7.0404 Rs: Moses; Translators; Backups (5/126)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 12 Jan 1994 18:27:54 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0404. Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994.


(1) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 6:47:02 -0800 (PST) (11 lines)
From: AHARRIS - Alan Harris <VCSPC005@VAX.CSUN.EDU>
Subject: RE: 7.0387 Rs: Moses (5/116)

(2) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 10:42 EST (7 lines)
From: <BCJ@PSUVM>
Subject: Re: 7.0387 Rs: Moses (5/116)

(3) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 14:21:07 +0500 (34 lines)
From: rob@PSULIAS.BITNET (Roger Brisson)
Subject: German to English translations

(4) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 14:02:06 EST (52 lines)
From: TFGREEN@SUVM
Subject: Moses et Horns

(5) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 14:08:05 CST (22 lines)
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: Re: End of an Era (2/70)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 6:47:02 -0800 (PST)
From: AHARRIS - Alan Harris <VCSPC005@VAX.CSUN.EDU>
Subject: RE: 7.0387 Rs: Moses (5/116)

what a wonderful bit of folk etymology, Dr. Glenda Carl has given us! I would
assume that this belief about Moses's horns being related to a perception of
Jews as devils in the Middle Ages is not original with her. Where did it come
from? where is it prevalent? Joshua Trachtenberg would have loved it!
a.


Alan C. Harris, Ph. D. telno: off:
Professor, Communication/Linguistics 818-885-2853/2874
Speech Communication Department hm:
California State University, Northridge 818-780-8872
SPCH CSUN fax: 818-885-2663
Northridge, CA 91330-8257
Internet: AHARRIS@VAX.CSUN.EDU



(2) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 10:42 EST
From: <BCJ@PSUVM>
Subject: Re: 7.0387 Rs: Moses (5/116)

This topic was covered in _The Horn and the Sword_ -- but, to my chagrin,
I can't remember who wrote it, or anything else about it, except that I
read it many years ago and I lost the book... Kevin Berland
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------48----
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 14:21:07 +0500
From: rob@PSULIAS.BITNET (Roger Brisson)
Subject: German to English translations

[I hope this is the correct address for contributions for distribution...]

Topic: German to English translations

I have found the 'Language Assistant' translators by MicroTac Software
surprisingly helpful. I have used the 'French Assistant' for the past
couple of years now. I have been impressed by the polished user-interface of
the product, and by a number of its features. I know there is a German and
an Italian version, and I believe it is also available in Spanish. MicroTac
support has been very good, and they have offered regular upgrades at a fair
price. This has included a continual increase in the size of the working
vocabulary- I believe that it is now well over 100,000 words. They have
recently made a Windows version available, though I have yet to test its
features. In order to use the software, a rudimentary knowledge of the
language is necessary, for Language Assistant makes liberal use of dialog
boxes for deciding on the proper vocabulary selections. Correct grammar is
for the most also a manual operation, though the software provides utilities
for working out reasonable choices. The translations produced are strictly
working texts that allow one to ferret out the meaning; they will not win
awards for composition (and are not meant to do so). I also find Microtac's
pricing very fair, as Language Assistant can be purchased for around $60
(the last time I checked).
In re-reading this I realize that it sounds awfully like a (commercial)
pitch for MicroTac, but I have nothing to do with the software company and
am simply pleased with their product.

Roger Brisson
Penn State University
rob@psulias.psu.edu

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------58----
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 14:02:06 EST
From: TFGREEN@SUVM
Subject: Moses et Horns



The author of Deuteronomy comments that at death "his eye was not
dimmed, nor his natural force abated" (34:7). This "natural force"
(Heb. lecha, moisture, freshness) is in its adjectival form used of
trees (Gen 30:37; Ezek 17:24; 20:47), fruit (Num 6:3), and animal
tendons (Judg 16:7-8). For the meaning of this 'greenness' or 'moisture,'
see Onians, <t>The Origins of European Thought</t> 272-4, 287-91, etc.
William Foxwell Albright points out that the cognate of lecha in
Ugaritic means "life-force," as in the epic of Dan'el ("The 'Natural
Force of Moses' in the Light of Ugaritic", <t>Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research</t>, 94 (1944): 32-5. It might be
argued, then, that at the climax of his Wilderness journey Moses, having
metaphorically taken possession of the Promised Land, suddenly dies
full of that form of life-energy most characteristic of the upper or
paradisal level of existence.
================================================================
================================================================
Am I wrong in supposing that this reference to Moses' condition at
the end of his life could be rendered more simply and with no loss
of accuracy, by observing that to the end he was of sound mind and
a success in bed?
-- A rendering, by the way, so at odds with the general
impression of the Biblical texts that my Methodist teachers had
sought to convey to me in my youth, that it stirred a life-long
love of ancient texts and a distrust of my teachers. I was
determined to find there much of what I believed (profoundly
stated), and very little of what I was told.
================================================================
================================================================
What does all this have to do with humanities computing? Allow me to
play devil's advocate with a former self. Such an exchange might be
more appropriate to another group, but would it ever take place
anywhere else than in this electronic piazza?
==============================================================
==============================================================
In keeping with Willard's entry, I should acknowledge that
this intervention of my own is relevant to nothing in particular
having to do with humanities computing except that it voices
modestly, my gratitude for this "electronic piazza" in which
such irrelevancies appear and thus enliven my own life in dozens
of ways.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ THOMAS F. GREEN (TFGREEN@mailbox.syr.edu) +
+ EMERITUS SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY +
+ PHILOSOPHER IN RESIDENCE ON POMPEY HILL +
+ Box 100 Pompey, NY 13138 (315) 677-9935 +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 14:08:05 CST
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: Re: End of an Era (2/70)

> since I
>bought my Kaypro II in February 1983, I've always had a box or more of
>floppies (and lately a pile of 3.5's) taking up space on my desk. But
>now they are only backups, and originals of things friends have sent
>and the like, and they can be decently relegated to a file cabinet

Jim O'Donnell is, I'm sure, too wise and experienced in the ways of the
computer not to know this, but the phrase "only backups" rang warning
bells for me, since I have just been through two successive hard disk
crashes. "Only backups" or not, don't file those floppies so far away
that (like me) you decide it is too much trouble to back up every
single thing you work on every day. Making backups and duplicates may
be tedious, but it is absolutely necessary.

Glenn Everett
English Department
University of Tennessee at Martin
ivaa@utmartn.bitnet