[TravelComp] This is the E[nd]
Sasha
place to be. When leaving, don't forget to turn off the light.
Ta, Sasha
http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/index.html (for those who are
interested, I have finally uploaded some of my Political Science
essays).
Greg Ewing
>
> TravelComp is over; http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/travel.html is the
> place to be. When leaving, don't forget to turn off the light.
Has anyone else looked at this page yet? Does it
look truncated? The last line I see is
Two - see below.
But there isn't any below...
Thanks for the nice things you said about my game,
btw, Sasha. And I really have to take responsibility
for most of the limitations you mentioned. They can
be fixed, even with Alan -- I just didn't have any
time left for polishing or beta testing!
If anyone is interested, I could tidy up some of
the rough patches and make another version of
OAHWNN available somewhere.
And... is there anyone willing to take on the task
of making an English translation of the winning
entry? Sasha's comments got me all fired up and
looking forward to playing it... then the awful
blow...
Or maybe this is the excuse I need to finally get
around to learning Russian?
--
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg
Sasha
> Sasha wrote:
> >
> > TravelComp is over; http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/travel.html is the
> > place to be. When leaving, don't forget to turn off the light.
>
> Has anyone else looked at this page yet? Does it
> look truncated? The last line I see is
>
> Two - see below.
>
> But there isn't any below...
To begin with, I'm really sorry for misspelling your last name on the
page. I'll fix that right away.
Second, the page isn't really truncated. Perhaps I did not make this
obvious, but what you are referring to is supposed to be a footnote
(1); you should read it after the words "Anna Rostovtseva" - it'll
make more sense then.
> Thanks for the nice things you said about my game,
> btw, Sasha. And I really have to take responsibility
> for most of the limitations you mentioned. They can
> be fixed, even with Alan -- I just didn't have any
> time left for polishing or beta testing!
I'm very glad you took criticism in good strife - after updating the
page, I started to have doubts about whether I had mentioned all the
good things about the game (which I liked a lot; and no, I didn't
mention them all), and whether the list of complaints was too long!
> If anyone is interested, I could tidy up some of
> the rough patches and make another version of
> OAHWNN available somewhere.
Awesome! In fact, you could send me a copy, as well, so I would update
the site.
> And... is there anyone willing to take on the task
> of making an English translation of the winning
> entry? Sasha's comments got me all fired up and
> looking forward to playing it... then the awful
> blow...
Uhhhhhhh... Anna and I discussed that at length; unfortunately, there
are some problems. She is not very proficient in English; I, for my
part, could do it (theoretically), but I am actually _leaving the
country_ on the 16th (which is one of the reasons why I wanted to
conclude the competition before that date). When I arrive, things will
get very hectic - at least for the first month or so. After that -
we'll see. I still have my own game scheduled for the Fall of 2002,
you know :)
Besides, the game would undeniably lose some of its charm if
translated. But then again, it's not that big a problem.
In the last analysis - the prospect looks tempting, and if time
permits, it will be done.
> Or maybe this is the excuse I need to finally get
> around to learning Russian?
You should, regardless of the circumstances :)
Cheers, Sasha
Greg Ewing
>
> what you are referring to is supposed to be a footnote
> (1); you should read it after the words "Anna Rostovtseva"
Oh, I see! The 1) looked like it was supposed to be
the first item in a numbered list.
> > If anyone is interested, I could tidy up some of
> > the rough patches and make another version of
> > OAHWNN available somewhere.
>
> Awesome! In fact, you could send me a copy, as well, so I would update
> the site.
Okay. If you or anyone else cares to send me details
of any other bugs they've come across, I'll fix them
while I'm at it.
Lucian P. Smith
: TravelComp is over; http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/travel.html is the
: place to be. When leaving, don't forget to turn off the light.
Hmm.
It is customary, when organizing a comp with few entrants, to thank those
that did enter, point people to those games, and exit gracefully.
It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place. If
you're feeling vindictive, surely you can rant at the rest of us for not
entering, and not take out your hostility on the one person who *did*
enter.
I think you owe Greg Ewing an apology.
-Lucian Smith
Paul O'Brian
> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian. Or
does that one not really exist? Gullible me, I thought it'd be posted to
the IF archive. And here I just sent Joe an updated New Releases Shelf
with a pointer to that page.
Sasha, what's up?
--
Paul O'Brian obr...@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~obrian
The twenty-fifth issue of SPAG has arrived, with IF news, reviews, and
a feature interview with Stephen Granade. Check it out at the SPAG website:
http://www.sparkynet.com/spag
Sasha
> In rec.arts.int-fiction Sasha <black_co...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> : TravelComp is over; http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/travel.html is the
> : place to be. When leaving, don't forget to turn off the light.
>
> Hmm.
>
> It is customary, when organizing a comp with few entrants, to thank those
> that did enter, point people to those games, and exit gracefully.
Thanking the entrants - my fault. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Anna.
Belated yet sincere.
As for graceful exits - tastes vary. Most of my acquaintances would
consider my last remark the hight of good taste (modesty, modesty). It
is intended to convey the atmoshpere of a majestic closure - so
majestic, in fact, that the spectators had been rendered speechless,
and have no other way to express their emotions but by turning off the
lights quietly and going home. Centones, and centones again.
But then again, you may not find that perspective all too enticing. My
reply would be predictable, yet logical: organize a competition, and
show us all how to "bee-have."
> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
Absolutely; and I didn't. There were two entires, one of which I found
more appealing than the other; consequently, the latter entry received
second place, and the former - the first.
> If
> you're feeling vindictive, surely you can rant at the rest of us for not
> entering, and not take out your hostility on the one person who *did*
> enter.
[Stunned silence. Then, goes to the mirror and regards himself,
desperately looking for signs of homicidal malice. Failing to find
any, goes to the sink and drowns himself]
Sasha
Sasha
> On 14 Aug 2001, Lucian P. Smith wrote:
>
> > It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
>
> Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian. Or
> does that one not really exist? Gullible me, I thought it'd be posted to
> the IF archive. And here I just sent Joe an updated New Releases Shelf
> with a pointer to that page.
>
> Sasha, what's up?
Do you have any sound reasons to accuse me of lying, or is it mere rudeness?
Muffy St. Bernard
It simply seems odd that the winning entry isn't available to be
played. There's surely a first time for everything, but this may be the
first time that first prize in a public competition goes to an entry
that nobody gets to see but the judge. :)
Since I don't know any Russian, I doubt I could even begin to
appreciate Russian IF. It's nice to suspect that such a thing exists,
and that it's good enough to win a competition (especially if Anna
Rostovtseva is a first-time IF author, and especially, ESPECIALLY if
this is the same Anna Rostovtseva whose Angelfire homepage lists her as
being 13 years old
(http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/jennyrhythm/annar.html)). If this young
lady is the same one who wrote "Suddenly The Trains Departed," then that
is impressive, and it would be nice to know that her entry is available
SOMEWHERE.
How big are the files? I'd be happy to host her piece of IF on my
website (if they're not TOO large)
Muffy.
Ross Presser
> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
He received two entries; however, one was (a) in Russian and (b) too
large to be easily distributed.
--
Ross Presser * ross_p...@imtek.com
"Back stabbing is a sport best played by those that can't stand face
to face with their opponent." - Danny Taddei
Adam Cadre
> Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian. Or
> does that one not really exist?
Doesn't exist? DOESN'T EXIST? Why, not only does it exist, but it's the
first game to take full advantage of the myriad capabilities of RAIF-POOL!
In fact, the real reason none of us can get a copy isn't that it doesn't
exist, but that the NPCs are so realistic that they've been declared
living creatures by the UN Human Rights Commission, and of course, cloning
humans is illegal.
-----
Adam Cadre, Brooklyn, NY
web site: http://adamcadre.ac
novel: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060195584/adamcadreac
Lucian P. Smith
:> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
: Absolutely; and I didn't. There were two entires, one of which I found
: more appealing than the other; consequently, the latter entry received
: second place, and the former - the first.
Mmm.
I'm not really interested in debating whether "Suddenly The Trains
Departed" exists. Or even whether the myriad of other games you relegated
to the recycle bin exist. I assume it was a fun story you told yourself
about your competition because you felt bad that you only got one entry.
Believe me, I know how you feel--I got 4 in the one I ran, while Adam's
ChickenComp got like 20, which ran at the same time. I, too, had fun
thinking up possible entries to my comp that would have fulfilled the
vision I had for it. Fine, these things happen. Maybe in some
post-modern way you think that the entries really *do* exist in some
Platonic form. Again, it is not customary for platonic ideals to win
mini-comps, but I suppose trends have to start somewhere.
But to give Greg's entry second place *and* to include a story about
'Boris' being morose about coming in second in a field of two seems
dreadfully unfair, and I read it as being vindictive. If not, well. I
still think you should apologize to Greg, but I shall let the matter drop.
-Lucian
Gunther Schmidl
> large to be easily distributed.
There is no proof whatsoever that a second entry exists, and personally I
rather doubt it for reasons I'm not going to go into here.
-- Gunther
Tom Waddington
>>> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second
>>> place.
>> Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in
>> Russian. Or does that one not really exist? Gullible me, I thought
>> it'd be posted to the IF archive. And here I just sent Joe an
>> updated New Releases Shelf with a pointer to that page.
>> Sasha, what's up?
> Do you have any sound reasons to accuse me of lying, or is it mere
> rudeness?
I won't call you a liar, but you must admit that pouring praise on a
huge, well-written, all-over-wondrous game by an unknown new author,
and then not making it available, is a little reminiscent of those
nineteenth century science fiction stories that describe fantastic
islands but finish `Alas! our ship was wrecked, and only I survive to
tell the tale'.
Be seeing you,
--
Tom Waddington
Paul O'Brian
> Do you have any sound reasons to accuse me of lying, or is it mere rudeness?
A few things:
1) Please read more carefully. While there may be someone who has accused
you of lying, I'm not that person. In fact, I was completely credulous
about your story that there were two entries but one was too large to
post. When some doubt was cast on that story, I asked you for
clarification.
2) Please don't get on your high horse about rudeness. Let's have a polite
conversation about what no doubt is an innocent misunderstanding.
3) Please throw some light on the whole matter, and provide the
clarification I was requesting, by explaining how and when the winning
entry in your comp will be made available. Please.
Thank you in advance for your help and cooperation.
Muffy St. Bernard
Either this will end with a revelation that this great piece of IF
DOES exist...
...or it will end with a characteristic, enigmatic, quote-dropping
"I'm slightly insulted but find all of this immensely amusing" sort of
comment that reveals nothing and hints at a grander sort of philosophy
whose basic premise is stated, but could not be explained or legitimized
because anybody who NEEDS to ask what the heck it all means could
apparently never understand the explanation in the first place. The
upshot of which is, none of us will understand the EXPLICITLY-stated
reasons for why STD was never unveiled, but those of us who are
interested will have our suspicions because we've run across such things
before.
If the first ending occurs, then I think a lot of people will be
pleasantly surprised.
Personally, I wouldn't care much either way, if a real person hadn't
submitted their work to the competition in the first place.
Muffy.
Sam Barlow
> Paul O'Brian <obr...@ucsu.colorado.edu> wrote:
> > On 14 Aug 2001, Lucian P. Smith wrote:
> >
> > > It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
> >
> > Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian. Or
> > does that one not really exist? Gullible me, I thought it'd be posted to
> > the IF archive. And here I just sent Joe an updated New Releases Shelf
> > with a pointer to that page.
> >
> > Sasha, what's up?
>
> Do you have any sound reasons to accuse me of lying, or is it mere rudeness?
I must say, *my* impression upon reading the page was that there _was_
only one entry; the 'winning' entry being a joke along the lines (but
with less substance) of Stanislaw Lem's reviews of fictional books.
The idea that a superb work of IF might appear in a mini-comp _and_ be
written in Russian was fairly funny.
Seeing it as a joke, I didn't read any intended malice into it.
I suggest it would be helpful if you could make it clear whether this
was a joke or not; no one likes a practical joker who doesn't know
when to call it a day and all that.
If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
--Sam
--Sam.
Greg Ewing
given a clear reason otherwise, I'm going to take
Sasha's words at face value, and concentrate on the
technical issues involved in getting the other
entry out to the world.
I don't think the fact that it's in Russian is
reason enough to withhold it. There may well be
other people among us capable of reading Russian,
and if so, why should they be denied it?
So, Sasha, I encourage you to make it available if a
way can be found. How big is it, exactly? If you
don't have enough room to put it on your web
site, perhaps you could upload it to the if-archive
by ftp. Or if you can email it to me, maybe in
several parts, I could upload it for you.
Alandeniro
If this entry was written in Russian, I'm just curious about the language
issue. are there IF interpreters that can take into account a non-Latin
alphabet in the first place? what language was the game coded in that would
allow, syntactically, for Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet? Forgive my
ignorance, everyone, if I'm missing something blatantly obvious; I'm still
relatively new to IF.
A.
"You thought that you dreamt that you were a man hiding in a garden. Actually
you dreamt that you were a garden containing a hidden man." --Robert Irwin, The
Arabian Nightmare
Passenger Pigeon
gri...@cascadia.drizzle.com (Adam Cadre) wrote:
> Paul O'Brian wrote:
> > Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian.
> > Or
> > does that one not really exist?
>
> Doesn't exist? DOESN'T EXIST? Why, not only does it exist, but it's the
> first game to take full advantage of the myriad capabilities of
> RAIF-POOL!
> In fact, the real reason none of us can get a copy isn't that it doesn't
> exist, but that the NPCs are so realistic that they've been declared
> living creatures by the UN Human Rights Commission, and of course,
> cloning
> humans is illegal.
As a matter of fact, I've played this game (it's truly incredible), and
even wrote an elegant walkthrough; unfortunately, this margin is too
narrow to contain it.
--
William Burke, passenge...@hotmail.com insert coin to continue
Before you presume my rationality, I'm a Theatre major, Music minor.
I don't represent UCSC; it represents me. Go Slugs!
http://www.passengerpigeon.net (not com, not org)
Magnus Olsson
PLEASE - let's give Sasha the benefit of the doubt, shall we?
It's one thing to read his page and think "this Russian entry sounds
too good to be true," or even to ask - politely, as Paul did - about
it.
It's another thing altogether to flatly accuse Sasha of lying and start
demanding apologies.
This newsgroup has been called one of the frienliest, most polite
places on the net. Let's not change that.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Sasha
It pleases me, of course, that my humble undertaking has brought so
much attention from the public; I never expected it to. It does not,
however, please me, when people I hardly know mete out their paranoia
on me under the guise of defending the IF community from a vile,
bloodthirsty, lying, entry-forging, impersonating, cheating maniac
that I allegedly am, whose dream is to destroy the IF community as a
whole and its every member in particular. Hence I see no reason to
continue this discussion along such lines. I find it humiliating to
try and justify myself further than I already have; moreover, as
Tolstoy used to say, it is impossible to convince anyone of anything
with words; unfortunately, words are the only resource I possess. I
will limit my participation with the following passage; you, of
course, are at liberty to pursue the issue to whatever limit you may
wish.
I did receive two (valid) entries for the TravelComp, and several
invalid ones (one of them, entitled “Perchatka,” written
in Russian Inform, is now available at the TravelComp page –
http://www.dreamwater.org/sasha/travel.html, bottom of the page;
“Cat 2 Cat” is too big, and the others unimpressive). One
of the valid entries was from my (brief) acquaintance, Anna
Rostovtseva (address – 600021, Vladimir, Russia, Komissarova
St., 4b, Apt. 5; phone number – (0922) 32-86-50; e-mail –
moiro...@yandex.ru). As I have discovered later, the entry was not
destined for this competition per se; rather, it was a long-lasting
_commercial_ project. I do not know the reasons that motivated her to
submit it as an entry. She made _no_ commitment to release the entry
to the public; I never asked for one. The fact remains, however, that
shortly before the deadline came, I received a ZIP disc containing the
entry (programmed in Delphi). For reasons previously mentioned, I
enjoyed the game, and awarded it first place.
Now, those who were courteous enough to contact me via e-mail
(unfortunately, a single person) with a request to see the entry,
received the following reply:
“[…] Unfortunately, you can only attach files smaller than
a megabyte (I think); the game file is much larger. I could, of
course, send you some (useless) dll’s, but with the connection
speed of 14 kbps and the necessity to re-connect roughly every 20
minutes, it isn’t worth it.
Which is worse, the whole affair is slowly but surely getting out of
hand. Anna is now adding more graphics and sound so as to *sell* the
game (which, you must agree, is quite a plausible idea, given the
economical situation here). As a result, she explicitly forbade me to
distribute the game and asked to return the competition entry (which
is on a 100-meg ZIP disc). I haven’t done that yet, but I guess
I’ll have to, eventually – as I mentioned in the post,
I’m leaving the country, […]”
These are the facts, stated clearly and candidly, in a form that a
child could comprehend. There are two reasons why what you demand is
impossible – the technical one, and now the legal one, as well.
I fail to see any reason why you may find this deceiving. Needless to
say, none of what is said above may prevent you from continuing to
accuse me of imagining the entire affair and consciously trying to
mislead the public. You might also consider adding charges concerning
the murder of Gorky, Kirov and Trotsky (the absurdity of the situation
does, in fact, remind me of the Soviet-era trials – like then,
facts are abandoned for the sake of incongruous notions), the sinking
of Kursk (sounds particularly promising) and the crash of the U.S. spy
plane in China (I’m not sure about that one, but you are welcome
to try). You may even bully Anna with your concepts, once you get past
the English barrier, although I doubt she will be as patient as I am.
One way or the other, it would be nice to know you have enough time
and desire to do so; I, on the other hand, do not.
It saddens me to think that you tend accuse a person entirely
unfamiliar to you of ulterior motives, lacking any kind of rationale
whatsoever (save for, of course, Mr. Smith’s fervent, although
regrettably erroneous designs), rather than try and accept the
reasoning he tries to provide (although that is certainly far less
exciting than accusing that person of all earthly crimes, isn’t
it?). As much as I would hate to become the object of your attacks
(for I am entirely innocent and have nothing but good will for the
community and its members), I will accept my fate if I must.
Magnus Olsson
Adam Cadre <gri...@cascadia.drizzle.com> wrote:
>Paul O'Brian wrote:
>> Eh? I thought there were two entries, but one is huge and in Russian. Or
>> does that one not really exist?
>
>Doesn't exist? DOESN'T EXIST? Why, not only does it exist, but it's the
>first game to take full advantage of the myriad capabilities of RAIF-POOL!
>In fact, the real reason none of us can get a copy isn't that it doesn't
>exist, but that the NPCs are so realistic that they've been declared
>living creatures by the UN Human Rights Commission, and of course, cloning
>humans is illegal.
Not to speak of the fact that deleting the game file would be considered
murder :-).
Tom Waddington
> It pleases me, of course, that my humble undertaking has brought so
> much attention from the public; I never expected it to. It does not,
> however, please me, when people I hardly know mete out their
> paranoia on me under the guise of defending the IF community from a
> vile, bloodthirsty, lying, entry-forging, impersonating, cheating
> maniac that I allegedly am, whose dream is to destroy the IF
> community as a whole and its every member in particular.
Whoah, ease up there, Sasha. People were confused, not baying for
blood. Perhaps that confusion was voiced more aggressively than was
either fair or necessary, but given the IF community's history of
hoaxes and vapourware I think it's understandable.
Jonathan Rosebaugh
>certainly did achieve your intent, you compared your detractors to
Er, I meant "certainly did not achieve".
--
Skip - http://www.plover.net/~skip/
GPG key 0x41963E43 - See http://www.plover.net/~skip/gpg.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
-- Paul Tillich, German theologian.
Jonathan Rosebaugh
step back and look at some facts, shall we?
1) The winning entry, being a work of such quality that it goes above
and beyond anything that anyone *here* has produced, was written by
a previously unknown author.
2) This entry was written in Delphi, a language rather unsuited for IF
programming. Anna would have had to not only write prose of
superior literary quality and program the logic of her game, she
would also have had to write a parser of complexity at least equal
to Inform's, which is no easy task.
3) You have previously been known to, shall we say, confuse the truth
a bit, as in the case of the WalkthroughComp and Emily Short.
Occam's Razor, my friend. Occam's Razor.
Then, people began to doubt the existence of Anna's work. While this
was sometimes done snarkily, you really set yourself up for that with
all the comparing of yourself to famous Russian authors, and your
"delusions of grandeur".
When people began to doubt, you did not offer any sort of proof, you
did not offer to post a screenshot of the game (which could itself
have been faked, i admit, but it would have been much more work). You
resorted to rudeness and name-throwing. Then, in a measure that almost
certainly did achieve your intent, you compared your detractors to
Stalin and yourself to Trotsky. I certainly doubt that Adam and Lucian
are planning to hire assassins to track you down. This measure seems
akin to flamers comparing their targets to Nazis, in the hopes of
bringing emotionalism into the conflict.
Really, I wish I could have expected better of you, Sasha.
On 15 Aug 2001 01:55:59 -0700, Sasha <black_co...@hotmail.com> posted:
--
Skip - http://www.plover.net/~skip/
GPG key 0x41963E43 - See http://www.plover.net/~skip/gpg.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
A heavy crown
Can force the face of any weary king
Toward the ground.
But here and there wise kings
Bid crowns good-bye--
And find without their crowns
They're light enough to fly.
- Calvin Miller, The Divine Symphony
Paul O'Brian
> Which is worse, the whole affair is slowly but surely getting out of
> hand. Anna is now adding more graphics and sound so as to *sell* the
> game (which, you must agree, is quite a plausible idea, given the
> economical situation here). As a result, she explicitly forbade me to
> distribute the game and asked to return the competition entry (which
> is on a 100-meg ZIP disc).
So she entered her game in a competition (and won) without releasing it.
Neat trick. It must have been frustrating for you as the comp organizer
to see a game you thought was so good removed from distribution like
that. I hope it sees the light of day at some point. (Maybe a
well-orchestrated campaign of letters and phone calls to the address and
phone number you so thoughtfully provided to the public at large would do
the trick.) In any case, I think I have the information I need for the
SPAG new releases page now, which is the only reason I waded into the
whole silly affair to begin with. Thank you for your assistance.
ems...@mindspring.com
> Sasha, while I can understand the outrage you claim to feel, let's
> step back and look at some facts, shall we?
>
> 1) The winning entry, being a work of such quality that it goes above
> and beyond anything that anyone *here* has produced, was written by
> a previously unknown author.
> 2) This entry was written in Delphi, a language rather unsuited for IF
> programming. Anna would have had to not only write prose of
> superior literary quality and program the logic of her game, she
> would also have had to write a parser of complexity at least equal
> to Inform's, which is no easy task.
> 3) You have previously been known to, shall we say, confuse the truth
> a bit, as in the case of the WalkthroughComp and Emily Short.
Oy.
I'd been avoiding this thread, but it seems likely (and justified)
that this last remark will provoke indignation on Sasha's part.
Skip refers (I assume) to Sasha's complaints about his placement in
WalkthroughComp, and his implication that I slighted him out of
resentment because of some conversation we had on ifMUD perhaps a
month or so before said competition. In both these regards he has
misinterpreted me: he did not *win* walkthrough comp by my judgement,
but I did no placement beyond that, so to say that he came in 'fifth
out of six' is incorrect. Likewise, my reaction to the game was
exactly that, a reaction to the game; our earlier conversation was an
intellectual debate that left me with no particular personal feelings
about Mr. Spiridonov other than a sense of his passionate commitment
to ideas -- and the impression that he would have an easier time
spelling his arguments if he used a MUD client rather than telnet.
Not exactly grounds to blackball anyone.
So it is unfortunate that Sasha read my (admittedly fairly brief and
off-hand) remarks about his game into an expression of directed
personal dislike; I intended the entire competition in a light spirit,
and I selected the winners from it on the basis of how much they
amused me, not on their broader intellectual significance. I remain,
admittedly, slightly unsure of what it is exactly that Sasha meant to
communicate in his game -- perhaps because of the bugs that prevented
my seeing all the text, perhaps because his prose translated into
English conveys less than it does in Russian, perhaps because I lack
the intellectual background into which to place it. It is Sasha's
right to regard this as my deficiency rather than his game's, and to
express that view publicly; I could wish that he had not chosen to
imply in the same breath his contempt for the other entrants, since
this is, in my opinion, not only unfair but unsportsmanlike.
But nowhere in that-- which is more a difference of etiquette and
personality and, perhaps, intellectual ground-- is there anything that
would qualify as a *lie*. A misinterpretation, yes; fueled by my
ordering of items on the page, and thus not entirely Sasha's fault.
Moreover, it is possible that I failed to appreciate Sasha's game for
the same reasons that I failed to accept his intellectual arguments
some time earlier: not spite, but a conviction that authorial vision
is not complete unto itself, and that the audience should not be
ignored.
So, Skip, if you mean that he was confused about the truth, then yes,
he was, but that doesn't equate to a deliberate attempt to confuse
others.
Now: I think people on both sides of this have escalated things rather
unpleasantly. There's one rather obvious bit of advice for future
competition organizers, however. I think the presumption here is that
to enter a game in a competition *is* releasing it, and that by
unspoken agreement people consider it only fair to all the
participants if all the entries are made available at the end. Not
only is it not much fun not to be able to see what your competition
was, if you slaved to enter something, but it makes the whole thing
look as though it was run as a private review for the organizer's
personal enjoyment if the resulting crop is not shared with everyone.
I hope I don't sound chiding, because that's not what I meant at all.
For future reference, though, it's probably best to say so clearly at
the beginning if you are going to accept games that are then not going
to be released.
ES
Jonathan Rosebaugh
>So, Skip, if you mean that he was confused about the truth, then yes,
>he was, but that doesn't equate to a deliberate attempt to confuse
>others.
Erm, yes, I did mean to imply that he was confused about the truth,
and also that it is somewhat difficult to convey the truth to others
properly when one is confused about it.
--
Skip - http://www.plover.net/~skip/
GPG key 0x41963E43 - See http://www.plover.net/~skip/gpg.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
A finale is not always the best song, but it is always the last.
- Calvin Miller, The Singer Trilogy
Jaap van der Velde
On 15 Aug 2001 01:55:59 -0700, black_co...@hotmail.com (Sasha)
wrote:
> [Post on the facts concerning TravelComp]
A post not lacking in clarity, whatever one might think to be able
to read in the tone in which it was set. This must be some feud
which has been running longer and deeper than this thread to
arouse such strong feelings amongst the people involved. I think
Greg Ewing is getting all the support he really needs from the
people on this group and I'm certainly going to read his story
after this thread, so some good has at least come from it.
I'd understand if Sasha's response wouldn't satisfy everyone in on
the thread, but somehow I don't think much can be gained from
further accusations or speculations on the story. If someone really
wants a go at the missing number one story, I guess they can mail
its author at the provided address...
Grtz,
Volk.
Billy Harris
arrogant is wrong...AH} self-indulgent, I do not conclude that Suddenly
The Trains is a fictictious entry. In that vein, I found the initial
post to be excessivly hostile, especially since it didn't explictly say
"I think this entry is a hoax" leaving me quite confused as to the
source of the hostility.
However, with the announcement of "Oh, I must have forgotten to tell
you; it's commercial and so can't be freely distributed. And even
though it won first place it isn't finished yet so you can't buy it
either" I now believe that the entry is indeed a hoax.
With this new information, I will join the original poster in agreeing
taht Sasha is green-brown pond scum with a bit of orange fuzz for
giving the sole "valid" entry second place.
Rereading the site doesn't help matters; Sasha seems to feel "in the
spirit of my essays, it doesn't matter [that it won't be released]". If
you forgot the debate/flame war of several weeks ago, let me quote:
"the literary work's true value always remains in the author's mind
alone, since its true integrity cannot be comprehended by the reader"
As I said, it does not make me inclided to believe in Sasha or Suddenly
the Trains.
Magnus Olsson
Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
>wrote:
>
>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
>
>public to play it.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are more Esperantists than
Russians?
J.D. Berry
>In article <m1rjnt0jn1sa0gmrl...@4ax.com>,
>Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
>>
>>Maybe we should make a poll to see which one would have more available
>>public to play it.
>
>Are you seriously suggesting that there are more Esperantists than
>Russians?
At least not until they get a salad dressing and a alcoholic beverage named
after them.
Jim
...and a "White Esperantist" for the lady, placi.
Ross Presser
>>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
There is an invented language called Loglan, and a related invented
language called Lojban. Reportedly a Lojban enthusiast translated all
the text from Adventure into Lojban. Like other languages, the parser
would also have to be adapted....
Tom Waddington
> While I found the travelcomp web page to be {prententious is
> wrong... arrogant is wrong...AH} self-indulgent,
I am as a prone to arrogant pretension as the next literary artist and
visionary, and quite enjoyed reading the travelcomp web page.
> I do not conclude that Suddenly The Trains is a fictictious entry.
> In that vein, I found the initial post to be excessivly hostile,
> especially since it didn't explictly say "I think this entry is a
> hoax" leaving me quite confused as to the source of the hostility.
Indeed.
> However, with the announcement of "Oh, I must have forgotten to tell
> you; it's commercial and so can't be freely distributed. And even
> though it won first place it isn't finished yet so you can't buy it
> either" I now believe that the entry is indeed a hoax.
I wouldn't consider it conclusive evidence either way, and I won't
call the man a liar until I've seen some.
> With this new information, I will join the original poster in
> agreeing taht Sasha is green-brown pond scum with a bit of orange
> fuzz for giving the sole "valid" entry second place.
Let's not get carried away. If true, it would certainly be bad form
but, at the end of the day, it was a minicomp and Sasha's minicomp at
that, and he had the right to run it however he wanted.
> Rereading the site doesn't help matters; Sasha seems to feel "in the
> spirit of my essays, it doesn't matter [that it won't be released]".
> If you forgot the debate/flame war of several weeks ago, let me
> quote: "the literary work's true value always remains in the
> author's mind alone, since its true integrity cannot be comprehended
> by the reader" As I said, it does not make me inclided to believe in
> Sasha or Suddenly the Trains.
Hmm. I don't think Sasha would conceal that STTD was an imaginary
entry if it were. He has been so adamant that the idea is just as
valid, if not more so, than the execution. Personally I think that's
rot, but then I have a Yorkshireman's love of good craftmanship. If
he believes it, he would have no need to hide the fact that STTD
wasn't real.
For now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.
David Given
Ross Presser <rpre...@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid> writes:
[...]
> There is an invented language called Loglan, and a related invented
> language called Lojban. Reportedly a Lojban enthusiast translated all
> the text from Adventure into Lojban. Like other languages, the parser
> would also have to be adapted....
(Lojban is an Open Source reimplementation of Loglan, BTW. Loglan has some
pretty nasty copyright/patent issues.)
It wouldn't be particularly hard. However, you would have to make
allowances for the fact that Lojban doesn't have nouns or verbs. It has
predicates, which can be both...
A tavla B C = A talks to B about C in language D
A gerku B = A is a dog of breed B
A blari'o = A is blue-green
mi = me
do = you
la X = instance of X
ko = [command indicator]
mi tavla do = I talk to you
mi tavla la gerku = I talk to the dog
mi gerku = I am a dog
do blari'o gerku = You are a blue-green dog
You'd have to decide whether you wanted the user to use first person or
commands.
ko tavla la gerku = Talk to the dog!
ko gerku = Be a dog!
But the thing that makes Lojban so great for IF is that it's completely
regular; so regular, in fact, that the language is defined as a BNF. You
can download a program that will do a complete parse of a Lojban sentence.
Of course, you still have to understand it...
http://www.lojban.org/files/reference-grammar/chap2.html
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+ "Hydrogen fusion, the sun makes shine
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | Vascular pressure makes the ivy twine.
| Play: d...@cowlark.com | Because of Rayleigh, the sky's so blue.
+- http://www.cowlark.com -+ Hormonal fixation is why I love you." --- Zarf
Adam Thornton
Ross Presser <rpre...@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid> wrote:
>There is an invented language called Loglan, and a related invented
>language called Lojban. Reportedly a Lojban enthusiast translated all
>the text from Adventure into Lojban. Like other languages, the parser
>would also have to be adapted....
Dibs on Volapuk Inform and, of course, the translation of _Curses_ into
Wilkins' Universal Character.
Adam
Adam Thornton
Sasha <black_co...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Anna Rostovtseva (address – 600021, Vladimir, Russia, Komissarova
>St., 4b, Apt. 5; phone number – (0922) 32-86-50; e-mail –
>moiro...@yandex.ru).
This part, at least, ought to be verifiable, or at least would tell us
whether someone speaking Russian claiming to be Anna Rostovtseva
answered such email and--if any Russophones with a bit of cash to burn
have the hankering--answered the phone.
Adam
Ricardo SIGNES
> In article <m1rjnt0jn1sa0gmrl...@4ax.com>,
> Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
>>wrote:
>>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
>>Maybe we should make a poll to see which one would have more available
>>public to play it.
> Are you seriously suggesting that there are more Esperantists than
> Russians?
No, but perhaps we Esperantists have more time to play IF, since
we are not struggling to keep our feet shoed and our hearths
warm.
AL EKSTREMAJXO DE VOJO
Vi staras al la ekstremajxo de vojo antau brikokonstruadeto. Cxirkau vi
estas arbaro. Flueto fluas el la konstruado kaj for montfendo.
> salti
Vi saltas cxi tie, malfruktodone.
--
rjbs
John Colagioia
Why do I smell a competition for Inform translations coming...?
Jeremy Silver
> > >On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > > >If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
> Ross Presser <rpre...@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid> writes:
> [...]
> > There is an invented language called Loglan, and a related invented
> > language called Lojban. Reportedly a Lojban enthusiast translated all
> > the text from Adventure into Lojban. Like other languages, the parser
> > would also have to be adapted....
>
> (Lojban is an Open Source reimplementation of Loglan, BTW. Loglan has some
> pretty nasty copyright/patent issues.)
My vote goes to IF in tlhIngan Hol. Although this language suffers
from the Paramount/Viacom pretty nasty copyright/patent issues.
The Tempest in the original Klingon(tm) anyone?
>
> It wouldn't be particularly hard. However, you would have to make
> allowances for the fact that Lojban doesn't have nouns or verbs. It has
> predicates, which can be both...
This language is OTOH designed to be complicated, not to mention being
spoken forcefully through a set of plastic teeth ;)
It has nouns and verbs with prefixes and suffixes and a basic
object-verb-subject sentance structure.
e.g.
tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?
tlhIngan Hol - Noun referring to the Klingon(tm) language itself (the
Object).
Da- verb prefix indicating the nature of both the object and subject.
You (do something to) It, in this case.
jatlh - verb meaning speak.
-'a' - verb suffix indicating a yes/no question.
So in other words - "Do you speak Klingon?"
Here you could include as the Subject "SoH" or "You" to reinforce the
point, but it is not needed as the prefix already covers this.
e.g. tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a' SoH?
>
> A tavla B C = A talks to B about C in language D
A seriously complicated concept in this language. Moving swiftly on...
> A gerku B = A is a dog of breed B
B Segh targh 'oH A'e'
I think...
> A blari'o = A is blue-green
"A" SuD.
SuD - a verb meaning "be green" or "be blue" acting as an adjective to
the noun A.
> mi = me
jIH
> do = you
SoH
> ko = [command indicator]
To indicate the phrase is a command?
In this case an imperative verb prefix would be used.
e.g. jol yIchu'!
yI- - imperative prefix indicating that You must do something to It.
chu' - verb meaning to activate a device.
jol - transporter.
Hence - Activate the transporter!
>
> mi tavla do = I talk to you
qajatlh
> mi tavla la gerku = I talk to the dog
targhvaD jIjatlh
"targh vIjatlh" could also work, but also means "I say the word targ".
targh - noun referring to a dog like animal.
-vaD - noun suffix meaning the action is intended-for the noun.
jIjatlh just means "I speak".
> mi gerku = I am a dog
targh jIH
Here the pronoun jIH is being used as a verb indicating "I am".
> do blari'o gerku = You are a blue-green dog
targh SuD SoH
>
> ko tavla la gerku = Talk to the dog!
targhvaD yIjatlh!
> ko gerku = Be a dog!
targh yImoj
Become a Dog!
Or maybe
targh yIDa
Act in the manner of a dog!
The fun bit is saying something like "due to your apparent minor
mistakes",
which is QaghHommeyHeymo'.
Regards,
--
Jeremy Silver |\ jeremy at mupwi.demon.co.uk
__________________| \
|__________________| |
| | A1200T, Blizzard 1260, 34Mb
mupwI' yI'uchtaH! |__| 10Gb HD. Amiga Forever.
David Welbourn
> If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
>
> --Sam
Yes. "Fajfeta sur la Luno" is an Esperanto translation of one of my speed-if
entries. It's not very good, mind you, as either IF or as Esperanto, but it
is Esperanto IF and it is at
http://irisreg.com.webhosting.axxent.ca/DavidW/fajfeta.zip
Note: in this version, type 'k' to go west, and 'r' to go east. The zip file
includes the esper.h and esperg.h files.
-- David Welbourn
Alan Anderson
pa' jIHpu', ta' vIta'pu', yIvbeH vISuqpu'. Loosely translated, that's
"Been there, done that, got the t-shirt." :-) The old Klingon
Education Virtual Environment was a MUSH having Klingon descriptions
and objects which would respond appropriately. There were even
occasional multiplayer scenarios played out in Klingon.
> Although this language suffers
> from the Paramount/Viacom pretty nasty copyright/patent issues.
Any commercial product using the Klingon language is going to have
those issues to deal with, alas.
> The Tempest in the original Klingon(tm) anyone?
Somehow, I get the feeling you're not talking about the play, which
*is* on the list of things to be translated by the KSRP...
> This language is OTOH designed to be complicated,...
Klingon, complicated? Not by a long shot. It's a toy language compared
to the bulk of natural languages in the world. Which detracts not one
iota from its expressiveness, of course.
> not to mention being
> spoken forcefully through a set of plastic teeth ;)
I don't think the prosthetics were intentionally taken into account
during its design, but the core sounds which provided its basic
phonology *were* spoken through those teeth, so the right twists of
pronunciation got in there more or less by default. :-)
***
I doubt that anyone is going to care, but I have to nitpick the
translation here just a bit:
> > A blari'o = A is blue-green
> "A" SuD.
>
> SuD - a verb meaning "be green" or "be blue" acting as an adjective to
> the noun A.
Actually, the correct translation would be the other way around:
SuD "A"
The verb here is acting in its true role as a verb, not as an
adjective.
> The fun bit is saying something like "due to your apparent minor
> mistakes",
> which is QaghHommeyHeymo'.
You left out the {-lIj} suffix just before {-mo'}, but I won't condemn
you due to your apparent minor mistakes. ;-)
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- htpp://www.kli.org/
Magnus Olsson
Ricardo SIGNES <sam...@humptydumpty.manxome.org> wrote:
>In article <9lg842$cg8$1...@news.lth.se>, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>> In article <m1rjnt0jn1sa0gmrl...@4ax.com>,
>> Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>>>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
>>>wrote:
>>>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
>>>Maybe we should make a poll to see which one would have more available
>>>public to play it.
>> Are you seriously suggesting that there are more Esperantists than
>> Russians?
>
>No, but perhaps we Esperantists have more time to play IF, since
>we are not struggling to keep our feet shoed and our hearths
>warm.
Not all Russians are struggling with poverty, and I suspect
that many Esperantists live in countries that aren't that
well off either. What about Russian Esperantists, by the way -
wasn't Esperanto banned by the Communists?
Ilya Goz
MO> Not all Russians are struggling with poverty, and I suspect that many
MO> Esperantists live in countries that aren't that well off either. What
MO> about Russian Esperantists, by the way - wasn't Esperanto banned by
MO> the Communists?
It was somewhat popular in Soviet Union in 20's, but banned later. In
30's, many Esperantists were accused of spying, imprisoned or executed. It
was legalized again (and even marginally supported) by the end of 50's.
There are still more Russian Esperantists than Russian IF players, I
suppose.
--
Ilya V. Goz
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> > This language is OTOH designed to be complicated,...
>
> Klingon, complicated? Not by a long shot. It's a toy language compared
> to the bulk of natural languages in the world. Which detracts not one
> iota from its expressiveness, of course.
Klingon is designed to be unlike English. This makes it seem
complicated to someone whose only knowledge of grammar comes
from knowing English. While English grammar is fairly complex,
it doesn't seem so bad if you've spoken it all your life.
- jonadab
Aris Katsaris
Jonadab the Unsightly One <jon...@bright.net> wrote in message
news:3b7ee51a...@news.bright.net...
> While English grammar is fairly complex,
I think it's much more simple than many other languages... Certainly
more simple than Greek grammar...
Aris Katsaris
Brian C. Lane
>"Lucian P. Smith" <lps...@rice.edu> wrote:
>
>> It is not customary to give the only entry you receive second place.
>
>He received two entries; however, one was (a) in Russian and (b) too
>large to be easily distributed.
I'd happily donate the disk space and bandwith for any difficult to
distribute IF games. Just put them into the ftp.guetech.org/incoming directory
and I'll see that it gets an announcement on guetech.org
I was planning on entering, but didn't find the time. Hopefully it will be
done for the annual comp.
Brian
--
Brian C. Lane - GUETech Administrator www.guetech.org
West Coast IF-Archive available ftp.guetech.org
========================================================================
Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no
rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.
-- Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491
Jeremy Silver
> jer...@mupwi.demon.co.uk (Jeremy Silver) wrote:
> >
> > My vote goes to IF in tlhIngan Hol.
>
> pa' jIHpu', ta' vIta'pu', yIvbeH vISuqpu'. Loosely translated, that's
> "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt." :-)
> The old Klingon Education Virtual Environment was a MUSH having Klingon
> descriptions and objects which would respond appropriately. There were even
> occasional multiplayer scenarios played out in Klingon.
I have been missing that place myself, any idea if it will be reborn?
>
> > Although this language suffers
> > from the Paramount/Viacom pretty nasty copyright/patent issues.
>
> Any commercial product using the Klingon language is going to have
> those issues to deal with, alas.
I have a WIP (I hope, the latest version may be recoverable after a
recent hard-drive accident :( ) which was never going to be a
commercial product - or at this rate released.
>
> > The Tempest in the original Klingon(tm) anyone?
>
> Somehow, I get the feeling you're not talking about the play, which
> *is* on the list of things to be translated by the KSRP...
IIRC it was Graham Nelson (bow bow scrape scrape) who did the IF
version of the play.
>
> > This language is OTOH designed to be complicated,...
>
> Klingon, complicated? Not by a long shot.
OK maybe not so much complicated, but "different" or dare I say Alien
;)
> ***
>
> but I won't condemn you due to your apparent minor mistakes. ;-)
Aaahhh! SovlIj nIv vIvan.
That is what I get for thinking no experts will be reading this and I
wouldn't need to post a correction. HIvqa' veqlargh!
Carl Muckenhoupt
jer...@mupwi.demon.co.uk says...
> > > The Tempest in the original Klingon(tm) anyone?
> >
> > Somehow, I get the feeling you're not talking about the play, which
> > *is* on the list of things to be translated by the KSRP...
>
> IIRC it was Graham Nelson (bow bow scrape scrape) who did the IF
> version of the play.
There's at least one other adventure game based on the play, but Nelson's
implementation uses Shakespeare's text, and thus would probably be easier
to translate given a translation of the play.
It also seems fairly natural to translate Star Trek-based games into this
tongue.
(BTW, I've heard it claimed that the Klingon home planet was originally
called Klingus. Which explains why they consistently refer to it as "The
Klingon home planet" in TNG and later series. Is there any truth to
this?)
Carl Muckenhoupt
rpre...@NOSPAMimtek.com.invalid says...
>
> >>On 14 Aug 2001 16:19:10 -0700, mrsam...@hotmail.com (Sam Barlow)
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>>If it's not a joke, well, I'm impressed. What next, Esperanto IF?
There are already at least two original Esperanto text adventures.
There's David Welbourn's "Fajfeta sur la Luno", which is still in testing
but is available from his web page along with source code of his Inform
language definition file for Esperanto.
There's also an older game called "La Insulo Tes^el", which is the sample
game that comes with "Aventuro", an authoring system for Esperanto text
adventures. I have yet to see any evidence that Aventuro was ever used
for any other games, and I frankly don't recommend that it be used now
that Inform and TADS are adaptable enough to handle the same things.
Matthew Russotto
Carl Muckenhoupt <ca...@wurb.com> wrote:
>
>(BTW, I've heard it claimed that the Klingon home planet was originally
>called Klingus. Which explains why they consistently refer to it as "The
>Klingon home planet" in TNG and later series. Is there any truth to
>this?)
IIRC, the novels (non-canonical) refer to it as Klinzhai.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
=====
Get Caught Reading, Go To Jail!
A message from the Association of American Publishers
Free Dmitry Sklyarov! DMCA delenda est!
http://www.freedmitry.org
Andrew Plotkin
> (BTW, I've heard it claimed that the Klingon home planet was originally
> called Klingus. Which explains why they consistently refer to it as "The
> Klingon home planet" in TNG and later series. Is there any truth to
> this?)
There never was an original name for the Klingon home planet. The
original TV series never mentioned one.
When John M. Ford wrote _The Final Reflection_, one of the earliest
Star Trek novels and I think the first one to focus on the Klingons as
a culture, he called the planet Klinzhai. (But all of what he invented
was thrown out by later movies and novels.)
By the end of DS9, the place was pretty consistently being referred to
as Kronos. This conflicts with the sixth movie in some way I don't
remember what it is.
I can attest that when undergraduates at CMU were playing Nettrek in
the very earlier 90's, the abbreviation for the Klingon homeworld was
"KLI" (all planets had three-letter abbreviations) and everyone called
it "Klingus". It sounded damn stupid then, too.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
L. Ross Raszewski
>By the end of DS9, the place was pretty consistently being referred to
>as Kronos. This conflicts with the sixth movie in some way I don't
>remember what it is.
Only that that was the name of the Klingon homeworld in that movie,
which implied that they would shortly abandon it.
>
>I can attest that when undergraduates at CMU were playing Nettrek in
>the very earlier 90's, the abbreviation for the Klingon homeworld was
>"KLI" (all planets had three-letter abbreviations) and everyone called
>it "Klingus". It sounded damn stupid then, too.
>
The "Worlds of the Federation" technical book calls the planet
"Kling", giving its name in the native tongue as 'Klinzhai'.
On a related note, in 'The Trouble With Tribbles', a Klingon refers to
their language not by the usual dumbed-down name, "Klingon", but as
"Klingonese".
Alan Anderson
>
> > The old Klingon Education Virtual Environment was a MUSH having Klingon
> > descriptions and objects which would respond appropriately. There were even
> > occasional multiplayer scenarios played out in Klingon.
>
> I have been missing that place myself, any idea if it will be reborn?
The KLI's internet presence has moved to a new server. Bringing a new
MUSH online is one of the short-term goals. It most likely won't be
Bordertown reborn; the old database exists, but the appropriate host
software isn't easily run on the new machine. Right now, I think the
plans are for a much simpler place with but a few rooms, focusing more
on conversation than on exploration.
But people will certainly be encouraged to build, and if you'd like to
put together a nice interactive section for people to enjoy, nobody is
going to complain. :-)
> > but I won't condemn you due to your apparent minor mistakes. ;-)
>
> Aaahhh! SovlIj nIv vIvan.
> That is what I get for thinking no experts will be reading this and I
> wouldn't need to post a correction.
With Google Groups doing my bidding, I'm likely to make an appearance
whenever and wherever the Klingon language is misrepresented or
misused, mwahahahaha!
> HIvqa' veqlargh!
The matter is forgotten.
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- http://www.kli.org/
Alan Anderson
> (BTW, I've heard it claimed that the Klingon home planet was originally
> called Klingus. Which explains why they consistently refer to it as "The
> Klingon home planet" in TNG and later series. Is there any truth to
> this?)
Not Klingus, but just Kling.
A couple of novels by John Ford dubbed the Klingon homeworld
"Klinzhai", and much of Klingon fandom still has its roots in that
non-Paramount version of Klingon history and culture.
The Klingon home planet wasn't discussed in the original series. I
think an animated episode might have made reference to "Nognilk" in a
backwards-running parallel universe, but I never saw it. A
first-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has a couple of
renegade Klingons ranting about "the traitors of Kling." The writers
quickly realized how silly that sounded as the home of a warrior race,
and it's apparently now officially a "district" somewhere on the
homeworld, appearing as such in the Star Trek Encyclopedia and on a
cutaway Klingon Bird of Prey poster.
It wasn't until "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" that the
Klingon homeworld's name of Qo'noS (mutilated into "Kronos" in
Federation Standard) was made known.
I don't know which of the Star Trek computer games mention the Klingon
homeworld by name. I'm pretty sure "Star Trek: Klingon" calls it
Qo'noS.
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- http://www.kli.org/
Alan Anderson
> I can attest that when undergraduates at CMU were playing Nettrek in
> the very earlier 90's, the abbreviation for the Klingon homeworld was
> "KLI" (all planets had three-letter abbreviations) and everyone called
> it "Klingus". It sounded damn stupid then, too.
The even earlier 80s had "Empire" on the PLATO system at the
University of Illinois. For some reason which was never adequately
explained to me, that game's equivalent of the Klingons were named
Kazari. Their home planet was Kazar; I can't remember what the other
two planets in the system were. (The other three "teams" in the game
were Federation, Romulan, and Orion.)
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- http://www.kli.org/
Alan Anderson
> On a related note, in 'The Trouble With Tribbles', a Klingon refers to
> their language not by the usual dumbed-down name, "Klingon", but as
> "Klingonese".
It's hard to tell whether he couldn't finish the word because he was
laughing, or if he did finish it and then started laughing. Whatever
the case, what he actually says sounds like "Klingonee". I suspect
the line was written as "That's why they're all learning Klingoni!
[laughs]."
John Ford lets the Federation get away with calling it Klingonese, but
in his telling of the story, the native rendition of the language's
name is "Klingonaase". Its etymology is given as "tool for
manipulating the embodiment of the Klin principle". That's a damn
sight more interesting than the bland Paramount-sanctioned {tlhingan
Hol}, literally "Klingon's language".
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- http://www.kli.org/
L. Ross Raszewski
>John Ford lets the Federation get away with calling it Klingonese, but
>in his telling of the story, the native rendition of the language's
>name is "Klingonaase". Its etymology is given as "tool for
>manipulating the embodiment of the Klin principle". That's a damn
>sight more interesting than the bland Paramount-sanctioned {tlhingan
>Hol}, literally "Klingon's language".
Yeah, but it's a shame that 'Klingonaase' sounds like a salad dressing
for warriors.
--
L. Ross Raszewski
Yeah. Warriors eat salads too.
Jaap van der Velde
> Are you seriously suggesting that there are more Esperantists than
> Russians?
Well, there might be more Esperantists with internet access and
an almost necrofiliac inclination towards languages kept barely
alive by a small population, which is a definite plus for both
IF-lovers and Esperantists...
Why not ask the people present? Let's hear it: who'd be able to
make heads or tails of a Russian or Esperanto work of IF? :)
*...* (<- deafening silence. ouch)
Grtz,
JAAP.
Magnus Olsson
Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>On 16 Aug 2001 10:43:14 GMT, m...@df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote:
>
>>Richie Adler <mg42...@uol.com.ar> wrote:
>>>Maybe we should make a poll to see which one would have more available
>>>public to play it.
>>
>>Russians?
>
Well, you wrote "available public", which I interpreted as *prospective*
players, not current players.
David Given
aran...@netusa1.net (Alan Anderson) writes:
[...]
>> HIvqa' veqlargh!
>
> The matter is forgotten.
le sevytcica prenu tavla fo la ba'e .kling,on. iocu'i. i ko tavla la
lojban.
[grammar *very* suspect!]
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | There is no spoon.
| Play: d...@cowlark.com |
+- http://www.cowlark.com -+
Ross Presser
parse("salad dressing for warriors") =>
salad dressing used on salad composed of bits of warriors?
--
Ross Presser * ross_p...@imtek.com
"Back stabbing is a sport best played by those that can't stand face
to face with their opponent." - Danny Taddei
Larry Smith
> There's David Welbourn's "Fajfeta sur la Luno",
..."Fajitas on the Moon" ???
=)
--
.-. .-. .---. .---. .-..-. | Wild Open Source Inc.
| |__ / | \| |-< | |-< > / | "Making the bazaar just a
`----'`-^-'`-'`-'`-'`-' `-' | little more commonplace."
http://www.smith-house.org/ | Need programming? Ask me.
Larry Smith
> A couple of novels by John Ford dubbed the Klingon homeworld
> "Klinzhai", and much of Klingon fandom still has its roots in that
> non-Paramount version of Klingon history and culture.
Yes, but only because it was more imaginative,
more consistent with established canon, and
just generally more fun than anything from
Paramount. Aside from that it had little to
recommend it...
John Colagioia
[...]
> Why not ask the people present? Let's hear it: who'd be able to
> make heads or tails of a Russian or Esperanto work of IF? :)
> *...* (<- deafening silence. ouch)
Nah, it's not that bad. I could (and would, given the opportunity)
probably trudge through at least half of a Russian piece of IF. I think
I remember enough that, dictionary in hand, I could meander for quite a
while.
Can't help you with Esperanto, though. I looked at it on my last "let's
learn a language" kick, and it didn't impress me enough to bother with.
Stefan Blixt
I think you can look at English in two ways: either it has a very
complex grammar, or it hasn't got a grammar at all. Compared to
Finnish for instance, English certainly has a lot fewer ways of
adding suffixes and prefixes to words, but makes up by having an
enourmous lot of "pre-made" words (it kind of reminds me of macros
in a programming language. The word "procrastinate" is hilarious,
its swedish translation is "skjuta upp till morgondagen")
that can be thrown in to create the same exactness in a sentence
that you would use grammatical constructs for in another language.
Heaps of such words have been imported from other languages,
probably out of some need for the kind of exactness that you
create in other languages through the construction of new words.
I think the order is important too, so you have to be careful where
you put the "to"s and "it"s.
I've studied a tiny bit of Chinese, and the similarities to English
is striking. Speaking basic Chinese is really simple once you've
mastered the "singing" pronounciation, but it grows very
complicated as you try to say more sophisticated things. On the other
hand (from what I've heard) Japanese contains more of the kind of
complex grammar that Europe (except Britain) is accustomed to.
Language is fun!
/Stefan Blixt
Dan Marsh
news:jG9g7.79804$rV6.4...@e420r-atl2.usenetserver.com...
> In article <MPG.15eaeec47...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>,
> Carl Muckenhoupt <ca...@wurb.com> wrote:
> >
> >(BTW, I've heard it claimed that the Klingon home planet was originally
> >called Klingus. Which explains why they consistently refer to it as "The
> >Klingon home planet" in TNG and later series. Is there any truth to
> >this?)
>
> IIRC, the novels (non-canonical) refer to it as Klinzhai.
I don't recall the episode but the original series referred to it at least
once as Kling.
And I believe the modern series generally refer to Kronos as the Klingon
homeworld. I've seen a Klingon spelling for this (something like Qo'nos),
but I don't remember it exactly. Learning Klingon seems off the deep end of
fandom to me, but I've been accused of being off the deep end myself. (I
don't own any uniforms or action figures, so I guess that's good.)
DM
John Colagioia
>On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:42:46 -0400, John Colagioia
><JCola...@csi.com> wrote:
>>Can't help you with Esperanto, though. I looked at it on my last "let's
>>learn a language" kick, and it didn't impress me enough to bother with.
>enough, and why?
The "why" part is a little hard to answer. I'm honestly not sure, but I'll
do a stream-of-consciousness "which ones" and we'll see what pops out, I
guess...
What Spanish I know, I learned mostly from growing up watching "Sesame
Street." Maybe a little more during school, because I know bits of actual
conversation which I know the Muppets never covered. As a side-note, this
is what I was armed with when I had to train to Venezuelan gentlemen in
using our system. Their level of English was about equal to my level of
Spanish, to boot...we're talking about just about the level of being able to
ask "donde esta el baño?" without referring to anything.
I may go back to Spanish, though, just because I'd like to re-read Don
Quixote without the translator's work filtering it.
I took French in high school because the other option was Spanish, which I
figured I could always pick up from native speakers if necessary, given that
I live in New York (plus, see the aforementioned children's programming).
Five years of that (including Junior High--don't panic), and I used to be
nearly fluent, but can now just barely keep up with a native speaker when
necessary.
I had a half-year of Russian during my senior year of high school, as part
of an experimental course that I believe flopped right after I graduated. I
can just barely negotiate a conversation with a Russian speaker, but it's a
nice language that I do want to get back to.
Lacking references on ancient forms of the language, I took a shot at modern
Hebrew. That was really interesting, but the fact that I was working
strictly from a book, and could not grasp the concept of vowels (the book
was more than a little stubborn on the point) doomed that to failure from
the start.
Let's see...I think that's when I looked at both Esperanto and
Loglan/Lojban, and decided they were both...uninteresting to me. For the
aforementioned unknown reasons.
I tried Japanese for a while, and couldn't wrap my brain around the multiple
writing systems, which my book apparently loved, switching between them
without apparent rhyme or reason. Like Hebrew, it was fascinating, but I
just couldn't handle it at the time beyond "neko ga arimasu" and that sort
of oversimplified, textbook-like gibberish (if the books tole me the word
for "bathroom," I could at least respond to the Spanish question...).
Ancient Egyptian is fun, but I'm not convinced that the hieroglyphic books
are remotely more accurate than any educated guesses might be--especially
when it comes to the split between ideograms and phonetics that seems
somewhat arbitrary.
I was going to try to learn Polish, since I was on the phone on a daily
basis with my company's office in Warsaw anyway at the time, but I got put
on a significantly more time-intensive project at about that time, which,
alas, was in contact with the Phillippines, where all of our contacts spoke
fluent English.
For unrelated reasons, I was going to try Swedish, at one point, but that
got sidetracked, as well (as mentioned, I got "nej" out of the deal, and
that was about it...). I may go back to that.
Recently, stumbling upon the German translation of Zork, and realizing that
one of my coworkers is German, I've started there, simply because the
resources are available, and it's a fairly interesting language (the
booksale I went to that had the heap of cheap technical books in German was
something of an incentive, admittedly, as well).
Welsh, I looked at a while ago, though, and never had the time for it. I
think that may be my upcoming project, because it looks utterly fascinating.
After I get enough German under my belt, at any rate.
I've also had more than a passing interest in Pidgins and Creoles, but have
never had the time to pursue them.
As to what the connecting factor among these might be...uhm...looking over
the list...I haven't the foggiest idea...it's probably just something about
the natural rhythyms that either attracts or bothers me. There also may be
something of a complexity measure, or at least complexity in the sense of
posing a challenge to me.
I hope that's the sort of insight you were looking for.
Adam Conover
> I tried Japanese for a while, and couldn't wrap my brain around the multiple
> writing systems, which my book apparently loved, switching between them
> without apparent rhyme or reason.
Actually, that's just the way Japanese is. The rhyme and reason is as
follows:
Hiragana: The basic phonetic alphabet. Used to spell any natively
Japanese word, like "neko." (The symbols themselves were borrowed from
Chinese with no attention paid to their original meaning, IIRC)
Katakana: Phonetic alphabet #2. Only used for foreign words ("terebee"
[teevee], "aroobaito" [German for "part-time job"], etc) and names.
Kanji: Word-based alphabet, used for verb and noun stems. Conjugation is
done by sticking hiragana on the end of Kanji. Each Kanji character
(yeah, there's a couple thousand) has two specific pronunciations, each
of which can be "spelled" in Hiragana. Childrens' books are written
entirely in Hiragana, for instance.
[/showoff]
- adam
John Colagioia
>In article <3b87e...@excalibur.gbmtech.net>, JCola...@csi.com says...
>> I tried Japanese for a while, and couldn't wrap my brain around the
multiple
>> writing systems, which my book apparently loved, switching between them
>> without apparent rhyme or reason.
>Actually, that's just the way Japanese is.
Ah. Well, it's good to see I wasn't just being dense.
>The rhyme and reason is as
>follows:
>Hiragana: The basic phonetic alphabet. Used to spell any natively
>Japanese word, like "neko." (The symbols themselves were borrowed from
>Chinese with no attention paid to their original meaning, IIRC)
Those appear to--under circumstances that I didn't understand--also
occasionally get used as the original Chinese ideograms. At least, I think
that's what they were getting at...
>Katakana: Phonetic alphabet #2. Only used for foreign words ("terebee"
>[teevee], "aroobaito" [German for "part-time job"], etc) and names.
Ah, yes. This much, I'm familiar with: Cheezucaku (probably spelled
incorrectly) and girlfriendu and the like...
Heh...Alas, that's not a good working vocabulary to communicate. There's
only so long one can get by in a conversation by identifying cats, desserts,
significant others, and random bits of modern technology...
>Kanji: Word-based alphabet, used for verb and noun stems. Conjugation is
>done by sticking hiragana on the end of Kanji. Each Kanji character
>(yeah, there's a couple thousand) has two specific pronunciations, each
>of which can be "spelled" in Hiragana. Childrens' books are written
>entirely in Hiragana, for instance.
Ah-ha! That's what that stuff that looked like a rebus was...Kanji/hirigana
sets. I thought the book had gone off the deep end around there...
>[/showoff]
Heh...But a helpful showoff. Thanks.
Oren Ronen
news:3b87e...@excalibur.gbmtech.net...
>
> Lacking references on ancient forms of the language, I took a shot at
modern
> Hebrew. That was really interesting, but the fact that I was working
> strictly from a book, and could not grasp the concept of vowels (the book
> was more than a little stubborn on the point) doomed that to failure from
> the start.
Understandable, since Hebrew, for the most part, doesn't have any vowels. In
their place we have little symbols ("nikud"), placed above, below and inside
the letters (all of which are consonants), that dictate which sound to use.
The thing that confuses most newcomers to the language is that nothing
printed in modern Hebrew, aside from children books and dictionaries,
actually use these symbols. Readers distinguish words that are written the
same by context alone (and nearly every word can be read several different
ways).
Oren Ronen
or...@isdn.net.il
John Colagioia
Oh, I actually managed to figure most of that out, to be honest--it's very
similar to...I can't remember what, but there was another language that I
tried to learn that did pretty much the same thing. It's just that (a)
lacking a working vocabulary and significant context (as is prone to happen
in a "let's learn this language" book), it was sort of hard to infer which
invisible vowels were needed, and (b) the fact that the book actually did
show the vowels in unrelated cases...
Now that I've been teaching graduate courses for five years, I've basically
come to the conclusion that good textbooks are extremely hard to come by, no
matter what the subject matter.
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> > While English grammar is fairly complex,
>
> I think it's much more simple than many other languages... Certainly
> more simple than Greek grammar...
I would not have said so. [snip long rant]
Each language has its own complexities, but I would not
consider English grammar simple under any circumstances.
Although the really remarkable thing about English is
not its grammar, but its vocabulary.
The hardest thing about Greek grammar is learning all
the endings, and that's still not as bad as learning
all the vocabulary, or so it seems to me. ISTR some
students complaining a lot about deponent verbs, but
I don't understand what's so hard about them myself.
- jonadab
Magnus Olsson
Jonadab the Unsightly One <jon...@bright.net> wrote:
>"Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote:
>
>> > While English grammar is fairly complex,
>>
>> I think it's much more simple than many other languages... Certainly
>> more simple than Greek grammar...
>
>I would not have said so. [snip long rant]
>Each language has its own complexities, but I would not
>consider English grammar simple under any circumstances.
English grammar is remarkably comlicated due to the large number of
exceptions and special cases. Sometimes it seems that it consists
*entirely* of exceptions.
But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections". Somebody
even posted in this thread that English doesn't have any grammar, just
syntax. Sorry, but syntax is also grammar.
John W. Kennedy
> But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
--
John W. Kennedy
(Working from my laptop)
Magnus Olsson
John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>Magnus Olsson wrote:
>> But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
>
>Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
>truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
...or that their own language is easier to learn than some other
language with a different grammatic structure, or that their own
langauge is "optimal" for, say, writing IF.
John Colagioia
> Magnus Olsson wrote:
> > But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
> Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
> truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
Well, actually, it's a fairly logical conceptual progression. Once one
has been immersed in a language, that person begins to understand which
rules can be broken without changing or hiding the meaning of what is
being said. Once that becomes second nature, the language (or, at
least, the pseudo-dialect that ends up being used) ceases to have a
formal grammar.
That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
meaning. This is why English seems to have so many exceptions to some,
and to be grammar-free to others. Well, that, and the fact that English
grammar comes from a wide variety of sources...
Magnus Olsson
John Colagioia <JCola...@csi.com> wrote:
>"John W. Kennedy" wrote:
>
>> Magnus Olsson wrote:
>> > But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
>> Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
>> truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
>
>Well, actually, it's a fairly logical conceptual progression. Once one
>has been immersed in a language, that person begins to understand which
>rules can be broken without changing or hiding the meaning of what is
>being said. Once that becomes second nature, the language (or, at
>least, the pseudo-dialect that ends up being used) ceases to have a
>formal grammar.
You're confusing two things here:
The person in question isn't consciously using English grammar
anymore, the way he/she did as a beginner (assuming him/her to
be a non-native speaker, of course).
And most native speakers *never* consciously use grammar when
speaking.
But of course that doesn't mean that the language _per se_ ceases to
have a formal grammar, just that the person in question isn't aware of
it.
>That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
>good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
>meaning.
If you think of it a little, you still have to use English grammar to
parse that sentence: once you've identified "is" as a verb, you hav
eto use the grammatic rule that says that the role of the verb in a
sentence is to indicate (loosely) what action is taking place, for
example. And yes, Virginia, that is a specific feature of English
grammar; there are languages that on't have verbs in that sense.
Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!
So the people who say that English has no grammar really don't have
any idea of what they're talking about.
Richard Bos
> In article <3B8D5780...@attglobal.net>,
> John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
> >truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
>
> ...or that their own language is easier to learn than some other
> language with a different grammatic structure,
...or even that their language is "the hardest language for foreigners
to learn". I've heard this claim from Russians, Japanese, and even from
Dutch people. For to make a laughing sound. Har. Har.
Richard
Richard Bos
> That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
> good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
> meaning. This is why English seems to have so many exceptions to some,
> and to be grammar-free to others. Well, that, and the fact that English
> grammar comes from a wide variety of sources...
No argument. I can say "Bonus ego Latina me scire", and the vast
majority of people who speak Latin will understand what I mean, as well.
Yet the same kind of people who tend to claim that "English has no
grammar", also tend to claim that "Latin has more grammar than modern
languages".
Richard
John W. Kennedy
> ...or that their own language is easier to learn than some other
> language with a different grammatic structure, or that their own
> langauge is "optimal" for, say, writing IF.
Well, an uninflected language certainly has advantages, not so much in
parsing, perhaps, as in output generation. It also helps to be without
mutations (the fiendish feature of Welsh by which the beginning of a
word changes, even in written form, depending on the sounds at the end
of the previous word).
But the only _strongly_ advantaged language I can think of is Loglan,
since it actually has a complete working yacc grammar.
Magnus Olsson
I also suspect that if you could get hold of a native speaker of Latin
and teach him modern English, he would complain about how difficult it
was and how complicated the grammar is. Imagine having to memorize all
these rules about word order, and the unspeakable mess that is the
English prepositional system.
John Colagioia
> In article <3B8E3051...@csi.com>,
> John Colagioia <JCola...@csi.com> wrote:
> >"John W. Kennedy" wrote:
> >> Magnus Olsson wrote:
> >> > But I think many peopel confuse "grammar" with "inflections".
> >> Millions of people make that mistake. But, even more generally, the
> >> truly naïve always believe that their language has "no grammar".
> >Well, actually, it's a fairly logical conceptual progression. Once one
> >has been immersed in a language, that person begins to understand which
> >rules can be broken without changing or hiding the meaning of what is
> >being said. Once that becomes second nature, the language (or, at
> >least, the pseudo-dialect that ends up being used) ceases to have a
> >formal grammar.
> You're confusing two things here:
Actually, I ended the sentence too early. Append "for them" to it, and it's
a little better.
> The person in question isn't consciously using English grammar
> anymore, the way he/she did as a beginner (assuming him/her to
> be a non-native speaker, of course).
> And most native speakers *never* consciously use grammar when
> speaking.
Right. It becomes (ahem) "intuitive."
> But of course that doesn't mean that the language _per se_ ceases to
> have a formal grammar, just that the person in question isn't aware of
> it.
Well, it's not so much awareness so much as conscious use. I mean, there
certainly is a formal English grammar beyond "things that don't sound
awkward," but fluent speakers have mostly internalized that information so
that it no longer becomes an effort-consuming task.
> >That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
> >good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
> >meaning.
> If you think of it a little, you still have to use English grammar to
> parse that sentence: once you've identified "is" as a verb, you hav
> eto use the grammatic rule that says that the role of the verb in a
> sentence is to indicate (loosely) what action is taking place, for
> example.
I'm not so sure that's necessary. To a certain extent, it's a matter of
vocabulary. "Is" may be a verb, but alone, it typically defines equivalence
of whatever else is around.
What you've said is the "right" way to approach it (that is, the approach
that will work in the largest set of problematic sentences), of course. But
there are many wrong ways that'll still do the job. And, I suspect that too
many native speakers approach these things in the wrong ways, simply because
they do work.
> And yes, Virginia, that is a specific feature of English
> grammar; there are languages that on't have verbs in that sense.
Absolutely.
> Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
> there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
> they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
> well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!
Well, you're right in that it doesn't conform to the standard. However, what
about something more innocuous, like, "The ability to speak coherent English
fluently is one of which I am in posession." It conforms fine, but is
extremely awkward, and a good percentage of people will probably look for a
fault with it.
Ironically, that sentence can be made less awkward and more understandable by
violating a few rules (some of which, incidentally, have been discarded as
rules). Split the infinitive verb ("to speak") with the adverb "fluently,"
and end the sentence with the preposition "of," and it's much smoother,
though an older English teacher would cringe.
> So the people who say that English has no grammar really don't have
> any idea of what they're talking about.
This is true. But, again, it's a perfectly understandable mistake, and one
that I imagine isn't exclusive to English.
English spelling, on the other hand, at various points in history...
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
> there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
> they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
> well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!
And even at that, there are ways in which it *does* follow
the standard grammatical rules we take for granted (but that
aren't necessarily so in other languages). For example, the
subject is still before the verb, and the adjective still
directly preceedes the noun it modifies. Neither of these
things would need to be true in Greek, for example, but for
every one you change in English, the sentence becomes more
difficult to read...
is me talker good english
Now we've lost a lot of the meaning. We're no longer
sure the sentence is declarative, and it's hard to pin
down what "english" and "good" modify. And we can screw
it up worse than this. (For example, I've not got the
subject and verb before the predicate nominative, and
the adjectives are still *near* what they modify.) If
the sentence had been complicated in the first place...
it would be totally incomprehensible without at least
some adherence to the usual grammar.
- jonadab
Magnus Olsson
>> ...or that their own language is easier to learn than some other
>> language with a different grammatic structure, or that their own
>> langauge is "optimal" for, say, writing IF.
>
>Well, an uninflected language certainly has advantages, not so much in
>parsing, perhaps, as in output generation. It also helps to be without
>mutations (the fiendish feature of Welsh by which the beginning of a
>word changes, even in written form, depending on the sounds at the end
>of the previous word).
Yes, and I've never denied that English is a *good* language for IF.
But claims that it is *optimal* strike me as silly, both because
to make such a claim you really ought to have at least some knowledge
of all major languages in the world, and because the concept
of "optimality" in this context is a very vague one indeed.
Daryl McCullough
>English spelling, on the other hand, at various points in history...
I love English spelling. Not that its easy to learn, or
that it is sensible, but because the weirdness of the spelling
gives us a flavor of the history of a word. For example, all
those -ough- words such as rough, cough, though, through,
McCullough. I don't exactly know where these words came from
(Old English? Celtic?) but it is obvious that they aren't derived
from French (like 70 percent of English).
And there's something charming (to me) about the fact that
on a ship, there things called "gunwales" (not "gunnels")
and "forecastles" (not "focsle").
--
Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY
Jon Ingold
> I love English spelling. Not that its easy to learn, or
> that it is sensible, but because the weirdness of the spelling
> gives us a flavor of the history of a word. For example, all
> those -ough- words such as rough, cough, though, through,
> McCullough. I don't exactly know where these words came from
> (Old English? Celtic?) but it is obvious that they aren't derived
> from French (like 70 percent of English).
When Dr. Johnson wrote the dictionary and standardised all the spelling,
there was a problem - he was snob. He took the five or six way of
spelling "rough" knocking around, and chose the one he thought looked
best: "rough". Same with "light" and so on.
Jon
Matthew Russotto
Daryl McCullough <da...@cogentex.com> wrote:
>John says...
>
>I love English spelling. Not that its easy to learn, or
>that it is sensible, but because the weirdness of the spelling
>gives us a flavor of the history of a word. For example, all
>those -ough- words such as rough, cough, though, through,
>McCullough. I don't exactly know where these words came from
>(Old English? Celtic?) but it is obvious that they aren't derived
>from French (like 70 percent of English).
>
>And there's something charming (to me) about the fact that
>on a ship, there things called "gunwales" (not "gunnels")
>and "forecastles" (not "focsle").
Often fo'c'sle, isn't it? Also there's the boatswain (bosun). And a
coxswain, though I don't think that one is abbreviated coxsun. Naval
terminology, ugh...
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
=====
Get Caught Reading, Go To Jail!
A message from the Association of American Publishers
Free Dmitry Sklyarov! DMCA delenda est!
http://www.freedmitry.org
Michael Brazier
wrote:
>> Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
>> there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
>> they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
>> well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!
>
>Well, you're right in that it doesn't conform to the standard. However, what
>about something more innocuous, like, "The ability to speak coherent English
>fluently is one of which I am in posession." It conforms fine, but is
>extremely awkward, and a good percentage of people will probably look for a
>fault with it.
>
>Ironically, that sentence can be made less awkward and more understandable by
>violating a few rules (some of which, incidentally, have been discarded as
>rules). Split the infinitive verb ("to speak") with the adverb "fluently,"
>and end the sentence with the preposition "of," and it's much smoother,
>though an older English teacher would cringe.
On the other hand, you can express the same idea quite straightforwardly:
"I can speak English fluently" does it in five words, with no awkward
subordinate clauses.
--
Michael Brazier But what are all these gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
X^2 + 7X + 53 = 11/3
-- Lewis Carroll
Tim Mann
Richard Bos <in...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote:
>...or even that their language is "the hardest language for foreigners
>to learn". I've heard this claim from Russians, Japanese, and even from
>Dutch people. For to make a laughing sound. Har. Har.
A friend of mine who spent a year in the Netherlands said she found the Dutch
vowel sounds difficult, but the written language looks pretty easy for someone
who knows English and/or German.
--
Tim Mann t...@tim-mann.org http://www.tim-mann.org/
Greg Ewing
>
> And there's something charming (to me) about the fact that
> on a ship, there things called "gunwales" (not "gunnels")
> and "forecastles" (not "focsle").
Not to mention all those wonderful surnames
like Cockburn, Cholmondely, Marjoribanks and
Luxury-Yacht. :-)
--
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg
Daryl McCullough
>
>Daryl McCullough wrote:
>>
>> And there's something charming (to me) about the fact that
>> on a ship, there things called "gunwales" (not "gunnels")
>> and "forecastles" (not "focsle").
>
>Not to mention all those wonderful surnames
>like Cockburn, Cholmondely, Marjoribanks and
>Luxury-Yacht. :-)
Yes. One of my favorites is "Featherstonehaugh" pronounced "Fanshaw".
--
Daryl McCullough
L. Ross Raszewski
<russ...@wanda.pond.com> wrote:
>
>Often fo'c'sle, isn't it? Also there's the boatswain (bosun). And a
>coxswain, though I don't think that one is abbreviated coxsun. Naval
>terminology, ugh...
Whole freakin' military. THere's also Colonel, and the inexplicable
British pronunciation of Lieutenant (a word which, even if you
pronounce it the American way, is almost impossible to spell. I prolly
spelled it wrong myself just now.)
John Colagioia
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:27:11 -0400, John Colagioia <JCola...@csi.com>
> wrote:
> >> Also, I suspect that 99.99% of all English speakers will sense that
> >> there is something wrong with "English good-talker me is", even if
> >> they can't define exactly what is wrong. And what's wrong with it?
> >> well, it doesn't conform to standard English grammar, of course!
> >Well, you're right in that it doesn't conform to the standard. However, what
> >about something more innocuous, like, "The ability to speak coherent English
> >fluently is one of which I am in posession." It conforms fine, but is
> >extremely awkward, and a good percentage of people will probably look for a
> >fault with it.
> >Ironically, that sentence can be made less awkward and more understandable by
> >violating a few rules (some of which, incidentally, have been discarded as
> >rules). Split the infinitive verb ("to speak") with the adverb "fluently,"
> >and end the sentence with the preposition "of," and it's much smoother,
> >though an older English teacher would cringe.
> On the other hand, you can express the same idea quite straightforwardly:
> "I can speak English fluently" does it in five words, with no awkward
> subordinate clauses.
Down to the first foot, though (well, we're out of hands, right?), that only
expresses the same idea out of context. There might be other reasons that one
would use the more verbose sentence.
Besides, fluent English does not in any way imply coherent English. "Colorless
green dreams sleep furiously," and all that jazz.
Magnus Olsson
John Colagioia <JCola...@csi.com> wrote:
>Magnus Olsson wrote:
>> >That is, English "has no grammar," because I can say, "English
>> >good-talker me is," and the vast majority of readers will understand the
>> >meaning.
>> If you think of it a little, you still have to use English grammar to
>> parse that sentence: once you've identified "is" as a verb, you hav
>> eto use the grammatic rule that says that the role of the verb in a
>> sentence is to indicate (loosely) what action is taking place, for
>> example.
>
>I'm not so sure that's necessary. To a certain extent, it's a matter of
>vocabulary. "Is" may be a verb, but alone, it typically defines equivalence
>of whatever else is around.
OK, my example wasn't very well chosen. For a better example, see below.
>What you've said is the "right" way to approach it (that is, the approach
>that will work in the largest set of problematic sentences), of course. But
>there are many wrong ways that'll still do the job. And, I suspect that too
>many native speakers approach these things in the wrong ways, simply because
>they do work.
I think you misunderstand me. I didn't mean to imply that some
particular method of parsing a sentence was "right". What I meant
was that grammar is the set of rules that enables us to recognize
well-formed sentences, or, alternatively, to string together English
words into well-formed English sentences (this is Chomsky's approach),
and that also enables us to perform at least part of the interpretation
of the sentence.
Consider the three examples
"Dog bites man"
"Man bites dog"
"Bites dog man"
Of these, the first two have very clear - but opposite - meanings, while
the third not only isn't correct English, but also doesn't have an
unambiguous meaning (who bites whom?).
If English didn't have any grammar, I suppose all three sentences
would be in some sense equivalent. But English does have grammar,
and it's this grammar that allows us to reject the third one and to
tell who bites whom in the first two.
Adam Hendine
Another defining moment was when printing was introduced. Prior to
printing, spelling was pretty idiosyncratic and tended to follow
pronunciation. Once people saw a word in print however that tended to
define how it "should" be spelt.
A lot of anomalous spellings today reflect the actual pronunciation of
the word at the time it was first printed. For instance the silent
"k" in "knife" and "knight" was in fact voiced at that time, so
"knight" was pronounced "knig-hut" (honest!) and "knife" was "k-neyfe"
so the spellings made sense back then.
Just my little hobby horse...
Adam
Matthew Russotto
It's just "lieu", as in "In lieu of" and "tenant", as in someone who
pays you rent if you're lucky.
Matthew Russotto
>
>I think you misunderstand me. I didn't mean to imply that some
>particular method of parsing a sentence was "right". What I meant
>was that grammar is the set of rules that enables us to recognize
>well-formed sentences, or, alternatively, to string together English
>words into well-formed English sentences (this is Chomsky's approach),
>and that also enables us to perform at least part of the interpretation
>of the sentence.
>
>Consider the three examples
>
>"Dog bites man"
>"Man bites dog"
>"Bites dog man"
>
>Of these, the first two have very clear - but opposite - meanings, while
>the third not only isn't correct English, but also doesn't have an
>unambiguous meaning (who bites whom?).
Actually, the third IS correct english. And has a completely
different meaning. The word "dog" is also a verb meaning "to hunt or
track like a hound", " to worry as if by pursuit with dogs", or "to
fasten with a dog [yet another meaning!]". Someone constantly being
bitten (e.g. by insects) might be said to be dogged by bites. Not
very likely, but it is grammatically correct.
John W. Kennedy
> It's just "lieu", as in "In lieu of" and "tenant", as in someone who
> pays you rent if you're lucky.
More to the point, a "tenant" is one who holds. A lieutenant is a
placeholder.