lit-crit pond scum [was Re: Thomas Covenant (LONG)]
Mary Ellen Foley
recently read a paper by Foo Crowley and Bar Crowley on the subject of
Walker Percy's "Lancelot". I thought what they had to say was a bunch
of crap, starting with when they pointed out that the letter designation
for one character's blood type, O, was "significantly grail-shaped".
Yeah, right.
Anyway, I started counting uses of "postmodern": three "postmodern world"s,
"postmodern American sexuality", "postmodern doublespeak", "Percy's radically
postmodern culture" and even "anticly postmodern transmogrification of
Arthurian materials".
I was ready to anticly transmogrify Crowley and Crowley by then...in a
postmodern way, of course. I'm ready to adopt Philomath's term "lit-crit
pond scum" as the epithet of choice for people who write this kind of stuff.
(can't remember the reference and don't have it handy, sorry, will dig it
up if anybody really cares)
--
WARNING!! Opinions in posting are farther away than they appear
^^^^^^^^^
Mary Ellen Foley (m...@netcom.com)
Ron Newman
|> I'm not used to reading contemporary scholarly literary criticism, but
|> recently read a paper by Foo Crowley and Bar Crowley on the subject of
|> Walker Percy's "Lancelot". I thought what they had to say was a bunch
|> of crap, starting with when they pointed out that the letter designation
|> for one character's blood type, O, was "significantly grail-shaped".
|> Yeah, right.
|>
|> Anyway, I started counting uses of "postmodern": three "postmodern world"s,
|> "postmodern American sexuality", "postmodern doublespeak", "Percy's radically
|> postmodern culture" and even "anticly postmodern transmogrification of
|> Arthurian materials".
The scary thing about this posting is that I can't tell if Mary Ellen
made this example up out of whole cloth, or if it really exists
and she just forgot the authors' real first names.
--
Ron Newman rne...@bbn.com
Don McGregor
>
>Anyway, I started counting uses of "postmodern": three "postmodern world"s,
>"postmodern American sexuality", "postmodern doublespeak", "Percy's radically
>postmodern culture" and even "anticly postmodern transmogrification of
>Arthurian materials".
>
search-and-replace on "postmodern" with "recent."
--
Don McGregor | "His methods became...unsound."
mcg...@bluto.ie.orst.edu | --Apocalypse Now
Ackpthh! Incoming mail to this node is down again, working on getting it up.
Send mail to mcg...@prism.cs.orst.edu in the meantime...
John Costello
>I'm not used to reading contemporary scholarly literary criticism, but
>recently read a paper by Foo Crowley and Bar Crowley on the subject of
>Walker Percy's "Lancelot". I thought what they had to say was a bunch
And Crowley, as in Alistair? Perhaps it's just because it's late and the
tide of consipiracy is flowing through my tired veins, but I have
trouble taking seriously a paper which was written, essentially, by FUBAR
Crowley.
*Sigh* If this is for real, I will take my portable Milton and Illuminatus!
Trilogy and whack myself over the head, repeating, "I will be a good English
Major! I will be a good English Major!"
>WARNING!! Opinions in posting are farther away than they appear
>^^^^^^^^^
>Mary Ellen Foley (m...@netcom.com)
"Are we really looking for love,
or instruments of our masochism?"
--Cos
Subrata Sircar
>"postmodern American sexuality", "postmodern doublespeak", "Percy's radically
>postmodern culture" and even "anticly postmodern transmogrification of
>Arthurian materials".
"Postmodern" is one of my least favorite words - I can't help thinking of it
as an oxymoron and a placeholder while someone thinks up a real name for this
period/style/whatever.
I suppose it would make sense in art, music or literature, where "modern" has
referred to periods/styles, but I object to labeling any book/idea/song/concept
which a) is still wet behind the ears b) used by euro-socialite-wannabes
as "postmodern", as though to so call it bestows upon it some sense of value,
novelty or political correctness. Feh.
--
Subrata Sircar | sksi...@phoenix.princeton.edu |Prophet& SPAMIT Charter Member
I don't speak for Princeton, and they don't speak for me.
/EARTH is 98% full. Please delete anyone you can.
"The voters have spoken, the bastards..."
Janet M. Lafler
>"Postmodern" is one of my least favorite words - I can't help thinking of it
>as an oxymoron and a placeholder while someone thinks up a real name for this
>period/style/whatever.
My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
dependent."
How about you all?
/Janet
--
send mail to: repn...@leland.stanford.edu
"Now, captain," said the squire, "you were right and I was wrong. I own myself
an ass, and I await your orders."
-- Treasure Island
Doug Moran
>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>dependent."
>
>How about you all?
"Politically (in)correct." Previously I have been sick of "Elite
Republican Guard" (which I note changed to merely "Republican
Guard" after the ground war ceased), "Liberal," "Pro-Life" *and*
"Pro-Choice" (as if by labling yourself "pro-"something indicates
the other people *must* be "anti"), "kinder, gentler", and of
course "thousand points of [whatever]".
My absolute least favorite, though, is the famous "remains to be
seen" -- the reporters way of copping out. Rather than draw
conclusions, they say, "[blah blah blah] remains to be seen".
God forbid they extrapolate on the events they just reported.
--
Doug Moran | I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry
{...}!hal.com!dougm | room of the Landmark Hotel -- but the door was too nar-
do...@hal.com | row, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited.
Barbara Hlavin
>
>>"Postmodern" is one of my least favorite words - I can't help thinking of it
>>as an oxymoron and a placeholder while someone thinks up a real name for this
>>period/style/whatever.
>
>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>dependent."
>
>How about you all?
Ah-ha! -you are obviously a victim (victim-victim-VICtim) of
literature about twelve-step programs.
What I want to know is: if everyone comes from a dysfunctional
family, where is the functional family against which this pathology
is defined? And *what* is it? And where can I find one?
As R.D. Laing so trenchantly <ahem!> asked back in the '60s, if
everyone is insane, isn't insanity sanity?
--Barbara
(whose family seemed to function perfectly well, thank you very much)
>
>/Janet
>
>--
>send mail to: repn...@leland.stanford.edu
>"Now, captain," said the squire, "you were right and I was wrong. I own myself
>an ass, and I await your orders."
> -- Treasure Island
--
Barbara Hlavin "To-day I pronounced a word which should
tw...@milton.u.washington.edu never come out of a lady's lips it was
that I called John a Impudent Bitch."
William Smith
(Janet M. Lafler) writes:
>
>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>dependent."
>
>How about you all?
>
How about a phrase: "...for children of all ages." This has
a dentist drill effect on my mind.
Merging threads with overused words in book reviews:
I avoid any movie that uses "zany" in the advertising.
William Smith
Tek Wilsonville
Mike Godwin
>
>Ah-ha! -you are obviously a victim (victim-victim-VICtim) of
>literature about twelve-step programs.
Watch those first 12 steps. They're a lulu.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"Eros and language mesh at every point. Intercourse
mnem...@eff.org | and discourse, copula and copulation, are sub-classes
(617) 864-0665 | of the dominant fact of communication."
EFF, Cambridge, MA| --George Steiner
Mary Ellen Foley
Crowleys out of thin air -- you credit me with too much imagination!
Would that I had the wit to do it. The Crowleys are, regrettably, real;
now I'll have to dig out the reference, just to prove it. I used standard
(at least, where I went to school) variable names because I couldn't remember
the authors' real given names -- as I recall, the names indicated one was
female, one male.
The book they were dicussing, "Lancelot" by Walker Percy, (which I really
hated) had a character who could see from his window just the left edge of a
billboard, which said:
Free
& Ma
B
This was never explained. The Crowleys said it was "obvious" to the reader
that the billboard means the reader, unlike the character (who is
insitutionalized) "is free and may be". I did not find this obvious (which
is putting it mildly. I found it ludicrous). The professor said that other
critics have equated (presumably with a straight face) the fragmant "Ma" with
the Ma of the common phrase "Ma & Pa", and starting from that base, worked out
a Freudian interpretation of the book.
Somewhere in the various mountains of papers and books in my house, I have
a photocopy of the paper. I'll try to excavate it this weekend.
Mark Ellingham
>>
>>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>>dependent."
>>
>>How about you all?
William Smith writes:
>
>How about a phrase: "...for children of all ages." This has
>a dentist drill effect on my mind.
or, my favorite: using "anymore" for "nowadays"
as in, "Anymore I use my word processor instead of a typewriter."
Carlin
--
Carlin Sappenfield - Science Library, Vanderbilt University
sap...@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu sap...@vuctrvax.bitnet
Tom Maddox
>
You're in denial, Barbara.
A 12-step program is indicated. At least 12 steps, maybe more--a
12-to-the-12th-step program, maybe?
--
Tom Maddox
tma...@milton.u.washington.edu
"It is imperative to write invulnerable sentences." -- Hugo Ball
Bob Ingria
or, my favorite: using "anymore" for "nowadays"
as in, "Anymore I use my word processor instead of a typewriter."
Well, that seems to be more a dialect split than anything else. To
some people, like me, ``anymore'' is a polarity item, i.e. can only be
used after negation (a rough approximation of a definition of polarity
item):
I can't drink so much anymore
To others, it isn't, and has become, as you correctly point out, a
synonym of ``nowadays''. Actually, it's not really odd that it is
ceasing to be a polarity item. Where's its positive form?
any - some
anything - something
anyone - someone
anybody - somebody
anymore - ???
-30-
Bob
RM...@psuvm.psu.edu
Prioritize, utilize, ...(words which have good synonyms without having
to -ize everything)
dysfunctional, learning disabled, PMS (words/phrases for serious problems
being applied now to majorities)
at this point in time,
interface (other than as a sewing term or applied to other than machines)
bottom line, computer-designed, user friendly, high tech, ...
lite, nite,
Absolutely FREE!!! Except for ...
and ...
Bob Grumbine
Tom Maddox
>I avoid any movie that uses "zany" in the advertising.
Unless it's from a story by Kafka or is an attempt at a complete
_Crime and Punishment_.
Mary Ellen Foley
For the people who wanted proof that the Crowley's are real -- well, I
can't prove they're real. But here's the reference:
J. Donald Crowley and Sue Mitchell Crowley, "Walker Percy's Grail", in
"King Arthur Through the Ages", edited by Valerie Lagorio and M.L.Day
(Garland, 1990).
At the end of the article, it is noted that the authors are associated
in some fashion with Univ of Missouri, Columbia -- that is, in bold-face type,
it says "University of Missouri, Columbia", but for all I know, the
words could be purely decorative, the type-setter's fancy. Nothing else in
the article seems to make sense, why should this?
Bryan Solie
>In article <11...@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> will...@pogo.WV.TEK.COM (William Smith) writes:
>>I avoid any movie that uses "zany" in the advertising.
>
> Unless it's from a story by Kafka or is an attempt at a complete
>_Crime and Punishment_.
That wacky Kafka. Perhaps someone more learned can help me with a recurring
problem I have with Franz.
From The Metamorphosis: "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from
unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous
vermin."
Now, I can see how going to bed as a salesman and waking up as a vermin
might upset someone (and I can see how an outside observer might be
hard pressed to tell the difference), but Samsa's refusal to act
sensibly defies even the most compassionate understanding. When
confronted with this unique opportunity to lollygag, his immediate
reaction is to flail his various appendages in an attempt to get up and
go to work. What gives? Is this a Kafkaesque indictment of the
Protestant work ethic? Or is it just a delicious, madcap romp of a
story? Or is it a blistering indictment of travelling salesmen?
--
Bryan
Duncan Peter G. Thornton
>m...@netcom.COM (Mary Ellen Foley) writes:
>>Anyway, I started counting uses of "postmodern": three "postmodern world"s,
>>"postmodern American sexuality", "postmodern doublespeak", "Percy's radically
>>postmodern culture" and even "anticly postmodern transmogrification of
>>Arthurian materials".
>"Postmodern" is one of my least favorite words - I can't help thinking of it
>as an oxymoron and a placeholder while someone thinks up a real name for this
>period/style/whatever.
>I suppose it would make sense in art, music or literature, where "modern" has
>referred to periods/styles, but I object to labeling any book/idea/song/concept
>which a) is still wet behind the ears b) used by euro-socialite-wannabes
>as "postmodern", as though to so call it bestows upon it some sense of value,
>novelty or political correctness. Feh.
Well, some of your hardcore po-mo heads are uncomfortable with the
term too - especially since it implies an historical relationship with
modernism. (That one set of ideas would grow out of another is just
another destructive bourgeois meta-narrative...)
I recall an essay in which Frank Davey (seminal Canadian po-mo head)
was driven practically apoplectic by every part of the _title_ of a
conference at the University of Alberta: "Our Post-Modern Heritage"
- "Our" because it implied that it was in any way meaningful to speak
of a common viewpoint or shared understanding (without privileging
the position of white, middle-class, [Eastern Canadian] males)
- "Post-Modern" because it suggested that "postmodernism" was not
some kind of radical Copernican revolution in understanding, but
something that grew out of modernism
_ "Heritage" because it implied that the post-modern movement was
no longer the cutting edge, but just a quaint and already dated
relic from the recent past, like toe-socks or Marcuse.
In memory of that essay, I've hyphenated "post-modern" ever since,
just in the hope Davey might see it and explode. And while I think
your objections make sense, when all is said and done, post-modernism
does grow out of the modernist movement.
- Duncan
Duncan Thornton | An odd thought strikes me - we shall receive no
tho...@ccu.umanitoba.ca | email in the grave.
Barbara Hlavin
>In article <1991Sep24....@milton.u.washington.edu> tw...@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>>
>>(whose family seemed to function perfectly well, thank you very much)
>
> You're in denial, Barbara.
> A 12-step program is indicated. At least 12 steps, maybe more--a
>12-to-the-12th-step program, maybe?
>
Totally unnecessary, Tom. See chapter 12 of _Families That Are
Happy and the Pop-Psychologists Who Hate Them_.
--Barbara
>
>--
> Tom Maddox
> tma...@milton.u.washington.edu
> "It is imperative to write invulnerable sentences." -- Hugo Ball
Thomas Farmer
>
>>"Postmodern" is one of my least favorite words - I can't help thinking of it
>>as an oxymoron and a placeholder while someone thinks up a real name for this
>>period/style/whatever.
>
>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>dependent."
>
>How about you all?
Dynamic. As in, "We have to look at the underlying dynamic of the
situation."
For some reason this usage really offends me! :-)
--
Mail to: tfa...@cavebbs.gen.nz Or phone +64-4-499-3832
I live in a sane society, I don't need a disclaimer!!
I ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog
Subrata Sircar
>- "Post-Modern" because it suggested that "postmodernism" was not
> some kind of radical Copernican revolution in understanding, but
> something that grew out of modernism
As if ideas simply sprang into being from the brow of Jove? Maybe in
times past, but the weight of history grows daily. Especially in science,
learning what has gone before is tremendously necessary to thinking about
where things are going, and what they are going to be like.
>And while I think your objections make sense, when all is said and done,
>post-modernism does grow out of the modernist movement.
I'll buy that - now define the "modernist" movement. :<) Part of my objection
is that every new idea calls itself "modern" (as opposed to "dated" or some
such) - post-modern is just semantic one-upsmanship. I don't think composers
used to call the music they were writing "Baroque" while it was in vogue ...
Francis Muir
For the people who wanted proof that the Crowley's are real
-- well, I can't prove they're real. But here's the reference:
J. Donald Crowley and Sue Mitchell Crowley, "Walker
Percy's Grail", in "King Arthur Through the Ages",
edited by Valerie Lagorio and M.L.Day (Garland, 1990).
I propose Miss Foley's election to Official Top Minnow for the Net Pond.
Philolog
Kirk Franklin
>or, my favorite: using "anymore" for "nowadays"
>as in, "Anymore I use my word processor instead of a typewriter."
But this is a legitimate dialectic usage; my relatives in Missouri say
this.
Two of William Faulkner's words are "without heat", referring not to the
climate, but to his characters' emotions.
No worries,
Scooter
--
.signature not included (empty)
..............................
R o d Johnson
>Carlin writes:
>>or, my favorite: using "anymore" for "nowadays"
>>as in, "Anymore I use my word processor instead of a typewriter."
>
>But this is a legitimate dialectic usage; my relatives in Missouri say
>this.
(It sure is--but we in the lang biz say "dialectal" and reserve
"dialectic" for the lit-crit pond scum and other theory-algae
infesting the placid lacustrine landscape of academia, OK?)
(Just a very, very minor nit, but one that plagues linguists.)
--
Rod Johnson * rjoh...@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315
"Ya gotta evolve" --Muddy Mudskipper
R o d Johnson
>tho...@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Duncan Peter G. Thornton) writes:
>>And while I think your objections make sense, when all is said and done,
>>post-modernism does grow out of the modernist movement.
>
>I'll buy that - now define the "modernist" movement. :<) Part of my objection
>is that every new idea calls itself "modern" (as opposed to "dated" or some
>such) - post-modern is just semantic one-upsmanship. I don't think composers
>used to call the music they were writing "Baroque" while it was in vogue ...
There really was such a thing as Modernism, Subrata. It's not simply
a synonym for "recent" or "contemporary" or "trendy". Unfortunately,
there are several overlapping things that go under that term. One
denotes art since, roughly, Impressionism; another, art and letters
since, roughly, the turn of the century. There are other definitions
as well. It's a complex thing, to which justice can't really be done
in a brief posting, but think Picasso, Kandinsky, Gertrude Stein,
Beckett, Hemingway, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and
suchlike people and you have a glimmering of the high flowering of
Modernism.
Barbara Hlavin
OOOooo! And FREE GIFTS! ("I have a birthday present for you, mother.
It will cost you only...")
sometimes a Wombat
I suspect that, if I ever figured out just what "codependent" means,
I would dislike it. The more obvious meaning seems somehow ...
desirable, to the point I don't see what the huhu's about.
Every time someone says "dysfuntional" to me, I have the desire to
say, "No, that's `bifunctional'."
Larry "Victim of being brought up by a happy family" Hammer
L...@albert.physics.arizona.edu \ If you meet the Buddha
The insane don't need disclaimers \ On the net, killfile him
Joel J. Hanes
facilitate
orientate
---
Joel Hanes
Mike Godwin
>
>As kids -- there were seven of us -- we realized early on that our family
>was malfunctional, and we liked it that way. There was something entirely
>sickening about some of the more perfect models that surrounded us.
The more perfect models were all alike in their sickeningness, but your
family was malfunctional in its own way.
Francis Muir
Janet Lafler writes:
My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are
"dysfunctional" and "codependent." How about you all?
Every time someone says "dysfuntional" to me, I have the desire
to say, "No, that's `bifunctional'."
As kids -- there were seven of us -- we realized early on that our family
was malfunctional, and we liked it that way. There was something entirely
sickening about some of the more perfect models that surrounded us. While
they were reading *Little Lord Fauntleroy* we were diving into Dostoevsky.
It is my understanding that "dysfunctional" is a Social Worker's codeword
for blue collar families that don't share their own social, ethical, and
moral standards.
Philophunk
Janet M. Lafler
>utilize
>facilitate
>orientate
Yes. Notice that for "ultilize" you could just as easily say "use," and
for "orientate" you could just say "orient." I don't know about "facilitate."
How about "make easier?"
R o d Johnson
>As kids -- there were seven of us -- we realized early on that our family
>was malfunctional, and we liked it that way. There was something entirely
>sickening about some of the more perfect models that surrounded us. While
>they were reading *Little Lord Fauntleroy* we were diving into Dostoevsky.
>It is my understanding that "dysfunctional" is a Social Worker's codeword
>for blue collar families that don't share their own social, ethical, and
>moral standards.
Your understanding is incorrect then. I came from a classic
white-collar, ethnically vanilla, decidedly dysfunctional family. We
weren't part of the Junior Literati Smart Set; we consisted of one
drunk parent, too soon dead from it, and three devastated people who
blamed themselves and each other for it. All of you who are having
such fun trivializing this kind of problem should try to remember that
there are people on the other end of that newsfeed, OK? The rhetoric
of "dysfunctional" and "codependent" and "enabling" is jargon, sure,
but it also *helps* people get some insight into their problems.
Surely we have better things to be supercilious about.
Steve Bougerolle
>I think the postings that trouble you are not trivializing the problems,
>but making fun of those who trivialize the concepts that help people
>get such insight. They trivialize those concepts by overapplying them,
>and by using them as a substitute for thinking rather than as a
>source of true insight.
Applause! Applause!
I was about ready to say that myself.
--
_|\ |V| /|_ Steve Bougerolle, U. of British Columbia Physics Dept.
\ \| |/ / and the OPAL experiment, CERN, Geneva CH
>_______< STE...@CERNVAX.UUCP STE...@CERNVM.CERN.CH
! STE...@SLACSLD.BITNET 45388::STEVEB (HEPnet)
Mike Godwin
>
>All of you who are having
>such fun trivializing this kind of problem should try to remember that
>there are people on the other end of that newsfeed, OK? The rhetoric
>of "dysfunctional" and "codependent" and "enabling" is jargon, sure,
>but it also *helps* people get some insight into their problems.
I think the postings that trouble you are not trivializing the problems,
but making fun of those who trivialize the concepts that help people
get such insight. They trivialize those concepts by overapplying them,
and by using them as a substitute for thinking rather than as a
source of true insight.
What's more, the undoubted fact that these notions help people does
not render them exempt from criticism any more than religious belief
(which also helps many people) is exempt, here or in other forums.
I know you know this already, but I'm just pointing out the distinction
between criticizing the jargon and criticizing those who may have been
helped by it.
Mike Godwin
>
>No, I just have a housemate whose favorite word is co-dependent and a
>beau whose favorite word is dysfunctional. Sad but true. I'm trying to
>cure the beau, but I've given up on the housemate.
Step One is admitting that they are in the grip of a power that you cannot
control.
Bharathi Jagadeesh
Alright!!!
I almost thought I'd have to give up reading Doonesbury when Trudeau
started using this word.
Steve Bougerolle
Least favorite words of mine:
Functionality. Programmers seem to like saying "This programming module has
the following functionality:" instead of saying "The program does this:"
Workaholic. When I see a bottle of Workahol I'll grant this status as a
legitimate word. Unfortunately it's a very useful word around here, however
bogus it may be.
R o d Johnson
>In article <10...@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjoh...@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:
>>All of you who are having
>>such fun trivializing this kind of problem should try to remember that
>>there are people on the other end of that newsfeed, OK? The rhetoric
>>of "dysfunctional" and "codependent" and "enabling" is jargon, sure,
>>but it also *helps* people get some insight into their problems.
>
>I think the postings that trouble you are not trivializing the problems,
>but making fun of those who trivialize the concepts that help people
>get such insight.
Sure, fine. I'm just trying to remind people that these *are* real
problems, and not merely a joke. Somewhere along the line this
discussion started to slide from the usually thoughtful rec.arts.books
level down the slippery slope into alt.peeves territory.
>They trivialize those concepts by overapplying them,
>and by using them as a substitute for thinking rather than as a
>source of true insight.
I don't know. I'm not equipped to be a judge of who has "true
insight" and who doesn't. Thinking some of these things through can
be a drawn-out and painful process, with lots of time spent feeling
dumb and confused, and lots of blinding midnight realizations that
turn out to be rather silly in the cold morning light.
Living with these people is undoubtedly tiresome. I think lots of
people have spells when they're tiresome in this way, however. Has no
one here ever been in the grip of new ideas so powerful, so
(seemingly) obvious that they've spent the next weeks or months boring
everyone in range to tears with them? It's a way of exploring, of
living with the ideas and seeing how (or if) they illuminate your
life. Sometimes they lead to dumb ideas, sometimes to good ones
maybe.
>What's more, the undoubted fact that these notions help people does
>not render them exempt from criticism any more than religious belief
>(which also helps many people) is exempt, here or in other forums.
Criticism is great. I don't mean to seem as if I don't recognize the
faint whiff of ridiculousness these terms emit--indeed, a lot of
people use them with a certain amount of self-mockery, I think. But
this thread has also contained a little element of contempt for "the
weak", I think. Face it, a lot of people in this society feel
somewhat lost and "broken" and don't really know how to get put back
together, and when they're too up front about that they make people
uneasy.
>I know you know this already, but I'm just pointing out the distinction
>between criticizing the jargon and criticizing those who may have been
>helped by it.
I do understand it, but thanks. Actually, it's not so much the
criticism as the self-congratulation (not on everybody's part) that
bugs me. It's nice that y'all had happy families; don't assume that
people who didn't are just whiners, that's all.
I didn't mean to turn this into alt.recovery (which I've never even
read)--sorry about that. I also wasn't real crazy about mentioning my
own situation--not that big a deal anymore anyway--or seeming to use
it as a moral bludgeon. I just wanted to serve as a small
counterweight to some flip and perhaps not *terribly* thoughtful
comments. Imagine this is an art newsgroup, and we're all sitting
around bitching about wheelchair ramps on the Uffizi, and someone
says, excuse me, but I use a wheelchair to get around and I'd like to
be able to see those paintings too.
OK? Message sent, too clumsily as usual (Fido just brings out the
clod in me). Consider all apologies for the clumsiness made in
advance.
Janet M. Lafler
>>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>>dependent."
>
>Ah-ha! -you are obviously a victim (victim-victim-VICtim) of
>literature about twelve-step programs.
No, I just have a housemate whose favorite word is co-dependent and a
beau whose favorite word is dysfunctional. Sad but true. I'm trying to
cure the beau, but I've given up on the housemate. (One of my problems
with her use of the word co-dependent is that as far as I can tell it's
a generic insult. Any person or behavior she disapproves of is "co-depen-
dent."
>What I want to know is: if everyone comes from a dysfunctional
>family, where is the functional family against which this pathology
>is defined? And *what* is it? And where can I find one?
I like to go around claiming to have been brought up in the last functional
family in the U.S. We're not NORMAL, mind you, but we get along fine and
treat each other okay. Plus no addictions or abuse. I don't know what else
is required.
James Davis Nicoll
'Malfunctional'? Don't you mean 'only sane organisation for a family'?
We had a brief run-in with Children's Aid many moons ago which
ended when we realised many of the busy-bodies in CA have families, and
would like to *continue* having families. This is a convenient lever to
pry the interfering little parasites off with, although I faintly regret
we didn't go the power-sander and weighted container route. God, the
filthy religious fanatics we were surrounded with were *so* intolerant,
which was absurb, given their ludicrous beliefs and social organisations
(only slightly more advanced than those of less gifted primate species).
James Nicoll
Ian G Batten
> for blue collar families that don't share their own social, ethical, and
> moral standards.
No. It is Social Worker codeword for working class families that don't
share the middle class Social Worker's view of how the working classes
should behave.
ian
lewis.h.mammel..jr
>
> "A modernist sees the Abyss and cries, `Dispair!' A postmodernist
> walks up to the edge, looks down, and says, `Oooo! I wonder what
> happens when I drop this pebble down?' "
> --Janni Lee Simner
>
> While we're at it, can anyone explain deconstructionism to me?
Why glad to! Deconstruction means you just jump right in.
But all seriousness aside, I have been reading Jonathan Culler's
On_Deconstruction and although my gleeful report on SIGNS_OF_THE_
TIMES pegged me as a reactionary I'm sure, I have experienced quite a
resonance with Culler's exposition. Right off he says,
Contemplation of a chaos that threatens to overwhelm
one's sensible powers may produce, as Kant suggests,
a certain exultation, but most readers are only baffled
or thwarted, not filled with awe.
He's talking about the Abyss here, and I've certainly approached
the edge many times, and yes I have experienced that certain
exultation, tinged though it may have been with anxiety. The
other day in the bookstore i picked up a copy of La Rouchefoucald's
epigrams ( or something ) flipped it open and beheld: "There is
a vivacity which increases with age which verges on madness."
OK, so it's just "Middle Age Crazy" but I do go for all the
little coincidences and puns and twists and everything else
that make up "the life of the mind" ( Barton Fink there - go see it.)
Like just last night I was coming back from , uh, the bookstore and
what do my headlights reveal but ORT right there on a license plate.
Plus I'm listening to "fah'n fah'n fah'n auf der autobahn", a little
mania I picked up after CYBERPUNK. ( Before that I had NOTHING BUT
FLOWERS on repeat: favorite line - "I used to be an angry young man
and I'd pretend that I was a billboard. Standing tall by the side of
the road, I fell in love with the beautiful highway.") so I've got
a definite car thing going here - but ORT ? Well, I guess you have
to take whatever scrap you can get. And that "fah'n fah'n fah'n"
just sounds so much like "fun fun fun" since HER DADDY TOOK HER
T-BIRD AWAY !!
Oh, by the way - love that "Dis(re)pair" !
Culler, by the way, takes it pretty heavily on the chin in the
aforementioned SotT, and OD is quoted there. I think SotT is
actually a good book to read first if you want to find out
what's going on. Its author is an English Ph.D. after all!
Near the end, Culler talks about Walden and "grounding" with all
the tricks and reversals Thoreau pulls. He comments that this
isn't really deconstruction since it's, well, too easy. Primed as I
am, though, I noticed a few things myself ( No this is not
"Lew Mammel - boy deconstructor"! ( let alone "boa-deconstructor")
just some "resonances" ) In a passage I quoted in another article
about the "head monkey in Paris", there's a note, literally in the margin
in this case, ( an annotated version ) with this amazing little
comment on fashion from his Journal: "Oh, with what delight I could
thrust a spear through her vitals or squash her under my heel!"
So long, Henry!
Also, a few pages later there's this, "As I understand it, that was
a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva
made, that she 'had not made it movable, by which means a bad
neighborhood might be avoided;' and it may still be urged, for
our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned
rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided
is our own scurvy selves."
Now is that "deconstructive movement" ? or what?
What's neat here is that some time ago I discovered Momus in
the dictionary ( "the Greek god of censure and mockery" ) and it
has been something of a joke between me and my son, who took a
liking for the word. There's an annotation ( an excision from an
earlier edition of Walden ) which told me more about Momus than
I'd seen so far. He was sort of an olympian court jester.
[ oh, well I did read Walden years ago, but Momus escaped me. ]
Well, back to Culler. He's got that stuff about the pain
"causing" the pinprick ( to cause the pain ) since the pain is
the immediate experience, etc., which Lehman makes fun of in
SotT. Actually, here I think I grokked Culler. Anyway, he definitely
wasn't discarding causality, as Lehman would have it.
[ what creeped in there with "discarding" was the Queen of Hearts ]
I did feel pretty critical in a some other places. Like where
he talks about the airport sign which says, "All remarks concerning
bombs and weapons will be taken seriously." Culler says,
"But this codification fails to arrest the play of meaning, ...
'If I were to remark that I had a bomb in my shoe, you would have to
take it seriously, wouldn't you?' is only one of numerous remarks
... which escape the prior attempt to codify contextual force."
Oh, so you think so? Airport security and Douglas Hofstadter and
a lot of other people are WAY ahead of you on this one, Jonathan!
( It's a "GOD Over Djin" type of sign, I should think. )
There is a strong sort of cybernetic component to this stuff, and
I think the pond scum is floating a little light in this area.
Their hearts are in the right place, though, I think.
Well, I could go on ...
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Katherine M. Catmull
>I'll buy that - now define the "modernist" movement. :<) Part of my objection
Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed
upon the world. How unpleasant it is when memory mixes with desire.
Stuff like that.
--Kathy
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ka...@cactus.org OR cs.utexas.edu!peyote!kate OR ka...@peyote.uucp
"Too fearful to assume himself the onus of a decision, said Mr. Hackett,
he refers it to the frigid machinery of a time-space relation."
Samuel Beckett, Watt
Joan Shields
>repn...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes:
>>
>>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and
>>"codependent." How about you all?
>
>I suspect that, if I ever figured out just what "codependent" means,
>I would dislike it. The more obvious meaning seems somehow ...
>desirable, to the point I don't see what the huhu's about.
>
>Every time someone says "dysfuntional" to me, I have the desire to
>say, "No, that's `bifunctional'."
When this thread first emerged I laughed at the various words and phrases
being offered - yes, in a somewhat, oh hell, the truth - in a very smug
manner. On my high horse I knew that *I* would never use them and that
anyone who did was an uncouth idiot. So, when words like "co-dependent"
and "dysfunctional" were offered up for ridicule I found myself in a
quandry. My first thought was to flame as I have never flamed before but,
I realized that in many respects it's true. Those two words, as well as
other words like addiction, abuse, recovery, enabler have been watered
down to the point where they've begun to loose any meaning and pick up
some odd connotations. "Co-dependency" is a word bandied about quite
freely but the meaning is often ignored. In terms of addiction it refers
to the people living with and around the addict. It's easy to toss it
aside but to people who are in the middle of a very sick relationship it's
a very devestating thing. "Dysfunctional" is rather new to the addiction
game - while it may be true that 90 - 95% of families are "dysfunctional"
there are degrees of (if I may) dysfunctionality that probably fall in the
old bell-curve distribution. The right 5% are very healthy families while
the left 5% are very sick families. It's one thing to say that Junior
was hyperactive which caused a lot of difficulties in the family and
another thing to have Daddy drunk all the time screwing his five year old
daughter while Mummy is terrified that she's going to be killed or that
she was the cause of the whole mess all the while presenting a good front
and hoping no one will notice. Two families, both dysfunctional -
seperated by degree of (again) dysfunctionality - unfortunately, I'm not
exaggerating with my examples.
Words have meanings which we like to ignore at times (me included). Yes,
some - no, many words have been bastardized and altered to suit trends and
fads but some of them did once have real meanings and still mean something
very important to a few of us. Still...
Joan
A. Jing Hippy
|> > (Janet M. Lafler) writes:
|> >>
|> >>dependent."
|> >>
|> >>How about you all?
|>
|> >
|> >How about a phrase: "...for children of all ages." This has
|> >a dentist drill effect on my mind.
|>
|> or, my favorite: using "anymore" for "nowadays"
|> as in, "Anymore I use my word processor instead of a typewriter."
AH! The use of the word "everyday" to mean "each day" just gripes me. A
grocery store near my house advertises "Low Prices Everyday". My thesaurus
tells me that this makes as much sense as "Low Prices Commonplace".
+------------------------------------------------------+
|Dave Cochran (coc...@spam.rtp.dg.com) |
|Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC |
+------------------------------------------------------+
|"I'm a virgin, I'm just not very good at it." |
| --Valeria Golino, "Hot Shots" |
+------------------------------------------------------+
wug...@wums2.wustl.edu
> epigrams ( or something ) flipped it open and beheld: "There is
> a vivacity which increases with age which verges on madness."
> OK, so it's just "Middle Age Crazy" but I do go for all the
> little coincidences and puns and twists and everything else
> that make up "the life of the mind" ( Barton Fink there - go see it.)
> Like just last night I was coming back from , uh, the bookstore and
> what do my headlights reveal but ORT right there on a license plate.
>
For more on this, check out "Repo Man".
Dan Flasar
Joan Shields
>In article <1991Sep24....@milton.u.washington.edu> tw...@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>>
>>Ah-ha! -you are obviously a victim (victim-victim-VICtim) of
>>literature about twelve-step programs.
>
>
>--Mike
You know, Mike, you really don't know how RIGHT you are! I realize it was
a joke but you really are right. Imagine that :).
Just out of curiosity - how many people have actually *read* any of the 12
step literature? I don't mean critiques of it or analysis of it but the
actual original source? For instance there's _Alcoholics Anonymous_ and
_Narcotics Anonymous_ and for a really good explanation of the 12-steps
_Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions_ (yea, there are 12 of them too but
most "normies" don't hear about them) ISBN 0-916856-06-2. Most libraries
have the first two but the last might be a bit difficult to get unless you
special order it or find someone who has one. Interesting reading.
Joan
Matt Austern
> There really was such a thing as Modernism, Subrata. It's not simply
> a synonym for "recent" or "contemporary" or "trendy". Unfortunately,
> there are several overlapping things that go under that term. One
> denotes art since, roughly, Impressionism; another, art and letters
> since, roughly, the turn of the century. There are other definitions
> as well. It's a complex thing, to which justice can't really be done
> in a brief posting, but think Picasso, Kandinsky, Gertrude Stein,
> Beckett, Hemingway, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and
> suchlike people and you have a glimmering of the high flowering of
> Modernism.
That's more or less my problem with the phrase "post-modernism,"
though. Those names you listed do seem to me to make up a sort of
unified whole. Oh, it's a vague sort of unity, but those names seem
to more or less fit together: it's clear, when looking at them, that
there really was a modernist movement.
Now what can we say about post-modernism? It consists of people who
came after the modernist movement, and who were in some way responding
to it, but that's the only common element I can find among people who
are described as post-modern. In other words, I'm not convinced that
there really is any such thing as a post-modernist movement.
--
Matt Austern ma...@physics.berkeley.edu What if everything is an illusion
(415) 644-2618 aus...@lbl.bitnet and nothing exists? In that case,
aus...@theorm.lbl.gov I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
John McCarthy
a man being hanged from the bridge imagines while falling
that the rope broke and he made his way home? At the
end, the reader learns that the rope didn't break.
Who is the author - perhaps Stephen Crane? The story I
mentioned was read to us in an English class in about
the 9th grade.
--
If everyone were to live for others all the time, life would be like a
procession of ants following each other around in a circle.
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
Nancy Kemp
(R o d Johnson) writes:
Thank you, Rod!
While I agree that terms like "dysfunctional" and "codependent" are
often misused these days, that doesn't mean that dysfunctional families
are not real. Those of you bragging about your "normal" and "happily
malfunctional" families might take a moment to thank your lucky stars -
and remember there are those of us not so fortunate.
William Smith
>"Dysfunctional" is rather new to the addiction
>game - while it may be true that 90 - 95% of families are "dysfunctional"
>there are degrees of (if I may) dysfunctionality that probably fall in the
>old bell-curve distribution. The right 5% are very healthy families while
>the left 5% are very sick families. It's one thing to say that Junior
>was hyperactive which caused a lot of difficulties in the family and
>another thing to have Daddy drunk all the time screwing his five year old
>daughter while Mummy is terrified that she's going to be killed or that
>she was the cause of the whole mess all the while presenting a good front
>and hoping no one will notice. Two families, both dysfunctional -
>seperated by degree of (again) dysfunctionality - unfortunately, I'm not
>exaggerating with my examples.
>
>Words have meanings which we like to ignore at times (me included).
I came across a definition of "dysfunctional" in a pop psychology book
once. I can look up the book if needed. It may even have been recommended
by the substance treatment center where a member of my family went.
There dysfunctional meant a situation where one or more of the parents
was physically or emotionally absent. That was an eye opener for me.
My father was physically present, but emotionally out-to-lunch when
it came to the family. I had the feeling he would rather be anywhere
else, and often lived in the workshop evening after evening. He would
go to movies by himself after dinner while we did dishes and homework.
As a teen-ager with outside jobs and school, I once went 3 or 4 weeks
without seeing my father even though we lived in the same house.
I also discovered that I was passing on similar situations to my
children. I was an emotional cripple and passed along this aloof,
distant manner to my sons. They are both as terrified of commitment
in relations as I was.
William Smith
Tek Wilsonville
Joan Shields
Actually, it started out as a nice way of saying "very fucked up, sick,
dangerous sort of family we grew up in". The pschologists who first tried
to convince us that it really wasn't that bad and that getting beaten to an
inch of your life built character but who later on realized it really
wasn't that much fun stole it then passed it on to the social workers
telling them they (the psychologist. that is) coined the word. :)
But seriously, has anyone bothered to look up the word yet? Hm?
Joan
parme...@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu
>
> When I had to read Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION for
> one of my Philosophy classes (way back when), I had a copy where
> someone had underlined the "paradigm" EVERY time he used it. There were
> pages with 30-40 uses.
>
Reminds me of a western civ prof I had back when. He was a monotone
lecturer and we got so bored we started counting 'ums' and 'ahs', but lost
track around 75 partway through a 50 minute lecture.
--
___ Gregg Parmentier ____ parme...@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu ___
"I waited in the dim hallway on a high-backed Spanish
chair which Torquemada had made with his own hands."
Ross Macdonald - Black Money
Mark Taranto
> utilize
> facilitate
> orientate
Hey, "orientate" is a perfectly good word. Although, whenever anyone
asks me if I want to orientate myself, I do wonder why they want me
to face Mecca.
My least favorite?
Sports announcers use of "defence" instead of
"defend against."
(Sorry -- should I have said when sports announcers
utilize . . . .)
Paradigm
When I had to read Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION for
one of my Philosophy classes (way back when), I had a copy where
someone had underlined the "paradigm" EVERY time he used it. There were
pages with 30-40 uses.
Mark Taranto
Duncan Peter G. Thornton
>In article <10...@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjoh...@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:
>> There really was such a thing as Modernism, Subrata. It's not simply
>> a synonym for "recent" or "contemporary" or "trendy". Unfortunately,
>> there are several overlapping things that go under that term. One
>> denotes art since, roughly, Impressionism; another, art and letters
>> since, roughly, the turn of the century. There are other definitions
>> as well. It's a complex thing, to which justice can't really be done
>> in a brief posting, but think Picasso, Kandinsky, Gertrude Stein,
>> Beckett, Hemingway, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and
>> suchlike people and you have a glimmering of the high flowering of
>> Modernism.
>That's more or less my problem with the phrase "post-modernism,"
>though. Those names you listed do seem to me to make up a sort of
>unified whole. Oh, it's a vague sort of unity, but those names seem
>to more or less fit together: it's clear, when looking at them, that
>there really was a modernist movement.
>Now what can we say about post-modernism? It consists of people who
>came after the modernist movement, and who were in some way responding
>to it, but that's the only common element I can find among people who
>are described as post-modern. In other words, I'm not convinced that
>there really is any such thing as a post-modernist movement.
Well, I know lots of po-mo heads who really _do_ feel they belong to a
global, pan-disciplinary movement, though one without the cohesion of
(and necessarily more fragmented than) the modernist movement. To
boil down what they claim as the spirit of the movement, it is the
mistrust of grand explanatory schemes and explanations
("meta-narratives"); to grotesquely simplify, the modernists wanted to
make a new way to think about the world, the post-modernists want to
throw over the notion of the possibility of any common way to think
about the world (and thus think that the best we can do is play with
elements of previous systems).
I'm hardly an expert in either of these fields, but when you think of
the common mixing of genres in po-mo literature and the mixing of
historical styles in po-mo architecture, I think there really is a
similar drive at work.
- Duncan
Duncan Thornton | An odd thought strikes me - we shall receive no
tho...@ccu.umanitoba.ca | email in the grave.
John McCarthy
--
Equality of the sexes is more important than equality of the genders.
Joel J. Hanes
>
>As kids -- there were seven of us -- we realized early on that our family
>was malfunctional, and we liked it that way. There was something entirely
>sickening about some of the more perfect models that surrounded us. While
>they were reading *Little Lord Fauntleroy* we were diving into Dostoevsky.
> Philophunk
So who wrote the short story, "The Duchess and the Smugs"?
My 9th-grade English teacher, (the best teacher I encountered
in 20 years of formal schooling) had us read this -- as I remember,
it relates the struggle of an intelligent, worldly-beyond-
her-years child who envies the insipid "normal" neighbor family.
[ A short moment of silence in respect for the memory of
this teacher, "Black" Jack MacDougall, who treated us as
a pack of brigands and terrorists. We loved it. ]
He had us read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", (somebody's)
"The Great Automatic Gramatisator", "Incident at Owl Creek Bridge",
and poems like "My Last Duchess" and Frost's "Design" --
I gotta find some of these and read them again ...
---
Joel Hanes
Duncan Peter G. Thornton
>Is _Incident at Owl Creek Bridge_ a Civil War story in which
>a man being hanged from the bridge imagines while falling
>that the rope broke and he made his way home? At the
>end, the reader learns that the rope didn't break.
Yes.
>Who is the author - perhaps Stephen Crane? The story I
>mentioned was read to us in an English class in about
>the 9th grade.
Ambrose Bierce.
Doug Philips
repn...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes:
>My least favorite words (these days, anyway) are "dysfunctional" and "co-
>dependent."
>
>How about you all?
"Delightment" from the Wrigley's gum commercials (i've blocked out
exactly how they use it.)
-Doug
Roger Lustig
>Is _Incident at Owl Creek Bridge_ a Civil War story in which
>a man being hanged from the bridge imagines while falling
>that the rope broke and he made his way home? At the
>end, the reader learns that the rope didn't break.
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, but otherwise, yes.
Now, about spoilers...8-)
>Who is the author - perhaps Stephen Crane? The story I
>mentioned was read to us in an English class in about
>the 9th grade.
Ambrose Bierce.
Roger
Subrata Sircar
>Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed
>upon the world. How unpleasant it is when memory mixes with desire.
Wait, I thought it went: :<)
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
But the point is taken (or is it moot? :<)
--
Subrata Sircar | sksi...@phoenix.princeton.edu |Prophet& SPAMIT Charter Member
I don't speak for Princeton, and they don't speak for me.
/EARTH is 98% full. Please delete anyone you can.
"The voters have spoken, the bastards..."
R o d Johnson
>When I had to read Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION for
>one of my Philosophy classes (way back when), I had a copy where
>someone had underlined the "paradigm" EVERY time he used it. There were
>pages with 30-40 uses.
Isn't this rather like complining because your algebra book uses the
word "equal" too much, or your chemistry book uses the word "ion" too
much? I mean, "paradigm" is one of Kuhn's two or three key technical
terms--of course he's going to depend heavily on it.
Richard P. Muller
>mtar...@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) sez:
>
>>When I had to read Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION for
>>one of my Philosophy classes (way back when), I had a copy where
>>someone had underlined the "paradigm" EVERY time he used it. There were
>>pages with 30-40 uses.
>
>Isn't this rather like complining because your algebra book uses the
>word "equal" too much, or your chemistry book uses the word "ion" too
>much? I mean, "paradigm" is one of Kuhn's two or three key technical
>terms--of course he's going to depend heavily on it.
>
criticized for the variety of ways in which he used the word (someone
counted 110 different uses of the word in SOSR!). He now uses the term
'disciplinary matrix' for the same idea. I'm not sure he wins anything
by the change myself.
John McCarthy
For a while every other dissertation proposed one.
However, the height of something or other was in a technical report
by one of my colleagues entitled something like _Five Paradigms in
Computer Programming_.
Jim Kasprzak
>
>From The Metamorphosis: "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from
>unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous
>vermin."
>
>Now, I can see how going to bed as a salesman and waking up as a vermin
>might upset someone (and I can see how an outside observer might be
>hard pressed to tell the difference), but Samsa's refusal to act
>sensibly defies even the most compassionate understanding. When
>confronted with this unique opportunity to lollygag, his immediate
>reaction is to flail his various appendages in an attempt to get up and
>go to work. What gives? Is this a Kafkaesque indictment of the
>Protestant work ethic? Or is it just a delicious, madcap romp of a
>story? Or is it a blistering indictment of travelling salesmen?
I'm surprised no one has given an answer to this. I'll give it my best
shot and hope that the true scholars on here (you know who you are)
don't totally trash my amateur analysis.
When I first read "The Metamorphosis", I asked a question similar to
the one Bryan asks. Why, I wondered, does everyone in the story,
including Gregor, go right on trying to live life as usual even though
Gregor has obviously changed so drastically as to render this
completely as possible? No one even stops to ask the obvious (to me,
anyhow) question: how, and why, has Gregor been turned into a roach?
They're not denying the metamorphosis, but they're doing absolutely
nothing to question it.
After thinking about it for a while, I figured that this might very
well be one of the main points that Kafka was trying to make.
Metamorphoses of one sort or another happen to people all the time.
I don't know anyone who's turned into a bug overnight, but people
often do undergo sudden, drastic changes in themselves, discovering
that they're no longer who they were, or thought they were, for all
of their life up to that point. And how do they usually react to it?
Kafka got it right. They acknowledge that they've changed, because
it's so blatantly obvious as to be undeniable, but they blindly (and
uselessly) push ahead trying to do all the things they used to do
before the change, assuming that this change in themselves is
irrelevant to anything else in their life. And what happens to them
in the end? Kafka got that right, too.
I think this is a reasonable interpretation. I just hope it's not
so obvious that everyone but Bryan and myself realized it already
and will think, "so what took you so long to figure out something
so simple?" (-:
------------------------------------------------------------------
__ Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Disclaimer: RPI pays me to work, not to think.
\_| "A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission" -Rush
==== e-mail: kas...@rpi.edu or kasp...@mts.rpi.edu
Bryan Solie
>Paradigm *was* one of Kuhn's two or three key technical words. He got
>criticized for the variety of ways in which he used the word (someone
>counted 110 different uses of the word in SOSR!). He now uses the term
>'disciplinary matrix' for the same idea. I'm not sure he wins anything
>by the change myself.
I'd go so far as to say he loses a great deal by it.
"Disciplinary matrix." Sheesh. At least "paradigm" makes sense. We should
count ourselves luck that "paradigmatic" hasn't reared its ugly head.
BTW: Trying to find a synonym for paradigm, I looked up "rubric."
Admittedly, the dictionary I used isn't the strongest (Random House
paperback), but all it had to say was:
1. a title or heading in an early manuscript or book, written or
printed in red. 2. a direction for the conduct of religious services
inserted in liturgical books.
Now, somewhere along the line I have gotten the idea that rubric can be
used as a rough synonym for "set of circumstances." As in "How do I go
about this task within this rubric." Ditto for Kuhn's "paradigm." Has
anybody else seen this usage for "rubric," and does anyone know where I
might have gotten the notion?
--
Bryan
Sharon Foster
> was malfunctional, and we liked it that way. There was something entirely
> sickening about some of the more perfect models that surrounded us. While
> they were reading *Little Lord Fauntleroy* we were diving into Dostoevsky.
> for blue collar families that don't share their own social, ethical, and
> moral standards.
>
>
>
I'm happy for you that you don't understand what "dysfunctional"
means, but please don't ridicule it. Your family was not
"malfunctional". In a dysfunctional family, no one would *care*
what you were reading.
--
/* Sharon Foster....First Generation Trekkie * fos...@gdc.com */
/* These are my own Biased Personal Opinions (tm) and no one else's! */
/* "Nuclear weapons don't kill people; people kill people." */
Jan Yarnot
unwilling to believe that kafka didn't realize he had TB till long after
he wrote this story.
If you suddenly become aware that you have a terminal illness (other than
"life", that is) I am sure you feel like vermin. But it could well be that
your loved ones don't notice.
--
---Jan Yarnot, net.grandma.sad--- A dissolute native of Sacramento died
and went to Hell, but he had to come back
to get a sweater, because he was cold.
CSUS depends on my every word. ---a tale by Mark Twain
Bryan Solie
>In article <57...@ut-emx.uucp> bry...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Bryan Solie) writes:
[a silly nothing about Kafka's Metamorphosis. "Silly" is my appraisal, not
Jim's]
> When I first read "The Metamorphosis", I asked a question similar to
>the one Bryan asks. Why, I wondered, does everyone in the story,
>including Gregor, go right on trying to live life as usual even though
>Gregor has obviously changed so drastically as to render this
>completely as possible? No one even stops to ask the obvious (to me,
>anyhow) question: how, and why, has Gregor been turned into a roach?
>They're not denying the metamorphosis, but they're doing absolutely
>nothing to question it.
I ask you, if YOU had a salesman in YOUR family, and that salesman were
suddenly turned into a roach, would YOU ask questions? I wouldn't. You
might jinx your luck, and he'd turn back into a salesman.
Certainly, having a vermin for kin is a blotch on the family tree, but
consider the alternative...
> After thinking about it for a while, I figured that this might very
>well be one of the main points that Kafka was trying to make.
>Metamorphoses of one sort or another happen to people all the time.
[stuff deleted]
>And how do they usually react to it?
>Kafka got it right. They acknowledge that they've changed, because
>it's so blatantly obvious as to be undeniable, but they blindly (and
>uselessly) push ahead trying to do all the things they used to do
>before the change, assuming that this change in themselves is
>irrelevant to anything else in their life. And what happens to them
>in the end? Kafka got that right, too.
>
> I think this is a reasonable interpretation. I just hope it's not
>so obvious that everyone but Bryan and myself realized it already
>and will think, "so what took you so long to figure out something
>so simple?" (-:
Uh-huh. Yeah. Right.
I think it's gonna be a tough crowd.
Look, my hunch is Franz had one too many guys banging on his door peddling
Hoovers. That and his secret vice, cold pizza before bed, birthed this
story.
Smileys throughout. Books are too much fun to be taken seriously all the
time.
--
Bryan
Steve Bougerolle
>"Disciplinary matrix." Sheesh. At least "paradigm" makes sense. We should
>count ourselves luck that "paradigmatic" hasn't reared its ugly head.
<a bit more seemingly non-conclusive stuff>
While giving a talk here about debunking, James Randi had this to say about
pseudo-intellectuals and the term `paradigm':
"These people like to use the word `paradigm' because they don't know what
it means and neither does anybody else."
I have yet to hear a better explanation of the word.
(That's not an EXACT quote by the way, but close enough).
--
_|\ |V| /|_ Steve Bougerolle, U. of British Columbia Physics Dept.
\ \| |/ / and the OPAL experiment, CERN, Geneva CH
>_______< STE...@CERNVAX.UUCP STE...@CERNVM.CERN.CH
! STE...@SLACSLD.BITNET 45388::STEVEB (HEPnet)
guil...@otago.ac.nz
> While giving a talk here about debunking, James Randi had this to say about
> pseudo-intellectuals and the term `paradigm':
>
> "These people like to use the word `paradigm' because they don't know what
> it means and neither does anybody else."
>
> I have yet to hear a better explanation of the word.
Along (vaguely) similar lines, what about `energy?' It seems to get used
by the new age movement (borrowing from physics) to mean what physics means
by `work.' As best I can tell, anyway.
Bill Guilford
Jeffrey Davis
>It was so obvious to me what the cockroach symbolized that I am *still*
>unwilling to believe that kafka didn't realize he had TB till long after
>he wrote this story.
>
>If you suddenly become aware that you have a terminal illness (other than
>"life", that is) I am sure you feel like vermin. But it could well be that
>your loved ones don't notice.
>
1) Kafka wrote "The Metamorphosis" as a farce...along the lines of a Buster
Keaton story. When he read it at the cafe to his friends, they roared
with laughter.
2) The story has antecedents, most notably a story by Robert Walser about a
couple who have a child with a jack o'lantern for a head. It has also
had children: Stuart Little by E.B. White. I imagine there are others.
(And when I add that Kafka wasn't the melancholic anti-social mope he once
was universally imagined to have been, I have exhausted my Kafka lore. John
Updike wrote a lot about Kafka several years ago...you too can be a quick
study Kafka master! I like Updike's essays better than his novels, and
there's a collection of them...I think the title is Hugging the Shore.)
--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@keats.ca.uky.edu>
Sir, I Ham a very Bad Hand at Righting....
Roger Lustig
>> While giving a talk here about debunking, James Randi had this to say about
>> pseudo-intellectuals and the term `paradigm':
>> "These people like to use the word `paradigm' because they don't know what
>> it means and neither does anybody else."
>> I have yet to hear a better explanation of the word.
Well, there are plenty of perfectly obvious meanings of "paradigm," so
there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the
other hand, Kuhn himself has been heard to say that he was sorry he ever
brought the word into its new currency, because people DO use it for all
kinds of things that aren't his meaning, even though they think they ARE
using it in his sense. He himself used it in several (related) ways;
there are articles that discuss his and other people's uses of the word.
Randi probably objects to the fact that the bullshitters he meets like
to camouflage their nonsense with arguments along the line of "it's all
relative, and Thomas Kuhn says so."
Roger
Joel J. Hanes
>
> > utilize
> > facilitate
> > orientate
>
mtar...@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>Hey, "orientate" is a perfectly good word. Although, whenever anyone
>asks me if I want to orientate myself, I do wonder why they want me
>to face Mecca.
>
Why not use "orient"? (Or "align" for the transitive sense.)
The point of my list was that these words are all self-important
puffery, common in bad business writing. Why not:
use instead of utilize
help instead of facilitate
(Try to get a mid-level manager to admit to "helping" rather
than "facilitating"!)
And for "paradigm", Mark's peeve, I often substitute "model".
Ob. book reference: I've got a good start on Pynchon's _Vineland_.
Amazingly different from _Gravity's_Rainbow_, the only other
Pynchon I've read ... and I have this nagging feeling of familiarity,
as if I'd read many similar works. So far it reminds me of
_Been_Down_So_Long_It_Looks_Like_Up_To_Me_ Farina
_The_Folk_Of_The_Air_ Beagle
_Still_Life_With_Woodpecker_ Robbins
_The_Abortion_ Brautigan
_A_Confederate_General_From_Big_Sur Brautigan
_The_Electric_Koolaid_Acid_Test_ Wolfe
It seems this is a list of "Northern California CounterCulture"
books, with a strong Berkeley slant.
---
Joel Hanes
wag...@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
> In article <57...@ut-emx.uucp> bry...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Bryan Solie) writes:
>>
>>From The Metamorphosis: "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from
>>unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous
>>vermin."
>
> I'm surprised no one has given an answer to this. I'll give it my best
> shot and hope that the true scholars on here (you know who you are)
> don't totally trash my amateur analysis.
> how, and why, has Gregor been turned into a roach?
Gregor awoke a beetle, not a roach. Roaches do not
have round carapaces. Catch V. Nabokov's "Lectures on Literature"
for details on this. In the same book, you'll also find
The Correct Way to Think About Books, or at least some really
spiffy ideas about ideas about books.
Luke.
Jan Yarnot
"Please e-mail your answers, as I don't read this group."
An internet-leech, that.
Olaf von Bremen
>
>Least favorite words of mine:
>
>Functionality. Programmers seem to like saying "This programming module has
>the following functionality:" instead of saying "The program does this:"
>
YO! YES.....(shudder).....I've always thought of it as "SalesSpeak"
though....The functionality of our product...blah...blah...blah....
Even worse is finding it in manuals....YUK!
Olaf
_____________________________________________________________________________
Olaf von Bremen | Reality, however one interprets it, lies
SCO Canada Inc. | beyond a screen of cliches. Every culture
130 Bloor St. W. Suite 1001 | produces such a screen, partly to facilitate
Toronto, Ontario, Canada | its own practices and partly to consolidate
Phone : (416) 922-1937 | its own power. Reality is inimical to those
Internet: ol...@scocan.sco.com | with power.
UUCP : uunet!scocan!olafb | - John Berger
John McCarthy
symbolic significance to waking up a beetle but thinking you are a roach.
As J.B.S. Haldane said, quite possibly in another connection, God has
an inordinate fondness for beetles.
Mike Godwin
>
>Ob. book reference: I've got a good start on Pynchon's _Vineland_.
>Amazingly different from _Gravity's_Rainbow_, the only other
>Pynchon I've read ... and I have this nagging feeling of familiarity,
>as if I'd read many similar works. So far it reminds me of
>
>
>It seems this is a list of "Northern California CounterCulture"
>books, with a strong Berkeley slant.
Pynchon is, o course, an admirer of Farina's book. But what makes VINELAND
superior to all of the books you list, it seems to me, is that it shows
some of the hollowness and hypocrisy that lay waiting for complacent
counterculture idealists--hence the immense sense of loss in the book.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"Eros and language mesh at every point. Intercourse
mnem...@eff.org | and discourse, copula and copulation, are sub-classes
(617) 864-0665 | of the dominant fact of communication."
EFF, Cambridge, MA| --George Steiner
INFIDEL
>Well, perhaps he thought he was a roach. I am sure there is an additional
>symbolic significance to waking up a beetle but thinking you are a roach.
In the vein in which Garcia Marquez is a "magical realist", Kafka is a
"supernatural realist" - waking up as a roach describes a state of
mind, of disgust with oneself.
Like it or lump it.
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
John Wojdylo
Department of Mathematics
University of Western Australia
Mark Taranto
Coming to my defence, r...@sgi1.wag.caltech.edu (Richard P. Muller) writes:
>In article <10...@vela.acs.oakland.edu>, rjohnson@vela (R o d Johnson) writes:
>>mtar...@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) sez:
>>
>>>When I had to read Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION for
>>>one of my Philosophy classes (way back when), I had a copy where
>>>someone had underlined the "paradigm" EVERY time he used it. There were
>>>pages with 30-40 uses.
>>
>>Isn't this rather like complining because your algebra book uses the
>>word "equal" too much, or your chemistry book uses the word "ion" too
>>much? I mean, "paradigm" is one of Kuhn's two or three key technical
>>terms--of course he's going to depend heavily on it.
>>
>Paradigm *was* one of Kuhn's two or three key technical words. He got
>criticized for the variety of ways in which he used the word (someone
>counted 110 different uses of the word in SOSR!). He now uses the term
>'disciplinary matrix' for the same idea. I'm not sure he wins anything
>by the change myself.
Yes! This is exactly my problem with "paradigm" in Kuhn's book. I should
have mentioned that his many uses of the word was was what bothered me
so much. 'Disciplinary matrix' is a definite improvement -- sounds
kind of kinky.
Mark Taranto
Doug Moran
The advantage of "paradigm" is that it is shorter than "disciplinary matrix."
The constant drive in the latter half of this century to obstuficate
through polysyllables never ceases to amaze (and, frequently, irritate)
me. Janitor -> maintainence engineer; garbage man -> sanitation engineer;
programmer -> software engineer; tax -> revenue enhancement; shell shock ->
battle fatigue -> delayed reduced stress syndrome (I always get that
last one wrong -- another problem with too many polysyllables).
I remember an interview on the radio with an old civil rights activist,
who was asked what she though of the then-new appelation "african-american."
"It took us 200 years to get it down to 'black,'" she said. She further
opined that she wasn't going to use "african-american," because it made
things more complicated, rather than clarifying them.
So, how about "model" instead of "paradigm?"
--
Doug Moran | I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry
{...}!hal.com!dougm | room of the Landmark Hotel -- but the door was too nar-
do...@hal.com | row, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited.
Doug Moran
>In article <70...@cernvax.cern.ch> ste...@cernvm.cern.ch writes:
>>
>>Least favorite words of mine:
>>
>>Functionality. Programmers seem to like saying "This programming module has
>>the following functionality:" instead of saying "The program does this:"
>>
>
>YO! YES.....(shudder).....I've always thought of it as "SalesSpeak"
>though....The functionality of our product...blah...blah...blah....
>Even worse is finding it in manuals....YUK!
In defense of programmers and tech support people everywhere, I have to
say that there *is* a reason why they talk (and write) this way. No
one is more aware than the programmer of the fact that the program
has undiscovered bugs, bugs that will cause the program's graceful
execution to go awry in unexpected ways. Thus, it is very difficult
to get a programmer to say, "This *will* do this, this *will* do that."
It might not. So you hear, "This *should* do this, this *should* do
that."
By the same token, "functionality" is used. Rather than saying,
"Well, we're pretty sure that the program is going to do this, but
there may be bugs in there that we haven't found yet," you say, "the
program has the following functionality."
It surprises me not a whit that Olaf thinks of it more as a sales-based
issue. Sales people are even more on the line as far as product claims
go. If they say, "The program does *this*," and a customer purchases
the program based on that claim, and the program then turns out to have
a crucial error, the situation gets very sticky indeed.
It may be irritating, and it may be *wrong*, but there *is* a reason
for it.
Trust me on this -- I spend my days translating this stuff into English.
Sharon Foster
>
> So who wrote the short story, "The Duchess and the Smugs"?
>
Yeah! I remember that story! SO, who did write it, netlanders?
Mark Taranto
> utilize
> facilitate
> orientate
I don't like them either and wrote:
>
>Hey, "orientate" is a perfectly good word. Although, whenever anyone
>asks me if I want to orientate myself, I do wonder why they want me
>to face Mecca.
>
Joel did not quite get my joke and wrote:
>Why not use "orient"? (Or "align" for the transitive sense.)
I guess it is my own fault -- I suppose that I'll have to break down
and start using smileys.
I was hoping that I would not have to explain it.
Many people use "orientate" when they mean "orient." I used to think that
there was no such word as "orientate" -- but found out that it is a word
which has a very different meaning from "orient." In particular, it
is a verb which is used for the act of turning oneself toward Mecca
for the purpose of praying.
There are several words that are misused frequently. When I hear someone
say "Why don't you orientate yourself?", I know what they mean, but
think to myself "Why should I face Mecca." I'm not so snotty to say
this to them.
Another word that bothers me like ihis is momentarily. Too many people
use it instead of "presently" (which in turn is used instead of currently).
I don't usually mind this in common speach (though I must admit it bothers me
in books). I Think I've mentioned this before, but the only place where
it REALLY bothers me is in a plane when the pilot says "We'll be in the
air momentarily." I want to yell out "NO! I want the plane to stay in the
air a little longer."
Mark Taranto
Matt Austern
> Pynchon is, o course, an admirer of Farina's book. But what makes VINELAND
> superior to all of the books you list, it seems to me, is that it shows
> some of the hollowness and hypocrisy that lay waiting for complacent
> counterculture idealists--hence the immense sense of loss in the book.
Hypocrisy? I wouldn't have used that word to describe the characters
in Vineland. Corruption, yes, but that's something different. (And
also irrelevance: "You never understood the Tube.")
I certainly agree, though, about the sense of loss.
--
Matt Austern ma...@physics.berkeley.edu What if everything is an illusion
(415) 644-2618 aus...@lbl.bitnet and nothing exists? In that case,
aus...@theorm.lbl.gov I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
Mike Godwin
>
>Hypocrisy? I wouldn't have used that word to describe the characters
>in Vineland. Corruption, yes, but that's something different. (And
>also irrelevance: "You never understood the Tube.")
There's plenty of both, it seems to me, with hypocrisy both following from
and leading to corruption. But some characters are uncorrupted and
unhypocritical, too.
Kenny Chaffin
>So, how about "model" instead of "paradigm?"
The problem with model is that a paradigm is more than just a model.
A paradigm is a way of viewing the world and the person doing the viewing
by definition is unaware of the paradigm until it changes.
KAC
It's a little known fact that Alexander Graham Bell is the
father of the Skyscraper.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Kenny A. Chaffin {...boulder}!uswat!ken
U S WEST Advanced Technologies k...@dakota.uswat.com
4001 Discovery Drive (303) 541-6355
Suite 2100
Boulder, CO 80303
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Jeff Dalton
>Many people use "orientate" when they mean "orient."
For what it's worth, this seems to be typical in the UK.
(Along with "different ... to".) For no particularly
good reason, I find both annoying.
Jon Berger
>>
>>Least favorite words of mine:
>>
>>Functionality. Programmers seem to like saying "This programming module has
>>the following functionality:" instead of saying "The program does this:"
>>
>
>YO! YES.....(shudder).....I've always thought of it as "SalesSpeak"
>though....The functionality of our product...blah...blah...blah....
>Even worse is finding it in manuals....YUK!
Speaking of programmerSpeak, my father, the word maven, pointed out to me
that the word "initialize" is not only jargon, but has no real meaning in
non-technical English. It isn't possible to initialize anything in the
real world, in the sense of restoring it to a state that is
indistinguishable from its original state, but it is possible to do this
with a computer program.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Berger jo...@ingres.com {mtxinu,sun,amdahl,pyramid}!ingres!jonb
"Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we're all drawings." -- B. Kliban
Subrata Sircar
>Speaking of programmerSpeak, my father, the word maven, pointed out to me
Was your mother another word (the word magpie)? :<)
>that the word "initialize" is not only jargon, but has no real meaning in
>non-technical English. It isn't possible to initialize anything in the
>real world, in the sense of restoring it to a state that is
>indistinguishable from its original state, but it is possible to do this
>with a computer program.
On the other hand, you can initialize something to a *known* state, where
known is used in a pseudo-operational sense ("I know certain aspects of this
state very well, and I hope the aspects I don't know have no affect on what
I'm going to do next ...").
--
Subrata Sircar |sksi...@phoenix.princeton.edu|Prophet & SPAMIT Charter Member
I don't speak for Princeton, and they don't speak for me.
/EARTH is 98% full. Please delete anyone you can.
"The voters have spoken, the bastards..."
Lisa S Chabot
...
>orientate
I used to hate this word, too, until I ran across it
in a Judge Dee novel. Now I'll admit it has some valid uses.
--
In times of stress, remember to keep your bowler on
and watch out for criminal masterminds.
Lisa S Chabot
I...I--my fingers itch for throats whenever I read
Thanks in advance
or the more loathsome
TIA
I'm also sick and tired of "verbing" and its vile
little jargonaut children:
"Instead of having layoffs, we're going to wait and see who
attritts."
"That feature obsoleted with Release 14.972.01."
"We decided to gift her with a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday."
I know English is a lovely, flexibilizing language, but
don't you hate what I just did?
wug...@wums2.wustl.edu
>
> Like it or lump it.
>
it means, essentially, tough shit. But what possible origin could it have had?
How do you "lump" something? I've heard of lumping things together, which
doesn't seem to have any connection, lumps of sugar, ditto, and taking your
lumps, which does seem to share connotations, as in having to do something you
don't like to do.
Any lump gurus out there?
Dan Flasar
Wash. U. School of Med.
St. Louis, MO USA
parme...@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu
> In article <1991Oct1.0...@uniwa.uwa.oz.au>, inf...@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL) writes:
>>
>> Like it or lump it.
>>
> Ok, I've heard this expression a million times, and I know from context that
> it means, essentially, tough shit. But what possible origin could it have had?
> How do you "lump" something? I've heard of lumping things together, which
> doesn't seem to have any connection, lumps of sugar, ditto, and taking your
> lumps, which does seem to share connotations, as in having to do something you
> don't like to do.
According to my Funk and Wagnalls:
Verb definition number 4:
******
[Pop.] To put up with, endure; as, like it or lump it.
******
The correspondence here is, I believe, to the noun definition 'a mass of
things thrown together', like it or take it with everything else as a lump.
--
___ Gregg Parmentier ____ parme...@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu ___
"I waited in the dim hallway on a high-backed Spanish
chair which Torquemada had made with his own hands."
Ross Macdonald - Black Money
Joel B Levin
~~I...I--my fingers itch for throats whenever I read
~~ Thanks in advance
~~I'm also sick and tired of "verbing" and its vile
~~little jargonaut children:
~~ "Instead of having layoffs, we're going to wait and see who
~~ attritts."
~~ "That feature obsoleted with Release 14.972.01."
~~ "We decided to gift her with a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday."
~~I know English is a lovely, flexibilizing language, but
Lisa:
Thanks for scritching your fingernails across my electronic blackboard.
Regards / JBL
=
Nets: le...@bbn.com | "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's
or {...}!bbn!levin | bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she
POTS: (617)873-3463 | stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."
Douglas Harper
]BTW: Trying to find a synonym for paradigm, I looked up "rubric."
]Admittedly, the dictionary I used isn't the strongest (Random House
]paperback), but all it had to say was:
]
] 1. a title or heading in an early manuscript or book, written or
] printed in red. 2. a direction for the conduct of religious services
] inserted in liturgical books.
]
]Now, somewhere along the line I have gotten the idea that rubric can be
]used as a rough synonym for "set of circumstances." As in "How do I go
]about this task within this rubric." Ditto for Kuhn's "paradigm." Has
]anybody else seen this usage for "rubric," and does anyone know where I
]might have gotten the notion?
I suspect that underlying this notion is the phrase "under the rubric
of ___". Things that can be classified together are under the same
rubric in some real or imagined manuscript.
--
Douglas Harper | "'What is your conceptual continuity?'
| 'Well, I told him right then,' Fido said,
| 'it should be easy to see. The crux of the
har...@oracorp.com | biscuit is the apostrophe'". -- FZ
John Costello
>
>I...I--my fingers itch for throats whenever I read
>
> Thanks in advance
I do this sometimes, even though it sounds hollow....
(I guess that means I should go read Faulkner as punishment... :->
>or the more loathsome
>
> TIA
"Martha! Get me my gun!" (Actually, I've never seen it, which is a good
thing. Martha, BTW, probably would shoot the person using "TIA" and
then me for that last comment, and I can't blame her.)
>
>I'm also sick and tired of "verbing" and its vile
>little jargonaut children:
>
> "Instead of having layoffs, we're going to wait and see who
> attritts."
>
> "That feature obsoleted with Release 14.972.01."
>
> "We decided to gift her with a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday."
>
>I know English is a lovely, flexibilizing language, but
>don't you hate what I just did?
AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! YES! If I or anyone
I knew did that, I would club them with the complete works of Milton (fairly
hefty book). God! Don't DO That. You've probably sent several people into
conniptions!
>
>--
>In times of stress, remember to keep your bowler on
>and watch out for criminal masterminds.
I prefer a good pipe and the violin.....
(Hope people take this with a grain of salt....)
Cos
"Surrender, Dorothy!"
Subrata Sircar
>little jargonaut children:
> "We decided to gift her with a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday."
>I know English is a lovely, flexibilizing language, but
>don't you hate what I just did?
Actually, this last one I rather like; I must be reading too many fantasy
novels. The others seems like modern "shorten-the-words-to-seem-trendy"
jargon, while "gift" has an older flavor.
As far as "post-modern", I feel vindicated; Matt Groening has included it
in his first list of modern vile words in "How to Go to Hell", his latest
book. Talk about citing the ultimate authority :<)