type named Kai Scharwacht, at Uni Dortmund. He provides reassurance, but not a lot more. unido!ks@relay.eu.net has worked for me as an address, but I wouldn't like to see this good soul, who does English just fine, overloaded. Hope this helps. Ed Haupt (haupt@pilot.njin.net--Dept. of Psych., Montclair St. (New Jersey) From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: AAAI-91 Intelligent Multimedia Interfaces Workshop Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 10:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 853 (2120) Forwarded From: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu CALL FOR PAPERS AAAI-91 INTELLIGENT MULTIMEDIA INTERFACES WORKSHOP 14 or 15 July, 1991 (to be determined) Anaheim, CA GOAL Over the past few years there has been increased interest in and investigation into the utilization of multiple modes of communication (e.g., textual, graphical, auditory) in intelligent interfaces. Research in this area is in the formative stages and is just now beginning to address difficult fundamental problems. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to report on current advances in multimedia interface systems and their underlying theories, to foster scientific interchange among these individuals, and as a group to evaluate current efforts and make recommendations for future investigations into multimedia interface technology. A report on the workshop will be submitted to AI Magazine. ISSUES Submissions are invited on original research in all aspects of multimedia interfaces, including, but not limited to: * Coordination of multiple modalities, both in terms of input and output * Planning and realization of multimedia explanations * Media-dependent and media-independent meaning representation languages * Architectures for multimedia interfaces * Discourse and user models for multiple modalities * Qualitative/quantitative measures and black box/glass box methods for evaluation of multimedia interfaces * Philosophical and psycholinguistic models of multimodal interaction SUBMISSIONS Interested participants should forward FIVE copies of a 4-5 page (double spaced) position paper addressing a specific intelligent multimedia interface issue along with a brief description of their research activities to Mark Maybury, MS-A047, The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730 Tel: (617) 271-7230. Submissions must be *received* by March 8, 1991. Please include name, affiliation, address, phone, and e-mail address. Attendance at the workshop will be limited to 30 participants. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Mark Maybury (chair) The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730 (maybury@linus.mitre.org) Steve Feiner, Dept of CS, Columbia University, 500 W. 120 Street, NY (feiner@cs.columbia.edu) New York, NY 10027-7031 Alfred Kobsa, Dept of CS, Univ. of Saarbruecken (kobsa@cs.uni-sb.de) D-6600 Saarbruecken 11 GERMANY Bonnie Webber, Dept of Computer & Information Science, U of Pennsylvania, (bonnie@cis.upenn.edu) Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389 SCHEDULE March 8, 1991 -- Submissions due April 15, 1991 -- Notification of acceptance May 15, 1991 -- Camera-ready workshop paper due June 14, 1991 -- AAAI-91 late registration deadline July 15, 1991 -- Workshop ------------------------------ End of NL-KR Digest ******************* From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: E-mail etiquette Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 12:12:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1828 (2121) On 14 Dec., Dana Paramskas asked a couple of questions about etiquette. I think a short reply to the sender of a file or answer to a question is simple courtesy. You say thank you when someone has helped you out face-to-face. Why not now--especially since it has taken a bit of effort to rummage around the computer or files and send what they want. If you ask for info and say you will post a summary back to the list, do it. Not to is simply selfish. Even if no one answered, tell us. As we stumble around in this new virtual community, we will all be asking for help sometime. Courtesy extends even further electronically. ----------------------------------------------- Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: on repetition Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 10:06:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1829 (2122) Yes, it is annoying when queries, answers, and topics are repeated in a way that seems to add nothing to what has already been said. It is a good idea to keep, say, the last year's worth of Humanist on some local hard disk so as to avoid needless queries to the group as a whole. I think we need to consider the nature of this medium, however, before we vent spleen on the repeaters or spend significant effort on devising means of avoiding repetition. Walter Ong points out that in cultures whose primary means of communication is oral, repetition has a vital function: one repeats in order that something be preserved. The electronic seminar uses a medium that in several ways manifests what Ong calls "orality". Perhaps, then, repetition is not so much a bug as a feature. Willard McCarty From: John Price-Wilkin <USERGC8Z@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: RLG Computer Files Workshop Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 21:56:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1830 (2123) On January 11th, RLG will sponsor a "Computer Files Workshop" at the University of Chicago. The day long workshop will include morning sessions covering general issues of data file use and mangement, and afternoon sessions dealing with practical aspects. Leaders in humanities and social science data management will speak about the history and nature of data file use by researchers, and data file support in the library. Panel discussions in the afternoon will cover important issues surrounding library management, service provision, cataloging, government CD-ROMs, and data set construction. Hands-on opportunities with a wide array of resources will be provided. Among the speakers included will be Michael Sperberg-McQueen (Univ. of IL) of the Text Encoding Initiative and Judith Rowe, manager of C.I.T, Princeton's social science data service.. Persons interested in further information should contact Marilyn Roche at bl.mxr@rlg.bitnet From: ucc@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Tharon Howard) Subject: NEW LIST PURTOPOI@PURCCVM Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 16:51:21 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1831 (2124) PURTOPOI@PURCCVM -- Purdue Rhetoric, Professional Writing, and Language Discussion Group The PURTOPOI list is a scholarly forum for the discussion of current issues or "topoi" in the fields of rhetoric and composition, professional writing, and language research. Previous topics taken up by the group have included: - the relationship between social construction and ethnographic research in composition. - the disciplinary relationships between rhetoric, literary criticism, and linguistics. - the debate between agonistic and rogerian approaches to composition. - the impact of cultural studies on composition pedagogy and research. - and the antagonism between post-structuralist and cognitivist approaches to historical, theoretical, and empirical research methods. Members are encouraged to submit works in progress, reviews of recent publications, reports or announcements of conferences, bibliographies, or questions for group discussion. Subscription to the list is by listowners. Messages sent to the list are archived and may be retrieved by list members. Also, a filelist containing help files, bibliographies, and papers of interest is available to list members. For more information on PURTOPOI@PURCCVM, contact Tharon Howard at the addresses below: Internet: ucc@mace.cc.purdue.edu BITNET: XUCC@PURCCVM From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mamut.wlu.ca> Subject: Electronic German-English lexicon Date: Wed, 26 Dec 90 22:23:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1832 (2125) I understand there are some multi-lingual CD-ROM lexica available, with twelve languages available, and facility for moving between any combination of them. I am looking for something much more simple. Does anyone know of a German-English lexicon available for micros *without* CD-ROMs? Replies to me or to the list would be welcome. Many thanks for assistance/advice offered. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University dreimer4@mamut.wlu.ca From: "TIMO HARMO (FAC. OF SOC. SCI, U OF HELSINKI)" <HARMO@cc.Helsinki.FI> Subject: Looking for lists in education research/cognitive psychology Date: Fri, 28 Dec 90 11:33 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1833 (2126) A friend of mine is looking for academic mailing lists or newsgroups in some of the following areas: Education research, Intelligence research, Learning to think, Cognitive psychology, Cognitive science in general Could you please mail your suggestions to: SCHEININ@cc.helsinki.fi or: SCHEININ@finuh.bitnet He promised summarize the answers in HUMANIST. From: F12016@BARILAN.BITNET Subject: toshiba help Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 14:32 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1834 (2127) To help a visiting scholar who brought his laptop to Israel but not its manual ... Does anyone know if the power supply of the Toshiba 5200 is self-switching from 120 volt to 220 volt, or do you need a transformer? Thanks, Chaim Milikowsky From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) Subject: addresses for Dickinson scholars Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 11:39:45 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1835 (2128) If anyone has electronic mail addresses for any or all of the following persons, all European or Japanese scholars of Emily Dickinson or translaters of her poetry, I would appreciate your sharing them with me. (Colleagues of mine need to contact them regarding a international conference in the last stages of planning.) Agnieszka Salska (Univ. of Lodz) Dorothea Steiner (Univ. of Salzburg) Roland Hagenbuchle Sirkka Heiskanen-Makela Ludmita Marjanska Masako Takeda Brita Lindberg-Seyerstad Please reply to me rather than to the list. Gary Lee Stonum English Department Case Western Reserve Univ. Cleveland, OH 44106 216-368-3342 gxs11@po.cwru.edu From: TRACY LOGAN <LOGANT@lafayett.BITNET> Subject: possible post: database search,etiquette,etc. Date: Fri, 28 Dec 90 10:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1836 (2129) I'd like to second Tom Vickery in thanking Jean Veronis for her "great explanation of how to do searches of the archived database at a LISTSERV." He put it well. The database search delivers, I have found. There is one situation where it falls down, at least as I run the searches, and maybe someone can help. The situation is a search that includes the HUMANIST biography database. For example, I was helping a user here locate information on Gregorian Chants. One strategy was to locate HUMANISTs who included "music" and "database" in their bio ("Gregorian Chants" was a dry hole). The exact string "music database" brought nothing, as I recall, so I tried "music" AND "database". Two things happened, both bad. 1. I got several hits, but they were because one person's hobby was "playing music on the guitar," while another person's job was "leader of the Heinrich Boell database project" (made-up quotes, but they show the problem). 2. I didn't even get a chance to pore thru all of these dubious possibles, since one bio-file (about?) (more than?) exhausted the limit on file length that can be sent. Perhaps all that is required is breaking the biographies into more manageable chunks -- but I don't know if that is true, or easy. In this particular case, the solution came by another route: people who wrote in response to a query posted on HUMANIST. Elliot Parker notes in today's mail that "a short reply to the sender of a file or answer to a question is simple courtesy." I agree. And I admit having failed to do that systematically in this case. Elliot also notes [deleted quotation] I don't believe I promised a summary, but I intended to provide one anyway. A hard semester (all-campus network going in) was part of the cause. There was the complication that it wasn't my topic, so I really didn't know how to summarize it. (A further complication is that the requestor is related to me.) We received about 10 responses, and I think all provided the following book, which seemed right on the money, and several the following type of lead on music-databases: [deleted quotation] Finally, a comment on Willard McCarty's related note: [deleted quotation] Doesn't the existence of the full database, and a great tool provided by the culture for accessing it, vitiate this argument? Maybe we need an initiation rite, where the secrets of the elders are passed along? Which brings us back full circle to Jean Veronis' "great explanation." - tracy From: Norman Miller <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: On repetition Date: Fri, 28 Dec 90 10:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1837 (2130) Willard, citing Walter Ong, tells us that in oral cultures repetition performs the vital function of preserving. Which is undeniable. Now this story. A friend of mine went to his father's village in Serbia for an extended visit. He was met by the elders of the clan and honored by a sumptuous feed. This was followed by a welcoming speech from the oldest male, then it was my friend's turn to tell his story. The men at the table were seated according to age, the women and children stood crowded around. My friend began. It was a detailed account of his father's arrival in America, his travels across the continent to California, his finding work, then a wife, the birth of children, his recent death (this story takes place in the late 1950's). Then Peter talked about his mother, his other brother and finally himself: his war experiences, his becoming a professor. The narrative went on for a long time. When it was over, the clan elder thanked my friend and then, without missing a beat, proceeded to repeat the entire story to the women and children. In short, the story or tradition is not the only thing that's preserved by repetition. Big surprise. And a happy new year to you all. Norman Miller From: Randal Baier <REBX@CORNELLC> Subject: Poland E-Mail Sites? Date: 27 Dec 90 13:38:26 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1838 (2131) This is an open request to any HUMANIST member who has made Internet or BITNET contacts with sites in Poland. Basically we are considering sending full-text files (or messages) using network capabilities. A specific point: what are the size limits on FILE vs. E-MAIL trans- missions? Obviously we all do this right now. Are there any problems in sending messages to Poland. Do the connections stay open consistently? Is there a list of internet -accessible nodes that one can download ------------- A quick search by using "RESOLVE" provides nodes for Warsaw: PLWATU21 PLWAUW12 and for Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) PLWRTU11 PLWRTU51 There don't seem to be any Internet sites available yet. Internet has reached several institutions in former West Germany but none in former East Germany yet. Otmar Foelsche From: Otmar.K.E.Foelsche@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: "ehemalige" DDR E-mail Date: 27 Dec 90 15:45:27 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1839 (2132) Bitnet connections into for East Germany can be looked up by your friendly system operator of your local bitnet host machine. This person can also help you to determine whether a link to one of those formerly "East German" universities is active or not. If the link is active, a note to the postmaster could produce a response. Notes to postmasters at formerly "West German" universities often get ignored. I gave up trying to reach German universities' postmasters a long time ago. But have one exceptional postmaster over there, too - whose name I am not allowed to disclose! So there are at least two great postmasters in Germany! My information is that all German Universities should be on DFG (Deutsches Forschungsnetz) in the near future. The DFG has a Bitnet Gateway. Possibly, some of the German Humanists can illuminate us on the status of the DFG/Bitnet connections of universities in Berlin, Rostock, Greifswald, Brandenburg, Halle, Leipzig, Jena, Dresden etc. On the other hand, German computer operators, in my opinion, still believe in protecting the machines from the users (particularly humanists!) and have a hard time accepting the idea of international email and file transfers by other than computer scientists. Otmar Foelsche From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET> Subject: The term "Judeo-Christian" Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 10:06:40 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1840 (2133) James O'Donnell says: [deleted quotation] According to Mark Silk "Notes on the Judeo-Christian tradition in America" American quarterly 36:1 (Spring 1984) 65-85Ù, the term developed currency in the context of opposition to fascism in the 1930's. Joseph Jones Library, University of British Columbia From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: call for papers, MLA 1991 Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 13:16:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1841 (2134) On behalf of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, I am submitting a proposal to the MLA for a special session at the 1991 convention in San Francisco. This session is to be entitled, "How We Do What We Do: Modelling Literary Research Methods by Computer". A maximum of three papers will address how the attempt to implement various research methods on the computer throws light on what scholars actually do -- to paraphrase Vannevar Bush, how we work, or how we may work. Inquiries are welcome -- please write to me directly. Abstracts of 500 to 1000 words, preferably by e-mail, are due by 15 March. All panelists must be members of the MLA by 1 April. Willard McCarty From: <GALLOWA@IUBACS> Subject: Job Notice Date: Tue, 1 Jan 91 10:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1842 (2135) Documentation Coordinator: The Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum research center located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, seeks an individual to coordinate the design and implementation of cataloging standards across its research divisions and collections management office. Responsibilities include resolving data terminology issues, providing a liaison between cataloging and technical staffs, maintaining documentation on cataloging practices, developing automated system enhancements, training, and reviewing cataloged materials destined for cross-departmental access. Candidates should be familiar with cataloging standards for bibliographic, curatorial, and manuscripts data and should be prepared to analyze documentation methods currently in use in the institution. Professional experience in cataloging for at least one of these areas is required, as is familiarity with concepts of database management. Candidates should have a minimum of a BA and either formal computer training or comparable experience. Strong written and verbal communications skills and the ability to work with both technical and non-technical people are necessary. Excellent salary and benefits. Send resume to Personnel, The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA 70130. Applications needed by the second week in January. From: mike@tome.media.mit.edu (Michael Hawley) Subject: Looking for mystery texts Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 17:22:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1843 (2136) I am looking for texts by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Agatha Christie. Please let me know if you have any pointers to on-line copies. Michael Hawley mike@media-lab.mit.edu From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Latin morphological analyzer for MS-DOS? Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 18:19:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1844 (2137) I am currently in need of a Latin morphological analyzer for MS-DOS. I would like such software to take a list of words (these happen to be from Ovid's Metamorphoses) and reduce the inflected forms to the proper lemmas. Any leads will be greatly appreciated. I'll post the results of this query back to Humanist, and I'll report my experiences with any software that turns up. Thanks very much. Willard McCarty From: "Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras" <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: Query: Genealogical software Date: 03 Jan 91 09:34:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1845 (2138) Does anyone know of any program (preferably shareware) for compiling and printing out family trees? I know there is some fairly fancy stuff available for people who are tracing their genealogies, but I want it for something a little bit simpler: helping my students keep all the characters straight in Icelandic sagas. ** Ruth Mazo Karras RKarras@PennSAS.BITNET ** Department of History RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.EDU ** University of Pennsylvania (215) 898-2746 (voice) ** Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379 From: Natalie Maynor <nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu> Subject: Re: 4.0854 Humanist: E-mail Etiquette Date: Thu, 27 Dec 90 12:34:16 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1846 (2139) As Willard has pointed out, the "oral" characteristics of this medium perhaps lead to a certain amount of repetition. Another reason for repetition is simply that the medium is growing: Repetition is inevitable as newcomers join discussions. Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: on repetition, again Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 18:02:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1847 (2140) In a limited sense what Tracy Logan calls a "great tool" for searching a large database does vitiate my argument from orality -- that repetition keeps a topic (and more) in remembrance. Accessing ideas by words doesn't provide for such a great tool, however; in Vannevar Bush's words, such a thing is "a stone adze in the hands of a cabinet-maker". Sure, a piece of sharp stone is better than nothing, but it isn't the fine chisel we need. Furthermore, things repeated, by being repeated, are marked as still important. What bothers me most of all, however, is the notion (if indeed it is in play for this particular argument) that this here new medium should be made to behave as if it were something we understand well. I don't think we do. Until we do a willingness to accept apparent misbehaviour as right action in an as yet unseen context is required, don't you think? I know, this argument too must be qualified. There are limits. This electronic society must find its own equilibrium. Willard McCarty From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: Death and names Date: Thu, 3 Jan 91 14:52:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1848 (2141) This subject ran about a month ago. I forwarded all the responses to the person who asked me the original question, and received the following response: "... I never expected such a great 'success' of my simple questions! and very interesting information and suggestions, leading to further meditation. So the technical progress is not only made for business purposes... Thanks to all persons who participated!" To which I add my thanks, MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Marco Simionato <uunet!microsoft!marcosi@cs.washington.edu> Subject: Mac Stack for Languages? Date: Fri Jan 04 14:53:38 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1849 (2142) I'm looking for a flashcard stack for the Macintosh to memorise words from foreign languages, or any such thing (basically a database storing words and their meaning, displaying then the words one at a time and then verifying the amount of words which the pupil can remember). Preferably shareware or freeware. Unbiassed suggestions for commercial products also welcome (dealers please don't reply!). Many thanks. Marco Simionato From: steven weisberg <WEISBERG@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: looking for criticism on josef skvorecky Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 14:53:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1850 (2143) Good new year to all Humanists: I am looking for any critical information on the Czech-Canadian author Josef Skvorecky. His main critic appears to be Sam Solecki <<Talkin' Moscow Blues>> and <<Prague Blues: The Fiction of Josef Skvorecky>>. In particular, I am looking for such criticism to deal with Skvorecky's 1977 novel <<The Engineer of Human Souls>> pub. by Lester & Opren Dennys 1984 translated by Paul Wilson. If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate hearing from you. Steven Weisberg, University of Guelph, Ont. Canada. (weiseberg@vm.epas.utoronto.ca) or (uog00230@vm.uoguelph.ca) From: Phyllis Wright <lbswright@brocku.ca> Subject: ATTENTION LIBRARIANS Date: 4 Jan 91 15:56 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1851 (2144) I am attempting to offer a bi and orientation program in the fall to international students in 5 different languages. Has anyone had any experience in this kind of instruction. I would like to hear from you. many thanks. Phyllis Wright Reference Librarian Brock University St Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1 416-688-5550, EXT. 3235 BITNET: LBSWRIGHT@BROCKU.CA ENVOY: ADMIN/BROCK.UNIV.LIBRARY From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Problems in annotating Erasmus' letters Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 19:44:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1852 (2145) My colleague James M. Estes is nearly finished annotating a volume of the letters of Erasmus for the Toronto edition of the _Collected Works of Erasmus_. He has four puzzles left, and asks if participants in Humanist can help him out. Please reply on Humanist, or directly to me: Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca. Here are four inquiries concerning the remaining four puzzles I am facing as annotator of CWE 10 (= Epp 1356-1534 in Allen V). I wonder if any of the learned folk on Humanist could help with them. 1. Allen V:501, lines 93-4 (Ep 1469, Erasmus to Nicholas Everard, 26 July 1524): `Iudaei non submouebant a lectione Geneseos, Cantici, et Ezechielis, quum in his voluminibus sit plurimum obscuritatis, nisi vsque ad annum trigesimum.' [`The Jews did not prevent anyone, after his thirtieth year, from reading Genesis, the Song of Songs, or Ezekiel, although there is much which is obscure in these books.] Erasmus' principal source for this statement is clearly Origen's Prologus in Canticum Canticorum, but Origen does not give the specific figure of thirty years (he only says `of mature age'). The question is, then: what is the source for the stipulation of thirty years? 2. Allen V:501, lines 115-18 (Ep 1469 again): `Quis non intelligat istos [theologos] sacras litteras ideo velle paucis esse notas, ne quid decedat ipsorum autoritati quaestuique? Hoc hulcus olim exacerbauit iureconsultos, euulgatis diebus fastis ac nefastis . . .' [`Isn't it obvious that the reason these men wish the holy scriptures to be known to a few is simply so as not to lose any of their present prestige or income? The lawyers were afflicted with the same sore when the calendar of business days and feast days was published . . .'] The point of the passage seems clear, but I can find no literature that tells me anything about the publication of a calendar of business days and feast days. 3. Allen V:586, line 58 (Ep 1519, Johann von Botzheim to Erasmus, 26 November 1524): `Oecolampadius si destitit a coepto, facit quod vellem . . .' [`If Oecolampadius has given up his project, he has done as I should wish . . .'] I can find nothing in the standard sources about a project undertaken or abandoned that would fit the chronological context of the letter. Allen's speculation in his footnote does not persuade. 4. Allen V:587, lines 83-4 (Ep 1519 again): `<Nec> libellus S. [S. Nicolai vita] nec dialogus [Dialogus bilinguim ac trlinguium] excusi sunt, idque ea causa: ego pollicitus eram musicos sonos.' [`Neither the St Nicholas pamphlet nor the Dialogue has been printed; and the reason is that I had promised the music.'] I haven't the foggiest idea what this is all about. What could music possibly have to do with the Dialogus, which I have seen, or the Nicolai vita, which I have not? (Both works are pamphlets attributed to Wilhelm Nesen and attacking the Louvain theologians). The only reward that I can offer to anyone who comes up with useful information is immortality in the form of an acknowledgment in the preface to CWE 10. With thanks, James M. Estes. From: Henning M|rk <slavhenn@aau.dk> Subject: agricultural texts Date: Sat, 5 Jan 91 22:15:06 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1853 (2146) Can anybody on the list help me to retrieve information about existing special language text bases? What I need to know is the following: Are there somewhere in the world text bases consisting of texts about agricultural/agro-industrial subjects - in any Germanic or Romance language? I need them to be able to compare with the text base I'm creating myself, containing Russian agro-industrial texts. Of course, I'm also interested in texts containing parts of my general field: farming in general; milk and cheese production; machine technology; etc. Thank you in advance. Henning Moerk Professor Slavisk Institut Aarhus Universitet 8000 Aarhus C Denmark slavhenn@aau.dk From: John Price-Wilkin <USERLD84@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: book sales figures Date: Sun, 6 Jan 91 12:16:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1854 (2147) A faulty member has asked me to post a request here concerning what has become a knotty problem of numbers. He is specifically interested in title by title sales numbers for English-language books over many years. Ideally, what he would like to find is a single (though serial) source that would list titles published each year and the number of copies sold. Realizing that this is probably unrealistic, he would be willing to settle for sales figures for "best-sellers" and "works of literature." And in the end, the three years he is most interested in are 1889, 1892, and 1895. I've spent some time looking in statistical indexes (ASI, SRI), historical indexes (Hist. Abs.), NCBEL (interesting sections on publishing, but no cigar), and our catalog. I've been able to locate contemporary statistical sources for best-sellers, but nothing historical and certainly nothing comprehensive. Short of identifying titles of interest and going through the archives of the respective publishing houses, is there anything that might provide this sort of information? It seems now that I've run into the question several times in a variety of forms, so help in locating a regularly published source with a broad scope would be greatly appreciated. John Price-Wilkin Univ. of Michigan jp-w@um.cc.umich.edu usergc8z@umichum.bitnet From: Charles H. Miller <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: Philosophy Job Date: Thu, 3 Jan 91 22:53 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 863 (2148) POSITION: PHILOSOPHY FACULTY Position: The philosophy department has one full-time, tenure track position beginning August 15, 1991. We would prefer a philosopher engaged with the work of Bernard Lonergan and committed to the Roman Catholic educational tradition and to undergraduate education. (Candidate need not be of the Catholic faith.) Duties: Four courses (12 hours) undergraduate teaching each fall and spring semester: Introduction, Ethics, upper level course(s). Qualifications: Ph.D. preferred. Successful undergraduate teaching experience. AOS: ethics, phenomenology. AOC: Work of Bernard Lonergan; philosophy of science. Institution: Largest Catholic university in the southwest (4000 students, five schools including Business and Law). Staffed by lay men and women and members of the Society of Mary (Marianists). Co-ed, multi-cultural, religiously diverse (80% Catholic) student body and faculty. Department: Philosophy department provides a three-course, nine- hour sequence in the core curriculum to all undergraduate students. Engages students in all disciplines. Undergraduate major offered. Rank & Salary: Assistant Professor. Salary competitive, commensurate with rank and experience. Deadline: Initial screening begins February 15, 1991, and applications will be accepted until the positions are filled. Starting date is August 15, 1991. Applications: Application, curriculum vitae, and supporting documentation should be addressed to: Dr. Conrad Kaczkowski, S.M. Chair, Philosophy Department St. Mary's University One Camino Santa Maria San Antonio, Texas 78228-8566 Affirmative Action / Equal Employment Opportunity Employer From: Lelio Camilleri <CONSERVA@IFIIDG.FI.CNR.IT> Subject: 2nd European Conference on Music Analysis Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 11:33:20 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1855 (2149) SECOND EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MUSIC ANALYSIS TRENTO (ITALY) 24-27 OCTOBER 1991 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT The conference has been organized by the Group for the Analysis and Theory of Music (GATM), the Accademia Filarmonica Trentina and the University of Trento. It takes up and continues the work of the conference organized at Colmar in 1989 by the Societe Francaise d'Analyse Musicale. It proposes to discuss above all several problems which have emerged in research during the past few years, ones which the classical tradition of analysis has so far touched upon only marginally. The conference will also take account of the fact that analysis is not solely the preserve of specialist expertise, but is an indispensible instrument of knowledge in all sectors of musical activity. The programme will take the following form: text deleted ... [eds.] The two plenary sessions will take the form of round-tables with invited speakers. The eight parallel sessions are open to contributions that are received at the office of the conference in the form explained below. The authors of contributions wich are accepted will be guests of the conference. In order to assure adequate time for open debate, the papers should be limited to a maximum of 20 minutes (corresponding to 8 typewritten pages of 1800 characters). Because of time limitations, it is advisable to use overhead projections or slides. In addition to the sessions indicated above, the organisers intend to provide a room equipped for the display of posters and any accompanying materials (videos, computer software etc.). From noon to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday, the authors of the posters will be able to illustrate their work. The official languages of the conference are: Italian, French, English and German. text deleted ... [eds.] The conference office is located at the Accademia Filarmonica Trentina, via Oriola 12, 38100 Trento (Italia), tel. (0)461 - 238008, fax 0(461) - 238166. CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS Those who wish to present a paper or poster at the conference should send an abstract by 31 March 1991. - PAPERS The abstract for a paper should adhere to the following points: 1. It should contain the full name, professional qualification, address and brief curriculum vitae of the author(s). 2. It should be sent in triplicate to the conference office. 3. It should give a clear description of the subject, the method and the objectives of the research. 4. It should be not less than 3 nor more than 6 typewritten pages long. 5. It should indicate the name of the session to which the author intends to contribute. 6.It should indicate what technical apparatus the author requires (musical instruments, audiovisual equipment, etc.) for the presentation. Those intending to offer a paper for the electro-acoustic music session can obtain a cassette recording of the piece by applying to the conference office. - POSTERS The abstract for a poster should adhere to points 1-3 above. Please note that: - Posters should measure 70x100 cm. maximum, should be self- explanatory and should be readable in two to three minutes. - For the present conference a poster can be supplemented with a computer program or a video-cassette. - The topics of the posters are free, i.e. not restricted to the themes of the conference sessions. Those wishing to supplement their posters with a computer program, should provide in their abstract, in addition to a summary description of the structure and the aims of the programme, complete information relating to the hardware and other necessary equipment. Those wishing to present a video-cassette should summarize, in their abstract, its contents and indicate the reasons for its use. - SCHEDULE Authors of papers and posters whose abstracts have been accepted will receive a written response from the conference office by 31 May 1991. Their final written work must arrive at the office by 1 September 1991. Papers should not exceed 8 typewritten pages of 30 lines, 60 characters per line. For further informations please contact the conference office at the following address: Accademia Filarmonica Trentina, Via Oriola 12, 38100 Trento (Italia), tel. (0)461 - 238008, fax 0(461) - 238166. -------------------- [A complete version of this Announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. Music91 Confrence. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Bernard Jackson <LA06@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> Subject: Conference: Semiotics of Law Date: Fri, 4 Jan 91 05:43:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1856 (2150) INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE SEMIOTICS OF LAW ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DE SEMIOTIQUE JURIDIQUE 7TH INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM August 14th-17th 1991 Utrecht, The Netherlands The colloquium will be held at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht at Utrecht, Holland, commencing at 14.00 on the 14th and concluding at 13.00 on the 17th August. Utrecht, with its architectural and artistic heritage, is close to Amsterdam. Participants arriving at Schiphol airport can take a train (approx. 30 minutes) directly to Utrecht. Participants who wish to travel on to the IVR Conference in Gottingen will have sufficient time get there either by train or aeroplane. Didactic Seminar The first 24 hours of the Colloquium will be devoted to a didactic seminar, at which invited speakers will offer analyses, each from the viewpoint of one of the main approaches within contemporary semiotics, of pre-circulated extracts from the European Convention on Human Rights. The theme of the rest of the conference will be: THE SEMIOTIC WEB OF LAW CALL FOR PAPERS Law and facts are not "given", but constructed in discourse. This assumption seems to widely held among present-day legal theorists, and, more broadly speaking, among legal semioticians. The creation of meaning in legal discourse is a process of interaction between a variety of signs. Many of these signs are of a linguistic nature, but visual and other signs of various sorts play their part as well. This is obvious for Anglo-Saxon legal practice, with its emphasis on orality and directness. A trial before a jury is not just an exchange of linguist utterances; it is a total event. In the civil-law tradition, with its mostly written procedures and the absence of a jury, the role of linguistic signs in the creation of meaning seems to be more prominent. However it would be misleading to suggest that non-linguistic signs do not come into play here. Continental European judges may not wear wigs, but they do wear robes. These different sorts of sign (cultural, historical, linguistic, etc.) that create meaning in legal discourse form what has been called a semiotic web. Legal semiotics then becomes the discipline of analyzing the semiotic web and determining how it produces what we call "law" and "facts". For the August 1991 IASL colloquium at Utrecht, papers which fit within the above theme will be welcome. Please send an abstract to Prof. Dr. Paul J. van den Hoven, Vakgroep Nederlands, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht , 3512 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands, Tel: 31-30-394093 or 394000; FAX 31-30-333380, to arrive no later than 1st April 1991. Full texts will be required by 1st June 1991, for production in a pre-conference booklet. -------------------- [A complete version of this Announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. Law91 Confrence. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "Francis,Bill" <RISKS@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: Genealogy Shareware Date: Fri, 4 Jan 91 6:24:23 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1857 (2151) RKaras of PennSAS asks about genealogy software. Thn best source for all shareware that I know of is a small company entitled "Public Brand Software." They list five genealogy packages. I like PBS because: -they are easy to reach (1-800-426-3475) -they have a 100 page catalog that they will mail to you free -the catalog is updated about twice a year and they make sure that you get a new one if you order regularly -they rate the shareware on various criteria in the catalog -they charge $5 a disk -- it is up to you to pay any shareware fees to the software authors -they have a BBS that allows downloads of all their software. The fee is $50 a year for thy use of the board one hour a day. There are many tools that Humanists might use listed in the catalog. Note: This is DOS ONLY (sorry Mac users, still searching for a comparable source). Bill Francis From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Information on Latin Parser Date: 04 Jan 91 14:46:02 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1858 (2152) --- Forwarding message from Harry Gaylord <galiard@nl.rug.let> Dear David, What were you asking me? Someone has written a parser for Latin in Prolog at Amsterdam. I can send you his address if you want it. Harry From: Rainer Henrich <K145310@CZHRZU1A> Subject: Reply: Problems in annotating Erasmus' letters Date: Mon, 07 Jan 91 14:28:41 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1859 (2153) I think that I can answer question no. 3: Oecolampadius was preparing his book DE LIBERO ARBITRIO, when Johann from Botzheim wrote his letter to Erasmus (November 26, 1524). Dedication is dated December 4, 1524, according to Ernst Staehelin, Oekolampad-Bibliographie, 2nd ed., reprint Nieuwkoop 1963, p. 49s, no. 101. The subject corresponds perfectly with the context (discussion about liberum arbitrium). Rainer Henrich, lic. theol. Bullinger-Briefwechsel-Edition Kirchgasse 9 CH-8001 Zuerich Switzerland From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: Re: 4.0862 Queries - Book sales figures Date: Tue, 8 JAN 91 12:05:40 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1860 (2154) John Price-Wilkin <USERLD84@UMICHUB.BITNET> asked about book sales figures ... [deleted quotation]... I passed on the query to a colleague at the Open University here in Milton Keynes, UK - this was his reply: start ********** Dear Mr Price-Wilkin, In reply to your questions: 1. I am currently preparing a monograph (to be published by the Bibliographical Society of London later this year) on `Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing 1800-1919'. This discusses and lists some of the major sources of statistical information on UK print production in the 19th and early 20th centuries. None of the sources is completely reliable, and none represents more than an interesting subset of total production. Furthermore, the figures I deal with are specifically UK rather than the broader `English-language' book figures for which you asked. Most of these sources list titles (or, if you are lucky, editions and impressions), none that I know of details print-runs or numbers of copies sold. As part of a Leverhulme-funded research project entitled `Productivity and Profit 1830-1939' I am directing a research fellow who is investigating the production records of various publishing and printing firms over the period. This will give us the chance to discover actual print-runs of bestsellers and other books although it will only be a sample of them, rather than the whole lot. The research project should be producing some results by the end of this year. Your colleague asks about the years 1889, 1892, 1895; to give you an example of what I'm working on, I list below two sources for those years taken from the first section of my monograph. The figures from the `Publishers' Circular' are numbers of titles published in that year and include some, but not all, reprints. The British Museum Copyright Receipt Registers gave a separate number for each printed item (so a three-decker novel would be regarded as three printed items). Publishers' Circular British Museum Registers 1889 6067 48551 1892 6254 55881 1895 6516 58893 If you want further information please do not hesitate to contact me via the Open University. Simon Eliot end ********** Hope this helps, Best wishes for 1991 Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) SA_RAE@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX (JANET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. phone (0908) 652413 fax (0908) 653744 From: TIBBO.ILS@mhs.unc.edu (TIBBO) Subject: ARIST Chapter Date: Mon, 07 Jan 91 09:52 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1861 (2155) I would like to thank all of the HUMANIST members who responded to my call for project descriptions and papers for the chapter on humanities information systems that I am compiling for the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. I wish I had time to converse with each of you individually, but as usual, time is short and the task is great. If you did not see my earlier message or if you too were too busy to respond, please send me any and all material you think might be useful to a literature review in this area. My first draft is due in February but I am sure that I can add new material after that date. Thank you again. Helen R. Tibbo School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27514 TIBBO@ILS.UNC.EDU From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0862 Queries (6/165) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 17:00:57 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1862 (2156) Prof. Moerk asked about specialized text bases on agricultural subjects. I know of none on this topic in particular, but he might look at the work on sublanguage, especially that done on the NYU string analysis project: Naomi Sager and company. From: tshannon@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: 4.0862 Queries (6/165) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 09:52:55 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1863 (2157) On Marco Simionato's question about Mac stackware for FL vocabulary learning, I'm aware of two commercial products, one of which I have seen and find useful. The first is Mac Flashcards by the Language Quest Software Co., Los Altos, CA; stacks for major Western European languages are available, though somewhat idiosyncratic in their choice of items, judging from the German stack. I also used a template provided me by the creator to make my own stack of Turkish vocabulary items. It worked out very well. Cost a while back was about $25. The other set of stacks is by Penton Overseas & is advertised in all major trade rags: VocabuLearn 2.0. I haven't seen it yet, but would be interested to hear reactions. Available for French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, and Japanese; cost $35 a pop. I hope that this information proves helpful. Any follow-up comments welcome. tom shannon, uc berkeley From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0865 Latin Parser Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 17:04:56 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1864 (2158) On the Latin parser: Gerald Culley, Languages, University of Delaware, has done an elaborate PLATO program for Latin that I believe icludes mor- phological analysis. You might try him (Foreign Languages, U of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716). From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM> Subject: CATNYP Date: Mon, 07 Jan 91 00:52:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1865 (2159) A few years back I gleaned a number for CATNYP, the on line catalog for the New York Public Library. However, the number no longer works. Does anyone have any information about the current state of affairs? Thanks... Julie From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: ALLEGRO-C Date: Mon, 07 Jan 91 12:20:26 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1866 (2160) Our History Institute has been offered to do all our bibliography stuff with Allegro-C, which has been developed here in Germany at the University of Braunschweig. As I have already heard, this package is very flexible to meet every need a user can have. However, as we do not want again to start using a new program and afterwards change to another better (?) one, I'd like to know whether any of you out there does already know this program and what experiences s/he has made with it. Thomas Zielke Historisches Seminar Universit{t Oldenburg Postfach 2503 D-2900 Oldenburg From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Textual Criticism Date: Sun, 6 Jan 91 14:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1867 (2161) I am presently trying to lay hands on two articles published in the same book, "Tekstkritisk Teori og Praksis", seemingly a conference proceedings publication (Oslo, 1988) mentioned by P.M.W. Robinson in two articles he wrote in LLC: namely LLC 4(3), 1989, p.181, footnote 14 and LLC 4(2), 1989, p.105, footnote 8. Unfortunately, no editor or publisher are mentioned. The two articles I wish somebody could send me the xerox of are: R.H. Pierce, "Multivariate Numerical Techniques Applied to the Study of Manuscript Traditions", 24-45. M. Rindal, no title mentioned, 46-62. I wish that those who have this volume at their disposal would contact me first. Thanks in advance. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: MIRLYN Information <USERGC8Z@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: phonetic analysis on ibm-compatible Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 20:22:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1868 (2162) Through roundabout means that have made it difficult to get particulars on this question I have been asked for information on ibm-compatible software packages suitable for doing comparative phonetic analysis of two Indian languages. The person would like to use IPA in the process. I have passed on information from the Humanities Computer Yearbook. I'd appreciate any leads (even comments) that Humanists have to offer on this. John Price-Wilkin jp-w@ub.cc.umich.edu usergc8z@umichum.bitnet Univ. of Michigan From: Simon Rae <SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK> Subject: request for information Date: Tue, 8 JAN 91 17:36:33 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1869 (2163) A request for a few moments of your time please. I am running a short, 1 day course about "Computing in the Humanities" towards the end of this month. I would like to present to those attending a sort of Polaroid snap-shot of the variety of Computer/ing work that is going on in the Humanities and Arts around the world. If your work is in the Humanities/Arts, involves Computing and you have perhaps a short ready-written description of what you are doing I would be very grateful if you could e-mail me a copy (even a couple of lines REPLYed on the fly would be appreciated!). Please reply to me at the e-mail address below. Thanking you in anticipation (and best wishes for the coming year), Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET) SA_RAE@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX (JANET) Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. phone (0908) 652413 fax (0908) 653744 From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Electronic Version of "A Room of One's Own" ??? Date: 8 Jan 91 13:04:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1870 (2164) Does anyone know of an electronic version of Virginia Wolf's essay, "A Room of One's Own"? or anyone with e-copies of Wolf materials? I'm making the request for another list: systers, which is women in Computer Science. Thanks, Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: "DAVID KELLY" <dkelly@apollo.montclair.edu> Subject: Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism ... ? Date: 8 Jan 91 09:13:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 869 (2165) Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, and Afrocentrism are topics very much in the news these days and of great interest to American humanists. I am in favor of multiculturalism which I interpret as a concern with the history, languages, literatures, and art (culture in general) of the various nations of our world (ancient and modern). In this regard, I cheerfully align myself with the Roman playwright Terence: Homo sum; humani nil alienum a me puto 'I am a human being, and I consider nothing that pertains to human beings alien from me.' I am disturbed, however, by the strident tone that the scholarly (political?) debate has begun to take. The New Republic recently (November 26, 1990) published a report by Andrew Sullivan on the Second National Conference on the Infusion of African and African-American Content in the High School Curriculum held in Atlanta the weekend of November 2. I quote some paragraphs from the article. <<My orientation began with a talk by Theophile Obenga of Marien N'Gouabi University in Gabon about how Greek philosophy was plagiarized from black African Egypt. ... After two days of seminars, Plato and Aristotle were vilified about as regularly as Reagan and Bush. This was strange since, according to the speakers, Plato and Aristotle had also derived their entire thought from black Africa. The irony was resolved by describing the Greeks as the West's "affirmative action kids," preferred by Western scholars for their race, but not as smart as Africans. ... One of the most popular talks of the weekend was given by Wade Nobles...It was imperative, Nobles argued that black education be rid of white influences. "When we adopt other people's theories, we are like Frankenstein doing other people's wills. It's like someone drinking some good stuff, vomiting it, and then we have to catch the vomit and drink it ourselves...The Greeks gave back the vomit of the African way...Don't become the vomit- drinkers!">> We could easily dismiss the ideas propounded in this conference as uninformed, nonscholarly and essentially racist, but I think they must be taken seriously. Many states and cities are considering adopting school curricula that incorporate many of such concepts (e.g. the Portland Plan). I would like to receive contributions from humanists who are interested in Greek philosophy, mathematics, or science and its relationship to earlier Egyptian and Phoenician work. Just how original was Greek thinking? Most helpful would be contributions from Egyptologists and Orientalists, coming at the question from the other side. A priori, I feel it is a question of balance (in medio veritas). Clearly the Greeks were influenced in many ways by the Egyptians and Asiatics. In art think of the kouroi, and perhaps most important of all there was the Phoenician alphabet. And yet, to my thinking the Greeks showed great originality and were surely not slavish borrowers (thieves?) of the ideas of others. Plato, for example, believed in and wrote about the transmigration of souls. Are not Egyptian ideas about the survival of the human being in the next life radically different? Perhaps another such example is the story in Plutarch's Moralia describing how Thales impresed the Egyptian king by measuring the height of a pyramid using proportional triangles; would this not imply (assuming the story has historical validity) that the Egyptian mathematicians could not do this? From: lakoff@cogsci.berkeley.edu (George Lakoff) Subject: Use of Metaphor in Justifications for War Date: Sun, 6 Jan 91 22:19:08 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 870 (2166) I am enclosing a work that I would like to be made available to members of the Humanist Network. It is a piece I have just done on the use of metaphor in the justifications given for war in the gulf. The introduction explains why I am posting it to the net rather than just publishing it in the usual fashion. Thank you. George Lakoff Linguistics Dept. U. of California at Berkeley December 31, 1990 To Friends and Colleagues on the Net: [deleted quotation]Professor of Linguistics, University of California at Berkeley (lakoff@cogsci.berkeley.edu) January 15 is getting very close. As things now stand, President Bush seems to have convinced most of the country that war in the gulf is morally justified, and that it makes sense to think of ``winning'' such a war. I have just completed a study of the way the war has been justified. I have found that the justification is based very largely on a metaphorical system of thought in general use for understanding foreign policy. I have analyzed the system, checked it to see what the metaphors hide, and have checked to the best of my ability to see whether the metaphors fit the situation in the gulf, even if one accepts them. So far as I can see, the justification for war, point by point, is anything but clear. The paper I have written is relatively short -- 7,000 words. Yet it is far too long for the op-ed pages, and January 15 is too close for journal or magazine publication. The only alternative I have for getting these ideas out is via the various computer networks. While there is still time, it is vital that debate over the justification for war be seriously revived. I am therefore asking your help. Please look over the enclosed paper. If you find it of value, please send it on to members of your newsgroup, to friends, and to other newsgroups. Feel free to distribute it to anyone interested. More importantly, if you feel strongly about this issue, start talking and writing about it yourself. Computer networks have never before played an important role in a matter of vital public importance. The time has come. The media have failed to question what should be questioned. It is up to us to do so. There are a lot of us connected by these networks, and together we have enormous influence. Just imagine the media value of a major computerized debate over the impending war! We have a chance to participate in the greatest experiment ever conducted in vital, widespread, instantaneous democratic communication. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake. During the next two weeks there is nothing more important that we can send over these networks than a fully open and informed exchange of views about the war. Here is the first contribution. Pass it on! -------------------- [A complete version of this paper is now available through the fileserver, s.v. LAKOFF METAPHOR. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: neal@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Jeannette Neal) Subject: Call for Participation Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 15:39:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 871 (2167) CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Workshop on Evaluation of Natural Language Processing Systems 18 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, CA There has been increased concern with the evaluation of natural language processing (NLP) systems over the past few years. The evaluation of NLP systems is essential in order to measure the capabilities of individual systems, to measure technical progress and growth in the field, and to provide a basis for selecting NLP systems to best fit the communication requirements of application domain systems. This 1991 Workshop is a follow on to the workshop on evaluation held in December of 1988 at the Wayne Hotel in Wayne, PA. Technical report RADC-TR-89-302 on the previous workshop is available from Rome Laboratory. Important issues for any evaluation effort and relevant to this workshop include identification of the items or capabilities to be evaluated, choosing between "black box" and "glass box" approaches, definition of evaluation criteria, development of methods or procedures for evaluation, determination of evaluation metrics, and determination of the type of output to be produced by the evaluation procedures. The areas of NLP relevant for this workshop include syntactic analysis, semantic analyisis, pragmatic analysis, lexical processing, morphology, sharable knowledge bases and ontologies, speech understanding, and trainable systems. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for computational linguists to report on and discuss current efforts and activities, research progress, new approaches, problems and issues; to promote scientific interchange on important evaluation issues; and to generate recommendations and directions for future investigations in the evaluation area. Workshop attendance will be by invitation, limited to 45 people. The workshop will be held June 18th at the University of California, Berkeley Campus, in association with the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. SUBMISSIONS: Interested participants should submit a 3-5 page abstract of their presentation and a brief description of their research activities. Persons desiring to attend the workshop, but not make a presentation, should send only a brief description of their research activities. All persons should include name, mailing address, phone number, and electronic mail address. Submission may be transmitted via electronic mail, U.S. Postal Service, or FAX. If hardcopy is submitted, please include six copies (including the original). Send submissions to: Jeannette G. Neal, Ph.D. Calspan Corporation P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225 (716) 631-6844 FAX: (716) 631-6722 neal@cs.buffalo.edu SCHEDULE: March 1, 1991 Submissions due April 1, 1991 Notification of acceptance/invitation ORGANIZATION AND PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Jeannette G. Neal, Calspan Corporation (Committee Chair) Tim Finin, Unisys Center for Advanced Information Technology Ralph Grishman, New York University Christine Montgomery, Language Systems, Inc. Sharon Walter, Rome Laboratory SUPPORT for this workshop is provided by Rome Laboratory. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0869 Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism Date: 08 Jan 91 16:31:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1871 (2168) Racism is racism and this is the century of racism. Alas. David Kelly and others may not have espied a particular book that is being relied on in the Afrocentric debates: Martin Bernal, *Black Athena*, first of several volumes slated to appear. This is, I think it *objective* to say, a crank book, by a professor of Chinese politics who, in the course of rediscovering his own ethnic and cultural roots, came to the conclusion that Greek wisdom is really Levantine and African. His book contains little that is new and true, but it offers a useful club for the politically aware to use to support claims that have in fact little scientific basis. It is perfectly true that the ancient Mediterranean was a cultural melting and swapping pot; and only a fool would fail to notice that `Western Civilization' depends on the use of an alphabet (from the semitic Phoenicians) and a number system (from the semitic Arabs) which were not indigenous to the `West'. I wrote in this space a week or two ago that the `Western Tradition' is a fairly recent cultural construct of dubious value; I would hold that the dubiousness of its value is underscored by the almost Hegelian generation of the antithetical cultural construct of Afrocentrism. Put another way, the weakness of analysis from an Afrocentric basis is already implicit in analysis from a Western Tradition basis. Both concepts have value; both may be abused, especially by racists. From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Re: 4.0869 Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 08:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1872 (2169) I too support the overall concept of multiculturalism. I do teach courses in African studies, but I also like to view things in the broadest possible context to give them better meaning. I suspect that education in America will ALWAYS be Eurocentric, and I say that in spite of my own point of view. I believe, that when the arguments eventually shake down, it will turn out that we are really only arguing over how much focus to give Eurocentrism. I think the focus desperately needs to be broadened and made more difuse. That is why I support multiculturalism. I'll be very surprised if we ever really stop being Eurocentric. I'll also be surprised if we don't broaden the focus. For me it is not changing away from Eurocentrism as much as lessening it. Norman Coombs From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Eurocentrism etc. Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 15:45 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1873 (2170) You raise the problem of Eurocentrism, etc... I don't want to comment on the specifically scholarly points raised by the problem, but I have a rather unusual perspective on it (I'm British, and teach ango-american philosophy at the American University in Cairo). What I think needs to be pointed out is that the political argument may be supported by a lot of questionable scholarship, but the political need is very real; the Third World (for want of a better term) is in a state of cultural subjugation, in which intellectuals are dependent in many ways on ideas and fashions imported from the West. (For example, a lot of my students seem to have studied Weber's "Protestant Ethic & the Rise of Capitalism" without actually knowing what protestatism is.) The impulse to reject all Western thought may be misconceived (I think it is, especially in the Arabic context, considering the common roots of Arab and Western thought in the Middle Ages), but nevertheless it has very real and very understandable political motives, & until the intellectual-political problems can be dealt with, I can't see that such impulses will go away. I think the problem of American blacks is more complex, & you obviously have to raise the question of Americanness vs. blackness, etc. I wouldn't know what to say about that... I hope this turns into an ongoing debate. We badly need to discuss it. Graham White American University in Cairo. From: Douglas de Lacey <DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [4.0869 Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism Date: Wed, 09 Jan 91 13:30:34 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1874 (2171) I look forward to the contributions of others on the relative originality of Greeks, Egyptians, Asiatics &c. But if the focus of the debate is the debt to "black African Egypt" then someone will need to tackle the question of when and where *black* Africans controlled life in Egypt. The Phoenicians ("most important of all there was the Phoenician alphabet") were semites, weren't they? Some dispassionate ethnological data would be very valuable in this debate. Regards, Douglas de Lacey From: John Slatin <EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0869 Multiculturalism, etc. Date: Wednesday, 9 January 1991 8:28am CT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1875 (2172) This is a response-- a truncated one-- to David Kelly's message; it is not, however, concerned with Greek philosophical texts, for which I apologize. Professor Kelly expresses concern over the language used by African American and African scholars at a recent conference, as reported in the New Republic last November, and particularly about calls to rid African and African American Studies curricula of the vestiges of white influence. I don't have my text beside me and so can't quote, but I refer Professor Kelly and other concerned humanists (and Humanists) to the opening paragraphs of Ralph Waldo Emerson's _Nature_ (1836) and his "American Scholar" (1837)-- essays widely regarded as providing a starting-point or rallying cry at any rate for what F.O. Matthiessen, the great Harvard scholar, called _The American Renaissance_. These essays, in language strikingly like that reported in the New Republic article cited by Professor Kelly, call for American artists and scholars to rid themselves of the influence of colonial powers in Britain and Europe, and to establish a curriculum based squarely on distinctively American values and materials-- values and materials which were yet to be discovered or created. I cannot think that Emerson was wrong to call upon his American colleagues to try to forge a collective identity and a new poetics to match-- to make it impossible for another Sidney Smith to sneer, "Who reads an American book?" There are still too many of us who ask, "Who reads an African book?"-- who say that African American writers have yet to prove themselves capable of producing great works of art (which is why they don't read novels or poems or plays by African American writers, it not being worth their time). Is it wrong for African Americans or Africans to wish to develop a reading of their history in the United States and the world at large that doesn't take as its warranting assumptions a body of belief rooted in European colonial expansion? Or is it simply discomfiting to be reminded so stridently that ours (white, male, Western) isn't the only way to understand the world and its history? John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Re: 4.0869 Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism Date: Wed, 09 Jan 91 18:22:53 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1876 (2173) The source of the claim that Greek scholarship is all taken from Africa, so confidently asserted at the conference that David Kelly mentions, is Martin Bernal's book _Black Athena: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985_ (Free Association Books, London, '87; Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, '87 -- only the first volume of a projected tetralogy has actually been published). The book's claim is that classicists, chiefly German, invented -- for reasons based more in racism and anti-Semitism than in the sources -- a view of Greek culture as having blossomed out of the natural (Aryan) genius of the Greeks, in place of the earlier view (as Bernal claims; he claims that this was the view of the Greeks themselves) that saw the Greeks as continuing foreign cultures, chiefly near eastern (Babylonian, Phoenician) and Egyptian. Bernal himself is not a classicist, and wrote the book both for scholarly and for avowedly polemical reasons (I don't have it in front of me, but he ends his introduction saying that the purpose of the book is to attack the cultural arrogance of Europe, or something similar). The book makes, of course, no claims as sweeping as the ones quoted by David Kelly, nor does its language, however strong, approach the vile tone that he quotes; but that is what happens when scholarship gets picked up at second- and third-hand by people who have a bone to pick (the same can be said of the author of the New Republic article, who must be presumed to have chosen the most objectionable quotes he had heard). The thesis itself has stirred up quite a controversy among classicists; the Fall, 1989 issue of _Arethusa_ was devoted entirely to the contents of a symposium on the subject chaired by Dr. Molly Myerowitz Levine at the '89 meeting of the American Philological Association. Perhaps the most interesting article in that collection, from the point of view of Afrocentrism, is that of Frank Snowden, whom Dr. Levine correctly describes as the person "who has been foremost in correcting racist distortions in modern readings of the classical iconographic and literary evidence on blacks," that the ancient Egyptian, although undoubtedly dark, were not what would today be called Negroid -- a claim that would surely be unsettling to the various claims quoted by David Kelly. The dust has by no means settled, nor have all the points raised been adequately dealt with, either favorably or unfavorably; and there are three more volumes to come! David Schaps Department of Classics Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel F21004@BARILVM From: JHUBBARD@smith Subject: Voltaire: History is a pack of lies Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 14:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1877 (2174) Can anybody give me the source for a comment attributed to Voltaire to the effect that "History is a pack of lies that we play on the dead." Thanks in advance, Jamie Hubbard, Smith College. From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Queries: Mac Language Spellcheckers and Chinese WP Date: Mon, 7 Jan 91 09:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1878 (2175) Hullo...in an effort to try to jump-start my modern languages faculty, I'm currently looking into spellcheckers for French, Spanish, German, and Russian. Please send me accounts of your experiences and/or rumours you've heard about standalone spellcheckers or foreign language dictionaries for MS Word and MacWrite II on the Macintosh. If there's enough information to so warrant, I will summarize back to Humanist. If anyone out there has any experience with Chinese word processors for the Mac, I'd also be grateful for some advice. Thanks in advance... - Matt Matthew Wall wall@campus.swarthmore.edu wall@swarthmr Humanities Computing Coordinator Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA 19081 From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: JAN15-L? Date: 09 Jan 91 11:35:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1879 (2176) Any suggestions/comments/preparations to employ the resources of e-mail to facilitate communication in the event of hostilities? How far do the nets reach? If the balloon goes up, we can expect a certain amount of frenetic communication, requests for information, etc.: is there any list in place or preparing that would serve to concentrate and channel such communication, both to make that communication more effective and to keep other lists from becoming swamped by news and rumors? From: C. David Perry <carlos@uncecs.edu> Subject: Note on UNC Press fire Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 22:40:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 874 (2177) The staff of the University of North Carolina Press greatly appreciates the many expressions of support following the fire that destroyed our office building on December 5. Fortunately, no one was injured, and although we lost a great deal of Press history, we can now report that all books on the spring 1991 list will be published on time. It is not surprising that, hearing news of the fire, many are concerned about the future of the Press. Despite the loss of our office building, we are in remarkably good shape. We have saved many paper and electronic files; our contracts are safe; our warehouse inventory was not involved in in the fire. And UNC Press editors and marketing staff were at our December book exhibits at the AHA, MLA, and AIA/APA as usual. Rebuilding our office building will take a number of months. In the interim, while we are housed in our temporary offices, you can reach us at the same telephone and FAX numbers--and at the same mailing address. Thank you for your good wishes. We have lost a building, but the University of North Carolina Press itself is very much in business, functioning well, and publishing award-winning books. The University of North Carolina Press David Perry PO Box 2288 Editor Chapel Hill, NC 27515 carlos@ecsvax 919-966-3561 carlos@uncecs.edu 919-966-3829 (FAX) 1-800-848-6224 (Orders) From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate.sfsu.edu Subject: RE:Moerk's query, Frawley's response Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 15:35:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1880 (2178) Naomi Sager's E-Mail address is: SAGER@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU From: "Francis,Bill" <FRANCISB@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: Chinese word processing on a Mac Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 21:48:13 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1881 (2179) Mr. Wall at Swarthmore inquires about Chinese word processing on a Mac. Since I posted a similar question in November and received many kind replies, I think it appropriate that I attempt to field the question first, and allow others to add, disagree, refine. Actually, my reply is long overdue but may save someone a bit of typing. I asked for software that can display traditional and simplified characters. Here is a summary of the replies. I am trying to obtain more detail on much of this. A hearty "thank you " to all of you that replied. [disclaimers: I have personal experience with Tian Ma on a PC only. I do not have any connections with any of these vendors] Tian Ma - PC version available now, Mac version by fall of 1991 (they hope) 818-332-4815 - Pacific Rim Software FEIMA from Wu Corporation - for more information see catalog from Cheng & Tsui, 617-426-6074. Attested to by a member of the Humanist list. Known to work on a Mac. Not sure about availability of PC version. Sent for a catalog today. Hanzi Assistant - Intellimation - 1-800-3-INTELL. Known to work on a Mac. Works with CD-ROM. Written at Dartmouth I believe. I have this on order. I know that a Chinese operating system for the Mac exists. It used to be sold through the Mac progammers group APDA (Apple Computer 408-974-4667). APDA now says they no longer carry this software and that the only way they know to obtain it is to get a subscription to DEVELOP magazine (I think). The magazine comes with a CD-ROM that includes the Chinese OS (they say). I have the magazine on order. Byte Magazine discussed the use of a Script Manager and the Macintosh International Utilities Package (Byte May 1990, p. 266). Still checking on this. NISUS 3.04 is reputed to be well-behaved and flexible in the treatment of characters. Paragon Software 619-481-1477 or 800-922-2993. Bill Francis Director of Computing Grinnell College From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM.BITNET> Subject: Journal Focus: Thought and Novation Date: January 8, 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1882 (2180) ANNOUNCING A SPECIAL ISSUE OF SUBSTANCE ON THOUGHT AND NOVATION What's new? How do we know that something is new? How is "newness" constituted? These are the questions asked by the guest editor of SUBSTANCE 62/63, the Philosopher and Historian of Science Judith Schlanger in a special issue on "Thought and Novation". The answers offered by historians, sociologists, biologists, philosophers, literary critics, etc. in this 220p volume are wide-ranging and provoking. The issue includes: Rene Girard: Innovation and Repetition; Daniel Lindenberg: France 1940-1990: How to Break with Evil? Saul Friedlander: The End of Innovation? Contemporary Historical Consciousness and the End of History; Jacques Schlanger: Ideas are Events; Benny Shannon: Novelty in Thinking; Henri Atlan: Creativity in Nature and in the Mind: Novelty in Biology and in the Biologist's Brain; Yehuda Elkana: Creativity and Democratization in Science; Isabelle Stengers: The deceptions of Power -- Psychoanalysis and Hypnosis; S. van der Leeuw: Archaeology, Material Culture and Innovation; Jean-Pierre Dupuy: Deconstruction and the Liberal Order; Elisheva Rosen: Innovation and its Reception; Francis Goyet: Rhetoric and Novation; Ruth Amossy: On Commonplace Knowledge and Innovation; Michel Pierssens: Novation Astray; Judith Schlanger: The New, the Different, and the Very Old; Pierre Pachet: Self-portrait of a Conservative; Alexis Philonenko: Reason and Writing. Order from: SubStance Journal Division University of Wisconsin Press 114 N. Murray Madison, WI 53715 USA One year subscription (3 issues): $19.00 (Individuals); $ (Students); $65.00 (Institutions). Back issues: $7.00. This special issue: $10.00 For more information: Michel Pierssens R36254@UQAM.BITNET or PIERSENS@cc.umontreal.ca or: Sydney Levy FI00LEVY@UCSBUXA.BITNET or FI00LEVY@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Current Postings of Etexts for FTP Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 07:23:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1883 (2181) To those interested in electronic text: Project Gutenberg has expanded its postings to several FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites around the United States and has a site in the works in Europe. We will be posting approximately a book a month at the sites listed below for the immediate future. Our goal is to increase this to a book a week in no more than a year or three. Of course, our goal of 10,000 books by 2001 will have to rely on the expected increases in storage over that period or you will have to request them sent on disks. As per our policy, all books will be posted at least on the local FTP mrcnext etext directory as "Pure Text" files. This means these texts would be readable just as they are by nearly any standard computer reader or word processor. In some cases, in which those donating space for FTP are severely limited, the files will be compressed and a .ZIP or .ARC or other extension is used following the titles, as opposed to a .TXT extension which denotes our pure text files. We are currently posting the two Lewis Carroll "Alice" classics, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. The purposes of these postings is to generate a usage of electronic texts any age group will enjoy and use. We hope to generate family usage, as well as usage in education. We encourage you to give anyone, anyone who has a computer or might have access to a computer the texts and to help them get started using them. If you send book titles you or your friends would like, we will try to post them. Our goal is to provide the texts which will be used most, as our effort is to create a literate and computer literate environment for the benefit of all. We would especially like to provide any texts for use in classroom and family applications. Current versions are Alice11.txt and Lglass10.txt. Others texts are also available at the various sites. The current FTP sites are: mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu or (128.174.201.12) cd /etext (Please do NOT use the mrcnext between 9AM and 6PM weekdays) (This will change to 9AM to 9PM in Feb) (Central Time) simtel20.army.mil or (26.2.0.74) pd:<books> (This computer has great archives and is used a lot, takes time) (The MSDOS portions of simtel are echoed on: wuarchive.wustl.edu (Please report your efforts on wuarchive) deneva.sdd.trw.com or (129.193.73.1) cd pub/etext (Our thanks to TRW) We appreciate your suggestions for corrections and emendations. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois, SIMTEL20 or TRW. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused.", From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.0872 ... Multiculturalism ... Date: Wed, 9 Jan 1991 20:37:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1884 (2182) John Slatin's evocation of Emerson's call for a new American nation to reject its European biases in favor of developing its own culture ignores one very crucial difference between that time and the present call for multiculturalism. Emerson was speaking to a people who lived an ocean apart from Europe. To apply Emerson's call here is to ask not for multiculturalism but particularism which tears at whatever threads there be that hold together this nation. There is a tremendous difference between developing a sense of the heritage of one's racial and/or ethnic group and learning to respect and be tolerant of others from different racial and/or ethnic groups, on the one hand, and being taught a politically correct vision of oneself that promotes disengagement from a multicultural society, on the other. The latter one of my colleagues refers to as making Pollacks where there were none. I am delighted to see this discussion underway. This may be the first such forum in which the discussion of multiculturalism produces more light than heat. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: RE: 4.0872 ... Multiculturalism ... Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 12:00 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1885 (2183) James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> writes: *Subject: 4.0869 Multiculturalism, Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism *Racism is racism and this is the century of racism. Alas. David Kelly *and others may not have espied a particular book that is being relied on *in the Afrocentric debates: Martin Bernal, *Black Athena*, first of *several volumes slated to appear. This is, I think it *objective* to *say, a crank book, by a professor of Chinese politics who, in the course *of rediscovering his own ethnic and cultural roots, came to the conclusion that Greek wisdom is really Levantine and African.... ********************************************************************* I do not know Professor Bernal, but speaking of ethnic/cultural roots, the Bernal family of Ireland has a tradition that they are descended from Marranos who fled Iberia and subsequently reached Ireland where they eventually became "true" Catholics. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: BRIANW@VM2.YorkU.CA Subject: Re: 4.0872 ... Multiculturalism ... Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 17:42:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1886 (2184) The most powerful characteristic of the "western tradition" or the Eurocentric tradition is probably the habit of seeing one's own culture in a tension, either creative or destructive, with a more prestigious foreign culture. I am most familiar in my own research with the attempts of sixteenth-century English writers to both import the best from the Greeks and Romans and at the same time to develop a distinctive culture of their own. Sir Philip Sidney's _Defence of Poetry_ is one of the classics in this vein. Bossuet's _Defense et Illustration du Langue Francaise_ made a similar case for French literature. In Italy, the explicit tradition goes back at least to Dante's _De Vulgari Eloquentia_. In our own time, the struggle is less often against Eurocentrism than against Americacentrism... whether English departments outside the United States should consider teaching as much of their own literature as they do of American literature. In the social sciences, there are parallel questions of whether the discussion of race anbd ethnicity should be dominated by the study of black American culture even at schools where the majority of black students are from Africa or the West Indies, and the largest "visible minority" may be Chinese or East Indian. Brian Whittaker Atkinson College, York University From: ENCOPE@LSUVM Subject: INTERNET LIB Date: Mon, 07 Jan 91 11:33:28 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1887 (2185) This is an issue that's been treated many times on HUMANIST, so please answer to my private address, ENCOPE@LSUVM. Two questions: Am I correct that the name for the file listing libraries with online catalogues is INTERNET LIB? To which listserv to I address a request to "get" this file? Thank you. Kevin L. Cope From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Margaret Cheney's e-mail address Date: 9 Jan 91 13:54:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1888 (2186) Margaret Cheney sent me a note and I seem to have lost it before I could respond. I'd appreciate knowing her address so I can contact her. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu mdharris@guvax.bitnet From: Bill Kupersmith <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: Humanist Latin Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 12:48 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1889 (2187) For no good reason, I happened to glance at Milton's Latin elegies on the Bishops of Winchester ("Elegia tertia" and of Ely ("Anno aetatis 17: In obitum Praesulis Eliensis") and suddenly realized that I had never encountered the word "praesul" before in Latin. Checked Oxford Latin Dictionary and discovered it meant "A dancer at the head of a religious procession or sim." citing Cicero, Div. 1. 55. That's all. Lewis and Short were a little more helpful and I discovered Cicero used the word four times in Div. (and I assume nowhere else) and that there are post-classical uses of "praesul" to mean "a presider, president, director, patron, protector, etc." Fine, but when did "praesul" come to mean "bishop"? I know the Renaissance humanists tried to banish post-classical words from their Latin vocabularies, so that they might have found the word "episcopus" (the normal church Latin term, borrowed from Greek, and from which our word "bishop" comes) unacceptable. Did other humanists besides Milton use "praesul" to mean "bishop"? (The Bush commentary on the Latin poems of Milton doesn't mention the word.) The only other neo-Latin poem about a bishop that I know is Crashaw's on Lancelot Andrewes' picture, and it's entitled "In Picturam Reverendissmi Episcopi[!] D. Andrews." Was there perhaps an Anglican vs. puritan distinction between "episcopus" and "praesul"? Then too, how did humanist writers refer to other ranks of the hierarchy of the Christian church? "Presbyterus" seems to have "sacerdos" as an acceptable Classical equivalent, and I assume "Pontifex maximus" is the Classical alternative for "Papa." But what about other ecclesiastical titles? As there seem to be lots of experts on Renaissance humanism on Humanist (as indeed there should be) I hope someone might know. --Bill Kupersmith University of Iowa From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0873 Queries: Voltaire ... Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 12:51:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1890 (2188) Jamie Hubbard asks for the source of the remark attributed to Voltaire ("History is a pack of lies that we play on the dead."). I cannot help except to confirm that my old teacher, Ira O. Wade, used to cite the remark as Voltairean in the following form: "History is a pack of lies the living play upon the dead." That used to set me musing that politics was a pack of tricks the living play upon the living. [Sorry, it was "tricks" and not "lies" that Wade used to say.] From: Karl Van Ausdal <VANAUSDALK@APPSTATE.BITNET> Subject: Voltaire query Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 15:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1891 (2189) Anthony Shipps (Indiana University) responded to the same Voltaire query in the Winter 1986 issue of *RQ* (v. 27, no. 2, p. 149) He cited the source as Will Durant's *The Story of Philosophy* (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1926, p. 241), noting that Durant gave the context as one of Voltaire's letters to a Mme. du Chatelet. The wording that Durant used was: "History is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead." Karl Van Ausdal Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28607 704-262-2389 From: 1ECHAD@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU (Helen Aristar-Dry) Subject: RE: 4.0861 Rs: On Humanist Date: Thu, 10 Jan 1991 8:47:37 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1892 (2190) Just want to second Willard's remark that, as yet, we don't understand the net-medium well enough to critique the ways we (are learning to) use it. Not only do I like the sound common sense in that comment, but also the co-operative spirit. One thing I like about the scholarly community I access on Humanist is our apparent tolerance and flexibility, and the way we help each other learn. (I say "apparent" because I don't know how many tacky messages get suppressed by the moderators--but I honestly doubt that it's many!) Helen Aristar-Dry From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: multiculturalism Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 23:21:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1893 (2191) C. K. Stead, in the last TLS of 1990, has written an interesting article on the bi-cultural situation in New Zealand, "Pakeha provincialism, Maori small-mindedness", which supplies a useful complement to the intelligent remarks of our colleague in Cairo. I'll try not to quote too much of this article, since I do have other things to do with the remainder of the evening, but some will out. Stead remarks on the way in which NZ literature has become something of an instrument of state policy, with its attention to Maori and its frowning upon Eurocentrism. "All of this can be seen as an appropriate post-colonial tidying.... Yet I find myself as much out of sympathy with official policy now as I was thirty years ago when that policy tended still to colonial subservience. The demand for independence, for a distinct New Zealand culture, which once seemed liberating, has begun in recent years to take on the feel of a new provincialism, a constriction, a retreat inward, a closing of doors rather than an opening.... "It is perhaps because of [the] contraction of the world [due to ease and cheapness of travel and speed of communications] that local differences are being insisted on so strenuously. [Stead describes how 23 NZ writers denounced a government minister's proposed gift of a flat in Bloomsbury for those who might want to live and work in London for short periods, and a counter proposal to spend the money on an island off the coast of NZ, accessible only by rowboat]. This particular brand of "fear of flying", it seems to me, demonstrates not a strong new independent identity but, on the contrary, a persistent uncertainty. Worse, it represents a failure to face up to, and come to terms with, the world as it exists in 1990.... "The time has come for those who are seriously committed to a New Zealand literature to reaffirm our British and European inheritance, and our consequent kinship to the English language as it developed in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Africa; to acknowledge the strengths we have drawn from those traditions and from recent developments, and the resources that remain there to be tapped; to acknowledge above all that poetry, like all the arts, defines itself by means of a tradition. There must always be some significant reaching back into the past, a drawing on what has gone before, and at the same time a sense of forward movement, like the flow of a river... "The time has come for us to stop apologizing for our European culture, as if it was something that compromised a true local identity; and to stop anxiously inventing things to put in its place. I wonder whether something like that was what Anne French, one of the most notable of New Zealand's younger poets, had in mind when she concluded her recent poem "Cabin Fever" with the following lines (a waka is a Maori canoe): "It all depends on where you're looking from. The country viewed from an Air New Zealand F27 on a misty winter morning, might just resemble a J boat, very broad in the beam, sailing bravely south away from Europe and towards the ice, or a waka, small as a room, unstable in a big swell, blown off course and heading nowhere in particular." Willard McCarty From: "DAVID KELLY" <dkelly@apollo.montclair.edu> Subject: multiculturalism etc. Date: 13 Jan 91 06:44:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1894 (2192) Several of those who responded to my recent posting on multiculturalism mentioned Martin Bernal's recent *Black Athena*. O'Donnell in particular called it "a crank book" and observed that it "contains little that is new and true." The book has been reviewed in many places, and it might be useful to list some of these reviews. Jasper Griffin, *New York Review of Books* v. 36 June 15, 1989, p. 25-27. Minnas Savvas, *Classical World* no. 6 (1989) p. 469. Martha Malamud, *Criticism* vol. 31, no. 3, p. 319-22. James Muhly, *Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology* 3/1 (1990) p. 83-110. It is clear that Bernal's scholarship is being used by many to attack what has been called (rightly or wrongly) western civilization. How good is his scholarship and should it be taken seriously? Muhly's review is most unfavorable, and I would like to quote some of his observations. <<In my estimation Bernal does not understand the nature of historical scholarship. Historians work from evidence; they try to evaluate all available data and, on that basis, to formulate reasonable hypotheses. (88)>> <<Bernal is confident that there were Egyptian and then Phoenician colonies in Greece from at least the time of the Hyksos and the arrival of Danaos...Forhim the subsequent history of Greece simply makes no sense without such early colonies; therefore such colonization must be accorded historical reality. (89) >> <<Grote decided that the proper study of Greek history began with the establishment of the Olympic games...For Bernal, figures out of the remotest Greek past, especially Danaos and Kadmos, are reinstated as full-fledged players in the drama of Greek history. But what sort of evidence does Bernal provide for this dramatic reinstatement? None whatsoever, save for the argument that they must be there inorder to make sense of what follows. (90-1) >> <<Bernal defended himself [from the attack by Frank Snowden at the symposium mentioned by Schaps] by saying that the title of *Black Athena* was forced upon him by his publisher because 'black women still sell books'. I find this cynical attitude towards publishing books entirely unprofessional. Nor, alas, does it seem to be entirely true. Bernal has been teaching a course on *Black Athena* at Cornell for some years now and he has always used that title in his course. Is it not then one that he himself favors, rather than one forced upon him by his publisher? (104-5) >> End of Quotations from Muhly. Aside from foreign conquest and colonization of Greece in the second millennium by Egyptians and Phoenicians (Danaos and Cadmus), Bernal seems to maintain that many Greek philosophers and mathematicians in the archaic and classical periods studied in Egypt and Phoenicia and merely transmitted the older knowledge and thus have little claim to originality. I feel that Bernal's epistemology is flawed. Knowledge is not an object that can be transmitted like a computer file to a listserver. David Kelly, Montclair State Colleg, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 dkelly@apollo.montclair.edu From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: RE: Jan. 15 Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 11:53 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1895 (2193) As an Israeli on the net, I am not too far away from what is going on. Can you make a closer connection? __Bob Werman The Hebrew Univesity Jerusalem rwerman@hujivms From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0878 Queries (3/69) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 12:01 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1896 (2194) I'm no expert on Renaissance Humanism, but on praesul the ever- helpful Krebs-Schmalz Antibarbarus has the following note: Fuer die Geschichte des Wortes praesul ist interessant, dass der Papst Gelasius die Paepste praesules rerum divinarum nennt! Vgl. Archiv XII S.5, wo einiges Material zu einer Geschichte des Bedeutungswandels von praesul gegeben und auch das nach Gelasius gebildete Wort praesulatus erwaehnt ist. Archiv is the Archiv fuer Lateinische Lexicographie (the prelude to the Thesaurus Linguae latinae), which is not to hand. For the history of the word in antiquity, the relevant fascicle of the Thesaurus itself is either out or just about to appear (I'm not up to date). Don Fowler. From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0878 Queries (3/69) Date: Fri,11 Jan 91 13:55:43 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1897 (2195) It is now many years since I studied Milton as a history undergraduate working on the English Civil War, but I would guess the simple (and no doubt naieve) answer is that praesul was being used to describe the episcopacy in a pejorative sense. For better or worse I would put Milton as a puritan first, humanist second. Nicholas Morgan Glasgow & Edinburgh From: Brad Inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Praesul query Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 09:33:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1898 (2196) A learned colleague confirms that praesul is used for bishop as early as the fifth C A.D., and possibly in the fourth. We have not troubled to hunt down textual evidence, but the place to look is Diehl's collection _Inscrip- tiones Latinae Christianae Veteres_. It is apparently also common in medieval English cathedral epitaphs. From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: praesul Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 16:14:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1899 (2197) Bill Kupersmith wants to know about "praesul" as term for _bishop_. I've just checked the Dartmouth Dante Project, hoping some 14th-c. commentator might have offered a clue. Not really. But a good ten commentaries do cite the text of the [Ambrosian?] hymn _Te lucis ante_ in response to Dante's citation of its incipit at _Purg_. VIII, 13. The 4th verse asks aid from God as "praesul et custodia"; not much help, I'm afraid, but perhaps worth the notice. I have found the database of help with such queries on other occasions. Those of you who would like to use it are reminded that all you need is access to Internet; consultation is still utterly w/o cost (blessings on Dartmouth). To subscribe for a free acct. send e-mail to "dante@eleazar.dartmouth.edu" (you do need to have an acct. in order to log on). From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@VM2.YorkU.CA> Subject: Mac language spell checkers Date: Sat, 12 Jan 91 09:53:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1900 (2198) The NISUS word processor from Paragon Concepts comes with dictionary, hyphenation dictionary and thesaurus for American English. One can also purchase the same items for standard English (they call it British English, although it is the sandard English everywhere in the English- speaking world except the United States), and for German. The spelling and hyphenation dictionaries, but not the thesaurus, are available for French, Italian and Spanish. Specialized legal and medical dictionaries are available in both American and "British" English. Nisus is also available in complete foreign language versions in German, French and Korean, the latter using "the Korean operating system hangulTalk", according to the information that came with my package. I use the (standard) English dictionary and thesaurus, as well as the French and German dictionaries, and find them fast, efficient and well-stocked. The English dictionary and thesaurus strike me as better than the MS WORD counterparts, but that's a subjective observation. WORD is much more common among the Mac users at York, and I have written both a stylistics text book for desk-top publishing and a scholarly book on Old English for submission to a publisher using WORD. However, I have used Nisus for a couple of years for things that WORD could not handle and am now using NISUS to rewrite the stylistics text book. Most word processors are set up primarily for business corespondance and most can handle little else with any ease or effectiveness. NISUS is the only one that I have found for the MAC that a Humanist can use as more than a typewriter. There is a built-in GREP (Unix-style) search and replace function that can be used for tasks as varied a translating formatting codes from UNIX or from the Text Encoding Initiative into Macintosh paragraphs, fonts and font styles, or for more linguistic purposes such as concording or listing collocational sets. The latest version of NISUS, 3.04, also has a built-in scripting language for creating more sophisticated descriptive funcitons. NISUS also has a drawing layer that permits you to superimpose graphics on the text, a very useful tool if you like to be able to circle key words and draw arrows between repeated words for intructional purposes. Disclaimer: I have no connection with Paragon Concepts other than as a very satisfied user. Brian Whittaker Atkinson College, York University From: N.J.Morgan@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Securing vanishing portables Date: Fri,11 Jan 91 14:18:17 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1901 (2199) Just before the Christmas holidays, in a typical pre-season rush of burglaries, our flat was broken into and my very portable Toshiba removed. My employers have replaced the machine, and the majority of my files were backed up onto tape, so not too many problems there. But I do resent the thought of someone else using the machine, and if they are not too clever, getting access to my work files, letters etc. Perhaps I shouldn't, as I have far less to lose than the (ex) Wing Commander in the British Air-Force whose stolen pc contained (it is rumoured) battle plans for the Gulf. Nonetheless, is there a way to prevent someone making use of a machine, by password perhaps, that either means it is totally inoperable, or that the hard-disc must be wiped and the machine re-configured before it can be used? I'm using Dos 3.3 (although I have Dos 4 also) so would really like to know of third party software that might do the trick. My computer experts are trying to find out, but I thought Humanist might be able to help. Nicholas Morgan Sometime research fellow in Scottish History University of Glasgow and Archivist United Distillers plc From: A. Davies <davies@let.rug.nl> Subject: Eucharist Frequency Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 20:15:39 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1902 (2200) Has anyone any ideas about the frequency of communion recommended by the Western Church between 7th-14th centuries (especially in Britain)? So far I've managed to find the following sources: Bede's Letter to Egbert (734); Council of Clovesho (747); Theodulf's "Capitula" (c.800); Aelfric's homily "De doctrina apostolica" (between 998-1005). But there must be more. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: repetition? Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 22:27:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1903 (2201) The following query was first sent out to the members of Ficino, an electronic seminar for Renaissance and Reformation studies. I apologize to those who are seeing it for the second time, though perhaps in this specific case the sin illustrates the problem. In the course of marking up the text of a poem for analysis with the text-retrieval program TACT, I have started to wonder again about the phenomenon of repetition and how it might be recognized by computer. In part my question here has to do with computer programs specifically -- I'd like to know if anyone knows of an existing piece of software -- in part it is about the nature of the phenomenon. I realize that repetition is an enormous topic with fuzzy boundaries. At the moment I'm preoccupied with only a very small part of it: repetition of small phrases, words, syllables, sounds. A specific example, from Ovid's Metamorphoses: uror amore mei: flammas moveoque feroque. quid faciam? roger anne rogem? quid deinde rogabo? quod cupio mecum est: inopem me copia fecit. (Met. 3.464-6) No one will have much difficulty figuring out the repetitions here, or in any relatively small passage, but what about in very large sections of text? I would like to know, for example, how accurate my sense is that in certain sections of the poem the amount of repetition increases dramatically, and where those sections are -- without having to specify repetitions of what. Of course we have every reason to believe that echoic verse would characterize the story of Narcissus, but if we knew where else repetition was prominent, we'd be able to say some interesting things, perhaps. If we had an automatic procedure to find simple repetition, then we could look at much larger bodies of text. Does anyone know of appropriate software? Is it possible to define an algorithm that would detect it? More generally, are there linguistic and other studies of the phenomenon that I should know about? If we understood repetition well on this level, wouldn't it then be possible to be more exact about literary allusions? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Willard McCarty From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: age of e-mailers Date: 13 Jan 91 13:52:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1904 (2202) Has anyone else found themselves automatically assuming that all/most e-mail correspondents are more young than not? Only to be disabused sharply from time to time. I am myself neither old nor young, and only realized how casually I had gotten to assume that most of these people squirting e-mail back and forth were at least younger than I am, when a couple of messages, from people who *seemed* to have qualities I would associate with youth (energy, flexibility, interested in new things and ideas) turned out to be at least fiftysomething. I've said here before that e-mailers are like angels, bodiless intellects reduced to thought and articulation (all other functions reserved for the non-e-mail parts of our lives). Is this also the old Irish Tir na n-Ogh, Land of the ever-young? Have we found the fountain of youth? From: tgmcfadden@ucdavis.BITNET Subject: Humanist Posting Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 13:07:23 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1905 (2203) Does anyone know the source of the following lines? He only can behold/ With unaffrighted eyes/The horrors of the deep/ And terrors of the skies. Please reply directly to me: tgmcfadden@aggie.ucdavis.edu Thank you. From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: DIMDI Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 18:12:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1906 (2204) There seem to be some interesting German-language databases, mostly in science areas, available through DIMDI (Deutsche Institut f"ur Medischine Datenbasisen? und Information?) which is located somewhere in K"oln. They don't seem to want to have on-line searches, except through Tymnet, and to have no discernible computer address. Has anyone used these databases or have any information about how to access them? Ed Haupt Montclair State College haupt@pilot.njin.net From: CHENEY@SELDC52.BITNET Subject: E-text of the Koran? Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 13:01 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1907 (2205) I am posting this on behalf of a friend who does not (yet) have direct access to EARN: I am looking for an electronic text of the entire Koran in the original Arabic as well as any supplementary materials which can be used in Arabic language Islamic studies. Please send any replies directly to me and I will compile them and give a general report later. Michael Cheney Lunds universitet From: al649@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Martin J. Homan) Subject: Semantic Domain Dictionary on the Hebrew OT Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 12:55:40 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1908 (2206) I was reading in article by E. A. Nida about a proposed semantic domain dictionary on the Hebrew Old Testament. The work is to be done by the Institute for Interlingual Communication of the South African Bible Society. It will supposedly be similar to the Greek New Testament semantic domain dictionary by Nida and Louw. Is the project in process? Will it become a reality? What is its estimated publication date? -- Martin Homan God's Word To The Nations Bible Society Cleveland, OH al649@cleveland.freenet.edu From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: RE: 4.0882 Queries: Toshiba Security Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 00:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1909 (2207) Regarding passwording programs and the security of portable PCs, there are a number of commercial and public domain passwording programs available. Software security can be circumvented. Hardware is better. The old Epson Geneva laptops (remember CP/M?) had a password option in its dynamic memory which could only be bypassed by resetting the system and erasing everything previously stored. Some of the more expensive NEC portables (386 with hard drive) have a password in ROM which appears to be quite secure. There was a report of some in Canada stolen from a government office which were brought to dealers shops for "repair" by their possibly unsuspecting new owners who had bought them at a bargain price. Perhaps Toshiba has a ROM-based password option. Be warned though, if you forget your password, you may have to return your machine to the factory. Morgan Tamplin Trent University From: Jose Igartua <R12270@UQAM> Subject: Re: 4.0882 Queries: Toshiba Security Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 17:21:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1910 (2208) One of the reasons I like my NEC ProSpeed 386 is that it has password protection in ROM as an option in its Setup utilities. I had a tense moment some months ago when I resumed working with the machine and had forgotten the password, but it came back to mind. I have written on the machine that it is password-protected in ROM. There have been a few cases of such machines being retrieved after a theft here in Canada when the thieves called NEC asking how to get aroung the password protection... For other machines, there are ways to write autoexec.bat files that will make the characters the same color as the background (and thus unreadable) unless a password is provided. But of course one can boot with a floppy and get around this form of protection. From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: eucharist and praesul Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 10:10:07 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1911 (2209) A good starting-point for the recent questions about "praesul" and frequency of communion is to consult Timothy Reuter and Gabriel Silagi, Wortkonkordanz zum Decretum Gratiani (5 vols., Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1990). The Decretum, for those unfamiliar with it, was the twelfth-century synthesis of church law, drawing on standard texts from the Bible to its own present day. Using it I found a huge number of entries for communio which I haven't gone through, a small number for eucharistia, which turned up e.g. statements by Augustine that he does not condemn or approve daily communion but does think that one should take communion every Sunday and by Pope Fabianus and by the Council of Agde that to be considered Catholic one must take communion at the very least at Easter, Whitsun and Christmas. These texts are of course earlier than the period mentioned in the query, but that doesn't mean they weren't applicable then. For praesul there are some sixty entries and again I didn't go through them except to note that the use in ecclesiastical Latin to mean bishop is evidently very early. I apologise for plugging my own production, but it was nice to have confirmed once again that the thing could be used effectively to answer real questions. Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica From: "Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras" <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: communion; praesul Date: 14 Jan 91 11:55:57 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1912 (2210) The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 mandated annual communion for the whole Roman church. If you check Powicke & Cheney, _Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church_, vol. 2, you will find this reiterated in English episcopal legislation. _Praesul_ is used for "bishop" in twelfth-century Latin satirical literature-- for all I know it's a continuous usage throughout the Middle Ages. ** Ruth Mazo Karras RKarras@PennSAS.BITNET ** Department of History RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.EDU ** University of Pennsylvania (215) 898-2746 (voice) ** Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379 From: Kevin Berland <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: Can the Feds take your PC? Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 08:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 887 (2211) Might this article be of interest to Humanist readers? Forwarded from: International Intercultural Newsletter <XCULT-L@PSUVM> Originally from: Aruna Venkataraman <ARVHC@CUNYVM.BITNET> Saw this article in the essay section of a recent Lotus publication. The author, George Bond, is "LOTUS's acting managing editor and a consultant who specializes in communications issues." CAN THE FEDS TAKE YOUR PC? by George Bond We're inching our way toward the much-heralded communications revolution. It probably won't come to full flower in this decade, but it has already begun to worry the vast bureaucracy of our government: The Thought Police are moving from the shadows to the front lines once again. A taste of what we can expect was offered earlier this year, when Craig Neidorf, the 20-year old publisher of an electronic newsletter called PHRACK, was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service. Neidorf published PHRACK on Internet, a computer-based network that serves millions of people in 35 nations, chiefly in universities, high-tech companies, government, and research-and-development labs. But when he published an internal BellSouth document describing the administration of the 911 emergency telephone system, Neidorf was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. His computer equipment was seized, and he faced up to 31 years in prison and a $122,000 fine. The case received wide publicity, and the government ultimately dropped the charges--after Neidorf's cause was taken up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization started by Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor and Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak to protect civil liberties in the electronic age. Because PHRACK was publised electronically, said the foundation, Neidorf had been denied the First Amendment rights of traditional publishers. Neidorf's lawyer compared the seizure of Neidorf's computer equipment to the seizure of a newspaper's presses, something no U.S. administration has dared to do. Three basic factors contributed to the government's audacity in the Neidorf case. First, the newsletter was published electronically, and electronics were unknown when the Constitution was written. Despite the certainty that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the rest of that band of radicals would have *loved* electronic publishing, our basic free-speech laws have been viewed primarily as relating to paper-and-ink publishing and street- corner oratory. Second, telecommunications technology, at least in forms other than the telephone and the fax machine, is still black magic to most of us. Even people working in the electronics industry often find telecommunications baffling. Because the technology isn't well understood, if it's understood at all, telecommunications issues rank well below the fate of the whales, the greenhouse effect, and the price of racquetball-court time on most people's list of worries. Third, telecommunications *is* being used for a lot of questionable or unsavory purposes by self-centered propeller heads and slime balls. Regrettably, among the fans of computer networks are bookies, drug dealers, pornographers, white supremacists, and system crackers (dubbed "hackers" in the popular press), who invade medical, commercial, and governmental computers to steal information or just for a thrill. A lot of lawyers are going to get very rich thrashing out the first factor. The idea that the Constitution deals with concepts and not with mechanical processes--that the First Amendment protects all expression, whether it comes via printing presses, soap boxes, radio waves, computers and telephone lines, or some medium we haven't even thought of yet--is sometimes hard to grasp. Technology will take care of the second factor in time. Although it's still complex and prickly, telecommunications is being tamed and made more accessible by the engineers and the usability people. And despite the slow progress, American businesses continue to pour millions of dollars into the field. It's the third factor that's bad news for civil libertarians. Where documented abuse exists, it'e easy to confuse the activity with the medium, and it's hard to defend someone you despise. Yes, people who use telecommunications to steal or to destroy what they don't own should be arrested and tried and, if found guilty, jailed and fined. But they should be arrested and tried for the theft and destruction, not for using a computer and telephone lines. ***** END OF ARTICLE ***************************************************** From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: RE: 4.0870 Use of Metaphor in Justifications for War (1/80) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 91 12:14 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1913 (2212) I feel that there is no room for a politically motivated paper - of such inordinate length, no less - as that of Prof. Lakoff's on the Humanist Net. I voice my strongly felt disgust and disappointment that the Net be used cynically for such unscholarly purposes. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: War and Peace (not Tolstoy's) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 11:12:25 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1914 (2213) I have been reading Humanist mail even more avidly than usual in the last week and have been almost deafened by the silence on what is surely the most important topic for us all at the moment, the prospect of a major war. Apart from the placing of a piece by Professor Lakoff on the LISTSERV and a query from James O'Donnell (?) about a JAN15-L there has been _nothing_, and I'm beginning to feel lonely. It's not that I feel in desperate need of information - we've all been flooded with that in the last three months. Nor do I need arguments. I know pretty well what I think (and will say what it is in a moment) - but I would like to know whether my views are generally shared or whether I am sitting here alone (and possibly quite wrong-headed). Or are we all talking about other things so as not to have to take notice of what is going on? I find myself staring incredulously at the sight of _both_ sides busily painting themselves into corners, corners from which they can now (in their own estimation) only escape by carpeting the floor with corpses. I am horrified at the seeming ease with which Western politicians (and, on paper, commentators) are prepared to lay down _other people's_ lives (of soldiers, and still more of the civilian populations of Kuweit and Iraq) for their _own_ professed principles - principles which they have repeatedly failed to practice themselves in the last two decades. However necessary it is to stop aggression I am wholly unconvinced that the point has been reached at which this can only be done at the cost of possibly millions of lives, or that the best way to defend Kuweit is to reduce it to a heap of smoking rubble. And I would like to know whether virtually everyone on this list feels the same way and simply finds the above too platitudinously obvious to be worth saying (or perhaps finds life and death a theme not appropriate for HUMANIST), or whether the silent consensus is quite different? I would like to know this even at the risk that for a little while the discussions on Voltaire, the eucharist, Aramaic and Old Egyptian fonts for WP 5.1, multiculturalism/ racism and all the other things we rightly and properly concern ourselves with get crowded out. Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica P.S. One point I would make as a historian: parallels between now and Munich 1938 are more revealing than those who make them suppose. Chamberlain and Daladier didn't invent appeasement in the autumn of 1938; they and their parties and associates had been practising it for years, and they had been giving tacit support to "Herr Hitler" not just out of a bad conscience over Versailles but because they saw him and his regime as a valuable bulwark against the much more dangerous threat of Bolshevism. Does that sound kind of familiar? A.J.P.Taylor's point on 1938 and 1939 is also worth making again (I quote from memory): "In 1938 Czechoslovakia was betrayed; in 1939 we went to the defence of Poland. In World War II, a quarter of a million Czecho-Slovaks died; more than six million Poles were killed. Was it better to be a saved Pole than a betrayed Czech? I do not know". From: Sheizaf Rafaeli <USERLLHB@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Age of e-mailers Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 11:19:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1915 (2214) James O'Donnell's point about the (unexpected) age distribution of e-mail users is reflected in a couple of empirical studies of the diffusion of computerized innovations. When some extraneous variables are controlled for, the age distribution of adopters has been found to be bimodal, with a second peak at the fiftysomething range. Now, if only I could retrieve those cites... Sheizaf Rafaeli From: LL23000 <LL23%NEMOMUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: 4.0883 Further Queries: Repetition; Age of E-Mailers (2/63) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 18:38:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1916 (2215) RE: age of e-mailers [deleted quotation] I know what you mean about the age of e-mailers--I think that's becau we assume that people who are proficient with computers are younger. But I am always shocked at how few of my students (except for the computer science majors) use computers except at gunpoint. Karen Kay From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: Registration for ACH/ALLC '91 Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 19:08:38 MST (57 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 890 (2216) Dear Colleague: I invite you to Tempe, Arizona, to attend ACH/ALLC '91, the international conference that brings together members of the Association for Humanities Computing and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, March 17-21, 1991. March in Arizona is the "high" tourist season, so PLEASE take note of the deadlines listed in the accompanying material. The various discounts I have arranged require that arrangements be finalized well in advance. Once the blocks of rooms I have reserved in the ASU dormitories and local hotels are fully booked, you will have to pay substantially higher regular rates. It may even be difficult to secure accommodations at all! You MUST register for the conference in order to stay in the dormitories or to get the conference rate at the hotels. Please register, book your lodging and tour preferences, and reserve a place at the banquet immediately. Registration for the conference, dormitory lodging, and the banquet, tours, and workshop can be done by check in US dollars; or by VISA, Mastercard, or American Express. Please use the registration form included with this mailing. The dress code for this conference is casual. Hiking and walking shoes are suitable for all occasions. Bring bathing suits and sunblock if you want to swim, sunbathe, or play tennis or golf. Although the weather is summery in Phoenix in March, if you plan to go with us to the Grand Canyon after the conference, you need to allow for cold weather. Snow can still fall in the Rockies in March. I look forward to welcoming you to Arizona this March. Best regards, Daniel T. Brink Humanities Computing Facility Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 tel 602/965-2679 fax 602/965-2012 P.S. Since there is a fee reduction for ACH and ALLC members, you might want to take this opportunity to become a member of one or the other organization in the process of registering for the conference: for ACH, contact Joe Rudman at RUDMAN@CMPHYS.BITNET; for ALLC, contact Thomas Corns at ELS009@VAXA.BANGOR.AC.UK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ACH/ALLC '91 Conference Overview Saturday, 16 March 5:30 PM Optional Pre-conference Cook-Out Sunday, 17 March 9:00 AM Optional Pre-conference Valley Bus Tour OR TEI Workshop 4:00 PM Opening Reception, Keynote Address by Martin Kay, and Optional Banquet Monday, 18 March 8:30 AM Full day of conference sessions, concluding with plenary presentation by Ralph Griswold Tuesday, 19 March 8:30 AM Half day of conference session, early afternoon free for visit to vendor exhibit at the Memorial Union, late afternoon free for Software Fair Wednesday, 20 March 8:30 AM Full day of conference sessions, concluding with plenary presentation by Helen Aguera Thursday, 21 March 9:00 AM Half day of conference sessions 12:30 PM Concluding session, followed by box lunch 1:30 PM Optional Post-conference overnight tour to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Painted Desert and Navaho Reservation, returning to Phoenix airport on Friday, 22 March at 5:00 PM In addition to the pre- and post-conference activities and keynote and plenary sessions listed above, the conference will feature over 70 academic papers by scholars from 19 countries on topics covering all aspects of computing in humanistic scholarship, a variety of special sessions sponsored by groups such as the Association for Computational Linguistics and the American Philosophical Association, a vendor exhibit area with over 100 presenters, a hands-on software fair, an official status report on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), and an independent evaluation and assessment of the TEI. -------------------- [A complete version of this Announcement, including the Registration Form, is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ACH91 ANNOUNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Toshiba Security Date: 15 Jan 91 14:11:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1917 (2217) I checked my Toshiba 5200 manual, and there is no provision mentioned for using a password to protect the system. There may be supplementary software, but it isn't part of the system. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: Multiculturalism and Bossuet Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 09:44:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1918 (2218) Someone in a recent posting about multiculturalism made mention of Bossuet and attributed to him the "Defense et illustration de la langue francaise" -- the first tract defining what a national linguistic policy should be. The true author is of course Joachim du Bellay who was writing one century before Bossuet. The interesting point about it though is that Du Bellay was himself adapting for the most part an earlier italian work that had tried to do for italian what he himself wanted for the french language. Which tends to prove that nationalism itself could not exist without multiculturalism. This (if I may speculate) might be what makes the difference between nationalism and particularism -- the problem being how to keep cultural nationalism from forgetting its fundamentally paradoxical essence or from turning it into a weapon (as happened when German nationalism espoused the notion in the 19th c. that it was the true heir to Greek culture, with well-known consequences in the 20th c.)... From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0886 Re: Communion Frequency Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 08:10:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1919 (2219) While I missed the original question I'll comment upon a perhaps related issue. Henry Rack in discussing 18th century England, in his recent book, *Reasonable Enthusiast*, which is a new biography of John and Charles Wesley, notes that weekly communion was not the norm (this is irregardless of any legislation). He notes that the practice started in the 19th century. I do not have the text with me, but he cites several sources. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: Paul Fortier <FORTIER@UOFMCC> Subject: Survey Report Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 21:04 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 892 (2220) LITERATURE NEEDS SURVEY RESULTS In late November l990 the TEI Working Group on Literature Texts sent out a survey to try and identify the needs of people working in literature with computers. Fifty-three responses were received to date. The following file contains a summary of the responses. To facilitate use of the data some organisational principles were applied to it. First, responses were classified into two groups: 1. Experienced interdisciplinary scholars, generally defined as people working in literature who have input texts, used texts from elsewhere, processed them and, usually published results based on their use of the computer. There were 40 responses from such people. 2. Other, people who are not literature scholars, not experienced with literature texts, etc. There were 14 responses from such people. These responses are not included in the following summary. The questions from the Questionnaire are repeated followed by a line of responses; the numbers indicate the number of respondants who checked each category; a category "Not Answered" is added where appropriate. After this line are found copies of all comments submitted by the first group of respondants. The numbers (1) to (40) permit the user to identify comments from a given respondant from one question to the next without revealing names. We wish, in transmitting this report, to thank all those who have given the committee their time and advice in this matter. We wish also to thank those who expressed solidarity with our work by sending in the form although literature is not their field, a number of whom appended a note to that effect. If you wish to help us with further comments please send them to me at FORTIER@UOFMCC.BITNET, or by paper post to Paul A. Fortier, Department of French and Spanish, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., R3T 2N2, CANADA. Cordially, Paul A. Fortier, for the Literature Working Group. I. Standards for Literature Texts. I would rate the importance of the indicated categories to standards for literature texts as follows: A. Bibliographical Information : (Place, date of publication, edition, printing, etc): 32_Essential 7_Important __Not important 1_Should not be included Further comments: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb B. Formal Characteristics (Chapters and sub-chapters, page and line Breaks, stanza divisions, speakers in plays, stage directions, etc.): 35_Essential 5_Important __Not important __Should not be included Further comments: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb C. Grammatical Information (Basic Form, Part of Speech, Inflection Identification, etc): 5_Essential 15_Important 5_Not important 10_Should not be included 5_Not Answered Further comments: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb D. Metrical Information for Poetry: 3_Essential 23_Important 5_Not important 3_Should not be included 6_Not Answered Further comments: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb E. Interpretative Information (e.g. Narrative vs. expository passages, direct and indirect discourse, point of view, themes, images, allusions, etc.): 8_Essential 7_Important 4_Not important 20_Should not be included 2_Not Answered Further comments: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb F. In order to do my work as I prefer, I need generally accepted tags for the following aspects of texts (Please be as specific as possible. This is not a test but an opportunity to express your wishes. Please number your "wishes" and rank them in descending order of preference.): [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb G. Futher suggestions to the Work Group on Literature Texts: [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb II. The Current Version of the Standards (TEI P1.1) I would propose the following modifications to make them more appropriate to the needs of scholars of literature (Please list in descending order of preference): [material deleted by editor: see below] --emb -------------------- [A complete version of the TEI Working Group on Literature Texts' survey results is now available through the fileserver, s.v. LITTEXTS SURVEY91. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Address request Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 15:52 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1920 (2221) Does anyone know an email address for Jim Lambek? (He's a logician at McGill). A colleague of mine at the American University wants to get in touch with him. Thanks, Graham White American University in Cairo. From: "Brian Nielsen, Northwestern Univ. Library" <BNIELSEN@NUACVM> Subject: Middle East Crisis and CWIS Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 16:57:08 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1921 (2222) Northwestern University's NUINFO, a campus-wide information system developed and managed by the University Library using software from Princeton University, has as of January 14 added a category of information on the current Middle East crisis. Our first news bulletin announced a day-long teach-in sponsored by the University for 1/15 ... [material deleted by eds.] -- emb Beginning on 1/15, we have begun adding UPI newsfeeds pulled off of the CLARINET Usenet service (see Steve Cisler's description of ClariNet in issue 24 of his CONNECT: Libraries and Telecommunications newsletter, p.5). We anticipate adding bibliographies compiled by our reference department on the crisis, information on University policy issues related to military service, travel, and so forth, and other timely information of interest to the Northwestern community. We would like to hear from other academic institutions who might be using their computing infrastructures in this way, and would also like to learn of other teach-in-type activities generally. Please be in touch with me if you can provide such information. Thanks. +==============================================================+ +==============================================================+ | Brian Nielsen | | Assistant University Librarian for Branch Libraries and | | Information Services Technology | | Northwestern University Library | | 1935 Sheridan Road | | Evanston, IL 60208-2300 | | (708) 491-2170 | |BITNET: bnielsen@nuacvm INTERNET: bnielsen@nuacvm.acns.nwu.edu| + =============================================================+ + =============================================================+ From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: the eternal child Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 20:04:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1922 (2223) I have nothing much but impressions to go on, but that never stopped me before, so I won't let it now. The apparent age of those who use e-mail is, I think, attributable to two factors: first, the laudable attenuation of what sociologists call "social context cues", and second, the nurture of our desire to play, so wonderfully provided by the whizz-bang gadgets we have before us. I recall meeting someone a few years ago and to my great surprise discovering his gray-white hair and evidence of his status as a distinguished senior professor of literature. After analyzing my surprise, I realized that I had steadfastly ignored the evidence of his status already available to me before I met him. His obvious devotion to computers, his enthusiasm and abundant energy led me to think he must be young. How silly. As if having seen the cover you didn't need to read the book. Which is, of course, sometimes true. Willard McCarty From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0889 Age of E-Mailers (2/28) Date: 15 Jan 91 17:17:50 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1923 (2224) --- Karen Kay <LL23%NEMOMUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> wrote: I am always shocked at how few of my students (except for the computer science majors) use computers except at gunpoint. --- end of quoted material --- A very recent Dartmouth survey found, on the other hand found: 82% of students have used computers for class work other than word processing (the survey did not inquire about guns used to motivate) 88% said they knew how to use campus file servers 73% know our campus-developed e-mail software 72% own a computer connected to the campus network 94% own a computer On a scale of 1 (poor) 2 (fair) 3 (good) 4 (excellent), students rated services: e-mail 3.5 public file server 3.3 computer center consultants 3.3 most comments about the campus computing environment were positive From: Steve Condit <STEVEC@FHCRCVM> Subject: war, metaphor Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 16:29:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1924 (2225) I disagree with Bob Werman. It seems to me that the analysis of metaphor (even if it lacked the scholarly apparatus of footnotes etc.) is an example of a major concern of humanist, namely understanding the use of language. It seems to me also to be a task that more humanists should be undertaking together. I share Timothy Reuter's puzzlement also. I have been hopeing for so insights into this insanity from humanist. I suspect part of the lack of discussion is a feeling of futility. Our leaders are not listening - Bush has had the White House comment phone line disconnected according to the Seattle news last night! Who wants this war? Who will profit? Where are all these supporters of U.S. offensive action? I'm in a medical research and talking with a friend in highway construction we haven't encountered the 60- 75% the polls say are out there! I we separate our academic lives from the live encompassing issue of a Gulf war, what hope is there? From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: Date: 15 Jan 91 14:06:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1925 (2226) I've been debating for several weeks whether to express my feelings in this forum about the choice of today's date and the arguments for and against war, and today's HUMANIST mail made my decision for me. First came the message that HUMANIST is a inappropriate forum for a discussion of war; then a commentary expressing surprise of no discussion of the issue. In response to the first, I feel obliged to ask, "Who should make decisions about war? The people in the political arena whose primary obligations seem to be toward their own chance for re-election? or people who have spent their lives studying to understand those principles referred to as 'humanistic'?" I have to vote for the latter--especially those who are forward-looking enough to have learned to use today'stechnology to understand timeless concerns. I believe that they are more likely than some to also know more about contemporary issues. Why am I concerned about the choice of this date for the deadline for starting a war? Because today is my birthday. (I'm not saying how old I am, but I don't call myself young and I don't fall into the fiftysomething category so perhaps I'll just be an exception to the bimodal curve of ages of e-mail users.) For many years I have been proud to share my birth date with Martin Luther King, Jr., who for all his currently known frailties, has been known as a man of peace, a man of dreams. We, in most of the United States, celebrate his birthday with a national holiday, (held on the Monday following the actual date of his birth. How many of you can claim a national holiday for your birthday? But now my birthday, and Dr. King's, is known as the day the war starts, or to be specific, the day the war is authorized to start. In 1986 I moved to Washington, DC, to take a job with a consulting firm that did (and does) about 90% of their business with the US Department of Defense. Some of you may remember that I spoke at ICCH/87 in South Carolina about the project I was working on: a natural language interface to an expert system designed to assess tactical capability of the US Air Force in central Germany. The expert system simulated flying sorties so the language involved the names and nicknames of fighter planes and missiles. I once could tell you the differences among Mavericks, Sidewinders, and 'dumb bombs'. I have since left that environment to work independently on non-DoD contracts. But at that time I learned a lot about the military mentality of our country and the people who chose that world. Military people think differently from the way humanists do, and there were many times that I was glad that I was in that organization so I would have a say in opposition to the standard military mentality. The joke about the "military intelligence" being the classic oxymoron is unfortunate; some of the people I worked with were brilliant; all, much more than just competent. But they don't understand the humanist perspective on the world; they've never learned about it. One of the values of efforts such as Lakoff's to put the war into a different perspective from that chosen by the politicians and the press, is to make people think about what the politicians and the press are doing. I had already observed before Lakoff pointed it out, that televised sporting events have taken on a patriotic tone, as if war is the ultimate football game, and 'us sports fans' can help 'our boys and girls in the gulf' by rooting for the right side. Perhaps this is just rambling on my part, but it's a sore subject with me that some people say one should avoid contact with those one disagrees with because one might get contaminated. I suppose I think more highly of myself than that. I happen to believe that I might make a difference by showing "the other side" a new perspective. By the way, I intend to celebrate my birthday despite today's prospect, by visiting the National Gallery exhibition of Titian's paintings, followed by dinner with friends, and perhaps a short stop at the White House with the protesters to show my concern. "All we are asking is, Give peace a chance." Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: 1ECHAD@UTSA86.UTSA.EDU (Helen Aristar-Dry) Subject: RE: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 9:14:46 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1926 (2227) As a moderator for Linguist--another net that posted the Lakoff paper on the Listserv--I also confronted the question raised by Bob Werman: i.e., was the material appropriate for a net dedicated to academic matters, rather than politics. (Yes, I AM aware that these divisions have always been fuzzy, and that many today consider them non-existent.) I and my co-moderator, Anthony Aristar, decided to post it because the paper has genuine linguistic content. Lakoff and Johnson, as many of you know, are primarily responsible for the development of a new sub-field in linguistics: study of the cognitive implications of metaphor. Several influential books, and at least one new journal, are dedicated to pursuing the kind of analysis Lakoff uses in his paper. So my point is that, whatever you think of the topic of the analysis, the approach itself makes the paper worth posting on a linguistics net. And, in fact, Linguist had over 150 requests for the paper. I don't know how far these justifications fit the Humanist posting, but I offer them in the belief that they may have some relevance. Helen Dry From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: To publish on HUMANIST or not to publish Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 22:54:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1927 (2228) I must disagree that it is inappropriate for a fellow Humanist to offer those on HUMANIST the chance to see hir writing. I must also disagree that length is of any consequence in deciding propriety here. Perhaps others work with HUMANIST interactively and experience it quite differently than I, but I receive mail with convenient headers that allow me to skip or read as I choose. In the case of George Lakoff's piece on metaphorical thinking and the current crisis, I had to request the file and, when it arrived, knew how many records it filled even before I elected to read its first line. If I care to spend time on it, that is my choice, not an imposition. As it happens, I put off reading it until a voice from Israel complained. Then, before rising to the civil libertarian point, I read the article. I still believe that HUMANIST is within its bounds by making such an article available and that George Lakoff, by his own lights, gave a fair advertisement for what that article would be. However, his lights are not mine, and that suggests to me an extension of a point he clearly makes: when considering the implications of discourse systems, one must also seek to define the social world within which the discourses function. I do not see these discourses as limited to the U.S., our primarily European "coalition partners," and the Arab population within missile range of the Eastern Mediterranean. I see, as does Saddam Hussein, that all of these discussions have to do as much with the continued existence of the state of Israel as they do with the renewed existence of the state of Kuwait. My suppostion is that Israelis may also see this. And articles of great length on this subject that mention Israel only once and then only to assert the number of its nuclear weapons must strike some of them as fatally biased. No wonder some might feel the need to object. Eric Rabkin esrabkin@umichum.bitnet esrabkin@um.cc.umich.edu From: "Robert S. Kirsner" <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re Lakoff submission Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 18:57 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1928 (2229) Just for the record, I feel it would have been utterly ASSININE if Humanist had N*O*T* been used to disseminate Prof. Lakoff's paper. What does the title "Humanist" mean? Or are we to babble electronically over sherry and muse about the ecclesiastical use of Latin words (for example) while either (check one) (i) another President sacrifices another generation of young men or (ii) another President dithers reading the polls while a new Hitler gains strength in the sand. To not have distributed George Lakoff's paper would have been an example of "Wir haben es nie gewusst." Once was surely enough! Robert S. Kirsner (P.S. Gee. Perhaps I was happy to see Lakoff's piece because I am a linguist. Linguists seem to be interested in the external world (cf. Chomsky). Where are all the Literature people in the present crisis?) From: Art Ferrill <ferrill@u.washington.edu> Subject: re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 9:05:43 -0800 (PST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1929 (2230) I agree with those who want to keep the Gulf crisis off the Humanist discussion list. There are several LISTSERV groups available for that discussion. HISTORY, for example. From: "Markku Lonkila, p. 191 2707" <LONKILA@cc.Helsinki.FI> Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 22:29 EET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1930 (2231) I found Prof Lakoffs article most interesting both in human and academic terms. I want to express my gratitude to the people who published it through HUMANIST: the article was then published as a full page story in the biggest Scandinavian daily. Markku Lonkila Researcher University of Helsinki Finland INTERNET: lonkila@cc.helsinki.fi BITNET: lonkila@finuh From: "Marc A. Smith" <SMITHM@DUVM> Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 00:01:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1931 (2232) I, for one, would like to support the idea that discussion of war and peace and the events surrounding our impending conflict do have a role within the editorial philosophy of HUMANIST. What could be more pertinent to a discussion with such a name? Even in the light of five months of talk, talk is what we need so that well developed ideas may inform action, whatever that action may be. Marc A. Smith Department of Sociology UCLA From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 15:00:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1932 (2233) Particularly for <humanists>, war is, without doubt, an appropriate topic. To whom else would you leave the discussion? To technologists, politicians, accountants? Even with its flaws and biases, Lakoff's piece stimulated my thinking about the power of figurative language, and I am surprised that anyone would describe as "disgust" their reaction to his analysis, even if the reader does not share his assumptions. His analysis may turn out to be all wrong, but he shouldn't be faulted for having attempted to analyze, interpret, and explain what strikes most of us as a totally inexplicable series of events. Must humanists use their talents and techniques solely for the exploration of issues no one really cares deeply about? I vote for more discussion of current issues, so long as they are carried out seriously and draw upon the methods of the humanities. Stephen D. Spangehl +---------------+ University of Louisville | SDSPAN01 @ | Louisville, Kentucky 40292 | ULKYVM.BITNET | (502) 588-7289 or (502) 245-0319 +---------------+ From: Wesley Smith <WSMITH@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: do humanists discuss war? Date: 15 Jan 91 11:02:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1933 (2234) I found interesting the collocation of Bob Werman and Timothy Reuter, Werman saying from Jerusalem that giving opinions on important things like life and death and war is bad manners in humanist discussion, and Reuter saying from Munich that he knows that we already have our opinions, but can't we share our humanity? Personally i am grateful to Lakoff for his observations on metaphors in the current movement toward war. His subject is important to all who care about language and truth. I had not formulated the subject so well. I don't think his formulation was perfect, but he moved us along. Furthermore, the mode of dissemination was excellent. The reader had to ask for the paper to become a reader. Werman just didn't like what he got. From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? (2/65) Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 23:26:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1934 (2235) Timothy Reuter is right; if we don't discuss the impending war here on HUMANIST, where will we discuss it? I, too, have been worried about the consensus of silence, for the same reason Timothy is worried: I almost never know what I think until I hear it discussed, and I've yet to hear a good discussion of this war by people I really respect -- people whose opinions I won't dismiss as inescapable for them, given their ideologies, but irrelevant to me, given my own. (I continue to ignore most pronouncements by media commentators on this basis.) While I can't countenance Saddam's annexation of Kuwait under any circumstances, I'm also convinced that Bush is still trying to beat the `wimp' image of the campaign, that he suspects (and, God forbid, he's probably right) that American voters will repay victory quickly achieved via death with a larger mandate in the next election than they'll give victory achieved slowly via diplomacy and other means. And he's betting that he can achieve it quickly, and too many of us here are secretly hoping he's right (the CBS poll to the contrary indicates that people are hedging their bets, and not that they really think the war will last a long time, because if they thought that, more of them would be out in the streets.) I suppose that's cynical, but I suspect that very few societies have actually abandoned blood sacrifice, the claims of Christianity notwithstanding. I'm just not sure what this sacrifice is supposed to achieve; probably nothing, since behind it there is a brain-fevered Agamemnon and an inarticulate Achilles manque, who is incapable of understanding that, in this life here above ground, we are all held in a single honor, the brave with the weak. --Pat Conner From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? (2/65) Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 22:29:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1935 (2236) Heaven forbid that humanists turn aside from their scholarship to discuss a war which threatens the lives of thousands and may well dash any slim hope for a new world order that may have come out of perestroika! Yes, indeed, let us stick to our books in these imperiled times! My apologies for the sarcasm, but the question about whether war is appropriate matter for humanist discussion is so off the mark that it scarcely deserves better than a sarcastic response. In fact, those of us who study literature, art, music and history and who, supposedly, have learned something about the human from these enterprises better raise our voices in times like these, lest we allow the politicians to imagine that they speak for everyone. As for myself, I detest Hussein and what he has done to the people of Iraq, but I detest even more the thought that many Iraquis and many Americans will die in a conflict which could have been avoided had more humane values prevailed. As the pop lyric goes, how can we dance when the earth is burning? I hope my colleagues on humanist--whatever their views about the coming war--will express them and talk to eachother over the networks about them. In ordinary times, one might well be more concerned with Greek fonts, but these are not ordinary times-- or rather, they are so extra-ordinary that the veneer of ordinariness and civility which allows us to carry on business as usual is clearly rent, if not altogether destroyed. Let us hope the war is short-lived so that the learned professor can get back to his scholarship! Patrick O'Donnell West Virginia University U1095@WVNVM From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: The War in the Gulf Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 19:55:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1936 (2237) My admiration goes to Timothy Reuter, who has followed through on an earlier posting and continued the topic of the Gulf War. I cannot agree with Bob Berman that this is an impermissible topic for a network of humanists; quite the reverse. I did not send to the Listserver for the long article which was posted because it has always seemed to me that networks like Humanist are for conver- sation, not for formal articles. The difficulty is about what to say. One of my earliest memories as a small child is of August, 1939, and the whispered conversations of the adults, all of which centred on the terrible thing that was about to happen. And it happened, as we all know; by the end of the war I was old enough to be aware, in fully adult terms, what was meant by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is the silence of the network on this topic the electonic equi- valent of those whispers? I oppose the terrible prospect of this terrible war with all my heart. If the only thing I can do about it is to say so now, then I say so, and I'm not whispering. Germaine. From: brad inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: lakoff, metaphor and war Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 09:15:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1937 (2238) For my money I am glad to have seen Lakoff's piece on the metaphors behind the war propaganda. But not (or at least not primarily) because of the political content. The essay was an extremely good piece of philosophical analysis and makes with some force the non-trivial point that the tools of scholarship can be put to use in the real world and can handle the messier features of public and political discourse. This, I think, makes it an important academic contri- bution and not relevantly similar to the sort of first-order political writing which we have seen on Humanist in the past and which we should continue to discourage. From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 03:32:59 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1938 (2239) Despite my colleague George Lakoff's appeal, there are other and more appropriate channels for the discussion of issues of war and peace than HUMANIST. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: MARILYN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Oxford news Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 13:13 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 897 (2240) Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies (formerly Literature and Linguistic Studies) Oxford University Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing The CTI Centre and the Centre for Humanities Computing are holding two workshops in the near future which may be of interest to readers of this list. Details are given below. The latest issue of the newsletter _Computers in Literature_ issued by the CTI Centre is now at the printers. To receive a free copy and to be placed on the mailing list for future free publications, write to: Dr Marilyn Deegan CTI Centre Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN E-mail: CTILIT@UK.AC.OX.VAX MicroOCP A Practical Workshop Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing 12 February 1991 This is a one-day workshop on the use of MicroOCP, the microcomputer version of the Oxford Concordance Program. MicroOCP operates on MSDOS machines, but is fully compatible with the mainframe version of OCP. This will be a practical session and will teach participants the use of the program for making concordances and indexes of all kinds of texts. The workshop will begin at around 10.30am. It will cost #20. For further details, contact: Mrs Lindsey Mills Oxford University Computing Service 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Telephone: 0865-273265 E-mail: LINDSEY@UK.AC.OX.VAX Fax: 0865-273275 Computers and the Editing of Texts Friday 22 - Saturday 23 February 1991 Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing Following the successful editing workshop held in November 1990, Oxford University Centre for Humanities Computing and the CTI Centre for Textual Studies plan to hold another. This will be directed particularly at editors of medieval and classical texts, but scholars working in other periods are welcome to contact us. The seminar topics will include: the transcription and encoding of texts; image enhancement techniques; text-retrieval and concordancing; computer collation; preparation of texts for typesetting. Little previous knowledge of computing is necessary. Because of the practical nature of the workshop, places will be strictly limited. The sessions will be held at Oxford University Computing Service. Reasonably-priced accommodation will be arranged for participants nearby, and there will be a dinner at St. Cross College on the Friday evening. The cost of the workshop will be 50. This will not include accommodation, but will include lunches, and tea and coffee. Dinner will be approximately 12.50 extra. Assisted places for students may be available. To receive further details of speakers and sessions, contact: Ms Michele Palmer Oxford University Computing Service 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Telephone: 0865-273221 E-mail: MICHELE@OX.VAX.UK.AC Fax: 0865-273275 From: "David Joel Halperin" <HALPERN@UNC> Subject: Erasmus problems Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 20:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1939 (2241) Marc Bregman has passed on to me Germaine Warkentin's inquiry concerning certain passages in Erasmus, on behalf of James M. Estes. I believe I can clear up the issue about the require- ment of being thirty years old to study Genesis, the Song of Songs, and Ezekiel. The source is not Origen's Prologue to the Commentary on the Song of Songs, but Jerome's Prologue to the Commentary on Ezekiel ((Migne, PL, XXV, col. 17 = CCSL LXXV, pp. 3-4) -- which is itself dependent on Origen. (Jerome gives an abbreviated version of this statement in Epistle 53; PL XXII, 547, CCSL LIV, pp. 460-461.) Jerome there defines Origen's "full and mature age" as "the age of priestly service, i.e., the thirtieth year." The reference is to Numbers 4:3. Further, in his comment on Ezekiel 1:1, Jerome defines 30 as "the age of a man's maturity"; he cites the Hebrew text of Numbers 4:3. It is certainly significant that Gregory Nazianzen speaks of certain biblical books "entrusted only to those over the age of twenty-five" (Orationes, II, 48; PG XXV, cols 456-457). I assume that he draws his figure from LXX Numbers 4:3, which has 25 in place of 30. In other words, both Gregory and Jerome define Origen's "mature age" in accord with Numbers 4:3, each using the text of scripture he was familiar with. I discuss the issue in my book, The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature (American Oriental Society, 1980), p. 38n. Prof. Estes might also want to consult a Hebrew article by Moshe Idel, "On the History of the Interdiction of the Study of Kabbalah before the Age of Forty," in the AJS Review, 1980. Sincerely, David J. Halperin From: John P. Chalmers <HMAB121@UTXVM.BITNET> Subject: Voltaire query Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 21:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1940 (2242) In answer to a recent discussion on HUMANIST about a line quoted from Voltaire: "History is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead." This is from a letter (*Voltare's Correspondence edited by Theodore Besterman,* vol. xxxi, Gen`eve, 1958, p. 47-48, no. 6456) addressed to Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville by Voltaire on 9 f`evrier 1757. It begins: "Mon cher et ancien ami je souhaitte que le fatras dont je vous ay surcharg/e vous amuse. J'ay vu un temps o`u vous n'aimiez gu`eres l'histoire. Ce n'est apr`es tout qu'un ramas de tracasseries qu'on fait aux morts. . . ." It was no doubt made current by John Morley in his *Voltaire*, London, Macmillan, 1888, page 304 (many earlier and later editions), and referred to with enough imprecision by Will Durant (*The Story of Philosophy,* New York, Simon & Schuster, 1926, p. 241) to confuse Anthony Shipps in the winter issue of *SQ* (v. 27, no.2, p. 149) into believing the addressee was Mme. du Chatelet. Karl Van Ausdal of Appalachian State University pointed to the valuable Durant spoor. Voltaire's worth a read these days - any day. 15 Jan 1991. John P. Chalmers Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center University of Texas P.O. Box 7219 Austin, Texas 78713-7219 512 471 6688 office 512 471 8944 leave a message 512 471 9646 FAX hmab121@utxvm.bitnet chalmers@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu From: Sarah Davnall <ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk> Subject: Eucharist frequency Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 16:52:15 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1941 (2243) In response to A. Davies' query, I pass on the following comment from a History Department colleague, who has not yet ventured into Email. [deleted quotation] (If that last reference is mis-spelled, the fault is mine.) Sarah Davnall, Humanities Liaison, Manchester Computing Centre, University of Manchester, England (S.Davnall@Manchester.ac.uk) From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: TWA airfare code Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 16:53:11 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1942 (2244) TWA conference code and other vital matters: The special fares on TWA can be obtained by mentioning ACH, or by using the reference CV10845. There is an 800 number as well: 800/325-4933 These rates are only good for travel within the U.S. I tried for special rates for other airlines, but to no avail. I did find that Air Canada has a travel club (called Canadian Club, I believe) which is "partners" with Delta, which might be of some benefit to those in that club. If you are traveling from England, I have found Virgin Atlantic to be inexpensive and very pleasant (from Gatwick); one would fly to Los Angeles, and connect to Phoenix on America West or Southwest, both of which have low fares (if purchased early). I have also heard from a number of people who want to arrive early, something I did not anticipate. You CAN get into the conference dorm early at the published rate. Same for the Howard Johnson's and Holday Inn. Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Technology Integration College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 602/965-7748/1441 fax -1093 ATDXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD> Subject: ACH/ALLC '91 Software Fair Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 17:46:22 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1943 (2245) ACH/ALLC '91 Software Fair Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona Call for Presentations Academic software developers attending the ACH/ALLC '91 Conference (combined meeting of the Association for Computers and the Humanities/Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, March 17-21, 1991) are invited to submit proposals to present their programs or their innovative use of existing programs in Humanities applications, at the Software Fair on Tuesday afternoon, March 19. Demonstrations will be scheduled in 1-hour segments. We will have basic PC and Mac equipment on hand; we will try to accommodate special requests, but cannot guarantee availability or compatibility. In order to be considered, submit either by email or by hardcopy (mail or fax) the following form by January 31 to: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD.BITNET> or <IDPAL@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU> ACH/ALLC '91 Software Fair Humanities Computing Facility Arizona State University DEN-0302 Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 Voice: 602/965-2679 Fax: 602/965-1093. Registration information is available on HUMANIST, or from the above source. Decisions to be announced by February 14. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACH/ALLC '91 Software Fair Proposal Form ----------------------------------------------------------------- Name of presenter: Position: Institution: Mail address: City: State: ZIP: Country: Phone (Office): Phone (Home): Phone (FAX): Email address: Name of program or application: Type of equipment (PC, Mac, etc.): Please indicate: _____ I will bring MY OWN equipment _____ I NEED equipment Attach/append: a) a brief description (up to 200 words) of what it does (to be printed in the program); and b) a detailed description (+/- 1000 words, including technical description, hardware requirements [machine, RAM, video], price, and address of distributors). Peter Lafford Tel.(602) 965-2679 Manager, Humanities Computing Facility Lang. & Lit. Bldg. Arizona State University (DEN-0302) Room LL-B 325 Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 IDPAL@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Visitng Scholar Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 20:23:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1944 (2246) Dr. Rivkah Zim, onetime Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge and currently an independent scholar, will be visiting North America between late March and late June, 1991. Her main base will be Minneapolis, but she is hoping to visit other campuses, where possible, to speak. Dr. Zim is the author of _English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer 1535-1601_ (Cambridge) plus a chapter ("The Trial of God's Word") in _Reading the Text: Biblical Interpretation and Literary Theory_ (ed. Stephen Prickett), forthcoming from Blackwells, and a number of scholarly articles. In North America she will be giving the following papers: "Thomas More and John Milton: Authorized Readings in Biblical History," "Sackville Abroad: the Dramatist as Diplomat," "Shakespeare's Prisoners: `Desperately Mortal' and `Insensible of mortality,'" "Memories and Memorials: Three Women Prisoners: Anne Askew, Mme. Roland, and Irina Ratushinskaya," and "Thomas More and Antonio Gramsci: Dialogues and Dialectic in Defence of Civilization." Should it be possible to invite her to your campus, you can reach her until mid-March at 108 Wynchgate, Southgate, London N14 6RN. Or I may be able to give you further details on e-mail. Germaine Warkentin, Victoria College, Univ. of Toronto <Warkent@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> From: Scott Hammer <SCOTH%WMVM1.bitnet@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU> Subject: IBM BITNET Worm Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 21:19:30 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1945 (2247) Here is some information that I received this morning on the BITNET "worm". Since it appears to be a compiled REXX program, this may cut down on the number of folks who get hit by it. I received this morning a file called GAME2 MODULE which appears to be another XMAS type virus. Here's what I've been able to determine about it: 1) It appears to be compiled REXX from the errors it generates when it runs. 2) It first displays a message on the screen which says "Please Waiting" 3) It next sends a copy of itself to each userid in your NAMES file. 4) It then tries to access VUU 319 as mode P, and tries to load a module called REXFSCR (is this some REXX utility library?) 5) It then makes a number of calls to something called rfs to display a message on the screen. Since we don't have this rfs beastie, this part looked rather scrambled to me. 6) It then terminates. Thought you all might want to be aware of this. My copy came from ERDAL at TRMETU, who, to his/her credit subsequently sent me mail warning that this was a virus. It came via the LISTSERV machine at VTVM2. Please feel free to spread this warning around as you see fit (I wasn't sure what other list(s) if any I should post this to. -Scott Hammer VM Systems Engineer College of William and Mary From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: lists for architectural historians? Date: Fri, 07 Dec 90 11:01:14 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1946 (2248) Does anyone know if there is an email discussion list for architectural historians on Bitnet or the Internet (or a network gatewayed to them), other than the Irish list for architectural history librarians? Christopher From: Bernard Spolsky <F24030@BARILVM> Subject: discussion group on multilingualism and education. Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 15:11:18 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1947 (2249) MULTI-L@BARILVM is a new group sponsored by the Scientific Commission on Language and Education in Multilingual Settings of AILA (the International Association of Applied Linguistics). To join, send a message "TELL LISTERV AT BARILVM SUB MULTI-L Your name" or send your e-mail address and name to Bernard Spolsky <F24030@BARILVM>. From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Want info on economic planning Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 08:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1948 (2250) I am looking for two sources of information related to economic history and economic planning for a friend. 1. We want details, (statistics, graphs, etc.), on the planning of the Marshall Plan and on its effectiveness. 2 We want similar type details on Britan's World War ii economic planning and on its effectiveness. My friend is studying the background to third world development theory. These are two of its important sources. Thanks for any leads in terms of either books or journals. Send your replies directly to me: Norman Coombs NRCGSH@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU NRCGSH%edu.rit.isc.ritvax@earn-relay From: HEBERLEIN@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE Subject: TLG Distributor for Europe? Date: 01/17/91 , 11:07:25 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1949 (2251) Recently i was told by a friend that somewhere in the UK there must be a distributor of TLG for Europe. I would be glad to have his address. Thanks for help, Fritz Heberlein From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: MA exit exam in English Date: Wednesday, 16 Jan 1991 13:35:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1950 (2252) Dear Members of Humanist-- If you do not work in an English department with a graduate program, this query will most likely not interest you, and you can delete it without reading further. - If you do work in an English department with a graduate program in literature, would you please let me know whether you require an exit examination of your students after they have completed their coursework and before they receive their M.A. degrees. For years, we have asked our students to take a two-day examination, sitting for three hours each day to respond to questions in six categories: normally, five categories were drawn from the standard periods of British & American literature; the sixth category required the student to analyze a short poem. In place of answering one question drawn from one of the period categories, the student might elect to answer a question from an `omnibus' section, which might inclued questions from linguistics, folklore, women's studies, critical theory, comparative literature, etc. - Our department is now discussing whether we should replace this examination with area requirements for in the master's curriculum, to urge students to look at both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of literature, and indeed to insure that they have the breadth of literary experience we hoped the exam would indicate. - I am aware that my colleagues will want to know what is going on at other schools (whose M.A.'s are based in a certain number of credits of coursework, and not primarily on an exam as tends to be true in Europe), so I would ask you to write me directly, please, and tell me simply whether you require for an M.A. at your school an exit examination or not, whether the exam -- if required -- attempts to be comprehensive or not, and if no examination is required, whether coursework distribution is in place in some form. I will be happy to share with my colleagues any other information you offer as well. I thank you in advance for any information you may give us. - --Patrick W. Conner --Department of English --West Virginia University --<U47C2@WVNVM.BITNET> --<U47C2@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU> -- PS. Please do not burden the network with this discussion, but write to me directly; I will provide the file to anyone who requests it. --PWC. From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: QUEBEC LITERATURE AND THE U.S.A. Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 14:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1951 (2253) On September 29, 1989, the Centre de documentation des etudes quebecoises de l'Universite de Montreal organized a one-day conference entitled "Les relations litteraires Quebec - Etats-Unis : mythe ou realite ?" The conference's goal was to seize the real importance of the exchanges between American literature and Quebec literature (in French). ETUDES FRANCAISES (Montreal) has published the proceedings of the conference under the titre L'AMERIQUE DE LA LITTERATURE QUEBECOISE (vol. 26, no. 2, Fall 1990, 108p.). TABLE OF CONTENTS : Presentation; Le poeme quebecois de l'Amerique (by Pierre Nepveu, Universite de Montreal); <<Le Premier Mouvement>> de Jacques Marchand : un roman americain ? (by Jonathan M. Weiss, Colby College, Waterville, Maine); La fiction de l'Amerique dans l'essai contemporain : Pierre Vadeboncoeur et Jean Larose (by Benoit Melancon, UdM); Le theatre quebecois recent et l'americanite (by Diane Pavlovic, Montreal); La traduction du theatre americain au Quebec (by Annie Brisset, Universite d'Ottawa); Chaurette Playhouse (by Jean Cleo Godin, UdM); L'americanite de la dramaturgie quebecoise (by Lucie Robert, Universite du Quebec a Montreal); La litterature quebecoise et l'Amerique. Prolegomenes et bibliographie (by Benoit Melancon, UdM). This issue of ETUDES FRANCAISES can be ordered from : PERIODICA C.P. 444, Outremont, Qc Canada H2V 4R6 (514) 274-5468 Benoit Melancon Departement d'etudes francaises Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, succ. A Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C3J7 MELANCON@UMTLVR.BITNET From: GROVES@PENNDRLS (Alan Groves) Subject: Re:4.0884 Semanitic Domain Dictionary of Hebrew OT Date: Thursday, 17 January 1991 0851-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1952 (2254) Yes the project does exist and is well under away. John Lubbe is the project leader. It is not being done electronically alas! John spent his recent sabbatical at our institution and I can verify that his progress is substantial but that the projected completion date is years from now. John's address: John Lubbe Department of Semitic Languages University of South Africa Box 392 Pretoria 0001 South Africa For more information you may contact me at: Alan Groves Westminster Theological Seminary P.O. Box 27009 Philadelphia, PA 19118 (215)572-3844 GROVES@PENNDRLS From: JULIEN@sask.usask.ca Subject: multiculturalisme Date: Wed, 16 Jan 1991 10:14 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1953 (2255) Le multiculturalisme: on peut en parler a son aise: 1) quand il s'agit de culture morte et qu'on ressucite avec affection; 2) quand on est tellement sur de sa culture dominante a soi que la condescendance envers les cultures minoritaires montre jusqu'a quel point "on" est cultive. Dans le NATIONAL BULLETIN (American Association of Teachers of French), Philip Stewart (Duke University) s'eleve contre les affimations de MEGATRENDS II, selon lesquelles "Do computers talk in English?" La reponse de MEGATREDNS est oui, bien sur, et de plus en plus. Stewart s'en indigne et dit que "the point is too silly to belabor". Excusez-moi, Philippe, mais il y a beaucoup a dire la-dessus. BIEN SUR que les ordinateurs parlent anglais. Quel sorte de pidgin pensez-vous que j'ecrive laborieusement sur cet editeur du systeme central? C'est la langue que mes collegues de langue francaise et moi devons utiliser pour communiquer. Nous ne pouvons pas echanger de dossiers accentues, qu'ils soient concus avec toute la sophistication mecanique qu'on veuille. Et ceci dans un pays qui a le francais comme langue officielle. Quant aux "vrais francais", ou qu'ils soient dans le monde, ils nous sont de bien peu de secours. Le meme bulletin consacre une page a MINITEL, qui est un outil merveilleux en francophonie, mais qui est un joujou ici. C'est ahurissant de voir comment le discours humaniste peut planer, dans de jolis montgolfieres colores, au-dessus de questions si fondamentales qu'elles bloquent tout le reste! D'ailleurs, ce message ecrit en francais batard aura sans doute ete simplement efface par la plupart au niveau du resume avant de le lire. Dommage. Jacques JULIEN.@sask.sask.ca From: Peter Ian Kuniholm <MCG@CORNELLC> Subject: Re: 4.0880 More on Multiculturalism (2/120) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 11:45:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1954 (2256) To the HUMANIST world at large, and in response to the various comments on mult iculturalism, and since Martin Bernal just walked into my office (he does not h ave a BITNET connection), I am turning over this keyboard to him so that HE can comment. Peter Ian Kuniholm <MCG@CORNELLC> Go ahead, Martin: I thought at this point the best thing to do would be to quote some passa ges from my 9 page response to Professor Muhly: Professor Muhly has set up a scheme of two types of scholarship 'traditional, balanced' and 'extremist'. I do not find this very helpful because I believe that any coherent scholarly production involves making a case and selecting and ordering evidence. This procedure is by no means insincere, because in any plausible scholarship, a woman or man must believe that the scheme presented is the best or least bad arrangement they can make of the data. What is more, to be effective, the author must also set out counter arguments and try and refute them. Almost inevitably, however, the writer's or speaker's lack of conviction in the latter will show through and thus inevitably make the presentation unfair or unbalanced. Furthermore, just as one persons 'terrorist' is another's 'freedom fighter' what is balanced from one point of view is extremist from another. Thus I be lieve P.M.'s distinction between 'balanced' and 'extremist' scholarship has too large a subjective element to be of much help. (On P. M.'s view that there is no connection between the political views of a 'balanced'scholar like Julius Beloch and his scholarship. I wrote: Such a view has the advantage of simplicity. My own vision is far more complicated and uncertain. I could describe it as believing that scholarship is semi autonomous and only partially dependent on society, but I am convinced that there are fundamental links betwen the two and and that the predominant causal flow is from society to scholarship--my position is not very helpful heuristically because such a scheme does not tell us which elements of specific scholarly positions were arrived at for 'internalist' reasons derived from new evidence and scholarly developments and which came from 'externalist' forces generated from society as a whole. I think the best procedure is, as far as possible to keep an open mind on this and to consider both possibilities--- Martin Bernal From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Age of e-mailers Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 19:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1955 (2257) A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to win a national award from Zenith for educational uses of computers. There were ten awards in various categories. They flew us out to Chicago, and I expected to be the lone "old man" among a bunch of kids. To my surprise almost all of us were way over 40! Most more like 50 plus! That got me thinking. Young faculty are concerned about achieving tenure. No one can blame them, and I'd do the same if I were them today. The best way to get tenure is to run down a good well-trod path. Do what scholars expect scholars to do. To break new ground is to risk being written off as frivilous or who knows what else. JSo they play it cautious and close to the vest. JThere is too much at stake to be experimental. The people I met at the award ceremony were too good as teachers and researchers to be content with staying in a rut and did not want early retirement either. So, instead of being bored, they were willing to launch off in new directions. That is to say, we couldn't stand being bored, but we also had nothing to lose. I'm not sure that my analysis of this group is accurate although I did discuss it with aa few who did express those very feelings. I have no idea if one can generalize from this group or not. However, I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in it. Norman Coombs Rochester INstitute of jTechnology From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: re: the eternal child Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 00:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1956 (2258) Willard is entirely correct in pointing out that boyish enthusiasm for gadgets may well be the last thing to go. Let me add a specific circumstance that may further explain what has happened. Those of us who were boys in the 1930's don't need to be reminded of the tremendous attraction of amateur radio. The ham, with his specialized vocabulary (among which radio shack), massive headphones and black boxes with their knobs and meters, was the envy of the block. There was as well his knowledge of an esoteric subject. And there was enough money to pay for all that gear. During the Depression. At a time in our history when self-indulgence had not yet become normative. The computer, coming when it does, offers those of us who lost out the first time round a second go. Were we cargo cultists all those years? Norman Miller From: bbrown@pepvax.BITNET (Bruce Brown) Subject: Re: 4.0894 On E-Mail, Age, one old person Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 10:33:17 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1957 (2259) it amazes me that most e mail & telnet contacts assume that i am still in school (what is your major, how old are you, what is your sign). i beleive age is a state of mind, as long as you think creatively you are young. bruce From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Re:4.0894 On E-Mail, Age, Date: Wed, Jan 16, 1991 2:19:02 PM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1958 (2260) RE>4.0894 On E-Mail, Age, and The numbers from the Dartmouth survey are impressive, but I believe Dartmouth has a somewhat unique computing environment where all the dorms are networked and buying a Mac is made easy (though I don't know the details). I'd be interested in seeing similar data from other schools - or do schools where computing is more difficult not do surveys about computer use? :-) Adam C. Engst From: andrew@brownvm.brown.edu Subject: Academic review and publishing? Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 12:54:43 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 904 (2261) Germaine Warkentin, <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>, writes in "The War in the Gulf" [deleted quotation] I do not want to cut short the discussion of the Gulf war but I am very interested in Warkentin's comment. Humanist is a conversational forum but I think it should also act as form for the review of academic works. A member of the NetNews news group "comp.groupware" suggested that electronic conferences be an intermediary step between authorship and publication. An author would submit her work (article, book, bibliography, etc) to a conference for informal review. Review's responses would help the author to strengthen arguments and scholarship before publishing. Professional societies would also benefit in that they can draw upon the responses to determine what is worthy of publication. The act of publication would also change as content of the work would be freely available. Publication is the imprimatur that work is now part of the cannon. The publisher would gain revenue from adding value to the work, such as cataloging, indexing, formatting, and even paper distribution. The discussion on the NetNews group died quickly. I think this was due to a poor understanding of what academic publishing is. I doubt that this is the case with Humanist's members. -- Andrew Gilmartin, Brown University From: Natalie Maynor <nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu> Subject: Re: 4.0895 Responses ... Humanist, War, and Metaphor Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 18:57:18 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1959 (2262) The fact that LINGUIST had over 150 requests for the Lakoff paper is even more significant when you realize that many of us on LINGUIST subscribe to other lists that distributed the paper in its entirety to all subscribers. I received the whole paper on at least two lists. And I've seen no complaints from subscribers to those lists. --Natalie (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) From: Terry Langendoen <LANGENDT@ARIZVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0896 Responses ... Humanist, War, and Metaphor Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 16:31:25 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1960 (2263) I am another one who found George Lakoff's piece on metaphor and the justification of war timely, informative and helpful. Terry Langendoen phone: (+1 602) 621-6898 Department of Linguistics bitnet: langendt@arizvm1 University of Arizona internet: langendt@arizvm1.ccit.arizona.edu Tucson, AZ 85721 USA fax: (+1 602) 621-9424 From: DILELLA <DILELLA@CUA> Subject: RE: 4.0896 Responses ... Humanist, War, and Metaphor Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 16:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1961 (2264) I cast my vote for including on Humanist the splendid piece by Prof. Lakoff. It is a carefully argued and dispassionate statement of the rhetorical issues involved in discourse about the Gulf crisis. What better place than Humanist for such reasoned argument? That some on the network may dislike Lakoff's conclusions is no reason to exclude such studies. After all, freedom of speech is not restricted to what we like to hear and read. Alexander A. Di Lella From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: war Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 22:26:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1962 (2265) By the time you read this the United States may be at war. I happen to be in favor of this, even though I dread the consequences. But I am not going to try to convince anyone of my reasons. I am sure that we have all made up our mind on this issue and frankly I don't give a damm why people are in favor or opposed to this war. I am tired of this continual political posturing of which the primary purpose appears to be a boast of one's moral superiority. I also reject this idea that we Humanists are somehow better qualified to discuss this issue than the little people out there. I am tired of college professors and movie stars spouting their political views as if they were somehow endowed by virtue of their status with a divine truth. If I want someone else's opinion, I would rather ask my neighbors. I might add that I have a brother right now in Saudi Arabia flying planes. I have more at stake in this than most of you. And I wish for neither support nor condemnation. I wish for silence. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? (2/65) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 1991 12:18:28 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1963 (2266) My views on history are somewhat Machiavellian and I usually have the good sense to keep them to myself, but Timothy Reuter's desperate pleas provoke a response. It has always (i.e. for the last few months, infinity being a relative concept) been my impression that Kuwait has very little to do with the present crisis. Bush needs to de-activate Saddam's Iraq and Kuwait was a convenient and altogether rather engineered pretext. The world as I read it (very much a macroscopic view) looks as follows: 1) We are moving into a new order in which the U.S. and Russia will cooperate and carve the globe into spheres of influence. Within those spheres of influence, conflict is out. 2) The most pressing conflict is that in the Middle East. It has to be resolved. Specifically, a Palestinian state has to be carved out of somewhere, and a (probably somewhat reduced) Israel has to achieve a state of peace with her neighbours (even if "peace" just means non- belligerence, it has to be official). 3) The major opponent of this is Saddam. Everyone else in the region will in the final analysis sit down and do what they're darn well told, if both the U.S. and Russia are doing the telling together. 4) If we don't get rid of Saddam now, in 2 or 3 years he's likely to have atomic weapons and will then be much harder to get rid of. The problem then becomes, how to force a war on Saddam? Which Bush has single-mindedly been doing since August. Consider this gem, I believe from Newsweek back then: a week before the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq secretly enquired of the U.S., what would be her policy in the event of an invasion of Kuwait? After due deliberation, she replied that she, the U.S., had no current policy on the subject of a hypothetical invasion of Kuwait. End of contribution from Newsweek (or possibly Time, I forget). Saddam took this as a sign to go ahead, the name of the game is appeasement; and Bush immediately came down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks. Since when, Bush has been making sure that no compromise would be possible, in fact it would be unthinkable for an Arab leader like Saddam even to consider the idea. I happen to think that Bush's logic cannot be faulted on this one (yes, me, whose kids as I type this are sitting at home instead of at school because they've closed the schools, watching the TV and wondering if they'll need to get the gas masks out of the closet). But don't fool yourselves that the U.S. is committing itself to a war because Saddam's troops ripped a few hundred Kuwaiti babies out of incubators etc. etc., or because of Kuwaiti oil. Dead babies cannot be revived by adding dead soldiers to them, as Bush well knows. The world didn't have any trouble buying Iraqi oil till now, nor does Saddam have a monopoly on the stuff even if he's got Kuwait's; the world can live quite well with the border oilfields belonging to side A rather than to side B. I would bet you fifty-fifty (I'm a cautious type) that when this is all over (I don't mean the war, I mean the total re-organization of the Middle East) King Hussein will be king of a Beduin state in part of Jordan and there will be a Palestinian state in the other part (probably including the West Bank). Of course it'll take several years; but then 2 years ago I'd've said it'd take 50. One request: anyone who wants to argue with me, fine; but please don't deluge my poor little computer with protests of the "how-can-you-say-our- politicians-don't-care-about-babies?" variety. Also, don't be surprised if it takes me a few days to read my mail; I am after all only 8 minutes (? I think) by missile from Iraq. Judy Koren From: Lucinda S. Jassel <jassel@pilot.njin.net> Subject: Re: 4.0896 Responses Part II: Humanist, War, and Metaphor (10/183) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 9:01:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1964 (2267) On the question of whether HUMANIST should be used for a forum on the issues of war and peace currently confronting the world, I must add my voice to that of others who have expressed support for the discussion of this issue on HUMANIST. Surely those of us whose professional lives have been devoted to understanding what it means to be human have a real contribution to make to a discussion of whether human lives should be put at risk. I must also say that I am shocked to see that several of my colleagues on HUMANIST seem to feel the need to preserve segmented compartments of academic specialties. I know that we live in an age of specialization, but I have always thought (perhaps hoped is more precise) that those of us in the humanities had avoided the compartmentalization of thought and knowledge. Perhaps not. Lucinda S. Jassel Stockton State College Pomona, New Jersey From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Lakoff et al. Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 10:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1965 (2268) One of the best features of HUMANIST is that it is not highly specialized or restricted in matters which it addresses. Its very name suggests its scope. Indeed, nothing which is human should be alien to it. And what, alas, more human than war? It would be unfortunate if the discussion given impetus by the Lakoff article were to remain at the level of the appropriateness of such subject matter rather than proceeding to the subject matter itself. I am pleased to see the discussion broadening to the question of the war itself. I am an inveterate listener to talk radio and have noticed in the last few days more and more support developing for war--and the sooner the better. Much of the support is couched in terms of our having to support our troops in Saudi Arabia as if somehow they could not be brought home without having fought. Why must we fight? Of course, I don't expect an easy answer. But I refuse to accept the notion that the issues are so complex that we ordinary folks cannot understand them. Instead of an explanation we are given phrases that are meaningless or whose meaning shifts periodically. I cannot help but think that a major part of our desire for confrontation comes from a determination to remain a national power in an increasingly international community. We seem to display a conviction that if we are not the world (remember the Marcos party?), we are certainly going to control a large part of it. And, of course, the way to do that is by force. The 1st and 2nd Puny wars under Reagan and Bush made the world safe for medical students and almost rid the world of a Panamanian dope. Now it's time for bigger things. John Dorenkamp DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS Bitnet From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Betrayed Czechs and defended Poles Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 17:30:06 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1966 (2269) Timothy Reuter writes: [deleted quotation] This cannot go unchallenged, for two reasons. (a) It is not true that six million "Poles" were killed. Some three million of them were Jews, practically the entire Jewish population of pre-war Poland; they were killed with the collaboration, broadly based and well-documented, of the Poles themselves. They were killed in cold blood and rarely defended themselves; in fact, the SS located its extermination camps in Poland and went to the trouble of shipping the rest of Europe's Jews there precisely because they could do so without offending the local population (the other Jews exterminated in Poland are not included in the figure of three million). One reason why fewer "Czechs" were killed was that far fewer of them were Jews. (b) Britain and France did not go to war to defend Poland; they had no possibility of doing so in September 1939, and made no effort to do so; nor did they have any part in the eventual liberation of Poland. They "betrayed" (Taylor's term) Czechoslovakia in the hope of preserving peace for the rest of Europe; they went to war over Poland when it became clear that they could not preserve themselves by such a policy, and that since they would have to go to war eventually, it was better done before Germany's continuing growth made their own survival more precarious. Perhaps a stronger policy in 1936, or perhaps in 1933, could have saved Poland and Czechoslovkia; by 1939 neither was a possibility. I do not make the points idly, for in the current conflict my country observes as the Poles and the Czechs might have observed German rearmament, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Anschluss. We are not a party, and pray not to be; but the experience of our dead fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers in Poland can hardly suggest to us that non-resistance holds any promise as a way of preserving our lives. Saddam Hussein has made no secret of what he plans to do with us, nor should the behaviour of his troops in Kuwait leave any illusions; and these are Arabs dealing with Arabs, not Arabs dealing with Jews. I, too, am fond of the "humanistic values" that have been spoken of on the network; they are not, unfortunately, universally, or even widely, held. I pray that those who are strong enough to defend them will be willing to do so, and to do so before we share the fate of our "defended" brothers and sisters. David Schaps Department of Classics Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel From: Randal Baier <REBX@CORNELLC> Subject: War and relevant discussions Date: Wed, 16 Jan 91 15:29:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1967 (2270) It just seems so odd to me that Homer might be relevant in the original Greek while a discussion about present war in the Middle East is deemed inappropriate. Is not the blood spilled just as human in both cases? Randal Baier Cornell University From: Elaine Brennan <ELAINE@BROWNVM> Subject: Administrative Matters Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 16:47:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 907 (2271) Two announcements: Brown's Internet connection will be down from approximately 5:00 pm (est) today, Thursday January 17 until approximately 7:00 am (est) tomorrow, Friday January 18. please use the bitnet version of our name. There are two files on the server, named ACADEMIC LIST1 and ACADEMIC LIST2, courtesy of Diane Kovacs. These two files list and (to the extent possible) summarize various academically-related lists. Diane will be updating the lists periodically, and we'll let you know of their availability. Elaine From: Isaiah Gafni <HNUGI@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.0870 Use of Metaphor in Justifications for War (1/80) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 1991 13:06 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1968 (2272) Eight Iraqi "metaphors" fell on us last night without any provocation. My first thoughts after removing my gask mask this morning was to wish my learned "Humanist" colleagues much success in their continued deliberations! Isaiah Gafni Dept. of Jewish History The Hebrew University From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Saturday Night [eds.] Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 15:05 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1969 (2273) Saturday night. After two nights of air raid sirens, jumping up to get to sealed room, putting on gas masks. Two real ones so far; two false alarms. A bit tiring - but relief that the weapons are conventional, and that so few people are seriously hurt. Schools were closed on Thursday and will remain closed. Since both parents work here, one will have to stay home. Meanwhile most non-essential industries and stores are closed. The Patriot missiles that the US are giving us will be too late and too few. The big question is "Does Saddam have chemical warheads on his missiles?" There is little doubt that he will use them if he has. The elimination of the missile launchers seems a difficult if not impossible task. Generally, morale seems high. People are told to stay close to home, to have gas masks ready. They, for the most part, listen to instructions. The peace rallies continue with the thoughtless, fatuous theme "No blood for oil" playing a leading role. Has anybody rallied to protest the attack of Iraq on Israel, the uninvolved? To protest the attacks on civilian concentrations in cities? I doubt it. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Bomb Shelters and Gas Masks [eds.] Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 15:05 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1970 (2274) There is some lack of clarity in the reports about the use of bomb shelters in Israel. As a matter of fact, there are now two rather different kinds of bomb shelters in use in Israel. The standard bomb shelter is built below ground. For the past 25 years it has been a requirement to provide bomb shelters in all buildings erected. Older buildings often do not have such shelters; their residents depend on neighborhood community shelters which are also found in public areas in the cities. These bomb shelters are [almost] all vented to the outside world. With the advent of the threat of poison gas attacks, it was decided not to use these shelters [except in rare cases where special ventilation is provided and the shelters can be closed hermetically]. The possible damage that can be produced by poison gas, particularly the threat to human life, is far greater than anticipated from a conventional war head. Since the great majority of the existing shelters can not be hermetically sealed, and since they are located at ground level or below, where the denser-than-air poison gases concentrate, a new type of improvised shelter was instituted throughout Israel. The new shelter was a room in a home or apartment, located as high as possible, that could be isolated and sealed, prefer- ably with only one window. These shelters were prepared by put- ting sponge stripping around the window and door edges, closing the windows and taping all joints and edges and placing tape on the glass of the windows to prevent splintering in the case of blast. In addition, a thick plastic curtain was pasted over the windows to prevent splintered glass from entering and providing a secondary defense against the entry of gas. The door edges were provided with thick strips of plastic tape to be used to seal them when the doors were closed. Finally, a wet towel was to be placed at the bottom of the closed door. It was estimated that the use of such a room would reduce poison gas induced morbidity/mortality risks by a factor of 10 as compared to the exposed condition. This safety factor would be greatly improved by the compulsary use of gas masks [special models for children, incubators for infants] and the presence of such additional measures as automatic atropine injections and anti liquid burn powders - all provided to each citizen. So some 8 times already, all of Israel has sat, sealed into their anti-poison gas rooms, wearing masks and waiting. Some 20 casualties from blast and shrapnel have thus all far been mild. Property damage produced by the missiles has, in a number of cases - on the other hand - been extensive. No one resents or regrets the choice of people over property. Several elderly people choked to death by not pulling out the plug on the mask - all on the first day. One Israeli Arab child choked to death when parents forced her to wear the mask. No poison gas has been used - thus far. Learning to use the masks properly, not fastening the straps too tightly, talking, breathing without hyperventilating has been a universal experience. Initially large numbers of people found them- selves sweating unbearably, clouding the glass so as to blind oneself. Others, particularly children, vomited, for the most part after remov- ing the mask. Learning and reuse helped in almost all cases. Radio and TV instructions repeated over and over again helped. A story: sitting in the anti-gas room, members of the family try to put on a brave face, make jokes. How we all look like elephants; how an elephant would approach one of us and mistake him/her for his mother. Only the dog, a rather stately collie, sits quietly and does not appear at all excited. We pity the dog, for he is the only one without a mask. But then we remember that - without a mask - he is our pigeon in the coal mine, the measure of poison gas that has leaked in. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Sunday: Further News [eds.] Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 15:05 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1971 (2275) Last night we slept the sleep of the dead. No sirens, no alarms, no putting on gas masks, all the accumulated exhaustion and tension helped make the sleep deeper. Children seem to suffer the most. Adults are very good; the civil defense services and medical support - including psychological - appear to be first rate and improving all the time, learning from each experience. Schools are still closed, with fear of large concent- rations a major consideration. The psychological comfort of the home is another factor. One child asks - after being told that gas mask drill is to make it perfect, if there is need - "Should we practice dying so that we can do it perfectly when there is need?" Children are frightened to go out, even in gardens next to the house. The thought of having to go to school soon frightens other. The peace rallies seem obscene here; it is the kind of empty headed "fairness" that would have said, "Let's not give weapons to either the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto or to the Nazis." There IS a good side; there is a bad side. The bad side is already armed and entrenched, the good side is only beginning to get its act together. Don't the peace rally participants understand that support for Saddam Hussein is the major effect of all peace activity at this point? That this must be the last thing that anyone should do? The attempt to drag Israel into the war by sending missiles into civilian concentrations is absolutely Satanic. In a speech yesterday, King Hussein of Jordan insisted that Israel is responsible for the Middle East crisis. Iraq had nothing to do with it. Cynical lying will continue. Israel will not lay down and die before Saddam Hussein. That is a simple fact. The activities of the peace movements is perceived here as both disciminatory and discouraging. This is not our fight, but Saddam attacks our civilians. We dispise the situation, but we will not melt away. We will not stop; we will defend ourselves. That should be clear to all. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank <BELL@zodiac.rutgers.edu> Subject: Query Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 12:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1972 (2276) The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank wants to carry out large-scale data entry by scanning and OCR. Does anyone know about recent or new projects that use Optical Character Recognition? Did someone overcome the (widely discussed) trouble of recognizing old fonts or tables? Any recent results with Omnipage? Thanks, Jeroen Touwen Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank, Rutgers University, NJ E-mail: BELL@ZODIAC.Rutgers.edu, 4212001@RUTMVS1.BITNET From: Grover A. Zinn <FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET> Subject: E-mail address in Italy Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 22:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1973 (2277) I recall a discussion sometime ago in which mention was made of e-mail to Italian libraries. Could an Italian colleague (or anyone informed on the matter of Italian e-mail) give me the address for the Biblioteca Governativa in Lucca? If there is no e-mail link, is there by any chance a fax number? Thanks in advance for any assistance. Grover A. Zinn, Jr. Oberlin College FZINN@OBERLIN From: HEBERLEIN@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE Subject: E-text: Pliny the elder Date: 01/18/91 , 13:01:41 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1974 (2278) I know a lot of people here in southern Germany who would like to have a complete e-text of Plinius maior but don't know, where to find it. If i am right in guessing that there doesnt exist any machine readable text of this author (corrections are most welcome; i know only of the CCAT - CD-Rom - excerpts), i would like to propose to share the work of creating one, so that a complete Plinius could by ready within a few months. We here in Eichstaett offer to other people interested in that proiect to prepare at least 10 books till the end of our summer term (1th august) and would be glad to heare of everybody who is willing to contribute at least one book. We also would be glad to heare about any other existing books of Plinius (ourselves, we just finished book 28). Fritz Heberlein From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Semantics Query Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 10:30:10 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1975 (2279) I'd like to survey all users on the following: 1. Is there a semantics course, or semantics-related course, taught at your university? 2. If so, what level is it, how often taught, and how many people take it? So as not to use up the list with responses, please reply directly to me, Bill Frawley/U of Delaware billf@brahms.udel.edu From: brad eden <BEDEN@UKANVM> Subject: other e-mail forums Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 08:57:20 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1976 (2280) To Members of Humanist: I am looking to join other listservs besides this one which deal with more specialized topics. I have heard the mention of LINGUIST, in which I am interested. My interests include medieval music, anything medieval or Renaissance, Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, medieval liturgy, etc. Could someone, or perhaps this listserv, put together a list of current e-mail discussion groups in these areas? I already belong to ANGL-SAX, REED-L, EARLY- MUS. Any others? I would appreciate their names and subscription instructions Thanks. Brad Eden <BEDEN@UKANVM> * * You might also (regardless of what other responses you draw from Humanist readers) want to request the Humanist listserv to send you ACADEMIC LIST1 and ACADEMIC LIST2. See your Guide to Humanist for further details. --Elaine, for the Editors * * From: Paul Jones <pjones@mento.acs.unc.edu> Subject: University catalogs and grad school consulting (over the net) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 15:55:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1977 (2281) I appologize for peppering the lists with requests, but after searching through the list of lists and the news groups, I find that there is not really a single list that addresses the concerns of thsi message. The University of North Carolina is beginning a new student service to assist its seniors in finding graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences. Like so much other information, graduate school catalogs, course offerings, financial aid, assistantships and entry requirements change almost as soon as they see print. We're looking for schools that have made their catalogs, etc. available over the network (or at least machine searchable) or that are planning to do so. We're also looking for other universities that have offices that assist their seniors in the ways that we've mentioned (and other ways we haven't thought of yet). I am willing to run a listserv (or its internet equiv.) for such offices if there are enough others out there to warrant it. Please reply to pjones@samba.acs.unc.edu and not to the list(s). From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Address query Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 08:43:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1978 (2282) I am tyring to locate, via e-mail, Douglas Edwards. Professor Edwards normally teaches at The University of Puget Sound but I have been told he is temporarily at Oxford University. Are any HUMANISTs at Oxford in touch with Mr. Edwards and in a position to relay a few e-mail messages with him if he is not online. Please reply directly to me. Michael Strangelove <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: Skip <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.0906 War Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 10:22:42 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1979 (2283) My only objection to having the war discussed on HUMANIST is that the war is being discussed on scores of lists and after a while one gets tired of the same arguments over and over. I don't regard this as` specialization. Discussion here would be justified if we could somehow give a humanistic spin to it. Is there a specifically "humanist" way to talk about war -- this war or any other? Willard McCarty has repeatedly tried to get us to clarify ourselves on the matter, and I share his interest. If humanism is a philosophy that puts humanity at the center of things, then at least we could broach the subject of war in those terms. War ought not be justified (or condemned) in terms of eternal verities -- religion, "peace," or other abstractions that somehow float above humankind. I see the official justifications for war being very much humanist, and I would contrast the UN's position with Hussein's fulminations, which invoke religion and super-human truths at every turn. But, is there such a thing as a Humanist contribution to the debate? Although I don't think much of rhetorical analysis, I do see that article as a real and specifically humanist contribution to the discussion. I hope to see others (let's hear from the historians!). But if all we are going to do is spout our opinions, well we can do that on a hundred other lists and the opinions don't become more respectable or weighty for having been posted here. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.0906 War Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 14:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1980 (2284) I, too, would like to vote in favor of discussion of war. It is at times very hard to know what to think in this situation: one cannot help but think of World War II on the one hand, and Korea and Vietnam on the other. A lot of one's political leanings derive from point of view; for those of us without an immediate tie (i.e., no relatives involved, no oil magnates in the family, whatever) it is certainly worthwhile to hear educated people with admitted views defend them. I, having completed high school and college during the Vietnam era, am very nervous about young men dying in a hostile environment and possible future drafts. There is also the problem of the USSR and the distraction value of the Middle East crisis. In short, keep talking. We all learn, even if we disagree with some or all of the premises of the speaker! Leslie Morgan From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0896 Responses on ... War ... and Metaphor Date: Sat, 19 Jan 91 16:59 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1981 (2285) Personally, I do not mind the discussion of ANYTHING, on Humanist, because nothing human should be alien to a Humanist. But, I must say, I recall that in 1974, when I was touring the Western States with a program in Humanities for small towns under the aegis of the NEH, I was amused, together with my accompanying crew, to find a marquee above the entrance to Placerville Community College, in the Motherlode country of Placerville County of California, that announced, WELCOME, HUMANITARIANS! This confusion in the popular mind, so called, between a Humanist and a Humanitarian seems to be present among our colleagues, some of whose handwringing and/or doubts about the suitability of war as a subject displays a disappointing similarity with it. Would Socrates have not discussed War? But the level of his discussion would have made Lakoff ashamed of his puerile analysis, and by puerile, I mean just that, Freshman level. Kessler here. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Gulf War Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 13:05:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1982 (2286) I am sorry Stephen Clausing has to make his case by accusing those who wish to speak out of pretending to "moral superiority" or special status. On CBC news the other morning Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed as he left the demonstration then going on at Columbia University. He said very simply but firmly that he was concerned as a citizen and as a father. I am a citizen too, and of a country which has (in my view wrongly) gone to war in support of the UN coalition. And I am a mother. I am neither superior nor special, just a human being with a different point of view. I have no relatives in the forces of any country, but the missiles and gas will fall on dear friends in Israel. It seems to me the responses of Lucinda Jassel and Randal Baier offer much for thought here. Another correspondent suggested that what was really important was talking not about our right to speak, but about the issues themselves. I await that discussion with interest and warm encouragement. Germaine. From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET> Subject: War and Discussion Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 17:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1983 (2287) I find some irony in the last posting on the war, wherein Stephen Clausing's obscurantist call for silence was followed by Judy Koren's eloquent setting forth of a not-unlikely scenario that explains some of the most baffling aspects of this war (such as Bush's intransigent refusal to allow Saddam any face-saving). Perhaps Clausing's friends only engage in political posturing and moral one-upmanship, but some academics are still capable of discussing issues. Perhaps he should consider resigning his academic position. The tone, rhetoric, call for stiffling of dissent seem ill-suited to that arena. I don't mean this to be ad hominem, but I am deeply offended by this call for my silence. (Though I doubt I would have spoken out without the provocation!) David L. Barr, University Honors Program, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 dbarr@wsu From: Jack Kolb <IKW4GWI@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0896 Responses Part II: Humanist, War, and Metaphor Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 02:57 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1984 (2288) Can't we deconstruct Iraq? Or chart the relative penile lengthy of Saddam Huss ein and George Bush? This war is fertile ground for contemporary critics. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: E-mail: conversation or publication? Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 12:51:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1985 (2289) Andrew Gilmartin makes some good points in his response to my assertion that I think of e-mail as primarily conversational. It might help to know that my statement emerged from a discussion raging a couple of days ago on FICINO, the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies' electronic seminar for persons interested in that area. There, a rigid line was being drawn which if followed would put us in the position of "peer review" of e-mail exchanges! Gilmartin's remarks sketch an analogy I can agree with: that between the presentation of new scholarship on e-mail, and the standard conference paper. What I do NOT agree with is his observation that publication is the imprimatur that a work is part of the canon. Publication is merely confirmation that the scholar presenting work to her peers is ready at last to engage in the full and public debate which should ensue to test that work's merit. That the debate doesn't always ensue merely testifies to the laziness or preoccupation of the scholar's audience, and not the imperfection of the system. My students often say wistfully that being finished the Ph.D. means that the constant criticism of their work is finally over. "Ha!" I say, "kiddo, it's just beginning!" Articles and books in opposition, book reviews, peer review of papers and grant proposals -- all those go on throughout academic life. And beyond, in some cases! In this respect as in others, "canonical" is a very chancy concept! Germaine. From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: E-mail boys and girls Date: 18 Jan 91 10:49:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1986 (2290) I must ask Norman Miller what his explanation is for all us "girls" on the e-mail circuit if interest in such gadgetry derives from "boys" getting ham radio sets. No, I never got even a crystal set (as did my male cousin) and he's now a Ph.D. psychologist. Does that prove Miller's argument? Let's not forget that some of us have done computers and humanities all along and in fact, got tenure that way. Mary Dee Harris From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: E-mail: conversation or publication? Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 12:51:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1987 (2291) Andrew Gilmartin makes some good points in his response to my assertion that I think of e-mail as primarily conversational. It might help to know that my statement emerged from a discussion raging a couple of days ago on FICINO, the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies' electronic seminar for persons interested in that area. There, a rigid line was being drawn which if followed would put us in the position of "peer review" of e-mail exchanges! Gilmartin's remarks sketch an analogy I can agree with: that between the presentation of new scholarship on e-mail, and the standard conference paper. What I do NOT agree with is his observation that publication is the imprimatur that a work is part of the canon. Publication is merely confirmation that the scholar presenting work to her peers is ready at last to engage in the full and public debate which should ensue to test that work's merit. That the debate doesn't always ensue merely testifies to the laziness or preoccupation of the scholar's audience, and not the imperfection of the system. My students often say wistfully that being finished the Ph.D. means that the constant criticism of their work is finally over. "Ha!" I say, "kiddo, it's just beginning!" Articles and books in opposition, book reviews, peer review of papers and grant proposals -- all those go on throughout academic life. And beyond, in some cases! In this respect as in others, "canonical" is a very chancy concept! Germaine. From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: E-mail boys and girls Date: 18 Jan 91 10:49:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1988 (2292) I must ask Norman Miller what his explanation is for all us "girls" on the e-mail circuit if interest in such gadgetry derives from "boys" getting ham radio sets. No, I never got even a crystal set (as did my male cousin) and he's now a Ph.D. psychologist. Does that prove Miller's argument? Let's not forget that some of us have done computers and humanities all along and in fact, got tenure that way. Mary Dee Harris From: Lee Jacobus <JACOBUS@UCONNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0903 Age and the Use of Computers & E-Mail (4/74) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 91 11:33:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1989 (2293) I think there is something to the theory that those of us currently in our 50s were held back from playing because of catching the tail end of the depression. I have often commented that I now seem to have more toys than when I was a child, but vastly less time to play with them. The computer became available to me when I had enough money to purchase one--1982--and it became a necessity to my work even earlier in 1980 on the mainframe. So it is natural that the excitement of this wonderful new toy should make up for some of the opportunities missed when I was a child (although I had a chemistry set and a primitive crystal set to fool with). However, it is clear from looking around that all of us in our mid fifties are not sharing in the excitement. Could they have been among the privileged in the 1930s? From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu> Subject: ACH/ALLC Session on Metaphor Date: 18 Jan 91 11:16:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1990 (2294) In light of the discussion of Lakoff's article on Metaphor and War, I wanted to let the readers of Humanist to know that, in my capacity as ACH Liaison to ACL (Association for Computational Linguistics), I have organized a session at ACH/ALLC '91 called, "Artificial Intelligence Approaches to the Study of Metaphor," with papers by three of the people doing recent research on the topic. I don't yet know that day and time, but I believe it will be an interesting session. Mary Dee Harris mdharris@guvax.bitnet mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu From: <JFCOVALE@SUNRISE> Subject: RESPONSES TO LAKOFF Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 15:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1991 (2295) As one who entered academia rather recently and late in life (not quite at the second mode of the e mail user distribution), I am bemused by what seems to me a rather odd feature of the debate around his article. If I understand it correctly, the intent of the article -- quite apart from its quality -- was to serve as a catalyst for discussion about the way our metaphors serve to construct our (visions of [?]) reality -- in this case how our metaphors serve to move us toward war. What has struck me about the ensuing conversation is that, instead of being a converstion about how these metaphors -- and language in general -- may be doing this to us, and what we might learn by a considersation of this question in this forum, it has been a conversation about whether it would be appropriate to have a conversation about such a sensitive topic. As one new to academic discourse, I feel compelled to ask: Do scholars ALWAYS attempt to consider the world at one remove from reality? John F. Covaleskie Cultural Foundations of Education and Curriculum Syracuse University From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: War and metaphor Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 09:33 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1992 (2296) For those who found Lakoff's article illuminating, as I did, and who are interested in a similar analysis of Vietnam, I suggest F.M. Kail, _What Washington Said_ (Harper, 1973). Each of these helped me find ways to make sense of arguments as instrumental, without needing to recur to ad hominem explanations, and to express ideas that were hovering in my subconscious, unspoken because unnamed. Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: LL23000 <LL23%NEMOMUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: 4.0903 Age and the Use of Computers & E-Mail (4/74) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 12:36:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1993 (2297) Adam, I made the original comment that led to the Dartmouth info. [deleted quotation] I, too, would be very interested to see similar info. I personally never owned a computer till two summers ago, though I have been using mainframes extensively for over ten years. So I question that the students have to own their own computers. My university has pretty good facilities, I think, but students don't use them as much as I would like them to. I was fascinated by the Dartmouth data, and would be interested to see more data from other schools. Although my university's Plan explici tly states computer literacy as a goal, I think we have relied on comput er center usage for our stats. Karen Kay Asst. Prof. of Japanese Northeast Missouri St.Univ From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0903 Age and the Use of Computers & E-Mail (4/74) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 17:56:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1994 (2298) Adam Engst is correct, I think, when he suggests that the environment at Dartmouth is so "pro-computational" that David Bantz's report on the high degree of undergraduate use of the facilities there is at least a bit exceptional. Since I've spent some time on that campus teaching (if only a few summers) I think my anecdotal experience is worth adding: I have found Dartmouth students a lot more computer- oriented than Princeton ones. Among the people I teach, who are not necessarily a typical bunch, perhaps, I find that almost exactly half do _not_ use computers to communicate. After I come back off leave next fall I am going to require that students in my course on Dante use the bulletin board our computing people have set up for the course. That will take only a little hand-holding, but will make for Better Things. From: Boyd Davis <FEN00BHD@UNCCVM> Subject: Re: 4.0905 On Humanist: Lakoff Posting (3/35) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 14:21:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1995 (2299) Lakoff's discussion is humanistic and provocative; it deserves our attention. Like Natalie, I received the full text via another list, or I would have asked for it from Humanist. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0906 War (6/223) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 10:40 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1996 (2300) It is by now somewhat belated to offer a comment on Lakoff's essay; but I had written the first paragraph when someone telephoned me and hung my machine up the other day. For all those who admired his essay on rhetoric, I would say that we used to teach Orwell's piece, "Politics & the English Language," in Freshman Comp more than 30 years ago, we being the staff in a fine small liberal arts co llege in New York State...Pound's college, in fact, and Elihu Root's birthplace . Well that was Freshman Comp, and post-Korea. It worked well, and alerted students to the rhetoric of propaganda, commercial, political, religious, the cliches that govern a lot of uncritical thought. And Lakoff's essay, mostly not in any way an advance over Orwell's pointers, is for freshman too. But I am disappointed to hear a Professor saying, or read him writing, at such a low level, one bordering on the asinine and banal, full of its own foregone conclusions, which are pseudo-pacifist at best. The thing that irks me most about the essay, apart from its pompousness, and sententiousness, is its having been written without a single thought given to the length of history behind the current events, the ground of these events, which is perhaps about 1500 years in extent! A linguist should know that culture is carried in more than words, and that words are the expressions of living persons who have histories behind them, and those histories are full of conflict and passion and war. The Mongols in the early 13th Century handled the Euphrates Valley, and Baghdad rather roughly, for those people did not listen to reason, did not submit to reality. Saddam is perhaps of that ilk, a tinhorn version of the glorious caliphate culture, armed by a culture of technology that is far beyond his means of comprehension, as a village illiterate and thug, whose favorite book seems to be MEIN KAMPF. History is here, and not words splashed about by journalistic propagandists, the words Lakoff tediously reviews for us, folks who are trained to recognize cliches. I was not annoyed by his piece; but once again astounded to see what passes for analytic profundity in the Academy, in a place like Berkeley, yet! Dear dear. Kessler at UCLA From: Lee Jacobus <JACOBUS@UCONNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0901 English MA Exam; ... Date: Sat, 19 Jan 91 11:40:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1997 (2301) We require an exit exam. It is in flux right now, but it has traditionally bee n a 3-hour exam on 3 out of 4 texts selected from different periods. I know we plan to retain the exam, but I believe we are changing it next year to look mo re like a 3-hour area exam. In any case it is not as thorough as yours sounds to be. From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0900 (TLG in Europe)] Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 12:58:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1998 (2302) Fritz Heberlein asks if there is a European distributor for TLG. I ased TLG about Euro agency some time ago, and at that stage the response was that there were reasons why it was not feasible to have one. But Europeans can licence the TLG disc directly from TLG, University of California at Irvine, Irvine CA 92717; phone (I think) 1-714-856-6404. Regards, Douglas de lacey. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0902 More on Multiculturalism Date: 17 Jan 91 16:44:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 916 (2303) Bernal on Muhly (with avowal of interest: Prof. Muhly is my own next door office neighbor): `the predominant causal flow is from society to scholarship.' I have no quarrel with that, and to me the most valuable part of Bernal's book is his potted history of 18th/19th century scholarship, showing, however tendentiously, how we put Greek and Latin in one pot and then shoved Egyptian and Hittite and Hebrew and Persian and Other into other pots. Specialists who have looked at that section tell me I am too fond of it, that it shares the unscholarly qualities that mark the more traditional exposition of ancient events and trends; but knowing *how* we constructed the past is necessarily part of trying to know the past. No question. My question back to Prof. Bernal would be *should* the predominant causal flow go from society to scholarship? Or should we as scholars be struggling and resisting, and squirming and looking for ways to reverse the flow, if only partially and temporarily and fleetingly? I think we should and must: it is in such fleeting moments of insight that I find scholarly work to have its greatest value. On that principle, I continue to find Prof. Bernal's work to be flawed *in principle*, for starting with an avowed `social' stance and a hypothesis and proceeding in what I regard as non-scholarly ways to enact the hypothesis that supports the scholarly stance. The `predominant causal flow' is strong enough without we have to help it along. I am myself a DWEM-in-training, as smug and secure as they get: my view is that my best antidote to that condition is *not* simply to shuck DWEM ideology and buy a new ideology at the ideology store, but to work long and hard to de-ideologize myself and my way of working, at least a little. (Inter alia, I don't think the Great Pumpkin would ever visit my pumpkin patch if I went out and bought myself a new ideology; but I think that if I struggle and sweat and mostly fail and occasionally succeed for five minutes -- well, at least *Linus* will come and keep me company. ) From: "Kathryn Wright, Indiana State University" <LIBKAT@INDST> Subject: possible posting re Middle East Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 08:20:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 917 (2304) This might or might not be suitable for propagation to this list. The existence of the NewsE series was announced in the last Netmonth. ******************************************************************** The free and public dissemination News of the Earth * of global news and information * * monitored by shortwave radio ISSN 1052-2239 * by John B Harlan in South Bend, Indiana USA ******************************************************************** Thursday, 17 January 1991 (Issue 35) *** Note from JBH *** Gulf discussion available on NewsE-L Discussion of events in the Gulf (and any other world news) is always welcome on NewsE-L (News of the Earth letters) on ListServ@ IndyCMS. Regina Knight provided an interesting item last night about the apprehension of a suspected Iraqi terrorist in Idaho. Valentine M Smith, well known to readers of Politics (on ListServ@UCF1VM) and USSR-L (on ListServ@IndyCMS) (among other lists), has been posting bulletins to NewsE-L overnight for those without access to television or other news. (All past items are available in log files. For a list of available files, send the command INDEX NEWSE-L to ListServ@IndyCMS.) Feel free to put in your two cents' worth by posting to NewsE-L. ******************************************************************** Think globally, act locally ******************************************************************** News of the Earth consists of three components NewsE-D News distribution NewsE-L Reader/subscriber letters NewsE-S Supplements available separately by free subscription from ListServ@IndyCMS (CREN) ListServ@IndyCMS.IUPUI.Edu (Internet) ******************************************************************** News of the Earth is produced by John B Harlan IJBH200@IndyVAX (CREN) IJBH200@IndyVAX.IUPUI.Edu (Internet) 125 West Marion Street 529 South Bend, Indiana 46601-1096 USA ******************************************************************** ******************************************************************** From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: More News from Israel Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 12:38 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 918 (2305) 22 January Another quiet night; all of the SCUDs were directed - for the second night - to Saudia Arabia and Bahrein. The name of the game is sleep. So many people just can not sleep properly. Fortunately for me, I am one of the lucky ones. A major problem for the sleepless is what to do with the radio. If you leave it on, it disturbs sleep. If you turn it off, you are afraid to sleep. Why shouldn't some of us be neurotic? Wasn't the condition first described by a Jewish doctor in Vienna? Examining Jewish patients? And the other side of the coin is that - if it is not a Jewish disease, i.e., a diaspora disease - why shouldn't we have it? After all, we are now, in Israel, our new/old homeland, just like all other nations. The noise of airplanes drones above us. This is quite unusual as the Jerusalem skies are off limits to air traffic. We can not see the planes, they are very high and the sky is very cloudy, with intermittant light rains. The sound - to my unprofessional ear, at least - is that of motors, not jets. I know that jets are constantly in the air, for weeks now, to avoid being caught on the ground, to be ready to repulse any air attack from Iraq. [We bombed them - a nuclear plant built by the French - 6 years ago; they can certainly return the favor.] But it still sounds like propeller engines. Perhaps these are the mother ships which will be needed to refuel the jets on their 1000 kilometer trip to Iraq. Retaliation, national pride, perhaps strange concepts to most readers. Some have commented on this to me after yester- day's posting. You have to understand how we see - the nature of intergovernmental [and personal, too] relations in that strange part of the world, the Middle East - retaliation as deterrence. If we do not retaliate, this will be seen by our neighbors as an invitation to attack us; alternatively, if we do retaliate, they will be less inclined to attack us. Thus, retaliation is still very much in the air here. We are praised by the West for our restraint; this very same restraint is perceived by our neighbors as a sign of weakness. And why this cruel word, retaliation? It is defending our county. Which we will do. National pride, the picture of Israelis returning to share our fate, to be HERE, now, when the pressure is on. My youngest son, after 3 years of army service in as a commando, now relaxing and touring the Far East, calls in the early morning. He tells us that he is returning, cut- ting his long trip short by months. We try to disuade him; what will he do here? But nothing helps when he has made up his mind. I fear for his safety but I am proud. He will come back, together with other Israelis, together with immigrants from Russia who continue to come, with immigrants from Ethiopia. I will be happy to see my son. The news this morning is discouraging. It seems that much of the coalition's successful bombing has been against dummy targets. Most of Iraq's missile launchers are intact, almost all of their planes. The communication facilities are still almost completely intact. It is going to take much longer than we thought. Life is slowly going back to normal. All are asked to return to work - with gas masks. Schools will be opened tommorrow. Meanwhile some factories are providing nursery services to children of workers in gas proof rooms. The now ubiquitous gas masks are found on the shelves of the nurseries. Radio instructions now include various less likely scenarios [The Israeli penchant for inventing new words has not gone on strike in the present emergency; the new word for scenario is now universal - tarhish. There was a perfectly good word, tasrit. Perhaps the association with movies or plays was perceived as being too frivolous.]. What do you do when you hear a siren while in a car? If you are in a built-up area, you turn off the engine, put on your gas mask and dash for the nearest building, counting on there being a shelter or on a good citizen who will take you in. [Actually quite probable. I remember the bomb shelter hysteria in the States in the 50's, when guns to keep out neighbors was part of the standard equipment.] If you are in an open area, stop the car, put on the mask, keep listening to the radio. Life is going back to normal. Yesterday, my wife and I go to visit a Russian family whom we have adopted, our fourth. They are all wonderful people and each family is different, each with fascinating stories. This is a new family for me; my wife has already met them. We carry our gas masks and presents, a carrot cake my wife has baked and a radio. We decide to walk, we need the fresh air, the excercise. They live 20 minutes away, near the open air market, Mahne Yehuda, in an old, religious neighborhood. The apartment is large, newly painted but very old under the paint. The man wears a kippa, bears a long brown, curly beard, is short and delicate looking. His wife is short, fat and has dyed bright red hair. They are from Perm, near the Urals. They were both teachers. I look at their sealed room; it is a joke, totally inadequate. I point this out to them, all in a mixture of elementary Yiddish [mine] and elementary Hebrew [theirs], but they are only interested in employment. They have a daughter with 3 children who came with them and is now living in a Tatzpit [a small group of families on top of a hill] in the Galil]. They are happy to be here; I am happy they are here: more good material for Israel, one less family to suffer degradation in the USSR. Life coming back to normal. We walk through the shuk, the open air market. It is already dark, but the lights are brilliant and the shuk is teeming with purchasers of the marvelous fresh fruits and vegetables available, and nuts and dried fruit and spices. Some of the stands, only a very few, are empty, closed. Where are the owners? Have they fled? We buy some oranges, some cucumbers and smoked fish. Back home. Another day in Israel. ... The southern part of the country is now back to normal life; other than carrying gas masks with them, it is back to work for the citizens of Ashdod, Beersheva, Eilat and surrounding regions. Schools will probably reopen there tommorrow. Some Universities are cautiously reopening, although the end of the first semester was advanced a week. The Universities are now in inter-semester and exams are to be given. All trains - only a minor form of transportation here - are now running on full schedules. A fair number of Tel Aviv citizens have chosen to leave the city. They are camping with relatives and friends in what they perceive to be safer parts of the country. Kibbutzim are crowded with guests and hotels in Jerusalem, Eilat and Tiberius are enjoying a small boom. How do citizens of Israel feel about the governmental decision not to react to Iraq's attacks by retaliation? A great majority appear to think that this decision was correct; the left, of course, totally surprised by Shamir's "mature" [as they see it] decision, are enamoured of Shamir now. Government critic, MK Dadi Zucker of the Citizen's Rights Party, spoke of wanting to embrace Shamir, but for Zucker's self-confessed embarrassment. The hard line Moledet Party insists on retaliation, now. Most Israelis are for retaliation in some form. National pride demands it. How can we passively accept an attack, gratuitous as it was, by a foreign nation? The problems with retaliation are both distance and a proper target. The choices seem to be between a massive attack or an elegant one. There is a feeling that the airforce is capable of a massive attack even at the distances in- volved which will require refuelling in mid-air. But can we compete with the coalition? What can we do that they can't? The possibility of an elegant retaliation seems more attractive; it would involve limited risk - in numbers - and achieve an important and visible goal. The killing of Saddam comes to mind as a possibility. Is this feasible? Meanwhile the threat of attack on us still exists. The missile launchers have not been taken out action. The Iraqi airforce is still intact, its performance capabilities a question mark. Anxiety here is controlled, people are going back to work. Another blow to Israeli pride has been the arrival of US Army personnel to operate the Patriot missiles. Israel has prided herself by never before using foreign troops to fight for her. There is some consolation in the training of Israeli crews by the US teams and the knowledge that the Americans are not here for long. What we can be proud of is the performance of the Civil Defense, the hospitals, the Army, the Airforce - airplanes are flying all the time so as to be ready and not attackable on the ground - the radio and TV and the general population, who have behaved - almost entirely - in an intelligent, praiseworthy fashion. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> Subject: Protesting War Date: Tuesday, 22 Jan 1991 12:09:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1999 (2306) Bob Werman's descriptions of life in Israel under Saddam Hussein's missile attacks is certainly deeply moving and deeply disturbing: no one in the right mind can be but appalled at them, as no one in his/her right mind can be but appalled at Saddam. Those who protest against the war, however, are not by their protest saying that they condone the attacks on Israel; rather, they are suggesting that Israel would not have been put in this position in the first place (nor in the incredible position of being pressured not to respond) had the Allies sought other alternatives rather than war. Many here are not convinced that all other alternatives have been exhausted; some, like myself, think that war is never the final alternative, but that it is simply an unacceptable alternative. Hussein is evil or mad or both, but it is a little hard for some in this country to swallow all the moralizing rhetoric that goes along with the war (and rhetoric does kill, just as metaphors for war can lead to real bombs) when officials int his country, in the Soviet Union, France, Germany, etc., have known that Hussein is evil or mad or both for many years, and have armed him to the teeth anyway. To my mind, this war is more the result of one of the most misguided foreign policies in the history of the world than it is the case of fascistic madman rising to power: he never would have assembled the fourth largest military in the world had we (and by we I mean all of the countries listed above and more) not provided to him in the first place--yes, in exchange for oil, which is exactly what the slogan no blood for oil refers to. We are now in the horribly ironic position of trying to destroy, as it were, our own Frankenstein, but we, the producers of the world's weapons, provided him with the power that he has to threaten Kuwait, Turkey, Iran, and Israel. Those who support the war want to forget all that and think of it only in the current context, a context that is fatalistic and irreversible, But before there was Hussein the madman, the middle-East Hitler, there was the Soviet Union selling him scuds and Germany providing him with the technology to get them to go as far as Israel; there was France selling him Mirage jets and the United States selling him weaponary so that the Iran/Iraq war could be brought to a stalemate, a policy arising out of our fears about Iran, not Iraq, becoming the bully of the Middle East. Well, we see where that policy has led us, and now that we helped to create the monster, we are compelled to destroy him. Hence, I, like many, are in the terribly ambivalent position of one who protests strongly against the war and the foreign policy that has led up to it, yet who hopes that it can be brought to a conclusion quickly--there seems to be no other way out of the corner we've painted ourselves into at this point in history. Will we learn to conduct our foreign policy differently as a result of this harsh lession? I fear not, for arms is money, and building up arms inevitably means war and the justification of war. In all of this, I think it can be also said that everyone sympathizes with the position Israel has been put into, and fervently hopes that no physical harm will come its way; the psychological damage has already been inflicted, as it will continue to be to any country involved in this. Patrick O'Donnell English/West Virginia University From: David Graber <GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0908 News from Israel Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 09:56:12 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2000 (2307) Mr. Werner, I am horrified at what you and the families are around you are undergoing. But how can that horror be any less for the Iraqi family being bombed, for the Kuwaiti family being bombed? So many people can justify the bombing in so many ways, yet I cannot accept the justification. There are bombs used in so many parts of the world, and although I do not live in an unstable region, many people here prosper by the production and sales of weapons which have no purpose but to inflict more damage. I do not support Saddam Hussein or any other dictator, but I will continue to protest, Mr. Werner, in support of people like you all over the world who cannot sleep for fear of being bombed, because I am disgusted at the horror. David S. Graber Humanities and Arts Computing Center DR-10 University of Washington GRABER@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU graber@blake.acs.washington.edu (206) 543-4218 From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Demonstrations and the Gulf War Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 07:53:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2001 (2308) Bob Werman's report from the front was very valuable, and there must be few of us who do not understand and sympathize with the tension and anger he displays. I don't know how much news is getting through to him, but he will be glad to know that yes, there certainly are "pro-Israeli" demonstrations here. The difficulty is that there are demonstrations everywhere, of every shade of opinion. It's not hard to guess the views of demonstrators who want to blast Saddam off the map, or of those (and they demonstrate too) who want to see Israel wiped out. Much harder to convey is the real concern of those who say simply and persistently that "war is not the way to solve this problem." Those of us who do might be accused of commenting from a very safe position, except that a surprising number of veterans of the Viet Nam War appear to have taken the same position, and no one, I think, would question their credentials. Germaine. From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.0910 On the Discussion of War ] Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 11:16:12 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2002 (2309) I fully echo Skip Knox' sentiments: contributions on the war are to be welcomed if they are scholarly and HUMANIST-ic. I take it that in his last para he was referring to the Lakoff article. Whatever we may make of that, the saddest thing is that it was attacked, not for being poor scholarship and by scholarly arguments; but for being politically biased and by smears. To label it as "puerile", or to attack it for not being an essay on the wider historical issues (and in a contribution containing some interesting metaphors, forsooth!) suggests at the least an inability to look dispassionately at issues. Sad. One further factor in the *linguistic* debate, related to the question of metaphor, seems to be that of naming things. Call someone a beast, and you remove from yourself the obligation to regard him as fully human. Ditto "village illiterate" or "thug". A friend commented to me recently how different the treatment of Catholics by Cromwell had been on the mainland and in Ireland. Why the difference? The Irish were "savages". Perhaps the temptation (as old as Adam and as dangerous as the snake) to control things by attaching labels touches not only the media men and Government propagandists. Relabelling the package is surely no substitute for clear counter-arguments at a comparable level. Caveant Humanistes! Despite my first para, I appreciated Bob Werman's reports. But if it's not too much work, could such things not be concatenated and put on the LISTSERV, so that those who don't like these dscussions neen't be bothered? Regards, Douglas de Lacey. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Rhetoric Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 08:03:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2003 (2310) Skip Knox says he dislikes "rhetoric". I know what he means, of course, but must grumble a bit about the misuse of this term. It's a bit like saying you "dislike" the Wars of the Roses or the sonnet or Euclidean geometry. Rhetoric is a discipline of study, not a pejorative term. Though it has to be admitted that within the discipline itself there has been a long history either of disclaiming rhetoric or attacking it. Both of which are fully rhetorical strategies, as was Skip's statement. (Sorry, Skip). Germaine. From: Bernard van't Hul <USERGDME@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: Lakoff's Essay Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 00:54:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2004 (2311) Because I cannot imagine myself into the minds of those for whom such a conference as *Humanist* is a wrong or even dubious medium for such an essay as Lakoff's, I have nothing in particular to say to their misgivings or allegations. One does hope to read further thinking from the Kessler who does at least refer to the essay -- although indirectly thus far. Having vented patent contempt for Lakoff's person (along with poignant envy of both his relative youth and his academic affiliation), Ms. or Mr. Kessler should now feel free to address the essay itself. From: Maurizio Lana <U245@ITOCSIVM> Subject: JANET Date: 21 January 91, 11:21:06 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2005 (2312) Does anyone know how can I connect to library catalogs under janet? I have addresses in three forms: nnnn nnnn nnnn ... where n=digit place.library abbreviatedplace.abbreviatedlibrary. Thank you to anyone will help. Maurizio Lana From: "Robert S. Kirsner" <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Derrida and Hussein Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 07:07 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2006 (2313) Upon reading in the New York Times that vendors at the Tel Aviv farmers' market are spicing their calls with the phrase "May Saddam's name be erased," I would like to ask all the Deconstructionists out there whether this means that Saddam Hussein is -- technically -- "under erasure'??????? From: Pamela Sheingorn <PKSBB@CUNYVM> Subject: Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 10:12:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2007 (2314) Can anyone offer thoughts//review citations for the this book published? Mark Sheingorn (husband of above) From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Research Centre Network Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 12:05:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2008 (2315) I am presently working towards the creation of a Bitnet network of research centres which are connected with, or related to Religious Studies Departments. The network would facilitate the exchange of information, newsletters, cooperation between related research projects, and the archiving of related databases. To begin establishing this network I need to get in touch with any HUMANISTs who work within Religious Studies research centres and might be interested in such a network. If your research centre or research group or project is currently online with Bitnet or interested in getting online, please let me know. Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: uunet!microsoft!marcosi@cs.washington.edu Subject: Kinkos Courseware Exchange Date: Tue Jan 22 17:45:07 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2009 (2316) I've heard rumors that there is something called Kinks Courseware Exchange where you can get Mac tutorials on general interest subjects (like physics, maths, languages). Does anybody have the address (post or electronic) ? thanks Marco Simionato From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: language lab Macs Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 15:53:43 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2010 (2317) A colleague requests that I forward the following query. We are hoping to develop a new language lab using Macintoshes -- including digitized versions of traditional language lab tape exercises. Others (including HUMANIST readers?) are known to be exploring this route -- perhaps some collective wisdom will emerge here. First question: how much disk space does a 30-minute "sound bite" (i.e., the digitized version of an audio tape, stored on a hard disk) consume? Second question: does there exist a good font package for the Mac that includes the International Phonetic characters? Responses may be addressed either to HUMANIST or to me directly. Thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College Springfield, MO 65802 USA From: Lou Burnard <LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: BNC/OUCS jobs requiring SGML/UNIX expertise Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 11:51 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 922 (2318) Oxford University Computing Service BRITISH NATIONAL CORPUS The BNC is a major DTI/SERC funded collaborative venture, the goal of which is the creation and distribution of a 100 million word on-line corpus of English text, for use in linguistics research. Major participants in the three year project are Oxford University Press (OUP), Longman Group UK Ltd, the British Library and the Universities of Oxford and Lancaster. Other participants may join the Consortium at a later stage. Oxford University Computing Service (OUCS) is now recruiting for the following fulltime three-year posts in connexion with the BNC Project, to start as soon as possible: 1. PROJECT LEADER (Research Scale Grade II: #16,755 - #22,311 p.a.) To take responsibility for day to day management and design of the project within OUCS and to run its computing facilities. Applicants should be graduates with significant experience of a production UNIX system, preferably in a text processing environment. They should have (or be prepared to acquire) an in-depth knowledge of SGML. 2. UNIX PROGRAMMER (Research Scale Grade IA #11,399 - #18,165 p.a.) To provide technical support in the areas of text conversion, system management or database management. The ideal candidate will have special skills in string processing and a detailed practical knowledge of SGML as well as experience of programming in a Unix environment. Application forms, further details of both posts and background information on the Project are available from: Judith Thompson, OUCS, 13 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN (tel. 0865 273230, e-mail JUDITH@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX) Completed application forms should be returned to arrive not later than [deleted quotation] The University of Oxford is an Equal Opportunity Employer. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Erasmus queries Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 09:47:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2011 (2319) Jim Estes asks me to thank all those on Humanist who participated in the solution of his four Erasmus queries. He has written to several people who replied, and I have sent "thank you" messages to all those who sent mail to me (I hope they got through). "Notes and queries" appears to be a very useful function for electronic communication of this sort; may it continue to flourish! Germaine. From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0909 Queries (7/129) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 08:38:12 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2012 (2320) Re: E-text of Pliny the Elder The latest PHI CD-ROM (#3), which is currently in a beta-test phase has what I believe is the complete text of Pliny the Elder. I will try to verify this and post a further message. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Natalie Maynor <nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu> Subject: Re: 4.0909 Queries (7/129) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 91 16:31:19 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2013 (2321) I'm sending this reply to HUMANIST rather than directly to Brad Eden in case there are others who are not aware of the *VERY LONG* list of lists. In addition to listing the lists, the document describes each one and gives instructions for subscribing. The easiest way to get a copy of it is ftp 192.33.33.53. The filename is interest-groups and it's in a subdirectory named netinfo. If you don't have ftp access, you can get the list by ordinary e-mail, but it will be chopped into ten or twelve segments. To get it via e-mail, send this command to listserv@ndsuvm1. bitnet: sendme interest package Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) English Department, Mississippi State University From: "H.-C. Hobohm" <AMR06@DK0RRZK1> Subject: DIMDI Date: Sat, 19 Jan 91 15:49:48 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2014 (2322) DIMDI is one of the greatest european commercial hosts specialized on biomedical databases (which includes Social Sciences !!) it is called: "Deutsches Institut fuer Medizinische Dokumentation und Information" and can be reached voice: +49 221 47241 Datex-P (packet switching dataservice) 262 45221020901 german videotext: *44479# data: +49 221 41201114 (line-mode) / +49 221 44806166 (page-mode) snail mail: Weisshausstr. 27 / D 5000 Koeln 41 / Germany I am afraid they dont have a Bitnet-address. Dr. H.-C. Hobohm Social Science Information Center Lennestr. 30 D 5300 BONN Germany AMR06 at DK0RRZK1.BITNET From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Re: 4.0911 E-mail: Conversation/Publication, Boys/Girls, Age? Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 11:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2015 (2323) What about all us "girls"? asks Mary Dee Harris. A good question to which I, along with most other social scientists, don't have an answer that hasn't already been widely circulated. The question was however somewhat off the mark since I was trying to account in a small way for the surprisingly large number of slippered pantaloons like myself who are interested in computers. And a minor correction is in order here: even the affluent "boys" didn't get what Ms. Harris calls a ham radio set, nor were they put together from kits. Not then. But in truth Ms. Harris' note puzzles me. Does she suggest that, despite childhood differences (dolls, not crystal sets) there is no gender gap with respect to computers as a hobby? That's hard to believe. I have two women colleagues who use their computers extensively in their work and in their teaching. When I need--yet again--to be reminded how to use that loathsome statistical program called SAS with which we are saddled, I turn to them. But neither of them has ever even considered playing dixie cup. Neither has ever written something as simple as a two-line batch program. They accept mine with the amused condescension of adults indulging a harmless eccentric. But my daughter-in-law, who runs rings around all of us at data-torture, doesn't even do that: she just walks away bored when family talk turns to computing. For that matter, with so many women in the humanities, has Ms. Harris had a recent look at the membership list of Humanist? Norman Miller From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Re: Age and the Use of Computers & E-mail 4.0903 Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 09:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2016 (2324) I recently bought a computer for my home. I think the reason most students desire computers for their homes / dorm-rooms is because of convenience. It's just easier to have computer at home where one can : be near their books (when writing papers) : stay home on cold days : not have to leave and still do their work : not wait in line for computers (during exam time or when all the papers for the semester/quarter are due) : play games (and, yes, this is a factor for students) This is an age of speed, ease, and convenience. People are constantly trying to improve their life, their quality of life, and their ease of life. That's why we have home computers, books on tape, Cliff Notes, electronic mail, walkmen, VHS, etc... Jim Wilderotter Wilder@Guvax Wilder@Guvax.Georgetown.Edu From: "Guy L. Pace" <PACE@WSUVM1> Subject: Students using computers Date: Thu, 17 Jan 91 08:06:44 PLT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2017 (2325) Saw the posting about students using computers at gunpoint. The survey mentioned students admitting using the university file-servers. I know I would have trouble finding a Non-CS student who would even know what a file server is. Granted the business school requires an introductory level computer science course, that is probably where most of them get the experience. I often run into a student in a panic, looking for a computer on which to finish a class assignment. I help them as best I can. When I mention that they can have their own XT compatible for about 500-600 bucks, I get blank stares. Go figure. Regards: Guy L. Pace Information Services Analyst Washington State University From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: DIGI-FONTS Outline Font Information Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 10:04:28 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 925 (2326) Information on DIGI-FONTS Products Based on an untitled catalog apparently dated January 1, 1991 Audience: PC DOS users with HP printers or MS Windows who need inexpensive (mostly nonstandard) typefaces for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, or Devanagari scripts The DIGI-FONTS company makes a set of scalable outline fonts using an outline system that they call DF outlines. Bitstream outlines are another, much better known system of scalable outline fonts. A scalable outline font is usually used as a master to generate fixed-size bitmapped fonts for use with HP Laser Jet or Desk Jet printers, or for use screen and printer use with PC graphical user environments like Microsoft Windows. There are various other outline systems, most notably Postscript outline fonts, used directly, as outlines, by Postscript printers, though now there is software that can use Postscript outline fonts to generate fixed-size bitmapped fonts for HP Laser Jet printers and for software like MS Windows, too. DIGI-FONTS announces in this catalog that they expect to make their outlines available as Type 1 (unhinted?) Postscript outline fonts this Spring. They already make them available as HP Laser Jet III gAutoFont?) outlines. There are differences among the various outline systems, with respect to quality, cost, speed, and coverage. Generally the issues that concern desktop publishers are quality and cost. Bitstream and Postscript outlines are both associated with high quality fonts, especially those Postscript outlines that incorporate Adobe's own hinting technology, but these fonts are also fairly expensive, except to the extent that Bitstream fonts are available at special prices with new copies of certain software packages. The only source for Bitstream outlines is Bitstream, and hinted Postscript fonts from sources other than Adobe are only just becoming available. In addition to cost and availability concerns, the usual symbol sets for Bitstream and Postscript Latin script outlines have very little support for languages outside of Europe. The exotic characters and character- diacritic combinations that are offered are very limited. And, once one leaves the Latin script there is very little available at all, especially for use on PC systems. As I understand it, Bitstream outlines actually support free combining of Latin characters and diacritics, but available commercial software only supports certain fixed combinations. Bitstream also makes outlines for various non-Latin fonts, but none of these are made available for commercial distribution in the United States, as far as I am aware. Unhinted Postscript outlines for extended Latin scripts or non-Latin scripts are available in comparative profusion for Macintosh systems, but none of the vendors seem to be interested in the PC market. Recently Usenet has carried a number of articles on ways to convert Macintosh Postscript fonts to PC Postscript fonts, but the process is complex, and requires expensive graphics software, as well as access to both kinds of systems. Perhaps this will eventually lead to the commercial availability of a greater variety of Postscript outlines for PCs, but for the moment this is not a course of action to be recommended for the average user. Given these considerations, DIGI-FONTS' DF outlines may interest individuals who work with languages for which it is difficult to find suitable fonts. DIGI-FONTS sells about 400 different outlines for use in PC environments, mostly Latin fonts, but also Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Devanagari fonts, plus symbol and specialty fonts. The fonts are sold by the disk, with 8 outlines per Latin/Greek/symbol/ specialty disk, 4 per Hebrew disk, and 2 to 3 per Devanagari disk. (The different faces on Devanagari Disks appear to differ mainly in weight.) Disks cost $80US for Latin/Greek/Hebrew/symbol/specialty disk, and $150US for Cyrillic and Devanagari disks. There are currently c. 80 disks in their library. Most importantly, DF fonts allow free combination of the available outline characters and diacritics. Any diacritic can be combined with any character, using Digi-duit!, a program mentioned further below. Font houses have problems naming their fonts. They want a name that can be trademarked, and isn't trademarked already, and usually one that is evocative of the font family that they are implementing. Hence Bitstream's name Swiss for their Helvetic(oid) font. DIGI-FONTS have settled for trademarkability only. Their fonts are mostly named for Colorado towns, resulting in names like "Aspen Black" or "Snowmass Gothic." Some are named functionally, e.g., "Cyrillic." This means that users will have to decide themselves, from appearance, what fonts meet their needs, though perhaps the company will advise on this problem, if asked. DIGI-FONTS prices are apparently quite reasonable. The ones quoted above are the only ones there are, because DF fonts are not available from discounters. At least this is the company's current policy. I have seen one Usenet complaint on the quality of bitmaps generated from DF outlines, especially for small point sizes, but I believe that DIGI-FONTS quality is adequate for most people for most non-commercial purposes. On the question of speed, the catalog reports that it takes c. 40 seconds to generate one 12 point bitmapped font on an 80286 10 MHz system. To summarize, DIGI-FONTS will interest users who emphasize low cost or variety in symbol sets more than quality. I recommend that anyone who is interested request the DIGI-FONTS catalog and think also about the demo disk that is available for $5US. The fee for the demo disk can be applied to later purchases. Expect to have some questions requiring correspondence or a letter. The demo is aimed at users who want to use standard symbol sets in standard fonts, but it gives a good idea what their software and fonts are like. To use DF outlines you will need a program that DIGI-FONTS markets, called Digi-duit!. (The ! is unfortunately part of the name.) There are different versions for use with the Laser Jet Plus or II series, the Laser Jet II series, and the Desk Jet series. The Plus or II version is $90US, which includes their outline Disk 00, with the serif font "Rico" in roman, bold roman, italic, and bold italic variants, plus four other faces: "Commercial Symbols," "Bailey" (a rather modernistic sans-serif), "Pine Junction Script" (fancy script, suitable perhaps for cards), and "Hartsel" (a novelty font, suitable perhaps for posters). I don't think that Rico qualifies as a Times(oid) font, but I couldn't say what typeface family it does represent. I think that Telluride on Disk 01 is DIGI-FONTS' Times(oid), but, not being an expert on typefaces, I haven't identified their Helvetic(oid) sans-serif. Digi-duit!, plus your choice of outline disks, is enough to create downloadable bitmapped fonts. However, in most cases you will also need a tool to generate printer drivers for your particular word processor or desktop publication program. For this DIGI-FONTS makes a series of $40US Digi-install! programs, one each for Word Perfect 5.0, Word Perfect 5.1, MS Word 4/5, MS Windows, Ventura/GEM, WordStar 2000, WordStar 5/5.5, and WordStar 6. Presumably you will need at most two, if you use both a word processor, say, and Ventura/GEM. Since the fonts are standard HP bitmapped fonts (for the appropriate printer), you can use any other installation program you want, e.g., the Lodestar Utilities for XyWrite or Nota Bene, or SoftCraft's Laser Fonts program, which handles Word Perfect 4.2/5.0/5.1, Word 4/5, and Display Writer. Another alternative to Digi-duit! is EZ-duit! a less flexible tool included with font disks. See the catalog for details of differences. DIGI-FONTS also provides Digi-kern! ($50US) for making kerning tables, and Digi-edit! ($250US), for making new DF outline fonts. The editor is a new offering. It is one of the few outline font editors for PCs, and therefore important in itself, even though it does not make (unhinted or hinted) Postscript outlines. The editor can import black and white TIFF files or PCX files, and autotrace them. It can also import letters from any existing DF outline. You can draw your own letters from scratch, too, of course. Editing facilities include smoothing (various sorts), editing the points constraining the outline curves, grids, guidelines, ghosts (model characters), merge outlines (add diacritic), and transformations (slant, widen, narrow, etc.). There is also a subeditor for bitmapped fonts. There are some unfortunate limits to the abilities of DF outlines to deal with "exotic" Latin scripts. For example, the basic character set has no edh, an oversight that will frustrate Germanists and some Americanists (edh is used with various Native American languages, including the ones I work with). The diacritics don't include the "Polish hook" (ogonek) used in writing nasal vowels in Polish or, again, by most Americanists. The diacritics provided seem restricted to be tilde, superposed small circle, grave, circumflex, and acute, wedge (hacek), breve, macron, umlaut, and cedilla. Exotic alphabetic characters are limited to o with oblique line, ae ligature, and oe ligature. You can get characters from other DF outlines, e.g., the Greek, Cyrillic, and various symbol sets. However, there does not seem to be a phonetic symbol set of any sort. It is not clear from the literature how the "kerning" of the base character and diacritic are handled. It appears that Digi-duit! knows how to center the diacritic above or below the appropriate lowercase or upper case letter, but it may not be possible to modify the results except by editing the bitmaps. It's also unclear whether one can combine arbitrary characters, e.g., d and dash to produce a d-with-a-dash-through-it, a common substitute for edh that was used with typewriters. Another sort of limit that may be of concern to some users is that the basic DF Latin character set does not include the entire PC symbol set. I believe that one can create a complete 10U HP font (one with a symbol set that matches the PC symbol set), but it will be necessary to purchase the additional DF fonts that provide the linedrawing graphics characters and the symbol characters in order to do this. The address for DIGI-FONTS is: DIGI-FONTS, Inc. 528 Commons Drive Golden, CO 80401 United States of America 800-242-5665 303-526-9502 FAX It might be appropriate here to mention a possible alternative for DIGI-FONTS, if the reader needs fonts for use with variant Latin scripts, or Greek, Ethiopic, Devanagari, Tai Dam, or Laotian scripts on the HP Laser Jet series, EGA/VGA screens, or software like GEM. All of these are supported by the Summer Institute of Linguistics package SIL Premier Fonts. The Latin script facilities are based on Bitstream bitmaps and support Bitstream's Dutch, Swiss, Century, and Freeform fonts, though not all to the same extent. The whole Latin package, with software and fonts is $900. I believe that additional fonts are c. $250. The DIGI-FONTS prices compare very favorably with that. Since the DIGI-FONT products are outline based, they use much less disk space. The SIL product (with Latin scripts only) needs close on 17MB of disk space before any fonts are generated. On the positive side it supports extensive sets of phonetic characters and diacritics, all of which can be combined as needed, as well as allowing user control of the kerning of base characters and diacritics. Standard characters and alternate forms of some standard are provided, as well as things like undotted i and j for use with diacritics. SIL Premier Fonts includes the equivalent of Digi-duit! and Digi-install! for MS Word 4/5, MS Windows, Ventura/GEM, XyWrite, and GEM. It can also generate screen fonts for EGA and VGA monitors. There is no font editor, but a number of commercial bitmap editors from other sources could be used, including the shareware program QFont 1.5, with a registration fee of c. $80US. Two major faults of the SIL product are belt-tightening prices and the bitmap-only approach. The price problem results from licensing Bitstream products. The bitmap problem may eventually be solved, since I understand that SIL intends to switch to Type 1 Postscript outlines at some future date. I don't know if this will also solve the price problem. Another major problem is the lack of support for the full set of symbols and graphics characters used in the PC character set. The absence of parts of the PC symbol set is a particular problem with EGA and VGA screen fonts. It is not much help to gain the ability to display accented nasal a, only to lose the ability to display the graphics character-based boxes so beloved of one's word processing and database software. To repair these deficiencies in the printer fonts, users can apparently generate their own collections of the missing characters from Bitstream outlines, if they have the necessary Bitstream outlines and software. However, it would be easier simply to rely on the availability of the missing characters in the internal fonts of the printer. At the moment I am not sure how to fix the problem in EGA and VGA screen fonts, where it is more serious. It should be possible to get the (inexpensive) SIL screen font editor, and perhaps then the missing items can be added to the screen font by hand. I have no connection with the DIGI-FONTS company, and also I have never used their products, though I have gotten their demo, and I have been following their catalogs for a year or so, in hopes that their Latin script linguistic support will improve. I have recently had some hands on experience with the SIL Premier Fonts product, but I have no affiliation with SIL. All recommendations explicit or implicit in the foregoing are my own, and do not reflect the practice or policy of my employers. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: A Death in the Family Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 12:38:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 926 (2327) At a time of such madness in the world it may be an intrusion to speak of personal sorrow, but perhaps, given the name of our seminar, we should not fail to take note of the death early this morning in Toronto of Northrop Frye. For those of us who teach at Victoria College it is indeed a personal loss; his remarkable gift grew and flourished in this place, and it is among our greatest sources of pride that he never wanted to leave our students, our classrooms, or our faculty common room, to all of which he gave distinction both by his eminence and his unsurpassed modesty. Norrie was a shy man, but he had a wonderful fund of anecdote and great wit. To my mind he was without doubt the greatest writer Canada has so far produced, and we have much to learn about ourselves from the fact that his chosen genre was not the novel, poem, or play but the critical essay. Recent developments in critical theory, it is said, had left his views on the side-lines. Though no acolyte, I cannot agree with that. What I can testify to is his immense personal influence on a whole generation of critics who had no hesitation in searching out ways to knowledge very different from his. His renown will lead to many worthy obituaries, so perhaps this note should close simply by saying how much all of us here at Victoria College loved him. Germaine. From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Israel Report: The 7th Day [eds.] Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 15:19 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 927 (2328) This is a particularly difficult report to write. I am not ordinarily given to persistent, burning anger but that is what has happened to me. It is in the air here, and I, too, have been infected. And - just to show the extent of my anger - I feel no guilt about it, I feel that it is the right response, the only possible response. Last night was not a quiet night; between 8:32 to 8:33 PM an alarm was sounded and we rushed to our gas-proof rooms, donned our gas masks [you have to remember to take off your eye glasses], and turned on the transister [What if the electricity goes! We have candles and matches ready, too.] radio. Within a minute or two we were told that this was not a false alarm, that there was a missile attack on Israel and that we were requested to enter our rooms and put on the masks, to wait patiently and to listen to further reports on the radio. Some 15 minutes later we were told that all people outside the greater Tel Aviv area could take off their masks and leave the room, but to stay at home with our masks handy. About a half-hour later, Tel Aviv residents were also let out of the gas-proof rooms. We were told that a missile attack took place but no details. Later, I hear that the missile struck at 8:37. I calculate, 4-5 minutes advance notice, just enough time to get to the gas-proof room and put on the mask. We learned the details through a long night's vigil, waiting for news, waiting for another missile. 96 wounded, 4 dead [3 were old folks who suffered heart attacks], 20 multiple family buildings badly damaged, hundreds homeless. We watched TV, called relatives and friends, to ask if they were safe. We could recognize the neighborhood from the TV reports. The Patriots fired missed the SCUD, and the illusion of safety disappeared. We watched the rescue crews at work on TV. Wounded, a young man clutching his dog while being put a stretcher, collapsed walls being raised by heavy equipment to free the trapped. It was terrible. The 13th missile, the 3rd attack. All bearing conventional warheads - so far. Should we use the underground shelters? We were told not to, that the threat of poison gas was still real, that gas could do far more damage to human life. We are not sure that Saddam Hussein has chemical warheads for the SCUD missiles but we do know that he has chemical weapons that can be dropped from planes. It is not possible to guarantee that at least one plane with such weapons would be able to penetrate our air defenses. So, we still will use our gas-proof rooms. Poison gas. When Jonathan Pollard asked his superiors why the US did not protest at the Soviets and Germany selling poison gas technology to Iraq, he was told that the Jews, since the second World War, had become oversensitive to the subject of gas. Oversensitive? These are bad guys, but not evil, just dumb and insensitive, without fore- sight. The Peace Demonstrators do not differentiate between bad and evil. They rightly condemn both, but do not see the essential differ- ence. Saddam Hussein is evil. He is not accused of making a fast buck by selling restricted technology, but of raping a country, of callously attacking civilian populations in a neutral country. Even if it is true that the US stupidly supported Saddam Hussein in the past, are we to condemn the Americans for coming to their senses? By the way, Pollard got life in prison; Saddam Hussein is not even targeted by the coalition forces. Something seems out of balance. Poison gas? Yes, we are sensitive to the subject. Yesterday, we were on our way back to normal life - except for carrying a gas mask; the classical music station came back on the air, final proof of "life must go on". Strangely enough we continue today to act as if life must go on. The schools are still closed but almost everyone is back at work, even in Tel Aviv, except for mothers [in some cases, fathers] who have not been able to make arrangements for watching their children. I meet a young woman on the street who tells me she is going to an aerobics class. With her gas mask in hand. I ask myself, "Is it possible to do aerobics wearing a gas mask?" The matter of striking back is now in the air; everybody here feels that we should do something to defend ourselves. Anger and frustration at our inactivity are widespread. Our restraint until now has brought us much approbation throughout the Western World. This condition is unusual for us, and has even produced a certain sense of pride in us. Approving Israel seems strange to the world as well. A friend tells me that a Los Angeles commentator said, "The American government feels that Israel's restraint should be condemned...Oh, I mean commended." A new situation, the world approves our action. Or, really our inaction. We have briefly enjoyed the approbation of the world; but we now feel the time for inaction has passed. What will that fickle lover, the world, say now? What sort of an action? It would have to be elegant and pointed, to show that we are not to be dealt with impunity. We want a response that would involve limited risk in numbers and yet achieve an important and visible goal. The killing of Saddam still seems to be an attractive goal. It is unlikely I that he dares to leave his bunker now. The bunker is reportedly proof against anything less than a nuclear weapon. Could gaseous explosives be introduced into the bunker through the air-intakes and detonated? Or poison gas? The later would have an asthetic advantage, poetic retribution, as in a Greek tragedy. Another elegant action suggested in a letter to me would be a raid to free the allied POW's. If the Iraqis do place them - as they have threatened - at military targets, it be even easier, with no need to penetrate a guarded POW-camp or prison, and no need to operate in an urban area. We are angry, but we are capable of planning while we are angry and we will defend ourselves. Restraint has its limits. Retaliation is not a word that I like, implying as it does returning evil for evil. We will not return evil. We are not evil, we are under attack, unprovoked attack. We will defend ourselves in the only way understood in this part of the world. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 17:27 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2018 (2329) Well, you have spotted the contempt for I called puerility. I did not trouble to engage the "Issues" involved for the simple reason that Lakoff's essay was adddressed, in my opinion to the innocent and ignorant. I should think that after one has troubled oneself to read enough by the age of 30 to qualif for a higher degree, that one doesnt use most of the terms that Lakoff "analyzes" in wht I called a piece of work that should have been directed towards freshman. What the observations that asked me what I meant tell me is that most of the scholars seem to think that the news they read in the papers and "watch" on tv is very useful or informative. I dont bother to argue with journalists in the media, because they are dealing with instant superficialities. And if you are going to think that educated people actually are influenced by the rhetroic of politicians, then they havent learned the uses of propaganda or the means of hearing rhetoric as rhetoric. I prefer the color of sportwriters when I wish to be entertained. Any other color is just that. One doesnt have to analyze lightweight obvious stuff that is not addressed to reflection. Lakoff was instructing freshman and by that term I include all undergraduates in the USA. Start with skepticism and such hectoring in the form of "cognitive Linguisitic" analysis looks like fluff to me. Ponderous, pedantic, portentous. I have not seen Kuwait "raped." Not even heard the term. But, then as a practicing poet I know those metaphors are absurd. The level of Lakoff's discourse was to my mind simply superficial, poisoned by his lifetime of immersion in the media, perhaps. Now that he has discovered analysis, he seems to think he has found truth. Had he had the least inkling of the scale of armaments amassed by Iraq, the sums paid for, the proven or suspected barbarities of Baa'thists from Day One, etc etc, he wouldnt have attacked the subject as a study in propaganda. He made his first mistake starting with that, instead of remembering what Iraq did from the start. Doesnt he recall the photos of the dozens of prominent citizens hanging for a week or so in downtown Baghdad, all Jews, killed because they were Jews, heirs to a group native to Baghdad for well nigh 2500 years? To argue with Lakoff is like playing tennis with a duffer: it makes for a boring game. Sorry. Perhaps it wasnt contempt I felt but simply an irritated condescension. None are so blind as those who will not see, after all. The naivete of American professors, those who for instance, failed to see what happened when the sailors revolted in Petrograd soon after the Revolution, and were savagely put down, is really inexcusable. Dzherzinsky, Felix, a Pole, is the father of darkness, and he invented the concentration camp, probably because he recalled the American Civil War camps...By 19 20-21, say, all hopes for radical cures was lost in the West. Let us stop talking nonsense and rational discourse with critics who write their colleagues pieces that are fit for undergraduates. Sorry, but that is my sentiment. Irked, I was, and am. Let us proceed to be grownups and accept our grim situation in the coming decade, if is is to come at all. Why ask if my name is a woman's? Jascha was never a woman's name. It seems to have belonged in our century mostly to first-rate musicians. I did not become such, it seems. Kessler. From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: George Lakoff on metaphor and war Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2019 (2330) I don't know how many of the people who object to George Lakoff's article, and its discussion on Humanist, have actually read it. But the article itself is written in a way that certainly can cause justifiable irritation in all who disagree with its position on the war; or even in people like me who don't like the war but also don't like bad arguments against it. Its title is ``Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf.'' But this really describes only the first half of the article. This part analyzes what Iraq's opponents say in describing the conflict, and doesn't need to make much reference to what the actual state of affairs is in Iraq and Kuwait. It's not a new claim that the United States and its allies have given reasons for their position that are contradictory, but it strikes me as valuable to have this analyzed in detail. But the second part is not about metaphor; it's not a linguistic analysis at all. What it says is: ``The first part showed how the justifications for war are internally contradictory, and arguably based on certain traditional lines of thought rather than on our actual situation. But now I'm going to tell you what the true state of affairs in Iraq and Kuwait is.'' Linguistics can tell us something about the statements of political leaders as published in the newspapers; but not about the actual reality of the situation. Yet the article says nothing to establish this new claim to special knowledge or insight into world politics and economics. This is an article that, in its initial, linguistic part, acts as if it's by an objective scientist, and works hard to establish that authority; but then it turns into an editorial (or ``leading article,'' if you prefer), which is a piece of writing intended to persuade, usually studded with facts to serve that persuasive intent, but not normally presented as an unquestionably objective account. Newspapers set them off from the rest of their contents for that reason. But this article moves from linguistics to politics without a break, and consequently seems to claim the same scientific authority in speaking of politics as it does in speaking of linguistics. The article's message to people who disagree comes down to this: ``You're wrong about the Gulf crisis, because I'm a linguist and therefore I know what's really going on there.'' Is it any wonder that those who disagree respond with irritation or dismissal? There's no reason for them to accept this as a complete statement of the facts; and there's justifiable irritation at the apparent claim of scientific authority for them. Let me point out a problem in the text of this article that may be related to this issue: early on it tells us itself that it's divided into two parts, and there is a ``Part 1'' heading; but there is no ``Part 2'' heading in the copy I got from the Brown listserver. My guess is that it should go before the ``Is Saddam Irrational?'' section. I don't know what the name of Part 2 should be, but it might have helped to signal a change in the direction of the article, from analysis of metaphor to claims about what the true situation is. John Lavagnino Department of English and American Literature, Brandeis University From: Alexander A. DiLella <DILELLA@CUA> Subject: RE: 4.0919 ...On War, Protest, and News from Israel Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 14:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2020 (2331) Patrick O'Donnell has hit the nail on the head. I pray that the govern- ments that engaged in the sale of arms to Iraq will learn what they have created in Saddam Hussein. As enlightened citizens of our respective coun- tries, we should inform our governments that we will tolerate no longer this immoral, but unfortunately profitable, sale of weapons to countries that can ill afford them in the first place. Imagine if the billions spent on arms were to be used for self-help programs and other types of assistance to 3rd world countries! The sale of modern weaponry to the various adversaries in the middle east must stop. Only then will the countries involved come to see negotiation and diplomacy as the best means of solving disputes and righting wrongs. Alexander A. Di Lella From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0919 ...On War, Protest, and News from Israel Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:15:30 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2021 (2332) Many people have voiced the opinion that war is not the way to solve the problems in the Middle East. This opinion baffles me. Implicit in this argument is that WE control events there. This position argues as if peace and war were wholly in the hands, not just of the UN, but of the United States specifically. Do people honestly think that if we refrained from war now that war would never come? The refrain to "give peace a chance" must be directed to BOTH sides. I see in the West many people horrified by the war and deeply critical of their governments' policies. Where are such people in Iraq? Where are the demonstrators, the critics? Why is the Iraqi decision to go to war historically and politically understandable, even tolerable, and yet the Western decision to fight reprehensible and bloodthirsty? Yes, we certainly have painted ourselves into a corner, but Hussein has his own paintbrush. What we have had to do was to try to maintain political balance in a part of the world driven not by politics but by religion. It is hardly surprising that we have miscalculated. But I insist that all of that is quite beside the point. All the evidence is that Hussein is a man who has made up his mind to have war; a man who does not blanch at the prospect of ruining his people to satisfy his own agenda. One can perhaps buy time, forestall, and even win small political victories. But sooner or later Hussein was determined to take on the world. Do you think he built those bomb shelters to protect him from the Iranian air force? Not hardly. War will bring only suffering and disruption and political chaos. Tell it to Saddam. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: war Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 22:56:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2022 (2333) I see my plea for silence was in vain. Let me respond to some of the criticisms of my message. First, I said I "wish" for silence. I did not demand it, nor could I if I had wanted to, since I don't decide what gets aired on Humanist. Secondly, Humanist is moderated. Not everything is deemed fit for dissemination and some topics are terminated when they have been exhausted. To suggest that a given topic not be posted is hardly an attack on first amendment rights and I consider it a splenetic reaction to demand that the person making such a request should resign from the profession. I, at least, have no intention of doing so. Let me restate why I think this topic is ripe for cancellation. The vehement arguments that have been put forth give evidence that we all have firm opinions on this topic and further discussion of this issue would only lead to neadless rancour. I also hoped to make the point that the anti-war protestations are painful and even somewhat insulting to those of us who have relatives in harm's way of this war. Common courtesy would dictate that people would voluntarily wish to spare others this pain, if in fact their claims of concern apply to individuals and not merely to the broad masses. Finally, the point was raised previous to my message that we Humanists were better qualified to raise this issue than others. To me this is academic arrogance and I see that arrogance in the arguments presented on this issue. I would like to see just once that the members of this profession realize that they are just people like everyone else and that their political views are no wiser or more profound than those of the janitors in their buildings. Consequently, I suggest that they discuss this issue with their friends, relatives, and neighbors. What I see on Humanist remains largely moralistic posturing. To paraphrase Martin Luther, if you pray, pray in the stillness of your room. This is sincerity. From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0918 More News from Israel Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:08:46 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2023 (2334) I want to thank Bob Werman for his postings from Israel - they are by far the most telling "scenes from the front" that I have seen, CNN coverage included. I confess I am irritated by the news bulletins that find their way onto the nets. Do people really think I'm glued to my computer terminal rather than listening to the radio or watching the TV? By the time their breathless news flashes are read, it's old news twice over. But Werman's postings are of another sort entirely. They show how the war appears from a particular vantage point. If there are people out there in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere close to the front, or even close to the diplomatic front in Europe and elsewhere, I would like to encourage you all to contribute in the same vein and spirit. It helps me understand. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Geoffrey Rockwell <Geoffrey_Rockwell@poczta.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: RE>4.0921 Queries (6/83) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 21:20:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2024 (2335) Date 1/22/91 Subject:RE>4.0921 Queries (6/83) From:Geoffrey Rockwell I have been asked to teach a session on online resources. Here is the relevant part of the course outline: Online resources (G. Rockwell; TBA). Bibliographical and textual resources via mainframe, network, and microcomputer; electronic seminars, conferences, and bulletin boards. Various online media and their characteristics. (Data Library; ARTFL; Dante; CD-ROMs: TLG, OED; Internet libraries; Humanist &c.) I would appreciate knowing which online resources you actually use for your research and how? Your answers will not only give these graduate participants a sense of how humanists use these resources but will be an example of the use of one such resource. I will present the answers, or lack thereof, to the participants as an example of how a conference like Humanist can be interesting. Thanks in advance, Geoffrey Rockwell rockwell@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: Unicode Date: 22 Jan 91 23:12:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2025 (2336) I have just received the impressive printout of the Unicode 1.0 proposed system for a vastly improved way of representing `foreign' character sets in computer use: the product of a consortium that includes Apple, IBM, Microsoft, NeXT and others, this proposal, recently described on HUMANIST, is clearly an attempt to set a standard for the next generation. First, I would recommend that all interested HUMANIST's with a concern write by e-mail for a review copy of the document -- they want comments by 15 February. Address: microsoft!asmusf@uunet.uu.net But I have a concern and would appreciate hearing from anyone with more experience with this project than I: the document as I receive it shows that they intend to include Greek, but apparently only modern Greek -- and even there I'm suspicious that they are incomplete. But the fuller character set of accents and breathings and diacritics necessary for professional representation of ancient and Byzantine Greek seems to be missing. Am I missing something? Has TLG been in contact with this (economically very powerful) outfit? Jim O'Donnell, Classics, U. of Penn From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Thomas Hardy Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 23:59:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2026 (2337) A colleague here is looking for the complete poetry of Thomas Hardy in electronic form. Any clues will be greatly appreciated. Willard McCarty From: Maurizio Lana <U245@ITOCSIVM> Subject: searching for corpora of contemporary (written) English Date: 23 January 91, 11:13:49 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2027 (2338) I am writing on behalf of professor Zagrebelsky. She's interested in contempora ry written English; she'd like to know which corpora on computer can be bought. She's especially interested in the COBUILD corpus. Any answer can be addressed to me. Thank you to anyone will help. Maurizio Lana From: Phyllis Wright <lbswright@brocku.ca> Subject: shakespeare's cymbiline Date: 23 Jan 91 11:33 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2028 (2339) I am looking for an edition of the above in which the word sow'd is used as sown in Act IV, Scene 2, line 181. Can anyone help??? Many thanks Phyllis Wright Reference Librarian Brock University Library St. Catharines, Ontario Canada L2S 3A1 BITNET: LBSWRIGHT@BROCKU.CA 416-688-5550, ext. 3235 From: David Graber <GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: Contacts Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 09:36:11 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2029 (2340) I am trying to locate a Janet Sedg(e)ley at the U of Montana, and am also trying to make contact with the Editorial Center(?) at the Computer Center at the U of Delaware. Thanks in advance. David Graber David S. Graber Humanities and Arts Computing Center DR-10 University of Washington GRABER@UWAVM.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU graber@blake.acs.washington.edu (206) 543-4218 From: "DAVID KELLY" <dkelly@apollo.montclair.edu> Subject: Math: Pythagoras or the Egyptians? Date: 23 Jan 91 08:41:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2030 (2341) The New York Times (January 22, 1991) published an article describing a plan for an Africa-centered high school under consideration by the New York Board of Education. This school would enroll black boys for the most part, and the majority of its teachers would be black men. School Chancellor Joseph Fernandez has hired Basir Mchawi to plan this experimental school. In the article Mr. Mchawi's proposal was quoted as follows: "One of the problems with much existing curriculum is the perspective bias that is often imposed in texts that view European history and culture as the paradigm by which all human experience should be measured." The Times then refers to the illustration that Mr. Mchawi used to bolster his argument: "... schools teach that the Pythagorean theorem was developed by the Greek mathematician Pythagoras. Mr. Mchawi asserted that knowledge of the theorem existed 1,000 years before Pythagoras, but that Alexander the Great sacked libraries in Egypt that might have attributed it to Africans." My reading in histories of mathematics (rather limited to be sure) has led me to believe that the Egyptians were quite good at measuring and computation but that there is no evidence from their mathematical texts (the Rhind and Moscow papyri) that they were concerned with questions of proof and the axiomatic foundations of mathematics. Howard Eves in his <<An Introduction to the History of Mathematics>> is typical. "There are reports that ancient Egyptian surveyors laid out right angles by constructing 3,4,5 triangles with a rope divided into 12 equal parts by 11 knots. Since there is no documentary evidence to the effect that the Egyptians were aware of even a particular case of the Pythagorean theorem ..." (p. 47) Who is correct, Eves or Mchawi? Is there any historical evidence that Alexander sacked Egyptian libraries or for that matter were there any Egyptian libraries before Ptolemy? More and more I am beginning to think that historical evidence doesn't really matter too much to the convinced Afrocentrist. He or she makes affirmations, acts of faith in the dogmas that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans, that they civilized the Greeks, and that the Greeks stole all their knowledge from them. It is a kind of religious belief, and no amount of evidence to the contrary can shake the faith of the true believer. David Kelly, Classics, Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 (dkelly@apollo.montclair.edu From: Martin Bernal <MGBX@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.0916 Further Looks at Multiculturalism (1/35) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 20:04:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2031 (2342) I quite agree with Professor O'D that one should use the scope available for objectivity to the utmost and this is what I have tried to do. However,I dont think that it helps to treat one's own work or that of other scholars as unrelated to the society in which we are operating.That is why I tried to make my own predelictions clear to readers. I am convinced that claims to complete objectivity in the humanities are misleading and that often scholars who make such claims like K. O. Mueller and Beloch are far more crudely political than those of us who admit our mixed motives. I can think of no historical scheme more determined by politics than what I call the 'Aryan Model'. This raises another point made by Professor O'D in an earlier letter. He claims that as there is no scholarly merit in my work the only interest in it is political. While I would not deny for a moment the great political concern with BA, I don't believe that Classicists, Egyptologists and anthropologists would all devote special sessions of their annual conferences to BA, if there was no interest in it. Whether or not scholars in these fields agree with my ideas-and many do not-they are in intensely interested in the scholarly issues raised and it seems to me that arguments and specific points in the frame work of general ideas of the type I have had with Professor Muhly are in fact the stuff of intellectual life and academic discourse. Martin Bernal From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: RE: ... Computers ... Gender Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 20:32 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2032 (2343) I guess I feel I need to add a female voice to this discussion 8) I am also in my mid-twenties and on the tenure track...successfully using computer based scholarly activities to support my continuing reappointment. I think that many females aren't online yet because no one has invited them or shown them what can be done. The networks are male dominated. It is intimidating to try to enter that arena uninvited and amateur. I used e-mail,CAI and computer stats software for classes from the time I was a freshman..but I didn't really delve in until one evening when I was invited to join an international Chat session. I didn't have the courage to go into the Plato lab and play computer games with nearly all male players until my husband came along to escort me...and then I sure did enjoy myself. (I attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) I've owned a computer since my husband and I bought a Commodore with some of our wedding money. We bought a Mac II as a graduation present for me. My point is, although I had knowledge, training and desire I wouldn't be actively participating in computer network activities if I hadn't been provided with an invitation and then an escort into the male dominated world of computer technology. I think we need to do that for each other now..both female and male. In the last two years I have taught many people how to use computerized library catalogs, CD-ROM and online database search systems, E-mail and network file retrieval and database searching. It is my experience that age and sex are rarely a predictor of computer interest...rather it seems to me that motivation and confidence (reassuring people that if they are intelligent enough to get into college, be a professor...administrator...teacher...they can easily handle an idiot machine helps 8) are needed to start and then curiousity and finding useful activities to continue using computers. Cases in point... An Emeritus Professor of English, when I showed some mail from Humanist to her spent nearly 45 minutes asking me how e-mail worked. I expect her online soon. Ditto for young female grad student who is now online. 8) On the other hand I have 1 young male grad student and two senior male colleagues who view computers as necessary evils and decline to learn more than they feel they need to. Of course the reverse situations can also occur. Diane Kovacs librk329@kentvms librk329@ksuvxa.kent.edu From: Mary Califf <CALIFFMA@BAYLOR.BITNET> Subject: Re: Gender and computers as a hobby Date: Wed, 23 Jan 1991 09:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2033 (2344) Norman, While more men than women may treat computers as a hobby, there are some women out here at least who do program for fun. I used to be an English major (I do have an MA), and now I'm a computer programmer. The reasons for that change are numerous and varied, but the point is that I went into computers as a profession because I had been playing with computers since high school. I know several other women like me. I do suspect that there are cultural reasons why, although women are moving more and more into the professional computer world, men are somewhat more likely to write programs just for fun. I have yet to meet a woman who is a true hacker. Mary Elaine Califf Programmer Baylor University From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: Kinko's Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 15:25:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2034 (2345) I believe that Kinko's software service has been taken over by Intellimation. Address: Intellimation Library for the Macintosh Department XA P.O. Box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93116-1922 From: <BRIGGSK@CITADEL> Subject: Kinko's courseware Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 09:28 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2035 (2346) Kinko's courseware exchange has been replaced by another company. Intellimation distributes educational software for Macintosh Computers. Their most recent software catalog has over 100 programs in various disciplines. To reach Intellimation, call 1-800-3-INTELL (or 1-805-685-8587 outside the US.) They also offer a free sampler disk of their programs. You can also write them at: Intellimation Library for the Macintosh Department XA 130 Cremona Drive; PO box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93116-1922 Kasey Briggs Computer Lab Manager The Citadel From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Computing at Cornell Date: Tue, Jan 22, 1991 9:09:55 AM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 935 (2347) Computing at Cornell Having posed the question about computing on campuses, I suppose I should at least offer what little knowledge I have. As a student I was a supervisor for the 7 or 8 public facilities - each housing between 20 and 50 microcomputers. The majority of the computers were Macintosh Pluses, though there is one room now filled with IIci's. I can't give any specific numbers for the current time, and I can only give an anecdote from when I worked there. The busiest facility, Upson, had a fairly unimpressive door and a small sign denoting its purpose. Once a higher up (whom I will identify only as the Minister of Silly Policies) came down to see how the peons lived. She was talking to some other higher ups in the hallway in front of the room, and curious why so many students were going in and out, asked what was inside :-). At the time we estimated that between 150 and 200 students used that room every hour. Cornell has no policy of requiring a microcomputer purchase, but they do provide excellent educational discounts on Macs and IBM PS/2s and a few other PC clones. Many students own a Mac (because otherwise they'd have to use the public facilities, which are always crowded and have a 1 hour time limit for any one person if someone else is waiting - I've seen waiting lists as long as 25 people). In addition, many people use CUINFO on the mainframe (an IBM) for schedules and job listings and the like (also Uncle Ezra, the Cornell online equivalent to Ann Landers). However, very few students ever progress past CUINFO (which is pretty easy and has public terminals so you don't have to have an account) even to email. For a student to join a LISTSERV group is almost unheard of (I did when I was a student and never heard of another :-)). Slightly more popular is the University's Vax, which runs Usenet; I suspect this is so since Usenet requires less initiative to read. I don't think the University particularly encourages network use now, and I know they didn't five years ago when I discovered the LISTSERVs by poking around in an account a friend and I found that hadn't been logged off. I once asked a network administrator sort why it was so hard to find and get on to the networks and he said that the networks couldn't handle the load that would result from 17,000 people at Cornell alone, much less all of the other networked organizations in the world. Thus it remained a secret cult with initiation rites and all. The fiber optic is in place to network all of the dorms and other buildings on campus, but so far only the academic and administrative buildings have been connected. I heard several years ago that networking the dorms was too complicated politically to happen for some time - ie. it gets confusing if the dorm is located off-campus and the phone line in question may actually belong to NY Telephone rather than to Cornell, or what if there were problems when a repair person entered a room when a student wasn't present (or was present, for that matter). My overall impression is that most students use computers, but only as fancy typewriters. (One library still has a room of typewriters that they don't want to convert to computers because they make money on renting out the typewriter balls.) Very few students care about anything but typing their paper or writing their program (and the CS 100 students are some of the worst about knowing how to use a Mac - I won't get into my CS100 student stories). I know less about the faculty (and don't want to say anything truly nasty since the electronically-enlightened ones do read this list :-)). My impression is that like the students, most faculty use microcomputers to do their word processing, and a fair number use email as well, but with the same attitude as they approach word processing - namely that it is the accepted way to do things in certain fields, but they aren't terribly happy about it. Note that this applies mostly to faculty in the College of Arts & Science - I suspect that it is much different in the 6 other schools at Cornell, most notably Engineering. cheers .... Adam Now if anyone else would like to share impressions of their institution (not that I'm at all related to Cornell these days, short of a uucp link for mail), it would be interesting to compare. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: New discussion group on Multilingualism Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 16:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 936 (2348) MULTI-L is a newly established electronic discussion group operated for the Scientific Commission on Language and Education in Multilingual Settings of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). It provides for the exchange of information, news, and opinions about all aspects of minority language education. If you want to subscribe to MULTI-L, there are three ways to do so: 1. If your computer operates interactively (VM/CMS), send the following instruction: TELL LISTSERV AT BARILVM SUBSCRIBE MULTI-L Your full name On VAX/VMS systems, use SEND or SEND/MESSAGE instead of TELL. 2. If your computer cannot work interactively, use your normal electronic mail system. When asked for the address, reply LISTSERV@BARILVM and when asked for the text, write SUBSCRIBE MULTI-L Your full name. 3. Write an e-mail letter to Bernard Spolsky <F24030@BARILVM.BITNET> saying you want to join. Make sure your full name and correct E-mail address appear in the letter. From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Thursday's SCUD Attack Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 15:21 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 937 (2349) Patriots down a SCUD. Thursday, 24 January Last night another air raid alarm. Here is how it went, a few minutes of hightened secretion of adrenalin which seemed much longer: 22:10 The radio is interrupted by a sisma, a code name for call up of an army group, but in this case perhaps the code indicating an attack. 22:10 I hear the siren, clearly up and down, the signal for a true attack. [The local joke is that the up and down wail of the siren signals our indecision; whether to use the gas-proof room upstairs or the more safe against blast shelter below.] I help my mother into the poison gas-proof room and call my wife. I rush to pee [There is no time to waste three syllables on "urinate."] before I enter and we seal the door with tape at all the edges and a wet towel below. We put on our gas masks, my mother always needs help with hers [The instructions are definite about always getting yours on first; if something happens to you, you will not be able to help anyone else.], turn on the transister radio [The electricity might be knocked out or fail.] The radio is reassuring, telling us that as soon as something definite is known we will be told, that the alarm has been given throughout Israel, that we are to to go to the gas-proof rooms, put on our masks and listen to the radio. The directions are given several times in Hebrew and then briefly trans- lated into English, Russian, French, Amharic [There are new Ethiopian Jews arriving every day.], and a Slavic language which I can not recognize. I notice how much better they have gotten at this, the announcers telling us how much they know, and promising to tell us more as soon as they know. Instructions are given to those caught in cars [Put on gas masks. If near a building, to hurry to it after turning off car. If not in a built up area, to turn off car and remain in the vehicle, tuned to radio.] We are told that the alarm was sounded because of an attack on Israel. We remain tense, make jokes. There are some friends and relatives who have told us they have difficulty in hearing the siren. We have a telephone in the room, their numbers, writ large, nearby. We remembered to call them as soon as we were secured; they had heard, but thank us. 22:17 We are told to remove our masks but to remain in the sealed rooms. We breathe a sigh of relief; it apparently was not a chemical attack. 22:21 We are told that everybody, except those living in the greater Tel Aviv area, can leave the sealed rooms but not to leave home. 22:43 We are informed that a SCUD missile was downed by a Patriot anti-missile missile in the north [Later we would be told that there were 2 Patriots, that the north meant over Haifa.]. No one hurt [At 11 PM, we would hear that a fair amount of broken windows and door frame damage took place.]. What a relief! And a new source of hope, the Patriots - They really work! Attacks also reported from Saudi Arabi where the Patriots were again effective. Everyone can leave the sealed rooms. Sleep is still a problem; everything is, of course, worse in Tel Aviv. I call friends there, listen to their indecisions about whether to stay or leave. I try to help with advice, usually by saying what they want to hear. They wonder: Would leaving be desertion? Just for one night? To get some sleep? On late night programs I hear psychologists give advice on how to sleep. From a friend in Tel Aviv, I learn that one does not shower or use a blower to dry your hair when you are alone - in order not to miss the siren. Yesterday, I went back to work for the first time since last Thursday; most people are there, there is little talk of the war or the bombings. Friends from Tel Aviv call, to talk a bit - they are much more in it than we are. Their terror is still real, almost palpable. But they are functioning. There is a debate on the situation in the Knesset, our Parliament. I miss most of it but get the flavor: almost all of the members feel that we should strike Iraq BUT not now as there is nothing we could do that the Coalition is not already doing. Two Arab members of Knesset manage to blame us for being bombed by Iraq's missiles. One member says that there is one thing that will never be forgiven Saddam Hussein; that he is responsible for one and a half million children having to wear gas masks. A Danish military expert claims that the payload of Tuesday night's SCUD was too great for it to have come from Iraq. He suggests that Jordan is being used to stage the missile firings. Could King Hussein be so foolish? Is he under such great pressure from the Iraqis? His rule is tenuous enough without inviting us to attack him. What ever could he be thinking? Has he been trapped by the rhetoric of the situation once again, as in 1967? The Americans announce that they have definitely destroyed the two Iraqi nuclear reactors. It is almost 10 years since we took out the French built Tamuz reactor in Ossirak. We were con- demned [A typo: I type "cohndemned".] by the world for this action. But we set back the war machine that the West was building in Iraq by 10 years. Who will remember to thank us for that? We do not need the thanks, as we too - not only the troops fighting in Persian Gulf - are the direct beneficiaries of that attack. We are still looking for a new elegant attack on Iraq. A French engineer who worked for Saddam writes, according to one of my correspondents, that Saddam Hussein's bunker has two weak points: the air intake and the exhaust shaft for a diesel generator. Those two shafts are apparently camouflaged to protect them against bombing. They might be easy to locate from the ground. Another writer tells me that he is an expert in dust free environments and that the filters in the underground shelters may be their weak points. He suggests a number of common agents that he has shown can destroy high grade filters. ****** Just at the beginning of the attack on Israel, almost a week ago, I found an email address from Cairo on one of the intellectual nets. I thought it might be fun and interesting to correspond with someone so close, and yet so far. He responded favorably, and tells me that all is calm in Cairo at the moment, but that "nobody seems to have any information about the war." "Cairenes," he reports, "seem to be very blase about the whole thing; their attitude is that they've seen it all before." He sounds interesting; I wish I had more time to get know him. After this is all over, I hope. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: job in english/linguistics Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 09:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2036 (2350) [From Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 0012. Wednesday, 23 Jan 1991.] YORK UNIVERSITY GLENDON COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH Applications are invited for a tenure-track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor. Qualifications: Ph.D. in linguistics. The preferred candidate will have demonstrated superiority in teaching and strong scholarly interest in socio-cognitive and discoursal aspects of language. Duties: Teaching at the undergraduate level with possible future participation in graduate teaching, research, and service to the University. Salary: In accordance with the current collective agreement and experience. Date of appointment: July 1, 1991. Application deadline: February 15, 1991. Send applications including complete curriculum vitae to Professor William S. Greaves, Chair, English Department, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M4N 3M6, and arrange to have three referees send confidential letters to the same address. York University is implementing a policy of employment equity, including affirmative action for women faculty. In accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: job Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 09:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2037 (2351) POSITION AVAILABLE The CENTER FOR INFORMATION AND LANGUAGE STUDIES has a position available for a RESEARCH ASSOCIATE in COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS. The Center is an interdisciplinary unit created to conduct research on the organization and analysis of textual and natural language information in a computerized environment. The current staff includes Research Associates in language-oriented information retrieval -- including retrieval software systems and architecture, database organization, and analytic retrieval techniques -- and others interested in natural language parsing, pragmatics, and artificial intelligence. The Center works with associated faculty in the Departments of Computer Science, Linguisitics, and Psychology, and sponsors Graduate Assistantships with these Departments. The Center has an opening at the postdoctoral level for a Research Associate in Computational Linguistics with an interest in natural language processing. This is a research oriented position, with some application development and teaching activities. Current Center interests include morphological and syntactic parsing of French, English and Japanese. The candidate will also work with the Natural Language Software Registry housed at the Center. The position of Research Associate is a one-year appointment with the possibility of reappointment for a second year. The Center has state of the art computing equipment, with research centered around a network of Sun workstations connected to the University ethernet. There is a high speed datalink to the supercomputer center in Urbana. The University is the depository of the ARTFL French language database of 2000 works and 750 megabytes of text; this, as well as a number of other large full-text databases, is available for research purposes through the University Network. Please send a curriculum vitae, a list of publications, and a 750-word one- to two-year research project proposal by electronic or surface mail to: Assistant Director Center for Information and Language Studies University of Chicago JRL S-107 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637 mark@gide.uchicago.edu From: David Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu> Subject: 4.0932 Multiculturalism: Math Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 22:58:33 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2038 (2352) In response to the comments on the history of mathematics that have been contributed to the debate on multiculturalism, I have a few points to offer. This is based on memories from my 10-years past History of Mathematics classes at Brown. (A wonderful department, unique in the country, and alas, dues to be disbanded as the current professors retire). As I recall, the earliest Pythagorean triangles (3,4,5 and some others) are attested in Sumerian or Akkadian texts, intended for the use of surveyors. -- I could maybe dig up citations on these if they are needed. The Egyptians had similar tables. The Greek innovation was a proof that the pythagorean relation held for ALL right triangles. The Chinese did independently (as far as is known) discover a proof of the Pythagorean theorem, but I am completely unsure as to the date. While this account that I am repeating may be biased, the mathematical texts extant from the middle eastern cultures do not support assertions of supressed mathematical speculation, since they are generally extremely concrete (appropriate to clay texts I suppose) in the phrasing and approach to such problems. At least in the ones we examined in class, they were always presented as word problems about quantities of earth, or areas of land. While there may have been a hidden tradition of the sort required for such historical claims to make sense, intellectual honesty requires that we find some level of factual support for our assertions. At least in this area, I think such support is lacking. From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet Subject: Pythagoras & multiculturalism Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 15:56:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2039 (2353) I believe I can respond to part of David Kelly's query on the predecessors of the Pythagorean theorem. Babylonian mathematical tablets from the Old Babylonian period (1800-1600 BC) demonstrate that the Babylonians were acquainted with the problem of determining the length of the diagonal of a square, i.e. the hypotenuse of a triangle. A tablet in the Yale Babylonian Collection has the figure of a square with a diagonal drawn through it, and it notes the length of the sides and of the diagonal in cuneiform characters, using a sexagesimal number base. The advantage of their numbering system was that place values could be expressed. Other tablets from the same period list a series of numbers and their approximate square roots (approximate obviously because they are the squares of irrational numbers) -- a handbook of service- able values in short. Both of these tablets are illustrated (Plates 6 and 7) in Otto Neugebauer's The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edit. In general, what seems to distinguish Greek mathematics and indeed pre-Hellenistic science in general, from Babylonian and Egytpian science and mathematics is that the latter do not show any interest in a single (theoretical) expression of a problem. They do however have close knowledge of the actual numbers needed for the solution of various problems. Neugebauer claims that the Babylonians knew the Pythagorean theorem, but to my admittedly limited knowledge, no such theoretical knowledge exists among the Babylonians. The Babylonians gave serviceable approximations of irrational numbers, but never a theoretical expression. The theorem is ascribed to Pythagoras; that of course is another problem, since the Pythagoreans ascribed all their statements and discoveries to Pythagoras himself. We therefore do not know at what time the theorem was actaully put forth. What does seem clear however, is that knowledge of the irrationality of a square's diagonal was known at least a thousand years before the Pythagorean Greeks existed. However it was Babylon's achievem ent, not Egypt's. Dirk t.D.Held, Classics, Connecticut College. From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:28:50 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2040 (2354) The argument that words determine thought has never made a dent on me; for this reason, the Lakoff article struck me as without merit. Doug de Lacey cites an instance. Perhaps he just grabbed one out of the air, but I'll use it anyway to illustrate my criticism, then supplement it with another example (so he won't feel picked on). Yes Cromwell (and many others!) called the Irish savages. But this is to put things backward. The English did not first call the Irish savages and then proceed to treat the Irish badly. Rather, the English had, by the 17thc, had centuries of experience fighting and living with the Irish. The Irish used guerilla warfare, which the English found savage. The clan-based ethics of the Irish, and their poverty, disgusted the English. Now, much of that was because the English wouldn't let well enough alone, but the point is that the English used such words because those words described how the English _felt_ about the matter. The words didn't justify English actions, it was their assessment of what the Irish actually were that justified those actions. Words are just words, folks. On the radio yesterday I listened to a caller on a phone-in program rail at the media and government for using depersonalizing words like "collateral damage" to describe civilian deaths, and "ordnance" instead of "bombs." This type of talk, the caller argued, was being done consciously or maybe unconsciously to make the war more palatable and less abhorrent. The implication was that, if we would only call a spade a spade, we wouldn't go to war so readily. The panel on the radio patiently explained that "ordnance" is a perfectly good word that is used because it embraces more than just bombs -- it includes bullets, artillery shells, and other such weapons. And "collateral damage" covers any damage beyond the target. Sometimes that included people, sometimes it included knocking out more of the airfield than you were aiming for. People make too much of these things. Words are words. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric (3/57) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 1991 8:53:37 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2041 (2355) Re: Douglas de Lacy's point: "call someone a beast, and you remove from yourself the obligation to regard him as fully human" -- of course this is one of the basics of propaganda. It reached its fullest flowering in the Nazi writings on everyone whose nose was the wrong shape or hair too curly, but it has been with us since long, long before that, from the pens of both angels and demons. Take a look, for example, at Conrad's little piece on the Censor of Plays (sorry, I forget the name, but it's in many basic anthologies for undergraduates): a totally clever and well-thought-out attack, from a writer I admire and on behalf of a cause we (almost) all defend, which eschews all rational argument of the subject in favour of propaganda. You can readily extract from it the Principles of Propaganda used by all sons of light against sons of darkness (which means of course by both sides in any conflict): 1. If your opponent is an abstraction (in Conrad's case, censorship), personify it; preferably by choosing a human representative of it (the Censor of Plays). 2. Dehumanize him (as a woman and moderate feminist I may refuse to massacre the English language in the name of Equality, as my poor male colleagues are obliged to). This is Douglas' "beast" stage. I venture the opinion that one may go in either the "beast" or "demon" direction; the former if one feels stronger than one's opponent, the latter if HE is stronger. Conrad, whose play had just been decimated and who was therefore under no misapprehension as to which of them was stronger, chose to demonize. 3. Ridicule him. If he is a demon, this is a necessary third stage leading to the conclusion: "let's get together and we can beat him, he isn't insuperable." If he is a beast and you're stronger, it's a luxury which may be omitted; and if you intend to massacre him, you're probably better off not reducing the threat he represents by ridiculing him first. It has always saddened me that Conrad chose this path, when all he had to do was to dress up Milton in modern words. But returning to the present, it is fairly obvious that Saddam will be described as beast-like when Bush needs popular and Congressional support. (I don't remember him being demoniacal, even though his actions in Kuwait and the attacks on Israel could equally well, for propaganda purposes, be described in those terms; perhaps because the U.S. government does feel in control.) In any case, this is clearly a propaganda war. We had a little piece on the Israeli media a day or two ago about the role of Disinformation; the point was that the Iraqis are using it freely, the Americans scarcely at all. Forgive my amused smile. The piece was itself a volley on behalf of the Good Guys (meaning you and us). NB thanks for the Patriot that shot down last night's Scud. You rattled my windowpanes like hell, but everyone's house is still standing. Judy Koren, Haifa. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0933 Computers and Gender Date: 23 Jan 91 18:15:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2042 (2356) Gender: Diane Kovacs response contains a telling and repeated phrase -- telling in that it shows us something about ourselves. She speaks of e-world as a place she would not have entered `if I hadn't been provided with an invitation and then an escort': how many male HUMANIST's would think to phrase matters that way? I'm perfectly happy to be thought of as a typical fatheaded DWEM-in-training (perhaps FDWEM for Future DWEM?) and can confirm that by admitting that my own recollections of stages of initiation into e-world were more characterized by a huffy, blustering, barging my way in, then grabbing a chair, belching loudly, and looking around to remark (ironically: some very old HUMANIST's, i.e., people who've been on line for a year and a half or so, may remember this moment) that there didn't seem to be a lot of `girls' in e-world yet. (The irony escaped some readers and I was duly excoriated.) Now saying it that way may sound like self-parody, but so does most human discourse. My point is that the language available for a scholar like Kovacs makes it easy to speak of waiting for an invitation and an escort: and that fact of culture must in itself make it at least *slightly* harder for some to make the entrance; while the language that I can use suggests that it is at least *slightly* easier for somebody like me to make the entrance. I doubt that e-mail access policies can be altered to make the world a better place overnight, but we need to keep in mind the culturally-induced disparities that we live with and try to make adjustments as we go along. P.S.: to meet a female who is a true hacker, you might have a look in the computer centers of our older and harder-headed women's colleges. Such people exist, but I think that my having encountered them *there* is not unindicative in itself. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: Computers and Gender Date: Thu, 24 Jan 1991 9:13:07 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2043 (2357) Sorry, I have to take exception to Norman Miller. I agree with him that most women don't play computer games (though little girls in my experience spend as much time painting and drawing with it as little boys do shooting). But to suggest that women don't write "two-line batch programs"? Come on, girls, how many of you have really never looked at the contents of your PC's autoexec file (or your VMS's login.com, or whatever the Unix equivalent is)? Does no mother but me find herself writing two-line batch files so that the kids can switch to graphics mode and run their programs from the root directory without either tying the hard disk in knots or blowing up the monitor? Am I the only female who has to trick herself into backing-up her data at 2 am by wrapping a batch file round the word processor that won't let her exit to DOS without a diskette in A: and then does it for her? Incidentally, the System Managers at our friendly Technion computer centre are at least 50% female (sorry folks, that should read: at least 50% of the System Managers...) The VMS staff who are my lifeline are 2 women and a man, and they do plenty of batch file writing. Judy Koren From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Northrop Frye Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 20:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2044 (2358) To Germaine Warkentin's eloquent and moving tribute to Northrop Frye there will surely be added many more from those who knew him or at the very least understood and appreciated him early on. My salute is from one come very late to the feast, having resisted him for twenty years. He will indeed be missed. Norman Miller From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: multiculturalism Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 09:47:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2045 (2359) I have not read Black Athena, nor was I able to attend the session at last year's APA on the subject, but it seems to me that there are two different views being conflated into one here. The "Greece" that the 18th and 19th century created is one thing, certainly a focal point of Eurocentrism, phallocentrism and all those other centrisms. On the other hand, the Greece of the Greeks, was a very different place, not the same one the German and British scholars defined. They I should saare very hard to understand, and that is actually a direction that classical scholarship is taking these days. It is a multicultural approach in itself. I actually work with Rome, and after reading more of the recent work on Roman religion, All I can say is, anyone who thinks that the Romans were versions of ourselves with togas on is just wrong. --Elli Mylonas (Perseus Project, Department of the Classics, Harvard University) elli@ikaros.harvard.edu From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: Digitized Audio Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 11:51:12 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2046 (2360) Regarding digitized audio, the amount of space depends on the sampling rate. At a rate of 8kHz (a reasonable rate for spoken audio), 8K bytes per second would be required. Various compression schemes can reduce this by factors of 2, 4, or 8. Many other compression techniques could provide comparable factors. By comparison, the sound on a CD-ROM is 16 bit sound (meaning two bytes per sample) samples over 30kHz. This means that over 60K of storage is required per second. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: "John T. Harwood 814-865-4764" <JTH@PSUVM> Subject: Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 21:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 943 (2361) The Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition July 10-13, 1991 The Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, now in its tenth year, is a four-day gathering of teachers and scholars. It offers a generous mixture of plenary and special-interest sessions in a relaxed atmosphere; a chance for learning, leisure, and reflection on composition and rhetoric; and an extended opportunity to discuss professional concerns with nationally known speakers and interested colleagues. The conference features plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, and roundtable discussions on topics of current interest. In addition, two special sessions led by our featured speakers will be presented on Saturday morning: (a) New Ideas for the Writing Classroom (b) Symposium on the History and Theory of Rhetoric. Call for Papers The program committee invites one-page proposals for papers, workshops, and roundtables. Multiple submissions are encouraged. Please identify each proposal as a: paper whole session workshop roundtable On each proposal, please include: the title your name your professional affiliation your home address your home phone number If you are willing to chair a session, please let us know, too. If necessary, include an alternate home address and phone number for correspondence after June 1. Send your proposals by April 2 to John T. Harwood, The Pennsylvania State University, 117 Burrowes Building, University Park, PA 16802; phone (814) 865-4764 or BITNET to JTH at PSUVM. Although we receive approximately four hundred proposals, we can accept only about one hundred papers. We will announce this year's program in early May. Call for Papers You may propose a single 20-minute paper or an entire session (typically consisting of three related papers) on subjects involving rhetoric and composition. Especially welcome are extensions, applications, and critiques of the work of our featured speakers. Other possible topics include: rhetorical theory; research in composition; the composing process; evaluation; technical or business writing; advanced composition; ESL; writing across the curriculum; the history of rhetoric; teaching methods; collaborative learning; tutoring and writing labs; connections among reading, writing, and speaking; computers and writing; literacy; style and stylistics; basic writing; social implications of writing; testing and assessment; and the administration of writing programs. Workshops Several 60- or 90-minute workshops on the topics listed above will be scheduled. We strongly prefer proposals that clearly include hands-on, interactive involvement, and we will try to accommodate proposals that involve innovative applications of technology. Roundtables In each roundtable session, speakers representing a wide spectrum of opinions on a controversial question will briefly present their positions, after which the chair will moderate the discussion among the panelists and the audience. To submit a position paper, follow the guidelines given under Call for Papers. Be sure to give your proposal a title and indicate which question it addresses. (a) How interdisciplinary can or should rhetoric and composition be? What problems has interdisciplinary research created? What problems has it solved? (b) What should be the connections between "diversity" and freshman composition? Saturday Morning Sessions To propose short presentations for these sessions, follow the guidelines given under Call for Papers. Be sure to give your proposal a title. New Ideas for the Writing Classroom Though much of our conference focuses on writing pedagogy, participants will have a special opportunity to concentrate on classroom tactics for three hours on Saturday. First, sessions will be built around the discussion of confereesU specific classroom activities: exercises, assignments, methods, and so forth. Then, responses to and discussions of those classroom practices will be directed by Linda Brodkey, Jim Corder, Peter Elbow, Anne Herrington, Debra Journet, and Richard Larson. Finally, the participants, presenters, and our panel of experts will discuss pedagogical issues in writing that have emerged from both this workshop and the entire conference. Symposium on the History and Theory of Rhetoric The first part of this three-hour Saturday session will address two central questions implicit throughout the conference: what are the pressing questions that need to be addressed by those who study rhetoric and the teaching of writing, and how might answers to those questions be pursued? Marilyn Cooper, Jeanne Fahnestock, Michael Halloran, Carolyn Miller, Susan Jarratt, James J. Murphy, and John Schilb will address those questions with short position statements, and then participants will have ample opportunity to respond. In the second half of the session, the same scholars will lead small-group discussions. Participants will have an opportunity to share informally their own research projects and to receive specific advice on them from other participant s. Speakers Our keynote speaker, Peter Elbow, is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts. Author of numerous essays on writing, literature, and teaching, he won the Braddock Award in 1985 for "The Shifting Relationships Between Speech and Writing." Recent publications include "Portfolios as a Substitute for Proficiency Examinations" (College Composition and Communication, 1986) and "The Pleasures of Voice in the Literary Essay: Explorations in the Prose of Gretel Ehrlich and Richard Selzer," a chapter in Chris Anderson's collection, Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy (1989). He is author of a number of books, including Embracing Contraries (1986), Writing with Power (1981), and Writing without Teachers (1973). He is also the author o f What is English?, a forthcoming volume to be published by the Modern Language Association. Linda Brodkey (University of Texas at Austin) has published essays on adult literacy, composition, and text analysis, including "The Language in Metaphor" (College English, 1988). In Academic Writing as Social Practice (1987) she examines writing in the academic community. While at the University of Pennsylvania, she directed a master's program in adult literacy and a doctoral program in writing. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including College English and Written Communication. James J. Murphy (University of California, Davis), a professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Communication, has published widely on the history of rhetoric. His books include an edition of Quintilian (1987), The Debater's Guide (1987), Renaissance Eloquence (1983), A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric (1983), and The Rhetorical Tradition and Modern Writing (1982). More recently, his review article, "Implications of the Renaissance of Rhetoric in English Departments" (Quarterly Journal of Speech, 1989), examines recent trends of rhetoric in English studies. John Schilb (University of Maryland) has written on a range of subjects, including the history of rhetoric, the teaching of noncanonical literature, the relationship between literary theory and composition theory, and women's studies. His work includes "Deconstructing Didion: Poststructuralist Rhetorical Theory in the Composition Class," which appeared in Chris Anderson's collection, Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy (1989), and "Differences, Displacements, and Disruptions: Toward Revisionary Histories of Rhetoric" (Pre/Text, 1987). His articles "Canonical Theories and Noncanonical Literature: Steps Toward a Pedagogy" (1986) and "Teaching Noncanonical Literature" (1986) both appeared in Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy. Other featured speakers include Marilyn Cooper (Michigan Technological University), Jim Corder (Texas Christian University), Jeanne Fahnestock (University of Maryland), Michael Halloran (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Anne Herrington (University of Massachusetts), Susan Jarratt (Miami University), Debra Journet (University of Louisville), Richard Larson (Lehman College, CUNY), and Carolyn Miller (North Carolina State University). Time and Location This conference will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10 and will end at noon on Saturday, July 13. It will be held on Penn State's University Park Campus in State College, Pennsylvania. For More Information About program content, contact John T. Harwood, The Pennsylvania State University, 117 Burrowes Building, University Park, PA 16802; phone (814) 865-4764, fax (814) 863-7049 About registration, contact Chuck Herd, The Pennsylvania State University, 409 Keller Conference Center, University Park, PA 16802; phone (814) 863-3550, fax (814) 865-3749 From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: EMAIL address wanted Date: Thurs, 24 Jan 91 11:03:56 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 944 (2362) Has anyone an email address for Dr. Lynn Courtenay at Madison? Please reply direct to me. Christopher Currie THRA004@uk.ac.ulcc.cms (JANET) From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: RE: War and Protest Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 1:33 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2047 (2363) "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> writes: [deletion] Those who protest against the war, however, are not by their protest saying that they condone the attacks on Israel; rather, they are suggesting that Israel would not have been put in this position in the first place (nor in the incredible position of being pressured not to respond) had the Allies sought other alternatives rather than war. [deletion] Hussein is evil or mad or both, but it is a little hard for some in this country to swallow all the moralizing rhetoric that goes along with the war (and rhetoric does kill, just as metaphors for war can lead to real bombs) when officials int his country, in the Soviet Union, France, Germany, etc., have known that Hussein is evil or mad or both for many years, and have armed him to the teeth anyway. To my mind, this war is more the result of one of the most misguided foreign policies in the history of the world than it is the case of fascistic madman rising to power: he never would have assembled the fourth largest military in the world had we (and by we I mean all of the countries listed above and more) not provided to him in the first place--yes, in exchange for oil, which is exactly what the slogan no blood for oil refers to. We are now in the horribly ironic position of trying to destroy, as it were, our own Frankenstein, but we, the producers of the world's weapons, provided him with the power that he has to threaten Kuwait, Turkey, Iran, and Israel. [end deleted] ***************************************************************** I have great sympathy for Mr. O'Donnell's dilemna. There is little doubt that there is much about which one ought to be dis- gusted in the background of this war. The West cynically supported Iraq against the advice of - among others, Israel. Mr. O'Donnell thinks that it was because of oil; I am less convinced than he that this was the chief motivation for the support he received. I think that, in the case of the US, a major motivation was to support an enemy of Iran; the US was deeply committed to support of the Shah [perhaps oil was a major motivation, then], and later its national pride was deeply wounded by the ill treatment of the American hostages and the embarrassing failure of the ill fated rescue mission. Thus, support for an enemy of Iran was perceived as an extremely inviting method of "getting back." Other nations were in it for money, as simple as that, just plain greed, the denials of France not withstanding and the confessions of Germany confirming. The Soviets, who need no oil at all, were in the game for power, in their attempt to gain influence in the Middle East [perhaps, at least partially, to comprimise Western oil scources]. For these reasons alone, the slogan "No blood for oil" is at the very least simple minded. There is a much more serious problem. The protest may be likened to the statement "Yes, you seem to be behaving with adequate motivation now, but we know how corrupt your motivation was in the past; therefore we do not trust you and we will not support you." The possibility for rehabilition is ruled out by a cynicism that seems to imply that nations NEVER behave well. Isn't that a great over-simplification? Even if there is reason to accept this cynical approach which would, by the way, rule out all meaningful international action, is it not possible that out of the most selfish motivation imaginable that a nation may act properly? Is there not sufficient reason to examine the action in the light of its intrinsic correctness? Taking into account motivation, of course. James Joyce asked if it were possible - through angry, undirected action which accidently produced a thing of beauty - to call the product art. That problem is not settled; but he had no difficulty in admitting that the object might be beautiful [or worthwhile, or correct]. That is what is asked of you, at the most fundamental level. The Western nations have been bad; but Saddam Hussein is evil, satanic. He has invaded, captured, raped and annexed a nation, Kuwait, without provocation. He has bombed civilian concentrations in neutral and distant Israel without cause or provocation. He was given a reasonable chance to withdraw from Kuwait; he not only refused, he laughed at the presumption of the West and taunted them. He attempted to make hostages of foreigners in his country and use them to "protect" military targets [and has repeated the threat with captured soldiers, forced, after obvious beatings, to testify on TV in his behalf]. He invented unsubstantiated scapegoats, a plot by Israel and another by Kuwait against Iraq. He could produce substantiation for neither. Yes, Saddam Hussein is evil. While there is reason to believe that the West has been bad, there is a fundamental difference between bad and evil. Unlike the evil, those who are bad can and indeed do behave both properly and well. Those who can not see that difference, I fear, are trapped in a one dimensional world where neither action nor choice are possible. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: "PAULO FRANCHETTI (IEL/UNICAMP)" <FRANCHET@ccvax.unicamp.ansp.br> Subject: RE: 4.0929 War and Protest (2/54) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 10:01 C X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2048 (2364) Ellis Knox, a Ph.D., wrote: [deleted quotation] I wonder how can someone be so naif... When he asks if WE (they, americans) control events in Middle East, the only answer is YES, by diplomacy, or by 25,000 ton of bombs! The argument of his entire letter is unworth of a humanist. This, for example: [deleted quotation] and this: [deleted quotation] If there were such critical people in Iraq, we must be sure that now, those are not yet dead are with Saddam. And, it goes for itself, I presume: what a kind of right Ellis has in mind, if he thinks that West (!) can always exterminate people (in american Far West or asiatic Middle East) to bring civiliz- ation and political ethics to barbarian nations? I apologize for my English, in which I can hardly express any idea. But I thought it was interesting to discuss here, among Humanists, how humanistic erudition is not sufficient to save a brain from barbarity. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | Paulo Franchetti |"franchet@ccvax.unicamp.ansp.br"| | Departament of Literary Theory | phone: (55-192) 529035 | | Institute for Language Studies | fax: (55-192) 391501 | | Universidade Estadual de Campinas | telex: (019) 1150 | | Campinas -- Sao Paulo -- BRAZIL | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0929 War and Protest (2/54) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 08:25:34 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2049 (2365) Alexander DiLella avers that the West has "created" Saddam Hussein: this is a common argument, but it is misleading at best. We did not create the man's values, his morality, or his ambitions. We sold him tools. Perhaps we shouldn't have. Perhaps we should have let Iran become the major power in the MidEast, should have allowed it to grow strong instead of being bled in a costly war. You remember good, old, rational, humane Iran, don't you? However that may be, it's a done deed. Saddam is still not our creature. I say again, it is a peculiar form of American (Western?) arrogance that assumes that it is the cause of all that happens in the world, for good or ill. Give these people some credit. They were producing both monsters and high culture for centuries without our help. I am not trying to absolve us of all responsibility; I'm merely trying to point out that, even should we "learn" our "lesson", the world will still produce a Saddam Hussein with depressing regularity. There's more to the equation than arms merchants and imperialism. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: sokoloff@coma.huji.ac.il (Prof. Sokoloff Michael) Subject: Another view of life in Israel [eds.] Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 13:14:45 JST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2050 (2366) Dear Humanists, Since you have been recently getting one-sided reports of the situation in Israel from Werman, I thought that it was about time that someone sent you a different picture to balance out the situation. Indeed, we cannot let our emotions get hold of ourselves even in life and death situations and academic responsibility - to say nothing of scholarly integrity - demands that a full-sided picture of the actual events be placed before our distinguished colleagues. Firstly, it must be clearly stated that SCUDs do save lives. The media have reported here that since the beginning of the war only one person has been killed in a motor accident. If we take into account that as of this writing the war has been on for ten days, and that the Israeli average motor fatality rate is about 1.25 a day, then even if we subtract the number of fatalities from the raid on Ramat Gan we come up with a positive tally. Indeed, though I don't have the exact figures, I would even venture to say that the number of injuries is probably on balance less. Moreover, the SCUDs have injected new life into the sagging tourist industry. During the last few months, many tourists from abroad have canceled their trips to Israel, even the hardy Scandinavians who flood sun-drenched Eilat in the winter. But now after a few rounds on Tel Aviv, you can't get a room in Eilat! All of the Tel Avivites have discovered the Negev and old friends that they haven't seen in ages. Even Jerusalem-of-the-long-knives is enjoying a boom. It seems like ages ago, but actually less than three weeks ago, Tel Avivites had to be cajoled and embarrassed to visit the capitol. The Hilton is now bursting with guests who have now discovered the Holy city. The crime curve has dropped enormously. Indeed, the police say that they are actually underemployed, and if it weren't for a missile or so which brings out the looters who steal from the bombed out houses they really wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Personally, I don't think that the official explanation for this phenomena, viz. that people are at home more now after dark, is really correct. There is really honor among thieves, and in this they are showing their solidarity with the rest of the population in this dark hour of trial. Finally, the missiles have brought about a messianic era of an end to the Jewish wars which are so popular in Israel. The leftists are giving there full support to the Likkud; the religious and secular populations have ceased their never-ending strife; the newspapers have stopped printing articles about the negative aspects of society. Indeed, it is even reported that mothers-in-law from the outlying areas have taken in their daughters' Tel Aviv spouses without argument. I suppose I could go on with more glowing comments on the situation, but I think that the above should give you a better picture of what it is really like in Israel today. From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: False Alarm in Israel Last Night [eds.] Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 15:38 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2051 (2367) Jerusalem, Friday 25 January False Alarm Last night, at 22:32, the TV broadcast of the semi-final round European Cup basketball game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Pop Split, last year's Champion's, from Yugoslavia was interrupted, early in the second half - Tel Aviv ahead by 4 - by the flash of a shield in the center of the screen. The strange medallion did not mean anything to me for a second or two, until the message in the center of the shield finally - How could I be so obtuse as not to realize immediately what was going on? Was I not already a veteran of air raid drills? - began to register - ALERT - written in several languages. I called to my wife and only then did we hear a siren. We hurried into the sealable room upstairs, and were all masked and seated, more or less calmly, even my 86 year old mother - who had to be awakened and did not quite seem to know was going on - listening to the radio tell us that the alarm was for all Israel, when [FINALLY!] - at 22:35 - another siren was heard, this time a steady blast [The alert alarm is an alternately rising and falling wail.]. The radio confirmed that there was now an all-clear condi- tion. Did it last only three minutes? It seemed much longer than that; how had we accomplished so much in only three minutes? After the all-clear was digested by us, understood: Yes, we were once again "safe," we could now resume watching the game. How strange it seemed, an Israeli team [Most have been devastated by loss of foreign players who left with the onset of Desert Storm, but not our best team, Maccabi, with 4 Afro-Americans who all stayed and played.]. How could they go on playing? But they could not possibly know that there had been an alarm here; after all, they were in Split, in Yugoslavia. Added to our relief after understanding that what we had experienced was only a false alarm - and added to the glow from the effective action of the Patriot which still is felt - we were treated to a hair's breadth [Which, by the way means something altogether different in Shakespeare.] victory by Tel Aviv. Two points and Split had the ball! We latch on to good things, to good signs, we need reassurance. Rain. The rain that we have had for two full days, is another blessing. Or, a bundle of blessings. It has been a heavy and hard rain. And we all love it. For so many reasons. We have had a very dry winter and our major source of water, the Kinneret, also known as Lake Tiberius or the Sea of Galillee, has been drying up and is 3 meters below its normal level. To make matters worse, we have had a scandal here with the National Omboudsman [Actually a woman, extremely impressive 70+ year old Miriam Porot, a former Supreme Court Justice.] revealing almost [?] criminal waste and mishandling of our water reserves for years. Talk of buying water from other countries has been depressing. We are a major exporter of desalination plants but have none of our own. And now with this glorious rain we are filling up the Kinneret again, only 2-3 percent of the lack thus far, but the rain has not ended. And now it is also snowing on Mount Hermon, snow that will melt in the spring and feed the Kinneret. But the rain and the accompanying heavy fog are also pro- tection against air attacks; not from missiles but at least from bombers. And the threat of poison gas bombs from planes is seen as greater than that from missiles. The American generals are convinced [Our experts disagree.] that the Iraqis do not have a chemical warhead for the long range SCUD which can and has reached us. We are told that there is another advantage of rain in a poison gas attack; the rain will wash away and dissipate the gas more rapidly than would occur otherwise. This morning my wife stood in the rain in a demonstration against the visit of the German Foreign Minister, H.-D. Genscher. He is here to show German identity with us in our time of need; so he says. There has been tremendous criticism of the German - and French and Soviet - arming of Saddam Hussein with sophisti- cated military technology, in particular in the fields of poison gas and missile warfare. With Zyklon B in the background, the German government has been embarrassed, and the visit is seen as an admission of guilt. Representatives of all French political parties [except the Communists] are also visiting now, identifying. In the demonstration, the women stood in the rain, felt the first snow flakes in Jerusalem this year fall on them and heard other women, survivors of the concentration camps tell how they had barely gotten through the threat of being gassed to death and how, now, they did not want this to happen to their grandchildren. Just as we are sensitive to the subject of poison gas, the Germans are also sensitive to the subject. Just not sensitive enough to desist from producing the materials, from selling the stuff to the most irresponsible buyers around. A little gas, even the threat of gas can do wonders: the European Community has just cancelled all the sanctions they had imposed on us. Genscher is taken to see the ruins of the SCUD attack on Ramat Gan [greater Tel Aviv]; a little more guilt for the German role in devoloping missile technology for Saddam Hussein is never out of order. After all, we are not Jewish for nothing. Genscher is intrigued to see a completely destroyed apartment with a large Israeli flag flying from it. The owner of the apartment, who has just finished hanging the flag is brought to Genscher and asked what he was doing. A large, burly man, he replies that he had to find a picture of his father, the only one there is. Did he find it among the ruins? he was asked. He pulls out the picture from his jacket pocket and kisses it. He is asked if he feels any hate towards the Iraqis. No, he says, not unless hate means feeling very bad; otherwise he is not sure what hate is. The problems of lack of sleep and increased anxiety are still very much with us, particularly noticeable in children. Teenagers cringe in Tel Aviv, waiting for the sound of the blast that they have already heard so many times. There is more bed wetting, whimpering and even crying in their sleep among children. We hear psychological advice over and over again on the radio, not only for children. Whole families sleep together, to reassure one another, in a single bed. In other families, a watch is set; one person stays awake to be able to hear the siren. Waiting. One expert has advised fondling, caressing and even sex for anxiety. When I ask a friend in Tel Aviv, he says "You must be made of stronger stuff than me if you can think about sex at a time like this." Truth is, I have not thought about it; I only wondered if sex might be used as proof that you are still alive. On the other hand, fear does remarkable things to your hormones, even producing amenorrhea. But then again, so do anorexia nervosa and schizophrenia. Speaking of anorexia nervosa and psychological counselling on the radio, one psychologist advised eating for anxiety. Only in a Jewish country! Last night's rain was associated with a thunder storm. Even though we we were warned of thunder, my wife - and many others - awoke in fright, fearing an explosion. There is now a radio station for sleeping; it will broadcast nothing unless there is an alarm. The siren that usually announces the Sabbath will not be sounded this evening in order to prevent confusion. An anecdote: following a kidney transplant operation, the patient awoke in the recovery room to find the nurses and doctors all wearing gas masks. He apparently was convinced by this strange sight that he had died, not aware that an air raid siren had been sounded and he began to cry bitterly. The staff attempted to reassure him by telling him that his mother was waiting for him. Since his mother had died 4 years earlier, this was the final proof he needed to know with certainty that he was dead. The staff had mistaken the patient's father's second wife for his mother. The ending was, I am reassured, a happy one - once the confusion was cleared up. *********************** Apparently I forgot, in writing about how inviting the American crews to man the Patriots and teach Israelis how to use them was felt to be a blow to our pride, to tell how thankful we were and are to America for sending the missiles and their trained crews and to the crews themselves. The crews were overwhelmed with home baked cakes [A radio announcement pleaded with the public to stop; there was just too much.]. When a call was made on the radio for English speakers to entertain the American guests, the response was over- whelming. It is possible to be hurt and thankful at the same time. And all this was before the first Patriot was fired. With the success of the Patriots in Haifa on Wednesday night, our gratitude is that much greater. The mayor of Haifa, where the Patriot downed a SCUD, brought champagne and a case of whiskey to the American crew which had manned the Patriot launcher. I hope they will not be drunk when we need them again. If we need them again, as most of us are still convinced we shall. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: Are academics jes' folks? Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 23:39:34 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2052 (2368) Stephen Clausing writes: [deleted quotation] What a curious view to take. First, I have no doubt that we are all discussing this issue with our friends, relatives and neighbours: we are not creatures who exist by and for e-mail. We are, in fact, "just people like everyone else." But, let it pass. As to the relative wisdom of academics, I have nothing to say. But as to whether academics have a more profound knowledge than most people, I think Clausing had best reconsider. How much sense would this statement make if we were to alter a single term: "I would like to see just once that the members of this profession realize that they are just people like everyone else and that their views on literature are no wiser or more profound than those of the janitors in their buildings." If I had spent the greater part of my adult life studying philosophy or political science, I would certainly have cause to be deeply offended by Clausing's remark. If the people who have dedicated themselves to studying ethics and politics have no more profound insight to offer than anyone else, what is their justification for doing what they do? Perhaps our society has forgotten why it pays its academics, but if it is not to spend time and energy finding out knowledge wiser and more profound, I wonder what frippery we are all engaged in. None of this is meant to suggest that non-academics have no right to express political opinions, only that there are some among us who have studied the questions more carefully and thoughtfully, who have profounder insights to offer. I am lately returned to the academy after a decade spent working in a warehouse, as an office clerk and, indeed, as a janitor (by Clausing's lights, my remarks should be taken as doubly authoritative). I have spent the last two-and-a-half years studying medieval literature. My special topic has been ethics, and, in small part, the ethics of war. My ignorance is only slightly less profound than it was, but you may be sure it is also somewhat less profound than the writer who suggested to the editor of our local paper that a nuclear strike against Iraq would "solve" many problems in the Middle East. I will not bore you with what people thought about war in the Middle Ages: it isn't particularly relevant at this point, though some of you who bandy "medieval" about as a pejorative would be quite surprised at the nature of the debate. I would be happier, however, if the "posturing" in this discussion was turned to more clearly humanistic concerns about the necessity and morality of war in general, and about this war in particular. I would like to hear people who support the war explain whether it is moral or only necessary. Obviously self-defence is necessary, but is it moral if it requires other persons to die in the smoking rubble with their guts in their hands? Is "their guts before ours" a moral stance that a humanist can support? Does necessity equal morality? And from those who oppose the war, I would like to hear whether tyranny should be allowed to prevail if it means terror and mutilation for its victims. Is "terror and mutilation" a reasonable price to pay to remain moral? My request may seem unnatural, and even smug, especially to those under present threat of bombardment. But as long as some can spin homely tales of a walk through a city after a missile attack, they should still be capable of a thoughtful investigation into the meaning of their situation. So should we all be. It is not arrogance for us to attempt it. It is our purpose as humanists, and it is demanded of us. From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: Postcript to: Are academics 'jes' folks?' Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 00:15:47 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2053 (2369) I hope no one thinks that "homely tales" was meant as a pejorative. Bob Werman's stories are much appreciated here. They are much more vivid and humane than the endless hours of talking heads speculating on conjecture that passes for news coverage of the war in North America. From: "Bill Ball" <C476721@UMCVMB> Subject: "evil", Sanskrit to English, Updike, misc. Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 03:18:36 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2054 (2370) I first apologize for such a barrage of miscellaneous ramblings but they all seem relevant to Humanist, and given its after 3 am I have no one else to bother with them. For quite awhile I've wondered just how closely connected the word "evil" is to religious notions. Since Saddam is now labeled "evil" this again comes to mind. Does it not really make sense for a non-believer to call someone evil--in the same way it seems silly for the same person to call something sinful? Or is "evil" less linked to religiousity than I think? Another word question: looking up some English word origins recently I was struck by the number attributed to Sanskrit. This makes sense for some obviously picked up during the colonial era (e.g. "thug"), but several seemed older than that. I am wondering if we got words from Sanskrit before colonialization, and if so, how?--What were the means of transmittal between such distant cultures? Back to war-related material: A quote that seems particularly appropriate, attributed to John Updike (from The Washington Post Weekly Edition, Jan. 14-20, 1991, p. 12) "America is beyond power, it acts as in a dream, as a face of God. Wherever America is, there is freedom, and wherever America is not, madness rules with chains, darkness strangles millions. Beneath her patient bombers, paradise is possible." I read it to my students, but it didn't seem to make much of an impression. Last one: It has really struck me lately (about time since I am half-way through a dissertation on this (at least now I know what it is about)) how there is a fundamental conflict between knowledge and politics--an instance of conflict between thought and action. The lack of a need to say THIS is why we are at war, and stick to it, is painfully obvious at the moment. A similar phenomena occurs in markets: tonight a newscaster reported that financial marketers were acting cautiously because they now realize that the war could be protracted--yet EVERYONE has predicted it would not be short for months. The need to act not only forecloses the ability to achieve certitude, or in moral matters "reflective equilibrium" (Rawls)--both knowledge and politics/action seem out to vanquish the other. BTW: the discussion lately on Humanist has been the best ever. Keep it up. Bill Ball Dept. Political "Science" U. Mo.-Columbia From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: Causes of the War Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 8:34:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2055 (2371) To oversimplify everything, I do believe that one of the major causes of this war was the power that Saddam Hussein accumulated. I think the United States has more to do with this than just "tilting" (I find that one of the obnoxious barbarisms) toward Iran. While there is greed enough in German companies to blame them for the supplying of chemical materials, plants, and bomb shelters to Hussein, I believe that the United States was complicit in this. About two years ago Der Spiegel had a rather large article on American listening posts in Germany. I did not read it in detail, but I remember something like finding passages of material gotten from phone conversations of the Schleswig-Holstein minister of the environment, which is roughly equivalent to the Rhode Island Commissioner of Environmental Protection. Extrapolating from this, I cannot but believe that the Americans were listening too, to all the traffic of firms that could supply chemicals, etc. I think the United States deliberately looked the other way, and whatever you think of Kohl's government, it was complaisant (compliant is too strong) to American needs, just as it seems now compliant to many specific American requests to prosecute those who sold the chemical plants. Those feelings, the necessary destruction of infrastructure on which Iraqi ordinary people depend for their lives, personal feelings about my grandfather's baptismal church being destroyed in 1943, all combine to make me feel deeply unhappy about this war, and to think that World War I, in which the powers did not work hard enough to prevent it, is the best model. Edward J. Haupt Montclair State College From: NMILLER@trincc Subject: Re: 4.0940 War and Rhetoric Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 10:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2056 (2372) While I happen to agree with Lakoff's critics I can't help but be amused at Dr. Knox's dictum that "words are just words". I used to threaten my students with instant excommunication (I stopped because it turned out that some believed I was a priest) if they ever used the word 'just' in the Knoxian sense. That aside, the proposed explanation of how the English came to believe what they did of the Irish (Dr. Knox will greatly oblige us all if he repeats the exercise for English perceptions of the Welsh, Scots, Jews and French) smacks of the bad old days when historians on principle ignored any of the insights into human and social behavior that were not readily available in the pages of the Readers Digest. Norman Miller From: AUGUST@JPLLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV (Richard B. August) Subject: RE: 4.0945 Responses on War and Protest Date: Fri, 25 Jan 1991 7:43:58 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2057 (2373) RWERMAN@HUJIVMS suggests that "Hussein is evil or mad or both..." He is neither! Hussein is ruthless. This is a word seldom used today to describe tactics such as Hussein's. The press and individuals would rather "soft-peddal" the fact that a person can be without care for the effect their actions have on others. Language is an interesting thing. In WWI people on the front suffered from "shell shock". In WWII these people suffered from "combat fatigue". In Vietnam they suffered from "post traumatic stress syndrome". Each time the selection of words suggests that it is not as bad as the previous. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck...it must be a duck. Evil is a judgement call, mad is poorly defined. Ruthless on the other hand describes one without care for their fellow man. Hussein is ruthless! Not mad. Evil? We could argue about that. I think the guy is a danger to most of us and should be eliminated. [stepping down from soap-box] Regards, Richard B. August august@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: Draft Program for ACH/ALLC '91 Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 05:34:03 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 948 (2374) ACH/ALLC '91: DRAFT PROGRAM March 17-21: Below you will find a draft program for ACH/ALLC '91, to be held at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ from March 17-21. This document contains: a "map" of the program, a draft program of authors For more information, contact Dan Brink at ATDXB@ASUACAD or 602/965-2679 ----------------- Map: A B C 17-MOR (Pre-conference introduction to TEI) 17-AFT (Pre-conference hands-on TEI workshop) 17-EVE PLENARY: Kay - - 18-MOR-1 X X X 18-MOR-2 X X X 18-MOR-3 - - - 18-AFT-1 X "Text & Info" X 18-AFT-2 X X - 18-AFT-3 PLENARY: Griswold - - 18-EVE "TEI" - - 19-MOR-1 X X X 19-MOR-2 X "TEI Perspective" X 19-MOR-3 ACH meeting - - 19-AFT-1 ALLC meeting - - 19-AFT-2 - - - 19-AFT-3 SOFTWARE FAIR - - 19-EVE - - - 20-MOR-1 X X X 20-MOR-2 "Statistics" X "Italian Poetry" 20-MOR-3 - - - 20-AFT-1 X X - 20-AFT-2 X X - 20-AFT-3 PLEN: Aguerra - - 20-EVE "Resources" - - 21-MOR-1 X X - 21-MOR-2 "Corpora" X - 21-MOR-3 Closing session - - 21/22 (post-conference trip to Grand Canyon) In general, MOR-1: 9:00 - 10:15 MOR-2: 10:30 - 11:45 MOR-3: 11:45 - 1:30 AFT-1: 1:30 - 2:45 AFT-2: 3:00 - 4:15 AFT-3: 4:30 - 5:30 EVE-1: 8:00 - 10:00 Note: There are pre- and post conference workshops and excursions, special airfares, etc.; for registration information contact Dan Brink ATDXB@ASUACAD (602/965-2679; fax: 602/965-2012) Draft Program: ----------------------- March 17-EVE-1-A PLENARY SESSION #1 Opening Session Chair: Don Ross Martin Kay ----------------------- March 18-MOR-1-A COMPUTER SCIENCE AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS Kip Canfield, University of Maryland, Baltimore Kevin Devlin, Colby College Edward A. Fox, Robert K. France, M. Prabhakar Koushik, Jenny-Lou Menezes, Qi Fan Chen, Amjad M. Daoud, J. Terry Nutter, Virginia Polytechnic ----------------------- March 18-MOR-1-B ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC INTENT Terumasa Ehara and Tsuyoshi Morimoto, ATR, Kyoto Kevin Donaghy, Rochester Inst of Tech Harry C. Bunt, ITK - Tilburg ----------------------- March 18-MOR-1-C THE PRACTICING HUMANIST AND THE COMPUTER Christine Mullings, Bath Peter Serdiukov, Kiev Pedagogical Inst of Foreign Languages Deborah Wilde, Getty Museum ----------------------- March 18-MOR-2-A EXPERT SYSTEMS AND THE LEXICON Donalee H. Attardo, Purdue Dranimir Boguraev and Mary S. Neff, IBM TJ Watson Center Peters, Carol, Elisabetta Marinai and Eugenio Picchi, CNR, Pisa ----------------------- March 18-MOR-2-B ANALYSIS OF STYLE Biber, Douglas, Northern Arizona University, and Edward Finegan, Southern California Holmes, David, Bristol Polytechnic Irizarry, Estelle, Georgetown University ----------------------- March 18-MOR-2-C EXTRACTING THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TEXT Deegan, Marilyn, Oxford Neumann, Fritz-Wilhelm, Goettingen Potter, Rosanne G., Iowa State ----------------------- March 18-AFT-1-A LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION Lori Levin, David A. Evans, Donna Gates and Laurent Delon, Carnegie-Mellon Lessard, Gregory and Michael Levison, Queen's University Fouquere, Christophe, LIPN-CNRS ----------------------- March 18-AFT-1-B TEXTS, CONCORDANCES AND TEXTUAL INFORMATION A Special Session Sponsored by APA Chair: David Owen Syun Tutiya, Chiba Alastair McKinnon, McGill ----------------------- March 18-AFT-1-C UNDERSTANDING PLOT Anderson, Clifford W. and George E. McMaster, Brandon Reeves, John, UCLA Sutherland, Kathryn, Oxford ----------------------- March 18-AFT-2-A COMPLEX TEXT RETRIEVAL Horton, Tom, Florida Atlantic Nakamura, Takahiro and Satoshi Aisaka, Computer Applications, Tokyo Siegfried, Susan, Getty Museum ----------------------- March 18-AFT-2-B TOOLS FOR LITERARY ANALYSIS Robinson, Peter, Oxford Ehrlich, Heyward. Rutgers, and George Vallasi, Chernow Editorial Hilton, Michael, South Carolina ----------------------- March 18-AFT-3-A PLENARY SESSION #2 Ralph Griswold, Arizona ----------------------- March 18-EVE-1-A STATUS REPORT ON THE TEI A Special Session Sponsored by ACH, ALLC, ACL Michael Sperberg-McQueen, Illinois at Chicago Lou Burnard, Oxford ----------------------- March 19-MOR-1-A ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF METAPHOR Chair: Mary Dee Harris Bipin Indurkhya, Boston James Martin, Colorado Dan Fass, Simon Fraser ----------------------- March 19-MOR-1-B METRICS Hayward, Malcolm, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Novick, David G. and Thomas A. Doehne, Oregon Graduate Institute Chisholm, David and Royce Robbins, Arizona ----------------------- March 19-MOR-1-C VARIATION IN SPEECH Hosaka, Junko, Toshiyuki Takezawa and Terumasa Ehara, ATR, Kyoto Kirk, John M and Willaim A. Kretzschmar, Georgia Dickey, Martin and Leonard Faltz, Arizona State ----------------------- March 19-MOR-2-A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS Delmonte, Rodolfo and Dario Bianchi, San Marco Marrafa, Palmira, Lisbon Yu, Xiaojin and Robert Oakman, South Carolina ----------------------- March 19-MOR-2-B PERSPECTIVES ON THE TEI A Special Session Sponsored by ACH, ALLC, ACL Chair: Elaine Brennan Elaine Brennan, Women Writers Project, Brown Steve Siebert, Dragonfly Software Sperling Martin, Consultant ----------------------- March 19-MOR-2-C PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO COMPUTER-MEDIATED INSTRUCTION Brewer, Jeutonne, UNC Greensboro, and Boyd H. Davis, UNC Charlotte Smith, Karen and Barbara Hoffman Maginnis, Arizona Skubikowski, Kathleen, Middlebury ----------------------- March 19-MOR-3-A Business Meeting of ACH ----------------------- March 19-AFT-1-A Business Meeting of ALLC ----------------------- March 19-AFT-2-A Free time: visit vendor exhibit ----------------------- March 19-AFT-3-A Software Fair ----------------------- March 20-MOR-1-A MACHINE TRANSLATION: EAST <-> WEST Chen, Hsin-Hsi, National University of Taiwan Her, One-Soon, Dan Higenbotham and Joseph Pentheroudakis, Executive Communication Systems R. Piotrowski, R, Leningrad, R. Minvaleev, S. Puchkov, V. Kwiatkowski, V. Shumovsky, and H. Tyune ----------------------- March 20-MOR-1-B ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL Tierney, James E., Missouri-St. Louis Galloway, Patricia, Mississippi Department of Archives ----------------------- March 20-MOR-1-C "APPRECIATING MONUMENTS OF FRENCH LITERATURE" Fortier, Paul and Carl J. Schwarz, Manitoba Robert F. Allen, Rutgers Lessard, Gregory and Jean-Jacques Hamm, Queen's University ----------------------- March 20-MOR-2-A STATISTICAL METHODS IN COMPUTATIONAL RESEARCH A Special Session Sponsored by the ACL Chair: Ken Church Ken Church Bob Mercer Martin Kay Mark Liberman ----------------------- March 20-MOR-2-B NATIONAL LITERARY CORPORA Kitamura, Keiko, Nat'l Inst of Japanese Literature Weenen, Andrea de Leeuw van, Leiden Magnberg, Sune, University of Stockholm ----------------------- March 20-MOR-2-C Special Session of the Concordanze della Lingua Italiana Poetica dell'Otto/Novecento" (CLIPON) group, Italian National Council for Research (CNR) Chair: Luciano Farina, Ohio State Giuseppi Savoca, Catania Alida DiAquino Sebastiano Catrona Amalia Mannino ----------------------- March 20-AFT-1-A AUTOMATING CONTENT ANALYSIS Ide, Nancy M., Vassar, and Jean Veronis, CNRS Rieger, Burghard, Trier Hunter, David and Rita D'Arcangelis, Texas at Arlington ----------------------- March 20-AFT-1-B PUBLISHERS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONIC TEXT Chair: Michael Neuman, Georgetown NEUMAN@GUVAX Dennis Karjala, Arizona State Mark Rooks, InteLex Darrell Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary Eric Calaluca, Chadwyck-Healey ----------------------- March 20-AFT-2-A MANAGING LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE BASES Cotoneschi, Patrizia and Monica Monachini, CNR Pisa Conlon, Sumali Pin-Ngern and Martha Evans, Mississippi Saint-Dizier, Patrick IRIT (Toulouse) ----------------------- March 20-AFT-2-B EDITING AND TEXT MARKUP Chesnutt, David R., South Carolina van Halteren, Hans, Nijmegen Sperberg-McQueen, Michael, Illinois at Chicago ----------------------- March 20-AFT-3-A PLENARY SESSION #3 Helen Aguerra, NEH ----------------------- March 20-EVE-1-A LEXICAL, TEXTUAL, AND SOFTWARE RESOURCES A Special Session Sponsored by ACH, ALLC, and ACL Chair: Don Walker, Bellcore Mark Liberman, Pennsylvania, and Don Walker, Bellcore Roy Byrd, IBM, and Yorick Wilks New Mexico State Nicoletta Calzolari, Pisa Antonio Zampolli, Pisa, and Don Walker, Bellcore Elizabeth Hinkelman, Chicago ----------------------- March 21-MOR-1-A BUILDING INTELLIGENT ENVIRONMENTS FOR HUMANISTS Solak, Jerzy and Hanna Popwska, Inst for Information, Warsaw Raskin, Victor, Donalee H. Attardo, and Salvatore Attardo, Purdue Condamines, Anne and Patrick Saint-Dizier IRIT, Toulouse Daelemans, Walter, Tilburg ----------------------- March 21-MOR-1-B TOOLS FOR LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS Dench, Alan, Western Australia Crane, Gregory, Harvard Vladimir Pericliev, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Vyacheslav Ivanov, Moskow ----------------------- March 21-MOR-2-A CREATING NATURAL LANGUAGE CORPORA A Special Session Sponsored by ACH and ALLC Chair: Nancy Ide Jeremy Clear, OUP Mitch Marcus, Penn ----------------------- March 21-MOR-2-B INSTRUCTION IN STYLE Ross, Donald, Minnesota, and David Hunter, Texas at Arlington Harrienhausen-Muhlbauer, Bettina, IBM Deutschland Payette, Julie, Toronto ----------------------- March 21-MOR-3-A FINAL SESSION Chair: Dan Brink, Arizona State Susan Hockey, Oxford ----------------------- [A complete version of the ACH-ALLC91 program draft is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ACH91 DPROGRAM. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0933 Computers and Gender Date: 23 Jan 91 18:15:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2058 (2375) Gender: Diane Kovacs response contains a telling and repeated phrase -- telling in that it shows us something about ourselves. She speaks of e-world as a place she would not have entered `if I hadn't been provided with an invitation and then an escort': how many male HUMANIST's would think to phrase matters that way? I'm perfectly happy to be thought of as a typical fatheaded DWEM-in-training (perhaps FDWEM for Future DWEM?) and can confirm that by admitting that my own recollections of stages of initiation into e-world were more characterized by a huffy, blustering, barging my way in, then grabbing a chair, belching loudly, and looking around to remark (ironically: some very old HUMANIST's, i.e., people who've been on line for a year and a half or so, may remember this moment) that there didn't seem to be a lot of `girls' in e-world yet. (The irony escaped some readers and I was duly excoriated.) Now saying it that way may sound like self-parody, but so does most human discourse. My point is that the language available for a scholar like Kovacs makes it easy to speak of waiting for an invitation and an escort: and that fact of culture must in itself make it at least *slightly* harder for some to make the entrance; while the language that I can use suggests that it is at least *slightly* easier for somebody like me to make the entrance. I doubt that e-mail access policies can be altered to make the world a better place overnight, but we need to keep in mind the culturally-induced disparities that we live with and try to make adjustments as we go along. P.S.: to meet a female who is a true hacker, you might have a look in the computer centers of our older and harder-headed women's colleges. Such people exist, but I think that my having encountered them *there* is not unindicative in itself. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0933 Computers and Gender Date: 23 Jan 91 18:15:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2059 (2376) Gender: Diane Kovacs response contains a telling and repeated phrase -- telling in that it shows us something about ourselves. She speaks of e-world as a place she would not have entered `if I hadn't been provided with an invitation and then an escort': how many male HUMANIST's would think to phrase matters that way? I'm perfectly happy to be thought of as a typical fatheaded DWEM-in-training (perhaps FDWEM for Future DWEM?) and can confirm that by admitting that my own recollections of stages of initiation into e-world were more characterized by a huffy, blustering, barging my way in, then grabbing a chair, belching loudly, and looking around to remark (ironically: some very old HUMANIST's, i.e., people who've been on line for a year and a half or so, may remember this moment) that there didn't seem to be a lot of `girls' in e-world yet. (The irony escaped some readers and I was duly excoriated.) Now saying it that way may sound like self-parody, but so does most human discourse. My point is that the language available for a scholar like Kovacs makes it easy to speak of waiting for an invitation and an escort: and that fact of culture must in itself make it at least *slightly* harder for some to make the entrance; while the language that I can use suggests that it is at least *slightly* easier for somebody like me to make the entrance. I doubt that e-mail access policies can be altered to make the world a better place overnight, but we need to keep in mind the culturally-induced disparities that we live with and try to make adjustments as we go along. P.S.: to meet a female who is a true hacker, you might have a look in the computer centers of our older and harder-headed women's colleges. Such people exist, but I think that my having encountered them *there* is not unindicative in itself. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: Computers and Gender Date: Thu, 24 Jan 1991 9:13:07 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2060 (2377) Sorry, I have to take exception to Norman Miller. I agree with him that most women don't play computer games (though little girls in my experience spend as much time painting and drawing with it as little boys do shooting). But to suggest that women don't write "two-line batch programs"? Come on, girls, how many of you have really never looked at the contents of your PC's autoexec file (or your VMS's login.com, or whatever the Unix equivalent is)? Does no mother but me find herself writing two-line batch files so that the kids can switch to graphics mode and run their programs from the root directory without either tying the hard disk in knots or blowing up the monitor? Am I the only female who has to trick herself into backing-up her data at 2 am by wrapping a batch file round the word processor that won't let her exit to DOS without a diskette in A: and then does it for her? Incidentally, the System Managers at our friendly Technion computer centre are at least 50% female (sorry folks, that should read: at least 50% of the System Managers...) The VMS staff who are my lifeline are 2 women and a man, and they do plenty of batch file writing. Judy Koren From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: list of computational phonologists Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 09:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 950 (2378) Forwarded from: Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 0016. Originally from: marke@cs.uwa.oz.au I wish to bring to your attention a directory of people working in the field of computational phonology. The directory is intended to inform participants of other people working in this new field. In parallel with the directory is a small bibliography of works in this newly burgeoning field. There are also some specific works, such as a paper and some software. How to get these ---------------- They are available in one of two ways: email and anonymous ftp. An index of the computational phonology files available may be found by sending the message get comp.phonology/index to listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au. I am piggybacking it on top of the `linguist' mailing list. Similarly, to obtain other of the computational phonology files, send messages of the form get phonology/<filename> Ftp access to all files is available, as before, by anonymous ftp to bison.cs.uwa.oz.au, in the subdirectory pub/phonology Use get index to obtain a list of the available files (or you can do an ls). As a further service, any item which you wish to be mailed to all persons on the computational phonology list, can be so distributed by sending mail to phonology@bison.cs.uwa.oz.au Please let me know if you have any problems using either of the above facilities. Keeping it up to date -------------------- To make the directory and bibliography useful, it is important to keep it upto date. So if you are doing research into any area of computational phonology, such as * computational phonological theories - logical or unification- based models of phonology. Also strict formalisations of existing phonological models, * phonological parsing according to particular models of phonology, * discovery procedures or learning systems for phonology, or * implementations of particular phonological models, automatic derivations, could you please send me a short research bio to be placed in the directory. The structure I am using has the following fields: name, email address, status, affiliation, research interests. As an example, here is my blurb: Name: T Mark Ellison Email: marke@bison.cs.uwa.oz.au Status: PhD student, Computer Science Institution: University of Western Australia Research: The abstraction of phonological information from purely structural data. For example determining which phonemes are consonants and which are vowels from a list of words expressed as strings in those phonemes. I also have a system for learning harmony processes: identifying participating, opaque and transparent segments in the harmony. Work continues in automatically determining syllable structures, using finite-state automata models of syllable structure. I am also interested in automatically translating a rule system from a segmental representation into a feature-underspecified representation. At the moment, the list contains twenty names. If you have references for computational phonology books, articles, papers, tech reports, etc., these would be appreciated for a bibliography. The bibliography is structured in `refer' format, but bibtex or any other understandable formats are willing accepted. If possible, an abstract accompanying the reference would be very useful. Other files that might be useful to computational phonologists (papers in postscript, software, etc.) would also be accepted gladly and made available by email and anonymous ftp. T Mark Ellison Department of Computer Science Nedlands, WA 6009 marke@bison.cs.uwa.oz.au University of Western Australia Australia From: Rudolf WYTEK <Z00WYR01@AWIUNI11> Subject: OT and hidden messages research? Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 15:39:01 MEZ X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2061 (2379) This is a question out of one of my FORTRAN programming classes: Somewhere, perhaps in Israel, people are doing computer research on texts of the OT by sampling every n-th letter and find some words they interpret as meaningful. My position was that each longer text might show such hidden messages and I don't know about such kabbalistic things happen in earnest - it's like a scene out of 'Foucault's Pendulum'. Has anybody information on this question? Many thanks, rwy. From: al649@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Martin J. Homan) Subject: Directory of Religious Schools & Programs Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 12:33:33 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2062 (2380) Is there a directory/directories that lists all of the seminaries, colleges with religious affiliations, universities with religion departments, and bible colleges in the United States of America? What is it (or "are they") called, and where am I able to find it/them? Thanks. -- Martin Homan God's Word To The Nations Bible Society Cleveland, OH al649@cleveland.freenet.edu From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: Are academics jes' folks? Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 18:25:58 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2063 (2381) Clausing says: I would like to see just once that the members of this profession realize that they are just people like everyone else and that their views on literature are no wiser or more profound than those of the janitors in their buildings. To which August responds: If I had spent the greater part of my adult life studying philosophy or political science, I would certainly have cause to be deeply offended by Clausing's remark. If the people who have dedicated themselves to studying ethics and politics have no more profound insight to offer than anyone else, what is their justification for doing what they do? Perhaps our society has forgotten why it pays its academics, but if it is not to spend time and energy finding out knowledge wiser and more profound, I wonder what frippery we are all engaged in. I really don't know what position to take in this matter. I do have a few questions, though. If in fact academics teaching philosophy, ethics, etc., are really worth their pay then there must exist some evidence that there has been progress in their fields. Do philosphers today understand more fully the nature of man and the universe than they did, say ten, a hundred, or a thousand years ago? Are modern ethics more advanced than those of ages past? I don't know, and I'm not sure if we _can_ know. Am I playing into Clausing's hands? :-) -Richard From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Lakoff Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 09:35:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2064 (2382) I made Lakoff's article available to PHILOS-L subscribers, and I have also read most of it to a first year rhetoric class. It is - in its first part - a reasonable introduction to the way metaphors and myths sometimes structure our thought. But what seemed most obvious to me was that Lakoff himself was guilty of many of the errors he detects in others. Speaking of the just war as 'a fairy tale' and then embarking on an attempt to smear the past behaviour of Kuwait so that it is no longer an 'innocent' victim is a case in point. 'Innocent' in the context of the ethics of war does not mean 'sinless': when innocent civilians are killed in war the complaint is not that *sinless* ones were killed (which is absurd). But in any case, talking about KUWAIT's wrong-doing is - exactly - to personify a state far more intrusively than any Allied leader or commentator. Again, speaking of Kuwait as a absolute monarchy where women are treated badly is to employ misplaced analogies (which are in any case quite irrelevant to the conflict between Kuwaitis and the Iraqi regime (which *is* an absolute monarchy where women - and others - are treated badly)). Even if Kuwait were ruled by an absolute monarch (which it wasn't), and even if the ruling family had never contributed anything to the Arab poor in Kuwait and out of it (though in fact they did), and even if women were treated badly (though in fact women were active in business in their own right, and had more rights than elsewhere in the Arab world or than in the West of not so many years ago) - so what? It remains true that Kuwaitis have been assaulted, raped (not metaphorically), killed and robbed by the soldiers and servants of a regime that has done much the same to its own citizens. Lakoff claims - and here he steps well beyond his own expertise as a student of language - that there were other ways of evicting and disciplining the Iraqi forces and leaders, that we only had to 'wait' - while Arabs were killed and terrorised and the regime had time to build up its offensive and defensive capacities. It was revealed this morning that German firms had continued to supply Iraq with materials for chemical and germ warfare after the embargo. Does anyone think that it was only Germans who were doing this? Do you want an Iraqi superstate across the middle east? That is what we were going to get. I didn't find the paper contemptibly bad - though its familiar rhetorical pose of claiming expertise in one special area which is then, somehow, expected to lend authority to the political views of an averagely ignorant academic was something that any journal editor would, I hope, have sought to correct. It was a first, and hurried, draft, displaying faults of metaphor, personification, ambiguity and demon-making of the same kind as Lakoff - in his better moments - correctly rebukes. I don't regret my part in spreading the article: other people are at liberty to form their own judgements of it, and it does draw attention to important features of public discourse, even if most sensible people are already prepared to guard themselves against them. Best wishes Stephen Liverpool University UK From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: war Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 13:05:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2065 (2383) I am glad to see that John Morris admits he feels better qualified to pass judgement on the war by virtue of his advanced medieval studies. Candor is always appreciated even when it is ridiculous. Yes, a Ph.D. in literature is better qualified to talk about literature than the average person, but I find it dubious that a person with a Ph.D. in philosophy is better able to discuss the ethics of this particular war. Is there a formula for the number of people who can be acceptably killed in order to remove a tyrant? I must have missed that when I took Philosophy 101. What determines the answer to such questions? I maintain it is common sense, a basic understanding of the issue, and one's own personal values. These are universal qualities. They are not learned in graduate school. I received in campus mail yesterday an invitation to join a group of faculty opposed to the war. This group wishes to discuss "future courses of action". I know what this means. It means faculty parading up and down as experts, asking students and others to join them. It means sending the message that the smart and educated people are against this war. Once again, I encourage everyone to discuss this matter with their friends, neighbors and relatives. But these "faculty" discussion groups are a farce, and I submit that using Humanist to make anti-war statements is little better. From: uclethl@ucl.ac.uk Subject: War Discussion Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 12:16:02 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2066 (2384) Discussion on the War This has been one of the most stimulating discussions I have monitored on HUMANIST (a label which I find very off-putting, for reasons I may explain in some future posting). Bob Werman and Judy Koren have been especially interesting to me for different reasons--Bob for his genuine pathos in describing the personal and family experience of being under attack, and Judy for her razor- sharp analyses. I wish they could somehow be combined. Like most liberals (I suspect) my thinking about the war in the Persian Gulf is constantly muddied by the good-guy/bad guy or good vs. evil metaphysical vocabulary my education has fed me. Do I think Saddam is an intolerable threat to political stability, civilization as we know it and to the <emerging world order>? Certainly he is. But that in itself does not really bother me so much. <Political stability> is so often just a comfortable euphemism for repression, <civilization> is usually a euphemism for <our way of life> as opposed to someone elses, and the <emerging world order> is George Bush`s expression for a world dominated by the needs, desires, and power-fantasies of the United States and her allies free of the Soviet Union`s oppositional support for third-world revolutions. What does bother me a great deal is that Saddam Hussein is a proven threat to human beings. He enslaves them to fight against their will, preaches that his God has condemned most of the people of the world to violent retributory death, and takes cynical advantage of other people`s beliefs in order to get them to hate, torture, and kill each other. On these scores, George Bush and many of the American and British people are also liable for charges. Saddam Hussein is in so many ways the perfect enemy for a US war, far better than Grenadan revolutionaries or General Noriega, or even Adolf Hitler, for Saddam is capable of being portrayed as so completely OTHER, while at the same time being so much like our own western war-, wealth-, and power-mongers. Saddam is a real manly-man for whom <principles> of national interest and sovereignty are far more important than human life and dignity. George Bush and John Major wish to appear the same. I agree that the the anti-war slogan <No Blood for Oil> is a serious oversimplification, but it reflects the recognition current among many that the motives for war trotted out by our government leaders are rhetorical masks for something else. When one of the world`s most frequent aggressors says it is going to war to stop agression, people are absolutely right to be suspicious. That the <something else> is not chiefly oil is indicated by the current price of Brent crude and by ministerial assertions that it has not yet become necessary to open strategic stockpiles of oil, nor do they expect it ever to become necessary. The <something else> is more complicated than that--a need to be in control of whatever <new order> emerges in the Middle East, a distrust of Arabs in general (and of all semitic peoples--the US does not want Israel to be a clear victor-dictator either), and a desire to see to it that whatever material resources the world has (including human resources) are managed in such a way as to preserve the wealth and power accumulated by a very few people. Saddam Hussein`s motives are remarkably similar, but on a smaller scale. So Bush and Cheney understand Saddam completely, but because he is an Arab, it is so very easy to portray him as mad, fanatical, or barbaric. Actually, he is every bit as cynical as Bush, adopting religious rhetoric and absurd talk about fighting to liberate oppressed peoples when it suits his purposes. All the talk about liberating the PEOPLE of Kuwait is just as ridiculous as Saddam`s professed interest in liberating Palestinians. Most Kuwaitis have lived under occupation by a small band of the rich and powerful just as Palestinians have in the occupied territories. It is not in the interests of anyone, Bush or Saddam, to liberate any opressed people. In fact, the US is so eager for this war, willing to spend so much time, money, and blood on this war precisely because it promises to obscure, maybe even eliminate, whatever struggles for liberation have been smoldering in the region. Kuwaiti resistance can now be ignored, so also the Saudi resistance (remember the women drivers?). Whatever Iraqi resistance there may have been before the war can be completely co- opted by the forces of Bush and Major and re-organized to suit their goals. And the Palestinians? Many no doubt stand on their rooftops and applaud the incoming SCUDS, and that registers the success both bullies are having at defining the terms of world politics in such a way as to perpetuate their power, but most of them (I suspect) are sitting locked up in their <houses> and settlement camps listening in despair as the BIG BOYS redefine their aspirations, their desires for dignity and freedom. As I implied above, I do not believe Saddam has any sincere interest in the plight of occupied Palestine, but the moment Saddam floated the idea of linking his retreat to an Arab conference on Palestine, the issues were indeed linked. Even before he did that, there were relevant UN resolutions (those now sacred justifications for war) on both sides drafted on very similar principles. Why did Bush so vehemently deny <linkage> (even as he depends upon it for the sort of outcome he wants)? Because he wants to settle a <new order> upon the middle east which serves the interests of his small coterie of world-class wealthies, with as little input as possible from popular interests, whether they be Arab, Palestinian, or even Israeli. A conference in which the US had no more powerful a voice than anyone else would be unthinkable to Bush, Major, or Shamir. So what do I think we liberals should do and say in this situation? For my part I am committed to doing whatever can be done to withdraw popular support for the war on either side. In the US and in Britain, popular support, or the appearances of it, are still necessary to prosecute a long war. I believe we should do everything possible to convince the world that popular interests, Arab, Western, Israeli, and Palestinian, are severely thretened by this war. Our slogan should perhaps be: NO MORE BLOOD FOR OPPRESSION, no more paying for our own pain. Because I believe this is the proper response of all people interested in a future of genuinely popular justice, I could not help but despair a bit when I watched Whitney Houston, a black woman, sing the <Star- Spangled Banner> to open superbowl hostilities last night. I really do not think she is yet wealthy enough to genuinely share Bush`s real interests in this conflict. But like so many, she has mistaken her own interests very badly. Tom Luxon Dartmouth College (presently in London) From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0947 War, Rhetoric, and Protest (6/216) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 09:34:32 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2067 (2385) I had to smile when Norman Miller scolded me about my misuse of the world "just." I was taught that distinction by my professor of medieval history, who provided my first model of true scholarship, so I really have no excuse for such an error. My defense: it's just a colloquialism. :-) I should know better than to argue about words, for it's not one I can win. It seems to be an article of faith among some; among others, the notion is overblown at the least. I prefer to think that I have the willpower to overcome, or at least to notice, the ways in which my given language affects the way I think. Others will disagree. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0947 War, Rhetoric, and Protest (6/216) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 15:30:51 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2068 (2386) Re. John Morris' question to those of us who support the war: is it moral or only necessary: It is only necessary. It isn't moral because war isn't moral, not even if fought for the best of causes. You cannot fight a war and stay moral, though you can persuade yourself that you can (and usually do so persuade yourself). John Updike's phrase, that beneath America's patient bombers Paradise is possible, precisely encapsulates the propaganda with which politicians deceive themselves and us. (Wish I could write a phrase like that!...) War may be described as defeating the Evil Empire, but you are doing so on its terms not yours. We should not forget that war is an executive arm of politics, and the practice of politics is not moral by definition. It is always a matter of which side to support, and the side supported is usually the one with the biggest lobby or offering the biggest payoff, not the side with the best moral claims. In any political decision, the people who win out are the ones who can afford to buy protection, which means that those who most need protection are the ones who lose out. Nor can you run a foreign policy (let alone a war) without an intelligence service; show me a moral intelligence service! Show me a moral politician and I will show you someone who is either a hypocrite or else doesn't know what he's doing. War is never moral, but it can be necessary if the long-term results of not waging the war (Morris' "terror and mutilation") are likely to be worse than the "terror and mutilation" caused by the war itself. That's why I think this war was necessary. The problem with convincing yourself that this is a moral war (because We are Right and They are evil) is that it's easy to think of anything that will win it for you as also moral, hence all those people who ask why the Allies don't drop just a teeny-weeny little atom bomb on Baghdad. Better to acknowledge that what you're doing is necessary but vile, then you won't be tempted to do anything that isn't strictly necessary. End of lecture. Judy Koren From: elli@ikaros.harvard.edu (Elli Mylonas) Subject: Unicode Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 08:21:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2069 (2387) I have just been looking at the Unicode character codes. I was spurred on to this by Jim ODonnell's (sp?) posting, which reported that the Greek characters were not well represented, which was worrisome. However, although I cannot pass judgement on the idea of Unicode, it does seem to me that most of the requirements of classical Greek characters and accentuation are covered. What is not well represented are all the brackets needed for epigraphical and papyrological texts, nor the metrical markers. In the part of the code set aside for Greek all the letters are present, including upper and lower case monotonic accented vowels as single codes. I assume that these are included for the purpose of conforming to the Greek national standard. In addition, we find the single monotonic accent, the diaeresis with the accent as a non-spacing character, and the smooth and rough breathings. These may appear over any other character. The Greek code space also includes upper and lower digamma, sampi, koppa, and Byzantine sigma. There are also script forms of beta, theta, phi, pi and kappa and a hook upsilon. Coptic forms are included with the Greek. The other accents necessary for classical Greek are not in the Greek code space, but in the general diacritic space immediately preceding, The acute, grave, circumflex, macron, breve, lower dot, diaeresis and upper and lower slings are there. The Greek question mark and the upper and lower numerical ticks are in the Greek code space. Brackets are in the symbol code space, but include only parentheses, square brackets, curlique brackets, angle brackets, and double brackets. No half brackets or triple ones. Also, other metrical markings are missing, such as the anceps and the long over shorts, etc. (This last was to be expected.) I have one question about accent marks. Non-spacing characters, in Unicode, are to be input "...after the base character, and from the center of the base character out." (p. 3). Does this mean that accent characters like a rough and acute can be coded as: character-rough-acute? or will this result in the acute being printed over the rough? If the latter, then the paired accents and breathings would need to exist as one diacritic. This is probably not a good idea, since it increases the number of codes needed. Otherwise, Unicode's letters and diacritics would fit something like TLG encoding nicely, and even map well to beta code. At first glance, Unicode seems to be able to handle a large number of characters fairly well, and to have both the room and the willingness on the part of its creators, to include some of the more arcane characters. Have I missed anything? --elli From: green3@husc9.harvard.edu (Maria Green) Subject: Re: 4.0947 War, Rhetoric, and Protest (6/216) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 17:53:25 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2070 (2388) This is my first note to Humanist -- I only connected up a short time ago, but I've enjoyed those discussions I've had the time to read through. I would like to say a few words in reply to Bill Ball's note on Sanskrit and English: You don't mention which dictionary you are using, but I wonder if it may not be misleading you somewhat. In fact, very few English words derive directly from Sanskrit. (Even post-colonial loan words, by the way, often are not from Sanskrit itself. "Thug" comes to us via Hindi, which stands in the same relation to Sanskrit as Italian does to Latin.) Sanskrit is, however, a member of that same Indo-European family of languages that also includes Greek and Latin, among many others, and it shares with them a very broad vocabulary base. Not infrequently, an English word will be derived from some Greek or Latin term that hasn't survived into any of the texts, but whose cognate cousin is attested in Sanskrit. In these cases some dictionaries may mention the Sanskrit cognate in the Etymology section, even though in fact it plays no role in the development of the English word. Philologically speaking, there is not much reason to assume intercourse between Europe and India beyond what is already known. The shared vocabulary, however, can serve to remind us that ultimately the Europeans (or most of them) and the Indians (and in fact also the Slavs and the Persians, and more) all derive from a single culture. In terms of the broader lines of history we may not all be as distant from one another as we sometimes tend to imagine. Yours, Maria Green (green3@husc9.harvard.edu or green3@husc9.bitnet) Dep't of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Address Query Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 16:05 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2071 (2389) Does anyone have an email address for Maureen O'Malley? she's a grad. student at Santa Cruz in History of Consciousness. Graham White American University in Cairo. (GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX) From: "M. R. Sperberg-McQueen " <U15440@UICVM> Subject: translation from Estonian to English or German Date: 28 January 1991 08:59:24 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2072 (2390) A colleague at the Academy of Sciences in Tallinn, Estonia, has published an article in Estonian in an Estonian journal reporting on the catalogue of the personal library of the German poet, Paul Fleming (1609-1640), who lived in Tallinn (Reval) in the 1630s. The author has agreed that it would be a good idea if the article were made more widely available by being published in English or German translation and I have offered to try to assist in bringing this about. My question for Humanist is: does anyone know someone who might be able to do the translation? The article is not very long: perhaps 5 pages, much of which consists of transcriptions of Latin book titles: i.e., the amount of Estonian is not large. A translation directly into German would be nice, but English would also be fine. Credit for the translation would certainly be given, and I'd certainly be willing to see if some remuneration could be made. If you or someone you know might be able to assist, please contact me directly at: U15440@UICVM --Marian Sperberg-McQueen German Department, Univ. of IL at Chicago From: Otmar.K.E.Foelsche@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.0921 Query from Charles Ess re Language Lab Macs Date: 28 Jan 91 09:35:41 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2073 (2391) I have posted this query on LLTI@dartmouth.edu (or LLTI@dartcms1.bitnet). LLTI (Language Learning Technology International) - a new information forum dealing with all aspects of technology and language instruction. Otmar K.E. Foelsche From: nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (H. Borchers) Subject: MLA bibliography query Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 10:57:30 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2074 (2392) I take it that MLA Bibliography is available for online searching through DIALOG Information Services and through the H.W. Wilson Company's WILSONLINE. Apparently, the 1981-89 volumes are also available on CD-ROM through the Wilson Company's WILSONDISC Program. My questions: 1) If you've worked with either of the two methods, what are the pros and cons? 2) What is the price tag on the CD-ROM method (for the initial disks and the updates -- not for the CD player?) 3) Is the online service -- either DIALOG or WILSONLINE -- accessible thru our academic networks (Internet or Bitnet)? If so, do I have to subscribe and what are the conditions? 4) If the online service is not accessible thru our networks, how is it accessible? Thank you in advance for tips and information. Hans Borchers, University of Tuebingen, Germany nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: UNIX->DOS conversion Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 18:45:05 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2075 (2393) Contained in this distribution are two Icon programs, the one (yescr) used to translate UNIX into MS-DOS text-files, the other (nocr) used to perform the opposite conversion. Save all text from the first "cut here" line to the second to a file. Call it "nocr.icn" (but remember to discard the "cut here" line it- self). Save the source code from the second "cut here" line to the end of the file as "yescr.icn" (again, remember to discard the "cut here" line itself. When done, type - icont yescr.icn icont nocr.icn The result will be two files executable either by typing their names (yescr/nocr), or else by typing "ficonx yescr" or "ficonx nocr." It depends on how your Icon installation works. Naturally, I assume you have Icon installed. If you don't, please talk to your local system adminstrator. It can be obtained for free from cs.arizona.edu, and there really is no excuse for a major re- search institution (or in fact, any computation center claiming to support our needs) not having Icon. These programs have been tested under UNIX, and some under DOS. I use them on my Xenix box here at home when transferring files to my PC. -Richard Goerwitz (goer@sophist.uchicago.edu) -------------------- [A complete version of these Icon files is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ICON UNIX-DOS. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: xxencode/uuencode programs Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 18:32:15 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2076 (2394) The following is a source code posting of iiencode and iidecode, pro- grams which combine the functionality of both uuencode/uudecode and xxencode/xxdecode file transmission utilities. Some editing will be necessary in order to separate documentation and source files. I'll gladly send a shell archive to anyone who asks for it. -Richard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Included in this package are two Icon source files, iiencode.icn and iidecode.icn. When compiled, these will yield icode files which emulate the Unix uuencode and uudecode commands. They are supposed to be completely compatible with all existing uuen/decode versions, and are patterned after latest publicly distributable BSD C source code. For those who are working at sites subject to the vicissitudes of ASCII<->EBCDIC translation, an extra switch (-x) is included that makes iiencode/iidecode produce/extract xxencode-format files (which do not get mangled when moving through non-ASCII sites). Before using this switch with the uuencode command, make sure that the person to receive the coded transmission can unpack xxencoded files. Iiencode and iidecode have been tested under Unix and Xenix, and work fine. They have received brief testing under MS-DOS, and appear to work there as well. For systems which use some other sequence in place of UNIX LFs (e.g. MS-DOS), there is a special iiencode switch, -o filename, which directs iiencode to send its output to filename instead of &output. This makes it possible to strip out trailing carriage returns, and write an output file in UNIX format. Iien/decode are written in Icon, which is extremely portable. Anyone with an Icon interpreter or compiler can install them. And, since Icon is free (obtainable from the U. of Arizona at cs.arizona.edu), the programs really are without cost of any kind. If you have Icon already, save the text from the first "cut here" line to the second (discard the cut here line itself) as iiencode.icn. Save from the second (again discarding the cut here line itself) to the end of the file as iidecode. You can then compile these files by typing icont iiencode.icn icont iidecode.icn Note that these programs are not lightning fast. :-) -Richard (goer@sophist.uchicago.edu) -------------------- [A complete version of these files is now available through the fileserver, s.v. IIENCODE IIDECODE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (H. Borchers) Subject: MLA bibliography query Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 10:57:30 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2077 (2395) I take it that MLA Bibliography is available for online searching through DIALOG Information Services and through the H.W. Wilson Company's WILSONLINE. Apparently, the 1981-89 volumes are also available on CD-ROM through the Wilson Company's WILSONDISC Program. My questions: 1) If you've worked with either of the two methods, what are the pros and cons? 2) What is the price tag on the CD-ROM method (for the initial disks and the updates -- not for the CD player?) 3) Is the online service -- either DIALOG or WILSONLINE -- accessible thru our academic networks (Internet or Bitnet)? If so, do I have to subscribe and what are the conditions? 4) If the online service is not accessible thru our networks, how is it accessible? Thank you in advance for tips and information. Hans Borchers, University of Tuebingen, Germany nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Student career choices Date: Mon, 28 Jan 91 09:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2078 (2396) There was an extremely brief item on NPR news this morning,l MOnday, regarding a recent survey of incoming college freshmen. I believe that UCLA and some other organization were listed as the survey takers. It stated that students were moving sharply away from business and making money as primary goals or something to that effect. I seem to recal that it stated students chose business at a rate of 24 percent plus in 1987 and about 18 percent last fall. Students supposedly also indicated an increasing interest in social concerns as an important value for their lives. The item did not state which career choices were benefiting from the switch. Does anyone know of this study and have further information on it? Norman Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology NRCGSH@RITVAX From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0941 Computers and Gender Date: Mon, 28 Jan 1991 21:19 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2079 (2397) It hardly seems unusual to me to use the computer, although using e- mail and Usenet news readers is a fairly recent task at skill-acquisition. I remember dinner table conversations about the first computers, how they could be instructed in binary representation, and how enormous they were. This was forty years ago. Thirty years ago I attended Mount Holyoke College, but whether it was or is one of the "hard-nosed" women's colleges, I could not say. I did not learn about computers there; they did not have a computer center. Twenty years ago I moved to Utah. Here, fifteen years ago, I taught myself how to run primitive statistical programs, how to program in basic, and so forth. At that time, the University of Utah did have a Computer Center. Ten years ago I purchased a Radio Shack pocket computer that had as much computing power as the original room-sized computers I had learned about over dinner. Computers, I found, do not know what users look like; they are not sexist. At least not when doing statistics. Like Judy Koren, I have written two-line batch programs so my daughter's programs are immediately available when she powers up. I suppose, in my self- taught manner, I am "hacking" my way through the capacities of the VAX. The lack of documented features makes that a necessity. Oh, yes, I've programmed in SAS on the mainframe, written a Pocket Computer program for the handicapped, figured out when the State payroll program ran, and how to hack into it--though I didn't, hidden a "Kilroy was here," message on an agency's hard disk, and various other neat tricks. I was told in my pre-teen years that women couldn't be astrophysicists or chemists. No one told me women couldn't be hackers--until I joined HUMANIST and learned I had to be in the computer center of a specific kind of woman's college.:-> Incidentally, my daughter, now at Grinnell College, constantly uses the computer in ways I haven't found out how to do yet (they might be system specific). She does not think she is unusual at all. Sigrid Peterson SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET Sigpeter@cc.utah.edu From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Directory of Religious Studies Programs Date: Wednesday, 30 January 1991 0012-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2080 (2398) In response to Martin Homan's quest for a directory of Religious Studies Programs, etc., the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion (CSSR) publishes a Directory of Departments and Programs of Religious Studies in North America (1990 edition runs to 474 pages) that includes names and addresses of non-participating universities, colleges, and theological schools (in the appendices) as well as descriptions of the programs at participating schools. Order from CSSR, Mercer Univ., Macon GA 31207 (912 752-2376). CSSR also publishes a Directory of Faculty of Departments and Programs of Religious Studies in North America, designed as a companion volume to the aforementioned Directory. Bob Kraft, UPenn From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.0953 ...Unicode Greek Date: 29 Jan 91 17:40:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2081 (2399) Elli Mylonas' summary of Unicode's handling of Greek is good and fair; I should add a few words based on my lengthy e-correspondence with Unicode in the last week. This clearly represents a revolution in computer use that I have not seen written up elsewhere. Unicode is meant to replace ASCII. (Sounds of cheering from all sides, I assume.) It will consist of code offering distinct representations for approximately 25,000 characters, including those of every writing system I have ever heard of and several more besides: including Chinese and Japanese. It is only the code: not the display or the printing font. Thus what Mylonas describes is accurate: it supplies code for acute accent and for smooth breathing and for alpha. It is up to the software to teach the hardware how to display those correctly on screen and on paper: but that would be a case of software that knew that when attempting to display smooth breathing and acute accent, both must be slightly off center and perhaps slightly smaller than when either appears alone over a vowel. That sort of thing. But the use and importance of the code is *NOT* limited to Greek. We will all be using it in a few years: the Unicode consortium includes and is not limited to Apple, IBM, NeXT, Xerox, Sun, Microsoft, and the Research Libraries Group. This is the future. I have found the Unicode mavens most eager to discuss what they are doing and fascinating besides. To express interest and get a copy of the proposal, address MICROSOFT!ASMUSF@UUNET.UU.NET. The material you receive will say how to communicate suggestions, etc. To Elli M. I will say that have been on to them in detail about lunate sigma and digamma and told them they need more brackets and metrical signs, but did not feel competent to give all deatils and be sure I had covered the ground. If you get in touch with the people listed on the stuff you must have been reading, you'll find them very willing and eager to listen and discuss. One question for the list: have the Text Encoding Initiative people been in touch with Unicode? Unicode will render obsolete, for example, all kludge codings for e-acute and the like. The greatest benefit of all will be that it will be possible to transfer texts in a variety of gaudy language systems from an IBM to an Apple to a NeXT, traveling over various unfriendly mainframes in the process, with all the characters coming through as accurately as low ASCII come through now. This will make the world a better place. From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il> Subject: Israeli life during the war Date: Tue, 29 Jan 1991 11:12:14 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 959 (2400) I have been keeping a diary since just before the war started. I didn't intend to broadcast it, but two factors have changed my mind: a) Some comments on Bob Werman's reports suggest that at least some people want to read personal perspectives from people over here b) My perspective is somewhat different from Bob Werman's, so if he has decided to broadcast a view from Jerusalem, a (different) view from Haifa might be useful. I'm therefore sending you a (slightly edited) version of it. However, I wouldn't like to inflict this on people who don't want to read it; also the file is already quite long. I therefore suggest that if you decide to make it available, you should put it on the listserv and let anyone who wants to, ask for it. (I agree with those who responded to the criticism of Lakoff by saying that if you ask for something from the listserv, don't complain that it was sent to you even if you don't like what you get!) Judy Koren -------------------- [A complete version of this file is now available through the fileserver, s.v. HAIFA DIARY1. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Pierre Auger <PIEROGER@LAVALVM1> Subject: CIL92 call for papers Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 06:23:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2082 (2401) XVe Congres international des linguistes Quebec, Canada, 9-14 aout 1992 Organise par l'Universite Laval avec le concours de l'Association canadienne de linguistique (ACL) et sous les auspices du Comite international permanent des linguistes (CIPL) Renseignements generaux General information 1st circular XVth International Congress of Linguists Quebec City, Canada, August 9-14, 1992 Organized by Laval University in collaboration with the Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA) Under the auspices of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (PICL) CIL92 Departement de Langues et Linguistique Universite Laval Quebec City, (Que.), G1K 7P4, CANADA Telephone: (418) 656-5323 FAX: (418) 656-2019 E-Mail: CIPL92@LAVALVM1.BITNET ANNOUNCEMENT XVth International Congress of Linguists Organized by Laval University in collaboration with the Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA) Under the auspices of the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (PICL) Quebec City, August 9-14, 1992 General theme of the Congress: "The Survival of Endangered Languages" Honorary President: Michel Gervais Rector of Laval University Organizing Committee: President: Pierre Auger Department of Languages and Linguistics Laval University [material deleted. eds.] GENERAL INFORMATION DATE AND LOCATION: August 9-14, 1992, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada ACCOMMODATION: Hotels in all price ranges and limited accomodation in university residences halls. For information on accommodation, contact the official tourist bureau of CIL92, using the providing form: Office du tourisme et des congres de la Communaute urbaine de Quebec 399, East St-Joseph Street Quebec, (Que.), CANADA, G1K 8E2 Telephone: (418) 522-3511 PASSPORTS AND VISAS: All visitors to Canada, except residents of the United States, are required to have a valid passport. Citizens of some countries are also required to have a visa. All enquiries should be addressed to the closest Canadian embassy, consulate or high commission. REGISTRATION FEES: Participants Accompanying Students* Guests Before 91/03/01: $150 (U.S.) $75 (U.S.) $150(U.S.) $175(CAN) $100(CAN.) $175(CAN.) [deleted quotation]92/02/28: $200 (U.S.) $100 (U.S.) $150(U.S.) $235(CAN.) $125(CAN.) $175(CAN.) [deleted quotation]92/08/09: $250 (U.S.) $125(U.S.) $150(U.S.) $300 (CAN.) $150(CAN.) $175(CAN.) Congress fees may be paid by cheque to CIL92 or by credit card (American Express, Master Card and Visa). In the event of a cancellation, part of the registration fee will be refunded (75% before February 28, 1992, 50% from March 1, 1992 to May 31, 1992). There will be no reimbursement for cancellations received at the Congress office after May 31, 1992. However, the persons concerned will be sent Congress registration packets. * Only participants with an official letter from their universities certifying their student status will pay the student registration fee. [material deleted. eds.] OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: The languages of the Congress will be Canada's two official languages, French and English. PLENARY SESSIONS: As is customary, the topic of each plenary session will be introduced by three or more speakers. This will be followed by a general discussion. The topics of these sessions are: 1. Semantics, syntax, pragmatics 2. The word 3. Endangered languages 4. Theoretical approaches to language: the state of the art and prospects for the future PAPERS: Conference papers may take the form of oral presentations or poster sessions. Oral presentations are scheduled to last twenty minutes, including a five-minute question period. Participants choosing the poster session will be allowed two hours. The schedule of papers will be announced in the third circular. The following is a provisional list of section topics: 1.Sounds, phonemes and intonation 2.The word (morphology, lexicology, lexicography, terminology) 3.The sentence (syntax, function, etc.) 4.Meaning (semantics, lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, etc.) 5.Spoken or written text (pragmatics, discourse analysis, etc.) 6.Language and society (sociolinguistics, linguistic variation, language and culture, etc.) 7.Language and the individual (psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, language acquisition and learning, etc.) 8.The history of language 9.Language planning 10.Survival of endangered languages 11.Theories of language 12.Language and the computer 13.Pidgins and creoles 14.Methodology (data observation, corpus gathering and processing, experimentation) 15. Other (language and women, sign language, the history of linguistics, etc.) Participants wishing to present a paper will be requested to send an abstract before October 1, 1991. See the 2nd circular (May 1991) for details. PANEL DISCUSSIONS: The Organizing Committee invites participants to propose topics for panel discussions by April 1, 1991. Participants whose topic is chosen will be responsible for organizing their panel discussion. PRE-REGISTRATION: The second circular will be sent to those who complete the enclosed pre-registration form. INFORMATION: CIL92 Pierre Auger Departement de Langues et Linguistique Universite Laval Quebec City, (Que.) G1K 7P4, CANADA Telephone: (418) 656-5323 FAX: (418) 656-2019 E-Mail: CIPL92@LAVALVM1 [The French version of the above notice may be obtained by sending the message: get icl-1992 to: listserv@uniwa.uwa.oz.au] -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ICL92 CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: publications in computational linguistics Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 09:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2083 (2402) A list of recent internal reports on computational linguistics and cognitive science from CSL appears below. A more complete description with abstracts can be had by contacting Yorick Wilks (wilks@nmsu.edu). Recent Memoranda in Computer and Cognitive Science Ordering of technical reports listed below write to: Memoranda Series Computing Research Laboratory Box 30001 New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003 USA Wilks, Y., (1990), Smolensky and Fodor on connectionism, CRL, MCCS-86-79. ($5.00) Wilks, Y., (l988), Philosophy of Language and Artificial Intelligence, CRL, MCCS-88-132. ($5.00) Wilks, Y., (l988), Form and content in semantics, CRL, MCCS-88-137. ($5.00) Ballim, A., Wilks, Y., & Barnden, J., (l988), Belief Ascription, Metaphor, and Intensional Identification, CRL, MCCS-88-138. ($5.00) Barnden, J., (l988), Propositional Attitudes, Polysemy and Metaphor: Initial Report, CRL, MCCS-88-139. ($5.00) Barnden, J., (l988), Towards a Paradigm Shift in Belief Representation Methodology, CRL, MCCS-88-142. ($5.00) Barnden, J., (l988), Conposit, A Neural Net System for High-Level Symbolic Processing: Overview of Research and Description of Register-Machine Level, CRL, MCCS-88-145. ($5.00) Fowler, R.H., Slator, B.M., & Balogh, I., (1989), On Psychological Plausibility in Artificial Intelligence, CRL, MCCS-89-150. ($5.00) Barnden, J., (1989), Neural-Net Implementation of Complex Symbol-Processing in a Mental Model Approach to Syllogistic Reasoning, CRL, MCCS-89-154. ($3.00) Barnden, J., (1989), Belief, Metaphorically Speaking, CRL, MCCS-89-155. ($5.00) Guo, C-M., (1989), Constructing A Machine Tractable Dictionary From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, (Ph.D. Thesis) CRL, MCCS-89-156. ($7.00) Dunning, T., Farwell, D., Guthrie, G., & Helmreich, S., (l989), Theoretical and Applied Aspects of Reversible Prolog Programs, CRL, MCCS-89-164. ($5.00) Jin, W., (l989), An Experiment of Technical Text Reproduction, CRL, MCCS-89-165. ($5.00) McKevitt, P. & Ogden, W.C., (1989), Wizard-of-Oz dialogues in the computer operating systems domain, CRL, MCCS-89-167. ($l0.00) Aidinejad, H., Johannes, E., & Balogh, I.L., (1989), Line Extraction from Images Using Chain Codes, CRL, MCCS-89-169. ($5.00) Ball, J.T., (l990), A Consideration of PROLOG, CRL, MCCS-90-171. ($5.00) Ball, J.T., (l990), UNIX Help Systems with Natural Language Interfaces, CRL, MCCS-90-172. ($5.00) Barnden, J., (l990), Naive Metaphysics: A Metaphor Based Approach To Propositional Attitude Representation (Unabridged Version), CRL, MCCS-90-174. ($5.00) Roseborrough, M.J. & Ball, J.T., (1990), Phase I Development of an ULTRA Interface, CRL, MCCS-90-176. ($5.00) McKevitt, P., (1990), Data acquisition for natural language interfaces, CRL, MCCS-90-178. ($5.00) Pan, Z. & McKevitt, P., (1990), OUI - A User Interface for OSCON, CRL, MCCS-90-179. ($5.00) Wilks, Y. & Hartley, R., (1990), Belief Ascription and Model Generative Reasoning: joining two paradigms to a robust parser of messages, CRL, MCCS-90-180. ($5.00) McKevitt, P. & Ogden, W.C., (l990), OSWIZ II: Wizard-of-Oz dialogues in the computer operating systems domain, CRL, MCCS-90-181. ($ll.00) Iverson, E. & Hartley, R., (l990), Metabolizing Music, CRL, MCCS-90-183. ($3.00) Barnden, J. & Srinivas, K., (1990), Encoding Techniques for Complex Information Structures in Connectionist Systems, CRL, MCCS-90-186. ($5.00) Barnden, J. & Srinivas, K., (l990), Overcoming Rule-Based Rigidity & Connectionist Limitations through Massively-Parallel Case-Based Reasoning, CRL, MCCS-90-187. ($5.00) Wilks, Y. & Farwell, D., (1990), A White Paper on Research in Pragmatics-based Machine Translation, CRL, MCCS-90-188. ($5.00) Candelaria de Ram, S., (1990), Real-world sensors, meaning, or mentalese, CRL, MCCS-90-189. ($5.00) Wilks, Y. & Fass, D., (1990), Preference Semantics: a family history, CRL, MCCS-90-194. ($5.00) Wilks, Y., (l990), Where am I coming from: The reversibility of analysis and generation in natural language processing, CRL, MCCS-90-195. ($3.00) Farwell, D. & Wilks, Y., (l990), Ultra: a Multi-lingual Machine Translator, CRL, MCCS-90-202. ($5.00) Wilks, Y., Barnden, J., & Wang, J., (l990), Your metaphor or mine: belief ascription and metaphor interpretation, CRL, MCCS-90-205. ($5.00) From: Elaine M Brennan <ELAINE@BROWNVM> Subject: Listserv additions Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 09:52:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 961 (2403) In addition to placing Judy Koren's diary on the fileserver (as HAIFA DIARY1), we've also put several days worth of Bob Werman's diary entries on it as well -- his diary entires for January 19 through January 25, inclusive (all of which have already appeared on the list) are in WERMAN DIARY1; the most recent installments (which include January 26 through January 29 inclusive, and which are not being distributed to the entire list) are in WERMAN DIARY2. As we receive further installments, we will announce their presence on the fileserver as well. Other recent additions to the fileserver include an updated version of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing Announcement which everyone receives as part of their introductory packet. If you'd like to receive this version, ask Listserv for ALLC91 ANNOUNCE. Richard Goewirtz's Icon programs for translating UNIX to DOS and back again and for IIENCODE and IIDECODE are also new to the server, as is the complete text of the announcement of ICL'92. If you need help with the syntax of commands for retrieving files, please consult your Guide to Humanist. Elaine From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: DIARY OF THE GULF WAR -- THE VIEW FROM HAIFA Date: Thu, 31 Jan 1991 17:48:34 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 962 (2404) Copyright 1991 Judith Koren, all rights reserved. Thursday January 31st, 1991 Last night was the second consecutive night without an air-raid alert. Even the last attack consisted of only one missile, which broke up over the border. And strangely enough, these last two nights I haven't been expecting one. The squat cartons containing the gas kits suddenly look out of place on the living-room table. I feel as if we're emerging from a tunnel. I am starting to pre-experience my future forgetting of life with a gas mask. It's an uncanny feeling. The rain pours down. There have been no weather forecasts since the war started, nor all those statistical summaries on the State of the Kinneret with which we usually, after heavy rain, congratulate both ourselves and the heavens above. But to a human ant scurrying through the dusk in down-town Haifa with ten loaded plastic shopping bags and an umbrella that does little more than drip into them, it seems as if our prayers have been answered and all the rain we didn't get from October through the New Year has decided to bless the Holy Land in this one week. The government says it has no intention of relaxing the emergency water restrictions just because it rained. A few farmers protest; the rest of Israel is too busy, being engaged in protesting the lack of enough official forms with which to apply for increased State war insurance. We are a raucous nation, and our current frustration (Because Of The Situation) diverts our adrenalin and decibels to whatever outlets they can find. And yet among ourselves, person-to-person, we are more understanding than usual, more humane. I've remarked on it before, yet it still amazes me. A kinder, gentler nation, "dafka" now, like an eye in a hurricane. We're all in the same boat, this feeling says, if we row hard together we can bypass the whirlpool that awaits us in the hurricane's eye. It's 5pm. People are hurrying home. The lady ahead of me at the supermarket checkout counter commiserates with the checkout clerk. You shouldn't have to work till 7:30, she says. After dark mothers should be with their children. She doesn't say, B.O.T.S., it's understood. The checkout clerk grimaces. Her boss believes in sticking to a routine. It's inhuman, the lady ahead of me says. The checkout clerk shrugs and helps herself to a chocolate-coated pecan from the selection of candy in my purchases. "Before I weigh them," she explains. "You don't mind, do you?" No, I don't mind. I wouldn't even mind if she took one after she weighed them. She's sitting beside me in the same boat. I accompany Liron on her "cat-duty" as usual. It isn't raining much right now, but with every cloudburst the sloping street turns into a river, and we wonder where to put the catfood so that it won't wash away. Anyway the cats have disappeared, probably sheltering from the rain; all except one young tabby who always insists on playing hide-and-seek with Liron on the whole round. She calls him Stormy, so no wonder he's out on such a night. If Liron loses sleep over anything, it's over what will happen to the street cats who don't have sealed rooms, let alone gas masks, if Saddam mounts a chemical-weapons attack. Liron has at long last had a letter from her best-friend of our Sabbatical year in New York. She hurries to reply, and I decide to add a note to the friend's mother, giving the reassurances adults need and children forget. It doesn't occur to Liron to write about missiles -- who'd be interested anyway? she asks. Her letter (the parts I'm allowed to see, for some parts are Top Secret, as are parts of Jessie's letter to her) is full of the important aspects of life: please describe your new puppy and kitten; I love your hairstyle; anecdotes concerning the inadequacies of teachers. To me she complains that after two weeks at home she wouldn't even mind returning to school, but you won't catch her confessing it to another 10-year-old. Yair has had his school meeting and is in a state of shock. He swears he has 20 hours of schoolwork to complete by Monday. This doesn't prevent him from watching whatever ball game happens to be on TV, unless and until forcibly prevented. I don't hear the news about the Iraqi ground attack until I'm preparing supper. I grieve for the 12 Marines killed. I'm also sorry for the 400 Iraqis. I can't help it. I can't forget that they are sons, husbands and fathers; I can't forget that some of them are only 13. The call-up age in Iraq is 13 to 54. If Yair had been born in Iraq instead of Israel he'd be in the army right now instead of counting his bar-mitzvah presents. Learning how to fight against attack helicopters with no air cover, because his government has decided not to risk expensive planes to save cheap lives. Nobody would have asked him whether he wanted to fight Americans. I cannot understand how so many people insist that the Iraqi people are as much as fault as their leader, that they support him and must take the consequences. It seems to me like an easy way of side-stepping difficult thoughts. People believe whatever they have been taught to believe, and very often simply what they are told to believe. How can we know how many people support Saddam and how many oppose him? In Iraq you have to be a fanatic with no children or relatives to even think of opening your mouth in anything but praise. What would the U.S. say if someone argued that it's justifiable to bomb American cities because the American people support Bush and must take the consequences? -- even though we can be reasonably sure that a lot more Americans support Bush than Iraqis support Saddam. It takes a lot of fanaticism to support a leader who has slaughtered many of the males in most of your country's families, over ten years, and is now doing it again, and for no gain whatsoever. Most human beings are not fanatics, and the Iraqis are no exception. Also, inexplicably, I feel guilty. Saddam has pulled us into this war, whether or not we actually fight; by forbidding us to fight, the U.S. has assumed responsibility for us. I don't like to be assumed responsibility for, even if it's done in American interests rather than in ours. It makes me feel as if the Americans are fighting on our behalf even though I know the U.S. really wishes we weren't here right now to complicate the equation. It annoys me that my head has trouble shaking itself free of all these emotions. When you're swamped with pity, or guilt, or sympathy, it's hard to think straight. I notice the same tendency in Bob Werman's reports, which are much more emotional now than they were a week ago, and much longer while to me making correspondingly less sense. I would like to record, in opposition to the view from Jerusalem, that I sleep very well at night. So do a lot of other people I know. I suspect we are being portrayed as a nation of insomniacs only because it is, by definition, the insomniacs who are awake at 3 am to comment on the e-waves as a substitute for sleep. I would also like to record, again in opposition to the news from the capitol, that Nahman Shai indeed looks like a nice young man and no doubt makes somebody's daughter a good husband, but he does not look to me like a hero and he will "radiate believability" when the cows come home (as the British English of another era so quaintly puts it). After all, it makes no sense to employ as spokesman a person who does not inspire trust and confidence; but nonetheless he has the same job to do as the spokeswoman of the White House, and I have no doubt that if his bosses think national security requires it he will pull as much wool as possible over all our eyes, just as she does. What is the point of spokesmen (?spokespeople?) in wartime, if not to persuade people to believe what you want them to? Whether the picture it suits you to propagate reflects "the facts" is a completely separate question. On second thoughts, cut the phrase "in wartime" from that last question. In politics it is always wartime; politics is war pursued by other means. **************************** I am left alone a lot at work these days. Even my boss refrains from reminding me of deadlines. (This is useful because I've been spending a lot of time playing around with e-mail.) And none of the computer equipment is malfunctioning; I have no patients to nurse. There have been no dead terminals, flickering screens, noisy lines, beepy bar-code readers or weepy librarians. I wonder how come everything in our unbelievably noisy environment is suddenly behaving, but a quick check of the CPU reveals that the system is simply being used less, people having other things to worry about. Perhaps it's just because the semester ended and they delayed exams for a week. You get into the bad habit of blaming Saddam for everything. ******************************** Yesterday I found myself behind a commercial van with a death-announcement for Saddam Hussein stuck to its back window. One of those big square black-framed notices that we publish in newspapers and stick on street corners when someone dies. The words SADDAM HUSSEIN in the middle of the notice, in huge black letters, drew attention. I managed to make out some of the small print above it, a parody of the usual wording: "With joy and happiness we announce the death of our unbeloved relative..." I would have liked to read the text below the name, but it proved to be impossible without kissing the bumper of the hearse. I wondered whether it was just a good joke, or whether the driver believed in sympathetic magic (also not impossible in this country). Good for a grin, anyhow. A friend is collecting cakes for the Patriot crews stationed near Haifa. One department of the library has clubbed together and, since it's Tu-bi-Shvat, donated a huge carton of dried fruit instead of cakes. My frient enlists my aid in composing a cute note to accompany and explain the fruit. We settle for: "Tu bi-Shvat, which falls this week, is the New Year for Trees. On Tu bi-Shvat we usually invite visitors out to bare hillsides to plant trees, but since you've done enough sitting on bare hillsides, we thought you might prefer a shorter, sweeter celebration." I wonder whether the reference to the Patriot crews being stationed on bare hillsides would have passed the army censor... Palestinian leader (a lecturer at Bir Zeit university). He's suspected of having collected intelligence regarding the exact location of Iraqi missile hits and having passed it on to the Iraqis. It was decided not to prosecute him, since a trial would reveal our own intelligence sources; instead, he's to be held on "administrative detention" for six months, under the laws of military occupation of the West Bank. So much for the "facts". the administrative detention is a disgrace. I prick up my ears in surprise at these liberal views; but what he means is that the punishment is not severe enough. If guilty, the man should be imprisoned for life; if just a trouble-maker, he should be expelled. There is no doubt from the MK's tone that he's sure Nusseiba is guilty as (not yet) charged. I start to mull over the facts, sitting in my library where I've been co-opted for late reading-room duty but the students are all at home. It makes no sense to claim that a trial would compromise intelligence sources, since sensitive trials can be, and have been, held in camera. Nusseiba may indeed have spied for the Iraqis, but the information he's accused of passing on is not too hard to collect and they probably already had it. I conclude that the problem is not whether he spied or not; the problem is that we want him out of the way. But we don't want a trial, because it would result either in freeing him (if innocent) or in jailing him for a very long time (if guilty). Obviously neither of these alternatives is convenient to us. So we don't want him out of the way for ever; we want him out of the way for just a few months. Say, till the war is over and the peace process starts. That's clear enough. He's a respected Palestinian leader, a cultured man with whom one can talk. We are going to need respected Palestinian leaders to talk to, to fill the gap between a shaky, disintegrating PLO fast being discredited in this war (like King Hussein of Jordan) and the hard-liners who won't talk at all. It's clear why we'll want him around in 6 months time. That leaves the question, why do we want him out of the way now? He isn't actually doing much. The "intefadeh" has lost much of its momentum because the camera crews are off filming more lethal battles. He isn't likely to do anything that it's worth making a martyr of him to prevent. On the other hand, political murder has been rampant on the West Bank for months now: assassins knife anyone they suspect, or whose enemies report, to be collaborating with the Israeli authorities, and rival factions kill each others' adherents. As the position of the PLO weakens, the rivalry will increase. "Moderate" Palestinian leaders, meaning anyone who agrees to talk at all, will be prime targets. Better to be out of the way; and the most prestigious place to be out of the way in is in an Israeli prison. I reach the conclusion that this is a form of protective custody. Prediction: N. is one of the people we will end up negotiating with. From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: 30 and 31 January 1991 Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 19:32 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 963 (2405) Wednesday, T'u b'shvat, 30 January After the War We had no alarm last night; at 3 AM I finally - in a state of exhaustion - went to sleep; I slept three hours. Waiting for the siren. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the SCUDs to reach us from Iraq has become a national sport. You finally get to sleep at some hour early in the morning; the second Army radio channel, the one that is silent at night UNLESS there is an alarm, set at high volume, so that you will not miss the siren. At 6:00 AM, the radio starts blaring the regular morning broadcast and you are shocked into the semi-awake state that will last all day. These are not, however, normal times and 6:00 AM is just too early. Today is T'u b'shvat, the New Year for trees; we are used to plant trees today. We also have parties where we drink white and red wines and eat dried fruit. Usually, not this year. Our minds and hearts are elsewhere. These are not normal times. Someone writes to suggest a fitting "punishment" for those strange Jews - E. Alexander calls them "Arafat's Jews" - who are so active in movements that oppose every action of Israel, those who are sure that Israel is so intrinsically bad that any action - even seemingly good - of Israel's must be condemned. These same perverse Jews seem also to be convinced that any action of the PLO - even the most heinous - should be excused because of the suffering the Palestinian Arabs have undergone [even that which is not our fault at all]. The "punishment" is to plant a tree in Israel in their name and to mail them a certificate of the "gift". A truly mild punishment, so gentle, perhaps much too gentle. He only regrets, he contin- ues, that he would not be able to see their faces when they read the certificates. I recall the wanton destruction by fire of 8000 trees in the Carmel forest last year. I presume the Arabs who lit the fire considered the trees to be Jewish trees. The flight of 100 of the best Iraqi aircraft to Iran is particularly disturbing. These aircraft will be spared the bombings of the coalition and this frightens us, now that we know that we are indeed high on the Iraqi agenda; that more SCUDS - by one - have been fired at us than at Saudi Arabia, where the coalition forces are mainly based. The obvious collusion of Iran in this flight for preservation of the Iraqi aircraft adds an other element of uncertainty. We speculate on the meaning of this flight; none of the scenarios are encouraging, from the Israeli point of view. The coalition views the picture differently; from their point of view, the straight forward, pragmatic conclusion is operative - these planes have been removed from the war scene, guaranteeing coalition air supremacy. This difference in viewpoint indicates that Israel and the coalition may have very different goals in the present conflict and raises the issue of what, exactly, are the minimal goals for the coalition. Since Israel is a neutral, except in the eyes of Saddam Hussein and his supporters, both in Iraq and elsewhere, it is not strange that our goals should be somewhat different from those of the USA and its coalition partners in this conflict. There is little doubt that the death of Saddam Hussein, the destruction of the Iraqi military machine, and even strip- ping the ruling minority party, the Bath, of power would please President Bush, and perhaps his partners as well, even Arabs - President Mubarak of Egypt, for one. But these do not appear to be goals that must be obtained in order to satisfy the coa- lition, always worried about the ephemeral nature of home sup- port for so distant a war, particularly if the price in casual- ties is too high and if the war continues behind the brief attention span that characterizes mass opinion. The added burden in real cost must also be taken into account; Britain, already burdened by a recession,is now anxiously debating the cost of the war and where the money to pay for it will come from. What then are the minimal goals that the US and its coa- lition powers accept? There is good reason to believe that if necessary - read: wavering home support - Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait and paying some sort of fine will be sufficient. It is clear that the damage to the country's resources and supply lines, heavy equipment and armament will prevent Iraq from entering into another similar adventure for some reasonably long time. This worst case goal, however, cannot be accept- able to Israel, which of course has no say in the matter. Israel's goal - of necessity - includes destruction of both Iraq's long range missiles and their launchers and the air- force, the sources of Iraq's capability of attacking Israel. In addition, Israel can not rest unless Saddam Hussein is eli- minated [killed, imprisoned for life, permanently exiled - preferably the first, the only irreversible method among these]; we remember too well the reemergence of Nasser after his dramatic resignation speech in the aftermath of Egypt's defeat by Israel in the Six Day War. The scenario that sends chills down our spines is one that begins after the war, with Saddam Hussein and his airforce - more than 700 planes - intact. A call by a postwar Iraq, with Saddam Hussein at its head, for a Holy War of all Moslem nations, includ- ing Iran - a long time leader in the Islamic campaign to destroy Israel - as well as the Arab states in the region, lead by Syria and financed by Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Emirates is a reason- able possibility. The blow to Arab pride that will follow any suit for peace by Saddam Hussein, even with Arabic nations represented in the coalition, is predictable; Muslim right-wing elements, in Iran and even among the Arab nations in the coalition continue to undermine cooperation with the Western powers in the fight against Iraq. Syrian, Jordanese and Lebonese newpapers do not hesitate to suggest that the war is really between Israel and Islam, with America and its partners fighting for Israel. A combined Arab air assault on Israel, with the participation of an almost intact Iraqi airforce may or may not be repulsed by Israel; but there is little reason to doubt that the cost in lives and property damage will provide - even in the best case - cause for Jewish tears for generations to come. Coalition forces will probably be far from the scene by that time; even if not, why would they interfere? Are these nightmares unwarranted? Can we rely on Israel's new popularity to galvanize world-wide support to prevent such an attack by the Muslim airforces? As a Jew, and as an Israeli, I am suspicious of our newly gained popularity. As pleasant as it is to be the sudden recipient of such welcome warmth and approval - after so long a time in the cold, after so much disapproval - from the nations of the world, something is wrong. In view of our recent history all the expres- sions of admiration for our restraint do not quite ring true. The Pope himself has even joined in the chorus of praise, although his court, the Vatican, still does not recognize Israel's existence. Why is our popularity dependent on our suffering loss? Is this the requirement for winning the approval of other nations? Or are other nations judged by different rules, by their actions and inactions alone? When the Israeli Airforce attacked and destroyed Tamuz, the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Ossirak - whose French nuclear engineers NOW freely admit was built for military purposes alone - we were condemned by all. Were we better off, some ask, with the disfavor of the world weighing heavily upon us, with confidence in our being in the right and our ability to defend ourselves? Better off than today, with our dead, our wounded, our homeless, with the status of an obedient client state and the favor of the world? Is our blood, we ask in Israel, worth the favor of the world? And how ephemeral is this favor? Will it continue when we stop bleeding? Will it continue if we finally act to defend ourselves? And even if we behave, bleed silently, show restraint, we ask, how long will the favor we have found last? The very same politi- cians and governments that praise us so fulsomely now were those that condemned us, placed economic sanctions on us, when was it? Why, only yesterday. Why are we to trust them now? Today, in a rush to appease the Arab nations, to prevent premature dissolution of the coalition, just as our restraint is meant to do, the US and Russia announced - without consulting us - that they will lead a conference to settle the Middle East problems immediately after the successful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis. What do they mean by this? I do not know. But the Muslim states in this region will understand it as a promise to create a Palestinian state, all our objections not withstanding. And they will not allow any other interpretation. Did our restrain earn us the right to consultation before making so untimely - for us - a decision and announcement? No, not even that. No linkage, we were promised. The Iraqi conquest of Kuwait is not linked to the Palestinian problem, we were told. Has Saddam Hussein already won one victory, so early in the war? So to what end do we toil? The PLO, despite its committment to and support of Saddam Hussein is to be punished by having its dream realized. And Israel, after behaving "well," showing restraint, absorbing loss to life and property quietly, will be rewarded by being forced to swallow the poison we fear most. Is there any question that we have a right to be skeptical? Moreover, the position we find ourselves in, characterized by complete dependence on the US - only some of the military information obtained by satellites shared, refusal to give Israel aircraft identi- fication codes to prevent clashes with coalition aircraft - and restraint where we would usually punish attacks on us, is both un- natural and perhaps dangerous as well. We have invested heavily over the years, since the founding of our state, in the development and strenghthening of our ability to defend ourselves. Our environment is hostile; all the surrounding nations - both those in the coalition and those opposed to it - have signed a compact to root us out of the Middle East, to destroy us. It appears that our good behavior has brought us one step closer to realization of the Arab/Muslim goal to rid themselves of us. This is too heavy a price; we will not remain passive. **************************** I have been asked if this is a good war? I do not think that there is such a thing as a good war. War is bad. Killing can only be justified to prevent wanton murder. [By the way, the seventh commandment - in the original Hebrew - does not read "Thou shalt not kill" as it is usually renderded, but "Thou shalt not murder."] That is the case with this war; it is a justifiable war, born out of necessity. Out of the need to prevent wanton murder. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. Thursday, 31 January Cautious Return to Normalcy It has rained and the winds continue to howl as winter finally comes to us. For the second night, we have had no attack. Those of us who succeeded, myself among them - I thank all those concerned readers who wrote, worried about my loss of sleep - slept well. I managed a solid 7 hours. It helps. The rain has been plentiful and it has again snowed on Mount Hermon, all needed to replenish our waning water supply. And there have been loud thunder storms, as well. In Tel Aviv, many were frightened by the thunder and thought that they were under attack, with bombing quite close. The radio kept broadcasting reassurances. This morning, life in Tel Aviv is beginning to return to normal. Cafeterias at places of work, empty until now, were filled. Appetites had returned. It is wonderful what two days of quiet can do to frayed nerves. Women tell me that they have undergone a change in their sense of time. Women who used to feel that there never was enough time now find themselves sitting down to watch TV early in the afternoon. If - as they had formerly believed - 24 hours is not enough time to do all they had to, how is now possible for them to waste time? Men feel the same, but do not admit it. People speculate on the effect of our exposure on world TV. Will we now be more acceptable, less strange? Even more attractive in their eyes? We think that we did not do too badly on CNN. Does this mean that - once this all over - more tourists will come, that more people will want to meet us, face to face? But life is still not normal. Yes, we can see joggers once again, a few, but we had not seen them for two weeks. A few brave people in Tel Aviv have returned to the empty swimming pools. What a place to be caught in a raid! In a bathing suit! We are - with some embarrassment - a bit proud of ourselves. All Tel Aviv thought of leaving the city at one point or another. Only relatively few actually did so. We have survived [for the time being]! It is as if we went through the Blitz. We have faced the unknown and survived - and that is a very good feeling. But there still is uncertainty as to tonight, and tommorrow. We do not talk about that. People actually look better. You can see it. Less haggard, less worried. No, it is not yet over. But we have had a breathing spell, a much needed breathing spell. And we are stronger now. That is good to know, important to know. People go home earlier than they used to. As early as 14:30 the major roads in the cities begin to fill up; trips that took only 15 minutes in normal times now take an hour - the congestion. Sex? Even that. We have begun to talk about it; that must be a first step. An unpredictable increase in the purchase of training suits has taken place here. People do not want to be caught in their pajamas, nightgowns, or underwear if an alarm is sounded at night. The training suit is the solution to that problem. Tommorrow, my son returns from the Far East. We had worried about his wandering alone in such strange places, but when the war began, my wife and I, his sister and his brothers all agreed that he was much safer there than he would be here. When he called and said that he wanted to cut short his trip - it has been "only" 4 1/2 months - we tried to talk him out of it. We were proud that he felt he had to return; after all, he had been a severe critic of Israeli policy, what he saw as intransigence. But we were worried about his safety. "There is nothing for you to do here", I said. But he was adamant, and is now about to return. We still are proud of him - but wish that he had stayed. ****************************** Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon have been bombarding us with rockets for the last three days. Most of these rockets have landed in the security zone in the south of that country, where a local militia of Lebanese, aided by us, has become a buffer between the waring factions in that unsettled country and us. The motivation of the militia is not to aid us but to keep out these guerrilas who do not hesitate to kill local citizens, steal and occupy villages. We share interests with the militia, which is strongly supported by the local population, a very workable relation. Luckily the rockets have caused insignifi- cant damage. West of the security belt is another, less effective, buffer zone, policed by troops of various countries, under United Nations auspices. In the past day and a half, three Palestinian guerrilas, attempting to reach northern settlements in Israel have been killed. The mission of these Palestinian Arabs was to attack settlements, kill settlers and prove Palestinian identification with Saddam Hussein. Thus far, they have not succeeded. We retaliated by bombing staging centers for these guerrila attacks. What was the UN response? Why, naturally, it was to reduce the number of soldiers under United Nations supervision in the area. Just as the UN did in 1967, in Sinai, when Nasser threatened Israel. Is it not yet understandable to the rest of the world why we are so loth to rely on the promises of external agencies or countries when it comes to our safety? Meanwhile Peter Arnett's staged interview with Saddam Hussein has been released. We can understand the Palestinian drive to actively identify with Saddam more easily when he says that he "sees through the plot; he knows that it is Israel who is fighting with Iraq" and the US and its coalition partners are only doing Israel's work. Saddam Hussein did not forget to thank the peace demonstrators, whom he characterizes as agreeing with him that Iraq is fighting a war against coalition aggression. ****************************** I have suggested that Israel might be more effective than the coalition forces in eliminating certain strategic targets - especially the SCUD missile launchers - because of Israeli willingness to engage in low-level bombing and our expertise in that form of bombing. There is good reason to believe that US satellites can,at the time of firing, pick up the launch heat flare and thereby localize launchers. The US - we believe - will not take full advantage of this knowledge because of a policy not to engage in low-level bombing runs, a hestitancy bred by an attempt to minimize US casualties. There is reason to believe - as part of US desire to keep Israel out of the conflict, at least as an active participant - that the US is not sharing knowledge of these launcher sightings with Israel. Twelve US Marines dead. Sad. War is a process which increases the chance of dying. "Will the US stand fast?" we ask. The F-117 videos that have been shown are indeed impressive, showing pinpoint accuracy during night flights. Most bombing, however, is carried out from high altitides, where US smart bombs are reported to have a 60% accuracy rate, meaning that 60% of the bombs land within 10 feet of their target. Misses are usually the result of failure of sophisticated aiming devices; for example, if the bomb is unable to follow the laser beam into its target - as the result of malfunctions or weather disturbances - the bomb may land as much as 5 miles from the target. The American decision not to engage in too much low-level bombing has been reinforced by the excessive losses suffered by the British Tornados, which specialized in low-level attacks on airfields. Moshe Arens, the Israeli Minister of Defense, in a TV inter- view, seemed to indicate that Israel was being inhibited by US refusal to share the identification codes used in their aircraft. Israeli jets, as do the coalition aircraft, carry the IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) transponder. This device, when used by the coalition, allows allied planes and even Patriot missiles to determine whether to attack or not. Modern planes can shoot down enemy jets which the pilot can- not even see; moreover, if we are talking about night bombing, the pilot must depend completely on his instruments. Thus, any plane not broadcasting the proper IFF codes might be shot at. The Patriot missile was originaly designed to shoot down planes, and it still can; it too looks for the IFF signals. Even though Israeli planes are different from Iraqi planes, if the Israelis launched an attack,the US planes would have to intercept the Israeli planes and confirm that they were indeed friendly. Moreover, it is likely that Israeli planes, not equipped with IFF codes would not be able to differentiate between French and Iraqi [Guess where they came from.] Mirage aircraft. Thus, the likelihood of someone beginning to fire, with everybody joining in, is real. Furthermore, coalition interceptors would be diverted from their other missions in order to check out the Israeli planes, whose presence would be unexpected (both to surprise the Iraqis and to circumvent American calls for restraint). ******************************* It rains. We have had two quiet nights. Another night closes in on us. What will it bring? __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: ANDREWO at UTOREPAS Subject: Le Francais [eds.] Date: 30 January 91, 11:28:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2084 (2406) J'aimerais condamner en les termes les plus vifs la decision de releguer au LISTSERVER la version francaise de l'annonce d'un congres qui se tient dans une ville francophone et dans un pays ou il y a deux langues officielles, le francais et l'anglais. Je signale qu'il y a peu de temps HUMANIST paraissait au Canada, que ses origines sont canadiennes. J'aurais cru qu'un reseau de communication qui se dote du nom HUMANIST, meme s'il etait edite aux Etats-Unis, ne se permettrait pas de releguer au second plan la langue maternelle de bon nombre de ses membres, langue qui est d'ailleurs une langue officielle du pays qui a donne naissance au reseau. Je ne peux imaginer de moyen plus clair que celui utilise par les editeurs de HUMANIST de signifier aux francophones qu'ils sont des citoyens de seconde classe. Le separatisme est fonde sur ce genre d'insensibilite. Disons-le une fois pour toutes: C'est intolerable! Andrew Oliver From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: French on Humanist Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 11:51:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2085 (2407) I understand the dismay you must feel, and regret that we offended you. The decision to "relegate" the French version of the ICL '92 conference to a listserver was not made by us, but by the list on which the announcement first appeared. We couldn't post the French version of the annoucement because we did not receive a copy of the announcement in French. ... We had no intention of suggesting that French speaking citizens of Canada are second-class citizens of the world or of Humanist; I would, however, like to remind you that even while Humanist was being edited in Canada, the Guide to Humanist said very specifically that its primary language would be English. Elaine From: ANDREWO at UTOREPAS Subject: Date: 31 January 91, 11:02:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2086 (2408) Given the explanation in your note, I see no point in posting my message on HUMANIST - it is nonetheless offensive for francophone readers of HUMANIST to read about a conference in the capital of French Canada in English and a list like HUMANIST needs to be sensitive to such matters. We have had the language of communication discussion on more than one occasion, but not for some time now. Perhaps it is time to revive it. I note that there are very few francophone contributors to HUMANIST, that those francophones who do contribute usually do so in English, that there are virtually no contributions from European francophones. Given HUMANIST'S name and pedigree perhaps it is time things changed, time that our francophone colleagues were encouraged to engage in the HUMANIST exchange in their own language. As I write I am changing my mind about the first sentence of this note. Maybe you should run my original note, your reply and my response to your reply. Bien amicalement. Andrew Oliver From: DJT18@hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0961 A Note from the Editors (1/22) Date: Thu,31 Jan 91 10:27:35 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2087 (2409) Can anyone help me with a query from a Russian scholar, using an IBM com- patible PC? He is looking for a scanner and OCR software which will cope happily with Cyrillic. Thanks in advance. June Thompson, CTI Centre for Modern Languages,University of Hull, UK. From: Ruth Glynn <RGLYNN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK> Subject: Cyrillic screen fonts Date: Thu, 31 JAN 91 10:38:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2088 (2410) Does anyone know whether Cyrillic screen fonts are available in Windows .FNT or .FON formats *or* in GEM, PCX, PostScript (other than the Monotype Times Cyrillic font), or HP Laserjet Plus formats? I am not interested in printing the Cyrillic, merely in good screen display in a variety of sizes in a Windows 3.0 application. The font must be proportional width. THanks in advance. Ruth Glynn Electronic Publishing Oxford University Press From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet> Subject: Amstrad query Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 11:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2089 (2411) I have a colleague at the University of Birmingham who's using an Amstrad computer to enter some texts for an edition we're doing, and he tells me this machine will not do curly brackets. Is there an Amstrad maven around who could advise me of possible ways around this, if it's really so? Bonus question: how would an American read disks from such a machine? John Lavagnino, Brandeis University Internet: lav@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Bitnet: lav@brandeis From: <TBESTUL@UNLVAX1> Subject: New List - Chaucer Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 11:25 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2090 (2412) If you are interested in participating in a new electronic discussion group and bulletin-board devoted to Geoffrey Chaucer, please contact: Thomas Bestul Professor of English University of Nebraska-Lincoln TBestul@crcvms.unl.edu OR TBestul@unlvax1.bitnet The list is intended to be a forum for discussion on all aspects of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer as well as serving as a means of distributing timely information on conferences, grants, job notices, and the like. A brief description of the discussion group is in the most recent issue of the newsletter of the New Chaucer Society. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Exotic Language Word Processing Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 12:05:38 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2091 (2413) The following may interest persons who have been looking for an Arabic word processor. I have noticed in the current issue of Byte a brief announcement for a new Windows 3.0 word processor called World View 1.0. It comes with a keyboard configuration utility, and has standard support for the Latin alphabet. You can add support for Greek, Russian, Hebrew and "other languages." The accompanying picture seems to show an "Arabic" newsletter on screen, so "Arabic" must be one of the "other" languages. (I don't know how to distinguish visually among the various orthographies that use Arabic script, so this could be Farsi or something else.) The package is $249, plus $100 for additional languages. (Given the price, it sounds like the word processor might be fairly simple.) Eastern Language Systems 39 West 300 North Provo, UT 84601 USA (801) 377-4558 (801) 377-2200 fax ++++ Any recommendation expressed is my own, and does not represent the opinions or practice of my employers. From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Query: Epson to Mac? Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 14:00:42 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2092 (2414) Has anyone had success in inexpensively printing out ASCII and foreign language characters from a Mac II-series computer (e.g., IIcx) to an Epson LQ-series printer (e.g., LQ-1050)? Can one configure them simply with an appropriate cable (mini 8-pin DIN to 6-pin DIN). I have the serial driver(s) from Microsoft for use with "Word" for the Mac. Or does one require the more expensive solution of "Freedom of Press" postscript software plus the "Paralink" hardware (about $200 for the two)? Thanks, Joel From: Peter Lafford <IDPAL@ASUACAD> Subject: 2 Queries Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 14:42:52 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2093 (2415) Two items: 1. I have seen ads for the "Languages of the World" CD-ROM database (for PC; $889; Bureau of Electronic Publishing, Inc. (800)828-4766), with dictionaries for 12 languages (Chinese and most European languages excluding Russian). The user enters a word in one language, and finds a list of translations or definitions in another. Is anyone aware of an similar but smaller program dealing with individual languages (i.e., French and German). I have a colleague who would be interested. 2. Another colleague wondered if anyone was doing research on spelling theory and probabilities; i.e., given a "PH" at the beginning of a word and "T" as the fourth letter, what is the likelihood of the third letter being "O", another vowel, rather than a consonant. Thanks in advance for any leads or suggestions. Peter Lafford Tel.(602) 965-2679 Manager, Humanities Computing Facility Lang. & Lit. Bldg. Arizona State University (DEN-0302) Room LL-B 325 Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 IDPAL@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: asmith@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Adam Smith) Subject: Re: MAC to IBM Date: 29 Jan 91 19:53:33 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 966 (2416) References: <91027.150939TAMIL@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Organization: Questor: Internet/Usenet in Vancouver, BC ==> +1 604 681.0670 Lines: 95 Instructions for converting PostScript-tm fonts from Macintosh format to IBM format. These instructions have been tested to a limited degree. They have so far proved to be entirely successful, but unexpected results may occur. While I see no possible reason to fear damage as a result of using the method described, there is no guarantee. Any persons following these instructions do so at their own risk. Please also note that this proceure is a legal grey area. When you buy a PostScript-tm font from a digital font foundry or supplier, the registration that you make with the supplier is, in most situations, a license to make use of the font, not right of ownership. An employee of Adobe Systems has unofficially informed me that for the time being, they have no qualms about individual users preparing fonts for there own computer platforms with the condition that the copyright information listed in the file header remain intact. Please keep abreast of the future developments in this area and be sure that you honour the spirit, if not indeed the letter of your rights and responsibilities as a licensed user. Procedures: For the purposes of these instructions, a fictitious PostScript-tm font named "Transpo", will be converted from it's Macintosh format to IBM format. The family consists of: mac ---> IBM Transpo Roman TransRom TRA_____.PFB 1. On the Mac, collect the printer font and the AFM (font metrics) file for the font and place them in a folder. 2. Start UnAdobe from the Finder. The first dialogue box asks you to locate the printer font to be converted. Select "TransRom". The second dialogue box asks you for the name to save the font as. It is recommended that you name the font according to Adobe's (or the font manufacturer's) IBM font-naming convention--in this case "TRA_____.PFB". 3. UnAdobe will convert the font and place the new font in the same folder as the original. Quit UnAdobe. 4. Begin MicroSoft Word on the Mac. (This will probably work with any word processor, it has only been tested with Word). Open the UnAdobe'd font. You will see a number of lines of readable PostScript-tm code, followed by a long section of machine code with no spaces anywhere in it. The last line of the file should be readable PosScript-tm code again. Select all of the machine code, from the beginning of the line at the first line, to the end of the line prior to the last (readable) line. Bring up the search and replace function (command-h) and set to remove all carriage returns ("find" field should read "^p" - "replace with" field should be empty). Select "Change All". 5. Save the file as "Text Only". 6. Quit Word. 7. Copy the new, modified UnAdobe font and the AFM file to a DOS disk using the Apple File Exchange (normal translation). The AFM file should carry the same name as the new printer font, but with an ".AFM" extension instead of ".PFB". TOPS networks will probably work for transfering files, as well as other methods, but have not been tested. 8. Copy the files to your IBM hard disk. The font now on your IBM should now work with downloaders, allowing it to be placed into a printer's virtual mempry and accessed by applications. To use the font with Windows and/or ATM for Windows, it will have to be converted with the WFNBOSS utility provided free with Corel Draw ver2.0. ATM and MS Windows require a font metrics file to access a font, either resident in the printer's VM, or be downloaded at the time of printing. If you already have a .PFM file for the font, it can be used and will access the font correctly. Using an original .PFM file and a converted printer font file with ATM may or may not display correctly. To create a .PFM file for the converted font: 1. Place the .AFM and .PFB file brought over from the Mac into the same directory. 2. Start the WFNBOSS utility, select "Adobe Type 1" as the source format and change the source directory to the directory containing the .AFM and .PFB files. The font should appear in the font listing window. 3. Convert the font into a Corel Draw .WFN file as per Corel's instructions. (Incidently, the new font just created will appear in the Corel Draw program.) 4. Change the source file type to "WFN to Adobe Type 1" and the source directory to the Corel Draw directory (assuming this is where the .WFN font outlines where placed in the previous action). 5. Convert the font. (Again, as per Corel's instructions--Corel Draw provides a clear instruction manual that should cover anything that occurs outside of the limited descriptions here.) 6. In the Corel directory will be a .PFB and a .PFM file that can be installed using ATM for Windows and will display and print correctly. (As well as a new .AFM file) ######################################################################## Adam Smith Graphic Artist - Bad Mood Guy -> REFUSE TO FIGHT! The Chameleon Papers Vancouver, BC CANADA "Just when you thought it was safe to admit you're a human being..." ######################################################################## From: William Crossgrove <WMCROSS@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.0957 Queries: ...Student Career Choices Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 15:10:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2094 (2417) The report on student choices is presumably the annual report prepared by Alexander W. Astin who has been conducting such a survey for 25 years. There is an article on the report along with a fairly lengthy summary of the findings in the Chronicle of Higher Education of January 30, 1991. According to the article, copies of the report, entitled "The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1990," are available for $19 each from the Higher Education Research Institute, U.C.L.A., Graduate School of Education, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024. Bill Crossgrove From: Bernard_van't_Hul@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: Re: 4.0957 Queries: ...Student Career Choices Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 17:40:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2095 (2418) The survey is accounted for in the NYTimes of Tuesday, January 29, page A!@ (Outstate Edition). From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Progress in Philosophy Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 15:45:30 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2096 (2419) The suggestion was made in a recent mailing that if philosophers are earning their pay there must be evidence of progress in philosophy. I don't think this need be so, since there may well be some things or practices taught by philosophers that need to be taught to every generation: must there have been 'progress in e.g. the English language' if those who teach that language are earning their pay? And what would it be like? As it happens, though, anyone acquainted with philosophy can point to a great many cases of progress: i.e. to clarifications of arguments, answers to arguments, exploration of newly discovered areas etc. This includes ethical arguments. This doesn't show that individual philosophers are necessarily good moral guides, nor that an e-mail discussion between academics is necessarily of a much higher standard than a conversation between non-academics. I would hope that we could manage, between us, a reasonable level of historical information, and philosophical sensitivity. If we can't (and especially if we so quickly dissolve into mutual insult) what indeed is the point of the academic life? Stephen Clark Liverpool University UK From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Israel -- Friday, 1 February [eds.] Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 13:19 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 968 (2420) Friday, 1 February We Look for Patterns Someone here said that is nothing as old as yesterday's danger. Now, I think that I have found something just as outdated, and much more useless: yesterday's sense of security. Last night we were again attacked. For the first time, I was not at home. It was at 18:00, already dark for a half hour outside and I was still at work. I actually did not know where the sealed room was; but a colleague quickly directed me to the comfortable, spacious students' laboratory that had been sealed for just such times. At this late hour [suddenly 6 PM has become late], only a dozen of us were there: I was among the first to arrive but others wandered in over the next 10 minutes. Most of us - I among them - had their masks and donned them; someone had remembered to bring a radio [not a transistor model, but luckily there was no problem with the electricity]. We now knew that a direct link from the US spy satellite hovering above Iraq had been set up - to Israel and to the Patriot anti-missile missile batteries. This would increase the warning time from 1 1/2 to 5 minutes. [Before, the data was sent to Australia (!) first; and only then, after decoding, forwarded to us.] Everyone seems much calmer than I feel; but two of us, a man and a young woman, have repeated difficulties with their masks - they take them off and put them on, readjust- ing the straps. Another two of the dozen - I recognized one face but did not know who he was; he looked Russian to me - had no mask. No one remarked on this. I did not feel secure; I wondered where other members of my family were. I do not think that I have mentioned that you have to take off your eyeglasses before putting on the masks; a number of the people in the room were clearly effectively blind in. Attempts to put the glasses on over the mask are foiled by arms of the glasses being about one inch short; furthermore, the extra distance from the lens of the eye puts the image a bit out of focus; I tried it i I know. I wear glasses, but manage well enough without them to read the time on my wristwatch, to keep notes. On the radio we hear translations of the alarm notice - all Israel is requested to enter sealed rooms and put on the anti-poison gas masks - in Russian, English, French and Amharic. Only later, with the arrival of the appropriate translators, did we hear Arabic and Yiddish translations of the announcements. There is no computer terminal in the sealed room. 18:08 - A confirmed attack is announced: "A missile [or missiles] has been fired at Israel from Western Iraq." 18:11 - The whole country is still required to sit in sealed rooms, wearing masks. 18:13 - Inhabitants of the North - including Haifa, unusually early for that city - and the South were allowed to take off masks and leave the sealed rooms. Is it Greater Tel Aviv again? How many missiles? What damage have they done? Were the Patriots effective? What kind of warhead did the missiles bear? 18:13 - All of Israel, other than the East Central region is now freed, including Tel Aviv. It seems to be the other side of the Green Line again. Mostly Palestinian Arabs with some Jewish settlements, as well. We take off our masks. I am told that I have been tightening the straps of mine too much; my face is slightly purplish, it seems. Some attempts at joking. We wander back to our offices. Some rush, to telephone, to be reassured, to reassure. My wife - at her latest adopted Russian immigrant family's apart- ment - is safe and calls me; she actually remembered, and had her gas mask with her. 18:42 - We hear that there have been no injuries, no damage. Good. No Patriots were fired. What does that mean? This is the second time in a row that no Patriot was fired. Is it for the same reasons? 18:47 - A small part of the country is still confined to sealed rooms, wearing gas masks. It appears that there is diffi- culty finding the missile, determining its nature. It must have landed in the hills. [In the morning we learn that it fell in the western part of the Shomron {Samaria} between Two Arab villages.] A number of false alarms are sounded in various cities; nervous fingers, it seems. I am glad that it has not happen- ed here, in Jerusalem. 19:00 - As suspected, the missile has not been located. 19:23 - Only now, a general all clear is announced. This is the second attack, one after another, in which a single SCUD is fired and the missile falls far short of its mark. It is hard to believe that the missiles were fired at the Arab population, both because they are not Saddam Hussein's professed enemies - a title he has bestowed on us - and because the effectiveness of the missile is so much greater in areas of larger population. There are certainly no signigicant military installations in the regions of these missile landings. Indeed, we later find out that during the attack Baghdad radio announced [Iraqi General Staff Communique # 33]: "At 19:00 [Baghdad time, which is one hour ahead of us. RW] our units fired Al Husseini [Improved, long distance version of the SCUD. RW] missiles [sic - RW] at Tel Aviv, which rained Arab, Islamic and Iraqi anger on the heads of the Zionists." There are several possibilities to explain these misfirings. It is possible that there was insufficient time to fully fuel the missiles; they are only fueled after being placed in position. Coalition bombing limits the time that is available for preparation of the missiles for firing, a process that normally takes as much as six hours. Mechanical failure is another possiblity, and may in part result from launching from makeshift launchers, improvised in the face of coalition bombings that have destroyed many of the original launchers. Why have the Patriots not been fired? We have all become armchair generals, working with limited information. Is it because the SCUDS can be seen by their radar not to be threats? Is it because the missiles fall when they are still out of the range [35 miles] of the Patriots? Is it because there is a problem with the Patriots? The absence of information frustrates us, worries us. Black scenarios are not difficult to find. We continue to seek patterns. The pattern of no firings during the daytime is still intact. We are not the only ones who have noticed this; schools are being reopened at a much quicker rate than we thought would be possible a few days ago. Yesterday, all Junior High School classes - except in Tel Aviv and Haifa, which will begin to offer these classes on Sunday - have reopened. Teachers who worked furiously to prepare lessons for home study, only to find that these efforts were wasted, are furious and frustrated, not knowing what to expect next. It is a strange situation when it is the government, that ponderous and slow moving mastodon, that is able to show the greatest flexibity, to change plans with ease, with an ear to the winds of changing circumstance. It is now planned to reopen classes in elementary schools, 1st through 6th grades on Sunday as well. Again all over the country except for Tel Aviv and Haifa, which will follow in one or two days. Daytime movie houses are also open; no move has been made to reopen them to evening and nighttime showings. Nobody, whose work does not require it, is out of their houses after 19:00. Supermarkets, all-night pharmacies and other businesses close at that time - or earlier. Now we try out among ourselves the possibility of other patterns. Twice, we have had exactly two consecutive nights without attack. Is that pattern to be relied on? Or is it but a random association? We don't have enough information for a statistical evaluation. Another pattern is that the firings seem to be undertaken on the hour. As this attack was at 18:00, there was also 2:00 AM, and so on. Can it be that the Iraqi Army command says, "Shoot off a SCUD at Israel at X o'clock, where X is always a whole number, from 1 to 24? Or, would it be from 18:00 [our time] to 03:00, the hours of darkness, if that pattern is correct as well? And so it goes. Black magic? Perhaps. But we do not have anything better. We have survived our eigth attack now, 30 SCUDs. It rains hard now, it is cold outside, the wind is strong, fog covers us. The world is gray. Yes, gray, but still livable. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Dan Brink <ATDXB@ASUACAD> Subject: ACH/ALLC '91 reminder Date: Sun, 03 Feb 91 08:53:32 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 969 (2421) R E M I N D E R !! The annual joint meeting of the Association for Computers and the Humanities and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, ACH/ALLC '91, takes place on March 17-21 in Tempe, AZ, at Arizona State University. For registration information or a copy of the program, contact Dan Brink at ATDXB@ASUACAD or call 602/965-2679 (or -7748). Remember: For discount registration, ACH and ALLC members must register by the 12th of February. To secure a dorm room (vs. higher motel costs), everyone must register by the 12th of February. Dorm rooms will DISAPPEAR after the 12!. Please get this taken care of now! Daniel Brink, Associate Dean for Technology Integration College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1701 602/965-7748/1441 fax -1093 ATDXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: TWO-DAY SEMINAR ON INTERDISCIPLINARITY Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 13:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2097 (2422) TWO-DAY SEMINAR ON INTERDISCIPLINARITY On February 22 and 23, 1991, the Centre d'etudes quebecoises de l'Universite de Montreal will host a two-day seminar on interdisciplinarity. PROGRAM Vendredi 22 fevrier 9 h 30 : Mot de bienvenue de Bernard Beugnot, directeur du Departement d'etudes francaises de l'Universite de Montreal 9 h 45 : Marc Angenot (Universite McGill) : "Methodes des etudes litteraires, methodes des sciences sociales" (commentaire de Pierre Popovic) 11 h 00 : Jean-Claude Guedon (Universite de Montreal) : "Strategies de representation du monde des sciences et des techniques dans la culture quebecoise,1850-1939" (commentaire de Jean-Francois Chassay) 14 h 00 : Fernand Dumont (Universite Laval) : "Ideologie, historiographie, litterature" (commentaire de Gilles Marcotte) 15 h 00 : Georges Leroux (Universite du Quebec a Montreal) : "La question du recit metaphysique" (commentaire de Christie McDonald) Samedi 23 fevrier 9 h 30 : Pol-Pierre Gossiaux (Universite de Liege) : titre a confirmer (commentaire de Jeanne Demers) 10 h 45 : Robert Morrissey (Universite de Chicago) : "Se sentir chez soi : histoire, roman et nation dans les Mysteres du peuple d'Eugene Sue" (commentaire de Micheline Cambron) 11 h 45 : Jacques Neefs (Universite de Paris-VIII) : "La litterature et le partage des disciplines : Balzac, Flaubert" (commentaire de Michel Pierssens) Benoit Melancon Departement d'etudes francaises Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, succ. A Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C3J7 MELANCON@UMTLVR.BITNET From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: EPISTOLARITY (association) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 16:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2098 (2423) Association interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'epistolaire (A.I.R.E.) L'A.I.R.E. a ete fondee en 1987 lors du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle consacre a l'epistolarite. Elle reprenait alors les objectifs de l'Association des correspondances fondee a Nantes en 1981. D'abord domiciliee a l'Universite de Nantes (sous la presidence de Jean- Louis Bonnat), elle est accueillie depuis 1989 par l'Universite de Caen. Le professeur Andre Magnan en est actuellement le president. Les objectifs de l'A.I.R.E. sont les suivants : a) regrouper les chercheurs de toutes les disciplines s'interessant a la pratique epistolaire; b) constituer une bibliographie des recherches sur l'epistolaire, quelle que soit la discipline; c) constituer un annuaire des chercheurs interesses par la question de l'epistolaire; d) faire circuler toute information pertinente a l'etude de la lettre; e) organiser des colloques, rencontres et seminaires portant sur la lettre; f) publier un BULLETIN d'information. L'A.I.R.E. compte parmi ses membres des philosophes, des historiens, des specialistes de l'histoire de l'art, des psychanalyste, des litteraires, des semioticiens, des linguistes, des sociologues, des psychologues, etc. Au Canada, on peut s'inscrire, au cout de 10 $ CAN, aupres de : Benoit Melancon Departement d'etudes francaises Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, succ. A Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C 3J7 MELANCON@UMTLVR.BITNET En France, on peut s'inscrire, au cout de 80 FF, aupres de la secretaire-tresoriere de l'A.I.R.E. : Mireille Bossis 8, rue de la Villette 75019 Paris France L'Association a aussi des correspondants en Belgique, en Espagne, en Grande-Bretagne, en Italie, aux Pays-Bas, au Portugal, en R.F.A., en Suisse, en Republique Sud-Africaine, aux Etats-Unis. On pourra se procurer les coordonnees de ces differents correspondants aupres de Benoit Melancon. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: WORKSHOP ON LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION PROCESSING Date: Sat, 2 Feb 91 18:55 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2099 (2424) I thought you might find the following call for papers of interest. Carl Weir weir@PRC.Unisys.COM CALL FOR PAPERS WORKSHOP ON LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION PROCESSING October 27, 1991 Washington, D.C. The American Society for Information Science (ASIS) invites sub- missions for a Language and Information Processing Workshop, to be held on October 27, 1991 at the ASIS '91 meeting in Washington, D.C. The theme of ASIS '91 is "Systems Understanding People, People Understanding Systems". The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers who are concerned with the potentially significant role of sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) in intelligent information retrieval (IR). The workshop will focus on the progress that has been made to date on the application of NLP methods to the IR problem and will provide a forum for discussing some promising areas for future research. Submitted papers must reflect substantive work done at the intersection of NLP and IR. Papers should emphasize completed work rather than future plans. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Alexa T. McCray, National Library of Medicine Elizabeth Liddy, Syracuse University Carl Weir, Unisys David Lewis, University of Massachusetts FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS: Submit 5 copies of a draft paper, not exceeding 10 single-spaced pages (exclusive of references) to arrive no later than May 31, 1991. A cover page should include the title, full names of all authors, the address of the primary author, including an e-mail address if possible, and a short abstract. Send submissions to the workshop chair: Alexa T. McCray National Library of Medicine Bldg. 38A/9N905, Mail Stop 54 Bethesda, Md. 20894 Phone: (301) 496-9300 Internet: mccray@nlm.nih.gov SCHEDULE: Submissions should be sent to arrive by May 31, 1991. Notification of acceptance will be made by July 15, 1991. Camera-ready papers will be due on September 16, 1991. Workshop will be held on October 27, 1991. WORKSHOP INFORMATION: The workshop will be held in conjunction with the 54th annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science (October 27-31, 1991). A full proceedings of the workshop will be made available to those attend. The workshop will be open to all interested researchers, but presentations will be limited to accepted papers. There will be a $30.00 workshop registration fee which will be used to cover the cost of preparing the proceedings and providing refreshments. Lunch will not be provided. From: <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 16:39 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 971 (2425) POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT Associate / Full Professor of U.S. History St. Mary's University announces a tenure track appointment at the rank of Associate or Full Professor, commencing 17 August 1991. This is a replacement position. Salary is competitive, and commensurate with the applicant's qualifications and experience. Screening of applications will begin 15 March 1991, and continue until the position is filled. Responsibilities include teaching the equivalent of eight courses per academic year, student advising, and the usual departmental and university participation. Qualifications: Ph.D., with specialization in U.S. History Successful college / university teaching experience Supportive of Catholic educational values and tradition (Candidate need not be of the Catholic faith.) Candidates should be able to be named Chair of the Department. Publication / research interests should demonstrate an ability to teach and direct at introductory graduate level. Application, including letter of inquiry, curriculum vitae, and names of references, should be sent to: Dr. Norbert Brockman, S.M. Acting Chair, Department of History St. Mary's University One Camino Santa Maria San Antonio, TX 78228-8546 St. Mary's University, established in 1852 by the Society of Mary (Marianists) and directed by them, is the oldest Catholic univer- sity in Texas. There are 4000 students in four Schools: Humanities and Social Sciences; Science, Engineering, and Technology; Law; and Business. The student body is co-ed and multi-cultural, with a strong Hispanic presence. St. Mary's is an equal opportunity employer, and women and minority applicants are encouraged to apply. The History Department teaches courses, including the U.S. survey open to all students to meet core education requirements. There are 46 history majors and a small M.A. program, served by three FT faculty, and two PT. In addition, the endowed O'Connor Chair maintains a distinguished research scholar in the history of the Southwest Borderlands. An interdepartmental program in Interna- tional Relations is administered by a member of the Department. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: UNICODE ENCODING FOR HEBREW Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 16:28:56 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 972 (2426) With the "UNICODE vs. ISO 10646" war heating up, I wonder whether other HUMANISTS (as semitists and orientalists) have looked at the UNICODE code points for Hebrew. Have you? Particularly, I would be interested in the opinions of Israeli scholars in biblical studies. Relevance: as has been summarized already on this forum, UNICODE is finalizing the draft specification for its 16-bit fixed-width character encoding scheme, and will close the comment period on February 15th. This emerging "standard" is backed by IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Metaphor, NeXT, Sun, Xerox, The Research Libraries Group, and other powerful commercial groups -- so the consequences cannot be taken lightly. ECMA has thrown its weight solidly behind the ISO 10646 group in opposing UNICODE. I don't know what the Unicode consortium will do about the ECMA/ISO opposition, but it seems prudent that humanities scholars address both groups with their concerns. My specific concern relates to the absence of unique codes for Hebrew (and Aramaic) SHIN and SIN. We could argue about the precise orthographic stratum to which "dotted" SHIN and SIN belong (relative to vowel points, accents, cantillation and punctuation marks), but the results would probably not be determinative for this discussion. It is materially relevant (1) that these ARE historically distinct consonants, and (2) that the original Phoenician writing system IS underspecified for Hebrew. But the concern is simply pragmatic: should software designers and programmers be forced to reckon with SHIN and SIN as double-width characters when in linguistic terms these are distinct consonants? UNICODE makes 05C1 "HEBREW POINT SHIN DOT" and 05C2 "HEBREW POINT SIN DOT". If this decision can be defended historically in terms of Hebrew orthography, it can hardly be defended as optimal for any text processing other than printing of non-vocalized text. Nothing seems lost or compromised in the UNICODE scheme if undifferentiated (viz, "undotted) "HEBREW LETTER SHIN" is left at code point 05E9, for modern and epigraphic Hebrew, and two of the unassigned slots (05F6 - 05FF) are used for linguistically and/or orthographically distinct SHIN and SIN. This would seem a small concession considering that five slots are given to final forms -- an overspecification that could be handled in applications (as would seem preferable in keyboarding, for example, as I assume it is in Arabic). I am not a programmer, so perhaps I overestimate the negative consequences of current UNICODE for implementors in having to work around this problem, and the performance penalty. Programmers already have to deal with five cases of overspecification at applications level (the five final forms), so in principle having three characters for SHIN/SIN, SHIN and SIN would be consistent and economical. Less problematic (in my view) but not entirely felicitous is that the "dot" for daghesh (05BC) is also used for mappiq and (the "dot") in shureq. Time is short, but those interested in the UNICODE draft should contact Asmus Freytag at Microsoft: Tel: (1 206) 882-8080; FAX: (1 206) 883-8101; Email: microsoft!asmusf@uunet.uu.net For those who cannot obtain a draft copy in time, UNICODE currently contains 84 16-bit characters for Hebrew: (1) 31 code points for "cantillation marks and accents" (2) 20 code points for "points and punctuation" (3) 27 code points for consonants (based upon ISO 8859/8) (4) 3 code points for Yiddish digraphs (double-vav; vav-yod; double-yod) (5) 2 code points for "additional punctuation" (geresh; gershayim) (6) 1 code point for Ladino/Judezmo (point VARIKA) Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: fillmore@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Charles J. Fillmore) Subject: a question on Japanese Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 18:15:04 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2100 (2427) Status: RO I'd like to be able to work with a Japanese language corpus having parallel alphabetic and kanji/kana versions. There ought to be a way of keying in a Japanese text, with romanized input, but instead of LOSING the alphabetic strings as the text gets converted to kanji/kana, KEEPING it. The reason is, I'd like to be able to perform certain kinds of operations on the corpus using tools which are defined for alphabetical files, while at the same time having direct access to the Japanese material, being able to print the examples in Japanese easily, etc.. No known Japanese word processor has a kanji-henkan system which allows access to the code, but there must be some way of doing what I'd like to be able to do. Anybody got ideas or relevant connections? Chuck Fillmore (fillmore@cogsci.berkeley.edu) From: Mark Ritchie <AVFILM2@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca> Subject: Needed an OCR program for Czech, Croat, or Slovene Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 11:18:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2101 (2428) I have a faculty member here who needs to be able to scan and read a very large quantity of text written in Czech. We have a good scanner and have been using Omnipage for English language text. Ideally a package which works with omnipage would be nice but a stand alone package would do. W. Mark Ritchie | Tel: (519) 888-4070 Media Librarian | Fax: (519) 888-6197 Audio-Visual Centre | University of Waterloo | Net: avfilm2@watdcs.Uwaterloo.ca From: Knut Hofland +47 5 212954/55/56 FAFKH at NOBERGEN Subject: El-info on romance languages wanted Date: 1 February 91, 11:18:11 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2102 (2429) I am going to give a introduction on network computing to researchers from the romance language institutes in Norway (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Rumanian). I would like to add some practical informations and would appreciate to receive information relevant to these languages about electronic discussion groups, bulletin boards, file servers, archives with on-line access to texts, archives with tape or diskette distributions of texts, available programs etc. I have read the file on Humanist describing the ARTFL project and have the Oxford Text Archive catalogue. Knut Hofland The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Street adr: Harald Haarfagres gt. 31 Post adr: P.O. Box 53, University, N-5027 Bergen, Norway Tel: +47 5 212954/5/6 Fax: +47 5 322656 From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: Outlining software; WORD files Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 16:45:54 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2103 (2430) Two queries: (1) Does anyone have experience of using outlining software (environment MSDOS)? In case that's an incomprehensible Anglicism, what I mean is a program which enables you to draft the plan of a book/lecture or whatever, going down whatever depth of branching you choose, and being able to move branches around at any level so that lower-level branches move with them. Specifically: a. what do you use, who makes it, how much does it cost, how easy is it to use, what are the bugs/limitations? (alternatively: what did you try out and then stop using?) b. how good is the export facility and what WP formats does it support? c. how does it compare with the facilities offered by e.g. MS-WORD and Word Perfect or with pencil, eraser and paper? I make the usual promise about putting together a report if there are enough responses, and will try to keep it. (2) Does anyone have or know where I can get hold of a detailed technical description of the internal structure of MS-WORD files (again, MSDOS environment)? Timothy Reuter/Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich From: JONATHAN KANDELL <KANDELL@ARIZRVAX.BITNET> Subject: Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 23:10 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2104 (2431) What are the various ways people who use Macintosh Word can write files for IBM wordperfect (5 1/4" drive) and vice versa? I figure Humanists would be likely to do this. From: <HARDERR@CLARGRAD> Subject: Digitizing Sound [eds.] Date: Fri, 1 Feb 91 09:32 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2105 (2432) I haven't heard any responses to the qustion about digitizing sound on the Mac. So here goes: Don't eventhink about it! A 30 minute "Sound sample" even if sampled at a very poor quality would take a dozen or so megabytes of disk space. If you were to sample at CD quality you would take a little over 40k PER SECOND of sound. 8k samples are generally useable for spoken sound. I'll let you do the math. There is hope however. If you were to put all of your sound samples onto a CD ROM, you could get 72 minutes at CD quality more if that weren't important (and it shouldn't be for your application). Then use HyperCard to access the sound segments. Apple's Programmers and Developers Asscn sells a CD Audio toolkit for about $70 that would give you all of the code neccessary to build your own toolkit. I built one for Handel's Messiah in about 1/2 hour to show my studets how it was done. So easy even a linguist could do it! 8-) <grin> You may be able to find commercail CD's with enough spoken materials to be useful. Raymond G. Harder Azusa Pacific University Azusa CA, USA From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: scanning Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 23:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2106 (2433) May be an answer to your question: [deleted quotation] INOVATIC INC (France) has developped an OCR software for both the IBM and MAC families. Its performence is impressive. It has, depending on the model you buy, either the possibility of using a universal font or the option to go through an acquisition process. Fonts definitions can be saved. Proportional letters, ligatures, are accepted. Correcting dictionary are included for several languages. The software can work with a PC XT 640K. It is much faster on a 386 and a few supplementary Meg. It can scan a page per minute. As it has no predefined font, it can learn any alphabet provided that it has less than 500 characters. It, being built in europe and in a non anglophone country, has no trouble dealing with accentuated letters belonging to the upper ASCII. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: rust@rust.home.demos.su (Roustem Akhiarov) Subject: Special characters Date: 31 Jan 91 23:43:14 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2107 (2434) Reply-To: rust@rust.home.demos.su Organization: unknown In article <1991Jan29.153747.7k4Ggbz9@cs.psu.edu> loftsson@client1.cs.psu.edu (Hrafn Loftsson) writes: [deleted quotation] We have developed an add-on product for Windows 3.0, which allows to use cyrillic inside any Windows application (All cyrillic characters has codes above 128). But this product has an additional feature: its keyboard driver allows you to use two keyboard layouts simultaneously and switching between them using, for example, Ctrl key. The first layout is the default Windows layout (it's a US layout if you install US keyboard, german for German keyboard, etc.). The second, or _alternative_ layout can be customized. We provide a number of predefined alternative layouts (German, French, ..., Cyrillic, _Math_, etc.) and you can create your own layout. it's a commertial product and if this is interesting for you e-mail me and we'll send you a free demo version. Hope it helps, -- Roustem Akhiarov | Phone: +7 095 292 0306 (Office) Internet: rust@hq.demos.su | +7 095 153 3408 (Home) P.O.Box 77, Moscow, 129010, USSR | Fax: +7 095 292 0306 (voice/data) From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS Subject: Saturday Night 2 Februay Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 1:54 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 975 (2435) Saturday Night 2 Februay So Much for Patterns Friday was uneventful; we waited for the attack which we knew would come and it did not. Although we were relieved to be free of the drill - ascent to the sealed room, closing it, putting on the masks, turning on the radio, and waiting, waiting - I felt a distinct disappointment. We had undergone nighttime attacks on the two previous Fridays - the only ones in the war until yesterday, despite Friday being the Islamic Sabbath. No attack on this third consecutive Friday meant no pattern. I did not realize until now how important to me was seeing patterns in the attacks. I was trying to make order out of the chaos of war; by seeking patterns, I hoped to find rules and laws. Rules and laws that would counter this disturbing and unsettling feeling of uncertainty that was now almost as bad as the thought of being injured or killed. This attempt on my part was doomed to failure, I now see - but it was comforting while the illusion lasted. I am reminded by writing the previous paragraph of my daughter- in-law's anger at me; she had looked at some of my reports and, when she came with her family to dinner on Friday night, she told me that I was picturing our situation as if we were misfortunates and objects of pity. She resented that, was convinced it was not true; but she had been born here in Israel, had only spent a few years in the States. This was normal for her; not the actual SCUD attacks and the procedures we follow with each attack - they were new. But the idea of being under attack, of having to defend herself - that was part of the turf for her. Of course she is right. It is just that my background is so very different; I have spent more than half my life abroad, in the bosom of decency and democracy. [Not that I do not feel that I now live in a decent society where democracy prevails; indeed they do, but their geographic limits are so very narrow. Size really makes a difference, not only from the point of view of security, but also psychologically.] I even left the States before the cities became dangerous at night. [Other than SCUDDs, which I hope are temporary, the cities are still quite safe at night here.] I don't feel that I am one of the downtrodden of the world and I do not want to give that impres- sion. It is just that as an American [originally, and it seems ir- revocably] I am always surprised by evil. My initial response is to deny it; to say it is just not there. I need time to regain my equilibrium in the face of Evil. I lived through 2 1/2 wars as an American and this is my fifth here in Israel. I have had enough experience of the world to ought to have learned; but as an American, I fear, there are some things I can never really learn. For Americans the distinction between degrees of bad is a very difficult one to make. One bad is perceived as just as bad as any another bad. That appears to be a consequence of the ultimate optimism of the American. The American can and does still believe in a perfect or perfectable world. [To that extent, I am no longer an American.] It was to the Americans that Santayana spoke when he said that one who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat the same mistakes. When I speak to Americans about Evil they do not understand; they think that bad is the same as Evil. Until they learn - Will they ever? Can they ever? - they will be trapped by this confusion. Bush, some of them tell me [I really do not know], is bad. I say to them, "Maybe or even Yes. But Saddam Hussein is Evil." And they do not understand me. There is a world out here that has different guiding principles. You have to listen; some people are not sportsman and do not play by the rules. Only a few months ago, I was in China. There, a distinguished savant, a member of the Academica Sinica, who has travelled extensively in the West - and is a nice guy, too - told me in deadly seriousness that he knows that the US is preparing to invade mainland China with a force of 10,000,000 soldiers. Does this sound wild to you? This was not a joke; nothing I could say to this Chinese intel- lectual would convince him that there was no basis for this wild belief. He showed me his relaxed attitude to this anticipated disaster; he joked grimly, telling me that China would make good use of the dead American soldiers that would result from such an invasion as fertilizer. Well, Saddam Hussein's claim that this is a war between Israel and Islam with the US and its coalition partners doing the fighting for Israel is just as wild. And Saddam Hussein has succeeded in con- vincing many Moslems, including intellectuals, that he is telling the truth. And some Americans as well, I am afraid to report. My son sent me a newspaper clipping from India where it said, as if everyone knew it as truth, that the US jumped through hoops when- ever Israel called the tune. This is India, not an enemy of the US. This is not cynical lying, not the work of another Goebells, but some- thing much worse. They believe it. Even at the top. I am just enough not an American to see the difference. And the threat. And to fear the death of people in the name of lies. And the picture I see is sad. But I am enough an American and enough an Israeli - and perhaps enough a Jew, as well - to believe that there can be better. Better, yes; not perfection, but better. And better is good. And to see that it is sometimes worth fighting for a life of truth and meaning in a world that will always partially confuse me. Particularly when I think I have achieved a life of truth and meaning and someone is trying to take it away from me. War is bad, but it is sometimes necessary. Discrimination is an out word these days [The out word of my youth was "rationalization".]. I understand the reasons for the disfavor that has fallen on use of this word, but it is still a pity to lose so fine a word. After all, discrimination [as is rationalization] is a higher function of the brain. And it takes discrimination to tell the difference between a bad person and an Evil person. Just as it does to tell the differ- ence between just any war and a necessary and justifiable one, as this one is. So, I apologize to my daughter-in-law. But not to Saddam Hussein. ********************* But I was talking about losing faith in patterns. As I am beginning to now. On Saturday night, after beginning this report, we had another alarm. And at 20:27! Another pattern, ever so tenuous, down the drain. In this case the pattern of attacks on the hour is the victim of fact destroying Werman's feeble efforts at finding patterns. 20:27 - This time, I heard the siren outside, or rather my wife did. I ran to the TV, saw the familiar medallion announcing - in various languages - the alarm. I took my mother and ascended the stairs, where we were joined by my wife in the sealed room. Closing the room, adjusting the tape on the door, placing the wet towel at the foot of the door, donning our masks, turning on the radio, checking my mother's mask - all this is now pretty much routine. No different than brushing your teeth. [How my daughter-in-law will hate that sentence!] And busy with the routine, I have no time for fright or pessimistic thought or even serious worry. Translations in English and Amharic. Later there will also be Russian, French and Yiddish. 20:33 - We learn from the radio that this is a real attack and that all Israel is asked to don masks in sealed rooms. Nahman Shai tells us that we do now have more warning time than previously. I once again attempt to get onto the IRC net through my computer to find out what is happening in other cities but the IRC server in Israel is down. I try to connect up through an IRC server in the States - this will allow me to find out who is on line in other cities in Israel and "talk" to them almost instantaneously - but without success. 20:40 - Instructions about how to handle heating up of the incubators that all three year olds and younger enter during these attacks. If you have a fan in the room, to blow it at the filter of the incuba- tor; if not, to put cold, wet rags on the incubator without cover- ing the filter. Check the infant to see if he/she is pale or having difficulties breathing. If yes, check that the door is properly sealed and - only then - take the infant out for one or two minutes, until he/she seems better and then replace the infant n the incuba- tor. 20:43 - Just as in the last two attacks, all of Israel is released from masks and sealed rooms except for Shomron [Samaria], in the occupied territories. 20:45 - We are told that the was a single missile fired from Western Iraq and that it had fallen in the region where people were still in masks and sealed rooms. 20:57 - The southern half of that region is also released. 20:59 - We hear that there are no known casualties or damage to property. 21:03 - An all clear announcement is given on the radio; we are told that the all clear siren will not be blown. Why? Could it be that too many people mistake it for another attack? *********************** I am tired and subjects I wanted to write about will have to wait until tommorrow. If nothing happens to push them further away. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Unicode 1.0 Date: Tue, 05 Feb 91 10:56:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 976 (2436) I recently requested a copy of the draft spec of Unicode 1.0 character encoding. Although not able to give it all the time I'd have liked, my brief look does raise a number of comments. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to plug my comments into the general discussion (via TEI, HUMANIST and the UNICODE team themselves:microsoft!asmusf@uunet.uu.net). (a) There are a number of significant typos; is anyone keeping a master record of these? (b) Robin Cover <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> has raised the question why there are not separate encodings for Hebrew SIN and SHIN. They are certainly at least as distinct as, say, LATIN E followed by ACUTE and LATIN E ACUTE. I take it that the reason the latter case has two encodings is because of previous ISO encodings; but since those are in any case ASCII encodings (and Unicode is intended as a replacement for ASCII) how relevant is that? The question also raises a more fundamental problem in my mind. There are a number of situations where a glyph (or conglomerate of glyphs) can reasonably be encoded in alternative ways; HYPHEN (U+2010=U+002d) would be a case in point. We are told that some of these redundancies are there so that natural pairing can be used "if desired" (page 6). However, these coded pairs are not consistently undertaken (eg CAPITAL DOTTED I). But what worries me is that two encodings of an identical text may thus turn out to be very different; and for anyone using computer comparison of texts this could be quite problematic. So over against those who complained that, eg, separate codings for GREEK ALPHA+GRAVE are not available I would voice the opposite disquiet: the encodings are too comprehensive. If ALL accentuation was added as a separate code I think comparison of texts would be easier. The ordering of the accents would then of course be important, and I don't think the algorithm given (centre-out) is terribly helpful; which is nearest the cente in GREEK ROUGH BREATHING+ACUTE+IOTA SUBSCRIPT? Wouldn't an additional algorithm (clockwise starting at twelve o'clock) be useful? (c) While we're on Greek, I couldn't find a Greek semicolon (raised dot). Maybe I just didn't look hard enough, but full punctuation would be useful. But see my comment (e) below. I also failed to locate LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN. (d) In general I approve of the policy that by adding the special Coptic forms to the Greek alphabet one can generate Coptic text, with hard copy generated by choosing an appropriate font. (And mutatis mutandis for other languages.) However, there are some drawbacks to this policy; I foresee the following problems: (i) It may be necessary to indicate to someone (if only the compositor) where to change font. Could a coding for change-of-language be incorporated? (ii) In some Greek texts it may be important to indicate where ligatures are used; there seems no way in this encoding to distinguish between GREEK KAPPA + GREEK ALPHA + GREEK IOTA on the one hand and the ligature which stood for "kai" on the other. I am sometimes in the position of needing to say (as indeed the authors of the manual were) something like "There are three possible form of LATIN SMALL LETTER G CEDILLA (U+0123) and they look like ..." How could I encode my ellipsis? Could the whole of the manual as printed be sensibly encoded in Unicode? Oddly, there are some forms which are exclusively graphic variants (ie one would not find them together in a "natural" text) which do attract separate codings; GREEK SMALL LETTER SCRIPT THETA for instance. Perhaps consistency is unattainable, but to me it is a desideratum. (e) The encoding of special numerals seemed odd. AS well as a select group of fractions (thirds, quarters and eighths, I think) there is the top half of fractional 1/nnn (U+215f). How is its use envisaged? Wouldn't a generalised "fractional line" be better (let's call it U+nnnn) so that <number string1>nnnn<number string2> is to be interpreted as a fraction? Similarly, Roman 12 (XII) is encoded as U+216b, but 13 (XIII) must be (presumably) U+2169 2162. Why not a single code for "roman numbers follow here:" (or just use ROMAN CAPITAL LETTER X &c)? If codes for general *modes* like "Greek font"; "roman numeral", "fraction" were included, then many ambiguities and problems could be reduced. My Greek semicolon, for instance, could be "GREEK FONT + ;" This contribution could be better thought-out, but it was this or nothing. If the latter seems preferable; please discard! Sincerely, Douglas de Lacey. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Student Session at ACL Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 16:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2108 (2437) CALL FOR PAPERS Student Session at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics 18-21 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, California USA PURPOSE: The goal of this session is to provide a forum in which graduate student members can present WORK IN PROGRESS and receive feedback from other members of the computational linguistics community, particularly senior researchers. The session(s) will be workshop-style, consisting of short paper presentations and discussion. Note that having a student session for the presentation of ongoing work in NO way influences the treatment of student-written papers submitted to the main conference. Rather, the student session will provide an entirely separate track emphasizing students' work in progress rather than completed work. REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe original, unpublished work in progress that demonstrates INSIGHT, CREATIVITY, and PROMISE. Topics of interest are the same as for the main conference. Authors must have ACL Student Membership at the time of the conference. For membership information contact Don Walker at the address below. Because of differences in FOCUS (complete results vs. work in progress) and SUBMISSION FORMAT, papers submitted to the main conference can not be considered for the student session. Students may of course submit papers to both. FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Authors should submit four copies of an extended abstract 2 pages long (including title, authors, references, etc). Chosen abstracts will be printed in the conference proceedings directly from the submissions. Submissions therefore should be final camera-ready copy (preferably laser-printer output), laid out in the conventional double-column conference format. In addition, a SEPARATE ``topic area'' page should include the title, name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses (including e-mail), and one or two keywords indicating the topic area. Send to: Bonnie Webber (ACL Student Session) University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science 200 South 33rd Street Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389, USA (+1-215) 898-7745 bonnie@central.cis.upenn.edu SCHEDULE: Submissions are due by 1 MARCH 1991; authors will be notified of acceptance by 15 APRIL 1991. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Sandra Carberry (Delaware), Mark Liberman (Pennsylvania), Terry Nutter (Virginia Tech), Bill Rapaport (SUNY Buffalo), Tomek Strzalkowski (NYU), Bonnie Webber (Pennsylvania), Kent Wittenberg (Bellcore and MCC), and the members of the student session committee. STUDENT SESSION COMMITTEE: Dania Egedi (Duke), Jong-Gyun Lim (Columbia), Susan McRoy (Toronto), Philip Resnik (Pennsylvania), Jeff Siskind (MIT), David Traum (Rochester), Barbara Vauthey (NYU and Fribourg). CONFERENCE INFORMATION: For registration forms and other information on the conference and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; (+1-201)829-4312; walker@flash.bellcore.com. From: "3rd ESS in LLI" <ESS@coli.uni-sb.de> Subject: summerschool announcement Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 16:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2109 (2438) The Third European Summer School in Language, Logic and Information Universitaet des Saarlandes Saarbruecken August 12-23, 1991 I. General Information The Third European Summer School in Language, Logic and Information will be held at the Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, from August 12 to 23. The school is organised by the European Foundation for Logic, Language and Information. Financial support has been granted by the Commission of the European Communities in the framework of the ERASMUS Programme.Additional financial assistance will be obtained through the University of Saarbruecken and several national organisations and industrial sponsors.A meeting of the European Foundation for Logic, Language and Information will be held in conjunction with the Summer School. The first two Summer Schools took place at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1989 and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in1990. Both events were very successful. The main focus of the Summer School is the interface between linguistics, logic and computation, where this interface is the result of research into the logical, computational and cognitive foundations of natural language. This year's courses are divided into four areas: Computational Linguistics, Linguistics and Cognition, Logic and Computation, and Semantics. They cover a variety of topics from fields of study such as theoretical and computational linguistics, logic and philosophy of language. The School will contain three closely related but distinct components. First, there is a fully integrated program of taught courses, at both introductory and advanced levels. Introductory courses are designed to familiarise students with new fields and do not presuppose any background knowledge, while advanced courses are designed to allow students, staff and researchers to acquire more specialised expertise in areas they are already familiar with. Second, there is a series of workshops which provide a forum for in-depth discussion of topics which are at the forefront of current research. And third, there will be a series of invited lectures by well-known experts in the field. A list of the courses and workshops offered can be found in the enclosed program. II. Registration III. Programme survey INTRODUCTORY COURSES [...] ADVANCED COURSES [...] WORKSHOPS [...] REGISTRATION FORM [...] For further details please contact Hans Uszkoreit / Maike Paritong E-mail: ess@coli.uni-sb.de Telefax: +49(681) 302-4351 Phone: +49(681) 302-3714/4115 -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. LLI3 SSCHOOL. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET LLI3 SSCHOOL HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: BERN@ducvax.auburn.edu Subject: position announcement Date: Sat, 26 Jan 1991 12:50 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2110 (2439) [Taken from Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 0028. Saturday, 02 Feb 1991.] Assistant or associate professor in ESL, tenure track appointment to begin September 1991. Primary duties involve developing, directing, and teaching (both service and graduate TESL courses) in the ESL program. Ph.D. in appropriate area required. Salary competitive. Send letter of application and vita by March 7, 1991 to Dennis Rygiel, Head, ent of English, Auburn University, Alabama 36849. Applications from women and minority group members are especially encouraged. Auburn is an AA/EO employer. From: waya%llsun3.essex.ac.uk@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Way A) Subject: Job Offer Date: 28 Jan 91 16:26:59 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2111 (2440) University of Essex Computational Linguisitics RESEARCH OFFICER (RA1A/B) We are looking for a further research officer to join the Machine Translation/Natural Language Processing Group in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex. There are currently 6 members of the group working on Machine Translation, applied lexicography and terminology (sublangauge analysis) and fundamental issues in semantic representation for natural language in the context of MT. There are also a number of doctoral students working on related topics, as well as temproary visotrs from other European research groups involved in similar work. Ideally, we are loking for someone to participate both in our R and D work within the continuation programme for Eurotra and our research work on semantics (and MT). We are particularly keen to recruit someone with both a solid background in Formal Semantics and a knowledge of Spanish, Dutch or German. However we are interested in hearing from interested individuals offering a background in linguistics, computational linguistics, computer science or lexicography - knowledge of any EEC language in addition to English would be useful. Appointment initially until October 1991 with excellent prospects for renewal until at least December 1992, on the RA1B/RA1A scale, as appropriate given age/experience. CVs and enquiries electronically or by post to either: Doug Arnold or Louisa Sadler Department of Language and Linguistics University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, Essex, UK. doug@uk.ac.essex louisa@uk.ac.essex From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: E-mail addresses in Italy Date: Sun, 03 Feb 91 23:24:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2112 (2441) A friend asks me to post this query on Humanist. Please reply to KonradE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca. Thanks! Germaine. ----------- Does anyone have e-mail addresses for the Villa I Tatti (the Harvard Univ. Center in Florence) or for the Villa Spelman (the Johns Hopkins Univ. Center in Florence)? Does the Syracuse University Program in Florence have an e-mail address? Does anyone have an e-mail address in Florence? Thank you for any information on any of the above. Konrad Eisenbichler CRRS, Toronto <KonradE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> From: MTRILEY@CALSTATE (Mark Timothy Riley) Subject: query: MLS Date: Mon, 04 Feb 91 09:28:54 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2113 (2442) Can anyone please send me the address and phone # of Gamma Productions, the distributor of MLS, the multi-lingual word processor for DOS systems. I had a demo of the program but seem to have lost it. Thanks. (repley to MTRiley@CalState.bitnet) MtRiley From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: address query Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 15:10 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2114 (2443) Anyone have an email address for Calvin Normore? (currently a visiting prof. in philosophy at Columbus Ohio ... I can't remember which university.) Graham White American University in Cairo. From: <MARSH@LEMOYNE> Subject: RE: 4.0973 Qs: ... Outlining... Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 13:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2115 (2444) On outlining: I use PC-Outline, which comes bundled with WORDSTAR, but which can be purchased from Brown Bag software. New version was promised about a year ago but I don't know if it's out. I find it is really easy to use. Most of the commands are the same as WORDSTAR and there is an export/import pull-down menu that targets WORDSTAR compatability specifically. All menus are pull-down and documentation is thorough. Of special interest to me is the capability to support 7 windows at once. I outline, then put my outline in a window, then open another window and use the word-processing capability. I compose in that window while scrolling my outline at the top half of the screen. Windows are moveable and able to be sized as you please. Leonard Marsh From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca> Subject: Outline program Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 01:00:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2116 (2445) For Timothy Reuter: There is a brace of programs in the SIMTEL20 archives which may meet your needs. (An "outline" program compatible with WordPerf....). There is "PC Outline v. 3.30", described as a "good outline program" (= PCO330.ARC in the TXTUTL subdirectory). Its partner is PCOWP20.ARC which converts PC Outline files to WordPerfect 5.x. These are shareware; I have not used them, nor have I seen them. I happened to spot them in the SIMTEL filelist.... Hope this helps. David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca From: RANDALL N - ENGLISH <nrandall@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Outlining... Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 9:28:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2117 (2446) To Timothy Reuter: I've worked with ThinkTank, Grandview, and the outliners in WordPerfect 5.1 and Word 5.0. The best is clearly Grandview, but make sure you get version 2.0 for maximum compatibility with word processing software (ThinkTank is really old Grandview). There are other outliners out there, including a decent cheap one that comes with Better Working Eight in One, and a bunch that are part of personal information packages like Arriba. Grandview is also a mini project manager, so it's a good package all around. The Word outliner is far superior to that in WordPerfect, mainly because it is NOT a separate program. In Word 5.0 or Word for Windows, you simply switch from the outline view to the document view (page view in the Windows version) and keep on truckin'. If you have Word, try its outliner before bothering with a separate outlining package. Word- Perfect's is also fine to work with, but it's a separate function and is limited in its ability to promote and demote headings and sections. [...] Neil Randall nrandall@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca From: Henning M|rk <slavhenn@aau.dk> Subject: Slavic OCR Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 21:09:47 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2118 (2447) There have recently been a couple of queries about OCR software for reading Slavic languages (Cyrillic; Czeck, Croat, or Slovene). /W.Mark Ritchie, Univ. - June Thompson, Univ. of Hull/ I should like to write a few word about my experiences in this field. For the last year I have been creating Slavic text bases - primarily Serbo-Croatian (Latin) and Russian (Cyrillic) - using a program which I can warmly recommend because of its strong abilities to learn sets of special characters, e.g. Cyrillic and East European letters with diacritic marks. Under favourable circumstances (nicely printed books, good paper) the program can reach a recognition accuracy of 99.9%, and its speed is reasonable: 1-2 minutes per page (depending on page size). The program is called AutoREAD and comes in versions for both IBM and MacIntosh. It is French and can be purchased from: ISTC - Systemes informatiques 3 rue Sainte Felicite 75015 Paris Tel. (1) 45 32 80 01 Telex 201 297F FAX (1) 45 32 96 14 Henning Moerk Slavisk Institut Aarhus Universitet Danmark slavhenn@aau.dk From: RANDALL N - ENGLISH <nrandall@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: ... Word-WP Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 9:28:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2119 (2448) [...] To Jonathan Kandall: About saving Mac Word files as 5.25" WordPerfect files for DOS. A couple ways, depending on your hardware (actually, there are more, but they cost money). If your Mac has a superdrive, and if you're using the latest Word, you can save the Word file as a WordPerfect file right onto an MS-DOS formatted disk (the superdrive lets you format disks in DOS fashion). Then find a 3.5" DOS drive and copy the file onto a 5.25" disk. Then load WordPerfect 5.0 and retrieve the file. Formatting should be pretty good, but it's best if you don't format extensively in Word to begin with. The other way is to upload the Mac file as an Ascii (or binary) file to the mainframe, then download it onto the PC. I do this a lot, and as long as you can dial into the mainframe (i.e. you don't get a busy signal all the time), it can be a relatively happy experience. Neil Randall nrandall@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: 4.0973 Qs: [file xfer]... (5/98) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 08:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2120 (2449) This is in reply to the question about transferring/translating MSWord and Word Prefect documents between Macs and PCs. The program MacLink has built- in translators so that one may directly link a PC and a Mac and then pass files back and forth through a filter which will accomplish the translations. I've not used it for Word Perfect, but both DOS and Mac versions of it are supported as are Mac and Dos versions of MSWord. Nick Eiteljorg Center for the Study of Architecture (n_eiteljorg@brynmawr) Czech; From: eugene cotter <FCOTTER@SETONVM> Subject: Re: 4.0735 Qs: IBYCUS/TLL; TGB; Wuthering Heights etext (3/57) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 91 10:34:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2121 (2450) Belated information! Just noticed you inquiry on Ibycus. Packard Institute Chicago has all the information. E Cotter Seton Hall 201 761 9137 From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.0957 Queries: MLA Bibliography; Student Choices (2/51) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 13:35:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2122 (2451) The references are to an annual study, done by Alexander Austin, of freshman opinion, and reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (q.v.). Stephen D. Spangehl +---------------+ University of Louisville | SDSPAN01 @ | Louisville, Kentucky 40292 | ULKYVM.BITNET | (502) 588-7289 or (502) 245-0319 +---------------+ From: Bill Sjostrom Subject: UCLA education surveys Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 19:27 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2123 (2452) The question was raised by Norman Coombs about the survey of freshmen by the UCLA group. I have not seen that survey, but the same group did a survey of faculty at Northern Illinois University, where I work. Faculty who declined to fill it out got threatening letters from the provost. I sent it in, with a note to the effect that I thought the survey was absolutely awful, and thoroughly bigoted. How can a survey be bigoted? Easy. It's multiple choice, and they only put down answers they want to hear, along the lines of, say, Do you think the provost has improved the university significantly, to some extent, a small amount, or no opinion? Would you care to guess whether the administration holds up the answer to that question as evidence of how highly the faculty think of the provost? How do you answer it if you hate the guy? The survey had many questions in that vein, so I am skeptical of what comes out of UCLA's education surveys. If anyone is interested, I can probably find a copy of the survey. Bill Sjostrom Northern Illinois University TA0WXS1@NIU From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: The Languages of Humanist Date: Mon, 04 Feb 91 19:34:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2124 (2453) Having just come on duty for my stint as Humanist editor, I thought I might make sure that Elaine's description of the Humanist policy on language doesn't get lost in the discussion. We have _never_ treated a Humanist contribution differently because it was in a language other than English. Our policy on language is inherited from Willard McCarty, Humanist's founding Editor... The lingua franca of discussion is English; although contributions in other languages are welcome, they are unlikely to be understood by a majority of the members. -- The Humanist Guidebook We understand the first and third clauses to be merely descriptive, but the middle one we take to be normative. -- Allen From: A_ARISTAR@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU (Anthony Aristar) Subject: RE: 4.0964 Le Francais on Humanist (3/62) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 1991 12:33:01 GMT+0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2125 (2454) I'm sorry that Humanist became embroiled in a controversy which was not of its own making. The message which relegated the French version of the ICL '92 to a listserv had its origin on Linguist, the mailing list which I edit, and the decision to so relegate it was mine. I did this not out of contempt for French, but simply as a matter of sheer practicality. Linguist has its home on a Unix machine, with a very slow, inefficient mailer. To have sent out the whole ICL program, in both languages, would have entailed sending a posting of a much larger size than the bulk mailer we use is comfortable with. Since the vast majority of our subscribers are English-speaking, we sent out the English version, and posted the French version to the listserv. At the risk of offending French-speakers, I should further add that I do not believe it to be good policy to post multiple versions of the same message in different languages. We, on Linguist, will post messages in any language which even a minority of our members understand. But duplication of postings in multiple languages is a practise which is likely to alienate as many people as it placates. Anthony Aristar Moderator, Linguist From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: French on Humanist Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 17:18:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2126 (2455) Good for Andrew Oliver! Though I am not French-speaking and cannot write that beautiful language, I am French-reading, and am prepared to defend (in my own beautiful language!) the role of French on Humanist. Actually, since I joined about a year ago I've been delighted to see messages in French on Humanist and hope they keep coming (despite the howl of rage from Saskatchewan a while ago about the problem of accents). So far we're still a bi-lingual nation up here, so take heed all you Yanks, and get out your dictionaries (or power them up, I guess). All right, all right -- in answer to the inevitable question about where I got my name, my mother read it in a book. A bientot - Germaine. From: Christian Boissonnas <CBY@CORNELLC> Subject: Re: 4.0964 Le Francais on Humanist (3/62) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 21:13:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2127 (2456) In reply to Andrew Oliver's vituperation about French on HUMANIST. Que vous etes sensible, Monsieur Oliver! Je suis Francais, a part entiere, et je ne me sens pas brime. Je me sens plutot gene que quelqu'un, avec qui j'ai a priori des points communs certains, embarasse the monde francais en condamnant si violemment un presume mefait sans en connaitre tous les elements. Elaine and Allen, on behalf of the rest of the French-speaking world, I apologize for the unseemly outburst of a man whom, I can assure you, does not speak for me. Your gracious apology was not necessary, and your explanation most welcome. Christian M. Boissonnas From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Le francais on HUMANIST Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 21:09:03 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2128 (2457) The choice of language of discourse in an international discussion group, c'est encore plus problematique, since we may expect so many of our colleagues to read, write and (and/or?) speak one or more languages in addition to their native one(s). C'est du deja vu all over again, but the dismay any slights may cause others justifies the reconsideration. Unfortunately, the center of our multilingual Venn diagram does not permit the wide range of language choice that we all would like. Should we write in franglais? deutschlish? ivran~ol? (Ladino speakers are favored here.) I recently posted a message about translation software to a list begun by francophone colleagues. I posted the message in French even though, when I checked the membership list, the majority of recipients appeared to reside collectively in strongly anglophone countries. Since the announcements of said list were usually begun in French and sometimes (perhaps always as of late) repeated in English, I tentatively assumed that everyone, or almost everyone, read French. One colleague wrote back privately asking me for the English translation of what I'd posted, which I happily provided. She had recognized enough of the French to know that it contained items of interest to her, but items which remained fuzzy. Although we HUMANIST correspondents cannot translate each and every posting for every language requested, perhaps we could sound out colleagues to form an informal translation service which seriously interested HUMANISTs could call on, if only for a key sentence or paragraph translation. Cordially, Joel D. Goldfield Fellow in Foreign Languages Inst. for Academic Tech., UNC-Chapel Hill, Associate Professor of French Plymouth State College (NH, USA) From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: Le Francais on Humanist Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 17:14:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2129 (2458) I am not very sympathetic to the argument that French should be used because historically the forum originated in a country that is officially bilingual. Pushing the issue a little further, one could argue that its present location demands Spanish as the other language. But E-Mail is international, and we surely have a few participants from other "major" languages who would be happy to see the use of their language on this forum. On the other hand, I agree that an announcement presented bilingually to the editors should be published in that format. To my knowledge, there is no universal language (nothwithstanding the claims of Esperanto), and if one desires an exchange, some common bases have to be established, language among them. While the bilingual person may be able to participate in a discussion by answering in a different language, the answer may very well be lost on those who do not understand that latter language. I am trying to imagine the value of the contributions on Metaphor and War from Italy and Finland, had they been written in the language of those countries. Si j'avais ecrit cette reponse en francais, combien de lecteurs l'auraient comprise, puisque l'anglais est un donne pour ce reseau-ci? MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU or MKessler.HUM@MAILGATE.SFSU.EDU From: <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: LE FRANCAIS Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 23:54 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2130 (2459) MOI, JE SUIS ANGLOPHONE DE NAISSANCE, FRANCOPHONE DE L'EXPERIENCE D'AVOIR VECU EN SUISSE SEPT ANS. J'AIME BIEN RECEVOIR DES ANNONCES EN FRANCAIS. I SEE NO REASON WHATEVER WHY HUMANIST CANNOT BE POLYGLOT. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF US WHO ARE LITERATE IN TWO OR EVEN MORE LANGUAGES. WHY CONFINE US TO ONE? AQUI EN SAN ANTONIO, NOS GUSTA HABLAR TAMBIEN ESPANOL, O AL MENOS TEX-MEX. OF ALL PLACES, IT WOULD SEEM TO ME THAT HUMANIST SHOULD BE POLYGLOT. LATINE LOQUAMUR! CHARLIE MILLER From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Date: 1 February 91, 10:35:41 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2131 (2460) Subject : Ethnocentrism stoke again Once for all non-US citizen should realize that for US citizen the non-US part of the world is something they just don't understand (when they realize there's one ...). Thus the withdraw of the french version of the Montreal conference, thus the so-called exotic language in a very recent note (exotic to whom ?), thus the use of typically US jokes and acronyms no one else understand, etc. So non-US member of that list should either unsuscribe or wait with some patience for the 1 to 1000 interesting note. Marc Eisinger, Paris (the french one). From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0964 Le Francais on Humanist (3/62) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 08:30:04 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2132 (2461) Andrew Oliver is being overly-sensitive; I sincerely hope the editors are not unduly influenced by his criticism. When I see a note posted in French I gird my loins and plow through it, creaking with rust as I go. I can handle German, too. When the rare message comes across in another language I goad myself that I've not learned that particular language. As a humanist, I feel learning other languages is a duty. I would hope that at least the members of this electronic community would be able to transcend the provincialism of petty nationalism and can leave behind the nineteenth century. Were we to oblige Oliver, we would seeing notices posted in every human tongue, so as not to offend any national group. Here's hoping we can yet see beyond the boundaries of tongue and tribe. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: French on Humanist Date: Sat, 02 Feb 91 09:15:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2133 (2462) I agree with Andrew Oliver that we see too little french on the networks but beyond regretting the fact I frankly don't see what we can do about it. The only way for french to increase its visibility and use is by setting up inter- national lists or groups anchored in a francophone area or institution (such a list will soon start operating out of Montreal, by the way, in the form of an electronic journal -- although it will be bilingual rather than strictly french). Another way to increase the attraction of french postings would be to get more French, Belgian or Swiss to contribute ideas to humanistic debates on such lists as HUMANIST. The only problem is that computer resources in Europe are a virtual monopoly of scientists (those toys are expensive and rare) I know of very few french humanists that even have minimal access to computers and those who do rarely use e-mail for other than technical purposes: they much prefer discussing things "de vive voix". Which may be a consequence of our different geographies: it's easy to meet people when you're in Paris. Not so in North America. So, that leaves us, the north american francophones, a very small bunch indeed! It seems to me that communicating in english with anglophone colleagues gives us a real advantage over both unilingualfrench- and english-speaking partners and increases tremendously the scope of our information gathering process. This is, obviously, the optimist version of our situation...I'd be curious to know what the interest would be for a mostly french list of more or less the same type as HUMANIST??? From: Terrell Ward Bynum, Director, Research Center on Subject: 4.0952 On War --"jes folks" Date: Sat, 2 Feb 91 16:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 983 (2463) Computing & Society <BYNUM@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Subj: 4.0952 On War -- "jes folks" I've read with interest the comments about humanists and war, because my "President's Message" in the most recent issue of *AAPT News* (the newsletter of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers) struggles with the question "What can philosophy teachers do, if anything, about war?" In case some HUMANISTS out there are interested in the (very limited) results of the struggle, I attach a copy: "From the President," AAPT News, February 1991 As I write this message, war is raging in the Persian Gulf. Armies are killing each other, and innocent civilians are victims as well. The worst oil spill in history has been intentionally inflicted upon innumerable animals and plants. More acts of apparent madness and desperation will likely follow! In terrible times like these, one wonders what we, AS PHILOSOPHY TEACHERS, can do. As private citizens, of course, we can write or telephone our political leaders to express our views and feelings, we can participate in public meetings and demonstrations, we can volunteer for military duty or for the Red Cross, or whatever. But what does OUR CALLING--PHILOSOPHY TEACHING--have to offer in such tragic times? Are we simply helpless witnesses to disaster? In one sense, we are. For after the madness of war has begun, no philosophy or philosopher can simply rush in and put an end to it. Nevertheless, I do believe that philosophy has some positive things to offer humankind in efforts to avoid war in the first place, as well as efforts to cope with war's awful consequences when peacekeeping fails. The term "philosophy" means "love of wisdom"; and at its very best philosophy offers insight into "justice," "compassion," "rationality," "love," as well as "greed," "power," "prejudice," and "misunderstanding." If this is so, then teaching philosophy successfully can help our students, ourselves and our society gain perspective and insight into some of the causes and consequences of war. On a less abstract or "more nitty-gritty" level, teaching courses in the several branches of applied ethics can provide helpful knowledge and skills for people trying to cope with war. For example, a background in medical ethics can aid a battlefield doctor or army medic in making agonizing decisions of justice and triage--in deciding which soldiers to treat first and how to parcel out dwindling medical supplies. In the heat of battle, such decisions must get made quickly; there is no time to ponder and wonder, or to refine one's ethical intuitions and judgment. Such pondering should have been done in a medical ethics program when the doctor or medic was in training. Computer ethics courses raise a number of practical questions regarding the use of computerized weapons. For example, on the one hand "smart" weapons can make war more deadly by delivering bombs more accurately. On the other hand, if such accuracy is used to minimize civilian deaths, the war could be less disastrous for innocent bystanders. Does this make the war "more just"? Does the danger of computer malfunctions, or of enemy- implanted computer viruses, make the use of computerized weaponry irresponsible or reckless? Environmental ethics certainly raises some important questions about war. The first, and often most devastated, victims of war are the animals and plants on and near the battlefield. Can there be a "just war" that causes untold suffering and death to billions of animals and plants--that lays waste to an entire ecosystem? (What, for example, is to become of the Persian Gulf now that HALF A BILLION GALLONS OF OIL have been spilled into it?) Does the development of new weapons systems and the stockpiling of such weapons require or justify irreparable damage to the earth? Business ethics also raises some relevant questions. Are some wars caused by bad economic policies? Is the Persian Gulf War, for example, really about "blood for oil"? Do self-serving business practices cause wars-- or make them more likely? Would you sell a powerful computer or poison-gas chemicals to Saddam Hussein? As the above examples illustrate, I believe (naively?) that it is possible for philosophy--and therefore the teaching of philosophy--to be a positive force for peace in the world, and to provide practical tools for coping with the terrible consequences of war. I like to think (Is it WISHFUL thinking?) that philosophically enlightened world leaders would be less likely to go to war and more likely to limit wars when they do occur. All of this presupposes, of course, a conception of philosophy as AN OPEN-MINDED AND RATIONAL SEARCH FOR TRUTH AND THE GOOD LIFE. If instead one means by the term "philosophy" some close-minded dogma or theology, then that so-called "philosophy" is more likely to cause war than prevent it! From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Politics of a Core Curriculum. Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 17:34 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 984 (2464) This is a subject which has been on my mind for a while, & which is connected with the debate on eurocentricity. At the American University in Cairo, we (? one? the administrators?) are in the process of installing a Core Curriculum. This is to meet a perceived need that the students have not enough "general education" to be able to read academic literature successfully. So there is to be a Core, with components in the humanities & the sciences. The humanities part of it looks very like a Western Civilisation course + a few token Arabic books. Some questions: firstly, the perceived need is probably quite real, coming from the fact that Egypt is not a very literate society (even if people are technically literate, they do not tend to possess or read books. Many of our students first read a book -- in English or Arabic -- at the age of 19, when our English program forces them to.) And the indigenous high school educational system is under- capitalised, with enormous class sizes, teachers without much training, a lot of rote learning, etc. One can describe all this in "objective" terms, without trying to import ideological or cultural biases. But diagnosing it as a "lack of general education" seems to me to be inappropriate. But how does one describe it better? Secondly, what is the political effect of such like core or Western civ. courses? Coming from Britain, where we don't have such things, it all seems a bit strange. It inherently seems to deal in terms of a Great Tradition, even if you put a few token Arabic works on it, & thus it seems to maintain the cultural hegemony of the West. And it seems to me that a lot of debate about Black Athena is about the attempt to set up an alternative Great Tradition. But can you get away without talking of a Great Tradition at all? (Incidentally, the Arabs also make this move, of setting up a Great Tradition of their own -- their high school text books, it seems, all talk of the Middle Ages as a golden age of Islamic culture, & also insist that then the West was stuck in the "Dark Ages". Western medievalists have more or less given up using the term Dark Ages, because of its inaccurate value-laden connotations, but it is very difficult to make that point here.) Thirdly, what is one to do in my subject, philosophy? You can go two ways here, you can either teach philosophy as a Great Tradition or as mental skills of some sort. Seems to me that the latter is probably not so ideologically suspect, for the obvious reasons. But am I right? There must be a discussion in the literature about some of these things, but it may not be easy to find for us here in Cairo (particularly journal articles). What's the current state of play? Graham White American University in Cairo. GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: New list: SUEARN-L Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 08:20:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 985 (2465) SUEARN-L on LISTSERV@UBVM (aka LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU) The SUEARN-L consists of news items, articles, and how-to questions about the ongoing work on connecting the U.S.S.R. to international computer networks (the internet) contributed by its readers, cross-posted from other mailing lists, and retyped (usually without permission) from the "real" press. Topics often discussed include directions on reaching Soviet sites by e-mail, discussions of how modems and other equipment work over Soviet phone lines, technology export restrictions, and prospects for connecting more sites to the net. Submissions for the digest should be mailed to SUEARN-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU. They will be automatically forwarded by the LISTSERV to the editor, who puts together the digest and mails one out every week or so. Questions of the type "Is Soviet site S reachable by e-mail?" may be answered by private e-mail if the editor knows the answer. The digest is distributed by a LISTSERV mailing list. As with other such lists, one subscribes by sending a NJE interactive message or mail saying in its body SUB SUEARN-L Your name to LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (or any other LISTSERV). If you try this and fail, ask one of the list owners to help you with your subscription. Many sites channel SUEARN-L digests into NOTES, NEWS, RN, or similar systems that let many users read a single copy of the digest. If you're at such a site, you can save some network bandwidth by reading such a "public" copy, instead of having your personal copy e-mailed to you. List Editor/Owner: Mike Meystel MEYSTMA@DUVM.BITNET List Owner: Dimitri Vulis DLV@CUNYVMS1.BITNET Additional Information: Like most good things on Internet, SUEARN-L free, unless you use a commercial e-mail system, gatewayed to Internet, that charges you for incoming mail. The digest is sent out about once a week, and is typically several hundred lines long. Please note that the Baltic states aren't considered to be part of USSR by the editors of this digest, and the discussion of e-mail connection to these countires should be sent to BALT-L, not to SUEARN-L; but the discussion of computer network situation in Eastern and Central Europe as a whole (including, but not limited to the USSR) have been posted in the past. HISTORY: SUEARN-L was split off RusTeX-L in the summer of 1990. (RusTeX-L dealt originally with both quietions of Cyrillic (Russian and other) text processing and Soviet e-mail (the people interested in one are usually interested in the other)). By that time, RusTeX-L traffic dealing with e-mail increased sufficiently to annoy those RusTeX-L readers not interested in the technical aspects of exchanging e-mail with the USSR, so SUEARN-L was born (leaving RusTeX-L for Cyrillic text processing discussions only), and reached its present form (a moderated weekly digest) after months of trial and error. From: CISI - UNIV. Torino 8123633/235 U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: Date: 5 February 91, 10:43:37 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2134 (2466) subject: statistics of classical greek Does anyone know if classical greek was already studied by the point of view of letters frequency, lexicon growth in function of text size, assessment of Zipf law, and matters like that? I'm interested in this matter because I'm doing statistical studies about Xenophon and Thucydides. Thank you to anyone will help. Maurizio Lana From: JULIEN@sask.usask.ca Subject: question on literary computing Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 22:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2135 (2467) Cette petite note se veut a la fois une echange d'information et la solliciation de conseils. Je serai en sabbatique l'an prochainm au Quebec d'abord puis en France. J'ai l'intention de travailler sur un roman de l'ecrivain quebecois Albert Laberge. Je m'interesse a une lecture psychanalytique du texte et aussi a la parente qu'il presente avec l'oeuvre de Maupassant. J'ai fait un essai d'analyse assistee par ordinateur su un petit corpus d'une trentaine de chansons populaires en me servant de SATO, developpe par l'UQAM. Je suis tente d'appliquer une intervention semblable sur le texte de Laberge. Mes questions: dois-je resister a cette tentation? Je suis seduit par les resultats obtenus par Etienne Brunet. Toutefois, je suis illetre en statistiques et je ne suis pas trop chaud pour m'y plonger. Enfin, y a-t-il quelqu'un qui ait fait quelque chose dans ce sens sur Maupassant? Merci d'avance. On pourra me repondre directement a JULIEN@usask.sask.ca From: CISI - UNIV. Torino 8123633/235 U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: OFFLOAD.COM and PHI-CCAT cdrom Date: 5 February 91, 11:57:29 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2136 (2468) I have a problem. I received -some years ago- along with PHI-CCAT cdrom, some software. The program to download texts from cdrom-tlg format to disk-explicit format has a *severe* bug: it truncates the lest work downloaded (or *the* work downloaded if you have only one work from the author you are interested in). Does anyone know how to solve that problem? Thank you to anyone will help. Please, could you answer directly to me? Maurizio Lana From: CISI - UNIV. Torino 8123633/235 U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: starting an e-mail system with UNIX Date: 5 February 91, 10:38:24 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2137 (2469) Here at CISI we have some problems to continue our e-mail with the IBM 4341 mai nframe running VM. We are looking for others ways to do e-mail, and UNIX seems to be interesting. So, some questions: wich machine could fit our needs? (we could probably use an IBM 6150) wich software do we need? is it possible to use the existing links to remote terminals by coax cords? (do coverters from coax to serial exist?). Thank you to anyone will help. Maurizio Lana From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Conference (ICEBOL5) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 91 13:07:54 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2138 (2470) I C E B O L 5 Fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing Dakota State University April 18-19, 1991 Madison, SD 57042 KEYNOTE SPEAKER Nancy M. Ide Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Vassar College. Author of _Pascal for the Humanities_ and articles on William Blake, artificial intelligence, and programming for the analysis of texts. FEATURED SPEAKER Ralph Griswold One of the creators of the Icon programming language and SNOBOL4. He is the editor of two newsletters, and the author of six books and dozens of articles on computer languages and string and list processing. He is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Arizona. ICEBOL5, the fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, is designed for teachers, scholars, and programmers who want to meet to exchange ideas about computer programming for non-numeric applications -- especially those in the humanities. In addition to a focus on SNOBOL4, SPITBOL, and Icon, ICEBOL5 will feature presentations on processing in a variety of programming languages such as Pascal, Prolog, C, and REXX. SCHEDULED TOPICS Music Score Recognition Automatic File Generation Predicate Logic Parallel Logic Programming Tools for Navajo Lexicography Expert System for Advising Computer Analysis of Poetry and Prose Simulating Neural Activity Parsing Texts Data Integrity Checking Digitized Voice Management Selecting Expert Systems Grammar and Machine Translation Editing Large Texts Logical Modeling of Complex Systems ACCOMMODATIONS Please make your own reservations. Lake Park Motel (Single $23);(Double $26) W. Hwy. 34 Phone (605) 256-3424 Super 8 (Single $26);(Double $32) W. Hwy. 34 Phone (605) 256-6931 All major chains available in Sioux Falls, SD (50 miles from conference site) - - - - - - - - - - - - - REGISTRATION FORM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYMBOLIC AND LOGICAL COMPUTING April 18-19, 1991 Indicate the number for the following: Amount ______Advance registration $150.00 (includes two lunches, coffee breaks, banquet, one copy of the proceedings); On-site registration $175.00 $________ ______Additional copies of ICEBOL5 proceedings ($35.00 each) $________ ______Additional banquet tickets ($15.00) $________ ______Shuttle from Sioux Falls airport ($40.00 per passenger round trip) $________ Arrival: Flight________ Date ________ Time ________ Departure: Flight_______ Date ________ Time ________ (Rental cars are available at the Sioux Falls, SD airport) Total Amount Enclosed $________ Name_______________________________ College or Firm_____________________ Mailing address_________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ Return this form to: Eric Johnson, ICEBOL5 Director, 114 Beadle Hall, Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota 57042 USA From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: COLING-92 First Announcement & Call for Papers Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 19:55:18 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2139 (2471) Fourteenth International Conference on Computational Linguistics COLING-92 23-28 July 1992, Nantes, France FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS DATES: The conference will last five full days (not counting Sunday). Pre-COLING tutorials will take place on 20-22 July (2-1/2 days). ORGANIZERS: GETA and IMAG, Grenoble (F. Peccoud, Ch. Boitet, J. Courtin), Palais des Congres, Nantes (M. Gillet), Universite de Nantes (M.H. Jayez), EC2 (G. d'Aumale). PROGRAMME CHAIR: Prof. A. Zampolli, Universita di Pisa, ILC, via della Faggiola 32, I-56100 Pisa, ITALY (tel: +39.50.560481; fax: +39.50.589055). DEADLINES: Send six A4 or 8-1/2 by 11 inch copies of the full paper to Prof. Zampolli before 1 November 1991. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 1 March 1992. Camera-ready copies of final papers conforming to the COLING-90 style sheet must reach GETA (GETA-IMAG, COLING-92, BP 53X, F-38041 Grenoble, FRANCE) by 1 May 1992. TOPICS: All topics in Computational Linguistics are acceptable. Papers concerning real applications will be especially welcome. A special session on language industry is planned. Please indicate main areas of papers using two-level categories: computational models and formalisms (in morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, dialogue, . . .), methods (symbolic, numerical, statistical, neural, . . .), tools (specialized languages, environments), large-scale resources (textual, lexical, grammatical databases), applications (natural language interfaces, information retrieval, text generation, machine translation, machine aids to writing, translating, abstracting, learning, . . .), hypermedia and natural language processing (integration of text, speech, graphics, video), generic questions in language industry (engineering, ergonomics, legal aspects, normalization, . . .). TYPES OF PAPERS: Topical papers (maximum seven pages in final format) on crucial issues in Computational Linguistics, and project notes (maximum five pages). Only unpublished papers will be accepted. Papers should describe substantial and original work, especially new methodologies and applications. They should emphasize completed rather than intended work. PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE: Twelve 30-minute lecture slots daily (hopefully in only three parallel sessions) and three 30-minute demonstration slots during the lunch break (hopefully in at least ten parallel sessions). It should be possible to have lunch and go to two or even three demos. DEMONSTRATIONS: Demonstrations are strongly encouraged. A project note without a demo will have a lower probability of acceptance. With a demo, it will get three consecutive demo slots. A topical paper including a demo will be presented as a lecture and as a demo. LANGUAGES: One extra page will be allowed for a long abstract in English, if the paper is written in another language, or conversely (paper in English and long abstract in another language). Speakers not giving their talk in English are encouraged to use visual aids in English. EXHIBITION: An exhibition of language industry products will be organized in parallel by EC2, the well known organizer of the annual Avignon meetings on Expert Systems. Industrial firms are encouraged to present state-of-the-art NLP products. OTHER ACTIVITIES: A social programme will be proposed to participants and companions. Individual discovery is also possible, as Nantes and its region are culturally very active and full of picturesque places. Organized on behalf of the International Committee on Computational Linguistics Martin Kay, Palo Alto (President); Eva Hajicova, Prague (Vice President); Donald E. Walker, Morristown (Secretary General); Christian Boitet, Grenoble; Nicoletta Calzolari, Pisa; Brian Harris, Ottawa; David Hays, New York (Honorary); Kolbjorn Heggstad, Bergen; Hans Karlgren, Stockholm; Olga Kulagina, Moscow; Winfried Lenders, Bonn; Makato Nagao, Kyoto; Helmut Schnelle, Bochum; Petr Sgall, Prague; Yorick Wilks, Las Cruces; Antonio Zampolli, Pisa From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL SIGLEX Workshop at ACL-91, 17 June 1991, Berkeley Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 23:04:59 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2140 (2472) CALL FOR PAPERS Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation 17 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, California, USA A workshop sponsored by the Special Interest Group on the Lexicon (SIGLEX) of the Association for Computational Linguistics TOPICS OF INTEREST: The recent resurgence of interest in lexical semantics (LS) has brought many linguistic formalisms closer to the knowledge representation (KR) languages utilized in AI. In fact, some formalisms from computational linguistics are emerging which may be more expressive and formally better understood than many KR languages. Furthermore, the interests of computational linguists now extend to include areas previously thought beyond the scope of grammar and linguistics, such as commonsense knowledge, inheritance, default reasoning, collocational relations, and even domain knowledge. With such an extension of the purview of "linguistic" knowledge, the question emerges as to whether there is any logical justification for distinguishing between lexical semantics and world knowledge. The purpose of this workshop is to explore this question in detail, with papers addressing the following points: a. Possible methods for determining what is lexical knowledge and what is outside the scope of such knowledge. b. Potential demonstrations that the inferences necessary for language understanding are no different from supposed non-linguistic inferences. c. Arguments from language acquisition and general concept development. d. Cross-linguistic evidence for the specificity of lexical semantic representations. e. Philosophical arguments for the (impossibility of the) autonomy of lexical knowledge. f. Theoretical approaches and implemented systems that combine lexical and non-lexical knowledge. FORMAT OF SUBMISSION: Authors should submit four copies of a position paper describing the work they have done in this area and indicating why they would like to participate in the workshop. Papers should be a minimum of two pages and a maximum of four pages (exclusive of references). The title page should include the title, full names of all authors and their complete addresses including electronic addresses where applicable, and a short (5 line) summary. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to: James Pustejovsky Computer Science Department Ford Hall Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02254-9110 USA (+1-617) 736-2709 jamesp@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu SCHEDULE: Papers must be received by 1 March 1991. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 5 April 1991. WORKSHOP INFORMATION: Attendance will be limited to 35-40 participants. The workshop is held in connection with the 29th Meeting of the ACL (18-21 June). Local arrangements are being handled by Peter Norvig (Division of Computer Science, University of California, 573 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, (+1-415) 642-9533, norvig@teak.berkeley.edu). ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Branimir Boguraev Peter Norvig James Pustejovsky Robert Wilensky From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL Applied Natural Language Processing Conference - Trento 1992 Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 19:57:12 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2141 (2473) CALL FOR PAPERS 3rd Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing Trento, Italy, 1-3 April 1992 sponsored by Association for Computational Linguistics PURPOSE The focus of this conference is on the application of natural language processing techniques to real world problems. It will include invited and contributed papers, tutorials, an industrial exhibition, and demonstrations. A special video session is also being organised. The organizers want the conference to be as international as possible, and to feature the best applied natural language work presently available in the world. This conference follows on from those held in Santa Monica, California in 1983, and in Austin, Texas in 1988. AREAS OF INTEREST Original papers are being solicited in all areas of applied natural language processing, including but not limited to: dialog systems; integrated speech and natural language systems; machine translation; explanation and generation; database interface systems; tool development; text and message processing; grammar and style checking; corpus development; knowledge acquisition; lexicons; language teaching aids; evaluation; adaptive systems; multilanguage systems; multimedia systems; help systems; and other applications. Papers may discuss applications, evaluations, limitations, and general tools and techniques. Papers that critically evaluate a relevant formalism or processing strategy are especially welcome. REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION Authors should submit, by 10 September 1991, a) six copies of a full-length paper (min 9, max 18 double-spaced pages, minimum font size 12, exclusive of references); b) 16 copies of a 20-30 line abstract; c) a declaration that the paper has not been accepted nor is under review for a journal or other conference nor will it be submitted during the conference review period. Papers arriving after the deadline will be returned unopened. We regret that papers cannot be submitted electronically, or by fax. Papers should describe completed rather than intended work, identify distinctive aspects of the work, and clearly indicate the extent to which an implementation has been completed; vague or unsubstantiated claims will be given little weight. Both the paper and the abstract should include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete addresses and e-mail address. Papers from Europe and Asia should be sent to: Oliviero Stock (ANLP-3) phone: +39-461-814444 I.R.S.T. fax: +39-461-810851 38050 Povo (Trento), ITALY email: stock@irst.it Papers from America and other continents should be sent to: Madeleine Bates (ANLP-3) phone: +1-617-8733634 BBN Systems & Technologies fax: +1-617-8733776 10 Moulton Street email: bates@bbn.com Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by 30 November 1991. Full-length versions of accepted papers, prepared according to instructions, must be received, along with a signed copyright release statement, by 15 January 1992. All papers will be reviewed by members of the program committee, which is co-chaired by Madeleine Bates (BBN Systems & Technologies) and Oliviero Stock (IRST) and also includes: Robert Amsler, MITRE Kathy McKeown, Columbia Univ. Giacomo Ferrari, Univ. of Pisa Sergei Nirenburg, Carnegie Mellon Univ. Eduard Hovy, USC/ISI Makoto Nagao, Kyoto Univ. Paul Jacobs, General Electric Remko Scha, Univ. of Amsterdam Martin Kay, Xerox PARC Karen Sparck Jones, Univ. of Cambridge Mark Liberman, Univ. of Pennsylvania Henry Thompson, Univ. of Edinburgh Paul Martin, MCC Wolfgang Wahlster, DFKI VIDEOTAPES Videotapes are sought that display interesting research on NLP applications to real-world problems, even if presented as promotional videos (not advertisements). An ongoing video presentation will be organized that will demonstrate the current level of usefulness of NLP tools and techniques. Authors should submit one copy of a videotape of at most 15 minutes duration, accompanied by a submission letter giving permission to copy the tape to a standard format and two copies of a one to two page abstract that includes: title, name and address and email or fax number of authors; tape format of the submitted tape (VHS, any of NTSC, PAL or SECAM); duration. The final tape format provided by the authors should be one of VHS, 75'' u-Matic, BVU, in any of NTSC, PAL or SECAM. Videotapes cannot be returned. Tape submissions should be sent to the same address as the papers (see above). The timetable for submissions, notification of acceptance or rejection, and receipt of final versions is the same as for the papers. See above for details. Tapes will be reviewed and selected for presentation during the conference. Abstracts of accepted videos will appear in the conference proceedings. We are also considering the possibility of producing a collection of video proceedings, for those videotapes that authors agree to distribute. A preliminary indication on this matter will be appreciated. DEMONSTRATIONS Beside demonstrations to be carried on within a regular booth at the industrial exhibition, there will be a program of demonstrations on standard equipment available at the conference (SUN's, MAC's, etc.). Anyone wishing to present a demo should send a one-page description of the demo and a specification of the system requirements by 1 December 1991 to Carlo Strapparava phone: +39-461-814444 I.R.S.T. fax: +39-461-810851 38050 Povo (Trento), ITALY email: strappa@irst.it PRIZE A prize will be given for the best nonindustrial demonstration. TUTORIALS The meeting will be preceded by one or two days of tutorials by noted contributors to the field. Responsible for tutorials: Jon Slack phone: +39-461-814444 I.R.S.T. fax: +39-461-810851 38050 Povo (Trento), ITALY email: slack@irst.it WORKSHOPS Proposals for organizing workshops in Trento immediately after the conference can be addressed to Oliviero Stock at the above address. INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION Facilities for exhibits will also be available. Persons wishing to arrange an exhibit should send a brief description together with a specification of physical requirements (space, power, telephone connections, table, etc.) by 1 September 1991 to Giampietro Carlevaro phone: +39-461-814444 I.R.S.T. fax: +39-461-810851 38050 Povo (Trento), ITALY email: carleva@irst.it GENERAL INFORMATION Local arrangements are being handled by Tullio Grazioli and Oliviero Stock phone: +39-461-814444 I.R.S.T. fax: +39-461-810851 38050 Povo (Trento), ITALY email: interne@irst.it For information on the ACL, contact Donald E. Walker (ACL) phone: +1-201-8294312 Bellcore, MRE 2A379 fax: +1-201-4551931 445 South Street, Box 1910 email: walker@flash.bellcore.com Morristown, NJ 07960, USA The conference is also supported by the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI), the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA) and Istituto Trentino di Cultura. From: Lloyd Gerson <GERSON@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Re: 4.0986 Qs: Statistics & Greek; Text Analysis; PHI-CCAT Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:18:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2142 (2474) On computational analysis of ancient Greek ssee G.R. Ledger, Recounting Plato. A Computer Analysis of Plato's Style (Oxford, 1990), which is basically concern ed with Plato but has much useful information about techniques and problems of analysis of Greek literary style by computer. From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Cyrillic for Windows 3.0 Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 22:18:31 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2143 (2475) The Humanities Computing Facility at Duke U. has designed a variety of point sizes & fonts supporting Cyrillic in the course of expanding the flexibility of its application system (an authoring tool for foreign language courseware), "WinCALIS." Contact Bert Wolf at 919-684-3637. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Fellow in Foreign Languages Institute for Academic Technology UNC-Chapel Hill From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: Outliners Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:06:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2144 (2476) I have found PC-outline completely satisfactory. The shareware version is superior to that bundled with Wordstar 6, except that the latter can read and write Wordstar 5 and 6 and Wordstar 2000 files. Christopher From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: New List - Context-L Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2145 (2477) New Academic List: Context-L is intended to provide a forum for the discussion of the newly emerging field of Social-Scientific Criticism, particularly with reference to Roman Palestine, Early Christianity and the literature of the Graeco-Roman world. Any discussion on the methodology(s) and models of social-scientific criticism would be welcomed. This would include book and article reviews, calls for papers, conference announcements and reports, constructive criticism and related matters. Papers in progress, collaborative material, bibliographies and other such files of lasting interest will be placed in an archive which will be accessible via Listserv. In the meantime, such files will be available by anonymous ftp in the directory pup/context/. To subscribe to CONTEXT-L send a *MAIL* request to: CONTEXT-L-REQUEST@PANDA1.UOTTAWA.CA Please note that it may take a few days for your subscription to be activated. As this list is temporarily on UNIX no TELL commands will be effective. Any questions concerning CONTEXT-L should be addressed to: Michael Strangelove List Coordinator <441495@Acadvm1.UOttawa.CA> From: HARRISON@RPIECS Subject: Announcement for posting on Humanist Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 00:01:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2146 (2478) I would be grateful if you would post the following announcement on Humanist. --Teri Harrison -------------- EduTel: A Forum for Considering CMC Applications in Educational Contexts As the international academic community becomes increasingly familiar with computer networking, there has been widespread interest in understanding how this new communication medium can be used in educational contexts. Since the networks themselves may be the best medium for discussing educational applications, a cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional group of scholars has joined forces to create and guide EduTel, an electronic conference whose purpose is to consider how computer-mediated communication can be used to achieve educational goals. Initially, EduTel staff will encourage discussion related to three broad educational themes. One theme will focus on how computer- mediated communication can enhance students' and faculty's educational experiences within and outside the classroom contexts. A second theme will address how CMC can improve the education and life style of the physically and educationally handicapped. A third theme will be international development: specifically, how developing nations are using CMC to foster education and research within and between themselves. These themes will constitute three separate but simultaneous lines of discussion available to conference participants. Each of these lines of discussion will be moderated and guided by one or two conference staff members. It will also be possible to pose questions or introduce issues that are not related to the themes defined above. As the conference continues, we expect new themes to emerge and, given sufficient interest, be incorporated into ongoing discussion. EduTel is scheduled to begin on Monday, February 11, 1991 and continue into May, 1991. Those interested in participating can subscribe by either: (a) sending an interactive message to COMSERVE@RPIECS with the following command: Subscribe EduTel First_Name Last_Name (Example:) Subscribe EduTel Mary Smith (b) sending this same command (with no other punctuation or words) in the message portion of an electronic mail message addressed to either: Comserve@Rpiecs (Bitnet) or Comserve@Vm.Ecs.Rpi.Edu (Internet) Further information about the EduTel conference will be sent to subscribers when the conference begins. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Conference Staff Coordinating Moderator: Norman Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology CMC and the Classroom: Boyd Davis UNC -- Charlotte Don Ploch University of Tennessee -- Knoxville CMC and Disability: Bob Zenhausern St. Johns University CMC and International Development: Sam Lanfranco York University CMC and Other Educational Questions: Karen O'Quin Buffalo State College Technical Moderator: Teresa Harrison Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: Politics of a Core Curriculum Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:11:21 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2147 (2479) I should have thought that it would be reasonably straightforward to teach philosophy as a Great Tradition, stressing the dependence of Medieval Islamic philosophy on the greeks (this isn't contentious, they admitted it themselves) and the dependence of medieval scholastic philosophy on both Muslim translators of Greek works and Muslim philosophers themselves (again uncontentious), and the further dependence of early modern Western philosophers on the Scholastic tradition (which many of them were at pains to deny, but unconvincingly so). The contentious questions would be a) why in the early M.A. Muslims were so much more successful than the Latin West in absorbing and expanding Greek science and philosophy and b) why the opposite was the case from the later M.A. onwards. Can we simply get away with blaming barbarian (Germanic, Turkish, Mongol) invasions? Has Islam abandoned certain aspects of its own tradition which made it more flexible and fruitful in the past than it is now? If so, can the students themselves suggest any remedies? (That approach might defuse the dynamite to some extent). In any case it would surely be more helpful to treat the western and Islamic traditions as two parallel and interdependent cultures rather than as fundamentally opposed to one another. I fear that the latter presentation is the truer nowadays, but it wasn't always so. Christopher From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: languages on humanist Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:03:17 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2148 (2480) If we're going to standardize on a language, shouldn't it be that used by the original humanists? It has the advantage of no accents and a character set which is a subset of ASCII. The disadvantage is that though most of us no doubt read it, very few can nowadays write it fluently - I haven't even tried. Christopher From: A_Brook@CARLETON.CA Subject: Progress in Philosophy Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 09:23:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2149 (2481) The recent comment that whether philosophy has value depends on whether it makes progress and Stephen Clark's response brought to mind something I have observed many other times in many other contexts: a great many non-philosopher academics know virtually nothing about what contemporary philosophy is. Example: our School of Business recently created a course in Business Ethics. Ethics being one of the things philosophers are sup- posed to know something about, we (the Philosophy Dept) wished some role in this course (the details are complicated and don't matter). We lost in the Senate. Reason: it was clear that many of our colleagues firmly believed that anyone of good will with a sense of propriety could teach Ethics perfectly adequately. That is to say: there is no significant theory in Ethics, just good-will-based opinion and intuition. No one would dream about making such an assumption about physics -- or political science -- or even logic. Obviously the people voting on our proposal had never heard of Kant or Mill or Locke (or knew nothing of how they argued for their positions), let alone Rawls, Nozick or MacIntyre. Moral: People should not takes stands on things they do not know enough about to judge rationally -- in university Senates or on Humanist. (If I say this, however, I should also acknowledge that contemporary philosophy, which is very in- ward looking and often displays an attitude of narcissistic superiority, has to shoulder a lot of the blame for others knowing little about it. Though just reading the New York Review of Books or TLS would be enough to correct this problem.) Andrew Brook (ABROOK@CARLETON.BITNET) From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.0920 Responses: On War and Rhetoric (3/57) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 91 10:25:10 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2150 (2482) Germaine's admonition is duly noted. We need a good word for that particular misuse of "rhetoric" as in "that's just rhetoric." Bombast comes close, but is too overblown. Now there would be a truly useful job for linguists: word manufacturing! (grateful for the chance to write any sort of message that's lighthearted) Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Response on Monitor Hazards Query (Below) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 15:46:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2151 (2483) Humanist Digest 4.0310 (23 July 1990) contains 5 pieces on monitor hazards, including an excerpt from a CCNEWS article with references to the scientific literature and a reference to the MacUser article. It is available from the fileserver in the log HUMANIST LOG9007D. I've sent a copy to Mealand. -- Allen From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Radiation from Monitors Date: 06 Feb 91 12:24:00 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2152 (2484) About a year ago someone posted a piece about radiation which included references to scientific studies on this problem. I have lost the copy I took then and would be very grateful if someone could send (to me - see below) a copy of this. My own practice is to use a backlit lcd screen on my portable at home, and to keep my office mono screen over half a metre away. But we are soon to install colour monitors for wider use. I believe the problem with these may be greater. I also am told that more radiation comes out of the back of the monitor than from the front. Has anyone experience of good planning for a lab of several colour pcs ? Is it best to site the machines round the walls (thick ones in our old building) or back to back down the middle of the room? At some expense (about 200 pounds sterling) one can buy a fitment to go on the front of a screen which claims to reduce radiation. Does anyone have evidence about the relative effectiveness of such devices, or is this a project that might interest a scientific colleague somewhere ? **************************************************************************** David Mealand * Bitnet: D.Mealand%uk.ac.edinburgh@ukacrl University of Edinburgh * Office Fax: (+44)-31-220-0952 EH1 2LU * Office tel.:(+44)-31-225-8400 ext.221/217 **************************************************************************** From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: Request for Names of U.S. Roman Catholic SF Writers & Editors Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 14:07:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2153 (2485) A research undergrad and I are trying to study the impact of American Roman Catholic SF writers on the development of the SF genre. Surprisingly, although one can easily identify among Americans many female SF writers, black SF writers, Jewish SF writers, and gay SF writers, it has turned out to be darned difficult to locate Roman Catholic SF writers. Here are, in no particular order, the editors and authors that we know of: Editors: Anothy Boucher J(esse) Francis McComas (not sure yet) Raymond J. Healy (not sure yet) Authors: Walter Miller R. A. Lafferty Michael Cassutt Andrew Greeley Tim Powers Ben Bova Jerry Pournell Gene Wolfe Sandra Miesel Phyllis Ann Karr Nancy Kress Walker Percy (wrote little SF) Jeff Duntemann (included in Cassutt's forthcoming anthology but otherwise unknown to us) James Patrick Kelly (ditto) Riley Hughes (one book only, we believe) Any info on the role of Catholicism in the life of any of these and/or any info about others who ought to be on the list will be greatly appreciated. Please send replies to me directly and, after a while, I'll repost the compiled and expanded list. Many thanks. Eric Eric Rabkin Department of English University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045 esrabkin@umichum.bitnet esrabkin@um.cc.umich.edu From: Ron Kalinoski <ACDRLK@SUVM> Subject: An alternative way to access Humanist wisdom Date: Sun, 3 Feb 1991 23:59:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 993 (2486) Research Computing Services at Syracuse University has for some time been working on a way to provide access to Listserv archives that is more direct and efficient than using the Listserv database functions. We are now at the point where we would like to invite members of Humanist who are interested to try our approach and provide us with feedback. We are treating this as an experimental trial. For the next three months, we will monitor the usage of the system and based on the results, we will decide whether it is practical to continue it or not. There are two major components in our Humanist archive system: 1. SPIRES/PRISM. SPIRES is a text-oriented mainframe database package. PRISM is the name of the user interface to the databases stored in SPIRES. 2. SUINFO is a special command we use to allow users to access our IBM mainframe without having an account. How the System works: We have created a SPIRES application which owns a BITNET userid that has been subscribed to Humanist for quite some time. It receives Humanist messages along with everyone else. Each message it receives is automatically indexed and added to the Humanist database it manages. It "recognizes" 8 different fields: volume, issue, date, sender, userid, node, subject, and text. The information contained in these fields becomes searchable by the user. The full text of all the messages is indexed, so searching is quite flexible and robust. When you specify a search, the results are presented in an abbreviated form. You may easily display the full text of the messages which appear to be of interest based on the subject and heading. To access the Humanist database from your site, you must be able to use TELNET. Many BITNET sites also provide Internet access, although some still do not. TELNET is an internet command which establishes an interactive session between your computer and a remote host computer. In effect, you log on to the remote host and interact with it as though it is a local connection. In the case of our Humanist database application, remote users will TELNET to our IBM mainframe, which is called SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU. (detailed instructions are attached below). There are certain advantages to the SPIRES approach we have been developing, compared to the standard approach of using the Listserv database functions which have been discussed in Humanist recently. First, you establish a direct interactive connection with the database and have the full power of PRISM at your disposal. Searching for information is typically an iterative process, and you modify your strategy based on the results you get. Using the Listserv functions through Bitnet is a cumbersome process of sending search programs via email to the listserv and waiting for a message in return. Advantages also apply to those who are responsible for managing the computer resources on campus - if people start to use the SPIRES database in preference to actually subscribing to the Listserv, only one copy of the Listserv transactions is stored on disk, rather than n copies. When the Listserv traffic is large and/or when n is large, this can amount to a substantial reduction in disk storage required to meet the information needs of users. There are a few limitations of the SPIRES database approach, however. One is that saving search results as a file to be sent to your home account is not supported with the current version of our system. This is primarily due to the way in which we had to limit functionality in order to achieve anonymous login. The way around this is to start a logging program on your home computer before accessing the Humanist database. Logging programs are commonly used on micros and mainframes to capture interactive sessions as a file - the commands you enter and the responses that appear on the screen are all saved to a log file you specify. We encourage Humanists to try out the database features of SPIRES and let us know what you think. We have so far created only two Listserv databases in SPIRES ( Humanist and NOTIS-L (at the request of our Library staff)). Before developing additional applications, we would like to get feedback from remote users about their attempts to use these. If you wish to contact us directly, please send email to: ACDRLK@SUVM (Ron Kalinoski, Associate Director, Research Computing Services) BBALAKRI@SUVM (Bhaskaran Balakrishnan, SPIRES Programmer). ************************************************************************** INSTRUCTIONS TELNET ACCESS TO SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY'S HUMANIST ARCHIVE DATABASE. ------------------------------------------------------------------ This method of access assumes that you have TELNET which connects to SUVM in transparent/full screen mode. Non IBM sites may have to use TN3270 instead of TELNET. a) TELNET to Suvm.acs.syr.edu [Internet addr: 128.230.1.47], i.e. telnet suvm.acs.syr.edu b) Once you are connected, i.e., you get the logon screen, move the cursor to the Command line and enter "SUINFO". See example: COMMAND ===> SUINFO Hit RETURN This is the third line (the first two being for USERID and PASSWORD). If you get an error message, hit RETURN and type SUINFO <RETURN> again c) Once you are logged in, you may get several messages (the LOGMSG). If this spans more than one screenful, you have to hit the CLEAR key (for TN3270 users: this is usually 'Control Z') to proceed to the next screen. You have to do this whenever you see a '... MORE' at the bottom right hand of the screen. d) You will get a brief introductory message and be asked to confirm that you would like to continue. Typing 'y' will take you into PRISM (SPIRES) which holds the the HUMANIST database. e) You will be asked to select from a menu once you are in PRISM. Enter the word HUMANIST on the line labeled YOUR RESPONSE which is the same line that the cursor is on. Having done this follow the directions on the screen in order to use the system. f) Within PRISM you can make use of 'PF keys' that allow you to get commands executed without having to type them out. The PF key settings will depend upon the kind of keyboard you are using, but the default PF key settings of <ESC> 1 through = (on the main keyboard) ought to work. In other words, PF06 can be effected by hitting <ESC> and then 6 on your keyboard and PF12 by <ESC> and the = key. You may at times have to clear the screen -- the default key setting is <ESC> and '.' [ESCAPE key and the period]. If you have problems with the PF keys, you can type the equivalent commands. g) TO EXIT PRISM (and SUVM), YOU MUST TYPE LOGOFF within PRISM ^^^^^^ In the current implementation, this is not obvious. If you have any problems, send an email message to: Bhaskaran Balakrishnan <BBALAKRI@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU> <BBALAKRI@SUVM.BITNET> From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Where is the Left? Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 18:34 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 994 (2487) Sunday, 3 February Where is the Left? I was sending off yesterday's report to various friends and to nets where they are reprinted. [From letters I learn that there are other nets which are reprinting my letters, some have informed me - even asked permission; others have not bothered.] And to those who have written and told me that they had difficulty in obtaining the material but wanted it. It was actually after 1 AM this morning when I began to send out the copies. My tardiness resulted from a number of factors; these included the fact that I am an observant Jew and do not write or use a computer terminal between sundown Friday and sundown Satur- day, in fact do no work at all in that 25 hours. [When I tried to explain this to my hosts during my recent trip to China, they obligingly decided to lock me in my room for that period. I ex- plained to them that this was not necessary, that I could walk around within the city. Reasoning logically they argued that I should be able to ride in a car, for after all riding in a car is even less work than walking. A number of other interesting confusions arose from their never having had to deal with Jewish mores and religion, but this is neither the time nor the place to expand upon them.] - thus, I was delayed by the wait for the exit of the Sabbath and then, later, there was the attack that I have already reported. That had to be survived and recorded and added to the report. As I said, it was after 1 AM and then we had another attack, the second this night. 1:37 - I hear the radio broadcast [I have been calling a battery operated radio a transistor radio; this is a direct trans- lation from the Hebrew and, as a reader pointed out, is incorrect.] interrupted by the sisma [code slogan that indicates that a certain group has to go into action. All of Israel now recognizes this sisma, which clearly is a signal to the operators of the local sirens to turn on their sirens. It may also activate other groups [Patriots? Not likely. They seem to have, just as the General Staff does, direct access to the sightings reported by the US spy satellite over Iraq.] but that is not obvious to us. In fact, some 30 seconds later, the siren is heard clearly. I note that this and the last attack both took place on or about the half-hour. But I must avoid this silly game of looking for patterns, looking for meaning. A friend writes that my search for patterns is a product of a Western out- look; that, to understand Saddam Hussein better, I should study Chaos, of which he is a prime example. My wife, mother and I are joined in the sealed room by our son, who arrived from the Far East on Friday afternoon, and his girl friend who is visiting. His second attack; and he has here less than 12 hours. 1:43 - Nahman Shai tells us that this is a real attack and not a false alarm; all of Israel is requested to enter the poison gas-free rooms and don their masks. 1:45 - He tells us that one SCUD has been fired and landed in Israel, that the situation is similar to the last attack, five hours earlier. 1:53 - We are all released from the sealed rooms except those living in the Shomron [Samaria] and in greater Tel Aviv. 1:57 - Those living in Tel Aviv are also released. 1:58 - Only those in the northern part of Samaria have to remain in their rooms. The same pattern as in the earlier attack. My son's girl friend has to call her mother to tell her that she is safe; other calls. Some confusion. I forget to note when the general all-clear is given - on the radio, again no siren is used. Once again this compulsion to record, to tell takes hold of me; I do not go to sleep until after 3:30 AM. ******************************* The last four SCUDS have fallen short of the coastal population centers which have been the targets of Iraq's missile attacks. The missiles have all landed in the Shomron, or Sameria, in the occupied territories where mostly Palestinian Arabs live as well as far few Jewish settlers. The Palestinian Arab's are bewildered by these events. A short lived sport popular in the first week, climbing to the roofs of houses and cheering encouragement to the missiles pass- ing to the west, on their way to the Jewish population centers, is no longer so common. The Palestinian Arabs have made a great emotional investment in Saddam Hussein, whom they see as a possible savior, the only effective Arab leader on the scene sympathetic to them - as well as strong enough to make the hated and - in their eyes - treacherous west back down. They find both reasonable explanations for the rain of missiles on their territories - either it is deliberate or the Iraqis are screwing up - unacceptable. The Palestinian Arabs note that the Patriot anti-missile missiles have not been used against these last four SCUDs, and feel that this is the result of a deliberate decision on the part of the Jews whom they perceive as wanting to exterminate them. [They are not impressed by the argument that the Patriots only have an effect- ive range against missiles of about 5 miles; that the concentration of Patriot batteries near the the large cities does not allow inter- ception of these SCUDs which fall out of range.] Some Palestinian Arabs even claim that the missiles are actually fired by the Israelis, and aimed at them. Good heros are hard to find; and apparently even harder to give up. ******************************* Like most modern countries, the literary establishment in Israel is one of the strongholds of the non-Communist left. So complete is their control of the literary magazines, the media - in this book hungry country [After all, we are the people of the book.], all the newspapers, even those directed at the least serious reader, have serious literary supplements in every Friday [weekend] issues and expanded editions for the holidays - and the formation of the lit- erary taste and opinion in this country, that when David Shahar, a novelist associated with the right politically, won a major liter- ary prize for the best novel translated into French several years ago, the almost universal response was "David Who?" Shahar, who had already published three novels as well as collections of short stories, was a virtual unkown here as a result of his systematic exclusion from the eyes of readers [It is quite common here for the better known novelists to publish chapters or smaller parts of work in progress in the literary journals and in the holiday editions of newspaper literary sections. Shahar was forced to publish through Hadar, a small, little known press also run by a right winger, a former operations officer of one of the separatist, right wing groups [Etzel, Lehi, The Stern Gang] that operated during the waning days of the British mandate in Palestine. Nor was he reviewed: as a right winger, he was simply did not exist. [I am pleased to say that Shahar, following a continued and repeated success in France - and a split with his right wing publisher (Shahar is still politically on the right) - is now published by the largest publisher in the country, the Histadrut's - the overall labor organization, closely identified with the Labor Party - organ, Am Oved. Shahar's long series, tracing a group of interesting and colorful characters in Jerusalem from the 30's on, through a series - Is it six now? Or seven? - of novels that have continued to have great success in France and moderate success here. Only one of his novels has been translated into English - as far as I know - "His Majesty's Agent". This novel - not part of the series - is a romping, pornographic roman a clef which is probably not too meaningful for American readers, except for a broad, cruel parody at the beginning, a portrait of a famous American Jewish literary figure who allegedly attempted, unsuccess- fully, to prevent publication of the translation. In my opinion, the third [I think] novel in the series, "The Day of the Countess," is the finest novel written in Hebrew in the past 50 years and is world class.] Two successful novelists - both deserving of their reputations - in the camp of the Left, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, have been out- spoken in their support, both here and abroad, of dealing directly with the PLO. [There are subtle differences in their political postures, but these are not relevant to the present discussion.] They are both clearly embarrassed by the PLO's support of Saddam Hussein and have backed off, to different degrees, in their support of that terrorist organization [My words, their implied criticism.]. I do not think that either rejects - even after all this - the option of dealing with the PLO and even entering formal negotiations with them - on the basis that there is no alternative. But the latest difficulty they find themselves in is their inability to make common cause with their leftist brothers, especially in Europe, from whom they formerly drew support and sympathy. They see their European leftist friends leading the peace demonstrations against the war in the Persian Gulf and happily marching in the first rows - and are confused and disappointed, isolated and betrayed. It appears that Oz and Yehoshua are shocked by the inability of their former colleagues to distinguish between war and war. They no longer can understand how anyone can be against all wars, no matter how Evil the nature of the war. For Jews, even on the left, and for Israelis especially - we have the questionable fortune of being re- minded, time after time - Hitler's war is too close, its purpose too unbelievable. But Hitler's war gives us a criterion with which to measure other wars. Panama, Nicaragua, the Falklands, Granada fail that critierion. Saddam Hussein who is willing to rape Kuwait and cynically blame Israel, to fire missiles on civilian populations who are not at war with him, to murder 5000 Kurds with poison gas - this Saddam Hussein passes that critierion. This - for all right thinking people - must be a war worth fighting. The Israel left is in a very difficult position. They no longer find they are supported by their counterparts elsewhere who can not see the different nature of this war. Moreover, their willingness to sacrifice so much - to give the Palestinians the state they want - is at least partially meant to find favor in the eyes of their leftist fellows. Perhaps the realization that their leftist fellows are will- ing to see them and their families die - in the name of "Justice" - is just too much for them. *************************** One of my correspondents points out to me that the Hadassah-Hebrew University Hospital in Jerusalem - generally thought to be the best hospital in the Middle East -has been designated as a "first stop" for allied casualties from the Gulf War. Until now, a US Army - hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany was the "first stop". It would be interesting to see if any of the Arab members of the coalition allow their wounded to be taken to Israel. Probably the designation of Hadassah is for West- erners, only. *************************** Another correspondesnt forwards to me the following "interesting piece of trivia": The name PATRIOT is in fact, an acronym: P hased A rray T racking R adar I ntercept O n T arget And I can add that the H2 and H3 staging areas for SCUD missiles in western Iraq were originally the Haifa 2 and Haifa 3 pumping sta- tions of the Iraq Petroleum Company which was British owned and until 1948 served thes stations served to pump oil from the Kirkuk oil fields to the refineries in Haifa. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: unicode Date: Thu, 07 Feb 91 22:06:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2154 (2488) The Unicode 1.0 comment period ends February 15th. Let me reiterate James O'Donnell's suggestion that all interested humanists -- and particularly anyone who works with languages that are written in non-latin alphabets -- send for a copy of the Unicode Final Review Document. It is available free from... MICROSOFT!ASMUSF@UUNET.UU.NET. (they are Express Mailing it now) As O'Donnell and Robin Cover pointed out, this standard is well supported by the computing industry and may have a considerable effect on humanities computing. There is also a somewhat competing multi-byte character coding standard being developed by ISO, ISO10646. This standard, Unicode, and general general topics in the coding of diacritics and non- latin letter writing systems are discussed on the listserv list ISO10646 at JHUVM. You can subscribe by sending mail to LISTSERV at JHUVM with the following line as the body SUBSCRIBE ISO10646 <your name> Anyone interested in alphabets, writing systems, languages, and and computing will find this list fascinating. As O'Donnell pointed out ECMA -- the European Computing Manufacturers Association -- has endorsed ISO10646. Below is a letter from the ECMA Secretary General commenting on Unicode... From: Mike Ksar <ksar@HPCEA.CE.HP.COM> Subject: ECMA letter to Unicode Date: Thu, 31 Jan 91 08:21:32 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2155 (2489) Originally Posted on: Multi-byte Code Issues <ISO10646@JHUVM> Forwarded by Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> [deleted quotation]Below is a message that has been received from ECMA TC1 addressed to Asmus which describes the position of ECMA TC1 on Unicode 1.0. Mike [deleted quotation] From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.0986 Qs: Statistics & Greek; Text Analysis; PHI-CCAT Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 07:55:13 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2156 (2490) A good, recent, text analyzing classical Greek statistically is Gerald Ledger's book, "Recounting Plato" Oxford 1989 (or so). It analyzes Platonic dialogues by letter frequency. His bibliography may provide some other clues. On the topic of TLG-CCAT downloading, I am afraid I cannot help with the particular piece of software you mention, but I have written a program, Searcher formats. If you would like more information, please let me know. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: hans@Leif.ucs.mun.ca Subject: RE: 4.0989 Rs: Analysis of Greek; Cyrillic; Outliners (3/31) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 1991 07:37:42 NDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2157 (2491) I am using MAXTHINK as outlining software. It is not only an outliner but also thought processor with many manipulative devices. It also converts its outlines into WordPerfect or Word. Further, it can produce slides and cuts your outline into ASC files that may be integrated with a Hypertext TSR program (free of charge), Hyperrez. HANS ROLLMANN (hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca) From: CHALMERS@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: 4.0993 SPRIRES Humanist Databas Date: Thursday, 7 February 1991 10:00am CT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2158 (2492) The Syracuse connection works powerfully well in Texas. John P. Chalmers (hmab121@utxvm.bitnet) From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: CALL for Czech Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 12:21:19 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2159 (2493) Does anyone have familiarity with computer-assisted language learning materials for Czech? Is there a bibliography for Slavic CALL materials? Thanks, Joel D. Goldfield Institute for Academic Technology Univ. of N. Carolina - Chapel Hill joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu From: CHALMERS@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: Date: Thursday, 7 February 1991 12:51pm CT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2160 (2494) SUBJ: Paper tour of the UK In planning for a tour in the fall, I am looking for any additions or deletions to/from the list of active hand-made paper mills in the U.K. in Silvie Turner & Birgit Ski"old's *Handmade Paper Today*, London, 1983. I know that Barcham Green is not operating but that it can be visited. News of any other mills, or of individuals making significant paper, will be welcomed by John P. Chalmers hmab121@utxvm.bitnet chalmers@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu NB: This message is also sent to ExLibris and Humanist From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Date: Tue, 5 Feb 1991 16:25:27 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 999 (2495) DIARY OF THE GULF WAR -- THE VIEW FROM HAIFA Judy Koren Copyright Judith Koren 1991, all rights reserved. Tuesday 5th February 1991 In fact I didn't go to bed at 2:10 on Saturday night; I caught sight of Time magazine on the table where Gadi had thrown it, and read for another half an hour. Along with the insomniacs. "Time" was full of the war, of course, but the only point that really struck me was that General Schwarzkopt had predicted a war against Iraq 8 years ago, and drawn up contingency plans which were now, essentially, the battle plans being followed. Interesting. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to draw up battle plans for a war, and we may assume that the White House is at least aware of what plans exist for what contingency where. I'd imagine this is part of the basic information given a new President by the Pentagon when he assumes office. These plans have existed for 8 years. In other words, it has been clear to the U.S. for AT LEAST that long (for who knows what they're not telling us?) that they would probably need to fight a war against Iraq before they could settle the Middle East conflict. One more nail in the coffin for the idea that the prime reason was Kuwait. Of course, "Time" praised Schwarzkopt for his uncanny far-sightedness; but views on where the next war will be fought do not remain, in the army, the prerogative of one man (or at least they don't get very far if they do). They don't even remain just in the army, as already said. Despite only 4 hours' sleep, I woke at the usual time on Sunday and got to work on time. My cake proved to be only one of half a dozen baked by the yiddische momas of the library for the Patriot crew over the weekend. Edi got a personal phone call from the local Patriot base commander after the last delivery -- he sounded really touched, she said. Somebody should have warned him that in Israel the army is bombarded by 2 cakes for every missile. Edi offered a warm hearth and hot shower to anyone who was off-duty and tired of bare hillsides, but they're not allowed to leave the base. Poor souls. Still, better a Haifa hillside than the Saudi Arabian desert right now. Shopping is a problem these days. Food stores stay open till 6 or 7 pm but most others close at 5. Undone shopping is beginning to accumulate. If I leave work promptly at 4 pm, which in itself is unusual, I can manage half an hour in the stores. Yair wants a new pair of sneakers just for basketball, Liron wants a brother-proof treasure-box, both need pajamas. The trick is to do it in stages, I discover. One day survey the stores in one shopping centre, the next in another. Identify the items to buy. Then you can just manage, in a mad dash, to get home, pick up the kids, go straight to the right store, to the shelf, to the item, persuade the child that this is exactly what he/she's been looking for, and pay. I manage 3 stores in half an hour with the kids and even get them to dentist in time at 5:15. Supermother at last! Liron reminds me that it's a month since I took her to the local "conditoria" for cake and soda and an hour's uninterrupted conversation. This has been my habit for several months now, because mothers and daughters can't talk in a house full of noisy males. (She doesn't realise we need to talk but will do almost anything for a slice of Kripps' famed apple strudel and icecream). She's right, but somehow the atmosphere isn't. You need to be relaxed. Not this rushing to and fro to fit everything in before 5 pm, this emptying of the streets after dusk. Not when at 5:30 you suddenly realise that you're the last customers and the waitresses are glancing at their watches, because they, too, don't like being out once it's dark. Nonetheless, I promise her that one day I'll get home early, perhaps even at 4:15, and if she's ready and waiting, we might manage an hour before the self- imposed curfew. I haven't heard too much about the war of late. I missed the Sunday news because Saturday night caught up with me, and I fell asleep on the sofa before the news came on. I missed the Monday news because my hard disk crashed over the weekend and was unceremoniously buried in the Computerland graveyard. I got a brand-new sparkling disk with no bad sectors whatsoever (miracle!) and spent Monday evening, surrounded by 100 diskettes, reducing it to the comfortable level of confusion of its predecessor. The real victim was Liron, who'd spent hours and hours of her enforced idleness over the past 2 weeks creating a set of intricate palettes in non-standard colours for her paint program ("Look, Mummy, you make this dark pink by mixing black pixels in with the pink ones of the regular pink, every other line"). She had 21 patterns. Warriors with shields in one pattern, smileys in another, all repeated endlessly across the screen. All gone. Her warriors are in the limbo of track 54 on a disk with no track 0, and Liron is inconsolable. Moral: teach the kids Safe Computing, even in a war. In future I must wrap a batch file round the paint program like the one I have round the word processor, that'll compel her to copy her creations to a diskette. Unlike me, she won't even know how to trick it. There haven't been any missiles for 2 days either. If there is a pattern, we're due for one tonight, when I shall be on the way to the Negev once again; but we've already agreed that there's no pattern. At work, however, the war has been as evident as ever. The rooms we sealed, after much protest, a week ago have been unsealed by people clamouring for a breath of fresh air. On Monday (yesterday) my high-strung colleagues in the library's Department of War Hysteria (there are now 3 of them in that department, for fear is contagious) insisted on re-doing their set of rooms. They received another supply of plastic and masking tape and spent half the day sealing themselves in. Nonetheless they still aren't satisfied and complain that someone professional should be doing the sealing. Someone with experience (in what? Chemical wars?). The library director, having suffered accusations of consigning Jews to the gas-cells just like Hitler when she tried to reason with them last time, shrugs her shoulders and lets them get on with it. Fear is irrational, you cannot reason with it. These colleagues, few though they be compared to the total number of library staff, remind me that not everyone is taking this in their stride. The chance of a missile hitting any one particular building, out of all the buildings in the city, is slight; but for these poor souls it looms larger than the whole horizen. Others are complaining at the slow return to normalcy. Why don't they send the children back to school in Haifa and Tel-Aviv, as they're doing in other areas? Liron had a one-hour school meeting today and received, like Yair, a large amount of material for home study, but it's not the same as regular school. There is a ray of light. Frieda, the head of what I've called our Department of War Hysteria, arrived today at 10 am. Frieda has a head of blond curls and four children under the age of 10, and since the war began she's been at home, holding her head and her children alternately, watching the news and sitting in her Sealed Room and going gently crazy. Frieda is a placid person, she does everything gently. Her room at home is well-sealed, much better than the library's, for Frieda is also extremely well-organized. A mother of four who works full-time has to be. She remembers how she used to crave a day off to stay at home, just to bake, shop, do housework. Now she has had 10 of them in a row. Nonetheless, she says, she had done nothing useful at home; between reassuring the children, watching the news, separating the children, sitting in sealed rooms, and finding employment for the children, the time slips away. However, she is now an expert at getting 2 gas masks and 2 other contraptions that look like the top halves of space suits onto 4 children in 3 minutes flat. Frieda is organized. Indeed we see she is, for she arrives with all 4 children in tow, having nobody with whom to leave them ("I just couldn't stand another day at home," she explains) and yet within an hour of her arrival the department has settled down to solid, productive work. It's easy, she says. I just called them all together, asked them exactly how they want the place sealed, and then I did it. Now they're not worried any more and they're working. In the privacy of my room we discuss the acoustic ceiling. Yes, Frieda agrees, it probably isn't safe; but the point is that her people think it is. No point in telling them other people's opinions. For the first time since the war began, they're happy. Her children are happy too. Piled into the mail room with pens, paper and a month's supply of packaging materials, they are quieter than Stealth bombers. They were here for 4 hours before I noticed. My own children resemble Stealth bombers in just about every way except this invisibility, even though there are only 2 of them, and I am full of admiration. My own expertise is with computers. I wish I could handle people the way Frieda does. I'm sorry she isn't coming again till Thursday, children and all. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Back to School; Censors Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 16:45 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1000 (2496) Monday, 4 February Back to School; Censors We had no alarm last night. The relief from attack was appreciated [Should I thank Saddam Hussein?] and relaxing. I did not quite believe, even at the moment of falling asleep. Waiting for the other shoe to fall. Schools continue to reopen. The ninth grade is now open in Tel Aviv and Haifa; elsewhere, the first to twelfth are open. But in Tel Aviv many of the classes are still only half filled - at least in the more affluent neighborhoods. There has been a conspicuous flight from Tel Aviv; hotels and guest houses in other cities such as Jerusalem and Eilat and more remote places such as the Kibbutzim are filled with Tel Aviv escapees. Even those without money who have friends or family elsewhere take advantage of this and leave the threatened city. The number of commuters who drive into Tel Aviv every morning has increased greatly, another sign of flight from the city. Interesting consequences of the flight include a marked increase [20-25%] in the number of births in Siroka Hospital in Beer Sheva and Jerusalem hospitals also report obvious increases in birth rate. The Mayor of Tel Aviv, an ex-Army colonel of obvious charm and popularity, Shlomo [Chich] Lahat, responded to the flight of Tel Aviv strongly and called the refugees "deserters". This strong reaction has produced much comment, both positive and negative. The City of Tel Aviv produced a car sticker saying, "I Stayed in Tel Aviv" which also has been a source of controversy. When a Tel Aviv car carrying such a sticker is seen in Jerusalem - perhaps on business - it elicits snickers. A number of Tel Avivians, in an effort to show that they have remained in the city, have hung Israeli flags from the windows of their apartments and houses. To spare feelings, maternity patients in Siroka Hospital - in thus-far-safe Beer Sheva - are no longer asked where they come from. In fact, escapees who now commute to Tel Aviv daily and sleep out of the city [all attacks have been after dark] are called, with gentle humor, out-patients. The movement away from Tel Aviv is now - slowly - reversing itself and families are returning to the city. Both the cost of living away from home and the failure of SCUDs to land in the city this past week contribute to the reurbanization of the city. The psychological effects of the attacks still occupy us and are subjects of radio discussions among psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and lay people as well as featuring in personal con- versations. A friend tells me that his neighbor's four year old son reported that "My bulbul [The most common children's word here for penis] is a Patriot missile with a chemical warhead." ***************************** My remarks about censorship appear to have incensed - or at least worried - some of my readers. In fact we were treated here yesterday to an American TV program devoted to the "sins" of Israeli censorship of the media. One broadcaster was actually required - not to stay alive or avoid banishment, but to maintain his press card - to announce that he had broken censorship rules - as the result of ignorance of the rules, he added - and to apologize. I know - and have seen - the censorship rules prepared by the office of the Army Spokesman [Nahman Shai]. They are clear and are distributed with every press card. But the playing of games, includ- ing that of the innocent, is standard practice for newsmen. [I am from the pre-newspeople generation; my intention is both sexes and all intermediate variations, even Kantian non-people, as I sometimes perceive certain newsmen - particularly those who have made a full time vocation of Israel-bashing.] When the CNN correspondent whom I described as tricking the Israeli Army censor by revealing - while asking in a live broadcast if he is allowed to mention - that the area bombed by SCUDs that night was a residential district, did so with pride at his own resourcefulness. The possibility that - by revealing this information - he was endangering lives was of no interest or of only secondary interest to him. These are acts of malicious and selfish self-aggrandizement, under the hypocritical guise of "free speech." All this took place under censorship; what limits could we, should we expect in its absence? None? I am aware of responsible journalism and have even witnessed. it in action. But these are rare and remarkable activities that are more anecdotal than frequent. And as praiseworthy as responsible journalism is, the more frequent lack of responsibility shown by reporters is reprehensible and may even be the direct cause of deaths of innocents. Israel is chided and castigated for imposing censorship on reporters. We say that we are not willing to risk lives for the titillation of TV audiences. Do you really think that your vicari- ous involvement in our suffering is an expression of the value of free speech? So it sounds - at least from this point in space and history. What of censorship in Iraq? Why is that not the subject of a TV expose? Peter Arnett's cooked, strained and digested interview of Saddam Hussein is shown throughout the world as if this were unrestricted reporting. And he is pretty much the only reporter there. No reporting at all and what there is completely staged. But that is Iraq, we are told, and you are Israel. We are - or should be - used to being judged by a double standard, a much higher one for us, a much lower one for our opponents. But it still gets under our skins. Americans are convinced that freedom of speech is an unlimited virtue. They are cynical about their government and do not believe it is as innocent or idealistic as it claims. And that the truth, as exposed by motivated and glory hunting [Isn't that the American dream in a capsule?] reporters, is an unequivocal virtue. Perhaps. But free speech has its limits. First of all, free speech may also allow the spread and acceptance of lies, defamation, and character assassination. But there is a free market place for ideas - This from the very same people who are against any other form of free market, by the way. - and the good [They would not use that word, as it is not part of their vocabularies; they would probably talk about verifiable.] ideas will rise and the bad ones sink. But is there really a free market place for ideas and for "truth?" If the reporter who apologized had - by his report - been responsible for the death of innocent citizens of Israel, what good would his apology done them? The limits of free speech are not obvious but they should be understood. First of all, they exist. No person should be allowed to cause death or damage by such speech. Libel law is a now a joke; no one can possibly win a libel case these days. But the public is aware of this and the caveat is - or should be - obvious to anyone who enters public life. But what if someone in a crowded place starts screaming "Fire!" and causes a stampede, resulting in wounded and even dead? Is that, too, to be allowed? Of course not. And that situation is quite similar to some of the reporting I have seen from here. It places lives in jeopardy and cannot be either excused or allowed. Another form of free speech that must be curbed and denied is that which incites to overthrow governments which advocate free speech. Such speech is dangerous in that it wishes to eliminate free speech. Arnett's broadcast of Saddam could - with- out stretching the point too finely - be included in that category. Once again, we can not say that Arnett or the networks were unaware of the dangers. Did not Ted Kopel go the same route with Saddam Hussein? And later apologize for being duped and used? That was before the war. Apologies of that sort in the time of war are less than pathetic, they tend to ridicule the value of human life. Censorship has a long and not completely dishonorable history, even in the US. The "Ulysses" court case - whose decision is reprinted in many editions - would not have been of interest in the absence of censorship. And American history did not begin in 1933. It was possible to free the slaves at a time when censorship was accepted as a norm. True, Americans now have Penthouse and hard porn movies. I don't; I am not sure that the quality of life - another interesting and perhaps dangerous new Americanism - I experience is inferior to that of those who enjoy them. Finally, war is not a normal situation. And this war. Standards of behavior that are unacceptable in normal times are every day events in war, not the least killing people and destroying property. Our priorities are different, a state of emergency exists and everything - or at least most other things - else must take a temporary [hopefully brief] back seat to the priority of preserving our country, our way of life, and the lives and properties of our citizens. Even reporters. ******************************* The threat of a poison gas attack is still upon us; it seems very real to us. We know that there are at least 10-12 SCUD missile launchers still functioning. Saddam Hussein may be becoming desperate. We do not know. Nerve gas was released in the bombing of a chemical works in Iraq. We are not quiet. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0952 On War (6/296) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 1991 12:14 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2161 (2497) I'm catching up on mail after mid-terms, and responding to a post of about five days ago, with items by Tom Luxon, Judy Koren, and others. I thought I was a liberal, and have anti-Vietnam and pro-Nuclear Freeze credentials to show for it. I could not agree with Tom Luxon that we paint Saddam Hussein as totally evil because he is so OTHER: to me, Saddam Hussein is psychologically the twin of Richard Nixon, operating in a different system. I remember a psychology professor of mine, after one of his frequent trips to Washington, observing that Nixon's administration was purging the Federal bureaucracy of liberals. And I agree with Judy Koren on the necessity of war to dislodge Saddam Hussein - as it might have been necessary to impeach Richard Nixon. I have watched several briefings with General Schwartzkopf, Allied Field Commander, who is fully emotionally aware of the vileness of war, and fully convinced of its necessity - my psychological assessment that he is congruent as a person, that what he thinks and feels are what he says, when he can say it. Rhetoric, either Tom Luxon's, George Lakoff's, or George Bush's, is disturbing and obscures the ability to think. Typing the Gulf War as necessity, as Judy Koren does, cuts through rhetoric to reality. We HUMANISTS are enamored of the ability to think critically, to say "It ain't necessarily so." But sometimes it is simply necessary. Sigrid Peterson SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET Sigpeter@cc.utah.edu From: ooi@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Jim Porter) Subject: Re: 4.0968 Israeli Diaries: Werman (1/177) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 17:53:44 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2162 (2498) I very much appreciate receiving Bob Werman's reports from Jerusalem, because his voice brings to my mind the plight of other victims, those whose voices we do not hear on Humanist: impoverished blacks in South Africa (and South Chicago); West Bank Palestinians; civilians in Baghdad (the counterparts of Bob Werman, huddling in bomb shelters on the other side). Like Bob Werman, I believe in Evil, too--but let's remember that Evil can take many guises; and that all the Evil isn't on one side, all the Good on the other. Bob Werman has the means to express and publish his outrage at Evil. Unlike Bob (and the rest of us), other victims do not have access to this (or in some cases, any) medium of expression--and so are effectively silenced. Jim Porter Purdue University ooi@mace.cc.purdue.edu From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0919 Responses: On War, Protest, and News from Israel (3/101) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 02:27:15 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2163 (2499) Let us agree that many "Western democracies" have helped Saddam (Frankenstein) build his monster. Now, as the monster lurches off with Karloffian one-foot- dragging strides toward the little girl do we say, "well, we helped make him, so we should accept our complicity and let him kill"? Come on, folks. There comes a time. Ask any Kuwaiti. From: Catherine Griffin <CATHERINE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.0994 Israeli Diaries: Werman (1/227) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 9:09 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2164 (2500) Perhaps, when Werman is having trouble putting on his mask, he might spare a thought for the Arabs in Israel who, unless out newspapers are not up to date, still have not been given masks. I do find the self-righteous tone of Werman's diaries a bit naive; Israel has been, and has had to be, an active participant in Middle East politics. Perhaps he is being cautious, as he obviously, from the copyright notices, has publication in mind. I would prefer to have a broader, or at least a more complex, perspective. Indeed, I agree with his daughter-in-law. Why are these diaries being posted every day, whereas the Haifa diaries (which I have asked for but not yet read) must be obtained from the listserver? From: George Lakoff Subject: [On Werman] Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 11:12:48 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2165 (2501) Re: Diary commentary One can not but be moved by the Israeli diaries of Werman and Koren. Those of us with friends and relatives in Israel, and those without Israeli connections but with simple humanity, shudder at the descriptions of life with gas masks and terror from the skies. The pictures on tv here of Israeli funerals, and of injured Israelis being taken to hospitals make me weep. The pictures of children going to school with gas masks can only stir the heart of any parent. There is a good reason for accounts of the war to be on a Humanist network. Humanism, after all, as a study, has a function -- the cultivation of empathy for one's fellow human beings, and for the breaking down of the walls between US and Them. As a humanist, when I see an Israeli child with a gas mask, I think of the Palestinian children who have no gas masks because a racist government would give them none. Even after the Israeli Supreme Court declared the rights of Palestinians to have gas masks (what a macabre right!), most still have not been given them. When I see pictures of Israelis going to work in gas masks, I am horrified. And as a humanist, I think also of the Palestinians who have been under a brutal ``curfew'' -- the equivalent of house arrest -- who cannot go out to work, or to get food or water. Their e-mail must not be functioning either. We have no daily diaries of their situation. There was a report on CNN the other night from the head of the Jordanian Red Crescent (the equivalent of the Red Cross) that a community of Bedouins living in tents in Iraq near the Jordanian borders was strafed by planes from the American coalition. Fifty Bedouins were killed and hundreds wounded. To make the numbers begin to mean something, I compute: Five Israeli deaths in raids publicized throughout the world. Ten times as many Bedouin deaths in one raid that made CNN once in the middle of the night, that was not mentioned again, that most of the world will not hear of. The Bedouins were not hooked up to e-mail. We have no descriptions of their terror. Reports coming from Iraq vary as to death count -- from thousands to tens of thousands -- and serious wounds from tens to hundreds of thousands. I have looked with horror at the faces of the family in the picture of the Israeli funeral. As a humanist, I think of those equally innocent human beings in Baghdad who have been ``dragged into the war''. What are their funerals like? Can they even have them? I try to imagine: a thousand Iraqi funerals for each Israeli one. One Iraqi funeral: think of the mother. Two Iraqi funerals: conceptualize the teenage daughter. Three Iraqi funerals: think of the grandfather of the child. Four, five, six,... nine, ten, eleven,.. Do I lose my capacity to imagine so soon? I return to a picture of Israelis in the hospital and imagine their pain. I think of Baghdad: no more room in the hospitals, hundreds of times as many wounded as can get in, no pain killers for the pain, no more bandages, since hospitals have run out of supplies: the sanctions ``worked''. No electricity, no fresh water in these hospitals. I think of what the diaries would be like if there were e-mail hookups in the hospitals and outside them where people can't get in. My imagination pales. The diaries from Israel are important to me. They call to mind not only what is in them, but what is not in them. It is difficult to be a humanist when missiles have been launched at you and your children are in gas masks. It is more difficult than ever then to break down the Us-Them barriers, to find a common humanity with those other innocents who also want nothing to do with war and happen to have been born in a different neighborhood. The humanist's empathy for other human beings, for the Palestinians and for the Iraqis whose sufferings defy the imagination, is absent from Werman's diaries. Yet it is such empathy born of humanism that Werman and his countrymen must cultivate and cultivate soon, if Israel is to survive after this war. The lesson to come out of this war is that the Israeli air force can no longer guarantee the safety of the country. It cannot stop missiles -- and SCUDS are pretty low-level unsophisticated missiles. The only security Israel can have is through a political settlement. After the war, it must settle with the Palestinians and grant them their right to exist as a nation. Those in Israel who favored this war made a terrible mistake. If sanctions, defensive measures, and diplomacy had been allowed to work, there would not now be missiles raining down on Tel Aviv. After the war, the situation may well be worse than before it. Reports in American papers say that Assad of Syria is busy working out a coalition with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt to go into place after the war, with the purpose of giving moslems control of the region and driving out the Western powers and weakening Israel. Assad, who is every bit as brutal as Saddam Hussein -- Assad slaughtered 20,000 of his own people who opposed him in just one city -- Assad is now the US' ``friend'' because of this war. We consider him ``moderate'' in the context of the war. The US has been giving him more arms and has been sharing intelligence -- reports this morning indicate three Mossad agents who had infiltrated Syrian terrorist groups have been killed because the US gave intelligence to Syria. The US is planning, after the war, to give more arms to Syria and Saudi Arabia, to form a ``balance of power'' against Iran. Imagine an even better armed Syria united with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, while most of the moslem world is hearing for years of the incredibly brutal assault by infidels on the moslems in Iraq. It is hard to imagine that Israel can profit from this war -- and if oppression of the Palestinians is still an issue, things will certainly be worse. I am one of those peace marchers who Werman thinks so little of. If we had been listened to, he would not be wearing his gas mask. I am in favor of a cease fire now. I see no point in further killings. I want Werman to be free of his gas mask. I have never been able to comprehend Jewish racism. Like Werman, I was raised an orthodox Jew and taught about the oppression of the Jews. But it has always seemed to me that coming from a heritage of oppression should give one empathy with the oppressed -- not make one want to be an oppressor. If Israel is to live peacefully with the Palestinians and with the other Arabs in the region, it must learn the empathy that humanism has to teach. Sadly, racism is on the upswing in this country. An American airman, asked what it is like to participate in a raid on Iraq, replied, ``It's like turning on the light in the kitchen, watching the cockroaches run, and then you kill them.'' From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: ISO and bibliographic references to electronic documents Date: Thu, 07 Feb 91 10:38:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2166 (2502) The ISO is preparing a standard on bibliographic references to electronic documents. It is now a Committee Draft; if approved, it will be circulated this year as a Draft International Standard. An earlier draft provided specifications only for the citation of computer programs and databases. In response to criticism from me and no doubt many others, it has been extended to include citations of 'electronic bulletin boards and message systems'. It does not discuss electronic mail lists, or distinguish between unmoderated lists and digests. Three examples, all from BITNET and INTERNET lists, are given; the lists are described as 'electronic bulletin boards'. As it happens, I had read one of the cited items when it appeared on the list, but I don't know which of several contributions on that subject is being cited. In my view, therefore, the methods of citation proposed would be inadequate to secure correct identification and recovery of the item cited. I cannot discuss details of the draft here, as I take them to be confidential. Although I hope to secure improvements in the CD before it is approved as a DIS, I would urge Humanists who take an interest in these matters to try to get a look at the DIS when it comes out and get their comments forwarded to their national secretariat. Of course, if you think that Humanist is an interactive bulletin board, or that an item on an unmoderated list can be cited in the same way as one on Humanist, where each issue has a date and serial number, then don't bother. Christopher From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: ISO National Organizations Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 19:15:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2167 (2503) Standards for character coding, text markup, bibliographical citations, and many other things of interest to computing humanists are being determined by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. Humanists should be sure to get copies of any Draft International Standard (DIS) that may be relevant to their work and comment on its adequacy to their national standards organization, which will be a an ISO 'member body'. Generally you can get copies of pending ISO Draft International Standards from national standards organization. Examples of these are -- Canada Canadian Standards Association (CSA) France Association Francaise de Normalisation (AFNOR) Germany Deutsches Institut fur Normung e. V. (DIN) Japan Japanese Industrial Standards Committee (JISC) US American National Standards Institute (ANSI) The interests of academics tend to be poorly represented on national standards committees, mostly because of the time and travel expense involved in standards work. This makes it even more important that we see and comment on these proposed standards in the early stages of their development. -- Allen From: Mike Sharples <mike@cogs.sussex.ac.uk> Subject: Computers and Writing IV Conference Announcement Date: Mon, 4 Feb 91 17:02:43 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2168 (2504) Could you please circulate this announcement around your colleagues. Thanks, Mike Sharples COMPUTERS AND WRITING IV Fourth Annual Conference on Computers and the Writing Process March 22 and 23, 1991 Brighton, UK Computers and Writing IV will be held at the University of Sussex, sited on the Sussex Downs in an area of natural beauty, close to the seaside resort of Brighton and 60 miles from London. It will be an international conference bringing together a wide variety of people concerned with all aspects of computers and the writing process. CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Keynote Speakers - Bertram Bruce, Douglas Adams. Dr. Bertram Bruce is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has developed natural language understanding systems and a variety of educational software, including QUILL, an integrated computer-based writing program. Douglas Adams is the author of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and, more recently, "Last Chance to See..." He is a designer of interactive fiction and multimedia systems and is an advisor to Alan Kay's Vivarium educational computing project. Papers - March 22nd: D. Judkins & E. Gibler Word Processing Wordsworth: Writing Literary Essays Aided by Hypercard. E. McAteer Schoolchildren's Revision Tactics in Computer-Supported Writing Tasks. M. Sharples Computer Support for the Development of Writing Abilities. J. Gifford & D. Pattow Networks, Collaboration, and the Systems Documentation Classroom. N. Williams Teaching Writing through Hypertext. E. Hoekstra & B.A. Andeweg Computer-assisted Teaching of Technical Writing. S. Bringsjord Cinewrite. J, Parthemore Jonathan: a Collaborative Creative Writing Environment. J. Yellowlees Douglas Are We Reading Yet? J. Ramsay & K. Oatley Designing Minimal Manuals from Scratch. C.G. Leedham & Y. Qiao High Speed Text Input to Computer using Handwriting. Papers - March 23rd: K.S. Eklundh Problems in Achieving a Global PErspective in Computer-based Writing. D. Galbraith Conditions for Discovery through Writing. A. Kukulska-Hulme Electronic Dictionary Paths for Writers. P. Holt Logic and Writing: Experiments on the Logical Structuring of Hypertext Documents. D. Diaper & M. Beer Reading and Writing Documents using Headed Recored Expertext. S. George. Link Attributes for Controlling Hypertext. R. Rimmershaw Technologies of Collaboration B.T. Hughes Collaboration Beyond the University J. Newman & R. Newman Two Failures of Computer-mediated Textcommunication T. Bench-Capon & P.E.S Dunne RAPPORTEUR: from Dialogue to Document J. Barlow Applying a Model of Concurrency to Computer-supported Cooperative Writing A. Finkelstein Reviewing and Correcting Specifications J.E. Hoard, R.H. Wojcik, K.C. Holzhauser, J. Bremer, P. Montague, S.G. Arellano On Refining and Validating the Simplified English Standard J.K.W. Forster & P.L. van Nest An Engineering Application for Hypertext Exhibition ---------- There will be an exhibition of software and publications at the conference. For further details and exhibition costs, contact the conference administrator, Judith Dennison. Posters and Software Demonstrations ----------------------------------- There will be space at the conference for displays of posters and non-commercial software. Posters should fit a space of approximately 3ft x 2ft. Please submit a brief description of the proposed poster or demonstration to Mike Sharples, the conference organiser, giving your technical requirements. Teachers' Day ------------- Organised by English Teaching with Computers. Sponsored by National COuncil for Educational Technology. A pre-conference day for teachers has been organised for Thursday 21st MArch. This day is designed for teachers who wish to explore some of the ways in which IT has been used to support children's writing. There will be a mixture of workshops and presentations providing opportunities to meet with interested colleagues and to share ideas, strategies and concerns. Further details and application forms, for the Teacher's Day only from: Rosetta McLeod Grampian Regional Council Education Dept. Resources Centre Belmont Street Aberdeen AB1 1JH UK Conference chair: Dr Mike Sharples School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex BRIGHTON BN1 9HN UK Email: mike@uk.ac.sussex.cogs Conference administration: Judith Dennison MAPS Building University of Sussex BRIGHTON BN1 9HN UK Tel: +44 (0)273 678379 Email: judithd@uk.ac.sussex.cogs ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- REGISTRATION FORM ----------------- Surname..................................................... First Name .......................................Title..... Institution/Company......................................... Address..................................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ Phone.................Fax.................Email............. Registration Fees Full conference fees include conference dinner on March 22nd and lunch on March 22nd and 23rd. One day registration includes lunch only. Registration does not include accommodation. Full Conference Before Feb. 20th 120.00 UKL ...... After Feb 20th 150.00 UKL ...... Member of Computers and Writing Association Before Feb. 20th 110.00 UKL ...... After Feb. 20th 120.00 UKL ...... [For membership details of the Computers and Writing Association only, contact: Patrik Holt, Department of Computer Science, Heriot Watt University, 79 Grassmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2HJ, UK.] One day participation Friday March 22nd 90.00 UKL ...... Saturday March 23rd 90.00 UKL ...... FEE ENCLOSED ........... Accommodation Type of Accommodation University Hall of Residence (17.00 UKL per night) Guest House, Brighton (25.00 UKL per night, approx.) 3 Star Hotel, Brighton (65.00 UKL per night, approx.) I wish to reserve a single room in the accommodation indicated above for the following nights. Thursday March 21st ...... Friday March 22nd ...... Staruday March 23rd ...... Brighton is approximately 5 miles from the University Campus, with a regular train connection. PAyment for the hotel accommodation should be made to the hotel. You will be sent details of the hotel reservation. University accommodation should be paid in advance. UNIVERSITY ACCOMMODATION FEE ENCLOSED ........... TOTAL FEE ........... Payment for registration and university accommodation should be made by bank transfer to Account no. 10880817, University of Sussex, Computers and Writing Conference, Barclays Bank, University of Sussex (sort code 20-88-64), or by a cheque from a UK bank to University of sussex, Computers and Writing Conference. Please return this form to: Judith Dennison Computers and Writing IV Conference MAPS Building University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK From: langconf@louis-xiv.bu.edu (BU Conference on Language Development) Subject: Call for Papers - 1991 BU Conference Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 13:22:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2169 (2505) The 16th Annual BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT October 18, 19 & 20, 1991 Keynote Speaker: STEVEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * CALL FOR PAPERS * Papers in the following areas are encouraged, although other topics in Language Acquisition will be fully considered: Linguistic Theory Input & Interaction (Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology) Early Linguistic Development Development of the Lexicon Speech Perception & Production Signed Languages Discourse Processing Creolization Discourse Cognitive Development & Language Literacy Neurolinguistic Development Narrative Exceptional Language & Language Disorders Sociolinguistics including a special session on Dyslexia Bilingualism IN RELATION TO ************************************************************** FIRST & SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION **************************************************** REQUIREMENTS 1) Original research that has never been presented or published 2) 450-WORD SUMMARY for anonymous review 3) 150-WORD ABSTRACT with title, topic, name & affiliation (to appear in conference handbook) SUBMIT 1) SIX copies of the summary, clearly titled 2) TWO copies of the abstract 3) ONE 3 x 5 card stating: a) Title b) Name(s) c) Affiliation(s) d) Topic area e) Current address f) Summer address g) e-mail address h) Telephone number i) Summer number j) Audiovisual needs NOTE NEW ADDRESS Boston University Telephone: (617) 353-3085 Conference on Language Development e-mail: langconf@louis-xiv.bu.edu 138 Mountfort Street Boston, MA 02215 USA DEADLINE: All submissions must be POSTMARKED BY *May 1, 1991*. Please include self-addressed, stamped postcard for acknowledgment of receipt. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent by June 30. _______________________________________________________________________________ Note: All conference papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate symposium proposals. _______________________________________________________________________________ From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: IJCAII 1991 Awards announcement Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 17:27:40 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2170 (2506) IJCAI AWARDS: IJCAI-91, Sydney, Australia, 24-30 August 1991 IJCAI-91, the Twelfth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, will be held in Sydney, Australia, 24-30 August 1991. The Board of Trustees of IJCAI, Inc. is pleased to announce the recipients of the IJCAI awards for Research Excellence, Computers and Thought, and Distinguished Service. THE IJCAI AWARD FOR RESEARCH EXCELLENCE The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is given, at an International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, to a scientist who has carried out a program of research of consistently high quality yielding several substantial results. Past recipients of this award are John McCarthy (1985) and Allen Newell (1989). The Research Excellence Award for IJCAI-91 will be given to Marvin Minsky, MIT. THE COMPUTERS AND THOUGHT AWARD The Computers and Thought Lecture is given at each International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence by an outstanding young scientist in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The Lecture is presented one evening during the Conference, and the public is invited to attend. The Lectureship was established with royalties received from the book Computers and Thought, edited by Edward Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman; it is currently supported by income from IJCAII funds. Past recipients of this honour have been Terry Winograd (1971), Patrick Winston (1973), Chuck Rieger (1975), Douglas Lenat (1977), David Marr (1979), Gerald Sussman (1981), Tom Mitchell (1983), Hector Levesque (1985), Johan de Kleer (1987) and Henry Kautz (1989). Two Computers and Thought Awards will be given at IJCAI-91: to Rodney Brooks, MIT and Martha Pollack, SRI International. IJCAI DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD The IJCAI Distinguished Service Award was established in 1979 by the IJCAII Trustees to honor senior scientists in AI for contributions and service to the field during their careers. Previous recipients have been Bernard Meltzer (1979), Arthur Samuel (1983), and Donald Walker (1989). At IJCAI-91, the IJCAI Distinguished Service Award will be given to Woodrow Bledsoe, University of Texas at Austin. From: "NORVAL SMITH (UVAALF::NSMITH)" <NSMITH@ALF.LET.UVA.NL> Subject: A nameserver for linguists Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 00:13 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2171 (2507) Announcing the LINGUISTS Nameserver 8/2/91 Today we have put into operation a linguistic nameserver. The function of this server is to reply to single or multiple requests for e-mail addresses of researchers in the language sciences. The basic commands now available are: HELP, LIST, ADD, REMOVE. HELP speaks for itself LIST requests address listings. Legal requests include: list surname; list string*; etc. ADD requests the addition of an address. The format is: add surname, first name: address REMOVE requests the removal of an address. The format is: remove surname, first name: address (before issuing a REMOVE command it is advisable to check the exact form of an entry with LIST) All requests should be addressed to LINGUISTS@ALF.LET.UVA.NL. The subject line will be ignored. Each request should be entered on a separate line. Please let your colleagues know about us! Norval Smith, Institute for General Linguistics, University of Amsterdam From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Job Posting Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 14:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1005 (2508) SOCIAL SCIENCES COMPUTING COORDINATOR SWARTHMORE COLLEGE COMPUTING CENTER Swarthmore College, a small four-year liberal arts college committed to teaching, has an opening for the Coordinator of Social Sciences Computing in its academic computing department. Swarthmore has an integrated, multi-platform networked environment with a preponderance of VAX and Macintosh-based network applications running over TCP/IP and DECNet, including T1 connections to Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and to the Internet. Approximately 70% of the faculty in the Division of Social Sciences and 100% of students use Macintosh computers for their work. The Coordinator for Social Sciences Computing provides the following specific support to faculty in the division: * Consulting, short course teaching and documentation for computing tasks related to courses and faculty research * Statistical Packages - SPSS and SAS on the VAX; JMP on the Macintosh * Development of software including programming * Microcomputer hardware and software testing and recommendation An applicant for the position should have as many of the following qualifications as possible: * Ability to work independently with minimal supervision * A bachelor's degree in a social science discipline or equivalent work, and 1-2 years experience in an academic computing environment * Experience with Macintosh computers * Experience with computing in a networked enviroment using TCP/IP and DECNet * Ability to communicate clearly both orally on a one-to-one basis and in written form with academic computer users at all levels of expertise * Programming ability * UNIX experience will be considered a definite plus STARTING DATE: AS SOON AS POSSIBLE Send resume and three references to: John R. Boccio Associate Provost for Academic Computing Computing Center Beardsley Hall Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA 19081 Swarthmore College is an equal opportunity employer. -------------------------------------------------------------------- PPPPP L EEEEE A SSSSS EEEEE PPPPP OOOOO SSSSS TTTTT P P L E A A S S E P P O O S S T P P L E A A S E P P O O S T PPPPP L EEEE AAAAA SSSSS EEEE PPPPP O O SSSSS T P L E A A S E P O O S T P L E A A S S E P O O S S T P LLLLL EEEEE A A SSSSS EEEEE P OOOOO SSSSS T -------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions may be sent to me, Matt Wall, wall@campus.swarthmore.edu From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.0982 The Languages of Humanist (10/254) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 18:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2172 (2509) Nous ne pouvons que nous feliciter du fait que Andrew Oliver prenne la defense du francais. C'est tout a son honneur d'avoir pour notre culture autant d'egards que pour la sienne. Il fait partie de la tres petite minorite canadienne anglophone et bilingue avec laquelle nous garderons contact avec grand plaisir meme apres la prochaine separation du canada en deux pays distincts. I refuse de Boissonnas' statement that he speaks in the name of the entire frenchspeaking community. He hasn't the slightest idea of what it means to be non-anglophone in north america: it's a story of survival. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Sharon Nell-Boelsche <DRU006D@SMSVMA> Subject: Re: 4.0982 The Languages of Humanist (10/254) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 20:42:47 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2173 (2510) Bien que je sois tres contente de voir des messages en francais, je dois dire que je me sens mal a l'aise en tapant une reponse dans cette langue. D'abord j'ai l'impression de faire d'innombrables fautes (manque d'accents, difficulte de faire des corrections). En plus, meme apres avoir fait un Ph.D. en francais, ecrire du francais me fait peur. Parler? Ah oui, d'accord, mais ecrire... si je ne fait pas l'accord, si je me trompe de genre... La possibilite d'avoir de nouveaux interlocuteurs francais vaut bien, je pense, quelques moments embarrassants, malgre toutes ces craintes enfantines. Amicalement, Sharon Nell-Boelsche, Drury College From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.0982 The Languages of Humanist (10/254) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 1991 10:07:55 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2174 (2511) I for one enjoy reading French contributions on Humanist (it gives me a chance to brush up my French). Incidentally, I sometimes get the impression from the Humanist readership that if I were able, technically, to post messages in Hebrew, the number of people who would understand them is not significantly less than the number who understand French; so many of them are either Israeli or Jewish or Bible scholars! All of you who complain at the French, be thankful your terminals have no non-Latin-alphabet capabilities and we cannot therefore make Humanist REALLY polyglot. Judy Koren From: "Mary Dee Harris, Language Technology" Subject: RE: 4.0982 The Languages of Humanist (10/254) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 15:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2175 (2512) I can't believe that splintering HUMANIST into a number of lists by the preferred language of subscribers will contribute in any way to the original aims of the list. My French isn't very good, but I struggle through when I feel that it's important (and when I get stuck I call on someone with better French -- yes, Joel, I think you have a great idea there.) My German is better, but I see fewer messages on HUMANIST in German. I'm reminded of some of the ALLC conferences that I've attended in Europe over the years. As most of you are undoubtedly aware, those conferences are bi-lingual -- English and French (or French and English, depending on where it is held and who organizes it). And I can remember when those of us whose primary language is English were not informed about conference arrangements, such as where certain unscheduled meetings were being held and changes that were made to the program. I generally found out these things because I know many people who know French and know my lack of French, but I have always considered that sort of treatment as impolite. Perhaps my (American) Southern upbringing has something to do with it, but I cannot imagine inviting someone into my home and not telling them when dinner is served -- for whatever reason. One could say, of course, that my problem is typical of American (lack of) education. However, I learned Spanish in elementary school, Latin in high school, and German at university (including graduate school). I had to learn French on my own to pass the exam for my Ph.D. and my reading ability is acceptable (if slow and tedious) -- so I somewhat resent that I was not properly educated (or should that be 'trained'?)! How many languages does one have to know to be considered acceptable? I always found the ALLC conferences quite entertaining anyway. Those of us whose French was not great tended to band together, so I met more Germans and Scandinavians that way than I might have otherwise. And perhaps those who spoke only French missed out because they wouldn't talk to me! I am also reminded of Bob Werman's descriptions of the TV announcements of the airraids -- those who know only English or Russian wait to see the message in their language, with Yiddish even later, it seems. I don't recall where French and Spanish fall in the order. Mary Dee Harris, hoping for humanity among HUMANISTs From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: 4.0982 The Languages of Humanist (10/254) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 12:44:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2176 (2513) I am one of those struggling United Statesians who feels truly comfortable only in English, mais j'essaye parler francais y puedo defenderme en espan~ol tambien. In response to my erstwhile and missed colleague Michel Pierssens' inquiry about a francophone sibling to HUMANIST, I must register my sense that for me this would probably represent a loss. I have little reason or opportunity to use my French or Spanish unless I'm in territories that use those languages. HUMANIST is transterritorial and I for one enjoy knowing that when I encounter those languages here they are not schoolroom exercises but the honest productions of those who use them. It is worth my time to understand them. In the case of languages I understand less well, I suppose I would struggle only if the subject matter were crucial. And in the case of languages I don't understand at all, I suppose I would simply have to pass. But allowing linguistically mixed submissions seems to me both sensible and humane. If a francophone sibling should present a real gain for those who use it, of course, I will be happy for them; but to the extent that such a sibling may draw off the attention and energies of my colleagues who feel the honest need to converse in languages other than English, such a development would be lamentable. My guess is that other estadounidenses eager to grow might share my feeling. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Revised Waiting Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 18:49 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2177 (2514) Tuesday, 5 February Waiting Another night without an attack. We are waiting. Last night was the second night in a row without an attack. Since the onset of the war, we have not had more than two consecutive nights with- out an attack. Does this mean that there will be one tonight? We do not know. The attacks this past week have been ineffective, with Scuds [I have been corrected, not SCUDs] landing short of their marks, in uninhabited regions. Is this a reflection of reduced capacity of the Iraqis to fire missiles in the wake of the one per minute sorties of the coalition? Or bad weather, too? Today it is sunny and cold here; is that a reason to be concerned? We live in a vacuum, an information void that renders us impotent when our overwhelming desire is to know, to understand - a desire that is grows from day to day. There clearly has been a general relaxation here; it is now quite obvious. As I walk through the streets of Jerusalem, carrying my gas mask with me, I am clearly in a minority. Relatively few people are now carrying masks; only a few days ago almost everyone carried his mask with him. Two motifs can be clearly identified in the Israeli character to explain the relaxation. One is the macho impulse, to be a "gever," a real man [or woman, the masculine word serves both sexes in modern Hebrew]. The other is not to be a "fryer", a sucker. [I think the word, not Hebrew in origin, is derived from the German "frei", or free. How did free degenerate to a pejorative? It seems that the term referred to a person so free as not to think as the crowd did; it still does refer to someone who is not a member of the herd, but what was originally intended as a compliment has become, by an interesting but not unnatural transition, state of being to be avoided.] I have spoken of the psychological impact of wearing gas masks, especially on children. I would like to report on the responses of my three oldest grandchildren, 8, 5 1/2, and 5. Adi, the oldest, was least affected. She refused to leave her home until school began again for her grade, and now seems unaffected. Anat, the 5 1/2 year old, still will not go back to school, is much more restrained and quiet than usual. When asked why she did not want to go back to school, Anati answered, "Because I do not want to die." Yochai needs the proximity of his gas mask and his own sealed room. He appeared completely normal when my wife took him home from his improvised kindergarten [no more than five children, per instructions] - until she saw that they had forgotten to take his gas mask. When he understood this, and on the way back to get the mask, he became uncontrollably disturbed, his behavior bordering on hysteria, until the mask was retrieved. He will no longer eat in my house although he loves my wife's cooking; he insists on being near his own sealed room; ours will not do. He makes a papier mache model of a child, with a gas mask. None of these children live in a city that has been attacked yet. I am not so much afraid as I am angry. An educational spin-off of the present emergency. Elementary school teachers were asked to prepare worksheets for pupil use and to meet, one hour to each group, the next day with small groups - no more than five in a group - of pupils to go over the work. This approach, a solution to an emergency situation, has proven not only successful but is seen by many educators as an improvement over the classroom centered activities practiced until now. [A cousin, Samuel "Tami" Baskin, formerly of Antioch College, years ago introduced a similar method of instruction for college and university students, called - I think - Office Universities, where students were given office space and access to reading materials, long term assignments with occasional consultation with teachers. He would be interested to hear that it works for children as well. He has a son now living in Jerusalem, working in Tel Aviv.] The problems of the deaf and the blind are particularly apparent in the time of alarms. The deaf cannot hear the siren or radio and TV announcements and the blind are subject to the stress of having to find their way, seal their poison-gas proof rooms and then there is their dependence on seeing-eye dogs. Some thought has been given to these problems, with sensitivity to the added strain placed on relatives and neighbors of these disabled people. The deaf have now been provided with buzzers whose vibrations indicate the beginning and end of an alarm. There are plans, not yet implemented to add words to the TV screen announcements that report the progress of the alert, important to all of us or using signers to spell out the announcements. The blind now have a muzzle-based mask for their dogs, a benefit to all large dog owners. Terrorist attacks, promised by both Saddam Hussein and the PLO, have begun here. It is interesting that even here, in the land of Israel, the common enemy, that the attacks are directed not against us, Israel, but against members of the coalition. The British Airways office in East [mostly Arabic] Jerusalem was trashed last night; windows broken, gasoline poured inside and ignited. No injuries. Just property damage. The phenomenon has been reported elsewhere. It will increase. ****************************** Some more on censorship. Is an interview with Saddam Hussein just distasteful? Or broadcasting to the world scenes orchestrated by Iraqi propagandists of the problems with a children's hospital whose electrical supply has been compromised by the coalition bomb- ings? I am not sure that it is not much worse than that. Why is it necessary to broadcast these things? Does it add to our insight into the conflict or just pluck on untuned emotional strings in us? What cynicism dictates the production of these film clips? Do not the Iraqis share responsibility [Share? In fact, they are primarily responsible.] for the plight of the infants by their unprovoked invasion of, rape of and annexation of Kuwait? Why does no one ask if the incubators shown - out of use because electric power supply is unreliable following coalition bombings - are the very same incubators stolen from Kuwaiti hospitals? After throwing out the babies in them? What motivates the TV producers to show them? Is it really concern for justice or fair play? Pardon me if I doubt that. My impulse is to say, "Shame. Shame." to the TV producer who showed that clip. "Peter Arnett's reports from Baghdad" writes a correspondent, " - as well as all reports from Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Pentagon - are clearly labelled "cleared by Iraqi/Israeli/U.S. military/what- ever censors." But is there no difference between these? Do you think that everybody understands the difference? I am told that I missed seeing a BBC Newsnight program that examined censorship in Iraq a week ago. This program pointed out that scenes of damage to civilian population areas were cuts of previous footage. It also showed a Japanese crew in Iraq interview- ing what purported to be an ordinary civilian complaining about bomb damage; he was being prompted by a military person standing off camera. Am I the only one who missed seeing that program? I doubt it, just as I doubt that the TV producers who play this faked footage missed the BBC expose. But, in the name of Freedom of the Press, they continue to play the released material with the very same [Fair?] censorship disclosure used for Israeli/Allied film clips. There is a difference. It is also possible not to broadcast "cooked" news. I am sometimes amused by the rows of distinguished reporters listening to Pete William's briefing in the Pentagon [Wolf Blitzer, who sits in the front row, left, used to be a Jerusalem Post re- porter and is the author of a rather unsympathetic book on Jonathan Pollard. His "authoritative" reports on CNN have gained him some fame in this war. Does he really have news to report, other than the managed news passed along to him?]. This scene is repeated in Saudi Arabia where the daily military report is given out, just so much and no more. The reporters take notes assiduously, aware of their own role as players in this TV drama. They ask questions. When Pete Williams or Captain Harrington do not want to answer they say so or say that they will get the information and come back with it. They don't, as a rule. They only let out what they want. This is not censored, but it certainly is managed - and TV producers have the effrontery to show this management as news, itself. Ah, well. *************************** I gather that my remarks about increased birthrates in hospitals outside of Tel Aviv were unclear and misunderstood. This increase does not reflect an increase in premature births but rather tells us about expectant mothers in Tel Aviv who have decided to give birth away from their threatened city. ***************************** An advertisement in the newspaper yesterday: Black- Brown Yorkshire Terrier Lost Answers to the name "Bonnie" On Jabotinsky Street, Tel Aviv -> The honest finder will be rewarded <- Tel: 03-393360 Has the smart dog joined others who decided that Tel Aviv is not the most safe place these days? Not even for dogs. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: After Three Quiet Nights Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 17:34 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2178 (2515) Wednesday, 6 February After Three Quiet Nights It is sunny and warmer than yesterday; it was pleasant to walk through the renewed-by-the-rains grass on the campus of the University. There was something spring like in the heavy lethargic feeling that accom- panied me in my walk. But something is wrong. It is not spring, not here, not anywhere, not even in the Southern Hemisphere where everything, including the direction that flushing water swirls, is backwards. You can't even get orientated from the stars in the night sky there. And here we have gone through a third night without an alarm, three in a row. We feel this both as a blessing and as a threat. What does this chaotic mind, this Saddam Hussein, have in store for us? Until now, we have not had three consecutive quiet nights since the Scud attacks started. Does it mean that Saddam Hussein's missile launchers have really been ef- fectively inactivated by the massive coalition bombings? Or have these same bombings so distracted him that we are no longer [or at least not for the time being] on his agenda? Perhaps he has killed all the officers respons- ible for sending missiles at us for their failures - the last five falling short of their marks, landing impotently in uninhabited areas? He is capable of killing his of- ficers; his past record shows that. It was Saddam Hussein who, when urged by one of his cabinet members during the Iraq-Iran conflict to abdicate - as a ruse, only - and when the conflict was settled to resume power, walked up to that devious but unfortunate minister and executed him [for his deviousness? for his unloyalty?] by shooting him through the head. Saddam Hussein does not use decapita- tion as his neighbor, Saudi Arabia, still does, but dead is dead. Or, as we fear, is he saving up something for us, even possibly waiting for us to put up our guard? For Saddam Hussein has a long unsettled account with us, ever since we bombed and destroyed his nuclear weapon capa- bility in the June 1981 raid on the French built Tamuz reactor in Ossirick. Well, destroyed the reactor if not his capability, but at least we set him back 10 years. He has never paid us back for that and we know that he has neither forgotten nor forgiven us for that slap in his face. His impotence against our attack and his inability to pay us back in like coin has strengthened his hatred for us, his enmity to us - a hatred and enmity which can only have grown over the years, for our demon- strating as we have his weakness and vulnerability - not the most desirable qualities for a self-announced savior of Arab pride, for a new Salladin. Saddam Hussein is still motivated by his need to galvanize Arab and Muslim support to his cause. Motiv- ated to hit us hard. Although his efforts to date with the Scuds have not been as successful as he may have wished, he has had some success. Popular support for his cause, perceived as an Arab or Muslim fighting the Imperialistic West intent on turning the Arab world and its resources to its needs, has spread through the Arab/ Muslim world, even among members of the coalition. 300,000 supporters parading for Saddam Hussein in Morocco join similar but smaller rallies in Egypt and Jordan. Volunteers for his army are being recruited in Pakistan and Indonesia. Iraq is perceived as suffering only for its being Arab and standing in the way of Western ag- gression. We understand the phenomenon here, in Israel. We have watched the PLO turn the Israel-Palestine story upside down. The unsuccessful Arab attempts to oust us from our country are said to be and then understood as and finally remembered as Israel's stealing the country from the Palestinians. Just so, Saddam Hussein's unpro- voked invasion of Kuwait, its subsequent rape and annexa- tion are now forgotten and only the US lead invasion of the Arab subcontinent is seen, understood and remembered as proof of Imperialistic Western designs on Arab hegemony and oil. Israel is still a crucial element for Saddam Hussein in galvanizing Arab/Muslim support and forcing Arab nations to withdraw from the coalition, where only the US and Britain appear to be fully committed. Even the threatened Saudis feel the pressure of ground-swell support for Saddam Hussein. He who ravages Israel, the symbol of Western intrusion into the Arab subcontinent, has the best chance to rally this support, and thus to pull apart the coalition. We know that Saddam Hussein has poison gas; his own citizens have been poisoned by it. He has already used it to kill 5000 helpless Kurds and in battle against the Iranians. There is good reason to believe that he also has the armamentarium of biological warfare at his dis- posal. He hints that he has nuclear weapons but all we know of is that Iraq had functioning reactors; he has never tested such a weapon. These are the three threats that most concern us. And we wait. And wonder. And question. And speculate. And try to return to normal routines - as much as possible. ***************************** The need for information is compelling. Those re- mote from the battles need it, and spur the media on to provide it, at almost any cost. We who are closer, need information even more, we hunger for it, we thirst for it. We watch TV while keeping the radio on in the background and a third ear peeled to the possible sound of a siren. And we buy more newspapers than ever before - and we are a newspaper buying country even in peaceful times. Not a few people read as many as three or four different news- papers each day. And many more join them in buying the Friday [weekend] editions. During an alarm, this need becomes acute. The Israeli wife of one of the foreign ambassadors tells that during an attack her husband insists that she translate every word broadcast. We can understand that. Most wives and children of diplomats were evacuated. A notable ex- ception is the wife of the Egyptian Ambassador, neither Israeli nor Jewish. She insists on remaining in Tel Aviv during the attacks, sharing our fortune and mis- fortunes. The example of Mrs. Bassioni is reassuring; it suggests to us that peace with the Arab world is possible. ******************************** Dr. Ruth Westheimer, sexologist and American TV personality is visiting us. She is a holocaust survivor and lived here for some time. Her Hebrew is still quite good and she explains her visit as both professional, to study conditions under stress, and personal, "In 1945, the only country that would agree to accept me was Palestine/ Israel. My family was killed in Auschwitz, now I must be here." She expresses her views about sex problems during a war. If there are problems, the added stress will only make them worse. On the other hand, she admits, the prob- lems may be dwarfed by the real danger. In a TV interview, she said that it was better if sex were deferred until after the conflict. The interviewer interjected, "I have a friend...", his point being that the need was great and sex could be relaxing and reassuring. Dr. Ruth, as she is called, said that in such a case the sealed room with its negative connotations should never be used. In fact, it was advisable not to have sex at night. "Do it in the daytime, send your children to the neighbors - Israelis are so cooperative and helpful, especially in emergencies." ****************************** We cannot, as a modern Western society, function with- out opinion polls. And so the latest poll shows that 60% of us believes that the war will be prolonged. 80% of us are for the government's policy of restraint, but 83% feel that Israel must respond immediately if unconventional war measures [chemical, biological or nuclear] are used against us. 57% of us complain of feeling "down." 7% are actually elated. For 19% of us - the most common response - the hardest part of the current situaton is worry about members of the family. For another 18%, a close second, it is the uncertainty that bothered most. Other responses were much less common. 8% were not bothered at all [presumably the same people]. As to leaving home in face of the threat, 35% of resi- dents of Tel Aviv and 16% of Haifa residents said they already had left or were ready to leave home for safer parts if the attacks continue. ****************************** Jerusalem's cafes are again filling up, at least during the daytime. These popular refuges are doing a good business, with their cafe hafuch [cappuccino; that name is reserved here for expresso cof- fee served with whipped cream and cinnamon] and rich cakes. I over- heard the following conversation at the next table: He: You are a non-reactor. She: Yes, a nuclear non-reactor. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Taiwanese contacts? Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 17:33:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2179 (2516) Would anyone with knowledge of Taiwanese e-mail contacts please write to V. Solem, VSolem@CCR2.BBN.COM, who is trying to find a way his mother, who teaches there, might get connected to an electronic seminar or two? Thanks very much for the kindness. Willard McCarty From: "Joel P. Elliott" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: converting megawriter files Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 00:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2180 (2517) I would like to convert some word processing files created with Megawriter to MS Word or WordPerfect. Does anyone know of a conversion utility that will accomplish this? I have used Software Bridge, but I do not think it supports MW. Does anyone know about the file structure of MW files? Are they compatible with any other word processor? [MegaWriter is produced by a co. called Paraclete.] Any ideas appreciated, Joel Elliott <jeliot@unc.bitnet> From: DJT18@hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.0997 Qs: Czech CALL; UK Paper Mills (2/29) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 15:33:12 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2181 (2518) Re CALL for Czech I don't have the information you ask for, but can give you the name of someone who is head of the audio-visual and language centre in Prague and involved in CALL: she may be able to help, but I only have a postal address. She is Zuzana Jettmarova, Filozoficka fakulta UK, nam. J. Palacha 2, 116 38 Prague 1. June Thompson, CTI Centre for Modern Languges From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.0980 Responses: Outlining Programs (3/61) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 1991 18:23:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2182 (2519) I did not respond to the query about outlining, specifically moving text around within an outline without having to manually adjust levels, until I had time to check out Word Perfect 5.1 to see exactly what it will do. Surprise! It does just about anything one could want. I use the outline feature of Word Perfect 5.1 to take notes on my reading and to prepare my lectures--it is great. I knew that when I inserted new text into the outline that WP5.1 would assign the appropriate letters and numbers and relabel all that comes after it in the outline. What I discovered today, however, is that you can move a "family" section of an outline by using the options command under outline. What that does is permit you to move a heading and all subheadings under it at one time simply by using the cursor. And then I tried the move-text command by blocking a portion of an outline and then moving it to somewhere else in the outline. When I inserted the block, WP5.1 automatically renumbered and relettered the insert and that which came after it. There are probably millions of other programs that will do the same thing, but if you are alreadya using WP5.1, why bother with add-ons? T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: MTRILEY@CALSTATE (Mark Timothy Riley) Subject: query on Gamma Productions Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 14:11:03 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2183 (2520) Many thanks to those of you who sent me information about Gamma Productions and MLS. There seem to be many satisfied users. Thanks again. Mark Riley From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: political propaganda; diaries Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 09:23:58 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2184 (2521) I'm beginning to become concerned about the way in which people are abusing this newsgroup to express themselves about the war and their experience of it. Imagine if everyone on Usenet who wished to ask a question about the C programming language posted to comp.unix.questions. Since Unix and C are inextricably intertwined, one can see how this might happen. Suppose now that the X11R4 people posted there as well, since X Windows runs mainly on Unix platforms, and is written in C? This could go on and on. In point of fact, there are news- groups dedicated to C, Unix, and X11R4, and although some overlap is inevitable, competent posters normally excercize enough good sense in their group selection to keep traffic on comp.unix.ques- tions to a manageable size. What seems to be happening here is that the war is creating some strong feelings, and, lacking other obvious outlets, people are posting on Humanist. I'm sure that the average intelligence level on our group is sub- standially higher than the overall world mean. It should not be beyone anyone's capabilities to locate other listserv groups, and to connect into other worldwide networks that have newsgroups better structured for talk of tyrants, bombs, and gas masks. Usenet, in particular, is well suited for such talk, and newsreading software is available for that medium that makes categorization and proces- sing of the vast information flow much. If people can't or won't crawl out beyond the borders of this one small newsgroup, they should at least know enough not to provide the rest of us with daily evidence of their oversight. This is admittedly just my personal opinion. I send it to you, the editors, because traditionally it's thought inappropriate to engage in long discussions of what is and is not appropriate for a given newsgroup on that newsgroup. One is usually encouraged to try per- sonal mail. -Richard From: Hank Nussbacher <HANK@VM.BIU.AC.IL> Subject: Re: Political messages. Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 16:54:01 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2185 (2522) To: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS.HUJI.AC.IL In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 6 Feb 91 14:50 +0200 It certainly wasn't directed at you. We were approached by EARN president about use of listserv lists. I do not see a problem with usenet news. Our problem is listserv EARN lists. Your journals are not political activism. But we must be careful. There are far more people who hate Israel than like it. The lists can quickly be swamped with PLO-L and palestine.talk and the network then becomes a media battleground. EARN ignores the netnews traffic as well as its contents and rules only on listserv lists. All I can say is just be careful that we do not overstep any rules that everyone else does. Hank ************ __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: Unicode Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 16:12:36 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2186 (2523) For those of you interested in the Unicode (character-encoding) debate: for e-mail responses the deadline has been extended to 25 February. So order your copy now from microsoft!asmusf@uunet.uu.net, and make sure your voice is heard. Regards, Douglas de Lacey. From: Ken Whistler <whistler@ZARASUN.METAPHOR.COM> Subject: [reply to Douglas de Lacey, Re: Unicode 1.0] Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 15:45:50 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2187 (2524) I sent the following reply letter to Mr. de Lacey's recent comments on Unicode 1.0. Since he posted his comments to TEI-L, I am also forwarding my reply to that list. (Ken Whistler) [Whistler asked that this also be posted on Humanist. -- Allen] Mr. de Lacey, Asmus Freytag forwarded your comments to several of us who are currently working on the Unicode 1.0 draft. While formal resolution of commentary will await decisions by the Unicode Technical Committee, I thought it might prove useful to clarify a few things now. These are my own opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the decisions of the UTC. Many of the bizarre characteristics of the symbols area that you note (encoding of fractions, Roman numerals, etc.) are simply the price we have had to pay to preserve interconvertability with other, important and already-implemented character encodings. We fully expect that any "smart" Unicode implementation will ignore most of the fraction hacks, for example, and encode fractions in a uniform and productive way. There is, in fact, a dual argument fraction operator in Unicode (U+20DB) to support such implementations. The coexistence of composite Latin letters (e.g. E ACUTE) with productive composition using non-spacing diacritics is also forced by compromises between competing requirements for mapping to old standards and implementation needs of the various parties which will use Unicode. While this has been (accurately) criticized as leading to non-unique encoding--in the sense that alternative, correct "spellings" of the "same text" can be generated--it is my considered opinion, after long arguments with proponents of other approaches, that uniqueness is not obtainable. In other words, we could design a scheme which could theoretically lead to unique encoding, but it would be unacceptable as a practical character encoding--so we wouldn't get it anyway. Unicode started out as you envision it--with only baseforms and non-spacing diacritics for Latin/Greek/Cyrillic, so that all accented letters would be composed. But that allowed for no acceptable evolutionary path from where we are to where we would like to be. The other approach, which tries to encode every single combination anyone could use (i.e. ISO DIS 10646), is necessarily incomplete, in that it refuses to acknowledge productivity in application of diacritics (e.g. for IPA). So Unicode is admittedly a chimera--but a practical, real chimera that will be implemented, rather than an impractical and unimplementable one. You identify a problem which arises from non-uniqueness, namely: [deleted quotation] I would imagine this also disturbs the dreams of many who are working on the text encoding initiative. But again, I think there is no way to guarantee uniqueness. Furthermore, the entire notion of "identical text" requires rigorous definition before algorithmic comparisons by computer make any sense. Is a text on a Macintosh comparable to the "identical text" on an IBM PC? Well, perhaps, once considerations of several layers of hardware, software, and text formatting, together with character set mapping are resolved. Such comparisons involve appropriate filters, so that canonical forms are properly compared. All Unicode implementers I know of are fully aware of the problem of canonical form for text representation. (By the way, it might be fair to say that this is an order-of-magnitude more critical problem for corporate database implementors than it is for text analysis.) Another thing to keep distinct in understanding Unicode is that not everything which can appear on a page can be encoded in Unicode plain text. Changes of font, changes of language, or metatextual references to a particular glyph: [deleted quotation]require a higher level of text structure than simply a succession of characters one after another. Unicode is definitely not going to be defining a bunch of ESCAPE code sequences to be embedded into text with particular semantics such as "change font to...". Modern text editing, analyzing, and rendering software deals with such things by means of distinctions on a "plane above" the text itself. The plain answer to the question, "could the whole of the manual as printed be sensibly encoded in Unicode?", is clearly no, since it requires a layer of formatting and distinguishes multiple fonts. The particular case of the GREEK SMALL LETTER SCRIPT THETA is just baggage dragged along from mistakes made in earlier encodings (thus also the other admitted glyphs encoded separately in the Greek block). There is a scheme for indicating preferential rendering (where possible) using ligatures (such as Greek "kai"). The ZERO WIDTH JOINER (U+200D) and ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (U+200C) can be used as rendering hints for ligatures, as well as serving as an important part of the proper implementation of cursive scripts such as Arabic. I don't think there is a LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN to be found. This is a good case for following the "How to Request Adding a Character to Unicode" guidelines. If you can provide clear textual evidence that wynn appears in regular use with a case distinction, then a capital form would be a good candidate for addition. The Greek semicolon was unified with MIDDLE DOT (U+00B7). The diacritic ordering algorithm (centre-out) is meant to apply independently to diacritics on top and to diacritics on the bottom. The issue of how to specify unambiguously side-by-side ordering within diacritics at the same vertical level is a good one, and I think it will have to be addressed in the final draft. I hope these clarifications are helpful. --Ken Whistler From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: graduate course in humanities computing Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 10:56:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1012 (2525) Members of Humanist may recall that a few months ago I reported on a new graduate programme in humanities computing at Toronto. The programme consists of two half-courses: CCH1001H, "Instructional Methods by Computer"; and CCH1002H, "Basic Research Methods by Computer". Earlier I reported on the first of these; now that the second is in progress, I can offer you the syllabus. Approximately a dozen students from a wide variety of departments are currently enrolled. Please note that the syllabus is subject to change. Willard McCarty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CCH 1002H, Jan.-Mar. 1991 CCH 1002H. Basic Research Methods by Computer. W. McCarty (CCH) and others. Introduces students to the ways in which the computer may be applied to fundamental problems in academic research. Its aim is to show how research can be conducted more efficiently and accurately, and how the researcher can take advantage of resources and techniques formerly unavailable or forbiddingly difficult to access. Students will learn how material from printed and online sources can be electronically extracted, stored, classified, arranged, and retrieved; how texts can be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively; and how both common and usefully idiosyncratic methods of research can be modelled on the computer without complex programming. Prerequisites: either (a) CCH 1001H, or (b) basic familiarity with MS-DOS and/or Macintosh and the permission of the instructor. Maximum enrollment: 18. Requirements: seminar participation and several short exercises. Date, time, and place: Wednesday, 23 January to 3 April 1991, 7-9 p.m., in room 14321 Robarts Library (take an elevator from the 4th floor). Admission. Interested students should register at the CCH, Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.; please see W. McCarty, 14297D, 978-3974, McCarty@VM.EPAS.UToronto.CA. Facilities. Registered students will have free access to MS-DOS and Macintosh microcomputers and to the CCH/EPAS mainframe facility (VM/CMS and UNIX), including electronic mail. The microcomputers support a wide variety of instructional and research software, some of which has been developed at Toronto. Course Outline.. 23 Jan. Organization of the course; introduction to the subject (W. McCarty). The impact of the computer on research: observing how it is actually done and modelling its mechanical components. Division of the research process into analytical and synthetic stages; how computers may be applied to each stage. 30 Jan. Online resources (G. Rockwell; TBA). Bibliographical and textual resources via mainframe, network, and microcomputer; electronic seminars, conferences, and bulletin boards. Various online media and their characteristics. [Data Library; ARTFL; Dante; CD-ROMs: TLG, OED; Internet libraries; Humanist &c.] 6 Feb. Database, Textbase, and Knowledge-Base (C. Leowski). Structuring information for retrieval; how the nature of particular information influences this structure; database management techniques; the specific demands of texts, sounds, images; hypertext; what the knowledge-base offers. 13 Feb. Data capture and encoding (A. Oliver). Capturing data by keyboarding and optical scanning; error-detection and proofreading. Analysis prior to encoding: data structure and content; intended use. Encoding strategies. [WordPerfect 4.2, Urica; optical scanning equipment] 27 Feb. Close Reading and Analysis of Text (W. McCarty). Concordances and other forms of retrieval; finding images and ideas through words; proper names and periphrastic expressions; metatextual tagging; searching strategies; studies of vocabulary; graphic representation of structures and thematic developments; content and discourse analysis. [TACT; texts of Milton and Ovid] 6 Mar. Numerical methods (B. Brainerd) The place of numerical methods in literary criticism and textual research in general. Using statistical evidence to help solve literary questions -- e.g. disputed authorship, dating of texts, developing stylistic diagnostics. The epistemological nature of statistical results. Workshop: finding statistical parameters (means, variances, etc.) and understanding their meaning for data from Shakespeare's plays. 13 Mar. Lexicography (T. R. Wooldridge). Use of electronic dictionaries (e.g. OED, Robert); extraction of information from highly structured e-dictionaries (e.g. OED) and loosely structured e-dictionaries (e.g. Nicot); complementarity of e-dictionaries and literary databases (e.g. Robert and ARTFL). Personal lexicons. 20 Mar. Editing texts (S. Dumont, M. Zier). The basic steps of editing a text; two kinds of computer-assisted editing and their applications; use of common tools. Analysis of textual variants. [Textual editing software: MTAS, Norm, and utilities; TUSTEP.] 27 Mar. Evidence, structure, and argumentation (W. McCarty). Transformation of data into argument; collecting, classifying, arranging, and retrieving instances; pattern recognition; writing from electronic notes. [Annota; wordprocessor and simple textbase software 3 April Programming (J. Bradley). Levels of programming and kinds of languages; when programming is appropriate. Formulating the problem to be solved or describing the process to be simulated. Procedural thinking and its representation; basic craftsmanship. Coding, debugging, and usability testing. Documentation. Faculty. J. Bradley, Computing Services B. Brainerd, Departments of Linguistics & Mathematics S. Dumont, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies C. Leowski, EPAS/Humanities Consortium W. McCarty, Centre for Computing in the Humanities & Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies A. Oliver, Department of French G. Rockwell, Computing Services & Department of Philosophy R. Wooldridge, Department of French & Centre for Computing in the Humanities M. Zier, Dean of Men, University College From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: OFFLINE 32 Release Date: Monday, 11 February 1991 2057-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1013 (2526) [Attached is the new OFFLINE issue, with apologies for the delay. RAK] ---------------------- <<O F F L I N E 3 2>> coordinated by Robert Kraft [11 February 1991 Draft, copyright Robert Kraft] [HUMANIST and IOUDAIOS, 11 February 1991] [Religious Studies News 6.2 (March 1991)] [CSSR Bulletin 20.2 (April 1991)] ---------------------- Deadlines overtake and harass with increasing regularity. What would we do without them?! I had intended, or at least planned, to use some of the space in this column to provide some updated addresses and bibliographical references to assist readers in finding their way in this ever increasingly complex electronic world. It is much too large a task for this small space, but some beginnings are possible. Some of the "old" standby sources are still very valuable, such as John J. Hughes' _Bits, Bytes & Biblical Studies: A Resource Guide for the Use of Computers in Biblical and Classical Studies_ (Zondervan, 1987), including its extensive bibliographies and related information. And There are various periodic publications to help keep the interested current. The American based Association for Computing in the Humanities publishes a quarterly Newsletter as well as its bimonthly journal _Computers and the Humanities_ (CHum), and can be contacted c/o Dr. Joe Rudman, English Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213. The British based sister organization is the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, with its quarterly journal, for which the contact person is currently Dr. Thomas Corns, Department of English, University College of North Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, Wales. Some of the more traditional professional societies also offer specific types of assistance with computer technology and tools, such as the American Philological Association or the Modern Languages Association (check the respective journals for current addresses). The aforementioned sources and others like them often can provide pointers to the availability and utility of electronic data and software. Probably the most comprehensive catalogue of electronic data currently available is produced by the Oxford Text Archive, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN, England (ARCHIVE@VAX.OX.AC.UK). From the same address, a free (at least for the moment) newsletter on _Computers in Literature_ is also available through Dr. Marilyn Deegan, CTI Centre, Oxford University Computing Service. Academic distribution services for software products of various types and with a wide range of prices (including "freeware") also may be of interest: North Carolina State University has amassed a gigantic collection, although easiest access to it seems to be through the electronic networks. Duke University produces a catalogue of available software that it has collected. "WiscWare" is the name for educational software generated in connection with IBM grants, and is available through from that office at 1210 West Dayton Street, Madison WI 53706 (WISCWARE@WISCMACC.bitnet). Apple Macintosh software with similar pedigree has been publicized in Apple's _Wheels for the Mind_ magazine and was also available through Kinko's Academic Courseware Exchange until recently; apparently new arrangements are underway. Much else could be said along these lines but I am running out of time and energy. Indeed, suggestions from readers regarding what centers and services you have found most helpful are invited. OFFLINE will be pleased to pass the information along! The remainder of this column provides some corrections and updates on computer assisted research relating (mostly) to ancient texts and tools, with contributions from the wider group of OFFLINE collaborators. <Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project Update, by Alan Groves> The section on the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon project by Steve Kaufman in the 1990 CARG Reports distributed at New Orleans was inadvertently a repeat of the 1989 report rather than the revised 1990 material he had submitted. Anyone desiring a copy of the updated version should request it from me at the following address. My apologies to Steve! Those interested in a copy of the full reports should send $2.50 and specify whether you want the electronic or the printed version. If you desire both include a total of $3.50. The reports will be made available on an electronic file server soon (HUMANIST and/or IOUDAIOS) and can be accessed that way if so desired. Alan Groves Westminster Seminary Philadelphia, PA 19118 GROVES@PENNDRLS.BITNET (or internet @PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU) for e-mail. <Towards Universal Transcription Coding Standards, by James O'Donnell> A consortium including but not limited to Apple, IBM, NeXT, Xerox, Sun, Microsoft, and the Research Libraries Group is developing a new standard for electronic transcription of written materials in various languages. It is called "Unicode," and is intended to replace the extant ASCII standard. Unicode will offer distinct representations for approximately 25,000 characters, including those of every writing system I have ever heard of (all the way to China and Japan) and several more besides. It deals only with the electronic transcription code: not the display or the printing font. It is up to the software to teach the hardware how to display those correctly on screen and on paper. This is the future. I have found the Unicode mavens most eager to discuss what they are doing and fascinating besides. To express interest and get a copy of the proposal, address MICROSOFT!ASMUSF@UUNET.UU.NET. The material you receive will say how to communicate suggestions, etc. There is a rough deadline of 15 February, 1991, for making views known to Unicode for inclusion in the version that is due for release this spring, but I would not be offput by that: further versions will be forthcoming and the people involved will continue to revise, expand, and discuss. The most useful thing I learned from them is that the best available legend for the creation of the high-ASCII character set goes back to sources inside IBM itself, viz., that the extra 128 characters whose randomness has so charmed us all really were picked out by two guys on an overnight flight to London for a meeting the next morning. The greatest benefit of all will be that it will be possible to transfer texts in a variety of gaudy language systems from an IBM to an Apple to a NeXT, traveling over various unfriendly mainframes in the process, with all the characters coming through as accurately as low ASCII come through now. This will make the world a better place. <New CD-ROM Releases from PHI, by Don Westblade> Provided that all has gone according to January plans, by the time you are reading this the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) expects to have made license agreements available for a major new release of ancient texts on compact disks to replace its earlier demonstration disks (#1) of Latin and CCAT materials and (#2) of documentary papyri. Pending final negotiations by the copyright lawyers, look for the following text bases to be available on CD-ROM about mid-February: (1) The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL), which has now been coded and corrected through the end of the second century CE, with some 362 authors ready for distribution by PHI (directed by David Packard and Stephen Waite). This constitutes a major expansion and updating of the Latin materials on PHI CD-ROM #1 that appeared at the end of 1987 and has been "out of print" for the past several months. (2) The Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri (from the project directed by John Oates and William Willis), which first appeared on PHI CD-ROM #2 in 1988 and has now been much enlarged and more carefully formatted. (3) The Cornell Inscription Project (directed by Kevin Clinton), including materials from Attica, Delos, Peloponnese, Central Greece, Delphi, Crete, Ionia and Icaria -- an earlier form of some of these texts was included on the PHI CD-ROM #1. (4) The Nag Hammadi Coptic texts (complete) encoded at the Claremont Institute under the direction of James Robinson, with Sterling Bjorndahl -- an earlier form of these materials was present on the original TLG CD-ROM in 1985. (5) The Coptic (Sahidic) New Testament (complete), based on Horner's edition as encoded by CCAT but revised and edited by David Brakke under the direction of Bentley Layton (Yale). Arrangement of these data bases on disk had not been finally determined as of press time, but plans currently call for a division of the material into two disks in order to reduce license fees for those who have no need to work with every set of texts. An annual license fee will be assessed for each collection, but as in the past the Packard Humanities Institute remains dedicated to maintaining fees at nominal levels. Those already working under license agreements with PHI disks #1 or #2 should automatically be sent a proposed license for the new disks as soon as the disks are produced. Other prospective users may write to the Packard Humanities Institute (300 Second Street, Los Altos, CA 94022) to request a license agreement. Incidentally, PHI is also involved with publishers of the papers of Franklin and Washington, encoding those historical American collections for a CD-ROM distribution tentatively set for later this year. <Experimental Biblical CD-ROM from the American Bible Society> The original PHI CD-ROM #1 also included a number of biblical and related texts as well as a miscellany of other materials (see OFFLINE 17) collected and/or prepared by the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) at the University of Pennsylvania. Some of the more widely used texts from this gouping will be carried over onto the new PHI disks described above, and an expanded and updated version will probably appear separately in the near future. In the meantime, the American Bible Society (ABS, representing also the United Bible Societies = UBS) has purchased rights to the CD-ROM data and search sofware previously marketed by the Foundation for Advanced Biblical Studies (FABS) and has issued a limited edition, experimental biblical CD-ROM that includes some of the texts available from CCAT. ABS and CCAT expect to continue to cooperate in future electronic publication and distribution of such materials on CD-ROM. The contents of the experimental "ABS Reference Bible" CD-ROM are as follows (available from ABS, 1865 Broadway, NY NY 10023 for $195, which includes the Innotech FindIt search software): Ancient Bible Texts & Tools Hebrew BHS (Elliger-Rudolph/UBS) Morphologically tagged Hebrew BHS (Westminster, provisional) Hebrew-English Lexicon (Davidson) Hebrew-English Terms Hebrew Harmony of Samuel-Kings & Chronicles (FABS) Greek LXX (Rahlfs/UBS) Morphologically tagged Greek LXX (CATSS/CCAT) Greek NT (Aland et al/UBS3) Morphologically tagged Greek NT (Gramcord) Greek-English Lexicon (Newman/UBS) Greek Harmony of the Gospels (FABS) Strong's Concordance Numbers (linked to some texts) Latin Vulgate (Fischer et al/UBS) English Bible Versions and Tools Authorized (King James) Version New King James Version New American Standard Revised Standard Version New Revised Standard Version Today's English Version English Translation of Greek LXX (Brenton) English Harmony of Samuel-Kings & Chronicles (FABS) English Harmony of the Gospels (FABS) Other Texts and Tools Reina Valera Spanish (1960 revision) Luther German Bible and Apocrypha (1984 edition) English Translation of Josephus (Whiston with Loeb tags) English Translation of Apostolic Fathers (Lightfoot-Harmer) Abingdon's Dictionary of Bible and Religion <-----> Please send information, suggestions or queries concerning OFFLINE to Robert A. Kraft, Box 36 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104-6303. Telephone (215) 898- 5827. BITNET address: KRAFT@PENNDRLS (for INTERNET add .UPENN.EDU). To request printed information or materials from OFFLINE, please supply an appropriately sized, self-addressed envelope or an address label. A complete electronic file of OFFLINE columns is available upon request (for IBM/DOS, Mac, or IBYCUS; please send formatted diskettes to hold 450K of text), or from the HUMANIST discussion group FileServer (BROWNVM.BITNET). /end/ From: Susan Hockey <SUSAN@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: Cheap travel to Tempe Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 17:44 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1014 (2527) HUMANISTs, who are planning to go from Europe to ACH-ALLC91 at Tempe on 17-21 March 1991 and have not yet made their flight reservations, might like to know that I have purchased a round trip ticket from London to Phoenix for 289 pounds. This was from Trailfinders (071-938-3232). It consists of a discounted British Airways fare to New York, plus an America West two-coupon airpass, the latter costing only 74 pounds. Susan Hockey From: davidw@jessica.stanford.edu (David Whelan) Subject: Computers and Scripts information needed Date: 6 Feb 91 02:14:13 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2188 (2528) [ This was posted to USENET's comp.fonts group (among amny others), and strikes me as grist for Humanist's mill. -- From koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) ] I am sorry about the extreme cross-posting of this message, but I feel that it is justified. All flames should be directed to me and not posted to the net. Now for the point of this post: I am a junior at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA, USA) who is beginning a research project on the use of non-Roman scripts with computers. If you use computers in any capacity with a non-Roman script, would like to be able to do so, know someone who fits one of these categories, or have any information about computing in other languages/scripts, I would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions for me. Please e-mail all responses to davidw@jessica.stanford.edu. I will post a summary if there is enough interest, but I don't want to fill up the net with replies right now. Here are some of the issues in which I am interested: 1. What is your native or current country, and what is the standard language and/or script for computing there? 2. What is your native language/script? (I would appreciate a very brief idea of what the script looks like, but I can find this out for myself, so please don't spend a lot of time with this.) If you use any other languages or scripts for work, education, or whatever, please explain these also. 3. What computers do you use? In the past, has it been difficult for you to use your language and/or script on these computers? Have you been forced to use Roman English or some other language/script for your computing applications? 4. Have computer manufacturers been slow to adapt to the needs of your script or language? If so, why do you think this has occurred? 5. Have you been forced to learn another language or script (such as Roman English) so you could utilize computers? Do you resent this, or does it make you feel that your language/script is inferior to others? 6. Would you appreciate or benefit from a computer system (hardware, operating system, and applications) that used your language/script instead of Roman English or something else? Do you think friends of yours who do not know English would enjoy such a computer system? 7. In relation to the above questions, do you think technology influences language use, or does language use influence technology? 8. Should there be a standard language/script for international computing? If so, what should it be and why? If not, why not? That's a general idea of the issues that I'm pursuing right now. I know that it's a little bit too broad and disorganized, but I'm sure I will have a better idea of what I'm doing when I learn a little bit more about people's opinions. If you choose to respond to this post (and I hope you do, since this project is very important to me), please try to address the questions which I posed above. In addition, I would really appreciate it if you would add any information that you feel is relevent. If you are in the Bay Area and would like to talk to me about these issues, please include your phone number or address. I hope this hasn't been too long! Thank you for your help, -------- David J. Whelan P.O. Box 2831 Junior, Symbolic Systems Stanford, CA 94309, USA Stanford University (415) 497-4432 -------- From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: machine-readable dictionaries Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 17:34:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2189 (2529) A colleague, not a member of Humanist, is making a survey of all machine-readable dictionaries of the sort represented by the OED on CD-ROM, the Robert Electronique, and so forth. If you know of any such, no matter how obvious these may seem to you, please reply to Russ Wooldridge, Wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca. Thanks very much. Willard McCarty From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: E-Mail address needed Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 20:32:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2190 (2530) Does anyone know if John Hager of the Research Libraries Group at Stanford can be reached on Bitnet, and if so, what his e-mail address might be? Many thanks for any help you can give. Germaine. From: MC THIEBAUT <CATAB@FRSUN12> Subject: Isaie de Qumran Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 11:55:00 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1016 (2531) Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer la publication d'une version informatique du grand rouleau d'Isaie de Qumran. Cette version est disponible pour l'instant uniquement sur disquette Macintosh. Le texte est etabli d'apres les photographies du manuscrit. On y trouve la division en colonne particuliere a ce manuscrit ce qui permet dans les cas douteux de se reporter aux photos. On y trouve aussi la division massoretique en versets qui permet de se referer facilement aux editions de la Bible en hebreu. Les corrections propres au scribe du manuscrit y sont notees. Les versets absolument identiques au texte massoretique sont signales. Amicalement Philippe CASSUTO Le prix de la disquette est de 49 dollars 95 cents plus 8 dollars pour envoi par poste aerienne. Pour la France et la CEE, le prix est de 249 francs francais plus 10 francs de frais d'envoi. La commande accompagnee du reglement par cheque sont a envoyer a: EDITIONS ALEAS, 15 quai Lassagne, 69001 LYON, FRANCE. Il faut bien indiquer le nom: Le grand rouleau d'Isaie de Qumran, une version informatisee pour le Macintosh. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: A New Order Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 17:42 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2191 (2532) Thursday, 7 February A New Order It is raining hard again, thundering as well. There were no missiles again last night but the sensitized Tel Avivians were startled and even frightened at midnight by the thunder, thinking it was another attack. Here in Jerusalem, we can afford the luxury of first checking the source of the noise, for we don't really believe - but we are not sure - that the sudden boom signals an attack. There is no attack. This was the fourth night in a row without any attack. For several days now, Jordan's Crown Prince, Hassan, the brother of King Hussein, has been giving TV interviews condemning the US and coalition indifference to Jordan's plight. The signs were clear, the signal given to the West to bail out Jordan, but there was no response. Jordan was already in desperate financial straits before the onset of the Persian Gulf crisis; the two waves of refugees that have swarmed across the border from Iraq - the first with the capture and ravaging of Kuwait in the late summer, the second now with the bombing of Iraq - has placed a tremendous additional economic burden on Jordan. In addition, two-thirds of Jordan's oil supply came from Iraq and oil shortages present in Iraq following the coalition bombings are also apparent in Jordan. Moreover, Jordan has been dealing with Iraq despite the sanctions and boycott of that country for the past five months, providing produce. [And even Israeli farm products, as West Bank farmers - whose trucks change their licence plates as soon as they cross the Adam Bridge from Israel to Jordan - drove their produce to Iraq, as they formerly did to Kuwait.] Indeed, the Jordanian port of Aqaba has served during the period of the sanctions as Iraq's only outlet to the sea; trucks carrying containers from steamers arriving in Aqaba - none ever searched by US and coalition vessels patrolling the Red Sea - left Aqaba before the war at the rate of one every five minutes. More than half of Jordan's residents are Palestinians, many still living in refugee camps set up in 1948 [Fleeing from embattled Israel at the urging of their own leaders]. These, as do their fellow Palestinians elsewhere, see Saddam Hussein as a possible savior, as a Salladin who will lead the Arabs to a victory over the West, and particularly to the dismantling of Israel. It is no surprise that they support Saddam Hussein overwhelmingly; they see the present war exactly as Saddam Hussein has tried to sell it to the Arab/Muslim world, as a battle between the good Arabs and the evil Israeli's [Their placards add "Israelis = Jews," so there will be no doubt.], with the US and its allies doing the fighting for Israel. Scud missiles fly over Jordan on their way from Iraq to Jordan. It has been rumored that some of these may actually have been fired from mobile launchers driven to Jordan. Now, a new rumor has it that the last missile fired at Israel actually fell in Jordanian territory. Jordan knows that any Israeli retaliation on Iraq will involve Israel aircraft flying through Jordanian airspace; the Jordanians are pretty much helpless to prevent this, their airforce and anti-aircraft defenses are just not up to stopping the Israeli planes. Thus, it was not a great surprise to me that King Hussein, in a dramatic speech yesterday, allied himself with the Iraqi in a war of the Arab nations to keep the Imperialistic forces of the West out of the Arab subcontinent, where their purpose is - says King Hussein - to subjugate and humiliate the Arabs and thereby control Arab resources and propagate Western influence. Jordan was caught in a pincer with little room to maneuver; its dependence on Iraq, its largely pro-Saddam population and the lack of desperately needed economic aid from the west, together, tipped the scales in favor of a pro-Iraqi stance. The Americans have already announced that they will be responsible for rebuilding Iraq after the war is over. Shades of "The Mouse that Roared." Just as Germany and Japan were helped - with US aid - to regain their pre- World War II status and to achieve even greater economic power than they ever had. And now allowed to enjoy the envious status of reluctant economic supporters - without participating in the military actions or casualties - of the coalition efforts. This is, of course, particularly disturbing in the case of Germany which supplied encouragement funds to German firms that aided in the building of the Iraqi war machine, and supplied the technical know-how that may now be responsible for the lives of US and coalition soldiers as well as Israeli citizens. With the possibility of being "rebuilt" by the US after the war now a tangible option, perhaps there is every reason in the world for the Jordanians to side against the US and its allies. King Hassan of Morocco, a member of the coalition, has also joined in the general Arab/Muslim support of Saddam Hussein, calling him a modern Salladin who will restore vanished glories of the Arab Nation. The 300,000 participants in the pro-Saddam rally in Fez this week probably helped convince him of the wisdom of this action. This is indeed strange, with a US ally extolling the allies' chief enemy and villian. Continuing the line of topsy-turvey results that might be expected after an Allied victory is the announcement by Secretary of State Baker that after the war is over the Middle East will have to undergo changes to guarantee its stability and to undo injustice. Is this announcement meant to bring hope to the Kurds dispersed and persecuted in Iraq and Iran and barely tolerated in southern Turkey? Not at all, it is another reference to pushing a Palestinian State down Israel's already gagging throat. For clearly - by Mouse- that-Roared logic - the PLO which sides with Saddam Hussein is to be rewarded, while Israel, which has been a good little nation, showing "admirable" restraint at US urging, is to be punished. Is that clear, now? In the discussion of a general Middle East settlement after the war, the phrase, "A New Order" [in the Middle East] has been articulated. Use of this expression must reflect the height of insensitivity, worthy of some special award. It is not enough that Israel is again being threatened with poison gas attacks with the Nazi use of Zyklon B to exterminate the Jews still fresh in our memory, but now we are treated to a rebirth of another Nazi relic, "The New Order." And directed at us - again. Mayor Dinkins of New York City has joined the new pilgrimage, to the Patriot launchers. Carrying the obligatory gas mask - I wish that Israelis were as conscientious about carry their's as our visitors are - he is interviewed at one of the launcher sites in the Tel Aviv area. He praises us, our restraint, calmness, fortitude. [Will he tell that to Farakan? To Jesse Jackson?] He proves his political astuteness by asking one of the American soldiers in the Patriot crew if it is true that they deliberately withheld fire from Scuds that appeared destined to land in areas populated by Arabs. The GI breaks into a broad smile and says "Hell, no!" They are all coming now, German, Italian, Czech parliamentarians, American sexologists [Dr. Ruth], Afro- American congressmen who tell us that the Black Caucus's record is 100% behind bills supporting Israel. They all visit the Patriots - our new tourist attraction. Israelis are not allowed near the batteries; fathers take their sons to seem them from afar, explain them, they are now "ours." I wonder if the Afro-American visitors have seen our Ethiopian immigrants, who - on the average - are much darker [Too dark? Too Jewish?] than the visitors. At any rate, they have nothing to say about them. I gather that the limited support that they give us - and we welcome even that in the face of widespread Afro-American anti- Jewish feeling - cannot be compromised by excess, by admitting that we are also black, and that being black does not seem to be an issue here. ***************************** There is another group of Black Hebrews - that is what they call themselves - here, mostly living in the town, Dimona, better known for other things. They are here as converts to a new religion/new-old people with their own prophet. Originating in Chicago, they have come on tourist visas and stayed on. They claim that they are the true Hebrews and that we, the Jewish Israelis, are usurpers who will be thrown out one day. There were some attempts years back to deport them; they are here illegally and are generally a financial burden where they live. But the fear of negative responses among Afro-Americans and other black nationalists stopped that. This has not stopped the Farakans of America from inciting blacks to anti-semitism; nor the Bishop Tutus and Nelson Mendelas for siding with the PLO against us. The Black Hebrews are, for the time being, only an unobtrusive Fifth Column. ****************************** We still tell jokes. Here is a recent one: They are selling building lots in H2 now. They are only 7 minutes - by missile - from Tel Aviv. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Ready for the Ground Battle Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 15:49 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2192 (2533) Friday, 8 February Ready for the Ground Battle For the fifth night we had no attack; at 02:00 we heard that a Scud was fired at Saudi Arabia and that two Patriots were fired to intercept it. We do not know if any damage was done. We are both worried and relieved. We act as if there is no longer any threat; we are convinced that a chemical attack is in the winds. Movies are to open tonight for the first time - there are already daytime showings. But only 50% occupancy of each movie theater will be allowed. [We continue to worry about crowds, about the danger of mass casualties, of stampedes produced by panic.] All schools will return to normal schedules. Government scandals and investigations which occupied our interest before the war are finding their way back into the newspapers. The price of electricity is lower; it was raised with the booming oil prices that first characterized the Persian Gulf crisis. Everything is normal, except for the sight of people carrying gas masks, in Tel Aviv more than in Jerusalem. But we also hear of new weapons in Saddam Hussein's armamentarium, weapons that he has been saving, weapons that threaten us, that can kill us. We know that he would like nothing better than to make a successful strike in the heart of the "settlers". ["Settlers" is a term used by the PLO for Jews who have moved beyond the Green Line, into territory captured by Jordan and held by them until 1967, when their attempt to share in the spoils of an Arab war against Israel was rewarded by a loss of these territories. But it is clear that Radio Baghdad means something else when they talk about "settlers", they are talking about the "settlers" of Haifa and the "settlers of Tel Aviv; they mean all Jews in Israel.] Saddam Hussein has thrown down the gauntlet, it is all Arabs and Muslim, with he himself at their head, against Jews; he has invited all Arabs and Muslims [Saddam Hussein has made strong overtures to his one-time irrevocable enemy, Iran, to join in the "Holy" objective.] to join him; a groundswell of Arab public opinion in his favor threatens the cohesiveness of the coalition. Will the Arab nations in the coalition - particularly Morocco, Egypt and Syria - be able to withstand the pro-Saddam surge of support in the streets of these countries? Although the bombing of Iraqi military targets as well as supply and communication lines in Iraq and Kuwait has been very successful, it would appear that there is yet more to bomb, more to soften up. This form of warfare has the advantage - with coalition airplanes the only ones in the sky - of involving relatively few coalition casualties. But the threat of dissolution of the coalition appears to be sufficiently worrying to advance the timing of the ground battle. Secretary of Defense Cheney and Chief of Staff General Powell are in the Gulf to obtain an up-to-date evaluation of the situation before beginning the ground phase of the war - earlier than might be best from a purely military viewpoint. If beginning the ground war has become an urgent matter for the US, so too has galvanizing Arab/Muslim support for him become to Saddam Hussein. With the name Israel a red flag in front of the bull for Arabs/Muslims, what better way is there for him to achieve this support than to show that he is capable of hurting - or even more - Israel? We know this and wait; we have already prepared as best we can. We have interceptor airplanes in the skies at all times; Patriot anti-missile missiles are in position. We have distributed anti-poison masks and related equipment; we have prepared sealed rooms - we know how to use them. We hear that Saddam Hussein has other weapons that threaten us, weapons that he has not yet used. Russian SS-12 missiles were supposed to have been destroyed in 1988, following a disarmament agreement with the US. But now we hear that some were distributed before that among Russia's allies, including Iraq, before the public destruction of these weapons; these missiles were not destroyed. The SS-12 is a missile of much higher accuracy and longer range than the relatively crude Scuds which have been used to date. Their range of 950 kilometers [about 570 miles] is more than enough to reach Israel. Another weapon that we might have to worry about is the giant cannon. This device was brought to the attention of the world when Israeli pressure forced various European nations to seize "pipes" of enormous size, that were actually components - parts of the barrel - of the cannon. Now we hear that 3 such cannon, with a range of 750 kilometers [450 miles], far enough to reach Israel's cities, did reach Iraq. Even the best air defense can not guarantee that not a single plane will get through. We fear an air attack as even one plane reaching Tel Aviv or Haifa with a chemical weapon would be disastrous to us. We go on as if life is returning to normal. But we know better. *********************** A military pilot suggested - after examining the pictures of damaged Baghdad shown on TV - that a large portion of the damage shown is the result of Iraqi anti-aircraft [AA] activity and not the aftermath of allied attacks at all. He pointed out that, in the video footage shown of Baghdad at night, coalition aircraft are all but unseen - mostly flying at high altitude - while streams of Iraqi tracer bullets and rockets fill the sky, apparently hitting nothing. On the principle of that which goes up must come back down, much of the damage is probably caused by Iraqi air-aircraft installations themselves, concentrated as they are through the city of Baghdad, in the most densely populated regions. Many of the major military targets are indeed near the center of Baghdad. With the breakdown of communications that has been the result of the heavy coalition bombing, the AA batteries no longer have the benefit of coordinating radar - most large radar units have already been knocked out - while the radars of individual guided anti-aircraft missiles have to contend with coalition jamming and incoming fire. These added sources of inaccuracy will add to the number of returned "friendly" missiles. Even visible guidance of the AA fire is difficult; the only visible parts of the attacking aircraft at night are the aircraft engines, which are not easy to identify in a sky full of tracer bullets and AA missile rocket engines. Coalition planes are equipped with sophisticated evasion mechanisms which are programmed to neutralize the radars or heat-sensors of the AA missiles. [According to legend {?}, good pilots can still escape missiles by sudden evasion tactics, resulting in wasted missiles falling to earth.] When the planes come in low, the AA guns fire up, hoping to produce some damage by luck alone. On low runs, the AA missile radars frequently do not have time to lock-on to the planes or to arm properly. This was already proven in the American raid on Libya, where the Libyan gunners fired many AA miles that either had no radar lock-on or passed the attacking aircraft before the warheads had armed themselves. These missiles fell back to earth in Tripoli, producing considerable damage. AA missile warheads generally detonate only when they are quite close to a plane - or another sizable target such as an Iraqi building. ********************** A correspondent sees an unexpected - and encouraging if true - phenomenon taking place in the US as everyone senses that the ground war is approaching; he calls it "a great healing." He perceives the Unites States now acting as a United nation, even as an angry - righteously angry - nation, for the first time in twenty years. As an example he cites a congressman's response to Secretary of State Baker's comments about rebuilding Iraq after the war; Baker was told that this would not occur "....in this lifetime!" He attributes this unity and determination, at least partly, to accumulated hate for the Arabs that has grown in the US since the Iranians - who are perceived as Arabs - held the Americans hostage in 1979. The humiliating failure of the rescue attempt added to the wounded pride [the other major source of unity, probably of more importance] of American withdrawal from Vietnam [which is a source of very mixed feelings in America: all negative on the left and in the media {witness the rash of negative movies}; negative only in the area of wounded pride for an ignominious involvement and withdrawal on the side of the right and the silent majority] . According to this view, Saddam Hussein just turned out to be a convenient focus for the smouldering hate and frustration already present. Of course it was important that he be evil, opposed to the US, and Arab. But he was "just unlucky enough to be in the gunsights when we lost our collective temper." A number of congressmen have called for the use of hard radiation nuclear missiles on Iraq prior to beginning the ground battle. ******************** King Hussein of Jordan has come down squarely on the side of Saddam Hussein. In his speech declaring his commitment to the Arab cause, the King denounced each Arab nation in the coalition, one by one. Except for one. He failed to denounce Syria. Since Iraqi oil - which provided two-thirds of the source for Jordan before the war - is no longer available, Syria has become the only supplier of oil to Jordan. Syria, a member of the coalition, but no lover of Israel, finds nothing wrong in supplying Jordan, the ally of Syria's declared enemy with oil. Business as usual. And, what's more, Syria may yet change its mind, with President Assad coming down on the side of Saddam Hussein. The Middle East. An interesting place, yes? ******************* Doctors tell us that we should forget about Saddam Hussein; forgetting him will help us relax. I think that forgetting about doctors will help us relax more. At the beginning of the war medical advice, particularly psychological tips for handling the problems of children helped. Even hearing about some of the psycho-physical [psycho-Semitic?] symptoms was interesting; its nice to know that you were not the only one suffering with problems urinating, etc. But enough is enough. People - doctors particularly - never seem to know when enough is enough. We are tired of hearing about physical symptoms that are the products of anxiety. Let's talk about something more pleasant! Even Saddam Hussein. ********************** Today, a full page portrait of of General Schwartzkopf in the newspapers; it is a cigarette add. "Be a man and smoke N......" __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Haifa Date: Sun, 10 Feb 1991 14:50:39 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1018 (2534) DIARY OF THE GULF WAR -- THE SCENE FROM HAIFA (Continued) Judy Koren Copyright 1991 Judith Koren, all rights reserved Wednesday 6th Feb. (continued) Vignettes from the war: 1) Liron decides to write to her friend in the States. Fine, I say, but she'll be surprised, because it's only a few days since Liron last wrote. And Liron replies: that's OK, she'll understand. I'll explain to her that it's terribly boring, being in a war. 2) Her friend Tami has made her poodle a "gas mask" of damp cloth sprinkled with bicarbonate of soda. I don't remember if she managed to get the contraption on the dog's head, but it's the thought that counts. Someone else showed up on TV with a rather more professional gas mask for his Guiding Eye dog. At the other end of the scale, a friend of mine travelled from Jerusalem to Beersheva by bus and met a man who has 6 children. All 8 family gas-masks have remained sealed in their original boxes. He hasn't even checked them (and why should he, if he isn't going to use them?) Therre's been a good deal of talk on the news about our ability to hit the H2 and H3 missile launchers. Are our politicians preparing the ground for the time when the U.S. will allow a strike? Or are they diverting attention, camoflauging preparations for some other operation? Or even just stroking the ruffled feathers of the hawks? Hard to decide. This is a propaganda war and there are probably some other possibilities ... but anyone still reading knows the refrain by now. The police have cancelled all vacations and worked 12-hour shifts since the war started. "When everyone goes into their sealed rooms, we go out on the streets," a police chief says. Don't ask me what they're doing there, but I know what they're not. I double-parked for half an hour in down-town Haifa, hazard lights flashing, to deliver my wounded computer to the Computerland surgeons, and completed the mission without so much as a ticket. Unheard of. It's two weeks since anyone was towed away from outside their door, the Computerland clerk tells me. Having missiles fired at you has its small compensations. Thursday 7th February 10 pm. The news mentioned something about American willingness to invest in Iraq after the war. I remember -- the U.S. suggested setting up a fund for the purpose. It was of course pretty obvious that Iraq'll need the equivalent of a Marshall plan. Setting up a fund means the U.S. is already declaring that she doesn't intend to foot the bill alone. I assume that German guilt will be enlisted once more: "you supplied the chemical and biological weapons and factories which we had to bomb, you should pay a large part of the costs of putting the new Iraq back on her feet". Japan too: those who didn't join in (or pay much, so far, for) the war should contribute to the peace. The U.S. will still, I imagine, contribute a large amount. The West will remake Iraq in its image. What's nice is that this has all so clearly been mapped out in advance. We're following the U.S. through a pre-planned maze, and every so often she obligingly drops clues as to the path. The reconstruction of Iraq must have been planned at the same time as its destruction; both the fire and the phoenix together. As also, of course, the dismissal of the PLO as a political partner, and the shape of the eventual Middle East settlement. (Not many clues have been dropped about that so far, except that there will be one.) I expect it's a 5 to 10 year plan. Everything in politics takes 5 to 10 times as long as any rational human being would think necessary. Political courses resemble that of the cruise missile seen by a journalist from his Baghdad hotel window, which made two 90-degree turns in order to avoid another hotel in its pre-programmed flight path. There are many, many hotels in the flight path of a pre-programmed political plan. An observer has to learn to distinguish between the course and the 90-degree diversions. Sometimes it can only be done in retrospect. For instance, I'm still not sure which the Jordanian position is. Was King Hussein manoevred into his present incredible corner, or did he simply play into American hands? He's such an old hand at the game that the latter seems unlikely, but we aren't likely to know much about the former, unless we have access to diplomatic bags. Of course the question as posed presupposes a belief that the U.S. preferred Jordan to side with Iraq (resulting in its being discredited, the Jordanian regime being severely compromised and probably eventually falling). That's the way I read it. If you believe that Jordan had a completely free hand to decide which side to favour, within her own internal maze, you'll ask a different question. I just don't believe international politics works that way, and I don't think King Hussein would have made the choice he did, even if it did. For forty years he's survived Jordanian internal politics by sitting on fences, not by falling off them to one side or the other. To get back to the point -- I doubt it'll take us more than a year or two after the war ends to start talking seriously to the Palestinians, despite the time that political processes require. I also doubt it'll take us less than 6 months. (A RATIONAL time would be 2-3 months.) I have not yet seen anything to shake my belief, expressed on Humanist a week before the war started, that there's a 50-50 chance (at least) that eventually the Palestinian state will include part of Jordan (along with most of the West Bank) and King Hussein, or his son, will be king of a much smaller Beduin state. Perhaps it's just as well that nobody's asking my opinion. Saturday 9th February Our run of missile-free nights ended last night with a siren soon after 2:30 am. For the first time, it woke us up. We tried sleepily to figure out if we had enough time left to wake and mask the kids, decided we didn't. I defy anyone to wake Yair in 4 minutes or less at 2:30 am. So we opted out of the play this time around, let the children sleep, and thankfully stayed in bed ourselves. It only took 10 minutes before the intrepid Nahman Shai, or at least his disembodied voice, (doesn't the poor man ever sleep? Doesn't the army have a stand-in for him?) was releasing all areas except the central sector. (Come to think of it, he was probably talking from his house in pajamas, unless he sleeps days and is on standby nights. Perhaps the army had him tape all possible messages -- after all there aren't very many combinations of sector names plus "may take off their gas masks", "may come out of their sealed rooms" etc. -- and play them to the radio as needed, and Nahman is really in bed just like us? Perish the thought! To some of us he is as comforting as Santa Claus; what would we do if he should prove to be an ordinary mortal and not Superman?) We left the radio on another 10 minutes. It was clear a missile had fallen but also clear we wouldn't get a report of damage and casualties for an hour or so, so we turned it off and went back to sleep. This morning the media have all the news, though as usual they don't agree among themselves and the figures change during the day. The missile hit a residential street in a well-to-do neighbourhood with many single-family houses. From the clues that creep into the broadcasts we can figure out where. Pictures of burnt-out cars, houses with their windows blown out, and red-tiled roofs blown off. Single- family houses aren't built as sturdily as apartment blocks; tile roofs are intended to stand up to nothing but rain. But then, too, the average American wooden house would probably be matchsticks in similar circumstances; here, at least the walls are standing. 27 injured, says the radio at 8 am; 16, says the TV at 10. Finally they agree on (I think) 19. Perhaps the confusion stems from deciding what's an injury. 11 people are shock victims: do they count as "injured"? The main thing is that no-one was killed and none of the injuries are very serious (according to that universally understood Israeli scale which rates an injury as "light" if it will leave no permanent disability or scars and "serious" if there's a 50% or less chance of surviving it; everything else is "medium"). But the damage is extensive. 150 houses damaged, says the radio in the morning; 500, says the TV evening news. Many will have to be razed and rebuilt. Several Patriots were fired but seem to have missed; perhaps because they're stationed relatively far from the area targeted? Later we hear they did hit, and the damage is from falling fragments. Gadi figures that the weather was responsible. The previous few nights were clear; it would've been difficult to launch a missile without alerting the watchful eyes of the Americans. Last night was cloudy. We can deduce in retrospect, but don't manage to predict. Except for one man, who says his wife had such a strong premonition that they went to friends a few blocks away for the night. Their house was badly damaged. The family is religious, they interpret premonitions accordingly. Religion is very comforting at a time like this. But I can only wonder why the 499 other families weren't granted premonitions. I also wonder how many people in Israel have had premonitions which didn't make the news because they didn't come true. Shamir appears on the news and does his best to calm the nation. The total amount of explosives fired at Israel so far, he reminds us, is 8 tons -- only slightly more than the payload of a Phantom fighter. (A missile can carry approximately a quarter ton). It pays him to be soothing, he's explaining that we have no intention of retaliating, and he needs to dampen the desires for revenge. When the government wants to keep us on edge it plays a different tune on the same strings. The single missile fired at us so swamps the news coverage for most of the day that I don't hear much about the ongoing U.S. assault on Iraq, where the real action is. But then again, even when I do, there's not much news released. U.S. censorship is a lot tighter than Israeli at the moment. Despite this attack, the government sticks to its schedule of returning children to school. Events that were sufficient reason to stop the schools three weeks ago are not now sufficient reason for not restarting them. The population is tired of children at home; the public mood is more important than objective reality. I agree that objective reality also allows schools to be reopened, but that conclusion could have been reached 2 weeks ago, only the public mood was not then ripe. Anyway, Liron starts school again tomorrow, and Yair reverts to a schedule starting from 8 am (though early lessons, starting from 7, are still not allowed). By Tuesday they hope to have all the kids back at school, at long last. At the end of the month comes the festival of Purim. Nobody has been thinking of gay festivals, but I feel we must preserve an atmosphere of normality. so I ask Liron what she wants to dress up as. I suggest a Scud missile (there's a limit to how normal one can be), but she isn't impressed. For the last 4 years she's been some sort of animal; this year, she says, she wants to be human. Not even an angel ("Mummy, last year 15 BOYS went as angels!"); and ghosts, witches, demons and monsters are also out. I reflect that she's behind the times, which are full of witches, demons and monsters. But she's not of an age to understand; she doesn't even watch the news yet. However, just what does qualify as "human" she hasn't decided. We don't have to decide whether Saddam is human, for the stores have publicly announced that they won't sell costumes of him. Clowns are passe and Queen Esthers (once the point of this whole celebration) are for first-graders. Liron still doesn't know what she'll be. Pity; I think she'd've made a good missile. More to the point, with enough cardboard and aluminum foil her thumbs-only mother could've made a good missile too. On the other hand, there'll probably be a surfeit of missiles in the classrooms this Purim. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1006 The Languages of Humanist (5/134) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 22:12 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2193 (2535) LET US CALL THE WHOLE SHEBANG THE MACARONISTS, NOT HUMANISTS. IT IS FUN, ANYWAY , AND I AM NOT SCOFFING AT ALL. I JUST THOUGHT SOME WOULD SMILE TO THINK OF OUR SELVES AS MACARONISTS, DOING MACARONICS, DA VERO! SI, CARISSIMI! KESSLER From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0983 War and the Philosophy Teacher (1/90) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 10:59 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2194 (2536) If only philosophy, or analytical ethics, as it is proposed here, would addres itself to hard questions: Homo sapiens, per se, culture(s) per se, with their i rreducible assymmetries, material struggles for power, and what it is, all 19th century topics that have not been resolved, the nature of East/West views of p hilosophy and history, etc., it would be more useful to propose topics. War is a topic that von Clausewitz seems to have addressed, "metaphysically," as it is said, in terms of will, desire, appetite, measurement of aims and the resource s by which such aims are tactically arrived at, ie strategically, etc. The rest , as it is put in such queries I am responding to, seems to be a result of the horrors of the 20th Century, as filtered through pacifism, etc. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.0981 Queries: Slavic OCR; Word/WP Mac/dos xfer;... (6/113) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 91 11:10 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2195 (2537) Coombs, et al. If youy think kthe annual survey of freshman by Austin is tenden tious, you should have seen the vast survey about "diversity," sent out to the Faculty last Quarter! An abomination of a sublime order, so to say, printed on heavy stock, and simply 80% massagingly insane. When I did not turn mine in, I received another letter, with another fat packet. It allowed for very little tr uth, and was aimed only at coercing everyone into a certain world view, that is based on polemic and propaganda, armtwisting, and disinegenuous "objectivity." I know of several colleagues who wrote angry notes all over the damn forms. I s tarted to comment, but gave up, and tossed it again. It is a gem of its kind, a nd, I would suppose its derivation from consumer surveys, which have a long his tory out of U of Michigan Institute, and are refined economic instruments, has been warped and distorted through so-called opinion polls, and into this manipu lative form for policy, to satisfy certain political requirements imposed upon the Academy, if it is beholden to anyone for $$$, and all but Church-supported schols are, I would imagine, and even then...say Notre Dame, may require Govern emnt bucks$$$ often enough. If the US Government knew how very biassed so much of the Notre Dame administration is! Practically an overseas arm of Ortega duri ng the dictatorship of the East Germans, Russians, and Bulgarians in Managua du ring the last decade.... Etc.... Surveys! Who, whom? as Lenin once asked. Kessl er From: "Anne Harwell, Technology Resources Ops. Mgr." Subject: RE: 4.1001 On the War (5/224) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 10:15 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2196 (2538) Reading some of the responses to the Israeli diaries brings some thoughts to mind: 1). It should be obvious by now that sanctions would have never worked, no matter how much time they were given. Saddam just doesn't share our sense of priorities about human rights and the preservation of safety and security amongst the populace. 2). Bedouins with eMail? Give me a break. Next we'll be hearing how terribly beset they are because they haven't been provided with cellular phones. 3). Killed and wounded civillians in Baghdad are no surprise, given Saddam's cowardly strategy of placing the bodies of innocents between himself and us. The surprise is that the Iraqis who nightly watch stray bombs land on their homes haven't risen up and demanded that Saddam relocate these emplacements to true military areas. 4). The comment by the fighter pilot about turning on the light in the kitchen and seeing the cockroaches run of course raises the question of whether the pilot felt he was killing human beings or non-human things. And I'm sure that a hundred psychologists read that remark and immediately began thinking about ideas for their first bestseller (When Killing Becomes a Game: The Mind of the Nintendo Pilot). But I am grateful that that pilot is on our side, not vice versa. And I sleep a little better at night knowing that some withered old Marshal of the Soviet Army saw him say it, too. -abh From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1001 On the War (5/224) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 13:32 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2197 (2539) TO GEORGE LAKOFF, AND THE OTHERS ON HIS POSTING. The peremptory and Uriah Heepi sh handwringing of a Lakoff is either fatuous or disingenuous. He says, Israel must sit down with the Palestinians after the war. He is telling what a soverei gn nation, with a democratically-elected government must do. he, and all the ot hers who speak as he does immorally and intellectually-dishonest seem always to leave out one simple fact: Israel was attacked on the hour of its formation in 1948 by 5 Arab armies. Israel has a peace treaty, after many wars, with only o ne of those Arab nations: Egypt. The man who made the peace treaty, Anwar Sadat , was assassinated. Israel is non-combatant nation, also at war. the West Bank is an Occupied Territory during a state of war with 4 nations. Iraq and Jordan and Syria are particularly at war. If Lakoff had ever stayed in the northern G alilee under the Golan Heights, which is like being on the flats in Berkeley an d being shelled from Skyline Drive, or Kensington Park, he would grasp better w hy the Israelis are holding the Heights. Unfortunately for Israel, that occupat ion: many people in 1973 feared it would only be a drain and disaster. It will yet become so. But the Palestinians in the Occupied Territory are at war with I srael, and their leaders are at war and have billions a year at thier dispositi on, Arafat & company. The killers of an American tourist in a wheelchair, Leon Klingoff, were just released from their light sentences in Italy. It is a pity about the insufficiency of gasmask in the West Bank (but not in Israel),which L akoff seems to think the case, but who is sending the scuds, and who is keeping poor idiotic King Hussein on Iraq's side, more so than ever, as of 2/7? There is a stubborn refusal, 100%, to acknowledge the existence of Israel, on Arab ma ps, and in Arab minds, those countries at war with Israel, that is. What int he world has Pakistan to do with Israel? Lakoff's heart is dripping thick blood f or innocent Iraqi victims, and he insists quite, well, disgustingly to my mind, on smearing that blood on Israel and on the US and UK, and not on Saddam. Lako ff reminds me of an editorial in the fanatic Left LA Weekly newspaper, which is 100% anti-Capitalist, etc, but refuses to pay its own writers union rates, and has been in a struggle ever since the National Writers union began to be organ ized a few years ago. Socialism for you, capitalism for me. What did its editor in chief write last week? We must, he wrote, sit down and help the Israelis an d the Palestinians and Jordanians and the Lebanese achieve thier inherent right s of "self-dtermination"! I think the Israeli's had their selfdetermination in 1948. It is only such impossible and dangerous demagogues who refuse to recogni ze the right of Israel even to have existed, who speak of the matter in such re ally crazy terms. Sorry, Lakoff, but you have failed to begin at Square : i: i. e.,to repeat: 4 Arab nations, our own allies too, are at war with Israel, and remain at war with Israel. Sorry, but that is why Iraq is being destroyedand no t by Israel, which has yet to shoot a bullet their way. Try to keep your mind f ocussed on the facts, Lakoff, and spare us your mealymouthed weeping and wailin g. That there is cause for weeping and wiling and gnashing of teeth, we all agr ee, but we must also look at the case, which is not as you offer it, not at all. It is war, and has been war, for almost 43 years now. Kessler From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1001 On the War (5/224) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 18:27 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2198 (2540) Another thing that gravelled me, but which I did put into my fast response this morning to Lakoff's latest: He speaks of the Iraqia and Palestinians, et al, w ho have not been privileged to be heard on the Humanist discussion groups, wher eas the Israelis write their limbo-war journals to us, as if the Israelis had t he upper hand in propaganda, because those others have, by not having the tooks of access, been "effectively silenced." That tendentious grammar is vicious in ints subtlety. Had Lakoff written, Those who havent the access to the bitnet, etc. are effectively silent (ie not part of the discussion), I wouldnt have min ded, since that is the case. But no one has SILENCED them. No one has taken awa y their voices or computers, if any, etc. That is the usual trick of trying to make one guilty, by the accuser, the jury, the judge, and executioner, all in o ne. A nice trick, but too crude to be borne. Learn to write objectively, Lakoff and I for one will attend your pleas. What you have written is not good. You o ver did it. Kessler. (If not deliberately, then you are even weaker in your arg ument than I think, but merely a demagogue in Academic gown.) From: "Steve Copold, Director Technology Resources" Subject: Reaction to the reactions..... Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 12:11 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2199 (2541) Dear Editors, If possible, please pass this along to your readers. The innocence, and apparent isolation from reality, of those reacting to Bob Werman's posting is both astounding and confounding. I suppose that in Berkeley and the other isolated intellectual hinterlands of this vast nation, the lack of awareness of the true feelings of most Americans should not be surprising. Yet, I find myself astonished at the degree to which several of your contributors are out of touch with the broadest spectrum of our society. At this point I must confess to being Werman's "correspondent" that made note of the anger in this country. Like it or not, it is here, it is massive, and it is very real. Many Americans believe that we, as a nation, have been badly victimized by the Middle-Eastern politics of terror. Whether or not one argues that these acts have had any shred of justification, no one can debate the fact that they have killed people and destroyed property with some degree of regularity. Last night on the Larry King Show, Carl Bernstein said, "The American people have a memory that's only seven minutes long." Well, I don't know to whom Mr. Bernstein was referring as my memory extends back at least as far as the taking of the hostages in Iran in 1979....That is a long time for anger to ferment. I'm not worried about the fate of Israel. They clearly can take care of themselves. If placing the PATRIOT systems in Israel served a strategic purpose it was to prevent the IADF from putting up a radioactive cloud that would have stretched from Baghdad to Berkeley. When this conflict is finished Israel will be left with the capability of going through any Arab military coalition like grease through a goose. The real hope, however, is that with the PLO completely discredited, even with the Gulf Arabs, there may be a chance for a real and a genuine settlement for all the pertinent issues that will result in a just and lasting peace. As for the Iraqi civilians being killed, that's an unfortunate but entirely predictable side-effect. As for the Iraqi soldiers in the KTO, I feel nothing at all....They are targets. Having seen first-hand the result of the ArcLight Raids in Viet Nam, I suspect that the reason we're not seeing more detailed BDA is that the Iraqi military casualities are probably approaching the six digit levels. As for Hafez Al Asad, he is watching and listening. There's nothing like an object lesson to put the skids on a man of his ilk. America is acting courageously and righteously in this conflict. On a personal note, I am both pleased and proud that my son is one of those that is currently helping to pull the trigger on Saddam Hussein. Steve Copold From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: The Israel Diaries and responses to them Date: Sun, 10 Feb 1991 13:27:04 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2200 (2542) Returning after the weekend, I notice the rhetoric has been heating up. A few things were said which I think require a response. 1. Lakoff on the diaries: Lakoff's long response was in fact considerably less "humanist" than it said. It was characterized by some of the elements of rhetoric against which we have so recently been warned. For instance, he comments that "the humanist's empathy for other human beings...is absent from Werman's diaries". I'm not responsible for Bob Werman's diaries and I wouldn't reply to this, if it weren't in a context of discussing the Israeli diaries in general. In such a case, it would have been fair if Lakoff had noted that an "empathy for other human beings" is in fact included in my diary; but that would have subverted his argument. Lakoff also characterized the Israeli government's "refusal" to distribute gas masks to the inhabitants of the West Bank as "racist". This is opinion masquerading as fact. The present government (which heaven knows I have no love for) is not racist; it didn't distribute gas masks to the West Bank because it didn't have enough. For as long as possible, it didn't distribute them to the Jewish settlers on the West Bank either, because while it had enough masks for the Jewish population, it didn't have for the Arab population, and didn't want to differentiate between them. This fact apparently did not manage to batter its way into Lakoff's consciousness through the defense mechanisms he seems to have set up. The government only distributed masks to the Jewish settlers when it had acquired enough to distribute to at least the Arab areas thought to be at greatest risk. Since then it has been buying and distributing masks as fast as it could. Those who castigate the government for not doing it faster should spend their efforts on encouraging their national airlines to resume flights to Israel -- El-Al can't carry ALL the cargo required in the time required. If you chicken out of sending flights to Israel, don't then turn around and complain because sea freight takes 3 months. The government didn't have enough masks because it didn't envisage the possibility that an Arab government would wage chemical warfare upon the population of the West Bank. I agree this was probably short-sighted. Obviously, it is also ludicrous to distribute masks when you only have them for adults: what parents are going to accept masks for themselves alone, and sit in their sealed rooms with unmasked children around them? Equally obviously, it was not an intentional diabolical plot on the part of the government: it does nothing but harm (just look at the propaganda it has aroused!). Conclusion: they didn't yet get a shipment of children's masks but were pressured to distribute whatever they had as quickly as possible nonetheless. This would seem to be a situation where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If Lakoff is serious about being an objective observer and a "humanist", he could find a better use for his time than allowing himself to be used for propaganda. I thought his forte was supposed to be analyzing rhetoric, not indulging in it. 2. Werman's latest diaries. Here I have only one point of information. Werman talks about all the trucks carrying containers bound for Iraq from ships which arrived at Aqaba: they left Aqaba in the days (weeks?) before the war, he says, at the rate of one every five minutes. I don't know where Werman's information comes from. I'm sure there were supplies being imported to Aqaba for Iraq: let's at least give King Hussein the credit for being consistent. All I can report is the eye-witness account of a husband who spent 3 weeks on army reserve duty immediately prior to the war (up to the weekend of Jan. 13) on that border, with the boring task (among others) of observing traffic on the road north from Aqaba. There were a few trucks, he said, but nothing to get excited about. A few a day, not a few an hour. The point of all this is: let's not get carried away by the rumours and rhetoric to the point where we believe them ourselves. 3. The message from the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence. I saw this on CRTNET but I think it found its way to Humanist also (I've had so much mail this weekend that I no longer remember what was from where!) They reported "rumors" that Palestinians in a detention camp in the Negev are to be "transferred to DIMONA (nuclear plant where Israel is keeping some of its nuclear warheads)". Despite the fact that this is just a rumour, they then immediately relate to it as already proven fact, and exhort everyone to condemn Israel and express their horror that Israel "is prepared to use this method" (i.e. put detainees in sensitive sites as Saddam has). Does the Center usually proceed by judging you guilty until proven innocent? Or only when judging those it disapproves of a priori? Since when are rumours which you yourself spread, a sufficient basis for condemnation? For the record: 1) The nuclear research facility they refer to is not actually at Dimona; any transfer to Dimona of prisoners could only be to a prison. 2) Goodness only knows where we are keeping nuclear warheads, or even if we have them (though everyone assumes we do so I am not faulting the Center for assuming it too. I am faulting them for regarding things as fact not assumption). 3) The nuclear research facility they refer to has nowhere to keep political prisoners (I assume we're not talking about one or two? The impression the Center strove to give was that this was a mass transfer) and any government would be out of its mind to risk taking these particular prisoners, many of whom come from terrorist movements, to such a sensitive place. In short, this is propaganda of the sort the P.L.O. and Iraq enjoy putting about. The conclusion I draw from it is that the "Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence" is a political propaganda organization in disguise. It would be fair of them to say so, and not masquerade as something else in order to get onto the networks. Judy Koren From: <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: Conference Announcement: Computing and Values Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 20:50 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1021 (2543) FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION NCCV/91 THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTING AND VALUES AUGUST 12-16, 1991 NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT The National Conference on Computing and Values will address the broad topic of Computing and Values by focusing attention on six specific areas, each with its own working groups. - Computer Privacy & Confidentiality - Computer Security & Crime - Ownership of Software & Intellectual Property - Equity & Access to Computing Resources - Teaching Computing & Values - Policy Issues in the Campus Computing Environment CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS -- Details follow o Active role for all attendees o Free associate membership in the Research Center on Computing and Society o Valuable take-home materials o A user-friendly conference o A family-friendly conference o Unique aspects o Members of the Planning Committee o Partial list of confirmed speakers o Modest cost o Further information and registration ACTIVE ROLE FOR ALL ATTENDEES A special feature of the National Conference on Computing and Values will be the active role of all attendees. Each attendee will belong to a small working group which will "brainstorm" a topic for two mornings, then recommend future research. On the third morning, each group will report the results of its activities to the assembled conference. (Group reports will be incorporated into the published proceedings of the conference.) In addition, each person will be able to attend five keynote addresses, three track addresses, three track panels, two evening kick-off events, two evening enrichment events, and four days of exhibits and demonstrations. FREE ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP IN THE RESEARCH CENTER ON COMPUTING AND SOCIETY Every attendee can become an Associate of the Research Center on Computing and Society for two years free of charge. Associates receive the Center newsletter, announcements of Center projects, lower registration fees at Center sponsored events, and access to the Center's research library on computing and values. VALUABLE TAKE-HOME MATERIALS The conference will provide a wealth of materials on computing and values, including articles, government documents, flyers about organizations and publications, a special "Resource Directory on Computing and Society," and a "track portfolio" of materials for each of the six tracks. Every attendee will receive a copy of the resource directory, the track portfolios, plus many other useful materials. A USER-FRIENDLY CONFERENCE The conference will be held on a residential campus at a quiet time between semesters. Adequate time for meals, conversations, and relaxation is scheduled. There will be social events, such as an ice cream social and a conference barbecue. In addition, various lounges will have coffee, tea, juice, and snacks all day to encourage conversation among participants. The conference will include individuals from six different professional groups: Computer Professionals, Philosophers, Social Scientists, Public Policy Makers, Business Leaders, and Academic Computing Administrators. A FAMILY-FRIENDLY CONFERENCE Family members of attendees will be able to use university facilities, such as the swimming pool, playing fields, tennis courts, and TV lounges. In addition, a day-care center, baby sitting service, and bus trips to local tourist attractions will be available. Attendees' spouses will be welcome at conference social events; and both spouses and children may attend the conference barbecue. UNIQUE ASPECTS The National Conference on Computing and Values will be one of most significant assemblies of thinkers on computing and values ever to gather in one place. Among the nearly 50 speakers who will address the 500 conference attendees are philosophers, computer scientists, lawyers, judges, social scientists, researchers in artificial intelligence, and experts in computer security. The conference also will feature one of the most comprehensive exhibits of materials ever assembled on computing and values. The exhibit will including books, journals, articles, government documents, films, videos, software, curriculum materials, etc. Hosted by Southern Connecticut State University, including the Research Center on Computing and Society, Philosophy Department, Computer Science Department, Adaptive Technology Laboratory, and the journal Metaphilosophy. Planned in cooperation with: The American Association of Philosophy Teachers, the American Philosophical Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Canadian Philosophical Association, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Funded, in part, by grants from the National Science Foundation (DIR-8820595 and DIR-9012492). MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE Terrell Ward Bynum, Co-chair Walter Maner, Co-chair Ronald E. Anderson Gary Chapman Preston Covey Gerald Engel Deborah G. Johnson John Ladd Marianne LaFrance Daniel McCracken Michael McDonald James H. Moor Peter Neumann John Snapper Eugene Spafford Richard A. Wright PARTIAL LIST OF CONFIRMED SPEAKERS Ronald E. Anderson, Chair, A C M Special Interest Group on Computing and Society; Co-Editor, SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW Daniel Appelman, Lawyer for the USENIX Association, Specialist in Computer and Telecommunications Law Leslie Burkholder, Staff Member of the Center for the Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie-Mellon University; Editor, COMPUTERS AND PHILOSOPHY David Carey, Author and Speaker on Software Ownership; Doctoral Dissertation on Software Ownership; Assistant Professor, Whitman College, WA Gary Chapman, Executive Director, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Editor, JOURNAL OF COMPUTING AND SOCIETY Marvin Croy, Author and Researcher on Ethical Issues in Academic Computing; Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Gerald Engel, Vice-President of Education, Computer Society of the I E E E; Member, Computing Sciences Accreditation Board; Editor, COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION Batya Friedman, Co-Editor of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Anthology of Computer Ethics Syllabi; Teacher of Computer Ethics at Mills College, CA Don Gotterbarn, Researcher and Speaker on Computer Ethics; East Tennessee State University Barbara Heinisch, Co-Director, Adaptive Technology Computer Laboratory, Southern Connecticut State University; Associate Professor of Special Education Deborah G. Johnson, Chair, Committee on Computers and Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association; Author of the textbook COMPUTER ETHICS John Ladd, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Brown University; Author of articles on Ethics and Technology Marianne LaFrance, Project Director, "Expert Systems: Social Values and Ethical Issues Posed by Advanced Computer Technology"; Associate Professor of Psychology, Boston College Doris Lidtke, Editorial Staff, Communications of the A C M; Professor of Computer and Information Sciences, Towson State University Walter Maner, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Project, Bowling Green State University; Author of Articles on Computer Ethics Dianne Martin, Researcher and Curriculum Developer in Computers and Society; Co-Chair of "Computers and the Quality of Life 1990", A C M / S I G C A S conference Keith Miller, Computer Science, the College of William and Mary; Author and Speaker on Integrating Values into the Computer Science Curriculum James H. Moor, Member, Subcommittee on Computer Technology and Ethics, American Philosophical Association, Author of Articles on Computer Ethics William Hugh Murray, Consultant and Management Trainer in Information Systems Security; Past Fellow on Information Security with Ernst & Young Accountants Peter Neumann, Senior Researcher in Computer Science, S R I International; Chair, A C M Committee on Computers and Public Police; Editor, Software Engineering Notes; Moderator of COMP.RISKS George Nicholson, Judge of the California Superior Court, Head of the "Courthouse of the Future" Project Judith Perolle, Researcher on "Ethical Reasoning about Computers and Society"; Associate Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University John Snapper, Illinois Institute of Technology; Author and Editor in COMPUTER ETHICS; Member of the Center for the Study of Ethics and the Professions Eugene Spafford, Member A C M - I E E E Joint Task Force on Computer Science Curriculum; Author of Articles and Reports on Computer Viruses and Security Willis Ware, Researcher, Author and Speaker on Computers and Privacy Terry Winograd, Past President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Author and Researcher in Artificial Intelligence Richard A. Wright, Executive Director, American Association of Philosophy Teachers; Director, Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics Program, University of Oklahoma Bryant York, Professor of Computer Science, Boston University; Director of the Programming by Ear Project for visually handicapped individuals MODEST COST Registration Fee ---------------- Before 7/1/91 After 7/1/91 regular $175.00 $225.00 student $ 50.00 $100.00 Food (entire conference) ------------------------ $90.00 (adult) $50.00 (child) Dormitory Room (entire conference) ---------------------------------- Before 7/1/91 After 7/1/91 adult (double occupancy) $100.00 $110.00 adult (single occupancy) $150.00 $175.00 child $40.00 $50.00 There are a limited number of single occupancy rooms available. A few Room & Board Scholarships are available. FURTHER INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION Registration for the National Conference on Computing and Values is limited to 500 people (about 85 from each professional group). It is highly recommended that you pre-register well in advance to ensure a place in the conference. To receive a set of registration materials, please supply the requested information (see "coupon" below) to Professor Walter Maner, the conference co-chair: By E-Mail: BITNet MANER@BGSUOPIE.BITNET InterNet maner@andy.bgsu.edu (129.1.1.2) CompuServe [73157,247] By Fax: (419) 372-8061 By Phone: (419) 372-8719 (answering machine) (419) 372-2337 (secretary) By Regular Mail: Professor Walter Maner Dept. of Computer Science Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 USA /------------------------- COUPON ---------------------------\ First Name: Last Name: Job Title: Phone: Institution or Company: Department: Building: Street Address: City: State: Zip: Country: Email Address(s): All attendees will be part of a working group that "brainstorms" a topic and suggests further research for the next five years. PLEASE INDICATE YOUR PREFERENCES BELOW (1 = first choice, 2 = second choice, 3 = third choice): [ ] Privacy & Confidentiality [ ] Equity & Access [ ] Ownership & Intellectual Property [ ] Security & Crime [ ] Teaching Computing & Values [ ] Campus Computing Policies PLEASE MARK *ONE* OF THE FOLLOWING: [ ] Send me registration information ONLY. I'll decide later whether or not to register. [ ] Register me NOW. Enclosed is my check (made payable to "B G S U") for $ to cover all of the following (PLEASE ITEMIZE): Quantity [ ] regular registration(s) [ ] student registration(s) [ ] meal ticket(s) for adult [ ] meal ticket(s) for child [ ] room(s) for adult (double occupancy) [ ] room(s) for adult (single occupancy) [ ] room(s) for child Note that rates change on July 1, 1991. \---------------------- END OF COUPON -----------------------/ InterNet maner@andy.bgsu.edu (129.1.1.2) | BGSU, Comp Science Dept UUCP ... ! osu-cis ! bgsuvax ! maner | Bowling Green, OH 43403 BITNet MANER@BGSUOPIE | 419/372-2337 Secretary Relays @relay.cs.net, @nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | FAX is available - call From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: TEI and HyTime Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 16:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1022 (2544) There is an ANSI meeting coming up soon that might be of interest to many participants in the Text Encoding Initiative. This meeting deals with the standardization of Hypertext around an extension to SGML called HyTime. What follows is the meeting announcement for that meeting. I am enclosing it here since the meeting is a little over a week away and it would be nice to have a few TEI folks join the meeting even on such short notice. Victor Riley Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) Brown University PO Box 1646 Providence, RI 02912 var@iris.brown.edu ------------------------------ X3V1.8M MUSIC IN INFORMATION PROCESSING STANDARDS (MIPS) COMMITTEE operating under the rules and procedures of the American National Standards Institute X3V1.8M Secretariats: The Computer Music Association Graphic Communications Association c/o Larry Austin, President c/o Marion Elledge, Vice President, P. O. Box 1634 Information Technologies San Francisco, California 94101-1634 100 Daingerfield Road USA (817 566 2235; cma@dept.csci.unt.edu) Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USA (X3V1.8M document orders and service (703 519 8160; Fax: 703 548-2867) to the music technology community) (X3V1.8M participant mailings and service to the publishing systems community) MEETING NOTICE and DRAFT AGENDA - FIFTEENTH MEETING MEETING NOTICE: Meeting times: Saturday, February 23, 1991, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Sunday, February 24, 1991, 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM. Monday, February 25, 1991, 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM Tuesday, February 26, 1991, 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM. Wednesday, February 27, 1991, 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM. Meeting Host: Graphic Communications Association (GCA), Norman Scharpf, President; Marion Elledge, Vice President, Information Technologies. The meeting is being held in conjunction with the GCA's "TechDoc Winter '91" confer- ence. TechDoc Winter '91, is subtitled "Interactive Electronic Documentation (IED)." Tutorial sessions will occur simultaneously with X3V1.8M meetings (in dif- ferent rooms, of course) on February 25 and 26, while the TechDoc Winter '91 conference will take place from February 27 (a one-day overlap with X3V1.8M's meeting) to March 1. There will be a tutorial on HyTime during Tuesday afternoon, February 26, which the X3V1.8M com- mittee may or may not choose to attend. Meeting Location: The Radisson Hotel 1600 N. Indian Avenue Palm Springs, California 92262 619 327 8311 WRITTEN CONTRIBUTIONS The usual mailing of papers contributed since the last mail- ing, together with the most recent revision of X3V1.8M/SD-7, the Journal of Development for the HyTime Hypermedia/Time- based Document Representation Language (eighth draft), will be mailed to participants of record toward the end of Janu- ary, 1991. Papers should be received in camera-ready form by January 15, 1991 by X3V1.8M Vice Chairman Steven R. Newcomb, Center for Music Research, School of Music, Florida State University R-71, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2098 USA. (Voice: 904 644 5786, 904 422 3574. Fax: 904 386 2562 or 904 644 6100. Internet: srn@cmr.fsu.edu.) LODGING Lodging at the Radisson Hotel is available for $119/night, which is a special rate available to those who mention on the phone that they are there in conjunction with the Graphic Communications Association's TechDoc Winter '91 Conference. The phone number for Radisson reservations is 619 327 8311. There is, of course, no requirement that X3V1.8M participants stay at the Radisson, but, since the meeting will be held there, the Radisson will be the most convenient (if probably not the least expensive) lodging. TRAVEL It is possible to travel directly to Palm Springs by air. It is generally less expensive to go to Orange County Air- port and drive for a couple of hours to Palm Springs, par- ticularly if you are renting a car anyway. NOTES TO NEW PARTICIPANTS/OBSERVERS: 1. Prospective members and observers are welcome at any time to participate in the current technical work of the committee. (You can be most effective in conveying your viewpoint if you can present it in the context of the current work -- in other words, please be familiar with X3V1.8M/SD-6, SD-7 and SD-8. If you don't have these, they can be obtained for a nominal charge from the Computer Music Association's X3V1.8M Secretariat.) New participants are also urged to obtain and read ISO 8879 (Standard Generalized Markup Language). ISO 8879 is obtainable from the Graphic Communications Associa- tion for $67.50 (156 pp.). You should also obtain International Standard ISO 8879:1986/Amendment 1 from the same organization. 2. As usual, a portion of the second day's meeting (Sun- day) has been set aside for persons who wish to address the committee on topics of their own choosing, relating to the subject matter or methodology of the committee's work. Mr. Brian Caporlette of the U. S. Air Force's Human Resources Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB will be presenting the recent revisions to the Content Data Model (CDM) for Interactive Electronic Technical Manu- als (IETMs) his organization has made in order to make the CDM conform to HyTime. 3. New participants are asked (but not required) to inform Charles Goldfarb (c/o Sue Orlando, IBM Almaden Research Center, 408/927-2578) or Steve Newcomb (Florida State University Center for Music Research, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2098, 904/644-5786) if they plan to attend. DRAFT AGENDA: Saturday Administrative matters, including: opening, approval of agenda, introduction of new participants, and schedul- ing the sixteenth (and possibly the seventeenth) meeting(s). Technical work will include a review of the changes to SD-7 made as a result of work done at the fourteenth meeting. Sunday Continuation of review of SD-7, particularly the appli- cation of the "HyTime architectural form" idea to addi- tional elements. Presentation by Mr. Caporlette on the AFHRL Content Data Model as revised to conform to the HyTime hyperlink and document location facilities. Reconsideration of the "endsets" idea, which would allow certain link end locations to be restricted to a given list of generic identifiers. Monday Continuation of SD-7 review, including the generaliza- tion of the time model to space and time. Tuesday Continuation of Monday's agenda. Review of the operat- ing model of a HyTime engine outlined at the thirteenth meeting. Possible adjournment to HyTime Tutorial in the afternoon, which will include a presentation of the proto-SD-9 document, "HyTime Review," by Messrs. Kipp and Newcomb. Wednesday Enumeration of instructions to the editors regarding revisions to the working draft of HyTime. Adjournment. {Revised 91/02/12} From: ebarrett@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: MIT Multimedia conference Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 11:32:09 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2201 (2545) Your subscribers may be interested in the following conference schedule: THE SOCIAL CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE: MULTIMEDIA AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE UNIVERSITY Saturday, April 6, 1991 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Registration Fee: $250 (no walk-in registrations). Call 617-253-7894 for registration information. A one-day conference with concurrent workshops and presentations on the use of multimedia and information technology to support collaborative research, learning, and instruction. 8:45 -9:00 Morning Welcome, Edward Barrett, Conference Director, MIT 9:00-10:00 MORNING KEYNOTE, Prof. Ben Shneiderman, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Maryland, Head, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, "The Strategic Education Intitiative: My Star Wars Plan for the Multimedia Renewal of American Education" 10:-10:55 SESSION I George Landow, IRIS, Brown University, "Hypermedia and Student Collaborative Research: The Example of Intermedia" Ben Davis, Project Athena, MIT, "Prototyping Multimedia: Lessons from the Visual Computing Group at Project Athena" Janet Murray, MIT, "The Redefinition of Space, Time, Text, and Story in Advanced Mulitmedia Learning Environments" Tom Fletcher, Harvard Kennedy School, "The Three Mile Island Case Study: A Demonstration of Multimedia in Management Education" Ricki Goldman Segall, MIT Media Lab, "What We Learn About Learning Using Multimedia as a Reseach Tool" 11:00-11:55 @b(SESSION II) Sebastian Heath, Harvard University, "Classical Access: Perseus and the Non-Specialist" Beth Adelson, MIT, "Privacy and Negotiation in Collaborative Writing" James Bingham, Linda Davies, Archie R. Dykes, University of Kansas Medical Center, "Educational Technology: A Faculty Support Unit for Educational Multimedia Development" Henrietta Nickels Shirk, Northeastern University, "Cognitive Architecture in Hypermedia Instruction" Starr Roxanne Hiltz, New Jersey Institute of Technology, "The Virtual Classroom: Software for Collaborative Learning" Kathleen Burnett, Rutgers University, "Multimedia and Information Technologies and the Graduate Program in Library and Information Studies" 12:00-12:55 LUNCH 1:00-2:00 AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: Thomas Malone, MIT School of Management, Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Information Systems, and Director, Center for Coordination Science, "New Tools for Information Sharing and Collaboration" 2:00-2:55 @b(SESSION III) Jud Harward and Evelyn Schlusselberg, Project Athena, MIT, "Is Multimedia Informational Alchemy or Conceptual Typography?" David Chen, MIT Media Lab and Tel Aviv University, "An Epistemic Analysis of the Interactions between Knowledge and Technology" Nels C. Anderson, Duke University Medical Center, "Medical Center: A Modular Hypermedia Approach to Program Design" Patricia Ann Carlson, Air Force Human Resources Laboratory, "Varieties of Virtual: Expanded Metaphors for Computer-Mediated Learning and the Social Creation of Knowledge" Shahaf Gal, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Knowledge-Based Systems and More: Toward a Multimedia Environment for Learning Structural Engineering" John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin, "Constructing Knowledge in the Electronic Classroom" (two-hour workshop) Edward F. Redish, University of Maryland, Jack M. Wilson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, "The Comprehensive Unified Physics Learning Environment (CUPLE)" 3:00-3:55 @b(SESSION IV) Muriel Zimmerman, University of California, Santa Barbara, "Software Support for Research and Authoring Teams: What Do Users Want?" Glen H. Hoptman, Smithsonian Institution, "The Virtual Museum and Related Epistemological Concerns" Guy Boy, NASA Ames Research Center, "Computer Integrated Documentation" Matthew Quagliana, Alison Hartman, John E. Diem, Tulane Computing Services, "The Many Faces of Multimedia: How New Technologies Might Change the Nature of the Academic Endeavor" John Smith, University of North Carolina, "WE: A Writing Environment for Professionals" Virginia Z. Ogozalek, Maureen E. Power, Judith A. Perrolle, Mary Ann Hebhardt, Donald F. Bullens, Worcester State College, "The Worcester State College `Elder Connection:' Promoting Intergenerational Education with Multimedia and Information Technology" (two-hour workshop continued) Edward F. Redish, University of Maryland, Jack M. Wilson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, "The Comprehensive Unified Physics Learning Environment (CUPLE)" 4:00-4:15 Farewell (10-250) From: "Sue.Gass" <21003SMG@MSU.BITNET> Subject: MSU Conference Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 14:38:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2202 (2546) To: "Joyce Neu, Listowner" <JN0@PSUVM.BITNET> Please make the following information available to anyone interested CALL FOR PAPERS Applied Linguistics at Michigan State THEORY CONSTRUCTION AND METHODOLOGY IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION RESEARCH October 4-6, 1991 Plenary Speakers: Kevin Gregg; Patsy Lightbown; Michael Long; John Schumann Call for papers (Deadline April 1, 1991)The theme for the conference is theory construction and methodology in SLA. We are interested in theory-driven data-based studies; these studies should comment explicitly on some of the following issues: 1. Justification for methodology 2. What should a theory of SLA consist of? 3. How can we evaluate theories of SLA 4. Are the many SLA theories rivals or complementary 5. What kinds of evidence are our current methodologies capable of establishing? 6. How strong is the evidence for SLA generalizations? Please submit 3 copies of a one-page abstract (without name)and a 3"x5" card g iving name, title of paper, affiliation, address and phone number (and e-mail address, if applicable) to: Alan Beretta/Susan Gass Conference Co-Chairs Department of English 201 Morrill Hall Michigan State University E. Lansing, MI 48824-1035 Phone: 517 353-0800 e-mail: 21910mgr@MSU 21003smg@MSU FAX: 517 336-1149 From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Another Attack; We Prepare to Rejoice. Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 22:59 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2203 (2547) Saturday Night, 9 February Another Attack; We Prepare to Rejoice Last night, Friday, was our Sabbath. After the Kiddush, the blessing made on drinking wine - we use a sweet red wine that is probably not familiar to those who have never tried it although I remember that is was not only cherished by Jews in my days in the US, but also by alcoholics who called it "Sneaky Pete" even though it was sold as "Old Rabbinical" or "Magen David" - we had an uneventful and delicious Sabbath meal, beginning with the soft bread we call hala, and then a lemon chicken soup on which delicious dumplings made of chopped turkey breast floated gently. This was followed by slicing a whole turkey and eight of us ate the dark and white meat, according to our preferences, with a casserole of sweet potatoes and pineapple and a large salad. After tea and cake we said grace. Then my oldest son and his wife and two children walked home carrying their three gas masks and an incubator for the 2 1/2 year old with them. The classical music station of the radio, The Voice of Music, has been my salvation since the war began, providing both a point of stability for me in these terrible times and a source of the familiar and the pleasurable. It is good to know that even in times of concern and distraction there is pleasure to be had in old familiar friends and activities. For the first few days of the attacks on us, this station joined the others as they all broadcast together, usually with popular or rock music only between announcements of attacks and war news. What a change from normal times! From times when four brief news announcements were the only interruptions in 18 hours of broadcasting a good selection of classic music. After the first week of attacks, The Voice of Music was returned to the air in its own right, only joining the other stations at the time of an attack. This was understood as a move to normalcy. With observant Jews who neither turn on electrical appliances or turn them off on the Sabbath [25 hours from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday] in mind, The Voice of Music was sacrificed last night. In normal times, such a decision would have produced a vocal and indignant protest from the anti- religious here, who appear to be every bit as as religious in their anti-religiosity as are the religious in their faith. But these are not normal times and - for the most part - old battles have been put aside, to be fought again - once the danger is over. I did think with some compassion for the non-religious who this night had neither the flavor of the Sabbath meal nor the consolation of good music. At least I had one, the one that I had chosen. The Voice of Music was to remain silent all Friday night and Saturday until sundown - unless an alarm was to be given. The station was indeed silent when I went to sleep, rather early - as I usually do on Friday nights. I slept well until I was awakened Saturday morning at 02:39 by the siren blasting in my ears - it was the radio. Only a minute later was the siren heard outside. We were somewhat confused and a bit slow getting to the sealed room; we were a bit out of practice after five consecutive nights without any alarm. [Later we would remember that this was the third attack on four Friday nights since the war began.] Five of us sat in the room, listening to the radio, readjusting our gas masks, asking each other how he/she was [2 men, 3 women]. Five is a maximum number for comfort in this room - not that we think of comfort; we have managed with as many as nine without difficulty. The reports were quite slow in coming, as if the radio services in the time of attack had also gotten slightly rusty; it seems so natural to forget, to want to forget. It took more than 10 minutes before Nahman Shai confirmed that there had been an attack, that one missile had been fired [the 31st directed at Israel out of 59 Scuds fired], that it had landed and that all Israel was confined to the sealed rooms, in their gas masks. Some five minutes later we were told that it was now safe for all those not living in Greater Tel Aviv and the Shomron [Samaria] to remove their masks and leave the sealed rooms. We were included in this partial all-clear and we removed our masks but remained in the sealed room to hear more; we felt the need to know more. Moreover, the radio was still active, broadcasting - for the most part - rather loud and distracting [definitely not classical] music. Sleep would not be easy. Some five minutes later, an all clear notice was given for the entire country. The weapon was conventional; no poison gas, no biological warhead. [We do not even allow ourselves to think about nuclear warheads.] No siren was sounded. There is usually a siren that announces the introduction of the Sabbath; this has been cancelled since the beginning of the war to prevent confusion and panic. There is also a siren - a continuous blast instead of the rising-falling shriek of the attack warning - that is meant to indicate the all-clear. Following negative experiences with this signal and the multitude of false alarms that result from confusion and wrought nerves, this signal has not been used either for more than a week. The only siren to be heard now is the signal for a real attack. We no longer hear translations of the announcements - other than one, directing all listeners who need or want translations to listen to Channel A - the intellectual, and mostly talk station - which is now set aside during attacks for translations in the languages commonly heard here. Sleep does not seem possible until we know more. Nahman Shai reports that there is damage from the missile, but does not say where or how much. And are there wounded? Dead, God forbid? His voice seems to reflect nervousness; I comment on this and others agree. Only my wife thinks that what we hear as nervousness may be nothing more than distortion in the quality of the sound resulting from problems with the portable phone he is clearly using. He is at the scene of the missile landing; we can hear noise of activity and people giving orders and calling to one another. He has never sounded nervous before. It must be pretty bad. Forty-five minutes go by before we are told that a Scud miss has landed in the center of the country, that there is damage and that there wounded. Twenty five wounded, two fairly seriously, but without danger to their lives; 300 apartments are damaged, with many rendered homeless. Eyewitness reports are heard. It appears that two Patriot anti-missile missiles were fired at the Scud and that there was an explosion as one or both of them hit the missile. It seems that fragments of the missile [missiles? How much does the Patriot contribute to all this?] landed in two adjacent streets and on the roofs of houses nearby. One young man who witnessed the Patriots hitting the Scud while bringing his girl friend home says that the time between the siren and the Patriot hit was less than one minute. If this is true, what has happened to the five minute warning we were promised? If we are right in thinking that the missile has landed in greater Tel Aviv, which lies along the Mediterranean coast, and was downed by a Patriot, there a difficult question that has to be asked. If no Patriot were fired wouldn't this missile have continued on into the sea, not producing any damage? Are the Patriots that are protecting us the very cause of the damage we are suffering? At least no dead, only two badly wounded and their lives are not in danger - one we know had a shattered knee and had to undergo an emergency operation. We are somewhat relieved; it could have been much worse. Meanwhile the radio becomes silent; the station has reverted to its pre-attack status. We go to sleep, more tired than we thought we were. ********************** This morning we go to synagogue for Sabbath prayers. It is the Sabbath before the New Moon, which will be on Thursday and Friday of next week and we recite the special prayer for the New Moon. We say, "May it be thy will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, to grant us this new month for happiness and and blessing. O grant us long life, a life of peace and well-being, a life of blessing and sustenance, a life of physical soundness, a life of piety and dread of sin, a life free from shame and disgrace, a life of abundance and honor, a life marked by our love for Tora and our fear of Heaven, a life in which the wishes of our heart for happiness shall be fulfilled. Amen, sela." The New Moon will introduce the Jewish lunar month of Adar, which is the sixth or twelth month of our calendar. [We have more than one way to count the months.] Adar is the month of Purim, the Festival of Lots described in the Book of Esther, which takes place on the 14th of Adar, 3 weeks from now. It is the most joyful and abandoned of Jewish holidays - one with-it Rabbi even suggested that all Jews should turn on to celebrate the holiday, a suggestion that has not been generally adapted - and is filled with games, farcical dramas written for the occasion. Even forbidden card games are allowed and one is commanded to drink until you can know longer tell good from evil, a practice that seems to be followed only by the most religious and the most anti-religious. Jews are commanded to celebrate all the month of Adar - in moderation. And we try to, but it is difficult, these days, to contemplate joy, let alone abandonment. The very religious tell us, "Nonsense! A holiday is a holiday." They have faith; we will try to have as much. We will try to forget that there is much to worry about. ********************* Today I noticed the first blooming of the narcissuses in my garden, an early sign of spring. The rain in the streets dried slowly in the cold sun; the yellow and white blooms appear delicate and virginal, thin and upright in the cold, daring to show their faces. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Aftermaths Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 17:50 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2204 (2548) Sunday, 10 February Aftermaths It is a warm, sunny, spring-like day; a light sweater is all I need to go out. More than a day has gone by since the last attack - I still think about it. Even though there are others in the sealed room with you during an attack, and you talk and try to share and at the same time listen to the radio together, you are left alone there. And you feel a heaviness slowly creeping over you - I remember the stories about what it is like to freeze to death in the snow, and it seems very much like that, a sort of dying - you feel the inevitability of the situation, the helplessness. And you remember that, although what you are doing what is best for the case of a chemical attack, the huddling in the sealed room is always accompanied by the knowledge that you are not really very safe against a conventional attack. I speak to a friend from Tel Aviv; he tells me that on Saturday morning [02:45 AM] they first heard the Patriot missiles being fired and, only after that, a boom, the noise of the explosion. The Patriots, he tells me, have a mechanical sound to them, like turning on a noisy appliance, while the fall of the Scud has a full sound to it. He tells me there was approximately 5 minutes from the siren until they heard the noises. He does not really know which to prefer, the 2-3 minute advance warning that they had at the beginning or the LONG wait of 5 minutes before hearing the fall of the missile that they now have. He says "That wait is eternal!" Sitting in the sealed room, huddled on the floor (we have been told not to sit against external walls, so we have started to sit on the floor, sometimes with a blanket on and still feeling perfectly naked!) and waiting for the minutes to pass, endless minutes. [He reports that he jumps when he hears alarms that are not really there and that at such times he finds his heart racing. Strangely, this reaction is absent during real attacks.] The Mayor of Tel Aviv, General [ret.; not a Colonel, as I previously reported] Shlomo Lahat no longer speaks of "deserters" although it is clear that he still disapproves of Tel Avivians who have left the city, which he calls "The Front." This remark has produced many reactions, mostly negative. Some estimates suggest that as many as 40% - or even more - of Tel Aviv residents slept out of the city during the first wave of attacks. Today we learn that some of the inhabitants of the area where the last missile fell were not in their houses at the time, perhaps accounting for the fact that there were not more casualties. Who is right? Lahat has also confessed to being one of the Tel Avivians who run to his roof to see the "fireworks." Nahman Shai last week spoke of those who did so as "crazy." Rooftops have become a major battlefield in this war; there are the Palestinians who cheer the Scuds on and the Jews consumed [thus far only figuratively] by curiosity. We are curious. Shai tells us over and over again not to come out of our homes to see the "action." The spectators do come, however, and appear to interfere - hopefully not too much - with the rescue operations. In the last attack four people were arrested as looters [store windows were smashed] - apparently on the basis of being strangers. They were all released when they were identified as being guests of residents of the neighborhood struck. Apparently some people are now staying in the dangerous areas in order to be part of the "action." It takes all kinds, someone once said. We are concerned about looting; it would be a sign of the degeneration of our society, a degeneration that would not be acceptable to our self-image. Thus far there has been only rare cases; one looter who was caught was given a quick and heavy jail sentence. It is a beautiful day and we walk; we pass a hospital and the reality of the situation we are in again hits me: in preparation for a gas attack, there are rows of showers installed outside the hospital and so many stretchers! The showers, the showers remind me of the past, of what we have suffered. Showers that once were a disguise for poison gas and are now meant to treat the effects of poison gas. I am told that on a Friday night TV live entertainment show a group of American soldiers operating the Patriot missiles launchers appeared. They say that they are overwhelmed by the welcome they are getting. The announcer asks "Who is manning the missiles while you are there?" They reassure the audience, saying that there are other trustworthy soldiers keeping an eye on affairs, in their place. The soldiers have improvised a song and they sing it. Some experts from that song: "I am a scud-buster, baby." "Saddam, Saddam watch out what you do, I am a Patriot soldier". In these times, that will do. Depression seems to be both a phenomenon that concerns us - it still is not prominent - and is the source of jokes. Thus, apparently there are 3 types of people these days: 1) Those who are depressed because the war is over; 2) Those who are depressed because the war is not over; 3) Those who are depressed because they do not know if the war is over or not. **************************** Israel has an old account with US TV which does not get better with time. We do not enjoy the treatment we get; we feel that TV treatment of us to be not only unfair but also hostile. Some of it is of such low level as to be ridiculous but there is much that is invidious and hateful. For those who believe that there is never any justification for censorship, my words will have no meaning. We, who feel that our lives are on the line, disagree. Too often, the motivation for wanting to publish censored material is not to expose corruption, but to get a good story. It does not make any difference, say the "civil libertarians", the chance of exposing dirty dealings is so important that anything is worth it. We differ, we say that the possibility of saving lives takes precedence over every other consideration. And so the argument goes on, neither side happy with the other's views. We find that those who live most in danger, those who have the most to lose are not less disgusted than others at corruption or cover-up; but we do have a different order of preferences in our world. Life for the Jew - unlike others who believe that another world awaits them, one that makes up for loss of life - is the prime value. Nothing else takes precedence. This view does not make us cowards either; our soldiers have shown that time after time. And we are all soldiers here; we all serve. Every soldier is trained in rescue exercises; we all know that if we are wounded we will not be left on the battle field. That helps; it helps to know that human life is the prime consideration and I pity the civil libertarian who does not know that. His life is less valuable than it should be, as are the lives of others around him. When Noam Chomsky, a distinguished linguist, can write an introduction to a vile neo-Nazi book in the name of free speech, I - for one - pity the man. Use of the slogan "free speech" does not justify this action; indeed it is not only in bad taste, it endangers lives. And as such it must be condemned. George Orwell pointed out that arguments for free speech only have meaning within a democracy; when dealing with our imperfect world, he pointed out, totalitarian governments use these arguments to further their cause, to kill and to repress. If war is a special state, one in which lives are more on the line that in other situations - as it indeed is - and if, as we believe, lives are the primary value - doubting that there is democracy either in Heaven or in Hell - then democracy, or at least some of its attributes and characteristics must take a back seat. For the duration, as we used to say. How much of a back seat? How lenient can we be? As little as possible. At the beginning of the Lebanese war, TV crews who found themselves free to cover almost everything were frustrated by having to pass their material through the hands of an Israeli Army censor before getting permission to release the material. The censored material - for the most part - did not consist of what most civil libertarians would call attempts at cover-up but was material that was seen by our censors as having security and strategic value that they were not ready to release. There is no doubt, that here - as in all cases of censorship - politically motivated decisions were also made and that material that showed screw ups was usually disallowed. The American TV producers - clever folks they indeed are - decided on a method to pay Israel back by withholding the coin they felt Israel most wanted. What could be better, when Israel was motivated by a desire for good publicity [How simple minded clever people can really be! Did they not see that there were other motives in Israeli censorship than robbing them of good TV footage?], than to plaster a label over every frame shown from the Israeli side, announcing that the material is censored? And this they did, as punishment. They never mentioned that their access to news on the other side was limited. This form of censorship does not count; there is no good footage here, there is no footage at all. Here, nothing is being withheld from viewers; there is nothing. And so, it does not count. Now, footage from Israel, from Saudi Arabia and from Iraq are all treated to the same label, relatively inconspicuous, at the bottom of the screen. And usually with a vocal reminder, at least in the cases of Israel and Iraq, that the material is censored. Are the situations the same? Not at all. But the treatment is. The cover of NEWSWEEK [not TV, but the same principle applies] showed a Patriot missile launcher, an impressive photograph, with one of the most identifiable structures in Israel clearly shown in the background. The Israeli censors were greatly disturbed at this and withdrew the credentials of the head of NEWSWEEK's office here. TV footage of Patriot missile launchers in Israel is quite common. Has anyone seen one frame of a Patriot launcher in Saudi Arabia? Peter Arnett continues to broadcast from Iraq - perhaps I am a bit oversensitive if I think that his record as an Israel-basher has made him more acceptable there - and his interview with Ramsey Clark [Is he still alive? And seeing them together! I never realized how short Arnett was.] is interrupted by shots of hospital scenes showing wounded children. Who would allow that in Israel? Every TV producer would refuse to accept that from us. And rightfully so. For this is pure propaganda, cynical manipulation of the TV. And what is Clark doing in Iraq? And Boston cardiologist Philip Lown before him? They are civil libertarians. That is why. What if American lives are on the line? Here we would call it treason. Vive la difference. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Khalil Mahshi Subject: The War: A Palestinian View Date: 25 January, 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1025 (2549) 1 - I hope that you are both well and that the movement against the crazy war is growing. 2 - Unfortunately, I, and many others, have been proven wrong regarding our earlier feelings that war in the Gulf would not take place. Here, we have been living a situation of extreme alert since the beginning of war. Moreover, we have been under continuous curfew for the past nine days. The army has lifted the curfew twice, each time for three hours, to buy food. The streets were full of people hurrying to empty the grocery stores. I think next time the curfew is lifted for a short period we will not find food in shops. Other than Jerusalem, the vast majority of people in the West Bank and Gaza have no gas masks. Fortunately, the four Iraqi rocket attacks on Israel so far have not carried chemical heads. Moreover, we have no sirens to warn us of attacks. We keep watching Israel TV and radio to know when we should enter the rooms we have sealed for chemical attacks. So, we have developed a system of interdependence. We take shifts in sleeping. We alert others by phone and are alerted by others. So far, we have been safe and doing well. We have Suheir's parents staying with us. To help each other psychologically, we have been doing some things together, like playing cards and other games. Obviously, the kids are enjoying my unusual and extended presence at home. I have decided that, since three days, the home situation allows me to resume doing some work for the School and on other matters. The atmosphere has become more relaxed and the rest of the family members feel more safe and less tense. Therefore, I am writing to thank you and to raise two concerns with you. 3 - The first concern is a general one: the curfew imposed by the Israel army on the West Bank and Gaza. The army claims that it is imposing it because they are afraid that we will take to the streets in support of Iraq. Now that all indications are that the war is going to be long we do not know how long the curfew would be. People need to work, produce, earn an income, provide services, communicate, get out of their houses - in short live as normal a life as possible. The Israeli authorities should not be allowed to hold the whole Palestinian population under their military rule prisoners, hostages, or under house arrest for the rest of the period of the crazy war in the Gulf. We all should try to do something about it. If this goes on, we will be further imoverished and forced into ignorance. It is a slow massacre. 4 - Besides the general situation, my special concern is education and the Ramallah Friends Schools. You know that we have been struggling to overcome the big gap which has been created in levels of education in the West Bank since the beginning of the intifada because of the lengthy closures of schools imposed by the army. This extended curfew will just add to our educational problem. It will add, as well, the financial crisis that some educational institutions, like the Ramallah Friends Schools, have been facing. It seems that the financial collapse of such institutions is becoming more imminent under the present and the near-future circumstances unless something serious is done about this matter. I hope that you can raise these issues within AFSC and with Quakers at large and other NGOs. We have to think of ways to secure more protection for the Palestinians under occupation and to raise more relief/emergency assistance/money to help us survive. Sincerely, K. Mahshi From: "Steven J. DeRose" <EL406011@BROWNVM> Subject: Greek statistics Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 17:53:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2205 (2550) In response to Messr. Lana's questino re. statistical studies of Greek: Some work has been done on information theoretic characterization of Greek; I dealt with Koine' fairly extensively in my dissertation, including most of the statistics requested; it is available from UMI per usual methods (Brown Univ. 1989, "Stochaastic Methods for Resolution of Grammatical Category Ambiguity in Inflected and Uninflected Languages"). I can't say how well the figures would transfer to classical Greek, however. SJD From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.1008 Qs: Taiwanese email; Megawriter (2/27) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 23:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2206 (2551) Concerning Joel Elliott's request about converting files. IF Megawriter can convert its own files to DCA/RFT format, you will then be able to read that form with MS Word or WordPerfect, I believe. Converting to DCA/RFT also makes it possible to move between Mac and Ms_Dos environments, provided your Mac can format/read an MS-Dos diskette (the drives on late-model SEs and the new Macs can do this). Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Apologies Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 22:34:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2207 (2552) The mail from Richard Goerwitz (in digest 4.1010) regarding the appropriateness of political postings on Humanist was intended as personal mail to the Editors and not as a contribution to the list. It was posted in error. My apologies to Richard and the list. -- Allen ( I know ... this is going to make everyone think twice before sending us private mail!) From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: misplaced posting Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 22:04:51 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2208 (2553) My last blurb on the war was intended as a personal note to the editors, and was addressed to EDITORS, and not HUMANIST at BROWNVM. It was not intended for mass distribution. I do feel that war talk is getting way out of hand, and that people who want to discuss it at length with people interested in such things should find media that are more appropriate for it. This was an opinion I wished to share only with the modera- tors, in the event that they have been receiving similar com- munications or having similar doubts about the way this medium is being used. If the posting seemed a misdirected, this is why. -Richard From: Karen Kay <LL23%NEMOMUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: 4.1010 Humanist: Politics on Humanist (2/88) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 09:22:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2209 (2554) [deleted quotation] Some of us are at small schools that are lucky to get BITNET access, and have no Usenet or Internet access. You can always delete! Karen Kay LL23@NEMOMUS From: "Kathryn Wright, Indiana State University" <LIBKAT@INDST> Subject: Postings from Israel Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 21:10:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2210 (2555) Just a quick opinion on the dissent against their political content et al - for me, these postings represent news from part of the Humanist family, in danger, and they are valuable. Put them in Listserv's lock box if they are not safe on the open forum. From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: PLEA Date: 12 Feb 91 07:38:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2211 (2556) To save scrolling down through messages of no particular interest and which run on and on, would it be possible to put something over 30 lines on the LISTSERVER for those interested to retrieve on their own time? I refer to: 1. Conference Announcements: the last one included even a form to fill out! 2. The war diaries from Israel. Like Lakoff's tendentious essay, this material should be retrieved by those interested in issues peripheral to this board. Quick reminder for poor readers: I am not saying the issues are in themselves "peripheral"; they are irrelevant to HUMANIST and its basic intentions. Thank you. J.W. Halporn From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM> Subject: 4.1020 On the War (5/282) Date: Wednesday, 13 Feb 1991 11:05:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2212 (2557) I wonder if it would be possible for Professor Kessler not to resort to personal invective when he is expressing his opinion on this network. I believe in absolute freedom of speech, and I would not have anyone censored in any way, but I think it would be helpful if he could refrain from referring to colleagues as mealy-mouthed or as demagogues. Lakoff has a right to his opinions, and since he (and others, like myself) are in a clear minority in this country right now in regarding the war as a mistake, those opinions ought to be allowed expression without resorting to Kessler's invective, which is, after all, an attempt to silence those opinions. I much prefer Judy Koren's response from Israel: if _she_ can keep her cool, sitting in the midst of incoming SCUD attacks, then it would seem not to much to ask for Kessler to do the same, sequestered as he is in Westwood. Patrick O'Donnell From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: The most recent posting On The War Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 23:43:37 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2213 (2558) Shame on you, Jascha Kessler. And shame on the rest of you. I can no longer bear hearing the loss of human life described as an "unfortunate side-effect." Signing off. From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Language on Humanist Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 13:33:36 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2214 (2559) If French is to be used in Humanist because it is a minority language in Canada, where do we end? Flemish from Belgium, Basque from Spain, Welsh from the U.K., etc. etc.? Humanist is not an exclusively North American matter--or is it? As a neither anglo- nor francophone I would like to give my opinion. Some people were fortunate enough to be borne to one of the Weltsprachen; the rest of us were not. We have to acquire the necessary languages, and do so to different degrees. We may be reasonably fluent in one language, less fluent in another, making our way through a third, able to read a fourth. Whether the francophones like it or not, English has more and more become the language which the majority of the neither-nor's knows best. I could have written this in French, or German, or Italian (not Spanish, shame on me!), but with considerably more effort, and with several more mistakes in the output. I fail to see why I should do so, just because Michel feels oppressed or Germaine wants to practice her French (no offense, either of you!). Sure, the anglophones are the lucky ones, but the francophones are no worse off than the rest of us (in fact better; we are struggling with the French irregular verbs as well as the English!), and who said the world is just, anyway? Gunhild Viden, University of Gothenburg, Sweden From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: The Languages of Humanist (5/134) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 10:48:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2215 (2560) Je suis curieux de savoir comment Lenoble se permet de s'arroger le droit de parler pour toute une communaute (NOUS ... pouvons... NOUS feliciter...etcetera) tandis qu'il refuse le meme droit a Boissonas. (A moins que je ne me trompe, la particule disparait sauf quand le nom n'a qu'une syllabe--exemple: de Gaulle, mais Lafayette. "De Tocqueville" serait une erreur anglo-americaine. Pourtant, autre exemple general [;-)]: de Lattre de Tassigny. Mais si ce nom etait inverser, dirait-on alors "Tassigny de Lattre," sans particule?) Question de geographie: Le Mexique ne fait plus partie de l'Amerique du nord? MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: terminology Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 13:23:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2216 (2561) I would very much appreciate your reactions to a terminological problem I face. This problem arises from trying to characterize accurately the kinds of studies we as computing humanists undertake. If we say, "computational studies", it seems to me that we imply not just that computers are involved, but that the process of computation, and specifically numerical computation, plays a primary role. Bluntly, we imply that the computer is thinking for us. If we say, "computer-assisted studies", we suggest that the computer is merely an assistant, with no substantial role to play in influencing the questions that are asked and thus the answers that are obtained. Both, it seems to me, fail to capture the essence of what we are doing. We can, of course, harden our linguistic hearts and say "Computer Studies in ...". I shudder at such usage, but I realise that the world may not be with me, and those that are may be with me for reasons I cannot respect. In any case, I see a problem. Is it time, I wonder, to introduce into English the term "informatics"? Thus, for example, "Literary and Linguistic Informatics"? The problem of not having a good adjectival form remains, however. Suggestions? Willard McCarty From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Hebrew Bible Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 16:56:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2217 (2562) A colleague here (not a member of Humanist) is attempting to locate copies of Robert Estienne's 1539-44 quarto Hebrew Bible, or any of its separate parts. (It was brought out in fascicles.) He also wants to locate Estienne's 1556 edition of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah. If you have any clues, please write to McLeod@tuzo.erin.utoronto.ca Thanks very much. Willard McCarty From: CISI - UNIV. Torino 8123633/235 U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: Macs and IBM laser printers Date: 14 February 91, 13:06:56 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2218 (2563) At the Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio we have a Mac IIsi and an IBM Pag eprinter II with Postscript option (containing Adobe firmware). Any idea or experience about connecting the two so that the Mac uses the Pageprinter as a generic Postscript printer? Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: "James Woolley, Lafayette College" <WOOLLEYJ@lafayett.BITNET> Subject: Degendering an ombudsman Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 15:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2219 (2564) A faculty committee working on grievance procedures here proposes to institute an ombudsman, but shy of using that word, suggests "ombudser." Can someone suggest a better solution? Perhaps a specialist in Scandinavian languages can jump in here. I see from AHD that the root of "ombudsman," itself Norwegian, is Old Norse *umbodhsmadhr*, "administration-man," which even in its non-gendered version may not be exactly what the faculty committee had in mind! James Woolley, English, Lafayette College Bitnet: woolleyj@lafayett From: CISI - UNIV. Torino 8123633/235 U245 at ITOCSIVM Subject: CAT software Date: 14 February 91, 13:09:58 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2220 (2565) Does anyone know how to reach Alan Melby, who teaches linguistics at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah ? His (?) firms, ALPS, sells good software for CAT (computer assisted translation). Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: needed: a Greek-English Lexicon Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 10:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2221 (2566) Sorry to break in with such a mundane matter, but I've had no luck getting hold of the unabridged Liddell and Scott. OUP is out of stock, and I haven't found a university bookstore with a copy. Does anyone have a suggestion? It's medium urgent at this end. Norman Miller 203-523-7106 From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: advice requested Date: 13 Feb 91 21:43:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2222 (2567) It is probably the fate of a majority of HUMANISTs that a certain amount of time on this list translates into a certain likelihood of being drafted into committee service when humanities committee planning is in the wind. My number came up, and I could use some advice. It was suggested to our committee by one administrator with a lot of experience that we organize our report under the headings Research and Instruction. A savvy committee member suggested adding Communications as a third heading. I am uncomfortable and want to try to say here why. Computers are like faculty: they can be used for research, they can be used for instruction, and they can be used for playing golf. Most are used for some combination. Curiously enough, the most versatile computers (by which I mean the ones that flit back and forth between research and instructional functions the most often with the most ease) will tend to be the humblest work stations for the least computerish faculty: now a syllabus, now a footnote, now a handout for class, now another footnote, etc. And I think it fair to say that the largest number of users in a humanities faculty will be clustered around this humble middle. But the biggest and flashiest projects, on the other hand, will define themselves as Research (find out once and for all whether Shakespeare wrote Plato's Dialogues) or Instruction (teach them to translate from Gujarati to Old Irish in one semester). So if you do a graph of number of users, the bell will form with the center right on the line separating research from instruction; but if you go by dollars or intensitivity-of-computerishness, you get an inverse parabola, with the lowest point at the center, and the arms reaching off to infinity in the directions of research and instruction. So if we write our report the way suggested, we run the risk of dividing the indivisible and emphasizing the expensive. Oh, yes, and the research-only and instruction-only projects tend to involve smaller numbers of faculty -- more dollars per investigator. (I assume there are holes all over this argument: Please pick them.) So I think what I will suggest instead is that we organize functionally: (1) Nodes, (2) Connections, (3) Structures. Where Nodes deals with the establishment of individual working units, be they student labs, faculty office computers, or local research and instruction projects on a large scale; where Connections focuses on support systems designed to help everybody, links for information transfer of various kinds (e-mail, library access, admin. information, etc.), and Structures deals with the way to organize the administration of computing so as best to deal both with the isolated, individual case and with providing the common systems and connections that will link those individuals. But there must have been hundreds of these reports written elsewhere by now. Who's got a better scheme? (I should just say that this is very much a policy report we envision, contributing to a five-year plan for arts and sciences computing: nitty-gritty, like how many boxes, which rooms they go in, etc., we do *not* have to deal with. Our concern is more to make sure that the structures and large policies are in place so that the people who have to make those decisions will all be on the same page.) From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Computing advice Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 06:20:42 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2223 (2568) A colleague at an American university is seeking advice from HUMANISTs about what shoud be included in a plan for academic computing. He would appreciate any kind of advice, but in particular he would like information (and perhaps war stories) about providing information and hands-on demos and help for faculty. Please reply directly to Don Sundheim cflds@ux1.cts.eiu.edu Our thanks in advance. From: Eric Dahlin <hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET> Subject: REACH on FTP Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 09:40:41 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2224 (2569) [...] _REACH_, Research and Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities, the newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is now available in electronic form through anonymous FTP. FTP is a UNIX process which lets you transfer files from a distant computer to your own system. Your local computer center staff should be able to provide you with information on using FTP from your own account. Once you have FTP available, enter one or the other of the two following equivalent commands to gain access to the UCSB computer storing the files: ftp ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu or ftp 128.111.122.50 Try the first version, and, if that doesn't work, then try the second. Log on with the name "anonymous," and use your e-mail address as a password. Next, move to the directory containing the files by entering the command: cd hcf Now that you're in the correct directory, you can get a list of all the file names by entering the command: ls Then, to transfer any of the files to your own system, enter the command: get filename First try transferring the file called "readme." It shows the contents of each of the files in the directory, and gives detailed instructions for the FTP process, including the complete log of an actual FTP session. Finally, end your session with the "quit" command. If you encounter any difficulties in using the process, send me an e-mail note and I'll try to enlist the assistance of one of our local wizards. I'd be particularly interested to hear from those who find this archive a useful form of resource. Regards, Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Hungarian Discussion Group Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 10:55:01 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2225 (2570) [...] Announcement of Hungarian Discussion Group ------------------------------------------ A new electronic discussion group on Hungarian issues is now open to scholars and students from all disciplines. Although the working language of the group is English, contributions in other languages will be accepted and posted. However, they may not be understood by a significant proportion of the membership. Electronic mail connections have already been established with three Hungarian universities: Budapest Technical University, Budapest University of Economic Sciences, and Eotvos Lorand University. The group and list server addresses of the new group, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara, are: hungary@ucsbvm.bitnet listserv@ucsbvm.bitnet To subscribe to the discussion group, send an e-mail message, without any subject, to the list server address, listserv@ucsbvm.bitnet, containing the single line: subscribe hungary "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, inserted in place of the phrase "your name," without quotes. Once you have subscribed, any messages which you want to circulate to the group should be sent to the group address, hungary@ucsbvm.bitnet. The list is moderated, and will be edited by: Eric Dahlin hcf2hung@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Languages on Humanist Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 08:04:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2226 (2571) To correct Gunhild Viden: French is not a minority language in Canada. It is the language of one-third of my compatriots. Canada is a bi-lingual country. I do not need to write to Humanist to practice my French; I can do that perfectly well here. My point was that people on Humanist elsewhere might profit from the recognition that English is NOT the language of the universe. One of the effects of the presence of French in Canada is to keep on reminding us Canadians about that. There are plenty of English- Canadians who don't like being reminded of it, but they are, constantly, and I am glad of it. As a Canadian, I am also perhaps more aware than Gunhild Viden of the hegemonous role of English in American cultural activity across our undefended (I use the term with some irony) border. I am one of those Canadians who feels it is a good thing to keep a little perspective on such issues. Once a language becomes associated with "universality" some bad things happen as well as good ones. "The borders of Rome are the borders of the world," as Ovid observed. And we all know what happened to him when he offended the powers that be. From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: The Languages of Humanist Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 08:11:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2227 (2572) Earlier in the discussion I offered the idea that a mostly french-speakinglist along the lines of HUMANIST might be set up in order to test the need (if any) for a non-english dominated medium. I, for one, am not convinced it would be useful, for various matter-of-fact reasons -- the first being that our humanists' need for universality implies that we try tu use the most widely known language in our field. All the same, I found some reactions quite surprising: it appears that setting up a predominantly french language list would amount for some to a kind of separation (right, Eric? Hi! I miss you too. .) Why should it be so? COuldn't it be construed as one more way to enlarge our horizon rather than to restrict it since many people who do not presently take part in our kind of discussions because of various linguistic hang-ups might be attracted if they felt more at ease? After all, anyone can subscribe to any list they choose, right? One of the things I like best in Montreal where I live is that when I go to the Maison de la Presse I can (and do) buy Le Monde as well as Die Welt or the Corriere della Sera or the New York Times. The same holds with TV channels, since US, Canadian, French, Italian networks are available. Frankly, I would be glad to see more french, german, italian, etc.circulate on the Internet! From: LHAMPLYONS@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu Subject: Re: 4.1017 Israeli Diaries: Werman (2/448) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 1991 21:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2228 (2573) Bob Werman's diaries are a useful insight into one aspect of the Middle East "situation" ( a word I hear so often on the media). Have we no sources for an Israeli Arab or Palestinian insight into the same situation? Werman does not talk to us of the curfew on the Palestinians, of progress in the distribution of gasmasks to Palestinians (when, if ever, will mothers be able to have gasmasks to put on their childrem? how long must they live in fear that they will have to face the appalling choice of putting on their gasmask and watching their child die, or of not puting it on and dying with their child/ren?), of the lack of food, medicine, and the means of livelihood. I do not expect him to: he need not be an apologist for his nation. But if there ARE no Arab/Palestinian sources, why is that? And I understand Werman's increasing anti-American sentiments -- many of us share his cynicism. But it saddens me to see reason slipping away in intelligent people, for without many of them on all sides we shall never escape from the tragedies our leaders create for us. Liz Hamp-Lyons From: Malcolm Hayward <MHAYWARD@IUPCP6.BITNET> Subject: On the War, or Where Did Compassion Go? Date: 13 Feb 91 10:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2229 (2574) Well, I guess one person's information is another's propaganda. George Lakoff's balanced and articulate statement has incurred the wrath (not too strong a word) of Harwell, Kessler, Copold, and Judy. Let me see if I've got some of the arguments straight. 1. It's okay to kill Iraqi civilians because that's a "predictable side-effect." So if a hundred civilians are huddled in a shelter hit by a missile, the fact that this is a probable result takes away any of the guilt that I should feel (that any citizen on the Allied side should feel) at this act of terror. 2. It's okay to kill Iraqi soldiers--no matter that they were conscripted, no matter whether they are 17 or 70, no matter that they like any of us each carry their own universe of cause and reason, spirit and emotion, allegiances and aspirations. No matter that they are after all each and everyone humans and thus worthy of as much as we can do to help them realize themselves fully as humans. 3. It's better to be associated with pilots who think of their targets as insects rather than people--as long as they are on our side. And the moral issues that this raises are really not serious--suitable material for psychologists to write novels about, but something for us to really be concerned about? Certainly not. 4. The esteemed Israeli government, democratically elected and all, is not at all racist, is equally concerned with the future of all its citizens, Arab as well as Jew, is showing the kind of great restraint and responsibility that it has showed in the past (curfews, a lack of gas masks, the intifada, Southern Lebanon, the West Bank . . . notwithstanding). I could go on, but to tell you the truth, I am heart-sick enough already. How much of one's humanity must one lose before such arguments start to ring true? Here's a small note from the home front: the Chancellor of the State System of Higher Education in Pennsylvania asked each of the schools in the system to furnish a list of all faculty and students of "Arabian and Israeli nationality." The list will be kept "confidential," it says. I'm not real sure what "Arabian nationality" means--any guesses? I'm also not real sure what one would do with such a list. Again, any guesses? Malcolm Hayward MHayward@IUP Department of English Phone: 412-357-2322 or IUP 412-357-2261 Indiana, PA 15705 From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: On the War Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 08:15:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2230 (2575) Please don't stop the contributions on the war! The addition of a message from the West Bank today was welcome. The war is indeed closely related to the central concerns of a seminar with the name "Humanist", otherwise the name has a very different significance from the one I and many others think it bears. "Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto" is an ancient saying (Terence, I think), but a good one to keep in mind just now. Germaine. From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: War, Propaganda, etc. Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 09:23:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2231 (2576) I cannot let Bob Werman's diaries pass without comment. It is to some degree difficult, since he can at least claim to be directly involved, and claim that I, sitting across the ocean, simply cannot comprehend the situation. To the degree that he reports mood and feelings directly related the missile attacks, I defer to his experience, but as Judy Koren points out, at least one claim can be countered with another "better" eye witness report. The further he moves from Jerusalem, the more arguable points there are. Some of them may only be figures of speech, but for some, those figures of speech may be fightin' words. For example, he refers to Israeli farm products reaching Iraq. To my knowledge, the West Bank is not recognized as part of Israel by most nations in the world, including the United States. I do not think that the politics of terminology can be avoided, so at least we should be aware of it. (Note: for the Francophones, a better article than George Lakoff's on Metaphor and War is Roland Barthes' "Grammaire Africaine" in _Mythologies_, written probably before the outbreak of the Algerian war. However, since it was written for _Le Monde_, it might not pass muster as a scholarly article, and of course, political bias is included. This particular article is not available in the translation of _Mythologies_). Propaganda is propaganda. We might like ours, the other side theirs, and a disinterested listener might feel that either one gives him a queasy stomach. I do not see how any of us can make heads or tails from the news that comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Shall I believe American reports who in the past have confused corn meal with cocaine, bee pollen with poison gas residue, and West European financed runways (built with the help of Cuban engineers) with secret strategic airfields aimed at the heart of the U.S.? (Mea culpa, I am exaggerating U.S. claims in regard to Grenada). Thus the U.S. claims to have bombed a chemical factory, but the Bay Guardian (a local "oppositional" paper) reports that other American papers (the New York Post via the Village Voice) quote a Nestle spokesman in Switzerland to the effect that they keep an eye on the competition, and yes, it was an infant formula plant. Based on objectivity, I would have to believe the Nestle spokesman (assuming that he really said was is being reported), and one might also wonder if Swiss industrial spying might not be more effective than spying by American military intelligence. Of course, in the grand total of this war, that factory will be insignificant, and will probably be forgotten. The same article reports a New York Newsday article that an Army War College team (whatever that means), has come to the conclusion that the gassing of the Kurds may have been carried out by the Iranians, which leads one to ask why Saddam Hussein did not trumpet that fact. Since we are not in Iraq, let us use our imagination. Herb Caen (a local columnist--no military expert but he knows the geography of his city) pointed out that if an enemy decided to take out the freeways, telephone exchanges, docks and railroads, government buildings and military installations in San Francisco, there would have to be severe damage (and casualties) on non- strategic areas. He posited this before we read the regular news reports that smart bombs have an estimated 60% rate of accuracy. Let any reader imagine a major city in his country struck "surgically" (should surgeons sue for defamation of character?) by bombs (Paris? Rome? Montreal? New York?). I am only imagining, but I think that it is perhaps more accurate than thinking that most damages to civilian quarters are due to "anti- aircraft fallout." If you support the war, it does make you feel better that your side is not the direct cause of civilian casualties. In the more general discussion, Bob Werman makes assumptions that are off the mark. If anything, from the comments I have received in the past from Europeans friends, Americans are seen as righteous and absolute (naive is the usual encapsulating term). Americans might not have recognized the evil of Saddam Hussein, but the possibility of evil does exist for the American (one generalization is worth another). On the other hand, since Saddam Hussein was equated with Hitler long before we went to war (since August?), I think that the recognition of Evil is not an issue. If we wanted to recognize evil, we have had the opportunity to do it. Of course, the government also plays a role in the recognition of evil. Who, after all, recognized the (therefore not evil) Pol Pot regime (in exile) until very recently? My impression is that there is a great deal of rhetoric in the term "evil". Within the western culture (the only one I have experienced) how can we not be against Evil, and therefore how can we question the war effort? My answer to that is a personal one: My father was "un bon Aryen" ;-) (three years in KZ and Zuchthaus, in that order, between 1933 and 1937), as were quite a few of his friends (would Steve Copold deny the accuracy of their position because it was a distinctly minority opinion?). He recognized the evil of Hitler and his followers in the 20's, claimed that the destruction of the Jews could be foreseen, although at other times he claimed that no one believed the reports that started coming out of the BBC during the war--it was all government propaganda on the level of the German atrocities in Belgium during W.W.I (memory plays strange tricks). At some point between the declaration of war and the fall of France, he was interned and then asked to join the French Foreign Legion to fight against Hitler. He refused and, with others, tried to convince the vacillating ones not to join (about 15% success rate according to him). Nor did he join the Resistance, although my mother claims that he did as much sheer idiocy (her opinion) as some who were in it, or claimed to have been in it once liberated. His position was political, not pacifist, although in practice he was a pacifist. (Political pacifism existed also in the U.S., c.f. Naeve's _A Field of Broken Stones_). Wars are declared and carried out by governments, and are therefore suspect (discours indirect libre). I grew up with that deep suspicion of officialdom, authority and any form of group allegiance. I bought off my "droit d'option" because I had no intention of going to Algeria in the early sixties, and my father offered to finance any displacement to Canada in that same decade if that ever came to pass. In other words, I have a visceral reaction to war, and it may very well be that any argument I present is predicated on that reaction. To what degree are all our arguments related to the present dependent on our predispositions? How should we take that into account? At the very least, I would not question the "bonne volonte" of any participant in this discussion. I could raise questions about other elements of Bob Werman's presentation, e.g. the issue of security and censorship, but that would add too much bulk. I'm only trying to indicate that none of us is a _Voyageur sans bagages_, nor can any of us be certain of the information we receive. Judy Koren's greater circumspection when making comments is much appreciated. Another impression I get from his diaries is that he supposes the destruction of Saddam Hussein. I see him taking the last remaining jet to Iran. Moreover, who is to say that the 100 ayatollahs that probably are created in the Arab world by the destruction of Saddam Hussein will be an improvement in terms of our (deliberately ambiguous possessive adjective) relationship to that world? Will the peace that will surely follow be only the continuation of war by other means? A not unrelated but rhetorical question: why is anger in the U.S. legitimate, but not in the Arab world? From: "Lorraine Olley, Preservation, 855-6281" Subject: RE: 4.1027 Humanist: Politics &c. (7/106) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 08:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2232 (2577) I agree with Prof. Halporn's suggestion to move excessively long and "peripheral" entries to the LISTSERV. In this I would include the war diaries. I do read them, and find them informative and disturbing, but they are really not at all related to the original intention of this list, a discussion of the use of computing in the humanities. There have been several lists developed recently for discussion of the war, and perhaps they are a more appropriate forum for Lakoff and Kessler and the like. My fear is that by continuing lenghty discussions of the war on HUMANIST, we will lose sight of the fact that, even in this tragic time, life and learning and scholarship go on--and must go on. Lorraine Olley Indiana University Libraries From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1016 Etext: Isaie (1/24) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 11:49:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2233 (2578) I recall a previous discussion in which advertising appeared to have been classified as not appropriate for distribution on HUMANIST. Has this changed? Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois, SIMTEL20 or TRW. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: "HALPORN,JAMES,CLAS" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: COMMERCIALS ON HUMANIST Date: 14 Feb 91 09:07:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2234 (2579) Today the NY Times had an article that discussed how the FTC was angry at HAM operators who were using computers for commercial purposes. Doesn't HUMANIST fear it may be open to similar complaints if it persists in sending out messages like that from the National Conference on Computing and Values? Really this has to stop. Is there some problem that prevents the editors from editing this stuff or, as I previously suggested, moving it to the LISTSERVer? J.W. Halporn From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Policies Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 21:16:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2235 (2580) New statements of policies on commercial postings, copyright, and mail distribution v. fileserver storage, and appropriate content will be posted soon. They will still be very much in the spirit of the the statements in the HUMANIST GUIDE and will reflect the the discussions of these issues that have occurred on Humanist over the last 4 years. Humanist veterans of the spring of 1988 know that we can be sure on one thing: not everyone will be pleased. -- Allen From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: linguistics info Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 15:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1035 (2581) Announcing the LINGUISTS Nameserver 8/2/91 Today we have put into operation a linguistic nameserver: LINGUISTS@ALF.LET.UVA.NL The function of this server is to reply to single or multiple requests for e-mail addresses of researchers in the language sciences. Please let your colleagues know about us! Norval Smith, Institute for General Linguistics, University of Amsterdam nsmith@alf.let.uva.nl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You interact with LINGUISTS@ALF.LET.UVA.NL by means of e-mail. Send an e-mail message to the name server with lines containing any of the commands listed below. Only lines in the body of your message will be processed. Other information, such as subject fields, will be ignored. The server responds by sending an e-mail reply containing the requested information. Overview of commands: Note: - Anything between double quotes should be entered exactly as shown. - Anything between square brackets is optional. - The vertical bar "|" means "or". - All names are converted to lowercase; addresses remain as entered. ADD The ADD command sends a request to the server manager to include the name in the list of e-mail addreses. syntax: "add" lastname ["," firstnames] ":" address example: add Caesar, Julius: caesar@forum_romanum.bitnet LIST The LIST command lists all entries matching a given first name and last name. If an asterisk follows a name, all names starting with the preceding substring (which may be empty) are listed. You may want to use this feature if you are not entirely certain about a person's name. A period at the END of a string is equivalent to an asterisk. If a name is given together with one letter and a period, this will return all the relevant persons whose first names begin with that letter. Note that, unlike asterisks, periods are allowed in other positions of the name. In such cases, they are treated as normal characters, not as variables. Surnames consisting of more than one name can be found under the first name as well as under the last name. Eg. "Van den Berg, Jan" is stored as "van den berg, jan" as well as "berg, jan van den". syntax: "list " lastname[*] ["," firstnames][*|.]] examples: list Caesar, I. this lists all entries with the surname "caesar" and initial "I". list Caes*, Iul* this lists all entries that start with "caes" and have a first name starting with "Iul". list Caesar this lists all entries with surname "caesar" and any first name. REMOVE The REMOVE command sends a request to the server manager to remove a person's name from the list. You need to supply your address, so that the server manager can determine the correct entry in a list of identical names. If you are not sure about the address, first send an e- mail message with a LIST command to find this out. Use this command to edit addresses. You require to REMOVE the incorrect address, and ADD the corrected one. syntax: "remove " lastname ["," firstnames] ":" address example: remove Caesar, Julius: caesar@forum_romanum.bitnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want information, use the HELP command (no arguments). If you have other questions, contact nsmith@alf.let.uva.nl Note: <E> before an address indicates a European UUCP (EUnet) node. When using the .UUCP address form it may be necessary to address such nodes from the Americas as: NODE!USER@MCSUN.EU.NET instead of USER@NODE.UUCP. <U> before an address indicates an American UUCP node. When using the .UUCP address form it may be necessary to address such nodes from the Europe as: NODE!USER@UUNET.UU.NET instead of USER@NODE.UUCP. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Date: Tue, 12 Feb 1991 13:20:03 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2236 (2582) DIARY OF THE GULF WAR -- THE VIEW FROM HAIFA Judy Koren Copyright Judith Koren 1991, all rights reserved Sunday, 8th February 8 pm. The English news has a report on the return to work of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. The decision to allow it was made over the weekend. "Aha!" says the demon who sits on my right shoulder (I'm left- handed so I always think of my guardian angel as sitting on my left), "now how about your theory that we're in the process of separating our economy from that of the West Bank?" My demon proves to be a non-starter, for we have a new licensing system. Only 2,000 Palestinians from the West Bank were licensed, and many fewer actually showed up. They're not allowed as yet to work in the Haifa and Tel-Aviv areas, becase of the fear that incensed inhabitants of those areas would seek scapegoats to attack. The fear is possibly well-founded, certainly well-publicized. Even more off-putting, their employers suddenly find themselves "in loco parentis". The employer has to provide organized transport to and from work, and is responsible for the employees' good behaviour (i.e. no terrorism: in the period before the war there was a rash of cases of West Bank workers suddenly attacking, and in many cases killing, their employers or any passerby, for the Arab Cause). Moreover, since all the employees now need a license, they're all legal. Gone with a stroke of the pen are all the abuses of the labour system that liberals have complained about all these years: below-minimum wages, no social benefits, inadequate lodgings. Now they get minimum wages and social benefits or they don't work; and they can't stay overnight at all, in lodgings of any standard. This has obvious results. No employer wants to be held responsible for workers whose personal feelings may be unknown but whose views and allegiances, AS A GROUP, are all too clear. And the new wages, benefits and transport costs mean a sharp rise in the cost of labour. Under these conditions, it's no more expensive to employ a new Russian immigrant, and it's a darn sight safer. No, I don't think we'll see our neighbours come flooding back into Israel to work, the way they did before. An official of the building industry says he hopes they will, for with all this immigration we'll need 50,000 building workers for the next year or 2 or 3. I've seen enough Russian engineers and doctors working in stores and on building sites to convince me that the immigrants will build their own housing. But even if the West Bank workers do return, the important point is that they're doing it on equal terms with everyone else. There is no longer an economic incentive to employ them, rather than an Israeli Arab or a Russian or an Ethiopian. And 2 or 3 years isn't so long; just the changeover period from one economy to another. How many people remember that before '67 the Israeli economy managed OK without cheap labour from the West Bank and Gaza? Of course nobody needs to believe that this is all political manoevring. All we're doing is taking the precautions necessary in wartime, and improving working conditions. People believe what they want to believe, and each of us will make up his own mind. My personal opinion remains: better to blame the necessary upheaval on the war now, than on the peace later. A corollary of all this is that the West Bank will have to be switched back to its original eastwards orientation fairly quickly. If work isn't available here, it'll have to be elsewhere. That shouldn't be too difficult. They're going to need a lot of building workers to reconstruct Iraq. Sorry if I sound cynical, it's the effect of political observation. ***************************** After the Friday night attack the jokes are flying again. I hear the one about selling plots in H2 and H3 twice, from Haifa and from Bob Werman's Jerusalem diary. Before the weekend it didn't exist. The grapevine is very efficient. I do my bit by bringing it home to the family. Gadi grins, but Yair is not impressed. "Not impressed" is putting it mildly. "That's the dumbest joke I ever heard," he declares. I remember that right from the start Yair has been the tensest member of the family. Or perhaps it's just that at his age, anything a parent says is dumb by definition. Can't blame THAT on the war. The return to school this morning was confused. The announcements managed to be ambiguous enough that many children (meaning, of course, many parents) couldn't decide when their schoolday was supposed to start. At 8 am? At 8:30? Perhaps at 9:00 like last week? It all depends on where you live and what grade you're in. Not exactly Back to Normal. Nor are the new regulations, which stipulate gas-mask drill every 2 days. I remember being told many years ago, by an American friend, about all the nuclear-attack drills in school when she was growing up. The fears they engendered, the nightmares. Only as I heard her description did I understand the gut reaction of the U.S. population to Russia. She belonged to a brain-washed generation. We are brain-washing our own children with regard to a similar threat. I hope the effects will not last so long. At least we're doing it only for weeks, not for years. Perhaps, in the end, one reason for this war is so that we won't have to do it for years. Monday 11th February Today I take a day off for personal needs, one of them being a haircut. My hairdresser is a young Christian Arab with an ugly, charming face and a smile that endears him to half the women in Haifa. As if that weren't enough, he knows (oh rarest of attributes!) how to cut hair. The result is a salon so full that you can scarcely get a foot in the door, even in normal times when he works till 7 pm. Now he only works till 4, Because of the Situation; and from the number of hopeful souls inside at 8:30 am, some of them must have been waiting since dawn. I settle down to wait in a line presided over by Rosa, his plump, friendly wife, who specialises in fan styling and managing salon and husband together. In 4 months of marriage, and despite her mere 20-something years, she is already being visibly transformed into the stereotypical Arab Matron (who is almost as well-defined as the Jewish Mother). Thus it is that I am treated to a whole two and a half hours of radio. And the radio is indeed a treat. Most of the morning (between songs) is devoted to the ongoing argument between the army and Civil Defence about which is safer, an air-raid shelter or a Sealed Room. A shelter, says the one (I forget which one), provided you can seal it. Nonsense!, says the other. Most of the public shelters, built 20-40 years ago, cannot withstand the impact of modern weapons. Moreover you're likely to be injured in the open on the way to a shelter; and they're useless against chemical attack. Only go to a shelter, says the spokesman, if you know it's been sealed properly, it's in your own apartment block (i.e. you don't have to leave the building and go outside), and you can get to it in less than 2 minutes. It's clear that in his eyes this rules out most of the shelters in apartment houses, as well as the public ones. This seems to me to be mainly an argument about turf, an appeal to the public for priority. Whom do you believe, Citizens, the army or Civil Defence? Ludicrous, for as someone on the radio points out, the Civil Defence is a branch of the army. But as the threat to our lives lessens, we can allow ourselves the luxury of what we call "Jewish Wars" -- wrangling between politicians, government agencies, or anyone with a line to the media, about whatever subject is currently in fashion. Of course it's also a good way to keep up the national blood pressure. People can stand almost anything better than uncertainty, and there are several hesitant, unhappy faces around me in the crowded salon. I'm not worried, I feel out of the whole conflict: my personal physicist has convinced me that neither shelters nor Sealed Rooms are much use against gas, the only thing that counts is a well-fitting mask. I therefore find it amusing (to the shock of those few who notice) when one of the opposing spokesmen, a few songs later, explains that not only are shelters of no use, even a sealed room is at best an inadequate backup to a mask. If your mask isn't sealed properly, the sealed room may give you some protection. But don't count on it. But the Civil Defence have had us all sealing rooms for a month. Schools whose rooms can't be properly sealed are still not working (thus Frieda's 6-year-old is still at home, his classroom alone of all those at his school having been pronounced unsealable). So a wave of shock and dismay washes over the faces of the good ladies in the salon. They tend to disbelieve the spokesman, or the radio, or their own ears. Denial is better than the release of all the hopes and fears that have been taped over windows and around doors. The radio treats us to another cheerful song. The main thing is to go to an INTERIOR room, the spokesman resumes. One without exterior walls, or windows. The bathroom, for instance. Sure, seal it if you want. (?! If you WANT??!!!) That's the best protection against falling masonry and flying glass. Against gas, all you need is a mask. I throw a stone into the pool of uncertainty in the salon, to see what ripples it'll make. I say that my husband is a physicist and has been saying this all along, and in my opinion he knows more about gas than some army or Civil Defence officer. One or two people latch onto it. The army and Civil Defence are losing credibility by twisting and turning; it's better to stick to a lie than to change your tune midway. My listeners are therefore ready to accept a Physicist as an alternative Expert. They have only one question: so why did the authorities set us all to sealing rooms? perhaps, I suggest, to occupy us, to give us a feeling of security. People can't just sit and do nothing, they need to feel they're defending themselves and that the Government/Army/Civil Defence knows how to defend them. Some of my listeners accept this idea, others give me up as a hopeless case. My turn for a haircut arrives. Vidal (for so my young hairdresser styles himself with a characteristic and possibly justified lack of modesty) is quite ready to discuss the war, and I feel free to discuss it with him without treading on any corns, because he's Christian not Muslim. He gives the war another 2 and a half weeks. I'm doubtful, I give it a month. Vidal is basing his estimate on the start of Ramadan. He thinks there'll be a compromise solution rather than prolonging the war: the Saudis can't afford to allow the U.S. to stay into the holy month. I agree, only I thought Ramadan started mid-March; and at a pinch I can see the Americans staying into Ramadan, as long as it's all over and they can be seen to be beginning to leave before the start of the Hajj. I stick to a month. The lady sitting next to me demands to know what Ramadan and the Saudis have to do with this (and what's the Hajj, anyway?) For her the matter is much simpler. Saddam the Wicked is driving his country to ruin and the war will go on until the Americans catch him and liberate Iraq. But Vidal and I have our own understanding, and she's outvoted. Vidal compromises on March 5th, 3 weeks from now. We shake hands on a 10-day difference. If you're right, he says, you get a free haircut. I don't mind how long it takes, says the defeated lady next to me, as long as the missiles stop. It's hearbreaking to wake a baby in the middle of the night and push him into a sealed plastic bag. I agree, but venture to observe that it's even more heartbreaking to be sitting with that baby in Basra right now. When's all said and done, we're on the sidelines. But here I'm pushing it. Vidal knows better than to air an opinion on the relative merits of Haifa and Basra, and his clients emphatically do not feel they're on the sidelines. They have invested too much energy taping fears into Sealed Rooms. ************************************** 7 pm. A couple of minutes before 7, the siren sounds. Three of us are home: Yair is at a friend's. We dig out our masks and put them on, even Gadi, who has decided to be obedient to command. I take Liron into the computer room, but by the time we've decided what game she wants it's clear nothing's happening in the Haifa area, so we don't even bother to start it. Ten minutes after the alert they're already releasing all areas except the centre and south. Yair calls. He didn't take his mask with him and I'm annoyed. Gas masks are a form of insurance and I want him to get into the insurance habit, however slight the perceived risk. He is relatively contrite, for a 13-year-old. I know, he says; I called to tell you I'm dead. What he called for, of course, was a lift home. By the time I return the radio has informed us that this missile hit an uninhabited area. Two Patriots were fired but they're not saying if they hit the Scud. That probably means they didn't. We glean our news from what they don't say as much as what they do. In any case there are no casualties and no damage. 9:25 pm. In the middle of the Israeli news, the alert sounds again. This time it turns out that the Scud wasn't even aimed at us, but at Saudi Arabia. Since no missile falls, there's nothing to signal the end of the incident, so we spend more time in gas masks than we do when we really are the target. Finally we're released, and hear that the Saudi Patriots downed their missile. Again, no damage, or so they say. I imagine there's quite a bit of rivalry between the Patriot crews stationed in Israel and in Saudi Arabia. I have at long last bought 2 of those neat little gas-pack-sized boxes made of brightly-coloured corrugated plastic, and the children pounce on them with glee. Liron immediately decorates hers with pairs of fluorescent eyes that glow in the dark, obtained from the local stationery store. Unadorned gas-pack cartons are definitely not "in". Yair would have preferred red not yellow, but I don't offer to go back to the store and change it and he doesn't suggest I should. Stores are too difficult to get to on work days, we can dispense with the luxuries of life. "Luxury" these days means choosing the box colour for your gas mask. 1:30 am. Don't know what woke me. The siren is so faint that it takes a while to realise it's sounding. No, it isn't. But it is. As I get up, Gadi mutters "it's the siren" and goes on sleeping. The kitchen radio, when I get to it, is already counting 5 minutes since the alert. It's full of well-intentioned advice about the regrettable need to wake the kids. I close the connecting door to Liron's room so that she can sleep despite the radio. Five minutes into an alert there's no longer any point in reaching for a gas mask; either it hit you or it didn't. 1:38 am. Ten minutes after the alert, we're already released, along with the south. I don't ring my mother because I sincerely hope she's sleeping on her good ear and didn't hear the siren anyway. The omnipresent, omniscient Nahman Shai says one missile has fallen; they're checking the site. I wait for further news. Not that they'll tell me much, but somehow you hope they might say, once more, "no damage, no casualties" and release you to sleep. 1:45 am. The radio comforts the inhabitants of areas A and H that even though the rest of Israel has gone back to sleep, it is still with them. I'm still with them too, but they can't know that. I dislike the radio for telling them that I have deserted them. It's nearly 2 am and this is the third attack this night and I'm feeling sentimental. I wonder how many other lonely islands of light are keeping vigil with them in how many other corners of Israel. The radio is playing a lullaby, for the benefit of the toddlers in their plastic incubators. Between songs it reminds their mothers to keep damp cloths spread over the plastic, for experience has taught us that these child-boxes heat up like green- houses and must be cooled. But don't spread the cloths over the air intake, the radio warns. There are people who have to be reminded of that too. The radio will remind us, it is our lifeline. 1:55 am. Nahman releases the central sector from its sealed rooms and masks. The missile, once more, was conventional. I still don't know where it fell, or whether there were injured. They haven't said there were none, so I have to assume there were. Perhaps they'll tell me at 2 am, perhaps there'll be news. I put the kettle on and settle down to wait a little longer. On the coastal plain the apartments have no central heating and I'm shivering, but it seems too much trouble to go back into the bedroom and find a robe. 2 am. Nothing new about this missile, only about the last one, the one fired at Saudi Arabia. It wasn't shot down after all; it damaged a building at Riyadh University and injured 2 people. I suddenly remember a librarian from Riyadh whom I met at a conference last year in Europe. She had a rich Irish brogue and a mental suitcase full of anecdotes about the frustrations of building a liberal arts collection in an Islamic country. We shared a couple of lunches and a wish for peace. I wonder where she is right now. Is she, too, sitting in an island of light in her own city, waiting for news? For an instant the map of the Middle East turns into a thousand points of light. Then I remember that "her" missile fell several hours ago, and that most of the points of light in the Middle East are the exhaust flares of bombers over Basra. Tonight it's too late to be consoled by fantasy and worn-out speeches. The cheerful song on the radio suddenly irks me, and I turn it down. 2:15 am. Still no news. But I have an excuse to stay up: I'm still nursing my rapidly cooling tea. I remain in my pool of light and keep vigil over my wounded planet as it whirls through the darkness, even if it is too late for fantasy. 2:24 am. The army, via the radio, requests everyone who has come or plans to come to the site of impact to go away and let them work. The first confirmation that it hit a populated area, that there's work to be done. I wonder what type of morbid curiosity draws people to watch these rescue operations in the middle of the night. Is it the same impulse that keeps me in the kitchen hugging my almost-cold teacup, or is it the one that once drew the law-abiding to the public square to watch a good execution? 2:30 am. At last, an announcement. A few injured, none seriously. A "certain amount" of damage. I think I heard someone in the background of the studio say "Ramat-Gan", but it was probably my imagination. The radio sums up the night's news. Bush has announced he'll wait as long as necessary before launching the ground attack. Arens has complained that our policy of restraint isn't getting us anywhere. I wonder for a moment if that means anything, and if so, what diplomatic exchanges and understandings it conceals. 2:35 am. The radio is playing a seamen's song in a plaintive minor key: "If the darkness abounds and the storm surrounds, and I have no star to guide me..." It seems like a fitting note on which to turn off the radio and go to sleep. Tuesday 12th February We are all bleary-eyed at work this morning. The Standing Commission on War Crimes, a self-appointed branch of the Department of War Hysteria, is discussing last night's attack. The raised voices vibrate out to me past the plastic of their sealed door: "Every time I hear those announcements -- a missile has fallen -- we're investigating -- please keep clear -- I get butterflies in my stomach." I can understand that. "I'm angry more than afraid. I sat with my son in our sealed room at 1:30 last night and I couldn't find the words, in any language, to describe my anger." I can understand that too. "The trouble is, they never learn from history. You scarcely finish with one dictator and the world turns around and arms another." I have my own opinion about what we learn from history, but no intention of getting embroiled in the argument. Three beeps. They have a small transistor radio and it's 8 am. Despite myself I cross their threshold to hear the news. Of course it's courting disaster, for you can't be in the room with them and not be involved. When someone comments that Bush isn't doing anything with all his bombs -- how on earth can he need another month? -- How come he hasn't finished off their missile launchers? -- I find myself replying that a lack of information from Iraq doesn't mean he's not doing anything. One or two missiles a night is nothing compared to what Basra is now going through. They had it coming to them, she says. They supported him. They didn't oust him. Fact. She's a plump, usually sweet-natured lady with an engaging smile. Everyone's more extreme when they're frustrated, and angry, and they haven't slept. I wonder if that excuses her, but I'm too annoyed to work it out. If you were living in Iraq, I said, when Saddam seized power, and you knew that at the slightest criticism your children would be tortured and killed before your eyes, would you open your mouth? And what would you then think, if outsiders said it was OK to kill you in order to remove him, that you obviously supported him, that you had it coming to you? A heated discussion ensues. She cannot win by logic and retreats to denial. Of course she didn't mean children. Of course she didn't mean... Five minutes after she's said it, she's firmly denying that such words ever passed her lips. How could I have thought it? She didn't say that, she said something else entirely. The co-members of the Standing Commission rush to support her. Only a visitor from another department, standing aloof, has a wide smile on her lips. The interesting point is that this sweet lady really believes, with all her soul, that she never said it. Still, that's an improvement on continuing to think it. Perhaps I've done my bit if I've managed to narrow her vision of the Iraqi population, even for 5 minutes, from "Them" to a woman and a child in an air-raid shelter. Even though I know she'll revert with the next missile. Perhaps it would do us good to get more CNN news coverage here. As it is, no news is reaching us from Iraq and few people know what's happening there. There is no incentive to distinguish between "Saddam" and "the Iraqis". But our own TV would have to put Hebrew subtitles on it, else who would watch it? And if the TV intended to show us pictures of down-town Basra, they could cut them into the regular news. They aren't, and the average Israeli only sees what they show him. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Three Alarms Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 18:07 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2237 (2583) Tuesday, 12 February Three Alarms Yesterday I felt free to speculate on whether we were or were not in the war; today that is not possible any longer, not after the three alarms we had last night. It is surprising but none-the-less quite punctate both in time and thought how what was an abstract problem can suddenly, effortlessly, become an existential one. The first siren came while I was still at work: 18:58 - I hear the alarm on the radio; only a few seconds later it is echoed by the local siren. I gather my mask and the radio and go to the sealed room; a new one - more intimate and also not unpleasant - in my department. 19:02 - In the sealed room with mask on, radio working. I look around me; there are 10 of us there, 5 without masks. I am angry at them, and angry at the Iraqis, at Saddam Hussein, at the Americans. I say nothing; they know every bit as well as I do that they have been foolish. I try to record the progress of the attack as seen here. 19:05 - Nahman Shai reports that a missile has landed in Israel and that those in all regions of the country other than Tel Aviv and Shomron [Samaria] are free to remove gas masks and leave the sealed rooms. 19:08 - I am already back in my room, at my computer, using IRC to localize Israelis on the net from the struck area. The first I find is in Rehovoth, southeast of Tel Aviv; he tells me that he usually hears the explosions in Tel Aviv, but this time he heard nothing. 19:10 - I locate someone in Tel Aviv who tells me he saw the Patriot and then heard a small boom. [What does a small boom mean? That the intercept was far away? That the Patriot struck the tail instead of the head of the Scud? That there was no intercept at all?] On the IRC war report, I hear that CNN has already reported a missile attack directed at "central Israel." 19:17 - We are told that those in Tel Aviv and Shomron may remove their masks but are to remain in the poison-gas proof rooms. 19:22 - A general all-clear is announced. The warhead, from a single missile, was conventional. No wounded [Later, we learn that two Russian immigrants in the Tel Aviv region, one 39, the other 46, died of heart attacks while running to or sitting in the sealed rooms. These too are casualties. These two are listed as unpaid debts. We are showing restraint now, but we have very good memory for this sort of thing, this being killed business. We have had enough practice.] I feel very angry now. It is in the air. American obtuseness to our needs does not help. Certainly not the Senator who suggested that the cost of the Patriots be deducted from the aid to be given us this year. We show restraint and we gain some sympathy, sympathy which will disappear when the war is over; the Middle East settlement we neither need nor want is being formulated in remote places, ready for the first moment when it can be rammed down our throats. The US government says we are not participants in the war; do they tell that to the wounded, to the families of the dead, to those who have lost their homes? Do they forget that no Scud was fired on us before the beginning of the coalition bombings? Or do they think that the relationship is coincidental? The confusion about proper behavior in the time of an attack continues; we act as if we expect a poison gas attack but we are blasted by conventional weapons. We suffer from Scud attacks, we suffer from the results of Scud and Patriot collisions. American engineers have improved the Patriot performance in Saudi Arabia; is that information being shared with us? Caspar Weinberger refused to share knowledge about Iraqi development of unconventional weapons with us; Jonathan Pollard stole the information and transmitted it to us. He is guarded in the basement cell of a penitentiary, in complete isolation, serving a life sentence for giving that information to us.[Americans who write to me are under the false impression that he transmitted data about American defenses or nuclear information. Nonsense. He passed on information about Arab arms which was promised us and then withheld.] Last week, spying for Russia, an enemy of the US, was punished by a 20 year sentence; apparently that sort of spying is more acceptable. After all, the Russians are supposed to spy. At this time the Americans are sharing information with us. Not everything; not aircraft identification codes, for example. Will this sharing last? The map of Iraq showing the position of Iraqi factories producing nonconventional weapons that Pollard transmitted to us is now featured on the front pages of newspapers throughout the world. Ironic? Not really. Israel destroyed Iraq's first military nuclear plant in June 1981; we were condemned by the world. We warned the US about the Iraqi threat; we were again ignored. These are the norms. The current war is an exception. Sharing information is a two way arrangement, or is meant to be. The US declined to give us the information on Iraqi development of nonconventional weapons. We apparently told the Americans that we had successfully penetrated the George Hawatmi Palestinian terrorist group operating in Syria. We asked that the information be kept secret, and provided plans for terrorist attacks against US agencies. When bringing Syria into the coalition, this information was passed on to President Assad, as a sign of good faith [to him, not to us]. As a result two agents were exposed and executed. The confusion about what to when the siren sounds is particularly striking in the Tel Aviv area, the site of most Scud attacks. Despite statements by Army Chief of Staff General Shomron and by Nahman Shai on TV, the controversy about use of the sealed room as opposed to the use of the bomb shelter continues. Shai has even pointed out that bomb shelters have been destroyed by the attacks, but the most compelling argument is that the casualties from a poison gas attack - which we fully expect despite American experts who tell us that gas masks should never have been distributed - will be much greater than from a conventional warhead. Spontaneously, and without prior discussion, most residents of apartment houses in Tel Aviv decided that the best tactic is to descend to the bomb shelters [if you are not located too, high, more than two minutes from the shelter] or to use the stairwells which have no windows. A Tel Avivian reports to me that this behavior had two components; one, the desire to take matters into their own hands and, two, the need for some kind of extra-familial human contact. Many waited 4 minutes and then ran back to their sealed rooms, attempting to get the best of two worlds. If you cant beat them, join them. This morning the Civil Defense agreed that a windowless staircase is also a good place to stay during an attack. Sirens are no longer sounded for the all-clear. In schools bells are no longer rung, nerves are too tense. The children jump in fright. Some firms are distributing small presents to school children; a secretary reports that her 14 year old daughter received a bag with plastic bottles of shampoo and hair conditioner - to make the girls feel better. Believe it or not, the daughter and her friends did feel better. 21:18 - I am at home. Both the radio and TV give out alarm warnings, interrupting the programs on the air; soon we hear the outside siren as well. We quickly go to our sealed room, 5 of us, all with gas masks. 21:31 - All clear; a missile was fired, but not in our direction. Presumably, it is directed at Saudi Arabia. Later we hear that a Scud missile is downed over Riyadh, with some property damage there. We are a cigarette smoking country; we smoke far too much, just as we drive too dangerously. Psychologists say it has to do with tension, with living with the sense that life is constantly at risk here - from war, from terrorists. The one cigarette manufacturer was designated an essential industry during the period when most factories were closed as we organized for defense against missiles at the beginning of the war. Cigarettes were produced in quantity to deal with the anticipated increase in use, a phenomenon found in each of our wars. Surprisingly use of cigarettes actually declined and the manufacturer is stuck with large stocks of unsold cigarettes. Chocolate seems to have partially replaced cigarette use. Sales have increased markedly, as has the sale of coffee. Sweet and fatty foods seem to lead the list of food items purchased. Before the second alarm I developed a distressful heartburn which did not respond to antacids. I began to worry that this was a heart attack. [I had not yet heard about the two Russian immigrants who had died.] I thought that this would be a particularly ungraceful way to die, that my timing was poor indeed. I tried to sleep and dozed off at about 1:10, 1:15 in the morning, only to be awakened by a siren. The third alarm this night. 1:27 - Awakened by sound of siren on radio, outside. The five of us get to the sealed room - I stall, urinate, but get there much more quickly than it seems to take - we don masks, listen to the radio, turn on computer terminal. The tape sealing the door has gotten worn from reuse; my son replaces it with new tape. 1:32 - Nahman Shai tells us that this is a real attack. We are all to remain in sealed rooms, with gas masks on. 1:37 - Once again, we are all released except those in Tel Aviv and Shomron. 1:40 - I use IRC to find someone in Tel Aviv; there is nobody on the line; it is too late at night. 1:42 - We are told that there was one missile fired which landed in Israel, the 34th thus far. 1:49 - The warhead was conventional; all-clear for the entire country. 2:24 - The curious are asked not to come to the place [we are never told, only later - through a grapevine that is even more efficient than IRC - do we learn the exact site of the landing. The spectators who are there already are asked to leave. They interfere with the rescue operations. There is property damage, six wounded, one moderately, the others only suffer light wounds. My heartburn? Oh! Gone. ****************************** We are restrained. We are bombed. Our children do not always handle this too well; some of our adults do not do too well either. Some die of fright. 7500 apartments have been damaged. Of these 600 were severely damaged and 200 of those will have to be rebuilt completely. So we are not in the war. Angry? Yes. Very angry. ******************************* An acquaintance returns to Israel. On the phone he tells his wife, "Save a Scud for me." His plane lands in time for the first alarm. He spends the waiting period in the sealed plane. The second alarm catches him in a taxi on the empty road to Jerusalem. They pull over, put on their gas masks and wait. He arrives home, falls asleep and is awakened by the third alarm. Homecoming. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Editors: Changes in the Diary Distribution Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 21:45:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1037 (2584) The journal material from the Israel has grown in size and frequency. Entirely apart from the issue of the appropriateness of its content for Humanist, it is now simply too much to send automatically to every Humanist reader. Remember that Humanist is read with many kinds of mail reading systems and in many different circumstances. Some systems are still very cumbersome, making inspection and deletion difficult, or have very low memory allocations; and some Humanists must pay for both storage (of even unread mail) and mail privileges. Beginning next week all material of this kind coming from the Middle East (including the current series and any new series) will be distributed directly from the Humanist fileserver using the Listserv Automatic File Distribution (AFD) feature. Roughly: you will _subscribe_ (once) to the "diary file" if you wish to receive this material, and then each digest will be automatically sent to you as soon as we store it on the fileserver. You will not have to request each posting, but only subscribe, once, to the "diary file". (All material of this kind will be combined in one digest file). This will actually provide more timely delivery than the current system. I will post specific instructions for subscribing on Monday (Feb 14). The cutover to the new system will take place on Tuesday. This change is necessitated entirely by practical considerations and is not intended to preempt any debate over "what should be on Humanist". Not to worry: there will be plenty opportunity for that. -- Allen From: Harry Gaylord <galiard@let.rug.nl> Subject: Unicode Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 15:45:20 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1038 (2585) I have been asked by several people to say something about the implications of the arrival of Unicode for TEI. Several useful comments in general have appeared on Humanist, TEI-L, and 10646 about relevant issues. Yet it is difficult to say anything succintly at this point. One thing is clear. No character set so far has tackled the problem of the need to encode the lang characteristic in texts. This was already pointed out in P1 and elsewhere. This, it seems to me, is very important regardless of which coded character set one uses. There are advantages and disadvantages to both Unicode and ISO 10646 as they are currently formulated. Hopefully they will be merged into one ISO standard. There is no need for two multi-byte standards to be used in different systems or even worse in single systems. Unicode and 10646 and the 8859 family of coded character sets have a different understanding of what a character is how it will be used. Unicode says nothing about the imaging of texts on a screen or printing on paper. In a Unicode file the Greek letter alpha + IOTA SUBSCRIPT + ROUGH BREATHING MARK + GRAVE ACCENT would be coded in 4 16-bit bytes. The software used to image this text would have to recognize this combination of one spacing and three non-spacing characters and put the image on your screen. ISO 10646 and the 8859 family the approach has been to have each combination as a different coded character. Therefore this combination would be one byte in 10646. This would be a 32-bit byte if one were using the full 10646 set or possibly 16 or 8 bits if one were using one of the compression techniques. The software running the system with Unicode would also have to know that since there are two accents above they have to be located differently above the letter than if there is only one. On the other hand some languages have so many different combinations that it is common practice to use "floating accents" or graphic character combination encoding. An example of this is Hebrew which has 23 consonants and 5 final forms. Its vowels and other signs are imaged in relation to the consonants. If one had a coded character for each possible combination, it would be enormous. Therefore present systems, e.g. Nota Bene SLS, and others encode these separately. This is also true of Unicode and 10646. It is uneconomical to do it otherwise. Two basic criticisms of the present proposals in 10646 are the very large number of wasted control character positions in it, and inadequate provision for graphic character combination encoding. In the latter there is an appendix referring to they way this can be done under another ISO standard, but this appendix is not a required part of the standard itself. The TG on character sets is in contact with Unicode and ISO with our concerns for their work. We must remember that the final outcome of what is delivered is still very uncertain. The standards have to be formulated and then hardware manufacturers have to be convinced of the importance of them and implement them. This all takes time. It is also important to note that the big players have people working in the Unicode consortium and the ISO 10646 committee. One concern that I have is the need for representing text as it is contained in older books and manuscripts. Neither standard as far as I can see has the long s of English printing in earlier books. Yet we need it for many scholarly purposes. From the standpoint of both of these standards it would be classified as a "presentational variant" of s and be placed in a completely different section of the character set. This is even more true of letter shapes as they appear in manuscripts. There is room in each proposal for private use characters which can be used by agreement of two or more parties. Yet the more that is included in a standard as standard, the better off we are. There are currently attempts to combine the work of the Unicode consortium and the committee for 10646. Let's hope they are successful and that the results improve on both. Harry Gaylord From: J.G.Anderson@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: Symposium: Stella Project, University of Glasgow. Date: Fri,15 Feb 91 12:53:28 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2238 (2586) ______________________________________________________________________ Software for Teaching English Language & Literature and its Assessment ______________________________________________________________________ STELLA Project director : D.M. O'Brien University of Glasgow programmer : J.G. Anderson telephone: 041 339 8855 ext. 4980 email: STELLA@UK.AC.GLASGOW.VME ______________________________________________________________________ STELLA SYMPOSIUM The Use of Computers in English First Announcement and Invitation to Contribute The STELLA Project will host a meeting on the use of computers in teaching and research in English on June 14th and 15th 1991. Delegates will explore the full range of STELLA software, including packages in Old and Middle English, Old Icelandic, Scots, Modern Grammar, Metre, Stylistics and Renaissance poetry. Both teaching and research versions of the Historical Thesaurus of English will be on view. It is hoped to cover as many applications as possible while retaining the informality and practicality of a workshop format. In order to give delegates maximum hands-on experience, numbers will be limited to about 40. Contributions should take the form of a 45 minute workshop (a short introduction followed by talking a group of delegates through the use of a package), or a demonstration of a package on a single machine. There will also be one or two talks and group discussion sessions on the state of the art. The conference will begin with lunch on Friday 14th June and end after tea on Saturday 15th. Sessions will be held in the STELLA and DISH laboratories on the main University campus, a short distance from the city centre. The conference fee will be kept low (possibly 20-30 pounds) and will cover everything EXCEPT accommodation, which is available in local hotels and guest houses from around 16.50 pounds for bed and breakfast. If you would like to attend or receive further information, please complete the form below and send it to: Mary Pat Gibson, STELLA Symposium, 6 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ. Email: STELLA@.UK.AC.GLASGOW.VME Fax: 041 330 4808 ________________________________________________________________________ STELLA SYMPOSIUM The Use of Computers in English Please tick as applicable: __ |__| I would like to attend the symposium. __ |__| I would like to receive further information. __ |__| I would like to offer a workshop on ............................. ................................................................. __ |__| I would like to offer a demonstration of ........................ ................................................................. __ |__| My computing requirements are ................................... ................................................................. Name: ............................................................. Address: ............................................................. ............................................................. Email: ................. Telephone ................. Fax ............. ______________________________________________________________________ Software for Teaching English Language & Literature and its Assessment STELLA Project, University of Glasgow. STELLA@.UK.AC.GLASGOW.VME ______________________________________________________________________ From: <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: Computers and Philosophy Conference Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 21:30 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2239 (2587) (attachment) FINAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS 6th COMPUTERS AND PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE The Sixth International Conference on Computing and Philosophy (6th CAP) will be held in New Haven, Connecticut at Southern Connecticut State University on August 10 to 12, 1991. The conference is sponsored by the APA Committee on Computer Use in Philosophy, the Department of Philosophy at SCSU, the Research Center on Computing and Society at SCSU, the journal COMPUTERS AND PHILOSOPHY and the journal METAPHILOSOPHY. This sixth CAP conference will occur back-to-back with the National Conference on Computing and Values to be held on the same campus August 12 to 16. Those attending the CAP conference are invited to remain and participate in the Computing and Values conference. We invite presentations on all aspects of the relationship between philosophy and computers, including, but not restricted to, issues in AI and the philosophy of mind, philosophical foundations of computation, the use of computers in teaching philosophy and logic, computer-assisted analysis of philosophical texts, and computational techniques applied to the solution or investigation of philosophical problems. Both conferences also will be showcases for instructional software. Deadline for receipt of five-page abstracts and proposals for software demonstrations is March 31st, 1991 for both conferences. Please send three copies of abstracts to: Terrell Ward Bynum, Director, Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT 06515 USA (For E-mail use BITNET: BYNUM@CTSTATEU) Selected papers from the CAP conference will be published in the journal COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY. Papers or presentations concerning ethical issues surrounding computer use could be considered for inclusion in the Computing and Values conference if they fall within the "six tracks" of that conference. Other papers or presentations on ethics and computing will be considered for inclusion in the sixth CAP. We are also inviting proposals for the site of the 1992 meeting. For further information, contact Robert J. Cavalier, CDEC, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (For E-mail use BITNET: rc2z+@andrew or INTERNET at rc2z+@andrew.cmu.edu). The deadline for proposals for the 1992 site is February 28th, 1991. From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.1029 Queries (6/88) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 1991 20:57 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2240 (2588) In reply to Willard McCarty re: terminology, he suggests the adoption into English of the term "informatics." Since the University of Utah has graduate degree programs in a field called "Medical Informatics," my quick opinion is that the term is already in English. Medical Informatics, as I understand it, refers to cognitive science understandings of how doctors make decisions such as diagnoses, and how such decision making might be enhanced with the aid of computer programming. For example, if there is independent knowledge of frequency rates of Diagnosis A compared with Diagnosis B, and patient X shows some of A and some of B, then computer-assistance would help provide information on the probabilities of each diagnosis and the consequences of each diagnostic call, such that a de- cision to treat might be based on the criticality of using medicine Q early in the course of A while the same medication would do no harm if the disease is really B. Having earned a living as a statistician for a while, quantitative studies of texts, and chi-square tables, seem ludicrous sometimes. However, if having encoded texts, and done frequency studies, and found "differences that make a difference,"--if having done these things, we then develop algorithms that tell us where the usual meaningful differences might be, then we could be beginning an informatics. For example, I participate in a seminar on Discourse Analysis of texts, most of them in Hebrew, one in German. We are currently tackling Hopper's ideas of emergent grammar, and Du Bois on `preferred argument structure.' We are fascinated with what we are discovering about the usages of Biblical Hebrew verbs in Discourse. There are a lot of ifs involved, but IF I had access to Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia [BHS] text on the computer, and IF I had as a tool a computer program that identified probable verbs, and IF I could then interact with the program to say `yes, no, or maybe [i.e. hold on to this one till later],' I then might have more time to look at how the verbs interact with their surroundings; i.e., are the dream sequences in Genesis 37 identified with different verb forms from their narrative surroundings? If I then fed this information into a hermeneutical [translation] program, would I have utilized hermeneutical informatics? It is the unsayability of those last two words that is my major reservation about the appropriation by humanists of the term `informatics.' Sigrid Peterson University of Utah SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET Sigpeter@cc.utah.edu From: REBX@CORNELLC Subject: Re: 4.1029 Queries (6/88) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 11:19:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2241 (2589) In answer to Willard McCarthy's query about naming what we do. I think the basic principle of linking the two fields in a simple way is best, e.g. Computers and Linguistics, Ethnography of [and] Technology. Actually I think Computational Musicology might be a term in circulation lately, but it seems very limiting, I agree. Basically I prefer a clean syndetic label. Randal baier Cornell Univesity From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1030 Qs: Planning Humanities Computing (2/72) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 18:20:05 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2242 (2590) I don't know whether the report has been publically released, but UC Berkeley went through about 18 months of committee meetings to produce a long-term plan for academic computing. The absolute top priority recommendation was to finish the campus spine network. Chair of the committee was Eugene Hammel (gene@qal.berkeley.edu), but requests for copies of the report should be directed to the Vice Provost for Academic Computing, Curtis Hardyck (hardyck@violet.berkeley.edu). Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Computers, research, etc. Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 21:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2243 (2591) The request for advice re the committee on humanities and computing made at least one interesting assumption. It seemed to me that when it spoke about using computers for research, it seemed to assume the computer was running some kind of program to assist in analyzing ddata. Maybe, I should rather say in generating data. I believe that organizing and evaluating data is the most important part of any research project. The computer may do a bit of this, but usually it is a human who has to do it. The human, at that point, is likely to use a humble computer as a word processor. Using it, the data will be organized, edited and finally produced. Research is not necessarily done on expensive computers. Some of the most important research is done on a micro running Word Perfect or some similar program. Not only do faculty teach, research and play golf, but word processors are integral to instruction and research. From: STUART@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Packages used in Teaching Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 12:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2244 (2592) Dear All, this is a rather general request to all HUMANISTs who have experience of the following "packages": Perseus CDWord Intermedia LBase Searcher Construe Ibycus Pandora OCP TACT WordCruncher askSAM GOfer Cognate Language Tutor Hypercard Guide Hyperdoc Authorware I would be particularly interested in known reviews and articles of any of the above, with a focus on their use in the teaching of the humanities, Many thanks in advance, Stuart Lee, Research Officer, CTI centre for Textual Studies, Oxford University Computing service, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN, UK. E-mail: STUART@UK.AC.OX.VAX From: Thomas Zielke <113355@DOLUNI1> Subject: on-line Bibliographies Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 16:05:44 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2245 (2593) As we're now actually starting to do all our library and bibliography stuff with our computer, some colleagues have asked me whether there are any on-line bibliographies available on the net. My question now is: Do you know of any such file being available, and how can I get them? Any hints and tips are welcome... Thomas Zielke Historisches Seminar Universit{t Oldenburg Postfach 2503 D-2900 Oldenburg From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: re inquiry Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 23:23 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2246 (2594) Do we have Humanist contact with addresses in Vilnius? I have a rather urgent need to see who can be contacted, on behalf of the PEN Center in New York, for Writers in in Exile. They seem to have lost all touch with Lithuania. Jascha Kes sler From: "Edwin S. Segal" <ESSEGA01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1016 Etext: Isaie (1/24) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 18:59:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2247 (2595) My reading French is rusty, so I think I missed any reference to the language of this version. Is there an edition for an IBM compatible machine? From: al649@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Martin J. Homan) Subject: Re: 4.1026 Rs: Greek Statistics; Megawriter (2/29) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 08:16:12 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2248 (2596) Paraclete Software had developed a conversion program that would convert both ways from Megawriter to WordPerfect. You can contact the people at Paraclete or Mr. Paul Miller at the Gramcord Institute, since he has worked with both Megawriter and WordPerfect with the Gramcord Software. The address of the Gramcord Institute is: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; 2065 Half Day Rd; Deerfield, IL 60015. --Marty -- Martin Homan God's Word To The Nations Bible Society Cleveland, OH al649@cleveland.freenet.edu From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Airplanes Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 18:53 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2249 (2597) Wednesday, 13 February Airplanes There are airplanes above us, all the time. We hear but do not see them. In peace time there are almost never any flights over Jerusalem; the contrast now is great. The planes were very busy in the skies over Jerusalem the first week of the war but not since, not until this morning. We had a quiet night last night; it helped after the alarms of the previous night. But now the skies are filled with the dronings and roars of unseen planes - the sky is quite cloudy. We hear from American TV and newspapers that the IFF codes which allow planes to be identified as friendly have finally been given to Israel. One source adds that the codes were given with the understanding that no Israel retaliatory action be undertaken before the beginning of the ground war. The Pentagon denies this news item categorically; our spokesmen refuse to comment. We tend to believe our silence more than the Pentagon "no." Are the planes we hear related to this new rumor? Are they practicing using the IFF codes? Are they practicing for a retaliation mission? Is this the beginning of such a mission? We do not know. We are concerned about the tender and loving relationship now being shown us. Although this special treatment is public and visible to all we feel the threat that lies behind this massage; we already feel our arm being twisted. All our requests for aid - other than the Patriots - from the US have been torpedoed in the past few months by the State Department. Even requests that have been approved by the Congress and that should have been delivered months ago are not honored. For example, the $400,000,000 credit for dealing with the new Russian immigration that we have been asking for is pushed aside, time after time. Congress approved Israeli industry participation in the competition on defense tenders in Europe - in those very countries which have failed to support the Gulf war with more than token efforts, if at all - for repair and renewal of weapons systems; this possible source of badly needed income for us has been blocked by innumerable State Department barriers, both political and bureaucratic. The Arrow missile project and the Israeli super-computer have also been shelved by State Department decisions - after these were initially encouraged and even funded. These projects are not only of importance to our defense posture - and perhaps that of the US as well in the long run - but would provide important sources of badly needed income and employment. It appears that the State Department is interested in withholding all aid now in order to increase the pressure to be applied to us to accept their policies in the treaties that will be drawn up for this region at the end of the conflict in the Persian Gulf. The joint statement issued by Secretary of State Baker and his Russian counterpart - and later shelved by President Bush - about solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hint of what is to come. This is just not the time. Meanwhile the State Department caresses us publicly. ***************************** The Persian Gulf War provides a living for the media. All over the world they deliver their merchandise - not literature, not history [not even journalism, I think at times] but merchandise - tens of millions words, and countless pictures, TV and photographic shots. 100's of millions readers and listeners and viewers pay attention to what is going on in the Persian Gulf 24 hours a day. The bitter truth is that neither we nor they have the least idea of what is going on. There are two types of reporting from the Gulf now. In the first, the reporters of the great newspapers sit quietly, like well-disciplined high school students before the spokesmen of the US and British [Occasionally Saudi; rarely French] Armies, who feed the reporters what the military wants and these newsmen quietly take it all down, as if they are school room assignments. If one of them gets a bit smart, he will find himself on the first plane back home. There are no wise guys in Saudi Arabia. The Americans have set the stage by placing heavy censorship on details, limited movement of reporters to and on the fronts. The great journalists sit with folded arms in a tent - scene of desert splendor - to listen to a briefing once a day - and then to say "thank you." Freedom of the press? The right of the public to know? Forget it. Army people say just what they want and only what they want to. They do not expand and are frugal in their expressions. The journalists stand on the roofs of Riyadh and say any nonsense that comes to mind. These are the same journalists who screamed against Israeli restrictions on them, spoke of the right to know, freedom of the press. And now they have no problem accepting the cereal served them - predigested, no less. Then there is the other kind of journalist, the one who reports from behind the enemy lines, who allows [Does he have a choice? Of course not.] the most flagrant propaganda to be shown while he is broadcasting. Some have written me that Peter Arnett of CNN, broadcasting from Baghdad chooses what to present in his broadcasts. If so, he is simply an evil, destructive man. But this is clearly not the case, he shows what he is told to show, he is a journalist and the show must go on. O, is that the theatre? Well this is journalism as theatre, entertainment - of a sort. Mr. Shalom Rosenfeld, one of our leading senior journalists, has made the interesting comparison of Peter Arnett to Ed Murrow. [For those too young to remember, Murrow was also one of the handful of TV - then in its infancy - journalists who lead the fight to defeat the frightening Senator Macarthy.] Murrow broadcast from London during the blitz in World War II - night after night, bravely, just as does Arnett. But the cause, the cause? asks Mr. Rosenfeld. Every day that Murrow broadcast he did this not only with bravery but with a sense of mission. Does Peter Arnett have that? Does he have a mission? A cause? What mission? What cause? Arnett persists in interviewing the Americans who visit Iraq, even now. Carl Sagan, popularizer of science, now can claim that he is a popularizer of fiction as well. Ramsey Clark returns to the US after his Arnett interview and relates that he saw no evidence of bomb damage to military targets. Where did they take him? ***************************** Responsibility in journalism. It exists; Ted Koppel tells ABC's Tel Aviv correspondent not to point in the direction of the latest Scud impact. One correspondent writes to tell me about a news report where a soldier was interviewed and stated that he did not know why he was in Saudi Arabia. US soldiers who saw this wondered how many dozens of troops did the reporter have to interview to find one that would provide that answer. Now we learn that Arnett has been allowing Iraqi government officials to use his satellite telephone. CNN quickly claimed that he only allows them to use it to speak to the Iraqi embassy in Jordan to arrange press credentials. This story is contradicted by CBS evidence that the Iraqis have a functioning Telex line to their Embassy in Rabbat Ammon. Fantastic! ***************************** An interesting observation is that most people of advanced age - including my 86 year old mother - behave surprisingly well during the attacks here. Even those in Tel Aviv. Even those whose homes are damaged. Even those wounded. They seem to have a great calmness that envelops them. They are more worried about their children and grandchildren than they are about themselves. They are not apathetic, they are just grand. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: Anniversary; Hodesh Tov Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 18:27 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2250 (2598) Thursday, 14 February Anniversary; Hodesh Tov Today is my 37th wedding anniversary; on July 14,1954 I was married to Golda, the mother of my four children and the grandmother of my five grandchildren. We were married in New York City and soon moved to Southern California; we subsequently lived in New York City, Cambridge [England], the US midwest and, since 1967, in Jerusalem, Israel. We believe that there are rules; you make up your mind and live by them. We know that there also are passions and we have had them, and still have them, we have felt strongly about one another, about our children and their wives and husband and their children, about country, about religion, about ideas, about books, about friends and relatives. But our religion teaches us that there are rules and the America we grew up in also taught the same thing - that there are rules. We know that we support values that others disapprove of: religion, nationalism [even patriotism], marriage, ideas, feeling strongly, rules. We have heard each of these condemned both as values and as institutions. None-the-less we believe in them, live with them and by them. And not infrequently the most important of these values becomes rules. There are times that, without rules, none of the others is possible. Certainly not marriage. Even our religion distinguishes between life with and without rules. The greatest holy man, says the Talmud, is a man with the greatest inclination to evil, but by a life of rule manages to overcome this evil inclination. The Talmud relates the parable of the great sinner and the holy man who - after death - present themselves for judgement. The sinner is shown his evil inclination and it is as small as a hair, a very small one, indeed. The sinner says in disappointment with himself, "The drive to evil in me was so very small and yet I could not overcome it." The holy man is then shown his evil inclination and it is as large as a mountain; he is amazed that he was able to defeat so huge and powerful an enemy. Without rules, our marriage would not have lasted. Could not have lasted. Inertia is no longer a reason to stay married; it is almost easier to obtain a divorce these days than to get married. Rules. Golda and I have common ideas and passions; we enjoy doing things together. But our friends are not the same and we frequently disagree about courses of action and what is right. These days we share preoccupations if not occupations; we are both busy writing. Usually our work involves activities as far away one from another as it is possible to get in the same culture. We had a quiet night; the best present for our anniversary that anyone could give us. I remembered the date but bought Golda nothing; she forgot but went to her exercise class early in the morning and returned with a present for me - a plastic bag [$7.50] for carrying my gas mask. ****************************** On Tuesday morning, after the very disturbing night when we had three alarms and two actual Scud attacks, I went out into the garden and saw the messenger from Federal Express with a 24 hour letter. It was for Golda; I signed for it and brought it into the house. Golda opened the envelope. The letter inside was to become our fourth siren, our third attack; she had been fired from her position as coordinator of an overseas program for third year students at a well known American university. When the war was about to break out - in early January - almost all of the students in the program wanted to stay. But administrators at the university panicked, called the student's parents [In the case of a 55 year old student, they even called her son!] and told them that the university could no longer be responsible for the students' safety in Israel and then wrote letters to the parents with the same information. Under this barrage, the parents pressured their reluctant - some more than others - children to return home. I recall a phone conversation at this time - the call was from my house - in which one student berated an administrator for not consulting with the student before contacting her parents. My wife has worked at this job for the past 18 years; the dismissal was hard for her to take, hard for me to take. It was not completely unexpected; the program had become a financial burden to the university as fewer students were willing or able to come to Israel. There was a recession; the winds of war were already blowing in the summer when the students came. Nor was the letter unkind or illogical; even some sort of continuation of Golda's work was offered. The reasons were spelled out; the regret was genuine. The university had its priorities, its concerns; when they coincided with ours everything was fine. When the financial burden grew too great, when the possibility of litigation loomed, as well as accusations of irresponsibility and the attendant bad publicity, the university saw its interests to be different from ours, and acted accordingly. This is natural. The West, with the US at its head, now favors Israel; its interests coincide with Israel's interests. Israel's actions [inaction, actually] are the very ones that the West needs and wants. Tomorrow, we fear, the US and its allies will see their interests in a different light than Israel does. At that time, with less explanation than Golda received, with less courtesy and thoughtfulness, the US and its allies will dismiss Israel. ***************************** Today is Rosh Hodesh, literally the head of the month, the New Moon, the beginning of the Hebrew lunar month of Adar. Adar is the month of our most abandoned holiday, Purim, the holiday described in the biblical Book of Esther. Gibbons, in a footnote to THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, describes first century ACE Purim celebrations in which Jews killed 75,000 and 100,000 non-Jews in Cyprus and in Alexandria. The source of this contention is not given and it is not substantiated in any Jewish or Roman sources. We celebrate the holiday now by exchanging presents, especially food, by giving children money, by reading the Book of Esther in the synagogue. Some drink, play cards, produce satirical comic dramas. At the New Moon, we say to one another, "hodesh tov," "Have a good month." **************************** It is clear that the ground phase of the Persian Gulf War is getting closer and closer; the air phase has been very successful and soon significant targets will become rare. Thus far, Saddam Hussein shows no sign of willingness to pull out of Kuwait. One of the armchair generals who writes to me says that Saturday, the 16th of February, two days from now, is the day. On that day - or not too much later - the US and its allies will use ground troops to force the Iraqis from Kuwait. By the logic of the Middle East Saddam Hussein's first reaction to the advance of coalition troops into Kuwait and Iraq will be to bomb Israel, with missiles and perhaps with aircraft as well. If he is committed to using poison gas, he will use it on Israel first. Our greatest fear is that Saddam Hussein will indeed try to use poison gas against Israel. There are a number of components to that fear: the horrible photographs and TV clips of soldiers burned by the gases in the Iraqi-Iranian war; the death of all inhabitants of a village of 5000 Kurds killed by the Iraqis using poison gas dropped from airplanes; a fear that signals our lack of experience with poison gas warfare; the memory of the Nazi attempt to wipe out all Jews using the poison gas, Zyklon B. Many citizens of Jerusalem are convinced that our city is being spared Scud attacks because we have been targeted for the first poison gas attack. Where this rumor started I do not know; there is no logical or factual basis for it. But this is the Middle East where logic and fact are not always the most important elements in decision making. ***************************** More and more Israeli Arabs have begun to find their voice. We hear more statements of identification of these Arabs with our fate, qualified by obviously sincere concern for their fellow Arabs on the other side, in the administered territories, and in Jordan. Arabs have offered to help repair missile-damaged houses, to house Jews rendered homeless by the missile attacks, especially the elderly. Israeli Arabs complain that they are always required to reaffirm their loyalty; they are committed to a joint fate, living together with Jews in Israel and that this fact should be obvious. They say that traitors in their midst are a marginal phenomenon and no more prominent than the incidence of traitors among Jews. Meanwhile, in Jordan, overwhelming support for Saddam Hussein persists and has even grown more audible following King Hussein's speech last week. Scud missiles compete there with Saddam Hussein himself for popularity. Scuds are featured on watches, flags, T-shirts. Even cakes and rolls are now produced in the shape of a Scud. The Saddam-burger is reported to be the most popular fast food in Rabbat Ammon; it is a missile-shaped roll filled with meat. Barbers report that Saddam mustaches are definitely "in." Barbers in the US are still not reporting a surge of demand for a Bush hairdo. **************************** I do not know whether the bunker in Baghdad where so many unfortunate civilians were killed was a comand post as claimed by the coalition. I tend to believe the coalition, mostly because the Iraqi record of reporting has been so completely filled with fantasy and lies. One comment: the boy shown with burns reportedly from the bombing of the bunker could not possibly have gotten them there - the burns are old; any physician can tell you. **************************** We will not go our to a movie or restaurant this evening to celebrate. We do not feel too safe away from our home after 19:00 these days. We are not in too much of a mood for celebration, either. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL European Chapter Conference Programme, 9-11 April 1991 Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 17:51:51 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1044 (2599) Fifth Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics 9-11 April 1991 Congress Hall, Alexanderplatz, Berlin, Germany THIRD CIRCULAR AND PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME TUESDAY, 9 APRIL 1991 9.00 Opening 9.30 Invited Paper: Antonio Zampolli (Italy) Large Reusable Linguistic Knowledge Bases 10:30 Break 11.00 Steve G. Pulman (Great Britain) Comparatives and Ellipsis 11.30 Wolfgang Wahlster, Elisabeth Androe, Winfried Graf, Thomas Rist (Germany): Designing Illustrated Texts: How Language Production is Influenced by Graphics Generation 12.00 David M. Magerman, Mitchell P. Marcus (USA) Pearl: A Probabilistic Chart Parser Section A 14.00 Tilman Becker, Aravind K. Joshi, Owen Rambow (USA) Long-Distance Scrambling and Tree Adjoining Grammars 14.30 Alberto Lavelli, Giorgio Satta (Italy) Bidirectional Parsing Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars 15.00 Stephen J. Hegner (USA) Horn Extended Feature Structures: Fast Unification with Negation and Limited Disjunction 15.30 Break 16.00 Patrick Saint-Dizier (France) Processing Language with Logical Types and Active Constraints 16.30 Rene Leermakers (Netherlands) Non-deterministic Recursive Ascent Parsing 17.00 Tsuneko Nakazawa (USA) An Extended LR Parsing Algorithm for Grammars Using Feature- Based Syntactic Categories Section B 14.00 Fabio Pianesi (Italy) Indexing and Referential Dependencies within Binding Theory: A Computational Framework 14.30 Manfred Pinkal (Germany) On the Syntactic-Semantic Analysis of Bound Anaphora 15.00 Longin Latecki (Germany) An Indexing Technique for Implementing Command Relations 15.30 Break 16.00 Pete Whitelock (Great Britain) What sorts of trees do we speak? - A Computational Model of the Syntax-Prosody Interface in Tokyo Japanese 16.30 Eric Bilange (France) A Task Independent Oral Dialogue Model 17.00 Steven Bird, Patrick Blackburn (Great Britain) A Computational Approach to Arabic Phonology WEDNESDAY, 10 APRIL 1991 Section A 9.00 Dan Tufis, Octav Popescu (Roumania) A Unified Management and Processing of Word-Forms, Idioms and Analytical Compounds 9.30 Alan W. Black (Great Britain), Joke van de Plassche (Netherlands) Analysis of Unknown Words through Morphological Decomposition 10.00 Michel Gilloux (France) Automatic Learning of Word Transducers from Example 10.30 Break 11.00 Sabine Reinhard, Dafydd Gibbon (Germany) Prosodic Inheritance and Morphological Generalisations 11.30 James Kilbury, Petra Naerger, Ingrid Renz (Germany) DATR as a Lexical Component for PATR 12.00 Gunnel Kaellgren (Sweden) Parsing without Lexicon: the MorP System Section B 9.00 Stephan Busemann (Germany) Structure-Driven Generation from Separate Semantic Representations 9.30 Alison Cawsey (Great Britain) Using Plausible Inference Rules in Description Planning 10.00 Lee Fedder (Great Britain) Generating Sentences from Different Perspectives 10.30 Break 11.00 Danilo Fum, Bruno Pani, Carlo Tasso (Italy) Teaching the English Tense: Integrating Naive and Formal Grammars in an Intelligent Tutor for Foreign Language Teaching 11.30 Jacky Herz, Mori Rimon (Israel) Local Syntactic Constraints 12.00 Robert Dale, Nicholas Haddock (Great Britain) Generating Referring Expressions Involving Relations Section A 14.00 Richard P. Cooper (Great Britain) Coordination in Unification-Based Grammars 14.30 Luis Damas, Nelma Moreira (Portugal), Giovanni B. Varile (Luxembourg) The Formal and Processing Models of CLG 15.00 Gosse Bouma (Netherlands) Prediction in Chart Parsing Algorithms for Categorial Unification Grammar 15.30 Break 16.00 Guy Barry, Mark Hepple, Neil Leslie, Glyn Morrill (Great Britain) Proof Figures and Structural Operators for Categorial Grammar 16.30 Juergen Wedekind (USA) Classical Logics for Attribute-Value Languages 17.00 Joep Rous (Netherlands) Computational Aspects of M-grammars Section B 14.00 Matthew W. Crocker (Great Britain) Multiple Interpreters in a Principle-Based Model of Sentence Processing 14.30 Suzanne Stevenson (USA) A Computational Architecture for Syntactic Disambiguation 15.00 Elena V. Paducheva (USSR) Semantic Features and Selection Restrictions 15.30 Break 16.00 Sabine Bergler (USA) The Semantics of Collocational Patterns for Reporting Verbs 16.30 Michael R. Brent (USA) Automatic Semantic Classification of Verbs from their Syntactic Contexts: An Implemented Classifier for Stativity 17.00 Nancy M. Ide (USA), Jean Veronis (France) An Assessment of Semantic Information Automatically Extracted from Machine Readable Dictionaries THURSDAY, 11 APRIL 1991 9.00 Arne Joensson (Sweden) A Dialogue Manager Using Initiative-Response Units and Distributed Control 9.30 Gudrun Klose, Thomas Pirlein (Germany) Modelling Knowledge for a Natural Language Understanding System 10.00 Guenter Neumann (Germany) A Bidirectional Model for Natural Language Processing 10.30 Break 11.00 Espen J. Vestre (Norway) An Algorithm for Generating Non-redundant Quantifier Scopings 11.30 Richard Ball, Keith Brown, Anne de Roeck, Chris Fox, Marjolein Groefsema, Nadim Obeid, Ray Turner (Great Britain) Helpful Answers to Modal and Hypothetical Questions 12.00 Karin Haenelt, Michael Koenyves-Tlth (Germany) The Textual Development of Non-Stereotypic Concepts 14.00 Bianka Buschbeck, Renate Henschel, Iris Hoeser, Gerda Klimonow, Andreas Kuestner, Ingrid Starke (Germany) Limits of a Sentence Based Procedural Approach for Aspect Choice in German-Russian Machine Translation 14.30 Jun-ichi Tsujii, Kimikazu Fujita (Great Britain) Lexical Transfer Based on Bilingual Signs: Towards Interaction During Transfer 15.00 Yannis Dologlou (Greece), Giovanni Malnati (Italy), Patrizia Paggio (Denmark) A Preference Mechanism Based on Multiple Criteria Resolution 15.30 Break 16.00 Graham Russell, Afzal Ballim, Dominique Estival, Susan Warwick-Armstrong (Switzerland) A Language for the Statement of Binary Relations over Feature Structures 16.30 Louisa Sadler, Henry S. Thompson (Great Britain) Structural Non-Correspondence in Translation 17.00 Final Meeting RESERVE PAPERS: Nelson Correa (Colombia) An Extension of Earley's Algorithm for S- and L-Attributed Grammars Helmut Horacek (Germany) Exploiting Conversational Implicature for Generating Concise Explanations Hubert Lehmann (Germany) Towards a Core Vocabulary for a Natural Language System Heinz-Dirk Luckhardt (Germany) Sublanguages in Machine Translation - What are they worth? Jan Odijk (Netherlands) Using Transformations in a Compositional Framework Allan Ramsay (Ireland) A Common Framework for Analysis and Generation CONFERENCE SITE The Congress Hall (Kongresshalle) is situated at the east side of Alexanderplatz, at the beginning of Alexanderstrasse, close to Haus des Lehrers. Alexanderplatz has a station of S-Bahn (municipal train) and U-Bahn (subway) of the same name. [deleted quotation] Charlottenburg, then S-Bahn. ACCOMMODATION If you have a confirmation for your hotel accommodation, you may go first to the hotel if convenient. If you booked accommodation in a youth guest-house, you should first go to the Conference Office. You have to pay your accommodation booked at the Europaeisches Reisebuero as well as the accommodation in youth guest-houses in the Conference Office, in all other cases you have to pay in the hotel. Cheques and credit cards will be accepted. CONFERENCE OFFICE The Conference Office in the Kongresshalle will be open as follows: Monday, 8 April 1991 10.00 - 22.00 Tuesday, 9 April to Thursday, 11 April 1991 8.00 - 18.00 In the Conference Office there will be a desk of the Europaeisches Reisebuero, which will on request confirm or book flights, reserve seat tickets for trains, order tickets for cultural events, and help you in other touristic matters. DEMONSTRATIONS AND BOOK EXHIBITION On Thursday, 11 April, we will have a special section for demonstrations. They can be prepared on Wednesday. The final programme for this section will be distributed during the conference. Participants who are still interested in giving a demonstration are welcome to contact Wolfgang Menzel (same address) to be included in the programme and to discuss further details. During the conference we will have a book exhibition where several publishing houses and book sellers will show their specific offer and you will have the possibility of ordering. SOCIAL EVENTS Monday, 8 April 1991, from 15.00: Get-together Reception (Kongresshalle) Thursday, 11 April 1991, 19.00: Banquet ("Schultheiss in der Hasenheide", Hasenheide 23-31, 1000 Berlin 61, U-Bahn, line 8, station "Hermannplatz") TOURISTIC EVENTS as announced in the Second Circular. We strongly recommend you to book the touristic events by 26 February, because the tours T4, T5 and T6 will be cancelled by 1 March if there are not enough participants. CORRESPONDENCE/INQUIRIES Your correspondence partners for hotel reservations are Europaeisches Reisebuero and Berlin Tourist Office, respectively. In all other cases contact: Juergen Kunze Zentralinstitut fuer Sprachwissenschaft Prenzlauer Promenade 149-152, D-1100 Berlin, GERMANY Telephone: (+37-2) 47 97 153 or 47 97 173 Telex: 114713 adwgi dd From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.1041 Rs: Planning Humanities Computing (2/35) Date: 15 Feb 91 17:55:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1045 (2600) With thanks for comments, I would say that Prof. Norm Coombs says better what I was trying to say. *If* we hypostasize research and teaching as two independent activities (ignoring what it says in the catalogues of most of our institutions about how interrelated the two are), then larger, more ambitious, more machine-based projects begin to come to the center of the table. If you want to use computers to prove that Shakespeare wrote Plato's dialogues, you want lots of e-texts scanned and proofread, and you want to run complicated routines that compare and contrast every manner of factoid. Well and good. But my point is that most humanities faculty now, and I'm guessing for the next five years, *don't* do that kind of computer-assisted research. The computer is rather a Discourse Coherence Manager (if I may say so), helping in a thousand ways: facilitating our access to libraries, to databases from which we may get one or two stray items of use, to colleagues on our own campus and elsewhere -- even helping by smoothing out the non-research side of life so as to free up more time for research; and then of course for word processing, spell-checking, etc. By avoiding the automatic and traditional Research/Instruction division, I would hope to emphasize that kind of middle-of-the-road, low profile but indispensable and widely practiced computing, and give it a heftier share of resources than might otherwise go to glamorous, large, ambitious, utterly wonderful, but of use to fewer on-campus individuals kinds of projects. But thanks for comments to several, both on HUMANIST and privately. From: Aaron Kershenbaum T/L-863-7320 KERSH at YKTVMH Subject: machine readable Latin dictionaries Date: 16 February 1991, 16:45:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2251 (2601) Please, if there is someone out there who knows of an MRD for Latin, let me know. Or, if there is no MRD, could someone suggest the best and fastest way to create one? Also, is there anyone else on Humanist who planned to attend the ill-fated Leeds Conference (Electronic Scholiast)? From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: query--unix for non-english languages Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 15:15:11 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2252 (2602) I have been very impressed by the the unix spell utility. It made me think that there might be spell files for non-english languages like French, German, Spanish, etc. This would also require changes in vi or emacs for handling accented characters. Can anyone help? Edward J. Haupt voice: (201) 893-4327 Department of psychology internet: haupt@pilot.njin.net Montclair State College bitnet: haupt@njin Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 USA ---Peg From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA> Subject: Notice of Meeting/Session Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 21:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1047 (2603) SPECIAL NOTICE TO SPSS USERS IN ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELATED DISCIPLINES: Call for papers in a special session at the 90th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association to be held in Chicago, November 20-24, 1991. I am trying to organize a session at the AAA meeting in Chicago on: "SPSS in Anthropological Research" (tentative title) Anyone who is interested in contributing a paper should contact me at any of the addresses/numbers below with a preliminary expression of interest and, if possible, a tentative title and abstract. If you don't know what SPSS means, you need read no further. (If you want to know, see footnote* below.) The association meetings had over 4000 participants last year in New Orleans. Participants present papers in a wide variety of fields. The "traditional" four fields of anthropology are Cultural and Biological Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics but the range of topics covered is in fact much more diverse. The application process is complex and must be handled by the session organizer(s). The deadline of April 1 is firm and all supporting documentation must be submitted by that date as a package by the conference organizer on paper. Electronic and FAX applications are not accepted. Applications are reviewed and successful participants are notified by the end of August. I will send copies of the application forms to any interested person on request and these should be returned to me ASAP. The forms may also be found in the January 1991 issue of the AAA newsletter. I must also submit cheques for registration - $60 (US) for AAA members and $110 (US) for non-members. A limited numbers of non-members are permitted to present papers, so non-anthropological computer and statistical advisors are welcome to apply. Co-authored papers are also encouraged. As the head office of SPSS Inc. is located in Chicago, we may be able to get some assistance from them for the session. I have approached the company for support on registration and other costs, and while they are so far non-committal, don't be put off just yet by financial considerations. On the other hand, you should also look for other sources of funding. If anyone is willing to share the workload in organizing this session as a co-chair or discussant, I would also appreciate a hand. For more information, to submit a title & abstract, or to offer assistance, please contact: Morgan Tamplin, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Computer Studies Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, K9J 7B8 NetNorth/Bitnet: TAMPLIN@TRENTU.CA (705) 748-1325 (Anthropology) (705) 748-1495 (Computer Studies) (705) 748-1246 (FAX) PLEASE FORWARD THIS NOTICE TO OTHER RELEVANT LISTS OR POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS. * SPSS = "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences". From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981 <U35395@UICVM.BITNET> Subject: TEI progress report, February 1991 Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 18:19:18 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1048 (2604) Original to: Text Encoding Initiative public discussion list <TEI-L@UICVM> Forwarded by: Allen Renear <allen@brownvm.brown.edu> [ This was posted to TEI-L (Entry #243). I think it will interest many Humanists who are not subscribed to that list. -- Allen] ----------------------------------------------------------------- ... [this is] ... a brief summary of what has been happening in the TEI since the distribution of the first Draft Guidelines last fall. Sincere apologies to those who feel such a report is long overdue! 1. TEI Deliverables 1.a. Documents First, a brief recap on the project's overall timescale and objectives. What will the TEI deliver in June 1992, when the funding dries up? It seems clear that a single massive report (a revised and extended version of the current document TEI P1) will not be enough. The need for a brief introductory guide, setting out the basic TEI framework and philosophy, has been repeatedly pointed out to us, sometimes privately and often publicly, as has the pressing need for tutorial material, and for demonstrations of TEI encoded texts in action. No effort was put into producing these in the first cycle, for the good reason that we did not at that time know what exactly we would be providing an introductory guide to! Now that the basic TEI framework is a little less nebulous, it seems appropriate to address these problems. Preparations for the forthcoming TEI Workshop at Tempe will provide one important source of such materials, and input from the affiliated projects another. It's possible that readers of this list may also have prepared some summary or explanatory material which might be of use -- don't be shy about letting us know about it, if you have. (For starters, we were recently delighted to receive a translation into Hungarian of the four page `executive summary' of P1). 1.b. Software -- a non-deliverable After tutorial and introductory materials the most frequently expressed desire at present seems to be for TEI-conformant software: systems which behave like the analytic packages we all know and love, but can also take advantage of the new capabilities offered by SGML. As a first step, we need programs (filters, as they are known in the trade) to translate from the TEI encoding scheme to those required by the application programs we use, and back in the other direction. For rolling one's own software, the community needs generally available routines which can read and understand TEI documents and which can be built into software individuals or projects develop for themselves or others (TEI parsers). Equally important for the usability of the encoding scheme in the community at large will be TEI-aware data-entry software -- editors and word processors which can exploit the rich text structure provided by SGML, simple routines to allow TEI tags to be entered into a text with a keystroke or two instead of ten or twenty (or in extreme cases even more!), and other tools to help make new texts in the form recommended by the TEI. Approximations to some of these are already available, and we hope to be demonstrating some of them at the Tempe Workshop. As we have often said, the TEI is not in the business of software development: nevertheless, it's clear that when any opportunity of steering software developers into channels likely to benefit the TEI community presents itself, we'd be foolish not to take it. So far, only encouraging noises have been heard from most, but products like DynaText (from Electronic Book Technologies) are a clear indication of the kinds of software we should expect to be able to choose amongst by the time the project ends. The Metalanguage Committee has accepted a `watching brief' to monitor and report on the features of commercially available SGML software, and has already produced a preliminary working paper (ML P28) which lists several products of interest to the TEI community, as well as a revised and expanded version of Robin Cover's monumental bibliography of SGML related information (ML W14). (These are not yet publicly available; ML P28 is being revised to correct a slip or two, and ML W14 will be put on the TEI-L file server just as soon as we can sweettalk the UIC system management into the necessary megabyte or so of disk space and move the data to Chicago from Kingston.) 1.c. And more documents Just as many people have asked for some description of TEI encoding less technical and formal than TEI P1, so also some have asked for a more formal treatment of the scheme, so that it would be easier to write the TEI-conformant software they'd like to develop. In this connection, some work is proceeding (slowly!) on a formal presentation of the subset of SGML required by the TEI; the Metalanguage committee is also working on a more explicit definition of the notion 'TEI conformance'; this concept was intentionally left vague in the first draft but it appears that such vagueness has less to recommend it than we thought. 2. TEI Workplans If we're not producing any software, and only grudgingly getting round to explaining the work done in the first cycle, what, you might reasonably enquire, are we in fact doing? The major objective during the second funding cycle will be to extend the scope and coverage of the Guidelines. Those who have read P1 closely will be aware, as we are, of the very large number of topics sketched out, adumbrated or downright neglected therein. We remain confident that P1 provides a good general framework for most forms of text-based scholarship, but we need to put this claim to the test in more (and more different) areas of specialisation than was possible during the first cycle. How will this be done? One way, as we've already indicated, will be through the testing of the Guidelines in a practical situation which the Affiliated Projects will carry out. The other will be through the setting-up of a number of small but tightly-focussed working groups to make recommendations in specified areas, either directly where an area is already well-defined, or indirectly by sketching out a problem domain and proposing other work groups which need to be set up within it. Each work group will be given a specific charge and will work to a specified deadline. So far, about a dozen such groups have been set up, most of which are due to report back by the end of March: a list of currently active work groups and their heads is given below: TR1: Character sets (Harry Gaylord, University of Groningen) TR2: Text criticism (Robert Kraft, University of Pennsylvania) TR3: Hypertext and hypermedia (Steven DeRose, EBT) TR4: Mathematical formulae and tables (Paul Ellison, University of Exeter) TR6: Language corpora (Douglas Biber, Northern Arizona University) AI1: General linguistics (Terry Langendoen, University of Arizona) AI2: Spoken texts (Stig Johansson, University of Oslo) AI3: Literary studies (Paul Fortier, University of Manitoba) AI4: Historical studies (Daniel Greenstein, University of Glasgow) AI5: Machine-readable dictionaries (Robert Amsler, Mitre Corporation) AI6: Computational lexica (Robert Ingria, BBN) Each group is formally assigned to one of the two major working committees of the TEI, depending on whether its work is primarily concerned with Text Representation (TR) or Text Analysis and Interpretation (AI). These two committees will then review and endorse the findings of each work group, though we expect that for some areas we will also seek expert outside reviewers, perhaps with the assistance of the Advisory Board. A number of other work group topics have already been identified, and are in the process of being set up: these include the following: TR5: Newspapers TR7: General reference works TR8: Physical description of manuscripts and incunabula TR9: Analytic bibliography AI7: Terminological data For some of these we have already identified suitably qualified members; for others (in particular the first two) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * we are soliciting volunteers or nominations. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If there is an area of textual scholarship which you feel has been unjustly neglected by the current draft, please don't hesitate to let us know about it! Among other areas already proposed for consideration are - version control and the gradual enrichment of machine-readable texts - ephemera (tickets, matchbooks, advertising) - fragmentary ancient media (potshards, inscriptions etc.) - emblems (both isolated and libri emblematum) A meeing was held in Oxford in early December for the heads of all then-constituted workgroups, and some workgroups are already well advanced in their work. As reports become available, their existence will be publicized on this list and elsewhere. (You have already seen one working paper produced by the work group on literary studies.) In addition, of course, we will be making a full TEI progress report at the Tempe conference. 3. TEI Working Documents We are in the process of revising and making more accessible the TEI document register at Chicago, which holds information about all TEI-related working papers, reports and publications. Wherever possible, we will try to make sure that finalized reports of general interest are posted on this ListServ in the usual way. To find out what is currently available, send a note to LISTSERV@UICVM containing the line GET TEI-L FILELIST. Specific documents can be requested in the same way, or by contacting Wendy Plotkin (U49127@UICVM) who looks after the register. The one document most requested (P1 itself) is still, we regret, not available in electronic form -- we just haven't buckled down to the task of recoding its current rather esoteric markup. Please bear with us! However, the following documents are now or will soon be available (as are others of ephemeral or less general interest -- contact Wendy Plotkin for a full list), some tagged in TeX, some in (an extended form of) Waterloo or IBM GML, some without explicit tags in a form designed for reading onscreen or simple printing: TEI PC P1 The Preparation of Text Encoding Guidelines (closing statement of the planning meeting in Poughkeepsie, NY, November 1987 -- often referred to in TEI documents as the "Poughkeepsie Principles") TEI AB P1 Closing Statement of the Text Encoding Initiative Advisory Board Meeting, February 1989 (just what the title says) TEI J6 Welcome to TEI-L TEI J10 Guide to the Structure of the TEI (September 1989 -- now slightly out of date, since this document doesn't cover the work groups described above) TEI PO A1 List of Participating Organizations TEI ED P1 Design Principles for Text Encoding Guidelines (a statement of basic design goals for the TEI) TEI ED P3 Theoretical Stance and Resolution of Theory Conflict (possible outcomes in fields with competing theoretical approaches) TEI ED W5 Tags and Features (a stab at a basic taxonomy of tags and textual features, with the specification of a database record design for a database of tags; rather technical, has been described as unreadable by some readers, as fairly useful by others) TEI ML W13 Guidelines for TEI Use of SGML (virtually identical with section 2.2 of TEI P1; rather technical) TEI ML W14 SGML Bibliography (Barnard and Cover) (very large bibliography of work on SGML and text encoding; will be available soon electronically from TEI-L and as tech report from Queen's University, Ontario) TEI AI3 W4 Literature Needs Survey Results (responses to a survey on needs of literary scholars conducted by the work group for literary studies) TEI AI3 W5 The TEI Guidelines (Version 1.1): A Critique by the Literature Working Group (a detailed commentary on TEI P1 from the point of view of literary scholars) TEI AI1 W2 List of Common Morphological Features for Inclusion in TEI Starter Set of Grammatical-Annotation Tags (list of grammatical features and the values they may take, for the languages of the EEC and Russian; makes no concessions for the non-linguist and does not discuss the mechanisms required for abbreviating grammatical annotation) TEI AI1 W3 Feature System Declarations and the Interpretation of Feature Structures (technical treatment of problems arising in use of feature structures as defined in TEI P1 chapter 6, and proposal for a method of solving them with a specialized SGML document declaring the feature system in use. No concessions for lack on linguistic or SGML knowledge.) 4. A plea for help We've said it before and we'll say it again: the TEI will only succeed with the active critical participation of the community it aims to serve. If you have views on any of the topics addressed by the TEI we want to hear them. Post a note to this bulletin board, or to us directly: we may not respond as fully or as quickly as we might wish to, but be sure that your comments will be taken note of and forwarded to the appropriate technical committee or workgroup. We are committed to respond to and summarize all comments on our proposals, and it is a commitment we take very seriously indeed. (A summary of comments received through November is in progress, as are formal replies to them.) At the very least, we want to hear from everyone who received a copy of TEI P1 -- so please don't forget to complete and send in the 'User Response and Comment' form that came with your copy, if you have one! Lou Burnard (LOU@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK) Michael Sperberg-McQueen (U35395@UICVM.BITNET) From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: A Peace Proposal Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 15:39 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1049 (2605) Friday, 15 February A Peace Proposal We did not celebrate our anniversary in any special way. We enjoyed the quiet of another alarm-free night; we spoke with our son, back from the Far East, who is to go to his reserve unit today. We read with pleasure the many warm letters of congratulation that we received from electronic mail correspondents, some unknown to us, some from old friends, some from new friends made during the past month, some from people who have disappeared from our lives. A former student of Golda's writes to say that he has been following my reports and wondered if I were related to a woman named Werman in Jerusalem that he knew. The warmth is pleasant; we become quite indulgent and allow ourselves to bask in it. The start of the ground war in the Persian Gulf is in the air; we expect it and expect that as soon as it does begin Saddam Hussein will attempt to strike heavily at Israel. If he can deliver a poison gas warhead or bomb at this distance, he will attempt it now - this is our strong feeling. Here, in Jerusalem, we do not believe that he has spared us because of our Arab population. We think that he is not concerned with Arab lives any more than Jewish ones; we see how he surrounds and fills military targets with innocent civilians in order to inhibit coalition bombing, while making use of every casualty for propaganda purposes. As well as a number of actors; for example the woman who appeared at the bombed shelter yesterday, screaming at the West, calling them "Bastards;" we know her as an official of the Iraqi Foreign Office who has already participated in a number of such performances. We in Jerusalem expect to be attacked. We know that the attack will come here; don't ask me how we know, I can not answer. It is in the air, it is knowledge purchased by living here, it is part of the strangeness of this place. When life was simpler, years ago, I walked in the hills east of Jerusalem. It was quite safe then; now, no one in their right mind would try, certainly not alone, certainly not without being heavily armed - it is no longer safe and is certainly not recommended. These are brown hills with sparse vegetation; in the spring, after the winter rains there is a fine grass cover, something like a fine beard, two days'growth, which looks better from a distance than when you walk on it. I walked alone at that time on these brown flat hills and heard nothing, until, later, I felt more than heard the thin, high pitched voice of a shepherd's pipe. I knew then that I was not completely alone, that there was someone out of sight leading the customary flock of goats. I watched the rocks change colors as the angle of the sun's rays striking them became more shallow, colors that turned from red to rust to brown and finally to grey. I remember feeling an epiphany envelop me then; I understood how three major religions could be born or nourished while still quite young and fragile here. Here, in the hills around Jerusalem. We do not believe that Saddam Hussein will hesitate to attack Jerusalem; indeed, we expect him to do just that when the ground campaign begins. We do not know what his remaining capability is. Does he still have functional Scud missiles and launchers? Does he have a chemical - euphemism used here for poison gas - warhead for these missiles? Can he get an airplane through our defenses? We do not know. We have our gas masks and our sealed rooms. The Arabs who make up 20% of the population of Jerusalem share our fate; they too have gas masks. Our chance to retaliate for the attacks on us is slipping away - if it is not already gone. We have been relegated to the sidelines but we are not in the stalls or to the balcony; we are still actors in this war - by virtue of the 32 Scuds fired at us - two more than fired at Saudi Arabia, the location of the real threat to Iraq. Every day we become more accustomed to attack; every day we are told that the Iraqi capacity to attack us diminishes. Yet we still are anxious. We have have good reasons to retaliate. Ever since the Holocaust - yes, Professor Chomsky, there was a Holocaust - we Jews [Certainly the subspecies, Israeli Jew; perhaps the others as well] no longer feel that it is proper or even possible to leave our fate in the hands of others. We are also know that in the language of Middle East politics not retaliating will be interpreted as weakness on our part - there is no turning the other cheek here, in this part of the world - and will be an invitation for more aggression against us. But we show restraint, partly out of the growing conviction that retaliation might bring down on our heads political damage in its wake far greater than any benefits we might accrue. The other reason we do not retaliate is the fear that we do not have an adequate solution to the problem Saddam Hussein has set us. We have been impelled by a view of response to threat that has three components: a fast response; a strong response; an elegant response. There is not longer any possibility of a speedy response; too much time has gone by. We could possibly respond strongly, even with non-conventional weapons, some claim. But such a response is clearly not elegant and even out of proportion in any scale of values: it is true that our security has been threatened by Iraq, but not our existence. Undoubtedly we could respond elegantly, but because of the long distances involved it is unlikely to be a strong response - unless we were to kill Saddam Hussein, which itself raises a whole new set of problems. Our willingness to show restraint, to renounce retaliation, means that we have seceded our right to protect ourselves. It means that we are willing to let others do the defending of Israel. Others, it should be understood means the US. The US is our friend. The US even likes us. The US is our friend and likes us - today. ******************************* While writing this report Radio Baghdad announced what at first seemed to be a surrender. I was filled with conflicting thoughts. My first feeling was relief and then a flood of joy overtook me. No more killing, no more wounded, no more homeless. But what is happening? Saddam Hussein not only intact and alive, but he may remain in power. Two thirds to three quarters of his tanks and motorized divisions remain intact - almost all of his airforce, too. His hatred for us is unabated; his vision of himself as the leader of a Pan-Arab force expelling us from here is - if anything - fortified. I was saddened by this; and angry as well. Was I disappointed? Strangely enough, no. I am surprised at my reaction, my lack of reaction. But there is more than anger and the desire for revenge in me. The end of war, for me, is most important. I try to reconcile the apparent contradictions I find in my response. I hope, I say, I would like to believe the things I tell myself - such as: Time does not always work for the tyrant. Perhaps we could find some other way out of this trapped state. My feeling of joy was still in me. Later it becomes clear that the surrender was accompanied by at least four conditions that made it completely unacceptable. Saddam Hussein insisted that the ruling family of Kuwait not be returned to power; he insisted that the allies pay for all damage done to Iraq; he insisted that Israel withdraw from the administered territories; he insisted on coalition withdrawal from the Arab subcontinent. The UN declaration calls for unconditional retreat from Kuwait. Not this porridge. It is not all over. Still later, Radio Baghdad further reduces the sense of it all being over; they announced that this was only a working statement towards a settlement. Israel is still in the picture; we will be dragged in, over and over again. We must expect that and be prepared, know what has to be done - and do it. *********************************** It is Friday afternoon; the Sabbath approaches. A day of rest, from sundown to sundown on Saturday. There have been four Friday nights since the beginning of the War; on three of them we have been attacked. We prepare for the Sabbath; is there nothing more that we can do to prepare for attacks? __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Robin Cover <robin@TXSIL.LONESTAR.ORG> Subject: UNICODE for Hebrew Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 22:44:59 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1050 (2606) [This is a much longer version of Robin's Humanist posting. --ahr] A recent bit of expert testimony from "Jony Rosenne" of Tel Aviv <rosenne@telvm1.iinus1.ibm.com> to the UNICODE Technical Committee on matters of Hebrew encoding prompts me to revise a posting I submitted to the HUMANIST forum, and to ask for your consideration. I should not over-dramatize what is or may be at stake, but I feel the issue of central concern (e.g., unique coding for Hebrew/Aramaic SIN and SHIN) is of direct theoretical relevance to biblical studies computing. I apologize for the length of this note, but the matter is not easily condensed. UNICODE is one of two new competing standards for the multi-byte encoding of multilingual texts. UNICODE is finalizing the draft specification for its 16-bit fixed-width character encoding scheme, and will close the comment period on February 15th. This emerging standard is backed by IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Metaphor, NeXT, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, The Research Libraries Group, Claris and other powerful commercial groups -- so the consequences cannot be taken lightly. ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) has thrown it weight solidly behind the ISO 10646 group (the competing multi-byte standard [variable-width multi-octet encoding] in opposing UNICODE. I do not know what the Unicode consortium will do about the ECMA/ISO opposition, but it seems prudent that humanities scholars address both groups with their concerns. The UNICODE draft currently contains (84) 16-bit characters for Hebrew (a "code point" being one 16-bit fixed-width character): * 31 code points for "cantillation marks and accents" * 20 code points for "points and punctuation" * 27 code points for consonants (based upon ISO 8859/8) - similar to standard Hebrew keyboards = 22 chars + 5 final forms * 3 code points for Yiddish digraphs (double-vav; vav-yod; double-yod) * 2 code points for "additional punctuation" (geresh; gershayim) * 1 code point for Ladino/Judezmo (point VARIKA) The draft thus does encompass possibilities for standard encoding of fully pointed texts at a low level. As I have reviewed the proposed encoding, I see five areas of interest and hence as many possible candidates for comment by biblical scholars: (1) the absence of unique codes for Hebrew/Aramaic SIN and SHIN (2) lack of a distinct code for furtive patah. Jony R. says: "The Standards Institute of Israel had decided it is not a character... Most often Patah and Patah Furtive are indistinguishable. Some printers shift the Patah Furtive slightly to the right. Since the rules to distinguish the Furtive are simple and straightforward, i.e. this is a straightforward case of rendering, it was decided that a special character is not needed." (3) less problematic in my view but not entirely felicitous is that the "dot" for daghesh (05BC) is also used for mappiq and (the "dot") in shureq (4) the asymmetrical encodings for certain "accentus communes" and "accentus poetici" (distinct sinnorit is lacking); Jony Rosenne now also recommends omitting the UNICODES currently assigned for tarha, azla, galgal, and yored on the grounds that for the five pairs (Tarha - Tippeha; Zinorit - Zarqa; Azla - Qadma; Galgal - Yerah ben yomo; Yored - Merkha) only the latter are necessary (5) the absence of a full set of UNICODEs for transliteration of semitic (viz, the original 29 consonants); I think UNICODE currently has provision for 25 of 29 characters, using the most common transliteration schemes) Items (2) - (5) are of relatively lesser importance in my judgment, so I will not comment further on these latter four issues. Others may wish to consult the UNICODE manual on these points. DISTINCT SIN/SHIN (absence of unique UNICODEs) The UNICODE draft standard follows the ISO 8859/8 standard in assigning 27 code points for the Hebrew "consonants" (let's ignore the problem of matres and mixed orthographic systems). The character "SHIN" (code 05E9) thus serves to represent both SIN and SHIN. Two code points are assigned to the "dots" for SHIN (05C1) and SIN (05C2), so that one could compose distinct SIN and SHIN as double-width characters, viz, <05E9>+<05C2> and <05E9>+<05C1>, on the interpretation that the "dots" are diacritics. We could argue about the precise orthographic stratum to which "dotted" SHIN and SIN belong (relative to vowel points, accents, cantillation and punctuation marks), but the results would probably not be determinative for this discussion. On the surface, the ISO 8859 position appears to have strong credibility, at least in handbook tradition available to the UNICODE consortium and its standards-makers: (a) "the earliest Hebrew writing did not distinguish SIN and SHIN;" (b) "modern and medieval Hebrew do not distinguish SIN and SHIN" (c) "the dots are clearly 'diacritics' like European accented (acute, grave, umlaut) characters;" (d) "only a few obsolete writing traditions used such diacritics." This is substantially what Jony Rosenne recommended to the UNICODE committee (on her apparent authority as a "standards committee" member): [deleted quotation] Jony's point of view is adequate for modern Israeli Hebrew, presumably, and for text corpora (ancient epigraphic, unpointed rabbinic) in which SIN/SHIN are not (to be) distinguished. Her viewpoint is also adequate for screen and paper-print rendering -- both are indifferent to the linguistic issues of concern to humanities scholars. My evaluation is that awarding code points to the *dots* for SIN and SHIN is a waste of code space (why not promote these two "dots" to full characters, since the dots are not useful elsewhere in the repertoire, as defined?). What humanities scholars want for text-processing is distinct SIN and SHIN as single-character UNICODEs. Arguments: (1) SIN and SHIN *are* historically distinct consonants, in Hebrew and in proto-Semitic (2) the Phoenician writing system IS underspecified (degenerate) for Hebrew, because there had (probably) been phonemic collapse of SIN/SHIN in Phoenician before the time the Hebrews adopted this alphabet (3) a significant body of Hebrew/Aramaic literature does distinguish SIN and SHIN, as do transliteration schemes; (4) an unnecessary and unfortunate performance penalty will be paid for the artificial requirement of having two "odd" characters in consonant class double-width characters. The issue is one of efficiency and optimization for writing programs and running them on microcomputers -- though we could argue that historical linguistics (not the degenerate writing system) favors the "masoretic" situation. One major UNICODE proponent (Joe Becker) has assured us that the goal of the UNICODE consortium is to have good generalized solutions for dealing with multi-code glyphs -- efficient software such that implementors and users don't care how glyphs are defined internally. But there is reasonable doubt about how well these goals will be met, especially for hardware affordable to humanities scholars. I am not a programmer, so perhaps I overestimate the negative consequences of current UNICODE for implementors in having to work around this problem, and the performance penalty. Opinions from experts? Programmers already have to deal with five cases of overspecification at applications level (the five final forms), so in principle having three characters for SHIN/SIN, SHIN and SIN would be consistent and economical. Beyond this - do you trust IBM, Apple and Microsoft? They have an abysmally poor track record when it comes to supporting humanities computing: the linguistic basis of writing (and computing) has never had strong representation in formulating computing standards, because academia does not represent a significant commercial interest. Typically, neither operating systems nor commercial applications have supported any conception of the fact that "text" is "in" a given language, with all this implies for computing (direction of writing, hyphenation rules, keyboarding conventions, screen rendering, sort/collation sequences, bibliographic case-conversion rules, embedded-quotation (-mark) rules, spell checking, online thesaurus, fonts, scripts, line-wrap rules, etc). Nothing seems lost or compromised in the UNICODE scheme if undifferentiated (viz, "undotted) "HEBREW LETTER SHIN" is left at code point 05E9, for modern and epigraphic Hebrew, and two of the unassigned slots (05EB - 05EF) are used for linguistically and/or orthographically distinct SHIN and SIN. I assume that the SIN/SHIN "dots" could then be surrendered as code positions and made available for something else. This would seem a small concession to humanities scholars considering that five slots are given to final Hebrew forms -- an overspecification that could be handled in applications programs. It is not clear to me that biblical scholarship would have the sympathy of Yaacov Choueka (and others) who already have large corpora of encoded Hebrew texts. For example, I have not seen the encoding used in the GJD (Global Jewish Database - 350 megabyte Responsa corpus), but I assume that almost all texts are unpointed, and that the parsing engines disambiguate SIN/SHIN as one of the "simplest" parsing tasks. We should clarify that the code point for ambiguous/undifferentiated SIN/SHIN (05E9) taken over from ISO 8859 would be retained in UNICODE for any who wish to use it - and parse it in applications. Time is short, but those interested in the UNICODE draft should contact Asmus Freytag at Microsoft. Ask for the UNICODE "Draft Standard - Final Review Document." The comment period is to officially close Feb. 15th, and a technical committee meeting for review of comments is scheduled for February 28th (as I recall). If biblical scholars say nothing, we will have only ourselves to blame for the results. Tel: (1 206) 882-8080 FAX: (1 206) 883-8101 Email: microsoft!asmusf@uunet.uu.net Postal: Unicode Final Review; c/o Asmus Freytag; Bldg 2/Floor 2; Misrosoft Corporation; One Microsoft Way; Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. Matters pertaining to both UNICODE and ISO 10646 are discussed on the forum ISO10646@jhuvm.BITNET, and there is a dedicated UNICODE forum on unicode@Sun.COM. Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: machine-readable dictionaries Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 11:35:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1051 (2607) My colleague Russ Wooldridge sends along his list of MRDs, compiled with the help of several Humanists. Willard McCarty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - LIST OF MACHINE-READABLE DICTIONARIES COMPILED FROM INFORMATION RECEIVED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES Compiler: <wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Version: 13 February 1991 Contact abbreviations: 1. Sources of dictionaries: CF = Catherine Fowler, Prentice Hall, NY, tel. 1-212-373-8830/8292 CH = Chadwyck-Healey, VA, tel. 1-800-752-0515 --or-- Cambridge, tel. 44-223-311479 CL = Charles Levine, Random House, NY, tel. 1-212-572-2224 Co = Collins, Glasgow, tel. 44-41-772-3200 --or-- London, tel. 44-71-493-7070 DS = Della Summers, Longman, Essex, tel. 44-279-26721, fax 44-279-31059, telex 81259 Longmn G HF = Hachette, France KD = K.P. Donnelly <k.p.donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk> MB = Microsoft Bookshelf ML = Mark Liberman (ACL/DCI), UPenn <myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu>, tel. 1-215-898-0141/0083/6046 MW = Merriam Webster, tel. 1-413-734-3134 OA = Oxford Text Archive, <archive@vax.oxford.ac.uk> OUP = Oxford Electronic Publishing, OUP, NY --or-- Oxford, tel. 44-865-56767 RA = Robert Arn, Educational Software Products, Toronto <robert@espinc.uucp> RW = Russon Wooldridge <wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> 2. Source of information: BK = Bob Kraft, UPenn <kraft@penndrls.upenn.edu> ALPHABETICAL LIST American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [MB] Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker, Greek-English (early Christian Greek) [BK] CED Prolog Factbase [OA: U-1192-E] COBUILD Dictionary [Co] Collins English Dictionary [Co] [OA: A-1255-E] [ML "available soon"] Davidson, Hebrew-English (biblical Hebrew) [BK] Estienne [Stephanus], Linguae Latinae Thesaurus, 1531 (Latin headwords and French glosses) [RW] Estienne [Stephanus], Dictionarium latinogallicum, 1552 (Bilingual items) [RW] Gage Canadian Dictionary [RA] Irish Gaelic-English Dictionary [KD] Jones, English Pronouncing Dictionary [OA: U*-571-D] Liddell-Scott, Intermediate Size Greek-English (classical Greek) [BK] Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English [DS] MacBain, Etymological Dictionary of the [Scottish] Gaelic Language [OA] Merriam Webster's 9th Collegiate (CD-ROM and NeXT) [MW] MRC Psycholinguistic database (expanded SOED entries) [OA: U*-1054-E] Newby, Greek-English (New Testament Greek) [BK] Nicot, Thresor de la langue francoyse, 1606 [RW] Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English [OA: A-288-E] Oxford Dictionary of Music [OA: U-592-E] Oxford Dictionary of Quotations [OA: U-398-D] Oxford English Dictionary (1st Edition) on CD-ROM [OUP] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (original ed.) [OA: A*-154-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (untagged version) [OA: A-667-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (parsed and tagged version) [OA: X*-683-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (expanded "Computer Usable" version) [OA: U*-710-E] Random House Dictionary [CL] Robert Electronique [CH] Roget's Thesaurus [DS] Shorter Oxford Dictionary (headwords only) [OA: U*-157-D] Smith, Coptic-English (Sahidic) [BK] Stoer et al., Grand dictionaire francois-latin, 1593-1628 (additions) [RW] Thorndike-Lorge Magazine Count (entries from "The teacher's word book of 30,000 words") [OA: U-400-B] Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd College Ed. [CF] Zyzomys [HF] *****END***** From: "Linda M. Jones" <lmjones@watsol.waterloo.edu> Subject: OED Call for Papers 91 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 11:15:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2253 (2608) Call for Papers USING CORPORA 7th Annual Conference of the University of Waterloo Centre for the New OED and Text Research September 29 - October 1, 1991 St. Catherine's College Oxford, England The Seventh Annual Conference of the University of Waterloo Centre for the New OED and Text Research, jointly sponsored by the University of Waterloo, Oxford University Press, and Oxford University Computing Services, will be held at Statherine's College, Oxford, England, on September 29 - October 1, 1991. This year's conference will focus on applications of computer-based corpora. For example, text databases can be used to expand the information potential of existing text, create and maintain new information resources, and generate new print information. Conference participants will again include researchers from computer science and the humanities, as well as representatives from publishing houses and other industries. Papers presenting original research on theoretical and applied aspects of the theme are being soughtypical but not exclusive areas of interest include computational lexicology, computational linguistics, syntactic and semantic analysis, computational lexicography, lexical databases, and online reference works. Submissions will be refereed by the program committee listed belowuthors should send seven copies of a detailed abstract (5 to 10 double-spaced pages) by April 22, 1991, to the Program Chair, Prof. Frank Tompa, at: UW Centre for the New OED and Text Research Davis Centre University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3G1 or newoed@uwaterloo.ca Late submissions risk rejection without consideration. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by June 14, 1991. A working draft of the paper, not exceeding 15 pages, will be due by July 19, 1991, for inclusion in proceedings which will be made available at the conference. Program Committee Patrick Hanks (Oxford University Press) Stig Johansson (University of Oslo) Ian Lancashire (University of Toronto) Michael Lesk (Bellcore) Nancy Ide (Vassar College) Frank Tompa, Chair (University of Waterloo) From: neal@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Jeannette Neal) Subject: Call for Participation Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 15:45:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2254 (2609) CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Workshop on Evaluation of Natural Language Processing Systems 18 June 1991 University of California Berkeley, CA There has been increased concern with the evaluation of natural language processing (NLP) systems over the past few years. The evaluation of NLP systems is essential in order to measure the capabilities of individual systems, to measure technical progress and growth in the field, and to provide a basis for selecting NLP systems to best fit the communication requirements of application domain systems. This 1991 Workshop is a follow on to the workshop on evaluation held in December of 1988 at the Wayne Hotel in Wayne, PA. Technical report RADC-TR-89-302 on the previous workshop is available from Rome Laboratory. Important issues for any evaluation effort and relevant to this workshop include identification of the items or capabilities to be evaluated, choosing between "black box" and "glass box" approaches, definition of evaluation criteria, development of methods or procedures for evaluation, determination of evaluation metrics, and determination of the type of output to be produced by the evaluation procedures. The areas of NLP relevant for this workshop include syntactic analysis, semantic analyisis, pragmatic analysis, lexical processing, morphology, sharable knowledge bases and ontologies, speech understanding, and trainable systems. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for computational linguists to report on and discuss current efforts and activities, research progress, new approaches, problems and issues; to promote scientific interchange on important evaluation issues; and to generate recommendations and directions for future investigations in the evaluation area. Workshop attendance will be by invitation, limited to 45 people. The workshop will be held June 18th at the University of California, Berkeley Campus, in association with the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. SUBMISSIONS: Interested participants should submit a 3-5 page abstract of their presentation and a brief description of their research activities. Persons desiring to attend the workshop, but not make a presentation, should send only a brief description of their research activities. All persons should include name, mailing address, phone number, and electronic mail address. Submission may be transmitted via electronic mail, U.S. Postal Service, or FAX. If hardcopy is submitted, please include six copies (including the original). Send submissions to: Jeannette G. Neal, Ph.D. Calspan Corporation P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225 (716) 631-6844 FAX: (716) 631-6722 neal@cs.buffalo.edu SCHEDULE: March 1, 1991 Submissions due (changed from February 1) April 1, 1991 Notification of acceptance/invitation ORGANIZATION AND PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Jeannette G. Neal, Calspan Corporation (Committee Chair) Tim Finin, Unisys Center for Advanced Information Technology Ralph Grishman, New York University Christine Montgomery, Language Systems, Inc. Sharon Walter, Rome Laboratory SUPPORT for this workshop is provided by Rome Laboratory. For Technical Report RADC-TR-89-302, contact: Sharon Walter Rome Laboratory Griffiss AFB, New York 13441-5700 USA E-mail: walter@aivax.radc.af.mil From: COR_HVH@KUNRC1.URC.KUN.NL Subject: Database for/with (syntactic analysis) trees Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 14:28 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1053 (2610) - New also is a freely copyable demo version for MSDOS. See below for details and for a general introduction to the LDB. ------------------------- The Linguistic DataBase (LDB) The LDB is a database system developed by the TOSCA group at Nijmegen University which allows linguists who are not experts in computing to access syntactically analyzed corpora. The data in the database comprises `syntactic analysis trees' of the contiguous utterances in a natural-language text. Since these trees are built from a continuous text, they give a good representation of actual language use and can thus provide a testing ground for linguistic hypotheses. The range of extractable information in such a database is mainly dependent on the degree to which the text has been prepared. Formerly studies of corpora were restricted to the level of words or word-classes, but with the Linguistic DataBase it becomes possible to extend these studies to the level of syntax, so that larger constituents can be analyzed. Unlike currently available database packages, the LDB has been created specifically to handle the type of data linguists need to analyze - a labelled tree structure with a variable number of branches at each node and the possibility of recursion. The LDB can be used to examine the trees on the terminal screen, search for utterances with given properties, and handle database-wide queries about constructs in the utterances. The LDB does not presume special graphics hardware. For this reason it has been implemented for common machines (VAX and IBM PC/AT) and common terminals (VT100, ADM3, etc.). Where possible, special terminal features are used, such as highlighting and graphics characters, but even on the so- called `dumb' ADM3A the trees are represented by an acceptable imitation of graphics. Terminal types not already provided for can be easily installed by the user. The LDB also does not presume a computationally expert user. Thus control of the program is designed to be simple and clear. The overall control is handled by a menu system, which displays short descriptions of the choices, each of which can be activated by a single keystroke. In the Tree Viewer, which is used to examine an analysis tree on the terminal screen, there is not enough space left on the screen to produce these descriptions, so that commands (mostly of one keystroke) are listed in abbreviated form. A description of all commands can be accessed by a `help' command, however. For queries going beyond a single tree, the Exploration Scheme formalism has been developed. An Exploration Scheme consists of a search pattern, itself a tree much like the analysis trees, and a specification of the operations to be performed on the information the pattern discovers. The possibilities of Exploration Schemes are various. They range from a simple search for a tree, in order to examine it with the Tree Viewer, to the creation of frequency tables. The formalism is designed in such a way that the novice can start exploring immediately. From there, he can gradually expand his knowledge to the more complex features. In order to facilitate formulating Exploration Schemes the LDB has a special scheme editor. The LDB package comes with the Nijmegen Corpus, a 130,000 word collection of modern British English with a full syntactic analysis of each utterance. To each node in the tree (i.e. each constituent in the utterance) has been attached a function and a category label. In the future more corpora will become available. Furthermore, since the database system is independent of both formalism and language, it is possible to use it for any other kind of analyzed corpus. The LDB package requires (1) VAX with VMS; (2) IBM PC (AT preferred), 640K RAM, hard disk, at least one 1.2 Mb high-capacity diskette drive, MS-DOS, no special graphics hardware; or (3) any UNIX machine, competent C-compiler, enough knowledge about terminal and file I/O to be able to configure the program to the system. Not copy protected. Source code (ca. 25,000 lines of CDL2) not available. It costs Hfl. 100 (academic institutions), Hfl. 5000 (other). [as of Jan. 1991 Hfl. 1 is about $ 0.60] A user manual is not included in the academic distribution; the book Linguistic Exploitation of Syntactic Databases (see publications) contains all necessary information and is priced at Hfl. 70. A (fully functional) demonstration version for any MSDOS machine with harddisk is available - on a 5.25" 360K diskette from the address below - by ftp at phoibos.cs.kun.nl in the directory pub/LDB - by listserv from LISTSERV@HEARN as files LDBDEMOC INF TOSCA-L LDBDEMOC UUE TOSCA-L For more information contact Hans van Halteren TOSCA Group Department of English University of Nijmegen P.O. Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen The Netherlands tel: (+31)-080-512836 e-mail: cor_hvh@kunrc1.urc.kun.nl Publications van Halteren, Hans and Nelleke Oostdijk. ``Using an Analyzed Corpus as a Linguistic Database'', in Computers in Literary and Linguistic Computing, Proceedings of the XIIIth ALLC Conference (Norwich 1986), John Roper (vol. ed.), J. Hamesse and A. Zampolli (series eds.) van Halteren, Hans and Theo van den Heuvel. Linguistic Exploitation of Syntactic Databases. (Rodopi, Amsterdam 1990). de Haan, Pieter. ``Exploring the Linguistic Database: Noun Phrase Complexity and Language Variation'', in Corpus Linguistics and Beyond, Willem Meijs, ed. (Rodopi, Amsterdam 1987). From: "Robert S. Kirsner" <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: two comments: on languages and on the war Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 19:14 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2255 (2611) (1) If we are to have French and Spanish and German on the net, why not other languages, so called "minor" ones? (The population speaking the "minor" languages I teach numbers twenty-five million people) So let's HAVE Dutch and Afrikaans on the Network.Frisian too. After all, although only French is French, it is also true that French is only French. And German is only German. Vondel didn't write in German! Willem Frederik Hermans doesn't write in Spanish! Hugo Claus doesn't write in Greek! Andre Brink and Breyten Breytenbach don't write in Albanian. What do you mean you never heard of these people! You're supposed to be humanists! Remember the bumper sticker: YOU REALLY AREN'T WORTH MUCH IF YOU DON'T KNOW DUTCH. And if this seems like a reductio ad absurdum, perhaps we could have special postings with the header : Foreign Languages. But then recognize ALL languages, including, for example, Mojave and Cree. But given the verbal output of our political leadership these days, perhaps Humanist should put its MAIN effort into English. Let's not forget George in the White House and the Inarticulateness Thing. Perhaps we could have a daily abbreviation list: My contribution for today is BDA for Bomb Damage Assessment. A thing of beauty and a joy forever. (2) Keep up the postings on the War. Lest we retreat behind our glass of sherry and our article on the ecclesiastical use of Latin terms. From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: French, other languages Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 21:21:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2256 (2612) To correct Germaine Warkentin: ("French is not a minority language in Canada. It is the language of one-third of my compatriots.") One third is certainly a minority according to any arithmetic I ever learned. "Canada is a bilingual country.": Officially perhaps, but try to buy a French-language newspaper in London, Ontario, a city of 300,000 inhabitants with a large university (one of the largest French departments in Canada). Even in Toronto, with its 3 million people, I am sure of being able to find a French- language newspaper for sale in only two locations. I'm afraid the bilingualism of our country appears to me to be very much a myth except in a few well-defined areas. This despite the fact that I teach French for a living and so spend my (working) days surrounded by that language. Since I am multilingual, I have no objections to the use of French or other non-English languages on Humanist. On the other hand, I can see little value in using them just to make a rather specious point. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1032 The Languages of Humanist (2/45) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 16:34:44 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2257 (2613) In response to Germaine Warkentin's remarks: I am aware that Canada is a bilingual country, but to me "1/3 of the population" is a minority compared to "2/3 of the population". A matter of technical terms, I suppose, and my mistake. Naturally, Germaine W is more aware of "the hegemonous role of English in American cultural activity across our undefended border"; you live there! My point was that there are not only yanks and Canadians on Humanist, and hence not a question of hegemony of English over French or vice versa. If you think it ought to be, then tell us Europeans to sign off and we will go and find a new playground for ourselves. But if you agree that the universe consists of more than the American continent, then there are two alternatives: either we agree on one lingua franca, and without believing that English is the language of the universe, I see good reasons why it should be the common language. Or we agree to let other languages in as well, and then it will have to be French _and_ German _and_ Spanish, at the very least. National identity is very closely related to matters of mother tongue, as is obvious from some recent postings on Humanist, and if one language is accepted another group is very likely to pop up and say "What about us?" I suggest we save our language hegemony combats for other fora and try to be practical about these matters. From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.1028 The Languages of Humanist (2/44) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 17:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2258 (2614) To set the record straight, Flemish is not the language of the minority in Belgium; French and German are. Michael, j'utilise le nous dans ma reponse a Boissonas pour carnavaliser le procede meme que lui-meme utilisait, me semblait-il a tort. Michel. From: "John A. Dussinger" <dussinge@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: English as dominant language Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 12:02:51 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2259 (2615) Germaine Warkentin's point that French holds equal place with English in Canada as a spoken language makes political sense, if one agrees with the views implicit. But more than once I've heard Parisians declare that the language spoken in Quebec Province is not REALLY French. Without for once discouraging the study of "foreign" languages, nevertheless I believe that it would be a very bad policy for Americans, say, to adopt Spanish as a parallel official language in this country. The issue is too complicated for a full analysis here, but I do agree with Gunhild Viden's argument. John Dussinger From: Joseph Pentheroudakis <PENTHERJ@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: morphological program Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 15:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1055 (2616) MORFOGEN: A MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND DICTIONARY INTERFACE TOOL ECS announces the release of version 2.0 of Morfogen, a tool used to develop morphological analysis grammars and to interface with any electronic dictionary. Morfogen consists of: a) A rule compiler: inflectional and derivational paradigms are listed in a simple, textbook-style format, and are then compiled into a finite state machine; and b) C source code for the morphological analysis routines: these routines access the compiled grammar and return the stem of an inflected form and the morpheme(s) matched; they can also be used to reject spurious derivations. Morfogen has been used to build morphological analyzers for French, English and Spanish, and agglutinative languages such as Japanese. Development time for these analyzers has ranged from one to three weeks. The compiled analyzers for these languages are also available, along with the morphological analysis routines. Grammars for Italian, German, Turkish and Korean are forthcoming. Versions exist for DOS, OS/2, SunOS, and Unix/Xenix. The compiled grammars range in size from 13K for the English grammar to 50K for the French grammar; the object file versions of the C routines are less than 20K. The compact size of the grammars and the analysis routines makes them ideal for use in a memory-resident mode. Morfogen is an ideal product for applications requiring morphological analysis and dictionary access. A substantial discount is available for academic institutions. For information or to request a demo disk, contact: Joseph E. Pentheroudakis Executive Communication Systems, Inc. 455 North University Avenue, Suite 202 Provo, Utah 84601 fax: (801) 374-6292 voice: (801) 377-1167 email: pentherj@cc.utah.edu From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: New Vice Provost for Computing at Penn Date: Tuesday, 19 February 1991 1506-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1056 (2617) I am pleased to announce, that Peter Patton (formerly Director of the University Computer Center at the University of Minnesota, and of the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute) has accepted the invitation to become Vice Provost of Information Services and Computing at Penn, starting 1 April 1991. Patton's experience with and commitment to the academic side of University computing (including the humanities!) is well documented, and we look forward to working with him in this challenging endeavor. I want publicly to thank those HUMANISTs whose advice and encouragement during the search process has helped lead to this happy result. Bob Kraft, UPenn From: GL250007@Venus.YorkU.CA Subject: A tenure track position in linguistics Deadline March 1 1991 Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 08:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1057 (2618) YORK UNIVERSITY GLENDON COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH The Department of English at Glendon College invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor. Preference will be given to applicants with a Ph.D. in linguistics with demonstrated superiority in teaching and strong scholarly interest in socio-cognitive and discoursal aspects of language. Duties will include teaching at the undergraduate level with possible future participation in graduate teaching; research; and service to the University. Salary is determined in accordance with the current collective agreement and experience. The effective date of appointment is July 1, 1991. Send applications including a complete curriculum vitae to Professor William S. Greaves, Chair of the Hiring Committee, English Department, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M4N 3M6, and arrange to have three referees send confidential letters to the same address. The deadline for application is March 1st, 1991. York University is implementing a policy of employment equity, including affirmative action for women faculty. In accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. From: "Malcolm Butler, Music Department, HKU" <HRAUBUT@HKUCC.BITNET> Subject: Music/Language Acquisition Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 16:16 +0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2260 (2619) Please distribute the following message to Humanist. Thank you. I have a post-graduate student who is interested in the development of language skills and musical skills in young children. Since the student is Cantonese, she is particularly interested in the development of pitch sense and its interaction with the learning of a tonal language such as Cantonese. The student has an M.A. in Music Education from the University of Reading, England, but she would like to make contact with people sharing similar music/language interests working in the U.S.. Is anybody interested in this subject, or know of others who might be? If replies can be sent to me, I'll pass them on to the student. Thank you. Malcolm Butler Music Department University of Hong Kong hraubut@hkucc.bitnet From: <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: CALL bibliography Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 10:41:05 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2261 (2620) Does anyone know of anything resembling a complete bibliography of commercially available CALL software? By country? Continent? Target or source language? Pedagogical modes? Other categories? Thanks, Joel D. Goldfield Fellow in Foreign Languages IAT/U. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu JOELG@PSC.BITNET From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca> Subject: "ftp" guide? Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 12:55:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2262 (2621) Does there exist a directory of public access archives similar to the "Internet Library Guide" put out by Art St. George et al? I know of only one or two, and that is the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg, I'm sure. Perhaps if such a directory/guide doesn't exist, HUMANIST members could start to compile one. The two examples I know of are SIMTEL20, and the Washington U. (St. Louis) archive. Both store vast numbers of programs for running in various environments. Are there other such archives? Does your institution have such facilities? David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: query about Amstrad computers Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 12:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2263 (2622) I have a question concerning Amstrad computers used in England. Can they read a diskette formatted in an MS-DOS machine? Is there a word processer than is "standard" for the machine? As you can guess I would like to send a disk to someone in England--and that person has an Amstrad. Thanks in advance for any insight! Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: <ENG003@UNOMA1> Subject: information requested on COSC scores as predictors Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 15:10 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2264 (2623) Owen Mordaunt, a colleague teaching ESL but not a member of this list, is researching the use as a predictor of future academic achievement the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate (COSC) English Language Exams or Ordinary Level (O'Level) exams. Using data from Swaziland, Owen has tentative results indicating that the top scores are not good predictors but that lower scores may be. If any of you has sources, references, or even anecdotal information on the use of these exam scores, particularly for predicting future academic achievement of ESL students, please respond to Mordaunt@unoma1. Thank you in advance, Judy Boss eng003@unoma1 From: al649@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Martin J. Homan) Subject: TWOT Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 12:06:06 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2265 (2624) I read in the latest issue of _Tic Talk_ (Winter 1991) that the _Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Alten Testament_ has been completed up through vol. 7, fasc. 1/2. Since Eerdmans has completed only through yodh, and the German edition is up to resh, I would appreciate it if someone could supply me with information about how I might be able to procure the German volumes in the USA? If this is not possible, I would appreciate ascertaining how one can procure them directly from Kohlhammer. Thanks for your help. Marty -- Martin Homan God's Word To The Nations Bible Society Cleveland, OH al649@cleveland.freenet.edu From: Rosemary Cullen <AP201034@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1042 Misc. Queries and Responses (5/86 Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 11:44:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2266 (2625) With regard to the inquiry about contacts in Vilnius, you might try the people at the National Yiddish Book Center, Old East Street School, P. O. Box 969, Amherst, Mass. 01004. Phone: 413-256-1241. In the latest issue of their journal, The Book Pedddler, there was an article about a trip staff recently took to the Baltics to deliver books to the Jewish communities there. Some of the staff might know what's going on. From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Online bibliographies Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 16:21:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2267 (2626) Thomas Zielke asks about online bibliographies. I have a file that lists some pointers to online bibliographies. Send mail to COMSERVE@RPIECS and in the body put SEND COMPUNET BIBLIO. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA UUCP: {psuvax1}!cmuvm.bitnet!3zlufur From: raskin@j.cc.purdue.edu (Victor Raskin) Subject: WHIMSY-VII Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 15:08:17 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2268 (2627) [...] WHIMSY-VII, the proceedings of the last WHIM-VII, officially: The Seventh National (but de facto international) Conference on Humor, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN, April 1-4, 1988. The participants will be sent their prepaid copies shortly. If you are not among that select number but wish to splurge $10 postpaid for the volume, please send a check made out carefully to: Victor Raskin, WHIM-VII Program Chair to the following address: Professor Victor Raskin Department of English 324 Heavilon Hall Purdue University W. Lafayette, IN 47907 U.S.A. As they say, allow a few weeks for delivery. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Northrop Frye Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 19:38:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2269 (2628) I would like to thank all those who replied to me on the occasion of my posting on the death of Northrop Frye a month ago. I have kept all the messages and have passed the file on to Jane Widdicombe, his secretary, for inclusion among his papers. Germaine. From: kjetilrh@gollum.uio.no Subject: Degendering an ombudsman Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 11:32:09 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2270 (2629) James Woolley, Lafayette College, writes: [deleted quotation] In addition to "ombudsmann", Norwegian also uses the word "ombud", of neuter gender, e.g. "Barneombudet" - "The children's ombudsman". ---- Kjetil Ra Hauge, Dept. of East European and Oriental studies ---- University of Oslo, P. O. Box 1030 Blindern, Oslo 3, Norway ---- Phone +47 2 456710 (+47 2 456797), fax +47 2 454310 ---- E-mail kjetilrh@humanist.uio.no From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1029, ombudsman Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 14:06:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2271 (2630) "Ombudsman" Norwegian? In Sweden we pride ourselves of having contributed two loanwords, with the things themselves, to English, "ombudsman" and "smorgasbord"! There is a lot of discussion going on about the gender problem of the words ending in -man. The linguists agree that -man is gender neutral, meaning simply "human being", just as there is an impersonal "man" which can signify men and women alike. But there are feminists who do not agree, and hence different solutions have been tried. "Justeringsman", the person who contrasigns the minutes of a meeting, is nowadays often a "justeringsperson"; I have never heard of an "ombudsperson", though. Ombudser is a horror to my ears; the morphems are om, bud, and man, with the -s- as a transition between morphems two and three. The simplest solution would be just to say "ombud". In Swedish there is a distinction: ombudsman is a technical term, whereas ombud is anyone who does something instead of someone else (you can vote through ombud, ask a question through ombud etc.). Ombudsperson is also possible, though rather clumsy. But ombudser (or ombuder), no! From: Arvid Vollsnes <arvid@ifi.uio.no> Subject: Re: OMBUDSMAN 4.1029 Queries (6/88) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 13:48:20 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2272 (2631) What about "ombudsperson". I have seen it around here and in the US. Arvid Vollsnes Univ. of Oslo From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1029 Queries (6/88) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 23:40 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2273 (2632) To Wooley: how about "OMBUDDHIST"? OM FOR OMPADMI, NATCH. JOKING OF COURSE. ALL IS FAIR IN NIRVANA LAND. KESSLER From: brad inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: nomenclature Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:07:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2274 (2633) Someone asked about gender-neutral terms for ombudsman. At the University of Toronto she is called the ombudsperson -- officially and on all the signs, as well as in conversation. The term is, in my view, less than elegant but far preferable to any alternative I have heard. From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: The Languages of Humanist Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 19:40:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2275 (2634) I am sorry Ian Richmond thinks my argument is "specious" (which my dictionary defines as "attractive on the surface" and thus presumably not attractive underneath). Ruefully, I would have to concede his point about the difficulty of finding French newspapers in London, Ontario. But I refuse to budge on the issue of "minority." Certainly 1/3 is less than 2/3. But what goes to make up that 2/3? The Toronto where Prof. Richmond says he can't be sure of finding French newspapers is a city where 84 languages are in daily use, and where one can live in another language without even making contact with the "dominant" English tongue. This is not the only part of the story. To some of my western relatives-in-law the multi-culturalism of Toronto is deeply disturbing; they want a country where all speak English and nothing else (except of course at home where you can speak Low German or Ukrainian). As a result, from where I sit French in Canada looks like a very powerful language indeed. Powerful enough that one of my Quebecois colleagues on this net spoke in a recent Humanist posting about "the coming separation of Quebec from Canada" with perfect confidence. (Funny, nobody seems to have noticed that one.) From what I have just said we can draw one conclusion (indeed, the one most of those who have posted on this issue seem to want to draw): that language can become a very petty, local matter and that if we want to be practical, we will try to rise above all that. Gunhild Viden is correct in not wanting the issue of languages on Humanist to be reduced to a question of the hegemony of English over French. That was not my point, however, merely my example. The point is this: language is not just a practical matter, it is a profoundly symbolic concern. As long as we reduce it to practicality, or pretend that the symbol- ic can be kept at arms length, we are effectively treating it as if it belonged to the topics of common-room conversation assembled by Robert Kirsner: the glass of sherry, the ecclesiastical use of Latin terms, the once-famed but now disused (by all practical people) powers of individual languages. There was such a change once, you know, except it went the other way. In the middle ages Latin was known as "Grammar" because the untidy, popular vernacular languages had no written rules. Well, "tempora mutantur" and we change with them; I haven't heard a word of Latin on the streets of Toronto in I don't know how long. Two final points: I began this discussion because I felt that one of the languages of my country was being trivialized by the insensitivity of those who, living in a country where English is by far the dominant language, had lost their sense of what it is like to live in a place where the issue is a living, breathing, and deeply painful one. My French-speaking colleagues in Quebec have not forgotten what it is like to be told to "speak white." Or that they "don't really speak French in Quebec." Second, are the advocates of a unilingual United States under the illusion that such a develop- ment would not be symbolic? I hardly think so. We could carry that line of argument even further: surely the "practical" use of language -- that is, for its purely instrumental function -- is itself a symbolic use of language, one which resonates (paradoxically) with the fears and constraints of the Age of Reason. I shall continue to write to Humanist in English. I hope our French- speaking colleagues will continue to write in French, whether we end up in the same country or not. Germaine. From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Languages on Humanist. Dussinger's comment Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 07:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2276 (2635) John A. Dussinger writes that "more than once I've heard Parisians declare that the language spoken in Quebec Province is not REALLY French". There is absolutely no evidence of this linguistically. On the contrary, French spoken in Quebec is just plain French, with a different accent and a few different words (less than 5% of the vocabulary). To use such an argument to ban French on this net shows both a lack of knowledge ("I've heard Parisians"...) and a poor sense of discussion. Benoit Melancon, Universite de Montreal From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: bilingualism in canada Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 15:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2277 (2636) I don't know what the story is in Ontario or in Quebec, but the bilingualism of Moncton, New Brunswick, where my wife's family is from, is very interesting. Usually when one speaks of bilingualism one imagines a situation in which everybody knows both languages, but only speaks one in ordinary conversation. My impression of Moncton is that everyone speaks both languages all the time--in ordinary conversations, say, in the fast-food places, people seem to switch back and forth, often within the same sentence. Moncton is an interesting linguistic laboratory, and I wish someone who knows more about such things than I do would look at it. (Is this loose back-and-forth between languages what prevailed in England in the generations when Middle English was taking shape?) John Burt From: Tim Bryson <TBRY@HARVARDA> Subject: New List for Scholars in Religious Studies Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 14:48:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1062 (2637) The Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions has inaugurated an online seminar for scholars concerned with the comparative and historical study of religions. We invite members of the Humanist list who might be interested to join us. An extract from our charter follows. Let me add that we recently invited subscribers to contribute syllabi and bibliographic references to be made available to the rest of the group through archived files. The Religion Seminar was inaugurated in February 1991. It is sponsored by the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions. The CSWR was founded in 1958 to foster research in the comparative and historical study of religions. It continues this program under its fourth director, Dr. Lawrence E. Sullivan. Our aim is to encourage scholarly discussion relating to the academic study of religion and religions. We do not intend to compete with groups which discuss personal faith or personal theologies. Our interest lies more in history, sociology, aesthetics, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy - in other words, study of religion in the academic mode. In this discussion we wish to include scientists as well as phenomenologists, generalists as well as specialists. Relevant issues include methodology in the study and teaching of religions; comparative themes such as myth, ritual, mysticism, art, and community; and issues specific to particular religious traditions. We wish to include local or non-literate religions as well as world religions. We could exchange syllabi if we are teachers or discuss books of interest whoever we are. We could discuss the use of computers in the study or teaching of religions: for example, machine readable texts and multi-media programs. In this connection, we welcome historical background about religious movements in the news but will leave partisan discussion of religious politics and polemics to other lists who may wish to host such conversations. This is a "moderated" list. The editors reserve the right not to post inappropriate submissions. The seminar serves as an arena for exchange of informed views in a spirit of balanced criticism and with a tone of mutual respect. Please address inquiries to Religion@HarvardA or to the editors at TBRY@HarvardA. Thank you. Lawrence E. Sullivan, Director Tim Bryson, Administrator Center for the Study of World Religions Harvard University tbry@harvarda 617-495-4486 From: "James F. Slevin" <jfs5f@newton.acc.virginia.edu> Subject: Conference Announcement Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 20:18:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2278 (2638) ANNOUNCING A SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR TEACHERS OF LITERATURE CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY JUNE 2-5, 1991 At the Ocean Creek Resort and Conference Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Sponsored by the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English SEMINAR LEADERS Barbara Christian, UC Berkeley, "Does Theory Play Well in the Classroom?" Gerald Graff, Northwestern/University of Chicago, "Theorizing the Curriculum" Robert Scholes, Brown University, "An End to Hypocriticism" DISCUSSION LEADERS: Brenda Greene, Medgar Evers College, CUNY; Joseph F. Trimmer, Ball State University; Tilly Warnock, University of Wyoming PROGRAM CHAIR: James F. Slevin, Georgetown University (bitnet:jfs5f@virginia) (internet: jfs5f@virginia.edu) Seminar leaders and participants will consider how recent developments in theory and critical practice can influence curricular structures and teaching, and they will explore the effects of institutional practices on how we think about literature. Participants will also have the chance to exchange materials and information about curricular reform at their institutions. For more information and an application form, write to Robert Harvey, NCTE, 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801. Telephone: 217-328-3870. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO OTHER E-MAIL LISTS AND CONFERENCES. From: langconf@louis-xiv.bu.edu Subject: Linguistics conference Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 08:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2279 (2639) The 16th Annual BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT October 18, 19 & 20, 1991 Keynote Speaker: STEVEN PINKER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * CALL FOR PAPERS * Papers in the following areas are encouraged, although other topics in Language Acquisition will be fully considered: Linguistic Theory Input & Interaction (Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, Morphology) Early Linguistic Development Development of the Lexicon Speech Perception & Production Signed Languages Discourse Processing Creolization Discourse Cognitive Development & Language Literacy Neurolinguistic Development Narrative Exceptional Language & Language Disorders Sociolinguistics including a special session on Dyslexia Bilingualism IN RELATION TO ------------------------------ FIRST & SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ------------------------------------- REQUIREMENTS 1) Original research that has never been presented or published 2) 450-WORD SUMMARY for anonymous review 3) 150-WORD ABSTRACT with title, topic, name & affiliation (to appear in conference handbook) SUBMIT 1) SIX copies of the summary, clearly titled 2) TWO copies of the abstract 3) ONE 3 x 5 card stating: a) Title b) Name(s) c) Affiliation(s) d) Topic area e) Current address f) Summer address g) e-mail address h) Telephone number i) Summer number j) Audiovisual needs NOTE NEW ADDRESS Boston University Telephone: (617) 353-3085 Conference on Language Development e-mail: langconf@louis-xiv.bu.edu 138 Mountfort Street Boston, MA 02215 USA DEADLINE: All submissions must be POSTMARKED BY *May 1, 1991*. Please include self-addressed, stamped postcard for acknowledgment of receipt. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent by June 30. _______________________________________________________________________________ Note: All conference papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts submitted. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate symposium proposals. _______________________________________________________________________________ From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1020 On the War (5/282) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 16:46 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2280 (2640) I cannot resist suggesting to Judy Koren a rule of thumb that most watchers of totalitarian culture since 1917 have learned: in a paranoiac century such as ou rs, in which the West can be best described as a paranoid personality, especial ly since our Mass society has been perfused by what amounts to an unintermitted barrage of communications via the "neuronal" networks of the media, since radi o, in short, and high speed newspaper printing an distribution before that, th way to intuit what is happening and what is probably the case is to assume "pro jection" by the transmitter, the paranoid. What The communist propagandists tau ght Hitler's, undsoweiter, is to declare what you afe doing or plan to do as being planned or done by your enemy. If that PLO Center is accusing Israel of h erding people into pens at Dimona, it simply means that that is what is being d one in Iraq, and today's news of the bombing of what the West calls a comman an d communication center and what Baghdad calls a civilian bunker is a good insta ne. I am prepared to believe that the telecoms are under the shleter for civili ans, as the papers say they are indeed under the hotel that most western newsp eople and diplmats are housed in. What is so odd about that? Saddam says: you c an kill my birds with your stone, but I get twice as many benefits as losses fr om it! I would do it too, were I saddam. I t figures. It is logical. Hide under innocents, the wolf in sheep's clothing, etc. Aesop taught that trick to us 30 00 years ago. Always tell the truth in propaganda is another maxim. But..which truth? The totalists tell the truth, but accuse others of the horrors they are perpetrating. That is why it works. Something is true about it, you see? Kessl er From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.1033 On the War (4/224) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 17:29:46 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2281 (2641) Re. Malcolm Hayward's comments on the responses to Lakoff: "George Lakoff's balanced and articulate statement has incurred the wrath... of Harwell, Kessler, Copold and Judy. Let me see if I've got some of the arguments straight." He then summarizes what he believes to be our opinions. 1) If he can lump us all together like that, he hasn't got any of the arguments straight. What makes Hayward think we're all arguing the same and all agree with each other, apart from the fact that he disagrees with all of us? 2) Lakoff's statements are always articulate, I grant you that. But to someone who thought they were "balanced" I think I'd rather be Koren, not Judy, if you don't mind. (I suppose I should feel honoured to be the only one on Hayward's list granted a first-name basis, but somehow I don't.) 3) None of the summaries of points Hayward made in the least fits what I wrote, though his point no. 4 bears the same resemblance to it as hamburger meat does to steak. I commend Hayward for that achievement. Surely few of us could have managed it. Judy Koren P.S. I don't think Lakoff has yet incurred my wrath. Perhaps sadness is closer. From: Len Bliss <BLISSLB@APPSTATE.BITNET> Subject: The War Date: Sun, 17 Feb 1991 21:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2282 (2642) I have been trying really hard to keep from cluttering the band-width with my attempts at pearls of wisdom concerning the effects of the Persian Gulf war on the nation and people of Israel, responding to individual postings by E-mail, rather than posting them on the list, but Malcolm Hayward's diatribe needs to be answered publicly. Mr. Hayward, I share your obvious pain at the destruction and death we are hearing and reading about daily. However, this anguish does not excuse your using the occasion, and this newslist, for a round on unjustified Israel bashing, so common among us "humanists" and intellectuals. First, your attempt to use the U.N. racist liabel concerning the Israeli government is a cheap shot, at best. In 1990, nearly 3,700 Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel. 1,300 additional Ethiopians have immigrated there since the beginning of this year, with 224 arriving in one day two weeks ago. These immigrants were brought to Israel at the expense of the government and will be housed, educated, and trained at government expense until they are prepared to make their own way into the population. At the present time, more than 20,000 Jews from Ethiopia live in Israel, with only 22,000 left in Ethiopia. Do you seriously believe that the absorption of 20,000 black Africans into a country only slightly larger than New Jersey, even while the country is being attacked by Scud missles, is the act of a "racist" government? Do you know (does anyone out there know) what the U.S. immigration quota from subsaharan Africa is for this year? You indicate that Israel is not as concerned about its Arab citizens as it is for its Jewish citizens and use the fact that gas masks were not distributed to residents of the occupied territories as a case in point. What you seem to be unaware of is that all Jewish AND Arab citizens of Israel WERE issued gas masks before the coallition bombing of Iraq began. Arab residents of the occupied territories are NOT citizens of Israel. This distinction is not merely playing with words, nor is it trivial. Palestinian Arab residents of the territories, in the main, do not WISH to be citizens of Israel (nor, to be perfectly candid, do I believe that most Israelis wish them to be citizens. Not being an Israeli, I can't be certain about this, but this is the sentiment I hear). Most, if not all, of these people want their own state. In fact, I'd wager that you would be quite indignant (as would be most of the international community) if Israel were to annex Judeah, Sumaria, and Gaza. You need to understand the Israeli political a lot better than you do before you post denunciations of it. Arab citizens of the State have the same civil rights as Jewish citizens. They are free to vote for members of the Knesset which has Arab members. They are free to form their own political parties, which they do, and members of these parties run for (and win) Knesset seats. Arabs are protected from discrimmination in housing, employment, and education. This is where the Israeli government and people too often fall short. Discrimination DOES exist, where Arab villages often receive less than their share of housing and education funds, but because Israel is a democracy Arab citizens have peaceful avenues of redress and use them successfully. You might try reading the International Edition of The Jerusalem Post. If you can't get a hold of this paper out your way, I'll be glad to send you some of my back issues. In any case, the issue of civil rights within Israel is one I have confidence is being dealt with, even under these trying conditions. But I have wandered from the topic. The reasons that gas masks were not issued to residents of the territories are complex. To dismiss it as racism is the attempt a simple answer to a complex problem. Security was the primary issue. Tear gas is the method of choice for quelling civil unrest (riots!) in the territories. Supplying intifada participants with gas masks not only hides their faces, but makes tear gas ineffective. The result of this is that the military and police would be required to use greater force in putting down the riots and protecting themselves and this would result in more injury and death to the rioters. The Israeli Defense Forces has been criticized in the past for using TOO MUCH force in riot control. Gas masked rioters would increase the amount of force necessary to keep order. Most significant however is the fact that the occupied territories are simply not targets of Iraqi missles! The Iraqi government has no interest in bombing Palestinian villages and camps (the Palestinians support Iraq in the war). The purpose of missile attacks on Israel are to terrorize the population and cause Israel to retaliate (as well as to show the Arab world that Iraq can strike Israel). Why would they want to attack the Arabs in the territories. We can see the result of this reasoning in the fact that just about all the attacks were on Tel Aviv and Haifa with a single Scud (or perhaps it was two) landing, most likely by accident, on the west bank of the Jordan. You will note that an Israeli court has ordered the distribution of masks to the territories and the government is complying. It is sad that it is taking time to obtain masks for small children, but it is hardly fair (or scholarly) to attribute this to a purposeful government policy without any evidence. On the issue of curfews: Israel, a noncombatant, is having her chief cities bombarded by missiles while the population of the occupied territories are calling for its destruction and standing on roofs to cheer the missiles on. I suggest that confining that hostile population to its homes is probably the most humane way of dealing with the situation. The other choices are probably putting down violent demonstrations with further violence or using the time honored, internationally accepted methods of dealing with enemy aliens: interning or deporting them. I can just imagine your reaction to that! Finally, your attempt to use the intifada to discredit Israeli democracy is an interesting, but old ploy. The intifada is an uprising BY Palestinian Arabs. The Israelis did not start the intifada. IDF forces did not force Palestinian Arabs to riot and throw rocks at Israelis (including innocent men, women and children) driving automobiles on public roads. Blaming the victims for the problem is an old trick, but it doesn't work, anymore. Let me suggest that you do what a lot of American and European celebrities and statesmen are doing right now. Before you criticize the Israeli government or people, get your facts straight! The best way to do this is join the many folks who are now starting to visit. You will not find Israel and Israelis to be perfect, but you will find them to be a warm and caring people who are doing more than we have any right to expect of them in a really tough situation. Oh yes, I think I understand what "Arabian nationality". Let me operationally define it for you. Just as a student of Israeli nationality is a student who is a citizen of the State of Israel and is studying in the U.S. under an Israeli passport with a student visa, so is a student or "Arabian" nationality one who is a citizen of an Arab country (the State Department has defined such countries very clearly) who has a passport from said country with a student visa to study in the U.S. Like you, I find the collecting of this information by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, repugnant. Leonard Bliss Department of Educational Foundations Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 BLISSLB@APPSTATE BLISSLB@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU From: "Thomas W. Stuart" <C078D6S6@UBVM> Subject: Re: 4.1034 Humanist: Commerical Posting Policy (4/71) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 13:16:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2283 (2643) There may be practical reasons to process the war diaries differently from other HUMANIST material. I find very disturbing the suggestion that they are "not at all related to the original intention of [HUMANIST]". As a subscriber to HUMANIST for more than two years, I do not agree that its only intention is to discuss the use of computers in the Humanities. HUMANIST has been a tool for discussion of issues related to Humanities disciplines since the beginning. And I find it hard to imagine that the current war is unrelated to history, philosophy, and linguistics, for example. While it is true that "life goes on" -- it had best not be going on in a "business as usual" fashion -- if Humanism and a humanistic view of the world are alive. It disturbs me greatly that my own field of librarianship largely is acting *as if* it is business as usual. In most of the libraries - public and academic - I've entered lately, there are no clues (much less responsivenesses) to this as a time of a world at war. It embarrasses me to witness our professional distance -- a distance true to neither of the principles which I feel are at the core of librarianship -- intellectual freedom and social responsibility. From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@cms.ulcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1033 On the War (4/224) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 10:33:46 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2284 (2644) Shouldn't further discussion on the war (including the Wrman diaries) be transferred to the list DESERT-L@PCCVM.BITNET, which is explicitly for that purpose? the Humanists' contributions might raise the standard of discussion there a little. Christopher From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 19:46:41 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2285 (2645) DIARY OF THE GULF WAR -- THE VIEW FROM HAIFA Judy Koren Copyright 1991 Judith Koren, all rights reserved. Wednesday 13th February Yair has been overloaded with homework since school restarted, and has got into the habit of studying with one friend or another. Today the friend is Ori, whose family spent the first part of the war "on holiday" in Cyprus. But by the time I get home at 5:15 they've decided to take a break and have gone out, presumably to the ball court. At 6:15 the phone rings. Ori's mother. Upon hearing that the boys are out she becomes frantic with worry. Immediately, as if someone had flipped a switch from "low-tension" to "high". "You mean they're out on the streets? AFTER DARK???!!! It takes a while to convince her that this is a residential neighbourhood and the ball court is surrounded by houses, including a high-rise apartment building with an excellent communal sealed shelter. (I don't actually know if that shelter is sealed, all I know is that it makes a wonderful place for birthday parties; but a helpful assumption never hurt anyone, did it?) From the way she reacted, you'd think we lived in a solitary tent in the middle of the Carmel National Park. "Ori's father'll have a heart attack if he hears of this!" she cries. And she makes me promise to go out, now, to the ball court, round up the delinquents and shepherd them home. And call her back. I sigh and out I go. The kids aren't at the ball court. That probably means they've gone on to another friend and will phone me at 9 pm to ask for a lift home. I wonder what to tell Ori's mother; decide to wait for her to phone me back. Luckily the boys arrive home 10 minutes after I do: they'd gone to a different ball court, slightly farther away. Ori pales when he hears his mother has phoned. "My dad'll have a HEART ATTACK if he hears of this!" he says. And his first words when he phones (which I have to force him to do) are: "Mum, don't tell Dad!" I am beginning to understand who it was who dreamt up the trip to Cyprus. Luckily Ori's father is in the army right now (reserve duty) and unlikely to discover how near his son came to disaster through association with mine. I hope Ori comes over some more. It's probably good for him to spend a few hours now and then with people who don't jump every time a car backfires. When he returned from Cyprus he was much tenser than he was when he returned from 2 hours in the ball court with Yair (until he heard his mother had called, that is). In fact the first few days after his return Yair spent a lot of time on the phone reassuring Ori that life in Haifa is livable. Children are mostly affected by how their parents react, not by the situation itself (with the possible exception of the babies and toddlers, for whom being in those plastic gas-proof "incubators" must be stressful enough, however their parents react). I'm reminded of Joey, a huge boxer whose ferocious appearance hides a gentle soul (really he should have been born a St. Bernard). Joey belongs to a friend down the road. Every time the siren sounds, she says, Joey races for their Sealed Room and sits there shaking, his heart going pit-a-pat. She puts her arms around him (when they sit on the floor they're about the same height) and tries to soothe him, but it's difficult to explain to a dog. But this tells me more about her family's initial reactions to the alerts than perhaps she wanted me to know. Joey's reaction, after all, sounds like a classic Pavlovian response. Surely his fear was triggered by fear among his humans, and since this was always associated with the siren, the sound soon became the trigger for Joey's fear, even though the panic of the humans has distinctly lessened. Poor Joey! He doesn't even know what he's scared of. Thursday 14th February. There have been no missiles for 2 days and we have slept gratefully. The nearest thing to an alert has been the car engines, or, especially, motorcycles, especially when they accelerate uphill in low gear. You hear the note rise gradually from low to high and you tense; then a one-second pause; it's not followed by a corresponding descent, high to low, and you relax. It was only a car, after all. Then, and only then, you notice you had tensed. I'm somewhat ashamed to find myself reacting in this way, perhaps because of its dissonance with the self-image I would like to preserve. But I think even the first notes of Gerschwin's Rhapsody in Blue would bring most of Israel to its collective feet at the moment. I recently heard (perhaps from the other Israeli diarists? -- I forget) that our consumption of chocolate has risen by 45 to 50% since the war started. Here I'm a big offender; is this also evidence for being tense? How depressing. On the other hand, how comforting to know that I can Blame It On The War. I'm trying not to comment on the attack on the Iraqi bunker. On the human level, anything an outside commentator can say is trite and inadequate. On the political, there's enough rhetoric bouncing around already. What I don't understand is why people should be surprised. Saddam has a well-established policy of placing military facilities in population centres (so, incidentally, does the PLO in Lebanon) and of placing civilians, his own or the enemy's, in military installations. It must have been clear to the Allies from the start that a military bunker of strategic importance would have a high chance of also housing civilians. So someone must have taken the decision from the start, that this is not a sufficient reason for not hitting military targets. What's the alternative? Once a "human shield" can be shown to work, Saddam has only to place civilians in all military installations and he's stopped the Allied attack. There is no way to fight a completely moral war. I'm reminded of Churchill's decision in WWII, not to evacuate the city of Coventry even though intercepted German messages showed that it was to be bombed. Britain decided to accept massive civilian casualties rather than take steps which would have signaled the Germans that their military codes had been broken. Soldiers' lives are always "worth" more than civilian lives in war, even if the civilians are your own, because it's the soldiers who determine the outcome of the battle. You can wrangle about whether 400 actual civilian deaths are a justifiable price to pay for the potential saving of 20 times as many soldiers' lives, and about whether it matters if the soldiers and civilians are on the same or opposite sides. What it boils down to is that you cannot fight a humane or moral war, and all the wrangling is either propaganda or an attempt to square your self-image as humane and moral with that sad fact. I cannot look at the tear-worn face of the man who says "I lost my wife and 2 children. Is that fair?" No, it isn't fair. War is not fair. Life is not fair either, and death almost never. The question is beside the point, but still I cannot bear to look at his face. I think it very probable that the U.S. will try to demolish the other military bunkers in Baghdad, whether or not there are civilians inside. The alternative is to leave the command and communications centers functioning in the approaching ground battle. I only hope the Iraqi population will now have the sense to stay out of what may have been presented to them as "public air-raid shelters". (I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even know there are military command posts below them.) Well, that was the result of trying not to comment. Before I leave work, a colleague shares with me the latest news. A friend of a friend...of a friend who listens to the Arabic radio channels reports that the Arab station(s) have been urging all the Arabs to leave Haifa this weekend. The grapevine is very efficient. I make a mental note of whom not to tell. Ori's parents head the list. Undoubtedly the rumour arouses some slight feeling of apprehension. If it's true, we're in for an interesting weekend. I wonder which channel(s) broadcast it. There are 3 possibilities: Iraq (if they're still broadcasting), Jordan, or the PLO in Lebanon. I wonder if it's a real threat or a contribution to the war of nerves. I decide not to tell my own children either; in the end I tell only Gadi. "Just like the War of Independence," is his immediate comment. He's right: then too, the Arab countries warned the Arabs of Haifa to get out and let them mop up the Jews unhampered. It'd only take a few days, they said. Those who left have been stranded in Gaza and the West Bank ever since, "personae non gratae" to all the countries who told them to leave as well as to Israel. I wonder how many of them will believe their radio this time. 8 pm. By the time I wander into the living-room, the earliest of the evening news broadcasts is already in the middle of a subtitled English- language report on the bunker bombing. It takes about 2 minutes to realise that this isn't a CNN report. It's too comprehensive, too even-handed. Right, says Gadi, it's NBC. When you can tell whether a report emanates from CNN or not, just by the tone, in 2 minutes flat, you know CNN isn't broadcasting news. Not objective news, anyway. In fact the 2 Israeli TV channels sometimes cut a few pictures from CNN reports into their own news, but almost never relay a complete CNN report, and I can't blame them. We get NBC reports; we get ABC's Nightline, both duly subtitled. Those who want CNN have to watch it on Lebanon (and I assume the central area, which is too far away to receive Lebanon, gets it on Jordan. I can't get Jordanian TV, I'm too far away from them, so I can't check the point.) Having watched it on Lebanon, I have to admit I agree with the policy of the Israeli stations. CNN has placed itself too firmly in the Iraqi camp to be acceptable as "news". What does it help to be the biggest voice in Baghdad, if you pay for it with your independence and your integrity? Friday 15th February. A dull, grey day. Low clouds and a cold, dry north-east wind: a winter hamsin. The trees rock in the gusts, tall ships riding out the wind-waves; the geraniums in the window-box shiver. The radio can find no more cheerful fare than the widening gap between the cost of living index and the level of wages. After this it brings us the current argument between the honourable and cultured Ministers Pat and Moda'i, each of which, according to the other, himself needs the Ministrations of a white-coated attendant in a closed ward. A grey February day and life is getting back to normal. The Allies have their disagreements too: each presents a conflicting view of when the ground war will start. Their voices rise in turn from the media, point counterpoint. Very soon, says one. Not for some time, says another. Unlike Pat and Moda'i, this is an orchestrated harmony of dissonance; for if one thing's sure, it's that they intend to keep the Iraqis guessing about when the ground campaign will start. The U.S. is confident that it can finish the ground war in a week. So says the radio, and the radio never lies. I still think they'll need at least two. If this were Britain the bookies would be taking bets on it; in Britain they probably are. 9:30 am. The radio announces that the U.S. has started using fire-bombs to clear minefields. It sounds like a high-intensity modern version of napalm. I look out of the window into the garden and see the flat rice-fields of Vietnam. Mental associations are dangerous beasts. They say it's only to clear minefields. The radio says it so it must be true. I wonder what else they have in their arsenal. If the sun were shining I could be optimistic, I could reflect that this probably means the ground attack is approaching, and therefore the end of the war. Under these grey clouds I can see only the rice-fields. 10:10 am. The radio suddenly switches to a loud, monotonous wail. The siren? No, can't be, it's not rising and falling. Must be a technical fault. But I'm not sure. I hurry to the kitchen. From the window I could swear I hear, faintly, the siren. The kids are in school, what's happening there now? Then the kitchen radio falls silent, and a moment later the announcer reassures us that it was indeed just a transmission fault. Not what he knows we're all thinking. So I couldn't have heard the siren from the window after all. My ears are playing tricks on me. I'm surprised to notice how fast my heart is beating, even though I know it wasn't the siren. I don't react like this when there's a real alert. Why now? Perhaps because a daytime alert would be a major break in the pattern. At 10:15 the radio tells us that the siren in Haifa was a false alarm. Perhaps some siren operator was misled by the sound on the radio, too. At least I can still trust my own ears. I take back what I said about Ori's parents jumping at every car backfire. I go back to vacuuming the house. Back to Normal. There won't be an alert till tonight. We can expect one tonight, there almost always is one on Friday nights. My heart won't race when it comes, we'll be Back to Normal. What worries us is not the attack but the unexpected. 3:30 pm. Gadi was in the Technion all morning and I was so busy cleaning and cooking alone that I don't catch Saddam's announcement till now. Just as well, by 3:30 I have all the reactions too. Saddam gives 6 impossible conditions for leaving Kuwait. Now the world can get on with its favourite game of guessing. Perhaps the new American weapon, which threatens to wipe out Saddam's carefully laid minefields, has forced his hand? But the announcement sounds as if it was formulated slowly and carefully, not in a rush since 9:30 this morning. Perhaps this is another attempt to sow discord in the coalition, among the Arab partners? Meanwhile the bombing continues. The Allies hesitate for a moment, shrug their collective shoulders, and it's Back to Normal. Bush must be feeling very relieved. The least important objective of this war is to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait. I hope the announcement doesn't mean that Saddam's getting desperate. We know that if and when he feels he has nothing more to lose, he just might "go chemical", if he can. I remember the warnings to the Arabs of Haifa. I'm in the car as I hear all this, taking Liron to a birthday party (the kid's father is manager of a movie theatre and the whole class is invited to a free and private showing of whatever it is that kids enjoy. Indiana Jones, I think; it's at about the 10-year-old level. Public movies haven't resumed in Haifa yet.) I continue to the Technion to check some batch jobs I put in for the weekend. Next week we're moving to our new computer -- on schedule despite all -- and I have some housekeeping to do on the files beforehand. The library is closed, of course, but I find it awash in song. There's folk dancing on the roof of the student centre, right next to the library. They usually have folk dancing on Friday nights, but have missed a few weeks (B. of the S.) and are now resuming in the afternoon instead. Quite a few students have gathered; not as many as I've seen on other occasions, but not bad. Folk dancing plays an active role in the Israeli tradition we have invented, as soon as a suitable new song appears, someone will be sure to fit a dance to it. Liron is herself an avid folk dancer. At her age the boys think it's sissy, but by the time they reach the Technion there are almost as many boys in the folk-dancing group as girls. Unfortunately the main thing I remember about my own folk-dancing years is how hard it was, as a 14-year-old youth group leader, to get the 8-year-old boys and girls to hold hands when the dance required it. But it's nice to hear the music as I check my mail. The sun has come out, too. Perhaps we really are getting back to normal. And a quiet weekend to all of you, too. From: <RWERMAN@HUJIVMS> Subject: The Ultimate Aloneness of Israel Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 18:01 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2286 (2646) Sunday, 17 February The Ultimate Aloneness of Israel Things are getting back to normal. The few days - and even weeks - when all the good guys were wearing white cowboy suits and working together against the bandits in black may be slipping away from us. The originally reluctant members of the coalition once again appear reluctant; the theme that was initially common to the activist members of the coalition as well as to the minimalists - stopping Saddam Hussein - no longer appears to be a sufficient bond to unite all members of the coalition. There are those, like Russia and some of the Arab members of the coalition, who see Saddam Hussein's conditional agreement to withdraw from Kuwait, announced on Friday, as real and providing a basis for negotiation. France - relatively uncommitted even at the beginning - is again wavering. After initial reluctance to participate actively, France joined in the bombings with some appetite but now, who knows? And France is not alone. Some of the allies think that Saddam Hussein's humiliating terms for withdrawal [Including reparations for damage done to Iraq; withdrawal of foreign troops from the Persian Gulf; forcing Israel to withdraw from the administered territories] should be accepted; others reject them for what they are - a cheap trick, with publicity as its aim, attempting to create a picture of Iraqi willingness to negotiate as opposed to the intransigence of the US and its allies. Amazing to me is that there is one area of agreement that still binds the allies together, a desire to get Israel to enfranchise a Palestinian state. Even more amazing to me is that this purpose is shared by the other side, by Iraq. And by the PLO, hero of this new drama whose staging is actively being prepared backstage, the new production slated to follow the Persian Gulf War. The same producer, the US, is hoping to have one success follow another. The PLO, the accepted voice of the Palestinians in the world, in the UN [where Yassar Arafat is allowed to hold forth, gun in hand], in the Vatican [Which accepts the PLO but does not yet recognize Israel] is to be rewarded for its support of Saddam Hussein by getting the leading role. Israel, for its restraint, praised by all, will be the villain again - a matter of type casting. Hollywood, Hollywood. A wonderful town. But while there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not the Iraqis are responsible for the bombings and casualties that country has suffered, there is little doubt in anyone's mind that Israel is guilty of some great crime and must be punished. The US State Department has shown great irritability in response to Israeli complaints that the State Department has blocked Israeli bidding for defense contracts that Congress has approved, for ignoring the promise given to provide guarantees for an Israeli loan to deal with the problems of absorbing the great Russian immigration that has already arrived here and continues to stream in our direction, for asking why non-coalition countries are given licences to purchase a super-computer while Israel is denied that right. Irritability, yes. Denial, no. Correction, no. These requests of Israel will not be honored - unless. Israel as a friendly nation or even ally, as a fellow sufferer in the war, for showing restraint at the specific request of the State Department is to be bent at the rack. Every bit of ammunition available will be used to force Israel to enfranchise a Palestinian state in its midst. No, none of Israel's requests is enough. So let us use them all together to force the Palestinian state down Israel's throat after the Persian Gulf War is over. The streets of Moscow are filmed with a large procession of Russians carrying placards inscribed in red and black paint denouncing the Jews in general, and Israel in particular. No Jews in the government, say the signs. What Jews? It makes no difference that there are no Jews; perhaps Gorbechov is thinking of converting. No fighting a Jewish war, read the posters. What Jewish war? Presumably this proclamation is responsive to Saddam Hussein's claim that Israel is Iraq's real opponent in the Persian Gulf war and that the coalition is merely doing Israel's fighting for her. And the conservative and military elements in the Soviet Union are applying pressure to get out of the Persian Gulf. The government is eager to accept Saddam Hussein's conditions as a basis for negotiation - if he would only relax them a bit. They need to end their participation in the War to thwart the anti-perestroika forces. The Muslim states in the USSR are interested in gaining their independence. They fight the central government on any issue possible; given their religious identity, it is only natural for them too to support the new Saladin, the hope of Muslim regeneration. And they do. In the face of this backlash, in the face of growing and outspoken anti-semitism in the USSR, it is also no surprise that Russian Jews continue to flow into missile-attacked Israel. The economics of the move are simple. It is safer for a Jew to be in Israel now than in today's Russia. The foreign minister of the USSR and the US Secretary of State - at their very first meeting after the onset of hostilities in the Persian Gulf - rush to announce jointly the importance of settling the Palestinian problem immediately after the Persian Gulf crisis is resolved. There is nothing more important on their agendas. The first order of business - on the very day the war ends, I presume - will be to punish Israel for cooperating with the US and its coalition allies and reward the Palestinians for their unflinching support of .... Of whom? Of Saddam Hussein. Syrian and Moroccan troops in Saudi Arabia, members of the coalition in good standing, break out in hurrahs of joy and triumph and fire automatic weapons into the air on hearing that Iraqi Scuds land in Israeli cities. A celebration is a celebration - and cannons are also fired. Finally a Saudi force has to be sent to calm them down. More than 100 Syrian officers have been arrested following their outspoken criticism of Syrian involvement on the US side in the Gulf War. They demand to be returned to Syria. They, too, know that Israel is the real enemy. There is also the Arab Jihad, an interesting organization with a strong Palestinian element, headed by Sheik Assad Tamini, a former resident of the Hebron region in Israel. He was expelled a good number of years ago for fomenting riot and revolution and now lives in Jordan. It is frightening to listen to him on TV; he is an avuncular and sweet looking man who speaks softly; no histrionics for him. And in a soft voice he enunciates legions of hate. He now threatens to assassinate President Mubarak of Egypt, "just as we killed Sadat." "Hussani Mubarak," he continues,"has sold his his soul to the Americans and he too will die." He threatens all members of the coalition with acts of terrorism. But the chief object of his animosity is Israel and the Jews. "We must kill all the Jews," Tamini says, "they have always been the source of mankind's troubles. Hitler saw us as firm allies against Zionism. We would like the unified Germany to help us now." Clearly, as all nations [almost all?] are agreed, Israel is guilty of crimes against mankind. Or at least against the Palestinians. And must pay. What is this great crime that Israel is guilty of? I have neither the time nor space to tell it all here; but in brief the recent history [one can go back to the crucifixion or earlier, too, but ...] of our "crime" began in November 1947 when the UN decided to divide the British Mandate in Palestine into two countries, one Arab, one Jewish. Lead by the Palestinian leader and former ally of Hitler, the Mufti of Jerusalem, within and by five Arab states without, five Arab armies invaded the new Israel with the explicit purpose of destroying her. Arab leaders told Palestinians to leave their homes for a short time to clear the field for the invading armies and a great number did, creating the refugee problem which still exists. Badly outnumbered and out-gunned, the Israelis managed to stave off the attack, but not before Jordan seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt seized Gaza. In 1967, Egypt and Syria once again decided to eliminate Israel from the map of the Middle East [CNN has done the work for the Arabs; the name Israel does not appear on the CNN map of the Middle East.]. Israel, arming for the struggle warned Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Jordan did not accept the warning and when the dust of battle cleared, Israel had captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from the Jordanians, the Golan Heights from Syria, and Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Israel hoped to return some of these territories in exchange for peace. Only Egypt has agreed to deal with Israel and following the Camp David agreements, received Sinai back [Egypt refused to take back Gaza, a constant source of trouble.] Other than Egypt, which maintains correct but not friendly relations with Israel and exchanges Ambassadors with us, none of the Arab nations recognize the existence of Israel or is willing to sign a peace treaty with her. That is - in a nutshell - Israel's crime. The Palestinians have been the great losers throughout, not without their own fault. But the Arab nations which have absorbed them have hardly been outstanding in helping them, leaving many in refugee camps without work for years - in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. The reasons for this include both indifference to Palestinian suffering and use of their poverty as a political football to arouse the sympathy of the world. The Palestinians [Like Sheik Tamini, one of them] want Israel out of the Middle East; they [sometimes] say that they are willing to live in peace with us - but the organizational charter of their most representative political body includes a paragraph on the necessity for exterminating Israel. Forgive us for our opacity and what seems like cruelty. But we are not willing to allow armed enemies bent on our destruction to live in our midst; we are worried about the short distance to our cities, we are worried about the ability of countries like a still armed Iraq to march to within 10 miles of our coast, where they could cut the country in half. Do not forgive us if it is not in your heart to. But we will not commit suicide. That is not our style. Meanwhile, under the threat of the Scuds, under the threat of a poison gas attack, we stand mostly united, hoping for the best and expecting the very worst. __Bob Werman rwerman@hujivms Jerusalem copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Editors: We're a bit behind Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 01:02:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1067 (2647) To those of you who have requests pending or have submitted files for the fileserver -- sorry about the delay, we're a bit behind at the moment. Also: switching to AFD distribution of the Mideast diaries has been put off a few days. -- Allen From: "Allen Renear, CIS, Brown Univ. 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Character Set Lists (again) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 21:35:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2287 (2648) Again I am cross-posting a selection of postings on character set issues. This batch is from the listserv list ISO10646 at JHUVM, which is for discussing multibyte character sets proposals such as ISO 10646 and Unicode. Tomorrow I will post a selection from the character set discussion on the listserv list TEI-L at UICVM, which is for discussion the Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines. I believe the discussions of character set standards taking place on these lists are very important to computing humanists -- and I think you will find them surprising intellectually engaging as well. (There are also delightful asides: most recently on Sanskrit acrostics and diacritical marks in Serbo-Croatian crossword puzzles.) -- Allen From: Edwin Hart <HART@APLVM.BITNET> Subject: Having more than one global-multibyte code Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 09:42:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2288 (2649) Gentlemen, I made as statement to the SHARE membership to the effect that having two multibyte codes would be a disaster for the information industry. I still feel that way. At this point, Unicode and DIS 10646 are incompatible. To solve this problem, we have three choices: 1. Merge Unicode and 10646 someway (probably mutually disagreeable to both parties) 2. Support 10646 and ignore Unicode 3. Ignore 10646 and support Unicode What appears more likely is that we will have both codes available and used. Unicode will not disappear because certain people in ISO have ignored it. ISO 10646 will not disappear because people coding in Unicode want to ignore it. Because of the different philosophies behind 10646 and Unicode, coversion between the two coding schemes will not be as "easy" as converting between ASCII and EBCDIC where the repertoires are the same except for 3 ASCII and 3 EBCDIC characters. I said "easy" because I was the editor of a 100 page SHARE position paper to IBM. That paper described several classes of problems converting character data from ASCII to EBCDIC and vice versa. The paper described problems converting between two coding schemes with the same coding philosophy. Converting between two codes with different philosphies AND different repertoires AND with 30,000 defined code positions may prove impossible without losing some of the information. That is the disaster we are facing. It may keep several consultants in business for decades. I am not trying to blame ISO or the Unicode Consortium for this problem. I am concerned with finding a solution to avoid having the problem. Ed Hart From: "J. W. van Wingen" <BUTPAA@HLERUL2.BITNET> Subject: Re: Having more than one global-multibyte code Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 17:29:00 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2289 (2650) Dear Colleagues [deleted quotation] I completely agree. [deleted quotation] There are two aspects. First the formal one. Unicode is not now an International Standard and never will become one as long as the ISO procedures are not followed. This involves that it will not become an European Standard. Conformance to these is a requirement for any government contract in Europe in the future. Products offering only Unicode will be excluded from this market. Thus choice 3 is unrealistic. Choice 1 is only possible if parties are prepared to cooperate under the established rules as are given in ISO Directives. [deleted quotation] If people prefer short-term thinking it is at their own risk. But it is an historical fact that ISO standards always win in the long run. About 1970 almost nobody used ASCII, and new non-IBM computers were built around EBCDIC. We see the same thing happeing with SNA vs OSI. This does not mean that I consider 10646 perfect. But we should spend all our energy to improve it, even if the eventual result would have a strong likeness to Unicode. Best regards, Johan van Wingen From: "J. W. van Wingen" <BUTPAA@HLERUL2.BITNET> Subject: Re: Interworking with Unicode Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 17:45:00 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2290 (2651) Dear Colleagues [deleted quotation] The concept of character is used in many other fields of information technology, for example programming languages (SC22), data base systems (SC21 WG5), text communication and networks (X400), Text and Office Systems (SC18: ODA, SGML). Georges Clemenceau (French Prime Minister in 1918) has said: War is a too important subject to leave it to generals. In the same way I say: Characters are a too important subject to leave it to linguists. The nature of characters in programming languages has been under study for two years, and it appeared to be difficult and little understood. Anyhow the concept that emerges shall be adapted to many requirements, not only to those of the linguists. Best regards, Johan van Wingen Liaison representative from ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2 Characters and Information Coding to SC22, Languages (for Information Technology) From: "J. W. van Wingen" <BUTPAA@HLERUL2.BITNET> Subject: AEILS Newsletter Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 15:39:00 CET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2291 (2652) Last Friday I eceived a copy of the Feb 1991 issue of the AEILS Newsletter. It contains a Table 1, Comparison of ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode. This is a nice and informative scheme, but I think it is rather unwittingly biassed towards Unicode. With Unicode there are two aspects, that of procedure, and that of content. With the first, there is no regular way to discuss it in standards committees. We have no control over what would happen with a vote based on a national position. To put it quite bluntly, with ISO 10646 we know what the effect will be of a negative vote from the Netherlands. We prefer results based on Rights over that based on Courtesy from the designers only. In other words, if the choice is between International Democracy and Californian Dictate, we know very well where to stand. Now ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) is opposing Unicode, the rest of Europe will follow. Given the strict rules for government procurement, Unicode will not be accepted, and use of it in files will severely restrict their portability. This may not bother people in the US. In fact they seem to think that it is only a question of competing proposals. This a grave mistake. You may start printing your own dollar notes, because the official design does not satisfy you. And in fact, it appears that many of your friends and relations are prepared to accept them, even prefer them to official money. But as soon as you arrive far from home, people tell you that your values are worthless. This is not an invented example. People who have experienced the variety of pound notes in Scotland, and how these are refused for a change in London, know what I mean. With the second, there is a misleading claim by Unicode that it is a fixed two-byte code. However, as a result of using floating diacritics, languages using characters with many diacritics will have to code some with two, some with 4, 6, 8, like in Vietnamese. On the contrary, ISO 10646 contains a code for all the separate characters, and is thus a true fixed byte code, which may take 2, 3 or 4 bytes, but the same fixed number for the whole of the file. There is considerable confusion about this with people who have not read the original documents. Best regards, Johan van Wingen Mail to P. O. Box 486, 2300AL LEIDEN, The Netherlands From: Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: This Digest Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 16:14:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2292 (2653) The following postings are from a discussion of Unicode on TEI-L (UICVM), a list for the discussion of the Text Encoding Initiative. The three authors are long-time Humanist members. I believe the issues being raised in these character set discussions are very important for humanities computing. A response to these criticisms of Unicode will follow in the next digest. -- Allen From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: Unicode Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 11:22:51 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2293 (2654) I think it's important to think about the general aspects as well as about whether Unicode does or does not have the variant form for this or that letter in this or that writing system. Some general points occur to me: a. Pace Harry Gaylord, Unicode seems to me to be biased towards display rather than other forms of data processing. Some semantic distinctions are observed, but roughly speaking, if things look substantially different, even though semantically substantially the same, they get different codes (e.g. medial and final sigma in Greek - or alphabets of Roman numerals or letters in circles - or the various forms of cedilla at U+0300 up). If on the other hand they look substantially the same, even though semantically different, they may well get the same code (e.g. hacek is considered to be identical with superscript v, and the overlaps are very acute in the mathematical symbol area). Digraphs only get in if they are in existing standards (German ss, Dutch ij, Slav Dz), i.e. since you can display, say, Spanish "ch" as "c" followed by "h" there is no provision for a code to mean "ch", though this might well be helpful in non-display contexts. b. "Unicode makes no pretense to correlate character encoding with collation or case" and indeed it doesn't. The basic setup (for those who haven't seen the draft) is that the high byte is used to indicate a kind of code page, which may contain one or more alphabets/syllabaries/symbol sets, etc. There's no attempt to use bit fields of non-byte width within the 16 bits, except in so far as sequences within existing eight-bit standards have done this. The difference between lc and uc can be 1, 32 or 48 (possibly others as well), while runs of letters can be interrupted by numerals and non-letters. Previous standards play a role here, but there seems to me to be no compelling reason if you're drawing up a 16-bit code to say that you will take over all existing standards on the basis of eight-bit code + fixed offset! It's an opportunity to eliminate rather than perpetuate things which in any case only originated because of restrictions which no longer apply. c. Diacritics are trailing "non-spacing" separate characters (actually they're backspacing). Diacritics modifying two letters follow the second one. The point has already been made that you can't really do it any other way (though in a 32-bit code you could probably do it with bit-fields). However, trailing diacritics seem to me undesirable, because you have to "maintain state" (something the Unicode people claim to eliminate) in any programming you do. If you're reading a file or a string sequentially you can't even send a character to the printer or the screen until you have checked the one after it to make sure it's not a trailing diacritic! For the user, the order of storage is irrelevant; for the programmer, preceding diacritics are much easier to handle in most contexts. The slavish take- over of existing eight-bit standards means that many diacritics are also codable as "static" single characters - as has been pointed out, this leads to potential ambiguities. Diacritics apart, there seem to be conflicts of interest between different applications, which *necessarily* lead to ambiguities or difficulties for someone. Take the "s" problem. Harry Gaylord says he needs long s as a code of its own; Unicode itself distinguishes between Greek medial and final sigma, and between "s" + "s" and German "szet", on the basis of existing standards. Any text containing these coding distinctions can be displayed more easily and more faithfully to its original than it can without them (though I would have thought there was no serious problem about identifying final sigma and acting accordingly). But other kinds of analysis become *more* difficult if such coding is used: regular expressions involving "s" are much more difficult to construct, as are collating and comparison sequences. This is an area where SGML-style entities are positively advantageous, simply because they announce their presence: if long s is always coded as &slong; in a base text, different applications can be fed with different translations. Precisely because Unicode puts so much emphasis on how things look rather than what they mean, it won't eliminate the need for such "kludges", as someone on HUMANIST thought it would. Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich From: "Robert A. Amsler" <amsler@STARBASE.MITRE.ORG> Subject: Presentation vs. Descriptive CHARACTER Markup Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 08:38:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2294 (2655) Timothy Reuter's note on UNICODE suggests that we ought to be careful that the same guidelines that have led the TEI to select descriptive markup for text not be abandoned when we get to characters. The TEI's concern should first and foremost be whether a character representation represents the meaning of the characters to the authors, and not their presentation format. Likewise, this also means that how the representation is achieved is rather irrelevant to whether or not the markup captures the meaning of the character. I think it worth noting that to me there seems to be a need for two standards for characters. One to represent their meaning, the other to represent their print images. The print image representation has a LOT of things to take into account, and may in fact only be possible in some form such as the famous "Hersey fonts" released long ago by the US National Bureau of Standards. That is, the print image on characters and symbols may have to be accompanied by representations as bit maps or equations as to how to draw the characters within a specified rectangular block of space. Within the descriptive markup, there clearly are enough problems to solve without adding the burden of achieving consistent print representations on all display devices. For example, one descriptive issue is that of whether the representation is adequate for spoken or only written forms of the language. While the TEI has addressed the concerns of researchers in linguistics dealing with speech, there exists a need to address the concerns of ordinary text users concerned with the representation of information about indicating spoken language information in printed form. Some of this is a bit arcane, such as how to represent text dialogues to be spoken with a foreign accent, but representing EMPHASIS is a continual issue and emphasis can descend to the characteristics of individual letters. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1.BITNET> Subject: CHAR ENCODING AND TEXT PROCESSING Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 16:15:56 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2295 (2656) A propos of recent comments by Timothy Reuter and Robert A. Amsler on the relationship between character encodings and (optimized) text processing, two notes: (1) Timothy writes that "Unicode seems to me to be biased towards display rather than other forms of data processing." We note that UNICODE indeed does contain algorithms for formatting right-to-left text and bi-directional text, but (as far as I know) it has no general support for indicating the language in which a text occurs. (2) On the matter of separating "form and function" (various two-level distinctions germane to character encoding and writing systems: character and graph; graph and image; language and script; writing system and script), the following article by Gary Simons may be of interest. (I do not know if it represents his current thinking in every detail.) Gary F. Simons, "The Computational Complexity of Writing Systems." Pp. 538-553 in _The Fifteenth LACUS Forum 1988_ (edited by Ruth M. Brend and David G. Lockwood). Lake Bluff, IL: Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, 1989. <abstract>In this article the author argues that computer systems, like their users, need to be multilingual. ``We need computers, operating systems, and programs that can potentially work in any language and can simultaneously work with many languages at the same time." The article proposes a conceptual framework for achieving this goal. Section 1, ``Establishing the baseline," focuses on the problem of graphic rendering and illustrates the range of phenomena which an adequate solution to computational rendering of writing systems must account for. These include phenomena like nonsequential rendering, movable diacritics, positional variants, ligatures, conjuncts, and kerning. Section 2, ``A general solution to the complexities of character rendering," proposes a general solution to the rendering of scripts that can be printed typographically. (The computational rendering of calligraphic scripts adds further complexities which are not addressed.) The author first argues that the proper modeling of writing systems requires a two-level system in which a functional level is distinguished from a formal level. The functional level is the domain of characters (which represent the underlying information units of the writing system). The formal level is the domain of graphs (which represent the distinct graphic signs which appear on the surface). The claim is then made that all the phenomena described in section 1 can be handled by mapping from characters to graphs via finite-state transducers -- simple machines guaranteed to produce results in linear time. A brief example using the Greek writing system is given. Section 3, ``Toward a conceptual model for multilingual computing," goes beyond graphic rendering to consider the requirements of a system that would adequately deal with other language-specific issues like keyboarding, sorting, transliteration, hyphenation, and the like. The author observes that every piece of textual data stored in a computer is expressed in a particular language, and it is the identity of that language which determines how the data should be rendered, keyboarded, sorted, and so on. He thus argues that a rendering-centered approach which simply develops a universal character set for all languages will not solve the problem of multilingual computing. Using examples from the world's languages, he goes on to define language, script, and writing system as distinct concepts and argues that a complete system for multilingual computing must model all three.</abstract> <note>Availability: Offprints of this article are available from the author at the following Internet address: gary@txsil.lonestar.org. The volume is available from LACUS, P.O. Box 101, Lake Bluff, IL 60044.</note> Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 INTERNET: robin@ling.uta.edu INTERNET: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: Ken Whistler <whistler@ZARASUN.METAPHOR.COM> Subject: Re: CHAR ENCODING AND TEXT PROCESSING Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 19:15:04 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2296 (2657) Dear Mr. Cover, I would like to respond to your recent note, and the implications of the abstract you have made from Gary Simon's article. (In this I am speaking personally, and my opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Unicode Technical Committee.) First of all, I want to make it clear that Unicode is not, nor does it purport to be, a text description language. It is a character encoding. We need to code the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A and the ARABIC LETTER ALEF and the DEVANAGARI LETTER A in order for any text to be encoded, and for any textual process to be programmed to operate on that text. However, assigning 16-bit values to those characters (0041, 0627, and 0905, respectively) does not, ipso facto, specify whether the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A is being used in an English, Czech, or Rarotongan text, or the ARABIC LETTER ALEF in Arabic, Sindhi, or Malay, or the DEVANAGARI LETTER A in Hindi or Nepali. Trying to mix the character encoding with specification of textual language is guaranteed to mess up the character encoding; the appropriate place to handle this is at a metalevel of text/document description above the level of the character encoding. On the other hand, the bidirectional text problem is specifiable independent of any particular language--or even script, for that matter, since the generic problem is the same for Hebrew as it is for Arabic (scripts). The fundamental reason why Unicode is going to great lengths to include a bidirectional plain text model is that without an explicit statement of how to do this, the content of texts which contain both left-to-right and right-to-left scripts mixed can be compromised or corrupted when such texts are interchanged. If we do not come down squarely in favor of an implicit model (or an explicit model with direction-changing controls, or a visual order model), then bidirectional Unitext will regularly get scrambled, and no one will know how to interpret a number embedded in bidi text, etc., etc. Regarding form/function distinctions, I think you are preaching to the converted. I do not think you will be able to find another multilingual character encoding of this scope which has been developed with such a meticulous attention to the distinctions you mention: character vs. glyph (i.e. "graph" as you quote Simons) We have been educating people about this for years. Granted, there are glyphs encoded as characters in Unicode, too, but the main reason they got there is because Unicode has to be interconvertible to a lot of other "character" standards which couldn't distinguish the two. And why does Unicode have to be interconvertible? A) Because that is the only way to get it accepted and move into the future, and B) Because that serves the purpose of creating better software to handle text processing requirements for preexisting data. glyph vs. image Also clearly distinguished amongst our discussions. I think Unicoders are supportive of the concept of proceeding to develop a definitive registry of glyphs. This would be most helpful to font foundaries and font vendors, but also would help the software makers in performing the correct operations to map characters (in particular language and script contexts) into glyphs for rendering as images. But registry of glyphs is a different task from encoding of characters. For one thing, the universe of glyphs is much larger than the universe of characters. Unicode 1.0 is aimed at completing the character encoding as expeditiously and correctly as possible, rather than at taking on the larger glyph registry problem. language vs. script Also clearly distinguished. Unicode characters, taken by blocks, can be assigned to scripts. Hence the characters from 0980 to 09F9 are all part of the Bengali script. But no one is confusing that with the fact that some subset of those is used in writing the Bengali language and another subset in writing Assamese. script vs. writing system Again, I think you will find us sympathetic and non unaware of the distinctions involved. For example, most of us have worked on or are currently working on implementations of the Japanese writing system for one product or another on computer. Anyone with a smattering of knowledge of Japanese knows that the writing system is a complicated mix of two syllabaries, Han characters (kanji), and an adapted form of European scripts which can be rendered either horizontally or rotated for vertical rendering. It is a complicated writing system which is difficult to implement properly on computer--but that is a separate issue from how to encode the characters. You quote Gary Simons as stating that: "We need computers, operating systems, and programs that can potentially work in any language and can simultaneously work with many languages at the same time." I can guarantee you that this is the passionate concern of those who have been working on Unicode for the last two years. It is precisely because the character encoding alternatives (ISO 2022, ISO DIS 10646, various incomplete corporate multilingual sets, and font-based encodings which confuse characters and font-glyphs) are so dismal that we have worked so hard to design a multilingual character set with the correct attributes for support of multilingual operating systems, multilingual applications, multilingual text interchange and email, multilingual displays and printers, multilingual input schemes, and yes, multilingual text processing. Don't expect the holy grail by Tuesday, but if we really think all those things are worth aiming for, it is vitally important that those who build the operating systems, the networks, the low-level software components, and the high-level applications reach a reasonably firm consensus about the character encoding now. --Ken Whistler From: Ken Whistler <whistler@ZARASUN.METAPHOR.COM> Subject: Re: Unicode Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 20:52:12 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2297 (2658) Dear Mr. Reuter, I addressed some of your concerns in my reply to Robin Cover, but I would like to respond to a few of the specific points which you have raised. (Disclaimer: These are personal opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Unicode Technical Committee.) Regarding your point a., that Unicode seems biased towards display rather than other forms of data processing. First of all, you must understand that Unicode has been visited with the sins of our fathers. The medial and final sigma are already distinguished in the Greek standard. We cannot unify them without Hellenic catastrophe. (In fact the Classicists inform us that there are good reasons why we must introduce a third sigma, the "lunate sigma", in order to have a correct and complete encoding.) Nobody likes the Roman numerals, or the parenthesized letters, or the squared Roman abbreviations, ... The general reaction has been Sheesh! But important Chinese, Japanese, and Korean standards which have to be interconvertible with Unicode have already encoded such stuff, and we are stuck with it. Why? Because the design goal of a perfect, de novo, consistent, and principled character encoding is unattainable (believe me, we tried), and because the higher goal of attaining a usable, implementable, and well-engineered character encoding in a finite time is greatly furthered by including as much as possible of the preexisting character encoding standards. You also noted that the semantic overlaps are very acute in the mathematical symbol area. Nobody can tell us how many distinct semantic usages there are for "tilde", for example. Should we encode 1, 3, 7, 16 of them?? We made what I think is the best compromise we could under the circumstances. The TILDE OPERATOR is encoded as a math operator (distinct from accents, whether spacing or non-spacing), but no further attempt is made to separate all the possible semantics applicable. Note that if we start trying to distinguish "difference" from "varies with" from "similar", from "negation", etc., we would be forcing applications (and users) to encode the correct semantic--even when they don't know or can't distinguish them. This has the potential for being WORSE for text processing, rather than better. Over-differentiation in encoding is just as bad as under-differentiation. I don't understand your concern about not distinguishing hacek and superscript v. Unicode does not encode superscript v at all. Except for those superscripts grandfathered in from other standards (remember the sins of our [grand]fathers), superscript variants of letters are considered rendering forms outside the scope of Unicode altogether. If someone uses a font which has hacek rendered in a form which looks like a superscript v, that is a separate issue. From a Unicode point of view that would simply be mapping the character HACEK onto the glyph {LATIN SMALL V} in some particular typeface for rendering above some other glyph. A font vendor could do that. It might even be the correct thing to do, for example, in building a paleographic font for manuscript typesetting. Regarding your b. item concerns about the layout of Unicode: First of all, I am sensitive about your using the term "code page" in referring to the Unicode charts. "Code page" is properly applied to 8-bit (or to some double 8-bit) encodings which can be "swapped in" or "swapped out" to change the interpretation of a particular numeric value as a character. Unicode values are fixed, unambiguous, and unswappable for anything else. The charts are simply a convenient packaging unit for human visual consumption and education. The fact that we tried to align new scripts with high byte boundaries resulted from the implementation requirement that software have easy and quick tests for script identity. The subordering within script blocks does attempt to follow existing standards, where feasible. We tried the alternative of simply enumerating all the characters in a script and then packing them in next to each other in what would pass for the "best" alphabetic order, but that introduces other problems AND makes the relevant "owners" of that script gag at the introduction of a layout unfamiliar to them. In the end all such processes such as case folding, sorting, parsing, rendering, etc. depend on table lookup of attributes and properties. There is no hard-coded shortcut which will always work--even for 7-bit ASCII. The compromise which pleased the most competing interests (and which, by the way, got us to a conclusion on this issue) was to follow national standards orders as applicable. You might note that the one REALLY BIG case where we have to depart from this is in unifying 18,000+ Han characters. The only way to do this is to depart from ALL of the Asian standards--so nobody can convert from a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean standard to Unicode by a fixed offset! Believe me, that has occasioned much more grumbling (to put it mildly) than any ordering issue for Greek or Cyrillic! Concerning your point c., about diacritics being specified as following a baseform rather than preceding it: Clearly we had to come down on one side or the other. Not specifying it would be disastrous. So we made a choice. Granted, that having diacritics follow rather than precede baseforms favors rendering algorithms over parsing algorithms. To have made the opposite choice would have reversed the polarity of benefits and costs. It is a tradeoff with no absolutely right answer. Nevertheless, I think the choice made was the correct one. First, the rendering involved is not really as you have characterized it. "Non-spacing" diacritics are NOT backspacing. Such terminology is more properly applied to spacing diacritics (such as coded in ISO 8859-1 or ISO DIS 10646), which for proper rendering use require the sending of a BACKSPACE control code between a baseform and an accent. That's the way composite characters used to be printed on daisy-wheel printers, for example. But that is a defective rendering model which ignores the complex typographical relationship between baseforms and diacritics. The kind of rendering model we are talking about involves "smart" fonts with kerning pair tables. The "printhead" is not trundled back so that an accent can be overstruck; instead, a diacritic "draws itself" appropriately, in whatever medium, on a baseform in context. The technology for doing this is fairly well-understand but quite complex. I think it would be fair to say that if I were writing a text processing program (and I have), I would rather have system support for such rendering and deal with the look-ahead problem than have to deal with font rendering problems in my program. Second, the "state" that has to be maintained in parsing diacritics is quite different from the "state" that Unicode claims to eliminate. Parse states have to be maintained for all kinds of things. If I am parsing Unicode which uses non-spacing diacritics, then I have to maintain a parse state to identify text elements; but even parsing for word boundaries, for example (an elementary operation in editing) has to maintain state to find boundaries which may depend on combinations of punctuation, or on ambiguous interpretation of some characters which can only be disambiguated in context, etc., etc. More complicated parsing often maintains elaborate parse trees with multiple states. The "statefulness" that Unicode is trying to eliminate is a state in which the interpretation of the bit pattern for a character changes, depending on which state you are in. This is the "code page sickness", where one time the 94 means "o-umlaut", and next time it means "i-circumflex", and next time it means "partial differential symbol", depending on what code page you are using, and what code page shift state you happen to be in. The two-byte encodings currently are horrible in this respect, since they may mix single-byte and two-byte interpretations in ways which may mean that figuring out what a particular byte is supposed to represent in any random location can be very difficult. You have to find an anchor position from which you can parse sequentially, maintaining state, until you get to the byte in question to find out what it means. Unicode eliminates THAT kind of state maintenance. I find myself agreeing with your statement that "there seem to be conflicts of interest between different applications, which *necessarily* lead to ambiguities or difficulties for someone." The way I would put it, following a distinction made elegantly by Joe Becker, is that there is no way that any encoding of CODE ELEMENTS (i.e. the "characters" assigned numbers in Unicode) will automatically result in one-to-one mappability to all the TEXT ELEMENTS which might ever be of interest to anyone or have to be processed as units for one application or another. Your mention of "ch" as a collation unit for Spanish is one obvious example. Fixing the CODE ELEMENTS of Unicode should not preclude efforts to identify appropriate TEXT ELEMENTS for various processes. Such TEXT ELEMENTS will have to be identified as to their appropriate domain of application--and that does include language as well as other factors. But it is not the job of the character encoding to do that work. The character encoding should be designed so as not to impede TEXT ELEMENT identification and processing--for example, it would be crazy to refuse to encode LATIN LETTER SMALL I because it could be composed of a dotless-i baseform and a non-spacing dot over! But character encoding cannot BE the TEXT ELEMENT encoding, however much we might desire a simpler world to work with. --Ken Whistler From: Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Change in Diary Delivery Mechanism Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 18:07:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1071 (2659) As mentioned earlier it is no longer practical to continue to deliver the diary material from the Middle East in the form of a regular Humanist Digest. They will now by delivered using the AFD (Automatic File Distribution) feature of Listserv. Subscription to the diaries is optional; it is not automatic in virtue of a regular Humanist subscription. If you wish to continue to receive these diaries (including any new series that may be added) please follow these instructions: Send mail with the following two lines as body text to LISTSERV@BROWNVM or to LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU. PW ADD password AFD ADD MIDEAST DIARIES HUMANIST PW=password F=MAIL Replace the string "password" with a password you will remember. Write it down -- recovering a forgotten password may take weeks. ("AFD" stands for "Automatic File Distribution") Be sure to send that mail to LISTSERV and not to HUMANIST or to EDITORS. Do _not_ use your mail software's REPLY command to send this mail. To delete your subscription to MIDEAST DIARIES send the line: AFD DELETE MIDEAST DIARIES HUMANIST PW=password You will receive the diaries as regular email. For more information about using AFD or other listserv functions send mail with the line HELP to your nearest listserv. If you don't know the address of your nearest listserv send the mail to either of the Brown addresses above and it will be forwarded to the listserv nearest you. David Sitman (A79@TAUNIVM) will answer general questions about LISTSERV commands and problems. Specific problems with your AFD subscription to MIDEAST DIARIES should be sent to the EDITORS. At this time we plan to periodically archive back issues of MIDEAST DIARIES as MIDEAST DIAyymm on the fileserver. More recent back copies may be ordered from the Editors. We may not be able to continue this archiving. Please be patient. If anything goes wrong with this procedure your Editors and the Brown Listserv Administrator will be swamped with error mail and will not be able to answer individual queries. If you read Humanist on a bulletin board, via a local mail 'exploder', or through any other similar mechanism you should speak to the relevant administrator about whether there should be a single AFD subscription. From: Terrence Erdt <ERDTT@PUCAL> Subject: Scanning microfilm (83 lines) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 17:52 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1072 (2660) During past discussions of optical character recognition, several Humanists asked about scanning microfilm. The medium is so ornery to use, of course, that even many computer phobic scholars would prefer machine readable copy. If a microfilm were scanned and rendered into digital format, then character recognition might be possible, as well as automatic indexing, and other conveniences that computers offer. Recently I learned of a company near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) that had scanned microfilm copies of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, a newspaper that Benjamin Franklin published in the eighteenth century. I visited the company's offices and found some rather impressive equipment. The hardware consisted of a box about fifteen inches high and thirty-six inches long, which held the reel of microfilm. At the operator's command, the film ran by a lens, and an image appeared on an oversize high resolution monitor attached to a 386 workstation. A smaller box, called an image "optimizer," sat on top of the scanner. I was told that the optimizer was a by-product of the technology used to enhance satellite photos, and that the scanner was produced by a company known for its bombsights, the irony of which might have given pause to Emerson and Thoreau. The image of the newspaper could be stored in any of several formats, "tiff," "pcx," and so forth, either on magnetic or optical drives. Operators entered keywords, subjects, and other access information into a file that linked to the image database, so that segments of it could be displayed as needed. The database contained, I was told, about 50,000 scanned images; the name index alone contained over a million items. I have no idea what the charges are for such a remarkable feat. The enhancer automatically adjusted the image derived from the microfilm, eliminating many of the defects one typically encounters: scratches on the film, smeared ink, print through. The operator could override the "improvements" the device imposed and manually edit the image using a "paint" program. A representative of a company that sells the microfilm scanner and other OCR products was present during the demonstration; he told me that he is preparing to offer an optical character recognition service to complement the image capture service. We agreed, however, that Franklin's newspaper (whether or not on microfilm) likely would defy the current state of the art of OCR; the broken typefaces and uneven lines would outmatch today's software. Short of rudely turning machines around, or upside down, and looking for manufacturer's logos, I could not ascertain for certain the names of each piece of equipment. The core equipment was a Mekel M400 Roll Film Scanner. The representative of the company that sells the hardware told me that a total system, including a 386 workstation, sells for about $70,000 (US). The Commission on Preservation and Access has urged that microfilm continue to be, for the present, the primary medium for preservation of books and other paper publications, until standards for computer preservation systems become reasonably standardized. The Newsletter of the Commission, which is free, frequently reports on the research in preservation that the organization is funding. For further information contact the Commission at CPA@GWUVM or: The Commission on Preservation and Access 1785 Massachusetts Ave., NW Suite 313 Washington, DC 20036-2117 USA ph.: (202) 483-7474 Humanists wanting the addresses and phone numbers of the service for creating the image database or of the distributor for the hardware are invited to write me directly. Terrence Erdt e-mail: erdtt@pucal ph: (219) 989-2659 Purdue University Calumet Hammond, IN USA From: LANA at ITOCISI Subject: dignitas regia Date: 21 February 91, 13:10:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2298 (2661) Did anyone found in latin texts from imperial times the expressions dignitas regia or dignitas domini ? The Thll (Thesaurus Linguae Latinae) doesn't know those expressions. Thank you to anyone will help. Please note that my address has changed from the previous one| Maurizio Lana From: JIMG@ducvax.auburn.edu Subject: Computer Aided Instruction in the Social Sciences Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 03:01 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2299 (2662) Here at Auburn we are implementing a new core curriculum. One of the classes will be a 3 hour a week class that will cover sociology, anthropology and geography. Yes, quite a lot in one class. It will be 2 hours lecture and 2 hours lab. I am helping develop the lab (I am only an undergrad but will be a grad student next school year). It will be run on Mac LCs. We already have 15 to work with. The syllabus is (tentively): Human Evolution from biological to cultural adaptation Social Stages from hunting and gathering to postindustrial Human's Environmental Impact Study Geographical Regions Compare Countries from Various Regions Study One Non Western Culture In Depth This of course can change radically. In the lab we would like to have an online glossary, *prof mail* (like email but directed to the professor to help promote student/prof interaction) and maybe some kind of word game for a diagnostic vocabulary test. At this time we have HyperAtlas and have created several stacks for it e.g. women's status, religions, mortality, and a few others. We also have EarthQuest and may or may not use it. Same for Mystery Fossil. We plan to check out SimEarth (I have heard good things about it and it has been mentioned several times in replies). Save the Planet Shareware has a hypercard program on the environment we may use and some people at SUNY are working on one also. The class is a large project and I don't know if we will be ready by this fall. At its peak there will be 1000-1500 students a quarter in the class. From the replies I've gotten I haven't found anyone doing something similar on such a large scale. Everyone will be required to take this class and with an enrollment of 21,000+ that will be a lot of people. Apple is salivating over this. They just upped their contribution to $70,000 worth of computer equipment. We will have 70-90 machines. What I would like to know is if anyone is doing anything similar on such a large scale. If yes what and how. email or post Thanks Barry Waid Auburn University jimg@ducvax.auburn.edu (INTERNET) jimg@auducvax (BITNET) From: Knut Hofland <FAFKH@NOBERGEN> Subject: Re: 4.1058 FTP Guide Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:22:35 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2300 (2663) I enclose the introduction to the file FTP.LIST, maintained by Jon Granrose. As described in this note, the file is available from several sources. Knut Hofland The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities Street adr: Harald Haarfagres gt. 31 Post adr: P.O. Box 53, University, N-5027 Bergen, Norway Tel: +47 5 212954/5/6 Fax: +47 5 322656 ---------------------------------------------------------------- FTP LIST ======== ATTENTION: If you have any questions, comments, or anything else feel free to mail me, but please read the rest of this header first! NEW: I have added the GMT timezone info for each site that has telnet port 13 responding in the standard way. It appears next to the "last mod" date for each site. The number is what to add to the site's local time to get GMT time. For instance, pilot.njin.net is GMT 4 which means that you add four hours to pilot's local time to get the GMT time. So in reality, pilot is fours hours earlier than GMT. Most unix systems can give you your GMT time using the date command if you don't know it. Please try to keep ftping to off-peak hours if possible. This is my list of Internet sites accepting anonymous ftp. It is dis- tributed automatically once each month. If you are sending this on to someone or in any other way providing this for someone else, please leave this header intact. Otherwise I get many questions which this would have answered. Feel free to make this list avail- able anywhere you like, as we all benefit from a freer flow of information. This list is posted to comp.misc, and comp.sources.wanted, on Usenet and is distributed via anonymous FTP from pilot.njin.net (128.6.7.38) as well as being available from several other FTP sites (see list). I am also running a simple mail-server from my account on pilot. For more information about the server, mail odin@pilot.njin.net with a subject of "listserv-request" and a message body of "send help". Rather than requesting the latest list from me by mail, simply send the request to the listserv. If you send me a request for the latest list, I will send you the help file for the listserv. I don't have the time to read all these newsgroups so if there is any- thing you want me to see, please use email. There is also a mailing list which is being used to distribute the list, and to get feedback on any new ideas. If you wish to be added to the mailing list mail me at pilot. Special thanks goes to Edward Vielmetti for all the work he does posting new archive information to comp.archives and to David Katinsky, who allows me to work on this list from pilot. If there are any corrections/updates/etc to be made please mail me at odin@pilot.njin.net. That also goes for descriptions of the archives. I don't have time to personally check each and every site so if you use a site regularly and can put together a better description, please tell me so I can update this list. This is especially true for sites described as "unknown" or with vague descriptions. Also, if you are providing updates, it is easi- est on me if you either state "add/remove <whatever>" or simply supply me with a complete new description of the site. This makes it easier for me to make the changes without any errors, especially in the case of archives being moved to different sites. The last line for each site contains the date of last modification, and the login and password in the form <login>/<password>. For the sites that have "odin@pilot.njin.net" for the password, substitute your own mail address (user@host.domain). It is suggested that you use your mail address as the password wherever possible, even if it isn't required to let sites keep better track of who is using their site. For those people who dislike the date or the login and password there, grep it out yourself. If you can't stand the format the list is in, the raw database is available from pilot and you can write your own format program. For those unfortunates who do not have ftp but do have mail, I have included the mail address of an archive that will retrieve files for you through the mail. Send "help" in a message to the server to find out the exact commands necessary. The only mail-ftp archive I know of is: bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu (most well-known) Please don't ask me how to use it, as it can explain itself better than I can. Thanks, Jon Granrose February 20, 1991 From: Natalie Maynor <nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu> Subject: Re: 4.1058 Queries (6/104) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 21:21:59 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2301 (2664) In answer to David Reimer's question, a list of anonymous ftp sites is available via anonymous ftp from ra.msstate.edu -- docs/internet/ anonymous-ftp-sites. --Natalie (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) From: mackay@cs.washington.edu (Pierre MacKay) Subject: UNICODE, THE TEI, and Classically accented GREEk Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 16:20:47 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1075 (2665) One important point in favor of Unicode seems not to be quite clear in the communication from galiard@let.rug.nl. In this communication Unicode is grouped with ISO 10646 as a multibyte system in the same sense as ISO 10646. It really is not. Unicode is a 16-bit system, plain and simple. It provides some compatibility with 8-bit coding, but assumes the ultimate adoption of 16-bit characters. The "byte" in Unicode just happens to be 16 bits long, so Unicode is not, properly speaking, a multibyte coding system at all. (It is entirely legitimate to speak of a 16-bit byte.) ISO 10646 is a descendant of ISO 2022. It is based on "octets" which come in groups of variable length. That is no great problem for a communications standard, but is a real pain for a computer coding standard. As M. A. Padlipsky has pointed out in criticism of other aspects of ISO negotiation, the national PTT organizations (which understandably think in terms primarily of sequential-by-character streams of information) seem to have an overwhelming voice in drowning out the protests of computer types who would like to be able to use arbitrary array addresses to access any part of a text file without having to read it through from the beginning every time to make sure that the array index doesn't just happen to land in the middle of a multiple octet sequence. What composites do or do not get included in the code table is of diminished importance beside the basic question of whether you can safely use simple array addressing or must read every file from the beginning every time you wish to move around in it. Nevertheless it is worth pointing out the following problem in the Greek set. ######################################## Note on table Greek U+0370-03FF The only thing that is wrong with a sequence such as --- alpha + IOTA SUBSCRIPT + ROUGH BREATHING MARK + GRAVE ACCENT is that it is in the wrong order. If Unicode is going to recognize the historic forms of Greek (The Greek government frowns upon anything but the simple stress accent for the modern language) then it should be done with a recognition of the fact that ROUGH BREATHING (and likewise SMOOTH BREATHING) is not a diacritical in the same sense as the accents, but is the vestige of a distinct letter H (a shape which was later borrowed for other purposes). The proper sequence is ROUGH BREATHING MARK + alpha + IOTA SUBSCRIPT + GRAVE ACCENT because the sequence HAI (with *maybe* a GRAVE ACCENT over the I) is a possible alternative, and could probably be found on some inscription or other (actually, it would be extraordinary to find the accent, but in a Hadrianic archaizing inscription it might just be possible). Since the Greek government PTT is basically uninterested in historically accented Greek, we might as well consult the interest of the scholarly community. Here the most significant concern ought to be the existence of a single database (the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae) which already contains 2/3 of the entire body of Greek writing from 800 B. C. to 600 A. D, and is planned to contain the lot. The actual code of the TLG is not at issue, it is a historical artifact from the age of the punched card, and the less said about it the better, but it is unambiguous, and can easily be translated into something like Unicode. THe translation will be a good deal more complicated, however if the ROUGH and SMOOTH breathing marks are not properly treated. The TLG codes breathings before letters, as it ought to. THe historical evolution is H H H H H H H H H H H H HHHHH ---> HHHH ---> HHHH (ROUGH BREATHING MARK) H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H HHHH ---> HHHH (SMOOTH BREATHING MARK) H H H All the forms of rough breathing are well attested in inscriptions. The third form is regularly in use in texts of inscriptions, and always precedes the affected letter, never rides above it. The smooth breathing is an unnecessary but characteristic appeal to symmetry, but it also shows a reader (and only a reader) who no longer pronounces the H sound that "HO" is different from "O". Email concerned with UnixTeX distribution software should be sent primarily to: elisabet@max.u.washington.edu Elizabeth Tachikawa otherwise to: mackay@cs.washington.edu Pierre A. MacKay Smail: Northwest Computing Support Center TUG Site Coordinator for Thomson Hall, Mail Stop DR-10 Unix-flavored TeX University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 (206) 543-6259 From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Re: 4.0973 Qs: Japanese; Czech; Outlining... (5/98) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 12:08:11 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2302 (2666) In reply to Timothy Reuter's query about outlining programs: I know nothing about stand-alones, but I have been preparing my own lectures for over a year with Nota Bene's outlining feature, which does everything you mention (moving around items, renumbering them automatically, moving sub-headings along with the headings, going -- well, not to unlimited depth, but I think there are at least seven levels to which one can go) and some others (varied numbering formats, entering text under each heading and then hiding or displaying it, hiding sublevels for a clearer picture of what you are doing). Of course, it is an integral part of Nota Bene, and could not be transferred to whatever you are using, though the output text can be transferred to a number of formats. David Schaps F21004@BARILVM Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: query about Amstrad computers Date: 21 Feb 91 11:27:18 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2303 (2667) I believe the Amstrad is sui generis. A British visitor brought diskettes from an Amstrad which we were never able to read on any system we could find in New England. --- Grover Zinn wrote: query about Amstrad computers --- end of quoted material --- From: Sean O'Cathasaigh, FRI001@UK.AC.SOTON.IBM Subject: Re: query about Amstrad computers Date: Sat, 23 Feb 91 14:34:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2304 (2668) Department of French, The University, Southampton SO9 5NH Re+4.1058(4) "Amstrad" is a brand name and Amstrad make a range of computers. I think what F. Zinn is talking about is the 8256 series, which uses three-inch discs. Files can be transferred via KERMIT to PC machines if one has the appropriate kit, which cost me $22. From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca> Subject: FTP Thanks Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 19:24:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2305 (2669) Just a note to the list to thank those who assisted me on the question of a guide to FTP sites, both privately and via the list. The information received was exactly what I needed, and perhaps others benefitted as well. It shows once again what the collective wisdom of HUMANIST can generate, even if the question was a small one. We didn't have to invent the wheel after all! David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca From: Paul Delany <USERAARY@SFU.BITNET> Subject: Hypermedia book Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:02:38 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1077 (2670) Paul Delany and George P. Landow would like to announce the publication, by MIT Press, of *Hypermedia and Literary Studies* This is an anthology of sixteen essays, most of them previously unpublished, on the theory of hypermedia and its application to literary studies. There is also a long introduction, by the editors, on "Hypertext, hypermedia and literary studies: the state of the art." The book has 352 pages and sells for $37.50. From: "Masami Hasegawa, Subject: Interlocking Unicode and 10646 Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 18:08:56 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2306 (2671) A proposal to bring Unicode and ISO 10646 closer ------------------------------------------------ Masami Hasegawa (Digital) 1. Goal This proposal is designed to bring Unicode and ISO 10646 closer. 2. Basic ideas The basic idea of this proposal is to make Unicode an extension of ISO 10646 Basic Multilingual Plane. Thus non-ideographic characters in zones A-00, A-01, A-10 and A-11 will be identical in Unicode and 2-octet compaction form of ISO 10646. Zone I-00 will be the "compatibility zone" for Unicode. Zones I-01, I-10 and I-11 can be used to code Unicode Han (UniHan) characters. Any additional characters required by Unicode (such as floating accents) can be coded in C0/C1 control code areas. +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | Unicode extensions | | | | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | | A-00 alphabetic | | A-01 alphabetic | | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | | | | | | | I-00 | | I-01 | | | | | | | | compatibility | | UniHan | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | Unicode extensions | | | | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | | A-10 alphabetic | | A-11 alphabetic | | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | | | | | | | I-10 | | I-11 | | | | | | | | UniHan | | UniHan | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-----+-----------------------+-----+-----------------------+ Fig 1. New Unicode layout 3. Advantages a. Common "Core" subset - This approach creates a common "core" subset between Unicode and ISO 10646. This is beneficial for many users. b. Code conversion - Code conversion between Unicode and ISO 10646 becomes trivial and cheap for most of the non-ideographic characters. c. Superset of BMP - By doing this, Unicode can claim being a superset of ISO standard 10646 BMP. d. Conformance requirement - It becomes possible to have a conformance level in Unicode, which can meet ISO 10646 conformance requirements. This will promote standards conscious people implement Unicode. 4. Disadvantage a. Non-contiguous coding of characters in Unicode. This is a problem if software assumes contiguous coding of some characters. 5. Justifications ANSI X3L2 tried to influence ISO-IEC/JTC1/SC2 with Unicode based ideas (major ones are C0/C1, non-spacing accent and Han unification), but the effort has not been successful at the ISO level. One of the major reason for the negative reaction is due to the fact that major structure/architecture changes are likely to cause problems with existing users of ISO character sets (including other standards such as programming languages and OSI). Thus it is unlikely that ISO will accept major technical structural/architectural change proposal for ISO 10646. On the other hand, having two totally different multilingual character code is costly, and many end users will suffer. This proposal requires re-arrangements of many characters in Unicode, but it does not require any structural/architectural change to Unicode. For example, since C0 and C1 control code areas will NOT be used by ISO 10646, these areas can be used for any Unicode extensions. Thus this proposal will not prevent meeting any special requirements needed for Unicode (including those controversial characters such as floating accents). By creating a common "core" subset of Unicode and ISO 10646, most of the non-ideographic script users will benefit by the close relationship between the basic characters. (Just consider how much benefits we are getting by having Macintosh and PC code pages a superset of ASCII today.) 5. Open issue ISO 8859-1 characters are now in Row 032 in DIS 10646. These characters could be moved to Row 000 to meet programming language C's built-in assumptions for wchar_t processing code. From: "Masami Hasegawa, Subject: Interworking with Unicode Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 19:05:11 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2307 (2672) Forwarded From Multi-byte Code Issues <ISO10646@JHUVM.BITNET> Through the discussion of "unbounded repertoire", we have learned that the concept of character identity is different in Unicode. The difference might first appear only academic and philosophical, but practical implications are very serious. My conclusion is that code conversion between Unicode and existing character sets may be impossible without good knowledge of the scripts and the writing systems in general. Here's why: - There are underlying agreements on what "code elements" are in existing popular character sets (including ISO, ASCII, JIS, EBCDIC, and PC codes). Thus code conversion between different character sets can be achieved by simple algorithms (such as table lookup) since the concept of "code elements" is common even though their "coded representations" may be quite different. - Unicode adopts a different concept of "code elements" to those existing character sets. Thus code conversion from Unicode to ISO 10646 requires 3 levels of transformation: Unicode code element(s) | (1) v abstraction as Unicode text element(s) | (2) v abstraction as 10646 text element(s) | (3) v 10646 code element(s) These transformation requires knowledge of how code elements and text elements are related in two different models (1 and 3 above) as well as relating Unicode and 10646 text elements (2)! This is not only for rare scripts. As a real life example, ISO character sets (including 1-byte ISO 8859 Latin/Hebrew set) have LEFT and RIGHT PARENTHESIS. Unicode has OPEN and CLOSE PARENTHESIS. They are identical when text presentation direction is left-to-right. This means that you really need to have the directionality information to convert ASCII characters! My proposal ----------- This situation is very bad when considering interworking of Unicode with existing character sets. Thus, I propose the following points: 1) Minimum requirement: Unicode should clearly indicate where the concept of characters are different from 10646 which is a collection of characters from existing character sets. If the character concepts are the same, we have easy code conversion. 2) Suggestion 1: Minimize the number of "new" characters with different concept. (For example, ISO 8859 Latin/Hebrew and Latin/Arabic sets have LEFT and RIGHT PARENTHESIS for dealing with bi-directional text. Unicode really do not need to be different.) 3) Suggestion 2: Group "traditional"-concept characters in some logical areas. This makes checking much easier. My "interlocking Unicode and 10646" approach provides a possible solution. [ie. characters in A-00, A-01, A-10 and A-11 zones are common "traditional" characters with very easy code conversion. Characters in C0/C1 are "new" characters.] From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: 4.1061 French (was Languages of Humanist) (3/86) Date: Wednesday, 20 Feb 1991 23:12:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2308 (2673) There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! Alan Jay Lerner Some English (even some Londoners) think American English isn't English, either. 'Course, Alan Jay Lerner grew up in the Big Apple and attended Harvard, so his excuse is that he's writing lines for a character modeled on the great linguist, Henry Sweet, and created by an Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who said the English required an Irishman to teach them to speak their own language. I think that when you get right down to it, nobody speaks English. Perhaps no one ever has.... Rather comforting, actually. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1054 Misc: Languages of Humanist &c. (5/109) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 21:30 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2309 (2674) re Languages or a language for Humanist networkers: All my life I have been tol d by those who should know that one can go almost anywhere in the world and be understood if one speaks Yiddish. Practically, I have found that often very tru e indeed. So forget English, French, Afrikaans, and Hottentot: let it be Yiddis h, and we can all go to sleep, eh? Kessler out here on the Pacific Rim, a milli -second away from you all, us all, we all. From: Skip <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.1061 French (was Languages of Humanist) (3/86) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 08:47:14 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2310 (2675) I understand and agree with Germaine Warkentin when she asserts that language is a powerful symbolic force -- of nationalism and national identity, though she does say this last part. But that's exactly what seems to me to be unfortunate. It seems to me that the effort of humans to transcend the tribe, to form larger political units, is one of the more commendable achievements of our species. The insistence that every language deserves its own country is a survival from a very dangerous 19thc nationalism and is, in my opinion, to be deplored. Speak other languages, encourage other languages, out of respect for the differences of others. But don't make language a political issue. Of such issues are wars made. Assimilation does not mean the death of your native culture, it means its transformation. But that transformation includes the transformation of the dominant culture as well. We in America can attest to the power of immigrants to transform and invigorate. It seems to me that if we had kept the Chinese or the Africans or the Mexicans in one geographic corner of our country, speaking their own tongue, forcing localism and particularism, then our country would have been much the poorer for it. And I think Canada is the poorer for the intransigent tribalism of the Quebecois. Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: "John A. Dussinger" <dussinge@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 09:58:17 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2311 (2676) After quoting my admittedly provoking report that "more than once I've heard Parisians declare that the language spoken in Quebec Province is not REALLY French," Benoit Melancon asserts: "There is absolutely no evidence of this linguistically." Evidence of what, may I ask--of what I've heard from native Parisians or of the dialectical status of the language spoken in Quebec? Perhaps in the heat of the moment M. Melancon did not recognize the ambiguity of his dogmatic assertion. When my friend Hubert du Che (sorry about not having accent marks in this medium--another problem using French on e-mail), a graduate of the Sorbonne, tells me that he could hardly understand the dialect in Quebec, isn't this information empirically true, even if politically bad news? A "different accent," not to mention the many differences in usage, is surely begging the question of linguistic evidence. I did not say anything about banning French or any other language from this net. As a matter of fact, although my professional field is English studies, I read French with ease as well as German, Danish, and Latin. Not having used Greek for many years, I've lost my confidence in that language without a dictionary close by. So write on in French! Maybe M. Benoit can express his wrath more effectively in French than in English. My original remarks had to do with the political agitation in this country for making Spanish a second language; and the separatist movement in Canada, it seems to me, is not being resolved by maintaining two official languages. On the contrary. John Dussinger From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Minority languages Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:47:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2312 (2677) Germaine Warkentin's response to my posting about the bilingual nature of Canada (or lack of it) raises some interesting questions about minority language groups, although it in no way addresses the question of Canada's alleged French-English bilingualism. There is no doubt that the presence of various ethnic groups in Toronto adds greatly to that city's exoticism. There is also no doubt that a variety of language groups is well served there. For example, it is much easier to find a newspaper in Chinese than to find one in French. Toronto, after all, has one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. Other language groups are also well represented (app. 600,000 speakers of Italian, for example). And, yes, some, perhaps many, of these people do live in their native culture without coming into contact with the dominant English language. The question is whether this is a matter of choice or necessity. Certainly a Chinese speaker in Chinatown can live reasonably well without having to use English, as long as he/she accepts to remain within the confines of that linguistic area. Speakers of other languages can also no doubt live within the confines of their linguistic group. This is true anywhere, not just in Toronto. However, these people must be prepared, or, as is most likely, be forced to pay the socio-economic price of their independence from the main stream of Canadian society. An interesting case in point is the husband of one of our graduate students. This man is a university-trained engineer from mainland China who speaks no English. He has found that he can indeed live and function even in London, Ontario within the limits of the local Chinese community. He is nevertheless working hard to learn English as quickly as possible so that he can find a better-paying position than the one he now has; the man is washing dishes three days a week in a Chinese restaurant. Through my late first wife and her family and now through my children, I have had the opportunity for many years to live in close contact with various Asian communities. I have met a good many members of those communities who have lived and worked in their own language with little contact with the dominant culture. It would be fair to say, however, that every one of them would gladly have exchanged that privilege for a decent-paying job, a job that was denied them by their lack of English or French. The point is that the "multi-cultural mosaic" to which Germaine Warkentin points so proudly is really only the socio- economic marginalization of minority language groups in our society. The price of living and working in your own ethnic language and culture in Toronto or elsewhere is a place on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. A similar price is paid by those who try to live in French outside the "well-defined geographic areas" I referred to in my original posting. Quebec is, of course, one of those areas, as are eastern Ontario along the Quebec border and New Brunswick. Although Ontario has the largest francophone population in Canada outside Quebec, that number is now less that 500,000 and has been dropping steadily for the past 20 years. In fact, one highly-placed official in a federal government department concerned with the French fact in Ontario recently confided to me the view that French-speaking parents who wanted to ensure that their children were raised in the francophone culture should move to Quebec, because French is "a lost cause" in Ontario. This is a depressing view, especially for one who has devoted his entire adult life to teaching French language and culture and to furthering the progress of French in Canada. A similar view is expressed, however, though not as strongly, in the the 1988 report, L'EDUCATION FRANCAISE EN ONTARIO A L'HEURE DE L'IMMERSION by Bordeleau, Calve, Desjarlais and Seguin (Conseil de l'education franco-ontarienne). This report documents the largely negative impact of French immersion programs for anglophones on the Franco-Ontar ian community. It should be required reading for all the "gens bien intentionnes" who have used official bilingualism to further their own socio-economic status while claiming to defend the interests of the francophone minority. I am sorry if Germaine Warkentin took exception to my use of the word "specious". The fact is, however, that official bilingualism has been a specious (in the sense defined by Germaine Warkentin's dictionary) policy from the start, a fact recognized by most Quebecois intellectuals from its inception. After 20+ years of official bilingualism, French immersion programs and tearful appeals to Quebec to remain part of Canada, we are now closer to the separation of Quebec than at any time in our history. One has to wonder why. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: Bilingualism Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 23:32 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2313 (2678) In response to John Burt's note about English/French bilingualism in Moncton, with people speaking both languages in a given converstaion, even within the same sentence: we have the same phenomenon here ins San Antonio and much of the rest of South and West Texas. Bilingual conversations with both parties switching back and forth between English and Spanish are so common that no one thinks anything about it. I have also experienced something analogous as a graduate student living in an international student residence at a European univeristy. Persons from ten or more countries engaged in macaronic conversations, sometimes in a variety of languages at once. Sometimes it was because some things can be said better in one language than in another; at other times it was just the sheer playfulness of polyglots. Certainly language is profoundly symbolic, as Germaine Warkentin insists. but let's lighten up a bit, folks, and get on with un poquito de joie de vivre. Charlie From: David Zeitlyn <ZEITLYN@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.1061 French (was Languages of Humanist) (3/86) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 14:51 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2314 (2679) I propose Mambila (a non-Bantu Bantoid language spoken on both sides of the Nigeria/Cameroon border) as the only language to be used in Humanist. That way everyone is equal. This would lead to the added challenge of developing computer terms in Mambila. So far the only recorded metnion (between two non-native speakers) is "b`o floppy disc" sebatu bi ye Huomnuar David aka David Zeitlyn From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Re: 4.0964 Le Francais on Humanist (3/62) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 11:26:15 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2315 (2680) I agree strongly with Andrew Oliver's encouragement of French on HUMANIST, while disagreeing strongly with his reason. I do not think that reasons of national pride should take precedence over a very reasonable decision to maintain an international discussion in the most widely-understood language now available. For each of us to write in his own language would make discussion much harder to maintain. To use an example: I read an article recently whose author, speaking before an international conference, began in German, continued in French, and ended in English. I am sure that as a speaker he was being exceedingly polite, letting each listener understand at least part of a long speech; as a printed article he was offering something that was comprehensible only to those comfortable in all three languages -- not as large a percentage of scholars as we like to pretend. I think adults, and scholars, should be willing to speak in a common language even if it is not the language that they prefer. Nevertheless, I do think that another reason would more than justify writing French (or German, or Italian, or Spanish, or any other language that -- unlike my country's -- uses Latin characters): many scholars who read English comfortably do not compose well in it. One of the great barriers among humanists has been precisely the language barrier: Anglophone scholars are usually ill-read in French material, often entirely unaware of German; and vice-versa. If there are -- and a recent contribution makes it clear that there are -- "silent partners" who do not contribute because they have trouble composing English, I think they should feel free to write in another language -- and as I remember it, the HUMANIST guide said as much. Since most Anglophones are as ignorant of what goes on in their language as they are of English (and generally more so), their contributions would probably be particularly valuable for those who can read them. From: Henry Rogers <ROGERS@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Ombudsman Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 09:44:38 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2316 (2681) A few years ago, I was on a committee here at the University of Toronto to review the Office of the Ombudsman. The question of the name came up. I suggested 'Procurator Public' modelled on the Scottish Procurator Fiscal; oddly enough, this suggestion found little support. Eventually, Ombudsperson was adopted. I have seen a sign 'Office of the Public Advocate' referring, I believe, to the Provincial Ombudsman. I doubt that 'University Advocate' would carry exactly the right meaning. Henry Rogers Department of Linguistics University of Toronto From: Enid <ECOCKE@KSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.1060 Words: Ombudsman (5/65) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:06 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2317 (2682) Thanks for sharing the conversation of ombudsperson. I weary of those who claim that linguists say that man and -man are gender neutral. Baloney. I am not a man and don't identify with terms like mailman, mankind, and spokesman. It continues the notion than males are the real human beings and females are some deviant form of the species. I don't think it mangles the language to make it inclusive. Interesting to think that ombud is a Scandinavian word. To semi-Danish ears "om" means "about" and "bud" means "message." So I see the need for the final suffix. From: Lesli LaRocco <OZVY@CORNELLA> Subject: Degendering Ombudsman Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 17:40:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2318 (2683) I am writing in reply not only to James Woolley's request for a gender-free replacement of the word "ombudsman," but also in reply to those people who gave us "chair," "chairperson," "spokesperson" (but, interestingly enough, not "spokes" ), "mailperson," "policeperson," "fireperson," etc. Enough already. I am frankly (or rather, "francis-ly") tired of changing my vocabulary in order to accomodate an increasingly sensitive group of people. An "ombudsman" is no more a "male ombud" to me than a "chairman" is a "male chair." I have chosen to change not my vocabulary, but my thinking: such labels may refer to a person of either sex. As any linguist knows, the meaning of any given word may change over time. Given enough women (not womyn!) in these occupations, the words used to designate them will no longer imply "male." Lesli LaRocco (OZVY@CORNELLA) From: Hans Joergen <DDAHM@VM.UNI-C.DK> Subject: AHC 91 Call for papers Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 09:38:55 DNT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2319 (2684) Forwarded from TEI-L AHC-conference in Odense 28th to 30th August 1991 The sixth international conference of the AHC will be held in Odense, Denmark and arranged by the Danish Data Archives. In the program comity for the conference are Peter Denley, Westfield College, London, Stefan Fogelvik, Stockholms Historiska Databas, Daniel Greenstein, Glasgow University, Hans JŚrgen Marker, Dansk Data Arkiv, Jan Oldervol, Universitetet i TromsŚ, Kevin Schurer, Cambridge Group, Josef Smets, Montpellier, and Manfred Thaller, Max Planck Institut főr Geschichte, GŸttingen. Topics of the Conference The topics of the conference will as usual be a broad presentation of every thing that is going on in history and computing. Papers are invited on substantial subjects as well as methodological questions. Among the expected topics are -Standardization and exchange of machie readable data in the historical disciplines -Data analysis and presentation -Event history analysis -Text analysis -Simulation and modelling -Computer aided teaching -Social and economic history -Quantitative methods At the forthcoming conference it would be natural, as the conference is located in Scandinavia, if demographic studies and large data collections would be a central issue Furthermore a number of workshops on methodological questions will be held in the spring of 1991. These workshops will present their results for further discussions in workshop sessions at the conference. One of these workshops is dedicated to the application of the TEI guidelines in the field of history. Papers are invited on all aspects of computing in history. The papers will be published in a proceedings volume from the conference provided that they are submitted in machine readable form (WordPerfect or ASCII). Info Further information on the conference will be obtainable from Hans JŚrgen Marker Danish Data Archives MunkebjergvÎnget 48 5230 Odense M Denmark Phone +45 66 15 79 20 Fax +45 66 15 83 20 E-Mail (EARN): DDAHM @ NEUVM1 From: "John T. Harwood 814-865-4764" <JTH@PSUVM> Subject: Seminar in Feminist Criticism Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 15:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2320 (2685) PENN STATE UNIVERSITY SEMINARS SERIES ISSUES IN CRITICISM Summer Seminar FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM June 24-28, 1991 State College, Pennsylvania The Penn State Seminar in Feminist Literary Criticism offers faculty and advanced graduate students in departments of English and modern languages the opportunity to survey the major issues and freshen their knowledge of recent feminist criticism. Our four-day seminar includes presentations by two well-known scholar-critics, Elizabeth Abel and Madelon Sprengnether; discussions organized by these leaders; and time for reading the materials on which the seminars will be centered. The schedule and atmosphere are intended to encourage informal discussions among participants. Leaders ELIZABETH ABEL, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley. Author of Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis (1989), editor of Writing and Sexual Difference (1982), and co-editor of The Signs Reader (1983) and The Voyage In (1983). MADELON SPRENGNETHER, Department of English, University of Minnesota. Author of The Spectral Mother: Freud, Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1990) and co-editor of The (M)other Tongue: Essays in Feminist Psychoanalytic Interpretation (1985). For further information, contact: Wendell Harris Department of English Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 Telephone: 814-863-2343 or 814-865-9243 From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: DEC's Humour Department, redux Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 09:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2321 (2686) For all you Hypertext fans out there, from EDU Magazine (Dec's higher ed organ) Winter, 1991, p. 27: Hyperinformation: A "Knowledge Navigation" Technology The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships. - Dr. Vannnevar Bush In 1945, Dr. Vannevar Bush, Franklin Roosevelt's science adviser during World War II, published an article in the Atlantic Monthly describing one of the great challenges of the modern world - how to navigate through vast quantities of information. Bush envisioned a device which he dubbed a "memex", in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications. The memex could be consulted with speed and flexibility. The device would be a tool for traversing a huge body of knowledge - not sequentially but associatively. It would operate the way the human mind operates. It would be, Bush wrote, "an enlarged, intimate supplement" to the human memory. One Mistake Bush was mistaken in one of his prophecies - he thought that photomicrography would be the primary enabling technology for information storage, retrieval, and viewing. But he was on the mark in every other regard. Conceptually, at least, he foresaw the marriage of high-capacity storage and high-performance CPUs. He envisioned the equivalent of the X Window System (tm) ... [Somebody tell Ted Nelson, quick.] From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Newsletters Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:03:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2322 (2687) Does there exist a directory of academic E-newsletters (such as _REACH_ and _OFFLINE_) that are currently available over Bitnet/Internet? If such a directory exists how may I optain it? Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Academic Lists Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2323 (2688) New versions of Diane Kovacs' lists of Academic lists are available from the fileserver as ACADEMIC LIST1 and ACADEMIC LIST2. From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: FTP Updates Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 10:42:27 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2324 (2689) Here are the latest updates for FTP downloading of Project Gutenberg etexts and others. These updates will be posted on several listserv locations once a month. We hope we have answered most questions, as new files, new locations, and new users arrive each month. We can't answer queries about nameservers or how your local system runs FTP. These files are available in disk formats. Please do not access the mrcnext machine from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Central Standard Time (Daylight in summer) as this is peak usage. Current releases are Alice11.txt, Lglass10.txt and Snark10.txt. Others texts are also available at the various sites. If you are interested in getting the electronic books, it's easy if you have access to FTP. Just type ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (or any of the other systems listed below) (Your system may require this in lower case or quotes around the name.) or ftp 128.174.73.105 (If your system's nameserver has trouble resolving the name, the numeric address abouve will work until just after Christmas when the number will be changing. The name will stay the same.) login anonymous (This is the login username caps not necessary) (Any password works fine ) cd etext ls (This will give you a directory listing, case sensitive) get filename.filetype (examples . . . get alice11.txt get lglass10.txt) ***** You may have to get local instructions for linking to FTP, and/or setting memory for FTP. These files also available via disk on request in several formats. **** The current FTP sites are: mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu or (128.174.201.12) cd /etext (Please do NOT use the mrcnext between 10AM and 6PM weekdays) simtel20.army.mil or (26.2.0.74) pd:<books> Also known as WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (This computer has great archives and is used a lot, takes time) (Detailed instructions below) The MSDOS portions of simtel are echoed on: wuarchive.wustl.edu Name: wuarchive.wustl.edu Address: 128.252.135.4 (Please report your efforts on wuarchive, we need a guru for it) (wuarchive also echoed on mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu) deneva.sdd.trw.com or (129.193.73.1) cd pub/etext and cd pub/etext/compressed for compresses versions. (Our thanks to TRW) We appreciate your suggestions for corrections and emendations. ****** WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [26.2.0.74] NOTE; Type B is Binary: Type A is ASCII Directory PD1:<MSDOS.BOOKS> Filename Type Length Date Description SIMTEL20 allows standard ANONYMOUS ftp with password GUEST. cd pd1:<msdos.books> type tenex get alice11.zip get lglass11.zip bye If your FTP does not have TENEX mode, use BINARY mode. If the files are not readable after transferring in BINARY mode, try again with these two commands to set the mode: type binary quote "TYPE L 8" The double quotes are required. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois, SIMTEL20 or TRW. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: queries Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 22:00:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2325 (2690) I am posting this request for a friend who doesn't have access to bitnet. 1. Does anyone know of a Mac font that has Old English characters in it that is low cost or public domain? (I know that Linguists Software has these letters, but they cost a lot of $$) 2. Does anyone know of an electronic copy of the Federalist Papers? Again, has to be low cost, or public domain. It will be used for research purposes, and will not be published in chunks larger than necessary to illustrate an article. It has to be a text only version, as my friend is working on retrieval and comparison software. This is a request from a different source. Can anyone tell me about work on ancient medicine? I have been speaking with a doctor at Harvard Med. School who is investigating evidence for brain aneurisms in ancient medical writing. He doesn't know if anyone else has already worked on this. Or done similar things. All i could tell him was to look in L'Annee Philologique. Any ideas? or names? He is currently using the TLG to do research on this topic. He knows some Greek, but is not a classicist. Thanks, --elli mylonas From: HUMM@PENNDRLS (Alan Humm Religious Studies U. of Penn) Subject: inquiry: Uniform Date: Monday, 25 February 1991 1318-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2326 (2691) Does anyone know if a version of "Uniform" (a program for reading disks in other formats) is available for the MS-DOS world? If so, where can I get it? If not (or perhaps even if so) are there similar programs that work as well or better? Please send responses to me and I will summarize to Humanist. Alan Humm (Humm@PENNdrls) University of Pennsylvania From: Tom Maddox <maddox@blake.u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1077 Books: Hypermedia & Literary Studies (1/6) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 19:18:13 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2327 (2692) Would the authors consider posting the Table of Contents to _Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Literary Studies_? From: eugene cotter <FCOTTER@SETONVM> Subject: Re: 4.1077 Books: Hypermedia & Literary Studies (1/6) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 12:06:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2328 (2693) who is the publisher? cotter From: mccray@nlm.nih.gov (Alexa T. McCray) Subject: job Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 14:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2329 (2694) The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, a research division of the National Library of Medicine, is seeking a computational linguist to join its Natural Language Systems Program. We seek an individual who has demonstrated experience in natural language processing and an advanced degree in linguistics or computer science. Candidates should have experience in the development of systems using Prolog, Lisp, C or other high level languages and should be well qualified in linguistic theory. The National Library of Medicine is located on the beautiful NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Lister Hill Center has extensive state of the art facilities including many Sun, Macintosh, and PC-compatible workstations, file servers and associated scanning and imaging equipment. Our research staff is dedicated to developing advanced technologies for storing, manipulating and disseminating biomedical information. The successful candidate will join a team of experienced professionals addressing major research issues in an environment which assures high visibility for outstanding work. Salary will range from $31,116 to $40,449 depending on education and experience. U.S. citizenship is required. The U.S. Government is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Send a resume and a cover letter describing your research interests to the following address no later than March 25, 1991. Chief, Computer Science Branch NLS Program Search Lister Hill Center National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, Maryland 20894 From: LMC6@PSUADMIN (CONRAD.MARK) Subject: Archivist and Head Date: Mon, 25 Feb 1991 09:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2330 (2695) I realize the deadline for this position is very rapidly approaching, but I thought someone out there might be interested. Could you please post this announcement on Humanist? Thank you for your assistance. Mark Conrad Data Archivist Penn State University LMC6@PSUADMIN LMC6@MS.PSU.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ARCHIVIST AND HEAD, HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS AND LABOR ARCHIVES PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY - UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA The University Libraries invites applications and nominations for the position of Archivist and Head, Historical Collections and Labor Archives at the University Park Campus. The Historical Collections and Labor Archives include c. 10,000 linear feet of material, primarily concerning post-Civil War Pennsylvania and U.S. industrialization, the labor movement, politics, family, and local history. HCLA is a major repository for 19th and 20th century labor and working class history and has a rapidly growing collection of Pennsylvania business records. HCLA is the repository for the historical records of the United Steelworkers of America and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and has large holdings of maps, photographs, and oral histories. HCLA contributes USMARC-AMC format records of its holdings to RLIN, OCLC, as well as LIAS, Penn State University Libraries' on-line catalog. RESPONSIBILITIES: The Archivist plans and directs both daily operations and long-term development of HCLA, including acquisitions, appraisal, accessioning, collection management, arrangement and description, preservation, and reference services. Supervises a staff of four, plus part-time assistants. Prepares proposals for grant funding and develops other sources of external support for HCLA. Position reports to Chief, Special Collections Department. QUALIFICATIONS: Requires MLS or equivalent from ALA-accredited school, or a graduate degree preferably in history, plus experience in administering archival collections, including supervising employees. Knowledge of labor and industrial history strongly preferred; experience in the use of USMARC-AMC format and in automated control of archival functions desirable. Candidates should also demonstrate a successful record of collection management and development, excellent communication skills, and the ability to work with various constituencies. COMPENSATION: Salary and rank dependent on qualifications, minimum $36,000. Penn State offers a comprehensive benefits program, including liberal vacation; excellent insurances; State or TIAA/CREF retirement options; educational privileges. Applications will be reviewed beginning 1 March 1991, and continuing until the position is filled. Applications including a current resume and names of three references should be submitted to: Nancy Slaybaugh Libraries Human Resources E1 Pattee Library Box HC-EMAIL Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802 From: TB0EXC1%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu Subject: Language Origins: second call for papers Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 10:39 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2331 (2696) ***SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS*** LANGUAGE ORIGINS SOCIETY 7th Annual Meeting July 18-20 1991 Northern Illinois University DeKalb Il 60115 USA The Language Origins Society invites abstracts for papers on aspects of language origins and evolution. Language Origins is construed very broadly and includes investigations into the philosophical, neurological, biological or social bases of the phylogeny and/or ontogeny of language in any of its forms (speech, writing, sign) or the social and/or linguistic bases of language evolution and change. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the origins and development of: phonetic systems grammatical systems semantic systems writing systems speech and language biological, neurological and medical aspects non-human communication systems particular language families and subfamilies pidgin and creole languages Send abstracts of 500 words or less and requests for further information to: Edward Callary Coordinator, LOS English Department Northern Illinois University DeKalb Il 60115 USA e-mail: TB0EXC1@NIU.BITNET (TB ZERO, not the letter O) FAX:815-753-1824 TELEPHONE: 815-753-0611 Deadline for receipt of abstracts is 10 March, 1991 Promising abstracts from advanced students are especially welcome. From: colleen@tira.uchicago.edu Subject: CILS Calendar 2/18 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 13:43:56 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2332 (2697) _________________ T H E C I L S C A L E N D A R ________________ The Center for Information and Language Studies Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 Subscription requests to: cils@tira.uchicago.edu Vol. 1, No. 16 February 18, 1991 Upcoming events: 2/25 14:30 Ry 276 Lecture C. M. Sperburg-McQueen, UIC 2/25 16:00 Wb 130 Workshop Dennis Stampe, U of Wisconsin ------------------------------ MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25 2:30 Lecture Ry 276 C. M. Sperburg-McQueen ACH/ACL/ALLC Text Encoding Initiative University of Illinois at Chicago (u35395@uicvm.bitnet) "The Validated -- or Violated? -- Text: Issues in Specifying Document Structures" Abstract in last week's calendar. ***** 4:00 Workshop Wb 130 The Pragmatics of Language Dennis Stampe, Dept. of Philosophy University of Wisconsin, Madison Readings will be available in the Department of Philosophy and the Center for Information and Language Studies. For more information, please contact Jerrold Sadock (2-8524), Department of Linguistics, or Josef Stern, Department of Philosophy (2-8594). The next workshop will be March 11. The speaker will be Ronald McClamrock, Department of Philosophy. From: Randal Baier <REBX@CORNELLC> Subject: Call for Papers Date: Thu, 07 Feb 91 17:11:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2333 (2698) CALL FOR PAPERS Society for Asian Music Pre-Conference Symposium SEM, October 9, 1991, Chicago Theme: Asian Popular Music Abstracts are invited for papers to be presented at the Society for Asian Music Pre-Conference Symposium, to be held October 9, 1991, preceding the 1991 Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference in Chicago. The general theme of the symposium is ASIAN POPULAR MUSIC. While abstracts on any aspect of Asian popular music will be considered, preference will be given to those addressing the more specific themes proposed for the symposium. These concern the relationship between control of the mass media and the extent to which popular music disseminated therein reflects and affirms pluralism and grassroots identity. Does popular music, as disseminated by the mass media, reinforce a sense of local community (be it constituted by class, region, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.), or does it tend to superimpose mass-produced, common-denominator product on a mass audience? Does it promote homogeneity or diversity in parameters of style, language, and content? Does popular music, in association with the mass media and commercial and/or state entertainment industries, manipulate community taste or respond to it? What are the factors that influence this process? How are they influenced by the nature of the mass medium in question, and by the nature of its control or ownership? Finally, is the given tendency (i.e., homogeneity or pluralism) to be seen as positive or negative? Participants may be encouraged to address issues raised by position papers delivered by invited guest speakers. Program committee: Peter Manuel (chair), Randal Baier, Philip Schuyler, Deborah Wong, and Virgina Danielson. Local arrangements: Carolyn Johnson. Abstracts should be sent to: Randal Baier, 110 Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853-5301. 607-272-4118 (Home). E-mail: REBX@CORNELLC.Bitnet. DEADLINE: April 15, 1991 From: john@utafll.uta.edu (John Baima) Subject: Unicode and the TLG Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 17:59:01 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1087 (2699) While I have a number of comments about Unicode, I did want to respond to the factual error in Pierre MacKay's comments about the TLG. The TLG certainly does *not* code breathing marks before the character. My *opinion* is that all zero width characters should follow the character. The uniformity of coding is an important point and I don't think that exceptions should be made. I would also like to inject my opinion about Mr. MacKay's comments about the quality of the TLG coding. While it is true that many of the decisions of the TLG were forced by limited hardware, I think that the TLG made many excellent choices and that it is almost ideally suited for searching. Rather than ignoring or belittling the TLG coding scheme, I think that it would be much more productive to use the TLG as a baseline for determining the "searchability" of a text. As the quantity of texts blossoms, the usability of those texts will be heavily influenced by their searchability. John Baima john@utafll.uta.edu From: HAYES@URVAX.BITNET Subject: 4.1076 Rs: Outlining; Amstrad; ... (4/58) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 1991 07:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2334 (2700) Dear Editors: This is a reply about the Amstrad computers. I know that at least one person here at the University of Richmond use the PPC640 (laptop, 2 X 720K 3.5" floppies) and has no problem whatsoever to have her disks read and/or written on any I*M or clone with the same type of floppies, or to communicate with our mainframe (a DEC VAX system). The communication packages used are either the shareware version of Procomm (version 2.43), to use with the Kermit protocol, or Telix 3.12 (also shareware) to use with the Zmodem protocol. Both of these packages are available from either SIMTEL20 (<wsmr-simtel20.army.mil>) or WUARCHIVE (<wuarchive.wustl.edu>) via anonymous FTP. Please note that my experience with this computer (I helped the above-mentionned user to install the programs) is limited to the model PPC640. Regards, Claude Bersano-Hayes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Claude Bersano-Hayes HAYES @ URVAX (Vanilla BITNET) University of Richmond hayes@urvax.urich.edu (Bitnet or Internet) Richmond, VA 23173 ...!psuvax1!urvax.bitnet!hayes (UUCP) From: Tzvee Zahavy Subject: BITNET FTPLIST Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2335 (2701) A simple way to get a list of FTP sites is the following: send the message SENDME BITNET FTPLIST to LISTSERV@MARIST. *************************************************************** Bitnet:MAIC@UMINN1 Snail-Mail:University of Minnesota, Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, 316 Folwell Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455 From: DJT18@hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1058 Queries (6/104) Date: Mon,25 Feb 91 10:35:13 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2336 (2702) CALL Bibliography The ReCALL Software Guide, published August 1990 by the CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull, lists around 300 items of software suitable for use in language teaching in higher education. It includes sections on Authoring Tools, Databases, Dictionaries & Translation Tools, Language Learning, Languages for Special Purposes, Multilingual Word Processing and Other Applications. We are not claiming that it is a complete list of CALL software, but many academics have found it useful. It is available from the CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull HU6 7RX, at a price of six pounds sterling in the UK, seven pounds overseas surface mail, or eleven pounds overseas airmail. Cheques to be made payable to the University of Hull. June Thompson, Information Officer, CTICML From: P.Burnhill@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1063 Conferences (2/91) Date: 25 Feb 91 09:42:34 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2337 (2703) A number of your readers who knew Professor Sidney Michaelson or admired his contribution to their field may not yet have heard this sad news. The following appeared on all mainframes in Edinburgh at the end of last week: Professor Sidney Michaelson --------------------------- It is with deep regret that we learnt this morning of the death on Thursday night of Professor Michaelson. To those of us who have worked with him over many years, his unique presence will be sorely missed. Subject Professor Michaelson [deleted quotation]Date 22 Feb 91 10:36:30 gmt Though doubtless many people will wish to make their own tributes to Professor Michaelson there may be others who are not able to. If anyone wishes to send me text by electronic mail I will arrange for a fair copy to be printed as a note on headed paper and forwarded to his family. I am sure he would consider this entirely appropriate. I would ask contributors to supply a full name and address. From: "Benoit Laplante" <LAPLANTE@INRS-URB.UQuebec.CA> Subject: [The Languages of Humanist Topic] Date: MON, 25 Feb 91 09:46:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1090 (2704) When I happened to browse for the first time into the postings on the use of languages other than English in HUMANIST, I thought the matter would be soon settled by going back to the basic principles of the forum on that matter: English is the lingua franca, contributions in other languages will be distributed anyway. I was totally astonished this morning when I read the last postings on this issue: the question has now become a pretext for a pretty low grade debate about Canadian internal politics! What the hell is this doing here? The notion that Humanists encompass a large view of things is interesting but isn't this a bit too much? I guess it could be of some interest if the arguments were at least of a scholarly level but this is definitely not the case except, maybe, for the humoristic notes about English having never been spoken by anyone or the call to force all Humanist's contributors to use a totally unknown African language. Don't the others undertand what those who wrote those pieces are politely trying to say? Here is not the place for arguments that should be left to hotline shows... If some people are interested in discussing issues pertaining to multiculturalism, to the role of language in culture or, and this one of my favourites, how come the Listserv software has been written and is maintained in France while French themselves don't use it, I guess there is room for it on Humanist. But repeating here stuff that would be considered as bigot both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada, no thanks! There are at the very least three official parliamentary or special commissions just to do that up here right now and this is more than enough. Benoit Laplante INRS/Urbanisation Montreal (Quebec) LAPLANTE@INRS-URB.UQUEBEC.CA LAPLANTE@UQUEBEC.BITNET From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM> Subject: ISO 10646 is *not* a variable-width character set Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 14:24:00 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1091 (2705) Lest there be confusion, I have to point out that Pierre Mackay appears to misrepresent ISO 10646 in his note on it and Unicode of 24 February 1991. He says: ISO 10646 is a descendant of ISO 2022. It is based on "octets" which come in groups of variable length. That is no great problem for a communications standard, but is a real pain for a computer coding standard. This simply isn't true. (Warning to non-technical readers: alphabet soup ahead.) Mackay's statement flatly contradicts the version of ISO 10646 I have in hand (the Draft Proposal of January 1989) and runs counter to every account I have read in the last four years of current work in ISO JTC1 WG2. ISO 10646 is not 'descended' from ISO 2022 in any way I can see -- if anything, 10646 is designed to make the heart of 2022 unnecessary wherever 10646 has been implemented. The text says quite clearly that ISO 10646 includes no 'floating' diacritics (which do, as Mackay says, make life very hard for software developers and programming language standardizers): "When conforming to this International Standard these [i.e. all -MSM] diacritics shall be used as free-standing characters." (Clause 18.7, p. 15). 10646 does allow for various forms of use which involve compression of its thirty-two-bit characters to 24, 16, or 8 bits, but these have nothing to do with the issue of floating diacritics or code-page switching, which are the major problems for programs which rely on having fixed-width characters. Anyone who implements 10646 in a program and does not use a fixed width for characters has no one to blame but the programmer. Unicode's designers are well aware of the problem, and I think Mackay is right in describing their intentions as being for fixed-width 16-bit bytes. As it happens, though, that is not *quite* what the document now actually defines: it does allow floating diacritics, and that means it does allow variable-width characters. There are serious reasons for the inclusion, which the designers have stated quite clearly in the postings which have been distributed on this and other lists. They are the same reasons that lead some to be unhappy with ISO 8859 and ISO 10646 and to prefer ISO 6937: floating diacritics make for a much larger character repertoire, and for compatibility with existing character representations, at the cost of not knowing whether the thirtieth character in a line is the thirtieth bute or the thirty-first, ... Mackay, of all people, should know better than to confuse what is intended for the long run and what is defined in the document. Unicode does *not* now provide a fixed-width encoding for all characters. And ISO 10646, by contrast, does. -Michael Sperberg-McQueen University of Illinois at Chicago From: FZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.1084 Queries (4/55) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 00:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2338 (2706) In response to Elli Mylonas' query about a Mac font that has Old English characters, there is one available on the Ansax-L listserv. It is the NY_OE font produced by Brian Whitaker, Atkinson College, York University. The font is excellent and is freeware. You can obtain it from the listserv at WVNVM as NY_OE SOFTMAC. I could also send your friend a disk with the fonts on it (if he/she would send a blank diskette). Grover Zinn FZINN@OBERLIN From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: query response: Mac font Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 09:32:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2339 (2707) Regarding the request for an Old English font on the Mac, if it is just a matter of using a simple bit-font (not Postscript), you can make your own very easily using ResEdit. I did this once for Icelandic in about 15 minutes. It gets a little trickier if you want to make sure that all sizes are scaled correctly with respect to each other or if you want a Postscript font. For that you would need one of the commercial font editors. From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.1084 Queries (4/55) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 18:42 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2340 (2708) On ancient Greek medicine: there are lots of possible sources, but a good local first contact would be Heinrich von Staden at Yale (Classics Dept., I don't know if he has an email address) who knows as much as anyone in the world about the subject. Don Fowler. From: Peter Ian Kuniholm <MCG@CORNELLC> Subject: Re: 4.1084 Queries (4/55) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 16:38:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2341 (2709) Re. Elli Mylonas's request about people working on ancient medicine: Try Dr. John Scarborough at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisc. He does both ancient medicine and classics. Office telephone is (608)262-8195. Hope that this helps. Peter Kuniholm From: Art Ferrill <ferrill@u.washington.edu> Subject: ancient medicine Date: Tue, 26 Feb 1991 15:22:44 -0800 (PST) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2342 (2710) [...] John Scarborough, author of Roman Medicine (1969), is at U. Wisconsin, I believe. He should be a good source of info. Art Ferrill From: Sean O'Cathasaigh, FRI001@UK.AC.SOTON.IBM Subject: Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 21:08:42 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2343 (2711) Department of French, The University, Southampton SO9 5NH I should like to add my voice to those who have deplored Jascha Kessler's intemperate attack on Prof Lakoff. At first I hoped that it was an elaborate irony, designed to show how metaphor can be used to silence the voice of reason, but I have since reluctantly concluded that Kessler meant what he said. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: de Lacey on Just War Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 22:59:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2344 (2712) I have just placed on the fileserver an essay by Douglas de Lacey on the concept of the ethics of war and the Gulf conflict; it makes extensive reference to the discussion on Humanist. To retrieve this essay send mail with the line GET DELACEY JUSTWAR HUMANIST to LISTSERV@BROWNVM or LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU Sorry for the delay in posting both de Lacey's essay the previous note by Sean O'Cathasaigh. -- Allen From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM> Subject: the languages (plural) of Humanist Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 15:11:31 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2345 (2713) It appalls me to see the cautious formulation of the Humanist Guide to the effect that since most subscribers speak English as their native tongue, English is likely to be the best-understood language on Humanist, taken as a club to browbeat those who do not post to Humanist in English. No subscriber to Humanist can possibly be under any illusions as to the relative numbers of subscribers who read English and who read any other language; is it really necessary for anyone explicitly to urge subscribers to post in English or (is this for real? can this be Humanist?) accuse them of *impoliteness* if they post in another language? It should not be necessary in a forum like Humanist, but it appears to be, for someone to declare publicly that (in the opinion of this one subscriber at least) any language spoken by a subscriber is an appropriate language for posting on Humanist. It is not offensive, it is not rude, it is not impolite, it is not something to be apologized for, to post a note in whatever language you feel most comfortable composing in. It *is* on the other hand impolite and something to be apologized for to suggest that anyone should remain silent rather than posting in a language other than English. And to all the polyglots on the list, I do apologize for the postings which have had that import. -Michael Sperberg-McQueen, University of Illinois at Chicago From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: The Languages of Humanist Date: Sun, 24 Feb 91 22:39:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2346 (2714) There's a very uncomfortable story going the rounds here about the man who said he didn't want to live in Canada because the Scots owned all the banks and the Portuguese cleaned them. It is based, of course, on the assumption of a fairly rigid hierarchical society which equates economic power and the employment of a dominant language. I don't want to do a disservice to Ian Richmond's complex argument, nor to his work in teaching French in Canada, but it needs to be stated that what he offers to defend his view is the experience of someone living within that model. Obviously, I live within a different one, with an experience more like that reported in the posting from Moncton or from South West Texas. It's not in the least exotic (that I should have lived long enough to hear Toronto called exotic - I love it!), its just the normal texture of life in a community where slowly, slowly, and from a number of sources other than the lingustic, another model is taking its place. I don't know what that model is, but I hope that its not the "tribalism" that Skip Knox finds so backward. (Interesting word, "tribalism". Why do we white folks have the habit of using it in such a deprecatory way? If we all spoke English, all over the world, absolutely everywhere, would it make us less tribal? I suspect not; we'd just be a bigger tribe. Whether he likes it or not, Skip belongs to a tribe. Me too. But I digress.) I have one problem with Ian Richmond's response. I can't tell if he once wanted a bilingual Canada and is now disillusioned, or if he never believed in it at all. Perhaps it would be a good idea to show my own colours. I did once have hopes for a bilingual Canada; I grew up with French beside the English on the Corn Flakes Box, high school trips to Quebec and Quebec kids visiting us. I educated my daughter in French. I have attended and run bilingual conferences. I have participated in the usual meetings with Ottawa bureaucrats in which the French all spoke their language, and the English all spoke theirs, and it worked just fine. I have even snickered at the persistent (and very tribal) European jokes about Americans who can't speak anything but English. And like a lot of Canadians who shared this same very 1950s) experience, I still don't speak French at all well. The point is, I kept on hoping for this truly new phenomenon, in which the tribes might be themselves, and still live together in mutual peace and respect. But history has taken us in another direction. It is said that at the time of Confederation, the French believed that they as "un peuple" were entering into a relationship with the English, another "peuple." It was probably so in 1867 but it is no longer the case. The English in Canada are many many peoples and the problem which we now face, as Canada changes so radically, is whether we can preserve, from that earlier union, the hope which some of us at least then had. Hope goes with realism: the reality of that union was not always pretty. I know perfectly well about the economic disparities Ian Richmond describes as arising from the linguistic problem. The Scots did own the banks, and the French cleaned them. But we became a country in which the fact of language cannot be set aside. Is there an American reading this who thinks that in his or her country, as it has evolved, the fact of colour can be set aside? No, it's real, it's there, it's what history gave. It's what you do with what history gives that makes the nation. Do you turn the language problem into a battle for supremacy (my tribal language is better than yours, or at least it will get you ahead faster), or do you look at the conflict and say "what strengths are there here which we want keep for the whole community"? For me, not setting the fact of language aside is one of those strengths. Germaine. From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: Re Languages (French) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 01:59:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2347 (2715) Coming in late in this discussion, I apologize for any repetitions... Seems to me that the the French/English discussion has become caught in the snare of of Canadian linguistic politics, an area in which angels themselves fear to tread. What has not been explained to our American friends, is that French in Canada is not on an exact par with all other languages, such as Italian or Ukranian or whatever. All those minority languages have a *backup*... that is, if they die out in Canada, there is still a a vital culture living with that language. French in Canada is in vulgar terms, a home grown product. It reflects a migration which landed here and grew here much in the way that the English landed in North America and grew there. No French-Canadian/Quebecois (two somewhat different populations) can go home again, any more than any American can go "home" to England... they are a new ethnic group, as much as Americans are.... and the language reflects that. It is not, however, a language which takes the form of an obscure, un-understandable dialect, as has been suggested in some postings. It has linguistic levels, as any language does. For sure, if a Brit lands in New York and attempts communications with the local Brooklyn/bronx taxi driver, some rather interesting misunderstandings might occur. A PArisian landing in Montreal and attempting communications with the local service people might well have the same experience. If he/she communicates with the academic people, no problem of understanding will occur... but it would be *so* picturesque to talk about linguistic mis-communication... fodder for table talk, as it were. One has to wonder at the *intentions* of the people talking about such misunderstandings. As for the language of international forums (forgive my Latin), it is obvious, and has been for many years that English has become the lingua franca. One may approve or disapprove, but one cannot quibble. The fact that a lingua franca exists does not necessarily place a value judgement on other languages, unless one is highly sensitive to the power that one's country wields... in which case one can only hope that the person involved acquires some distancing effect to allow him/her to continue communicating with others without constantly falling into a nationalist trap. I would be delighted to read postings in many languages; I own up to a relative few, but if others are posted, I would hope that the poster also lets us know of translators... translations are poor things, but with the original text, may allow us to learn things. If we are reduced to English only, then the whole world view will be filtered through that language, which is a wonderful language, but as any language is, limited in the ways that it conveys the world. A variety of languages is a wonderful thing..... From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: French Quebec Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 08:55:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2348 (2716) I Just can't believe what I am reading these days on HUmanist regarding the status of the French language in Canada. Once the polite exchanges about multiculturalism, respect of others, interest of difference, etc... are exhausted what finally comes to the fore is pure intolerance if not racism pure and simple. I wonder what kind of a historian one must be to state that Quebec tribalism is breaking up Canada! How many times shall we have to repeat that there are 6 million french speakers in Quebec that form a perfectly functional society. If there is such a thing as a tribe in Quebec it's that part of the english-speaking community that does not understand that, like it or not, Quebec is a different country. I also feel compelled to support Benoit Melancon'scontention that the french language in Quebec is only marginally different from what it is in France: the vocabulary and syntax present only minimal variations. Accent becomes an obstacle to intra- linguistic comprehension for "parisian-french" speakers (I am one myself) only in very rare cases (basically: the language spoken in some popular districts of Montreal). In most cases the phonetic variation is similar to what can e encountered in the provinces (where th alsatian, or Berry accents are a lot more pronounced). This means that french in Quebec can in no way be described as a "dialect" except when one is motivated by prejudice.But people in Quebec are used to be confronted by that kind of prejudice and this is why they are moving more and more in the direction of separation -- who could blame them, except the most bigoted of so-called "historians" and "linguists". From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Re: 4.1090 Hum: The Languages of Humanist Topic (1/38) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 12:57:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2349 (2717) After reading Benoit Laplante's most unscientific diatribe, I reread the Humanist postings on language from 24 February, including my own. I fail to see in them evidence of the bigotry Laplante attributes to them. If concern for the status of minority language groups, including the French-language minorities outside Quebec, is bigotry, then I cheerfully plead guilty as charged. I must also plead guilty to unscientific argument if "unscientific" means presenting views derived from published census statistics and various published reports by reputable scholars. But perhaps, after all, it just means "not in agreement with Laplante". Ensconced in his comfortable position as a member of the linguistic and cultural majority in Quebec and with a sufficient mastery of English to feel comfortable elsewhere in Canada, Laplante can perhaps persuade himself that language minorities and their place in the dominant culture are not a fit subject of discussion for humanistic scholars. Given the increasing frequency of inter-cultural and inter-linguistic contact in the contemporary world, this seems to me an incredibly short-sighted view. Few questions, indeed, can be more significant or more pertinent to the humanistic enterprise than that of intercultural contact. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Alleged bigotry Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 16:06:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2350 (2718) After sending my last posting, I continued to wonder what could have caused Benoit Laplante to hurl such a virulent accusation of bigotry at the 24 February postings on the subject of minority language. The only thing I could see in any of the messages that appeared likely to provoke such an attack was a phrase in my own message: "... French-speaking parents who wanted to ensure that their children were raised in the francophone culture should move to Quebec...." Admittedly, taken out of context this *does* look like the kind of sentiment sometimes expressed on hot-line shows. In context, however, I thought it was clear that it expressed the idea that francophone parents living in Ontario, where French is "a lost cause" (i.e. has a bleak future) according to the official I quoted, had no choice but to leave the province if they wanted their children to remain unassimilated by the dominant English culture. In other words, the dominant culture in this part of Canada is so strong that it is virtually impossible for young Franco-Ontarians to escape its clutches. It was to this situation that I referred when I said that the report on Franco-Ontarian education expressed a similar view. If this was not clear and my linguistic obscurity caused Benoit Laplante, or any other Humanist, unwarranted emotional distress, I hereby apologize. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: Peter Ian Kuniholm <MCG@CORNELLC> Subject: Re: 4.1090 Hum: The Languages of Humanist Topic (1/38) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 16:55:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2351 (2719) Hurrah for Benoit Laplante's scathing remarks about the matter of language! It has seemed to me that an important factor in our lives was being overlooked am idst the vitriolic remarks from Quebec. For humanists (not to mention all academics) the essential ingredient in commun ication should be CIVILITY. Most of my colleagues (I speak as a classical archaeologist) speak in languages other than English. What has evolved in our communication is that one writes in one's best language, and the reader does the translating. The alternative i s often absurd, ungrammatical attempts to render the other person's language. Best to speak one's own tongue...in my case English (no cultural imperialism im plied)...and then attempt to decode replies in French, German, Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian, Italian, etc. When my colleagues really do not know English, then I try to cobble something together in their language(s), but the first method is really the more satisfact ory to all parties concerned. The shrill tones of the letter predicting the inevitable breakup of Canada into English-speaking and Joual-speaking ill befits a forum in which HUMANITAS and CARITAS ought to be the order of the day. Peter Ian Kuniholm From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.1080 Words: Degendering Ombudsman (3/52) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 1991 13:16:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2352 (2720) Ah, the ironies of adjusting our language to avoid the manufactured sensibilities of others. A case in point: A speaker with a hyphenated last name [the last name of her presumably male father coupled with that of her presumably male husband] who described herself as a feminist anthropologist--not a personologist, but an anthropologist. Its enough to make a woperson dispair! Perhaps we should follow the lead of Malcolm X who used the X to avoid wearing the name of the white slave owner of his ancestors. Perhaps we should use "*" to replace any part of any word or even any word that we find offensive. Thus we would have "ombuds*" instead of "ombudsman" or "ombudsperson." This would would greatly simplify the lives of those who are fe*ists, wo*, *ologists, etc. You may think pronunciation would be a problem, but I doubt it. My friend Hen3ry never had problems pronouncing his name. When people asked, he just told them the "3" was silent. :*) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Don Webb <UOG02036@vm.uoguelph.ca> Subject: Ombudsmench? Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 23:56:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2353 (2721) The current debate whether the word "ombudsman" is gender specific reminds me of the "misandry" debate of a couple of years ago, only the latter discussion dealt as much with content as form. Maybe English could have come up with a descriptive term of its own ("Public Paladin"?), but Swedish got there first; now we have a Swedish word that's been Anglicized and must fit English conventions, however inconsistent they may be in their evolution. The rule seems to be that a foreign word may be borrowed (stolen? photocopied? Natalie Maynor, where are you?) to denote an occupation but that the suffix denoting the person performing the occupation must be in current usage. That rules out, sadly, "ombudsmensch." Other possibilities are suffixes in -ist, -er, -or, etc., but replacing -man with one of them would make many words, including 'ombudsman', unrecognizable, e.g. 'fireman', 'policeman' - as mentioned in previous postings - and 'corpsman' ('paramedic' in civilian terms), not to mention 'woman.' If your language more or less systematically marks gender, then the problem consists in regularizing occasional exceptions, e.g. 'le professeur' - "la professeure"; 'le docteur' - "la docteure"; 'un ecrivain' - "une ecrivaine" the feminine forms being neologisms that have found some favor in Canada). English, however, denotes gender only by exception, which may help explain why "man" has become, in some instances, a Bad Word. It's a valid argument that in English, as in French, for example, the feminine form is specific whereas the masculine is either male or generic. But that is precisely the problem: the man gets two slices of pie and the woman gets only one. The issue is very real: language not only reflects culture, it is a part of culture; it is both effect and cause. My friend and colleague Alexandre Kimenyi made this point very elegantly in an article in _Jeune Afrique_ some ten years ago, that social and linguistic change go hand in hand and that true progress requires that we consider our language as critically as our politics. None of us was consulted about the language we first learned, or its form; we took what we were given. But we are, all of us, being consulted now. What, then, are we to do? For me, it's first of all a matter of attitude. I'll give the benefit of the doubt wherever possible: not all those who call for language reform are motivated by an anti-male bias, and not all those who question language reform are motivated by an anti-female bias. True, sexism exists in both camps; in the egalitarian spirit of English grammar, the adjective "sexist" has no gender. To avoid it in myself, I'll start by not charging others with it. How to reform English grammar? The project sounds too much like work to me, and I doubt my ideas are any better than anyone else's. What to do about "ombudsman"? I hadn't realized it was a problem, but now that you tell me it is, well, that's a tough one. "Ombudsmensch" sounds better and better to me... Don Webb (UoG02036@vm.UoGuelph.CA) (dpw@CoSy.UoGuelph.CA) (DonWebb@CSUS.EDU) (DonWebb@CalState.Bitnet) From: Paul Delany <USERAARY@SFU.BITNET> Subject: Hypermedia and Literary Studies Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 16:12:40 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1096 (2722) [ *Hypermedia and Literary Studies* Paul Delany and George P. Landow MIT Press, 352 pages, $37.50 --ahr] Contents Foreword PART I Introduction Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art George P. Landow and Paul Delany 3 PART II Theory Reading and Writing the Electronic Book Nicole Yankelovich, Norman Meyrowitz and Andries van Dam 53 The Rhetoric of Hypermedia: Some Rules for Authors George P. Landow 81 Topographic Writing: Hypertext and the Electronic Writing Space Jay David Bolter 105 Reading From the Map: Metonymy and Metaphor in the Fiction of …Forking PathsŃ Stuart Moulthrop 119 [deleted quotation]Revisiting "Reading and Writing the Electronic Book" Nicole Yankelovich 133 Poem Descending a Staircase: Hypertext and the Simultaneity of Experience William Dickey 143 Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium John Slatin 153 Threnody: Psychoanalytic Digressions on the Subject of Hypertexts Terence Harpold 171 PART III Applications Biblical Studies and Hypertext Steven J. DeRose 185 Ancient Materials, Modern Media: Shaping the Study of Classics with Hypertext Gregory Crane and Elli Mylonas 205 Linking Together Books: Adapting Published Material into Intermedia Documents Paul Kahn 221 The Shakespeare Project Larry Friedlander 257 The Emblematic Hyperbook David Graham 273 HyperCard Stacks for FieldingŃs Joseph Andrews: Issues of Design and Content Paul Delany and John K. Gilbert 287 Hypertext for the PC: the Ruben Dario Project Joseph A. Feustle Jr. 299 Conceptualizing Hypermedia Curricula for Literary Studies in Schools Alister Cumming and Gerri Sinclair 315 Bibliography 329 Notes on Contributors 339 Index 343 [reformatted --ahr] From: Sebastian Rahtz <S.P.Q.Rahtz@ecs.southampton.ac.uk> Subject: help for historian Date: Mon, 25 Feb 1991 12:48:00 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1097 (2723) Forwarded by: Willard McCarty A computer science colleague in Portugal is interested in finding out about people working in the area of knowledge representation for historical and archive data. I suggested, inter alia, that he join the AHC and subscribe to HUMANIST. I am sure that neither of you is now the right person to ask, but I am sure you know the answers! So could you drop a short line to jj@pt.ctt.uminho with the information on those two topics? I would be most grateful! yours sebastian From: unicode-request@Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) Subject: submission Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 11:25:55 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1098 (2724) Michael Sperberg-McQueen (U Illinois at Chicago) writes: [deleted quotation] I've heard this knock against Unicode so many times it's starting to sound like Iraqi propaganda. In fact Unicode includes all pre-composed accented characters contained in the nine ISO 8859 standards. Most countries that prefer pre-composed accented characters (all of Europe apparently feels this way) can use them. For writing systems whose users are comfortable with floating diacritics (the IPA for linguists comes to mind), Unicode provides the appropriate mechanism, but DIS 10646 does not. In my view, the major problem with 10646 is that a complete implementation is nearly impossible, and partial implementations are almost as bad as none at all. Consider that a plethora of differing partial implementation around the world would make the global interchange of data infeasible. From: Editors of PmC <PMC@NCSUVM> Subject: _Swift Current_? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 09:40:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2354 (2725) If you know of a Canadian electronic journal titled _Swift Current_ please let me know. Thank you. Eyal Amiran Co-editor, Postmodern Culture From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it Subject: text-linguistic image acquisition in arabic proverbs Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 15:48:07 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2355 (2726) Keywords: text linguistic arabic proverb I am trying to help a friend with her research in Arabic proverbs, and have a few questions about what she is studying. Her research is occupied with the following: "With the Text-linguistic concept of the closeness of the text, I seek the signals of the self-contained status of the proverb as well as of the arabic traditional line of verse on the rhythmical, phonetical, syntactical and semantic levels; which are the devices and which are the most recurring characteristics." 1. What are "text-linguistics"? Is it an approach or hypothesis which states that the creation of an image by text (ie. phrase or sentence) is made possible by the words' semantics, argument structure, pronunciation, phrasal syntax, etc.? 2. What is the text-linguistic "concept of the closeness of the text"? To what would the text be "close", and based on which criteria? Is "closeness" a statistical concept? For what regards the seeking of "signals of the self-contained status of the proverb": 3. Is this an example of how "text-linguistics" empower the comprehension of a proverb? 4. What could constitute valid "signals" in a general human experience of poetry or proverbs. Are there recurrent human perceptually-based primitives? 5. Is there any computational or automatic method for extracting signals from text? 6. Is there any computational or automatic method for constructing images, based on such signals, from text? 7. Does anyone have any experiences to share, be they in a similar approach to analyzing poetry, prose, proverbs, manners of speech, etc.? 8. Are there any arabists out there? ----- Due to constraints of time and disk space, I would prefer that e-mail responses be sent to me, though I shall try to stay in touch with group discussions as well. -Joe Giampapa Sixcom Host Systems and Remote Processing Division of the Olivetti Group Milano (Italia) garof@sixcom.it garof@sixcom.uucp Due to occasional outages of Internet in Italy, senders from Internet sites are requested to explicitly coerce their message's routing. The addresses below have been confirmed to work: garof%sixcom.it@uunet.uu.net garof%sixcom@carla.dist.unige.it garof@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu <<==== this is a reliable forward [message posted to: humanist@brownvm.bitnet, linguist@uniwa.uwa.oz.au] From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: UTOPIAN STUDIES SCHOLARS Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 10:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2356 (2727) Dear Editors, Could you please post the following announcement. This is an appeal to all "humanists" in literary studies, philosophy, history, theology. I am studying UTOPIA / UTOPIAS / UTOPIANISM from literary, historical, philosophicsl-theoretic points of view. I would like to hear from scholars involved in similar or close activity, or anyone familiar with the state of Utopian Studies in North America. I have heard about the *Society for Utopian Studies*. Does anyone know how to reach Michael S. Cummings or Nicholas D. Smith, editors of Utopian Studies I and II ? Thanks. I will welcome responses in English and French. I can also read German and Italian. Christian Allegre Departement d'Etudes francaises Universite de Montreal (CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET) From: "Joel Elliott (jeliot@unc)" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: The term "multiculturalism" Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 13:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2357 (2728) Hello, I would like to know when the term "multiculturalism" first appeared in scholarly discourse (or in any other kind of discourse). What other terms have been used for this idea of cultural diversity? (e.g., bicultural, intercultural, etc.). Thanks, Joel Elliott University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill From: Editors of PmC <PMC@NCSUVM> Subject: _Swift Current_? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 09:40:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2358 (2729) If you know of a Canadian electronic journal titled _Swift Current_ please let me know. Thank you. Eyal Amiran Co-editor, Postmodern Culture From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it Subject: text-linguistic image acquisition in arabic proverbs Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 15:48:07 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2359 (2730) Keywords: text linguistic arabic proverb I am trying to help a friend with her research in Arabic proverbs, and have a few questions about what she is studying. Her research is occupied with the following: "With the Text-linguistic concept of the closeness of the text, I seek the signals of the self-contained status of the proverb as well as of the arabic traditional line of verse on the rhythmical, phonetical, syntactical and semantic levels; which are the devices and which are the most recurring characteristics." 1. What are "text-linguistics"? Is it an approach or hypothesis which states that the creation of an image by text (ie. phrase or sentence) is made possible by the words' semantics, argument structure, pronunciation, phrasal syntax, etc.? 2. What is the text-linguistic "concept of the closeness of the text"? To what would the text be "close", and based on which criteria? Is "closeness" a statistical concept? For what regards the seeking of "signals of the self-contained status of the proverb": 3. Is this an example of how "text-linguistics" empower the comprehension of a proverb? 4. What could constitute valid "signals" in a general human experience of poetry or proverbs. Are there recurrent human perceptually-based primitives? 5. Is there any computational or automatic method for extracting signals from text? 6. Is there any computational or automatic method for constructing images, based on such signals, from text? 7. Does anyone have any experiences to share, be they in a similar approach to analyzing poetry, prose, proverbs, manners of speech, etc.? 8. Are there any arabists out there? ----- Due to constraints of time and disk space, I would prefer that e-mail responses be sent to me, though I shall try to stay in touch with group discussions as well. -Joe Giampapa Sixcom Host Systems and Remote Processing Division of the Olivetti Group Milano (Italia) garof@sixcom.it garof@sixcom.uucp Due to occasional outages of Internet in Italy, senders from Internet sites are requested to explicitly coerce their message's routing. The addresses below have been confirmed to work: garof%sixcom.it@uunet.uu.net garof%sixcom@carla.dist.unige.it garof@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu <<==== this is a reliable forward [message posted to: humanist@brownvm.bitnet, linguist@uniwa.uwa.oz.au] From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: UTOPIAN STUDIES SCHOLARS Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 10:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2360 (2731) Dear Editors, Could you please post the following announcement. This is an appeal to all "humanists" in literary studies, philosophy, history, theology. I am studying UTOPIA / UTOPIAS / UTOPIANISM from literary, historical, philosophicsl-theoretic points of view. I would like to hear from scholars involved in similar or close activity, or anyone familiar with the state of Utopian Studies in North America. I have heard about the *Society for Utopian Studies*. Does anyone know how to reach Michael S. Cummings or Nicholas D. Smith, editors of Utopian Studies I and II ? Thanks. I will welcome responses in English and French. I can also read German and Italian. Christian Allegre Departement d'Etudes francaises Universite de Montreal (CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET) From: "Joel Elliott (jeliot@unc)" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: The term "multiculturalism" Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 13:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2361 (2732) Hello, I would like to know when the term "multiculturalism" first appeared in scholarly discourse (or in any other kind of discourse). What other terms have been used for this idea of cultural diversity? (e.g., bicultural, intercultural, etc.). Thanks, Joel Elliott University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill From: Sebastian Heath <OW401004@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1092 Rs: OE fonts; Ancient Greek Medicine Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 17:45:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2362 (2733) while i am not elli mylonas, i also have an interest in oe fonts. i told the listserv at west virginia to send me the file but was told that i am not authorized. is the font on any of the mac ftp servers? thanks, sebastian heath. From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re. 4.1095 Degendering ombudsman Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 11:54:08 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2363 (2734) As to -man being gender neutral or not: The Swedish jamstalldhetsombudsman (help yourselves, those of you who maintain that we use the languages we are most comfortable with! To the rest of you: Equal Rights ombudsman, equal rights referring to the sexes) is called just that, and so far she has always been a woman. No one has ever suggested that she be called -person etc. Gunhild Viden, univ. of Gothenburg From: TRACY LOGAN <LOGANT@lafayett.BITNET> Subject: inclusive word to replace 'freshman'? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 11:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2364 (2735) The ombuds# discussion evolving out of James Woolley's query leads me to ask for help with an alternative to "FRESHMAN." At the (U.S.) colleges I am familiar with, three of the four classes have inclusive names, at least on the gender dimension: Sophomore, Junior, Senior. I have been trying to use "Frosh" but in formal writing it jars others as well as me. "Fresher" seems not to fly, either. - tracy uucp : rutgers!lafcol!logant Bitnet : loganT @ LAFAYETT Internet: loganT @ lafvax.lafayette.edu From: Robin Smith <RSMITH@KSUVM.KSU.EDU> Subject: Anthropologists, not 'andrologists' Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 13:12 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2365 (2736) It's a trivial point, but just for the record: Tom Rusk Vickery supposes there to be something ironic about a woman identifying herself as a 'feminist anthro- pologist.' Of course, the Greek word 'anthropos' itself does not imply male gender (however patriarchal the culture that used it may have been): the Greeks had 'aner' for that. In fact, 'anthropos' can even be used with a feminine ar- ticle, when the person to whom it happens to refer is a woman (no less a male supremacist than Aristotle does that: Eth.Nic. VII.5, 1148b20). I actually don't know how to Hellenize the irony Vickery thinks he sees (an 'andrologist,' if there be such a thing, would presumably be a person who studies men and not women). From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: Re: 4.1094 Languages of Humanist / French (7/259) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 09:58:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2366 (2737) This is my last message on the subject of minority languages in Canada or elsewhere. I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the issue is too emotional, or perhaps too politically hot, for the long-distance debate possible through E-mail. I feel compelled, however, to respond to Germaine Warkentin's comment about my postings. Germaine's comments about Scottish bankers, etc. are simply absurd. Nothing in my posting suggests such an attitude on my part. My example of the Chinese engineer washing dishes was not a racial stereotype; it was a simple statement of the facts as they exist. He might just as well have been working in a warehouse. As it is, he is washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant because that was the only job he could find. This does not, it seems to me, suggest that all Chinese or Canadians of Chinese origin work in restaurants or laundries. It does, however, suggest that those who cannot speak one of the dominant, official languages sufficiently well are stuck at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. Germaine is right about my disillusionment. I am very disillusioned with official bilingualism. I should perhaps explain here that the Canadian government's version of bilingualism is not comparable to that in countries like Belgium and Switzerland, to which Canada is often compared. In those countries, a policy of regional bilingualism was adopted. That is to say, it is officially recognized that one language or the other predominates in various regions. Thus, Belgium has a French-speaking region and a Flemish-speaking region. The Canadian government rejected this concept in favour of "personal bilingualism". In other words, the form of bilingualism officially encouraged and funded in Canada involves the learning of both official languages by as many individual Canadians as possible. It is *this* form of bilingualism that, in my view, has been a failure. Canada is certainly a bilingual country if one defines bilingualism as regional. If Quebec is unhappy, it is largely because the official bilingualism refused to recognize that there is a coherent, French-speaking society of over 6 million in Quebec. (It often comes as a surprise to non-Canadians to learn that only one province in ten is officially bilingual, and that that province is not Quebec, but New Brunswick. Quebec is officially unilingual, French-speaking, although it grants very generous language rights to its anglophone minority.) In practice, official "personal" bilingualism has benefitted the anglophone majority more than the francophone minority. For example, the bulk of the federal government's efforts has been in the teaching of French as a second language. There are, of course, intrinsic benefits in this, but primarily to those directly involved. Quebec has largely ignored the federal government's language policies and, rightly, I believe, has taken its linguistic and cultural future into its own hands. The Quebecois were, and are, very aware that, when a minority-language group is in contact with a majority-language group, personal bilingualism is usually the first step in the cultural assimilation of the minority group. Outside of Quebec, official bilingualism has done little to change the status of francophone minorities. The simple fact is that, despite more than 20 years of this policy, the number of people claiming French as their language of primary use has declined dramatically outside of Quebec and New Brunswick. It is true that the bilingualism policy has created a greater awareness of these minorities. One of the results of this is that the francophone groups are more likely now to have their own schools. This is certainly the case in Ontario. Nevertheless, in areas where the English-language culture is dominant, francophone schools do not seem sufficient to halt assimilation; they merely delay it a few years. That is the problem, I see. What is the solution? I don't know. Certainly, if our primary goal is to preserve French language and culture in Canada/North America, then the Quebec government's approach seems the logical one. This will not, however, help the French minorities outside Quebec. Creating a French-language infrastructure, with an education system extending to post- secondary institutions probably would help them. Most Canadians, however, would likely not agree to bear the enormous costs. The problem is extremely complex. My reaction to Germaine Warkentin's postings has been perhaps coloured by my frustration at what I perceived as a simplistic, "French-on-my-Cornflakes-box" attitude towards it. Perhaps I wrong her. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: "John A. Dussinger" <dussinge@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: language of humanist Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 19:00:57 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2367 (2738) Since I'm only a newcomer to HUMANIST and inadvertently walked into a minefield of Canadian linguistic politics, until being slyly referred to as a "bigot" in one or two of the most recent postings, I had fully expected to let Canadian problems take their course. I have no claim to professionally declaring what is "scientific" or "dialectic" except by appealing to the usual dictionaries. But I must register my dismay at the very use of a questionable grounds of truth when dealing with the utterly cultural, emotional exercise of language. So for the record, please know that PERSONALLY I hope that the French stay as french as possible in Quebec so that I can once again enjoy a French vacation without the expense of going to France. My one daughter is a French citizen and utterly identifies her present life with the social pace in Dijon. Now let's face it, can't you hear some Parisian sneering at the whole thought of living in Dijon or maybe even Lyons? The "bigotry" that a few paranoid French Cana- dians have addressed in this net is nothing more or less than the cultural pain of DIFFERENCE that other superstar and marginal writers like Jacques Derrida have made their fortunes from in the academic world. Again, my original point was the depressing marginalization that occurs when an ethnic group becomes so adamant as to deny their offspring the opportunity of gaining full status as citizens in the hegemonic culture. That was the lesson so nicely displayed by the present mayor of Miami, a Cuban who mastered the way Americans at least speak the language, whether it's REALLY English or otherwise. So VIVE LE FRANCE in Quebec from MY personal choice as a would-be tourist who gets tired of the usual Disney crap down here. But I still won't budge an inch on the matter of making Spanish the second language in this country below your borders. From: Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: This digest Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 20:44:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2368 (2739) I lost track of a War digest earlier this month. Here it is now. -- Allen From: LHAMPLYONS@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu Subject: civil rights/privacy Date: Thu, 14 Feb 1991 21:19 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2369 (2740) Surely the request for faculty to inform a Chancellor of "nationality" (itself a meaningless term as used by said Chancellor) of Arab and Israeli students is illegal? Where is the local ACLU? From: Bernard_van't_Hul@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: [Werman] Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 08:37:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2370 (2741) Only somewhat more than a month ago, when George Lakoff's essay of January 6 was NOT IMPOSED on *Humanist* readers but made available by one's request, R Werman was among the very first to protest -- in this fully quoted response: "I feel," Werman said, " that there is no room for a politically motivated paper -- of such inordinate length [sic], no less -- as that of Prof. Lakoff's on the Humanist Net. I voice my strongly felt disgust and disappointment that the Net be used cynically for such unscholarly purposes." Since Werman voiced his disgust, *Humanist* readers have been receiving Werman's a-politically motivated diary of ordinate length written for scholarly purposes -- its latter-day installments "protected" from cynical abuses by the formulaic notice of "Copyright Reserved." Having been apprised that although the legal and ethical illocutionary force of Werman's appended caveat is unclear to *Humanist* editors themselves, and that the caveat may have been advised by the publisher interested in or committed to making a book of his diary, I hope that by *Humanist*'s forthcoming "New Statements of Policies on Commercial Postings, Copyright,...[etc.]" one will be advised on how, except by buying the Werman book, one is meant to live up to letter and spirit of Werman's caveat. I suppose that in Werman's acknowledgements one will read gratitude expressed -- and not merely to named respondents to earlier drafts, such as Koren, et al., but also to *Humanist* subscribers en masse who surely deserve at least the passing nod that is commonly nodded to spouses and other unnamed secretarial midwives to the birth of a book. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1093 On the War (2/29) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 23:13 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2371 (2742) To Sean O'Caithosaigh, and the others reading our postings: You are quite corre ct in your surmise that I did not mean an elaborate irony to demonstrate that " metaphor can be used to silence the voice of reason." I was being direct and bl unt, and was not intending to be intemperate at all. It was cold and clear: I c onsider Lakoff's arguments both insidiously UNreasonable, if reasoned, and full of simplistic nonsense. I began, long ago it now seems, after the iron has rol led through the desert of Arabia and now into the Mesopotamian delta, by observ ing that L's first essay was pretentious and vapid, and had been much better ph rased and described for us, as analysis of wornout figures and cliches and lies and propaganda by an essay of George Orwell's, famous for decades in freshman English classes here in the US. If Orwell is disliked by some perhaps it is bec ause he was shot in the throat by the Stalinists in Spain and lived to speak ag ainst the tyranny of lies that has emanated from the various incarnations of th e disinformation bureaux of the Kremlin since 1920. This is such old news that it is simply tiresome to keep reminding the world about it. I myself thought L was being either disingenuous or naive: take your choice. I prefer that choice to what I really think and have suggested: that his position and statements are unworthy of history and of those many millions, tens and tens of millions, who have died because of positions like his that favor tyranny by disarming freedo m, or would if they are given the license to. I stand with Orwell,who is long d ead, but an honorable man. You will recall that even the crypto-fascist, T S El iot, Mr Churchwarden himself, never rescinded his anti-Semitic poems from his o wn canon, and worse, prevented the publication of Orwell's masterly satire on the essence of the tyrant of our time, ANIMAL FARM, because he believed that St alin would be offended by it! What a coincidence of interests! Unsurprising, re ally. Shall we go on? If you think Lakoff is reasonable, you may protest agains t my passionate statement. Feel free. That is what freedom of thought means and should mean. Jascha Kessler From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: 'Just War' Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 17:58:21 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2372 (2743) Douglas de Lacey in his very interesting piece writes: [deleted quotation] Recent research suggests that there was no possibility that the war would have continued to be fought only with 'conventional' weapons, and that Truman was more or less aware of that when he decided to use the atom bombs. I would refer interested readers to the discussion on HISTORY@FINHUTC in January - it's probably available from FINHUTC in the file HISTORY LOG91001. Christopher From: Editors of PmC <PMC@NCSUVM> Subject: _Swift Current_? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 09:40:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2373 (2744) If you know of a Canadian electronic journal titled _Swift Current_ please let me know. Thank you. Eyal Amiran Co-editor, Postmodern Culture From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it Subject: text-linguistic image acquisition in arabic proverbs Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 15:48:07 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2374 (2745) Keywords: text linguistic arabic proverb I am trying to help a friend with her research in Arabic proverbs, and have a few questions about what she is studying. Her research is occupied with the following: "With the Text-linguistic concept of the closeness of the text, I seek the signals of the self-contained status of the proverb as well as of the arabic traditional line of verse on the rhythmical, phonetical, syntactical and semantic levels; which are the devices and which are the most recurring characteristics." 1. What are "text-linguistics"? Is it an approach or hypothesis which states that the creation of an image by text (ie. phrase or sentence) is made possible by the words' semantics, argument structure, pronunciation, phrasal syntax, etc.? 2. What is the text-linguistic "concept of the closeness of the text"? To what would the text be "close", and based on which criteria? Is "closeness" a statistical concept? For what regards the seeking of "signals of the self-contained status of the proverb": 3. Is this an example of how "text-linguistics" empower the comprehension of a proverb? 4. What could constitute valid "signals" in a general human experience of poetry or proverbs. Are there recurrent human perceptually-based primitives? 5. Is there any computational or automatic method for extracting signals from text? 6. Is there any computational or automatic method for constructing images, based on such signals, from text? 7. Does anyone have any experiences to share, be they in a similar approach to analyzing poetry, prose, proverbs, manners of speech, etc.? 8. Are there any arabists out there? ----- Due to constraints of time and disk space, I would prefer that e-mail responses be sent to me, though I shall try to stay in touch with group discussions as well. -Joe Giampapa Sixcom Host Systems and Remote Processing Division of the Olivetti Group Milano (Italia) garof@sixcom.it garof@sixcom.uucp Due to occasional outages of Internet in Italy, senders from Internet sites are requested to explicitly coerce their message's routing. The addresses below have been confirmed to work: garof%sixcom.it@uunet.uu.net garof%sixcom@carla.dist.unige.it garof@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu <<==== this is a reliable forward [message posted to: humanist@brownvm.bitnet, linguist@uniwa.uwa.oz.au] From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: UTOPIAN STUDIES SCHOLARS Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 10:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2375 (2746) Dear Editors, Could you please post the following announcement. This is an appeal to all "humanists" in literary studies, philosophy, history, theology. I am studying UTOPIA / UTOPIAS / UTOPIANISM from literary, historical, philosophicsl-theoretic points of view. I would like to hear from scholars involved in similar or close activity, or anyone familiar with the state of Utopian Studies in North America. I have heard about the *Society for Utopian Studies*. Does anyone know how to reach Michael S. Cummings or Nicholas D. Smith, editors of Utopian Studies I and II ? Thanks. I will welcome responses in English and French. I can also read German and Italian. Christian Allegre Departement d'Etudes francaises Universite de Montreal (CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET) From: "Joel Elliott (jeliot@unc)" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: The term "multiculturalism" Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 13:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2376 (2747) Hello, I would like to know when the term "multiculturalism" first appeared in scholarly discourse (or in any other kind of discourse). What other terms have been used for this idea of cultural diversity? (e.g., bicultural, intercultural, etc.). Thanks, Joel Elliott University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill From: Sebastian Heath <OW401004@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1092 Rs: OE fonts; Ancient Greek Medicine Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 17:45:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2377 (2748) while i am not elli mylonas, i also have an interest in oe fonts. i told the listserv at west virginia to send me the file but was told that i am not authorized. is the font on any of the mac ftp servers? thanks, sebastian heath. From: Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Editors: MIDEAST DIARIES Distribution Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 21:22:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1104 (2749) We decided to set up a separate list for the diary material from the middle east instead of using AFD. All the AFD subscriptions were moved to the list so if you asked for an AFD subscription you should already be subscribed to the list and getting diaries. If you did not ask for an AFD subscription and wish to subscribe 0to this list send mail to listserv@brownvm or listserv@brownvm.brown.edu with this line as the body text -- SUB HUMSPC-L yourname HUMSPC-L abbreviates 'Humanist Special List'. -- Allen From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: 4.1092 Rs: OE fonts; Ancient Greek Medicine (5/57) Date: 27 Feb 91 21:21:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2378 (2750) For Ancient Greek Medicine, I cannot forbear to name my own colleague, Wesley D. Smith, whose most recent edition/trans. of Hippocratic writings is in the latest Brill catalogue, and who is editor of the Newsletter of the Society for Ancient Medicine, a cooperative publication which tries to cover the whole field of pre-modern medicine -- a most impressive publication, I might add, and one whose e-form is now available through the LISTSERV via FICINO, for those who are on that list. Professor Smith may be reached on BITNET as WSMITH@PENNSAS and on INTERNET as WSMITH@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU. Highly recommended. From: UDAA270@ELM.CC.KCL.AC.UK Subject: OE Mac fonts Date: Wed, 27 FEB 91 11:20:56 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2379 (2751) The question of Mac OE fonts has been a topic on ANSAXNET in the past, and at least two fonts are available on its server. One of these was developed here at King's College London by a colleague, Gordon Gallacher. I enclose details from him on how to obtain copies: Susan Kruse ------------- A Macintosh Font intended to offer characters for Old and Middle English, and Old Norse (based on Times Roman font), has been designed at King's College London using Fontographer and Fontastic. The font, called Aelfric, has both bitmaps and a laser (postscript) description. It can be obtained from the address below at no charge (but please send a disk). Alternatively, members of ANSAXNET can downloaded it from the ANSAXNET server. Gordon Gallacher Computing Centre King's College Strand London WC2R 2LS UK g.gallacher@elm.cc.kcl.ac.uk From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1097 Q: KR for Historical & Archive Data (1/15) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 08:52:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2380 (2752) I sent this note to the individual as requested but then thought others on the list might find it useful. This is a response to Sebastian Rahtz's note forwarded by W. McCarty concerning knowledge representation for historical and archive data. For information on archives in the U.S. I would recommend the publication by David Bearman, Archives and Museum Informatics and its Technical Bulletins. Bearman is a key commentator on automation, computers, and knowlege representation for data structures when it comes to archives and museums. His newsletter informs on events and concerns around the U.S. and world. His technical bulletins are very informative. The address is 5501 Walnut St., Suite 203, Pittsburgh PA 15232-23121 USA. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: Marc Bregman <HPUBM@HUJIVM1> Subject: Re: 4.1084 Queries (4/55) -- Uniform for MS-DOS Date: Wed, 27 Feb 1991 17:42 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2381 (2753) I received a copy of Uniform along with a Matchpoint card I purchased from Micro Solutions 132 West Lincoln Hwy. DeKalb, Ill. 601115 (815) 756-3411 I use it regularly for converting files to IBM format from my Apple IIe (mostly CP/M Wordstar files) -- I also have a few spare quill pens! Marc Bregman, Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM> Subject: fixed width characters Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 11:00:26 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1106 (2754) (Apologies to those bored by character-set issues. Stop reading *now*. -CMSMcQ) I fear there has been a misunderstanding. 1 There seems to me to be no 'knock' in saying that a code which provides dead keys makes possible a data stream with varying-width characters. I didn't say it was good or bad. 2 As I understand Bill Tuthill's posting, and the other postings, and the Unicode document, Unicode does provide dead keys. Since it also provides composed characters, Mr. Tuthill points out, no one need use the varying-width encoding unless they wish to. True. This does not seem to me to affect the issue raised by Pierre Mackay, however, which is whether Unicode and ISO10646 provide guaranteed fixed-width-character data streams. If there are dead keys, they can stack, and character width can vary. If Unicode provides dead keys, Unicode character width can vary. As Mr. Tuthill says, some like it that way; some do not. His comments on implementation difficulties are to the point, though opaque. It would be nice, however, to engage in technical discussion without invidious political comments. Michael Sperberg-McQueen From: "Bhaskaran Balakrishnan [(315) 443-2143]" <BBALAKRI@SUVM> Subject: RE: 4.0993 and the telnet/tn3270 access to SUVM's HUMANIST archive Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 11:19:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2382 (2755) This is regarding the availability of the HUMANIST archive on SUVM using the [Telnet/tn3270 suvm.acs.syr.edu ; SUINFO] procedure detailed in Ron Kalinoski's <ACDRLK@SUVM> note of 6 Feb 91 to this group - issue 4.0993 of HUMANIST. We are given to understand that several people have encountered problems accessing the database. The main problem seems to be that people get kicked off SUVM with an "access with line mode connection" error after they type SUINFO. This problem usually means the lack of tn3270 support at your end. I've been asked to look into this, and see if there is a workaround from our end. In order to do this, I would appreciate a note from anyone who has had this problem; what I am really interested in is what system you are using - Unix, VMS .. - so if you include that in your note, it would help a lot. Of course, if there were any other problems/questions/comments you have [had], feel free to email me. B BITNET: BBALAKRI@SUVM Library & Database Services Internet: bbalakri@suvm.acs.syr.edu Academic Computing Services Syracuse University From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: REACH on FTP Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 12:45:21 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2383 (2756) This is an addendum to my recent posting on the availability through anonymous FTP of _REACH_, Research and Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities, the newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara. If you are FTPing from a computer using the CMS operating system, you'll find that CMS will insist on each file having a two part name of the "filename filetype" construction. You won't have any trouble transferring the files containing the various issues of _REACH_, because each of those has a compound UNIX name such as "reach.9101" which CMS happily turns into a "filename filetype" construction during the FTP file transfer process. However, CMS doesn't like the "readme" file with its single part name, and will give you an error message if you try to transfer it without renaming it during the transfer process. Fortunately, such renaming during the FTP process is quite straightforward. To transfer the "readme" file just use the command: get readme readme.memo This will transfer the "readme" file to your machine as "readme.memo," which CMS will find quite acceptable. I did ask our local FTP wizard if it might not be a good idea for me to rename my "readme" file to "readme.memo" and eliminate the problem at its source, but he advised against that technique, citing long established UNIX conventions. Regards, Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net Subject: queries to Humanist Date: Thu Feb 28 19:54:57 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2384 (2757) Two queries: 1) I'm not able to connect any longer to FTP 129.217.64.60 or "unido.informatik.uni-dortmund.de". As a reply to one of my attempts, I got an error message saying that the host has moved. So, does anybody have the new address? 2) I would like to know if there exist any linguistical databases, both on disks/CD or on an accessible remote server, for technical terminology, especially computer science, for the following languages: Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Italian, Dutch and Dansk. For the last three languages, for example, I know of Eurodicautom, run by the European Community Host Organisation. Thanks, Marco Simionato (microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net) From: V086J8BT@UBVMS.BITNET Subject: help-oxford address Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 17:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2385 (2758) I am not a member of humanist but I understand that you have knowledge of an active OXFORD ELECTRONIC TEXT group. Could you please send me their name and e-mail address. I need to contact them regarding my ongoing Domesday research. Thank you. I apologize for possibly misuing the listserver. Anne Saladino Dept. of Anthro. Univ. at Buffalo. From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Newsletter & Journal Directory Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 08:23:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2386 (2759) I am compiling a directory of E-Newsletters and E-Journals that are available through Bitnet/Internet but I need some help. I ask that those who are aware of any electronic newsletters and journals of academic interest send the subscription information (id@Node) to the address below. When completed, this annotated directory will be made available on various filelists. Please send any subscription information to the following address (do not reply to HUMANIST): <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> Michael Strangelove Network Research Facilitator Department of Religious Studies University of Ottawa From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it Subject: berghem Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 20:38:45 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2387 (2760) As some HUMANISTs might know, Italy is rich in a variety of dialects. A person becomes a part of the culture if they demonstrate an adeptness at dialectic profanity. For example, the managers of a Corsico (MI) bicycle racing team would often halt mid-sentence, turn to me and say, "first in Milanese, and then I explain to you," and then launch into a string of profanities and bestemities (unrefined, maybe, but hearts of gold). At many a party, too, the converation turned to the richness of "cussing" in Italian, and if that does not work, how to do it better in dialect. The dialects, in their vocabulary and accent, may vary even in the same city. The ability to speak a dialect often becomes a matter of prejudice and pride. My Milanese landlord has a passion for teasing me. One of his earliest backhanded compliments was, "You speak Italian with a Bergamasco accent!" Well, I thought it was a compliment until I repeated this to others and they burst out laughing, explaining that I should not repeat this any more. There are many gems of Italian dialect, and a colleague just passed me this one. I thought that I would share it with the group. It is a phrase in Bergamasco (50km north of Milano), without any consonants: (the Bergamaschi call their dialect "Berghem") B> Eccoti una frase dal dialetto bergamasco: B> a' a`e' i ae` ie` B> ----------------- B> 1 2 3 4 5 6 B> trad. it. "vai a vedere le api vive" B> ------------------------ B> 1 2-3 4 5 6 B> trad. usa "go to see the living bees" B> Enjoy it! Cheers and Ciao! -Joe Giampapa garof@sixcom.it From: Daniel Ridings <daniel@glader.hum.gu.se> Subject: Swedish loanwords in English Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 12:24:14 cet X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2388 (2761) Gunhild Viden was much too modest when she wrote that the Swedish language had contributed both words and phenomena to the English language in two cases. I just happened to remember another word: "nag" (cf. Swedish "nagga", to gnaw, irritate). Granted, there are synonyms, such as "henpeck" and "fishwife" so it would be precarious to try and maintain that the Swedes are even responsible for the phenomenon. From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@VM1.YorkU.CA> Subject: ho anthropos/man Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 08:23:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2389 (2762) Robin Smith writes, in response to Tom Rusk Vickery, "Of course, the Greek word 'anthropos' does not imply male gender." Quite right. But here's what I don't understand: anthropos *is* masculine in gender, as is the much-beloved German Mensch (of which there is also a neuter version, but it means something quite different!). Those who favour what they are pleased to call "inclusive" language like to point out that, although these words have a masculine form, they do not imply masculine gender. But then, how is the English "man" any different? When I was in school, we were quite plainly taught that the word had two distinct senses: in some contexts, it meant males, in others it referred to humanity (who *ever* really thought that "man and animals", "God and man", or "man's inhumanity to man" referred exclusively to males?). I have asked my three sisters, who shared my education, about this -- to make sure that I hadn't totally misunderstood what was taught me, and they remember it the same way. The English word "man", although obviously masculine in form (but not as obviously as in languages with gendered articles), has two distinct senses that anyone with an elementary education or (failing that) a little imagination used to be able to see. So my question is: how is "man" any different from 'anthropos'? Both are masculine in form, and both can mean either a male or a human being. Yes, Greek also has "anhr", but English also has "male". Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.1100 Words: Degendering them (3/45) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 1991 11:01:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2390 (2763) Robin Smith makes obvious that my attempt at humor obscured the irony that I saw in the use of a Greek word that is almost exclusively translated as "man" in my dictionary to mean all humans, even though the English word "man" itself is objectionable to some. As one of our graduate students observed, tongue planted in cheek, perhaps it is objectionable only if you use the English word "man" but not if you use the foreign equivalent. But seriously, folk, if we can use wildcards with facility and understanding on our computers, why not in our language. Of course the result make be like a large reference-sized book I had many years ago on called a Dictionary of Slang or some such. It replaced the vowels in "offensive" words with asterisks so gentle readers would not be offended. The only problem was I never could figure out what some of the offensive words were, and the definitions were so wonderful that I would have loved to use the words themselves. Peace advocates could use "*fare" to describe what the rest of us call "warfare" and "fe*s" could name themselves without any hint of the hated "m-" word. T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * TVICKERY@SUNRISE.BITNET FAX 315-443-5732 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: Search for a needed word Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 14:17:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2391 (2764) The discussion of "ombuds?" reminds me of a search of mine that has, so far, been feckless. "Uxorious," meaning "overly fond of one's wife," is a perfectly good English word. When I first encountered it, it occurred to me that many people, given the high divorce rate, would get more use from a word meaning "overly fond of one's children." I have sought such a word for years, stopping classicists and strangers and occasional wedding guests. All the offered options either have been previously coopted for undesireable uses ("pedophile") or are jarringly macaronic ("filophile"). Can any one out there supply a) a good English word with this meaning, or b) a classically-rooted word that we can coin as English, or c) a word in another language that already has this meaning and which, after the fashion of English, we can simply steal? Eric Rabkin Department of English University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045 esrabkin@umichum.bitnet esrabkin@um.cc.umich.edu From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Languages of Humanist Date: Wed, Feb 27, 1991 11:29:03 AM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2392 (2765) Languages of Humanist In regard to "Languages of Humanist," HOS MORA HAUTA DIALEKTOS! (and many aplogies for the inability of ASCII to properly represent what I wanted to say, a number of the letters can't match properly with the Greek letters. Oh, and if I've made a mistake, which is extremely likely, please tell me - that is, if you're not too offended that I didn't use English.) sheesh.... -Adam -------- Adam C. Engst Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic Macintosh journal ace@tidbits.tcnet.ithaca.ny.us The best way to predict the future pv9y@crnlvax5, pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu is to invent it. -Alan Kay From: arb1@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Languages of Humanist Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 20:29:56 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2393 (2766) Viden ends his recent posting with "let's be practical". Dangerous advice. "Being practical" nearly always involves accepting whatever is most powerful rather than what may be best. Read Mulhausler on the dis- appearance of the Pacific languages if you want to see what can happen when people choose to use a language for "practical" reasons. Tony Bex From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Language Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 07:04:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2394 (2767) In departing the discussion of language on Humanist Ian Richmond has raised a question of great interest. He's obviously very angry, and vents some of it on me by terming my mention of "French on the Corn Flakes boxes" simplistic. I hope he does not think I regard that interesting practice as a defining aspect of the experience of two languages in Canada, but it is almost universally where the experience of the linguistic "other" began for Canadian children of my generation, at least the English-speaking ones. Participants in Humanist who have not visited Canada may not realize that for many years Canadian packaging materials have been printed in English and in French. This long pre-dates any legal stipulations; Canada is a small market (1/10 of the US population) and the economic reasons for doing so are self-evident. What this means is that a Canadian child from the moment he or she learns to read, is presented with the experience of parallel texts in a very down-to-earth situation. I remember very well discovering that as I learned to read in Grade One, the words on the page translated into the words I used in conversation, but that they had nothing to do with the increasingly mysterious "other text" on the cereal box. But because I was a curious child (and probably because I wasn't allowed to bring a book to the table and thus pored over the cereal box while my parents read the newspaper), I soon figured out that what was printed in English on one side of the box was the same as what was printed in another language on the other. But that other language was a text without sounds; I never heard French spoken, since Toronto then was as intransigently unilingual as it is multilingual today. But there is a further dimension to this experience; as a Catholic, I experienced Latin in church services even before I began to read: a long string of syllables which comprised a language with sounds, but without a text! (There was no such thing as a Latin prayer book in our not very advantaged house.) It was only in Grade 10 that these sounds finally translated themselves into marks on a page, and I realized that behind their incantatory power was the ordinary life of language, verbs that meant "to come", "to go", nouns that meant "table," "camp", and "street". I tell these anecdotes to draw attention to the question Ian raised (at least for me), that of the very interesting and complex ways in which specific societies "construct" the experience of linguistic "others" for those who live in them, and (what I am sure we all realize) how very early that construction occurs. Those who have participated in this discussion (which does indeed seem to be coming to an end) might wish to interrogate their own first experiences of the linguistic "other" to see whether they found it an adventure (as I did, hapless linguist though I am), whether that other was socially repudiated by the implicit actions of the surrounding culture (in Toronto, then known as "little Belfast", I was automatically a "dirty Catholic") or whether, as I detect in a number of the responses in this debate, the first experience of other languages is that of the classroom, where language study can be isolated as instrumental, and treated as a convenient and practical acquisition. There's a lot more to it than that. The great Italian scholar Gianfranco Contini said of Dante that the language of the _Commedia_ was "the language of his nurse and of the saints in Heaven." Perhaps, in order to understand the passions unleased in this discussion, we ought to go back and ask what were the languages of our own "nurses" were. Germaine. From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: ancient medicine Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 19:29:59 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2395 (2768) Names to conjure with: Geoffrey Lloyd, Ann Ellis Hanson, Helen King, Vivian Nutton, Ralph Jackson. Ian Lonie has done useful editions of texts in the Hippocratic Corpus. There is a translation of Soranus, Gynecology by Owsei Temkin (1956) and a new Bude edition of books I-II. Texts and translations of Galen are widely accessible. There's also a book by one Harris on Galen and the cardio-vascular system, (He - Harris I mean - is dead). Stephen (most of this is courtesy of Gillian Clark: ACAR02@UK.AC.LIVERPOOL) Liverpool From: Bill Sjostrom Subject: MicroSolutions Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 14:46 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2396 (2769) [deleted quotation] Holy cow! DeKalb has been heard of all the to Jerusalem. I didn't know we had anything of use to academics here to make up for the lack of a university. But the zipcode is too long. It should be 60115. Bill Sjostrom Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 From: Henry Rogers <ROGERS@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: [Symbols and Diacritics for Linguists] Date: Sat, 02 Mar 91 11:09:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2397 (2770) Much of the recent discussion on symbols and diacritics as a single unit versus two units has focussed on languages with written traditions. Users of computers in those languages naturally want the coding to correspond as closely as possible to the way people conceptualise writing in those languages. In linguistics and phonetics, we also have a written tradition (Pullum Ladusaw, 1986), and we also would like computers to allow us to write symbols easily in the way we conceptualise them. Our specific problem is that we have more symbols and more diacritics and more combinations than most other users. Linguists invariably think of phonetic symbols as consisting of the basic symbol plus any added diacritics. Non-floating diacritics present no problem. These symbols, such as a colon for length, or a small superscript w for lip rounding, are written to the right of a symbol; they occupy space and are treated just as any basic symbol. Floating diacritics, however, are more troublesome. The human vocal apparatus has several aspects which can be independently controlled: the place of articulation, the manner of articulation, the activity of the vocal cords, and the passage of air through the nasal passage. The value of any of these is at times transcribed with a diacritic. As a result, linguists find it completely reasonable to have several floating diacritics 'stacked' on the same basic symbol. For example, a voiceless dental nasal trill is quite easily produced and would be transcribed as an r with three diacritics: a superscript tilde, a subscript bottomless box, and a subscript ring below the box. Or, many linguists (writing in the North American orthographic dialect) would transcribe a high front rounded nasal vowel with falling tone as a u with three superscript diacritics -- in ascending order, an umlaut, a tilde, and a circumflex. The IPA dialect substitutes y for the u umlaut. The ordering of diacritics cannot be uniquely fixed. A retroflex sound which allophonically has creaky voice would place a subscript tilde (for creaky) below a subscript dot (for retroflex). On the other hand, a sound with creaky voice which is allophonically retroflexed would put the dot below the tilde. I have never seen the principle underlying this convention set out in print, but it is clearly followed by most linguists. The total number of symbols and diacritics vary from source to source, but the 1989 IPA chart gives just over 100 basic symbols and about 30 floating diacritics. The number of combinations ever needed could probably be reduced by eliminating theoretically and anatomically impossible combinations. The result is still a very, very large number of combinations that would seem meaningful to a linguist. Surely the sensible answer for phonetic symbols is to treat them the way a linguist does -- as a structured combination of meaningful units. Having just finished a textbook on phonetics, I am very much aware of the difficulty of moving codes for phonetic symbols from my computer to the publisher's computer and from there to paper. A standard coding would probably have saved me 3-5 weeks in making corrections. As a footnote, I was surprised that Unicode did not include the symbols introduced in the 1989 IPA revision, nor the PRDS symbols for disordered speech, nor Bliss symbols. ref. -- Geoffrey K. Pullum and William A. Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, University of Chicago Press, 1986. [An enormously useful book] Henry Rogers Department of Linguistics University of Toronto From: tut@Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) Subject: Unicode and DIS 10646 Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 19:03:50 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2398 (2771) [deleted quotation] Upon closer inspection, one is forced to admit that 10646 already contains, and indeed requires, floating diacritics for Arabic and Greek. Furthermore, some precomposed accented characters have been omitted (four are missing for Vietnamese). The real issue is whether all bytes are 16 bits long (as in Unicode), or whether bytes can be 8 bits, 16 bits, 24 bits, or 32 bits (as in DIS 10646). Users don't care about this, but programmers and hardware vendors do. [deleted quotation] The designers of 10646 seem to imagine a world where each country has its own 8-bit or 16-bit national system, and interchanges data using 10646's 32-bit canonical form. This means your text (unless ASCII-only) probably won't display or print in other countries. It also means that computer systems must contain complex rules for figuring out what size bytes and what compaction forms they're receiving. Unicode, by contrast, was designed to permit the global interchange of unambiguous data. It's much easier to implement all of Unicode than all of 10646, since 10646 is variable-bit and contains duplicate characters and incompatible subsets all over the place. Hope that's clear. From: markt@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Turner) Subject: computerizing an edition of Shelley Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 02:42:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1114 (2772) I am posting this query for my colleague Neil Fraistat and his collaborator Donald H. Reiman, who are looking for help in computerizing a critical edition of the complete poems of Percy Bysse Shelley. Please send responses to Professor Fraistat (nf5@umail.umd.edu) and to me (markt@umd5.umd.edu). We are planning a critical edition of the complete poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. This decade-long, multi-volume project involves the collation of perhaps fifteen texts or more, including several manuscripts. The collation of a half-dozen of these variants will appear in an apparatus at the bottom of the page; the collation of these plus the remainder will appear in an appendix at the end of each volume. The types of variables we want to reflect in the apparatus will differ in each of these instances; the bottom of the page should include additions, deletions, and changes in word choice and punctuation. The more comprehensive historical collation in the appendix will involve these kinds of changes plus changes in line indentation and capitalization. We would like to automate this process as far as possible. We are looking for information on both a database in which to store our texts and a collation program that, optimally, will produce a virtually camera-ready master text and apparatus. As we see it now, the database will have about a half-dozen fields, most of them relatively brief--including such items as an ID number field, a variant ID field (which may be a manuscript number or an edition date), a composition date field, a release date field, and a date/ID of entry into the system field. Our text field will need to be much larger, perhaps 2000 lines of poetry. We are not familiar with database technology, and any suggestions on streamlining the above would be helpful. The rationale for the ID number field is as follows: in order to link all versions of a poem as the same object, we need an invariant identifier. All the facts about each poems--dates, titles, etc.--are subject to controversy. The ID number links all incarnations of a given poem. If there are other ways to provide such a link, we'd like to know. We'd like the collation program to be able to accept text from disk, specifically, from our database text field, and we'd also like to have the option of collating the text interactively, as we enter it, and subsequently entering it into the database. The collation program will deal with poetry, so printing and preserving line numbers is important. There will be a number of messy problems to automate: variants with different numbers of lines, with chunks of text missing or added; variants which may differ radically for a series of lines. We hope to be able to use scanning to convert our sources to machine-readable copy. We'd appreciate any advice or comment on the success of scanning. We have both Kurzweiler and Opti-scan available on campus. We'd like to do this project on PCs. We currently employ IBM compatibles, and, of course, it would be convenient to continue to use them. However, if alternative hardware would greatly improve our automation options, we will consider changing. Thanks for any advice on automating our project. Since we expect to be at this task for many years into the future, we would like our current hard- and software choices to anticipate the technology to come. We'd also like our database to be a resource for future scholarship in a variety of areas we are not immediately involved in ourselves, such as manufacturing concordances, doing linguistic studies, and so forth. From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@VASSAR> Subject: Q: sentence length distribution in corpora Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 10:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2399 (2773) Typically, the sentence length distribution in a corpus looks like this: ! ! *** ! * ** ! * ** ! ** !* *** ! ***** ! ******** ! ****************** +------------------------------------------------ Obviously, this asymmetric curve is not a normal distribution. Does anybody know if a mathematical model has been proposed for this distribution (something analoguous to Zipf's law for word frequency)? Any reference? Thanks, Jean Veronis From: Joanna Johnson <JOHNSON@MCMASTER> Subject: Cyrillic in Windows-based WordProcessing Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 14:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2400 (2774) Is anyone doing wordprocessing in English and either Greek or a language that uses Cyrillic under Windows (version 3) on an IBM-compatible system? Ami Professional and Word are supposed to be able to do this. Has anyone tried it? Joanna M. Johnson and Samuel D. Cioran Humanities Computing Centre, McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada email: JOHNSON@SSCVAX.CIS.MCMASTER.CA or CIORAN@SSCVAX.CIS.MCMASTER.CA From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it (Joe Giampapa) Subject: Re: queries to Humanist Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 20:14:44 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2401 (2775) [deleted quotation] There is a technical CD series done for Isvor/Fiat, in Italian and English, for training FIAT CAD engineers. It combines realtime video with a tutorial and quiz, which is technical (mathematics, CAD workstation specifics) and concentrates on explaining technical english. It is not a lexicon, but part of an inhouse training course. It was done on contract work for Isvor/Fiat (Fiat's training company). I translated the Italian to US English in December 1989, and described it in a paper I wrote for the Education Training Technology Event, the Hague, Netherlands (October 1990). -Joe Giampapa garof@sixcom.it From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1109 Queries (3/59) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 11:34:56 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2402 (2776) On Simionato's query about technical terminology databases: You might contact Euroterm through the Dutch State School of Translation in Maastricht. They have a large-scale multilingual, automatic translation support system for business and technical translation. Bill Frawley From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Czech CALL Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 09:20:34 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2403 (2777) Any HUMANISTS who would like any information about Czech CALL are welcome to contact me directly. As far as I could ascertain, thee are no commercially distributed products in North America. However, there are a number of interested academic software clearinghouses if you have any. There are fewer people out there producing Czech CALL than you have fingers. From: ANNA MORPURGO DAVIES <MORPURGO@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: [Position: Professorship of General Linguistics] Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 12:21 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1117 (2778) OXFORD UNIVERSITY: PROFESSORSHIP OF GENERAL LINGUISTICS The electors intend to proceed to an election to the Professorship of General Linguistics, with effect from 1 October 1991 or such later date as may be arranged. The stipend of the professorship is currently L. 31088 (British Pounds). Applications (twelve copies or one from overseas candidates), naming three referees, should be received not later than 8 April by the Registrar, University Offices, Wellington Square , Oxford OX1 2JD, England, from whom further particulars may be obtained. From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Re: 4.1110 Words (5/144) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 14:46 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2404 (2779) In reply to Eric Rabkin's inquiry, may I suggest : pueritious, to mean "overly fond of (one's) children". Indeed the Greek roots don't give any satisfactory results in this regard. So why not Latin? My mother tongue is not English so maybe I do not have authority. Seems to me that *pueritious* sounds quite technical, not very loving, whereas "uxorious" sounds very noble and beautiful. But the latin word *pueritia* seems to be the only root to be used... In any case this is very entertaining... Christian Allegre Dept D'etudes franCaises Universite de Montreal callegre@umtlvr.bitnet From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Words about children Date: Fri, Mar 1, 1991 8:37:02 AM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2405 (2780) Words about children In looking for a word that means "overly fond of one's children," I'd suggest looking in the Iliad 924.605-617), Ovid's Metamorphoses (6.146-312), Hyginus's Fabulae (9, 11) and Pausanias ( 1.21.3) for the original language surrounding the myth of Niobe, who was punished by Apollo and Artemis for boasting that she had more and better children than Leto. I don't have the original texts of any of the references my mythology book gives, but I'm sure someone out there has access to them and could look for the word used to describe Niobe's excessive fondness for her children. -Adam Adam C. Engst Editor of TidBITS, the weekly electronic Macintosh journal ace@tidbits.tcnet.ithaca.ny.us The best way to predict the future pv9y@crnlvax5, pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu is to invent it. -Alan Kay From: paul wagner g <unix5!@unix5.UUCP:pwagner5> Subject: man/were Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 09:22:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2406 (2781) A further note on the subject of `man' and inclusive language. Does anyone know anything about the old Anglo Saxon word `were' or `wer'? It apparently meant `man', but I don't know in what sense. A lasting e.g. is `werewolf.' Perhaps if this word had a more inclusive connotation, it could have served useful in the problem of confusing sexuality and gender. But it is this confusion which has given rise to so much debate. Karl Stern asserted that sexuality, along with every empirical fact, contains it `beyond.' In C.S. Lewis' _That Hideous Strength_ the figure Ransom made the statement, `Gender is a reality and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings.' In other words, masculinity and femininity have utterly transcendent dimensions. Concerning language, are we confusing `male' references with `masculine' references? Concerning inclusive language, is such a thing really possible with a narrow definition of gender? And is the old language really exclusive? Paul Wagner Trinity College, Toronto, Canada pwagner5@mach1.wlu.ca From: Henry Rogers <ROGERS@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Freshmen Date: Fri, 01 Mar 91 10:39:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2407 (2782) Tracy Logan asks for a replacement for 'freshmen', suitable for a formal writte n context. 'First-year students' seems an obvious suggestion. This is the norma l Canadian term where the American terms 'sophomore', etc. are not used. Actual ly, 'freshmen' or 'frosh' is used, but usually in a non-academic context, such as in a student newspaper about life in a residence. From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.1110 Words (5/144) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1991 09:52 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2408 (2783) Two suggestions, and a rant:: (1) To the search for an existing suffix that is acceptably neutral, I would like to contribute a modest proposal. I would suggest that the search for an acceptable suffix to loan words such as _ombudsman_, and existing words built by adding the suffix -man, or -male be dropped in favor of using an additional morpheme either as prefix or suffix. I would suggest the existing morpheme "co", currently used as a prefix meaning "joint," as in co-chair( genders). Thus, one might say either cofemale or femaleco, cowoman or womanco, or coman and manco, where language has previously been specific. Since co-ombudsman has other connotations, only the suffix would be used from the start, that is, ombudsmanco, indicating negation of the single gender implication of the suffix -man. Of course it sounds strange. Neologisms do. (2) Another possibility would be to adopt as a substitute suffix the morpheme "gen," now (gen)erally used as a prefix. _Ombudsman_, policeman, fireman might become _Ombudsgan_, policegan, firegan, changing to _ombudsgen_, policegen, firegen, in the plural. I have in mind as I write that the "g" sound would be a hard "g," but others, and usage, may change that. At *least* fifteen years ago, as a graduate student in psychology, I saw the American Psychological Association adopt publication guidelines which said that no psychological research would be published until it was in gender- neutral form. That was a powerful incentive to accomplish language change. At the same time I remember saying, in the context of ordaining women as Episcopal priests, which was first voted down and later adopted, that the change would come rapidly, while I thought it would take a very long time to see any language change. We are now seeing that in some professional contexts, such as psychology, language change is ancient history. In other professional contexts, such as humanism, the adoption of neutral language, and/or word changes, is yet to come. I have already adopted the practice of writing [sic] when citing any passage that would not be accepted by an American Psychological Associa- tion Journal because the language is not gender-neutral. Thus, to use something I can readily quote from memory, I would quote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as follows: Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers [sic] brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men [sic] are created equal. That is for the coming generation who have learned on a mixture of gender- neutral and masculine-bias texts, to indicate that the masculine bias in old texts is how the language was then used, and that it is not how the language is *now* used. I am *amazed* that MLA and other professional organizations in the Humanities, which have large memberships and several publications, have not followed the lead of the American Psychological Association and other scientific organizations. It *is* important enough to endure some bitter political battles. Once gender-neutral language becomes more commonplace, then particular word changes will be more possible. Note: I am inferring that no professional organization in the Humanities has done as the American Psychological Association has, in adopting gender-neutral language, because apparently there is no authoritative reference that would resolve the question of a gender-neutral _ombudsman_. I would love to be proved wrong on this. If I am not, wake up and smell the coffee! Sigrid Peterson SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum) Subject: why grammatical gender Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 12:25:36 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2409 (2784) Inspired by the discussion of ombudsfolk, here is one of those questions I've always wondered about but never got round to asking someone who would know: How is it that the grammatical category known as gender got called gender? My guess is that Greek grammarians made it up, but it may also date back further or elsewhere. Yet it is an odd label, don't you think. While human beings are biologically distinguished by gender, that hardly seems a proper motivation for characterizing categories of nouns. For one thing, numerous languages have "neuter" genders, which have no apparent "natural" or biological basis. For another, nouns to which gender terms might appropriately attach (cows, bulls, etc.) form a very small class of the gendered terms. Why single them out . . . especially when there are in the few languages I know (I'm thinking especially of Latin and German) anomalies where grammatical gender and "natural" or cultural coded gender diverge? There are some related questions. Is the identification of noun classifications with gender universal in either folk or scholarly understandings of language. If so, is there some historical reason for this, comparable to the fact that grammatical gender (like the alphabet or zero) got invented/identified once and spread from that one place and time to everywhere else. Gary Lee Stonum Case Western Reserve Univ. gxs11@po.cwru.edu From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1110 Words (5/144) Date: Fri, 01 Mar 91 09:35:33 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2410 (2785) Even if "nag" is derived from "nagga" they do not mean the same thing. "Nagga" means to chip, nibble at etc. The Swedish equivalent of "nag" is "gnata". So even if we gave you the word we are not responsible for the thing, Daniel! From: Thom Parkhill <PARKHILL%UNB.CA@UNBMVS1.csd.unb.ca> Subject: query Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 12:39:33 AST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2411 (2786) I have a dilemma. In 1979 Angela-Marie Varesano completed her dissertation, _Charles Godfrey Leland: The Eclectic Folklorist_ [DAI v.40, no.10, p.5540-A] at the University of Pennsylvania. I need to read this thesis to carry out my research. Dr. Varesano has placed a restriction on her work stating that she must give written permission before it can be sold. Two attempts to purchase the dissertation from UMI, one in 1988 and one this month, failed due to this restriction. The Interlibrary Loan Department here reports that the U. Penn library indicates the thesis is "non-circulating." I can't find Dr. Varesano. Letters directed both to her (through the University of Pennsylvania) and her thesis supervisor have been in vain. I am loath to spend scarce research funds to travel to Philadelphia to read a dissertation that ought to be readily available. My queries: 1) does any Humanist know the whereabouts of Dr. Varesano? 2) has any Humanist confronted this problem, and discovered a solution? Thanks. Thom Parkhill : PARKHILL@UNB.CA Religion Studies St. Thomas University Fredericton, N.B. From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: address query Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 13:42 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2412 (2787) Does anyone know an email address for Dr. Susan Edwards, who is in the Department of Linguistics at Reading University (England)? Thanks, Graham White American University in Cairo From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: colegio de mexico address request Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 11:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2413 (2788) I am interested in sending either mail or e-mail to the Colegio de Mexico. If anyone could supply me with either address, I would be most grateful. Thank you. Jim Wilderotter Wilder@Guvax Wilder@Guvax.Georgetown.Edu From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: job Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 09:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2414 (2789) Originally From: mccray@nlm.nih.gov (Alexa T. McCray) The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, a research division of the National Library of Medicine, is seeking a computational linguist to join its Natural Language Systems Program. We seek an individual who has demonstrated experience in natural language processing and an advanced degree in linguistics or computer science. Candidates should have experience in the development of systems using Prolog, Lisp, C or other high level languages and should be well qualified in linguistic theory. The National Library of Medicine is located on the beautiful NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Lister Hill Center has extensive state of the art facilities including many Sun, Macintosh, and PC-compatible workstations, file servers and associated scanning and imaging equipment. Our research staff is dedicated to developing advanced technologies for storing, manipulating and disseminating biomedical information. The successful candidate will join a team of experienced professionals addressing major research issues in an environment which assures high visibility for outstanding work. Salary will range from $31,116 to $40,449 depending on education and experience. U.S. citizenship is required. The U.S. Government is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Send a resume and a cover letter describing your research interests to the following address no later than March 25, 1991. Chief, Computer Science Branch NLS Program Search Lister Hill Center National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, Maryland 20894 From: "Joel Elliott (jeliot@unc)" <JELIOT@UNC> Subject: Indexing Software? Date: Sun, 03 Mar 91 16:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2415 (2790) Hello, Has anyone out there come across (or developed) software to assist in the compilation of book indices? I know that many word processing programs have indexing capability, but in many cases the indexer has only galley proofs to work from. I'm thinking of a program that would allow you to create "cards," then sort/collate them for export. I suppose one could do this with a dBase compatible program. Has anyone had experience with this? Ideas on the construction of such a program welcomed. Joel Elliott <jeliot@unc.bitnet> UNC-Chapel Hill From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: 4.1115 ...Cyrillic/Windows Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 01:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2416 (2791) As someone else noted in a posting of a couple of weeks ago, there is a new word processor for Windows called World View. It was briefly discussed in Byte for Feb, p. 72. It *comes with a customization utility that lets you place any character in a ny font at any location on the keyboard. The program comes standard with support for the Latin alphabet. You can add layouts for Greek, Russian, Hebrew, and other languages.* (Eastern Language Systems, 39 West 300 North, Provo, UT 84601 (801) 377-4558 - from Byte). Nick Eiteljorg From: Clifford Flanigan <FLANIGAN@IUBACS> Subject: RE: 4.1114 Q: Database & Collation SW for Editions Date: Sun, 3 Mar 91 15:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2417 (2792) In response to Mark Turner's question about a database program suitable for his edition of Shelley, I can only say that the only database program that I know of that will hold the required amount of poetry text in an individual record is Advanced Revelation. DBase and some of its clones might allow that much text in a "memo" field, but it would not be subject to database operations. AREV has the added advantage that every word in every record can be indexed, so that you have the advantages of database processing and text management at the same time. And lots more besides. AREV is not an easy program to use, much less to master, though it is not as difficult as its critics make it out to be. But it can do almost anything you want it to do. And no other database program in the PC environment known to me has variable length records and fields (and subfields and sub-sub fields) and allows individual records up to 64k in length. I have no connection with Revelation Technologies, but I am a mostly satisfied user. I hope this helps. Clifford Flanigan Comparative Literature Indiana University From: Harry Gaylord <galiard@let.rug.nl> Subject: unicode & 10646 Date: Sun, 3 Mar 91 15:25:18 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2418 (2793) There is far more heat than light being produced on the various listservers discussing these two standards. The most fundamental question is if languages in which with limited space one can create a character set with all the combinations of letter + accents + sub or superscripts should be forced to work with what amounts to floating accents on the one side and whether an enormous amount of space in the character set must be wasted in non used reserved control character space. There is plenty of room for cooperation to establish a reasonable good international standard if people don't waste their time arguing for their own camp and against the other. Harry From: Ton.vanderWouden@let.ruu.nl Subject: Re: 4.1115 ... Sentence length distribution Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 12:56:36 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2419 (2794) Re Sentence Length Distribution: I seem to have seen something about it in the classical book by Gustav Herdan: Language as choice and chance (1956); according to our Library Catalog, there is an `Advanced Theory of Language as choice and chance', Springer 1966, by the same author. Ton van der Wouden (vanderwouden@let.ruu.nl) From: H J Blumenthal <AR01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1112 ... Ancient Medicine Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 11:46:17 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2420 (2795) Another name to add to Stephen Clarks list: James Longrigg, Dept. of Classics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: Halio once again Date: 01 Mar 91 18:11:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2421 (2796) Veteran HUMANISTs will be surprised to see Edward Mendelson, professor of comparative literature at Columbia whose reviews of word processing software are familiar to readers of PC Magazine, mouthing the most trite and banal of anti-PC platitudes in a prominent back-page column in the 22 February *TLS*, entitled `How computers can damage your prose': a self-exemplifying artifact if ever I saw one. The last of the eleven paragraphs begins: A researcher at the University of Delaware reported recently (in *Academic Computing*, January 1990) that randomly selected first-year undergraduates who wrote on a Macintosh typically wrote childish prose about trivial subjects, while students who wrote on IBM machines wrote more complex sentences about more serious subjects. From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: CONF : CITY/LITERATURE (French) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 91 07:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2422 (2797) MONTREAL : LA VILLE DANS LE SIECLE 15 mars 1991 Universite de Montreal Pavillon Lionel-Groulx : salle 3275 Programme 9 h 00 Inscription 9 h 30 Premiere seance Gilles Marcotte (Universite de Montreal) Un flaneur, rue Notre-Dame Georges Leroux (Universite du Quebec a Montreal) L'impossible projet parisien de Walter Benjamin Pierre Popovic (Universite de Montreal) Les villes de Tristan Corbiere 12 h 00-14 h 00 Diner 14 h 00 Deuxieme seance Francois Ricard (Universite McGill) Sur une idee de Leon Gerin Ronald Sutherland (Universite de Sherbrooke) Montreal en anglais Michel Biron (Universite de Montreal) Nelligan : la fete urbaine Pause 16 h 00 Conference de cloture Jean Larose (Universite de Montreal) Frais d'inscription : Grand public : 10 $ Etudiants : 5 $ Renseignements : Benoit Melancon Charge d'enseignement Departement d'etudes francaises Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, succ. "A" Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3C 3J7 (514)343-2040 (514)485-2127 MELANCON@UMTLVR.BITNET From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: conference Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 09:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2423 (2798) PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS ASL/LSA CONFERENCE ON LOGIC AND LINGUISTICS to be held at University of California at Santa Cruz July 20-21, 1991 in conjunction with the 1991 LSA Linguistic Institute sponsored by The Association for Symbolic Logic and The Linguistic Society of America TENTATIVE LIST OF INVITED SPEAKERS G. Chierchia I. Heim J. Groenendijk & M. Stokhof A. Kratzer R. May & R. Fiengo M. Moortgat B. Partee S. Peters T. Reinhart B. Webber with a special session on `Compositionality and Dynamic Theories of Anaphora' Abstracts are invited for papers which deal with problems on the border between logic and linguistics, including (but not limited to) the logical analysis of natural languages, artificial languages, and linguistic formalisms; the application of model-theoretic and proof-theoretic techniques to natural language problems. Papers will be allotted 30 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. The Program Committee consists of Jon Barwise, William Ladusaw, Alice ter Meulen, Richard Oehrle, and Rich Thomason. Abstracts should be not more than one page in length and should indicate the paper's title; its author's name, affiliation, and e-mail and postal addresses; and whether or not the paper is to be considered for inclusion in the special session `Compositionality and Dynamic Theories of Anaphora'. Abstracts should be submitted by April 1, 1991 either via e-mail to oehrle@ccit.arizona.edu or to Richard Oehrle, Department of Linguistics, Douglass 200E, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. Submission via e-mail is strongly encouraged. Notification of acceptance will be mailed May 1, 1991. A tutorial session on Dynamic Theories of Anaphora will be offered by Gennaro Chierchia on Friday, July 19, 1991. Details about enrollment and fees will appear in the announcement of the conference schedule, to be distributed in April. supported by a grant from IBM From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: conference Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 14:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2424 (2799) Originally From: Patrick Saint-Dizier <stdizier@irit.fr> ICLP WORKHOP ****************************************************** Advanced Logic Programming Tools and Formalisms for Language Processing. *********************************** INRIA, Paris-Rocquencourt, June 24, 1991 in Conjunction with the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on LOGIC PROGRAMMING The aim of the workshop is to bring together and to promote exchanges between the Logic Programming and the Language Processing communities. Advanced Logic Programming areas of prime importance to language processing will be highlighted, among which: - constraint logic programming, - typed and object-oriented logic programming, - specialized unification mechanisms, - partial evaluation, - intelligent strategies. Papers associating research in the logic programming areas mentioned above and language processing or papers presenting logic programming results of interest to language processing or, finally, papers in language processing showing needs in logic programming are sollicited. It should be noticed that this workshop is quite different in nature from the NLULP workshop series and should not overlap it. The workshop will be composed of half an hour talks and of discussions which will be organized from the presentations. About 12 presentations are planned. Proceedings will be edited from the presentations. Send 2 copies of an extended abstract to the workshop organizer; abstracts should relate original work, they should be between 3 and 5 single-space typed pages, they should clearly indicate the address (regular and e-mail) of the author(s). Accepted papers will have the possibility to be revised before publication. These papers should not exceed 10 single-space pages. Deadlines: April 25 : reception of extended abstracts, May 10 : notification of acceptance/rejection, June 5 : reception of final papers for publication Send papers to the organizer: Patrick Saint-Dizier IRIT Universite Paul Sabatier 118 route de Narbonne F-31062 Toulouse France phone: (33) 61 55 63 44 email: stdizier@irit.irit.fr -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ICLP'91 WORKSHOP. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: markt@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Turner) Subject: "MOTHER OF" Date: Fri, 1 Mar 91 02:31:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2425 (2800) "Mother of" is about to become a catch-phrase. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a man not known for verbal flair, reported to the American Legion that the mother of all battles has become the mother of all retreats. Radio Baghdad launched "mother of" as a threat. The White House, hoping to humiliate Saddam Hussein, bounced it back as a taunt. In between, this new verbal toy has saturated American slang and American news. NBC anchor Tom Brokaw reported that for Saddam, the mother of battles has become the mother of corners. The Washington Post for 28 February reports that the allied attack was the mother of all maneuvers and that General Norman Schwarzkopf's magnificent report to the press was the mother of all briefings. Of course, this phrase is not new at all. These quips from government and television give a fascinating demonstration of how commonplace concepts provide the ground for individual invention. The commonplace cultural concept of a mother has served for centuries as a guide to using "mother" metaphorically in English. In DEATH IS THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY (University of Chicago Press), I examine the metaphoric use of "mother" and other kinship terms. Prototypically, mothers bring new things into being, hence "England is the mother of Parliaments," "Filth is the mother of stench," and "Solitude is the mother of anxieties." Prototypically, a mother is a whole who contains a part that separates off in dependent and derivative fashion, hence "Latin is the mother of Italian," and the phrase "mother node" to describe in linguistics and graph theory a state from which "daughter nodes" derive. Derivative nodes must be "daughter" rather than "son" nodes because they in turn can serve as "mother" nodes. "Mother of battles" relies on certain aspects of the concept of mother. Prototypically, a mother is a locus of great efficacy, great power: she has produced an awesome, dramatic, and compelling situation before and is prototypically thought to have the power to do it again. A mother is therefore a force to be reckoned with. A mother stands prototypically in a superior relation to her offspring. Calling something a "mother" can signal a comparison with other things that must be, by implication, inferior on the scale, less daunting. In the common cultural model of mother, a mother moved to attack in her role as mother is particularly fierce. A mother is also an ancestor. We have a commonplace notion that ancestors are pure in stock. They pass traits down the generational line that become diluted and adulterated with each step. Calling a trout a "grand-daddy trout" when it is no older than your average trout is a way of saying that it is a prototypical trout, a real trout, that its position in the world of trouts is at the top. The mother of battles is pure of stock, more clearly a battle than any other. There is a system to imagination. At times, it seems as if cultural difference is such a barrier as never to be penetrated. But you would not think so to hear the phrases exchanged in international conversation. Saddam Hussein, Dick Cheney, and Tom Brokaw all think they know what a mother is. ... Mark Turner Associate Professor Department of English University of Maryland 20742. 301-405-3817 (office). email address: markt@umd5.umd.edu. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.1118 Words Date: 03 Mar 91 00:11:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2426 (2801) For a gender neutral first-year student, I've been expecting some British correspondent to suggest the old Oxford slang, "freshers". None of the clash of the neologism and quite neutral. But to insert [sic] after "fathers" in the Gettysburg Address: is it sexist and retrograde to feel that there is something pusillanimous about such a label? Something insecure? Some mewling yen to cock an essentially adolescent snoot? Let the dead bury the dead, I say. It was a principle of the ecumenical councils of the early church that those who had died in the peace of the church would be left alone, not exhumed dogmatically and condemned for errors whose condemnation they did not live to see. There were exceptions, as Second Constantinople of 553 weighing in against Theodore of Mopsuestia and others, but that council was not widely accepted for just that reason. If you do not like *my* language, fine, pull my chain (and I won't complain for a monent); but let Lincoln be. From: "Robert S. Kirsner" <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: neutral term for freshmen Date: Sat, 02 Mar 91 21:14 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2427 (2802) This is clearly a job for -NIK, which was the subject of postings a while back. Indeed, Freshniks would seem to have a great deal in common with Peaceniks and Beatniks, but none of the industriousness of Kibbutzniks. But perhaps they will deconstruct just like Litniks. If -NIK is disfavored, there is always -OID, as in "Postal made a rather Chomskyoid remark." We could have Freshoids, Sophoids, Junoids and Senoids. One could even apply this one to the administration. An Associate Dean could be termed a Deanoid. And a Vice Chancellor a Chancelloroid. Or, if THAT doesn't work, we could fall back on the diminutive: All Freshies will report to the maleperson's gym at 9:00 for the placement tests. Sophies should report at 11:00. Or, we could even evoke the ZERO affix, as in "The Chair is perplexed at your remark!". In that case, all Freshes could report to the malebeing's gym at 9:00 for the placement test. THERE! Another way in which L*I*N*G*U*I*S*T*I*C*S makes your life better for you! From: Arnold Keller <AKELLER@UVVM.UVic.CA> Subject: Re: 4.1118 Words (7/188) Date: Sun, 03 Mar 91 09:40:04 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2428 (2803) On words about children: King Lear speaks of his "pelican daughters" repeating the notion that the pelican feeds its own flesh to its young. The pelican, of of course, merely carries fish in its pouch, but the picture of the little birds with their heads in their parent's mouth gave rise to the image of parents sacrificing themselves. There are variants of this; sometimes the parent is noble, sometimes the children are rapacious. My solution is to steal from Shakespeare--beautify ourselves inhis feathers, as it were. From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1111 Languages of Humanist etc. (3/87) Date: Fri, 01 Mar 91 09:25:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2429 (2804) Does Tony Bex really mean that our native languages run the risk of being extinguished because we agree on using English (and/or French etc) in Humanist?? Gunhild Viden, who happily accepts being an anthropos but certainly not an aner From: Walter Piovesan <USERVINO@SFU.BITNET> Subject: trevisan Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 10:11:48 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2430 (2805) Further to Joe Giampapa's note: e cho...adeso xe ora a parla nascianta de trevisan, come que la vedo mi questa a xe la ligua da far parla tutti, e finita la... -:) Excuse my indulgence and (its hard to write in dialetic)! I am a great fan of dialetics and enjoy speaking and hearing them. Here in Vancouver, whith its large population of Italians, it is quite common to hear the variou dialetics of Italina being spoken in the shops, coffee bars, on the bocce lanes etc. ....and yes there is nothing quite like the colour of the Italian "bestemities" ciao e saluti Walter Piovesan SFU From: Lesli LaRocco <OZVY@CORNELLA> Subject: Gender and More Gender Date: Sun, 03 Mar 91 18:33:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2431 (2806) Ms. Peterson's [sic] suggestion to add the morpheme "co" strikes me as extreme, not to mention unnecessary in words such as "cofemale" (would this mean a female of *both* genders?!). Further, such a stipulation (say, in articles submitted to the MLA, dissertations, etc.) would begin to create a real diglossia in those countries which adopted it; gender-neutral language would be the tongue of the educated, while the common folk would no doubt go along in their blissful ignorance referring to one another as "women" and "men." The MLA and other journals should emphatically *not* follow their brethren [sic !] at the American Psychological Association in requiring gender-neutral langua ge. It is, as Ms. Peterson [sic] states, a *political* issue, and therefore such guidelines are inappropriate. Ms. Peterson [sic] calls this "a powerful incentive to accomplish language change." It sounds more like academic blackmail to me. As for Ms. Peterson's [sic] use of [sic] when citing any male-biased word, I object to her statement that this is "for the coming generation ... to indicate t hat the masculine bias in old texts is how the language was then used, and that it is not how the language is *now* used." Ms. Peterson [sic] seems to think th at *now* we all strive to change the language. *We* all do not! Some of us treat morphemes as morphemes, not as chains which prevent our success, or as potential brain-washing techniques. Why must we devote our energies to such peripheral issues? Why not put the ener gy into equal pay for equal merit? I doubt very much that the poor women of the world care how you spell "woman" or where you put a [sic]. They, and the men i n their world, will never even be aware of such changes in the isolated world o f the university. Give 'em a fair paycheck. Then I'll applaud your efforts! Lesli LaRocco (ozvy@cornella.bitnet) From: stephen clark <AP01@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Wer & Wo Man Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 09:42:10 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2432 (2807) I have a book on my shelves by M.A.R.Tuker 'Past and Future of Ethics' (OUP 1938) which proposes that Man connote the human race, and wer or werman be the male person - after Anglo-Saxon and - he says - Spanish - with its roots in the Gothic Vair (= Latin vir). This, he says, will remove the suggestion that wo-man is a cadet to the man. He also spells the gender 'femel' to avoid the suggestion that it is fe-male. Did anyone pick up this suggestion? Does anyone know anything about Tuker? Stephen Liverpool From: J_CERNY@UNHH.UNH.EDU Subject: some satiric humor on word choice on gender, imagery, etc. Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1991 20:19:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2433 (2808) One Saturday in February, 1990, Peggy Noonan, former White House speech writer, was interviewed on National Public Radio by Bob Edwards, on the occasion of the publication of a book about her experiences. Probably some HUMANIST subscribers remember it. At one point she gave the Gettysburg Address as an example of how a committee might change it, reflecting their various agendas and constituencies. I took her comments and elaborated on them at the time. Now, to leaven the recent serious comments on terms for gender, I thought offer this version of the Gettysburg Address (recognizing that the GA has probably been lampooned, satirized, and rewritten many times for many reasons). VETTING THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. [Lincoln's Chief of Staff is speaking to various members of the Cabinet] OK, thank you all for making this meeting. We have a lot of business to go through. First, President Lincoln's just given me the draft of an address he's going to give at Gettysburg tomorrow. I think there are a few rough edges and I'd like to do a quick read-through. Please state your suggestions as we go along. Fourscore and seven years ago _Eighty-seven_ our fathers _And mothers!_ brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, _We don't want that sexual imagery!_ and dedicated to the proposition _The idea_ that all men _and women!_ are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, _A major struggle_ testing whether that nation, or any nation _Whether a nation_ so conceived _Sexual imagery again!_ and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. _Let's make sure the President is standing close to the flag for the cameras._ We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. _To keep the country alive_ It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. _A rifle volley would be good here_ It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- _We need a good sound bite. How about if the President says "Read my lips, we won!" or "We kicked ass."_ that this nation, under God, _Under a Christian God_ shall have a new birth _An uncontrolled birth_ of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, _And the people's government_ shall not perish from the earth. _Will live on_ From: Harry Gaylord <galiard@let.rug.nl> Subject: Coptic and Greek Papyrology Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 20:41:48 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2434 (2809) If you do not work on Coptic texts or in Greek papyrology, please disregard this message. Greek papyrologists need more symbols than normal researchers in Greek texts. The new standards for character sets seem to be concentrated upon normal Greek texts. If you need more characters in your work than are described in the TLG complete set, please send me a list of the additional character descriptions. I will include tne necessary characters in either the Dutch Standards Institute commentary to the proposals for the new ISO 10646 standard or work out entity declarations as set out in the ISO SGML standard. Coptic has been removed from the proposed ISO 10646 standard. If you have proposals for adding Coptic characters, please contact me. There are a number of Coptic characters attached to the Greek section of UNICODE, but I am not sure if this is complete. Harry Gaylord (galiard@let.rug.nl) Groningen University, The Netherlands From: bbeeton <BNB@MATH.AMS.COM> Subject: Codes -- Unicode, ISO10646, and the AFII glyph registry Date: Tue 5 Mar 91 18:07:54-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2435 (2810) This message is in response to comments regarding Unicode and ISO 10646, from Edwin Hart and Johan van Wingen, that appeared on the ISO10646 list during the period 15-18 Feb 91, were reposted to the Humanist list, and forwarded to TeX-EURO. Both coding and glyph representation are matters of considerable interest to members of the ISO Text and Office Systems working group (SC18/WG8); this group is currently defining standards for use in publishing as well as in office text communication. The Association for Font Information Interchange (AFII) is also an interested party. AFII has been designated as the registrar for glyph and glyph collection identifiers under ISO 10036, the registration adjunct to ISO 9541, the recently approved standard for Font Information Interchange. The draft standard for Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL, ISO/IEC CD 10179, document ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 18 N 2837, 1991-02-05, as forwarded to the ITTF for DIS processing) contains on page 30 the following: 3.3 Bit combination and character mapping 3.3.1 Reference model The mapping of a particular bit combination in the source document into a glyph is specified through a two-step process. In the first part of the map, the bit combination is mapped into a generic character. In the second part of the map, the generic character is mapped into a glyph. A generic character is normally associated with a specific glyph, and is not dependent on a particular font or type of processing. More than one character-to-glyph asociation table may have to be defined and associated with different parts of the source instance in cases where the semantic meaning is ambiguous (e.g., decimal point or hyphen) or if for other reasons a single map is inappropriate to the context. Semantic-specific glyph selection rules are applied during the formatting process and may be dependent on such things as font, document context, or state of the transformation process. These rules can cause selection of glyphs other than primary glyphs, and the selection is not necessarily on a one-to-one basis (e.g., ligatures). Glyph substitution rules are applied during formatting when a selected glyph is not available (e.g., substituting individual glyphs for ligatures) For each generic character, a set of attributes describing character properties shall be specified in the Generic Character Property Definition. These may be used by the formatter to control processes such as line breaks and hyphenation. Page 31 contains the following: 3.3.1.6 Glyph index dictionary Conceptually, the content of the formatted result is expressed using glyph identifiers. To achieve a more compact representation, a mapping from multi-byte glyph identifiers to single-byte compacted glyph identifiers, together with indications of the mapping change, may be used. Note 21 Glyph identifiers, as well as compacted glyph identifiers (unlike characters), are not ordered and do not imply a collating sequence. Glyph compaction data shall not be intrinsic to a font resource as defined by ISO/IEC 9541. The actual representation of the content of the formatted result is determined by the implementation. Note 22 It may be represented in accordance with ISO/IEC 10180. A glyph index dictionary used in the formatting process presupposes that glyphs (as presented) and characters (as input) are not necessarily the same entities. AFII is committed to providing a map between current and future multi-byte code standards to be used for document printing. AFII is currently printing the ISO 10646 code chart, and simultaneously creating a map as part of this printing process. While doing this it is also necessary to respond to questions concerning differences between the characters and glyphs representing different languages as contained in ISO 10646. This is not the only service AFII is providing to the standards and publishing communities. AFII will be generating the first map between character codes and glyph IDs. As mentioned earlier, AFII is the registrar for glyph and glyph collection identifiers, providing this service through an international registry, and considers the definition and registration of collections an important part of its work. A collection in the AFII sense is a register of font showings, that is, the images that are appropriate for language scripts. For example, the AFII cyrillic collection (#91) contains the complete complements of glyphs in current use for rendering of slavic languages both within and outside of the Soviet Union, as well as historical glyphs and those used for representation of those non-slavic languages typically rendered in cyrillic. No code points are attached to any of these glyphs. AFII has been gathering information with the cooperation of the U.N., and the present cyrillic collection represents the glyph complements for 57 languages. An example of a glyph for which information is still wanting is that known as `fita' (in the pre-1918 Russian alphabet). Information from the U.N. indicates that this glyph is in current use in 11 languages (Turkmen, Bashkir, Khirgiz, Biryut, et al.). Thus the name `fita' may be inadequate, and a new description has been requested from Moscow. The East Asian languages are also an area of concern, as they represent the largest single corpus of characters/glyphs to be dealt with. Within ISO 10646, references are made to several national standards: JIS (Japan), GB (the PRC), and KS (Korea); however, no code tables are included. AFII would like to provide a map for those standards, but another step is necessary. There needs to be an accord on what is the font showing for East Asian ideographic glyphs. Preliminary font showings have been prepared and submitted to representatives of the standards communities of these countries. Feedback has been received from Japan and Korea with reference to their standards; a response is awaited from the PRC. The process of reaching an accord among those parties will continue until none of the shapes are contested. As an example of the degree of agreement so far, of a font showing of 500 glyphs (from a total of 5000) provided to the Korean representative, 100 were questioned and are being redesigned and new IDs assigned. The important point about this process is that it is guided by logical rules, which provide that, for each glyph, there must be no question as to what it means. If, in different dialects, a reader may be misled by a shape, a new shape will be provided. In the past, the coding people wanted to minimize the number of codes for purposes, say, of telegraphy, where addition of more codes could require an additional bit. The goal of the glyph registry is different: accord without miscommunication. When the East Asian glyph accord is reached for the several national standards, a map will exist for national standards referenced in 10646. AFII will eventually provide and make public a map between the 10646 multi-byte code standard and others, including reference national standards, to be used for document printing. AFII firmly believes that if character code unification were to be undertaken, it should be done only after accord is reached on the font showing. Further, a conformance test using the glyph accord should be applied to assure communication without misinformation or missing information. Conformance may be as simple as comparing the DSSSL specified and printed document using the national standard code/accord glyph id map to the document rendered using the unification standard translation and a unification standard/accord glyph id map. AFII is committed to the principle of communication without misinformation or missing information. The program of achieving this goal will be allowed to take as long as it needs. Progress can be speeded if (1) there are more knowledgeable participants in this activity, or (2) more financial support is provided to speed this very tedious and cumbersome process. A prospectus on AFII and its goals is available from the chairman of the organization: Archie Provan Rochester Institute of Technology School of Printing One Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, NY 14623 U.S.A. 716-475-2052 -- Barbara Beeton Secretary, AFII From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET> Subject: Male Dominant Language Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 21:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2436 (2811) I have followed HUMANIST posting for about a year now and don't recall when a serious subject has been so trivialized by would-be comedians as has the subject of gender biased language. Perhaps these colleagues have never met people genuinely hurt by language. Perhaps they have never seriously thought about the way language shapes our world and our experience. I only wonder why, if it really is such a trivial subject, they should spend so much effort to ridicule it. Perhaps they really do undestand what is at stake. David L. Barr, University Honors Program Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 From: "Marcus A. J. Smith" <SMITHM@LOYNOVM> Subject: Re: 4.1118 Words Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 21:40:06 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2437 (2812) I cannot add to the particular discussions of freshman, ombudsman, etc., but there's an extremely influential discourse which seems to have a gender-neutral stylistic policy : military bureacracy. A recent LEXUS search of U.S. ap pelate opinions turned up no instances of judges using s/he, (s)he, etc, but numerous cases quoted military regulations containing gender-neutral pronouns and various other unbiased forms. Apparently, the military have stylistic guidelines mandating these forms. While it is important that academic and profe ssional groups define and encourage appropriate stylistic guidelines, the military may prove the most powerful engine for linguistic change--just as it has been and is the most completely integrated major institution in our society. Maybe someone has studied this systematically? From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet Subject: grammar & gender Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 15:20:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2438 (2813) The response to Gary Stonum's query about the origins of the concept of gender is that it is indeed the Greeks who were responsible. Of course he is right about the numerous incongruities between grammatical and natural gender. But the classification goes back to the beginnings of grammar, specifically to the 5th century Sophists. Aristotle (Rhetoric 1407b6) tells us that the famous sophist Protagoras was the first to classify words by "type" or "kind". The Greek word is *genos*, hence gender. Protagoras named the kinds male, female endings, since practice showed variability and inconsistency. This concern is lampooned by Aristophanes at Clouds 658 ff. Aristotle later in the Poetics alters the designations to male, female, and in-between (*ta metaxu*). On the ba in response to the shared endings between neuter and other genders. Rendered in Latin, the categories are still in use: masculine, feminine, and "neither", i.e. neuter. For a succinct but thorough discussion, including the lack of match between grammatical and natural gender, see E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik, Bd.1, pp. 28-36. Dirk t.D. Held, Classics, Connecticut College. From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Words and Gender Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1991 21:53 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2439 (2814) Lesli LaRocca uses the wrong honorifics in referring to me as Ms. Peterson [sic]. Since I obtained my PhD, neither Mr., Ms., Miss, nor Mrs. is a correct title. The correct title is Dr. With Lesli LaRocca I think that equal pay for equal work is basic; so did the American Psychological Associa- tion fifteen years ago. So do the ethics of psychologists. If that is not disarming enough, I live in Utah and have for twenty years. ;-> I do not know if Lesli LaRocca is aware that [sic] simply means "thus" in Latin; somehow, I am fairly certain that James O'Donnell is familiar with that meaning. I intend no imputation of incorrect spelling or other mistakes to Lincoln. Since, I thought, everyone is now telling their students that papers with sexist language will not be accepted, the question of how to cite references to language that *is* sexist might arise. It would seem to be more of a problem to Humanists who deal with centuries of text and secondary sources, than to psychologists who do not wish to introduce bias of any sort into experiments, or imply that the experiment was biased through the use of biased language. After writing 11 papers in 13 months using nonsexist language it is second nature to me to do so, and to quote secondary sources whose language is biased seems odd. I would point out that text as text is never wrong. I believe James O' Donnell and I would not disagree on that point. Since my solution to the problem of bias is unacceptable, please propose your own. The Problem: How do you indicate to my daughter, who is twenty-one, that a contemporary author who has used sexist language *has* been included in a paper written in non-sexist language. I have not thought it fair, in Humanist areas, to dismiss everything someone writes if the language in which it is written is sexist. So, James O'Donnell, or anyone else, how do I cite such "scholars?" Perhaps I should change their words? Since I am still a psychologist, it would not be ethical of me to adopt sexist language to conform to the sexist language of some of my sources, would it? I am sure that if you are citing, say, a psychologist, to be reciprocal about this, who is saying that blacks were happy as slaves, and unhappy when free, that most of you would lead into the quote by indicating disagreement, and many of you would also follow the quote indicating your disagreement with the statement [which was actually that of my high school social studies teacher, to be clear about my example]. If the reason for the reference is to say that Chaldean is now referred to as Aramaic, I don't want to write a sentence disagreeing with incidental masculine bias in the phrasing of the comment. In other words, the direct treatment that might surround a quote demonstrating an explicit bias seems to be unwarranted when the subject matter is different from the sexist language in which it is expressed. If my solution is so unacceptable and "insecure" and "pusillanimous," please be so kind as to demonstrate another solution that will not be these things, given that I am ethically committed to using non-sexist language. I had little idea that you all were still using or allowing the use of sexist language. I have the feeling now that I am speaking Esperanto and have been since the cradle, and am trying to talk to people who are still speaking national languages. I won't assume anymore that you speak Esperanto, and will attempt to master such of your languages as I can. I was going to add some of the comments in the _Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association_. Since it is widely available, I will only do so if I receive some e-mail requests. Note: there are also guidelines for avoiding ethnic bias. I am a modest, middle-of-the-road-on-everything psychologist. I am finding it quite intriguing that this exchange is occurring. I'm rusty on some of my psychology, but I might come up with a theory that would explain it. ;-| - - - - - - - - P. S. Clearly I was also wrong--this dumb, dumb doctor here--in suggesting that the idea that one had to use a *suffix* to indicate gender neutrality was inhibiting thought, and that *affixing* might be the way to go. P.P.S. A really, really true confession. It has been easier for me to learn to use non-sexist language than to learn that there is more than one way of citing a reference. I thought that what I learned as a fresher in college was written in stone, and would never change, that every bibliography I would ever write would have the same formal properties. Sigrid Peterson SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET Sigpeter@cc.utah.edu From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1120 Software: ... Editions Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 16:47:45 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2440 (2815) I will join my voice to that of Clifford Flanigan as a mostly satisfied user of Advanced Revelation. However, I would also point out that my friend and colleague Francisco Marcos (U. Auto'noma de Madrid) (marcos@EMDCCI11.BITNET) has a textual criticism program called UNITE which would satisfy most if not all of the requirements voiced by the Shelley editors. It is currently being ported to the MS-DOS world. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1120 Software: Indexing Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 16:49:51 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2441 (2816) In terms of indexing software some word processing programs, e.g., WordPerfect, have rudimentary data base capabilities which would allow the creation of indexes from scratch, basically by placing each index term and page no. on a separate line and then using the data base capabilities to sort the lines in alphabetical order. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: Indexing Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 17:02:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2442 (2817) There was a program called 3by5 that might fit the bill for indexing. Address given is: Softshell Corporation 1100 Benjamin Road POB 649 Bel Air, MD 21014 (301) 879-4486 From: Jan-Gunnar Tingsell <jgt@glader.hum.gu.se> Subject: Re: Q: sentence length distribution in corpora Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 08:14:56 cet X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2443 (2818) [deleted quotation] The general form of the above function is -nx y=nxe , where x>=0 The curve goes through origo and has a maximum (1/e) for x=(1/n). For n=1 the "top" is rather broad and goes narrower when n increases. This statistical distribution formula represents the chi-square distribution and discribes some psychological and physical phenomenons, for example the distribution of velocities of the molecules in a gas. I think most standard books in statistics will handle this function. From: DJT18@hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1109 Queries (3/59) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 17:03:28 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2444 (2819) Linguistic databases: Termdok, on CD-ROM, includes Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. Suppliers will have information about other languages. They are Multi Lingua, 61 Chiswick Staithe, Hartington Road, London W4 3TP, tel 081 995 0478, fax 081 747 1853. Termtracer is a memory-resident, on-line dictionary, which includes Italian, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish, of the languages you listed. Termtracer is available from INK International BV, Baarsjesweg 224, 1058-AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands, tel 31 20 164591, fax 31 20 163851. Please mention the CTI Centre for Modern Languages if you decide to contact these suppliers. Regards, June Thompson, CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull, UK From: "Mary A. Sproule" <MSPROULE@PUCC> Subject: Duke Language Toolkit & Romanian Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 10:34:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2445 (2820) We have recently purchased Duke Language Toolkit, a font creation package, to create diacritical marks for romanian. I am using a PS/2 model 60, MS Word 5.5 (not running Windows), and an HP Laserjet II. I have encountered several problems with the package; however, there is no support provided for it. Therefore, I would appreciate any information from others who have used DLT, have used any other font creation packages for DOS, or have word processed in romanian. The specific problems I have had with DLT are these: Although my monitor is VGA, only an EGA font will load in LOADFONT. I can use a created font in MS Word, but my system crashes once I exit. (Word crashes upon exiting anytime that LOADFONT has been installed). Has anyone else encountered these problems? Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful. -Mary Sproule From: ALAN COOPER <ACOOPER@UCBEH.BITNET> Subject: Query re Russian e-mail address Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1991 19:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2446 (2821) I was asked to contact someone with the following address: soandso@stek.fian.msk.su (soandso obviously substitutes for the real name) All attempts to send mail, however, were greeted with the no-such-node error on this end. Is that node recognized by anyone, or is there perhaps an error in the address? Any and all help would be much appreciated. Alan Cooper <acooper@ucbeh> Hebrew Union College From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: reports Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 14:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1131 (2822) Originally From: fclrep@uni2a.unige.ch Technical Reports in Formal and Computational Linguistics Robin Clark, Luigi Rizzi, Eric Wehrli Editors Department of Linguistics University of Geneva No 1: Papers on Learnability and Natural Selection ---Robin Clark (144 pages) The papers collected here develop a computational approach to demonstrating the learnability property for a Principles & Parameters approach to natural language. The model uses Genetic Algorithms to develop a learner that is able to converge quickly and efficiently despite the equivocal nature of the input evidence. Chapters 1 and 2 describe the general properties of the learner and relate the formal model to linguistic evidence. Chapter 3 describes a computer simulation of the learner. Chapter 4 summarizes and refines the results reported in the earlier chapters. Price: 15.-- SFr (within Switzerland) 20.-- SFr (outside Switzerland) ------ No 2: Residual Verb Second and the Wh Criterion ---Luigi Rizzi (28 pages) The Wh-Criterion is the principle which determines the S-structure distribution and LF interpretation of wh-operators. Residual Verb Second is a cover term for construction-specific applications of I to C movement in non V-2 languages (Subject-Aux inversion in English, Subject clitic inversion in French, obligatory inversion in Italian interrogatives, etc.). This papers argues that residual V2 is triggered in order to satisfy the Wh-Criterion and other related well-formedness conditions. Price: 7.50 SFr (within Switzerland) 12.50 SFr (outside Switzerland) To order, or for further information, contact: FCLREP@uni2a.unige.ch Technical Reports Department of Linguistics University of Geneva CH-1211 Geneva 4 We accept either Mastercard or Eurocheques, made payable to ``Technical Reports''. Please include the following information with your order: Name: Address: Volume(s) Requested: Mastercard #: Expiration Date: Please indicate whether you want the volume(s) sent by Airmail (the default is surface mail). For airmail, add 10.-- SFr per volume to the total price. From: David Sitman <A79@TAUNIVM> Subject: Who has access to Humanist? Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 09:17:02 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1132 (2823) In recent war-related discussions on Humanist, a few people claimed (or at least hinted) that while Israelis have access to the net (and therefore to Humanist), other areas involved in the conflict do not have access. This is not true. While I am not aware of any e-mail access in Iraq, there are actually 8 Bitnet nodes in universities in Saudi Arabia and 3 in Kuwait (although the link from Kuwait to the outside world, via Saudi Arabia, has been inoperative lately.) I checked the list of Humanist members, and found that nobody from a Saudi or Kuwaiti node belongs to Humanist, but I was surprised at the number of countries which are represented. The vast majority of members are from the US, Canada and the UK. Other countries represented include (apologies in advance; I'm doing this from memory): Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and Yugoslavia. I wonder to what extent the distribution of Humanist membership reflects the state of computing in the humanities throughout the world. Note that there are several countries which are connected to Bitnet or its affiliated networks which are not represented on Humanist (in addition to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait): several Latin American countries, Greece, Turkey, to name a few. A Bitnet connection, however, is not required for Humanist membership, of course. All that is needed is the ability to correspond via e-mail with Bitnet or Internet, something that is possible from a large number of regional and even commercial networks, so that many other countries are potential Humanist markets (examples that come to mind are the Soviet Union and South Africa). I've noticed that in many countries, the first e-mail connections are to technical institutions rather than large universities. Is it simply a matter of time until e-mail access becomes available to the humanities? Does Humanist require a higher level of verbal skill in English than most computer- and science-related lists, which scares away prospective members? David From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1114 Q: Database & Collation SW for Editions Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 21:53:36 +0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1114 (2824) [deleted quotation] As far as I know, there is only one tool available that will do what you want. It is called COLLATE and has been written by Peter Robinson (peterr@vax.oxford.ac.uk) as the core of the Oxford "Computers and Manuscripts" project. It runs on the Macintosh. Peter can tell you much more about COLLATE than I can. All I can say is that I saw one short demonstration, and was extremely impressed. Peter has a background in editing as well as programming, so he knows what he's doing. The COLLATE program can collate the text of up to 100 manuscripts. These have to be typed onto disk, using certain simple conventions. You can prepare these texts on any machine, as long as you use the required tags, which are plain ASCII. As for output, COLLATE can write out the texts and variants in several ways, but Peter has written in to COLLATE the ability for it to write out texts with the appropriate tags for the EDMAC system. EDMAC is a set of TeX macros for formatting critical editions of almost arbitrary complexity. EDMAC was written by John Lavagnino (lav@edu.brandeis.cc.binah) and myself, and we have recently published an overview of EDMAC in the journal TUGboat: Communications of the TeX Users Group, issue 11(4), 1991. A book giving full documentation of the internals of EDMAC (with disk) is in press. The TUGboat article has example pages of texts from different types of edition (even a Sanskrit text), so you might like to look at it to see if it would meet your needs. COLLATE comes with EDMAC and OzTeX, a free implementation of TeX for the Mac. EDMAC and OzTeX are certainly free; I think COLLATE is too, but check with Peter. I believe, as I said, that the combination of COLLATE and EDMAC is the only set of tools that currently exist for doing what you need. Oh: I just thought of TUSTEP from Tuebingen, by Wilhelm Ott. That would do it too, but you would (at present) be tied to using the typesetter at Tuebingen. TUSTEP is very powerful, though, as has been used to produce many complex editions. Dominik ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Dominik Wujastyk, | Janet: D.Wujastyk@uk.ac.ucl Wellcome Institute for | Bitnet/Earn/Ean/Uucp/Internet: D.Wujastyk@ucl.ac.uk the History of Medicine,| or: dow@harvunxw.bitnet or: dow@wjh12.harvard.edu 183 Euston Road, | last resort: D.Wujastyk%uk.ac.ucl@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk London NW1 2BN, England. | Phone no.: +44 71 383-4252 ext.24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM> Subject: Re: 4.1120 Software: Indexing, Cyrillic, Editions (3/56) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 15:38:26 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2447 (2825) Indexing software: Joel Elliott's description sounds just like CINDEX, developed by one of the historical-critical edition projects for the works of the 'founding fathers' [sic] and now available in a PC version from the Newberry Library here in Chicago. I don't have any more direct information. -Michael Sperberg-McQueen From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: software for editions Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 22:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2448 (2826) EDMAC, a set of macros for formatting scholarly editions in the TeX formatting system, is available through the public domain. Contact John Lavagnino (LAV@BRANDEIS) for details. On indexing software: The indexing capabilities of wordprocessors are useful only if one is indexing the document one is going to put out on one's own printer. They don't help much if one is constructing an index from page proofs. I know that in the CP/M world there is a public domain program called Indexer which will help one make indexes from page proofs. It is probably on Simtel20. I got it through the CP/M user's group of the Boston Computer Society. Note card software: A standby for collating and sorting notes in the CP/M world was Pro-Tem's NOTEBOOK. I think they must have MS-DOS versions by now From: Malcolm Brown <mbb@jessica.stanford.edu> Subject: Chadwyck-Healy database of English poetry Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 09:37:51 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2449 (2827) Our chief curator recently forwarded a note he received from a company called Chadwyck-Healy Inc. With apparent international connections, this company is hawking a database of English poetry running from 600 to 1900. According to the literature, the database "encompasses the works of over 1400 poets and spans 800 years..." They claim to have done up the texts in "SGML markup encoding". I note that according to the recent list of on-line dictionaries, this firm is listed as having the Robert Electronique. I can find no other reference to this firm in my HUMANIST "clippings." Has anyone had experience with this company in general and/or with this database? is it for real? thanks! Malcolm Brown Stanford From: "Joseph B. Monda" <monda@sumax.seattleu.edu> Subject: Greek masks Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 10:31:11 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2450 (2828) Can anyone tell me the Greek names for the masks for Comedy and Tragedy? Joseph B. Monda email: monda@sumax.seattleu.edu smail: English Department Seattle University Seattle WA 98122 (206) 296-5425 From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: Use of Hartlib papers Date: 7 March 1991, 14:00:25 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2451 (2829) Has anyone on Humanist made use of the Samuel Hartlib papers now being put on-line at the University of Sheffield? I am especially interested in letters mentioned by Michael Leslie in his article on the papers in *Literary & Linguistic Computing* 5.1 (1990) concerning a lying, drunken engraver working on the frontispiece of Ralph Austen's *A Treatise of Fruit Trees* (1653). Roy Flannagan From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Sentence length distribution Date: 07 Mar 91 14:41:40 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2452 (2830) A postgraduate starting here has some interesting material on "scale" as a variable in relation to different sentence length distributions. Cusum charts on sentence length have been looked at in work done by A.Q.Morton and Prof. Sidney Michaelson (sadly the latter died a few days ago). A brief report entitled "The Cusum Plot" is probably still available from the Dept. of Computer Science at Edinburgh. I would be very interested to hear of other work on sentence length, especially if it is attempting to sort out some of the other possible variables, or any useful critiques of earlier work. Please reply to the e-mail address below. ************************************************************************** David Mealand * Bitnet: D.Mealand%uk.ac.edinburgh@ukacrl University of Edinburgh * Office Fax: (+44)-31-220-0952 Scotland,U.K. EH1 2LU * Office tel.:(+44)-31-225-8400 ext.221/217 ************************************************************************** From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.1123 ... "Mother Of" Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1991 8:54:38 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2453 (2831) Re: Mark Turner's remarks on mothers. Let me internationalize the discussion (I'm sure a lot of Semiticists out there will also contribute this point): I automatically assumed, on hearing the phrase "mother of battles", that it derived from a mistranslation of Saddam's phrase in Arabic, by either his staff or the journalists. In Hebrew, and by extension I assume probably also in Arabic, the expression "mother of ..." means "the one that has priority" (usually in size or importance though possibly also in date). E.g. "em haderech", lit. "the mother of the road" or "the mother road" means "the main highway", i.e. the biggest OR most important road around. "Em hamoshavot" -- the first moshav (no suggestion that the others were established by settlers who moved from that one). Thus "em hamilhamot"-- "the mother of wars/battles" is understood as "the biggest/most important battle ever". In Hebrew this particular phrase is new, and due to you-know- who; nonetheless it's immediately understandable in that sense, because of the already long-established usage. If you take Saddam's phrase and translate it literally into English rather than Hebrew, it's much less understandable. Of course it is still understandable, otherwise nobody would have left it translated literally; but the original metaphor, being less familiar, becomes much more obvious ("in what sense can a battle be said to be a mother...?"). Despite which I found Mark's remarks enlightening and great fun. Judy Koren From: K.P.Donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Re: "MOTHER OF" Date: 07 Mar 91 10:44:58 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2454 (2832) Re phrases like "Mother of all battles". A similar idea which is very common in Irish Gaelic is found in phrases like "Ni raibh cogadh go dti e" lit. "There wasn't a war until it" "It was the mother of all wars" or "Ni raibh seoltoir go dti e" lit. "There wasn't a sailor until him" "There was never before a sailor to compare with him" Kevin Donnelly From: Subject: Re: [4.1123 Words: "Mother Of" ] Date: Thu, 07 Mar 91 11:29:07 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2455 (2833) Glad though I am that Mark Turner is analysing the metaphors of motherhood, I respectfully suggest that he do a little more thinking and reading before he leaps into print. In its motherland(!) the phrase "mother of Parliaments" is reserved for the _british parliamentary system_ and not applied to the country. Thus it is, in origin at least, closer to his "Latin is the mother of Italian" example than to "Filth is the mother of stench". A couple of other points in the puff also give me pause. [deleted quotation] Doesn't that depend on what the metaphor is truing to say? Can a modern academic, albeit an Associate Professor of English, decree what our foremothers _must_ have done, or forbid what our sons may do? Anyone playing with Oedipus ideas or militarism may well want to use the biblical phrase "a mother of sons". [deleted quotation] How sure of we of the commonality of culture? Later he says [deleted quotation] They may think it, but if you look at the (presumable) content of the various metaphors, they are clearly saying different things. Sorry, but I think the use of this catch phrase by these people says more about their sense of humour(?) and poverty of communication skills than about the "system to imagination" or the 'prototypic" mother metaphor. Douglas de Lacey, University of Cambridge. From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1123 Words: "Mother Of"; 1st Year Students; Children (4/124) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 17:09:09 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2456 (2834) I doubt very much whether the "mother of all battles " has anything at all to do with the metaphorical concepts mentioned by Mark Turner and rather more to do with metaphorical expessions in Arabic based on kinship relations. E.g., a "son of the night" is a thief, and the Spanish loan translation from Arabic "hidalgo < hijo de algo" lit. 'son of possessions' originally meant "rich man" and has come to mean "noble." My first reaction to "mother of all battles" is that this was very noticeably NOT a European coinage. Can any semiticists comment? Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: William Crossgrove <WMCROSS@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1123 Words: 'Mother Of'; 1st Year Students; Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 20:16:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2457 (2835) So are we to conclude that persuasive necessity is the mother of rhetorical invention? Or is polemical intention the mother of metaphorical excessity? From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: New printed snapshot from the Oxford Text Archive Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 10:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2458 (2836) The Oxford Text Archive has now produced an updated version of its printed snapshot catalogue of texts. For the first time the snapshot includes the names of depositors - or at least those whose responded to our survey of depositors at about this time last year- as well as listing those texts which have so far been re-catalogued here in Oxford and listed on RLIN (Research Libraries' Information network). Bibliographic and publishing details have also been included where available. Copies of the catalogue are available from me at the address below, an updated version of the electronic shapshot will be posted soon. Can I take this opportunity to appeal to those who have created electronic texts and wondering what to do with them...DEPOSIT NOW! before they are lost, erased, eaten by the dog etc...the Archive accepts any text in any format, its facilities are free and secure and provide a much needed service to the world's academic community. Why not be part of it? Alan Morrison Phone: +44 865 273238 Oxford Text Archive FAX : 273275 Oxford University Computing Service email: ARCHIVE@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Desktop Publishing Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 11:21:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2459 (2837) Members of this list may be interested in the following pamphlet: Tal, Kali. _Desktop Publishing for Academics: A Handbook_. Silver Spring, MD: Burning Cities Press, 1990. This pamphlet addresses both the practical and the political aspects of desktop publishing. The author is in the American Studies program at Yale University, and is "available to talk with scholars and administrators who are interested in exploring the potentials of desktop publishing." Kali Tal is the editor of _Vietnam Generation_, a quarterly journal, and the founder of Burning Cities Press, which "will produce small print runs of books, quickly and inexpensively, and sell them through direct mail marketing" to the academic community. The address for Burning Cities Press is 10301 Procter Street, Silver Spring, MD 20901; tel. (301) 681-9541. John Unsworth jmueg@ncsuvm.bitnet From: Mark Sacks <AP02@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1112 Rs: Ancient Medicine; MicroSolutions (2/32) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 01:40:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2460 (2838) Following Stephen Clark's posting Re Ancient Medicine. Another name to conjure with: A. Wasserstein. Mark From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Italian dialects Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 12:44:25 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2461 (2839) A colleague of mine, Robert DiPietro, asked that I send in these comments on the recent discussion of Italian dialects by Joe Giampapa. Di Pietro says: The anecdote about Italian dialect usage reflects the cathexis that is still associated with home dialects in Italy. As Freud pointed out, words learned in childhood are likely to be vested with more emotion than words learned later in school or in one's professional life. Italians still swear more rewardingly in dialect than they do in standard Italian. In fact, Americans born of Italian extracion are likely to retain cuss words and onscenities in their family's Italian dialect long after they have forgotten how to say anything else in the dialect. The likely reason that the American received ridicule about sounding like a Bergamasco is because Italians are fond of looking askance at dialects that are not their own. Big-city dialects, especially in the northern cities (e.g., Milano), are more prestigious than those from smaller cities. Besides, Milanese has a tradition of literature written in its dialect that is quite impressive. The struggle over what dialects would form the basis for the standard Italian language is so well documented that it has its own title: 'la questione della lingua' and it goes all the way back to the times of Dante. _Vietnam Generation_, a quarterly journal, and the founder of Burning Cities Press, which "will produce small print runs of books, quickly and inexpensively, and sell them through direct mail marketing" to the academic community. The address for Burning Cities Press is 10301 Procter Street, Silver Spring, MD 20901; tel. (301) 681-9541. John Unsworth jmueg@ncsuvm.bitnet From: Mark Sacks <AP02@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1112 Rs: Ancient Medicine; MicroSolutions (2/32) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 01:40:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2462 (2840) Following Stephen Clark's posting Re Ancient Medicine. Another name to conjure with: A. Wasserstein. Mark From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: New printed snapshot from the Oxford Text Archive Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 10:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2463 (2841) The Oxford Text Archive has now produced an updated version of its printed snapshot catalogue of texts. For the first time the snapshot includes the names of depositors - or at least those whose responded to our survey of depositors at about this time last year- as well as listing those texts which have so far been re-catalogued here in Oxford and listed on RLIN (Research Libraries' Information network). Bibliographic and publishing details have also been included where available. Copies of the catalogue are available from me at the address below, an updated version of the electronic shapshot will be posted soon. Can I take this opportunity to appeal to those who have created electronic texts and wondering what to do with them...DEPOSIT NOW! before they are lost, erased, eaten by the dog etc...the Archive accepts any text in any format, its facilities are free and secure and provide a much needed service to the world's academic community. Why not be part of it? Alan Morrison Phone: +44 865 273238 Oxford Text Archive FAX : 273275 Oxford University Computing Service email: ARCHIVE@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX 13, Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN From: John Unsworth <JMUEG@NCSUVM> Subject: Desktop Publishing Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 11:21:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2464 (2842) Members of this list may be interested in the following pamphlet: Tal, Kali. _Desktop Publishing for Academics: A Handbook_. Silver Spring, MD: Burning Cities Press, 1990. This pamphlet addresses both the practical and the political aspects of desktop publishing. The author is in the American Studies program at Yale University, and is "available to talk with scholars and administrators who are interested in exploring the potentials of desktop publishing." Kali Tal is the editor of _Vietnam Generation_, a quarterly journal, and the founder of Burning Cities Press, which "will produce small print runs of books, quickly and inexpensively, and sell them through direct mail marketing" to the academic community. The address for Burning Cities Press is 10301 Procter Street, Silver Spring, MD 20901; tel. (301) 681-9541. John Unsworth jmueg@ncsuvm.bitnet From: Mark Sacks <AP02@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1112 Rs: Ancient Medicine; MicroSolutions (2/32) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 01:40:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2465 (2843) Following Stephen Clark's posting Re Ancient Medicine. Another name to conjure with: A. Wasserstein. Mark From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Italian dialects Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 12:44:25 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2466 (2844) A colleague of mine, Robert DiPietro, asked that I send in these comments on the recent discussion of Italian dialects by Joe Giampapa. Di Pietro says: The anecdote about Italian dialect usage reflects the cathexis that is still associated with home dialects in Italy. As Freud pointed out, words learned in childhood are likely to be vested with more emotion than words learned later in school or in one's professional life. Italians still swear more rewardingly in dialect than they do in standard Italian. In fact, Americans born of Italian extracion are likely to retain cuss words and onscenities in their family's Italian dialect long after they have forgotten how to say anything else in the dialect. The likely reason that the American received ridicule about sounding like a Bergamasco is because Italians are fond of looking askance at dialects that are not their own. Big-city dialects, especially in the northern cities (e.g., Milano), are more prestigious than those from smaller cities. Besides, Milanese has a tradition of literature written in its dialect that is quite impressive. The struggle over what dialects would form the basis for the standard Italian language is so well documented that it has its own title: 'la questione della lingua' and it goes all the way back to the times of Dante. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: LIst of electronic dictionaries Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 09:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1137 (2845) Russon Wooldridge has been collecting a list of electronic dictionaries, which appeared on HUMANIST a few weeks ago. Since then, he has received a number of additional titles and has updated the list; I append the revised list below. Nancy Ide -------- "E-DICTS": LIST OF MACHINE-READABLE DICTIONARIES COMPILED FROM INFORMATION RECEIVED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES Compiler: Russon Wooldridge <wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Version: 5 March 1991 Contact abbreviations for further information: (The compiler welcomes information on such specifications as source edition, e-medium, encoding, availability.) 1. Sources of dictionaries: AP = Alain Pierrot, Hachette, tel. 33-1-46.34.82.90 (24 Bd. St. Michel, 75288 Paris cedex 06) CD = "CD-ROMs in Print 1990" CF = Catherine Fowler, NY, tel. 1-212-373-8830/8292 (Trade Division, Prentice Hall, 15 Columbus Circle, 15th Floor, New York NY 10023) CH = Chadwyck-Healey, VA, tel. 1-800-752-0515 --or-- Cambridge, tel. 44-223-311479 CL = Charles Levine, NY, tel. 1-212-572-2224 (Reference Division, Random House Inc., 201 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022) Co = Collins Publishers, Glasgow, tel. 44-41-772-3200 (Glasgow G4 ONB) --or-- London, tel. 44-71-493-7070 (8 Grafton Street, London WIX 3LA) DS = Della Summers, Essex, tel. 44-279-4-26721, fax 44-279-4-31059, telex 81259 Longmn G (Dictionaries and Reference Division, Longman Group UK Ltd., Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE) ES = Exceller Software Corp., tel. 1-800-426-0444 KD = K.P. Donnelly <k.p.donnelly@edinburgh.ac.uk> MB = Microsoft Bookshelf ML = Mark Liberman (ACL/DCI), UPenn <myl@unagi.cis.upenn.edu>, tel. 1-215-898-0141/0083/6046 (Dept of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305) MU = Dictionary Research Centre, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2009 MW = Merriam Webster, tel. 1-413-734-3134 OA = Oxford Text Archive, <archive@vax.oxford.ac.uk> (Lou Burnard, Oxford U. Computing Service, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN) OUP = Oxford Electronic Publishing, Oxford University Press, NY (200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016) --or-- Oxford, tel. 44-865-56767 (Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP) RA = Robert Arn, Educational Software Products, Toronto <robert@espinc.uucp> (2 St Clair Ave. W., Suite 1701, Toronto, Ontario M4V 1L5) RO = "rand.org"; Michael Urban <urban@rand.org> RW = Russon Wooldridge <wulfric@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> (Trinity College, Toronto M5S 1H8) 2. Source of information: BK = Bob Kraft, UPenn <kraft@penndrls.upenn.edu> NI = Nancy Ide, Vassar <ide@vaxsar.vassar.edu> ALPHABETICAL LIST American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [MB] [CD] Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker, Greek-English (early Christian Greek) [BK] CED Prolog Factbase [OA: U-1192-E] COBUILD Dictionary (English) [Co] Collins Concise English-Italian [Co] Collins English Dictionary (original ed.) [Co] [OA: A-1255-E] Collins English Dictionary (ACL Data Collection Initiative) [ML "available soon"] Collins GEM English-French [Co] Comunicacion Y Calculo, S.A., Diccionario de Medicina Marin (Spanish) [CD] Davidson, Hebrew-English (biblical Hebrew) [BK] Estienne [Stephanus], Linguae Latinae Thesaurus, 1531 (Latin headwords and French glosses) [RW] Estienne [Stephanus], Dictionarium latinogallicum, 1552 (Latin-French items) [RW] Garzanti, Italian [NI] Gage Canadian Dictionary (Canadian English) [RA] Harrap's Multilingual CD-ROM Dictionary Database (English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese & Japanese) [CD] Irish Gaelic-English Dictionary [KD] Jiyu-Kokumin-Sha, Fundamental Dictionary of Contemporary Words & Usage [CD] Jones, English Pronouncing Dictionary [OA: U*-571-D] Liddell-Scott, Intermediate Size Greek-English (classical Greek) [BK] Lo Scaffale Elettronico: Italian-English and Italian-French dictionaries [CD] Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English [DS] MacBain, Etymological Dictionary of the [Scottish] Gaelic Language [OA] Macquarie Dictionary (Australian English) [MU] Macquarie Thesaurus (Australian English) [MU] McGraw-Hill CD-ROM Science and Technical Reference Set: Concise Encyclopedia of Science and Technology [CD] McGraw-Hill CD-ROM Science and Technical Reference Set: Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms [CD] Merriam-Webster 9th New Collegiate Dictionary (English) [MW] [CD] MRC Psycholinguistic database (expanded SOED entries) [OA: U*-1054-E] New Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (English) [CD] [MS] Newby, Greek-English (New Testament Greek) [BK] Nicola Zanichelli Editore, Lo Scaffale Elettronico: Italian dictionary, thesaurus and style manual [CD] Nicot, Thresor de la langue francoyse, 1606 (French) [RW] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (original ed.) (English) [OA: A*-154-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (untagged version) (English) [OA: A-667-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (parsed and tagged version) (English) [OA: X*-683-E] Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (expanded "Computer Usable" version) (English) [OA: U*-710-E] Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English [OA: A-288-E] Oxford Dictionary of Music [OA: U-592-E] Oxford Dictionary of Quotations [OA: U-398-D] Oxford English Dictionary (1st Edition) on CD-ROM (English) [OUP] [CD] Paperno & Leed, Russian-English Dictionary (with grammatical info) in OS/2 [ES] Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto [RO] Random House Dictionary (English) [CL] Robert Electronique: on CD-ROM (French) [CH] Roget's Thesaurus (English) [DS] [CD] Shorter Oxford Dictionary (headwords only) (English) [OA: U*-157-D] Smith, Coptic-English (Sahidic) [BK] Stoer et al., Grand dictionaire francois-latin, 1593-1628 (additions) (French) [RW] Thorndike-Lorge Magazine Count (entries from "The teacher's word book of 30,000 words") (English) [OA: U-400-B] Van Dale, Dutch [NI] Van Dale, Dutch-English [NI] Van Dale Lexitron / Lexitron Plus (Dutch) [CD] Vox, Spanish [NI] Walters Lexikon: Multilingual Technical Dictionary (Swedish + English, Russian, Norwegian, Finnish, Spanish, Danish, French and German) [CD] Walters Lexikon: Termdok (databanks from France, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden) [CD] Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd College Ed. (English) [CF] Wiley, International Dictionary of Medicine and Biology [CD] Zyzomys (French) [AP] From: Elena Benedicto <D1FLEBS0@EB0UB011> Subject: David Sitman's note Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 11:17:33 HOE X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2467 (2846) [deleted quotation]with the Soviet Union. If there is anyone out there who knows whether and how to contact someone in Leningrad, please send an email note to the address above. Thanks. Elena Benedicto. From: Marcus Smith <SMITHM@LOYNOVM> Subject: Re: 4.1132 Humanist Access on the Nets (1/37) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 06:12:16 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2468 (2847) An interesting topic. What about the Palestinian universities on the West Bank and Gaza--Bir Zeit, Bethlehem, Nablus, Gaza, etc.? Do they have access to the bitnet/HUMANIST link? If so, could I get the addresses? If not, why not? I know scholars at several of these universities and would like to use this method to exchange information. Does anyone have any information about computer links to these universities? From: "Edwin S. Segal" <ESSEGA01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1132 Humanist Access on the Nets (1/37) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 09:51:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2469 (2848) Does anyone know of a BITNET or INTERNET node in the West Bank? Perhaps Beir Zeit University? From: Jan Hajic <haj@divsun.unige.ch> Subject: Prague Summer School Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1991 13:21:59 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1139 (2849) ****************************************************** *** SUMMER SCHOOL IN COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS *** *** Formal and Computational Models of Meaning *** ****************************************************** TIME AND PLACE: July 8-21, 1991, Prague, Czechoslovakia ORGANIZERS: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University COURSES: - - Jurij D. Apresjan, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, USSR: The Types of Lexical Information for a Dictionary in an Integrated Linguistic Description - - B.T.Sue Atkins, Oxford University Press, UK: Lexicography for Computational Linguistics - - Christian Boitet, G.E.T.A., Grenoble, France: Meaning and Understanding in Machine Translation - - Jens Erik Fenstad, University of Oslo, Norway: Computational Semantics - - Charles J. Fillmore, University of California, Berkeley, USA: Semantic Interpretation and Construction Grammar - - Eva Hajicova and Petr Sgall, Charles University, Prague: A Functional Approach to the Meaning of the Sentence and to Intersentential Links - - George Lakoff, University of California, Berkeley, USA: Cognitive Semantics - - Martha E. Pollack, SRI International, USA: Contextual Influences on Meaning - - James Pustejovsky, Brandeis University, USA: Computational Lexical Semantics - - Mats Rooth, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA: Formal Semantics - - Hans Uszkoreit, University of Saarbruecken, Germany: New Developments in Grammar Formalisms - - Wolfgang Wahlster, University of Saarbruecken, Germany: Discourse and User Models The programme will be organized in four 90 minute non-overlapping blocks per day. FEES: 900 USD for industrial participants 700 USD for academic community The fees cover the costs of all courses, a welcome party, a guided tour of Prague, accomodation in double rooms in the University students hostel for the whole period of the School (14 nights, 10 USD per night), and 3 meals per day in the students canteen (13 days, 8 USD per day). There is a limited number of beds available for accompanying persons (20 USD per night). Registration is possible without accomodation and meals, with a registration fee of 450 USD for academic community and 650 USD for industrial participants. The organizers cannot take the responsibility for hotel accomodation. REGISTRATION: The deadline for registration is April 30, 1991, but it is important to react as soon as possible, as the courses have limitations on the number of participants. You can either ask for a brochure containing more details with the Registration Form attached, or simply send the following data along with an evidence of the payment of the registration fee: Registration form Name: Affiliation (university or company): Address for correspondence: e-mail address: Telephone: Specify: industrial participant / academic institution / student Do you wish to reserve room and meals in the University hostel? (Y/N) Fees (specify the amount paid): Registration fee: Date: (Signature:) The address and other contact: MFF UK - linguistics, c/o Dr. Eva Hajicova Malostranske nam. 25, 118 00 Praha 1, Czechoslovakia Voice: +42-2-532136 Fax: +42-2-847688 (attn. MFF UK linguistics) e-mail: MATRACE@CSPUNI12.BITNET (or UMLEH@CSEARN.BITNET) PAYMENT: The fee should be paid before April 30, 1991. Cheques are payable to "ACL", use Swiss franc or a European currency equivalent on date the cheque is signed and be sure the cheque is payable in Switzerland or France. Cheques in USD must be drawn on a US bank. Send the cheque with a copy of the registration form to Michael Rosner (the address below). Bank transfer: Credit Union Bank of Switzerland, Geneva, a/c "Association of Computational Linguistics", 141.880.LAV. Send a copy of the registration form to Michael Rosner: Michael Rosner (Prague Summer School) IDSIA, Corso Elvezia 36, 6900 LUGANO, Switzerland Arrivals: Sunday, June 7, 1991 Beginning of the School: Monday, July 8, 9 a.m. End of the School: Saturday, July 20, 6 p.m. Departures: Sunday, July 21 Registration desk: open at July 7, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., in the building of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Praha 8 - Troja, Str. V Holesovickach 2. How to get there: Underground ("Metro") line C, terminal "Nadrazi Holesovice", from there one stop by bus No. 156 or 175. The faculty building is the tall building on the same side of the road as the bus stop. From: nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Natalie Maynor) Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language ... and Gender Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 19:50:20 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2470 (2850) Francine Wattman Frank and Paula A. Treichler's -Language, Gender, and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage- (New York: Modern Language Association, 1989) makes a good case for avoiding sexist language and offers practical alternatives. Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu) English Department, Mississippi State University From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: On the subject of language and values... Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 21:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2471 (2851) I'm somewhat confused as to why sex-specific honorifics are somehow more objectionable than ones which are specifically meant to create an intellectual hierarchy, such as "Doctor." Why PhDs, Physicians, and Politicians should have such honorifics, and why they are necessary is not obvious to me. It seems to this poor PhDless brain that "Dr." is meant to divide people into two classes much the way some correspondents have suggested gender-specific terms do. Perhaps someone could educate me. - Bachelor Matt Wall From: Lesli LaRocco <OZVY@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language, Words, Grammar and Gender Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 03:01:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2472 (2852) I meant no disrespect when I used the title "Ms." to respond to Dr. Peterson. I did my undergraduate work at a university where professors were always referr ed to as "Mr." or "Ms." and here at Cornell, it seems to be up to the individua l. In any case, I meant no offense. As for my use of [sic], I was simply trying to point out that someone more radical might well consider Dr. Peterson's very name to be sexist (consider its origins!). I have no wish to force my views of language on my students or fellow contributors, but I expect the same respect in return if I choose to use words like "ombudsman" instead of "ombudsperson." I have spent nearly the last ten years of my life studying the literature, language, and history of the Soviet Union and Russia, and so, perhaps, I am particularly sensitive to anything which strikes me as censorship or as dictating what one can write and how. That is how the APA guidelines strike me, along with the whole issue of gender-free language.If the content or form of what I write is offensive to some or many, then I will be forced to face natural consequences. But I will not be told what or how to write under the guise of improving the lot of women. The issue of gender-free language simply does not strike me as important. We in the university atmosphere sometimes forget that little of what we do makes its way into the population at large. Such will certainly be the case with gender-free language. I will be candid: I have two sisters, both in their twenties, neither of whom chose to attend college. I know the problems women without education and job skills face: they work for low pay, they hop from job to job, and when the economy suffers, they are the first to be unemployed. I cannot afford to forget about these all-too-real problems. I face my sisters (in the literal sense) every time I go home. But, I am realistic enough also to face the fact that they made a poor choice in not going to college. We are fast becoming a society which does not pay a living wage to uneducated workers. Young women raised in traditional families today are at a double disadvantage: education is not stressed, nor is ambition, but, at the same time, few men are willing or able to financially support a family single-handedly. I apologize if my comments on this issue are abrasive. But it strikes me as diletttantism to worry about gender-free language whose use in the academic sphere will do nothing for the women who need help the most. I'm not even sure that such changes will help women in the university. It is frustrating to see women like my sisters graduate from middle-class subur ban high schools functionally illiterate. It is frustrating to see them lose their jobs. It is frustrating to see them at a loss to know how to improve their lives. But I will not romanticize their situation: it is also frustrating when they are working and earning, to see them spend their money on car phones and larger television sets rather than night school classes or training which would help them find more stable jobs. (All of this, by the way, applies to men as well; it is not only women who are in this situation.) That, in a rather large nutshell, is why this issue irritates me. It is so peripheral to the reality faced by most women that I cannot even begin to consider it as other than a hobby for those who have already overcome most of the problems women face. As I see it, the most urgent problems faced by women in this country are problems shared by men as well, and first on the agenda is education. It is perhaps even more urgent for women, however; women end up as single parents more often than men (either through misfortune or poor choices), and so women must be more prepared than men to support a family. Education in the US is, of course, a whole new topic ... Lesli LaRocco (OZVY@CORNELLA) From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.1125 Gender Yet Again Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 15:45:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2473 (2853) Hear! Hear! Lesli LaRocco put it splendidly! Let's quit wasting time and energy on symbolic trivia and get on with the business of achieving equality. Were one to devise a conspiracy to keep women from getting their due in a democratic society, one could do no better than to distract them from the real issues and get them to devote themselves to linguistic marginalia. Not only would this divert their energies, it would irritate needlessly many who, otherwise, would be their strongest supporters. T. From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Re:4.1127 Language and Gender Date: Wed, Mar 6, 1991 9:30:18 AM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2474 (2854) A number of people have said that they are surprised at the extent to which the rest of us don't realize language has shaped our world. While I certainly wouldn't want to minimize the force of language, shouldn't we also consider the opposite - the extent to which our world has shaped our language? The slang and jargon about which so many complain required no active thought to make their way into the language, as do the suggestions (or association guidelines) for removing gender-specific words. Perhaps the fact that our world has not shaped our language sufficiently to remove gender-specific words indicates that the world as a whole is not all that concerned about it. That's a hypothetical statement and does not reflect my views on sexism by any means, so please don't flame me for it. I'm no linguist, but it seems to me that language is a constantly evolving organism that adds words for new concepts and sloughs off others when the related concepts no longer apply. Take the last sentence in the above paragraph as an example. I'm willing to bet that most of you know specifically what I mean by flame, and if not, you have a pretty good idea. That's not a new word, but it is being used with a new meaning (as verb meaning, to insult for making a stupid statement in an electronic discussion, roughly). In contrast, how many of you know what a heddle is? I certainly didn't before I turned to it by random in my dictionary. It's one of the sets of cords or wires which compose the harness to guide the warp threads in a loom. Good word, but given the relative importance of looms in today's society, it's relegated to the depths of Websters and in a few hundred more years will almost certainly be in the Webster's Dictionary of Completely Obsolete Words Which You Only Use If You Are Being Pretentious In Mixed Company. When gender-specific words have no more use in current society as heddle does today (or fall into the same category as ethnic derogatories for most people), that's when we will be rid of them. So if I'm wrong, and Language really does rule the world (and not the other way around), I'd be interested in hearing the arguments for that position. Perhaps the best way of stating my impression is that language reflects the world and if language is hurtful or soothing, so is the world. cheers ... Adam From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language and Gender Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 17:08:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2475 (2855) Learning a new language to perfection is always a hard task, which obviously goes for non-sexist language as well. In all consequence, Sigrid Peterson's title must be doctor [sic]. From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.1118 Language and Gender] Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 12:09:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2476 (2856) On the increasingly arid discussion on words and gender, may I suggest that participants read something scholarly on the subject before writing? I suggest for instance the rather misleadingly-titled "The Semantics of Biblical Language" by J Barr (London, 1961)--misleading in that it covers far more than the bible. Douglas de Lacey, Cambridge University. From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet Subject: correction (On Words and Gender) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 15:35:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2477 (2857) Apparently the e-mail gremlins (non-gender specific, I trust) nibbled away at part of my response regarding the origins of gender classifications. Two errors crept in: Protagoras named the kinds (genos) of nouns "male, female, and things"-the last term never made it to the posting. Secondly, after referring to Aristotle's designations in the Poetics "masculine, feminine, and in-between" I mentioned that a cursory reading of his Sophistical Refutations 173b seems to give his reasoning behind "in-between" that these words shared some of their endings with the other two genders. This reference also was deleted, perhaps a gremlin preference for a sexed/gendered world over one of mere inanimate objects. Dirk t.D. Held, Connecticut College From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: ICEBOL 5 Conference Date: Thu, 07 Mar 91 07:01:29 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2478 (2858) I C E B O L 5 Fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing Dakota State University April 18-19, 1991 Madison, SD 57042 KEYNOTE SPEAKER Nancy M. Ide Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Vassar College. Author of _Pascal for the Humanities_ and articles on William Blake, artificial intelligence, and programming for the analysis of texts. FEATURED SPEAKER Ralph Griswold One of the creators of the Icon programming language and SNOBOL4. He is the editor of two newsletters, and the author of six books and dozens of articles on computer languages and string and list processing. He is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Arizona. ICEBOL5, the fifth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, is designed for teachers, scholars, and programmers who want to meet to exchange ideas about computer programming for non-numeric applications -- especially those in the humanities. In addition to a focus on SNOBOL4, SPITBOL, and Icon, ICEBOL5 will feature presentations on processing in a variety of programming languages such as Pascal, Prolog, C, and REXX. SCHEDULED TOPICS Music Score Recognition Automatic File Generation Predicate Logic Parallel Logic Programming Tools for Navajo Lexicography Expert System for Advising Computer Analysis of Poetry and Prose Simulating Neural Activity Parsing Texts Data Integrity Checking Digitized Voice Management Selecting Expert Systems Grammar and Machine Translation Editing Large Texts Indexing Chemical Journals Windows for Icon SPITBOL Use with Other Languages Speeding Data Entry Logical Modeling of Complex Systems ACCOMMODATIONS Please make your own reservations. Lake Park Motel (Single $23);(Double $26) W. Hwy. 34 Phone (605) 256-3424 Super 8 (Single $26);(Double $32) W. Hwy. 34 Phone (605) 256-6931 All major chains available in Sioux Falls, SD (50 miles from conference site) - - - - - - - - - - - - - REGISTRATION FORM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYMBOLIC AND LOGICAL COMPUTING April 18-19, 1991 Indicate the number for the following: Amount ______Advance registration $150.00 (includes two lunches, coffee breaks, banquet, one copy of the proceedings); On-site registration $175.00 $________ ______Additional copies of ICEBOL5 proceedings ($35.00 each) $________ ______Additional banquet tickets ($15.00) $________ ______Shuttle from Sioux Falls airport ($40.00 per passenger round trip) $________ Arrival: Flight________ Date ________ Time ________ Departure: Flight_______ Date ________ Time ________ (Rental cars are available at the Sioux Falls, SD airport) Total Amount Enclosed $________ Name_______________________________ College or Firm_____________________ Mailing address_________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ Return this form to: Eric Johnson, ICEBOL5 Director, 114 Beadle Hall, Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota 57042 USA From: houlihn@ux.acs.umn.edu Subject: Minnesota Conference on Language and Literature Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 11:05 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2479 (2859) Call for Papers for the Seventeenth Annual MINNESOTA CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26, 1991 (Possibility of extra session on Thurs., Oct. 24, or Sun., Oct. 27) University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Celebrating the 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS Invited Speakers: Diana Archangeli, University of Arizona (Tentative) James Huang, Cornell University George Yule, Louisiana State University Abstracts are invited for 15-minute papers. Papers may be on any topic related to the study of language from any perspective, including theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, stylistics, psycholinguistics, communication disorders, etc. Persons interested in presenting a paper at the conference are requested to submit five copies of a one-page abstract of the paper, with one additional page being allowed for references and illustrative data. The abstract should be accompanied by a separate page stating the title of the paper, the names and addresses of the authors, summer addresses of authors (if different, with dates), and e-mail addresses of authors (if any). Please do not identify the authors on the abstract itself. Abstracts and supplementary information may be submitted via e-mail to the department e-mail address below. Abstracts must be received by MAY 1, 1991. Abstracts will be acknowledged upon receipt, by e-mail when possible. Queries and abstracts should be addressed to MCOLL Department of Linguistics University of Minnesota 142 Klaeber Court 320 16th Avenue SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 ((612) 624-3528) OR umling@ux.acs.umn.edu Notification of acceptance of abstracts will be mailed by June 1, 1991. Conference coordinator: Kathleen Houlihan houlihn@ux.acs.umn.edu (612) 624-3806 Invited Speakers: Diana Archangeli, University of Arizona (Tentative) James Huang, Cornell University George Yule, Louisiana State University From: "Jack M. Sasson" <JSASS@UNC> Subject: Re: 4.1135 "Mother Of ..." Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 11:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2480 (2860) Re: "Mother of battles." The idiom intrigued me as I had never come accross it before. I had assumed that the arabic was "'umm al-h(.)uru(-)b" the last word being the plural of "h(.)arb" "battle," a feminine word. But when Saddam Huseyn was on the tube recently I heard a portion of his speech before it was blanked over with an english translation. He referred to "'umm al-ma`rakat," the last word being the plural of another word for battle, also fem. 'Umm is well known as a word by which to convey the essence or origin of the next word attached to it (e.g. 'umm al kitab, the first sura of the Qur'an. * I am now thinking that the locution 'umm al ma`rakat, itself unknown to me from elsewhere, may actually be a peculiar survival in arabic (through aramaic?) of a misunderstood "Armaggedon." But I am sure of nothing yet. The above is for all its worth. From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: Mother of Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 08:54:35 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2481 (2861) Judy Koren's point that "mother of" in the collected rhetoric of SH is a word-for-word rather than meaning-for-meaning translation fits in nicely with something one could often observe back in the dear old days of the cold war, namely the translating of Russian or Chinese phrases and statements as literally as possible - possibly out of ineptitude, but I think more likely as a deliberate technique in order to make them seem ridiculous (or more ridiculous, according to taste). Presumably similar techniques are/were applied in the other direction as well. Timothy Reuter From: markt@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Turner) Subject: The End of Mother Of Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 11:38:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2482 (2862) The Washington Post for 28 February described the allied attack on Kuwait as the "mother of all maneuvers" and General Norman Schwarzkopf's report to the press as the "mother of all briefings." The New York Times of 1 March printed on its Op-Ed page the "Mother of All Columns." The popularity of the phrase has passed as quickly as the war. My thanks to all those who sent interesting responses to my original posting. One response was unpredictable. Charles Faulhaber objected that "mother of all battles" is not a European coinage, but this is of course obviously true: this metaphoric use of "mother" is clearly strange in English. We can understand it, regard- less of what the Arabic original might have been intended to mean, because we can draw upon certain aspects of our com- monplace cultural concept of mother. We are helped in this by the fact that "mother" is a relational noun, indicating a status relative to other things. In this way, "mother of all battles" can be taken as something like "a prince of a proposal." Several scholars sent to me examples of the metaphoric uses of kinship terms. "Mother of" has several deeply con- ventionalized metaphoric uses in English, stretching straight back to Chaucer and earlier. Most of these are common in at least the modern Romance languages, Latin, and Greek. I thank those who reported to me metaphoric uses of mother in other Indo-European languages. Some of the most common metaphoric uses of kinship terms are SIMILARITY ("Sparta in laws and institutions is the sister of Crete," "Death is the brother of sleep.") GROUP ("Brothers in soul!" [Wordsworth] "We are twin broth- ers in this destiny!" [Keats]) INHERITANCE of both properties and beliefs ("They are vil- laines, and the sonnes of darkness" [Shakespeare] "As a child of the modern era, I believe that there are all sorts of physical regularities [John Searle]), COMPONENTS OR CONTENTS ("Daughters of Time, the hypocrite days [Emerson]) ORDER AND SUCCESSION ("Darkness, lights elder brother" [Donne], "Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty" [Words- worth]) CAUSATION ("sickness, or their true mother, Age" [Donne]) PLACE AND TIME AS PARENT ("Babylon is the mother of harlots and abominations") LINEAGE (IN THE WORLD, THE MIND, AND BEHAVIOR). This is an extremely complex and rich metaphoric pattern. ("The moon is the mother of pathos and pity," "Despair is the mother of madness," "The true child of vanity is violence" [dussebias men hubris tekos os etumos, Aeschylus]) Analyses of these and hundreds of other attested kinship metaphors can be found in DEATH IS THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY (University of Chicago Press, 1987). From: LHAMPLYONS@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu Subject: Re: 4.1140 Language and Gender Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1991 22:38 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1143 (2863) Those who have discussed whether language rules the world or the other way round might want to read something about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Those who have argued that the failure of (the English) language to change the gendered practices of, e.g., honorifics shows that the "issue" is a non-issue have it the wrong way round. The practices have not changed (while the prevalence of overt racist naming or name-calling has happily much declined) precisely because it *IS* significant to a dominant group. That is, many refuse to change because they prefer the continuance of gendered language AND behavior. And the gentleman with two uneducated sisters, I ask, why is that he is and they are not? Why is it he believes they are solely responsible for their fate, not he, not their/his parents, not their school, not society? He is living the proof of the faslehood of his own argument. I am convinced that gendered language is a significant invidious contributor to the slowness of progress in women's emancipation, and that we must chip away at all these small obstacles if we are to break down the larger ones. And if only women academics have the luxury of concerning themselves with these small obstacles, having been blessed with special opportunities, then it behooves them to accept the responsibility for doing that work on behalf of others, who have not the same luxury. As for "Dr.", of course ii is as classist as Mrs and Miss are sexist--but I have found it a fine weapon to wield on occasion over those who condescend to me "Is it Mrs or Miss?" to reply "Dr." And for the chap in Cambridge, as a fellow Brit, I might ask whether it's possible to make that recommendation in a less pompously pratty way? Perhaps a few references would be more constructive? Liz Hamp-Lyons From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Israel nodes Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 08:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1144 (2864) People have been asking about nodes in Israel on Bitnet or Internet. The following is the list of nodes on BITNET that exist in Israel. BARILAN / !Bar Ilan University ,IL BARILVM / !Bar Ilan Univ. CC ,IL BATATA / !Hebrew Univ. Molecular Center ,IL BENGUS / !BGUCS ,IL BGUEE / !BGU Electrical Eng., Israel ,IL BGUMCU / !BGU medical school ,IL BGUMEX / !BGU Mechanical Engineering ,IL BGUNOS / !Ben Gurion University ,IL BGUNVE / !BGU CC NOS/VE ,IL BGUVM / !BGU Computation Center ,IL BGUVMS / !Ben Gurion University ,IL BIMACS / !Bar Ilan Univ. Math & CS ,IL HADASSAH / !Hadassah University Hospital ,IL HAIFAUVM / !Haifa University ,IL HBUNOS / !Hebrew U. computation center ,IL HUJIAGRI / !Hebrew U. Agricalture faculty ,IL HUJICS / !Hebrew U. Computer Science ,IL HUJIDS / !HUJI Dental School, Hadassah ,IL HUJIFH / !Hebrew U Fritz Haber rsrch ctr ,IL HUJIIBM / !Hebrew U. Computer Center ,IL HUJIMD / !Hebrew U. Medical school ,IL HUJINIX / !Hebrew U. Comput.Centr.Unix ,IL HUJINOS / !Hebrew U. computation center ,IL HUJINOS2 / !Hebrew U computation center ,IL HUJIVMS / !Hebrew U. Computer Center ,IL HUJIVM1 / !Hebrew U. Computer Center ,IL HUMUS / !Hebrew U. Computer Science ,IL ILCTEHOL / !CTE, HOLON ,IL ILGSI / !Geological Survey Inst. ,IL ILJCT / !JCT, Jerusalem, Israel ,IL ILNCRD / !NCRD, Jerusalem, Israel ,IL ILNITE / !NITE, Jerusalem, Israel ,IL ILNPL / !INPL, Israel ,IL ISRAEARN / !IBM Israel SC - Haifa ,IL LEARN / !IBM Israel SC - Haifa ,IL TAUENG / !Tel Aviv Univ. Engin. School ,IL TAUNIVM / !Tel Aviv University ,IL TAUNOS / !Tel Aviv University ,IL TAUPHY / !TAU Physics Department ,IL TAURUS / !Tel Aviv University ,IL TAUVE / !Tel Aviv University ,IL TAUVMV2 / !Tel Aviv University ,IL TAUWISE / !TAU Wise observatory ,IL TECHMAX / !Technion-Biomedical Engineerng ,IL TECHMVS / !Technion - Haifa ,IL TECHNION / !Technion - Haifa ,IL TECHSEL / !Technion - Haifa ,IL TECHUNIX / !Technion - Haifa ,IL VOLCANI / !Volcani Institute ,IL WEIZMANN / !Weizmann Institute of Science ,IL WISDOM / !Weizmann Inst. Dept. of Math. ,IL WISWIC / !Weizmann Inst CC, Rehovot, IL ,IL James A. Wilderotter II Project Assistant Center for Text and Technology Academic Computer Center Reiss Science Building, Room 238 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 Tel. (202) 687-6096 BITNET: Wilder@Guvax Internet: Edu%"Wilder@Guvax.Georgetown.Edu" From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1134 Chadwick-Healy Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 09:55:29 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2483 (2865) Chadwick-Healy is a fairly well-known company which handles large bibliographical projects. The one I am familiar with is the micrifiche reproduction of the two million + catalog cards in Spain's Biblioteca Nacional, which they are selling for about $28,000. CBF From: <NEUMAN@GUVAX> Subject: Chadwyck-Healey Inc Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 16:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2484 (2866) In a recent posting Malcolm Brown requested information about Chadwyck- Healey Inc. This international company specializes in providing CD-ROM resources to research libraries. Malcolm mentioned an electronic version of a French-English dictionary as well as a recently developed textbase of English poetry as products; Chadwcyk-Healey also sells CD-ROM versions of the British National Bibliography, the Bibliographie Nationale Francaise depuis 1975, and the Deutsche Bibliographie. A contact person for further information is Eric Calaluca, Vice President for Marketing: 1101 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 683-4890 At the upcoming ACH-ALLC Conference in Tempe, Mr. Calaluca will be participating in a panel on Intellectual Property Rights, Publishers, and the Development of Electronic Text on Monday afternoon, March 18. Mike Neuman Georgetown Center for Text and Technology From: CHALMERS@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: Chadwyck-Healy Date: Friday, 8 March 1991 11:32am CT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2485 (2867) Malcolm Brown of Stanford asks if Chadwyck-Healy is real. C-H has been a publisher based in England and with a Teaneck, New Jersey office and warehouse address since about 1977. He publishes *Publishing History* edited by Michael Turner of the Bodleian. And he is reputable. --John P. Chalmers From: Charles E. Robinson (robinson@brahms.udel.edu) Subject: Re: 4.1134 Notes and Queries 1 (4/67) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 20:33:33 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2486 (2868) Although I do not know the particular database, I can attest that Chadwyck-Healy is a reputable firm from which the University of Delaware Library has made a number of major purchases over the years. Especially important for research has been their microfilms of publishers' archives-- e.g., the 115 reels of the London publisher Richard Bentley. There are about 10 other publishers represented in that particular series. Charles E. Robinson English Dept. Univ. of Delaware From: Nicholas Heer <heer@u.washington.edu> Subject: Electronic Dictionary of Arabic Date: Thu, 7 Mar 91 22:04:56 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2487 (2869) I should like to add the following to the list of electronic dictionaries: Wilson B. Bishai, "Computer Dictionary of Literary Arabic, Arabic-English." 2nd Edition. The Arabic Software Center, 434 William St., Stoneham, MA 02180. Both IBM and Macintosh versions exist. Professor Bishai teaches Arabic at Harvard, and his dictionary has just been reviewed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 110, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1990). Nicholas Heer University of Washington heer@u.washington.edu From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: greek masks Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 08:44:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2488 (2870) I am not sure about the Greek, but in my school the mask of comedy was called Mr. Rainwater and that of tragedy Mr. Spann. From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Sentence length Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 06:46:47 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2489 (2871) After reading Jean Veronis' HUMANIST message about sentence length, I wondered if I could duplicate her graph using texts by Conrad and others that I had at hand. I found that I could produce similar results only after I had rethought how a computer recognizes words and sentences (for example, defining a sentence as anything ending with "?," "!," or "." followed by two spaces will not always produce accurate results). Perhaps a HUMANIST can tell me if discussions of how a computer can be made to recognize words and sentences have been published. -- Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET.BITNET From: hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook) Subject: Cure for "out of environment space" Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1991 21:53:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2490 (2872) A few months ago, I read in PC MAGAZINE about a command that can be added to an AUTOEXEC.BAT file that provides more ENVIRONMENT SPACE. I have, however, misplaced the magazine. Does anyone know of DOS command I'm referring to? Thanks. Hardy M. Cook HMCook@BOE00.MINC.UMD.EDU From: R12040 at UQAM Subject: British Satire Query Date: 8 March 91, 10:02:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2491 (2873) I would be grateful if someone on the Humanist list could direct me to any critical discussion, analysis or exegesis of the satiric poetry of Thomas Hood and/or of Charles Tennyson. Of directly related interest would be critical work on British satire that appeared after 1815 and before 1850. If perchance I've touched on someone's interest area, I'd be happy to chat. Harry Whitaker Universite du Quebec a Montreal From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@VM1.YorkU.CA> Subject: _Black Man of the Nile_ Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 16:47:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2492 (2874) This may be taken as a follow-up to our earlier discussion of Martin Bernal's _Black Athena_. A student of mine has been reading _Black Man of the Nile and his Family_, by Yosef A.A. ben-Jochanan (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1989). I did not know the book until he showed it to me, so promised that I would ask whether anyone "out there" knew of it and could offer substantive critique. All that I can tell is that it's not in the same league as _Black Athena_ -- it's filled with typos and seems to capitalize words in almost every sentence. But it does make some similar points, esp. on the systematic revision of the classical view by European classicists, and that ancient Egyptians were black. If you know the book and wish to comment, please contact me at SHLOMO@YORKVM1 (bitnet), not HUMANIST. Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: "Thomas Heck" Subject: Library-related inquiry Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 17:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2493 (2875) SUBJECT: Have you had problems using libraries in study abroad? I am an academic librarian at Ohio State Univ., currently study- ing what is sometimes called the 'information gap' between first- world and 2d- & 3rd-world countries and its impact on students and teachers. I would welcome first-hand narrative accounts of problems encountered by American or "first-world" scholars in doing research or in assigning projects to students in countries where library re- sources are not all they could be... (Deadline 30 March 1991) Thank you! Replies to TOMHECK@OHSTMVSA.BITNET. Thomas F. Heck Professor, University Libraries & OSU School of Music Tel. (614) 292-2319 From: Sean O'Cathasaigh, FRI001@UK.AC.SOTON.IBM Subject: Conferences? French, in Particular Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 17:22:20 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2494 (2876) Department of French, The University, Southampton SO9 5NH A colleague who has just finished a PhD on French as a Second Language would like to know about forthcoming conferences that might interest her. I'm afraid I haven't kept copies of recent announcements from Canada and the US. Any information will be gratefully received. (When mailing from the States you may have to invert my address.) From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: E-Texts Query Date: Sun, 10 Mar 91 12:38:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2495 (2877) The following query is made on behalf of Professor Sean Connolly, of the University of College Cork, Ireland. I am looking for an e-text of the Bible which includes the deuterocanonical (alias apocryphal) books and is in English, preferably the Revised Standard Version (Catholic version) or the Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, or the Jerusalem Bible. What e-texts of these versions are currectly available, what formats are available and from whom are they available. I am also looking for an e-text of the Vulgate. Please respond to the following address: Sean Connolly <ARAC6001@IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE> I myself would like to know if there exists a comprehensive directory of e-texts specific to biblical studies that are currently available, in progress or planned. If you know of any such animal please respond to HUMANIST. Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: Elena Benedicto <D1FLEBS0@EB0UB011> Subject: request Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 18:34:00 HOE X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2496 (2878) I'm using MacLinguist to get phonetic symbols. Now I want to get a laser print. Does anyone know about a Linguist laser font? Also, I want to transfer a PC WordPerfect file to MicrosoftWord Mac file, without loosing the footnotes. I can get a pretty good thing with Apple File Exchange, but I loose the footnotes. ThanksÙ Elena Benedicto. From: eib014@(Vincent Ooi) central1.lancaster.ac.uk Subject: Business English database Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 15:22:19 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2497 (2879) Does anyone know of work done on the construction of a database of Business English? Thanks & regards, Vincent Ooi From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: OMNIPAGE references. Date: Sun, 10 Mar 91 12:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2498 (2880) I wish those of you using OMNIPAGE in a IBM or compatible environment could send me the price of the latest version and eventually the address of the dealer they purchased it from. Is it possible to buy it directly from the manufacturer? Michel Lenoble E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: technophobia from an unlikely hand Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 22:10:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1149 (2881) On the back page of the Times Literary Supplement 4586 (22 February 1991) is a remarkable article, "How computers can damage your prose", by Edward Mendelson, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Professor Mendelson has in the past distinguished himself amongst computing humanists by his incisive wit, for example in a very humorous attack on icon-and-menu besotted interfaces. In this article, however, he is sour on the whole activity of writing by computer, whether it be with the use of iconic interfaces or otherwise. He extends his notion of the "PacMan factor" -- the degree to which a computing system has adopted the manner of a game -- negatively to cover the common operations of wordprocessing. The result (necessarily, he seems to say) is bad writing. The Macintosh -- he refers to Halio's article in Academic Computing, January 1990, without naming the author -- predictably gets harsher treatment that MS-DOS machines. "The degree to which a computer or computer program, because it is enjoyable and exciting to use, distracts the user from the task for which it is ostensibly designed may be quantified as its PacMan factor. The programs with the highest PMF are those that scintillate with icons, that encourage you to move through your prose or issue commands by skating a plastic mouse across your desk instead of using a keyboard.... The higher the PMF of a program, the less probable it is that you will accomplish something by using it, and the more probable that you will enjoy yourself while not accomplishing it." Windows, he notes, brings MS-DOS users closer to the pit "but, on the whole, IBM still lags behind Apple in its effort to prevent you from working intelligently and effectively." Ok, so he's deliberately pushing all the bottons he can find. What I find remarkable about his article, however, is his absolutism. He attacks "true believers in the benefits of the computer" by pointing to the fatuous argument "that a computer is merely a tool, and that the quality of the work produced with it depends on the worker, not on the instrument." As he says, this makes sense "only to those who have forgotten how to tell a paint-roller from a paint brush." Of course the computer, like all tools when they are used over a period of time, is an agent of perception. Simultaneously, however, Mendelson argues in effect that we are powerless against the enfeebling effects of the machine -- his "PacMan factor". "The quality and intelligence of the prose written on different computers correlates directly with the PacMan rating of the computers themselves." Macs are bad but PCs aren't much better: about the students whose writing Halio discussed he says, "No one seems to have thought of offering any of these students a typewriter." How dreary to read such things at this stage from such an articulate and intelligent critic. When are we all going to realise that new devices are never "mere tools" and that they never embody irresistible forces? Since we invent them, they tell us something about ourselves and, if we choose to use them, amplify the aspects of humanity they embody. How the computer affects writing, and affects teaching and research as a whole, is a difficult and fascinating question -- as yet unanswered. Professor Mendelson's article perhaps can be said to help the rest of us towards an answer by offering one so obviously foolish. Or, perhaps, he is toying with us? Willard McCarty From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: environment size Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 17:42:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2499 (2882) I'm sure this will be the 80th answer, but to change (expand) your environment, you must put a shell statement in the CONFIG.SYS file, SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /E:bytes /P notes: 1) this has to be in CONFIG.SYS, not AUTOEXEC.BAT 2) the COMMAND.COM file has to have a path (C:\) since the path statements in the autoexec will not have functioned yet. 3) Your environment has 128/160 bytes depending on which version, so 'bytes' is the number of bytes to use, 512 is common. 4) you must put the /p switch in command.com or else it won't remain. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ed Haupt | | OFFICE (201) 893-4327 Dept. of Psychology | "Kein bier, | DEPT. (201) 893-5201 Montclair State College | kein Arbeit." | INTERNET:haupt@pilot. Montclair, NJ 07043 | | njin.net USA | | BITNET:Haupt@njin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: out of environment space Date: Fri, 8 Mar 91 18:47:43 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2500 (2883) This common problem has a simple resolution. The trouble is that it's not so obvious where to find it. Check the manual page on "command(.com)," and then look over the sample config.sys files in the section on config.sys commands. In particular, look over the shell command. The idea is to tell the system to call command. com as your shell (the way it normally would). The shell command, though, lets you supply arguments to command.com. You'll want to use the /p and /e:xxx arguments (where xxx is something bigger than the default environment space of 160). Hope this helps. -Richard (goer@sophist.uchicago.edu) From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: Re: 4.1147 ENVIRONMENT SIZE Date: Sat, 09 Mar 91 07:43:43 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2501 (2884) In reply to Hardy Cook's question about how to provide more environment space on his PC, a line can be added to his CONFIG.SYS file (not, as he said, to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file). The DEVICE command can be placed in the CONFIG.SYS file to allow system programmers to load a command processor other than COMMAND.COM, but the DEVICE command can be used to load the usual COMMAND.COM and also add a parameter enlarging the environment size. The following line placed in the CONFIG.SYS file will double the minimum environment size: SHELL=COMMAND.COM /P /E:320 The number following "/E:" is the number of bytes of environment size; any number from 160 to 32768 can be used. This works in all versions of DOS 3.1 and after, but in version 3.1 the number after "/E:" will indicate a 16-byte unit (thus, in version 3.1, "/E:20" will set the environment at 320 bytes). The first part of this added line, especially the "/P" parameter, is important since it tells DOS what command processor to load and to keep permanent. -- Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET.BITNET From: Steve Mason <SHLOMO@VM1.YorkU.CA> Subject: A real mother! Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 17:32:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2502 (2885) The impressive analyses of "mother of ..." that followed Timothy Reuter's query have demonstrated once and for all the polyvalence of language. Who really cares what SAD'm *intended*? Or perhaps we could get him on HUMANIST to tell us what he meant; he might disappoint us all! Actually, one obvious possibility seems to have been missed. Those who think that the expression sounds strange in English haven't been riding the right buses. I've certainly heard things like "Don't mess with him, man; he's a MEAN muthah!" Problem is, I fear that this usage abbreviates something else. And surely SAD'm is too much of a statesman to use such language. But it would fit the context, no? Let me redeem myself, if I can, by agreeing with those who find the genitive epexegetical rather than partitive. Steve Mason Humanities, York U. From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: "Mother" one more time Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 17:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2503 (2886) In the discussion of "Mother of....." I'm surprised no one has yet considered the "listener response" aspect of the phrase. For that, too, constitutes a meaning even though that meaning may be far from what Saddam Hussein intended or from whatever historical/linguistic/ metaphoric dimensions the term may have. I refer, of course, to that usage so prevalent in the US military of "mother" as a truncated form of that twelve letter Oedipal epithet. Usually pronounced "mothuh," the term, I am sure, conjured up for Schwartzkopf and other military personnel (nunc et quondam) visions of a battle that indeed could or would be a mother but one that would also put an end to that mother, Saddam Hussein. I can't believe either that that meaning was not in the minds of broadcasters as well, nor that it was not quick to pop into the minds of viewers and listeners to Brokaw and others. JD From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: mother of... Date: Sun, 10 Mar 91 17:29 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2504 (2887) In Arabic the words "umm" or "ab" can be used attributively, as in "abu daqn" ("a bearded man"), "abu khamsa gineeh" ("the one over there that costs five pounds"). "umm el ma'aarek" is not attributive, and means just what it says: the battle to beat all battles. This usage is borne out by the parallel phrase meaning the defeat to beat all defeats. [The above contributed by Robin Dougherty, my local Arabist...] Graham White American University in Cairo From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Sentence length Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 10:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2505 (2888) De retour de France, j'en profite pour signaler les travaux de Brunet sur les divers auteurs du tresor de la langue francaise. Peut-etre a-t-il fait des recherches sur l'ensemble du corpus egalement. Il a ecrit un excellent article sur "la phrase chez Zola" ou il traite de l'evolution de la longueur et des rythmes de variation des longueurs de phrase. Michel Lenoble. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: virus software Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 13:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2506 (2889) I am forwarding this for Lefteris Kalamaras, a sophomore Computer Science major at Vassar: Since many subscribers have expressed their wish to get anti-virus material for cleaning up their PCs, I would like to inform them that they can obtain the anti-virus software from Vassar by using FTP and logging in as "anonymous". Unfortunately, this is only available to users who have access to internet. Bitnet users should try using BITFTP@PUCC, which is a server that bridges the gap between Bitnet and Internet. Our school node is csnxt1.vassar.edu and the directory that contains the software is pub/virus. I hope this helps, Lefteris Kalamaras Vassar College elkalamaras@vassar.edu From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.1101 Languages of Humanist, French, etc. (2/123) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 10:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2507 (2890) Simply to set the record straight Belgium and Switzerland are not bilingual countries but rather trilingual in the case of Belgium and Switzerland has four national languages. Michel Michel Lenoble. From: LESLI LAROCCO <OZVY@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.1143 Language and Gender (1/33) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 91 19:04:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2508 (2891) In response to Liz Hamp-Lyons, who commented on my posting: why is it that the gentleman considers his uneducated sisters solely responsible for their fate? W hy is it that the gentleman is educated and they are not? The gentleman, my dear, is a lady. Lesli LaRocco (Ms.) (OZVY@CORNELLA) From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: call for papers Date: Sun, 10 Mar 91 12:58:42 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1153 (2892) The Applied Linguistics Division of the MLA is sponsoring a section entitled "Computers in Applied Linguistic Research" to be held at the forthcoming MLA conference in San Francisco, Dec. 28. Send 1-page abstracts by e-mail to Stephen Clausing, SClaus@Yalevm by March 15. From: green3@husc9.harvard.edu (Maria Green) Subject: Re: 4.1127 Grammar and Gender Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 20:53:49 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2509 (2893) [deleted quotation] I missed the original query, but enjoyed the response -- it was nice to get a run-down on the Greek side of things. However, a statement that places the "beginnings of grammar" in 5th c. Greece is bound to raise a smile in anyone familiar with the Sanskrit grammatical tradition. I happened to show the Humanist posting to a visiting acquaintance, and he was moved to write the following reply. Yours, Maria Green, Sanskrit Dept, Harvard (green3@husc9. harvard.edu) To say that the Greeks were responsible for the origin of the concept of gender (Dirk Held, Tuesday 5 March) is incorrect. The Sanskrit grammarian Panini (5th century B.C.) gives a very sophisticated analysis of gender. He states more than 80 rules providing for feminine suffixes, and gives others differentiating nominal terminations for the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders. Panini himself is preceded by a long tradition of linguistic analysis which recognizes the concept of gender. It is well known that the analysis of language by the Indian grammarians far surpasses that of any other grammatical tradition until perhaps the birth of Indo-European linguistics in the 18th century. The discovery of Indian grammar was itself a major factor in the rise of the science of linguistics in the West. Dr. Peter M. Scharf, post-doctoral fellow University of Penn., Dept of Linguistics (I'm afraid that Peter Scharf doesn't have an E-mail address, but of course I'll pass on any replies -- Maria) From: LHAMPLYONS@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu Subject: Re: 4.1152 Rs ...Gender Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1991 12:49 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2510 (2894) Lesli LaRocco, whom I thought was a gentleman is a lady. I am always curious about my own assumptions about gender on the basis of text. What then, Lesli, differentiates you from your sisters? For some to go to colege and some not in a family is common, but for some to get advanced educations and others to be "functionally illiterate" is unusual. It recalls for me the tales of my mother 's childhood, where as one of 12 children all the boys were allowed to stay at school past the legal req. (in those days in England, age 12), and her oldest sister was too. But for her and her 3 younger sisters it was out to work at 11 1/2 or 12 1/2. So my question still remains: I have so rarey found instances where individuals are solely responsible for their fates (indeed, the entire Affirmative Action movement is based on the principle that they are NOT) that your reply just shifts the locus of the question rather than answering anything. Liz From: Peter Zaas <ZAAS@SIENA> Subject: re: Elena Benedeto's query about WP-Word translation Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 20:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2511 (2895) There are several commercial utilities available to translate Word Perfect files (or other PC-formats) into MS-Word (or other Macintosh formats). One that I have used successfully is called MacLink Plus, by Dataviz corp. It includes a large number of translaters for PC-Mac and Mac-Mac file conver- sion. You download the Word Perfect file to the Mac via modem, then run the conversion program on it. If you have a Mac SE/30 or better, you can use the conversion programs supplied along with the Apple File Exchange utility to convert the files directly from a 3-l/2" DOS diskette. From: Henry Rogers <ROGERS@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Phonetic Laser Fonts Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 08:28:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2512 (2896) Elena Benedicto asked about phonetic laser fonts. I know of two companies which both offer phonetic fonts as well as a variety of foreign language fonts. Ecological Linguistics PO Box 15156 Washington, D.C. 20003 Linguist's Software PO Box 580 Edmonds, Wash. 98020-0580 (206) 775-1130 Prices run around $100. They have both Helvetica and Times. I have used both an d they look fine. I have found their keyboard codings odd at times. These can e asily be rearranged, however, if you have Fontographer. I have been working on adding phonetic symbols to Palatino, but it still need s a lot of refining. When this font is more polished, I would be happy to pass it on to anyone interested. Three related queries: 1. Does anyone know of a program that allows you to reprogram the coding on the keyboard? That is, if for a special job, you need a character that is cl umsy to enter, you could temporarily assign it to a key that is easy to type, but not needed at the moment. This just changes the code that a key sends to t he computer; it doesn't change the coding for the font. MacKeymeleon did this, but it seems to work only with older systems. 2. Is there a DA like Keycaps that shows the keystroke entry for the codes requiring two-stroke entry, like option-e u? 3. Does anyone know anything about a Bassomatic font editor for TrueType fonts? or any other editor for TrueType? Henry Rogers Department of Lingusitics University of Toronto From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: MLA/ACH 91: final call Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 08:35:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2513 (2897) Anyone interested in proposing a paper for the ACH-sponsored session at the upcoming MLA conference (December 1991, San Francisco) should send me a 500-word abstract by Friday 22 March. The title of the session is "How We Do What We Do: Modelling Literary and Linguistic Research by Computer." Papers should concentrate on the methodological and theoretical aspects of research. The rules of the MLA specify that all participants must be members of that organization by 1 April. If you are interested in participating, please send me a note immediately. The boundaries of the topic are elastic. Willard McCarty From: Tom Maddox <maddox@blake.u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1149 Technophobia Strikes Again (1/58) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 15:05:22 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2514 (2898) I am planning to teach a section about hypertext in a class I am offering this summer (an intensive class, I might add; full-time for four weeks) and am *very* interested in locating any existing hypertext platforms and/or packages that (1) can be used quickly by all kinds of students and (2) are free or very low-cost. I would prefer packages for the Mac but would also look at DOS packages--alas, I have no A/UX-equipped Macs so cannot even think about IRIS at present. For example, if anyone knows of interesting Hypercard stacks that are readily available, that would be nice. I am also trying to acquire Storyspace and would appreciate hearing of anyone's experiences with this platform. From: DILELLA <DILELLA@CUA> Subject: RE: 4.1144 Bitnet in Occupied Territories? Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 14:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2515 (2899) Any bitnet addresses for Arab universities in the occupied territories? From: "Sharon Nell-Boelsche, Drury College" <DRU006D@SMSVMA> Subject: Query: Editor of Droz Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 21:27:07 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2516 (2900) I would like to know if anyone knows the name (and address?) of the editor of Droz. Also, which presses seem to be the most interested in manuscripts dealing with technical approaches to literary criticism. Thanks very much. Sharon Nell-Boelsche, Drury College <dru006d@smsvma> From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1148 Queries Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 08:02:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2517 (2901) I would be interested in knowing what Professor Sean Connolly hears regarding e-text versions of the Bible with Apocrypha (Does the NRSV have an e-text version?) -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: DAVID BARRY <UBJV649@CU.BBK.AC.UK> Subject: IBM PC compatible machines used as terminals? Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 12:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2518 (2902) Sometime ago I posted a message on Humanist in which I explained that I was interested in hearing of a user friendly front end for Listservers. I explained that if none existed I had a mind to produce one myself. I had fifteen responses from people interested in such a front end but no one it would seem had heard of anything of this sort existing already. I would now like to move on to the next stage. Producing one myself. It looks as if the easiest way of doing this would be to write software that would run on a PC that was being used as a terminal. The question that now arises is how many of you use PCs as terminals? I really need to know this before I can go any further so I would be very grateful for those humanists who do use PCs as terminals would mail me. If you dont contact me I shall have to assume that you just use "dumb" terminals. If when reading this dont know what the answer is please contact me. I would also be very grateful if this message could be copied to any other list that seems appropriate. David Barry On JANET UBJV649@uk.ac.bbk.cu Dept. of Occupational Psychology Birkbeck college University if London Malet street. London WC1E 7HX From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: Technophobia Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 21:10:08 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2519 (2903) Given Willard's erudite, though brief, analysis of the defection by English & Comparative Literature colleague Edward Mendelsohn, perhaps we might persuade our former editor to write a rebuttal. At least his letter would not be economically motivated as I suspect E.M.'s was in part. Has everyone noticed the fate of _Academic Computing_? Interesting that it came so closely on the heels of the Halio controversy, n'est-ce pas? Regards, Joel D. Goldfield IAT/U. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill From: Skip <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.1149 Technophobia Strikes Again (1/58) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 08:26:42 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2520 (2904) Don't be too hard on the guy, Willard. The PC is the first new writing tool since the typewriter (interesting that he offers that, rather than quill and ink well, as the alternative), and is the first new writing tool to penetrate the literate populations so rapidly. Most of us, as you say, don't quite know what to make of the beasties yet, so I don't get upset when I hear diatribes like this one. What strikes me most strongly about computers and writing is that the revolution in continual. The addition of the spelling checker, thesaurus, grammar checker, electronic mail, page layout, hypertext, all add new dimensions to the process of writing. The tool changes beneath our very fingers, making evaluation that much harder. Perhaps we should leave the matter of Significance to a later generation; let them write history - we'll merely make history. ;-) Ellis 'Skip' Knox, Ph.D. Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Nicole Yankelovich <ny@iris.brown.edu> Subject: Hypertext '91 Final CFP Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 11:31:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1157 (2905) **************************************** Final Call for Participation HYPERTEXT '91 Third ACM Conference on Hypertext San Antonio, Texas, USA December 15-18, 1991 **************************************** Hypertext '91 is an international research conference on hypertext. The ACM Hypertext Conference occurs in the United States every second year in alternation with ECHT, the European Conference on Hypertext. Hypertext systems provide computer support for locating, gathering, annotating, and organizing information. Hypertext systems are being designed for information collections of diverse material in heterogeneous media, hence the alternate name, hypermedia. Hypertext is by nature multi-disciplinary, involving researchers in many fields, including computer science, cognitive science, rhetoric, and education, as well as many application domains. This conference will interest a broad spectrum of professionals in these fields ranging from theoreticians through behavioral researchers to systems researchers and applications developers. The conference will offer technical events in a variety of formats as well as guest speakers and opportunities for informal special interest groups. Suggested Formats and Topics We are inviting you to participate in HT'91 in one of seven different areas of the technical program: papers, panels, courses, videos, technical briefings, posters, or demos. Submitters may be invited to participate in the technical program in a different category from that in which they submitted their work. Submissions in all areas of hypertext research are encouraged. Topics of interest would include the following: Paradigms for information access Information design Theories, models, and frameworks Experimental or observational studies of use Workplace deployment issues Structuring hypertext documents for reading and retrieval Underlying technologies (persistent object stores, link services, databases, information retrieval, access control) For More Information: Hypertext '91 Conference e-mail: ht91@bush.tamu.edu John J. Leggett, General Chair Hypertext '91 Conference Hypertext Research Lab Department of Computer Science Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843 USA Voice: 409 845-0298 Fax: 409 847-8578 email: leggett@bush.tamu.edu Janet H. Walker, Program Chair Hypertext '91 Conference Digital Equipment Corporation Cambridge Research Lab One Kendall Square, Bldg 700 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Voice: 617 621-6618 Fax: 617 621-6650 email: jwalker@crl.dec.com Summary of Deadlines Papers, panels, courses, videos, and technical briefings postmarked by: April 12, 1991 Demos and posters postmarked by: August 25, 1991 Acceptance notification for papers, panels, courses, videos, and tech- nical briefings: June 1, 1991 Final versions due for proceedings: July 31, 1991 Final videos due for production: September 30, 1991 For a more complete description of the requirements for papers, courses, videos, panels and technical briefings, please contact: Nicole Yankelovich ny@iris.brown.edu From: SEMIO1@FRPERP51 Subject: droits de l'homme Date: 13 MAR 91 17:27:49.06-GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2521 (2906) Je travaille sur les versions franÄaise, anglaise et espagnole de la Decla ration universelle des droits de l'homme de 1948 que j'essaie d'aborder d'un point de vue sÊmiolinguistique et philosophique plut t qu'exclusivement juridi- que.Je suis Œ la recherche de rÊfÊrences bibliographiques, notamment de docu- ments critiques et analyses synthÊtiques qu'il est possible de me faire par- venir sur "semio1@frperp51" En vous remerciant d'avance... From: "CISI - UNIV. Torino" <U245@ITOCSIVM> Subject: e-mail address Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:49:29 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2522 (2907) Does anyone know the e-mail address of S. Greenbaum, Dpt. of English, Universit y College, London ? Thank you Maurizio Lana u245 at itocsivm lana at itocisi From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Query: MultiLingual FRAMEWORK DBMS Date: Wednesday, 13 March 1991 1514-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2523 (2908) Does anyone have experience with Ashton-Tate's "FRAMEWORK" data base management system, which supposedly can be used with a wide variety of languages including Greek and Hebrew, and can also mix and match languages? I suppose that the languages are modern, and thus may not have the diacritics, etc., that some of us ancients (or even middleaged) might want, but still, does the system offer a useful platform for certain types of multilingual computing (e.g. comparison of textual versions, information on persons/places etc. from various sources, etc.)? Bob Kraft, upenn.edu From: SEMIO1@FRPERP51 Subject: didactiquefle Date: 13 MAR 91 17:10:45.77-GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2524 (2909) Je travaille sur la didactique du FranÄais langue ÊtrangËre, plus particuliËrement sur un manuel de franÄais destinÊ Œ des Êtudiants marocains. Je interessÊ par toutes rÊfÊrences bibliographiques pouvant Ÿtre utiles Œ ma recherche que vous pourriez me faire parvenir directement sur "semio1@frperp51" je vous en remercie par avance From: "CISI - UNIV. Torino" <U245@ITOCSIVM> Subject: mac software for indexes, concordances, collocations, etc. Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:51:39 ITA X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2525 (2910) I am a novice in the Mac world. I think that there is somewhere software for co ncordances, indexes, collocations, running on Macs, but I don't know where and how find it. Could anyone help me? Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: LANA at ITOCISI Subject: e-mail address for CHum Date: 13 March 91, 11:20:41 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2526 (2911) Does anyone know whether it is possible to get in touch with CHum people by e-m ail? I think it's possible, but I didn't find any e-mail address. Thank you. Maurizio Lana From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: Recalling data Date: 13 Mar 91 15:00:34 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2527 (2912) On our obsolescent but much loved mainframe system emas there is an excellent utility which I have never been able to replace on any dos system. It is called RECALL. Anything but anything which has happened on the keyboard or passed across the screen is saved in a huge buffer somewhere. By issuing the command RECALL this buffer can be read and extracts from it can be made. Thus for instance I can edit without altering a literary text of 3 megabytes and print to screen all the lines containing a particular feature I am interested in. I can let the search rip and fill 22 screens with results. I don't need to make a copy of the file and delete everything except the lines I am after. I can then leave the orig original text intact and go into recall. I can extract from recall my initial set of results or parts of that set of results. I can if I wish repeat the process. This system is very useful. The only thing on dos that I have ever seen which claims to come near this merely records in a buffer the system commands, it does _not_ record what goes on _within_ a programme called from dos. Does anyone anywhere have a programme which does what our old emas recall system does ? Before emas dies in 1992 I really would like an equivalent. I did once try using a shell in unix to try to replicate something like recall and it was a pale imitation, but I have never seen or heard of anything for dos which can do a fraction of this. David Mealand * Bitnet: D.Mealand%uk.ac.edinburgh@ukacrl University of Edinburgh * Office Fax: (+44)-31-220-0952 Scotland,U.K. EH1 2LU * Office tel.:(+44)-31-225-8400 ext.221/217 From: "Vincent Ooi" <eib014@central1.lancaster.ac.uk> Subject: Quotation Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 22:08:18 WET DST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2528 (2913) A couple of months ago, Stephen Clausing (if I remember correctly) asked for the source of the saying "Computers make/keep(?) linguists honest". Could anyone possibly tell me whether the source has been traced? Regards, Vincent From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM> Subject: query Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 12:41 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2529 (2914) Does anyone know another word for "thesaurus"? From: Toby Paff <TOBYPAFF@PUCC> Subject: Gender Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 12:45:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2530 (2915) Did I miss the discussion of social, philosophical, and metaphysical implications of gender in those many languages that do not mark morphologically grammatical gender? Or those that mark only two (and an occasional implied third, as, eg., French with its use of 'ce' and 'en')? Or those that classify nouns into more than three categories. Toby Paff tobypaff@pucc From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Electronic Bible Texts Date: Wednesday, 13 March 1991 0033-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2531 (2916) For those who desire to keep up with developments in electronic biblical texts, "my" OFFLINE column offers a point of departure, or Ian Lancashire - Willard McCarty's Humanities Computing Yearbook (and for pre 1987 developments, John Hughes _Bits, Bytes & Biblical Studies_). OFFLINE is on the HUMANIST FileServer, which is a good thing to learn to use for just such purposes. It is also available on diskette. But in our fast paced information glutted electronically connected world, who has time to check these things? So, off the top of my head (with apologies for sources I may overlook), the following: The Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) here at the University of Pennsylvania uses a network of "secondary distributors" to make available at reasonable cost these materials (among others) -- Hebrew Bible (BHS) Old Greek/LXX (Rahlfs) -- also with morphological analysis Greek NT (UBS3) -- also with dictionary and morph analysis Vulgate with variants (UBS-Beuron) selected Aramaic Targum materials much of the Sahidic Coptic biblical materials sample Syriac Peshitta sample Armenian Bible King James (AV) with Apocrypha RSV with Apocrypha We are working on adding the NewRSV to the group, although it is already available through a couple of the official publications group, including the American Bible Society's new CD-ROM (see the current OFFLINE). Other English translations such as NRV and NIV are available elsewhere (e.g. Zondervan Publishers has an active electronic wing), and more could be made available if it seemed anyone cared, or if we had time to process them from the typesetters tapes. German and French Bibles are also available from various European sources (e.g. Maredsous). I'm not sure about Spanish, etc. For specific followup information, price lists, addresses of secondary distributors, etc., you may contact me. Oh yes, lots of these and related materials are on various CD-ROMs as well, some of them quite slick -- see Tzvee Zahavy's review of such CD-ROMs in OFFLINE 30, and especially the CDWord project from Dallas. CCAT and other developers have sometimes licensed their materials to such projects. Bob Kraft, UPenn (CCAT, Religious Studies) KRAFT@PENNDRLS.upenn.edu From: DILELLA <DILELLA@CUA> Subject: RE: 4.1155 Queries (6/99) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 14:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2532 (2917) Re: Dale Patterson's query, Zondervan will publish in a week or two macBible NRSV Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books, a separate module similar to macBible NRSV, macBible Hebrew, and macBible Greek (New Testament)--all superb find and search programs. From: D.Mealand@edinburgh.ac.uk Subject: e-bibles Date: 13 Mar 91 10:33:28 gmt X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2533 (2918) I had expected floods of answers already. There have long been many versions of the Bible in several languages esp the original languages, but also English translations. To catch up with a large field reading J.J.Hughes, _Bits, Bytes and Biblical Studies_ (Zondervan, c.1988) is essential despite the fact that this is a fast moving field and a lot has happened since 1988. There is an RSV on the PHI-CCAT cd-rom but I forget if it includes the apocrypha as I would normally go to the LXX which is also on that cd-rom and elsewhere. The RSV can also be obtained separately. There is an excellent multi-lingual biblical resource called cd-word - see reviews in Offline in recent months. Offline is in backfiles of Humanist. There are many other systems offering Bibles in English some of them simplistic packages based on KJV but others full of valuable scholarly material both from an academic and from a literary computing perspective. In fact I have just used the phi-ccat cd-rom and found its RSV, it does indeed have the Apocrypha and I have learned that the RSV Wisdom uses the term Hades four times. David Mealand * Bitnet: D.Mealand%uk.ac.edinburgh@ukacrl University of Edinburgh * Office Fax: (+44)-31-220-0952 Scotland,U.K. EH1 2LU * Office tel.:(+44)-31-225-8400 ext.221/217 From: Oliver Phillips <PHILLIPS@UKANVM> Subject: Halio controversy? Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 16:10:54 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2534 (2919) What was the Halio controversy? I, too, mourned the passing of a free subscription to _Academic Computing_. Oliver Phillips PHILLIPS@UKANVM Department of Classics University of Kansas Lawrence, Ks 66045-2139 From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Halio Controversy on Humanist Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 17:42:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2535 (2920) For those of you who are interested in the content of the "Halio Controversy," I suggest you might request from listserv@brownvm the logs for January 1990 -- HUMANIST LOG9001A through HUMANIST LOG9001E. The syntax for retrieving files interactively is "tell listserv@brownvm get humanist logxxxxx"; by mail, send mail to listserv@brownvm with no subject line, and with the only content being "get humanist logxxxxx" . If you need further assistance in retrieving the logs, please review the Guide to Humanist. Elaine From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: On writing electronically Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 11:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2536 (2921) I realize I may be preaching to the converted, but I have to disagree with Skip Knox that we should take articles like Mendelsohn's (and Halios, et al) in stride. The problem is that your already technophobic VP or head of a faculty committee just loves to leap on articles like this, and say "hey, I told you so, so we don't really need all these new computers for the academic mission of our college." Rebuttals are thus painfully necessary. - Matt Wall Humanities Computing Coordinator Swarthmore College From: "Arnie Keller, U of Victoria" <AKELLER@UVVM.UVic.CA> Subject: Re: 4.1149 Technophobia Strikes Again (1/58) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 13:37:44 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2537 (2922) Mendelson's argument is remarkable for its silliness--as if pen and paper never produced nonsense. (Did he write his piece on a word-processor? Maybe he proved his case.) Of course, a word processor is not magic machine; who said it was? I myself stopped believing in elves somewhere in my mid-20Us so I'm not disappointed by the absence of a little man inside my Mac. Even if word processing were hyped and double hyped, no one has to believe that the thing will churn out great prose; writing isn't sausage and so we can have no equivalents of sausage-machines. But a word-processor is a useful tool, not necessarily to make you write better (who wants to pronounce on what that means?) but to let you write more efficiently. The hours I save weekly may not be spent bringing peace to the Middle East, but I do save them. That alone is reason to use word processors. That alone is reason to give them to students. The article Mendelson cites, by the way, on how Macs produced worse prose is also silly and has been roundly condemned many places.. The *study* was so poorly conceived as to be worthless. But Mendelson not only grabs on to it, he sprints and stumbles; listen to him snarl about *standard measures used in the statistical analyses of prose* that show Mac users writing like 13 years olds. Can we think of anything more mechanistic--soulless and machine like--that a slavish counting of sentence length as an indicator of quality? (Poor Molly Bloom.) Good for Mendelson that he can both count and speak ex cathedra simultaneously. (A note: he gets his standards wrong to boot, since most general interest magazines and newspapers quite consciously write to a Grade 8 level (13 years olds) in the name of readability.) What is finally disheartening about Mendelson is how little he regards the writing process. His assumption apparently is that the tool or pen or typewriter is all-- hence a bad tool inevitably condemns you to bad writing. But where is the writer for Mendelson in all this, except for being surprised by what the editor sends back? Where is the thinking, the inventing, the drafting, the revising, and the editing,? Where does he consider what makes writing supremely human--getting it going, getting it down, getting it right, and finally, getting it out? I may sit at the machine and stare into space, but it's still me and not Steve Jobs doing the writing. When I write lots of bad sentences, it says everything about me and nothing that I can think of about my writing implement. But who knows, maybe Mendelson just suffered a power spike and lost his morning's work. Arnie Keller University of Victoria From: Fritz Levy <flevy@milton.u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1149 Technophobia Strikes Again (1/58) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 9:09:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2538 (2923) I've not yet seen Edward Mendelson's article, but Willard McCarty's note leaves me sceptical--about Mendelson, not McCarty. This same Mendelson first wrote about the Pacman factor in a series of notable reviews of word processing systems in the Yale Review, and the program he praised most highly then was Nota Bene, which has the highest PMF of all the programs reviewed. This same Mendelson also is a regular contributor (indeed "Contributing Editor") to PC Magazine, where he continues to praise Nota Bene, a program which remains the most customizable of all the word processors. I've sometimes thought that Mendelson's public praise is the single most notable factor keeping Nota Bene alive. All of which, taken together, makes me wonder a little about the TLS piece. Having said that, the point remains. Like most of those writing with word processors--and reading student papers composed on them--I've wondered about the long-term effects. Admittedly, our predecessors made the same comments about typewriters. Still, are we allowing our McLuhanism to run rampant? Or is something real happening? Comments welcome. Fritz Levy From: Kjetil R} Hauge <kjetilrh@ulrik.uio.no> Subject: Remapping the Mac keyboard Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:45:12 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2539 (2924) Re Henry Rogers' query about software for remapping the Macintosh keyboard: ResEdit 2.xx (available from APDA and, presumably, user groups) has a built-in editor for editing KCHR resources. Make a SICN resource with the same number as your new KCHR resource, install both in your system, and the new keyboard will be accessible from the Control Panel. In many cases, it will be more convenient to use Guenther Blaschek's PopChar INIT (in the Sumex archives). This is how he describes it: "PopChar replaces Key Caps and Character Map. Whenever you need a special character, simply click in the top-left corner of the screen. A pop-up window with all available characters will appear. Select the desired character and PopChar will insert it in your text at the current insertion point. Additionally, PopChar shows the proper key combination required to generated the selected character. PopChar is FREE. Enjoy it." The latest version also show ASCII numbers in hex and decimal. It works with most applications, and it shows all characters, including two-stroke entries. You'll wonder how you managed to live without it. The only problem I have found so far is that it does not show narrow and/or zero-length characters on my SE display at home, while they show up fine on my si at work. -Kjetil Ra Hauge, University of Oslo, P. O. Box 1030 Blindern, Oslo 3, Norway -Phone +47 2 456710, fax +47 2 454310 E-mail kjetilrh@hedda.uio.no From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Re: 4.1155 Queries Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2540 (2925) I am not sure what Sharon Nell-Boelsche of Drury College means by "editor of Droz", but if she is looking for the address of the swiss publisher DROZ, here it is: Librairie DROZ 11, rue Massot BP 389-1211 Geneve 12 Suisse Tel: (022)46-66-66 Hope that helps. Christian Allegre From: Michel Pierssens <R36254@UQAM> Subject: Droz Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:55:08 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2541 (2926) Here's one address for Sharon Nell-Boelsche: 11 rue Massot, Geneve, Switzerland. Droz has moved a few times over the years and this might not be their most recent address. From: Elena Benedicto <D1FLEBS0@EB0UB011> Subject: Thanks Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 18:34:44 HOE X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2542 (2927) Thanks to all those who sent me information about transferring from PC to Mac. What I finally did was incorporating the MacLink Translators into the AFE in the Mac, and selecting the option WordPerfect PC-to-Mac, reading the file directly from a DOS disquette. Once in WPMac format, I saved the file as Word 3., and that worked beautifully (meaning I kept all the footnotes). Just in case someone is interested. Thanks also for the information on Laser fonts. E.B. From: David Zeitlyn <ZEITLYN@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE:MACLINK_PROBLEM Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 12:11 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2543 (2928) Re Wp=>Word (mac) translators BE WARNED having purchased maclink plus translators I then found deep in the small print a little note saying that it too deletes all footnotes - for all of the many formats it handles apart from that its a very nice program which works well however since most academic users need footnotes it cannot be recommeneded unless they sort this out for a new release. I hope they do. David zeitlyn From: Thomas B. Ridgeway <ridgeway@blackbox.hacc.washington.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1147 Queries (2/24) Environment Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 10:41:22 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2544 (2929) In 4:1147 hmcook@boe00.minc.umd.edu (Hardy M. Cook) queries: [deleted quotation] There are two parts to the answer (to the best of my knowledge, etc. usual disclaimers apply): a) to enlarge the default environment space at bootup time, put a line like shell=c:\command.com /e:XXXX /p in the config.sys file. The only catch is XXXX, which is intended to be some kind of number; different versions of DOS interpret this number in different ways. Consult *your* version's manual for guidance. b) the other catch, -- relating to autoexec.bat -- is that no matter how big the environment started out to be, at the time the first TSR (terminate and stay resident) program is loaded the environment is frozen at the size of the environment _in_use_. Since MODE, PRINT, and network drivers go TSR many people have frozen environments without knowing it. To make space available, an inelegant hack is to put some fluff into the environment early, as: autoexec.bat path=c:\dos;c:\utils;e:\wp51;d:\fox prompt=$P$G set fluff1=I'm a little teapot short and stout, here is my handle set fluff2=here is my spout. Here we go gathering nuts in May set fluff3=and speaking of May, what is so rare as a day in June mode lpt1:=com1: rem that just went TSR set fluff1= set fluff2= set fluff3= rem that just released the environment space taken up by fluff rem it may now be re-used subsequently releasing the space used by the fluff, making it available for re-use for some serious purpose. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thomas Ridgeway, Director, Humanities and Arts Computing Center University of Washington Internet: ridgeway@blackbox.hacc.washington.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: whoa! stop the e-presses! Updated Call for Papers Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 11:11:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2545 (2930) The Association for Computers and the Humanities is sponsoring a session at the upcoming MLA conference (December 1991, San Francisco). The title of the session is "How We Do What We Do: Modelling Literary and Linguistic Research by Computer" and is intended to focus on the methodological and theoretical aspects of such research. Anyone interested in participating should send me an abstract of ca. 500 words by 29 March. The rules of the MLA specify that all participants must be members of that organization by 1 April. If you are interested in participating, please send me a note immediately. The boundaries of the topic are elastic. Willard McCarty Centre for Computing in the Humanities University of Toronto Robarts Library 130 St. George Street Toronto, Ont M5S 1A5 Canada voice: (416) 978-3974 fax: (416) 978-6519 e-mail: McCarty@vm.epas.utoronto.ca From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: whoa! stop the e-presses! Updated Call for Papers Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 11:11:22 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2546 (2931) The Association for Computers and the Humanities is sponsoring a session at the upcoming MLA conference (December 1991, San Francisco). The title of the session is "How We Do What We Do: Modelling Literary and Linguistic Research by Computer" and is intended to focus on the methodological and theoretical aspects of such research. Anyone interested in participating should send me an abstract of ca. 500 words by 29 March. The rules of the MLA specify that all participants must be members of that organization by 1 April. If you are interested in participating, please send me a note immediately. The boundaries of the topic are elastic. Willard McCarty Centre for Computing in the Humanities University of Toronto Robarts Library 130 St. George Street Toronto, Ont M5S 1A5 Canada voice: (416) 978-3974 fax: (416) 978-6519 e-mail: McCarty@vm.epas.utoronto.ca From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Job Announcement Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 17:01 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2547 (2932) FROM NL-KR Digest (Thu Mar 7 09:40:22 1991) Volume 8 No. 11 OPENING: Full-time Ph.D. Level Researcher ======= ================================= The Explainable Expert Systems (EES) Group within ISI's Intelligent Systems Division has an immediate opening for a Ph.D. level researcher to work on topics concerned with the design and implementation of a shell for knowledge-based systems, knowledge acquisition tools to help a user refine and augment large systems, and the performance optimization of knowledge based systems. The focus of the successful candidate's efforts will be on developing techniques in these areas, applying and testing them in the context of the EES group's framework for building expert systems that can provide good explanations of their behavior. The ideal candidate will be willing to take responsibility for investigating new research areas and engage in programming to test new ideas within a system, and will have a strong background in artificial intelligence, knowledge based systems, and knowledge acquisition. In particular, the ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience with LISP and knowledge representation systems such as KL-ONE or LOOM. Publishable research will be performed in a collaborative, project-oriented setting involving significant contact with both internal and external users of the systems to be built; good written and verbal communication skills are therefore highly desirable. The University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) is a large, university-based research center which has produced top quality research in a wide range of research areas. It employs about 80 full time researchers and maintains close academic ties with the school of engineering; a number of PhD students are involved in conducting their graduate research here. Complete resumes with lists of references should be sent to Cecile Paris, USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292. Phone:(213) 822-1511, e-mail: paris@isi.edu. From: markt@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Turner) Subject: Arsenio Hall and Mother Of Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 18:46:30 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2548 (2933) Arsenio Hall tells a joke in which Saddam Hussein now sells slurpies on a beach in Southern California (my own homeland). He is asked what sizes they come in, and responds "small, medium, large, and the mother of all slurpies." From: <JFCOVALE@SUNRISE> Subject: "muthah" Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 17:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2549 (2934) Humanists- It seems to me that Steve Mason's comments about the ease with which "Mother of..." translates in to "muthah" points very directly to the dangers of taking deconstruction seriously. Our sense of 'Muthah" is, quite beyond question, *not* the meaning of the message at all, and if that is what we hear, we seriously mis-take what is said to us. So, if the point is that it is possible for us to be seriously mistaken in matters of translation (or any other communication), of course that is true. But the message to me is that we must pay close attention not just to the *text* qua text, but also as the attempt of *this person* to communicate something. John F. Covaleskie From: Bill Sjostrom Subject: The mother of all footnotes Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 13:19 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2550 (2935) Although I have nothing to add to the origin of the expression "the mother of", I have found a reference to the mother of all footnotes. In June of 1950, Jacob Viner, a professor of economics at Princeton and most likely the finest economist of this century, gave a commencement address at Brown University, in which, noting the practice of undue footnoting, mentioned a book by Christopher Walton, published in 1854, titled "Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biography of the Celebrated Divine and Theosopher, William Law." It has a footnote that extends from page 334 to page 628. From: Marcus Smith <SMITHM@LOYNOVM> Subject: Re: 4.1151 The Final Words on `Mother' (3/58) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 91 18:00:51 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2551 (2936) The Arabists are correct about intent, I think, but Steve Mason's comments are closer to what this metaphor conjures in many of our minds. There's an interesting discussion of "Mother-Fucker" in the journal Maledicta of a few years back. It seems the term may have referred to the madam of a brothel. Those who had acess to her favors were "Real Mothers." The term is still used in some quarters as a marker of sexual and other "manly" prowess. From: Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Editorial Announcements Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 17:29:18 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1164 (2937) Humanist for the balance of this week and all of next is brought to you courtesy of the Humanities Computing Facility at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, where Dan Brink, Peter Lafford, and Martin Dickey (along with what I'm sure must be a strong supporting cast) are preparing to host the 1991 Association for Computing in the Humanities/Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing Conference. While I'm hopeful that Humanist will be undisrupted while Allen and I attend the conference, there may be some slowness in our getting postings out or making changes to the mailing list. If so, I apologize in advance. Elaine From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> Subject: Is RSV available via FTP? Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 06:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2552 (2938) I know that the KJV Bible is available via anonymous FTP from a couple places. Is the RSV or other translations likewise accessible? Norman Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology. From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: query Date: 16 Mar 91 08:45:04 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2553 (2939) I'm looking for etexts of the extracanonical gospels, especially Thomas and Peter, in either English or French or transliterated Coptic or Greek. They're short enough that I'd type them in myself, but I thought I'd check here first. Any suggestions would be appreciated. George Aichele 72760.1176@compuserve.com From: al649@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Martin J. Homan) Subject: University of the Witwaterstand Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 21:44:27 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2554 (2940) I am working on the abstracts of the _SCJ_ 21:4 for _Religious and Theological Abstracts_. I need one last piece of information. Can someone tell me the location of the University of the Witwaterstand? I need to know the city and the state and or country. Thanks in advance. Marty -- Martin Homan God's Word To The Nations Bible Society Cleveland, OH al649@cleveland.freenet.edu From: PARKINSN@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA Subject: Bible on Disk Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 09:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2555 (2941) I have a friend who would like to know if he can get a copy of a complete Roman Catholic Bible (preferably Jerusalem, but the Confraternity would also be fine) on disk. If anyone knows where this is available please send me the information. Thanks. Ted Parkinson, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario PARKINSN@sscvax.cis.mcmaster.ca From: "Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras" <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: donating computer equipment Date: 18 Mar 91 10:19:19 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2556 (2942) I seem to remember reading somewhere about an organization that acts as a clearinghouse for people with computer equipment to donate, and non-profit organizations that need computer equipment. My home computer (circa 1984) which I am about to replace isn't worth much on the resale market--you could buy the equivalent new for under $1000, so who would want one this old-- yet it's in good working condition, and it would be nice for someone to get some use out of it. Does anyone have any information on this organization? From: LANA@ITOCISI Subject: e-mail addresses in USSR Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 11:34:07 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2557 (2943) I remember having seen,some time ago, russian e-mail addresses in humanist mess ages. Now I'm particularly interested in them on behalf of M. Dodero (a profess or of russian in Turin University): she'd like to know if it is possible to rea ch the Moscow or Leningrad Universities. Any ideas or help? Thank you. Maurizio From: BWAID@ducvax.auburn.edu Subject: Looking for Dominic Powlesland Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 03:39 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2558 (2944) Does anyone know how to get in touch with anthropologist Dominic Powlesland of North Yorkshire England I was told he was in an Amiga ad displaying his archaeological database. I would like to talk to him about this but do not know how to get in touch with him. Any help will be appreciated and I would like to hear from any other Amiga using anthropologists out there. Thanks Barry Waid Auburn University bwaid@ducvax.auburn.edu bwaid@auducvax From: "Connie Gould" <BL.CCG%RLG@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Research Library Group Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 09:24:13 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1166 (2945) RLG BOARD SETS ORGANIZATION'S COURSE FOR THE 1990S March 8, 1991 -- At the March 7-8 meeting of the Research Libraries Group's Board of Governors, following the most successful fiscal year in the corporation's history, the Board approved a comprehensive proposal to take the organization into a new set of activities and business directions. Management has been charged to plan and carry out a set of changes that will concentrate on activities where corporate leverage is greatest and that will enable the organization to meet an array of emerging research information needs. RLG will continue to advance through the cooperative activity of its members, building on established strengths and applying group leverage in new areas. As envisioned, RLG will become a vehicle for the cooperative development of research information management systems, technology, and associated standards focused on primary materials, nontraditional formats, and information delivery. "RLG92" will offer its members and general-service users: * major expansion of bibliographic access to archival holdings, computer files, and visual materials; * new, specialized data resources and management services; * products and services to speed and enhance information delivery. RLG president James Michalko explained: "In its first 15 years, RLG developed activities and services focused on a set of basic research library needs. Alternative sources have emerged for many of the products RLG provided during the 1980s. RLG's efforts in the 1990s should complement rather than replicate services members can obtain through local systems or other established providers." In addressing the Board, Michalko observed that "the time is right for RLG to reformulate its programs, products, and services in direct support of scholarship and research. Our landmark assessments of information needs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences have demonstrated enormous scope for expanded activity in the organization and management of nontraditional information types. The success of RLG's technical and programmatic support for archival and records repositories suggest that the 1990s will be the right time to establish, definitively, effective management and access tools for a broad family of unique research resources. The recent successful beta-test of RLG's Internet-based document transmission facility and the introduction of its workstation-based interlibrary loan management tool position the organization to capitalize on the widespread need for access and management software -- designed to operate on affordable, local platforms, but still capable of communicating with union databases of scholarly information." Michalko also announced at the March meeting that a proposal being prepared by OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, to the member libraries of RLG might lead to an intersystem link between the two organizations and facilitate service to the higher education and research library communities. In June, the Board will act on the first elements of an organizational transformation that is expected to include streamlined programs administration, new definitions and categories of membership, and a new governance structure. (end) To: HUMANIST@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: re: thesaurus query Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 17:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2559 (2946) Michael: According to my thesaurus (The New Roget's Thesaurus in Dictionary Form), other words for thesaurus are: dictionary lexicon wordbook storehouse treasure house treasury Hope this helps. Jim Wilderotter Georgetown University From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: re: thesaurus query Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 00:59:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2560 (2947) "Storehouse" or "treasury" in Greek, no? Eric Rabkin Department of English University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045 esrabkin@umichum.bitnet esrabkin@um.cc.umich.edu From: <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS> Subject: Thesaurus Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 23:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2561 (2948) Michael Ossar asks if anyone knows another word for "thesaurus." There are, of course, two senses of the word: one broad and one narrow. The first of these means "treasury" or "storehouse" and does not necessarily refer to a collection of words. This first meaning gave rise to the second, narrower sense when Roget in 1852 titled his work *Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases....* Calling any such subsequent work a "thesaurus" is kind of like calling a dictionary a "Webster's" (or even more properly, I suppose, a "Roget's'). An alternate word for this sense of "thesaurus" is "synonymy," even though most thesauruses contain antonyms as well. There is yet a third sense of the word which dwells somewhere in between the two above senses, and that is a collection or "treasury" of information often but not necessarily linguistic. For this meaning, "storehouse" might do very well. For the purely verbal aspect, why not the Old English "word hoard"? And while we're at it, is there another word for "spellchecker"? John Dorenkamp From: Mary WhitlockBlundell <mwb@u.washington.edu> Subject: Nick Smith Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 10:29:08 -0800 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2562 (2949) This is a message for the person who was looking for Nick Smith. (I'm afraid I've lost your individual address, so I'm sending this to the list.) I've just found out (a) that my Nick Smith is your Nick Smith (i.e. he does have utopian connections, and (b) that he is on line in Hong Kong: ndsmith@hkucc.bitnet. Mary Whitlock Blundell mwb@u.washington.edu From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: CHum e-mail address Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 18:22:32 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2563 (2950) Regarding Maurizio Lana's request for an e-mail address for CHum, one can reach our editor, Prof. Glyn Holmes, at: holmes@uwovax.uwo.ca . Regards, Joel D. Goldfield On-location with Glyn Holmes in scenic Tempe, Arizona. [not to mention the editors of Humanist .... eds. note] From: LESLI LA ROCCO <OZVY@CORNELLA> Subject: Re: 4.1160 Technophobes and Writing (5/123) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 00:44:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2564 (2951) The first course paper I ever wrote on my PC with WP 4.2 was, according to my R ussian lit professor, my best work to date. It may have been a coincidence, but I think not. The word processor didn't so much save me time (though it did tha t too), but it freed me from a great deal of the tedium of writing a course pap er - illegible notes in the margins of hand-written drafts, retyping pages and pages because of a slight change (I must admit that in my pre-computer days, I would often note the desired change to muself, but be too impatient to retype a whole paper in order to include it), and the spell checker! A gift from God! Speaking as someone who has taught freshman writing seminar, I can't say that t he so-called "Pacman" effect has been significant. Yes, students do occasionall y try to dazzle me with fancy fonts instead of good thought, but I, too, fairly trembled at the acquisition of Latin/Cyrillic proportional fonts for use withi n WP51 with my new Laser Jet II. Oh, the pure aesthetic joy of it! I suppose that there might be some worry that children growing up in the comput er age may never properly learn handwriting (remember the well-founded worries that calculator-toting students wouldn't learn basic math?) or that a spell che cker might become a substitute for good spelling, or a grammar checker for good grammar. Being childless, that worry only just occurred to me, but it might be a valid one. Lesli LaRocco OZVY@CORNELLA From: <BURT@BRANDEIS> Subject: two kinds of technophobia Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2565 (2952) There are two general strains: those who find computers too hard and those who find them too easy. For the latter, I recommend a return to the use of line editors like ED and SOS. Or perhaps they should write only on vellum. Or carve on stone with chisels. (They'd certainly have to consider their words seriously before writing in that case.) John Burt From: <BRIGGSK@CITADEL> Subject: technophobia Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:22 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2566 (2953) I've read articles similar to Mendelson's before. I think there may be something to the theory that INITIALLY students get so impressed by the appearance of their fonts and laser-printed writing that they forget to look at content, but once this inital effect has passed, I think students write better on computers. Here at The Citadel, some sections of freshman composition are taught entirely on Macintosh computers. I have heard several talks by the faculty members involved, and they feel that using computers helps the students to write better and encourages them to keep working on their essays longer (and hopefully with better results). I know when I was in school, if I saw an error in the final draft of a type- written paper that couldn't be corrected with a moderate amount of white-out, it often didn't get changed. Now, working in a computer lab, I see students read that "final" copy and make changes, since the time and effort involved is much less due to word processing. Some students print several "final" copies of their papers. Students who are typing or, worse yet, paying typists, don't make as many revisions. Kasey Briggs From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Technophobia Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 14:52 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2567 (2954) Thanks to Skip Knox for his witty contribution: the following thoughts strike me. I work on medieval philosophy, & it strikes me (in a spirit of unashamed anachronism) that what a lot of those guys were aiming at was *HYPERTEXT*, in that probably the main genre was a commentary, & you got layers of comment, comment on comment, and so on, usually with the really interesting stuff about 3 or 4 comments deep. Or a lot of it was written in a question-answer form, again with a lot of nesting... To put it less anachronistically: seems to me that there are a lot of assumptions (such as linear order) which have been a part of our rhetoric *ONLY SINCE THE RENAISSANCE* or so, & if computers are breaking down these assumptions, well that's just fine by me, I always was rather bored by post-renaissance writing anyway, & let the technophobes scream as much as they want, I rather like the idea of our rhetoric being fundamentally changed by the advent of computers. (Incidentally, in this part of the world they still publish commentaries on the Qur'an in a medieval format, small area of text in the middle of the page with the commentary flowing around it. Very beautiful they look too.) Graham White American University in Cairo From: "Robert S. Kirsner" <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: SUMMARY: Inclusive word for 'freshman' Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 07:40 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1169 (2955) This is clearly a job for -NIK, which was the subject of postings a while back. Indeed, Freshniks would seem to have a great deal in common with Peaceniks and Beatniks, but none of the industriousness of Kibbutzniks. But perhaps they will deconstruct just like Litniks. If -NIK is disfavored, there is always -OID, as in "Postal made a rather Chomskyoid remark." We could have Freshoids, Sophoids, Junoids and Senoids. One could even apply this one to the administration. An Associate Dean could be termed a Deanoid. And a Vice Chancellor a Chancelloroid. Or, if THAT doesn't work, we could fall back on the diminutive: All Freshies will report to the maleperson's gym at 9:00 for the placement tests. Sophies should report at 11:00. Or, we could even evoke the ZERO affix, as in "The Chair is perplexed at your remark!". In that case, all Freshes could report to the malebeing's gym at 9:00 for the placement test. THERE! Another way in which L*I*N*G*U*I*S*T*I*C*S makes your life better for you! ---------------------------------------= - tracy uucp : rutgers!lafcol!logant Bitnet : loganT @ LAFAYETT Internet: loganT @ lafvax.lafayette.edu From: samia@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Samia Benidir) Subject: ASIS Mid-Year Date: Tue, 19 Mar 91 13:31:10 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1170 (2956) MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION SYSTEMS ASIS 1991 Mid-Year Meeting APRIL 26-29, 1991 Santa Clara, California Conference registration for people not members of ASIS: $299 (members $190). [Note that since membership costs $85, one might as well join ASIS, save money, and get a year of JASIS and BASIS thrown in]. BUT THESE ARE THE EARLY REGISTRATION RATES FOR THOSE WHO REGISTER ON OR BEFORE MARCH 21. It goes up to $320 ($230) thereafter. Cheap rates for students ($30). A fast way to register is to send a fax memo asking to be registered with a credit card number (VISA or Mastercard), expiration date, and signature to ASIS: Fax US (301) 495 0810. Voice phone (301) 495 0900. Address: ASIS CONFERENCE REGISTER, P.O. Box 554, WASHINGTON DC 20044-0554. Registration includes conference evening meal Saturday and admission to a good amusement park with excellent roller coasters Sunday night! THEME: The 20th ASIS Mid-Year Meeting will focus on one of the most important new areas in information systems: Multimedia. Traditional concerns with text and numerical data are being supplemented and may ultimately be supplanted by increasing attention to the documentation of objects, sounds, images, and moving images. Digitized sounds and still, moving and 3-D images are being stored, indexed, retrieved, and manipulated. Combinations of text with images and sounds are becoming more common. These new developments promise to change the way we think about information. How are multimedia developments going to be used to provide improved information services? What relevant experiences from art collections, museums, engineering files, and photo, film and sound archives can be used for digitized records? What new opportunities and challenges will digitized forms of sounds and images bring? Building better information services will require that we effectively use images and sound in combination with test and numerical data. To achieve these advancements we must make significant progress in computing, data storage, and telecommunications. The 1991 ASIS Mid-Year Meeting will present cutting-edge research and development in the information sciences which build upon our experience with text and data by adding access to sound and images. It will also explore current and potential applications of this research. PROGRAM: On Friday April 26 from 8-5 there are a selection of workshops on Thesaurus construction; interactive multimedia; hypertext; hypermedia; how to survive as an information professional. These cost extra on the $80 - $275 range depending on what one chooses and whether one is a member. The conference proper begins with a reception Friday 6:30 pm. The technical program begins 8:00 am Saturday 27th and runs through Monday noon. No evening technical sessions. ACCOMODATIONS: Hotel accommodation is separate. Conference hotel is: ASIS Midyear Meeting, Santa Clara Marriott Hotel, 2700 Mission College Boulevard, SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, 95054. Best airport is San Jose. Free shuttle from airport. If you fly direct you will probably have to fly to San Francisco. If you stop in New York, Los Angeles, or elsewhere, you could arrange to connect to San Jose. Hotel rates $70 per night per room single or double. From: Gavin Burnage <GAVIN@CELEX.KUN.NL> Subject: CELEX -- Centre for Lexical Information Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 16:56 (Nederland) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1171 (2957) Since 1986, the Dutch national Expertise Centre CELEX (Centre for Lexical Information) has been constructing large electronic databases containing various types of lexical data on present-day Dutch, English and German. CELEX makes this information available to institutes and companies engaged in language and speech research and in the development of language and speech oriented technological systems. Using the specially-developed program FLEX, you can access the databases with ease -- no technical expertise is necessary -- and extract information which matches the detailed requirements you have. In addition, CELEX can offer assistance with respect to related research and development projects. The lexical data are stored in three separate databases. The Dutch database is now complete, and contains information on approximately 400,000 present-day Dutch wordforms. The English database currently contains 100,000 wordforms and will soon by extended with another 50,000 wordforms. The first version of the German database was made available in August 1990 and contains 51,000 wordforms. New information on translation equivalency is currently being developed, along with additional syntactic and semantic subcategorizations to establish semantic links between the three databases. The results of these extensions will be made available in 1991. The information contained in all three databases has been derived from various sources. For the most part, dictionary information has been combined with frequency data taken from large text corpora. By means of various manual and automatic procedures, CELEX has checked, improved and extended the information. On offer now is detailed information on the orthography (spelling), phonology (pronunciation), morphology (word structure: inflectional and derivational), syntax (grammar) and frequency of words. An important feature of the CELEX databases is that all the information in them has been represented to meet the formal and strict requirements of computational applications. The data are contained in a relational DBMS (database management system), a highly flexible tool for storing, updating and manipulating the data; it also allows users to make individual selections from the vast quantities of data included. The CELEX user interface FLEX was specially designed to make it easy for non-technical people to use the databases. Researchers can log in to CELEX, create their own particular lexicons using FLEX, and extract the information for their own use. By selecting specific items from the numerous possibilities presented in the FLEX menus, and by specifying restrictions on the selection of words from the databases, you can define and control the contents of your lexicon. LEXICON TYPES When you begin work with any of the databases, you can normally choose between two so-called `lexicon types': either a LEMMA LEXICON or a a WORDFORM LEXICON. Each lexicon type is based on a specific kind of main entry, a lemma or a headword. The lemma lexicon is the one most similar to an ordinary dictionary since each entry refers to a full set of inflected words, dealt with together under some convenient heading. Dictionaries normally represent lemmas as headwords: the verb lemma `call' represents all the verbal forms which `call' can appear as. In the CELEX English database, the lemma is represented by the conventional dictionary-type headword, while in the Dutch and German databases you can choose between the conventional headword form and the stem form. In contrast, entries in a wordform lexicon deal with each individual flection -- this is where you find `call', `calls', `called', and `calling'. INFORMATION AVAILABLE For both lexicon types you can select any number of columns from the 150 columns available for each lexicon type. The table below summarizes the sort of information you could include in an English lexicon: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Orthography - with or without diacritics (spelling) - with or without word division positions - alternative spellings - number of letters/syllables Phonology - phonetic transcriptions (using SAMPA notation or (pronunciation) Computer Phonetic Alphabet (CPA) notation) with: - syllable boundaries - primary and secondary stress markers - consonant-vowel patterns - number of phonemes/syllables - alternative pronunciations Morphology - Derivational/compositional: (word structure) - division into stems and affixes - flat or hierarchical representations - Inflectional: - stems and their inflections Syntax - word class (grammar) - subcategorizations per word class Frequency - COBUILD frequency* ------------------------------------------------------------------- *These frequency data are based on the COBUILD corpus (sized 18 million words) built up by the University of Birmingham, UK AN EXAMPLE If you create a small English Lemma lexicon (that is, one with only a few columns), you might extract information like this from it: ----------------------------------------------------------------- Headword Pronunciation Morphology: Mor: Class Freq Structure Class ----------- ---------------- ------------------- ----- ----- ---- celebrant "sE-lI-br@nt ((celebrate),(ant)) Vx N 6 celebration %sE-lI-"breI-Sn, ((celebrate),(ion)) Vx N 201 cell "sEl (cell) N N 1210 cellar "sE-l@r* (cellar) N N 228 cellarage "sE-l@-rIdZ ((cellar),(age)) Nx N 0 cellist "tSE-lIst ((cello),(ist)) Nx N 5 cello "tSE-l@U (cello) N N 25 cellular "sEl-jU-l@r* ((cell),(ular)) Nx A 21 celluloid "sEl-jU-lOId ((cellulose),(oid)) Nx N 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Similarly, a small English wordforms lexicon giving the flections associated with the lemmas above might look like this: -------------------------------------------------------------- Word Word division Pronunciation Class Type Freq ------------ --------------- ----------------- ----- ---- ---- celebrant cel-e-brant "sE-lI-br@nt N sing 2 celebrants cel-e-brants "sE-lI-br@nts N plu 4 celebration cel-e-bra-tion %sE-lI-"breI-Sn, N sing 144 celebrations cel-e-bra-tions %sE-lI-"breI-Sn,z N plu 57 cell cell "sEl N sing 655 cells cells "sElz N plu 555 cellar cel-lar "sE-l@r* N sing 187 cellars cel-lars "sE-l@z N plu 41 cellarage cel-lar-age "sE-l@-rIdZ N sing 0 cellarages cel-lar-ag-es "sE-l@-rI-dZIz N plu 0 cellist cel-list "tSE-lIst N sing 5 cellists cel-lists "tSE-lIsts N plu 0 cello cel-lo "tSE-l@U N sing 24 cellos cel-los "tSE-l@Uz N plu 1 cellular cel-lu-lar "sEl-jU-l@r* A pos 21 celluloid cel-lu-loid "sEl-jU-lOId N sing 29 -------------------------------------------------------------- GETTING AT THE DATABASES People in the Netherlands can log in to CELEX using SURFnet, the Dutch academic network. People elsewhere can use the available PSDNs (Packet Switching Data Networks). In the UK, JANET users connect first to the PSS gateways in London and Manchester, and then log in to CELEX. Some locations in the UK and the rest of Europe currently have direct IXI connections free of charge. In the US, any of the public PSDNs (TYMNET, AUTONET, or UNINET to name just a few) can provide direct access to the CELEX machine. In Germany the national PSDN is called DATEX-P. Most countries have a PSDN which can provide a connection to let you log in and work with the CELEX databases, and several users outside the Netherlands have been able to do it -- there are CELEX users in the USA, the UK, Germany, Belgium and Austria. If, however, the network connections aren't sufficient, then CELEX can prepare the information you require and send it on tape. COSTS AND CONDITIONS Before access to the databases is provided, a licence agreement between the user (usually the user's institution) and CELEX is drawn up, which settles the conditions and rights concerning access to and use of the databases. In most cases, charges are levied for the use of the database. Since the mention of money usually causes alarm in academic circles, it's worth stressing that this is purely a cost-covering exercise to ensure that the system can be maintained, and that more information can be developed. This is Dutch government policy at present: state funds enable a central resource to be set up for the general good in the hope that others who need such resources will not waste time and money in constructing similar facilities. Once set up, those facilities are available at a price far lower than the cost of new development would be. For academic and research purposes, the fees asked are modest. Naturally when commercial use is made of the data, higher fees are appropriate. MORE INFORMATION If you are interested in finding out more about CELEX, then please get in touch with us. We can send you copies of our introductory booklet, plus back issues of the five newsletters so far published, and answer any specific questions you might have. In many cases a `trial' account can be set up to let you look round the databases before making any financial commitment You can send email: CELEX@CELEX.KUN.NL (Internet) CELEX@HNYMPI52 (EARN/BITNET), or write to the following address: CELEX -- Centre for Lexical Information University of Nijmegen Wundtlaan 1 6525 XD NIJMEGEN The Netherlands From: "Chet Grycz" <CJGUR@UCCMVSA.BITNET> Subject: Donating Computer Equipment Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 03:53:41 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2568 (2958) The Wladyslaw Poniecki Charitable Foundation is a 501(c)(3) corporation, whose aim it is to provide educational and technical materials for Eastern European emerging democracies, especially Poland. They would be happy to receive any used computer equipment that is in good working condition, for eventual distribution within Poland. They have arranged for transport to Poland and will deal with all the customs and duty requirements. What they would need is a letter of conveyance, in which you list the serial numbers of the items being sent, and which transfers title to the equipment to the Foundation. If you have an idea of fair market value, you can even deduct this from your income tax as a charitable donation. Write to: The Wladyslaw Poniecki Charitable Foundation 8637 Arbor Drive El Cerrito, California 94530-2728 Chet (I should say that I know about this organization because I am on its board of Directors.) From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Re: 4.1165 Computer Donations Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 10:47:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2569 (2959) RE: Donating old computing equipment (Dr. Ruth Mazo Karras) [deleted quotation]non-profit organization that "accepts only functioning equipment that comes boxed with manuals and software." The computers are shipped to Native American communities and overseas, preferably for schools in developing nations. Global Technology is in Boulder, Colorado. (303) 440-1115 --Jan Eveleth Academic Computing Yale University eveleth@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu From: JIMG@ducvax.auburn.edu Subject: Anthropology Positions Open Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1991 02:15 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1173 (2960) I am posting this here because I believe one of these positions includes teaching a Linguistics class. Auburn University, Department of Sociology, Anthropology,and Social Work, invites applications for two full-time (9 month), tenure-track appointments in cultural anthropology at instructor or assistant professor level. One-half of the teaching load will likely involve participation in a broadly-based and cross-disciplinary course in an innovative core curriculum. During the academic year faculty will also teach basic anthropology and courses in their area of expertise. Ph.D. in anthropology required, completed by 9-16-91, for an assistant professor rank. ABD in anthropology will be considered for instructor. Send vitae, letter of application with a summary of research and teaching interests, and the names of three references to: Dr. John Cottier Faculty Search Committee Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work 6090 Haley Center Auburn, AL 36849-5209 Deadline is May 7. Auburn University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Minorities and women are encouraged to apply. Any typos or other errors are mine. I am just an undergrad so I can't tell anyone much about the position but I will be glad to forward them to someone who can. This is being posted to Linguist, Humanist, and Anthro-L, if anyone knows of another place I can post please let know and feel free to forward and/or repost this this message. Thank You Barry Waid Auburn University BWAID@ducvax.auburn.edu (INTERNET) BWAID@auducvax (BITNET) From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet Subject: Priority of 'gender' Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 14:55:56 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1174 (2961) Peter Scharf's point, transmitted by Maria Green, about the priority of Sanskrit gender classifications over those of the Greeks is I think well taken. Even though I have seen several different dates ascribed to the Sanskrit writer Panini, the detailed classifications he apparently uses do seem to indicate an established tradition that would antedate Protagoras to whom Aristotle attributes the first use of 'male' 'female' and 'things' as classifications of words. Scharf is therefore right to chide me for saying that the Greeks were 'responsible' for the origin of the classification of gender. I think I am right, however, in noting that the Sanskrit priority had no effect whatsoever on the European usage of the grammatical classifications 'masculine', 'feminine' and 'neuter'. The European grammatical tradition does begin as I noted with Protagoras and Aristotle, passses through to the Roman grammarians, and in these works establishes the tradition that has been in use from the Middle Ages until today. It is my understanding, and I would be interested in knowing if it is not correct, that Sanskrit writings did not play a role in the study of language until some time in the 18th century. According to O. H. Pedersen's The Discovery of Language. Linguistic Science in the 19th Century, F.von Schlegel published a book in 1808 that initiated the concept of comparative grammar, followd by Franz Bopp's work on Sanskrit grammar. Gary Stonum's question concerned the origin of 'gender' as a classification. It is not a universal means of classification. Speculation about the origins of 'sex' as a classification can be found in E. Cassirer's The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol. 1; this also receives attention from Karl Brugmann in a number of places, including I think his Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, and an essay "Das grammatische Geschlect in den indogermanischen Sprachen", in Zeitschrift fur Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaften, 4. The seduction of e-mail is to toss out a response without thinking as carefully as one would under other circumstances-- but not as ephemeral. My thanks to Scharf & Green for their correction. Dirk Held, Classics, Conn. College. From: DJBPITT@pittvms Subject: Re: 4.1161 MS-DOS Environment Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 18:59 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1175 (2962) This may be getting overly technical for Humanist and there may be more appropriate places to discuss such questions, but I think the following recent comment on environment size is wrong: [deleted quotation] [... fluff deleted ...] [deleted quotation] MS-DOS maintains a master environment and every program that is run receives its own local copy of this environment. TSRs thus have two properties: 1) They have no access to environment variables set after the TSRs themselves have been initialized. That is, the environment values available to the TSR are only those that were in the master environment when the TSR was set. Change one of those values or add a new environment variable and your TSR won't know about it. But this only "locks" the size of the local environment; it does not limit the size of the master environment or of the environment available to subsequent programs, both TSR and regular. 2) They occupy memory both for the program itself and for the local environment. That is, every TSR reserves (and keeps) memory for the local environment in use when the TSR is initialized. The space kept depends on the actual space occupied by environment data, not on the space allocated in config.sys. These properties suggest the following strategies: 1) The autoexec file normally sets environment variables and loads TSRs. Always load TSRs before setting any environment variables (except those that are specifically needed by the TSRs in question). That is, rather than filling up your environment with fluff before setting TSRs, you should empty it of all values except those specifically needed by the TSRs. 2) To save even more space, reset to null those environment variables that the system sets upon initialization (path, comspec) BUT don't forget to reset them to the values you want them to have at the end of your autoexec file. The above strategies enabled me to free up several K of memory, since I avoided having every TSR store a big environment that it didn't need. Contrary to the posting to which I am responding, emptying my environment before loading TSRs did not lock in the environment size at zero; I have no trouble filling it up again at the end of my autoexec file. --David J. Birnbaum djbpitt@vms.cis.pitt.edu [Internet] djbpitt@pittvms [Bitnet] From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: RE: Framework DBMS Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 17:52:45 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2570 (2963) I used Framework II extensively on a project about three years ago (I think that Framework III is the current version), and I can't really recommend it for much. FW II was clunky, and the programming language attached to it was restrictive, to say the least. The idea behind it, I think, is to integrate word processing, databases, and spreadsheets into one program, so that one person doesn't need to learn three different applications, and it's targetted at busy executives. As such, it doesn't do anything as well as a single application, but Framework III may have cleared up some of those problems. (For instance, there was a limitation on the number of program iterations--as a consequence, my application kept bombing out.) I now use dBase for database applications, and use a macro program called NEWKEY to type foreign characters (those in the extended ASCII character set), which works well for me. The only problem I've found that dBase memo fields will not accept characters from the extended ASCII set, but there are ways to work around this. Perry Willett SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: "Teun A. van Dijk" <TEUN@ALF.LET.UVA.NL> Subject: Re: TAMIL AND DEVANAGRI WITH LINGUA Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:17:00 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2571 (2964) Dear Robert Garfias [who inquired after PC processors for Indian languages], Just coming back from a visit to India, where I also visited the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore, I was shown several programs running Indian languages (like Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam), at least experimentally: they had developed their own chip for these languages. I believe (but did not ask specifically) the operating system was DOS. How and whether such chips could be cooperating with NotaBene or Lingua in the future, I don't know. I am sure though that the people there would be very much interested in cooperation (as you know there are dozens of millions of people using these languages, each with its own script). Please contact the computer people at CIIL (I don't remember their names) through Dr. Jennifer Bayer, CIIL, Manasangangotri, Mysore, Karnataka, India. For Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala, you should contact Prof. Subramoniam of the University of Kerala in Trivandrum. He has a special Institute of Dravidian Languages (like Malayalam, Tamil), etc. and they are also developing programs to use such languages (scripts) on the computer. I guess these addresses will help (if your contact didn't have them already). Teun A. van Dijk U of Amsterdam Program of Discourse Studies teun @ alf.let.uva.nl From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu> Subject: Note on MacLink Plus translators Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 09:58 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2572 (2965) A previous correspondent indicated that MacLink Plus will not translate footnotes in most circumstances. This isn't precisely true: I've found in many, many transfers among varying file formats that it will usually transfer footnotes, but merely as part of the main text (in most cases appending them to the end of the body.) It will leave footnote markers in the body of the text in some formats as simple ascii numbers. The transferer is left to reformat the text of the footnotes into actual footnotes by hand, but this is far less onerous than rekeying them. I've transferred footnotes with MLP for, among others, WP (PC), WordStar <-> Word, MacWrite, RTF. One more vague hint: some word processors have options to save footnotes as either part of the text or in their own separate file area on disk. Try transferring both types of files to see which kind your translation has the most success with. From: david j reimer f <dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca> Subject: Technophobia and kids' computing Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 22:38:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2573 (2966) In the wake of Willard McCarty's report of an article from TLS, we have again been taking up the theme of computers and writing skills. One posting posed the question of kids forgetting how to handwrite (perhaps as calculators have discouraged the learning of sums -- or have they? :-) An anecdote. Just this afternoon I downloaded a shareware program called KIDSWP. "Kids' Word Processor". In the lull before dinner I showed it to my little girl. She was as excited as could be! (And this was no fancy graphics "game"!) She set herself up a file, and worked hard at typing every word she knows how to spell. This did not take long. (She's four.) Her name, then: cat men zoo me mom dad and. Then she printed it out. She was higher than a kite. Ran upstairs to show Mom...ran back down, sat on top of the desk, then proceeded to transcribe with pencil and paper each word she had typed, checking them off as she went. At least in this one instance, the flush of high-tech success didn't lead to the deadening of manual skills! Cheers, David Reimer, Wilfrid Laurier University dreimer4@mach1.wlu.ca From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.1168 Technophobia and Writing Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 08:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2574 (2967) There are two bits of trivia related to not writing/spelling and composition which might be of interest: 1. some (not academic) jobs now require a hand-written letter of application (written on-site) instead of, or following, the word- processed application. This has been happening recently; as far as I can tell, it is to see whether the person can in fact spell and write without machines! 2. An older colleague has said that the advent of the word-processor has made him more wordy- perhaps because of multiple revisions more easily done or whatever. Leslie Morgan MORGAN@LOYVAX1 From: RHIN000 <RHINE@UNB.CA> Subject: Freshpeople Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 23:16:50 AST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2575 (2968) What's wrong with the term we used at college for the first-year students: NEOPHYTE. Shortens nicely to NEO. --Tony Rhinelander, Fredericton, NB, Canada From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> Subject: Freshmen Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 05:22:51 -0600 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2576 (2969) I notice that Henry Rogers quotes the collective "Frosh". This term was in use at the University of Pennsylvania when I was there in the fifties, and I wondered at the time how it had been created. Does anyone have an explanation? From: Jack Kolb <IKW4GWI@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.1169 Summary: Fresh? Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 04:46 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2577 (2970) First year student (etc. ) was almost de regieur at the institutions I had some familiarity with (Univ. of Chicago, Univ. of Virginia, UCLA). Only Yale held out for "freshman, sophomore," etc. From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: call: workshop on non-literal language Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 13:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1179 (2971) *** PLEASE DISTRIBUTE *** *** PLEASE DISTRIBUTE *** CALL FOR PAPERS IJCAI-91 WORKSHOP COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES TO NON-LITERAL LANGUAGE: METAPHOR, METONYMY, IDIOM, SPEECH ACTS, IMPLICATURE Dan Fass, James Martin, Elizabeth Hinkelman Sydney, Australia, 24th August 1991 1. Focus of the Workshop The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate exchange and discussion of theoretical issues and practical problems of artificial intelligence (AI) models of non-literal language. Non-literal language includes metaphor, idiom, "indirect" speech acts, implicature, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, sarcasm, and other devices whose meaning cannot be obtained by direct composition of their constituent words. Non-literal language is increasingly acknowledged as pervasive in natural language and is important to subfields of natural language processing like machine translation and parsing ill-formed input. Non-literal language has also attracted interest from researchers in knowledge representation, planning and plan recognition, learning, belief modeling, and other subfields of AI. Researchers are invited to submit papers on topics including (but not limited to) the computer recognition, interpretation, acquisition, generation, and robust parsing of non-literal language. Issues of interest include: o the relationship of non-literal to literal language, o the adequacy of various forms of knowledge representation (symbolic vs connectionist vs statistical), o static vs dynamic mechanisms, o general vs idiosyncratic treatment of instances, o instances as novel vs conventional forms, o comparison and contrast of models of the various forms of non-literal language, o broader implications for AI. 2. Organizing Committee Dan Fass James Martin Centre for Systems Science, Computer Science Department and Simon Fraser University, Institute of Cognitive Science, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. University of Colorado at Boulder, Tel: (604) 291-3208 Box 430, Boulder, CO 80309-0430, USA. Fax: (604) 291-4951 Tel: (303) 492-3552 E-mail: fass@cs.sfu.ca Fax: (303) 492-2844 E-mail: martin@boulder.colorado.edu Elizabeth Hinkelman Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Tel: (312) 702-8887 Fax: (312) 702-0775 E-mail: eliz@tira.uchicago.edu 3. Submission Details Authors should mail three (3) copies of a submission in hard copy form. Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (excluding title page); have 1 inch margins on the top, sides and bottom; and use no smaller than 10 point type. The title page, separate from the body of the paper, should contain title, names of authors, their affiliation, address, phone, e-mail address, and an abstract of 100-200 words. Papers that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to Dan Fass at his address, given above. Please do not send submissions to James Martin or Elizabeth Hinkelman. o Deadline for submissions Thu. May 2 o Notification of acceptance/rejection Fri. May 31 4. Workshop Details Attendance at the workshop will be limited to 30 participants. Only one invitation will be issued per accepted submission. To cover costs, it will be necessary to charge a fee of $US65 for each participant. Participants will be given further instructions on preparation of camera ready copy and session format when they receive notification of acceptance. Final papers will be collected into a set of proceedings and circulated to participants at the workshop. Arrangements (yet to be confirmed) are being made for a Special Edition of Computational Intelligence journal, edited by Fass, Martin and Hinkelman, in which selected papers from the workshop will appear. From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Re: 4.1167 ...Nick Smith Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 09:32 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2578 (2972) This is addressed to Mary Whitlock Blundell. I would like to thank her very much for discovering Nick Smith's e-mail address. I also received mail from Prof. Jean Pfaelzer of the University of Delaware, probably through her too. So thank you for that too. Pr Pfaelzer sent m e the names of other scholars involved in UTOPIAN STUDIES, such as Carol Kolmerten of Hood College, and of Peter Fitting, who is in the department of French at the University of Toronto. If someone has the latter's e-mail address, I would be grateful. Thank you for your help. Christian Allegre CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET From: PAULA PRESLEY <AD15%NEMOMUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: University of THE Witwatersrand Date: Sun, 24 Mar 91 22:11:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2579 (2973) Marty: (You might check your spelling of the institution). It's in South Africa; the author in question has also contributed to "ARt World," I believe. Suggestion: Use the directory: World of Learning (probably in your institution's reference collection...or you can ask the reference librarian. Forthcoming articles in SCJ will be by authors from The Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, among others. Now a question for you: Do you find our author-supplied abstracts useful? Do you find the annual index useful? Paula Presley, Copy/Production editor for SCJ [eds. note: SCJ is the Sixteenth Century Journal] From: "Thomas W. Stuart" <C078D6S6@UBVM> Subject: Re: 4.1166 Research Library Group's Future Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 19:16:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2580 (2974) Just curious... Did anyone else flinch a bit at the market economy lingo of the RLG Board meeting summary? [deleted quotation]BUSINESS DIRECTIONS...CORPORATE LEVERAGE...GROUP LEVERAGE... POSITION THE ORGANIZATION TO CAPITALIZE... sigh...so much for such old fashioned stuff as service, intellectual freedom, social responsibility, free access to blah blah blah. Tom Stuart, Penn Yan Public (differently positioned) Library Penn Yan, NY From: Robert O'Hara <MNHVZ028@SIVM> Subject: Biography database standards Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 14:41:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2581 (2975) Does anyone know if there are any organizations working on standard formats for biographical databases? Certainly narrative information about a person's life doesn't come in a regular format, but it would seem that much information could be put in some set of standardized fields, such as last name, first name, date of birth, parentage, places of residence, etc. Two possible standards come to mind: (1) the MARC name authority format, which includes names, dates, titles, etc.; (2) genealogical database formats - I understand these are somewhat standardized; can anyone supply me with the specifications? Are there any other formats for biographical data that anyone knows? Many thanks, Bob O'Hara, MNHVZ028@SIVM.bitnet National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution From: Malcolm Hayward <MHAYWARD@IUPCP6.BITNET> Subject: Help!! Humanities Course Syllabi/Catlog Descriptions Date: 21 Mar 91 15:41 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2582 (2976) I am proposing a graduate level Humanities Computing course and our University senate would like to see copies of similar course catalog descriptions and/or syllabi (to prove that such a course can exist). I'd appreciate any such materials that you could send or, ideally, e-mail. Address MHayward@IUP.Bitnet or Malcolm Hayward, 110 Leonard Hall, IUP, Indiana, PA 15705. Thanks a lot. Malcolm Hayward MHayward@IUP Department of English Phone: 412-357-2322 or IUP 412-357-2261 Indiana, PA 15705 From: Jim Julich 319-335-5946 <CADJIMTS@UIAMVS> Subject: Arabic linguistics Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 15:37 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2583 (2977) On a visit in January to the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, I learned that a colleague in the library there is in the process of writing her thesis "L'impact de l'informatique sur l'unification de la terminologie Arabe". She would very much like to know if anyone is doing work concerning the impact of computers on the Arab language. Her ultimate goal is the creation of a thesaurus for the Institut. Responses can go directly to her: Mme. Berrada Institut du Monde Arabe Bibliotheque 23 Quai St. Bernard Paris, France 75005 Responses can also come to me via e-mail (CADJIMTS@UIAMVS.BITNET) or via regular mail: Jim Julich Reference Department--Main Library University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 52242 USA Many thanks. From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: New Journal Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 06:24:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2584 (2978) The first issue of a new journal, TEXT TECHNOLOGY, has just been published. It is designed for professional writers and teachers of writing who believe that computers are invaluable tools for the creation, manipulation, and dissemination of text and graphics. It will provide reviews of hardware and software, and it will discuss programming for text analysis. It will strive to be a clearinghouse for all information pertaining to the use of computers for academic, corporate, and government text processing. The journal is a non- commercial publication funded, in part, by Wright State University. HUMANISTs can receive a free copy of the first issue of TEXT TECHNOLOGY by requesting it from the editor: Jim Schwartz Wright State University Lake Campus 7600 State Route 703 Celina, OH U.S.A. 45822-2921 (419) 586-2365 JSCHWARTZ@WSU.BITNET From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: e-mail address Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2585 (2979) Does anyone know an e-mail address for Mary Kimbrough ? She just published a book called Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, 1729-1811 : A Study in French Novel History and Politics (Mellen Press, dec. 1990). From: Diane Kovacs <LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu> Subject: Is Candide available via FTP? Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 18:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2586 (2980) Does anyone know if I can FTP a copy of Voltaire's Candide? If not are there any CD-Rom or Floppy copies available, other than the DAK disc? Thank you in advance for any help you can give. Diane ********************************************************************** Diane K. Kovacs Kent State University Libraries, Kent, Ohio 44242 Bitnet: LIBRK329@kentvms Internet: LIBRK329@ksuvxa.kent.edu The opinions I express are mine and no one elses. From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Amstrad information request. Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 14:07 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2587 (2981) Does anyone have information, or handy hints, about modems and emulation software for an Amstrad PCW 8512? Thanks Graham White American University in Cairo. From: PHILLIPS@UKANVM Subject: E-Mail Address; Classical Lists Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 11:43:17 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2588 (2982) I have two inquiries. Does anyone have an e-mail address for Prof. Marcel Otte, a prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Liege in Belgium? The address we were given and have tried is U.0180A1@BLIULG.11. Twice we have received a reply that there is no such mailbox. Those of you more knowledgable than I--does that look like a possible e-mail address? Secondly, are there any LISTSERV lists or other networks for classics or any subdiscipline of classics? Oliver Phillips PHILLIPS@UKANVM Department of Classics University of Kansas Lawrence, Ks 66045-2139 USA From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: graduate programs Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 16:45:36 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2589 (2983) On behalf of a former student currently completing work at the Sorbonne, a query regarding graduate programs in the U.S. and Canada: anyone care to make recommendations regarding programs in Behavioral Science/Ethology/Psychology and/or: Stress Management methods for high-level athletes? A somewhat eclectic request, I know -- all the more reason for many thanks in advance, Charles Ess Drury College Springfield, MO 65802 USA From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: requests for e-mail addresses Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 14:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2590 (2984) Dear editors, Could you please post the following request for me: RE: UTOPIAN STUDIES I am looking for the e-mail address of the two following scholars: Prof. Peter Fitting, Department of French, University of Toronto Prof. Lise Leibacher-Ouvrard, Department of French & Italian, University of Arizona (in Tucson, I believe) Thanks. Christian Allegre Departement d'Etudes francaises Universite de Montreal CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET From: "Prof. Dr. Alfred Suhl" <ANT01@DMSWWU1A.BITNET> Subject: humanist listserv Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 12:14:06 MEZ X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2591 (2985) Herewith I wish to be reconnected to the listserver again. Can you help a colleague of mine who urgently needs information concerning CD-R OMs for Roamanistics? He is specially interested in Dictionaries and literary t exts. He has to spend the sum available for him whithin three days. So ist would be very helpful if I could get any information as soon as possible. Last year Willard our late listserv-manager helped me this way, he became my friend and stayed already in my house when he was in Europe. Is ther anyone else who would like to get in invitation that way? Muenster/Germany is a beautiful town. Ask Willard! Best greetings, yours Alfred Suhl From: "JAMES W. HALPORN" <halpornj@ucs.indiana.edu> Subject: CLASSICAL ATLAS Date: 25 Mar 91 14:22:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2592 (2986) There has arisen the possibility of a reprinting of *Murray's Classical Atlas for Schools*, ed. G.B. Grundy. 2nd ed. 1917, at a cost of between US$30-35. This atlas is listed in J.A. Nairn's Classical Handlist (3rd ed., Oxford 1953, p. 152). Are any members of this board who are involved with reference or with classical studies interested in this reprint, and would they recommend it to their students or for their libraries? Is there another atlas they would prefer to see reprinted? Please reply to the author of this message directly. If appropriate, I will summarize for the board. James W. Halporn, Classical Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. Bitnet: HALPORNJ@IUBACS Internet: HALPORNJ@UCS.INDIANA.EDU Disclaimer: I have no personal, scholarly, or financial interest in the publication of this book. From: Elaine M Brennan <ELAINE@BROWNVM> Subject: Editor's Nightmare Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 11:49:43 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1183 (2987) Yesterday was one of those days that list owners dread -- I managed to nuke and destroy all mail that came in between approximately 2 am and 6:30 pm (est). If you sent mail that might have arrived during that period, please resend it. Elaine From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: Amstrads revisited Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 00:09:57 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1184 (2988) At periodic intervals queries appear on HUMANIST about Amstrad computers, which never seem to get answered although there must be lots of people in the UK who could do so. I'm sending this to the net as well as directly to Graham Hill in the hope that others who have to do with them may find it useful. Amstrads come in two flavours, PCW8256 and PCW8512; the larger one has more memory and a second disk drive, but they can be regarded for external purposes as identical. They also run on two separate operating systems: CPM 3 (= CPM Plus) and Locoscript. The latter is a dedicated stand-alone word-processing program which, however, stores its files in a manner more or less CPM compatible (provided the files do not exceed 16K in size). So if you want to read files produced by either system all (!) you need is a setup with a 3" (that's right, not 3.5") drive and CPM. Alternatively you can now buy an external 5.25" disk and connect it up; there is software available which allows this disk to be treated as an MSDOS XT disk (I have the set-up at home - you can read, write and format MSDOS disks pretty reliably). For connecting up to the real world via modems etc.: in Germany at least the computer comes with a reliable program called MAIL232 which can handle speeds of up to 9600 baud and works well (for me anyway). It has a VT52 emulation, though I've never used it. You will need to get an extension called (I think) an RCS8256 (cost about $50?), which fits on to the back extension slot and provides a proper serial and parallel connection. KERMIT is also available. Files produced under Locoscript should be stored in ASCII before sending: Locoscript uses a repulsive and very space-consuming internal file format (which can be translated into something more sensible while retaining e.g. the codes for superscript etc.) and a code of its own. The code is documented in PCW manuals; the internal file format has been documented in various places (no references to hand but I could dig them out if anyone needs them). I haven't given any suppliers' names because I only have rather out-of-date information about Germany, which won't be much use to most people. Timothy Reuter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Biblical and Related Texts Date: Thursday, 21 March 1991 2347-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2593 (2989) In answer to Norman Coombs, I will be very surprised if the RSV can be obtained legally by FTP, since the text is controlled by the National Council of Churches and they like to know who gets the text. We are allowed to permit people to copy it, as long as they first sign a user agreement not to misuse it (e.g. for commercial purposes). Thus we could theoretically set things up so that one sends in the user agreement then gets clearance to FTP the text, but we haven't yet made that sort of move. It is worth thinking about. ("We" means CCAT at UPenn.) Regarding George Aichele's interest in non-canonical gospels (and the like), some of that material is available through CCAT or (for the Nag Hammadi Coptic) through the Claremont Institute. I think we have an untested text of G.Peter somewhere. The Coptic Thomas was on the first TLG CD-ROM, and has had some limited circulation since then (get permission from Jim Robinson's office at Claremont), and is scheduled to be on the next PHI CD-ROM (which may be out already; see OFFLINE 32, which is on the HUMANIST FileServer). Other available NTApocrypha/Pseudepigrapha texts include 3 Corinthians and Laodiceans, and there are a variety of "Jewish Pseudepigrapha" (especially Greek and Latin) as well. If you decide to type anything in yourself, please let us know if you would be willing to circulate it through us (and/or put it on the IOUDAIOS FileServer, etc.). Bob Kraft, CCAT UPenn (etc.) From: GROVES@PENNDRLS (Alan Groves) Subject: Re: 4.1165.4 Bible on Disk Date: Friday, 22 March 1991 0804-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2594 (2990) Br. R-Ferdinand Poswick of the Abbaye de Maredsous (Belgium) and the Centre Informatique et Bible (CIB) has machine readable forms of Catholic Bibles (Maredsous Bible and Jerusalem Bible). You can contact him at CIBMARE@BUCLLN11.BITNET. Alan Groves Westminster Seminary POB 27009 Philadelphia, PA 19118 (215)887-3891 GROVES@PENNDRLS From: William Crossgrove <WMCROSS@BROWNVM> Subject: Hypermedia in music Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 13:13:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2595 (2991) A colleague from Germany asked if I could direct him to contacts with people who are working on uses of hypermedia in music, more specifically in musicology. Since this is an area I know nothing about, I realize that this is a very poorly dilineated request. I believe that he is specifically interested in Mac applications. If you send any information you have directly to me, I will summarize it and post it to HUMANIST. Maybe this will reduce the volume of network traffic. My e-mail address is WMCROSS@BROWNVM (Bitnet) or WMCROSS@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (Internet). I will appreciate any help you can give me. Bill Crossgrove German Department Brown University From: CHENEY@SELDC52.BITNET Subject: EARN/BITNET access from Belgium Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 18:37 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2596 (2992) I am writing for a friend who lives in Brussels and is having difficulty getting connected to EARN/BITNET. The main difficulty is that while is an active participant in one of the faculties of the university, he does not have the right classification to be granted an account at the university. I would appreciate any suggestions on how he might be able to connect to EARN via a local private network or any other suggestions toward solving this rather bureaucratic problem. Michael Cheney cheney@gemini.ldc.lu.se From: Eric Rabkin <USERGDFD@UMICHUM.BITNET> Subject: Habits of electronic research Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 00:21:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2597 (2993) Along the lines of the discussion of how word processors in general and of specific types may affect habits of writing, I wonder if any of you care to speculate on how electronic databases (library catalogs, searchable texts, bibliographies, etc.) may affect habits of research. Personally, I find these facilities make me more enthusiastic and more likely to pursue a matter to ground, but I'm a prof. I wonder what this does for our students? Eric Rabkin Department of English University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045 esrabkin@umichum.bitnet esrabkin@um.cc.umich.edu From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: E-mail addresses Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 08:16:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2598 (2994) I'm a member of several lists, and all of them lately have been circulating requests for individual e-mail addresses. It really isn't any trouble for those with the information to respond, but I wonder if it isn't time for some bright light to come up with a system for recording at least IDs and nodes. Perhaps it's the result of the proliferation of lists which Willard McCarty mentioned in a posting a few weeks ago, but I think we are in the position of early users of the telephone: we know who's on our local line, but have no directory for other places! I am assuming, of course, that no such directory of e-mail addresses has been compiled, because the flurry of queries lately would surely have led some genius of the nets to supply its name, and local habitation. Any ideas? Germaine. From: Elaine M Brennan <ELAINE@BROWNVM> Subject: Userid Directories Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 15:51:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2599 (2995) Here's one source for information on userids directories (reprinted from Humanist 4.0249, originally posted by Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM>): [Most of this information comes from the _Internet Resource Guide_ put out by NSF Network Service Center (nnsc@nnsc.nsf.net).] Electronic databases of user information are frequently referred to as White Pages. Several organizations, including DDN, NYSERNet, and CREN/CSNET, maintain white pages. Of most interest to BITNET users would be the CREN/CSNET service. (CREN = Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, formerly BITNET, Inc.) All users of the Internet are eligible to register and use the service. To get information about the service send mail to INFOSERVER@SH.CS.NET with the following lines in the body of the message: Request: info Topic: ns You will receive 2-3 files with instructions on how to use the service. If you are interested in registering yourself on the service, duplicate the following form with your information and send it in a mail message to cic@sh.cs.net. (It will take a few working days for your entry to be processed.) Example mail message form from CSNET: Name: Mock Turtle Account: mt,wonderland.oxbridge.edu, oxbridge Mailbox: mt@wonderland.oxbridge.edu Phone: (617) 999-8765 Address: Oxbridge University Eastboro, MA 02199 Misc: soup Griffon Disposition: Add The "misc" category above should include one-word indications of the topics you're interested in. How to find someone that's registered in a white pages database? You can query the database directly. The CREN/CSNET white pages can be reached by telnetting to sh.cs.net, login as "ns". Once logged on you may use the "whois" command (help is available) to locate a user/userid. Similarly for using the NYSERNet White Pages Pilot Project (about 50 institutions currently participating) accessible at wp.psi.com, login as fred. But an easier (though not always faster) method is to make your query on the Knowbot Information Service. Knowbot systematically poses the query to many white pages located around the country--including CREN/CSNET. To access Knowbot, telnet to nri.reston.va.us 185. (The 185 is a port number and is essential.) Once connected, you are provided a rather stark screen with a prompt waiting for your input. Simply type the name you're searching for, e.g. Mock Turtle. The system searches for exact matches so if Mock Turtle registered as M. Turtle, Knowbot won't find it. Usually best to use just last names, but beware those that are common; you could easily end up with over 100 Smiths. The disadvantage of Knowbot is that it will systematically search through all of it's accessible white pages, even if you found the user you were looking for at the beginning of the search. The advantage of using Knowbot, is the simplicity of use and "one-stop shopping". As with any information service, it will only be useful if there's a critical mass of users. I encourage you to register with CREN/CSNET and try Knowbot. And, as with any publicly-accessible information, there will be some people who don't want their phone numbers--or userids--listed; so don't expect to find the email address of your university president. Jan Eveleth eveleth@yalevm Yale University Watch also for a forthcoming posting on Biographies on the Humanist lisstserv and the new index files (also on the listserv) as a possible source of information. -- Elaine From: Randall Jones <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: Looking for CALL types in Austria Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 13:43:05 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2600 (2996) I am interested in obtaining names and addresses (including e-mail) of individuals at Austrian Universities who are interested in computer- assisted language learning or computer-assisted language research. Randall Jones Department of German Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602 HRCJONES@BYUVM.BITNET R.L. Jones From: garof@sixcom.sixcom.it Subject: Re: Vol. 4, No. 1182. Tuesday, 26 Mar 1991. Stress Management Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 11:13:41 +0100 (MET) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2601 (2997) Regarding Charles Ess's search for top-level athletic stress programs: I assume the "stress" is physical and not psychological. Brandeis University has one of the strongest all-division nationally-ranked running programs. If I remember correctly, it was very similar to that of Keene State University in either Maine or New Hampshire. Many of the athletes went to Colorado to study in the sports medicine/training programs at the universit(y/ies) there. The physical location also benefits from the US Olympic training center. I do not remember the names of the programs, but one cannot go wrong looking there. Other's which might merit some contact are Tufts University Med School, Harvard U. Med School, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Sports Medicine program. All there are in the Boston area. -Joe Giampapa garof@sixcom.sixcom.it From: "Steven J. DeRose" <EL406011@BROWNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1181 Misc: Biography Formats Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 16:19:44 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2602 (2998) Bob O'Hara asks about biography formats. The Humanist bios winging their way to the file server even as I type might provide a nice starting point. There is a formal SGML DTD for them, and they provide a variety of demographic information as well as discursive text. Further tagging detail might be desired for a larger project, for which the TEI guidelines probably provide sufficient detail. On the other hand, the genealogical software I've dealt with tends to have support only for pure demographic events (birth, death, marriage, emigration, etc.), and so would need to be extended (if such is possible in a given case) for anything discursive. Steve [more information will be posted on the bios tomorrow -- Elaine] From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Miscellaneous Responses Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 21:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2603 (2999) E-voltaire e-candide. I would advise you to contact either the ARTFL in Chicago or Nancy's TLF. They have there more than 30 e-texts written by Voltaire. Chicago's contact man is Mark Olsen: mark@gide.uchicago.edu Nancy's contact address is: Service des prestations de l'Inalf 44, avenue de la Liberation C.O. 3310 54014 Nancy Cedex FRANCE. The Inalf has developped a CD-ROM version of part of the 3000 book large database of the TLF. It can be bought at the same address. -----------------------------------------= E-address at Liege Professor Otte works in the same building as the CIPL (LASLA) and probably share at least part of the same e-address. I would advise you to retry the address you mentioned in your message but without the "." in it. Otherwise, try to send a message at CIPL which is one floor above Otte's department. Our man in Liege is Christian Delcourt: u017101@bliulg11.bitnet ---------------------------------------------= Romanicist with money to spend... Why not spend part of your money on the newly-produced hypercard-based system developped by Etienne Brunet. It is called HYPERBASE. You can feed it with your own text files and it prepares them to enable the user to obtain a certain amount of information: stylostatistical information, frequency lists, concordances and even comparison with statistical data from the TLF... and much more... ---------------------------------------------= Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: "Stuhr-Rommereim,Rebecca" <STUHRROR@GRIN1.Bitnet> Subject: Habits of electronic Searching/Response to Eric Rabkin Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 9:38:48 cst X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2604 (3000) Electronic databases have an incredible effect on habits of research. Speaking specifically of databases intended for end user searching (rather than having the librarian be the intermediary), there is no comparison to the amount of use a printed index might get and the amount of use an electronic index might get. Students who might never take the time to sit down and go through volumes of a newspaper index, will take a great deal of time to learn to use and then use extensively an electronic index. Journals, newspapers that may have received very little use before the library obtained their electronic index, become high demand items afterwards. I don't see the same dramatic change in the use of books after the introduction of an automated catalog. I think that this is because students don't use the aspects of the catalog that make it different than the card catalog. They stick with the author, title and subject (still not knowing what the subject headings are) and don't take advantage of the call number or shelf browsing, jumping to related subject headings, limiting, and most importantly keyword searching (when it includes titles AND subject headings). We, at Grinnell College libraries, have been slow in getting into end user searching via CD-ROM indexes or tapes loaded into our online catalog (very, very expensive) because we provide free database searching to all students, faculty and staff. However, after hearing a talk given by the director of the University of Iowa Libraries, we were convinced that we should change our thinking. We had been put off by the cost of most electronic databases and felt that our searching of databases for patrons would be more cost effective. Considering the increase of access against the increased cost, we felt that we had to move in the direction of end-user searching. Well, we haven't managed to get into it in a big way yet because of costs, but we are still working on it. But in a rambling way, to answer E. Rabkin's question, electronic databases have a huge effect on student research. Even if they are not doing their own searching, if they are aware of the possibility of a database search that can be done for them (and if it is free) the possibilities of their research are hugely expanded. Electronic databases coordinated with (smaller colleges having smaller libraries) or the size of the college a Not to be construed as an argument for smaller acquisition funds. Materials in the library are much more readily accessible than materials through interlibrary loan. Rebecca Stuhr-Rommereim Deputy Reader Services Librarian/Humanities Bibliographer Grinnell College Libraries stuhrror@grin1 From: MICHAELM@PORTLAND (Mike McDermott) Subject: Effect of E-sources on research Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 19:27:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2605 (3001) Responding to Eric Rabkin's question on the effects of electronic sources on student research: I work with these students every day and have a few observations to toss out. On the positive side: 1) Electronic resources (especially catalogs and indexes) make it possible for students to identify a large number of sources quickly and (thanks to printers) correctly, leaving them with more time and motivation for actually gathering the materials. 2) The ease with which most electronic sources are able to jump between related topics makes it more likely that students will follow up on these leads and end up with a more complete search. 3) Boolean operations and limiting functions make the process of defining and focusing a research topic more explicit and more of a conscious act to the student. On the negative: 1) The initial ease with which students can begin to get information out of an electronic source can sometimes be misleading and prevent them from realizing that there are more advanced, efficient search methods available to them than simply scrolling through every entry in the ERIC database with 'psychology' in the title. 2) I've frequently seen students shun a paper index appropriate to their topic in favor of a less appropriate, but electronic, index. 3) The "Information Overload" effect: Students will suddenly find themselves deluged by possible sources on their topic. Such a situation requires powers of citation evaluation and discrimination that many students don't seem to have. I look forward to hearing what others will have to say on the topic-- Mike McDermott Reference Librarian Univ. of Southern Maine From: "Eric Johnson DSU, Madison, SD 57042" <ERIC@SDNET> Subject: ICEBOL5 Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 06:20:56 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1190 (3002) Tentative Program for FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYMBOLIC AND LOGICAL COMPUTING Dakota State University Madison, SD 57042 April 18 - 19, 1991 Keynote Address by Nancy M. Ide, Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Vassar College. Author of Pascal for the Humanities and articles on William Blake, artificial intelligence, and programming for the analysis of texts. Bharath R. Modayur, University of Washington, "Restricted Domain Music Score Recognition Using Mathematical Morphology" Konstantin K. Boatyrev, University of California - Los Angeles, "Towards a Computer-Aided Rhythmical Analysis of Russian Prose" James F. Peters, III, Kansas State University, "A Parallel Logic Programming Approach to Rapid Prototyping Concurrent Programs" Phillip L. Thomas, Borneo Literary and Historical Manuscript Project, "Making Reason out of Rhyme" Sheela Ramanna and James F. Peters, III, Kansas State University, "Icarus: A Data Integrity Checker in Prolog" Bernard Paul Sypniewski, D.e.M. Software, "String Processing and Automatic File Generation" Hossein Saiedian and Mansour K. Zand, University of Nebraska, "A Framework for Formal Specification using Predicate Logic and Events" Mark Emmer, Catspaw, Inc., "Attaching a SPITBOL Engine to other Programming Languages" Sebastian Shaumyan, Yale University, "Applicative Universal Grammar and Machine Translation" Jeffrey Knisbacher, Department of Defense, "Designing a Hebrew PC Keyboard" Edward G. Nilges, Princeton University, "The Joy of (Parsing) Rexx: Notes on the Development of a Portable Rexx Parser" Kip Canfield, University of Maryland, "Database Tools for Navajo Lexicography" Ralph Griswold and Kenneth Walker, University of Arizona, "An Optimizing Compiler for the Icon Programming Language" Bruce Borass, Digital Equipment Corporation, banquet speaker, "One Uncommon String that is not a Genuine Fake" Ralph Griswold and Clinton L. Jeffrey, University of Arizona, "X-Icon: An Icon Windows Interface" Zohreh Talebizadeh, Chamran University, "Computer Objects vs. Biological Organisms: Can the Comparison Improve Logical Modeling of Complex Systems" Mansour K. Zand and Hossein Saiedian, University of Nebraska at Omaha, "A Methodology for Selecting Expert Systems" Anthony Mark McEnery, University of Lancaster, David Reid and Michael Philip Oakes, University of Liverpool, "Principles of Simulating Neural Activity" Bruce A. White, Dakota State University, "An Expert System for Advising College Students" Robert D. Freeman, Oklahoma State University, "Icon String-scanning for Parsing Chemical Formulas and Equations" Sylvain Delisle, University of Ottawa and Stan Szpakowicz, University of Witwatersrand, "A Broad-Coverage Parser for Knowledge Acquisition from Technical Texts" Jerry Nowlin and Rick Fonorow, AT&T Bell Labs, "Digitized Voice Management with Icon" Tim F. O'Donoghue, University of Leeds, "EPOW: The Edited Polytechnic of Wales Corpus" Marilyn Mantel-Guss, Goodwill Industries, "An Icon Program to Assist Writing for the Re-Abled" For more information and registration forms, contact Eric Johnson ERIC@SDNET.BITNET (605) 256-5270 From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.1177 Writing Anecdotes (was Technophobia and Writing) Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1991 13:09:21 GMT+0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2606 (3003) "Some (not academic) jobs now require a hand-written letter of application... as far as I can tell, it's to see whether the person can in fact spell and write without machines." -- In Israel we went through a spell a few years ago when many, many jobs, including in universities (but not academic staff), required hand-written letters (not written on-site). The reason had nothing to do with spelling; the letter was turned over to a graphologist (no kidding!) who pronounced a verdict on the person's character, temperament and suitability for the position being offered. In at least one case that I know of personally, a construction engineer who'd spent a few years directing large- scale projects for an Israeli construction firm in Africa was unable to get a job doing exactly the same, on a much smaller scale, in Israel on his return, because the graphologist said he was totally unsuitable for such a position (after 6 months he left the country). I once worked out that it's to the graphologist's advantage to pronounce people as unsuited rather than suited to the position (if the probability of the decision being correct is no greater than chance) -- but that's another story. Fanciful? If it can happen here it can happen in the U.S. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to enquire why a hand-written letter is needed... Incidentally, the current rage over here is to assess suitability by psychometric tests rather than handwriting. As far as I can tell their success rate at predicting success isn't much better than chance either. (Example: a friend who decided on a mid-life career change was refused entry to a government-run programming course, because the psychometric tests showed she was totally unsuitable for the profession. It took her several months of pleading and a signed statement that they were under no obligation to try to find employment for her etc. etc. before they agreed to accept her. She graduated top of the class. Oh, her previous profession? Specialist multi-lingual typesetting, i.e. persuading the most advanced printing machines to do everything their software was supposed to and then some. They'd call her in, as a consultant, when nobody else could "talk" to the machine... She still does it in her spare time, because people like that are so rare that it's too lucrative to give up. Perhaps they're also too rare for the psychometric tests.) Judy Koren From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk Subject: Re: [4.1177 Writing Anecdotes (was Technophobia and Writing)] Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 08:21:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2607 (3004) Leslie Morgan wrote recently [deleted quotation] According to a radio interview here recently, the reason is not as he supposes, but because graphology is now big business in big business. The letters are sent for analysis to gain insight into the personality and suitability of the candidates. Are any Humanists exploring the scientific basis of such analyses? Douglas de Lacey, Cambridge University. From: BANKS@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: More technophobia and writing Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 9:58 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2608 (3005) Perhaps this was a message that got lost... In reply to Leslie Morgan's point on companies requesting hand-written letters with job applications, I'd heard that they promptly send the letter off to a graphologist to "analyse". The British paper, "The Guardian", carries European job ads at the weekends and the French ones invariably ask for hand-written letters. Presumably someone, somewhere believes in graphology. Marcus Banks Social Anthropology, Oxford BANKS@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX From: Eslinger@UNCAMULT.BITNET Subject: Global Culture Conference Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 14:22 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2609 (3006) Notice of Conference: Professor Karla Poewe, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary is hohas organized a conference "Global Culture: Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement Worldwidee" to be held from May 9-11 at the University of Calgary. Speakers include David MartiMark Mullins, Irving Hexham, Hans Rollman, Charles Ninkirchen, Gerald Roelofs, Nancy Schwartz, Walter Hollenweger, Andre Droogers, Johannes Fabian, James Houston, Stanley Johannesen, Russell Spittler, and Karla Poewe. Registration $55. All enquiries to: Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, 2500 Universit Drive, N.W., Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada, or call: (403) 220-7238; FAX (403) 282-7822.enkirchen, From: Jeremy Butler <JBUTLER@UA1VM> Subject: New Film and TV Studies Discussion List Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 09:42:06 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2610 (3007) There's a new list devoted to the study of film and television: SCREEN-L on LISTSERV@UA1VM - Film and TV Studies Discussion List or LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU SCREEN-L is an unmoderated list for all who study, teach, theorize about or research film and television--mostly in an academic setting, but not necessarily so. SCREEN-L ranges from the abstract (post- post-structuralist theory) to the concrete (roommate match-ups for the next SCS/UFVA conference). Pedagogical, historical, theoretical, and production issues pertaining to film and TV studies are welcomed. To subscribe to SCREEN-L, send the following command to LISTSERV@UA1VM (or LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU) via e-mail or interactive message (TELL/SEND): SUBSCRIBE SCREEN-L <your_full_name> "<your_full_name>" is your name as you wish it to appear on the list. For example: SUBSCRIBE SCREEN-L Budd Boetticher Archives of SCREEN-L and related files are stored in the SCREEN-L FILELIST. To receive a list of files send the command INDEX SCREEN-L to LISTSERV@UA1VM (or LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU). Owner: Jeremy Butler JBUTLER@UA1VM JBUTLER@UA1VM.UA.EDU From: Isaiah Gafni <HNUGI@HUJIVM1> Subject: Conference Announcement Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1991 10:30 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2611 (3008) THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCE STUDIES, HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM THE VICTOR ROTHCHILD MEMORIAL SYMPOSIA announce THE FIRST JERUSALEM SUMMER SCHOOL IN JEWISH STUDIES, ON: CONTACTS BETWEEN JEWISH CULTURE AND ITS ENVIRONMENT THROUGH THE AGES 22 July - 1 August 1991 Director: Prof. Efraim E. Urbach Academic Coordinator: Prof. Moshe Greenberg Lecturers: Robert Bonfil, Isaiah Gafni, Avraham Grossman, Hava Lazarus- Yafeh (Hebrew University); Michael M.Meyer (Hebrew Union College); David Ruderman (Yale University). Modern study of Jewish cultural history is distinguished by its awareness of the profound interplay of internal and external stimuli - not only in conflict but also in wide-ranging assimilation and adaption. The Summer School in Jewish Studies will display recent advances in our grasp of this interplay in: The Hellenistic-Talmudic Age, the Judaeo-Islamic symbiosis, Ashkenazi Jewry in its Christian setting, the rise of Jewish Historiography, and post-emancipation Europe. The school is intended for qualified students at graduate and postdoctoral level from all countries. Registration fee, lodging + half board for the duration of the school is $400. A number of grants will? be available. Address for applications: Jerusalem Summer School in Jewish Studies, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, ISRAEL Bitnet: ADVANC@HUJIVMS, Fax: 972-2-523429 From: Karen Miselis <KMISELIS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: Job Opening, Academic Computing Date: Thursday, 28 March 1991 0105-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1193 (3009) Associate Dean/Director of Academic Computing The School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania is seeking an Associate Dean/Director of Academic Computing. The School of Arts and Sciences has approximately 10,000 students, 500 full-time faculty, and an annual budget of $160 million. Responsibilities: The Associate Dean/Director is responsible for all aspects of academic computing in the School, including research computing, instructional computing, and data communications. The current components of SAS Academic Computing are Mainframe Services, Networking Services, Microcomputing Services, Humanities Computing, and Social Science Computing. The school maintains several microcomputer laboratories as well as an audio-visual center. The total full-time staff reporting to the Director is approximately 35 people with a total budget of $3.2 million. The Director is responsible for maintaining partnerships between SAS Academic Computing and the Office of the Vice Provost for Computing and Information Systems as well as the other schools in the University. The Associate Dean/Director will play a significant role in the process of reorganization of research and instructional computing in SAS in a new effort to streamline operations, reduce duplication of effort, and provide high quality service to our clients. The Director is also expected to take leadership in the areas of new technologies and processes in the support of research and instructional computing as well as data communications. Qualifications: Experience in the management of academic computing and technical expertise sufficient to support research and instructional computing in a large, research institution are required. A Ph.D. and teaching experience using instructional computing tools are preferred. Ability to communicate and relate effectively with diverse groups within the academic community is essential. Leadership and excellent management skills are extremely important, especially with regard to reorganization and retraining. Salary: Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications. Applications: Candidates should submit a letter of application and resume by April 15, 1991 to Dr. Karen Miselis, Associate Dean for Administration, School of Arts and Sciences, 116 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6377. The position is available for July 1991. From: LTMATTHE@CNEDCU51.BITNET Subject: text preprocessing Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 06:55 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2612 (3010) Hello everyone! My name is Alain Matthey and I am a computer scientist. I am working as a research assistant in the Laboratory of Speech and Language Processing of the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland). The members of this laboratory are working now on a research project which consists to develop a kind of spell and grammar checker like Grammatik, IBM's Critique, Mac Proof, Hugo or Sans fautes but for French native speakers who write in English. In this project, I will have to implemant the "preprocessing step" which consists to recognise and delimit the sentences and the words of a text. How to find and delimit automatically sentences and words in any kind of ASCII texts? That's the problem!!! So I am looking for some informations (bibliography, papers, etc.) about "preprocessing of ASCII texts". For any more informations or for an answer, please contact me at the address above: Alain Matthey Laboratoire de traitement du langage et de la parole UNIVERSITE DE NEUCHATEL Avenue du Premier-Mars 26 CH-2000 NEUCHATEL SWITZERLAND Phone: 038 25 38 51 (int. 27) Fax: 038 25 18 32 E-mail: LTMATTHEY@CNEDCU51.BITNET Thank you very much for your help! Best regards. Alain Matthey P.S. It is not forbidden to write in French!!! From: "don l. f. nilsen" <ATDFN@ASUACAD> Subject: HUMOR STUDIES Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 15:53:36 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2613 (3011) I'm interested in networking with anyone who is interested in humor studies. We have an organization, the "International Society for Humor Studies," and a quarterly journal, HUMOR: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMOR STUDIES, and we hold annual international conferences. The Ninth International Humor Conference will be held at Brock University in Canada, only a few miles from Niagara Falls. If you're interested in receiving more information, please send me your snail-mail address. I'm in The English Department of Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85287-0302). My e-mail address is ATDFN @ ASUACAD. I would be very interested in knowing what you are doing in any aspect of humor scholarship. Don Nilsen, Executive Secretary, International Society for Humor Studies. From: "Selden E. Ball, Jr." <seb@lns61.tn.cornell.edu> Subject: USSR BBSList Date: 23 Mar 91 09:05:00 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1195 (3012) Gentle folk, Many people are doubtless already aware of this, but it came as a bit of a surprise to me. It is now possible to direct-dial computer bulletin boards in the USSR and eastern European countries. Many of them are already on FidoNet. The following list of BBSs was recently posted to a widely read news group. The potential transmission speed for computer viruses is increasing faster than your favorite comparison. sigh. Selden Ball seb@lns61.tn.cornell.edu Original-Date: 15 Mar 91 23:01:15 EST Original-From: Frank Topping <76537.1713@CompuServe.COM> Original-Subject: USSR BBSList I thought some teachers might be interested in this - they're growing like wildfire & connectivity opportunities abound! - -frank Known USSR Bulletin Board Systems Version 10c of 3/13/91 Compilation (C) 1991 Serge Terekhov BBS name ! Data phone ! Modem ! FIDO addr -----------------------------!----------------!----------!------------ PsychodeliQ Hacker Club BBS +7-351-237-3700 2400 2:5010/2 Kaunas #7 BBS +7-012-720-0274 ? - Villa Metamorph BBS +7-012-720-0228 ? - WolfBox +7-012-773-0134 1200 2:49/10 Spark System Designs +7-057-233-9344 1200 2:489/1 Post Square BBS +7-044-417-5700 2400 - Ozz Land +7-017-277-8327 2400 - Alan BBS +7-095-532-2943 2400/MNP 2:5020/11 Angel Station BBS +7-095-939-5977 2400 2:5020/10 Bargain +7-095-383-9171 2400 2:5020/7 Bowhill +7-095-939-0274 2400/MNP 2:5020/9 JV Dialogue 1st +7-095-329-2192 2400/MNP 2:5020/6 Kremlin +7-095-205-3554 2400 2:480/100 Moscow Fair +7-095-366-5209 9600/MNP 2:5020/0 Nightmare +7-095-128-4661 2400/MNP 2:5020/1 MoSTNet 2nd +7-095-193-4761 2400/MNP 2:5020/4 Wild Moon +7-095-366-5175 9600/MNP 2:5020/2 Hall of Guild +7-383-235-4457 2400/MNP 2:5000/0 The Court of Crimson King +7-383-235-6722 2400/MNP 2:50/0 Sine Lex BBS +7-383-235-4811 19200/PEP 2:5000/30 The Communication Tube +7-812-315-1158 2400/MNP 2:50/200 KREIT BBS +7-812-164-5396 2400 2:50/201 Petersburg's Future +7-812-310-4864 2400 - Eesti #1 +7-014-242-2583 9600/MNP - Flying Disks BBS +7-014-268-4911 2400/MNP 2:490/40.401 Goodwin BBS +7-014-269-1872 2400/MNP 2:490/20 Great White of Kopli +7-014-247-3943 2400 2:490/90 Hacker's Night System #1 +7-014-244-2143 9600/HST 2:490/1 Lion's Cave +7-014-253-6246 9600/HST 2:490/70 Mailbox for citizens of galaxy +7-014-253-2350 1200 2:490/30 MamBox +7-014-244-3360 19200/PEP 2:490/40 New Age System +7-014-260-6319 2400 2:490/12 Space Island +7-014-245-1611 2400 - XBase System +7-014-249-3091 2400/MNP 2:490/40.403 LUCIFER +7-014-347-7218 2400 2:490/11 MESO +7-014-343-3434 2400/MNP 2:490/60 PaPer +7-014-343-3351 1200 2:490/70 -----------------------------!----------------!----------!------------ |--- Maximus-CBCS v1.02 | * Origin: The Court of the Crimson King (2:50/0) From: "Ian M. Richmond" <42100_1156@uwovax.uwo.ca> Subject: dBase memo fields Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 18:38:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2614 (3013) Perry Willett reports that he has trouble with dBase memo fields and foreign characters. I used dBase a couple of years ago and had the same difficulty. The problem, as I recall, was that dBase's built-in editor would not save the high ASCII characters but invariably stripped the high bit from them so that e acute (ASCII 130), for example, was saved as a smiling face (ASCII 002). The solution to this problem was to use dBase's facility for replacing the built-in editor with one of the user's choice. (WordPerfect was far too big for the job, so I used PC-Write, but any small editor--preferably one that produces ASCII files--would do the job. Qedit, which is available as shareware, is extremely fast, and takes up only about 60K of disk storage would probably be ideal.) The editor can be set in the dBase configuration file. Once this is done, the selected editor is used automatically whenever the user edits a memo field. Ian M. Richmond, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7. 519-661-2163 Ext 5703 also IMR@UWOVAX.BITNET From: Otmar.K.E.Foelsche@mac.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: 4.1185 E-Bibles and Canonical Texts (2/48) Date: 28 Mar 91 11:24:55 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2615 (3014) In case it hasn't been mentioned before, there is a German CD ROM called "Die Bibel CD ROM" for PC DOS and Macintosh (Hypercard access) containing Luther's translation, the "Einheitsuebersetzung," "Biblia Sacra," Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia," "Septuaginta," "The Greek New Testament," etc. Obtainable through Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Balingerstr. 31, Postfach 81 03 40, D-7000 Stuttgart 80. FAX 49-711-7181-126. If I understand their brochure correctly, the CD does also contain a large set of maps in Pict files. Otmar Foelsche From: robin@utafll.uta.edu (Robin Cover) Subject: Copyright Questions (ancient etexts) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 91 10:50:22 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1197 (3015) I have several questions on a perennial topic: copyright of electronic text. These are questions to which I did not find adequate answers by examining the HUMANIST topical collections (RIGHTS TOPIC-1 ... RIGHTS TOPIC-5) from 1988-1989, or by examining the database output of HUMANIST discussions during 1990-1991. (1) Does anyone know of specific actions taken by professional societies to help shape constituencies' awareness, attitudes, scholarly expectations and professional ethics policies in the matter of "(non-) ownership" of electronic literary texts? I missed the recent ACH/ALLC forum in Tempe chaired by Mike Neuman (a summary to HUMANIST would be most appreciated) which may bear on this question. I am most interested in MLA, APA and similar societies where committees for (ca.) 'Research and Publication' may have taken steps formulate ethical standards which reflect the needs and values of textual scholarship within its purview -- independent of what the current copyright laws and interpretations might be. (2) Similarly, does anyone know of publishers which have formulated and publicized policy statements on their willingness to support textual scholarship by releasing electronic texts ( e.g., declaring a commitment to place primary texts -- pre-modern texts for which they has also sponsored paper publication -- in public access)? (3) Can anyone summarize the current policies (publicized or induced) of NEH or other granting agencies in decidedly favoring research and publication efforts which commit to placing electronic texts in public domain? By "public domain" I mean placed in areas of unrestricted public access, accompanied by "copyleft" kinds of legal instruments to protect the texts from becoming owned, sold or in other ways proprietarily controlled. Would it violate antitrust laws for granting agencies to explicitly publicize such policies? (4) Among the many variations on Ted Nelson's (Xanaduvian) "pay-by-the-bit" chargeback scheme to reward personal authors -- and cut out traditional publishers :-) -- have there been detailed proposals by textual scholars to strongly differentiate between the primary texts themselves and scholarly work in editorial comment and exposition (e.g., a transcription of an ancient text as opposed to critical apparatus, textual commentary, philological notes)? (5) Can anyone supply an analytical outline of all the relevant issues surrounding the matter of copyright and intellectual property in electronic text? A nice outline would emerge from re-reading the HUMANIST discussions, but I don't with to duplicate an effort that more competent participants may have already done. Does anyone have a selected reading list for distribution? Thanks in advance for any assistance forwarded to me personally or to the HUMANIST discussion. Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 6634 Sarah Drive Internet: zrcc1001@vm.cis.smu.edu Dallas, TX 75236 USA Internet: robin@utafll.uta.edu ("uta-ef-el-el") Tel: (1 214) 296-1783 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu FAX: (1 214) 841-3642 Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: Peter D. Junger <pdj2@po.cwru.edu> Subject: Important Copyright Decision by US Supreme Court Date: 2 Apr 91 12:30:54 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1198 (3016) On March 27, 1991, the United States Supreme Court decided Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., ___ U.S. ___ (1991), a copyright case with important implications for those concerned with humanities computing, even though that case did not involve computers and even though the only text involved was the white pages of a rural telephone directory. The lower courts had found Feist Publications guilty of a copyright violation because it had copied listings from Rural Telephone Service Co.'s telephone directory (including four fictitious listings) and inserted them in its own regional telephone directory. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice O'Connor, reversed, holding--in no uncertain terms--that facts, even those in a compilation, are not copyrightable and that only `original' work is protected by the copyright laws. The court expressly rejected the argument, which had been accepted by some lower courts, that a compiler was entitled to copyright protection simply because of the "sweat of the brow" or the "industrious collection" that went into the making of the compilation. The significance of this case for those concerned with humanities computing lies in the fact that the Supreme Court has now made it clear that material in the public domain (including not only facts, but also texts that are not, or are no longer, subject to copyright protection) can be safely copied from a compilation (or database, for a database is just a compilation on a computer) even though the compilation itself is copyrighted. Only the original work of the compiler is protected by the copyright of the compilation. (The Feist case also holds that there is no originality involved in arranging the entries in a telephone book in alphabetical order.) Here are some passages from Justice O'Connor's opinion in Feist (downloaded from Westlaw's online database of law cases): This case concerns the interaction of two well-established propositions. The first is that facts are not copyrightable; the other, that compilations of facts generally are. Each of these propositions possesses an impeccable pedigree. That there can be no valid copyright in facts is universally understood. The most fundamental axiom of copyright law is that "[n]o author may copyright his ideas or the facts he narrates." .... At the same time, however, it is beyond dispute that compilations of facts are within the subject matter of copyright. Compilations were expressly mentioned in the Copyright Act of 1909, and again in the Copyright Act of 1976. There is an undeniable tension between these two propositions. Many compilations consist of nothing but raw data--i. e., wholly factual information not accompanied by any original written expression. On what basis may one claim a copyright in such a work? Common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change their status when gathered together in one place. Yet copyright law seems to contemplate that compilations that consist exclusively of facts are potentially within its scope. The key to resolving the tension lies in understanding why facts are not copyrightable. The sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author. See Harper & Row, supra, at 547-549. Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. 1 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Copyright ss 2.01[A], [B] (1990) (hereinafter Nimmer). To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, "no matter how crude, humble or obvious" it might be. Id., s 1.08[C][1]. Originality does not signify novelty; a work may be original even though it closely resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying. To illustrate, assume that two poets, each ignorant of the other, compose identical poems. Neither work is novel, yet both are original and, hence, copyrightable. See Sheldon v. Metro- Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 81 F. 2d 49, 54 (CA2 1936). Originality is a constitutional requirement. The source of Congress' power to enact copyright laws is Article I, s 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to "secur[e] for limited Times to Authors ... the exclusive Right to their respective Writings." In two decisions from the late 19th Century-The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82 (1879); and Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U. S. 53 (1884)-this Court defined the crucial terms "authors" and "writings." In so doing, the Court made it unmistakably clear that these terms presuppose a degree of originality. In The Trade-Mark Cases, the Court addressed the constitutional scope of "writings." For a particular work to be classified "under the head of writings of authors," the Court determined, "originality is required." 100 U. S., at 94. The Court explained that originality requires independent creation plus a modicum of creativity: "[W]hile the word writings may be liberally construed, as it has been, to include original designs for engraving, prints, & c., it is only such as are original, and are founded in the creative powers of the mind. The writings which are to be protected are the fruits of intellectual labor, embodied in the form of books, prints, engravings, and the like." Ibid. (emphasis in original).* {*Here is an example of the absence of markup in materials downloaded from Weslaw and Lexis; Justice O'Connor's "emphasis" is missing.} In Burrow-Giles, the Court distilled the same requirement from the Constitu- tion's use of the word "authors." The Court defined "author," in a constitutional sense, to mean "he to whom anything owes its origin; originator; maker." 111 U. S., at 58 (internal quotations omitted). As in The TradeMark Cases, the Court emphasized the creative component of originality. It described copyright as being limited to "original intellectual conceptions of the author," ibid., and stressed the importance of requiring an author who accuses another of infringement to prove "the existence of those facts of originality, of intellectual production, of thought, and conception." Id., at 59-60. . . . . It is this bedrock principle of copyright that mandates the law's seemingly disparate treatment of facts and factual compilations. "No one may claim originality as to facts." Id., s 2.11[A], p. 2-157. This is because facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship. The distinction is one between creation and discovery: the first person to find and report a particular fact has not created the fact; he or she has merely discovered its existence. To borrow from BurrowGiles, one who discovers a fact is not its "maker" or "originator." 111 U. S., at 58. "The discoverer merely finds and records." Nimmer s 2.03[E]. Census-takers, for example, do not "create" the population figures that emerge from their efforts; in a sense, they copy these figures from the world around them. Denicola, Copyright in Collections of Facts: A Theory for the Protection of Nonfiction Literary Works, 81 Colum. L. Rev. 516, 525 (1981) (hereinafter Denicola). Census data therefore do not trigger copyright because these data are not "original" in the constitutional sense. Nimmer s 2.03[E]. The same is true of all facts-scientific, historical, biographical, and news of the day. "[T]hey may not be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every person." Miller, supra, at 1369. Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrange- ment, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a mini- mal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. Nimmer ss 2.11[D], 3.03; Denicola 523, n. 38. Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement. See Harper & Row, 471 U. S., at 547. Accord Nimmer s 3.03. This protection is subject to an important limitation. The mere fact that a work is copyrighted does not mean that every element of the work may be protected. Originality remains the sine qua non of copyright; accordingly, copyright protection may extend only to those components of a work that are original to the author. Patterson & Joyce 800-802; Ginsburg, Creation and Commercial Value: Copyright Protection of Works of Information, 90 Colum. L. Rev. 1865, 1868, and n. 12 (1990) (hereinafter Ginsburg). Thus, if the compilation author clothes facts with an original collocation of words, he or she may be able to claim a copyright in this written expression. Others may copy the underlying facts from the publication, but not the precise words used to present them. In Harper & Row, for example, we explained that President Ford could not prevent others from copying bare historical facts from his autobiography, see 471 U. S., at 556-557, but that he could prevent others from copying his "subjective descriptions and portraits of public figures." Id., at 563. Where the compilation author adds no written expression but rather lets the facts speak for themselves, the expressive element is more elusive. The only conceivable expression is the manner in which the compiler has selected and arranged the facts. Thus, if the selection and arrangement are original, these elements of the work are eligible for copyright protection. See Patry, Copyright in Compilations of Facts (or Why the "White Pages" Are Not Copy rightable), 12 Com. & Law 37, 64 (Dec. 1990) (hereinafter Patry). No matter how original the format, however, the facts themselves do not become original through association. See Patterson & Joyce 776. This inevitably means that the copyright in a factual compilation is thin. Notwithstanding a valid copyright, a subsequent compiler remains free to use the facts contained in an another's publication to aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not feature the same selection and arrangement. As one commentator explains it: "[N]o matter how much original authorship the work displays, the facts and ideas it exposes are free for the taking.... [T]he very same facts and ideas may be divorced from the context imposed by the author, and restated or reshuffled by second comers, even if the author was the first to discover the facts or to propose the ideas." Ginsburg 1868. It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme." Harper & Row, 471 U. S., at 589 (dissenting opinion). It is, rather, "the essence of copyright," ibid., and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, 8, cl. 8. Accord Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U. S. 151, 156 (1975). To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. Harper & Row, supra, at 556-557. This principle, known as the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy, applies to all works of authorship. As applied to a factual compila- tion, assuming the absence of original written expression, only the compiler's selection and arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art. This Court has long recognized that the fact/expression dichotomy limits severely the scope of protection in fact-based works. More than a century ago, the Court observed: "The very object of publishing a book on science or the useful arts is to communicate to the world the useful knowledge which it con- tains. But this object would be frustrated if the knowledge could not be used without incurring the guilt of piracy of the book." Baker v. Selden, 101 U. S. 99, 103 (1880). We reiterated this point in Harper & Row: "[N]o author may copyright facts or ideas. The copyright is limited to those aspects of the work-termed 'expression'--that display the stamp of the author's originality. "[C]opyright does not prevent subsequent users from copying from a prior author's work those constituent elements that are not original--for example ... facts, or materials in the public domain--as long as such use does not unfairly appropriate the author's original contributions." 471 U. S., at 547-548 (citation omitted). This, then, resolves the doctrinal tension: Copyright treats facts and factual compilations in a wholly consistent manner. Facts, whether alone or as part of a compilation, are not original and therefore may not be copyrighted. A factual compilation is eligible for copyright if it features an original selection or arrangement of facts, but the copyright is limited to the particular selection or arrangement. In no event may copyright extend to the facts themselves. And there you have it. No protection for the facts included in a compilation or database and, a fortiori, no protection for materials already in the public domain that are included in such a database. The question remains as to the extent of the protection given to the original portions of the compilation such as its organization. In Feist, the Court held that the organization of the White Pages was not entitled to any protection, saying: The question that remains is whether Rural selected, coordinated, or arranged these uncopyrightable facts in an original way. As mentioned, originality is not a stringent standard; it does not require that facts be presented in an innovative or surprising way. It is equally true, however, that the selection and arrangement of facts cannot be so mechanical or routine as to require no creativity whatsoever. The standard of originality is low, but it does exist. See Patterson & Joyce 760, n. 144 ("While this requirement is sometimes characterized as modest, or a low threshold, it is not without effect") (internal quotations omitted; citations omitted). As this Court has explained, the Constitution mandates some minimal degree of creativity, see The TradeMark Cases, 100 U. S., at 94; and an author who claims infringement must prove "the exist- ence of ... intellectual production, of thought, and conception." Burrow- Giles, supra, at 59-60. The selection, coordination, and arrangement of Rural's white pages do not satisfy the minimum constitutional standards for copyright protection. As mentioned at the outset, Rural's white pages are entirely typical. Persons desiring telephone service in Rural's service area fill out an application and Rural issues them a telephone number. In preparing its white pages, Rural simply takes the data provided by its subscribers and lists it alphabetically by surname. The end product is a garden-variety white pages directory, devoid of even the slightest trace of creativity. Rural's selection of listings could not be more obvious: it publishes the most basic information--name, town, and telephone number--about each person who applies to it for telephone service. This is "selection" of a sort, but it lacks the modicum of creativity necessary to transform mere selection into copyrightable expression. Rural expended sufficient effort to make the white pages directory useful, but insufficient creativity to make it original. Peter D. Junger Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cleveland, Ohio bitnet: JUNGER@CWRU internet: JUNGER@CWRU.CWRU.EDU or PDJ2@PO.CWRU.EDU From: cfwol@conncoll.bitnet Subject: E-mail to Netherland Antilles Date: Sat, 30 Mar 91 11:21:14 EST(3) (26 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2616 (3017) Dear List Members, Does anyone know of a way to contact University of St. Maarten in Philipsburg St. Maarten, NA via e-mail. Apparently the Univ is a branch of Johnson and Wales in Providence, RI. Please reply to me directly at cfwol@conncoll Thank you Claus Wolter Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physical Education Connecticut College New London, CT From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.1195 USSR Connections (1/81) Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1991 12:51:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2617 (3018) I was amazed both at the extensive list of USSR bulletin boards and at the level of knowledge required to communicated with these folks. Would someone please explain in simple English how to send e-mail to a FIDO number. Thanks. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * TVICKERY@SUNRISE.BITNET FAX 315-443-5732 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1> Subject: Personal E-Mail Directory Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2618 (3019) I compiled my own E-Mail directory rather easily. First I "REV" the lists I belong to: tell listserv at brownvm rev humanist or send a note to listserv at brownvm: rev humanist This produces a nice list of all members of the list and their E-Mail addresses. I downloaded that and the other REVs from other lists I subscribe to. I then integrated those all into one file and simply search it with a WordPerfect or Magellan when I want to find the address of a colleague. The directory is limited but helpful. As I started to plan a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls recently I went to the directory and found the addresses of the relevant scholars and E-mailed them inquiries. I then was able to put together a conference proposal in time for the Dean's deadline. Just one example of convenience. Any similar ideas on personal directories? *************************************************************** Snail-Mail:University of Minnesota, Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, 316 Folwell Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455 From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: users of TACT Date: Mon, 01 Apr 91 10:26:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2619 (3020) We at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, would like to hear from all current users of TACT, the interactive text-retrieval and analysis package developed here. We need to know -- if possible sometime this week -- who is using the package, exactly what it is being used for, and what users think of TACT in comparison to others of its kind. Replies should be addressed to me directly. Thanks very much. Yours, Willard McCarty From: DEL2@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: e-lexica Date: Tue, 02 Apr 91 13:34:52 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2620 (3021) I have a colleague who is thinking of creating a database out of Liddel-Scott's Greek lexicon. Does anyone out there know of comparable projects? Regards, Douglas de Lacey, Cambridge. From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Invention Date: Thu, 28 Mar 91 14:29 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2621 (3022) INVENTION The most recent issue of ETUDES FRANCAISES (26/3, winter l990) has just appeared, focussing on the meaning of invention in a number of different areas : cultural theory, art, economics, music, science and literature. What constitutes intellectual invention ? How do discoveries come into being and integrate themselves into the established reservoir of knowledge within the varying disciplines ? How does one move discourses and disciplines, even monuments, from one place to another to give meaning to the world and create the possibility for invention to come about ? These are some of the questions raised in the current issue of ETUDES FRANCAISES under the direction of Christie McDonald. Table of contents : "Introduction" (Christie McDonald, Professor of French, Universite de Montreal); "L'invention dans la pensee" (Judith Schlanger, Professor of Philosophy and Literature, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem); "Le mecanisme de l'invention dans l'elaboration de la semiologie musicale" (Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Professor of Musicology, Universite de Montreal), "De l'invention. Elements pour l'histoire lexicologique et semantique d'un concept : XVIe-XXe siecles" (Jacinthe Martel, French Department, Universite de Montreal); "Inventions et innovations dans le monde des affaires et des sciences" (Reuven Brenner, Professor of Economics, Universite de Montreal); "Joseph Cornell : l'invention de la boite surrealiste" (Mary Ann Caws, French, English and Comparative Literature, CUNY Graduate Center); "Pourquoi Einstein inventa-t-il une theorie dont personne n'avait besoin ?" (Jean Le Tourneux, Department of Physics, Universite de Montreal); "Penser l'invention" (Christie McDonald); "Le transport de l'obelisque du Vatican" (Richard Hemphill, Assistant Curator, Prints Department, The Museum of Fine Arts of Canada). ETUDES FRANCAISES can be obtained from : PERIODICA C.P. 444 Outremont (Quebec) Canada H2V 4R6 From: Darrell Duane <duane@xanth.cs.odu.edu> Subject: Software for Bibliographies Date: Sat, 30 Mar 91 20:26:02 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2622 (3023) I recently obtained a copy of the software Thesys. This program is written in the WordPerfect macro language and essentially writes your bibliographies for you based upon the information in the APA, MLA, Turabian or U of Chicago handbooks. At the opening screen, Thesys asks you for the style of bibliography to write, and then asks you which kind of work to cite. Thesys then asks for the appropriate information such as the author's name, copyright date, ect. & generates the citation. The program will then alphabetize the citations for you. Thesys also has a few other features such as an outline generator adn quick commands such as spell check and single/double space. It will also reformat the keyboard for 4 different languages(French, German, Spanish & Italian). Thesys is available for around $30 and comes with full documentation. For more info or to order call 1 800 THESYS7. Darrell Duane duane@xanth.cs.odu.edu From: Harry Whittaker <R12040 at UQAM> Subject: TENNET II: Neuropsychology Conference Date: 1 April 91, 00:39:34 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1202 (3024) ***Final Program*** TENNET II (Theoretical and Experimental Neuropsychology Neuropsychologie experimentale et theorique) SYMPOSIA, May 8-10, 1991 WEDNESDAY A.M. May 8 9:00 a.m. -- 12:00 noon (1) HANDEDNESS AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY: (Organizers: M.P.Bryden and I.McManus) M. P. Bryden Handedness as a neuropsychological variable. Michael Peters Unresolved problems in determining handedness on the basis of motor performance. I.C.McManus Genetic models of handedness and cerebral dominance. WEDNESDAY P.M. May 8 2:00 p.m. -- 5:00 p.m. (2) ORTHOGRAPHIC AND PHONOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE LEXICON: (Organizer: Alfonso Caramazza) Brenda Rapp: The Structure of Graphemic Representations Eleanor Saffran: Morphology and the Orthographic Lexicon Victoria Fromkin: Representation and Access of Words, Morphemes and Rules Alfonso Caramazza: discussant THURSDAY A.M. May 9 9:00 a.m. -- 12:00 noon (3) ATTENTION DEFICIT SYNDROME AND FRONTAL LOBE DEVELOPMENT: (Organizer: Marcel Kinsbourne) Frank Wood: Physiologiocal and psychological tests of the frontal hypothesis of ADD in children and adults. Mary Lou Smith: Studying the development of frontal lobe functions: Approaches and limitations Marcel Kinsbourne: Neuropsychological Functioning in Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder THURSDAY P.M. May 9 2:00 p.m. -- 5:00 p.m. (4) NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF MEMORY: THEORIES AND MODELS (Organizer: Morris Moscovitch) Morris Moscovitch: Modules and central systems in memory with and without awareness Dan Schacter: Priming and memory systems: A cognitive neuroscience perspective Larry Jacoby: Separating automatic from intentional uses of memory FRIDAY A.M. May 10 9:00 a.m. -- 12:00 noon (5) NARRATIVE AND DISCOURSE PROCESSES (Organizers: Hiram Brownell and Yves Joanette) Yves Joanette & Hiram Brownell: Introduction M. Fayol: Narrative and Discourse Processes: An Overview C. Fredericksen: Cognitive Representation and Processing of Discourse W. Labov: The Effects of Normal Aging on Discourse G. Glosser: Discourse Production in Brain-damaged Patients FRIDAY P.M. May 10 2:00 p.m. -- 5:00 p.m. (6) HISTORICAL STUDIES IN NEUROPSYCHOLOGY: Friday p.m. (Organizers: Andre Roch Lecours and Harry Whitaker) Harry Whitaker & Christin Grou: The Phrenological Origins of our Concepts of Cerebral Dominance Bernard Brais: Brain Localization: A Republican Creed; A Chapter in the History of Medical Reform during the Second Empire 1852-1870 Anne Harrington: Brain Metaphors as a Cultural Resource Andre Roch Lecours: The Origin and Evolution of Writing Systems -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. TENNETII CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Biblical text projects (listing) Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 11:06 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1203 (3025) HUMANISTS: The following is a compilation of information about electronic bibles and biblical studies taken from our catalogue of electronic text projects here at Georgetown University. Enclosed you will find the key to our catalogue entries, followed by the list of electronic text projects dealing with The Bible and with biblical studies. I will soon be posting a list of projects dealing with septuagint studies (Jewish, Talmudic, etc. studies). If I can be of any service to anyone seeking to locate electronic texts, or electronic text projects, or any further information on any project(s), please feel free to contact me personally at the address below. Sincerely, James A. Wilderotter II Project Assistant Center for Text and Technology Academic Computer Center Reiss Science Building, Room 238 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 Tel. (202) 687-6096 BITNET: Wilder@Guvax Internet: Edu%"Wilder@Guvax.Georgetown.Edu" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key to abbreviations on the status of the entry (at upper left): - Full information has been gathered for the forthcoming Gaunt-Raben publication, The Electronic Scholar's Research Guide. x Information has been added to the entry since 4/10/89. i An inquiry requesting further details has been sent to the contact person at the project. r A response from the project's contact person has been added to the catalogue. Key to the source of information [in brackets] after the location and title of a project: Allen = Robert F. Allen, ed., Databases in the Humanities and Social Sciences 1983, Osprey, FL: Paradigm Press, 1985. Hughes = John J. Hughes, Bits, Bytes & Biblical Studies, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987. L&M = Ian Lancashire and Willard McCarty, The Humanities Computing Yearbook 1988, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1988. Moberg = Thomas F. Moberg, ed., Databases in the Humanities and Social Sciences 1985, Osprey, FL: Paradigm Press. NEH = National Endowment for the Humanities List of Awards 1988 Taylor and Leech = Lita Taylor and Geoffrey Leech, "Lancaster Preliminary Survey of Machine-Readable Language Corpora" HUMANIST Bulletin Board. BITNET. May 26, 1989 Names of contributors (with media and dates of communication) Key to numbered items for the entries: 0. Identifying Acronym 1. Name and Affiliation of Operation (with collaborators noted) Reference to any published description [esp. most recent or most complete] 2. Contact Person and/or Vendor with Addresses (including telephone, BITNET, and Internet) 3. Primary Disciplinary Interest (and Secondary Interests) [e.g. Literature, Language, Linguistics, Music, Art, Biography] 4. Focus: Time Period, Location, Individual, Genre, or Medium 5. Language(s) encoded (English, German, French, et.al.) 6. Intended Use(s) [e.g. textbank, database, bibliography] with Goal (or Statement of Purpose) and Size [number of works, or entries, or citations] 7. Format(s), including choice of sequential text or data base excerpts, file formats, analytical programs and programming languages, text markup and encoding schemes, hardware and operating systems, etc.) To what extent are the formats consistent throughout the archive? 8. Form(s) of Access: if online, what policies? if tape, what track, bpi, block size, labels, parity setting? if diskette, what size and operating system or microcomputer? if CD-ROM, what format? What software is needed for accessing? 9. Source(s) of the Archival Holdings Encoded in-house, or obtained from elsewhere (where)? Textual authority used for encoding? Availability and price -------------------- [A complete version of this file is now available through the fileserver, s.v. BIBLICAL E-TEXTS. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Rainer Henrich <K145310@CZHRZU1A> Subject: Question: Thesaurus Sancti Bernardi Claraevallensis Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 09:05:40 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2623 (3026) I am trying to find the source of the following saying, attributed to Saint Bernard: "Ubi religio peperit divitias, filia matrem devoravit." Unfortunately, the microfiches containing the concordance are missing in our library. Can anyone check them for me? Please reply to K145310@CZHRZU1A. Rainer Henrich, lic. theol. ************************* Kalktarrenstrasse 1 ********** ********** CH-8952 Schlieren ********** ********** Switzerland ****** ****** ****** ****** ********** ********** Tel. 01 / 730 21 02 ********** ********** Telefax 01 / 262 14 12 ************************* From: ksteele@epas.utoronto.ca (Ken Steele) Subject: UNIX Concordance Packages Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1991 11:54:38 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2624 (3027) Thanks to the fiscal responsibility of the University of Toronto, I have just taken the plunge into UNIX. This switch also entails Internet access, telnet, etc., which leads me to ask this question of members of Humanist: Is anyone aware of UNIX-based concordance software, such as might be used to set up a telnet database on the Internet? Public Domain or shareware would probably be preferable, but reasonably-priced packages should also enter into consideration. Thanks in advance to all who reply, whether to HUMANIST or directly to my address. Yours, Ken Steele University of Toronto <ksteele@epas.utoronto.ca> From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET> Subject: De Italia Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 09:43:18 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2625 (3028) Several people here recall having encountered a mention of something called De Italia, but have not been able to verify the item. The subject area is archaeology/epigraphy, and it is believed to be a videodisc or a cd-rom. Can anyone help? Joseph Jones University of British Columbia Library From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU> Subject: Re:4.1198 US Supreme Court Date: Wed, Apr 3, 1991 9:55:56 AM X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2626 (3029) RE>4.1198 US Supreme Court: Extremely interesting. In view of this decision about not being able to copyright the facts of a compilation, how would copying the table of contents of a periodical count (and by copying, I mean retyping in a different format to avoid specific layout and design issues)? I could see "originality" in an index, because index terms are (I hope) carefully and meticulously chosen, but a table of contents merely lists an article title and the page number. Aren't there a number of publications, like Reader's Guide to Periodicals that already do this? Do they pay licensing fees or has this specific question been moot for some time now? thanks ... -Adam ace@tidbits.tcnet.ithaca.ny.us The best way to predict the future pv9y@crnlvax5, pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu is to invent it. -Alan Kay From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: Where one _cannot_ obtain a copy of the _Feist_ Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 13:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2627 (3030) When I sent that that overly long message to Humanist about the recent copyright decision I figured that some of you would want to see the entire opinion, so I planned to explain how it can be obtained --by those who don't have access to LEXIS or WESTLAW--from the Supreme Court files maintained by project Hermes on the Cleveland Freenet, an internet node that is maintained by Case Western Reserve University's Information Network Services. I asked Judy Kaul, one of our research librarians, to get that information for me; as I have access to LEXIS and WESTLAW I do not use project Hermes as a source of Supreme Court opinions. It turned out that the _Feist_ decision is not available on Freenet. It just isn't there. And there are a couple of other cases that are missing from the current term. I can't explain why the cases are missing--our Information Network Services has indulged in some awfully heavy handed censorship, but I can't see why they would purge three randomly selected Supreme Court opinions--they are just missing. So instead of telling you how to get the Feist case, I've got to post this message as a warning to those who use, or are thinking of using, the project Hermes files on Freenet. SOME OF THE FILES ARE MISSING! It's a shame. Project Hermes which supposedly would supply network access to all the Supreme Court opinions seemed like such a good idea. (Perhaps those who subscribe directly to project Hermes, rather than getting the files from Freenet, have been getting all the files. I certainly hope so.) Anyway, the news is that you can't get the _Feist_ case from Freenet. If there is a large demand, I will send a copy to the editors to post on the Listserver. Sorry about that. Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University--Cleveland, Ohio From: Jon Shultis <jon@incsys.com> Subject: Informal Computing Workshop Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 16:15:30 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1206 (3031) Workshop on Informal Computing 29-31 May 1991 Santa Cruz, California Fundamental questions about the nature of informality are gaining importance in computer science. What is informal understanding? What is the nature of informal reasoning? Why is it so powerful and efficient? How are the inconsistency, vagueness, and incompleteness of informal thought managed? How does natural language manage to communicate informal knowledge and reasoning? Computer applications in many fields, ranging from economics and medicine to software engineering and artificial intelligence, demand effective and cognitively accurate answers to these questions in order to capture, represent, and process informal information in computer systems. Inspired by trends toward formalization in logic, mathematics, linguistics, and philosophy, computer scientists historically have tended to regard informal processes as approximate, or imperfect, realizations of formal ideals. Increasingly, however, the idea that informal languages, ontology, and reasoning can (or should) be reduced to (or supplanted by) regimented and "perfected" formalisms is being challenged. Far from being flawed formalisms, informal processes are emerging as fundamental to human understanding and language. From the "informalist" perspective, formalism has been mistaken for the paradigm of intelligence, rather than simply a useful outgrowth of intelligence. The purpose of the Workshop on Informal Computing is to define the study of Informalism, and to begin a coordinated attack on the fundamental issues and problems of the field, bringing together the insights and experience of those who have been working to understand informality in specialized domains. Discussion at the workshop will focus on three major themes: informal knowledge and reasoning; modelling and interpretation; and conversational computing and adaptive languages. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: intentionality and consciousness; dialogue management; informal meaning and pragmatics; evidential reasoning and belief; resource- and information-limited reasoning; neurocomputation; lessons and techniques from computational linguistics; dynamical and chaotic representations and reasoning; and philosophy of language. The program will be divided between hour-long presentations by invited speakers, and discussion sessions aimed at defining and clarifying informal computing issues, and at identifying promising directions and approaches for future research. The discussion sessions should provide ample opportunity for participants to exchange views, and the schedule will be flexible enough to permit impromptu presentations as appropriate. Also, a follow-up conference may be organized if there is sufficient interest. We are busy making arrangements for speakers and drawing up the schedule, but the basic plan is to devote one day to each of the three themes mentioned above. A preliminary list of speakers includes Bruce d'Ambrosio (Oregon State University) Sandra Carberry (University of Delaware) David Fisher (Incremental Systems) Donald Good (Computational Logic) David Mundie (Incremental Systems) Larry Reeker (IDA) Jeff Rothenberg (RAND) Jon Shultis (Incremental Systems) Tim Standish (University of California at Irvine) Edward Zalta (Stanford University) The final program will be announced on or before 8 May 1991. If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please submit, by 12 April 1991, a brief summary of your interests, and previous or ongoing research that is relevant to the workshop themes. The summaries will be reviewed, and notices of acceptance sent out on 26 April 1991, together with local arrangements information. Summaries should be sent to Jon Shultis Incremental Systems Corporation 319 South Craig Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213 e-mail: jon@incsys.com tel: (412) 621-8888 FAX: (412) 621-0259 Funding for the Workshop on Informal Computing is being provided by DARPA/ISTO in conjunction with ongoing research at Incremental Systems Corporation on adaptive languages for software engineering. From: William Crossgrove <WMCROSS@BROWNVM> Subject: Music and Hypermedia Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 10:52:47 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2628 (3032) My thanks to the seven respondents to my query of last week for information on work in hypermedia and music to pass on to a colleague in Germany. Here is the promised summary. Alan F. Lacy pointed out what should have been the obvious thing for a reader of HUMANIST to have done, namely, to have checked the file ACADEMIC LIST1 on the HUMANIST file server for the category "music" on this list of electronic lists. There are eight in all, plus the ethnomusicology forum ETHMUS-L categorized under "anthropology." A number of respondents pointed to the Voyager and Warner Bros. interactive video disk or cd-rom projects (Voyager: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with Stravinsky's Rites of Spring promised for this spring; Warner: Mozart's Magic Flute and Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 131 with more promised). Paul D. Kahn of IRIS on my own campus offered me the chance to view these products. Vicky Walsh of UCLA, noted that the Voyager materials are being developed under the direction of musicologist Robert Winter of her institution. The most complete information came from Bob Kosovsky of the New York Public Library--Music Division who also offered his help in general. Roberta Russell of Oberlin provided the following references: "The definitive resource for Hypermedia applications in musicology as well as computer applications in the field generally is _Computing in Musicology: A Directory of Research_, available from the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities, 525 Middlefield Road, Suite 120, Menlo Park, CA 94025 (phone: 415-322-7050). The price of their 1990 directory is $18.00 US. "Other sources of information are: _Computers in Music Research_, published by the Wisconsin Center for Music Technology, School of Music, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706 I believe individual subcriptions are around $12.00." Philip Baczewski of Academic Computing Services at the University of North Texas provided the following: "In the IBM PC realm, your colleague might want to investigate the PODIUM system developed by Fred Hofstetter of the University of Delaware. It is intended for the development of instructional materials which involve the interaction of computer text and videodisc materials. Fred's background is Music Theory, and I know that he has created at least one multi-media presentation involving chamber music performance practice. "His BITNET address is CRY02737@UDELVM. Or for more information about PODIUM, one can write: ACIT Central, 305 Willard, The University of Delaware, Newark, DE (USA) 19716" My apologies to the respondents if I have left out anything important. From: Richard Mitchell MITCHELR@ORSTVM Subject: Graphology and job placement. Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 20:49:05 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2629 (3033) Not to seem doubtful, but....These claims that unidentified "companies" are utilizing graphology in their placement processes seems too incredible to accept without question. With all respect to those who report this phenomenon exists, I would appreciate a bit more empirical grounding. What companies? What evidence is available for public review, either anecdotal or objective, to substantiate these claims? Are the instances being reported perhaps a small proportion of job search procedures? Thanks for whatever direction to specific instances of graphology use in personnel selection you may provide. MITCHELR@ORSTVM From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Re: 4.1200 Queries: E-Liddell/Scott? Date: Tue, 02 Apr 91 22:43:15 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2630 (3034) As I'm sure a _ton_ of HUMANIST readers will reply -- the Perseus Project, now in version 1.0b2, includes an on-line version of the "middle" edition of Liddell-Scott, as well as an (apparently) quite servicable English- Greek lexicon which includes an index of authors contained in Perseus who use specific Greek equivalents of a given English word. Prof. de Lacey might do well to steer his colleague in the direction of the Perseus editors (whose address, unfortunately, I do not have here at home.) Hope this helps, Charles Ess Drury College From: 6500rms@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: Re: 4.1200 Queries: E-Liddell/Scott? Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 08:59:05 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2631 (3035) The Perseus Project, from Harvard University, has an Electronic copy of the intermediate "middle" Liddell & Scott lexicon incorporated in its materials. I am not aware of an electronic version of the large Liddell, Scott, & Jones. Randall Smith Classics Department University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: 805-893-3556 Email: 6500rms@ucsbuxa.bitnet From: Laine Ruus <LAINE@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: IASSIST conference Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 17:27:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1208 (3036) Data in the Global Village: Stewardship of an Expanding Resource The 17th annual conference of the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology will be held at the Hilton hotel in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, from Tuesday, May 14, through Friday, May 17, 1991. The central conference theme expresses IASSIST members' concern for managing and sharing computer-readable data gathered on a wide range of issues facing our global community. This theme also touches upon the need to care for and preserve an ever-expanding volume of computer-readable data. The conference program features workshops, contributed papers, and roundtable discussions reflecting international viewpoints on these concerns. About IASSIST IASSIST brings together individuals from around the world engaged in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and distribution of computer-readable text and numeric social science data. Founded in 1974, the membership includes data librarians and archivists, information specialists, social scientists, researchers, programmers, planners, and administrators from government and private sectors. Conference Organizers Program Committee Chairperson: Laine Ruus, Data Library Service University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario (416) 978-5589 LAINE@VM.UTCS.UTORONTO.CA Local Arrangements Coordinator: Chuck Humphrey, Data Library University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta (403) 492-2741 CHUMPHRE@VM.UCS.UALBERTA.CA Conference Location The city of Edmonton lies in rolling parkland, a transitional region between the open prairies and the Rocky Mountains. The resorts of Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise are within an easy day trip, and in mid-May are still open for skiing. (There will be a post-conference excursion to Banff). Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta and home of the University of Alberta, the Stanley Cup champion Oilers, and of the West Edmonton Mall, the largest indoor shopping and entertainment complex in the world. Come and join us in May for an exciting IASSIST conference! Special Events Entertainment activities planned for IASSIST '91 include a period banquet at historic Fort Edmonton and a reception at West Edmonton Mall which will provide an opportunity for conference attendees to 'shop until they drop'. A post-conference retreat to the spectacular Rocky Mountain resort of Banff is an optional excursion. Because this activity is dependant upon a minimum number of participants, those conference attendees wishing to attend this retreat must register before April 14. To reserve a space, enclose an additional $395 (single occupancy) or $320 (twin occupancy) with your registration. These fees will cover deluxe motor coach transportation to and from Banff, two nights accommodation, and the services of a tour guide. Transportation The major airlines with direct flights into the Edmonton International Airport are Air Canada, Canadian Airlines, Northwest Orient, Delta Airlines, and American Airlines. Transportation between the airport and the Edmonton Hilton is available from an airporter service ($9.63) or taxi ($30.00). The Edmonton International Airport is approximately 20 miles from downtown Edmonton. Accommodations Rooms have been reserved at the Edmonton Hilton, the conference site, at a special conference rate of $105.00 for a single room and $115.00 for a double. These rates are guaranteed until April 13, 1991 only. Please contact the Hilton directly to make your reservation before April 13 by mailing the enclosed reservation form or by calling the toll free reservation line (1-800-268-9275). Be sure to identify yourself as an IASSIST conference attendee. Information on alternative accommodations may be obtained from the Local Arrangements Coordinator. Registration and Fees If you register before April 14, fees for IASSIST members are: $200 for workshops and conference, $175 for conference only, $100 for workshops only, and $100 for one-day attendance. Non-members should add $50 to these fees. After April 14th, a late registration fee of $50 should be added A new membership in IASSIST is $40 U.S. To register for the conference, workshops, and Banff post-conference excursion, please return the enclosed registration form along with your payment. Useful Telephone Numbers Local Arrangements: (403) 492-5212 Edmonton Hilton Toll-free reservations 1-800-268-9275 In Edmonton (403) 428-7111 [materials deleted. eds.] Conference Workshops Tuesday, May 14, 1991 9:00-12:30 Starting a Data Library Workshop Coordinator: Ilona Einowski Description: Experienced data librarians will describe how to start a new data library service. Examples of the various activities involved in organizing and operating a data library will be presented. Living with UNIX Workshop Coordinator: Jim Jacobs Description: Many data libraries are moving to Unix environments. This workshop will provide a basic introduction to Unix and offer a hands-on lab addressing such topics as general Unix utilities, Unix text utilities, varieties of Unix platforms, networking, tape handling, security, and portability. 2:00-5:00 Financial Time Series Workshop Coordinator: Walter Piovesan Description: With increasing use of financial databases, the staff of data libraries are having to become more familiar with these products. This workshop introduces two such databases, CRSP and COMPUSTAT, and will cover the content of these databases as well as the ways in which users select data from them. Using Interactive Graphics and Statistical Data in the Classroom Workshop Coordinator: Wendy Watkins Description: Canada and Norway have projects using interactive graphics that are aimed at putting complex databases into the hands of high school teachers and students. This workshop will introduce Norway's NSDstat+ and Canada's TELICHART software and will allow participants to experiment with both packages during a hands-on session. [materials deleted. eds.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Laine G.M. Ruus Bitnet : laine@utorvm Data Library Service Internet : laine@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca University of Toronto ----------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. IASSIST CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-91 Annual Meeting -- summary description Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 11:45:20 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1209 (3037) ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS 29th Annual Meeting 17-21 June 1991 University of California, Berkeley, California, USA The program for the Annual Meeting itself, which will take place on 19-21 June, features papers on all aspects of computational linguistics. Two invited lectures will be given during the meeting: "Linguistic Problems and Extra-Linguistic Problems in Machine Translation" by Jun-ichi Tsujii, UMIST; and "Word Meaning: Starting where the MRDs Stop" by Charles Fillmore, University of California, Berkeley and Sue Atkins, Oxford University Press. In addition, there are a special set of Student Sessions featuring papers that describe `work in progress' so that students can receive feedback from other members of the computational linguistics community. The Annual Meeting is preceded on 18 June by a set of tutorials: "Natural Language Generation" by Kathleen McCoy and Johanna Moore; "Intonation in Spoken Language Systems" by Julia Hirschberg; "Computational Linguistics Methodologies for Humanities Computing" by Nancy M. Ide; and "Machine Translation: An In-Depth Tutorial" by Jaime Carbonell and Yorick Wilks. There are also three preconference workshops: (1) "Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation" (17 June), sponsored by the ACL Special Interest Group on the Lexicon (SIGLEX). For more information, contact James Pustejovsky, Computer Science Department, Ford Hall, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254-9110, USA; (+1-617)736-2709; jamesp@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu. (2) Reversible Grammar in Natural Language Processing (17 June), sponsored by the ACL Special Interest Groups on Generation (SIGGEN) and Parsing (SIGPARSE). For more information, contact Tomek Strzalkowski, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, 715 Broadway, Room 704, New York, NY 10003, USA; (+1-212)998-3496; tomek@cs.nyu.edu. (3) Evaluation of Natural Language Processing Systems (18 June). For more information, contact Jeannette G. Neal, Calspan Corporation, P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225, USA; (+1-716)631-6844; neal@cs.buffalo.edu. Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation CONFERENCE INFORMATION The Program Committee was chaired by Douglas Appelt, SRI International. The Tutorials were organized by Cecile Paris, USC/ISI. The exhibits and demonstrations are being arranged by Sandra Newton, Brown Bear Consulting, 3842 Louis Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA; (+1-415)856-6506; newton@decwrl.dec.com. Local arrangements are being handled by Peter Norvig, Division of Computer Science, University of California, 573 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; (+1-415)642-9533; norvig@teak.berkeley.edu. For program and registration brochures and other information on the conference and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA; (+1 201)829-4312; walker@flash.bellcore.com. From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: De Italia Date: Sat, 6 Apr 91 22:51:09 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2632 (3038) This is a videodisc produced by the Agnelli Foundation in Italy. It covers subjects Italian from geology through the Romans, the Renaissance up to Sophia Loren and the Fiat Company. It was created as a standalone videodisc, with several chapters, and interleaved text frames with images frames. Each area has only very sketchy coverage. An interactive HyperCard appication was created that runs on the Mac and drives the videodisc. It allows much better searching and grouping of information. Jeff Wills at the University of Wisconsin Madison made an agreement with the Agnelli Foundatin and the University of Wisconsin Press to distribute a small number of copies of the videodisc and interactive stacks. He is in the Classics Department there, and would know what the status of the distribution effort is. He also developed some add on HyperCard materials to allow students and instructors to create simple lists of pertinent data on the disc. De Italia was demonstrated at this last APA in San Fransisco at the University of Wisconsin Press booth. The perosn who saw it may have seen it there. Elli Mylonas From: Mark Ritchie <AVFILM2@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca> Subject: De Italia Date: Fri, 05 Apr 91 08:57:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2633 (3039) De Italia is a "Videodisc Encyclopedia of Italian Civilization" which was produced by the Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli. You can contact them through the publishers -- Edizioni Della Fondazione S.R.L. Via Giacosa 38 Turin, Italy Below is a description of the item. A Hypercard stack is also available. WATERLOO MEDIA CATALOGUING SYSTEM TITLE: De Italia or: the Videodisc Encyclopedia Of Italian Civilization INTERSUBJECT HEADINGS: Fine Arts - History Geography - Italy History - Italy DESCRIPTION: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Edizioni Della Fondazione S.R.L. for Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli PRODUCTION DATE: 1988 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Italy ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: Italian SUMMARY: The DE ITALIA videodisc is a visual encyclopedia of Italian civilization in English. It is in CAV format, NTSC standard and is fully interactive. Developed over a period of three years, DE ITALIA is a unique application of videodisc technology, combining the information content of a full encyclopedia with the easy access and image storage capacity of the videodisc, resulting in a perfect information source for those interested in Italy and Italian culture. The disc contains 15,000 texts and 20,000 still photographs, plus 500 computer graphic maps, charts and diagrams, organized into 53 topical chapters and referenced in the fully-documented, illustrated index book which is included in the package. DE ITALIA provides a comprehensive visual presentation of Italy, from its origins to the present day, in a unique collection of the highest-quality images, chosen out of over 500,000 entries from the major photographic archives and transferred onto videodisc using the most advanced digital slide scanner, and colour-corrected frame by frame. In the course of the production of the encyclopedia, a the extent that around 10,000 of the images on the disc depict works of art or monuments, creating a vast reference source of that heritage. The encyclopedia covers a variety of subjects--geography and nature, history, the economy, the arts, science, landscape and towns, everyday life, etc., organized into individual chapters. The accompanying index book allows the user direct selection of the chapter and its contents or, using the general, alphabetical index, direct access to people, places, topics, as well as a more historical reference using the chronological index. * * * * * * Oh, by the way, the best part is that it was free. W. Mark Ritchie | Tel: (519) 888-4070 Media Librarian | Fax: (519) 888-6197 Audio-Visual Centre | University of Waterloo | Net: avfilm2@watdcs.Uwaterloo.ca -------- From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Don Walker) Subject: ACL-91 Program and Registration Information Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 17:40:46 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1211 (3040) ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS 29th Annual Meeting 17-21 June 1991 University of California, Berkeley, California, USA MONDAY EVENING, 17 JUNE 7:00--9:00 Tutorial Registration and Reception, Wheeler Hall TUESDAY, 18 JUNE 8:00--3:00 Tutorial Registration, Wheeler Hall 9:00--12:30 TUTORIAL SESSIONS Natural Language Generation Kathleen McCoy and Johanna Moore Intonation in Spoken Language Systems Julia Hirschberg 2:00--5:30 TUTORIAL SESSIONS Computational Linguistics Methodologies for Humanities Computing Nancy M. Ide Machine Translation: An In-Depth Tutorial Jaime Carbonell and Yorick Wilks 7:00--9:00 Conference Registration and Reception, Wheeler Hall 7:00--9:00 Exhibits and Demonstrations 203 Wheeler Hall and 279 Dwinelle Hall REGISTRATION: WEDNESDAY--FRIDAY 8:00--5:00 Wheeler Hall; until noon Friday EXHIBITS & DEMONSTRATIONS: WEDNESDAY--FRIDAY 9:00--6:00 203 Wheeler Hall and 279 Dwinelle Hall; until 1:30pm Friday WEDNESDAY, 19 JUNE -- WHEELER HALL 8:30--8:45 Opening remarks and anouncements 8:45--9:10 Resolution of Collective-Distributive Ambiguity Using Model-Based Reasoning Chinatsu Aone 9:10--9:35 Inclusion, Disjointness and Choice: The Logic of Linguistic Classification Bob Carpenter & Carl Pollard 9:35--10:00 Event-Building through Role-Filling and Anaphora Resolution Greg Whittemore, Melissa Macpherson & Greg Carlson 10:00--10:20 BREAK 10:20--10:45 Toward a Plan-Based Understanding Model for Mixed-Initiative Dialogues Hiroaki Kitano & Carol Van Ess-Dykema 10:45--11:10 An Algorithm for Plan Recognition in Collaborative Discourse Karen E. Lochbaum 11:10--11:30 A Three-Level Model for Plan Exploration Lance A. Ramshaw 11:30--11:50 A Tripartite, Plan-Based Model of Dialogue Lynn Lambert & Sandra Carberry 11:50--1:40 LUNCH (Student Sessions) 1:40--2:05 Discourse Relations and Defeasible Knowledge Alex Lascarides & Nicholas Asher 2:05--2:30 Some Facts about Centers, Indexicals, and Demonstratives Rebecca J. Passonneau 2:30--2:55 Type-Raising and Directionality in Combinatory Grammar Mark Steedman 2:55--3:15 BREAK 3:15--3:40 Efficient Incremental Processing with Categorial Grammar Mark Hepple & Guy Barry 3:40--4:05 Compose-Reduce Parsing Henry S. Thompson, Mike Dixon & John Lamping 4:05--4:30 LR Recursive Transition Networks for Earley and Tomita Parsing Mark Perlin 4:30--4:50 BREAK 4:50--5:15 A New Shift-Reduce Parser for Arbitrary Context-Free Grammars: Relationship to Earley's Parser & Formal Results Yves Schabes 5:15--5:40 Head Corner Parsing for Discontinuous Constituency Gertjan van Noord 5:40--6:05 The Acquisition and Application of Context Sensitive Grammar for English Robert F. Simmons & Yeong-Ho Yu THURSDAY, 20 JUNE -- WHEELER HALL 8:30--8:55 Two Languages are More Informative than One Ido Dagan, Alon Itai & Ulrike Schwall 8:55--9:20 Learning Perceptually-Grounded Semantics in the L0 Project Terry Regier 9:20--9:45 Subject-Dependent Co-occurrence and Word Sense Disambiguation Joe A. Guthrie, Louise Guthrie, Yorick Wilks & Homa Aidinejad 9:45--10:10 A System for Translating Locative Prepositions from English into French Nathalie Japkowicz 10:10--10:30 BREAK 10:30--10:55 Translation by Quasi Logical Form Transfer Hiyan Alshawi, David Carter, Bjoern Gambaeck & Manny Rayner 10:55--12:00 Linguistic Problems and Extra-Linguistic Problems in Machine Translation (INVITED TALK) Jun-ichi Tsujii, UMIST 12:00--1:45 LUNCH (Student Sessions) 1:45--2:05 Aligning Sentences in Parallel Corpora Peter F. Brown, Jennifer C. Lai & Robert L. Mercer 2:05--2:25 A Program for Aligning Sentences in Bilingual Corpora William A. Gale & Kenneth W. Church 2:25--2:50 Experiments and Prospects of Example-Based Machine Translation Eiichiro Sumita & Hitoshi Iida 2:50--3:10 BREAK 3:10--3:35 Resolving Translation Mismatches with Information Flow Megumi Kameyama, Ryo Ochitani, Stanley Peters & Hidetoshi Sirai 3:35--4:00 Automatic Noun Classification by Using Japanese-English Word Pairs Naomi Inoue 4:00--4:20 BREAK 4:20--4:45 Automatic Acquisition of Subcategorization Frames from Untagged, Free-Text Corpora Michael R. Brent 4:45--5:10 Multiple Default Inheritance in a Unification-Based Lexicon Graham Russell, John Carroll & Susan Warwick-Armstrong 5:10--5:35 Metaphoric Generalization through Sort Coercion Ellen Hays & Samuel Bayer 5:35--6:00 Structural Ambiguity and Lexical Relations Donald Hindle and Mats Rooth 7:00---8:00 RECEPTION: Pauley Ballroom, Student Union 8:00--10:00 BANQUET: Pauley Ballroom, Student Union Presidential Address: Ralph Grishman FRIDAY, 21 JUNE -- WHEELER HALL 8:30--8:55 Strategies for Adding Control Information to Declarative Grammars Hans Uszkoreit 8:55--9:20 Finite-State Approximation of Phrase Structure Grammars Fernando Pereira & Rebecca Wright 9:20--9:45 Feature Logic with Weak Subsumption Constraints Jochen Doerre 9:45--10:05 BREAK 10:05--11:05 Word Meaning: Starting where the MRDs Stop (INVITED TALK) Charles Fillmore and Sue Atkins 11:05--11:50 BUSINESS MEETING & ELECTIONS Nominations for ACL Offices for 1992 President: Kathy McKeown, Columbia University Vice President: Fernando Pereira, AT&T Bell Labs Secretary-Treasurer: Don Walker, Bellcore Executive Committee (1992-1993): Martha Pollack, SRI International Executive Committee (1992-1994): Bente Maegaard, University of Copenhagen Nominating Committee (1992-1994): Ralph Grishman, New York University 11:50--1:10 LUNCH 1:10--1:35 Word Sense Disambiguation using Statistical Methods Peter F. Brown, Stephen A. Della Pietra, Vincent J. Della Pietra & Robert L. Mercer 1:35--2:00 A Stochastic Process for Word Frequency Distributions Harald Baayen 2:00--2:25 An Evaluation of Xtract from N-Grams to Collocations Frank Z. Smadja 2:25--2:45 BREAK 2:45--3:10 Predicting Intonational Phrasing from Text Michelle Q. Wang & Julia Hirschberg 3:10--3:35 A Best-First Language Processor Integrating the Unification Grammar and Markov Language Model for Speech Recognition Applications Lee-Feng Chien, K.J. Chen & Lin-Shan Lee 3:35--4:00 Factorization of Language Constraints in Speech Recognition Roberto Pieraccini and Chin-Hui Lee 4:00--4:20 BREAK 4:20--4:45 Constraint Projection: An Efficient Treatment of Disjunctive Feature Descriptions Mikio Nakano 4:45--5:05 Quasi-Destructive Graph Unification Hideto Tomabechi 5:05--5:25 Unification with Lazy Non-Redundant Copying Martin C. Emele PROGRAM COMMITTEE Doug Appelt, SRI International, Ken Church, AT&T Bell Labs and USC/ISI, Robin Cohen, University of Waterloo, Erhard Hinrichs, University of Tuebingen, Eduard Hovy, USC/ISI, Robert Ingria, BBN Systems & Technologies, Yasuhiro Katagiri, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Diane Litman, Columbia University, K. Vijay-Shanker, University of Delaware, Meg Withgott, XEROX PARC, Henk Zeevat, University of Amsterdam -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. ACL91 CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Elli Mylonas <ELLI@BROWNVM> Subject: Perseus Project Job Opening Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 16:44:27 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2634 (3041) The Perseus Project has a full-time position open for a programmer. Perseus is building a large multimedia hypertext system with digital and video images, satellite photographs, and texts for teaching and researching classical Greece. It currently runs under HyperCard. This position has primary responsibility for implementing Perseus. The programmer also provides technical support and system management for office staff and users of Perseus and helps process and structure textual and image data on the Mac. He or she may do demonstrations of Perseus at Harvard and off-site. Qualifications: must be experienced Mac user, some UNIX experience is helpful; programming experience, preferably with a high level language and familiarity with relational databases, preferably Foxbase/Dbase or 4D are required. A solid knowledge of HyperCard and HyperTalk is helpful, or commensurate experience with other programming environments. The Perseus programmer has a good opportunity to learn new systems and languages, and to work in a relaxed research environment. Harvard is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Please send cv and other relevant information to Elli Mylonas, Department of the Classics, 319 Boylston Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. (elli@ikaros.harvard.edu) From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Conference : EPISTOLARITY Date: Sat, 6 Apr 91 07:07 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2635 (3042) L'Association interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'epistolaire (A.I.R.E.) annonce la tenue d'un colloque international : "Experiences limites de l'epistolaire : lettres d'exil, d'enfermement, de folie". Ce colloque se tiendra du 16 au 18 mai 1991 a l'Universite de Caen (France). Les communications porteront sur Gerard DE NERVAL, Jeans DE SALISBURY et Thomas BECKET, May ZIADE et Joubron Kalil JOUBRON, BUSSY-RABUTIN, Paul CLAUDEL, Marcel PROUST, Victor HUGO, VOLTAIRE, Guez DE BALZAC, Jules VALLES, Marie DE L'INCARNATION, Antonin ARTAUD, Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Julie DE LESPINASSE, Benjamin FONDANE, Jean-Paul SARTRE, Marie CAPELLE, Tristan CORBIERE, Donatien-Alphonse DE SADE, Madame ROLAND, Albertine SARRAZIN, Belle DE ZUYLEN et Constant D'HERMENCHES, ainsi que sur divers corpus de lettres ("d'espits a des femmes somnambules et mediums du XIXe siecle", de suicides, de soldats, de detenus psychiatriques, de voyageurs sur la route des Indes Orientales au XVIIe siecle, de communards deportes, de bagnardes). Une exposition a egalement ete mise sur pied dans le cadre du colloque : "Mail Art". Pour tout renseignement et pour l'inscription, s'adresser a : Andre MAGNAN 19, rue Saint-Sauveur 14000 Caen France Tel : 31.50.22.88 From: <KOS@CUNYVMS1> Subject: Specialization Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 00:35 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2636 (3043) I'm sure many of you read Loren Graham's review of "The Truth About Chernobyl" by Grigori Medvedev, which appeared in The New York Times Book Review (Apr. 7). This book contains a foreword by Andrei Sakharov, which apparently seeks to provide a context for Medvedev's account of the Chernobyl disaster. In talking about the viability of nuclear power, Sakharov is quoted as follows: "These issues are so crucial that they cannot be left to technical experts, and still less to bureaucrats, whose approach is too narrowly technical, too tendentious and sometimes prejudiced, as it is paralyzed by a network of mutual solidarity." No doubt I'm overly sensitive, but upon digesting this statement, I couldn't help but draw the implication for academics--indeed, any specialist--that we are all viewed cynically by those who can (or think they can) seen connections and relationships that may be missed under our immediate attention. Sure, I see the arguments of the Interdisciplinarians (exploring the similarities as well as the differences), and in my field (music) I can think of a good handful of theorists who would laugh at such a statement--but they were of a previous generation. Any thoughts for today's social and intellectual environment? (If you choose to respond, it's probably better to do it to the list.) Bob Kosovsky New York Public Library--Music Division bitnet: kos@cunyvms1.bitnet internet: kos@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu From: Elli Mylonas <ELLI@BROWNVM> Subject: Whipping Tops Date: Sun, 07 Apr 91 23:45:42 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2637 (3044) I would like to begin by thanking all those who answered my queries about sources for medical writers and also about old English fonts. The answers have been passed on and are much appreciated. I now have a question on my own account. In Tibullus 1.5, the poet is not able to be firm and leave his girlfriend. He then goes on to describe how he is in love, and has no control over himself. (This is a rough summary) namque agor ut per plana citus sola verbere turben quem celer adueta versat ab arte puer for I am driven like a swift top on the flat ground by a whip which an agile boy spins with accustomed skill. (rough translation, sorry...) However, my question is, how does a whipping top work exactly? I know about spinning tops that have a string wrapped around the shank, which is pulled to get the top to spin, like a gyroscope. This top, however, is not only set in motion by the "whip", but appears to be kept in motion by it. I looked in the OCD, which only mentions the existence of such toys. I also looked in the OED, which describes whipping tops, and how they are kept in motion by a whip. "The common *whip-* or *whipping-top* is kept spinning by lashing it with a whip" It also cites a curious object known as a parish or town top, "a large top for public use, which two players or parties whipped in opposite directions. It seems that if the top were large enough, and had a low enough center of gravity, then it would be possible to whip it withough knocking it over. Does anyone know exactly how this kind of top works? Or where to look? Thank you, Elli Mylonas From: CALLEGRE@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: JEAN GIRAUDOUX SCHOLARS Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 17:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2638 (3045) I would like to know who is at present working on the french novelist and playwright JEAN GIRAUDOUX (1882-1944). I wish to establish a list of all north-american scholars involved in such studies and network with them. When compiled, I will send this list to those who answered this call and post it to Humanist for those interested in it, or in work on Giraudoux. I will send it also to La Societe des amis de Jean Giraudoux, in Bellac (France) who will be delighted to see that there is interest for Giraudoux in North America. I am myself writing my PhD Dissertation on "The Utopian Thought in the works of Jean Giraudoux". I would like to network with other scholars with similar int erests, and with anyone enjoying the works of Jean Giraudoux. It is interesting to know that the first Ph.D. Dissertation written on Giraudoux was by the american scholar Lawrence LeSage in 1941, then at the University of Pennsylvania. Please send Name, Address, University, Department, e-mail address directly to me : CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET, together with a description of your research at this moment, your publications (Diss., articles, books, CR), and your interests. Christian Allegre Departement d'Etudes francaises Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. A Montreal, Quebec Canada H3C 3J7 CALLEGRE@UMTLVR.BITNET From: iwml@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Masculine and feminine words Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 18:24:33 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2639 (3046) Does anyone know why non English languages divide their vocabulary into masculine and feminine words, and then refer to that categorisation as "gender". I gather that "gender" originally in Greek meant a category, and meant either A or B, and that it is only relativly recent usage which associates the word with sexual gender. But why were *words* perceived as masculine or feminine? While logically one can deduce that certain functions, actions and associations would result in some words having masculine or feminine gender, why all, or those in some languages not defined as "neuter"? Does Levi-Strauss assist? Is the answer totemic/anthropological? Ian Mitchell Lambert Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Kent at Canterbury From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Knowbot Services Date: Thu, 04 Apr 91 09:19:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2640 (3047) The Knowbot service at nri.reston.va.us 185 has not been connecting lately. An alternative address to get to Knowbot that does seem to be working is sol.bucknell.edu port 185 ( = 134.82.11.254 port 185). --Jan Eveleth Academic Computing Services Yale University From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Concordance packages inquiry. Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 19:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2641 (3048) Is anyone of you aware of the existance of a list of concordance packages, be they for mainframes, minis or micros. Did anyone of you ever compile one such list? Michel Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: Gregory Bloomquist <GBLOOMQ@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> Subject: Address for WordCruncher Date: Sun, 07 Apr 91 19:02:37 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2642 (3049) Does anyone have an address (with e-mail address) for the WordCruncher people? I have tried Electronic Text Corporation in Provo UT only to have my letter re- turned. Thanks for any help. Greetings. L. Gregory Bloomquist Saint Paul University Faculty of Theology BITNET: GBLOOMQ@UOTTAWA Internet: GBLOOMQ@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA S-Mail: 223 Main St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 1C4 CANADA Voice: 613-236-1393 x285 FAX: 613-567-2959 From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Virus message. Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 00:04 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2643 (3050) Your PC is stone Does anyone of you know that message, probably generated by a virus active on 80286 IBM compatibles. Any disinfectant known? Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: Timothy Bergeron <C09615TB@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU> Subject: Translating English ---> French Date: Fri, 05 Apr 91 17:11:09 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2644 (3051) Yesterday, a faculty member from our business school asked me if I knew of a Macintosh program that would translate his documents from English into French. He will be a visiting professor this summer at the University of Ottawa (I think) and will be teaching his course in French. He currently has all of this handouts and overhead transparencies in English and would like to find an easy way of translating them (even if the translation is incomplete and not 100% accurate, he feels it would be easier to cleanup bad translations than to recreate them.) Has anyone ever heard of such a conversion process? Timothy Bergeron Washington University St. Louis, MO From: elli@ikaros.harvard.edu (Elli Mylonas) Subject: Re: 4.1207 ... Liddell-Scott Date: Sat, 6 Apr 91 23:04:39 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2645 (3052) I replied directly to Douglas DeLacy about the Liddell Scott lexicon that Perseus contains. However since some replies have also appeared on Humanist, I thought it would be best to send a public note as well. We have the Intermediate Liddell Scott Dictionary (out of copyright) and are using it in Perseus as part of our philological tools. That is, it is intergrated with the output of the morphological parser (Morpheus) so that any word in a Perseus text can be looked up in the dictionary. We have also inverted it; a user can search for all Greek words in whose definition an particular English word appears. I should warn people that at the moment, this exists only within Perseus, and not as an independant system. Within Perseus, the lexicon is stored in a database, and accessed through HyperCard. We think that it is a great idea to send create a separate system that contains only our philological tools, but have been too busy building Perseus to take on another minor project. I do not know of any other version of the Liddell Scott that is online, and i do know that the Big LSJ 9 is under copyright to Oxford. Hope this helps --Elli Mylonas, Managing Editor, Perseus Project PS. Perseus is based at Harvard, but is being developed by scholars at a number of universities in the United States, so it is not strictly a Harvard project!! From: Hans Rollmann <hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca> Subject: Date: Fri, 05 Apr 1991 10:51:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2646 (3053) SUBJECT: RE: Thesaurus Sancti Bernardi Claraevallensis My colleague David N. Bell, a specialist in Bernard and Cistercian matters, has checked the THESAURUS SANCTI BERNARDI CLARAEVALLENSIS for you. The saying IS NOT from Bernard. He also checked Augustin and Gregory. It's not there either. It sounds to him like a proverb, and he suggests to check Walther, LATEINISCHE SENTENZEN UND SPRICHWOERTER. It could also possibly be pseudo-Bernard. DR. HANS ROLLMANN; Associate Professor; Department of Religious Studies; Memorial University of Newfoundland; St. John's, NF, Canada A1C 5S7; E-Mail: HROLLMAN@MUNUCS.UCS.MUN.CA or HANS@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA From: gene davis <EWD100N@oduvm.cc.odu.edu> Subject: Tom Hood Date: Fri, 05 Apr 91 16:33:28 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2647 (3054) Will Professor Whitaker, who requested information on the Victorian writer Tom Hood, please contact me for information. From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.acs.unc.edu> Subject: UNIX concordance packages Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 17:01:06 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2648 (3055) In reply to Ken Steele's query about UNIX concordance packages, I've heard good things about Open Text System's PAT & LECTOR products (Waterloo, Ontario). I'm about to test them for the Textual Studies Workstation I'm configuring on an RS/6000 here at the Institute for Academic Technology. We're also working on an implicit, "expert system" package for doing conceptual and associative querying with various stylo-statistical tools available (z-scores, factor analysis, multiple regression, t-tests, etc.; frequency dictionaries, on-line thesauri, autohor-specific lexicons and thematic/conceptual thesauri). It will, we hope, work with LECTOR and PAT and a similar, less robust explicit indexing tool written in UIL. A working prototype is projected for late May. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield Institute for Academic Technology U. of North Carolina/Chapel-Hill 919-560-5031 From: Andrew <ASACC@ASUACAD> Subject: Re: 4.1198 US Supreme Court: Copyright Decision Date: Fri, 05 Apr 91 00:10:57 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2649 (3056) So, I guess this means that we are all buying the notion that there are "objective facts" out there to be recorded. There seem to be a few bits of ontological and epistemilogical thought that would throw a damper on the "logic" of this decision. Who's going to decide what constitutes "a fact." The obvious answer is "the courts." What makes them the privledged purveyors of reality? -Andrew From: Byron Bender <bender@uhccux.BITNET> Subject: 6th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Date: Mon, 1 Apr 91 08:58:19 -1000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1216 (3057) Attn: B. W. Bender, Chair Tel: (808)956-8374 Bitnet: t041320@uhccmvs Fax: (808)956-2191 March 27, 1991 FINAL CIRCULAR Conference Program (preliminary draft). Convenors and participants: please bring needed corrections to our attention so that the final copy of the program (to be distributed at registration on May 20) is as free of error as possible. We have been short on staff and clerical support, and have not been able to acknowledge all communications individually. A "Y" in front of your name on the program will confirm that your conference fee has been received. Paper Copy Service. As a service to those attending the conference, each author on the program is invited to provide the Copy Service with a reproducible copy of his or her paper. Submission of such a copy should be accompanied by authorization to reproduce it upon request for anyone at the conference. Orders may be placed for copies in the Copy Service Office by Wednesday noon, May 22, at the latest. The Office will be open during conference hours through Friday noon, May 24. Handouts. Authors are responsible for the production and distribution of any materials to accompany the presentation of their papers. In most cases it will probably be best to bring multiple copies with you; the Business Center at the hotel charges 15" a page. Audio-visual support. Overhead projectors and slide projectors will be made available upon request. Please let us know of your needs well beforehand. April 19 deadline for hotel reservations. For the special conference rates, one night's deposit must be received by then. Forms for the three levels of accommodation were enclosed with the Call for Abstracts, and are available again upon request. Due to the press of time it is recommended that the hotel be contacted directly: Toll Free: 1-800-367-5170; FAX: 1-800-456-4329. Conference fee. Rates are as follows, payable to "University of Hawaii Foundation", with the notation "6ICAL": Participant: $US 125 Accompanying person: 50 Student: 25 Payment of the conference fee includes a place at the Conference Banquet on May 24. Meeting of the On-going Committee for ICAL's. Prospective hosts for future conferences should prepare proposals for consideration by the Committee at this meeting, scheduled for Wednesday noon, May 22, and send them to B. W. Bender, who will convene the meeting. 6th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Outrigger Prince Kuhio Hotel, Honolulu, HI May 20-24, 1991 -------------------- [A complete version of this announcement is now available through the fileserver, s.v. AUS-LING CONFRNCE. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: J.G.Anderson@vme.glasgow.ac.uk Subject: STELLA Symposium advertisement Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 10:55:53 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2650 (3058) Computers in English Studies, STELLA Symposium, 14 - 15 June 1991 'STELLA' is an acronym for Software for Teaching English Language and Literature and its Assessment. The project is in its third year and has successfuly incorporated computer based materials for teaching Old English, Old Icelandic, stylistics, metrics and Renaissance lexis into English Language and Literature courses at Glasgow University. The STELLA Project will host a meeting on the use of computers in teaching and research in English on June 14th and 15th 1991. It is hoped to cover as many applications as possible while retaining the informality and practicality of a workshop format. In order to give participants maximum hands-on experience, numbers will be limited to 40. Contributions will take the form of a 45 minute workshop, or a demonstration of a package on a single machine. There will also be one or two talks and group discussion sessions on the state of the art. Preliminary Program [deleted quotation] Workshops will include the following: The Historical Thesaurus of English (database) - CJ Kay (Glasgow) Old English (CALL) - JJ Smith (Glasgow) Stylistics - CJ Kay (Glasgow) Narrative in the Victorian Novel (hypertext) - K Sutherland (Manch.) & M Deegan (Oxford) The Hartlib Papers Project (hypermedia) - J Crawford (Sheffield) The Life and Times of Shakespeare (Hypercard) - M Best (Victoria) [deleted quotation] Demonstrations will include the following: Old English (hypertext) - Jeanette Dillon & Judy Jesch (Nottingham) Old English (CALL) - D Macrae-Gibson (St Andrews). WriteGuide (a hypertext guide to essay writing) - Paul Maharg (Glasgow) Old Icelandic, Old English, Scots, Modern Grammar, Metre, Stylistics and Renaissance Poetry. (CALL and hypertexts). Both teaching and research versions of the Historical Thesaurus of English will be on view. - STELLA Project. Guide Hypertext - Office Work Stations Ltd. Hypermedia - Research Machines Ltd. Computers in English Studies, STELLA Symposium, 14 - 15 June 1991 The conference will begin on Friday 14th June with lunch and end after tea on Saturday 15th. Participants should register between 12 noon and 2pm in the University dining rooms. The dining rooms are on the first floor of in the Gilbert Scott building on the main campus. Sessions will be held in the STELLA and DISH laboratories on the main University campus, at 1,2 and 6 University Gardens. The symposium fee covers lunches and coffee breaks but not dinner on Friday and accommodation, which is available from around 16.50 for bed and breakfast. On receipt of a registration form, we will send out a map and an accomodation booklet showing recommended local hotels and guest houses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Registration Form Please return this form, with a cheque, *before May 1st, 1991 to: Mary Pat Gibson, STELLA Symposium, University of Glasgow, 6 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ. Telephone: 041 339 8855 ext. 4980. Email: STELLA@uk.ac.glasgow.vme ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE SURNAME FORENAME(S) ............................................................................ ADDRESS ............................................................................ ............................................................................ ............................................................................ TELEPHONE EMAIL ............................................................................ FEES (please tick) Symposium Fee : #30.00 ........ Symposium Dinner (optional): #12.50 ......... Total: #..... Payment in sterling by cheque payable to: The STELLA Project SIGNATURE....................................DATE........................... * The symposium fee for registrations received after this date is #35.00. From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: REPORTS ON ACADEMIC SOFTWARE/DATABASES: 1991 AAR/SBL Date: Tue, 09 Apr 91 10:36:30 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2651 (3059) 1991 AAR/SBL: Institutional Reports on Academic Software/Database Development The Computer Assisted Research Group (CARG) will sponsor a session for reports on institutionally-affiliated research and development of academic software and research databases: the 1991 Annual Meeting of AAR/SBL (also ASOR/AOS/IOSCS/IOMS/NAPH) in Kansas City, November 23-26. Anyone who plans to attend and who wishes to report in this CARG session should notify me immediately by phone or email (immediately: by April 13th). Arrangement for inclusion in this program segment may be possible after April 13th, but only participants confirmed now can be registered in the official printed program. I will especially appreciate notification from those who participated in the 1990 CARG program. Robin Cover ---------------- Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 6634 Sarah Drive Internet: zrcc1001@vm.cis.smu.edu Dallas, TX 75236 USA Internet: robin@utafll.uta.edu ("uta-ef-el-el") Tel: (1 214) 296-1783 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu [FAX: (1 214) 841-3642] Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org ---------------- From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Spring Colloqium Announcement Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 11:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2652 (3060) College of Library and Information Services University of Maryland, College Park Spring Colloquium THE ACADEMIC LIBRARY IN AN ELECTRONIC UNIVERSITY: WHITHER OR WITHER REVISITED Carol Fenichel, Ph.D. Director of the Library Hahnemann University, Philadelphia Thursday, April 18, 1991 2:00 pm Hornbake 0109 Coffee follows Faculty Lounge Hornbake - 4th floor Please join the students and faculty of the College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park, for a talk by Dr. Carol Fenichel, Director of the Library at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia. As academic institutions move more aggressively into the world of electronic information and communication, academic libraries face stimulating challenges and opportunities. Plan to share your insights and experiences in the discussion afterwards. Dr. Carol Fenichel has been active in the information field for nearly 20 years as a medical librarian, teacher, researcher, and consultant. A frequent contributor to the professional literature, she is the author of two online guide books. As a member of the National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Library Review Committee, she has observed many academic institutions as they address the electronic information environment. She is also an Adjunct Professor and a member of the Advisory Council in the College of Information Studies, Drexel University. For further information, contact: Professor Marilyn White, CLIS telephone: (301) 405-2047 internet: MW28@Umail.Umd.Edu From: <WOODS@FANDMA> Subject: Director of Academic Computing Position Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 12:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1218 (3061) *DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC COMPUTING, FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE* Franklin and Marshall College invites nominations and applications for the position of Director of Academic Computing, beginning July 1, 1991, or as soon thereafter as possible. The Director is responsible for all aspects of academic computing, including the continued development and provision of facilities and user support for both faculty and students, and for encouraging computer-based innovation in teaching and research. He or she will supervise a staff of four professionals and oversee approximately 30 student consultants. The Director reports to the Vice President and Dean of the College, and works closely with the Associate Vice President for Academic Resources. Franklin and Marshall, as a member of the Apple University Consortium, maintains a sophisticated computing environment, centered in the new Martin Library of the Sciences. All faculty have networked Macintosh computers in their offices, and roughly 70% of the students have followed the College's recommendation to purchase their own Macintosh. The shared central computer is a VAX, running VMS. Candidates for this position should have a Ph.D., preferably in a field appropriate to the mission of a liberal arts college, and at least three years experience in academic computing. In cases of exceptional experience the degree requirement may be waived. Salary will be commensurate with background and experience. Franklin and Marshall College, founded in 1787, is a coeducational liberal arts institution located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 65 miles west of Philadelphia and 70 miles north of Baltimore. It has approximately 1800 students who major in over 30 disciplines, and 150 faculty who pursue active research programs. The College has a continuing commitment to campus-wide computer use, and an active interest in developments in academic computing. It maintains membership in Bitnet and CAUSE, and has recently installed an automated library system with on-line catalog. Send applications and nominations by MAY 15 to Dean Susanne Woods, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003. Franklin and Marshall is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from women and minorities. From: Skip <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Textbooks: History of the Renaissance Date: Tue, 09 Apr 91 08:49:48 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2653 (3062) I have posted this message on FICINO, but that list is in the process of moving and seems to have fallen silent. So I ask again here. I shall be teaching my Electric Renaissance class again next fall. This is a straightforward history of the Italian Renaissance with the twist that the course is taught entirely by modem on computer, conducted rather like discussions are conducted here on HISTORY. With no lectures and no live contact with the professor, the textbooks assume an even more central role. When I went shopping last year I was discouraged by what was available. Rather than use the same books again, some of which were good, some of which weren't, I'd like to hear from my colleagues. If you teach an upper-division course on the Renaissance, what texts do you use? I'm especially interested in books specifically on the Italian Renaissance, though I'll take ones on all Europe. Specialized books are OK, too. All must be in English, however. Thanks in advance for any responses. ELLIS 'SKIP' KNOX Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery) Subject: RE: 4.1118 Words (7/188) Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1991 12:53:14 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2654 (3063) Now that the brouhaha over emasculating the language has died down a bit, let me pose a question concerning the origins of the objections to the use of "man" as a gender-inclusive noun. According to the OED "man" had been used to refer to people without regard to sex or age since at least 835 AD. Somebody decided to get offended by this and then set out to remanufacture the sensibilities of others so that they, too, would be offended by it--or at least would pretend that they were offended and avoid its use. And later, I presume, we have people who wish to add autobiographical editorial comments [e.g., (sic)] to note their disgust with people who used "man" in what was at the time of its writing a perfectly reasonable way of using the language--people who must not understand the function of quotation marks, I suspect. Now I don't wish to restart the venom-slinging; I just would like to know if anyone knows the history of this linguistic and political phenomenon? If so, please share. Thanks. T. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall * * Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340 * * 315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU * * TVICKERY@SUNRISE.BITNET FAX 315-443-5732 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From: "Beverly B. Madron" <MADRON@ZODIAC.BITNET> Subject: Queries Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 10:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2655 (3064) Two questions: (1) Where did the phrase "pushing the envelope" originate? I've heard it frequently in news broadcasts and other places, but have no idea where it came from or what it refers to. (2) When did we begin to stand "on line" rather than "in line"--and why? Many thanks! Bev Madron From: Richard Shroyer <shroyer@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca> Subject: query on lies Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 17:05:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2656 (3065) April 9,1991 Neil Klar, M.Sc. M.Math. Kresge Building Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics University of Western Ontario London, Ontario Canada N6A 5C1 (519) 661-2162 (x6269) neil@biostats.uwo.ca ------------------------------------------------------------- An open letter to the HUMANIST bulletin board. I am a graduate student doing doctoral research in a depart- ment of epidemiology and biostatistics. My studies include an interest in the history of my discipline. One of the as- pects of the history of statistics which interests me is the willingness with which statistical evidence is accepted. Probably the best known statement criticizing such evidence is the quotation which ends "...lies, damn lies and statis- tics" attributed by Mark Twain to Disraeli, although there are several other claimants. Unfortunately I have been un- able to trace the quotation beyond Mark Twain's autobiogra- phy. I began my investigation by searching the library shelves hoping that I might find the quotation in a book of Disraeli's collected speeches or letters. The enormity of the task overwhelmed me and I decided that it might be help- ful to write to a Disraeli scholar for advice and direction. By good fortune I came across Sarah Bradford's recent biog- raphy of Disraeli and decided to write to her for advice. She was familiar with the quotation but had not known that it had ever been attributed to Disraeli and felt that it did not have "a Disraelian ring." However she thought it prudent that I contact M.G. Wiebe, a professor at Queen's University and General Editor of the Disraeli Project. Professor Wiebe thought the quotation might have originated with Disraeli but was unsure how to narrow the search for the source and suggested I put the question to the members of HUMANIST. I would appreciate any help in answering the following ques- tions. Was Twain correct in ascribing the quotation to Dis- raeli? If so, in what context was it stated and where might I find it? If you do not know the source of the quotation can you make any suggestions to simplify my search? The essay by Twain in which he includes the quotation begins with a discussion of an inadvertant episode of plaigarism of which he was guilty. A statistical historian of my acquain- tance has suggested that Twain himself made up the phrase "...lies, damn lies, and statistics" and attributed it to Disraeli as a sort of joke. Is this likely? The 1959 edition of the Home Book of Quotations states the quotation has also been attributed to Henry Labouchere, Abraham Hewitt, and Commander Holloway R. Frost but provide no references. Has anyone seen where the quotation has been attributed to them? I am grateful for any help which can be offered. Sincerely yours, Neil Klar, M.Sc. M.Math. Kresge Building Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics University of Western Ontario London, Ontario Canada N6A 5C1 (519) 661-2162 (x6269) neil@biostats.uwo.ca From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: E-Mail address Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 08:21:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2657 (3066) I am trying to locate a professor Delacote, supposedly of San Francisco State University (but in fact not at that location). I also am trying to get the E-Mail address of Olivier Cheyron of l'Universite de Nice- Sophia-Antipolis. Any information would be appreciated. Thank you. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: tut@Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) Subject: Re: Unix concordance package Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 17:51:35 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2658 (3067) Hum is still available, free. It was written in C on version 7 Unix at UC Berkeley, back in the early 80s. Last week I compiled it on a Sun-4 running SunOS 4.1, and it still runs. If you send me e-mail, I'll reply with a shell archive of the Hum package (169k). You'll have to compile it yourself. It's odd that the Oxford Concordance Program was written in Fortran because that was the most common language. I don't even have Fortran on my machine now! Bill From: sem sutter <book@midway.uchicago.edu> Subject: 4.1210 De Italia Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 12:34:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2659 (3068) Our De Italia set-up (near the general reference desk) sits idle for 99+% of the time. When I see it in use, it's usually by someone drawn to experiment with the gleaming screen. Research use is almost nonexistent due to the superficial character of the material. Has anyone else's experience been differeent? Sem C. Sutter Bibliographer for W. European Languages & Literatures University of Chicago Library Bitnet: uclbook@uchimvs1 Internet: book@midway.uchicago.edu From: Michael_Kessler.Hum@mailgate Subject: Stoned PC Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 15:33:00 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2660 (3069) The message "your PC is stoned" is generated by the Stoned virus. It can be removed with F-Prot. MKessler@HUM.SFSU.EDU From: Jean Veronis <VERONIS@vassar.bitnet> Subject: Re: 4.1213 Gender Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 19:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2661 (3070) Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to Ian Mitchell Lambert's question: "why do words have a gender in some languages?", but I want to bring a related question: why do children learn gender so fast in those languages? I am always puzzled in my own language (French) to see that children learn word gender extremely early, and extremely easily. Children (even very young) almost never goof on gender. They hear a word once, and that's it, they'll remember the gender. They will have trouble with lots of other things (like conjuguation in French: "je fera" instead od "je ferai", etc.), but not with gender. Yet, gender is perfectly arbitrary ("moon" is feminine to us, whereas it is masculine to Germans, if I am right). To the contrary, gender aquisition is one of the trickiest difficulties for non native speakers: it is extremely slow and painful, and many learners of French never quite have genders right, whereas they can eventually master most of the grammar. Are there any theories about that? Jean Ve'ronis, Vassar College and CNRS From: Computational Linguists <registry@tira.uchicago.edu> Subject: Announcement of the NL Software Registry Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 15:15:42 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1221 (3071) NATURAL LANGUAGE SOFTWARE REGISTRY The Natural Language Software Registry is a catalogue of software implementing core natural language processing techniques, whether available on a commercial or noncommercial basis. The current version includes + speech signal processors, such as the Computerized Speech Lab (Kay Electronics) + morphological analyzers, such as PC-KIMMO (Summer Institute for Linguistics) + parsers, such as Alveytools (University of Edinburgh) + knowledge representation systems, such as Rhet (University of Rochester) + multicomponent systems, such as ELU (ISSCO), PENMAN (ISI), Pundit (UNISYS), SNePS (SUNY Buffalo), + applications programs (misc.) This document is available on-line via anonymous ftp to tira.uchicago.edu (IP 128.135.96.31), by email to registry@tira.uchicago.edu, and by physical mail to the address below. If you have developed a piece of software for natural language processing that other researchers might find useful, you can include it by returning the description form, available from the same sources. Elizabeth Hinkelman, Director (registry@tira.uchicago.edu) NL Software Registry Center for Information and Language Studies 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA ----------------------- Authors: Person to contact for software (if different): Institution: Department: Street: City/State/Zip: Country: Phone (with country & area codes): Email network & address: Name of system: Type of system: research system / commercial product / other (specify) Primary task of system: linguistic analysis / test of linguistic theory (specify) / text generation / machine translation / text proofing / database interface / other (specify) Components: phonological analyzer/generator morphological analyzer/generator parser/generator semantic interpreter knowledge representation discourse structure pragmatic features other (specify) Components available as independent modules: (subsequent questions may need a separate answer for each) Components can be extended by: the developer / computational linguist / linguist / programmer / experienced user / new user Data components are: firmly embedded in program / independent of program Data provided: (give size, features and language as in the examples) 120,000 entry wordlist for French 5,000 word LFG lexicon of basic Swahili w/ affixes, English gloss 15 rule transformational grammar for Dutch cross-serial dependencies 200 node knowledge base for AIDS case histories w/ 10 30-node cases. Data components can be extended by: the developer / computational linguist / linguist / programmer / experienced user / new user Character set used for language data: programmable (describe) fixed, 16-bit -- Unicode fixed, 8-bit -- ISO (specify, eg ASCII+Latin II) / proprietary ASCII fixed, 7-bit -- ISO (specify, eg US ASCII) / extended ASCII (specify) other (specify) Range of applicable natural languages: (give theoretical or technical limits) Approximate number of examples processed successfully, as a power of 10: Specify example type: words / sentences / paragraphs / other Its coverage level is now: demonstration / small research / large research / production quality / high volume Size of system: lines of source code, kilobytes of executable Programming language: Operating system or hardware: Is there a stable version of the system? Is there continuing development? Summarize the main goals and ideas. Indicate what makes the project a useful and interesting tool for research applications. List documents in which the software is described: User documentation: System documentation: Available support: upgrades / source code / consulting / other Format for software distribution: Price: Restrictions on use: If you are willing to have the software reviewed, please send us a version along with this information. We are also interested in reports and documentation, even for software not reviewed. NL Software Registry Center for Information and Language Studies 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA registry@tira.uchicago.edu From: David Sewell <dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Finding US scholars' e-mail addresses Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 17:13:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1222 (3072) In response to all the recent requests for individual e-mail addresses, here's another suggestion. Mark Kantrowitz of Carnegie-Mellon University has been maintaining a list of where to look to find undergraduate and graduate e-mail addresses at universities and colleges (mostly US for now). Most often the directions are good for faculty, too (and where faculty have separate accounts, that is often indicated). He posts the list periodically to the Usenet group soc.net-people. It can also be obtained via anonymous ftp, following the attached directions which Mark provided (slightly modifed by DS). ---- Ftp to a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (or any other cs.cmu.edu machine) and retrieve the file /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mkant/Public/college-email.text. Note that you must cd to this directory in one fell swoop, as intermediate directories are protected. Of course, if you're running the Andrew File System and have access to afs, you can just cd to the directory directly. --mark Example: % ftp a.gp.cs.cmu.edu [or: ftp 128.2.242.7] Connected to A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU. 220 A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU FTP server ready. Name (a.gp.cs.cmu.edu:dsew): anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send ident as password. Password: 230 Filenames can not have '/..' in them. ftp> cd /afs/cs/user/mkant/Public 250 Directory path set to /afs/cs/user/mkant/Public. ftp> ls 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for ls (128.2.220.10,3270). college-email.text 226 Transfer complete. 36 bytes received in 0.55 seconds (0.064 Kbytes/s) ftp> get college-email.text 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for college-email.text (128.151.224.35,3551) (37979 bytes) 226 Transfer complete. 38945 bytes received in 2.7 seconds (14 Kbytes/s) ftp> quit 221 Goodbye. From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Technology Subject: Electronic Septuagint Studies Project Listing Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 12:06 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1223 (3073) [This is a list of electronic Septuagint studies projects. The file contains a key to the catalogue entries followed by the list of entries themselves. For further information, a different search, or if you have any questions, please contact James Wilderotter. --ahr] James A. Wilderotter II Project Assistant Center for Text and Technology Academic Computer Center Reiss Science Building, Room 238 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 Tel. (202) 687-6096 BITNET: Wilder@Guvax Internet: Edu%"Wilder@Guvax.Georgetown.Edu" --------------------------Septuagint-Studies-Project-List----------------- Key to abbreviations on the status of the entry (at upper left): - Full information has been gathered for the forthcoming Gaunt-Raben publication, The Electronic Scholar's Research Guide. x Information has been added to the entry since 4/10/89. i An inquiry requesting further details has been sent to the contact person at the project. r A response from the project's contact person has been added to the catalogue. Key to the source of information [in brackets] after the location and title of a project: Allen = Robert F. Allen, ed., Databases in the Humanities and Social Sciences 1983, Osprey, FL: Paradigm Press, 1985. Hughes = John J. Hughes, Bits, Bytes & Biblical Studies, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987. L&M = Ian Lancashire and Willard McCarty, The Humanities Computing Yearbook 1988, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1988. Moberg = Thomas F. Moberg, ed., Databases in the Humanities and Social Sciences 1985, Osprey, FL: Paradigm Press. NEH = National Endowment for the Humanities List of Awards 1988 Taylor and Leech = Lita Taylor and Geoffrey Leech, "Lancaster Preliminary Survey of Machine-Readable Language Corpora" HUMANIST Bulletin Board. BITNET. May 26, 1989 Names of contributors (with media and dates of communication) Key to numbered items for the entries: 0. Identifying Acronym 1. Name and Affiliation of Operation (with collaborators noted) Reference to any published description [esp. most recent or most complete] 2. Contact Person and/or Vendor with Addresses (including telephone, BITNET, and Internet) 3. Primary Disciplinary Interest (and Secondary Interests) [e.g. Literature, Language, Linguistics, Music, Art, Biography] 4. Focus: Time Period, Location, Individual, Genre, or Medium 5. Language(s) encoded (English, German, French, et.al.) 6. Intended Use(s) [e.g. textbank, database, bibliography] with Goal (or Statement of Purpose) and Size [number of works, or entries, or citations] 7. Format(s), including choice of sequential text or data base excerpts, file formats, analytical programs and programming languages, text markup and encoding schemes, hardware and operating systems, etc.) To what extent are the formats consistent throughout the archive? 8. Form(s) of Access: if online, what policies? if tape, what track, bpi, block size, labels, parity setting? if diskette, what size and operating system or microcomputer? if CD-ROM, what format? What software is needed for accessing? 9. Source(s) of the Archival Holdings Encoded in-house, or obtained from elsewhere (where)? Textual authority used for encoding? Availability and price BELGIUM: xr/Dene/e (Benedictine Abbey Maredsous)/ CIB = Centre: Informatique et Bible [Hughes, BBBS 519; Poswick letter 5/23/89] 0. CIB 1. Centre: Informatique et Bible, Benedictine Abbey Maredsous See CIB newsletter INTERFACE. 2. Fr. R.-Ferdinand Poswick, OSB Centre: Informatique et Bible Maredsous B-5198 Dene/e Belgium tel. 32(0)82 69 96 47; FAX 32(0)82 3. Biblical study 4. Biblical 5. Masoretic, Septuagint, Greek NT; selected Latin, French, English, Spanish, and Dutch translations 6. Textbank Hebrew MS of Book of Ben Sira; list of Old Testament Greek MS and MS' lists; encyclopedic dictionaries of the Bible; languages of the Bible lemmatized dictionaries and lexica 7. Sequential text fully vocalized and cantillated with all punctuation, all additional diacritical marks, all ketib/quere for the MT; text files in EBCDIC and ASCII; programming in COBOL, Assembler, BASIC 8. Access by tape (9-track; 800, 1600 and 6250 bpi), diskette, CD-ROM, French Teletel (Minitel) Network: 3615 DEXTEL or MPBIBLE, or print 9. Authorities: TLG Greek Bible; Tu%bingen Vulgata; mostly in-house encoded FRANCE: [...] -------------------- [A complete version of this list is now available through the fileserver, s.v. SEPTUAGI PROJECTS. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: Richard Ristow <AP430001@BROWNVM> Subject: Replies: Envelope Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 18:37:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2662 (3074) On Tue, 9 Apr 91 10:11 EDT "Beverly B. Madron" <MADRON@ZODIAC.BITNET> asked: [deleted quotation] This is educated conjecture rather than researched -- I've taken it to be from engineering slang. One engineering use of "envelope" is "the limits of performance to which [something] can be brought". The image comes from a legitimate mathematical use of the term. Imagine a piece of graph paper on which are a set of curves each of which gives, say, the range plotted against the load carried, for a set of variations on an aircraft design: ! ! . . . R ! . a ! o o oo.o o n ! . o g ! . o e ! . o ! . o !____________________ Load Here the "." line represents a variation designed for range at the expense of load-carrying ability, and the "o" line one designed for load. The extreme range of performance of the while type is the "envelope" of the best performance of ANY variant: !+ + ! . . + R ! . + a ! o o oo.o o+ n ! . o+ g ! . o + e ! . o + ! . o + !____________________+ Load "Pushing" has the sense of "going beyond what comes easily", with the visual image of physically forcing the curve farther out on the graph paper -- hence, "pushing the envelope" == "attempting to go beyond what can be done with our techniques as we now understand them". The term may have come into popular use through military aviators, who use it to mean "working to get the most possible, and perhaps a little more, out of an aircraft", having in turn borrowed it from engineers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Ristow AP430001@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (BROWNVM on BITNET) From: Ed Haupt <haupt@pilot.njin.net> Subject: pushing the envelope Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 23:31:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2663 (3075) I'm pretty sure that I understand where the metaphor comes from but I won't guarantee it. It comes from aircraft performance by test pilots, and I guess if you were to look in *the right stuff* you'd probably find something. The performance that is possible for an aircraft is limited. It can only fly so fast, it can only fly so slowly, or else it crashes. It can only fly up to a certain altitude, it can only have its wings within a certain limited range of degree positions, etc. The multi-dimensional space in which it is thus possible for an airplane to fly is some sort of unvisual- izable multi-dimensional polygon, which was frequently described as the envelope (metaphor of enclosing) of performance. Back to *the right stuff*. Test pilots are slightly crazy. They want the airplane, etc. to do more than the specifications say. They would like to fly a little faster, higher, etc., and thus "push" the "envelope" to be a little larger, get a little more performance. Did Did you ever wonder w];z*yhere "kludge" came from? Edward J. Haupt voice: (201) 893-4327 Department of Psychology internet: haupt@pilot.njin.net Montclair State College bitnet: haupt@njin Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 USA From: "Dana Cartwright, Syracuse Univ, 315-443-4504" <DECARTWR@SUVM> Subject: Edge of the Envelope Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 07:46:36 LCL X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2664 (3076) Beverly Madron asks about the phrase "pushing the envelope" which she sees increasingly in the media (I have not personally observed this happening). I hope the media folks are actually saying "pushing the edge of the envelope," which would be the correct usage. I assume this is yet one more example of military jargon, especially pilot's jargon, entering the language, probably due to the large role played by pilots in the recent US-Iraq war. Any high-performance vehicle (aircraft and race cars come to mind) has limits beyond which one hesitates to push it, because there tends to be a sharply defined transition from desireable to undesireable behavior (in a race car, going around a corner faster than everyone else is good, but going just slightly faster than the car can tolerate leads to sliding off into the wall. The difference in speed is slight, but the difference in outcomes is enormous). Putting it more abstractly, there is a region of instability where a slight change in some parameter (cornering speed, in the case of the race car) leads to an enormous change in results (winning versus crashing). This leads naturally enough to the idea that there is a "safe" operating region and an "unsafe" operating region, with a sharply defined boundary. The idea is to always stay "inside" the safe region, but nonetheless one wants to operate as close as possible to the edge of the region. Pilots refer to an "envelope" which encloses the safe region, and thus "pushing the edge of the envelope" refers to a highly skilled pilot who is able to operate at the extreme limits of the possible performance of the aircraft. Race car drivers speak of "driving on the edge"--not meaning driving on the edge of the track, but rather on the edge of the performance space. If you drop out the "edge of" and just say "pushing the envelope," you seem to get into another area of pilot's complaints: excessive paperwork. Presumably not what the media folks are speaking about. From: Arnold Keller <AKELLER@UVVM.UVic.CA> Subject: Re: 4.1219 Queries (5/162) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 08:04:49 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2665 (3077) In response to Beverly Madron: "Pushing the envelope" seems to be connected with early supersonic flight. I'm not sure if the envelope has to do with the kind of image one gets on flight instruments that would be roughly comparable to the sound "envelope" of electronic musical instruments. The expression itself gets an airing, I dimly remember, in Tom Wolfe's *The Right Stuff*--again, that's what I dimly remember without having the book in front of me. Arnie Keller University of Victoria From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1219 Queries (5/162) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 13:14:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2666 (3078) Regarding Bev Madron's queries: "pushing the envelope" occurs in <The Right Stuff> in reference to breaking the sound barrier; I assume Wolfe got it from areonautical engineering, where it must be used to describe the limits or boundaries of an existing system. A similar use of "envelope" occurs today in talk about sounds and waves, where the overall shape of a waveform (onset, offset, overtones) is its "envelope." There may be eariler uses; I vaguely remember the phase being used in a 1950's sci-fi-ish film about exploring the upper atmosphere in the X-15. As to "on line," we native New Yorkers never say anything else; my parents, who learned their English on the streets of Brooklyn in the period 1900-1920 always said "on line" too. Parking signs in NY say "No Parking on this Street" but in Philadelphia they say "in this Street." I think Fillmore discusses the difference in the dimensionality of this preposition (2-D vs. 3-D conceptions of streets) in "Studies in Deixis." Stephen D. Spangehl +---------------+ University of Louisville | SDSPAN01 @ | Louisville, Kentucky 40292 | ULKYVM.BITNET | (502) 588-7289 or (502) 245-0319 +---------------+ From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: pushing the envelope Date: 10 April 1991, 13:13:03 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2667 (3079) It was popularized by Tom Wolfe in *The Right Stuff*. I remember being puzzled by the term even as it was used by Chuck Yeager in the book, but it meant something like pushing the test airplane to the limits of its endurance and the limits of the pilot's endurance and capabilities. The envelope, as I remember it, was the envelope of space, but exactly how one can push an envelope I have never been able to visualize. Any more takers? Roy Flannagan From: rsw@wubios.wustl.edu (Bob Woodward) Subject: "Pushing the envelope" Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 14:38:57 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2668 (3080) I believe "pushing the envelope" originates from the land of high performance ("Top Gun") aircraft. The "envelope" refers to the set of maximum feasible combinations of altitude and speed attainable with any particular aircraft. As technology has increased the speeds possible at any given altitude and/or allowed planes to fly higher, we say the "envelope has been pushed out." I've seen an article describing this "envelope" in something like Scientific American or High Technology within the last few years, but fail to recall any detailed bibliographic information. From: DJT18@hull.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1210 De Italia (2/105) Date: Wed,10 Apr 91 09:23:32 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2669 (3081) De Italia If any Humanist in the UK is interested, we have the De Italia disc here at the CTI Centre for Modern Languages at the University of Hull. We are happy to demonstrate it, and other language-related software, as part of our visits to UK universities, or staff can come and visit us here. June Thompson CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull, UK. From: Sharon <DRU006D@SMSVMA> Subject: Call software for Macintowh Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 21:27:44 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2670 (3082) I recently attended the SCOLA conference at Duke where two softwares for IBM and compatibles were demonstrated: Micro Review for French and Micro Tutor for Spanish. I am considering adopting the former for next year's first year French classes in lieu of a"regular" workbook. We are currently trying to integrate the Language Lab at Drury College by adding a number of Mac LCs. Is anyone developing, or has anyone developed, a similar software for Mac? Thanks. Sharon Nell-Boelsche, Drury College. From: DAVID BARRY <UBJV649@CU.BBK.AC.UK> Subject: re: 4.1214 N&Q: Knowbot Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 11:26 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2671 (3083) What is a Knowbot? From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: E-journal Directory Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 11:36:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2672 (3084) I am seeking the e-mail addresses to the following e-journals and newsletters: ArtsNet Review Society for Critical Exchange's "College of Electronic Theory" EFF News Journal of Interactive Fiction and Creative Hypertext Synapse Biosphere Newsletter Class Four Netmonth Network Audio Bits TEXMAG South Florida Enviromental Reader SCUP Newsletter Intertext New Horizons in Adult Education Linkletter If you are aware of how to contact the editor(s) of any of the above, please let me know. Also, please feel free to redistribute the following query: -------------------------------------------------------------------- To the Editor: I am presently compiling a comprehensive directory of electronic journals and newsletters of academic interest. This directory will be made available in e-text for public dissemination throughout the networks and will be available shortly in print form. Thus I am seeking the following information from journal and newsletter editors: title, description, how to subscribe, how to submit material, info on related list, if any, how to access back issues, who to contact for more information. Please send this information to: Michael Strangelove <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> Network Research Facilitator Department of Religious Studies University of Ottawa From: David Graber <GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: FRENCH DICT. WITH GENDER Date: Tue, 09 Apr 91 09:18:54 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2673 (3085) A colleague of mine is interested in finding an on-line dictionary or spellchecker of French which includes gender. David S. Graber Humanities and Arts Computing Center DR-10 University of Washington GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU graber@blake.u.washington.edu (206) 543-4218 From: William J Frawley <billf@brahms.udel.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1220 Rs: Unix Concording; De Italia; Stoned PC; &c. (4/60) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 08:07:38 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2674 (3086) Some comments on Lambert's and Varonis' comments on gender. I think it is safe to say that languages have gender because it is a reflection of a more general device that langauges have to encode and track nouns and their structural dependents. Hence, gender systems are like the systems of animacy markers we see in African languages, for example. In fact, if I remember Lehman's work on Proto-Indoeuropean correctly, Indo-European languages' gender systems derive from a PIE animacy system. The acquisition of gender in a second language has not been studied much, as far as I know. But a student here at Delaware is writing a diss. on on the role of universals of agreement in the acquisition of French as a second language. Her name is Radmilla Vuchic (c/o Linguistics, University of Delaware: no e-mail for her, as far as I know). Her diss. discusses gender. Zubin and Kopcke (spelling?) have a paper in a book edited by Collette Craig on noun classes on the relationship between gender and categorization. They argue, if I remember correctly, that neuter gender tends to encode superordinates and masculine/feminine gender encodes subordinates. If they are right, then gender, which is otherwise semantically arbitrary for the most part, has a conceptual/semantic motivation. this leads to an interesting question following Varonis' query/observation: is gender in a second language difficult because of morpho-syntactic factors, or because of the semantic/conceptual factors associated with it? Or both? Bill Frawley From: 6160LACYA@MUCSD.BITNET Subject: gender; envelopes Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1991 00:43 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2675 (3087) 1) I don't have an answer to the question on gender origin either (and I doubt anyone does), but the comments by Jean Veronis remind me of an article I read some years ago about German. The investigators made up a series of nonsense words, presented them to native speakers of German, and asked them to give the gender for each of the words. As I recall, there was something like 80-90% agreement in their answers. Unfortunately I can't give you any kind of source for this presently. Maybe someone else remembers the study? 2) The query regarding "pushing the envelope" by Beverly Madron was addressed a few weeks ago by William Safire in his column "On Language" in the New York Times (Sunday) Magazine Section. It's a term from flying, where the envelope surrounds the plane. Alan Lacy 6160lacya@vmsf.csd.mu.edu From: Marc Eisinger +33 (1) 40 01 51 20 EISINGER at FRIBM11 Subject: Gender Date: 10 April 91, 14:52:05 SET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2676 (3088) Naturaly the question "Why do some languages have gender" comes from someone whose native language has (almost) no gender. As a gender sensitive language native speaker, I could ask : "Why do some languages have no gender" ... Nevertheless is there any answer to that kind of question ? In fact what is puzzling me is the non-generality of the schema. English has gender (he/she, ship, etc.) but uses it in very seldom cases, Nahuatl has no plural except for animate items (human beings, animals) plus some exceptions like the "stars", etc. In short, my point is that, to my knowledge, most of the languages have all these features but differs in the way they use them. Marc Eisinger From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Old manuscript description Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 01:31 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2677 (3089) A friend of mine working in the field of medieval studies and specialized in recipes and foods is looking for more information about a manuscript she thinks is situated at: HUNTINGTON LIBRARY SAN MARINO CALIFORNIA The manuscript identification code is HV 1051. Does anyone among us know a e-address where she could get more information on the contents of the manuscript. Please reply either to me or to her directly at em632@cc.umontreal.ca From: Aaron Kershenbaum T/L-863-7320 KERSH at YKTVMH Subject: finding David Ostafin Date: 10 April 1991, 16:55:54 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2678 (3090) Hi--This is a long shot. Does anyone out there know the whereabouts of David M. Ostafin who got his PhD. in 1986 from the University of Connecticut? Both I and Janet Fodor are looking for him. Thanks, Peg From: "Rosanne G. Potter" <S1.RGP@ISUMVS> Subject: Call for Papers: Women's Studies and Computing Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 16:51:33 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1228 (3091) WOMEN'S STUDIES AND COMPUTING The Clarendon Press (Oxford) plans to issue its first special- topics version of The Humanities Computing Yearbook in 1993. As editor of that collection, I can announce that HCY:3 will be devoted to reports on the use of Computing in the inter- disciplinary field of Women's Studies. My first editorial goal is to gather information about applications of computer technology to the diverse issues faced by scholars in Women's Studies. My second goal is to assign experienced researchers in each of the disciplines to write review essays on the best work in that field. I anticipate essays on Anthropology, Art, Education, History, Literature (in several languages), Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Sociology and . . . (open to other suggestions) To achieve these ends, I request that computing scholars active in Women's Studies PLEASE SEND OFF-PRINTS of the essays they have about research that relied on computational technology. (These need not specifically refer to computers). If the computing connection is not emphasized in the essay, please include a short description of reasons for using computers, and a statement of gains and/or losses realized because of the choice.I am also interested in essays submitted for publication, and statements about work in progress. I plan to choose review-essay writers from those who send their work for inclusion in the collection. There will also be room for essay-length reports on especially important projects. Jargon neither necessary nor encouraged. Clear, non-technical writing sought, especially from anyone who wishes to propose herself as a review-essay writer. PLEASE PASS THIS CALL FOR OFFPRINTS AND REVIEWERS ON: to those whose work should be recognized in this field-defining collection of reports on Women's Studies and Computing. Send offprints, descriptions of research, letters of inquiry, etc. to: Rosanne G. Potter, Chair Women's Studies Program 247 Ross Hall Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 50011 <S1.RGP@ISUMVS> Table of Contents due: July 15, 1991 First drafts due: January 1, 1992 Final papers due: September 1, 1992 Publication date: June or July 1993 To: WOMWRITE@BROWNVM From: dgd@cs.bu.edu Subject: 4.1226 Gender (3/67) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 16:11:31 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2679 (3092) Linguists generally use the term gender to refer to a disjoint set of inflectionally distinct noun classes where agreement is required (usually noun/verb and noun/adjective) there are usually some semantic correlates to these classes but they are usually approximate, and distinctions of size, and animacy are frequently expressed as well as "sexual" gender. My memory is that animacy is as or more common than sex as a gender distinction, but I could not vouch for it. Swahili for example has 10 distinct genders of noun (identified by prefixes) whcih agree with the verb in subject object and indirect object positions (that's 1000 forms before you even get to test, aspect, et. al.). Disclaimer: I don't know swahili, but it's a classic linguist-training excercise, as it's a nifty and regular agglutinative verb system. From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Knowbot Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 14:06:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2680 (3093) "What is Knowbot?" The Corp. for National Research Initiative in Reston, Virginia is interested in mechanisms for searching diverse resources located on a network. Dr. Peter Binder of NRI spoke recently at a NERComp meeting on Network Services at Trinity College in Hartford, CT and he explained that Knowbot is a general querying service. The idea is to send in one query and let the service track down the resources and pose the query in the appropriate form. The Knowbot Information System (KIS) that has been described in earlier Humanist postings is NRI's current project for testing this network searching service by using white pages directories available on the Internet. You submit your query to Knowbot and it then searches the various (8? 10?) network directories by issuing the correct commands for those systems. You only deal with one interface and one connection to get the results of queries that have been posed to several resources. It sounds as though NRI is interested in developing this service in the context of a high-speed network and for use with multimedia resources, among others. So, while Knowbot is in fact a first-step project for NRI, most Internet users know it as a useful name directory searching service. Again, Knowbot can be reached by telnetting nri.reston.va.us port 185 *or* sol.bucknell.edu port 185. --Jan Eveleth Yale University eveleth@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu From: cbf@athena.BERKELEY.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Huntington catalog Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 09:02:58 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2681 (3094) There is a recent catalog of the medieval MSS in the Huntington Library by C. M. (Consuelo) Dutschke: Guide to the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library. San Marino, CA, 1989 (LC shelf mark: Z6621.H527 H46 1989). Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1213 Qs: Specialization; Tops; Giradeaux; Words (4/138) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 11:48 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2682 (3095) For Elli@BrownVM: I have a memory ghost that tells me there was sometime over t he past ten years an article about tops in the Scientific American. Try their i ndex to find out about whipping tops. My ghost suggests to me that the article began with the same quotation you cite! Or am I a Beckett character dreaming it all? Kessler (IME9JFK@UCLAMVS) From: "Allen Renear, Brown Univ/CIS, 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Do not adjust your set Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 21:15:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1234 (3096) Yes, there has been a some confusion in the last Humanist digest -- and some numbers have been missed. This will be fixed soon. -- Allen From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: A Riddle from Alcuin Date: Wednesday, 10 April 1991 2351-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2683 (3097) My colleague, E. Ann Matter, recently published an article on "Alcuin's Question-and-Answer Texts" in Rivista di storia della filosofia 4 (1990) 645-656. In the article, Ann mentions the following traditional riddle that is reproduced by Alcuin in his _Pippini regalis et nobilissimi iuvenes disputatio cum Albino scholastico_ (PL 101:975-980) -- "from a Pseudo-Symphosius collection equally widely circulated in Frankland: this is a riddle which appears without an answer in either the disputation with Pippin or its original source": A[lbinus]: I saw a man with eight in his hand, from these eight he took away seven, and six remained. P[ippin]: Boys in school know that one! A. Vidi hominem octo in manem tenentem, et de octonis [subito] rapuit septem, et remanserunt sex. P. Pueris in scholis hoc sciunt. (PL 101:979A) Does anyone know what the ancient schoolboys knew? The best I can do on a quick attempt is to refer to the first 8 numbers in Greek (ABGDEVZH), each of which has an alphabetic value. By taking away all the usually used letters, 7 in number, one is left with the archaic digamma (coded above as V) = 6. Thus "I saw a man with eight numbers in his hand, from these eight he took away the seven letters, and the number six remained." Any better ideas? Ann has recently become networked and can be reached as AMATTER@PENNSAS.upenn.edu, but she has not joined the discussion group crowd yet. So in a way you're being tested! Bob Kraft, UPenn From: RKENNER@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: CD-I Interactive Video Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1991 09:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2684 (3098) I have recently been asked to participate in an interactive video project involving the use of CD-I, the new standard from Phillips and Sony. I am used to doing interactive video where a computer controls and uses a peripheral videodisk player. Researching this Phillips system, it seems to be all in one: computer and player together. It seems to have the advantage of being able to mix text, graphics, sound, and video all on the same compact disk. What worries me is the need to use the native, built-in computer. I am also worried that the specs seem to allow for only about 10 video frames per second, which is not exactly full featured video. I have four questions that I hope someone out there can comment on: 1) Is CD-I on its way to becoming a new standard, as claimed, or is it going to be marginal, or a dead issue? 2) Can it show proper video sequences? 3) Are there software tools out there written for this CD-I computer, which would allow an author to set up fancy database retrieval type operations? 4) Can a CD-I unit still be hooked up as a peripheral controlled by a remote computer? Roger Kenner Concordia University RKENNER@VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Address query Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 15:03 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2685 (3099) Anyone know an email address for Norman Zacour, a medievalist in Toronto (I think at PIMS)? Graham White American University in Cairo From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: Hermes Project info wanted Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 09:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2686 (3100) Please post this query to HUMANIST. A few days ago someone made reference to an internet legal database called project Hermes. Can someone out there supply us with the ftp address, e-mail address, and/or access codes to Hermes? Please reply directly via e-mail to crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx. cws@rcrisp.uark.edu From: GENE DAVIS <EWD100N@oduvm.cc.odu.edu> Subject: request for help Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 13:34:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2687 (3101) Please post on Humanist: A friend who has written several business programs for use on a Commodore 64 has been unable to find a conversion package to make them usable on an IBM-DOS system. Suggestions? From: TEI@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: TEI European Workshop Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 14:45 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1236 (3102) [Following notice is for European eyes only] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TEI European Workshop * * 1-2 July 1991 * * Oxford, UK * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This is a preliminary announcement of the Text Encoding Initiative's first European Workshop, to be held in Oxford, on 1st and 2nd July 1991. There is a 'reply form' attached to the end of this notice, which you should return to TEI@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK as soon as possible if you are thinking of attending. For reasons of space, attendance at this Workshop must be strictly limited. Although priority will be given to current members of TEI Working Groups and Committees, a number of places will be available to non-TEI participants. Exactly how many will depend on the level of interest revealed by this posting. The aim of the Workshop will be to provide detailed practical experience in applying the TEI Guidelines to real-life text handling problems, and to demonstrate the practical advantages of following the Guidelines. A wide variety of software solutions will be demonstrated and participants will also be given the opportunity to use state-of-the art SGML and other software for themselves. PS For North American Readers -- Fret not, a similar event is being planned for you later in the year! ---------PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN THE FOLLOWING BY MAY 1st------------- TO: TEI@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK TEI European Workshop 1-2 July 1991 Please X as many of the following as apply: o I would definitely like to attend the workshop o I would like to know more about the workshop before committing myself o I cannot attend on the dates specified, but would be interested in other workshops o I have read the Guidelines o I have some knowledge of SGML Your name: Your postal address: Your fax number (if any) : ***PLEASE REPLY BY MAY 1st 1991***************************************** From: Lee Davidson <LNP6TTLD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK> Subject: Opinions sought on PC bibliography software Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 09:13:01 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2688 (3103) A group in my institution is beginning the process of selecting a piece of PC software to manage personal bibliographies. I would be grateful for any of the following from Humanist subscribers: 1. Personal experiences, good and bad, with particular products in this area. 2. Locations of published reviews of products. 3. Details of products (name, address of supplier etc) which may not be very well known, but interesting. The group has not yet decided the criteria which the product selected will have to meet, but clearly we are likely to bear in mind flexibility, ease of importing and exporting data, size of fields offered, quality of user interface etc. One problem I have encountered in the past which arises quite frequently in an academic bibliography is that of the edited collection and the items in it. How do packages which other have used deal with the problem of minimising the amount of data entry in such a case, so that from one entry (containing the details of the collection as a whole, and of the individual papers contained in it) it would be possible to generate references to the collection or to individual items without having to duplicate the information in the database? T.T.L.Davidson @ uk.ac.leeds.cms1 [within U.K. univ net, JANET] lnp6ttld @ uk.ac.leeds.cms1 [within U.K. univ net, JANET] lnp6ttld % cms1.leeds.ac.uk @ UKACRL [from BITNET/EARN] lnp6ttld % cms1.leeds.ac.uk @ nsfnet-relay.ac.uk [from Internet] T.T.L.Davidson Dept of Linguistics & Phonetics University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT UK Tel: (0532) 333565 Fax: (0532) 333566 From: Charles Elliott <CEE@CORNELLA> Subject: Mac concordance Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 15:58:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2689 (3104) Can someone please refer me to a PD or commercial Macintosh concordance ? I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions...and please send direct to me, since I am no longer on the useful and fecund Humanist list. Charles Elliott ----------------------------------------------------------------| Charles Elliott | cee @ cornella | cee@cornella.cit.cornell.edu | ----------------------------------------------------------------| From: RKENNER@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: CD-I Interactive Video Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1991 09:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2690 (3105) I have recently been asked to participate in an interactive video project involving the use of CD-I, the new standard from Phillips and Sony. I am used to doing interactive video where a computer controls and uses a peripheral videodisk player. Researching this Phillips system, it seems to be all in one: computer and player together. It seems to have the advantage of being able to mix text, graphics, sound, and video all on the same compact disk. What worries me is the need to use the native, built-in computer. I am also worried that the specs seem to allow for only about 10 video frames per second, which is not exactly full featured video. I have four questions that I hope someone out there can comment on: 1) Is CD-I on its way to becoming a new standard, as claimed, or is it going to be marginal, or a dead issue? 2) Can it show proper video sequences? 3) Are there software tools out there written for this CD-I computer, which would allow an author to set up fancy database retrieval type operations? 4) Can a CD-I unit still be hooked up as a peripheral controlled by a remote computer? Roger Kenner Concordia University RKENNER@VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: Hermes Project info wanted Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 09:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2691 (3106) Please post this query to HUMANIST. A few days ago someone made reference to an internet legal database called project Hermes. Can someone out there supply us with the ftp address, e-mail address, and/or access codes to Hermes? Please reply directly via e-mail to crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx. cws@rcrisp.uark.edu From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM> Subject: Humanities Computing Yearbook 89/90 Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 08:58:38 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2692 (3107) The preparations for the '93 issue of the Humanities Computing Yearbook make me wonder what has become of the Humanities Computing Yearbook 1989/1990. I ordered a copy from Oxford Press 10 months ago but have not seen the book yet. Does anyone know if the book has been shipped or when it is expected to ship? Jan Eveleth Yale University eveleth@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu From: GENE DAVIS <EWD100N@oduvm.cc.odu.edu> Subject: request for help Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 13:34:51 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2693 (3108) Please post on Humanist: A friend who has written several business programs for use on a Commodore 64 has been unable to find a conversion package to make them usable on an IBM-DOS system. Suggestions? From: Dan Greenstein <digger@udcf.glasgow.ac.uk> Subject: please help me? Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 09:28:02 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2694 (3109) I am trying for various antiquarian reasons to compile a list of electronic bulletin boards, on-line library catalogues and the like most used by academics in humanities disciplines. It would be terribly useful if those of you who use such bulletin could forward their names to me (at the above address) and perhaps a few words describing the particular service and why you find it useful (or otherwise). E-mail contact addresses for the services described would also be helpful. Thanks Daniel Greenstein From: "Tom Benson 814-865-4201" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: Graduate study in ancient history/philosophy Date: Sat, 13 Apr 91 10:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2695 (3110) I am writing to seek advice from fellow HUMANISTS on behalf of a student who is not on the electronic network. The student is a graduating senior in philosophy at Penn State, the winner of this year's Shibley Award for "excellence in philosophical studies." She has studied widely in the history of philosophy including a number of graduate seminars, and is completing minors in history and Italian. She has spent semesters studying in Paris (Sorbonne), Rome, and Athens. She speaks/reads French, Italian, German, modern Greek, and has completed a year of classical Greek. Now the problem. Sarah wants to switch fields and study an interdisciplinary mix of ancient history, classics, and philosophy, with a view to doing scholarship in ancient historiography from a philosophical perspective. It's graduation time and the one elite graduate school in ancient history to which she applied for admission has (probably not unreasonably) turned her down because she is not yet at graduate level in Greek and Latin. I'd be grateful for suggestions as to: (1) Are there good programs at which such a student could spend an intensive year studying Greek and Latin as a prelude to gaining admission to an excellent graduate program? (2) What graduate programs would you especially recommend to a young scholar with Sarah's mix of interests? (3) Do you know of a graduate program that might still have openings (ideally with financial support) for the coming year, even at this late date? Thanks. Tom Benson t3b@psuvm (bitnet) Penn State University 227 Sparks Building, University Park, PA 16802 (814) 865-4201; (814) 238-5277 From: Paul_Delany@cc.sfu.ca Subject: e-mail addresses Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 11:03:34 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2696 (3111) Does anyone have e-mail addresses for 1) Sue Stigleman and 2) M. Zimmerman, author of "Notes on Free Text Information Retrieval" Thanks. From: David Sewell <dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> Subject: Request for fiction titles Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 13:47:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2697 (3112) On short notice I've been asked to pick up our senior (undergraduate) Honors Seminar for next fall, and need to come up with a list of readings quickly. I've proposed as a title "Fiction as Godgame," and plan to do a modified version of a course I've been teaching this year in the contemporary American metafictional tradition. But I'd like to expand my repertoire both chronologically and geographically, and so am asking Humanists for suggested readings. I'm going to be focusing on the concept of autonomous characters as articulated by e.g. Bakhtin and John Fowles (from whose _Aristos_ the term "godgame" is borrowed), and will include texts, mostly novels, in which the author-character relationship is particularly in question: Fowles, Coover, Murdoch, Barth, to take some obvious examples. (There's also a pretty awful novel by Andrew Greeley called _God Game_ in which the theological ramifications are explored in great detail...) I'm wondering where I might look in pre-20th century literature; Twain's _Mysterious Stranger_ stories, Shakespeare's _Tempest_ come to mind. I'll be most grateful for any suggestions along these lines. David Sewell, English Dep't, U. of Rochester dsew@cc.rochester.edu From: nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (H. Borchers) Subject: Cross-cultural training Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 14:49:40 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2698 (3113) I'm interested in discussion lists that deal with intercultural communica- tion, more specifically the problems and/or technique of cross-cultural training. Does anyone know of a list or lists of this particular orienta- tion? Hans Borchers, University of Tuebingen, Germany nubo001@convex.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: story source Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 22:57:24 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2699 (3114) A student asked me today if I knew the source of the following story. I didn't, and haven't a clue as to where to start looking -- except here, of course. The gist of the story is that as the birth of Jesus approached, God knew S/he would have to protect the new baby from Satan and his temptations -- and God disguised Jesus (or in some other unspecified way tricked the Prince of Evil...). My student thought this came from Augustine, which makes no sense to me. It sounds instead like medieval folklore, but I'm not a medievalist. All clues, suggestions, hints, or even direct references will be greatly appreciated. Charles Ess Drury College Springfield, MO 65802 From: Len Bliss <BLISSLB@APPSTATE.BITNET> Subject: Translation of <Grand Inquisitor> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1991 21:53 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2700 (3115) My wife is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In one of her classes she was assigned to read <The Grand Inquisitor> from <The Brothers Karamazov>. She purchased the Signet Classic edition (New American Library, 1980) translated by Constance Garnett and edited by Manuel Komroff. During the discussion in class, she noted that her edition portrays Jesus kissing the Inquisitor "softly on the forehead" while all the editions owned by her classmates has the Inquisitor being kissed on "his old, bloodless lips." Later on, where Alyosha kisses Ivan, her edition has Ivan being kissed on the forehead while the other editions (same translator) has him being kissed on his lips. What we obviously have here is an editorial change, but it appears to Linda that the change completely changes tone and symbolism of the kiss. Not having Russian as any of our languages, we have no idea what Dostoyevsky might have actually written. Is there anyone out there who can enlighten us on this and comment on the appropriateness of either of the translations? Len Bliss Appalachian State University Boone, NC From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: query Date: 11 Apr 91 21:35:45 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2701 (3116) On behalf of an offline friend, I am seeking any information concerning the song "Lillabullero," which Uncle Toby whistles ceaselessly throughout TRISTRAM SHANDY. Its history, relevance to Sterne's novel (if any), words (if any), available recordings or sheet music--any information at all. He thinks he heard it as a child fifty years ago in England, but is not sure. Any help would be deeply appreciated, and might even persuade him to get online. Thanks. George Aichele 73760.1176@compuserve.com From: <GRAHAM@EGFRCUVX> Subject: Address query Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 15:03 O X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2702 (3117) Anyone know an email address for Norman Zacour, a medievalist in Toronto (I think at PIMS)? Graham White American University in Cairo From: E. S. Atwell <csc6ea@uk.ac.leeds.sun> Subject: ICAME 91 Open Day Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 17:28:18 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1239 (3118) Forwarded by: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard Mccarty) Please circulate the following flier on the ICAME'91 Open Day to anyone who may wish to attend. The principles apply to Corpora of other languages, not just English, so linguists working on other languages might well be interested as well; I realise that not many people are likely to travel overseas just for a one-day gathering, but perhaps the Open Day might be of interest to anyone who plans to be in England at the time on other business. Eric Steven Atwell National Coordinator, UFC Knowledge Based Systems Initiative Centre for Computer Analysis of Language And Speech (CCALAS) Artificial Intelligence Division, School of Computer Studies phone: +44 532 335761 Leeds University FAX: +44 532 335468 Leeds LS2 9JT JANET: eric@uk.ac.leeds.ai England EARN/BITNET/ARPA: eric%leeds.ai@ac.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ICAME'91 Corpus Research Open Day Thursday May 9th 1991, Craiglands Hotel, Ilkley, Yorkshire The International Computer Archive of Modern English (ICAME) annual conference is the principal meeting place for linguists and computer scientists using English language Corpora in their research. Recently there has been a surge of interest in Corpus-based research in the wider speech and language technology community. For the benefit of this wider community, the 12th ICAME Conference will include an Open Day, when leading ICAME researchers will give overviews of the stages in the "Corpus life cycle": 10.30 Arrival and registration 11.00 An Overview of ICAME (Stig Johansson, Oslo University, ICAME Committee Chairman) 11.30 Corpus Collection (Antoinette Renouf, Birmingham University) 12.00 Corpus Annotation (Sidney Greenbaum, University College London) 12.30 Corpus-based Parsing (Eric Atwell, Leeds University) 1.00 Lunch 2.00 Tools for Using Corpora (Jan Aarts, Nijmegen University) 2.30 Corpora for Lexicography and English Language Teaching (John Sinclair, Birmingham University) 3.00 Using Spoken Corpora (Gerry Knowles, Lancaster University) 3.30 The ICAME Storehouse: Corpus Availability and Distribution (Knut Hofland, Bergen University) 4.00 Departure All are welcome to attend this Open Day; in addition to seeing the above presentations, Open Day participants will be able to meet other ICAME'91 conference delegates to discuss specialist needs, applications, etc. The conference language will be English. The Craiglands Hotel, Cowpasture Road, Ilkley (0943 607676) is c5 minutes walk from the station, and is on the edge of Ilkley Moor (hats not required). Ilkley is about half an hour by rail or road from Leeds, which in turn has good rail and road links to the rest of the UK. Leeds/Bradford Airport, mid-way between Leeds and Ilkley, has regular flights to several UK and European cities. Attendance at the ICAME'91 Open Day costs 50 pounds, which covers lunch and ICAME'91 documentation including a full list of ICAME'91 conference delegates. To attend, please return the booking form below a.s.a.p. (not later than 1st May) to: Eric Atwell, School of Computer Studies, Leeds University, Leeds LS2 9JT; tel: +44 (0532) 335761 email: eric@uk.ac.leeds.ai -----------------------------cut here------------------------------------ ICAME'91 CORPUS RESEARCH OPEN DAY: May 9th 1991, 10.30-4.00, Craiglands Hotel, Ilkley, Yorkshire, England. I would like to register for the ICAME'91 Corpus Research Open Day. NAME: ADDRESS: EMAIL ADDRESS: PHONE: FAX: SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS (eg vegetarian; disabled access): DELETE ONE OF: I enclose a cheque/bankers draft for fifty pounds sterling made payable to the University of Leeds. OR: I have arranged for a bank to bank transfer of fifty pounds sterling to National Westminster Bank, Leeds City Office, 8 Park Row, Leeds LS1 1QS A/c name: University of Leeds; A/c no: 86577220; Sort-code: 60-60-05 NB PLEASE QUOTE REFERENCE: "ICAME91 Conference a/c 334320/0618". From: J_CERNY@UNHH.UNH.EDU Subject: Supreme Court Decisions (Project Hermes) - another source. Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1991 8:13:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1240 (3119) Since the posting (by Peter Junger?) about the existence of recent (since May 1990) Supreme Court decisions on the Cleveland Freenet, as part of Project Hermes, I've discovered another source (there may be many others) that could be easier to access than the Freenet. That is, you Telnet to the Freenet, so you have to capture the files as you display them rather than download them as you would with FTP. For anonymous FTP, try: info.umd.edu The decisions are in the directory: /info/USGovt/SupremeCt/Decisions There are several file types: syllabus, opinion, dissent. See the index file in that directory for more information. By the way, the Bible (King James, divided into standard chapters, ascii, upper and lower case), is also availble via anonymous FTP from "info.umd.edu" in the directory: /info/Literature/KingJames Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ. N.H. j_cerny@unhh.unh.edu From: Sarah Horton <HORTON@YALEVM> Subject: CD-I Query Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1991 13:51:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2703 (3120) Roger Kenner asked some questions about CD-I interactive video... Unfortunately I can't answer any of the questions specifically but... I can point out a good reference. The theme of the April 1991 issue of _Communications of the ACM_ is digital multimedia systems, and it contains an article entitled "CD-I Full-Motion Video Encoding on a Parallel Computer." If you can look past the magazine's design (really horrid colors, unreadable typefaces), the actual content of the articles is quite interesting, although a bit techie. I recommend this issue for anyone interested in multimedia. -Sarah Horton From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: VIRUS Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 20:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2704 (3121) STONED VIRUS PROBLEMS SOLVED -- THANKS TO ALL The stoned virus is quite virulent and very quick in jumping from one system or media to another. It came close to polluting my own PC on which I am completing my thesis. Finally it was killed on my colleague's machine. It's presence dissimulated another problem with that new PC. The magnetic fields induced by the little motor of the floppy disk drive (Mitsubishi) was damaging the information on the partition and file attribution table of the harddisk situated just underneath. When the casing of the PC was open, the problem was not occurring, which led the wholesale dealer to wonder whether I was the one most effected by STONED. The solution is to switch places of the hard and the floppy disk drives. One thing worked for sure... HUMANIST. I have had info and help from many. Some, living nearer even called. Judging by the widespread origins of the messages I am sure that STONED is known throughout the world. My special thanks go to: Christopher Donald Claude Bersano-Hayes Douglas de Lacey Farrukh Hakeem Chris Syphers Harry Whitaker and Bogdan ? who called me directly. Michel Lenoble E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: 4.1238 Qs: Lillabullero; Godgame; many others... (8/160) Date: 14 Apr 91 22:16:36 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2705 (3122) Tom Benson of Penn State wrote to ask about programs for well-motivated BA's who need to build up their Greek and Latin for graduate education. The University of Pennsylvania Department of Classical Studies runs an innovative and still in many ways unique (now in its seventh year of operation) program for just such students. The Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classical Studies offers individually adjusted programs in Greek and Latin for just such students: those whose motivation is strong but who are not prepared to do graduate level work in their chosen field (which may obviously be classics, but may also be archaeology, art history, philosophy, etc.). The program is year-long, full-time and consists exclusively of instruction in Greek and Latin, both in regular Penn courses and in special reading groups and seminars for the students in the Post-Baccalaureate Program. A distinctive feature of the program is its low cost: while regular tuition in degree-granting programs at Penn runs to $15,000 and higher now, the full year's tuition in the Post-Baccalaureate Program is still approximately only $2500. For many students a large part of the appeal of the program is the chance to work on their languages in the setting of a large and stimulating research university. The program admits approximately 5-10 students per year, so we monitor individual progress carefully and pay particular attention to advising and nursing them through the process of graduate school application; at this moment we have been shuttling this year's class around the country to look at campuses where they are receiving offers. Students in the program have done very well, with placements at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chapel Hill, Michigan, Bryn Mawr and others. One final attraction of the program: for the student whose motivation is uncertain, plunging into a grad program without full language preparation can be traumatic. This program not only offers instruction, but a chance to test motivation in a low pressure environment, where success and failure are not the issue, but only personal educational growth and exploration. Admission is not a complex process and decisions are made on a rolling basis through the spring and summer (characteristically applications begin to come in just at this season); the absolute deadline is early August, but early contact is encouraged. For further information, write Professor Joseph A. Farrell, Department of Classical Studies, 720 Williams Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104-6305. Prof. Farrell may also be reached as JFARREL@PENNSAS, but he is not a demon e-user yet, so may not always be immediately available. But the undersigned will also gladly field queries. J.J. O'Donnell Penn, Classics From: Bernard_van't_Hul@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: The Grand Inquisitor, Another Translation Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 10:21:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2706 (3123) For Len Bliss: The Pevear-Volokhonsky translation (North Point Press, 1990) gives us this: "But suddenly [Jesus] approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips...." One remembers thinking perversely how rare it is for lips' attaining to that. From: Heberlein <Heberlein@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE> Subject: promptuarium Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:38+0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2707 (3124) Is there anyone who came ever across the word "promptuarium". It seems to designate a sort of 17th century - computer or so... I wirte this on behalf of a colleague of Chemnitz (ex-Karl-Marx-Stadt, ex-DDR) who has not yet access to email and who would welcome any info. Thanks, Fritz Heberlein From: Michel LENOBLE <LENOBLEM@umtlvr.bitnet> Subject: Thanks again - concordance packages. Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 22:00 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2708 (3125) Thanks again to those who helped with the STONED virus, more precisely also to John Unsworth and Bloomquist. ----------- Could HUMANSIT members send me a brief message with the name of the concordance package they are using and the specification of the operating system it runs on (DOS - UNIX, etc) and the type of computer (mainframe, mini, micro) they work with. Thanks. Michel Lenoble Litterature Comparee Universite de Montreal C.P. 6128, Succ. "A" MONTREAL (Quebec) Canada - H3C 3J7 E-MAIL: lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca Tel.: (514) 288-3916 From: "L. Dale Patterson" <LDPATT01@ULKYVM> Subject: 4.1237 Qs: PC biblio SW; Mac concordances; CD-I; ... Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:00:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2709 (3126) I hope that T.T.L. Davidson will share with the rest of us anything his/her committee learns about bibliographic software. It is something which we have just begun here. -- Dale Patterson University of Louisville BITNET: ldpatt01 @ ulkyvm From: Charles Ingrao <HABSBURG@PURCCVM> Subject: Maximilian of Austria Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:09:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2710 (3127) It is my understanding that Maximilian of Austria started the custom of exchanging rings when he gave Mary of Burgundy one on the occasion of their betrothal in 1477. It's a great story but I need to know if it was an ENGAGEMENT ring or WEDDING ring (and, of course, if the story is true). I hope to include the story in an article I am writing. hence my concern for accuracy. Many thanx to whomever can help me find the answer! From: LBJUDY@VMSA.technion.ac.il Subject: Nota Bene address Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 15:48:27 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2711 (3128) Sorry to bother you all with an old question, but I've lost the little bit of paper the answer was on (!!): I need URGENTLY an EMAIL address for Dragonfly Software, the makers Nota Bene [NOT a phone number; a Fax is an inferior alternative to an e-mail address but better than nothing]. I'd also like the name of the Israeli Nota Bene list, and the e-mail address of its moderator. And to all those out there with Nota Bene experience: do you know of any reason why the Israeli and U.S. versions should be so incompatible that the Israeli company warns me I may have trouble operating the U.S. version? As far as I can see the difference is only a question of whether you have a Hebrew eprom chip; I have an EGA with the Hebrew as a soft font only (Hebrew.com or hebega.com); and anyhow I understand version 4.0 of Nota Bene will incorporate the Israeli Hebrew standard in the U.S. version, right? What do I get if I buy the Israeli version that I don't if I buy the American? (Especially as the Israeli company says it'll be lagging significantly behind the U.S. in release of all the juicy new features that sound so good on paper: N.B. Lingua, N.B. version 4.0, etc.; and the cost is significantly more.) FAST help would be very, very much appreciated. Thank you -- Judy Koren. From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC> Subject: lillabullero Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 16:15:35 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2712 (3129) George Aichele asks about Uncle Toby's tune "Lillabullero." Anyone with a shortwave receiver can hear this tune on the BBC World Service once every hour between the signature THIS IS LONDON and time signal. Kind regards. Clarence Brown. From: Bill Kupersmith <BLAWRKWY@UIAMVS> Subject: Lilli burlero Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 14:08 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2713 (3130) For "Lilli burlero" (the original spelling) see: *Poems on Affairs of State,* vol. 4: *1685-1688.* Edited by Galbraith M. Crump. Yale U. Press, 1968. Pp. 309-13. From: <BCJ@PSUVM> Subject: Re: 4.1238 Qs: Lillabullero; Godgame; many others... (8/160) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 12:39 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2714 (3131) "Lillabullero" is a well=known political song, an 18th=century Orange polemic, incidentally. The words vary, but it's still fairly heavily charged. Oddly enough, I think it was recorded by Ed McCurdy on one of his folk=song compilations many years ago (circa 1961?)... that's not quite 50 years ago. Anyway, that's where I first heard it. It's a catchy Irish tune, and I can hum it or play it for you on the pennywhistle if you like... Kevin Berland From: humphrey@suesun.nlm.nih.gov (Susanne M Humphrey) Subject: CFP (2nd call) - ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 23:43:10 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1244 (3132) Forwarded: Nancy Ide <IDE@VASSAR> 2nd ASIS Workshop on Classification Research Organized by the ASIS Special Interest Group on Classification Research (SIG/CR) Call for Participation The American Society for Information Science Special Interest Group on Classification Research (ASIS SIG/CR) invites submissions for the 2nd ASIS Classification Research (CR) Workshop, to be held at the 54th Annual Meeting of ASIS in Washington, DC. The Workshop will take place Sunday, October 27th, 1991, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. ASIS '91 continues through Thursday, October 31. The CR Workshop is designed to be an exchange of ideas among those engaged in active research or practice in the creation, development, management, representation, display, comparison, compatibility, theory, and application of classification schemes. Emphasis will be on semantic classification, in contrast to statistically-based schemes. Topics include, but are not limited to: - Warrant for concepts in classification schemes. - Concept acquisition. - Basis for semantic classes. - Automated techniques to assist in creating classification schemes. - Statistical techniques used for developing explicit, nonstatistically- based semantic classes. - Relations and their properties. - Inheritance and subsumption. - Knowledge representation schemes. - Classification algorithms. - Procedural knowledge in classification schemes. - Reasoning with classification schemes. - Software for managing classification schemes. - Data structures and programming languages for classification schemes. - Comparison and compatibility between classification schemes. - Previously-named topics, highlighting specific applications such as subject analysis, database navigation, information retrieval, natural language understanding, expert systems, and image processing. The CR Workshop welcomes submissions from various disciplines. Attendance will be by invitation only. Those interested in participating are invited to submit a short (1-2 page single-spaced) position paper, summarizing their substantive work in the above areas or other areas related to semantic classification schemes, and a statement briefly outlining the reason for wanting to participate in the workshop. Submissions may include background papers as attachments. Those selected as presenters will be invited to submit expanded versions of their position papers and to speak to those papers in brief presentations during the workshop. All position papers (both expanded and short papers) will be published in proceedings to be distributed prior to the workshop. The workshop registration fee is $30.00 per person, and includes a copy of the proceedings and lunch and refreshments. Submissions should be sent by email, or diskette accompanied by paper copy, or paper copy only (fax or postal), to arrive by May 1, 1991, to Barbara Kwasnik: Barbara Kwasnik, Co-Chair Raya Fidel, Co-Chair School of Information Studies Graduate School of Library and 4-206 Center for Science and Technology Information Science Syracuse University University of Washington, FM-30 Syracuse, NY 13244 Seattle, WA 98195 Internet: bkwasnik@suvm.acs.syr.edu Internet: fidelr@vax1.u.washington.edu Phone: (315) 443-2911 Phone: (206) 543-1888 Fax: (315) 443-5806 From: fay@chomsky.arch.su.oz.au () Subject: IJCAI SYMPOSIUM ON AI, REASONING AND CREATIVITY Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 09:46:23 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1245 (3133) Forwarded by: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * SYMPOSIUM ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, REASONING AND CREATIVITY 20-23 AUGUST 1991 immediately preceding the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'91) organised by GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA to be held at LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA AIM Creativity is one of the least understood aspects of intelligence. It is commonly regarded as 'intuitive' and not susceptible to rational enquiry. However, there is now considerable work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science which addresses creativity. This symposium will provide a forum for exploring and discussing these ideas, and for suggesting directions for future research. It aims to attract practitioners of both 'cognitive' and 'technological' artificial intelligence. KEYNOTE SPEAKER - PROFESSOR MARGARET BODEN Margaret Boden, in her talk on `Creativity and Computers', will discuss how computational concepts drawn from artificial intelligence can explore creativity. Computers can sometimes do apparently creative things; more to the point, they can suggest how we manage to do so. Computational ideas are therefore helping us to understand how human originality is possible. Margaret Boden is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, and Founding Dean of the School of Cognitive Sciences, at the University of Sussex, UK. Her recent publications include `Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man' (1987), `Artificial Intelligence in Psychology' (1989) and `The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (1991). INVITED SPEAKERS include Ernest Edmonds, Loughborough University of Technology, UK John Gero, University of Sydney, Australia Graham Priest, University of Queensland, Australia Roger Wales, University of Melbourne, Australia TOPICS FOR PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION The symposium calls for extended abstracts of 750-1,000 words. The following are suggested areas only: - Models of creativity - Modelling creative processes - Creative reasoning, e.g theory generation in science - Analogical reasoning - Case-based reasoning - Nonmonotonic reasoning - Thought experiments All abstracts will be refereed. Accepted papers will be subjected to a further refereeing process for publication by Kluwer Academic Press. The symposium will be structured to provide adequate time for both presentation and discussion. SUBMISSION Three copies of extended abstracts are required by 31 May 1991. Abstracts may be submitted electronically as LaTeX or plain ASCII files via email but hard copies must also be submitted. Two hard copies of final versions of accepted papers, and an electronic version on Macintosh disk or via email are required at the time of registration on 20 August 1991. Authors of accepted papers will be expected to sign a copyright release form to allow publication of the proceedings. At least one author of each paper is expected to present the paper at the symposium. PREPRINTS AND PROCEEDINGS Accepted extended abstracts will be printed in the form of Preprints and be available for distribution at the time of registration. Full papers will be published subsequently by Kluwer Academic Press. LOCATION The symposium is being held at O'Reillys Lodge in Lamington National Park, Queensland - a rainforest 120 km south of Brisbane. Rainforests vary from the temperate beech forest of the higher altitudes to the warm subtropical rainforest of the valleys. There is an abundance of rare and spectacular plants (orchids, ferns, giant epiphytes, mosses, luminous fungi) and a diverse community of birds and animals (crimson rosellas, king parrots, bower birds, miniature kangaroos, brush turkeys) all coexisting beneath the lofty rainforest canopy. On the final day of the symposium there will be ample time for guided or independent bush walks, 4WD bus trips, barbeques and evening entertainment. FACILITIES O'Reillys is a mountain resort of modern units. The seminar facilities are highly professional, including lecture theatre, audiovisual equipment and library. TIMETABLE Extended abstracts (750-1000 words) - 3 hard copies 31 May 1991 Notification of acceptances 17 June 1991 Full formatted papers due 20 August 1991 Symposium 20-23 August 1991 COSTS in Australian dollars (US$1 = ~A$1.28; PStg 1 = ~A$2.33) Registration fee (including one copy of Preprints): Full fee $250 Authors (1 per paper) $150 Accommodation (including all meals): Bethongabel units (private bath, balcony, view) $119 pp/pn Elabana units (private bath, limited availability) $105 pp/pn Bus to Lamington National Park from Griffith University: Round trip $25 INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE Chair Terry Dartnall, Griffith University, Australia Conference Organiser Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia Advisory Board Margaret Boden, Sussex University, UK Andy Clarke, Sussex University, UK Marilyn Ford, Griffith University, Australia John Gero, University of Sydney, Australia Rod Girle, Griffith University; Australian National University Graham Priest, University of Queensland, Australia Simon Ross, University College of London, UK; Kluwer Academic Press Aaron Sloman, Sussex University, UK Roger Wales, University of Melbourne, Australia Janet Wiles, University of Queensland, Australia CONFERENCE CONTACTS Correspondence and queries: Dr Terry Dartnall School of Computing and Information Technology Griffith University Nathan Qld 4111 Australia Tel: +61-7-875 5020 Fax: +61-7-875 5198 Email: terryd@gucis.sct.gu.edu.au Abstracts and papers: Ms Fay Sudweeks Department of Architectural and Design Science University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Tel: +61-2-692 2328 Fax: +61-2-692 3031 Email: fay@archsci.arch.su.oz.au Registration: Ms Denise Vercoe School of Computing and Information Technology Griffith University Nathan Qld 4111 Australia Tel: +61-7-875 5002 Fax: +61-7-875 5198 Fay Sudweeks VOICE: +61-2-692-2328 Architectural and Design Science FAX: +61-2-692-3031 University of Sydney NSW 2006 fay@archsci.arch.su.oz.au Australia fay%archsci.arch.su.oz.au@uunet.uu.net From: DUSKNOX@IDBSU Subject: Re: 4.1242 Qs: ... Bib. SW Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 09:06:35 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1246 (3134) I've done a bit of looking in regard to bibliographic software. I'll make a couple of general observations and then one specific recommendation. Nothing works right. Some packages come close, but none of them behave the way they ought. Readers should note that I am speaking of the DOS world, though I believe similiar conditions exist in Unix and Mac. The fundamental trade-off seems to be between input and output. Some programs are very good on the output side - Notebook with nbCitation, for example. This class of software will give you long form citations and short form citations, will do all the formatting, and in short behave the way they ought. But the price exacted is on the input side. They tend to be structured files with slots for each element of the citation, meaning you will have lots of empty fields for any given citation and inevitably you'll have a few works that don't fit right. At the other end are programs where data entry is easy and flexible; such a program is askSam, a completely free-form text-based management program. But output is a chore. askSam has a macro language that helps you automate the process, but that entails learning the language; not as hard as learning to program, by a long shot, but still more than many people are willing to undertake. You can do something similiar in any top-line word processor such as WordPerfect or MS Word using their macro language. There is one integrated environment I know of: Nota Bene. It combines word processing with bibliographic and research note management. I've evaluated it but never used it in a production environment. It was noticeably slow in comparison with WordPerfect on my old IBM XT (and WP is no speed demon) and the command structure was decidedly arcane. Before the NB users out there leap to their feet, please note these are my opinions; you might try the program and find it easy. But I'd try it first before I purchased it. I work as a support tech to our faculty, though my PhD is in history, so I am sensitive to the issues here. One thing I've find is that there is a surprising diversity in needs between various disciplines and even within disciplines. I'm not at all sure that there is a one-size-fits-all solution to this need. Here are my recommendations for one-size-fits-a-few-anyway. Start with your word processor. If you have a grasp of the macro language and the merge commands, you can do a pretty nice job. The main limit here is size (a few other issues arise, too, but they can be kludged into submission). If you keep the number of references (notes and/or books) in the few hundreds or less, you'll be fine. Larger than that and the search times get out of hand. This obviously depends on the speed of your machine, memory, and hard drive speed. Even that can be handled if you split your references into multiple files. But large projects exceed the capacity. Anything else will require learning, so why not learn your word processor macro and merge commands? But if your needs go beyond, or you just flat don't want to do it there, then you've got to buy software. The choices are askSam or Citation, the former from Seaside Software, the latter from Oberon. I've already mentioned the strengths and weaknesses of each. I'd recommend getting a copy of each -- see if you can get the product on 30 day approval. Try one and then try the other; don't try both at the same time. Both will accept ASCII files, though Citation will force you to structure the information first, but at least you won't have to re-type 100 references every time. Do work out with _real_ data. Don't just use their sample files. Use YOUR books and articles and documents. And finally, if you don't much like your word processor anyway, or are the type that doesn't mind learning new word processors, I suggest you take a serious look at Nota Bene. I hope this helps. ELLIS 'SKIP' KNOX Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: Michael O'Kelly <MOKELLY@IRLEARN> Subject: PCs and software for the handicapped Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 18:09:30 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2715 (3135) Camphill communities are villages where handicapped (particularly but not exclusively mentally handicapped) and non-handicapped people live together. Friends of mine from a Camphill community here in Ireland want to find out about how PCs could be useful for the handicapped. One thing they want to do is to stimulate the imagination and help the physical co-ordination of people with cerebral palsy. Such people would not always have a mental handicap as well as the physical one. A benefactor has undertaken to pay for what is needed; but Camphill people are a frugal lot, and won't want to spend the earth. BBC computers have quite a bit of hardware and software aimed at the handicapped, developed in the UK and Ireland. But the Camphill people are also interested in IBM-compatable and indeed any other software and hardware. Has anyone any information on suitable hardware and software? Please reply to me directly. I will summarise anything of general interest. MOKELLY@IRLEARN.UCD.IE Michael O'Kelly University College Dublin Belfield Dublin 4 Ireland From: Michael O'Kelly <MOKELLY@IRLEARN> Subject: Using computers for schools; the cottage office Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 18:10:43 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2716 (3136) A friend of mine lives in a sparsely-populated part of the country here in Ireland and wants to know about -using computers and the networks to help run a school with few human resources -working from home using a computer and linking in to databases. He believes there is an interest group for people doing this. Can anyone point to a source of support and information in either of these areas? Please reply to me directly. I will summarise anything of general interest. MOKELLY@IRLEARN.UCD.IE Michael O'Kelly University College Dublin Belfield Dublin 4 Ireland From: microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net Subject: posting Date: Tue Apr 16 16:26:00 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2717 (3137) Where is it possible to retrieve electronic texts via anonymous FTP? There's been a lot of talking recently about electronic literature, but I can't remember of FTPable corpora. Has anybody compiled such a list? Thanks, Marco Simionato <microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net> From: 6160LACYA@MUCSD.BITNET Subject: GeoNet Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1991 14:58 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2718 (3138) Can anyone help with information about GeoNet? In theory they have a publication called "Deutschland Nachrichten" available every Friday morning over their network. Is this a commercial network only? Can one FTP to it? Thanks in advance. Alan F. Lacy 6160lacya@vmsf.csd.mu.edu From: microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net Subject: Another posting Date: Tue Apr 16 12:33:53 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2719 (3139) [...] Does anybody know of a discussion list on piano music/interpretation or for collector's classical records? Thanks, Marco Simionato <microsoft!marcosi@uunet.uu.net> From: PETERR@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK (Peter Robinson) Subject: Collate 1.0 Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 11:06 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1248 (3140) Version 1.0 of Collate -- a new program for the collation of large textual traditions -- is now available. About Collate ---------------- Collate aims to help scholars in the preparation of a critical edition based on many sources. It can collate simultaneously up to a hundred texts at once. It can deal with richly marked-up texts (with special treatment for editorial comments embedded in the text, location markers, editorial expansions and separate collation of punctuation). It provides powerful facilities to allow the scholar to tailor the collation and it can output in many different formats. Collate works interactively with the collation being written to a window as the scholar watches. The scholar may intervene at any point to alter the collation, using either of the tools RSet VariantS or RRegulariseS. RSet VariantS allows the scholar to over-rule the collation offered by Collate and impose his own collation, even writing a variant that does not appear in the sources into the collation. RRegulariseS enables the scholar to intervene to regularise any word or phrase in any source at any point. The regularisation can be set for a particular word at every point in every source, or for that word only at that place in that source, or various other combinations. Collate will record all variants set and every regularisation made and remember them next time it runs. The scholar can adjust the collation in other ways, switching the base text, suppressing agreements with the base text and collating punctuation tokens separately. The collation may be output in various critical apparatus forms (including several formats recommended by the Text Encoding Initiative), or scholars may dictate their own format. Through an interface to the EDMAC macros, developed by John Lavagnino of Brandeis University and Dominik Wujastyk of the Wellcome Institute for the production of complex critical editions with the typesetting language TeX, editions with up to five levels of apparatus can be created direct from the output of Collate. The EDMAC macros and an implementation of TeX (OzTeX) are provided with the program. Automatic generation of hypertext electronic editions from the output is also possible. Texts Collate can Process ----------------------------- The length of texts Collate can process is limited only by the storage capacity of the computer. The only requirement is that the text be divided into blocks containing no more than 32768 words each. Collate works on both prose and verse and has been tested successfully on texts in many languages (including Malay, Sanskrit, Latin, Middle English and Old Norse). A set of Guidelines for Transcription, provided with the program, explains the format transcription files should have so that they can be processed by Collate. The transcription files must be plain ASCII files and can be prepared on any computer. A simple word-processor, Transcribe, is also provided with Collate: this includes various functions specially designed to help transcription. The History of Collate -------------------------- Collate has been developed as part of the Computers and Manuscripts Project, funded for three years from 1st September 1989 by the Leverhulme Trust at the Oxford University Computing Service with support from Apple Computer. Collate has been written by the Research Officer for the Project, Peter Robinson (PETERR@AC.UK.OX.VAX). The Project Director is Susan Hockey. Program Availability and Requirements ---------------------------------------------- Collate 1.0 runs only on Macintosh computers (Classic or higher) and requires one megabyte of memory to operate. A hard disc is recommended. It can be ordered from: The Computers and Manuscripts Project Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England. (Phone: 0865 273200; fax 0865 273275; email PETERR@AC.UK.OX.VAX). The program costs #20 pounds UK, 40 dollars US. Cheques should be made payable to the Oxford University Computing Service; cheques in pounds must be drawn on a British bank. Documentation, sample files, Transcribe (version 1.1) and the OzTeX implementation of TeX for the Macintosh, together with the EDMAC macros, are provided with the program. From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Primus inter pares Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 12:39:09 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2720 (3141) Could anybody identify for me the source of the expression "primus inter pares"? A sexagenarian student asked me this question about two years ago, and neither the commonly used Latin dictionaries nor the various classicists whom he has asked (including, among others, one at Harvard and someone in the Secretariat of State at the Vatican) have been able to give him an answer. From: Alain Gowing <alain@u.washington.edu> Subject: Dante and St. Bernard Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 12:35:29 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2721 (3142) My colleague Paul Pascal (who will be joining HUMANIST presently) has asked me to post the following: A recent query on this network about a quotation alleged to be from the works of St. Bernard, that turned out to be no such thing, has reminded me of another similar problem involving the same author. The last line (148) of Canto XXX of Dante's Inferno reads "...voler cio udire e bassa voglia." In N. Sapegno's edition of Dante, he compares, on the authority of a certain Father Berthier, words of similar import alleged to be by St. Bernard: "Audire quod turpe est pudori maximo est." When the Bernard Concordance appeared, I was able to determine that this sentiment does not in fact appear there. Can anyone cast any light on this? Is a black market in St. Bernard quotations beginning to emerge? Paul Pascal Professor, Medieval Latin Dept. of Classics Univ. of Washington Seattle WA 98195 paulpasc@u.washington.edu From: BANKS@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK (Marcus Banks) Subject: Re: 4.1237 - PC Biblio software Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 11:51 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1250 (3143) We have been using a bibio programme called "EndNote Plus" (v.1) from Niles and Associates for the past few months to create a biblio of 8,000+ refs in anthropology. We also use it to keep track of a much smaller video library. EN+ comes in US and UK flavours which are slightly different. We use it on a basically Macintosh network, where it works ok but is not network aware, requiring a lot of protecting. We have just bought a PC version for the remaining dinosaurs, sorry users, which *claims* to be fully compatible and able to read/write to the same files. The PC version certainly looks like the Mac version. Personally, I find it elegant and intuitive, with lots of customization possible. Existing data can be imported, with a bit of effort, and output in an infinite variety of formats. It is certainly cleaner and simpler than ProCite (also, I think, in a PC version) which a couple of us played around with for a while. The specific problem mentioned - time-saving on edited book entries - we solve in this way: create a record containing data common to all entries (editors, publisher, book title etc.), close it and copy it as many times as there are articles. Then open each copy and enter the specific data (author, article title etc.). On a large biblio this requires a lot of scrolling and we find it easier to enter new data in a newly-created temporary file and then copy it over to the main one. EN+ for the Mac also has Booleian searches, tho' I believe the PC version lacks this for some reason. Marcus Banks BANKS@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX From: <UOG02036@vm.uoguelph.ca> Subject: Pennywhistling Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 14:21:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1251 (3144) Kevin Berland's offer to pennywhistle "Lillibulero" (sp?) is intriguing. Radio Canada is all my set will pick up, and that's local. And it seems impractical to ask Kevin B. to lean out the window and pipe real hard. Is there any way to transmit musical scores by e-mail? Other than Stuffing or Compacting a Hypercard stack full of sound bytes? Where is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's scheme for numerical musical notation, now that we really need it?! Don Webb (also DonWebb@CSUS.Edu) From: Carolyn M. Kotlas <kotlas@uncecs.edu> Subject: Screenplay writing software query Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 10:41:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2722 (3145) Can anyone recommend a movie/screenplay script writing program? One of our drama department professors is looking for such a program. He was interested in getting a commercial program named MOVIE MASTER, but says the company has apparently gone out of business. Any suggestions/help will be *greatly* appreciated. Thanks! --carolyn -- Carolyn Kotlas (kotlas@uncecs.edu or kotlas@ecsvax.bitnet) UNC Ed. Comp. Serv., POB 12035, Res. Triangle Pk., NC 27709 919/549-0671 "Serving the 16 campuses of The University of North Carolina system" University of British Columbia Library From: DAVID BARRY <UBJV649@CU.BBK.AC.UK> Subject: Query: Re: Matthew Tindal Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 16:12 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2723 (3146) A colleague requests information on recent (from 1985 onwards) works, articles,books on Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) Replies can be sent to me UBJV649@uk.ac.bbk.cu (This is a JANET address at Birkbeck College, London,England.) David Barry From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET> Subject: Wedding ring Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 09:35:52 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2724 (3147) Some discussion can be found in James Hastings' Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics (1916), v. 8. p. 435-436. Seems doubtful that Maximilian added anything to customs going back 1000 years and more. Joseph Jones University of British Columbia Library From: "William P. Stoneman" <1426279@PUCC> Subject: promptuarium Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 14:54:01 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2725 (3148) I wonder if a promptuarium is the same thing as a promptorium? More context for the word might help. On a promptorium, see A. L. Mayhew, ed., The Promptorium Parvulorum: The First English-Latin Dictionary, Early English Text Society Extra Series 102, London, 1908. The most recent reference to this work is Linda Voigts and Frank Stubbings' article in the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 9(1989), 358-371. William P. Stoneman, Scheide Library, Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ 08544 From: Dennis Baron <baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: gender-neutral terms Date: Fri, 12 Apr 91 10:35:39 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2726 (3149) i've recently learned of a French search for a term equivalent to English Ms. The form is Madelle, but I have no cires, references, context, or discussion. Can anyone supply same? I'm going to be on a panel next Fall discussing the fate of Ms. The feeling of the panel organizer is that young women, particularly undergrad, use the term as a trendy synonym for Miss, indicating they intend to switch to Mrs. upon marriage. My own survey of students in my classes confirms this. Has anyone else noticed this "com- promised" use of Ms. Ms. dates back at least to 1932 in English (there was a letter in the NY Times that year inquiring about the appropriateness of this "new" form). So far as I can determine it derives from an early 20c feminist call to have Miss function as the equivalent of Mr., doing away with Mrs. altogether. Any comments on this too would be greatly welcomed. debaron@uiuc.edu ____________ 217-333-2392 |:~~~~~~~~~~:| fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron |: :| Dept. of English |: db :| Univ. of Illinois |: :| 608 S. Wright St. |:==========:| 608 S. Wright St. |:==========:| Urbana IL 61801 \\ """""""" \ \\ """""""" \ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: harrison@bilby.cs.uwa.oz.au (Sheldon Harrison) Subject: job Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 14:10 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1254 (3150) UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA LECTURER (A23/91) DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Applications are invited for a three year fixed term (renewable) lectureship in a small but growing Linguistics programme within the Department. The appointee will be expected to take up duties as early as possible in 1992. He/she must be prepared to teach and develop a broad range of courses at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum, including Honours, to supervise postgraduate students, and to undertake research. Applicants with any specialisation will be considered for this post, though special consideration will be given to applicants with a background in (first or second) language acquisition or computational linguistics/natural language processing. The ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ appointee must have a PhD in Linguistics (or in a cognate discipline). University teaching experience is an asset. For further information, contact Dr. S.P. Harrison, Head, Department of Anthropology: phone 81-9-380-2859 fax 81-9-380-1062 email harrison@cs.uwa.oz.au SALARY RANGE: AUD$33,163 - $43,043 p.a. CLOSING DATE: 31 August, 1991 Benefits include superannuation, fares to Perth for appointee and dependent family, removal allowance, study leave, and long service leave. Conditions of appointment will be specified in any offer of appointment which may be made as a result of this advertisement. (In some circumstances salary loadings may be negotiated.) Written applications quoting reference number, telephone number, qualifications and experience, and the names and addresses of three referees should reach the Director, Personnel Services, University of Western Australia, Nedlands 6009, Australia, by the closing date. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY IS UNIVERSITY POLICY From: Gregg Collins Subject: conference announcement Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 21:59:23 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1255 (3151) ---------------------------------------------------------- ML91 -- The Eighth International Workshop on Machine Learning Registration Information On behalf of the organizing committee, and the individual workshop committees, we are pleased to announce that ML91, the Eighth International Workshop on Machine Learning, will be held at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA, June 27-29, 1991. ML91 comprises eight workshop tracks: o Automated Knowledge Acquisition o Computational Models of Human Learning o Constructive Induction o Learning from Theory and Data o Learning in Intelligent Information Retrieval o Learning Reaction Strategies o Learning Relations o Machine Learning in Engineering Automation In addition there will be plenary talks by noted researchers in machine learning and related fields. Registration The registration fee will be $70 for students, $100 for everyone else. This fee will cover conference participation, proceedings, and receptions. To register please send a check for the appropriate amount, made out to Northwestern University, along with a completed copy of the form to be found at the end of this message. The deadline for registration is May 22, 1991. After this date, a late fee of $25 will be charged. Accomodations We have reserved rooms at the following hotels: Omni Orrington Hotel 1710 Orrington Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60201 (708) 866-8700 or 1-800-THE-OMNI Rates: $78.00 single per night $88.00 double per night The Orrington is a five minute walk from the conference site. Holiday Inn -- Evanston 1501 Sherman Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60201 (708) 491-6400 or 1-800-HOLIDAY Rates: $60.00 single per night $70.00 double per night The Holiday Inn is a fifteen minute walk from the conference site. You must make hotel reservations yourself. When you reserve your room, please inform the hotel that you are registering for the Machine Learning Workshop. We are currently trying to arrange dorm space on campus. A message about this will be forthcoming shortly. Travel By air: Chicago has two airports: O'Hare and Midway. Most flights go to O'Hare, which is also the most convenient to Evanston. To get from O'Hare to Evanston, the following options are available: Taxi: The fare from O'Hare to Evanston should be about $25. Bus Service: Continental Air Tranport (312-454-7799) and Larry Webb Bus Service (312-866-7163) leave O'Hare for Evanston every hour from the American Airlines baggage area. Each line will take you to the Omni Orrington Hotel in Evanston. The Holiday Inn is 3 blocks south of the Orrington. Public Transportation: The CTA (1-800-972-7000) "El" trains run from O'Hare to downtown Chicago, and from Chicago to Evanston. Follow the airport signs to locate the O'Hare "El" stop. The fare is $1 per person. Take the "El" to the Washington St. stop, which is the end of the line. Transfer to a Northbound train. Take this train to the Howard St. Station. Transfer to a Northbound Evanston train. Get off at the Davis St. station in Evanston. To get to the Holiday Inn, walk east to Sherman Ave., turn right and go south two blocks. To get to the Orrington, walk east to Orrington Ave., turn left and go north one block. This trip will take at least an hour. It's reasonably safe but we don't recommend it because of the aggravation involved. By car: To get to Evanston, take Dempster St. east from either the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) or the Edens Expressway (I-94). Follow Dempster east to Chicago Ave. (one block past the "El" train overpass). Turn left on Chicago and go north. To get to the Holiday Inn, turn left on Grove St., go one block west. To get to the Orrington, turn left on Davis St., go one block west to Orrington, turn right and go one and a half blocks north to the hotel. By train: Amtrack trains stop at Union Station in downtown Chicago. Walk 4 blocks north on Canal St. to the Chicago & Northwestern Commuter Train Station. Take a Northbound train to the Davis St. station in Evanston. Directions from there to the hotels are as from the "El" above. **************************Registration Form************************** Please send this form, along with a check in the appropriate amount made out to Northwestern University, to the following address: Machine Learning 1991 The Institute for the Learning Sciences 1890 Maple Avenue Evanston, Illinois, 60201 USA phone (708) 491-3500 fax (708) 491-5258 email ml91@ils.nwu.edu Registration information (please type or print): Name: Address: Phone: Email: Type of registration: ( ) Student -- $70 ( ) Others -- $100 Registration is due May 22, 1991. If your registration will arrive after that date, please add a late fee of $25. From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz) Subject: Re: 4.1250 Bibliography Software (1/26) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 10:30:49 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1256 (3152) [deleted quotation] The way this is done with Nota Bene's Ibid. bibliographic add-on is as follows: enter the main collection and then start the first entry for a component by informing the package that the next entry is to be initialized to the current entry. Continue for successive component articles telling Ibid. each time that the next entry is to be initialized to the current one. One has to delete the fields that will change as one reaches them - component author, component title, etc., but that only takes one (multi-key) command as you move into the field. The main complication will be in going from the collection entry to first component entry, since you will have to add/delete fields appropriately at that point in orded to shift from a collection entry to a component entry. Actually, unless I was doing a lot of heavy bibliographical work at that point in time, I would probably re-enter any information from the collection in the first component, just to avoid rembering what is to be carried over. That way I could rely Ibid.'s ability to display only the fields relevant to a collection or a component. You can also shift at any point to displaying all (potential fields). Note that I am only a patzer level user of Ibid. From: hcf1dahl@UCSBUXA.BITNET Subject: REACH on FTP Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 15:04:40 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2727 (3153) The March & April issue of REACH, the newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is now available through anonymous FTP. FTP to either: ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu or 128.111.122.50 Then enter the command: cd hcf to change to the appropriate directory. Eric Dahlin Humanities Computing Facility University of California, Santa Barbara From: "Peter D. Junger" <JUNGER@CWRU> Subject: How to get U.S. Supreme Court reports from project Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 11:49 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2728 (3154) I am enclosing a message explaining how to obtain U.S. Supreme Court reports from Project Hermes on Freenet, which message was prepared by Judith A. Kaul of the Law Library at Case Western Reserve University. -----------Here is the explanation of Project Hermes----------------- I'll begin with the "official" information our campus computer center disseminates on the project, followed by what I know about connecting to Hermes via the Internet. Here is the "official" information about Hermes from our network service, Free-Net: "On May 11th, 1990, the United States Supreme Court announced that it was beginning a two-year experimental program called "Project Hermes." The objective of this project is to rapidly provide copies of the Court's opinions in electronic for to as wide an audience as possible. "Twenty organizations applied to be part of this project, 12 were accepted; and one of the successful applicants was a noncommercial, nonprofitm consortium composed of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), EDUCOM, and the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN). What this means for YOU is that you will not be able to receive electronically the full-text of the Court's opinions within minutes of their release---FREE. "It will work like this... "When the Court decides to release an opinion or set of opinions , a computer at the Supreme Court Building will open-up 12 telephone lines and simultaneously send copies to its primary distributors. In our case," (CWRU Free-Net) "it will be received by a CWRU computer here in Cleveland where a special program will clear out the various printer codes from the document. Two things will then occur. First, a copy of each of the "clean" documents will be sent electronically to the EDUCOM offices in Washington, D.C. EDUCOM will then place the files on both the Internet and BITNET networks for distribution to the academic and research community. Second, and at the same time, copies will be distributed across all NPTN affiliated community computer systems. "You may have the Court's opinions sent directly to you if you have access to either a BITNET or Internet computer...or you may download the files directly from teh NPTN community computer system. There is no charge to receive this service beyond whatever fees your university computing center might have, or the cost of a telephone call to an NPTN affiliate... "To receive more information on how to sign-up for the BITNET/Internet service, or if you would like to know more about accessing these files on an NPTN community computer, please send your name, organization or firm address, city, state, and zip, to: PROJECT HERMES, CWRU COMMUNITY TELECOMPUT- ING LAB, 319 WICKENDEN BUILDING, CLEVELAND, OHIO 44106. "You can also contact Project Hermes electronically via: Internet: aa584@cleveland.freenet.edu BITNET: aa584%cleveland.freenet.edu@cunyvm "ALL USERS: Please remember: The files shown [on HERMES] are text files only. They DO NOT contain the italics, underlinings, and other non-text expressions which might, in some cases, alter or influence the meaning of the document. We have tried to overcome some of these problems by placing, for example, all footnotes in special brackets like these { }, but its still not quite the same. "For an official printed version of any of these opinions, please contact your nearest law library." -----------My Additional Comments------------------------------- 1/ You can gain access to Project Hermes via Internet in two ways. You may connect (via telnet) to: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu, or freenet-in-b.cwru.edu, or freenet-in-c.cwru.edu. When its your first time logging on to Free-Net, you can log on as a visitor. Visitors can see Project Hermes but cannot post to any bulletin boards. Visitors can use Free-Net's menu system to locate Hermes under the menu selection "The Courthouse." A simpler method is: at the first "Your Choice>" prompt, enter: go hermes which will take you to that portion of the menu driven system. Anyone may apply for a Free-Net account and be able to post to the bulletin boards, etc. Another, perhaps more direct method, is to use FTP to the decisions. Use the FTP command and specify "ftp.cwru.edu" as the host. This is an anonymous FTP site so if asked for an ID, just enter "anonymous." Once connected, the decisions are in a directory called "/hermes". If you need further help while using the FTP connection, enter "help". 2/ We have noticed lately that the database of opinions is apparently not complete. So if you do not see the one you are looking for in Hermes, that does not mean it was not announced. The official reason given for this is communication problems at the court. Our network is attempting to fill in the gaps. (So far, we're talking about three opinions.) 3/ When you use Free-Net to view the opinions, there are special downloading techniques which are described in that section of the system. **************************************************************** Judith A. Kaul Phone: (216)368-8570 Technology Reference Librarian Facs: (216)368-6144 CWRU School of Law Library jak4@po.cwru.edu "The devil lies in the details." **************************************************************** From: HANS ROLLMANN hans@kean.ucs.mun.cs/hrollman@munucs.ucs.mun.ca Subject: List of E-texts via anonymous FTP Date: 17 Apr 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2729 (3155) It seems to me that presently only Lewis Carroll's works (Alice in Wonderland, Looking Glass, Snark) are available free world-wide. There is also a CIA-compiled World Fact Handbook (an Almanac) of ca. 1.9 megabyte for the taking. Project Gutenberg envisions but doesn't have made available yet a variety of other texts. This info comes from a moderately active FTP prowler, who has looked into the E-TEXT directories from Simtel to Germany, to Japan. The most common sites are (according to Project Gutenberg): mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu or (128.174.201.12 ) cd /etext (Please do NOT use the mrcnext between 10AM and 6PM weekdays) (Located in Urbana, IL) simtel20.army.mil simtel20.army.mil or (26.2.0.74) pd:<books> Also known as WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (This computer has great archives and is used a lot, takes time) (Detailed instructions below) The MSDOS portions of simtel are echoed on: wuarchive.wustl.edu Name: wuarchive.wustl.edu Address: 128.252.135.4 (Please report your efforts on wuarchive, we need a guru for it) (wuarchive also echoed on mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu) (Located in St. Louis area) wuarchive.wustl.edu deneva.sdd.trw.com wuarchive.wustl.edu deneva.sdd.trw.com or (129.193.73.1) cd pub/etext and cd pub/etext/compressed for compresses versions. (Our thanks to TRW) (Located in Los Angeles area) quake.think.com quake.think.com (NEW LISTING!) 192.31.181.1 cd pub cd etext (Our thanks to Thinking Machines Inc) (Located in Boston area) Hope this helps. Hans Rollmann. From: HANS ROLLMANN hans@kean.ucs.mun.ca//hrollman@munucs.ucs.mun.ca Subject: More about E-Texts at anonymously accessible FTP sites Date: 17 Apr 1991 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2730 (3156) As follow-up to my previous comments on E-Texts at anonymous FTP sites, let me say that also the entire text of the King James Version of the Bible is readily available in ASC format. As to future text releases of Project Gutenberg, Michael S. Hart (hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu), the project's director, can say mor about that, but here is a list of texts recently circulated by him. He invited proof-reading and the researching of copyrights for those texts or authors: T.S. Eliot Shakespeare Hiawatha Paradise Lost Grimm's Fairy Tales Comedy of Errors (odd edition) Roget's Thesaurus Sir Walter Scott Poems The Antiquary Edward III anon Castle Dangerous M. Thomas John Fletcher Another body of material I've come across were not texts but a database of many files, each with with a short biography and bibliography of the major Science Fiction authors. HANS ROLLMANN. From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1252 Screenplay SW ... Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 12:25 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2731 (3157) To C Kotlas: There is one for the MAC, Scriptor. costs about$82.00, and works fine. I will get the address and all from a relative later on. She has used it for some years, first on the IBM, now on the Mac. It is complete, I gather. Kessler....IME9JFK@UCLAMVS From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM> Subject: Screenwriting pgm. Date: Fri, 19 Apr 91 14:28:24 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2732 (3158) In a recent Humanist, Carolyn Kotlas asks about a screenplay writing program. The May 1990 issue of WordPerfect The Magazine had an article "Movie-making Macros: Simplify your scriptwriting with WordPerfect" on p. 28. I don't use it, so I can't comment on the quality or ease-of-use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: eparker@well.sf.ca.us Central Michigan University Compuserve: 70701,520 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA From: Don Fowler <DPF@vax.oxford.ac.uk> Subject: RE: 4.1242 Qs: Promptuarium; Concord. & Bib. SW; Rings; NB; (5/88) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 12:04 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2733 (3159) I've just come back from a trip to 94 email messages, mostly HUMANIST, and two queries caught my eye. If they've been adequately answered by the time this goes out, please forgive me. On riddles: there is quite a scholarly literature, but a very good popular book I bought in a Blackwell's sale is Mark Bryant _Riddles Ancient and Modern_ (Hutchinson London etc 1983). It has a brief bibliography, but no index, so I can't say whether the example quoted is amongst its 702 examples. On _promptuarium_: for queries like this about later Latin usage, the old _Antibarbarus der lateinischen Sprache_ of J. Ph. Krebs and J. H. Schmalz is still invaluable (my ed. is the 7th, Basel 1907). Here is the entry for _promptuarium_: Promptuarium, die Vorratskammer, das Magazin, ist erst Sp. L. fuer horreum; Sp. L. dienst es auch zur Bezeichnung geistiger Gegenstaende, wie wir von wissenschaftlicher Magazinen sprechen, z. B.: promptuarium rectae rationis et suavissimae orationis hoc (osculum) datum est, Apul. dogm. Plat. 1,13 Ende, cum omnes quasi vetustatis promptuarium Albini memoriam laudavissent Macr. sat. 1,4,1. Dafuer besser supellex ... Im N.L. aber gibt es propmtuaria iuris, latinitatis u. dgl. Naeheres ueber dieses Wort sehe man bei Roensch Ital. S. 32, Goelzer Hieron., S. 96, Kretschmann Apul. S. 42; die Nebenform promptarium bespricht Schulze Symm. S. 64. Vgl. noch Roensch Seams. Beitr. 1 S. 59. (for Seams read Semas, i.e. Semasiologische I guess). The remark about the German usage of Magazin is interesting: the history of that word in various Eurpoean languages is itself intriguing. Don Fowler, Jesus College, Oxford, who ought to have been doing more useful work. From: ECARDMAN@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu Subject: promptuarium Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 11:38:10 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2734 (3160) I did a free-text search on the OED2 (which is mounted centrally on a campus mainframe) and located the word promptuarium under two entries: pantry buttery The latter entry cites Levins: Manipulus vocabularium: a dictionary of English and Latin words, and equates butterie with promptuarium. You may also want to refer to the entry under 'promptuary.' Elizabeth Cardman, Librarian University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Bitnet: ecardman@uiucvmd From: David Shaw <djs@ukc.ac.uk> Subject: Promptuarium Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 10:53:41 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2735 (3161) Fritz Heberlein asks about the Latin word <promptuarium>. My Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary gives references from a number of late-Latin sources (including the Vulgate Bible) for this word. Basically, it meant a store-house and would be a synonym for <thesaurus>. A similar word is used in the title of a fifteenth-century Latin-English grammar book, the <Promptorium puerorum>. The first English edition was printed by Richard Pynson in 1499 (STC 20434). The 1510 edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde (STC 20436) has the alternative title <Promptuarium parvulorum>. Perhaps some medievalist could tell us about earlier manuscript copies of this text. However, this seems to have no connection with 17th-century computers. David Shaw, University of Kent at Canterbury. From: Karl Van Ausdal <VANAUSDALK@APPSTATE.BITNET> Subject: Lilliburlero Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 10:33:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2736 (3162) To: Kevin Berland <BCJ@PSUVM.BITNET> There is a thorough discussion of "Lilliburlero" on p. 449-455 of Claude M. Simpson's *The British Broadside Ballad and its Music* (Rutgers U.P., 1966) The song has been included in a number of anthologies. Song indexes in the nearest music library will provide access to the printed music. Karl Van Ausdal Music Librarian Appalachian State University From: George Aichele <73760.1176@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Lillabullero Date: 16 Apr 91 19:48:40 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2737 (3163) Thanks to all for the prompt replies re Lillabullero. George From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: S. Bernard and Dante Date: Fri, 19 Apr 91 00:09:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2738 (3164) In response to Paul Pascal (as relayed by Alain G.) concerning Inferno 30.148. Sapegno (and, later, Giacalone) cites the commentary of Gioachino Berthier to Inferno (he did not get round to the rest of the COMMEDIA), a voluminous work, published at Fribourg 1892-97. He is a not much consulted but most interesting commentator. Whether or not the quotation ("Audire quod turpe est puderi maximo est") is Bernardine I cannot say. However, Berthier does give a source (which Sapegno, citing him, does not): _De ordine vitae_. You could look it up. From: Oliver Phillips <PHILLIPS@UKANVM> Subject: Primus inter pares Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 19:42:40 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2739 (3165) I have searched "primus inter pares" in: _Thesaurus linguae latinae-; Hans Walther's _Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis Medii Aevi; Walther's posthumous work that extends also to "recentioris aevi" (but it reaches only 'o'); DuCange's _Glossarium_ and numerous bookshelf lists of quotations. Nothing. Admittedly I have not yet dug out the old _Sprichwoerter der Roemer_, but shall. Really, I doubt this is ancient or Medieval. Something in the back of my mind suggests a neo-Latinist speaking of Cromwell or even of George Washington. Oliver Phillips Classics University of Kansas PHILLIPS@UKANVM From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 4.1249 Who said?: Primus inter pares; St. Bernard (2/37) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 13:46:57 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2740 (3166) On St. Bernard I have nothing genuinely helpful to add except the observation that it might be useful to look at the MS and early printed edition attributions of works to St. Bernard. There was a lot of it. E.g., the De infantia Salvatoris, the apocryphal boyhood of Christ, is attributed to him in some incunabula editions. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: advanced programming for the Humanities Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 17:36:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2741 (3167) I am going to be teaching a course next fall semester entitled "Advanced Programming for the Humanities" and am looking for a suitable text. I would appreciate suggestions. Some background: the course will use Pascal as the programming language and the students will have already had one semester of Pascal using Nancy Ide's text "Pascal for the Humanities", or the equivalent thereof. I would like to cover stacks, queues, graphs, binary trees, and all the major sorting and searching algorithms with a minimum of math and a maximum of examples pertaining to the Humanities. Please post responses directly to Humanist, not to me personally. Thanks to all in advance. From: Heberlein <Heberlein@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE> Subject: Email address in Israel Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 09:52+0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2742 (3168) Is there anyone who knows the e-mail address of Prof. Simon Hopkins of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, semitic studies dpt.? Thanks in advance Fritz Heberlein From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Women and Religion Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 18:36:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2743 (3169) I have been asked to assess the scope and nature of available resources on the networks that have specific relevance to the very broad area of research often referred to as "Women and Religion" (please do not ask me to define this field!). If anyone knows of existing archives, filelists, lists, etc., on the academic networks specific to this field please tell me about them through HUMANIST. Thank you, Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: "Richard C. Taylor" <6297TAYLORR@MUCSD.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1248 Collate -- SW for MSS Collation (1/88) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1991 07:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2744 (3170) The announcement of Collate 1.0 for collation of large manuscript traditions prompts me to ask what programs are available and recommended by Humanists for users of MS-DOS computers. Dick Taylor Philosophy Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 6297TAYLORR@MUCSD From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: SIGs History or American History & computers Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 08:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2745 (3171) Are there any special interest groups, within or outside HUMANIST, that are interested in the application of computers to History or American History? If so please send any info, via e-mail to: Robert M. Crisp, Jr. crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx in advance. From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: National Association of Scholars Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:53:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2746 (3172) There is a controversy on this campus centered on a talk given by a group of faculty members belonging to an organization called the "National Association of Scholars" (NAS). According to press reports, this organization has about 2000 members nationwide; apparently they are organized into "chapters" on each campus. The members are dedicated, as far as I can tell, to defending Western Civ in the curriculum against an extreme form of multiculturalism. Other groups on campus have taken strong exception to the NAS, and an unfortunate incident has begun to polarize the campus. I feel somewhat ignorant about the whole incident, for I have never heard of the NAS, nor am I familiar with its aims. I'm afraid that I couldn't get an "objective" opinion around here about the group, because everyone is taking sides. Without wishing to inflame passions too high, I wonder if anyone can give me some more information about the NAS, its history, its goals, its membership. If this topic is too inflammatory for the list, please e-mail me directly. Perry Willett Main Library SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: On-Line Bible Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 19:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2747 (3173) Quite some time ago I made a note to myself to look into the On-Line Bible, $30, mentioned I think on Huamnist. Will someone send me a quick go/nogo (what faith I have in you all)? Norman Miller If so please send any info, via e-mail to: Robert M. Crisp, Jr. crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx in advance. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: advanced programming for the Humanities Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 17:36:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2748 (3174) I am going to be teaching a course next fall semester entitled "Advanced Programming for the Humanities" and am looking for a suitable text. I would appreciate suggestions. Some background: the course will use Pascal as the programming language and the students will have already had one semester of Pascal using Nancy Ide's text "Pascal for the Humanities", or the equivalent thereof. I would like to cover stacks, queues, graphs, binary trees, and all the major sorting and searching algorithms with a minimum of math and a maximum of examples pertaining to the Humanities. Please post responses directly to Humanist, not to me personally. Thanks to all in advance. From: Heberlein <Heberlein@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE> Subject: Email address in Israel Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 09:52+0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2749 (3175) Is there anyone who knows the e-mail address of Prof. Simon Hopkins of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, semitic studies dpt.? Thanks in advance Fritz Heberlein From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Women and Religion Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 18:36:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2750 (3176) I have been asked to assess the scope and nature of available resources on the networks that have specific relevance to the very broad area of research often referred to as "Women and Religion" (please do not ask me to define this field!). If anyone knows of existing archives, filelists, lists, etc., on the academic networks specific to this field please tell me about them through HUMANIST. Thank you, Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: "Richard C. Taylor" <6297TAYLORR@MUCSD.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1248 Collate -- SW for MSS Collation (1/88) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1991 07:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2751 (3177) The announcement of Collate 1.0 for collation of large manuscript traditions prompts me to ask what programs are available and recommended by Humanists for users of MS-DOS computers. Dick Taylor Philosophy Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 6297TAYLORR@MUCSD From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: SIGs History or American History & computers Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 08:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2752 (3178) Are there any special interest groups, within or outside HUMANIST, that are interested in the application of computers to History or American History? If so please send any info, via e-mail to: Robert M. Crisp, Jr. crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx in advance. From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: National Association of Scholars Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:53:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2753 (3179) There is a controversy on this campus centered on a talk given by a group of faculty members belonging to an organization called the "National Association of Scholars" (NAS). According to press reports, this organization has about 2000 members nationwide; apparently they are organized into "chapters" on each campus. The members are dedicated, as far as I can tell, to defending Western Civ in the curriculum against an extreme form of multiculturalism. Other groups on campus have taken strong exception to the NAS, and an unfortunate incident has begun to polarize the campus. I feel somewhat ignorant about the whole incident, for I have never heard of the NAS, nor am I familiar with its aims. I'm afraid that I couldn't get an "objective" opinion around here about the group, because everyone is taking sides. Without wishing to inflame passions too high, I wonder if anyone can give me some more information about the NAS, its history, its goals, its membership. If this topic is too inflammatory for the list, please e-mail me directly. Perry Willett Main Library SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: On-Line Bible Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 19:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2754 (3180) Quite some time ago I made a note to myself to look into the On-Line Bible, $30, mentioned I think on Huamnist. Will someone send me a quick go/nogo (what faith I have in you all)? Norman Miller From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@CC.UTAH.EDU> Subject: Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1991 08:49 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1263 (3181) Subj: The Envelope is not on its Edge [This posting was lost in the April 11th oddness --ahr] I first heard the phrase "pushing the envelope" from my father, Hillis Spencer Peterson, who was an aeronautical engineer in Research and Design. He used it when I asked him what the sound barrier was. The envelope is *not* a paper envelope, and it *is* the whole envelope of air currents as someone has diagrammed. I think originally the sense was that the airplane pushes this envelope ahead of it until the air currents interact in an interference pattern so strong that even if the plane can go faster on its own, it cannot get throughhthis turbulence created at the speed of sound. The task was then to design planes [and fly them] that would extend, or push out this protective envelope of air and keep it there through the sound barrier. He later talked about test pilots, and mentioned meeting the one who was famous among all the other test pilots and aeronautical engineers, Chuck Yeager. Everyone has sort of said all of this before, but it's a bit less dry than that concluding reference to William Safire, who should certainly be consulted. "Edge" also has a performance connotation, in a phrase of its own. A friend who drove with me when I was younger said I "drove on the edge." He said that it was a term used by race car drivers meaning to know exactly the performance capabilities of the car and drive up to them, but not over them. Another such phrase is used in psychology, one of my professions, and is "pushing the limits." One could push the limits of a test's ability to make distinctions, by getting every answer correct; one could push the behavioral limits set by authority; one's inclination in a situation could be to push the limits of whatever could be done; etc. Not to be confused with "testing the limits," which means that on, for example, a Stanford-Binet test administered to a child, the child answers correctly all the questions for hir age: the procedure then is to "test the limits," or keep asking questions until the answers begin to be incorrect. In applications outside their fields of origin, pushing the envelope then has the connotation of getting through or past a barrier by a combination of ingenuity and "throw power," another phrase from aeronautical engineering, this time of rocket power. Does a given rocket have enough "throw power" to reach escape velocity; that is, do its rocket motors develop sufficient thrust to push against the earth so strongly that the rocket will go the other way fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of earth?. I hope that helps towards better usage of these phrases. Sigrid Peterson SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET Sigpeter@cc.utah.edu From: OZVY@CORNELLA Subject: Reply to Charles Ingrao Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 23:07:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1264 (3182) I seem to remember being told that the custom of wedding rings (not engagement rings) stems from the older custom of a "bride-price," i.e. the "ring" was originally a coin. Engagement rings, I suspect, stem from two traditions: one is giving gifts of all sorts, jewelry included, to a woman or her family in order to more successfully woo her (or her family); the other is commercialism, especially in America. Only in America is the diamond practically a necessity, for instance. The Europeans I know (Russians, primarily) never have engagement rings. The birth of a child, however, is occasionally celebrated with a ring to the mother (finances permitting). Lesli LaRocco (OZVY@CORNELLA) From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS (Robert Kraft) Subject: OFFLINE 33 Date: Thursday, 11 April 1991 1858-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1265 (3183) ---------------------- <<O F F L I N E 3 3>> coordinated by Robert Kraft [02 April 1991 Draft, copyright Robert Kraft] [HUMANIST and IOUDAIOS 11 April 1991] [Religious Studies News 6.3 (May 1991)] [CSSR Bulletin 20.3 (September 1991)] ---------------------- <mainhead>A Bibleless OFFLINE ?</> [ ... ] <mainhead>Computer Assisted Research Group (CARG) Theme for 1991: "Use of Academic Networks and Electronic Text Interchange," by Robin Cover, chair</> [ ... ] <mainhead>Announcing the Third International Conference on Bible and Computers, at Tuebingen, 26-30 August 1991, by Alan Groves</> [ ... ] <mainhead>The Penn Language Bulletin Board System, by Jack Abercrombie</> [ ... ] -------------------- [A complete version of this newsletter is now available through the fileserver, s.v. OFFLINE 33. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] ------------------------------------------------------------------- Please send information, suggestions or queries concerning OFFLINE to Robert A. Kraft, Box 36 College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104-6303. Telephone (215) 898- 5827. BITNET address: KRAFT@PENNDRLS (for INTERNET add .UPENN.EDU). To request printed information or materials from OFFLINE, please supply an appropriately sized, self-addressed envelope or an address label. A complete electronic file of OFFLINE columns (some 500K and growing) is available upon request (for IBM/DOS, Mac, or IBYCUS), or from the HUMANIST discussion group FileServer (BROWNVM.BITNET). From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty) Subject: TACT Workshop Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 10:27:02 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1266 (3184) Workshop on TACT and the Computer-assisted Analysis of Text Saturday 11 May 1991 Computer-assisted textual analysis is a young but highly promising set of techniques for literary and linguistic research. This one-day workshop provides an introduction to these techniques by focussing specifically on TACT, a locally developed program for the analysis of texts in many languages and alphabets. TACT is highly regarded by researchers world-wide and is in the opinion of many the best of its kind. During the workshop, experienced users will demonstrate its range of applications, and participants will be given hands-on experience with preparing texts for TACT. At the conclusion of the workshop, future directions for the development of the program will be discussed. Suggestions and constructive criticisms from the audience will be welcome. Copies of TACT will be available to all registrants for a small distribution fee ($20 instead of the normal $30). Programme Morning: (9:30 to noon, Room 205, Library & Information Science, 140 St. George St.) Scholarly Uses of TACT 9:30 K. Steele: Using the explicit structures of Shakespeare's plays 10:00 W. McCarty: Finding implicit patterns in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Coffee break 10:30) TACT in the Classroom 11:00 R. Wooldridge: A CALL application in vocabulary and grammar Electronic text preparation 11:30 J. Bradley Afternoon (1:30 to 4:30, IBM lab, CCH, Robarts Library) Practical Session (Refreshments available between 2:30 and 3:45) 1:30 J. Bradley: An introduction to TACT 2:30 Hands-on: marking and indexing a text; exploring the database 3:45 TACT directions and participants' comments There is no registration fee, but the workshop is limited to 20 registrants. Further details may be obtained from the CCH: E- mail: cch@vm.epas.utoronto.ca; Fax: 416-978-6519; Telephone: as below. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Registration form -- to be sent or taken in by 8 May Name:____________________________________________________________ Address:_________________________________________________________ Telephone: __________ Fax: __________ E-mail:___________________ Student: ________ Other: ________ Please return this form to: Room 14297A, CCH. From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE Subject: Advanced humanities programming Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 09:59:52 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1267 (3185) There is a good treatment of all the algorithms Stephen Clausing mentions using PASCAL for the examples in Robert Sedgewick, Algorithms (Addison-Wesley) first edition 1983. It is not in the least humanities-related, but for an advanced course it might conceivably be better to have a text where the connections were not preprocessed. Unfortunately (for these purposes) last I saw the second edition had been rewritten using C, and the first edition may no longer be available. Timothy Reuter, MGH Munich From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS> Subject: Chadwyck-Healey CD-ROM projects Date: 22 Apr 91 21:40:31 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2755 (3186) A posting on FICINO reveals that the British publisher Chadwyck-Healey is talking about producing a bulky collection (4500 texts) of British poetry from 900 to 1900 on CD-ROM. By chance our librarians tell me, and another source confirms, that the same publisher is talking about producing CD-ROM library of all the patristic and medieval Latin texts in the 225 large volumes of *Patrologia Latina*. Have other C-H projects of comparably ambitious scope surfaced? The rumor about the PL texts suggests that the first 44 volumes of PL would appear on a single CD-ROM sometime in the next year or two and sell for about $11,000, which is a lot of cabbage. Or is Chadwyck-Healey perhaps only the leading spray on a largish wave? Are we about to be inundated by competing CD-ROM collections of everything under the sun? From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: Ellis Bible Library Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 11:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2756 (3187) A quick note for all of you who are looking into the DAK offer of the Ellis Bible Library on CD-ROM. It seems that DAK can only market this product if you were to purchase a cd-rom player as well. (According to postings on CDROM-L). Well, if you are interested in this cd-rom disc, I happened to be looking into a Radio Shack catalogue (1991 Software Catalogue) and found that they are offering this disc as well. But, R.S. apparently does not have to sell this item with the player, and they are also selling it for a lot less than DAK. Jim Wilderotter From: "Allen Renear, Brown Univ/CIS, 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: Listserv troubles Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 22:11:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1269 (3188) Digest 4.1262 was mangled in the usual manner; I'm sending a replacement. This problem is seen fairly often on the listserv lists and no one seems to know what causes it. Sorry for the hiatus last week. -- Allen From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty) Subject: Missing information about the TACT workshop Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 22:18:23 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1270 (3189) My apologies to those who searched the recent posting about the TACT workshop for the telephone number and address of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities. This information follows below. TACT Workshop Centre for Computing in the Humanities University of Toronto Robarts Library 130 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A5 Canada (416) 978-4238 Anyone interested in further details is welcome to write to me. Willard McCarty From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: advanced programming for the Humanities Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 17:36:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2757 (3190) I am going to be teaching a course next fall semester entitled "Advanced Programming for the Humanities" and am looking for a suitable text. I would appreciate suggestions. Some background: the course will use Pascal as the programming language and the students will have already had one semester of Pascal using Nancy Ide's text "Pascal for the Humanities", or the equivalent thereof. I would like to cover stacks, queues, graphs, binary trees, and all the major sorting and searching algorithms with a minimum of math and a maximum of examples pertaining to the Humanities. Please post responses directly to Humanist, not to me personally. Thanks to all in advance. From: Heberlein <Heberlein@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE> Subject: Email address in Israel Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 09:52+0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2758 (3191) Is there anyone who knows the e-mail address of Prof. Simon Hopkins of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, semitic studies dpt.? Thanks in advance Fritz Heberlein From: Michael Strangelove <441495@UOTTAWA> Subject: Women and Religion Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 18:36:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2759 (3192) I have been asked to assess the scope and nature of available resources on the networks that have specific relevance to the very broad area of research often referred to as "Women and Religion" (please do not ask me to define this field!). If anyone knows of existing archives, filelists, lists, etc., on the academic networks specific to this field please tell me about them through HUMANIST. Thank you, Michael Strangelove University of Ottawa <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA> From: "Richard C. Taylor" <6297TAYLORR@MUCSD.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1248 Collate -- SW for MSS Collation (1/88) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1991 07:04 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2760 (3193) The announcement of Collate 1.0 for collation of large manuscript traditions prompts me to ask what programs are available and recommended by Humanists for users of MS-DOS computers. Dick Taylor Philosophy Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 6297TAYLORR@MUCSD From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: SIGs History or American History & computers Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 08:07 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2761 (3194) Are there any special interest groups, within or outside HUMANIST, that are interested in the application of computers to History or American History? If so please send any info, via e-mail to: Robert M. Crisp, Jr. crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx in advance. From: C. Perry Willett <PWILLETT@BINGVAXC> Subject: National Association of Scholars Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 08:53:26 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2762 (3195) There is a controversy on this campus centered on a talk given by a group of faculty members belonging to an organization called the "National Association of Scholars" (NAS). According to press reports, this organization has about 2000 members nationwide; apparently they are organized into "chapters" on each campus. The members are dedicated, as far as I can tell, to defending Western Civ in the curriculum against an extreme form of multiculturalism. Other groups on campus have taken strong exception to the NAS, and an unfortunate incident has begun to polarize the campus. I feel somewhat ignorant about the whole incident, for I have never heard of the NAS, nor am I familiar with its aims. I'm afraid that I couldn't get an "objective" opinion around here about the group, because everyone is taking sides. Without wishing to inflame passions too high, I wonder if anyone can give me some more information about the NAS, its history, its goals, its membership. If this topic is too inflammatory for the list, please e-mail me directly. Perry Willett Main Library SUNY-Binghamton PWILLETT@BINGVAXC From: <NMILLER@TRINCC> Subject: On-Line Bible Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 19:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2763 (3196) Quite some time ago I made a note to myself to look into the On-Line Bible, $30, mentioned I think on Huamnist. Will someone send me a quick go/nogo (what faith I have in you all)? Norman Miller If so please send any info, via e-mail to: Robert M. Crisp, Jr. crisp@engr.uark.edu Thanx in advance. From: Knut Hofland +47 5 212954/55/56 FAFKH at NOBERGEN Subject: Conference:THE DIGITAL IMAGE; Pictorial Arts and Info. Tech. Date: 23 April 91, 09:41:05 EMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2764 (3197) THE DIGITAL IMAGE: Pictorial Arts and Information Technology Conference at Bergen Airport Hotel 17-19 October 1991. This conference will be arranged by the Department of Art History, University of Bergen, the Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities, and IBM Bergen Scientific Centre. In the course of the last decennium the development of information technology has provided possibilities for storage, analysis and presentation of stills and moving pictures through computer technology. This field is rapidly developing, and the technology is able to meet more and more of the demands for quick and easy access to varied kinds of information. In Norway as well as abroad, there are in progress, or completed, a number of projects concerned with research in and dissemination of art and culture historical topics through the use of modern multimedia technology. The new methods of analysis and presentation are also being employed in the analysis of film and film history. At the conference in Bergen, the technological basis for this type of professional humanist work will be presented through speeches and demonstrations. Researchers from some of the leading international institutions will present their projects, and there will be presentations of the R&D being carried out in this field in Norway. Among the speakers are: Dag Bergmann, Project Docim, Dept. of Egyptology, Uppsala University, Sweden Ching-chih Chen, Simmons College, Boston, U.S.A. Gunnar Danbolt, Department of Art History, University of Bergen Rune Espelid, IBM Bergen Scientific Centre Wim Jansen, The Open University, The Netherlands Britt Kroepelien, Department of Art History, University of Bergen Christian Lahanier, Directorate of French museums, Paris Kirk Martinez, Birkbeck College, University of London Mario Milazzo, Institute of Physics, University of Milan Espen S. Ore, Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities, Bergen Representative of the IBM Hawthorn Laboratory, New York Susan Stedman, Museum Education Consortium, New York Bj|rn S|renssen, Dept. of Drama, Film and Theatre, University of Trondheim Among the demonstrations at the conference: - Project Emperor I (on the First Emperor of China and his terracotta warriors and horses) - Perseus (Classical Greek literature and archeology) - The Museum Education Consortium Hypermedia Project (Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art) - The Dutch Open University Visual Arts Project (teaching art history) - Hypermedia project of Egyptian cultural history - Interactive video in film analysis - Use of infrared radiation in examination of paintings - The EEC Project Narcisse (a scientific picture databank of works of art in European museums - The EEC Vasari project (high resolution digital picture analysis) - FotoMac - hypermedia photo archive - Hypermedia in use at the Edvard Munch Museum - Digitalization in style research, by IBM Bergen Scientific Centre and the Department of Art History, University of Bergen - The Brandywine Project (pictorial database over the artist Andrew Wyeth) - Italian art and culture historical projects. A number of video discs, CD-ROMs etc. containing art historical pictures and photographic material from various countries will also be shown at the conference. The conference will be of interest to: * Staff and students of - art and culture history - film, drama and theater - media studies * Museum personnel, library and documentation staffs * Milieus concerned with pedagogical applications of new media * Publishers and printers * Milieus concerned with the development of information technology About the conference: The conference starts on Thursday 17 October 1:00 pm., and ends on Saturday 19 October 1:00 pm. It will take place at Bergen Airport Hotel, Kokstadveien 3 - five minutes by car from Bergen Airport, Flesland. There will be a direct bus service from the center of Bergen every day. Conference fee: NOK 900 for staff of academic organisations NOK 500 for students NOK 1500 for others Included in the conference fee is a dinner at the medieval assembly halls of Sch|tstuene in the city of Bergen, on 18 October. Hotell rates: NOK 1780 (single room, full pension) NOK 1500 (double room, full pension) NOK 170 (lunch at the arrival) Final registration date is 20 August. With cancellations before 1 October we refund 50% of the registration fee. Cancellations after 1 October are not entitled to any refund. Information about the conference can be obtained from: EITHER: The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities P.O. Box 53, Universitetet, N-5027 Bergen, Norway Tel. + 47 (05) 21 29 54/55/56 Telefax + 47 (05) 32 26 56 e-mail: imageconf-91@navf-edb-h.uib.no (attn.: Kari S|rstr|mmen or Kjell Morland) OR: Britt Kroepelien, H|yteknologisenteret in Bergen, tel. + 47 (05) 54 42 28. From: MELANCON@umtlvr.bitnet Subject: Conference announcement Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 09:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2765 (3198) LA LETTRE COMME REFLET DES MENTALITES Colloque de l'A.I.R.E. (Association interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'epistolaire) Paris, 5-6 decembre 1991 Le Musee de la Poste et l'A.I.R.E. organisent les 5 et 6 decembre 1991 a Paris un colloque intitule LA LETTRE COMME REFLET DES MENTALITES. Deux objectifs y seront poursuivis : marquer la creation du Conservatoire epistolaire du Musee de la poste; permettre le developpement de la recherche sur les correspondances et favoriser la diffusion des travaux en ce domaine. Des analyses de type semio-linguistique, litteraire, psycho- analytique, sociologique, historique pourront apporter un eclairage particulier a des textes epistolaires tres divers, aussi bien la lettre du "grand homme" public que celle du particulier ordinaire. Une approche serielle permettra de degager cliches et stereotypes, aussi bien que des codes socio-culturels. Les propositions de communication (maximum : 25 minutes) seront etudiees par un comite scientifique interdisciplinaire preside par Roger CHARTIER. Les propositions de communication, les demandes d'information et les inscriptions doivent etre transmises a la secretaire-tresoriere de l'A.I.R.E. : Mireille BOSSIS 8, rue de la Villette 75019 Paris ou a : Herve COULAUD Musee de la poste 34, boulevard de Vaugirard 75015 Paris France From: Sally Webster <ACDSPW@SUVM> Subject: EDUCOM/EUIT Snowmass Conference Coming Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1991 15:01:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1272 (3199) [...] -------------------------------- *********** EUIT Sixth Annual Snowmass Working Sessions *********** "Making I.T. Work" EDUCOM's Educational Uses of Information Technology (EUIT) Program invites you to its Sixth Annual Snowmass Working Sessions - A chance to work on the challenges that Information Technology brings to education. July 31-August 2, 1991 The Silvertree Hotel Snowmass, Colorado Join the shirtsleeve tradition! Get involved in solving the Information Technology challenges you face on your campus: access... ethics... quality... integrating computing into the curriculum... software licensing... public telecommunications... resource directories... successful models to emulate... getting your share of limited resources... EUIT's Snowmass meeting is your opportunity to work with others who share your vision and goals. Preliminary Agenda Wednesday, July 31 Newcomer breakfast Main Tent session -- "Putting I.T. on the Agenda" Project fair Buffet luncheon Working sessions* Reception Thursday, August 1 Continental breakfast Main Tent session -- "Making I.T. a Priority" Buffet luncheon Working sessions* Friday, August 2 Continental breakfast Main Tent session -- "Making I.T. Accessible" Buffet luncheon Working sessions* Responding to the challenge -- "Making I.T. Work" * The Working Sessions are your opportunity to work on continuing EUIT projects, develop ideas for new projects, share experiences with representatives from hardware and software companies, and brainstorm the future of I.T. Conference Fees (includes breakfasts, lunches and reception), payable to EDUCOM EUIT: Early Registration (by July 8, 1991) -- $145.00 General Registration (after July 8, 1991) -- $185.00 Hotel Accommodations: Silvertree Hotel--conference rate of $92.00 for single or double occupancy. A limited number of condominiums are also available. For reservations, call 1-800-332-3245 before July 20, 1991, and mention EDUCOM/EUIT to obtain the special conference rate. one night's deposit required upon booking; full refund less $25.00 for cancellations made 30 days or more prior to arrival. Discounted Air Fares: In cooperation with the Seminars on Academic Computing, discounted air fares to Denver and Aspen are available on all United Airlines or United Express flights. Save 40% off unrestricted coach fares or 5% off lowest applicable fares. (Canadian travelers, please ask for special published fares.) Call 1-800-521- 4041 and refer to Meeting I.D. number 510KA. Discounts are also available on Hertz rental cars. The 22nd Annual Seminars on Academic Computing follows EUIT's working sessions this year, with the Executive Session beginning the evening of August 2 and the General Session running from August 4-7. This year's theme is "An Ounce of Image is Worth of Ton of Text: High Bandwidth, High Storage, High Anxiety!" For more information about the SAC meeting, contact Debbie Bird, Conference Administrator, Oregon State University, Snell Hall 327, Corvalis, Oregon 97331-1633, telephone: 503-737-2052; e-mail: DJBIRD@ORSTATE.BITNET. For more information about EUIT, call Ruth Holder at EDUCOM. Questions? Special Needs? Contact Ruth Holder at EDUCOM, 202 872- 4200 or via e-mail to HOLDER@EDUCOM (BITNET) or HOLDER@EDUCOM.EDU (Internet). ************************************************************************ EUIT Sixth Annual Snowmass Working Sessions Registration Form* (Please register via e-mail ONLY if you are making payment by credit card or submitting a purchase order number. Registration forms with payments made by check or money order should be sent via U.S. mail to EDUCOM EUIT, 1112 16th St., NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036.) Name: Nickname for Badge: Title: Internal Address: Affiliation: Address: City/State/Zip: Phone: Fax: E-Mail: Is this your first EUIT Snowmass Working Session? Yes/No (If yes, please join us for the newcomer's breakfast on July 31). Conference Payment: ____Check or Money Order ____Purchase Order Purchase order number:______________________ ____Credit Card Visa:_____ MasterCard:_____ Number____________________________________ Expiration Date:_____________________________ *This registration form does not cover hotel accommodations. Room reservations must be made separately. Fee above for toll-free telephone number and special rates. From: Mark Olsen <mark@gide.uchicago.edu> Subject: ARTFL by e-mail Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 13:08:37 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1273 (3200) I am beginning to test an e-mail server for the ARTFL database. MOPS (Mail Order Philis System) has a simple command language to perform queries of the ARTFL database. Initial tests show that it can be used from almost any networked computer, with reasonable response time, depending on network traffic. If you are interested in having a look at MOPS and ARTFL for testing purposes, please contact me. Your university need not be a subscriber to the ARTFL consortium during this test period, tho' you will be asked to sign (by e-mail) a user agreement. First draft documentation is also available on request if you are not interested in testing the system. Mark Olsen ARTFL Project mark@gide.uchicago.edu (312) 702-8786 From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@vassar.bitnet> Subject: Re: Did you see... Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 14:11 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2766 (3201) [ I asked Nancy what she thought a good book would be -- Allen ] [ ... ] What is an advanced humanities computer programming course? I can think of two possible answers: (1) a course covering advanced programming methods, and (2) a course moving into more complex problem areas relevant to the humanities, which may include various strategies for lexical and morphological analysis, the parsing of natural language texts, etc. The ideal course would probably do (1) while using exercises from (2). (I would add that if you really wanted to do this in an ideal way it would be two courses.) I would argue that humanists who really want to do advanced programming need to cover the relevant topics for anyone who is serious about program development. This means that the students wants (minimally) an appreciation of efficient and effecitve algorithm design, an understanding of methods for efficient storage and retrieval of data, and an appreciation of the complexity of algorithms (their behavior, and a comparison of algorithms on these grounds). Thus the course needs to cover software engineering (program development and desing, modularity, top down methods, etc.), advanced topics in data structuring (stacks, queues, trees, graphs, etc.), and advanced search and retrieval methods--IMPERATIVELY including substantial treatment of the analysis of algorithm behavior. There are lots of books that cover these topics, but none answers the need of (2) above--that is, none that addresses these topics in the context of humanities-related problems--at least not one that I know of. It would be possible to contstruct such a course, using a standard computer science text book, and supplementing it with relevant examples. From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 4.1267 Rs: Advanced Humanities Programming (1/10) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 20:09:01 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1267 (3202) [deleted quotation] I agree completely that Sedgewick's book is excellent, even for humanists. Actually, Sedgewick (a pupil of Knuth) deals with many searching and sorting problems in terms of text. The book is available in a second edition with Pascal examples. The publication history seems to be: 1st edition 1983 (egs. in Pascal); 2nd edition 1988 (ditto); 2nd edition, with new title along the lines of "Algorithms in C", 1989 or 1990, with examples in C. The book is also a beautiful example of modern computer typesetting (TeX, naturally). Purely from aesthetic considerations, the Pascal edition looks -- to me -- far more beautiful, and easier to read, than the C one. The Pascal is typeset using various fonts for semantic distinctions, whereas the C is just in a typewriter font. Dominik From: Christopher Currie <THRA004@CMS.ULCC.AC.UK> Subject: Historical Database program - email address wanted Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 17:52:32 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1275 (3203) This month's issue of *Perspectives* (The American Historical Association Newsletter) has an interesting article by David L. Clark of the Historical Computerization Project at the Regional History Center of the University of Southern California, about a History Database program which they are using and have apparently devised. It seems to be intended to meet bibliographic requirements (including the transfer of references from note forms to footnotes when material is being written up), as well as to provide for searching and collation of notes in variable-length fields. Mr. Clark gives a street address but no email address. Does anyone have one for him? Christopher Currie Institute of Historical Research University of London Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU England From: Heberlein <Heberlein@URZ.KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE> Subject: promptuarium again Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 08:35+0000 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2767 (3204) I would like to give my cordial thanks to ewveryone, who has responded to my "promptuarium" - Query. Most of the contributions shed like on the semantics and the history of the word, making clear, that its notion "storehouse" had been transferred metaphorically to that "17th - century - computer". Meanwhile, i came across a description of promputaria by John Neper ("Rabdologiae seu numerationis per virgulas libri duo / cum appendice de expeditissimo multiplicationis promptuario"), Edinburgh 1617, which shows that a promptuarium is more or less the same as a "organum mathematicum", as described by Caspar Schott, a 17th century Jesuit of Wuerzburg, Bavaria. Such an organum was found recently in the depot of the Bayerische Nationalmuseum, Munich. Now i would like to put my question again in a more accurate way: Does anyone know of any other existing organa mathematica oder promtuaria? Are there any modern description of them? Thanks, Fritz Heberlein From: Bernard_van't_Hul@ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: 4.1260 Rs: Promptuarium; Lillabullero; ... (5/106) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 12:54:52 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2768 (3205) Fritz Heberlein suggests that "perhaps some Medievalist could tell us about earlier manuscript copies of [the *Promptuarium Parvulorum*]...." Any library's copy of the *Middle English Dictionary*'s *Plan and Bibliography* will yield the complete data on the manuscript (MUCH earlier than De Woerd's edn.) of the PP-text from which the MED DOES excerpt glosses, citing them (*passim*) as the Middle-English instances that they are. From: Art Ferrill <ferrill@u.washington.edu> Subject: re: 4.1261 Rs: Primus inter pares; S. Bernard & Dante (3/46) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 11:10:38 -0600 (PDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2769 (3206) [ ... ] The expression, primus inter pares, is frequently used to describe the position the Emperor Augustus claimed to have after "resotring" the Republic in the settlement of 27 BC, In A History of Rome by Max Cary and H.H. Scullard one finds this statement: Instead of a dictator [Augustus was] a Princeps Civitatis who was primus inter pares, etc." (p.318). I do not know the origin of the expression. From: "Ed Harris, Academic Affairs, So Ct State U" Subject: Primus inter pares Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 09:29 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2770 (3207) I have no sources at hand with which to check this, but I remember reading somewhere that primus inter pares was first used early in the 19th Century to refer to Canning, the English cabinet minister who dominated what had been, until that time, a body of equals. Ed <HARRIS@CTSTATEU.BITNET> Southern Connecticut State U, New Haven, CT 06515 USA Tel: 1 (203) 397-4322 / Fax: 1 (203) 397-4207 From: <DACOLEMAN@FAIR1> Subject: RE: 4.1261 Rs: Primus inter pares; S. Bernard & Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 14:21 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2771 (3208) I may be speaking a little impertinently here, but I do seem to recall that the Pope has long been said to be _primus inter paresamong Roman Catholic prelates. If true, I suppose my recollection gives a small bit of support to the notion that someone as far back in time as Bernard could have coined the expression. Don Coleman (DACOLEMAN@FAIR1.BITNET From: Charles Ingrao <HABSBURG@PURCCVM> Subject: Re: 4.1264 Rs: Wedding Rings (1/12) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 08:56:17 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2772 (3209) Thank you for the information. The replies that I have received so far make it clear that Maximilian could have broken new ground only had he given an engagement ring which, in fact, has a certain plausibility, given the historical circumstances surrounding his famous marriage. What I still need is real evidence that it happened. This is one of those historical anecdotes that could be difficult to prove and impossible to disprove. From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL Subject: RE: 4.1264 Rs: Wedding Rings (1/12) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1991 9:35:54 GMT+0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2773 (3210) Further to Charles Ingrao's comment: in England it's usual to buy an engagement ring; as he said, it can be very simple and doesn't have to be a diamond (tiny "chip" diamonds with other stones are popular). Here in Israel, an engagement ring is quite common but by no means obligatory. There's also a custom, mainly observed by the religious sectors of the population, of giving the mother a piece of jewellery on the birth of a child. Judy Koren From: "Leslie Z. Morgan" <MORGAN@LOYVAX> Subject: RE: 4.1264 Rs: Wedding Rings (1/12) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 07:53 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2774 (3211) I seem to remember having seen wedding rings mentioned in a Classical context: women wore them, a gold one for special occasions, one of lesser metal at home. Wherever I saw that, the ring was mentioned as being a sign of "belonging" to her husband. Also, Robert Graves, in his *White Goddess* has interesting suggestions about the position of the wedding ring and rings in general (especially the symbolism of which finger/joint they were worn upon). How far back can wedding rings be traced? Leslie Morgan (MORGAN@LOYVAX) From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet Subject: gender Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 13:31:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2775 (3212) It may be of interest to those involved in recent Humanist discussions of gender and language, that Cambridge University Press is shortly bringing out a book by Grenville Corbett, entitled <Gender>, in the Textbooks in Linguistics series. Dirk Held, Classics, Connecticut College From: "Dana Cartwright, Syracuse Univ, 315-443-4504" <DECARTWR@SUVM> Subject: Gender In Language Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 08:55:07 LCL X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2776 (3213) Some weeks ago, Alan Lacy mentioned a study done of native German speakers, in which "the investigators made up a series of nonsense words, presented them to native speakers of German, and asked them to give the gender for each of the words. As I recall, there was something like 80-90% agreement for their answers." Has anything similar ever been done for English speakers? I am particularly interested in the names of the months. Most native speakers (in the United States) would agree that "April, May, and June" are feminine.... and August seems to be masculine...but what, for example, of "December"? Is this a beautiful, mysterious woman? Do English speakers attach gender to nouns, and do they do it consistently (well, reasonably so)? From: RGLYNN@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Humanities Computing Yearbook 89/90 Date: Wed, 24 APR 91 10:15:00 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1280 (3214) I saw the message from Jan Eveleth who wondered where this Yearbook was and have since been in touch with my paper colleagues (as it were). I'm told that it is in production and first copies should be available on 26 April. So you won't have to wait much longer. Ruth Glynn Software Editor, Electronic Publishing Oxford University Press From: Jean Schumacher <THOMDOC@BUCLLN11.BITNET> Subject: CLCLT CD-ROM Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 11:29:55 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1281 (3215) THE "CETEDOC LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN LATIN TEXTS (CLCLT) on CD-ROM" --------------------------------------------------------------- CLCLT CD-Rom will contain the whole CORPUS PATRUM LATNORUM i. e. all the texts edited by the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina and Continuatio Medievalis. More than 250 volumes have been published until now in these Series. Each year 10 to 15 new volumes are published. The first CLCLT CD-Rom will contain more than 21 million words within the OPERA OMNIA of Augustinus, Gregorius Magnus, Hieronymus, ... For these authors the texts edited in the CC are completed with the texts edited in other collections (e.g. J.-P. Migne). AUTHORS on the first CD-ROM ---------------------------- Adso Dervensis Aelredus Rievallensis Aenigmata Agobardus Lugdunensis Albuinus Alcuinus Aldhelmus Schireburnensis Ambrosius Autpertus Ambrosius Mediolanensis Andreas a S. Victore Apponius Arnobius Iunior Ars 'Laureshamensis' Ars 'Ambrosiana' Asterius Ansedunensis Augustinus Hipponensis Augustinus (Pseudo-) Aurelius Carthaginensis . . [... material deleted, see below -- ahr] . Zeno Veronensis THE "CETEDOC LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN LATIN TEXTS (CLCLT) ON CD-ROM" --------------------------------------------------------------- Specification: One CD-Rom conforming to ISO9660 standard in storage box with user manual. Software on CD-Rom. Publication schedule: First CD-Rom: late 1991 Update: every two years Demonstration disk: Patristical meeting Oxford, Augustus 1991 Prices: CLCLT CD-Rom on standing order: 94000 belgian francs (about $2765) CLCLT CD-Rom on standing order for subscribers of the Thesaurus Patrum Latinorum on microfiche: 75000 frs. The CLCLT CD-Rom can be obtained as a single publication without the obligation to order the updates: 125000 bfrs. (about $3680) CLCLT CD-Rom as a single publication for subscribers to the Thesaurus Patrum Latinorum: 100000 bfrs. (about $2945). RETRIEVAL SOFTWARE ------------------ Possibilities of the retrieval software: - full text search on every word; - browsing; - truncated search pre,post and medium - wildcards anywhere in the text; - text adjacency and proximity; - boolean logic (and,or,not,without); - combined index searches; - saving of search strategy and/or results; etc. ADRESSES --------- 1. CETEDOC Universite Catholique de Louvain College Erasme Place Blaise Pascal,1 B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium E-mail:THOMDOC@TEDM.UCL.AC.BE 2. BREPOLS Publishers Baron Frans du Fourstraat, 8 B - 2300 Turnhout Belgium fax: 32-14-428919 -------------------- [A complete version of this posting is now available through the fileserver, s.v. CLCLT CETEDOC. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively: TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM, after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate alternatives.] From: elli%ikaros@husc6.BITNET (Elli Mylonas) Subject: More Perseus Jobs Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 23:47:43 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2777 (3216) PERSEUS PROJECT JOB OPENINGS The Perseus Project anticipates two full-time positions becoming available in the summer of 1991. The Perseus Project has produced and continues to augment a large multimedia hypertext system which currently runs under HyperCard. Perseus integrates Greek texts, English translations, and lexical and morphological tools with digital and video images of Greek topography, archaeological monuments and artifacts, satellite imagery, maps, plans, and drawings. Perseus is designed to be of value for both teaching and research purposes. Applications will be accepted and considered until the position is filled. Harvard University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. I. Assistant Editor for Textual Material Description: The Assistant Editor will work with the Managing Editor of the project, selecting, preparing and proofreading the textual material being collected in the Perseus database, and doing administrative work. She/he will have to acquire the computer skills necessary to manipulate text files so they may be incorporated into Perseus. The Assistant Editor will also supervise part-time workers. He/she should be prepared to do demonstrations of Perseus at Harvard and elsewhere. Qualifications: Advanced work in Greek Language and Literature a requirement. Must also have good writing and editorial skills and be very attentive to detail. An experienced computer user who is familiar with text based computing is ideal. Some familiarity with computers required. Start date: early July 1991. Please send curriculum vitae and other supporting materials to Elli Mylonas, Department of the Classics, 319 Boylston Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. (elli@ikaros.harvard.edu) II. Assistant Editor for Art and Archaeology Description: The Assistant Editor will coordinate the various archaeological and art historical information now being collected for the Perseus database. We are seeking someone who can work with the other members of the project to expand the ways in which the Perseus database can facilitate the study of archaic and classical Greece. The Assistant Editor, in conjunction with the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor, will help determine the archaeological material to be included in the database. In addition, she/he will coordinate the documentation of these images. The Assistant Editor will oversee the work of contributing scholars and three or four part-time research assistants and participate in the composition and editing of the visual and textual information. The Assistant Editor will negotiate with museums and archives to acquire existing images and to arrange for original photography. Qualifications: Advanced work in Greek archaeology or art history a requirement. Must also have good writing and editorial skills and be very attentive to detail. Some computer experience strongly recommended. Start date: early June 1991. Please send curriculum vitae and other supporting materials to Gregory Crane, Department of the Classics, 319 Boylston Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. (crane@ikaros.harvard.edu) From: canon.co.uk!wachtel (Tom Wachtel) Subject: job Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 12:12 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2778 (3217) RESEARCH POSITION IN COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd Guildford Canon Research Centre Europe is looking for new recruits for its Natural Language Processing research group. Our particular interest is in interpretation relative to context, and in using pragmatics and generalised non-linguistic reasoning to enhance Natural Language systems. This research work is not currently tied to the production of a particular product, but seen rather as providing a foundation for more directed application work at the right point in the future. Providing a prototype is, however, of prime importance. We are looking for people with a good knowledge of natural language processing or knowledge representation and reasoning, or a good general computer science background. Good programming abilities are essential, preferably in Prolog. Creativity and a flair for innovative work would be essential. Less experienced people who feel attracted by this proposition need not be deterred from applying. We plan to offer training to appropriate people at the Centre for Computational Linguistics at UMIST, Manchester, as full Canon employees working as part of a UMIST research team, with some degree of autonomy regarding their research activities. At the end of the training period (probably one year), they would be expected to transfer to Guildford. This is part of Canon's effort to foster training in British industry, and to recruit innovative scientists to its workforce. Canon Research Centre Europe has been on the University of Surrey Research Park since 1988, and currently employs about 30 people, and is expanding. We doubt that you would be disappointed by salary, equipment or working environment. Our recruitment policy is one of equal opportunity. If you are interested, please send a detailed CV to: Tom Wachtel (NLI position) Canon Research Centre Europe 17-20 Frederick Sanger Road Surrey Research Park Guildford GU2 5YD, UK email: wachtel@canon.co.uk tel: +44-483-574325 fax: +44-483-574360 or to Personnel (personnel@canon.co.uk) at the same address. [End Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 0155] From: robin@utafll.uta.edu (Robin Cover) Subject: Conference Scheduling Software Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 15:56:42 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2779 (3218) On behalf of someone not on this forum: can anyone recommend a software package for scheduling participants in a conference? UNIX, DOS/PC or Mac platforms are acceptable. The database should be able to accommodate up to 5000-6000 names, up to 40 concurrent sessions (modular) and potentially 400 total sessions. The software should do the normal thing: find times when designated people can meet at the same time, and make sure no one is scheduled to be in two places at the same time. Thanks in advance, Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu Tel: (1 214) 296-1783 From: Mary Massirer <MASSIRERM@BAYLOR.BITNET> Subject: indexing on the Mac Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1991 10:05 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2780 (3219) what is the best software for indexing text on the mac? can i merge together files (separate indices of chapters of a book) to create a comprehensive index for a book? Send replies to Mary Massirer, Baylor (MASSIRERM@BAYLOR) Thanks. From: Maurizio Lana <LANA@ITOCISI> Subject: compacting and indexing at the same time a 7 megabytes chronology Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 17:40:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2781 (3220) A friend of mine has a problem: a chronology, that he wants to index to be able to find word occorrencies fast He also wants to be able to put it on 720k floppies, to distribute it for educational purposes. We thought of creating an index, with references to files and disks; compacting the index and placing it on the first floppy; when needed one decomp acts the index, and a request appears for the disk containing the occurrences s earched; then one inserts the disk, the right file is decompacted and the relevant text to the search is displayed. Any ideas or advice? Maurizio Lana CISI - University of Turin - Via S. Ottavio 20 - 10124 Torino - Italy Strada del Lauro 47 - 10132 Torino - Italy e-mail: LANA at ITOCISI.BITNET From: "don l. f. nilsen" <ATDFN@ASUACAD> Subject: INQUIRY RE RULA LENSKA Date: Fri, 19 Apr 91 14:38:17 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2782 (3221) Humanist Subscribers: Does anyone know the wherabouts of Rula Lenska? Don Nilsen, ATDFN @ ASUACAD From: David E Newton <DEN1@vaxb.york.ac.uk> Subject: On-Line Bibles Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 18:19 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2783 (3222) I do know of an on-line Bible available by FTP, if that's of any use. It can be found at the following address: info.umd.edu I think it is in the directory info/Literature/KingJames with each book in a separate file. Someone who knows more about this sort of thing than me tells me that it isn't actually the King James Bible at all, but im one form or another, there's a Bible there. (Along with the previously mentioned Lewis Carroll stuff.) I hope my first entry on Humanist is of some use! Dave David E Newton Department of Language and Linguistic Science University Of York Heslington York YO1 5DD UK den1@uk.ac.york.vaxa den1@uk.ac.york.vaxb From: Randall Jones <HRCJONES@BYUVM> Subject: WordCruncher Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 19:07:36 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2784 (3223) Someone inquired recently about the company that distributes the text retrieval software known as WordCruncher. The company, Electronic Text Corporation, is currently undergoing reorganization but the software and information about it is available from: Instructional Applications ATTN: Daniel Williams 193 TMCB Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602 USA e-mail: issdkw@byuvm FAX: (USA) 801-378-2800 Randall Jones Department of German Brigham Young University R.L. Jones From: cole@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Jennifer Cole) Subject: software Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 12:16 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1285 (3224) ** CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT ** THE ORGANIZATION OF PHONOLOGY: FEATURES and DOMAINS May 2-4, 1991 The Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, in recognition of its 25th Anniversary, is hosting a conference that explores the state-of-the-art in Phonology. Invited speakers will present their current research in an environment conducive to the lively exchange of ideas. The conference is open to all interested persons. Invited speakers: Diana Archangeli Patricia Keating G.N. Clements Michael Kenstowicz John Goldsmith John McCarthy Morris Halle Armin Mester Bruce Hayes Alan Prince Larry Hyman Doug Pulleyblank Junko Ito^ Donca Steriade Moira Yip For registration and program information, please contact the organizing committee: Jennifer Cole Chin Woo Kim Charles Kisseberth email: cole@cogsci.uiuc.edu phone: 217-244-1983 usmail: The Department of Linguistics FLB 4088 University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61801 From: evan@txsil.lonestar.org (Evan Antworth) Subject: software Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2785 (3225) I have uploaded to SIMTEL a program called Fonol. It is a generative phonology rule simulator. You write a phonological description using "standard generative phonology" (a la Chomsky & Halle 1968, Sound Pattern of English) and Fonol applies the rules to data. It will likely be useful mostly for pedagogical purposes, but should also be useful for developing and testing a phonological analysis. The program was written by Frank R. Brandon, but as he does not have network or email access, I have made it available for him. It is 'freeware': anyone can give away copies as long as they do not charge for the copies and as long as they give all the distribution files in unmodified form. It should be noted that Frank is not affiliated with SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), and Fonol is not distributed or supported by SIL. Frank's address and phone number are given in the documentation. Fonol is available for IBM PC compatibles only. Sorry Mac users. If someone would like to do a Mac port of it, I'm sure Frank will supply the sources. I have briefly tried the program, but have not extensively tested it. I hope someone will test the program and report back to LL. Fonol is available from the SIMTEL-20 archive as follows: Directory PD1:<MSDOS.EDUCATION> FONOL400.ZIP B 99329 910418 Generative Phonology rule simulator The SIMTEL archives can be accessed by anonymous FTP from: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [IP address 26.2.0.74] If you don't have FTP capability, you can get Fonol from SIMTEL via e-mail. Send e-mail to listserv@rpiecs.bitnet (or just listserv@rpiecs if you are on bitnet) with this single-line message: /PDGET MAIL PD1:<MSDOS.EDUCATION>FONOL400.ZIP UUENCODE If you get Fonol by e-mail, you will receive several uuencoded files. You will need a UUDECODE program to restore the ZIP file. Then you will need the PKUNZIP program to restore the original files. If you just can't get Fonol from SIMTEL or can't handle decoding and unzipping, write to me and we will try to work something out. Evan Antworth Academic Computing Department Summer Institute of Linguistics 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236 U.S.A. phone: 214/709-2418 internet: evan@txsil.lonestar.org From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Gutenberg Newsletter Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 16:31:00 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2786 (3226) Apparently the monthly postings made on the Gutenberg server are making it around the world via any number of relays and translations (many are English to English, therefore are perhaps the most guilty) that require people to write to me or GUTNBERG (no difference in where they go, just that GUTNBERG is for relay, but I don't really care which address since I have to handle it all anyany, and I can usually tell which is which). Please forward the monthly postings of FTP listings IN THEIR ENTIRETY!! Please DO NOT FORWARD OTHER GUTNBERG messages without a disclaimer that using them may depend on information carried in the monthly newsletter, which will always carry all new FTP sites and instructions. As for the questions as to what is on these servers, I cannot answer as I do not actually place the files on most of these machines therefore I can't be responsible for what is or is not put there in what format. If you subscribe to the GUTNBERG server, then you will receive relevant and relatively complete data at all times. If you wait for the monthly newsletter, which is posted on GUTNBERG, HUMANIST, PACS-L AND BI-L then you will have complete data at that time, which will obviously get only a little out of date during the coming month. You will find the most up to date Gutenberg files on our local servers: mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu for books, gutnberg@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu for notes. Bitnet = gutnberg@uiucvmd How long it takes others to post these files is up to them. If I could have logins on those machines, I would be happy to update them myself. Some new functions for the "finger" command and other methods of update will soon be implemented, as will a replacement for the "Virtual letter of subscription" received by all new subscribers. Those who subscribe, will inevitably ignore the "virtual" problems with that canned letter. If anyone would like to assist with the construction of these your help will be appreciated. For now, if you find a file you don't recognize on one of the servers I can only say to ask people at that server. If you find one on mrcnext, it will probably be in the next monthly newsletter. Please forward and post this in all locations where a Project Gutenberg note is usually posted. New monthly newsletter is waiting on new disks which are being installed, hopefully generating more space. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois, SIMTEL20 or TRW. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: crisp@engr.uark.edu (Crisp Group) Subject: What is computational linguistics? Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 11:11 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1287 (3227) Would someone in HUMANIST provide us with a simple (words that poor engineers can understand) explanation of the term computational linguistics. A representative problem of some kind would be helpful. Please reply direct via e-mail to crisp@engr.uark.edu [no, see below] [ Replies should go to the list. Perhaps they might deal more generally with the relationship between computational linguistics and humanities computing -- Allen, today's Humanist Editor] Thanx in advance. From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty) Subject: What is TACT? Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 10:26:18 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2787 (3228) TACT: an MS-DOS shareware program for interactive textual analysis (ver. 1.2, released June 1990) TACT is an interactive full-text retrieval system for MS-DOS with a number of analytical tools. Like others of its kind, TACT retrieves segments of text according to specified word forms. In addition, it can find words or character-strings that match criteria the user specifies. TACT generates simple graphs to show the distribution of forms throughout an entire text, or within various structural divisions determined by the user. TACT also allows retrieval by metatextual `categories'. Use of TACT begins with a stable ASCII text. Although this text need not be marked-up for TACT, in most cases intelligent markup is crucial to effective analysis. For markup the researcher uses a wordprocessor to insert simple codes according to the properties that he or she wishes to query. In a play, for example, acts, scenes, and speeches are obvious things to mark; in a novel, chapters; in a narrative poem, books and stanzas; in a lexicon, subdivisions of the entry; and so forth. The researcher may also, however, want to mark specific entities, such as proper names (of people and places), names of plants and animals, or episodes. In addition, through markup a number of hypothetical structures can be simultaneously indicated alongside those denoted by the author or editor, e.g. an alternative division of a poem into thematic units. Once the text is marked up, a TACT program known as MAKBAS converts it into a database for efficient retrieval. MAKBAS allows the user to define the collation sequence of the alphabet, special characters, and the characteristics of the tags used for markup. Working with the database, TACT can present a complete list of words from which a subset for retrieval may be selected, one word at a time. Through what is called `regular expression' capability, the user may also specify a selection rule according to a pattern of characters, including "wildcards" (for example, all words beginning with the letter "a" and ending with "ed" or "ing"). Rules may also contain operators to indicate juxtaposed words; specific words within a user-definable span, or all words within such a span of an expression; or all words resembling the chosen expression to varying degrees. Such rules may be kept in one or more ASCII files external to the program, from which specific rules may be selected; thus, for example, the user can construct a lexicon of words and expressions. Once a set of words has been selected by whatever means, it can be saved within TACT as a "category". Categories can in turn be combined to form other categories. Thus, for example, all words and expressions the user regards as indicating "love" can be saved as the category LOVE, and in addition be combined with a similar category MAD to produce the category MADLOVE. Category names can be included within rules as easily as words, so that, for example, a user could ask to see all passages in which LOVE-words occur within 2 lines of MAD-words. To take a slightly different example, a user could ask to be shown all paragraphs in which the category LOVE and the word "death" occur. In the creation of a category from a rule, the user can examine all selected locations in the text and choose which to include or exclude. This ability to choose by context is often essential. The word "heat", for examle, might be part of what is meant by "love" in some contexts but not in others, or only the noun might be relevant, not the verb. Various displays are available. Text can be displayed as KWIC (keyword-in-context) segments; as simple distribution graphs, showing how the occurrence of a set of locations is distributed through the text, or among various structural divisions; or as an index showing only a list of locations where the event occurred, with a 1 line context. A new display, added to version 1.2, can show all collocates to the selected positions in the text -- with collocates ordered by the Z-score. Displays in TACT are linked so that, for example, the user can go directly from a position in a distribution graph to the text it represents. TACT is multilingual. In order to display foreign languages, it supports the extended ASCII character set of the IBM PC, and with tools which extend the character set displays, its capabilities can be extended to many other languages, such as Greek and Old English. (Hebrew, Arabic, and languages such as Chinese are beyond its present design, however.) It supports multilingual analysis as well by allowing for proper alphabetization, convenient keyboard entry, and printing on devices that requirespecial "escape codes" to produce non-ASCII characters -- even if these sequences are different from those that would be used to enter the character from the keyboard, or display it on screen. In addition to MAKBAS and TACT, the TACT system includes a program to construct databases from very large texts (MERGEBAS) and another to search a database and find all phrases that occur more than a specified number of times (COLLGEN). Developed by: John Bradley and Lidio Presutti University of Toronto Computing Services (UTCS), Room 201, 4 Bancroft Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A1 Canada; fax: (416) 978-7159; John Bradley voice: (416) 978-3995; e-mail: bradley@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca Lidio Presutti voice: (416) 978-5130; e-mail: lidio@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca Distributed by: TACT Distribution Centre for Computing in the Humanities, Robarts Library, Room 14297A, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Canada, M5S 1A5 The developers recognize the generous support of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, and IBM Canada through its former partnership with the university. The developers are also indebted to John B. Smith's ARRAS program, by which TACT has in part been inspired. Hardware: requires standard MS-DOS platform with 640K RAM; fixed disk; DOS 2.1 or above. Cost: The CCH charges a distribution fee of $30 CDN for a copy of the program and a printed, bound copy of the documentation. (GST should be added for Canadian sales.) TACT is shareware. You are welcome to distribute copies of TACT, subject to its license, which basically permits distribution as long as long as it is not distributed for profit. Documentation: online help and a preprinted tutorial; Support: the developers are glad to answer questions about the usage or design of TACT and to receive suggestions for its improvement. Queries can be sent directly to the developers or to TACT-L@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca, the discussion group for users of TACT. 25 April 1991 From: mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca (Willard McCarty) Subject: TACT-L Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 10:27:27 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2788 (3229) Announcing TACT-L for users of TACT The Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, is pleased to announce the creation of TACT-L, an electronic discussion group for users of the interactive text- retrieval program TACT. (A brief description of TACT is being published elsewhere on Humanist for those unfamiliar with the software.) The purpose of TACT-L is to allow easier communication amongst the users and with the development team at Toronto, and to allow for convenient distribution of common materials. Technically speaking, TACT-L is (like Humanist or NotaBene) a ListServ list; its address is TACT-L@vm.utcs.utoronto.ca. It has initially been set up to run in an `unmoderated' mode. This means that any mail sent to TACT-L will be automatically circulated to everyone on the list. Since it is exclusively for users of the program, we anticipate that the list will circulate only mail pertaining to the software and its applications. Like other ListServ lists TACT-L has a file-server where information can be stored. From time to time members of the development team will post items on the server, but they also invite submissions, such as sample rule-files, marked-up texts, and the like. If you are interested in joining, please reply to the undersigned. (Note that my address has changed.) Your comments about the program and about your applications of it will be welcome. Willard McCarty mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca From: <fass@cs.sfu.ca> Subject: IJCAI workshop on non-literal language submission deadline is May 2 Date: 25 Apr 91 18:54 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1289 (3230) CALL FOR PAPERS IJCAI-91 WORKSHOP COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES TO NON-LITERAL LANGUAGE: METAPHOR, METONYMY, IDIOM, SPEECH ACTS, IMPLICATURE Dan Fass, James Martin, Elizabeth Hinkelman Sydney, Australia, 24th August 1991 1. Focus of the Workshop The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate exchange and discussion of theoretical issues and practical problems of artificial intelligence (AI) models of non-literal language. Non-literal language includes metaphor, idiom, "indirect" speech acts, implicature, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, sarcasm, and other devices whose meaning cannot be obtained by direct composition of their constituent words. Non-literal language is increasingly acknowledged as pervasive in natural language and is important to subfields of natural language processing like machine translation and parsing ill-formed input. Non-literal language has also attracted interest from researchers in knowledge representation, planning and plan recognition, learning, belief modeling, and other subfields of AI. Researchers are invited to submit papers on topics including (but not limited to) the computer recognition, interpretation, acquisition, generation, and robust parsing of non-literal language. Issues of interest include: o the relationship of non-literal to literal language, o the adequacy of various forms of knowledge representation (symbolic vs connectionist vs statistical), o static vs dynamic mechanisms, o general vs idiosyncratic treatment of instances, o instances as novel vs conventional forms, o comparison and contrast of models of the various forms of non-literal language, o broader implications for AI. 2. Organizing Committee Dan Fass James Martin Centre for Systems Science, Computer Science Department and Simon Fraser University, Institute of Cognitive Science, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. University of Colorado at Boulder, Tel: (604) 291-3208 Box 430, Boulder, CO 80309-0430, USA. Fax: (604) 291-4951 Tel: (303) 492-3552 E-mail: fass@cs.sfu.ca Fax: (303) 492-2844 E-mail: martin@boulder.colorado.edu Elizabeth Hinkelman Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Tel: (312) 702-8887 Fax: (312) 702-0775 E-mail: eliz@tira.uchicago.edu 3. Submission Details Authors should mail three (3) copies of a submission in hard copy form. Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (excluding title page); have 1 inch margins on the top, sides and bottom; and use no smaller than 10 point type. The title page, separate from the body of the paper, should contain title, names of authors, their affiliation, address, phone, e-mail address, and an abstract of 100-200 words. Papers that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to Dan Fass at his address, given above. Please do not send submissions to James Martin or Elizabeth Hinkelman. o Deadline for submissions THURSDAY MAY 2ND o Notification of acceptance/rejection Friday May 31st 4. Workshop Details Attendance at the workshop will be limited to 30 participants. Only one invitation will be issued per accepted submission. To cover costs, it will be necessary to charge a fee of $US65 for each participant. Participants will be given further instructions on preparation of camera ready copy and session format when they receive notification of acceptance. Final papers will be collected into a set of proceedings and circulated to participants at the workshop. Arrangements (yet to be confirmed) are being made for a Special Edition of Computational Intelligence journal, edited by Fass, Martin and Hinkelman, in which selected papers from the workshop will appear. From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM> Subject: Advanced Humanities Computing Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:21:27 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2789 (3231) Thanks for the responses concerning a suitable text for a course on Advanced Humanities Computing. I know the Sedgewick text in both editions, and I agree that it gives a good summary of the major algorithms. Another text along the same lines that I prefer is "Data Structures and Algorithms" by Alfred Aho et al. Both are essentially reference works however. I see the problem as follows. If I use a text such as Sedgewick, I have to include virtually all of the programming examples myself, since Sedgewick just gives the basic algorithms. On the other hand, if I use a true "textbook", then I am largely constrained by the examples in the book, which are rarely appropriate to a course on Humanities Computing. As Nancy Ide says, there is no good text for this task, though I was hoping someone would know of one. I posed the same query to a sales rep who replied, not surprisingly, that his company had the perfect text for the course, namely, "Intermediate Problem Solving and Data Structures" by Paul Helman et al. This does look promising, though far from ideal. If anyone has any experience with this book, I would welcome the comments. I have also toyed with the idea of writing my own text, but the last time I wrote a textbook my colleagues referred to this as a "negative publication", i.e., not scholarly, which perhaps explains why there are so few good texts out there. From: Hans van der Laan <RCDILAA@HDETUD1.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1262 Qs: Adv Humanities Programming...(replacement) Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 17:18:33 MET X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2790 (3232) [ ... ] It might be of interest that there is a shareware package that supplies most beautifull demo's of several sorting algorithms. It runs on an IBM PC or clone. You can find it on many Bulletin Bords under the name SORTDEMO.ARC. I enclose the description here. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans van der Laan Bitnet: RCDILAA@HDETUD1 Advisor S-mail: P.O. Box 354 Delft University of Technology NL-2600-AJ Delft Computing Centre The Netherlands ---------------- Cut here ---------------------------------------- Graphic Illustration of Sorting Algorithms K.L. Noell 03.Sep.87 It's difficult to explain sorting algorithms merely by verbose descrip- tions. They are either easy to understand and simple to design but they are very slow and inefficient; or they run fairly quick but their design and implementation is rather complex and troublesome. For teaching purpose I have realized an idea which illustrates various sorting algorithms with the aid of real-time animated pixel graphics. Keys to be sorted are 640 random integers distributed over the inter- val [0...199]. These elements are stored in an array which is mapped to corresponding screen pixels ( x:[0...639], y:[0...199] ). In the beginning, this pixel distribution looks like a starry sky. After the sorting procedure is started, you can watch its progress directly. Swapping and moving of elements effects appropriate pattern updates by shifting the pixels towards their final ascending order. Depending on the particular sorting strategy, this works very slow and fussy or it is intelligible sophisticated and quick. You can compare features and performance of different sorting algorithms; after processing the randomly distributed keys, the sorting can be started once more to deal with an array already sorted, but in opposite (descending) order which means sometimes the worst case. The frequencies of swaps and loops (comparisons) are counted. Turbo-Pascal programs are provided to demonstrate the following sorting algorithms: BubbleSort, HeapSort, LinearSort, QuickSort, ShakeSort, ShellSort . My examples are based on sorting algorithms from the following books: A.V. Aho; J.E. Hopcroft; J.D. Ullman: Data Structures and Algorithms. Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam etc (1983) Sara Baase: Computer Algorithms: Introduction to Design and Analysis. Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam etc (1978) I have written and tested these programs with Turbo-Pascal (3.01A) under DOS 3.1, running in an IBM-AT02 and also in clones with CGA and EGA. ===> Disclaimer Notice <=== This SORTDEMO - package is provided for educational purpose. Neither the author nor the distributor makes any warranty or assumes any liability or responsibility for accuracy, completeness or usefulness. All risk of use is on the user. It may be freely copied but may not be sold for profit. Please keep the credits which refer to author and provenance. Suggestions, problems: please send E-mail to NOELL@DWIFH1.BITNET or contact: Prof.Dr. Karl-L. Noell FHW - FB MND Am Brueckweg 26 D-6090 Ruesselsheim (W. Germany) From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB Subject: Copyright, again Date: 25 April 1991, 17:05:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1291 (3233) We haven't really exhausted this subject, a very frightening one for the history of publishing, a liberating one for the friends of knowledge who want to get it all out there in the public domain, for the use of all. Though the session devoted to copyright was organized and run very well by Mike Neuman at the ACH/ALLC conference in Tempe, it settled very few questions. The legal point of view was counteracted by the practical voices of successful electronic publishers (CD-WORD, InteLex and Chadwyck-Healey), and the commercial interests of the publishers sometimes was countered by the demands of scholars or by the demands of those who wanted not only a text but a good text and not only an encoded text but a well-encoded text. I for one sat in the audience worrying from all three sides. The lawyers would make out well no matter what, since everyone would be arguing the issues in various courts, so never mind them for the time being. The commercial publishers had to worry about charging enough for their products so that potential losses from piracy or illegal copying could be obverted before they occurred. The scholarly publishers had to worry about generating texts that were good enough to satisfy a fickle audience of perfectionist scholars (who also like to complain). The encoders of text, some interested in texts as great works of art and some interested in text as linguistic databases or samples of writing, had to worry about what the commercial and scholarly publishers would publish along with their texts, about the code itself and the software engines that would interpret the code. Is it time for a group like the Humanists to start helping to set the standards for copyright of electronic data, so that it won't be done for us either on the bases of the profit motive of commerce or of "national security" or of legal greed? Can we decide what we want and tell the world what our standard is? May we talk about this? Roy Flannagan From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@VASSAR> Subject: Computational Linguistics and Humanities Computing Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 13:48 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1292 (3234) Before answering the question about computational linguistics and trying to point out where humanities computing and computational linguistics overlap, I want to advertise a bit: There will be a special issue of _Computers and the Humanities_ devoted to the intersection of computational linguistics and humanities computing, edited by Donald Walker and myself, which should come out in spring of 1992. Included in this issue will be articles reporting work which falls into this intersection, as well as an overview article which will answer in much more detail the question of where the overlap exists and may exist in the future. Also, at this year's Association for Computational Linguistics conference in Berkeley in June, I will give a workshop on this topic. Finally, for those interested in a broad consideration of how work in computational linguistics can be of use in humanities computing, especially content analysis, I can refer you to a somewhat outdated but possibly still useful paper entitled "The Computational Determination of Meaning in Literary Texts," which appeared in _Computers and the Humanities: Today's Research, Tomorrow's Teaching_, Toronto: University of Toronto, 1986. What follows is a short answer to the question posed, and to Allen's additional request: Computational Linguistics is a field concerned with a computer's handling of natural languages such as English. "Handling" includes (principally) understanding, generating, and translating. Accomplishing these things would enable machines to understand and respond to user queries and commands which are expressed in their native languages rather than an artifical computer language, and would enable computers to do things like translation from one language to another. The European Community, with the advent of 1992 and at least nine languages to deal with, is very interested in automatic translation. Very broadly speaking, the task of handling natural language by machine involves the following: o morphology (finding root forms for words in inflected or derived forms) ---------- o syntax (determining the constituent grammatical pieces of sentences) ------ o semantics (determining the relations among elements of a sentence in --------- terms of their meaning) o pragmatics (determining which pieces of general world knowledge affect ---------- the meaning of a sentence, and how) This does not include what one would consider to handle speech and says nothing about elements of discourse larger than the sentence. For example in the sentence "The rain stopped the tennis game," morphological analysis determines things like the fact the STOP is the root form of STOPPED; syntactic analysis determines that the subject of the sentence is a noun phrase with determiner THE and head RAIN, main verb STOP marked as 3rd person, past tense, transitive or intransitive; semantic analysis identifes STOP as the action of the sentence, with the subject noun phrase THE RAIN in the agent role and the direct object noun phrase THE TENNIS GAME in the object role; pragmatics would fill in the information that tennis games are played outside and (usually) cannot be played in the rain. To do these things one requires knoweldge of words and their parts of speech (since most words have more than one this can be tricky), which sense of a word is intended, what the possible roles fillers for any verb may be along with their semantic properties (such as animate, physical object, etc.). This is a tremendously simplified explanation. In fact it is astoundingly difficult to handle natural language by machine. Just to give you an idea, it is a fact that no existing parser can correctly identify the syntactic constituents in unconstrained language (that is, language in any domain, without specific constraints on form or content) more than about 30% of the time. Let alone coping with semantic issues in any comprehensive way. Because of the difficulties, computational linguistics has had to focus increasingly on a variety of sub-sub-sub-problems which are at times not readily identifiable as contributing to the overall goals of the discipline. Examples which reflect my own interests include things like trying to extract information about words from definition texts in everyday dictionaries which happen to exist in machine readable form; determining the different relevant collocates for words in order to distinguish semantic properties; building lists of words and root forms; trying to find a tagging system capable of representing all the differing opinions about what the set of parts of speech actually is, or which can represent every linguist's different idea of a syntactic analysis; gathering corpora that represent a valid sample of general language use and finding a suitable means to represent them in machine readable form; etc., etc. The overlap between humanities computing and computational linguistics is first of all simply due to a shared interest: both humanists using computing (mainly those concerned with literary and linguistic analysis) and computational linguists are trying to use computers to analyze texts. In humanites computing, the analysis has traditionally involved such things as analysis of style, analysis of content and theme, as well as providing better access to textual materials by providing concordances and other retrieval tools. Now, for analyses of style and content, humanists need information such as the part of speech for each word in the text, which they need to determine the syntactic constituents of sentences. For analysis of content, one needs things like sets of semantically related words (and all the inflected and derived forms in which of semantically related words (and all the inflected and derived forms in which they may appear in a text); if they want to go further they could use information about semantic properties (animate etc.) and the roles (e.g., agent, object) words and phrases play in various sentences in a text. These are all things that computational linguists need to know too. So, both groups have been doing a lot of the same things for a long time. The sad part is that the two groups have been working almost entirely independently of one another. The independence I think resulted because both groups saw themselves as working with entirely independent methodologies. Humanities people tended to be concerned with texts and not individual sentences. The texts involved literary language--what Martin Kay called "remarkable" language in his keynote address at the recent ACH/ALLC conference in Tempe AZ, as opposed to the "unremarkable" language with which computational linguists are concerned (that is, they want first to deal with the straightforward, let alone coping with things as complex as metaphor, irony, etc.). Humanists were concerned with broad features of style and content--general patterns across texts that indicated trends and frequent patterns or usages, while computational linguists struggled to come up with a deep and complete representation of the syntax and full meaning of a handful of sentences like the one about rain and tennis cited above. Thus humanists used statistical methods to to find the probable and the characteristic, while computational linguists relied on linguistic theory. At the same time, humanists were amassing corpora of texts, paying close attention to things like genre, as well as word lists and various other resources. Computational linguists, focussed on the sentence, used 35-word hand constructed lexicons and never thought much about texts. Recently, both humanists and computational linguists have found themselves up against a wall. Humanists have found that they cannot go further in analyzing things like style and theme without deeper information about syntax and semantics. Computational linguists have found that linguistic theories predict the possible, but they need information about the and probable and characteristic properties of language in order to make any more progress in handling language by machine. So, humanities people are becoming interested in some of the methods and results computational linguists have been working on for the past few decades, while the computational linguists are beginning to apply statistical methods to large corpora in order to gather information about general properties of language use, and have begun to use tools like concordances and word lists. The methods they are using and the resources they are applying them to are those of humanities computing. The main difference is that humanists have been concerned with remarkable language and computational linguists are interested, for the time being, in unremarkable language. Recognizing the increasing overlap, here have been some efforts to bring together the two groups, who still persist in working independently in large measure. At the ACH/ALLC conference in Tempe, the Association for Computational Linguistics held a special session in which a number of computational linguists presented some of their recent work. Their methodologies, all involving statistics, were familiar to those who have worked in this area of humanities computing. The applications were also familiar for the most part: one (Church) analyzed word co-occurrence patterns in a corpus of unremarkable texts to determine semantic properties of related words, one (Liberman) analyzed vocabulary use in a corpus of unremarkable texts. Two (Mercer, Kay) spoke about aligning bilingual corpora using statistical methods, something which I am not aware has been done in humanities computing. The session served two purposes: to show that the methods were the same in both fields, and to make humanists aware that these methods applied to unremarkable texts can give them information which could be useful (for comparision purposes, for example) in analyzing remarkable ones. Another purpose the session served may have been to make the computational linguists aware of the decades of work in humanities computing--such as studies of vocabulary use--in exactly the same areas with very similar methods. They could gain a lot from studying humanists' methods, and considering their results. Remarkable language can also tall us a lot about the unremarkable. Efforts like the Text Encoding Inititave, the ACL Data Collection Initiative, the Consortium for Lexical Research, and the Dictionary Encoding Initiative are all concerned with gathering, developing, and representing resources that are of direct and obvious use for both humanites computing and computational linguistics. Here, the overlap is most apparent, since both groups are now concerned with textual materials in large amounts, and therefore necessarily with their nature and representation. There is much more to say about the overlap, but I hope this provides the flavor. And I hope the ACL session at Tempe and other efforts to increase communication between humanists and computational linguists begin a profitable interchange for both sides. --Nancy Ide, Department of Computer Science, Vassar College President, Association for Computers and the Humanities From: PETERR@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: Demonstration Disc for Collate 1.0 Date: X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2791 (3235) [ ... ] A demonstration disc of Collate 1.0 is now available, free, from: The Computers and Manuscripts Project Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN UK EMAIL: PETERR@UK.AC.OX.VAX, ph 0865-273200, fax -273275. The disc will run any Macintosh (Plus or above). From: O MH KATA MHXANHN <MCCARTHY@CUA> Subject: indexing on the Macintosh Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 09:57 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2792 (3236) In response to Mary Massirer's question, Virginia Systems puts out a very nice piece of indexing software called "Sonar Bookends" which quickly creates indices for files created in Word, MacWrite, other "popular" word processors, and text-only files; it also comes in the form of a Quark extension, which allos the user to index directly from the document. An editable table of "noise" words is included. The number? 804-739-3200. The program costs $130, I think. From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Britannica on CDROM Date: Fri, 26 Apr 91 12:11:21 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2793 (3237) My understanding is that the Encyclopedia Britannica CDROM is finally going to become available next summer. The original single CD priced at a rumored $90 has been expanded (also rumor, this is all rumored!) to 3 CDs at a price of $5,000. As I understand it this Britannica CD package is published by the same people who published the Comptons CD for well under $1,000. I also understand that as much space is being dedicated to illustrations as to text, but that since a picture is an equal of 1,000 words, this may not be a great bargain, unless higher, much higher, quality pictures are used than in other CD publications. There is also a new edition of the Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia, this time a separate disk for the Mac and for DOS. This new edition, along with other software changes, has been expanded from a 9 million word text to 10 million words. The list price is $395, as I recall. Grolier CDs can be ordered at 1-800-345-5590. New version also includes maps and audio. The comments I have made here are strictly relayed from other sources since I have not had an opportunity to examine either of these for my own commentaries. ---------------------------- Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart, Director, Project Gutenberg INTERNET: hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu BITNET: hart@uiucvmd.bitnet The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. Neither Prof Hart nor Project Gutenberg have any official contacts with the University of Illinois, SIMTEL20 or TRW. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: "Allen Renear, Brown Univ/CIS, 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM> Subject: From the Editors: Listserv Options Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 23:23:15 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1294 (3238) The Humanist subscriber list now contains about 1030 addresses, including over 20 bulletin boards and subsidiary mailing lists. Handling the network mail, and address problems on such a large list is fairly time-consuming. Even in the best of circumstances there is always a lot of returned mail due to transient network problems. But during those periods of the academic calendar when contracts expire or vacations are taken the volume of returned mail goes up even further. So... if you will not be able to access your mail for a time and your mail system is the sort which returns mail when your disk allocation is is exceeded, then please remember to suspend your Humanist subscription for the time you will be away. Do this by sending mail to listserv@brownvm.brown.edu or listserv@brownvm with the following line as the only text in the body set humanist nomail This command does not actually 'unsubscribe' you from the list, but rather simply stops listserv from sending Humanist mail to you -- you remain listed as a Humanist subscriber and retain all other subscriber privileges (such as fileserver authorization). Then when you wish to once again receive Humanist simply send mail to the same address with this line as body text set humanist mail Of course you may also send EDITORS mail with your request and we will be happy to take care of it for you. Whenever you wish to temporarily suspend Humanist mail please use the method above; do not sign off the list entirely. However, if your mail account is being closed then please _do_ sign off the list. Send mail to listserv with the line unsub humanist Then when you get your new account let us know and we will sign you up again. -- Allen From: "Elizabeth A. Hinkelman" <eliz@tira.uchicago.edu> Subject: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 12:05:09 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2794 (3239) Computational linguists are, roughly, linguists who use computers and computer science, and computists who study language. The computer becomes a laboratory for testing models of language; a simple example is testing whether a a set of grammar rules really generates the desired structures. Viewing language analysis/generation as a computation with well-defined computational properties enables discussion of which properties enable it to account for the data. So CL's have argued about whether morphophonology can be handled with Regular Grammars (which don't reorder constituents and so use only a fixed amount of memory, regardless of string length) or require Context-Free grammars (can match constituents (like nested parentheses), but need memory to store what's not matched yet). The Regular Grammars can be used, with some inelegant reduplication in the lexicon, for extracting word stems and inflections in many languages. For a non-linguist humanist, this means that it's possible to build spelling checkers, concordance programs, and so on that will recognize "doggies" as a diminutive plural of "dog". Doing it exactly for a whole language requires tedious lexicon building, but this is much easier than parsing English syntax with a context-free grammar (a big CL occupation.) You can get a notion of the state of the art from the Natural Language Software Registry, available from registry@tira.uchicago.edu Viewing language as computation also gives some intellectual leverage on questions about interactive and processing aspects of language. My area of discourse and pragmatics has as a typical problem area question-answering; considering how a computer could generate a helpful answer based on some data base. This clearly involves information about what intentions the asker has, and there are lots of Artificial Intelligence people who would focus on this aspect and not describe themselves as computational linguists. Jerry Hobbs has a nice CSLI book on the implications of this area for humanists. Elizabeth Hinkelman, Center for Information and Language Studies University of Chicago From: Michael Covington <MCOVINGT@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU> Subject: RE: Q: What is computational linguistics? Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:35:10 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2795 (3240) I would define computational linguistics as the whole field of computer processing or generation of natural-language utterances, provided the goal of the processing is to deal with the meaning and/or linguistic structure (including syntax, phonology, and the like). Purely statistical studies of texts probably fall outside the field (unless some real linguistic principles are being investigated by the statistics). Much of computational linguistics falls within the realm of artificial intelligence, but not all of it. Even if the artificial intelligence enterprise were to be completely abandoned, there would still be computational linguistics in a broader sense, for such things as the computer testing of linguistic theories, imperfect natural-language understanding, and the like. ------------------------------------------------------------- - Michael A. Covington internet mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu - - Artificial Intelligence Programs bitnet MCOVINGT@UGA - - Graduate Studies Research Center phone 404 542-0359 - - The University of Georgia fax 404 542-0349 - - Athens, Georgia 30602 bix, mci mail MCOVINGTON - - U.S.A. packet radio N4TMI@WB4BSG - From: phall@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:33:53 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2796 (3241) This is a reply to the question posed by the Crips Group at the University of Arkansas. Very simply, Computational Linguistics (CL) amounts to trying to make computers do linguistics. Of course, another question then becomes, what is linguistics? There are several branches to linguistics, and efforts have been underway to "computerize" all of them. These branches--better, fields--are generally syntax, phonolgy, phonetics, semantics, pragmatics, lexicology, and other areas (e.g., discourse analysis, linguistic-stylistics). CL has also helped stimulate the area of mathematical linguistics and the area of logic. I noticed that I got Crisp group spelled wrongly--sorry. Hope that provides a simple explanation of CL. Dave P-Hall From: Jock McNaught <jock@ccl.umist.ac.uk> Subject: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 15:11:06 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2797 (3242) Un bon essai de definition de linguistique informatique, c'est l'article (assez court) de Henry Thompson 'Natural language processing: a critical analysis of the structure of the field, with some implications for parsing', dans K. Sparck Jones & Y. Wilks (eds) (1983) Automatic Natural Language Parsing. Ellis Horwood, publishers. pages 21-31. Bien que cet article vise les problemes de parsing, la discussion de la structure du domaine se poursuit au niveau general, et, a mon avis, reussit a bien decrire les traits distinctifs de LI, et a distinguer LI nettement de domaines et d'activites associes. Jock -- John McNaught jock%ccl.umist.ac.uk@ean-relay.ac.uk (ean) Centre for Computational jock%ccl.umist.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu (arpa) Linguistics jock%ccl.umist.ac.uk@ac.uk (earn) UMIST jock@cclsun.uucp PO Box 88 Sackville Street Manchester, UK +44.61.200.3098 (direct) M60 1QD From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden) Subject: Re: 4.1279 Gender (2/26) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 10:15:45 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2798 (3243) As to Dana Cartwright's question: You cannot compare German and English in the case of gender. In German gender is grammatical, i. e. every word is gender specified, in most cases without bearing to its natural gender if there is any (most well-known example M"adchen, girl, which i neuter because it is a diminutive). My guess is that the German classification was based on morphological similarities. From: Jozsef Borocz <JBOROCZ@JHUVM> Subject: gender of months Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1991 13:52 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2799 (3244) Re: gender, speech, and months, (from a Hungarian point of view) the experiment mentioned (concerning the grammatical gender of months) would be very interesting to repeat in Hungarian, indeed. The reasons are: _ember_ means 'human' (and in partly outdated denotation, also 'man') which implies that Sept-ember through Dec-ember would be taken care of... on the other hand, Hungarian does not have grammatical gender at all (not even for personal pronouns in third person singular). Anyway. Best of discussions: Jozsef Borocz //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Jozsef Borocz (301)338-7636 (office) Department of Sociology (301)366-7762 (home) The Johns Hopkins University jebe@jhuvm.bitnet or: Baltimore, MD 21218 USA jborocz@jhuvm.bitnet or: jebe@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu or: jborocz@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// From: Dennis Baron <baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: gender in English Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 16:45:20 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2800 (3245) Dana Cartwright asks about studies of gender assigned to inanimates in English. Perhaps the most detailed is Artur Knutson, 1905, <The gender of words denoting living beings in English>, Lund. In addition, try T. Hilding Svartgren. 1927. "Feminine gender in Anglo-American" <American Speech> 3:83-113. Svartgren 1928. "The use of the personal gender for inanimate things." <Dialect Notes> 6:7-56. Svartgren 1954, "The use of feminine gender for inanimate things in American colloquial speech" <Moderna Sprak> 48:261-92. I'm not sure we would agree with their theories, but these represent significant collections of data, dated though they be. From: <THEOBIBLE@STMARYTX> Subject: PRIMUS INTER PARES Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 21:56 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2801 (3246) The expression "primus inter pares" has been used for a long time in theological circles to indicate the Orthodox valuation of the Patriarch of Constantinople vis-a-vis other orthodox bishops, or the Patriarch of Rome vis-a-vis other patriarchs and bishops. It would appear to be perhaps a translation from Greek. Does anyone know of something roughly equivalent in medieval Greek Orthodox writings? Charles Miller From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Re: 4.1277 Primus inter pares (2/24) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 14:16:11 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2802 (3247) I thank all those who have answered my question about "primus inter pares" and still hope for something more tangible, but I do wish to add a note to D. Coleman's suggestion that the pope could be referred to as "primus inter pares". This was exactly the suggestion that my student had sent to the Vatican, and it was apparently not looked upon with favor. Although I have known questions that seemed much more impertinent to get a courteous and even courtly reply from the Vatican, my student's letter was returned to him with the single word "No!" writ large across it. David Schaps Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS Subject: Wedding Rings in Antiquity Date: Tuesday, 23 April 1991 2346-EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2803 (3248) If I recall correctly, the "matronly woman" sitting on a throne-like chair in one of the painted panels in the "Villa dei Mysterii" at Pompeii is wearing a ring, which has been interpreted as a wedding ring on the domina of the house. Vesuvius erupted in 79 ce, so if this counts as evidence for wedding rings, it is relatively early and in this instance Roman. Bob Kraft, UPenn From: ath@linkoping.telesoft.se Subject: Re: 4.1278 Wedding Rings (3/41) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 09:02:59 +0200 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2804 (3249) Leslie Morgan asks how far wedding rings can be traced. One relatively early reference can be found in Aulus Gellius. This is from memory, so I'm afraid I can't quote book and chapter. Anyway, in one section of his book Gellius describes how the Greek, Roman and the Egyptians customs of wearing rings differ. Anders Thulin ath@linkoping.telesoft.se Telesoft AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden From: sokoloff@coma.huji.ac.il (Prof. Sokoloff Michael) Subject: Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 14:21:33 JDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2805 (3250) The first mention of a wedding ring in Jewish sources is in the Hebrew composition "Haxiluqim beyn anshey mizrax ubeney Eretz Israel" (The Differences between the Jews of Babylonia and those of Eretz Israel), composed around 700 C.E. somewhere in Eretz Israel. Difference no. 25 (ed. M. Margoliot, Jerusalem 1938) states: The Jews of Babylonia "see" an engagement with a ring; the Jews of Babylonia do not "see" a complete engagement with a ring [)n$y mzrx rw)yN Tb(t qydw$yN. wbny )rC Y$r)l )ynN rw)yN Tb(t qydw$yN gmwryN]. While the language of the difference is not entirely clear, the concensus is that this reefers to concluding an engagement with a ring, a custom not recorded in the Talmud where anything of value can be employed for this purpose. (See the Discussion in Margoliot's book, ib., p. 139 ff.] From: 6160LACYA@MUCSD.BITNET Subject: Wedding/Engagement Rings Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1991 11:10 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2806 (3251) Regarding the recent comments on wedding and engagement rings... Pliny (1st - 2nd cent.) talks about the giving of a ring by the groom to the betrothed--at the time of engagement. According to old custom this was made out of iron. (Pliny, _Natural Hist._ 33,12 'ferreus anulus isque sine gemma'.) According to Tertullian (?160-?230), who writes of the customs of Carthage, this ring was out of gold. Of course, this was a century later, on a different continent (Africa), and a different religious tradition, although the pre-christian traditions were certainly very strong. Both of these authors are writing about well-established customs, not ones that had just come into vogue. In the East, St. John Chrysostom (?345 - 407) talks about the so-called 'arrhal' gift given by the man to the woman at engagement. (Hom. de capto Eutropio, _PG_ 51/52, 407-409) Legally if he dissolved the engagement she would retain this object. If she dissolved the engagement she was obligated to return to him some multiple of the value of the gift. Besides sums of money, a ring was a favorite gift. By the time of Chrysostom the ring had mainly a symbolic value. Isidor of Seville (570 - 636) gives us the first (incomplete) description of the wedding rite in Spain (_De ecclesiasticis officiis_). In his description he comes to talk of the meaning of the engagement ring. This is placed on the fourth finger, since, according to old tradition. a vein leads directly from here to the heart. Isidor's text is unclear as to whether the man gave the woman several rings, or the couple gave each other rings. The _Lex Visigothorum_ also explicitly mentions rings as the 'arrhal' gift. On the continent it is apparently not until an 11th century _Liber ordinum_ that there is a description of the liturgical blessing of rings as part of a religious ceremony. Apparently this had technically been part of the engagement, but since it took place immediately before the marriage ceremony, it seems that by the time of the MSS mentioned it was an actual part of the marriage ceremony. In England the Durham Ritual (late 9th century?) contains specific blessings for rings as part of the wedding ceremony. As we go on in time, references to rings and blessings become much more common, but certainly the above should show that Maximilian was not the first to exchange rings - either as part of an engagement or a wedding ceremony. Hope this can be of some help. Alan F. Lacy Maruette University 6160lacya@vms.csd.mu.edu From: gary forsythe <gfgf@midway.uchicago.edu> Subject: Wedding Rings Date: Sun, 28 Apr 91 20:29:08 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2807 (3252) The practice of giving and wearing wedding rings is at least 2000 years old. We know from Pliny the Elder (writing no later than 79 A.D. in his Natural History) that it was customary for people to give one another rings, which were worn on what we now call the ring finger. Pliny explains that rings were worn on this particular finger because it was believed that a nerve ran from that finger to a person's heart. From: Maurizio Lana <LANA@ITOCISI> Subject: dissimulatio in Simmacus Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 10:30:14 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2808 (3253) A friend of mine, who has a degree in latin literature, found that Simmacus uses the word dissimulatio with the meaning of "religious tolerance". This is a rather strange use of the word dissimulatio, so I'd like to know if someone did ever find the word dissimulatio with this same meaning in latin texts from III-VI centuries a.D. Any idea or suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Maurizio Lana CISI - University of Turin - Via S. Ottavio 20 - 10124 Torino - Italy Strada del Lauro 47 - 10132 Torino - Italy e-mail: LANA at ITOCISI.BITNET From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: Re: 4.1263 Words: Envelope not on its Edge (1/55) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 10:36:53 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2809 (3254) I am surprised no one has mentioned the envelope surrounding the tones of music as drawn as wavelengths on paper or seen on oscilloscopes. I mentioned this to one of the participants in this discussion, but only the aeronautical definitions continued to be discussed. I also mentioned some other meanings, such as the bio/atmo/inon/sphere and others. The reason a great musical instrument sounds so good will be related to the manner in which it pushes the musical envelope. Thank you for your interest, Michael S. Hart The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any person or institution. "NOTICE: Due to the shortage of ROBOTS and COMPUTERS some of our workers are HUMAN and therefore will act unpredictably when abused." From: John Price-Wilkin <USERLD84@UMICHUB.BITNET> Subject: composite novels Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 20:07:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2810 (3255) I'm posting a note for a UofMichigan researcher not on Humanist. In compiling a list of "composite" or "collective" novels, she would appreciate any additions to her list. She is interested in novels written by more than two people, and more specifically in 19c works. To date her list includes: Six of One by Half a Dozen of the Other - A House Party - The Affair at the Inn - The Whole Family - Robinetta - The Sturdy Oak - The Lighted House - Bobbed Hair - Mr. Fothergill's Plot - The Floating Admiral - Ask a Policeman - The Scoop - Behind the Screen - And a few contemporary ones: Doomsday World, Naked Came The Stranger, Caribbean Blues. Please contact Gina Hausknecht directly at: Gina_Hausknecht@ub.cc.umich.edu (Internet) user6UB5@UMICHUB (Bitnet) From: Richard Mitchell <MITCHELR@ORSTVM> Subject: Contacting the Philippines Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 03:27:59 PST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2811 (3256) Help needed in locating BITNET contact in Philippines. A col- league is in urgent need of means to communicate with De la Salle University in Manila. He seeks to reach Brother Andrew Gonzales, who I believe is the University President, and or Romana de los Reyes of the Institute of Philippine Culture. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Contact: Richard G. Mitchell, Jr. Department of Sociology Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon 97331 (503) 737-5377 (W), 752-1323 (H) Electronic mail: MITCHELR@ORSTVM.BITNET From: David Graber <GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.0844 How to Search Humanist Archives (1/120) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:28:07 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2812 (3257) How can I get an update on the list of Listserv discussion groups which have topics of interest to specialists in the Humanities? A colleague of mine is a Medievalist, specializing in Romance and Germanic languages. David S. Graber Humanities and Arts Computing Center DR-10 University of Washington GRABER@UWAVM.U.WASHINGTON.EDU graber@milton.u.washington.edu (206) 543-4218 From: Boyd Davis <FEN00BHD@UNCCVM> Subject: sleep query Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 12:28:23 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2813 (3258) I am posting this for my colleague, George Windholz (Psychology) who asks for literary citations to the curative powers of sleep for physical and mental trauma and disorders. (Examples: Goethe, Faustus; Shakespeare's Macbeth). The sleep can be prescribed by a character for the trauma/disorder, deplored because it is unattainable, or reported on as having resulted in change. Thank you, Boyd Davis, UNC-Charlotte. fen00bhd at unccvm, if you would prefer to send a reply directly to me. From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM> Subject: Seasonal query Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 17:17:44 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2814 (3259) Could someone please tell me the name of the author who wrote "Casey at the Bat". Thanks in advance. From: PARKINSON@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: RE: 4.1283 Queries (4/55) Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 17:53 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2815 (3260) The only Rula Lenska I know of is a popular actress, not normally associated with Humanist or e-mail. She would receive snailmail via the BBC... From: Arnold Keller <AKELLER@UVVM.UVic.CA> Subject: Re: 4.1221 NL Software Registry (1/146) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 12:06:31 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2816 (3261) Can any suggest some articles dealing with the the theory and/or practice of responding to student writing by way of audio cassettes? I would be grateful for any suggestions. Arnold Keller University of Victoria akeller@uvic.bitnet From: "Tom Benson 814-865-4201" <T3B@PSUVM> Subject: choosing computing hardware/software Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 17:51 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2817 (3262) I promise I don't want to start another hardware war, but I do need some advice concerning relative abilities and values of IBM vs. MAC, including advice about recommended configurations. I am buying a computer for a graduate-school-bound student who will, among other things, need to prepare text in classical Greek. I can, through my university, purchase, for example, a Mac Classic with 2MB RAM, 40MB hard disk for $1149. The Mac has some appeal because of simplicity and portability--and the price sounds right. Microsoft WORD makes it simple, doesn't it, to employ Greek characters? Or . . . should I be considering some equivalent IBM machine, or spending a lot more money for a lot more computer? For my own work I use both Macs and IBM machines, but they are now 3 years old, and I am not up to date on the current equipment or the issue of Greek text. Thanks. Tom Benson Penn State University t3b@psuvm (bitnet) From: Nick.Gray@newcastle.ac.uk Subject: Mac CALL software; addresses Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 11:51:59 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2818 (3263) I guess that this has been covered before but because of the way HUMANIST is distributed here I don't think that I can get at the archives. I am looking for Mac software for language learning and for Mac shareware / public domain software in general. Are there any catalogues or lists that I should be looking at that any Humanists can recommend? I have already been recommended to get catalogues from the following people but have no address for either of them. Can anyone supply? SoftKat Chatsworth LA Gessler New York Thanks in advance Nick Gray Computer Officer Language Centre Newcastle University UK From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1292 Computational Linguistics & Humanities Computing Date: Saturday, 27 Apr 1991 16:02:46 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2819 (3264) Thank you, Nancy. Your posting on computational linguistics was really terrific. Thanks; I'm going to keep it as an excellent intro to one way linguistics and r literature intersect, a topic I often address with undergraduates, both in history of the English language classes (We're literature majors; we don't have to learn that grammar stuff) and Old English (we're linguistics students; we don't have to learn about texts). This allows me to talk about how the two interface from the common, neutral ground of computation. (I started to post this as a private message, but put it on the net to get others to think about how much which goes on here really ought to reach the classroom.) --Pat From: raskin@j.cc.purdue.edu (Victor Raskin) Subject: Remarkable/Unremarkable Language Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 00:21:59 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2820 (3265) Nancy Ide quoted Martin Kay as using the terms 'remarkable language' and 'unremarkable language.' If I understood her description of his intended meanings for these terms correctly, the standard linguistic terms are 'non-casual language' and 'casual language,' respectively. Victor Raskin raskin@j.cc.purdue.edu From: "Dana Cartwright, Syracuse Univ, 315-443-4504" <DECARTWR@SUVM> Subject: Copyright Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 15:32:10 LCL X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2821 (3266) Roy Flannagan raises the subject of copyright again. On the one hand, it has been discussed at length. On the other, it is hardly a resolved issue, and surely is important to all of us. The US Congress is at present interested (again!) in this subject. Last year the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA, an arm of the US Congress which studies technologies and reports to the Congress, with the intent of having the members make informed decisions) was asked to study it in the context of computer software...members of Congress being concerned that the United States, once the dominant player in software, is losing market share to other countries. And the advent of the EC (1992) will probably affect the software industry and markets in the US. Among other things, OTA assembled a panel of interested people, representing various segments of the industry. About 1/3 of the members are faculty or administrators from major US universities. I happen to be one such. The panel has met twice (once last fall, once just a month or so ago). OTA expects to issue a final report to Congress sometime this year. The relevance of all this to Humanist members is unclear to me. Certainly OTA is studying software rather than texts. However, the study has widened to include databases, including databases of texts. I have found the past discussions on Humanist helpful, as they have provided real-life examples of problems besetting scholars. And the international flavor of Humanist helps too, because copyright is an international issue (this is very clear when speaking with the OTA staff and with the Washington legal folks). So one reason for carrying on discussion of copyright on Humanist is that it does potentially influence, in some small way, what happens to us all... From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.oit.unc.edu> Subject: Copyright discussion Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 16:13:07 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2822 (3267) Inspired by Roy Flannagan's recent HUMANIST contribution, let me stoke the fire a bit with the following queries and comments. How much chaos would we create if we really did organize a group of mutually supportive scholars and computing centers focused on providing e-texts at little cost (shipping & handling), perhaps partially in a bartering system? This would be purely for the purpose of scholarly research and assurance of availability of electronic materials so that we could verify results in a collegial and not financially burdensome manner? What role would the Princeton-Rutgers project, the Gutenberg one, NEH, and other organizations play in this effort? What will happen when Xanadu is in operation (or might this be irrelevant to a non-profit group)? A Colloquium on Computational Approaches to Textual Studies held recently at the Institute for Academic Technology revealed in the round table discussion that attitudes had changed somewhat since last year's meeting where 99% of the attendees agreed that our #1 priority in computer-assisted textual studies was gaining access to machine-readable texts. This year the #1 priority takes this priority for granted, given all the scanners, effective OCR software, e-text clearinghouses, similar groups, and for-profit publishing houses with these materials. This year, people were most concerned with avoiding legal improprieties in using e-texts to reach their scholarly goals. Appropriate legal concern is to be praised. Nonetheless, several attendees noted that some of the best resource groups--publishing houses and clearinghouses--impose onerous restrictions on the use of their materials. Two of these are ARTFL and the InaLF ("Frantext," etc.), because of agreements with a government and/or publishing unions. There is great concern in France that its literary "patrimoine" might be circulated beyond government control if the information is not controlled properly, apparently. The main database, containing 183 million word occurrences, can be consulted at various stations throughout France as well as in Finland, Belgium, Portugal, England, Japan and Sweden, mainly in universities. Access to "Frantext" relies on the STELLA querying system. Though this remains to be verified by first-hand examination of the product, the "Frantext" derivative CD-ROM, "DISCOTEXT," contains 400 works of French literature drawn from the 19th and 20th centuries and will be sold by Hachette starting in the Fall. The CD-ROM would seem to be a good resource for scholars who either cannot consult the ARTFL database (which has a much less robust querying system) nor the INaLF's. If scholars wanted to run queries other than those available, the CD-ROM would permit this freer experimentation. However, according to a highly-placed source in France who should remain nameless here, the structure of "DISCOTEXT"'s software or that of the CD-ROM itself prevents scholars from displaying any structured ("reconstructed"?) text. This means that you can analyze the text stylo-statistically to your heart's content, but you CANNOT READ IT. I imagine that the idea is that scholars should have that publisher's hardcopy text on a copy holder next to the computer screen to follow the page indications or whatever. The sentiment voiced by colleagues in academic seems to indicate that unless the morass of legal impediments is alleviated and settled mutually constructively, we're going to hit a brick wall in our research very soon. My colleagues' comments seem to indicate that it's looming awfully visibly just a few meters down the road. Collegially yours, Joel D. Goldfield Fellow in Foreign Langauges Institute for Acad. Technology/UNC-Chapel Hill From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Philosophy & Computing CFP Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 15:54:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1303 (3268) Philosophy & Computing The journal is devoted to the use of computers and computational ideas in both research and teaching in philosophy, applications of ideas from philosophy in computing, and philosophical questions about the foundations and impact of computers and computational ideas. Examples of the first include the development of computer programs for the discovery of scientific theories (philosophy of science), work on automated proof construction (logic), work on case-based reasoning (ethical theory), material on the use of text-analysis software (history of philosophy), and the description and evaluation of innovative computer-assited instructional materials. Examples of the second include the application of speech act theory to computer programming languages or the application of work on metaphor and analogy to natural language understanding. Examples of the last include topics in computer ethics, work on the nature of knowledge and expert systems, and discussions of the possibility of artificial life. Philosophy & Computing is the official journal of CAP. For information about CAP contact: Robert Cavalier, CDEC Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 USA; rc2z@andrew.cmu.edu; rc2z@andrew.bitnet. Editor Leslie Burkholder, Center for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon University Editorial Board Carl Bereiter, Centre for Applied Cognitive Science, Ontario Inst for Studies in Education T. W. Bynum, Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University Preston Covey, CDEC and Dept of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University Andre Fuhrmann, Zentrum Philosophie & Wissenschaftstheorie, Universitet Konstanz Peter Gardenfors, Cognitive Science, University of Lund Peter Gibbins, Faculty of Mathematics, The Open University Rod Girle, Automated Reasoning Project, Australian National University Laurence Goldstein, Dept of Philosophy, University of Hong Kong John Haugeland, Dept of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Peter Millican, Dept of Philosophy, University of Leeds James Moor, Dept of Philosophy, Dartmouth College J F Pelletier, Luce Professor, Dept of Computer Science, University of Rochester John L Pollock, Dept of Philosophy, University of Arizona William J. Rapaport, Dept of Computer Science and Center for Cognitive Science, State University of New York at Buffalo Stephen Read, Dept of Logic & Metaphysics, The University of St Andrews Nicholas Rescher, Dept of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Scott Roberts, The Annenberg/CPB Project John Self, Dept of Computing, University of Lancaster Roger C Schank, The Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University Wilfried Sieg, Dept of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University Herbert Simon, Dept of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University Richard Spencer-Smith, AI Group, Middlesex Polytechnic Paul Thagard, Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University Syun Tutiya, Dept of Philosophy, Chiba University Subscription Enquiries Ablex Publishing Corporation, 355 Chestnut Street, Norwood NJ 07648, USA Advertising Enquiries and Other Business Correspondence Ablex Publishing Corporation, 355 Chestnut Street, Norwood NJ 07648, USA Information for Authors The journal invites submissions on all topics within its scope. Submissions should generally be in English. They should be addressed to an audience of non-specialists. They may take the form of research or tutorial or literature review articles, descriptions of innovative software or its use and evaluation, and reviews of software and printed materials. Submissions may be made in either electronic or printed form. All submissions should include an abstract. Electronic submissions may be sent to the editor on disk or through email. Submissions on disk should be either for MS-DOS or Macintosh. Printed submissions should be double-spaced and include on a separate page the title, author's name, and address. Submissions which include more than a few special symbols or figures (for example, screen dumps) or more than a few instances of special layout should be made in printed rather than electronic form. All proposals, enquiries, and submissions should be sent to the editor: Leslie Burkholder, CDEC Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890; leslie.burkholder@andrew.cmu.edu; leslie.burkholder@andrew.bitnet. Authors of accepted submissions will be encouraged to submit electronic copies of their submissions in addition to a final printed copy. One of these electronic copies should be a stripped ASCII file of the text of the article or review, with figures and tables in separate files. The other should be a marked-up file (for example, a Microsoft Word file). Notes should be endnotes rather than footnotes. References should follow the American Psychological Association style guide; in particular, references should be in the form "(<author surnames>, <date>, <pages>)" and placed wherever possible in the text rather than a separate endnote. Complete citations should be included in a bibliography. From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: 4.1299 Words: Dissimulatio in Simmacus; Envelope (2/30) Date: 30 Apr 91 00:15:20 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2823 (3269) The passage in question is Symm. rel. 3.3, si exemplum non facit religio veterum, faciat dissimulatio proximorum. In pleading for imperial support of certain `pagan' rites, Symmachus suggests that Christian emperors preceding the one to whom he is appealing had `tolerated' these rites; but a correct translation of dissimulatio would take into account the history of that word in Latin, where one of its clear meanings is `deliberate [and not entirely disingenous] ignorance'. Symmachus' point is that the earlier Christian emperors looked the other way, so why should not the emperor to whom he appeals? Finding `toleration' in the text is a good example (of which the history of the study of *that* particular text abounds) of reading modern prejudices into ancient texts, especially when we think we sympathize with the author of those texts. From: Dennis Baron <baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Subject: metaphorical gender Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 10:04:15 -0500 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2824 (3270) The grammarian James Harris in _Hermes_ ([1751] 1765) presents one of the most frequently quoted explanations of the assignment of gender to inanimates: We may conceive such Substantives to have been considered, as Masculine, which were `conspicuous for the Attributes of imparting or communi- cating; or which were by nature active, strong, and efficacious, and that indiscriminately whether to good or to ill; which had claim to Eminence, either laudable or otherwise.' (44) The Feminine on the contrary were `such, as were conspicuous for the Attributes either of receiving, or containing, or of producing and bringing forth; or which had more of the passive in their nature, than of the active; or which were peculiarly beautiful or amiable; or which had respect to such Excesses, as were rather Feminine than Masculine.' (45) James Beattie challenged this view (1788), though many grammarians at the time felt that English was superior to other languages because the metaphorical assignment of gender to nouns enhanced the poetic capacity of the language. My question is this: in the Harris cites, in all printed versions, there are single quotes. I have not been able to trace any source for these in any treatment of gender ancient or modern, humanistic or scientific. Can anyone help? Or do the single quote simply set off the phrase enclosed as a definition, as I have been forced to conclude in the absence of a clear source? debaron@uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ __________ Department of English / '| ()_________) Univ. of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~ \ 608 S. Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~ \ Urbana IL 61801 ==). \__________\ (__) ()__________) From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1293 Notes: Collate Demo Disk; Britannica CD; Indexing Date: Saturday, 27 Apr 1991 16:26:03 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2825 (3271) To index on the Mac, use Microsoft Word (version 4) and assemble your whole book manuscript into one file (it can be done as separate files, but that is harder). While your book is being composed by your publisher, go through your file and enter the indexing codes. (See your Word 4 manual) Run the index to make sure that it's what you want. When you are sent your page proofs for indexing, go to your version on the Mac, set the page setup for US Legal size pages, and run through your text putting hard page breaks exactly where your proofs show the page breaks should go. After you finish this, run through the manuscript to make sure that there are no soft page breaks. If there are, remove them by changing the margins of the page or by reducing the font size. Since you've already indexed the material, you don't have to read what's on the screen, and of course the computer only produces the screen to interface with your eyeballs; it reads the code in- side, so screen attributes are irrelevant to indexing for it. Just make sure that there is one page of text between each set of hardbreaks and that the breaks occur exactly where the proofs indicate they should. Set the document dialog under the format menu to the page number on which your text will begin, repaginate and check to make sure that you've got each page properly numbered (you might have to include blank pages for tables, illustrations, etc.) and then run the index according to the manual. Spot check it against the proofs, rerun the whole thing if you find errors (an error in this process is unlikely to be an isolated phenomenon, so figure out what went wrong prodcedurally, fix it, and re-run the whole thing), and send it off a week early to a publisher who will be really grateful and probably double your royalty.... or maybe not. --Pat From: RKENNER@Vax2.Concordia.CA Subject: MAC Language Stuff Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1991 09:20 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2826 (3272) In response to Nick Gray's query: 1. Gessler Publishing's address is: 55 west 13 street, New York, NY, USA 10011. They can send you a software catalogue, but I'm not sure how much MAC stuff they have. 2. At the Convention of TESOL (Teacher's of English to Speakers of Other Languages) in New York in March, WIDA software was demonstrating the new MAC versions of their popular authoring tools: Storyboard, Gapmaster, Choicemaster, etc. These are good packages on any computer, but the MAC versions looked really fine. In fact, they plan to "retro" fit the PC versions to look like what they've done on the MAC. I have a North American contact for WIDA: EuroCentres, ATTN: Mike Carrier, 101 North Union Street, Alexandria, VA, USA, 22314. But the main office is in London somewhere. 3. TESOL's CALL Interest Section has compiled an excellent list of commercial software, things that members use and vouch for. This list has just been updated and is available from the TESOL Central Office for only $ 4.00 US. TESOL's address is: 1600 Cameron Street, Suite 300, Alexandria, VA, USA, 22314-2705. You might even want to get information on how to join CALL-IS: a group of 400 or so practicioners of CALL in ESL. 4. You have a British equivalent in MEUSLI. It is a special interest section of IATEFL. Wida Software or EuroCentres should be able to give you information on it. Caroline Moore, British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London, SW1. 5. Finally, a good source for information and software is ATHELSTAN Publications. They put out a free Newsletter which is not entirely advertising, but pretty even-handed. Athelstan, P.O. Box 8025, LaJolla, CA, USA, 92038-8025 Roger Kenner Concordia University, Montreal RKENNER@VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA From: Joel Goldfield <joel@lambada.oit.unc.edu> Subject: Videodiscs & CD-ROM's Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 16:31:32 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2827 (3273) As an addendum to Michael Hart's recent posting on Britannica's CD-ROM's, I just received a catalogue titled: "Britanicca Videodiscs--Programs with a Repurpose". These are the "first 102 CAV videodiscs" in an apparently on-going series. They cover language arts, lit./humanities, history, foreign languages (French & Spanish), geography, science, guidance & "healthy lifestyles" and "staff development." Oddly, they never once mention the materials' sources, editors, etc. I wonder what is on disc D0118-015 ($129), titled, "'The Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant; What is a Short Story? A Discussion by Clifton Fadiman". Is it a film of "The Necklace" complete with a narrative on audio track 2? Very curious.... We can buy "Any three $129 videodiscs" for $829 "and receive a free Pioneer LD-V2000 Industrial Laserdisc Player". Interesting arithmatic, wouldn't you say? Nonetheless, it's nice to see more educationally oriented videodiscs becoming available. Regards, Joel D. Goldfield IAT/UNC-Chapel Hill From: Mary WhitlockBlundell <mwb@u.washington.edu> Subject: NAS Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 22:28:08 -0700 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2828 (3274) Someone was asking about the National Association of Scholars. There's an article about them in April's *Lingua Franca*. From: John Morris <JMORRIS@UALTAVM> Subject: R: Casey at the Bat Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 23:17:51 MDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2829 (3275) Julie Falsetti, _Casey at the Bat_ was written by Ernest L. Thayer (1863-1940). From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: re:composite novels (19c) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 10:13 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2830 (3276) John : You might try the works of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. These two authors were very close friends and helped eachother write their respective works (although the credit only went to one or the other). Jim Wilderotter Georgetown University From: Jim Wilderotter -- Georgetown Center for Text and Subject: re:sleep query Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 10:18 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2831 (3277) Boyd: You might try some of the old gothic-style novels. I know that there are some references to the curative powers of sleep in both Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ and Bram Stoker's _Dracula_. Jim Wilderotter Georgetown University From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC> Subject: Announcement of Chinese Studies Discussion Group Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 08:39:08 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1307 (3278) Announcing: CHINA Electronic Discussion Group for Chinese Studies Discussion of any issue in Chinese Studies is welcomed in this new forum. This includes but is not limited to the fields of anthropology, art history, economics, history, literature, linguistics, politics, religion, and sociology. The discussion is handled with regular electronic mail. For those who subscribe, each submission to the discussion will be sent to their electronic mail box. You may subscribe to CHINA by sending a subscribe command by interactive message or by e-mail. To subscribe by interactive message, send the command: "SUB CHINA YourFirstname YourLastname" to LISTSERV@PUCC. For example: IBM VM CMS users would enter tell listserv at PUCC "sub CHINA YourFirstname YourLastname" VAX VMS users would enter send listserv@PUCC "sub CHINA YourFirstname YourLastname You may also subscribe by sending an e-mail message to LISTSERV@PUCC or if your account is on the internet send to LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU with the following command as the text of the message. SUB CHINA YourFirstname YourLastname You must leave the subject line *empty* and please don't include any extra text as a machine will read your request. This is a moderated discussion. The editors will not alter the style or content of submissions, but will only screen out inappropriate ones. This is necessary because there is very heavy traffic on the open forums about China and few of the submissions concern Chinese Studies. If you have any questions please address them to the editors, Tom Nimick and David Wright at Q4356@PUCC (Bitnet) or Q4356@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU (Internet). From: STUART@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: CATH 91 Date: Thu, 2 May 91 18:37 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2832 (3279) ********************************************************** Computers and Teaching in the Humanities Conference CATH91 `Strategies for Implementation' University of Durham December 16 - 18 1991 Call for Papers This conference follows on from the previous CATH conferences held at Southampton and St Andrews. It is intended for those using or wishing to use computers in the teaching of the main humanities disciplines. The conference will be a mixture of plenary sessions, parallel sessions, and workshops/tutorials. The workshops/tutorials will be practical and designed to introduce participants to some of the skills needed for the preparation of the courseware materials. Themes for the conference will focus on: Computer applications in the humanities Course design issues Courseware authoring tools: types, sources, and uses Evaluation of courses, courseware, and students Pedagogic considerations in the use of computers in humanities teaching Relevance of research issues Prospective participants are invited to submit proposals for papers for parallel sessions (30 minutes in length including time for questions) or for software demonstrations, based on the above themes, or for workshops in relevant methodologies (these should be three hours in length). Abstracts should be approximately 500 words long and should have a title and the full postal address of the proposer at the top. They should include brief details of equipment requirements and should be submitted by 15th June 1991 (decisions will be made by 1st August). E-mailed abstracts are welcome; please ensure that they are in plain ASCII format. All abstracts and other queries should be sent to: Michele Palmer CTI Centre for Textual Studies and Office for Humanities Communication Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN E-mail: CTITEXT@UK.AC.OX.VAX Telephone: 0865-273221 From: STUART@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: HYpermedia Afternoon Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 16:45 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2833 (3280) **************************************************************************** HYPERMEDIA and the HUMANITIES 24 May 1991 2.00-4.00pm Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN ***************************************************************************** The OUCS will be hosting a Hypermedia afternoon on the 24th of May, 1991. Invited speakers are Frank Colson (University of Southampton), and Mike Harland (University of Glasgow). Refreshments will be served. 1) Microcosm-HiDES: The Yugoslavian Civil War - Frank Colson Frank Colson from HiDES at the University of Southampton will be presenting the latest work of the project. The demonstration and talk will indicate the considerable power of Microcosm-HiDES and will focus on Hypermedia as a means of portrayal of distinct events. 2) 'The LEGO-kit approach to Hypermedia' - Mike Harland Mike Harland from the University of Glasgow (Dept of Spanish) will be showing how creating language learning programs can be done in s "modular" fashion with Hypermedia so that larger systems are easier to produce. He will be discussing the problems of structure and design. If further details are required contact: Michele Palmer CTI Centre for Textual Studies OUCS 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Tel: 0865-273221 CTITEXT@UK.AC.OX.VAX From: LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Subject: Conference announcement Date: Thu, 02 May 91 00:30:33 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2834 (3281) 4TH ICCAL June 17-20 1992 Acadia University Wolfville, Nova Scotia CANADA ************************************************************ * FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTERS AND LEARNING* ************************************************************ The objective of the 4th International Conference on Computers and Learning is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and presentation of developments in the theory and practice of the use of computers in learning. The previous three conferences were held in Hagen (Germany 1990), Dallas (USA 1989) and Calgary (Canada 1987). The 1990 conference attracted over 300 participants. The high quality papers presented at past conferences have been published in the series "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" by Springer Verlag. This will also be the case with ICCAL '92. Submission of papers: to the Conference Chair before October 4, 1991 in manuscript form. Notification to authors: December 20, 1991. Accepted papers must be received in camera-ready form by February 15,1992. Conference Chair: Dr. Ivan Tomek Jodrey School of Computer Science Acadia University, Wolfville Nova Scotia B0P 1X0 CANADA Tel: (902) 542-2201 Ext. 467 Fax: (902) 542-7224 e-mail: ICCAL@AcadiaU.ca Selected areas of interest: Authoring Systems, AI Applications, Computers in Distance Education, Computer-Supported Cooperative Learning, Discourse Management, Evaluation of Learning Environments, Human-Computer Inter- action/Interface, Human Problem Solving, Hypermedia, Innovative Educational Software, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Knowledge Acquisition and Representation, Knowledge-Based CAI Systems, Media-Based CAI, Performance Monitoring, Presentation CAI and ICAI, Problem Generation, Simulations, Student Modelling and Cognitive Diagnosis, Visualization of Algorithms. Applications in: Medicine, Arts, Music, Engineering, Business, Sciences, Humanities, Language Learning, etc. For further information, contact the Chair at the above address or LNGDANAP@VM.UOGUELPH.CA "Acadia University offers a unique venue for ICCAL '92, located as it is in the heart of an attractive tourist and agricultural area known as the Annapolis Valley. Being little over 150 years of age, Acadia University is one of the oldest in Canada, and its campus has been described as one of the most beautiful... Wolfville... is about 100 km from Halifax on the shore of the Minas Basin in the Bay of Fundy. The town has a small but colourful business district with a number of hotels, restaurants, shops and other services within easy walking distance of the University." From: Mori Rimon <rimon@cs.huji.ac.il> Subject: conference -- foundations of artificial intelligence Date: Wed, 1 May 91 10:50 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2835 (3282) Below please find information about the second Bar-Ilan Symposium on the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence (BISFAI-91), to be held in Israel on June 16-19, 1991. The Symposium is international in scope, with invited lectures by leading researchers and contributed papers on foundations of AI. A special track on Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing will be held on the opening day (an attempt was made to to avoid conflicts with the ACL meeting in California). The information below pertains to the NLP Track only. You may contact Mori Rimon at rimon@cs.huji.ac.il for more information. If you are interested in the full program of the symposium, and/or if you want to find more about organizational issues, please contact Ariel Frank at ariel@cs.bimacs.biu.ac.il BISFAI-91 Bar-Ilan Symposium on the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence June 16-19, 1991 Sponsored by the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences Center for Applied Logic and Artificial Intelligence (CALAI) Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel with additional support from Israel Ministry of Science and Technology American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in cooperation with the Israel Association of Artificial Intelligence A SIG of Israeli Information Processing Association (IPA) Martin Golumbic, Symposium Chair Moshe Koppel, Program Chair Mori Rimon, Special Track on Theoretical Issues in NLP Ariel Frank, Organizing Chair Sunday, June 16, 1991 Special Track on Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing 09:00 AM - 09:30 AM: Self Registration 09:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Opening Welcome 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Invited Hour Address Computationally Relevant Properties of Linguistic Systems Stanley Peters, Stanford University, USA 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee Break 11:30 AM - 01:00 PM: 30 minute presentations -- Morning Session Computational Models for Syntactic Analysis: Their Fitness for Writing a Computational Grammar for Hebrew Shuly Wintner and Uzzi Ornan, Technion, Israel Trends in Knowledge-based Machine Translation Sergei Nirenburg, Carnegie-Mellon University, USA Towards a Language Model Eric Sven Ristad, Princeton University, USA 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM: Lunch Break 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM: 30 minute presentations -- Afternoon Session Parsing With Constructions Wlodek Zadrozny, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA, Alexis Manaster-Ramer, Wayne State University, USA Contrastive Logic Nissim Francez, Technion, Israel A Modal Contrastive Logic J.-J Ch. Meyer and W. van der Hoek, Free University, Netherlands 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM: Coffee Break 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM: 30 minute presentations -- Late Afternoon Session Augmenting Formal Semantic Representation for NLP: The Story of SMEARR Victor Raskin, Salvatore Attardo and Donalee Hughes Attardo, Purdue University, USA A Meaning Postulate Based Inference System for Natural Language Arendse Bernth and Shalom Lappin, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA Coping with Multiple Interpretations during Plan Recognition Bhavani Raskutti & Ingrid Zukerman, Monash University, Australia From: BTATKINS@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Subject: VERBATIM AWARD Date: Wed, 1 May 91 16:11 BST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1310 (3283) **************************************************************** A N N O U N C E M E N T **************************************************************** 1991 VERBATIM AWARD European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX) Applications are invited for this Award, administered by EURALEX, for the purpose of supporting unpaid lexicographical work of any type, including study. The amount available is 1,500 pounds sterling; an individual award may vary in size from 250 pounds to the full amount. The key dates are: July 1st 1991 receipt of applications October 1st 1991 notification of results January 1st 1992 presentation of Award(s) Applications should take the form of: 1. a letter specifying the amount applied for; 2. a statement giving full details of the purpose to which the funds would be put, and an indication of expected tangible results (eg publications); 3. a curriculum vitae, including qualifications and details of previous lexicographical or related work. Applications should be sent to: 1991 Verbatim Award EURALEX Secretariat PO Box 1017 DK-1007 Copenhagen K Denmark. If no acknowledgement is received within a reasonable period, candidates are asked to contact the EURALEX Secretary at the above address. The Award is open to EURALEX members only, but applications will be accepted from people who have applied for EURALEX membership and are awaiting full confirmation. If you wish to join EURALEX (membership is world-wide) please write to: Ms. Heather Vigar EURALEX Membership Secretary, OUP Journals, Pinkhill House Southfield Road Eynsham OXFORD OX8 1JJ UK. fax number: (+44) 865 882890 ************************************************************ From: "Richard C. Taylor" <6297TAYLORR@MUCSD.BITNET> Subject: Works of Aquinas on CD-ROM Date: Thu, 2 May 1991 12:22 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2836 (3284) In the most recent edition of the BULLETIN DE PHILOSOPHIE MEDIEVALE it is mentioned that the people who did the Index Thomisticus (index and texts of the works of Aquinas) are the putting "sur CD-ROM tous les textes de S. Thomas et des autres auteurs recenses par l'INDEX THOMISTICUS." Does any one on HUMANIST have any information to pass on about this or perhaps an email address? The snail-mail address is: INDEX THOMISTICUS, Aloisianum, I-21013 Gallarate. Dick Taylor Philosophy, Marquete University, Milwaukee, WI 53233 USA BITNET:"6297TAYLORR@MUCSD" From: Michael O'Kelly <MOKELLY@IRLEARN> Subject: Package for Adult Ed administration at a University Date: Thu, 02 May 91 15:42:25 GMT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2837 (3285) The Adult Education section in University College Dublin is considering buying a package to manage its 5000+ students. Among the requirements are -Separate but related tables or files for students history of courses attended (over any number of years) lecturers courses currently available -Multiple users -Reconciliation of fees Has anyone heard of a good and reasonably-priced package? Our University uses VAXes for administrative IT. A VAX-based or PC-based system would seem best. If people reply to me I will summarise for the list as appropriate. Michael O'Kelly MOKELLY@IRLEARN.UCD.IE Administrative DP UCD Computing Services University College Dublin Belfield Dublin 4 Ireland From: WARMCN@AC.DAL.CA Subject: Laptop adaptor Date: Wed, 1 May 91 16:33 -0300 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2838 (3286) I am planning to take a research trip to England this summer and will bring my adaptor with my laptop. What special adaptor will I need to be able to recharge my battery (the electrical circuit is different in the UK from that in North America)? My laptop is a Sharp 4700. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. David McNeil (WARMCN@DALAC) From: John.Slatter@durham.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1302 Copyright (2/112) Date: Wed, 01 May 91 17:36:14 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2839 (3287) Joel D. Goldfield's recent submission on copyright problems raised the possibility of a corpus of e-texts for exchange between scholars. The creation of e-texts involves the problem of scanners, OCR, etc. In the Russian field this in turn implies highly teachable OCR. Does anyone have experience of the use of OCR to read Russian texts, with a scanner and IBM compatible PC (not Kurzweil)? I was told of a French package by a firm called ISTC informatique (title: AutoREAD), but have so far failed to contact this firm at the Paris address given to me. Details of the firm or the package would be most welcome. John Slatter, Dept of Russian, University of Durham, UK. From: John.Slatter@durham.ac.uk Subject: Re: 4.1305 Rs: Mac Indexing; Mac CALL &c; Vidiodiscs (3/95) Date: Wed, 01 May 91 11:52:10 +0100 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2840 (3288) Could someone supply more details on "Brittannica", mentioned by Joel D. Goldfield in his submission on CD-Roms and videodiscs? Also on _De Italia_, likewise mentioned recently in a submission on CD-Roms? Many thanks in advance. John Slatter, Dept of Russian, Durham University, UK. From: Leslie Burkholder <lb0q+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Queries Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 17:03:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2841 (3289) Can someone provide me with sources for the following items: (1) A phonetic alphabet for the IBM PC and Macintosh. (2) On line Shakespeare texts for the IBM PC and Macintosh (3) On line texts of modern American poets (since 1960) for the IBM PC and Macintosh. Thanks, Leslie Burkholder Carnegie Mellon University From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> Subject: Re: 4.1300 Queries (9/154) Date: Tue, 30 Apr 91 11:23:52 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2842 (3290) Re. Tom Benson's query regarding Greek on Mac or IBM. I'll bow the advice of my many betters on this list, should they disagree -- but I think I'd take the Mac for Greek. Reasons: as T. Benson noted, you can get a very nice Mac for prices quite comparable to IBM clones. In addition, Greek fonts for wordprocessing on the Mac appear to be easy to come by and relatively cheap (e.g. "MacGreek" from Linguist's Software, bundled with Hebrew and Phonetics fonts for $129.95). By contrast, my beloved Nota Bene's requirements for handling Greek are markedly more expensive, both in terms of hardware and software requirements (special video display card and monitor, lots of patches and printer drivers along with the basic software, etc.). While I have seen some IBM sales literature boasting of much easier foreign language handling under Windows 3.0 -- I've yet to be convinced that Windows 3.0 is little other than an expensive (in terms of hardware and software requirements) effort to make an IBM work like a Mac, -- an effort that still seems plagued by extraordinary complexity with regard to installation, file management, etc., and the embarrassingly frequent failure of the system to function at all. As an additional consideration: when the Perseus Project becomes commercially available, it will be of extraordinary value to _anyone_ who has to take up with classical Greek civilization. Perseus would require the addition of a CD-ROM player and, ideally, a video-disk player -- but it brings to its users an extraordinary library of classical Greek materials. (Yes, those are stars in my eyes.) And it runs on a Mac... I'll probably use Nota Bene on my Zenith 8086 until I die -- but then again, I don't do much Greek. I would be delighted to see that all of the above comments are entirely uninformed, wrongheaded, politically incorrect, ideologically motivated, etc. If not, I hope it helps. Charles Ess Drury College From: "John D. Jones" <6563JONESJ@MUCSD.BITNET> Subject: RESPONSE TO KELLER'S QUERY Date: Wed, 1 May 1991 23:08 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2843 (3291) I am not aware of any printed material although I would be interested in learning about the existence of such material. For what it is worth, I experimented with cassettes but stopped using them for commentary on rough drafts of papers leading to rewrites. A. On the positive side: 1. I was able to make detailed commentary far more efficiently on tape than by writing or by use of the computer simply because I can talk much faster than I can can write or type. I generally keyed comments to numbers in the margins of their papers (except of course for general comments.) 2. Voice commentary has a personal touch which students appreciate -- especially when the sounds of family life (ringing phones, barking dogs and screaming children) intrude into the background of the tape. B. On the negative side: 1. Collecting and transporting student papers and tapes is rather cumbersome. I found it easiest to have students submit their papers and tape in a large envelope. (This is more a minor inconvenience.) 2. Students found it time consuming to listen to the tape and more importantly to to go back and listen to selected portions of the tape. It simply takes far longer to search through a tape than to scan through written material. For many students, this drawback seemed to outweigh other benefits of the tapes at least so far as comments were used as an aid to re-writing. It was for this reason that I discontinued the process. John D. Jones Philosophy Department Marquette University 6563JONESJ@MUCSD From: evelyne@klee.research.att.com Subject: R: What is Computational Linguistics? Date: Wed, 1 May 91 08:13 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1313 (3292) For more information about what computational linguistics is about, I refer you to the chapter on "Computational Linguistics" written by Judith Klavans. It gives a coherent overview not only of the field of computational linguistics, but of sub-fields, and of application areas. It appeared in the following book Contemporary Linguistics in M. O'Grady, M. Dobrovlsky and M. Aronoff, eds St. Martin's Press, New York 1989. -Evelyne Tzoukermann (evelyne@research.att.com) [--adresse pour judy klavans: klavans@ibm.com --jv] From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET> Subject: Re: 4.1298 Wedding Rings (5/116) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 21:41 PDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2844 (3293) De Lacey cites rings given in 11th century in Europe. However, Beowulf refers t o hrothgar, if I recall correctly, as a "ring-giver." And that is earlier than 1000's, originally. Not important, since the rings are available long before th e men of the north praised their bestowal on the faithful soldiers of the house hold. Kessler From: "David M. Schaps" <F21004@BARILVM> Subject: Re: 4.1298 Wedding Rings (5/116) Date: Wed, 01 May 91 14:06:20 IST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2845 (3294) With regard to Prof. Michael Sokoloff's note on wedding rings being mentioned among the Jews around the year 700: although he translates the term used as "engagement" (and his Hebrew text reached me in an incomprehensible form), I presume the term used is either "kiddushin" or "eirusin", either of which refers to a stage of the marriage which does not precisely correspond to "engagement": although in Talmudic times it was an "engagement" in that the bride did not enter the groom's household until a later ceremony ("chuppah"), it was in many respects a "wedding": chiefly in that the women cannot contract a valid marriage with anyone else, requires a divorce to terminate the relationship, and relations with her after this stage are adulterous -- quite a bit more than is meant by a Christian "engagement". I make this point because the original question turned on a distinction between wedding rings and engagement rings, and I doubt that the ring Prof. Sokoloff mentions (which is still used among the Jews, although the ceremony now takes place at the same time as the final marriage) could have been a precedent for an _engagement_ ring. David Schaps Department of Classics Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel From: Charles Ingrao <HABSBURG@PURCCVM> Subject: Ring Caper resolved Date: Wed, 01 May 91 12:23:02 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2846 (3295) I am pleased to divulge at long last the details of Maximilian's purported gift of a ring to Mary of Burgundy. On 17 April 1477, after endless negotiations and intrigues, Maximilian (thru an emissary) offered Mary a diamond ring as a sign of his commitment to marry her. According to Max's biographer, Herrmann Wiesflecker, she was swept off her feet by the gift, announcing then and there that she was determined to wed the rogue. There is, unfortunately, no mention of whether Max's gift constitutes the first diamond engagement ring; my source there is considerably less authoritative. I do, however, feel sufficiently confident to blame Maximilian for starting this decadent ritual. My thanx to everyone who contributed to this discusssion! From: robin@utafll.uta.edu (Robin Cover) Subject: Copyright (I): Publishers' Ownership of Scholars' Writing Date: Fri, 3 May 91 15:57:26 CDT (170 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1315 (3296) In HUMANIST "4.1291 Subject: Copyright, again" Roy Flannagan invites humanities scholars to pause momentarily from research and writing to consider whether they wish to continue their oppressive academic existence as powerless slaves within an economic and legal system which rewards extortion and marketeering of their intellectual property. Actually, he wrote: Is it time for a group like the Humanists to start helping to set the standards for copyright of electronic data, so that it won't be done for us either on the bases of the profit motive of commerce or of "national security" or of legal greed? Can we decide what we want and tell the world what our standard is? May we talk about this? Roy says the subject of 'copyright' "is a very frightening one for the history of publishing, a liberating one for the friends of knowledge who want to get it all out there in the public domain, for the use of all." Why should it be "frightening" for the publishing industry and "liberating" for the friends of knowledge? Is it because commercial publishers, and perhaps some non-profit ones, do not welcome placing knowledge "out there" for democratic access and "use by all?" Is the 'copyright' problem in fact best framed in legal terms, or does other language better capture the heart of the issue: -- ownership of knowledge, intellectual property in written academic research, monopolistic control over representations of ancient culture? In this and two subsequent postings HUMANISTS will find my provisional thoughts, devilishly intended to provoke further discussion on the issue of ownership of electronic knowledge. The topic of "electronic copyright" constitutes a moving target driven by the winds of a technological revolution. It is partly a writer's revolution in which intelligent authoring software, versatile electronic book browsers, high capacity academic networks and creative electronic-communication schemes for editing/refereeing will make it increasingly possible for scholars to tell traditional publishers, "Hey, we don't need you any more." It's a technological revolution which will spill over into the political, social, economic and legal realms in very unpredictable ways. Or, as Roy asks, will the technological possibilities fall into the hands of legal, economic and political power brokers before academia wakes up to what is happening? Should scholars view the revolution as a "liberation" in which establishment power brokers justifiably get killed, or should they champion a peaceful revolution controlled by reason, compassion and compromise? Both viewpoints can be heard: we should discuss and understand why. In favor of a bloody revolution is the fact that publishers, libraries, commercial database developers, archive centers and others are already jockeying for positions of power to control the mind and lifeblood of scholarship. Who shall control the dissemination of electronic scholarly information, who shall fix the prices, who shall reap the economic rewards, who shall establish legal ownership over this commodity called knowledge? Never mind that scholars CREATE the knowledge and scholars USE the knowledge: other groups would like to control it, make money on it, and facilitate democratic access to it ONLY IF providing democratic access does not compromise power, money or the potential for making money. Some scholars appear unaware that a revolution is already underway, unaware that if they do nothing to escape from the tyrannies of the past, they may find themselves and their discipline of textual scholarship under more oppressive forms of legal and economic bondage than ever before. In this light, we can understand why visionary scholars might support a bloody revolution. Publishers, to choose one villain, have not (always) had a good track record. I cringe at the term applied to publishers by one high-ranking researcher in Cambridge ("parasites"), but consider the facts. Publishers have exploited the scholastically embarrassing "publish or perish" doctrine by extorting the scholar's intellectual property. By demanding unconditional surrender of copyright, they establish legal ownership of the scholar's written creation. They give the creator of the knowledge a mere pittance in royalties, if anything at all. For scholarly articles, authors usually get nothing (although a publisher's copyright notice may read, as I saw recently, "pay us 13.00 US dollars according to Copyright Clearance Law for copying beyond..."). Publishers have said to academic writers: "you take the glory and win tenure if you can, we will take the money and legal possession of your published thoughts." Publishers typically print the document once, and will reprint it only if reprinting is economically profitable for them. Never mind that textual scholarship suffers when important texts are unavailable, never mind the creator's loss of reputation and possible royalties in the case of the "out-of-print" book. (Lest anyone think this latter is moot: I have been looking on the used book market for about 25 "out-of-print" books published by still healthy publishers--lexicons, primary texts, standard commentaries--for several years, with negligible results; if I printed this list, it should embarrass every major publisher in my field.) In the name of expensive typesetting, publishers produce results that scholars, students and sometimes even libraries cannot afford. Example: the fourth and final fascicle of the now "standard" Hebrew lexicon just arrived in my mailbox with a price tag of 175 US dollars; the complete lexicon is beyond the financial means of students who need to use it. Scientific and technical journal subscriptions cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Nowadays, publishers demand the scholar's surrender of the electronic copyright as well: they fear loss of total control and the potential loss of revenues on electronic information (ostensibly, they fear the loss of hardcopy sales if electronic books are available). They even oppose the digitizing of "their" books by others except under the strictest legal arrangements, which leave them in control and the financial beneficiaries of the electronic copy won through the costly digitizing efforts of others. Extortion of the scholar's intellectual creation might not be so offensive were it not for the fact that scholars are supposed to be PUBLIC servants, paid through PUBLIC funding, to produce PUBLIC knowledge. How then do commercial publishers justify privatization and commercial monopolization of this knowledge? In "Incentives and Disincentives in Research and Educational Communication" (EDUCOM Review 25/3 (Fall 1990) 15), Ann Okerson writes: "In the current system--both commercial and non-profit--publishers ask the authors of scholarly articles to assign copyright to the publisher as part of the publication process. Thus articles based on work created largely in universities and laboratories and paid for--and value added--largely at public expense become the property of organizations that own the rights, with the result that it is increasingly difficult for the public to own and read publicly supported research." "Parasites?" I do not claim this is a fair representation, but it's a possible interpretation, and highlights some painful realities. Not all publishers are equally guilty, and publishers are not necessarily to be held responsible for the matrix of publication policies which makes extortion possible, even if they exploit the structural weakness. No doubt some woeful dirges or heroes' songs can be sung over the losses incurred by noble publishers who dared to risk solvency by publishing "unprofitable" academic books and journals. But consider the joy of liberation if scholars are put back into possession and control over their own writings through the electronic revolution. we gloss over the many difficulties (to be summarized later) which face scholars in this interim period when we make the transition to serious electronic publishing. But ponder the significant advantages of electronic authoring and distribution of books. It heralds liberation not only from the tyranny of publisher's economic priorities, but it eliminates the barriers of walls and clocks which impede scholarship and prevent democratic access to scholarly resources. For the time being, paper is also necessary; so go ahead, let the traditional publisher put your article/monograph/book into paper print. But but do not grant that publisher (or anyone) exclusive copyright. Then put the *ELECTRONIC COPY* of your book on a public file server and think of the advantages for the scholar and for the scholarly community: *it never becomes "out-of-stock" with the distributor *it never goes "out-of-print" at the publisher *it is never "checked-out" by another library user *it is never locked away behind library doors at 12:00 midnite, or on weekends *it never has a broken binding, or filthy annotations from some Philistine would-be scholar who doodles and highlights in public books *it can be accessed in a matter of seconds (FTP Internet) from the network source(s) rather than in a matter of days/weeks/months from a publisher or mail order distributor *it can be accessed as easily and instantaneously by a scholar in "plainstown.midwest.usa" (population 20,000) or in Bergen, Tuebingen, Sydney, Hong Kong, as by a scholar in Philadelphia or Oxford *it can be obtained quickly in replacement copy if you have lent your first copy (diskette or paper) to some friend, or have simply mislaid it *it can easily be excerpted (looong quotations!) by students and pasted into term papers, so your scholarly reputation increases. . . :-) *it can be searched for key terms which might not be indexed, or for collocations of terms which cannot be indexed *it can be delivered at a mere fraction of the hardcopy cost to the user, with all or most of the royalty going to the creator (author, editor), not to the purveyor *it can be placed on electronic "reserve-list" reading in any semester, or every semester, without having the publisher breathe down the neck of the librarians (demanding royalties, threatening 'copyright violation') These are wonderful advantages, supplying humanities scholars powerful incentives to work electronically. Everything is in flux, and many of the important elements necessary to make the global electronic library a reality are not in place. But even now, we should go for it. Scholars may expect opposition, subtle and bold, from those who stand to get killed in this revolution. The whole game begins NOW: when scholars realize that the electronic copy (even the "word-processor" copy) is very important, and that exclusive copyright upon the scholar's intellectual creation, especially the electronic version, should not be surrendered to anyone. (End Part I) ------------ Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 ("one-zero-zero-one") 6634 Sarah Drive Internet: zrcc1001@vm.cis.smu.edu Dallas, TX 75236 USA Internet: robin@utafll.uta.edu ("uta-ef-el-el") Tel: (1 214) 296-1783 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu FAX: (1 214) 841-3642 Internet: robin@txsil.lonestar.org From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM> Subject: Re: 4.1311 Qs: Aquinas etext; OCRs; IPA fonts; &c. ... (6/95) Date: Thursday, 2 May 1991 23:20:16 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2847 (3297) Those of you seeking e-texts of a large body of English poetry (from some of the Child ballads through to H.D., Pound, Olson, etc., try a listserv-type system at Brandeis called BIALIK Send interactive mail to BIALIK at BRANDEIS with the command INDEX Then use interacive mail to the same address with the GET command and the file number for the poem you want. A lot of what many of you are teaching is in this database. --Pat From: N_EITELJORG@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: 4.1311 Qs: Aquinas etext; OCRs; IPA fonts; &c. ... (6/95) Date: Fri, 3 May 91 08:24 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2848 (3298) Concerning the laptop power supply question, David mcNeil should check his documentation for information about power sources. Most laptops are provided with universal power adapters so that they can be used on virtually any current. The only requirement is that a plug adapter to make the physical connection. Nick Eiteljorg From: General Delivery <POSTMASTER@DMZNAT51> Subject: RE: 4.1311 Qs: Aquinas etext; OCRs; IPA fonts; &c. .. Date: Fri, 3 May 91 13:54 N X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2849 (3299) Re: IPA-Fonts There is a public domain IPA Font for use under TeX or LaTeX by Thomas Ridgeway, University of Washington. You can get it via ftp (or bitftp) from ymir.claremont.edu [anonymous.tex.mf.ipa] The advantages of this are: You can prepare documents which you can process and print on nearly evry machine (IBM, Mac, Atari, Amiga, mainframes...). You can send the .tex file via e-mail to other people and they can achieve an identical printout. Disadvantage (if it is one): You need to learn some TeX or LaTeX. (Note that TeX is free and that there are free implementations on all the machines mentioned above.) Yours, J"org Knappen. From: Skip <DUSKNOX@IDBSU> Subject: Re: 4.1302 Copyright (2/112) Date: Wed, 01 May 91 08:37:58 MST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2850 (3300) Joel Goldfield makes a good suggestion; one that I would second and one which I will gladly volunteer to support. It would help if our effort had a sponsoring professional organization(s), but the sponsorship of individual universities will do for a start. Remember the words of Grace Hopper: it is easier to apologize than to ask permission. We just do it and let the chips fall where they may (so to speak). The technology moves faster than the law. ELLIS 'SKIP' KNOX Historian, Data Center Associate Boise State University DUSKNOX@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1> Subject: COPYRIGHT - BILL OF RIGHTS Date: Wed, 01 May 91 11:44:35 CST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2851 (3301) In a recent issue of Publishers Weekly, Joanne Tangorra summarizes an article "A Bill of Rights for Electronic Citizens" (Frank Connolly, Steven Gilbert, Peter Lyman). She says, "They [the authors] contend that future decisions about intellectual property rights in an electronic environment must take into account a wider constituency than was previously the case. They advocate that --in addition to publishers, information providers and Congress-- users, potential users, and the creators and producers of intellectual products all take part in the decision-making process." What a heretical idea. Could it be that not JUST publishers, commercial purveyors and bureaucrats should determine the destiny of academic writing, but that the scholars themselves as CREATORS and USERS of the intellectual property might have some legitimate thoughts about fairness. . . ? Sheesh. Does everyone see what this revolution is all about? The article also talks about technological progress toward elaborate auditing systems aimed at enforcing the (now unenforceable) Copyright Clearance Center rules for protecting intellectual property and collecting revenues. ************************************************************************ * Dear User, * * This concludes your session using the Networked Online Browser * * owned and operated by RipOff Inc. We hope you enjoyed your stay. * * Total login time: 15 minutes * * We are obliged under the Copyright Clearance Act to bill you an * * additional $13 for browsing the article "The Implementation..." * * since five articles from this issue have previously been read * * by library patrons at your institution. If your library would like * * to subscribe to EDOPP, the price is just 237 dollars US annual. * * Connect time (at $120/hr) . . . . . . . . . . . $30 * * Browsing (Per article fees) . . . . . . . . . . .$ 8 * * CCC fee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$13 * * Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$51 * * $51 has been charged to your personal VISA account * * Please call again. * ************************************************************************ Robin Cover From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: TEI workshop Date: Sat, 4 May 91 15:02 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1318 (3302) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TEI North American Workshop * * 22-23 July 1991 * * Brown University * * Providence, RI * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Text Encoding Initiative will hold its first open North American Workshop, in Providence, Rhode Island, on 22 and 23 July 1991. The TEI Workshop is an opportunity to learn more about the TEI's draft Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine-Readable Texts, and to see the principles they describe being used in practical situations. The Workshop will combine detailed presentations, small group discussion, and hands-on experience for participants. Topics to be covered during the workshop will include: * nature and purpose of descriptive markup * basic features of SGML * essential components of the TEI Guidelines * TEI conformance -- what it is and why it matters * an overview of SGML-aware software * using TEI texts with standard software packages Who can attend? Those who have begun or are working with large-scale text projects, SGML-software developers, interested computer center staff, ... The workshop attendance will be limited to ensure that those attending will have ample time for discussion and for the opportunity to try for themselves the full variety of software tools we will be demonstrating. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, with a degree of priority given to members of existing TEI Work Groups, Committees and Affiliated Project representatives based in North America who have not previously attended a TEI Workshop. Who will be there? The Workshop is being organized by the TEI Editors, Lou Burnard and Michael Sperberg-McQueen, with additional support from Elaine Brennan and Harry Gaylord, who also ran the TEI Workshop at the recent highly successful ACH/ALLC conference in Tempe, Arizona. The Workshop is being run back to back with a meeting of North American TEI Affiliated Projects, which means that a number of major research projects already using or planning to use the TEI recommendations will also be in attendance. The Workshop is therefore likely to provide an unusual opportunity for interested people to get together with SGML experts, TEI experts, and just plain text hackers. Where and when? The Workshop will be hosted by the Brown University Women Writers Project, a TEI Affiliated Project, and Brown University Computing and Information Services. Brown University is located in Providence, RI, an hour from Boston. The Workshop will begin at 8:30 am on Monday 22 July and finish around 5:00 pm on Tuesday 23 July. How much? There will be a fixed charge of $100 per head for workshop participants, $75 for members of ACH, ALLC or ACL. This includes attendance fees and a manual and other illustrative material, together with refreshments. Participants will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and meals. Dorm room accommodations can be reserved on the application form; information on hotels in the Providence area is available on request. Expenses for active members of official TEI Working Groups and Working Committees and of one representative from any TEI Affiliated Project will be refunded, subject to the usual limits, provided that they have not previously attended any TEI Workshop. A number of places are reserved specifically for non-TEI affliated participants. The aim of the Workshop is to provide detailed practical experiences in applying the TEI Guidelines to real-life text handling problems, and to demonstrate the practical advantages of following the Guidelines. A wide variety of software solutions will be demonstrated and participants will also be given the opportunity to use state-of-the-art SGML and other software for themselves. ----------------------PRELIMINARY INTEREST STATEMENT--------------------- --------PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN THE FOLLOWING BY MAY 15th------------- TO: wwp@brownvm.brown.edu TEI North American Workshop 22-23 July 1991 Please X as many of the following as apply: o I would definitely like to attend the workshop o I would like to know more about the workshop before committing myself o I cannot attend on the dates specified, but would be interested in other workshops o I have some knowledge of SGML o I have read the Guidelines o I have read part of the Guidelines o I have tried to read the Guidelines Your name: Your e-mail address: Your postal address: Your fax number (if any): ---------------------REQUEST FOR WORKSHOP PLACE-------------------------- ---------PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN THE FOLLOWING BY JUNE 25th----------- TO: wwp@brownvm.brown.edu TEI North American Workshop 22-23 July 1991 Please reserve a place at the workshop for: Name Address E-mail: FAX: Telephone: * I enclose payment of $100 * I am a member of ACH/ALLC/ACL and enclose payment of $75 * I am a member of TEI Work Group/Committee .... * I am the official representative of Affiliated Project ... Checks must be made payable to Brown University. Please note that places will not be reserved unless payment is enclosed with this form. * Please reserve a dorm room for me on Sunday and Monday, ($27.50 per night, single occupancy) * Please send further hotel information. This form should be returned as soon as possible to: TEI North American Workshop c/o Women Writers Project Box 1841 Brown University Providence, RI 02912 tel 401/863-3619 email wwp@brownvm.brown.edu Please note that reservations cannot be accepted after 25 June 91 From: robin@utafll.uta.edu (Robin Cover) Subject: Copyright II: Counterproductive Competition and Monopolies Date: Fri, 3 May 91 15:57:40 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1319 (3303) Are current copyright laws hopelessly outdated and irrelevant to the subject of intellectual property in electronic text? Ironically, groups which support monopolistic control in the name of free enterprise, and those which think the best interests of scholarship are not served by "ownership" tend to agree. Advocates of privatization and commercialization think copyright is irrelevant because it's technically unenforceable. Advocates of democratic access to publicly-owned knowledge think copyright laws are too restrictive because they present legal/economic barriers to the free exchange of ideas. Thus, the struggle to "own, control and collect revenues" within the domain of written academic research appears only to be part of a larger issue highlighted by the technological revolution. The question revolves around whether (commercial) competition for knowledge as a commodity, and ownership of humanistically-relevant electronic knowledge bases are good for the humanities. I think they are not. It is indeed possible under current laws to establish monopolistic control over important electronic databanks which are valuable for the progress of scholarship. Those who hold monopolistic control are empowered not only economically but intellectually: they hold the rest of scholarship in the palm of the hand, to dispense (access to) knowledge at any price, or to completely withhold it from others. Here the values of free enterprise appear to come into conflict with the best interests of textual scholarship. An individual, a publisher or an academic institution which comes into legal possession of a premium resource--through shrewd negotiating, through exploitation of privileged relationships or academic prestige, through hard work, through fortuity--may decide that the glory or the money which derives from having SOLE possession of the scholarly resource represents an important competitive advantage, and may resist democratizing access to the knowledge in defense of private interests. A key point of departure in this discussion is the conviction that electronic text represents an expression of human thought and language quite distinct from paper representation of that same text: electronic searching, retrieval, and quantitative analysis of digital libraries constitute more powerful methods of access to knowledge than mere human "reading" of a printed text. In both large and small corpora of machine-readable text, elaborate historical and literary-critical hypotheses may be tested using sophisticated query languages and mathematical algorithms, yielding specific and generalized results that could never be validated or quantified by humans merely reading the printed text. Maintaining legal or economic control over electronic text thus represents a form of scholarly empowerment and access to intellectual tradition that is not usually at issue in traditional paper libraries. Those who have eyes will see today many examples: commercial exploitation of exclusive distribution rights to a certain "standard" text; jealous institutional or private guarding of a corpus of machine-readable texts, a linguistic database, or an archive of (excavated/purchased) ancient texts. Or consider a museum which forbids taking pictures of a manuscript or bronze statue--ostensibly on scientific-preservation grounds--when indeed they simply wish to sell postcards, posters and expensive art books. A well-known example of competition in the wrong domain was the initial endeavor to microfiche rare books in major US archives for preservation and democratic access: the plan was vigorously opposed by the elite eastern (US) schools who plainly did not want anyone else to have what they had. Or consider the specter of Apple suing Microsoft for "look and feel." It is a madness in which a embarrassing amount of energy and money is spent simply preventing others from having what you have. "Success is not enough: others must fail." "Wealth is not enough, others must be indigent." Suppose YYYYY (University) Press, in conjunction with the Bodl. Library, approaches a young scholar and says: "Psssssst! Do you realize that a critical edition of XXXXX <16th century literary work> has not been available for over 150 years, and that we know of 12 manuscripts held by a couple private individuals, as well as a few unpublished scraps in the Bodl. Library. .. Now, if you were to make a new text edition, we (prestigious YYYYY Press) would publish it in book form. Your edition will instantly become the standard, and you will be able to ride this academic glory to just about any academic post (a half-truth). Moreover, we will make the edition available in electronic format with our proprietary software, and we will cut you in on the profits. The data will be encrypted in electronic format, so no one can steal it, and it will be accessible as text ONLY through our proprietary software. We will not support the most sophisticated kinds of analytical tools into this software, so that (with your more powerful general and specialized tools and access to the electronic text in un-encrypted format) you can still publish quantified studies on certain subtle aspects of this corpus. No one else will be able to gainsay your data or your conclusions, nor test competing theories using similar analysis. Your edition will have no competition since, well, we feel sure that the two private owners of these twelve manuscripts (who wish very much to remain anonymous) will not make these materials available anytime soon to anyone else." It's possible, since I'm no expert in law, that legal judgments can be brought against extreme examples of such collusion. But many legal, or at least unchallenged examples are already emerging today. If the law cannot touch such situations, then the ethics policies of the academic community should. The ethics policies should be reviewed and publicly supported by funding agencies such that research and publication efforts not committed to such public ethics will not receive public money. Just as being an "Equal Opportunity Employer" is an important claim, the commitment of publishers to "Public Ethics for Scholarly Publishing" would become critical to survival. It seems imperative that the scholarly community take steps to carefully define and proclaim a statement of public ethos in the area of electronic knowledge: what values are consistent with the progress of textual scholarship? We have not to ask, for starters, "How may we assure the financial solvency of all publishers?" and "How may we guarantee the success of venture capitalism in the creation of scholarly databases?" As humanists, we have to ask rather: "What ethos best serves textual research and democratic access to our literary past?" What text representations and forms of access should be expected? In my view, encrypted data and bundled proprietary software should be vigorously anathematized, castigated, excoriated, belittled, boycotted and otherwise opposed -- just as we have for copy protection schemes. In what realms/genres should private claims upon representations of ancient culture (art, literature), however legal, will be 'tolerated,' and which will be publicly or privately 'censured?' What sanctions will be imposed upon violators of the public ethos --whether they be publishers, electronic publishers, commercial database developers, individuals, academic institutions? More positively, how can scholars actively take control in publishing so as to minimize private monopolies over scholarly databases? In the first place, there needs to be re-evaluation of the incentives and rewards for scholarly work. Producing QUANTITIES of "published" work (the current situation) should count for nothing; producing QUALITY work should be rewarded with increased prestige, salary and responsibility for public funds. Competition for the results of research should be opposed. The more monetary value placed upon the knowledge itself, the more senseless energy is spent on depriving others of access to knowledge, and making sure everyone "gets a fair return" in money. As a current alternative, I favor the model of the Free Software Foundation (GNU). I would encourage all HUMANISTS to acquaint themselves with the charter and "copyleft" general license agreements of FSF. I will post the relevant document to the HUMANIST listserv. Already, I see (SIMTEL/TRICKLE PD1:<msdos.books>alice26a.zip) the Gutenberg group has adopted the copyleft philosophy for promoting free public access to digitized texts. In this scheme, protection is given to public property. The "copyleft" philosophy does not imply that the data must be made available absolutely free of charge (media costs are allowed when appropriate), but guarantees that no one can establish ownership or control over the data, that no one may commercially profit from its sale or distribution, that no one may restrict access to the data. The receipt, use, duplication, modification and further distribution are allowed ONLY on the terms that the original freedoms of the text/data/program are passed on to others, in perpetuity. This legal instrument encourages democratic access, use and enhancement of textual knowledge but prevents monopolistic entrepreneurial control by anyone. If someone screams "capitalism, free enterprise!" here I would say, "then go build automobiles, but don't meddle in marketeering the fundamental resources of humanities research." Practically speaking (for electronic texts), I think this means having the scholarly community--the Miltonists, the biblical scholars, the Indologists-- place in public access "copylefted" copies of the most important texts and linguistic databases. Such won't happen overnight, but it can happen. When the *BEST* version of a text is placed in 'public domain' no one will pay to live under the tyranny of a commercial purveyor of knowledge. Competition may then be focused upon gaining recognition through the production of public knowledge and providing opportunities for all others to continue research. The Free Software Foundation supplies an example of what can be achieved when competition is shifted from un-productive domain to a productive domain. Most UNIX machines, and many other computers, will have a regular-expression search utility called "egrep" (or grep, fgrep); but as far as I know, the commercial versions cannot compete with the speed and versatility of GNU's "egrep." GNU "egrep" will be found on almost every UNIX computer, and the standard commercial BSD or System V "egrep" utilities shipped with the operating system will not be used. The same GNU text-processing utilities are available for DOS, and again are generally better than the commercial versions. An entire GNU UNIX platform is being built on this philosophy: that competition based upon patent and copyright laws is actually deleterious to the health of scientific and technical research. Now, we could debate the necessity and desirability of GNU's agenda (only the commercial developers complain!), but in certain sub-domains of textual scholarship, we have eminently greater justification for making "public" text truly public along these lines. The way to break up monopolies and to guarantee democratic public access is to publicly 'copyleft' the best texts and scholarly text databases. I think this ethos should pertain to the staples of the academic diet: electronic versions of primary texts (original texts and translations), reference tools and research databases of scholarship. Research and publication projects should be funded with public money so as to make this possible. Concomitantly, privately-sponsored commercial ventures to produce these tools of the staple diet should be reviewed negatively by the academic community. (End Part II) Robin Cover From: "Bruce E. Nevin" <bnevin@ccb.bbn.com> Subject: linguistic humor Date: Fri, 3 May 91 19:09 EST (145 lines) X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1320 (3304) Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself. ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF ====================== Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! -- Author Unknown From: <BYNUM@CTSTATEU> Subject: First Call for Registration: 6th CAP Conference Date: Sat, 4 May 91 21:12 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1321 (3305) Previously, a call for conference proposals was posted on HUMANIST for the 6th CAP Conference. The announcement below is the first call for registrations for that same conference: FIRST CALL FOR REGISTRATIONS 6th COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE This is the first call for registrations for the 6th International Computing & Philosophy Conference (6th CAP) to be held in New Haven, Connecticut at Southern Connecticut State University on August 10 to 12, 1991. The conference is sponsored by the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Computing and Philosophy and hosted by the Research Center on Computing and Society. The major topics of the conference include: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND PHILOSOPHY AND THE GUTENBERG PROJECT COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION IN LOGIC ELECTRONIC ANALYSIS OF PHILOSOPHY TEXTS COMPUTING AND THE CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE The conference also will showcase instructional software in Philosophy. This sixth CAP conference will occur back-to-back with the National Conference on Computing and Values to be held on the same campus August 12 to 16. Those attending the CAP conference are invited to remain and participate in the Computing and Values conference. Conference facilities and living quarters will be air conditioned; and the conference will be "family-friendly", with day care center, baby sitting service, social events, playing fields and nearby tourist attractions available to family members. To register, fill out the following form and e-mail it Professor Steven Gold at GOLD@CTSTATEU.BITNET. (Be sure to follow-up with a check or money order to the address indicated.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NAME: ____________________________________________________________ INSTITUTION/COMPANY: _____________________________________________ SURFACE ADDRESS: _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ E-MAIL ADDRESS(S): _______________________________________________ Registration ($75 before 7/1, $90 after 7/1; student $35) _______ Single Dorm Room (Fri, Sat, Sun; $120 total) _______ Shared Dorm Room (Fri, Sat, Sun; $75 total) _______ Child's Room Supplement (Fri, Sat, Sun; $40 per child) _______ Meals (Friday dinner through Monday lunch; $60 total) _______ Child's Meals (Fri dinner to Monday lunch; $30 per child) _______ TOTAL COST _________ Send a check or money order payable to "CAP Conference", mailed to Prof. Steven J. Gold, Department of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent Street, New Haven, CT 06515 USA. (Phone: (203) 397-4423) Send me information on child care and baby sitting _______ Send me registration information on the National Conference on Computing and Values _______ Refund Policy: 100% if request postmarked before August 1st, 1991. From: "DAVID STUEHLER" <stuehler@apollo.montclair.edu> Subject: Scholar's tools Date: 4 May 91 22:09:00 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1322 (3306) The perfect software for the researcher would allow one to take notes, quote, summarize as one reads. These notes would then be stored in some sort of free form database from which they could be retrieved in any number of ways--by source, key concepts, key words.... The notes could then be pulled into your favorite word processor or outline program. Footnoting and bibliography generating would be automatic. It would be great if it worked in Windows. What other features should it have? I know there are lots of programs out there that do some or all (?) of these things. What are the good ones? How do you use them? How well do they work? What are the problems and frustrations? I think we could all benefit from sharing information on the tools we use when we work. If you would rather reply to me than the list, I will summarize for everyone else. David Stuehler Montclair State stuehler@apollo.montclair.edu From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Subject: Re: 4.1315 Copyright I: Publishers' Ownership... (1/171) Date: Sun, 5 May 91 00:09:21 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2852 (3307) Before reading Robin Cover's second installment I'd like to make two brief observations. First, most of us write books/articles that are of interest to from two dozen to two thousand (a hopeful figure) readers. Most academic publishers take a bath publishing us. Second, we are _now_ able to bypass hard-copy publication should we but choose to. Not many of us do so. Thus, while I am not a "fan" of the ways most scholarly publishers run their operations, I have a good deal of sympathy with their desire to make a nickel or a dime when we write something that anyone actually wants to use. Vanity is the major force behind our own decisions, whether this is "practical vanity" (getting or keeping a job) or the plain vanilla kind, to seek the _imprimatur_ of publication in print. (I used to toy with the notion of taking a half-page adv. in _Dante Studies_ describing a new work and saying it was available in photocopy from me for a couple of dollars; I knew almost no one would request it. In more recent times I've thought of making the same offer over the Internet, with similar reasons for not doing so.) Thus I am disturbed by the high moral tone of Cover's communication, while I am much drawn to the notion of serious use of the electronic means now available to us. All for now. From: Richard Goerwitz <goer@sophist.uchicago.edu> Subject: parasites (aka publishers) Date: Sun, 5 May 91 12:43:49 CDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2853 (3308) Robin's frightening portrait of the status quo in scholarly publishing raises a number of practical issues that I am now in the process of con- fronting, and I'd appreciate some input from others on this list on how to deal with them. I am quite conscious now of the need to publish. I just finished up my coursework, and took some comprehensive examinations to prove it, last November. (Old hands on Humanist might think I'm older than I am; SUB- SCRIBEing, though, was one of the first important :-) things I did when I started graduate school at the U. of Chicago.) Obviously, I need to be able to point to articles I've written in journals. But what is the status of the ones I've already submitted? What should I do with ones I am planning on submitting? I recall hearing that, by some sort of international agreement, there exists a default copyright on anything I might choose to write. I have no idea whether this is correct. I also have no idea how this would interact with publication in scholarly journals. What exactly is that status of my articles? Can I distribute electronic versions if I want to? If I distribute electronic versions before publication, what is the status of the published document? Neither of the two publishers who have accepted my submissions so far have mentioned anything along these lines to me. I guess I might have been naive in not asking. Now that I am busy writing my dissertation I wonder: If it's recommended for publication, should I be obstinate about retaining the right to publish it electronically? What if publishers will not go along with this idea? Is there a "list" of cooperative publishers available now? So far, I have been concerned enough about just getting my work in print without having to worry about my precise legal rights once it gets there! Should I be worried about them? Or should I focus my energy solely on getting my best work into print, without straining over matters that tra- ditionally have not been in scholars' hands? -Richard L. Goerwitz goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet goer@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer From: Prof Norm Coombs <NRCGSH@RITVAX> Subject: Copyright and electronic classroom Date: Sun, 5 May 1991 14:49 EST X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2854 (3309) I do not pretent to have an;ything new nor profound to add to the complex discussion of copyright issues. but, I thought I would pass along one personal experience for what it might be worth. I teach a distance history telecourse using a computer conference system. I like to make history relevant to the day and tie it to the news. I had been taking some news stories from the Dow Jones system and posting them. Then, I got worried about copyrights. Most electronic text distributors seem quite nervous on the topic. We contacted Dow Jones legal department and got permission for my particular use. We pointed out that the law would let me display a copy on an overhead in a classroom. We noted that this computer conference was restricted to class members and was not public. They agreed with us that it was similar to displaying it in a classroom. They only requested that I erase it at the end of the course. I was pleased with their ability to make, what I viewed as, intelligent comparisons between electronic use and classroom use. Norman Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology From: nsmith@polar.bowdoin.edu (Neel Smith) Subject: re: Copyright Date: Mon, 6 May 91 06:56:09 -0400 X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 2855 (3310) In response to Robin Cover's discussion of copyright issues: I think he accurately describes the advantages of on-line resources over printed books, but I would qualify his descripton of parasitic publishers in one important respect. We (academics, scholars) have relegated to the publishers control over our work in exchange not only for the distribution of our work, but also for an important part of its institutional evaluation. A book from a "good" press will automatically carry a certain weight at the time of tenure decision (or is my limited experience atypical...?), and even if you argue that the press relies on the reviews of recognized scholars to arrive at a decision, the fact remains that the press makes the decision. Should editors at a commerical press have this kind of influence on academic affairs? And a depressing anecdote: a project I've worked with for some time is publishing a CD-ROM, but has had trouble finding reviewers to referee submissions to the publication. Refereeing publications is time consuming, and does not greatly improve one's tenure dossier, but the innumerable printed journals manage to find reviewers. Are we happier avoiding the problems of evaluating new forms of publication? (At least until we see a few examples published by good presses that earn someone tenure?) The presses are not entirely parasitic; perhaps the relation between scholars and presses is more of an unhealthy symbiosis, and will remain so until the academic community recognizes the validity of electronic publications, and accepts the (onerous?) responsibility of evaluating them. Neel Smith nsmith@polar.bowdoin.edu disclaimer: all just a personal opinion From: "NANCY M. IDE (914) 437 5988" <IDE@vaxsar.vassar.edu> Subject: TEI European Workshop Announcement Date: Mon, 6 May 91 09:19 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1324 (3311) An announcement for a TEI workshop to be held in North American was posted earlier. The following is for a similar TEI workshop, to be held in Europe. Living with the Guidelines The European TEI Workshop Oxford University Computing Service 1-2 July 1991 What is it? The TEI Workshop is an opportunity for you to learn more about the thinking behind the TEI's draft Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine-Readable Texts, and to see for yourselves how the principles they describe can be used in a practical situation. The Workshop will be a mixture of group discussion work, detailed presentations and hands-on experience. Topics covered will include * nature and purpose of descriptive markup * basic features of SGML * essential components of the TEI Guidelines * TEI conformance -- what it is and why it matters * an overview of SGML aware software * using TEI texts with standard software packages Who can attend? The numbers attending will be limited to ensure that everyone has both a chance to be heard and the opportunity to try for him or herself the full variety of software tools we will be demonstrating. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, with a degree of priority given to members of existing TEI Workgroups, Committees and Affiliated Project representatives based in Europe who have not previously attended a TEI Workshop. Who will be there? The Workshop is being organised by the TEI Editors, Lou Burnard and Michael Sperberg-McQueen, with additional support from Elaine Brennan and Harry Gaylord, who also ran the TEI Workshop at the recent highly successful ACH/ALLC conference in Tempe, Arizona. The European Workshop is being run back to back with the first TEI Affiliated Projects Workshop, which means that a number of important major research projects planning to use the TEI recommendations will also be in attendance. The Workshop is therefore likely to provide an unusual opportunity for SGML experts, TEI experts and just plain text hackers to get together. Where and when? The Workshop will be hosted by Oxford University Computing Service, which is located in the centre of Oxford, one of the most beautiful cities of Europe, (even in the middle of summer when it is traditionally over-run by tourists), an hour's journey from London and within easy reach of the Midlands. Overnight accommodation will be arranged for delegates requesting it on the application form. The Workshop will begin at 0900 on Monday 1st July and finish around 1500 on Tuesday 2nd July. How much? There will be a fixed charge of #80 per head for workshop participants, reduced to #60 for members of ACH, ALLC or ACL. This covers attendance fees and a manual and other illustrative material, together with refreshments and lunch on Monday and Tuesday. Attendants will be expected to pay their own travel, accommodation and dinner, but we will do our best to make hotel reservations for anyone requesting this on the application form. All expenses of members of official TEI Working Groups and Working Committees and of one representative from any TEI Affiliated Project will be refunded, subject to the usual limits, provided that they have not previously attended any TEI Workshop. TEI European Workshop RESERVATION FORM Oxford July 1-2 1991 Please reserve a place at the workshop for: Name Address e-mail: FAX: telephone: * I enclose payment of #80 (British sterling) * I am a member of ACH/ALLC/ACL and enclose payment of #60 (British sterling) * I am a member of TEI Workgroup/Committee .... * I am the official representative of Affiliated Project ... Cheques must be made payable to Oxford University Computing Service. Please note that places will not be reserved unless payment is enclosed with this form, except for TEI-funded attendants. * Please reserve overnight accomodation for me on Sunday and Monday, in the price range [ #30-#50 [ #50-#70 This form should be returned as soon as possible to: TEI Euro-Workshop Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN tel +44 865 273200 fax +44 865 273275 email TEI@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Please note that reservations cannot be accepted after 1 June 91 From: "Elaine Brennan and Allen Renear" <EDITORS@BROWNVM> Subject: Happy Birthday Date: Tue, 07 May 91 22:32:34 EDT X-Humanist: Vol. 4 Num. 1325 (3312) On May 7 1987 our list was born. In those early family years the birthdays came slowly and with much celebration. Her wonderful beginnings were fondly analyzed and proudly chronicled by her family. Now as she stalks her large and wayward way about the wide world the years seem to rush by. Her current weary editors lift their heads and hurry to announce: this is the beginning of the fifth year. There are now 1050 subscribers on the mailing list, over twenty of which are bulletin board systems. We estimate the current readership at over 2000. Humanist was started by Willard McCarty at the University of Toronto in May 1987; in the spring of 1990 the list was moved to Brown University. -- Allen Renear and Elaine Brennan