| Author |
Message |
    
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1259
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 4:27 am: |     |
I am saying neurotypical humans are to aspies as those metaphor-speaking aliens are to neurotypical humans.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3000
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 4:45 am: | |
Aspies?
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Ted
hunter
Username: Ted
Post Number: 504
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 5:05 am: | |
(cb) Aspies?
Those people with Asperger's Syndrome.
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Benjamin Disraeli: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3001
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 5:14 am: | |
OK, I've looked that up. And that connects how?
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Ted
hunter
Username: Ted
Post Number: 505
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 5:39 am: | |
Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player....
Ted
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Benjamin Disraeli: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1260
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 6:26 am: | |
I was trying to give a perspective of your example of the aliens speaking entirely in metaphor from the other end.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1577
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 6:55 am: | |
cavebear, thanks for that trip down memory lane! I agree - culturally it is difficult, if not impossible for Picard to understand that Tamarians.
For more fun see: Darmok Dictionary
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3005
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 4:20 pm: | |
Sorry, Ted; I try not to shoot messengers (I may wound them a little). 
But I am a bit confused about the connection, so if anyone can help clarify this, I'd appreciate it.
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Thales
gatherer
Username: Thales
Post Number: 123
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 5:59 pm: | |
Cavebear, while I agree with you and Annie that reviving a dead language may cause problems, I suggest that using Latin as an example is not a good choice. Though native speakers are few they exist, and Latin is not dead in the sense that it has been developed even in modern times. Finnish radio has a weekly news report in Latin, and though I don't really know the language, I understand enough to know that they have no trouble presenting modern concepts like space probes or computer viruses.
“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.” |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1262
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 7:12 pm: | |
Thales, in that sense Hebrew wasn't dead either. There was much Medieval poetry written in it. But like Latin, it wasn't an everyday language and wasn't a first language taught to children.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3006
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 7:55 pm: | |
Well, I have to admit that as high-schoolers, we joked that our elderly Latin teacher probably spoke it as her native tongue...
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3007
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 8:02 pm: | |
Thales, I did not know that. Does the modern Finnish Latin have natural words for concepts like "post-modernism", "abstract art", "election year advertising blitz" and "fusion weapons"?
I realize such terms can be back-constructed, but that's not what I mean. Just curious... 
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Miisa
flint knapper
Username: Miisa
Post Number: 797
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 - 8:48 pm: | |
Here is their page, it has some links to info (I think, most of the page is in Latin)
Angelus' breakfast |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1578
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 12:57 am: | |
Miisa, thanks! I wish I had learned Latin in highschool. A lot is obvious, but understanding it and getting the gist are two different things.
Pine, classical Japanese is that language that was last spoken in the 12/13th centuries. Even then it was a language of poetry, court functions etc. By the 10th century, its idioms were so codefied that people "knew" when to use any particular one and when not to. We are still struggling today with many of them - what did they originally mean. Classical Japanese is used today in poetry and every highschool student studies it. Yet, I doubt that today's Japanese understand barely half of what they read because they are that far removed from the culture of 11th century Japan. It was therefore that much more difficult for a non-Japanese to learn it. I specialised in translating children's stories - and there was no way to do so into English. I had to first translate into modern Japanese and then into English.
One often sees anachronisms of classical Japanese in the modern language - in three cases: a) when one wants to be overly polite, b) when one wants to be insulting or sarcastic and interestingly, c) when one wants to be very formal, often unused verb and adjective conjugations are used.
When I met my wife's mother for the first time, she asked me why I would want ever be interested in Kazuyo. I was embarrassed and used an old idiom from the 10th century, close enough to modern Japanese to be understood - and from a story about a stubborn, but beautiful women that refused to be wooed by any suitor.. My mother-in-law to be laughed so hard she was in tears - and welcomed me to the family! LOL! It was my way of being formal and breaking up the tension. To translate it into English would make literal sense but not really convey the meaning unless you knew the story.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Thales
gatherer
Username: Thales
Post Number: 124
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 3:40 pm: | |
Miisa already gave a link to the main page, but just in case someone didn't notice, here
http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/audi/
you can listen to some of the latest broadcasts. As I said, I don't really know the language, and I can't answer to Cavebear's question about specific terms, even if in most cases I get a general idea of what they are talking about. Do we have a Latinist on board?
“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.” |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 1932
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 11, 2006 - 3:02 pm: | |
Pine, here's a couple more examples of word derivations that tend to give me a pause:
 (neche), meaning a disabled person, a cripple - is a form of 'nikha' (derived from 'makha', meaning "a blow"), and means literally a person who has been dealt a (deliberate) blow. While the reference may have been to people crippled in wars, which probably was one of the most common causes of people becoming crippled at the time, the ambiguous reference WRT the source of the blow reminds me of the extremist "Christian" attitude that such misfortunes are god's intentional punishments, and therefore 'stricken' people must have done something to deserve the blow they have been dealt. 
 (avad), meaning both 'work', 'slave', and 'worship'. Here I see a bit of a problem with the positive/negative connotations of this group, due to the slavery aspect, and the religion factor. An atheist who recognizes slavery as a negative, and has no trouble accepting worship as a negative as well, might conclude that work is similarly a bad thing.  Whereas a religious person, who considers worship a positive, and can accept work as a positive as well, might come to the conclusion that slavery is ok...
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1271
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 12, 2006 - 12:30 am: | |
Actually my husband prefers the derivation of nakhe to that of invalid, which implies total uselessness.
Sorry, I disagree that people actually make all those connections when they think of the words, especially not native speakers. I am used to accepting that lots of similar sounding words have very different meanings, sometimes due to different derivations becoming assimilated, sometimes because a single derivation acquires more meanings. I like playing with searching for etymologies, to see which are divergences and which convergences, but that is not related to how I think of the word in its current usage.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1599
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 - 12:09 am: | |
Pine, I would have disagreed too except I had a recent experience that would suggest I am thinking otherwise.
On a game site, I was playing someone with a handle "pompey-john". The game took place over a period of a month and I was quite frustrated with his style of play. I thought he was arrogant, pompous even. I came to resent him. I won the game and afterwards chatted with him and found him to be completely otherwise. I reviewed my game and found that his moves were for the most part the best that could have been made, there was no prolonging.
Now, take a look at his name. Pompey......the derivation of which I subconsciously thought was 'pompous' and hence my intense dislike for him. I was shocked when it was brought to my attention - (I complained to people outside of the game about this character) that pompous was not the derivation of course, but my mind had already been made up - almost without my knowledge.
This is just a simple example, but I think Annie might be on to something here. I am going to investigate this and my assumptions in the coming weeks and see if I can find other examples.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Ted
hunter
Username: Ted
Post Number: 515
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 7:41 am: | |
(The Scott)
Now, take a look at his name. Pompey......the derivation of which I subconsciously thought was 'pompous' and hence my intense dislike for him. I was shocked when it was brought to my attention - (I complained to people outside of the game about this character) that pompous was not the derivation of course, but my mind had already been made up - almost without my knowledge.
This is a universal tendency, at least in the english language.
My garbage bag of a memory tells me that somebody did a study of people whose initials either spelled out something seen by others to be good, or something horrid, and those whose initials were nonsense words.
Such as R.A.T. or B.A.D. or G.O.D or J.C. or W.I.N. or T.O.P. or O.B.E. or S.I.R. or nonsense initials such as D.E.H. or S.D.M.
Turned out that people with "good" initials had a small but verifiable better chance at life than those with nonsense initials, and certainly better than those with "bad" initials.
Another item for the useless information file.........
But something to be considered when naming your children.
Some parents should be put up against a wall and shot when you look at the names they give their children. Around here there is a (possible rural myth) family of Down, with children with names like Ben and Ida. But I know of verifiable execrable local examples which I cannot give here because of lurkers.
Ted
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Benjamin Disraeli: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1279
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 8:45 am: | |
OTOH there is the story of siblings named Winner and Loser. Winner dropped out of school and became a drug addict, Loser became a police officer, and the only problem he has with his name is that people are embarrassed to call him by it, so they make up all sorts of nicknames. The story appears in Freakonomics.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
Ted
hunter
Username: Ted
Post Number: 516
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 9:27 am: | |
Well, yeah, I can toss a coin six times, and maybe it will come up six heads.
But don't bet the life savings on it coming up heads next time.
Ted
Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Benjamin Disraeli: "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll." |
Sweetsunray
storyteller
Username: Sweetsunray
Post Number: 1123
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 4:13 pm: | |
A blind test study about first names:
Ten papers were given to several teachers to correct. Several names were written on top of it. But for each teacher the same names were put on different papers, although it were the same papers. Several names came out as getting better grades, and on the other side some names got flunked or bad grades.
I hate the name Caroline. Any woman with that name isin disadvantage with me. The name will instantly call up this image of a fat toddler, with greasy curls, a runny nose and a greasy rag of a red dress. That was the first person, in kindergarten, that I ever knew to have that name. I don't think it's much of a surprise, I don't know any Carolines personally.
Everyone has a motive for giving arguments. But only the arguments given matter. |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3042
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 9:32 pm: | |
(Scott) " Now, take a look at his name. Pompey......the derivation of which I subconsciously thought was 'pompous' and hence my intense dislike for him. I was shocked when it was brought to my attention - (I complained to people outside of the game about this character) that pompous was not the derivation of course, but my mind had already been made up - almost without my knowledge."
Subconscious assumptions are so easy to make. I'm sure I do it all the time myself. Internet handles really feed into that idea ("that problem"?).
My first exposure to computers (before we had them in the office for serious work) was quest games. You assembled a set of characters to play with (of some various talents) and you gave them names. I agonized over the names. I considered them important. Names represent meanings. Consider a "thief" character. There are many famous thieves through history and literature. Some are strong and ruthless, some are clever and sneaky, some are destitute and desperate. Some are admirable (Robin Hood) some are not (Fagan). But you have a particular kind of thief in mind (as they differ) so you think about a proper name.
Same with warriors. Do you prefer Achilles or Hector? Superman or Batman? Zorro or Athos? Is your magician Merlin, Prospero, or Ged (Earthsea Trilogy)? They are different characters. The choice of the names influences the way you treat the talents of the characters in the game. You can't help it.
Along comes the internet, with "handles". This is a serious question? What do you (after all those games with characters) call yourself? No one ever used real names when it started. I created 3, according to sites I visited. The first was "cavebear" for philosophy/general discussion-style sites. The second was "yardenman" for gardening sites. I've even forgotten the 3rd, but I did have it (for geography, I think).
I really thought about those long and hard. I had a personal image of myself that I wanted to project, and it mattered. "Yardenman" had more meaning and gravitas than say, "Barney327" at the gardening sites. And of course, it helps to have some handle that is easy to remember.
I might also mention that some people choose "anti-handles". A good example in a chess site is "patzer" or, in a gardening site, "weedgrower". But even "weedgrower" is more memorable than "Fred".
I think we remember names that apply to subjects better than we recognize names that are more generally used. Slightly off subject, I think we have less imagination these days in giving names to our children. Think of how many Janes there are compared to Roses! Or Johns compared to Wolfs?
So, to get back to the original subject, I respond to names in ways that are often false (subconscious, conscious, or even language-oriented). In war games, I have noticed that someone named "Caesar" played nothing like Julius Caesar and became annoyed at his unstrategic play, or vice versa in the case of players with brute force handles who played subtly.
I look at handles to discern meaning. I assume thought behind handles. Sometimes I understand the meaning, sometimes I don't. When I don't see the meaning, I still assume there is one. On rare occasions, I even ask.
But I always assume there is a meaning.
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 3043
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 9:48 pm: | |
(SSR) "A blind test study about first names"
When I was 20, I took a college class in "discrimination in advertising". I wrote what I thought (and still think) to be a rather good analysis of gender oriented advertising. The main teacher seemed to think well of my classroom discussions. The grad assistant (a self-described feminist) routinely dismissed my questions and comments as "naïve", condescending", etc). She failed my one essay paper as "laughable". The teacher disagreed, but he would not over-write her opinion.
Well, these things happen, and it neither failed me nor passed me through college. But I have always wondered if the grad student who graded my paper would have interpreted my words differently had the name on the top been "Susan" instead of "Mark".
I have equally wondered how many times I gained some grade advantage the other way around, too. I didn't want advantage or disadvantage either way.
If I went through college again, I would change my name to some unisexual, like "Pat". Just to avoid the subconscious or deliberate bias.
Thank you, Carl Sagan... |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1281
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006 - 1:22 am: | |
There was also that paper from sometime in the 90s that found that surnames towards the beginning of the alphabet were correlated with academic success. The speculation was that they get called on more in class.
Cohen's Law: 'Unless you fail at more than 10% of the things you try, you aren't trying enough things.' |
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