3.552 Noteniks and Queryoids? (121)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Fri, 6 Oct 89 20:19:42 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 552. Friday, 6 Oct 1989.
(1) Date: Thu, 05 Oct 89 21:04:29 EDT (7 lines)
From: LNGDANAP@UOGUELPH
Subject: Notes and queries, bis
(2) Date: Fri, 6 Oct 89 11:26:00 EDT (31 lines)
From: Robert Kirsner (213) 825-3955 <IDT1RSK@OAC.UCLA.EDU> (Department o
f
Subject: (COPY) 3.546 Notes and Queries (96)
(3) Date: Fri, 6 Oct 89 18:09 BST (26 lines)
From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK>
Subject: teckease
(4) Date: 6 October 1989 (27 lines)
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: The Art of Being Ruled
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 89 21:04:29 EDT
From: LNGDANAP@UOGUELPH
Subject: Notes and queries, bis
Te(ch)(kk)....s (insert variables at will). Yes, but *why* 1) the diminutive;
2) why does *this* particular word attract so many variations? Maybe
I'm looking for a sociolinguist or a psycholinguist?
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 89 11:26:00 EDT
From: Robert Kirsner (213) 825-3955 <IDT1RSK@OAC.UCLA.EDU> (Department of
Subject: (COPY) 3.546 Notes and Queries (96)
CHEEK-IN-TONGUE DEPT.
Actually, I'm all in favor of actively expanding the use of -NIK
to support a much-needed semantic distinction between 'sincere,
genuine', versus 'non-genuine, false', coded by the suffix.
We could, for example, initiate a distinction between, say,
"Christian" and "Christ-nik," where the latter burn down abortion
clinics and protest the latest Hollywood productions, while the
former (like Mother Teresa) have better things to do (and thereby
ultimately are awarded Nobel Peace Prizes).
Extending the analogy, we find that most language departments
are populated not by people interested in Language, but rather
by "Lit-niks", who subdivide further into Goetheniks,
Shakespeareniks, and so forth. The Goethe-nik distinguishes him-,
her-, or itself from the true Goethe scholar by a heightened sense
of territoriality: "Keep your cotten-picken' hands off MY Goethe".
An interesting question is the competition between the suffixes
-NIK and -OID, the latter indicating greater deviance from
a model or prototype. A slavish follower of Chomsky could thus
be designated a Chomskynik, but someone who innovates to some
degree would be a Chomskyoid.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------38----
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 89 18:09 BST
From: Oxford Text Archive <ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK>
Subject: teckease
LNGDANAP@UOGUELPH
asks about the significance of the term variously spelled
technies (and non-);techies (and non-); tekkies (and non-);
techniks (and non-).
I believe the best place to look for a source for the term is in
the incomparable Ted Nelson's incomparable `Literary Machines'
which has a large chunk about the difference between `techies' and
`fluffies'.
The semiotic interest in the variant spellings seems to be all
bad. 'technies' are clearly tiny technologists; tekkies have the
terrible double K (remember when people used to talkk about
Amerikka and South Afrikka?) and techniks are clearly only a
step away from aparatchiks.
As someone or other said to me in the middle of a very odd
lecture on interactive fiction once,
"I guess the world is divided into two sorts of people - those
who think the world is divided into two sorts of people - and those
who don't"
Count me in with the second lot.
Lou Burnard
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 6 October 1989
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: The Art of Being Ruled
In the TLS for Sept. 22-28, Julian Symons reviews Wyndham Lewis' The Art
of Being Ruled, originally published in the 1920s but recently reissued
with the addition of 13 "delicately menacing illustrations" by Black
Sparrow (Santa Rosa, CA, USA). "The basic premiss ... is that our
thoughts, beliefs and social actions are ordered less by politicians
than by technical developments achieved through mass production, and the
influence exerted on all of us by what are now called the media". This
sounds very much like the sort of book many Humanists might find
interesting. "The developments Lewis saw in the 1920s, what [the editor
of this edition] calls `a false rhetoric of individualism' masking a
group identity of minds ordered by the propaganda fed from a hundred
different sources, are much advanced today. More than sixty years after
its publication, this book remains the most valuable guide available to
the cant and absurdities of the attitudes about sex, race, "elitism" and
"prejudice" prevalent in liberal Western society, and to their basic
meanings" (1024).
Lewis' book may, of course, have nothing whatever to do with computing.
Willard McCarty