[FRIAM] Abducktion

Sun Aug 9 12:21:32 EDT 2020

Frank, 

Please ask that language-teaching daughter of yours if “impersonal” is a “voice”.  The French adore impersonals.  “Il me faut que” = I must”  “Qu-est-ce que c’est que” = “What is it” (literally “What is it that it is”  I suspect that part of why Americans are thought to be so assertive is that we use impersonals less?  Polite writers often try to obfuscate the agent of an action, making prose inpenetrable.  “It would appear that”  (Appear to whom? For God’s) sake!) And my favorite, “Mistakes were made”  

In my never-to-be written book, Who Was This Old White Guy and Why Do We Need to Read His Stupid Book? (About the current implications of Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style”,  I want to explore the degree to which there are any universal dictates of clarity that go beyond  cultural dictates of deference or politeness.  White would say that “Mistakes Were Made” is unclear;  to understand what happened we need to know the agent of those mistakes.  A defender of that obfuscation might call it a “gentle style”.  Using “they”  as a gender=neutral singular deprives a writer of one of the methods by which to thread agent and recipient of action in in describing a complex scenario.  Other priorities trump clarity?  Why not?  Some times clarity isn’t faithful to a writer’s purpose. 

Yet to me there is some fundamental violation, a logical contradiction, in speaking unclearly.  If one is not going to communicate a meaning unambiguously, why speak at all.  Ach!  There is a reason that 80 years is a normal lifetime.  

Some day somebody is going to make a heluva lot money by writing a book entitled “Brown and White: Elements of Woke Style.”   It could be YOU! Or your daughter, for that matter. 

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2020 7:47 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abducktion

It's usually obvious from.the context who/what "it" is.  People do say "yo gusto" but like "yo te gusto?"  Do you like me?  And sometimes to be cute "tu gustas?"  which is incorrect.  These examples are not passive voice.  "Se gusta?" meaning "is it liked?" is passive voice.  Any disagreements will be referred to my daughter, the Spanish teacher.

An improvement on my earlier comment "se me cayó la taza" would be "the cup was fallen on me" which is also passive voice and also makes responsibility ambiguous.

Every time I write "passive", Android mail client auto-completes it as "passive aggressive".   

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 4:43 PM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu> > wrote:

Literally it says “it pleases me” which is the passive voice leading to the question who is “it?"

_______________________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   angel at cs.unm.edu <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu> 

505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Aug 7, 2020, at 4:30 PM, Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:gary at naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote:

I'm no grammar expert, even in my native English, but I don't believe "me gusta el cafe" is using passive voice. It literally says "coffee pleases me". Comments, Frank? But then, I may be confused about what passive voice is.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 5:23 PM Angel Edward <edward.angel at gmail.com <mailto:edward.angel at gmail.com> > wrote:

Isn’t it a consequence of the routine use of the passive voice in Spanish as in “me gusta” instead of “yo gusto?”

The passive voice is pretty much gone in textbooks but I occasionally I get objections from Spanish speakers who claim my textbook can’t be serious because I don’t use the passive voice.

Ed

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   edward.angel at gmail.com <mailto:edward.angel at gmail.com> 
505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Aug 7, 2020, at 4:17 PM, Gary Schiltz <gary at NaturesVisualArts.com <mailto:gary at NaturesVisualArts.com> > wrote:

Despite living in a Spanish speaking country for 12 years, I still struggle mightily with Spanish grammar. This is mainly due to laziness on my part, as well as lack of necessity to immerse myself in the language (there are a lot of English speakers here, not to mention expat groups on Facebook in English). Still, Spanish is *so* much more consistent in all respects than English - pronunciation especially. But the reflexive verbs are still somewhat of a mystery to me. I've wondered exactly the same thing that Frank mentioned: does "the cup fell itself on me" and "the pencil broke itself on mf" represent desire to avoid responsibility? Maybe even blame the victim? Ouch! Your nose nearly broke my fist!

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 2:06 PM Tom Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> > wrote:

Or the equally famous Spanish phrase, "The pencil broke itself."  A phrase which you think I would remember.

TJ

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
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On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:55 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> > wrote:

In Spanish if you drop your cup you say, "See me cayó la taza".  A literal word--for-word  translation is "The cup fell itself on me".  Some people say this is an effort to avoid responsibility.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 9:01 AM Barry MacKichan <barry.mackichan at mackichan.com <mailto:barry.mackichan at mackichan.com> > wrote:

Very much so. We hired a grad student a long time ago (he stayed with us until he retired). He wrote great Pascal programs. He wrote great Pascal programs in C++, and in JavaScript. The effect of your first programming language on style, idioms, and your feelings about recursion and encapsulation.

—Barry

On 6 Aug 2020, at 23:24, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:

Nah.  He means more than that.  Even ordinary languages predispose users to one kind of discourse or another.  I assume that programming languages do the same. 

N

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