3.1347 Slang; Matrix; Euphemisms (86)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 2 May 90 17:28:22 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1347. Wednesday, 2 May 1990.


(1) Date: Wed, 2 May 90 08:16:42 MDT (15 lines)
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 3.1335 Slang terms for students (39)

(2) Date: Wed, 2 May 90 10:35 -0300 (35 lines)
From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE <FGVSP@BRFapesp.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 3.1323 Matrix, Inc. Description

(3) Date: Wed, 2 MAY 90 12:08:35 BST (36 lines)
From: CHAA006%vax.rhbnc.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK
Subject: Re: 3.1341 '---' versus 'etc.'

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 May 90 08:16:42 MDT
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 3.1335 Slang terms for students (39)

I think it unlikely that there is much professor terminology for
students, because I suspect that such terminology develops mainly in
cases of group solidarities exposed routinely to outsiders. Professors,
in my experience as a student, are essentially individualists, and
seldom group at levels above the clique of friends associated on some
basis other than professorship. In addition, many are only secondarily
interested in teaching, with a primary interest in research, a context
in which undergraduates are simply a distraction, and graduate students
are generally (junior) in-group members. Thus there is no sense of
student outsider-ness to codify in a derrogatory terminology.

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------41----
Date: Wed, 2 May 90 10:35 -0300
From: DENNIS CINTRA LEITE <FGVSP@BRFapesp.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 3.1323 Matrix, Inc. Description

>From: rda@central.cis.upenn.edu

>Subject: Re: 3.1323 Matrix, Inc. Description

>a commercial concern in Humanist. I get enough junk mail as it is.

>R

I found the Matrix announcement quite informative and would like to
register a suportive position for future postings of this nature. After
all, aren't bibliographies, software descriptions, conference
announcements, job opportunities and other such "product offerings" in
some sort of sense?

Would a third party's (perhaps less informed) blurb offend less? I
wonder.

I think the editors should, of course, exert their editing function, but
in this and similar cases I think the pertinent information content is
much higher than the offensive fact that someone is potentialy making
money on, what seems to be, a very usefull product.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------53----
Date: Wed, 2 MAY 90 12:08:35 BST
From: CHAA006%vax.rhbnc.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK
Subject: Re: 3.1341 '---' versus 'etc.'

Michel Lenoble <lenoblem@cc.umontreal.ca> wrote, concerning his advocacy
of the use of `etc.' rather than `---' in euphemistic contexts:

>I take the opportunity to post an advertisement of my own after noticing
>that HUMANISTs still resort to --- after my long crusade for the
>unlimited use of ETC.
>
>May I here cite again a fellow HUMANIST, Robert Kirsner who sent me the
>following citation he made up for me as a Christmas present on 22 Dec.
>1989: "Bond kicked as hard as he could right at Zhnarkovsky's et cetera
>and the Russian spy fell to the ground screaming." Typographically
>speaking, isn't etc. nicer than ---? Though semantically speaking, ---
>may be more vague than etc. and thus more polite, which is not what was
>stylistically aimed at by the above mentioned author.

May I suggest that the `consistent replacement algorithm', implicitly
defined in PLAIN.TEX by Professor Donald E.~Knuth, offers a far more
satisfactory method of euphemisation ? Quite simply, one replaces one
or more vowels from the non-euphemistic word or phrase by the
commercial-at (`@'), choosing those vowels whose shape is most closely
matched by the replacement (that is, `a', `e' and `o'; `i' and `u' are
less satisfactory and only chosen if the word does not contain any of
the preferred vowels)

Thus one can say `b@lls', `b@ll@cks', `cr@p' etc., without the least fear
of offending anybody, yet allowing unambiguous reconstitution of the
original word/phrase by the reader .....

Philip Taylor
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
``The University of London at Windsor''