Re: Plausibility Check


Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:

Please respond to Richard's request for identification of the radio
station, at the very least.

I did minutes ago.

What does a comment on someone's comment about a movie have to do with
Roman methods of crucifixion?

You went cocos because I mentioned the opinion of an
American pathologist and leading expert on crucifixion
who said the Romans built no crosses but hung the Jews
from olive trees, or strapped them to olive trees.

No, I did not. Someone may have (whatever "going cocos" and "going
mangos" may be), but it wasn't I.

I wondered
why you called this crap? and then I saw what you wrote
on this topic: Christ was "hung like a bear".

Why, does it surprise you? Your instructions were not clear. I tried
filling in various of the blanks in the search window and eventually
discovered what you were referring to.

My instructions were very clear, but maybe you must
get acquainted with the Google interface of the groups.

If the posting came from alt.nonsense, and the response is intended for
someone reading alt.nonsense, would it make sense to delete
alt.nonsense from the distribution list?

Yes, you can remove groups when replying. As you know
yourself.

WHY WOULD I NOT SEND A MESSAGE REPLYING TO SOMEONE, TO THE GROUP WHICH
THAT SOMEONE WAS READING?

I didn't find any place where it said I had posted to 374 groups.

Look out for a message you sent before July of 2006 and
click on: view profile.

And when a posting comes labeled with five different groups, how am I
to know which group the poster is reading?

The first group is the one where the message comes from.

That wasn't how it worked in Netscape. The groups always appeared in
the same order, whoever was posting in the thread.

And if you wish to know about a poster go for his or her profile.

So everyone else who might be following the thread in the other three
groups should be deprived of my response as well?

You learned this in school? in Switzerland? Evidently your teacher was
one of those Nazi sypmathizers that Switzerland was and is so famous
for: a noted Swiss anthropologist, Alfred Drexel, published an edition
of his anthropology textbook in the mid 1950s that contained the
familiar Nazi caricature of the "Jewish type," pointing out the
distinctive characteristics of the "Jewish race."

No, not at all, he was a monk.

What, monks can't be anthropologists? Was Gregor Mendel not a botanist?
Was Teilhard de Chardin (a priest, rather than a monk) not an
anthropologist?

Yes, there were Nazis in our
country. There was a percentage of Nazis in every country,
Switzerland, France, England, America. We had not only
Nazi anthropology but also Nazi psychology etc. And the
infamous J for Jew in the passport was invented and
introduced by a Swiss called Rothmund (as I recall).
Shame on us. On the other hand: the large majority of
the Swiss population was clearly against the Nazis,
many helped emigrants across the border and hid them
for years. As for America: your army could have bombed
the railways leading to Auschwitz. Your secret service
was well informed about what happaned there, among
others owing to a Swiss informer. The question why
America did not bomb the railways to Auschwitz has
never been given an answer.

Yet you parrot Nazi ideology -- "the lower classes have impoverished
vocabulary."

Try to stop free associating. The accusation that "the lower classes"
have impoverished vocabulary is simply FALSE.

There are people with a very small vocabulary, and words
are not the only thing that counts in language. A point you
are never willing to consider, as you got such a narrow
understanding of language.

No, there are not people with a "very small" (define "very small")
vocabulary (unless, of course, they are brain-damaged).

I, personally? Why would I have any such "estimate"?

You called my information about 200,000 English words
in the time of Shakespeare a lie, and then you said that
if I had mentioned 20,000 English words my mistake
would have been smaller. So you got at least a vague
idea of the number of English words in Shakey's time.
Why don't you tell us?

I know the number of words claimed by contemporary lexicographers, and
I know how much the vocabulary has grown over the last few centuries,
and I know that scientific writing essentially didn't exist in English
before the late 17th century, and expansion of the vocabulary by
assimilation of exotic loanwords didn't particularly set in until the
18th century (with widespread British imperialism).

Doubtless the electronic OED enables you to count the number of words
with citations between 1590 and 1620. I don't have access. Maybe
someone else does.

There are concordances of the works of Shakespeare (and Chaucer, and
every other major English author) from which that number can easily be
gotten.

So tell us.

You're fond of going to libraries ... I had better things to do at the
NYPL yesterday, things relating to my own work, on the one hand, and
research, on the other.

"Shakespeare's vocabulary is sometimes estimated at c.20,000 words. For
it, he drew on Renaissance technical terms, derivations, compounds,
archaisms, polysemy, etymological meanings, and idioms." McArthur,
Oxford Companion to the English Language, p. 928, article by Whitney F.
Bolton of Rutgers University

Goethe's vocabulary was 30,000 words. Amazes me that
Shakespeare should have used less words.

Why? He was 200 years earlier and did not publish on scientific topics.
Nor did he write novels and essays on everything under the sun. Maybe
Isaac Asimov used a vocabulary as large as Goethe's, because he, too,
published on everything under the sun (except linguistics -- once I
asked him howcome, and he answered that he needs to know something
about a subject before he writes about it: an attitude I wish more
people would share. He did publish many books on etymology, a topic, I
keep reminding everyone, is rather distant from linguistics.)

Unfotunately the same contributor doesn't give an estimate of Chaucer's
(1343?-1400) vocabulary size.

Try not to free-associate.

Try not to free-associate.

(Sigh) (sighing again) Neither do I know the vocabulary
size of Chaucer, nor of Shakespeare, and what you call
free associations is actually what I would do if I had to
answer those questions: I'd ask people who are working
in that field, Ricardo Mansilla of the Free University of
Mexico (I contacted him on behalf of Homer and got
a kind reply) and the German scholar who established
a taxonomy of the Chaucer versions - I don't remember
the name of that scholar, but I could find out who he is
via an article in a magazine from around 1996 that is
kept on a micro-film in the university library of Zurich.

Why do you feel that sharing your meta-methodology would be of
interest?

The Middle Ages, under an extra-broad definition, might extend from the
Fall of Rome in 476 to the lifetime of :Petrarch (first great
Renaissance figure) 1304-1374.

Did I speak of the Middle Ages? I spoke of the era of
Middle English, from 1066 to 1475. Chaucer lived in
that era.

Yes, you did speak of the Middle Ages. Several times.

You even lie about your own metalanguage. That is not a quote.

Are you mangos? What has English in Shakespeare's
time to do with my experimental reconstruction of
Magdalenian? Did you listen to that radio program?
No. Did I listen to that radio program? Yes. And I quoted
one sentence from that program: English in the time
of Shakespeare had 200,000 words, information
technology alone created 200,000 new English words.
A quote is a quote is a quote. Or is a Peter not a T.
and a T. not a Daniels?

If that is an accurate representation of what the radio program said
(many years ago, you admit), then now you know it is not a reliable
source of information. It would be preferable to think you misremember
it than that it purveys misinformation to the entire population of
Switzerland.

That is at best a misremembrance.

I pick up information from everywhere, if - big IF -
I find the source reliable, and my memory is usually
very good. I had an avareage memory in my young
years, but I developed it with my scientific work.
The mind is like a muscle, you can train it.

Yet you don't recall that just yesterday you wrote of the Middle Ages.
Several times.

Perhaps you are at the age of retirement, like Lance Armstrong or that
French head-butting guy.

I am asking you to identify this "linguistic radio program." If you
tune in every week, then you can divulge the radio station, the name of
the presenter (US: host), and his/her qualifications.

I did I did I didid, half an hour ago in my reply to Richard
Herring.

So you hadn't when I wrote this, had you.

Try not to free-associate. I've recently participated in two TV
documentaries, a Canadian one on language generally and an American one
on writing. I'll let you know when they're scheduled for broadcast.

Nice to read that, congratulations.

.