found filk, for linguists and others: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/modernphonetician.gif

[Kate Gladstone]

Found filk, for linguists and others:
full lyrics photographed at Loading Image...


Kate Gladstone -- http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[sffilk]

Post by Kate Gladstone
full lyrics photographed at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/modernphonetician.gif

KEWL!!

[Sean Cleary]

Post by sffilk

Post by Kate Gladstone
full lyrics photographed at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/modernphonetician.gif

KEWL!!

very nice, a bit hard to read.
Inspired by shaw's play.
Sean

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Sean Cleary

Post by sffilk

Post by Kate Gladstone
full lyrics photographed at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/modernphonetician.gif

KEWL!!

very nice, a bit hard to read.
Inspired by shaw's play.
Sean

Well, probably inspired by its author's real-life career as a
phonetician; little if anything in the song ties it specifically to
Shaw or his best-known work.


Kate Gladstone - http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Joseph J. Kesselman]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Well, probably inspired by its author's real-life career as a
phonetician

Is it just me who keeps misreading that as "Phonecian"? (Google seems to
list 40K instances of that spelling, 1.8M instances of "Phoenician", so
I'm not the only one getting confused. Or maybe Phonecians are those who
spend their lives on the phone.)

[Gary McGath]

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman

Post by Kate Gladstone
Well, probably inspired by its author's real-life career as a
phonetician

Is it just me who keeps misreading that as "Phonecian"? (Google seems to
list 40K instances of that spelling, 1.8M instances of "Phoenician", so
I'm not the only one getting confused. Or maybe Phonecians are those who
spend their lives on the phone.)

A lot of them have vision impairment, which may be why they use the
phone so much. You know, Phonecian blinds.

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman
Is it just me who keeps misreading that as
"Phonecian"?

Well, you've escaped doing worse: unlike the author of one of of the
USA's most popular training manuals on communications skills (used, as
I recollect, in corporate and government-funded personnel training
courses).

Read it and weep — pages 5 and 6 of "Positive Words, Powerful
Results" (by one Hal Urban) authoritatively inform its hapless readers
that the Phoenicians invented speech: before which, Mr. Urban informs
us, the human race communicated by drawing pictures and emitting the
occasional grunt.
(Mr. Urban's proof? The existence of the words "phonics" and
"phonetic" ... )

If you don't believe that anyone would sell anything quite THAT
stupid, read it for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/49gtgm (TinyURL
link to Amazon's search-inside page for this book)

I hope that Gary and other filkers here (who care about words, about
their history, and about history in general) will comment abrasively,
as I've done, on the book's Amazon Customer Reviews page at
http://tinyurl.com/3z6gab

Gary, you in particular know enough about the ancient Phoenicians (a/k/
a Canaanites) to produce some *really* cutting prose on that phony
pro! (I'd have said "really cutting filk," but I've heard that Amazon
deletes all versified postings.)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Joseph J. Kesselman]

Having had relatives who are professional writers, and having served as
technical fact-checker on a book (which shall remain nameless because
even after all the errors I noticed were corrected it still wasn't
anything I'd recommend), I must here cite the essential rule of publishing:

The fact that someone bought it, printed it, and wants you to buy it
does not guarantee the author has anything resembling a Clue about the
topic in question. The fact that it's claimed to be nonfiction does not
even imply they didn't fictionalize, interpret, or just plain guess
wrongly. There are at least as many awful technical books and articles
as awful novels. Reader beware. Caveat emptor. (Et lector? Or have I
botched _that_ backformation?))

[Kate Gladstone]

Yes, indeed;

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman
The fact that someone bought it, printed it, and wants you to buy it
does not guarantee the author has anything resembling a Clue about the
topic in question. ...

But, unfortunately, the fact of the author's cluelessness does not
guarantee that your boss (or the corporate trainer your boss hired)
will excuse you from memorizing and believing the erroneous required
information.

I've heard of "Powerful Words, Positive Results" turning up on the
required-study/"this-WILL-be-tested!" reading-lists of teacher-
training courses at colleges and universities. Given that most
colleges and universities receive government funding, this makes it
likely that our taxes pay for teaching demonstrable untruths to future
schoolteachers.
Hal Urban's claim that human speech had to await the Phoenicians, of
course, contradicts not only the facts of anthropology (and several
other disciplines) ... more importantly for at least some of his
potential market, that absurd claim even contradicts at least two
chapters of the Book of Genesis — so I can't figure out why the
creationists haven't noticed and protested Mr. Urban's book, just as
they protest books containing actual science when those, too, conflict
with Genesis
After all, if you believe the Bible then you have to believe /
a/ that the earliest humans had speech (Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3) and
that /b/ the Canaanites a/k/a Phoenicians descended from a common
ancestor not born until a long time after the earliest humans
(Genesis, Chapter 10)

In other words: if the self-assured Mr. Urban has achieved nothing
else in his (probably) comfortable and lucrative lifetime, he has at
least found for us *one* thing SO stupid that skeptics and
fundamentalists alike would have to unite in opposing it. So why
*don't* the fundamentalists (apparently) oppose Mr. Urban's book?

And an equally puzzling question:
just how does any student reconcile the "Phoenicians-invented-speech"
nonsense, taught as fact,
with the material in a course in anthropology/archeology/ancient
history
which the same student at the same school might also have to take and
pass?

If you learn at 9:00 this morning in anthropology class about the
good evidence
that Neanderthals 30,000 years ago probably had spoken language[s] —

then at 10:00 your history teacher tells you about the ancient
Sumerians and their language spoken 6,000 years ago

... don't you notice anything a little bit strange at 11:00 when your
English (or "communication skills") instructor
tells you that speech didn't even begin until 3,000 years ago?

(Or does one learn, somewhere between cradle and diploma,
to regard all mutually contradictory premises as mutually
supportive, compatible, and identical?
If so — how, when, and why, does one learn this? I must
have slept through that lesson.)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Paul Rubin]

Post by Kate Gladstone
just how does any student reconcile the "Phoenicians-invented-speech"

Will someone write a song called "I Can't Understand the Phoenicians"?

[Rafe Culpin]

Post by Kate Gladstone
just how does any student reconcile the "Phoenicians-invented-speech"
nonsense, taught as fact,
with the material in a course in anthropology/archeology/ancient
history
which the same student at the same school might also have to take and
pass?

Do any of them also wonder why they haven't been taught about the first European
explorers bringing speech to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas? (And of
lots of other places.)

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Rafe Culpin

Post by Kate Gladstone
just how does any student reconcile the "Phoenicians-invented-speech"
nonsense, taught as fact,
with the material in a course in anthropology/archeology/ancient
history
which the same student at the same school might also have to take and
pass?

Do any of them also wonder why they haven't been taught about the first European
explorers bringing speech to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas? (And of
lots of other places.)

Well, I *have* occasionally run into people who actually assume that
the American "Indians" used only sign-language (and had no spoken
languages) until the explorers arrived and the "Indians" imitated the
strangers' speech to some extent.

The folks who assume this, as far as I could find out, hadn't run into
Hal Urban's theory: I presume they picked up their notions about
"Indians" from cowboy movies where the indigenes often sign in lieu of
speaking, or else sign while saying the same thing in imperfect
English.

(Since these movie portrayals of course merely reflect, several
indigenous North American cultures' historically documented use of a
sign language with those known or suspected of not understanding the
culture's spoken language,
I suppose that — with equal logic — someone listening in on a
French-born pilot flying for Japan Air Lines and speaking English with
airport tower staff in Berlin could "reasonably" conclude that the
French, Germans, and Japanese must have all spoken English before
somebody from the airports taught them how to speak French, German,
and Japanese.)

For that matter, I've also run into people who (untenably,
in my opinion) allege an eastern Mediterranean origin for the American
"Indians" — I suppose that any proponent of that origin-claim could
(if s/he also accepted Hal Urban's claim) argue that the ancestors of
the "Indians" must have learned speech from their Phoenician neighbors
before migrating westward.

I haven't yet run into anyone who actually did survive both Mr.
Urban's book and (say) a course in paleoanthropology or historical
linguistics ... but it seems at least possible that such a person
somewhere exists, and somehow manages to believe (simultaneously)
contradictory data-sets without sensing the contradiction.

After all, when I took historical linguistics at college the class
included a number of students who quite literally believed in every
word of the Bible, including Genesis' story that the existence of
multiple human languages did not pre-date city-dwelling and, in fact,
began only long after humans had learned to forge iron.
Although some of the Bible-believing students dropped the
historical linguistics class and changed their majors because of the
evident bad fit between such beliefs and a linguistics major (where
you learn early on that language divergence LONG pre-dates cities and
the Iron Age),
at least as many of them actually did not even seem to notice
that the Bible said one thing and their coursework said another: they
just believed both, apparently with no mental conflict.

Rather than recognize Genesis and their studies as
irreconciliable — rather even than work out some sort of
rationalization/reconciliation, such as calling the Bible story
metaphorical or symbolic of something-or-other — these students
appeared to actually lack the concept of "contradictory." If you asked
them how they could simultaneously believe, as literal fact, two
exactly contradictory statements, they just blandly informed you that,
well, "just because it's true that language diversity goes all the way
back to African hunter-gatherers tens of thousands of years ago,
doesn't mean it isn't also true that language diversity doesn't go
back any further than Middle Eastern city-builders at a much later
date."
Since at least some of them got their diplomas *still* thinking
that way (if one can actually call it thinking?), I have to imagine
that they'd have had no particular problem simultaneously attributing
the origin of speech to _Homo_erectus_, the Phoenicians, European
explorers, space aliens, and Elvis Presley: with equal and
simultaneous literal truth (of all these theories) simply Not Felt As
A Problem.

(And if you Don't Feel A Problem With Contradictory Data, obviously
you regard it as silly even to perceive contradictory data as a
problem to solve ...

rather like what C. S. Lewis says in MIRACLES about how a person who'd
never noticed that the Sun rises in the east wouldn't even wonder —
let alone look for an explanation — if one day the Sun rose in the
west.)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kate Gladstone]

For the persistent and/or appalled:

I've discovered just now that Hal "the Phoenicians invented speech"
Urban now has a web-site with his e-mail address and other contact-
info — http://www.halurban.com

Years ago, I snailwrote him — c/o his publisher and then at his
organization's address — with no response.
If anyone here wants to e-mail (or otherwise contact) Mr. Urban,
please let me (and perhaps others?) know of any response you get.


Kate Gladstone —http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Gary McGath]

In article

Post by Kate Gladstone
I've discovered just now that Hal "the Phoenicians invented speech"
Urban now has a web-site with his e-mail address and other contact-
info ‹ http://www.halurban.com

I can't find any reference to Phoenicians or Phoenicia on that site with
a Google search, and the only statements I can find attributing views on
the Phoenician language anywhere on the Web are accusations lacking a
quote or specific reference. Are you absolutely sure this assertion
about his views isn't an "Urban" legend?

[Gary McGath]

Post by Gary McGath
I can't find any reference to Phoenicians or Phoenicia on that site with
a Google search, and the only statements I can find attributing views on
the Phoenician language anywhere on the Web are accusations lacking a
quote or specific reference. Are you absolutely sure this assertion
about his views isn't an "Urban" legend?

I saw Kate's quotation after posting this. Using that as a cue, I was
able to find this much on Amazon: "... Then along came the Phoenicians.
WORDS CAME THIRD If you ever wondered where the term "phonetic spelling"
or the word "phonics" came from, now you ..."

That much is sufficient to show he's either a joker or an idiot. But
Amazon wants me to give them my e-mail address in order to see more.

[Kate Gladstone]

[lengthy excerpt of pp. 5 and 6 of Hal Urban's "Positive Words, >Powerful Results"
That much is sufficient to show he's either a joker or an idiot.

A very well-paid idiot, as he hasn't run out of customers who know
less than he does (on this matter, at least).
His site at http://www.halurban.com boasts somewhere that his
workshop audiences include "many teachers."

But
Amazon wants me to give them my e-mail address in order to see >more.

If you don't want to give out an e-mail address, visit your local
public library or mega-bookstore and check the catalog/browse the
shelves under "Communications" and "Language Reference" and "Self-
Help" and the like. Hereabouts, at least, 3 out of 5 libraries and
bookstores carry Mr. Urban's book — published by Simon and Schuster,
which *used* to do fact-checking once upon a time.
(I've alerted staffers to Mr. Urban's errors, which shock the
staff into hilarity once I point them out — but the errors don't shock
them enough to make them consider not re-ordering a book that sells so
well.)

Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Gary McGath]

In article

Post by Kate Gladstone
If you don't want to give out an e-mail address, visit your local
public library or mega-bookstore and check the catalog/browse the
shelves under "Communications" and "Language Reference" and "Self-
Help" and the like. Hereabouts, at least, 3 out of 5 libraries and
bookstores carry Mr. Urban's book ‹ published by Simon and Schuster,
which *used* to do fact-checking once upon a time.

As usual, I started by checking the Harvard online catalogue. As far as
I can tell, we have nothing at all by Hal Urban.

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Gary McGath
As usual, I started by checking the Harvard online catalogue. As far as
I can tell, we have nothing at all by Hal Urban.

Good for Fair Harvard, anyway.
;-)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kay Shapero]

In article <6749f686-6a8e-40fe-a25c-a837c45ee950
@u69g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, ***@gmail.com says...

Post by Kate Gladstone

Post by Gary McGath
As usual, I started by checking the Harvard online catalogue. As far as
I can tell, we have nothing at all by Hal Urban.

Good for Fair Harvard, anyway.
;-)
Kate Gladstone =97 http://www.learn.to/handwrite

An idea - thus far all we know is the blurb Amazon posted. I notice
that used copies of this dubious tome are plentiful (for that matter I
may come across one whilst thriftshopping next week), so there are ways
of acquiring them that do not enrich the author. What say I get one,
and we set up a small snailmail mailing list to exchange this over, each
of us highlighting whatever bilge we uncover (makes it more likely we'll
find it all), then whoever has the most prestigious looking degree (we
got any post-doc Anthro or Linguistics folks in here?) writes a suitably
appropriate review and publishes it in places where it'll do the most
good? (some prestigious journal might suit; otoh we would probably get
better circulation on BoingBoing.)

And let's move this branch of the discussion to the overflow list asap
(though to be sure, it does kinda count as bardic duty, so is sorta on
topic if you squint enough.)

[Kate Gladstone]

Kay suggests ...

Post by Kay Shapero
An idea - thus far all we know is the blurb Amazon posted. I notice
that used copies of this dubious tome are plentiful (for that matter I
may come across one whilst thriftshopping next week), so there are ways
of acquiring them that do not enrich the author. What say I get one,

Please do: I'd donate mine, but I threw it away in disgust soon after
reading.

(When I need to quote bilge from Dr. Urban —
yes, "Doctor": he has a doctorate from
someplace I'd previously thought
more-or-less respectable —
I just go to Amazon and turn pages in the "search inside" area as long
as the system will let me.)

Post by Kay Shapero
and we set up a small snailmail mailing list to exchange this over,

Can we make it e-mail instead of snailmail?

Post by Kay Shapero
each
of us highlighting whatever bilge we uncover (makes it more likely we'll
find it all),

Okay, now I see why you want snail-mail.

Post by Kay Shapero
then whoever has the most prestigious looking degree (we
got any post-doc Anthro or Linguistics folks in here?)

I have a Linguistics degree, but only a B. A. and *very* long ago.
Highly degreed linguist filkers include Kevin Wald and Suzette
Haden Elgin, but I don't know whether either of them ever comes here.
Probably, though, someone here knows either Dr. Wald or Dr. Elgin.

Post by Kay Shapero
writes a suitably
appropriate review and publishes it in places where it'll do the most
good? (some prestigious journal might suit; otoh we would probably get
better circulation on BoingBoing.)

Judging from the apparent educational/intellectual level of most of
the folks who've reviewed Dr. Urban's work on Amazon, the people who'd
buy and believe his bilge have greater odds of reading and
understanding BoingBoing than of reading and understanding prestigious
journals ... so start with BoingBoing.

Also keep in mind that Dr. Urban might actually WANT to have a
prestigious journal review his work (even badly),

just so that his web-site and other advertising can say: "Reviewed May
2008 by [insert journal name]": many people assume that "Prestigious
Journal appears in ad" equals "Prestigious Journal likes the book."

And I wouldn't put it past Hal Urban to "cut and paste" a bad review
in the journal into an apparent rave-review on his web-page.

Post by Kay Shapero
And let's move this branch of the discussion to the overflow list asap
(though to be sure, it does kinda count as bardic duty, so is sorta on
topic if you squint enough.)

Okay — BUT I still don't know how to reach the overflow list. (Where
would I find out?)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kay Shapero]

In article <d3bc40ea-c25a-4f1c-8b31-
***@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, ***@gmail.com
says...

Post by Kate Gladstone
Kay suggests ...

Post by Kay Shapero
An idea - thus far all we know is the blurb Amazon posted. I notice
that used copies of this dubious tome are plentiful (for that matter I
may come across one whilst thriftshopping next week), so there are ways
of acquiring them that do not enrich the author. What say I get one,

Please do: I'd donate mine, but I threw it away in disgust soon after
reading.

OK, if one doesn't turn up at the local thrift stores I'll order a used
copy through Amazon or something.

Post by Kate Gladstone
And I wouldn't put it past Hal Urban to "cut and paste" a bad review
in the journal into an apparent rave-review on his web-page.

Good point. BoingBoing it is. I just want a bit of alphabet soup
attached to it to make it look more "official".

Post by Kate Gladstone
Okay BUT I still don't know how to reach the overflow list. (Where
would I find out?)

Whoops, sorry - just send your post to ***@filknet.org

[thnidu]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Kay suggests ...

Post by Kay Shapero
then whoever has the most prestigious looking degree (we
got any post-doc Anthro or Linguistics folks in here?)

I have a Linguistics degree, but only a B. A. and *very* long ago.
Highly degreed linguist filkers include Kevin Wald and Suzette
Haden Elgin, but I don't know whether either of them ever comes here.
Probably, though, someone here knows either Dr. Wald or Dr. Elgin.

Eh, I qualify as highly degreed (PhD), but not near as respected or
well known as Elgin. And I don't have the time to spend on this (or to
go to overflow). I'm already sick of a crank who infests the Amer.
Dialect Society list with his "truespel" fonetik speling.

-- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname
http://filk.cracksandshards.com
aka Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and
Philological Busybody

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by thnidu
Eh, I qualify as highly degreed (PhD), but not near as respected or
well known as Elgin. And I don't have the time to spend on this (or to
go to overflow). I'm already sick of a crank who infests the Amer.
Dialect Society list with his "truespel" fonetik speling.

I know the man you mean ... he occasionally comes after me, too. As
far as I know, in twenty-some-odd years of trying to sell people on
his system he has failed to make *one* convert (and has repelled
several who originally did feel some interest). Judging from my own
interactions with him, he saves his special wrath for those who note
that his system (which he intends for worldwide use) doesn't allow
accurately representing sounds not found in English. (As he sees it,
either those sounds can't really matter, or they are
mispronounciations of the "true" [American English] sounds of speech.
A first-year linguistics class would disabuse him of such notions, but
he prides himself on refusing to take such a class: as I recall,
partly because he knows that to pass such a class he'd have to violate
his principles by using the discipline's standard IPA transcription
system instead of his own invention which he prefers. He claims he
can't see *why* an intelligent instructor would require any such
thing ... )


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Daniel R. Reitman]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:09:09 -0700 (PDT), Kate Gladstone

Post by Kate Gladstone
I've discovered just now that Hal "the Phoenicians invented speech"
Urban now has a web-site with his e-mail address and other contact-
info — http://www.halurban.com
Years ago, I snailwrote him — c/o his publisher and then at his
organization's address — with no response.
If anyone here wants to e-mail (or otherwise contact) Mr. Urban,
please let me (and perhaps others?) know of any response you get.

Nah, it's just an Urban legend.

Dan, ad nauseam

[D.J.]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:47:46 -0700 (PDT), Kate Gladstone
<***@gmail.com> wrote:
] Since at least some of them got their diplomas *still* thinking
]that way (if one can actually call it thinking?), I have to imagine
]that they'd have had no particular problem simultaneously attributing
]the origin of speech to _Homo_erectus_, the Phoenicians, European
]explorers, space aliens, and Elvis Presley: with equal and
]simultaneous literal truth (of all these theories) simply Not Felt As
]A Problem.

I've met people like that, some of them at university. Some of
them declared what they learned in science and math classes as
nothing more than 'urban foklore' not fit for 'fill in the blank
group' to be told.

I have also met people who claimed that Jesus spoke American
English. They get rather upset when I point out he would have had
no one to speak it to.

I feel that such people are delusional and I try to avoid them as
much as possible.

JimP.

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by D.J.
] Since at least some of them got their diplomas *still* thinking
]that way (if one can actually call it thinking?), I have to imagine
]that they'd have had no particular problem simultaneously attributing
]the origin of speech to _Homo_erectus_, the Phoenicians, European
]explorers, space aliens, and Elvis Presley: with equal and
]simultaneous literal truth (of all these theories) simply Not Felt As
]A Problem.
I've met people like that, some of them at university. Some of
them declared what they learned in science and math classes as
nothing more than 'urban foklore' not fit for 'fill in the blank
group' to be told.

Though such declarations repel me, too,
at least the people who declare such things
HAVE a grasp of the notions "true" and "not-true" and "contradictory"
unlike the people I talked about meeting (in college classes at
an Ivy League university, no less)
who simply lacked the notion that, well, contradictories
actually *contradict.*

Unlike the folks who dismiss science
merely because they already think they know better,
the folks I mentioned would simply not have seen a problem with
simultaneously believing
"P" and "Opposite-of-P"

If I had to spend my life
either in a culture which recognized that:
"If Proposition P is true, Proposition Opposite-of-P is
therefore false"
or in a culture which thought that
"Since Proposition P is true, Proposition Opposite-of-P is therefore
*also* true"
(like the guys and gals I mentioned),

I would prefer the former group (no matter what other crazy things
they believed and acted upon)
as cognitively light-years ahead of the folks who don't have a meaning
for the word "contradiction."

Post by D.J.
I have also met people who claimed that Jesus spoke American
English. They get rather upset when I point out he would have had
no one to speak it to.

Again, a type of person rather different from the type that I have the
hardest time dealing with
(although I have a really hard time with the "Jesus-was-an-American"
folks, too) ...

If one of those perplexing college classmates of mine had believed
that Jesus and the Apostles grew up speaking American English
— something I have actually heard claimed, although not claimed by
the particular classmates I have in mind —

and if someome had then informed this student
that actually American (or any other) English didn't even
exist back then,

rather than dismiss your info as an urban rumor,
he or she would thenceforth simply have calmly and
simultaneously carried on with BOTH notions:

"some people spoke American English 2000 years ago"
and
"nobody spoke American English 2000 years ago"
mentally co-existing in the same cranium without the
least hint that one rules out the other.

Post by D.J.
I feel that such people are delusional and I try to avoid them as
much as possible.

Sometimes we can't avoid them.
I can live among the narrow-minded folks, when I have to
(at least when they don't have unchallenged autocratic rule over the
place I live in),

but I don't have a clue about how to live among the even scarier folks
who regard the notion that "some beliefs are false; some
propositions contradict other propositions"
as itself a symptom of intolerable narrow-mindedness.
Suggestions?


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kay Shapero]

Interesting as this is, not to mention unnerving (it's *scary* how much
bilge gets into print - and then gets sold to those who should KNOW
better), it's wandered well off topic. I notice a couple of folks have
moved it into the overflow list - is there anybody who couldn't get at
it there, and would you like me to subscribe you?

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Kay Shapero
Interesting as this is, not to mention unnerving (it's *scary* how much
bilge gets into print - and then gets sold to those who should KNOW
better), it's wandered well off topic. I notice a couple of folks have
moved it into the overflow list - is there anybody who couldn't get at
it there, and would you like me to subscribe you?

Yes, please subscribe me! (and tell me how to go wherever one goes to
manage the subscription)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kay Shapero]

In article <5a2b18b0-956f-4432-9df3-814a7e6588e1
@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, ***@gmail.com says...

Post by Kate Gladstone

Post by Kay Shapero
Interesting as this is, not to mention unnerving (it's *scary* how much
bilge gets into print - and then gets sold to those who should KNOW
better), it's wandered well off topic. I notice a couple of folks have
moved it into the overflow list - is there anybody who couldn't get at
it there, and would you like me to subscribe you?

Yes, please subscribe me! (and tell me how to go wherever one goes to
manage the subscription)

It's a mailing list - it comes to you.:) I've just subscribed you as
***@gmail.com, individual messages. If you want a
different email address email me and I'll fix it. If you want to make
any other changes (like from individual messages to digest) you can go
to http://lists.filknet.org/cgi-bin/listargate.cgi and follow the
instructions to create a password, then use it to get into the
appropriate area. It's pretty straightforward.

Messages will be prefixed by [overflow], From whichever member of the
list posted it, with a "Reply-To" line of ***@filknet.org

It's also possible to subscribe from there, but since I have to approve
all new subscriptions (prevents address leeches and spammers from
signing up), this is faster.

[Richard Eney]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Yes, indeed;

<snip>>

Post by Kate Gladstone
Hal Urban's claim that human speech had to await the Phoenicians

<snip>

Post by Kate Gladstone
just how does any student reconcile the "Phoenicians-invented-speech"
nonsense, taught as fact, with the material in a course in
anthropology/archeology/ancient history which the same student
at the same school might also have to take and pass?

<snip>

Post by Kate Gladstone
(Or does one learn, somewhere between cradle and diploma,
to regard all mutually contradictory premises as mutually
supportive, compatible, and identical?
If so — how, when, and why, does one learn this? I must
have slept through that lesson.)

We learn coping mechanisms.

My father taught me in second grade that I didn't have to
believe what the teacher said, I only had to learn it long
enough to regurgitate it on the test. I needed that lesson
because I had a teacher that pushed her opinions as dogma.
It's been a very helpful lesson.

=Tamar

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Richard Eney
We learn coping mechanisms.
My father taught me in second grade that I didn't have to
believe what the teacher said, I only had to learn it long
enough to regurgitate it on the test. I needed that lesson
because I had a teacher that pushed her opinions as dogma.
It's been a very helpful lesson.

My parents urged learning the same lesson (of lying on demand when
authority required),
but they eventually agreed with my observation/complaint/
demonstration
that — at least throughout my childhood/teen years —
in order to do this I had either to:
/a/ actually *convince* myself to really believe the falsehood I
had to say or write
(which made it hard for me and others to "un-convince"
myself later)
or /b/ thoroughly (if perhaps temporarily) convincing myself that
truthfulness no longer mattered for any purpose whatsoever.

The folks I have in mind (from college and later years) could have
learned the proper "coping mechanisms" very easily —
but, creepily, they didn't *need* to learn any such thing (because
they simply didn't see contradictions as contradictory).
As far as I could tell, they hadn't "learned a coping mechanism" to
cope with contradictory statements,
because they had never learned to regard the opposite of a true
statement as false.

(Admittedly, the world contains far more dimensions and shadings than
mere
true-or-false, black-or-white, completely-right-or-completely-
wrong ...
but if you don't even get AS far as two-valued logic ["thinking in
black and white"],
how would you get beyond it?)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Arthur T.]

In

Read it and weep — pages 5 and 6 of "Positive Words, Powerful
Results" (by one Hal Urban) authoritatively inform its hapless readers
that the Phoenicians invented speech: before which, Mr. Urban informs
us, the human race communicated by drawing pictures and emitting the
occasional grunt.
(Mr. Urban's proof? The existence of the words "phonics" and
"phonetic" ... )
If you don't believe that anyone would sell anything quite THAT
stupid, read it for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/49gtgm (TinyURL
link to Amazon's search-inside page for this book)

For various reasons, I can never see the Amazon book samples.
It's my understanding that they *did* invent phonetic writing.

[Gary McGath]

Post by Arthur T.
For various reasons, I can never see the Amazon book samples.
It's my understanding that they *did* invent phonetic writing.

I believe that Egyptian writing was partially phonetic. What the
Phoenicians invented was an alphabet.

[Joseph J. Kesselman]

Post by Gary McGath
I believe that Egyptian writing was partially phonetic.

Yep. That approach was often used when writing names, for example.

[Kate Gladstone]

It's my understanding that they [Phoenicians] *did* invent phonetic writing.

Yes, but "phone-" in that and related words has nothing to do with the
"phoen-" of "Phoenicians."

Rather than bore you with an etymology lesson, dare I ask you to
consult an etymological dictionary? "Phone-" and "phoen-" look
similar, but mean very different and unrelated things ... and
originally sounded quite different from each other (check a Greek
dictionary on that point).

Reasoning that we must have named "phonetic writing" for the
Phoenicians
somewhat resembles meeting a cat-breeder named Felicia
and concluding that she gave the English language the word "feline."

;-)


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Kip Williams]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Reasoning that we must have named "phonetic writing" for the
Phoenicians
somewhat resembles meeting a cat-breeder named Felicia
and concluding that she gave the English language the word "feline."

Nah, that's just the female form of "Felix," who took the word out of
his bag of tricks.

Kip W

[Kate Gladstone]

Post by Arthur T.
For various reasons, I can never see the Amazon book samples.

For Arthur, and for others who find the same, I'll excerpt the
relevant material from the irksome Mr. Urban:


"Our ancestors ... must have grown tired of just pointing and
getting excited looks on their faces. They wanted to communicate in
more specific ways. So next in the process was the drawing of
pictures. ... they learned that they could send a message by sketching
drawings on the ground or on cave walls. ...
"The people in ancient Egypt were particularly effective at
advancing this form of communication. Sometime before the year 3100
B.C., they came up with ... hieroglyphics. ... This was obviously
moving us in the direction of a language. Pictures and symbols were
far more descriptive than hand symbols and grunts, but it took a long
time to draw them. We needed something more efficient. Then along came
the Phoenicians. ... If you ever wondered where the term 'phonetic
spelling' or the word 'phonics' came from, now you know: the
Phoenicians. These people from the eastern Mediterranean, along with
the Greeks, gave us the roots of the modern alphabet. From it came
words and the development of a language, regarded by many as one of
the greatest achievements in the history of the human race. Speaking
words replaced drawing pictures as the primary way of communicating
with one another."

I've written twice to this unbelievably uninformed individual —
gently, each time: merely asking the obvious questions about his
assertions. He has never answered. Given the continuing sales of his
book (including its sales to teachers, teacher training, and corporate
"staff development" venues), may I ask that each of us who sees the
flaws in his topsy-turvy "history" please post a negative review on
the book's Amazon.com page (as I have done) ?


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Arthur T.]

In

Read it and weep — pages 5 and 6 of "Positive Words, Powerful
Results" (by one Hal Urban) authoritatively inform its hapless readers
that the Phoenicians invented speech: before which, Mr. Urban informs
us, the human race communicated by drawing pictures and emitting the
occasional grunt.

And, going further OT, we have a scientist attempting to
simulate a sentence as said by a Neanderthal.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080416/od_nm/neanderthals_voice_odd_dc

ObMusic:
You say po-tay-to and I say po-tah-to.

[Kip Williams]

Post by Arthur T.
You say po-tay-to and I say po-tah-to.

Dear Mr. Gershwin,

Nobody says po-tah-to.

Yours Truly,
Kip W

ps: Let's call the whole thing -- well, you know.

[Richard Eney]

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Arthur T.
You say po-tay-to and I say po-tah-to.

Dear Mr. Gershwin,
Nobody says po-tah-to.

My father used to. He grew up in northern New Hampshire, USA.

=Tamar

[Kate Gladstone]

Sorry — I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise?


Kate Gladstone — http://www.learn.to/handwrite

[Joseph J. Kesselman]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Sorry — I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise?

Too much time staring at the sun in Phoenix AZ?

(I'm presuming that's simply a phonetic pun... if the phoenix and the
phoenicians *do* have anything to do with each other, I'd appreciate a
pointer to more info. Otherwise, I'll hang up the phone now.)

[Gary McGath]

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman

Sorry ‹ I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise?

Too much time staring at the sun in Phoenix AZ?
(I'm presuming that's simply a phonetic pun... if the phoenix and the
phoenicians *do* have anything to do with each other, I'd appreciate a
pointer to more info. Otherwise, I'll hang up the phone now.)

I've assumed that Phoenicia was the "Land of the Phoenix," but don't
actually know if that's the source of the name. The phoenix was an
Egyptian legend, so it's plausible.

[Kip Williams]

Post by Gary McGath

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman

Sorry ‹ I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise?

Too much time staring at the sun in Phoenix AZ?
(I'm presuming that's simply a phonetic pun... if the phoenix and the
phoenicians *do* have anything to do with each other, I'd appreciate a
pointer to more info. Otherwise, I'll hang up the phone now.)

I've assumed that Phoenicia was the "Land of the Phoenix," but don't
actually know if that's the source of the name. The phoenix was an
Egyptian legend, so it's plausible.

Yeah, they were hooked on Phoenix.

Kip W

[Richard Eney]

Post by Gary McGath

Post by Joseph J. Kesselman

Sorry ‹ I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise?

Too much time staring at the sun in Phoenix AZ?
(I'm presuming that's simply a phonetic pun... if the phoenix and the
phoenicians *do* have anything to do with each other, I'd appreciate a
pointer to more info. Otherwise, I'll hang up the phone now.)

I've assumed that Phoenicia was the "Land of the Phoenix," but don't
actually know if that's the source of the name. The phoenix was an
Egyptian legend, so it's plausible.

The O.E.D. editors say the Greek word for purple-red was the
identical word used for Phoenician, Phoenix, and the fruit
of the date palm. They aren't sure which usage came first.

=Tamar Lindsay

[John in detroit]

Post by Kate Gladstone
Sorry — I misattributed a confusion to Gary M. rather than to Joe
K. ... Phoenician blindness on the rise

Gee... Reading all this Linguists threads.... I thought Phoenicians were
folks who learned to read by the "hooked on fonics" method (Note the
mispelling which was done on purpose)

[thnidu]

full lyrics photographed athttp://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/modernphonetician.gif
Kate Gladstone --http://www.learn.to/handwrite

SNARFED!!!

And added to the collection alongside the following (source and
context moved to after lyrics):

A. Modern Linguistician
Frederic G. Cassidy ca. 1968 or prior

I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician--
An out-and-out Descriptivist, an Anti-historician;
I like to catch a language in an attitude synchronic:
The fact that that's impossible I only find ironic.
I have the utmost passion for the sport terminological,
My urge to name another -eme is more than biological.
I yearn to count the phoneme as some people count their riches;
I count it forward, count it back, till I don't know which which is;
I put it all in formulas-- with x and y I'm prodigal--
Because it all contributes to my purity methodigal.
Indeed in all the wisdoms of the scholar and technician
I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician.

I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician--
Just furnish me a nucleus and I'll perform a fission.
I like to cut a segment from a living speech-continuum
And write it up so no-one knows it's only my opinuum.
To starkest objectivity I have a moral leaning,
For what I do is meaningful though I've no use for meaning.
I'm scientist and artist too-- my constructs are symmetrical,
Though what I do with languages may seem to some obstetrical.
I look upon the petty world from point of view Olympian
And think of other trades than mine as altogether shrimpian.
Indeed from every angle I'm the scholarly Patrician,
For I'm the very model of a Modern Linguistician.

I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician--
I'm dedicated to my work-- I'm conscious of a mission.
All language teachers hitherto have lacked my fine perception.
They think that they are scientists? The rankest self-deception!
For methods quite traditional they show a vile proclivity
Receiving my discoveries with bland insensitivity.
Sometimes they fail to comprehend the point of my experiment
And leave me laughing to myself in undisguised merriment.
But now I've shown 'em how the phone and how the morph are captured.
It must be through opacity that they are unenraptured.
They're all completely baffled by my lucid exposition,
For I'm the very model of a Modern Linguistician.

I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician--
A sort of combination of the Seer and the Magician.
I'm simply indefatigable-- never never we-o-ry
Of building up a theory on the theory of a the-o-ry.
I strive to find the unity that lies behind dichotomy
In lingoes esoteric such as Cree and Potowatomi.
I love to make a postulate of no substantiality
And rush it into print before it loses topicality.
When I must change my point of view I always do it haughtily
And beat the opposition down in Publications quartily.
In fact, in all the universe and all of man's condition,
I am the very model of a Modern Linguistician.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_speech/v077/77.4eble.html
American Speech, Volume 77, Number 4, Winter 2002, pp341-2

Cassidy was genial and loved all manner of wordplay. I am happy to own
a copy of his "A Modern Linguistician," passed on to me by Ernst
Pulgram after he read it to great mirth at a banquet of the Linguistic
Association of Canada and the United States in 1995. When I wrote for
permission to publish it, Cassidy promptly replied, "I first read the
poem at the LSA banquet in Chicago about 1968. Bernard Bloch was still
editor of Language, but he was a purist-- no poetry!-- so it remained
'an underground classic,' as the editor of The Linguistic Reporter
called it in 1978. I'm flattered to have it revived" (4 Oct. 1995).
Well, the editor of American Speech is no purist and is pleased to
print "A Modern Linguistician" below for the enjoyment of present and
future readers of the journal. [Connie C. Eble, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill]

-- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname
http://filk.cracksandshards.com
aka Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and
Philological Busybody