Re: Plausibility Check


Peter T. Daniels wrote:

If there is such a thing as a "linguistic radio program," identify it;
and tell us who made those nonsensical claims.

We have radio programs on linguistic subject matters or
topics, a weekly one for one hour, and short ones for five
or ten minutes, by linguists from academe.

What does that have to do with the claim that 10+ years ago I used the
nonexistent phrase "hung like a bear"? Or was that actually a quotation
of someone's previous posting?

I quoted what the American pathologist and leading expert
on crucifixion and related matters told in that excellent TV
documentary on the life of Jesus (Who was Jesus?) on the
Roman way of crucifying Jews at Jerusalem: the Romans
did not build crosses, they hung the Jews from olives trees,
or strapped them to olive trees. You asked me where did
I get that crap from? as always doubting my sources. Then
I read what you wrote in your second message to the Usenet,
evidence for Christ "hung like a bear" found in a movie. Struck
me as rather strange. All the ado because I quoted an American
expert, and then to see those lines ...

I suspect that if I try to do that (not that your instructions are
clear) before posting this message, this message will be lost.

Not clear? Must I give more specifications? tell the name of the
group etc.?

BTW I have certainly not posted to 374 groups. I post to exactly four
groups.

You have posted to 374 groups, which includes cross-posting.
If a thread is started, say, in alt.nonsense and cross-posted
to sci.lang, and you reply from sci.lang, you are posting to
alt.nonsense.

If a message is occasionally crossposted, that is not my
responsibility. And I find nowhere in google groups to discover which
newsgroups a message is being crossposted to.

The header of every post tells you that.

Where do you "recall" that from? Who lied to you previously?

I learned it in school, fourty years ago. Goethe had an
(active) vocabulary of 30,000 words, while an average
German has a vocabulary of 8,000 to 10,000 words,
and in lower classes you find people with an (active)
vocabulary of 4,000 words. No disrespect intended.
People of the lower classes have very fine ways of
making their points. Words are not just an assembly of
letters, they are delivered with all kinds of accompanying
elements, gestures, mimics, music, rhytm, etc. So-called
lower class people are often artists when it comes to
language. If you ever worked on a dock or another such
place you knew that. We have plenty foreign workers in
Switzerland. Some have a most restricted vocabulary in
our dialect, but they manage brilliantly to say everything
accompanying their meagre vocabulary with all kinds of
other elements and ingredients of language - all those
elements you exclude from language. You said that oh
and uh-oh and such are not language. Good night.

I leave it to the audience to evaluate the legitimacy of this claim.

You have been asked to give your estimate of the number
of English words in the time of Shakespeare. You don't
even bother answering that question.

How many different words did Chaucer use?

I don't know. All I know is that a mathematician applied a
taxonomy program used in biology on Chaucer and found
that the juicy versions are the late ones. I don't remember
the name of the scholar who did that work, I just remember
the article in a magazine which appeared in around 1996,
and if my life depended on it, I would go to the university
library, consult the micro-films, and get the answer within,
say, half an hour. I would do it also for a reader working on
these topics, as I did favors of that kind to several posters.

How many different words did Shakespeare use?

I don't know. Ask Roberto Mansilla of the Free University
of Mexico, a mathematician who worked together with
a biologist, applied a DNA taxonomy program to Homer
and found that Homer's Odyssey was written by at least
a dozen authors (my interpretation: Homer incorporated
material from a series of other bards into the Odyssey).
He can tell you who works in those fields. The question
about the identity of Shakespeare is still open. As far
as I know there are people trying to find out who he was
by analyzing his texts and comparing them with texts
by other people on the computer. I don't care so much,
guessing he was who he was. I am pleased about the
new picture of him: yes, that was Shakespeare. Mark
Twain would be pleased. And Shakespeare must have
had a lot of friends in every faculty, jurisdiction, medicine,
ship-building, whatever; he must have consulted them
when he worked on a play, and thus gathered all his many
termini technici. No need to declare him a Lord, he was
a commoner.

What does 1066 have to do with Chaucer?

The era of Middle English lasted from 1066 to 1475.
Chaucer lived in that era, as far as I know.

What does Chaucer have to do with the Middle Ages? You JUST SAID that
he comes near the end of the period called the Renaissance.

I said quite clearly that the end of the era of Middle English,
1475, coincides with the begin of the Renaissance.

Or maybe you just don't know Chaucer's dates.

No, I don't know, I just assumed he flourished in the era
of Middle English, between 1066 and 1475. If that is wrong,
why don't you give the data of his life?

Or maybe you don't know that Middle English was not spoken in the
Middle Ages.

I speak of the era of Middle English, from 1066 to 1475,
1066 to 1475 AD, and on this planet, not on another planet
in the Milky Way. nor on any other planet in any other galaxy.
Was that complete enough? Or should I also exclude
parallel-universes?

No idea. There are remarks about idols with feet of clay.

I was not sure whether the Bible speaks of idols standing
on hollow feet, alluding to bronze figurines that are hollow,
but now that you mention the idols with feet of clay I think
it must be these, idols with feet of clay.

You never QUOTED from any "linguistic radio program." You spout
misremembered untruths.

Quote (freestyle translation into English by me, FG):
English in the time of Shakespeare had 200,000 words,
information technology alone created 200,000 new
English words. End of quote.

Prove that there was a "linguistic radio program," and prove that
anyone connected with it was competent to deal in linguistics, and
prove that you remember it correctly.

Oh my. Are you pretending that you get all your information
from peer reviewed journals? And are you relly asking me to
check all the linguistic emissions in the archive of our radio
station? I have trust. I couldn't work without trusting people.
As I said in a previous message: our knowledge is virtually
exploding, nobody has an overview even in a single discipline
anymore, let alone in all disciplines. The media are playing
a key role in conveying insights, discoveries, concepts and
ideas from one to another faculty, from one part to another
part of a discipline, both to interested lay-people and scholars.
We still have such media in Switzerland, for which I am grateful.
I don't know about the media in America. I just hope they are
not yet completely commercialized, and have scholars from
various disciplines on their payroll.

Franz Gnaedinger

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