Watching on

[phil]

In a BBC news item about the Artemis rocket: "Nasa’s astronauts watched on".

I'd normally say "looked on" and I'd regard "watched" as roughly
equivalent to "looked on", so "watched on" feels a bit odd. The usage
seems to have increased in media reports lately. Is this a pondian
difference?

[Paul Wolff]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022, at 11:28:31, phil posted:

It's another symptom of the English preposition proliferation disease.
Hey, you, get off of my cloud!
--
Paul W

[Quinn C]

* phil:

To me, "watch on" carries a nuance of "unable to intervene":

| The Queen's 'favourite' pony watched on as the Monarch's coffin was
| brought to Windsor Castle

| CROWDS watched on as a classic Ferrari smashed into a wall

--
For some reason, we wanna know. Food, shelter, water, and can I fuck
you? And are you a threat? It's this weird thing that people kinda have
to be unwired from.
-- Rain Dove

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 1:40:49 PM UTC-5, Quinn C wrote:
> * phil:

> > In a BBC news item about the Artemis rocket: "Nasa’s astronauts watched on".
> > I'd normally say "looked on" and I'd regard "watched" as roughly
> > equivalent to "looked on", so "watched on" feels a bit odd. The usage
> > seems to have increased in media reports lately. Is this a pondian
> > difference?
>
> To me, "watch on" carries a nuance of "unable to intervene":

Not in the pony example, but yes in the car crash.

> | The Queen's 'favourite' pony watched on as the Monarch's coffin was
> | brought to Windsor Castle
>
> | CROWDS watched on as a classic Ferrari smashed into a wall

We've just discovered yet another Briticism! AmE "looked on." Which
is more intent than simply "watched." We have "onlookers" -- do they
have "onwatchers"?

But the car crash one would be watched (watched in horror), not
looked on in horror.

[Paul Wolff]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022, at 12:40:42, Paul Wolff posted:

There are plenty of them once you start looking. In the early words of
the Introduction to /Immune/, a popular book by Philipp [sic] Dettmer,
you may read "I had learned how hard of a job this was for my immune
cells". How hard /of/ a job? Really?
--
Paul

[Paul Wolff]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022, at 13:40:43, Quinn C posted:

>* phil:
>
>> In a BBC news item about the Artemis rocket: "Nasa’s astronauts
>>watched on".
>>
>> I'd normally say "looked on" and I'd regard "watched" as roughly
>> equivalent to "looked on", so "watched on" feels a bit odd. The usage
>> seems to have increased in media reports lately. Is this a pondian
>> difference?
>
>To me, "watch on" carries a nuance of "unable to intervene":
>
>| The Queen's 'favourite' pony watched on as the Monarch's coffin was
>| brought to Windsor Castle
>
>| CROWDS watched on as a classic Ferrari smashed into a wall
>

To me, 'watched on' means 'continued to watch' after something had
happened - it being understood that other people might well have stopped
watching in those same circumstances.
--
Paul

[phil]

We don't have "onwatchers" -- or at least, I haven't seen it used yet.

>
> But the car crash one would be watched (watched in horror), not
> looked on in horror.

Either of those, I'd say, but not "Crowds watched on as...", nor "Crowds
watched on the crash...".

"Look on [something]" feels a bit niche
"Look on this as a warning"
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair".

[Jerry Friedman]

That wouldn't surprise me in unedited writing by an American, but it does
from a German who lives in Germany. I don't see anything at his Web
page that says he ever lived the U.S.

https://www.philippdettmer.net/about

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

Where I just noticed another Americanism, this one a symptom of the
English preposition disappearance disease:

"Graduated Munich University of Applied Sciences where he studied
Communications Design."

(But I think an American would still say "Communication Design".)

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

On 17/11/22 07:23, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> Where I just noticed another Americanism, this one a symptom of the
> English preposition disappearance disease:
>
> "Graduated Munich University of Applied Sciences where he studied
> Communications Design."
>
> (But I think an American would still say "Communication Design".)

In the context of a university degree, the word Communication(s)" is
highly ambiguous. In an electrical engineering degree, a first
communications subject would cover topics like amplitude modulation,
frequency modulation, single sideband, and so on. An EE majoring in
Communications would follow this up with a subject dealing with
information theory, coding and decoding, and topics like that. Somewhere
in the stream you might also find the design of transmitters and
receivers, antenna arrays, near-field solution of Maxwell's equations,
noise analysis, and so on.

Outside the engineering world, though, the word means something entirely
different. I've never been sure what. Possible the subject we used to
call Rhetoric.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:22:46 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 17/11/22 07:23, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> > Where I just noticed another Americanism, this one a symptom of the
> > English preposition disappearance disease:
> >
> > "Graduated Munich University of Applied Sciences where he studied
> > Communications Design."
> >
> > (But I think an American would still say "Communication Design".)

> In the context of a university degree, the word Communication(s)" is
> highly ambiguous. In an electrical engineering degree, a first
> communications subject would cover topics like amplitude modulation,
> frequency modulation, single sideband, and so on. An EE majoring in
> Communications would follow this up with a subject dealing with
> information theory, coding and decoding, and topics like that. Somewhere
> in the stream you might also find the design of transmitters and
> receivers, antenna arrays, near-field solution of Maxwell's equations,
> noise analysis, and so on.

Fiber optics? Fractal antennas? Whatever the hell cell networks do to
give your call its own frequency? Cryptography? (I assume that's
different from your "coding and decoding".)

> Outside the engineering world, though, the word means something entirely
> different. I've never been sure what. Possible the subject we used to
> call Rhetoric.

Dettmer seems to be a specialist in animations for science popularization.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

On 17/11/22 14:22, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:22:46 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan
> wrote:
>> On 17/11/22 07:23, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>
>>> Where I just noticed another Americanism, this one a symptom of
>>> the English preposition disappearance disease:
>>>
>>> "Graduated Munich University of Applied Sciences where he
>>> studied Communications Design."
>>>
>>> (But I think an American would still say "Communication
>>> Design".)
>
>> In the context of a university degree, the word Communication(s)"
>> is highly ambiguous. In an electrical engineering degree, a first
>> communications subject would cover topics like amplitude
>> modulation, frequency modulation, single sideband, and so on. An EE
>> majoring in Communications would follow this up with a subject
>> dealing with information theory, coding and decoding, and topics
>> like that. Somewhere in the stream you might also find the design
>> of transmitters and receivers, antenna arrays, near-field solution
>> of Maxwell's equations, noise analysis, and so on.
>
> Fiber optics? Fractal antennas? Whatever the hell cell networks do
> to give your call its own frequency? Cryptography? (I assume
> that's different from your "coding and decoding".)

I've been out of the discipline too long to know what is taught now.
Fibre optics certainly, but I'm not sure about the rest. Cryptography
is, I imagine, considered to be part of computer science rather than
part of EE, even though I'm very much involved with it at present.

Coding and decoding is basically about error-correcting and
error-detecting codes. (At the most elementary level, a single parity
bit is an error-detecting code, but of course we can do better. For an
example of something more complicated, look at the error-correcting code
used on CDs.) There's an overlap in concept with cryptography, in that
there are both block and stream coding methods. The difference is that
we're not trying to hide the information.

I was never comfortable with optical fibres when I was teaching that
stuff. With metal waveguides you can solve for the fields by direct
solution of Maxwell's equations, and from there you can deduce the
existence of various propagation modes, calculate their velocities, and
so on. In a fibre you have a cylindrical rather than rectangular
geometry, and the icing on the cake is variable refractive index. That
puts the mathematical analysis into the "too hard" basket, and you're
reduced to hand-waving explanations of what is going on.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 17.11.2022 kl. 03.22 skrev Peter Moylan:

[On communications(s)]

> Outside the engineering world, though, the word means something entirely
> different. I've never been sure what. Possible the subject we used to
> call Rhetoric.

Surely today how to use public media is an important part of it?

--
Bertel

[Peter T. Daniels]

In 1992, OUP put out a four-volume Encyclopedia of Linguistics (edited
by Bill Bright) (which did so much better than they expected that when
he proposed that they publish *The World's Writing Systems*, they jumped
at the chance) and, uniform with it, a four-volume Encyclopedia of
Communications. It includes general articles on some linguistic topics
(but not articles on language( familie)s) but also lots of articles on
theater, technologies like printing, "media," etc.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 1:52:42 AM UTC-5, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 17/11/22 14:22, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> > Fiber optics? Fractal antennas? Whatever the hell cell networks do
> > to give your call its own frequency? Cryptography? (I assume
> > that's different from your "coding and decoding".)

> I've been out of the discipline too long to know what is taught now.
> Fibre optics certainly, but I'm not sure about the rest. Cryptography
> is, I imagine, considered to be part of computer science rather than
> part of EE, even though I'm very much involved with it at present.

One of the major breakfast cereal brands had a product called
"Fruit & Fibre." I couldn't help reading it as "Fruit 'n' Feebray."

[Sam Plusnet]

On 17-Nov-22 8:27, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Den 17.11.2022 kl. 03.22 skrev Peter Moylan:
>
> [On communications(s)]
>
>> Outside the engineering world, though, the word means something entirely

>> call Rhetoric.
>
> Surely today how to use public media is an important part of it?

Walls are public media.

"Romanes eunt domus"

--
Sam Plusnet