LINGUIST List 2.820

Sat 23 Nov 1991

Qs: Helium, grammar checkers, Slavic Muslims, Legends, Word

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

  • BROADWELL GEORGE AARON, helium
  • , Experiences with grammar checkers
  • Dan I. Slobin, Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia
  • "don l. f. nilsen", contemporary legends
  • Larry Horn, Word for the Mac

    Message 1: helium

     Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 10:53:04 -0500
    From: BROADWELL GEORGE AARON <gb661csc.albany.edu>
    Subject: helium
    In my lecture on phonetics yesterday, a student asked me why inhaling helium makes your voice go up. I was totally stumped. Can anyone out there explain this to me? ****************************************************************************** Aaron Broadwell, Dept. of Linguistics, University at Albany -- SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 gb661leah.albany.edu

    Message 2: Experiences with grammar checkers

     Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 16:50 GMT
    From: <Arie.Verhagenlet.ruu.nl>
    Subject: Experiences with grammar checkers
    One of the questions I asked in my earlier query about grammar and style checkers was whether anybody knew publications about the way users worked with them and evaluated them. As it turned out, I received several answers to my other questions, but not to this one. I was reminded of this striking fact when reading the recent anecdotes about some people's personal experiences. I still wonder: Is it really the case that nobody has done any research on this topic and published it? --Arie Verhagen <verhagenlet.ruu.nl>

    Message 3: Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia

     Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 23:35:38 -0800
    From: Dan I. Slobin <slobincogsci.Berkeley.EDU>
    Subject: Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia
    Serbs and Croats: The press speaks of three ethnic groups in Bosnia/Herzegovina: Serbs, Croats, and "Slavic Muslims." But, surely, the third group must speak something like either "Serbian" or "Croatian"-- or is there no real language difference, but only a religious split between Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim? What variety of Serbo-Croatian do the Muslims speak, and in which alphabet do they prefer to write? -Dan Slobin (slobincogsci.berkeley.edu)

    Message 4: contemporary legends

     Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 07:53:18 MST
    From: "don l. f. nilsen" <ATDFNASUACAD.bitnet>
    Subject: contemporary legends
    Is anyone out there interested in discussing the CONTEMPORARY or URBAN LEGEND, and/or related genres like THE TALL TALE, the LEGEND, the GOTHIC NOVEL, etc. I'm especially looking for Archetypes, Prototypes, and Stereotypes as they relate to these traditions. =-) ;-> 8*) {^_^} Don L. F. Nilsen <ATDFNASUACAD.BITNET>, (602) 965-7592 Executive Secretary International Society for Humor Studies English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302

    Message 5: Word for the Mac

     Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 12:10:07 EDT
    From: Larry Horn <LHORNYALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
    Subject: Word for the Mac
    A discovery and a query (sorry if I'm not the first on this): I just brought home my new Mac bundle, complete with an official, unpirated version of MS Word 4, with its full documentation. This documentation includes a hefty (450 page) reference guide to the word processing program featuring, as usual, a number of example documents to illustrate how to perform various functions in Word. Imagine my surprise when I found, among the standard items (School Auction, Zoo Inventory, Form Letter for a mail order food company offering pesto sauce, country pate's, and chocolate macadamias--very upscale, these Word users), a thesis on (or at least covering) the rise of periphrastic "do". No author is named, of course, but it looks real, and the short excerpt appearing on the screen cites Traugott and Visser. (See p. 394 of "Reference to Microsoft Word", if you have a copy, for the clearest illustration, but it pops up elsewhere as well.) A couple of questions arise: Does this mean that (the Microsoft people think) linguists are especially likely to use Macintoshes (and Word) for their academic computing? Does it mean that a relative of the MS Word technical staff is working on historical English syntax? Does the writer of the (putative) thesis know his or her work is borrowed without acknowledgment? And--just in case the question arises in the linguistics category of the new edition of Trivial Pursuit--who IS the writer, anyway? Larry Horn