On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 02:43:06PM +0100, René Clerc wrote:
> * David Yitzchak Cohen <lists+mutt_users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [06-11-2003 23:19]:
>
> > > Psychology didn't turn the meaning upside down; the aeronatical
> > > "learning curve" was given (if they were indeed first) different
> > > quantities by the psychologists. Therefore, both learning curves are
> > > not comparable.
> >
> > ...and:
> >
> > > Well, original or not, the "psychological" version (progress vs. time
> > > or attepts) is what Allister referred to. And my point merely was
> > > that he misused it. Nothing more.
> >
> > Well, if the psychologists can give different quantities to their curve
> > to suit their purposes, I see no reason why we normal people can't give
> > different quantities as well in order to suit our own purposes.
>
> Hm.. AFAICT there is only one psychological definition, with one set
> of quantities. A psychologist misusing the term is not the same as
> giving it a new definition. But perhaps my explanation above was
> unclear..
I wasn't complaining that there are multiple Psychological definitions.
(As you pointed out, the fact that some Psychologists themselves are
ignorant doesn't make the rest of them wrong.) I was simply proposing
that since Psychology itself took the term and tossed their own quantities
in each axis, why can't the Normal definition repeat the procedure with
its own choices for the quantity along each axis?
> And I object against the use of the term "normal" people ;-)
"Normal" is a Democratically-defined term. I'd consider "normal" one
of the worst insults possible, and I'm sure everybody else in this list
feels exactly the same.
> > What I'm getting at here is that even though my opinion is currently
> > that the Psychological definition is probably the better one to use,
> > the position that most people unknowingly take is far from
> > indefensible, especially considering this Breaking News (TM) noting
> > that the Psychological definition itself is psycho.
>
> Yeah, you're probably right in this, but I'm just such a purist that I
> want to spread the correct use instead of advocating and justifying
> the wrong one. So I agree with most of what you're saying above,
> which can also be found in the link everything started with, except
> for the last line; I really thinkt the psychological definition is
> the one and only correct one, and that everything else really doesn't
> make sense ;-)
I wanna bug you a bit here, but there's no point ;-)
> > > That's bashing? Ha. Then in your opinion, I must have been
> > > bashing Allister.. Right.
> >
> > There are different degrees of bashing, you know. I certainly wouldn't
> > say you were ramming a 10-ton dumptruck into him ;-)
>
> I'd say I was tickling him ;-)
tickling ... bashing softly ... what's the difference?
> > Now, I don't want to get in the way of any battles that psychologist
> > dudes may be fighting, so I'd rather just steer clear of terms like
> > "learning curve." However, I see no point in using the "correct"
> > definition unless I'm willing to enter the battle. I'm not.
>
> If you / all would use the correct definition, there wouldn't be a
> "battle" here / anywhere ;-)
That can be said for any battle where there's a clear "right" side (and I
can't really argue that this isn't such a battle). However, not everybody
is going to use the psycho definition anytime soon, and certainly not
without many people expending lots and lots of effort. On this list, just
about all of us have one thing in common: we're more in the computer field
than your average Joe (or your average Sue, or your average John, etc.).
In other words, if you have a computer-related tidbit, this is a good
place to toss it, since you'll find many others who can help you spread
the knowledge. However, many of us couldn't care less about all that
psycho stuff, and really don't want to be bothered with it (the same way
most Psychologists wouldn't really want some guy hounding them about the
meaning of Web site - most of them probably don't even care where Webs
come from). By all means, don't shy away from fighting a non-computer
battle here (not that I'd have the authority to tell you the contrary,
anyway), but do keep in mind that what we all have in common is computers,
not Psychology. We probably have no terrible interest in "spreading the
knowledge" about things that don't really matter to us much. Those last
few sentences paint a rather apathetic picture, but the sad reality is
that most people are rather apathetic about everything they don't care
about, the reason being that we only have 24 hours in our day, and only
a few thousand Calorees (with a big C, of course ... those with a small C
are only one-thousandth of a Caloree each) to spend during those 24 hours
(about one third of which should be used for sleep to promote health).
> > Quite frankly, I'm a tad disappointed that people in the computer field
> > are more interested in fighting others' battles than their own, even
> > when their own are more "right."
>
> Well, for me the computer field isn't the thing that matters most to
> me. Yes, I confess, I have a lot of other, perhaps in the long run
> more appealing (to me) interests..
more appealing than computers? long distance running? speed skating?
uh, I give up ... I don't know of anything else that's more appealing
than computers ;-P
Seriously, though, anybody who uses Mutt, computers are obviously a
rather big piece of his life. Just going through 5 messages a day,
it's silly to use Mutt.
> > > I try to stick to facts and defnition as much as possible. Your
> > > examples of people misusing the term don't frighten me: in Holland,
> > > saying "Alice is better as Bob" when meaning "Alice is better than
> > > Bob" is common practice.
> >
> > That's common in at least two other languages. It's wrong in both
> > British English and American English, though.
>
> Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I meant "in the Dutch language"..
>
> Alice is beter dan Bob vs. Alice is beter als Bob..
>
> I translated the wrong use of als / dan to the English as / than to
> make it more comprehensable, in which I've failed miserably ;-)
Now, you've succeeded nicely :-)
> > > We're at the point of making it an official
> > > rule.
> >
> > Official rules of English in Holland don't frighten me.
>
> But official rules of Dutch in Holland frighten me, as do probably
> official rules of English in the U.S. / U.K. ;-)
Well, there are no official rules of English in the US at least. (I don't
believe the UK has any, either.) In fact, there are no authoritative
dictionaries in the US. The UK has one that claims to be authoritative,
the Oxford Dictionary. (Strangely, Oxford also has one that claims to
be authoritative for the US. While I happen to like the Oxford a _lot_
more than Webster (as you've probably figured out by now), I'm somewhat
lothe towards the idea of some Brit claiming to be the only authoritative
linguist for America.) That said, I almost always use the Oxford when
I have an argument about word usage, and the British Oxford, no less ;-)
> > I don't have to start worrying until our good friends at Webster
> > decide to put it in their dictionary ... and when they do, I can
> > point to the Oxford dictionary, which is a lot better at keeping
> > crap out of our language. (Webster specifically states that their
> > dictionary follows common use, and that the reverse is not intended
> > to be the case.)
>
> OT: in Holland, we have one dictionary which is authorative. Is
> there one authorative for the English language?
As I said, there's no Real Academia Americana. Many believe that to be
a strength of our language. If you call the ability to ruin our language
a strength, I'd say you're doomed to have your language turn to crap.
> > > But for me, that's no reason to accept it (of course, until it
> > > becomes official).
> >
> > I don't care much for democratically-decided stuff. Democracy only
> > works when all voters are well-educated in the issues at hand. Since
> > nobody's educated in everything and most people hate to opt-out of a vote
> > (especially with these slogans calling refusal to vote "unpatriotic"),
> > Democracy doesn't work.
>
> I agree, really. Back to ancient Greece.
Well, I fight against much in our language that is "official" (i.e.,
accepted by Oxford). Our language becomes more complicated and less
logical every day, and our dictionaries only make the situation worse by
adding bogus entries so people will buy the "new and improved" versions
every year. FWIW, I've been experimenting with my own language, which
_does_ have an official dictionary. Unfortunately (well, fortunately,
but for different reasons), everything's just numbers, so until I decide
on some reasonable Mathematical relationships between similar words
(cool thing about an official dictionary is that I can totally shuffle
the thing every revision ("new and improved" ... hehe) without having to
worry about backward-compatibility), memorizing common nouns (and verbs
and adjectives (and adverbs, all of which are derived from adjectives),
all of which are derived from nouns) is a real pain.
> > > > Simply pointing to an earlier use which differs from the common one
> > > > is not enough, as we now clearly see.
> > >
> > > Pointing to many incorrect uses (abuses), followed by stating that the
> > > term is incorrect is worse.
> >
> > worse than what?
>
> Than me pointing to an ...
>
> > Anyway, pointing to many abuses from within the community pushing the
> > "correct" definition is not bad in any way, for the purposes I was
> > using it for. We're not within that community, so there's no reason for
> > us to fight the battles that they themselves are not organized enough
> > to fight.
>
> Who says I'm not? I am *not*, but you didn't know that. I came close
> to that field (study), and am close / in some others too ;-)
I didn't say YOU're not. I said WE as a group are not. The only thing
we have in common, as I said, is computers.
> > I guess the best conclusion here is: don't use the term "learning curve."
> > If you hear somebody else using it, pretend you didn't hear the words
> > "learning curve" being used.
>
> I should agree, as my beloved web site (har, har ;-) points out too,
> but it's against my nature, I guess..
If you're near the field of Psychology, the battle is a lot closer
to you. In that case, you may wanna take a more agressive stand than my
suggestion below. Don't expect anybody else here to, though (although
I'm sure a lot will, anyway).
> > If the guy tries to force you into a corner, pretend you didn't know
> > that _that's_ what "learning curve" meant.
> > If he tries to explain what it means, _then_ you can "let him have it!"
> > This way, you're not actively fighting somebody else's war unless you're
> > sucked into a battle - in that case, you're fighting that battle and
> > nothing else.
>
> Hmm, being my field or not, if I know something is wrong, I usually
> say it. *Not* to bash, not to play mister wise guy, not to be
> arrogant, but to spread some knowledge (that's the closest to
> expressing how I feel about it in English as I can get)..
Spreading some knowledge will generally involve encountering resistance
(as anybody looking at this thread spiraling out of control would
readily point out). Fighting resistance requires time and calorees.
Both of the above are limited resources, and I'd rather spend mine on
computer-related resistance.
> [perhaps the excessive use of smileys in this post speaks in favor of
> thinking about closing this thread? ;-) ]
Yeah ... maybe we should close the thread sometime ... no rush, though ;-)
- Dave
--
Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor?
It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right?
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