Month: August 2017

I’m sceptical to what extent mathematics enters into any reasoning about human language (and Lojbanists actually highlight that language is not reducible to truth-conditional logic). But much of what you’re saying is the bet behind Natural semantic metalanguage, which tries to define every concept ever in a language that looks like English, but that has only an extremely small number of primitive words.

NSM was a thing of cruel, adamantine beauty back in the 70s and 80s, when it had just 14 primitives. It was also of course utterly unusable as a practical tool for eliciting meaning. It’s now up to 63.

A favourite party trick of Anna Wierzbicka’s undergrads, at least in my day, was to try to hold conversations in NSM. It can be done. It can’t be done efficiently enough to count as a real conversation; but it does meet a generous definition of “in real time”.

Oh, of course I’m going to give you an Insurgency-tinged answer, Martin!

If Quora Inc were a human, they’d be one of those infuriating people who eat seven meals a day and are still stick-thin, and that chain smoke but will still live to be a hundred. It keeps doing things that the normal laws of nature would have you predict would lead to them being quite sick, but they keep getting away with murder. (Where, for murder, read VC capital.)

I think half a dozen, and one of them on this thread.

Ouch.

It hasn’t been a mystery for any of them, though in one case the blocking seemed to me a massively disproportionate reaction to the offence. But that gets to be their call to make, not mine.

I’ve been blocked and unblocked once on the matters *I* regard as my core domain, the union of Greek and Language. Most of the blocks relate to the matters everyone else likely assumes are my core domain: assuming the mantle of being a Quora critic.

In my estimation, I’ve gained more from those I’ve come to associate through assuming that mantle than I’ve lost.

And that gets to be my call to make.

I gather the question is about how I receive them rather than how I give them, given that this question is related to How important are gender presentation and different pronouns to you as a transgender person?

I’m a bloke. I don’t want to be told I’m not a bloke, and I’ll be rather surprised if someone thinks I’m not a bloke.

I present as a bloke. I’m quite happy to present as a bloke, and despite the occasional “no, I’m secure in my sexuality” joke, I haven’t particularly delved into gender ambiguity.

I have identities that are more pressing and conscious to me than masculinity; then again, masculinity is the kind of identity that fades into the all-encompassing background readily.

Like Kimberly Alexander’s answer says, cis people don’t particularly reflect on gender the way trans people are forced to. Ditto any privileged identity group: the privilege is in not being Othered.

(That’s why I call you Westerners beef-eaters on Quora all the time.)

I have been edified by the margent:

I have found out that the Iliad means ‘The thing about the lion’ and I was just wondering how one would say, ‘The thing about the eagle’.

No. No it doesn’t, and you need to slap whoever told you that in the face. Iliad means ‘The thing about Ilium’, where Ilium was an alternate name of Troy. ‘The thing about the lion’ would be Leontiad, Λεοντιάς, -άδος, ἡ.

And ‘the thing about the eagle’ would accordingly be Aeëtiad or Aëtiad, Αἰετιάς/ Ἀετιάς, -άδος, ἡ.

Yes, I use Latinate transliterations. Deal. 🙂

I’d hate to think that I’ll get her in trouble by writing this. But.

Sihem Soibinet-Fekih is the International Writer Relations—French staff from Quora. Meaning, she’s the Jonathan Brill of French Quora.

I don’t spend a lot of time on the non-English Quoras, because my non-English languages are not that good (there isn’t going to be a Greek Quora), and because my backlog is ongoing and is on English Quora. But I have been consistently impressed with how Sihem has done her job.

I posed on Quora French, a few days back, the question:

Quelle a été la réaction de la communauté de Quora française à la suppression des détails des questions ?

(What was the French Quora community’s reaction to the removal of question details?)

And then went away. It’s been a busy week on the Insurgency, after all.

Pretty promptly after that, Sihem followed the question.

… Can you imagine Brill following that question?

I expect no response from Sihem. And I’m not writing this to get one.

But, Sihem, merci infiniment. Vous avez confirmée le raison de mon respect envers vous.

Because she no longer wishes to be on Quora.

Yes, I know this from her. Several Quora users are in touch with her on Facebook.

No, I am not going to elaborate.

InB4 some shmuck reports this question and it gets deleted…

The Quora Credentials bot is very inflexible, and it’s been difficult to work out how to get it to shut up.

And the credential is being rejected because the Credentials bot doesn’t think it’s helpful; not because it necessarily isn’t helpful.

In the absence of Quora publishing a Guide to getting the Credentials bot to shut the hell up consisting of useful credentials templates (because that would require Quora Inc to actually care about its users), I suggest offering an academic-looking credential. OP has tried the following phrases:

Student, Aspiring Psychologist, Aspiring scientist, Psychologist student

I’d suggest something like

BSc (Psychology), So-And-So University (year of graduation)

Or, at a minimum, a phrase longer than two words, such as

Studying developmental psychology, aiming to practice in clinical psychology

or in fact your existing other bio, OP,

Polymath, Reads a lot, science fan, student

And whatever you do, don’t use the phrase

Question Details

Empirical research by Zeibura S. Kathau and myself confirms that phrase gets deprecated. 🙂

The stanza OP is querying, from Dryden’s imitation of the Second Epode of Horace (The Hymn of Gentry Contentment) is:

How happy in his low degree,
How rich in humble poverty, is he,
Who leads a quiet country life;
Discharg’d of business, void of strife,

This almost scans as iambic tetrameter: 8–9 syllables, not 10–11 syllables (which the rest of the poem does, outside its final stanza), and it scans better than OP thought it did:

1. In modern times, qui.et is two syllables, not one, although past spellings reveal that it used to be both. From OED 3rd edition:

ME quit, ME quyeet, ME quyte, ME qwiet, ME qwiete, ME qwyete, ME–15 quiete, ME–15 quyete, ME–16 quyet, ME– quiet, 15 quiate, 15–16 quiett, 15–16 quyett, 16 queat, 16 queit, 18– quate (south-west midl. and Irish English (lnorth.)), 18– quite (Lancs.), 19– quait (Irish English (north.)), 19– quayit (Eng. regional (Devon)), 19– quient (U.S. regional); Sc. pre-17 quayt, pre-17 queat, pre-17 queet, pre-17 queyt, pre-17 queytt, pre-17 quiatt, pre-17 quiete, pre-17 quiett, pre-17 quiette, pre-17 quiit, pre-17 quit, pre-17 quoyet, pre-17 quoyit, pre-17 quyat, pre-17 quyatt, pre-17 quyet, pre-17 quyete, pre-17 quyett, pre-17 quyiat, pre-17 quyiet, pre-17 quyit, pre-17 quyt, pre-17 qwiet, pre-17 qwiette, pre-17 qwyet, pre-17 qwyete, pre-17 qwyett, pre-17 qwyette, pre-17 qyett, pre-17 17– quait, pre-17 17– quiet, pre-17 19– queyet, 18 quaete, 18 quaiet, 18 quayet, 18– quaite, 18– quate, 19– quaeit, 19– quaet, 19– quaiat, 19– quet, 19– queyit, 19– qui’t, 19– quite.

2. In modern times, business is two syllables (bɪznəs). To quote OED again:

Disyllabic pronunciation, reflecting syncope of the unstressed second syllable of trisyllabic forms, is indicated by spellings without a medial vowel from the 16th cent. and is noted by orthoepists from the early 17th cent. (see further E. J. Dobson Eng. Pronunc. 1500–1700 (ed. 2, 1968) II. §306).

3. However, poverty is a problem. For this to scan, it would have to be one of:

• pov’rty’s he (with pov’rty two syllables, and not <r> acting as its own syllable). But that’s unpronouncable, unless the <v> was actually a /w/. OED provides a pre-17th century spelling powerte, powertie, and pow’rty’s he is slightly more pronounceable; but that was supposed to have been ancient history by Dryden’s time.
• povert’s he, with the final -y not pronounced; OED indicated that that did actually occur in places in Middle English and Modern dialect—Middle English has spellings like “ME pouerd, ME pouerert (transmission error), ME pouerte, ME pouertt, ME pouertte, ME povert, ME poverte, ME powaret, ME–15 pouert; Sc. pre-17 powert.” Again, that was supposed to have been ancient history by Dryden’s time.

… There is of course a simpler explanation: that Dryden is allowing himself one initial pentameter, before ploughing on in tetrameters; just as he puts a couple of trimeters at the very end of the poem—

This Morecraft said within himself,
Resolved to leave the wicked town,
And live retired upon his own.
He called his money in;
But the prevailing love of pelf
Soon split him on the former shelf,
And put it out again.

I don’t know enough about English verse to know whether such licence was commonplace at the start of long poems.

Well has Dimitra Triantafyllidou’s answer put it:

Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

Here’s some ways in which Koine is closer to Modern Greek:

• Phonetics: there’s lots of disagreement about precise dates, but in lower-class Koine, potentially as few as two sounds were left to change over between Koine and Modern Greek, ɛ > i (η) and y > i (υ, οι). Accent was already likely stress- and not pitch-based, and vowel length was lost.
• Morphology: No dual, moribund optative. No Attic declension.
• Syntax: At the very start of hína replacing infinitive
• Lexicon: Substantial move forwards in both meanings of words, and Latin loans. Some of it straightforwardly legible by Modern Greek speakers.

Here’s some ways in which Koine is closer to Classical Greek:

• Phonology: Gemination was still present.
• Morphology: Still has dative, perfect, future, infinitive, third declension, athematic conjugation
• Syntax: Still has clause-chaining strategies using participles
• Lexicon: Still basically legible for someone reading ancient Greek

Phonetically, it’s almost Modern Greek. Morphologically, it’s identifiably Ancient, though there has already been some simplification. Syntax and lexicon are in between.