5.0781 Rs: Distributing Machines; Bats; Lipograms (10/133)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Mon, 23 Mar 1992 21:43:47 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0781. Monday, 23 Mar 1992.
(1) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 17:51:23 +0200 (34 lines)
From: jslindst@waltari.Helsinki.FI (Jouko Lindstedt)
Subject: Query re: criteria for distributing PCs and MACs to staff
(2) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 19:16:58 CST (9 lines)
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: lipogram
(3) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 19:33:14 CST (15 lines)
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: ropaloandrist
(4) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 92 18:39:53 CST (8 lines)
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: misandrist
(5) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 23:19 EST (9 lines)
From: Simon Rakov <SIRAKOV@VASSAR>
Subject: Name of a Text without an E
(6) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 08:19:49 EST (7 lines)
From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC>
Subject: Lipograms
(7) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 08:06 CST (6 lines)
From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM>
Subject: works without e
(8) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 10:54:17 -0500 (14 lines)
From: "David A. Hoekema" <hoekema@bach.udel.edu>
Subject: Texts without "e"
(9) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 11:54 EST (24 lines)
From: "Mary Dee Harris, Language Technology"
<MDHARRIS@guvax.georgetown.edu>
Subject: Stories (etc.) without e's
(10) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 92 16:37:57 EST (7 lines)
From: eugene cotter <FCOTTER@SETONVM>
Subject: Re: 5.0778 Qs: Texts without E;
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 17:51:23 +0200
From: jslindst@waltari.Helsinki.FI (Jouko Lindstedt)
Subject: Query re: criteria for distributing PCs and MACs to staff
In 5.0768, Leon Litvack wrote:
> Because we can only purchase a certain number of machines each year,
> we need to draw up a list of criteria for developing a priority list,
> which will dictate the order in which the machines ought to be bought.
> [...] Has anyone out there ever done this? How did you develop
> criteria?
We have had a similar situation at our Department, which is about as
big as yours (the first microcomputers were bought in 1985). In part
we have applied the seniority principle (first the full professors
etc.), but the main principle has been different:
You should always have one or two computers reserved for everybody's
use, at a place which is nobody's own room. (It is the place where you
would also have the best laser printer, if you don't have a local
net.) When a year has passed and it's time to consider next purchases,
you already know who are the colleagues who sit at those computers
longest time -- so, they deserve personal computers of their own, and
you can be sure they will actually use them. And buying computers for
them will maximally free the capacity of those common computers for
other users. It seldom happens that all the staff is equally ready
to become computer-users.
Jouko Lindstedt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Department of Slavonic Languages, University of Helsinki
<jslindst@waltari.Helsinki.FI> or <Jouko.Lindstedt@Helsinki.FI>
letters: Hallituskatu 11, SF-00100 Helsinki, Finland
fax: +358-0-1912974
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 19:16:58 CST
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: lipogram
The word Dennis is searching for is lipogram, a poet who writes one is
called a lipogrammatist and the evil practice is lipogrammatism. One of
the best examples is in Peter of Riga's Recapitulationes (ca. 1200), where
he writes a series of poems, leaving out a different letter each time.
Jim Marchand
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------24----
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 19:33:14 CST
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: ropaloandrist
If you have to explain a joke, especially a bad one, it is scarcely worth
the candle, but here goes. Someone upbraided me recently on HUMANIST for
saying that ropaloandrist = "batman". I tried to indicate that this was
in keeping with the posting of mysandrist for "mouse-man". Andrist does
not mean man in Greek, aner (gen. andros) does; ropalon is the word one
uses in Greek for "baseball bat", maybe even for "cricket bat", I don't
know, since my only knowledge of Modern Greek is of the American street and
pool-room variety. One might have proposed pontikoaner (or pontikaner)
for mouse-man; a mouse-trap is a pontiko-pagida, but automobile shows what
happens when you play the game of Greek word-formation.
Jim Marchand
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 92 18:39:53 CST
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: misandrist
A title I forgot in the misandrist discussion: Misogyny, misandry and mis-
anthropy, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Frances Ferguson (Berkeley: UCPress,
1989). It orignally appeared in Representations, no. 20 (Fall, 1987).
Jim Marchand
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------12----
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 23:19 EST
From: Simon Rakov <SIRAKOV@VASSAR>
Subject: Name of a Text without an E
A text that omits a particular letter, be it "e" or any other, is called a
"lipogram" (lipo- Gk. for "lacking," I think). Specialists in
lipogram-writing include English lexicologist Gyles Brandreth, who re-wrote
Macbeth without a's or e's, and Ernest Vincent Wright, author of _Gadsby_, a
50,000 word novel without any e's.
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------11----
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 08:19:49 EST
From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC>
Subject: Lipograms
A text written by deliberately suppressing one alphabetic character (not
only "e") is called a LIPOGRAM. Take this text, for instance, where I
have rigorously avoided " ". Yours, Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC>
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------12----
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 92 08:06 CST
From: Michael Ossar <MLO@KSUVM>
Subject: works without e
Georges Perec wrote a novel without using the letter "e," but I don't
remember its name.
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 10:54:17 -0500
From: "David A. Hoekema" <hoekema@bach.udel.edu>
Subject: Texts without "e"
The publication of a number of texts in French and in English without
the letter "e", as well as without other specified letters, is
described in some detail in O. B. Hardison's marvellously
entertaining meditation on texts and electronic culture,
DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT.
--David Hoekema <hoekema@brahms.udel.edu>
Executive Director, American Philosophical Association
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Delaware || Phone: 302 831-1112
Newark, DE 19716 || FAX: 302 831-8690
(9) --------------------------------------------------------------35----
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1992 11:54 EST
From: "Mary Dee Harris, Language Technology" <MDHARRIS@guvax.georgetown.edu>
Subject: Stories (etc.) without e's
from O.B. Hardison's book _Disappearing Through the Skylight_, I find:
"The lipogram--a composition that elects to omit one or more
letters--" (p. 198)
Hardison also describes 'formula poetry' (including the limerick)
which formalizes meter, etc.
and discusses "Oulipo" -- a group of 1950's french writers who revived
such work. "So far, Oulipo inventions range from simple
word-substitution formulas to formulas for increasing letter count as
a composition proceeds to formulas involving repeated modifications of
a text that depend on changes already made. The object of inventing
the formulas is to see what happens to language when they are applied.
Sometimes the formulas reveal interesting feaures of language or
become expressive of themes inherent in the works that use them. At
other times, the object seems to be to push language to the limits of
intelligibility; or, in other words, to the point where it begins to
disappear." (p. 200)
Mary Dee Harris
(10) --------------------------------------------------------------14---
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 92 16:37:57 EST
From: eugene cotter <FCOTTER@SETONVM>
Subject: Re: 5.0778 Qs: Texts without E; Keyboards; Just So Stories
Dennis Baron is asking about what Wllard Espy (An Almanac of Words At Play, Pot
ter Pub, NY, 1975, p.45) calls "lipograms". Among other examples, he gives a v
ersion of "Mary had a little lam" without any "e"s. Cotter Seton Hall